Colin O'Brady Completes Crossing of Antarctica with Final 32-Hour Push - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/sports/antarctica-race-colin-obrady.html <comment><USER2> Just this week I read a story about Henry Worsley who died trying the same thing: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white- dark...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-darkness). After reading, I wonder if you have to a certain level of insanity for doing something like this.

<comment><USER3> I don't know, but it's an interesting thought. What drives someone do to this? I'm in awe of it. It seems to me that it has to be tied to finding meaning in life one way or another.

I have to wonder though, how long does it take for the afterglow of such a massive accomplishment to wear off and to start asking yourself "what now?"

<comment><USER4> There's an interview with Alex Honnold where he says he was already thinking about his next challenge _during_ the last stretch of El Capitan.

I personally can't understand these ongoing Bernoulli experiments, surely something in these people's mind differs profoundly from mine.

<comment><USER5> They do - their amygdala.

"fMRI testing at the Medical University of South Carolina tilted the scales toward precisely that explanation — an underactive amygdala, not a negligent mother — by confirming that Honnold's fear circuitry really does fire with less vigor than most."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/el-capitan-my- el-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/el-capitan-my-el- capitan.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is the definition of crossing Antarctica? It seems you have start at some point on the coast, go to the South Pole, then go to another point on the coast. But the South Pole isn't the midpoint. Nor are the two coastal points 180 degrees apart. Like what's the smallest angle that qualifies as a crossing? (If I hike along the France Spain border, is that hiking across Europe?)

Not to say it's any easier, but ever since these stories started coming out I've been wondering who decides what it means to cross the continent. Would going from Dronning Maud Land to George V Land, a journey of double the distance but passing north of the South Pole, count?

<comment><USER7> His website has a map and discussion of the route:

[https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst](https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst)

<comment><USER6> That doesn't really explain the definition of crossing. If crossing a continent invokes going from one point to another, as one might reasonably assume, then why the detour to the South Pole? Why not simply go in a straight line between those points?

<comment><USER7> I don't understand the concern here. We're not saying Colin _didn 't_ cross Antarctica, are we?

So it seems like a hypothetical: "If someone takes Ted's Shortcut in the future, will that still count as crossing Antarctica?"

Maybe it will count, maybe it won't. But I'm happy to let those future people decide.

One thing we do know... If they take the shortcut, they won't get a photo like this:

[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a6191d112abd95e3292c...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a6191d112abd95e3292cc73/t/5c13e862352f53687aa20caa/)

<comment><USER6> Why can't I simply be curious about the geographical or geometric definition of a crossing? It seems like a straightforward question, but instead of answering it I get six replies about the friends you make along the way.

<comment><USER7> It's an interesting question, but it doesn't have an easy answer. Words and phrases in English mean whatever you and I and everyone else agree on. And we won't always agree: words and phrases can mean different things to different people.

One person may define crossing Antarctica as a straight line, coast to coast, that intercepts the South Pole.

Another may say the South Pole isn't significant with regard to the _continent_ of Antarctica. It's the South Pole of the Earth, but it's not that close to the geographical center of the continent. If you're really going to cross the continent, you ought to go through that geographical center.

Someone else may ask what is a coast? Do you include the great ice shelves? Do you have to start from the outermost edge of any ice shelf or can you start at the edge of the (smaller) landmass instead?

Another person, perhaps Colin, may say "Talk about this all you want, but here is where I am going. It's close to the route that previous Antarctic explorers have taken. I'm the one putting my life on the line, and I say I'm crossing Antarctica. But feel free to disagree with me."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At first I was shocked by how large a sled he dragged. I use a much smaller sled (just a deer sled). Then I saw how smooth the terrain was at least where the photo was taken.

Then I read that he was out for _53 days_. And of course his conditions are far, far more grueling than I have ever faced (all in North America). So then I was shocked at how little he had with him!

<comment><USER9> That's got to be the best place in the world, imagine the solitude, the quietness and amazing scenery. Must have been an amazing experience.

<comment><USER2> I have read Shackleton's book and also one by a member of Scott's expedition. From that I got the sense that it's a place of wind, danger and misery. It's not a quiet stroll after fresh snowfall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Colin just accomplished an incredible feat of endurance! His daily Instagram postings have been inspirational to read for the past 53 days. Other info about his expedition:

[https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst](https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst)

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/18/sports/antarc...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/18/sports/antarctica- race-tracker-map.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> To those inspired by this achievement to look more into polar expeditions, I can highly recommend Michael Palin's "Erebus". It's a riveting read on the challenges, successes, and tragedies of the British explorer ship Erebus, its commanders, officers, and crews.

</comment><comment><USER11> Outline for people geowalled [http://outline.com/ezrgYS](http://outline.com/ezrgYS)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is right out of "The Left Hand of Darkness."

</comment><comment><USER13> Tangent.

I once met a guy who told be about a historical book of, as far as I can remember, 2 or 3 explorers who were friends (?) and were racing to explore Antarctica. Does anyone happen to know the name of said book? It's been my white whale.

<comment><USER14> Maybe it's a book on Shackleton?

<comment><USER15> His own book, 'South', is truely epic and ranks up there as one of the best books I've ever read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't the crossing of Antartica unsupported already done in [http://www.travelexplorations.com/cecilie-skog-and-ryan- wate...](http://www.travelexplorations.com/cecilie-skog-and-ryan-waters- successfully-crossed-antarctica.4724142-18557.html)? Asking because Colin's website says it's a first but I must be missing something.

<comment><USER17> You are missing that Colin did it solo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it easier now because of climate change? (Not to take anything away from the accomplishment, it might actually be harder due to how climate change works.)

<comment><USER19> If anything I would wonder if it's easier because they can contact the outside world. Having a sat phone, gps, and a sympathetic ear had to help. At one point he got a call from Elton John! Imagine the morale boost :) also, knowing there is an escape hatch. Someone to send a rescue team etc...

<comment><USER20> It was actually Paul Simon that he got the call from. Agreed it must have been a huge morale boost.

<comment><USER19> Doh. Thanks for the correction!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone else seeing 6 nytimes articles on the frontpage? Why not just redirect us to the nytimes at this point?

<comment><USER22> And NYT is locked. They get so much traffic from HN but they don't let us read it. Maybe a deal needs to be negotiated similar to FB and WSJ deal so that HN referrers could read the article.

<comment><USER23> HN is probably a drop in the ocean in terms of traffic, but it's good quality traffic admittedly.</comment></comment></comment>


How Twitter users can fake a verified account - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/17/twitter-fake-verified-account/

<comment><USER2> At first I thought the title suggested that you can game the system to mark you as verified.

Using a header image is just tricking the user, not the system. I guess that's the end goal, but I didn't see it as creative as I had hoped.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Twitter does not make it convenient to report accounts that are impersonating someone. Moreover it should be fairly easy for them to run a check on the background image to catch for violations of 'verified' user.</comment>


Show HN: This one line of code will make HN usable on mobile devices - <AUTHOR>

Since the HN devs seem to be in dev-mode, I thought I'd put in one more little request. :)
This one line of code, added to the head of HN's html, will make the site actually usable on mobile devices:

  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes"/>
 Here are the before and after pics of the front page:

  http://imgur.com/rMYfqwN,mwPDMvB#0
 <comment><USER2> Been there, tried that:

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253835
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6253403

Trust me, it's worse on most devices. On the Android devices I tested comments often get compressed to two or three characters per line.

<comment><USER3> On my galaxy note GT-N7000 I have the opposite problem - the text is tiny and I have to zoom in.

Would a better solution be to set a viewport width of 800 or 1000 pixels on mobile devices?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link to before/after pics: [http://imgur.com/rMYfqwN,mwPDMvB#0](http://imgur.com/rMYfqwN,mwPDMvB#0)</comment>


Ask HN: what are your 2 or 3 favorite SAAS services ? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on adding more content to http://kingapi.com.
By content I mean SAAS services that people here actually use and are happy with.
Could you share the names of your preferred ones ? <comment><USER2> At Loggly we use Google Apps, Unfuddle, and RightScale.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Campfire_ Remember The Milk

And, if Google Apps count, count them in too!

</comment><comment><USER4> I use HackerNews, a site for finding new content, and discussing things.

</comment><comment><USER5> Http://testplanmanagement.com</comment>


Show HN: Pick a movie you like and discover others  semantically - <AUTHOR> http://movies.ootu.com

<comment><USER2> This is cool. Movie recommendations are not easy, since there are just too many dimensions with which to compare movies. Sometimes there is just no better movie recommendation than just having a friend who knows your tastes.

