Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) - persistent storage  - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sc_fe_c_0_201590011_1?ie=UTF8&node=689343011&no=201590011 <comment><USER2> "I/O requests cost $0.10 per million" :) I wonder what is the amount MySql generates? Any data?

Edit, as I found this (<http://blog.rightscale.com/2008/08/20/amazon-ebs- explained/>): "As a point of reference, our main database server is pretty busy and chugs along at an average of 17 transactions per second, which should total to around $4.40 per month. But our monitoring servers, prior to some recent optimizations, hammered the disks as fast as they would go at over 1000 random writes per second sustained 24×7. That would end up costing over $250 per month! As far as I can tell, for most situations the EBS transaction costs will be in the noise, but you can make it expensive if you're not careful."

<comment><USER3> > But our monitoring servers, prior to some recent optimizations, hammered the > disks as fast as they would go at over 1000 random writes per second > sustained 24×7.

I don't know what that monitoring thing does, but if you make it hammer your non-persistent local storage, and then sync logs to S3, you should be fine.

As I understand this service, it's only for transactional stuff that absolutely need to be there after a reboot (e.g. transactional DB), if the plug is pulled accidentially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the final piece of the puzzle, following on from persistent IP addresses, in terms of using EC2 as a web server platform.

Time to get tinkering!

A shame Amazon dont have a data centre in Europe for European firms, in terms of reducing latency...

<comment><USER5> They do have an S3 datacenter in Europe. Source: aws.amazon.com/s3

Could be mighty useful as a CDN.

<comment><USER6> It is useful as a media server, but a CDN is a lot more.

"CDN nodes are deployed in multiple locations, often over multiple backbones. These nodes cooperate with each other to satisfy requests for content by end users, transparently moving content to optimize the delivery process. Optimization can take the form of reducing bandwidth costs, improving end-user performance, or increasing global availability of content.

The number of nodes and servers making up a CDN varies, depending on the architecture, some reaching thousands of nodes with tens of thousands of servers.

Requests for content are algorithmically directed to nodes that are optimal in some way. When optimizing for performance, locations that are best for serving content to the user may be chosen. This may be measured by choosing locations that are the fewest hops or fewest number of network seconds away from the requesting client, so as to optimize delivery across local networks. When optimizing for cost, locations that are least expensive may be chosen instead. Often these two goals tend to align, as servers that are close to the end user sometimes have an advantage in serving costs, perhaps because they are located within the same network as the end user. However the value of a CDN is often demonstrated when these two goals do not align i.e. when the best performing servers and network route is located in the furthest geographic distance."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't new, but was in beta for a while right? Is this now out of beta for use by us layfolk?

<comment><USER8> I think Amazon was calling it a private "alpha" rather than a "beta"; but aside from that, yes on both points.

</comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill "The durability of your volume depends both on the size of your volume and the percentage of the data that has changed since your last snapshot. As an example, volumes that operate with 20 GB or less of modified data since their most recent Amazon EBS snapshot can expect an annual failure rate (AFR) of between 0.1% - 0.5%, where failure refers to a complete loss of the volume. This compares with commodity hard disks that will typically fail with an AFR of around 4%, making EBS volumes 10 times more reliable than typical commodity disk drives."

Sorry, this is unacceptable.

<comment><USER9> why is this unacceptable? you do realized that there is no 0% failure storage in existence

<comment> patrickg-zill I realize there is no 0% failure, 100% guaranteed storage.

However, saying "yep, your storage space is now dead and you have lost all your files stored there" is not something I feel comfortable with. Why not offer something more resilient?

<comment><USER10> Because it would get more expensive?

Probably you could combine several of these "drives" for more resilience?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This could be leveraged into a much cheaper (albeit less reliable) version of simple queue service. You can have multiple EC2 instances feeding off of the same disk used as a central repository.

In general, EBS is making me think creatively about how to better architect distributed systems. SQS was both expensive and somewhat limited in scope. But now that I get disks in common, there's no restriction as to how I might partition work among EC2s.

<comment><USER12> SQS got a lot cheaper, I think around Feb this year. Are you sure you aren't going by the old prices? I find it very affordable now.

$0.01 per 10,000 requests $0.100 per GB in $0.170 per GB out (less with higher volume).

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was only a per request cost before of around $0.10 per 1,000 or something.

Also the in/out costs don't apply when they're coming from EC2, which would be the case in your scenario I believe. So from EC2 if you're doing an EC2 based distributed system, you're looking at one dollar per million requests (so for processing a message in a distributed system typically one dollar per 500,000 messages pushed then pulled).

Pretty cheap by my standards. Much cheaper than it was at initial launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> been waiting for this. Woo boy, EC2 just got shiny again!

<comment><USER7> I've actually been racking my brain trying to come up with excuses to try it out and use it for something. I haven't come up with too much yet, but it seems pretty cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd really like to use AWS for future Rails deployments.. Has anyone gotten a Rails app deployed using EC2/EBS/S3?

<comment><USER15> I've run <http://Dibs.net> on EC2 for over a year, with images served up on S3. Several servers have uptimes since I booted them in June '07. I have nothing but good things to say about my experience with AWS.

If you can, I highly recommend going to the AWS Start Up Tour (<http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/08/2008-aws-start.html>) It's a good place to meet people and last year Jeff Bezos and John Doerr showed up to the one in Palo Alto.

Edit: Forgot to mention - I run PostgreSQL on instance storage with log shipping and backups to S3, and a couple of MySQL DBs for Cacti and geolocation lookups. EBS will help a lot in this area, which is kind of a pain right now. Can't wait to start using it.

<comment><USER14> I've tried various gems and plugins and kept having issues, eventually giving up on AWS (that was several months ago).

Can you offer any tips or suggestions for a successful rails deployment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I officially announce ;) this acronym for EC2+EBS so we can just say ECBS whenever we talked about EC2 with EBS.

<comment><USER16> _so we can just say ECBS_

This might reflect what I think of the whole cloud-hype, but I read that as "Easy BS". Maybe not the name you want coined for something which is supposed to be good, not shit ;)

<comment><USER17> Easy Bulletproof Serving</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you spot problems? - <AUTHOR> I'm having a hard time finding 'problems' that I can build solutions for. I know they are there but for some reason I'm missing them and instead, end up in the loophole of 'thinking about ideas' rather than finding problems that I can solve. What are good ways to train my brain to spot problems that I could potentially build a business around? <comment><USER2> Personal pain points. What do you find to be annoying? Are other people likely to find it annoying? Go from there.</comment>


Tell HN: LessonLearned #1 - Customer Discovery - Even Before I start my startup - <AUTHOR>

So I have been pondering with an idea of late which does not seem to leave my mind and to see whether it had any viability I decided to follow up on it as a side project. This started a month back and the idea is still strong.
After some thinking I decided to start on a customer discovery exercise to identify if there is anyone else apart from me who is facing a similar problem. Due to the nature of the idea it is important to have people living in close proximity of each other there by I decided to seek people in the condo building I live who would be willing to work with me and help me with feedback/suggestions.
Day 1 1. I created a posting to be put on the notice board and left it with the concierge. 2. The building management responded that the notice is too big for them to put on the board and that I should shorten it.
Day 2 1. I submit a revised copy and called them from my office in the afternoon to inquire about the posting 2. A Mr X picked up the phone and I asked him if it has been posted and these are some of the things he said - "Your posting smells of commerical activity" - "Why don't you come clear on your game buddy" - "Why don't you come and meet me so that I know what this is all about" 3. I got angry and decided to go home early and sort this out. Walked upto Mr X's room and fireworks blew. 4. He accused me of having an ulterior motives and I accused him of being disrespectful. I was not willing to give up w/o a fight. 5. While all this is happening Mr X slipped this "When I read this I felt that this is a network marketing thing and hence I cannot pass it" 6. Just when he said this I realized that having Mr X is actually a boon for me as he was reviewing my post before everyone sees it. 7. I immediately mellowed down and Mr X spoke about the reasons why he felt that and what I could have written to make it more encouraging after all I was looking for volunteers. 8. To cut it short - Mr X and I are now friends.
Day 3 1. I submit another revised copy to Mr X and he says that he wants me to get approval from the board of directors of the building. 2. In addition to this Mr X suggested me what to write and what not to write in the mail to the directors.
Lessons Learned 1. Never give up w/o a fight 2. While fighting always pay attention to what's being said - sometimes things being said are very informative. <comment><USER2> Excellent! One of the first tests we're taught is to try to explain your idea to people who are outside our circle. You've learned (and are continuing to learn) much about refining your "elevator pitch"... and it was all by serendipitous accident. Curious, now, what you're working on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well right now I'm trying to convince a set of people who feel that I'm not a network marketing person nor am I selling home cooked pickle.</comment></comment>


GitHub is considering opening subsidiary in China amid US sanctions concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/4c1f2d1c-1a63-11ea-97df-cc63de1d73f4 <comment><USER2> Microsoft is very very very very very very good good</comment>


Ask HN: How do I get feedback about my startup? - <AUTHOR> I posted a link to my startup many times here on HN, but almost every time it gets barely any votes [1]. The first time I posted it it got considerable attention and it even made it to the HN frontpage. But after months of improving on the original idea and incorporating feedback received specially from HN users no one seems to care anymore.<p>Has anyone encountered this before? What am I doing wrong if anything?<p>[1] https://netin.co/teams <comment><USER2> Nobody caring is the default state for a startup. If you got any feedback the first time around you're ahead of the pack.

