Vancouver Doesn't Have Uber - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/vancouver-doesn-t-have-uber-it-boggles-the-mind <comment><USER2> Public transportation is fine in Vancouver, but getting a taxi is still as bad as ever. Many taxis simply choose not to show up, claim they have arrived when they have not, and dispatch is mostly indifferent.

The Vancouver taxi app suffers from the same problems. No rating system, so your driver can just abandon you or take a weird route.

These are the reasons Uber became so popular in other cities. If you are a businessperson in Vancouver with an urgent need to get somewhere you basically need a private driver.

Car2go and Evo car sharing services are good, but in competitively high demand. (I have found myself literally racing others on foot for the available ones.) Locals are desperate for driving solutions that don't involve long-term parking. And that still leaves visitors out of luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Saks has used Uber in more than 60 cities; in Vancouver he paid a private > driver $1,000 to ferry him around.

Then he is an utter idiot. How many of those 60 cities do you suppose had perfectly workable public transit systems he could have used? I'd bet quite a few of them.

Uber is great because it allows you to be lazy. Turn up in a city you've never been to, hit a button, go. That doesn't mean they should have carte blanche to do whatever they want, wherever they want.

When I'm in Vancouver I either use the (pretty good) public transport options, or an app I found to reserve a taxi, which works just fine. Or (gasp) walk around the beautiful city.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article sounds one-sided in favor of Uber, but as a tourist who visited the place recently, it would have been much easier for me if Uber/Lyft operated.

The public transit may be nice, but as a tourist, I didn't bother with the bus timings and such: it was way easier to get a cab. Under such circumstances, Uber/Lyft may have made it much easier, especially since, at times we felt flagging down a cab was impossible.

<comment><USER5> If you're not used to public transport in your home city, you probably wouldn't know how to use it in a different city. For example, you can send a text to any bus-stop, and immediately get a list of upcoming bus times. They were also fully integrated to Map apps.

This is the sorest spot of "Uber culture" for me: wealthy and educated people who would put skills and pressure into keeping public transit sharp and usable for themselves (and therefore everybody else), instead "opt out" for their own private needs and leave public transit to rot.

<comment><USER6> It's not the job of wealthy and educated people to use their skills to fix public transit, any more than it's my job as a private citizen on the East Coast to reform the police department in LA (take your pick which "LA"). That job belongs to the local government. If the local government is incompetent at running public transit in an efficient manner so that both locals and visitors can easily use it to get around, that's the fault of the local government. The "wealthy and educated" people you refer to are not government officials, and have no business telling the government what to do (they probably aren't even constituents). So they're doing the only thing they can: making a private service that solves a real problem and provides a real solution for many, many people.

If local governments would like to learn from this and come up with their own solutions, perhaps even hiring some of these smart people to help them, that'd be great. But I don't see them doing any of that.

<comment><USER7> Los Alamos, NM!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Spotty public transit? Vancouver has one of the best public transportation systems in North America. Honestly, Vancouverites aren't at all bothered by the fact that Uber doesn't exist out there. The author clearly has never been to other cities in Canada such as Toronto and/or Ottawa where commute is a nightmare.

<comment><USER9> I'm a Vancouver resident and the transit is great. The Skytrain is spotty in its coverage. No East/West travel, which I believe is what they're referring to.

Also after using Uber in Toronto, I am super jealous and want it here.

<comment><USER8> Jealousy is one thing, but do you _really_ need it?

<comment><USER10> Why can't we have it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vancouver has an excellent SkyTrain + bus network, as well as a thriving biking scene. Suprised to not see any of that mentioned in the article.

Although, the note the article ends in, it's pretty clear that it's an ad.

<comment><USER11> The best source they could find for the article is someone who spent $1000 for a private driver for two days... I visit Vancouver twice a year to spend time with family. Downtown core is walkable. SkyTrain and express buses are often significantly faster than driving when you factor in parking and traffic... An extensive and affordable bike share system would be a great addition but the same forces (incumbent lobbying) plus strict helmet laws seem to be roadblocks...

<comment><USER10> I don't understand the point of anecdotes like this. Simply because we have reasonable transit (daytime hours only) and bike lines (if you have bike) that we don't need any more options? That's not much of an argument. I'm not biking home at 2:00am in December from a Christmas party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cab service is bad inside Vancouver and utterly miserable outside Vancouver proper. If you are in the North shore, Burnaby, Tri-cities or further, you pretty much have to book a cab well in advance and then call in to remind them, and even then you may be better off just taking transit. Good luck getting anywhere in a reasonable amount of time with out a car.

</comment><comment><USER13> Uber has a great PR team to get articles like this planted.

</comment><comment><USER14> Vancouver has called Uber exactly what it is: a limousine service. There is no ifs, ands, or buts. The fact that they are able to masquerade in other regions as they please because of the perceived benefit to consumers does not negate the fact of what they really are.

This co-opting of the 'sharing economy' to mean unregulated subcontractors is ridiculous. It removes the risk from Uber as a company and places it on the clients and the drivers. Vancouver (and BC) has determined this a risk to great.

If Uber wants to operate in this jurisdiction, they must play by the rules of that jurisdiction. If they refuse, then so be it. They certainly aren't losing money because of it, just losing OUT on it.

<comment><USER10> They are limousine service because the law defines them that way, it's circular logic. And the regulations on limousines exist to keep the taxi monopoly running.

These regulations are not commandments from God, they can be changed. And it's not immoral to try and change them. The current rules are terrible for consumers.

<comment><USER5> "This zoning is residential because the law defines it that way" is only "circular" if you dismiss all the history that led to that classification in the first place.

The idea that literally all zoning and transport regulation came as a result of the hotel/taxi lobby is ridiculous.

<comment><USER10> "The idea that literally all..." is a straw man. Nobody has said that here. But if they did, I agree it would be ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Vancouver Is Silicon Valley North

What?

Since when?

Are they going to have big tech companies paying big tech company?

Is this just based on the outrageous housing prices?

> With spotty public transportation and a dearth of taxis, Canada's third- > largest city seemed built for ride-sharing

Never had a problem with transit in vancouver. Taxis are stupidly expensive, but skytrain + a bus is usually not too bad.

<comment><USER6> Did you try taking public transit at 2AM? In many cities, the public transit shuts down at some time in the evening, forcing people to use cabs (or Uber). It's great if a city has decent public transit, but there's a reason why other services have a role: some people are in a big hurry, others are caught out at a time when there's no public transit available. There's also plenty of cases where the public transit option just isn't very good for a particular route (such as, in the NYC area, try going from Jersey City to Staten Island on public transit).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > In May Daniel Saks, who runs a San Francisco cloud-services startup called > App Direct, flew in for a two-day business trip. Saks has used Uber in more > than 60 cities; in Vancouver he paid a private driver $1,000 to ferry him > around.

He could have rented a car for around $50/day for a compact. Want something more flashy? Mustang Convertible for around $80/day.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand the apprehension to using public transportation, especially in a city that has a genuinely good system. If the issue is time, fair enough, Uber could be better, but with good enough planning you can get almost anywhere with buses, the Skytrain, and just walking. If you have an absolutely urgent need to get somewhere, I'd argue that you didn't plan well or you can hire a driver for the day, because even with Uber unless you're in a city that is at a high saturation level you're still gonna wait 5-10+ minutes for the Uber to arrive.

Also: > "It's the only city in the world that I need to hire a driver"

He's never been to Seoul, one of the largest cities in the world, which also has effectively no Uber presence...

<comment><USER10> > I don't understand the apprehension to using public transportation

I use public transportation twice a day every weekday but that doesn't mean I wouldn't also, occasionally, need to have need of Uber. They serve different needs, is that so hard to understand?

> If you have an absolutely urgent need to get somewhere, I'd argue that you > didn't plan well

If only there was a service that existed to help you get somewhere if something goes terribly wrong with your plans! Somebody should turn that into a business and make money.

<comment><USER17> > They serve different needs, is that so hard to understand?

Yes, because they serve the same need -- to get you from one place to another. They have different uses, sure, one being for something time sensitive and one for something potentially not, but they do not serve different needs. It's not fair to conflate need with want, because while humans generally need to get from one point to another, they don't _need_ to use Uber. There are other options.

> Somebody should turn that into a business and make money.

That business model exists already, it's called a taxicab/livery service.

<comment><USER10> > Yes, because they serve the same need -- to get you from one place to > another.

By that argument, you don't need airplanes either because we have greyhound. They don't serve the _same_ need, they serve _similar_ needs.

> They don't need to use Uber. There are other options.

So what? We don't need transit either, everybody could just take 2-4 hours to walk to work. What's the difference? I'm taking your poor argument and extending to the absurd conclusions that result from it. Why _must_ we have fewer poorer options when we could have more better options? Is that not progress?

> That business model exists already, it's called a taxicab/livery service.

Unfortunately, in Vancouver, that service is a monopoly that has too few vehicles to serve the population. It has poor customer service that more often than not fails to deliver. If this were a free market environment, competition would come in and solve the problem but it is not.

Uber could be a better business model, could it not?

<comment><USER17> Again, from walking to buses to airplanes, they serve the same need, to get you from one point to another. How those methods do it is independent of their purpose, even if one is demonstrably better at serving the need. Arguably the only major difference in _need_ is that it's not physically possible to get to some places with some methods of transportation, e.g. you cannot get from San Francisco to England using a bus.

I'm also not saying that there _must_ be fewer options, and I'm saying there are other options, not one single option (e.g. walking). I'm saying that it's not necessary for Uber to exist because other options currently exist that fill the exact same niche, even if those other options are potentially not as efficient.

