Who killed Olof Palme? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/16/olof-palme-sweden-prime-minister-unsolved-murder-new-evidence <comment><USER2> I pass by Adolf Fredrik Church, where he is buried, each day.

It was sad to see two people guarding his tomb all day, even in the rain, in the day that commemorates his dead.

I have also read a book about his assassination that I will recommend to skip and read about his ideas instead.

It will be better to share his ideas than to focus on his death. I think that his world view is more needed now than ever.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any source that lay out his ideas ?

<comment><USER4> I would eye through some of his speeches. A couple of english translations can be found here [http://web.archive.org/web/20180524035711/http://www.olofpal...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180524035711/http://www.olofpalme.org/en/documents- in-various-languages)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be interesting to hear how "interesting" this article is for an international audience. As a Swede I am sick and tired about all speculation over the years. It is like a wound that never heals. We will never know for sure. Probably like the JFK assasination.

<comment><USER6> I always enjoy these articles (to the extend that one can take joy in them), because they rarely fail to highlight how different politics can be.

For an American audience, it's unthinkable that a leader of a government would go anywhere without their own private army. When I used to work in central Berlin, I regularly saw members of parliament and ministers have coffee or just walk around completely unprotected. Even Merkel could be seen with only modest security (usually two people), usually walking to/from her flat about a kilometre away from her office.

It's a world where a stranger is not primarily a threat, possibly-armed, and where civility hasn't completely broken down. And it's not even that rare.

Of course, the story itself kinda speaks against this view of the world.

<comment><USER7> I remember when I sat just behind José Manuel Barroso, that time the leader of the European Commission in a commercial airline, tourist class. I loved that guy, like the former Uruguayan president.

<comment><USER8> Good thing you like him. People in Portugal don't like him that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the theories about who shot him (there are many [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme)) points to South Africa. There is also a theory that South Africans killed Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish UN leader [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/south- africa-w...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/south-africa-weird- sinister-apartheid-mercenary-saimr-keith-maxwell)

</comment><comment><USER10> The murder of OP isn't that interesting. Everyone who is knowledgeable about the case knows it can't have been a conspiracy. It was a lone gunman, possibly a drug addict, seeing OP and his wife, seizing the opportunity to kill him.

But what is interesting is the completely disastrous following investigation. The police in Stockholm fucked up in every possible way there is to fuck up. Records were not kept, witnesses were promised rewards for testifying, they didn't investigate the crime scene properly, chased after wild conspiracy theories about South Africa and PKK and so on. Eventually they brought in experts from the FBI, but then it was already too late because it is much harder to solve a murder three years after the fact than one month after. The only reason the murderer went free is the insane incompetence displayed.

<comment><USER11> > Everyone who is knowledgeable about the case knows it can't have been a > conspiracy. It was a lone gunman

Can you please elaborate? I could very well imagine a seemingly lone gunman who would indeed be a part of a conspiracy, and I have a kind of a direct experience: I was personally a victim of a robbery where only one man attacked me, in what at that moment appeared to me as a completely random attack. Only after that didn't went as planned, a second man came, but not to help me but to help him, to my complete surprise. By chance and my luck the attack was ultimately not successful, but their goal was anyway not to harm me but just to get something I've possessed. Even more interestingly, after reporting the case to the police and after the investigation based on my previous movements before the attack it turned out that these two had two more accomplices. In total, at least four men were involved in one "small" robbery attack. The police told me they are aware of many such cases, and that there was probably even a fifth person involved who coordinated the four. And this all happened in the country and city of more or less comparable overall security and well being to Stockholm, not somewhere where everybody expects such dangers.

So what appeared to be a random attack is actually often indeed planned and involves more people. Even the thieves seldom operate alone.

Then what should be the arguments that there wasn't any conspiracy there?

<comment><USER10> > Can you please elaborate? I could very well imagine a seemingly lone gunman > who would indeed be a part of a conspiracy, and I have a kind of a direct > experience:

So much has been written about the murder so I can't really add much of value. Here are a few facts that makes it obvious that murderer wasn't a professional - hence no conspiracy:

1\. The murderer tried to shot Palme's wife from a distance of about 2 meters but _missed_. 2. The murder weapon was a loud and heavy revolver. Real assassins use (silenced) pistols. 3. The murderer kept the gun rather than disposing it which professional assassins do. 4. The deed took place in one of Stockholm's busiest corners on a Friday after salary (lot's of drunk people out). 5. No good escape routes. I walk past the corner many times per week. All the streets are wide and you have to run for about 100m to the closest hiding spot (a small cemetary). 6. OP was often without bodyguards. There would have been way better opportunities to assassinate him.

Roughly, this was the conclusion of the experts from the FBI, who steered the Swedish police away from the political conspiracy theory to the "lone gunman" one. People still cling on to the conspiracy theory though. I think it is easier for them to digest because then there was some "meaning" to the murder, rather than a drug addicted street-thug doing it for no reason.

Fun (sad) fact; in the 90's you could often see the main suspect of the murder Christer Petterson (subsequently released) sitting intoxicated on the subway or commuter rail. People of course avoided him.

<comment><USER11> > a drug addicted street-thug doing it for no reason

It still sounds much less probable than anybody who would do it with an agenda.

> the streets are wide and you have to run for about 100m to the closest > hiding spot

Can you post a link to the location? Not being from there and reading about these details for the first time, it's hard for me to imagine "one of Stockholm's busiest corners" but with no place to hide for 100m? No buildings? No entrances to the buildings? No entrances to the combinations of the buildings where you enter in one block of houses but can magically appear wherever across, already dressed in new clothes? That's all very doable in the busy cities I know, especially if somebody already planned and verified one or two escape routes.

Additionally, there could be a logic behind using an old gun: an origin of an old gun could be harder to trace, it could have been never recorded or marked.

<comment><USER10> Sure. Here is the movie theater were Olof Palme and his wife watched a movie:

[https://goo.gl/maps/TWwgVMsroFnSkNH89](https://goo.gl/maps/TWwgVMsroFnSkNH89)

Here is the hot dog stand the couple walked past. The owner thought he saw someone following them.

[https://goo.gl/maps/QysTTnjg8ek9PiRy5](https://goo.gl/maps/QysTTnjg8ek9PiRy5)

Murder scene. The killer ran into the street after shooting Palme and attempting to shoot his wife.

[https://goo.gl/maps/biseEKdGTw9A3mzK6](https://goo.gl/maps/biseEKdGTw9A3mzK6)

The killer ran up this flight of stairs. Another indication that he wasn't a professional. The stairs were ice-covered and slippery so he would risk falling.

[https://goo.gl/maps/DMqBznb8jVgTv4ci7](https://goo.gl/maps/DMqBznb8jVgTv4ci7)

After the stairs, it is not known what route he took. According to most witness accounts, he ran straight. Some believe he ran to the left though, towards the cemetery and hid there.

[https://goo.gl/maps/UWMHDfSCeoyi1nc67](https://goo.gl/maps/UWMHDfSCeoyi1nc67)

<comment><USER11> Thanks! I still don't see how it's an argument that the attack wasn't planned by somebody else, but it is at least obvious, if I understand that the route of the attacke is confirmed, that the attacker himself wasn't prepared to disappear as soon as possible but to simply run for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something about Olof Palme himself. I don't think there has been any other politician in Sweden that have split the opinions in society like him. The left loved him. The right did not. I don't want to reach out for the word hate, because it is so often used today. He was certainly hated among some, yes. But more than that, he was despised probably by the majority among the minority that did not vote left. He left no one neutral.

How come?

A well known quote of his :

"Jag tror efter de studier vi gjort är korrekt att säga att Arbetsgivareföreningens propagandister i mycket framstår som hatets och illviljans kolportörer mot svensk arbetarrörelse"

Basically, this in very sofisticated words describes the Employer organisation's "propagandists" as agents of hate and ill-will against the labour movement. Quite an insult against political opponents. Today, we are perhaps used / more exposed to similar language in social media etc. But during this time, there was nothing like it.

This should be understood against the backdrop of the politics of the time. Sweden was at the time significantly more socialist, very high income taxes, and the right probably felt that there were no limits how far social democratic politicians were prepared to go. Right or wrong, this was the sentiment among many.

His language was often arrogant and in ways derogatory, but not similar to Trump's bombastic tone. In contrast, using much more elegant and precise prose.

I am certain I will get replies that will defend his deeds and oppose how I describe him. Understand that just like society appeared during his reign - two sides who could not understand the other.

<comment><USER9> I remember. I was in my early teens when he was murdered. I did not like his speaking style. It felt too elitist; distanciated / detached.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Les chefs des drapeaux rouges et les chefs des chemises noires ne vont qu'au pas cinglant de leurs bottes guerrières, le torse pris dans un corset de fer à l'épreuve de l'amour et des balles. Ils vont, tragiques et le flingue sur le cœur. Ils vont, métalliques et la peur au ventre, vers les palais blindés où s'ordonnent leurs lois de glace. Ils marchent droits sous leurs casquettes, leurs yeux durs sous verre fumé, cernés de vingt gorilles pare-chocs qui surveillent les toits pour repérer la mort. Mais la mort n'est pas pour les chefs des drapeaux rouges ni pour les chefs des chemises noires. La mort n'est pas aux fenêtres des rideaux de fer. Elle a trop peur.

