More than 10k problems fixed through 'Improve Detroit' app - <AUTHOR> http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/10/09/more-than-10000-problems-fixed-through-improve-detroit-cell-phone-app/ <comment><USER2> New York pioneered this with their 311 phone service. That was originally set up to get minor problems off of 911, and ended up being the main way citizens get the city to do something.

With a mobile phone, you can have pictures and geolocation, which helps. It's a good way to report health and safety violations, because you get pictures.

The real question is, do you get a ticket number you can track? Any support service where you can't track your requests is more cosmetic than useful.

<comment><USER3> The 311 phone service was actually pioneered by Baltimore, not NYC, starting back in 1996.

<comment><USER4> Well, NYC has the first 311 app[1] that I'm aware of, so that's pretty cool.

1: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nyc-311/id324897619?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nyc-311/id324897619?mt=8)

<comment><USER5> The app that Detroit was built on, SeeClickFix, came years before the NYC app and has the added benefit of displaying all other existing open issues. Detroit and SeeClickFix also support the Federal Open Data Standard, Open311 which is groundbreaking in itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's 54 things fixed per day, that's quite a lot. Props to Detroit on making their data so explorable[1], according to the data[2] it looks like the app is working.

Also this heatmap[3] absolutely destroys my Firefox.

1\. [https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit- Submit...](https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit-Submitted- Issues/fwz3-w3yn)

2\. [https://data.detroitmi.gov/resource/fwz3-w3yn.json?$select=i...](https://data.detroitmi.gov/resource/fwz3-w3yn.json?$select=issue_type,COUNT%28ticket_id%29%20as%20opened,COUNT%28ticket_closed_date_time%29%20as%20closed&$group=issue_type&$ORDER=opened%20DESC)

2\. [https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit- Submit...](https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit-Submitted- Issues-Heat-Map/as66-mrdx)

Edit: That's embarrassing, I originally said 5.4 things fixed a day (which is not that good)

<comment><USER7> 10,000 plus fixed issues within 6 months does not equal "5.4 fixed issues per day"

<comment><USER8> OP clearly meant to say 5.4*10^1 issues per day. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm happy to answer any tech questions about Improve Detroit.

I'm on the engineering team at SeeClickFix, the vendor partnering with the City of Detroit to produce Improve Detroit.

Here are some other ways to explore Detroit issues:

Web: [http://seeclickfix.com/detroit/issues/map](http://seeclickfix.com/detroit/issues/map)

Or you can access the data through the Open311 compliant endpoint: [http://seeclickfix.com/open311/v2/507/discovery](http://seeclickfix.com/open311/v2/507/discovery)

Or you can use the SeeClickFix API: [http://seeclickfix.com/api/v2/issues?lat=42.331389&lng=-83.0...](http://seeclickfix.com/api/v2/issues?lat=42.331389&lng=-83.045833)

Our API docs can be found at: [http://dev.seeclickfix.com](http://dev.seeclickfix.com)

<comment><USER10> There seems like a horrible skew in the reports per download. You've got a few busy-body's creating a lot of complaints...

<comment><USER11> And if you look at the TOP HN commenters you will find a horrible skew of users that comment on everything while many users hardly ever comment. No surprises here.

<comment><USER10> Is the skew enough that you have more comments than users?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seattle has a "Find it, Fix it" app [0].

[0]: [http://www.seattle.gov/customer-service-bureau/find-it- fix-i...](http://www.seattle.gov/customer-service-bureau/find-it-fix-it- mobile-app)

<comment><USER13> Boston as well[0]. The handful of times I've used it (broken bulb in a stop light, for example), the issues have been resolved within 24 hours. Pretty impressive.

[0]: [http://www.cityofboston.gov/doit/apps/citizensconnect.asp](http://www.cityofboston.gov/doit/apps/citizensconnect.asp)

<comment><USER12> That is impressive. I haven't used the Seattle one yet.

It sounds like City of Boston has the resources to do things as they break or wear out. They just don't have the man power to check all the light bulbs or pothole as they break.

<comment><USER14> Makes sense - for something like changing a light bulb, it could easily take a crew equally as long to drive to the location from wherever they are as it does to actually make the fix. Having the crew (or someone in general) going up and down every road every night looking for bulbs to replace would be horribly inefficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what percentage of submitted problems are fixed and how many issues are repeat problems.

I'm in Santa Barbara and on my walk to work there seems to be a non-stop battle between some people tagging a foot bridge and the city painting over the graffiti. Because I enjoy street art this actually brings some added joy to my commute because I never know what I might see next or how long it will last. Kind of like a real world Snapchat.

<comment><USER16> I think you'll enjoy this then: [http://www.mobstr.org/](http://www.mobstr.org/)

My favorite: [http://www.mobstr.org/red/](http://www.mobstr.org/red/)

(Click next in the bottom right corner, some people miss it! This is the exact "non-stop battle" sort of thing you're talking about.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every city gov needs to issue such kind of app. Congratulations to the folks in Detroit.

<comment><USER18> My city has a website for reporting stuff like that. Unfortunately I see no evidence that it has any effect whatsoever. None of the issues I've reported have been addressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of [http://fixmystreet.com](http://fixmystreet.com) . Similar, for the whole of the UK.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wish we had proper data, like the number of problems fixed before the introduction of the app. So that we could see how effective the app actually is.

<comment><USER21> A lot closer to none than 10,000...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For some key background information, I recommend this article from May: "Detroit Revitalizes City with 311 App".

[http://www.govtech.com/Detroit-Revitalizes-City- with-311-App...](http://www.govtech.com/Detroit-Revitalizes-City- with-311-App.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> Not really related, but why are laymen using the word "app" to describe the service or company that operates around the mobile app? I hear this commonly: "Use the Uber app to get to the airport", "I'm a frequent seller on the eBay app".

</comment><comment><USER24> Fix Detroit: Demolish the shit hole to the ground. Leave it several years and then rebuild a new small city and see where it goes. I say leave it a few years because if you rebuild it straight away the same scum is going to gravitate back and start shit again.

</comment><comment> tefo-mohapi Wow. Wondering if this won't have an even bigger impact in African towns / cities as there are invariably more things to fix? Was it the app that helped with the fixing or more the city's capacity to respond quickly and fix things?

</comment><comment><USER25> The App is just SeeClickFix. What is really impressive is that they are fixing things. I hope they can keep up the pace.

</comment><comment><USER26> Are we only fixing problems rich people with smart phones care about?

<comment><USER5> smartphones have proven to be the number one technology bridging the digital divide in the US. If you call into the City of Detroit it will also be publicly documented in the same system: SeeClickFix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There were 506 water main breaks that needed to be reported by citizens?

<comment><USER5> Government officials report issues as well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> WOOT WOOT!</comment>


Mark 6 VLBI Data System - <AUTHOR> https://www.haystack.mit.edu/tech/vlbi/mark6/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> As used in the Event Horizon Telescope from what I've been reading. Multi- generational, upgradeable, modular, resilient, robust, fixable, shippable storage (any adjectives I've missed?) - with thoroughly understood performance for high data rate transfers - operating in at high altitude away from normal spare parts supply chains. Device production lifecycle to match scientific programme schedule. Somewhere in the region of 6PB's worth crated and returned post-acquisition to the EHT consortium processing sites.</comment>


Would you pay $100/month for unlimited golf at any course? - <AUTHOR> http://greencard.io/

<comment> jack-r-abbit I'm not a golfer but my FIL is. Being retired and living on a golf course, he probably golfs 2-3 times a week... easily 6+ times a month. He would bankrupt a deal like this. I have serious doubts about the sustainability and even the legitimacy of such a claim. Just a quick glance at 2 of the better courses in my town shows green fees to be between $90 and $120. I don't see any way either of those courses would affiliate themselves with a discount card that cheap. Even if they did and offered a steep discount to GreenCard, there is no way GreenCard could profit from a $100/month subscription unless they are also banking HEAVILY on people only golfing a few times.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is another good point. Some golf courses can be insanely expensive, which is part of the reason why the younger generation (18-34) is basically not playing golf.

Would probably need to have pricing tiers depending on the fanciness of the courses that you want to pay in order for the unit economics to work out.

Thanks for your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Yes. But here are some of my questions/observations/caveats:

• $99/mo sounds more palatable than $100 :)

• Would a cart be included? (I'd hope so)

• Would there be blackout dates/days/times?

