If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl Reactor No.4 core - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/If-I-ingest-a-grain-of-sand-size-piece-of-the-Chernobyl-Reactor-No-4-core-what-would-happen-to-my-body/answer/Carl-Willis-2?share=1 <comment><USER2> I'm baffled at the fact that the answer is entirely about radioactivity. Rather than that, uranium in itself is highly toxic (I mean, chemically).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is purely hypothetical, as like he noticed, the fuel particle is not soluble in gastric acid. The damage would be much less than that.

Inhaling the similar amount of finely powdered radioactive dust is another story, though.

<comment><USER4> What movie was that?

<comment><USER5> Season 2 of 24 I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Me, riding the whole body counter in SP1430, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, after being inside the Unit 4 "Sarcophagus"

What do people do who actually go _inside_ the Sarcophagus these days? I assume there's monitoring that needs to be done, but I also assume that you can monitor a lot of this remotely. Also, how much longer until Chernobyl is considered "safe"?

<comment><USER7> The Chernobyl New Safe Confinement has two cranes inside, and a lot of sensors. Incidentally, it's a great engineering project. The only downside is that if you visit now, you can't see the sarcophagus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Couple naive questions:

1\. How does a piece of spent fuel end up in a "grassy bit of ground" outside the reactor? Thought it would have all melted in one big clump in the same spot?

2\. Why is Chernobyl still so dangerous if literally ingesting the spent fuel isn't super bad? Or is Chernobyl no longer dangerous?

<comment><USER9> 1\. There was an explosion (edit: two explosions) that began the incident which destroyed the reactor and ejected matter a significant distance.

2\. Chernobyl, IIRC, isn't really so dangerous to visit but you should avoid eating or drinking anything in the exclusion zone. Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 will poison you from the inside out. The latter ends up bio-accumulating in bone.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't that also apply to all the wildlife in the area? Are there no animals inside the exclusion zone? I get that cancer rates and birth defects would go up, but that's a bit different from being poisoned, the implication a lack of survivability.

<comment><USER11> The exclusion zone is actually resembles a wildlife refuge these days. From reports of the numbers of animals present it seems like human populations are much worse for wildlife than low levels of ionizing radiation and other contaminants from the disaster.

<comment><USER12> The animals' populations have rebounded, especially those, like wolves and foxes, who's habitats are least compatible with humans. Still, mean lifetimes, fertility rates and mean body mass are down, while illness are up. This also applies to some plant species. In no way was Chernobyl a strictly good event for wildlife, just that removing humans took away a very strongly negative factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good to know. I was worried for this girl :) : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejZyDvtX85Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejZyDvtX85Y)

<comment><USER14> I had a feeling it was a bionerd23 video before I clicked that link... she has some pretty scary radioactivity videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is worth noting that there is almost literally no mention of potential health impacts; almost all the outcomes listed in the answer are regulatory.

On the one hand, that might be good regulation - we don't want workers getting harmed. On the other hand, it serves as ongoing evidence that getting worried because a situation exceeds regulatory standards is foolish.

Given how little attention he gives it the "marginally higher theoretical likelihood of later detriment such as cancer" turns out to be something trivial like less damage than done by drinking sugar water or not exercising.

<comment><USER16> Heath impacts are literally the first thing mentioned. "probably nothing; certainly nothing obvious and immediate"

A grain of sand is extremely tiny and solid so it's also got a very low surface area. Further, if it was suck in your lung you would get significant radiation to the same tissue, but in your digestive system food would act as a barrier while also pushing things along.

From a regulatory framework it's enough to detect and be concerned about which is interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

This masterfully illustrates the relative risks of various sources of radiation, something that the typical person on the street knows almost nothing about but thinks they do

I live in Japan and read up on this topic after the Fukushima disaster

<comment><USER18> Which one is 3.6 roentgen, which is not great, not terrible?

<comment><USER19> 3.6R is about 37mSv. So the bottom left one, "ten minutes next to the Chernobyl reactor core at the time of the meltdown", also the top right "maximum yearly dose permitted for a radiation worker" is 50mSv too - I guess the show did its research.

<comment><USER20> The "ten minutes next to Chernobyl reactor core at the time of meltdown" is 50 Sv, not 50mSv.

3.6R was measured by the small dosimeters on site (and also happens to be their maximum read value). The bigger dosimeters didn't work or also maxed out and the person in charge didn't believe it.

The show mentions a 1500R value later on but outside the reactor building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had a really hard time with the title displayed here, which is a truncated version of an already-confusing title on Quora. The actual title, with, I think, desireable punctuation included, is "If I ingest[ed] a grain-of-sand- size piece of the Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 core, _what would happen to my body?_ "

</comment><comment><USER22> There are things much scarier and devastating than uranium. It took 10 micro- grams(10^-5 g) of Pu-210 to poison(ARS) Litvinenko. You cannot see that amount - so tiny it is. And the damage is almost 100% gamma rays - so its hard to detect and the damage is lowered when handling and maximal when ingested.

</comment><comment><USER23> A discussion about the everyday occurrence of radioactive sources may be more productive.

<comment><USER24> Here or in the Quora post? There's plenty of people here that know quite a bit about reactors and radiation. Ask away.

<comment><USER23> Both. This question seems like a way to emphasize extreme dangers of radiation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I left with more questions than answers...

<comment><USER26> As it is usual when reading Quora "answers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've watched this interesting (but long) talk by Brian Sheron, retired director of Nuclear Regulatory Research:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryI4TTaA7qM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryI4TTaA7qM)

It gives me a better understanding of the risk of nuclear power, particularly for current US reactors, and what our regulatory agencies actually focus on: really it's on preventing direct radiation induced deaths, and not so much on property damage. So: It's not so much that accidents directly kill people, instead they kill the land. The idea is that loss of cooling incidents are contained for a significant amount of time- at least 8 hours. I'm dubious, but this is thought to be enough time to evacuate people from the land that will eventually become contaminated. Only when people move back do people die, and then only from increased cancer risk (Brian says this becomes an EPA problem). So now the land is lost, because who would move back? [of course this focuses only on deaths from radiation, and not for example, deaths caused by stress to elderly people forcibly relocated].

I did not remember when people were evacuated after the Fukushima accident, but it was pretty quick, here is a timeline:

[https://www.oecd-nea.org/news/2011/NEWS-04.html](https://www.oecd- nea.org/news/2011/NEWS-04.html)

There is another question I'm still trying to answer. If the final heat sink is lost (someone blows up a dam), can the reactor be shut down without incident, assuming no blackout? This would require that the decay heat is spread across a large enough surface area. I'm not sure if the containment building provides such an area (a 1000 MW reactor generates ~70 MW decay heat after shutdown). It reminds me that this is another area that NRC does not focus on: "terrorist attacks are a military problem".

Edit: well I answered my own question from wikipedia entry on containment building: "While the containment plays a critical role in the most severe nuclear reactor accidents, it is only designed to contain or condense steam in the short term (for large break accidents) and long term heat removal still must be provided by other systems." So if the heat sink is a man-made lake held by dam, it's a big risk (of course dam loss would cause direct loss of life anyway). I was wondering about this because my inlaws live near Duke Energy's Oconee Nuclear Station, on man made Lake Keowee [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Keowee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Keowee)

</comment><comment><USER28> Gotta love the conclusion:

"In summary, it is preferable to not eat spent nuclear fuel."

<comment><USER29> It was interesting to see that it truly was only "preferable" and not "mandatory" or "this will kill you" IMO

<comment><USER28> That's the interesting thing: it's not really very hazardous, but it is awfully annoying.

<comment><USER30> To be fair, it has had several decades to decay, and the most dangerous radionuclides are the ones with short half-lives and thus high output. It's pretty amazing that it's still that dangerous given it's had over 30 years to decay.

<comment><USER31> Noob question, if it decays so quickly, how come there's so much of it around this late in the Earth's history? Or was it created only decades ago, by artificial means?

<comment><USER32> Some things decay quickly and some very slowly, forming a sort of chain where the events might happen fast-slow-fast-fast-superfast-superslow-slow-fast- medium-fast-slow, or something like that.

So these fast-decaying things disappear quickly but are also being constantly created by things spontaneously decaying into them. The point of a nuclear reactor is to increase the overall rates of decay, so you end up with disproportionately large amounts of the short-lived isotopes as opposed to what you would find in nature.

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

If you scroll down you see thorium series, neptunium series, uranium series, and so on. You can see the half-life at each step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> really puts my mind at ease

</comment><comment><USER34> If we were to make an analogy between radiocative matter entering the body, and toxic information entering the mind, what metrics do we use to measure the dangerous effects of the information? How long it lasts or how deeply it can modify conscious/subconscious brain processes?

<comment><USER35> There's no such thing as dangerous information, only truth and not truth.

<comment><USER36> I disagree having read about people who work as content moderators for websites like YouTube. They frequently suffer from acute forms of PTSD having only passively consumed information. If information can cause PTSD, I would consider that information dangerous to one's mental health.

<comment><USER24> Not to mention simpler examples like the anti vax movement. Which has put not only individuals in danger, but whole populations. There's plenty of examples of information leading to harm.