<comment><USER18> Then most anything is not necessary.

In theory, we could replace restaurants and kitchens with Soylent. I wouldn't want to do that, because food tastes good and I like having that option.

On the list of things that are _useful,_ Uber is very high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I disagree with the idea that Uber should have to charge $75/ride as a limousine service, it's honestly refreshing to see a place that doesn't let them flout regulation.

<comment><USER6> No, it's really not. First off, it's not unique: there's a bunch of places where they're outright banned or prevented from operating, such as Austin. Second, forcing them to price rides at $75 a ride is just a tactic to drive them out of business altogether, without the government doing anything to actually make the situation better for its citizens.

What enlightened local governments would do is figure out how to enact some _sensible_ regulations on these new Uber-like services, and then let them set their own prices and compete fairly. Sensible regulations would have to do with employee treatment, such as the whole controversy about employees being "contractors" (which is a hard problem: many of them _like_ working part-time, and even work for multiple services simultaneously, taking calls from one service or the other), and the controversy about how to deal with the auto insurance (this one's easier: they could simply require Uber to self-insure while a driver is on a call, but there's still an issue about when drivers are between calls). But I don't see any attempts by cities to do anything like this; they only want to prop up the existing taxi cartels, and do a terrible job with public transit.

<comment><USER15> > No, it's really not

Yes, it really is.

> forcing them to price rides at $75 a ride is just a tactic to drive them out > of business altogether, without the government doing anything to actually > make the situation better for its citizens

They were classified as limos. I said I disagree with that. It's not some great conspiracy to target Uber, it's an application of the law. Would you rather they get lumped in with Taxi's and forced to follow all those regs?

> What enlightened local governments would do is figure out how to enact some > sensible regulations on these new Uber-like services, and then let them set > their own prices and compete fairly.

I agree. I support any efforts to bring in law changes to let Uber operate.

I don't support letting them just jump into the market and do what they want.

<comment><USER6> >They were classified as limos. I said I disagree with that. It's not some great conspiracy to target Uber, it's an application of the law. Would you rather they get lumped in with Taxi's and forced to follow all those regs?

No, I'd rather the local governments get their heads out of their asses and enact some sensible regulation instead of trying to kill the golden goose that's finally giving people a service that actually works well and that they like to use, unlike the taxis, and at a price that's affordable, unlike limos. Uber is a great thing, but it's in uncharted territory regulation-wise and does need some regulation to make sure that employees (yes, that's what they are when they work for you) are treated fairly, that issues about insurance are known and consistent, etc. I don't see anyone attempting to do this at all.

>I don't support letting them just jump into the market and do what they want.

What's your alternative? The problem is that governments actively refuse to govern properly, and instead work to protect incumbents. If Uber waited around for good regulations to be enacted, they'd be waiting decades, if it got done at all (in reality, it wouldn't). The only way to force governments to act is to do what they've done. As the old saying goes, "it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission". There's a reason this saying came about: if you ask permission, most likely you'll be told "no", because people (especially organizations, and most especially governments) hate change. If you go and do it anyway, then the other parties just have to deal with it and are forced to work with you.

<comment><USER15> > What's your alternative?

Pressure governing bodies to bring in regulation to allow you to operate legally.

Uber isn't some small business fighting against an unfair market. It's a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation that deliberately flouts regulation to attempt to gain a foothold and then strongarm their way to a favorable outcome under threat of pulling service and pissing off voters.

<comment><USER6> Uber only became a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation by deliberately flouting regulation. They never would have gotten that way if they had followed all the existing taxi regulations instead of lawyering up and fighting it. Disruptive companies never succeed by playing by the rules the incumbents set.

I'm really curious how you think a company would amass billions of dollars without actually being in business first, providing a service, having customers, and gaining revenue. Companies don't just start out as multi- billion dollar multinational corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I got a popup with a countdown forcing me to leave it open for at least 5 seconds before I could close the popup, with the following text:

 _> We noticed that you're using an ad blocker, which may adversely affect the performance and content on Bloomberg.com. For the best experience, please whitelist the site._

I've stated before[1] here how I feel about anti-adblock popups. If you don't want me to view your content because I refuse to view ads, I'll respect your wishes and move on.

However, I _don 't_ like being lied to.

Sure, in an indirect economic sense, viewing Bloomberg's content without viewing ads will use their server cycles without providing them income, which in the long run could cause them to run low on funds and have to cut spending on servers, which could adversely affect the performance and content on the site, _if_ Bloomberg continues to choose to operate on this business model. So _technically_ yes, going on the website with an ad blocker is one factor (of many, and not the primary factor) which could hurt site performance and content.

But the wording here is very ambiguous. Nontechnical users reading this text would likely believe from reading this that there is some technical reason that ad blockers directly slow down website performance and content. And this is _not_ the case; the direct impact of ad blockers is to _improve_ the performance of websites and _improve_ the viewing of content. Unless we are to believe that Bloomberg is technically ignorant, this ambiguity is intended to deceive.

I'll add this to the list of unethical behaviors encouraged by advertising.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11901684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11901684)</comment>


FAA Slaps Amazon with $350k Penalty for Shipping Violation - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-slaps-amazon-with-350-000-penalty-for-shipping-violation-1465847290 <comment><USER2> _" The liquid leaked from a one-gallon container of "Amazing Liquid Fire," a drain cleaner, during a flight from Louisville, Ky. to Boulder, Colo. ... The FAA alleged that the shipment was not properly packaged, was not accompanied by a proper declaration stating the hazardous nature of its contents."_ 9 employees injured.

"Amazing Liquid Fire" is concentrated sulfuric acid. Amazon review: "It eats through everything except plastic and porcelain. When you use this you have to be careful when you pour it down the drain it ate through the metal ring around the drain hole..... Unfortunately it did not unclog my drains, guess I have to call a plumber."

MSDS info: Very hazardous in case of skin contact (corrosive, irritant, permeator), of eye contact (irritant, corrosive), of ingestion, of inhalation. Liquid or spray mist may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous membranes of eyes, mouth and respiratory tract. Skin contact may produce burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation of respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath. Severe over-exposure can result in death. Inflammation of the eye is characterized by redness, watering, and itching....

Also, sulfuric acid in contact with a long list of other chemicals is explosive.

"Amazing Liquid Fire" ships in a 1 gallon plastic jug. You can't even ship that via UPS Ground. Above 500ml, you have to use hazardous material freight.

Come on, Amazon, you have databases. You should know which products are hazardous. If the vendor can't give you an MSDS for it, maybe you shouldn't be shipping it.

<comment><USER3> Looking at the Amazon listings it looks like it is sold by an Amazon vendor. That suggests an interesting weakness where Amazon doesn't enforce shipping rules on its third party sellers. Also per the comments the "product" is $10 at the hardware store and this person is selling it for $40 at Amazon so that is an interesting business.

And like you I was _amazed_ that it was sold with lye. Kind of makes me wonder if this stuff was riding in the cargo hold of some jet I was flying across country. It could easily cause serious problems.

<comment><USER4> > this person is selling it for $40 at Amazon so that is an interesting > business.

Shipping usually heavy liquids across US with special hazardous markings and proper handle requires extra payments. If that's interesting business to you then okay...

> It could easily cause serious problems.

It couldn't because FAA strictly forbids mixing of cargo with the one attached to a flying PAX.

<comment><USER5> > Shipping usually heavy liquids across US with special hazardous markings and > proper handle requires extra payments.

Isn't the whole point of this that they didn't do that?

<comment><USER6> I think joering2 is answering the business question, not the specifics of this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So next time you want to whine about FAA safety regs, remember they ended up written because of things like this.

<comment><USER8> It could be handled as a civil suit. The nine employees would likely get a lot more than $350k.

<comment><USER9> And taxpayers would end up spending as much (or more) due to the costs of the litigation.

I don't want to live in a country where unsafely shipping materials in a shared plane is legal and handled by civil suits. Putting others in extreme danger should always be illegal when it's as black-and-white as this.

<comment><USER8> >I don't want to live in a country where unsafely shipping materials in a shared plane is legal and handled by civil suits. Putting others in extreme danger should always be illegal when it's as black-and-white as this.

We could live in a country where it's illegal to possess materials which may be unsafely transported. We can never be too safe, you know.

<comment><USER9> > _We could live in a country where it 's illegal to possess materials which > may be unsafely transported_

You seem to be suggesting that regulating the transport of dangerous materials is a slippery slope.

That's like arguing that speed limits are a slippery slope toward a ban on driving. Maybe that makes sense in some absolutist libertarian nightmare, but in the real world we have to weigh the real danger of regulation against the real danger of deregulation.

In this case, it's not much trouble to package sulfuric acid in a safe container. It is, however, a lot of trouble to be injured or killed by sulfuric acid.

I honestly can't believe that there's anyone arguing how the pros/cons shake out in that specific scenario.

<comment><USER8> You're appealing to a need for safety, but where you draw the line is arbitrary. I am only demonstrating that, following the same logic you are using, I draw the line somewhere else which results in a completely different, though absurd, outcome. What is the principle which makes where you drew the line correct and where I drew the line incorrect?

You also suggest that because transporting these materials in an unsafe manner is illegal and punishable by a fine, that that is somehow a bigger deterrent to businesses than the threat of a lawsuit. How so, and why is the illegality of it supposed to be a bigger deterrent than a lawsuit?