• Golfing alone is boring. It's best with a friend, drinking beers, smoking a cigar, talking about life and business. So, even if I get free golf, I'm likely to still be inviting a friend and we'll end up splitting his fees (to be fair). Would be great to have some kind of "buddy pass" each month or have a more expensive plan for 2 people ($179/mo for 2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Smart observations.

Yes, $99/mo does sound better

Cart would be included on most courses

There would most likely be restrictions on some courses - possibly offering higher tiers to lift restrictions.

Buddy pass is a great idea

Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "First, give us your email to sell."</comment>


24-bit Color in the Windows Console - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/09/22/24-bit-color-in-the-windows-console/ <comment><USER2> Ubuntu is starting to look really good under windows 10...

Who would have thought this can happen 5 years ago?</comment>


Show HN: A Comprehensive Free Course in Deep Learning Using TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/astorfi/TensorFlow-World#3 <comment><USER2> OP, could you update the title to reflect the fact that this is from 2017?

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool course. Would be better if it was updated to include GANs.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you hired a PR agency? - <AUTHOR>

If you did hire an agency, was it a positive experience?
If you did not hire an agency, why not and what did you do instead?
I also setup a 4 question google form to get numerical feedback. (I'll share the results with everyone 24 hours after this posting).
https://docs.google.com/a/pressfriendly.com/forms/d/1PiVS_fY9CjGuUMQp8B-VCnF4GVlrCyMtstpN-xQ8j-Y/viewform <comment><USER2> When it comes to PR, I like to point out PG's article The Submarine. It names the PR agency he used (for viaweb), I think it was in about 1996 and they spent $16,000/month at that time (which I would consider a large amount now, much less then).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've hired agencies/consultants six times and results were always somewhat lacking.

Anecdotally, I've heard the same from many founders. Wondering if this is the consensus.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have. They're mostly useless at the stuff people hope they're good at. The best advice I ever heard is not to hire a PR firm until you have too many _inbound_ requests from the press to manage yourself.

In other words: until you've made it big time and spending $10k/mo+ on PR is a non-issue.</comment>


Mozilla Firefox 10 Features, Review and development updates images and Download - <AUTHOR> http://jussbuzz.com/websites-technology/mozilla-firefox-10-features-review-and-development-updates-images-and-download-nightly-aurora-beta

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome post</comment>


Kroger to expand program that cuts checkout lines - <AUTHOR> https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/12/26/kroger-to-expand-program-that-cuts-checkout-lines.html <comment><USER2> Fun fact: I ran into an older man at a Perl conference back in 2013 or so that told me about how the Kroger rewards cards, once scanned at the terminal, talked to a Perl CGI powered back end that was hacked together by him in the early 2000's.

But on another note, I can't help but wonder how theft of merchandise will be handled. On one hand, you won't have to pay cashiers so you can "afford" to have more stuff stolen. But on the other hand, I know people that just love to get away with what ever they can. Case in point is this old man friend of my grandfathers that used to tag along every time we went out to eat. He would always order a glass of water for his drink (free). And then go over to the fountain drinks and dump it out and fill it back up with Sprite. He thought he was real slick. He used to be a crew chief on C130 gunships. But now he ain't around no more.

<comment><USER3> Generally speaking, one cashier watches over six or seven payment locations. The backend process takes the "suspended" transaction from the surePOS system and recalls it on the live u-scan system for payment tendering. At that point in time, based on a few factors, such as, is this your first U-scan purchase with your Kroger Plus card, do you have any high shrink items, does the weight of your bagged items vary greatly from the calculated weight of your scanned items, is this a 'random loss prevention' scan, is your Kroger plus account flagged for "high audits", and a few other factors, the cashier will be prompted to go over and do an item for item audit of every item in your purchase.

<comment><USER4> Stop & Shop has this in some stores and I've never seen it in use. Sounds like regular self-checkout at the register is preferable to being treated like a criminal "just in case".

<comment><USER5> I've been scanned several times -- they scan 5-10 items and then let you finish checkout process. Not a huge deal...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting to see how this develops internationally, and how dependent it is on standard wages.

Here in Switzerland, the two top supermarkets (which basically form an oligopoly) have had this system operating in every supermarket I have entered within the last 3 years.

This is obviously motivated by the fact that Swiss wages are really high compared to the US, even adjusted for cost of living.

I'd be interested to hear how far along this tech is internationally.

<comment><USER7> Self-scanning was first launched in the UK in 1995. It's still available at some branches of Tesco, but it isn't particularly popular.

[https://www.marketingweek.com/1995/04/28/shelf-service-at- sa...](https://www.marketingweek.com/1995/04/28/shelf-service-at-safeway/)

[https://www.tesco.com/scan-as-you-shop/](https://www.tesco.com/scan-as-you- shop/)

<comment><USER8> Not sure why its not more popular, its much quicker. I havent used anything else for ages

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Somewhat unrelated, but dear God do I hate self checkout lines. When I was in college a grocery store replaced two regular checkout lines with four self checkout stations and my god it resulted in the largest slow down I've ever been a witness to that was caused by a single action. If your care about your customers, please don't go self checkout

<comment><USER10> I dislike the ones where you take all your products to the checkout bay and scan them yourself while you bag them. But my local supermarket recently got a much better system with a portable scanner you take with you. As you choose products, you scan them and put them straight into the bags. When you're done you go to the checkout bay and put the scanner in a cradle, pay, and you're done.

<comment><USER11> In Sam's club, their self-checkout has a handheld scanner and doesn't require putting items in the "bagging area". So, while I'm shopping, I make sure to place the items in the cart such that their UPC labels are exposed. At the self-checkout station, I simply scan all the items in the cart without removing them. I suppose this works because they don't provide bags for one's purchases.

<comment><USER12> I used to do exactly this. People make appreciative noises when you're beep- beep-beeping rapid-fire while they're waiting on their cashier.

However, to level up my game, though, I've switchted to their app (on iPhone, at least) where you scan things _as they go into the cart_ , then pay directly from the app, and show the electronic receipt on the way out.

Only one line, (the one to get out.) minimal muss and/or fuss.

<comment><USER4> > However, to level up my game, though, I've switchted to their app

I guess you like being spied on.

Sam's Club Scan & Go permissions:

Location:

precise location (GPS and network-based)

Camera:

take pictures and videos

Wi-Fi connection information:

view Wi-Fi connections

Other:

receive data from Internet

view network connections

full network access

prevent device from sleeping

<comment><USER12> Or... point-by-point:

> Location:

> precise location (GPS and network-based)

So it knows which store I'm in. See also: scanning my member card before checking out.

> Camera:

> take pictures and videos

So it can scan barcodes.

> Wi-Fi connection information:

> view Wi-Fi connections

...but not control which ones to which you're connected. How often does your list of Wi-Fi connections matter when you're at the store?

>Other:

> receive data from Internet

Download item info?

> view network connections

Make sure it _can_ get to the internet.

> full network access

Two-way communication about your purchases and payment to them.

> prevent device from sleeping

So that you don't have to wait for it to wake up between aisles.

These all seem reasonable for a self-scanning app. But then, a paranoid person could find reasons to be afraid of water: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tesco in the UK have had this for a few years now. The only issue I have with it is that you need to have a Tesco Club card to be able to activate the handheld scanner. Despite this it's a very convenient way to get your shopping done.

</comment><comment><USER5> Stop&Shop here in NJ has this and it's mostly convenient and faster than regular self-checkout. They occasionally stop you on checkout in order to scan some items to confirm you didn't "misplace" something. Unfortunately, this doesn't ease lines, as self-checkout lines are still long and you have to wait for your turn in these lines in order to pay.

The only problem are missing shopping bags and scanners which are slow, still running some flavor of embedded windows, I believe made by motorola.

</comment><comment><USER14> This was commonplace (along with self-checkout terminals) in Switzerland few years ago. A friend of ours used it and it was in fact very convenient and worked really well. The only caveat is the "spot checks", whereby they would flag some purchases for validation and have a shop employee rescan N random items from the bags. It's still faster than the regular checkout, but messes us the bag packing.

</comment><comment><USER15> How does this work for weighing produce? In France the scale would print out a barcode. Overall I'm excited to see scanners become widespread, though the technology never really seems to match the ideal form. Self checkouts are still plagued with minor annoyances.

<comment><USER16> Can't speak for the OP, but in Singapore they have these super fast and convenient bar code printers all over the place that lets you identify/weigh/print/tag your produce in <5 seconds item. Fastest bar code printer I've ever seen. I've used self-checkout 1000+ times in the last three years - and I'm struggling to recall if I've had any issues. Makes going to the grocery store a couple times a day _much_ more enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd like to see this at my local grocery store. Then again, online ordering has free delivery for $100 minimum order. Even for stuff you buy at the store, it caches that in a history list for online ordering (assuming you paid with a debit/credit card).