La mort est sur Stockholm. Elle signe, d'un trait rouge sur la neige blanche, son aveu d'impuissance à tuer la liberté des hommes qui vont au cinéma, tout seuls, bras dessus, bras dessous, avec la femme qu'ils aiment jusqu'à ce que mort s'ensuive."

Pierre Desproges

</comment><comment><USER13> I am not Swedish, and had not yet visited Sweden at the time, and yet somehow Palme's murder was shocking and memorable to me.

Perhaps it was that it was a blatant murder in a crowded public place, like something from James Bond. Or the murder of a major public figure, something that had seemingly gone out of fashion (I remember Lennon's murder distinctly as well, but that was a loonie so somehow lacked the same significance to me).

So odd, since I knew nothing of Swedish politics and honestly couldn't care less (though I knew who he was, an internationally famous politician).

So whenever his name surfaces I always check out the article. The 80s were _weird_ , and seem weirder in retrospect.

</comment><comment><USER14> For all non swedes here, you should check out his speeches on youtube. He is known as a very well speaker.

</comment><comment><USER15> Bring Martin Beck out of retirement.

<comment><USER16> I thought it was Gunvald who left??

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Eh, the JFK assassination is more people wanting a conspiracy over the boring explanations rather than an unsolved murder.

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't say so. The CIA and high ranking military officials certainly hated him and wanted him dead. There was a strong motive and there many inconsistencies in the way the case was handled afterwards. The majority of higher ranking CIA officials really considered JFK a traitor, because he didn't send air support at the bay of pigs (following through with what he had clearly stated all along). There were claims that he had been subverted by the Soviets, was deliberately sabotaging the country, etc.

Personally, I remain agnostic but find it fairly credible that Oswald personally met a group of conspirators from the CIA a few days before the shooting and these people encouraged him to do what he did, maybe even made him some false promises about what would happen afterwards. It's also not unlikely that the killing of Oswald himself followed a similar pattern.

That's all speculation, but overall reasonable speculation, because of the existing motives. Many conspiracy theories are weak, because they fail to lay out a credible motive. JFK is not one of those cases.

<comment><USER19> But can a conspiracy of more than a very few people be kept under wraps for a lifetime? I find it hard to believe that if there really was a conspiracy that nothing concrete has emerged in all these years.

<comment><USER20> When everyone involved has been explicitly been trained and selected to work with secrets, in a historical period when such activities are extremely dangerous and brutal, and under the treath of expedite death penalty or assassination... it's not that hard to believe any involved party would keep very silent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Mossad. Palme was a good friend of Palestine.</comment>


After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48-years-democrats-endorse-nuclear-energy-in-platform/#3c7687df5829 <comment><USER3> For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, _much_ safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people.

We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future generations without mass adoption of nuclear power.

> _Nuclear energy is by far the safest energy source in this comparison – it > results in more than 442 times fewer deaths than the 'dirtiest' forms of > coal; 330 times fewer than coal; 250 times less than oil; and 38 times fewer > than gas._

[https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of- energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)

<comment><USER4> Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage.

However, I think the resistance is also because the nature of the catastrophe is different. Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone? I know that mining/drilling are incredibly damaging to the environment, but theoretically work is done to mitigate/restore the areas. Of course, they're essentially turning the _entire planet_ (or large, currently-inhabited swaths of it anyway) into an exclusion zone, but unfortunately there is another cognitive bias humans have where we under-rate long-term risks.

I've been a nuclear skeptic, but gradually I'm coming around to it. At this point the main questions I have are whether it can be done cheap enough. It seems like price is really driving renewable adoption at this point, so maybe green policies should focus on subsidizing storage and nuclear instead?

<comment><USER5> > _Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate > ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, > even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level > damage._

How come hydroelectric dams don't get treated this way? In 2019 a dam in Brazil had a catastrophic failure that cost the lives of 270 people. In 2019! In 1975 a dam failed in China and the death toll is estimated between 80,000 and 240,000.

All of this ignores the ecosystem destruction that building a dam and flooding a valley does. All of that plant life will die and the carbon goes back into the cycle.

Yet I don't see hydroelectric dams getting nearly as much push back from activists. Why?

<comment><USER6> Hydro disasters have been large, but are tangible/sensible, immediate, and resolve relatively quickly (days for rescue, months for recovery, possibly a few years for rebuilding).

Banqiao is now home to 17 million people (after 40 years, largely achieved within a decade or so). Meantime, Chernobyl still hasn't seen complete containment (after 34 years), and Fukushima hasn't begun initial cleanup (after 9 years). The two nuclear sites will be obligatory nature preserves for centuries, containing still-lethal risks.

The specific failings at Banqiao were virtually all managerial and political, not technical; poor engineering, inadequate safety provisions, underestimated environmental and operational risks, poor contingency planning, unforseen perfect storm (literally), severed communications, insufficient warnings, no community disaster preparation, inadequate rescue and recovery. _None of these failures are specific to hydro, all apply to nuclear power, and as non- engineering problems there is no technical fix that makes them go away._

In Banqiao, about 25,000 people died in the immediate innundation. Another 150,000 died in the following weeks of starvation and disease. There's no great mystery as to how such deaths are avoided: floodwaters are mitigated by high ground and evacuation centres; starvation and disease by food, water, and medical stocks; and rescue & recovery by trained teams and equipment. Reestablishment of communications, transport, and utilities is critical.

China at the time was desperately poor, politically dysfunctional, and gambled hugely on risk and lost. Other major hydro disasters tend to share these traits.

As do many regions looking to nuclear power for salvation.

(I've mentioned Banqiao several times over the years on HN. It's a terrifying but educational tragedy. [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20banqiao&sort=byPopularity&type=comment) Wikipedia article recommended: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam\)))

<comment><USER7> > The two nuclear sites will be obligatory nature preserves for centuries,

That equals to slow but solid dissemination. Good luck trying to keep the migratory birds or fishes inside their boundaries at any time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First endorsement in 48 years? I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an endorsement:

> As detailed in the Climate Action Plan, President Obama is committed to > using every appropriate tool to combat climate change. Nuclear power, which > in 2014 generated about 60 percent of carbon-free electricity in the United > States, continues to play a major role in efforts to reduce carbon emissions > from the power sector. As America leads the global transition to a low- > carbon economy, the continued development of new and advanced nuclear > technologies along with support for currently operating nuclear power plants > is an important component of our clean energy strategy. Investing in the > safe and secure development of nuclear power also helps advance other vital > policy objectives in the national interest, such as maintaining economic > competitiveness and job creation, as well as enhancing nuclear > nonproliferation efforts, nuclear safety and security, and energy security.

>

> The President's FY 2016 Budget includes more than $900 million for the > Department of Energy (DOE) to support the U.S. civilian nuclear energy > sector by leading federal research, development, and demonstration efforts > in nuclear energy technologies, ranging from power generation, safety, > hybrid energy systems, and security technologies, among other things. DOE > also supports the deployment of these technologies with $12.5 billion in > remaining loan guarantee authority for advanced nuclear projects through > Title 17. DOE's investments in nuclear energy help secure the three > strategic objectives that are foundational to our nation's energy system: > energy security, economic competitiveness, and environmental responsibility.

[https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press- office/2015/1...](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press- office/2015/11/06/fact-sheet-obama-administration-announces-actions-ensure- nuclear-energy)

<comment><USER9> First endorsement in the official party platform, which is a specific document released by the parties every 4 years (except this year for Republicans who re-adopted their 2016 platform with no changes...).

<comment><USER8> With some qualifiers this is technically correct, but this only makes it feel more disingenuous.

<comment><USER10> The Democratic Party platform reflects the position of the party for four years and is voted on and influenced by all delegates (including delegates for candidates that do not win, ex. Bernie's delegates the past two elections).

A page on the Obama administration website reflected the personal opinion of the president at the time it was posted, and can be changed at any time.

The presidential nominee is not necessarily going to agree with the party platform (although they are more or less telling voters they will uphold it). The party and all of its delegates certainly need not agree with everything the president says.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. The party's official platform is equally dismissible as - if not more dismissible than - as the actions taken by the party in recent history, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm continuously baffled by those that claim that nuclear power is safe. Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to _any_ possible natural disaster.

Analysis of nuclear power should take into account Black Swan events: no matter how well designed, some fraction of plants will cause INES Level 7 disasters. If the resulting cost (ie $100s of billions for cleanup), environmental damage, and health impacts are still less than wind or solar, I'm all for it, but pro-nuclear arguments continuously give the tired argument that with new designs "this time is different."

<comment><USER12> > Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power > plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible > natural disaster.

For Fukushima, it seems that the panicked response of the local authorities (evacuating the whole area ...) was what caused the most problems.