<comment><USER10> > You're appealing to a need for safety, but where you draw the line is > arbitrary. I am only demonstrating that, following the same logic you are > using, I draw the line somewhere else which results in a completely > different, though absurd, outcome. What is the principle which makes where > you drew the line correct and where I drew the line incorrect?

Maybe there is no first-principles answer here (certainly either of the obvious principles-based approaches gives absurd results). Maybe we do just have to weigh up the costs and benefits of individual cases as best as we can.

> You also suggest that because transporting these materials in an unsafe > manner is illegal and punishable by a fine, that that is somehow a bigger > deterrent to businesses than the threat of a lawsuit. How so, and why is the > illegality of it supposed to be a bigger deterrent than a lawsuit?

Leaving it up to lawsuits to enforce public safety doesn't square very well with the limited-liability corporation. Imagine ten companies engaging in dangerous shipping practices, and one of them actually having an incident. If we only fine the one that had the incident, we bankrupt it and don't recover the full public-health cost.

<comment><USER8> >Leaving it up to lawsuits to enforce public safety doesn't square very well with the limited-liability corporation. Imagine ten companies engaging in dangerous shipping practices, and one of them actually having an incident. If we only fine the one that had the incident, we bankrupt it and don't recover the full public-health cost.

It's not just lawsuits which would enforce these type of public safety issues sans-FAA (or other federal organization). The private companies which are doing the shipping, in this case UPS, would have their own terms of services and contracts which would prohibit unsafe transportation of hazardous chemicals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ooh $350k, about what it costs them to hire one software engineer for a year

<comment><USER12> 4 engineers at Amazon's pay rate.

<comment><USER13> 4? In Seattle? No way, unless they're at a satellite office. Senior devs go for $130 ~ $180 in Washington (plus all the taxes and benefits; lower if you contract).

For $350k they'd get 2, maybe 3 tops. If you're taking low level interns, yea, they could probably get 6 ~ 8.

<comment><USER14> Uh, at Amazon, junior devs go for around $120 if they don't negotiate well. Interns, last I checked, were close to $80.

If you fold in the TCO (benefits, computer / chair / licenses, etc.) for a senior engineer, the $350 isn't too far off.

<comment><USER12> I know full time devs there who were getting under $100k, granted this was 2-3 years ago.

<comment><USER7> I was at 94 base when I left. Started at 90 2 years before that.

Of course if you include stock it was 120ish.

<comment><USER14> Of course you include stock? That's part of the cost. I know four people that just started fresh out of no-name schools for $120 including stock.

<comment><USER15> Which one is going to stay long enough collect his stock at vesting?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I imagine we'll see less of this going forward, as Amazon moves towards local warehouses and Amazon Prime Now one-hour delivery, in lieu of shipping everything by air using UPS/FedEx.

<comment><USER6> Well, I would suppose a car accident with this stuff improperly packed would be 'eventful'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So they shipped something ORM-D by air? Throw the book at them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Incidentally, I've seen Amazon err the other way on lithium batteries. I have ordered things like LiFePO4 cells or devices with lithium ion batteries inside and they come with a sticker that says "PRIMARY LITHIUM BATTERY, NOT FOR TRANSPORT ON PASSENGER AIRCRAFT" which apparently doesn't apply to lithium ion batteries. Better safe than sorry, though, I suppose. (I have also ordered primary lithium batteries... and those also get the sticker correctly.)

UPS has an incredibly detailed document here about the regulations: [https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/us_lithium_battery_regulat...](https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/us_lithium_battery_regulations.pdf)

<comment><USER19> I've had them ship a flashlight that came with an alkaline battery labeled as if it had a lithium battery.

I've also found that they wouldn't ship the 8 oz version of a popular homebrewing sanitizer (Star San -- it's phosphoric acid and a strong detergent) to my address, but they shipped the 32 oz version just fine.

As a customer, the annoying thing is that they don't make it easy to request a review of this bogus database info.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that happens randomly. I think the 32 oz version of Star San is from a different vendor that is probably not shipping it properly. Or vice versa. (I too have 32 oz of Star San ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> nommm-nommm Amazon is known by third party FBA sellers for shipping out poorly packaged items. They then ding your seller account when your stuff arrives broke.

This doesn't surprise me in the least.

From the article:

"Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations," the agency said in a news release. From February 2013 to September 2015, Amazon was found to have violated such regulations 24 times, the FAA said, adding that the agency would continue to investigate the company's compliance with air safety regulations.

</comment><comment><USER20> Third party vendors doing sketchy stuff with shipping does not profit Amazon enough for this to be part of their overall business plan. 350k is definitely only a warning shot, but in this case, the interests of the FAA, Amazon, and public safety are all in fairly close alignment.

<comment><USER21> How the fuck is Amazon on the hook for the shipping method a 3rd party vendor used?

<comment><USER22> I imagine this was a 'fulfilled by Amazon' order. That is, a 3rd party vendor shipped the product to Amazon which sold and shipped it.

As to the parent's comment, Amazon sees a huge part of it's business moving to this area, it's not just noise. Amazon wants to be a logistics company, not a store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So is Amazon happy that one of the most important partners of their business suffered ? Cant we trust UPS and Amazon more than FAA in this case?

<comment><USER24> Based on the decline of Amazon UPS deliveries over the past couple years, UPS is becoming less and less important to them. For a while, Ontrac was doing most of my Amazon deliveries, but more recently, Amazon's own delivery service has been delivering most of my orders (not sure if they are _really_ Amazon drivers or if they are contractors). UPS is still doing some deliveries (seems to be only products that aren't available in nearby warehouses), but not nearly as many as they used to. When Amazon first started using Ontrac, Ontrac's delivery service was so horrible that I think Amazon did it only so they could squeeze more money from UPS and Fedex, though Ontrac has improved a lot since then.

Recently Amazon has starting using the USPS to deliver more packages (or at least the last-mile delivery), and that service has been disappointing, I can usually count on a USPS package being delivered at least a day late, and more than once, it hasn't shown up at all, despite being marked as "delivered at front door".

In any case, while I would think that any unhappiness between UPS and Amazon would be resolved through their contracts, I doubt that UPS wants to rock the boat with Amazon, because even a small piece of the Amazon delivery pie is a _lot_ of deliveries. So in this case, where workers health and safety is in question, it's good that the government stepped in to prevent UPS's desire to keep a customer happy from getting in the way of their worker's welfare.

<comment><USER25> This is interesting because I've had similar problems with Amazon orders that come thru Canada post. One incident I was already in the middle of the dispute process when they finally delivered it. A week after the Canada post website showed Delivered.

I originally blammed Canada post but perhaps this is an AWS shipping issue after all.

<comment><USER24> Oh, I'm sure my problems are related to the USPS and not Amazon -- one of the lost packages turned up a week later from a neighbor to whom it was misdelivered.

Amazon has always been quick to ship out replacements when I reported the missing packages (even when the USPS said they were "delivered"), and even for the one that was re-delivered by my neighbor, when I reported to amazon that I received it, they said I could keep the $10 item, no need to return it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Should be $350,000,000, no doubt.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the fastest way to deploy a blog? - <AUTHOR> I'm talking like seconds fast. I know it currently takes me 15 minutes to deploy a blog via Github Pages and Jekyll but someone's probably found a way to do it in seconds. <comment><USER2> Hugo static generator

</comment><comment><USER3> Wordpress.com

</comment><comment><USER4> tumblr.com. DNS is the slow down.</comment>


China installing QR codes on Uighur Muslim homes as part of security crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighur-muslims-xinjiang-province-qr-codes-security-crackdown-hrw-a8532156.html <comment><USER2> Honestly the surprising thing is that there wasn't general home occupant tracking already :-/</comment>


K-means Clustering 86 Single Malt Scotch Whiskies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2013/12/k-means-clustering-86-single-malt-scotch-whiskies.html <comment><USER2> A few technical issues:

-High dimensional dataset, probably some redundant dimension are being "counting twice". Solution PCA your data first.

-sampling artefacts. Run the k-nearest algorithm lots of times and average

If the data points were lower dimension, the clusters would be able to cover the space better. Bowmore is a smoky whisky (score 3), but it has enough interesting other characteristics that means it does not align with the obvious "Islay" cluster (smoky centre of 2.8). I think it's in the wrong cluster, due to redundant fields having too much power.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't resist a quick play with PCA. Initially because, looking at the cluster centres, cluster 4 looked much more distinct than the others and I wondered if the rest could be sharpened up. Then realised quite how sharply the cluster sizes differ - two small (6 distilleries each) and two large (41 and 33). Quite an interesting result for k-means, and a reason for sharper/less sharp clusters. Having played with the data a bit, I buy into the smoky whiskies being a very different beast to the others, but I'm less sure about the other small segment (tobacco-but-not-smoky)

On your point, turns out PCA alone doesn't tend to help with Bowmore (or the similar Highland Park). The first component you get is basically medicinal- and-smoky, and these two only score 1 for medicinal. They're also probably a bit too honeyed or floral for cluster 4. But clustering on the components and tweaking the starting values can draw Isle of Jura, Oban, Old Pulteney and occasionally Glen Garioch into the smoky cluster. On the other hand, looking at a biplot of the first two components your could argue for two clusters - the six in OP's original cluster 4 vs. the rest.

The most important thing is that this work led OP to Talisker - result. But I suspect a definitive clustering will require more features - so, sadly, someone needs to taste them all again...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome! I wonder if anyone's done something similar with beers?

Anyway a few "next thing to try" suggestions from a machine learning perspective:

The model selection process used here is by its own admission quite ad-hoc, based on a gut feel about diminishing returns. There are various more principled methods you can use to find the sweet spot between over- and under- fitting with these kind of models, a lot of them based on held-out validation data.

