Postcards, Yo – Send one to a friend - <AUTHOR> http://www.postcardsyo.com/ <comment><USER2> I built one too that I think has a better interface than yo?

[https://postperfect.co](https://postperfect.co)

<comment><USER3> Excellent use of familiar design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No message? No image? No thanks.

<comment><USER5> You could just email support asking for an image of the card.

<comment><USER4> I don't think there is an image on the postcard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> this is what the postcard looks like: [http://photos-b.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak- xpf1/10471825_52...](http://photos-b.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak- xpf1/10471825_529086260554113_2093172304_a.jpg)

I emailed support and this is what they responded: It's a riff on the Yo app, except instead of sending "Yo" in a push notification to a friend, you can send a postcard! It looks like this in real life: [http://photos-b.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak- xpf1/10471825_52...](http://photos-b.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak- xpf1/10471825_529086260554113_2093172304_a.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> Terrible.

If you want something that's actually worth using, a quick search reveals a few businesses such as [http://www.postcardontherun.com/](http://www.postcardontherun.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is how it should be done: [http://www.crackerbarrel.com/family-fun/send- an-epostcard/](http://www.crackerbarrel.com/family-fun/send-an-epostcard/)

<comment><USER4> You could just send an email with an image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or skip the awful ui and use something with a JSON API: [https://www.lob.com/docs](https://www.lob.com/docs)

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nothing like pricing your product in a global variable...

<script>POSTCARD_PRICE = 149</script>

</comment><comment><USER12> This buzz around Yo app is becoming really annoying.

</comment><comment><USER6> HN.. promos a mysterious pay app..

why?

</comment><comment><USER8> ugh, its horrid, make it go away.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't even.</comment>


Japan's crisis: one month later - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/04/japans_crisis_one_month_later.html

<comment><USER2> unrelated: j/k for up and down?! I never thought I'd see vim shortcuts at boston.com of all places. J Random Hacker must be working there.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9shi9/i_am_the_editor_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9shi9/i_am_the_editor_of_the_big_picture_blog_on/)

<comment><USER4> As an FYI, the creator for The Big Picture now works for The Atlantic and did a very similar photo gallery several days earlier: [http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/04/japan- earthquake-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/04/japan-earthquake- one-month-later/100041/)

<comment><USER3> TIL! It does look almost exactly alike, and most of the keyboard shortcuts work in about the same way. I cannot judge the picture quality, but they both look very nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ... and still no deaths from radiation.

<comment><USER6> It would be wise to remember that many of the acute radiation deaths at Chernobyl did not occur until many weeks after the accident. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_dis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster)

It's also too bad that the Japanese fish supply will be poisoned for a long time.

<comment><USER7> Some 14 thousand people have died due to the earthquake and tsunami directly. Zero confirmed deaths due to radiation. There very well may be deaths in the future, but I think it's astronomically unlikely they'll even approach two orders of magnitude of those caused by the quake. Of coure there are ramifications from the nuclear plant problems. Are they even remotely close to the scale of problems caused by the earthquake? Good lord, no.

The focus in the media on the reactor is criminally unethical in my opinion. It just adds to the populist echo chamber that nuclear is bad (no matter what) without any context or perspective at all and without any education.

<comment><USER6> Earthquakes happen. There is not much we can do- it is not economically feasible to equip every Japanese citizen with a 9.1-mag and flood-proof home and office.

Nuclear accidents on the other hand are something that we can prevent, either by more robust disaster planning, or by not having nuke plants in sensitive areas to begin with.

Don't get me wrong, the tens of thousands of deaths and missing persons in Japan is a tragedy of historic proportions. I have great sympathy, in fact I personally lost someone close to me in the tragedy and have many other friends over there who were affected. Just providing some insight into why the media does what it does.

<comment><USER7> There's a benefit to having nuclear power plants around that is worth the risk (in my opinion) even if we accept that there will be some nuclear safety issues over time. The positive benefits of nuclear power are so astronomically greater than the negatives that it borders on criminal to report in it like the media has.

When coal miners die in China, you don't hear the media clamoring to shutdown every coal mine. Or perhaps more apropos: when there's a coal slurry disaster no one calls for halting all coal mining everywhere.

The real reason is that nuclear is scary because people don't understand it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whoa. #17: Green for down and red for up?

<comment><USER9> The Japanese associate red with optimism (the rising sun) among a lot of other positive things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is some incredible photojournalism. Very eye opening. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom....](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html)</comment>


The Light Phone: Leave your smartphone behind - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelightphone.com <comment><USER2> Strange concept. I get more SMS messages than calls these days.

2G-only makes it obsolete already in a number of countries - just as Nokia rushed to release a 3G version of their dumbphone recently.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can I use this to get an Uber?

I don't think I can use this. Why would I buy a phone that leaves me stranded?

<comment><USER4> > It's a product best described in terms of what it can't do, rather than what > it can.

I think it's an interesting concept. It's not about being a phone replacement, or even a burner, and I don't think it works for every lifestyle. Those looking to disconnect for a walk or something without worrying about falling completely off the grid, however, might find this very useful.</comment></comment>


AMD ROCm GPU Support for TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tensorflow/amd-rocm-gpu-support-for-tensorflow-33c78cc6a6cf?linkId=56085754 <comment><AUTHOR> AMD are showing signs of getting their act together for deep learning - <USER2> are getting parts of ROCm upstreamed into TensorFlow. Full support for ROCm in TensorFlow when the Vega20 comes out gives them a fighting chance against Nvidia (assuming the Vega20 is aggressively priced).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really exciting! I wonder how the R9 390 in my gaming rig will fair.

Between Threadripper and speculation that the RTX 20XX series might be lackluster, I'm starting eyeing myself a reasonably-priced red-team DL home lab.

</comment><comment><USER4> IT'S ABOUT F!$KING TIME :)</comment>


Google Shuts Down the Google Feed API - <AUTHOR> https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/announcing-turndown-of-google-feed-api.html <comment><USER2> From [1]:

 _> What is the Google Feed API?_

 _> With the Feed API, you can download any public Atom, RSS, or Media RSS feed using only JavaScript, so you can mash up feeds with your content and other APIs with just a few lines of JavaScript. This makes it easy to quickly integrate feeds on your website. _

"To quickly integrate feeds on your website".

The latest API deprecations and product removals (everywhere, not just at google) are part of what I believe to be a growing trend to take away the ability for the end users to be publishers and to bring them back to be passive consumers (like in the old radio / TV days).

[1] [https://developers.google.com/feed/](https://developers.google.com/feed/)

<comment><USER3> Is that all it does? I'm sure there are other services out there that do exactly this. Does anyone know of any?

<comment><USER4> Writing a system that (correctly) interprets the zillion flavors of "RSS" out there and presents them with a common API is non-trivial. An 80% solution is pretty easy, and a 90% solution isn't that hard, but a near-100% solution will take you into some very dark and ugly places.

I don't know of any service that does this as well as the Google Feed API did. If someone else does, please share.

<comment><USER5> Well, start the service, state you use RSS library X and that you will keep it updated and send people over to it for bug reports and contributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would only use a Google, Microsoft, _whoever_ API if I was paid for integrating and maintaining it. I would never rely on such a thing in a personal project/venture. Time and again paid and free web services are getting shut down without a replacement. The reputation is already such that nobody can trust a service to be there in 2 years. Another reason to build more decentralized solutions while we can. I was delighted to read that Berners-Lee and Cerf advocated just that recently.

<comment><USER7> You mean like Parse was paid for ? It's not necessarily a silver bullet.

<comment><USER8> Relying on third parties is never safe. I think these services are great for fast prototyping, but eventually you should move on to build your own stuff.

<comment><USER9> I agree. We need a shift away from the whole SaaS idea. It plays nicely with ultra-short-term market thinking, so people buy into that, but it is bad long- term. Any service you use is giving away control to a third party. It's true in life as well. Some services are easily replaceable - if the barber shop next to you closes down, there's always another few streets away. But some services are not so easily replaceable, and it's the case of most of them on- line due to the very bad state of software-software integration (i.e. having people to write complicated translation layers). If you depend on such services for your business and they decide to shut down, you're screwed.

If we want to move computing forward, we need more _products_ and less _services_. More software that one can download and host themselves.

<comment><USER8> SaaS is not bad at all, but when it's misused.

Current example is ticketing. Two of my clients need a solution to manage ticketing and subscribers. They went with Eventbrite, even tough it's a bit expensive. It saves them tons of time and money. Sometimes it makes little sense to develop such a system for somebody if they have 2 events / year.