<comment><USER13> The automatic shutdown contributed.

Fukushima needed cooling pumps to operate. There were 3 ways to power the pumps:

1\. the reactor itself, automatically shut down when the earthquake was detected

2\. diesel generators, shut down by flooding

3\. power lines from elsewhere, shut down by the tsunami knocking them down

Clearly, shutting down the reactor is a self-inflicted problem. Had they left it running, the pumps would have had power, and the whole disaster wouldn't have happened.

It's a stupid panic-driven regulation that a nuclear power plant must shut down for an earthquake. Once the earthquake hits, it is too late to reach a cool shut-down state. That would take weeks. There is no justification for doing the shutdown. It just caused problems, leading to disaster.

<comment><USER14> > It's a stupid panic-driven regulation that a nuclear power plant must shut > down for an earthquake. Once the earthquake hits, it is too late to reach a > cool shut-down state.

It might be too late to reach a cold shut-down state, but it should be enough to reduce a lot of the pressure within the pressure vessel and the piping. If the earthquake causes a crack in the pressure vessel or the piping, this could be the difference between it bursting open and a small leak (or even nothing, if the crack is small enough to not penetrate all the way).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's great, anti-nuclear energy was definitely one of the anti-science stances standing in the way of progress.

<comment><USER16> It's odd to me that anti-nuclear is being labelled anti-science. It's almost like the pro-nuclear people have blinders on. Nuclear is fantastic, in theory. In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly. The odds of a bad accident may be very small, but they are not zero (cf. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents)). And dealing with the waste is another highly risky and unsolved problem.

I will be happily become pro-nuclear the moment that all the real-world externalities are actually priced in. How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years? What if such an accident happens in a densely populated area?

How much do you think it will cost to keep all that nuclear waste safe for the next half a million years or so? Plutonium-239's half-life is 24,000 years, and isotopes are dangerous for 10 to 20 times their half-life (cf [https://www.livescience.com/33127-plutonium-more- dangerous-u...](https://www.livescience.com/33127-plutonium-more-dangerous- uranium.html)).

The same problem of externalities exists for fossil fuels, of course. And even for hydro power in a different way: it has displaced millions of people and flooded many beautiful places.

<comment><USER17> > In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are > extraordinarily bad and costly.

...not really. Fossil fuels kill a simply enormous amount of people. Coal is responsible for something like 13k deaths per year in the US alone; air pollution (from burning fossil fuels) kills something like 10k people _per day_.

> How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine > uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years?

A number so low it rounds to zero in this context?

> The same problem of externalities exists for fossil fuels, of course.

I don't think you can handwave that away as an "of course". The externalities around fossil fuels are simply enormous; the issues and costs and risks of nuclear are multiple orders of magnitude less.

<comment><USER16> > I don't think you can handwave that away as an "of course". The > externalities around fossil fuels are simply enormous; the issues and costs > and risks of nuclear are multiple orders of magnitude less.

That wasn't intended as a handwave. Fossil fuel externalities are indeed enormous and well documented.

It's exhausting to talk to pro-nuclear people, because all everyone ever talks about is nuclear vs fossil. That was the 20th century's fight.

Fossil fuel for the generation of electricity is already doomed, because solar and wind are way cheaper now. Capitalism will take care of finishing off coal, the sooner the better, if we want to keep the planet livable.

In combination with rapid technological innovation in grid-scale storage, we will hopefully end up with a low-carbon power generation solution, one that does not involve risks of a nuclear accident, nor nuclear waste.

<comment><USER17> > That was the 20th century's fight.

[https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an- insan...](https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insane- number-of-new-coal-plants/)

We shall see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been reading "Normal Accidents" by Perrow. I started reading the book expecting an even-keeled explanation of risk, but I was pretty shocked by how prejudiced against Nuclear the tone was.

It was also a reminder of how TERRIBLE the industrial design (aka UX) of reactor monitoring and controls were at the time the book was written (1984).

So many of the things he seems to have felt were insurmountable could be solved by better design, something the book goes a long way toward dismissing.

Anti-nuclear sentiment seems to be one of those things that became widely fashionable, and Pro-nuclear became demonized.

<comment><USER19> >Anti-nuclear sentiment seems to be one of those things that became widely fashionable, and Pro-nuclear became demonized.

There was a concerted effort to connect all nuclear _power_ with nuclear _weapons_ in the 80's and 90's. The effects of that are still with us.

<comment><USER20> It's still a thing today. Look at the Iran deal. I don't know enough to comment on whether its a good or bad thing but a lot of people think that Iran purifying Uranium == Iran developing nukes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have preached until I was red in the face that nuclear is the only solution we have currently that will get us to zero emissions on a proper time scale when it comes to global warming. I am all for wind and solar, but you have to be practical as well. We don't have anything that is even close to being able to provide stable 24 hour power like nuclear. Obviously we want a mix, but there are safe nuclear designs out there. And the feds will just have to overrule the NIMBYs on an official site or three for properly controlling the waste.

<comment><USER22> Neither the US not UK has built and finished a new nuclear plant in 40 years, and the single one (1) in progress in the UK is a 15-20 year project with a construction cost of £23Bn and a subsidy of £50Bn.

Trying to turn the small UK nuclear like this would cost £1Tn private construction, £2Tn government subsidies, and take 700 years.

Assuming it actually gets finished and not shelved by economic collapse/Brexit as its being built by a French company.

It goes with Patrick Collision's question about why the West can't build big projects quickly and affordably anymore.

Rolls-Royce were in the news recently with a mass-manufacturing small nuclear reactor design, but at this rate the political arguing will see us with Lithium battery storage for intermittent renewable years before 50 new nuclear plants for baseline/backup capacity. Or buying Russian nuclear power surplus in 2050.

<comment><USER23> > Neither the US not UK has built and finished a new nuclear plant in 40 > years, and the single one (1) in progress in the UK is a 15-20 year project > with a construction cost of £23Bn and a subsidy of £50Bn.

This is a great point and its why we should urgently be analyzing the failures of new nuclear projects to understand what's going wrong and why we can't do something that we could do in the 1960s and 1970s without issue (France nuclearized its power sector in less than 2 decades!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Renewable energy sources have zero fuel costs. Their potential for life- threatening disasters - on the scale of Fukushima, Chernobyl, coal ash floods, etc. - is zero.

Just as with coal mines, uranium mines and oilfields, there's a large upfront cost ... but a much lower cost to the environment.

Furthermore, anyone can create solar-powered electricity, anywhere. There will be no wars over access to sunlight. Sunlight is a democratic power source, which cannot be monopolized by special interests. Nomads in Mongolia make their own electricity. Anyone living near a creek can make their own hydro ... thousands do.

Once renewables are built, apart from maintenance, the cost of the energy and its transport is free, and (apart from recycling costs) pollution-free. It will continue to be free until the generator has to be replaced, some stupid war destroys it, and/or the Sun burns out. Too obvious for some interests.

Attempts to distort these facts, to maintain monopolies and continue to enrich a very few, will persist. It's easy to invent lies and distortions and to spread FUD about renewables. Yep, there's a lot at stake. For a few.

But what's best for the biosphere and its people? For the people of the future, including our kids and grandkids? For all the lifeforms, the water sources, and the atmosphere of the planet? The answer is renewable -- and the technology to support its generation and storage is a superior and long- lasting investment.

<comment><USER25> Why can't we create a nuclear power plant in the middle of the desert like area 51 type of setup so if there is a meltdown it can be contained. Could we safely store the energy somehow and transport it or make some sort of long- distance hookup to our grids?

Also anyone know why the nuclear site in San Onofre by San Diego failed?

<comment><USER26> > Why can't we create a nuclear power plant in the middle of the desert

In principle we can. Dry cooling is more expensive and less efficient than using water, but technically doable.

But the plant requires personnel. Said personnel has kids, spouses etc. You end up with a small town to run the plant. And that town requires fresh water which might be hard to come by in the middle of the desert.

> Could we safely store the energy somehow and transport it or make some sort > of long-distance hookup to our grids?

We could store the energy in nuclear fuel, at the amazing energy density of 80 TJ/kg. Hard to beat that, except with fusion or antimatter. :)

Anyway, long distance electricity transmission is technically doable; HVDC losses are < 3%/1000 km. But again, it costs money.

> Also anyone know why the nuclear site in San Onofre by San Diego failed?

They detected premature wear on new steam generators. In the face of stiff opposition by local state politicians, rather than fixing it they decided to decommission the entire plant.

<comment><USER27> > But the plant requires personnel.

So all we need is to build the plant and then automate the entire operations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 292 comments and no one talks about the Democratic candidate that was most vocal about nuclear, specifically thorium?

"Yang is absolutely right to make these points, and he has gotten some well- deserved attention. But it's surprising that he hasn't gotten more, given how much we're hearing about the crisis nature of climate change. Because if you take climate change seriously, you have to take nuclear power seriously"

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/17/2020-democ...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/17/2020-democrat- president-climate-change-andrew-yang-nuclear-power-column/2342031001/)

<comment><USER29> It's not about climate change, it's about controlling behavior via energy prices. The non-nuclear climate change advocates don't care about "carbon," they care about wealth redistribution. That's why I oppose most "climate" policy. Because it isn't about climate.