One way to do this would be leave-one-out cross validation (LOO-CV): hold out one whisky, fit the model, and see how 'surprised' the model is by the held- out whisky, repeat for the next whisky and average over all the folds. Because the dataset is tiny this should be quite feasible.

To measure 'surprisal' you could e.g. look at the distance from the held-out data point to the nearest cluster, although something better motivated would be if you switched to a probabilistic model and used likelihood of the held- out data. Probably the simplest next thing you could try in that direction would be a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) trained using EM. K-means is actually a degenerate limiting case of this.

A probabilistic model would also allow you to use Bayesian model selection criteria, which can get quite interesting (and might lead you eventually to things like Dirichlet process mixture models).

It would make it easier to compare the model's explanatory power with other unsupervised probabilistic models. For example some kind of latent factor model like Factor analysis or pPCA would be quite interesting to investigate too, whether taken alone or in combination with clustering as a dimensionality reduction step as tlarkworthy is suggesting.

Also concur that doing multiple runs with different randomised initialization is generally a good idea for k-means or EM, since they can get stuck in poor local minima. Perhaps more common practise to pick the best of multiple runs than to average them though.

<comment><USER3> Something on beer: [http://bit.ly/JLNgZA](http://bit.ly/JLNgZA) (wisc.edu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was previously a published paper that did a hierarchical clustering of a bunch of whiskies:

         A Classification of Pure Malt Scotch Whiskies
         Lapointe and Legendre
         Appl. Statist. (1994) 43, No. 1, pp. 237-257

[http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/lapointe/text.html](http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/lapointe/text.html)

[http://www.albany.edu/psychology/bcd/share/scotch_classifica...](http://www.albany.edu/psychology/bcd/share/scotch_classification/lapointe&legendre_1994.pdf)

It would be interesting to compare their results with the OP.

</comment><comment><USER6> He's missing the newest and smallest distillery on Islay on that map - Kilchoman. Might want to give it a go.

[http://kilchomandistillery.com/](http://kilchomandistillery.com/)

... also the bewildering array sold by the others, particularly Bruichladdich, and the ridiculously expensive remaining stock of the defunct Port Ellen:

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/26/scotch-w...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/26/scotch- whisky-village-distillery-died)

</comment><comment><USER7> At a certain point I suppose taste is subjective, but Laphroig is definitely not the smokiest or peatiest of the Islay malts.

<comment><USER8> It is a little subjective. I've always thought Ardbeg has a smokier taste than Laphroig, but a fellow whisky-enthusiast friend of mine thinks the complete opposite.

edit: on the post. Very curious to see your thoughts on Talisker and whether it fits the profile the results gave it.

<comment><USER7> I find Ardbeg (at least the Uigeadail) to be far smokier than Laphroig. The Lagavulin as well. To me the Talisker is quite bland, the sherry flavor really drowned out any peatiness.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. I love the Talisker Storm, but I have a Lagavulin 16 in my hand right now that gives it a run for it's money. Definitely more punch in the smoke and peat departments.

<comment><USER10> The elements effecting the taste of a Whiskey are mind-bogglingly complex, e.g. - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_aLgTRQjmM&t=10m21s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_aLgTRQjmM&t=10m21s)

<comment><USER9> I know, and I love Ralfy's reviews. Can't say my palette is up to his level, but luckily, practicing is fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> s-p taste is subjective, but peating levels are not. the standard levels for the Trinity of Peat are as follows:

Ardbeg: 55ppm (this has changed over time)

Lagavulin: 40-45ppm

Laphroaig: 40ppm

however, it's important to distinguish between standard levels and novelty bottlings. the Ardbeg Supernova is peated to over 100ppm, twice the usual level. Bruichladdich, which is a relatively lightly-peated malt, produces the highly-peated Port Charlotte line, as well as the Octomore, peated to about 170ppm.

so, unless you're talking about the standard line, you can't simply talk about the peating level of Ardbeg.

finally, since all single malts are aged in a charred oak cask which acts as a filter over time, in general, the older the malt, the less smoky it will taste. compare a Laphroaig 10yo cask strength to a Laphroaig 18yo, and/or 25yo, if you're ever lucky enough to do so.

</comment><comment><USER11> For those looking to learn more, there's a guy by the name of Ralfy who does fantastic in-depth reviews that will get you excited to enjoy whisky: [http://www.youtube.com/user/ralfystuff](http://www.youtube.com/user/ralfystuff)

</comment><comment><USER9> I have to agree on the nod to Talisker. My favorite drink at the moment is Talisker Storm. Not a fan of the packaging, but who cares? It's delicious.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in? - <AUTHOR> - I'd like a way of pumping music round the house into separate rooms (maybe controlled from an iPhone/iPad).  It doesn't need to be wireless (Sonos) since I'm rewiring anyway.<p>- Is it still worth cabling ethernet in?<p>- Any ideas for green tech that might actually work and pay off?  I'm probably going to put in a wood-burning stove.<p>I'm doing almost everything myself, and money is definitely a consideration. <comment><USER3> If I had had more time the last time around, I would have build in a 'secret' vault that is controlled by RFID. I have an RFID chip in my hand and I'd be able to open the vault by waving my hand in front of it.

You need to think this through if you want to do it, though - devise a way to unlock it mechanically, make sure it doesn't open when the power is off, etc.

More mundane things:

\- induction cooking plates in your kitchen. That's a no-brainer.

\- Ethernet to a few places, but don't fuss about it. The jacks will never be where you need them, anyway. Instead, make sure you have a solid backplane so that you can put wifi repeaters on each floor.

\- Floor heating, as mentioned above. No-brainer too.

\- For optimal living comfort, thick insulation. 10cm (4") of PUR at the least, preferably 16 (6"). Make the house air tight. Put in a ventilation system, preferable with active intake _and_ exhaust, with heat recuperation (it's called 'System D' here, don't know if that's international).

Also, put in an easter egg for the next person remodeling the house. Write a message on an inner wall that you drywall over, put a waterproof sealed envelope with some pictures of you and your family in a false ceiling, those type of things. It's awesome to discover one of those (I once did).

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't say induction cooking is a no-brainer, not everybody likes it. I rather cook on a gas stove.

<comment><USER3> Come on, that's either because you didn't really adapt to induction, or because you had a crap stove. Induction is equally good or better than gas in every aspect but one:

\- Lower energy use

\- Induction responds equally fast as gas (i.e, instantaneously)

\- Standing over an induction stove doesn't get nearly as hot as over a gas stove

\- Induction is much much much easier to clean.

\- No need to find matches/lighter (unless you get a gas stove with build-in ignition)

\- No need to put in separate gas piping

\- Safer: never having to worry about children turning on the gas, or accidentally turning it on e.g. by bumping into it with a pot

\- Pots are on the stove in a much more stable position, both safer and easier to use.

\- Induction comes with build-in timers to turn off the heat for a pot (maybe some gas stoves have this, but then only the very expensive ones - I've never seen an induction plate that didn't have it).

Only disadvantage is that not all pots work on it (i.e., you need pots with iron in it, aluminum won't work).

<comment><USER5> Note that portable single "burner" induction cooktops are available at under $100 for anyone who wants to investigate the technology before committing to it. It will remain a useful appliance, whatever your preference (warming plate, at-table presentations, cooking on the porch, etc.).

<comment><USER6> $70 from Target.com

[http://www.target.com/Aroma-Induction-Cooktop- Black/dp/B0041...](http://www.target.com/Aroma-Induction-Cooktop- Black/dp/B0041GHIJ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&searchView=grid5&keywords=induction&fromGsearch=true&sr=1-1&qid=1298731982&rh=&searchRank=target104545&id=Aroma%20Induction%20Cooktop%20Black&node=1038576|1287991011&searchSize=30&searchPage=1&searchNodeID=1038576|1287991011&searchBinNameList=subjectbin%2Cprice%2Ctarget_com_primary_color- bin%2Ctarget_com_size-bin%2Ctarget_com_brand-bin&frombrowse=0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I rebuilt a house in the SF Bay Area several years ago.

In-floor radiant heating is my absolute favorite feature. Nothing like it.

On-demand tankless hot water system. With two loops (one open, one closed) and a heat exchanger between the two, one on-demand system can serve your domestic hot water plus the in-floor heating.

Humidity switches in the bathrooms to kick on the exhaust fan when moisture builds up from the shower (an anti-mold measure).

I put in structured wiring for phone, Ethernet (CAT 6), and video. I feel really stupid now as the only video I watch is on the computer and I gave up my landline to go solely cellular. I still like the Ethernet jacks in every room but mostly because I can put my wireless router anywhere. Lesson learned: technology changes rapidly. My structured wiring box looks quaint instead of high-tech after only five years.

A solar tube (basically a round skylight with a thirty foot reflective tube) that brings natural light down to ground floor rooms. Very nice.

One piece of advice: Don't get started on house remodeling or construction if you're doing a startup or trying to run a business. It tends to demand far more time than you have. And it's true it can put a strain on relationships (for the same reason).

</comment><comment><USER8> Put in some proper cable ducts so you don't have to tear up the wall once some new standard is introduced.

Put up some solar thermal panels; they last forever and really do work. Look into geothermal, maybe it's worthwhile where you live. But the biggest money saver will be better insulation. You can save up to 70% of your heating/cooling costs by proper insulation.

<comment><USER9> Make sure the wiring conduits are large because a small conduit can screw up the rating of the cable if you really have to force it through.

