Schools Considering Four-Day Weeks - <AUTHOR> http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-and-education-news/articles/schools-considering-four-day-weeks-10030801 <comment><USER2> _"We're all trying different things now to see what will help us save a little money," she explained._

Lazy thinking masquerading as innovation.

A four day school week (160 vs. 180) affecting all faculty and students to save $200K? Let me give you a better idea: fire three overpriced administrators who agree to this s##t for brains idea and save $75K each.

<comment><USER3> You should probably bump that 75K to 100K and throw in s $30K side order of benefits and about a $1-$1.5M defined-benefit pension .

At least that's the going rate for most "administrators" in my neck of the woods (Milwaukee).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If society centers on a typical 5-day work week and then centers on a typical 4-day school week, then society is very very stupid.

But don't worry, all those young tween and teen boys who are out of school and unsupervised will be sure to let society know just how stupid.

</comment><comment><USER5> You know the other day, i was remembering my time in Atlanta and all of the bright shining stars they're cranking out, and i was thinking to myself...what could we really do to drive a nail into the coffin of our youths futures'? And then suddenly this article shows up, must be fate!

On a serious note, this is symptomatic of a larger national trend, we're paying more attention to everything OTHER than our children, and we wonder why we don't dominate markets that we did 20 years ago. Something drastic needs to be done, but less time with teachers, and more time un-supervised is probably not the extra "edge" our students need right now.

<comment><USER6> _we're paying more attention to everything OTHER than our children_

Not so here. I'm taking special care to make sure that all my four children are well educated. I do that in two ways:

1) I homeschool them, so that they have flexible curricula well matched to their needs with the highest quality available materials,

and

2) I actively participate in two nonprofit organizations dedicated to improvement of education in my state. In one, I coordinate with other parents to promote better education for gifted learners inside or outside classroom schools, and in the other I coordinate a math education program helping young people advance in their math understanding at elementary age

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

[http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99...](http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/amed1.pdf)

[http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99...](http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf)

[http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/issues...](http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/issues/fall2009/wu.pdf)

Note the articles I have just linked to. You can't be sure that if most American children spent more time in elementary school classrooms that they would grow up with more knowledge of mathematics. The same is true of reading, but that's another set of links.

<comment><USER5> 你好, Having gone to public and private school, i can give a fair recommendation that while I learned more academically in private school, I learned more about dealing with difficult people and real world situations (accidentally) in public school. Home schooling can be part of the answer I just hope you are allowing your children to grow. More schooling isn't an absolute, just look at japan and ask why they don't produce (as many) innovators.

I very much applaud your efforts to improve education of your state, i hope you keep up the good work. After looking at your bio, i see that you're very involved in the education system. I'm curious what brings you to HN other than good news and good commentators ^_^ . Do you also have plans to take over the world with a start-up like the rest of us?

<comment><USER3> "Home schooling can be part of the answer I just hope you are allowing your children to grow."

Do you honestly worry that he isn't allowing his child to "grow" by homeschooling?

Public school is hardly the sole source for the teaching of "socialization" skills for children.

Exchanging 50% graduation rates for lessons on "dealing with difficult people" is hardly a bargain.

<comment><USER5> If you're the type of person to home school, then your children aren't the demographic that doesn't graduate. On the other hand i've seen divisions in a YMCA league between the students who go to school together and the students who don't. Home schooling is very empowering, and beneficial. I support it and you.

Not all parents consider "socialization" necessary, but you are obviously not all parents. Kudos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hawaii is already doing this: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/21/hawaii- schools-f...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/21/hawaii-schools- fridays-furlough)

It's been very problematic for parents who have to find childcare on Fridays -- it basically just shifts that cost back on to the taxpayer.

<comment><USER8> That's how I was thinking as well.

So, would it make more sense (fiscally, not politically) to just impose or increase a tax to fund the 5th day--worked out to pretty much the same cost as people would have to pay for local childcare? Same fiscal burden, but much less social disruption.

<comment><USER5> The article sounds like the officials already realize that this is a horrible idea, though the tax payers won't do anything to prevent it. Even if it is the same overall price, its hidden in the fine print, and most people won't dig deep enough to find it.

Now if only the general masses were smarter they could figure this out for themselves. But how will we make the masses smarter if we are taking cuts to our education system...

<comment><USER3> "the tax payers won't do anything to prevent it"

So to you, that's the problem?

A math example:

Milwaukee Area school budget (2008) - $1.2B Total Enrolled Students: 82,739 Cost per student: $14,503

I can purchase on the open market private schooling in the Milwaukee area for around $6K for K-8 and $9K for high school.

For the record, my wife homeschools for no cost to the taxpayers but we still pay the taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On the high school level, perhaps jr high as well, if you could replace the 5th day at school with a day in a workplace - some kind of internship - then I think you would end up with a better system. Perhaps vastly better.

</comment><comment><USER10> A large part of the value that first and secondary schools provide is supervision. Academic subjects can be learned by self-study with the aid of learning materials and the occasional tutor. But supervision still requires a real person and physical building. As surveillance technology matures, even supervision will be doable without these. At this point, it will be much harder to justify traditional schools.

</comment><comment><USER11> _While education experts have expressed concern about the long-term effects of reduced learning hours, schools are saying that the step is necessary to avoid further teacher layoffs._

Wait, you're telling me that if you have a four-day school week, it's so that we can keep _more_ teachers on board?

</comment><comment><USER12> My school district switches to 4 ten-hour days over the summers; we save a ton of money on utilities just letting the buildings stay uncooled for three days instead of two.

Nobody has suggested doing that when classes are in session, though. Probably because most of my administration is relatively sane.

</comment><comment><USER13> If the hours are made up in the other four days, it makes sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great, just great. ...I'll make sure my kids are at 5-day week school to give them an advantage over the poor kids harmed by this idiocy.</comment>


WrkRiot CEO Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-silicon-valley-ceo-pleads-guilty-defrauding-employees-tech-company-start <comment><AUTHOR> The prosecution started due to a very detailed account by Penny Kim about her experience at "a Silicon Valley startup": [https://medium.com/startup- grind/i-got-scammed-by-a-silicon-...](https://medium.com/startup-grind/i-got- scammed-by-a-silicon-valley-startup-574ced8acdff)

The corresponding Hacker News thread doxxed WrkRiot and its employees, and things escalated from there: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518)

<comment><USER2> I remember this. There are only two points I don't fully agree with:

1\. The remarks of keeping anonymity online... I think that's just good OpSec tbh. I'm on several sites and none that I can remember have a photo of me 2\. The guy used to tout being a former JPMorgan Analyst... Maybe most people don't realize Analyst is one of the lowest positions at these institutions? Or the guy was just name-dropping the megabank

<comment><USER3> He was fraudulently name-dropping the megabank:

"Choi admitted in his plea... that he was never employed in any capacity by any financial institution..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh I remember this. Good. I hope it costs him.

