Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California - <AUTHOR> https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/24/approaching-peak-housing-dysfunction-in-california <comment><USER3> > No neighborhood should be exempt from change.

> No neighborhood should be subjected to radical change.

Is there any dynamic evolutionary system that actually follows these rules? The tech industry is famous for lumbering behemoths that are constitutionally incapable of innovation and then get replaced wholesale by nimble startups. National borders change all at once, in wars or revolutions, rather than incrementally as demographics change. Human beings don't change much after early adulthood; instead they make new humans who replace them when they die. Evolution itself seems to have periods of equilibrium when resources are abundant and nearly every individual survives, followed by abrupt speciation when resources get tight, individuals die off, and populations get isolated from one another.

The only positive example I can think of is democracy, which is specifically _designed_ to enable gradual change so that radical change doesn't happen, and yet still frequently gets party realignments, charismatic strongmen, and the occasional revolution.

I worry that this philosophy sounds great precisely because it's not how the world works. Human beings are really bad at noticing or reacting to gradual change; it tends to pile up until it becomes too big to ignore, and then rapidly reaches a tipping point and crisis where the newly strong force out the weak. This is undesirable, but also seems largely unavoidable.

<comment><USER4> I mean, if we're being cynical, you say the second so that people feel comfortable with the first. If you can convince suburbanites that you won't put up a skyscraper next door, you'll have an easier time putting up a 5-story apartment building. Or so my thinking goes, anyway.

<comment><USER5> People in my neighborhood object to every change even if it doesn't seem to affect them. They're mortified when a 5-story building (commercial OR residential) is built downtown when we are ten minutes away and not on a major traffic corridor.

<comment><USER6> That's because every time you give an inch they'll take a little bit more. So you out up a huge front and the only thing that can be approved are small nimble changes. Plus it's wildly beneficial economically to keep the status quo when it comes to owning a home in the California.

<comment><USER5> > Plus it's wildly beneficial economically to keep the status quo when it > comes to owning a home in the California.

Commercial development of the downtown space will only increase the value of homes in my neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I walked around downtown San Bruno recently and it's honestly pathetic how this city is squandering their potential. Even on el camino real itself a lot of the property is being wasted on auto repair shops and fast food places, 2-3 story buildings, etc. This place could be way, way better given its proximity to the airport and SF.

<comment><USER8> I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the _entire peninsula (including SF)_ looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense.

Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacent to the central business district, like that Petco Safeway block near Mission Bay.

In the Embarcadero there are actual motor inns, crappy hotels with one story raised 10 feet off the ground with parking spaces below them. Like _a whole bunch of them_. You don't even see those in abandoned small towns any more.

You head to the beach and you go through mile after mile of outer sunset with crappy little 2 story houses and residential streets _dominated by garage doors_ which is like the most people-unfriendly building style known to man.

Like do people know that every little private one-car garage has no benefit on a larger scale? The garage holds one car, and the curb cut prevents parking on the street in front, for a net gain of zero parking spaces.

Yet _the entire city_ is dominated by garages at street level. And two story buildings, and mile after mile of awful zero-architecture postwar commercial properties.

Yes the painted ladies are pretty, don't bulldoze them. Landmark Lombard street and some of the other charming blocks, Sure why not. But it's a global commercial city willing to build 50+ story office towers, and unwilling to do anything about the dozens of square miles of 1-2 story unredeemable residential surrounding them.

It's _insane_.

<comment><USER9> There I was, thinking I was the only one.

It's _insane._ When I first got here from the east coast, I thought maybe there was some reason involving earthquake codes. And then I learned.

I used to live in NYC, a city that's had its own difficulties adding new housing, corruption in the permitting process, considering too many areas "historic." But the Bay Area is something completely different. It seems that everyone who already owns a single family home is strongly in favor of pulling up the ladder.

Perhaps too much money is riding on the existing "market value" of homes here. If zoning restrictions were relaxed, could house prices collapse? Proposition 13 can't be helping, either.

<comment><USER3> I moved here from Boston.

It honestly didn't seem all that insane to me, because Boston is crazier in nearly every dimension. The peninsula at least has 3-lane boulevards with a reasonable road hierarchy and traffic light timings. Boston has cowpaths branching off in every direction, controlled by stop signs that can literally back up for miles. The peninsula has block after block of Eichlers on 1/4 acre lots. Boston has mid-rise row-houses on landfill in the Back Bay, quickly trailing off to historic old houses on 1.5 acre lots 10 minutes outside of the city. The peninsula refuses to let you put in an in-law unit or cut down a redwood tree without going through an extensive permitting process. The Boston area might _refuse to let you put in new window panes_ if you live in a historic house (my computer teacher lived in one from the 1730s, and it still had all the original glass - which back then was hand made and tended to flow like putty - because it was considered a historic property and she couldn't modify it). The peninsula is due for a natural disaster in the next 30 years. In Boston, as my wife puts it, every winter is a natural disaster. BART has a problem with homeless dudes and property crime. The Red Line has a problem with trains losing the 3rd rail and running 20 minutes late. Caltrain electrification is stuck in limbo. The Big Dig has ceiling tiles that fall down and _kill people_.

Of course, the flip side of this is that Boston hasn't grown since 1950, and is around the same size as its 1910 population. San Francisco will probably meet a similar fate when the tech boom peters out.

<comment><USER10> I'm also coming from Boston and this take is silly.

Housing prices in Boston aren't Bay bad or even close to it.

<comment><USER11> I'm coming from the Boston _area_ because I can't afford to live in Boston or Cambridge. But guess what? There are comfortably sized houses available already under $400k 20 minutes out.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. Inner Boston and SF are not dissimilar, but the real difference is when you go outside the city. You can get a good house in Waltham (for instance) for relatively cheap. The same isn't true today in East Bay at least (and I don't know what other direction it would be true in).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again.

The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live.

Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyone adds businesses and nobody adds homes, we get horrible commutes.

With my proposed change, housing developments in cities that have major businesses will get lots of support from people who work there and want shorter commutes. And it seems reasonable to me that someone who spends their waking hours in a city and wants to live there should get the opportunity to have political power there.

This would therefore undo the political log jam. And once you start letting people live close to where they work, commutes go down, traffic gets better, and everyone winds up happier.

<comment><USER13> > Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue

The property owners still pay tax on it don't they? I'm sure it is less lucrative per square foot than commercial development, but I assume it is still better than the revenue from the closed furniture store and parking lot, and after all you need people to patronize businesses.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps it's something to do with how California has lower property taxes (partially due to Prop. 13) and higher income taxes-- but those income taxes go to Sacramento, not to municipalities.

In other parts of the country, municipal treasuries grow as volume and prices of residential units grow.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate on what you mean by "those income taxes go to Scaramento"? I mean the state has to coordinate the money it collects, but doesn't it use that money for state-wide projects like roads, dams, and other infrastructure? I live in Los Angeles and pay CA income tax. I'm perfectly fine with the state using some of that money outside of Los Angeles. I often travel outside of Los Angeles, so I'm getting use out of whatever they make with it (assuming it's not just put into politicians' pockets). What is Sacramento doing with the income tax revenue that you don't like?

<comment><USER9> The difference between paying $9000 to Sacramento and $1000 to LA or paying $5000 to Sacramento and $5000 to LA.

In the latter system, the local government gets direct control over the spending, as opposed to needing to lobby the state government for funds for road improvements, schools, etc.

For instance, in California, the majority of K-12 funding comes from Sacramento. In most of the rest of the country, the majority of K-12 funding comes from local, largely property, taxes-- exceptions being low-performing schools targeted for improvement with state funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Two others (out of five) had recused themselves because they own property within 1000 feet of the proposed project, and those recusals apparently counted as "no" votes."

I wonder: did they just not know the rules? Or was this a cowardly way to vote no without _actually_ voting no: it seems like if you really wanted to recuse in this situation, you just agree to do paired voting, one no and one yes.

<comment><USER16> Yes, this seems like a critical part of the story. I take it the actual vote was 2-1 in favor of the permit, but you need at least 3 votes to pass something in San Bruno, no matter what? If so, the city council's rules don't deal appropriately with recusal and those should be changed ASAP.

At the same time, whether or not this project succeeded or failed, the larger story about how hard it is to build housing remains fundamentally true (and broken).

<comment><USER17> Every city council has quorum rules for votes. What exactly are you proposing to change?

<comment><USER16> Quorum rules are to make sure you're not holding a sneaky midnight vote with two councilors asleep. Councilors who are present but recused should count toward a quorum.

You might still have a rule that at least two votes are required to pass something (to prevent a 1-0 vote with four recusals). But requiring at least thee votes on a five-member council is requiring an outright majority, which means a recusal is the same as a no vote. That seems unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I shared this because it's the best concise summary of many things that are going wrong with housing in the bay area that I've read in a while.

I'm on the Strong Towns board (though I didn't write the article). Happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

<comment><USER18> Is housing "going wrong" simply because it is expensive? Maybe it is overall a good thing that tech companies are now expanding into cities outside the bay area due to high housing costs.

