Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/12/big-tech-joins-big-banks-to-create-alternative-to-bitcoins-blockchain/ <comment><USER3> For anyone who needs a (very simplified) primer on the blockchain and why it's relevant for banks:

A blockchain is a ledger (piece of paper that records transactions) with perfect memory of every single transaction that has ever occurred within a certain network. This makes double spending within the network impossible as you can trace every single coin in the network back to its origin, verifying that your trading partner does, in fact, have the coin he claims to. This removes the need for a trusted third party to oversee/verify transactions.

This is important for banks because currently they pay a 3rd party clearing house to process transactions and transfers between them. They cannot trust each other because their transactions are not linked together in one shared network.

If they all agree to get on a shared blockchain (ledger), they can split the costs of continuously verifying the validity of the blockchain (leder) between them, rather than paying a 3rd party for the same service. This would reduce fees within the industry and reduce time between transfers.

I used to be very excited about blockchain technology and its implications for creating micro/private currency networks. Something about the financial industry's interest has really turned me off the blockchain and its possible implementations.

<comment><USER4> How do the banks ensure that aren't outmined? One of the key components of a blockchain is that no one mines more than half that chain.

If you have too many blockchains, then you split the miners between the chains and open the doors for a big player to come in and overwhelm the other miners on that chain.

I suppose you could somehow implement private blockchains where only those with the private key can participate, but I don't know whether this has been done or not.

<comment><USER5> Banks don't need mining for their chains.

>I suppose you could somehow implement private blockchains where only those with the private key can participate, but I don't know whether this has been done or not.

This is what everyone is talking about. They aren't talking about mined chains.

<comment><USER6> If there's no mining its not a blockchain. Objective truth is the innovation that Bitcoin offered. These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is technology we've had since the 80s

<comment><USER5> Bullshit. Nothing about the term blockchain implies there must be mining. This whole "it's not a blockchain without mining" thing came straight from /r/bitcoin where a bunch of people seem to think that saying something isn't a blockchain matters so they keep trying to change the definition of it so bitcoin is the only true blockchain.

>These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is technology we've had since the 80s

So what? What does that really change at all? Nothing.

<comment><USER6> It means the security is non existent. Read any of the andrew poelstra papers for details on how and why.

Subjective truth has been around for decades. No one cared about it , because its not useful. The only reason blockchains are useful now is because they enable value transmission between untrusted parties. (Which private chains don't do)

The only reason blockchain is a buzzword now is so that consultants can bilk banks for database contracts.

<comment><USER5> No it doesn't mean that at all. Just because you are unable to think up a system doesn't mean it's impossible. A basic and secure enough system is trivially easy. Which paper?

It is no less truthful than bitcoin. It need not be more mutable than bitcoin. It is just different.

>The only reason blockchains are useful now is because they enable value transmission between untrusted parties.

Right because of how current blockchains are implemented and used.

<comment><USER6> Search for "on stake and consensus" I'd link to it, but I'm on mobile right now. Btw- I know you're new to blockchains because poelstra has been writing seminalpapers for years and you haven't even heard of him.

We know things are true in a blockchain because energy went into it. If only a single Bitcoin node were alive, and 99% of the network disagree with him - <USER2> energy would point to the truth. This is what makes it objective. With subjective chains there are a huge suite of problems in the form of stake grinding and long/short range attacks. Why does this matter? Non-objective quorum based sysetms have been around for decades. They're not more efficient than centralized systems for many economic reasons, some of which were really well laid out in a Isabella kaminska paper on the subject (let me know if you need a link)

Tldr: blockchains aren't paxos or raft. Blockchains mostly suck, but do one thing well: resist censorship

<comment><USER5> That entire paper is about PoS and dynamic membership systems where the participants aren't known. Relevance to the current discussion? Zero.

All those attacks are based on unknown dynamic participants which isn't an issue. So ya argue against a system they aren't trying to implement.

<comment><USER6> So if the trust each other - passing messages in the style of SMTP (or soap) is drastically better than a hokey round robin "blockchain emulation" architecture.

At least you understand now that immutability requires energy...

<comment><USER7> This discussion might be a little above my pay-grade, but you're seeming to conflate "unknown participants" with "untrusted participants" from this response. It's possible to know someone without trusting them. I think that it's pretty apparent that there is a difference between an unknown anonymous actor, and an actor that you know, but just can't 100% trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It makes sense for the banks to do this, because they have different requirements.

Bitcoin is great because it works with an unknown set of untrusted entities, and there's no counterparty risk because the ledger _is_ the currency.

Banks have a known set of semi-trusted entities, and want to track off-chain assets. They'll still have counterparty risk, but if they see a way to use chained blocks and something like Byzantine Paxos to speed up interbank settlement, more power to 'em.

<comment><USER9> Yup. The actors don't even need to trust each other _that_ much, because they each still need to use their public key to execute a transation. The level of trust is just that everyone will play nicely, such as not purposefully ignoring transactions.

The Bitcoin model is good at incentivizing actors to play nicely. Banks have no need to create this incentive, it's already in their interest. The Bitcoin mining system also solves another problem: how to evenly distribute new money in a fair way. Banks have no need for that either.

<comment><USER10> > The Bitcoin mining system also solves another problem: how to evenly > distribute new money in a fair way.

I was going to disagree with this, but I reconsidered my initial comment and will offer this modification:

"The Bitcoin mining system also solves another problem: how to evenly distribute new money in a provably fair way to those with the resources to participate."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Ditching" Bitcoin? Wouldn't that imply that they had previously adopted Bitcoin to some meaningful extent?

Bitcoin is merely proof of concept for the underlying technology. I expect that there will be many more offshoots in the future, beyond the pieces used by the existing banking system. But I won't really care about any of them, until one of them allows me to work, buy, and sell without being forced to trust any third party that I find to be intrinsically untrustworthy--including governments, banks, cartel enforcers, mobsters, miner brigades, and Anonymous.

Not there yet. This isn't even a step in that direction.

But what I do like about this is that it _may have the potential_ to simplify mutual insurance, interbank settlement, and securities exchanges. It would be nice if the funds from an electronic transfer to my spouse could be made available faster than writing out a paper check and depositing it at a branch ATM. I would also be particularly interested if it could end certain semi- fraudulent practices, such as short positions that are not appropriately matched against a long counterparty, or speculative phantom commodities contracts that are never actually redeemed by delivery.

<comment><USER12> I don't see what advantage an offshoot would have. The current blockchain is the longest; there's no reason to ditch it.

<comment><USER11> No reasons?

The nature of the Bitcoin's SHA-256 POW means that individuals can no longer meaningfully contribute to the integrity of the chain, and this responsibility is increasingly held by fewer individuals with access to (relatively) expensive specialized ASIC machines.

The Bitcoin system has (relatively) few legit trade opportunities yet, but is well used by scammers and black marketeers.

The median person has little use for Bitcoin as it is now.

MtGOX showed that exchanges are a point of vulnerability.

Silk Road seizure showed that Bitcoin is vulnerable to rubber-hose cryptanalysis and reminded everyone it is only pseudoanonymous.

Governments have already moved to attack Bitcoin or users of Bitcoin. Mostly these are proactive attempts to defend domestic currency controls, or concerns over money laundering.

The "dust DoS" attacks have called into question whether Bitcoin can scale much larger than its current extent.

You can't use Bitcoin with Apple Pay or Google Wallet. You actually can't get an app approved for Apple's App Store if it includes the ability to send Bitcoin. Google play doesn't allow in-app purchases in Bitcoin.

There's no reason to _ditch it_ if you have already adopted it, but there's also no particular reason to adopt it in the first place, if something better might come along within a year or two. The banks aren't buying in. I haven't either.

<comment><USER13> There is not reason to use this web thing (thats fully of dirty porn and nerds) for shopping when we have paper catalogues

There is no need to send email when you can send a fax

There is no need to carry a brick with you to make calls

There is no need for plastic cards when one can use cash

And so on, just because YOU do not grasp advantages and possibilities that bitcoin has brought along, does mean the rest of us dont. I use Bitcoin daily BTW it has already improved my life in ways only rivaled by the rise of the web, mobile in last 20 years

<comment><USER5> In all those cases they were a clear improvement. Bitcoin is almost always a worse experience though.

What ways has Bitcoin improved your life dramatically?

<comment><USER11> Plastic cards are _not_ a clear improvement over cash. And actually, Fed notes are not even a clear improvement over gold and silver certificate U.S. notes.

They are better for certain, specific goals, but by no means a universal improvement.

There is no bill that I receive that I can more easily pay with Bitcoin than with an electronic bank transfer, bank check, CU draft, or money order. There is no item I want that I can buy more easily with Bitcoin than with cash, check, debit card, or credit card. It is not a reliable store of value. I never need to send or receive international money transfers. I don't buy or sell black market goods or services.

The biggest thing it has going for it is potential.

I really, really hate the giant, swinefornicating, too-big-to-fail banks. Nothing would please me more than their rapid and well-deserved downfall, as people start to use crypto to recapture more of the value of their own economic contributions, and cut out some of the middlemen charging tolls and skimming off the top. But I'll be cursed to the abyss before I replace a Bank of America with a PayPal.

