Cars kill cities - <AUTHOR> http://progressivetransit.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/cars-kill-cities/ <comment><USER2> When I visited Hawaii last year I noticed that something was different at all the hotels compared to hotels at similar locations elsewhere; Thailand, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic. In Hawaii, all hotels had huge parking garages and a large valet parking staff. Similar-sized hotels in the other locations never had parking garages, hotels with hundreds of rooms might have a tiny parking-lot somewhere, on which a few rental cars would be parked.

But in Hawaii, _everyone_ rents a car, drives it the ten minutes from the airport to the hotel, parks it at the hotel, leaves it there for a week, then drives it back to the airport to get home.

It's a pretty funny and stark reminder of the completely different mindset and attitude towards cars that most americans have. Having a car is so deeply ingrained that the alternatives don't have a chance.

<comment><USER3> When my wife and I went to Oahu for out honeymoon, we thought it was absolutely insane that anyone would rent a car while visiting the place. They have a free bus system that shuttles you around the down town area, and there are loads of tours that can get you to the regular hots spots that everyone wants to visit.

<comment><USER4> This is okay if you're a tourist traveling between popular tourist spots. As a local, taking the bus 10 miles from home to work would take me at least an hour and half to two hours, verus 40 minutes in a car.

<comment><USER5> Or 30 minutes on a bike (once you're fit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think in the Netherlands, we've had this discussion a while ago already. Outcome: cities like Amsterdam have intentionally few parking spaces in the center, and they cost ludicrous amounts of money per hour.

People _living_ in the center either complain their asses off, or ditch the car.

I'm not sure that this really helped people much. Ditching the car means you can't go visit your grandma in that village without a train station on the other side of the country easily. Keeping the car means everything sucks (super-expensive, no place to put it, takes ages to get from your house to the highway). Real solution: keep the car and move away from the city center, the exact opposite from what the OP is suggesting.

Long story short, I doubt there is a simple solution. Back in those wonderful old days, everybody lived 2 miles from their grandmas anyway.

(there probably are plenty non-simple solutions though)

<comment><USER7> In germany the concept of car-sharing is becoming increasingly popular. Most bigger cities have multiple providers, some are backed by car manufacturers, some are independent.

So if you want to pick up lots of beverages for your birthday party next weekend and don't feel like hauling them back in public transport or with your bike, you can just rent a car for x minutes, go shopping, drive home, park it in a reserved place in you neighborhood.

The price model of most providers is however not the best for the visit grandma in the countryside problem, but most of those carsharing companies have special tarifs with rental providers, so you can get a relatively cheap car for the weekend.

The way it technically works is almost always the same: You sign up and you get an RFID Key Card. You go on the internet or use an App to see if a car is available in your area and book it. You go to the car, open it with you keycard and find the keys in the glovebox. Sometimes you have to put in a PIN first. Some providers have a monthly fee, some just charge the usage.

Some Websites for those interested:

www.car2go.com - Backed by Daimler - Smart Cars even in some NA cities

www.greenwheels.com - indipendent, has been around for ages

www.flinkster.de - Backed by Deutsche Bahn (german railways), they also have bikes for rent

www.stadtmobil.de

www.drive-now.com - Sixt (biggest german rental firm) and BMW - nice 1-series and Minis

www.web.quicar.de - Volkswagen got into the business,too

\+ multiple regional projects

<comment><USER8> And also some peer-to-peer players that are gaining a lot of traction.

A good overview is available here : <http://futureofcarsharing.com/>

<comment><USER9> Wow, that site looks beautiful, amazing HTML5 and CSS-work. The source looks handcoded, apart from Modernizer and jQuery.

I wonder how you would event start to design something like that.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but they've broken my middle-mouse-button and I can't open new tabs on the links. Which is s shame. That seems to be happening more and more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I completely agree. It's sad that we've let cars completely take over in detriment of quality of life.

I worked on this set of visualizations on traffic in the center of Madrid a few years ago: <http://trsp.net/cow>

I found the numbers stunning. Some avenues had an average of 100k vehicles driving through daily.

I've since moved to San Francisco, and find that traffic in US cities is less painful, the cities' grids and sidewalks are better prepared. But still, it's ridiculous how much freedom cars are given. A few months ago traffic in Valencia St, one of the nicest streets in the Mission, was cut off, and it was bliss to take a walk there, even though the street was super crowded. At least some streets should always be traffic free, I dont think it's that much effort to ask, and the benefits in quality of living are tremendous.

<comment><USER12> The main opposition to pedestrian streets in the U.S. tends to be from merchants. Their view is that cars driving by is good advertising. Even if the cars don't actually stop, when they drive by a store daily, they're reminded it's there and might eventually visit, while if the traffic gets routed in a different way, fewer eyeballs will see the stores daily (and instead they'll see different stores). State Street in Chicago was pedestrianized from 1979-1996, for example, but merchant pressure eventually caused it to be reopened to traffic.

<comment><USER13> It depends a lot on the circumstances. Here's a recent situation where the decision to make some streets in Chinatown pedestrian-only and removing parking on others (if only for a day) was supported and well-received by merchants:

[http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/01/24/chinatown-businesses- th...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/01/24/chinatown-businesses-thrive- during-a-week-without-car-parking/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The midtown Atlanta example is all wrong. Yes, there are a lot of cars in Atlanta. Yes, there are a lot of parking lots in Atlanta. Are these parking lots required to sustain these cars? Not at all. The rates for parking vary wildly, because people only want to park near where they are going.

Those parking lots are not for cars, they are for flipping real estate.

Real estate in midtown has been booming for a little over a decade as small run down buildings are demolished and 10 ~ 40 story skyscrapers are built. That means huge increases in land value, which attracts speculation. When a lot with a small building is purchased, what happens next? If the building stays, it will have to be serviceable, and a tenant found, which will lock the property up until the tenant leaves. So the building has to go, and the property might need to be re-zoned from single family residential.

If you pave over that lot, not only do you remove unwanted structures and get the opportunity to re-zone, there will be some low-maintenance passive income generated from people using the property to park their car.

So ultimately, those parking lots are good for the city in the long run. They're useless eyesores right now, but are more easily converted into high density buildings, as they have been doing for the last decade. In fact the real problem with midtown is that there has been too much high density construction too quickly, and not enough people have moved in yet.

So as much as I love a naval gazing rant, reality is a little more subtle, and a lot more complicated.

<comment><USER15> I live in and own real estate in a building that is pictured on that map. Some notes:

1) Not every red box is accurate. For example, one of them contains a bank as well as a parking structure, yet the bank was circled as well.

2) Not everything is counted evenly. Some condo and office buildings' parking structures are circled, and some aren't. Almost all of the condo buildings have their own interior parking, most of which is not circled. Hell, mine has an exterior blacktop parking lot and its not even circled.

3) The majority of those lots circled are not for flipping real estate. The ones circled are mostly commuter lots and business lots that are often mostly empty.

<comment><USER14> _The majority of those lots circled are not for flipping real estate. The ones circled are mostly commuter lots and business lots that are often mostly empty._

It might be a matter of perspective, but a mostly empty parking lot is not in the business of being a parking lot. Flipping commercial real estate can take decades, the point is that the lot is not required and will likely help the area become more city-like.

<comment><USER15> I'd hesitate to call that "flipping", then. Flipping real estate is usually meant to be a short term process to extract quick profit, not a decades long wait. That would be "investing".

<comment><USER14> To me, investing is putting it to good use. Buying it cheap, paving it, and waiting to sell high is not "investing". Again, that could just be perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cars do not kill cities - urban planning without enough foresight into how cars actually interact with one another, and with cities kill cities.

A large portion of current urban plans date to Robert Moses - he essentially built New York, invented the ring of highways system used in DC and other places, and advised places like LA in constructing their major arteries. Moses was in love with cars, but never experienced traffic as his limo was chauffered with a police escort. He built highways and made them inaccessible to public transportation (see the West Side Highway) so that poor people could not use them. He had no real understanding of capacity utilization/maximization for transport and stopped learning long before he stopped designing. He never updated his understanding of the damages caused by simply adding more highways, but retained the power to keep building them.

The most pernicious impact of Moses's style of urban planning is not, however, gridlock or a lack of walkability. Moses decided that he could put roads wherever he wanted, and used eminent domain to put them right through vibrant communities - which he destroyed. He killed the bronx, parts of Queens, Brooklyn, and almost ran a huge raised highway across 34th street.

In any case, The Power Broker is an amazing book to read if you're curious about these issues and why cities are designed the way they are now.

</comment><comment><USER17> The biggest problem with mass-transit is that most often riders do not want to pay what it actually costs, so they vote for some form of tax-supported subsidy. And that almost inevitably hobbles it, because acquiring new passengers will affect total revenue only a little, whereas conforming to the whims of the public and the local government will affect its revenue a lot.

Aside from that, these sorts of analyses ignore the many benefits that cars provide and the many downsides of public transit. You aren't going to get people to switch just by pointing out how much more efficient something is, you have to make it actually better.

When I have to commute I prefer to do so by bus, but there are still a ton of use cases for local travel where I would only consider mass transit as an absolute last resort due to the intrinsic advantages/disadvantages.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Aside from that, these sorts of analyses ignore the many benefits that cars provide and the many downsides of public transit.

Actually, the post doesn't ignore the benefits of cars. It says for example that an SUV is a great option for a family of 6 going to the suburbs. Perhaps you had some other benefits in mind?