</comment><comment><USER18> do I get a discount? Or do they expect me to work for free?

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess the next step is paying with your phone so you don't have to stop on the way out.

</comment><comment><USER20> I hate self checkout and refuse to use it. Perhaps I am in a minority. I'd reconsider if there was a discount but that discount would likely be made null by some accounting in the price of groceries. I don't think they do anything for the customer, but more for the profit margins.

</comment><comment><USER20> I would prefer if they did away with most self checkout.

</comment><comment><USER21> My local grocery store (Giant) has a system like this. The hardware is IBM branded, I believe.

I used it quite a bit when it was first offered, and saw a number of other customers use it as well, but now I rarely use it and I rarely see others using it either. The scanner guns are still there near the entrance to the store, but now there are carts piled in front of them so they'd be hard to get to even if you wanted to get one. Nobody cares, and I suspect they'll disappear at some point soon.

Honestly the whole system was just not reliable enough, IMO. The scan-it- yourself guns are not as fast as the laser barcode readers used on the actual POS systems; there's a noticeable and extremely irritating 1-2 second delay per item, which doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty annoying when you are trying to scan a dozen cans of cat food or something. Oh, and you can't do a [scan x quantity] entry, you have to scan each individual item, so for e.g. those cans of cat food, there's a disincentive to buying too many.

The real killer was the integration with the POS payment system though. When you get up to the front of the store, you go to a self-checkout line -- so right there, you might _still_ have to wait in line, because there's no dedicated self-scan payment kiosk. One supposes they could have one if there was demand, though.

When you do make it up to the register, there's a complex dance that you have to go through to link the scangun you used to scan your items to your account, and then to the register you're paying at, so that the items will flow through and total up correctly. You have to scan a barcode on the self-checkout system, and then scan your "Giant card" (loyalty card), except sometimes this doesn't work, or sometimes it works but only if you scan them in the opposite order.

And of course if anything isn't working correctly, which happened way too often, you end up just having to re-scan all your groceries again, manually, at the self-checkout. I don't know about anyone else, but once I had that happen a couple of times, that was the end of using the scangun system for me. If I might just end up having to do the work twice, forget it -- I'll do the way that I know is just going to result in me doing it once. I hate lines, but what I hate even more is rework.

So I hope Kroger has worked out some of the kinks from the Giant system. It was a promising scheme, and I really wanted it to work, but it seemed like a 90% solution and what they really need is a 99.9% solution. Having the system fall flat on its face and force me to re-scan all my groceries even a few percent of the time is a non-starter IMO. That needs to be an outcome right up there with having the whole thing just catch on fucking _fire_ , in terms of never being allowed to happen.

<comment><USER3> Giant made the Loyalty integration Mandatory for the Self-Checkouts.

Kroger doesn't make their Kroger Plus Mandatory for the Self-Checkouts, but they do make it Mandatory for the U-Scan system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's really neat, but difficult in places like California where there's a bag fee.

<comment><USER23> In the UK you just get asked how many bags you've used so they can charge the fee.

<comment><USER24> To be fair, the Tesco I use most has found some really irritating middle ground where the bags are held by a specific employee that you go and ask for a bag from, slowing everything up massively.

Every time I go in I have the same thought that it's such a waste of someone's life to spend most of it standing motionless with the sole purpose to reduce theft of plastic bags.

<comment><USER25> Same thing at some large Sainsbury's, very annoying. They are also the medium- weight plastic bags instead of the light ones; I suppose people like to feel they are getting something of value for their five pence, but I find these bags far less useful for re-use at home. At some point I am going to have to figure out how to order a 50-pack of Waitrose bags just for scooping the cat's litter box...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Satellite-Sun transit causes communication blackouts for Northern residents - <AUTHOR> http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674twice-yearly_sun_transit_problem_to_hit_the_north_feb._21_to_march_7/

<comment><USER2> The article discusses some locations in Canada, but people should know this problem exists at all latitudes served by geostationary satellites.

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


Hubble finds big brother of Halley's Comet ripped apart by white dwarf - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1703/ <comment><USER2> Clickbait title.

tl;dr "The destroyed object had a chemical composition similar to Halley's Comet, but was 100 000 times more massive than its famous counterpart."

<comment><USER3> I thought the title was pretty accurate -- the article had the content I expected and hoped for after seeing the headline.

Maybe headline writing has shifted to what would have been "clickbait" a couple of years ago?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Better API Docs to access remote sensing data from Planet - <AUTHOR> https://www.planet.com/developers/ <comment><USER2> This looks cool, but you don't publish your pricing, so I assume you operate like Oracle and reflexively close the window.

Sun had what IIRC was the first cloud computing service in ~2000, but it required dealing with salespeople so no one used it. A few years later AWS came along.</comment>


Bot crawls thousands of studies; finds concerning number of simple stats errors - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/9/30/13077658/statcheck-psychology-replication <comment><USER2> So just like we have spell checkers, someone needs to write a plugin (for pdflatex, etc) that sanity checks your papers as you're writing them.

<comment><USER3> If the underlying cause is fraud, then making the tool available will only help the fraudsters cover up their mistakes.

I know they didn't talk about fraud in the article, but that was what this method was developed to detect: [https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/the-grim- test-a-method-for...](https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/the-grim-test-a- method-for-evaluating-published-research-9a4e5f05e870)</comment></comment>


Choosing a Programming Language for Interviews - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codingforinterviews.com/best-programming-language-jobs/ <comment><USER2> _Read in a file full of numbers, one number on each line

Represent those numbers as integers in your program

Replace each number with that number times its line number

Write the file out elsewhere

And complete the task right now at your computer as fast as possible, you're being timed

Think—what language would you immediately reach for? Do you start your experimentation with ipython, or irb? Do you pop open Eclipse and write some Java? Or create a new .cpp file?_

I have 13 years of experience leading teams in building and designing web applications in a wide variety of languages and platforms - some pretty big ones, too.

I would not be able to do this in any language without looking at the API.

And they wonder why "It's so hard to find good people!"

<comment><USER3> I've been interviewing a fair bit lately, and I just really struggle with what you say above. To me if you can't write that simple program in _some_ language without looking at an API or consulting Google at every turn, it feels like you haven't used the language enough (either that, or the problem isn't in a domain your familiar with, but you can usually tell which it is pretty quickly).

I don't deduct points for not getting the syntax precisely, but if they don't know the very basics of "open()" and "for line in file" and "int()", but say they have 3 years Python experience, I'm thinking No Hire.

<comment><USER2> And that's where we disagree. I think this whole "FizzBuzz" craze is as equally stupid as the riddle craze was.

My brain, right now, is working on a way to pop messages off of a RabbitMQ queue onto a clustered pool of Akka workers while minimizing the duplication of work and avoiding race conditions in the output.

My career experience is in Java with a sprinkling of Python. I honestly cannot recall off the top of my head the I/O Api to do that task. Let alone on a whiteboard or in some shared google doc.

Hm, I need to open a file. OK, no problem - new java.io.File(path). Er, wait, I remember there's a FileReader. Probably should use that. Do I need a File first? Or can I just give FileReader the path? Ah, shit - I need to read each line. I think that's a BufferedReader. How do I get from a FileReader to a BufferedReader? Is it constructor param? Wait, maybe FileReader _IS_A_ BufferedReader.

So, I 'fail' the interview with you. Maybe your company has a need for someone who can write a 10 line script that can read a file line by line without having to look at the API while being timed. In that case, yes, you probably have weeded out a bad candidate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has anyone had the luxury of using multiple languages in an interview?

E.g., "Oh, you want me to twiddle bits? Let's do this in C.", "Oh, now doing silly text file stuff? Ruby.", "Write a simple properties thingy? Javascript.", "Find all permutations of blah? Lisp or Scala."

I wonder how common that is.