(This comment is neither a recommendation for censorship nor a push for freedom is speech)

<comment><USER36> That's true. I also thought of something like state secrets where a government agent might show up one day and make you disappear.

But that type of information is only indirectly dangerous. The actual danger is the government agent or your personal actions based on misinformation in the case of antivaxx.

I was thinking more in terms of information that is objectively dangerous. Just ingesting the information alone is enough to cause damage.

I was also reminded of an article I read recently about artists and animators who worked on the newest Mortal Kombat game suffering from PTSD due to the graphic nature of their art and the reference materials they had to use.

<comment><USER24> > I was thinking more in terms of information that is objectively dangerous. > Just ingesting the information alone is enough to cause damage.

I think there are cases for that too. But it depends on your psychology. For example there are mathematicians who have studied infinities and gone insane. Others haven't. Probably other factors involved, but it helped push them over the edge.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979) - <AUTHOR> http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/tot.htm <comment><USER2> I tried to read it but the code sections appear very small on my screen. Almost unreadable.

But glad to learn about APL. In this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXpgCjaxU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXpgCjaxU4) he uses aplcloud.com Looked very nice but the price is very high. Can you recommend a similar free service to play with the language?

<comment><USER2> Dyalog appears to be free [http://www.dyalog.com/download- zone.htm](http://www.dyalog.com/download-zone.htm)

<comment><USER3> At the bottom of their homepage there's a link to an online APL interpreter: [https://tryapl.org/](https://tryapl.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is a great set of notes on the topic: [https://github.com/hypotext/notation](https://github.com/hypotext/notation)</comment>


Pluggable Phone Technology Movement - PHONEBLOCS.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoneblocs.com

<comment><USER2> This website is not affiliated with the real [http://phonebloks.com/](http://phonebloks.com/) project. The creator, Dave Hakkens, isn't asking for any money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Indeed. This is scam material in the making! Just check the whois for an obvious sign its a fake.

phoneblocs.com (fake) Registrant Name: Wy Ifi

phonebloks.com (genuine) Registrant Name: DMJ Hakkens

Any chance of this link being altered or removed?

<comment><USER4> And there is also this, where Dave says specifically that he is not taking donations: [https://twitter.com/davehakkens/status/378204427363946497](https://twitter.com/davehakkens/status/378204427363946497)</comment></comment>


McDonald's Says Goodbye Cashiers, Hello Kiosks - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-says-goodbye-cashiers-hello-kiosks/#4978f4576f14 <comment><USER3> > While some consumers may appreciate the novelty or added convenience, the > conveniences come at the cost of entry-level jobs.

Added convenience? In the past, someone else would translate my spoken word into the inputs that the computer screen required. Now, I don't have to speak, but I do have to figure out how to use this interface. Any bets how long it takes me order my food? If Wawa is any indicator, at least 3 times as long.

(Insert secondary rant about the "convenience" of DIY grocery checkout. I cannot stand those things!)

<comment><USER4> One of my local grocery stores just got rid of a bunch of their checkouts in favor of self-service. It's OK if I'm just picking up a couple of barcoded items. But it's a huge PITA for things like produce to the point where I've largely switched to another chain.

<comment><USER5> I got so fed up w/ the poor service at my grocery store that I've been using Amazon Prime Now for groceries. So far, so good.

<comment><USER6> I used to live in a Peapod area, and it was awesome.

Amazon's grocery service in Seattle was also my go-to for a while.

But where I am now, Amazon Prime/Amazon Pantry is close to double the store price or more for fresh items. For example, a gallon of milk is $1.49 at the neighborhood supermarket. Prime Now is $5-6/gallon. I like largely because you can only buy organic.

<comment><USER4> I used Peapod for a period when I had a broken foot. Maybe I'll give them another shot one of these days.

I don't get Amazon Prime. I can get Instacart but not for Whole Foods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This discussion has already devolved into a war of slogans and soapboxing. It's barely been an hour.

I can't really blame HN. The article focuses on minimum wage and largely blames it for automation, and the author is under the impression that it's still possible to go from working the register to CEO.

This is not a good article. It lacks any insight or perspective.

<comment><USER8> It was an article written by the CEO of McD!

<comment><USER7> Someone conceived in a McDonalds restroom the last time he was its CEO would almost be able to drink legally in most US states now. The US was in the middle of an economic boom in 1997. He does not have a relevant perspective.

<comment><USER9> I think there's a big difference between "he was CEO 20 years ago" and "he does not have a relevant perspective".

He has at least as relevant a perspective as any commenter here, though of course I believe he has way more relevant experience, having been the CEO of McDonalds. If you think he didn't face anything like these kinds of issues, you're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find it interesting that much more automated fast food actually did exist for a long period of time and fell out of favor.

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

<comment><USER11> That looks like it's more about serving the food automatically rather than ordering it. With the kiosk, the food is still served the same way, but the ordering involves less people.

I can see the automat process being less desirable because there's an unknown, and obviously longer time between when the food is prepared vs when it is served. With the kiosks the food is still served pretty much immediately after it's prepared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > A study by University of Virginia and Middle Tennessee State University > economists found that teenagers who held part-time jobs in school had annual > earnings that were 20 percent higher than their counterparts without > experience six to nine years after graduation.

> These entry level jobs such as flipping burgers or taking customers orders > teach teens valuable jobs skills such as customer service and applying basic > math skills. Skills that could ultimately lead to the career stepping stones > for a working teenager to become an engineer or accountant.

I think these are good points, but I think that we should be careful that we're not giving young people advice that's obsolete. Times change!

Here's a thought exercise: Imagine the time when the first jobs for hourly pay came into existence. What advice was the older generation giving to the youth of that time? (I can imagine my elders telling me that it'd be important to learn to take care of animials, or harvest wheat, etc.)

<comment><USER4> I suspect that it's a lot less about any specific skills and more about earning money, showing up for work even when you don't want to, etc. I suspect that if those same teenagers worked on a farm part-time (or perhaps even played organized sports) instead, they'd also do better than their counterparts who didn't.

<comment><USER12> Very true and exactly my point! Maybe "showing up" by logging in to Facebook to socially influence others and increase your employer's followers is _just as effective_ at giving young people life skills as flipping burgers was back in the day. Let's not constrain ourselves to burger flipping because that was a thing once upon a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the kiosks at least in Manhattan. No line, I don't have to deal with a moody cashier, and the menu is more complete. It's like using the Starbucks App.

<comment><USER14> The only item I semi-regularly enjoy from McD's is a McDouble Like a 'Mac. Unfortunately when I tried a kiosk, I couldn't order it. If they go 100% kiosks and not offer this delicious mod, I will no longer be their customer.

<comment><USER15> hmm... I'd like to try this. Is that how you order it? "I'd like a McDouble like a Mac, please"

<comment><USER14> Exactly

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the basic idea is good.

In Germany we already have many such Kiosks, but you can still go to a regular person and buy your stuff, without using this computer.

I had the impression many people don't use the Kiosk, don't know why.

My take is, you're standing right before a big screen and everyone behind you can see what you're doing, which feels kinda awkward.

Maybe they should have used an app for this.

Only you can see what you buy, you can take as long as you like, pay online, get your number and with it your food without the need to stand in line or something.

</comment><comment><USER17> FYI this is an opinion piece written by a former McDonalds CEO. As for my opinion, I welcome the kiosks as there will be less communication barriers and greater order accuracy. Innovation will always lead to a reduction in human labor costs, but we should not artificially keep human labor where it's not needed.

</comment><comment> yoz-y I can't read forbes anymore since it only displays a blank page to me. Personally I have been using kiosks at Mc Donald's for years. Compared to self checkout at grocery stores, they are usually a good experience. My only problem is that some of the promotions don't work with them.

<comment><USER18> Same here. I use uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and https everywhere.

Edge opens the page just fine. My eyes are bleeding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used to work right near a McDonalds in Los Angeles that has had two of these in addition to cashiers for a few years.

Here is what I've noticed:

\- All other things being equal and given the option, it seems that most people went to the human cashier. I can't ever remember seeing a person using one of these if there was no line at a person.

\- During peak traffic times (lunch hour, as this McDonalds was near a bunch of business parks) they often needed an employee manning the kiosks to answer questions and help customers who got stuck. In this case, it was one employee for two terminals, but it could probably have been a 1:4 or 1:6 ratio no problem.

\- Kind of unsurprisingly, people you would assume were not good with technology (older patrons) seemed to struggle more and take longer to order and get stuck more.

\- There was a little bit of a learning curve to be able to confidently use on quickly, but even once I had gotten the hang of it, going to a cashier was always faster. Having a friendly, categorized, nested UI is just slower than what the cashiers have. Also, the terminal touch screen wasn't super responsive.

This all leads me to believe that this really isn't that big of an issue at this point. I expect to see a hybrid style approach like we do we self- checkout at grocery stores, where you have the option to do it yourself, but it's not the only option.

