iOS 12 released - sahin-boydas https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-12/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Apple believes privacy is a fundamental human right, which is why iOS has always been designed with built-in encryption, on-device intelligence, and other tools that let you share what you want on your terms."

It isn't often that you see any company the size of Apple take that strong of a stance. Privacy is their best feature and it seems like they are doubling down.

<comment> another-cuppa It is a really interesting marketing move (and don't delude yourself, this is a marketing move). To market a feature that Google can't possibly compete with.

<comment><USER2> If this is a marketing move, then any feature could be described as a marketing move.

For example, how is Apple's emphasis on privacy, with the additional features they have added to push for it, different from their emphasis on backing up when they introduced Time Machine? I think that the Time Machine introduction was as much of a marketing move, at which point you've broadened the definition of the phrase where it doesn't really mean anything.

<comment><USER3> Yes, every feature is a marketing consideration. Marketing involves everything about how your potential and existing customers view your products, and privacy is a _huge_ subject of interest.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with privacy being both a marketing move and aligned with our interests as users. In fact, I'm _more_ comforted by the idea that morals and profits are aligned here, because no company is above choosing the latter when push comes to shove.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Making a good product is a marketing move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The new Shortcuts app by Apple (must be downloaded separately: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workflow/id915249334?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workflow/id915249334?mt=8)) is definitely interesting. An example from the description: "Run custom scripts in Safari with the new Run JavaScript on Web Page action".

Edit: Just discovered that there's also "Run Script Over SSH" that takes input passed to a shell script (stdin) and returns the output from the shell script (stdout).

<comment><USER6> The "new" app is actually not so new, and it was previously called Workflow ([https://www.workflow.is/](https://www.workflow.is/)). Looks like they bought it and rebranded it as Shortcuts.

<comment><USER7> I never used it before, or maybe once on my iPad. But did it have as tight an integration before? I assume Apple added some iOS level things that really put it over the top. The Siri shortcut for sure. Either way I've already spent a couple hours with it today just hacking random scripts together. It's great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> After installing it, head to [https://purecycles.com/products/urban-commuter- bike](https://purecycles.com/products/urban-commuter-bike) to see the best feature. Placing 3D models in your house via ARKit right from Safari.

Writeup on this Shopify rollout: [https://www.shopify.ca/blog/shopify- ar](https://www.shopify.ca/blog/shopify-ar)

<comment><USER9> That's really cool. I'm looking forward to more sites implementing this. Imagine if every Amazon product had this.

<comment><USER10> ... or every IKEA product!

<comment><USER11> Although not _every_ product, such a thing exists! [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikea- place/id1279244498?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikea- place/id1279244498?mt=8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> babl-yc This the most stable iOS beta I've ever used.

It's exciting to see Apple focus on quality, even if the marketing page doesn't end up as flashy.

<comment><USER7> Already noticing small but appreciated performance improvements. Share sheet and app switching both came up noticeably quicker.

Am loving shortcuts, looks like they didn't dumb it down. There's even an SSH action.

<comment> X-Istence Which app is providing the SSH action?

<comment><USER12> It is the app formally named "workflow" that apple acquired some time ago. It got renamed to "shortcut" for iOS 12 and has this ssh action in it.

If you already had the old "workflow" app it will be updated to the new "shortcut" app, if you do not have it you need to install it from the App Store.

<comment> X-Istence I am familiar with shortcuts, but I didn't think that there was an actual SSH action that was shipped with it, I thought there was an SSH action that an application may be providing.

I'll have to check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using the beta for a few months now. Overall I'm pretty impressed. It really does make my phone work better than before.

But I'm most excited about Waze support on CarPlay, which does not appear to have dropped today.

<comment><USER14> As of a few days ago, the rumors were that Waze support was still in early beta and a ways (sorry) off, but that Google Maps would likely land in October.

<comment><USER13> This makes me sad. It was the main reason I started running the beta -- because I foolishly thought they already had the beta of CarPlay support, since it was _shown in the keynote_. I only found out later that the keynote was just vaporware.

<comment><USER15> Apps need to wait until the general release before they can push updates through the App Store.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I assumed I'd need to use Testflight, but it's not even there yet.

<comment><USER16> You need to be invited to a beta for it to show up in Testflight. Testflight doesn't support open public betas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> MacStories has published their yearly review of the new iOS. The 42250-word long breakdown of iOS 12 goes into detail on every new feature.

[https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories- rev...](https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-review/)

<comment><USER17> Everyone here who is a developer or interested in automation should read page 7-9.

[https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories- rev...](https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories- review/7/#content)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For iCloud Drive, we should be able to manage which files are saved locally and which aren't. As is, documents can be manually downloaded but there's no way to reverse it and have the given documents stored back only in the cloud (freeing up local storage). Then magically a week or more later stuff is uploaded and no longer stored locally. It feels fickle and frustrating.

<comment><USER19> It's been a lond time, but I read that you can add specific suffixes to folder names to control syncing.

I think it was ".nosync" and ".tmp"

<comment><USER20> Not sure what kind of dumb method this is. You can't possibly change a project's folder name just because of your need.

At least if it was by creating an empty file with that name.

Also iCloud Drive's synching has been an utter mess and I gave up after nothing syncs at random times.

<comment><USER19> > Not sure what kind of dumb method this is

That's not very nice. I'm just trying to help and that seems to be the only thing that seems to be working.

I don't work at Apple, so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My guess is that the privacy/tracking on Safari is going to be turned on for all apps. iOS will soon keep track, at the OS level, of whether apps are allowed to access your Advertising ID. If you say no, then ad-based apps simply will not be able to access your advertising ID and/or SKAdNetwork will be used at the system level to anonymize you as a user. Not sure what they will do with other tracking (like analytics). [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/skadnetwo...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/skadnetwork)

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know if and what concrete changes have been made to Core NFC, beyond the speculation beforehand [1]? I understand there has been a beta of iOS 12 for a while now. The documentation still shows information for iOS 11 [2]

[1] [https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/apple-will-reportedly-open- up...](https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/apple-will-reportedly-open-up-nfc-in- ios-12/)

[2] [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc)

<comment><USER23> The WWDC app has a new short video called "What's new in Core NFC" which mentiones the new features in the Iphones such as reading NFC in the background.

<comment><USER24> Any news on writes? I assume no... :/

<comment><USER25> unfortunately not, waiting hard :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "On devices without 3D Touch, touch and hold the keyboard Space bar to turn your keyboard into a trackpad"

This is subtle but huge. One of the main reasons to get a phone with 3D touch is/was the ability to easily move your cursor when typing. This makes the XR model (which lacks 3D touch) a lot more enticing.

<comment><USER27> Finally. Man I've had this feature on my jailbroken devices for over 4 years. And every update I would hope they would add this. Clicking around with the cursor was always so stupid because almost all quick cursor changes would be ~10 characters back, aka not a huge amount of movement.

Some keyboards have this feature like Nintype (which is over engineered imo), but I've always wanted this natively. Glad to see it coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm really psyched to have the new Screen Time feature working across my family. It's got some quirks which I suppose will be smoothed out in time, but it's still lightyears better than previous third-party programs.

The only thing I wish Apple had done was create a separate app to control the restrictions, or at least provide an API so someone else could do it. Digging all the way into Settings to change time and lockout settings is already a pain.

<comment><USER29> Just add the screen time widget and access from there, like it's own app.

<comment><USER28> That's a good start, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From the update description: _Portrait mode improvements preserve fine detail between subject and background when using Stage Light and Stage Light Mono effects_

I thought that iOS 12 would improve this for Portrait mode generally. I have an iPhone 7 Plus and sure hope that these benefits are available on my iPhone (which doesn't have these specific effects — just vanilla Portrait mode).

Has anyone see improvements in Portrait mode in the beta?

<comment><USER31> Here is a decent breakdown (unfortunately as a Twitter thread):

[https://twitter.com/tobiasdm/status/1007229233104588801](https://twitter.com/tobiasdm/status/1007229233104588801)

also (from the Halide.app dev):

[https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1027072222425317376](https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1027072222425317376)

<comment><USER30> Thanks for these! I'd seen the latter, and assumed that if the edge detection algo was refined, then it would be available everywhere that it's used. From the other commenter, it seems like maybe not. I wish I'd taken some "before" photos so that I could compare after updating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm still on iOS 10 on my iPhone SE. Why should I upgrade?

Even if there was a convincing reason to, I'm afraid performance will tank, as it often does on older iPhones getting their last update.

