Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/seattle-millennials-economy-student-debt-politics.html <comment><USER3> It depends on who you ask. The narrative here is of precarious terror. Other people will have a different story.

Seattle attracts a _lot_ of people, and they often have sticker shock because they didn't do enough research. _And_ , a lot of people feel entitled to live in the hippest neighborhoods very cheap.

That said. The writer needs to contextualize this. In 2001, the year I went to college, the Twin Towers fell and a plane crashed into the Pentagon: being someone who had read some history, I was sure that day that, attackers being intelligent, a wave of guerilla attacks would go off against major military and civilian targets. Surprisingly, that didn't happen.

In 1983, deep fear of the USSR was playing out.

In 1974, the US was in Vietnam. Many people were dying constantly, and it was on the TV nightly.

In 1968, campuses rioted. Bewilderment set in over the nation.

In 1961, the Soviets/East Germans put up the Berlin Wall.

In 1948, the Cold War started.

In 1939, WW2 started.

In 1932, FDR became president, in a _profound_ economic situation far worse than what we've seen since.

I could go on. _The future is scary_. But since it happens regardless of our personal choices, our best bet is to keep a stiff upper lip, our chin up, and wade into the stream, keeping a weather eye out to maximize our luck surface.

<comment><USER4> As someone in Europe I just don't understand the level of fear among Americans who are in the safest position probably of any population ever. Is it just media bias?

If I lived in eastern Europe any where near Turkey right now I'd be more afraid.

<comment><USER3> > As someone in Europe I just don't understand the level of fear among > Americans who are in the safest position probably of any population ever. Is > it just media bias?

No. People _really are_ that afraid.

I don't know why.

<comment><USER5> Fear is a powerful political tool. If you can make people afraid, you can control them. Daesh knows this. Governments know this. Media knows this.

The antidote is:

1\. Practice information hygiene. Who is saying it? How do they benefit in making you afraid? What are the opposing viewpoints? Where is the evidence? 2\. Be aware of cognitive biases. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) 3\. Know history (this is especially hard for Americans). At least the history of the issue at stake.

<comment><USER6> _> Fear is a powerful political tool. If you can make people afraid, you can control them._

I don't think that's the whole of it though. A large part of the American media / news system is still profit driven -- I'd say a large enough part to swamp editorial intent if the two butt heads.

It seems to me another explanation for the evidence is that people _like_ being afraid.

<comment><USER4> I've mentioned elsewhere that a profit driven media leads to sensationalism and emotion driven content over objective fact telling.

That is the one thing that I can think of that is particularly American but there does still seem an inverse instinct within the US, where someone in say Alabama, who is as likely to be touched by a terrorist as they are by aliens are more likely to be a doomsday prepper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These feelings are not unique to our generation -- they are part of becoming aware enough of everything around you. I would agree though that most of my friends don't believe they're building a future for themselves. Several friends in their mid-thirties don't have retirement accounts because they strongly believe it supports an unethical economy.

The idea that the nation seemed more "stable" in the 70's is an insane amount of historical ignorance though. The 70s did teach us that political engagement was essentially a lost cause, and we need another way to make progress. I'm not sure getting Carter makes up for Thatcher and Reagan's follow up destruction.

<comment><USER8> Stable in the 70s? I keep hearing this but I don't buy it. Rolling off of Vietnam. The oil crisis. Inflation. Decimation of manufacturing.

I wasn't around then but we're they actually good?

<comment><USER9> I was fairly young, so didn't have huge awareness of oil crisis, as i didn't drive until the 80s. Slightly tongue in cheek here...

The bad:

Constant strikes, works to rule, sympathetic strikes (miners going out in sympathy with the rail works and other such silliness), having to be bailed out by the IMF, three day week and doing homework by candle light due to electric strikes. Horrific fashions and decor. So much bad music! Godawful food - this was when the UK earned the reputtion for terrible food, and it was well deserved. thankfully we're well out the other side of that reputation. High inflation if you were a saver. I recall my childhood saving account paying 16% one year! Tech was a calculator, a record player and a speak and spell. The internet was having a penfriend!

The good:

Simpler expectations, no great media missions to have government "do something" after every minor crime and accident. No 24hr news so little chance of hearing about the 1:1,000,000,000 crime that took place 500 miles away. Terrorism existed, but didn't result in wholesale change of the way we lived. "They won't change our way of life" was the usual refrain rather than "we need a war on terror"[1]. As a householder, _high interest rates._ Yes really. As a worker it led to regular, large, wage rises - often perceived to be good whatever your stance on the economics. After 3 years at 15%+ the mortgage you made a huge stretch to take has reduced to affordable. After ten or fifteen years its become pocket money. The house was a much lower multiple of wage to start with. After all that you still got tax relief on mortgages (abolished in the 90s). Final pay pensions. Job security, even if you were a manual worker. Your 15yo wasn't demanding an iPhone 6 to replace her iPhone 5 as it's SO much better! (Meanwhile I still used the Nexus 4).

<comment><USER10> > _the mortgage you made a huge stretch to take has reduced to affordable_

Yeahhhhhh but don't forget interest on that 30-year fixed was 12%+!

<comment><USER9> UK mortgages are usually variable, going up and down with changes in interest rates. You can fix, but often for just the first 5 years. Then switch to a different mortgage if you want another 5 or 10 years fixed. Is it usual to fix for full term in the US?

With lower interest rates these days fixing is much more common than it was.

<comment><USER6> US has a variety of mortgage products, but yes, a fixed rate amortized over 30 years is pretty standard.

There are 5/1 ARMs and the like that are more similar to what you describe, but most rates are locked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's an age thing. Older dudes like me have "been there done that" with fear and uncertainty. In the seventies I had my first "wow" events (corrupt gov't "I am not a crook"; Japan making cars; Iran hostages) and thought there was no future. But as an old guy I know the future is better as it always has been. The younger people are only going through their first adult view of the world as newbie thinkers

It's like handling death. The first few times you suck at handling it and after many deaths of family and acquantinces it becomes very unscary. You become confident in want to say, etc

</comment><comment><USER12> "But people now in their 20s and 30s say that the 1960s were different, that there seemed to be a clearer goal then — to end racial segregation, poverty or the war. The economy seemed better and the nation's future more assured."

As someone in my 20s this is very frustrating. Obviously things from the 60s seem clearer now; hindsight is 20-20. Then there's this:

"Many are terrified of debt and deeply worried about their economic future"

I view this as a good thing. Debt is not fun and should be worrisome. Especially in the US where it's socially acceptable to carry mounds of debt.

<comment><USER13> > I view this as a good thing. Debt is not fun and should be worrisome. > Especially in the US where it's socially acceptable to carry mounds of debt.

I feel the same way. The Fear encourages me to save money and evaluate my spending habits. (I'm also in my 20s.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having spent a lot of time in Seattle I'm skeptical of the article; that being said, to my mind the big issue is housing costs, as I describe in "Do millennials have a future in Seattle? Do millennials have a future in any superstar cities?" ([http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a- futu...](http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-future-in- seattle-do-millennials-have-a-future-in-any-superstar-cities/)). If you lower costs enough, a lot of other things become possible, and a lot of issues become less important ([http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/08/poverty- reduction-c...](http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/08/poverty-reduction- cost-of-living-center-for-neighborhood-technology/494348)).

When I last lived in Seattle full time, the city was a relative bargain and was known for being cool and fun yet affordable. But it hasn't built enough housing to keep up with demand, and while it does better than CA ([http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10657690/seattle-housing- crisi...](http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10657690/seattle-housing-crisis)), it's still not good enough. That's the crux of the issue, and it's why so many people are moving to Texas: Houston, Dallas, and Austin all have relatively liberal building regimes, which means housing is not a perpetual crisis.

<comment><USER15> Housing is certainly a part of it based on people I speak with. A certain demographic--which is mostly an educated subset of 20-35 year olds who tend to write articles/posts and/or know those who do--have decided that they absolutely must live in a reasonable neighborhood of one of a handful of urban locations.

As a result, a relative handful of cities have become what many parts of Manhattan, for example, have been for a long time. Essentially luxury goods.

Building regimes is also part of it but housing stock, and associated infrastructure, tends to increase over longer timeframes than the current urban living fad took to develop.

<comment><USER16> I would quite happily live in the mountains but there aren't any IT jobs there. Its seems difficult to get a remote working job.

I imagine it is the same for many jobs - you need to live in a city.

<comment><USER15> You do often need to live in the vicinity of a city. However, in most cases (the Bay area being something of an exception), there's plenty of reasonably priced housing within commuting distance of large cities. (And, in fact, many of the jobs are not even in the urban cores anyway.)

In the Boston area for example, most of the computer-related jobs are not actually in the city and there is plenty of reasonably priced housing within 45-60 minutes of the city.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but I did say the mountains, not the suburbs. There is stuff (for me) to do in the mountains. I would rather pay the extra rent to live in a city rather than the suburbs.

<comment><USER15> Sure. If you have the money, by all means live wherever you prefer. However, this discussion started around the idea that many people feel they have to live in the vicinity of a city, in part because of employment, but then don't want to rent/buy in less expensive neighborhoods--including suburbs. That's a choice/preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A "broken political system", please. Like Syria? Most of the Arab Spring? Even Brexit? There are people literally laying down their lives to get an opportunity to participate in such a "broken" system as ours in the US. If you don't like the system, work to change it. In the US at least you won't go to jail for doing that. Good grief!