If you have "thousands of partner startups in Silicon Valley," (really?) why aren't they giving you feedback?

Here's some feedback from me. There are some obvious problems with the screenshot. Percentile is misspelled. Zero interviews and zero offers are depressing, change those numbers. "Schools went to" is wrong, should be "schools attended."

As a not-really-interested browser of your site, I'm asked to put in my contact info before I can do or see anything interesting. Maybe if I were desperate for a job I'd be willing to do that, but then I'd probably be at a regular job search website instead. I don't understand what the motivation would be to "choose who you want to work with" \- don't people solve this problem through their real-life network (or social networks) already? I guess my question is, if there are hirable people already in touch with each other (they know each other), what are you bringing to the table? Why are these people having trouble finding work?

Just some thoughts since you asked. I hope you're successful, I'm interested to understand how this would work. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. Fixed most of those issues. I just don't understand how to show more of the product without asking for basic use info first. Even to sign up for Twitter you will need to give more info.

Are you saying I should communicate the message more on the homepage/sign up page. Or make the product available by removing the sign up wall?

<comment><USER2> OK, I should have looked at your main homepage earlier. The animated gif there seems good to me - show me what the product does, without having to fully support a "demo" or sandbox login for visitors. Probably a single screenshot doesn't communicate enough. But really, the technical features are not that big a deal here, this is primarily a non-technical area (getting hired).

I think the main issue here is, what's the motivation for somebody to do this (assemble a team to get hired)? Presumably it's that they want a job. Are there enough people out there with this problem and desire to make it valuable to solve? The hiring company has more immediate motivation (and budget, probably).

There are probably things you could do to make the page more engaging. For example, if you could figure out even one person I'm remotely connected to via public profiles and show me that person's face with a big choice "Would you want to work with ___ again? Yes/no" that seems like a decent hook and you could go from there. But is it worth sinking time into building that?

I think it would be best to sit down in person with a bunch of people on both sides of the problem and figure out what would get them excited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most landing pages do have more info than yours, even when they are selling something familiar, like "do your job search with us." It sounds like you are offering something unusual. It is on you to communicate what that is and what value it would have for someone.

You currently have what seem like a bunch of empty catch phrases. That will not remotely be sufficient.

My impression is that you really have nothing to offer. This strikes me as a service no one would want or need.

If you actually have something of value to offer, you really need to find a way to effectively communicate it in a convincing, compelling manner. This teams idea seems very different from how hiring is normally done. Either it isn't done that way because it flat out does not work, or you are failing to communicate why this is a better way, at least for some people.

Getting feedback on anything is a huge challenge. I think you will need to get better at assessing feedback of the "vote with your feet" or "crickets chirped" variety. Actions speak louder than words. The lack of feedback may be a form of feedback.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel your pain. One thing i'll note about your landing page is that it seems to suffer from the same problem mine does which is a lack of content.

Folks that have reviewed my landing page brought up this issue as the biggest red flag. I had a nice looking site but very little content, very little actual information or persuasion. I've been working on adding more content.

As a user, i feel just like that looking at your landing page. What's the real problem you're trying to solve? Why is your way better? Why should i trust you?

Those are the questions your content should answer. I would shoot for 500 - 1000 words on your landing page (based on advice i've read only)

ps. I think it should be 90th percentile in your screenshot.

pps. I added more content to my landing page (to answer those questions) this weekend. In case it gives you any inspiration, it is: [https://jobrudder.com](https://jobrudder.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> Are you having trouble getting attention from startups or teams?

It sounds like Shark Tank for developers...Where the team is at a deliberate disadvantage.

If that is accurate then it makes sense why the startups are interested.

To make it attractive to developers they would need to understand and believe you are not discounting them, but advocating on their behalf. In order to do that you would have to vet the teams as well as control a certain market share of that supply to be able to leverage on their behalf.</comment>


Programming is not a craft (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://dannorth.net/2011/01/11/programming-is-not-a-craft/

<comment><USER2> I don't agree by any means that programming is not a craft.

He gives the example of plumbing; if you don't think that plumbing is a craft, try spending some time in a building that was installed by plumbers who were not craftsmen.

The author is mistaken about the notion that software craftsmanship is a waste because the users don't notice it. Users without a doubt can tell the difference between well-crafted software and that which is not.

In my specific case, I rescued Working Software from certain bankrupcy, by fixing my predecessor's broken code in QuickLetter.</comment>


How to fix 'duplicate content' issues for city-specific pages - <AUTHOR>

Hi! I've put together a very basic lead generation site. To cater to different cities, I've linked a list of the most populous cities in the U.S. to modified versions of my index page. So far, I'm only appending "in $city" to the title and h1 tag.
How big of a problem is this for search engines?
I would like to present the same information to each state. So, besides including a dropdown for states, how else would you have a page dedicated to each city without tripping the duplicate content wire? <comment><USER2> You probably don't need to worry about duplicate content. Some SEO's claim that here isn't even a real penalty for duplicate content. The real issue is more simple, how to rank for things using content that lot's of other people are using. This is a problem especially for people using data feeds (affiliates for example) which could be used by a ton of other people.

Have you done your keyword reasearch? Are you trying to target certain keywords? Or are you just going for general search engine traffic? If you have done your keyword research then you should probably be able to answer your own question. After looking at the search volume available and competition for your keywords, then you pretty much have a blueprint as to what you need to do.

For example, if you are trying to rank for the general term of Blahblahwhateverwhocares, California then you are going to have an easier time doing so than ranking for the general term of San Francisco, California.

So, there are a lot more factors you have to deal with before you get to duplicate content.</comment>


iOS Game Dev Weekly - <AUTHOR> http://iosgamedevweekly.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out my free newsletter on iOS game development!

What do you think? What would you like to see me cover?

I'd love to have you subscribe.

Cheers.</comment>


Review of the Model S 85 - <AUTHOR> http://shiftinglanes.com/2015/01/tesla-model-s-review/ <comment><USER2> Here in Beijing there are special "un-official" taxi services that have Teslas. I was once in one of them, one the way to the airport. I was very silent, and looked a bit futuristic (all meters are actually screens) and kitsch ala eigthies: The whole car looks fat, plasticly cheap. I would not trust the door knob to always work for instance, and the seat are not giving this confident feeling, compared to normal European cars. It is also slightly ugly. But obviously that's just the diff between Europe and US on cars, and Tesla has nothing to do with it (but if Tesla wants to get market share in Europe, they have to make another model, or license their techno to someone else.)

<comment><USER3> > the whole car looks fat, plasticly cheap.

That's every American car

<comment><USER4> BMW, Mercedes, and Jaguar (among others) are all struggling right now to find a new design direction. The most recent push to really change things, Chris Bangle's tenure at BMW, didn't really lead to a decisive new direction. A lot of people WANT boring shit.

<comment><USER3> Oh sorry the design aesthetic of the S is fine. Though when i see one I can't work out which of the large saloon car it is.

I mean the cheap plasticy build quality, mainly the interior. It doesn't look nor feel like a luxury car inside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sure: As I remember from my college physics course in electricity and magnetism (E&M), a series wound electric motor has, with the simple mathematical model, infinite torque at _stall_ , that is, not yet rotating. The torque falls off from infinity quickly as the motor starts to rotate.

So, yes, the Tesla can get some fantastic acceleration from a standing start.

Also, yes, as used in some ocean going ships, it can be good to use _Diesel- electric_ with no transmission. That is, the Diesel engine drives an electric generator, and the electric power from the generator drives the electric motor to drive the propellers and move the ship. In this case the motor-generator combination provides essentially an ideal transmission -- "Look, Ma, no gears!".

Tesla has done better on both power and range than I expected. Good for Tesla.

But I would still be concerned about battery charging time -- there's no royal road shortcut to the energy that 4600 pound car needs, even if the braking captures kinetic energy. Or, driving at highway speeds requires pushing air out of the way and, then, putting a lot of velocity, thus, kinetic energy, into that air. Also will want A/C or heat for the car, and that's more energy.

So, the batteries need to store a lot of energy. Then to charge the batteries, also need a lot of energy. Do some simple arithmetic and can discover that charging via 100 A at 240 V in the garage of a house will result in hours of recharging time. Okay then use a _charging station_ : For a full charge in just a few minutes, that will be one heck of a powerful electrical connection. And, that charging current has to pass through the batteries which traditionally heats the batteries.

Next worry: How long with the batteries last, and how much does it cost to replace them?

So, mostly I'd be concerned about recharging time. For a trip to Grandma's 900 miles away, with a range per charge of 200 miles, charging time will be an issue.

But Tesla's done better than I expected.

<comment><USER3> In europe, practically everyone would fly the 900 miles or take the train.

<comment><USER5> In the US, 900 miles was just from where I was in DC, north to Pennsylvania, west to Ohio, across Ohio to Indiana, south to the town Fort Wayne in NE Indiana, west to Warsaw, IN, and then south 15 miles to the farm of the family of my girlfriend and, later, wife. So, before we were married, I drove the 900 miles often, commonly mostly at 90+ MPH, and after we were married drove it usually at least once a year, at Christmas.

When we went for Christmas, we were carrying way too much stuff to fly or take a train! And when we got there, we stayed for a few days and still wanted our car to get around, to restaurants, movies, friends, more shopping, etc.

In Europe, they think that a car engine with 3.0 liters of displacement is large. The engine I was using had either 5.7 liters of displacement or, in two cases, 6.5 liters of displacement.

US and Europe do some things in different ways!