<comment><USER33> I was also on iOS 10 on my iPhone SE until a couple weeks ago. The blocker for me was that I wasn't able to open my credit card app anymore to see my balance, because they stopped supporting iOS 10 (there were other app updates that were pending my iOS upgrade). I upgraded to 11.4.1. I'm hoping to stay on that until iOS 13 is announced. I prefer stability, so I prefer staying on the latest minor version of each iOS release.

<comment><USER34> In my personal experience, and from reading what pretty much all other beta testers have said, iOS 12 is faster and more stable than any iOS 11 release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone know if Mojave is going to be as awesome as this iOS update?

<comment><USER17> It's definitely faster/smoother, and the dark mode is awesome. Other than that the differences aren't that big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Safari also prevents advertisers from collecting your device's unique > characteristics, so they can't identify your device or retarget ads to you > across the web.

Probably easier to do anti-fingerprinting on such a homogenous group of devices.

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh finally, I'm so happy about the notifications / do not disturb functionality - super annoying to have chat and email notifications popping up all the time and having to fully disable / reenable them.

</comment><comment><USER38> > Contactless student ID cards. With contactless student ID cards in Wallet, > you can use your iPhone all over campus to access places like your dorm, the > library, and events; or pay for laundry, snacks, and dinners.

This sounds amazing.

</comment><comment><USER39> I blindly accept these new Terms and Conditions.

<comment><USER40> I, for one, welcome these new Terms and Conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is just awesome, installed iOS 12 on iPod Touch 6 and my react-native app has stable 58-60fps during scrolling of the large list of messages!

Impressive!

</comment><comment><USER41> I hope they've fixed the bug in Mail.app where it fixates on a particular message from a month ago, which then requires you to scroll like a hamster to get to the latest messages. And then then next time as well.

This has been around for a while, so I'm not really holding my breath.

<comment><USER42> I'm personally hoping for correct message ordering in iMessage. It frequently puts replies to questions before the question had been asked, so reading back through conversations makes very little sense.

That's been around for years as well, so again no holding my breath.

At least it's faster!

<comment><USER43> Which iOS version do you have? I recall that same issue, but it was fixed in one of the .x updates, but I don't recall which major version number.

<comment><USER42> Still happens on 11.4.1, I've got an obvious one last Saturday where I sent a photo and my friend's response to it is placed above as if it were sent before they even saw the photo.

We're both in the same time zone with correctly set clocks.

I appreciate Apple's stance on privacy, but I'm still talking to a lot of people on Messenger because the messages go in the right order there.

<comment><USER43> Huh, weird. That disappeared from my devices and my friends' and families' devices, so I thought it had been resolved. TIL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> >FaceTime with up to 32 people at once.

"Why would I _ever_ want to do that?" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzqXzYGN- gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzqXzYGN-gs)

<comment><USER45> atleast time stamp it . god.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Its nice to see an update that is focused on better performance, better privacy, and better control over those annoying notifications.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm glad to see that Apple Books got some love. I was so sad when I updated to a newer iOS and Apple Books no longer had a way to find uncategorized books. All my books just would just get crammed together into one huge bookshelf and I'd have no way knowing which were already placed on a proper bookshelf.

</comment><comment><USER48> Less buggy than iOS 10 or iOS 11 releases on launch day, at least for me on a range of different devices.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've been on the beta all summer and the "screen time" feature has been a nice weekly update. Def have made an effort to cut down the time due to seeing the stats every Sunday. (Though, happily they weren't as bad as I'd imagined they might be.)

</comment><comment><USER50> A friend of mine is still running her iPhone 6 on the original iOS version, so probably iOS 8.

It would slow down with iOS 12, right? Those speed gains are compared to non- ancient versions?

<comment><USER51> I have a 6s. iOS 11 was pretty annoying and my battery drained noticeably quicker--I was bummed with the upgrade but I think I wanted it for AirPods support. Also I remember the "instant camera" was a feature demoed when the phone was first released and iOS 11 took 5-10 seconds to bring up the camera.

I've been using the 12 beta for months and it immediately fixed those things. I'm not sure if the camera is as snappy as the original iOS, but it's less than a second. I'm not sure how this all compares to the original iOS it shipped with, though.

<comment><USER52> I have a 6s that's still on 10. Reading this and other comments make me think that maybe 12 won't be too bad. There's a few apps out there that I use that don't work with 10 anymore and so this may be the time for me to upgrade.

<comment><USER53> I'm pretty curious about how 12 compares to 10 as well. Seems like 11 was definitely worse on performance, but might be too early to compare 12 to earlier versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The update seems to have messed up the color profile on iPhone X. Colors are brighter, more saturated, more washed out and generally crappier.

<comment><USER55> Isn't "brighter, more saturated" basically the opposite of "more washed out"?

<comment><USER11> I would guess that OP means that it is overly satured, and therefore that some color information is lost.

I noticed this sometimes happening for a few seconds when switching out from some apps that play video while having high brightness. I haven't had it occur permanently, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> How is using a custom keyboard on iOS? I remember it being really bad... like it always resetting to the stock keyboard etc.

<comment><USER57> The only problem I have with it is you can't use them for password fields. It would be nice if my password manager could provide a keyboard.

<comment><USER42> You'll be pleased to see this: [https://www.macrumors.com/guide/password- autofill-ios-12-wit...](https://www.macrumors.com/guide/password-autofill- ios-12-with-1password/)

<comment><USER58> Oh, that is so cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> anyone know what library the stock app uses for its charts? the redesigned stock app is pretty cool, i was searching for it and seems it's called a spark line, but i couldnt find anything in the developer docs or cocoapods

</comment><comment><USER60> I like that you can now swipe up the app to quit it instead of long press.

</comment><comment><USER61> Can you now finally toggle location data in the control center?

<comment><USER61> Nope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> anyone know if css backdrop-filter memory exhaustion bug is fixed? if not, i'll wait for the point release.

<comment><USER63> Is there any particular reason why you want to wait until this bug is fixed? It seems unlikely you would ever run into it in real life outside of the demo.

<comment><USER62> just because of churn. there's sure to be an update very soon. not because i expect to actually run across the attack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Please don't editorialize in titles here. That's in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

(Submitted title was "iOS 12 released. - What do you think? - What is missing?")

</comment><comment><USER65> Its impressive that Apple is still supporting the iPhone 5S - a device released in 2013.

By contrast Google's Nexus 5 flagship Android phone, also released in 2013, received its last major updated in 2015.

5 years of software updates (and probably more to come) vs 2 years - that's why I switched from Android to iPhone.

<comment><USER66> That's why I always chuckle when people accuse Apple of planned obsolescence. I'm sure Apple would prefer that you update your iPhone every year, but relative to all other Android flagships I'm aware of, 5 years of OS updates is _massive_.

<comment><USER67> I'm not sure how what you say negates the possibility that planned obsolescence is part of Apple's business?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Still satisfied with iOS 10. The only thing that interests me in the updates anymore is the security and the tables in Notes (iOS 10 doesn't have that).

</comment><comment><USER69> I was hoping to see some Siri improvements but unfortunately nothing major there.

It does seem like they fixed the issue where Siri would give you snarky replies when it misunderstand you, but that's about it.

<comment><USER42> Apps can let you assign custom commands in Siri now. Some examples here:

[https://www.cultofmac.com/576807/these-apps-just-got-an- ios-...](https://www.cultofmac.com/576807/these-apps-just-got-an-ios-12-and- siri-shortcuts-overhaul/)

Requiring you to record your own phrases has a big tradeoff in that all your apps don't get automatic Siri support across all of their features, but it avoids the homophone hijacking and discoverability problems that other voice assistants have run into.

[https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/08/resea...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/08/researchers-show-alexa-skill-squatting-could-hijack-voice- commands/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> This was a bit jarring to me: Apple takes a big stance on privacy as a fundamental human right but feel free to spy on what your kids are up to?

<comment><USER71> It can be taken too far, but generally, if you paid for their device and you're legally responsible for their well-being and things they do on the internet, then I don't see the issue.

Combine this with the fact that the kid doesn't have to use the device for anything/everything.

It's like wanting to know where the kid is driving if you paid for the car, the insurance, and you're legally and financially responsible if they hit someone/something.

Again, I do believe this can be taken too far (and I don't know exactly where the line is). Paying for a phone doesn't give you right to spy on absolutely everything. I haven't seen anything that is beyond just app usage time, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> > "Apple believes privacy is a fundamental human right, which is why iOS has > always been designed with built-in encryption, on-device intelligence, and > other tools that let you share what you want on your terms."

Does that also apply to PRISM? I mean can I share with the NSA only what I want on my own terms?

</comment><comment><USER73> So from my testing with the beta, then having to roll back and losing 100GB of music, be aware that if you have an original Apple Watch, it's not compatible with iOS12.