Here is another site that has proven some worthy suggestions for me in the past. [http://www.nanocrowd.com/](http://www.nanocrowd.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a broader semantic navigation technology that is driving this site. Shortly we will be doing apps for books, video games, and business.

We think that why movie recommendations are so hard is because people might like the same movie for different reasons. For example, if I told two friends that I liked the movie "Titanic", and asked for a recommendation they might separately recommend "The Perfect Storm" and "Avatar". Two very different movies, but both would count as good recommendations for different reasons. The problem, is that when a person recommends a movie to you, they have already filtered it according to what they thought was interesting about the movie.

Having said that it is still the best way to discover new movies. We believe that easy to use semantic browsing is a good middle-ground for any information discovery.

nanocrowd is very cool. I have not heard of the company before, but they have a very interesting take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's the source dataset? IMDb?

<comment><AUTHOR> No we are using open semantic data sources to start. Soon movie lovers will be able to add their own data to the ontology.

<comment><USER3> Open semantic data sources? That's very vague. :) Freebase?

<comment><AUTHOR> Freebase, wikipedia, yago, wordnet, and some others. Nearly all hand-curated.

<comment><USER3> YAGO looks interesting -- and it seems to encapsulate both Freebase and Wikipedia. Does this mean you're using YAGO to get to Freebase/Wikipedia?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. YAGO is actually a curated subset of those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you'll do TV shows too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now just movies, but if there is interest TV shows would not be a problem. The underlying technology can work with most semantically related data sources.</comment></comment>


Google's HTML, CSS, and Javascript from the Ground Up - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/edu/submissions/html-css-javascript/ <comment><USER2> Did not even know that Google have a form of "university" where they provide tutorials and "courses". Google definitely seems to be expanding it's horizons in what it can provide to its users. This is pretty amazing as well because other Search engines just can't seem to compete with Google (maybe yahoo) and its notoriety. Anyone else think that Google may end up taking a good portion (if not already) of the internet? That is, Google's influence over sites (such as using Google's engine on their site) and it's extending its already common usage.

( This is my first post, so hopefully this comments is in accordance to HN standards. Let me know if it isn't! :( )

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just the sort of resource that I will pass along to friends who want to start learning how to make web pages. Would be fun to see the series continued with similar introductions to the next levels of programming beyond HTML, CSS and Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow. I was actually just looking for something like this as a way to brush up on my basics... I feel like I've learned a lot about certain things through trial and error and a background with actual structure might be worth looking into.

<comment><USER5> I feel the same way too. Most of what I knew about HTML/CSS was through trail and error (especially for CSS). Now I am thinking of redesigning my whole site using what I've learned from these videos.

Also, I know of some friends who have expressed interest in learning web- design, they might get some use of this, as it is simple, comprehensive and easy to pick up. An excellent piece of work from Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks! As a developer looking to get into web programming, this is exactly what I was looking for!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @alf: thanks for the kind words! Another great resource for web programming is w3schools (<http://www.w3schools.com/>), on the off chance you haven't already found it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool, I'll use it as a reference for my clients who ask about learning "web sites".</comment>


12 Hours, 2 Guys, 6 Cups of Coffee, 1 iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5435605/12-hours-2-guys-6-cups-of-coffee-1-iphone-app

<comment><USER2> I confess I don't understand the value of this article. As far as I understood it, they haven't made a compelling product, they haven't made a boatload of money, they haven't innovated the development process and they don't have any special advice for getting approved by App Store (beyond RTFM). So what, apart from plugging their product, is the point of the article?

<comment><USER3> You have correctly understood the article, but have incorrectly assumed that there must be a point other than plugging the product. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> step1) write trivial app, put in app store for 99c

step2) document process, get picked up by gizmodo

step3) profit! (??)

I guess it's a clever way to break through the noise.. but 99c? really?

</comment><comment><USER5> They used dropbox as an SCM? I guess that works, especially when you really only have 1 coder, but I can see it getting gross fast with multiple coders.

At least he mentioned GitHub.

<comment><USER6> Dropbox is much more convenient for non-coders, and there's nothing stopping the developer from additionally running `git init`.

<comment><USER7> Yes, Dropbox + git works absolutely fine even with two coders. All you have to do is git init inside a shared Dropbox folder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meh, I made one of my apps by myself in 8 hours. It's made 53 dollars in the last month or so.

Unless you have some kind of weird press bomb, it's much more profitable to put some time into making a good app.

</comment><comment><USER9> the real metric is the cups of coffee to lines of code.</comment>


Students at Berlin University Build Chess Game on Ethereum - <AUTHOR> https://news.bitcoin.com/berlin-students-chess-ethereum/ <comment><USER2> direct link to students medium post: [https://medium.com/@graycoding/lessons- learned-from-making-a...](https://medium.com/@graycoding/lessons-learned-from- making-a-chess-game-for-ethereum-6917c01178b6#.xc06oinx1)

link to their github repo for ethereum chess: [https://github.com/ise- ethereum/on-chain-chess](https://github.com/ise-ethereum/on-chain-chess)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why verifying the checkmate end state is any harder than playing each turn.

They say

> For checkmate and stalemate, to verify the condition all possible moves have > to be calculated and verified, which is unfeasible on the blockchain.

But "all possible moves" is only one-move deep. We're generally talking a couple dozen possible moves at most. If the system can't calculate a couple dozen possible moves, how is all the basic move logic being done "on chain," as they say?

<comment><USER4> I have to admit ignorance about this implementation, but as I understand it evaluating a single move is computationally much simpler. That is given a piece, validate that the proposed move (decided on by a human) conforms to the rules of chess, and is valid for the given board state. Verifying a checkmate (even if only verifying checkmates proposed by a human player), means going through every one of the opponents pieces to see if it can be used to improve to a non-check state.

<comment><USER5> Verifying checkmate is essentially doing a 2-ply search: for all moves i can make, the opponent has a reply that captures my king. This is more work than verifying normal moves, where a 1-ply search suffices to check that kings are not left in check.

They could have simply adopted blitz chess rules, where the goal is to capture the opponent king, and leaving your king in check is not illegal, to avoid all this extra computation...

<comment><USER6> The average branching factor for chess is about 35 moves, so verifying check would typically require looking at roughly 35 moves, while verifying checkmate would require about 1,225 moves. I'm surprised that a factor of 35 is enough to push it over the edge, but I guess Ethereum contracts need to be fairly limited.

I wonder if it's cheaper to verify a proof of checkmate that someone else computes. I'm not sure exactly what such a proof would look like, but there are lots of problems where finding a proof is hard, but verifying one is easy. Then you could make the checkmating player prove that it's checkmate and provide that proof along with their final move, and the contract could just verify it.

<comment><USER7> The problem on Ethereum is not that it's limited, the EVM is capable of handling it.

The problem here is that there is a cap of how much gas[1] a block may consume which is the moving average of consumed gas plus some extra.

A few contracts got stuck that way; by getting to a point where they could no longer use that much gas.

[1]: Gas in Ethereum refers to the amount of value paid for computation, once gas runs out the execution is terminated and the gas subtracted from the senders account.

<comment><USER6> I've heard of gas, but I'm not entirely familiar with the cap. I thought it was determined by how much the contract wanted to spend. Are you saying there's a fixed cap as well?

<comment><USER7> Upfront all transactions must pay for the computation they expect to have. The user (or whatever) decided how much has may be spent.

When the transaction runs, gas is consumed. If the transaction finished or there is no more gas, computation stops.

Now, transactions have no limit but blocks of transactions have. This is to prevent a single person creating and mining gigantic transaction to stall the network.

This limit is dynamic and you can raise it by having the network use more gas until the moving average climbs high enough.

<comment><USER6> Makes sense, thanks for explaining! Basing the limit on the moving average is an interesting choice and I wonder what sort of long-term consequences it will have on people's behavior. Seems like there's some potential for weird feedback loops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if we can squeeze coins out of it.

<comment><USER9> half the chess pieces go missing

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh the language built for lawyers...yay

<comment><USER11> Ethereum chess had significant latency and the impossibility of consensus... sounds like lawyer's work to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> chess. but with blockchain!</comment>


Passive Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://passivewifi.cs.washington.edu/ <comment><USER2> A better article about how this works: [http://abc.cs.washington.edu/](http://abc.cs.washington.edu/)

"As computing devices become smaller and more numerous, powering them becomes more difficult; wires are often not feasible, and batteries add weight, bulk, cost, and require recharging/replacement that is impractical at large scales. Ambient backscatter communication solves this problem by leveraging existing TV and cellular transmissions, rather than generating their own radio waves. This novel technique enables ubiquitous communication where devices can communicate among themselves at unprecedented scales and in locations that were previously inaccessible."

