The sharing economy was always a scam - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/the-sharing-economy-was-always-a-scam-68a9b36f3e4b <comment><USER2> Articles like this ignore the impact on individuals. For every group that is trying to full time Uber/Lyft or turn an AirBNB into a hotel, there's also tons of people who are doing in the spare time to make some extra or work the better allocation of resources into something beneficial for them.

See threads like: [https://twitter.com/RantyAmyCurtis/status/110272136190510694...](https://twitter.com/RantyAmyCurtis/status/1102721361905106945)

That's what sharing is about, more optimal allocation/usage. It's not an end- all solution to everything, it's a supplement. There will be people who make their entire go at it, and there will be everything in between.

The importance is that you let people decide whether to participate in it or not. They're the ones with which the decision of whether it is a scam or not ultimately matters.

Trying to paint the entire phenomenon as either a total failure or the end-all panacea is dumb. It's a much welcome addition to the broader economy by millions of people.

<comment><USER3> There's a lot that I agree with in your post and in that thread, but this in particular I take issue with:

> One poinI have no idea what orifice @AOC pulled the$3.37 number from, but > it's wrong at best or intentionally deceptive at worst. I never made less > than $10/hour and usually made $15-$45 an hour. And this was BEFORE Uber > allowed tipping via the app.

This woman is clearly not taking her expenses into account when calculating her income, and there lies the rub - in one way Uber is taking advantage of people's poor ability to do math. If you are a short/part-time driver, the increased depreciation and maintenance costs are probably not that visible to you, but for folks who drive more regularly they absolutely need to be factored in to your income calculations.

A good treatment of the topic: [https://www.ridester.com/uber-lyft-driver- costs-and-expenses...](https://www.ridester.com/uber-lyft-driver-costs-and- expenses/)

<comment><USER4> > _taking advantage of people 's poor ability to do math_

Are you sure you're not being patronizing there? i.e. underestimating people's ability to choose what works for them? I talk to most Uber/Lyft drivers I ride with, every one of them has said they're happy with it, and most have given specific reasons why.

<comment><USER5> I don't think its patronising, some (many?) people just aren't good at maths.

I know a couple of intelligent people that have a real blind spot when it comes to dealing with figures. So this isn't a 'stupid people' thing.

Have you never had a conversation with someone about their new car/phone. They say it's cheap because it only costs them X per month. You ask them what the total cost is, and they have no idea? Because I seem to have that kind of conversation with a wide variety of people.

It's not about choosing what works for them, its about making sure that choice is informed. If you're earning $10/hr great, if you spend $5 of that on other costs, you should really be deciding if $5/hr is worth it.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but why assume that Uber and Lyft drivers all fall into that category? That's what seems patronizing to me. They'd have to be dumb to take that gig for very long if it wasn't economic for them, and many of the ones I've talked to have stuck with it for a long time now. To me it seems disrespectful to assume that they don't know their own interests, and it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber, which I dislike.

<comment><USER5> Personally I don't read the parents comment as referring to _all_ Uber drivers, but that's just me.

"it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber "

I agree that that's the meme, the parent doesn't actually refer to Uber driver's wealth, rich or poor.

I'm guessing theres an unspoken assumption that Uber drivers are poorer, because it isn't that well paid? People don't seem to be giving up careers to do it.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Also the meme might be "poor people are forced into exploitative situations". Nobody would assume that a fast food clerk, for example, is dumb enough to consider the job good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking as a professional engine mechanic for a chain of Midwest shops, you have no idea how big a ripoff uber and lyft are until you're in the shop.

The rates you make do not cover fleet style usage of your personal vehicle. Cabbies love the crown Vic because its intercooler let's it idle for hours on end with no worries. And they love the Prius because the idle uses no fuel. But your car? Get ready for more oil changes and brake jobs, and a lot more air filter and steering fluid changes as you go around the blocks. The worst I'd charged shop rate was for a Toyota Camry that had $2500 in service because the uber guy was trying to make it last between paychecks that weren't being paid by uber. A month later in august he lost the transmission at 65000 miles because he never idled in neutral.

<comment><USER7> Does one need to idle in neural even on automatic gear cars?

<comment><USER8> He was probably slipping the clutch.

<comment><USER9> I think you'll find it's been years if not decades since there was a Camry available with a manual transmission

<comment><USER10> And that would just wear a bearing/spring system or the clutch, which are all repairs that are far cheaper than the cost of an automatic transmission replacement.

<comment><USER11> But idling an automatic shouldn't be a problem. It's a fluid turbine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The claim was never that "'Sharing' was supposed to save us" nor any of the other allegations in the article. In fact there never was any unified claims.

Of course the individual companies made claims about how their platform would save you a bit of time and money and friction. And _that_ has largely been true. Millions of people each saves a little time and money, and that in aggregate has benefited us tremendously.

The sharing economy never promised the moon.

<comment><USER13> Who is "us"? Maybe upper middle class consumers, but not the workers at these companies.

<comment><USER14> If those providing services through platforms such as Uber or airbnb didn't benefitted from them then they'd be doing something else instead.

Furthermore, of detractors actually cared about "the workers" then they'd be worried about how they have no better options instead of attacking the best options they have.

And no, banning Uber or airbnb does not make the workers' lives any better. It just an option off the table, and to some it's the best option they have.

<comment><USER13> There are choices other than unemployment and shitty gig jobs -- stable, well- paying employment with benefits. Whether these jobs exist or not isn't because of some abstract economic theory: they have to be fought for and won through political struggle (ie unions & strikes). The gig economy disempowers workers and makes solidarity among workers more difficult, because workers may not have a single employer, and are easily replaceable.

I'm not saying we should ban these companies, I'm saying their workers should be paid much more than they currently are.

<comment><USER14> > There are choices other than unemployment and shitty gig jobs -- stable, > well-paying employment with benefits.

There really isn't. Everyone looks after their best interests, and those working for companies such as Uber are already choosing the best option that's available to them.

Zero people have passed on well-paying jobs with benefits to pursue a career delivering food through Uber eats.

Making vacuous statements regarding the myriad of better options the gig economy workers forego to pursue the siren song of delivering pizzas makes as much sense as depicting winning the lottery as a valid alternative to working a day job, and it's an insult to those who want to make a living but have limited options.

People choose to deliver pizzas for a living because it's the best option available to them, and complaining that they should instead just get a stable well-paying job with benefits makes as much sense as complaining that starving people should eat cake instead.

<comment><USER13> you seem to think that jobs just exist, and pay a certain wage, and that wage is fixed and this is the law of the universe.

political struggle (higher minimum wage, stronger regulations, unions, etc) drives wages up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The title seems totally unsupported by the article to me. A less misleading one might be "The 'sharing economy' has evolved into a collection of large, unregulated, rental businesses"

<comment><USER14> The sharing economy was always fron day 1 about rentals. That's the central premise.

What's deviating from the original concept is that barriers to entry are restricting supply to the point that providing a service becomes too profitable and actually pays off to provide it full time.

Consider Uber. The principle behind ride sharing is quite simple: if you're already driving somewhere you can help someone out by sharing your ride with someone who wants to go where you're going. Cars are already clogging the roads while operating at 1/5 of their capacity. So, why not give someone a ride and be rewarded for your efford? Except that regulation bars individuals from doing just thay, and thus so-called rideshare companies are actually taxi companies.

<comment><USER16> >The sharing economy was always fron day 1 about rentals. That's the central premise.

If I may, the central premise is about being middle-man in a (renting) transaction, shaving off a fee from it for the service of establishing a contact between the two parties and - optionally - provide ancillary services (again at a cost for either party involved in the transaction).

<comment><USER14> You've just defined a business transaction. Being paid for providing a service is not the central premise, and completely misses the whole point.

The central premise of sharing economy is that people have access to resources, whether they are goods or services, that are underused or even wasted, resulting in an unnecessarily high level of economic inefficiency. Thus if a system is set to encourage those who have the resources to make them available to potential clients for a fee then everyone involved wins. A key concept is to set a centealized service which handles the hard part of a business such as transactions, business models, and disputes.

<comment><USER16> Well, that is exactly what the "businesses" revolving around it are doing.