<comment><USER3> As near as I can tell, the complaints of 'broken' come from people who don't participate. People who participate _somehow_ seem to find ways to get some change in their desired direction.

<comment><USER17> But _always_ less change than they wanted, for all participants, for all directions of desired change. Some view that as the reality of politics - <USER2> involves compromise with others of different views. And some others view that as the system being corrupt, because it refused to listen to their desires.

While the system is less responsive than it should be, while there are elements of corruption, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "take my ball and go home" whiners.

<comment><USER3> > Some view that as the reality of politics - it involves compromise with > others of different views.

I've really aligned myself with this viewpoint the more I work in the corporate world. Things are a compromise, always. Purity is found in mathematics and, sometimes, theology.

I also think there's room for a certain level of what is called corruption: it's important to allow for judgement and slop, people who aren't facially qualified, but through a few connections getting them work can demonstrate that they really ARE qualified and capable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love how everyone thinks that issues were clear in the past. Racism, anti- war efforts -- we still have those going on today. And if you think that they're any less clear now than they were then, you have your head in the sand. If you think that we don't have issues that need action now -- police brutality, women's rights, etc. -- then you probably wouldn't have been a part of the desegregation movement in the early 60s either.

<comment><USER19> I think there's a level where this is true though - clarity of _target_ , not _issue_.

When racism looked like Jim Crow, it was straightforward to say "repeal Jim Crow". Deciding on tactics was complicated, making it happen was hard, but there was a clear goal in mind. Taking on an issue like police accountability or pay inequity is much fuzzier - there's no law to change or villain to conquer.

None of which means there weren't fuzzy issues in the past, too. But I think the 'nostalgia' for the issues of the past is often for clear targets like suffrage and school integration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Though the article is an enjoyable read, it makes the same basic points as many of the "about millennials" articles of the last five years: 20-to-30-somethings are flocking to places of economic opportunity like Seattle, but are worried about cost-of-living, debt/loans, lack of government safety nets, crime (and a segue into worries about terror), uhh.... genetically modified crops.... uhhh... the list goes on. Isn't this consistent with 'coming of age' and trying to make it on your own?

The point is, I'm a millennial, I guess (I'm younger than the 31-year-old the article focuses on, and I have no idea anymore what the term 'millennial' actually means besides 'young person'), and these are anxieties that I share. But they don't prevent me from living a normal, relatively uneventful life in the US.

Part of growing up is realizing that even when you work hard, success can be elusive, that in the US the government generally does not have your back, and your well-being is entirely a function of your effort, luck, and circumstances. _Not_ to discount their importance, but the issues of the day will vary: equal rights regardless of color in the 1960s, equal rights regardless of sexual identity in the 2010s; proxy wars in the 1970s, terrorism since ... (I lied, terrorism has always been around).

The future is uncertain, and we're constantly trying to juggle our resources among our hierarchy of needs of our own immediate needs vs. the good of the community, of people like us, of people different from us, of our national security and 'way of life', of our planet; but the only thing new is that we 'millennials' are new to it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I tried to avoid reading this article because of its headline but I gave in this morning.

These generalizations about Millennials are strange to me. I see over and over again in popular media that Millennials are in a rut, and things aren't fair because of a foundation that was laid, that we need to reform politics and make things fair for everyone, abolish debt, give college value, and et cetera.

I see all of this coverage and I am confused because I can't relate to it. I'm definitely biased. Did I just get lucky or something? Am I a part of the problem? Is this issue really so common or is it just being exaggerated for pageviews all over the Internet?

Context: I am a Millennial, born after 1990. Grew up in poverty on the east coast US. I moved to Seattle last year and I'm making very good money as a systems engineer. I didn't go to college, I've just worked my way through jobs in the last few years since graduating high school.

I am daunted by terror and politics just like many other people. I have questions, and I want things to change, too. But I feel like my voice in the community, my opinions, and my fears don't matter because I am not struggling enough, or I make too much money, or that I'm promoting gentrification just by existing. Obviously, these things aren't true. Yet I find myself avoiding discussion about work, money, and the tech industry when I go out for beers with people around my age.

What a frustrating culture. I feel discouraged to say things like, "Becoming self-sufficient is NOT impossible!" It's very difficult but not impossible. I also feel like I should keep my success to myself, and that talking about my success is taboo or offensive to others somehow. Again, obviously not true. Maybe I just need to go outside more and read less articles / commentaries to see if this dichotomy even exists.

<comment><USER3> hello fellow seattleite!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or maybe stop reading news like that and enjoy life in one of the safest times and countries with life expectancies at an all-time high in the entire human history. Take a step back and look at things on a larger scale. Don't nurture your neuroticism and anxiety.

<comment><USER22> It's hard not to feed on fear when the media is a buffet full of it.

<comment><USER23> Just Say No (to mass media fearmongers). give your tv set to somebody you really dislike.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article mentions climate change, but I don't think puts enough importance. Really the other stuff does not bother me too much because it has all happened before and we have solutions. Meanwhile climate change marches on and we barely talk about it (relative to how important it is). To me it feels so important that I often find it hard to find meaning and enjoyment in my job because I know it is not going to help the climate change situation in any way, and there are few jobs out there that will. All the other issues and "problems" tech companies try to solve seem like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

<comment><USER25> Keep in mind that you're one of the very small percentage of people that _can_ help humanity when it comes to global warming. Your being on HN suggests that you are probably in the small proportion of people that have the abilities and resources that can affect change.

Working to save money will give you resources that will let you participate in the decision making process. For example, let's consider a situation where you have $10000 that you would like to use to help. You could donate it to an effective charity, invest in Tesla, use it to lobby local government, buy solar panels, etc.

That means your job is actually _enormously_ meaningful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another article that bemoans the fate of Millennials, compares them with the Baby Boomers....and somehow ignores the fact that there was a generation between them.

Gen-Xers, anyone?

<comment><USER27> They're the ones who mortgaged our future and blew up the global economy for short term gain.

They're also the ones writing these articles.

<comment><USER5> Painting with much too broad a brush. I did no such thing.

<comment><USER27> All discussions of entire generations paint with too broad a brush. We're having a discussion in aggregate, not targeted at you personally.

Edit in reply:

The _entire article_ is about painting millennials with a broad brush, written by a member of Generation X. Now you complain _you 're_ being stereotyped?

Give me a break.

<comment><USER28> You're the ones performing this erasure and making this generalisation.

I don't mean you personally, I mean you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I alone in my ambivalence to this narrative? I'm trying to be sympathetic but the cohort which is the focus of this article is better off than most of the planet. Sure, they have struggles. Most of us bemoan our station in life.

The kids will be fine.

</comment><comment><USER30> No one owes anyone anything, and most people featured in and reading this article are already incredibly privileged. But it's never enough, someone always has or had it better and life is just so not fair. More whining for things we 'deserve'.

</comment><comment> gm-conspiracy Somebody mentioned a few days ago some rural areas outside of Portland with co-op fiber in gigabit speeds...

Can anybody comment on the location of these areas and travel time to Seattle?

<comment><USER17> Portland-Seattle is 3 hours one way. You might not want that as a commute.

<comment> gm-conspiracy I want to occasionally visit the cities, but work remotely from home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> From yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313808](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313808)

</comment><comment><USER32> Not enough sunlight.

</comment><comment><USER33> The 70's were seen as stable because no American's knew anything about what was happening worldwide. Being connected to pretty much any human on the planet is a really new concept, what we call our "community" has grown exponentially in size, distance, and diversity in the last decade.

The world has always been this scary, now we're just paying attention.

<comment><USER19> > The world has always been this scary, now we're just paying attention.

I see this a lot, and I'm never convinced. Something like the "flash crash" was impossible a decade ago, much less a century. I wouldn't claim that the world has gotten _worse_ , but the capacity for rapid, unpredictable change has never been higher.

<comment><USER34> Yeah, I think there are two factors at play here. One is definitely the near- realtime worldwide media coverage.

But the other is the fact that the same events you hear about living on the other side of the world can affect your life almost as fast as the news spread. If you had just the media of today in a world of 500 years ago, you'd worry only about your nearest neighbour cities and countries. Today, living in Europe, I hear that bankers in the US fucked something up again big time, and I start to wonder if I'll have my job - or any food - next week. That's how the global economy is interconnected. I also worry I may one day wake up and find my city in flames, with the Marines giving us practical workshops on how to run a democracy right.

(And to not single out US here - I was scared shitless when the whole Russia/Ukraine thing started, because I was afraid my country will be next, and "next" here means "at any time, under 24 hours from when someone makes a decision".)</comment></comment></comment>


The Life of Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.seanshadmand.com/2010/04/21/some-thoughts-on-entrepenuership/

<comment><USER2> So who is this guy, and why are his views on Entrepreneurship (one word) relevant? His "About Me" page is blank. Has this guy done anything? He was asked to speak on this topic? Why?

I agree with jim_dot, below. Yeah, some cliches and well-known truths with which I'm quite familiar -- nothing new or compelling here.

"If two experts disagree in a room on something then no one really knows the right answer – take a step back, its time to find your own path." Really?