<comment><USER18> > Perhaps you had some other benefits in mind?

How many days can you feed your family on 2 bags of groceries? Gonna carry the new TV you just bought on the bus with you? I can't imagine doing normal shopping without a car.

<comment><AUTHOR> >How many days can you feed your family on 2 bags of groceries?

4 of us actually live 2 blocks from the grocery store and I think someone gets a couple of bags every other day. The "10 bags of groceries" shopping trip is actually an effect of cars (and suburbanization). When cities are walkable, grocery stores are nearby too.

I think it's obvious that just like a family of 6 can't fit on a bicycle and would need a SUV to go to Florida, you'd need a big vehicle to get a TV home. Presumably, you don't buy a TV every week.

<comment><USER19> _When cities are walkable, grocery stores are nearby too._

I live in a small town in the American midwest, considered very walkable, lots of bike lanes, etc.

We don't have smaller retail stores within walking distance. Instead we have big-box grocery stores like everywhere else.

We _used_ to have those but in the late 50s they were zoned out of existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In Phnom Penh (where I live), people are just starting to get rich enough to own cars, so you can watch the transition happening. The roads and the (lack of) traffic rules work really well with just motos / pedestrians / bicycles. But add cars into the mix and it starts to fall apart. 1. More congestion. 2. the "road rules" don't work with such large objects. 3. lack of consequence if anyone hits anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm Australian and have lived in Germany (Cologne), Zurich, London and (now) New York City so I'll add my perspective. I'll also add that I can't drive (because of an eye condition).

Australia is very much like California. Population density is low. Almost all of Australia is car dependent. Land sizes are large. This makes public transport largely uneconomic and unworkable, with certain exceptions (eg parts of Perth, inner Sydney, Melbourne). Even then, that transport is largely limited to going into and out of the city. If you want to go somewhere else it's a huge problem.

Gas taxes are much higher in Australia (petrol costs $1.40-1.50 per litre last I saw and there are ~4 litres to the gallon). I'm not sure if this covers the cost of roads and infrastructure (for the quarter acre dream) but I highly doubt it, especially once you factor in indirect costs.

London is a mix of inner London where public transport is very good and outer London (Zone 5+) where you are car dependent but you absolutely can get away with using car rental when you need it most of the time. The problem is public transport largely stops at midnight (apart from night buses).

Personally I found the light rail in Cologne (and Bonn) great and never felt the lack of a car.

You absolutely do not need a car in Zurich or pretty much all but rural Switzerland. Intracity and intercity transport is superb. Even getting to ski resorts by train/bus is fine.

Which brings me to NYC. NYC for me has the ultimate public transportation system. It's cheap, goes almost everywhere, runs 24 hours a day (HUGELY important IMHO) and unlike every other example listed above, cabs are actually relatively cheap, although there are oddities to the system (eg the peculiarities of shift change make it somehow impossible to get a cab to the airport in Manhattan at 3pm).

NYC also has an extremely large commuter belt covered by trains and buses such that no one I know drives into the city for work.

I live 7 minutes walk to work, which I love. Actually the idea for me is about 20-30 minutes walk each way because that's just about the right balance between time taken and getting some exercise (IMHO), particularly for us engineers.

What I don't see in this thread is the issue of people (like me) who don't have the option of driving a car. For this reason I can see myself largely living in either NYC or one of several European cities.

Charging homeowners fairly for their infrastructure costs is a hugely divisive and problematic issue. For example, hiking gas taxes would have all sorts of unintended consequences, not the least of which is inflation (since that cost is built into transporting food and everything else).

It seems fair(er) to build maintenance costs into property taxes and initial capital costs into land costs.

Peak oil [1] is either here or soon will be (IMHO we've already passed it). Arguably cities produce lower per-capita carbon footprints [2]. At some point people are going to need to realize that their gas-guzzling ways can't (and won't) continue forever.

[1]: [http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/01/nature-journal-study- pe...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/01/nature-journal-study-peak-oil/)

[2]: [http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/31/new-study- shows-t...](http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/31/new-study-shows-that- suburbs-can-pollute-more-than-cities/)

<comment><USER22> Yeah, NYC is great except for that Lincoln Tunnel bus congestion in the morning and the evening. It would help to have more rail lines to NJ. Let's start with the 7 Line:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension#Proposed_New...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension#Proposed_New_Jersey_extension)

<comment><USER23> Honestly, I'd just love to see the 7 actually be a functional subway line. It's the only one near my girlfriend's house in Queens, and it's often completely non-functional; IIRC, it's completely shut down Queens-bound for the next 11 weekends or something like that. Constant problems.

<comment><USER24> The weekend is the MTA's Achilles heel. You are much better off at 3AM on a Tuesday than Noon Saturday. At least in the outer boros, they try and keep the lines in Manhatten south of 110 at least vaguely useable.

I don't know what the solution is though, they have to do maintenance and upgrades sometime or other.

<comment><USER25> In Prague, the metro system runs 4AM to 0AM - all maintenance and upgrades are done in the four-hour window without revenue moves. It's a system that's an order of magnitude smaller (in revenue track length) than New York subway, though - I'm not sure how this would scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If a city is a conglomeration of asphalt and buildings, then Cars are just a part of that. Sure traffic jams suck, but another effect of a car is less social interaction overall. If a city is a place for people to live, interact, share ideas etc, the picking up the dry cleaning by driving is not only bad for the environment etc, it's also a way to really isolate yourself from others en route to your destination. Commutes on the other hand where you're driving yourself can be equally anti social and wastes the most precious thing we have, time. In NYC, used to take the subway. I was able to read books, meet others. Got to know some neighbors who also took the train the at the same time to get to work, and even ran into friends I hadn't seen in a while. I'm sure you wouldn't want to run into a long lost friend while driving (or anyone else for that fact).

After moving down south I realized how little social interaction I get outside my specifically chosen work group or actively seeking out social engagements. Mass transportation is sparse at best here and walking to the dry cleaners would take half a day.

<comment><USER27> Good point. One of the best places for social interaction in the US are universities. It's no coincidence that students rarely own cars.

Back in my college (Yale), the campus and building layouts were pretty great. Some dorm complexes were much larger than city blocks, food was available in most living spaces. The ability to bump into people you know without need for mass planning is sorely missing from "adult" life.

<comment><USER28> Most of that is due to college being an incredibly efficient social filter. The odds of a social interaction between Yale student and another being worthwhile (so to speak) are an order of magnitude higher than a Yale student and non-Yale New Haven dweller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of a study that compared Hartford, New Haven, and Cambridge:

[http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/11/17/parking- dat...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/11/17/parking-datapoints- of-the-day/)

Basically, all 3 cities had been steadily increasing the number of parking spots they had, until Cambridge deviated and banned creating new parking spots. Cambridge grew much faster than the other two after this change was made, and the chart correlated fairly closely. This may have been because of rent-control or other issues but the case for parking rules is strong.

<comment><USER30> I doubt it had a lot to do with parking spaces. Cambridge has had huge growth in biotech and other high-tech in a lot of the old industrial area over the past couple of decades. Several of the more rundown areas have gentrified as a result. Parking in Cambridge varies. It's really tight in some areas--though those are mostly fairly accessible by public transportation. In others, it's not bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cars need lots of land for parking because they spend most of their time idle, because people find it cheaper to own their own car than to use taxicabs. Also, people buy the largest car they could plausibly need, unless they buy more than one. Individuals' strong identification with the car they drive further contributes to excessive size and power.

Automated taxis solve the problem. They will spend much less time idle, can be parked more compactly, don't need to be parked near a destination, and can have a size distribution that matches the needs of individual trips (i.e., mostly very small.) If they're cheap enough, then they'll be widely used, and wait times will be small. Because they will be automated, they can be taken in and out of service very quickly, and there will always be about the right number available. Also, they'll be much safer for cyclists and pedestrians to share the road with, and they'll use less of the existing road space, allowing us to add and widen bike lanes throughout our cities.

</comment><comment><USER32> Driving is like a chicken and egg problem. I need to drive because everyone else drives. I live in a city that is very sparse because of all the parking lots and wide roads, like the article mentions. So not much is walkable. I also can't feasibly bike to work because the direct route involves taking an interstate as there aren't any near alternatives over a river, doing this on bike is illegal. Add in the no bike lanes and idiot drivers and it just isn't not a good idea.

All of these reasons for needing a car are caused by infrastructure to support cars. Therefore the only way to break this cycle for the public good is to make driving less economic. Gas tax seems like the obvious choice, but it is usually not done because of purported public opinion. But really it actually would be fair as onemoreact said the maintenance for roads is so expensive, that without gas tax you are really just subsidizing driving.

<comment><USER27> Gas tax is an annoying way to make something less economic, because there is no way to control where the money will go.

What about tolling roads and/or privatizing them? This way it's easier to know which roads need expansion and which one's need to go away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It may be the story's catchy title or the implying "solutions" of it, but i feel compelled to play devils advocate here, and defend the car.

Cars improve the lives of drivers with increased range movement, more time independent movement (start your journey when it suits you, not when a timetable allows you to) and allow for more freight to be carried.

When cars are criticized for bringing down the quality of life it is mostly an issue in urban environments. People in rural or suburban areas rely heavily on cars. The car may even have saved the quality of life in rural areas (ie stopped/slowed down the flight from those areas into cities) while it's what makes the existance of modern suburbia possible. It therefor provides cheaper housing and a broader choice of how you want to live (Not everybody needs five starbucks and a movie theatre in the neighbourhood). They also slowed the population increase of cities.