All I can buy with Bitcoin right now is a tiny FOADIAF to the banksters--which would probably feel _really_ good. But right now I'd rather just give them the finger for free and use my spending money to buy pancakes instead of crypto outputs.

Still watching, though. I have been watching since 2010. I keep seeing Bitcoin users creating and using trust-dependent services rather than designing new transactions that remove the need for that trust. And then I see those services fail, to the detriment of the users.

I'm not sure what, exactly, I'm looking for, but I haven't seen it yet. It makes me wish I was even remotely qualified to write crypto at the level required to design a worldwide digital currency system. But I'm not, so I can't personally improve on Bitcoin, even though I want it to be better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Economist article on this I found good.

"The notion of shared public ledgers may not sound revolutionary or sexy. Neither did double-entry book-keeping or joint-stock companies. Yet, like them, the blockchain is an apparently mundane process that has the potential to transform how people and businesses co-operate. Bitcoin fanatics are enthralled by the libertarian ideal of a pure, digital currency beyond the reach of any central bank. The real innovation is not the digital coins themselves, but the trust machine that mints them—and which promises much more besides."

[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21677198-technology- be...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21677198-technology-behind- bitcoin-could-transform-how-economy-works-trust-machine)

<comment><USER6> This article was a PR release for factom which is an obvious scam (they sell checksums). Notarization for the underserved is not a real idea.

<comment><USER15> Brighton36 is Factom's favorite troll. Searching brighton36 and Factom will yield more information about our project than nearly any other you might use.

This idea of selling "checksums" is his current favorite smear, but it is of course obvious nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> entrepreneur: "About your open blockchain project, sir." IBM PR correspondent: "Yes, what about?" entrepreneur: "Well, it's closed source. I don't see public repositories anywhere for it." IBM PR correspondent: "No it's not closed source! It's just not available to you or anyone who doesn't have access to our network. Just ask our business partners if it's open." The Linux Foundation: "Of course it's open! Open to US!"

<comment><USER17> Here's the github link :-)

[https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger](https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger)

TLDR: there's no code in that repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just hope that any solution adopted doesn't aid or reinforce cartel-like behavior. We already have a financial system where the incumbents can easily block the entrance of a new, nimbler upstart that would disrupt existing institutions and increase productivity.

The article even mentioned at least one existing institution that has an incentive to preserve the problem to which they are the solution:

        "Indeed, some companies involved in the project may feel
        threatened by existing efforts to reinvent the financial markets
        with the blockchain. State Street bank, for instance, stands to
        lose if companies start using Overstock's technology to borrow
        stock. In the US, the stock loan business is a $954 billion
        market; State Street, known as an agent lender, is a big part of
        that. Its future depends on getting ahead of the game.

Relevant: "The Shirky Principle" by Kevin Kelly

[http://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/](http://kk.org/thetechnium/the- shirky-prin/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Reading the participants' comments below the announcement, most of them speak of an open/distributed ledger, not Bitcoin's blockchain. So it seems they really are _ditching_ the original blockchain.

 _IBM intends to contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Digital Asset is contributing the Hyperledger mark, which will be used as the project name, as well as enterprise grade code and developer resources. R3 is contributing a new financial transaction architectural framework designed to specifically meet the requirements of its global bank members and other financial institutions. These technical contributions, among others from a variety of companies, will be reviewed in detail in the weeks ahead by the formation and Technical Steering Committees._

<comment><USER18>
        "enterprise grade code"

What does that even mean? I read that and think to myself "cowboy generated spaghetti code with more bugs and more technical debt".

<comment><USER20> Without being sarcastic, I think it means scalable so that it can be deployed in a situation where you have tens of thousands of seats. Generally it also means that you have some way of monitoring that it is working across the network. Finally, it usually means that it is an integrated turnkey system that doesn't require you to separately install and maintain a lot of third party support systems that it depends on.

You can think of the opposite of "enterprise" software as realizing that if you use independent packages a,b, and c and tie them together with some shell script that it will do what you want. It's only been tested by one or two guys, but you can't see any reason why it wouldn't work for the 10,000 people on your site (famous last words...). You spend a week patching it together and roll it out on the weekend with no way to roll back if it doesn't work, etc.

Still not a fan of enterprise software, but I don't work for enterprise companies any more ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It should be noted that there is a far more interesting implication -- tech and banking giants ditch SWIFT for their own blockchain.

The blockchain and SWIFT are very similar in spirit and in actuality, and it stands to reason that there is consensus that a private blockchain network would be more robust, fast, and secure than SWIFT.

<comment><USER22> My thoughts exactly given I've designed, but not developed, tech specifically aiming to replace SWIFT. What they do need not cost so much or be so difficult. I was thinking highly secure endpoints and link encryptors to authenticate otherwise P2P traffic with optional 3rd party involvement where extra accountability is needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is the press release:

[http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news- media/announcements/2015...](http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news- media/announcements/2015/12/linux-foundation-unites-industry-leaders-advance- blockchain)

And the website:

[https://blockchain.linuxfoundation.org/](https://blockchain.linuxfoundation.org/)

Please post if there is any more information.

<comment><USER23> There are some more technical details at [https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/gcuomo/en...](https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/gcuomo/entry/The_Force_of_Blockchain_Awakens?lang=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Jettisoning any advantage to using the blockchain rather than a centralised database.

This is the snake oil phase of cryptocurrency. Or, more charitably, the not- inhaling phase.

<comment><USER25> There are a lot of misunderstandings about blockchain technology.

One of the most common is believing that everyone who uses their own chains are not using the bitcoin Blockchain, which is usually not the case (apart from some notable examples like Ripple or Ethereum), you can use the Blockchain with marked bitcoins or other mechanisms to essentially "convert" them to other currencies in a provable way.

Another is that everything that needs to be distributed should be done in blockchains, whether there is trust between peers or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Both Nasdaq omx [0] and Overstock t0.com [1], mentioned in the article, seem to use the Bitcoin Blockchain to peg their internal currency against, they're sidechains, not completely separate blockchains...

[0]: [https://coincenter.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/SecondLett...](https://coincenter.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/SecondLetterForRecord-AB1326.pdf)

[1]: [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1130713/0001047469150...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1130713/000104746915008523/a2226515zs-3a.htm)

<comment><USER26> Timestamping isn't enough to make something a sidechain: [https://blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf](https://blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf)

... unless you are using "sidechain" in a very loose, diluted sense.

<comment><USER25> I guess you mean the t0.com chain, I do agree it's not the common case where you can transfer btc in and out of the sidechain.

Would it be considered a completely separate chain, since it needs to publish the timestamped hashes on the bitcoin blockchain ? (Or any other, sure, but right now bitcoin is the one with the widest adoption)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is just a glorified DBMS.

<comment><USER22> Append-only, distributed, fault-tolerant filesystem + standard, financial protocols anyone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So this is more like a git/mercurial chained hash where the head hash proves the existence of all previous revisions? Makes sense. And call it "blockchain" just to keep enough buzzwords.

<comment><USER5> So this is just a chain of blocks that each verify the existence of all previous blocks? I can't believe they are calling it a block chain. Clearly it's a chained hash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So what is going to replace miners? What incentive will people have to verify the integrity of this new blockchain? Is it still vulnerable to 51% attacks?

<comment><USER5> When you know the participants PoW is just a waste. You can use something like round robin to determine who gets to add the next block. That means that no it's not.

<comment><USER6> Why do you even need blocks? If you trust each other, what's wrong with signed messages?

<comment><USER5> Less overhead in distribution and signed messages between individual parties doesn't allow third party(within the system ) auditing.

I can sign a message saying I am giving you $10 of Bank B's debt but there is no way with just signed messages for you to know I still have ownership of that debt.

<comment><USER6> That's not even a little true. Have you worked on finance code before?

<comment><USER5> What part isn't true?

I've worked in ETL at Morgan Stanley. So not only finance code. But their data systems.

<comment><USER6> The part about downloading entire databases to view your subset of the data. If this were an efficiency - SMTP would have blocks. Additionally, I am doubtful of your claim because information is the product of all hedge funds and investment banking operations - and to hand out your information to your competitors gives them tradable information at your expense. (Which youd know if you worked with any non-trivally finance operation)

<comment><USER5> >The part about downloading entire databases to view your subset of the data.

You're not doing this though you're downloading the entire database to verify the subset is true and you're using blocks because adding single transactions at a time when you need to have known ordering amongst a lot of participants leads to a lot of overhead that is removed by batching.

The type of information we're talking about isn't sensitive though(unless your going down the drain and trying to hide it). And yes I just made up that I worked in ETL at MS a department pretty much no one that hasn't worked in knows exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The regulators get friendly relations with the regulated, and the regulated get to decide how much cryptocurrency they get to skim because they started another blockchain that's friendly to regulators. A crony cryptocurrency. The bet is that regulators will be more comfortable with an indirectly captive blockchain and will use it as a wedge to lever bitcoin out of banking.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ripple Labs [0] have been trying to do something like this since 2011. From what I can tell, it has been a hard sell.