I can't resist: if they disagree outdoors instead of in a room, what does that mean? :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is one gem in here:

"If two experts disagree in a room on something then no one really knows the right answer – take a step back, its time to find your own path."

I think we forget this far too often. People try to act as though person X's way of running startups is the One True Way even when lots of others have valid reasons to argue against it.

</comment><comment><USER4> paraphrasing: "Do what you love. So if you love Ferraris, work with Ferraris, don't work at a high paying job or start a successful business that could enable you to buy one." - So, it's better to be a certified Ferrari mechanic than be a successful business owner with a flexible schedule and disposable income to buy said toys? The section on "Actions + Ideas = Something Great" is good but nothing new.

<comment><USER5> are you saying that being a certified ferrari mechanic doesn't make you successful? And if you're really good at it you'd probably get paid well. I dont think it's an either/or situation. If you're good at what you do and you love what you do, isn't that successful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow this was really not very enlightening. I don't know what kool-aid the other two posters were sipping.

<comment><USER7> It's more sockpuppet than kool-aid.

(See this [dead]ed submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118734>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> great morning read

</comment><comment><USER5> great post!</comment>


O'Reilly MySQL CE 2011: Josh Berkus, "Scale Fail" - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/user/OreillyMedia#p/c/5/nPG4sK_glls

<comment><AUTHOR> I think at 3:26 where he says

      every single user action, no matter how trivial,
      generates a jquery, which goes directly to the
      master database.

he meant s/jquery/json/. I mean, I hope so! :)</comment>


New insights into mitochondria reveal how life expends energy - <AUTHOR> http://aging.nautil.us/feature/173/yes-life-in-the-fast-lane-kills-you <comment><USER2> This is crap because of how misleading it is. For example yes a correlation exists between metabolic activity and lifespan across a wide range of life forms, but humans just like most birds are at the extreme edge.

So, as humans already have rather extreme lifespans relative to most organisms meaning our bodies are likely already using the low hanging fruit in terms of extending lifespans. But, without that context it seems like birds have some advantages we could copy.

This then hidden by first referencing a U shaped curve and 'our place' on it without clarifying it's a metabolic curve not a lifespan curve.

Finally "In a 2007 analysis it was shown that, when modern statistical methods for correcting for the effects of body size and phylogeny are employed, metabolic rate does not correlate with longevity in mammals or birds."

<comment><USER3> >"In a 2007 analysis it was shown that, when modern statistical methods for correcting for the effects of body size and phylogeny are employed, metabolic rate does not correlate with longevity in mammals or birds."

I'm not finding this quote.

<comment><USER2> Ops forgot to post a link: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate-of- living_theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate-of-living_theory)

It's relating to this study: [https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/62/2/149/...](https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/62/2/149/574559)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mitochondrial dysfuction comes primarily from manganese being replaced by iron, from the wrong Fe/Mn ratio (which the body has no way of correcting, as both are absorbed by the same mechanism and iron cannot be excreted.) or a deficiency in general, which results in mismetallation.

E-coli has a similar problem with iron/manganese/zinc: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4192467/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4192467/)

The general problem with iron is that while it is faster, it's also reactive in its free form, unlike manganese, which only works in proteins.

The majority of the world population is supposedly iron deficient, but the numbers are likely based on populations that already suffered from iron overload; it is possible that animal lifespans were substantially shortened as the result of human activity which disrupted the mineral balance to the degree no animal evloved to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER5> IMHO longevity is overrated. I would put importance of fighting age-related diseases (including tissue aging, immune and hormonal decline in particular) well above extending longevity in importance. I certainly don't want to live 200 years looking and feeling what is considered adequate to being this old but looking and feeling like a 25-35-years-old until I reach something near the age of 60 (of course longer is kind of better perhaps but if I had to - this is what I'd trade) and die quickly and easily without going through even slightest form of disability (defined by comparison to healthy young adults) and physical struggle seems like something I'd totally buy into.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious how old you are. I don't think your opinion is at all uncommon, but it always seems to come from people that are young.

Life is really not that bad when you're old. Like, even when you're 60 there's a lot to live for. If I had to choose between living 40 years as a 40 year old or 25 years as a 25 year old it's not even close - I'd take being longevity at 40 in a heartbeat. Judging from how active my parents seem to be, I'd be happy to spend 100 years at retirement age too.

<comment><USER7> Given living standards in the West and thus the way we currently consume the Earth's resources, this planet cannot support everyone living to 80, let alone longer. Therefore surely better (in terms of the greater good) for us to live shorter lives, but full ones, free from disease/ageing/degeneration.

<comment><USER8>
      this planet cannot support everyone living to 80

It likewise can't support couples producing 4+ children.

<comment><USER9> I want everyone else to be reasonable so I can game theoretically outsmart every one. If only there was a bigger player forcing us all to behave reasonable-like a state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lifespans depend on far more than just one thing, but multiple. Telomere shortening is a contributor, mitochondria may be, senescent cells, stem cell death, mechanical issues like joint or tooth wear down (partly coped in humans for now but very much an issue in other animals especially mammals which for some odd reason, in general don't have constantly regrowing teeth), etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> But count we are really mitochondrians- a hundred times as many of them inside us as human cells. So human cells are really just vessels for mitochondria to make nore mitochondria with a bit of embelishment on the side.

<comment><USER6> My laptop has more screws than CPUs. Does that mean my laptop is more of a screw holder than a computer?

<comment><USER12> wouldn't it be a fairer comparison screws to transistors?

<comment><USER6> Analogies are pretty imperfect, but maybe lithium battery cells would be a better analogy to mitochondria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >But if the conditions are unfavorable, if we're starving, there's a kind of switch from gearing up for sex and protein synthesis and bulking up to gearing up for survival: battening down the hatches and waiting out the bad times. This genetic switch has been the focus of most work on aging over the last decade or so.

Pure speculation, but based on its pervasiveness, I've wondered if depression could have been selected for through a mechanism such as this.

<comment> shaki-dora In my experience, reduced sex drive isn't a terribly prominent symptom of depression.

Personally, I have always liked the idea of depression being a sort of strike. A social signal "baked into" genetics.

(Not that that interpretation has any more direct evidence. Maybe depression is just one of those bugs inevitable in billions of lines of self-modifying spaghetti code.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thats what I call the Devils bargain: sex and death invented together a billion years ago. But it seems to worked in evolving complex life.

<comment><USER14> It works to ensure diversity, which in turns works to ensure survival of species through viruses, plagues, and parasites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

</comment><comment><USER16> > __ _So if I focus all my resources on having sex, then effectively I take > resources away from longevity. I take them away from surviving for longer, > and so I shorten my lifespan almost deliberately in evolutionary terms._ __

This is a very interesting statement - in some of the Esoteric Teachings I have read throughout my life - they specifically say that masturbation for simple pleasure (ejaculation in males) -- drains you of your life essence and is seen spiritually as a selfish-wasteful use of your life - and this shortens your lifespan and reduces your spiritual power. (additionally, doing very deliberate things with sexual energy is a basis in sex magick)...

The idea being that you're pulling life-force from yourself and then 'projecting' intentionally toward what you're doing with that sexual energy -- which would be interesting if you were draining energy from mitochondria in general.

<comment><USER17> I think this line of thinking goes into an extreme. Preserving bodily fluids is not as useful as the Esoteric Teachings claim, and can lead to accumulation of frustration. They just keep people horny and try to reuse that energy, with more or less success.

<comment><USER16> Not vouching for it per se... I just get triggered by something that I read and then it brings up all the seemingly related content I have ingested in the past...

I find this protein folding talk to be relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm-3kovWpNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm-3kovWpNQ)</comment></comment></comment>


On MicroSD Problems (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022 <comment><USER2> wow. That's a lot to digest. I'll never look at memory cards same again.</comment>


Facebook Acknowledges It Shared User Data with 61 Companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/facebook-acknowledges-it-shared-user-data-with-61-companies/ <comment><USER2> They were given exemptions but facebook doesn't say if they were used, only that they could have been in theory? Give me a break.

Why would they ask for and be given an exemption if it was not to use the features.

</comment><comment><USER3> Larger discussion from 8 hours ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17441648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17441648)

</comment><comment><USER4> > In May 2015, Facebook realized that apps were abusing this loophole in its > permission system to trick one user into granting permission to the personal > data of hundreds of his friends

What loophole? Facebook intentionally allowed apps to harvest friend data with impunity.

<comment><USER5> I actually dont think so. Faacebooks major competitive advantage is their data NOT being in other peoples hands. You can mess with the data, target people based on the data, etc, IF you do so from within facebooks environment. The last thing they want is data leaving their ecosystem.

