Square redesign of the Coke bottle - <AUTHOR> http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/andrew_kims_square_coke_bottle_design_16266.asp

<comment><USER2> _"my first thought was that the strength needed for stackability wouldn't jive with a crushable bottle"_

The author of the article should try to crash a closed bottle... He would both learn physics and understand why his claim is wrong.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, his sentence doesn't jive. The author obviously doesn't realise that a 371ml coke bottle contains 1.4 litres of carbon dioxide and a square bottle would likely require 4-times the plastic to remain in a square enough shape that it wouldn't affect packaging shape.

I don't buy that this bottle would be eco-friendly in the short or long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In terms of eco-friendliness, the current bottles are better. Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so these waste more plastic. The supposed savings in shipping costs are negligible -- the marginal fuel cost of shipping bottled beverages depends much more on weight than volume.

<comment><USER5> _Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so these waste more plastic._

That's only true if the bottle is fully cylindrical, whereas most soda bottles have the narrower top and further narrowing along the body.

 _the marginal fuel cost of shipping bottled beverages depends much more on weight than volume._

Also only true if you don't take into account the overhead of the shipping mechanism. If you're trucking these across the USA, then reducing volume by half means you need half as many trucks and a comparable savings in fuel.

<comment><USER6> Take a closer look at a plastic bottle. The goal is to enclose the largest amount of soft drink with the smallest amount of plastic meeting specifications such as having a drinkable top, resisting falls from a certain height while filled, and punctures of a certain strength. As a result the strength of the plastic varies greatly over the surface of the bottle (any areas that are likely to hit hard in an impact are much stronger) and the optimal design is far more complex than people realize.

Coca-Cola spent millions of dollars on optimizing this in the 90s. I would not care to bet that on casual inspection you've noticed something obvious that they missed.

<comment><USER7> I worked for Coca-Cola on the container floor in my teens. It's insane how much small point pressure a plastic bottle can take. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ScJUCqj98>

We had fun throwing 2L bottles on the floor. If they struck the floor smack on the bottom of the bottle they would bounce back up. The impact increases the pressure inside the bottle. We'd do this a couple of times, then the last drop would be top down, hopefully breaking the cap launching a coke powered rocket to the roof! That's the quickest way to break the bottle without using tools I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want the phrase "carbon footprint" to die a horrible death. Please. soon.

Come on though, this isn't hacker news. It's a square bottle - eg a carton. Which doesn't make any sense for a bottle of drink. Uncomfortable to hold, it looks idiotic. It's a non starter.

Also by making the bottle square, you're actually using more bottle material than you need to - cylinder is the most efficient shape to hold contents. Way to waste plastic...

I would also guess that manufacturing a square bottle is far harder and takes more effort/power/"carbon" than manufacturing a round one.

<comment><USER9> For once in my life, I agree with you 100%. "carbon footprint" my ass.

Glass bottles had a lower carbon footprint because you could wash them out and they were as good as new. Plastic in a landfill is plastic in a landfill. Forever.

<comment><USER10> To strengthen your argument, you need to provide a machine that will wash and refill a coke bottle. Otherwise you are simply sending some glass to the landfill (lazy customers) and some to recycling.

<comment><USER11> The very machine you mention can be found... In the past! Soft drinks, like milk and juice bottles, used to be reused and refilled. I guess it was cheaper to fire all deliverymen and not run refilling machines when bottles could be made out of thin, throwaway plastic instead.

Most soft drink bottles still say "non-refillable" on them, even though no refilling services exist, even if you wanted to.

<comment><USER10> I was actually thinking of a machine where you insert your bottle and a screen lowers. It then does a quick scan to confirm it is a bottle of the correct dimensions and weight. It lowers a rod into the bottle and steam-sterilises it. It bakes the outside of the bottle so the bottle reaches >100 degrees for several seconds.

It then chills the bottle. It could do this by pumping refrigerated water into the bottle and then extracting it again.

Finally, it rolls a label onto the outside of the bottle and fills it with a refreshing beverage. Optionally, it could then seal the bottle.

This machine is then installed like a vending machine, but with far greater capacity (it could mix drinks with filtered water on site) and lower cost.

<comment><USER12> You could just return an empty bottle every time you buy a new one (or pay a deposit if you don't have one). Oh wait, that already exists (doesn't sound as cool, though).

<comment><USER10> That requires the infrastructure, storage and carbon to transport the bottles somewhere else to be refilled. In the end you still end up storing filled bottles on site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't carbonated drinks need to be pressurized? wouldn't a square design get bloated? ie, you don't see square pressure vessels very often, I think for good reason.

<comment><USER14> You'd probably need to use a bit more plastic to make it as structurally strong. The question then is whether the need for less shipping/storage space makes up for that.

<comment><USER15> It doesn't.

You would need a LOT of plastic.

There is a reason almost all drink containers are square, except for pressurized ones which are universally round.

It's pretty much impossible for it to be actually square. It would need to bulge either in or out.

Take a look at the bottom of a pressurized bottle, and notice it's not square either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ain't gonna happen. The shape of the Coke bottle is one of their key recognisable brands - to the point where they've sued people over it.

Would probably have been better to target a different soft drink, like Pepsi, Sprite, Seven Up, or Fanta, and go from there.

<comment><USER17> What about all the generic containers for coke, such as the 12 oz can or the 2 liter bottle? They're the same as most of the other mainstream soft drinks, at least in the USA.

<comment><USER18> They've started making 2 liter bottles in that same shape, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lots to love about this design, but it does have two significant flaws that could likely easily be fixed with a single change.

the problems are as swombat and Zev pointed out

1) missing cokes iconic shape

2) uncomfortable to hold square bottles.

So why not give the bottle some of that iconic shape in the middle? Go from square to a round with a wave through it?

I'm sure that geometrically this isn't a huge problem with modern manufacturing techniques.

I'm unsure how difficult it would be to get a shape like that to crush easily, but maybe it's possible.

I suspect the offset of the cap may cause problems with packability, as it seems the bottles need to be stacked in a proper order.

<comment><USER20> > I'm sure that geometrically this isn't a huge problem with modern > manufacturing techniques.

You're correct - my dad has supplied coke plants before. Boke bottles start out thick and test-tube shaped, with the threads on top and a stright tubular body. They are blown up into final proportions later.

<comment><USER21> The test-tube shaped stage is a 'preform'.

The shape might not be a huge problem, but it might not be trivial either. To blow the preform into the bottle's final shape, it is reheated, and then air is forced into the preform, causing it to expand to fill the mold containing it. The issue you would see with a bottle like this is that when the preform is reheated, the plastic in the wall tends to flow depending on the final shape.

When you have sharp corners, like those displayed, it is difficult to maintain an even wall thickness on the final bottle. So you either have to use more plastic than you want to ensure a minimum wall thickness is kept, or risk having thin spots, which hurts the structural integrity of the bottle.

There is a reason that you don't see many square bottles. The ones you do see, like Fiji, are really thick to account for this. You can get away with thick bottles when you are charging $4 for a bottle of water. Less so when charging a quarter that price for soda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does it (including transportation cost) actually use less (material, energy) or generate less carbon than the aluminum can? Aluminum cans have become very thin.

How many times can it be recycled? Can it be recycled into something useful?

</comment><comment><USER23> 100 zillion car cup holders would be useless. You could argue they are useless now I guess since they never seem to hold any thing I put in them now though.

<comment><USER24> What is it with Americans and cup holders? :)

<comment><USER25> Have you ever tried to drive while wearing a CamelBack?

<comment><USER26> I have, actually. It's more comfortable if you wear it on your chest instead of your back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks pretty awesome, but I would think it would feel weird holding due to the edges. I would make the middle part of it a bit rounder for better grip and hold.

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only person annoyed by random design students plastering well-known logos all over their projects? Dunno why, but it bugs me.

<comment><USER11> If the project is an industrial design project, or a branding related project, using an existing identity and it's associated set of rules gives a project structure. The request to use a known brand is usually part of the assignment from the teacher.

This is like having a programming student code a Hangman game. The point of that, what you expect your student to get out of it, is totally different than an assignment where you say "design and program any game."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how irritating it would be to actually _use_ that bottle to drink out of.

One of the reasons that I tend to avoid Fiji water is because of the shape of the bottle (although, the environmental impact of the bottle and high price per bottle come ahead of the shape).

</comment><comment><USER29> Having your product look like a can of oil probably isn't a desirable feature, either.

<comment><USER30> It looks like a perfume bottle to me.

<comment><USER31> Tasty...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> would it still roll properly down the chutes of vending machines?

<comment><USER27> I don't think that would be a problem. At school we have a vending machine that uses like a little "bucket" lack of a better term. The bucket slides up to the drink you choose, then the drink slides into the bucket upright and comes out through an opening. This machine serves glass bottles like Sobe and Starbucks which wouldn't be good to roll down the chutes as they could break. So I am sure this vending machine I'm referring can be use to serve this squared bottle design.