Often, third parties are much better in quality, than an in-house dev could create. I would only pick a third party service if it has many competitors, so easily disposable.

I've been screwed by this before, I built on an API before and the legal team shut down my API key for bullshit reason. 1 year of devtime went down the drain :) Long story short, SaaS is bad for mission critical features, otherwise great helpers on the short / mid run.

<comment><USER9> The distinction of core/critical and non-critical aspects of your business is a good one. I'm not saying "don't use SaaS at all" (even though I dislike the world of short-lived, data-siphoning services we've created). But betting the life of your business on a third-party service makes sense only if the expected life of your business is shorter than the expected life of the service you want to use. And I think we could all use more longer-living solutions.

<comment><USER10> To quote Joel Spolsky "If it's a core business function -- do it yourself, no matter what"

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000007.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000007.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google need to learn that providing a free service and then retracting it is quite damaging to their reputation. I know _many_ developers who are incredibly reluctant to build on Google APIs because the danger of them being shut down feels high.

 _However, interest and use of the API has waned over time, and it is running on API infrastructure that is now two generations old at Google._

I wonder if there's a correlation between the downturn in interest in RSS and Google Reader being closed.

<comment><USER12> > I wonder if there's a correlation between the downturn in interest in RSS > and Google Reader being closed.

Google Reader was a great app, I didn't believe Google one second when they basically said that nobody used it anymore.

RSS is still the best way for me, personally, to get my news from the internet on a whole range of subjects. I don't like Twitter or Facebook which are mostly noise and spam. With RSS I get my news right from the source, without a third party.

I also use RSS in APIs I write for pub-sub endpoints.

Google could have integrated RSS in Gmail for instance,the same way they integrated a chat inside the email client. They didn't because they don't believe in open tech that much anymore. It's all about messaging apps with proprietary protocols these days. Yet RSS is part of the web.

<comment><USER13> Reader user base wasn't really growing (in terms that Google is used to).

But more importantly, the technology was creaking, and nobody at Google wanted to maintain it.

(Disclaimer: I ended up working for the team that shut down Reader.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As I pointed out last time, RSS for real news is doing fine. RSS for social crap is dead.

Space News has an RSS feed.[2] The Senate Democrats have an RSS feed covering what's happening on the Senate floor.[3] (The GOP discontinued their feed.[4]) The House Energy and Commerce Committee has a feed with markup in embedded JSON.[5] Not sure what's going on there. Even The Hollywood Reporter has an RSS feed.[6]

So for real news, RSS is in good shape. RSS seems to be doing fine for sources that have something important to say.

[1] [http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/topNews](http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/topNews) [2] [http://spacenews.com/feed/](http://spacenews.com/feed/) [3] [https://democrats.senate.gov/feed/](https://democrats.senate.gov/feed/) [4] [http://www.gop.gov/static/index.php](http://www.gop.gov/static/index.php) [5] [https://energycommerce.house.gov/rss.xml?GroupTypeID=1](https://energycommerce.house.gov/rss.xml?GroupTypeID=1) [6] [http://feeds.feedburner.com/thr/news](http://feeds.feedburner.com/thr/news)

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone have a good replacement for this? I somehow missed the original announcement and am now realizing that I'm one of those (apparently few) people who actually does use the API.

<comment><USER16> See my comment above [1]. Also view a list of alternatives here [2 - 4].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016815)

[2] [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/12-best-yahoo-pipes- alternative...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/12-best-yahoo-pipes-alternatives- look/)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9662035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9662035)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667004)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Google is throwing new API's without commitment and trying to find if one of them becomes popular. This is good way to limit the risk.

Developers wait to see if Google commits to API before fully adopting it. This is good way to limit the risk.

<comment><USER18> Don't you end up with a catch 22 where developers won't write apps against an API because it may disappear, and Google gets rid of an API because nobody is writing apps against it?

<comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure that is the point nabla9 is making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any alternative API ? This one was quite handy for RSS feed discovery.

<comment><USER16> See my comment above [1]. Also view a list of alternatives here [2 - 4].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016815)

[2] [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/12-best-yahoo-pipes- alternative...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/12-best-yahoo-pipes-alternatives- look/)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9662035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9662035)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667004)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm confused about the use case of the Google Feed API.

It let's you download a feed by Javascript. But why is this a web service?

Is there no Javascript framework that does the same without having to roundtrip to an external service?

<comment><USER21> They also stored longer history for feeds than what you get by fetching it yourself.

[https://developers.google.com/feed/v1/reference#includeHisto...](https://developers.google.com/feed/v1/reference#includeHistoricalEntries)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google really hates RSS, don't they?

They seem to be actively killing anything that they have that once supported it

<comment><USER23> I know, I'm just waiting for the day they announce the shutdown of FeedBurner. That's going to create a LOT of broken feeds if they do...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They need to make a Google Shuts Down ___ API. Every time you call it, something else gets shut down.

<comment><USER9> I think we need to make a SV Drinking Game.

You drink one whenever Google shuts down an API or a service.

You drink one whenever someone says we're in a bubble.

You drink one whenever Techcrunch writes another X is Uber/AirBnB for Y article.

You drink two whenever we get another unicorn.

etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not too late to consider a switch to Superfeedr [https://blog.superfeedr.com/google-feeds-api- welcome/](https://blog.superfeedr.com/google-feeds-api-welcome/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Google, making the web less transparent one day at a time. And meanwhile they complain Facebook is eating the open web, while they're dismantling it themselves

<comment><USER9> Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? I.e. we wouldn't care about Google shutting down another useful product if we weren't allowing ourselves to be dependent on it in the first place.</comment></comment>


Kvrocks: Implement the Redis Protocol on Rocksdb - git-hulk https://github.com/bitleak/kvrocks <comment><AUTHOR> on paper [https://github.com/yinqiwen/ardb](https://github.com/yinqiwen/ardb) does the same thing since 2013, and has other backends while defaulting to RocksDB.

Do you know what are the differences?

<comment> git-hulk sorry for reply so late, I knew the ardb and it's a great project. the function of the kvrocks and ardb seems to be similar, but it's architecture and the design goal were totally different, so the performance also different.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there an "AirBnB for Conference Rooms / Event Facilities"? - <AUTHOR>

Sorry if this has already been asked or if this is a foolish question,but I'm in the need for conference room space for a multi-day training, and rather than do the traditional look for hotel or university space, there must be companies out there with conference facilities that they would be willing to part with for one or multiple consecutive days.
I remember the AirBnB folks saying that they were going to launch or have launched some event / venue system on their platform, but it doesn't look like that's up yet, or if it is, it's buried or not applicable to the particular city I'm looking for (Amsterdam).
Is there a service like this? Any suggestions for finding low-cost venues for things like all-day, multiple-day training sessions in cities like Amsterdam?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I see that this page exists: <http://www.airbnb.com/events>

But, when clicking on a city-specific link, for example: <http://www.airbnb.com/events/amsterdam>, you get bedrooms, not conference rooms. Maybe they don't mean event space, but rather places to stay while attending events? Anyways, still in search for what I am looking for above.

</comment><comment><USER2> I believe I saw a YC company at a recent demo day that does stuff like this. Check out: <http://venuetastic.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks close to the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's great for restaurants and bars and that sort of thing, but it seems that there are no office conference rooms and that sort of thing. I'm sure companies have extra capacity that they may be willing to rent out. Also, as of today, there are no venues in the city I'm looking for (Amsterdam) yet, but I'll keep it bookmarked as I look for other cities and for events / venues that require a more informal bar / restaurant type thing rather than for a conference room space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes - check out www.liquidspace.com . Not sure if they have coverage in Amsterdam yet, however.

<comment><USER4> Read about a similar service yesterday - loosecubes.com. Not sure if they have meeting spaces or not, but TechCrunch called them the Airbnb for workspaces and they are in Amsterdam. Might be worth checking out.</comment></comment>


Tokyo lowers subway line underground in one night without service disruption - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbZqqLra9k <comment><USER2> I am always impressed by these kinds of meticulously planned civil engineering works, especially when other similar sized projects can limp on for months and months.

One of my favourite examples while growing up in Fitzroy in Melbourne ([https://goo.gl/maps/RzHa4MUWxuM2](https://goo.gl/maps/RzHa4MUWxuM2)) was when a 1.6km stretch of a 4 lane road was completely replaced over one weekend in 1998. What made it so impressive was trams running down the centre of the road; the central two lanes had tram tracks embedded in concrete a foot thick, with overhead power lines above. Replacing this all in a single weekend was spectacular to see!