Adding costs to drivers in urban areas mean higher burdens for people that have to commute by car, since suburban/rural areas are too thinly populated to allow for efficient public transportation.

The quality of life argument often tends to demonize technological progress and romanticizes the past. The funny thing is, that this romance is only possible because technologies provided us with spare time. So did motorization. People who lived back then, would have always opted for the new technologies.

That being said, cars do decrease urban quality of life in certain ways. But it is important to not let generalization allow for bad policies. Light Rail for instance is alwas proposed, while it costs more than individual motorized traffic and while rail tracks usually decrease nearby quality of life more than any road could.

I'd propose simpler measures:

1) stop providing free parking. Allow the parking space usage to be priced at what the value of that land would have provided in real property taxes, if it had been tilled with a house. There's an interesting book about the "cost of free parking" by an UCLA Professor <http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf>

2) get rid of cab driving restrictions to dramatically lower cab fair prices. cities with limited amounts of cab driving licenses have higher fair costs. A NY cab medallion is considered a better investment than gold [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-31/ny-cab- medallions-w...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-31/ny-cab-medallions- worth-more-than-gold-chart-of-the-day.html)

3) If property owners where to decide, they'd propably opt more likely for narrowing the streets and expanding sidewalks as it would increase their properties value. BID (business improvement districts) often do this. Enable more owners to make those decisions.

4) start with yourself and ditch your car if you don't need it. Do you really need more range? Do you really need to be able to start your journey every minute and not just every 10 minutes. And do you always need to be able to haul up to 4 fridges? And thus do

5) car sharing. i'm a very satisfied user of <http://www.car2go.com/> and similar services.

6) if there's a growing need for light-rail, chances are, this need could have already been eliminated by using more buses for public transport.

<comment><USER34> The problem with buses for transport is they use the same infrastructure as cars. So, as congestion increases they become less viable. Light rail really solves 2 problems, it can transport more people than an equivalent investment in roads and it increases property values by decreasing the need for parking spaces while increasing mobility.

PS: Roads are really expensive if you compare road infrastructure costs to miles driven you need a ~3$ / gallon gas tax to break even. Anything less than that and your just subsidizing cars which does not lower costs it just hides them.

<comment><USER33> As I said, "If there's a growing need for light-rail, chances are" buses being the better solution. I'm not arguing against light-rail in general. But most of the times light-rail is considered as solution in political debates, buses would do a better job. Cheaper prices allow for even more transportation capacities than light-rail. Light-rail is a good option when bus-capacities can't be increased anymore.

"The problem with buses for transport is they use the same infrastructure as cars" IMHO this is to be considered as advantage over light-rail. There is no additional infrastructure to be built or maintained.

<comment><USER12> In theory this could be solved politically, but when I'm looking for housing options, I tend to ignore bus and look only at rail, because it's the only thing I can be reasonably sure will still be there in a few years. Buses get rerouted all the time, so I can't assume that my convenient directly-on-the- line-to-work bus route will still exist in 5 years, but I can fairly safely assume that BART will still be on the same route in 5 years, because the cost of moving rails and building stations makes it much more stable (light rail isn't _as_ expensive to reroute as BART, but still too expensive to do normally).

From what I've read, developers think similarly: they're willing to invest capital in housing developments near rail-transit lines, but not on the basis of bus lines, because they need to be able to assume that the transit situation will be stable for long enough to pay off their investment. In other words, the flexibility of buses is precisely the problem, because it means residents/developers/employers can't rely on them in making plans.

<comment><USER33> "Buses get rerouted all the time" living in Hamburg, Gemrany most of my life, I have had seen bus lines rerouted maybe 2-3 times in my life. Changing public transit access that often as in your city argubaly adds uncertainty to development projects. but i'd tackle this problem from another angle.

I think a lot more urban public transportation could be achieved by tackling your mentioned correlation: Property owners benefit by far the most from public transport infrastructure errected nearby their property (at least if underground or not noisy etc.).

Even if the owner's property taxes rise, the tax increase usually lacks behind the actual property value increase by some years up to a decade.

So if I want to solve it politically I'd:

1) get rid of that lacking-behind in property valuation. Then

2) maybe add the expectalbe increased property-tax income to my calculation when planning a new subway line

3) consider talking to owners. if a subway line is to be errected, I'd propose to owners that I'am willing to errect stations nearby their property if they participate in the costs.

<comment><USER35> I see your argument, and in some places, this might work.

I believe that in most places in the US, your suggestion that nearby property owners might support nearby transit to the extent of partially paying for it would be a non-starter. Usually, nearby (say, within 200m of the route) property owners oppose new bus/train routes tooth and claw.

One of the most famous examples of anti-transit sentiment from property owners is the congressional bill that Henry Waxman (a generally liberal Democrat) got passed, prohibiting a subway extension from downtown Los Angeles toward the ocean ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Subway_Extension_(Los_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Subway_Extension_\(Los_Angeles_Metro\)#Opposition_and_halt_of_Wilshire_branch)).

About 25 years later, this law was lifted, but a lot of the sentiment remains.

<comment><USER33> wow... this NIMBY mentality is a complete different issue. my idea isn't really thought through and may be naive. But i think the anti-transit sentiment is very much comparable to anti-gerntification sentiments and a somewhat blurred definition of public space, real property and the like.

<comment><USER35> Thanks for your perspective. It's interesting to connect anti-gentrification to NIMBYism.

I have come to believe that most anti-gentrification sentiment, at least where I live in LA, is misplaced. It's a young city and to expect neighborhoods to stay the same on the time scale of decades is unrealistic. There are laws (many mistaken, IMHO) to prevent property taxes from rising more than about 2% per year, so nobody will be forced from their home. Renters may have to move, although there are rent protections on many properties also.

Anyway, anti-gentrification sentiment is interesting because it never stops. People who moved to my neighborhood in 2000 think the 2010'ers are gentrifiers. People who moved here in 1990 think it's the 2000'ers. People who moved here in 1970 think it's anyone after 1980.

Most resentment and name-calling about "gentrification" is among the young, however. By contrast, NIMBYism is more of a middle-age and old person's thing. At least where I live.

<comment><USER33> "anti-gentrification sentiment is interesting because it never stops."

Excactly! Where does one draw the line? Usually one draws the line so that protection includes himself. For me, it's a moral problem as well, because this line-drwaring scales up to elections that justify way too much government regulation. From my perspective anti-gentrification sentiment is almost always misplaced.

"By contrast, NIMBYism is more of a middle-age and old person's thing."

Maybe the difference is also, that NIMBY-ians engage proactivly against changes (they know that where they live is already good), where as anti- gentrificationists seem to be more reactionary (not anybody expected sudden price rises to occur).

Where I connect NIMBY- and anti-gentrification-sentiments is that one want's prohibit things to change (anti-immigration, trade restrictions). All of those sentiments are understandable. But prohibiting things from change via legislation tends to be an unfair deal for future generations. The change I don't want to happen is an opportunity that for many will never occur.

"to expect neighborhoods to stay the same on the time scale of decades is unrealistic."

Absolutely. In Hamburg there are restrictions on building heights. The most stupid one is, that in downtown 'no bulding should block the view of the churches'. It's the one place in Hamburg, where land is so expensive that buildings need to rise in height if you want affordable rent prices. But the buildings can't rise, so no one lives there anymore. Thus the churches have lost their communities and downtown is a dead place after 8pm. Just one example where the attitude of "conserving culture" leads to killing it off.

Update:

Took a while for me to find it, but to prove that anti-gentrification really never stops, take st.tropez/côte d'azur france, where the millionaires don't wan't the billionaires to come in [http://www.amb-cotedazur.com/Did-you- know/rich-russians-are-...](http://www.amb-cotedazur.com/Did-you-know/rich- russians-are-a-mixed-blessing-to-the-cote-dazur.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> You'll find many videos of this on YouTube, but here is an example:

Rush hour traffic in the center of Amsterdam: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M>

It is really striking to see how many bicycles and buses there are.

As I live in Norway I'm seeing a stronger focus on public transport here as well, but nothing compared to e.g. Amsterdam or Copenhagen in Denmark.

<comment><USER37> "Bicycle Rush Hour __Utrecht __(Netherlands) III" :)

Utrecht is a much nicer city for cyclists than Amsterdam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> What I really need is a good international network of car rental stations, such that I would only have too pay for transits between places. My main problem are holidays: renting a car for two or three weeks still seems too expensive (~1000€). I've never owned a car in my life, but my girl-friend loves driving and the discussions everytime we plan holidays are a huge pita.

Likewise in the city a car sharing service that worked like that would be great. We need the car to visit our son's grandparents, and paying by the hour would easily come to 20 to 30€ per visit, while the car is mostly just sitting there waiting.

Meanwhile I can only wait for autonomous cabs, I suppose :-(

</comment><comment><USER39> When I used to live in LA I used to be so dependent on my car, not to mention the hassle of finding parking wherever I went. Since then, I got rid of my car and have lived in SF, NY. I haven't had a need to own a car in any of these places. Public transportation in SF and NY are really great and whenever you do need to make that trip out to the suburbs or have to make an IKEA run, there is always Zipcar. Zipcar works really well in SF.

I'm walking more, which is healthier, have no need to find parking, which is less stressful, and no need to pay loan-payments/gas, which saves me a ton of money every month.