<comment><USER74> The just-release Watch OS 5 is compatible with Watch 1: [https://www.apple.com/watchos/watchos-5/](https://www.apple.com/watchos/watchos-5/) so w 1 should be compatible with iOS 12

<comment><USER42> "Series 1" is not the original Apple Watch model. Confusingly, that's officially named "Apple Watch First Generation" and colloquially called "Series 0".

When they released the Series 2 with better processor, GPS, brighter screen and better waterproofing, they simultaneously killed the "Series 0" and launched the Series 1 as the low price model. It got the new processor but not the other improvements.

That leaves the Series 0 as the only one with the original crappy processor, and support for that has been dropped in watchOS 5.

<comment><USER74> Indeed. I had no idea. Thank you.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204507#link5](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204507#link5)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> It's got zero (0) new features that interest me.

<comment><USER76> Performance doesn't interest you? I wish we stopped requiring "features" from every software release. I'd rather have less "features", but get software that works better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Will iPhone ever get bootcamp functionality to run Android, similar to how macOS can run windows?

From a legal perspective, could they allow the ability to boot Android without fear of lawsuit, given they allow you to boot Windows via bootcamp?

Putting technical feasibility aside, I would be iPhone for life if that was even possible.

</comment><comment><USER78> The only reason I have yet to move fully to Android is because right now, Android without Google is such a neutered experience that I don't see any reason to try.

I only have an iPhone because of Apple's privacy stance. I hate every other element of the company.

</comment><comment><USER79> Damn! There comes the bullying of upgrading. :( I am sure they want the best for us when they shove it down our throat.

<comment><USER80> "Shoving it down your throat" would mean that you had no choice but to install it. You do have a choice. Just ignore the red dot. It's not _that_ hard.

Although why you'd want to is beyond me. We've been saying this here since iOS was a thing. People didn't want to go from 6 to 7, or 7 to 8, and now 11 to 12. And yet, here we all are.

<comment><USER79> In case you really do not understand please google 'disable ios update notifications' (note the hit count), or alike. (you must have limited experience in iOS despite of your long time exposure)

<comment><USER81> Please don't be personally thorny towards other users.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER79> Do you want to suppress my perception? The tone of the answer was in tune of the reply, if one was thorny, the other too. You may choose to see that the other user was intentionally ignoring common knowledge to pick condescending tone, but you chose not to. You should not be arbitrarily partial. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't know, I've watched the keynote, and it just looked to me like Allison was right in saying that the company without Steve Jobs would go down.

Pretty considerably and pretty quickly, too, IMO.

<comment><USER15> Which keynote are you talking about? I thought the release of iOS 12 at WWDC was relatively well received.

<comment><USER19> The one about the new iPhones, not WWDC.</comment></comment></comment>


The blue flash - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue-flash/ <comment><AUTHOR> This blog post refers to the "demon core" / Louis Slotin article in the NYT

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11749742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11749742)</comment>


Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA - <AUTHOR> https://kyso.io/eoin/rich-countries-tend-to-have-a-bigger-middle-class-except-the-usa <comment><USER2> It's worth reading the underlying OECD report: [https://read.oecd- ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-healt...](https://read.oecd- ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/under-pressure-the-squeezed- middle-class_689afed1-en)

Two points based on the charts on page 44, 46.

1) Looking at just "middle income" people exaggerates the situation in the U.S. because part of the reason the U.S. has a smaller middle class is because it has a bigger upper class. About 15% of the U.S. is "upper income" versus 5% in countries like Denmark, Norway, or France. At the other end, about 35% of the U.S. is "lower income" or below. That's on the high side, but Sweden, Ireland, and the U.K. are not that far off, at about 30%. Even Norway and Denmark are in the 25-26% range.

The more concerning thing (and the OECD report focuses on that) is that almost 20% of the U.S. is poor (below 50% of median income) versus say 10% in Sweden (or 5% in Denmark).

2) Being "middle income" means different things in different countries. The lower threshold for the U.S. is $23,416 PPP-adjusted 2010 dollars per year. That's right around the median income for Germany. Put differently, someone who is right at the boundary between "middle income" and "lower income" in the U.S. is right at the median income in Germany. Many of the people in the U.S. classified as "low income" in the U.S. would still qualify as "middle income" in Germany.

<comment><USER3> You obviously know this, but for those who are not familiar with America, regarding #2 above, the experience in the US is vastly different from other rich countries.

> The lower threshold for the U.S. is $23,416 PPP-adjusted 2010 dollars per > year.

A person that makes this in the US usually will not receive health insurance at work. Depending on the specifics of the person's demographics/state/income, a worker at the boundary between "middle income" and "lower income" may not be eligible for ACA subsidies and may not make enough to pay premiums. The middle/lower part of the income range is where a lot of the uninsured live. Jobs that pay near this boundary also tend not to come with real health insurance. So the frequent debate about repealing the ACA means that even if they are insured today, these folks do not have any healthcare security as the nation actively debates repealing their lifeline. (IIRC the Supreme Court will decide this summer whether millions of people lose their insurance this year. It's not a sure thing either way.)

My personal take is that not until you're fairly rich (upper middle class) can you attain roughly the level of healthcare security that comes with residency in other rich countries. And even that requires you to stay employed, so it's still a lesser quality of security.

Similar factors apply to the rest of the safety net. The US might be the worst rich country to live in if you're low-income/modest income.

<comment><USER4> Wait. Hold on. You're acting like Medicaid doesn't exist. Firstly I bet that in most states if you're making $23,000 a year don't make enough for the ACA not too much so that you end up on Medicaid.

<comment><USER3> I specifically didn't go to this level of analysis because I was responding to a post that uses 2010 PPP-adjusted numbers. I have no idea how to quickly compare that to today's benefits & costs.

But there are millions of families that fall on that border between "low- income" and "middle class" who are not eligible for subsidies, get crappy insurance, and have trouble paying for even that (which they lose if the employee gets sick).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests.

(This was observed by Engels long ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness) )

<comment><USER6> They aren't completely wrong.

76% of Americans spend a year of their life in the top 20%, 56% in the top 10%.

[https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows- significant-i...](https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant- income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a- year/print/)

<comment><USER7> The top 10% for individuals is 114k[0] and for a household is 178k[1]. They may eventually get to millionaire status, but there's still a long way to go. Basically, getting to 100+k at the end of a long career and plenty of saving & investing (which Americans are not great at [2]) may get you there, but I don't think those stats you provided really bear out the case.

[0] [https://dqydj.com/income-percentile- calculator/](https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/)

[1] [https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets- pe...](https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-percentiles/)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans- are...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are-not- saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at-all.html)

<comment><USER8> I find it strange you're pulling out stats to refute the person you're responding to and prove an oddly specific quote that I believe misses the point entirely.

<comment><USER7> Why? A bit of context to clear up a misconception or a misleading stats isn't a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact the government doesn't work at all. Yes, the DMV sucks, but guess what, that is the level of service voters decided they wanted and that is what the DMV can deliver based on it's funding; 1-2 hour wait times with 2 or 3 agents at the counter.

<comment><USER5> Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going to conferences in America, and this was 10 years ago.

Oh, and people love to talk about wait and access to doctors: not only did none of my experiences have a wait they didn't even have a _schedule._ I simply walked in to an office and was seen immediately, and the Tokyo metro area has 35 million people living in it.

<comment><USER10> I don't have anything to prove it but I swear countries like Japan and Germany are very good at this sort of thing because the people have a culture of strict obedience to authority be it the government or whatever. They love having and following well defined rules and are nonplussed (in the original sense of the word) when people break the rules.

People in USA have the opposite attitude towards authority and rules.

Go someplace in Europe that doesn't have this culture and it breaks down. Italy's healthcare is a circus. When I was in Italy not even that long ago a doctor came in to see me with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

<comment><USER11> The USA's ethos in based in the motto of doing it their own way. Sometimes that's good: when everybody is doing the same, it breaks from the status quo and can become a leader in an industry, or just generally break ground in scientific and civil progress. That has happened many times in the past.

The flipside is that there are many things are a consensus worldwide because they _are actually better_ but that the US still refuses to adopt, generally because it would mean following others' lead, or because there are special interests in keeping the current status quo.

To me nothing is more emblematic of this problem than the country's refusal to adopt the metric system: the alternative is objectively worse, but the country is pretty much the last developed country on earth to refuse to use it.

<comment><USER12> It's more short-term pain avoidance based.

