Maslow CNC - <AUTHOR> http://www.maslowcnc.com <comment><USER4> I've built several of the 2D plotters (two stepper motors, some string, some math, and blam you have you have a plotter. Most fun was sticking them on chalk boards and then using chalk in them to put some really amazing drawings up on the chalk board.

That experience has suggested that this project is not going to be as successful as they would hope. That is because you can't depend on gravity to be stronger than the angular momentum of a router bit hitting a knot in the wood. Specifically when you're routering away and you hit material that pushes back on the router, the router may not move in a gravity planned sort of way. I've seen that in the plotters when the drawing device catches on the material that its drawing on. You get a line that goes horizontal when it should go down.

These sorts of things are pretty easy to pass off when you just hang a new sheet of paper but if it means throwing out a 4x8 sheet of plywood its going to be a bit more painful.

As for discontinuous lines you put a wall sensor on the drawing puck (or the router) and when you need it to move you tell the operator. Who goes over and lifts the pen/router off the paper. The code detects the lift, adjusts to the new position while you lightly hold the puck, and then indicates you should let it back down on the surface. Once the wall sensor activates it goes back to drawing.

<comment><USER5> Hey ChuckMcM,

I wanted to jump in here and add something. Full disclosure, It's my project.

The machine is designed to print things out of the sort of manufactured sheet materials we use in most construction these days so things like plywood, sheetrock, MDF..etc. Knots don't tend to be an issue because they are only in one ply of the plywood, meaning the force is very consistent even when passing through a knot. We've never seen an issue. Materials like drywall and MDF of course don't have knots at all.

<comment><USER4> Awesome project btw! I'm glad you've not seen any issues. Re-reading what I wrote, it sounds more pessimistic than it should. I am sure everyone that uses one of these will have lots of successful "prints" and will make many interesting things.

<comment><USER6> If the problem does occur you could simply make the thing heavier and run a bit slower. Inertia is a big killer for speed but this isn't a production machine.

<comment><USER7> I wish it were that simple! On a lot of materials, going too slow will cause problems as well. You want your "chip load" to be within a band; too slow, and you'll start burning the wood instead of cutting it.

[http://www.pdsspindles.com/engineering- speeds](http://www.pdsspindles.com/engineering-speeds)

I, too, do not want to come across negative about this. I'm very excited about it. If it isn't sufficiently strong to handle some types of wood, even just being able to drop a V-cutter into the router and having it very accurately draw out all the cut/guide lines is a win for the target price. If my work flow is "draw accurate cut lines, do a rough automated cut (leaving some extra around the edges), and finish on the scroll saw and belt sander", that's great!

<comment><USER6> Yes, obviously if you're moving so slow you're not longer cutting then that won't work but that's so slow that I highly doubt it couldn't be improved on.

<comment><USER8> Setting the rpm of the router is an ordinary setup/configuration step for doing 2d machining. I used to run 2d router systems at sign shops for years. You're always looking to optimise the speed of travel and router rpm to get the best cut qualities - fast travel with high quality cut - too fast can result in chips/burrs, too slow results in burning/melting and damage to bits, etc.

I always had a list of settings to use for various combinations of materials, thicknesses, router bit sizes/types. It was a bit of a black art actually - sometimes the results of changes were counter-intuitive because of specific material properties (heat retention, etc), and that cheat-sheet wound up containing the accumulated knowledge of years of trial and error experimentation. "The only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down" :)

<comment><USER9> Such a cheat sheet sounds like the perfect thing for an Open Source project with a (hopefully) active community to curate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a relatively new owner of an OX CNC (Ooznest kitset). I also researched a bunch of other options before purchasing, including the Shapeoko 2 & 3\. I've spent ~$1200USD (incl. shipping literally across the globe), Those in the US could easily come in under $1000USD. The above mentioned CNC routers are really on the low end in terms of minimum required rigidity.

While the feed rate of the machine looks OK, but they do not specify the depth of cut per pass. Combine this with the fact they don't show a part being cut from start to end, even speed up, is telling. I suspect a excessive number of very shallow cuts, leading to long cut times and excessive tool wear. I also suspect if the cut depth is to great you might find out the true meaning of climb cutting.

0.4mm resolution is not that great and the resolution actually changes based on how far you are from each motor!

Mounting material to cut on a vertical surface is going to be a major pain if it's not a quarter sheet of ply or bigger. And once a part is cut loose without tabs the router is liable to kick them out, that's going to be a nasty learning experience for some.

The only great things about this machine are its large cutting area, small foot print and low price. But fair warning, the limitations will start to stack up fast I suspect, this machine would be best suited cutting flat pack furniture designs from full sheets of ply, when delivery time is not an issue. To his credit this does seem to be the market he is targeting.

<comment><USER5> Hey JaggedNZ,

The OX CNC is awesome.

You are spot on about what we're targeting. We're looking at people who are building big things, houses, sheds, furniture, kayaks, tree houses, geodesic domes, huge signs etc. Basically the kind of things that get built using hand held power tools now. The goal is to make a machine that can download and build those type of things more accurately than a guy who's really good with a jig saw.

As for # of passes, I'll throw some mention of that on the website tomorrow. I usually do 1/8th inch passes so 1/4 inch ply is a 2 pass job, 1/2inch is a 4 pass thing...yada yada

<comment><USER11> Can you get good results on a single pass if you really slow down the feed rate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very nice job!

An alternative for the router brand: Makita, they offer a number of router bodies that seemingly last forever in both wood and more difficult materials (fibreglass), I've run them for 100's of hours (and probably 1000's) without a problem.

Beware of steppers when you're driving routers, you may lose steps along the way ruining your workpiece (step loss is loosely related to Murphy's law, it will happen near the end of complex workpieces).

If you build this thing out of metal with a watertable underneath it will be slightly more expensive but you'll be able to use a plasmacutter to cut metal as well as wood by swapping out the head.

Here is what I built:

[http://pics.camarades.com/d/11225-2/dscn3995.jpg](http://pics.camarades.com/d/11225-2/dscn3995.jpg)

(That's the first version, before making a much lighter gantry to improve speed constancy in corners, not very important for woodworking but extremely important when plasma-cutting.)

Some critical observations about 'Maslov':

Hanging plotters suffer from asymmetric curves when it comes to acceleration 'up' or 'down' which can lead to surprises in overshoot/undershoot of the intended toolpath.

Cable plotters tend to have a problem with that anyway and gravity will make this problem worse. If accuracy is important consider making it horizontal.

<comment><USER12> I helped with building CNC plasma cutter as well: [http://www.boot.lv/forums/index.php?/topic/133809-cnc- plazma...](http://www.boot.lv/forums/index.php?/topic/133809-cnc-plazmas- griezejs/) (beware of the latvian language but has nice pics).

How did you solve the torch height control? We ended up using "digital torch height controller" \- basically measure the arc voltage, compare to fixed preset and move Z axis up-down accordingly. This is a stupidly simple approach but requires complicated lookup tables of voltage vs height vs feedrate vs material and I'm thinking about how to improve it.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly how I did it, but I built the controller myself.

The arc voltage is directly proportionate to the height above the workpiece so you don't need much in terms of lookups or feedrate, all you want to do is to keep the voltage constant, so if the voltage is too high you need to get closer to the material (beware of strikes!) and if it is too low you need to back off (fast!, sometimes the material is warping towards the torch very rapidly, especially when the material you're cutting out of is thin).

Where in Latvia are you? I go there with some regularity, I'd love to come visit. Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com

Tip: you could lose quite a bit of weight on that gantry but turning it into a lattice.

[http://pics.camarades.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/09_s...](http://pics.camarades.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/09_sep_final.jpg.html)

Weight in a plasmacutter gantry is killing because it reduces the speed with which you can change the direction of motion while cornering in detailed work. That in turn causes you to have to slow down which will burn away fine detail so any weightloss on the gantry should be pursued.

Ideally you want constant velocity relative to the workpiece while cutting. This also helps in maintaining precision because the cone shape that the flame has will cause it to cut thinner and thicker depending on the stand-off distance.

<comment><USER12> IIRC, the arc voltage was proportional to height only at constant velocity. I guess it was also a function of how much material is below the arc at the instant.

I was working on a controller which was supposed to get it's setpoint by measuring voltage during first few seconds of a cut, but the project turned out to be outside of my EE skills at the time (isolating analog signals, high voltage resistive dividers that didn't blow up because I had no low-voltage feedback signal from plasma source etc.)

About the need for rapid accelerations- that too was one of the things we learned by building this machine. IMO it should be stressed more in discussions about plasma cutters.

In this case the blue linear slide actuator was off-the-shelf part and modifying it would require to cover the belt and linear guides inside with something else and was thought to be too much of an effort.

<comment><USER6> You can usually tap a point in the plasma cutter power unit that will tell you exactly what the arc voltage is, almost any slightly larger plasma cutter power supply will have a point that's convenient.