<comment><USER10> The machines with a rising catcher or conveyor tend to sell more drinks because people will buy one to see it go. (According a friend who is a vending machine operator)

<comment><USER33> There are two at our mall, both of which were jammed (the arms were clogged with fallen-over drinks) when I discovered them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Props Andrew for taking an interesting take on an iconic design. The "squared" shape would def. be an issue with carbonated beverages ... but could work well with non-carbonated ones (ie. Dasani). I'd also take a look at what the folks at <http://boxedwaterisbetter.com> are doing with the carton approach. Best.

<comment><USER24> Not exactly a new idea: [http://www.otto- office.com/OODE/b2b/deu/mediadatacat/art/600...](http://www.otto- office.com/OODE/b2b/deu/mediadatacat/art/600/OODE_ART_74/OODE_ART_74010___00.jpg)

Oh, and while boxed water may be better, water from the faucet is definitely best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Whatever happened to glass bottles? Why exactly did we stop using them? In what way are disposable plastic bottles better? Reusable plastic bottles? Are there weight issues? Is manufacturing them too expensive? They are pretty sturdy, after all, and I cannot imagine that the reusable plastic bottles we have here in Germany can be reused as often as glass bottles.

</comment><comment><USER35> Cool, btw, I wonder what was the point of the latest change to the coke (and not only) can redesign. Now the diameter is smaller but the can is higher. Just marketing to make it slim? (while it will make you fat...).

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's for shipping efficiency, too. They can fit more cans per case.

<comment><USER35> thanks interesting, this is what I used to think too but they are using more aluminum with the new design, and that looked strange without taking into account the marketing stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I posted yankodesign post about it which has some good comments.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1224392>

</comment><comment><USER37> Will it cost the same but hold less volume of the delicious syrup?

</comment><comment><USER38> why is everyone hating on this kid? this is a _freshman_ design student that put something on the web he thought was interesting. nobody should be seriously taking this as an effort to replace your beloved coke bottle!

</comment><comment><USER39> <rant>

Can we please, please, please stop trying to redesign everything under the sun, especially in the name of eco-friendliness or usability or some other such thing?

That is not to say that designs and decisions and concepts should not be questioned, but that they should not be questioned for questioning's sake. A lot of thought, time and effort goes into the design of recognizable brands and widely used things. Just because they are designed by behemoths does not necessarily mean that they don't know what they are doing. On the contrary I would think they have put a lot of thought into it and the designs work quite well given the constraints.

So if you are going to challenge it, please have something substantial that operates in the constraints that apply to the product, not just something that looks pretty.

</rant>

<comment><USER40> I say the opposite, lets redesign everything under the sun. If it works, we'll use it. If it doesn't, we won't.

Why do people expect simple projects presented on a blog to have all the answers? Is it not possible to just take it on face value and entertain the idea?</comment></comment>


FBI's Comey Concedes Mistake Was Made Over iPhone in San Bernardino Case - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbis-comey-concedes-mistake-was-made-over-iphone-in-terror-case-1456862127 <comment><USER2> "During his testimony today, Comey dismissed the notion that Apple's assistance in the San Bernardino case would impact other phones, reiterating his belief that any code Apple created to help in this case would only work on Farook's phone."

And that belief is based on what exactly?

Apple has being saying the opposite. Apple doesn't know it's own code? FBI knows it better.

<comment><USER3> It's true, but very narrow, I think. FBI means that Apple could sign the update to only work on that phone. Apple means that once the compromised version of the OS is built, the only thing stopping it from being widespread is changing the device id check code to other phones or taking it out entirely.

<comment><USER4> Right. If you look at it from a security point of view, once the compromised OS is created you've created a much more valuable and vulnerable target for hacking.

Let's say that some attacker wants to create a compromised OS and install it on a certain device.

If apple never creates the compromised OS, they would need to hack into apple, get all of the source code necessary to build iOS, figure out how to build it, figure out how to modify it in the desired ways, how to get it installed on a phone, steal the crypto keys necessary to do the signing, and sign the bad build.

If apple has created the compromised OS, they would just need to hack into apple and get the compromised OS build, steal the crypto keys, and sign it.

The first scenario is a large-scale software engineering project. Anyone that's been given a large source dump will tell you that it's horrible and takes forever to do anything, and iOS is going to be absolutely huge and tricky. You'd need a large, highly trained team of security/OS devs, which is hard to come by and would be extremely expensive.

The second scenario could conceivably be done by a single hacker, if they can find vulnerabilities in apple's security.

<comment><USER5> Except digital signing makes the compromised OS totally and utterly useless for other phones. Changing the OS would cause the signature check to fail.

And if you can get around the digital signage, you don't need the compromised OS.

Conway's technical interpretation of the Apple deliverables is right. There's a legal precedent which could cause reuse (and is rightly matter for debate/utter refusal of the FBI position), but if you just debate the technical merits Apple has been very misleading about the consequences.

<comment><USER6> For this one case you're right because the FBI will allow Apple to lock the special OS build to this device's ID. The problem is if the FBI can force Apple to create a special build to order, with features specified by the FBI, they can also be ordered by the FBI to create an OS build that isn't locked to one device. And if the FBI can make them do this, so can any law enforcement or government agency capable of finding an amenable judge, such as say the CIA, the DEA, the NSA, or any random public prosecutor. THAT is the problem.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention that once this is done in the US, what is to prevent other governments in countries where Apple does business to compel Apple to do the same?

China (or Russia or Germany or whoever) could force Apple to backdoor phones used by CIA informants in that country.

<comment><USER8> And the fact that who is to assure that Apple doesn't leave one or multiple bugs around that makes the compromised OS not so tied to a single device as they meant it to be?

It's a ticking bomb, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I sat through the YouTube presentation (which is available at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw) if you have four hours to spare). In general the discussions were quite well presented, apart from a couple of rabid questioners suggesting that public security trumped any one individuals' right to personal security.

I've written up a summary of the hearings at InfoQ here: [http://www.infoq.com/news/2016/03/apple-fbi- congress](http://www.infoq.com/news/2016/03/apple-fbi-congress)

The general responses from Apple were that it wouldn't be possible to write this just for one phone; that once the FBiOS was available for one it would be available for any phone. Dr Landon also highlighted the fact that most people now use their phones as part of a two-factor authentication, and that the easiest way to break into a system (such as the IRS leak) is to compromise login credentials. The fear is, therefore, that once pandora's box is opened that the operating system would be installable on any device and thus potentially give access to any state actor to any account simply through device compromise.

The entire hearing was very well laid out, though in a few cases Apple's witnesses weren't quite as fluid as the FBI's.

The congress members have five days to ask additional questions, after which presumably a report will be made. More information is available at the House page here:

[http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2016/3/the- encryption-t...](http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2016/3/the-encryption- tightrope-balancing-americans-security-and-privacy)

<comment><USER10> It's fascinating to me how many laypeople are saying "public security is important, therefore we should unlock the phone" while many technologists are saying "public security is important, therefore we should _absolutely not_ unlock the phone".

<comment><USER11> >We've arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?

-Carl Sagan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "If I didn't do that, I ought to be fired, honestly,"

There is a serious problem here. If you ask me any government official who forces a backdoor down the throat of a private company ought to be fired, yet he believes he should be fired if he DOESN'T do it.

There's a very big divide happening right now in the US. This is going to be a rough time.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. The FBI's job should be to pursue any and all opportunities at gathering evidence for its cases, within the bounds of the law. It is the job of the courts to sketch out those boundaries by interpretation and precedent. If everything is working properly, the courts will decide that the All Writs Act does not grant the Government this power. Then this matter will be settled and the FBI will have to find some other avenue.

Looking at it from the other angle, I think it's a bad precedent if the FBI were to refrain from pursuing an avenue which it believes it may have legal standing to pursue. At that point, it runs the risk of a downward spiral of second-guessing and apprehension.

<comment><USER14> Consider the Geneva Convention. It's _every_ combatants' obligation to see that the Convention's requirements are upheld. Disobeying direct orders to the contrary is a requirement.

This ... creates certain elements of friction and pressure.

<comment><USER15> In no world can the FBI be viewed as 'combatants.' They're a civilian law enforcement agency, and the Geneva convention definitely _does not_ apply to them. Ethically, yes, they shouldn't be doing this, but we can't pretend rules of war apply to a civilian agency with 0 role in combat.

<comment><USER16> The parent comment was not making that comparison. They were not trying to imply that the FBI is a combatant on a battlefield. It was meant to be an example of friction caused by multi-directional pressure (in the FBI's case, to strictly obey the law and yet to be aggressive in solving crimes by any means within the law).

<comment><USER15> I guess I'm confused then, because that's precisely what the FBI is doing, and that's exactly what the grandparent comment is doing. The FBI didn't try to side-step the courts, it brought it to them directly and is indeed strictly following the law.

<comment><USER12> > it brought it to them directly and is indeed strictly following the law

If this is your definition of "strictly following the law" imagine yourself in a scenario where the FBI brings a lawsuit against you: risk going to court, losing, and going to jail, or hiring a lawyer and fighting something with dubious constitution grounding.

There are so many different ways to lose when the FBI plays this game against private companies or individual. They sue you because they want to put you in jail, not clarify the law.

If you're a strongly opinionated CEO of a company with a war chest you fight it and at the very least stay out of jail. If you're the CEO of a small ISP/web hosting company you suck it up, do what they say, and follow the gag order.