The reason we aborted the conversion to the metric system is because a generation of idiots couldn't stand the pain of switching, and the longer we delay the more painful it will be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interestingly it seems from this articles figures that the actual disposable income of the middle class and lower class of the US is much higher than in Europe [1].

"The United States' smaller middle income group still earns more than almost all its Western European counterparts. The average disposable income among middle income Americans in 2010 was $60,884, placing it comfortably ahead of Norway, which averaged $56,960. The one exception to Western Europe's income trends was Luxembourg."

[1] [https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american- middle...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american-middle- class/524193/)

<comment><USER14> One would hope so, given the astronomical cost of healthcare and the near- universal requirement that every household own and maintain at least one car in order to work and attend school.

<comment><USER15> What is the average healthcare costs for an American?

Aren't the majority of people in the US covered by Medicare or their employers plans?

I'm from Canada so I'm curious what the yearly costs would be like. I typically lean libertarian on most areas of gov-run organizations but, much like prisons, public health insurance makes far more sense to be completely centralized vs the US random centralization and countless layers of legislation over their pretend private market.

They are wasting money: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/He...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Health_care_cost_rise.svg/800px- Health_care_cost_rise.svg.png?1556055036730)

<comment><USER14> Having employer-provided health insurance in the United States does not mean it does not cost the employee as well. Many companies require the employee pay part of the premiums, especially for families, and there are many, many out- of-pocket costs that people must pay even when they have insurance.

In the US, there were about 1.4 million bankruptcies every year before Obamacare. There are around 700,000 per year now. But the majority of those are still widely considered to be related to medical costs (though exact statistics don't exist). That should give an idea of the burden most Americans face in terms of healthcare costs.

More anecdotally, my own costs this year - as a single adult having employer- provided health insurance - is already about $800 out-of-pocket for a few office visits and tests.

<comment><USER16> $800 is less than the 15-25% health tax you'll pay in Europe.

<comment><USER17> You forgot to factor in that he's also paying indirectly for employer-provided health insurance. How much is that in comparison?

<comment><USER16> Same goes for Europe, my national insurance contribution(which doesn't even technically cover healthcare) is £6,664 a year, my employer pays an additional £17,281.19 in NICS a year.

Do you think that you and your employer pay more than $30K a year for healthcare?

Don't get me wrong there are a lot of things wrong with US healthcare including the costs for uninsured but Europeans pay through the nose direct and indirectly for their health insurance as well.

With marginal tax of nearly of over 50% of your income when you include NI/Health Tax contributions, 20-25% VAT and much higher indirect taxes on everything from fuel to sugar you end up paying for it one way or another.

<comment><USER17> > Do you think that you and your employer pay more than $30K a year for > healthcare?

If I add the costs for my grandmother, then that sounds very likely.

The important thing about universal healthcare is that workers pay for those who cannot pay themselves, so it's to be expected that a 30yo developer would pay way more than he gets back out. It's only fair, I'm gonna be old someday and I definitely want my health insurance to cover my expenses when I cannot pay premiums anymore.

<comment><USER16> Universal healthcare doesn't have anything to do with progressive taxation.

Half of the EU doesn't have single payer and use a public private mix, many of them allow you to not pay for the public system at all above a certain gross pay.

All health insurance schemes are based on the fact that young and healthy individuals pay more than they get, it has nothing to do with universal healthcare or a single payer system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The middle income group in the US has shrunk to around 48% of population.

The lower income group has grown a bit and this is the real problem. This group is defined as below 75% of median.

The upper income group has also grown significantly. This is defined as above 200% of median. While we complain (rightly) about the share going to the upper few percent, the percentage of population that is upper income in the US may be significant compared to other "rich" countries. But we aren't given that graph for comparison.

<comment><USER19> That is the case

[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the- america...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-american- middle-class-is-stable-in-size-but-losing-ground-financially-to-upper-income- families/)

<comment><USER20> Wow. According to that first chart, the middle class has shrunk 10% since 1971, with the upper class getting 5% larger and the lower class getting 5% larger.

<comment><USER21> Consider the number of retirees on fixed incomes in 1971 versus 2016. The US is getting wealthier _and_ older.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't really like calling 75% to 200% of median income "middle class", both because it's not really capturing an economic class distinction and because proportional symmetry suggests 50%-200% or 75%-133% would be properly centered middle income segments.

But that doesn't change that it's interesting how much the US is an outlier in terms of the aggregate performance vs. distribution measure used.

<comment><USER23> Could you expand a bit on how its not really capturing economic class distinction ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of a TEDx talk titled "Where in the world is it easiest to get rich?"

Spoiler: Scandinavia, which happens to be top-right in this chart too.

That talk has been discussed on HN before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542391)

</comment><comment><USER25> The actual OECD report is a good read: [https://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/sites/689afed1-en/index.html?i...](https://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/sites/689afed1-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/689afed1-en)

The more complete quote is:

> There are two striking exceptions to the positive relationship between > absolute median income and the size of the middle-income class:

> The United States. Although it boasts the fourth-largest median income, it > has only the 31st-largest middle-income class of all OECD countries. Related > statistics are that its population has the third-largest share of people in > poverty and the fourth-largest in the upper-income class.

> The Central European countries of the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, > Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Poland and Slovenia. In these countries, > the shares of the population in the middle-income class exceed what might be > expected from their median income levels.

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration- healt...](https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/under- pressure-the-squeezed-middle-class_689afed1-en#page21)

The graph cites the report linked above. Middle income is defined as household income between 75% and 200% of median on page 19 of the report.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd be interested to see how this graph looks if the USA were replaced by data points for each of the states. The USA is unusually big as countries go, and that will tend to increase the dispersion.

(Or conversely: Replace all the European countries with a single EU data point -- you'll probably see an even smaller "middle class" for the EU than for the USA.)

<comment><USER13> Here it is from a GDP perspective: [http://www.aei.org/publication/putting- americas-enormous-19-...](http://www.aei.org/publication/putting-americas- enormous-19-4t-economy-into-perspective-by-comparing-us-state-gdps-to-entire- countries/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Note: caps are for emphasis not yelling.

Household income is a stupid metric. In America, the top 20% of households contains TWICE as many PEOPLE as the bottom 20% of households. The top 20% of households contains FOUR times as many income earners as the bottom 20% of households. The top 20% of households contains THREE times as many children and HALF as many retirees as the bottom 20% of households.

So when someone says America has too many "poor" households. Consider that those poor households EXIST because they are WEALTHY enough to afford it!

Consider Italy. More households in the middle income share than America. Is that because Italy is an economic paradise? Or because of a strong, centralized bureaucracy capable of administering income distribution schemes? Maybe. But it could be the case that the old and young can not afford to establish their own households. So they continue to live with the working members of their family and enjoy the "benefit" of being a middle class household.

I don't mean to imply that America is perfect and that Italy is not. I only want to say that this chart is an awful way to represent data and is, in my opinion, intentionally misleading.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is misleading. Every countries in Europe would have a smaller middle class if you take the $32-33k median US income.

<comment><USER29> If you mean the whole world, then yes that is (mostly) true, but it is true for every high income nation, and therefore not really informative.

If you mean against other high income nation's, then it is only true in the most superficial sense, as once you include all benefits available to people, and social and economic mobility, the US quickly falls down the charts.

<comment><USER28> > If you mean the whole world, then yes that is (mostly) true, but it is true > for every high income nation, and therefore not really informative.

Just against Europe (France, Germany, and UK). If everyone is poorer, I don't see the win. Remember Europe used to have a higher GPD per capita than the US not so long ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Healthcare, college, and childcare are all exceptionally expensive in America. Those are the fundamentals to having a middle-class life. You're better off as a middle class person in Western Europe than an upper-middle class person in the US. We have virtually no safety nets either. At least Europeans have a better sense of community and family and a welfare state to offer a safety net. I think being an average American is definitely more stressful than being your average Western European. I blame republicans like Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Bush Sr. and Jr., Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan for the hollowing out of the middle class and giving trillions in tax cuts to billionaires. Vote Bernie if you want this to change and vote for Medicare for all.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yet the chart shows that the US middle class is much wealthier than the middle class of other countries.

<comment><USER23> And also smaller, that can't be forgotten.

Reading this through the lens of income inequality; I don't think having a smaller, yet richer middle class, is necessarily something to be proud of.

<comment><USER32> Eliminating people at the higher income brackets until the average has lowered enough that you have a large middle class isn't something to be proud of either.

<comment><USER23> Is it? In the scenario you say we shouldn't be necessarily proud of more people would be economically well-off (e.g. less people choosing between food and rent). Are you sure that wouldn't be something to be proud of?

<comment><USER31> The graph has nothing to say about the relative prevalence of people choosing between food and rent.