They made Graph Search and Dev waay too powerful, and people stared using it, before facebook caught on to how much data was leaking. Their intent was never to lose control of the data, because that makes what they offer less valuable.</comment></comment>


Save your ticket for Disrupt Berlin Hackathon 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://getmetothehackathon.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Was fighting with the idea that I'll have to constantly keep an eye on TechCrunch's Twitter account, waiting for "The Tweet", where tickets are being made available. But, in the tradition of a hackathon, why not hack it ?! So I made myself a bot that streams in all TC Twitter activity and emails/texts me when tickets are available. That went out pretty smoothly, so why not make it public, for other to use too. The final result it's what you now see at [https://getmetothehackathon.co/](https://getmetothehackathon.co/) Feel free to use it and join me at the Disrupt Berlin Hackathon.</comment>


Programming for four-year-olds – No assembler required - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21660077-how-teach-computer-science-nursery-school-no-assembler-required <comment><USER2> I think there are two ways in which children may constructively be taught computing. The first is algorithmic problem solving, which is often better taught using logic puzzles and games rather than programming trivial if-then statements. Anany and Maria Levitin's book, Algorithmic Puzzles, is a good example of the genre. [1]

Secondly, they need to be taught an active and inquisitive posture towards technology. Most devices today (especially tablets and phones) force the user into a dependent and passive mode of interaction in which it is impossible to know how things work. Accordingly, I think it may be destructive for children to spend too much time with these devices.

The KIBO system described in the article seems like a great thing to play with to build a basic understanding of symbolic control flow, although it too is opaque. I think 4 is too young to spend much time staring at a screen, but by the time a child is 8-10, I think it is better to have an admittedly difficult to use Linux workstation or an old computer running FreeDOS. Also good are the many simple devices arising out of the "maker" movement.

I would really like to give my kids a simple device that could be programmed from the hardware up in something like Forth. Something like an HP calculator, but with a command line and options to connect to other devices would be great.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199740445](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199740445)

<comment><USER3> theres a cool thing that can connect like legos: to temp monitor... forgot the name, something with blocks, looks awesome, has some kits online, will try to find it.

<comment><USER4> That one ? :

[http://www.gizmag.com/littlebits-electronic- kits/28822/](http://www.gizmag.com/littlebits-electronic-kits/28822/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> here's a wild thought - play with your kids. seriously, they love it. as they get older, they'll want to 'play' with your toys and one of those games might be doing goofy things on/with a 'computer'. then instead of 'playing' engage deeply with their school learning journey where playing with computers is a really useful and occasionally enjoyable thing that may be (but probably is not) happening _in_ their school. for extra pro points, blog your ideas/experience and get other parents involved.

<comment><USER6> why can't it be both? both play with your kids and them have tools for learning programming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a really interesting idea and well thought-out design, but isn't four a little early to start programming? I mean, yes programming is important nowadays, and probably more people ought to learn it - but to put it on one level with reading, writing and arithmetic seems to me to be unwarranted.

And similar to what tumba said, I think you would do your kids (at that age) a much bigger favour simply by training their logical thinking skills and encouraging their curiosity. Those two skills will serve them in just about all areas of life, not only in programming.

<comment><USER6> > _isn 't four a little early to start programming? .. programming is > important nowadays... but to put it on one level with reading, writing and > arithmetic seems to me to be unwarranted._

Can you elaborate?

It's not clear to me why programming should necessarily be different.

(especially if we can get at the essence of the skills it's a matter of, as opposed to seeing it as a matter of preparing people for jobs as programmers.

One reason I say this is, as computing technology becomes more pervasive and mature, there ought to be broader scope for applying programming techniques, which mean that many more people will be using programming techniques in their work and day to day lives than just those working specifically as programmers).

<comment><USER7> > Can you elaborate?

Easy. First: name five jobs in which you absolutely do not need to be able to read or write. Found five? OK, can you name five in which you do not need to be able to program? What set took you longer to think of?

Secondly, you cannot program without being able to read and write. (OK, KIBO makes do without, but I'm talking about serious programming here.) In a way, programming is a subclass of writing. Usually, you write in order to pass information on to humans, when you're programming, you're simply changing the intended recipient to a computer. My argument is that if writing is the superclass of programming, writing could reasonably be considered to be more important.

> many more people will be using programming techniques in their work and day > to day lives than just those working specifically as programmers

While I would agree with this, we have to be careful not to fall victim to the programmer's bias. Yes, the need for programming skills in the world around us is big and growing rapidly, but it is probably not as big as we as programmers tend to believe, for two psychological reasons that skew our perspective:

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - and if you have a programmer's mindset, you will tend to approach (almost) all problems as if they were software problems. That's just human nature. Mathematicians try to solve problems mathematically, carpenters look for a practical solution, etc. (There's a good TED talk on that, unfortunately, I can't find it right now.) But it does mean that we think about software solutions when in fact, another approach might actually be better.

Apart from that, we also have a bias of association. As programmers we spend so much time with other computer people that we easily overestimate how many of us there are in the world - and thus, how important our occupation really is.

<comment><USER6> > _name five jobs in which you absolutely do not need to be able to read or > write. Found five? OK, can you name five in which you do not need to be able > to program? What set took you longer to think of?_

of course that's the case now, but that doesn't mean it always will be. And also, the value (to the person, or society) in learning something is not IMO simply a matter of whether it will help you getting a job where you need to do that thing.

> _Secondly, you cannot program without being able to read and write. (OK, > KIBO makes do without, but I 'm talking about serious programming here._

if we're talking about kids, then the requirement for "serious programming" doesn't apply.

but in any case, I don't agree. I was responding to your earlier comment where you put reading, writing and arithmetic on the same level and programming should come after that. If you can't program until you can read and write then you can't do arithmetic until you can read and write -- i.e. i think that argument applies equally to maths and programming. Why can't you learn programming at the same time as reading and writing? Why can't it be _part of_ learning those things? Just like reading books is part of them?

> _we have to be careful not to fall victim to the programmer 's bias. Yes, > the need for programming skills in the world around us is big and growing > rapidly, but it is probably not as big as we as programmers tend to believe, > for two psychological reasons that skew our perspective..._

have you heard the argument that "software is eating the world"? Yes there is the tendency for people to see "everything as a nail" but just stating that doesn't provide any actual argument against the notion that software, and the utility in being able to have programmatic control over the software, will be pervasive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The four year old in me lost interest with the double sequence of dark overlay modals that assaulted me the second I tried to read/scroll the article.

<comment><USER9> The last thing I saw before my iPad's browser crashed out were the words, "ROLEX : Rolex value your time".

<comment><USER10> ROLEX also values your memory. Scrolling that page caused my Firefox to jump in memory size by about 1GB. "Works as intended."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> While this is a nice overview over current systems, I am not sure if I would care much that my kid one day should learn them (he is 4 months now, so still a long time away).

But a lot of friends with children ask me how to introduce their kids to computing at an early age. They often believe that learning a computer language would be like learning other languages, allowing for some 'bilingualism' early on. We all know that's not true.

I am not sure if introducing a child to computing languages is as important as introducing it to other things first. I would rather introduce it to music or another spoken language. That I assume would benefit it's brain more rather than using technology (probably already outdated) that will be certainly outdated by the time the child is at highschool level.

<comment><USER11> Having done some serious introspection with regards to how I ended up as a developer, I think that playing strategy-oriented video games (loosely defined, for instance I'd put Pokemon Yellow in this category), and card games like MtG definitely prepared me for it. You learn to make tradeoffs (you can only have 6 Pokemon in your lineup, you want no more than 60 cards in a Magic deck, etc), and you learn to creatively compose primitives into solutions to problems, within a defined set of rules.

Specifically, I think that a lot of efforts to get kids into computers these days are too literal about it. The value of learning to think like a programmer is not exclusively in one's ability to write programs (though that's certainly a powerful and valuable skill), it's in one's ability to solve problems within constraints. I'd argue that computer literacy is an orthogonal skill. Given that, things that stimulate the brain in ways similar to programming (e.g. deep strategy games) will probably have orders of magnitude more success than the more literal approach of "teaching kids to program".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting parallel with DNA here, the ribosome as the robot and the blocks as the RNA strands. Of course it doesn't exactly output proteins but it's neat to see such a close mechanical analogue.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd probably wait a few years on teaching programming. I love the work in this field, though. Scratch was my favorite since it practically turned programming into something as easy as Lego blocks and more like Flash than OpenGL/DirectX. Kids were throwing together all kinds of great stuff with some pre-10yr olds making quasi-corporations. It was just amazing to see all that potential unlocked.

Props to the tool designers and the kids building stuff. I can't wait to see what the next leap in that category brings.

</comment><comment><USER13> The article mentions Logo as some kind of forgotten relic of the 60s and 70s, but I can remember leaning Logo in primary school in the late 80s.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it named after the Usenet grepper?

<comment><USER15> James "Kibo" Parry -- could be. Or perhaps they are both named after Kibo, the dormant volcano at the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro#Geology_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro#Geology_and_physical_features)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's always Lego mindstorm, it doesn't exactly teach programming but the skills involved is pretty similar.</comment>


SF govt said it would take 5 years, hackers built it in 48 hours. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/05/BU7O1LCPJI.DTL&tsp=1

<comment><USER2> Fantastic! I hope this happens more and more. Government IT is in the dark ages and it causes significant grief to the population. Can someone _please_ fix the Cali DMV website next?</comment>


We Are What We Do Not Automate - <AUTHOR> http://powazek.com/posts/1813 <comment><USER3> It's an interesting article, but reminds me of the divide between techies and the great unwashed. When I buy a car I want a 5-speed, and stuff that, when it breaks, I can fix. I want a spare tire, even if there are run-flat tires - <USER2> like long road trips.

I do recognize that my tastes are not mainstream, but I value companies that also recognize that.