<comment><USER5> For my current position interview, there were several code samples I needed to write. One of the requirements was that I had to use two different programming languages (although I could pick which one for which sample).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was recently job hunting and chose to do coding problems in python when possible, even though I have 7+ years C# experience. For the first interview it got me into trouble because I actually didn't know how to read args from the command line and didn't have access to the internet! For all my other interviews (mostly Java jobs), I'm glad I used python for the simple reason that solutions tend to require a lot less boilerplate code than C#. I typically have to erase/change a couple lines as I'm solving a coding problem and using a terse language helps reduce this distraction. I don't think the interviewers minded and in one case I think using python gave me some (undeserved) mystique.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me about that saying: _' There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'_

According to the table about relative popularity of programming languages, Javascript (5.2%) and C# (5%) have only 5 times the popularity of Scala (1%) and Haskell (1.2%). In most contexts, this data is just wrong.

This just proves that unless you know or show the underlying method and context, quoting statistical summaries is almost completely pointless in trying to enhance your point.

I realize that this is probably being a bit pedantic as that graphic is hardly the main point of the article however it does tend to place a question mark over the rest of the article when a seemingly dishonest bit of data is used to help prop up other points.

<comment><USER8> It specifically says:

Consider this great visualization of the most popular coding languages of 2013 from the interactive practice problem website CodeEval:

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A follow-up question for interviewers lurking here on HN:

What are your thoughts about candidates who code correct solutions in a language not in use at your workplace?

I have a nagging feeling that some positions in my group have gone unfilled due to tech stack mismatches in candidates who were probably perfectly capable (or better) coders, but were most recently working in other tech stacks. Considering these types of candidates seems to be challenging in my workplace.

<comment><USER6> For general roles, it's a question of how much you are willing to invest in a candidate before he/she starts producing. Big firms like Google/MS/Amazon are willing to hire strong candidates who aren't familiar with a given stack. A young startup might (understandably) not be able to pay someone for a few months to ramp up on a stack that's not familiar to the candidate.

<comment><USER10> That is subtly wrong, because there are really two things there: there is the language itself, and there is what has already been built with it. Say you get a really strong Perl guy, but you use Python. At a startup, he just has to learn the language. At a big company, he has to learn the language _and_ the last decade's worth of codebase.

<comment><USER6> You are missing the point - startups don't always have the time/money to train someone in a new language. That's why they are looking for Javascript Ninjas who can hit the ground running. Established firms inherently have money to invest in training if they choose to.

<comment><USER11> If you have hired the right person they will very quickly "train" themselves and the only cost to you will be a slightly slower start (which will resolve itself in days to a couple of weeks max) at producing real code.

Well worth it if the alternative is hiring someone who knows the language/framework you're working in, but pretty much _only_ knows that language/framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always try to interview in Python, because I can bang out complicated ideas quickly with very minimal boilerplate.

Writing in Python can be almost like writing in pseudocode.

<comment><USER13> I switched to using Python from Java for coding interviews and it almost felt like cheating. List comprehensions and the like don't necessarily trivialize many interview problems, but they certainly make them much quicker to solve.

<comment><USER3> I can see why you feel it's cheating, but I think it's simply using the right tool for the job -- instead of worrying about which headers to include and what the exact C++ type specification for a map iterator is ... in Python, you can think about the actual problem at hand, rather than arcana.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Python is the most popular language at 30% in 2014? I've worked for a lot of big corporations and interviewed at hundreds more over the last few years. Not a single one used Python in any way, shape or form.

Maybe that's changing, but I find it hard to believe.

<comment><USER14> Define big corporations? I am sure C++ and Java are still the most widely used in big corporations.

<comment> at-fates-hands Best Buy, United Health Group, Target, Medtronic. And I agree with you, I thought C++ and Java were more widely used than Python. The graph at the middle of the page in the article indicated Python was the most popular language at 30+%.

<comment><USER14> The main issue in the blog post is about "you, interviewee, which PL to use for coding interview" and the statistics OP uses is about what PL people uses on CodeEval (which is a place people go on to challenge themselves).

So you are right about the doubt. Simply put, a lot of interviews tend to be fixed. Interviewees don't get to choose the PL to use during coding session. It is usually fixed. If you are interviewing for Java software engineer candidate, then coding in Python makes no sense. So that statistics does not reflect reality. It's merely to say that "Python and Ruby alike PL" are popular should the candidate has the right to choose a PL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I tend towards python simply because most interviews are done on whiteboards, and python is a very concise language, which means I can average more logic per handwriting effort than I can with something like Java.

</comment><comment><USER16> Or... Have people use whatever they want so long as they are able to communicate their ideas, and move the focus to ensuring that they understand how software development works. You can teach syntax much more easily than you can train someone to think like a programmer.

</comment><comment><USER17> If I had this option during an interview, opt not a language, rather the idea to solve a problem described in Abstract Syntax Tree. This usually ends up in a pseudo code with parens.

<comment><USER18> So, Lisp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a candidate, always use python.</comment>


Grasp R Programming with Open-Source Books - <AUTHOR> https://www.ossblog.org/grasp-r-programming-open-source-books/ <comment><USER2> Adding to this list of R books, I found Introduction to Empirical Bayes[1] very good for a Bayesian view into R.

[1] [https://gumroad.com/l/empirical-bayes#](https://gumroad.com/l/empirical- bayes#)</comment>


SpaceX BFR [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 <comment><USER5> _Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that._ \- Elon [https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

Looks like fun. I'd love to see the in-flight safety video!

"Make sure there's nothing in your pockets because we'll be hitting 3 Gees. If anything goes wrong, we're all probably toast."

I think this was just an interesting idea thrown out at the end of a talk that had much more interesting stuff, such as redirecting all of SpaceX's resources away from Falcon to build the BFR, and putting humans on Mars by a 2024 'aspirational goal'

<comment><USER6> Note that the Instagram post is a little misleading. "Full Fare economy" is not as cheap as you think, it's more like what you would pay for business class. So, maybe $3k for a transatlantic flight.

<comment><USER7> True but its for a vastly superior service.

<comment><USER8> Service doesn't really matter if it's less than an hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Aren't supersonic jets more affordable? I mean I know SpaceX is about changing the world, and I know SpaceX is about rockets, but in terms of market, I think having a new Concorde would better fit the idea of earth to earth travel.

I like how SpaceX innovates, but I think this is a "too soon", bad product idea because it will be too expensive at first, and supersonic jets would be a better competitor.

Although I have to admit I really like the disruptive way of "showing the way to the future" communication ad. But to be frank, I wonder if people at SpaceX are not full of zeal sometimes. One bigger problem for SpaceX might be "how to sell space to consumers, or make money with space?".

Maybe that is the reason NASA existed as a government agency, because there is no real, direct ROE with space exploration. In the end SpaceX might make money with wealthy people who can afford going to mars or the moon, but I doubt that many people would be interested if there is no financial gain (or maybe for the hell of it). Innovation from NASA research was shared or benefited the military.

I want SpaceX to endure and succeed but I really wonder about the money/market sides of it. It requires a lot of vision, which goes beyond the reality of capitalism.

<comment><USER10> It's a really good question. Supersonic jets were always heavily constrained due to noise pollution issues with the sonic boom. They weren't allowed to fly over land at supersonic speeds, relegating them to trans-oceanic routes. Now yes this system will have such problems on launch, but as they go pretty much straight up out of the atmosphere compared to a jet, the vast majority of the journey is in space where that's not a problem. Also supersonic jets had range restrictions preventing maximum use of their speed, while this thing can go literally anywhere on Earth. Finally the big killers with Concorde was recouping development costs and paying for 'one-off' spare parts, the costs were crippling. The BFR will (hopefully) exist anyway, so that's not a factor.

In principle yes a supersonic airliner could be cheaper, but the noise pollution issue alone is one of those external factors that is a real killer. Now it's quite possible this use of the BFR might run into issues like that of its own, but they're likely to be different issues at least.

<comment><USER11> If people think supersonic jets are loud, they're in for a treat with rockets. Anyone who's ever witnessed a launch at KSC (I have) will probably say two things: it's awesome, and it's LOUD.

Not ear popping kind of loud, but VERY loud nonetheless, and you feel it too if you're close enough. (Really recommend a viewing at the LC39 observation gantry, it's awesome!) I was watching that video and kept thinking that platform isn't far enough from inhabited land that people won't go apeshit over how loud it is.

I want this future, and boy do I want to see a rocket launch again, but waking up to that nice sound of rocket fuel burning at 6.30am? Yeah, maybe no. :o)

<comment><USER12> Airports are in cities. Even 10 miles out to the ocean would make a massive difference without taking that long.

<comment><USER11> Airplanes are much, _much_ quieter than rockets though. If you haven't seen (and heard!) a launch in person, I understand this might be difficult to appreciate. Even 10 miles out isn't enough to be ignorable.