Offering in your words a "centralized service which handles the hard part of a business such as transactions, business models, and disputes" cutting a fee from the value of the transaction.

The point of disagreement between our opinions only revolves around that service(s) being the "hard part" of the business and about the actual amount of the fees involved for these services.

Anyway a line needs to be drawn between an actual "sharing car" approach, as an example we have here blablacar where someone _already_ has to go from A to B and offers a ride to recover some costs and something like Uber and Lyft, here the driver is going from A to B _only_ because the customer(s) needs to go from A to B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sharing economy has existed well before technology and will outlast Uber and others. When you ask friends to drop you at airport that is sharing. When your aunt babyseats for you that is sharing economy. Potluck is sharing economy.

Economic efficiency through sharing is a great thing for society, it is just that it is hard to get it right at scale but nevertheless we are trying and we will test success sooner or later in some areas.

<comment><USER18> Doing favours for friends is very tax efficient. You basically pay no tax when you give or receive a favour. And let's face it, even though sometimes you might pay a friend to babysit or whatever it is cash in hand and no tax.

But the sharing economy requires you to pay from your after tax salary to someone else, who then pays tax on that before they get their pay. On top of that the rent seeker (uber, etc.) has to take their slice. So it's a low paid marginal business once you are being paid.

<comment><USER17> Yeah absolutely. That is why I do not know how to make it scale. In India often we let the uber driver cancel the ride after sitting in the taxi and pay him in cash thus he makes lot more money.

I think a networked society is colliding with a hierarchical government and the result is confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rv-de I'm currently traveling through the UK.

I went from Hamburg to London via Antwerp by blablacar.

I so far stayed at two places through couchsurfing.

and I'm now heading towards my third Airbnb place.

sharing economy is certainly not a scam.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, duh. Wasn't that obvious around the time Uber started?

<comment><USER20> Indeed...

"There was a moment of novelty but then a realization that these were the same things. Just much cheaper and unregulated."

Imo this has been obvious all along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe _" sharing"_ is not the correct term. The value proposition has evolved into a _Subscription Economy_ with _Asset-Light_ lifestyles.

</comment><comment><USER22> >Sharing economy

Back in the day we called it sharecropping and we knew it was bad.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wouldn't say it was a scam. I mean, at the end of the day, these 'sharing economy' services are basically platforms with a middleman taking a cut, and were originally meant for people to use as a hobby more than anything else. You might occasionally drive for Uber for a bit of spare cash, or lease out a room on Airbnb because you weren't using it right now.

In that scenario, it's fine. It doesn't provide a living wage, but really, it wasn't meant to replace your full time income.

But the thing is, where a market and platform exists, that's where you see a creeping level of 'professionalism' among participants, and eventually, the people doing it for fun do getting crowded out by people doing it for a living.

Yet the model doesn't work for that. What's sustainable for legions of people doing things in their spare time/using their spare resources is not sustainable as a full time replacement for hotels or taxis or what not. The problem is that the gig economy is just that; about gigs, not full time work.

And to some degree, you can see this trend everywhere. YouTube was at one point meant as a place to post amateur videos; now nearly everyone sees it as a full time job. Medium was a place for amateur writers, now it's see as a market for selling articles. Even game mods, an area which used to be 100% free now has a growing percentage of devs trying to treat it as a full time career.

Hence the problems with the sharing economy (and arguably platforms as a whole) are really two fold:

1\. What works as a hobby/extra way to make money on the side doesn't really scale well to a full time career, but more and more people seem to expect the latter. It's like trying to use a paper round (or a ton of them) to pay the mortgage.

2\. The existing markets/businesses these platforms target become unprofitable due to the huge increase in competition and lower number of regulations.

But that's not really a scam. It's just technology and society unlocking a lot more supply in these areas than there was before, and the existing businesses in the market suffering because of it. You don't even a platform for that, the internet has basically destroyed journalism as a viable career in much the same way as Uber has taxis.

On another note, the article also seems to conflate two different things; platform/gig economy services and subscription services. Something like Amazon Prime Video isn't that. It's another example of how companies seem to be trying to kill off private property with the endless subscription, and a whole 'nother kettle of fish in itself.

</comment><comment><USER24> In a shocking, totally unexpected twist, company owners and marketing professionals exaggerated the value of their products.

Most of these sharing startups have just been flops. They promised to "disrupt X", and then no one used them, or they were too expensive, and they vanished.

</comment><comment><USER25> Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s)

We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment.

And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regulation. And it works. Until prices then rise, and people are angry about the high prices of thing (Taxis).

And then, an upstart doing "app hailing" starts this all over again, with no quality, no assurances, no regulation, and sub-minimum wage payments, with no work protections.

Soon enough, the laws will finally roll in again as they did when Taxis were first made.

<comment><USER26> > Until prices then rise

Which they didn't do entirely through the invisible hand. In many areas, taxi regulation was also used limit competition (e.g. medallion systems, unnecessarily difficult licensing exams). In addition to higher prices it permitted lower quality service. If you want to prevent destructive wildfires, you need to do forest management to reduce the fuel that builds up. The taxi industry was a forest full of dry, dead wood ready to burn.

<comment><USER13> [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/nyregion/taxi-drivers- sui...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/nyregion/taxi-drivers-suicide- nyc.html)

It's easy to be cavalier if you ignore the effect on Taxi workers. Ride sharing replaced a stable, unionized, middle class career with low-paying, low-benefit gig jobs. It ruined people's lives and destroyed a stable field of work. This wasn't a technological innovation -- it was a legal one, where they figured out a way to evade regulations to undercut the current system and drive down wages.

<comment><USER27> _It ruined people 's lives and destroyed a stable field of work._

Telephone operators and travel agents used to have stable careers.

 _This wasn 't a technological innovation_

If the technology is so insignificant, why didn't taxi companies develop ride- hailing apps? Either it's actually complex, or they decided they had no need to improve service because of their oligopoly.

<comment><USER28>
      Telephone operators and travel agents used to have stable careers.

So you are for the indiscriminate ruining of lives because of technological innovation? Why can't any of these innovators work with encumbents to ensure happiness for all and not just enriching themselves?

<comment><USER29> Why can't any of these incumbents work with innovators to ensure happiness for all and not just enriching themselves?

I don't know if you've ever been to a medallion auction but they went for over a million dollars _each_ in Manhattan before Uber came along. Most of the medallions were bought up by holding companies that then leased them out to drivers who paid up front and had to hope they made enough money that day to cover the fee. In San Francisco, I remember a driver told me that his up front fee was $100-200 per 8 hour shift depending on the season - that's over $100-200k per year ROI and SF's medallions were a fraction of the price of NYC.

I seriously doubt many lives were ruined by the fall in value of taxi medallions. Very few are owned by actual drivers and that's where _all_ the money is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> People forget that sharing economy always existed in some form

You ask your friend to drop you off at the work or your sister to babysit your son, it's all sharing.

I can argue such kind of sharing (without cash) puts other people at disadvantages who don't have friends or family maybe due to some disability.

Now even those people can hail a ride on Uber.

What's wrong with it? I don't need to maintain a list of friends which worsens my anexeity/depression, I simply pay and I am happy.

I can see why people who have social circle to maintain such favours will not like this because now a lonely soul can get same level of service from others around him.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you do not like the sharing economy, then do not participate in it. "Other people should not be doing this, and should not be doing that, ..." is one bridge too far. For heaven's sake, who the hell are you, to tell other people what to do?

<comment><USER32> Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name!

<comment><USER31> I am free to make the deals that I want, regardless of what they include or don't include. Why would I need you to protect me from myself? Why do you want to micromanage other people's lives? Is your own life not interesting enough already?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Because your life impacts mine.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217)

<comment><USER33> Virtually everything you do impacts people around you. So can you be more specific?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Great Time To Be a Web Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.costan.us/2009/03/great-time-to-be-web-programmer.html

<comment><USER2> I don't know. I agree with most of what he says. At one time not too long ago I would have agreed with it all.

But lately I've been experimenting with Flash and Silverlight and I have to say I'd forgotten how easy development could be. For all that's great about Javascript it's still a decade old hack. Being in an enviornment without all the little quirks of Javascript and CSS has really made me long for the days of developing for the Desktop. Where you didn't have to worry about font differences between IE and Firefox or whether you might get an IE6 user.