<comment><USER23> I have not read the report entirely so I can't say if it does, but I don't know for a fact either which is why I left it as a parenthetical. I am fine with my comment being interpreted without the parenthetical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Middle class is a meaningless term even within the US, let alone in comparison to other countries. What is "middle class"? Nowadays it seems that if you can afford to buy a house and reliably put food on the table, and have a couple of kids, while putting any money away for retirement you're considered "upper" middle class at least. To me that's just a baseline requirement for not being poor.

</comment><comment><USER34> Top 20 congressional districts by income are Democratic. Proof : [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/midterms-one-party- controls-w...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/midterms-one-party-controls- wealthiest-184200649.html)

When the alternative is an "opposition" party that is suffering from "affluenza" , it's unlikely real fixes will happen anytime soon.

<comment><USER5> This is a bit misleading. It doesn't mean that the rich are predominantly rich (though this could be the case): that map is also basically a population density map which is, according to what i've seen, the only clear predictor of whether or not a county is likely to be "blue."

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also interesting is looking at GDP per capita vs equality (GINI coefficient)

I've posted the graph here: [https://kyso.io/eoin/gdp-per-capita-vs- gini](https://kyso.io/eoin/gdp-per-capita-vs-gini)

And a discussion link here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19732909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19732909)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm not sure how they're setting the points, exactly, but the US is certainly an outlier.

</comment><comment><USER36> That's ok, everybody in the lower class are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is there a full dataset somewhere? I would like to see where NZ is on this.

</comment><comment><USER38> Another way to look at it is median income x Gini index. Essentially, higher- income countries tend to have lower inequality, but the US is an exception, with significantly higher inequality than other developed countries.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a real, honest to goodness question. I live in the Bay Area. I make $200,000 a year. I just had a mini-exit where I netted about $300K after taxes.

I still rent for $2700/month. I don't want to buy an overpriced home in the bay in the suburbs (I wish we had for-sale condos like Toronto everywhere... still don't know why)

I do well. I'm 32. I'm on an upwards path. But I don't feel upper class. I feel middle class. Maybe upper-middle. But I don't feel like I'm killing it. Should I?

<comment><USER40> I would fathom a guess that you feel middle class for 2 reasons:

1\. Your life doesn't fit in line with your expectations of upper class.

2\. 200k a year in the Bay Area is, in its weird, sad way, middle class.

3\. The feeling of "killing it" is pretty difficult to obtain when you are an ambitious person.

But you are doing well. You are probably doing better off than most people, even in the Bay Area. I hope that you can find some peace within yourself, because the only person who can make you feel successful is yourself. It seems to me that you need to learn how to set trajectories for yourself with success outcomes that resonate with you.

<comment><USER39> Can you expand on "set trajectories for yourself with success outcomes..." ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is very deceptive. Under this methodology, people too poor to be called "middle class" in the US would be called middle class or higher in the other countries. Note how much higher the median income in the US is than in any other very large country (UK, Germany, France). There is no doubt the US is more unequal, but absolute wealth for the vast majority is higher.

<comment><USER42> The graph isn't about absolute levels, but income distribution. The point I think they are trying to make is that higher total income countries tend to have a more equal income distribution. The US doesn't fit that trend, though also some of the lower total income countries such as the Czech Republic have more equal distribution as well.

<comment><USER41> It's incredibly deceptive because not only is almost everyone in the US wealthier than their counterparts in the distribution in Europe, but they have much higher purchasing power due to much lower prices.

<comment><USER43> But they might also spend more of that money on things that are free in Europe.

<comment><USER44> There should be data available for distributions of income including government transfers. But I would expect that the median for US would still be faring much better than the median for France.

<comment><USER43> Based on what data would you expect that?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to assert that your SQL does not do full table scans - <AUTHOR> http://www.bestbrains.dk/Blog/2010/03/25/HowToAssertThatYourSQLDoesNotDoFullTableScans.aspx

<comment><USER2> Table scans aren't the enemy; sometimes, they're actually cheaper than index scans. Random IO is expensive, especially with spinning platters. It's likely that, if you're pulling enough rows off disk, you'll end up in a situation where you're hopping back and forth across the table, seeking left and right, and "head-thrashing". Sometimes it really is cheaper to simply read the entire table and deal with finding the rows you're interested in once it's buffered -- particularly if your disk controller is smart about readahead.

Sure, for simple cases where you're pulling a row or two from the heap, an index scan will be vastly cheaper, but just because they're sometimes better, doesn't make them _always_ better.

<comment><USER3> But for those cases where you are just pulling a row or two, this is a nice technique. It hints at something more interesting, I think.

Fundamentally it wants to be an assertion against the schema. It would be better to be able to ask the database about the worst-case complexity of a particular query, then write assertions against that. (I don't think this is the same as 'explain', it's more like 'explain as if' with some structure behind it)

Something like: assertEqual( O(log(n)), schema.worstCaseComplexityOf('SELECT text FROM response WHERE questionId = 27 AND participantId = 38'))

Even better would be a schema language that lets you build in these assertions directly. This is really something you should be thinking about while designing the schema, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does MySQL also have a full scan counter?

Ah here it is:

       log_queries_not_using_indexes = on

[http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/server- options.html#o...](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/server- options.html#option_mysqld_log-queries-not-using-indexes)

</comment><comment><USER5> > SELECT text FROM response WHERE questionId = 27 AND participantId = 38

> If there is no index on response(questionId, participantId), the database > needs to do a full table scan

With only an index on one of the columns, Oracle at least will still use that index.

<comment><USER6> I can't imagine any halfway decent database engine failing to utilize at least one index. Maybe the author is thinking of cases where you have multi-column indexes that are ordered incorrectly and as a result can't be used? I'm more inclined to suspect that they just don't know what they're talking about, though. It's pretty trivial to verify that any decent database engine will use one of your indices to optimize that query if possible.

The hack for detecting table scans seems like it would be super useful if using MSSQL but I'm inclined to be wary of such a solution to what appears to be a basic education problem.

It takes about 2 minutes to test this out in SQLite:

CREATE TABLE response ( text TEXT, questionId INTEGER, participantId INTEGER );

CREATE INDEX i1 ON response (questionId); CREATE INDEX i2 ON response (participantId);

EXPLAIN SELECT text FROM response WHERE questionId = 27 AND participantId = 38

The resulting bytecode clearly makes use of an index instead of performing a table scan. If you drop both indexes and explain the query again, the bytecode changes to indicate that it is performing a table scan.

<comment><USER7> >The resulting bytecode clearly makes use of an index instead of performing a table scan. If you drop both indexes and explain the query again, the bytecode changes to indicate that it is performing a table scan.

You have no data. It knows that. It's showing you a query plan based upon no stats.

[http://www.sql-server- performance.com/articles/per/index_not...](http://www.sql-server- performance.com/articles/per/index_not_equal_p1.aspx)

Fairly true across different RDBMS products.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but the original post makes no mention of things like statistics. It states a general principle that is, in very many cases, not true.

Of course if the database engine has statistics on the table it can choose _not_ to use the index, the point is that I don't know of any database engine that _isn't able_ to use the index.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What SQLServer provides is interesting: I need to read more about it.

From the Oracle side, you'd normally run the query through "explain plan". This utility generates the optimizer's plan for query execution. Reading the plan takes some practice but you clearly see where full table scans, indexes, etc. are used. All the Oracle databases I've developed against for the past 10 years use cost-based optimization: the plan utility shows you the cost at each step, the overall cost, the cardinality, and the space used.

If you want to get more into the system figures, you can set trace on and run the query. After execution, you'll have a file on the db server that shows disk I/O stats and many other system level measurements.

My own workflow is that I write the query first - typically nowadays in Toad - and run explain plan against it. I make sure the data returned is what is required and then move onto plan tuning. When I'm satisfied with the plan and overall cost, I copy/paste the query into my code.

It sounds like the overall workflow is different when developing against SQLServer.

<comment><USER9> My workflow is very different when using SQL Server. Usually it involves writing a query the only way I know how, sending it to a DBA to review it, getting laughed at and then having the DBA rewrite the whole thing.

<comment><USER8> I feel for you. Eight years ago I worked in a department encouraging that workflow, except I was on the DBA team. We could be a little (let's be nice and say) menacing at times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, in my experience full table scans are quite rare. What happens often though is an index scan, but those happen so often that you would get a ton of false positives.

Plus, at least in my company, the unit tests run on a different database which means different statistics, different number of rows and different decisions in the query optimizer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks really painful to do. I had better memories of my relation with SQL Server than this.