<comment><USER3> Does this impact latency and/or bandwidth, since packets can only be generated when environmental conditions allow it?

If it's relatively low-latency, I could imagine very low-power e-ink wearables that delegate processing to phones and simply translate between WiFi packets, screen updates, and button interactions. Very exciting stuff.</comment></comment>


L.A.'s crisis: High rents, low pay, and $2k doesn't buy much - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-renters-struggle-06042017-story.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is also really a zoning story. L.A. used to be zoned for 10 million people in the late 60s and decreased that tremendously in the early 70s: [https://la.curbed.com/2015/4/8/9972362/everything-wrong- with...](https://la.curbed.com/2015/4/8/9972362/everything-wrong-with-los- angeles-housing-in-one-graph).

Today we have improved technology along almost every dimension yet the city is zoned for less than half as many people.

We are paying zoning's steep price: [https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/r...](https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2002/10/v25n3-7.pdf) (that's a link to a PDF).

<comment><USER3> I would look also at the seriously distorted property and land taxation system in California as an additional contributor along with zoning.

A few decades of Prop 13 have done an amazing amount of damage to the housing markets all over the state, by disincentivizing the sale of property. This has contributed heavily to reducing the supply of housing and distorting the market, among other problems.

If California made some modifications to it's taxation policy - <USER2> lowering income and sales taxes while leveling the playing field on land taxation - home owners could come out paying a similar total tax bill while adding needed fluidity to the market.

<comment><USER4> I support Prop 13 for primary homes that owners are actually living in, but commercial rent deriving properties should have never been covered by it.

I take this position because I'm really not interested in kicking little old ladies out of their homes of multiple decades just because some property price bubble has driven real estate to crazy levels. Basically without prop 13, every bubble is going to drive the poorest and most vulnerable home owners out of their homes, and that is a pretty ugly side effect. That is the original intended protection of prop 13, but commercial properties were somehow rolled under that same umbrella.

<comment><USER5> I'm not convinced that Prop 13 is the best or only solution to the "we don't want to kick senior citizens out of their communities" issue. Prop 13 only helps you if your property has appreciated in value anyway. So by definition, all of its beneficiaries are sitting on assets that have appreciated, sometimes enormously.

Currently, Prop 13 caps property taxes as a percent of the last sale price. What if instead we allowed property taxes to increase with home value, but deferred collection of the incremental tax increase until the sale of the home? The back taxes owed could even be capped as a percent of appreciation. Given that the property's price has by definition increased, even after paying the back taxes the seller still gets much of their money back, the government comes out whole, we don't force old people to sell prematurely and the tax burden is shared more equitably between old and new owners.

<comment><USER6> In my opinion, Texas gets this right (as a left-winger who's lived in Texas for a number of years, I don't get to say this that frequently). If you're over 65, you can defer property taxes on the home you occupy as long as you continue to own and occupy the home. They aren't even just frozen, you can simply not pay the taxes at all. This means you can't lose your home due to inability to pay property taxes. But you don't get to play both sides and get a property-tax reduction while _also_ passing on a big capital-gains windfall to your heirs. The taxes are deferred, and when the home is either sold, or transferred to heirs upon your death, the deferred taxes are assessed against the capital gains and/or the estate. (If the estate ends up being worth less than the deferred taxes, the state eats the difference, but deferred taxes are recovered from whatever value it does have.)

<comment><USER7> What happens to someone who lets the taxes build up but needs to sell (medical bills, say)? This screams of unintended consequences where the state taxes a windfall from someone forced to sell.

<comment><USER8> Taking out an HELOC against the property might be one solution.

<comment><USER9> The property taxes take precedence over loan collections, so no one will give you a HELOC when you have a bunch of back taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm seeing a lot of "I fear that..." in this thread. I just have to laugh. This isn't a new or unique situation. The only thing that has changed are people's preferences. My Great Aunt lived in NYC with 6 other girls. Roommates were required to survive the high rents of post-war NYC.

California has always been gripped by NIMBYisms and choking regulation. You get what you vote for.

What can you do against the tyranny of good ideas? It's a good idea to make use environmentally friendly building materials. It's a good idea to build earthquake resilient homes. It's a good idea to require certain standards of home building. It's a good idea to rent control the apartments of the elderly so they can continue to live in their home of the past 50 years. It's a good idea to X..Y..Z.

Is it a good idea to create a generation of serfs?

<comment><USER11> "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."

For all the talk of "negative externalities" I see on HN and the valley in general, I never see people discussing the rampant "negative externalities" of the laws and regulations we pass. It's unfortunate there's so little introspection going on, and so much reliance on the monopoly of the Government to further what Group A or Group B wants. (But it's OK, because I agree with Group A!)

<comment><USER12> Corporations big enough can have a humongous power to take away everything from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rent and debt are far too often taxation without representation. It's that simple. This is especially true in situations where landlords sit back and collect, without taking due responsibility for the shape of the living spaces they supposedly "own". And people put themselves into these feudal arrangements for so many reasons. That part is _not_ simple.

Why do people want to be landlords over others? Why do you want to live in a world where it is normal to take huge debts, only to hand off the monthly payments to people who are barely treading water?

This whole business of playing musical chairs with our homes and communities is beyond ridiculous. The amount of furniture that gets thrown out every month is shameful in the face of global climate change.

<comment> m-j-fox > Why do people want to be landlords over others?

Incentives.

I'm a small time landlord. I was able to rent out my old house at a rate that covers the mortgage and a manager. When you factor appreciation, equity and tax breaks my net worth increases at a rate of $3k/month even though on paper I barely break even. I'd be dumb to turn down such a deal.

The richest man in California owns the Irvine Company. I assume he faces similar incentives at scale.

<comment><USER13> On one level, I get that: it is economically sensible to play the landlord role, even at a small scale. And in a lot of ways, you're doing something really important. You're providing someone with a place to live, one that they don't have to worry about taking long-term care of. You've decided that you're going to be a long term care-taker of this home. Assuming you're a good landlord, you really are doing some good for the world.

But would you really be "dumb" if you did things differently? Or would you be following a different set of economic values? Seriously, think about that. I challenge you to rethink your "smart vs dumb" idea. It's "smart" to drive and rely on a car. But on another very important level, it's also incredibly foolish, a.k.a. "dumb".

And I'd argue that what you and your renter have done is also pretty "dumb". Why? Because you and your renters are paying the bank _that much_ for a house. The cost of building a new house is much less. This is an _old house_ , but the bank said "this house is actually worth more than a new house, because you can simply pass the debt onto someone who doesn't have the option of buying a house at this moment, even though they urgently need a place to live". The house itself probably isn't inherently "worth" that much: it takes a lot of work to keep up an aging house. Yet all of this rent money is harvested from the occupant's time/earnings/savings: money that could be _invested in the house_ gets sucked into some exponential function that translates to the bank taking thousands of dollars a month from your renters. Since the bank is so "helpful", you get to keep a very small amount allowance so that you can do repairs/profit. Of course, in the end you'll "own" the house, you'll have paid off your mortgage. Or maybe you'll sell it to someone else, who will enter into a similar agreement with the bank. Regardless, by the time someone has paid off the mortgage, banks will have gotten off with something in the range of 0.5-5x the entire inflated value of the house just for handling sacred paperwork. To me, that's _DUMB_.

This kind of thing is technically forbidden in Islam, Judaism and arguably Christianity, but not in the USA.

By the way, I'm right there with you in doing dumb stuff like this: I'm a renter.

<comment><USER14> A lot of what you just said suffers from a pretty big misconception: it's _land_ that's worth money, not the house that's on it.

Every single news story about how some tiny shack in Vancouver or Palo Alto now costs $x has the same problem, so you're in good company. But it's still not the right way to think about this problem.

<comment><USER13> That's a good point, and according to the board game _Monopoly_ , you're totally right. In the above post I complained that housing costs don't reflect the quality of the housing itself. Land speculation is probably a huge part of that, if not the dominant contributor.

But my whole point is about "rentier capitalism", and it applies whether you're talking about land, houses or SaaS.