You'll still need to use an opto-coupler, the way I built mine was the setpoint and comparator lived on one side of the divide, then two input bits, one for 0.1 V below the setpoint or lower, -0.1 to 0.1 was both inputs off and one for 0.1 V or higher, the setpoint was scaled so that it would have a nice range mapped to the inputs of two op-amps doing the comparison. The outputs of those op-amps drove the opto couplers and the software would track the 'Z' stepper up, down or hold depending on those two inputs. Super simple really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is kind of neat, but the rigidity is questionable. It's significant that they only show sped-up video. You don't get to see the actual cutting speed. I suspect they have a really low feed rate because they can't exert significant side loads on the router. Maybe if they had four chains, so it wasn't just gravity holding the thing in place... Wallboard, yes, MDF, probably, plywood, if thin, hardwood, no.

A big problem is that this thing gets its Z position by riding on the material it is cutting. So you have to cut things out of fresh big sheets. If you cut away too much, work near the edges, or use smaller sheet stock, there's going to be trouble. For decorative scrollwork in thin stock, though, it could be useful. Expect stuff from this machine to appear on Etsy shortly.

I've used ShopBots for similar work. Those have enough rigidity for wood, even hardwood. The limitation on cutting speed is damage to the router bit; the machine has plenty of feed power.

<comment><USER6> My own drivetrain for something like this was simply a small gear on the shaft of a stepper running on a long piece of gear rod. Accuracy was more than acceptable and you could reach very high speeds with the appropriate acceleration curves (very important too to minimize step-loss chances).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This kind of work gets me so excited. Thank you for leading the way, @BarSmith! Open source industrial design communities such as OpenBricks [1] and OpenDesk [2] have emerged to fuel the imaginations of users of Maslow CNC mills.

For instance, one could now mill a vertical gardening wall-mounted planter, with community help, by joining this project: [http://www.openbricks.io/app#!/project/566af15e584123b4502f4...](http://www.openbricks.io/app#!/project/566af15e584123b4502f40ef/bricks)

It is a right of passage for a homeowner who DIYs to create a workbench. I haven't created mine yet but have investigated approaches. One novel approach is a torsion box-based workbench. The painstaking process one must undergo to create the lattices could be replaced by a fitting together CNC milled, continuous pieces. So cool.

I'm so ready to join this movement..

[1] [http://www.openbricks.io/](http://www.openbricks.io/) [2] [https://www.opendesk.cc/](https://www.opendesk.cc/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This seems like a cool project but the non-commercial license in the CAD files [1] is a no-go for me to fund their Kickstarter. It does look like the PCBs [2] and firmware [3] are free/libre licensed.

[1] [https://github.com/MaslowCNC/CAD/blob/master/License](https://github.com/MaslowCNC/CAD/blob/master/License)

[2] [https://github.com/MaslowCNC/PCBs/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/MaslowCNC/PCBs/blob/master/LICENSE)

[3] [https://github.com/MaslowCNC/Firmware/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/MaslowCNC/Firmware/blob/master/LICENSE)

<comment><USER16> Why? They put a lot of work into this and are giving the plans away. They just don't want you to compete with them. It seems fair to me.

<comment><USER17> We all work hard on the things we make. But many of us open source those things so that others can make them better. When we restrict commercial re- use, we're hobbling the project in certain ways. What if someone wants to help make it better, but they want to earn money from their improvements? You can still license the code with attribution and share alike. That way people know you designed it, and you get to use the improvements other people make.

It's okay that they choose a non commercial license. But it may make me less interested in supporting it.

But I'll check out their PCBs and see if I can help make any improvements. I like this project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This may be very well received in the model railroad community. When building a layout, one of the techniques (called cookie cutter) for creating the subroadbed is to cut out shapes from a sheet of 4 by 8 plywood similar to this gadget. See this for example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqcUKofeElc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqcUKofeElc)

</comment><comment><USER19> The Kickstarter is live [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1830738289/maslow- cnc-a...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1830738289/maslow- cnc-a-500-open-source-4-by-8-foot-cnc-machi/description)

</comment><comment><USER20> An interesting alternative to a Glowforge. This machine seems less of a "tool for makers" of small things though, and rather an autonomous cutting machine for big projects. It would be silly to use this to cut out a leather wallet, for example, but totally reasonable to build a chair. Neat!

p.s. oh man, make a chair design, and then just set these babies to run day in/out. that could be an fun factory!

<comment><USER21> There's more to CNC than a hip startup like glowforge. (In the interests of disclosure, it should be noted that Series A investors for Glowforge include Bre Pettis and Jenny Lawton. Given their business decisions with Makerbot, I'd consider them 'tainted' to this market).

This device is more akin to a regular 4x8 cnc router, like ShopBot, or an off the shelf Chinese CNC machine. The innovation here is an experiment with the drawbot mechanics popularized around 2010, but with a much heavier toolhead. If it works, awesome - it's an order of magnitude cheaper than a shopbot. Even if it's not ready for production, it's an interesting enough idea for a few shops, garages, or hackerspaces to replicate the project.

This is really an awesome idea, and comparing it to a startup with questionable investors does it a disservice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> 2 more things:

1\. this isn't really printing, its subtracting. I think its important to make this distinction.

2\. feed rate is REALLY important with getting good tool life as well as good cut quality. Relying on gravity to control a 1-2 HP router is not going to counter the cut forces well except at seriously sub-optimal cut rates.

e.g. A carbide 2 flute upcut end mill with .5" diameter cutting plywood works nicely with a cut depth of about .5" and a feed rate of somewhere around 200-300 inches per minute. Even that may not yield the optimal chip load to keep the bit cool. That assumes a router speed of ~20k RPMs and 3.25 peak HP (AC motor @ 110v).

<comment><USER23> "Relying on gravity"

I have never built one of these, I wonder why they do that.

I would think 3 strong steppers would be capable of some pretty amazing forces and would be quite well constrained. Or perhaps 4 steppers or more.

I've spec'd out NEMA 42 frame steppers that could quite easily start my car (under the theory that a pony engine need be a tenth size to start a larger engine and my commuter car only has 100 ft-lb torque, so 20 or so ft-lb of torque should easily be adequate to start the engine)

Lets see a KollMorgan KM11 with 3750 in-oz of torque applied to a six inch pulley is 40 pounds of force. That should accelerate a ten pound router with some authority, 4 G or so. I know from experience I can push a traditional router against a jig or fence or table much longer and more comfortably than I can curl 40 lb barbells so 40 peak should be more than adequate.

A stepper of that output retails qty one to end users for like $150 delivered maybe? So figure maybe $300 for three in bulk order shipped by pallet-full?

Over the course of my life the prices of steppers and control electronics doesn't seem to change but the torque seems to go up an order of magnitude per decade for several decades now, so it might be a matter of waiting until 2026 to unleash something like the above.

<comment><USER22> Steppers are definitely strong enough. The NEMA 42s on my machine are geared down 10:1 and work very well moving a 100ish pound gantry.

The issue with gravity is not really motor strength so much as it is rigidity. There is no z axis rigidity in the setup because it only has a chain. So it can't exert pressure against the material from the axis.

The lack of rigidity is the real problem. As mentioned in other parts of this thread, .01" accuracy is not going to give you great tolerance for pieces where that error can be cumulatively compounded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everybody! Just wanted to throw out a quick reminder that we're launching on Kickstarter tomorrow, the 25th, at 9 AM PST. Hope to see some of you over there!

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems like it would be worth shopping with whoever has a "normal" CNC machine nearby, and seeing if you can get your stack of plywood machined for less for a given project. If you make a mistake with DIY, you're potentially out a sheet of plywood, not to mention time and effort.

Your project will involve plenty of time and effort at other stages than the plywood cutting bit.

Still, I'd consider getting one (perhaps on v2 after the Kickstarter has played out, and v1 gotchas figured out). It is cheap enough to get "just for fun."

</comment><comment><USER25> "We're making the choice not to patent it."

Now that the US is first-to-file, doesn't that mean someone else can patent it and use the patent against them? Isn't the best thing to patent it and give royalty-free licenses?

<comment><USER26> No, this is a common misunderstanding of the implications of first to file.

Publication or public practice of their work is prior art. It immediately precludes third parties from patenting their work. (And, after a grace period will preclude them as well)

First to file deals with interferences, when two parties try to patent the same work at the same time-- it doesn't change how prior art works.

Of course, it is still useful to file defensively since relevant prior art is much more likely to be discovered when it exists as a patent... if it's not discovered a patent could be incorrectly issued. (The patent would be invalid-- but could still be used to harass people until put out of its misery by a court. :) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks cool... but I'm worried about repeatability and accuracy. I've seen a lot of similarly-designed 2-motor "drawing robots", and the precision definitely wasn't 0.4mm (as claimed). I imagine this could be difficult given the use of gravity to supply the lateral cutting force?