Also, if your table is sufficiently small, a clever database would prefer a table scan instead of using the index, rendering the check useless.

The _only_ sane way it to check with a representative amount of data.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is slightly besides the topic, but since it can be of much help it's worth to mention in case someone learns something: primary keys are indexes per their own nature. The KEY keyword is actually an alias for INDEX in pretty much all RDBMS. So, if you can't index an already large database for whatever reason, and happen to have a primary key column that could be used in a similar way, you're suddenly better off. It's also the fastest index available.</comment>


Things People Don't Get About the Homemade Gun Making Story - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/31/3-things-people-dont-get-about-the-homem <comment><USER2> I don't understand why this hasn't been all over the front-page of HN. This is _huge_. The article in closing summarizes it neatly:

 _> By eliding what's really at stake here—more a matter of free expression than any meaningful expansion of the already existing legal ability to make a gun at home—the states suing, and alas too much of the media, are ginning up unwarranted fear to expand the government's power to restrict speech, and alas those states have had at least a temporary success for now._

This is pretty clearly a freedom of speech issue. Knock-on effects of this would be, for example, removing all of the Wikipedia articles that talk about how compounds that the government Doesn't Like.

One error the article makes is that this isn't _software_ , this is just normal CAD documents describing the objects in question.

If we as techies don't stand up for this, we're doing ourselves and future generations a _huge disservice_.

<comment><USER3> > I don't understand why this hasn't been all over the front-page of HN

Probably because the discussion is entirely political, and political discussions on public forums rarely end well.

> This is pretty clearly a freedom of speech issue

Would you also support someone publishing instructions on building your very own nuclear weapon? If not, where do you draw the line between 'free speech' and 'free speech that is very likely to end in tears'?

I'm generally very much against limiting the spread of information, but I believe there are some things that we humans are not mature enough as a species to have freely available. Hell, we're not even mature enough when it's restricted.

<comment><USER2> We _already_ have instructions in widespread circulation about how to build your own nuclear weapon--the googling for it is pretty trivial.

We're not up to our ears in homebrew nukes because making them is expensive, and that doesn't change. People have been able to make zipguns for over a century with nothing more than a few bits of pipe and fittings.

It's queer that merely the idea of knowing how to do something should be so distressing to policymakers.

<comment><USER3> > We already have instructions in widespread circulation about how to build > your own nuclear weapon

AFAIK (without enough searching to land on a no-fly/watch list), those instructions are at a very high level and are not enough to produce a working bomb without further extensive research/experimentation. That at least accounts for some of the 'expensive' part, getting appropriate fuel being the other portion.

<comment><USER4> Not to be pedantic, but 20 years ago the idea of having a microwave sized device on your desk that could make anything you wanted out of plastic seemed so impossible that someone could have (and probably did!) published firearm CAD files online and people would have laughed it off as well.

I wonder if in the future we will think back to this comment and say "man, we were so short sided to not recognize the emerging hobby of home nuclear fission!"

<comment><USER3> You do bring up an interesting point, but I think there's a key difference between posting instructions that require unavailable/unproven technologies and technology that is widespread. If I posted plans on how to build a warp drive, it probably won't enable you to build a warp drive, even in the theoretical future when the necessary materials/technologies might exist.

There's also a key difference between uncontrolled fission and controlled fission. Both are bad for your health if you are too close, but one of them is immediately bad for your entire neighborhood/district/city.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Digital Assistants and 'Moral AI' on Whether to Report Illegal/Immoral Activity - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6733417/Digital-assistants-discuss-moral-AI-report-illegal-immoral-activity.html <comment><USER2> It's about time we had a good 3rd Amendment case.</comment>


Natural Language Processing for the Working Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://nlpwp.org/book/ <comment><USER3> I was working with NLP, and its various toolkits (python-nltk I'm looking at you). The thing about NLP is, there just isn't enough libraries (for humans) to simply plug NLP into use. Even nltk, the premier python library for NLP, seems to be an NLP core-library for building NLP solutions, rather than for building NLP-powered apps. It also seems to extremely unpythonic.

Is there a missing link there? I don't know. So I took a few days and built an extremely simple NER (named entity recognition) engine and made it extremely easy for any programmer to begin using.

See [http://blog.nerily.com/howto-train-your-own-modelset-for- you...](http://blog.nerily.com/howto-train-your-own-modelset-for-your-custom) . We'll see how NLP becomes more easily accessible with better tools to come over time.

<comment><USER4> yeah, for the vast majority of uses, most people _really_ want to do just a fairly small set of things fairly well.

NER comes to mind, lots and lots and lots of toolkits for building up to NER, but very few that let submit English text and get back a list of people, places and things _without_ having to virtually build my own NER system from scratch anyways.

Give me NER, Entity relationships (ER) and a couple kinds of sentiment analysis scoring (SA) (which can be jump started with decent NER) and I've pretty much exhausted 95% of what I'd ever want to do.

I really really _really_ don't need yet another library to do sentence tokenization, term tokenization, tf counting and stemming. If I was building a free text indexer or bayesian filter or some such it might be useful, but I'm probably not, there are far better solutions to those domain than I'm likely to come up with, but there _aren't_ for NER, ER and SA.

<comment><USER5> I've used the Stanford NLP library extensively for NER. I made heavy use of it in my senior thesis project.

It's pretty straightforward to use their library to read a document and output an XML file containing NER data (and lots of other fun stuff).

For instance, from the sentence:

> World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), > was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which involved > most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, eventually > forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and Axis.

Stanford NLP NER will output the following entities:

"World War II" - MISC "Second World War" - MISC "1939 to 1945" - DATE - NORMALIZED 1939/1945 "Axis" - <USER2>

You can view the output of Stanford's CoreNLP library (NER + dependency grammar + coreference resolution + some other stuff) for the Wikipedia article on World War II in my github repo:

[https://raw.github.com/ryantanner/thesis/master/data/ww2samp...](https://raw.github.com/ryantanner/thesis/master/data/ww2sample.txt.xml)

edit: I should add that the real fun (for me) came from combining NER with dependency grammars and coreference resolution. It makes it very easy to turn Stanford NLP's output into a knowledge graph combining a large number of documents.

<comment><USER6> For those who want to play around with dynamic output: <http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/parser/>

This is a bit more human friendly.

<comment><USER7> Here is the whole Stanford CoreNLP suite with visualisation output: <http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/corenlp/> It helps me greatly when it comes to interpreting the dependency structure.

If you need an example sentence: "Stanford University is located in California. It is a great university."

I also know that Microsoft Research has a demo online of their NLP tools: <http://msrsplatdemo.cloudapp.net/> (Silverlight required) I don't think you can download the tools though, but they do offer to provide you with an API token to call their service from their cloud.

Potential conflict of interest: I wrote parts of the CoreNLP visualiser.

 _Edit:_ Added example sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the authors here: we wrote this during the Pragmatic Programmer's writing month in 2010 and some more in 2011. Then I got caught up writing my PhD thesis, and now a new job (as an NLP engineer, but in Java ;)).

So, the book is basically frozen. We hope to have more time in the future to continue the writing...

<comment> phantom-scald Nice endeavor, but finished up as the most endeavors - unfinished. :)

That was the first book in NLP (and the only for now) that I read. I've been interested both in NLP and Haskell. In that respect it fitted, thanks!

A few points to criticize. For the frequency list one should use multisets, not dictionaries. There are a few multiset packages at Hackage. Suffix arrays are badly explained. Monads - very badly. With tagging there was an impression that it could be explained simpler.

Many things are announced but not touched. The book is not a book in fact, it's more like an article. Perhaps reconsider it in that way? But oke, hopefully you will find time to continue it as a book.

Perhaps meanwhile you can recommend some other book to continue reading on NLP?

<comment><USER8> Speech and Language Processing by Jurafsky and Martin

Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing by Manning and Schütze

I have to say comments like yours are not really encouraging to continue writing ;).

<comment> phantom-scald I'm sorry for that! All other sections were written nicely or OK, and I appreciate for what I picked up from the book. I just wanted to point out some places needed to be reworked in case you continue.

Myself being in industry, I know how hard, near to impossible it is to find time for anything extra than work and family. And a decent book requires approximately the same amount of effort as finishing PhD. Perhaps that was my frustration coming out of the projects I had to abandon. :(

Thanks for refs!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not that familiar with Haskell and the past week's HN frontpage articles on Monads was just confusing...but what is it about Haskell that makes it more useful for NLP than, say, Python?

<comment><USER10> Not much. It's a more expressive and cleaner language, but on the other hand python has NLTK + scipy community.

Scala (or Java) is another great NLP language. It's got decent libraries (openNLP, mallet, mahout), hadoop, and Scala is almost as nice as Haskell.