</comment><comment><USER40> _Dedicating all this land to car storage basically reduces the density by about half, doubles the average distance between locations ..._

Halving density increases average distance by sqrt(2), not double.

</comment><comment><USER41> >I completely agree. It's sad that we've let cars completely take over in detriment of quality of life.

I agree that they can be a burden if you live in a major city with an average or slightly-above average income because parking becomes an issue. However, I am probably not on the same page as everyone else because I'm a huge automotive enthusiast. I'm the kind of guy that would go on vacation to go driving in another area. I could easily spend more money on renting an exotic car than what I would pay for the hotel. Nurburgring anyone?

<comment><USER42> Auto-enthusiasts should be all for alternative transportation. It gets jerks like me, who don't like to drive, off the road and out of the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is probably going to sound foreign to many of you guys. After reading these comments, it almost seems like most people here are from the Bay Area, NYC, Chicago. So here i go...

Just because you live in a certain area where walking from A to B is possible or even preferred, doesn't mean the rest should/can follow. I live in Kansas City, a place where owning a vehicle isn't a convenience, but a necessity. My residential neighborhood doesn't have any sidewalks to any convenience stores or main roads. I have to walk on a narrow two-way road, which is a tragedy waiting to happen. I simply cannot WALK anywhere. I could opt-in for public transport, which happens to be very inefficient because nobody uses it, and wait 40-50 minutes for a bus to arrive. The irritating thing is that I'd have to drive to the closest bus station. This scenario is pretty typical for most suburban neighborhoods in KC. I even tried biking at some point, but people here just don't understand it. They'll honk at you, flip you off, run you off the road or throw stuff at you.

Commuting by foot has never been popular here. Therefore, the city infrastructure never saw the need to support it and likely never will, unless people start mass-croaking from heart failure. So, when someone start a BS rant about cars killing cities and the need to abolish personal transport, I immediately close the browser tab. You guys need a reality check.

</comment><comment><USER22> If only there was a smartphone app that allowed you to call your self-driving car to swing by your apartment/office to pick you up. Then cars could be located underground in some out of the way location many miles from the city center.

Of course, what I'm saying is science fiction, we don't have self-driving cars capable of driving 30mph to pick us up.

<http://udacity.com>

<comment><USER44> Or just walk ten minutes to the underground location.

<comment><USER22> I would guess that the average person might cover .5 mile (< 1km) in 10 minutes so it wouldn't be possible to reach the parking that's located "many miles" away. Also, I didn't say your car is 10 minutes by foot away, more like 10 miles. It could easily be 15-20 minutes for your car. Your goal is to minimize your commute time not your cars.

This wouldn't work in NYC or London, which are much bigger cities than discussed in the article. The first leg of your journey there should be a train whisking you away from the city at 120 mph to a train station within 15-20 miles of your home where your car will leave home to pick you as soon as your phone tells it you are 15 minutes from your station.

<comment><USER44> That sounds very inefficient. Fill the roads with cars that don't even have drivers in them. The optimal solution it to just commute less.

<comment><USER22> Same number of cars as today. Granted, each car will be driving a little more but pickup and dropoffs could be made more efficient with taxi stand pull-up lanes, for example.

I think the commuting option doesn't seem to work for many people. Seems like people spend too much time on the lawn, but sure it does work for some people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This seems like a problem that will be largely solved (or at least nominally effected) by autonomous vehicles.

<comment><USER46> If everyone had their own self-driving car we'd still have the same problems described in the OP.

<comment><USER45> True, but I think that's thinking too small. In a autonomous car world why would everyone have their own? The car could drive itself home after driving you to work to take other people where they need to go, but that is still thinking too small - thinking within the current system.

In a world with autonomous cars I think a subscription service for car ownership makes more sense. A parked car is a wasted resource, autonomous cars could have uptimes similar to airplanes. Of course this isn't even including the advantages an autonomous fleet would have with fuel efficiency and traffic handling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> How much of the "road cost" can be eliminated by reducing car usage by 90% in cities?

I'm pretty sure that buses, delivery trucks, ambulances, and police cars need roads, so a significant fraction of the road cost (in cities) is required even if there isn't a single private passenger car.

<comment><USER48> Eliminating extra traffic reduces the amount of wear-and-tear on a street, which means you can go more years without resurfacing or replacing it. So even if you still need all of the roads, they could still cost significantly less to maintain.

That said, I'm not really sure how the math works: delivery trucks and buses are a smaller number of the vehicles on the road, but they also weigh a lot more than cars. Some DOT probably has a chart somewhere which breaks down road wear by vehicle type.

<comment><USER47> > Eliminating extra traffic reduces the amount of wear-and-tear on a street, > which means you can go more years without resurfacing or replacing it.

The standard argument is that wear goes up either exponentially (which seems wrong) or quadratically (seems more reasonable) with vehicle weight. Since heavy vehicle use will actually go up (more delivery) if we eliminate cars....

I've seen how other activities, tearing up streets for utilities and the like, which are surprisingly common in cities, lead to street repair. Those activities won't change if cars are eliminated.

Parking garages will go away, and major streets could be narrower. I doubt that either effect is significant compared to the road costs which have been claimed to be huge.

<comment><USER48> The formula I found was quartic, from [1]

      Nref = Nx (Wx / Wref)^4
      Nref = number of trips of reference vehicle
      Nx = number of trips of other vehicle
      Wref = weight of reference vehicle
      Wx = weight of other vehicle

The quartic formula really works in our favor for bicycle commuting: if a bicycle (with rider) is 1/20th the weight of a car, the bicycle will produce 0.000625% the wear of the car. So if commuting were the only purpose of the road, you would essentially never need to replace a road again.

This does make adding (larger) delivery vehicles quite bad. If the average delivery vehicle is twice as heavy as the average passenger car which was formerly used, each trip will produce 16 times as much wear. Looking up the curb weights for a Chevy cargo van (5000 lb) and a Toyota Corolla (2800 lb), the actual wear factor is 10x.

[1] <http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=601>

<comment><USER47> > So if [bike] commuting were the only purpose of the road, you would > essentially never need to replace a road again.

You're assuming that use is the only thing that harms roads, and that's clearly wrong.

I mentioned tearing up the roads for utility changes.

Another factor is weather, which amplifies the problems caused by utility "tear ups".

It's fairly easy to see these effects; pedestrian-only and bike-and- pedestrian-only "roads" deteriorate.

However, we know also know that (as you mentioned), these roads won't be bike only.

In short, there will be some maintenance savings, but not a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This article is very broad and (probably because of this) doesnt really go in depth on many issues. If anyone is seriously interested in transportation, I highly reccommend the excellent blog <http://www.humantransit.org/>

I do take some issue with the title of this article however. Whilst agreeing with the general sentiment of the article (US cities need to generally focus on more accessible development), cars dont 'kill' cities. Cities couldn't survive without cars (and trucks) - this is important. Cars kill pedestrianisation, but this is a different story - only small parts of our cities (even European cities) are (and have to be) attractive and enjoyable for pedestrians....

</comment><comment><USER50> One case not mentioned here is families with small children. With 3 little ones, public transportation becomes a real hassle, especially when there is walking to be done on either side. It is by far my top reason for owning a car in the city.

<comment><USER51> I have two little kids (I know that's not three) and public transit or biking (I can fit both on my bike) is great for outings. It turns the journey into an experience itself. Driving with the kids strapped into car seats the whole time is much less fun. I live in a very bikable town within walking distance to light rail, but that was by design. We bought our house by drawing 1/2 mile circles around parks, rail stops, and grocery stores. Bought the first place that intersected all three. I was just thinking recently about how my kids likely be autonomous much earlier. By age 11 or 12 they'll be able to go all around the city on their own.

<comment><USER52> Curiously, where do you live? I wouldn't let my kids ride transit by themselves; that's where the crum bums go to pee.

I also don't want to be against a grocery store as the noise from the large parking lot (and busy road) is annoying. Living by a park is highly desirable.

<comment><USER51> [http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=45.528017,-122.598179...](http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=45.528017,-122.598179&spn=0.003609,0.00567&t=h&z=18&vpsrc=6)

We're protected from the busy road and the grocery store parking lot by elevation; we're 50 ft below either. We can hear the highway, but I only notice it when the din is missing when we visit friends in the country!

<comment><USER52> That looks nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wrote up my response to this article here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3516307>

As a resident of Atlanta, I disagree with many of the assumptions this article makes.

</comment><comment><USER54> My wife and I share a single car in Salt Lake City and have done so in other places, included Washington DC and semi-rural West Virginia. This setup is ideal, because we can coordinate our use of the car and combine that with biking/walking and public transportation. We also have a 2 year-old son who goes to pre-school every day and has to get dropped off an picked up by car. Sharing w/i a couple or family is a really good way to reduce car usage but retain the benefits of having a car. I'm definitely a proponent of reduced usage combined with biking/walking and public transportation.

</comment><comment><USER55> It will be interesting to see what happens when self-driving cars become viable.

<comment><USER56> One of the things that might happen is that you get out of the car in the city, and the car drives itself to a parking space a few kilometers away. This will make all those inner urban parking spaces available for better use again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Masdar City is an experiment around Dubai where all cars are underground, top level is pedestrian. They built it from scratch so they had that luxury.

<http://www.masdarcity.ae/en/> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB_5TBZQNRY>

Also the cars are automated - self driving. They don't have to deal with pedestrians and traffic, so much easier to automate driving.