That part of Indiana is sparsely populated. So, from the farm, the nearest airport with much in service is at Fort Wayne about 50 miles away.

Let's see: The 6.5 liter car I used most often had a 2.56 rear axle ratio and at 90+ MPH got about 18 MPG. Gas cost about $0.25 a gallon. Then the cost of gas for the 900 miles was

         900 * 0.25 / 18 = 12.50

dollars, $25 round trip. Heck just the taxi fare from the Fort Wayne airport to the farm would have been about that. To use a plane or train, round trip, would have meant four long taxi trips, total cost much more than the gasoline for driving my car.

For trains, actually at one time the US had one heck of a rail network with relatively good passenger service. Mostly the rails are still in the ground. Actually the little cross road town three miles from the farm did have a rail line and a station -- not used by passengers, if at all, in years. Sure, at one time could have caught a train at that station and, with lots of transfers, gone to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc. Lots of transfers and then waiting between trains.

In simple terms, in the US, by about 1955 or so, cars put the passenger trains out of business. The US still has one heck of a good freight rail network.

While Indiana is sparsely populated, keep going west to Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, etc., and we're talking miles and miles and miles of hardly a person in sight.

In the US, there's density enough for trains to have a shot between, say, Richmond, VA north to DC, Baltimore, Newark, NYC, Greenwich, Stamford, Hartford, and Boston. And we do have such trains; spent a lot of money on the trains; our VP Biden spent a lot of time on those trains between Baltimore and DC; but those trains lose money. And parallel to those tracks we have airplanes -- maybe they make money, but the TSA has made airplanes a little less comfortable than either an unanesthetized root canal procedure or a barbed wire enema. "Open wide, look at the birdie, and then grab your ankles and back up to the officer .... Have a pleasant trip."

"Next time it's my car; even for 2000 miles."

In the US there are lots of other efforts to spend big bucks to have trains across the Midwest, north and south along the west coast, e.g., LA to SF and maybe up to Seattle, maybe between Houston and Dallas in TX, etc. Lots of efforts. For decades.

For commuters to NYC, NY has trains north to Poughkeepsie and NE to Greenwich, Stamford, Hartford, or some such. At least the one to Poughkeepsie has been losing money, and now when register a car in that area have to pay a special tax to support the trains.

How do we pay for roads, bridges, etc. for cars? We're supposed to be covering that out of gasoline taxes, which are not trivial. The result is called the _Highway Trust Fund_ ; it may have a stack of IOUs from _loans_ for other purposes.

I live 70 miles north of the Wall Street area which is at the southern tip of Manhattan in NYC and for a while worked in that area. I found that except in the worst of the rush hour, my car was, door to door, faster than the trains. And I was not using a high performance car.

Apparently the NYC subways work well -- I can believe that. But Baltimore put in a subway, and while I was at Johns Hopkins University there in Baltimore, once was in a lecture that analyzed the _welfare economics_ of the Baltimore subway; _welfare economics_ is where add up all the costs and all the benefits and see for what projects the total of the benefits is greater than the total of the costs. The lecture reported the totals of the costs and the benefits, and the costs were higher than the benefits. So, from the point of view of _welfare economics_ , the _optimal_ decision, given that the subway construction was done, was just to brick up the entrances and f'get about it. Or, if there were some really good _benefits_ for that subway, adding up the _value_ of the benefits still didn't have the benefits exceed the costs. That's what happened in that case; just why I don't know.

Drawing from several decades of recent history, broadly, passenger trains don't work very well in the US. There are lots and lots and lots of people who very much want passenger trains to work well here, but the _golden age_ of US passenger trains was from, say, 1930 to 1955 or so. E.g., there are several Hollywood movies, _North by Northwest_ , _The Sting_ , that show something about what train travel was like then. Basically in the US, the long distances, low population density, Interstate highway system (Ike regarded as crucial for military logistics for US national security), etc. shot the passenger trains between the eyes. One biggie reason: People already owned a car, say, just to get to the grocery store, the coin laundry (people commonly had cars before they had washer/driers at home), schools, friends, etc.

Another factor was that trains had a bad reputation because at one time they were seen as exploitative monopolies. To push back, we got the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) with a lot of economic regulation of the trains. If a road needed a bridge over some train tracks, then maybe the train company was asked to pay for it. The unions saw the train companies as soft targets and, with the help of Congress, took advantage. So, by 1955 or so, many people in the US regarded passenger trains as something they would like never to see again.

So, for the 900 miles to Grandma's for Christmas, with lots of luggage, presents, camera equipment, and on and on, and the desire for a car when get there, the cost was really just the direct marginal operating cost, so I and nearly everyone else with a car took their car. E.g., when I drove that 900 miles, it was less than five miles from my apartment to an Interstate highway, and then I was on Interstate highways or similar for all but the last 15 miles where the traffic was very light and the roads fine.

Yes, people have thought of the idea of having a car drive onto a special car of a train and then let the train do the driving while the people sat in the car, listened to the radio, now watched a movie on a laptop with a DVD, talked, etc. Didn't work -- not enough people came.

Since the 1950s, the US has had a _love affair_ with cars.

Europe and the US have some significant differences.

Actually, for shorter distances, there are good intercity bus lines in the US. Typically can get to/from a smaller city easier on bus than train or plane.

As I recall, all of Germany is smaller than just the smaller US state of Oregon.

There are a lot of places in the world where distances are large and population density low; we will see what they do about passenger transportation -- Mongolia, Siberia, Alaska, most of Africa, most of Canada, most of South America, much of South Asia around, say, Afghanistan, etc.

<comment><USER6> Great info, well stated. I have two quibbles:

1) $0.25 gas ended circa 1973 if not before.

2) Your area estimate of Germany ended in 1990. Today's Germany is significantly larger than Oregon. The former West Germany was about the size of Oregon.

<comment><USER5> > 1) $0.25 gas ended circa 1973 if not before.

The car I was driving was either a 1967 Pontiac Firebird with a 4 speed manual transmission and a 400 cubic inch engine or a 1969 Camaro with a Turbo 400 three speed automatic transmission, a 396 cubic inch engine, and a 2.56 rear axle ratio.

> 2)

Sorry about the area of Germany -- I was drawing just from memory from a remark in some history video. I should have looked up the area.

I should also add detail to the welfare economics cost/benefit analysis of the Baltimore subway system: The analysis counted the construction cost as $0. The only costs considered were the direct marginal operating costs and the on- going maintenance costs. Still the cost/benefit analysis failed. Net, in the US it is just super tough to make passenger trains pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > This means that you don't have to touch the accelerator during stop and go > traffic because it will do it for you. Soon Model S owners will be able to > change lanes by only tapping on the turn signal stalks. No, they do not have > to buy a new Model S to get this feature, they can simply connect their car > to a wi-fi connection and get firmware updates.

As someone who grew up in NYC and never learned to drive that is not only really cool but immensely appealing.

<comment><USER8> I got adaptive cruise control in an Audi A3 last year and was amazed to find out it was first introduced in the mid 90s!

That being said it feels very futuristic having a radar in your car and makes driving on the motorway a lot more pleasant. However I now seem to spend the brain cycles I was using on judging speed imagining up bugs that could cause me to accelerate into the car in front :/

<comment><USER9> Does it work if you're following a motorbike? I'm not sure how wide a vehicle it needs to get a decent radar return.

Edit: Just looking at a Honda manual online[1], it says: "ACC may not recognize motorcycles or other small vehicles ahead of your vehicle". That's more than a little worrying.

[1] [https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/JA0606/JA0606O00...](https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/JA0606/JA0606O00237A.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Mine tracks bikes well, I think it also uses a camera mounted above the rear view mirror.

It also uses that camera to dip the headlights, which is often tricked by two lights close together (reflectors on bollards or traffic cones). It's also has to wait to see the headlights, where as I can tell they are coming a short time before.

<comment><USER10> And it doesn't dim the lights for bicycles/motorcycles. Audis are the bane of my existence. If you can turn that feature off and manually control the brights I implore you to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know about "brutally quick". Anyone who's driven an M3, S4, or any similar performance sedan isn't going to be blown away by the speed of the Model S. It's fast, but it isn't mind-blowing.

<comment><USER6> Well, there's always the Tesla P85D, which they briefly mention in the article. That's the real performance version. It's quite a bit faster at 0-60 mph than the M3, roughly 3.2 seconds vs 3.9 seconds.

And the Tesla is quiet. Here's a great video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERGldfZA5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERGldfZA5A)

I don't know how well a Tesla corners compared to German or Italian competition.

<comment><USER12> It feels pretty great in corners because the suspension keeps the car level. I don't have experience driving many other higher end cars to compare it to, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Uber's Complicit Board - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/ubers-complicit-board-9b3351cdee9 <comment><USER2> Uber was a "car sharing" company. Then it realized that some customers were cheating and acting as pirate taxis. Uber saw that as an opportunity and created a business model based on that fact.

Their business model is based on abuse employee protection laws, and ignore professional drivers regulations and fighting against them in tribunals when caught.

Years later they continue calling themselves "car sharing" company, even that it has professional drivers which only income comes from them. All their business model is based in lies, legal trickery, abuse of power, etc.

So, why people is surprised by this? I call this effect "Digital Stupidity". e.g. Opening a letter or listening to a phone call are illegal without a warrant. But, oh wait!, we are opening digital mails and listening to digital phone calls: No problem. e.g. Paying below minimum wage and breaking employment laws is wrong. But, oh wait!, we are using an app to hire our employees on a digital contract, so no problem.