Also the light – a launch is very bright! During the daytime this wouldn't be such a big deal I guess, but a dawn/dusk/night launch would be _very_ noticeable, even from 10 miles out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think if we measure the travel time from door to door the benefits of the fast rocket shrink in a relation to where is located.

With airplanes this is solved, by the big infrastructure ( cities sometimes have even 2-3 airports ).

Where I live ( Berlin ) with a flight to NYC would look like :

        1. City center -> TXL  - <USER2>
        2. Check-in / security - 30m ( no joke, the airport is small )
        3. Flight              - 9h 15m
        4. Check-out / luggage - 50m
        5. EWR -> City center  - <USER3>
        </comment><comment></comment><comment>- TOTAL ---- 11h 25m

This means that ( ignoring the BFR flight time, since it's just minutes ) the time between you leave the city-center and entering the BFR should take less than 5 hours ( for Berlin ), otherwise you will not arrive faster than a plane.

<comment><USER14> One thing you're missing:

For a very high profile requirement - say, some kind of huge emergency - <USER4> could land the BFR _anywhere_ there's a solid surface the size of a soccer field. Zero infrastructure required.

Getting it out of there again would be difficult, but you could have a team of experts and a whole lot of material resources literally drop down from the sky anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours. Most of that duration would be spent loading the human and material cargo into the rocket.

We have no way of doing that currently.

P.S.: And if the emergency is big enough, you could drop the whole thing into the ocean near the shore and just jettison the passengers and cargo shortly before impact.

Rapid intervention anywhere on Earth. Literally.

<comment><USER15> Military invasion forces and quick reaction forces would be much easier to insert with tech like that.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure about invasion. These things are pretty vulnerable on the descending part of the trajectory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure here, but I think weather could play a major role in disrupting launches, greater than with jet liners, right? And not just due to windy conditions (which planes can better withstand up to a certain point), but also rough waters.

Another issue is noise. I don't see rockets happening that close to shore in large cities. A long pad-to-city commute, with ship trip included, would be another inconvenience.

<comment><USER17> Maybe. Rockets can actually fly through a variety of rough weather conditions. Indeed, they can even survive being struck by lightning (as Apollo 12 was). However, they are not, as a rule, _designed_ to do so. And because they are multi-million dollar equipment that are only used once before being discarded it's easier to simply avoid launching in weather that might be too severe.

However, in practice a rocket could be designed to fly in much more severe weather than is allowed for most launches today, it just takes designing it to do so. Because of the huge cost of rockets today designing a rocket to fly through adverse weather would add additional additional manufacturing cost onto each launch, which is not a good tradeoff. But if you can ammortize that over many flights, then it's not a big deal.

Think about ICBMs and SLBMs. Do you think there is someone sitting in a Minuteman bunker looking at the weather, ready to tell the launch officers just after they've turned their keys "sorry fellas, I've overriden your orders, we can't launch today, the weather is too crummy, oh well, better wait until tomorrow, if there is one"? No, missiles are designed to launch on a moment's notice, and be capable of successfully hitting their targets even if the local weather is terrible. Their designed to be able to launch through thunderstorms and experience only a small percentage of losses in the most unusual conditions. Similarly, any orbital rocket can be designed to be able to launch through most typical severe weather events, with only a small percentage of conditions (compared to today) requiring a scrub because it would endanger mission success.

The degree to which SpaceX will do such a thing is unknown, but it's within the realm of possibility.

Also, it should be noted that a major reason weather has a historical role in disrupting launches is because one of the best locations for launches in the US (Florida: Easterly coast, as close to the equator as possible) is also one of the few places on Earth with the most thunderstorm activity (roughly one out of five days in Florida has a thunderstorm). The vast majority of other locations on Earth don't experience nearly the same level of launch-risk inducing severe weather.

<comment><USER18> ICBMs also typically launch from underground, which helps a bit with the noise and maybe even the weather. Also, you'd have to dig a pretty wide hole to make it land-able and reusable.

<comment><USER19> Presumably several ICBMs are launched at a particular destination at the same time; unlike a payload of paying passengers an ICBM's payload is somewhat fungible so more risks can be taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A few thoughts not covered yet.

First, instead of people, a great first market for this would be cargo. It would enable same-day delivery of goods anywhere in the world. Surely there's a market for that. I know for a lot of tech gear, when you need it, you need it _right now_. Factoring in the cost of a business-class ticket (per kilo), isn't anywhere near being a show-stopper.

Second, time-to-load could be a real factor, especially if you have to reach city center, then load into a boat, then go to the pad, then load in the rocket, then wait for fuel loading, etc. A better way to do this would be to use hyperloops in a spider fashion from the launch pad out to several of the burbs around the city. I could see the hyperloops ending underwater near the pad, with a nice mall and places for people to wait until their rocket was in position for flight. God help us, you'd still have the TSA nonsense.

Third, it just shows a barge, but this would be an entire "thing" \-- launchers, rockets, fueling stations, malls, security, and so forth. Maybe cargo is a pretty good way to get started. Adding people just makes the complexity worse.

Fourth, before you do cargo, you could do a few high-profile people shots every month, for folks with lots of money who want to be remembered as some of the first folks to ever travel sub-orbitally. Hell if you'd want an accident in those days, though. Public relations will be a bear. It reminds me of the early days of flight, when most folks had a deep and profound fear of the machine. Do you want to get on to the top of a huge stick of dynamite? I do, and most HN'ers might, but a few YouTube explosions that kill people could shut the entire thing down (or worse, delay it for decades)

</comment><comment><USER21> There are three things that would factor into my decision about whether to strap myself to a rocket rather than fly in a plane: time, cost, and safety.

Musk & SpaceX are talking a lot about time and cost, but safety is obviously a lot more important. Based on data I found on the internet (so it must be true!) the loss rate for rockets is 20k - 165k higher than the fatal crash rate for airplanes over the past 20 years.

Loss rate for manned rocket launches [1]: 0.79%

Loss rate for unmanned rocket launches [1]: 6.68%

Rate of airplane crashes with at least one fatality [2]: < 0.00004%

Even if SpaceX is able to make manned space flight 10x safer, I'm not sure I'd trade 19 of the 20 hours I spent traveling from LA to South Africa this summer for a 1/1,300 chance of blowing up during launch.

[1] [https://space.stackexchange.com/a/12229](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/12229)

[2] [http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm](http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm)

<comment><USER22> Loss rate for space launches is largely due to the fact that the systems are essentially munitions (i.e. expendable, single-use) and flight rates are very low.

Rocket failures for crewed rocket launches are extremely rare, occurring once every couple decades. It's hard to improve on that because low flight rates make data very hard to come by. Airplanes fail much more often in absolute terms, giving you a lot more data to work with (especially when combined with near-misses) allowing you bring the _relative_ failure rate very low.

Increase flight rates by 5 orders of magnitude, and you may be able to increase reliability by, say, 4 orders of magnitude.

<comment><USER23> The problem is that to increase flight rates by 5 orders of magnitude, you need demand to increase by that much. And people are unlikely to demand rocket flights until _after_ they're as safe as plane flights.

Early passenger planes were pretty dangerous to, but they got around the above problem by a) being much faster than trains, making the risk worth it, b) having clear military applications, the military being less worried about losing the occasional aircrew.

I don't really see how SpaceX gets around that chicken and egg problem.

<comment><USER24> You answered your own question: military applications.

The US Armed Forces would pay a LOT of money to move 100+ tons of personnel and materiel anywhere on earth with a flat landing spot in under 60 minutes.

You could have tanks on the ground that were fully operational in under 3 hours (probably half that if they left the BFR packed and fueled for takeoff at all times), or a disaster recovery base set up within 24 hours of the winds dying down (to pick a more topical example.)

<comment><USER23> Maybe, though the military has studied similar ideas before and nothing has ever come from it, so I'm sceptical they're going to throw the kind of funding at it that would be required here. As a general concern, actual travel time doesn't usually seem to be the main determinant of how fast military forces can be deployed.

But who knows. The idea of a big capsule coming down in a war zone and a bunch of tanks and marines rolling out certainly seems pretty cool, and I'm sure Musk and his lobbyists will at least try and convince the DoD that its something worth throwing a lot of $$ at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought the ship was going to take off

<comment><USER26> Not too get too off-topic with HN's strict rules, but here's an anime depiction of what I believe you to have been imagining: [https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/ActualFeistyBettong](https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/ActualFeistyBettong) (sorry for the image macro, I couldn't find a HTML5 embed without it)

<comment><USER25> I was thinking of it taking off more diagonally, but yes quite close.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How many hours early should we arrive to the launch pad? Are laptops allowed?