From memory, the timetable was something like:

* Friday 9-11pm - close the road, tow away cars still parked there, remove overhead tram power lines

* Friday 11pm to Sat 7am - jackhammer up the two central lanes of tram tracks embedded in concrete a foot thick (not much sleep for the local residents that night!)

* Sat morning - cart away concrete rubble

* Sat afternoon/evening - dig up two outer asphalt lanes, remove concrete curbs with footpath. Once each section of road was excavated back to its foundations, new tram tracks were placed in position with formwork for their supporting concrete.

* Sat evening/night - pour concrete around tram tracks and allow to set. Redo concrete curbs to footpath. Adjust height of drains and manhole covers in the two outer lanes.

* Sun early morning- eerie calm until concrete is hard enough to relay asphalt road lanes beside it.

* Sun afternoon/evening - lay two outer asphalt road lanes (grade base, spread gravel, compact, asphalt base layer, asphalt top layer)

* Sun night - reattach overhead power lines for trams, etc

* 3am Monday morning - paint white lines on road

* 6am Monday morning - turn on traffic lights. Fully open for traffic!

With work crews assembled from all round Melbourne, the full 1.6km stretch was done in parallel, from start to finish in 57 hours. Zero disruption during the working week!

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I overly pessimistic in thinking that this wouldn't happen in the United States?

<comment><USER4> Not really. Both Japan and western European countries are much better at doing big infrastructure affordably.

<comment><USER5> Because there is less space and more people per square meter. There is more money to avoid downtime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone else from Toronto watching this and feel a sharp pain in your back? I sure am.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is beyond impressive. Kudos to the workers and planners.</comment>


How I added my HN saved stories to a Posterous sidebar + HN-scraper on github - <AUTHOR> http://blog.edparcell.com/how-i-added-my-hacker-news-saved-stories-to-m

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're wondering why you can't see links to HN on my blog, this is only currently enabled on the front-page of the blog: <http://blog.edparcell.com/></comment>


The real reason my startup was successful: Privilege - mark-ruwt https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-my-startup-was-successful-privilege-3859b14f4560#.1dpyg83dj <comment><AUTHOR> Most founders I know that are under 30 did it that way.

Parents were dentist, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.

The parents weren't "rich" but had enough spare money to feed and house their kids, while the kids did their own company.

They didn't need to be profitable or grow or something. They just did what they liked for a starvation wage in the first years and got a huge amount of business contacts in the process.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a great read

</comment><comment><USER3> I see how this game is being played now.

Does it work the other way too?

The real reason my startup was a failure: Privilege

Oh no? That must be because you are a loser. Come on now. Is anyone else getting tired of this "privilege" talk?</comment>


After suggesting a developer drop Linux support, Vivox have released a statement - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/after-suggesting-a-developer-drop-linux-support-vivox-have-released-a-statement.14046 <comment><USER2> At least for high performance C++, the Linux toolchain improves code quality by so much. Between valgrind/cachegrind, asan, efence, always having the latest clang and clang_analyzer, and Dockerfiles for continuous integration environments, programming on Windows feels like I have a hand tied behind my back.

Even something basic like replacing malloc with your own instrumentation to track errant allocations is basically impossible since every DLL in Windows loads its own allocator.

I know Windows has similar tools but wrangling Visual Studio, especially remotely or across multiple developers, is significantly more painful in my experience.

Even if you don't ship on Linux, programming on Linux is worth it imo. I mean, Carmack wrote Quake on a NeXT and shipped on Windows, so if he was doing it back in the day, how wrong can it be?

<comment><USER3> Really? I regularly manage to get most of the linux toolchain to bork, and have particular "fun" getting the profiling tools to work properly.

And never mind getting a nice IDE environment like Visual Studio up and running.

So it may just be a matter of familiarity and/or the particulars of the projects you work on.

<comment><USER4> Here getting a nice IDE installed is just a single "zypper install qt- creator".

<comment><USER5> You need a license for qt-creator if you want to work on commercial software (or that was the case last time we checked about a year or two ago). There might be exceptions for your case, do check, because it is a nice product. Other paid IDE alternatives are CLion, which I hear is excellent, as well as SlickEdit, which is closer to an editor than a full IDE, but does offer building, debugging, completion.

Free alternatives would be Visual Studio Code, which is pretty ok even for C++, or KDevelop, which almost kind of works, or SpaceVim / SpacEmacs and about a week of learning how to use it. I'm in the final camp, since basically every serious C/C++ dev on Linux has a Vim or Emacs setup they've built themselves that does about 90% of what Visual Studio gives you out of the box, with some things better and others worse. It can work pretty well, but you have to understand it's not VS and it works in its own way.

If you have the money, you can buy a good IDE for Linux. Otherwise, learning to make your own out of high-level building blocks is also a useful skill, but takes a little bit of time. Personally the first time I had to write C for Linux out of college it did take me about a week before I was up to speed with it (but I was already sort of familiar with vim as a pure editor).

<comment><USER6> VS code is more of a text editor, not an ide.

<comment><USER7> Those lines have become increasingly blurred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see the big deal. They don't think Linux support is worth it. So a developer chasing Linux support won't use them. Salesman says what he needs to trying to close the deal. Kind of a dumb thing to say, but... Us Linux users are used to being second class citizens in the consumer software world. Vivox just won't get our money either. Eh.

<comment><USER9> That's because the developer's OS support is outside of Vivox's prerogative. They tried to change the developer's plans because they couldn't fit in them. If their reply had been something along the lines of _" We don't support Linux and can't help you with that"_ I'm certain most people would be fine with it.

Their original reply makes me think of a hotel that can't accommodate a family of four so they suggest you leave the kids to the grandparents and go on vacation alone. It solves _their_ problem, not yours.

<comment><USER8> >> They tried to change the developer's plans

They _suggested_ the developer change plans. I agree it was a bit of a dick move to suggest that and I think an apology and training is in order, but... I'm surprised there's a need to "issue a statement".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I saw the post on Reddit, and I was a little shocked. When I switched to Linux on my primary computer, it was like Steam automatically filtered out the games I didn't like. I immediately spent some money on other games with Linux support.

So, there's a market, and it _seems_ to be getting larger over time. What's troubling to me is that the Vivox employee seemed to think the developer just didn't know that Linux was a smaller market, or hadn't bothered to make a rational decision.

Then again, I also play things like Adventure, and the odd round of Lemmings.

<comment><USER11> Proton on Steam makes so many windows games work on Linux. For now, its THE main reason I will not leave Steam. No other platform has given as much love for linux.

<comment><USER12> I think that Valve/Steam has given more love, earlier and more consistently for Gaming period than anyone else. Yes, they make money. They also work with larger communities to improve the experience for users and gamers. I'm not really a gamer though. I play for a few hours here and there a handful of times a year.

Serious question, as I haven't looked... Does proton work on MacOS? In any case, planning on switching my desktop to Linux in a few months when I put together my next desktop (Yay, Zen 2).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Middleware company is right. Supporting the platform is not worth the trouble. Data shows again and again that Linux gamers will be a fraction of a percent of your customers but generate an outsized amount of support tickets. Most of these support tickets will require holding their hand through basic Linux box administration.

<comment><USER14> I've always felt that choosing Linux implies some sort of technical proficiency, or at least willingness to learn. Are those days over?

<comment><USER15> Linux implies a level of user arrogance and heavily implied it's the developer's fault and inability to understand how things the way they are. We can only test on so many configurations, and users will complain when their distro, or sound server, or preferred desktop environment isn't supported. If you don't think that last one matters, what happens when a certain obscure floating WM doesn't focus the window in an ICCCM-compliant way (WM_TAKE_FOCUS) and as a result, no keystrokes are delivered to the window. I had to fix that, for one user who was very loud on Twitter about how we clearly don't care about Linux. The total number of Linux sales was less than 0.1%, but cost us way too many support tickets and weeks of developer time.

<comment><USER14> That's pretty silly. If you have enough technical knowledge to use a non- default window manager, I feel like you should have enough self-awareness to know that you shouldn't necessarily be catered to by devs. I primarily use Linux on servers, though. Maybe I don't get the mentality of a Linux Desktop user.

<comment><USER16> Sounds silly, yes.

OTOH I've never met one of those users, so unless more devs chime in to tell me this is fact ir someone can point to a number of mailing list post, issues or other verifiable artifacts I'll be tempted to assume it is a strawman.

<comment><USER14> Sounds more like an anecdote than a strawman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The original response was of course stupid. Developers should just use Mumble instead anyway. It's open source and not locked into any specific platform.