Breaking employee and customer protection laws is not a good business model, even in an App. The rest of the behavior can be explained by their business model lack of any morality.

* [http://www.timesunion.com/allwcm/article/Judge-finds-NYC-Ube...](http://www.timesunion.com/allwcm/article/Judge-finds-NYC-Uber-drivers-to-be-employees-11220139.php) * [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/19/uber-appe...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/19/uber-appeal-uk-employment-ruling-drivers-working-rights) * [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/uber-to-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/uber-to-shut-down-denmark-operation-over-new-taxi-laws) * [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-appe...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/uber-appeals-against-ruling-that-its-uk-drivers-are-employees)

<comment><USER3> > Uber was a "car sharing" company. Then it realized that some customers were > cheating and acting as pirate taxis. Uber saw that as an opportunity and > created a business model based on that fact.

When I first used Uber it was black cars only. This was great - I'd learnt in the Bay Area that using black cars was cheaper than taxis, but finding a reliable company and getting it on demand was a PITA. Then Uber came along, awesome. Cheaper than what I was paying before, cheaper than a taxi, and on demand, with no tipping.

Then Lyft came along and Uber (AFAIK) copied them with Uber-X.

"Pirate taxis"? What are you talking about?

<comment><USER4> Does anyone know what on Earth the motivation was for Uber to limit their market to only black cars for such a long time? Or ever, for that matter?

<comment><USER5> They began with black cars because that was the original idea from Garrett Camp. Something on the scale of UberX wouldn't be fathomed by the Uber folks for several years yet. Then, competition showed them the way [1].

"Now, an important clarification: Unlike Lyft and Sidecar, the so-called ridesharing companies that were at that very moment making their debuts in San Francisco, the original UberX accommodated only professional drivers who held taxi licenses. Kalanick envisioned a fleet of black Toyota Priuses to be driven by the same types of licensed chauffeurs who were behind the wheels of other Uber vehicles."[1]

Also worth noting, black car drivers Uber used were licensed, just different from cab drivers.

[1] The Upstarts by Brad Stone [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905580-the- upstarts](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905580-the-upstarts)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After all the current mess gets resolved and the dust settles down (hopefully with Uber kicking the calendar), we'll still need to have a serious conversation about _how was this allowed to happen in the first place_.

Uber built their business on utter disregard for the rule of law. In the process, they highlighted just how poor - or unwilling - local governments are at enforcing their own rules. This needs to get fixed, hopefully before the next wave of "laws are for losers" "entrepreneurs" hits.

<comment><USER7> The taxis, in sf at least, are pieces of human shit. I had a badly broken leg (multiple surgeries, 10 months on crutches including a reinjury) and they were horrible to me, even though I took 8-10 cabs/week. So I was deeply grateful for uber because -- and this is a miracle compared to sf taxis -- they actually came, or if they weren't going to, they told you! That's it! I was willing to pay 2-3x just for that. SF taxis: "we'll be there in 15 minutes", which was utterly unrelated to arrival time and destroyed your ability to plan your day at all.

I've put these stats on here before, but even though I called a taxi every day to go to work -- stats are in an xlx not on this laptop, so this is approximate -- the 80% wait time was approximately an hour, for someone who lived at 22/valencia and wanted to go to soma. And they regularly just didn't show up ever. Or threw tantrums if I didn't shoot down two flights of stairs, but it was totally cool for them to come an hour after being called. And the card readers 'broke' all the time -- but when you refuse to go to an atm and tell them their choice is to take a card or take $0, lo it's a miracle! The card machine starts working! I had more than one driver get pissy they weren't tipped after they tried to make me crutch over to an atm to pay them. Or one who didn't start the meter and tried to charge me $30-ish for a ride that normally cost $16.

Oh, and try getting a cab Thurs or Fri night to go home.

It's particularly amazing that a government sponsored monopoly would treat the handicapped this way.

In conclusion, fuck yellow cab in particular, but also fuck green cab and arrow. This is why no-one cared that uber ran a taxi service. Because it was ludicrously better.

I stuck with Uber for a long time because they made my life work for the second half of the injury, but finally switched to lyft 6 months ago.

<comment><USER6> One thing that I realized in the recent Uber threads, by reading stories such as yours, is that regular taxis _in the US_ (in particular in SF and NYC) must really, really suck. I can understand the popularity of Uber there, if things were really as bad as it seems from reading HN. Maybe taxi regulations in the States are really _that_ broken.

But at some point, Uber expanded overseas, and took their laissez-faire attitude to regulations to places where taxis were kind of OK, and the laws were reasonable. That behaviour is much less forgivable there - because there isn't even a fig leaf of civil disobedience to hide behind, it's obvious money grab through anticompetitive behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Uber is what it is today because the board and Kalanick had no ethics and complete diregard for the law since the beginning.

They showed that from their very early days. If you supported the company until last year, then you supported their behavior as a whole. You cannot have your pie and eat it too.

<comment><USER9> I think it's worth making a distinction between their public and private conduct.

To be specific: I am okay with them skirting regulatory procedures. I consider this an extension of "move fast and break things". I am not okay with their purportedly rampant sexual misconduct. It is morally reprehensible and has no business value.

Roping both types of conduct under "their behavior" is a step too far, IMO.

<comment><USER10> > I am okay with them skirting regulatory procedures. I consider this an > extension of "move fast and break things".

If there were any statement that is a good summation of tech culture hubris, it's "move fast and break things." You can not and, more appropriately, should not apply that to law as a basis for your business. If you are doing something illegal in your resident locale, then you are doing something illegal and reprehensible. Full stop.

If you feel that law is unjust, then fight it in a court of law. However, intentionally breaking that law with no intention of fighting it on its merits of being just but rather on the merits of preferred business operation is a pretty clear violation of ethics. Regardless, the court's decision is ultimately what governs the upholding of a law. Being in violation of that is still illegal.

<comment><USER4> >If you feel that law is unjust, then fight it in a court of law.

This is bad advice for companies like Uber. The laws were changed far, far quicker with them simply disregarding them than they would have been with them politely asking for them to be changed with the entire global taxi industry against them.

It's also a fallacy that breaking the law is always morally reprehensible. Some laws are just stupid.

<comment><USER6> > _It 's also a fallacy that breaking the law is always morally reprehensible. > Some laws are just stupid._

Does Uber pick the laws to break by their apparent stupidity? Or just by them being inconvenient for their money-making scheme?

> _The laws were changed far, far quicker with them simply disregarding them > than they would have been with them politely asking for them to be changed > with the entire global taxi industry against them._

Well, sure, just how like I could resolve a conflict with my associate by killing him much faster than it would take me to go through courts. But the very reason for laws to exist is to safeguard the needs of the whole. Just because a law is invonvenient to an individual or an organization, doesn't mean the law is stupid or obsolete.

<comment><USER11> They're stupid because they're inconvenient to almost everyone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blue Feed, Red Feed - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/#/president-trump <comment><USER2> Man... just wow. My immediate impression of this was how great the divide is on media between the left and the right. I don't know how much of this is attributable to standard ad targeting, some facebook interest algorithm or what, but man, the divide is huge.

My second impression here though is perhaps the more impactful -- most of what I'm seeing is just ugly, ugly headlines, and in both the red and blue columns. I don't know what I did right in my life that these headlines aren't currently the kind that I'm seeing in my news and Facebook feeds, but thank heavens I did it.

It's really no wonder that people are mad about things -- these headlines are basically begging them to be.

<comment><USER3> When clicks drive profit headlines and stories take a noticeable dive in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> And Facebook emphasizes the headline keeping the person who shared it and the actual source relatively obscured. 99% of people only see the picture and the headline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an awesome project, and the type of thing I hope we continue to see more of from high profile media outlets throughout the United States. Using data visualization to break down the issues that divide is an a very concrete way, and help expose our very fractured country to the range of voices yelling in their own echo chambers. Excellent work WSJ.

</comment><comment><USER5> Andrew Sullivan wrote a good piece a few months ago related to this [1]:

>What the 21st century added to this picture, it's now blindingly obvious, was media democracy — in a truly revolutionary form. If late-stage political democracy has taken two centuries to ripen, the media equivalent took around two decades, swiftly erasing almost any elite moderation or control of our democratic discourse. The process had its origins in partisan talk radio at the end of the past century. The rise of the internet — an event so swift and pervasive its political effect is only now beginning to be understood — further democratized every source of information, dramatically expanded each outlet's readership, and gave everyone a platform. All the old barriers to entry — the cost of print and paper and distribution — crumbled.

>So much of this was welcome. I relished it myself in the early aughts, starting a blog and soon reaching as many readers, if not more, as some small magazines do. Fusty old-media institutions, grown fat and lazy, deserved a drubbing. The early independent blogosphere corrected facts, exposed bias, earned scoops. And as the medium matured, and as Facebook and Twitter took hold, everyone became a kind of blogger. In ways no 20th-century journalist would have believed, we all now have our own virtual newspapers on our Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines — picking stories from countless sources and creating a peer-to-peer media almost completely free of editing or interference by elites. This was bound to make politics more fluid. Political organizing — calling a meeting, fomenting a rally to advance a cause — used to be extremely laborious. Now you could bring together a virtual mass movement with a single webpage. It would take you a few seconds.

There's an interesting discussion to be had about this. It feels counterintuitive to say that more democracy and more equality is bad, but at least in media I think it's proving to be true. I think liberal democracy is going to be challenged going forward all over the world because of this and it may be difficult for many societies to stay that way.

