The future of Fiber - <AUTHOR> https://fiber.google.com/newcities/ <comment><USER2> I'm really, really glad they chose Kansas City as the pilot city despite not living there. If they had just gone and chosen San Francisco, Chicago or New York, it would have been no more of an experiment than offering more cable channels to the big cities in the 1990s—It just is completely uninteresting.

On a side note, If you haven't been to KC's Startup Village, the climate is electric! It feels like something really real is going on there. It is just awesome to see someone with a coding question, you can walk literally a few doors down to a different house to ask one of the startups there. When you walk inside, you see rooms that should be living rooms with hackers on laptops and would-be dining rooms with iMacs setup on tables. Meanwhile a sleepy hacker is waking up and making breakfast in the kitchen. The climate is wonderful.

<comment><USER3> I see it the opposite way: Deploying fiber is easy if the city gives you carte blanche as KC did. Doing something easy proves nothing. If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment.

<comment><USER4> > _If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to > deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment._

Sun Tsu would flunk you out of strategy class. Why should Google engage with an evil, bribery-based, rent-seeking competitor, and their bought politicians, until they run out of relatively easier conquests, and have the revenue from those conquests funding further expansion, and their relationships with independent content creators at a much higher value from a larger customer base?

Particularly when those competitors are not seeking to confront Google, and are preferring to play rent-seeking games with anti-neutrality in their networks, thus making their end game even more brittle?

<comment><USER3> I'd agree completely if Google's goal was to make money from Fiber, but I suspect their goal is to demonstrate that fiber is economically viable and shame other ISPs into deploying it. By that standard, winning on the easiest setting seems unlikely to convince anyone.

See [http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big- with-g...](http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our- experimental.html) [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Many-Realizing-Google- Fib...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Many-Realizing-Google-Fiber-Will- Never-See-Massive-Deployment-123796) for Google's motivations.

<comment><USER5> That could be the overarching goal but it makes sense to pilot the technology first so they understand the pitfalls before engaging in a more difficult endeavor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know it would be painful, and the local politics certifiably insane, but if Google wanted draw attention to the dysfunctional monopoly of the cable industry, there would be no better place to wire than Philly. Take the competition right into Comcast's back yard. Start with a rollout of the Philly 'burbs where the Comcast execs live and work inward toward the city from there.

<comment><USER7> It would go against their strategy. By wiring up all the GF-friendly cities first, people living in GF-unfriendly cities start asking "why can't we have that, too?" Thus ratcheting up pressure on the local political systems.

<comment><USER8> This is something that works in theory, but not real life. Internet is becoming a utility, and most people only ever have experienced one utility in their life. People in the SF Bay Area choose between AT&T DSL and Comcast cable internet - two of the WORST providers, ever. Verizon FiOS eats both their lunches, yet, nobody rabble rouses to ask for fiber in that area. If people in Silicon Valley won't even pressure their politicians (there are FAR more urgent issues), why would people in other areas with far more pressing economic concerns?

<comment><USER7> It seems plausible that apathy would prevent people from agitating for faster internet speeds, when speeds are only slightly below the national average ([http://www.speedtest.net/local/san-francisco- ca](http://www.speedtest.net/local/san-francisco-ca)). It seems _implausible_ to claim that such apathy will remain absolute and unchanging if/when other cities started getting major upgrades ([http://www.speedtest.net/local/kansas- city-mo](http://www.speedtest.net/local/kansas-city-mo)), and especially if the national average began pulling away. Plus, the CA regulatory environment is somewhat of an outlier in terms of its conduciveness to infrastructure progress, so it may not be the best litmus test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Full list of cities, from the FAQ:

Arizona \- Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe California \- San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto Georgia \- Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs, Smyrna North Carolina \- Charlotte, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, Raleigh Oregon \- Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard Tennessee \- Nashville-Davidson Texas \- San Antonio Utah \- Salt Lake City

<comment><USER10> And with line breaks:

Arizona - Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe

California - San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto

Georgia - Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs, Smyrna

North Carolina - Charlotte, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, Raleigh

Oregon - Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard

Tennessee - Nashville-Davidson

Texas - San Antonio

Utah - Salt Lake City

<comment><USER11> And with frivolous awk formatting:

        Arizona           Phoenix
                          Scottsdale
                          Tempe

        California        San Jose
                          Santa Clara
                          Sunnyvale
                          Mountain View
                          Palo Alto

        Georgia           Atlanta
                          Avondale Estates
                          Brookhaven
                          College Park
                          Decatur
                          East Point
                          Hapeville
                          Sandy Springs
                          Smyrna