<comment><USER18> While I as much as anyone else would love to promote Mumble, the project is certainly languishing nowadays. Last stable release was two years ago and its not like they have nothing to improve on - the stable release is still Qt4 based and the Qt5 version has been in git for over a year now.

I'm positive if you polled developers today Mumble would be missing critical features or performance characteristics that Teamspeak / Vivox are working on to improve while Mumble is stalled out because the money isn't there to keep up healthy maintainership in the long run.

<comment><USER17> Yes, that can be a problem. But if developers who need it would invest money in Mumble instead of all these blob middlewares, it could progress faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a very whistleblow-y article. Sensible commenters here correctly point out that a 3rd party vendor shouldn't be sending messages like that, it was unprofessional and ultimately pointless. But the point of the article and subsequent community backlash is the same old self-servicing trope that linux gamers seem to love: "We're here, we're important, we spend money, you are stupid to ignore us!"

It's the same thing every time and it's getting old.

</comment><comment><USER20> Alternative title: "Company release PR statement saying the same thing less antagonistically without actually changing their mind".

<comment><USER21> That's not at all what the article shows.

<comment><USER22> It's exactly what it shows.

A zealous Tuxist, slighted by the insolence toward their beliefs but bitterly satisfied by the backpeddling was quoted as saying,

>Basically yea, but it's nice to know they'll keep their opinions to themselves from now on.

I use Arch (Manjaro _cough_ ) btw. I practically use Linux exclusively. But stuff like this is kind of funny. We live in a strange (dark?) time with respect to the OS ecosystem. This is an artifact of it.

The main OS is a bloated, closed, insecure, arguably hostile one, while the open, free one enjoys a kind of ethereal salience (both pragmatic and ideological) in the hearts, minds, and practice of technologists. That gives the open one a political protection completely disproportionate with its tiny consumer base and economic relevance to consumer-facing capitalists (who drive the entire technology sector).

<comment><USER23> I don't think the real problem is about Windows tools not working on Linux, but about Linux tools not working on Unix. Stuff like Systemd and Wayland don't even care about anything besides Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That affects Second Life, too.

The best solution is to drop Vivox, which is kind of dated and crashes and restarts frequently.

</comment><comment><USER12> Considering the huge push from Valve to improve gaming on linux, which includes improving Wine etc... The fact that Google's new platform is entirely Linux backed, and AFAIK Sony's next gen is probably Linux as well. It is inevitable that Linux will become a huge platform for gaming.

<comment><USER25> Unlikely, Valve has been trying to push SteamOS/Linux for years. So far without much success.

<comment><USER12> The recent uptick in Linux and Wine support may counter that... it feels like there's been more effort in the last 8-12 months than in the 2 years prior to that.

Just the uptick on Gaming on Linux youtube content from previously windows- centric sources would indicate demand is climbing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't understand how you can develop some voice chat middleware that doesn't work on almost anything that has a C compiler.

</comment><comment><USER27> Dropping Linux support is a perfectly sensible thing to suggest. When it comes to computer gaming, all of the tooling, ecosystem, and cash is on Windows.

<comment><USER12> Even in light of the work of Steam/Valve on Proton and general Linux support. The fact that Google's gaming platform is entirely linux, and a lot of other toolchains for gaming platforms are linux based?

That's a pretty short sighted point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This should surprise no one. Linux gamers are a very vocal minority, but also a very tiny portion of the market.

I gave up on the linux gaming years ago, after suffering with WINE.

Why would companies pour hundreds of thousands in resources to support a platform that has almost no serious gamers?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why do people care about Linux gaming? Is it that hard to just boot into Windows? Or even, a VM with a pass-through graphics card? It's hard enough to make games as it is. It seems unfair to complain about something when it's clearly not in the developer's interest to waste a bunch of time on something nobody will use.

<comment><USER29> I can tell you why I personally care about it. I recently upgraded my gaming PC and I wanted to reinstall Windows on my new SDD. Only I forgot where I put my Windows 7 product key all those years ago and could not for the life of me pull it off of the existing Windows 10 install I had. I spent hours tracking down my key and did eventually find it, which luckily saved me from buying another expensive Windows license. All for what? I don't _want_ Windows, I just want to play the games I've already paid for. If my games and hardware worked reliably on Linux I wouldn't even have to think about it, just download a fresh .iso and I'm off.

Video games being locked into Windows is a huge drag.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 – Low vs. Ultra Graphics Comparison - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHm7-AkmX1E <comment><USER2> Is this pretty much "Microsoft's Google Earth"?

Is the whole world mapped? Is the data part of the game or streamed from the net?

<comment><USER3> They took satellite imagery from Bing Maps. I'm guessing it's streamed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:Which paid web/mobile applications you use the most? - <AUTHOR>

If you are using any paid mobile/web apps, which one is your favorite and why?<p>You can also tell about other paid apps you use. <comment><USER2> Tasker, on Android ($6 or so). It lets you create complex rules, using any system or environment variables, and use them to trigger various actions. One rule I have set up is when my phone is within 500 feet of the GPS coordinates of my office and it is plugged in, turn the screen to 100% brightness, never let the screen sleep, and set the ringer to vibrate. Another is when my phone is connected to a known hotspot disable GPS and 3G/4G to save batteries.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one nice app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For my contracting work, I use Toggl to keep track of time. I primarily use their web interface, though they also produce desktop and mobile apps. Last time I looked at the Linux desktop app, it was lacking.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've only bought one Android app in almost two years of owning one. It was an app to track bowling scores and statistics. I just haven't been compelled to buy anything else.

</comment><comment><USER5> invasion app. I like it a lot for UX stuff, you can quickly build wireframes/prototypes. I feel it is a Well designed app itself and has good interface in the backend.</comment>


MissionSTACK - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/HNMissionRC/status/329835265818505217 <comment><USER2> wait, this sounds just like The MEAN Stack: MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and Node.js</comment>


JPEG Standard Gets a Boost, Supports 12-Bit Color Depth and Lossless Compression - <AUTHOR> http://petapixel.com/2014/01/22/jpeg-standard-gets-boost-will-support-12-bit-color-depth-lossless-compression/ <comment><USER2> Relevant reading... The author(s) of libjpeg-turbo on IJG priorities:

[http://www.libjpeg-turbo.org/About/Jpeg-9](http://www.libjpeg- turbo.org/About/Jpeg-9)

</comment><comment><USER3> libjpeg is not "the JPEG standard".</comment>


Travel + Hackernews = Art Sumo - <AUTHOR>

After 4 years working for the man and reading hackernews religiously, I decided to quit my cushy day job and create Art Sumo while working from the road.  I am happy to announce that I am launching ArtSumo.com today.
I would be glad to answer any questions from fellow hackers over email - firstname.lastname@example.com.
www.artsumo.com <comment><USER2> I can't find anything about the purpose of the site or what it is for outside of "hacker news and travel." If you want people to sign up, you should be a bit more convincing.

<comment><USER3> I'm thinking Naysawn might be trying to pull a "hipster" here--the site that got 10,000+ signups without people really knowing what it was about. Curiosity can be a powerful motivator.

<comment><USER4> The site is daily deals for art. Screenshot: [https://img.skitch.com/20110504-qapc7hwhpyaf2gapbg67bd375e.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20110504-qapc7hwhpyaf2gapbg67bd375e.jpg)

<comment><USER5> Ah, I thought it was a travel site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is just some pictures and a login form, you gotta be kidding me with all the points! I've posted interesting things on open-source software I've implemented, and barely got a couple of points. I'm jealous!

</comment><comment><USER7> Signed up, looking forward to trying it out.

However, once you sign up for the waiting list, you seem to be locked out of the About page, which would have been nice to see again.

Just making sure you knew! Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up Jon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe you should give us HN folks a few codes to get in earlier?

I shared on fb and twitter nevertheless, sounds and looks interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Seb - you should now have access. Thanks for tweeting it out :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks interesting. Can you say more about it? What made you build this? How did you build this? What's your revenue model?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I can't say much right now but will do a full disclosure tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> clickable <http://www.artsumo.com>

</comment><comment><USER11> Would like to learn more. Is this a daily deal site?

</comment><comment><USER12> awesome, good for you. Where were you working before, and why'd you decide to leave?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was at good old MS (please don't hate me for it). I wanted to travel more and have my own business so, I made the jump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> question, what made you decide on the name?

<comment><AUTHOR> getting a good and cheap domain name is a real pain! I liked ArtSumo but also consider painthut, dailypaint, and theworldpaints. what do you prefer?

<comment><USER10> i think i like dailypaint better. artsumo reminds me of appsumo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> rad, great idea

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> After getting into the site, and seeing that's basically App Sumo for Art, I'm a bit torn.

