Making Human Settlement of Space a Reality - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nasa.gov/bolden/2016/10/11/makinghumansettlementofspacereality/ <comment><USER2> This is a very optimistic view of the president's space exploration legacy. Cancelling George W. Bush's 'Vision for Space Exploration' may have been a wise political move, but doing so delayed the project by 8 years, with relatively little technical gain. We are now looking at spending 25 billion dollars for development, and 2 billion more per additional launch, with the aim of reaching an asteroid in the mid-2020s, and Mars in ~2040.

I will be shocked if the Space Launch System (A.K.A. SLS, Senate Launch System) takes humans to the moon, and I will be dumbstruck if anyone uses it to go to Mars. The system is simply too expensive, and the projected launch rate is too low for it to be useful. In addition, the system is too politically vulnerable, as the program would have to survive more than 20 years for someone to use it to go to Mars. Much like the current president cancelled his predecessor's plan, a future president will cancel this one.

<comment><USER3> Strongly disagree. Under the previous plan, Ares I was NASA's vehicle for taking astronauts to low Earth orbit. Ares I was over budget by 10's of billions of dollars, leaving no money left over for commercial crew services. (Which was seen under Bush's NASA as a nice to have, not a must have.)

Because Obama cancelled Ares I and re-directed that money to commercial crew contracts, SpaceX has been able to accelerate/do a lot more than they would have done otherwise. And the technical gains by SpaceX alone have been... non- trivial.

<comment><USER4> To clarify the history:

SpaceX only entered the Commercial Crew Development [1] program by winning funding as part of CCDev 2 funding in April 2011, allowing it to develop the Dragon 2 launch abort system. They later won funding form both phases of CCiCap (Commercial Crew integrated Capability) funding in December 2012. (I believe that's in-flight abort testing etc).

The technical gains (especially reusable rockets) was moved along more by the help funding Falcon 9 initially through the commercial _cargo_ development (COTS) and International Space Station resupply (CRS) contracts (which ensured the survival of SpaceX for a few more years). [2]

Commercial Cargo was actually a George W. Bush era policy - part of his 2004 plan [3], and the CRS contract was awarded before Obama was even inaugurated!

So far, Bush's Space Shuttle cancellation did more for SpaceX than Obama's Constellation Program cancellation (though that may changes once MCT/ICT is up and running and causes SLS to be potentially cancelled)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services#Awards) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration)

<comment><USER5> Spacex were pretty clear that they can't fund the full development/deployment of ITS (MCT) on their own. That's what the whole "stealing underpants / kickstarter" joke slide was about in the presentation.

They need public and/or private organisations to pre-purchase a lot of tickets to Mars before they can outright build it themselves, or they'd need to partner with the likes of NASA.

<comment><USER6> > _They need public and /or private organisations to pre-purchase a lot of > tickets to Mars before they can outright build it themselves, or they'd need > to partner with the likes of NASA._

Musk said during the presentation that they're _not_ going to pre-sell tickets to finance development and production (the way Virgin Galactic did).

<comment><USER5> I think you only read the first part of that sentence.

e:

I mean that there's two types of funding models.

NASA (or some other government's space agency) can put out a call for bids to provide a mission to Mars with certain capabilities (transport this many tons of cargo, this many people, having this characteristics) - then ULA, BO, SpaceX etc then work up bids for their various Mars capabilities to service that bid. SpaceX can go "We can do this using our Interplanetary Transport System".

This would be an ordinary commercial arrangement like the Commerical Crew and Commercial Cargo that NASA already does.

In theory some large enough company could do a similar thing. Like SpaceX / ULA do for Satellite launches today.

At the end of the mission after delivering the cargo/crew/etc SpaceX keeps the hardware, and can sell tickets to whoever else wants to go.

The other approach is that NASA comes along and wants SpaceX to build a system that meets certain capabilities but in a more integrated/directed fashion like was done between NASA and Boeing/Rockwell/etc for the space shuttle, but NASA owns the gear (since it was funding the development)

Both options end up with SpaceX building the ITS, but the way it's funded will determine who owns it at the end of the mission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like a failure of imagination to me that the main plan is to start off sending lots of people to Mars. People are heavy, they need heavy life support, they're fragile & they require complex infrastructure to survive. If any of that support infrastructure breaks or there's an interruption in resupply missions the people die. Probably they fight to see who dies first and waste valuable resources.

Yes people are very versatile but almost everything useful is going to be sent from earth for decades. If the plan for building human supporting infrastructure is well thought out we shouldn't need much versatility.

Why not send as few humans as you can possibly get away with and as much semi- autonomous & remote operated machinery as possible. Get some of the 7 billion people on earth to design it, drive it & continually improve how autonomous it is (I imagine lag to mars will be a bitch).

This seems a far faster way to build a self sustaining mars backup civ. Bonus in that at some point this leads to self replicating self directed robots at which point send them to the asteroid belt & everyone can retire.

To that end anyone want to make a remote operated maker space? Buy some cheap land or warehouse. Ship in raw materials and see if we can build a robot factory by remote. Price of admission is sending a remote operated vehicle guess we can wire it up and broadcast it to the web. Hopefully that can fund someone to replace batteries when they inevitably run flat.

<comment><USER2> All the Mars programs have failed because they have lost momentum, not for technical or financial reasons. Your 'proposal' is not all that different from Lockheed's recent proposal, but neither would help humans get to Mars. Very few people are willing to stick with a costly program for over 20 years in the hopes that something may eventually happen; Apollo took less than 10, and it almost got cancelled.

<comment><USER7> Right so we need to send some heroic looking astronaut types asap to hold the world hostage for re-supply missions. I agree.

No doubt you also want an ever growing number of highly skilled people to build things since they will doubtless be faster than remote operated stuff from earth. Plus you may as well make use of the infrastructure you're building.

But beyond that I don't see why you'd send people who will have a very real chance of over-burdening your infrastructure and dying possibly taking down others with them.

Plus building a remote operated robot factory on earth sounds like awesome fun, surprised no one seems interested! I don't see what other open hardware & software project could make a bigger difference to human space colonization.

<comment><USER8> We probably need less people throwing out answers and more people actually trying to make them a reality.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, we need to be able to answer the hard questions before making things a reality. Going to mars and making it habitable is not exactly something we have a lot of experience in, so there are a lot of questions but very little reasonable solutions.

I personally think we should go as soon as possible and I would love to see a lot more competition in this area. Maybe if China starts making major progress towards mars then probably the head will start rolling in the USA and maybe even Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As with similar NASA vision statements about space, this is heavy on the what "Send people to Mars" and weak on the why, "What do we gain by being space faring?"

As a result it will be constantly under pressure from earthly issues that need money now. For example if you are a congress critter and asked to choose between funding a $1B for Zika virus research/abatement and using that $1B for 1/5 the cost of developing a new space booster system, people always choose the 'today' problem and delay the 'future' opportunity. No one wants to say "Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent that money on a rocket."

This is why I am a huge fan of the Commercial Crew and other 'private' industry programs. Let private industry develop the tools and techniques for space and unshackle from them the cold war restrictions.

And yes, that is the elephant in this particular room. While the "west" wrings its hands over the PRK developing an operational missile capability, have you ever thought what a Falcon 9 looks like through that lens? As a military weapon it could be considered the first Intercontinental Ballistic Bomber. Think about that capability, a Falcon 9 with a payload capable of some re- entry steering, launches from a base in the US, lets fly the payload, and then flys back to base for the next payload. Ten of these sitting on pads in the Dakotas could put 100 tons of conventional explosive on to any target in the eastern hemisphere in about 45 minutes.

That is the kind capability that SpaceX could "market" to third parties. And it isn't something nation states like private companies to have.

<comment><USER11> _" Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent that money on a rocket."_

This kind of argument always gets to me. There's no inherent value in money, it's just a means to the end of organizing society. If the financial system prevents us from going to Mars and providing health care simultaneously, you should not give up on either, but fix the broken system.

Sadly, we're apparently too greedy and stupid to do it...

<comment><USER12> "Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent that money on a rocket."

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent thousands of times that in wars over oil".

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent thousands of times that propping up dodgy financial institutions".

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we spent thousands of times that making Hollywood movies".