No matter how simple they make these to use, it's still a new "thing" to learn. Frequent McDonalds customers may opt for the terminal, but infrequent customers aren't going to want to take the time to learn how to use these, especially when they are in a rush or have other pressing issues (imagine a one parent 3 screaming children type scenario).

<comment><USER20> The nested UI kills it for me. It's so goddamn slow and irritating, especially if the submenu doesn't have what you're looking for. The pictures of everything are huge. It's not a menu, it's a web site.

I literally have an easier and faster time ordering food from Japanese fast- food places, with the entire menu being listed in Japanese and me knowing only enough kanji to distinguish pork from fish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good, one less person to screw my order up.

<comment><USER8> A human is still reading the order and making your food. I've had mistakes with mine that were very obvious like "No cheese" yet I still get cheese

<comment><USER15> So... like they said. Down from 2 to 1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've had nothing but positive experiences with the kiosks.

As for automation reducing the amount of available jobs... well, yeah, that's going to happen. Humanity will adapt. It's what our species does best.

</comment><comment><USER23> I rarely, if ever, go to McDonald's at home. However, I realized that the kiosks in foreign countries allow you to order in english. They are quite convenient if you want food quickly but don't want to deal with a language barrier. I am looking forward to seeing more kiosks at fast food places in the future.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have two problems with this approach to cost control. Neither is concerning the potential loss of jobs (or at least the lack of need for additional hires).

First, I don't think it will be more convenient. Sure, it is much more convenient for McDonald's to do this. But probably not for the user. Is it really easier to press a bunch of buttons on a system you don't use that often? Or is it easier to just verbalize what you want to a human being and have them enter it appropriately because they are more familiar with the system and can do it faster? I think it's a no-brainer that just saying what you want is far better for most consumers. If you order the same thing whenever you go and memorize how to quickly enter it, then it could be simpler. But that's probably the only case. That's what I do at Wawa - <USER2> always get the same sub so it's not time consuming for me to order. If I got different stuff, it would take me longer to order than just telling someone.

The other issue I have is that this whole concept of adding devices supposedly improves the bottom line of the company but they will surely charge customers the same prices. It also provides the customers with _less_ service, not more. I remember when Applebees was testing out the same thing - trying to push everyone to order on those table devices that they have which have the games for kids on them. I outright (but politely) refused and requested a normal server/service. They happily obliged. But the reason is because it's more of a pain for me to put in the order and then it's an annoyance to call someone by pressing the button to notify them like they are flight crew on a plane.

Things get more complicated if you have coupons, or special requests. My wife is currently pregnant and these kiosks were at the McD I went to recently. She had asked for the McD big breakfast but since she can't have the sausage due to her pregnancy she wanted it totally separated so I could have it. Now I have to, presumably, type in notes for my special request?

Another thing I just thought of is the issue with errors in ordering. When McD (or anyone else) currently makes a mistake, it's on them. But now there's a chance that I will enter it wrong by incorrectly using their system. I'll never make a mistake ordering verbally. There's a decent chance I mess up when doing it via kiosk.

</comment><comment><USER25> "I started working at McDonald's making the minimum wage of 85 cents an hour. I worked hard and earned a promotion to restaurant manager within just one year, then went on to hold almost every position available throughout the company, eventually rising to CEO of McDonalds USA."

Howmany people didnt make it up that far?

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been using the McDonald's iPhone app, which shares the same objective as the new kiosks. Besides several glitches here and there, I definitely think that's the future. However, I wonder if it is a humanity milestone to liberate us from cashier jobs.

</comment><comment><USER27> Tried this a few years ago, it was interesting. Foreign country, not very good at the language. Sure, let's try the kiosk. What I didn't think of that they would mumble the number of my order when I was supposed to pick it up.

Tried this recently again, it failed horribly.

Enter local McDonalds, see huge queue at normal counter and short queue where you grad your stuff.

Notice new kiosk, choose stuff, it works flawlessly and quick.

Try to pay with card, machine doesn't accept my card. Now I have to use the long queue to pay. Awesome. Of course the card worked there.

That's my main problem with these "automated" things - it's fine for the regular use case, but you better not run into any trouble (which is not your own fault).

</comment><comment><USER28> This move is extremely bad in terms of execution. At least the one I see in France.. gosh, I don't even want to go to McDonalds. It's ridiculous both in technical and cultural terms.

The old cashier / queue was part of the spirit. Rush hour sucked but after seeing the new 'decoupled' scheme, I regret waiting 10minutes for my hamburger.

The kiosks are damning, huge and not very efficient, often breaking the space in the worst possible way.

The kitchen which was a tense flow of cooking is now a boring sight of randomness. The other employees are looking at each others waiting for someone to answer their ticket number.

Almost comical. Bonus point, there's opportunity to snatch some receipts and get free lunch from time to time.

<comment><USER6> I agree. The kitchen seems far more chaotic now that the employees are all answering to a computer. And when something goes wrong, there's nobody with the training or authority to fix it.

And because the customer has to stand around for ten minutes waiting for the food, you have nothing better to do than watch the kitchen mayhem. Half the staff running around. The other half waiting for something to happen so they can start running.

At least, that's how it looks in America. In Germany, it seemed to achieve the goal of a well-ordered, speedy kitchen.

<comment><USER28> Yeah I understand there are different 'implementations'. But I've seen the same in a totally different company. Work was split vertically, each employee was responsible for handling from a to z. It had issues but it wasn't chaotic. Then consultants came with horizontal decoupling. We were all devoted to a piece of the task, and then nobody knew what the hell was going on. Things were bouncing back and forth. It's nobody's job since you "talked" to the kiosk and employees aren't there to give you something. It's not a restaurant, it's a badly designed factory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The McD's up the street has a couple of these but they don't accept cash which makes it necessary to for me to use the cashier since I'm a 99.99% cash-only person.

The main benefit AFAICT is they only use the fancy table tents so they bring your order out to you, using the cashier is hit-n-miss on those things and seems to totally depend on how the cashier's day is going.

One thing I have noticed lately is there's a whole lot more kids doing the entry-level jobs at McDonalds these days, for a while it was almost exclusively older folks and the youngins were just out of luck trying to get a foothold in the job market.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have a friend who works for a McDonalds competitor (a Little Caesar's) in a small town in North Dakota, where McDonalds is already the big spender at 15 bucks an hour, not because they desire to replace entry level jobs, but because hiring people who are competent and reliable is a literal day to day struggle.

This seems like the inevitable result of both the pressure to hire decent workers and a desire to keep costs down.

Once customers become fluent in the interface, I can't imagine businesses not adopting it en masse. What's to lose, if you're struggling to keep meatspace workers?

</comment><comment><USER31> Soon, I imagine places like McDonald's will let people pre-program their favorite orders into their phones and order via something like NFC. Walk up, wave your hand, and your order is in the queue.

<comment><USER32> Most have apps for ordering ahead of time already:

[https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/mobile-order-and- pay.html](https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/mobile-order-and-pay.html)

[https://one.chick-fil-a.com/](https://one.chick-fil-a.com/)

[https://www.wendys.com/wendys-app](https://www.wendys.com/wendys-app)

[https://www.bk.com/app](https://www.bk.com/app)

[https://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile- apps/mystarbuck...](https://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile- apps/mystarbucks)

<comment><USER33> Mobi2go.com sets up apps like this for any restaurant chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of those things where I wonder if it will be faster, or take longer. I'm sure the idea is to have multiple kiosks open so that more people can order simultaneously, so that would typically result in faster orders. But having stood behind many people at the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines watching them figure out how to use it and decide what they want to drink, I can see this making things a lot slower even with 2-4 times the kiosks vs human cashiers.

<comment><USER34> In Denmark most macdonalds in the capital area have kiosks now, there is never a line and they are pretty intuitive. No problems at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I prefer kiosks for these type of transactions. The only problem I see arising is if a customer has a specific question about a menu item, though I can't remember the last time I had a question like that.

Maybe the 3-4 cashiers this displaces can now focus their efforts on helping out in the kitchen or perhaps roving the dining area providing Chick Fil A level service by getting me refills or taking my tray away.

<comment><USER36> > Maybe the 3-4 cashiers this displaces can now focus their efforts on helping > out in the kitchen or perhaps roving the dining area providing Chick Fil A > level service by getting me refills or taking my tray away.

I suspect the 3-4 cashiers this displaces will add $45-$60/hour of operation to the franchise's profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is someone in the world already working on the 3D printing of the cheeseburger? With the Mac food being so standard why even use a single human in its preparation? Get a 3D printer and open the shop. BYOD for the consumer UI instead a kiosk, too.

<comment><USER38> How would 3D printed food even work? You would grind the ingredients into a paste first then extrude them all out into some vague semblance of their original form? It's not as if you can 3D print cheese, tomatoes and beef from the same substrate without Star Trek levels of quantum mechanical superwoo.

Someone posted a link to a startup a few weeks ago[0,1] that wants to try automating food... that's more likely to be what fully automated fast food would look like.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17368139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17368139)

[1][https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/creator-hamburger- robot/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/creator-hamburger-robot/)

<comment><USER37> Who said they should be printed from the same substrate? Color printers is a thing, right?