On a related note: I'm pretty excited for the ShaperTools handheld router: [https://shapertools.com/](https://shapertools.com/) You get the benefit of big work pieces & CAD-based routing, but in a hand-tool form factor.

</comment><comment><USER28> Oh, Kickstarter.

</comment><comment><USER29> Small random quote from the vid:

> More details for nerds below

I'm not knocking the person who said this fairly innocuous statement (I catch myself saying similar things), but it goes to show our unresolved social biases against technical people. Yes, some people care about numbers and details and engineering. Unfortunately, that associates them with a term that implies low social value.

If another country overtakes the US in terms of innovation and engineering, you can be sure that they will be showing greater respect to their technical class of peoples.

</comment><comment><USER30> The crawlbot is another hobby-friendly compact 4x8' CNC. It's $2000. It saves space by attaching directly to the 4x8 sheet with timing belts and using it as the frame for the long axis. The shorter axis and router are contained in a 5x1x1 ft housing that "crawls" back and forth across the workpiece.

[https://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot- crawlbot/](https://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-crawlbot/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Quick tip about your site: put up some photos, not just videos. I'm on a mobile phone and want to see this thing, and playing video is annoying, and sometimes unfeasible.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't know if the idea is unique (edit: no, they mention it's based on a known concept of "hanging plotter"), but that's a neat way to utilize gravity to bring down costs. It's much more accurate (.4mm) than I would expect, enough for most hobby work with big sheets.

(Off topic, but a hanging plotter (for drawing) would be rewarding project to build with a kid!)

<comment><USER33> Errr, .4mm is not very accurate. It's about 5-15x less accurate than basic wood cnc machines, which do 0.001-0.005 (they could easily do better, it's just not necessary for wood). If each part was off by 1/64th, you can't even form a 4 sided box that is guaranteed less than +-1/16, which is a lot.

I'm pretty sure they are also not including the router runout (since it uses a router and not a spindle, add about 0.005-0.010, or, rather, halve their precision again)

Now, don't get me wrong, it's a neat idea.

It may be really cool for construction (though drywall/etc guys are a lot faster than this machine is), but ...

But you actually could not likely use this for real cabinet parts, etc.

To give you some idea:

Their specs:

Encoder Resolution: 8148 steps/rev

Real World Precision: +- 1/64th inch (.4 mm) or better

Max feed rate 48 inches/minute

Specs on my pretty basic 36x36 wood CNC router:

Encoder Resolution: 4 million steps/rev (22bit). Electronically gearable to whatever (they are servo motors)

Real world precision: +-0.001 (1/1000) inch

Max feed rate 1200 inches/minute

Now, obviously, there is a range of costs and other machines between these two machines :)

But building precision CNC routers, even with good closed loop servo motors and ball screws, is not anywhere near as expensive as it used to be.

<comment><USER34> He said, "It's much more accurate than I would expect." He's referring to how accurate it is based on how it is designed. And I disagree that it's not very accurate, given the use case. 0.4mm or 1/64" is way more accurate than almost anyone can do with traditional power tools.

Sure, other more expensive machines have better precision. But how many people actually need that much? Even plywood is going to experience changes in length due to temperature/humidity greater than 0.001" (0.025mm). Solid wood (which I guess this machine isn't really designed to cut) is going to be even more.

<comment><USER33> "And I disagree that it's not very accurate, given the use case. "

What use case?

"construction" is mentioned, but plywood guys and drywall guys can make cutouts and curves far faster and more accurately than this machine can cut.

So seriously, what is the real use case other than "fun toy"?

" 0.4mm or 1/64" is way more accurate than almost anyone can do with traditional power tools."

This is just flat out false.

With a simple track saw, i can easily get within 1/128th without even trying.

Hell, i can do that with a circular saw and a straight edge without a track.

You can get to within 0.005 pretty easily if you have bothered to tune your tools at all and don't beat them up.

You can definitely get 0.005 if "traditional power tools" includes routers.

Of course, if you go to hand tools, getting within 0.001 is utterly trivial with good hand planes.

"But how many people actually need that much? "

Wood certainly moves, but 0.005 is about being able to make nice fitting joinery repeatably.

[https://woodgears.ca/mortise/accuracy.html](https://woodgears.ca/mortise/accuracy.html)

"With a mortise of 0.503", here's how the tenons fit: ...

Realistically, the total range of latitude is about 0.005" for a good fit. And this is using spruce, which is a very forgiving soft wood. For mortise and tenon joints in hardwoods, accuracy is even more critical. "

<comment><USER32> For a wood-cutting system supported by two chains and gravity, .4mm is surprisingly good tolerance. Sure, it is possible to get far more stricter tolerance with tradiotional power tools (for skilled person) but first you need to somehow draw a line to follow, a challenging task in itself for complex shapes. This tool can do CAD, a big benefit.

<comment><USER33> "For a wood-cutting system supported by two chains and gravity, .4mm is surprisingly good tolerance."

Remember that this is jut the 'precision'. It says nothing about the repeatability.

I have strong doubts it's repeatable to even that level.

"but first you need to somehow draw a line to follow, a challenging task in itself for complex shapes"

????

It's really just not that hard. In the absolute worst case, you use graph paper and cut it out. Most of the time, you just use a protractor or a bow and cut it nearly perfect anyway. Given the tolerances pretty much restrict this to "construction work", you can get the same result quite easily.

"This tool can do CAD, a big benefit."

I'm also going to assume you've not used much cad/cam software, because for most people, it's _infinitely_ faster for a one off to draw it by hand than it is to draw it in a cad program and generate gcode for it using cam software.

People have enough trouble using sketchup, let alone something real :)

The advantage for most people for CNC is the ability to repeatedly do the same thing.

Unless you invest 100k in automated workflows, you aren't ever going to get to the point where it's simply "draw in cad, click button, have machine cut it". It's just never that simple, from workholding to what have you.

Which is another reason why i think it's neat, but has no real use case.

<comment><USER22> Thank you for these detailed responses. They track very well with my experience using a 4x8' CNCrouterparts machine. There are so many things acting against precision that I spent my first year of CNC ownership finding out what was really practical. Inlays on machines with >.005" accuracy don't work. Guitar necks do NOT fit. Puzzle joints don't glue up.

The sources of problems are endless, even in a rigid machine: 1\. spindle runout. 2\. bit diameter changes (its is labeled at .25", but its really .246 3\. climb vs conventional milling yields different characteristics in different materials. 4\. bit deflection in certain cutting actions (plunge, tight corners, etc) 5\. bit wear during the job. 6\. dust removal / chip recutting 7\. lost steps 8\. dust in the ways of the machine 9\. linear motion system misalignment. 10\. workpiece slippage/hold down. 11\. material not being flat/level (especially with cheap plywood, which often varies in thickness by >.005")(try making accurate box joints with that...)(also, it is never flat, it always has some twist/warp because of the way the plys are cut out of the tree).

This machine seems to be a great thing, and I very well may build one for an outdoor plasma cutter, but, I find the accuracy claims very difficult to believe. All of these sources of precision loss will effect the end result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How would this thing lift up the router to go between spots that aren't connected? Or can't it, and is that the reason the logo's circle was open?

And what would be the precision on this thing? It's a bit suspicious they'd leave that out... Would it be able to work at 1 mm precision?

<comment><USER36> They say 1/64in/0.4mm precision or better.

I'm sure they can lift it up. This kind of mechanism isn't exactly new - <USER2> using it on a router is fairly new. There's a lot of projects with pen plotters built in this general pattern, see [http://hackaday.com/2011/11/17/polar-pen-plotter-draws- huge-...](http://hackaday.com/2011/11/17/polar-pen-plotter-draws-huge-images- very-slowly/)

<comment><USER37> I remember seeing that pen plotter before, guess I wasn't creative enough to put 2 and 2 together, haha.

Even for just 2D, this is really clever for the form- factor/capabilities/price. It's in 'impulse buy' pricing territory for most people (I mean, posting here at least). It takes up basically no space. If the steppers are well-engineered, I can't foresee a failure mode other than just normal tool wear.

I was considering buying a Shaper[1] (which is really cool in it's own right) after seeing Ben from Applied Science mess around it. With the Shaper, "you're only limited by the surface on which you can place those encoding stickers"[2] while with this, you can build out effectively until the elasticity point of your support structure (or, I suppose, the chain has a fatigue failure). 15 thou isn't bad at all, especially if you know where the run-out is going to be (i.e. if it's gearing backlash, you can design your features around that with that in mind / build your software to compensate for it / incorporate active air cylinder brakes / etc). Edit: On second thought, they said the steppers were closed loop. So if it's any worse than 15 thou, shame on them, really.

