The Secrets of the Wave Pilots - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/the-secrets-of-the-wave-pilots.html <comment><USER2> This story is remarkable and deserves not to have been buried :(

"But recent studies have shown that people who use GPS, when given a pen and paper, draw less-precise maps of the areas they travel through and remember fewer details about the landmarks they pass; paradoxically, this seems to be because they make fewer mistakes getting to where they're going. Being lost — assuming, of course, that you are eventually found — has one obvious benefit: the chance to learn about the wider world and reframe your perspective."

</comment><comment><USER3> If you found this interesting and want a fascinating book on the subject I recommend We, the Navigators.

[http://www.amazon.com/We-Navigators-Ancient-Landfinding- Paci...](http://www.amazon.com/We-Navigators-Ancient-Landfinding- Pacific/dp/0824815823) It documents a study done of other Pacific Islanders who use waves to navigate. Hawaii was discovered because islanders observed swells from storms in the North Pacific being attenuated as the storm passed 'behind' the island chain.

Islanders also used a completely different form of celestial navigation that involved following series of stars as they rose and set on the horizon. I.e., follow Antares while it is < 10° over the horizon, then follow Pollox, etc until you reach Papeete.

</comment><comment><USER4> When I moved to Southern California I had GPS nav in my car. Being new to the area I used it on every trip. After a year or so I realized I still had no idea how to get to anywhere.

<comment><USER5> If you set your GPS to be always oriented north like a paper map despite your own changing orientation as you drive, you will maintain a better spatial awareness as you travel about the city. This way the GPS becomes a learning aid instead of a crutch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For clarity to others before clicking: this is NOT about Pilot Wave theory. It is about seafaring pilots, so don't expect theoretical physics being discussed in the comments.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a fairly long article, and if you're inclined to start skimming part way through then you should make it a point to read the last two paragraphs in full.

<comment><USER8> Could someone repost the last two paragraphs here? The page somehow resets whenever I try to scroll all the way to the bottom.

<comment><USER9> "Until November, when van Vledder visited Cambridge, Mass., where he and Huth sequestered themselves in Huth's office. As they mapped the coordinates Huth had recorded atop van Vledder's model of sea conditions, they found that the path they had taken was exactly perpendicular to a dominant eastern swell flowing between Majuro and Aur. And at places where the swell, influenced by the surrounding atolls, turned slightly northeast or southeast, the path bent to match. It was a curve. Everyone had assumed that a wave called ''backbone'' would look like one. ''But nobody said the di lep is a straight line,'' van Vledder said.

What if, they conjectured, the ''road'' isn't a single wave reflecting back and forth between every possible combination of atolls and islands; what if it is the path you take if you keep your vessel at 90 degrees to the strongest swell flowing between neighboring bodies of land? Position your broadside correctly, smack in the di lep's path, and your hull would rock symmetrically, side to side — in a manner that would turn a loose cabbage into a pendulum and teach an anthropologist, a physicist and an oceanographer a hard lesson about the human gastrointestinal system's adaptation to life at sea. In other words, it was as Joel's uncle had, it turned out, told them: The di lep feels like pidodo, diarrhea. We might have been riding it all along."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > the most puzzling detail of Genz's translation of Joel's description was his > claim that the di lep connected each atoll and island to all 33 others. That > would yield a trillion trillion paths, far too many for even the most adept > wave pilot to memorize.

I don't follow the math if there are 34 atolls, wouldn't there be just 527 paths between them?

<comment><USER11> I count 561.

If you want the number of unique trips that visit each island once, thats 34!, or 2.95e38. If you want the number of edges in a complete undirected graph, that's (34*(34-1))/2, or 561.

Maybe when you account for currents the route from one atoll to another might be different than the same trip in reverse. If so there could be 1122 paths.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Psychogeography

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography)

</comment><comment><USER13> Very long, but also very well written and worth the read</comment>


Thinking Scientifically - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/thinking-scientifically/

<comment><USER2> I'll put this near "scientific extremism", a lot of science discoveries have as a trigger chance and intuition, even if we don't have a precise idea of how they works scientifically, probably trial and error is a good way to express it, but the trial sources can be non scientific while the validation is scientific.

Food for thought and brain crawling: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_anarchism>

<comment><USER3> I think you are taking the article out of context. At best intuition leads to a hypothesis. By itself it is definitely not a source of scientific knowledge. The author even explicitly states this:

>Under a scientific framework, input from _intuition_ , tradition, experience, common sense, experts, and logic might be incorporated during the construction of a preliminary hypothesis

<comment><USER2> I would say that it's difficult to assert this in a scientific way. Or better: magic thinking, religion and other sources can be input as well and produce scientific outcomes.

<comment><USER3> The difference is between:

        My intuition is telling me this is true.

and

        My intuition is telling me this is true.  Let me test it.

<comment><USER2> What I wrote is that we can say the same thing with every source of information, even purely unscientific things like magic thinking, rituals, etc. That's the paradoxical thing about science. And also, there are a lot of things that you can't test and can't probe but they are true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How's this for some ideological heresy?

> Humans are poor data gathering machines. We have numerous biases, cognitive > flaws, and psychological errors that prevent our unguided minds from > grasping reality in any accurate way.

What if we're not supposed to always be "data gathering?" What if I just want to do human things?

Sometimes (in my more depressive moods), I wonder about the ultimate utility of "grasping reality in the most accurate way possible." At those times, I feel more able to see things, and yet, am less happy. Studies confirm that happier people have a larger 'shield' against reality, maintaining cognitive biases that aren't necessarily true but abstract over the difficult realities. I'll be the first to say that a dark cloud is over my perceptions then, so they cannot always be trusted. But there's something to the notion that the more you know, the less happy you become. And it isn't that we should be happy all the time, but there's a balance that must be struck. I see people insisting on living this 100% logical life...as if they needed to make it perfectly defensible on Internet discussion boards, or something.

(I'm interested in talking about it from a purely worldview perspective, _not_ from the viewpoint of 'human progress.')

</comment><comment><USER5> The author makes the mistake of equivocating rationalizing with rationalism.

"For example, suppose that (1) watching a scary movie usually makes a person fearful or anxious, and that (2) being fearful or anxious usually causes the person's heart rate to increase. Applying logic we would conclude, therefore, that watching a scary movie raises a person's heart rate."

This is why we say things like "sufficient but not necessary" or other nice things like this.

The author is ambiguous in this example and logic requires rigor, not equivocation.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have seen Rationalism mistaken for sound proof used in lot of arguments.Comfortably, ignoring that the validity of the conclusion is dependant on the validity of the premises. To be honest, logical reasoning is very useful in designing experiments, and multiple chains of logical reasoning is not my strongest point, but the refusal to define the conclusions beforehand is what makes me suspicious, when someone uses long chains of reasoning to convince me.

</comment><comment><USER7> ok let me apply some "science" to this. where did 70% come from? it's a very convenient number as it gives just below 50% outcome, to "prove" that "more often than not" our assumptions are wrong.

let's bump this "guestimate" by 1%. and, whoa, now we "more often than not" are right.

don't get me wrong. science is good and all that. but our gut feeling got us through some really rough ride, so let's not write it off just yet...

<comment><USER8> The author doesn't write it off: "Gut-feelings and common sense are not enough; they may get us somewhere, but not always to the truth."</comment></comment>


Top 20 API Movietitles by #APImovietitles - <AUTHOR> http://www.3scale.net/2014/08/twitter-gets-creative-apimovietitles/ <comment><AUTHOR> This clearly had to be the best: [https://twitter.com/pmonks/status/500421703441199106](https://twitter.com/pmonks/status/500421703441199106)</comment>


Show HN: Find a team for Ludum Dare - <AUTHOR> https://crowdforge.io/ludumdare <comment><USER2> Kinda confusing. I assume the colored in ones are that teams filled positions, however some have profiles pictures and some don't.