I guess what I'm saying is that things ARE great now but they could still be much, much better.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article is a bit ..... naive?? :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I thought everyone knew HTML already.</comment>


Technology redefines the new generation music festival experience - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/future-of-music/3ebac298316b

<comment><USER2> Snapchat's Our Story feature launch at Electronic Daisy Festival was great, too.</comment>


The Kardashev Scale - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFK5_Nx9xY&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Does anyone know why the scale isn't more granular? Type I's apparently consume 10^16W, Type II's 10^26W, Type III's 10^36W. That's 10B multiplier between each level.</comment>


MoonshotBacker.com - <AUTHOR> I really excited I just bought the domain moonshotbacker.com. A place for people to build a community around big ideas. follow the ideas and watch them evolve. Imagine what could be accomplished if 1,000,000 people put 10 hrs/wk on 1 goal. If your going to dream why not dream big with me. <comment><AUTHOR> anyone find this interesting?</comment>


Tig 1.0 released - ncurses text-mode interface for git - <AUTHOR> http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/NEWS.html

<comment><USER2> Sweet! I use tig daily as my main git viewer.

Here are some bindings my in .tigrc, which I use in the log viewer window, to make it more vim like:

bind generic g move-first-line

bind generic G move-last-line

bind generic n next

bind generic p previous

I generally use n/p to flip between commits in log view, hit enter to view a specific commit, and then j/k to move lines on the commit view.

</comment><comment><USER3> My favourite things about Tig:

      * It's fast.
      * It's there in the terminal, right where you're using git.
      * Hence, easy to use over ssh :)
      * Familiar keyboard shortcuts (press 'h' for help).
      * Combined log/diff view, where each scrolls independently.
      * 'tig --all'

I've often wished I could use it to start a rebase, but besides that, I find it damn near perfect.

<comment><USER4> As an avid rebase user, I want to add rebase support eventually. Something like interactive rebase, however, the question is how to improve something that is nearly perfect.

<comment><USER3> That'd be awesome. :)

If tig started "git rebase" (with or without -i) and then helped me through fixing any conflicts (merge tool?), that'd be awesome.

I sometimes forget where I am during a rebase, so showing how many more commits to go would be cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good to see people still develop using ncurse. It is quite different from the "SaaS in the cloud" trend.

</comment><comment><USER6> The main project site has more information, as well as some screenshots: <http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. It looks similar to the vim plugin fugitive: <http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2975>

<comment><USER2> Fugitive is pretty great once figure out most of it.

Extradite is a wrapper around fugitive to provide a log view similar to tig's log view, but seemed a bit clunky to me last time I tried it.

<https://github.com/int3/vim-extradite>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love it, shame that most of the time I work with Mercurial... Is there anything like a tig for hg? I haven't been able to find it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Tig is the only git viewer that I like.

<comment><USER10> what do you not like about gitk?

<comment><USER9> <http://lwn.net/Articles/140350/>

It's fine. I have nothing against it. I just generally like doing as much as I can in the terminal, when that makes sense.

gitk is OK, but I _like_ tig. Personal quirks.

<comment><USER10> fair enough. i'm just the other way around - i usually prefer terminal-based apps, but i really like gitk and git-cola. the gui really enhances the user experience for both those apps.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla runs an entire island on solar power - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/tesla-runs-island-on-solar-power/ <comment><USER2> Battery tech in general is really the limiting factor for environmental improvements of solar and wind over other common forms of energy. We need more advances here, and they shouldn't all come from Elon Musk.

One of the toughest things to overcome is that lithium ion batteries have a limited lifespan (although it's improving) and the cost for that life span compared to alternatives is pretty high, so the economics aren't great. Yet.

The environmental hazards, both in manufacturing and disposal, are not insignificant either[1].

With all that said, li-ion represents _our best bet for future tech advances_ that have minimal environmental impact, especially for space travel.

Eventually. (But if I was a VC, I'd be investing in cleaner and more efficient ways to utilize petrochemicals in the near/mid term.. maybe looking at non- burning tech; whatever happened to fuel cells?)

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium- ion_battery#Environmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium- ion_battery#Environmental_concerns_and_recycling)

<comment><USER3> Fuel cells are low efficiency (<60%) _and_ expensive so they are a poor fit for grid energy storage. One option is to just burn hydrogen in traditional gas turbines which can also have 60% efficiency ed: (62.22%), but are much cheaper to build.

PS: This also simplifies the problem to: Can you make and store hydrogen for a lower cost than natural gas.

<comment><USER3> Someone under shadow ban mentioned the inefficiency of electrolysis. Which is also around 60% at best.

That is an important consideration, but on a national level it may still be useful as redundant capacity. If your hydrogen tanks are fill up over months when production is vastly above demand, and only used in very rare situations then it might still be viable. At that point it's more a question of economics then thermodynamics.

However, the standby generators which use this hydrogen are a more direct comparison in cost and efficiency terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found some price data on another island project, a Tesla battery installation on Kaui[1], $0.145/kwh for stored power. The end user price in Hawaii is around $0.33/kwh. While that's not a cheap price for storage, LiIon batteries are on a rapid price decline because of manufacturing learning curve. Net net, it looks like they're just breaking into the cost-effective zone and within a few years will be practical in many places.

> The Tesla Energy batteries will supply a 52 MWh utility-scale energy storage > system in order to help KIUC meet evening peak demand, which typically > occurs between 5:00 pm and 10:00 pm... SolarCity said it would charge the > utility 14.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for power from the batteries in a > 20-year arrangement

[1] [https://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/19/solarcity-deploy- tesla-...](https://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/19/solarcity-deploy-tesla-energy- batteries-52-mwh-evening-electricity-storage-kauai-hawai%CA%BBi/)

<comment><USER5> It's not cheap but also not unheard of either. In western Europe i pay ~$0.30/kWh

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The part I don't get is: why use batteries for large infrastructural power storage? Why not flywheels?

edit: looks like Oʻahu is getting flywheels: [http://amberkinetics.com/amber- kinetics-and-hawaiian-electri...](http://amberkinetics.com/amber-kinetics-and- hawaiian-electric-sign-agreement-for-flywheel-energy-storage-pilot-project/)

It's too bad Tesla seems all-in on batteries even for large-scale storage projects.

<comment><USER7> I think this is because Tesla/SolarCity/SpaceX has this philosophy of versatility of components. They want to have one and only one energy storage technology and produce it at scale. This also one reason for the Tesla/SolarCity merger: you can use the same building block and scale it up.

SpaceX is doing the same: use one rocket motor on booster and upper stage, and mass produce it. In contrast Ariane uses three different motors on one rocket.

<comment><USER8> This is one of those really important business decisions that feels almost trivial but with profound positive results. It immediately reminded me of Southwest Air and how they credit some of their early success to _only_ flying 737s. Letting them standardize their maintenance and getting very good at keeping that one model of airplane flying.

<comment><USER9> The computer industry is perhaps the most extreme example of this. From a dizzying array of different systems in the infancy of computing, the overwhelming majority of the market has consolidated to two instruction set architectures and a handful of operating systems. Magic things happen when your economies of scale are big enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More and more use-cases will pop-up as the cost of solar tech slowly inches down.

When you consider it, most of our roofs are unused, and would make an ideal location for tiny panels + battery packs. Similarly new blocks of city development can be planned around a central panel+pack with housing surrounding it.

<comment><USER11> In a foggy/dreary climate (think UK) it doesn't make sense

Same with places prone to radical weather. Or just anywhere that doesn't get a lot of sun (the farther you get from the equator, really).

Because even if we get solar panel cost down in the next few years, it is still going to be expensive and need a fair amount of maintenance. And if that doesn't offset the cost sufficiently, it isn't worth it

Believe me, I want clean energy and do think solar should be exploited where it is reasonable (same with wind) and wish we would at least use cleaner sources where it isn't. But studies/experiments like this tend to rely on best case scenarios and corner cases and often just don't take economics into consideration.

Are they good as proof of concepts and PR? Yeah. But they still aren't that representative.