<comment><USER38> That's usually what people seem to think of when they consider 3D printers, because that's what 3D printers tend to do.

Otherwise to "3D print" a tomato slice you would spray tomato slurry layer by layer into the shape of a tomato slice, which would just be silly and far less efficient (and probably more expensive) than having a person slice a tomato.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> They make it sound as if the reason for the switch is the minimum wage raise but in reality they would do it anyway. Human cashiers probably have less communication with customes than kiosks so not much to lose there.

</comment><comment><USER40> The kiosk UI looks pretty slick actually:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL6dWNi-o7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL6dWNi-o7Q)

<comment><USER41> I thought for sure the McDonalds Kiosk would be woefully worse than a real cashier. So I tested it. My goal was to order a cheeseburger with extra pickles, no salt, and no onion. Boy was I wrong; not only was this stupid easy to do, it was probably easier (and quicker and more accurate) than a real person taking the order. I walked away seriously impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> At our local McDonald's there are 9 kiosks and yet no one is ever at one. The lines at the human cashiers are as long as ever.

</comment><comment><USER43> Our Wal-Mart has self-checkout kiosks. It's usually convenient, unless you've got things to weigh.

</comment><comment><USER44> We need basic income.

<comment><USER45> We used to have tens of thousands of low paid telephone operators. As recently as 1984, AT&T still employed 40,000 of them.

We didn't need that profession either.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/04/us/once-a-friendly- fixtur...](https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/04/us/once-a-friendly-fixture-a- telephone-operator-finds-herself-obsolete.html)

<comment><USER46> There's almost 4 million employees in the fast food industry in the US, so the problem is a few orders of magnitude bigger. Also, what happens when the pool of jobs for unskilled workers dries up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> If a person does a job of a cashier, should that person be compensated appropriately for their time?

<comment><USER45> That's not the question. The question is whether the job should exist at all vs the cost of a fair wage in that job if it does continue to exist.

Should we hire five million people to unnecessarily sit and click a button or type out phone numbers to send text messages and connect phone calls to their destination through a switch in the cell networks? We could make it that way. Rhetorically how much would that job be worth? That's why it doesn't and shouldn't exist.

<comment><USER47> If machine is capable of doing the same job as human, then machine should be paid salary that could be then used for healthcare, electricity or education.

<comment><USER15> That's an absurd statement.

The job it replaced doesn't just go away. The people who made the machine can either sell it or lease it for a profit. That's where the job goes. To the machine-maker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is literally what Andy Puzder threatened to do back in 2016. We cannot leave labor decisions to capitalists. They are the class enemy.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/23/andy-puzder-on-automation- if...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/23/andy-puzder-on-automation-if-robots- take-your-job-the-minimum-wage-is-zero.html)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonalds-ceo- labor/mcdon...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonalds-ceo- labor/mcdonalds-ceo-sounds-positive-note-on-trumps-labor-nominee- idUSKBN15H2QS?type=companyNews)

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder if the workaround will end up being to order at the drive through window with a person and bring your meal into the store to eat.

<comment><USER50> Seem to recall a few years ago McDonald's testing out routing the audio from the drive thru to a call center in India. Not sure how it turned out but probably is still an option if they want it to be.

I rarely go to McDonald's but the last two times I was there I would have preferred the kiosks. Not because the employees weren't good at their jobs but because the menu boards with all the items and prices were filled with animated graphics. By the time I'd find the section with what I was looking for, it would disappear and be replaced with some animation pushing a product I didn't want. Finding the price difference between a sausage biscuit and a sausage McMuffin shouldn't end up being like playing a puzzle app on my phone.

The kiosks likely try to upsell too but ultimately you have to be able to find what you want on it to be able to order for the kiosk to work.

<comment><USER6> _> Seem to recall a few years ago McDonald's testing out routing the audio from the drive thru to a call center in India. Not sure how it turned out but probably is still an option if they want it to be._

It's like that the two McD's closest to me. But I don't think it goes to India. I think it's domestic. Or at least North America.</comment></comment></comment>


Perfect forwarding and universal references in C++ - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2014/perfect-forwarding-and-universal-references-in-c <comment><USER2> I find this stuff frustrating because it's so hard to figure out if I'm implementing it properly. I can't rely on trial and error, or compiler verification, because errors manifest as extra copying or other inefficiencies, instead of observably wrong behavior.

In fact it's often hard to even figure out what's going on at all. For example, in the MyKlass case.

        v.push_back(MyKlass(2, 3.14f));

What's being invoked: a move constructor or copy constructor? How would you verify? You could maybe add a move or copy constructor with some logging, but defining either of those can change which one gets invoked! So I guess you have to hunt through the assembly.

Here's another case that terrifies me. Testing with clang 3.5:

        return a; // invokes a's move constructor
        return true ? a : a; // invokes a's copy constructor
        if (true) return a; else return a; // elides constructors using RVO

So even when you do get it right, seemingly irrelevant changes can silently break it. It's so fragile!

How do other C++ programmers verify that they're getting this stuff right?

<comment><USER3> These days I am writing a lot of C++11 code. I find that I write two different kinds of objects:

1\. copyable objects like

        class RGB { int r, g, b };

2\. big complex things that should never copy but can move

        class Foo { Foo(const Foo&) = delete; };

In case of (1), I don't care if move or copy constructors are used and I am happy that the compiler will decide. In case of (2), if by accident I invoke a copy constructor, I end up getting a compile-time error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not sure what C++ brings in as a language.

If you want to get an idea how your code will work or even if it going to work at all you have to first understand type deduction rules which are seemingly completely unprincipled. When I compare the "rules" of C++ type deduction to functional languages' type inference algorithms I can easily understand how the latter work but I have no clue about what justifies the former.

Yet, in C++, if I want auto type inference on my recursive factorial function I have to write "return 1;" syntactically before (i.e. where the order is the relative position of _bytes fed to the compiler_ ) "return n*fact(n-1);", otherwise the compiler is unable to find the type. I just don't understand. The type deduction rules (say reference collapsing) are rocket science and take a full blog post as their justification, but basic unification algorithms known in the PL community for literally decades cannot be implemented in the standard?

This language seems plain crazy, this kind of article makes me wonder why people think it can be a reasonable choice for any kind of software project.

At least, C can fit in a brain.

<comment><USER5> > I am not sure what C++ brings in as a language.

C speed of execution, while offering support for large scale programming, OOP, functional, generic and plain old imperative programming.

Ability to treat user defined types as first class citizens.

Standard library that offers all mechanisms to avoid the traditional C pitfalls in terms of memory/resource leaks and out-of-bounds errors.

> This language seems plain crazy, this kind of article makes me wonder why > people think it can be a reasonable choice for any kind of software project.

Except for Ada, very few languages offer similar capabilities and Pascal like syntax is out of fashion.

> At least, C can fit in a brain.

Can you master all compiler specific behaviours not covered by the standard?!?

<comment><USER4> > Can you master all compiler specific behaviours not covered by the > standard?!?

No, and the good part is: I don't need to :). All my programs are standard C11 (- concurrency).

<comment><USER6> I think his point was that the standard (even C11) leaves a great deal of implementation-specific behavior.

C++11 has the same problem (as it has the same implementation specific behavior as C), but the standard library allows you to avoid most of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not a bad article, but I'm so sick of the term "universal references". Perhaps useful for explaining things to the uninitiate, but a more technical understanding requires the knowledge that rvalue references can be made from any l- or rvalue.

So when I see "Don't let T&& fool you here - T is not an rvalue reference" \-- yes it fricking is! And if you're going to work on a low enough type-level that you need perfect forwarding, you NEED TO KNOW THAT.

<comment><USER8> At C++Now 2014 there was some agreement on renaming 'universal references' to 'forwarding references'. Apparently, Scott Meyers, the guy that came up with the term universal references, even agreed to update his upcoming book with the new term.

<comment><USER7> At least "forwarding" specifies "for use in perfect forwarding", but it must be made clear that this term refers to the syntactic phenomena and they are not distinct from rvalue references.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> C++ is getting more complicated and hence less interesting every day.

How is Rust solving this particular issue?

<comment><USER10> The fact they won't deprecate anything is appalling. There are warts on warts on warts for sure and just about any criticism of C++ has some basis.

It may be surprising for you to learn that from the perspective of a programming something C++11 is simpler and more straightforward than c++ was previously. Believe it or not. I know didn't think it would be.

<comment><USER11> They do deprecate things, e.g. exception specification and the auto keywords was re-purposed.</comment></comment></comment>


Simpson's Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://vudlab.com/simpsons/ <comment><USER2> The Omitted Variable Problem is part of my mental framework that causes me to not believe most epidemiological studies, especially ones that confirm a popular belief.

The almost universally omitted variable is health-consciousness. Some people are health-conscious and some aren't. People who are health-conscious do a whole bunch of things, some of which help (like exercise, sleep well, eat moderately). They also do things that are widely believed to be good for you, like eating broccoli.