The "card" itself has a header with one person, so it kinda looks like they are all people and the filled in things are their skills.

Or something, as I mention, it was kinda confusing.</comment>


Good Samaritan Uses Exec To Return Lost Immigration Documents - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iamexec.com/post/22740716712/good-samaritan-uses-exec-to-return-lost-immigration

<comment><USER2> Shortly after moving to the US, I lost my passport after visiting the social security office. I didn't even notice it was missing until a good samaritan sent me an @mention on Twitter claiming he'd found it on the sidewalk. He interrupted his day to hand it to me personally.

Good samaritans are everywhere. Most don't write blog posts about their good deeds.

<comment><USER3> The good samaritan in this case _didn't_ write a blog post. Exec did. They're using this as a bit of publicity, and honestly, I don't see anything wrong with that.

<comment><USER4> In general I agree, but this feels slightly staged. Why would you take a photo of the handoff?

<comment><USER3> Because you've already decided that this would make a great blog post, and so you want to make sure to get some pictures. A comment below by justin (who apparently works for Exec) seems to indicate this is the case.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3951355>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm happy that the guy got his documents returned to him, and I don't question the story's truth. But how is this blog post anything but a PR thing for Exec?

<comment><USER6> By definition anything on their blog is PR for Exec. But it's also a fun, heartwarming story so I don't see the problem.

<comment><USER7> If it wasn't a fun, heartwarming story, would there be a problem? PR is PR, it is what it is. There's good PR and there's bad PR, naturally.

<comment><USER8> It's an ill wind...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As well as this story turned out, surely it's a bad idea (assuming you're not an evil criminal) to just hand someone else's immigration documents to a stranger to return? Sure, Exec vets its people, but it can't be perfect. What's wrong with either 1) doing it yourself after the meeting, or 2) turning it over to the police? Yes, the return will be delayed, but there's a significantly lower risk of personal info being compromised.

<comment><USER10> As someone who has lost immigration documents before, I heartily approve of whichever method you choose to get them back to me, regardless of whether that is a) handing it over to a secretary, b) handing it over to the cops, or c) handing it over to the first foreigner you meet on the assumption that all foreigners probably know each other.

That last one lead to a truly surreal telephone conversation with someone who, well, speaks Chinese a lot better than I do, but we did eventually get it sorted out.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about Japan, but I suspect that in most major metropolitan areas in the US b) has roughly the same chance of success as dropping them out of an airplane.

<comment><USER9> I'd go to a smaller police station personally, but then I live in the suburbs, where we have police officers who do have the time to do the legwork and return it. I do agree, though, the police's reliability can get spotty at times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whilst I believe that this as you present it, I think you guys need to work on your marketing somewhat. Basically, the narrative of a spontaneous act of goodwill that just happens to be enabled by your service is at odds with the significant knowledge of the story and the posed photos.

<comment><USER13> It kinda looks like that is standard procedure for them: <https://iamexec.com/feed>

The possibly fairly detailed job descriptions apparently go through the company and are then assigned to the person doing the job, so it seems fairly plausible that someon at dispatch went "oh, that could be a good PR opportunity" and asked for more details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone else think he meant exec (3)?

<comment><USER15> I came here looking for an OS injection vulnerability in the new RFID-enabled passports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What is the marketplace called that Exec. operates in? Some hybrid of on demand service, personal assistant.

Of course, not sure if such a service operates in PDX...

</comment><comment><USER17> This reeks of PR fabrication.

<comment><USER18> Sorry, but Andrew really is that good of a guy. The Exec who picked it up happened to be in our office when he did, so we asked him to snap some pictures (with the parties' permission) in case it turned out to be a story with a happy ending. Which it did.</comment></comment>


MySpace, Skype announce partnership (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21341042/ns/technology_and_science-internet/t/myspace-skype-announce-partnership/

<comment><USER2> "Some pundits are complaining that the technology is not new, but that's besides the point. Case in point: at MySpace we launched what Zuckerberg is announcing in 2007 (try googling "myspace skype partnership"), and MySpace also had one-on-one video chat back in 2004. The point is that people weren't really ready for it back then—now is the time, and Facebook has the user base. The large user base (750 million) paired with a simple integration of arguably the best voice/video tech (Skype) is what makes this news."

-Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zuckerberg-first-public- res...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zuckerberg-first-public-response-to- google-plus/)

<comment><USER3> Tom gets it. One of the problems with experience is that you have, well umm, experience. It's the unfortunate ability to say, "We did video chat X years ago. Didn't work out, it's a bad idea."

I've seen this type of thinking first hand. You must understand why it didn't work before, and what is different now. I can see people at MS saying, "The iPad will never work. We tried tablets w/o keyboards back in 2002 and everyone wanted convertibles. It'll never work."

Little differences can be a big deal. Experience is not useful w/o the analysis to put your experience in perspective.

<comment><USER4> While it's certainly true that past performance of a technology is not a flawless indicator of future success, I'm not clear on what makes "now" the time for video chat.

With the iPad, Apple's key insight was that tablets had sucked because the OS hadn't been meticulously tuned to afford use on tablets. I'm curious as to what people think the key insight is that Facebook is bringing to video chat?

From what I'm reading here the TC author seems to think that Joe Average User wasn't using skype or stickam or any of the previous offerings for video chat because the user base wasn't there. I don't know about that, because all of my friends have had skype forever and I can count the number of times I've video chatted with them on one finger. I feel like I wasn't using those, and won't be using this, not because the user base wasn't FIXNUM huge, but because it feels intrusive and I don't want to feel like I have to shower, shave, and put on presentable clothes just to tool around on Facebook.

<comment><USER3> A big reason why Skype wasn't big on MySpace was that it wasn't seamless to use -- at least from my vague recollection didn't it require users to download MySpaceIM? That alone makes it a non-starter for a lot of people.

The other issue is that MySpace never reached this critical mass of users that Facebook has. I can see video chat being about Facebook, more than Skype over the next year. "Get on Facebook so we can video chat".

Lastly, broadband penetration and bandwidth is that much better since 2007.

<comment><USER5> Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the same barrier to entry. I don't see being able to video chat from within my facebook.com window instead of in my Skype.app window as being a huge advantage.

Case in point: I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today, and she didn't really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her friends. Then I told her about Google+'s Hangout feature and her eyes lit up.

Video chatting is no longer a killer feature, but group video chatting is as long as Skype maintains premium pricing for group chats.

<comment><USER3> _Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the same barrier to entry._

No, Facebook will install it automatically. With MySpace you had to do a separate download to get the MySpaceIM client.

 _I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today, and she didn't really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her friends._

I have Skype and Facebook both today too. I have like 8 addresses in my Skype book. I have about 200 friends in Facebook, which includes almost everyone I talk to. I don't think my setup is all that unusual.

<comment><USER6> I used Facebook video chat this morning, and it required a download that you then had to run in order to proceed.

<comment><USER3> So to be clear, you had to go to a seperate webpage, download the plugin, go back to Facebook, and start up the chat session? I want to make sure that the old MySpace experience current FB experience are the same.

<comment><USER5> Nobody is claiming that Facebook's experience is as bad as MySpace. I'm sure it is much better, but that's irrelevant because Facebook isn't competing with MySpace. It's competing with Google+ and Skype, ironically.

<comment><USER7> I don't think Skype is a competitor to Facebook at all. Facebook has had a good partnership with Microsoft for several years and have finally found a good social element that Microsoft brings to the table (Skype).

Skype is great for video calls, Phone calls...and thats about it. Facebook does everything else.