The name seems really off considering there is already a company with a very similar name in the daily deals space. Also, I feel like by using such a similar name you set my expectations for design and functionality much higher (and they were let down).

Seeing as you are running a daily deals site, why do you need the invites system? I would think that you would want to reap the HN traffic and launch traffic instead of coercing people to invite their friends.

</comment><comment><USER4> How about passing some invites out to HN users?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea! I don't have anything set up right now but if you email me, I'll give you an account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Paintings and photographs are not the same.</comment>


Why we should fear a cashless world - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/money/commentisfree/2016/mar/21/fear-cashless-world-contactless?CMP=twt_gu <comment><USER2> Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount?

A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount.

So before we talk privacy and company let's remember that this kind of hidden economy has a huge cost for society and it's very widespread in southern Europe.

<comment><USER3> Taiwan is mostly cash and they use a receipt lottery to encourage people to buy from vendors who give receipts. Each receipt has a number and there's a lottery at the end of the month with cash prizes.

Also, people here know they can report a business for not giving out receipts. They might get a share of recovered taxes for that.

I don't know all the pros and cons of that setup but it seems there are ways to maintain a cash based system and still collect taxes.

<comment><USER4> I was familiar with the lotteries (didn't participate -- I just put my receipts in the charity buckets or the trash) but had NO IDEA this was why. I just assumed it was because the culture is just much more amenable to gambling (which I think is also true, but might not be the reason it's tied to receipts).

If this is truly the reason for the lotteries, is the government / tax agency giving out the prizes? I never bothered to look closely but it always seemed something run by those businesses.

<comment><USER3> > If this is truly the reason for the lotteries, is the government / tax > agency giving out the prizes?

Yes of course. Every country has trouble collecting taxes. In Taiwan they memorialize the day when the police were too heavy handed with a woman selling untaxed cigarettes. A citizen died in the skirmish.

This day is 2/28 and largely remembered as the beginning of a 40 year period of martial law in Taiwan. I recommend visiting the 228 museum in Taipei's peace park. Even though the current government, KMT, revised the history in this museum to downplay the fact that 20,000 people went missing in Taiwan during this period, the museum still tells a great story. It's great because the story wouldn't exist at all in a place without free speech, such as China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible.

There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and it can have a psychological effect to prevent frivolous spending. Or at the very least, further reinforce that YES we are spending money!

Also, store clerks, cab drivers, any anyone who accepts tips always love getting cash.

<comment><USER6> Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to- generation thing.

<comment><USER7> > Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously.

Which is fine!

Here's what you do: allot a certain amount of cash to discretionary expenses each month. You take that money out at the beginning of each month (actually in my case, twice a month) and then use it. And when you run out you're out.

What you've just done is used physical cash to put a hard ceiling on your discretionary spending. This turns what are normally variable expenses into a fixed item in your budget, which makes it a heck of a lot easier to account for.

<comment><USER8> This is also called "budgeting"

<comment><USER7> I appreciate your deeply insightful comment. Thank you for your service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > We already live in a world that is, as far as the > distribution of wealth > is concerned, about as unequal > as it gets. It may even be as unequal as > it's ever been.

Sure, if by "a world" you mean "a hyper-prosperous nation like the US or the UK"... and if by "unequal as it's ever been" you mean that _third-world countries are taking our jobs and becoming much more prosperous, hitting our middle income brackets - the global 2% - harder than anyone else._

If you really mean _globally_ , then inequality is in fact falling.

But sure, yes, the "cashless" ideas going around today are just a way for the government to enforce surveillance and steal away citizens' money with negative interest rates.

<comment><USER10> _> If you really mean globally, then inequality is in fact falling._

No.

Inequality is decreasing _between_ nations as the developing world catches up with the west. But inequality _within_ nations -- even developing nations -- is increasing. It's possible for inequality to increase as the the developing world catches up to the west; in fact, that's exactly what's happening.

So the old geographical distributions are very slowly eroding, but they are being replaced by obscene levels of inequality within individual borders. This trend is exacerbated -- especially in Europe -- by tax evasion and avoidance managed (and practiced) by large fintech companies. So the author's fear that concentrating power in the hands of a few large fintech firms would exacerbate global inequality -- and lessen nation states' ability to combat inequality with policy -- is well-founded in global trends.

edit: Instead of downvoting, go read François Bourguignon's "Inequality and Globalization: How the Rich Get Richer as the Poor Catch Up", which states exactly the thesis outlined above and contains pointers to the data sets used to arrive at these conclusions.

<comment><USER11> > and lessen nation states' ability to combat inequality with policy

Ok, one person is a great programmer making good money and another person is not interested in any of that and makes less money. I do not see any inequality here that needs to be combated with policy. One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less interested.

You cannot turn the losers into winners, but you can certainly alienate the surviving winners and convince them to build their next factory in China instead, or do their next startup from a beach in the Philippines.

Instead of reducing inequality, the outcome will become very biased by profits made in China or the Philippines, and therefore lead to even more inequality. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At the basis, quite a bit of inequality is caused by the fact that some people happen to be smarter. Your policy will obviously not outsmart them. Therefore, if your policy has any effect, it will inevitably be exactly the opposite of what it was meant to be.

<comment><USER10> I hope that globalization isn't inconsistent with national autonomy, especially when it comes to taxation and social policy. If these two things are inconsistent, then globalization will lose out in the long run. That would be a shame, because liberalized borders and economies -- if properly regulated -- would benefit everyone.

 _> One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less interested._

Tax rates on the top 1% or 0.5% of earners could double over-night and those people would still have more than enough money to make their effort worth- while. We are literally talking about people who have more money than the can possibly spend on personal luxuries in their lifetime.

At some point far before the 1% mark, wealth accumulation becomes much more about personal power and legacy than anything else. These people continue working hard for the same reason that tenured professors continue to publish prolifically or retired people work hard on their lawns or hobby projects -- for love of the work, and/or because they literally don't know how not to work.

(Whether or not those people deserve to be taxed heavily is kind-of irrelevant to the fact that your hypothesis about human psychology is wrong.)

 _> You cannot turn the losers into winners_

What is a loser? Most middle class people are of average or above-average intelligence and work hard. The only thing separating these people from e.g. Donald Trump is access to an inheritance or some other means of attaining large amounts of capital.

I'm willing to bet your average middle-class accountant or actuary would much rather (pay someone to) manage a portfolio of investments than crunch someone else's numbers.

Also, FYI, almost all computer programmers in the world -- including skilled ones -- are solidly ouside of 1% territory.

 _> but you can certainly alienate the surviving winners and convince them to build their next factory in China_

So your argument for not redistributing some percentage of the wealth of billionaires is that they're petty assholes who will take their ball and go home? But isn't that what _losers_ do? ;-)

As a matter of fact, globalization and national autonomy _aren 't_ inconsistent. Tax havens aren't a fact of life, they are an engineered reality created by lawyers and lobbyists.

<comment><USER11> > Tax rates on the top 1% or 0.5% of earners could double over-night ...

They are not after the 1%, never have, and never will. They are after you and me, my friend. So, gear up for a good fight, because I am giving them zilch. I'd rather flush my money down the toilet.

> So your argument for not redistributing some percentage of the wealth of > billionaires is that they're petty assholes who will take their ball and go > home?

Yes, and that is why the factories have been rebuilt in China over the last 25 years. It is not going to get any better in the future. I don't know what they will be doing next, but it will certainly not include "redistributing some percentage of their wealth". Why would they? But then again, who cares? I don't want their money. I have my own.

In order to outsmart them, you will have to be smarter, but if you could, you would be one of them. ;-)

<comment><USER10> _> They are not after the 1%, never have, and never will. They are after you and me, my friend._

Oh right. Those bastards trying to close corporate tax loopholes are totally doing so because they hate me and all the money I'm not saving due to those loopholes...

 _> Yes_

 _> In order to outsmart them, you will have to be smarter_

NO! It's really not that damn complicated. And there are even plenty of extant policy proposals for eliminating or greatly reducing tax avoidance schemes.

Public policy, most of the time, isn't rocket science. See e.g. [https://www.oecd.org/ctp/BEPSActionPlan.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/ctp/BEPSActionPlan.pdf)

There's a difference between globalization of unskilled labor, globalization of skilled labor, and tax avoidance. The first and second are, to varying extent, unavoidable and probably net beneficial to the bulk of humanity. The last is not unavoidable and is also decidedly unbeneficial for most of humanity.

(There's also a difference between off-shoring for the purpose of true cost reduction nand off-shoring for the purpsoe of tax avoidance. The former is far more common than the latter, although a decent amount of FDI is about tax/tariff avoidance.)