.. yawn

<comment><USER13> Your

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did Obama sign an executive order? Or is this a motivational announcement?

As a contrast, in my field (computational science) Obama signed an executive order ([https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2015/07/29/execu...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2015/07/29/executive-order-creating-national-strategic-computing- initiative)) to enable the rapid development of exascale (next generation) supercomputers.

Funding is arguably even more critical for space exploration, and without substantial action on this front I am skeptical this is going to have meaningful impact.

<comment><USER2> This looks more like a 'legacy' statement, where the president is trying to emphasize how much he has done in the arena of space exploration, and what his contribution has been.

<comment><USER15> So it's just bluster.

<comment><USER16> >Bluster: loud, aggressive, or indignant talk with little effect.

Uh, no.

<comment><USER15> You're right. He wasn't aggressive about it.

<comment><USER16> Yup, yet I got downvoted heavily. I'll just take this to mean hackernews people aren't very knowledgeable about vocabulary

<comment><USER17> There's an "or" in your definition, so...

<comment><USER16> For the record, you think Obama was being "loud, aggressive, or indignant"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see people on Mars in my lifetime.

But the biggest problem longterm is that Mars will be a pretty miserable place to live.

Right now you can move to Antartica if you really wanted to. Do you? I don't. And Antartica is a much more pleasant place to be than Mars for many reasons: you can breath the air, it's got water, it's quite a bit warmer, and you get almost twice as much sunlight.

<comment><USER19> This is such a tired argument.

Yes, Antartica is less miserable than Mars. So what? Antartica is, crucially, _part of Earth_. It is missing the main thing Mars has to make it desirable, which is _being another planet_. If you don't get the point of ever leaving Earth that's fine, but don't pretend that $random_inhospitable_place_on_Earth is automatically better, _for 'being on other planets' purposes_, than another planet is.

<comment><USER18> Yes, if you're only solving for "not Earth" then Mars is good match. But if your only goal is to leave Earth, why not move to the Moon? It's much more practical.

Without a plan to make Mars more habitable for humans, Mars will be a lot like ISS or Antartica: a place where a small number of lucky scientists go for a few months before returning home.

<comment><USER20> The moon is only more practical in terms of distance/travel time. In every other way, the moon is drastically more inhospitable than even the worst day on Mars, so anything gained by the shorter distance is quickly nullified by the difficulty of existing there.

If the issues surrounding transit can be addressed, Mars is by far a superior target for colonization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s, and now I'm to the point where I find these repetitions of "Mars in ~25 years" to be more pathetically sad than anything else.

Maybe Musk and SpaceX will succeed, maybe not. But either way, he's not playing the same tired tune I've heard my entire life.

<comment><USER22> This is pretty much how I feel. At this point, I expect to see practical implementations of general AI and fusion reactors before I see a man on Mars. It's the same old lip service from the political arm of NASA and the Executive Branch. Bah.

Musk is disrupting the status quo, thank God. I fear he'll end up more like Preston Tucker than Henry Ford, but I'm glad he's charging ahead.

<comment><USER23> I am starting to feel the same way about Thorium reactors. I really hope thorconpower.com succeeds with their setup in Indonesia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would prefer it if we made human settlement of the oceans a reality first. Human settlement of space has health problems that are not yet solved such as vision damage from zero gravity environments and brain damage from cosmic radiation.

[http://www.space.com/25392-manned-mars-mission-astronaut- vis...](http://www.space.com/25392-manned-mars-mission-astronaut-vision.html) [https://www.rt.com/document/57fc69bac46188c6758b4599/amp](https://www.rt.com/document/57fc69bac46188c6758b4599/amp)

Making underwater habitats is far more practical in the short term. Experience in making closed environments for human habitation of the ocean would be useful when the problems with space exploration are solved.

<comment><USER25> Underwater you have gravity, access to our biosphere, food, water, you can make air and make fuel.

In space... well...

The issue though, is that people want what's out there, they want to mine asteroids and somehow that laudable goal has been conflated with colonizing another gravity well in some minds.

<comment><USER26> One thing that I've always wondered is why space colonization focuses so much on planets. It seems like orbital platforms would both fix the low-gravity health issue (spin the platform) and provide easier access to lucrative resources (you can hit asteroids without dealing with getting in/out of gravity wells).

<comment><USER27> 1\. It is much easier to land on/get into the orbit of a planet. For example, transfer from low earth orbit to Mars requires a delta V of about 4.3 km/s. Now to get into Mars' orbit, this needs to be reduced to about 3 km/s (rough napkin-top calculation, take with a grain of salt). However if you want to "stop" at a massless orbital platform/asteroid, you would have to reduce all 4.3 km/s (without any aerobrake assist).

2\. If we assume an orbital platform is like a ring (similar to Halo), and if the diameter of this thing is 2km, then it would need to spin very fast (70m/s). This is okay, until you realize, that so much speed means a lot of difference in gravity from the floor to ceiling. For example, a man who is 2m tall, would feel 1g on his feet and about 0.95g = 9.3m/s^2 on his head. The difference in g would give rise to different health issues. You could make the station bigger, but then it would be probably better to stick to a natural body that is similar size instead

<comment><USER28> I thought delta-v from LEO to Mars was over 6km/s? There are near-Earth asteroids at much lower delta-v. [https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/08/how-we-choose- our...](https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/08/how-we-choose-our-asteroid- targets/) gets into some of this.

At the 1km radius you give, a 2m human would have head at 0.2% lesser acceleration than feet. Am I miscalculating? Note that 1g is just one place in the design space, though an attractive one for a big enough station.

<comment><USER27> I am probably wrong with the 4.3 number (compiled the first result from google without double checking). And it won't be 0.2%, the head's speed would be 0.2% of the feet, but since g=v^2/r, the gravity difference would be about 3%

<comment><USER28> No, g also equals omega^2 r. The angular velocity omega is the same for head and feet, leaving only the change to r. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_motion#Formulas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_motion#Formulas)

(So what's wrong with g = v^2/r? Nothing -- both v and r change in that change to g. To first order, they cancel out in the change to v/r, leaving only a linear factor.)

<comment><USER27> You are right, I was had made a very ugly mistake I guess

<comment><USER28> No worries! It's a natural mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> More of the same from government promising Mars in X years. This will just be killed off by the next president. If this was serious it would have been announced at the beginning of his 8 years. We could have even put some of the ~550 billion spent on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. We probably would have gotten more bang for our buck.

I also wonder how much of this was brought about just to point out that the US will not be supporting SpaceX's hopes of a Mars mission.

<comment><USER30> SpaceNews.com said that this announcement "largely reiterated the space policy [Obama] announced in an April 2010 speech at NASA's Kennedy Space Center..."

[http://spacenews.com/nasa-to-move-ahead-with-plans-to- offer-...](http://spacenews.com/nasa-to-move-ahead-with-plans-to-offer-iss- docking-port-for-private-modules/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If this happens, it's going to be because Lockheed Martin gets their fusion plant going. Back in 2014, Lockheed Martin announced that their Skunk Works unit was working on building a fusion reactor.[1] Last May, the head of the Skunk Works announced quietly that they'd achieved initial plasma and were investing more money in the project.[2]

The Skunk Works produced the U-2, the SR-71, and the first stealth fighter. They're really good at building things. They have money. They have very good people. If anybody can make this work, it's them.

[1] [http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact- fusion.htm...](http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html) [2] [http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/innovation/2016/05/...](http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/innovation/2016/05/03/lockheed- nuclear-fusion-generator-investment/83870398/)

</comment><comment><USER32> > And that brings us to the first thing we're excited to discuss today. NASA > has already begun laying the groundwork for these deep space missions. In > 2014 we issued....

And then spends the next paragraph talking about something they did in 2014. The whole page is like that.

</comment><comment><USER33> Question: it seems there is a lot of overlap between the technology required for space exploration and the technology needed for ICBMs. To what extent was space exploration in the Mercury-Apollo missions a way to make a huge investment in ICBM technology palatable to the public? Does anyone know good documentaries that discuss this?

(Put it another way: how important was R&D done in the name of human space exploration to the development of ICBM capabilities?)

<comment><USER34> > how important was R&D done in the name of human space exploration to the > development of ICBM capabilities?