<comment><USER11> > Not much. It's a more expressive and cleaner language, but on the other hand > python has NLTK + scipy community.

Haskell's mechanisms for defining parsers, lexers, and other pattern match tools is so good it probably passes over the line from "pretty" to "objectively better".

A lot of people who need to lex and parse data and then act on it turn to Haskell. It has some really remarkable and efficient libraries. And even for "common" target languages it's reasonable to write extremely fast parsers. With tuning, projects like Aeson are among some of the fastest JSON parsers and writers out there (only a few projects exceed its speed and resource efficiency in ANY runtime).

<comment><USER12> I am guessing you might be conflating parsing natural language with parsing something that has a rigid and well defined grammar (like a programming language). NLP is a whole different beast.

<comment><USER11> > NLP is a whole different beast.

The very same patterns that define "packrat-like" parsers (which share a strong relationship to the monadic and "arrow-adic" parsers) can be extended to define things like DFAs and semantic pattern matching. And languages with support for rich, somewhat lazy pattern matching like Haskell and Prolog wipe the floor with eager languages without (e.g., C), which is ideal for semantic analysis.

While not an "authority" in the subject, I've spent a lot of time working with some very skilled folks in the field of NLP, Linguistics. Most tools they used (in our case licensed from X/PARC) had C underpinnings for performance, but ultimately consumed specifications that were very much like Prolog or Haskell in character. Talking to some of the linguists who wrote those tools suggested that had GHC existed (or Allegro or a fast prolog been cheaper) then they would have been much easier to write in those languages.

<comment><USER10> Do you have more info on this? I'd love to read more.

<comment><USER11> I'm afraid I can't say much more beyond what I have without talking out of my rear. But you can read about X/P's XLE project here: <http://www2.parc.com/isl/groups/nltt/xle/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think promoting this should have waited until the section on Natural Language Processing said more than "stub".

</comment><comment><USER14> Just FYI : there is a NLP class starting soon on Coursera <https://class.coursera.org/nlangp-001>

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if PDF or Epub version is available? couldn't find it on the site.

<comment><USER16> Here you go <http://nlpwp.org/nlpwp.pdf>

<comment><USER15> Great, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm always fascinated with NLP. My undergrad works around it. And currently doing a research for my MS degree. It's about a variant of automatic summarization, wherein I extract the most important sentences in an article. I'll open an API for it soon. :) If you're interested, just contact me in my email (check my profile for it).

In the meantime, here's a preview of what it can do. <http://goo.gl/Lz7Vr>

</comment><comment><USER18> Not open source, but I provide a free web service endpoint for my NLP system: <http://kbsportal.com/> Use the form demo page to use it interactively.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maluuba provides an API for natural language processing: <http://dev.maluuba.com/>

</comment><comment><USER20> > _1.2. What is natural language processing?_

> _Stub_</comment>


Apple and the future of Java - <AUTHOR> http://www.subfurther.com/blog/?p=1305

<comment><USER2> I agree with the main premise of the article: that Steve Jobs isn't the one dealing a blow to Java, he is just getting rid of the white elephant that is already on its way down.

Seriously Apple does not have that much of a market share in the desktop and laptop field, and while it is a growing share, it is far from the market majority. Therefore, to think that Jobs is dealing a major blow to Java by not factory installing Java on a machine which is only going to sell to a small percentage of the market doesn't make sense.

If Java is losing popularity as a desktop app programming language it won't be because of Apple.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it's not the primary cause of Java's decline — as if it had far to go aside from theoretically — as a desktop system. Apple's moves seem these days to signal or drive the industry direction, though, so if Apple's deprecation isn't a blow, it's at least a bellwether.

<comment><USER2>
        bellwether
        noun
        harbinger, herald, indicator, predictor

Thanks for teaching me a new word.

<comment><USER4> I highly recommend: <http://www.amazon.com/Bellwether-Connie- Willis/dp/0553562967>

It's a fast, one day read, and it ages well - I re-read it every couple years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _I looked at javax.sound yesterday and estimated it would take me 4-6 weeks, full-time, to do a production-quailty port using Core Audio. I'll bid the project out at $20,000._

How about Kickstarter?

 _Desktop Java is a ruinously expensive legacy that they need to do something about.

All the angry screeds against Steve Jobs won't change the fact that this is the "ball and chain" that's pulling Java below the waves._

I think attempting to do cross-platform UIs held Smalltalk back as well. You either have Least Common Denominator native UIs that stink, or emulated UIs that don't look native. "Cross Platform" failed for the general public end- user. Web Apps took up their niche.

<comment><USER6> Eclipse is cross-platform, comes with a disgusting component system (OSGi), pillages all your RAM, and yet is still arguably the most popular IDE these days.

<comment><USER5> How many general-public end-user apps are built with SWT?

<comment><USER7> There don't seem to be many. But I believe it has been used quite extensively in internally-developed applications, never intended for the mass market. The same goes for Swing as well.

So although end consumers might not see them, it will certainly take a long time for SWT or Swing to die. These are the same class of applications that are keeping IE 6 alive, after all.

Does this matter to Apple? I doubt it's significant, as most of these applications are probably running on Windows desktops already. Probably more significant is the legion of Java developers that have been vocal proponents of Macs over recent years. The numbers of such developers might not be so great in an absolute sense, but the amount of noise they create is disproportionate. And, more importantly, they are more motivated to build interesting stuff for the platform they use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The Java crowd will (...) have to make a choice: either use Windows or Linux > for development, or get away from the IDEs (...) on the Mac.

According to archgrove's post, Eclipse works on OpenJDK:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820288>

So Java crowd can continue to develop on Mac in Eclipse even without Apple- maintained Java in OSX.

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple open-sourcing their work to be included in OpenJDK would also require copyright-assignment to Oracle.

Not going to happen.

Also, get the crappy APIs out of Java SE, like AWT and Swing, then the Java SE "standard" and the TCK needs updating, and then you've got a subset suitable for mobile phones, for which Oracle cannot collect revenue anymore.

Not going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the problems with [non-native] GUIs on the Mac are compounded by their developers likely not having as much passion for look & feel as Cocoa-heads to start with, regardless of the quality of the APIs.

I was under the impression that the IntelliJ IDE was a diamond, then I saw a dude use it in a screencast and the design looked grim.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't go so far as to say grim - but it definitely shows that even with the best of efforts, Swing is never going to cut it for non-developer applications. IntelliJ is about as good as Swing apps get on OSX.

Gotta feel for the JetBrains guys, I have a feeling that a good chunk of their users are on Macs and it's not clear that they'll have a way forward. It does look to me like Eclipse will be a viable option in future. Which, as an IntelliJ fan using a Mac, doesn't make me super happy.

That said, I think the original article was spot-on.

<comment><USER12> IntelliJ does use JNA quite extensive, already, on the Mac. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine more extensive use of JNA e.g., for custom widgets.

JetBrains guys are very smart (I dislike Java as a language, but I continue to be impressed by IntelliJ) and I have no doubt they'd be able to switch a native layer if needed: they have all the motivation to (it's a commercial product).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apple plays a long game, and they're not afraid to toss stuff under the bus. Now consider what these Apple engineers might now be working on, if not Oracle's Java and JVM pieces. Some language past Java? A replacement for Objective C? Both?

<comment><USER14> Doubtful that Objective C would be replaced. Still requires continual improvements and updates.

The engineers might now work on MacRuby, which is rumored to be the up-and- coming second language on OS X real soon now.

<comment><USER15> I think so too. MacRuby is perfect for Apple, as they control its implementation, and the syntax is far more approachable than Objective-C is. Also, no performance penalty when compiled, unless I'm mistaking.

Thinking on it, I'd only be _slightly_ surprised (and extremely delighted) if native/official (as opposed to experimental) MacRuby support for Xcode and the new Mac App Store was announced at the next WWDC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think Apple's decision is going to be a death-rattle to Java on OS X, but it provides an interesting perspective.

If nothing else, it's provided the groundwork for my next software development project. The vast majority of tools my industry uses to perform a specific type of testing are Java-based, and more and more folks I run into are using Macs.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm confused by everyone focusing on Java. "Java's on the decline", "I don't mind if Java goes away", etc, etc.

This is really about the JVM and the JVM is on the rise. I have no idea what impact this decision will have, but if it's negative if affects a lot more than Java.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think he makes a good case for himself in the article, though I wonder how much effort it really costs to maintain an already written port. However, he is quite mistaken about the possible side effects of Apple licensing the code under the GPL:

> The company would want nothing less than an absolutely forensic code > analysis to ensure there are no loopholes, stray imports or links, or > anything else that a creative FSF lawyer could use to claim that Mac OS X > links against the GPL'ed OpenJDK and must therefore itself be GPL'ed.