Honest question though:

> As part of his guilty plea, Choi admitted that while attempting to recruit > potential employees, he made false and misleading statements about various > topics, including his educational and professional history, and the amount > of his wealth. Choi admitted in his plea that, in truth, he never attended > any business school, that he was never employed in any capacity by any > financial institution, and that he exaggerated his wealth.

Is "making misleading statements about various topics" a crime? If you tell your employees that you went to whatever business school, or your net worth is whatever etc etc... is that a crime?

<comment><USER5> Misrepresenting yourself in a business transaction for your own benefit is called fraud.

<comment><USER6> If you are broke but borrow a BMW from a friend to go to an important client meeting fraud?

You misrepresented yourself. Maybe shady. Not sure if it is illegal. Clearly there has to be more to it than that?

<comment><USER7> Driving a BMW is not a representation of fact beyond maybe "I have permission to drive this BMW", and would thus not be a misrepresentation of fact, material or otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone have a link top the court docket or know how to find it? The case is supposedly characterized as "United States v. Choi, 17-CR-308-EJD (N.D. Cal.), 17-MJ-189-DUTY (C.D. Cal.)". I'd be very interested to read it, especially what Choi said for himself in court.

<comment><USER9> If you search PACER for "5:2017cr00308" it pops up for me.

The direct link to the case documents is: [https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/HistDocQry.pl?77183091...](https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/HistDocQry.pl?771830913741187-L_1_0-1)

PACER login required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, they are taught to hustle, to do it first and ask for forgiveness later. Soon or later someone is going to cross the line. I'm glad they are caught and punished this time.

<comment><USER11> Who is "they" referring to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fake wire transfer?

Doesn't it take 24-48 hours max to materialize?

<comment><USER11> Yes. It was an extremely stupid move on his part.

<comment><USER13> Using this case as leverage to a man who pulled the same on me. A "simple" personal loan with months of lying and ultimately a fake wire receipt.

<comment><USER14> Why not just file suit? That should provide decent leverage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any lawyers here? How much can he get for this?

<comment><USER16> Up to 30 years.

<comment><USER17> Is that a realistic guess for what the sentence will be, or the theoretical maximum?

<comment><USER16> That's the maximum. They didn't mention what they will recommend. If I had to guess I would say 10 years.

<comment><USER6> It's white collar. I vote for 60 days and 3 years probation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> He only pleaded guilty to 1 count of wire fraud and not all five that were charged against him.

<comment><USER19> I would guess that his guilty plea is part of a plea deal that made this happen fast without years of litigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Talk about closure, I'm sure those who were part of the scam can rest a little bit easier I hope, albeit at a heavy cost.

To me, this was the scariest quote: _Isaac Choi aka Yi Suk Choi, Yisuk Choi, Yi Suk Chae and Isaac Chae_. I mean seriously, how many names can a person go by?

<comment><USER21> Many non-English-derived names (predominantly but not exclusively those from Asian cultures--Hebrew comes to mind) transliterate in different ways into English. If he'd had different translators at some point in his life, there may be documents with different variants. Ditto "Isaac", which is close-enough in terms of pronunciation that he may have adopted it later.

Or, in other words: there are two names there.

<comment><USER11> Taking an "American" first name (one that sounds vaguely phonetically similar to the actual first name or not) is a common practice.

<comment><USER21> I get that; what I was trying to say is that it's "different enough" that most people would call it a pseudonym rather than a transliteration. Hence, two names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sometimes it does all end in tears.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." \- MLK

<comment><USER24> That quote doesn't refer to criminal justice.

People know it from MLK, who was making a statement about the resilience of the faithful and righteous. MLK was actually quoting the 19th century abolitionist Theodore Parker, who was speaking of the inevitability of the end of American slavery.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How good a programmer is Eric S. Raymond? - DC-3 As far as I can ascertain, Eric S. Raymond is considered by many to be a statesmanlike figure in Unix culture, to be uttered in the same breath as Linus, Richard Stallman, Ken Thompson, and Dennis Ritchie. Yet while all these figures have groundbreaking software (Linux, Emacs, Unix, C) to their name, Raymond has effectively no notable software to his name at all.<p>I understand the influence of CatB - but is there evidence to suggest that ESR is genuinely an excellent programmer, or is he simply a mediocre developer with a skill for spinning a yarn? <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a list of the software he's written or worked on:

[http://www.catb.org/esr/software.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/software.html)

For example, he wrote the 'giflib' library, which is used by a lot of software (browsers, etc.) to handle GIF files. And he's contributed to several Python libraries. So it seems he's quite an accomplished programmer.</comment>


Testing a e1/t1 card before shipping to haiti - <AUTHOR>

Hi friendly HN peoples,
We're shipping a server to Haiti, ideally Friday for an MIT project (konbit.media.mit.edu). It is a voice-based service that interfaces with the public via ordinary telephones. The goal is to make it easier to employ Haitian nationals rather than bringing in foreign contractors (the norm). It is 100% free & open source.
It will be hosed by Digicel, the main telcom down there. We have a Digium telephony card that connects to them via E1 channels. The card can do T1 and J1.
Does anyone have any equipment/T1 lines we can use to test the actual card before shipping it? Once we ship it is will be very difficult and expensive to try to deal with any broken cards.
<obvious>We're in Boston/Cambridge, so you should be too.</obvious>
We're reachable at konbit at-sign media.mit.edu
Thanks, Aaron & Greg <comment><USER2> We use sangoma here. (Far more reliable than digium in our experience). We just set up a test bench with extra cards (a cisco 1720 with t1 wic for data and an asterisk box with another sangoma in master mode for simulating a telco). This allows us to test with any of the bazillion different line protocols you're likely to face on site (especially in a 3rd world setting).

Also when we face the inevitable problems on site, we can simulate Apollo 13 style at home base to work out solutions.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. What were your problems with Digium cards?

Problem is we are on a very tight budget. Any money spent on testing is not on phone calls, which means less jobs for the population.

<comment><USER2> We had problems with Digiums vanishing from lspci and never working again (mid operation). Tech support vanished as well.