At least housing prices are transparent to those thinking about moving in to the bay area, allowing them to make an informed decision. High traffic, insufficient public transit capacity, and over-capacity public services are less transparent. If we build more housing, do we just push problems elsewhere?

How do we determine the optimal amount of new housing?

<comment><USER19> Here's an idea we can adopt from literally every other aspect of American society: let the market work. We venerate the free market in all matters except housing, where we've erected a complex system of legal protections for incumbent landlords. The solution to high housing prices is more supply but it is illegal to build housing almost anywhere in the state of California. In SF it is illegal to build a duplex on 90% of the lots. Why? That just exists to enrich incumbents.

<comment><USER20>
      it is illegal to build housing almost anywhere in the state of California.

No, it is _legal_ almost everywhere without adjacent neighbors. Most land is unincorporated anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've noticed an increasing trend in West Coast cities where people complain that there's "just too many people". "Tell them to move elsewhere, we're full". It's as if the lessons of Malthusian limits were lost on us. For humanity to continue growing as a species we have to become more efficient with land use.

<comment><USER22> > For humanity to continue growing as a species

I'm pretty young.

Since my birth, the population has expanded by over 40%, and we've increased global temperature by approximately 1 degree Celsius.

The inevitable conclusion of forever-growth is, indeed, that everyone piles in to microscopic communal living spaces, that everything becomes factory farmed, that everything has to be as efficient as possible because we'll be (already are to a large extent) forced into doing it.

We can't go on like this.

<comment><USER23> "We can't go on like this."

There is a huge HUGE difference between "you must own 1/3 of an acre of land to live within an hour commute of your job" and "microscopic communal living spaces", if you haven't looked at a map recently we are much much closer to the prior than the latter.

<comment><USER22> Mmm. I live in the UK.

London is somewhere in-between; so are most of our towns and cities, really.

Tons of semi-detached or terraced homes, well served by public transport, which provide a decent balance.

We still can't just increase the population in those commutable areas without bound though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am a huge housing advocate who lives in the Bay Area, but I feel like the only pro housing people I meet are online. All my neighbors turn NIMBY as soon as they buy their home

<comment><USER25> That's why some people who don't agree with the YIMBYs deride them as Yes In _Your_ Back Yard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the issues is that we, in the US, don't look at other successful cities or countries and consider implementing their solutions. Then in California, we don't look at other cities or states within the US who have solved similar problems. Tokyo has rational zoning rules that has lead to affordable housing in a growing metropolis. This blog post [https://devonzuegel.com/post/north- american-vs-japanese-zoni...](https://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs- japanese-zoning) describes the differences in Japanese zoning versus North American zoning.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to move to CA, but I can't do the housing madness. Just insanity and I don't like that they are hurting other people and their ability to give their kids a better life by pulling up the ladder behind them. My city isn't far behind and it disgusts me. I'd love to see my entire neighborhood rezoned to 4 to 5 stories and get more people in here for the economic boom.

</comment><comment><USER25> Are there policies anywhere that compensate people for the externalities brought by change? Like, if Alice buys a sunny place with a great view of wide open sky and a park, then Bob buys the places around her, bulldozes the park, and builds 20 story buildings, Alice is now in the dark looking at concrete 10 feet away. It objectively makes Alice's situation worse. Are there any frameworks that compensate Alice for the worsening of her situation?

I could imagine something like making developers pay for blocking views/sky/sun, or for creating noise, or making them pay for the change their development causes in the market value of others' properties. Not exactly that, but something along those lines. I'd bet it could bring some NIMBYs around. They'd no longer lose out when beneficial change happens.

<comment><USER28> You don't own the view. It's unrealistic to expect that owning a single parcel of land would grant you broad latitude to stop projects anywhere within sight.

If you want a guaranteed good view, go buy a big plot of land way out in the middle of nowhere. You have no right to it in a city; other people's right to have housing is way more important.

<comment><USER25> Yes, of course in this situation Alice doesn't own the view. But she _is_ made worse off by Bob's developments. I really hope we can agree that Alice's situation is being made worse in a real way here. Further, pre-Bob, the city is mostly full of Alices, so if you want them to not vote against Bob's development, like in OP's article, you might want to align Alice's and Bob's incentives. It's pragmatic.

It also happens to have the nice property of not making Alice worse off when we improve things for everyone else, which morally feels nice.

Either way, the question isn't about the ethics or pragmatics. It's whether this has been tried anywhere.

<comment><USER29> What about in the opposite direction? What if I build something that makes the neighborhood nicer (like buying a burned out building and replacing it with one that is beautiful and matches its neighbors). It seems like the neighbors should pay me their increased home value, right? If Nancy plants flowers, you have to pay her. It's only fair. It's also ludicrous. Your idea is unimplementable.

It would be simpler if everyone just stopped viewing their home as an investment. The meme that 'homes are investments' is a very recent invention. They not investments; they're depreciating assets.

<comment><USER25> My perspective is that it's not about the investment. It's about wanting to keep the quality of life you bought into. The investment side only comes in when the large building next to you decreases your quality of life, so you want to sell, which you otherwise wouldn't have wanted to do.

I'd totally buy into a system that incentivizes the positives too. If I'm paying for the amount it affects me by, sure. That's why I pay my taxes. On the other hand, ratchet-like systems by which things can't get worse than they started seem fair too. It's okay to be asymmetric.

Specifically, the example that comes to mind as a fair reason to be pissed (or vote against development/rezoning) is changing something like this:

[https://ssl.cdn- redfin.com/photo/9/bigphoto/398/486398_44_2....](https://ssl.cdn- redfin.com/photo/9/bigphoto/398/486398_44_2.jpg)

to something like this:

[https://ssl.cdn- redfin.com/photo/9/bigphoto/440/486440_28_0....](https://ssl.cdn- redfin.com/photo/9/bigphoto/440/486440_28_0.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's not peak housing dysfunction, but rather peak entitlement. Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite local incumbents' wishes to not have their neighborhood change? Does everyone have the right to live anywhere they want to live without having to pay the necessary price to be there? For example, does everyone have a right to expect a residence on a Hawaii beachfront? And if not, why is it reasonable to portray a city or state as somehow lacking because it serves existing constituents?

It makes sense that the Bay area would be priced high given its tremendous desirability (which may be tapering off now). If people are willing to work there for low wages, then that is their choice - they have opted into a tradeoff they are OK with, and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living. There are numerous affordable places to live in the US that are not [New York, San Francisco, Seattle, etc.] - you may not have every big city amenity you want, or maybe even be able to do the exact job you want - <USER2> such compromises are also just a regular part of life, aren't they?

To me the reframing of this issue as a policy problem, or a rich versus poor thing, or through use of pejoratives like "NIMBY" serves to distract from the plain truth, which is simply that people are acting in their own self- interests. And yes, this includes the folks who believe they have an unalienable right to live in the Bay area and demand that local governance be replaced with top-down forceful governance (overriding local zoning policy). And the reality is proposals like the one around the missing middle will not solve the underlying issue - it just shifts the timeline around a bit until population growth brings us back to the same point anyways.

<comment><USER7> >and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living.

This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents. To put their money where their mouth is and not change things, bay area residents need to not be getting rich off the density that they are nominally trying to fight. Otherwise it's just delaying a lost cause - population growth, and a shift in demographics from owners to renters, will inevitably happen barring some big tech recession. Once there are enough renters voting in municipal elections, change will come

<comment><USER31> "This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents."

This argument the two of you are engaged in would be more interesting and relevant, I think, if there were not a _literal 50% off sale_ every 7-10 years in the bay area.

The busts will continue to come and the more you think "it's different this time" the closer we are to one. Conversely, I'll bet I could pick up print publications in the alternative press from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s wherein the same lamentations and accusations are leveled during the run-up to each peak.

I quote the lead article from the OP:

"... helplessness pervades many of my conversations with friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, _where I lived for seven years_ ..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Would a "technology" answer be to make telepresence technology better and invest in higher bandwidth infrastructure?

If we could have high resolution video, audio and even VR for business, would people be required to be colocated as often?

That way people could live wherever they want.

<comment><USER33> Paradoxically, advances in transport and comms tech seem to increase rather than decrease hub concentration. Greater _friction_ and more need for local presence might reverse the trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If you notice how new york and surrounding area is supported by very good transportation. West coast does not have that and on top of that there are no huge building being built outside sf. I wonder if this is due to earthquakes. Either way I think this issues and mixed with tech job demand is going to push remote culture more and more.

<comment><USER35> > I wonder if this is due to earthquakes.

Could be, but Japan has lots of earthquakes too, and they don't seem to mind building huge/tall buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> There is simply no demand from municipalities for more housing. The logical consequence of Proposition 13 is that housing becomes a liability for governments, instead of an asset. Therefore, they forego developing new liabilities, and instead develop new assets, commercial property use.

</comment><comment><USER37> This article approaches the issue from the preconception that building housing is the best, obvious and inevitable decision for Bay Area communities. Because of this, any obstacles to it must be due either to a) fossilized regulations from a former age; or b) greed and entitlement.