<comment><USER12> Interestingly, Eigg, a small hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland has been operating 95% of their power on renewables since 2008: [https://islandsgoinggreen.org/about/eigg- electric/](https://islandsgoinggreen.org/about/eigg-electric/) (they keep diesel to drive baseload backup)

The initial reason for this was that to get electricity from the grid to them was going to cost _lots_ of money. Solar is an important part of their mix - the Hebrides get a a good chunk of sun in the summer (and long days too). They've been a case study for a number of similarly isolated communities - either islands or other locations far away from existing electricity infrastructure.

Making batteries more efficient (and cheaper), and making each of the renewables mix more efficient and cheaper will make this possible for more and more communities.

<comment><USER6> > Interestingly, Eigg, a small hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland > has been operating 95% of their power on renewables

Renewable, but mostly as hydro.

Things are easier when you have large hydro (relative to your needs), Iceland's electrical production has been 100% renewable since 2008 (and was 99.9% renewable before that) because they have a ton of hydro (80% of total capacity), and a fair amount (and growing) of geothermal (geothermal is 2/3rd of their energy consumption but the vast majority is direct use for heating, not electricity generation). And note that ~70% of Icelandic electricity generation is solely for aluminum production.

<comment><USER13> Could Iceland export power?

<comment><USER14> I believe links connection the UK to Iceland and Norway are at the planning stage and generally interconnecting over lager areas is part of using renewable energy more efficiently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The future is here, just unevenly distributed... " and the cool thing for the rest of us is that the learning curves on solar, especially, and battery power are incredible, so some people adopting now hastens the day when it is here for the rest of us.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Ta'u previously had to run on diesel generators. That burns 300 gallons of > fuel per day, which is neither eco-friendly nor cheap. Solar eliminates the > pollution [...]

I wonder about the ecological footprint of the batteries though.

<comment><USER17> Current Li-on packs are good for 2000 cycles, about 8 years. Even when you include mining and manufacturing the environmental impact is still negligible compared to running on diesel 24/7/365.

<comment><USER18> I believe Tesla is giving these pack a much longer life span. I know one of the chief engineers for their batteries said the old batteries that exist in the Model S and X today could last many more cycles with a 15-20 year life span. I think we're seeing good evidence of this too as Tesla's are reaching 100k+ miles, one got to 200k already and I believe only had ~11% battery degradation. Pretty impressive either way.

As far as mining, I think the biggest issues as far as cost go are getting Cobalt, which is primarily only found in the DR Congos', and then in Tesla's case, finding more Lithium in North America.

I'm sure in a ~5 years or so, Tesla will create a massive battery recycling program as well to start bringing in those Tesla batteries on cars from the early models.

<comment><USER19> > I believe Tesla is giving these pack a much longer life span.

Tesla's CTO is giving the battery packs a 10-15 year minimum service life.

> I'm sure in a ~5 years or so, Tesla will create a massive battery recycling > program as well to start bringing in those Tesla batteries on cars from the > early models.

Tesla plans a recycling line at the Gigafactory. Old batteries in, new packs out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Now that Tesla is all in with solar.

I hope they can pour money into technology which generates power from the rain[1].

As with everything the new technology starts out with low power. But my hope is that they increase that and you can generate energy all year round. Even at night!

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/11/solar-cell-generates- pow...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/11/solar-cell-generates-power-from- raindrops/)

<comment><USER21> At scale they call this hydroelectric, and it's pretty common :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's on the equator, the ideal case.

Hawaii is at 6% solar power and climbing rapidly.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you need 10kg Lithium for one Powerpack (100g Li for 1kWh), you need about 500 times more Li on planet earth to have enough Powerpacks for everyone? Nice solution for mankind. But we will go to Mars anyways.

<comment><USER24> We are currently mining about 600,000 tones of lithium per year. That's enough for 60 million powerpacks per year. I really don't think that it's one powerpack per person, these are utility scale installations. If it's 1 powerpack per 10 people, it'd only take 10 years are current lithium extraction rates to build enough for 6 billion people.

There is an estimated 2.55 × 10^10 kg potentially economically extractable lithium available on the Earth. At current extraction rates that's "gone" in 42 years. Fortunately, lithium is recyclable.

But Earth itself, no, your figures are way off. There is 2.3 * 10^14 kg in seawater alone.

<comment><USER24> My bad, I think the 600,000 tonnes figure is the total amount of lithium mined ever. Actual yearly production is closer to 35,000 tonnes.

Here's an excellent discussion with sourced facts and figures [http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/)

<comment><USER23> Thanks, interesting article. Just read it briefly yet, but it looks like it's author summs up with that there is not even enough Li for building batteries for some billion cars.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Finding the in-demand careers in cloud computing: They did the math - <AUTHOR> https://insights.hpe.com/content/hpe-nxt/en/articles/2017/03/the-in-demand-careers-and-certifications-in-cloud-computing.html <comment><USER2> Who are these hiring managers who demand certifications? I feel like I'm missing something.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's more in "enterprise computing," especially outside the tech industry. Think banks and big manufacturing companies, where the HR department doesn't know much.</comment></comment>


Wajam adds social search to Mobile Safari and iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.hasoffers.com/blog/wajam-brings-social-search-mobile-safari/

<comment><AUTHOR> I found the video on YouTube, but my question is how are they doing this? There's no way to access Mobile Safari from an app like this, is there?

</comment><comment><USER2> Good one!</comment>


The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega Plus Console - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sinclair-zx-spectrum-vega-plus-console#/ <comment><USER2> That looks awesome. I backed it.</comment>


Lost iPhone? Lost passwords (flaws in iOS Encryption Security) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sit.fraunhofer.de/Images/sc_iPhone%20Passwords_tcm501-80443.pdf A youtube movie explaining the flow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVGiNAs-QbY&feature=player_embedded <comment><AUTHOR> Youtube illustration of the 'hack': [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVGiNAs- QbY&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVGiNAs- QbY&feature=player_embedded)</comment>


Biologically extending human vision into the near-infrared: Initial success - <AUTHOR> http://experiment.com/u/aAcR2Q?helloHN <comment><USER2> Link to the original Project Page, if (like me) you're playing catch up on the experiment:

[https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically- extend-t...](https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically-extend-the- range-of-human-vision-into-the-near-infrared)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that link (it really helped)

There is anecdotal evidence that the since the proteins in the human lens become opaque (absorptive) in the near infrared (search: crystallin transmission spectrum); that patients who have had their lenses removed for cataract surgery see beyond both traditional limit ends (as the polymer lens replacement has a different transmission spectrum) ... so [semi-serious-only] perhaps it would be more efficacious to have one lens removed? (no lens over a snake's thermal pits etc)

<comment><USER4> Just providing one of those anecdotes: my father's cataract surgery extended his vision into the near ultraviolet. We discovered this when we walked past a window of a room containing a black light, and he remarked at the bright purple glow coming from within, whereas I could barely see it. Fascinating stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Copy of a comment I made in a previous submission, a few hour ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152)

Well, the data is very noisy. The main problem is that this data doesn't have a before/after comparison. Is the 850nm light visible now or it was always visible???

It's also very difficult to make a fair comparison. The room must be the same, the light sources must be the same (a new coffeepot with a small led can ruin the experiment, removing a coffeepot because it has recently broken can ruin the experiment).

For a preliminary experiment, the before-after comparison is enough. For a serious experiment you need many voluntaries, compare the before-after signals of them all at the same time in the same experimental conditions, and double blind testing.

There is a small possibility that they are measuring "excitement" instead of light. The subject hears that they are now going to test with very near infrared light. He got exited. They measure that. Perhaps the flash makes a slight sound, perhaps the light operator makes a slight sound. (Perhaps the 850nm flash makes a sound that the other flashes don't make?)

<comment><USER6> If you read the text, it tells you that the 850nm was always visible.

<comment><USER5> I reed the previous version of this URL. IIRC it has the same graphs, but the text was much shorter, and didn't explain that. Replace 850 with 950 in my comment. The article now says that 950nm was not visible, but they don't link to the graph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This could certainly be possible. Jay Neitz did experiments on monkeys to cure colorblindness using gene therapy and was successful. [1] He has said that perhaps one day humans can have genes for more color receptors added to be able to see more colors as some birds do.