Sangoma was a completely different animal. Techsupport wrote patches _just for us_ to help us get going on our wacky custom kernel for embedded devices. I think if you called sangoma and told them what you're up to, you are quite likely to get a steep discount or even free gear.</comment></comment></comment>


Nvidia  Introduces yet ANOTHER Ridiculously Fast GPU - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/07/25/pascal-pixar-quadro-dgx-1/ <comment><USER2> Not an ad at all! By a user that only submits nvidia.com urls.</comment>


Hikvision Removed from US Embassy - <AUTHOR> https://ipvm.com/reports/hik-removed-embassy <comment><AUTHOR> I am the author, let me know if you have any questions. Hikvision's controlling shareholder is the China PRC government. This move comes in light of increasing cybersecurity concerns with China.</comment>


Skeptical About North Korea's Role in Sony Hack? Don't Be - <AUTHOR> http://variety.com/2015/film/opinion/skeptical-about-north-koreas-role-in-sony-hack-dont-be-1201392083/

<comment><AUTHOR> The author makes a political, rather than technical argument. While the political logic seems reasonable, I remain unconvinced either way.</comment>


Treat investors well when fundraising - <AUTHOR> http://josephwalla.com/treat-investors-well-when-fundraising

<comment><USER2> I would generalize this to "treat people well all the time".

TL;DR: Don't be a dick.</comment>


The social network for introverts - <AUTHOR> https://sublevel.net/current/ <comment><USER2> It seems like there is just one news feed for all content.

</comment><comment><USER3> What does that have to do with introverts?</comment>


42 feet per gallon - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/crawler.html <comment><USER2> You know, 42 feet per gallon sounds pretty terrible, but I'd say moving 5.5 _million_ pounds of equipment 42 feet with one gallon of gas is pretty damn impressive.

<comment><USER3> Put differently, a 30mpg, 4500lb car gets 713e6 feet-pounds/gallon (30m/g * 5280f/m * 4500lb). A loaded crawler gets 756e6 feet-pounds/gallon (42fpg * 18e6 lb). Not so different after all! And the car looks much less attractive if you look at just the payload.

<comment><USER4> This is a meaningless calculation. It's not as though the amount of energy required to move something a specific distance is weight related. The amount of force required to accelerate it to a specific velocity is, but once at that velocity, energy required is a function of friction. Of course _larger_ objects have more air friction on average, but really what you want is some measure of the surface area of the object.

Bah, not that it matters in the least.

<comment><USER5> Interesting comparison.

A container ship does about 24knots = 40feet/second

It uses around 350tons of fuel/day = 4.5 l/s = 1.2USgall/s

So it does a very similar consumption - around 35feet/gallon

While carrying 150,000tons of cargo = 320million pounds.

<comment><USER6> The low speed (90 rpm) diesels in those ships are by far and away the most thermally efficient internal combustion engines on the planet. The biggest ones approach 50% efficient.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-Sulzer_RTA96...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-Sulzer_RTA96-C)

<comment><USER7> Why is that? Why don't they use these to generate electri ity?

<comment><USER5> Because external combustion engines (boiler + turbine) are more efficient and cheaper to build at large scale

<comment><USER7> So why not use those in ships?

<comment><USER8> According to this marine engineering book ( [http://books.google.com/books?id=PCSpWWuTgkkC&lpg=PA53&#... ) and this website ( http://library.fentu.ru/book/gumi/101/English/section_1_main... ) which seems based on the book, slow diesel engines are more efficient, but turbines are used in ships.
The steam turbine has until recently been the first choice for very large power main propulsion units. Its advantages of little or no vibration, low weight, minimum space requirements and low maintenance costs are considerable. In steam turbines high pressure steam is directed into a series of blades or vanes attached to a shaft, causing it to rotate. This rotary motion is transferred to the propeller shaft by gears. Steam is produced by boiling water in a boiler, which is fired by oil. Recent developments in steam turbines which have reduced fuel consumption and raised power output have made them more attractive as an alternative to diesel power in ships. They are 50 per cent lighter and on very large tankers some of the steam can be used to drive the large cargo oil pumps. Turbines are often used in container ships, which travel at high speeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, 12,8m/3,78541178l or EU standard combined: 29573,53l/100km?

I wish at least sciency articles used SI.

<comment><USER10> The numbers you just put above mean nothing to me. Feet per Gallon is something humans can visualize.

I'm sure I'll get downmodded to hell for expressing this opinion here, but I really do prefer imperial measurements.

<comment><USER11> It's only something you can visualise if you grew up with imperial units; "42 feet per gallon" is not inherently easier than "3.4 meters per liter", nor "125.7 gallons per mile" than "296 liters per km".

<comment><USER12> But all of those are far more accessible than 29573.53L/100km, which most people would just round up to "a hell of a lot". Using conventional units doesn't really help when the magnitude is so high.

<comment><USER13> 30000 litres is the same as 30 cubic metres, i.e. "small swimming pool". Easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mike Rowe of _Dirty Jobs_ got to drive the crawler in one episode. It was a cool episode. You appreciate just how big it is when you see him standing next to the treads.

</comment><comment><USER15> Article doesn't say how far it typically has to travel.

Traveling quarter mile, no big deal. Traveling 10 miles, much more expensive.

<comment><USER16> Seems to be about 3 miles from most of the launch pads to the VAB, so about 377 gallons for a one-way trip (<http://www- pao.ksc.nasa.gov/nasafact/count3teaf.htm>)

The crawler can travel about 1 MPH loaded; the tour guide at KSC (at least when I was there several years ago) made a big deal about the blazing 2 MPH it can do when unloaded. :)

<comment><USER17> The closest observation point is three miles from the launch pads, so yes, the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building; it's insanely large) is probably around three miles as well.

Why the three mile distance? Back during the Apollo program, engineers determined that if the Saturn V were to explode on the launch pad, the resulting fireball would be around four or file miles in diameter. I think it's a similar radius for the Shuttle as well.

<comment><USER18> So the fireball would still engulf the buildings? Doesn't that still seem too close?

<comment><USER19> Diameter not radius.

So 4-5 miles diameter = 2-2.5 miles radius.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Figure Out What to Do with Your Life // ALPHA MINDSET (YouTube) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIyTE6blW7Y

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but this is not /r/getmotivated, or /r/PUA, or /r/mensrights. Please go back to Reddit where you belong.

Get this alpha/beta/omega b.s. out of here.</comment>


Ask HN: Collaborative Games for Isolation Situation - <AUTHOR> Like so many, I'm in isolation. And while I chat a lot with my friends, it would be cool to have something to do together. And surely there's an app for that, or a site? A joint activity, perhaps with a chat box for conversation would be cool. I was thinking perhaps a jigsaw puzzle or something similar.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Just after reading your post found this article... [https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/03/you-can-play-these- gam...](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/03/you-can-play-these-games-online- with-friends/)

Happy Easter!

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a game called "tabletop simulator" that might be what you are looking for?