As to a), I find that the democratic process is actually very engaged in making housing decisions. As a resident of Alameda, we are constantly getting new housing approved, because our voting populace happens to support it. In other towns, maybe that's not the case. But the laws and regulations that protect against development are not necessarily byproducts from a former age that are no longer applicable, but in fact still representative of the will of the people. And in any case, the will of the people can change them!

As to b), I think there are great reasons why someone would be against development other than greed and entitlement. If rich and powerful interests (such as Big Tech) threaten to change your way of life, don't you have the right as an American to vote your conscience, even if it goes against the tides of change? Or are we only allowed to vote in a way that would ultimately favor Big Tech in some way? People that think in this way remind me of the current situation in Hong Kong - where it's a "democracy," but you're only allowed to vote for the "approved" candidates. In other words, no democracy at all.

An objection has been raised that people who don't like the tech industry being here can move somewhere else. Well, the same is true for the tech industry itself. In fact, it appears that Big Tech is playing a game of chicken, and banks on the fact that the Bay Area towns will blink first. We have seen this before, where Uber deliberately broke the law by running a commercial car service without paying for the required licenses and permits. Then, they sicced their lawyers on the towns that tried to stop them until people got so enamored of the service they couldn't imagine life without it, and the political will was decidedly in their favor. All in the name of "disruption."

I have no issue ascribing legitimate motives to those who wish not to be "disrupted," and refuse to accept that as an inevitability. What would the answer be to a big corporation belching toxic fumes into the atmosphere? "Well, that's just the march of progress, we all need to adapt?" I didn't think so. Instead, we will continue to put these things to a vote (or fight for our right to do so where we wrongfully can't). That's how we make decisions in America.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's being overdone. A solid wall of railroad flats (cheezy "luxury" condos) is going up for miles along the Caltrain tracks. Those wooden multistory buildings are the slums of tomorrow.

It's about time for the next Bay Area recession. Some of those buildings will never be fully occupied. Remember 2008? 2001?

<comment><USER39> Isn't that where you'd _want_ flats? Nobody wants a SFH next to tracks. Certain types of people (I won't generalise) always seem to want to call apartment buildings "future slums." This almost never materialises. Is it a racial thing for you?

<comment><USER10> > is it a racial thing

I mean I've encountered this enough that I know the answer now: obviously.

You won't ever get them to admit it though</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Web Application Development? - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to make some web applications. I've got tons of ideas, I can program (Ruby, Haskell, Erlang), but I've got almost no experience making web applications.
Are there any guides or starter sets/ideas to get the ball rolling?
For instance, how to handle user accounts? Passwords? Twitter/Facebook logins? etc. <comment><USER2> Use a framework that handles user accounts/passwords for you. Twitter, Facebook and other social auth frameworks can be plugged in easily via 3rd party modules.

I use and recommend Django, for example. I would imagine Ruby/Rails would have similar capabilities.

For Django tutorials/docs: <http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/>

Django is also about to release a major update in the first half of March (v1.2). Some GREAT improvements.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm currently heavily entrenched in Sinatra. I'm surprised to learn that Django and Rails do user accounts for you. Crazy.

<comment><USER3> Sinatra has a few 3rd party libraries that do it for you. I'm using sinatra- authentication, which works great.</comment></comment></comment>


Baidu puts up brave front as rival Google's China comeback looms - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-founders/article/2158677/baidu-puts-brave-front-rival-googles-china-comeback <comment><AUTHOR> Robin Li, Baidu founder:

> "If Google re-enters the market, it gives us the opportunity to PK with real > swords and spears and win one more time," Li said in a post on his WeChat > account on Tuesday that was verified by Baidu. PK is the acronym for "player > kill", a term most often used in online role-playing games, that suggests > the death of another gamer's avatar in a virtual world.</comment>


Do what you love - Ted Talk by Code Academy Founder - <AUTHOR> http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxLakeshoreEast-Neal-Sales-Gr

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this. It's been a while since I've been inspired to learn more from a 'talk'. This was just perfect in timing as I am trying to learn several new technologies out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> CodeAcademy.Org (Course offered in GroupOn HQ in Chicago is the real deal from what I hear). @CodeAcademy (not to be confused with an up and coming online resource @CodeCademy. Check out: joinTreeHouse.com (formerly Think Vitamin) & Codeschool.com. Tons of resources now to dabble & learn. Glad you enjoyed!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you dislike about Erlang? - crypto-jeronimo <comment><AUTHOR> My main interest these days is writing non-blocking GUIs. I don't want to see a "spinning beach ball" or "no results found" or similar things _ever_.

In theory Erlang has the best non-blocking support of any language, but I see a lot of risk in developing prototypes to get to the point where I know it was a good decision.

I don't see Elixir as moving the needle so far as what is conceptually tricky about Erlang.

</comment><comment><USER2> No one uses it. The average programmer writes Javascript/Java/Python code. Erlang is a great functional language, and I've actually seen it used in the real world, but it goes above the heads of most programmers.

<comment><USER3> Do you think Elixir will help grow the community?

<comment><USER4> i think elixir is a good effort but given the decline of ruby and elixir's similar syntax, that hasn't done it any favors in terms of adoption.

i'd be really excited for a python inspired implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's dynamically-typed and it doesn't have real arrays. It can sometimes be frustratingly slow to do things that imperative languages do easily, but that's the price of entry for functional languages. Luckily you can drop down into Rust or C if you need high performance.

Otherwise, it's a great language. I'm consistently happy with the decisions that the Erlang and Elixir core teams make, and it's my go-to language for web development.

</comment><comment><USER6> High learning curve. First two weeks might fry your brain.

Language is perfect for what was created: matching pathologicaly ordered number arrays (phone numbers); but needs some way to get people onboard fast.

<comment><USER7> I've written a lot of Erlang/Elixir, basing the stack for my last startup on it. I wouldn't change that decision, but you are completely right on people not getting it. I _way_ overestimated the capacity for even well educated devs with computer science degrees to pick it up.

There were other factors, but largely it came down to whether they were exposed to something like scheme before the typical java education. Outside of that it was only people who had a deep understanding of the actor model that could get it.</comment></comment>


How Bank of America quietly steals your money - <AUTHOR> TL;DR. Bank of America charged me a "Monthly Maintenance Fee" of $12.00 on my checking (debit) account twice during last year, even though my monthly balance was never below the required minimum to avoid such fees. Both times they reversed the fee, after I called, explaining that it was a software error. Except after it happened the second time, I don't believe them.  If you are BoA customer with a checking account, it's a good idea to check if you have been charged similar fees as well.
At the end of the day today I went to my BoA checking account to see the balance. Right away, I noticed "Monthly Maintenance Fee" of $12.00 charged last Friday. I have been BoA customer for many years (actually I was a Fleet bank customer since late 1990s, and then became a BoA customer when Fleet  got purchased by BoA). I know the rules about what to do to avoid the maintenance service fees. Some time last year, when examining my online statement, I found a $12.00 service fee applied for no reason. I called their customer service, had them apologize for the mistake and the fee reversed. Back then I decided it was indeed some sort of a software glitch, as they explained, which BoA, being a big bank with millions of customers like me, will soon fix. I almost forgot about the case when I had exactly the same fee happening again today, over six months after the original case. They of course claim they will investigate (just like they did last time) but this time I have all reasons to believe it's not an error which was unknown to them.
Their plan is simple: how many of us have time to examine hundreds of transactions most of us have every month listed on a statement, and notice a small $12 fee? Those few who, like me, notice a wrong fee and call, do get it reversed. The rest of us get charged the "maintenance fee" - for no reason. Nice plan, isn't it? And they can always blame the software, and promise to investigate.
How many millions of dollars they wrongfully charged over the last year (as I explained earlier, this happened to me first over six months ago), only Bank of America knows. But it does know. They have tens of millions customers with checking accounts, and I refuse to believe I am the only one who had been charged like this and called.
So, if you happen to be their client with a checking account, maintaining your monthly balance above the required minimum (it varies state by state) it's a good idea to search for such transactions. As far as I am concerned, I am closing all of my BoA accounts as soon as I technically can. They lost all of my trust, and I refuse to deal with a bank like this. <comment><USER2> Last November, BOA forgot to mail my mortgage coupon. Fortunately I realized that I hadn't paid, but when I went online I couldn't find the physical address to which I should send payment, only the option of starting direct withdrawal from my account. So I ended up pulling an old statement and sending payment to the correct address.

Then the next month, I didn't get a statement. So I sent physical payment again through the mail and used the feedback option...twice.

I got two different stories from each customer service representative. One said they sent the coupon, the other said that they hadn't due to software issues. At that point my suspicion was more or less confirmed that they wanted to encourage me to switch to electronic payments - and felt that a missed payment penalty might encourage such a switch.

The way I see it, there's an MBA somewhere who decided that there was more profit in not sending statements through the mail and more profit if they could collect a late fee and more profit if they could accidentally deduct additional money from my account unless I caught it.

ATT did the same thing with my business phone.

Both the local cable companies do it.

It's just the way business works these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to be able to pay mortage online when it was BoA mortgage (it no longer is). Can't you do the same thing?