You should use talcum powder on the cables to easily pull them through the conduits and reduce stress on them.

For example, in my house the conduits are tiny and routed at extreme 90 degree angles in places. There's no chance that I'll ever be able to route any decent cable without degrading its performance. The last time I routed cable it was extremely difficult to do.

<comment><USER10> Also leave a pull wire or two and always pull a new pull wire every time you add a cable and use the existing one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ethernet everywhere, and more than you think you need, even if you don't terminate every connection. Put in Cat-6, as it's easier to pull, and future proof.

Everywhere you think you might need one cable, put 2, need 2, put 4. In fact, 4 strands/room might not be overkill.

Where everything comes back to, put a patch panel - you can buy panels with 24 square slots and a bracket to hook it into the wall. I'd put this in a closet or utility room (laundry room/garage/etc.). Make sure that power and your other utility terminations (cable/phone/etc.) go there as well.

<comment><USER12> I would put architectural moldings that hide easily accessible duct where can run Ethernet for now.

On house time scale, not sure Ethernet is future-proof, might want to run fiber or who knows what in 20 years. Twisted pair is only mass market for last 20 years.

Or you might even want to run speaker wire or who knows what.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ethernet in the walls is a definite yes of course.

A backup electricity generator would be cool if power outages aren't uncommon in your area. Something like a central UPS.

Good insulation is key. Double glazed windows, etc.

A solar water heater is a good idea if you get a good amount of sunshine.

Grey-water recycling is a good idea. You can also reclaim heat from it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_water_heat_recycling>

A composting setup would be handy if you have a backyard or garden.

Choose robustness and longevity over style and minor cost savings for the various components/materials that will be used.

<comment><USER14> >> Ethernet in the walls is a definite yes of course.

Why Ethernet instead of PLC? I know EthCat6 is faster and reliable... but you can get now 500Mbps from some PLC kits, and no maintaining is required

<comment><USER5> I faced this choice when I bought a new house and opted for PLC. As much as I like wired ethernet, I'm glad I went with PLC. It was cheaper in the long run and more flexible because I can use any power outlet in a room without having to grab an extra long cable. Wireless has improved so much, I only use PLC for legacy devices like network printers or old laptops. I also inherited a mess of telephone and security cables with the house and the basement is an incomprehensible tangle. Be nice to future owners and avoid adding cables whenever possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spray foam insulation in attic and basement (cellulose based).

Mini-split AC system (multi-zoned Mitsubishi or LG).

CAT-6 wired, RJ-45 connections (two in each room).

Electrical, instant-on hot water heater (no tank).

Graywater system to save on toilet flushes.

Double-gang outlet boxes (so you can have 4 outlets, instead of 2).

Air-to-Air heat exchanger (they are called many things - it replenishes stale, indoor air with fresh outdoor air without changing the temperature too much).

Steam shower.

Wiring closet.

CAT-5/CAT-6 to outside eaves of house for CCTV streaming network cameras.

Mutli-zone sprinkler system with soil moisture monitoring.

Rain-water fed cistern (for irrigation, toilet).

Laminar flow fountain with LED color-changing lights.

Green roof (it grows plants on the roof to absorb the sun's energy and reduce rain water runoff).

Natural pool (it uses plants to filter the water, not chemicals).

A mote.

A portcullis.

<comment><USER15> Do instant-on hot water heaters work well? What are the best brands. I'm in an apartment with a small tank that I would like to replace.

<comment><USER16> They don't work well with high-efficiency washers. The washer pulls a small amount of hot water so slowly that the heater never sees the demand to kick the heat on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ethernet is absolutely worth it. Streaming video or audio will benefit from this. Having a wired network can help improve your wifi network because you can put wireless access points anywhere you have a wired connection.

The combination of Apple's iTunes + Airport Express + Remote app works very well. But it's much more reliable on a wired network. I used to have this setup on a wifi network, and the music would cut out every so often, but that was because my wifi network was unreliable. Also note when it is on ethernet, the Airport Express can also function as a wireless access point at the same time as streaming music.

</comment><comment><USER18> Underfloor heating, much nicer than radiators, cheaper to run and more wall space :)

+1 for ethernet.

<comment><USER19> Oh, yes absolutely. I wish I had made the decision to tear down the cement leveling and installed floor heating when I has the chance. Gas heating is killing me, and don't even get me started on electrical. That, combined with a coke heater will reduce your heating bill significantly. Also, consider solar water heating panels - those are subsidized by the state in some areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd definitely put in ethernet. But maybe there's some way you can wire everything through 1" PVC pipes, so it's relatively easy to replace it.

For Wireless music you can also using Apple's Airport Express?

I don't know how expensive solar panels are where you live, but here they are definitely worth it, especially as they get subsidized by the government. Another good green thing is a big tank which uses all your overheat to keep water warm, and then uses it. Don't know what it's called, but it saves quite a bit on the heating bill.

<comment><USER20> The conduit is a good idea. If not everywhere, then from various strategic locations, maybe running up and down to basement or attic.

It's an auspicious week to advocate this because Apple and Intel just released Thunderbolt, formerly known as Light Peak. The initial implementation is all copper, but the protocol is designed for fiberoptic, so within five years we may all be routinely plugging keyboards and monitors in one part of the house into a computer in another part, which in turn is plugged into the storage array in the attic. But only if we pull the cables.

<comment><USER4> That's what I had in the back of my mind indeed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having read some of the comments already I vote heartily for radiant heating floors, green tech which does not cause more maintenance proceedures/confusion for next buyer, proper amounts of electrical plugs (id put them in the floor in the main living areas or at least at the very base of the floor molds. Lots of houses have ethernet cabling... I think you're safe with that. Air exchanges aren't sexy, but awesome.

hack summer - partly screened in deck/porch from mosquitos are wonderful.

<comment><USER22> I'm gonna second radiant heat in the floor. You'll never regret it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's what I did when we built our house about 10 years ago:

I ran a bundled cable containing 2 cat5 and 2 coax to each bedroom, the kitchen, my office and the family room. Even with wireless it's nice to be able to put another access point in pretty much any room. I did additional single cat5 runs to various places where I didn't think I'd need all four. Today I'm not sure the coax is still justified, but it has been handy for satellite. Now, I'd at least run several cat6 to each location and just leave it in the wall.

I ran speaker wire everywhere, every room including the garage, outside for the deck, even the laundry room. It's just sitting in the walls/ceiling in most places still, but I add a new "node" occasionally.

For the music nodes, I have a bunch of airport express units in the basement where all the wiring terminates. They're not running in wireless mode, just plugged into a gigabit switch with a single channel amp hanging off each one.

I got several of them refurb here (apple has them refurb too): <http://www.cowboom.com/product/160235>

These are the little amps (they have various wattages): <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001P2VV50>

You can spend as much as you want on speakers, but I usually go for the cheap ones since they're generally just for background music anyway. That lets me put in a new node for under $150.

Here are some cheap bics that I have in a couple of rooms: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0008MFIFM>

Also:

\- take pictures/video of all your open walls so you can find your wire \- label all your wiring at both ends

<comment><AUTHOR> Are these Airports really the cheapest/best way to get music playing? seems like a lot of wasted technology in them if I'm just connecting them to ethernet.

<comment><USER23> Agreed, it does seem like a waste, but I haven't found a better solution that allows the same flexibility. You could split a bunch of speakers out of a bigger amp if you just want the same sound everywhere, but I really like being able to choose any combination of sources and output. My family all have macs and ipod touches or iphones. There's something cool about any of the kids being able to pipe their ipod's music through the deck speakers, for example, while my office plays itunes off my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Go pellet/corn instead of a true wood stove. I got so sick of splitting wood and cleaning a crappy wood stove that I replaced mine. Now I just dump in 40 lbs of pellets and let her rip. After a couple bags I just need to take my vacuum and 5 minutes later I have a clean stove. Plus I can keep the bags in the garage instead of lugging outside in the snow.

<comment><USER25> \- IIRC you have to make special accommodations (battery backup?) to ensure pellet stoves work during a power outage.

\- you can buy logs made of compressed sawdust for your wood stove. These are sized properly for most stoves, though I find you do need to split them in quarters or thirds to get them to catch well. Splitting a day's worth of pressed wood takes ~5 minutes with a hatchet and is light-duty work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Also, a power monitor might make sense - there's a project that uses the Arduino if you're feeling like building one yourself.

</comment><comment><USER26> 1\. Put velcro around your house in various rooms

2\. Put velcro on the back of your iPad and iPhone

3\. <http://www.apple.com/ipad/velcro/>

Warning (taken from Apple's page):

      "Tweet from the street at your own risk!*"
       ...
      *Do not attempt.

</comment><comment><USER27> \- Plain old electric outlets in almost every corner, more than you think you'd need :)

\- I'm putting in 2 wood stoves too.

\- Yes on the ethernet, wifi only takes you that far.

<comment><USER28> If you are burying cables in the wall you may as well spend the extra and go for Cat. 6a UTP as it's spec'd to carry 10 Gbit Ethernet. Watch out for the minimum bend radius though its often around 30 mm with Cat 6a (4x cable's outer diameter).

More and more stuff can be carried down UTP like video (HDMI over Ethernet) and USB devices, it is also ideal for hooking up phones around the place too. You can never have too much UTP in your walls when considering possible future requirements IMO.

Oh and don't forget to run some up to your roof area to give you the option of participating in your local wireless mesh project!

<comment><USER27> But isn't ethernet way faster than your internet connection, which is your true bottleneck? Unless you're gonna do heaps of local movie streaming or something?