<comment><USER15> What would you propose then? Obviously someone needs to fight the law enforcement agents making these requests; we can't just tell the FBI "you just have to follow the law exactly as it's written, you can't challenge anything" because that would _severely_ tie its wrists.

I do agree it's not quite fair to put defense costs on the company/individual that needs to fight it, but the alternative I can think of is a public defender type system that I don't think many people would be happy with for corporations.

<comment><USER17> > _" you just have to follow the law exactly as it's written, you can't > challenge anything"_

Isn't that what we expect from all people and institutions? moreover, we expect the people to be in control of "challenges" to the laws, and the laws themselves. Much of what's wrong with government comes from government creating self-serving laws.

<comment><USER15> Laws are rigid and don't keep up with the changing times. You might argue that that's the government's fault for not passing new laws, and that's a fair point. However, the judicial has set a precedent over the past 200 years or so of interpreting laws to fit with changing circumstances. Given that's the case, it's hard to blame the FBI for taking advantage of that.

The laws are what the courts interpret them to be; no more and no less. Like it or not, strict interpretation is a fantasy and has been since the late 1700s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > During his testimony today, Comey dismissed the notion that Apple's > assistance in the San Bernardino case would impact other phones, reiterating > his belief that any code Apple created to help in this case would only work > on Farook's phone.

I hate this kind of willful ignorance. That update, if properly signed, will work on similar phones. The software is distinct from the signing and it's the software that Apple doesn't want to create.

Or maybe Comey believes that every time his phone is updated, an engineer in Cupertino lovingly arranged the bits for him.

<comment><USER19> Artisanal bit wrangling. As a service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance sums up the DOJ's position quite succinctly. Emphasis added

> "Apple has created a technology which is default disk encryption. It didn't > exist before. It exists now. Apple is now claiming a right of privacy about > a technology that it just created. _That right of privacy didn 't exist > before Apple created the technology._" [1]

Wrong. The first and fourth amendments grant rights to privacy. The exact transcripts of what we say in the privacy of our homes, prior to a warranted wiretap or without witness testimony, are not the subject of law enforcement's investigation. Our entire history of digital communications should not be open for government surveillance. It would be overreach to try to implement, and anyway it is impossible to guarantee without destroying the US tech industry and turning us into a big brother state.

[1] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=4h46m22s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=4h46m22s)

<comment><USER21> The fourth amendment specifically requires a warrant to violate someone's privacy. In all of the cases at hand a warrant has been issued.

There really isn't a fourth amendment issue.

<comment><USER20> You're right, and thanks for correcting me.

I do still disagree with the District Attorney's statement. We can write something on a piece of paper and burn it, or think something in our heads, and keep it private. That this is now possible with digital communications via encryption is not a new right, it is simply a new means to protect that right. Further, Apple didn't invent encryption, and this statement further shows how little the DOJ understands about technology.

<comment><USER22> Vance seems to be confusing the right to privacy with the ability to actually enforce it. Apparently, a "right" to privacy is all well and good, as long it can be casually violated and a warrant served later. As soon as the mechanism protecting your privacy has real teeth, then it's a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Oh wait, our attempt create a backdoor to every private citizen's iPhone, using a single terrorism case as a trojan horse, has been discovered? Oops sorry but we still need those backdoors."

It also amazes me he thought it was a helpful metaphor to say that the FBI doesn't want a backdoor, just for Apple to take the "vicious guard dog away" and "let us pick the lock." I think every American would prefer having a guard dog protecting their personal property and data than just let these liars pick the lock.

<comment><USER24> The vicious guard dog metaphor is very poor, most likely planned to intentionally confuse non-technical people.

The reality is that he is asking Apple to weaken the front-door to the point where an average attacker can open it with a paper clip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Comey also said,

 _They [Apple] sell phones, they don 't sell civil liberties, they don't sell public safety, that's our business to worry about._ [1]

He thinks public safety is entirely his domain and private companies cannot help people keep themselves safe. That's as bad as "self-made" business owners who cannot see that roads and infrastructure helped make their businesses successful and cry socialism whenever taxes are levied.

[1] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h16m18s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h16m18s)

<comment><USER11> As technology has become more and more pervasive in society the role of security, at least in the preventative sense, has fallen more and more on the people who make the technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know what happens if Apple loses engineers over this? Not that it's likely, but I could see someone saying "I came here to build secure systems, not break them". Does the government bear costs to replace or retrain? If enough quit, can the government compel them to stay to complete the task?

<comment><USER25> This is an excellent question. Congressman Darrel Issa had some great questions about this during today's hearing. Basically he hinted at the fact that how far can the government go to ensure they did their job correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "We made a mistake, but you must still help us!"

You know, the sad part about this (paraphrased) quote is that it'll probably be used as justification by the California court system to rule on this case specifically rather than on the circumstance more broadly. I wonder if that's Comey's strategy in admitting the error.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Non paywalled:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjM3KGNtqDLAhXBFT4KHYnGDGoQqQIIHjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Ffbis- comey-concedes-mistake-was-made-over-iphone-in-terror- case-1456862127&usg=AFQjCNFGornE8LJjU8ejqSqETEo3o4FwfQ&cad=rja)

<comment><USER27> Is there some reason this doesn't work for me?

<comment><USER28> Works for me. The "article" is super short anyway. The walled part barely adds anything

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The Congressional hearing is happening now: [http://www.c-span.org/networks/?channel=c-span-3](http://www.c-span.org/networks/?channel=c-span-3)

</comment><comment><USER30> Lots of interesting stuff in this session.

"We are a rule-of-law country. The FBI is not cracking into your phone or listening to your communications except under the rule of law," says Comey (1:37). I suppose that's the NSA's job...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw)

</comment><comment><USER31> TL;DR: "Yadda yadda terrorists something something guns kill people blah blah blah think of the children yadda AMERICA."

Truly, I'm getting weary of all the nearly-identical news of Uncle Sam's assault on digital privacy. If the strategy is to desensitize and wear down the US populace, it's working.

</comment><comment><USER32> This seems a bit more complicated than simply saying they made a mistake, though. If they didn't do this, someone who knew the password could have wiped the backups or changed other info, and then everyone would be yelling at the FBI for not having the employer change the password. So it's a choice between potentially leaving the device/backups open to tampering, and whatever the hell the situation is now.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm putting on my pragmatism hat.

I can't understand why Apple are fighting this. They're essentially forcing the government into resorting to legal mechanisms that will have longer term impacts.

It's pretty clear to nearly everyone that this phone belonged to someone who committed a terrorist attack. The data on it may prove useful in preventing future attacks. If Apple were being cooperative, they could create the mechanism to get the data off the phone, have the FBI hand over the phone so they could do that for them, (optionally) delete that version of the OS if there's a problem with it even existing, and no legal precedent would be set. The question of whether the FBI should be able to compel them wouldn't arise, because they would have been cooperating off their own accord.

If the FBI asks them to do this to the iPhone of someone who is more likely to be innocent, perhaps then this debate should be had. For now, they have the means, can do it without setting a precedent, have a pretty good reason to do it, and can do it in isolation. They should just do it, in my opinion.

<comment><USER34> I don't think the FBI can or will hand over the phone, that would compromise their entire investigation.

Besides, once the software exists and is signed by Apple, it's very hard to prove that all copies have been deleted.

<comment><USER33> It's difficult to imagine this recovery operation could happen if Apple never get access to the phone. Perhaps they could have representatives from both Apple & FBI present.

Proving all copies are gone isn't possible; you can't prove non-existence. Ensuring extreme unlikelihood seems relatively straightforward, though. Make fewer copies, trusted personnel only, isolate the development to a particular location with no network access, etc. Naturally there'll be a risk that a copy survives, just as there's a risk that a contingent of rogue Apple employees are already working on it for the FBI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like all of this talking about a "hard drive" that transports the tool around is a little specious—aren't Apples firmware updates signed? And the update itself would be IMEI locked?

The issue here isn't the reusability of the _technology_ —the issue is the reusability of the legal precedent. And this is certainly a very scary precedent to set!

<comment> X-Istence Apples updates are signed, but they are not locked to a particular IMEI.

<comment><USER35> Right, but the FBI has indicated that they would like this particular one to be, to add some amount of code that would render it non-functional when put on another device. (and certainly from a security perspective that would be the correct choice to make)

<comment><USER36> "Comey told a congressional panel on Tuesday that a final court ruling forcing Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to give the FBI data from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters would be "potentially precedential" in other cases where the agency might request similar cooperation from technology companies."

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption- congress-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-congress- idUSKCN0W33G7)

"Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance testified in support of the FBI on Tuesday, arguing that default device encryption "severely harms" criminal prosecutions at the state level, including in cases in his district involving at least 175 iPhones."

<comment><USER35> Exactly—this _completely_ agrees with my top level comment. Its not the technology we should be worrying about (although of course apple should be closing the vulnerability that allows the FBI to compel them to help decrypt this phone) but the more important—and scary—thing we should be worrying about here is the legal precedent that this case sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> One important fact(1) i haven't heard in the entire hearing:

(2)The FBI wants 3 things: disable 'erase after 10', disable delay between attempts, create possibility to enter PINs programmatically so they can be brute forced.