And of course more traditional PC games. Minecraft can be quite fun as a group.</comment>


MariaDB quietly releases mariadb/mysql driver-level connection pool - <AUTHOR> Documentation: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/pool-datasource-implementation/<p>There is a (non-existant) discussion about the feature on JIRA: https://jira.mariadb.org/browse/CONJ-522 . It is to me unclear how this compares to HikariCP etc as I can´t find any benchmarks yet. <comment><AUTHOR> Comment from HikariCP: [https://github.com/brettwooldridge/HikariCP/issues/1040#issu...](https://github.com/brettwooldridge/HikariCP/issues/1040#issuecomment-349663869)</comment>


Intel's Manufacturing Roadmap from 2019 to 2029 - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15217/intels-manufacturing-roadmap-from-2019-to-2029 <comment><USER2> 5 and 10 year plans are _always_ over optimistic projections by people who can't deliver in the present to reassure investors faith.

They might ship 1.4nm, but it has a good chance of having Soviet tractor quality.

<comment><USER3> I usually hear the opposite: people tend to underestimate what they can do in 10 years and overestimate what they can do in 1-3

<comment><USER4> You might want to check out intels historical roadmaps. They've been missing their own marks since about 2015 iirc.

<comment><USER5> Sounds broadly consistent with the parent poster's point?

<comment><USER6> Not if they meant they missed their 2005 roadmap for 2015.

<comment><USER7> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Intel unveiled their infamous "Tick-Tock Model" around 2007 [1]. It went according to plan for all of four years, and then it COMPLETELY fell apart. If anything, I'm willing to bet they KNEW they could hit the first few iterations. I'm guessing for hardware, you've probably got a really good idea if you're going to be able to even manufacture something in two years, let alone mass-distribute, produce, and sell it at the price point you want. I'm also pretty certain they KNEW they wouldn't hit the rest of the roadmap.

Honestly, I think it was purposefully misleading investors. I heard from dozens of engineers at the company around 2008 that there was NO WAY they would have 10nm chips around 2012 -- what the roadmap was more or less promising. And surprise, we didn't get them until 2018. Now they're promising 1.5nm in a similar time frame. I'm skeptical.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick%E2%80%93tock_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick%E2%80%93tock_model)

<comment><USER8> > I heard from dozens of engineers at the company around 2008 that there was > NO WAY they would have 10nm chips around 2012 -- what the roadmap was more > or less promising.

Where did they promise 10nm in 2012? This presentation from 2011 shows 10nm in 2017: [https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/06/intel-roadmap-from- jun...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/06/intel-roadmap-from- june-2011-with-7nm.html) and in 2011 tick-tock was still going strong.

I think you messed up your math. Tick/tock was a process shrink every 2-3 years. Using the more aggressive 2 year cadence:

        45 nm – 2007
        32 nm – 2009
        22 nm – 2011
        14 nm – 2013
        10 nm – 2015

Using a more conservative 3 year cadence:

        45 nm – 2007
        32 nm – 2010
        22 nm – 2013
        14 nm – 2016
        10 nm – 2019

And if we look at what actually happened:

        65 nm – 2005
        45 nm – 2007
        32 nm – 2010
        22 nm – 2012
        14 nm – 2014
        10 nm – 2018/2019

(Cannon Lake-U 10nm technically shipped in 2018, but I don't think anyone really considers it volume-enough to count?)

They pretty much nailed tick/tock flawlessly up until 10nm, 10 years out from when tick/tock was first announced. Expecting perfect 10 year predictions is some insane expectations for any company/person. There's no way in hell tick/tock's 2007 unveil could possibly be considered "misleading investors."

<comment><USER9> >Where did they promise 10nm in 2012? This presentation from 2011 shows 10nm in 2017:

Your link shows 7nm in 2017, 10nm was for 2015.

>Tick/tock was a process shrink every 2-3 years. Using the more aggressive 2 year cadence:

You are confusing "Tick Tock" with "Process, Architecture, Optimization". Tick Tock is strictly 2 years cadence.

So yes 10nm missed by a large margin.

> 10 nm – 2018/2019

Intel has been making 10nm chip irrespective of yield, the current batch were months of stock piling chip before the rush to roll out in Xmas. In reality they barely got it out of the gate in 2019. And if you count Cannon-Lake as 2018, you might as well count TSMC 5nm in 2019.

>There's no way in hell tick/tock's 2007 unveil could possibly be considered "misleading investors."

There were not misleading in 2007, the executed their plan flawlessly, Intel had decent people back then. Pat Gelsinger left in 2009. It was still doing great up to 2012, Otellini retired, BK became CEO in 2013, still promising Tick Tock. That is the point where misleading investor began.

And I forgot to mention during _All_ investor meetings Intel continue to reiterate 10nm is on track all the way until BK was gone. If that is not "misleading investors" I am not sure what is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know that past performance does not indicate future results but looking at their 2013-2016 roadmap [1] which promises 10nm at Q1 2016 (which never happened!), I strongly doubt their future roadmap will hold.

[1] [https://wccftech.com/intel-processor-roadmap-leaked-10nm- can...](https://wccftech.com/intel-processor-roadmap-leaked-10nm-cannonlake- skylakee-arrives-q3-2016-skylake-muy-chips-q4-2015/)

<comment><USER11> And for the previous 40 years Intel was always about 1 year ahead of their competitors. I would never bet against Intel, that's been a losing game for far too long.

<comment><USER12> AMD was already poised to eat their lunch last time, Intel had to go to illegal lengths to keep their commercial lead.

I'd expect AMD to have learned the lesson and get away with their lead this time.

<comment><USER13> Irrelevant. AMD doesn't own its own fabs anymore, and I think they rely on the expertise for whoever happens to be fanning their chips, allowing them to simply choose the fab with the best process while they focus on architecture.

<comment><USER14> Maybe that's the lesson AMD learned?

<comment><USER13> No. It's just the reality of the situation. Perhaps intel would do better to separate their fab and architecture divisions, or maybe they are already sufficiently separated internally anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reality: 14nm,14nm,14nm,14nm,14nm.

<comment><USER2> With a few one off demo 10nm releases here and there.

<comment><USER16> Meanwhile TSMC is out there shipping 10nm equivalent for a year now, including in Threadripper and Apple's AX chips. Wonder if AMD will ship a next gen TSMC fabbed product prior to 10nm Shipping en Masse.

<comment><USER17> TSMC's 5 nm node is on track for high volume in Q2 2020[1]. They also have the announced 6 nm which they expect most clients to transition to[2]. If Intel's 10 nm is equivalent to TSMC's 7 nm then their 6 nm should be noticeably better even before 5 nm starts shipping.

[1] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/15016/tsmc-5nm-on-track- for-q...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15016/tsmc-5nm-on-track- for-q2-2020-hvm-will-ramp-faster-than-7nm)

[2] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/14290/tsmc-most-7nm- clients-w...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/14290/tsmc-most-7nm-clients-will- transit-to-6nm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So if Intel actually stayed on track for this roadmap, they're saying "we only have 10 years left to advance our fabs". Unless 1.4nm is actually meaningless, they'd be edging up to electron tunneling issues with a contacted gate pitch of ~10 atoms across.