Carbon and wealth redistribution should be separate issues, but activists have made them the same and since I oppose wealth redistribution via government economic control, I can't get on board with "climate."

[https://ips-dc.org/stop-climate-change-dont-just-cut-carbon-...](https://ips- dc.org/stop-climate-change-dont-just-cut-carbon-redistribute-wealth/)

<comment><USER30> That's the next next next level of climate change denial. After denying it's happening, after denying it's human-made, after denying it's solvable, we deny it's solvable without ideological tarnishments.

<comment><USER31> The linked document has nothing to do with climate change denial, but with climate justice, which was one of the main talking points of the school strikes last year, and also concerns the UN: [https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/clima...](https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/climate- justice/). See also [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice- climate/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-climate/)

> We deny it's solvable without ideological tarnishments.

No matter how you put it, climate change is completely unsolvable without politcs, because solving climate change requires, most of all, cooperation between countries.

<comment><USER30> My comment isnt about the linked document, but about briandears attitude, which essentially appears like another step in the moving goal posts of justifying inaction on dealing with climate change.

<comment><USER31> Ah, my bad, I totally misread your comment then. I agree with you, that comment is next-level denial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Folks should parse the article and the platform carefully, it actually reads "existing and advanced nuclear". This could be interpreted as maintaining existing reactors and building advanced (fusion?) reactors and NOT building new fission reactors.

From my perspective this interpretation would be desirable (although probably wishful thinking) given that nuclear energy is too expensive in practise (really only existing plants are competitive with solar), too slow to construct (10 year average construction time in the US?!), centralized and generally poorly managed. The construction of new nuclear fission plants for grid power in the United States isn't going anywhere, since it makes absolutely no economic, environmental or political sense. Yes, most of us on Hacker News know it is better than fossil fuels - but renewable energy is the new competition. Nuclear is going directly against solar with (or without) battery backup and it's been losing for years now - even China has slowed down the pace of construction.

Nuclear grid power advocates should take their arguments to Mars where they will actually have a case. Not much of an atmosphere to spin a turbine, far away from the sun and an environment that makes the Antarctic look like a Garden of Eden should anything go wrong.

<comment><USER33> > it makes absolutely no economic, environmental or political sense

Environmental? As far as I understand, the much lower emissions (not zero because of construction, people driving to the plant, etc.) compared to our current main power sources is a huge benefit for the environment (and thus for us: even if you are right that it's more costly per kWh today, it might save the next generation many trillions). Given the phrasing "absolutely no [environmental] sense", it sounds like you're very sure it must be negative for the environment but I don't understand why.

I am generally supportive of nuclear but only because from what I read, it seems to be a big help in reaching environmental needs. I get the economics part: nuclear isn't super cheap and gets easily outcompeted by renewables on sunny or windy days. I also expect we'll start abolishing nuclear fission in favor of fully renewable sources as soon as we finished turning off carbon- based power plants (and, in a perfectly rational world, no sooner). If there is more to the story like some environmental effect that I'm not aware of then I'd like to hear it (note that I did read up on nuclear energy so you can assume I know the basics; I pose the comment somewhat questioningly not because I haven't done any research but because I think this is a constructive way to learn).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I used to be an advocate for nuclear energy but over time I've become it has no future because:

1\. Even if it's safer by any objective measure (deaths/kWh for example) the failure modes are much, much worse. A fossil fuel plant just can't make thousands of square miles uninhabitable for decades. This isn't an exaggeration. The Chernobyl absolute exclusion zone is currently 1000mi^2 [1]. This is like how people are afraid to fly but not drive when flying (on.commercial jets at least) is undeniably safer;

2\. Processing of fuel creates waste we just don't have a good way of dealing with (eg UF6);

3\. Spent fuel creates waste we just don't have a good way of dealing with;

4\. Decommissioning nuclear power plants creates waste we just don't have a good way of dealing with;

5\. The above three costs seem to be borne by governments. It's still unclear to me if companies who run nuclear power plants are paying the true costs;

5\. I just don't trust companies to manage nuclear plants safely long term;

7\. I don't trust most governments to manage nuclear plants long term; and

8\. Many nuclear power advocates will bring up coal as the counterexample. That's a false dichotomy. Wind and solar costs continue to plummet. Natural gas, while still a fossil fuel, has way less negative externalities than coal.

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

</comment><comment><USER35> The most interesting part of this article is that for just 4T, we could be off carbon energy: [https://www.woodmac.com/news/feature/deep-decarbonisation- th...](https://www.woodmac.com/news/feature/deep-decarbonisation-the-multi- trillion-dollar-question/)

That's not much more than the government spent to counteract the economic effects of cornovirus.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have seen 0 proof that mankind can handle the resposability that comes with this type of extreme risk but at low probability technologies. If anything. It is getting worse in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER37> Not an american here, so it's more of a general comment.

I'm all for investing in and investigating nuclear power -- after all, the humanity needed several decades to make electricity itself safe at all; if we manage to make nuclear safer and indeed manageable, that's a fine thing, scientifically speaking. It's good to have options.

However, we should be keeping an eye on the costs. Nuclear energy is cheap, but disposing of its waste is anything but. In Europe, energy companies have essentially socialised waste disposal so that they can advertise for "cheap" nuclear energy. If the disposal costs had been placed on them, nuclear would be the most expensive energy source by far.

We are probably better off future-wise looking elsewhere for a clean and cheap energy source. Fossil and nuclear are neither.

<comment><USER38> What if we shot it in to space? Doesn't Space X think they can get cargo down to $100/kg? That would be a few hundred million in costs for all of the worlds nuclear waste annually.

<comment><USER39> The problem is failed shot causes catastrophic result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Funny how everyone is able to talk so much shit about nuclear being amazing and safe and all that, yet we've STILL not cleaned up the monstrous amount of TOXIC trash that has been produced by these plants. We have done nothing to stop creating more waste, and we have done nothing to deal with the toxic waste we have right now. To be honest I don't _CARE_ if you want to call it safer when there is no direct proof of that, only proof of the contrary. There are hundreds of thousands of people still affected by major accidents, and the waste leftover from them worldwide. Trying to keep pushing nuclear for anything is an ignorant shortsighted choice.

[1] [https://www.greenamerica.org/fight-dirty-energy/amazon- build...](https://www.greenamerica.org/fight-dirty-energy/amazon-build- cleaner-cloud/10-reasons-oppose-nuclear-energy) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents) [4] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new- map-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-shows- expanse-of-u-s-nuclear-waste-sites/)

<comment><USER41> And what about deaths and respiratory problems caused by burning fossil fuels? What about CO2 used to produce solar/wind powerplants? How to recycle retired or failed wind/solar powerplants? It is pretty ignorant to just look at couple of nuclear incidents and ignore the amount of energy those plants can produce. Can you imagine the amount of power the current humanity needs? If you want less waste, start reducing population growth in high-growth countries first... Here is a good video comparing various sources of energy and relevant facts [https://youtu.be/lL6uB1z95gA](https://youtu.be/lL6uB1z95gA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> How much of the resistance to nuclear power in the US was due to the very unfortunately combination of the Three Mile Island incident and the release of the movie The China Syndrome both happening within two weeks of each other? Add in the nuclear arms race of the time and the emotional aspect for anything nuclear becomes even greater.

</comment><comment><USER43> My uneducated gut feeling is that the only way nuclear is going to be relevant is if they perfect micro-nuclear reactors.

I remember reading about these 10 years ago [1], and have seen a few more since. Basically they propose small "nuclear batteries" kin of design - <USER2> avoids catastrophic scenarios and benefits greatly from economies of scale.

The only issue I see with this approach is political - you would have a lot more nuclear material spread around, spreading this kind of teach where it's easily accessible and hard to protect doesn't sound reasonable with the political situation in the world.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S)

<comment><USER21> There certainly are mini reactor designs which can be put in a grid like network to create the same effect as our current huge-but-old reactors. Luddites, just won't have it, but maybe if leaders just go ahead and get a backbone we can have such things that might just save us from extinction (or at least the end of civilization, I'm sure at least a small cadre of humans will survive, we're pretty adaptable as a species). [https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor- technologies/small...](https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor- technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The debate around safety in nuclear power is kind tangential to the larger issue: what do you do with all this radioactive material when you're done with it?

This is a much trickier issue and is largely why countries like Germany have started to phase out nuclear power plants. But the US treats the whole world as their dumping ground and as long as they are the global imperial power, they can probably just dump radioactive waste in some poor part of the world.

<comment><USER45> Nuclear waste is not that much actually and you simply store it in sealed containers. The waste storage is a political issue rather than a technical issue. How many accidents have we had related to nuclear waste storage? Zero, that's how many.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> There isn't enough material to run enough nuclear plants to make a difference. This is or should really be common knowledge.

<comment><USER33> Could you elaborate or link to a source that does?