 _> but if you could, you would be one of them_

Of course I would. But I'm not delusional and wasn't born into either connections or cash. So I do what I can to boost my odds, but I also cooperate whenever the opportunity arises.

And, if I ever do "make it", I'm sure as hell not going to become one of those "got mine, fuck you" types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The push for a cashless society and negative interest rates doesn't paint a good picture about the future of our financial system. It's nearing its well deserved end.

The bubble is about to burst and they're trying to release pressure to make it last a bit longer.

<comment><USER13> The funny thing about negative interest rates is it is one of the few good reasons to buy physical gold, especially with the elimination of large denomination euro notes.

<comment><USER14> Gold is just another fiat currency, plus at a high value it's even more worthless as a currency since you'd need such minuscule amounts to trade for goods/services.

<comment><USER13> "Gold is just another fiat currency". Did you come up with that or did you read it somewhere? If you read it somewhere, I'd love to read that article.

<comment><USER14> All you have to do is think about it's actual uses. I have degrees in finance and economics.

All gold is IMO is a hedge against inflation by tying your monetary policy to the rate at which you can dig some shit out of the ground. Not remotely sane IMO.

It would be like basing the value of the dollar on corn. At least corn would have some real value though (fuel, food, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The best tip ever for saving to only spend cash. When you have the physical money leaving your hands it feels like a lot more than inserting a card and pressing a pin code.

I am mostly using cash if I have the possibility to, which is kind of annoying sometimes since in Sweden (where I live) there are many "cashless" shops. Even in normal grocery stores checkouts it's like 50/50.

I've never visited a country that has as strong opposition to cash as in Sweden. One time I walked into a boutique trying to purchase a cellphone and the salesmen there were happy to help. Unfortunately they told me that they didn't accept cash and then I just said "then there's no deal". The look on their faces was kind of fun, even if it sucked that I had to redo the whole process.

<comment><USER16> Just wanted to tell you that you're not alone in Sweden with using and liking to use cash. There's at least one more - Hi!

I haven't encountered a single grocery store that refuses cash and only accepts electronic/card payments yet. Was this a chain supermarket?

<comment><USER17> Many stores run a 50/50 setup these days, if they're large enough. That is, half the registers are card only, the other half accept both. I've seen it in Willys, Coop, and ICA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not only is the surveillance problem, but when all the peoples money is in the banks, banks have more control to charge people for "handling" their money, so not just negative interest rates are the problem.

Also when all the money is in the banks, governments have much more freedom to apply higher tax levels or just take the money.

</comment><comment><USER19> With a cashless society, there are third party entities that decide:

1) if the payment will be honored ( legal pot growers / legal sex workers / donations to wikileaks have this problem

2) the payment will be possible ( is the bank systems functioning )

3) how much of a cut the third-party will take from the transaction (visa, mastercard, but also app stories 30% cut)

4) who gets to know what was purchased (your bank shares information with the government)

5) who gets to know who made the purchase

6) who can access money: minors can't have bank accounts/etc, does someone have access to a banking system at all - lots of people can only cash checks through pay-day lenders

</comment><comment><USER20> Genuine question - What about a "cashless" currency based on blockchain? (a la bitcoin). Wouldn't it be and not be under any single entity's control at the same time?

<comment><USER21> Cash and current forms of electronic payment have the nice feature that the seller gets their money almost immediately. As I understand it, bitcoin transactions take a while to confirm. I wouldn't want to stick around in the shop until some miner got around to my transaction.

<comment><USER22> Small payments using BitPay require one confirmation, and that typically only takes a minute or so. Their fee (1%, I think) covers reversal risk.

<comment><USER23> Now imagine being lined up at the equivalent of a cash register with every single person in front of you taking "a minute or so" beyond what a transaction currently requires. Nobody's hiring additional cashiers (or whatever they'd call them) or self-checkout kiosk supervisors (to go along with the extra kiosks) if there isn't any extra money to be had.

<comment><USER24> You fire one cashier and install 100 self checkout machines. Problem solved!

<comment><USER23> And replace those cashiers with people who have other job titles to manage inventory shrinkage. There's no getting around the fact that you need eyes near the doors to make sure that everything gets paid for, and you need enough eyes to monitor the traffic: more parallel traffic, more eyes needed. (Anecdotally, I see more staff at self-serve checkouts than at cash registers in stores that have both, yet the cashier lines move more quickly than the "more convenient" kiosks.) I'm sure there's an ideal world living in some people's minds, but it's not part of the external reality and probably never will be.

<comment><USER24> I avoid self checkout - slow and inconvenient. But it's just a matter of improving the technology: we'll get there eventually.

<comment><USER25> I avoid self-checkout because the entire machine is usually set up around the assumption that I will try to walk out of the store without paying for one or more items, or by futzing the bar codes so that I pay $1 for a $30 beef roast.

The self-checkout technology will never improve as long as that assumption remains. If you can't trust the customer to not steal a pack of gum, you can't trust the customer to not steal an entire beef tenderloin.

The professional cashier does not need to keep every damned item on a giant scale after scanning it, because they are an agent of the store, and presumably trustworthy enough to notice and stop shoplifters and scammers. And they usually don't have to halt the entire checkout process and wait for a manager to come by and restart it whenever anything even mildly out of the ordinary happens, such as using a coupon.

You can't improve the technology when the premises are wrong. And the premise is that you can turn a grocery store into a glorified vending machine.

<comment><USER26> If we put an RFID tag on every item and use an RFID gate then we would just have to walk past the gate which is capable of detecting every item without you having to take it out of your cart or bag. A turnstyle could then force you to pay and disable the RFID tags. Cost and transmission distance of passive RFID tags are the major obstacles, I believe.

<comment><USER25> How do you detect RFID tampering or the use of RFID-blocking shopping bags or pouches?

Remember, the store is more interested in protecting its operating margins than in providing more convenience for the customer. If the technology does not allow a store exec to believe that it can stop a $30 steak from walking out the door unpaid, it will never be installed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think the primary reason is a loss of privacy and freedom. With a digital currency all your purchases can be tracked. You also lose freedom in that government at any level could suddenly make some products or service illegal, throw in that they could retroactively do so.

Of course there is monetary policy too. Negative interest rates try to force spending to correct bad government policies which usually are the cause of depressed spending. Then combine this with the idea that printing digital currency is as simply as flicking a switch which would rapidly devalue currency in people's accounts.

Simply put, its another attack on privacy and the freedom it entails

</comment><comment><USER28> It's nice to see the Guardian writing negatively about the cashless push, and they hit the main points.

To me, the main danger of our time is totalitarian governments overreaching in reaction to changes in threat-actor models, and hence most of my primary concerns revolve around the particular issues that touch upon this point. There are two main issues I have with the push to the cashless society.

1\. Lack of anonymity. Cash serves as a mostly anonymous medium of exchange, which encourages the free flow thereof. That being said though, one of the primary reasons you might want anonymity is from government overreach. For example, there is evidence that in the increasing surveillance panopticon, the gov wants to know what you are reading and purchasing for reading. If you use a cc to buy a book at a bookstore, that is easily tracked back to you and could in the future be used to put you on $list. While cash isn't perfectly anonymous, it ups the level of effort to find out (pulling cctv recording to correlate purchase to person).

The lack of anonymity has been my primary disagreement with Max Keiser regarding bitcoin as well. To me, I can very easily see a currency upset on the horizon which is then used to push cashless on the society as a new currency model.

2\. Revocation of access/control of assets. In a similar vein to police forces using confiscation as a budgetary padding tool, I can far too easily see the same being applied to cashless currencies. More than that though, is the ability to access the option at all in the first place. As an example for this, I give you the national bank blacklist database. For some people, suddenly being blacklisted by banks can create all kinds of problems, because much of our society relies on banking functions. I fear the same type of blacklist with little oversight could be applied to a cashless currency, to the point that, lets say you were a dissident, suddenly you lose all your money and can't open a new account. If everything is cashless, how do you buy bread?

The article itself touches on the surface of these matters, but I think there needs to be a much deeper and deliberative discussion about the potential dangers, and benefits, of the push towards a cashless society.

</comment><comment><USER29> I was living in a rural area where the poor used the underground economy ( flea markets etc. ) to supplement or offset low subsistence , meager wages and I know the poor in urban areas do as well. A cashless society will be a regressive tax on the poor !