<comment><USER29> In 20 years time, 10 Gigabit ethernet is going to be slow. Maybe he'll want to stream holographic projections or something and he can't do it because his wires only support gigabit ethernet. That's the problem with house remodelling: predicting the future. That's why you always overbuild while you have the drywall off and laying cable is relatively cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> While less exciting, make sure you have access to everywhere.

One day water will drip through the ceiling into the downstairs, and you'll have to start either tearing up the floorboards, or cutting holes in the ceiling, to find out what is leaking from where.

</comment><comment><USER31> These:

<http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=458>

<comment><USER32> Highly disappointing that that final design differs so much from the one here: [http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/truepower-ucs-usb-power- outlet-...](http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/truepower-ucs-usb-power- outlet-07-12-2009/)

I'm sure there are technical/electrical issues that forced a different design - just a shame it's not as well executed (and over double the price).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I would do a wet kitchen and wet bathroom. Having commercial style drain directly accessible in the floor makes life so much easier. Just think about it... how great would it be to hose down the entire room. It's actually very common to have a wet bathroom in asia.

Some other things I like: • zoned small duct/high velocity AC • PEX for non- potable water supply • overkill on electrical wiring • wainscoting • gray water collection • heat recovery shower drains (depends on the house) • tankless water heaters / point of use water heaters • potfiller faucet (wall mount faucet above the stove) • a sink large enough to hold a baking sheet pan

<comment><USER34> Outstanding list. I'd add ground loop geothermal. Plus a second sink in the kitchen if you're into cooking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> When you put ethernet, make sure to use Cat6 or Cat7 - it costs more now, but will serve you far longer. Do that at least to the farthest places in the house (so you can put the wifi access points). Or to every room -- you can use them also as speaker cables, wired phone cables.

Also, I've seen a few places with collapsible walls - one of them had a wall between the livingroom and a bedroom, that was collapsible (so that they become one room), and had a flat screen tv in the middle that could rotate (so it would point either at the bedroom or the livingroom) and would collapse to be on the side wall when the whole thing collapsed.

</comment><comment><USER36> A couple things I wish I had after visiting some friends. Wire the opposite sides of your rooms on different fuses. Run gas lines to your backyard for access to heaters and grill. The gas from your house is different than what you would use for your grill/outside heating you may need to change the aperture of the openings. Walk around your house and find somewhere you would like your garden. Find a window that looks over that spot, and install a switch inside next to the window that controls an outlet outside the house. It's nice to be able to water your garden with a flip of a switch. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see the logic of wiring different sides of rooms on different fuses but I think this would probably be against wiring regulations in the UK - <USER2> possibly against common sense too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> In addition to energy efficiency, do whatever you can with your money to make maintenance easier on yourself.

For instance, bathrooms that are easily cleanable. I myself really like the way that Japanese homes generally separate the toilet, sink, and bath/shower into separate rooms. With the bath/shower essentially being a tiled room, it's really easy to clean up without splashing water everywhere.

A continuous hot water heater will pay for itself (and let you take Japanese- style baths).

</comment><comment><USER38> This thread just cost me $400 since I just ordered everything to do heated floors in my new bathroom I'm installing. For about $9/sqft, I bought Warmwire and a programmable thermostat. The installation looks super simple too.

I live in Austin, so there's only a few months out of the year that this will be useful, but I can only imagine how glorious it will be to walk barefoot on warm tile in the winter. :)

</comment><comment><USER39> A couple others have mentioned this, but I looked in to multi-room audio a few months ago and it seems to me that AirPort Express is not only the best solution (at least if your music is in iTunes and you carry an iPhone or iPad) but also the cheapest: it's $99 per room plus audio equipment.

Having a WiFi base station in every room is just the icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you're able (and if this applies), put a 2"-3" piece of PVC or other conduit from somewhere in your attic to somewhere in your basement, where you can get to it. You never know when you're going to need to fish cable from high to low or vice versa.

<comment><USER41> second this. especially across rafters. never go above 1.5", always drill center and reinforce with a steel brace clip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Look into passive solar design options. There are lots of "old" things that can be done to make the house functional without having to constantly run up the electric bill for heating, air conditioning, etc. Passive solar works best if you are building from the ground up because house orientation and things like that can be big factors. But that doesn't mean you can't incorporate some passive solar design principles into a renovation.

If it were my house, I would make sure all those modern gizmos are bells and whistles/icing on the cake and that the entire thing doesn't simply fall apart without them. That's part of my wishlist for some time in the future.

<comment><USER6> One of the best passive solar methods I have seen is to use plants and trees to obstruct the Southern view of the sun.

As fall approaches, the leaves fall off of the trees, allowing sunlight to pass, and warm your home.

As spring approaches, the leaves return, blocking the sun, and keeping your house cool.

ALSO, a green roof would be awesome AND a "natural pool".

<comment><USER42> Yes, I was thinking of the deciduous tree thing when I was writing my post. It's very rehab-friendly, unlike some passive solar techniques.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If I were renovating, I'd wire speakers into all parts of the house. This way, the same music can be playing all over the house and can be controlled easily.

In fact, I can't wait until I have a place of my own and the money to make this happen.

<comment><USER44> I just stayed at a 4 bedroom rental cabin that had this and it was surprisingly useful. All of the audio went back to a receiver in the living room and each room had it's own volume knob. We used it just about every day we were there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> a faraday cage embedded in the walls, with fractally-bent wires upto the roof :)

</comment><comment><USER46> If you get snow, the next renovation I'm looking into is a heated driveway. It's MUCH cheaper to put in if you're already replacing / repairing the driveway vs. tearing it up for the fun of it.

</comment><comment><USER47> USB power outlets seem cool:

[http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/truepower-ucs-usb-power- outlet-...](http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/truepower-ucs-usb-power- outlet-07-12-2009/)

</comment><comment><USER48> I ran 4" electrical conduit from where the TV is to where the cable box etc. are. Didn't take more than a few hours to cut, join and mount it, and it is completely future proof.

To mirror everyone else's comments, cable everything you can. I ran 2x RG-6 quad shield, 2x CAT-5e to each panel and home-ran it. If I did it again I'd also run a CAT-3 (I won't use it but future buyers might want it). I've seen cables that have all that plus fiber - check out smarthome.com or similar.

</comment><comment><USER49> Get one of those fm transmitters, and use old radios in each room for music. Or carry a ghetto blaster or computer speakers and a portable player from room to room.

If I need a tv in another room. I carry one in there.

Not sure how good networking over electric cables is these days, but would seem like an easy alternative to wifi.

Rather than run Ethernet cables through the house, I ran them on the outside of the last place I lived. It was easier, and less messy (at least from the inside).

</comment><comment><USER50> Make the roof a lighter color (aka, a "cool roof") -- especially if you're in a warmer climate -- to reduce energy consumption: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_roof>

A cool roof energy savings calculator from DOE: <http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/facts/CoolCalcEnergy.htm>

</comment><comment><USER51> In the coming years the price of water will change considerably. You probably wont regret installing a rainwater harvesting system. Also, there is a way to finesse the wasted water that goes down the drain in the shower back into your toilet tanks.

<comment><USER52> There's a (relatively low) upper bound on the price of water based on cost of desalinating water (turning ocean water into drinkable water).

It looks like, today, water desalination can be done for about a $1000 per acre-foot, which is only ~40% more expensive than current prices ([http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120053698876396483.html?mod=...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120053698876396483.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)). Granted there aren't desalination plants everywhere - but in the event of a serious water shortage many would quickly be built.

40% sounds like a lot, but water accounts for such a small percent of most people's current expenses, that it's practically negligible.

Current per capita total water use in the USA is about 180 gallons per day. That means switching to all desalinated water would cost less than $70 extra dollars per year per person.

<comment><USER53> There's something wrong with those numbers, at least on an "as delivered" basis.

Water on the Monterey penisula is already several times as expensive as San Jose's. Neither one uses de-salination.

The Monterey peninsula is adding some desalination and the projected cost for all water is double the current cost. (Does anyone think that the projection will turn out low?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is Airport Express the best option for music? I don't like the idea of tying myself to Apple and iTunes. Nor do I have any use for the Wifi/USB connectivity that seems to make up the bulk of the Airport's functionality.

<comment><USER34> For a house, I haven't found anything better. I value my time, and not having to fiddle with it pays off. Plus it's pretty flexible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A Toto Washlet.

<comment><USER6> Upvoted.

For the uninitiated...

<http://www.totousa.com/Washlet/WashletC110.aspx>

<comment><USER12> After using one of these I don't even know how other toilet manufacturers stay in business. It's the gift to your private parts that just keeps on giving.

<comment><USER34> I'm really, really surprised how much I like it. It's like unlocking a secret level that people only know about in Japan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Visit www.control4.com and www.sonos.com for the ultimate automated home! Cant wait to build with these.

</comment><comment><USER55> More electrical outlets. Secret passage-ways. A hangar for the Bat-fleet. A maze for the Minotaur.

</comment><comment><USER56> heat lamps outside the shower, or even a giant blow drier (I have seen these before, really)

</comment><comment><USER57> i would build a urinal in my closet, or otherwise easily accessible from my room (seriously)

</comment><comment><USER58> a bidet for the lady in the house

</comment><comment><USER59> tankless water heater?