Not very important. By the time of the Gemini program, ICBMs had reached the capabilities needed. All the human rated launch vehicles after that were developed for manned spaceflight exclusively (unlike Mercury and Gemini programs which used missiles) and didn't have a lot of overlap with ICBM development.

There might be other areas of military interest that overlap manned space flight efforts, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wonder why there aren't any realistic plans for using nuclear propulsion. Chemical rockets simply produce too low thrust. Using nuclear pulse/fission fragment rockets the solar system can be explored in a matter of months, rather than the years/decades that we're currently forced to endure. Project Orion was supposed to be feasible with 60s technology. Why aren't we trying to make similar technologies work?

<comment> gene-h For one, nuclear pulse rockets violate several international treaties. Fission fragment rockets, while the performance is impressive on paper, have yet to be demonstrated in the lab.

Nuclear thermal propulsion has been demonstrated on Earth[0] and Nuclear electric propulsion has been flight proven[1].

NASA had a serious effort to develop and flight prove a high power(200 KWe) nuclear reactor[2]. This would have been used to power the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter[3] which would have explored Europa, Ganymeade, Callisto, and Io if things were favorable. The reactor enabled high power electric propulsion, high bandwidth communication(10Mbit/s), and even a full scale ice penetrating radar. This much power is hard to come by as far out as Jupiter.

The entire effort lasted about two years before it got canceled because NASA needed to free up money for the (now canceled) Constellation Program. The thing I would like to emphasize here is that this was a serious effort with money on the table and a mission in place. The nuclear propulsion work NASA is currently working on is either a concept study, that is just investigating whether an idea can work at all, or not very well funded.

The issue is getting the funding to develop the hardware and actually following through

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA) [1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1867](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1867) [2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus) [3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter)

<comment><USER35> I'm aware of the fact that nuclear pulse rockets will violate atmospheric test ban treaties. However I think if some major countries were serious about it then an exception for pulse propulsion could have been added to those treaties. (Yes, I understand the potential for abuse but in my mind the upsides and an effective monitoring system far outweigh the risks.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If the human settlement of space is to be made a reality, then the plans for it need to be more measured and realistic.

First, it needs to be recognized that we don't know how human biology is going to cope with the radiation and gravity environment encountered in space. More precisely, we know that our biology copes poorly, and we don't know how to fix that from a biological perspective. The only solutions we have in our grasp are one, bring the gravity up to 1G with a rotating habitat, and two, shield humans from the radiation experienced in space with magnets and mass. Any reasonable plan to "settle" space must _begin_ by addressing these.

Second, Mars is just not the place to start, because it's too far away. People are fond of pointing out that Mars's atmosphere makes landing there less costly than landing on the Moon, but this ignores the fact that you have to bring life support and food along for the 4- to 6-month long trip. (The atmosphere is also very little help, for example, for Musk's plan.) It is more accurate to say that it is slightly less costly to land on Mars _for a day_ than it is to _land an entire Lunar base and live on the Moon for 6 months._ Add to this the return trip time to Earth for emergencies (or the time it takes to send emergency supplies and crew), and the Moon wins, hands down. (Indeed, a better place to work out how to survive on Mars would be if you could find places on the Moon where we couldn't land and had to rely on weeks of overland travel from a landing site to get there.)

Third, the absolute first step should be an experimental, shielded, rotating habitat (probably built from Lunar materials) in orbit either outside of Earth's van Allen belts or around the Moon. This habitat should be of sufficient size to address the effects of, at least, Moon-like (1/6) and Mars- like (1/3) gravity on human subjects for multiple years. It needs to either be able to spin up and down to these values, have separate sections for Mars and Moon gravity, or we need to have a separate base on the Moon. We already know that space kills us in many, many ways. Until we have characterized _how we 're even going to survive_ there, there is absolutely no sense in talking about _settling_ there.

Any announcement that doesn't address these directly is just PR.

<comment><USER37> No information of that sort was available in JFK's announcement about going to the moon, either. You're right that this part is PR, but your expectation is too unrealistic to take it very seriously. If you're trying to insinuate that no one is considering these issues, I assure you, they are very aware.

<comment><USER36> The Moon trips were jaunts, not efforts at settlement. I'm not sure what "expectation" you are referring to. Can you clarify?

<comment><USER37> I was referring to the expectation that a political announcement would contain satisfying technical details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This work aboard the space station is the heart and soul of the first stage of NASA's Journey to Mars; a stage we call "Earth Dependent."

The ISS and shuttle are (or in the case of the shuttle "were") broadly considered a waste. There was a recent article posted here that described how they really only existed for each other ... and to give NASA a public facing "expedition".

<comment><USER2> The Space Shuttle was originally called 'station shuttle', as it was meant to service a large orbital space station (planned to be launched in the 1970s). Unfortunately for NASA, its budget was cut during and after the Apollo missions, and it decided to postpone the station, but keep the shuttle. The MIT course on the Space Shuttle is very informative; you might find the episode on the decision to build the shuttle particularly interesting.[1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAyzURugaw&list=PL35721A60B...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAyzURugaw&list=PL35721A60B7B57386&index=4)

<comment><USER38> They also originally envisioned "Single-Stage-to-Orbit" and a turn-around time more like that of an airplane.

<comment><USER2> I don't know of any shuttle study that envisioned it being SSTO. The original shuttle configurations did contain a liquid-powered 'flyback booster', which was a first stage with the ability to fly back to the launch site. Many of these configurations also had retractable jet engines mounted on the shuttle orbiter, as well as fuel and/or oxidizer tanks in the orbiter, but all these options were nixed because of payload, cost, and schedule requirements. The quick turn-around was originally viewed as desirable, but other things were made higher priorities, and they gradually moved away from that objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> from the article : 'the newly created Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships or "NextSTEP" program'

They might have just googled for their abbreviations first, so that they wouldn't collide with an important historical operating system [0]. I get that it's hard to find an unused three-letter acronym, but with 8 characters you really should be able to find something unused.

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

<comment><USER40> To be fair as time goes on we're going to have collisions more and more to the point where I think we'll either stop caring about collisions or we'll stop caring about creating abbreviations / acronyms. I'm hoping for the latter :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Wow, so much naysaying here. When I hear about private plans vs government plans I think back to what Neil deGrasse Tyson said:

> _Private enterprise will never lead a space frontier. In all the history of > human conduct, it's as clear to me as day follows night that private > enterprise won't do that, because it's expensive. It's dangerous. You have > uncertainty and risks, because you're dealing with things that haven't been > done before. That's what it means to be on a frontier. [...] The government > is better suited to these kinds of investments. They have a longer time > horizon. They're not shackled to quarterly reports like you see in a private > enterprise._

I tend to agree with him. I'm betting on the government to get humans there first. But I'll be happy to eat humble pie.

</comment><comment><USER42> What about making human settlement of oceans a reality? Like, not just the surface but the floors too. Seems like a suitably grand technology project with massive potential benefits. I never hear about it though.. not sexy enough? Doesn't capture the imagination?

<comment><USER30> Try: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> As nice as this is, it really is little more than an empty recap statement, and leaves so many questions. When, exactly? There are seven or so decent launch windows between now and "the 2030s," so what are we targeting? With what money? It's nice that nextSTEP selected six firms, but aside from Space-X (who is not on the list, mind you) I can't see others willingly donating hardware and personnel without compensation. What steps are being taken to insure this project won't be hacked to death by political whims?

More importantly: How can I (or any other individual) help? There's precious little actionable data in this release.

<comment><USER44> Already taken: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP) They really should have used a different name: [https://www.nasa.gov/nextstep](https://www.nasa.gov/nextstep)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Does anybody know how one could get involved in Mars Settlement. I would like to help out and go.

<comment><USER46> We will settle Venus long before attempting Mars. Anybody talking about going to Mars is spouting marketing vapor.

<comment><USER47> Even more likely than that - we'll turn Earth into Venus long before we send a single person to another planet (if ever).

<comment><USER48> You vastly overestimate the consequences our actions have on the planet.

The planet has been much different in the past.

No scientists at all, think that our effect on the planet is going to make it literally unlivable.

Trillions of dollars in damages over the next century maybe. But trillions of dollars in damages is just an Iraq War.

<comment><USER49> The planet have been different in the past.