Back t the story: I am going to switch to a local bank from BoA as result of this. I hope they do treat their customers differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The appropriate way to take care of this is to file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which was created by the US government to look into issues like this. <http://www.consumerfinance.gov/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. This is probably the most valuable advice I got about the issue here. I will file a complaint there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really hate to say this, but the best answer may be lawyers. If you can find a few other friends that this happened to, then file a class-action. Do not close our account - you need to prove to the court that they are doing this for multiple people. Then the fed will get involved

</comment><comment><USER5> There are plenty of banks with free accounts. The big regionals tend to be good, as are credit unions. USAA is flat-out the best on the planet if you can get an account with them.

<comment><USER6> +1 USAA - able to withdraw from any ATM and have 15 dollars in fees reimbursed along with being able to deposit checks via your smart phone

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is awesome: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js0fP9zk7AM> This guy foreclosed on BoA :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had the same thing happen at least twice.

Count me in for whatever the consensus action is, whether that's complaining to the CFPB or a joining a class-action.

<comment><AUTHOR> We need then to get in touch - even for the CFPB I cannot just reference someone by an online alias. Please write me to m3dsa [at] hotmail.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Should <https://www.billguard.com/> be here?

</comment><comment><USER10> It's not just banks, I've had the same thing happen with my cellphone bill.

</comment><comment><USER11> For personal finance, use a credit union.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have gone through the same pain with BOA and finally I had to close my account last year. But the funny/upsetting thing is that even if I closed my account, BOA kept on sending monthly statement charging those monthly fees for several months. I had to keep ignoring it till they completely stopped sending those statements. I went to the local BOA office to complain and the Banker did not give a damn at all. I have a feeling he thought that a tiny customer who just transacts few hundred dollars a month can not affect the bottom line of the bank and ultimately his job. And during that time I kind of felt that sometimes the big bank can play a cruel joke and get away with it on tiny customer like us. You know what , I closed my account went ahead and opened my checking and saving account at a local credit union bank and I can't say how happy I am. Hey, it is your money. But watch out! some big banks are very good at ripping off small customers by charging in fees (nickel and dime, heck now a days they have started charging above 10 dollars forget about nickels and dime). As a small fish you are more vulnerable to big predators in the ocean. So beware. Keep eyes open.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think you're confusing incompetence for malice here.

<comment><USER14> NOPE.

Banks are malicious. They are very very competent at stealing money.</comment></comment>


Create Instant Markdown Pages with Folderol MD - <AUTHOR> http://folderolmd.appspot.com/folderol/10001

<comment><USER2> What happens to the pages? I input text, click on publish and the text boxes are cleared.

<comment><AUTHOR> No unicode support yet (thought of that right after clicking the submit button) so that could be what you're experiencing. Also, let me know if you see the recaptcha. Some browser extensions block them out.

Otherwise, email me with whatever details you can offer [jprichter at gmail]. I'd be happy to figure this out.</comment></comment>


AWS console breach leads to demise of service with "proven" backup plan - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/06/aws-console-breach-leads-to-demise-of-service-with-proven-backup-plan/

<comment><USER2> There's lessons here for everyone! If you are a SaaS provider, please keep offsite backups and protect them sufficiently. Don't allow a common control panel to manage your production data AND your backup data. In my backup strategy I use a combination of onsite and offsite backups. The onsite is really just a convenience thing where you can easily access your data quickly. The offsite backups are there in case anything happens at the production location, either to your live data or to the live data and the backups.

The lesson for customers is to never trust anyone when it comes to backups. Don't assume that a provider's claim about their "rock solid" or "proven" backups means anything. Pretend they don't have a backup.

<comment><USER3> Can you suggest a solution for those of us on AWS that are SaaS providers that you find to be reliable?</comment></comment>


Levinux – A Tiny Version of Linux for Education - <AUTHOR> http://mikelev.in/ux/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. Computing is becoming more and more ubiquitous but at the same time it is becoming more and more opaque. Approaches like levinux are an excellent way to make it more open and accessible not just from the consumer perspective but from the hacker/maker perspective as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just had a play around and I'm very impressed. I'm pretty sure I'll be using this in September for all my CS students.

We've been looking at various ways in which we could introduce our Year 7s (11-12 yo) to Linux, and this checks all the boxes. It'll fit nicely within our existing schemes of work that go through HTML/CSS and JavaScript, and then lead onto Python in the next year.

Fantastic job, and thank you very much.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks awesome, but I'm slightly confused with the mission of this project. Is it meant to provide a simplified operating system to encourage tinkering, or a minimal "old-school" environment in which to learn "higher- level" programming on?

<comment><USER5> It's about the short stack. From the page:

Okay, what is the ultimate goal here?

There are tons of approaches to learning to program, and reasons for doing so. You might want to build an empire, or just have a few extra skills in your back pocket. Levinux supports your pursuit either goal and everything in- between. It does this by focusing on one particular "short stack" approach: learning the least-possible software possible of the most timeless nature to enable you to do interesting things. It can be your primary programming environment, or just sort of a safety-net as you pursue other more sexy platforms like mobile app development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is quite nice. The approach fits well with ubiquitous computing.

If anyone is interested in another tiny Linux version, not necessarily for education, but personal use, I'd recommend CrunchBang (based on Debian). If you have an old laptop you want to give someone or a new netbook that doesn't have a CD drive, it's very easy to install via USB.

Edit: I just realized, "tiny" doesn't quit fit CB. So let's call it efficient and simple instead.

<comment><USER7> For a tiny distribution, puppy or slitaz work quite well.

Also, I would say that Arch Linux can be as tiny as you want, but it's not a fire and forget solution and I wouldn't want to maintain an Arch system for friends or relatives ;)

<comment><USER8> Uh yeah probably shouldn't jump into the tiny Linux debate, but I recommend looking into Rich Shingledecker's attitude towards desktop distribution bloat even on versions considered "tiny" vs the 6 to 12 MB distro that he turned into Core Linux. Divergent philosophies, and I found it best to leave the desktop world behind when approaching Linux education. Best not to confuse what's being worked on to compete with iOS, Android, OS X and Windows with the education that will serve you best on servers and embedded systems. Even Puppy and SliTaz are large-ish desktop versions of Linux in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hurray for the short stack philosophy! But how is starting with linux shortening the stack? Why not start with forth?

<comment><USER10> He mentions "transferability" as a goal. Whatever a person learns in the context of this small Linux is directly applicable to other Linux distributions. Granted, whatever a person learns in the context of any Forth is applicable to the Forth that one might use on Windows, Mac, Linux, FPGAs, or whatever. It just seems that that wasn't his aim. He does after all state that this project is constrained by his imagination and his resources.

The direction in which his imagination goes is back to his Amiga days, as I understand this: [http://mikelev.in/2010/10/choosing-tools-switching-to- linux/](http://mikelev.in/2010/10/choosing-tools-switching-to-linux/)

Forth doesn't seem to be what he had in mind or was prepared to provide. If you personally like learning and teaching Forth, then you're right, why not start with Forth?

<comment><USER8> Hi. Levinux creator here. More modern platforms will always offer developers speed-to-productivity advantage, but the platforms themselves are constantly moving targets. If you invest yourself wholly into them, you're caught in the cycle of what Joel Spolsky calls fire-and-motion. But if you also learn a good terminal-oriented old-skool in a way that will work on most (but not all) embedded systems, you'll always have a fallback plan. The short stack is ideally Unix, C, a ubiquitous text editor, and the compiler tool chain. But we're not in an ideal world and I want it to be approachable by newbies. So, Python comes before C for the sake of positive initial experience and movement towards C, and vim is the text editor choice because of the ubiquity. I know tons of arguments can be made different ways, so I'm making a my flavor of Levinux, then making it as spinnable in different ways as possible. Forth versions should be no problem, and I anticipate a node-oriented version and such. But time and imagination constrained as I am, I'll be focusing my tutorials and server recipes on my idea of an newbie-accessible short stack.

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't it make sense for levinux to ship with a C compiler then? It wouldn't make much difference to the file size and would let people start with C if they wanted to.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong - I just started levinux, ran the initial download, then sshed in and tried 'cc', 'gcc', 'clang', and 'tcc' before giving up).

<comment><USER8> The distribution zip is under 20MB. Even with vim, git and Python, it's still just 60MB. The GNU toolchain pushes it much larger, and it's not part of the early education curriculum I'm proposing. C compiling is something I'll be working people to after several positive experiences with Python. Also, it's just one repository command away from being installed, so I figure I'll add it as one of those menu options that you get presented with after startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This absolutly got my attention, going to check for sure. I'm older, and when I was in school we learn OS with Minix, a port of UNIX on the 8086 architecture. But this is so much more!

<comment><USER8> Believe it or not, I considered Minix for this project, as I did BSD and BareMetal OS. In the end, "some Linux" won, and at this time only Tiny Core Linux roughly estimates the ease of a Debian-like repository system to support server-building scripts, while still being a minute distro (under 10MB without the Levinux parts) and not being a hard drive install while still offering persistence... well, the list goes on. It was a very tall order I was trying to fill, and at the time, the QEMU+Tiny Core Linux combo nicely fits the bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While this is certainly a fast (and convenient) way to get hands-on experience with Linux, I'm not that sure about the "short stack" being the best option for beginners.