(1) If this would be created, criminals/terrorist could easily defeat this by (instead of 6 digits) enabling alphanumeric passwords and creating strong passwords that cannot be brute forced (which isn't even a usability problem since you can easily unlock your iPhone with your fingerpint most of the time.)

So the end result of (2): security is lowered for 99% of all people (innocent) and criminals/terrorist (1%) can still easily avoid being caught by this measure.

</comment><comment><USER38> If anyone watched the entire hearing today, Personally I was astounded by the misunderstandings of both the director and everyone asking the questions, it seemed that only one or two of them understood what Apple was trying to say in a technical sense.

<comment><USER37> Exactly, i was suprised about this also. Even at the end of the hearing the same 'stupid' questions were asked over and over, by which it became clear they still didn't understand the basics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> He seems to be suggesting that the FBI (and maybe law enforcement in general) is in charge of deciding what our civil liberties _are_. They've simply decided there's no right to create an unlockable lock, when there's clearly no law or part of the constitution that indicates that. But since they think they're in charge of civil liberties, they've decided by fiat.

</comment><comment><USER40> I appreciate that Professor Landau emphasized the "arms race" between companies securing their systems, and adversaries breaking them. Companies push software with bugs, adversaries exploit the bugs (and hopefully responsibly disclose them), then the company patches the bug and pushes a new update.

Any iPhone <5 running iOS <8 is comically exploitable. This should drive home the point that as time progresses, older vulnerabilities become easier to exploit, so that leaving them unpatched becomes irresponsible.

If the FBI asks Apple to create new software to grant the FBI the ability to unlock the phone, they are effectively asking Apple to exploit a vulnerability in their software. By definition, Apple will know that vulnerability exists. In the "arms race," when Apple identifies a vulnerability, they fix it. In this case, when Apple identifies the vulnerability, will the FBI allow them to fix it? Or would the FBI prefer that Apple have a responsibility to "maintain" the vulnerability and ensure it remains exploitable?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd love to see a transcript [2], or list of participants [4] and find out which representatives present lean towards Apple or towards the FBI.

I skipped around the video. I mostly saw support for Apple, with a few exceptions, one being Mr. Sensenbrenner.

Mr. Sensenbrenner, a House republican of Wisconsin, asked Apple what legislation they would support, and Mr. Sewell, Apple's general counsel, said they support debate on the subject [1]

The congressman was clearly bullying Mr. Sewell here and using his position as congressman to make it appear as though Apple is not being agreeable. Well, encouraging debate before writing one-sided legislation sounds like great teamwork to me.

The congressman should have been reminded that _not_ supporting new legislation is a valid position, and that every problem we face need not be solved with new laws.

Perhaps Mr. Sewell is trying to be respectful to the congressman. But I think he should not shy from responding in kind. Treat others as they treat you. No one will judge you for it. I think Apple missed an opportunity here to say they do not feel new legislation is needed, since guaranteeing back doors into devices would be an abridgement of consumers' right to privacy, and Apple's right to create safe products for consumers as it sees fit.

Overall though this seemed like a productive session.

Mr. Gowdy, a House republican of South Carolina, also bullies Sewell in the same manner [3], literally asking Apple to _lobby for_ legislation.

In other words he is saying, get some lobbyists, do my work for me, pay for my next election campaign and solve your own problem. I don't know how you could be more blatantly obvious about being a corrupt, useless politician.

[1] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h59m30s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h59m30s)

EDIT transcript here, though no speaker names are given and quotes are cut short

[2] [http://www.c-span.org/video/?405442-1/hearing-encryption- fed...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?405442-1/hearing-encryption-federal- investigations)

[3] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=4h36m35s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=4h36m35s)

EDIT list of participants:

[4] [http://pastebin.com/raw/rHqYpv3g](http://pastebin.com/raw/rHqYpv3g)

</comment><comment><USER41> Read that as FBI's Comedy

</comment><comment><USER42> NON PAYWALLED: [http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-chief-admits-mistake-iphone- wake-s...](http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-chief-admits-mistake-iphone-wake-san- bernardino-203036523--abc-news-topstories.html)

<comment><USER43> There is another choice which is to click the 'web' link under the title above which does a Google search for the title. Nearly always at the top of the Google search the article will appear and through that route you will get the entire article from many paywalled news sites, including WSJ.

<comment><USER44> WSJ closed this[1]; web link here finds the article in google which still hits the paywall.

[1][http://digiday.com/publishers/wall-street-journal-paywall- go...](http://digiday.com/publishers/wall-street-journal-paywall-google/)

<comment><USER45> This is fixed in Google Chrome by opening up the console in Web Enspector, and enabling Network conditions from the three dot menu and then in that new tab select Googlebot as the custom user agent. Note that you will still have to click on a google search link.

<comment><USER46> I wouldn't exactly call that a "fix", but still, thanks for the tip.

<comment><USER45> Once you've set it up once and figured it out it's easy to just to toggle it the next time. It's definitely more work. I prefer this to installing a random extension that can read all my data on all websites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Anyone have a non-paywalled version? Going through Google isn't bypassing the paywall.

<comment><USER48> You now have to open an Incognito window and then paste into Google search to bypass the WSJ paywall - I suspect they look at some login cookie to detect humans.

<comment><USER47> Already tried that, it doesn't work. I think WSJ is A/B testing, closing the loophole for some people and not others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm as strong a supporter of a citizen's right to encryption as anyone, but I actually think that Mr. Comey's testimony was accurate and forthright, and his framing of the issue of encryption as it relates to the capabilities of law enforcement was appropriate and well-reasoned.</comment>


Infidelity site Ashley Madison hacked as attackers demand total shutdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/20/ashley-madison-hacked-cheating-site-total-shutdown

<comment><USER2> See discussion a few hours back: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9914024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9914024)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if it's in this link or not, but from krebs it was stated that the 'erase me completely' for a fee was just taking money and laughing.

That may have the largest impact if someone's identity is released and that person had paid to be completely removed from records.

<comment><USER4> Not exactly, more that they left around credit card/purchase info. From Krebs On Security:

> According to the hackers, although the "full delete" feature that Ashley > Madison advertises promises "removal of site usage history and personally > identifiable information from the site," users' purchase details — including > real name and address — aren't actually scrubbed.

[http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/online-cheating-site- ashl...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/online-cheating-site- ashleymadison-hacked/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whole new level of 'stop liking what I like!'?

Also 'hacker' should have released everything and sent links to the media. That would close the site for sure. And would generate quite a few lawsuits from exposed people. And who knows maybe some more regulations privacy-wise would pop up.

Yet another episode of self-righteous attention seeking.

</comment><comment><USER6> Regarding leaked data from dating sites, I'm only interested in the number of fake and never used accounts which merely exist to bloat the number of members.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why would anyone use their real name or email address on a site like that? Let the hackers reveal all the info... should just be a bunch of "FAKE FAKERSON" accounts and people who probably aren't bright enough to have an affair anyway.

<comment><USER8> Good luck getting a credit card with "FAKE FAKERSON" on it.

<comment><USER9> I guess you've never heard of pre-paid credit cards. You can buy them with no ID from Wal-mart, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions - <AUTHOR> http://lightspeedindia.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/bitcoin-2014-top-10-predictions/ <comment><USER3> Here's one that I'm sure I'm going to regret saying publicly later. But, here goes:

Dogecoin will outperform Bitcoin in terms of percentage market cap growth in 2014. Even if both are negative.

<comment><USER4> What does "percentage market cap growth" mean? (Is there a glossary of financial for beginners that anyone can recommend?)

If dogecoin takes off on Reddit and 4Chan as a way of showing appreciation I can see it having many users.

<comment><USER3> Market cap is a term borrowed from the share market[1]. I don't think it's technically correct applied to BTC but it commonly is.

Market cap growth as a percentage just means, if all BTCs in circulation are worth $10bn today, and $15bn tomorrow, then the market cap has grown by 50%.

I didn't use the price of the coins themselves as BTC is being minted more slowly than DOGE.

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

<comment><USER5> "Total dollar value" is the correct terminology for currencies

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mining: if we're to believe in free markets, fees will adjust to the amount of available CPU resources. I hope that it won't be profitable enough for people to dedicate farms to mining, but that companies with a lot of CPU power will rentabilise their spare CPU cycles by doing a bit of mining with it. This would be reassuring, as it would keep mining decentralized, which is important to maintain trust in bitcoins.

<comment><USER7> Mining with a CPU is long since irrelevant, even GPUs are completely useless as far as mining is concerned. The network uses ASIC hardware now, basically chips designed only to mine Bitcoin quickly and efficiently. Attempting to mine on a CPU is completely futile and does absolutely nothing for the network.

<comment><USER8> It's not really useless. There is Primecoin that is searching for prime chains as proof of work. At the moment there is no (public?) GPU miner. The involved computations are also difficult to port to the GPU.

<comment><USER7> Primecoin? It's not solving a "problem" as it claims, there's nothing that can be solved with chains of primes. They're interesting but that's about the end of it. The vastly smaller network means it's a lot more susceptible to attacks.