[0] [http://www.ripple.com](http://www.ripple.com)

</comment><comment><USER32> This makes sense. What bank would want to have a public ledger effectively advertising their customer data?

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone have a link to a simplistic explanation of the block chain and why it seems to be so relevant?

<comment><USER19> blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1]

On what the article says, transactions not relying on the _first_ bitcoin blockchain are _more_ vulnerable to 51% attacks[2]. Though if that many big corps joined, they could achieve a well established, attack-proof consensus relatively fast - \- this probably is bad news[3] for Bitcoins' blockchain "ambitions" which is considered by many a solution to de-centralize the "internet" or services depending on third parties.

[0] In computing, the Two Generals Problem, is a thought experiment meant to illustrate the pitfalls and design challenges of attempting to coordinate an action by communicating over an unreliable link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYduOfRLHq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYduOfRLHq0)

[2] [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power)

EDIT: format, clarification

UPDATE: [3] just saw the linux foundation page, this might actually be a good thing, forgive my ignorance

<comment><USER5> >blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1]

PoW aims to solve that. Blockchains are just a way to store data in an agreed format with immutability and known ordering.

>On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks

51% attacks are an issue for PoW systems. Private chains don't need PoW so aren't vulnerable to them.

<comment><USER6> Private chains are also trivially compromised. Much more so than a traditional database

<comment><USER5> Please share with the class how?

<comment><USER6> Look into nxt, peercoin, a few of the other pos chains. They all failed due to stake grinding. _read the poelstra_ papers for why pos is untenable

<comment><USER5> When you know every participant you don't need PoS or PoW you can us RR.

Like I've said elsewhere you are arguing from ignorance and because you've bought into the religion of bitcoin.

<comment><USER6> Round robin is trivially DOS'd . also, sharing your private finance data with your competitors is not an economic efficiency.

Bitcoin isnt good for very much, it's mostly just useful for value transmission and censorship resistance. You're new to blockchains and don't know that, so you intend to blockchain all the things. Which is a way more extreme view.

<comment><USER5> How is it trivially DOS'd? You don't need to share all your private data just the data about transfers using the system which isn't going to be particularly sensitive unless you are in a bad way financially and will be worth it to minimize the amount of settlements required of your business.

I'm new to blockchains? I'm pretty sure I'm not.

<comment><USER6> Look into paxos and raft attacks. You don't know enough about this science to promote it as the cure for what ails you.

As for sharing information - youre right... _if you don 't use blocks_

<comment><USER5> "RR is trivial to DOS look at these two other schemes and the fact you didn't means you don't know what you're talking about".

I think we're done here. You're not doing anything but saying Nu uh! and calling me a liar.

<comment><USER6> So you're telling this forum that the innovation here is round robin signing of network state.(not even a decent trusted consensus system like raft) I can't imagine that any halfway competant programmer in here will buy this as anything more than a trivial code construction.

Here's what will happen to your database: it'll drop the blocks and revert to a message passing infrastructure. Which is fine and good - but not in any way related to a blockchain.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Netflix Disappears from MPAA's 'Legal' Search Engine - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-disappears-from-mpaas-legal-movie-search-engine-160410/ <comment><USER2> Maybe Netflix wants to eliminate alternatives to their "display every movie we have in every category" scheme.</comment>


Into the night with Garry Kasparov and Peter Thiel - <AUTHOR> http://www.exponentialtimes.net/videos/night-garry-kasparov-and-peter-thiel <comment><USER2> I'm from Russia. And it really makes me sad that such people like Garry have to leave our country now.</comment>


Amazon Prime is getting worse, and it's making me question the nature of reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90283658/amazon-prime-is-getting-worse-and-its-making-me-question-the-nature-of-reality <comment><USER2> even if it does get worse, a lot of people will simply leave it alone and forget that they're paying 10$ per month, simply yet another monthly expense. Amazon prime knows this.

Once, you've got the muscle memory of typing in "amazon.com" in the URL bar, it's really hard to let go of it, for most people. Amazon prime knows this.

<comment><USER3> I cancelled prime awhile ago and my spending at Amazon has dramatically reduced. I let things sit in my cart and order weekly or biweekly, often removing half of the stuff I thought I wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've noticed too that when returning items, some options make you pay for return shipping (e.g., selecting "No longer needed" for the reason). I don't remember that being a thing in the past. I used to buy items, like clothes perhaps, that I had to see and feel before deciding whether I wanted it and returning was straight-forward and free. At least that's my memory.

<comment><USER5> It depends on the item and whether the seller funds 'free returns'. Some clothing sellers want to be like Zappos and offer that while others opt for lower price. At the end of the day, no shipping is ever 'free', it's always baked into the price somewhere.

One thing I've noticed is that the more I spend on Amazon (quite a lot lately), the less often Amazon tries to charge me for returns (lately that's been never). I suspect they have some kind of algo that estimates a customer's value over time vs the cost of keeping that customer happy with free returns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Isn't reality just a holographic projection though? Isn't time a construct > of human perception? In a sense, all Amazon packages have already been > delivered, if you think about it._

I deeply enjoy this conclusion, and wish that the author had explained the conceptual path to it in more detail!

</comment><comment><USER7> If you go to your prime settings there is an option to "Remind Me 3 days before renewing" if you want to cancel but have already given them your money.</comment>


Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation - <AUTHOR> https://coralproject.net/talk/ <comment><USER2> The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth...

And I would be the last to argue that comment sections below news articles are anything but a cesspool - they're notoriously bad! But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed and lip-servicey is the right approach.

<comment><USER3> Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement.

[1] [https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community- design...](https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design-day- one/#myth1)

<comment><USER4> You need more than agree and disagree to measure engagement, otherwise you're just measuring polarization. For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad.

<comment><USER5> >interesting, funny, angering and sad.

If facebook is any indication, these end up being used mostly ironically. I can't imagine they give facebook any real indication of emotion on their platform.

Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing?

<comment><USER6> >Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing?

Interestingly on my site we have a total of 31 custom reactions people can use to express their reaction to a piece. The ONLY one people feel the need to qualify is the dislike one, anytime someone uses it they qualify it with 'disliking the content, not the post'.

There's no obvious reason for it though, the dislike is just one among many and it looks the same as all the other reactions, but it's the only one to generate a unique response.

<comment><USER5> It would be interesting if _all_ reactions could have some system of reacting to different parts of a post.

Perhaps you can attach a react onto the username instead of the comment? Or you can attach a react onto a specific sentence of a comment instead of the entire comment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >In our study of gender nonbinary people of color, women of color, and online commentary, participants talked about having to constantly run a cost-benefit analysis on participation in any online conversations, based on the likelihood that they would be attacked, merely for participation.

4chan solved this problem a decade ago. Put your content before your identity rather than the other way around.

In many spaces today, being a straight white man is far more inflammatory than being a non-binary person of color. This is especially true in the open-source community.

The solution is to stop pushing your identity onto people when it's completely irrelevant. I'm not saying hide who you are. But it's simply not relevant to the vast majority of discussions.

<comment><USER7> Did they, though? The only demographics I could find on 4chan are their advertising stats, and according to that the site is 70% men under 35, mostly from the US and a handful of European countries. [1]

Doesn't really sound like a thriving wellspring of diverse opinions.

1: [https://www.4chan.org/advertise](https://www.4chan.org/advertise)

<comment><USER8> You are working under the fallacy that diversity of opinion will be correlated somehow to arbitrary characteristics such as Race, Gender and Sexuality. This is patently not true.

<comment><USER7> Those characteristics aren't arbitrary; they equate to an entirely different life experience. That means a more diverse set of viewpoints.

"People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences [...]"

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity- mak...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us- smarter/)

<comment><USER8> Sorry assumptions about how an individual thinks based on their race, gender or sexuality is clearly a nonsense. You cannot point at any _individual_ and know their thoughts. The best you can do is say "This _demographic_ in this place _tends_ to agree with this statement".

As for the the actual article you linked, the author herself has nice race- bait titles of work such as "The White standard: Racial bias in leader categorization", you can't seriously tell me that this is an objective body of work? There is also the piece she wrote called "Office Holiday Parties Highlight Racial Dissimilarities and Fail to Promote Team Unity" ... apparently the office party isn't safe from race based politics. Sorry but this sets of alarm bells in my head.

The piece itself doesn't cite any evidence for anything it claims.

<comment><USER5> If anything, communities like 4chan have helped to _dispel_ my preconceived notions about specific races, genders, etc.

People would be surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems the project isn't being so actively developed any longer?

[https://github.com/coralproject/talk/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/coralproject/talk/graphs/contributors)

Why is that? (In the summer of 2018 and onwards, 90%? 95%? of the GitHub activity abruptly disappeared)

Two other open source blog commenting system that are being actively developed are Commento [https://commento.io](https://commento.io) and Talkyard [https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments](https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments) (I'm developing it).