<comment><USER28> > Are laptops allowed?

No idea. But the fastest flight (non stop) from NYC to Shanghai right now is almost 15 hours. This promises 39 minutes.

Would you rather fly 15 hours with a laptop than 39 minutes without?

<comment><USER29> I think that depends on whether or not the ticket is something like 50x more expensive.

If Musk is proposing this idea then I assume it won't be too expensive, even for rich people. So it should cost _significantly less_ than what private jet trip costs them (because the BFR is not so private after all).

Of course, the faster time to destination should also balance things out, but I have a feeling a trip would be more like 2h with the boat trips and waiting time included, because as others have said, I doubt the launchpad will be that close to shore.

<comment><USER30> Latest claim: "elonmusk Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and anywhere in under 60. Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that."

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

What's a NYC to SHA full fare one way, about $800? I wonder if he is also getting into the fuel business? So if this rocket holds 200 people, that only gives him $160k in revenue. Fuel for the smaller Falcon is more than that per launch. Or is this baseless hype?

<comment><USER31> In the presentation he mentions that the payload volume is larger than an A380, which seats 525 passengers in a standard configuration or over 800 passengers in an all-economy configuration.

So we're looking at more like $400-$600k revenue per launch. And honestly, if prices came in at 50% more than traditional airlines, you're looking at a hell of a great deal to cut your travel time dramatically.

<comment><USER30> So say we boost things to 1,000 passengers, cost of full fare is $5000 so people are willing to pay $10,000. Assume passengers and luggage average out to 200 lbs/passenger. You are looking at a revenue per launch of $50/lb. Sure, this is suborbital, but that is nearly 50x cheaper than what it costs to get to LEO using SpaceX right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why not instead work on ways to reduce the need to move people from one place on Earth to another, thereby eliminating the cost, hassle and pollution of air travel and hypothetical rocket travel? There's a huge amount of progress that can be made in telepresence technology--it seems silly to get hung up on the assumption that in order to do something or experience something somewhere you need your bag of water and meat to physically be there. We're very close to mass adopting remote employment--to the point where the barriers are no longer technical but cultural. Why not work on the same for other areas of business and for personal vacations? Physical travel should seem like a silly inefficiency!

We should focus on making the Holodeck, not rockets.

<comment><USER33> Why don't you start working on Holodecks. Musk wants to get humanity off this rock. Funding the building of a ship designed to land anywhere in the solar system, including Earth, by using it for Earth transport is brilliant. If one can make the trip from New York to Shanghai in 40 minutes, for the same fuel per person and ticket price as an airplane, why not. Having a fully reusable rocket will be amazing.

Once reliability is proven one could even start thinking about nuclear powered rockets and get those CO2 emissions to zero. I'm sure it is on Elon Musk's mind and Mueller has even mentioned looking into nuclear rockets. Solar system travel could really use nuclear rockets to get reasonable travel travel times.

<comment><USER32> I fully applaud efforts to "get humanity off the rock". To the extent that building a rocket airline helps move humanity toward this goal, great! But, other than as a stepping stone to something bigger, this just seems like a silly distraction.

As for the very HN-ish "why don't you just go make XYZ?" retort, obviously it's because, like most of us (and unlike Elon Musk), I don't have the necessary truckloads of $100 bills necessary to make that happen. I'll get back to you after my windfall from selling PayPal...

<comment><USER33> I think the retort is coming from the fact that to do something amazing like building a reusable rocket (or other great, but easier projects) takes much more than money in the bank. It takes a whole lot of talented people working very hard for a long time. The leader of such people will need an amazing amount of dedication, work, skill, time, luck, drive, smarts, charisma, sacrifice, friends, money, charm etc. to pull it off. If the leader does not have a burning passion for the goal, giving up is the likely outcome with all the problems along the way. So when someone says that this person should be dedicated to some other goal, even though the one they are doing is great, that does not make any sense. The leader and the people working with him have a passion for a certain idea and the skills to work on towards that project. Those are not fungible to another project. Move Musk and all the people working at SpaceX to working on the Holodeck would just be useless and a waste.

Technology does not just progress by magic or money. People must do the hard work. The world is awash in capital at this moment with negative interest rates in some places. Physical resources (or money) is not the limitation for getting most new things done in the world at the moment. It is the complicated process of getting people working together, taking a million false steps, and not giving up before finally figuring out how to reach a goal.

<comment><USER32> I think we agree on one point: To do great things, access to capital is necessary but not sufficient. If all it took was hard work, I'm sure lots of us would quit our jobs today and get started!

<comment><USER33> True. Some start early. Elon Musk sold a video game he wrote called Blaster to a magazine when he was 12 years old for $500. Then he used that money to try to open a video arcade with his brother. He and his brother did get $28,000 to start Zip2 from his father, but that is not a huge sum. The cost of half a year of college. I would say, if you live in the US, access to capital is far down the list on what blocks people over the long haul.

<comment><USER34> I'd say 28K is a lot when it comes to a venture that may not pay off. I hear Elon's father was not particularly poor, so there is some leverage in that. Who knows if Elon could have made it otherwise without the capital. Makes me question if we all need some money to make money.

Curiously, what was the 28K spent on? Maybe 12K for rent, tops for 1995. He even lived in the office. Someone chime in?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> wait and what's the energy usage of that thing? Carbon footprint?

<comment><USER36> sadly this is all I started thinking, but only because of how much he pushes EVs and Solar. It seems like a complete opposite move but given current technology there isn't a clean method to do what he wants.

I would be really curious how much works has gone into neutral fuels. pretty sure lox and such can be made neutrally with solar powered chillers but what is his other fuel? a hydrogen type would be similar would it not?

<comment><USER37> Methane + oxygen (methalox).

<comment><USER38> That produces C02, and given the energies required, would produce a lot. A retrograde step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Interesting. Two little issues: safety and ticket costs. Also, your average overweight tourist isn't going to be very happy at several G's.

<comment><USER40> Extrapolating very naively from SpaceX prices[1] for Falcon Heavy to low earth orbit suggests a ticket price of about $150,000, at $1500 per kg

That is ignoring safety, and other pros and cons such as Falcon Heavy didn't fly yet, Space-X doesn't have a passenger module, frequency and economic scale of passenger operation, different flight profile from LEO, lack of regulatory framework, and so on

[1][http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities](http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities)

<comment><USER41> "About the same as full fare economy" So in the low thousands. Incredible if true.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

<comment><USER42> Impressive if they achieve that. The price point they need to reach though for this to be feasible is business class. As suggested by the NY<->Shanghai route in the video, the major use for this would be distant business meetings that either have to be week long trips or video conferences. Instead they could be overnight or even day trips. Businesses have more buying power as well compared to consumers.

<comment><USER29> If they can maintain all ticket prices below $10,000 that would probably work. It would still be 2-3x what businesses normally pay, but they would arrive 10x faster, so it may be worth it at least for some. Musk just needs enough customers to make the business sustainable and so he can afford to build more such rockets and then keep dropping the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Musk says the ticket price would equal an economy international plane ticket.

Back of the envelope calculation more or less confirming that here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15362976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15362976)

<comment><USER25> even if it cost multiples the cost of a concorde ticket, i'm sure some would want to fly from sydney to new york in one hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So that's basically the first privately-owned ICBM?

<comment><USER45> No, the current SpaceX rockets are ICBM enough. This is much harder - ICBM's don't need to land at ~0 m/s vertical speed, and if they carry nuclear warheads (are there conventional ICBMs at all?) they don't need ~1 m landing precision.

<comment><USER25> you could land a big freaking robot in pieces, or land a bunch of killer drones in enemy territory

<comment><USER46> Commandoes to carry out raids. Dirty bombs with big drills to pollute water supply to a region. So much fun it's sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> BFR, Big Freaking Rocket?

<comment><USER48> Big Fucking Rocket, actually.

<comment><USER49> Yep, they just talked about it on Radio 4. The comment was "So he's really called it that?" Then a sigh. Haha. Love it :)

<comment><USER50> Beautiful. A middle finger to the usual bland corporate pomposity!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I know people have valid reasons to be skeptical about such projects. But maybe after 50 years or so when this kind of transport will be very common we will remember this day as one of the most historic events in the course of humanity.