<comment><USER14> This comment would benefit from a reason or suggestion.

<comment><USER13> Indeed. My apologies.

First of all, learning the command line, git, vim, and Python is a bit too much for a beginner to handle all at once. IMHO, vim alone will scare off a lot of people.

Second, being exposed to a lot of different programming languages is very beneficial for a beginner.

<comment><USER15> I think vim is OK if it is explained as ":i to modify, ESC :wq to save and exit".

Keeping the first explanation to this two use cases keeps it short and easy to remember, and not much more difficult than the other command line editors. pico or nano have the command in plain sight but I find them worse to type for beginners, and there is not much of a learning path from there.

<comment><USER16> You'd just want to press "i", instead of ":i".

<comment><USER17> You'd also want to map something more convenient to ESC. Like jk. That way you won't have people immediately cursing this system that requires them to find the ESC key every time they finish editing a piece of text. Something more convenient can be mapped to :wq as well.

Actually....I think I'm with vukmir on the beginner in education being somewhat overwhelmed and I'm confused as to why Linux Server skill is being conflated with programming.

"consider Levinux a stepping stone for newbs, because it gives you a taste of Linux Server and sets you on your way to being able to do SOMETHING within minutes......Push your code up from Levinux and pull it down from whatever other system you end up using in the future."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Adapted from tinycore (tinycorelinux.net)</comment>


How to actually solve the technical co-founder proglem - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nbashaw/how-to-actually-solve-the-technical-co-founder-problem-7cf49e54e930#.2vac09vue <comment><USER2> @nbashaw expanding on my earlier comment, there is also a moral hazard issue. The non-technical co-founder who has put in no initial investment is incentivized in the short term to squeeze out as much value as they can, since they have no skin in the game. I've actually seen this happen multiple times, but examples of squeezing out value could be: demanding more and more changes since the labor is free, scope creep, pushing for more features before sales start. It is just a bad setup -- all equity owners should have equal skin in the game so decisions are made in the best interest of the firm. "Free" equity causes bad behaviors.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting, @rmason!

Author here - I'd love feedback / questions from HN.

</comment><comment><USER2> @nbashaw I agree with your conclusion, but I wish you explained better why "it hardly ever works out." The reason of course is that being a technical co- founder is a raw deal unless non-technical co-founders are putting in their fair share.

The key problem here is opportunity cost: a reliable programmer can easily make $60k to 200k+ full time. If you want them full time for free, they are essentially "investing" that much into your startup. If you are envisioning they work part-time, just scale down accordingly. Full time or not, that is a pretty sizeable investment from the programmer, way larger than most Angel investments. The problem here is -- what are _you_ (the non-technical co- founder) investing for your share of the equity?

Things most programmers wont consider as Investments: Idea? No, ideas are a dime a dozen. There are millions of ideas available for free, you dont deserve all the equity just for coming up with an idea.

Vision? Don't say vision, most ideas are not visionary and have already been done. If you truly are a visionary, you probably have a track record, some history of wins, so why not just invest money in that case. If you don't have any track record of wins, then anyone can be a visionary. Here are some visions: flying cars, robot chefs, the list is long. I'm giving away visions for free!

Business Skills? No go...problem here is your investment would usually come __later __. We need to know what skin you have in the game now. If the programmer is making an investment right now, you need to figure out what investment you are making right now. Otherwise, you are just a "business guy" who is sitting on the sidelines taking no risk and asking programmers to take all the risk on your behalf.

Things that Would Excite Programmers (wish you mentioned these in your article):

Pre-sales. Now we're really talking! Can you show kick-starter pre-sale? Signed purchase orders? That really proves your worth, and can be your "investment" contribution.

Money? Now we're talking. Fine, dont pay the programmer, but show some skin in the game: incorporate and seed the company with money. Money perhaps that will be used for ads, business development, etc. How much depends on the "free" talent's going rate, how much they would work, and how much equity you are giving them. If the programmer you are getting for free makes $175k/yr and you need them for 6mo for 20/hrs a week, they are essentially "investing" $44k into the business. Suppose you plan to be a co-founder with them equally, sharing equity 50:50. Then you should also invest $44k into the business.

Track record. That is the best. If you have a proven, verifiable track record of sales, wins, and success then people will easily buy into your vision. For example, i'd work on Elon Musk's next idea for free, no question. But you likely don't have this...if you did, then you wouldn't be worried about money.

Recruiting a technical co-founder is not impossible, but you need to show equitable skin in the game and investment. If you truly are a "business guy" you should be able to do some from the second list, realistically #1 -- pre- sales or purchase orders. If all you offer is visions and ideas or unenforceable promises of future sales effort, then you will only attract foolish programmers and they will probably quit half-way.</comment>


Draftable Compare Accurate Comparisons of PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint Files - <AUTHOR> https://draftable.com <comment><AUTHOR> Saw this neat service when looking at the IBM mainframe z14 thread.</comment>


Ledger, a powerful command-line accounting system - <AUTHOR> https://www.ledger-cli.org <comment><USER2> GNU Cash is also a great open source accounting system.</comment>


Let's Have Sex In Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.bendevane.com/VTA2013/hawkharris/lets-have-sex-in-games/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure that their argument is particularly bolstered by pointing to _God Of War_ as an example of sex-positive, woman-friendly mature content. Or "Hot Coffee", for that matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading and taking the time to leave feedback. Can you recommend any examples of games that are more sex-positive and friendly to women?

<comment><USER2> I haven't played _any_ games that treat sex in anything other than the standard leery puerile wink-wink nudge-nudge style. I tend to avoid "Mature" themes in games because, well, they're inescapably juvenile.

Good article, though. I enjoyed it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to attract a mentor? - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure that quite a few of you had a great idea, got it going under your own steam but then began to struggle with direction, strategy, scaling, volume of admin, addiction to Angry Birds, coffee bean budget, whatever. Then you found a mentor, who helped you get past that or those problems and now everything is going swimmingly.
To those of you - how did you find or manage to attract that person? Did they come to you? Did you have to get down on your knees and beg? Did you make promises, sign your life away?
I'd love to know! I founded Not a Bad Dad earlier this year. It's still a tiny shadow of what I've got planned, and the reception has been great so far, but I'm struggling to figure out what to do next and how to do it. Would love to find someone who's been here before! <comment><USER2> I'm interested in learning this too. I was just looking at Slideshare's case and learned the following:

In this talk the founders mention how they were "outsiders" located in the Valley without much connection, and that their initial angels and advisors were their attorneys or those who had tried their service and were impressed by its utilities. [http://siliconangle.com/blog/2010/02/24/slideshare- founders-...](http://siliconangle.com/blog/2010/02/24/slideshare-founders- talk-about-entrepreneurship/)

In the first ever Techcrunch article about them, Michael Arrington mentions Ross Mayfield (VP of Biz Dev at Slideshare) made the intro. [http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/04/introducing-slideshare- powe...](http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/04/introducing-slideshare-power-point- youtube/) This was Oct 2006.

It took them some time to get connected to the advisors: started the company in 2006, got advisors in 2007 - 2008. See <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/slideshare> and [http://www.amitranjan.com/2007/07/05/slideshare-news- welcomi...](http://www.amitranjan.com/2007/07/05/slideshare-news-welcoming- guy-kawasaki-hal-varian-ross-mayfield-to-slideshare/)

Of course I'm only studying the surface, but in their case 1) useful product that the mentors would use (businesspeople use slides) 2) well-connected team member 3) time and persistence seemed to have helped.

</comment><comment><USER3> My 2 cents... definitely start with warm leads. Reach out to your network of friends, colleagues, etc, and ask them if they know of any good mentors in your related field. It can be as general as "I'm looking for an experienced entrepreneur" or it can be as specific as "I'm looking for someone who knows how to setup a cap table". Next step - Ask your contacts to make an email introduction for you. Now here's the key. Have humility. Your response to the introduction should be sincere and appreciative. Assuming you're looking for financing advice, you might try something like this:

"Hi <Name> \- It's very nice to (virtually) meet you. As <your contact's name> mentioned, I just started my own company, and I'm looking for some mentorship/guidance on financing my venture. I understand that you have some deep experience in Venture Capital.

My question is... would you be willing to meet with me for coffee to give me your perspective on financing entrepreneurship, where angel comes in, where VC comes in, and perhaps how we should lay the foundation for VC in the future? Please let me know! I'd really appreciate it."

Make sure you're thoughtful about the request. I wouldn't just say "I'm looking for your help to get funded." Ask about their perspective, and definitely make sure you ask for a face-to-face meeting, though you might have to settle for over the phone. You'll be surprised how many people will accept the request in the spirit of "giving back" and "paying it forward".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> skaipa - thanks for that - definitely something I've not taken advantage of so far. The "giving it back" spirit is really interesting...