<comment><USER8> It's not different from SHA-256 or scrypt in that regard. However there appears to be some interest in these primechains from the scientific community. I never claimed it is solving important "problems" but I like the CPU only property. The Bitcoin GPU/ASIC race favored a few wealthy individuals. 40% of all BTC is in the hands of a few people. I don't see this happen with Primecoin at the moment. GHash.io looks more like a problem for Bitcoin as e.g. botnets for Primecoin.

I'm more interested in better and faster miners for Primecoin as this is a pretty interesting problem to solve. Getting rich with either of these coins is pretty much impossible if you are not already wealthy and able to invest a good amount of money and energy - especially in the BTC ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _There will be less than 5 alt-coins (out of the 50+ in existence) that will > survive 2014_

From what I've seen the number is more like 3-400.

> _Bitcoin community will solve problems including that of 'anonymity'_

Sorta already has, it looks like CoinJoin will be implemented into the mainline client when it's mature enough.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0;all](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0;all)

> _Kryptokit and Eric Voorhees' Coinapult are promising start-ups in this > direction._

I desperately hope they don't gain any userbase, they are both woefully insecure products. Kryptokit can't even maintain the claims it's authors make. "It has no central server" — yeah why are these requests going back to your server then? The community suffers when it's relying on insecure, half baked software like that.

</comment><comment><USER9> This guy certainly has a chatty crystal ball. Personally I'd recommend to everybody to ignore such "predictions". And as always, keep in mind that this is a new technology and BTC itself might be worth $0.01 at the end of the year (even if I don't hope so).

</comment><comment><USER10> > 9\. The price of Bitcoin is likely to range between $4000-5000 by the end of > 2014

Setting aside the author's flawed reasoning as to what drives demand for currency - I don't see how this is a positive prediction for Bitcoin as I think it implies.

I'd like to see a decentralised currency work in the long run and the best thing for Bitcoin right now is to maintain stability against USD. It needs to prove itself as a trusted medium of exchange/store of value.

My prediction for 2014: speculators will deal a big blow to the credibility of Bitcoin slowing down widespread adoption for any decentralised currency

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd say most of the predictions are sound. No 10 goes a bit too far though. Anyway, what I can't understand is why this rumor of bitcoin being anonymous (No 4) is so persistent (maybe wishful thinking?). What's necessary here is not a further technical development but rather some PR work (outside and unfortunately also inside the community of bitcoin users).

<comment><USER12> if all those predictions come true, including 3/4k worth and some technology implementation to bring it to the masses.

You can bet your bottom bitcoin he will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm surprised that it has essentially been shown that it's easy to corner the mining market/pooling such that 51% attacks are feasible, yet nobody is bearish over this.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Did i ever tell you the definition of insanity? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Invest big in bitcoin --> pay writers to pump up hype articles --> write hype related blog post --> shoot out huge valuation --> state that its future's currency --> repeat

Meanwhile in China:

Government warns people, bitcoin loses 400 dollars in value.. Yeah..right..something this volatile/fragile just cannot become a currency..Stop the insanity, wake up.

</comment><comment><USER15> The BitCoin Browser is going to be very significant. I hope someone 'good' emerges to capture that market. It'd be rotten if there were a "Microsoft Bitcoin browser" and an "OSX Bitcoin browser" ...

<comment><USER16> I may have misunderstood, but I think his point '8' is more akin to saying that Bitcoin needs it's killer app, kind of like how the browser was the killer app for the internet.

<comment><USER17> In some sense, the killer app of Bitcoin is ability to preserve (and possibly multiply) wealth. That's already useful and many people jump on Bitcoin for that reason alone.

In the same time, Blockchain.info, BitPay and Coinbase are doing great job in servicing private people and businesses. These three are the most Netscape- like guys in this early history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It will bounce around $1000, as a "magic point" on a low volume - those who still want it most would buy small quantities at a price range between $1000 and $800, and then it will crash, perhaps, around April-May.

<comment><USER17> Historically, there was never a case when Bitcoin had a stable price and then crashed from it. It was always the other way: everyone who wanted to sell off, did so quickly. Then after 6-8 months of some stable price (in late 2011, mid 2012, late 2012 and mid 2013) new investors saw that it's not going down any time soon and started jumping in. The massive increases were also caused by the fact that most people got to learn about Bitcoin during the previous "bubble" and have taken some time to learn about it and wait till the prices stabilizes or starts rising again. There's no technical reason to break this pattern yet. On contrary, more and more people learn about Bitcoin and see that it's still working as well as 1 or 2 years ago.

<comment><USER18> Past has no influence on the future - each toss of a coin is independent. Jokes aside, there was never such a massive bubble and such dramatic rise in price without any economic reasons. For me it looks like nothing but speculation.

If you would look at volumes in bitcoincharts.com you will notice that its dramatic rise was on relatively high volumes, while after the first drop, from $1200 to $1000 volume is rather low, which may suggest the impression that everyone are holding in hope or looking for an opportunity of a bulk sell. Right now, I think, there is no position who would buy, say, 200+ BTC at the ticker price of $900 or whatever it is.

And, of course, such kind of predictions are nothing but fun, like tea leafs.

<comment><USER17> Investing in BTC as a collectible unit _is_ a huge speculation, I have no doubt about it. No matter how other Bitcoin supporters talk about "such a useful ledger", there's no way to deduce how much all BTC _units_ should be worth. Bitcoin-as-network is as good at $10/BTC as at $1000000/BTC. You still can cheaply move dollars across the globe, or timestamp your contracts, or whatever.

The productive discussion would be about what is the basis of that speculation, or whether it can be equally huge with any other asset like a tulip bulb or dotcom stock.

I'd argue, Bitcoin is unique in a sense that it can (already does) easily act as money itself. People were investing in tulip bulbs, ponzi and dotcom stocks in order to _cash out_ big way. Current stock market is no different. There's a lot of "bad" money pumped by Fed and from pension programs and no theoretical sustainability while all fundamentals say it's going to crash hard.

On contrary, Bitcoin is a risky long-run bet that it will be useful as a world money, so there would not be any need to "cash out" into some single asset at the "maximum" price. If Bitcoin succeeds, then there'd be no need for dollars, euros, yen, gold and silver. You'd be calmly selling portions of your BTC to buy food, travel, shelter and invest in business.

Some portion of investors bets on that exact outcome. Those who bet on short- term price increases to "cash out" produce that pyramid-looking effect (huge bubble and then huge price drop), but every time there are more and more long- term investors. This time BTC went from $140 to $1200 and quickly crashed to $500 (then, getting back to $800-900). Clearly, everyone who wanted to cash out already did and what's left are those holder who are not selling for some time now. When BTC goes to $5-10K this year, then they might sell a portion of holdings to newcomers, but keep the rest for a really long time. If everyone continues to follow the same logic, this "pyramid" will lead to a situation when almost everyone has some BTC, everyone values BTC a lot and everyone is ready to trade this BTC between each other for whatever goods and services they desire.

Right now, most investors in Bitcoin are economically disconnected (do not trade directly with each other), so you don't see much transactions. Bitcoin is used like gold: a speculative "store of wealth". But at some point the density of investors will become so big, that more and more direct economic relations will appear between them. Tomorrow you might find that your local baker is BTC investor and you can pay him in BTC. Later he will discover that his supplier also invested in BTC and thus will be able to accept even more BTC and pay his bills directly with BTC. As this second phase (increased trade bypassing fiat currency) progresses, people will see how Bitcoin is no longer just "gold 2.0", but actual _money_. More and more will invest in it and thus become payers and payees in BTC. As this goes on, reservation demand for USD will start to go down quite noticeably and people will rush to BTC even faster (as prices in USD grow quicker and quicker). Ultimately, USD will hyperinflate and become worthless. All tax collectors will go looking for another job (they want to be paid in BTC, but government can't just print it or buy it). In the end, inflation and taxation will become impossible. Police will have to be sponsored voluntarily on district-by-district basis. Armies will abandon their bases and poor islamic nations being raped for decades will be paid a handsome retribution as an anti-terrorist protection measure by the wealthy Bitcoin holders in U.S. Bitcoiners outside the U.S. and U.K. would not need to worry about being blown up that much, yet still will contribute greatly to protection of whatever cities/countries they reside in.

<comment><USER18> Well, I can see the logic, that a wide adoption will make it "the value transfer system" rather than "virtual risky asset" but I can't see how this would happen from the state in which it is right now without a crash.

<comment><USER17> Why do you think there must be a crash for mass adoption to happen? I'd say on contrary: some amounts of BTC must be owned by almost everyone in order to become a regular money, but that would mean that the price of 1 BTC would have to go north of $10M. The price is merely an indicator of the demand (since the supply is fixed).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Predictions are basically hopes. When you look at them rationally, they are rarely based on facts but intuition. On this list:

 _1\. More than $100M of venture capital will flow into Bitcoin start-ups._

No it won't because if you ask VCs they will mostly tell you that the value can not be extracted easily into fiat currency and that's what they need to still work in.

To that argument, some will say "BTC-only VCs" will emerge which is a regulatory nightmare, so would be restricted to angels only, or that the money will flow into making BTC<->Fiat exchange easier, but that needs buy-in from the banks, and the moment they decide it's safe to do, they'll just do it themselves so there is no market for it.