So if you do a study, you'll find that people who eat lots of broccoli are healthier. You'll be able to confirm pretty much any widely believed health folk wisdom, unless it's something quite harmful, as long as you omit health- consciousness as a variable.

<comment><USER3> Surely some studies account for this? If you look for people who do X and people who don't and just analyze their lives, yes this problem is likely to exist. But if you take two randomized samples of a the population and say to group A, "do X," and to group B "don't do X," you have an effective control group. At least I think so. Don't some dietary studies even provide the participants with custom food regimens to try to eliminate extra dietary differences between study participants?

<comment><USER4> You're describing a randomized controlled trial and not an epidemiological study.

<comment><USER5> You are mistakenly confounding that epidemiological and observational.

Epidemiology studies can be randomized or observational.

<comment><USER4> Interesting...what would be an example of a randomized epidemiological study?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Simpson's Paradox is scary if you've not seen it before, but you should not stop here and instead proceed _immediately_ on to omitted variable bias and the conversation here ([http://normaldeviate.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/simpsons- parad...](http://normaldeviate.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/simpsons-paradox- explained/)).

In short, Simpson's paradox occurs because probability distributions and causal claims _are distinct things_ which behave differently. It's nothing more than a particular, insidious example of correlation not implying causation. It's perfectly possible for a probability distribution to have a "contradictory" shape, but perfectly impossible for logical statements about the world to be contradictory.

The resolution is that you shouldn't let your probability distributions turn into logical statements without analyzing your causal assumptions. This will lead you to whether or not excluding a variable is omitted variable bias (and whether including an improper one will lead to included variable bias, which is rarely recognized).

</comment><comment><USER7> The point of an interactive illustration like this is that it should make it more intuitive and easier to understand than the core concept, not more confusing.

What is the meaning of the green and purple lines on the graph, why do they have different gradients and why can't I adjust them? Why does the Simpson's Paradox apply sometimes and not others? Why are there so many bars and donut charts? What does the gray circle around the donuts mean? Information overload.

<comment><USER8> I feel as thought both graphs with purple and green lines are accurately explained. Were you trying to skim through the article or were you still left confused after reading it? The top one is explained in the accompanying text and the bottom one is explained with a labeled x and y axis and relies on the information provided above.

<comment><USER7> If the article describes the subject adequately, what is the point of the graphic? I found the interactive graphic more confusing than the description.

Compare and contrast to the clarity of their central limit theorem demonstation [1] vs its wikipedia page [2].

[1] [http://blog.vctr.me/posts/central-limit- theorem.html](http://blog.vctr.me/posts/central-limit-theorem.html)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem)

<comment><USER8> By that, I meant that the article described what the graph was representing, not that the article described the information presented adequately. Also, I absolutely disagree with the assumption you made that graphs shouldn't be present if the information is presented in the article. It's good to provide visual demonstrations when applicable in order to help clarify subjects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of Anscombe's Quartet: four datasets that have the same mean, variance, correlation, and linear regression, but are really very different. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet)

<comment><USER10> maybe we'll do that one next!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Judea Pearl has formalized a resolution to Simpson's Paradox:

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.34....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.34.8955&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

An oversimplification of his idea would be to say that given assumptions about the causal independence of variables, it becomes clear which way you should group the data. Although it's not always possible to make these independence assumptions, _much_ of the time they are obvious and uncontroversial.

Taking the Berkeley gender bias case as an example: We know it's possible that biological gender influences which department graduates apply to, but that it's impossible that the department a graduate applies to influences their biological gender. This fact alone tells us that we need to look at the data by department rather than in aggregate, resolving the paradox.

<comment><USER12> Well, it certainly makes more sense to look at the by department data rather than the aggregate data. But I would say that the fact that we see such large disparities in which departments are applied to is already enough to refute the idea that male and female applicants are pretty much the same, and that therefore it would be pretty reckless to conclude any sex discrimination based on the difference in acceptance rates.

<comment><USER6> And Pearl's point is that the "real world" logic you just applied is both important and not statistical—you need to augment your analysis with these causal assumptions in order to translate probability into meaningful causal statements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reading up on Simpson's Paradox again made me realize something: women retrieving custody more often than men appears to me to be a perfect example of Simpson's Paradox. Overall, women get custody more often than men, this is true, but if you consider only the cases where men actually asked for or attempted to retrieve custody, this is no longer true[0].

[0]: [http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/chi...](http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/child_supportcu.html)

<comment><USER14> How to interpret that, though? Seems likely to me that who asks for custody would be influenced by their chances of receiving it. How many of those cases are "contested custody"?

Then that article places the claim "Additional evidence, however, indicates that women may be less able to afford the lawyers and experts needed in contested custody cases (see "Family Law Overview") and that, in contested cases, different and stricter standards are applied to mothers." without providing any data. So it ends up being a propaganda piece, which makes it not very trustworthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> FWIW, Simpson's paradox is a "veridical" paradox, not a "vertical" paradox as noted in the article. Apparently veridical isn't yet accepted by spelling checkers. (As I'm writing, Chrome offers the single suggestion "vertical" for my "veridical".)

</comment><comment><USER16> For me this was far better explained in the following text (also posted on HN not so long ago): [http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt- impl...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt-imply- causation-then-what-does/)

</comment><comment><USER17> It's nice visually but the text-based information could be more thorough - which would result in less links at the bottom.The more info contained on the page the better!

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone interested in this stuff should definitely watch the lectures from the Stats 110 class from Harvard that's up on iTunes U (and perhaps other places).

Lecture 6 talks about this paradox and if I recall correctly he might even talk about this exact case:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/statistics-110-probabilit...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/statistics-110-probability/id502492375)

</comment><comment><USER19> That is some sexy javascript.

<comment><USER20> My first thought as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had a hard time understanding the last graphic, because I was reading on an iPad, and the sliders don't work. I thought it was all static, and couldn't match the numbers in the graph with the previously mentioned numbers, as the defaults of the sliders do not give a simpson's paradox.

</comment><comment><USER22> Really interesting text, thanks.

But I think this last statement

"or Texas schools to waste money copying Wisconsin."

was meant to be the other way around

<comment><USER23> I may have read it wrong, but I think the statement is correct. Texas minorities outperformed Wisconsin's, but the stats made it look like Wisconsin's minorities did better.

<comment><USER24> To elaborate: Black students in Texas outperform black students in Wisconsin, hispanic students in Texas outperform hispanic students in Wisconsin, and white students in Texas outperform white students in Wisconsin.

Overall test scores are higher in Wisconsin only because white students in both states are the highest scoring group, and Wisconsin schools have a higher proportion of white students than Texas schools.

To the extend that any of this can be copied, it would probably be better for Wisconsin to improve the test scores of its ethnic groups to Texan levels, rather than for Texas to emulate Wisconsin's lilly-whiteness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Those interactive charts and graphs!! (My first encounter with vudlab and am loving it!)</comment>


What do you want someone else to build? - <AUTHOR> https://somebodybuildthis.com <comment><AUTHOR> During lockdown, we wanted to start a business and didn't know what idea to start with. The result: we made a site dedicated to crowdsourcing ideas for entrepreneurs who want to build them.

What ideas do you wish were built? What problems do you need to be solved?</comment>


Show HN: Proscenium Journal – 1st Free Journal for Playwrights - <AUTHOR> http://www.prosceniumjournal.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello!

Proscenium Journal is a startup literary journal -- the first literary journal exclusively dedicated to publishing plays. Proscenium publications are free of charge and readily accessible online, allowing playwrights to share their work with a large audience. With Proscenium, we hope to revolutionize the current system of play publication. We just released our first issue today. We hope you like what you see! We're happy to hear any feedback!

Thanks!

-The Proscenium Team</comment>


YC-like accelerator right outside Chicago taking applicatons - <AUTHOR> http://www.techfoundry.org

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in Valpo where this is taking place. I've helped with some mentoring with people running this program but am not affiliated with it financially/as a job. Just think it's a neat program and would like to see some really neat start-ups in my backyard.

If you have any questions about the area/program, etc, I'd be happy to help answer whatever I can. 15k in seed, similar length, and should be a good way for a few potential startups to get a look at funding.</comment>


Fifty shades of - <AUTHOR> http://lukyvj.github.io/fifty-shades-of/

<comment><USER2> Cute. It might be useful with some more presets and the ability to fade to something other than white. For now, it's just a cute joke.</comment>


APL matrix product operator - <AUTHOR> https://blog.plover.com/prog/apl-matrix-product.html <comment><USER2> Fairly easy in julia:

        julia> function arbitrary_matrix_reop(bin1::Function, bin2::Function)
                 (m::Matrix, v::Vector) -> [
                   foldr(bin2, [
                     bin1(m[row_idx, col_idx], v[col_idx])
                       for col_idx in 1:size(m,2)
                   ])
                   for row_idx in 1:size(m,1)
                 ]
               end

        arbitrary_matrix_reop (generic function with 1 method)

        julia> M = [1 2 3
                    4 5 6]
        julia> v = [5,6,7]

        julia> ⊚ = arbitrary_matrix_reop(*, +)

        julia> M ⊚ v
        2-element Array{Int64,1}:
          38
          92

        julia> ⊜ = arbitrary_matrix_reop(min, +)

        julia> M ⊜ v
        2-element Array{Int64,1}:
          6
         15

Just a first pass. Function composition (∘) is a predefined operation in julia, so that sohuld make what the author already wants pretty trivial, There are probably smart ways of doing multiple dispatch so that you can do more than just matrix-vector but also matrix-matrix, etc.