In a free market, of course there's gonna be ebbs and flows as people and industry come and go, but look at this chart: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-c...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily- chart-20)

Those huge, correlated roller coaster curves aren't based off of natural fluctuations in land values in all those different places. They're based on a kind of big distributed Monopoly game where a bunch of people frustratedly flipped the board over in 2008. Now we're going in for another round.

Meanwhile, the north pole is melting, and there's tons of work to be done in retrofitting houses for climate change, in switching to new kinds of fuel, planting gardens sustainable agriculture, fixing broken stuff. What are people doing instead? A lot of people spend much of their time doing _dog eat dog capitalism_. Chasing rent checks and debt repayments. Doing the 9-5 grind. Driving 40 miles a day to work jobs they _don 't believe in_. Not everyone of course, but too many people!

We really need to shed this feudalistic way of doing things, and that's going to take people evolving how we participate in markets, what's considered "smart" or "dumb".

<comment><USER14> _Those huge, correlated roller coaster curves aren 't based off of natural fluctuations in land values in all those different places. They're based on a kind of big distributed Monopoly game where a bunch of people frustratedly flipped the board over in 2008._

Couldn't this be that the underlying value of the land didn't change at all in 2008? That people still really value land in desirable coastal areas and will do just about anything to get it? That what did change was the amount of capital available to regular people to get it?

Nothing about their underlying desire changed at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yeah the homeless population is insane - a long heat wave and I wouldn't be surprised if we had riots.

I'm lucky enough to have a rent-controlled place in Silverlake but it does come with other costs because the owner doesn't really maintain the property. Hallway light doesn't work and we strung up Christmas lights in our kitchen because we can't get an electrician to fix the light in there.

A lot of the startup jobs are on the Westside but considering those easily adds an additional 18k/year in housing costs or doing that terrible 2-3 hour commute everyday.

Thinking hard about moving to Oregon or something and just doing remote work - I've lost most of any enthusiasm I've had for LA.

<comment><USER16> Come to Austin. Or Houston; San Antonio, Dallas.

<comment><USER17> \- Austin is fun and has some good companies but too damn humid (and I'm originally from the South). And I think the exodus from CA the past few years have really overwhelmed their infrastructure

\- Houston/Dallas seem like just more sprawl. LA is actually pretty dense in parts and can have good public transit. I know people from Dallas that have been happy moving back though.

\- Don't know much about San Antonio

<comment><USER18> Dallas native here who goes to school in LA!

Yes, Dallas is much more similar to LA in that regard compared to New York, although still a magnitude less spread out than Los Angeles (and traffic is nowhere near as bad): I would say geographic distances in Dallas proper (not the exurbs, which I don't consider Dallas as most are in their own counties) are one-fourth to one-half shorter than Los Angeles.

Also, Dallas has been increasingly developing their Downtown/Uptown scene to mimic Austin, and is where most all young professionals / startups are located, as the past generation's upper class still prefer the centrally- located neighborhoods of Highland Park and Preston Hollow just outside of downtown for their large single-family homes, meaning high-rise apartments in Dallas go for about $1.5-$2k and are located next to work.

Also, the mayor in Dallas is all for the rapid development of higher density housing, which greatly helps with housing supply (though single-family home property values in these desirable neighborhoods are increasing about 10-15% year over year due to the influx of new people and no more space for single- family homes in Dallas proper).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd also like to add that LA county has the highest number of illegal immigrants in the country, with and estimate of 1.1 million. That is surely exacerbating the housing situation. This also likely exacerbates low salary problems too.

<comment><USER20> Net illegal immigration is trending down due to enforcement and a less robust US economy. The only way to improve upon the situation is to improve working/living conditions in Mexico, accept it as a given, or kick everyone out. NAFTA is an attempt at #1 but it is a double edged sword, you lose jobs in the USA but get more corporate profits / cheaper products) from cheaper labor in Mexico. What I think was unexpected was that China came a long and really reduced labor costs further while cloning the intellectual property.

Conditions in Mexico (and South America) did not improve enough though; China has amassed major purchasing power (such that expatriates are buying properties to hedge and take capital out) further increasing costs globally in affluent cities.

So cities and communities should ideally increase density (available product) in response to demand. They could in fact raise their tax base, improve living conditions/services and reduce costs. This is all in support of the growing tech economy.

In LA there are probably more renters than owners and perhaps those that are able should vote. I think the problem is people don't and when they want to buy or think about it they realize they are SOL and either have to gentrify some part of LA or move out.

<comment><USER21> >a less robust US economy

I know it's kind of tangential to your point, but any sources on this? I was under the impression we were humming along.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> L.A. has a major NIMBY problem: as soon as anyone gets a whiff of new housing development you'll see someone pile on the fud about how it will increase crime and homelessness (ironically) in their neighborhood.

<comment><USER23> I've heard people in the same breath complain that a housing development will ruin home values and cause gentrification.

<comment><USER24> Gentrification and displacement are distinct. Downward pressure on home values mitigates displacement, but the presence of more above-median-income people _is_ gentrification.

It can change the social fabric of a neighborhood (different taste in retail, different participation in neighborhood social life, etc), even if the original lower-income residents are still there.

I think this is something we should accept, but they're not technically wrong to call it gentrification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are places within 3 hours drive of SF, where you can pay $1000 to buy an acre of land (200 acre parcels minimum).

At some point, telecommuting technology will encourage an exodus of tech workers.

Some people, yes, want a city life.

Others don't want to lose 50% of their earnings on buying or renting housing.

<comment><USER26> >"At some point, telecommuting technology will encourage an exodus of tech workers."

But we already have Slack/Hangouts/Github/HipChat/Skype/Trello etc and most(the majority?) of the tech jobs in SF require you to come into the office no? I don't believe its the tech worker themselves who are short on encouragement.

<comment><USER27> While this is HN, with its associated demographics, the reality is that many office jobs just aren't as feasible for remote work. Face time and hallway conversations can be incredibly important for a healthy company.

<comment><USER26> Can you say specifically what office jobs can't be done remotely and why?

Also can you say what type of content can only be communicated in a hallway but not via video conferencing, chat, phone or email?

<comment><USER24> Have you ever actually used a phone or video conference? Laggy, artifact- laden, unintelligible, half-duplex (pretending to be full-duplex but you can't actually speak simultaneously and hear each other), incredibly awkward and slow compared to actually being in a room with someone.

Landlines could solve some of those problems, but how often are all parties going to have landlines?

Some of the most important information I've picked up at work has been from overhearing keywords and jumping into a conversation across the room, chatting with coworkers at lunch, etc.

I could do something that resembles my software engineering job if I only worked on the tickets as written and the Zoom meetings as scheduled, but not nearly as well.

<comment><USER26> To answer your question, yes I have actually used a phone or video conference.

I currently rely on wifi calling on my cell phone and it works flawlessly. I also rely on Vidyo, Skype and Google Hangouts. All of the latest versions of these work just fine. There are many distributed teams that use these to great effect every day, mine included.

>"Some of the most important information I've picked up at work has been from overhearing keywords and jumping into a conversation across the room, chatting with coworkers at lunch, etc."

You could also miss out on these if you happened to be in the bathroom or getting a coffee at that time, or wearing headphones. "Being within ear shot" seems like a strange requirement in 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's a proposal that was floated some years back in Atlanta around grocery stores. South of interstate 20 is a food desert. So the proposal said that a corporation and it's subsidiaries could not build a new grocery store anywhere in the city, without also building one in a disadvantaged area. It never went anywhere but I wonder if this might work in an area where more housing is needed. In order to get the building permit you are required to offset one project with a low income project in pre-determined areas.

<comment><USER29> San Francisco has something like this. Conservatives are constantly trying to kill it because they perceive it as a barrier to new construction and therefore an artificial constraint on supply. Of course, these same politicians also vote for stricter zoning regulations, so they might not actually be interested in increasing supply.

<comment><USER24> Liberals are also constantly trying to kill it because we'd prefer to have socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods, rather than "stick the poors in a crappier building somewhere else where the luxury tenants don't have to see them."

The preferred alternative is to allocate some percentage of units in the new building to low-income tenants.

Of course, some "progressives" want this percentage to be high enough to make development totally nonviable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I fear that this is the future of the country: vast majority of the people barely getting by, and a very small minority leading cushy lives. I see more and more people living in RVs, just making ends meet. On the other hand, if you're in the right line of work and in the right place, you're making out like a bandit. I've seen 25-year-olds making in high 6-digits, and 72-year- olds collecting shopping carts at the local grocery store.