        North Carolina    Charlotte
                          Carrboro
                          Cary
                          Chapel Hill
                          Durham
                          Garner
                          Morrisville
                          Raleigh

        Oregon            Portland
                          Beaverton
                          Hillsboro
                          Gresham
                          Lake Oswego
                          Tigard

        Tennessee         Nashville-Davidson

        Texas             San Antonio

        Utah              Salt Lake City

        cat jader \
          | sed 's/ - /\t/g; s/, /\n\t/g' \
          | awk -F'\t' '{ printf "%-18s%s\n", $1, $2 }'

<comment> mkr-hn Hopefully one of those cities around Atlanta will grow a line out to Winder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is such a high demand for this product because it fulfills a great need and requirement to be competitive, but we are being held back by our providers. Our progress, held back due to lack of innovation. Google Fiber will rule the US as soon as it can get rolled out. Cable companies better be really nice and start being competitive. Please bring it to Chandler, AZ.

This article comes to mind, I recently, through normal work, started hitting Cox's 250GB max, I work on games and can easily send 4-8GB per day in assets/code to remote repos. Cringley from 2011...

[http://www.cringely.com/2011/07/28/bandwidth-caps-are- rate-h...](http://www.cringely.com/2011/07/28/bandwidth-caps-are-rate-hikes/)

 _This isn't about capping ISP losses, but are about increasing ISP profits. The caps are a built-in revenue bump that will kick-in 2-3 years from now, circumventing any existing regulatory structure for setting rates. The regulators just haven't realized it yet. By the time they do it may be too late._

 _Most U. S. broadband customers don't get anywhere near that 250 gigabyte cap. The few who do hit those limits are big gamers or file downloaders for the most part. Maybe they do take unfair advantage of the system, but the question is whether this is the proper way to control their consumption? I don't think it is._

 _In time we will all bump into these caps and our Internet bills will suddenly double as a result, circumventing competition and ending a 15 year downward broadband price trend._

 _ISPs win, we lose._

Unless there is competition. Bandwidth is as needed as roads, shipping, airplanes, etc to business and economies. This is an anti-competitive hostage situation we are in in the US. This is also anti-small business as many are run from home offices and co-location etc.

<comment><USER13> I recently had to restore a 500GB cloud backup over Cox. I called them to ask if they could give me an exemption for one month, and not only did they refuse, but they could not honestly tell me what would happen if I went over the cap, except that I would get an email about it and my Internet "might slow down".

I work from home, and can't afford any degradation of service, so I've been doing the restore piecemeal and checking [https://myaccount.cox.net/internettools/datausage/usage.cox](https://myaccount.cox.net/internettools/datausage/usage.cox) every day. It's annoying but doable.

What happens to you when you hit the cap?

<comment><USER12> I seemed to notice the last couple months after I get the messages my service drops on download (but not on upload). I drop to their 5M connection instead. Strangely when I check known download speed sites they work with correct numbers, when I check other means I notice the difference there. So I hope they are not nerfing me wholly except when I try to measure it with known tools i.e. speedtest.net etc. They seem to be nice about it now but who knows, this is the first time they have been as vocal about it.

Sadly the next two tiers (yep we are there) only add 50GB (300) and 150GB (400 total), with the speeds of 25Mbps and up to 50Mbps but if you have higher speeds you will download more and be on HD more, get more files, backup more and always go over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google Fiber will pass <~0.5% of total U.S. homes[0], even after they build out Austin and take over Provo. They have to start doing things much faster if they will make a dent this decade. Google is selectively building out 'fiber hoods' \- neighborhoods that bend over backwards to get the service, pre commit and make construction super easy - not full cities, by any means.

Google Fiber was announced almost four years ago and has only a few tens of thousands of subscribers. While it's fun to get excited about what Google Fiber could be, it will be years before any material percentage of the country has the opportunity to use Google Fiber.

Google is still building out small neighborhoods in Kansas City [1]

[0][https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q-sGUEiuT9VN__VPsFeo...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q-sGUEiuT9VN__VPsFeorRtqmBGwnlIpLN61MzRTsUA/edit#slide=id.g2bd4c3781_00) [1][https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/#zone=Kansas+City...](https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/#zone=Kansas+City,+KS&fiberhood=)

<comment><USER15> Google Fiber has so far only been an experiment. I see it as a very expensive, very ambitious proof of concept the likes of which only Google is capable of creating. This new announcement is evidence that their experiment of the last 4 years has succeeded.