<comment><USER5> Skype may have a good relationship with Facebook, but their products are still indirectly competing. Now that Facebook supports one-to-one video chat, I have no reason to download or register with Skype. Facebook went through great pains to keep user data anonymous from Skype. If Facebook is successful in getting its users to video chat, Skype will effectively become just a technology provider. Once that happens, Facebook could replace the underlying Skype technology with something developed in-house, thus killing Skype entirely.

Of course, given the good relations that Facebook has with Skype/Microsoft, I doubt they have any desire or intention to kill Skype, but the two services are certainly competing for the same users now.

Facebook's video chatting feature has no influence on my decision to use Google+, but it does influence my decision to use Skype.

<comment><USER7> I do understand your reasoning and logic behind your belief. If you were to ask someone now: "What application do you use to video chat with?" the answer is most likely going to sway heavy to Skype. If you ask that question in 3 to 9 months time and that answer has not changed, then Skype will be just fine.

Personally, I don't like the idea of video chatting through Facebook. I use skype exclusively to video chat because its what I am accustomed too, it's the application I trust. Trust being the keyword there because I do not trust Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a different feature. The skype button on myspace would bring up skype and require the other side to have a skype account.

The Facebook feature runs in the browser and guides the receiving side through the process of enabling in-browser video calls.

That said, I agree that Facebook's announcement is not that big of a deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the contrary, I think it's a big deal. Facebook has unprecedented reach.

Grandmas everywhere will now be playing bridge over video chat. :)

<comment><USER9> Does Facebook have group video chat now? Not even Skype proper supports that afaik.

<comment><USER10> Just FYI, Skype proper (but not on facebook) does support group video chats as a paid extra feature now: [http://www.skype.com/intl/en- us/features/allfeatures/group-v...](http://www.skype.com/intl/en- us/features/allfeatures/group-video-calls/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Next feature announcement from Facebook: ghetto bling wallpapers

</comment><comment><USER12> According to this article it wasn't about video but free Internet phone calls.

As Tom Anderson (founder of Myspace) stated on Google+ ([https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts/g2zmxn1L...](https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts/g2zmxn1LmtX?tab=mX)) Myspace had one-on-one video chat back in 2004 but I guess without the help of Skype and without the necessary broadband penetration it wasn't all that useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still blows my mind that they had video chat that far back.

<comment><USER13> first time i saw video from camera being immediately rendered inside a window on computer screen in 1995 (it was in Russia where we were technically noticeably behind the West) It still blows my mind what video chat is still not ubiquitous, and that a company adding video chat feature is a matter to notice.

<comment><USER14> Video chat isn't a technical problem, it's a social problem. I have multiple ways to video chat almost wherever I am, but I almost never want to video chat. When was the last time when you wanted to video chat but couldn't? That's never happened to me.

<comment><USER13> i guess that you're a Generation X-er, around my age, ie. ~40 years :)

<comment><USER15> I think that younger generations are the same, if not more so. Texting is far less intimate than a phone call, and a video chat is more intimate than a phone call. People are going in the other direction for most of their daily social contact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just noticed the title of this post changed from what I originally entered.

I was unaware somebody was able to do this. Who has the ability?

(I don't mind, just curious.)

<comment><USER16> It used to say "3 years ago" right?

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

That has some guidelines on titles and mentions that "the editors may rewrite it."... perhaps they didn't like that you used the number 3, and preferred 2007 because that has more meaning?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, oops. I promise I'll read the rules next time. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Features alone do not a good product make.

</comment><comment><USER18> How many actual active users does myspace still have at this point?

</comment><comment><USER19> execution execution execution

<comment><USER20> unwords $ replicate 3 "timing, execution"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Fast way to earn money (in a difficult situation)? - <AUTHOR> Dear HN,
(throwaway because I'm a regular)
I'm ashamed to say that I recently lost £1,500 (approx $2,300) as a result of very poor life choices. It's money I can't afford to lose and bills that I need to pay will catch up with me in 2-4 weeks.
I have a full-time job with long and varying hours, and so real-life moonlighting isn't really an option. I can just about scrape by without ever earning much of the money back, so I don't need to sell my things (yet) or take on any debt. But still, I don't earn nearly enough to stop such a large amount of money from making me feel depressed about the situation, as well as needing to live extremely frugally for another few months.
I am thinking of what to do to make some of this back. I did low-skilled article writing a few years back in high-school to make money, and so I am thinking of looking into that again... But these days I'm more skilled and have some limited web-dev experience as well as being a somewhat experienced iOS developer.
And thus, the lovely HN, I ask what the most in-trend way is of making extra cash on the side? I haven't freelanced in a long time, but would appreciate if you people know of decent small-scale freelancing sites I could try, or indeed any other methods of making supplementary income on the side, relatively quickly (next month or so).
I don't mind putting in some hours to make myself and situation a bit better...
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Selling your stuff really is the only way to make fast cash. If you're not willing to sell your things, then it's going to be your time you need to sell unfortunately and you don't have much of that.

Also [https://www.reddit.com/r/beermoney](https://www.reddit.com/r/beermoney)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here are some odd-ball, low-skilled ideas for making cash on the side from Dan Miller > [http://www.48days.com/wp- content/uploads/free_documents/48bu...](http://www.48days.com/wp- content/uploads/free_documents/48businessideas.pdf)</comment>


Tesla: It's faster to 'recharge' electric car than pump gas - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0621/Tesla-It-s-faster-to-recharge-electric-car-than-pump-gas-video <comment><USER2> What people don't realise is that hardly anyone needs to use this sort of infrastructure regularly. We fixate on the range of a gasoline tank, thinking that an electric car _must_ match that range if it's to be useful. In truth, long range driving is a very niche use case.

How many times in the last year did you start a trip with a full tank and need to refuel before you reached your destination? The mode answer to that question is zero. According to the Department of Energy, the average vehicle trip is just 10.1 miles. 98% of car journeys are less than 50 miles.

Battery swap technology is irrelevant and always will be. It's a great marketing move by Tesla, because it undermines one of the key arguments against electric cars, but it has little or no practical importance. The fast- charge infrastructure is what matters, because it's cheap enough to realistically become ubiquitous.

We're just very poor at translating our experience of car ownership to electric technology. There's a long thread of comments about peak demand, in which several people clearly haven't internalised the idea that you can charge your electric car at home, so you only need to use a fast-charge or battery swap facility if you've just driven 300 miles in the same day.

<comment><USER3> > How many times in the last year did you start a trip with a full tank and > need to refuel before you reached your destination?

Well, there _was_ that time in the last year that I drove from New York to Jackson, Wyoming and back (~2000 miles each way). If I did that in a Tesla I'd want to battery-swap once or twice a day. Um, it looks like that might be possible sometime in the next year or two. Hurray!

(right now there aren't even any supercharger stations along that route, much less battery-swapping ones. There's an interactive map of stations here: [http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger](http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger) )

Though there's another question about that: How do you charge overnight at a hotel? Do you stay at motels and run an extension cord out the window? Is there a special database somewhere of hotels with convenient charging stations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even ignoring the range differences, this is misleading marketing. What happens when 500 cars show up at an urban Tesla battery swapper within 30 mins of each other on a Saturday morning?

Anyone who's been to a Costco gas station knows that the petrol refill process is sustainable for hundreds of cars, while the battery swap is "draining a cache" of however many battery packs the station has pre-charged, which my guess is, way less than 100.

They are gonna have a peak demand problem on holiday weekends, etc.

<comment><USER5> Assuming the batteries are not just discarded when swapped, you'd end up charging them, right? If a stall can change 1 battery every 1.5 minutes, then it needs something like 60 batteries available, total.

Take one out, start it charging on a super charger. 60 minutes later it's ready to be used.

<comment><USER4> Once the cache of pre-charged batteries is empty, the latency is the charge time (~60 mins) and the throughput is the charge time multiplied by the number of chargers they have. So when they run out of pre-charged batteries, have 10 chargers at the station, and you're the 11th in line, you get to wait for 2 hours. "All you have to decide is fast or free, and how to cut in line" ;)

<comment><USER6> I am just theorizing here, but If i were designing this system it wouldn't work like that.