<comment><USER10> We're doing all the development under the next branch, a big rewrite to typescript :)

<comment><USER9> Ok :- ) Thanks for the reply. Curious about the new features / benefits / things you'll add, is there any roadmap? (didn't find in GitHub or the blog) (If you're doing more things than moving to Typescript. Typescript is great b.t.w. :- ))

<comment><USER10> We're working on a more public roadmap, but the move to Typescript also allowed us to switch out Apollo on the client side with Relay as well as some other pretty significant improvements to the software as a whole (as you said, TS is pretty great :) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Coral Talk is a Vox Media endeavor.

<comment><USER12> That certainly puts a very different angle on how this will be used, and what use cases it's targeted towards.

From prior experience, Vox outlets are extremely stringent about what they permit in their comments: specifically, only people who agree or can extend the arguments of a given article further are preserved; or quibbles about minor details. No true discussion is allowed outside the article's bubble.

<comment><USER13> Source? Those are pretty serious accusations.

<comment><USER14> Funny, I don't see these as accusations, I see these as curated engagement.

The upside is there, if you know up-front its the basis of the engagement. If its applied retrospectively it sucks, for a number of people.

But curation is not always bad. "it depends"

<comment><USER15> There's no "engagement." It just ends up with banal "I agree" posts that add nothing to the article. And it doesn't add many to them, Polygon's comment sections tend to be tiny and not worth reading, for example. You get better news and engagement on reddit.

<comment><USER12> They used to be larger, and I believe that restrictive, inconsistent moderation drove people away, but that's merely a guess of one probable cause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> non recognition of subjectivity of terms like "journalist", "annoying", "off topic", etc., used in description, don't bode well for success of this project.

<comment><USER17> The term "journalist" is no more subjective than "author" (literature) or "programmer". As with many things, the line is normally drawn where people start to making (wholly or partyly) a living from the activity or not, i.e. whether they are professionals.

<comment><USER18> > The term "journalist" is no more subjective than "author" (literature) or > "programmer".

It's more contentious than that. Journalists supposedly deal with "facts", but there's often considerable disagreement over facts or their interpretation. No matter your political persuasion, I'm sure there are "journalists" making a living on this, as per your definition, but who operate on the opposite end of the political spectrum from you and from whom you'd want very badly to strip that title of legitimacy.

<comment><USER19> I would say defining who is and isn't a journalist can sometimes be complicated and difficult, but rarely genuinely subjective.

There has been a lot of writing and thinking and discussion around what makes a journalist, and different styles of journalism, for some time now.

Ultimately the challenge is differing views of reality - disagreement about truth. I think that's the root issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The bullet list seems to describe Twitter.

I've wondered why most publishers of comments don't just give up and say "comment on Twitter." Not that I would like that, but still ...

<comment><USER21> It would be interesting to have a commenting system powered by Twitter where each article/post has a Twitter post with the article name and link so others not finding this post through your website can still comment, and the replies to this Twitter post can be pulled into you article/post and listed as comments.

<comment><USER9> > the replies to this Twitter post can be pulled into you article/post and > listed as comments

I think that wouldn't work because of copyright and Terms of Use. Probably somewhere in Twitter's ToU there's something that says you cannot copy Twitter discussions and add to your own website. — If you study Twitter's ToU, probably the people who post to Twitter, never gave you permission to include their tweets on your blog.

I like the idea, and would want to do sth simiar, but just linking to tweets, instead of "downloading" them to the blog. And the blog author could write a summary of what the Twitter discussion is about (what sub topic related to the blog post, the Twitter discussion discusses), next to the link.

I'd also like to automatically find and link to discussions at HN and Reddit and Mastodon (in a commenting system I'm developing, seem my profile)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The copy implies very strongly that comments can be a respected part of the article as a whole, and by implication - of journalism.

My experience in the past has been that comments are not taken seriously by the publisher, seemingly just added to tick the "social" checkbox. But to make a commitment to the dialogue an article can generate seems like a positive development for journalism.

<comment><USER23> Though comments are always hard, places like the NY Times have a lot of content in the comments section. Moderation helps a lot I imagine.

And some of it is kinda trash, but they'd still be better replacements for Bret Stephen's 100th "Democrats should listen to me, a person who will never vote for a Dem, on what to do" article

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It took a few clicks to find the license so here it is: Apache v2. Not bad, I've been looking at open source social network software recently and unfortunately all the widely used ones are AGPL3. I get the benefits but I could find anything reasonably of remotely similar quality that was even GPL3.

<comment><USER25> Do you have particular uses for open source social network software for which the AGPL would be a problem for your usage?

<comment><USER24> Yes, I wanted to add automated moderation policies (including but not limited to word filters) to improve conversation on a platform I was considering building, but as I understand it all the algorithms to implement the policies would have to be published with the rest of the site under AGPL

<comment><USER26> I'm not trying to criticise your decision (I think it's up to you to choose the best path that's good for you), but moderation policies seem like the ideal thing to have under an AGPL license. It would certainly allow users to know _exactly_ what's going on rather than speculate (sometime vociferously and accusatively). Obviously the downside is that being able to look at the source may allow them to game the system (and maybe it's not great for spam detection). However, even that might be turned into an advantage in that if gaming the system forces them into better ways of communicating then it's fine.

From a commercial perspective, I think you would be better off with the AGPL as well (perhaps dual licensing). I don't think you'd be able to sell such software on a per-license basis anyway (or, at least you'd not make much money at it as the audience is pretty limited). I think you'd be much better off positioning yourself as an expert in the area and selling contract services for other (perhaps proprietary) systems. Cheaper to hire you than to implement it themselves while tip-toeing around your implementation which they can't infringe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Oh look, an AUP that explicitly discriminates against sex workers and sexual minorities! I'm shocked.

</comment><comment><USER28> So....like Disqus but open source then?

</comment><comment><USER29> TLDR: Looks like stripped down run of the mill commenting system with things taken out or rearranged mostly with little common thread other than to make it more difficult to follow or connect, with typical buzzword woke commentary. Not sure how revolutionary this is when theres already tons of commenting systems that don't do any of the things theyre afraid of by virtue of being older, floating around. Pretty subpar even by the standards of HN/Slashdot vaporware.</comment>


How to Cut Mobile App Development Cost by over 51% - <AUTHOR> https://hudutech.com/how-to-cut-mobile-app-development-cost-by-over-51/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR: get a Kenyan company to do this, because they're cheaper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and professional

<comment><USER2> As opposed to...? Oh wait. You mean "hire _us_ specifically."

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just one of the many factors of cutting the cost.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Privacy Focused Ad Network? - <AUTHOR> I am soon releasing a privacy based search engine (similar in concept to DuckDuckGo, StartPage, etc).
Context based search ads are the obvious path to monetization, but I am having trouble finding an ad network that fits with principles of the site (i.e. no user tracking or storing search queries).
I have looked at Context Cue (https://contextcue.com/), but the ads are embedded with third-party JavaScript and they record users' IP address/user agent, which are both deal breakers.
Is anyone aware of an ad network that prioritizes user privacy.  I am also open to any alternative ideas to monetize the site, as long it protects user privacy and also adds value to the user. <comment><USER2> I run [https://codefund.io](https://codefund.io). We have been focusing on providing ethical advertising to support open source development for nearly 3 years. We provide both javascript-based ad embedding, as well as server-to- server. Our platform is 100% open source [1]. We do not store any IP addresses, nor any identifiable information on ad viewers. We are even endorsed by DuckDuckGo as a viable alternative to Google Ads [2]. Our platform is whitelisted with AcceptableAds.com as well [3].

1\. [https://github.com/gitcoinco/code_fund_ads](https://github.com/gitcoinco/code_fund_ads)

2\. [https://spreadprivacy.com/how-to-remove- google/](https://spreadprivacy.com/how-to-remove-google/)

3\. [https://acceptableads.com/en/solutions](https://acceptableads.com/en/solutions)

<comment><USER3> This is so cool! I've been writing ad software for the greater part of the decade, and my dream has always been to write my own small app to serve ads like how you are describing, but I'd be afraid that nobody would find value in it because there would be obvious restrictions beyond geo targeting.

It's great to see that you've proven it's possible and made it open source on top of it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not sell locally hosted ads for keywords directly? The only other way to do it would be to check in with an ad provider periodically and update your ads from their list. In my simple model, there would be no tracking, and the ads would have to have noticeable impact for customer sales to establish value.

Just to flesh that out with a little context, I posted this on mastodon a few months ago: "Maybe I should make what I hate most: an ad company. Something with no javascript, no click tracking (heck why make an ad into a link at all...), no demographic personalization, no video, and simple honest accounting of ad placement (eg, ad was on xxx.yyy for zzz days, you owe us a buck). We'll target smaller sites looking to monetize content without driving away their users, and make it easy to serve ads from your own domain to reduce the chance they are blocked. Also it will be very inexpensive. That's the right way to do it."

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree completely. That would be the optimal solution, it would just take a lot of effort on top of the focus of building the core project. I was hoping to avoid the complexity of building my own ad system and selling the ads directly, but I'm not sure if an ad network currently exists that fits my needs.

I could be completely wrong, but I believe there is a market for exactly what you describe in your mastodon post. At least I am in that very market.

<comment><USER5> ^ This has been exactly my experience too. I wanted an ad network that fit the above description, briefly thought about trying to build one, decided that definitely wasn't what I wanted to spend my time on, and held out a small hope that one day somebody would.