I have a feeling of dread about an upcoming large-scale social upheaval, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I think Trump's election is a symptom of the trying times we live in.

<comment><USER31> Why is someone's age relevant? Whether you are 25 or 72, how much you earn is based on how much value you provide. A 72 year old has 47 more years of life to have potentially capitalized on.

<comment><USER32> That's exactly the issue. These people have no value to provide modern society, because they're either not smart enough, or dont have the requisite quals to go into white collar work. Their 72 years of life experience were working hard in a plant and being loyal to a buiness, which then shutdown or outsourced their jobs

Historically, there were places for these people. Manufacturing, truck driving, etc. White collar people are working on automating them out of existence.. So now they deserve to starve ? Because they're hard workers, honest, loyal, decent people, but just can't cut it in the modern professions that provide value? That's the Crux of it. That explains Trump to me

<comment><USER33> > These people have no value to provide modern society, because they're either > not smart enough, or dont have the requisite quals to go into white collar > work.

Or you have something on your SE history that makes you totally unsuitable for hire, according to the muckity-mucks in charge.

<comment><USER32> EXACTLY. Someone made a mistake at some point like we all do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Well, this is hardly a new crisis. I lived there before and after Prop 13 and it was a crisis then too. They way I solved it for me was to leave California.

If you live and work in L.A. odds are good you're spending about 1 out of every 10-15 years of your life in traffic. And that's a 24/7/365 year. Deduct sleep and work from what remains and you don't have much of a life left.

I figured that out sitting on the Ventura Fwy one day and started planning my escape when I got home. That was 30 years ago I never miss it a bit.

I visited LA for the 1st time last year when my wife and went to "Desert Trip". In some respects it was better, and I tip my hat to Californians when I say that.

They only thing I'll say "fer sure" was worse are "In-n-Out Burgers". They weren't even close to as good. Neither were the fries. I was sad about that and to be fair I kinda do do miss those.

</comment><comment><USER35> High rents? Are you kidding? LA is _cheap_.

In 2010 I had a (OK, admittedly old) house on Mulholland Drive for $1700/mo. I had moved from London in 2009 which cost double that. Right now in 2017 I have a bog standard 118m2 apartment in Shenzhen for $1450/mo and there's absolutely no view, private orchard, wild deer, blue sky weather or cachet! In Sydney even unfurnished 85m2 in a cheap area would be AUD$2750 = USD$2060 and Hong Kong people recoil in horror at how cheap my place in Shenzhen is, they pay USD$3242 for unfurnished 85m2 in a cheap area.

</comment><comment><USER36> Dublin, Ireland. Same exact problem.

Knowing both sides of the social divide I absolutely blame the landlord- centric culture - which includes a lot of very nice people that I know. But those nice people just should not be given such an easy ride. They're earning far too much from what is a very non-innovative activity. The cultural bias in their favour is overwhelming, however, since everybody who finally manages to buy a property silently joins their consensus.

</comment><comment><USER37> I know it would be tough for senior citizens to move but there are lots of places in the US where you can rent a nice apt in a decent neighborhood. for quite a bit less than $1000. One bedrooms < $500. Maybe instead of trying to somehow conjure up lower rent housing in LA, set up a program to help people on fixed incomes relocate elsewhere. This would go for folks who work minimum wage too.

<comment><USER38> Are you suggesting another city? The problem is that if your support network is in LA then moving somewhere else might not be feasible (or might not save you any money if you now have to pay for care).

<comment><USER17> Yeah, a lot of my friends from LA worry about being able to stick around so they can have a house, kids, and grandparents to look after the kids (and for them to be able to look after the grandparents).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's especially brutal that unemployment tops out at 450 a week even if you can barely make your rent you have to try to pass brutal engineering tests when you're not able to eat for days or weeks

</comment><comment><USER40> Let's not forget ZIRP and how it was an incredible boon to landlords. The Fed doesn't seem to care about rent inflation, or asset inflation, because in the aggregate it's not that high, but in a number of cities rent is bleeding the middle and upper middle class dry.

<comment><USER41> In theory low interest rates encourage borrowing to build more, but we haven't seen the "building more"; CA added 2.3 million residents since 2010 and only 400,000 housing units.

The problem is much more about local cities and NIMBY's having too much influence in the planning process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> wow, the latimes site is just unusable. endless popups, scrolling is seemingly broken, ugh.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is a growing concern even here in Chicago honestly. The problem isn't rent avg, it's rent avg in neighborhoods you would actually want to live in are growing to unpayable levels.

</comment><comment><USER44> What are some persuasive arguments that might convince NIMBYs to support rezoning their neighborhoods for higher density? I.e. to build consensus, vs just name-calling?

<comment><USER45> This is a good thought, but one doubts that arguments against self-interest could ever have much persuasive force. NIMBYers like to talk about all the catastrophes that will ensue if the community changes, but the primary catastrophe on their minds is the one to their Zestimate®.

<comment><USER44> People I've talked to seem more concerned about traffic and congestion, parking, and Airbnb.

They aren't planning on moving (ever), so their Zestimate seems irrelevant.

<comment><USER44> If there were a way for them to cash out, and go somewhere "better", that might be attractive. OTOH, all of their friends probably still live nearby -- esp if they've been there for 20+ years. Tough to pick up and go. I'm trying to imagine an incentive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Sounds like a typical west coast city nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER47> > tight 700 square feet

That is pretty much space for only two people. But $1600 is not cheap, I agree.

<comment><USER48> NYC anecdata: a couple years ago my girlfriend at the time split a $2700, 400sq ft 2 bedroom on a 7th floor (!) walkup in Chinatown.

Unrelated, but she's an architect and pointed out illegal parts of nearly every residential building we set foot in in NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> One word: automation and outsourcing reduces demand for local labor.

</comment><comment><USER50> Yet people stay in places they can't afford.

</comment><comment><USER51> it isn't just LA that's suffering in this way... it's the entire country.

the rent is too high. the pay is too low. the costs of essentials are rising.

nobody will do anything.

we're on track for self-destruction.

<comment><USER52> I'm paying 1k a month for a 2 bedroom apartment and I can get anywhere in Minneapolis or St. Paul in less than 30 minutes. People don't seem to like the Midwest but apartments here are way cheaper for many cities.

<comment><USER53> There are a lot of small towns that are very livable in the US. Most journalists are in big cities, so you don't hear of them written up, except for the occasional "meth town crisis" piece. I have a climber friend who bought some land in Quincy, California. He designed and built his own house, along with a guest house and garden. He and his family live a quiet life of outdoorsy pursuits, rock climbing and backcountry skiing, while enjoying the small town's community theatre and organic food co-op. Cherry trees line the streets, and they taste really good.

<comment><USER54> What do they do for income?

<comment><USER55> I have similar friends, he's a software developer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> MachinShinn- The article sites a 1 bedroom, 900 sqft aprt with stacked washer/dryer and new appliances for $2100.

Is that expensive? I live in a 988 sqft, 1bedroom apt with washer/dryer with 2 roommates. We pay around that amount.

I consider myself very well off. I work 1-2 hours a day for myself online. I just chill/play games/eat out/lounge around Starbucks most of the day. I sleep ~10 hours a day.

Sounds like the people in the article are just lazy. No one has a God given right to a detached house in LA... Just move. Your $1000 social security check makes you a God in the Philippines, Thailand, Macedonia, etc.</comment>


Faster than native, introducing FastMail's new mobile web interface - <AUTHOR> https://blog.fastmail.com/2013/10/21/faster-than-native-introducing-fastmails-new-mobile-web-interface/ <comment><USER2> 2013</comment>


Ask HN: Torn between impact and lack of recognition as a startup employee - <AUTHOR> This should be my startup dream come true.
Since joining a startup as an employee, I have been the primary contributor to advancing our product concept, monetization strategy and investor communications. I wrote our investor decks and position papers, and these were based in large part on my own inventions and insights. Our company has had the audience of major investors and industry leaders, who have praised these contributions. We have a chance to make a real positive impact on the world.
But I've had to do this work privately, without much interaction or feedback, and the CEO takes credit in front of everybody (inside and outside of the company) with claims it was his plan all along. My given role is software development. I'm not allowed to share my other work internally with other employees. As far as I can tell, they think my writing is just to present the CEO's ideas.
I'm concerned for my future. I don't have any responsibility or leadership role. I'm mostly left out of discussions on implementing the plans I've proposed and interviews for executives to take over responsibility for them. To keep up with my software development role in parallel, I'm working harder and longer hours than others, but not advancing much there either. It's been physically exhausting.
This opportunity has stoked the fire of my passion for business and technical strategy and shown it as a personal strength. But, I don't have a history of this type of contribution in previous companies and I don't see how I can leverage these efforts towards a future inside or outside this company, since I get so little recognition.
I've been afraid to post. Have you had a similar experience?
I appreciate advice on how to make the best of it. <comment><USER2> Hey, I'm so sorry to hear this...I'm working at a startup too, so I understand how the lack of clearly defined structure can sometimes lead to frustrations like this.