[1] [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america- tyranny...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny- donald-trump.html)

<comment><USER6> The problem now is information overload. Effectively we've gone from less information, to good information, to too much information causing overload leading to less information. This makes it easy for bubbles to form by various biases.

<comment><USER7> Similar arguments were made for why the clergy should conduct prayers in latin and why literacy isn't important.

You can't just take information away or try to "curate" the information seen, that's what censorship is.

We just need to learn to live in a world where everyone knows too much about others and where it can be difficult to tell the difference between truth and lie.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, the skill to differentiate good and bad sources and get your world view from a combined set of sources, each having their own (known and accounted for biases) is key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Recently towards the end of the election I went through my feed blocking various news sites from even appearing; left or right, but especially many of the sites found in the link above.

That being said, seeing the sites from the link above, it seems like there are more tabloid/fake sites being shared by the conservative side of the isle. I wonder if this has anything to do with those Macedonians and similar people that took advantage of the fearmongering of Trump to make a profit or if those sites have always been around.

<comment><USER9> Macedonia?

How is Macedonia related to this?

<comment><USER10> There was a story in BuzzFeed a couple days ago about how there are like 140 fake conservative news sites all basically run by teenagers out of a single Macedonian town. For Adsense revenue.

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia- became...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a- global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.cigAoEJO2#.sray1om7R)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A time-travelling variant of these feeds would be fascinating. If the UK is anything to go by, the election result will see the quality of the news in these feeds jet-propelled into an abyss. I don't know if terms of service or copyright prevent archival of the feeds.

A portion of the media will conflate the idea that many racists would have voted for Donald Trump with the simplistic idea that most who voted trump are racist. Looking at the blue feed, that happened some time ago.

Next, opportunists on the other side will seize this and present the now non- controversial idea that white supremacy won, everybody else are sore losers and should get over it. Of course, the truth is much more complicated than that and you end up with a minority that would do harm believing that they are a vindicated majority, and many of the harmless majority will believe this too. Looking at the red feed, we're already at the sore losers, get over it stage.

Just as the polls got Brexit wrong, most got this election wrong. Yet in the UK, the media continue to report any opinion poll result that agrees with their own editorial perspective. What we end up with in the UK is not the will of the people, but a perverted variant of it.

I think the deeper problem boils down to the fact that many people do not want to be under-represented, but have no problem with being over-represented -- both in policy decisions and media coverage -- without acknowledging that they felt under-represented because they felt others were over-represented.

<comment><USER12> > I think the deeper problem boils down to the fact that many people do not > want to be under-represented, but have no problem with being over- > represented -- both in policy decisions and media coverage -- without > acknowledging that they felt under-represented because they felt others were > over-represented.

+1

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Facebook is a distraction and a waste of time, like watching too much TV. Stop blaming Facebook and take a look in the mirror. Turn off your computers, put down your phones, and read a god damn history book for a change people.

<comment><USER14> I'm going to blow your mind here: You can read a history book _and_ your facebook feed. They're not mutually exclusive (crazy, I know).

And please stop blaming people for doing essentially what they want. If a very, very large amount of people are doing what they shouldn't be doing, the overall system is broken. This is why we have laws, instead of simply politely asking people to stop killing each other. It's why we have regulations, instead of nicely asking companies not to dump toxic waste into their backyards.

Right now, a huge amount of media is optimized for ads instead of information and it's actively harmful to our lives. This isn't a problem that'll get resolved by nicely asking the media to stop doing what it's been doubling down on for the past decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm in the (unusual?) spot of almost exclusively seeing things in my feed from the "other" camp. That's because all my friends are on the opposite spectrum of the political compass. I actually think that's worse than only seeing things you agree with. It makes me more polarized in my views.

<comment><USER16> This is called the "backfire effect"

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect)

<comment><USER15> That's very interesting! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There seem to be a lot of headlines on the "conservative" side that take pleasure in the dismay of "liberals". I have seen this crop up on Reddit and 4chan in comments too.

Some examples:

"Here's some more incredible news that's sure to drive liberals even crazier."

"Liberal heads will explode in 3....2....1...."

"The amount of butt-hurt following Donald Trump's win has been insane"

Not sure I have any conclusions yet, just an observation.

<comment><USER17> The liberals are a kind of politically oppressed demographic and cultural majority. Conservatives enjoy the sensation of lording their control of the political sphere over liberals. It's validation of their position that nothing else is currently providing them.

<comment><USER18> I think it might have something to do with the right being absolutely (and not always fairly) demonized by the media over the course of this election cycle. You can expect schadenfreude for a little while. The left certainly engaged in the same in 2008 and 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can someone share some screenshots? I have *.facebook.com blocked on multiple levels, so the feeds are empty for me.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone know a way to filter the feed to words other than the terms given?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a great project and really gives you a great understanding of how bad each side has gotten.

</comment><comment><USER22> anyone didn't know this is how ALL these sites work... just doesn't care about facts, or the news... or the world even. if you care... you check facts... if you don't... then you don't check.

</comment><comment><USER23> The left got their safe space. Did they expect that the same algorithm wouldn't result in a hate space for the right?

<comment><USER7> Safe space for the right.

A being a space where someone is free to express themselves. For the right, whether you agree with them or not, that space was no longer the mainstream.

By labeling yours a "safe space" and theirs as "hate space" you are part of the problem.

<comment><USER23> > The left got _their_ safe space.

Note emphasis. More explicitly stated: the "safe space" that was invented/demanded by the left is why the algorithm created a "hate space" for the right. The red never asked for hate, it is what the left fed them.

Not correctly listening to your opponents' arguments is the actual problem here. Regurgitating arguments is the problem here. Presumption about another person's stance is the problem here. This is exactly how the working class in America got angry and voted. They were screaming to be heard and all they got is "you are part of the problem. Shut up, you are in my safe space."

As it turns out, the notion of having a "safe space" is as bad a "hate space," because in the end both are hate spaces.

<comment><USER24> Exactly. That's kind of the point of free speech to begin with, at least in part. If a person can only express oneself in a specific zone, you end up with bottled emotions, ideas and frustrations boiling over by the time the arrive.

Combine that with the generalization that occurs on the more polarizing subjects (life/choice, guns, violence, police, race. . .) It snowballs.

Especially in a culture where there is a fear of expressing an opinion such as 'my body, my life' or 'all lives matter' or 'guns don't kill, people do' will often result in hate from acquaintances and strangers .

As a society, I think we're are still learning how to deal with the idea that anyone can say something with the potential to be seen by the masses, and be responded to in kind -and en masse.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Secrecy, overclassification, and the the CIA's hidden history - <AUTHOR> https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/sep/30/unraveling-cia-secrecy/ <comment><USER2> Would it be safe to say that CIA (and NSA and other parts of the intelligence community) is the actual "State within the State" (i.e., the so-called "Deep State")?

"National security", almost at any cost, became the paramount prerogative of US intelligence agencies. However, they seem to be using a military criteria in a civil environment, which was supposed to be transparent enough for accountability.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue today's situation is, despite many problems, still comparatively better than the past: the Hoover era, as the most salient example, was vastly more corrupt and undemocratic.

It's crucial in this regard to distinguish two issues: (a) to what degree do these institutions wield power unchecked by democratically-elected/legitimized institutions (President/Congress/Courts), and (b) those institutions commanding certain secret programs you (or I) disagree with (i. e. the stuff Snowden revealed).

Despite some regression in the last two years, there is still at least _some_ accountability, as the current whistleblower demonstrates. But, of course, the safety margin is shrinking. With enough turnover in some key positions, a future whistleblower may just find their legitimate complaint buried.

<comment><USER4> > With enough turnover in some key positions, a future whistleblower may just > find their legitimate complaint buried.

Couldn't you say this has already happened with e.g. Snowden?

<comment><USER5> Did Snowden try to go they official channels? I don't think he did, Snowden (mostly rightly) decided to bypass the existing reporting systems.

<comment><USER6> He didn't, and I recall that Snowden was motivated to do so outside the reporting systems after he saw the Director of National Intelligence straight- up lie to Congress.

Snowden was pretty smart; it's quite a good thing that he chose to act in good faith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great article. It brings back to mind a question I had recently: what gives the federal government, specifically the executive branch, the power to classify information at all?

I know there are laws and executive orders that say they can do that, but I'm wondering what the ultimate authority derives from in the Constitution. If it's not a simple explanation, are there any scholarly legal articles I can look at?

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the_United_States#Executive_privilege)

<comment><USER7> Upvote for trying, but executive privilege isn't quite it, IMO. All that does is protect the papers and communications of government officials in a way that makes them less accessible to the courts.

State secrets privilege[0] is closer, but not quite it. All that does is allow the executive to say in court "sorry, that's classified, state secrets privilege," and have certain evidence excluded. It doesn't really get to the root of what allowed the government to classify the information in the first place.

My suspicion is that it derives somehow from the president's role as commander-in-chief, but I'm not very familiar with the legal scholarship behind it.

<comment><USER9> The federal government has the power to classify information because it owns it. The primary purpose of a state is to preserve itself. The ability to control access to secrets is critical to this. It's a bit like asking "What gives the government the right to execute the laws?" Because that's what it's meant to do.

<comment><USER10> That's not the primary purpose of government in the United States. And that's not how government derives the right to execute laws in the United States.