1\. [http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html](http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html)

<comment><USER8> To see an extra color, i.e. to become tetrachromats, we would need a lot more than a dietary change, so this is an entirely new subject barely related to the original post.

To distinguish an extra color we would need a new type of cone cells with a different spectral response to the three types we already have (called L-, M- and S-cones). We could modify a subset of the existing cells or add new cells. If you modify the existing cells, you then need to teach the visual cortex that the signals coming from the modified cones indicate a new color. How would this be done? If you add new cone cells, you then need to add new neural pathway along the optic nerve and plug it into the visual cortex somehow. How would this be done?

On the other hand, the original experiment proposed to alter the availability of different types of vitamin A by dietary changes with the intention of modifying the spectral response of the existing photosensitive cells so that light of previously invisible wavelength would become visible. This does not increase the number of colors, but changes the range of wavelength corresponding to each color for the affected individual.

<comment><USER9> I haven't read it myself, but it's worth pointing out that research has claimed that there already _are_ some humans with four types of cones.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_h...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_human_tetrachromats)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On the other end of the scale: [http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup-u...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup- ultraviolet-vision-after-cataract-surgery)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's funny that most of the jokes tend to revolve around becoming some sort of super hero. The stranger thing is that no one has pondered the potential cons having the ability to see beyond the spectrum. Or maybe I don't read enough comic books?

<comment><USER11> I read something on imgur or here some days ago from a guy who could "see" some UV. He had to wear polarizing glasses because of headaches and had developed a fascination for violet objects.

<comment><USER12> By any chance, do you have a link to them?

<comment><USER11> It took some google search terms tweaking[0] but I found it: [http://imgur.com/owXEe41](http://imgur.com/owXEe41) (sfw).

> I have 20/11 vision with a mutation that causes me to see a lower-band of > UV. It overstimulates my ocular processing and causes migraines. I wear > amber glass eye glasses with +.02 diopiter lenses to help reduce this > problem. Because of this, I have an absolute obsession and facination with > purple objects.

I remember the original poster participated in the comment section but (sigh) I don't know how to get there.

[0] site:imgur.com comment uv glasses headache

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd love to see the ERG readings for more experiments and before vs after at 950nm~

<comment><AUTHOR> a lengthy discussion over on reddit about this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohacker...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohackers_declare_initial_success_in/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I seem to recall an article from some years back about someone using welding goggles with multiple layers of a specific blue filter on a very bright day and being able to see near-IR.. or something darn close to it.

<comment><USER15> I think you're thinking of this: [http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html](http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html)

It did take a bit for me to dig it up... I actually ended up having to use Google image search because I remember the guy talking about how trees looked. Without that I got a series of short uninteresting breathless YouTube videos on the topic and a whole bunch of contentless reblogging of said video that drowned out the original article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My astronomy friends are into hard-core start gazing. One experiment was in La Palma island with near-perfect night sky at 8 000 feet. One guy could see 8.1 magnitude stars at 80% cases (independent stats). With oxygen and some training he would probably get to 8.5 magnitudes.

There are similar stories with sound etc. I think some people can see near infrared, it is just question of finding them.

</comment><comment><USER17> What an interesting experiment. Could there be some basis, after all, to the urban legend that eating carrots improves night vision? Carotenes are "partly metabolized into Vitamin A" [1], but this experiment is skipping the precursors and going straight for what I assume are large and exclusive doses of Vitamin A. Can it really be that no one has tried this before?

Related and probably equally silly idea: I've always wanted a pair of sunglasses that could tune in to different EM spectra. How far are we from that? Night vision goggles are bulky because they need external power to do the frequency shifting, right?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition)

<comment><USER18> The urban legend was mostly due to its use in WWII, to explain why the allied night fighters were so good. The fighters actually used radar, which was still top secret.

<comment><USER19> Source?

<comment><USER20> _" Much publicity has been given to the good effects of carrots on night vision and some newspapers have even begun to use the vegetable as a nickname for certain ace pilots. Actually, night-fighter pilots don't eat anymore carrots than day fighters do..."_ —LIFE June 23, 1941

(Not quite the same, but in a similar vein)

<comment><USER19> Thanks. Snopes has this:

[http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/carrots.asp](http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/carrots.asp)

"While carrots are a good source of vitamin A (which is important for healthy eyesight, skin, growth, and resisting infection), eating them won't improve vision. The purported link between carrots and markedly acute vision is a matter of lore, not of science. And it's lore of the deliberately manufactured type.

"In World War II, Britain's air ministry spread the word that a diet of these vegetables helped pilots see Nazi bombers attacking at night. That was a lie intended to cover the real matter of what was underpinning the Royal Air Force's successes: Airborne Interception Radar, also known as AI. The secret new system pinpointed some enemy bombers before they reached the English Channel.

"British Intelligence didn't want the Germans to find out about the superior new technology helping protect the nation, so they created a rumor to afford a somewhat plausible-sounding explanation for the sudden increase in bombers being shot down. News stories began appearing in the British press about extraordinary personnel manning the defenses, including Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham, an RAF pilot dubbed "Cats Eyes" on the basis of his exceptional night vision that allowed him to spot his prey in the dark. Cunningham's abilities were chalked up to his love of carrots. Further stories claimed RAF pilots were being fed goodly amounts of this root vegetable to foster similar abilities in them...."

That's an interesting form of disinformation. I've been known to employ somewhat similar tactics myself.

<comment><USER21> > I've been known to employ somewhat similar tactics myself.

How can we be sure?

<comment><USER19> The context involved a disagreement with someone else which grew to include a legal action.

Turns out I'd managed to access a significant trove of documents, admissible in court, strongly supporting my side's case.

I was in communication with several entities I suspected were communicating (directly or otherwise) with the opposing side, and while it was useful to communicate that we had significant information, detailing just what it was, or how it was obtained, was somewhat less so.

So the cover story we worked out was that we had deep connections to the black-hat online hacker community who were able to pull all kinds of random information out of the Net. Playing up the whole hacker mistique thing.

One consequence of this was opposing counsel strongly suspecting that the evidence we introduced wasn't admissible. They were rather surprised when it turned out to be _very_ admissible. The fact that the opposing side's witnesses were shown to be markedly less than credible didn't help their side (and may have sabotaged their own case).

It was a vaguely satisfying aspect of an otherwise fairly unpleasant episode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When is the flash on and when is it off in these plot? What would these plots look like in a control subject? Does the subject have any other indication of when the flashes are occurring?

I know that this isn't written to be read critically, but I don't know what the take-away is.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's really cool is that this entire project was done for under $5k!

</comment><comment><USER24> Through technological enhancement[1] or practice it seems that anyone can make an attempt at monitoring & responding too these frequencies.

[1][http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections](http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections)

</comment><comment><USER25> Those plots really need labels.

</comment><comment><USER26> > near-infrared

So, still red then?

<comment><USER27> No. "near-infrared" isn't a red color shade, in fact it's not normally visible at all. Near-infrared is what your media remote uses to control your TV and audio system. You really cannot see it.

<comment><USER28> Well, you _can_ see the LED blinking if you look at it straight on, but I guess it may bleed into the visible spectrum.

<comment><USER29> That's pretty fascinating if you can see it. I just tried with three different remotes - and alas, I can't see a thing, no matter how hard I try.

All three give very bright flash when viewed via my Mac's camera (just launching Facetime with no call and pointing the remote to it).

<comment><USER28> Huh. No, I can definitely see it. I just looked at my HTC One's IR transmitter for the first time, without knowing where the LED is. It's pretty clearly on the right side of the lock button, just under it.

<comment><USER29> I don't have HTC One to make a comparison - but if you have some "vanilla" remotes laying around and can see the IR LEDs blink in all of them when active - then yeah, probably you do see into the IR and I don't!

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I just tried both TV remotes (one is just a Samsung remote). I can see all of them, but it's only a faint glow. Try it in a dark room, you should be able to see it.

<comment><USER29> Nope, I just tried and went into a pitch-black room with a remote control whose LED on the Mac camera looks very bright, and tried to look at it while activating the LED - nothing, not a blip, I can not see the IR LED with my eyes...