<comment><USER4> If you guys want to grab an IRC room for a bit, we could work out how this could be accomplished for at least a prototype.

<comment><USER5> I don't have IRC :)

What I will say is: I think the technical side is the easy part. Just serving static content. The hard part, which is also much less fun, is the business side of acquiring customers who want to advertise. Not only is there a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, it'd require marketing, negotiating, maybe inroads in certain circles, knowledge of the market, etc. That's the point at which I decided I didn't want to mess with it haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also just came across this, [https://www.ethicalads.io/](https://www.ethicalads.io/)

It looks promising, but it hasn't launched yet and I can't get the "subscribe to updates" form to send me a confirmation email.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://web.archive.org/web/20170402074823/http://decknetwor...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170402074823/http://decknetwork.net/index_alt.php)</comment>


Lists of corporate assets - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_corporate_assets <comment><USER2> Not sure if there's anything particular to discuss about this page, but it does appear on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists)</comment>


A glimpse of life after magic mushroom legalization - <AUTHOR> http://forbes.comhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryferenstein/2019/11/30/a-glimpse-of-life-after-magic-mushroom-legalization/ <comment><USER2> Your link doesn't work, actual url is [https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryferenstein/2019/11/30/a-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryferenstein/2019/11/30/a-glimpse- of-life-after-magic-mushroom-legalization/)</comment>


GoAccess, a real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer - <AUTHOR> http://goaccess.prosoftcorp.com/

<comment><USER2> How hard would it be to make this support LTSV[1]? I configure all of my apache servers to log in a LTSV style format as it makes for trivial parsing using splunk or elasticsearch + kibana

[1] [http://ltsv.org](http://ltsv.org)</comment>


Show HN: I launched a business selling locally made goods - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/fiercely-curious/bd41dd4089d2

<comment><USER2> I may be a prude, but why do you feel the need to swear both in the medium post and the website?</comment>


EU: €2.1bn to boost venture capital investment in Europe's innovative startups - <AUTHOR> http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-2763_en.htm <comment><AUTHOR> Some highlights:

> Backed by EU funding to the tune of €410 million, the funds are aiming to > raise up to €2.1 billion of public and private investment

> In 2016, venture capitalists invested about €6.5 billion in the EU compared > to €39.4 billion in the US.

> Moreover, VC funds in Europe are too small – €56 million on average compared > to €156 million in the US.

> The six funds will take stakes in a number of smaller investee funds and > cover projects in at least four European countries each. These investee > funds will help finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid- > caps from a range of sectors such as information and communication > technologies (ICT), digital, life sciences, medical technologies, and > resource and energy efficiency.</comment>


Ask HN: can I get a parking ticket? - <AUTHOR>

I think I have stumbled on an exploitable parking lot system by the beach, but I am curious about other perspectives.
Here's the setup (numbers are simplified for clarity): 1) Bunch of parking spaces numbered 1 to 500; 2) You park and note your number and go to the central payment machine; 3) At the payment machine you type in your space  number and pop in your coins (crucially you don't get any type of ticket to put on your dashboard or anything to physically indicate you have parked); 4) No gate, no guards, no roof (open-air),no sensors on the spaces themselves, basically no way to know when a car is over its time except by looking at it and checking the machine
I dont think they have any credible enforcement mechanism here. I have seen a car get a parking ticket, but I learned later that its owner made it an obvious target by leaving parked overnight.
HN, is there any credible way for the enforcement folks to catch people who don't pay? If you were in charge of parking revenues for the city what simple solution would you use in this system to catch HN readers who would get away with free parking? <comment><USER2> Random checks, with large fines.

That's how it works on many mass transit systems. There's a ticket inspection once every 200 or so trips I'm on. The ticket is $2, and if the fine is $400 or more then it's not economically worthwhile.

In this case, if there's a random check averaging once a week (obviously the best is to allow sometimes multiple checks of the same place in a day) and the average stay costs $1 for an hour, then with 12 hour per day parking, a fine of $84 or more makes it not worthwhile. It would almost certainly be higher.

All parking enforcement needs to do is get a copy of the spots which have paid, and go around checking for occupied spots which are supposed to be available.

</comment><comment><USER3> The trick in DC where you had meters on the streets, but a two hour limit, was to learn how to properly chalk your tires and parking far enough in the spot to allow you to roll the car back a foot or two - making the chalkmark appear to be 'wrong' and it looked like you moved the car.

With today's systems, they have a handheld device that tells them which spots are paid and they just check to see what spots are unpaid which have cars on a somewhat regular basis. Revenue being down usually brings more stringent enforcement.

</comment><comment><USER4> My understanding of these parking stall systems is that they often include bundled handheld devices for parking attendants. These handhelds are used to issue tickets and include a nifty feature of alerting the attendant when a particular stall number runs out of time. It is, of course, then up to the attendant to venture to that space and verify that a violator's vehicle remains parked. If they are not on lunch and promptly make such a verification you will most certainly end up with a ticket. This happened to several friends, all of whom were issued tickets two to three _minutes_ after their prepaid time expired. If the attendant is on a lunch break or if there is not a high parking turnover in your lot you might get lucky and be overlooked. Bottom line: it's a risk you are free to take.

<comment><USER5> If he could note the random inspections see if there is a pattern or maybe a standard minimal time between checks. If parking is 2$ and the fine is 400$.. you hope there is only a check once every 200+ days, thats unlikely to me. So it depends on frequency of checks and the price of the ticket.</comment></comment>


Steve Jobs had his DNA sequenced for $100K to fight cancer - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/21/steve_jobs_had_his_dna_sequenced_for_100k_to_fight_cancer.html <comment><USER2> Do you realize what this means? All I need is a DNA printer and a healthy ovum, and I can grown my own Steve Jobs!!!</comment>


Beyond the Beagle: Seven Open Source Board Projects that Count - <AUTHOR> https://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/594494:beyond-the-beagle-seven-open-source-board-projects-that-count <comment><USER2> I find the number of cool ARM boards to be really awesome although I worry about how difficult it can be to have them be compatible. I've got a Pandaboard and the Chumby guts boards (both OMAP based) which are equal parts fun and frustration.

</comment><comment><USER3> very nice info. where to buy in singapore?</comment>


Getting Some Closure with JavaScript Closures - <AUTHOR> https://jorge.modulo.blog/getting-some-closure-with-javascript-closures-3f3aa88ecf8c <comment><USER2> Awesome!</comment>


Hey.com's Slim Gemfile from DHH - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/dhh/782fb925b57450da28c1e15656779556?hn=1 <comment><AUTHOR> There's some interesting choices in there such as MySQL and Resque (over Sidekiq).</comment>


The New Silicon Valley Douchebag - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/17/the-new-silicon-valley-douchebag/

<comment><USER2> I wish articles on HN showed author, like:

The New Silicon Valley Douchebag (Sarah Lacy @ techcrunch.com) ______________________________________________________

That way I'd know not to click 90% of TC articles. I hate giving them page views for crappy/link bait articles.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll be sure to walk into the Creamery and start talking about how my company will make (hundreds of) billions of dollars when Sarah Lacy is there. It'll be a fun hobby and retribution for having clicked on this linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, an incredibly vapid piece by techcrunch. I didn't learn much and it seems to play on your feelings more than anything else. It reminds me why I dislike techcrunch...

</comment><comment><USER5> All complex ecosystems have parasites, and success breeds imitators. No news here.

<comment><USER6> _All complex ecosystems have parasites_

Come on, give her _some_ credit: at least she linked to an amusing video.

<comment><USER7> Didn't you notice? The piece was to promote the video. (Which you watched. So, yes, credit is due.)</comment></comment></comment>


Musk and Zuckerberg are fighting over whether we rule technology–or it rules us - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1242331/musk-and-zuckerberg-are-fighting-over-whether-we-rule-technology-or-it-rules-us/ <comment><USER2> Seriously? Both want walled gardens ajd keep your data as theirs. I dont see the fight at all.</comment>


It's time to ban cars from Manhattan? - <AUTHOR> https://ny.curbed.com/2019/10/3/20896837/nyc-traffic-history-pedestrian-cars <comment><USER2> I think cars should be banned from most densely populated city centers in general. There is a word describing it "Pedestrianization"

Reasoning: Cars pollute the air which makes the people living and walking in the city centers sick. Cars pollute with noise. Cars cause pedestrian and bicycle accidents.

Its nice for peoples health to be able to walk and run in open areas.

Streets which previously was used by cars can be converted to public green areas and you can also plant trees there. It would open up new green areas for cafes and restaurants.

Public transport should replace cars in such dense environments. You will thus ride to the outer part of the city park your car there and take public / electric bike transport from there.