Most of this past is incompatible with human civilization, as we know it.

For example, many scientists believe that the Permian extinction happened due to a rapid release of greenhouse gases, and rise in temperatures - by ~6C. 95% of the Earth's species were wiped out in a few years.

These kinds of events aren't trillions of dollars of damages. They are billions of human deaths, as ecosystems collapse, as the tropics and subtropics become uninhabitable.

Unfortunately for us, while CO2 may not cause such a drastic change in temperatures over the next few decades, methane release very well might.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Before we spend the enormous amount money needed to settle humans on mars, I really think we should be spending that money or effort to help people settle Earth. Homelessness is still a big issue in cities. And last time I checked, the vast majority of the middle class hasn't even paid off their own home, not to mention property taxes. It doesn't make sense to build housing in outer- space when we can't even do it affordably on our own planet. IMHO

Don't get me wrong. I think space is cool and fun, but that's what science fiction movies are for, and the discovery channel/books, if you want non- fiction.

<comment><USER51> In contrast, I prefer to work on a problem that can be solved by technical achievements in math, science, and engineering within my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong. I think utopian fantasy is cool and fun, but that's what Star Trek television series are for, and the history channel/books, if you want non-fiction.

Sociological problems are at least an order of magnitude more difficult than space problems. When you send a robot to Mars, you don't have to worry about how much power it will embezzle from the communications array, or whether it will refuse to take its meds, or whether the value of the work it is doing is enough to pay its mortgage. You could quite easily spend 100 times the cost of a Mars colony on the people problems here on Earth, and achieve absolutely zero visible results from it.

Besides that, unless you're going to force students into social work education rather than aerospace engineering, there would be a lot of skilled laborers leaving university with no useful jobs to do. You would be spending your money on them sitting at home, uselessly dreaming about space, rather than spending just a bit more for them to be actually working to advance technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> So I suppose a Cassini-budget probe to Uranus or Neptune in my lifetime is probably not going to happen with Mars sucking up all the funding?

Mars is cool, but I don't think a Mars colony is realistic. I'd rather pay to see what the last two planetary systems look like.

</comment><comment><USER53> > "We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in > space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to > Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended > time."

Wait, why? Why do we _have to_?

<comment><USER54> "because they are hard."

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Do we even need the govt in this anymore beyond just encouraging companies like SpaceX?

</comment><comment><USER56> With your dollars we can do it!

</comment><comment> once-in-a-while I can't believe there's a serious discussion about this topic. Even if you overcome the technical challenges (which I doubt), people would get depressed on any planet other than Earth. All other planets are just insanely sad for human life. Our soul would suffer to dead...

<comment><USER57> People have lived in remote, desolate outposts on Earth for extended periods of time for a wide variety of reasons (military, science, etc). And that was without (basically) unlimited media to keep them from complete boredom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Meanwhile a significant number of people starve to death globally.

Not to be the eternal downer, but I just can't understand how we haven't figured out proper income distribution but think we'll be able to deal with becoming extraterrestrials.

<comment><USER59> You could say this about any other endeavor. We're creating iphones while a significant number of people starve to death globally, etc.

(If someone's response is that it's okay specifically because Apple is a private company, then well honestly I'd be a bit concerned about the preconception that capitalism is automatically moral. If minimizing the number of people starving was the goal that beat other goals, then taxes could be raised on companies like Apple until society put more effort into reducing starving than building iphones.)

<comment><USER58> Maybe it's just me, but if we suck at living on a super habitable planet then I seriously doubt our fitness as a species to live in less hospitable corners of the universe.

<comment><USER60> There's 7 billion people on earth. I think we're pretty good at living here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Just help fund SpaceX's plan

OR

Set up a moon base to help the plan

OR

Help nuclear pulse drives for the interplanetary trips.

</comment><comment><USER62> Barack trying to steal Musk's thunder?

</comment><comment><USER63> Making Human Settlement of Space a Reality; So We Can Have a Nanotech Accident and it Won't Affect Earth. Also see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo)

</comment><comment><USER64> ... but Elon has better video simulations.</comment>


If high street shopping was like online shopping [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p083mv25 <comment><USER2> Well that's not right, she only had to look through _one_ frame of squares, and he didn't ask her to identify things she's never seen in her home or local country!

(I refer to the American 'parking meters', 'crosswalks', and to a lesser extent traffic lights, that Google makes me spot even on UK-only sites.)

<comment><USER3> Isn't that called "intercultural competence" ?

<comment><USER2> Ha. Maybe. Or is it Google's lack of intercultural competence to not understand that I don't have 'crosswalks' and that traffic lights and (another I forgot above) fire 'hydrants' (not called that) look different here?

It's not like it shows images from around the world, it just shows American images to everyone around the world.

<comment><USER3> For me it did. ISTR something in Spanish, so I'd guess Mexico at least, and I've definitely seen Asian scripts on road signs sometimes, while having a German IP.

<comment><USER2> I've seen Asian scripts when asked to identify 'storefronts' (also not called that) - but I just assumed they were takeaways. Sorry - 'takeouts'.

Anyway, regardless of if it's global or just American, the point here is that I don't have to answer questions about images of other countries when I shop on a British high street!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this was _really_ like shopping online then a loud, brash arsehole would jump between her and the counter as she walked in and demand that she sign up to their newsletter before she was able to look at any goods...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Beautifully done, as a developer it makes me cringe on behalf of my profession.

Covers invasive collection of personal details, "security questions", upsells, ReCaptcha and more.

Please consider sharing with your teams everyone : )

<comment><USER5> Not sure the primary fault is on the developers asked to implement these...

<comment><USER6> If you're working in a job where developers are just dumb code monkeys who get told what to do and do it whatever happens, and that developers aren't considered part of the team behind a feature and have no way to influence what gets built, then _leave_. There are better jobs out there that won't make you feel ashamed of what you deploy.

<comment><USER7> I am not sure why people put developers on a morally high status like they are able to choose what kind of job that they can do, then try to shame them publicly for the work they do, but I do not see any difference between a forced developer who wants to have a job and get by in their lives, and a telemarketer making calls to the potential customers.

<comment><USER8> People complain about telemarketers all the time. It's not like they get a pass.

Sure, the actual blame may fall on whoever decided to hire all those telemarketers to defraud the elderly but... they're also just trying to have a job. The ceo is just trying to have a profitable company. The shareholders are just trying to have a pension. Consumers are just trying to shop conveniently.

From the perspective of the complainer, the thing is the part of the thing that they see. Telemarketing is telemarketers. Software is the UX. Mindless bureaucracy is the person standing in front of them. Etc.

If you're going to come to the defence of anyone, defend someone who is standing in front of the disgruntled consumer, earning peanuts. Developers are generally well paid, mobile and don't ever face the person they're driving crazy.

Anyway, developers (and software companies) put _themselves_ on this high status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche.

<comment><USER7> > Anyway, developers (and software companies) put themselves on this high > status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy > touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. > Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche.

Exactly the point I am trying to make. People complain about telemarketers all the time but they actually do know that those people are just trying to get by and have no actual choice.

Developers think other developers are just able to say "f you" to their boss and leave the job and get a new one next day, but this is not the reality. Is this a reality for the majority of audience of HN? Can they do that? Because I can't.

<comment><USER8> I get what you're saying and it is all relative, but I'd say "yes" in a general sense. Developers have more agency than most people at working class jobs like telemarketers.

"More" agency is not full agency, but if we're thinking in shades of grey, then I think it's a substantial delta. The stuff developers read and ideas they care about have influence.

For example, agile, TDD, and other buzzword methods for managing software teams started by gaining traction among developers. There is no equivalent for telemarketers. No one cares what they read or think. You can spy on their screen, time their toilet breaks, etc. Software companies do not want developers to think they are bullshit. They don't care either way for CS agents.

It is a matter of degrees though. It's not like an average developer can say no! to some crappy verification step that higher-ups promised their payment processor. I'd also say that agency is waning in the era of big tech.

<comment><USER9> This topic comes up a lot here. How about just 3 days ago [1]? It's so strange, on one hand, we act like software developers are in high demand, and can be choosy about their work, and on the other hand, act like they have no agency over their work and are limited to just saying "yes, boss, whatever you say, boss" to bad software design.