That is not how the GPL works. The GPL doesn't apply to the copyright holder (owner) of the code. The GPL applies to all the people who get the code from the owner. The owner can do what every they want.

</comment><comment><USER19> Are Apple going to ship any sort of Java runtime with 10.7? I (and some of my team) use Intellij on OSX. Are we not going to be able to upgrade to 10.7?

<comment><USER20> They haven't said yet, but: "Developers should not rely on the Apple-supplied Java runtime being present in future versions of Mac OS X."

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/Ja...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/JavaSnowLeopardUpdate3LeopardUpdate8RN/NewandNoteworthy/NewandNoteworthy.html)

<comment><USER21> While Apple hasn't been specific, I'm taking that to mean "no pre-installed JVM beginning with 10.7". Apple only mentioned 10.7 this past week (with very few specifics). Wikipedia suggests that the release date for 10.7 will be 'Summer 2011'. The problem may be real, but there is time to find solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> am I the only one who thinks JDK 7 (for OSX) will be released by Oracle when Lion is launched? at the end of last year they released JavaME 3 for osx. so it wouldn't be that far off</comment>


Can I hack people connecting to my server? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28140334/can-i-hack-people-connecting-to-my-server

<comment><USER2> First, change your password to _hunter2_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hilarious.</comment>


Some thoughts on the recent public negativity toward Apple - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ralxz.com/post/34110336280/some-thoughts-on-the-recent-public-negativity-toward

<comment><USER2> I think you're setting up a strawman here, and ignoring the legitimate complaints.

Certainly you can find people who have ill-founded ignorant reasons for avoiding the iphone 5. and then you have entire countries full of people who can't use maps anymore. It is utterly useless for them.

Personally, I am not enthusiastic about upgrading because I don't like the new screen size. I think 3.5 inches is pretty close to perfect, and 4 is heading towards unwieldy.

This is coming from a guy (me) whose entire livelihood comes from writing iOS apps. So you're going to have a little trouble branding me a "hater."

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't meant to be a weak attempt at trolling, as I'm genuinely interested and I may be out-of-the-loop: Do people really care about portable telephones __this_much__?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our mobile devices have long since evolved from portable telephones. Especially for people in the younger demographic like me (I'm in college), my colleagues can (and do) live off their phones. They send and receive email, communicate socially via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, play games, takes notes, and compile to-dos and calendar appointments. It's quick, efficient, and painless.

Before you know it, our phones will soon be replacing our credit cards (i.e. wallets) and opening doors for us (i.e. our keys). Mobile phones are arguably one of the most important things we carry around with us in our daily life, and it won't be going away anytime soon. And whoever innovates fastest to add more value to our lives, wins.

<comment><USER3> I believe I'm a part of that younger demographic, as I'm nearly 25.

My hands may be too big. I still can't find a mobile "smart" phone that I'm comfortable typing on (including the iPhone 5). I've tried several.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Really guys? Nobody gets that it was actually a design solution to fit in the slimmer body of the 5, as well as a step forward technologically.

Fanboy.

>I picked up the iPhone 5 on launch day

Fanboy.

>it's a beautifully crafted device with incredible attention to aesthetics and an impeccable operating system.

Fanboy.

\</comment><comment>----

This is poppycock. People are this far into the hype? It's good phone. Not 800$-good, but good.

People are just not that into the iPhone hype-machine because information is more readibly available online. PEOPLE HAVE CHOICES - that wasn't true in 2007.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see anything wrong with having a genuine appreciation for a quality product. You, my friend, are a hater :) And you can put down your pitchfork.

In regards to your actual addressable comment, yes people have more choices. That's called competition, and there's a lot of GOOD competition out there. I'm speaking to Apple's communication strategy that's lacking in certain areas that are really making holes in their public perception.</comment></comment>


What Place Should Mobile Have In The Web's Future? - <AUTHOR> http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/a-few-words-on-mobile/

<comment><USER2> Mobile is truly the next gold rush on the web. A few startups have attempted to make a run at a mobile social network, but none have gained any real traction. When someone creates an app that successfully uses the portability of most mobile phones to connect people together, it will be a huge cross-over success with mainstream audiences.

</comment><comment><USER3> Everyone's always talking about the need for a new mobile social network, but one already exists - it's called Twitter. It completely sidesteps the fact that most mobile browsers suck (iPhone nonwithstanding) by building the platform on text messaging as the lowest common denominator.

<comment><USER4> I would love to have the ability to communicate with people in, say, the same coffee shop that I'm sitting in even though they may not know me. Can Twitter do that?

<comment><USER5> No, but it sounds like Loopt can

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surfing the web with Iphone's Safari is now the standard to which any other mobile project will have to reach. The UI is hard to beat and extremely enjoyable to use. I browse the web a lot on my Iphone - and enjoy every minute of it (except for the slow AT&T connection - but that will change soon hopefully) The Iphone really is, in spite of the hype, revolutionary.

</comment><comment><USER7> At last year's Web 2.0 conference, Google's CEO said that local and mobile where the key hot areas, as far as Google is concerned.</comment>


Ask HN: What sort of startups make money the fastest? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a software developer that wants to try out running a project on the side to make some extra income and test out the whole entrepreneurship thing. I'm really interested in trying out something that generates money (if a small amount) pretty quickly up front, because I think it would help me be focused and motivated.
I've made a lot of small programs/games, but nothing that I felt I could charge people for much. I once made about $100 through ads in a blog after 6 months, but I don't think I'd want to repeat that route.
I have a couple of website business ideas, but they seem like they'd need a year to generate much income.
My best guess for things that seem to pay off the in the short term (The first month-ish) are: Affiliate marketing, solving buisness needs for people you know, and niche mobile apps (The kind that have few customers and charge $15+). If someone is more informed on this subject, I'd love to hear your suggestions. <comment><USER2> The sort of startup that makes money the fastest is not a startup, it's a clone. Unless you have a brilliant idea and solve a hard technical problem, your best bet is to copy a business that you know is successful and has few competitors. Startups are for dreamers who aim at a billion dollars, clones are for realists who aim at a million. Every day this becomes more true because the number of startup ideas with big potential decreases over time. Distribution is getting harder because noise is getting louder, and the low- lying fruit is already being harvested. Not that you were really aiming for a startup anyway, affiliate marketing and solving business needs for people you know are in clone not startup space. Every warm blooded mammal at a keyboard wants to make passive income, be the one who does market research.

<comment><USER3> You can clone an idea just add your own twist to it. Don't just copy someone else's idea blindly. I believe in niches. Find a niche that you can stick with and start working at it.

<comment><USER4> "I have this great idea its like Facebook for...."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Usually startups that make money the fastest are ones with a revenue model, an understanding of who their customers are and a way to get in front of those customers.

This is a very broad statement, but I think if you can apply this checklist to your ideas you will be on your way.

Example:

Product: Website uptime monitoring with SMS alerts.

Revenue model: Free up to 1 site, $5/mo for 5 sites, $10 for 15 sites.

Target customers: Freelancers, Small web shops, owner operators.

Where they visit: Web Design Blogs, Freelance Blogs, Web Dev Podcasts, Tutorial Sites, Web Design Galleries

How to get in front of them: Banner and sidebar ad's, Reviews from related blogs, Press Release, Free Trials, Guest Blogging, Social media, cold calling, email blasts, podcast sponsorshop.

This is just a random idea I pulled out the air, but it could be executed immediately because it hits all three criteria on the checklist.

</comment><comment><USER6> I haven't done it myself (only been doing research) but WordPress plugins might fit the bill. Mostly due to the fact that the WordPress plugin directory does some of the marketing for you. Also many WordPress owners are willing to pay money to improve their websites.

<comment><USER7> The problem with the wordpress plugin directory is similar to the Android/Apple appstores - getting discovered is hard.

There is very definitely a lot of fake reviews, and gaming, involved in most of the popular plugins. The fact that you mostly have to have a SVN repository hosted on the wordpress servers also means your source cannot be kept private - admirable, but quickly leads to cloning of novel and unique plugins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The easiest way to make fast money is consulting/contracting. You can usually get a contract, start working for someone, potentially be paid up front, invoice frequently, and be good, with minimal risk. It also scales the least, and rarely produces good passive income streams.

</comment><comment><USER9> you could look into elance or one of those sites. affiliate marketing is tricky because you need to get a site placed in search for free organic advertising. you could design a site and sell it on flippa for about $100-$150 bucks.</comment>