EDIT: Ok, maybe not fix myself, but I appreciate stuff that's cheap to get fixed, and maybe a little old-school. There's not too much that I can actually fix, but there's a larger constellation of stuff that I understand the cost of.

<comment><USER4> Driving a manual is just more fun, more engaging, and makes you focus more on driving. It's just better. =)

I had to put up with a slushbox rental recently and finally understood how exactly people can fall asleep at the wheel.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you, but I wouldn't mind having an automatic right now. I've been spending ~2 hours in traffic for the last month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brian Eno said that culture is those things we don't have to do.

We have to eat, but we don't have to eat with forks; we may have to cover our bodies for some protection against weather, but we don't have to have drape ourselves with some tribal logo.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a great article.

In summary, as technology progresses to the point where most (if not all) common tasks can be automated the uniqueness of the UI will be what is left to the user to control.

</comment><comment><USER8> I figured, by the headline, that this was going to be an article on evolutionary psychology: "conscious thought", in a way the user-interface to our own bodies, is all just stuff that we've just started learning how to do, and hasn't had time to work its way into our instinctual (automated) processes.

The scary thought behind that is that, eventually, we might evolve _past_ consciousness, without our external behaviour changing at all (self-driving cars? Self-driving people.) All our acts of culture and art and science will be so ingrained into our genetic structure that we'll start doing them without having to meditate on the _how_ of it (akin, oddly, to spiritual Enlightenment or Nirvana, through "mindfulness." For a more down-to-earth view, a permanent "flow" state.) We'll all, technically, become <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie> s, until something shakes up our culture enough that we need to think about what we're doing again. Hopefully, though, we can keep introducing those shake-ups from within.</comment>


Get a great web hosting from $1.99/month - <AUTHOR> http://hosting.pixelcreart.net/en/

<comment><USER2> [http://hosting.pixelcreart.net/en/terms-of- use.php](http://hosting.pixelcreart.net/en/terms-of-use.php) says:

8\. Governing Law

Any claim... shall be governed by the laws of HONDURAS without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like a neat service. Have you used it personally?</comment>


GitHub: A Social Network For Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/github_a_social_network_for_programmers.php

<comment><USER2> Not so much a social network for programmers, but programmer collaboration.

Also, GitHub doesn't have the project management tools SourceForge has for things like tickets.</comment>


Ask HN: Self publishing book vs. writing a blog series - <AUTHOR> Is it worth authoring a book and self publishing it or converting that book into a blog series? <comment><USER2> Start with the blog, see how people react, incorporate feedback and them consolidate your blog posts into a book.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's probably worth converting that book into a blog series, at least when starting off. That way you'll get a bit of an idea about whether people like the idea/content and have the opportunity to build up an audience/fanbase over time, which can then be used to market the actual book at a later stage.

Starting out with a book seems like it'd just make things more complicated, since nobody knows who you are and you'd be stuck trying to sell people on a paid product they have no incentive to buy.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess I will publish a book for monetization. I will select a few chapters to post on my blog.

<comment><USER5> How do you protect your intellectual property posting online?

<comment><USER4> keywords: "select a few"

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> check [https://twitter.com/dvassallo](https://twitter.com/dvassallo)

He self published a book recently.</comment>


A Case Study in Closed Access - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/case-study-closed-access

<comment><USER2> Someone should tell this poor woman about Google Scholar, Libgen, and /r/scholar.</comment>


ParseIntimate, a Valentine's Day site about JavaScript's parseInt quirkiness. - <AUTHOR> http://parseintimate.com

<comment><USER2> Haha, this is great. I actually only found out about this about a year ago after it bit me pretty hard...so anything to help spread the word... :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Douglas Crockford's book, "JavaScript: the good parts", warns about this trap (and many other). It's a great book that I highly recommend to all JavaScript developers.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was fixed in webkit already - <http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/103922>.

</comment><comment><USER5> "This site was hand-crafted by The Ambassador of JavaScript Love: @zachleat"

Love it.</comment>


Full-Stack TypeScript, React, Apollo, and Node Example - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tiagsters/one-full-stack-to-rule-them-all-5ca39ded16c1 <comment><USER2> A lot of people getting misguide by very persistent, and I'd say pushy Typescript promotion.

It is deceptive to say that Typescript is just "a backward compatible tool for type checks"

Will Typescript add more troubles for you? Yes, it will.

People have little idea for what they sign for: it is not just some script to do build time type checks, but an entire language + ecosystem standing apart from standard JS along with expected interoperability issues and "one way door" problem

Library authors opting for TS may well be closing door for contributors from mainstream dev demographic.

Commercial dev shops may loose out on trading type checks for smaller ecosystem, smaller dev base, and productivity loss

For one man companies, and smaller shops: you will be ready pull your hair after few months dealing with tooling. TS tooling problems make usual webpack breakages look trivial, and will greatly affect your productivity

<comment><USER3> This has not been my experience at all. TypeScript's tooling is great, it's interoperability with non-TypeScript code is a non-issue. You're drastically overstating how different it is from an ES6 toolchain.

Also remember that TypeScript is very forgiving if you decide to avoid types in some part of your codebase. However, I will tell you that I always end up regretting not using types when I come back to the code in 6 months.

> Library authors opting for TS may well be closing door for contributors from > mainstream dev demographic.

I think it's the complete opposite. Good typings make it easier for new contributors to get up to speed, make changes without breaking anything, and document those changes. Furthermore, it makes it significantly easier to push out new versions of your libraries since TypeScript will help users debug breaking changes.

<comment><USER2> I say ease of debugging is not there. Spotting API breakages in case of _type_ changes in them is one of very few advantages on debugging side.

Just as with as with any transpiler, you never have 100% confidence in your source maps, especially if you mix and match your tooling.

And you almost always loose some part of native debugger functionality in browser or node. I never ever saw a transpiler that does not break correct display of properties along the prototype chain or breakpoints inside constructor functions.

This is where vanilla es6 blows everything away. I know not so few dotcom tier companies with 1m+ per hour websites which stick with handwritten JS on the frontend solely because of that: productivity gains for them simply not worth losing few percents of visitors because of hard to catch and debug bugs.

<comment><USER3> I am completely unconvinced by this argument. Who's shipping un-minified, un- transpiled, un-bundled ES6? And even if you were, TypeScript is just a superset of ES6, to the point where there's even a babel plugin to simply strip the types leaving you with regular ES6 JavaScript. I don't believe that the addition of TypeScript would add any debugging burden to an existing ES6 project.

It's not like we're compiling Haskell to JavaScript, I've never had trouble debugging because of differences between TypeScript and my build output. I honestly don't even think about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > It's 2019! MVC should be dead! Long live JS in templates and one-direction > data flow!

Is it though? I'd thoroughly disagree. MVC is perfectly fine for a majority of applications out there.</comment>


DANE support lands in OpenSSL (git master) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commit/59fd40d4e5030a7257edd11d758eab1dcebb3787 <comment><USER2> This commit just shows additions to the NEWS and CHANGES files. I think you linked to the wrong commit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, but it's spread out over a bunch of different commits.

These might be more informative:

[https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dane/IFV8vPeiDREu2biYW...](https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dane/IFV8vPeiDREu2biYWQ2tPluBkfI)

[https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?qdr=a&email_list=d...](https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?qdr=a&email_list=dane&q=subject%3A%28DANE+TLSA+support+in+OpenSSL%29&as=1)</comment></comment>


Show HN: JSON Expert – Create Web APIs from the Files in Your Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://json.expert/

<comment><USER2> It might be reasonable to explain that its "free" as in "free trial" and even more clearly "CC for free trial with autobill". Being confronted with that _after_ I allow the app to connect to my Dropbox account isn't the best imo.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have no way of monetizing this, it would probably be a good idea to just open-source it.</comment>


Searching - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oddit.co.nz/searching

<comment><USER2> It's awesome when your customers blog about you</comment>


Why the airplane romance that went viral should worry everyone - <AUTHOR> https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/07/10/why-the-airplane-romance-that-went-viral-should-worry-everyone/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this is awful. :/ Of course, something like this is likely already rampant in less friendly environments (i.e., schools).

</comment><comment><USER3> If the airline was identified by the tweets, they should have stepped in, call the pilots/flight attendants to stop this madness.

It seems it would be easy for the victims to sue either the airline or the two perpetrators. Suing the airline might be safer to prevent doxxing by the 1M followers who somehow find this entertaining.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is such uninvited photography legal? A stranger takes your photograph without your permission or knowledge for multiple hours... sounds a lot like stalking.

</comment><comment><USER5> My greatest fear is becoming a meme or going viral for the wrong reasons. I feel terrible for this woman. She did not ask for her privacy to be invaded, or her personal life to go viral. In the future it would be best to avoid barging into peoples lives, printing their personal conversations and life for all to see, critique, and humiliate. That's what journalists are for.

<comment><USER6> > My greatest fear is becoming a meme or going viral for the wrong reasons

Generation Z in a nutshell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The fact that it went viral is unfortunate. The whole thing was a non-story (two people meet, wow) with big pink headlines and two giddy voyeurs. The only thing worth noting was the marketing aspect.

<comment><USER8> It didn't "go viral " it was shoved onto the scene by a very nosy self- promoter who piggybacked on the popularity. I'd say it's the same as illegally profiting off other people's experiences without their consent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see how anyone's privacy was invaded here.