</comment><comment><USER58> Build safe bicycle infrastructure and the cyclists will come

"How the Dutch got their cycle paths" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o>

</comment><comment><USER59> good morning - a 10 seconds glance at a US city, 30% of whose area is occupied by parking lots and (always-clogged) highways is more than enough to come to that conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER60> I love your point that car storage decreases city density and therefore walkability. I was made aware in grade school that cars enabled low density settlement, but you have enlightened me to a case in which they FORCE it! Something you may investigate in further posts is that the path versatility of cars(and trucks) is also a waste of resource capacity on most long or oft repeated trips.

</comment><comment><USER61> For those times when a car is the only practical way to get somewhere, car- sharing is a much more sensible alternative to universal personal car ownership.

Most cars sit idle and unoccupied for 90-95% of the time. That represents a huge opportunity to increase the productivity of each car while reducing the price of access _and_ the cost in money and wasted space of storage (i.e. parking).

</comment><comment><USER62> It's not cars that are the problem. It's cars that are usually 3/4ths empty that are the problem. Full cars are comparably good to other forms of mass transit.

The solution is called "jitney transit". It is illegal due to taxi medallion laws. So the _real_ problem is special-interest groups (such as taxi cartels)—and a political system that encourages their formation.

</comment><comment><USER63> The original vision for Walt Disney's EPCOT was a radially designed city, where "the pedestrian will be king" (Walt's own words) and electric vehicles are segregated from the streets. See: [https://sites.google.com/site/theoriginalepcot/the-epcot- fil...](https://sites.google.com/site/theoriginalepcot/the-epcot-film- transcript)

</comment><comment><USER64> Has anyone noticed the problem with that picture (with the bus/cars/bikes?)

The bus and bikes are at full capacity. The Cars are at 1/5th capacity.

<comment><USER65> Yes, but that's how cars are driven. Bikes are obviously at capacity (since it's 1). Buses are arguable, but the point of a bus is that you get it to capacity, which is not how cars are driven.

If you're really bored sometime sit beside a busy road and count the number of cars that have more than one person in them, it's a surprisingly low number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Hi from Mexico City.

Do you think you are living a "cars nightmare", then believe when I say this: "Never come here pals!".

Civic/Vial culture is absolutely absent. Public transport is a surreal dream, I would say... an adventure (not an enjoyable one).

"Urban planning" is not a known term for people on charge.

We are a troubled city in a troubled world.

<comment><USER67> I bike commuted in Mexico City for a year and it was excellent. Also, the public transit is great; it's just that lines 1, 2, and 3 of the Metro and 1 of the Metrobus are badly overcrowded and need to be expanded with quadruple express tracks and higher frequency automatic train control systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> The city building industry must be one of the greatest business opportunities ahead of us. It's very cost intensive, and the stakes are hight, but the possible returns is even higher.

In short, create a new manhattan on a desolate location, and the increase in real estate prices could be extreme.

</comment><comment><USER47> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300078153>

"Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (The Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University)"

</comment><comment><USER69> How this was solved in a Brazilian city back in the 70s. Some nice thinking in there.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRD3l3rlMpo>

</comment><comment><USER70> The reason people commute is generally because living in a city is very expensive, and living outside the city means a nice house and maybe even a back yard.

<comment><USER71> This is a supply and demand issue. A lot of people do want to live in dense, urban areas, but there isn't enough housing stock to meet demand, hence the expensiveness of urban living. But if you factor in your transportation costs into living expenses, all of the sudden living outside of an urban area isn't so cheap: <http://htaindex.cnt.org/>

There has been a big push to see housing affordability as intertwined with transportation costs. If you have to drive a car to do everything in your life, that costs a lot more than someone who can walk to the grocery store, movie theater, bar, etc.

<comment> wes-exp The flaw (or shall I say, "limitation") of this HTA index is that it apparently ties affordability to the median income of the region.

I think this would be subject to a kind of selection bias, for example punishing rural areas for employing laborers and so on. In fact, one of the reasons manufacturers set up shop in rural areas is because the areas have lower _real_ costs of living.

If laborers move to Manhattan, they won't suddenly start making a banker's salary. So the fact that housing is affordable somewhere relative to average incomes there, in many cases, is wholly irrelevant.

Similarly, if an urban high-earner could take his earnings into a low-cost suburban area, his purchasing power would be huge.

Transportation costs are a real issue that should be weighed, but that index completely distorts it by tying cost of living to regional incomes.

If I'm wrong, then all the retirees in Florida must be misguided, and really they should move to NYC, where things are "cheaper".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> One thing this article disregards and I haven't seen touched on here yet is time value. My time is worth money. If driving a car saves me more money in time than it costs I'll drive a car.

For example, if it would take 20 minutes in a car vs 1 hour in a bus I've saved 40 minutes. If I bill at $75/h that's $50 worth of time or $100 round trip (assuming I work instead). Do that a few times a month and the car has paid for itself.

<comment><USER73> "My time is worth money. [...] assuming I work instead"

That is a big assumption. I think the assertion that time is ALWAYS money is incorrect. Often, it is just time. At 3AM, or after you stop working, your time is probably not worth $75/h.

In your example, you only loose money if you stop working early to account for the drive. So, for example, instead of working 8AM-5PM, you work 8:30AM-4:30PM, in order to still get home at 5PM.

With that sort of logic, you could just as easily say that if you work 2 Extra hours each day for a month, the car paid for itself and you still get to live in the country. However, like your example, this assumes your work amount is infinite.

So, while an argument could certainly be made for saving money in gas, spending less time driving, or more time with family, unless you decide to take the drive time out of your work hours, the opposite of how most people determine when they need to be at or leave work, you wouldn't be loosing money, only time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great article. Maybe another request for startups could be to kill cars.

</comment><comment><USER74> In the US, an increased tax on gasoline is political suicide. Another solution, would be for the oil companies to pay their fair share of the wars we have been in to defend their supply. This would more directly, make real, the cost of our gas.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Moscow citisen here.

You can make a reasonably well working mass transit that everyone will use. People would still buy cars to stay in traffic for hours.

But the real long-scale problem is that cities discourage children. People living in a big city tend to have two to zero children and that makes country population unsustainable. On the upside, you can always find a good school for your few children if you care.

In recent times I don't see many children on the streets. It seems that children are being turned into indoors pets. This is sad. Adults feel obliged to drive children around to their activities. The pedophile hysteria being promoted by media doesn't help either.

In other word, it's sad.

</comment><comment><USER75> Cars are essentially what is causing urban sprawl and the rapid annihilation of nature.

It would also seem city planners design municipalities for cars first, not people. But it's bad planning for everyone, and even bad for business: [http://allsprawldown.com/activism/a-big-reason-canadians- are...](http://allsprawldown.com/activism/a-big-reason-canadians-are-so-happy- and-why-its-at-risk/)

</comment><comment><USER76> Cars also grow cities - the blanket of small-to-medium cities covering the eastern half of the US is the product of having cars. Public transport needs serious population before it can start up.

</comment><comment><USER77> Cars don't kill cities, hi-rise buildings do. A thousand people getting in an out of on acre of land will cause all the problems we see today in big cities. Stick your head out of your window office and see how many people there is in your own acre and then imagine how many cars are needed to move all of them. If I were a benevolent dictator I would prohibit all buildings higher than a story and solve the traffic issue once and for all.

You say you like tall buildings? Then enjoy your damn traffic and shut up.

<comment><USER78> What you've just described is known in the planning field as suburban sprawl, and is not without traffic problems of its own.

If you start with an assumption of auto-dependence, then your conclusion follows, but the article is really arguing against making that assumption in the first place.

<comment><USER77> You can't decouple urban density from traffic of any kind, be it pedestrians, bicycles, cars, buses or even flying cars, they go hand in hand. There is no magic trick to solve it no matter how much money you throw at the problem.

Show me the city in the world with the worst traffic and I'll show you the city with the highest buildings.

Only accepting that fact we can start planning better cities. Also worth considering, giving telecommute a high priority, since most of the office work done in these big cities can be easily done from home.

Suburban sprawl becomes a problem only when those millions of people have to drive downtown to work clogging the driveways, but traffic is not an issue in suburban areas per se, lower urban density wins again.</comment></comment></comment>


AT&T to Offer Throttled Video Streams So Customers Save on Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/at-t-to-offer-throttled-video-streams-so-customers-save-on-data <comment><USER2> I switched to T-Mobile a while back. Best decision I've ever made.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you bill your clients? (for your app) - <AUTHOR>

We are building a software service that will be paid for based on a monthly subscription model. We are not really interested in reinventing any wheels and writing a billing system, and are interested in what you all are doing for your applications.
Do you create bridges to other third party billing system? If so, which ones do you recommend to integrate with (we are a ruby on rails application).
If you think its a bad idea to use a pre-existing billing system, could you give reasons why you feel that way?
Thanks for the advice! <comment><USER2> If you're doing it in Rails, I'd recommend the ActiveMerchant plugin and a gateway/merchant account from Braintree.

That's what we use on our main Rails app (as opposed to PayPal on our other main subscription-based offering). It works great. The only hangup has been accepting international currencies (we're having to work with a different company for that).

The transaction fees are low, too–which actually makes a difference when you start getting a lot of subscribers.

<http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/> <http://www.activemerchant.org/> <https://peepcode.com/products/activemerchant-pdf>

<comment><USER3> Braintree actually doesn't work very well for recurring payments since you end up writing your own biller. They offer some sort of a subscription billing system, but since their API only works 1-day (Data-in, no data-out) so its damn near impossible to keep your system in synch with theirs.