</comment><comment><USER60> I haven't yet seen a suggestion for sound-dampening blankets/foam. If you live in an urban area, keeping the bedrooms quiet could be a huge pay-off as even minor sleep disruptions (you don't even have to be aware of them, let alone be awoken) measurably affect mental acuity and overall energy levels.</comment>


Email newsletters are the new zines - <AUTHOR> http://www.simonowens.net/email-newsletters-are-the-new-zines <comment><USER2> I find it amusing when folks self-describe as 'anti-establishment', particularly journalists writing predominantly stories about journalistic and media trends. Also interesting when articles like this are written by folks touting their own newsletter: is 'newsletters are becoming huge' true, or wishful thinking?

I think the comparison with zines is interesting, but a newsletter on the best podcasts, or featuring a 'random medieval image' is not the heir to Sniffin' Glue. Anti-Establishment, the punk ethos, youth culture, that meant something. (Back when I were a lad, pass my slippers).

The nearest I've found is Tumblr, to be honest. The porny, angry, angsty, badly written, rapid fire, wonderfulness of that pile of zines on the record store counter.

Having said all that, I also find newsletters interesting. But as it stands at the moment they have a discovery problem (podcasts suffered the same way at the start). It might be gonzo to publish without an audience, because, hell- yeah, and stuff, but I don't see how anything but self delusion could make you think that means you're reaching more people who are 'genuinely interested'.

I'd love to read more newsletters, but those I've been recommended are mostly the same journalistic onanism or smug punditry. I've not found any distinct voice that isn't amply available across the internet.

<comment><USER3> Hey sago, thanks for the feedback on the piece. It's interesting, some of the sources I spoke to also mentioned Tumblr as one of the descendents of zines, though the quote didn't make it into my article.

<comment><USER2> To what extent do you think the comparison comes from journalists wanting to feel like they are punk? When you're middle aged, middle class, living in wealthy metropolis, you're as near to 'establishment' as you could be. Or, put another way, when you've become what you despised when you were 16. Then, feeling like you're the descendent of zine culture, that you are -- even if only in the quietest of echoes -- sticking it to the man, is probably pretty good for the self esteem, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mark my words: bots are the new email newsletters.

<comment><USER5> Explain the association..

<comment><USER6> Try this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is twenty years out of date.</comment>


Do you still use Captchas or moved to something better? - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering if there are any reliable less time-consuming activities that make Captchas look a thing of the past.<p>Do you know of any? <comment><USER2> There are some alternatives, i.e. where Captchas are only displayed when JavaScript is disabled. But all these methods don't work, at least someone just can analyze the traffic and do all the JavaScript-Stuff in a single HTTP/TLS Request, because it's not truly server-side. I know it's embarrassing to use Captchas, but at least for the registration it should be used. Or you could use OpenID or some social network oauth system to avoid Captchas.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been running all the comments and posts on one of my sites through Akismet ([http://akismet.com/](http://akismet.com/)) instead of requiring captchas. It works great at filtering out spam but couldn't replace captchas in every situation. For example, I don't think it'd be very effective against fake account signups.

</comment><comment><USER4> I build my own. You can see it at [http://elbil.forum24.se/humantest.php?todo=%2Fprofile.php%3F...](http://elbil.forum24.se/humantest.php?todo=%2Fprofile.php%3Fmode%3Dbli_medlem). Works great.

<comment><USER2> it seems to be relatively simple to brute-force, because the used set is small compared to possible keyboard letters. but for most real world scenarios it should work, if there are only spammers who don't investigate and just ignore it. thus maybe not for high-traffic sites.

<comment><USER4> The biggest problem is people take the capta image and put it on an other website (free porn or what have you). That way you always have humans solving your captch but you can still spam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have implemented Tic-Tac-Toe

[http://demo.axiomnext.com](http://demo.axiomnext.com)

Click on login to see it.

Sorry forgot the source URL from where we took it.

<comment><USER6> That seems to be very weak compared to traditional captchas.

* It is no more than a weekend project to extract the Xs from the image and write a solver.

* Even without a image processing, the number of possible answers is 7. A 14% success rate is plenty for an automated spambot.

The only benefit is obscurity: a solver would have to be custom-built for this captcha and website. But a text field with instructions "type the word 'blue' here" would work just as well for keeping out non-customised spambots.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> how about a phone ring? [http://beta.veriring.com/](http://beta.veriring.com/)</comment>


All the things I hate about Python - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@natemurthy/all-the-things-i-hate-about-python-5c5ff5fda95e <comment><USER2> I dislike examples of a concept when the made-up code is not properly using the language. You _don't write_ is_valid() calls in Python: you "try:" things that may fail.

As far as dynamic typing: for every unfortunate runtime surprise that dynamic typing can give you, I can find a multi-page compiler error in a statically- typed language that was frustratingly finicky about type precision. Neither is a clear win; yet I really like how dynamic systems naturally encourage good test infrastructures. Also, use linters.

The Python 2/3 divide is real though. I guess we're still better off than Perl (6.x seems pretty unused).

<comment><USER3> I use Perl 6

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author does not understand the difference between weak vs strong typing and dynamic vs static typing.

<comment><USER5> Don't bother reading the article. It's an unenlightened rant.

Indeed, the author does not know that Python is strongly typed. Most of the article is nonsense.

If you're running the same code on different machines or virtual machines and one fails, the first thing you check is the version numbers of the runtime and libraries. This is true in any language.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me ask you all this: Why was Hadoop written in Java and not Python? Why was Spark written in Scala and not Python? Why was Kubernetes written in Go and not Python? Why was Mesos written in C/C++ and not Python?

</comment><comment><USER6>
        The fact that I cannot, in the absence of perfect test
        coverage, verify the correctness of someone's code is a
        big red flag.

Pssst... you can't do this with any type system. You might be able to come close with some of the fancier dependent-typing stuff, but at some point a "sufficiently-specific type specification" starts looking an awful lot like a QuickCheck-style test.

</comment><comment><USER7> This kind of article is why I mostly avoid Medium.</comment>


Why Swedes overpay their taxes - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/02/economist-explains-19 <comment><USER2> tl;dr banks in Sweden have negative interest rates so it is cheaper to over pay and collect the money after a while, as a form of savings.</comment>


Ask HN: How Can I Make Better Submissions to HN? - <AUTHOR> I just saw a comment by pg reminding another commenter of the HN guidelines.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This seems like an opportune time to ask how I might implement the guidelines quoted below:
"What to Submit
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
I've read most of pg's essays
http://paulgraham.com/articles.html
over the years, so I have some sense of his intellectual interests, and I remember the very early phase of Reddit (which I think was seeded with participants by a bunch of personal friends of pg and the Reddit founders). But please inform me so I do better. I can see empirically which links and which "Ask HN" posts get upvoted the most, but which links and which Ask HN posts are the ones you would most like to see? What posts that gratify intellectual curiosity should there be more of?
Still learning at age fifty, <comment><USER2> Boy, I wish someone had asked this before.

The best posts are ones that say something surprising (e.g. not just a reporter writing a routine story about a familiar topic), and say it in a convincing way, with depth of argument, and numbers, if applicable.

Posts about how to do things oneself, and how things work, tend to be particularly appreciated. This is an audience that likes to know the details.

Posts don't have to be about hacking, so long as they talk in detail about something novel or surprising. Though arguably anything that talks about the internal details of how something works _is_ about hacking, in the broader sense.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411994>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406885>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418776>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414330>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418329>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414226>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414502>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418098>

<comment><USER3> Three of those links were a different color because they were not in my browser history. I immediately middle-clicked each of them.

<comment><USER4> Holy cow -- middle clicking opens in a new tab?! I love you.

<comment><USER5> My first thought on reading that was, "some people don't know that?!"

My immediate next thought was, "I wonder what obvious things _I_ don't know that might save me countless hours."

Is there a wiki for this sort of thing? There needs to be one.

<comment><USER6> apple-shift-t reopens closed tabs in firefox

<comment><USER7> You are my hero.

I presume that's built in? I've been using TMP to get the same functionality, but it uses F12 which gets swallowed by firebug if you have that enabled.

<comment><USER6> heh. Funny thing is that I post or tweet this about once a week. It's my pet project to tell more people about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find most of the content on HN great - have a look at the front page now, it's largely balanced and good. The list pg posted is also spot on.

My only qualm is with articles like 90% of those on <http://www.reddit.com/r/politics> and <http://www.reddit.com/r/business> . I believe that if we don't keep a watchful eye on things, HN will turn into something similarly intelligence-free and I'd hate to see that happen.

<comment><USER9> I think the fundamental difference is that there's no real effort here to appeal to a wider audience. In fact there seem to be some things done (lack of a "fancy" design for starters) to discourage that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> IMO HN sees hackers with a wide range of interests. I personally like to read anything that tickles my intellectual curiosity, from programming topics, to articles covering the current financial crisis (of which I know very little, BTW :D) [Needless to say every now and then I come across an article that introduced me to a topic that I knew nothing of, and it has subsequently found itself on my "like" list]

Right now as I write this the top 3 articles on HN cover how to load a plan, an article on the current financial debacle, and the highly optimized square root calculation used by the makers of Quake. I read all three, and upvoted all three (did not comment on any).

IMO I would not worry about what articles other hackers find interesting, post those that _you_ do. The voting process will separate the wheat from the chaff.

After that long response, personally, I tend to like to read about the new language/technology that I have currently immersed myself in, but I tend not to post all the articles that I read to avoid making HN a www.reddit.com/r/<insert language here> clone.

I think for the most part, submit what you feel is interesting, and every now and then a comment will tell you that you messed up (I know I have had a few, and have apologized for the same).

Happy Posting...

</comment><comment><USER11> Anything that's intellectually stimulating to entrepreneurs and hackers. 99.9% of the people who visit Hacker News are in one or both categories.