My only concern is if the slop/run-out goes up as a function of the material you cut. The Shaper has what seems to be using some sort of active delta compensation[3] Aluminium and a standard house-hold router can accurately mill your 6061 aluminum that's good for up to like 30k tensile with it. The collet/chuck/gantry/whatever will just actively re-orient your bit for the micro-tuning. (Though, for the $1500 they want, you can pick up one of the thousands of Bridgeports Series 1 CNC's out there, throw another 500 for your carbide cutting tools + retro-fit kit and you've got a home machine shop and come out way ahead only a few hundred behind with the ability to actually mill something structurally sound like steel.)

Either way, this is super cool - I'll wait for a few reviews, but I think I know where my money's going even if it's limited to wood.

[1] [https://youtu.be/Kg2HOk1XHsA](https://youtu.be/Kg2HOk1XHsA) [2] And those stickers smell of vendor lock-in. It's got the opposite 'feel' to it than this product. [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_robot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> When can I get my hands on this?!

I was just looking for something like this yesterday! I pre-ordered a Shaper Origin ([https://shapertools.com](https://shapertools.com)), which ships in September 2017, but I need something to use now.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is interesting in that it is somewhat similar to the "delta" style 3d printers in concept, just in 2-axis instead of 3.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is a 2-axis router it looks like; though if you used the recommended router, you could adjust the depth between runs.

<comment><USER36> Most of the work done on CNC routers is 2-axis anyway. Or 2-axis with just a couple z-heights, which can be accommodated by changing the router depth by hand. Ultimately it's made to cut up plywood, not sculpt things. Like a sized- up version of small scale laser cutters.

Once you accept the constraints of a 2-axis CNC router, you can design in a way that maximizes it and build incredible things. See [https://www.opendesk.cc/](https://www.opendesk.cc/) for examples of a lot of furniture that can be built this way.

<comment><USER40> Okay, that makes sense; this is for replacing a woodworker with a jigsaw, not for fine work. Seems like a really good solution in this space (though I'm biased, since I suck with a jigsaw).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Nice concept, and I love their philosophy about openness. I'm interested to see how well it works!

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks brilliant - if I could make one suggestion for the video - more examples of what it can do.

</comment><comment> awinter-py plywood is peachy but aluminum is awesome. have a robot glue a line of thermite to horizontal sheet metal. Light a match and you have your part.

(Tolerances may not be exact).

<comment><USER43> You can't light thermite with a match (source: tried).

<comment> awinter-py sparklers apparently work

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I like the low cost idea and approach. rly neat!

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm no expert in hardware and software that is developed close to hardware. Can someone explain to me where the achievement is, before the Kickstarter even starts?

<comment><USER46> Kickerstarter doesn't require any achievement, innovation or novelty - <USER3> there depends only on your ratio of marketing folks to engineering folks (the higher the better). Oh, you also need a bunch of bay area hipsters saying how this product transformed their life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> How does this do splines?

</comment><comment><USER48> The chains are pretty neat! Any idea on backlash?

<comment><USER49> Author made a comment in the last video; the weight of the cutter keeps the motors under constant tension one way, so there is no play caused by changing direction.

<comment><USER36> Mostly true but not quite. The forces on the chains are actually higher when the chains are "shorter" and the router is higher up. The farther from vertical the chains are, the more horizontal tension there is on top of the vertical component.

The same basic principle shows up in rigging - [http://www.fdlake.com/rig- slng.html](http://www.fdlake.com/rig-slng.html) \- the illustration where the straps are at 90 degrees is rated higher than 45 degrees.

<comment><USER50> Also there is slack in any gear/chain train when switching directions as they never fit perfectly. Same with gears. Even tiny amounts will throw you past .4 mm quickly

<comment><USER36> Actually that kind of backlash isn't a problem in a machine built like this. The tension of the chain against the sprocket is always pulling in the same direction around the sprocket. Even when the sprocket reverses direction, the chain is pulling the same way and staying tight to the same side of the teeth it was on.

<comment><USER50> That would be correct until you figure in momentum as long as you stay under that threshold your hypothesis holds, if you get the device moving or swaying it won't. Of course this can be compensated for in software. So Point taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The title should be changed as this product is not currently available for purchase.

<comment><USER52> The sources are available...so you are free to start building yours

<comment><USER51> Which is great!

I only mentioned it because the original title read something along the lines of "4 x 8 foot CNC available for purchase for under $500".</comment></comment></comment>


Mutant butterflies reveal the genetic roots of colorful wings - <AUTHOR> http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/20/mutant-butterflies-genetics/ <comment><USER2> Looks like this is the paper: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/08/29/1708149114](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/08/29/1708149114)

<comment><USER2> The full text of the paper is subscription-only, but there's an interesting appendix available AS PDF, complete with pictures of mutations: [http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2017/08/29/1708149114.DCSu...](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2017/08/29/1708149114.DCSupplemental/pnas.1708149114.sapp.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I never thought that evolutionary biology would become and _experimental_ science like that. Yeah, I guess if you want to know what a gene does, get rid of it and see.</comment>


Show HN: An expense manager built using Google Sheets - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager <comment><USER2> > why? Privacy. It's your personal data. It should belong to you.

Well, it uses Google sheets to store the data. So I don't agree with this 'benefit'.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. But the idea is not to pass it on any other third party for visualization. I feel Google Sheets will be comparatively more secure than other options out there.

<comment><USER3> That's true. Safer than giving your data to Intuit or similar, for sure. Google is very unlikely to analyze your spreadsheet to understand what it's about.

<comment><USER4> Is this sarcastic..? Sounds like something I would especially see Google do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice work! I've been mulling something like this for awhile. I use YNAB (classic) to track our budget, but I haven't made the switch to their new subscription-based version because it just doesn't fit my workflow as well. The experience made me think more deeply about what I actually need in a tool like this, and I came to a similar conclusion that you seem to have: I need a convenient way to enter my expenses and balances, and a way to analyze them. A spreadsheet is perfect for the latter purpose, but isn't very good at all for the former.

Having said that, the thing I care about the _most_ in YNAB is importing expenses from my bank accounts. My thought on replacing this was to be able to add download URLs to my spreadsheet and kick off a script which would prompt for manual username and password entry (so that the credentials aren't saved) before downloading and parsing the exports. I haven't gotten around to creating this yet - if you added it to your project, I would seriously consider using it!

<comment><USER6> I switched from YNAB classic to [http://plaintextaccounting.org/](http://plaintextaccounting.org/) and I'm satisfied.

If you like a command line based approach I'd recommend you to have a look.

<comment><USER7> Would switch to this immediately if there was a good UI for iOS that kept in sync via Dropbox or some other method. I was disappointed that YNAB ditched the old model and decided to go towards subscription. I am currently using YNAB (Classic) and am looking for a way out because I understand that it will eventually die. There doesn't seem to be a good replacement that has good iOS and Desktop applications (GUI or CLI).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I created a clone of the new YNAB as a standalone desktop application. It is available at [https://github.com/envelopes-app/envelopes- desktop](https://github.com/envelopes-app/envelopes-desktop) with installers for mac/windows.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm aware this isn't a place intended for troubleshooting questions, but when one adds a read-only Google Sheet to their drive, doesn't it just make a shortcut? I clicked on the Drive icon as shown in the tutorial but the document is still read-only, and the app says that it isn't in my Drive. I tried making a copy with the same name, but no dice either. What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a demo I can try without connecting it to my Google account? Also, why does it say the app is "Tracking Numbers" when clicking Login? Makes it seem fishy.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, as of now there is no demo credentials. This is how the adding expense would look like: [http://i.imgur.com/tg6UzFe.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/tg6UzFe.gifv). And it will be added to this sheet: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NfF1A0UC6qLuOE7eiTsA...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NfF1A0UC6qLuOE7eiTsAzNVAskNcYeuPHAkzSURH0Pc/edit#gid=0).

"Tacking Numbers" is the name I came up with when I was trying to setup Sheets API with Google API Console. I am not able to change it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice one. I have been using a similar method with Google Forms that carries the data over to a google spreadsheet, for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER12> I get "Cannot find the sheet" from Windows/Chrome. Details takes me back to the Github page. Was something removed?

<comment><AUTHOR> You need to add sheet to your Google Drive first. Details points to the step- by-step instructions to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is an interesting idea to store data on a private (also shareable) excel sheet instead of a database.