When a battery comes out of a car, it goes on a charger(underground, or wherever). Each charging station starts with 42 batteries(2 extra for good measure) and each spot that a battery sits in wait is a charging station of its own. At minute 0 a battery goes on the charger. After 40 battery changes, one every 90 seconds, an hour has gone by. At this moment the first battery we put on the charger is full, and we have 39 more charging batteries each finishing their charge at 90 seccond intervals in the same order they went in.

In this way, we never run out of batteries.

Of course first they have to change the system to leased batteries so they dont have to give do the whole 'come back for _your_ battery' thing.

<comment><USER7> The requirement to return and unswap your battery does put quite a crimp on the ability to make trips that aren't strictly plotted out, with no side trips. As this is being promoted for long trips such as vacations, the batteries might need to be shelved for weeks at a time before the user returns. Considering more than a trivial number of users and the storage area required would be vast.

You are correct that this only really would work with leased batteries, but this would require owning up to the actual wholesale manufacturing costs of the batteries, depreciated across the number of miles before the battery is no longer practically usable. Tesla stockholders tend to get upset and confrontational when these numbers are discussed, despite that they are easy to determine since the cost of the Panasonic NCR18650A cell, the number used per Tesla (6831), and the lifespan of the cell, are all known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Starting by congratulating Tesla in their system, which should win some converts, but there's something bothering me with it.

An automobile network that's also owning their "refueling" network concerns me with the usual lock in concerns. What'd append when other brands want to offer the same service? A multitude of recharge posts all accross the land space each under their car brand flag? Figuring that there's only tesla and ford on this city, instead of the Nissan charging station that I need?

This particular solution seems very specific to Tesla (or even only model S), is there any standard or independent initiative for battery-exchange stations?

<comment><USER9> Interestingly, the idea of a car company owning the charging station network was presented by Cringely on his column years ago. [1]

Just listened to the podcast the other day and was struck by how similar Tesla's model is to what he presented. The entire segment is around the question of "how would Steve Jobs run a car company".

1: [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081207_0055...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081207_005508.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Tesla takes ninety seconds to get a battery which will last 235 miles. ([http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts](http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts))

The Audi A4 takes three minutes to get a tank of gas which will last 448 miles. ([http://autos.aol.com/cars- Audi-A4-2013/specs/mpg/](http://autos.aol.com/cars-Audi-A4-2013/specs/mpg/))

<comment><USER11> Most Audi A4s in the UK are probably the 2 litre inline 4 diesel. See the specs page here: [http://www.audi.co.uk/new- cars/a4/a4-saloon/specifications.h...](http://www.audi.co.uk/new- cars/a4/a4-saloon/specifications.html). Note that figures are in miles per Imperial gallon. The EU tests can produce unrealistic results, but the combined figure is usually actually attainable in practice under realistic conditions.

58.9 miles per imperial gallon in miles per 16.1 US gallons = 789.6 miles.

Diesel fuel is denser, but it comes out of the pump just as quickly. Add perhaps 20 seconds for donning and discarding your disposable gloves.

N.B., the Tesla probably accelerates better and with less noise than the 2L diesel. But that said, for the cost of a Tesla, you could probably buy an Audi A4 and run it for 25 years (in the rather unlikely event your car search has narrowed itself down to exactly these two types of car).

<comment><USER12> Is using disposable gloves while pumping gas an English thing? I've never heard of it before

<comment><USER13> It depends on where you're fueling -- some diesel pumps are really dirty (although this seems more common at truck stops and marinas/ag diesel tanks).

For insanity, the Army fueling procedure involves putting a drip tray underneath the vehicle, wearing gloves/mask/etc., etc. Which maybe makes sense for some tactical vehicles, but is silly when they're putting regular auto gas into a leased SUV. This might have just been a contract requirement in Iraq/Afghanistan/Kuwait. The contrast with the civilian Iraqi fueling (plastic bottles by the side of the road...not fuel bottles, but 1.5L water bottles), and the Kuwaiti civilian stations (leave the vehicle running, remain in the vehicle smoking/on phone/etc. during fueling), was quite marked.

<comment><USER14> I've never encountered a very dirty pump. Certainly nothing that I felt I had to wear gloves with. Do American gas stations clean their pumps more often?

<comment><USER15> Diesel stink stays on your hands and clothes a long time. It's far more annoying than gasoline in that regard. (it's unclear if you're speaking from diesel or gasoline experience)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The one thing I didn't like about the demo is they showed it compared to refilling a car, but refilling a car adds more miles to your range than swapping out one of those batteries.

<comment><USER17> Still, 50% capacity at 200% refuel cost with 400% automobile cost (although I would argue it easily performs/feels like a luxury vehicle so really 100% cost) is pretty good considering the auto industry is about an order of magnitude older than Tesla motors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How much will this cost? Really.

Reuters reckons it'll be the same as filling a petrol car about $60 [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-tesla-swap- idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-tesla-swap- idUSBRE95K07H20130621)

Edit:$60 apparently.

<comment><USER7> So $60 for 240 miles of range, or $4 to travel 16 miles.

<comment><USER19> Or $10 for 240 miles of range, if you aren't on a long haul trip, and don't mind plugging it in at both ends of the commute.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that should definitely be part of the analysis. $10 for the electricity, $50 for the prorated cost of the batteries. Every discussion should indeed take the battery life and factor it into cost of operation per mile, which is exactly what is being done with these battery swaps. Since the units are made up of commercial off the shelf cells such as the NCR18650A, the wholesale price in quantity of which is well known, and which have a known short lifespan, it is a simple matter to determine this cost.

So yes, absolutely when talking of the cost of operation, we should consider both the electrical cost per recharge, and the cost of the battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting timing on Tesla's part - announcing battery swap stations less than 4 weeks after battery-swap based Better Place announced (May 26) that they are shutting down.

This is either an amazing fast pivot, or more likely Tesla had the swap capability designed in, but the swap station plan held in reserve to be able to announce swapping so quickly after the departure of Better Place from the battery swap niche.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm really hoping that Tesla licenses the technology to other electric car manufacturers and makes certain their other vehicles (Model X, Roadster) can use it. It would be really silly to have "Tesla Model-S only" service stations.

<comment><USER22> The Roadster's never going to become magically forward-compatible. Just like it's physically incompatible with superchargers, I'm sure it's physically incompatible with having its battery swapped.

Conversely, the X has a huge technology overlap with the S. So it's extremely likely that it will work compatibly.

As for licensing the tech to other manufacturers, Elon has already said he's willing to talk with other companies about making the superchargers available, although there's accounting to be worked out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Each unit will include 50 loaner battery packs that Tesla owners can borrow > for the equivalent of what it costs to fill up a tank of gasoline. The units > will cost the company about $500,000 each to install.

What does this mean?

<comment><USER24> It's not a gas station, it's a block buster. You're not swapping, you're renting. And if don't re-swap back for your original battery, they charge you extra for it.

<comment><USER3> Keeping track of who owns which to ensure each user can get their battery back seems like a bit of a mess. Presumably they give you _money back_ if you keep a battery that's _older_ than the one you dropped off? If so, I frankly can't see how it's worth bothering trying to reunite batteries with their owners - just do the accounting and be done with it.

Suppose I'm driving two thousand miles and I swap batteries once or twice every day along the route. If I don't take the same route back and stop at the exact same spots, I've moved a dozen batteries 200 miles away from where they were before. Whoever dropped off the batteries I picked up now can't plausibly get them back.