At the end of the day, it's the developer who types in the code and pushes. Developers should share the blame for what they create. It's not just those mean horrible managers _forcing us all_ to write bad UX. It's your choice as a developer to type git commit.

I don't think this opinion comes out of privilege. It you have no subject matter control over your work, you're not a developer--you're a typist.

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24384794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24384794)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the number one reason Amazon is winning everything. It's not even the cheapest anymore. But it's such a hassle shopping at other websites. Even supermarkets that should know better - making an order, even once you've clicked 'checkout' is sometimes 10 clicks or more. It's painful!

<comment><USER11> Amazon has also prioritized customer experience both when things go right _and_ when things go wrong.

Many other online stores are all shiny with nice slogans but if you have a problem and need customer support then good luck.

This is also visible in the fact that Amazon makes it simple to cancel an order before it ships (just one click) and that they don't charge until an item ships.

<comment><USER12> Two recent experiences with amazon returns:

1)Keep the item, no charge (small ticket price item delivered twice by mistake). 2)We've refunded you, and for your inconvenience we've topped up your gift card by £5. (delayed delivery so cancelled).

Most other UK stores: 1)Please jump through several hoops and go an hour out of way to send it back to us (at your own expense) then it's 50/50 if ever hear another thing. 2)No reply whatsoever

</comment></comment></comment><comment> festive-minsky A cookie banner in the doorway should get stuck to her face as she walks in

<comment><USER13> Or kids dressed in cookie costumes follow her when she leaves

<comment><USER4> Yeah there should be a sleazy looking guy in a raincoat recording everything she does and trying to follow her into the toilet.

Bonus points if they occasionally turn to another raincoat and whisper about her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >> This is the number one reason Amazon is winning everything. It's not even the cheapest anymore. But it's such a hassle shopping at other websites.

Speaking as an online merchant, we default to guest checkout and we regularly get emails "how do we register for checkout".

It would seem customers have been trained that they need to register before checkout.

<comment><USER15> Everything is behavior online and behavioral design is everything for a smooth experience. What we could need is a mechanism where you can reliably and safely provide stores with ALL required personal and payment details with the click of a button. Currently, not even autofill works satisfactory due to a myriad of reasons.

<comment><USER16> We have that mechanism, it's called Apple Pay. I believe Google Pay does the same. The problem is that for both incompetence (they don't have good developers that can integrate it in their third-party eCommerce solution) and malice (one-click Apple Pay checkout won't allow them to implement dark patterns and upsells) it's never done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The way men behave in this video makes me feel weird - am I homophobic? I don't meet people like this on daily basis, I don't meet them at all. Are there men like this or is this just acting which is an exaggeration? I don't recognize my feelings well, but it feels hard. I wouldn't feel like myself around such a man.

<comment><USER18> > am I homophobic?

Maybe, yes, a little bit? At the very least it's worth considering that possibility -- it's not necessarily any slight against you: most people were raised in cultures that are at least a bit casually homophobic, and it's hard to ask anyone to completely transcend the culture you were born into.

On the other hand, maybe you're reacting negatively to the faux- obsequiousness, the pretending to be subservient and helpful while actually obstructing and frustrating the customer's desires? Does the female shop assistant also annoy you? In the same way or a different way?

Maybe reflect on why you feel uncomfortable?

<comment><USER17> Thank you. Your analysis showed me other side of that acting, it let me interpret that skit as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was totally expecting them to go and creepily stalk her around town with crappy retargeting.

<comment><USER16> That's an opportunity for the next episode!

</comment></comment><comment> globular-toast I actually have, on multiple occasions, had high street shops ask for my name and other details. Thankfully I've never had any problems making the purchase after I politely decline to give them anything.

<comment><USER16> Yes, the intrusive marketing cancer is actually spreading to the high street too. They're now asking for e-mails under the excuse of sending you your receipt and saving the planet (no need for paper) but obviously you will get spam and no doubt that this e-mail will also be shared with advertising partners such as Facebook.

<comment><USER4> I very much enjoy telling people in shops that I don't have an email address when they ask.

You can practically see the cogs whirring as they try to comprehend that before they realise that, of course, I'm looking them in eye and lying to them.

This is particularly funny in a computer store.

<comment><USER20> Is there a name for making excuses that are deliberately implausible, but more ironic than euphemistic? Asking for a friend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yeah, this is the exact reasons why I don't like online shopping. It can be convenient, however find it very annoying the last few years.

</comment><comment><USER22> yes i want to keep my shopping card for longer then 10 minutes

No i don't want the session being terminated after 20 minutes.

Yes i want to order as a guest.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great!</comment>


The Siberian crater phenomenon is more widespread than previously thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/26/the-siberian-crater-problem-is-more-widespread-and-scarier-than-anyone-thought/ <comment><USER2> The scariest part of the slow trend of global warming is that maybe big positive feedback mechanisms could be literally hidden under our feets, pretty much ignored till now. Things could go wrong very fast, in ways that not even experts could had predicted.

<comment><USER3> What I'm curious about is the mechanisms that might counteract global warming. The earth has cycled in the past between hot and cold periods, so there are obviously natural mechanisms that cause it to reverse as well.

Could we harness these mechanisms to keep the earth compatible with human habitation?

<comment><USER4> I think that this mechanism is mostly CO2 being slowly weathered out of the atmosphere and disposed of, mostly via limestone formation. This takes a _very_ long time and is very slow, so it can only catch up if you stop pumping it out.

<comment><USER5> The colder oceans are notable natural CO2 absorbents, plus we have to mention the effects of life itself: photo-synthesizing plants and unicellular creatures. Like the historical ones that fixated enough carbon to create today's wast coal, oil and methane fields.

As I recall, there is a group of creatures that may did the first big wave of carbon fixation at the beginning of life, binding CO2 and releasing the important O2 that enabled the appearance of complex life forms, but I can't remember it's name.

<comment><USER4> Algae, or Green/blue Algae, more specifically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yep, pretty scary. Even scarier, if oceanic methane clathrates are destabilized, we're pretty much fucked i.e. kiss your hopes for controlling global warming goodbye:

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

<comment> mark-r Thanks for the link, it taught me something. I wonder if that's how Styx did that album cover long before Photoshop was invented? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox_(Styx_album)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox_\(Styx_album\))

<comment><USER7> I just gave some guy shit this morning for playing the old man card, but you do realize we had special effects before photoshop, right? A lot of what you can do in photoshop is actually the digital translation of the analogue process. Photoshop didn't make this possible, it just made it easier and faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article that this article is about is a lot more informative and has a lot more photos.

[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0127-dozens...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0127-dozens- of-mysterious-new-craters-suspected-in-northern-russia/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Short version: "Siberia is warming. Permafrost thaws and spews methane, and blasts out a burst of highly flammable gas."

The consequences of that can include: Russia's economy being broken due to a main export literally vanishing into thin air. And worse: Green house gases getting into the atmosphere in vast amounts.

<comment><USER10> > _The consequences of that can include: Russia 's economy being broken due to > a main export literally vanishing into thin air._

As far as I know, the methane from the permafrost is not commercially exploited. It's left there frozen, so this doesn't affect the Russian economy unless one of this "explosions" hits a building.

<comment><USER5> The currently mined gas deposits in Siberia are at least 600 meters below the ground level, normally deeper (generally at 1-2 km). The thickness of permafrost in most areas is a few ten meters, with the more cold areas reaching 300-450 meters, so there little to no overlap between the two.

This PDF contains a few numbers for those interested: [http://www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/ICOP/40770716/CD- ROM/Proceedi...](http://www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/ICOP/40770716/CD- ROM/Proceedings/PDF001189/151104.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So is it old, buried organic (flora,fauna) matter thats causing the methane ?

I'm wondering a couple of things :

1) Is there any way arial or satellite imaging can help predict where these methane bubbles in the permafrost will occur ?

2) Could this be tapped as a resource ?

P.S , is anyone else reminded of the "Spice blooms" from Dune ?

<comment><USER12> Landfills in the US are now esentially very large plastic bags. The problem is when the trash decays it produces methane (and other gasses), and having flamable gas in an many acre bag is bad.. So there are vents and the methane is captured. This is captured and piped to burn off. There are claims of generating power but the amount I've seen is not significant.