Here is story about Spanish city Pontevedra which banned cars [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise- life...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish- city-banned-cars-pontevedra)

Wikipedia article about Pontevedra, "Pedestrianization" section "As a result, 65% of trips in the city centre are made on foot. Pontevedra was recognized in 2016 as one of the 15 best cycling cities in the world" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontevedra)

<comment><USER3> My home city (capital of the country) did exactly that and it brought a huge amount of life and new businesses to the city center. Not to mention that tourism exploded as well - the city center is now a very pleasant place to go out and grab a coffee next to a river or on a street with no loud and smelly traffic to be seen (picture during summer: [https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren- squar...](https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-square- Ljubljana-capital-of-Slovenia.-stocky-ai-14327806.jpg) )

Of course, the locals were throwing an absolute fit when the change came: "We won't be able to move furniture!", "What will the emergency vehicles do?", "How will old people cope?", "It will ruin the real-estate market!", "OH the humanity, who will WALK all the way from a parking spot?!"

Turns out - it worked exceedingly well. We need more of this.

<comment><USER4> How are they moving furniture, though? No joke, really curious how they coped with the downsides.

<comment><USER5> You just ban the most common forms of car throughput. Moving vans would be allowed.

<comment><USER6> You can also move most, if not all, furniture that fits through a house's door or elevator on a small electric van or even a (three-wheeled) bicycle.

Electric vans also could be the preferred method of supplying shops with goods. That need not be much more expensive if containers can be moved from larger vans onto such smaller vans at city boundaries.

If you have furniture that's so large that you have to hoist it up and get it into the building through a window, you likely already need a permit to use the device that hoists up the furniture.

<comment><USER7> Can confirm, have moved king-sized mattresses, large dressers and cabinets, etc via a trailer on an ordinary bicycle. It's really easy!

Where I'm from there's a tradition in the bike community called a "bike move". When you're moving, you invite everybody to show up on a certain day with their trailers and cargo bikes. Everybody packs and moves you in a distributed manner! All you have to do is provide coffee and donuts in the morning and pizza and beer for after. Fun, community-building way to move.

<comment><USER8> How? I can't feasibly imagine balancing my UK queen in a bicycle.

<comment><USER9> If you strap the mattress to the box spring to stiffen the mattress you can set it on its edge and it won't sag. Then just set the box spring and the mattress on a flat bed bike trailer and you are good to go.

They make trailers like this for big and heavy stuff: [https://www.bikesatwork.com/bike-trailers](https://www.bikesatwork.com/bike- trailers)

<comment><USER8> Okay, I would consider transporting a mattress on a bike (with a trailer) easy, not just a bike!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems to ignore freight.

First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged out via an East River pier. Given the density of population in Manhattan, which doubles to 4 million during the daytime hours, the freight requirements are large and trucks and vans are a considerable part of the existing traffic bringing goods to Manhattan and then distributing them around the borough.

Second, Brooklyn, Queens and the rest of Long Island are also supplied mainly by trucking crossing Manhattan from the same Hudson River bridges and tunnels, as well as via the Goethals and Verrazzano bridge or via the Tappan Zee bridge. Rail freight goes north to near Albany and then back south with only very limited connections for freight on the Long Island Railroad. Eliminating truck traffic across Manhattan would substantially increase costs for Brooklyn, Queens, and the rest of Long Island.

There have been proposals to put a rail freight tunnel under New York Harbor from roughly Bayonne to Bay Ridge, but there is no perceptible progress. Even with a tunnel, the LIRR third rail system is incompatible with modern container well cars and clearances are not adequate without a great deal of replacement of bridges, etc.

<comment><USER11> Worth mentioning that the NYPD does absolutely nothing (in my view) to enforce existing laws. 53' trucks routinely barrel down non-truck routes at the same time as my kids' school bus. They routinely attempt to turn down the same street and get stuck, blocking traffic for 15-30 minutes, and no one cares.

POV from someone that lives here: Leave an exception for electric trucks no bigger than a Sprinter between the hours of 4am (when bars close) - 8am. Force delivery fleets to innovate and rely more on dispatch software and small vehicles to get the job done more quickly and efficiently.

<comment><USER12> We have this simplistic idea that if we put a huge roadblock in front of small businesses that they'll innovate around the problem, when in reality they'll just go out of business, and it will take the market a year or more to figure out how to deal with the problem - all the while, more small businesses shut down because they cannot stock their shelves.

I agree with the motivation, but the execution cannot be "simply" banning how these businesses operate.

These aren't high margin businesses that can handle disruptions like this. Small business owners have mortgages to pay, and they'll just close-up shop or "simply" choose to service a different area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Banning cars, congestion pricing, Uber and taxi surchages, taxing parking spots and rental cars ... under the current NYC political consensus, personal motor vehicles are in the cross-hairs.

I actually would support this if it was part of an honest effort to improve transportation and livability in the city, but most of these proposals make it harder to live here, not easier. I suspect the real motivation is a mix of environmentalism (cars contribute to global warming) and classicism (only the rich drive cars in NYC).

NYC politicians should be focused on how to move the most amount of people, the safest and quickest way, for the cheapest cost. If they want to ban cars due to effects on the environment, they should say that maybe promote electric vehicles. If they want to tax the rich, they can simply impose a more progressive income tax structure.

The current muddled response is actually making transportation in the city more expensive, often causes more emissions due to longer rides, and has an insignificant effect on the rich while hitting the pocket-books of everyone else much harder.

<comment><USER14> > If they want to ban cars due to effects on the environment, they should say > that maybe promote electric vehicles.

Electric vehicules are usually better than thermal ones, but they're still a big carbon emitter. Except if they're shared. No individual vehicule heavier than 50kg can be considered good in terms of climate impact.

<comment><USER15> >>Electric vehicules are usually better than thermal ones, but they're still a big carbon emitter

My argument here is always that even if all electricity was produced from coal power plants(it isn't) surely it's much better to have one big carbon emitter far outside of the city, than thousands of smaller carbon emitters in the middle of the city. Yes, it is just externalising the emissions, but I think it's important to improve the air quality where people actually live, no?

<comment><USER16> That would make sense if all things are equal, but there are efficiency issues here. Having to take the extra step to convert the fossil fuels into electricity first (plus the later battery storage) means the same fossil fuels don't deliver as much power to the vehicles. That said, it's probably a wise move to move to electricity powered vehicles anyway because of the slow shift to reusables.

<comment><USER15> That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying that it's better to have a pollution-spewing plant outside of the city than drive thousands(millions?) Of vehicles right next to the areas where people walk and live and work and eat. A taxi driver idling their shitty diesel outside of my window at 2am wouldn't be an issue if their vehicle was electric. A major throughway next to a kindergarten wouldn't be an issue if those vehicles were electric. At least not due to pollution, there are still other problems regardless of the fuel used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> NYC needs to dump a lot of work into their rail system, and not slack off in the good times. They keep flipping from having one of the best systems in the US to being plagued by terrible issues, every decade.

Chicago hasn't expanded in a while, but they maintain their tracks, buy new stock and renovate stations. I don't think people appreciate how incredibly important all that maintenance is to the city. I hope Chicago can get enough funding one day to expand and start on the outer loop project, but not at the expense of keeping what's there in good condition.

<comment><USER18> Do not mix subway with rail. NYC has a subway system, it more or less functions independent from NYC's rail network.

NYC's rail network covers 4 boroughs and goes all the way to the end of Long Island. They are spending $100 million just this year alone building additional freight transfer points in Brooklyn & Queens and adding more marine barge terminals explicitly to remove more trucks entering NYC.

NYC's subway network is not owned by NYC but by NYS which is operated by the MTA, they can't really run it themselves and it's a point of political fighting.

However, there is tons being done by the MTA while people bitch and moan while dedicating no effort to educating themselves.

Over 1k new subway cars are on order (and honestly, there hasnt been a time in the last 2 decades they haven't been, the subway just requires a shit-ton of them).

There are track geometry scanning trains that run and down the lines at least once a week per line to scan rails for defects. And they recently acquired another train to do so as well. This helps reduce unexpected failures.

They have been replacing all wooden ties with concrete ties as they can. They are also switching out for continuous welded rail as they go as well.

Signal work is disastrous because the amount of track (>700 miles) AND multiple subway lines intermix meaning every mixed line needs to be replaced at the same time. All while maintaining 24/7 service, AND DONT YOU DARE DISCUSS HALTING A TRAIN LINE AT NIGHT TO EXPEDITE WORK LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD, you'll be voted out of office.

<comment><USER19> Significant sections of train lines are selectively closed at night and modified on weekends all the time for maintenance and improvements.

<comment><USER20> Don't you dare suggest that it was hyperbole.

<comment><USER19> Will I be voted out of office?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was once riding in a cab, ranting about how private cars should be banned in NYC, and the driver spoke up and said that no one who drives in the city _wants_ to drive there—they do it because they have to. They do it because many neighbors within the greater metro area aren't severed by any form of public transportation.

<comment><USER22> I'd be interested to see numbers on that (e.g. what percentage of cars are coming from which locations). There are people poorly served by transit, but Manhattan also has a _lot_ of fairly wealthy people driving, or even being chauffeured, on routes that have perfectly usable transit that they'd just rather not use. Car ownership in NYC (45% overall) is much higher among wealthier than poorer people, and especially so in Manhattan (22%). Those 22% of Manhattanites who own cars are also the ones who lobby hardest for pro-car policies, get angry when street parking is removed to make room for bus lanes or bike lanes, etc.