Investing in BTC startups is a risky business as it is. Putting $100mm into them would be seen by the VC industry as positively insane.

 _2\. Mining 'will not' be dead_

If you run the numbers, it's of marginal profitability at best right now (and in most legal use cases is a negative - you need to steal power from somewhere, basically), and the miners aren't doing their maths very well. The poster's opinion that smaller enterprises will move their mining out to the cloud means they haven't done the maths either.

 _3\. There will be less than 5 alt-coins (out of the 50+ in existence) that will survive 2014_

This made me laugh. The fact alt-coins exist at all shows how the value of BTC is being misunderstood by both sides of the "is this tulipmania or a revolution?" debate.

The advantage of BTC is that it's a decentralised "currency" based on open source algorithms and a network of workers validating itself, which can be easily replicated.

The disadvantage of BTC is it's a decentralised "currency" based on open source algorithms and a network of workers validating itself, which can be easily replicated.

It's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness.

If you can't see that strength as a massive weakness, ask yourselves what value BTC intrinsically has over other alt-coins.

If you follow that argument down the inevitable rabbit hole you will eventually rationalise that the value is based on perception, much like fiat currencies of the modern era, and you will start hankering for the gold standard.

Except the perception of fiat currencies is so strong it is unlikely to be undermined by the majority. Is that true of BTC?

In essence, BTC will remain strong as long as people believe it will remain strong. But the moment the majority flip, or switch to an alt-coin like Litecoin, etc. then what value will it retain?

 _4\. Bitcoin community will solve problems including that of 'anonymity'_

Anonymity is not the problem banks and governments are truly concerned about. If it were, cash would be phased out by governments just as much as BTC would be blocked. In general they are undecided but wary of BTC because it has all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme with mysterious founders who do not make their intentions known.

It is accountability of the system that is of concern, not accountability of the transactions within it.

 _5\. US, China and other global forces will not be at the forefront of Bitcoin adoption_

If you think that the US, China and other countries are "global forces" you need to look at corporate entities more and ask who has the money and who has the debt.

Either way, the fact that BTC could be a private currency that lets corporations run free from government control and "tyrannical" central banks is just going to force more legislation outlawing BTC transactions.

 _6\. Indian ecosystem will be slow to evolve; limited to speculators and mining pools_

As indeed will the rest of the World. There are no pure consumers in the BTC space - everybody in the BTC ecosystem right now is a miner or a speculator or both, and the transactions are a side effect of suddenly having a lot of "money" that can't be easily turned into fiat currency.

There are few people - if any at all - who are using BTC because they perceive it as better for day to day transactions than fiat currency, because for the most part it is not.

 _7\. The use of Bitcoin will evolve beyond 'store of value' or 'transactions'_

Adding metadata to the BTC blockchain is mildly interesting. Using the protocol for other purposes outside of the BTC transaction block chain (messaging, etc.) is much more interesting.

I have no doubt that the true value of BTC is the protocol that might inspire all sorts of wonderful P2P applications to emerge, but I don't think it's clear right now that any of them still lasting in 10-20 years will be currency.

 _8\. The 'browser' of Bitcoin will come this year_

By definition if you make a system easier to use, you have to make it less secure. If this happens, we can expect many more "somebody stole my BTC because I left my web browser open" stories.

Banks serve a useful purpose with BTC: they keep money safe. BTC needs something like banks to emerge, and that defeats part of the point of BTC.

And of course, it's virtually impossible for BTC banks to operate because they can't provide interest (BTC is designed to be anti-inflationary, and therefore by definition the concept of interest is hard to fit into the scheme of things), so people will either need to continue to struggle or we'll see value being stolen regularly.

 _9\. The price of Bitcoin is likely to range between $4000-5000 by the end of 2014_

You could literally use a RNG to come up with predictions for 2014 highs this year on BTC. Here are 10 I just came up with, and all of them are equally valid: $0, $12, $87, $479, $2065, $3535, $5566, $9233, $65136, $72612. Pick one, it's your prediction for the year. Well done.

And it's that uncertainty that is driven by the fact the whole damned thing has so little liquidity and so much "value" is being sat on by speculators who could start a rush in under an hour, that makes it so hard for people to see BTC as viable long-term.

That then causes the effect that it is unlikely to ever become viable long- term.

 _10\. Last but not the least – Satoshi nakamoto will be Time's Person of the Year 2014._

Possibly, but I'm not sure if they give that award to ponzi scheme creators, so until they're certain it's not a ponzi scheme, aint going to happen.

<comment><USER20> >If you can't see that strength as a massive weakness, ask yourselves what value BTC intrinsically has over other alt-coins.

That's an easy one: the network effect ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect)). Same why you cannot simply start another successful social web and eat Facebook's lunch.

<comment><USER21> Just like MySpace, or Friendster, Facebook's dominance is eternal.

Bitcoin's adoption in broad society is next to nil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My prediction is special-purpose devices that store private keys and sign transactions, without the ability to obtain the private keys directly, like smart cards.

<comment><USER7> [http://www.bitcointrezor.com/](http://www.bitcointrezor.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here are my predictions for the next couple of years (with a bit of wishful thinking thrown in):

1 - There'll be a new Google for cryptos. It'll come onto the scene at full- speed like Google did, not needing user requests, not caring about stepping on anyone's toes. It'll know what needs to be done. It'll have a lot of creativity and a large Labs divisions. It could even introduce its own blockchain at some point, and may move into equity coins or alternate use coins. It'll probably be based outside the US, or else have special government tie-ins if in the US as with Google. It'd likely require a highly libertarian government to work well if in the US.

2 - Bitcoin will retain its first-mover advantage but people will be aware of alternatives and be cool to work with a few.

3 - A new set of startups will arise that are unbiased as to what coins they work with... just like with the newer exchanges. "Bitcoin-only" as a syndrome or as a consequence will be and old mindset. Bitstamp, Blockchain wallet, Mt Gox - the mainstays of the current system will adapt or fade from domination. It will be a demonstration of strategic agility and scalability.

4 - More alliances between exchanges/wallets/ecommerce providers/banks. More conferences.

5 - Certain countries will attract more cryptocurrency innovation than others depending on their policies. They will accept bitcoins and altcoins for tax payments, and use them for spending on government projects. They may create their own blockchain, and give tax incentives and tender advantages to businesses using the government chain.

6 - More businesses will want move into cryptocurrencies, but it'll take startups to offer the software and solutions that will enable them to do it.

7 - Shopping carts will start offering bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment options (as modules) which tie-in with the larger global exchanges or smaller local ones (or they'll run their own exchanges) that autosell coins as they are received by shoppers. An advanced wallet may move into this space as well: a wallet that is shared by buyer and seller means no waiting for confirmations.

8 - The price of bitcoin will determine to a large extent the price of other coins, but slowly coins will decouple.

9 - The price of coins will go up, but be contingent on events that force or scare people to move into cryptocurrency.

10 - Logistical loopholes will be found in China to purchase cryptocurrencies. More Chinese will simply obtain them by trading with people outside of China. Pressure may come from Chinese sellers on ebay, and ebay may take large fees for enabling it.

11 - Many new metrics beyond market cap will help evaluate coins to consumers and businesses. One's holdings may move between coins automatically into the most stable or rising one - or alerts will be given to prompt for this.

12 - Proof-of-stake coins will fine-tune themselves and the dev teams of older coins will offer straight conversions into 2.0 versions of their coins - <USER2> upgrade, but not necessarily a compulsory one, ideally backwards compatible. Also blockchain pruning will occur.

13 - P2P pools and other improvements will become more important to 1.0 coins, and there'll be pressure for an "x86 architecture for life, but with improvements" type mindset from many coin holders and their dev teams.

14 - New point-of-sale options for physical stores involving chip or swipe cards based on commodity hardware as people want to spend their coins in everyday life -- and others will see them doing it.

15 - More people resisting cryptocurrency or ignorant of it will be forced to use it, just like email, web, mobile phones. The sign of true viral software.

16 - AMD, Intel and other large chip-makers will move into this space with tailored products, or be looking for acquisitions in it. Dedicated appliances could become a reality as well as systems built for the cryptocurrency space - in all price brackets. Similar to Google's Search Appliance.

15 - Old financial institutions will lower their fees, or improve their services as enabled by present cryptocurrency technology to be implemented. Consulting firms will seek solutions in this space to sell to banks and financial institutions.

16 - There'll be a bitcoin-related IPO. One of many to come. New asset classes and mutual funds will arise that expose investors through conventional means to cryptocurrency based instruments.

17 - A meme like Dogecoin can spread to zombies. For better or worse, look out. But, other countries will create their own language coins equivalent to Doge, perhaps by governments, which they will premine for themselves. And governments will want software to do that. So too with corporations. 2014/15 - the year of the premined, forced alternative.</comment>


Subversion vs. Git: Myths and Facts - <AUTHOR> https://svnvsgit.com/ <comment><USER2> Hm, it's somehow not really Subversion vs. Git but more something along the lines like: Myths, that subversion is worse than Git in many ways.