Edit: Another comment[1] says "there's more than enough for couple centuries (and new reactor designs can make one-two orders of magnitude better use of what's available)". Your statement "not enough to make a difference" seems quite different from "enough for centuries". If you think this is wrong, a bit of elaboration beyond the simple statement couldn't hurt...

They also make the point which I was going to make even if there turned out to be a significant limit to the amount of material available:

> even if we only had 100 years worth of nuclear fuel reserve, that's more > than enough to fix the climate problem and fully develop renewables

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24325737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24325737)

<comment><USER6> Consider that rising populations and standards of living, as well as shifts from fossil fuels, mean increasing total electrical generation likely by ~500% in the next 50 years or so.

The alternative is a large number of very disappointed people.

<comment><USER33> True, so we have to divide "centuries" by 5 or more, that's still long enough to help with the transition. Not sure if that's what you meant though? Please correct me if I misunderstood.

<comment><USER6> 200 years / 5 gives about 40 years useful life. Some technologies (thorium MSR) remain unproved, so there's R&D lead time which is likely prohibitive --- we're going to go into this with the designs we have _now_.

Construction and planning _still_ takes 10--20 years, and commercial viability remains dicey. (Illinois is looking to shut down two nuclear plants not for political/public opposition but economic reasons: [https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/environment/ct-exelon- nu...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/environment/ct-exelon-nuclear- plants-shut-down-20200828-qmk6z3d5mrgipeahb56vugq3za-story.html))

Meantime wind and solar keep getting cheaper. They carry few long-time-horizon risks, and are as safe as nuclear within measurement error, a fact nuke boosters tend to omit. Even hydro, as horrific as past incidents have been, is safe when well-managed, and again lacks nuclear's civilisation-spanning risk time horizons.

If _presently proven nuclear technologies can smooth the path_ , then maybe there's a role, but we're _still_ looking at swapping out all but a minuscule fraction of nuclear within a generation (which will mean trying to smoothly phase out an entrenched, powerful, politically-connected, but dying industry, much as today's coal industry), bearing resulting near-term risks, addressing (all but certainly via government subsidies) unfavourable economics, and creating a long-term risk liability spanning millennia.

Meantime, nuke boosters generally continue to paint renewables as the enemy, misconstrue risks, and lowball opportunities, none of which does much for engendering institutional trust in the nuclear community itself.

Don't get me wrong: the challenges are huge, there's plenty of bullshit and opportunism on all sides, and we're going to need to make some really unpleasant decisions and trade-offs here. The Democratic party platform announcement is probably a good thing: it's another option on the table.

But this isn't smooth sailing, and going in with a very realistic view and eyes wide open is critical.

<comment><USER26> > 200 years / 5 gives about 40 years useful life.

Well, no, it's not that simple. Some advances would require new reactors, such as breeders, but even in a closed system with breeders there would be maybe a 2:1 ratio of traditional burner reactors to breeders (producing fuel for the burners). So even in such a scenario existing LWR's wouldn't be a stranded investment.

But even if we forget breeding for a moment, an increase in usage of uranium would make it economical to exploit poorer deposits (that 200 year figure is at current prices and with current extraction technology), increasing the total economically recoverable deposits (this is similar to practically all other mining, as technology progresses and price increases the economically recoverable deposits also increase). And at some point we will hit the crossover point where, like in the SA article you linked to earlier, extraction from seawater becomes economic. Giving an additional 60000 years of deposits with current usage.

So between breeding (about a factor of 200 improvement in resource utilization) and seawater extraction, we have enough uranium for at least 60000*200 = 12 million years with current usage. Even if we increase usage by a factor of 100 (say, getting rid of fossil fuels thus increasing electricity usage by about ~3x, and increasing the share of nuclear to, say, 50% of the total electricity usage, and still have quite some room for increasing consumption), we still have fuel for 120000 years. Probably more than enough time to get fusion working, or if not, we're hosed anyway in the long run.

> we're going to go into this with the designs we have now.

I agree with that. While there's exiting things on the horizon, it makes sense to start with what's available and mature now.

That, however, doesn't mean we're locked into that forever and ever. We can start deploying traditional LWR designs today, while at the same time commercializing breeders, seawater extraction of U, Th, and whatnot.

None of this means that a "nuclear future" will be inevitable, certainly. I just don't think that the availability of fuel is the limiting factor. AFAICS, the biggest threats to nuclear energy is an inability to deliver on time and on budget combined with political opposition killing the industry.

If wind, solar, geothermal, storage, smart grids etc. manage to kill of the fossil industry without the help of nuclear, hey, I'm ecstatic. I just think having the nuclear option on the table makes success more likely.

<comment><USER6> Main point is that "200 year supply" is not all that impressive. Demand growth can dominate that rapidly.

When coal was first becoming a mainstream fuel in the US, reserves were estimated as sufficient for 1 million years. Current estimates are for about 100-250 years (latter from BP's _Annual Statistical Review_ for 2019). Demand increased somewhat, and consequences emerged. Now 150 years into the million we're phasing out coal as quickly as possible.

Breeders, thorium (a breeder fuel), and uranium seawater extraction are possible but have proved challenging or limited to date. Seawater extraction particularly presents formidable challenges.

<comment><USER26> > Main point is that "200 year supply" is not all that impressive. Demand > growth can dominate that rapidly.

Sure. But if we keep exponentially increasing energy usage, at some point we'll boil the oceans. And long before that we would have wrecked the earths ecosystem. So I'm assuming that the exponential increase in energy usage will stop at some point.

The 120000 year figure I arrived at in my previous post included a factor of 100 increase over current usage. Even if we add another factor of 100 increase (a total of a factor of 10000 increase over current usage!), we'd still have fuel for 1200 years, surely more than enough to get fusion working.

> When coal was first becoming a mainstream fuel in the US, reserves were > estimated as sufficient for 1 million years. Current estimates are for about > 100-250 years (latter from BP's Annual Statistical Review for 2019). Demand > increased somewhat, and consequences emerged. Now 150 years into the million > we're phasing out coal as quickly as possible.

Sure, but ~200 years ago our understanding of geology was quite rudimentary compared to today. And yes, starting from more or less zero we did exponentially increase usage for a couple of centuries. I don't think it's realistic to continue at the same exponential rate for several centuries more, regardless of where the energy comes from (maybe in the far future if humanity starts to look at interstellar travel we would have a usage for such truly stupendous amounts of energy).

Furthermore, we're not phasing out coal because we're running out of it, but due to climate/pollution/economics. From a climate perspective, it unfortunately seems we have more than enough coal left to wreck the climate if we would burn all of it.

> Breeders, thorium (a breeder fuel), and uranium seawater extraction are > possible but have proved challenging or limited to date.

The main reason is economics. Uranium is currently just so cheap that it doesn't make economic sense to deploy breeder reactors and reprocessing yet. And without volume deployment, they remain expensive and underdeveloped compared to the current once-through cycle. However, there is no question whether the technology works. It does.

Earlier in the nuclear age (say 1950-1970 or so), uranium was believed to be scarce, isotope enrichment by gas diffusion was very expensive and energy consuming, and we believed the world would soon be powered by atomic energy. So a lot of effort was made to develop breeder reactor and reprocessing technology. However, all of this turned out to be incorrect. Uranium turned out to be quite plentiful, centrifuges made enrichment a lot cheaper, and nuclear power expansion ground to a standstill.

But the earlier R&D showed that the technology is viable, so if uranium prices would start to drastically increase, the option to deploy breeders at scale still exists.

<comment><USER6> Boiling the oceans would indeed be bad, and I suspect we'll see deviation from long-term growth trends well before that point. But, again, for the third time, readily available fissionable fuels are much less abundant than is commonly understood (or you assert), with a supply very likely much below 200 years _at best_ , and quite possibly only a few decades.

What's changed with regards to coal is not geology or geological knowledge, but consumption. Not mereely increases in existing uses but new applications of the fuel.

Breeders failed commercially for a number of reasons, fuel costs being only one factor:

 _The story of the fast breeder reactors is a story about a technology embraced by large enthusiasm, which never realized its expectations, at least in the expected time-frame. The reasons for this are many. Partly, it was technical problems, as those with cooling and safety. There were also economical difficulties since the price of uranium did not develop as expected. There were military implications: the problems of handling and transporting plutonium. Also, there were social or ideological complications, since public opposition rose against breeder reactors. The political consequences were that the financial support from the governments disappeared._

[https://static.sys.kth.se/itm/wp/cesis/cesiswp186.pdf](https://static.sys.kth.se/itm/wp/cesis/cesiswp186.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's quite possible that if most people owned a solar roof with batteries and redundancy across a specified and localized grid, there would be less need for large power plant owners and fewer donations to political parties. In short, it is easier for politicians to get donations from a small group of people than from a large group.

</comment><comment><USER48> Once I saw a TV show about the challenges of constructing a deposit for nuclear waste that is expected to operate for thousands of years.