I'm being optimistic with this guesswork. Intel's historical naming is that cpp = 3-5x node name [1]. Silicon lattice spacing is ~0.54nm.

[1] [https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/process](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/process)

<comment><USER18> > "we only have 10 years left to advance our fabs"

Well, only 10 years left to advance with silicon wafers; once improvement truly becomes impossible there presumably we'll see even more resources go into trying to find practical replacements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really liked the last quote:

> It's worth also pointing out, based on the title of this slide, that Intel > still believes in Moore's Law.

> Just don't ask how much it'll cost.

I once got an opportunity to ask something similar to an Apple executive during a presentation on their hardware capabilities (it was a university event).

He laughed and answered another part of my question.

<comment><USER20> Moore's Law is about cost per transistor, so they have it wrong somewhere.

<comment><USER17> Moore's law is about density of transistors.

<comment><USER21> That's not quite correct. It's about the number of transistors per integrated circuit that minimises per-transistor cost. From the actual 1965 paper:

> _" The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of > roughly a factor of two per year (see graph on next page). Certainly over > the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. > Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although > there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at > least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated > circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000."_

There's also the 1975 speech where he revised it down from a yearly doubling to once every two years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A poorly held secret in the semi industry is that transistors have stopped scaling at around 30nm - the practical limit of 193nm litho.

What has been scaling was the amount of free space in between them, metal layers, design rules, cell designs and such.

Before transistor scaling stalled, any process node shrink was an automatic performance gain without any side effects, but not so much after. Some designs may well be seeing net losses with process shrinks these days.

From 10nm on, higher density is actually hurting your performance, not adding it. For a process technologist, you have now to work on both performance, and density in parallel, and not solely on the last one thinking that gains in it will automatically translate into gains in performance.

So its a tricky business now to both squeeze more transistors into a design, and have a net gain from it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just as an interesting aside does anyone have a list of weird engineering hacks used in these processes to get smaller and smaller transistor densities? There must be some very clever stuff to jam them in there and still be able to etch the lines.

<comment><USER24> It's a vast and complex topic. I once stumbled on the following presentation from ARM: [https://community.arm.com/developer/research/b/articles/post...](https://community.arm.com/developer/research/b/articles/posts/the- ics-of-2030)

The first part covers EUV, which is key to advanced nodes. Then it moves on to more futuristic and tentative techniques. But the EUV part is a nice introduction for non specialist, with pointers to dig if one is interested.

<comment><USER25> EUV is an amazing nightmare, but the etching part of the process is pretty straightforward. The difficulty is in finding materials that don't absorb it all and/or break constantly. In my mind, the really interesting tricks and hacks are all the ways they've managed to take 193nm light and etch things that are _so much smaller_ than the wavelength.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You can always count on Intel's marketing team for top notch slide presentations.

However, Intel is closer to 22nm than 7nm let alone anything smaller than that. ( I'm talking about consistent product lines that anyone can buy at a store ), not some Houdini show.

On the commercial side they have a huge footing and large tentacles so they don't need to worry too much about time-frames, let's hope they also don't worry too little..

</comment><comment><USER27> How is it possible to have 1.4nm transistors?

<comment><USER28> Because "nm" doesn't mean nanometer anymore. Not in the context of CPUs anyway. Some time back, around the 34nm era, CPU components stopped getting materialy smaller.

Transistor count plateaued. Moore's law died.

To avoid upseting and confusing consumers with this new reality, chip makers agreed to stop delineating their chips by the size of their components, and to instead group them in to generations by the time that they where made.

Helpfully, in another move to avoid confusion, the chip makers devised a new naming convention, where each new generation uses "nm" naming as if Moore's law continued. Say for example in 2004 you had chips with a 34nm NAND, and your next gen chips in 2006 are 32nm, then all you do is calculate what the smallest nm would have been if chip density doubled, and you use that size for marketing this generation. So you advertise 17nm instead of 32nm.

Using this new naming scheme also makes it super easy to get to 1.4nm and beyond. In fact, because it's decoupled from anything physical, you can even get to sub-plank scale, which would be impossible on the old scheme.

Edit: Some comments mention that transistor count and performance are still increasing. While that is technically true, I did the sums, the Intel P4 3.4Ghz came out 2004, if Moore's law continued, we would have 3482Ghz or 3.48 TERAHERTZ by now.

<comment><USER29> Do you have any sources for this? Where could one learn about this more carefully? I mean isn't this a major marketing fraud?

<comment><USER28> Plenty of info here. Enjoy [https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node)

"Recent technology nodes such as 22 nm, 16 nm, 14 nm, and 10 nm refer purely to a specific generation of chips made in a particular technology. It does not correspond to any gate length or half pitch. Nevertheless, the name convention has stuck and it's what the leading foundries call their nodes"

..."At the 45 nm process, Intel reached a gate length of 25 nm on a traditional planar transistor. At that node the gate length scaling effectively stalled; any further scaling to the gate length would produce less desirable results. Following the 32 nm process node, while other aspects of the transistor shrunk, the gate length was actually increased"

<comment><USER8> That's some pretty bullshit quote-mining there. You stopped right before the important part:

"With the introduction of FinFET by Intel in their 22 nm process, the transistor density continued to increase all while the gate length remained more or less a constant."

I'll repeat it for you see you seem to keep missing it: _transistor density continued to increase_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> For comparison, Intel's roadmap from IDF2013: [https://files.catbox.moe/psgnbp.jpg](https://files.catbox.moe/psgnbp.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER31> What kind material science improvement would make non-marketing, real ~10nm scales a reality? I literally have no idea how RnD works in this field. Is it trial and error? How do these scientists come up with ideas that increases the transistor density? Do our current gen CPUs have 2d or 3d curcuit layout? How one can learn about these stuff without working in the field?

<comment><USER32> This is a great watch about how EUV works:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI)

<comment><USER31> Watched it, thanks a lot!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Adding to my previous post, a lot of people don't understand where 10nm EUV litho stands in the grand plan of thins.

"If EUV doesn't make a more performant chip, what it does?" EUV is there to alleviate _extreme_ process costs associated with multiple patterning, and process cycle time.

Even if EUV tool does 1 exposure a little bit slower than quadruple patterning, it can do 4 patterning steps in one — a very huge thing in process technology.

You have then lessen the amount of thermal processes performed on the device. You may have more defects, but on overall higher quality, higher performance devices in the end.

<comment><USER33> > Even if EUV tool does 1 exposure a little bit slower than quadruple > patterning, it can do 4 patterning steps in one — a very huge thing in > process technology.

Would that also remove some patterning constraints? Give the pattern "more freedom".