I would have added some advantages of Git if it's really "Subversion vs. Git". But a great read nonetheless :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're probably right. I've used rcs,cvs, p4, svn and git. I don't particularly have a favorite but I think git's security model is basically nonexistent BUT that lack of security basically lead to the genesis of GitHub/GitLab which are pretty handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about: SVN is incredibly slow, checking out larger projects or commiting many files can take tens of minutes instead of seconds with git.

True

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think thats true TBH. I've worked on some pretty huge projects with both and I think it depends on the underlying server. SVN does seem to be a bit more "chatty" to the server than git so its more sensitive to latency. I'm honestly surprised that the people who wrote this article didn't benchmark...</comment></comment>


Web 2.0: A Collection of SetTimeouts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozilla.org/tglek/2012/04/18/web-2-0-a-collection-of-settimeouts/

<comment><USER2> Fascinating--we might see this as the adoption of the pause/resume states of most mobile devices. This makes sense, and I'm wondering how long it will be before we see diagrams like these for the lifecycle of a webapp:

<http://developer.android.com/images/activity_lifecycle.png></comment>


Embedded Disqus modifies global variables (removes lodash) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/pyrylahti/status/1002687669330153474 <comment><USER2> Is this something that started happening recently? I imagine other people would have reacted, in the past, if was always like this? — Maybe there're new employees / interns who didn't think about not touching `_`, and the code review process a bit failed this time?

Here someone reported this to Disqus: [https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel- discussdisqus/bug...](https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel- discussdisqus/bug_reports_feedback_underscorejs_library_included_globally/)

I'm developing an open source Disqus alternative that doesn't overide `_` b.t.w.: [https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments](https://www.talkyard.io/blog- comments)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link; didn't find that existing report. Yeah, it's a new thing. Apparently at least 9 days old. :)

I'm kind of baffled that a service, that literally has one entry point: providing JavaScript to customer sites, can do something as stupid as this.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Creating a web app that looks like an old operational system - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/FOStutorial <comment><AUTHOR> Some people have asked me how I built my website, so I made a little video plus a git repository with some code example.</comment>


A funny thing about developing software is demand - <AUTHOR> http://waffle.wootest.net/2010/12/18/demand/ <comment><USER2> I think he's got it all wrong. The customer knows what they want. They're asking for it.

The problem isn't the 'demand', it's the execution. They produced a sub-par game based on an old amazing game. It failed in all the ways they predicted... Clearly, they knew they were unable to provide a suitable experience. I'm sure all those issues could have been overcome if they were actually motivated to do it, instead of proving themselves right.

Aiming, for instance, could be fixed by having a proper camera and providing enough of a guide to know where you're aiming, without showing the exact spot it'll hit. Underground, by having proper cut-aways.

Coda is the same way. There are tons of problems to solve, sure, but there were tons of problems to solve to create Coda in the first place. Either you can solve them or you can't. If you can't, you probably shouldn't put time into it. You'll only disappoint your customers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm skeptical Team17 is still selling software as claimed in this 2010 article, as their website reads "© 2002 Team 17" and purchase links end in a 404 error!

Still, a good article, even if the idea that users don't always know what they really want isn't so new.

 _Edit:_ somehow I was on their old site. <http://worms.team17.com/> \- odd they let that subdomain stagnate!

<comment><USER4> Not sure you got the right site - <http://www.team17.com/> seems to be alive and well.</comment></comment>


Trend towards Mass Customization of Apps - <AUTHOR> http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2013/01/29/trend-towards-the-mass-customization-of-apps-from-banking-to-government-to-entertainment/

<comment><USER2> Good thoughts.

If apps and the tools to make them become so modular, you could see the concept taken to its logical conclusion. Rather than just customizing at the broad business level, enabling businesses to customize apps based on more granular customer segments?</comment>


Kinect Drivers sooner than expected - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/hackers-break-microsofts-kinect-security

<comment><USER2> Link to actual post: <http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/11154/> This is the same person who wrote the Windows drivers for the PS3 Eye. That code was released since ( <http://nuicode.com/> ), so I have hopes for this one too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good to see that Kinect has been hacked that fast. It's a shame that he's not willing to share code but this is a good indicator that open-source drivers are coming fast enough.</comment>


Do you have to cash in stock options right after quitting? - <AUTHOR> Im a little confused with the term "to vest". Let's say I have some stock options where I get 100% of the stock that was promised after 4 years working at the startup (with 1 year cliff).
After 2 years I decide to quit. I have 50% of stock options. Can I wait like 10 years to get the cash or do I HAVE TO get the cash right when I leave the company ?
N.B : I don't have a contract yet, I just want to know what is the normal case, if any <comment><USER2> A stock option is a contract that gives you the right (but not the obligation) to buy stock at some defined price ("strike-price") within some given time frame.

Generally, if you want to 'cash in' your options you would first have to exercise your options (i.e. buy the stock at the strike price), and then you can sell the stock -- unless you can sell your options directly, which I'd say is unusual for employee stock options.

If you own the stock (rather than options), those generally don't expire, so generally you can just sit on them until you decide to sell. Options may expire at some fixed date in the future, or they may expire some time after you quit your job. If you want the options not to be worthless you have to make sure they don't expire -- you should read the stock option agreement that is part of your employment agreement carefully; and also consult a lawyer.

Note that exercising options may be expensive (depending on the strike price of the option), and there may also be tax considerations. For example if the stock is worth 10$, and the strike price is 1$, exercising basically implies you got a 9$ taxable benefit from your company, and you may have to pay taxes on that. This depends a lot on your specific situation and the jurisdiction where you are.

Again, consult a lawyer. Also, this is not legal advice. etc etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it all depends on \- if the stock of the company is liquid = I can sell or buy it easily \- if there is an expiry on stock options

Because if Im fired and my options will expire soon and stock is not easy to sell, then I have to pay to get the stock but not sure I can sell it right away, am I right ?

What is commonly the case in Silicon Valley for instance ? Do companies buy the stock from people who are fired/quit ? What is a common expiration date for stock options ?

Thanks

<comment><USER2> Most startup stock is not liquid. You'd have to sit on the stock until there's some sort of 'liquidity event' \- usually the sale of the company or an IPO. Beforehand sale of stocks is generally very difficult, usually not possible. I haven't really heard of companies buying back employee stocks (I guess they did it in 'Breaking Bad'? ;).

If you get fired, and you don't want your stock options to expire worthless, assuming that they do expire, you'd have to exercise. And most likely you won't be able to sell that stock until a sale of the company or an IPO. The stock itself may also become worthless (bankruptcy).

Note that the strike price really matters, some employee stock options are basically for free to exercise, because the strike price is very low. Sometimes the strike price is close to market value. If the strike price is low there may be a lot of taxes to pay, if it's high then you need to pay a lot for the stock itself.

I'm not quite sure about silicon valley companies (I'm in Canada...). I've seen stock options expiring after 7 years or so. I've also heard of stock options that expire 3 weeks after the employment relationship.

You should also be aware of the 'cliff period'. Most jobs won't give you proper stock options right away, but only after you have worked with them for a year. So if you quit after 10 months, you won't anything.

Again, read your employment contracts (including stock option agreements), talk to a lawyer, inform yourself etc. Don't get burned by this stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


Copygram Lets You Download All Your Instagram Photos - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/11/copygram-lets-you-download-all-your-instagram-photos/

<comment><USER2> Neat. I like the ability to view my photos on the web too (although it would be nice if it showed likes and comments on individual photos.)</comment>


Ask HN: I have $1000 growth fund that expires on Feb. 2nd. What do I buy? - <AUTHOR> I just hit the requirements for tenure to get access to my growth fund for the year, but it expires on Feb. 2 and the new years fund will come in and this $1k will disappear. I need help figuring out what to get in that time!
Related information: Anything I buy that is a course/subscription (pluralsight, lynda, etc) needs to show completion of a course by that deadline, and all purchases have to directly tie to growth in my day job. So, buying a book on Elixir when the tech stack at work is React/React Native/Golang would get rejected, but books on any of our stack or ios/android programming would be approved.
When the new year starts I plan on getting a subscription to linux academy to go through their aws cert courses, but really am not sure what to buy by Feb 2nd besides a pile of books. Really just feel like I'd get something on go, and all the top rec books (clean code, prag prog, etc). <comment><USER2> Splurge (and read) TAOCP box set + the newer titles. [https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Programming- Volumes-1-4A-Box...](https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Programming- Volumes-1-4A-Boxed/dp/0321751043)

</comment><comment><USER3> So they've designed a growth fund that bans annual subscriptions?

Seems like you're just looking for a way to burn $1K at this point. There's lot of good usages but not in 15~ days with a hard cutoff for whatever you buy.

I'd just get an annual pluralsight sub after Feb 2nd, and then you can even learn things in your own time unrelated to your job (it isn't per course, it is all you can eat, like Netflix).

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a ban on annual subscriptions, but I need to show proof of completion of a course to get the reimbursement for it. So if I bought pluralsight now I'd have to make sure I complete a course by Feb 2nd and show proof completion to get them to approve it to take out of the 2019 budget. If I submit proof on Feb 3rd they'll take it out of the 2020 budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So you can buy books on stuff that you (presumably) already know, but not anything that would help your growth as a professional? Seems a little backwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is a bit more strict than I'm use to with a growth fund. Like I said, I couldn't buy a book on elixir since it doesn't relate to the day to day, but I could buy things about professional growth or things like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" or programming books that aren't explicitly about a language we use, but tangentially related to the day to day (Swift/Kotlin book to help with mobile, even though we use React Native)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Purchase a one-off MOOC?