In this show, they mentioned that they did not want to use skulls to represent danger, because skulls are not seen as dangerous in some cultures (with "Dia de los muertos" as an specific example).

<comment><USER6> A real problem and challenge. Notions of language and culture are unstable over such periods, let alone organisations, institutions, and governments.

[https://wipp.info](https://wipp.info)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long- time_nuclear_waste_warnin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long- time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages)

[https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/1/29/16932718/biohazard- desi...](https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/1/29/16932718/biohazard-design- nuclear-waste)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> What is the RNC's stance on nuclear?

Does nuclear now enjoy bi-partisan support? Or just the Dems?

<comment><USER33> A bit meta, but as someone from Europe where the countries aren't usually divided into two opposing camps, this seems oddly phrased to me. Could someone from the USA who considers themselves either neutral or a democrat comment on whether "just the Dems" sounds negative to you?

<comment><USER50> It doesn't sound negative to me at all; just a factual way of stating that the policy is only supported by one party. Perfectly normal figure of speech here in the states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Abundant energy is the way to a post scarcity society.

</comment><comment><USER52> Better late than never...

</comment><comment><USER53> But what's going to happen with the nuclear waste? I've heard too many times about water getting into permanent repositories and leaking containers contaminating the biosphere. Seems like a bad idea to me...

<comment><USER54> Nuclear waste is primarily a political problem (which actually makes it damn near impossible to solve in the near term).

There's no fundamental problem with it, since it's produced naturally as well [1] and sites exist that would allow for very safe long term storage if need be.

It's also possible to get rid of long lived decay products entirely using certain types of reactors that can "burn" nuclear waste.

Again, political will and major investments would be required to make that happen, though some companies are already working on it.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The Democratic party on most issues will eventually do the right thing, against its own will, dragging kicking and screaming the entire way.

</comment><comment><USER56> In a way, this is the first time the Democrats are truly taking climate change seriously.

<comment><USER57> It's in a very specific way only. Have you heard about Jay Inslee?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Finally

</comment><comment><USER59> A general anti-science movement really hurts human progress with these 3 particularly bad: 1) anti vaccines 2) anti GMO 3) anti nuclear

Great to see Dems starting to endorse nuclear after decades of oppositions (see John Kerry's boneheaded earlier efforts to kill it)

<comment><USER60> You don't have to be anti-science to be against building new nuclear power plants. And it's a bit ridiculous to speak about human progress when talking about GMO in agriculture, when all it's used for is plants creating their own insecticides and herbicide tolerance for furthering unsustainable monoculture farming.

<comment><USER59> I thought having enough healthy food with as small of environmental impact as possible is good for human progress /s

<comment><USER60> You mean reducing meat consumption? Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land, yet produces less than 20% of the world's supply of calories. It would even have a big positive environmental impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Within 5 years every machine, building and device may start the transition to self-charging nuclear diamond batteries with graphene super capacitors. [1] [2] [3]

So these huge nuclear power plants may quickly become obsolete along with coal, solar and wind power generation, hydro and fossil fuels.

[1] [https://ndb.technology](https://ndb.technology)

[2] [https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-self-charging- batte...](https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-self-charging-batteries- ndb/)

[3] [https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-battery- interview-n...](https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-battery-interview- ndb/)

BTW I think HN downvoters should lose karma for downvoting.

<comment><USER62> >⌇ Possibility of a new generation quantum smartphones.

>⌇ Personal quantum computers

Yeah I can't take this seriously

<comment><USER61> Yeah not sure why they mentioned quantum computing there without any supporting information.

However given the rate of scientific progress in general I would say it's very likely to be achieved in the not-too-distant future, somewhere.</comment></comment></comment>


Announcement of LibreOffice 7.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/08/05/announcement-of-libreoffice-7-0/ <comment><USER2> As a friendly reminder, they publish torrents for their downloads, which I would imagine could save them a lot of bandwidth costs on release day:

Linux: [https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7...](https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.0.0/deb/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.0.0_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz.torrent)

Mac: [https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7...](https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.0.0/mac/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.0.0_MacOS_x86-64.dmg.torrent)

Windows: [https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7...](https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.0.0/win/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.0.0_Win_x64.msi.torrent)

<comment> m-p-3 Do they offer an RSS feed of new releases? I personally would set it on my torrent server to automatically download and seed new releases automatically.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't appear so :-(

<comment><USER3> Here's a repo I made with RSS links to the LibreOffice torrents: [https://github.com/alexyorke/oss_rss/tree/master/libreoffice](https://github.com/alexyorke/oss_rss/tree/master/libreoffice)

I'm looking into ways to automate updating this feed, stay tuned. If you have more suggestions let me know and I can add another feed.

<comment><USER2> Now that GitHub has a CI system, you can create a scheduled workflow to run once a week or something, and if you can package the feed discovery logic in a docker container, then you can run it in their CI pipeline and push the changes back to the repo

If you haven't already considered it, you can also likely push those files to a branch named gh-pages and GH will cheerfully serve them on [https://alexyorke.github.io/oss_rss/libreoffice/all_torrent_...](https://alexyorke.github.io/oss_rss/libreoffice/all_torrent_links.rss) (although unlikely with the correct mime type :-( )

<comment><USER3> Very interesting. I'll have to consider this when I can get the feed discovery process more efficient

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I may be in the minority but i think OnlyOffice [0][1] has a better offering than LibreOffice. Desktop apps, Web app (self hosted) and open source.

      [0] www.onlyoffice.com
      [1] https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/

<comment><USER5> Clickable links:

[0] [https://www.onlyoffice.com](https://www.onlyoffice.com)

[1] [https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/](https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/)

<comment><USER6> Pleasantly surprised to see that cloudron offers setup for this. I might try that out tonight, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Libre office is great. They need to undo their change to copy pasting in Calc however: half the time it produces some weird floating cell now instead and is a confusing nuisance. It's still a great suite of software that I use constantly</comment>


Why has no one done this yet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gemnicholls.com/2012/03/why-has-no-one-done-this-yet.html

<comment><USER2> Downloading and archiving every conversation online is expensive and I'm not sure enough users would be willing to pay to have a centralized message reply service.

I guess that in Silicon Valley where the money grows on trees, a business model is optional.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny you say that. This data is already stored at Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. All I'm asking for is for it to be indexed and available to me to search. For the amount of time I spend searching for old content, I would even pay a small amount for this feature as it would save me time.

<comment><USER2> Yeah that's true, I wonder if there is a way to run a search on all of the major chat platforms though only your messages. You must say some important things to want to get your history back :).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not just chatter, it's more about sharing. So I share something interesting on Twitter, then want to reference to it in a post on Google+ (don't laugh).

Or I stumble upon an interesting link about X, and want to use it as a blog post but forgot to save it. It's just convenience and time saving. My time is worth more to me than a few dollars or a bit of my personal data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g Checkout <http://www.infoaxe.com/aboutinfoaxe.jsp>

It's something close.

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't Greplin do this?</comment>


Tell HN: I'll work for you for free this summer - <AUTHOR>

I'm an honors law student w/ a background in finance looking for some interesting (read: not corporate drone) work this summer.  I love startups and I've taught myself some very basic coding over the past year or so.  Looking to dive into any legal or business areas that you might not have the time or energy to explore.  Send me a link and I can shoot you a full resume.
My basic qualifications: 4 years at a major i-bank (2 in banking and 2 in bond sales).  1 year of law school (good grades).  passionate about startups.
Contact:  My HN username at gmail <comment><USER2> Want to learn software security? We'll _pay_ you to do interesting work over the summer. We're weird like that.

<comment><USER3> I just finished reading "Gray Hat Python". It was pretty interesting talking about fuzzers, and injection stuff. Is that what you guys do?

<comment><USER2> Very yes. (We're working on "Grey Hat Ruby", though I don't know if we're going to publish it on dead trees).

<comment><USER3> So dumb question. How do you make money doing that? Is it that software companies want their security tested so they hire you? (I wouldn't think most companies would be so proactive.)

<comment><USER2> Every fiscal quarter, tens of products ship (often after millions invested) for every one practitioner that can competantly write a fuzzer. That estimate may actually be conservative by an order of magnitude.

We work for vendors and enterprises (ie, normal companies). Vendors bring us in to beat stuff up before they ship it. Enterprises bring us in to reverse things and beat them up before they get deployed.

Yes, many companies aren't that proactive. But the industry is slowly getting dragged into security; key verticals like financial services and health care are starting to require documentation of penetration testing for anything that gets deployed, and Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Apple, and IBM all have religion about software security process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> maybe a general internship thread is called for in addition to the traditional HN "who's hiring?" with summer around the corner?

<comment><USER5> I'd like this, as I've begun searching for a 6 month internship to start in July for my third co-op.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why would you work for free?

<comment><USER7> If you have the financial wherewithal, I'd imagine taking an unpaid internship opens up a lot of great options that wouldn't exist otherwise.

<comment> barry-cotter This.