Problem solving? Ground-breaking tech news? News about YCombinator start-ups? Better development methods? Ways to raise funds? Ideas that grate against the system?

Bring them on.

</comment><comment><USER12> Submit stuff that interests you with a title. If the community agrees it'll also get upvoted, if not no harm. Unless you're flooding the new page, which can happen accidentally sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER13> Assume that you are a hacker, then submit stuff that interests you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would be fair to say that I am not a hacker, although my oldest son aspires to be a hacker. So some of my bias in what I find interesting to post here is

a) what is good groundwork-laying information for a YOUNG hacker?

or

b) what contributes to a broad, complete education for hackers of any age?

<comment><USER14> He might like David Macaulay's _The Way Things Work_ ( <http://www.amazon.com/New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473/> ).

Also, libraries in general, including university libraries. Some books on homeschooling (such as Grace Llewellyn's _Teenage Liberation Handbook_) are full of pointers for self-study.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Macaulay's _The Way Things Work_ is a wonderful book. He's a little bit older than I think you may have guessed he is. His younger siblings like that book too.

Libraries in general are where I spend much of my life. I definitely like to bring all my children to libraries at every opportunity. Thanks for mentioning The Teenage Liberation Handbook in your reply. Some older hackers may find that very interesting as a way to hack getting an education.

<comment><USER14> Sure thing. Focus on nurturing the desire to keep learning, rather than whatever specific, short term interests their variety of "hacking" implies.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scamming the scammer - <AUTHOR> http://www.419eater.com/html/okorie.htm

<comment><USER2> For any This American Life fans here, there's a great episode about these guys: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=3...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=363)

</comment><comment><USER3> 419ers generally justify what they are doing by claiming Americans are evil and deserve to be scammed. An interesting parallel here.

<comment><USER4> Yes. If scammers are motivated by greed and desperation, scam baiters seem largely motivated by a desire to humiliate, or just feel superior to the scammers. There is a 'trophy room' on that site where scammers are posed often naked, sometimes with their wives/partners) with juvenile signs, generally framed by the obvious trappings of poverty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The website and the idea are really great. I can only advise everyone who doesn't know what 419 scam is to read this.

The sad truth though is that it works, there are people who still fall for this (419 scam) and there are also people who buy stuff when they see advertisement in their inbox (ad emails) - even if it's only 1 in 10000 it is enough.

<comment><USER6> There is a very simple rule: If you are a nobody and you get approached by somebody with an offer you are being scammed.

The only reason it works at all is because people don't stop to think "Hey, I'm absolutely nobody, why aproach me ?". That and greed...

<comment><USER7> How about desperation? It's easy to talk about our superior standard of living, but there is an edge, a steep edge and lots of people are near enough to it to consider crazy things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Congratulations to Nicholas Okorie for being the first scammer on the planet to be suckered into having a tattoo!_

 _I have a few more scammers going through the same process, and they are showing a little more resistance than Okorie. Just shows what sheer greed can do to you I suppose._

Okorie may or may not be greedy, but I _would_ say he is desperate. He scams people because there are very few opportunities to make money in Nigeria. Of course it is not right for him to scam people, but the whole situation is not much improved by fighting back. As a result, Okorie becomes even more desperate and 419eater wastes his time.

Who knows, instead of scamming Okorie might switch to the kidnapping business or something.

<comment><USER9> How the hell would you know Okorie's motives?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> it is very impressive that they spend so much time and energy in tracking down the scammers. great job. it must be fun, a bit risky also.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you want from your presentation software? - <AUTHOR> We're doing a little bit of research on what people think about the current state of presentation software. We see some opportunities, but would love to hear where others think the problems lie. Feel free to comment below, or if you're so inclined filling out this survey would be really nice - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XNZNJFW <comment><USER2> Text with a separate fill/outline for the font (not word art as the font proportions usually are distorted) This would be useful for subtitling, Chroma keyed video presentation work.

Getting arcade-like text effects. Most presentation effects are pretty basic (boring), they generate a text block and then just shove it into place (or dissolve it, or...) How about making some new text effects that play like arcade attract screen text, take a look at arcade game attract screens and how the text is presented, whipping in character by character, chrome shimmer, etc.

I hate taking surveys,. always limiting. Here's an option the survey didn't have - How do you distribute your presentation: Web and TV (think digital signage or text overlay)

</comment><comment><USER3> An integration with a searchable library of slides and snippets that will allow simple reuse of previously created content. The key is how this library is organized by the type of content and version.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slide parametrization ie variables with product/customer names etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Convenient collaboration features within a team. Version History. No manual update or disconnect of tabular data.</comment>


One man designed and built the ultimate bush plane - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/one-man-designed-and-built-the-ultimate-bush-plane/ <comment><USER2> Lots of cool video about this plane on YouTube. Just search for "Draco bush plane".

This interview with the builder gives a good overview:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqhI4MeCn1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqhI4MeCn1c)

One of the many cool things about this plane is that it can land on its tailwheel. Most tailwheel planes are designed so that the stall in a "three- point attitude", i.e. the same attitude that they are in when all three wheels are on the ground. This plane doesn't. In fact, one of the things that the builder says in the video above is that the true stall speed of the plane is still unknown because he doesn't feel safe doing the experiment, the un- stalled attitude being already so extreme.

<comment><USER3> Just correcting some vagueness from the above comment.

Most tailwheel airplanes can do wheel or 3-point (stall) landings. For example, I've done both in the Decathlon, a very common tailwheel airplane.

Also, I watched the video and although the builder is an intelligent guy, you're supposed to know the stall speed of your airplane. Many of the speed indications are based on that.

It looks like he should finish the test flight program.

Note that many homebuilders don't allow resale (instead they take a chainsaw to the spar for liability reasons.)

Read about John Denver's fatal homebuilt resale accident to see why.

<comment><USER2> > Most tailwheel airplanes can do wheel or 3-point (stall) landings.

Yes, but very few of them can touch town tailwheel-first.</comment></comment></comment>


The noise reduction system - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/08/the-noise-reduction-system/ <comment><USER2> "Confusion creates opportunity" as they say...</comment>


Why's poignant guide to metaprogramming in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://poignantguide.net/ruby/chapter-6.html <comment><USER2> I'm afraid I have to agree with jayz's dead comment: "obnoxiously twee" is a pretty good description of this guy's writing style.

I'm sure some people like it, but I'm not one of them.

</comment><comment><USER3> The central theme of this book, to me: programming should be fun. Have fun.

The Poignant Guide is how I learned Ruby and remains my favorite technical book. If you're at all curious about Ruby as a language, spend some time reading the first few pages (or just browse the comics). There's much more to Ruby than Rails - if you've no interest in web dev, or just want to hack around, you will be right at home.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is programming for the type of person who cannot retain information from blobs of code and small text snippets(ie. All programming books)

You find these sort of things in the little schemer and such.I loved hist first guide and it taught me alot.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love ruby, but reading why's guides didn't help me at all when I learned ruby. I liked them though, but it didn't help me understand anything, more like watching an episode of Professor Baltazar - fun and incomprehensible.

<comment><USER6> I learned Ruby from the Poignant Guide. I thought it was quite a fun way to learn. I think part of the secret is that the text was so puzzling and jokey that I found myself using the code to help figure out what was going on. If you don't read the code, you can't get the jokes. By the time I was finished, I was trained: now I subconsciously expect Ruby code to be more comprehensible than English itself!

I also printed it out and read it from paper, which helps because it makes it easier to hold your head in your hands and stare at one example for minutes at a time. I think I must have spent an hour contemplating the enormous implications of Dwemthy's Array.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That is worth reading for the comics alone.

</comment><comment><USER8> read it many years ago. but reading it again it is just as good (even my non- programming girlfriend enjoys it!)</comment>


Ask HN: what percentage of HN users browse the new posts pages? - <AUTHOR>

How many in the community are actually involved in bringing posts to the main page? I've a feeling most users only view and vote previously chosen posts, but I might be wrong. <comment><USER2> I can obviously only speak for myself, but generally I agree with you. I come to that conclusion because up-votes are generally very concentrated on a few posts, rather than more evenly distributed. even though that that might be a result of the actual interestingness of an article, i highly doubt that it is so conform, especially considering that one out of very similar articles gets often picked out. even though it might in the end not represent the best source of information on that certain topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> New posts are where you can participate in conversations. Posts on the frontpage are mostly done conversation wise. They are all talked out and you seldom get answers on your comment.

</comment><comment><USER4> I view and vote on the 'new' posts page all the time. It's my favorite part of HN.</comment>


Ask HN: Good articles that explain topic models and LDA? - <AUTHOR> I've tried searching for good articles that cover Topic Models and LDA, but on Google I'd only find mediocre Medium articles that cover library X in language Y without explaining the math behind it. <comment><USER2> You probably want to start with papers by Gerard Salton and work your way forward from there. Basically, a topic model is a vector space model (typically implemented as a matrix where each row is one vector and each column is a dimension). How the matrix gets filled depends a lot on the underlying data, the assumptions that can be made, and the application.</comment>


Veertu: converts OS X itself into a hypervisor - <AUTHOR> http://veertu.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks good. They responded [1] to confirm they are working on Vagrant support too.

If xhyve can get a more polished release thats great too, but even for the 'pro' version this is just $40, and best of all it's available via MAS so no more fucking around to both sign in with an account AND enter an activation code (I'm looking at you Parallels!)

[1] [https://twitter.com/veertu_labs/status/713265595593191424](https://twitter.com/veertu_labs/status/713265595593191424)</comment>