Also, be careful with that peep-code PDF; their design isn't really the best so keep that in mind when reading through it and take their content merely as a suggestion. They couple their Orders with Transactions in a funky way.

Another thing, when dealing with BrainTree, be sure to pester them about how much the SecureVault costs. They came to us 6 months after we started using them and demanded that we pay $0.10-$0.15 anytime we touched a customer in the SecureVault. After a few back-and-forth's via email, they finally waived these fee's because they neglected to bring it up when we negotiated our rates.

In technical terms of payment gateway APIs, I liked Google Checkout's the best. They had a nice asynch RESTful XML API that made a lot of sense; although I didn't really like that fact that we had to send users through the Google Checkout screens. We had to move away from GCO because they didn't support recurring billing.

Has anybody used the Amazon Flexible Payment System?

<comment><USER4> I'd like to clarify a couple of the topics discussed here regarding our (Braintree's) services. The recurring option within our gateway is designed for straightforward recurring billing needs. It's simple, reliable and a good tool. Merchants that need greater flexibility and/or prefer to manage the billing logic on their end, find our API's and processing quite accommodating and straightforward. All transaction data (including all custom information passed to us) is easily accessible using our Query API. Merchants can use it to pull data back into their applications, create custom reporting and manage reconciliation.

Regarding Brad's comments about our pricing, we've discussed this directly with him and agree that the specific communcation with him could have been done better. At the same time, we've expressed to him that we didnt' think the tone of his statement was fair or accurate. We always offer complete transparency in our pricing and do not use bait and switch tactics that are so commonly used in the industry.

@callmeed - thank you for your comments. You guys have been great to work with.

<comment><USER3> I would like to add that BrainTree our Vault situation well; they did honor they said on their website.

Another great thing about these guys is that you can actually email or call them and a person will pick up the phone. Good luck doing that with GCO, PayPal, or AFPS.

Also, as Jamie said, they offer an API to query payment data; while this isn't an asynch API like what Google offers, it at least opens up the possibility of writing a batch process that reconciles data between your application and Braintree.

Overall BT has been very responsive to our needs and, as a result, I have recommended them to many of the YC Summer '08 companies, along with many other companies I've talked to outside of YC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=198502>

</comment><comment><USER6> check out zuora. if youd like an intro drop me an email: jason[at]publictivity.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks very promising, but its sort of off-putting that they don't explicitly define their pricing. Is that a sign that its pricey?

I was also looking into blinksale and its API integration, thoughts?

<comment><USER7> I spoke with someone at Zuora a couple weeks ago. They said it was a minimum $1,000 US / month to use their system, and I think it was around 2% as a transaction fee beyond that minimum. A bit pricey for most bootstrapped or self-funded startups I'd say. I guess they're after the big boys first...

<comment><USER8> Sounds like a great opportunity for someone to fly underneath them....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can integrate your system with Quickbooks. They have an API. I don't know if you want to deal with their software, though.

<comment><USER10> I can understand why you were modded down (boo Quickbooks) but for a lot of small business owners it's a tempting strategy. And with people out there pushing carts that integrate with QB 'out of the box', it makes building something custom for people a harder sell.

<comment><USER11> What boo Quickbooks? It's what people use. It's a bit rich expecting businesses to switch bookkeeping software (which their accountant/bookkeeper recommended & uses) because your cart has a better idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Try railskit or servicemerchant.org

</comment><comment><USER13> i use Simple Invoices - <http://www.simpleinvoices.org> to bill my clients for freelance work

cheers

justin

</comment><comment><USER14> billingcircle.com ? ariasystems.com ?</comment>


Rails 3.0: Second beta release - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2010/4/1/rails-3-0-second-beta-release

<comment><USER2> Upgraded! Unfortunately, some of my rake tasks stopped working (the ones that create databases). I had to change my database.yml to use the postgres user instead of the user I usually use to create the database. :(</comment>


I'm a terrorist (and so are you) – Jacques Mattheij (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://jacquesmattheij.com/i-am-a-terrorist-and-so-are-you/ <comment><USER2> How whiny. 10 years ago the net was in a much better state.</comment>


Chaos Computer Club Supports Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden - <AUTHOR> http://ccc.de/en/updates/2014/snowden-manning <comment><USER2> From the ccc website[1]:

 _> Donations_

 _> We gladly accept any donation, even considerable sums._

 _Bank account of the CCC e. V.:_

 _Chaos Computer Club e. V._

 _IBAN DE41 2001 0020 0599 0902 01_

 _BIC PBNKDEFF_

[1] [http://www.ccc.de/en/membership](http://www.ccc.de/en/membership)

<comment><USER3> A worthy cause. Also see this page for places to donate to Snowdens defense.

[https://wikileaks.org/freesnowden](https://wikileaks.org/freesnowden) (scroll down to Other options)

Location for Chelsea Mannings defense/appeal fund:

[http://couragetoresist.org/2010/09/chelsea-manning- defense-f...](http://couragetoresist.org/2010/09/chelsea-manning-defense- fund/)

<comment><USER4> Does that imply that Snowden has some intention of returning to the US and facing trial? Everything I've read from him indicates he doesn't plan on it. If so, what's the purpose of donating to fund his legal defense?

<comment><USER3> true. could also donate just as a sort of "hey thanks"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really understand supporting Chelsea Manning, or equating her plight with Snowden's.

Snowden had a purpose and a plan, and executed it while attempting to keep people from getting hurt. Chelsea Manning lashed out at an army that didn't support her and put her in the wrong position. The military may have mistreated her, but they're still not the same thing.

<comment><USER6> What actually did the 'army' do in Iraq? Thinking a bit about that might help you to understand what Manning did and why...

<comment><USER5> Why would you put army in quotes? It's really an army, so that doesn't make sense.

Chelsea Manning was a confused person when she released the documents. She felt isolated from the people around her and searched for inclusion elsewhere. She developed a friendly relationship with Wikileaks personnel, and sent them hundreds of thousands of random documents. Later, she sent the helicopter video and hundreds of thousands more random documents.

That's not a principled stand against what the military is doing. That's a person unhappy with where they are lashing out and in the process occasionally hitting the mark.

The military subsequently mistreated her, and she should never have been in the position to do this in the first place. She ended up telling people that she was the one who leaked all the documents, when she didn't have to say anything at all. That doesn't make her a crusader or hero.

Snowden, on the other hand, was valued and paid well, and sacrificed that. He specifically targeted information that he believed was unconscionable and unconstitutional, and was careful about who he trusted with it and what he released. He had a well-articulated and thought-through purpose and has effected change through it.

<comment><USER6> Manning did a great services to mankind to expose actions of the US military in Iraq and related.

The US invasion in Iraq was based on lies and caused death, destruction, violence, torture, etc. for many humans.

Manning helped to expose some of these actions.

> That's not a principled stand against what the military is doing.

Yeah, she should have done it in some more orderly way. WTF?

<comment><USER5> It's not about doing it in an orderly way, it's about doing it on purpose.

If I'm upset and download a bunch of documents onto a flash drive and send it to a person that is nice to me, and it just so happens that in amongst the hundreds of thousands of miscellaneous documents is some scrap of evidence of wrongdoing, it doesn't make me a hero for doing it.

If on the other hand I find that evidence and expose it purposefully because I have principles, that's another story.

Intent has meaning when you're defending a person's actions.

<comment><USER6> That's your FUD version. There is another version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had to look up Chelsea Manning. I was aware from the news that Bradley Manning had issues with gender, but wasn't aware he had changed his gender association. What's considered the current best way to describe this, that Bradley Manning released the documents (past tense) and now Chelsea Manning needs support (present tense), or that Chelsea Manning released documents and now needs support? The first way feels like it's more useful for expressing the situation to those that lived through it, but may be ignoring the identity of the person in question. Referring to the person through the later moniker in all instances may be confusing to those that miss the change as it happens, but may be less confusing to future generations.

I guess this isn't new though, we have Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali.

<comment><USER8> > I was aware from the news that Bradley Manning had issues with gender, but > wasn't aware he had changed his gender association.

There is a lot to unpack in this statement. First, you should absolutely edit this to change the name and gender pronouns, you are clearly misgendering this person. Secondly, being trans isn't about gender association, it is expressing and living as your gender, period. 'Gender association' implies that there is some true gender rather than what Chelsea Manning has stated and that is very transphobic whether you realize it or not.

> What's considered the current best way to describe this, that Bradley > Manning released the documents (past tense) and now Chelsea Manning needs > support (present tense), or that Chelsea Manning released documents and now > needs support?

The latter. Chelsea Manning released these documents and now needs support. If you are speaking to specific historical information, sometimes you may need to refer to the previous name. However, it is rare to need to phrase something this way and usually such phrasings serve to portray being trans in a negative light.

> The first way feels like it's more useful for expressing the situation to > those that lived through it, but may be ignoring the identity of the person > in question. Referring to the person through the later moniker in all > instances may be confusing to those that miss the change as it happens, but > may be less confusing to future generations.

It is not confusing whatsoever. People change names and aliases all the time for a variety of reasons but the world doesn't end and future generations aren't confused as to who someone is. Moreover, misgendering someone isn't just ignoring their identity, it is a slap in the face and challenges the validity of their existence.