When I first joined my startup, I felt that way too. I felt like my voice didn't matter or was always echoed by someone else, whose exact same idea would matter more.

Like what @dmilicevic said, you have to stand up for yourself! It's a lot easier said than done, but talking to your CEO would hopefully help! If he ignores you, then perhaps it is time to move on.

With that said, don't give up on startups! There are bad bosses everywhere, unfortunately, but not all startups are like that :) you can truly establish a sense of ownership and recognition at the right startups!

</comment><comment><USER3> You have had good practice at doing this sort of thing, it was a good opportunity you can practice it at this company even with no previous experience. Now that you know more about how to do it, change jobs to do it at a place you will be paid for it. Give your current CEO a chance by telling him your concerns first.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask for a raise, it will tell you straight away if they think you're contributions are replaceable. If you get the raise then you can keep on being the MVP and make yourself even more valuable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments. I'll make my case in a non-confrontational positive manner and consider moving on in case that doesn't help enough.

</comment><comment><USER5> stand up for yourself. From what you've just said it looks like you've been treated unfairly at least. It's not worth to beat yourself up over it. What do you have to loose? There's a shitload of jobs there. You can be unappreciated/undermined at million other jobs just as well.

Doesn't mean you need to be arrogant or an idiot about it, simply speak your mind like you did in this post.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does not sound like a situation that values you or your career. I would strongly consider alternatives.</comment>


Everything you need to know about Bitcoin and blockchain right now - m-i-l http://uk.businessinsider.com/magister-advisors-report-on-bitcoin-and-blockchain-ecosystems-2015-12 <comment><AUTHOR> This is great for the industry. It's great to see people are seeing it less as a 'currency' and a technology with multiple uses. On the proviso it remains secure block chain technology will stay reputable which will give associated industries cred.</comment>


So you're telling me... - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@altonzheng/so-youre-telling-me-e0872537f9bc

<comment><USER2> And pictures of cats.</comment>


Chinese Producer Embeds Bitcoin Mining Chips in Household Appliances - <AUTHOR> https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinese-producer-embeds-bitcoin-mining-chips-in-household-appliances <comment><USER2> Essentially stealing people's power to fund their bitmining

<comment><USER3> In principle , they could offer a share of the revenue to the users.</comment></comment>


Visualizing up to 10 dimensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/18/visualizing-up-to-te.html

<comment><USER2> No, no, no. This blasted video (which just won't stay down) is _anti-_ knowledge. It leaves the viewer with the satisfied feeling that they understand something deep and profound, while actually leaving them _less_ informed about mathematics and physics simultaneously, in that it builds in resistance to the actually true and correct ideas. This has no value whatsoever, not even to attract people to the field, since the field it is espousing does not exist. In fact, it has less than no value. It is one of the most pernicious memes of this type I have ever seen.

Watch this video, if only so you know what sort of total bullshit you need to watch out for if you try to learn about _real_ physics or math. See that feeling it gives you, that feeling of understanding? Train yourself to run from it, because it's _wrong_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you post a link to some research that conclusively proves string theory being completely, totally wrong? If not, then let string theory stand as a hypothesis, but don't totally dismiss it (or dismiss it, you may or may not be wrong).

Also, if you think somebody is going to take a 10 minute web video as the answer to the universe (everybody knows it 42) and a substitute for an ungodly amount of science, research, and knowledge then you have mistaken.

<comment><USER2> The only thing that video has to do with string theory is that it contains the words "string theory". Go read "The Elegant Universe" instead. (Don't watch the PBS series, _read_ the book. It's not the be-all, end-all of string theory, but it's actual knowledge, not anti-knowledge.)

Criticizing this video is not criticizing string theory; this video would be vastly improved if it actually contained any sort of truth about string theory.

Being short is not an excuse for being grotesquely wrong. Not simplified, which has its place, but _wrong_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Aww, man. I am disappointed.

It completely ignores the important distinction between a temporal dimension and a spatial one; you might claim this little lie acceptable for pedagogical purposes, but to claim any isomorphism between this and the dimensions of string theory is balderdash.

</comment><comment><USER4> A mathematician and a physicist are sitting next to each-other in a lecture about 11-dimensional space. The physicist scrunches up his nose, tilts his head to one side, and generally appears confused, while the mathematician smiles and nods as the lecturer writes equations on a blackboard. At some point, the physicist turns to the mathematician and asks, "How can you possibly follow this? I can't visualize more than 3 or maybe 4 dimensions!" To which, the mathematician replies "Oh, it's easy. Just visualize n dimensions, and then set n = 11."

</comment><comment><USER5> FYI, the 2D people "Flatlanders" thought exercise the video is using comes from one of the first sort of sci-fi books "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott Abbott [1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland>

<comment><USER6> Before I read Flatland, I had never seen a book which combines Victorian social satire with mathematical pedagogy.

<comment><USER7> For that matter, have you seen a book after that combines Victorian social satire with mathematical pedagogy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> the mix of the time, space, and 'possibility' dimentions is completely arbitrary and is not explained at all. There might as well just be 10 _spacial_ dimensions, which this video doesn't help to visualize at all.

<comment><USER9> Well as I understood it the video highlighted that higher dimensions were about quantum implications (different possible universes) rather than anything _spacial_.

<comment><USER3> It is important to understand that the many-worlds interpretation makes no claims about _where_ those worlds exist. The video _proposes_ a heirarchical order to the universes --- a metaphysical filing cabinet. It labels them; it does not aid in their visualization.

[Note that all ten of string theory's dimensions would need to be _reproduced_ in each alternate universe --- not the other way around.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many times is this going to appear on the front page of social bookmarking sites?

Old.

<comment><USER11> Not just old; old and bad.

<comment><USER12> As science it is bad. As a narrative (and flash video) it is not too bad. Though it should be treated like fiction and be seen on the same level as Scientology cosmology.

<comment><USER11> I think the problem then is that everything around it presents it as science fact (to those who don't know better).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Direct link to flash video:

<http://revver.com/video/99898/imagining-the-tenth-dimension/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't string theory unscientific?

<comment><USER15> Yes and no. There are currently no known ways to verify it epxerimentally, but, on the other hand, the theory has recently used to explain high- temperature superconductivity: [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090706113702.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090706113702.htm)

<comment><USER12> And this video has nothing to do with string theory.

<comment><USER15> Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this sounds a bit like timecube</comment>


Europe Is Ready for Its Own Army (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/05/europe-is-ready-for-its-own-army/ <comment><USER3> I saw a lot of EU policy makers moving towards an "independence from USA" goal in the last 2-3 years.

The army is just one, but even in software some of the research projects in which part of my group is coordinating/participating with the EU are gonna receive an unbelievable amount of money in the next ten years to build a complete internet infrastructure independent from any us software and hardware. I'm talking about 10-50x more funding than usual until now, and it's gonna grow.

I cannot say a lot because most of the projects are tba and under a formal "keep it secret" clause right now, but one of the main ones related to eu cloud infrastructure is supposed to get around 100 billions euros in 5 years and involve around thirty big software companies and universities in eu.

It's really a good time to be a sw researcher here right now.

<comment><USER4> The 2016 US election has done major long-term damage to the US's position as a superpower.

Even if the next election "puts everything back to normal", this whole episode has made everyone question the wisdom of relying on the US for anything.

<comment><USER5> Being from a developing nation, we had been fed a certain narrative about the US. It was the epitome of all the virtues humanity could conceive. Circa 2010 the advent and prevalence of cheap smartphones and social media across the globe (including third world countries), turned a new leaf on access to information from the hitherto filtered mainstream media. This removed the veil on the actual social, political and economic life in the US (in the eyes of my contemporaries and I). The 2016 elections and the circus it has been since then, tossed away the veil altogether. In the last 4 years, with utmost respect, I do attest the US has lost something at the global stage: at least its charm and probably much more.