<comment><USER13> Landfill gas generation is quite significant. In the U.S alone as of 2013, 621 LFG projects were operational producing 1,978 MW. Another 850 MW worth of projects are candidates.

See [http://www.epa.gov/lmop/documents/pdfs/overview.pdf](http://www.epa.gov/lmop/documents/pdfs/overview.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone is interested in learning more about permafrost methane, and a bit about clathrates as well, this paper[1] is a pretty good primer. I worked with the lead author over a summer around when he was publishing this a few years back. It's possible I can answer your questions, although I won't guarantee it. Clathrates/hydrates are a personal favorite of mine, even wrote up a short research paper in grad school on the possibility for their economic extraction.

[1][http://www.climateemergencyinstitute.com/uploads/L_Livermore...](http://www.climateemergencyinstitute.com/uploads/L_Livermore_lab_MH_article_2012.pdf)

EDIT: The URL is a bit hyperbolic, but the paper is legit, it's just the first host for this paper I found.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are there any reports of this phenomenon occurring in Alaska and Canada?

<comment><USER16> considering how watched they are I doubt it, it could be likely to destabilization brought on by developing the area for natural gas usage. Perhaps they are causing fractures as other fuels taken out.

As for global warming or what not, its not like it wasn't warmer within periods of well documented history and we survived that just fine. It is more likely one volcano will do more than we think we do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting phenomena. Presumably this happens every time the average temperature rises above the melting point of the water and clathrates. Given that Methane is a pretty powerful greenhouse gas, it makes me curious what the mechanism is that converts a 'warm' earth into a 'frozen' earth.I think understanding that would help us understand what to expect as the temperature increases.

<comment><USER18> Methane is unstable in oxygen atmosphere. Ice ages are caused by earth orbit and rotation axis orientation changes.

<comment><USER19> I guess people might be left with an incomplete image from that comment. The positive CO2 feedback loop amplifies ice ages a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find this process indescribably scary. It's understandable that the public is clueless, but can someone explain to me why the technologists aren't worried? Positive feedback would put us so far past the point of no return that earth will be unrecognizable.

<comment><USER21> Probably the fact that no positive feedbacks or 'tipping points' happened during the Holocene Climate Optimum, so it's fairly easy to figure out that this is your usual alarmist nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seems to be evidence that the earth hasn't been this warm in a very long time or these pockets of gas wouldn't possibly even exist now.

<comment><USER23> It was warmer 8000 years ago due to orbital effects. [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Am I the only one who feels that it is inappropriate to describe a saga as "more widespread" or as having "deepened"?

<comment><USER25> s/saga/phenomenon/ just for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why are they calling this a crater when their theories don't include impact from space?

<comment><USER27> Seems like a legitimate question. Why should it be downvoted.

<comment><USER28> Because folks here don't like to hear non-PC opinions?

<comment><USER29> Genuinely curious: what possible non-PC answer is there? (Ignoring that the OP didn't realise craters could be caused by many things)

<comment><USER28> I'm guessing the OP got downvoted because his theory had nothing to do with climate change?

<comment><USER30> I'm pretty sure OP got downvoted because he asked a question he could have easily answered himself by looking up the definition of the word in question.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Publishers shouldn't be app developers - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3333-publishers-shouldnt-be-app-developers <comment><USER2> App for that, app for this .... Every grocery store, every department store have an app. I am so overwhelmed. I don't want to use any app other than a browser.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. If there's nothing your app does except act as a "nicer" front end to your website, it doesn't deserve to be an app.

Take the Newegg app, for instance. It is literally a mobile site served up in PhoneGap. They could just make that their default stylesheet for mobile web and it would both perform better and be a better experience for their users, who now don't have to download yet another app to use a website they'll visit once or twice a year.

<comment><USER4> Done right offline reading is a valuable feature for news apps (proper Newspapers), particularly for traveling (flying) or when roaming so that you can refresh on wifi and use without roaming charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I work in "publishing"... and we have to develop mobile apps because advertisers want to display ads on mobile apps. They want interstitial with video, they want fullscreen ads...

It's sad and it's wrong for the user's experience but we just have to do this. If we don't have our mobile apps, advertisers will give their money to competitors.

I won't send a link to our crappy apps, they are too crappy indeed.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm counting down to the announcement that Marco Arment's The Magazine has been purchased for x-million dollars and is being turned into a platform to scratch this exact itch.

</comment><comment><USER7> They shouldn't be web developers either. I get extremely frustrated every time I go to a site that has built its own custom responsive design framework for mobile devices that takes 5 seconds to load and doesn't follow web UI conventions (I'd much rather scroll down then flip pages when reading an article). </rant>

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the issues are a lot more complex than portrayed by simple iPad magazine apps are crap sentiments. The platforms around today (disclaimer, I am the co-founder of one of them, Oomph) do allow designers to do silly things, but conversely, they allow designers to do amazing things that would not previously be possible without low level coding. The results are outstanding, and most customers love them, we certainly get a great deal of positive feedback from the readers of the magazines we help publish. Most of these platforms (well ours does) also use HTML, as well as other features (we have one called text objects) that allow rendering on multiple resolutions with smaller download sizes.

I think The Magazine is awesome on a number of levels, but it also comes from a certain viewpoint, one that most traditional publishers cannot embrace without breaking the way they currently do business. Marco has been able to do build himself a new platform with essentially no constraints (aside from his upfront time & money investment obviously), utilising a new business model, a luxury print publishers may not have. He has also been able to build himself the infrastructure required to complete this, this is not expertise most publishing houses have, and he's publishing in HTML, a lot of publishers don't have the tools or expertise to produce HTML content to the quality they're looking for.

The big opportunity here is for publishers to embrace this new medium wholeheartedly, not with their traditional mags/brands, but with new ones built specifically for digital. In my view, publishers & other "traditional" content owners should be funding skunkworks projects that cannibalise their own market before someone else does (something Apple continues to do for example).

A dual pronged approach where they continue to leverage their existing brands, mags, etc. but branch out into newer markets & business models by repurposeing & utilising their existing content is a win-win scenario.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree with the points made in this article. Most publishers' apps really do suck. The startup that I'm currently working for (<http://storydesk.com>) is solving this problem by building a product which makes it simpler for publishers to drag and drop image and video assets, and type in their text to create native feeling content "apps" using a web based tool. The publisher's content can then be viewed in a native iPad player app which has a fast, consistent user experience.

</comment><comment><USER10> Apparently this is the hot-button issue at 37signals today. (There's another blog post by Ryan on the same topic.)

As commented on that other post: I recently researched tools that are designed to help people make book or magazine apps (mobile apps). There are many options. I decided to share my findings here:

[http://www.mobilechameleon.com/toolkits-to-develop- magazine-...](http://www.mobilechameleon.com/toolkits-to-develop-magazine- apps-and-book-apps.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> While I agree in spirit (see my post [http://interfacelab.com/is-this-really- the-future-of-magazin...](http://interfacelab.com/is-this-really-the-future- of-magazines-or-why-didnt-they-just-use-html-5/) ) his assumptions are pretty wrong. Most of these magazine apps are built on one of three platforms, the biggest of which comes from Adobe. Almost all of these platforms are tied into Adobe inDesign as the authoring tool. Why hire actual iOS developers when your designers can export out of the tool they use to design the actual magazine?

So what he really is complaining about is Adobe's shitty platform. Good luck getting old paper to change their current workflows.

I work on and maintain a few non-magazine apps for a very large publisher and it's a very laborious approval process that moves at a snails pace. Thank god for day rates and retainerships.

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought this is the problem Adobe's Digital Publishing solution is meant to solve.

<http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-publishing.html>

<comment><USER13> Its expensive. I think I calculated it at the cheapest its $4000 per year. And you pay per issue and per user and per download, so the cost adds up pretty quick.

<comment><USER14> When money is the issue, look at <http://twixlmedia.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The New Yorker on iOS is a great example. It's an atrocious app. Each issue takes >100MB, there's no font resizing or dark mode, and articles are laid out such that 1/3rd of the screen is white space.

A magazine-porting framework for iOS and Android would rock. Sales would be tough, though--you'd probably have to partner closely with Conde Nast or another big publisher for v1.0, and...well, good luck with that.