<comment><USER14> Sharing your finance planning with someone close who also shares your finances makes a lot of sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice work! I've been trying to pick up some App Script stuff too. Where did you learn it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think I am using App Script. I just started off with Google Sheets Javascript Quickstart guide. And it's pretty well documented: [https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/quickstart/js](https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/quickstart/js).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cannot get the example to work on iPhone 7+ with 10.3.2 beta3(I think)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Created an issue: [https://github.com/mitul45/expense- manager/issues/6](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager/issues/6).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> although not free, ynab (you need a budget) is probably a much better way to track expenses and budgeting.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about nYNAB but I've used YNAB daily for more than two years. It's a glorified spreadsheet with a nice mobile UI for entering expenses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does not work on Firefox (53)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out. Will fix soon. [https://github.com/mitul45/expense- manager/issues/2](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager/issues/2).</comment></comment>


The First Dinosaur Tail Found Preserved in Amber Is Covered in Feathers - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/12/dinosaur-tail-feathers/ <comment><USER2> Please stop posting this.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dinosaur&sort=byDate&prefix=fa...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dinosaur&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story)

<comment><AUTHOR> Dang it, I did a search for "feathers" and nothing relevant seemed to come up. Maybe I typoed something without noticing.

<comment><USER3> Really? I got 7 of them in a day's span, using just "feathers" in the generic search box at the bottom:

The First Dinosaur Tail Found Preserved in Amber Is Covered in Feathers 1 points breadbox 7 hours ago 2 comments ([http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/12/dinosaur-tail- feathers...](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/12/dinosaur-tail-feathers/))

Dinosaur tail preserved in amber, covered in feathers 2 points mattybrennan 14 hours ago 0 comments ([http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered- dinosau...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur- tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/))

The First Dinosaur Tail Found Preserved in Amber Is Covered in Feathers 1 points pmcpinto 19 hours ago 0 comments ([http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/12/dinosaur-tail- feathers...](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/12/dinosaur-tail-feathers/))

Feathered tail of dinosaur found in preserved in amber 3 points angrygoat a day ago 0 comments ([http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-09/99-million-year- old-am...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-09/99-million-year-old-amber- fossil-holds-dinosaur-bones-feathers/8092526))

Lucky find offers our first look at a dinosaur tail, complete with feathers 5 points mattiemass a day ago 0 comments ([http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/lucky-find-offers- our...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/lucky-find-offers-our-first- look-at-a-dinosaur-tail-complete-with-feathers/))

That Thing with Feathers Trapped in Amber? It Was a Dinosaur Tail 3 points sharp11 a day ago 0 comments ([http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/science/dinosaur- feathers-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/science/dinosaur-feathers- amber.html))

Dinosaur tail trapped in amber sheds light on evolution of feathers 3 points ssclafani a day ago 0 comments ([http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/dinosaur-tail- trapped...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/dinosaur-tail-trapped- amber-sheds-light-evolution-feathers))</comment></comment></comment>


Google Trends – Stumble Upon vs. ICQ - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0390wb,icq <comment><USER2> And this tells us what, exactly? Struggling to understand the context.</comment>


AI Predicts Obesity Prevalence from Space - <AUTHOR> https://singularityhub.com/2018/09/17/this-ai-predicts-obesity-prevalence-all-the-way-from-space/ <comment><USER2> Paper at [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2698635)

This paper abuses cross-validation to claim an unreasonably high accuracy.

They trained their model on census tracts from 6 US cities, and tested it with 5-fold cross-validation. That means you split the data randomly into 5 groups, and train with 4/5 and validate with the other 1/5.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that census tracts come in groups that are basically identical, because they're built by the same subdivision builder and moved into at the same time, and are served by the same grocery stores and restaurants and schools, and they have similar incidences of obesity. (In US suburbia, a census tract is typically 1 block with ~30 inhabitants.)

A random leave-1/5-out cross validation can report high accuracy, even with a highly overfitted network that just memorized the tracts it saw. Because the 5-fold validation still preserves at least one member from every group of identical tracts.

It'd be more impressive if it could predict obesity for a city it hadn't seen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can it also predict wealth? Aren't obesity and wealth correlated? Suspect green lawns and widely separated houses predict wealth compared to mobile homes in a barren lot packed together.</comment>


China Has Whole Towns Focused on Making Electric Cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-02/china-s-spending-30-billion-to-assemble-its-electric-detroits <comment><USER2> I remember reading a few months (?) ago that China was looking to consolidate the electric vehicle industry because the government incentives led to 500+ manufacturers who like to "move-fast and break things" and caused problems like vehicle fires.

imo that would mean a lot of these towns wouldn't be in business for very long.

Edit: found the discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617681)

<comment><USER3> There was also lots of subsidy fraud, where low value manufacturers would crank out what we're basically golf carts and then indirectly collect part of the subsidy via a process similar to money laundering.

<comment><USER4> I do remember years of "the solar boom," when just having word solar in company name enough to secure an effectively unconditional $3m grant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> More global R&D is a great thing!

Hopefully, India soon joins in. Their economy is starting to grow like China's. Between the two, that's 1/3 of the world's population.

<comment><USER6> Tata is already fairly big, you just don't see their cars here.

<comment><USER7> Where is here? I assume you mean either China or USA?

Anyways, Land Rover and Jaguar are Tata brands and present in both the above.

<comment><USER6> Tata has homemade cars too, really cheap ones even. You never see them here in West.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The more important Bloomberg link is about the EV bubble [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-14/the-18-bi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-14/the-18-billion- electric-car-bubble-at-risk-of-bursting-in-china)

<comment><USER9> I would be more concerned with a softness in the market outside of China. While we are still a few years away from a better selection EVs it does not mean they will spur higher sales. Tesla sells by reputation alone but other than them only Chinese brands have any good volume.

The market may constrain them to 200+ EPA ratings which will keep the price high. What we have not seen in the US is a mid 100 mile range car (130-160 or such) at a much lower price. I would be curious if such a car in the low 20k starting range would work?

<comment><USER10> Tesla does not have a good volume, even compared to something like Nissan Leaf, much less hybrids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hopefully we won't see any tariffs on them in US/Europe. Or am I too late with this hope?

<comment><USER12> It might interest you to know the sort of restrictions China has been placing on Tesla.

>[Musk] said China puts a 25 percent import duty on American cars, while the U.S. only does 2.5 percent for Chinese cars. He added that no American car company is "allowed to own even 50% of their own factory" in the Asian country, but China's auto firms can own their companies in the U.S.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/elon-musk-sides-with- trump-o...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/elon-musk-sides-with-trump-on- trade-with-china-citing-25-percent-import-duty-on-american-cars.html)

<comment><USER13> It's not just car companies but foreigners cannot own the majority of ANY company. I can understand why China did this because they don't want to end up like many of the developing countries where most of the economic engines of their country are owned by foreigners. You see this happening in the "banana republics" of the world. It also has the benefit of implicitly forcing technological transfer when it is coupled with high tariffs on imports. Foreign companies end up "partnering" with locals to avoid the tariffs but the joint company is ultimately Chinese majority owned. It's hard to argue that these policies have not benefited the Chinese or at least prevent some of the downsides of economic liberalization and "free" trade.

With all that in mind, however, other countries would be fools to allow this sort of economic asymmetry to continue. Especially at this point, when China is the second largest economy (and largest when adjusted by PPP), China doesn't need this kind of protection and is simply not playing fair. I don't know if tariffs are the best way of leveling the playing field but some sort of rebalancing and leveling of the playing field must happen because otherwise it is simply a rigged game.

There is even a very good argument that can be made that direct, unfettered foreign investment now would benefit China given its large consumer base with money to spend. Otherwise, the Chinese consumer is simply indirectly subsidizing Chinese corporations who made not have to compete as hard because of these protections.

<comment><USER14> > foreigners cannot own the majority of ANY company.

This is incorrect, and has not been the case for a very long time, please don't spread FUD.

Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Foreign- Owned_Enterpris...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Foreign- Owned_Enterprise)

<comment><USER13> Except you left out the really important restriction that they cannot directly sell to domestic Chinese market. So they're still subject to import tariffs. In fact there's a whole industry of consultants who specializes in helping these companies "export and import" their goods back to China. I guess they may save on the shipping costs and employ cheaper Chinese labor. But the whole point of companies opening factories in China is to be able to sell to the huge Chinese consumer market without being hit by tariffs.

<comment><USER14> WFOEs can sell to Chinese businesses, consumers, government (and they can sell overseas, and overseas companies can sell to WFOEs or domestically).

There's a lot of circularity in your comment.

A company can be wholly foreign owned.

A foreign owned company can sell in China, it can declare tax and issue receipts, employ people, rent office or factory space, build a building, the whole hog.

I'm not sure where what niche you are in regarding import/export taxes, opening factories, and employing cheap labour all in one gulp of air.

Wholly foreign owned companies in China are legal entities and have been for a long time, your comment "foreigners cannot own the majority of ANY company" is factually wrong and is FUD.

Do you have an agenda with these comments? Please don't make HN political.

<comment><USER13> My comment wasn't as precise/nuanced as it should have been but was meant as an add-on of the parent's comment. What I meant is that the ownership restriction doesn't just apply to car companies but other industries as well -- although I do see now how that could have been read differently.