Edit: The author actually might want function application (|>), not function composition (I'm not sure). In that case it's doable too:

        julia> M = [π    0
                    π/2 π ]

        julia> v = [cos, sin]

        julia> ⦷ = arbitrary_matrix_reop(|>, +)

        julia> M ⦷ v
        2-element Array{Float64,1}:
         -1.0
          1.8369701987210297e-16

<comment> semi-extrinsic Having never written any Julia, I have to ask: is this snippet hard to follow because it's doing a strange thing, or is this just "normal" Julia?

<comment><USER2> It's doing a very strange thing. Did you read the op? Arbitrary matrix reop takes a 2-ary functions and reassigns the *,+ operations for matrix multiplication to those operations. Was it just the results you couldn't follow or were other things confusing? Typically I find Julia to be one of the easiest PLs to read.... Another confusing aspect is that my function is returning a lambda and assigning it to a unicode symbol (valid identifier name in Julia). That's a bit bad in terms of code clarity but aligns with the intent of the author.

The only other confusing thing could be that comma arrays are column vectors, because I deleted some REPL responses for brevity.... If you actually use the Julia repl, this would be clear.

<comment> semi-extrinsic The (abstract) operator itself and the results were understandable. It was more stuff like: how do I see the function returns a lambda? What is foldr? Groking the typing, which is somehow reversed of what I expect ( _m::int_ instead of _int::m_ ). The list comprehension-like indexing, and why one _for_ is outside the foldr, not zero or both -- and why you can't write this as implicit vectorization like on a Numpy array or in Fortran, instead of explicitly iterating.

<comment><USER2> gotcha. I was writing for terseness and timepressure in the small hn box, so I would say that this is not representative of how one should or even, I generally would have written.

1) I probably should have put an explicit "return" on the lambda statement, since it's unclear with the strange tabbing.

2) foldr is reduce, with an order guarantee (I think reduce might do a binary or parallel reduction if given the chance). I probably should have done reduce.

3) the type-first technique is a C-and-friends thing - found in C, Java, Go. Functional languages Typescript, F# do type-second, as does pascal if we reach far back enough (albeit they do it with the single colon operator) I think type-first contributes to the difficulty of reading C types but i don't have evidence ([http://unixwiz.net/techtips/reading- cdecl.html](http://unixwiz.net/techtips/reading-cdecl.html))

4) now that I think about it, julia has a dot broadcast notation which I probably should have used.

This might have been better (but possibly too terse? I don't know)

        function matmul_reop(mulop::Function, addop::Function)::Function
          return (m::Matrix, v::Vector) -> [ reduce(addop, mulop.(m[row,:], v)) for row in 1:size(m,1) ]
        end

I wish julia had a row iterator, (and once wrote one myself) because that would make it even more terse... That is on the issues tracker, so it will probably make the standard library.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Worth noting that the basic functions like "sum", "transpose", and "foldr1" are already available in the standard library in Haskell. Dunno why they weren't used—just a learning exercise?

It's often a good strategy to arrive at a simple definition by starting with a list comprehension or do-notation, then desugaring & simplifying it to use Functor or Applicative operators if it makes things nicer. That's a good way to build experience with using those functions and develop a sense of when to use sugary notation and when not to.

For example, if I were coming from APL and in a pointfreeish mood, I might've rewritten the list comprehension version toward the end like this:

        generalMatrixProduct add mul a b
          = (<$> transpose b) . innerProduct <$> a
          where innerProduct = fmap (foldr1 add) . zipWith mul

Which reads as "The inner product of each row of 'a' with every column (a.k.a. row of the transpose) of 'b'."

(In reality I'd probably just stick to do-notation, though, unless I found a particularly nice fully pointfree version, and also avoid foldr1 since it's partial.)

</comment><comment><USER4> That's one weird operator. It treats polynomials as vectors, but includes the powers of x? I could understand treating polynomials as vectors of coefficients, but to treat them as vectors of mononomials is just plain weird.

Ignoring the question of _why_ on earth you'd want to do something like this it would be far more natural to point out a matrix can be considered a vector of linear operators by writing it as a tensor product of basis vectors and co- vectors (so a column-vector of row-vectors basically), where for a matrix M with rows r_i we have:

        (M x)_i = r_i * x = r_i(x)

and then take the smallest logical step to make it nonlinear which would be:

        (M x)_i = f_i(x)

for general functions f_i. Of course this is just the definition of a multivariate function, so perhaps it would be more interesting to look at some intermediate version where f_i is some linear combination of functions f_ij such that:

        (M x)_i = Sum_j f_ij(x_j)

again analogous to how matrices work.

</comment><comment><USER5> OP makes surprising claims about J. Here is some reading which hopefully will help you make up your own mind about whether the claims are accurate.

J has a rich range of composition operations (far more than mentioned in OP) which work well together. Many are discussed in this paper: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.98....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.98.3105&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

Matrix convolution is handled with semidot3: [https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/semidot3](https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/semidot3)

FFT convolution examples are here: [https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/FFT](https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/FFT)

Iverson wrote a chapter on polynomials in J in his book Exploring Math: [http://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/expmath.pdf](http://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/expmath.pdf)

<comment><USER6> Indeed. J is a wonderful language.

From the article:

> I don't know why Iverson thought the hook was the thing to embed in the > language.

There are deep reasons for the choice: [http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/fork1.htm](http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/fork1.htm)

In addition, viewing J as "a worse Haskell" is to misunderstand it. J is a function-level, not a purely functional, language:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function- level_programming#Con...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function- level_programming#Contrast_to_functional_programming)

From that link:

> When Backus studied and publicized his function-level style of programming, > his message was mostly misunderstood,[2] as supporting the traditional > functional programming style languages instead of his own FP and its > successor FL.

> ...

> This restriction means that functions in FP [Backus's function-level > language] are a module (generated by the built-in functions) over the > algebra of functional forms, and are thus algebraically tractable. For > instance, the general question of equality of two functions is equivalent to > the halting problem, and is undecidable, but equality of two functions in FP > is just equality in the algebra, and thus (Backus imagines) easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any time I see APL code, I feel slightly stupid.

<comment><USER8> For the APL-family of languages, it's generally easier to write code than it is to read it.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Interesting thought: Would you or anyone else here also agree that it is generally easier to write mathematical notation than to read it?

In my experience its much easier to write almost anything, whether it be code, poetry, english, etc. As opposed to reading it. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

Edit: Maybe i shouldnt say much easier. One could argue its much easier to read a novel than it is to write one, and i'd agree :)

<comment><USER10> > Would you or anyone else here also agree that it is generally easier to > write mathematical notation than to read it?

Yes. In my estimation, it's due to a much higher density of conceptual ideas being expressed. I honestly prefer imperative code for stepping through a new idea because it simply can't be expressed in most dense and compressed form and probably because it's what I'm most familiar with.

> One could argue its much easier to read a novel than it is to write one, and > i'd agree :)

I think it's because novels assume you're starting from a position of ignorance. Probably why I could never read Pynchon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some implementations of APL allow for definition of arbitrary dyadic functions which can be composed using the inner product operator. For example, if a and b are conformable, you can write a f.g b</comment>


Learn more about the Vulkan API - <AUTHOR> http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/5-new-webinars-on-the-vulkan-api <comment><USER2> >"Imagination is a promoter member of the Khronos™ Group and a keen supporter of open standards for mobile graphics."

Fantastic, so the next PowerVR driver will be in mainline Linux then, right?

I still haven't forgiven Imagination Technologies for the Poulsobo chipset (GMA500), and yes, I realise it wasn't all the fault of one party

<comment><USER3> You may be operating with an erroneously optimistic definition of "open standards"! Open standards in computing means proprietary implementations of patent-laden published protocols.

(Well, it doesn't preclude open source or patent free, but doesn't imply them either).

<comment><USER2> Sigh, yeah, I know. I needed to have a dig at them - I spent about a year on and off trying to get a Dell Mini 9 to work well. Eventually I just gave up and bought something else, but I don't like the idea of stuff going to landfill just because two big companies couldn't come to an agreement (Intel and Imagination).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > One API for all platforms

Last I heard, Apple was not going to support Vulkan. So for iOS and OS X, you'd be SOL.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though, I'd very much like to be.

<comment><USER5> As far as I can tell, that's speculation because Apple is the only vendor not talking about Vulkan support.

Apple has always been weird. It's not that they don't care about graphics drivers, but rather it seems they have an entirely different set of priorities for their graphics drivers than the other vendors do. Acceleration on OS X seems to be for creative apps and casual games, which aren't the same market as Windows. Over on iOS, developers are quick to forgive Apple for their faults because of all the money, and because it's still easier than developing for Android.