Before the crash I-Banking bonuses for first year Analysts at Big 4 firms were on the order of $80-100K each year. Assume you bank all of that each year and to be conservative, that it was 80K each year, you now have 320K. This will pay for all three years of Yale Law ($142.5K) and leave you enough to live on all through Law School. Presumably less selective schools cost less, so that's an upper limit.

As a 1L your internship oportunities are pretty limited, and I'm guessing that interning at a lower market firm doesn't really help that much for the internships you really want in 2L and mid-market firms won't trust you if you lie and say you're really enthusiastic about working for them because of blah.

Interns aren't all that productive because they have no experience with the law as it's practiced. First year associates aren't that hot, so internships are basically a hiring expense and it doesn't really pay until they're productive in second or third year.

An interesting internship, like with a startup could really help if you want to get into a firm in that space like Wilson Sonsini. Outside of that it could be positively harmful as a sign of outside interests and a life, not conducive to running up 2,000 billable hours a year. Most firms probably can't afford to be that selective though because most lawyers quit corporate law and go in- house counsel or something less soul crushing when they pay off their Law School loans and maybe build up a nest egg.

jwb119 probably isn't going to Law School for the money afterwards so much of that probably doesn't apply, but the how he can afford to make this offer does.

<comment><AUTHOR> thats pretty much dead on, including the fact that i'm not in law school for the money.

the only thing you are overestimating is how much of that bonus is take home. NYC taxes and even a modest % into your 401k means you are looking at somewhere around 40% of your bonus number actually winding up in your bank account.

what i'm really looking to get out of this whole thing is an interesting project to throw myself into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is an interesting project you can take on and make a difference: non- evil assignment of inventions agreement.

Typical AoI assigns all rights to the company, so a developer can not even take a script not related to the core business with him when he moves. The company itself ends up not using the script but not letting the developer use it either - it's a huge waste.

A better arrangement would be to give equal ownership rights to both employee and employer for all work except work that is company's competitive advantage. Determining the latter is super tricky, but if you can come up with workable definition you will make a huge impact to both concept of employment and the software industry (not unlike the open-source idea).

</comment><comment><USER9> Country?

<comment><USER10> His twitter account says Pittsburgh, PA.</comment></comment>


3 drinks a day can trigger liver cancer; coffee offsets it - <AUTHOR> http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2015/03/27/3-drinks-a-day-can-trigger-liver-cancer-coffee-offsets-it.html <comment><USER2> A reminder to take medical news from mainstream press with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what's the interaction between the two, that's not described in the article. Can you alleviate the risks of drinking alcohol by also drinking coffee? Irish coffee anyone?

<comment><USER4> It's been shown that caffeine shortens telomeres, while alcohol lengthens them [1]. This could be the reason why they offset each other.

[1] - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205142127.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205142127.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Haha, makes me feel sorry for people who drink alcohol. It's basically the same as smoking - "how many cigarettes a day keeps me away from lung cancer?". Instead of asking that question, why not just stop?

The fact that alcohol is such a norm is something I don't get. Let's not even mention its other helpful side-effects.

Edit: Keep the downvotes coming. <3 hivemind

<comment><USER3> Drinking 3 drinks a day, the amount necessary to have an effect on liver cancer according to the study, makes you pretty much an alcoholic, not just part of the vast number of people "who drink alcohol".

<comment><USER6> I don't think alcoholism can be defined by the quantity of consumption but a persons dependency on alcohol itself, and how it impacts or impairs their day- to-day life / relations / functions.

<comment><USER3> It's about developing an addiction. And addiction is a function of regularity, for alcohol. Day-to-day impact is not necessarily a good measure because it can have no negative impact at all as long as you have access to the product. A well-behaved addiction under normal circumstances is an addiction nonetheless.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Silence isn't Golden - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2009/10/silence-isnt-golden/

<comment><USER2> That IBM has been hush-hush is interesting.

The insider trading scandal is quite huge and a number of hedge fund execs have been quietly cashing out and leaving the US.</comment>


The EU punishes Google – for no real crime - gingerbread-man https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-eu-punishes-google--for-no-real-crime/2017/07/01/4838701e-5dc3-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><AUTHOR> Controversial issue. You can make a strong case that Google unfairly used its shopping feature in order to mislead customers. In the end, Google Shopping is just one gigantic targeted advertisement.</comment>


Paypal accounts are getting abused en masse for unauthorized payments - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/paypal-accounts-are-getting-abused-en-masse-for-unauthorized-payments/ <comment><USER2> Paypal confirmed fraudulent transactions (in other words a security breach) and refunds them, but denies to give details how many customers are affected or whether and how the hole has been closed. [https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/paypal-sagt-nicht- wie-e...](https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/paypal-sagt-nicht-wie-es-zu- dubiosen-abbuchungen-kam-a-4fda6e33-90ef-45b1-a494-71d26ec951e9) (in German)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. Sounds like a race to find the exploit, since it's mostly just German accounts being hacked now. I imagine the bug isn't limited to just German accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes exactly and until now it's also not completely clear how to prevent this from happening.. (I'm affected as well)</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestreet.com/story/11550975/1/the-digital-skeptic-duckduckgo-cooks-googles-goose.html

<comment><USER2> What I like about DDG:

\- Somebody is trying to improve the search engine space which is too long dominated by just one party (which admittedly makes a damn good job)

What I don't like:

\- I don't see any improvements

\- Don't like their name

\- Crappy logo

\- Too long domain name (with some skills and little money, a great 4-letter dot com is a no brainer)

\- The product is awkward to use: the entire UI is the #1 reason to leave and aesthetically not pleasing, too many colors (red, blue, green), no CI, favicons are distracting, screen real estate isn't used effectively, mouse over effects are distracting and feel like clumsy Web 2.0 sites in 2005 => even Bing's new interface is very much nicer

\- Search results got better but seem to lack any relevance algorithm such as Google's Pagerank

\- Shortcuts are nice but more some kind of an gimmick than real revolution and they are not helpful at all because people who do not use DDG regularly forget them: either they have to be displayed all the time somewhere next to the results or directly on the landing page or they have to be consistent and expressive as Google's syntax which is "site:<site_to_be_searched> query"—if this shortcuts are one of DDG's main features then they have to tell it.

\- No autocomplete, no instant search

I think DDG's and the team main problem is a heavy lack of product vision—they just think search is a great business model (yes it is) and they want to do something to just be better than the market leader. And this 'something' is their biggest weakness, they just don't know what to improve, on what to focus. Google's search is so good, that it's gonna hard to improve but still there are some fields where Google can be beaten (anonymous search, irrelevant results for longer queries because of SEO gaming/blackhat). Instead they just brought up a really ugly design and the user wonders all the 15 seconds he's exploring DDG why he should use DDG.

DDG has to pick one of Google's weaknesses and focus just on this and they have also to position DDG accordingly and communicate this focus/USP heavily. Otherwise DDG is like G+ to FB, just a bad copy.

I can image how hard it must be to build a search engine from scratch, there's just too much tech involved and crawling all the web could take months even if you have hundreds of servers (imagine: Google crawls even smaller sites with more than 20,000 pages per day (!), how does anyone want to build such crawling power with little VC money and some hype posts from Fred Wilson??). But maybe that's the chance: a new player has to focus on something _small_ —a feature, a content niche, whatever, just a MVP that is in its core much, much better than Google. Building and promising the entire Google search experience will lead to fail.

<comment><USER3> Google has four colours in their name.

The length of the url isn't that big of a deal to me. I just type 'du' and the first url autosuggested is duckduckgo.

<comment><USER2> > Google has four colours in their name.

Yes, but just in their logo, that's ok because the rest of Google stands behind the expressive logo, is clear, has lots of white space, decent colors etc.

Now go to DDG: read header, blue search button on result page and green search button on landing, what the heck?? Strange colors in the text results and this ugly duck, sorry but getting a really nice duck on freelancer.com or 99design from a talented artist is a job of 500 USD.

> The length of the url isn't that big of a deal to me. I just type 'du' and > the first url autosuggested is duckduckgo.

No, it's a big deal even if your browser provides autocomplete, The domain is everything: their brand, their name and will used anywhere and all the time. Just saying "check duckduckgo for searching this and that" or "i duckduckgoed my name" to your friend or colleague is too much communication overhead, too many syllables for something which is too important in our lifes nowadays.

And those both points bug me, because if they haven't done their basic homework on the frontend side who tells me that they done them on the backend side where it is more important (relevance algorithm)—why should I trust DDG's search results if they are not able to setup a proper brand communcation and interface?

<comment><USER4> Google's search button is grey on the landing page and blue on the results page. Does anyone actually click the search button? Heck, does anyone actually even go to the landing page? I don't think I've ever actually used DDG's landing page, I just use the Chrome address bar...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm quite surprised at the amount of vitriol for DDG in the comments here. I switched many months ago -- probably nearing a year now -- and haven't looked back.