On the other hand, suppose I DO plan to take the same route back. Suppose I drive 2000 miles, spend a week at my destination, then drive back. All the batteries I moved will be out of place for that week, so my schedule prevents their owners from getting the batteries back on _their_ preferred schedule.

I'm sure they'll work it out somehow. At least with the new system long driving trips are finally somewhat _practical_! (Or will be once the stations are in place, anyway.)

<comment><USER25> Yes, your analysis illustrates how amateur and silly the Tesla plan is. Did they not run this by a focus group, or even ask somebody who drives long distances maybe? Nothing about the announced plan stands the slightest scrutiny. There were no answers for the simplest questions that occur to anybody who heard the plan.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mind blowing tweets - <AUTHOR>

Who are some people to follow on twitter who only pump out mind blowing tweets? The subjects I'm interested in include - coding - startup scene - entrepreneurship - science - design and type - solar, bio and health tech - spirituality<p>My experience has been that many people tweet out mind blowing stuff once in a while, but also pump out lots of drek (e.g. one has to be a bystander to their conversations with people). I want to avoid this. I'm looking for people who only pump out one-way traffic of mind blowing stuff. The closest I've found anyone to this ideal is @levie. <comment><USER2> Not sure if 100% of their posts are mind blowing. It's hard to dispense much business wisdom via a Twitter feed. Still, you can learn a lot from them, especially if you follow the links they recommend. My favourite is at the top:

David S. Rose @davidsrose Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor

Jeff Bussgang @bussgang Former entrepreneur turned VC at Flybridge Capital

Fred Wilson @fredwilson I am a VC

I'd also suggest to read through David Rose's replies on Quora. Very thoughtful

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree about @davidsrose -- he loves to teach and share knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> @tqbf ('tptacek)

@patio11

@Ramit (of I Will Teach You To Be Rich fame)

@alexisohanian (Reddit Co-founder)

@brennandunn (Planscope)

@GSElevator (Hardly mind blowing but amusing)

@thestartupspace (Swedish Startup Space, a blog but puts out good content, but I am biased towards Swedish tech stories)

That is all I could think of right now. You could always follow me(@Chronoo) but I doubt you would get any mind blowing tweets ;).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks -- upvoted you and followed @ramit .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it because they tweet links to interesting stories? Otherwise how is it possible to learn something worthwhile from 120 char messages? It's hard for me to fathom how a text so short could be "mind blowing."

<comment><USER5> It is possible for a 140 character message (tweet) to be "mind blowing", that's the reason twitter is so popular, isnt it ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mark Suster @msuster

You can also check out his blog [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> @impact4change @carlfischer101</comment>


YouPorn goes PWA progressive with new mobile web apps for Android and iOS - sahin-boydas https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/19/youporn-goes-progressive-with-new-mobile-web-apps-for-android-and-ios/ <comment><AUTHOR> > But there are other advantages too, such as local storage, meaning that > YouPorn can store information such as a user's favorite videos locally on > the device so that this information is not sent to YouPorn's servers.

This is a pretty inscrutable sentence. There's nothing about a PWA that ensures additional privacy, and nothing stopping them from using local storage and not collecting this data on the regular website if they chose to.

<comment><USER2> I think PWAs can mean less privacy as they run (from home) in non extension enabled browser instance.

I've not got any confirmation on this, but if you have a fully tricked out Firefox mobile on your Android device and load a PWA from your home screen it will not load your extensions and you cannot access them or the browser settings.

Seems like many website developers would love PWAs if it means more ads and income for their companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The one problem that is left with PWAs is that they do not support local file access.

So they have to store data in the browsers local storage. And that is wiped out when the user deletes their browsing data.

</comment><comment><USER4> PWA in Urban Dictionary is curiously on point, [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PWA](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PWA)</comment>


Adventures in Assembly - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pseudopattern.com/2010/07/adventures-in-assembly-5x-speed-up.html

<comment><USER2> Hmmm ... if you want fast calculation you should try Fortran 95, I bet you will get a 10x speed improvement versus the Java version. Also the learning curve is not so step as learning assembler and your code is portable to any OS.

From my experience nothing beats Fortran at calculations. If your are using Linux you can use Intel Fortran which is way faster than gfortran and it is free for Linux users.

Paul

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've considered picking it up. Glancing at Fortran code is a bit off- putting though.

You aren't going to beat my code by much, much less by double. I did want to see what was possible by doing everything on the cpu. Your point about portability stands, but of course assembler is perfectly portable (you'd just have to adjust the initial moves according to abi differences). However, if Fortran does come close to my code's performance, there would be a huge time savings in coding time.</comment></comment>


Upcoming Updates to the AWS Lambda and AWS Lambda Edge Execution Environment - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/upcoming-updates-to-the-aws-lambda-execution-environment/ <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr - AWS is updating Lambda execution environment AMI to version 2018.03 of Amazon Linux. Big change:Linux Kernel 4.14. If your code uses libraries or packages compiled against specific AMI OS packages, you will see impact. New/updated functions start in new AMI environment from May 21, existing functions will start using the new environment from June 11.</comment>


Yasp – a web-based assembler development environment - <AUTHOR> http://yasp.me/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty neat, I have been wanting to mess around with assembly on a microcontroller for awhile. This is so much easier then setting it up on a AT* chip.

<comment><USER3> There's also:

[https://microcorruption.com](https://microcorruption.com)

We're shipping a web-based AVR game in a week or so.

<comment><USER4> What timeline do you have for public availability of Starfighter?

<comment><USER5> I believe the web-based game he referred to is (part of) Starfighter :)

<comment><USER4> An official statement whether your claim is true would be nice, since as far as I know Starfighter seems to be about different programming tasks (but of course it is quite possible that Starfighter will contain things that hasn't yet publicly been talked about):

> [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/08/20/designing-and- > building-s...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/08/20/designing-and-building- > stockfighter-our-programming-game/)

<comment><USER3> It's both; half of it is a continuation of what we did with Microcorruption. (There are two tech trees; you can play with either or both).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh the hours this might have saved in undergrad assembly... This seriously looks awesome! I wonder if the grammar can be modified to simulate other architectures, like SPARC.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://yasp.co/](http://yasp.co/)</comment>


Boom Makes Your Mac Speakers Go Up To 11 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/13/mac-app-boom-makes-your-speakers-go-up-to-11/

<comment><USER2> Why is a dynamic range compression app news?</comment>


Ask HN: Why no favorite link alongside each comment? - <AUTHOR> Currently one has to click the timestamp for a comment which then gives you the options to mark it as (un-)/favorite, flag or navigate to parent/story. Any specific reason, I would like to think (anecdotally) that marking a comment as favorite should be as frequent as marking a story? <comment><USER2> You want it to say 'favorite' next to _every_ comment? That would clutter up the discussion pages a lot. For something that's not used so often, why do you think that would be worth the extra clutter? Anyway, it is already consistent - the 'favorite' links appear for stories at the top of the story's page, and for comments at the top of the comment's page.</comment>


Why it's a shame that computer science courses aren't mandatory - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2013/12/12/why-its-a-shame-that-computer-science-courses-arent-mandatory/ <comment><USER2>
        There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
        cache invalidation and naming things.</comment>


Pearl River Delta Becomes China's New Technological Innovation Lab - <AUTHOR> http://inventorspot.com/articles/pearl_river_delta_becomes_chinas_new_technological_innovation_la_22084

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

 _In keeping with its master plan, over the next three years about 100 state laboratories designated for engineering innovation and research and development (R &D) will be established. It is expected that by the year 2012 some three-to-five, high technology–powered industrial clusters will be established, generating an industrial output of more than 100 billion yuan (about 14.6 billion U.S. dollars). Generally speaking, hi-tech manufacturing is expected to generate at least 30 percent of the total industrial output of the region by the projected date of 2020.

[...]