<comment><USER6> It's probably your age. Mass media, particularly in Europe, has been laughing at Americans'stupidity for generations, predicting all kinds of terrible things. They laughing off of people like Reagan, the Bushes, Sarah Palin, etc, had been going on for many decades before the 2016 election and your acquisition of the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> France will never let the Germans have any say over the Nuclear deterrent. France will never accept the idea that the working language is English or that French troops might have to take orders from a Romanian. The Brits clearly don't trust the French or German intelligence services enough to let them into the FIVEYES club. French, Brits and the Dutch are the only ones with veteran militaries. Nobody will be willing to give up veto power and nobody will accept anyone else having it anyway. Western European voters are never going to accept Johnny and Jean-Pierre dying to save Boris the Bulgarian Slav from Boris the Russian Slav. Europe is too internally racist, prideful, and Nationalistic in its current form for this to work.

Hope I'm wrong, but history is on my side with this

<comment><USER8>
      Europe is too internally racist, prideful, and Nationalistic in its current form for this to work.

As a european, I have to say, what a ridiculous statement.

<comment><USER7> What's your nationality?

<comment><USER9> Why is a label in my (or their) passport relevant to this discussion?

<comment><USER7> Because I suspect a Romanian or Bulgarian or Greek has witnessed dramatically more racism than a Dutch or Swedish person.

<comment><USER10> I'm Bulgarian living in the Netherlands and I literally never witnessed racism (first because i'm white duhh?) and 0 discrimination. I'm on the high end of education tho so yeah :)

<comment><USER11> I'm Romanian living in Romania and in physical conversations while not drunk, people are cautious. But drunk (e.g. Okto berfest) or under anonymity of Internet forums, the dark side of humanity did surface out. Of course it's a small percentage of people but racism and xenophobia is alive and well.

<comment><USER10> well yea but i usually joke about bulgarians stealing stuff or etc. if someone says it seriously then it's clear they're retarded so...no point in continuing. anyway, we are earning our glory brother, slowly but surely!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my opinion, this is only likely to happen if there is a concrete, immediate and easy to grasp threat to Europe, like Russian or Turkish troops crossing the border. An abstract threat is not enough to overcome the strong nationalistic tendencies in Europe. A historic example of this is the Mongol invasion in the 13th century [0]:

> Warring European princes realized they had to cooperate in the face of a > Mongol invasion, so local wars and conflicts were suspended in parts of > central Europe, only to be resumed after the Mongols had withdrawn.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe#Euro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe#European_tactics_against_Mongols)

<comment><USER13> Think of refugee factor. Inability for Europe to project enough power in regional conflicts in Middle East and Africa is now one of the biggest sources of internal political instability. AfD, Northern League and the likes are entering coalition governments and no one in mainstream political parties is happy about that. Everyone in Western Europe wants to solve the problem of refugees outside EU borders and this requires coherent foreign policy and military power to support it. So, yes, Europe is ready and if there will be any new major conflict in neighboring regions, it will accelerate the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Trump may have accelerated it, but I think this process has been going on for way longer. There have been some far-going experiments in cooperation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco- German_Brigade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_Brigade): operational since 1989, German troops stationed on French soil since 2009.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._German/Dutch_Corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._German/Dutch_Corps): 30,000 troops (mostly German, I would guess, but several time with a Dutch commander)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeNeSam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeNeSam): Belgian and Dutch navy cooperation since 1948, with a joint commanding officer since 1996 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Benelux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Benelux)). Chances are this, eventually, will lead to a merger of armies, navies, and air forces of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wouldn't it maybe make sense for the EU to possibly establish their own quasi representative democracy? Maybe each nation-state keeps it's current government. The head of the government becomes a 'chancellor' i.e. President among other Presidents.

Every 2 years the Chancellors elect from among themselves who will lead (be the deciding vote on ties and conflicts of opinion). This would still give some autonomy but also congruity and fix issues where one party does not agree by having a designated decision maker. But all policies enacted by the EU would need to be binding and accepted by all nations as law.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's time for the EU to either become a real institution or go away. Building an army and taking responsibility for its own defense is a step towards realism.

Merkel is in favor because she's tied her county's future to fossil fuels coming from Eastern Europe. She knows the US has little incentive to strong arm Russia into keeping the pipeline open.

I see little downside to the improvement of global affairs with a stronger EU. Competition and self-sufficient agents are always good.

<comment><USER17> > It's time for the EU to either become a real institution or go away.

It is a real institution.

> Building an army and taking responsibility for its own defense is a step > towards realism.

They are planning to create the army outside of the EU framework.

> She knows the US has little incentive to strong arm Russia into keeping the > pipeline open.

Man, you really are uniformed about everything EU related. The US is trying to stop pipelines from Russia to Germany. The US doesn't want germany being reliant on russian gas. The US wants germany reliant on american gas. We are even planning on sanctioning companies working on building pipelines from russia to western europe.

[https://apnews.com/a038942bb9f0f1af239c6a56a54ae408](https://apnews.com/a038942bb9f0f1af239c6a56a54ae408)

> I see little downside to the improvement of global affairs with a stronger > EU. Competition and self-sufficient agents are always good.

If you think competition and self-sufficieny are always good, shouldn't you be against the EU? The EU is the opposite of competition and self-sufficiency. It's 28 nations cooperating rather than competing and becoming dependent rather than self-sufficient.

<comment><USER18> > Man, you really are uniformed about everything EU related. The US is trying > to stop pipelines from Russia to Germany. The US doesn't want germany being > reliant on russian gas. The US wants germany reliant on american gas. We are > even planning on sanctioning companies working on building pipelines from > russia to western europe.

All that seems to support the grandparent's view?

> If you think competition and self-sufficieny are always good, shouldn't you > be against the EU? The EU is the opposite of competition and self- > sufficiency. It's 28 nations cooperating rather than competing and becoming > dependent rather than self-sufficient.

It's easy to imagine those 28 nations would otherwise become client states of the US or China. An integrated EU could give its members more independence at the global level, as paradoxical as that sounds at first glance.

<comment><USER16> The US wanting to shut the pipeline is pretty textbook "not incentived to keep it open" but people read what they want to read.

And yes, a unified Europe makes it like the American federation. Perfectly capable of infighting, but gets to swing a unified weight at the international level

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of the alliance was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay,_1st_Baron_Isma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay,_1st_Baron_Ismay)

NATO has outlived its purpose, and a new European defense arrangement is needed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't know if this will come about, but Brexit must have made it more likely; an EU army is the kind of thing euroskeptics would have hated.

</comment><comment><USER21> Most European nations are already members of NATO. Despite recent political speeches I see little interest in developing some kind of duplicate defense framework on top of the existing NATO structures.

</comment><comment><USER22> A perennial idea, going back to the aborted European Defence Community (EDC) of 1952. The EDC was supposed to be a military counterpart to the EEC (European Economic Community, which would go on to evolve into the EU). It was seen as necessary to rearm West Germany to defend against the threat of Soviet invasion, but the defeat of Nazi Germany was only seven years earlier, and many were afraid of what would happen if a rearmed West Germany experienced a resurgence of Nazism. The proposed solution was that West German troops would be part of a European army, the command of which would be dominated by France. The whole plan failed when the French Parliament refused to ratify the treaty, believing that it ceded too much sovereignty to an international body. In the end, it was decided to let the West Germans control their own army instead. The feared Nazi comeback never happened.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is an inherently silly article. It's premised heavily on Trump. He's around for a maximum of one more four year term. The only guarantee is that whatever President comes after Trump, will be a supporter of NATO and the former political approach to allies that has defined the post WW2 era. Trump is a one-off. There is no next Trump, the entire US political landscape top to bottom is overwhelmingly dominated by the anti-Trump types, there isn't a single other major political candidate (one that could actually win the Presidency) anywhere in the US that is like him. Most of Trump's biggest supporters in Congress are anti-Trump types when it comes to entities like NATO (Lindsey Graham for example is a McCain-like globalist hawk that loves the old systems, including NATO).

> A world where an American president declares NATO, the cornerstone of > American defense policy since World War II, obsolete.

Trump has zero interest in eliminating NATO or reducing it. It's just another case of Trumpian bluster. Nine times out of ten it's empty bluster, as everyone has noticed at this point. The article is taking the obvious - Trump's belligerent angling & needling approach to negotiation - <USER2> pretending it means something (Trump wants to do away with NATO) other than what it obviously does. The article author realizes that's incorrect and uses it anyway out of convenience to support the silly premise they're floating.