<comment><USER3> good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read "The Symposium" by Plato.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> and rc4algorithm - I have that in a bookcase somewhere!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> keywonc - intriguing links. Will investigate - thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> Shoot me an email.</comment>


USPS.com is down - <AUTHOR> https://www.usps.com/

<comment><USER2> Not down for me...

<comment><AUTHOR> Still showing as down over here and across Twitter. Perhaps a DNS propagation error or something.</comment></comment>


The Lowest Fare? Ask the Crowd - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/technology/flightfox-lets-the-crowd-find-the-best-airfares.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> I tried this for booking my current business trip. I offered a $100 reward for a five city US excursion, originating in Japan, with the proviso "I use Delta. Make sure I get miles for this, either with them or an allied carrier."

The best offer I get that actually read that instruction knocked $3,000 off the $5,000 that Delta.com quoted me. _I went with Delta_. I have the utmost respect for the amount of searching which went into it, but the instructions I got back were 6 steps long, with each step sounding like "Book a one-way flight from X to Y using this web interface", and I was terrified of getting halfway through and then being stranded in Des Moines not able to book the rest of the flights at anything near the quote.

I'm _so there_ if they can handle the bookings themselves, such that I'm not the one bearing the risk-of-failure-to-book.

<comment><USER3> Agree with your general point but with those kinds of savings it seems fairly irrational not to. With $2k in pocket I can't imagine being stuck in Des Moines with no options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats to Flightfox, YC S12:

[http://www.startupsmart.com.au/success-stories/flightfox- acc...](http://www.startupsmart.com.au/success-stories/flightfox-accepted- into-y-combinator-after-snagging-$800000/201205306453.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> From experience, it is tough for the crowd to beat skyscanner.

<comment><USER6> matrix.itasoftware.com is also where i check first.

<comment><USER7> ITA Software (by Google) — would it be reasonable to guess that this flight tracker is built into <http://flights.google.com>?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had $300 shaved off of a $1100 trip. Some of the posters really must read the criteria first and one, who I ended up going with, went way above and beyond in his helpfulness for the default bounty ($30?).

The only thing I'm worried about now is somehow getting my luggage wired through all legs of my trip rather than my having to go through immigration at each stop and pick it up, only to go back through again and drop it off :P

</comment><comment><USER9> This is definitely a "Why didn't I think of that?" moment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone here an 'expert' for Flightfox? Can you share you thoughts about it?</comment>


HTC Names Yves Maitre as CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20190918PD208.html <comment><USER2> "When I took over as CEO four years ago, I set out to reinvent HTC as a complete ecosystem company and lay the foundations for the company to flourish across 5G and XR."

Did that really work out for HTC? It seems that 5 years ago is about the last time they launched an interesting phone.

Back when the One M7 launched, it wasn't a sure bet that Samsung would become the market leader in the Android smartphone market. Since then, however, they haven't had a single unqualified hit. Even Samsung, upon facing competition from Xiaomi and Huawei, has hit back with good mid-range Smartphones this year.</comment>


Show HN: Generate hundreds of leads with verified emails/numbers in one click - <AUTHOR> https://uselio.com <comment><USER2> Is this is a tool for finding people to send spam e-mails to?

Where do you get e-mail addresses from? Presumably, people don't consent to having their e-mail addresses shared in this way.</comment>


Reflecting on Netflix, Instagram, Pinterest Downtime | Benjamin Kerensa dot Com - <AUTHOR> http://benjaminkerensa.com/2012/06/30/reflecting-on-netflix-instagram-pinterest-downtime#.T-9VeED8Kho.hackernews <comment><USER2> Never let a good crisis go to waste for your own exposures sake.

I think the down time of social media sites and a few hours without streaming videos is totally overrated. We are not talking about the power outage for a hospital but being unable to share your photos and your daily opinion.

It's a quite healthy self check if those endorphin producers are offline on a random occasion.</comment>


Ask HN: Where / How do you find designers for your projects? - <AUTHOR>

Finding a designer to work with,is a constant headache for me. I have been using bootstrap for the project I'm working on, but feel as if I need a designer to just give the whole thing a more professional look. Where should I go look for one? <comment><USER2> I second jaredtking on 99 Designs for logos and other work.

Elance (<http://elance.com>) is a good option generally for finding contractors.

While they are spendy, design-focused recruiters like Creative Circle and Creative Group can help you find both contractors and full-time employees. They do a decent job of screening so you only see qualified applicants, unlike Elance and 99 Designs.

</comment><comment><USER3> For one-off jobs such as logo or web page design I have used 99 Designs (<http://99designs.com>) and have been very happy with the results.

Whenever you come across a designer you like they are usually more than happy to perform further work outside of design contests.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is a great new article on the folyo.com blog, that provides some great places to look based on budget

<http://blog.folyo.me/the-startups-guide-to-budget-design/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Hit up Dribbble, Behance, find people whose style you admire. Reach out to them. Know that they are more in demand now than ever and unless they really believe in your project you will have to pay them like any other professional.

</comment><comment><USER6> Would love to chat with you about this. I am a web designer who also speicalizes in mobile, UI/UX, etc.

Feel free to shoot me an email: shahedkhan30 [at] gmail [dot] com

</comment><comment><USER7> Look for designer or ux meetups near by. Excellent place to find several good and/or hungry designers.</comment>


Something like BufferBox was attempted 12 years ago and failed - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodgycoder.net/2012/08/empori-original-amazon-locker-from-12.html?v=1

<comment><USER2> No one was buying stuff over the internet 12 years ago.

<comment><USER3> Coupled with the fact there was a massive Dotcom implosion around the same time. Bad timing on Empori's part really.</comment></comment>


Where do new gTLDs stand on trademark issue? - <AUTHOR> Since trademark is country specific, and new generic TLDs are not, how shall I consider trademark while looking for a domain name? Is there any clear legal stand on this?<p>For example- wifi is registered at USPTO and in many other countries. So, perhaps, choosing wifi.us or wifi.com won't be a good idea. But, what about wifi.shop, or wifi.tech, or wifi.club? <comment><USER2> I don't recommend it if infringes any rights. You will always be exposed to loosing your name.

<comment><AUTHOR> The issue is- trademarks are not universal, country specific. So, which trademark do gTLDs respect? Only US? or even for little countries? Or no ones?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this problem is not only newg TLDs. And I should not distinguish between wifi.us, wifi.com and wifi.shop and so on.</comment>


Russia halts trading after 17% share price fall - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ff9306c-83f1-11dd-bf00-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 <comment><USER2> This is something that has been building up for a while. You could see it best in the RUR to USD rate, which was at an all-time low this year at about 23, but has been crawling back up to 26 ever since the Russia-Georgia conflict.

Is it all connected to the war or not? Many of my friends in Russian finance say it's just a 'course correction', but you never know...

</comment><comment><USER3> A great thing about Hacker News (and Reddit) is that bad headlines are quickly corrected. Your head is great - far better than the fog-filled "Russia to take anti-crisis steps on markets in days" the Financial Times offered.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell.

The heads of the Russian central bank, the finance ministry and the financial market regulator met on Tuesday night for an emergency discussion on ways to halt the crisis._</comment>


Ask HN: How could I improve my auto microbusiness? - <AUTHOR>

Hey there HN, I come to you wise entrepreneurs to ask for criticism, suggestions, and help.
I run a little micro business, it's not really unique like most people's start ups here so be nice.
I sell Auto maintenance supplies like fuel filters, air filters, break and transmission fluids to mechanics. I buy these from a middle man who buys them wholesale from somewhere. Things are going ok, I mean I don't make a lot of money, But I think I'd be able to make more money being a middleman, which I plan to do soon. Is this a terrible microbusiness? What do you think of it?
1. How do I improve my sales when my product and prices are very similar to others? In fact, products are the SAME. Motor oil doesn't change.
I basically sell by driving around and selling to people, this is extremely inefficient and costs a lot of time and gas, how could I improve this inefficient method of sales?
2. How do I branch out to other mediums, to make more sales?
3. Do any of you know any wholesalers I could purchase motor oil, fluids, auto parts from?
What should be my method of getting wholesaler's contacts? Obviously the middleman keeps this stuff secret.
4. How much experience is "enough" to start being a middleman? When do I know I can take the next step? Right now I'm a simple salesmen. It's teaching some good things about sales.
5. What things am I missing here? What should I be doing that I'm not? <comment><USER4> _"I run a little micro business, it's not really unique like most people's start ups here"_ \- For every iPad, there's a million small businesses busting a gut and doing something similar to their whole market. So don't worry about uniqueness.

Let me have a crack at your questions:

 _1\. How do I improve my sales when my product and prices are very similar to others? In fact, products are the SAME. Motor oil doesn't change._

A business differentiates itself in one of four ways - product, price, market or service. As a distribution business, you don't have much leeway to change product or price. What about Market - can you specialise in specific brands, a geographic area, or similar? Or Service - what level of service difference can you provide that sets you apart? Could be faster delivery, online ordering etc (I don't know what your competitors are doing, so these are examples not suggestions).