<comment><USER28> Huh, weird. I'm going to ask a few friends to see if they can see it, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is particularly relevant given that there's been a recent trend of interest in thermal imaging cameras... of course, the range of those is in much longer wavelengths.</comment>


The Disadvantage of Smarts - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/06/quick-study-satoshi-kanazawa-intelligence

<comment><USER2> _However, for a few evolutionarily novel problems, evolution equipped us with general intelligence so that our ancestors could reason in order to solve them. These evolutionarily novel problems were few and far between._

This implies that the evolutionary selection of intelligence was sexual selection, that our brains evolved like a peacock's tail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Loads of broad, sweeping, but mostly unsubstantiated statements presented in a catchy manner. Pop evolutionary psychology at its worst.</comment>


In an age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/15/robots-schools-teaching-children-redundant-testing-learn-future <comment><USER2> Excellent article.

You know, we have no idea what the future is going to be like. That means that people are going to have to adapt intelligently. I think the way to do that is teach school students to be competent, self-motivated learners. Does anyone really disagree?

By the way, I think a lot of the opposition to this approach comes from the political parties. The democrats support the education bureaucracies and unions that want to keep things the way they are, and the republicans support right-wing religions that see human nature as basically sinful and so in need of rigid regulation. As for corporations, some want smart workers, others like the fast-food industry want humans who are obedient robots. We have a long fight ahead of us.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's funny, I totally agree with this. It's like we're actively training kids and computers for the same jobs.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is an interesting opportunity for developing countries. Invest millions in education redesign now, wait a generation or two and watch billions in economic return as you become a global power independent of your geographic/population size...

</comment><comment><USER5> Though the headline is depressing and somewhat obvious, the article itself is hopeful and has links to a dozen different experimental schools. Worth a read.</comment>


Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm - <AUTHOR>

Hi all!
I'm a 17-year old self-taught developer just starting to tap into the mobile world! :3
This summer, I've worked on a minimalist distance-based alarm clock app that wakes you up before you miss your stop!
Check it out here! http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/commuter-buddy/cb9b5107-41e0-4d2b-b0d6-110fe555fc3b
Feedback and comments are welcome, thanks :) <comment><USER2> I am quite ignorant when it comes to Windows Phone development, mainly because it never took off how Microsoft wanted it too.

Would you mind sharing the tools and technologies used to develop your app? If not here then a blog post would be fantastic, describing the process from start to end, issues you had with the tools/processes, etc.

One small bit of feedback on the UI, make the background for the "Type or tap destination" text entry field darker, it looks kind of messy at the moment as the background information is too visible.

<comment><USER3> Professional Windows Phone developer here.

Here are the tools/processes usually used in WP8 app development:

IDE: Visual Studio Language: C# or F# UI: XAML (WPF) and Visual Designer Deployment: Windows Phone simulator (really good) or Device Architecture: MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) with Two-Binding

If you do it right, you should be able to reuse 80-90% of the code in a Windows 8 app. With Xamarin, you can reuse 50-75% of the code on iOS and Android (depends if the app is UI-heavy or not).

I worked with native iOS (Xcode and Objective-C), native Android (Eclipse/Android Studio and Java), and Windows Phone. Microsoft has, by far, the best tools which makes building a Windows Phone app quicker than doing the same on any of the other two platforms. iOS is the second-best, and Android is the worst. Xamarin makes things a little better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment! Yup, I used VS2012 in C# and XAML

Definitely got a lot of feedback from my friends to get it on iOS and Android. Haha, and yeah, Android Studio is quite the hassle compared to Visual Studio, but will definitely get through it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't worry too much about what platform you initially develop your app for -- if you can validate your concept then it shouldn't be hard to find assistance porting it to other platforms.

Too many people get tied up on "what platform should I develop for?" when they could be spending that time getting an MVP up on _something_, validating it and getting the ball moving.

<comment><USER3> I believe he made the right decision in starting with Windows Phone. Not only is it easier to build an app on this platform, but once he validate the idea, he can easily port the app to iOS and Android with Xamarin and share at least 50% of his code with all platforms. The opposite (porting an iOS/Android app to Windows Phone) is much less trivial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol, I didn't do much thinking into which device to start with I'll take a look into Xamarin, I actually never heard of it before. Thanks for your advice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks cool! Well done! :)

As others have commented, in my opinion Windows Phone will have a negligible influence on the mobile market going forward. I think it would be a much better investment of your time to start developing on either iOS/Android (or both!) as early as possible.

Good luck!

<comment><USER2> The future of Windows Phone is solely dependent on how Microsoft executes its universal app strategy. If they successfully launch a way of running the same app on Windows (desktop/laptop), Phone and Tablet (non-x86) then it may be able to come back from the dead.

Unfortunately Microsoft have almost no experience at doing such a thing, they have always lived in their [big] Windows eco-system bubble and that may very well be the thing that stops Windows Phone, Windows Tablet's etc from ever becoming a real player in the market.

The next year is going to be critical to Microsoft's long term success as a platform provider outside of PCs.

<comment><USER3> It is currently possible to share 90% of the code between a Windows Phone and a Windows 8 app. Heck, it is even possible to write the UI of an app once and make it work on both platforms. The binaries are now the same on Windows Phone and Windows 8 (I think you can submit a single one for both apps), and universal apps are already a thing (you can buy it once and get the app on Windows 8 and Windows Phone).

It's a matter of time before people realize they can use Xamarin to port a Windows app to iOS/Android in a matter of days.

<comment><AUTHOR> All this craze of Xamarin, I really need to check it out haha

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Windows phone development isn't all that bad. For starters there isn't as much competition as Android/iOS, so the chance to become the defacto app in your category is greater. And being a big fish in a small pond can work just as well as the opposite.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree. I've also found that the relatively few users of windows phone tend to be more passionate about supporting developers on their platform, so it's much easier to get attention for good applications from the windows phone subreddit and windows phone dedicated new sites. Obviously this is due to there being fewer WP developers in the first place, but it's easy enough to take advantage of nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >> I'm a 17-year old self-taught developer just starting to tap into the mobile world! :3

Great idea indeed, wish I could try.

To tap into the mobile world, it could be better if you'd target the 95% user base (iPhone or Android). Unfortunately Windows Phone sells less than 3% globally in Q2 and going forward, the prospects for Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Phone look darker. Even newer more exotic options such as Jolla, FirefoxOS, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch don't seem to have prospects for much bigger market share.

But impressive idea, again.

<comment><USER9> In some markets, WP has over 10% market share. It's absolutely true that globally the share is much less but it isn't a small number of deployed units in absolute terms.

<comment><USER10> From what I have seen, Windows Phone has way over 10% market share amongst Microsoft employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Jaberer, I wouldn't worry so much about the platform either. If there comes a time where you want to make an iOS/Android version, you can always try out Xamarin, which lets you use Visual Studio and C# to generate Android and iOS apps with relatively little extra effort.

I'm not related to Xamarin in any way, I'm just a fan of their cross platform mobile development solution. I'm also a student, and their academic license is only $99/year (though it will get expensive when we graduate).

<comment><USER11> Hi, have you used Kivy? I code in Python and have always wanted to build mobile applications. Do you think it is good?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish more people your age would teach themselves something like this in the summer. I remember tearing down and rebuilding computers and teaching myself Linux in the summers when I was your age. I wouldn't have picked up those skills in school otherwise.

Keep up the good work, passion and initiative like this will take you far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your support!

Yeah, I don't have too much time or resources for learning CS, and gotta scrap as much I can during the summer breaks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice App! Like the minimalistic interface, but you should work on spacing, font-size, colors etc. they need to be polished. Also toggle button should change state, irrespective of touch point.

Don't worry about Windows Phone, it's good for starting out, very polished tools and APIs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments!

Yeah, definitely not a finished product; many updates incoming !

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice work! FYI I did quite the same app for BlackBerry 10 a while ago.

link: [https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/51602887](https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/51602887)

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool!

I think everyone needs a transit alarm :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow! Thanks for all of your comments! I am abashed by the positive feedback, thanks again!

</comment><comment><USER15> Great idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the HN guidelines: "Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to add commentary to links. The text field is for starting discussions. If you're submitting a link, put it in the url field. If you want to add initial commentary on the link, write a blog post about it and submit that instead."