Make a deal with some coworkers to buy them books now off your 2019 allocation in return for a slice of their 2020 budget?

</comment><comment><USER6> Can you go to a conference? There are lots of those happening!

<comment><AUTHOR> They have to happen by that Feb 2nd deadline. After Feb 2nd I get the 2020 budget that I can use to go to conferences with though!

<comment><USER6> Nice, you should come to Miami! [https://superconf.com/](https://superconf.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> how about AWS/Azure/GCloud prepaid credits ( for work-related-research, of course.... ) ? buy it and leave it there for when you need a lab online.</comment>


Facebook ad boycott campaign to go global, organisers say - <AUTHOR> https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-facebook-ads-boycott-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-ad-boycott-campaign-to-go-global-organisers-say-idUKKBN23Z0O8 <comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see whether this is a 'real' boycott, or simply a convenient excuse for cutting ad spend. Alphabet (Google) is probably the most comparable company in terms of revenue sources, and their earnings were down 20% YoY for the first quarter. If Google's revenue is down by more than 20% as of their next report (by end of July), I think we can firmly say that the 'boycott' is just showmanship. I suspect this is the case, given the low fill rate for ad slots on Youtube right now.

<comment><USER3> It's just mass hysteria and companies who were going spend less anyway showing how socially responsible they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When these companies start advertising again in a few weeks there needs to be negative PR. I think a lot of them are only pausing ad buy's regardless of what facebook does. Sadly, I think the only real way to kill facebook is to cut off friends and family that use it,at least from all digital comms.

<comment><USER5> Why is it sad? If they offer no value and users move to an alternative or go off social media it will die a natural death. I mean the market will kill it. E.g. MySpace and others that came before it. They're not too big fail. To their credit they seem to be trying to extend their lifespan by buying would be competitors.

<comment><USER4> You underestimate how older people depend on FB,how much whatsapp is used internationally and the whole instagram addicted classes.of society. If FB can weathet it until 2021 presidential inaguration, advertisers will come back and if the big name advertisers don't come back, they'll shrink but still have a very large userbase like now that will still be targeted by many small players. I mean, internationally, some countries have cell phone data plans with a facebook only access tier! Thats how far reaching their influence is. They're not too big to fail but they are too big to fall the same way others fall. The election will determine their fate, and I have a feeling that's why Zuck keeps having private meetings with republican leaders.

It's purely insane, this one company can swing an election, which if it does, 75+ years of world peace will be undone,starting with russia and China invading neighbors. The UN security council is meaningless without america, china and russia acting independently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656620](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656620)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23646852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23646852)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is also impacting Twitter, ex: Unilever is pausing ad placements on Twitter too. Honestly I think Twitter is worse since there are so many anonymous accounts that harass/doxx others.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great, small business can get lower rates while big brands are busy signalling.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh, this whole "Boycott Facebook" movement is such a load of feces. Facebook isn't the problem. "Social Media" is such a misnomer; this is really just "people interacting" and where people interact, there's going to be arguments and different points of views and, yes, unfortunately some racism, hate speech, etc. Boycott human nature, not Facebook.

As for "profiting from hate speech": If some asshole decides to chant racial slogans in your town square and it draws a crowd and there happens to be a Geico ad on the bus stop behind him, does that mean that the town is profiting from hate speech (because the town sold that ad space) or that Geico supports hate speech (because it rented that space)?

Verizon is a bunch of hypocrites. They sell internet service (Fios and/or wireless) and devices (phones) that are directly used by people to post hate speech. By their own extension, they should boycott themselves.

Then you get these "guns don't kill people, people kill people" folk who don't apply the same argument to social media; "a communication platform doesn't propagate hate speech, people propagate hate speech".

If anything, Facebook is thoroughly impressive in its "genuine" content. A platform where, for the most part, Grandma and Neighbor and Classmate and Colleague and Teacher and 2 billion other people of all flavors can generally interact with minimum animosity. Name another commination platform at that scale that hasn't just essentially reduced to porn, prostitution, drugs, and selling body parts. We should be thanking Facebook for even attempting to connect people, against all odds.</comment>


TLEM: very high speed link emulation [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2016-February/044737.html <comment><USER2> To save you the two-link chase to get at the meat of the announcement, here's a direct link to the paper: [http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/papers/20160205-tlem.pdf](http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/papers/20160205-tlem.pdf)

It explains in a lot more detail than the mailing list post what TLEM is about and how works.

Choice quote from the abstract: "Our emulator can handle bidi- rectional traffic at speeds of over 18 Mpps (64 byte pack- ets) and 30 Gbit/s (1500 byte packets) per direction even with large emulation delays."

<comment><USER3> Ok, we changed to that URL from [https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- net/2016-Februar...](https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- net/2016-February/044737.html). Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> (OP/author here) I think you should have asked before changing the URL.

The original URL pointed to the correct repository and had up to date performance numbers. Now it only points to the paper which is has stale information on both. Any chance to restore the original ?

<comment><USER3> If we asked before changing every url, we'd do nothing else all day.

I've put it back to the one you want, though I'm skeptical it's a better choice. It seems so to you because you know the project inside-out, but the audience here does not. The best story is the one that explains what it is, optionally with a comment in the thread pointing to updated information.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the Tough Got Going in Kentucky - <AUTHOR> https://www.gatesnotes.com/Education/Kentucky-Learning-Trip?WT.mc_id=01_06_20116_09_KentuckyTrip_BG-LI_&WT.tsrc=BGLI <comment><USER2> The image comparing the classroom layout in 1915 vs 2015 is misleading, but also silly. The US educational system has served a lot of people very well throughout those 100 years using exactly that setup. Such rhetorical strategies drive me nuts. Lots of things are different, but change for change's sake is never a good idea.

<comment><USER3> What surprised me was how sad the children looked on the 1915 photo. Like they're in detention or something.

<comment><USER4> There are cultural differences around smiling so its possible that they are trying to look serious and studious - assuming that the US attitude to smiling has changed over the years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile#Cultural_differences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile#Cultural_differences)

NB On my first visits to the US 20+ years ago I was surprised at how you would get big beaming smiles* from people for no apparent reason... but then again I'm from a notoriously dour part of a dour country.

[*] I of course eventually realised that people were giving me big beaming smiles because they were paid to!.

<comment><USER5> Certainly the US attitude towards smiling has changed with regards to camera technology. I'm too lazy to look up primary referents on the subject right now, but long shutter times encouraged people not to smile to avoid grotesque photos and then as shutter times got faster photographers began to eventually "mandate" smiles to prove that they had better cameras until eventually it was weird in the US not to smile in a planned photo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the 1915 layout. I also send my kids to a "traditional" school that emphasizes; writing, reading, and math(no common core). Teacher stands at the front of the class and teaches. The kids are required to memorize basic math facts, poems every two weeks, and give book reports since kindergarten. They are expected to recite the poems in front of the class in a loud, concise manner.

They are taught how to think critically with math/science work-sheets that force concentration on math/science in a way that, I think, actually applies to everyday life. There is very little technology in the classroom, also something my wife and I chose.

Rows of seats with windows all along the entire length of one side in every class room if the kids want to day dream/look at clouds a bit. They have homework from kindergarten and my kids get it done the second they come in the house (30-45min a day)... Only because they want to go ride their bikes, and play in the neighborhood :)

<comment><USER7> Why would you call out "no common core"? It sounds like your kid's school is likely well in line with, or exceeds, the Common Core.

More and more it seems like people don't know what the "Common Core" even is. It's just becoming shorthand for whatever someone doesn't think they like about math pedagogy.

In short, the Common Core is a set of standards for math proficiency. It does not dictate any particular way of teaching math.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wait, so how do you put a piece of candy in a bag without opening it?

By ripping a hole in the side?

<comment><USER9> For a given definition of "in", you could push the candy in through the stretchy plastic to the center without breaking the wall. Or, if you push all the way through, it's probably going to be the smallest hole necessary.

<comment><USER10> It said "paper bag" :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> bjelkeman-again It is interesting with standing space for some of your work. I find that I can't stand and do certain types of work (I have a standing desk I use a lot). Writing which require assembling a lot of information into something coherent is really hard for me to do standing. I could imagine that maths would be the same, but I haven't tried it. If you then have a class room with only standing space, maybe that isn't great. But it could of course be the opposite, that standing works better.

<comment><USER11> Office work and education are different things. I have a standing desk and I use it standing about half the time. I mostly design, write, and debug software and I can do it standing as easily as sitting. But I couldn't do that work effectively in the classroom described in Gates' article. On the other hand, when discussing new features and brainstorming radical changes then that classroom looks just like the conference rooms that we do use for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > What's happening at Betsy Layne and other Kentucky schools show what's > possible when _students are held to high standards_ and good teachers have > the opportunity to become great.

Key point above for me.

The worst schools in America tend to almost always not hold students to any standard, with all bad behaviors excused via certain political talking-points that deflect blame onto everyone else (everyone but the student and the parent).</comment>