We govern ourselves. The government is given the right to execute laws by the people who vote. The Bill of Rights clarified that any other rights are reserved by the people.

Additionally, most federal information is public domain and owned by the people. That's why Freedom of Information Act requests are effective.

Freedom isn't free and things might not always be this way if we don't protect our freedoms.

<comment><USER9> The United States government classification system is established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.

<comment><USER7> Right, but what's the constitutional basis for those laws, regulations, and executive orders?

<comment><USER9> The preamble of the EO only says: by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I always found it annoying how things get "declassified" only after anyone that could have provided context and good points of objection, in order to develop a better system of rules, is dead.

How can you expect to perfect a system by making the negative feedback loop ineffective.

<comment><USER12> It's a tricky balance between that and protecting the people involved from harm, as well as protecting methods that may still be of use. I think the US government is too conservative about when to release information, but in many cases even less conservative standards will result in information being withheld until most or all of the principals are dead.

<comment><USER11> I agree that's the argument used, but you have to weigh that against the possibility that it also incentivises malicious actor(s) to subversive behavior because they will not be held accountable for their actions.

In the grand scheme of things it comes to a subjective decision point, and I would tend to argue that an increase in accountability toward the customers (us), wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

<comment><USER12> Hence why I think the US government is too conservative in deciding these matters. The accountability to us is supposed to come via our Congresscritters, but that clearly has issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are academic researchers have written about this topic:

Amy Benjamin: The Many Faces of Secrecy [https://ssrn.com/abstract=3038640](https://ssrn.com/abstract=3038640)

"Political secrecy in the United States has never been more studied – and less understood – than it is today. This irony is due in large part to the slippery nature of the phenomenon: Secrecy presents in different guises depending on the area of governmental activity under consideration. In the classified world of the U.S. national security state, secrecy results from affirmative governmental acts designed to enforce a sharp distinction between official and public knowledge...."

</comment><comment><USER14> To better understand this organization and its inner workings i highly recommend the book "Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer.

<comment><USER15> How about "Legacy of Ashes"?

[https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim- Weiner/dp/03...](https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim- Weiner/dp/0307389006)

<comment><USER16> Came here to post this. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For one thing, the quality of the author's research speaks for itself:

"The book is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Ashes_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Ashes_\(book\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's perfect timing this gets brought up because with all this news about Xinjiang, HK, East Ukraine, etc. we need to make sure China, Russia and so on also let us examine their transparency and protocols so we can give a rigorous, thorough checkup for human rights abuses. This being all about fairness and truth and we need to make sure everyone else can be held accountable to the same standards.

I look forward to a new muckrock feature where FOIA can be sent to Iran, China, and Russia to open up like USA and other European countries.

Also since US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange, I'm sure Russia/China/other countries targeting USA won't have any leakers themselves. Their people being so well treated and obedient, such great gentlemen, even if they feel flustered and out of place over there, no matter, they can just trust in the virtues of their system and everything will be just fine. :)

/s

<comment><USER18> So in your eyes, "probably better than China" is the optimum?

<comment><USER19> If USA government employees are more accountable than China government employees, China wins!

<comment><USER17> I doubt US Department of Agriculture or Department of Education operate abroad or have human rights issues to FOIA, you can try.

> If USA government employees are more accountable than China government > employees, China wins!

"Transparency and accountability in foreign policy/information gathering only applies to the country with a FOIA system conveniently available and uses english!"

<comment><USER19> ITT we're complaining about "overclassification" and other sins of USA's unsupervised services. (I hadn't been familiar with the atrocities in Indonesia linked by TFA...) We're not sure what you're on about. Do you mean that China and other nations have not respected human rights? We all agree. What else do you intend to say? Do you really think that "US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange"? If that were the case, surely a name-brand media firm like WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN, etc. would have published such evangelizing in the last several years, but they haven't. Some smaller firms do mention them, but I note that TFA doesn't. Why have you introduced this red herring?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Accidentally reveals iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id917481145?mt=11 <comment><USER2> At first I thought this was an 'accidental' leak. As in, a response to steal Google's thunder.

Then it hit me, and it will become immediately clear to anyone who's ever pushed an app to the App Store, this highlights their broken process for pushing apps to the store. Who ever was in charge of submitting this particular app probably didn't click the right button and just had it set to release upon approval.

Hilarious.

<comment><USER3> _a response to steal Google 's thunder_

Probably not, as I believe it was the other way around.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? It has been known for days that the new Nexus units would be announced today.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps that Google's Nexus release itself was timed to steal Apple's thunder (the date of which has also been known well in advance)? I'm sure something like this is the case, though we can, of course, speculate all day long about who is trying to steal whose thunder.

The real explanation probably is simply that both have devices that they want to release in time for the holiday shopping season, and it does not do either of them any good to have a new, competing product on the market, dominating the media coverage. If their competitor's product is out there being talked about, they want to make sure their own product is mentioned in the same breath. Who is stealing whose "thunder" is just a subjective spin that we put on the events as observers.

<comment><USER6> Ha! The jokes on them! I'm able to pay attention to both of them at the same time. Suckers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does it strike anyone else that Apple's product line is starting to sound complicated?

<comment><USER3> Yes, and recall that this was one of the key problems that Jobs fixed when he came back.

Bigger iPad=Air, but smaller Macbook=Air. Bigger Macbook=Pro, but bigger iPhone=Plus.

When the iWatch comes out, it'll get worse.

<comment><USER8> Actually, it's just called the Watch.

(Case and point)

<comment><USER9> To be even more pedantic: ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜ

<comment><USER10> He's right, in all the branding in all the promotional materials that I've seen, they use 0xF8FF.

I looked it up, 0xF8FF () is the Apple symbol. If it renders as a square/rectangular box on your computer, it's because it's trademarked and a logo, which means you need an Apple font to render it. (Which I/you don't have, because Apple fonts only come with Apple computers.)

Just responding because I saw this comment was downvoted.

<comment><USER11> And if you're using some common Linux fonts (I'm pretty sure it's dejavu, in this case) that character renders as the Klingon Empire logo.

0xF8FF is in the Unicode Private Use range, so any font is allowed to put whatever they want there :) (If you're curious what your current font has: [http://www.unicodemap.org/range/78/Private_Use/](http://www.unicodemap.org/range/78/Private_Use/))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The iPad has had such a weird naming convention:

\- iPad

\- iPad 2

\- The new iPad

\- I don't even know what the 4th gen was called.

\- iPad Air

\- iPad Air 2

I was hoping for 4 speakers (one at each corner) for stereo sound in both orientations.

<comment><USER13> 4th gen was iPad with Retina Display.

Edit: to everybody responding that the 3rd gen ("The new iPad") had a retina display, I was pointing out the marketing name for the 4th gen.

<comment><USER14> the 3rd gen got Retina. the 4th gen was only to include the lightening connector.

<comment><USER15> It was also a significant SoC upgrade, from A5X to A6X. The iPad 4th gen could handle the Retina display much more smoothly.

<comment><USER16> The fact that I need to remember that and tell my friends to watch out for that pitfall when they order their "new" iPad is just frustrating.

<comment><USER15> What do you mean? There are no pitfalls when buying a new iPad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure that I agree that they have too many products or the names have gotten confusing. You can still fit all their products on a single desk. A company of that size, with that kind of revenue, and so few product offerings is nuts.

Also, this "leak", how is it different from other leaks in the past? There were leaks all around the iPhone 4. I don't think leaks matter too much to the average consumer. When Apple does a product announcement, I tell my folks about it. 9 times out of 10 they had no idea.

Hiccups happened in Jobs' keynotes _all_ the time. More options isn't a bad thing. The mobile market is maturing. No big deal.

</comment><comment><USER18> How little actual information is contained in this "leak".

"The Air 2 and Mini 3 exist. With TouchID. They remain physically unchanged."

</comment><comment><USER19> Direct link to the image on one of their CDNs: [http://a4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Publication3/v4/2c/22/0d/2c220...](http://a4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Publication3/v4/2c/22/0d/2c220d4c-e978-89df-c0d6-d0883e42737d/ipad1.480x480-75.jpg)

<comment><USER20> Direct HD link: [https://s4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Publication3/v4/2c/22/0d/2c22...](https://s4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Publication3/v4/2c/22/0d/2c220d4c-e978-89df-c0d6-d0883e42737d/ipad1.960x960-75.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Big deal. These "specs" are all-but-obvious. Everyone knows the new iPads will have TouchID.

</comment><comment><USER22> Another black rectangular tablet. Slightly different form factor. What's the big deal?

</comment><comment><USER23> Steve Jobs Apple era is gone for good:

\- leaks

\- more options, more complicated lineup (iPhone 5C/5S, 6, 6+, iPad too)

\- competing with Android instead of differentiating (larger phones, customization)

\- hiccups during keynote

Not necessary a bad thing, but something is gone and it's unlikely to return soon. Probably Apple will benefit in short term, but long term doesn't look so clear.

<comment><USER24> The complicated lineup is probably more related to a maturing market

<comment><USER25> laptop is a matured market and the lineup under Jobs was very straight forward (Macbook, macbook pro, macbook air).

EDIT: Since all the reply to my comment seem to complety miss my point, here it is:

Apple's laptop lineup is very straight forward compared to their competitor in regards to LAPTOP. Have a look at HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo's[1] offering. They have like 30 different laptops.

[1] [http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops](http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops)

<comment><USER26> A straightforward laptop line that had more size options than are available for either iPhones or iPads. I think they had six sizes at once going for a while? Two airs, three MBPs, one MB?