</comment><comment><USER30> I am not one to argue that technology solves the problems of the poor. But, there are lots of holes in this argument:

1\. The unbanked already exist in a world that expects them to be banked. Almost all jobs in America are paid in checks or direct deposit. Checks are useless to people without bank accounts. They then have to spend time and money getting the check turned into cash at a check cashing place, like Amscot.

So moving to electronic banking would actually HELP these people. If you really _rely_ on cash, then you are at a disadvantage since most jobs dont pay in cash.

Yes, there are real obstacles in the way of these people getting bank accounts. Education, time, documentation, etc. But everyday someone continues to remain unbanked, they are inconveniencing themselves in many ways.

2\. Cash is already dead to a lot of people (in 1st world countries), so surveillance is already possible. Governments, banks, and payment processors ALREADY have access to this information for a large number of people. If this is a large concern, the author should be tackling the fact that this is on- going, not that it might happen in the future.

But it does seem true that killing cash will open up new demographics to the same surveillance.

3\. Bankruptcy is not a tool used by very poor people. Its often used by middle class and upper class people who deal with the finance world. I think this article has a very poor understanding of what "poor" means, even in a 1st world context.

4\. This whole article is based off of bad solutions. Keeping cash around so that _some_ people will be saved by withdrawing their money in the next financial crisis is NOT the solution to financial crises. Better regulation, management, and transparency is.

<comment><USER31> Except laws, regulations and transparancy are changing all the time. If cash remains, it gives you some margin to operate despite bad state, silly leadership, idiotic laws, wrong social decisions, etc. It's also a buffer for transitions, and help initiating things on the side that can grow eventually into something legit and good-for-society that would otherwise have not be possible because doing it right would have kill it.

Thing is, since no system is perfect, and no system stays the same, you need to have a small, yet stable % of grey area to let the population compensate and adapt.

<comment><USER30> Those all seem like good points, which the article does not explicitly make.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love being cashless honestly, but I see the benefits of using cash for transactions.

My problem is that I usually do things online and plus I'm always feel much more secure knowing my Amex would be fully protected vs cash. Day to day I'm not worried I'll get robbed, but in the off chance I'm somewhere where I might I'm much happier carrying no cash and just my Amex.

<comment><USER33> > I'm always feel much more secure knowing my Amex would be fully protected vs > cash

Seems like the opposite should be true. Who cares about losing the amount of cash a normal person carries in their wallet to a mugger? If you get mugged often enough for it to have a real effect on your finances, then maybe you should move.

Conversely, if the only thing in your wallet is some plastic that will probably be cancelled within half an hour of the mugger fleeing, then he has two separate motivations to kill you; 1. how dare you not give him easy cash for his quick junkie fix, 2. if you're dead, the card will go uncancelled for longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In my view, long before the government realizes the full potential of abusing a cashless society, private businesses will have bled us dry -- especially the poor -- with transaction fees.

<comment><USER35> This comment strikes hard for me given that I am also reading Sen. Elizabeth Warren's book A Fighting Chance. It is remarkable how much greed pervades these "stodgy old banks".

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> _Cash, on the other hand, empowers its users._

And convenient electronic payments doesn't in anyway empower users?

Also, if people are unbanked and below the poverty line I would expect they would be more concerned with getting by than "Orwellian levels of surveillance."

<comment><USER37> If people are below the poverty line then extra fees associated with transaction-handling, cost of technology for access etc are a big deal. Cash is closer to free to use. If you buy something used, a PC, fridge, whatever, because you can't afford new, do you want a transaction fee in addition? It may only be 1% or $1 (not accounting for the price of a smart phone and network costs) but that is still $1 more than you needed with cash.

<comment><USER38> Cash is not free, there is a time cost to handling the cash, depositing it, there is a risk cost for vendors from employees stealing it, there is a risk cost from being robbed...there are always trade offs.

A lot of these comments mention that cash gives the government less control, however try visiting India or China or Greece and ask people the real reason they use cash. It's to evade taxes and launder money! Same with cash tipping in the US. So in some ways electronic is better to help catch the cheaters, but if it's not transparent it could pose a problem if the wrong people get in charge.

<comment><USER37> > It's to evade taxes and launder money!

Assuming the government have the right to tax us for everything all the time and that you are not a free man but just a number. This past year I have seen one new tax introduced at regional level and seen at least one other rise by a significant margin (close to 50%). I don't see a like change in the earnings of my colleagues. Maybe we should all try harder to evade the govt, at least a little.

Have you read the linked article, because most of the things you mention are not related to the point discussed in the article. Yes, there are good reasons for electronic transactions, of course there are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't understand this argument that people feel safer storing cash than keeping it in a bank. The cash is just as ephemeral as bank credit. With the exception that it's controlled by your central bank instead of the commercial banks.

Cash can be made useless centrally just as easily (if not easier because of its central nature) and there have been instances of this in the past in cash- only societies.[1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_leu#Second_leu:_1947-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_leu#Second_leu:_1947-1952)

<comment><USER40> By storing your cash in a bank, you are exposed to both the bank's insolvency and the devaluation of the currency by a central bank. By keeping it under your mattress, you are only exposed to the latter. Of course, by not storing your money in a bank, you are 100% responsible for securing it, which is the primary drawback that most people face. You are also more directly exposed to fluctuations in currency valuation since fiat is generally inflationary and the money is doing no work for you at home - but quite a few people still find it worth all the drawbacks to keep a chunk of cash at hand.

<comment><USER41> > By storing your cash in a bank, you are exposed to both the bank's > insolvency

Only for very large amounts, at least in Europe, the central bank insures your money from its own reserves in case of bank failure up to a certain amount, AFAIK typically in the hundreds of thousands of €/local equivalent.

<comment><USER40> If a bunch of banks go under at once, or even one big bank with a sufficient number of claims, who's to say the insurers will even be able to pay out on that? Nonetheless, I always find this type of apocalyptic thinking to be humorous - why do people think that their cash will be worth anything if the financial system collapses? Another motivation would be if you are concerned about having your assets frozen.

<comment><USER42> The _central_ bank pays.

As an example, in the UK personal deposits of a failed bank are guaranteed by the Bank of England up to £75,000.

The Bank of England can always cover the amount, since they can simply print money as needed.

[http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/products/banks- building...](http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/products/banks-building- societies/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The whole "but criminals use it" is a complete straw man. Yet you can see most people fall for it, over and over again.

If we had a totally cashless society, you would see a level of white collar financial and banking crime that would make 2008 seem like a picnic.

Anyone who is not convinced that the banking elite are the top criminals needs to watch this very recent documentary:

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

<comment><USER44> We should criminalize the usage of water.

Criminals use it after all! Even the banking elite!

<comment><USER43> Just enforcing the rule of law would be enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'd love to have only electronic money. It would have so many advantages.

BUT:

The risks of it and the potential for misuse are so many, that all advantages of electronic money are not worth to go in this direction. We are in a situation today, where privacy is one of the greatest assets we have and should preserve. When we loose it, we very likely loose our freedom and essential democracy. Instead we might get a "democracy" that is controlled by opinion-formers and big corporations that make money with our privacy.

</comment><comment><USER46> The concern for economic fairness is, I think, a real one. There is a disparity in most economies between the people who are banked, and those who are unbanked. Going "cashless" favors the banked, and that is a problem. I don't know how to address this.

But, I disagree with one of the authors' other claims: "Cash has its uses for small transactions – a chocolate bar, a newspaper, a pint of milk – which, in the UK, are still uneconomic to process by other means. It will always be the fastest and most direct form of payment there is."

This is not necessarily so. Think about another example: let's say I order something online, and the store gives me free shipping. Free! For sending me a physical item! How can they possibly come out ahead on that? Simple: because we have a sophisticated infrastructure for sending physical goods to many different places, and the marginal cost of one more item on all of those vehicles - and there are likely to be at least three or four, including several processing centers - is actually rather small.

What if, instead, I want that item as soon as possible? Very expensive. Because my item is no longer a marginal-add to a sophisticated system. It is now closer to a one-off, and I have to pay for the service.

So what does this have to do with cash? Everything. Cash is a physical item that must be stored, transferred from businesses to banks, then counted at banks, stored and redistributed. Doing this is _expensive_. There are many small businesses in NYC that do not accept cash, and I have assumed the reason is that completely eliminating this cost - handling, storing and transferring cash - is easier and cheaper for them. We have always considered handling cash just a part of running a business, but it is not necessarily so. In the future, handling cash may be more like overnight-express, rather than free- ground-shipping.

<comment><USER42> The card companies in the UK try to encourage people to pay by contactless card (debit or credit) for low value items. That's perhaps no surprise.

Transport for London, who run the public transport in London, are encouraging people to use contactless debit/credit cards rather than _their own stored- value card system_ or cash.