 _I basically sell by driving around and selling to people, this is extremely inefficient and costs a lot of time and gas, how could I improve this inefficient method of sales?_

You need to build referrals. Be asking everyone (or at least, all of your customers) who else they know that you should talk to. Can they make an introduction? Pre-qualified leads are the easiest way to improve sales conversion rates. Close behind is having the clear differentiation from above - "I specialise in quality European parts, and I see you service a lot of quality European cars" is a much better sales pitch than "Do you need any auto parts?".

 _2\. How do I branch out to other mediums, to make more sales?_

Can you explain this a little more? I assume you mean selling through mediums other than your own labour. Based on my limited experience in the industry (read: I used to own a car), mechanics don't spend much time online during their day. How do they order at present? It may be that there's no good online provider, but remember that a gap in the market doesn't equal a market in the gap.

 _3\. Do any of you know any wholesalers I could purchase motor oil, fluids, auto parts from?_

I don't. You may also need to more specific geographically with that question - are you selling them in the US or Indonesia?

 _What should be my method of getting wholesaler's contacts? Obviously the middleman keeps this stuff secret._

Firstly, can you order parts direct from the brands (eg, GM, Toyota)? Secondly, have you asked your customers - some of them would have decades of experience, and know a lot of the key players - remember to ask if they know, and also ask 'who they know who might know' because that helps you find out AND gives you a reason to talk to other potential clients.

4\. How much experience is "enough" to start being a middleman? When do I know I can take the next step? Right now I'm a simple salesmen. It's teaching some good things about sales.

Write down your business model (not necessarily a plan - just a 1-2 page document that says 'I will buy from X for $Y and sell to A for $B'. I need to sell $Z per month to cover my costs.' Also, understand how cash flow will work - if you have to cover the purchase costs for a long period before your customers pay, it will hurt, especially if you aren't expecting it.

Let me expand that point - if you buy a fuel filter for (making up numbers here) $50 and sell it for $100 then it looks like you made a nice profit of $50, and you can now buy two fuel filters. BUT, if you pay for it in March and your customer pays you in June, then you are out of pocket $50 for three months. That's three months in which you can't use either the $50 you've paid or the $100 you will receive. This is the origin of the saying 'Cash is King'.

 _5\. What things am I missing here? What should I be doing that I'm not?_

I think you're asking a lot of the right questions - how can you source the product, differentiate yourself better, and then make sales easier. Once you're making regular sales, you can learn more about efficient customer service - it's easier to sell to an existing customer than find a new one. And be sure to take some time to work out where you want to take the business - <USER3> you want a $10K, $100K or $1M business? All of your other decisions stem from a clear vision.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write such a wonderfully well thought out and helpful post. I appreciate it. On with the post!

>product, price, market or service...can you specialise in specific brands, a geographic area, or similar?

You are providing me with valuable info. Not yet since I have not found wholesalers. Parts are quiet different since they vary from car to car, they're usually sold once someone orders, no mechanic stores parts. What I sell are products that work with any car(oil, lubricants, spark plugs, lights, filters,etc) Stuff for maintenance that wears out quickly. I need to find out what my competitors are doing and provide VALUE, I need to add value to my services.

In this type of business, the customers aren't very loyal. price seems to be the most important thing. Usually, they'll buy from whoever is "there" at the moment offering them. However I have built up a number of people who I have a good relationship with to ensure that they purchase from me. Big shops that are rich are very loyal and won't budge no matter what, they don't care about the prices and they're often rude and will look down on you. I'm still young and this is a good entrepreneurial opportunity, I think. It will teach me skills for future ventures.

>who else they know that you should talk to. Can they make an introduction?

I never noticed this one at all, thanks!!

>"I specialise in quality European parts, and I see you service a lot of quality European cars" is a much better sales pitch than "Do you need any auto parts?".

Hm, so find a niche. This goes back to the need of finding wholesalers. I will definitely do this in the future. But like I said, parts are delivered to order for the most part.

Do you have any suggestion for a good sales pitch once entering? I enter, handshake, speak with the manager and tell him what I sell. I feel like it opens me up to people saying no because its so direct.

>I don't. You may also need to more specific geographically with that question - are you selling them in the US or Indonesia?

Western US. I hoped this HN would be upvoted enough that someone would know, but it seems no one has commented.

A lot of the wholesales are inconspicuous and don't advertise and are usually very hidden.

>Firstly, can you order parts direct from the brands (eg, GM, Toyota)?

Possibly, but they probably require a certain volume. At times, its cheaper to buy from a wholesaler than the main source due to order volume requirements or because the wholesaler can buy so much at a good rate.

>Secondly, have you asked your customers - some of them would have decades of experience, and know a lot of the key players - remember to ask if they know, and also ask 'who they know who might know' because that helps you find out AND gives you a reason to talk to other potential clients.

Hmm, this is good, but doesn't this make me seem incompetent? I have had some suggestions, but when I outright directly ask, "hey do you know any wholsalers" some get reserved and don't want to tell me at all.

Is there a better way to ask that's more subtle?

>Write down your business model (not necessarily a plan - just a 1-2 page document that says 'I will buy from X for $Y and sell to A for $B'. I need to sell $Z per month to cover my costs.' Also, understand how cash flow will work - if you have to cover the purchase costs for a long period before your customers pay, it will hurt, especially if you aren't expecting it.

Hm, I will write one. I usually get paid in cash, and if someone doesn't pay they usually give it to me the second day. I should work more on my accounting skills.

>This is the origin of the saying 'Cash is King'.

Very very good point. I should consider the opportunity cost of receiving something that's not liquidated. I do occasionally get checks but would rather not receive them.

>I think you're asking a lot of the right questions - how can you source the product, differentiate yourself better, and then make sales easier.

Well, thank you! I'm certainly learning a lot from you.

>Once you're making regular sales, you can learn more about efficient customer service - it's easier to sell to an existing customer than find a new one. And be sure to take some time to work out where you want to take the business - <USER3> you want a $10K, $100K or $1M business? All of your other decisions stem from a clear vision.

I definitely want to expand, but I'm sure that one cannot make a huge amount of money from selling things by traveling like this.

Usually the profit margins are 50 cents to 5 dollars max since the middleman gets his cut. They're often in the lower 2 dollar range. Profits are small!!! Car parts yield more, but I do not sell them yet. For example, a filter will yield a few dollars in profit.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write that.

By the way, I'm a bit new hear, I already searched+googled and found no answers.

1\. How do I know when I've received a reply? 2\. Is it possible to delete this thread later on? I've said somethings that are private.</comment></comment>


Repetition of REP Instructions That Don't Repeat Anything - <AUTHOR> http://xlogicx.net/?p=493 <comment><USER2> Why was the Consistent Instruction Sizes entry not posted but this one was? This entry appears to be yet another way to achieve it.

Maybe I am wrong, but if all instruction sizes were the same I could imagine disassembling by simply parsing hexdumps of binaries.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of GCC emit rep ret to work around AMD bug in branch predication.</comment>


How to Predict Whether a Startup Will Succeed or Fail: Disruption Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whether-a-startup-will-succeed-or-fail-testing-the-disruptive-innovation-model/

<comment><USER2> I think a big flaw in this is that a start-up which is 'Sustaining means having better performance than others in its field. Disruptive means it is cheaper and worse in performance, or that it creates an entirely new market.'

But isn't the disruption in the market often the ability to do something better? As the article states, the iPhone was a better mobile browsing device with a better UI. These perfomance features would have Thurston saying that the iPhone was sustaining, but it ALSO is what made the product distruptive.

The performance of sending an email over snail mail was performance, it got their instantly. So that is sustaining. But the speed also made it distruptive.

Am i missing something else?</comment>


How Algolia tackled the relevance problem of search engines - <AUTHOR> https://blog.algolia.com/how-algolia-tackled-the-relevance-problem-of-search-engines/ <comment><USER2> They make some claims about the limitations of other search engines that doesn't seem true. Heck recently there was an article that says that google feeds a lot of signals(and we don't exctly know which), into a large machine learning algorithm, which they even don't know how it works.

So algolia knows how it all works ? yeh, right.</comment>


Stack - <AUTHOR> http://www.mugiyamamoto.com/stack/ <comment><USER2> At first I thought, and don't see why this couldn't be, a scanner that eats through documents and saves a digital copy of them. This form factor would make digitizing large sets of printed records much more appealing.

<comment><USER3> I scan all my receipts and incoming mail, I doubt you would even be able to make a stable "tower" of these things. It probably only works with new paper. One of my first thoughts was also that leaving the paper open in the free would result in a lot of dust collecting on it.

<comment><USER4> I've been moving to do the exact same thing at home, to get rid of all that paper clutter. If you don't mind me asking, what scanner do you use - presumably one with an auto document feeder?

<comment><USER5> Hopefully not the Xerox scanner that can alter the documents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really interesting as an experiment in industrial design and a conversation piece. As a viable product, I have some doubt: anecdotally, when I see people printing documents, they're in something of a hurry, and keeping the pile of paper sheets aligned would be hard. If you slightly knock the printer while using it, the stack of paper may tilt to a side. And having to keep the papers aligned would become an annoyance similar to the PC LOAD LETTER of yore. Handling A4 and Letter sizes at the same time may not be possible. I don't know how being exposed in a pile would affect the humidity of the paper...