WFOE cannot sell directly to Chinese consumers. The way WFOE sell to the Chinese domestic is essentially by "exporting" and "importing" its own products again, thus subject to taxes on such activities ( [https://www.set- up-company.com/joint-venture-vs.-wfoe:-which...](https://www.set-up- company.com/joint-venture-vs.-wfoe:-which-is-a-better-option-for-establishing- a-business-in-china.html) \-- "Scope of Business" Wish I could find a better source on this). A friend of mine interned at one of these firms that basically specializes in these creative "re-import" businesses but I don't know what these firms are called.

Not sure why my comments generates such a reaction from you that you accuse me of FUD or being political. It's certainly not intended as such. I study Chinese history as a hobby, especially modern history. I have friends and family who do business in China (and own businesses in China). My comments were intended to add more information and background to the original comment by combining what I've read and what I've heard. But sometimes intentions and outcomes don't match up. Apologies if my comments injected too much of my own perspective on the subject.

<comment><USER14> > WFOE cannot sell directly to Chinese consumers.

Well, I can open up a sandwich shop. A foreign owned entity will indeed probably get scrutiny. A couple of friends have shops selling sandwiches (one toasted, one pizza type). They are WFOEs!

I don't sell sandwiches. I mainly work in tech, finance and HR (generalist, I suppose). Some industries are controlled, even in another reply someone mentioned Tesla's plant is 100% owned. If waving fans, I have been in China (mainland) for two decades.

What you type about ownership rules is utterly incorrect. You don't seem able to drop the ball.

Edit: I'm going to drop the ball here and discontinue this. I wish you a good day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This, together with this comment _[..] especially in the German speaking part of Europe, are still run like factories, barely have flexible working hours and don 't even want to hear about remote work as managers prefer having a close eye on employees at all time._ from a previous HN discussion [1], has made me wonder if there is any Chinese market for remote SW developers from the other parts of the world.

It seems like the Chinese run at the speed of light these days while I'm still left to do Jira's and time sheets and bug hunting and colleagues that are really not that interested in anything software related at the same old 9-5 job.

Is China a viable alternative? Do you have any experience working with Chinese companies, startups, sw shops, etc?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082232)

<comment><USER16> _It seems like the Chinese run at the speed of light these days_

What native Chinese-built software products have done well outside of China?

<comment><USER17> Tiktok

<comment><USER18> Though that seems to have been built on the back of a massively expensive advertising blitz:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-18/tiktok- br...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-18/tiktok-brings- chinese-style-censorship-to-america-s-tweens):

> ...[Bytedance] is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise on > Facebook in the hope of luring away more users. Over the past three months, > for instance, 13 percent of all the ads seen by users of Facebook's Android > app were for TikTok, says app-analytics firm Apptopia.

That's been their MO in China as well. IIRC, the mainland Chinese version, Douyin, was being heavily and repeatedly promoted with the Chinese equivalent of ads during the Superbowl.

<comment><USER19> Remember when Venmo

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's amazing watching the Chinese Communist Party systematically target, succeed in, and gain dominance in these industries -- industries that any idiot can see are going to be critical to the global economy within a couple of decades max. Meanwhile trillions of investment dollars available in the US are busy chasing Juiceros.

<comment><USER21> It helps to be a dictatorship that can force anybody to do what they want, and send to camp people that don't. It also helps to have millions of cheap workers, and a gigantic, rich, soil. And it's easier if you not care about destroying everything in your way.

Still.

It's impressive for exactly the same reasons. It's hard to foster an intellectual elite in a dictatorship, to maintain motivation and cooperation across a gigantic country and 1.7B of people.

Beside, we did the same: polluting, forcing population to work, etc, only 100 years before, but we attacked other countries while doing so. Which China haven't. And about this pollution thing, they seem to correct trajectory faster than we did, given their timeframe and inertia.

It's amazing to watch.

<comment><USER22> >It's impressive for exactly the same reasons. It's hard to foster an intellectual elite in a dictatorship, to maintain motivation and cooperation across a gigantic country and 1.7B of people.

On the contrary you could argue that the brutal competition in the country encourages people to be razor sharp in some fields.

A more controversial and touchy point is that they have a strong sense of national and ethnic unity, which many democracies lack. This has many disadvantages of course,[0] but can be extremely helpful for maintaining cooperation and motivation at a large scale whereas the West arguably has trouble dealing with ennui and lack of purpose. To some extent the form of functional ethno-nationalism China has is hard to reproduce elsewhere, and is the result of very specific historical and geographical factors. Japan and Turkey for instance have similar traits but nowhere near the same results. So China is tautologically highly suited to doing what it is currently doing.

[0] [https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/11/19/the-upper- han](https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/11/19/the-upper-han)

<comment><USER21> I wonder what built this, becauqe clearly it's not new. China use to do it 2000 years ago too.

<comment><USER22> You could spend your entire career on this topic and still never find the answer, but this article gives a nice summary of some of the factors.

[https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/evolution-chinese- nat...](https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/evolution-chinese-nationalism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good

</comment><comment><USER24> Meanwhile in the US, coal is supposed to be making a comeback, Tesla is close to bankruptcy, solar industry is decimated and we're force-sending smart people out of the country when we need them the most to build stuff like this.

<comment><USER25> No amount of Trump insisting on saving coal will save it at this point. We've hit an inflection point where wind and solar are getting to be cheaper and it's less risk to place a turbine or panel. Barring new coal subsidies or taxes on renewables, coal won't grow in the US.

Tesla isn't having a great look on Wall Street, but that's because investors priced them as a tech company instead of a car manufacturer. They're having demand issues, but they'll adjust and markets will adjust the way they price Tesla shares. They still had no trouble raising funds despite serious new direct competition.

Solar is making huge international wins from cheaper, non-domestic manufacturers, including a few of the first massive installations to come in cheaper than coal.

Immigration is a real issue, of course, but a lot of companies have adjusted by opening R&D offices in Vancouver to be close to the border and the time zone of US tech offices.

<comment><USER26> If you are comparing solar and wind to coal you are missing the point by 10.000 miles. Coal is base load energy, wind and solar is for peak. You cannot control when the wind blows and over night there is no solar energy. You cannot store a large amount of energy (at least without massive destruction of land). Combining these, you need base load power plants, options: coal, nuclear. In some countries water could be a small fraction of the base load (I think Austria does that). If you have enough wind and solar you can use them to help out with peak but the same amount of fossil peak load has to be in your system as much as wind you got because something has to counter balance the fluctuation wind means. Options for peak load: wind, solar, oil or gas turbines.

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

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

<comment><USER27> I'm no expert, but I bet base load is mostly an artifact of having fossil fuels, not a reason to keep them around.

When you have cheap storage in the form of coal or oil barrels, it makes sense to just use energy whenever. But that will change - people will change their behaviors and business processes to adapt to the new conditions. Energy- expensive activities will become asynchronous - programmed to run whenever energy is cheap. Guaranteed energy - knowing you'll have a certain amount of kWh to spend at a specific time - will be expensive, and will be mostly used for prioritizing when the production is low.

Once your real base load drops enough, you won't need much storage to keep up even when production is abnormally low. Keeping a coal plant for the rare situations in which storage isn't enough, simply won't be economical. A natgas plant is more likely.

<comment><USER26> I only have a degree in this but you know nowadays on Hn anything goes. Regardless if I literally quote wikipedia about the subject, there are people who know better. Based on this, base load is dead, long live solar + wind!

<comment><USER27> No offense intended. I did preface by saying I'm no expert. I'm basing my opinion on what I've read by some people, such as:

"What we need for this fluctuating renewable energy in the electricity mix is not baseload. Baseload is poison for our electricity transition in Germany," \-- Thorsten Herdan, a director general for energy policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy

"The idea of there being an average or 'base' electricity load, doesn't make sense. Let alone having this sort of big, slow-changing power station to meet that load," \-- CSIRO Energy Director Dr Glenn Platt.

"Technology has moved on from base load, and now you want flexible power. And that's what demand management, batteries and pumped hydro is," \-- Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems.

And reports like Brattle Group's "Advancing Past "Baseload" to a Flexible Grid", and a few more which I have forgotten the name of.

And of course, knowing about the tech (IoT and such) that enables real-time communication of energy prices. And finally, my own guess that people will change their behaviour if it hits their wallet.

Sorry if I misread or got the arguments wrong.

<comment><USER26> None taken. You are quoting politicians and their wishful thinking here. Of course, they say what you want to hear.

I could answer you by writing a very lengthy essay, but I do not have the time or motivation to do that. Instead, if what they are saying is true why does Germany has 7 outs of 10 of the worst CO2 producing sources in the EU all of them are coal power plants?