The government will also do its part to encourage innovative enterprise by reducing taxes on about 50 of the top competitive companies. By 2012, some 600 new patent applications per one million people are expected and priority will be given to those patents involving independent technological innovations._</comment>


Pilot was attempting his first Boeing 777 landing at San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/08/boeing-777-crashes-at-san-francisco-international-airport/

<comment><USER2> The article isn't clear on whether the pilot had never landed a 777 before, or just never a 777 at SFO.</comment>


'What Emacs is to editors, Stumpwm is to window managers' - <AUTHOR> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/080429.html

<comment><USER2> I was going to use this comment for some xmonad advocacy, but after reading the article, I think I'll be switching to Stumpwm. Haskell is nice, but Lisp is better :)

<comment><USER3> I would advise a little caution; I hear that Stumpwm has some stability issues.

That being said, I have never used it as a wm; so this is second-hand advice.

<comment><USER2> That's OK, 'cause I know Lisp better than Haskell. I don't mind hacking on software I use :)

I do love xmonad's test suite, though; that is its best feature, and it will be one that's hard to give up. Software without tests makes me lose sleep.</comment></comment></comment>


A life in ruins: On the architectural vision of John Soane - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/A-life-in-ruins-8521 <comment><USER2> I highly recommend for those interested and able to visit the John Soane museum discussed here. Its an incredible space with an incredible collection, curated in a dense but careful way. In many ways the antithesis to the vapid detatchment of the great majority of art galleries and museums of today.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion! I didn't know this museum existed, and I'll pay a visit as soon as I have a chance.

<comment><USER4> It's wonderful! They have candlelight viewings on winter evenings, those are great. If you can, it's also great to visit during a quiet weekday -- the use of natural light is amazing for such a cramped-feeling building.

Edit: the link for candlelight viewings isn't obvious on their website, here it is: [http://www.soane.org/your-visit/evening- openings](http://www.soane.org/your-visit/evening-openings)</comment></comment></comment>


An Echo through Time, the Minimalist Trend - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/12/26/an-echo-through-time-the-minimalist-trend/ <comment><AUTHOR> Funny to realize Adam Smith knew we had to refactor our code

<comment><USER2> That's what I thought at first too. Then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized that Adam Smith, in roughly 1800 or so, had no way to even conceive of what it was I would be doing for a living 200 years in the future and was, in fact, talking about plain oldfashioned engineering, something humans have been doing for ages. When I write code to solve a particular problem I am not, as I am sometimes wont to think, performing a spectacular feat of futuristic wizardry. Instead, I am doing something quite similar to what my ancestors have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years on the plains of Africa and elsewhere, which is to create hopefully useful tools out of whatever materials are available.

<comment><USER3> Which is why software engineering and systems engineering look so similar, despite having quite different developmental histories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I notice that as I have matured as a web developer I have embraced a more and more minimalistic approach. It is interesting to see how a similar effect has happened through history.</comment>


How a Lawsuit Over Hot Coffee Helped Erode the 7th Amendment (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://priceonomics.com/how-a-lawsuit-over-hot-coffee-helped-erode-the-7th/ <comment><USER2> >Nurses, housekeepers, and lab techs crammed into a conference room where hospital administrators presented a form and told them to sign. Signing meant agreeing to submit any future employment-related complaints to an arbitrator hired by the hospital and waiving the right to sue in court. Refusing to sign meant they'd be fired.

Can you sue for wrongful termination if you get fired for refusing to sign such a waiver?

<comment><USER3> > Can you sue for wrongful termination if you get fired for refusing to sign > such a waiver?

It seems unlikely, because the Supreme Court has ruled it's permissible for employers to compel employees to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment.

<comment><USER4> How did the Supreme Court reason that? It seems to be a violation of Amendment 7.

<comment><USER3> The case is Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams but it doesn't really turn on constitutional issues like that from what I can tell. I suppose the reasoning is you're both equal parties and you can just turn down the employment if you don't like the provision (this argument is a ridiculous fiction since you need to work to live but whatever).

I mean honestly I think this is ideologically motivated just like the rash of decisions that have practically made it impossible to file a class action lawsuit by letting companies require their customers to use arbitration.

<comment><USER5> It sucks I agree, but, companies are not obligated to hire people or to not fire them because people need to eat or else a company could be forced, legally, to hire far more than they need or can afford. This would drive them out of business and all their employees would be on the street.

<comment><USER3> Whether that's correct or not it's beside the point of what I'm saying. What I mean to say is that the premise that an employee and and an employer are two equals entering into an agreement on equal footing is divorced from reality. That's the reason a minimum wage law and so on is needed in the first place.

<comment><USER6> why should they be "on equal footing", and what could that possibly mean? They are two sides of an equation who each want different things out of the relationship. The employee wants to sell his services. The employer wants to purchase services.

Unless you subscribe to the Marxist doctrine that every economic interaction is "really" a question of one party having power over the other, which is delusional like the rest of Marxism.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you go back and read the discussion again?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Businesses complaining about greedy Americans being overly litigious may > want to look in a mirror.

This is excellent. In fact, the patent office should require arbitration agreements which the patent office would oversee for any patent disputes. Maybe it would be a small step forward over the patent mess that exists now.

<comment><USER8> That is not a bad idea. Not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great example of how the modern media is a cancer to the truth. I wish there was a media source that wasn't incentivized by clicks and ads. I would pay monthly for a news source that doesn't lie to me.

<comment><USER10> Great news! You should buy the New York Times. You can even do so monthly!

Their original article on this subject is at [http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/business/big-jury-award- fo...](http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/business/big-jury-award-for-coffee- burn.html).

Note how it doesn't lie to you. It's the "just the facts" approach people worship.

Arguably, if they had foreseen what that story would become in mainstream folklore, they would have wanted to add some graphic images etc. But I doubt anybody knew at the time how interested parties would instrumentalize this story.

<comment><USER11> The same New York Times that reported as late as November 16th that Clinton won 50.4% of the popular vote (with _no qualification_ )?

<comment><USER10> Wait, isn't that actually true? And doesn't she have plenty of qualifications? I mean – she's passed the bar exam, right?

<comment><USER12> I think what buddy means there (the grandparent post) is that the NYTimes statement/claim in its article had not been qualified by reference (i.e. attribution), rather than that Clinton herself was unqualified for the job. That's how I read it.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I was joking.

Of course they meant a qualification to remind people that she lost the election.

(...which I think is quite far 'out there' with regards to examples of lies spread by the media. But maybe the NYT and I are wrong in assuming that everybody knows about President-elect by now.)

<comment><USER13> ...She didn't win 50.4% of the popular vote. She won 48.2% to Trump's 46.3%, as of the latest count. But I'd like a citation for New York Times reporting that she did.

<comment><USER11> The exact quote through at least the 16th, as pointed out on HN at the time:

"Popular vote For Clinton 50.4% ... For Trump 49.6%"

Check the Wayback Machine for this page:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/16/us/politics/10...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/16/us/politics/100000004770186.mobile.html)

Then look at its accurate rewording now.

<comment><USER13> I see. The earliest copy of that page on the Wayback Machine includes the label about only counting Clinton and Trump, but I'll take your word for it that it was originally missing. It seems like a pretty minor error given that it was a small part of an article primarily focused on comparing the counties won by Clinton and Trump, and was apparently promptly corrected, but eh. (And of course their main election results page has the right numbers.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This story has been highly politicized and is proof that even in the 90s everybody was like tl;dr. It is the perfect example of lies and inneuendo trumping the facts and reality. And it is a perfect illustration of why we are in the mess we are in today.

</comment><comment><USER15> So next time I buy a car, if I put a line through paragraphs that I don't agree with in the contract are they going to walk away from the deal? I'm sure that the dealership doesn't want this to happen, but the sales personnel are more deal focused than anything else. I'm bloody minded enough to try this half a dozen times.