<comment><USER16> Didn't Adobe partner with Conde Nast to leverage AIR for magazines? (I believe this was quickly scuttled after Jobs's missive on Flash.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am the lead developer for Treesaver (<http://treesaver.net>) and we have recently been working with a great team in Milan, Italy to try and offer a solution to this problem. <http://savory.io>

It's not perfect yet but we have a great roadmap and hope to have all the major features publishers need in the near future.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, Kevin! Treesaver provides an app-like HTML publication experience, where content is divided into pages. It's responsive, and the layout adapts with Treesaver's JS algorithm to fit any size screen.

The result works on every browser. Savory hosts content for publishers, and provides design themes. See <http://chainamag.com> for a working site. Savory has a great CMS based on Locomotive.

The most robust Treesaver publication is Sporting News, <http://tablet.sportingnews.com>, which is designed primarily as an iPad app available through the Apple Newsstand. This magazine gets as big as 1,500 pages (iPad size) daily—with a 5:00 pm update! All this is done with no more staff than a typical web site. The web edition enables readers to share content with anyone with a browser and a connection to the net.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> By this logic app developers shouldn't publish books because some turn out bad. I think 37signals might take issue with that, rework or not.

</comment><comment><USER20> The Time Out NY app is fantastic. As in this one:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-out-new-york-for- ipad/i...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-out-new-york-for- ipad/id506299237?mt=8)

So what's the deal with the horrible magazine one?

</comment><comment><USER21> Here's a startup to save the world in this matter: <https://www.snapplify.com>

I'm not affiliated with them, but they fixed exactly what this article complains about with my one friend's publishing service.

</comment><comment><USER22> Someone should build an uber-App that others can create add-ons for. I (or my location) will choose the profile I want (a.k. 'Shopping, Groceries, Sports, Outdoor, Travelling,Family-day-out, whatever). I'll only see (or add) what I'm in the mood for.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are tons of Tablet Publishing solutions around. The designer don't need to know how to program. My favorite is Twixl Publisher for this kind of projects. (<http://twixlmedia.com>)

</comment><comment><USER23> IEEE publishes their content digitally via Qmags. <http://www.qmags.com>

Their iOS app is custom-branded, but still Qmags-powered.

I wonder why more publishers don't go this route...

<comment><USER24> Qmags is godawful, in my opinion. There is no earthly reason they can't just give me a PDF.

Table of contents? PDFs have that.

Navigation? PDFs have that.

Metadata? Oh for the love of pete, _PDFs have that_.

Qmag adds nothing to the experience and the client is slow and annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Awfully off-topic, but it's their 3333rd post. Quite a run for a company blog.

<comment><USER26> Good content generation is one reason 37signals is doing so well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this planting a seed regarding their new app thats in development? :)

Agreed that theres a ton of wasted effort in this space. Something along the lines of apples Newsstand has so much pitential.

</comment><comment><USER28> Other than the browser as a common delivery platform, do we really think that every publisher will happily join hands and standardize on one native magazine app?

</comment><comment><USER29> A lot of publishers aren't app developers, they're just using existing technologies which aren't the best, or using them for mixed levels of success.

</comment><comment><USER30> this is along the lines of what <http://www.inkling.com> is trying to solve (for books, not magazines)</comment>


Ayn Rand vs. the Pygmies - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolution/2012/10/groups_and_gossip_drove_the_evolution_of_human_nature.single.html

<comment><USER2> The cheating pygmy in this article isn't being "rationally selfish" (a phrase used by Rand). One who is rationally selfish doesn't harm others by their selfish actions. Instead, they just make sure that personal and family needs are met first. Any benevolence would be a personal choice not influenced by feelings of guilt or peer pressure.

<comment><USER3> you stole the words out of my mouth. I don't mind being altruistic, I mind being forced to be altruistic, which really isn't altruism at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "What he has found is in direct opposition to Ayn Rand's selfish ideal. For example, in 100 percent of LPA societies ... generosity or altruism is always favored toward relatives _and non-relatives_ alike, with sharing and cooperation being the most cited moral values"

Would Rand think it is wrong to be an altruist _just for your own family_? (E.g. your family's survival).

John Galt chose to exit the corrupt society and start (a small) new society based upon his values. If I remember correct he was waiting (and actively helped for) society to implode so he could reboot it. He didn't do what the article claims: "He refused to participate in society and no one has seen him since."

<comment><USER5> In fact, John Galt, and the others, bore significant personal risk and harm, in a variety of ways- for the goal of ultimately benefiting society.

Galt was an altruist, by the modern use of the word.

The error the author makes is confusing voluntary sharing with theft (Eg: sharing at the point of a gun)... and they always make this error because they want to pretend like the theft is voluntary so that they don't have to face the fact that they are advocating violence.

<comment><USER4> Great comment (I'm placing it here but there are more).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain to me why Ayn Rand and a work of fiction is held in such high regard? (I'm not trying to be facetious). As a foreigner living in the US for the past almost 7 years, I find it interesting that so many people (some with important jobs like our politician friends in the far right) base so much of their ideals on fiction. One could draw a comparison with Scientology where a whole religion was started by a science-fiction writer...

<comment><USER7> There will always be some people who will take solace and even delight in the argument that they are not only allowed but indeed morally obliged to be wholly self-interested.

<comment><USER5> That is a derogatory characterization and it is false.

The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles laid out in Atlas Shrugged.

Collectivism has given us poverty, illiteracy, the 2008 financial crisis, etc.

Worse, whenever they screw things up really bad, they use the fact that things are screwed up to claim that they need even _more_ power to exploit poor people and violate the rights of everybody, and they wrap themselves in the flag of "serving the poor" to sell it.

These people pretend like Rand was advocating self centeredness, and that they are advocating altruism, when the reverse is more accurate.

Rand is advocating freedom and liberty and they are advocating a form of slavery.

<comment><USER7> > That is a derogatory characterization and it is false.

It may be derogatory but it's not false. Rational self-interest was the centrepiece of Rand's moral philosophy.

> The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles > laid out in Atlas Shrugged.

The most successful societies, by a wide variety of measures, manage to balance individual freedom, agency and entrepreneurialism with a foundation of civil liberty and social equity that provides the best opportunities for everyone to succeed.

> Collectivism has given us poverty, illiteracy, the 2008 financial crisis, > etc.

Labelling the whole gamut of different forms of government under a pejorative ism has given us a legacy of dogmatic, wooly-minded incoherent political discourse.

> Worse, whenever they screw things up really bad, they use the fact that > things are screwed up to claim that they need even more power to exploit > poor people and violate the rights of everybody, and they wrap themselves in > the flag of "serving the poor" to sell it.

Some of them do that some of the time, and one solution is to eliminate government, but that has not worked anywhere ever. What has worked - what is working today in many places - is to press for a better, more responsive government that forms policies based on evidence and respects human rights.

> These people pretend like Rand was advocating self centeredness, and that > they are advocating altruism, when the reverse is more accurate.

The 2008 economic crisis, incidentally, was made possible in large party through deliberate state _de_ regulation of the financial industry in the late 1990s, a catastrophic outcome that was predicted at the time but ignored by those people who were most loudly touting libertarian governing doctrines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Objectivist viewpoint:

 _I will collaborate with the other hunters because I value their wellbeing and community and they can help me fulfil my own goals._

The altruist (in the Randian sense) viewpoint:

 _I will collaborate with the other hunters because the needs of the tribe supersede my own._

</comment><comment><USER9> I am so pleased to see such low snarkiness levels overall in a discussion regarding Ayn Rand. There is a lot not to like about the harshness of Randian principles, but I find the ideal she paints of the human condition compelling.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ayn Rand never objected to groups of people working together, after all, that is what a corporation is.

Rand and Objectivism never oppose charity or altruism at all. The "altruism" she opposed is when a group of powerful people (usually government) use violence to take money from people, or enslave them, and claim that they are doing it "for the benefit of everyone".

What she proved was that this was not for the benefit of everyone, but for the benefit of the politicians who are doing the taking. The science of economics bears this out as well.

This article is simple flamebait, and it fails to be honest in its premise.