<comment><USER25> How about you compare the laptop lineup with its own industry?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's doubtful that this was unintentionally released hours after Google makes new announcements about its Nexus devices. A classic 'steal-the-thunder' move.

I think Google still ends up getting more press, since their releases are more interesting, but it's not a bad play by Apple.

<comment><USER28> Well they have an event tomorrow anyway

<comment><USER27> Google made their announcement the day before the Apple event strategically.

Apple 'leaked' this new info to try to steal some of the attention from Google, and get people talking about what else they will reveal at the event tomorrow, thus shifting the conversation back to Apple.

None of this happens accidentally. It's all very well-timed and follows the classic playbook for "crashing" your competitor's news.

<comment><USER29> If the Nexus devices were available for pre-order today, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, since they aren't available for pre-order until the 17th, the day after the Apple announcement, then I doubt Apple is worried. Apple knows full well that they will dominate the new tomorrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does everyone kvetching about Apple's product line realize that they have many different product lines? And that there are only 2 iPads (which only people on HN refer to with a generation number, Apple just calls them the iPad Mini and iPad Air).

Steve jobs came back and simplified their desktop and laptop lineup from each having like 10 models to each having 2 or 3 clearly defined models. As they add phones, tablets and watches should each have only 1 model so that the absolute number of models in all of Apple's businesses stay constant?

</comment><comment><USER31> Is this Apple's attempt to steal the spotlight away from today's Android & Nexus launches?

<comment><USER29> If the new Nexus devices were available for pre-order today: maybe. Since the Nexus devices are not available for pre-order until the day after the iPad announcement: unlikely.

<comment><USER5> I don't see why the preorder date would matter so much. I would think that this would be much more about manipulating the tech press to divert resources that would have been used to cover the Nexus announcements to, instead, cover the leak. If this was intentional, it would be about "mindshare," not about merely staving off a few preorders. (There are probably also not a lot of people preordering Nexus devices who would be so easily nudged into buying an iPad.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> i thought the ipad mini 3 was called iphone 6 plus

<comment><USER33> That would be an iPad Mini Air

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The iOS showing is also 8.1.

<comment><USER35> They've already released 8.1 beta 2 to developers. Apple's been waiting to release it publicly after Yosemite is released.

<comment><USER36> Based on the rumors that Apple Pay is coming this weekend, I think 8.1 is likely to be released tomorrow or Friday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> An hour after Google announced its stuff. Sure. Just a coincidence.

<comment><USER35> I feel like it's almost never a coincidence with 'leaks' from tech firms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I honestly don't think Apple ever does something accidentally related to marketing. Everything is planned and executed to perfection. You can say a lot about Apple, but they're very good at marketing and "accidentally" stealing attention (remember that guy "leaving" his unreleased iPhone in a bar?).

<comment><USER39> Like the firmware update (iOS 8.0.1) that completely disabled cellular and the touchid reader on iPhone 6?

Looks like QA is slipping heavily these days.

<comment><USER38> Granted, that was not good, but I did mean marketing-related accidents only.

<comment><USER40> Jobs told on stage that FaceTime was going to be an open standard, and anyone could connect to it. Granted, WWDC is a developer conference but a WWDC keynote is still very much a marketing event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Confirmed by TC: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/15/apple-leaks-the-ipad- air-2-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/15/apple-leaks-the-ipad-air-2-and- ipad-mini-3/)

</comment><comment><USER42> When are they going to update their laptops? Air?

<comment><USER3> They generally update Mac hardware in the spring.

<comment><USER43> No, that's not true. Well, spring might be true this time around, but it's not typically spring.

They have been in lockstep with Intel ever since the switch to Intel. Look at Intels roadmap and you will know when there will be new Macs. It's as simple as that.

(Of course, this only applies to their best selling Macs, specifically all their mobile Macs. Others may be a bit more neglected and updated less frequently or only six months after Intel comes out with their new CPUs.)

<comment><USER3> True, I was going more or less on personal recollection, and it when I've bought new machines. That said, I've had horrible luck, and I tell people that if they want to know if Apple is about to announce new MacBooks, ask me if I've bought one in the last couple of weeks :-)

I believe it is rumored that they'll announce new iMacs (and by extension, I'm hoping for a new Thunderbolt display). According to BGR, supposedly they'll announce a 12" MacBook Air Retina

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> In a gripping development, an accidental release indicates that the two devices will look... pretty much identical to the current versions. But they'll have a HIGHER NUMBER at the end, so this is HOT NOOZE! (facepalm)</comment>


Announcing Hipmunk's $15M Series B Funding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmunk.com/1/post/2012/06/announcing-hipmunks-15m-series-b-funding.html <comment><USER2> Am I the only one that thinks "Ugh, not making money yet"?

Yes yes, I know about burning cash (err, growing) as fast as possible to lock down winner-take-all markets, but travel booking doesn't seem like one of those. There doesn't seem to be any switching cost other than typing a different url in the browser. I don't see any network effects. Am I missing something?

This is a business with revenue streams and cash flow. They've been around for two years. They've already raised more than $5mm. When I hear "we raised another venture round" my gut reaction is concern, not congratulations.

As far as the product goes: The UX is nice. But every time I tried hipmonk, the prices were higher than what I found elsewhere, so I stopped using it.

<comment><USER3> > every time I tried hipmonk, the prices were higher than what I found > elsewhere

Can you be more specific? We (Hipmunk) get our data from the same places that most everyone does, fares aren't really something that's variable from site- to-site (Southwest aside)

The only thing I can think of is that we list fares after taxes and fees, and many other sites list fares before them

<comment><USER2> Here is an example: One-way flight SFO -> LEX (sadly relevant to my interests) somewhere around August 20.

Hipmonk, $245: [https://img.skitch.com/20120613-8rregkqr2exgrcppt87j8hggy8.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120613-8rregkqr2exgrcppt87j8hggy8.jpg)

Kayak, $179: [https://img.skitch.com/20120613-gjy1r3as42atrp3ack1m24eyc8.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120613-gjy1r3as42atrp3ack1m24eyc8.jpg)

For some reason Hipmonk isn't finding the $179 United flights. That $179 includes taxes and fees.

In addition, Hipmonk's flexible search is far more limited than Kayak's. Hipmonk allows +2 days for a total of 3 possible. Kayak searches +/- 3 days, for a total of 7. Also Kayak has the "nearby airports" feature which often drops the price even further (Louisville is $149) - especially in the Bay Area where SFO and OAK are both a bart ride away.

<comment><USER3> > Hipmonk allows +2 days for a total of 3 possible. Kayak searches +/- 3 days, > for a total of 7.

Actually you can change that text field to say "+-3". We're both using the same feature of our mutual data provider ITA. And if you search for the same day this way, you get the same fares on both sites.

> Also Kayak has the "nearby airports" feature which often drops the price > even further (Louisville is $149) - especially in the Bay Area where SFO and > OAK are both a bart ride away

We do that automatically when you give us a city name (like "San Francisco" vs "SFO"). You can also just add comma-separated airports if you know the codes.

I don't pretend our UI exposes these the best, but we really are getting the same data from the same companies.

<comment><USER2> _Actually you can change that text field to say "+-3"._

Wow, that is a totally hidden feature. Even worse, if you click the + button, it tops out at +2 and then greys out. Same with the - button and -2. My offhand suggestion is 3 buttons: plus adds days after, minus adds days before, and a third that resets to day-of only.

 _We do that automatically when you give us a city name (like "San Francisco" vs "SFO")._

Also a completely hidden feature. You can probably help mitigate that by putting "San Francisco, CA (and nearby airports)" in the dropdown list.

You're alienating all of the flexible-dates travelers right on the first page... seems like you might get a lot of immediate result out of just fixing these usability issues.

I notice the missing $179 United fare now shows up. What was up with that? Bug?

FWIW, now that I know how this works (and assuming the price issues are taken care of), I will use himpunk for my next flight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Feels like just yesterday I published this first blog post:

<http://blog.hipmunk.com/1/post/2010/08/hello-world.html>

I can't believe how much the site & company has grown since - it's a testament to the fabulous product and team. Onward & upward!

<comment><USER5> Congrats!

I just noticed your homepage is starting to get busy. Please don't put too much stuff on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always feel hipmunk has the most expensive prices out of any other airline search engine. They might do it differently, which I like, but their prices seem higher than any other site.

I also love what priceline offers, their price negotiator!!! It always hits well below what the prices of airlines currently offer. Any plans to put this in the future of hipmunk?

<comment><USER7> Searching for flights sucks, hard. Fixing it with a better ui is a great thing. But ultimately we're experiencing that pain in large part trying to get the best prices. I search for flights about twice a year. Usually between two not-a-hub destinations (currently dublin-tel aviv) so its even harder. Every time I have to do it, I wish that things have improved. They haven't.

Basically, I:

\- Go to 3-4 engines or portals. Try to figure out all the airline flying that routes. See who flies where.

\- Go to the airlines' sites directly, see if they prices are better (usually they are). Try to remember which airlines (RyanAir) never have fares listed on aggregators. Fill out captchas and tick on boxes to be let in.

\- See what the prices are for the most expensive leg & try to put together my own route using two separately bought tickets.

\- Try to think of some more exotic routes: change airports in London, fly through a Greek resort island, whatever.

\- Call a travel agent to see if they can do better.