<comment><USER52> And if it becomes that common, in 150 years time, New York will be under water. I remember reading that the instantaneous power output of one Apollo rocket taking off is roughly the equivalent of the entire average electricity load of the UK. Surely burning a country's worth of rocket fuel every time you want to travel long distance is not sustainable?

<comment><USER29> Fusion power can't come soon enough. Maybe it's time for Musk to start working on that. He actually said in an older interview that he would like to tackle it eventually.

<comment><USER53> He recently said (paraphrasing) that it wasn't particularly productive investing in Fusion when there's a giant, very efficient fusion reactor in the sky. We'd be better off improving solar panel efficiency and energy storage solutions.

<comment><USER54> He's also said rockets are the only transportation where electric wont work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Do we get to wear the super cool spacesuits?

<comment><USER56> They should charge extra for Daft Punk cosplay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wouldn't that mess with our nuclear early warning system? How can you tell if it's an ICBM nuke or a passenger rocket?

</comment><comment><USER58> They should really _not_ put windows on this. At least not in the first models. Sure, passengers would love to see outside, but really it makes the design much more complicated for little benefit.

It can be stressful not to have any idea of what is happening outside, but you can simply alleviate that with external cameras and screens on board.

</comment><comment><USER59> If this acctually happens, it would be interesting to see how the international law, ai<del><del>space trafic control and military missle defence systems develops, so that SpaceX can land one of these in Shangai without having to worry about accidentaly starting a thermonuclear war.

</comment><comment><USER60> Interesting article about it: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16385026/elon-musk- spacex...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16385026/elon-musk-spacex- rocket-transportation-point-to-point)

</comment><comment><USER61> Musk seems to enjoy making promises about all kinds of fantasy transport, promising orders of magnitude cost reduction from already mature technologies like tunneling, rocketry, or high-speed rail. These promises meet with very little skepticism here.

Pan Am once offered tickets to the Moon.

<comment><USER62> It would be different if this was coming from the mouth of the Comcast CEO but it's coming from Musk who has a series of successful achievements of his own, a profitable space company with the worlds first re-usable rockets, the first company to successfuly market an electric car, fastest growing battery storage solution on the market. These things matter.

<comment><USER61> They do, but the crux of every Musk fantasy is a radical drop in the cost of these things, a promise he has never delivered on.

<comment><USER63> Tesla Roof is cheaper than many traditional roofing materials _and_ provides solar. See the chart here. [1]

Air Force launches with SpaceX are less than half the price of ULA launches. [2]

Can you clarify how you believe Musk's companies haven't delivered?

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla- s-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-s-solar-roof- is-finally-ready-for-you-to-buy)

[2] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/16/us-air-force-spacex- ula-...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/16/us-air-force-spacex-ula-launch- costs/)

<comment><USER61> They have not delivered "orders of magnitude cost reduction from already mature technologies", which is what I said in my parent comment. They've instead made (valuable!) incremental advances, usually by relying on immense government subsidies.

<comment><USER64> What immense government subsidies did Tesla and SpaceX rely on? Tesla got a loan it paid back early and a $7k tax rebate per car for the first 200k cars which other car companies also got. SpaceX got a contract to build a rocket and capsule NASA wants to use, for a fraction of the price Boeing and Lockheed charge for same job.

<comment><USER61> "A $7k tax rebate per car for the first 200k cars" is a $1.4B government subsidy.

<comment><USER64> "usually by relying on immense government subsidies" makes one think that Boeing and GM failed to do the engineering work that SpaceX and Tesla had done because they were somehow barred from some kind of government subsidy.

But of course, the opposite is true: Being, Lockheed, GM, Ford, etc. enjoy a lot of help from the government (money and regulation) and use a bunch of dirty tactics against Musk's companies. And despite this, SpaceX and Tesla did things the incumbents were incapable of doing. In some cases things that were said to be impossible rather than just uneconomical.

I think at least the "usually" in your post is unwarranted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> How big are the sonic booms gonna be?

<comment><USER41> They're launching out to sea. Once they're over land, they'll be out of the atmosphere. In space no one can hear you boom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Genuinely don't care if this is a stupid idea or if it works or not but I'd ride it :)

</comment><comment><USER67> This looks like a large volume version of the cars in Too Like the Lightning -[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Like_the_Lightning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Like_the_Lightning)

</comment><comment><USER68> I am sure mil would love this tech

<comment><USER69> Absolutely. 200+ paratroopers, anywhere in the world in under an hour?

Land anywhere flat after the troops have jumped, refuel and recover later.

<comment><USER56> _Land anywhere flat_

Like the deck of an aircraft carrier? A specialized glider-reentry vehicle would allow the delivery of armored vehicles. It would also allow safer deployment of the rocket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I wonder if they can compete with Boom Supersonic [[https://boomsupersonic.com/](https://boomsupersonic.com/)] at the fuel cost. One reason Concorde failed was NOISE and FUEL COSTS.

<comment><USER71> If I have to believe Elon, the fuel for the BFR is 'incredibly cheap' to produce. And the concorde flew over land and cities, a rocket goes straight up (for the first part) so noise problems should be acceptable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> In startups you often have tech that is more general than it needs to be, and you start thinking about all the opportunities, but it can be a mistake. In your go-to-market strategy, you need focus. If you say, "We have 3 business models", it means you don't yet have a business model.

I hope Elon the best, but I wonder if that is happening here. SpaceX is going to sell Internet, do fast air travel, do space tourism, . . . . Same with Tesla: we aren't just a car company, we're a battery company! There is a hyperloop and a digging company and solar rooftops. I think it's true there are many opportunities, and history has had its conglomerates like GE, but there is risk in losing your focus.

Still, I'm thrilled he is pushing us forward!

<comment><USER56> _In your go-to-market strategy, you need focus. If you say, "We have 3 business models", it means you don't yet have a business model._

It's pretty clear that SpaceX is in the reusable rocket business. By your logic, Boeing didn't have focus, because they built seaplanes, flying boats, fighters, cargo planes, and passenger planes. (This is what they did, in the order that they did it.) They apparently had at least 5 business models. Whoops. I guess they didn't have a business model!

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> It's not like people will be able to reach their destination within an hour of booking their ticket. These flights will probably occur once or twice a day, which kind of defeats the purpose?

<comment><USER74> Regular intercontinental flights have the same problem. With transport this fast, you could theoretically fly in the morning, have a full day of meetings, and be home by the evening. With regular flights you'd spend a full day traveling both ways

<comment><USER73> Fair enough. In the meantime, I'll stick to Skype.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> What about pollution? Rockets seem to waste much more fuel compared to a plan on an equivalent distance, though I might be wrong and the main burn would consume less overall.

</comment><comment><USER76> I think this is amazing - but what are the military implications? I mean, the military-industrial complex is not likely to stand by and watch this capability become so commonplace that it invalidates the purpose of having fast-attack forces at the readiness.

I mean, I guess the answer is pretty clear: the US Military will be the first customer for the BFR, before any transportation companies get it .. they already hold technology in reserve for their war-fighting abilities, so .. its going to be interesting to see what the MIC version of this is going to be .. assuming they don't already have it. (Some people think they do ..)

</comment><comment><USER77> I will call this "Intercontinental Ballistic Taxi"

</comment><comment><USER78> Start: [https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc?t=26m12s](https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc?t=26m12s)

</comment><comment><USER79> Virgin galactic seems to be a more reasonable solution which could probably use existing airport with slight modification.

<comment><USER80> SpaceShipTwo is a very much suborbital craft that would only have a range of a few hundred (maybe a thousand?) miles if used for travel. You'd have to build something much bigger to do antipodal travel like this.

The capability you need to go suborbital from one side of the Earth to the other is essentially the same as what's needed to go into orbit. (Thus all the ICBMs that got repurposed as orbital launchers.) Any vehicle that can't reach orbit probably can't do what BFR could do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I'm guessing there would be some environmental impact? It can't exactly be carbon neutral burning all that fuel?

<comment><USER82> It can be if the fuel is synthesized from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with solar as a power source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> The security protections on the launch pads alone would have to be incredibly high. Looks vulnerable at sea like that.

<comment><USER39> Like the security precautions at airports? Any airport that I'm familiar with has access roads and roads around it that are accessible to the public from where any idiot with an RPG or possibly even a rifle could attempt to bring down a passenger jet. And yet it does not happen.

<comment><USER84> I wonder _why_ it does not happen, given that terrorist attacks in general do occur. Great policing, or do the bad guys just lack imagination?

Hoping for the former, but if I were a civil servant I'd want to assume the latter and plan for surprise imagination.