<comment><USER17> It's not a commentary, OP is simply introducing her/himself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Ten Most Popular Web Fonts of 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://www.typewolf.com/blog/most-popular-fonts-of-the-year <comment><AUTHOR> I suspect system fonts are about to form a nice aside to that list in 2016, for latency reasons.</comment>


Benchmarks: React vs Angular 1 and 2 vs the Rest - <AUTHOR> https://auth0.com/blog/2016/01/07/more-benchmarks-virtual-dom-vs-angular-12-vs-mithril-js-vs-the-rest/ <comment><USER2> Would love to see VueJS in that test. Considering it has over 12 thousand stars on Github it does seem much more credible than some other libraries used in the test.

The Github link for the tests does not include the node requirements which makes it hard to do the tests myself.</comment>


App Store 'full of zombies' as it celebrates fifth birthday - T-A http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23240971

<comment><AUTHOR> This doesn't make sense - the apps that aren't in the list of the top 300,000 downloaded apps may not get many downloads as far as we know, but without further information, how can you arbitrarily declare that as the threshold for "zombieness"?

Realistically though, it is really hard to get some attention in the App Store nowadays, and Apple really should build some mechanism into the store to combat this.

</comment><comment><USER2> I believe it - it'd be nice if apps get moved to a separate list if they don't receive downloads after a (long) period of time so that newer apps have a chance to cut through the noise and get noticed easier.

<comment><USER3> Cut through what noise? Moved from what list? If you're not a ranked app, you don't seem to be in a list at all, as far as users are concerned.

It seems if you're not at least in the top 100 in your narrowest category, you are equally (in)visible whether you're ranked 1000 or 100000, thus only get found by a direct link from outside the app store (zero noise) or a quite explicit search (specific intent). For these, the number of other invisible apps seems irrelevant.

Put another way, if you want to be on the top lists, you're going to need promotion. Get noticed to get noticed.</comment></comment>


Would You Miss Windows With a Google Operating System? - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/would-you-miss-windows-with-a-google-operating-system/index.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> "There is a tiny little downside here: no local software. Browsers don't yet do everything, and there are two decades of Windows applications that have been written, performing functions that can't yet be replicated in a browser."

There are a few problems with that view.

One, the applications that matter to people are changing. For many people, programs like web browsers and iTunes are now opened frequently, whereas a decade ago those apps either didn't exist or weren't nearly as relevant. So who is to say that 2 decades of Windows software adds up to much these days?

Then there's the fact that many desktop apps were not written to coexist, so a legacy on Windows means something much different than on, say, Unix. Unlike Unix, where very old programs are still part of the ecosystem of utilities, Windows apps are just too random and fleeting.

Then there's the fact that desktop programs have grown and grown, and most users don't seem to adopt even a fraction of the features. What took two decades to _develop_ will _not_ take two decades to "replace", because only a fraction of the features will really be required for most people to make the jump.

And most of those huge apps should have been stopped at version 2.0. After awhile, big version numbers are meaningless; even for Apple, what on Earth makes the latest iTunes worthy of a version _8_? They're still over-hyping the software, but not much is being added, so these old apps are not really as sophisticated as they appear to be.

<comment><USER3> _One, the applications that matter to people are changing. For many people, programs like web browsers and iTunes are now opened frequently, whereas a decade ago those apps either didn't exist or weren't nearly as relevant. So who is to say that 2 decades of Windows software adds up to much these days?_

Ignoring old applications that an enterprise needs to use, the amount of aplications that Windows has in the last 2 years are very vast, and lots of people need them.

 _Then there's the fact that desktop programs have grown and grown, and most users don't seem to adopt even a fraction of the features. What took two decades to develop will not take two decades to "replace", because only a fraction of the features will really be required for most people to make the jump._

Not everyone uses the same 20% of features. Joel Spolsky said it better than me: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html>

Besides, develop the core of the programs doesn't mean they are useful or polish. Or that people who hates change (like the ones who hate the Office ribbon) will like to learn to use another program.

 _And most of those huge apps should have been stopped at version 2.0. After awhile, big version numbers are meaningless; even for Apple, what on Earth makes the latest iTunes worthy of a version 8? They're still over-hyping the software, but not much is being added, so these old apps are not really as sophisticated as they appear to be._

Versions are usually overhyped, after all they need to sell. That doesn't mean they haven't do anything worthy. The majority of software is very different between 2 major versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think HTML, Flash or silverlight won't be enough to build a highly flexible system like Desktop applications (whether it's OSX or Windows) So Google needs to create a new platform to support its next generation Web App. This means we need another 10 years to get a high performing OS. "Good Software takes 10 years" (<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html>). so this means a waste of time and money.

Why do i really need Google OS, Windows or OSX are flexible enough and the features that will be made available in Google OS, can be cloned in windows or OSX.

About Speed: If Chrome OS is going to use Remote Web Applications, it's going to be slow, whatever they makes it light. Network traffic is the thing that most slows down a computer.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Or is there something special about Windows and its applications for which you'd be willing to pay an extra $50?"

Years ago, I started using Windoze (rather than DOS) because of a specific application. I just read the sentence I've quoted above from the submitted article, and I quickly reviewed which programs I regularly use to get actual paying work done. I can see a definitely possibility of giving up Windoze entirely--my son already runs Linux nearly all the time, rather Windows, but for a few sorry applications that don't have Linux ports--and I would like that. I've never enjoyed computing on the Windoze environment, but for the clipboard, which of course will be replicated in Google Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Already run linux :)

<comment><USER7> Yeah - I haven't missed it in the last few years, I don't see why I would start now. I actually used it yesterday to play Tales of Monkey Island (excellent, btw) and I remembered why I switched; what a huge pain in the ass everything is.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator vs. TechStars Application - <AUTHOR>

I thought this was interesting:
"protip: 2 dudes talking is not a pitch video. show me, don't tell me." @davidcohen 5:16 PM Mar 17th
vs.
"In the video please introduce yourselves, explain what you're doing and why, and tell us anything else you want to about the founders or the project. The video should contain nothing except the founders talking. No screenshots or postproduction wizardry please;" http://ycombinator.com/video.html <comment><USER2> At the risk of making judgment out of context, I think it's pretty obvious which of the two wants to Invest in the founders as much as the idea.

<comment><USER3> There's room for more than one investment strategy; there's not a "correct" one. YCombinator invests in the top 1% of developers regardless of ideas. I can see how it might be smart to invest instead in the top 10% of developers with the biggest ideas.

Unfortunately the data on this kind of thing is rather small. The only way to be sure which is better is to run two funds side by side with different strategies.

edit: It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter".

<comment><USER4> >It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter".

Except the initial idea was "put art galleries on the web", called Artix. It morphed into Viaweb later. It's actually a very good example for "ideas don't matter".

<comment><USER5> Classic pivot.

I wonder how many startups actually stick to their first idea, and never deviate from that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Comparing a tweet to a more verbose instruction is hardly fair.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's true that the two programs want different kinds of videos, but I wouldn't read into this too much. Both claim that they care more about the founders than about the idea; the reason they ask so much about the idea is that they want you to show that you're capable of generating and fleshing out a good idea.

I imagine that watching hundreds of short videos per cycle is very exhausting, and over time both groups became especially frustrated with a particular category of video. For YC, this category was "overproduced demo hype videos." For TechStars, it was "three guys muttering into the camera." That they decided to disallow those categories is, I think, just a historical happenstance.

</comment><comment><USER8> It is impossible to tell if a developer is "good" from a short video of them talking, unless they can prove that P != NP in 1 minute (and even that wouldn't do it for me).

All it tells anyone is if the person in the video seems like their kind of person.

Whether you are investing in the idea or not first impressions count.

<comment><USER9> P v NP is completely unrelated to this thread. If someone proved P != NP (by which you mean NP is not a proper subset of P) in 1 minute it would prove he is an extremely smart theorist. Not necessarily a good developer. It would also prove they are extremely bright.

Your point is understood but your comment seems to trivialize the problem of P v NP and also shows a misconception about the foundations of Computer Science and the difference between CS and Software Development.

<comment><USER8> As you correctly pointed out "P v NP is completely unrelated to this thread" so I'm not sure why you decided to elaborate on it.