I might not get all the way down this list.When I do, I rarely see the same fare twice. When I lived in Australia the stakes were higher and I always went down the whole horrible list. I hate doing this. I'd pay good money to avoid it. But, for my use case UI crappiness isn't the issue(even though doing your grocery shopping on Ebay in 1998 would be a better experience). The problem is centralizing all the available fares onto one site.

<comment><USER7> Just as an experiment, I tried looking for a trip on hipmunk that I have booked for 10 days from now. Prices start arund $1000 per leg, about 250% higher than what I paid (coincidentally for the same flight).

Slight tangent: You can get these flights (dublin-tel aviv) for around $600-$900 _round trip_ if you're reasonably early and flexible. Why does hipmunk even offer me a $7500 leg that takes 24hr and fly through Toronto? Shouldn't their agony detector realize that no sane person would want this? Isn't good UI also removing useless information? If they want to demonstrate how thorough they are (also important) aren't there easier ways?

I don't mean to be picking on hipmunk. They're obviously dedicated to good user experience and they do a great job of presenting the large amount of information one needs to process in order to book a flight. If any Hipmunk people are reading please take any snarkiness as a cry for help. I really do want a better experience booking flights I'm looking to you guys for them.

<comment><USER8> _Just as an experiment, I tried looking for a trip on hipmunk that I have booked for 10 days from now. Prices start arund $1000 per leg, about 250% higher than what I paid (coincidentally for the same flight)._

That's a terrible experiment, fares almost always go up as you get closer to the departure date. If you want to do that, check the same thing on the airline's own site.

In my experience hipmunk _isn't_ more expensive than any other site. In fact, every site will quote you the same darn price for the same darn flight, because airline fares are a lot more formalized than most people seem to be assuming.

<comment><USER7> You're right, but it would have been anecdote either way.

BTW, that's not my experience at all. My experience is every site quotes a completely different price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any suggestions for what I should ask Adam? We're recording his Mixergy interview tomorrow about Hipmunk.

<comment><USER4> I recommend asking about how important a role his bizdev played in prep for launching the site as well as signing on partners thereafter. The amount of hustle it took to get us in the door with OTAs/airlines at first is not something I see in many of my startups.

<comment><USER10> Why don't YOU tell us :) I'd love to hear about it. Bizdev/Marketing is still really undervalued in startup land.

<comment><USER4> Heh. I did none of the bizdev, which really made the difference with getting hipmunk off the ground (and is a unique startup proposition). If you wanna know about my marketing/PR brandbuilding, just watch my class on Making Something People Love: [http://generalassemb.ly/start/fundamentals-of- entrepreneursh...](http://generalassemb.ly/start/fundamentals-of- entrepreneurship/making-something-people-love)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain how do these free flight search engines make money?

In my case I search using Kayak, but never really book the ticket from Kayak (don't follow their link to the airline). I go directly to the airline site and book it there. Many people I know do the same. I despise using Orbitz/Priceline other than just a cursory glance to see if there are cheaper tickets. I know that sometimes an itinerary involves multiple airlines and that is when there might be an advantage booking through, say Orbitz, but even in those cases I just book separate tickets.

Why is this free search/booking industry still unsaturated and is there really a demand for such capital infusion?

Update: My question is specific to flight search, because I think hotel search can be profitable model as sometimes these sites provide better rates than the hotel's site.

<comment><USER12> _"In my case I search using Kayak, but never really book the ticket from Kayak."_

A lot of people do book from Kayak just because it's easier. So, don't assume you are the typical customer here. Also, I am not familiar with Hipmunk's numbers but I believe that hotel search is the real revenue generator for these sites, and flight search just acts to get people in the door.

<comment><USER11> True, I think logic suggests most people find it convenient to just click the result link on Kayak, which has made it so easy compared to Oribts, which has its own booking engine. So I am guessing they just make a very small percentage of the sale just for referring.

If as you say the hotel search is the real deal, it makes sense. Which leads me to the next thought, wonder why hotels haven't caught up with the airline industry in having a fairly realistic price listing on their own site? In fact, most of the times I am ok just booking using priceline bidding for hotels.

<comment><USER8> _wonder why hotels haven't caught up with the airline industry in having a fairly realistic price listing on their own site?_

What do you mean? Most hotels nowadays give you exactly the same price on their site as you'd get from orbitz/expedia/hipmunk.

If you mean a price _list_ rather than a get-a-quote-for-a-particular-day, then that's not in their interests (they don't really want you to know how much they're gouging you on busy nights), but it's been a fair while since I stayed in a hotel which didn't have a price search thing on their site.

Priceline and hotwire are, of course, always cheaper than getting a named hotel, if you're clever about it.

I have to say, though, if hotel search is the real cash cow (as I suspect it is) then I think hipmunk should spend some more time working on it. Their interface for flight search is the greatest, and I use it all the time. But the hotel search I find to be confusing and clunky so I rarely use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find that the ITA iOS app from <http://itasoftware.com/> (Google owned) consistently brings me the best prices and then I book direct through the airlines website.

I fly mainly International.

</comment><comment><USER14> i probably should have invested in this one when i had the chance.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats to Adam and the whole team at Hipmunk. It's always great to see investments into travel startups, it's a big space in need of lots of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER16> While we are on the subject, does anyone have a good website to find when is the cheapest time to fly to a particular city?

<comment><USER17> I like Adioso, though I think it works best within australia. Give it a try!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats to Adam and the team!

</comment><comment><USER19> What, and not a down-round? Congratulations! You must have had a heart-attack a few days ago with PG's email...

update: would be nice to know when you guys closed this...someone says it was a while ago?

<comment><USER20> What's this comment referring to?

<comment><USER21> This: [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fallout-y- combinator...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fallout-y-combinators- paul-graham-just-emailed-portfolio-companies-warning-of-bad-times-in-silicon- valley-2012-6?op=1)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find optimal type of user to target? - <AUTHOR> We are about ready to launch a service that has a broad appeal (think YouTube, Google, Office - something "everybody" uses).
We want to target different types of users, e.g. millennials, veterans, seniors, in our marketing, and obviously want to target the group that is most positive towards our service first.
What service would you use to run a survey among all types of users, to find out which type of user / demographic responds best to the service? <comment><USER2> Something simple and free, like Google forms. Find your first niche, the ones who feel a pain most acutely, then focus on them, and not the big market for everyone.

Check out the book Crossing the Chasm</comment>


"Amazon Remembers" uses the Mechanical Turk to find stuff - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/12/amazon-proves-i.html

<comment><USER2> There's a massive amount of information being generated in those associations. I wonder if Amazon is working on that data.</comment>


[Tesla] Solar Roof Cheaper Than Regular Roof BEFORE Solar Energy - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2016/11/17/tesla-solar-roof-cost-less-than-regular-roof-even-before-energy-production-elon-musk/ <comment><USER2> ...for replacing concrete and ceramic roofs. Which are popular in some sunny places but absolutely absent in northern climates. Which may be ok, since we have poor solar potential anyway (sun always at an angle through lots of atmosphere).

</comment><comment><USER3> This initially sounded quite surprising to me, how can a high-technology product compete with something as incredibly low technology as roofing material? It turns out that I was thinking of the ubiquitous roofing material where I live: asphalt shingles. The solar roof panels might be competitive with concrete and slate roofs, which typically cost (from a few minutes of Internet research) 2 to 3x the cost of an asphalt roof.

(I suspect there are more than just economic and stylistic reasons for the choice of one type versus the other. Here in the Midwest, we randomly get hailstorms causing major roof damage. I wonder if a "hard" roof (asphalt has a bit of give) is even more vulnerable?)

<comment><USER4> A steel roof will last for the life of your house.

Kinda ugly though, and people don't love the sound it makes.

<comment><USER5> I imagine that a steel roof must be horrible in a hailstorm. Rain is bad enough already. But probably good for remote places to avoid maintenance.

<comment><USER6> I lived right under the roof for a few years and I had a window ledge made of metal on my bedroom window. It was horribly lound when it rained :(

<comment><USER7> Yes, I lived in a place where they commonly put a steel sheet on the window sills (not sure of the terminology), probably to protect the concrete from water infiltration, and it was horrible as soon as it rained. And it rained a lot. Like almost always when it was not snowing.

In fact, it was worse when the rain was just a drizzle and the drops coming from above the window would fall distinctly, one after the other, on the sheet.

In the place where I am now, metal roofs are only used for barns (or industrial warehouse and such, if there was any).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I predict this to be at least 10x off the mark. Concrete roof tile is about €2-3 a piece and lasts 50 years. 16 of these make a square meter.

<comment><USER9> From the article:

>He said that the glass developed by Tesla for the solar roof tiles weigh "a third, a quarter and sometimes even a fifth" of other current concrete and ceramic roof solutions. Musk calculated that because of the weight and fragility of the current products, logistic costs and breakage are important parts of the total cost.

You clearly don't get how much can be saved by handling a much lighter panel. Tiles are so much more fragile than eggs where costly solutions like paper mash carriers are used and only a fraction arrive at the customer. Also tiles are so perishable that storing them costs a ton - especially as they need expensive support infrastructures like pallets, ground and often fresh air.

The thing that still confuses me is why panels less difficult to handle if one is heavier and larger than a single tile. Probably I need to move a step right to re-enter the distortion field. Right, now I feel I get it. Can't explain it but it definitely feels spacey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm interested in knowing if this includes the cost of the batteries the roof will be charging. The Powerwall is listed as $5,500 for 14kWh, so I suspect not. Also, it sounds like he's referencing tile roofs when making the cost comparison.</comment>