<comment><USER13> > Manhattan also has a lot of fairly wealthy people driving, or even being > chauffeured, on routes that have perfectly usable transit that they'd just > rather not use.

The classicist subtext you allude to above has no place in NYC transportation policy, and will likely make inequality worse. If you want to make the rich pay their fair share, then raise income or wealth taxes. A multi-millionaire won't be fazed by a $10 congestion surcharge, they'll keep driving their Hummer directly through midtown. But the commuters from Queens or Staten Island, the senior citizens that can't easily walk down subway steps, the families car-pooling their children to different activities, and the countless businesses that need to lug equipment and supplies around the city will feel the pain.

Perversely, congestion pricing will probably benefit the rich. It will clear the streets of folks that can no longer afford to drive, making their Hummer joy ride through mid-town much more pleasurable.

<comment><USER22> The proposal in the linked article isn't a congestion charge, but to just pedestrianize many roads in Manhattan. I agree with you that congestion charges aren't an ideal solution for a bunch of reasons, one being that affluent people can just pay their $10 and drive through, as you note. Another problem with them is that congestion charges don't really make roads safe for non-automobile road users, in the way that pedestrianization does.

What annoys me personally about rich Manhattan types with cars is mostly their political influence. Fewer than a quarter of Manhattanites own cars, but the ones that do have historically been disproportionately well connected in local Democratic machine politics.

<comment><USER13> > What annoys me personally about rich Manhattan types with cars is mostly > their political influence. Fewer than a quarter of Manhattanites own cars, > but the ones that do have historically been disproportionately well > connected in local Democratic machine politics.

I've lived in Manhattan pretty much forever and don't own a car. Most "rich" people I know in this borough are rich because they bought an apartment in the 1970s and are now millionaires on paper based on their apartments current value. They may have outsized influence, but they've also lived here for a long time. While I can understand your irritation, they are not exactly an insignificant constituency (22% of a population is not trivial).

The super rich have always been in NYC, and will be able to get around however they want. Transportation policy should not mix with classicism on either side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This sounds like it would suck big time for musicians and the like who have to transport gear to bars and whatnot, which I've done plenty of times since high school (I live just outside the city in NJ). Having to carry all my gear like 10 NYC blocks (or more) after having to pay tens of dollars to park in a garage (what would availability even be?) would definitely make me think twice about trying to get gigs there. My girlfriend's an artist and does shows there occasionally, and she'd be in the same boat.

Obviously I'm not saying "there'll be no art or live music in NYC if this happens!" I have a car and unless I have a damn good reason I don't drive into the city, especially during the crazy traffic hours (the PATH trains run all night). I think we need to consider what other damn good reasons people have for driving into Manhattan before we consider something as radical as this.

<comment><USER24> "No street would need to be completely cut off from vehicular traffic; emergency services could get through and transport for the disabled, just as they do in places like Ghent, Belgium, where the city center has been car-free since 2017."

Every street is still accessible by car. You simply wouldn't want to go on the pedestrian streets until you absolutely have to because like in car free European cities today, you'd be intermingling with pedestrians with a speed limit of like 5mph.

You'd simply drive the vast majority of the way on the car streets, and then the last 20-30m on the 5mph street so you can take your stuff up to your doorstep.

<comment><USER25> If that's what you're proposing, there's no need to use clickbait words like "ban cars from Manhattan". You're just shifting the incentive structure so that people will be less inclined to use a car.

<comment><USER26> Yes, the article is horribly misnamed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I believe our governments should designate a new class of Urban car, similar to the Japanese "Kei cars".

The "Urban EV" would have to meet strict requirements: Electric Vehicles only, within a small size of footprint (smart car sized) and have pedestrian anti collision safety features.

The EVs could have cargo trays as well for deliveries.

Pedestrian zones with Urban EV access (scooters, ebikes included) could utilise a small bike lane sized road down the middle of the pedestrian areas with dotted lines to keep the EV traffic moving efficiently. Despite this, pedestrians and vehicles will be maneuvering around each other. Of course, EV's would be expected to give way to pedestrians by law.

Urban EV zones could eventually also be linked together with bike lanes and tunnels.

This would simultaneously make for more cyclist friendly cities while accommodating and making far more modern, social and interesting urban environments.

<comment><USER20> Freeing road space with smaller cars are equivalent to adding roads. You wind up with the same induced demand problems and it is still stupendously less efficient than buses, trains and pedestrian space. The same goes for folks waving self-driving cars as a magical talisman that will "fix" car traffic. You can't fix car traffic. You can only replace it with different modes of transport.

<comment><USER27> You make good points but its not 'all or nothing'. Small, efficient modes of transport like bicycles, ebikes and scooters attached to sharing apps is a correct step forward in urban mobility.

If we zoned cities pedestrians first with smart public transport we have plenty of room for 'ev bike lanes' for small personal mobility vehicles across huge areas (think 14 x 14 city blocks) it would look vastly different to the congestion you are describing from cars owning the spaces

<comment><USER28> Yes!! There is no one-size-fits-all transportation method.

And some people - notably, those with disabilities - are at a disadvantage with most options. It shouldn't be a requirement, for example, to spend multiple hours on buses just to run one errand because it's the only accessible solution.

Cars are designed for high speed, multi-use, multi-environment, safety- critical use cases, that are a byproduct of the environment cars have to drive in, and how they are operated. Take out most of those requirements and we'd have lightweight, cheap, tiny contraptions that fit cities better. You can even build cars that fit in bike lanes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Future citizens will look back at objections to banning cars from Manhattan like we look back at objections to smoking in New York bars and restaurants -- like throwbacks to a dirty, barbaric era we would be horrified to return to.

I remember showering after getting home from bars and the smell of smoke coming out of my hair. People claimed we'd lose business to Hoboken bars where people could still smoke.

Within a couple years, Hoboken had to ban smoking in bars and restaurants to stop losing business to Manhattan.

</comment><comment><USER30> For months after 9/11/01, everywhere below Canal St was closed to most vehicles. It was wonderful to wander around there.

<comment><USER31> there were a couple days after sandy like that too, it was lovely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I agree in concept. But it's time to whip MTA into shape and get an efficient, punctual subway and bus system before it's time to ban cars.

Give me European style efficiency and punctuality in public transit before telling me about European-style plans that make me use public transit.

</comment><comment><USER33> Can the title be amended to reflect that of the linked article? That is, please drop the nonsensical question mark.

</comment><comment><USER34> The American worldview on (the necessity of) cars is going to be hard to shift, but boy oh boy would it change your country for the better.

Sincerely,

A European.

<comment><USER35> When you go to the US you will see that apart from very dense city centers there are a lot of people living pretty far away from the next town with nothing in between. There is no practical way, right now, to live without a car if you are in such a situation.

<comment><USER36> That doesn't excuse doing nothing in the cities.

<comment><USER35> Sure, but it will not solve the problem that most people will need cars to get around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dawg- Get cars out of all city centers, not just the big ones. I live in a small town pop. 15,000. Our little main street is clogged with parking spaces and cars. For 15,000 people! Instead they could rip out the asphalt and make it a pedestrian zone with lots of green space...and the downtown business owners would probably reap the benefits. But nobody is willing to do anything drastic.

</comment><comment><USER37> I freaking love public/pedestrian streets. Wish there were more of them at least.

</comment><comment><USER28> Has anyone calculated how fast you could go from downtown to uptown with a bicycle and no traffic? Maybe the best way to galvanize public opinion is with hope: show them things can be much better, and they will want it.

You could plan a day to shut down some street for 100 blocks and do a series of stunts. Mock up bus and bike lanes, and do trial runs all day of bikes and buses moving up and down the corridor. Then run the results in the paper with the title "the future is here".

<comment><USER12> There are a lot of elderly people living in the city that cannot ride a bicycle. ...and what about when there's a foot of snow on the ground? Or pouring rain? Should everyone resign themselves to suffering?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Please do ban cars from Manhattan. Went in to have dinner the other night on the lower east side, and yes we drove and it's craziness. I stress out like mad every time I have to contemplate doing it. I'd rather never do it again, but if they really want to ban cars from the island the transit lines from NJ and CT would need to add a lot of capacity, especially on weekends.

</comment><comment><USER39> Cars work because they solve for the first and last mile (50yards) problem. Public transport is great - but it is coarser than private cars. Even timetabled buses cannot drive down every road

The "right" solution is presumably "sharing" car stack (no not Uber style sharing).

But boy I am not sure the politics or even economics stack up.

<comment><USER40> Your legs also solve the first and last mile problem.

<comment><USER41> Not everyone has a fit and healthy pair of legs

<comment><USER42> What percentage of people do not? 1%?

<comment><USER41> Probably 10%+ if you include the elderly and others who can't comfortably walk a mile or two

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A nice writeup about the recent NYC 14th street closure by Signal Problems [https://signalproblems.substack.com/p/miracle-on-14th- street](https://signalproblems.substack.com/p/miracle-on-14th-street)

</comment><comment><USER44> You still need ambulance access everywhere and delivery access almost everywhere. So you need a lot of vehicle infrastructure even though it's mostly unused, and vehicles must suddenly share the space with pedestrians instead of pedestrians having sidewalks and designated crossings. Pedestrian streets exist in most cities but the problem of making each street a safe place for pedestrians while ambulances and delivery trucks can still access them isn't a solved problem. A couple of vehicle terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years highlighted this issue.