<comment><USER22> Yes, this is another big thing about it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Intel expects to be on 2 year cadence with its manufacturing process node > technology, starting with 10nm in 2019 and moving to 7nm EUV in 2021

Not to say it could _never_ happen, but given how many years Intel has spent on 10nm with it always been 'next year' tech year after year, 7nm in 2021 seems overly optimistic for me.

I guess time will tell if they got it right this time.

<comment><USER35> It seems reasonably likely that they will succeed. Intel's 10nm and its 7nm are very different beasts with 7nm arguably being a lot simpler thanks to EUV and a 2x density transistor improvement goal (vs 2.7x for 10nm). The lack of EUV and very high density goals for 10nm meant they had to do a lot of multi- patterning which ended up screwing their yields. That plus the uncharted waters of using cobalt interconnects rather than copper meant it was basically Intel getting overconfident and being too ambitious for their own good.

<comment><USER36> There were also a whole laundry list of other technologies Intel was trying to put into 10nm. Contact over active gate, COAG, was heavily used in the GPU portion of the die and its failure is why none of the very few 10nm parts released in 2018 had any GPU at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The "backporting" doctrine clearly implies total lack of faith in process roadmaps, to the point of compromising processor designs and increasing cost and time to market to avoid committing to a millstone around the neck.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've read that as chips get smaller, their working life gets shorter. Anyone have more info?

<comment><USER39> I think you are talking about Electromigration

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A beginner question: what's the motivation behind reducing chip size? Less power consumption?

<comment><USER41> Smaller transistors bring everything. They have lower resistance and capacitance resisting a switch, you can build more of them at the same time (so, approximately by the same cost), a signal takes less time to pass through them (and to get from one to another), and they have a larger surface/volume ratio for cooling down.

That said, transistors actually stopped shrinking a while ago. They are getting packaged nearer to each other, they have changed from horizontal to vertical, and they are changing the width/length ratio, but they are not really shrinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Sounds like bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER43> Measure with micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.

</comment><comment><USER44> So, long AMD?

Edit: oof with the down votes. Jesus people; comma added for clarity.

<comment><USER45> Nice one

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> All change requires energy, and we're going to have less energy, so the speed of change inevitably has to go down.

Because the only energy added to the planet comes from the sun and the only viable option to collect that energy are trees and plants.

(I'm going to post this comment on every naive technology optimist post, you can downvote me all you want, I have to do this to be able to sleep at night, fake karma is not more valuable than real karma)

</comment><comment> lachlan-sneff What perplexes me is that neither Intel, AMD, IBM, or any other company, as far as I can tell, is pursuing the bootstrapping path of self-assembling nanotech. Once someone does it, every other company is going to be left several orders of magnitude in the dust, so it surprises me that no one is going for it.

<comment><USER47> Yeah, I wonder why all these companies are investing billions on chip fabrication if they can just tell the tiny robots to build them

<comment> lachlan-sneff Well, you can laugh, but it's legitimate stuff. Right now, all we have is self-assembling dna structures, but there's a bootstrappable path towards "tiny robots".

<comment><USER47> We have self-assembling dna structures, which we don't even fully understand and which are the result of millions of years of evolution. The steps are being made towards such tiny robots, but it's preposterous to mention them as a viable alternative to the current chip fab strategy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Animography – Animated Typefaces - <AUTHOR> https://animography.net/ <comment><USER2> I read your FAQ:

> Can I get a refund? > Because we don't sell physical products that can be > returned, we can't give you a refund either.

Also in your Terms: > 05\. Cancelations Or Returns > No returns on downloaded or emailed fonts or software. Due to the nature of online font or software sales, the customer shall not be entitled to cancel any order which has been accepted by Animography. At the time of downloading the font or software, the font or software shall be deemed to have been opened and therefore accepted as non-returnable goods.

... Note that I am definitely not a lawyer. However, I think you need to be more careful with your use of language here. The EU Consumer Rights Directive[1] includes special provisions for return, replacement and/or refunds on digital downloads, which your advice seems to be ignoring. In the UK, the Act implementing the Directive seems to make the right to a refund (under specific circumstances) pretty explicit[2].

Hope the feedback helps.

[1] - [https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law- topic/consumers/consumer-c...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law- topic/consumers/consumer-contract-law/consumer-rights-directive_en)

[2] - [https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/can-i-get- a-r...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/can-i-get-a-refund-on- a-digital-download)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interactive demo is available here: [https://codepen.io/airnan/details/JbOrbV](https://codepen.io/airnan/details/JbOrbV)

Shared by Budabelly in this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24288507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24288507)</comment>


SMT-COP: Defeating Side-Channel Attacks on Execution Units in SMT Processors - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~dima/pact19.pdf <comment><USER2> The original idea for SMT was that a single application would use both threads to do part of the same computation, using resources better. But we just used it as "more CPUs", which has a different security profile.

<comment><USER3> It would be interesting if logic units were uncoupled from cores, then multiple cores could share multiple logic units, reducing contention pressure. As it is, all designs treat CPUs as a series of chiplets.

<comment><USER4> The AMD bulldozer was a "Clustered MultiThreading" chip somewhat as you describe in that certain units were shared between what would normally have been a core. It was a bit of a disaster though as it was more "cut down and share what's left" than "keep and share".

I have a feeling it'd be hard to find something that is easier to route and schedule over multiple cores than it is to just add that extra unit to a single core. AMDs latest CPUs are a good example of this, the L3 cache isn't even contiguous across all cores in the same core complex anymore (same access pattern as if you went to a completely different chiplet).

<comment><USER3> According to Intel's manual (although I don't think it still applies):

"Under heavy load, with multiple cores executing RDRAND in parallel, it is possible, though unlikely, for the demand of random numbers by software processes/threads to exceed the rate at which the random number generator hardware can supply them."

I don't think it would be that hard to find something to route over multiple cores. If certain operations were unrolled and buffered, it would be overall more efficient.

<comment><USER4> Depends on the elements you're talking about. RDRAND takes no input other than "I need a number" and produces output by feeding the constant output of a hardware RNG to the AES components of a particular core.

Pretty much every other piece of the CPU needs to consume inputs and produce outputs without race conditions or cache coherency. This is where it becomes difficult to connect and schedule and is the reason AMD ends up with 16*16 MB of L3 cache instead of 1x256MB, trying to pump coherency instead of just output over an interconnect comes with an ENORMOUS penalty.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't aware that RDRAND was implemented in microcode on the same core, I thought it was implemented as a coprocessor with some microcode checks for quality.

Avoiding speculation on the output of high latency instructions seems prudent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is largely a cloud/server issue, is it not? Any desktop machine that's running malicious code is already compromised, isn't it? Or is this a concern with drive by JavaScript? I never know if these issues are likely to impact the home user or not.