If you have not read Atlas Shrugged, be aware that most of the time you see a mainstream article attacking Ayn Rand, they are usually being dishonest about what she actually said, as this article is as well. This is for political reasons (and that the left ideology is desperate to demonize her so that their adherents won't read the book and see the errors in leftism.)

Voluntary associations are not collectivism.</comment>


It's Harder to Get Started (Financially) Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2011/02/15/its-harder-to-get-started-today/ <comment><USER2> this was pretty interesting and i definitely believe that there is some merit there, though a few references would have been nice to see. for instance where is the statistic that real _average_ wages have fallen 18%; maybe he means _median_ wages and even so i think that there is some amount of academic debate on the matter. Also additional modern expenses are taken into account in CPI calculations (at least that's what i remember from econ, please correct me if i am wrong). So the fact that now everyone has a cell phone/internet bill is accounted for in the inflation numbers. Next, it would be interesting to see education levels and corresponding wages taken into account. Education costs may have gone up significantly but what about the corresponding wage gains for educated workers.

Really the problem here is that comparing averages doesn't make a lot of economic sense, because what was average 40 years ago would be considered below average today (think tvs, cars, home sizes...). Still its a very thought provoking article but I think it needs more research.

Edited</comment>


How Not to Measure Latency - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/10/5/your-load-generator-is-probably-lying-to-you-take-the-red-pi.html <comment><USER2>
        For example, in a user session with 5 page views that
        load 40 resources per page, how many users will not
        experience worse than 95%'ile of HTTP requests? The
        chances of not seeing it is ~.003%.

This is assuming complete independence, which is very wrong.

<comment><USER3> This!

Especially the example of Google and Amazon is misleading. Most of those requests are assets which are loaded from a CDN, which is highly reliable compared to the application code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like how the article talks about the uselessness of percentiles, when a lot of people are still using averages!

Seriously, one of the best tool we use is to count thresholds and buckets. On a per-route basis, identify a threshold that you deem worrisome (say, 50ms), and then simply count the number of responses above that. Similarly, create buckets, 0-9ms, 10-19, 20-29... I say "best" because it's also very easy to implement (even against streaming data) and doesn't take a lot of memory. Not sure if there's a better way, but we sample our percentiles, which makes me uneasy (but keeps us to a fixed amount of memory)

<comment><USER5> There's a highly tuned set of libraries available for computing HDR histograms with minimal overhead: [https://github.com/HdrHistogram](https://github.com/HdrHistogram). This gets you a little closer to a continuous distribution, and does away with the branching needed for explicit buckets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> NewRelic graphs are another highly misleading example. They average the response time across all endpoints and make it very hard to understand the 95th percentile for a specific endpoint.

They also don't let you exclude static assets from the graphs, so the numbers are fairly unhelpful when trying to understand performance bottlenecks of a dynamic application.

<comment><USER7> Disclaimer: I'm part of New Relic's Product Management team.

I think you might have a misunderstanding of how our stuff works. While we originally only captured aggregates, the last ~2 years or so we've been capturing and reporting on _every_ transaction/request taking place.

As such, when you do a 95th percentile chart in our product, we're not "averaging the percentile" like many monitoring tools do. We are literally looking at every single record during that time.

We also allow filtering by transaction, which means you can check out just the percentile for "CheckoutController" or "AddToCartController" \-- definitely not just the aggregate application.

And if you're a customer and want to verify this yourself, just pop over to New Relic Insights (insights.newrelic.com) and run a query like this to really see the power that comes from not pre-aggregating anything:

      SELECT count(*), percentile(duration, 50, 90, 87, 95)
      FROM Transaction
      SINCE 1 day ago
      FACET BY name

That will return all transactions in the last day, grouped by transaction name (ex: "CheckoutController"), along with their respective count and median, 90th, and 95th percentile. I threw in the 87th percentile just to show that you can do that too if that's your kind of thing.

<comment><USER6> > every transaction/request taking place.

It's definitely gotten better, however I think the default view is still just averaging all requests, which isn't very helpful.

For a blocking server (like most Rails apps use) the key insight has to do with which controller actions need to be optimized to prevent slow user-facing aggregate response times.

I don't currently have it in use on any of my apps, but next time I'll give that query a try.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the first graph is for the entire app. But we (try to) make it easy to quickly drop down to a view that shows you the most time consuming controllers and then let you quickly see performance for just a single one.

Feel free to drop me an email at email@example.com if you decide to check it out again and have more feedback.

Take care!

<comment><USER6> I appreciate the response here, and appreciate the offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know if I understand the point.

"More shocking: 99% of users experience ~99.995%'ile HTTP response times. You need to know this number from Akamai if you want to predict what 99% of your users will experience. You only know a tiny bit when you know the 99%'ile."

What does this mean? Can you explain this better? How is this a truth? I'm not convinced.

If I'm making requests for assets for a page and requests 100 assets, sure... But the worst asset doesn't dictate the user experience. We're primarily concerned with the API response time - not all of the individual static assets. Assets don't block so if one little image is slow I wouldn't take that as a breaker. We don't even measure entire page load times - just what the user needs to see to have some sort of interest especially stuff loading above the fold etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> The most important thing to measure is the user-experienced response time. If your app isn't ready until some assets have loaded and your UI is actually displayed and usable, then you need to measure and instrument THAT. (domready is a poor but often usable proxy).

A good APM tool will measure this as well for ajax requests by measuring how long it takes from click to the end of the callbacks executed after receiving the response (i.e. displaying the refreshed content).

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting article, I dislike vanity metrics too. Seems most stats are designed tell the best story, rather than the truth or nitty-gritty.

Instead of looking at normalised stats, look at the worst offenders. Be it the URLs or the heaviest queries. Then find out what is using most of the resources and focus on those first.

</comment><comment><USER11> Averages can be useful, percentiles can be more useful.

However, the biggest asset in useful monitoring is focusing in on the right events and data. Is an average latency across all of your requests useful? Probably much less than averages per API or page.

</comment><comment><USER12> One of the previous versions of this talk I keep in a bookmarks folder named 'Must see videos'.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a summary of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ8ydIuPFeU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ8ydIuPFeU). It looks like a good summary, so I guess we won't replace the URL above, even though HN prefers original sources. We did change the title to that of the talk though.

</comment><comment><USER14> In addition to some of the other comments, another factoid of dubious understanding is _" that 5 percent had to be so bad it pulled the other 95 percent of observations up into bad territory"_. No, that is demonstrably not the case, and it's even referenced earlier in the article that the sample graph only saw movement in the 90% and 95% lines.

It feels like the article has taken a philosophical position, then gone through a lot of confirmation bias to support it.

<comment><USER15> He's taking a very pragmatic position that you will experience directly if you're ever responsible for the SLA of a "web scale" service.

His 5% / 95% observation is simply that you should not be focusing on the average, or even majority case if that's not what your users actually experience. One interpretation of the specific example you don't like is that more requests fell into a given range, thereby giving a distribution that the graph reflects. Another potential interpretation is just what he describes, where you have a set of especially poor performing requests at that point in time which effectively skew the distribution so that the 95th is "pulled up". His broader point is that you don't know based on this graph what you're dealing with, and he demonstrates a better visualization technique to determine the precise distribution of responses without having to look at every request.</comment></comment>


Dealing with the Office Psycho - <AUTHOR> http://angryaussie.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/dealing-with-the-office-psycho/ While most people here are trying to escape the office, this article is interesting, in particular for the reference: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html
This other article is longer and talks about how CEOs of companies should be screened for psychopaths.
"And this summer, together with New York industrial psychologist Paul Babiak, Hare begins marketing the B-Scan, a personality test that companies can use to spot job candidates who may have an MBA but lack a conscience."
This paragraph struck me as interesting, since I was just reading about http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113655 -- VCs from an engineer's point of view. <comment><AUTHOR> While most people here are trying to escape the office, this article is interesting, in particular for the reference: <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html>

This other article is longer and talks about how CEOs of companies should be screened for psychopaths.

"And this summer, together with New York industrial psychologist Paul Babiak, Hare begins marketing the B-Scan, a personality test that companies can use to spot job candidates who may have an MBA but lack a conscience."

This paragraph struck me as interesting, since I was just reading about <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113655> \-- VCs from an engineer's point of view.</comment>