<comment><USER10> See if these other articles help you in seeing where the problem might be:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/planebae-saga-woman- privacy-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/planebae-saga-woman-privacy- anonymity-2018-7?IR=T)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/unide...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/unidentified- plane-bae-womans-statement-confirms-the-worst/565139/?single_page=true)

Discussion on the latter:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17534985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17534985)

<comment><USER11>
      Alaska Airlines called what Blair did a "good deed" and offered her a free flight. T-Mobile offered Blair free Wi-Fi.

... and thus ends my patronage of both of these corporations.

T-mobile already pissed me off this week by dumping that _1700 megabyte_ Android 9 update on all of my Galaxy S7 over _mobile data_ in the middle of the night without warning despite my account being set to disallow that, and reverting all security updates back to _April_ in the process.</comment></comment></comment>


"OK boomer" isn't just about the past. It's about our apocalyptic future - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2019/11/19/20963757/what-is-ok-boomer-meme-about-meaning-gen-z-millennials <comment><USER2> I don't fancy myself as judge of the generations. Civilization is better when it is civilized.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the average Gen Z / younger millennial is as incapable of using the English language to express his or her thoughts as Lepera is, I'm happy to forsake my younger brothers and sisters and join Team Boomer. The best reply to "OK, boomer"?

"Okay, moron."

</comment><comment><USER4> Boomer's achilles => Believing truth by authority.

Millennial's achilles => Believing there's no such thing as truth.</comment>


Which flights will get you there fastest - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/flights/

<comment><USER2> It is a nice tool to have, but will it be dedicated to U.S.?</comment>


Using Vim as an XCode alternative with auto completion - <AUTHOR> http://appventure.me/2013/01/use-vim-as-xcode-alternative-ios-mac-cocoa.html

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for this for quite some time. Thanks for posting! I'm a heavy VIM user and now with clang support I don't have to go into bloated Xcode to do autocomplete.

Has anyone had luck integrating LLDB externally into vim?</comment>


SIGMOD Proceedings on Data Management - <AUTHOR> http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=1376616&type=proceeding&coll=portal&dl=ACM

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a great number of articles here that should be of interest to hackers. Full text is available to ACM members (with DL subscription).</comment>


China: Android dev discovers 190 pirated versions of games in app stores - <AUTHOR> http://www.yodo1.com/how-to-protect-your-android-game-ip-in-china-taming-the-wild-wild-east-of-smartphone-gaming

<comment><USER2> > They spent months contacting these stores about removing pirated copies of > their games, but to no avail.

Yeah, probably because those stores are run by the same people who rebranded those apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like someone figured out how to bring a stop to it. Not easy, but it's doable.</comment></comment>


Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days - <AUTHOR> https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2013/nov/google-can-bring-end-censorship-10-days-heres-how <comment><USER2> > The code-sharing site Github uses encrypted-only access and, perhaps not > intentionally, broke the pattern of Internet control in China.

Encrypted-only access is not a solution, it's a patch. Here is how China could break it if they wanted to:

1\. Choose domains that you want to monitor in this way. E.g. github.com.

2\. Requests to any IP for that domain on port 443 will return a certificate that the Chinese government issued using CNNIC. This is trusted by at least Mozilla: [http://snag.gy/E1ftE.jpg](http://snag.gy/E1ftE.jpg) (note to self: delete that ca)

3\. Requests to any IP for that domain on port 80 will be converted to ssl. So the browser is connected over http to the ISP, and the ISP's servers will connect over https/ssl to Github.

In all instances, monitoring is possible. Forcing ssl is no solution. It does make monitoring harder though, and I suppose that is a good thing already, but all the Chinese government needs to do is throw money at it and the ISPs will be able to handle this.

<comment><USER3> Surely, this is an (admittedly broad and difficult) issue with CAs and the trust element of SSL authentication. By the theory of SSL, an 'attacker' is not supposed to have control over a 'trusted' CA, so SSL is 'supposed to' protect against this.

<comment><USER4> > By the theory of SSL, an 'attacker' is not supposed to have control over a > 'trusted' CA, so SSL is 'supposed to' protect against this.

Every major government has a CA cert in your browser. SSL was obviously designed to be subverted in exactly this way. You won't even get a warning. Google pins their own certs in their own browser, but Moxy's Convergene.io or something like TACK would need to be implemented by Google and Mozilla for you to have a fighting chance.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. But the important point is that the current situation with CAs may be flawed, but since ultimately the user has control over which certificates to trust, it will be possible to use better trust models (like convergence.io) to eliminate censorship. After that, we can indeed use encryption to fight censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How is the author overlooking the most obvious course of action the Chinese government could take?

China could easily block Google outright -- while the Github reversal the author mentions is certainly surprising, Google represents only a small sliver of Chinese search engine use [1] and probably wouldn't result in much of a mass outcry.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/09/17/baidu-still-tops- china...](http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/09/17/baidu-still-tops-chinas- search-market-with-63-share-as-merger-shakes-up-chasing-pack/)

<comment><USER6> Sincerely, you're wrong.

GreatFire.org exists to end China's censorship - they have pondered long, researched, and have not missed your point.

China's weakness is they cannot censor where it crimps the economy too much.

Read: Collateral Freedom [https://openitp.org/pdfs/CollateralFreedom.pdf](https://openitp.org/pdfs/CollateralFreedom.pdf)

China blocking all Google products would make such a backlash in China that it's not a feasible move for the China government. Just as with Github, too many people would complain about losing $$ in the economy.

Gmail, Android, Chrome, Picasa, Google Drive, Docs, Translate, Maps, Scholar, Books, Earth, AppEngine, Research, Hangouts. Too many Chinese rely on these financially, and in their jobs.

GreatFire.org is right. This is a superb defrocking of censorship that will work.

The real question is why isn't Google doing this.

<comment><USER7> You've never been to China, have you?

Access to gmail is spotty and unreliable, like most other google services. Android phones connect to Chinese android market and most have alternative chinese only app markets. If google where to stop access to android market, people would get pissed, but switch app-provider.

For the rest, these are barely used services. I don't even think hangouts are accessible, since it's a part of Google+, which is blocked. Maps? Year, it's nice, but so is Baidu maps. Picasa? Which economy is impacted by picasa?

> China's weakness is they cannot censor where it crimps the economy too much. > It's brilliant.

While this is true, google is not one of them.

<comment><USER6> I've been going to China since 1985 (28 years), speak Chinese and Japanese, and read the newspapers fluently in both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are you sure Google's big enough in China to have an impact?

[http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/4371/search-engine- market-...](http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/4371/search-engine-market- update-q3-2013/)

Even worse, that's by revenue, not searches:

[http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/3809/china-search- engine-m...](http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/3809/china-search-engine- market-share-update-august-2013/)

3% of search is a blip.

[EDIT: Fixed the links mangled by cut-n-paste from other thread]

<comment><USER9> Did you even read the article? Eric talks about how American designed encryption paradigms will eventually introduce free speech that cannot be stopped or surveilled even in places like China.

What Google's search market shares have to do with that concept is beyond me, though.

<comment><USER8> The article was not about the technology, but about the ability for Google to unilaterally affect the ability for the Chinese government to surveil their population.

The premise relies on Google being irreplaceable to the Chinese economy.

        We are gambling with Google's stack that
        they are big enough and important enough
        that the Chinese authorities would not
        dare block it in mainland China completely.

However, that isn't supported by the data - Google's market share. If Google did something which the government truly objected to, such as offering encrypted proxies (which encrypted search is), then they could block the entire domain and only affect the portion of their population that uses it.

Market share is a good proxy to measure that population, and it's 3%.

I'm not convinced that 3% is large enough to cause the government to give up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google doing this would be great, and I do support it. However, the effect would be so much greater if _all_ US companies allied against stuff like this, and form some kind of BSA against censorship and surveillance by governments around the world.

The last time Google did this with the Chinese government, I remember Microsoft was _ecstatic_ at potentially replacing Google in China with Bing, by _following_ the same requests Google wouldn't, from the government, just so they can win even an extra 1 percent market share (which they never did, anyway - Baidu filled the gap).

As long as US companies keep screwing each other over for that extra 1 percent they can gain over their competitors in China, if they _do_ follow China's orders, while the competitors do not, this is going to be a very hard thing to "win". So shame on those who do that.

<comment><USER11> In the past we have strongly suggested that all sites switch to HTTPS. If this happened on "World Global HTTPS Awareness Day", i.e., at about the same time, then I think China would be faced with some tough decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "How Archer Daniels Midland could end world hunger in just 10 days"

"How the United States Senate could end political gridlock in just 10 days"

</comment><comment><USER13> Keep in mind this quote comes from the same man who said, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

<comment><USER14> I wish the correct response to that statement (and it's spiritual brother: if you've done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide) was as widely known as the statement itself.

As an idea, it should be so thoroughly discredited by now that merely stating it approvingly marks one as either morally deficient, an idiot, or both. Making that statement should be at the same level of social disapproval as, say, suggesting genocide as a reasonable way to deal with undesirable people groups.