Back in reality Europe can't afford its current military expenditures (and neither can the US of course), and there is no scenario where an EU army of any consequential scale comes into existence. What it's going to almost solely consistent of, is coordinated industry (arms manufacture, research and compatibility), not an actual EU army.

<comment><USER24> I'd like to believe that. I'd like to believe this is a blip. But you're forgetting that the American people, about half, voted for him, and about half still want him, even after all he is doing.

> Trump has zero interest in eliminating NATO or reducing it. It's just > another case of Trumpian bluster.

It could be, but he has said it. And his people repeat it. It's a part of the mindset of a large percentage of Americans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Prediction: they'll run the numbers, scratch their heads, and begrudgingly start paying 2% of their GDP to NATO like they signed up to do. Shit's expensive, and Europeans are taxed through the nose as it is.

<comment><USER26> Nobody's paying 2% of their GDP "to NATO," not the US, not anybody else. NATO's entire budget is less than €2.4 billion. The agreement is for NATO member nations to aim to move toward spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024. So spending money on a EU-wide army would be one method of attaining that goal.

<comment><USER27> "The United States has met the target, and dedicated 3.36 percent of GDP (around $664 billion, according to NATO figures) to military spending in 2016." [1]

1\. [https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick- goodenough/us-p...](https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick- goodenough/us-pays-2214-nato-budget-germany-1465-13-allies-pay-below-1)

<comment><USER26> I didn't state otherwise. In fact,the US has spent over 3% of its GDP on defense for over 15 years. However, only a portion of that is spent in Europe. And a tiny fraction of that is spent on NATO. Let's not conflate national defense budgets with the NATO budget with the overall cost of the defense of Europe. They're all totally different things.

<comment><USER25> If US were to withdraw from NATO, a significant chunk of this money would have to come out of Europeans' taxes. As a US taxpayer paying six figure taxes, I'm completely in favor of reducing the part of my tax that does not go towards protecting the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why not dismantle the armies instead?

<comment><USER29> Prisoner's dilemma. Dismantling the armies only works if you get all countries in the world to do it at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Seems superficially similar to roam research, which has been good to me so far.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is going to completely shatter the US' political power in the region while simultaneously doing absolutely nothing for Europe's real defense. Europeans throw violent protests if they have one less vacation day a year; there's no way they would tolerate giving up 15% of their taxes, i.e., 15% of their entitlements, to build and maintain a real military force capable of taking on the likes of Russia.

<comment><USER16> The US has an entire Western hemisphere it can and should be doing more to unify and improve.

Like Trump said in 2016, it's time to turn our resources back home. Rebuild our own infrastructure, social programs, etc.

<comment><USER32> >Like Trump said in 2016, it's time to turn our resources back home. Rebuild our own infrastructure, social programs, etc.

Like a lot of Trump's rhetoric, this sounds nice, but the proof is in the pudding. I don't think we were spending infrastructure and social welfare resources on our military to begin with, so not doing so doesn't necessarily free up resources. The US is fully capable of doing all of these things, it's not short on resources.

Also, it's now 2020, and Trump is toying with war in Iran, moving new troops into Iraq, increasing military expenditure by billions of dollars, repealing and cutting funding for social programs and AFAIK not actually rebuilding our infrastructure at all in any significant way.

<comment><USER33> Not even one wall...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you pair programmed? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious about experiences people have had doing 100% pair programming. What was awesome and what was horrible? It's easy to find articles on the extremes of pair programming, but what about the day-to-day? <comment><USER2> Well think about it -- this can only come down to three factors:

1\. How good the other party is when it comes to collaboration. Some coders work well with others, and some are lone wolfs.

2\. If you have complimentary strengths: One programmer is strong at X and your string at Y.

3\. The energy from both programmers makes each party proactive and thus avoid procrastination.

I also think there are the larger questions of if you're using a spec, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you advertise online? (research project questions) - <AUTHOR>

I am doing a research project for my advanced marketing class.  I would greatly appreciate anyone who would take the time to answer these questions for me.  Answering each and every question is clearly not mandatory, anything you feel comfortable providing would be very helpful.
A little background about me: I have been building software since 1994, and web software since 1998, I have a degree in Computer Science, currently work as a development team lead at a big company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of a mega company.  I ran my own software company for several years but made some big mistakes in business partners and terms raising venture money.  I am 16 months into a 21 month executive MBA program, and am planning to go back out on my own in the near future.  For my advanced marketing class I am doing some research on how people make decisions about spending money for online marketing.  If you have any experience in this area and wouldn't mind answering some of the questions below I would be deeply grateful.  If you are uncomfortable posting the reply here you can send it to the e-mail listed for my account or to email@example.com (spamgourmet e-mail)
A couple of quick items: I am not looking for experts necessarily, if you sell something online and you do any type of advertising, I would love to hear from you.
I am not selling anything, nor am I interesting in buying anything, this is really just a research project for my marketing class.
I thought the responses to this survey would be of interest to other members of HN so I thought I would post these here.  If people are interested, I will post the results of the interview responses I receive.
Questions:
Please give a brief background of you and your experience advertising online
What is the nature of the business you perform online? (site url(s), products you sell, how long etc?)
Where do you currently advertise online? (e.g. google adwords, yahoo, bing, facebook, double click etc)
What do you like most about these services?
What do you like least about these services?
Why did you choose them?
How do you measure overall success with your online advertising?
In terms of the services listed above, which ones are the most effective?
Is there anything you would change or improve?
How do you determine if a specific advertisement was effective?
What metrics are most important to you with this?
Are there any metrics that you would like to see or like to see more effective?
How do you determine how much to spend on each channel (website, keywords)? <comment><USER2> What is the nature of the business you perform online? (site url(s), products you sell, how long etc?)

<http://www.mandalorian.com/> \- We do information security stuff. Penetration testing and Incident response mostly, we don't sell directly online, but we've been around for about 5 years.

Where do you currently advertise online? (e.g. google adwords, yahoo, bing, facebook, double click etc)

Currently, we have one adwords campaign running for a particular subset of UK local government compliance testing. In the past we've run a general adwords campaign, with mixed results, and we've tested ads on other networks such as facebook and chikita.

What do you like most about these services?

The adwords analytics is really good. In the past our campaigns were very general and not tightly focused. At the moment we're testing a highly focused online campaign with offline marketing followup. The results are essentially similar, with the exception that it's costing us about an order of magnitude less, so it becomes more realistic to continue.

What do you like least about these services?

Facebook and Reddit ads don't provide decent analytics (at least for us compared to google). We also found that Facebook and Reddit users, whilst amongst our clientele aren't actually interested in what we're selling.

Why did you choose them?

Facebook, Reddit and Chitika were experiments. Chitika wasn't too bad but didn't really offer anything over Google. We asked our target markets what search engines they use, and all of the people we asked said that they use Google. That told us that Google was the right way to reach them.

How do you measure overall success with your online advertising?

Goal conversions in adwords. We pay for the clicks (as the impression rate is fairly low - it's long tail terms and we're not highly ranked organically) and will do so until we're happy with organic ranking, but we track goal conversions (lead generation). We've spent about £50 so far with a total of 3 leads worth around £2,500 - £7,000 each. The campaign's been running for a few weeks.

In terms of the services listed above, which ones are the most effective?

Adwords, by a country mile.

Is there anything you would change or improve? Google's quality ranking system is a bit off. Having to change your content to improve your quality rating for target keywords seems less about providing useful content and more about gaming the system. People searching for the keywords we want to list for have a reasonable click through rate, but because we don't keyword stuff Google doesn't want our ad listed for certain things.

How do you determine if a specific advertisement was effective?

I check Google analytics once a week for the current campaign, sometimes twice. I usually sit down and go through that and adwords with someone from our sales team or a Director.

What metrics are most important to you with this? Goal conversions, CTR, Location and Impressions, in that order.

Are there any metrics that you would like to see or like to see more effective? For adwords, there's nothing that I think we'd use. There's a whole load of analytics stuff we don't use at all.

How do you determine how much to spend on each channel (website, keywords)? If we organically rank in the top 10, we don't pay much for the keyword. If we're in the top 4 then we don't advertise. If we don't rank on the first page we'll pay for a top 3 ad listing for specific keywords that have led to fulfilled goals. If we hit the goal a lot we'd pay more. If we don't, then we won't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much the response. I am very appreciative.</comment></comment>