OpenGL 3.3 took 3 years to hit OS X. I'm not convinced that Vulkan won't hit iOS and OS X, but I bet that Apple's going to take its time and support Vulkan when it's nice and ready. Android is getting Vulkan now because it doesn't have Metal, and Windows is getting it because the 3D vendors can make it happen.

<comment><USER6> You're probably right that Apple will wait, but even if their Vulkan implementation were hypothetically around the corner and planned for iOS 10, Apple _still_ wouldn't be talking about it. Apple rarely talks about anything before it's close to shipping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> DX12 is already here, they really need to hurry up and ship Vulkan.

<comment><USER8> DX is not nor ever will be there. It's a proprietary MS platform only API which will never target the range of platforms vulkan aims for.

<comment><USER9> It does pretty much corner the market on PC gaming, though, which is the single biggest segment of people that care about hardware-accelerated 3D graphics.

OpenGL seems to be making a bit of a comeback, with Steam trying to expand offerings for Mac and Linux, and presumably, their Steam Machines. Although I'm doubtful how many people that build multi-platform titles are actually doing the nitty-gritty graphics programming on those different platforms - most of the titles I've seen are using engines like Unity or Unreal that abstract out already.

<comment><USER8> It's easy to just see it from the pc market perspective but there are a lot of non pc gaming platforms; mobile and consoles.

Also is not only about gaming it's also about those fancy GUIs on cars fridges coffee machines etc

<comment><USER9> But are most of those actually going to use Vulkan? Mobile devices had OpenGL ES, which was similar but not the same. Consoles had their own graphics APIs, which were again, similar, but different.

Maybe VR will be the next frontier for pushing the envelope on graphics performance, but for at least 20 years, it's been PC games leading the way forward.

Appliances should not have GUIs... _shakes cane at those damn kids on the lawn_</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Buffett pulls ahead in wager against hedge funds - <AUTHOR> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/24/buffett-hedge-fund-bet/ <comment><USER2> Hey! They didn't even mention Long Bets! That's the site that registered the bet and is holding the money.

<http://longbets.org/>

Which I am going to pimp shamelessly here, as I wrote the code for it a decade ago. We have bets that go out many years. There's one that won't be decided until 2150. There's even one about how the universe will end.

If you would like to make a similar long-term bet, either use the site or let me know; I'm glad to facilitate. As long as the bet is more than 2 years out and the stakes are more than $200 each, you're golden.

We'd love to see the site used more to call out people making bold/crazy predictions. E.g., is somebody saying that NoSQL databases will rule the earth in 10 years? Do you think they're wrong? Tell them to put up or shut up! We'll put you both on record.

<comment><USER3> One problem you guys have is that you aren't updating anything. I've been copying over predictions to predictionbook.com for the last 2 or 3 years now, and a number of predictions have expired - with no official judgment or anything.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the feedback!

The predictions intentionally haven't been updated. With bets the adversarial bet definition process produced clear, ajudicatable criteria. Predictions, though, were intended to be looser. We just wanted to record them, and didn't want to be in charge of deciding them.

If I had it to do over again, I'd be tempted to solve the problem in a crowdsourced way, where people get to opine on the outcome of the prediction endlessly.

I'll check out PredictionBook; it looks interesting. And if you want to discuss this stuff with me or the Long Now staff, feel free to get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This shouldn't be too big of a surprise. Most academic research about hedge funds show that the majority of them don't outperform the market. When they do, it appears to be because of greater exposure to particular risk factors rather than manager skill (in investing, greater risk usually means greater potential for reward). When you consider the extra costs of investing in a hedge fund over investing in the market, most hedge fund investors are getting a bad deal -- they are paying more, but getting market returns.

One source that looked at 12,980 hedge funds with $1.8 trillion in management: [http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/tbali/BaliBrownCaglayanJFE201...](http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/tbali/BaliBrownCaglayanJFE2010.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Its possible that I am reading the paper incorrectly, but the conclusion clearly states that manager selection of Beta accounts for a large majority of over or under performance. Nowhere in the paper does it suggest that they do or do not under perform the market.

To anyone who is familiar with how money management works, the conclusion in the paper is obvious. Exposure to beta will increase returns in good periods and decrease returns in bad periods.

The research looking at "average hedge fund performance" is also misleading because while the analysis is technically correct, the conclusions in those papers are obvious as well. If you hedge out most of the beta, you will get zero return on average. Once you subtract expenses, you will by default perform negatively the market. (in reality, hedge funds do not hedge all beta to zero, they hedge it pretty close to 1 so they track the market, but they _probably_ under track it. This also leads to negative alpha)

Where hedge funds play a role in investment management is when individuals can select hedge fund managers they believe will outperform. Professional investors, including fund of funds believe they can do this, and some will do this, some won't and the total will net to less than zero.

[[Added in response to additional point below]]

The paper cited is using an econometrics model which is using factor analysis to determine where the "biggest" source of performance comes from.

Because beta is a factor, it will overshadow alpha automatically if beta is large enough. Alpha between funds will be destroyed in the model so the model will output zero alpha with enough funds. While beta will be persistent since by definition beta is a performance magnifier (for lack of a better term.)

In other words, the conclusion in the paper is obvious, and not worthy of discussion.

[[Added in response to Jesse]]

Yes, if you are aggregate all money invested in hedge funds the average return will be lower than the benchmark that Beta is based off of. ETFs may or may not beat the benchmark depending on the ETF. Some have tracking error which causes them to not beat benchmarks.

Also, you may notice that I am not arguing whether the OP is correct, I am generally agreeing with them, but the point is that his assertion is obvious and the cited paper is obvious and provides no real value.

<comment><USER4> Yes it's beta and yes it's what's expected, but the hedge fund industry has historically claimed that returns are coming from alpha (investor skill) rather than beta (riskiness). There's the claim now that they are picking the right kind of beta to attempt to justify what papers are finding, but the outperformance that is exhibited by some hedge fund managers doesn't usually persist, suggesting that their selection of the particular risks were not a result of their skill.

If the returns are actually from "dumb" beta, then the hedge fund fees are not appropriate for what you're getting. You're getting market returns appropriate for the amount of risk that's being taken, rather than outperforming, and then losing most of that to fees. Yes, exposure to beta can be a smart choice, but it can be done without excessive fees.

>Where hedge funds play a role in investment management is when individuals can select hedge fund managers they believe will outperform

Yes, this is the common refrain in mutual funds too: Buy the top performing managers, not the average fund. But the research shows that hedge funds that outpeform do not persist in outperforming. This suggests that the managers are not being particularly skilled in their selection of risk. Most fund of funds do not perform significantly better either -- there's little evidence that hedge funds are providing investors real value. Hedge funds are a status symbol for the wealthy, not a smart investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is not a surprise. Academic research has shown that 80% of funds underperform index funds and do even worse when you factor in costs.

Its not sexy to say "take all your retirement money and put it into three funds: international stocks (eg. VEA), domestic stocks (eg. VTI), and domestic bonds (eg. AGG)" and rebalance it once a year to ratio based on your age but the research shows this is the most effective method of investing because it takes the emotion and costs out of it.

<comment><USER7> Vanguard even have target retirement funds (eg Target Retirement 2035 if you expect to retire around 2035). They automatically do the rebalancing for you - all you have to do is contribute while working and that is it!

[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/TargetRetire...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/TargetRetirementList)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The advice I got regarding stock market from a pro was to invest long term in the 3 indexes: "spiders" (S&P 500), "cubes" (Nasdaq 100) and "diamonds" (Dow Jones Industrial Average), seems solid, outperforming funds and without management fees.

<comment><USER9> If the market is efficient, then the correct investment is market weighted.

You are missing the rest of the world and smaller stocks. This implies that you are missing some diversification that would reduce your risk.

<comment><USER10> That's why I follow the basic three-fund portfolio advocated by contemporaries of John Bogle, founder of Vanguard: VTSMX, total US stock market, VTIAX, total international stock market and VBTLX, total bond market index.

Three basic index funds each with very, very low fees compared to actively- managed funds. I'm at 60/30/10% respectively in those funds.

<comment><USER11> Or roll them into an auto adjusting target retirement 20XX fund

<comment><USER10> I would if my 401k included one that wasn't terrible. I do use one of those funds for my Roth IRA though, I just wanted to limit my post to the principle, not the implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think that it comes down to people. To become a C level executive or board member at a S&P company, presumably you've undergone a reasonably level of public scrutiny and shown the courage that Ben Horowitz sometimes references when talking about start up leadership, it takes to make the right and difficult decisions that benefit the business. Not every board member or executive, but the majority.

The companies in the fund of funds, presumably don't have the same "blue chip" ratings of the S&P companies and their management may still be undergoing their personal tests of courage.

In the end, in the absence of a extremely hot market - which could be a good or bad thing given the experience level of senior leadership, it's probably a better bet to go with the tried and true.

</comment><comment><USER13> Fund of funds get hit pretty hard by fees since each fund takes out there fee and then the fund of funds also takes out it's fee.