<comment><USER7> > There is a lot to unpack in this statement. First, you should absolutely > edit this to change the name and gender pronouns, you are clearly > misgendering this person

I feel that's white-washing the record, when I think my intent was clear and honest. I was asking for how to deal with this, not stating a preference. Instead I'll apologize here with a clarification of intent (as I've done elsewhere). If I had known the correct way to refer to Chelsea Manning in the past tense, I would have done so. Since I didn't, I used the method I thought made the most sense, with explanation.

> However, it is rare to need to phrase something this way and usually such > phrasings serve to portray being trans in a negative light.

How does it portray them in a negative light? Is Muhammad Ali portrayed in a negative light when he's referred to as Cassius Clay in the past? In what ways is that different? Is it different just because of the current state of social acceptance of transgender people? Does that imply that at some point in the future it won't be different? Does that strengthen the scheme of the status quo, or is it an argument towards a more normalized usage in past tense?

> It is not confusing whatsoever. People change names and aliases all the time > for a variety of reasons but the world doesn't end and future generations > aren't confused as to who someone is.

Well, obviously people _are_ confused, because _I_ just was when I first read the headline of this article, meaning there's at least one person in the world that's been confused by this. Do we need to argue this, or can we move on to something more useful, like trying to figure how many people are confused, how often, how likely they are to fix the confusion, if it's more or less confusing than other schemes, and other pros and cons?

> Moreover, misgendering someone isn't just ignoring their identity, it is a > slap in the face and challenges the validity of their existence.

The issue here is, I think, that you label referring to someone in the past tense _as they were_ in the past tense as misgendering, while I'm not sure I accept that. I think people can be expected to and have a right to control their current state, I'm not so sure I would extend that to them being able to change their past state.

<comment><USER8> > I feel that's white-washing the record, when I think my intent was clear and > honest. I was asking for how to deal with this, not stating a preference. > Instead I'll apologize here with a clarification of intent (as I've done > elsewhere). If I had known the correct way to refer to Chelsea Manning in > the past tense, I would have done so. Since I didn't, I used the method I > thought made the most sense, with explanation.

It's not a blame thing or a "tut tut shame on you". The fact is it is a misgendering and that is harmful to people even if unintended. You don't need to apologize to me, but I think you should do the right thing and edit your original post and change the pronouns.

> How does it portray them in a negative light? Is Muhammad Ali portrayed in a > negative light when he's referred to as Cassius Clay in the past? In what > ways is that different? Is it different just because of the current state of > social acceptance of transgender people? Does that imply that at some point > in the future it won't be different? Does that strengthen the scheme of the > status quo, or is it an argument towards a more normalized usage in past > tense?

This has to do with how trans people are reported on and represented in media. Often media will explicitly draw attention to someone being trans while at the same time misgendering or attempting to paint the person as being abnormal or unbalanced. More subtly, often times media and comments will always draw attention to a person's gender before transitioning and it makes it difficult for someone to live as their current, actual identity and gender.

> Well, obviously people are confused, because I just was when I first read > the headline of this article, meaning there's at least one person in the > world that's been confused by this. Do we need to argue this, or can we move > on to something more useful, like trying to figure how many people are > confused, how often, how likely they are to fix the confusion, if it's more > or less confusing than other schemes, and other pros and cons?

I'm just pointing out that people change names and aliases all the time and we manage to do just fine. There isn't a problem with continuing to use the name Chelsea Manning and the proper gender pronouns.

> The issue here is, I think, that you label referring to someone in the past > tense as they were in the past tense as misgendering, while I'm not sure I > accept that. I think people can be expected to and have a right to control > their current state, I'm not so sure I would extend that to them being able > to change their past state.

It's not about the past state. It's that their present state is always reduced back to that previous state. A trans person doesn't take to take their gender for granted and being misgendered is common. That misgender often goes beyond and uncomfortable social situation, that misgendering can challenge your medical access, identification documents, your sexual orientation, and lead to direct violence against your person.

The point I'm making is that there is not need to fret or worry about "historical accuracy" or anything of the sort. Just use the name and pronouns this person explicitly announced to the world as what to use.

<comment><USER7> > The point I'm making is that there is not need to fret or worry about > "historical accuracy" or anything of the sort. Just use the name and > pronouns this person explicitly announced to the world as what to use.

I can't help but feel you keep misconstruing my argument to be that people should not be able to change their name or gender, or that we should ignore their name and gender preference, which I've _very explicitly_ made clear is not my case. I do, and will continue to "just use the name and pronouns this person explicitly announced to the world as what to use" for the present and future tense. It's only the past tense I have questions about, and am seeking a valid argument for.

I'm unclear why there is a special case where people who decide to change their name (or gender, _but that 's irrelevant to my argument_) have special rules about how their past is represented that nothing else follows, as far as I'm aware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Presumably, this now means anyone providing significant material support to the CCC can find themselves on the US's shitlist, no?

<comment><USER10> CCC has loose ties to the Wau Holland Foundation([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Holland_Foundation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Holland_Foundation)), which collected considerable sums for Wikileaks and often collaborates with the CCC. I think they've already given enough reasons to be on the shitlist.

(Wau Holland co-founded the CCC)

edit: made it clear that by "collaborate with", I mean the CC and not Wikileaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do they support Pussy Riot and the Falung Gong? Or are they only interested in folks who reveal US secrets and work against the US government?

<comment><USER12> The organisation you are looking for is Amnesty International. The Chaos Computer Club's focus should be obvious from their name. I don't recall Pussy Riot or Falung Gong revealing government secrets and blowing the whistle on unalawful behaviour generally involving computers. Many people who are critical of aspects of US policy and institutional behaviour grew up looking at the US as a shining light of freedom and justice in opposition to the evil that was the USSR. Not everything is an anti-us conspiracy, perhaps the required eternal vigilance hasn't been quite vigilant enough and now we know? Perhaps it is starting to be properly vigilant again and the USA's greatness will re-assert itself just as some patriotic American heroes did previously against the likes of McCarthy?

Anyway here is the wikipedia page for the CCC with whom I happen to have absolutely zero association. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club) Give it a cursory glance and decide for yourself if this group is focused on being "anti-american"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Vim 8 what new features are you using? - <AUTHOR> I have been on Vim 7.x for so long.<p>I am curious what new features in Vim 8 others are using or planning to use? <comment><USER2> * 'breakindent'

* :cdo, :cfdo, :ldo, :lfdo

<comment><AUTHOR> wow thanks, I had to google them but I will definitely find a use for this

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/dfyt-G6SMec](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/dfyt-G6SMec)</comment></comment>


New Startup Without An Inhouse Developer - <AUTHOR>

I am one of three co-founder of fansunite.com a startup based out of Vancouver B.C.  We have already put 100k of our own money in to the site development and are now in the process of looking for investors to take it to the next level.  Between the three of us we can turn a computer on and log into our email accounts, not much beyond that.  We did however come up with what, in our opinion, is a great idea.  The problem we face now is that we have had to out source all of our development and have recently had a falling out with the company that developed what you see today.  A fully functional Beta site that is a shadow of what we believe it can be.  I guess my question to the HN community is what would you recommend we do next?  What we want is to find a coder who is willing to take a stake in the company as well as a small salary so that we have a member of the team who can actually make reality what we imagine.  HN community what are your thoughts?  We are at a cross road and need to make decisions pretty damn quick. <comment><USER2> Sounds like you need to find another company to outsource your dev to for the moment and work on getting an inhouse team in the medium term.

<comment><USER3> I agree, that another firm may be the best option in the short term. Hopefully, you had a change management clause or agreement set up in your contract, that keeps your current firm from completely ditching you without a proper hand-off. Because it will take you some time to hire a your own dev (This guy will probably be your CTO & co-Founder), you'll need your new firm to comprehend, apprehend and decipher everything your old says. One of you will need to participate in this dialogue and you have to require that your new firms does great documentation (to the point that all three of you understand).

This will not be inexpensive and finding an individual to hire will require more than a stake in your company in a small salary. You may want to consider a reasonable or slightly above stake and an average salary. You're asking a lot of any individual to come into a situation and repair it. At this point, you need this person more than they need you. There are a lot of executive decisions to be made but it goes with the territory of a startup.

You face two huge challenges outside of the dispute with your outsource firm. Hiring a capable individual that can do all that you are requesting now and in the future. Convincing a VC firm that this is not a huge problem.

Good Luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the advice and insights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one who thinks you have (or will have) a problem with revenues, too? (But best of luck, of course!)

<comment><AUTHOR> The revenue stream has yet to be put in place and will never be seen by users in Canada or the U.S. for legal reasons. This beta site we are running now is a test of the market. Partnering with online sport bookies to place a link beside your fake bet on Fansunite that takes you to their site and will allow you to make the bet for real pays out commissions. Also a small monthly membership fee will be implemented and will allow you access to the top cappers on the site. For a sport bettor this information is invaluable. 90% of the site will remain free. You will be able to make picks and see all users information that are below a certain ranking. Essentially what we are trying to do is change the capping game all together. If you look around now you will see "pro" cappers making picks and posting them to their blogs and wordpress sites for bettors to follow. There is no transparency to what they are doing, a record is easily changes here and there, and they are able to charge huge money for that information. We are basically crowd sourcing the game of capping, making it a social experience and documenting the users entire history for everyone to see.</comment></comment>


Google announces a new generation for its TPU machine learning hardware - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/08/google-announces-a-new-generation-for-its-tpu-machine-learning-hardware/ <comment><USER2> This is great news. It's extremely important to the research community that large companies enter into the DL silicon space to contend with NVIDIA's monopoly.