<comment><USER6> These issues can be triggered via javascript, yes.

[https://github.com/terjanq/meltdown-spectre- javascript](https://github.com/terjanq/meltdown-spectre-javascript)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome, love to see great work from my alma mater!</comment>


Airline classes as wealth redistribution - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/the-wiki-man/8993411/never-seen-the-need-for-a-class-system-take-a-long-haul-flight/

<comment><USER2> Let's not forget the social effects of the class system. What better way to destroy social cohesiveness than this? Its similar to public schools without uniforms.

Within my rural, southern public school system,I was clearly marked out in the southern caste system as "white trash" in school because I wore $15 canvas sneakers rather than $60 name-brand shoes, jeans and t-shirt rather than polo shirt and khakis, etc.

In the adult world, the caste system still exists in a rather potent form: dating. If you are a man who is marked out in some way as earning less, you will get significantly less attention from women in general. The OKCupid data has confirmed this effect for men over the age of 23, and it is a very potent one.

<comment><USER3> But what are the alternatives?

1\. True segregation where the rich go to a separate school all-together / have separate planes, etc.

2\. Everyone wears the same lowest-common denominator clothes / travel in the same travel class?

Each of these alternatives is economically inefficient, and the poor suffer more as a result as their fares cease to be subsidised by the rich.

I'd rather fly $500 return to Tokyo, because some rich guy upfront is paying $4000 for a flat bed, than pay $2000 because some left-wing loon demands everyone has the same class of travel.

<comment><USER4> "I'd rather fly $500 return to Tokyo, because some rich guy upfront is paying $4000 for a flat bed"

NB: I'm 40 and didn't have these issues when I was younger/fitter/elasticker.

I pay $10k+ for a flat bed to Asia because I find that I can be off the plane and ready for a meeting the next business day, with no need to take an extra day or two on either end. Little seats that don't recline _all the way_ are a recipe for back pain, neck pain, or just general low-grade misery, as if air travel isn't annoying enough. It's not really about "rich" (although I'm glad I have the option) but more about productivity and not losing time. The same thing happened with Saturday stay-overs on round trips (I don't know if they still do this) or one-way tickets being as or more expensive than round trips, because business customers often prefer to be home on weekends.

All that said, I generally book business and upgrade myself to first, so I'm not feeling the full $10-15k pressure myself. Also, I only book international first on vacations, when it's miles/points anyway, for which the spendy fares help out a lot.

Plus, I really don't want to fight with 500 people over two toilets. That gets more important when you get old. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.

I don't think we want the ad guys determining the pricing structure for airlines. Anyway, the reason for the wacky pricing on airfares is not some sort of implicit agreement to be socialistic about it. It's because the fixed costs associated with the flight are so high. It costs virtually nothing to add another person to the flight. Airline fares are a dance between filling up the flight while maximizing the average fare per seat. Price too high and you fly with empty seats. Price to low and you fill up but leave money on the table.

<comment><USER6> Odd sort of ad-hominem. The pricing structure of airlines certainly wasn't determined by ad execs. What he points out is that it isn't so bad: it does much better at maximizing utility than having all the seats the same and most of them more expensive.

His point was that if the airline pricing system is not so bad (and I'm not agreeing with that), then having it apply to other high fixed cost, low marginal cost things--like his daughter's bus--might also not be so bad.

Of course, the example of his daughter's bus makes me wonder if the whole thing isn't tongue in cheek and I'm not getting it because I'm not British.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in the far North, and recently flew down to Toronto, my first time "leaving" in over a year.

Of all the things that struck me about "The world", the number one thing was the "class system" that the airlines tried to impose. At every check-in counter there was a little sign saying economy on the right, business on the left. For the four flights I waited for an eventually got on, I heard the airline announce on the PA, at least 5 times each "Economy stay on the right".

I never did see a single person line up and get on from the "left" line.

It occurred to me, the point of separating the lines was not so that the business passengers would have a faster/better experience, it was merely used to remind the rest of us exactly where we sit on the class ladder: The Bottom.

<comment><USER8> _I never did see a single person line up and get on from the "left" line._

About all I can say to this is "fly more often" or "fly on more airlines".

United, for example, has been restructuring their boarding process for a while, precisely to try to maintain some semblance of order -- too many people crowding the gate area before their group is called, trying to sneak on to the plane early to get access to overhead bins, etc.

(and typically, a separate-lane process is intended to avoid that -- most US- based airlines have basically given up on the idea that they can get an orderly boarding process by assigning groups based on row number, and have switched over to using the multi-lane system)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The author is clearly confused about libertarianism - as a libertarian, the points he's making are very 'no duh', and the characterization of the 747 as 'socialist' is odd (libertarians advocate for this sort of redistribution - and even less _materially mutual_ beneficial redistribution - i.e. charity - all the time) but aside from his ham-fistedness about 'voluntary redistribution', it's a very eloquent and well-done article. I don't know about thrones in school busses, though.

<comment><USER10> He is from UK, and the meaning of the certain words that start with liber- begins to differ significantly across the atlantic.

<comment><USER9> ah. Good point. Do they still have libertines there, though?

<comment><USER11> Not only do we have libertines, we have _the_ libertines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Paris metro did have 1st and 2nd class sections, but ended them in 1991 [1]

The London underground did as well, but ended them in 1940 during/because of the war [2]

In Paris, it seems that demand fell to non-sustainable levels. This was after enforcement stopped though, which seems like it could be a rather classic example of the free-rider problem!

1: [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-05-12/travel/9102110...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-05-12/travel/9102110973_1_first- class-second-class-paris-metro)

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

</comment><comment><USER13> This article conflates the ideas of pure price discrimination (where goods are identical) and premium pricing (where they are not).

No one is better at this than the travel industry. Remember that story about a travel website showing higher prices to people with Apple User-Agents? Yup.

If a restaurant wants to charge $1,000 for a premium cheeseburger on the off chance some rich person wants to distinguish himself, well, that's weird, but that's capitalism.

But if this "software" were to read everyone's mind and calculate exactly how much they are willing to pay for any good at any time, consumers will get fleeced.

<comment><USER14> The article is deeply confused as you point out. And you're right, since the effect of price discrimination is for producers to capture consumer surplus, you don't want that mind reading machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The notion that little Johnny needs to sit at the back of the bus on a hard seat while little Sally is upfront ensconced in a tufted, leather wrapped throne is beyond ludicrous. I wasn't sure if the author was was being serious or making some kind of Swiftian satire. There's nothing like reinforcing a centuries old class system to grease the wheels of social cohesion.

<comment><USER3> He was not seriously advocating such a system, merely saying that such a scenario would be the only way to get the richer parents to pay more, ala the airline model. Otherwise it's a simple act of charity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author of the article explains his point clearly, and in a way it makes sense when looked at it from that perspective.