However, seeing as you did I should point out that I did not trivialise it, I mention it juxtaposed to the topic in an oxymoronic context which highlights the point I was making (you know, the one you said you understood). To reiterate "It is impossible to tell if a developer is "good" from a short video of them talking..."

Last time I checked Math and Psychology were the foundations of Computer Science, and Software Development was very closely related to Computer Science. One might even suggest you needed one to perform the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm applying for Capital Factory, a similar program, and the big recommendation everyone's making is "Tell a story".

<comment><USER11> You should do this whenever you are talking to anyone about anything (because they might actually listen), but especially when you want to get a message across (such as "you should invest in my company because __").</comment></comment>


The Philosophy of Managing Programmers (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/irm-blog/theory-p-the-philosophy-of-managing-programmers-4993 <comment><AUTHOR> A hilarious, offensive, and sometimes painfully accurate description of programmers from the perspective of management.</comment>


How to Rebuild a Brand: Your Own - <AUTHOR> http://avandamiri.com/2009/11/22/rebuilding-a-brand-avand.html

<comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this. I've done the crappy wordpress thing, the redesign thing, the giving up thing... This post kind of inspired me to go back to my site and get something simple going again.</comment>


Testing code that's testing itself - <AUTHOR> http://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/2011/testing-code-thats-testing-itself/# <comment><USER2> I'm thinking maybe bundler could be hacked to load an installed gem, and then the same gem from a different (git repo or simple path) source at the same time under different namespaces. Doesn't sound like that's outside ruby's powers.

<comment><USER3> That would be a cool solution too, but Bundler _really_ doesn't like it when you try to load multiple libraries with the same name so I'm not sure if this'll work. I will give it a shot soon, though. :)

<comment><USER2> I'm thinking:

        * require the broken RSpec
        * create a new module called Broken::RSpec
        * iterate through each member of the RSpec namespace (methods and variables), and copy it to the new module
        * unload RSpec
        * require the stable RSpec

I'm fairly sure that I have done all of these things separately (iterating/copying object members, unloading classes) in ruby before. I'm probably wrong though. Just thinking aloud.

When refinements come along in ruby 2.0 this will be easy.

EDIT: Or use ruby_parser to suck the AST out of the very broken rspec source files themselves and instance_eval it inside Broken::RSpec. Danger is my middle name.</comment></comment></comment>


Hiring Tech Talent - <AUTHOR> http://sebinsua.com/post/14481428170/hiring-tech-talent

<comment><USER2> _Avoid hiring contractors. They are modern day mercenaries and are solely motivated by money instead of a shared company vision. When times are good they will bleed you dry, but when times are bad they will show no loyalty._

I don't agree with this, contractors make up a large spectrum of individuals, all are not the same, just as some employees may not be loyal, so too are some contractors. I personally contract until I find something worthwhile to get involved in, but I do expect to be compensated for what I am doing, we can call it bleeding dry or we can call it fair market value, but the reality is whether contractor or employee, developers are high value assets. It just so happens that a lot of them that freelance know what their value is and charge accordingly. But to malign them as mercenaries and uninterested in the success of their clients I think is a little unfair. There are sociopaths in contracting just like there are sociopaths employees.</comment>


Apple [NOT] now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support - <AUTHOR> http://forums.getpebble.com/discussion/22081/apple-now-rejecting-apps-with-pebble-smartwatch-support?x=1

<comment><AUTHOR> This was previously posted [1], but note that this is different -- the developers have received a notice from Apple acknowledging the mistake and greenlighting the app.

While the uproar over the rejection is most likely responsible for getting the app re-reviewed, it does seem like the uproar was potentially based on a mistaken assumption about Apple's behavior towards competitive peripherals. It is still possible that this is a rollback of an official Apple policy, but the wording of the original rejection as noted in that thread [2] appears to support the notion that the rejection was a mistake.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426542)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426750)</comment>


React-inspired Components for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/freshOS/Komponents <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, I didn't know about /show :)</comment>


Ask HN: Tools / approaches to logging and monitoring real-time transactions - <AUTHOR> Summary Looking for suggestions on tools and approaches to logging and displaying, with slice dice filtering etc, of transactions.
Requirement Each logged transaction is 1 line of data prefixed with a time stamp, the rest of the line containing things about the response time. The transaction data can be pumped out periodically to files which presumably would need to be ingested by a tool.
My thoughts so far .. Primarily from this requirement I am looking for a simple on-prem tool that will allow me to push these transactions into it for display filtering etc.
I have investigated tools online and found a lot of high priced confusing tools that are designed to do a lot more than I need and/or are unclear to me if they meet my simple needs. Several also seem to be cloud based which is no use to me. <comment><USER2> It's kinda more for operations monitoring but check out Prometheus ([https://prometheus.io/](https://prometheus.io/)) for monitoring and Grafana ([https://grafana.com](https://grafana.com)) for visualization to see if they would work for your use case. Both are pretty flexible. Also, I think Datadog is a roughly equivalent SaaS offering of the two though I haven't used it myself yet.

I like Apache Superset for business intelligence type dashboards.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have used Splunk in the past on-prem. They are expensive and to your point and a lot of capability that wasn't used. We had investigated Gray Log, Fluentd, Logstash and others. If we started now, I'd say the ELK stack (Elasticseach, Logstash, Kibana) would be what we'd have gone with.

<comment><USER4> On the visualization part you can also check [https://prometheus.io/](https://prometheus.io/) and [https://grafana.com/grafana](https://grafana.com/grafana)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommendations for PDF text extraction  - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, can anyone recommend a library/API for extracting the text and images from a PDF?
We need to be able to get at text that is contained in pre-known regions of the document, so the API will need to give us positional information of each element on the page.
Thanks for any suggestions. <comment><USER2> Hi, We used PdfTextStream for extracting information from pdf documents in a similar manner as you describe (pre-known regions of the document), after looking at few other options. It was not very easy though working with coordinates and rectangles though :)

We observed that the text in our pdf had a structure to it. So instead we simply dumped the text from pdf using pdftotext and wrote an ANTLR grammar for the structure we saw. This enabled us to parse relevant information from the text dump.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about positional information, but I've had good luck with PDFBox for text extraction. And by good luck I mean as good as it gets considering I am using something for free and working with the PDF standard.

This was a system used in production but had several checks and fallback mechanisms because the process was unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.pdflib.com/products/tet/>

TET provides precise metrics for the text, such as the position on the page, glyph widths, and text direction. Specific areas on the page can be excluded or included in the text extraction, e.g. to ignore headers and footers or margins.

</comment><comment><USER5> Others have mentioned PDFTextStream (<http://snowtide.com>), which is our Java and .NET product. Our RegionOutputTarget class ([http://snowtide.com/docframe.php/com.snowtide.pdf.RegionOutp...](http://snowtide.com/docframe.php/com.snowtide.pdf.RegionOutputTarget)) allows you do to selective text extraction based on spatial coordinates quite easily.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ping me.

</comment><comment><USER6> in Java, there are Apache PDFBox and jPDFText. the nature of pdf make it very difficult to extract it correctly and consistently.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. We're evaluating PdfTextStream at the moment. We want to try a few though to see which works best for the types of document we are going to be using.

<comment><USER6> past experience shown that data in XML and CSV formats are the easiest to extract and make sense from.

<comment><USER7> Past experience shows that if someone explicitly asks for information about extracting text from PDFs that their source material is probably in PDF format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've used pdftohtml -xml from poppler-utils for similar purposes (text with position info; I wasn't interested in images although I believe pdftohtml handles them too).

Poppler is the library that pdftohtml uses for this.

</comment><comment><USER9> PDFSharp is good if you are using .NET

<http://www.pdfsharp.net/></comment>


Facebook face recognition error looks awkward ahead of GDPR - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/23/facebook-face-recognition-error-looks-awkward-ahead-of-gdpr/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, another one of these "errors" that always seem to gain Facebook _more_ (rather than less) data. It's so strange how this _keeps happening_ at Facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes funny how one of the most innovative companies with some of the most intelligent employees in the world, keeps making these simple technical "mistakes" that result in more data being pulled.</comment></comment>