I like how it makes me think of printing as a computing process, paper as input and printed page as output, but instead of feeding the machine with input, you "feed" the input with a machine and it gives you the output. If you extend the thought, it's as if the machine disappears, and paper (the input) is processing and then outputting (printed page) itself.

<comment><USER7> > _If you extend the thought, it 's as if the machine disappears_

Indeed it does. How long was it after we discovered DNA that we discovered its 'machine', DNA polymerase? And in the end, what's more interesting?

<comment><USER8> Just to further your comment, the ribosome is another interesting machine that reads DNA and spits out little pieces of you: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is beautiful.

I love the idea of an inverted printer, where instead of paper moving through the printer, it's as if the printer is moving through the paper.

<comment><USER10> This should be in MOMA.

<comment><USER11> MoMA's industrial design section is the only part that I remember years later. Gosh, what a cool place.

<comment><USER12> The Red Dot design museum in Essen, Germany, is also worth a visit, if you are ever in central Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's a very cool project.

But I wonder how it gets over the initial friction of lifting and pulling the paper through as it goes lower on the stack. Surely there's a limit after which, you'd need to remove the completed sheets off the top?

<comment><USER14> Maybe the way they are looking at it is like this:

        Top Paper
        1 </comment></comment><comment>---
        Gap Tray
        2 </comment><comment>---
        Bottom Paper

Paper would be collected from bottom using standard scanner/paper style paper grabbing, scanned or printed to and placed in Gap Tray. Gap tray and entire top paper stack need lifted and placed back on support layer 1.

Pages would probably be upside down of their original unless they were fed back and forth.

All the paper would need lifted up, so there would be a limit, unless... a different idea would be the same thing along a horizontal track of papers.

I'm still liking the idea of a scanner shredder. [http://designforpeople.ca/?p=215](http://designforpeople.ca/?p=215)

To extend this stack design make it like an inverted shredder with a 5" shop vac hose connected to the top :P

<comment><USER13> Clever! A scanner that digitizes text as it destroys it can see some good use in a disposal/archival location.

The Gap Tray itself would still need to rest on something while it grabs the bottom sheet. There may be slightly less effort if it grabs the sheets from the side rather than from top/bottom. This way, has a shorter distance it has to pull through, but the friction may still be significant.

All this talk has really whet my appetite, though. Now I really want to see it come to life.

<comment><USER15> Clever until the scanner part breaks but the shredder keeps shredding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems as though a more practical (though perhaps more dust-prone, when empty) design would do this partially upside-down. Rather than allowing the printer to move downward though the paper, why not load the paper from the top?

One could set a full stack atop something similar to his current design using the rollers, and the finished pages could exit through the front in order to prevent them from building up below. The final roller could simply be removed and a slit added to the front such that the finished paper could exit the printer cleanly. A solid plastic sheet could then be added to catch the printed paper which folds back atop the body of the printer when it is being transported or simply not in use, perhaps to prevent the aforementioned build- up of dust.

This accomplishes Yamamoto's goal of removing the paper tray and simplifying as well as shrinking the design while avoiding the dangerous consequences of brushing past the printer while it is atop a high stack of paper.

Of course, none of this addresses a central flaw with his design. Even if two models are produced for Letter and A4 paper, there are still many other sizes in use, and there appears to be no easy way to adjust the sizes of the intake and output areas without the dreaded paper tray.

<comment><USER17> Technically you only have to adjust the size of the inlet and handle the rest in software. Since the paper would be comming down vertically, you can do mechanical centering akin to that used in industrial processes.

<comment><USER16> I like the idea, but doing so still adds a great deal of complexity to a supposedly simple design and adds a large amount to the size of the printer if one accounts for the use of legal paper. While I wouldn't mind settling on a standard paper size, the design still leaves a great deal to be desired. It appears to be more of a gimmick than anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This printer concept is also cool: [http://renelee.net/arc/](http://renelee.net/arc/)

<comment><USER19> Pretty cool indeed. The design process [1] is also quite interesting to read.

[1] [http://renelee.net/arc/2/](http://renelee.net/arc/2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The sooner the printer dies, the better.

Every company or process that makes me print something in 2013 makes me barf. Ever heard of web forms? Docusign? Email?

So, as beautiful as this is, it's solving a problem for 1960-1995.

Now, all I want to see in the printer innovation is some way to kill it off faster.

<comment><USER21> I still have paper copies of important documents from the 1980s. I have no idea where the digital copies from that era disappeared to.

Paper has its place; it's a fantastic archival medium.

I also still print out contracts to review them. They're easier to mark up that way, and I can focus entirely on the paper -- including quickly leafing through it, while comparing multiple pages -- in a way that I can't as easily do on the desktop.

Paper isn't dead yet; it still has the best UX available for many common use cases.

<comment><USER22> I have no idea where any of my important paper documents are from the 1990s. All my digital documents, though, are in my "Archives" folder.

This says more about which medium you and I pay most attention to, rather than how well paper archives.

<comment><USER5> Documents printed on quality archival paper will outlast digital media, if stored properly.

<comment><USER22> Digital media will outlast archival paper, if copied properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So based on this design concept I have to assume that they expect this printer to run on either batteries or wireless power of some sort. I don't mean to be too down on this as it is an interesting concept, but it annoys me when designers leave out things like power cords to make their mockup look cleaner than it actually is. It seems like a copout.

</comment><comment><USER24> Another cool printer:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqDk1G9zUE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqDk1G9zUE)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhLFxRgfQ8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhLFxRgfQ8)

<comment><USER25> This is definitely cool, but it strikes me as a solution looking for a problem. Mobile printers that print out a sheet much faster than this are available at pretty low cost. I'm genuinely curious to hear why someone would buy this--any thoughts?

<comment><USER26> Spiral bound notebooks(as in the video), cardboard boxes, walls and other odd shaped surfaces don't fit into printers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Would it require a perfectly stacked pile? It would seem annoying if you slightly bang in to the pile and have it be off balance.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't look like he accounted for paper that isn't stacked perfectly, but as in my comment above, it wouldn't be incredibly hard to incorporate that into the design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd be knocking the thing over all the time I'm afraid. Would probably only use 100 or so sheets at a time, though.

</comment><comment><USER29> All I see is a target for my stumbling clumsy self!

And a big cleanup job afterward.

</comment><comment><USER30> This has a very "functional programming paradigm" feel around it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Looks fantastic, but I wonder about the tolerance wrt paper alignment. I'm picturing my office where people usually rush up to the printer, grab their printout and bump the printer.

</comment><comment><USER32> That looks really cool. But what happens if the user bumps the printer? The entire stack of paper falls over, and the printer falls to the floor.

<comment><USER22> What happens when you bump the stack of 20,000 sheets of paper in your printer's tray currently?

<comment><USER33> Not much. The plastic guides do a good job of keeping the paper in place. Unless you mean the reams of paper outside the printer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Seems like it would be easy to make a model that still houses the paper to prevent tipping and would still allow for infrequent loading.

<comment><USER14> Even better, maybe turn it on its side and have it move horizontally?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I recall reading about this idea in the science-fiction role-playing game Shadowrun. It's set in 2060-2080, so technology is better in nearly all ways: including a printer design as described here. Very interesting, in the shadow of the total lack of progress in actual printer technology in the last few decades.

</comment><comment><USER36> Is there a video of it in action?

<comment><USER37> doesn't look like it. I'm beginning to think this is all hype and no real show.

<comment><USER38> It's a design concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seriously?

Another here's a CGed idea not even close to being implemented? (Which is fine except 99% of the time is because it's not possible/practical)

I know there's a claim there's a real version but not seeing pics of it? Or youtube?

</comment><comment><USER40> When I saw the first image I thought it was going to be a scanner (for digitizing the information in the stack, then recycling said stack), not a printer. That would have been more impressive to me.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does anyone remember dot-matrix printers? You also didn't need a paper tray: [http://imgur.com/4tsSx2W](http://imgur.com/4tsSx2W)

<comment><USER42> I wonder what if a laser printer could be feed like with the paper of a dot- matrix (with the tray helpers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wow. Just, wow.

The first words out of my mouth actually were "that's beautiful".

Nothing else more constructive to say, just wanted to leave kudos here for the OP.

</comment><comment><USER44> can't believe no one has noticed that he made a real life turing machine (sorta)

</comment><comment><USER45> Is this art or a prototype? I just see it on my desk tipping over. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see the kickstarter for this :)

</comment><comment><USER46> Awesome project, cool concept.

I'd imagine the single challenge problem would be wind. If people walk by or the window is open...

</comment><comment><USER47> All I'm thinking is:

What diploma?

<comment><USER48> All you have to do is click on over to the 'About' section!:

 _I 'm an Industrial Designer recently graduated from the Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne (ECAL)_

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> cool idea, but no video -- don't believe it.</comment>


FeedBurner sucks, why haven't you built a better one? - <AUTHOR> http://www.3by9.com/entry/tearing-down-the-established-oldies/17

<comment><USER2> How would you monetize this hypothetical FeedBurner challenger?</comment>