<comment><USER45> The common solution found in European cities is to have one street reserved entirely for pedestrians, and to allow delivery access from the two adjacent, parallel streets. But of course this requires a certain amount of infrastructure within the buildings.

<comment><USER44> Yes, and obviously it only makes it possible to make half the streets pedestrian streets in an area. To make every street in an area pedestrian-only you'd need a different solution. Deliveries can often be handled in early mornings for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> As real not snarky rhetorical questions - how does an aging populace get around a city without cabs? When I injured my leg last year I found just how unviable it was to commute by crowded subway during rush hours on crutches. It gave me sympathy for the disabled and elderly. For all their faults, Uber and Lyft were the lifeline which let me get my kids to school and get myself to work until I healed.

</comment><comment><USER47> To interested readers: the title references a few paragraphs in the beginning and end of the article. The article mostly concerns itself with a history of NYC and streets, which I personally found irrelevant and boring.

I work a few blocks from 14th St and, man, the place was eerie this week. I really liked it and support the concept of banning cars, even as I own one because I live in the far reaches of an outer borough.

</comment><comment><USER48> Yes, it is time to ban personal transport vehicles from Manhattan. Leave buses and delivery vehicles since everything is stocked by them, and work vehicles like police perhaps. The problem is this will never get implemented on any non geologic timescale. We need a clear vision like this, but also a non-racist version of Robert Moses to just make it all happen.

<comment><USER49> > vehicles like police perhaps

Policing itself changes significantly when much of the population isn't in a car. And police may be able to see crime in action rather than reaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Wouldn't you still have to allow delivery trucks? Otherwise how would business get packages and pet stores get pets?

</comment><comment><USER51> Ban cars from Manhattan?

Yes, provided you have peripheral routes (the circle around Manhattan), improve the medieval-like subway conditions, and have a good (preferably electric) bus system that's still allowed.

</comment><comment><USER52> To me its crazy that parking in Manhattan is so cheap that a family on the Train would cost more than parking (in cheap buildings). On Sunday street parking is free!

</comment><comment><USER53> YES. Ebikes in tunnels.

</comment><comment><USER54> It can really change the vibe of the city

</comment><comment><USER55> No, just do what countries like Singapore, Japan, and Korea have done.

<comment><USER56> What do they do?

Of the countries you listed I've only been to japan. Besides great public transit street parking is mostly prohibited and many streets naturally aren't well suited for cars at all, turning them into something very similar to German pedestrian zones.

<comment><USER55> Yes Japan and Korea have fantastic public transportation, and walkable streets that aren't dominated by cars like those pedestrian zones you're referring to.

Singapore restricts the number of cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I didn't read the whole article but would this include banning trucks that bring in goods? What about trucks that help residents move to and from the city?

<comment><USER58> Not at all. The plan is to ban private vehicles and through traffic within the cross town streets (East-West direction, numbered roads) in Manhattan.

Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all traffic. The smaller streets is where the ban would go into a place making them a single grade mixing zone for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles. Service vehicles (delivery, garbage, taxis) can access these smaller streets but at a <10MPH speed.

<comment><USER59> > Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all > traffic.

Wasn't 14th just closed to cars starting this week? [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/nyregion/car-ban-14th- str...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/nyregion/car-ban-14th-street- manhattan.html)

<comment><USER58> Yes, but that's to manage L train shut down problems.

There's a meaningful difference between a stop gap plan to address immediate problems and larger change in how we think about transportation within New York

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Unfortunately, New York City was built at a time when people rode horses, and its streets reflect that. And you can't just widen a street, certainly not in a city like NYC. You would have to destroy every building on one side of a street, and build new buildings, all for a gain of a few feet.

Large megapolises like NYC need to start exploring the concept of 3D streets. Instead of having a single street level, on the ground, start building skyways between skyscrapers, where both cars and pedestrians can move. Take 45th Street. You could build a second street 20m above the ground, straddling the buildings on the eastern side of the street. You build ramps at both ends, and you build your aerial street through the buildings. This would require heavy modifications, if not outright reconstruction, of the buildings in question, but this is the way of the future for large, dense cities in this millenium. Our current approach to city design is primitive, and quite frankly medieval. We still build cities the way we built them in the Middle Ages: independent of one another, standing next to each other. But as NYC's traffic woes show, this is not enough anymore. If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without restricting car ownership, then you need to make way for more cars.

Or you could go underground. But I don't know if that's a viable option in a city with a subway, and straddled by rivers. You would need to protect your underground highways from water infiltration. And you can't hollow the ground below your city too much, lest the millions of tons of steel and cement and glass above the ground start collapsing.

Tl;dr we need to start building Coruscant.

<comment><USER61> When has building more roads for cars ever resulted in fixing traffic. The solution isn't to try and make the city more car friendly, it's to remove the cars entirely. Move to streetcars, subways, trains, busses, anything that moves crowds of people rather than 1-5 people.

Cars are such an incredibly inefficient model for moving people around in dense areas -- every person gets their own engine, several chairs, storage areas, and a couple tons of metal?

> If you want to reduce traffic in large cities, without restricting car > ownership.

You don't have to restrict car ownership to make people stop owning cars. Just make the alternative much better -- why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my own vehicle?

<comment><USER13> > why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I > could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my > own vehicle?

Many kids growing up in NYC rarely get to leave the city. They don't get to go upstate, see real nature and open spaces, go camping, hike a big mountain, swim in a natural lake, or experience the things that a large city cannot offer. Many never get a drivers license, rendering them immobile outside a major city, locking them in place.

For families in NYC that do not own a car, the only way to access these experiences is by renting a vehicle. Yet, New York charges a 20% tax on rental cars, and another 20% tax on paid parking spots, driving up the cost of renting a car to over $120/day, out of reach for many families that want to escape the city for a day or experience nature.

If NYC really cared about reducing inequality, and providing families access to experiences that everyone should be able to enjoy, they would eliminate these taxes and make car rentals/shares easier and far less expensive.

<comment><USER62> Can't you take Metro-North for a bit and then rent a car outside NYC (and its surcharges and taxes)?

Is it really faster to drive a rental car from NYC than to take a train out, especially on a Friday evening?

Also, one reasonable approach to this particular problem is to permit cars on West Side Highway and FDR Drive but not otherwise in Manhattan. You can go _around_ the city core but not _through_ it.

<comment><USER63> Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried, etc. They're ruining almost the entire waterfront for most of Lower Manhattan.

<comment><USER13> > Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried

If you lived the thrill of driving down either of those highways, with their amazing views, tightly packed cars, so close to the water, you may disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Thats the most selfish idea ever. As a single you can live in on manhattan without any cars sure, but got a family, need to do summer camps in jersey but live in brooklyn.

It would make life so much more difficult, and for what? Some wellmeaning but regressive environmentalists who dont need a car. In copenhagen its a disaster imo, and thats a small city.

Big cities are big for a reason, a lot of activity. If you want less car exhaust there are many amazing areas less than 30 minutes from manhattan.

This honestly sounds like political overreaching. We dont need it, especially when there is no actual alternative.

<comment><USER65> I don't understand the Brooklyn - Jersey rationale, you can already make that trip by car quite easily without needing to drive through Manhattan (eg via Staten Island)

<comment><USER64> Yes today, because manhattan takes som of the traffic. Forcing it around would increase congestion.</comment></comment></comment>


What are Bloom filters, and why are they useful? - <AUTHOR> https://sc5.io/posts/what-are-bloom-filters-and-why-are-they-useful/ <comment><USER2> Bloom filters are awesomely nerdy stuff. But seriously, blog with no comments section? D'oh.

Would have liked to ask how do you decide how long to "teach" so that you don't degrade your filter? And also when speaking about efficiency the blog post totally omits the overhead cost of "teaching" (or "warming up" if you have cache mindset).

<comment><USER3> Ideally, you'd initialise the filter with all the elements at startup. Obviously, the complexity for this is dependent on the number of elements to be added + a constant overhead for the number of hash functions k. So, for n elements, it would be O(kn) or O(n).

Adding elements degrades the filter and and deciding when to stop adding elements is purely down to what worse-case false positive probability you are willing to accept. The equation for this can be readily found online, but put simply, the probability p is a function not only of the number of bits in the filter's array, but also the number of elements already added to the set.</comment></comment>


What's Even the Point of Exit Interviews? - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/07/exit-interviews-advice-quitting-work-honesty.html <comment><USER2> Even if you told them,they don't care how you were treated. They want to know what exactly drove you over the edge and what better environment and opportunity the competition offered you.

Exit interviews help future "stay" interviews. So when another person turns in their notice,they now have a list of things they can work with to try and keep them.

Also, they know you will avoid saying negative things if you're smart so they look for patterns of things people who leave are _not_ saying under that specific managment compared to other teams.</comment>