I definitely appreciate the effort that has been put into privacy and simplicity. The zero-click box has come in handy at times (though I often find myself clicking through the box anyway, in which case it's a glorified top result, and that's okay with me). My most used feature by far, though, has been the bang syntax, to reference the Java API or search HN or check Stack Overflow or pull up a Google map or explore Wikipedia. I think the bang syntax experience might be frustrating for people who navigate to DDG and _then_ type in a bang query... but if you've got DDG set as your browser's default search, the bang syntax is a nice timesaver: open a new tab (autofocus into the URL bar), type in your site-targeted query, hit Enter, done. I save one page load every time I do a site-specific search, compared to what my experience would be on any other search engine, and considering the proportion of my browser time spent in searches, I think that's a decent amount of time saved. [I mean, there are people on HN who quibble over how many keystrokes they can save in their terminal aliases, after all!]

That doesn't mean I think DDG is perfect; my major annoyance is results from content farms (same as any major search engine), but I'm hard pressed to find a search engine that weeds out content farms without sacrificing the features I like from DDG. The name doesn't roll as trippingly off the tongue as some other sites, but is it really that much worse than any of the other search engines (or names of YC companies, for that matter) and does the name affect my ability to use the site?

As you hyperbolically express your disgust towards DDG, please remember that you don't get any points in life for hating a product that you aren't forced to use and that other people find helpful.

</comment><comment><USER6> The comments on HN in the past few weeks have been so mean spirited. What happened? I chalked Facebook up to schadenfreude -- but DDG?

<comment><USER7> Just look at the contents of the front page. It's no longer Hacker News, it's mainstream Tech News with a bit of nerdy sprinkle. The older audience is heavily diluted with those who push pseudo-tech cruft (like a woman suing a VC) to the front page, the same people who also comment more and don't really get the spirit of the board. HN _is_ at its tipping point. I am eagerly waiting for HN2... that's assuming one hasn't been started already and kept private.

<comment><USER8> <http://news.ycombinator.com/classic> shows what the frontpage would look like if we only counted the votes of people who joined HN in the first year. It looks pretty much the same.

The comments are declining though, I admit that.

<comment><USER9> I'd guess it needs to show only stuff that was _submitted_ by those people to be really useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one that struggles with the name "DuckDuckGo?" The unprofessional name makes it really hard for me to want to use the service, even if it has nice targeted results that may be more relevant or higher quality than Google's. Maybe "unprofessional" is not the right adjective, but I can't find the right one. I have the same problem with "Bing" - the logo is just such an eyesore, and the marketing is so obnoxious ("Decision Engine?").

<comment><USER11> Relevant search results is all I care about when I use a search engine. (Oh, and I don't see how "Google" sounds professional.)

<comment><USER10> I agree that the content is what matters, but I just feel like it's a crying shame that a service like DuckDuckGo will never be taken seriously because of its name.

<comment><USER12> Same problem Mamma.com and Dogpile have (not comparing search quality).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I tried setting my main search engine to DuckDuckGo once.

I switched back to Google after trying to search for maps and local results. One of the really important features that Google offers me is Google Maps. Not having that kills DuckDuckGo for me, even if their normal search results were to work just as well.

<comment><USER14> In DuckDuckGo, searching for _map! place I'm going to_ redirects you to google maps with the same query.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but with Google, I don't have to think about that; I just type "place I'm going" (which is frequently copied & pasted, so I'm not even typing, and adding "map! " would be a separate step), and I'm done. And it's not just for maps; it's also local results, like when you search for "japanese food some place" and get a list of several places with a map and aggregated ratings. For instance, when I do "japanese food place I live" on Google, I get a bunch of relevant results with star ratings, and the best one is on top. When I do the same on DDG, I get links to several other restaurant aggregator sites like GrubHub, Yelp, Urbanspoon, and so on, plus one link to a restaurant that only lasted a few months before closing.

If I'm going to do "map! place name" in order to get map results, I might as well just use Google; DDG isn't adding anything. Google is a place where I can type "thing I'm looking for", and get, most of the time, the answer I'm looking for, while with DDG that's just not true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Actually today DDG was totally useful. I was trying to find a result for "Marketly LLC DMCA" trying to run down the top company filing DMCA reports with Google. Google was useless. DDG got me to a Chilling Effects page. Lots of time when I use !G but today, DDG saved the day.

</comment><comment><USER16> This would be wonderfully true if only their search results were anywhere near as good.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've become a loyal fan of DuckDuckGo. In November of 2011, just for the heck of it, I decided to e-mail email@example.com about an issue (the difficulty of performing academic searches). I was extremely impressed when I received a response from Gabriel Weinberg himself. I have been using DuckDuckGo exclusively ever since.

At first, I had a lot of reservations about switching and found myself using g! quite often. Then I realized that I wasn't necessary more impressed with Google results, I was just __used__ to it. For instance, I hated DDG's zero- click info sources, because I would mentally ignore it. It seemed like a waste of space. Now it's the first thing I look at when the search results show up -- and it's generally what I want.

</comment><comment><USER18> The question I have is as to their business model.

There's a saying--- if you aren't buying a product, you are the product. So they have one paid link per page. Is that enough to make them profitable eventually?

<comment><USER19> I don't see why not. Their costs are probably minimal (some servers + salaries). Beyond that they're just leveraging all the work of Bing and others. Also, they've taken barely any VC money, so it's not like there's a huge return expected in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ok, so how does DuckDuckGo generate revenue?

<comment><USER21> By selling ad space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> DuckDuckGo has a tasteless name, tasteless logo, and awful webdesign. That alone is enough for me not to switch.

I believe the idea of integrating and presenting results from various specialized sources has a bright future in search, but DDG doesn't handle it very well right now. It might be in the future Google will leverage the same logic to improve its search experience. Google's "Knowledge graph" seems to me to be a step in that direction.

And when Google does it, chances are that it will outperform years of DDG's effort in mere weeks.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just tried it - it rocks ... and the people saying their logo or website design sucks are kidding themselves.

</comment><comment><USER24> It looks like a cheap knock-off of Google and doesn't give me the hit count for "Ubuntu" (or I missed it). Google gives me over 200 million, Bing over 44 million.

<comment><USER19> How is that in any way a useful statistic? Who cares about 200+ million results vs. 44 million? Most people don't look at the fifth result, let alone the 200 millionth one. What matters is the first page and whether those top results are the best and most relevant for a given query.

<comment><USER24> It's useful to me, I've looked at it for over a decade, I want to get a good feeling that my search engine is doing everything it can to scour the Internet and is not filtering my search results out, they prioritize and that's cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Go DDG!

</comment><comment><USER26> I've never seen someone describe a middleman so enthusiastically.

Not that there isn't enormous added value in presentation or that duckduckgo has a poor offering at all - but your search result quality will always be limited to that of your partner-competitors' (Bing index in this case). And the more you succeed, the more expensive your partnership grows: see Netflix.

Wait a minute. I just remembered the other added value: privacy. Now that I think about it, I know a few middlemen/middlewomen that I'd describe enthusiastically myself!

<comment><USER27> I think middleman is a bit harsh. DuckDuckGo is providing a service. It isn't something that someone else can easily do themselves.

<comment><USER2> Which service?

Taking the Bing API, building a frontend, a parser for few shortcuts and get some VCs to blog about me?

Sounds like a project from a 48h hackathon.

<comment><USER28> It does, but Gabriel (the guy behind it) described the issue with that approach quite well here, [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code- icebergs.ht...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code- icebergs.html)

Keep in mind quite a few people have done this before, bitcircle, 4hoursearch etc... spring to mind but DDG has actually done some innovations in the space and is still around. The fact that people know it will still be around next year encourages you to at least play with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.

<comment><USER30> The thing I don't understand is, for all that DDG does, there's really nothing that Google and/or Bing couldn't just copy wholesale if it were really that great.

The ONLY thing DuckDuckGo can do that Google won't is "privacy" (maybe "less ads" is another thing). While that might be reason enough for some people to switch, it's barely going to make a dent in Google's dominance.

<comment><USER31> Reading all these comments made me wonder... If DDG uses the Bing API and is passing the search term to whatever search-related text ads they show, that's a pretty big blind spot for the privacy advocates. Because Bing still gets your search term and so does the ad network. What they don't get is your IP address, but as the AOL search dump proved, sometimes search terms alone are enough to identify someone. It's still a nice feature, but I wouldn't consider it a solved issue.

<comment><USER32> Bing gets everyone's search terms merged together, with no way to distinguish individual users. To Bing, it looks like one user doing a bajillion searches on all manner of topics.

In the AOL case, while IP addresses were stripped, users were identified with unique keys so you could see individual users' search sequences. That is not the case here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice to see DuckDuckGo get more media exposure, however that article was disappointingly short and lite. Seemed to cut off abruptly.</comment>


Object oriented programming in R - <AUTHOR> https://adv-r.hadley.nz/oo.html <comment><USER2> I am really happy Hadley put together a nice concise survey of the different OO systems in R! One of the really great things about having these multiple object systems is that they really do lend themselves to multiple styles of problem solving and different domains. S3 and R6 are both really different, but they both can be used really expressively and to build large systems with "proper" software engineering methodologies. If you haven't, check out his other books too... I find them really easy to read but chock full of information.</comment>