<comment><USER50> There are tools available to help reduce the threat, e.g. [http://www.cunningrunning.co.uk/sam- pras](http://www.cunningrunning.co.uk/sam-pras)

'SAM-PRAS is a unique market-leading solution used by counter-terrorism agencies to identify potential MANPADS launch points within range of flight paths.'

I don't work for or have any association with this company BTW, just aware of their software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> The jet lag must be pretty significant then :)

<comment><USER86> Nah, in half an hour you can always come back to sleep at home.

<comment><USER50> How long until we have transcontinental commuting?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> can anyone think of scenarios where somebody has to be somewhere in an hour?

what about making one of those the new airforce one?

<comment><USER87> Industrial (Oil/Gas/Materials) repairmen. You're talking a few 100,000 for every hour they're not pushing product. These places are located at the resource, not where employees are so you're likely going to need to fly someone super specialized in the maintenance of this one item half way across the globe.

<comment><USER25> like sending specialists to a nuclear power plant after a disaster?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Do we get an in-flight snack?

</comment><comment><USER89> Marketing of that product is awesome. But does it scale? Very unlikely! That's great to have impossible goals to make people dream, but stop bullshitting people saying it will replace commercial airplanes and everybody will be an astronaut for the same price.

Why is the Concorde not in service anymore? Simple: it was a very little market, over-polluting for over-privileged and we do not need that to enhance traveling, we already tried! How would this BFR be different?

<comment><USER90> The Concorde was one airplane. Its not like we have tried every possible way of increasing travel speed.

They will build this rocket anyway, the will have to make it reusable anyway. All they did is consider using it as a transporter for people on earth.

Its just one way the can potentially make money with this technology. Does not hurt to try. No reason to shit on the idea and claim its some absurd fantasy.

<comment><USER89> Well my bad, all I did was clicking on the link, I made a lot of assumptions on what they intended to do with that.

Indeed it doesn't hurt to try!</comment></comment></comment>


Valve is worth approximately $8,500,000.00 per employee - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation

<comment><USER3> _> "Valve makes approximately $8,500,000.00 per employee"_

Total equity =/= Annual profit

I assume you did:

        2.5 billion total equity / 293 employees
        =~ 8.5 million / employee

A more appropriate statement would be "Valve is _worth_ approximately $8,500,000.00 per employee"

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, sorry, caught my error. Thought that number was 2.5bil in revenue. Just changed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Valve is privately held. It was bootstrapped. The co-founders seem to be against the idea of selling, indicating that there probably haven't been any serious, negotiated offers (and if there were they are private). There hasn't been any actual concrete valuation done in years (that is public).

Putting a value on Valve is a complete shot in the dark, that $2.5B is just what some analyst hit when he threw a dart at the wall.

<comment><USER5> EA recently offered $1b.

<http://gamerant.com/valve-electronic-arts-buyout-billion/>

<comment><USER6> They offered "well over" $1 billion, but yeah: good link.

<comment><USER4> Its all hear-say and even according to the link no formal offer was made so its highly unlikely any DD was done. Still a complete hand-wave at the possible value of Valve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> #1 - An estimated market cap of a private company is not accurate value.

#2 - The number of employees is those who attended the beach party from an employee guide from earlier in the year = there are more employee now.

The math here is completely arbitrary cause both the numbers used in the division are probably incorrect or just assumptions. Also keeping in mind that wikipedia isn't the best source for reference.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is something I've been thinking about a bit recently. When I look at a lot of profitable businesses like tech startups , investment firms etc they can have very high turnovers without actually employing many people.

Apple is one of the biggest companies by market cap. They claim to create around 512,000 jobs (<http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/>).

However many of those jobs are in their retail stores which their business could at least in theory do without. Also many are in manufacturing where there will increasingly be automation.

I hear a lot from politicians that we need to get people spending so that they can create jobs. However a fair amount of the economic activity that I do is via either clicking on google ads or buying games from Steam. A lot of these games are written by very small teams. So I could quite easily spend a lot of money without really creating any jobs at all.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think you mean that Valve's current equity per employee is $8.5 million. Equity is neither revenue nor profit.

<comment><USER9> And on top of that, the source for the current estimated equity is a NY Times article referencing an analyst:

"Although Valve's finances are private, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates that the company could be worth around $2.5 billion today."

So in truth, we don't know the company equity at all.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I pulled the trigger on this too fast and changed the title according (used to say make 8.5mil per employee). I thought they were doing $2.5billion in revenue. It's estimated to be worth 2.5 billion, which is $8.5mil per employee. That's still extremely impressive for a company that effectively sells IP.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think they are doing some really interesting things behind their curtain - <USER2> listen to hardware podcasts a lot and the word is that they are snapping up hardware gurus/hackers left and right... Not sure what the end result will be, but my interest is piqued.

</comment><comment><USER11> Kind of an interesting benchmark. For comparison (market cap/employees):

apple: 10.32m

facebook: 10.46m

exxon: 5.04m

microsoft: 2.75m

goldman sachs: 1.8m

walmart: $113,218

<comment><USER12> instagram: 62.2m (assuming FB is at $19.41 and 12 employees)</comment></comment>


BuzzFeed buzzkill: Its stunning revenue miss goes viral - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/12/media/buzzfeed-missed-projections/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom <comment><USER2> Buzzfeed's impending failure is the canary in the mine for all of social media, such as was New Century mortgage abrupt announcing of bankruptcy. I remember that day still as I was a mortgage broker, and you all saw it documented in Emmy award winning The Big Short. At best Buzzfeed should have been a branch of a larger media conglomerate or news website like Yahoo. Buzzfeed is another of the ultimate pump and dumb schemes we have seen on Wall St and Silicon Valley so many times. This time they told us "web traffic" and "likes" on face book were so much more important than posting profits, and their insane cash burns were ignored as our old friend greed continued to inflate the bubble through the soaking up of excess money from unbelievably greedy VCs who were unsatisfied with low single digit returns from traditional companies. VCs are hugely important to capitalism (as we have seen with shows like Shark Tank) but with huge gains comes huge risk and big falls. We can all be glad this bubble will predominately affect those involved in this industry, yes big social networks are going to get pinched big, but they will find their footing before the bottom while the other 80% of these startups with no hope of ever achieving profitability will be forced to fold into one another, or face the buzzsaw that is currently spinning inches away from Buzzfeed.</comment>


Jazz concert with OpenBSD synths - <AUTHOR> http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20150211134052

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know something about the synthesizer program they are using? I saw it is not yet published, but I wasn't sure if there was some information about what type of synthesis it was using or what the processing chain was like.

<comment><USER3> there's a few synthesis libs they could be using: max, ChucK, SuperCollider, Impromptu, CSound

there've been some relevant threads e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571082)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344827)

(i've never tried any, still geting to grips with engines like DSI mopho, korg ms2k, blofeld, minibrute, bass station etc

<comment><USER4> That may be unlikely, considering a few of the things you mentioned are proprietary or not available for OpenBSD. What is more likely is that Alexandre created something new, which makes sense considering he also created the sndio API discussed in the article.

<comment><USER5> yes, that's not unlikely, and very interesting if its the case.

the openbsd audio stuff is very interesting. and sort of odd for that platform to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is OpenBSD well suited for realtime synthesis? I've been looking for a minimal platform (no graphics) with better latency than linux out of the box, to use with SuperCollider and puredata.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great Youtube video of the band playing!

<comment><USER8> Where can I find this video? Wasn't in the link or on the website.</comment></comment>


The Best Application of Augmented Reality - Documenting Vein Access [video]  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD28jThuuDc

<comment><USER2> Fantastic! That would be realy helpful for surgeons</comment>


US Cable: Richard Branson says British education doesn't instil entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/139255

<comment><AUTHOR> The relevant text is halfway down the page, highlighted in yellow.

The Guardian's writeup is here: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/20/wikileaks- cables...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/20/wikileaks-cables- businessmen-richard-branson)</comment>


Obesity in middle age protects against dementia - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-research-being-fat-in-middle-age-cuts-risk-of-developing-dementia/2015/04/10/c87512ec-df52-11e4-a1b8-2ed88bc190d2_story.html?hpid=z4

<comment><USER2> Is it because they die of other things earlier?</comment>


Amendment: Possible Remote Code Execution Exploit in Rails Action View - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/rubyonrails-security/zRNVOUhKHrg/GmmcVXcmAAAJ <comment><AUTHOR> What was supposed to be a file disclosure turned into a remote code exécution.</comment>