<comment><USER16> I tried it twice, asking the manager flat out "what happens if I don't agree to arbitration?" And he said "Then we can't sell you a car."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Businesses complaining about greedy Americans being overly litigious may > want to look in a mirror.

Sure, but it goes both ways.

On one hand, companies are overly litigious for reasons described in the post. I've been frustrated at least once that I couldn't be part of a class action suit because there wasn't a recall for a design flaw costing me thousands; I knew however that a class action suit probably would've resulting in a small check at most.

On the other hand, there are law firms that advertise on television to get people to claim malpractice, etc. and "get money." And there are patent trolls that are purely exploiting.

I think it's fair to say there is a lot that could be done for reform.

</comment><comment><USER18> The article is wrong in one very important detail regarding the Federal Arbitration Act. The author states,

      The legal basis for outsourcing legal proceedings is a 1925
      law passed by Congress specifying arbitration as an option
      for "merchants" who agree to a private alternative.

Actually, nowhere in the statute is the word merchant or merchants used. That word is used in the legislative history (i.e. the debates and arguments). But from the plain text of the statute, a layman reading would have it apply to all commerce that would otherwise be governed by federal law. You have to rely on some presently out of favor legal interpretative devices to believe that the law should only apply between merchants.

The _real_ issues are,

1) What kinds of commerce are reachable? This bill passed in a time when the Federal Courts held a substantially narrower interpretation of Congress' powers over commerce. And even proponents of modern, so-called plain text interpretation usually admit that in some circumstances, especially involving constitutional issues of powers, you want to see a more clear articulation of an intent to extend power so broadly.

2) SCOTUS upended over half a century of settled precedent. First when it held that the FAA was enforceable in state courts applying state law, and again when it decided that state law defenses to enforceability (i.e. state-specific definitions of unconscionability) could not be used.

3) Deciding that state law defenses are not useable is ironic give the plain text limitation that arbitration agreements are enforceable "save upon any grounds that exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract". There's a sound argument that this exclusion doesn't capture state-based grounds. But that argument necessarily depends on the historical legal context --at the time the law couldn't have reached nearly as much commerce as SCOTUS allows today. And it wasn't until 1938 until Erie Railroad v. Tompkins exalted state law in choice of law matters.

These details matter because if you try to debate the Federal Arbitration Act with knowledgeable defenders you lose all credibility by repeating falsehoods like the author did. We really need change in this regard: 1) stop so-called tort reform, and 2) fix SCOTUS' error in applying the FAA so broadly. It helps if people stick to facts.

Many conservatives love the FAA; and many conservatives love so-called tort reform. But the inevitable outcome of both these things will be centralization of consumer protection in federal government agencies. A modern democracy simply won't stand-by while corporations cheat and injure people. The question is, which system do you want:

1) One that is decentralized, relatively equitable (1000 years of careful balancing of interests between plaintiff and defendant), and with more freedom for states to experiment, or

2) One that is centralized in a few government regulatory bodies, where the little guy will almost always get screwed, and businesses are subject to the whims of each passing administration on major issues, turning every major business dispute into a political issue.

The latter is what you get when you take away the ability for people to seek out individualized justice in the courts. And the outcome will not (and is not) good for anybody.

<comment><USER19> > A modern democracy simply won't stand-by while corporations cheat and injure > people.

This is essentially a religious belief.

<comment><USER18> No, it just follows from the definition of democracy. If McDonalds starts shooting every fifth customer in the head, no matter how deeply in the pockets the police and legislators are, in a functional democracy representatives will be responsive to the electorate to some substantial degree.

But note that what change the electorate gets might not be very effective. It might be just barely adequate, or it might just obscure the problem. And that's my point: conservatives are taking away the tools to seek out justice. Liberals are replacing some of those tools, but the newer tools suck. They'll not only be less effective in protecting consumers, but they're likely to be even more stifling to business. Everybody will be worse off.

Regulatory agencies are worse for business because unlike courts, regulatory agencies can _prevent_ businesses from innovating on the pretense of consumer protection. While as a general matter courts can only respond to manifest harm.

Because regulatory agencies don't and cannot provide individualized justice, when they work well to protect consumers they do so by being overly protective. Usually it's beneficial to society to let businesses take more risk as long as they can compensate those people who are harmed. I'm not saying regulatory agencies are always a bad idea, just that vesting the power in consumers to sue on their own behalf, and relying on them to do so, is a much more powerful mechanism for correcting bad behavior than people think. It's administratively inefficient in many respects, but at least it's uncoupled from politics and more directly tied to manifest harms. I think in real economic terms it's less costly for society.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this line of thinking is that McDonald's has a team of people to lobby tirelessly on their behalf and individual voters don't really know or care about these issues until they're affected personally. So by one small change after another the court system can become less and less favorable to individuals by very small steps. The idea that regulation is becoming more stringent is simply not borne out by reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's pretty amazing that her initial week in the hospital only racked up 10k in bills. I had a hernia repair recently and it was ~7k for a few hours in- and-out. Wouldn't want to see the bill for spending a week in the hospital these days.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there any statistics about the performance of jury trial?

I am from Europe and to be honest I don't have much experience with US legal system. But what I watch from news and stuff, it is a utility to force people, out of court settlements or guilty pleas. What I see is going on a jury trial is a probabilistic decision. You would most likely settle out of court for your Expected Value at jury trial.

I strongly feel this should not be what justice should be.

</comment><comment><USER22> Point of view from Europe: doesn't matter that Coffee sue wasn't about millions just thousands, the main issue is that she won. That is what we laugh about. You can act as brainless and won money. If you order hot coffee you can pay your own bill when you spill it on you. So thanks to her and only her Gourleys got limited money.

<comment><USER23> As an European myself, I fully disagree; getting a cup of coffee at 82ºC is not reasonable, and spilling it on yourself should never cause 2nd degree burns. The payout was completely justified. And the fact that it was standard policy and not an error further solidifies the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Still seems totally ridiculous that it would go to court. 180F is 82C. If you're stupid enough to burn yourself with it (and _I_ am) blaming someone else for your stupidity and suing is not moronic, it's amoral. The problem of medical bills is one to take up with your elected representatives rather than blaming coffee for being coffee ffs.

<comment><USER25> I'm upvoting you since this is a common mistake. We think people should use common sense when dealing with hot coffee. I've spilled coffee I made on myself plenty of times. It burned and made my skin a bit red. That's all. Since that's what hot coffee usually does.

Then, to cut costs, McDonalds raised the temperature of their coffee without telling people what it could do. I personally lost the ability to taste anything after taking one sip. Came back after a day or two but no coffee has ever done that. Then, this woman gets _third degree burns_ from something she expects to hurt and make her skin red at worst.

That's nothing even a smart person or coffee junkie should expect to happen. It's unusual. That's because it was a dangerous thing McDonalds did to squeeze more money out of their operation. The danger damaged people who couldn't see it coming. They should pay for it.

<comment><USER26> > Then, to cut costs, McDonalds raised the temperature of their coffee without > telling people what it could do.

How does raising the temperature of coffee cut costs?

<comment><USER25> It was a combination of things in the legal text I read a while back. For one, they were having to brew coffee more often to keep it at the desired, sane temperature. Two, the coffee quickly turned to a mild temperature on the road for some customers that drove a lot. They dramatically increased the temperature to reduce number of pots brewed & attract that one demographic more. They also didn't tell anyone the new temperature could cause 3rd degree burns.