<comment><USER14> IIRC the hedge funds take the usual 2 and 20 (though Renaissance Technologies apparently takes 5 and 36 now), then fund of funds takes 1 and 10 on top of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since hedge funds are subject to bigger swings, I suppose Buffet could be ahead for the next 5 years and then lose out due to a big upswing, no?</comment>


Zoom boss apologises for security issues and promises fixes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52133349 <comment><AUTHOR> He's blaming his security design issues on the fact that a lot of people have joined the service recently, saying it wasn't designed for that. But it seems to have coped fine with the load - it's been working perfectly for me, unlike, for example, Facetime, which seems to be disabling video and loosing connections completely.

The problems would have existed if they only had 2 customers, it's just that the media wouldn't have noticed.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can a developer stay super cheap or free in SF for a week? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a place to stay in SF for about a week or so. Any suggestions are welcome! <comment><USER2> Go southward and look for lodging in San Mateo or farther south. Make sure it's near a commute channel (bus or rail) the neighborhoods are nice and the fees are more down to earth.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just saw this <http://chezjj.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Airbnb is always a good option!

</comment><comment><USER5> couchsurfing.org, great way to meet people as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> hostels.com

<comment><USER7> Bingo!</comment></comment>


In Sweden, Happiness in a Shorter Workday Can't Overcome the Cost - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/business/sweden-work-employment-productivity-happiness.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990)

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, an important takeaway from reading this article was to consider the type of employment they trialled it on.

The trial was in a retirement home, which is by design somewhere that needs 24x7 cover. This means that any reduction in hours needs to be covered by more staff, obviously necessitating more expense.

What would be far more interesting to me, is a trial on an industry like software development where output isn't measured in number of hours but more in the product created. It would be interesting to see if a reduction in hours negatively or positively affected the quality/quantity of code produced.

<comment><USER4> Software industry is driven by plenty of workers where work hours equal to output, maybe not development but then in the software industry in many cases development isn't the bulk of the workforce.

Sure everyone can be an engineer, I've seen companies that give a title of "customer services engineer" to their phone banks, but at the end support staff which unless you work at a startup can be as high as 80% of the work force does need to be present for as many hours as possible, even 24/7 in many cases.

<comment><USER3> sure but I specifically said I was interested in seeing a trial where hours worked doesn't equal output, because that would be an interesting comparison to this trial, didn't make any comment about "the software industry"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This headline is terrible. The issue is not the cost; it's political will even by the social democratic party. As it says in the caption of the main image:

> Toyota has been using the shorter workday there for more than a decade.

This is typically lazy American reporting when considering different political systems/paradigms.

<comment><USER6> No no no. Its not just a matter of political will. Its a question of the type of busuinees and its individual situation. the whole idea that this can be applied generally is whats wrong. Productivity simply doesent work like that.

If anything is lazy its the idea that poltical view is all that matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems a particularly poor choice of workplace to try this. Care homes need to maintain certain staffing levels, 24 hours a day, so there is a hard limit to the benefits that can be gained from improved productivity.

<comment><USER8> I don't think you will shake out the issues if you try it in the easiest place possible.

<comment><USER7> It's not that it's not the easiest place. It's that it's impossible. If you have a minimum required staffing level, there is no scope for savings from increased productivity. They might be able to accomplish all their tasks better in half the time, but they'd still need to pay someone else to be on site for the rest of the time.

<comment><USER8> If impossibility was a foregone conclusion, why try it in the first place? I appluad them for doing the study in this place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Even if it is not found to be acceptable now (which might sadly turn out to be the case even in Sweden), at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work.

Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to?

It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.

<comment><USER10> I think it's important to note that full employment is a thing of the past and ultimately I would expect humanity to leave behind this idea that everyone needs to work. What did we come up with all this automation for? To enrich the few? Or to make work less and less of an issue for everyone? We are entering an age where more and more work is being done by robots. We either punish those who get replaced by machines or we craft a community in which people are empowered to enjoy life.

<comment><USER11> What about the people who enjoy working? The dignity of receiving an honest wage for an honest day's work? The satisfaction for providing for their family? For some people, their work is the only thing that keeps them in shape. My father, when he was no longer able to find work, and now after looking for 10 years is too old, literally sits on the couch for 16 hours a day watching television and smoking cigarettes. He would do _anything_ to work.

This thinking on here that we are doing humanity this huge service by automating all their pesky little maniacal jobs away is insane, and it needs to stop. There is more than one world view out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> The concept that a job gives meaning and structure to life, builds character, etc." is not sustainable in the future.

Related, interesting read: [https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the- solution-but...](https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but- the-problem)

<comment><USER11> Something about when Professors feel the need to curse to look cool throws me off the wrong way, dunno, call me old fashioned.

I am making myself familiar with Mr. James Livingston -- it's an argument that has been made many times before -- that there aren't enough jobs to go around, that the private sector doesn't really create all the jobs, and ends with some form of UBI. I have heard it a thousand times. I still remain unconvinced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like how they reference Japan and Qatar. Japan has a pretty overworked populace and a culture that is toxic to the health of the worker.

Qatar has literally brought in masses under indentured servitude to build their workforce.

Not exactly countries with workforce practices that I'd like to see emulated in the USA.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some former threads in HN:

2014-06-03 Sweden's proposed six-hour workday (washingtonpost.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459)

2014-07-14 Sweden's Six-Hour Workday Experiment Officially Kicks Off Tomorrow (entrepreneur.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162)

2015-10-01 Some companies in Sweden are testing a six-hour work day (fastcoexist.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635)

2016-04-22 Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance (thelocal.se) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538)

All in all, the HN posts were not that bad, but in social media - Facebook and Twitter - I saw plenty of overly optimistic, baseless junk spouting the magnificence of how Sweden just went to 6-hour workweek for the nation and productivity gains were so huge. It was actually depressing...

Well, obviously people are happier if they work a shorter day and get the same salary, and the productivity per hour may actually increase somewhat. But it won't reach the productivity of 8 (or 7.5) hours.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the way forward is some sort of basic income, even if that's just 25% of average salaries across the country, so that then the company can employ MORE people, but make them work 25% less, and pay them 25% less making them happier, healthier, and the gov't picks up the bill for the lost 25% income to the worker... It'd also be a good experiment for gbi in general.

<comment><USER15> How does the government pick up the bill? They get their money from us via taxes...

<comment><USER14> They're going to tax us no matter what, why not put it to good use instead of spend 50 million on a better toilet, or a pork project in their home district?

<comment><USER16> Let's talk USA. About 320,000,000 citizens (presumably basic income is for everyone). Let's assume $150 a week (it being $15/hr for 1/4 of an optimistic work week). That gives us 48 billion dollars that have to come from cutting existing spending in your scenario.

Cutting your better toilet gets us about a tenth of a percent to this week's goal!

You're not going to have basic income without raising taxes a huge amount. Current tax revenue per year is about $2 trillion, which covers about 2/3 of the current federal budget. If you decided to cut all that spending and spread it equally among the population would be like 6 grand a year, not nearly enough to live on.

<comment><USER17> > That gives us 48 billion dollars that have to come from cutting existing > spending in your scenario.

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

US: 596.0B

Target easily reachable.

<comment><USER16> 48 billion dollars. Per week. So, yes, if we decided not to have a military at all, we could meet the basic income requirements for about 3 months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The first question we should ask is where does the extra value come from (not money, but value, and you'll see why in a moment).

One answer may be automation, and typically, the excess value is passed on to the customer in the form of lower cost. (That's why we ought to talk about value, even if we can't easily measure it).

One alternative is not to pass on the value to the customer, but to give it to the workers. You could do this by reducing hours, increasing pay, or some combination.

There are two problems with this:

1\. You can't do this in an open, market economy. The government could do this with government jobs where they have a monopoly.

2\. It is kind of arbitrary that you decide to value this particular worker over this particular consumer.

Another solution is to give everyone a basic income with all the extra value (collected as taxes, roughly equally) that automation generates. So the seller might give a discount to the customer but the rest of the value would go to the state.

Then people can decide how they want to spend it.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is what I'd like to see:

Companies be required to offer various plans, at the employees discretion, that have different pay rates. For instance, working 75% of 40 hours might get you 80% of the salary. (with the hope that you are at least a bit more productive during your more limited hours than you would be if doing 40 hours)

Employees shouldn't be discriminated based on which plan they take. They just have to give a couple months notice if they change plans, especially if it is a small company where the impact might be greater.

Benefits is a complication, but personally I'd prefer health insurance etc was just separated from employment. Regardless, if you work less hours, you'd probably have to chip in more toward insurance.

This may still be costly to employers, but if all companies have to do it, it should work out. (sure, there are foreign competitors, but that is a different issue) And this can potentially help with unemployment.

<comment><USER20> Google offers this today - you can go on part time schedule if you want, and your salary / vacation days / RSU vesting is adjusted accordingly. You get benefits if you are at least 50%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If we twist things the other way - this shows that you can buy happiness...

</comment><comment><USER22> Instead of mandating specific amount of hours per day or week, I'd like to see something like:

1.5x pay at 30 hours

2x pay at 40 hours</comment>