NVIDIA is now exerting pricing power to the point where they've decided to train their sales people to disregard the metric that is most important to customers: cost of training. Talk with one of their enterprise sales people and you'll find they'll say things like "FLOPS / $ doesn't matter" to justify a 10x increase in price for their TESLA line. As history has shown, a monopolist sows the seeds of their own destruction and, by disregarding the metrics that matter, they alienate their customers.

Here are open source projects that you can contribute to to break the monopoly:

ROCm: [https://rocm.github.io/](https://rocm.github.io/)

MIOpen: [https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/MIOpen](https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/MIOpen)

TensorFlow: [https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow)

<comment><USER3> Instead of being able to buy your own nvidia gpu and run any cuda or opencl on it, now you can run only tensor flow on a tpu only in Google cloud.

How fantastic.

<comment><USER4> Yeah seems like a way more abusive position to me frankly, a Google monopoly would be way worse than a NVIDIA one.

<comment><USER5> Not a Google monopoly but instead another choice. To push Nvidia and others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the new TPU is eight times more powerful than > last year

Are we sure about this? He specifically said that a "pod" would be 8 times faster than last year, not the TPU itself.

And the picture in the background showed what looked like to be 8 racks of 64 TPUs (or maybe 32?). Until now a "pod" was a single rack of 64 TPUs. So if the new definition for a "pod" is 8 times as many TPUs as it was before, the result is less impressive...

Is there any actual spec released?

<comment><USER3> Google started playing this game with the tpuv2, wherein they define a "TPU" as whatever they want to make it sound suitably impressive (I.e. Cloud TPU is four chips). This in turn led to nvidia calling the DGX-2 "the world's largest GPU

<comment><USER5> What does it matter? What we care about is the cost. The TPU gen 2 are about half as much as using Nvidia in the Amazon cloud for the same work. To me that is what matters. If the TPU 3 further drops the cost fantastic.

How many chips sounds a lot more like a pissing contest. What if it was a giant chip with actually a bunch of chips inside? Who cares?

<comment><USER6> I care because assuming the cost of a single TPUv3 is roughly similar to the cost of a single TPUv2 (at launch), then paying for a "pod" of 256 or 512 (whatever a pod is this year) will be nowhere near the cost of 64 TPUv2 "pod".

So I care because I want to know if I will actually see this 8x speed improvement or if this is just marketing BS.

If NVIDIA tells me a 2080 is 8x time faster than a 1080, I know that a 2080 when released will be roughly the same price as the 1080 when it was released, and so I can expect to actually see a 8x cost/perf ratio improvement (if we put aside the fact that this are always best case scenarios)

<comment><USER5> You can already hook together TPUs. So, IMO, it is here or there what is happening in the data center. What I care about is how much is the cost. Time to train is more of a function of how much resources I want to use.

<comment><USER6> So what? I just want to know if the 8x speed increase was achieve at roughly the same cost (i.e same numbers of TPUs) or not.

If the 8x speed increase was achieve with 4x more TPUs (and roughly 4x the cost) like it seems it was, then this is just marketing bullshit, and we should really expect a 2x improvement in cost/perf ratio not 8x.

<comment><USER5> I am also curious. But really it comes down to cost. Right now we see about 1/2 the cost of using TPUs versus Nvidia on the AWS cloud.

Will be interesting to see if the difference grows further with the TPU 3.0 or Google will just take larger margins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What will be interesting to see is if they are going the hardware specialization route, like Nvidia with their support for efficient 4x4 fused FP16 matmuls with FP32 matrix output (they call them 'tensor cores' \- hah). I suspect with the liquid cooling, they are just dialing up the matmul speed, which is probably the right way to go, IMO.

We are doing data-center experiments - using oil cooling. It's suprising to see circuitboards dumped in ordinary oil and working away, no short circuits.

<comment><USER8> You mean immersion cooling? As long as the fluid isn't conductive you're good to go.

If you're interested, Alibaba has been doing some work along the lines of production immersion cooling.

<comment><USER7> Yes, it's not my research - a colleagues. He has some big vats of oil. It's a sureal experience to see servers just being oil-boarded (can i say that? :) ) and coming out ok!

<comment><USER9> I'd love to discuss your research. We've been working low-profile during the last years doing a lot of R&D and experimenting with different fluids and components.

Mineral oil is ok for experimentation, but for long term material compatibility and fire risk I wouldn't recommend it.

FWIW I co-founded [https://submer.com](https://submer.com) where we've developed an all-embedded computing immersion cooling solution that is virtually compatible with any kind of hardware (even fiber optics) and it's orders of magnitude more efficient than traditional data center cooling technologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does the Google Cloud API for TensorFlow expose any hardware details? I am just curious why Google announces these hardware details at all.

<comment><USER5> Look at this thread. Because people want to know as just what "techies" do.

But what I wanted to know is performance in terms of joules compared to TPU 2s.

My hope is we get a paper on the TPU 2 now the 3 is released. We got the TPU 1 paper as they were releasing the TPU 2 I suspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this going to be available off-the-shelf like NVidia GPUs? That's the only way to get wider and faster developer buy-in.

<comment><USER12> No, they're going to be used by Google and nobody else, so they can establish dominance in the cloud AI/AI SaaS space using their immense resources. This will be used by internal Google projects to rapidly develop their large scale models and, if you're lucky, available on Google Cloud one day (TPUv2 already is, at least).

Google doesn't need "developer buy in" for these to make sense -- they need better hardware for training and deploying deep learning models for their products, which is the overwhelming motivation. And, if they offer these to you, it's only because you're willing to pay for faster TensorFlow iteration.

<comment><USER13> Models are the new bitcoins and no one is willing to sell the hardware directly. Weirdly enough exact same thing happened in mining (specialized hardware passed nvidia gpus in performance at some point).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 100 petaflops per what? All of google's deployment? Per rack? 100 Pflop / chip can't be right.

<comment><USER15> Per pod (256 TPUs)

<comment><USER16> Can you allocate a whole pod to do your computations? How much does that cost?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This very typical google. V100 comes out, they don't deploy it in their cloud immediately. Then they launch their tpu cloud. Spend 2 months touting cost/speed in benchmarks. Then a week before io they make v100 available in gce, nearly six months after aws. Then at io they announce tpu3. This is supposed to be nvidia's most captive customer, and now looks like going to be their biggest problem. Would love to see google spend with them and how its changed since they ramped tpu2.

<comment><USER18> Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud (and even on the GCE parts).

No conspiracy here, we were simply late to market on the V100 Beta. As many have noted, we also hold a really high reliability bar before going to Beta ("Google's Beta is like AWS's GA" though I wouldn't claim that in all cases) and we've be in Alpha for months. If you'd like to be included in Alpha offerings drop us a line.

As I've said in previous threads: Compute Engine intends to be the best place for computing. That includes the kind of workloads TPUs are tuned for, but it also includes all the stuff that GPUs excel at. That's not going away, and GCE isn't favoring one over the other. We sell _infrastructure_ , and we don't try to (overtly) pick favorites, we let our customers do that.

<comment><USER17> Apologies, stand corrected. Conspiracy theories are always more fun:) Guess was just coincidence that after grabbing all this press on GCE v100 finally being available, tpu3 is announced few days later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The announcement bit on video [https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=1h36m](https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=1h36m)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's 'Tensor Processing Unit' as far as I know.

<comment><USER21> Title corrected from "Tensorflow Processing Unit"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Welcome to ASIC land....training going the route of crypto mining

<comment><USER22> It's just an arithmetic logic unit for tensors. It's not at all like a crypto miner that implements a single algorithm.

<comment><USER17> You kind of summed it up right there...'it's just an arithmetic logic unit for tensors'...whether its a matrix multiply engine or implmenting sha256 still a custom rapidly iterated chip for narrow very specific use case. Google accomplishment here clearly the software, but doubt they only ones going to crack asic systolic arrays. At some point china inc figures this out in mass...maybe bitmain themselves.

<comment><USER23> Bitmain already announced TPUs (cue "they'll only sell them after they're finished training Skynet").

<comment><USER24> FYI, here is Bitmain's AI product homepage: [https://www.sophon.ai/](https://www.sophon.ai/)

They shipped Deep Learning Accelerating Card SC1 at $589. You can't buy it right now because it is sold out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just to play devil's advocate for a moment: I'm excited that there will finally be some viable competition for GPUs, but am disappointed that this isn't a general-purpose multiprocessor.

We're long overdue for a general-purpose CPU with say 1024 cores, that avoids a central main memory, where each core can be independently programmed just like any other CPU. Google's may count as a somewhat general-purpose DSP, which is definitely a step forward. But no matter how mature or mainstream a framework like TensorFlow gets, it can never replace full programmability.

Without seeing the internals, I'm going to have to give this a nay vote for now. There are many other rather exciting problems that need to be opened up to a new generation of tinkerers. Off that top of my head, it's things like: content-addressable memory to provide high data locality (evolving various interconnects instead of hardwiring them), exploring other types of general vector processing like the kind MATLAB/Octave uses, and exploring other hill- climbing algorithms than backpropagation/neural nets.

I picture something more like network topology-agnostic Docker containers programmed in Elixer/Erlang/Go that can act as semi-autonomous agents and switch into various modes in order to solve the problem at hand. I just find that a much simpler metaphor to work with than OpenCL/CUDA/TensorFlow. Yes it would take more silicon and would probably violate YAGNI, but only full programmability gives us the freedom to explore the problem space at the level that's going to be required to implement artificial general intelligence.</comment>