As of today, though, regular run-of-the-mill people are unable to formulate why that statement is not just wrong, but ridiculously, appallingly so. I fear learning why will come at a rather significant cost to humanity in general. :(

I guess this is how civilization moves forward. It's not pretty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about surveillance by Google itself? What we should be asking ourself is how do we improve [https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com) ? or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER16> While I support the work they are doing, the Chinese themselves don't care all that much about the sites that are blocked. Having lived in China, everyone I spoke to did not care about Facebook being blocked. I'm making a huge generalization but to them if Facebook is blocked then it must not be very important. Why use Facebook anyway when I have QQ?

Changing the public view from within China to fight against censorship is harder but I think it would be far more effective.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google Could End Censorship in China in 10 Days - Why doesn't it?

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/google-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/google- end-china-web-censorship-10-days?CMP=twt_gu)

This Guardian article is a "shorter version" of the original article at [http://en.GreatFire.org](http://en.GreatFire.org)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not native english speaker, so sorry if I wrong. But does Schmidt actually means '10 days'? If I understood correctly Schmidt mean that if we (all people who do internet) starts to encrypt everything (http 2?) then it will be more difficult to do censorship. And he unlikely mean 10 days, probably 10 years.

<comment><USER18> He meant that Google could encrypt their own traffic in 10 days, and offer mirrors of blocked websites via their cache feature; not that everyone could encrypt all traffic in 10 days.

<comment><USER17> Can you provide quote for your interpretation? For me "You cannot stop it if it's a good idea broadly held" sounds more about global technological and ideological shift.

<comment><USER18> Sorry, Eric Schmidt had said that we could end censorship in a decade (10 years). That's the quote at the top of the article: "We can end government censorship in a decade. The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt everything."

The author of this article, "charlie", is contending that actually, Google could end it in 10 days, simply by turning on encryption for their own service and offering cached versions of any sites that are blocked.

So yes, Schmidt was talking about a global technological shift, while this author was talking about a simple pragmatic step that could be taken by one company, Google, and which they already have the infrastructure for as they already do everything needed (encrypt traffic, offer caches) for their other properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> that seems to be a great idea, google could also do Germans a favor by hosting "this video is not available in your country" mirrors, right?

<comment><USER20> It's Google themselves that block the videos on YouTube for German visitors. Their rationale is that this frees them from paying the fantasy fees that GEMA wants from them. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_Germany)

<comment><USER19> guess what, China has laws that 'regulate' news and online videos, too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Critics of our approach will say that the "do it, they might not block you" > argument is tenuous at best. But that is not what we are saying. What we are > saying is:

>>"Google! Do it! If they don't block you, freedom wins. If they do block you, there will be much more opposition to censorship inside China and the system will be forced to change, thus freedom wins too!"

>Win-win.

I don't think the author realizes what a "win" means to corporations. Helping the cause of freedom doesn't turn losing a billion potential customers into a win, it's just the silver lining on a very dark cloud.

<comment><USER11> No - they are losing market share in search (3%) and if they keep their current course will continue to lose. The opportunity here is to gain one billion customers (well, 600 million now), by freeing the internet in China and hence at least making substantial money on ad sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I supposed that encrypted search is better than not, but won't help when the NSA is tapping from inside their machine rooms.

</comment><comment><USER23> No, because surveillance is censorship too.

<comment><USER24> As far as I'm aware Google hasn't ever shot anyone in the head, which is a common occurrence in China. (China executes more people than all other nations combined. Real numbers are hard to find, but about 5,000 people in 2009 is accepted for a low end figure by most people. That's 13 per day, or one person every two hours.)

Comparing Google's surveillance to Chinese totalitarian state is obscene.

<comment><USER25> What about when China gov hacks into Google (has already happened) (and NSA is still happening) and uses Google user data for China Govt "common occurrences"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Google has employees in China, and making a strong-arm motion like this could put them in danger.

<comment><USER11> That is a valid point and past Google blog posts have alluded to this danger. I made this point in the longer blog post which appears on our web site, but not in The Guardian article. [http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/new- approach-to-chi...](http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/new-approach-to- china.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I feel like this article is extremely short-sighted. If Google did the things that the author suggests, China would simply block all of Google instead. It has done this in the past, and would not hesitate to do so again.

<comment><USER28> The article postulates an effective outcry, akin to that of the github incident which resulted in success, were that to happen. Perhaps it is you who is shortsighted?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A bold move such as this would, whether it worked or not, at least restore Google's credibility as an avoider of evil, the Google twinkle many of you think has fizzled.

</comment><comment><USER29> If Google did encrypt traffic in China what would prevent China from serving Google China with a subpoena for the SSL private key under a gag order?

</comment><comment><USER30> SSL is only a minor speed bump when you have control over trusted root CAs or the ability for "force" installation of your own CA.

</comment><comment><USER31> You need an SSL certificate:

      Request URL: http://tripstamp.com/api/authenticate
      Request Method: POST</comment>


The Next-Generation Amiga That Never Materialized Just Went Up for Pre-Order - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2019/10/22/the-next-generation-amiga-that-never-materialized-just-went-up-for-pre-order/ <comment><USER2> Because of the "blended" chipset features, I look forward to what Amiga hackers discover they can do to exploit them when this comes out.

Guaranteed there will be platform-specific quirks (one of the best things about computing in the good ol' days) plying the incompatible opcodes and features together. The best results are ones that create new but unintended features, like the Atari ST "hidden" video mode.

Bring it on!</comment>


Fungi that eats radiation found inside Chernobyl reactor - <AUTHOR> https://www.foxnews.com/science/chernobyl-fungi-eats-radiation <comment><USER2> See [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus), which I'm guessing is the source article for this piece.

Not really that much of a "shocker", as the research is decades in at this point.

<comment><USER3> It is still really cool. As a physicist, with a lot of contacts to nuclear physics, I can't recall hearing about any biological systems (aside from humans) making deliberate beneficial use of gamma radiation.

With sufficient evolution, one could imagine a biological system that could sustain itself for long durations in spaceflight with only a gamma source for "food". Such an organism could travel far and wide.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking something similar: Can we farm this organism? Could intergenerational ships of humans travel between stars, if they had gamma based farms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I flagged this because it's garbage reporting on something that was published in 2007[1] and 2008[2].

1: [https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/news070521-5.ht...](https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/news070521-5.html)

2: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677413/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677413/)

<comment><USER4> I see a great deal of garbage reporting on HN that doesn't get removed.

I was previously unaware of this fungi and I appreciate the discussion occuring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tangentially related to this, I remember in the late 80's hearing about bacteria that ate nuclear material, drastically reducing the half life of plutonium. I assume that research went nowhere since thirty years later, we don't hear about it.

Does anyone remember this or know anything about it?

<comment><USER7> Nothing can reduce radioactive half-life. It's a constant value for each isotope. If you found a way, you would have rewritten physics as we know it.

<comment><USER8> Technically you could add or remove neucleons to change which isotope (or element) you've got, which would change the half-life. EG running a nuclear reactor changes the half-life of the fuel rod, by changing the materials in the fuel rod.

<comment><USER9> Now we just need to engineer ourselves an organism incorporating a nuclear reactor. Are there any absolute showstoppers thermodynamics wise that would prevent such a thing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of the mycologist Paul Stamets' proposal to use radiotrophic fungi to clean up Fukushima.

[https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi- remediat...](https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-remediate- radiation-fukushima)

Further on "mycoremediation":

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

My biased view is that fungi-based technology is an under-appreciated field with great potential for growth and wide range of applications.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this our version of the protomolecule? When do we send Joe Miller to investigate?

</comment><comment><USER12> Plants "eat" radiation, too.

It's a flashy headline, but fairly meaningless.

<comment><USER13> > _fairly meaningless_

Plants photosynthesise visible light. These fungi "use the pigment melanin to convert gamma radiation into chemical energy for growth" [1].

That's a meaningful difference.

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

<comment><USER12> The next line in that paragraph:

> This proposed mechanism may be similar to anabolic pathways for the > synthesis of reduced organic carbon (e.g., carbohydrates) in phototrophic > organisms, which convert photons from visible light with pigments such as > chlorophyll whose energy is then used in photolysis of water to generate > usable chemical energy (as ATP) in photophosphorylation or photosynthesis.

Again, I don't find it surprising that an organism has managed to metabolize a form of EM radiation, as plants serve as a handy example of evolving to do precisely that.

Perhaps the ionizing nature of Chernobyl's radiation helps generate more selection pressure towards it, even.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> With all problems we have radioactive fungi is what we need the most

</comment><comment> pcj-github Please don't post articles from foxnews. They target lowball intelligence; I find it insulting to the hackernews community.

<comment><USER15> Can you define "lowball intelligence?" That seems like a bigoted term and probably violates HN rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Lowball intelligence' I am going to assume that was directed towards me. I posted this link. Because I have a 'farm' suffix instead of 'GitHub' suffix with handle.

I picked this handle to apply to YC twice for Ag robotics. And I am proud of it. And was told that there is no money in Ag. That's ok. We..lowball intelligences..will continue to feed everyone irrespective of who they are or what they do. Or whatever high intelligence reading list that needs perusing. Please carry on. The world needs its next Tinder crushing app. Because. Priorities.

<comment><USER15> I might be a lowballer myself. I'm not a fan of Fox News, or any legacy media for that matter, but I take umbrage to the idea that the source dictates the recipient. CNN consistently inflates and mislabels information to fit a narrative, but that doesn't mean the people watching are by necessity failing at reasoning.