In Denmark I've had the man selling sausages from a wagon on the street ask me to pay by card. I guess he didn't want to bother going to the bank, or carry all the cash around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The whole cash less payment industry is in trouble, once people realise that they can withdraw more than 50 [USD|EUR|GBP|..] at once..

Just kidding.

Well almost, since it was what did it for me. I started withdrawing larger amounts, 500 or 1000 Euros, each time, after ending up with no cash too often.

And I didn't feel the need to use another payment method since. YMMV (obviously).

</comment><comment><USER48> Many very good points there, and it's definitely nice to see this suggested from the left.

Although:

\- "We already live in a world that is, as far as the distribution of wealth is concerned, about as unequal as it gets. It may even be as unequal as it's ever been." \-- I keep seeing this kind of statement all over. It seems really, really hard to believe, presuming that "ever" includes antique or even more recent feudal societies, but perhaps there is something to it -- perhaps it might be true under some measure of inequality?!

\- "Today more than 6 billion people have a mobile phone" \-- similarly, I really don't see how this could be true, as it seems to imply something close to 100% market penetration worldwide for most age groups. I can see how there might be 6 billion mobile phones (or phone numbers?) active, but 6 billion distinct people?!

<comment><USER49> 6 billion out of a global population of 7.125 billion is just over 84%, so not that unbelievable, particularly considering how quickly a usable phone becomes worth approximately zero in the first world.

<comment><USER48> Yeah, but (e.g. looking at [http://www.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html](http://www.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html) in 2014) 6bn people means that literally everyone over age of 14 has a mobile phone (plus about 100 million of those under 14, too). Even accounting for all the phones first-world children have, it seems like quite a stretch.

<comment><USER26> It's not that unreasonable. The iphone costs apple only slightly more than $200 to manufacture per unit and there are obviously even cheaper phones out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If stores weren't required by law to charge the same price to credit card users vs cash users, you would see most stores slap a 2-5% surcharge on credit card transactions, because that's how much they have to pay to Visa/Mastercard/Amex. Many people only use credit cards to get points, which is an unfair tax on customers who don't use credit cards. I find cash to just be easier to use, and I forego the rewards chasing. Once I pay with cash, I can throw away the receipt and not worry about the transaction ever again. No worry about identity theft. No need to check my statement every month and remember whether the transaction was me or not. Easier to split bills or pay people back. Knowing that more of my money is going to the shop keeper than a large financial corporation.

<comment><USER51> It is no longer illegal to charge a surcharge for credit cards [0] in most, but not all US states. As far as I know, it has always been legal to give a cash discount.

Until recently the sticker price had to be the credit card price, but all in all it appears merchants don't prefer cash despite the option of discounting it.

[0] [https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-card- cha...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-card-charged-more- gas-station/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> "Cash means total financial inclusion"

The author doesn't know what financial inclusion means. In fact financial inclusion has seen a boon thanks to cashless payments like m-pesa in Kenya. Thanks to not having to lug around cash and maintain expensive bank branches and offices, some of the poorest countries have made great strides in furthering financial inclusion.

People want to eliminate €500, not €5. But even if they eliminated all cash I doubt there would be a catastrophe of the type the article claims; people will use different implementations of the same technologies to find privacy and convenience. In fact wives married to alcoholics in Africa often prefer to store their money in cashless wallets and saving groups, because it is easier to hide from their husbands who might find the cash under the mattress.

</comment><comment><USER53> IMO the real issue on tax evasion is not that people don't like to pay taxes. People don't like is to be obligated to give money that will be spent in ways that they don't agree.

</comment><comment><USER54> Cash is the only way Govt can implicitly ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocurrency)/explicitly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocurrency\)/explicitly) ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar)) control 99% population;

</comment><comment><USER55> In theory, cryptocurrencies like Zcash [1] should solve the issues with transaction privacy. However, enforcing taxation when using a totally private and anonymous currency disconnected from government control would be nontrivial if not impossible. Likely the reason why governments are so against them.

[1] Zcash: [https://z.cash/](https://z.cash/)

</comment><comment><USER56> I recommend Douglas Rushkoff's book "life inc, How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back":

Centralized money has been the means for sucking profit out of local economies since about 1300. Rising income inequality has been an 800 year process. I thought I knew how the world worked, but Rushkoff changed my world view.

</comment><comment><USER57> The article itself is somewhat misleading - cash, i.e. currency, does depend on the issuing institution's integrity and the willingness of people to accept it.

Was a bit surprised to see The Guardian echo certain viewpoints heretofore only heard from preppers.

</comment><comment><USER58> I think this is a symptom of a wider malaise in our societies today. Technology can be an enabler of wonderful new things, but it also affords new opportunities for power and profit to those who control it.

The average person is not a financial expert and so there are very lucrative opportunities for those who know the system well to make a lot of money at the expense of those who do not. Payday loan companies and high interest credit cards come to mind as extreme examples, but every time you put money in a savings account at your bank they are making a lot more on it than they are paying you in interest, and every time you use an on-line payment service or swipe your card in a store you're giving a significant cut to the payment services involved, not the person you thought you were paying. This is before we even get into the privacy implications and so on.

The average person is also not a technical expert and so there are analogous opportunities to take advantage of them, but we are becoming so dependent on technology that if anything the opportunities here are even more one-sided and certainly much greater in number. Day-to-day functionality and communications increasingly rely on isolated, closed ecosystems, run by commercial operators that have every incentive to lock people in and then exploit them, yet which are typically not subject to regulation as essential public services the way that traditional phone and mail systems typically have been. The "war on general purpose computing" is well underway, again with even basic things like the software you can run on your own devices locked up through a combination of proprietary repositories or app stores, cloud integrations, DRM and similar technologies, and legalised anticompetitive behaviour thanks to ever- increasing distortions of IP laws.

Much of this comes down to the same recurring themes with new technologies: as well as providing useful new capabilities, they can also become a threat to privacy, to ownership, and ultimately to the freedom of smaller businesses or private individuals to create and use technologies and data as _they_ wish rather than as the controlling mega-businesses and governments dictate.

This does not seem healthy to me at all. However, since most of it is predicated on the average user of these technologies not understanding the full implications and often not having any meaningful choice apart from giving up on a technology altogether anyway, there is only so much the little guy can do.

We _should_ fear a cashless world, but we should fear more the kind of world that cashless transactions exemplify.

</comment><comment><USER59> Proposal: remove cash, add constitutional amendment defending the right to transact.

<comment><USER60> Any proposal on how to ensure that it doesn't end up like the right to a speedy trial [1,2]?

[1] [http://fusion.net/story/5419/right-to-a-speedy-trial-this- in...](http://fusion.net/story/5419/right-to-a-speedy-trial-this-innocent- teenager-waited-3-years-in-jail/)

[2] [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/do- louis...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/do-louisianans- have-the-right-to-a-speedy-trial/275385/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> It is all about control. If you remove the independence of cash and you end up with government regulation deciding how much, what and where you spend your money. Such regulation can be used to put stress on businesses that the state deems 'unsuitable'[1] as well as punish those with differing opinions than the state[2].

Cashless society would essentially turn the world into one giant PayPal.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point)

2 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)

</comment><comment><USER62> A good conversation of "why we should fear a cashless world" should at least mention the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel in The Bible. It would be negligent to omit them from discussion like this.

<comment><USER63> I assume that you're referring to Revelation 13:17:

> And [the Beast] causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the > poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right > hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy > or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or > the number of his name.

Like most of Revelations, I think this needs to be interpreted in the context that it was written. Jews during the time of Nero saw Nero as the "the Beast". From what I understand, these "marks on the hand" were a plan by the Romans to control Jewish citizens in much the same way that modern governments try to control slum populations. I doubt the author foresaw contactless credit cards and Apple pay, though I admit that the authors of both the article and of Revelations were worried about similar consequences.

<comment><USER64> > to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides > that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark

How else would you describe 21st century RFID using 1st century vocabulary? Revelation was written 2,000 years ago, and is supposed to be about things in its future, after all.

<comment><USER63> > How else would you describe 21st century RFID using 1st century vocabulary?

Why did it need to use 1st Century vocabulary?

I am a practising Christian, and in my heart, I suspect Jesus would say something like "don't worry about how you pay for physical stuff".

<comment><USER64> It used 1st century vocabulary because that's all that could be had when it was written (about AD 90, Greece), using a different language, culture, context, and mindset than anything that exists today. If one were to update it, it would be impossible without fundamentally changing it, due to subjectiveness and the gulf in descriptions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>