[https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_...](https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_17582_megatonnes_of_co2_equivalent_in_the_eu_n.jpg)

The answer is: German mass hysteria made the country to turn off its nuclear power plants (you know, the other type of base load power plant that does not produce CO2) while not having any other option because renewables are not going to give you enough power. As a result they run on coal.

Lets add to the mix of the price of doing that:

[https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2](https://ibb.co/rvJ1Wb2)

So to sum it up, Germany produces the most CO2 in the EU and having the most expensive energy price by a large margin. This happens when you try to bend reality to your ideology instead of facing the challenges of our world and try to solve it.

It should be clear at this stage that without serious advencement in storing energy you cannot have a green solution to our energy needs. My prediction to the future, we are going to use solar + nuclear in the future because the combination of these two gives the best option of humanity and also because these work in a setup when you need the energy in space.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The world's 50 most innovative companies 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2018 <comment><USER2> My local pizza place makes me drool more than Instagram does.

This list couldn't possibly be more subjective. Walmart is more innovative than SpaceX? Come on.

Netflix is innovative? All they did was make people pay for a movie subscription service if they were too lazy to run Linux and torrent via Transmission</comment>


Adobe Releases AIR 2.0 with Native Processes, WebKit + HTML5, Multitouch, More - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/air/2010/06/introducing_air_2.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been testing pre-release builds of AIR 2.0 since January and am pleasantly surprised by the improvements over 1.5.x.

Their inclusion of the WebKit release that ships with Safari 4.x is enough to grin about (which introduced SquirrelFish Extreme and a native JSON object, so clients do not have to implement JSON parsing in AS3 or pass eval'd objects back through the security sandbox).

Beyond that, support for CSS transitions, animations, and canvas are welcome as well. I've not had a need to play with multitouch or the native process API, but they're great to have baked in.

I'm particularly looking forward to the Android SDK. It's a shame the AIR packager for iPhone is no longer maintained, but that's water under the bridge. It'll be nice to have a framework like this which allows for much easier UI skinning and definition than the stock SDK. PhoneGap et al are great - don't get me wrong - but it's nice to have a choice of platforms.

AIR is far from perfect, but it's a solid runtime to work in if you're building an app that has to be cross-platform, is media or network-intensive, and should behave more like a native app than something wrapped in a browser. Kudos to the AIR team on a good release.

</comment><comment><USER2> It is unfortunate that AIR doesn't get more press action than it already does. If you need to develop client-side apps and are already familiar with web technologies (HTML/JS), you can jump in swimming. You get a brain-dead simple API that adds common OS-related tasks like loading and saving files. And it's completely cross-platform!

My small company builds custom AIR apps for clients in real-time. Take the command-line compiler, a dash of AWS's services and database-driven configuration files and the system builds one-of-a-kind cross-platform apps in seconds. It's the closest thing to fill-in-the-blank software that I've found.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes I feel a little schizophrenic, because writing apps for the browser using Flex makes me want to tear my hair out but writing desktop apps with Flex/AIR is awesome (especially with the Mate framework).

I wish AIR had the native processes when I was building Naughty America Direct, one of the big things I wanted to be able to do was automatically add the videos to iTunes after they were downloaded.

<comment><USER4> +1 for mate <http://mate.asfusion.com> \-- it is so much simpler than all the other frameworks, and works right out of the box. i've used it on several projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Adobe air can be as good as it wants, I surely won't be installing another Adobe runtime. I have a modern, always up to date browser. Let me use that.

</comment><comment><USER6> _With a few clicks, the Adobe AIR "badge" embedded on the app download page takes care of installing or updating to the right version of AIR if needed._

You mean I _still_ can't just give users an installer, but instead need to walk them through some "install this, then come back to this page and install this other thing" rigoramole?

This was my first reaction to AIR 1.x as well: if your users can tell which runtime you're running on, it's not doing well. This "separate download" rubbish isn't the only reason that VB6 and Delphi took off and Java didn't, but I suspect it played its part.

</comment><comment><USER7> The most interesting thing I noticed on this page is that Flash Player 10.1 is released.</comment>


I made $41,879 as an AirBNB host - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/airbnb-superhosting/i-made-41-879-as-an-airbnb-host-8c33423cd5b6?v=1

<comment><USER2> looks like someone has some reputation to fix ...</comment>


This is what foreign spies see when they read President Trump's tweets - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/president-trumps-twitter-feed-is-a-gold-mine-for-foreign-spies/2017/06/23/e3e3b0b0-5764-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html <comment><USER2> Nice that our own analysts complain about the ease of analyzing Trump's public persona because of his public statements via a public analysis of _what it all means_.</comment>


Participate in the International Space Apps Challenge from Low Earth Orbit - <AUTHOR> http://spaceappschallenge.org/location/iss/

<comment><AUTHOR> "This location is on an active orbiting space station. Transportation costs are the responsibility of the participant unless you are an active-duty astronaut currently on-board the International Space Station." :-)</comment>


How to read your text file like a book - <AUTHOR> http://yaplc.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-read-your-text-file-like-book.html <comment><USER2> Blog post links to a RapidShare URL. Looks like the application comes from here:

<http://linux.techass.com/projects/etr/>

<http://freshmeat.net/projects/etextreader/>

It looks to be pretty old; the previous to current version is listed with a date in 2002. But if it works (haven't tried it, yet), so what?

Project Gutenburg hosts a file that appears to be one version back:

<http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/255>

Now, for my "value added. For extended reading off the screen, I wanted to dim all but the foreground window. Whether reading a text book in an editor, or a text-ful web page, or what have you. After a fair bit of googling, I settled upon this (Windows only -- sorry) utility, Ghoster:

<http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/#Ghoster>

It can get a bit finicky with focus, and sometimes I have to hit the Windows key on the keyboard to get the taskbar to show, but I've never had a serious problem with it.

I shrink whatever window until the contents have a comfortable width, flip on Ghoster, and have a less eye straining, distraction free read. And since the background is dimmed rather than completely blanked, I can still notice if e.g. an IM pops up.</comment>


Our Political System Is Hostile to Real Reform - <AUTHOR> https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/our-political-system-is-hostile-to-real-reform <comment><USER2> It's hard to reform when many Americans are in an abusive relationship with their own party. A Pew poll in 2017[1] showed that the majority of the most partisan supporters choose their own party because they hate the other one, rather than they like their own. You cannot make reform on destruction and hate. There is little positive energy to create really new proposals.

[1] [https://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/8-partisan- animosity...](https://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/8-partisan-animosity- personal-politics-views-of-trump/8_04/)

<comment><USER3> And this is doubly sad considering how both parties are/end up in significant agreement about the US' huge military presence abroad, tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulated campaign finance etc. Which are subjects where most US citizens hold the opposite view to the bi-partisan near-consensus.

<comment><USER4> On the issue of campaign finance, there is the matter of the McCain-Feingold Act, as it was informally known. Senator John McCain tried for years to advocate for something of its like but was energetically blocked by his own party, such as in the 105th Congress when McCain gathered the support of <all> 45 Democratic senators and a few GOP allies, but still not enough to break a GOP filibuster on the bill, thus killing it.

It was around 2002 that there was sufficient political atmosphere for McCain to gather the support of nearly all Democrats and 11 GOP allies for the bare minimum of 60 votes to beat a GOP filibuster.

The bill had restrictions on: (1) soft money, or money meant to promote issues or parties, (2) hard money, or money meant for specific campaigns or candidates, (3) advertising in proximity to an election, and (4) foreign contributions.

President George Bush declined to take a stance and signed the bill into law without comment.

It was challenged by Citizens United, a conservative non-profit, challenging whether they could be restricted from airing political ads near the election date, and it was overturned 5-4 by the US Supreme Court conservative majority along known party lines.

All parties have their failings, but it would be a mistake to think that a vote for either party is equally meaningless with regards to campaign finance. In the GOP, it's only McCain and a scant few allies who paid for this issue. The Democrats as a whole spent severe political energy and opportunity on campaign reform, while McCain spent his own political currency against the energetic opposition of his own party.

<comment><USER3> I'm talking about a constitutional amendment to severely limit spending on elections, public funding for elections, non-exclusionary public debates, and perhaps Instant-runoff (ranked-choice) or other voting resolution mechanisms.

PS - Buckley v. Valeo made it clear that a regular weak-sauce bill wouldn't do.

<comment><USER4> I'm talking about which party has burned serious political opportunity for this issue at all. Alternatively we could say Obamacare is weak sauce and cannot do the trick for American health, but it's also a reflection of a history of which party burned political opportunity in exchange for an issue.

That McCain's legacy withered so soon after suggests the inadequacy of his reach, not that a vote for the GOP, which worked so tirelessly to filibuster McCain, is the same as a vote cast for Democrats. It was only until Enron and after his presidential run that McCain had the window to gain the bare minimum 60 votes to stop his own party from filibustering his bills to death.