Keep posting. The bar for HN is "interesting topics." This absolutely qualified. Also, keep the faith. Food is the great leveller. The world will probably come back around to appreciating those that give it to us.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Is Kitty Hawk's Flying Taxi Taking Off in New Zealand Instead of California? - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/archives/2018/03/15/why-is-silicon-valleys-cool-new-self-fly <comment><USER2> As much as I'd like to see this being tested in California, this is also perhaps more of benefit to both the US and New Zealand.

New Zealand is a small nation of less than five million people. It's a competitive advantage to be able to offer greater and more nuanced accomodation. Anything New Zealand can test at a smaller scale and prove out, that larger countries can then learn from and adopt, is a win all around.

The government system of New Zealand is radically smaller and you can interface far more directly and easily with it accordingly. Their government is ~1/90th the size of the US Federal Government + States. For something like Kitty Hawk, it makes a lot of sense to prove the concept first before engaging a bureacracy the size of the US Govt + States (California in this case). If a country like New Zealand does things right, that will always be the case no matter how hard the US tries.

<comment><USER3> While the regulatory, political, and economic factors are useful for a budding company, I also think about the geography of New Zealand. It has two main islands and an estimated 600 islands total. It's also long/narrow with mountains and impassable terrain in many central locales. I can't help but feel a passenger drone with 60 miles of range could save a significant amount of time for passengers, whether that's avoiding a ferry or avoiding impassable (for a car or boat) terrain. One could also see these services being used in lieu of helicopters for transferring sick hospitalized patients, transferring high-priority payloads, and so forth. Really interesting to see what use-cases this tech will cater to, I'm hoping not just recreational uses for the wealthy.

<comment><USER4> Add to that the low population density that makes potential crashes far less dangerous to people on the ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's interesting this flying taxi would never be deployable in the nation's capitol. Wellington is literally the windiest city in the world. On nights when the windows rumble, residents tend to ask "Was that the wind, or an earthquake?" (they get quite a lot of both).

I'm sure these would do fine in Auckland or Christchurch, but they'd be grounded most of the year in Wellington. For people who are interested, look up videos of pilots landing in Wellington on high wind days. My airlines require separate training programs for that airport.

<comment><USER6> Christchurch also gets very bad trade winds from the North West, the difference being the ample flat land they have allows for a runway to accomodate this. Spring/Summer seasons see a fair amount of use of the N/W runway at Christchurch international.

Wellington is just a badly placed airport.

Just as an FYI, going off the pictures from their website I'd place the test flights ~20km from Methven from the scenery in the background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gosh darn it Orville, I told you we needed a section 333 exemption with a part 61 pilot rating, not a Part 107 waiver!

Maybe the drone guys should just start strapping cannons to the wings, then they'd be classed as assault rifles and there'd be no regulation at all.

<comment><USER8> >> then they'd be classed as assault rifles and there'd be no regulation at all.

I really don't understand people that say this. Have you ever tried to buy an actual "assault" rifle, meaning a select-fire battle-ready rifle?

Even for semiautomatic rifles, the regulations are quite long. Maybe no one should own an AR-15 (though I doubt banning specifically the AR-15 would do anything since its not even the most effective gun for what people illegally and terribly use it for, people just happen to do it because its popular and in Call of Duty), but to call it "no regulation" is just silly.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, the OP conflated assault rifle with assault weapon (the first being select fire, the second being semi-auto).

That said, the regulations for purchasing a plain-old semi-auto rifle are not a particularly high hurdle. In my state (VA), you walk into store, point at gun, hand over 2 ID and a credit card, fill out a background check, and wait a few minutes for the NICS check to complete, then walk out with the gun. If you buy the gun from a private party, you get to skip the ID and NICS portion - just hand over cash and walk away with gun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I may this strikes me as "odd":

>Nobody wants to wake up to an autonomous vehicle crashing through their roof, but it's possible to prevent that without driving companies overseas. Requiring passenger services to secure a hefty amount of insurance is one approach—strict regulations would exist, but would be drafted by insurers.

Unless I am missing something, that would not avoid the drone/whatever to crash through one's roof, maybe the insurance will add a further layer of safety precautions, and the damages would be covered but initially doing flying tests and testing service where there are less roofs/people seems to me like a very good idea.

<comment><USER9> The implication is required insurance forces drone operators to be careful where/when they deploy their drones, for fear of increased premiums/dropped coverage.

Similar to automotive safety features. Extra air-bags or ABS systems reduce accident, lowering premiums, driving demand for those features.

<comment><USER10> >The implication is required insurance forces drone operators to be careful where/when they deploy their drones, for fear of increased premiums/dropped coverage. >Similar to automotive safety features. Extra air-bags or ABS systems reduce accident, lowering premiums, driving demand for those features.

Sure, I understand that, but it's not the same thing.

An extra air bag still doesn't prevent at all the crash (it may minimize fatalities and reduce injuries of the people inside the car).

An ABS system may - in some cases - i.e. as an example on slippery roads, prevent incidents.

If a car swerves and hits a cyclist the airbags and ABS won't do anything (for the cyclist), and having a separate, protected cycle lanes (not allowing cars were cyclists are) or not allowing cyclists on trafficked high speed roads seems to me anyway a good idea.

An insurance - as said - may increase safety requirements, and each added safety requirement may (or may not) contribute to less crashes, but it's not like it will directly prevent incidents, that is what sounded "odd" to me.

<comment><USER11> > An insurance - as said - may increase safety requirements, and each added > safety requirement may (or may not) contribute to less crashes, but it's not > like it will directly prevent incidents, that is what sounded "odd" to me.

Did the article say insurance would directly prevent crashes? That's not the way I read it. I read it as one approach to reducing the likelihood of crashes is to require hefty insurance coverage, which shouldn't sound "odd" to you at all unless you misread it.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly what I found "odd", the sentence says:

"Nobody wants to wake up to an autonomous vehicle crashing through their roof, but it's possible to prevent that ..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> well, makes sense, we were the first to fly....

[http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html](http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html)

<comment><USER2> There's essentially zero strong evidence for the timeline actually being correct. That has always been the problem with Pearse. Nothing was recorded, and there were no observers.

Further, Pearse admits he was not the first to achieve flight.

"In two letters, published in 1915 and 1928, the inventor writes of February or March 1904 as the time when he 'set out to solve the problem of aerial navigation'. He also states that he did not achieve proper flight and did not beat the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, who flew on 17 December 1903."

[https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/richard- pearse](https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/richard-pearse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Electricity costs probably are no factor in test location choice. It looks like each kWh of electricity costs about NZ$0.29, which is US$0.21.

But, I wonder what the energy cost / carbon footprint is for such flying devices?

Risk management has to be part of the choice of test location. The US is lawsuit-happy compared to other jurisdictions. And, the sponsor of this project has what lawyers like to call "deep pockets."

</comment><comment><USER14> That's my main issue with "drones will solve everything". Basically the things still can crash on your head. The flying taxi is even worse, being able to wipe out a small building when falling from very high.

The type of aircraft - essentially an electrical multicopter - is so new, that you would have to fear some failures in testing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Testing advanced UAVs and services? Some locals are setting up an area in the far north for wide open drone testing, including flying well out of line of site, challenging terrain and weather/wind.

</comment><comment><USER16> It makes sense: every time you tax or regulate something - you get less of that. Every time you sponsor/deregulate something - you get more of it.

Applies to innovation too, and to California.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. This is easily proven by comparing Colorado, which has extensive regulation of ski resorts, with Bermuda, which doesn't have any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> wouldn't the country's scenery (elevation etc) help with the demand, it's also slightly horseshoe shaped and narrow, so could accommodate flying transport to the sides, and it being narrow means you can't have much road traffic.

there's a bit of a bottleneck getting from the south island to the north island.

but maybe i've underestimated the size of the country.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know how they are going to maintain seperation from other aircraft?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not flying at the same altitude?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slightly offtopic, but once again, the "American/English" style of title makes it almost incomprehensible.

How is it in any way better than this?

> Why is Kitty Hawk's flying taxi taking off in New Zealand instead of > California?

<comment><USER21> I currently see this title:

> Why Is Kitty Hawk's Flying Taxi Taking Off in New Zealand Instead of > California?

What was it before?

<comment><USER22> I think they are complaining about the capitalization.

<comment><USER20> Yes, there's a name (Kitty Hawk) comprised of common words (Kitty, Hawk). If you don't know the name, you can't pick it out because every word is capitalized. It's stupid design.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Purple.com, the oldest single-serving site, is up for sale - <AUTHOR> http://www.purple.com/sale.html <comment><AUTHOR> More about single-serving sites:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single- serving_site](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-serving_site)

> A single-serving site (SSS) is a website composed of a single page with a > dedicated domain name and serves only one purpose. The term was originally > coined by Jason Kottke in February 2008, although single-serving sites have > existed since the dawn of the internet.

And Purple.com specifically:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple.com)

> According to the creator, software engineer Jeff Abrahamson, the site > originated from the difficult process of accessing and surfing the internet > in its early days, similar to most early single-serving sites.

> The site was launched on 31 August 1994. From its launch to late 2006 the > background colour was #DD00FF, resulting in numerous complaints that it was > not actually purple. It was changed to #7D26CD on 6 November 2006 based on > recommendations.</comment>