Profit went up with most people taking damage thinking they couldn't win against legal team of a giant. They just put in complaints instead of lawsuits. The suit that won got watered down a lot on appeal. The marketing team combined with the media, which makes a fortune on McDonalds ads, turned her into a laughing stock. McDonalds added a warning or something afterward but the cost-benefit analysis was good enough to justify all of it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Solo Founder Group? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I'm currently a solo founder working on a startup (expect to see a "Show HN" sometime soon™) and one thing I miss is having a few people to share small successes/frustrations with, or to field opinions and questions. I'm sure there are other people here who feel the same way.
Are there any groups like this already? I'd be happy to start organizing something. Ideally, I'm envisioning a tight-knit group of maybe a half dozen to a dozen startups, where we'd all be familiar with each other's businesses.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> check <http://www.nreduce.com> not specifically for solo'ers but an evolving "online incubator." i got some good feedback from fellow startups when working on CloudPlay.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about trying nReduce - although I think I'd prefer looser deadlines and a stronger community aspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My favorite online biz community is the Dynamite Circle -

<http://tropicalmba.com/innercircle>

Also check out Micropreneur Academy and the Foundation

<comment><AUTHOR> Is DC really worth $97 quarterly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm in the same boat. Do you happen to live in the Bay Area?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, I'm in Boston.

<comment><USER5> I'm in Boston too. Although I can't really consider myself a solo founder, I have just started working on something. Would love to catch up if you're around. I have a day job at the moment, so I'm working on my idea after hours...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah sure, shoot me an email and we can grab a beer sometime.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing SPDY - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-spdy

<comment><USER2> _SPDY is built on top of TLS, which means it requires a site to have a valid SSL certificate in order to work. This, unfortunately, limits SPDY only to CloudFlare's paid customers who have enabled Flexible or Full SSL support. Microsoft is working on revised IETF proposal that is SPDY-like, but removes the requirement for SSL/TLS. If the TLS requirement is removed in the future, we'll make SPDY (or whatever it comes to be called) available more broadly._

Can SPDY theoretically be transitioned to not be built on top of TLS, or is the MSFT work a more likely solution?

<comment><USER3> SPDY does not technically require TLS, but It's the Right Thing To Do [tm]. According to Mike Belshe, there are two reasons that SPDY was designed to use TLS. The first was pragmatic: Middleboxes on the Internet wouldn't be able to pass through non-HTTP traffic, so unless a different port was used, the only way to punch through the various proxy layers was to use end-to-end security. But the other reason is just as important: It's 2012, folks. It seems insane that most Web traffic goes in the clear. Browsers are fully capable of doing the SSL handshake without incurring a major performance cost - even on mobile devices. Finally, we may not get another chance to change the web protocol stack for another 15 years, so it's best to get it right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "By gathering all scripts, regardless of where they're hosted, into a single HTTP request, Rocket Loader limits the number of HTTP connections that are needed. This also means that even third party scripts that appear on your page are requested under your site's domain. "

How do you do that?

<comment><USER5> CloudFlare's server acts as a proxy. It downloads each resource over HTTP from its original location and caches it, then delivers all the resources to the client over SPDY. The preceding paragraph explains it:

 _"For SPDY support, CloudFlare acts as a gateway... We handle the multiplexing and begin sending down objects we already have in our cache. The request to the origin server for non-cached objects is sent over standard HTTP/S."_

This is similar to the proxy mode in Amazon's Silk browser for Kindle Fire.

<comment><USER6> Do you rewrite the hosts on all third party sites to be the site domain? I'm still not following this setup.

Silk is an entirely different setup. Silk (a) manually sets their SPDY gateway as a browser proxy, which is a system level setting, and (b) silk does not tunnel HTTPS requests. CloudFlare obviously doesn't have control over my browsers proxy settings, so if the page I'm loading is abc.com/page, and that page has a request to twitter.com/widget.js, then the browser _should_ open a connection directly to twitter.com to fetch that resource.

P.S. SPDY does allow tunneling HTTPS, but once again, that requires a system level proxy setup.

<comment><USER7> To use cloudflare's "rocket loader", the host domain dns record must point to cloudflare instead of the origin server. If abc.com were using cloudflare, a user's request to abc.com/page would first hit cloudflare's server. Cloudflare would then proxy the request to abc's origin server, rewrite 3rd party urls, and return the modified content to the user.

I'm not sure how well cloudflare handles http vary headers, e.g. 3rd party resources that serve different content depending on cookies or user agent. An example could be google web fonts which serves different css and fonts to different browsers.

<comment><USER6> Looking through CF's own site, plus a few of their "case study" links, I don't see the domain rewriting happening on these scripts. And as you indicated, with additional complication of user cookies / HTTP vary, I'm not sure that's necessarily a good idea either -- if either of those in place, all of your cache optimizations go out the door. Best gotcha example: ads.

Seems like there is a bit of false advertising going on here.

<comment><USER8> That doesn't seem like a big deal. If you have requirements that every request hit your server then, duh, you can't have a caching proxy in front of your pages.

I think _very_ few ads work that way, though. It's almost always a javascript include (often from a 3rd party ad server).

<comment><USER6> I'm saying the oppposite. I have no reason to proxy twitter.js or other ads scripts on my site. If CF is taking the step to rewrite those to the same domain, then they also have to guard for respecting all the cache implications of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. I wonder if moot will adopt this for 4chan. Recently he's seemed interested in optimizing the site (most notably by cleaning up the HTML/CSS and adding mobile support).

<comment><USER10> 4chan is already using CloudFlare Pro (you can check by visiting their SSL url, they're using CloudFlare cert), so it should be easy for him to enable SPDY support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is cloudflare mainstream? Any testimonials? Sounds pretty cool.</comment>


Microsoft unveils sandbox boundaries for Windows 8/Metro developers  - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/17/delivering-reliable-and-trustworthy-metro-style-apps.aspx

<comment><USER2> "While it is possible to hide or obfuscate calls to APIs that are not included in the SDK, this is still a violation of customer expectations and Store policy."

Wait, does the platform not include a sandbox to make sure this doesn't happen? What "security" can you expect to get out of such a platform?

<comment><USER3> Windows 8 Metro apps can be written in real C++. How could they sandbox a custom C++ app? There's no virtual machine to do it.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh46504...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh465045.aspx)

<comment><USER4> Virtual machine is not required for sandboxing C++ apps in 21st century.

[1] <http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/>

[2] <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/capsicum/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a lot of claims made here with regards to how end-users will effectively like to download and try apps from the metro store and take the time to write a good reasoned review about their experience.

Given the average response i've heard from end-users however, i somewhat doubt this. Most people i've talked to simply hate metro. Looking at other app stores, most reviews i've seen are low quality and emotionally driven.

Will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

</comment><comment><USER6> One upside of this is that it looks like they're really pushing the one-click installs. It isn't apt or yum, but it's certainly better than what Windows has now..

<comment><USER7> How? Windows installation has been fine for a decade and a half. Actually, it's going BACKWARD, with vendors now not bothering to ask you WHERE you want application links stored and instead littering your machine's program menu with endless directories named after themselves. Who the hell organizes their applications by vendor? I want my graphics apps together, my audio apps in another group, general office-type apps in another.

With every release, Windows has made this basic function (organizing applications) a bigger pain in the ass. If Microsoft is going to start enforcing policies, then this should be one: No application can simply barf a bunch of crap into your Start menu without ASKING where you want it to go.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I think you missed a pretty big memo. The Start Menu is gone in Windows 8.

<comment><USER9> Does this also mean that winbutton no longer gives you access to search through your programs and documents?

<comment><USER10> No... just hit winbutton and start typing away.

<comment><USER7> Because you remember the name of every program on your computer, including that seldom-used demuxing utility you downloaded last year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apps can only access files with the same file type association?

What about generic text editors? SSH clients? :/

<comment><USER12> Whoa there, read more carefully. It seems that if you use the built-in FilePicker then your app can use any file on the system, provided that the OS is sure that the user has actively given you access to it. Also, there appear to be ways to obtain permissions beyond the default level.</comment></comment>