And now we hear that the GOP are the same as the Democrats on campaign finance reform. Okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Governmental response to corona virus made me really depressed.

If we look at current response of the various governments, it looks like they effectively decided to increase the already high level of income inequality even further.

It seems system is unwilling to revise itself at all, which will keep making various socioeconomic issues worse in the long run.

I guess one good thing is that current system keeps getting less and less stable with each crisis, so sooner or later it will collapse for real, once that happens I hope humans will be able to come together and build something better.

<comment><USER6> Yes. The $425b that will be leveraged into $4 trillion of basically free loans to large corporations is going to make things considerably worse for every ordinary American. Increase massively the consolidation of the economy and reduce competition. It'll be used by the large corporations that can access it to buy up competitors.

Here is just one topical example of how this kind of consolidation over the past decade has hurt us. And this program is more than five times the size of the 2008 program: Ventilator company Covidien acquired Newport to prevent it from building a cheaper product that would undermine Covidien's profits from its existing ventilator business. [1]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus- us-v...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us- ventilator-shortage.html)

This is very bad for America and - (I know politics is frowned on hut this is the real world and this is a political problem we are discussing) - and if anyone thinks the Democrats are not equally to blame you need to look again, they could have stripped this program from the House bill and passed it without and forced the Republicans in the Senate to either show their hand that they're holding Americans hostage for this or force them to blink first. But they refused to do that, IMO because they're clearly aligned on giving $4T to large business. If you disagree with that please explain what prevented them doing that. I would like to know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think any sufficiently complex system is hostile to reform just through its natural inertia, which in a huge system is a complex and fascinating topic itself.

But when you have truly enormous amounts of money and power at stake and a system that has settled into a certain posture that has concentrated those resources into certain hands...of course it would be very hostile to any change.

As the article states it takes shocks to bring about significant changes and hopefully we can move things forward some as a result of the current situation.

</comment><comment><USER8> Any system that continues to exist is necessarily self-perpetuating. Otherwise it wouldn't continue to exist. This is why there's been so many states that either existed for a flicker (innumerable Southeast Asian nations, nomadic states, etc) or for hundreds of years (Rome, the Russian Empire, the United States). The former were unable to keep themselves stable while the latter's rigidity did so. Of course, that same rigidity can be quite the liability when stress is placed upon it...

<comment><USER3> That's a bit of trivialization into a tautology.

Systems continue to exist, but most of them also change in various aspects - some superficial, some fundamental. Republican Rome was quite different from what Imperial Rome ended up being; the US of the 1800s is very different from the US of today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The biggest problem with the U.S. political system is our first-past-the-post voting system. Are you fed up with your party and want to vote for a Green instead of a Democrat or a Libertarian instead of Republican? Go ahead, all it will accomplish is benefiting the candidate you like the LEAST because you would have otherwise voted for their opponent.

I'm of the opinion that high voter participation is critically important because if you're not voting, you're not being represented, and if you're not being represented, those who are will benefit (likely) at your expense. In the U.S. however, people are understandably unenthusiastic about voting, because it almost doesn't matter.

Imagine what would have happened in 2016 if we had ranked choice voting and Bernie ran as an independent. Many on the left would have been energized to actually vote because they could vote for the candidate they actually wanted (Bernie), but would have been able to say "well if Bernie doesn't win, I guess Hillary is better than Trump". Bernie wouldn't have won, but neither would Trump. More importantly, though, those that supported Bernie would have been _represented_. You could point to the actual election results and see that X% of voters supported Bernie's ideas above the other candidates'.

The problem with the U.S. is that we don't get to vote for the best candidate, we get to vote for the least worst.

And don't get me started on the over-representation of low population states in the senate and electoral college.

<comment><USER10> Or even simpler, we could have a one person, one vote system. It would have worked in 2016 and 2000. When you have a system where the less popular candidate wins regularly, is it any wonder people are disillusioned by it?

Let's not even talk about the Senate where 500k people get the same amount of votes as 50 million. Yes, the founding fathers goal to not let rural areas be unrepresented was achieved at the expense of making the most populous areas underrepresented. So now instead of majority rule dominating minorities, minority rule dominates the majority. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong? /s

<comment><USER11> No way. I'm a resident of a rural state.

The things you probably find crazy: Gun ownership, owning trucks, large houses, etc. we find essential.

It's a big country, with different needs for different people. The day we trash the electoral college is the day we destroy America.

<comment><USER12> >The things you probably find crazy: Gun ownership, owning trucks, large houses, etc. we find essential.

Of these, only gun ownership even has remote relevance to Federal politics, and none of them are actually essential, or even exclusive to rural residents to begin with.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I should clarify. Those things are essential to our way of life. Our way of commuting, recreating, and living is different than what a large city dweller may be accustomed to.

This is why the electoral college is so very important. Without it, politicians would quickly shift even more focus to populous areas, to the detriment of the rest of the country.

<comment><USER12> You do realize that when presidential nominees come to your rural area, eat at truck stops, pose with hunters, and give speeches about how the "real" Americans are the God-fearing people in the heartland doing honest work in the mines and steel mills and factories, that they're just pandering, right? They don't care about preserving your way of life, only the cold calculus of turning whatever states happen to be the swing states that election year.

I mean, the two party process gave you a choice between a millionaire from New York with at least a tenuous cultural connection to rural America, and a billionaire from New York with none, and judging from your former comments, you seem to have voted for the billionaire, and then the electoral college decided whether or not your vote mattered, and chose Kang over Kodos on your behalf. Luckily for you, your state agreed with your vote. But if you happen to be of the wrong party in some states, thanks to the electoral college, your vote simply ceases to matter.

I don't think the electoral college is giving you the leverage against urban cultural power you seem to think it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The United States is ungovernable in any coherent manner, except as an empire. It's far too large and culturally incompatible. There is no logical reason the people of appalachia should be governed by people on the west coast, or vice versa.

The real power centers, the banking, corporate and foreign-policy elites, are content to govern the empire indirectly, and keep us all fighting with one another over things like pronouns, so long as wages are ruthlessly suppressed.

It will keep going. Until it stops.</comment>


Question: Does a blog sub-domain help the Pagerank and popularity of your main website? - <AUTHOR>

I have my main application site https://drchrono.com, and I have a blog sub-domain under http://blog.drchrono.com. I was told by some bloggers that the blog sub-domain of your site helps the pagerank of your main site. Does traffic to your blog sub-domain help the Google Pagerank of your site and count as traffic to your main site? <comment><USER2> <http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/>

Read his blog. Matt Cutts is a Google engineer who spends his time answering these kinds of questions. The poor bastard.

Unless SEO is your career, don't spend too much time on this stuff. Really. I've seen too many people latch onto SEO like it was eternal salvation with a side of ice cream. Then they descend into endless, almost Talmudically obscure discussions over 302 Found vs 303 See other.

Don't waste your life trying to divine the minute thoughts of God/Google. Just be good. Produce good & original content, link appropriately, make sure your site is _fast_ , and watch your 404s. Get that stuff right and you are 90% ahead.

It's your job to do things that people, real people, will enjoy. It's Google's job to connect people with what they want. Never forget that. Never try to short-circuit the user to directly please Google.

<comment><USER3> I think it is a mistake to pretend that the world is perfectly just and to ignore the mechanics of how various systems work within it. Many websites receive more than 50% of their traffic from google and so their rankings can count for a lot. It would be great if google's results were a perfect reflection of utility but that isn't always the case. So, at least defensively, many sites need to consider the impact of their actions on their search results.

In agree that 'being good' should be the core of your strategy but ignoring other factors is naive.

<comment><USER2> This is a good point -- keep aware of trends. But once you are into details of "subdomain vs subdirectory" for your blog, the returns are far below the benefit for the vast majority of sites. Those kinds of differences only help in the case of a photo finish.

If you are really unsure about some minor SEO trick, flip a coin and instead try to shave 100 milliseconds off of your latency.

Google is not run by Dungeon Masters. It's not a trap. A search engine will only pay attention to some feature that distinguishes websites if it helps them improve the quality of results. And its in their interest to communicate the features they pay attention to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You would probably be better off putting the blog in a subdirectory if it's practical. Google used to count subdomains as entirely different sites, and although they have now moved to treating them more like subfolders, you'll still probably help the root domain more from a subdirectory.

</comment><comment><USER5> If there are links from your blog to your main website, then yes. Otherwise no. Pagerank is on a page-by-page basis, not on a site basis.

<comment><USER6> I thought that PR takes in mind the whole site, and the domain name, and the relativity between other pages on the same website?

<comment><USER4> TrustRank is built on the whole site, so every quality link you get into your blog will make your entire domain more trusted. This is why you see massive sites like Amazon and Wikipedia ranking for everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> PageRank is page specific.

Sub-domains are treated as a separate site in the eyes of search engines.</comment>