I'll offer another, more pessimistic perspective. He assumes that the users paying more will get extra service, while service level for the rest will stay the same. But, it's almost never the case. In practice, the level of service for regular price will just go down, and service providers will start to charge even for something that was free, or available at lower cost before this service differentiation started.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra "If the first two carriages in each train cost three times as much as the others but offered free Wi-Fi, and were furnished not with basic seats but with the sumptuousness of an Edwardian-era New Orleans brothel, you could afford to run more trains."

You don't have enough trains in your subway? That's strange. It's supposed to be rapid transit isn't it?

<comment><USER17> If we in the UK have limits on the number of Tube[1] trains run in a given period, they're for safety or 'incredibly low number of passengers' (depending on where along the line you are) and really not finance reasons, to the best of my knowledge. The point is pretty moot.

[1]: He has to refer to the Tube, as National Rail already has classes not unlike as described. :P

<comment><USER18> the tube runs at full capacity in central sections at peak times.

on some lines you even get a train entering the platform while the previous train is still pulling out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _My contention is that it should be possible to devise software which solves > this problem: everyone secretly reveals what they would be willing to pay_

Riiiight. And what on earth is going to convince the wealthy folks to type "$100" into the system instead of "$3"?

> _How can you avoid people gaming the system? The price each parent pays > could theoretically be kept confidential, but in reality would not remain > so._

What does that even _mean_?

<comment> UVB-76 _> What does that even mean?_

A sealed bid auction is all fun and games until participants voluntarily disclose their bids to other participants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The author completely overlooks complementary upgrades for frequent flyers. Frequent flyers are the lifeblood of the industry but not because they pay for a higher class level. They earn the higher class level for free by making many lower class level flights. On domestic flights very few first class passengers are paying extra. International is different but still has a large number of free upgrades (depending on the airline).

<comment><USER3> s/complementary/complimentary

This is a fairly edge case, that only really occurs on US domestic flights. The majority of the world's frequent-flyer programmes do not give space- available upgrades in the way that say American or United do domestically.

The vast majority of those travelling in premium cabins (or their employers) paid cash for their ticket.

<comment><USER21> Admittedly my airline experience is not with US airlines, but space-available upgrades for our valued frequent fliers are very common in the rest of the world.

<comment><USER3> Care to give an example? I am not aware of a single programme outside of the US that offers this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In practice, Southwest airlines has one class of passenger. Everyone rides in steerage, but you can pay a little extra to jump at the front of the line and pick your favorite steerage class seat. They're able to operate profitably on a fairly consistent basis, this author is postulating a necessity that does not exist.

<comment><USER23> And I personally hate flying Southwest and avoid it if at all possible. Not only have I on multiple occasions bought a cross country first class ticket from Delta for less than Southwest's Wanna Get Away fare, but I almost always find US Airways and Delta offer cheaper fares than them. Plus I don't have to deal with the frenzy rush of pick you own seat, I feel like it's a bunch of cattle being wrangled into a plane.

<comment><USER24> I cannot comprehend this comment. I'v never seen a ticket for less on delta and the efficiency of boarding a SW flight blows anything away that I've seen on other carriers. Maybe this is a cross country issue. I usually fly shorter routes...I don't even know if southwest has flights that go cross country that don't have 3 or 4 stops....that might account for the higher price. For getting from Houston to New Orleans, there is no other way to go than LUV.

<comment><USER23> I typically do PHX to CMH, but I've also tried CMH to SAN, PHX to SFO, and PXH to SJC. Maybe it's just the routes I fly, because I hear people talk about cheap flights on Southwest. I personally have not seen them in the past couple years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _" How do you get people with wildly differing willingness or ability to pay to fund some common good other than through redistributive taxation?_" For cases like this why would I want something other than redistributive taxation?

By the way, Joel Spolsky has a very good explanation of the mechanisms behind airplane fares, including why you might _not_ want to go this way: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems very similar to the way many successful SaaS businesses operate. Charging larger businesses $200/month with big margins makes it viable to provide $20/month 'freelancer' plans with low margins.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wealth redistribution is good for society.

</comment><comment><USER28> I thought the anecdote about 1st class trains in London being socially unacceptable was an interesting cultural anecdote. I've ridden Amtrak in the US both steerage class and first class and no one thought it was overly interesting or revolutionary. Perhaps because it was like an art deco day dream rather than decorated like an "Edwardian-era New Orleans brothel" per the article. Hmm, that gives me an idea about instituting a "mile long train" club... which would be pretty easy to implement in the 1st class cabins, not so easy for steerage.

One interesting experience WRT 1st class trains is unlike the authors strange ideas about sitting on spikes in a bus, the primary difference between steerage and 1st class on Amtrak trains was privacy. My own bathroom, my own closed cabin, etc. Same food as everyone else (although it was "free" with the ticket price). Same view out the window, we didn't get there any sooner than anyone else...

Oh and the 1st class only lounge in the Chicago station has to be seen to be believed. That alone might be worth the ticket price. Even impatient me, in luxurious enough surroundings, didn't mind waiting an extra hour or so. Its not like any airport waiting room I've ever seen.

<comment><USER29> _> I thought the anecdote about 1st class trains in London being socially unacceptable was an interesting cultural anecdote. I've ridden Amtrak in the US both steerage class and first class and no one thought it was overly interesting or revolutionary_

People view long distance travel differently than their daily commute when it comes to economic segregation. I imagine there would be an uproar in NYC if the MTA talked about a plan to create a first class car on the subway however no one bats an eyelash about Amtrak.

However, I bet you could find a price point where people wouldn't complain if you added a first class car to the London Underground or NYC subway system. I think there's a psychological effect in play where if it's a price that you could pay if you cut into your budget then it stings but if it's a price that seems ludicrous to you then you don't mind as much. I personally would feel more ok with a first class car if it was $100/trip vs. $10 (regular ride is $2.25).

<comment><USER30> Funny, I feel the opposite.

$100/trip for a subway ride? Preposterous, and the economic system is somehow broken that such an income disparity exists.

$10/trip? Eh, if I cut out the Starbucks latte, I could do that. But, I really prefer flavor coffee to sumptuous subway seating.

I guess I'm really a socialist at heart.

<comment><USER28> As a thought experiment, assuming the transit system was a non-corrupt non- profit, a rich dude paying $100 for a ticket means a heck of a lot of poor people will continue to pay $2.25 today instead of having to pay $2.50. Or insert similar argument. Maybe instead it would mean some employee gets health insurance this month, etc.

In the real world of course, corruption would eat all $100 and then the poor would be stuck paying $2.75 once budgets get used to $100 tickets from rich dudes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>