Google can only move so fast with this given the stranglehold Comcast has on the market right now and the regulatory obstacles. There is a killing to be made by undercutting the monopolistic pricing and terrible service Comcast provides right now (not to mention the ways ownership of distribution might benefit Google's content).

TL;DR This is the next step in Google's big, slow play to become a major ISP.

<comment><USER16> I think it's likely that this exists mostly as a threat to keep the big ISPs from getting complacent. If internet speeds improve via themselves or the ISPs, Google wins either way as internet usage increases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It always surprises me how excited people get about Google Fiber, yet how up- in-arms they get about GMail, Google+ and other Google services which tend to invade and/or expose your privacy. Do you really think that using a advertising company's fiber as your gateway to the internet is going to offer a private experience? Don't you see how much easier it will make it for them to gather your personal details and habits? Do you really think Google won't use your data to their advantage?

<comment><USER18> All the other telecoms have far worse privacy records than Google does. Who were the original companies implicated in illegal NSA wiretapping? Verizon, AT&T, and Bell South. [1] What happened to the CEO of the one company that refused, Qwest? He went to jail on trumped-up insider trading charges. [2]

[1] [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/30...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he- feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/)

<comment><USER19> ... and google is racing to catch up. There is a monopoly to be created and rent to be extracted and no matter how "not evil" an organization is, if they play in this sphere, they _must_ adhere to this model or they won't be in business.

Everything you need to know is written in a very nice book, recently published:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch)

... you could have predicted well in advance that google would go this route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess I fundamentally do not understand what makes a city a good or bad candidate for this kind of service. Why is SF or NY not an obvious candidate? Density means that there are lots of customers for a given physical length of infrastructure rollout, they're both wealthy cities with a large proportion of techies who could use faster internet...

I'm sure they're both nightmares to deal with permitting processes for. Is that it? Or is there something else that makes mid-tier, more spread-out cities more attractive?

<comment><USER21> I suspect they mostly want a compliant political infrastructure and relatively easy construction. NYC and SF aren't really known for either. Also, NYC would probably be biting off more than Google Fiber has any interest in chewing at the moment. They're still scaling up, after all.

<comment><USER22> YUP.

The short answer is: it's much easier to build in a greenfield environment where there is a "helpful" local government, ready access to rights-of-way, and underserved population, easy construction costs, access to labor, favorable tax climate, and a host of other reasons that come before "lots of people who want gigabit speeds".

The economics of building (or overbuilding) a gigabit fiber network drive you towards areas where you can get a high degree of penetration for your investment. That's not going to happen in a place like NYC or SF. The construction costs (directional boring) and tax regime (network cables are "property" for property tax purposes) mean that SF and NYC are probably going to be the LAST places to get Google Fiber.

<comment><USER23> > (network cables are "property" for property tax purposes)

WUT.

<comment><USER22> Look it up. If you install $15M of fiber in/around town, you can bet your bottom dollar that the local taxing authority considers that real property and will tax you on it at appropriate rates.

In TX, colo providers have had to send business property tax bills to people who locate their servers in those centers. Sometimes those bills are quite shocking.

In CT, the local phone companies started putting DSLAMs on poles because it got them off the ground and saved them millions on property taxes because there was a rate differential between property that was pole attached and property that was on the ground.

Never underestimate the effect that taxes can have on the deployment, operation, and maintenance of business property. You can explain great deals of financial shenanigans to the real savings associated with avoiding taxes.

And who gets screwed? Anyone who doesn't have the scale or size to make avoiding that tax worthwhile. e.g. the small-business owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Woo! Moving to Mountain View in June, so I'm excited to see this.

On another note, I wonder if this will have any impact on the Comcast/Time Warner merger. Comcast has specifically called out Google Fiber as a source of legitimate competition in defending the merger[1]. With the announcement that Google could increase the number of Fiber cities 10-fold, that claim might have a little more weight.

1\. [http://gigaom.com/2014/02/13/comcast-cites-competition- from-...](http://gigaom.com/2014/02/13/comcast-cites-competition-from-google- fiber-netflix-hulu-as-reasons-to-approve-merger/)

<comment><USER25> I've been hearing that there will be no real threat to that merger. If that's true, then I see this as a real threat to the new Comcast; basically Google saying "you will have real competition even if you are massive".

Edit: Otherwise, why would they announce this at this stage? They've only announced other cities when they were certain.

<comment><USER26> > _" Otherwise, why would they announce this at this stage?"_

Drum up local interest and support to help with any local political roadblocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why is there not a single city in the northeast or the Rust Belt?

Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh are all major cities that are at least "on the map" as far as tech is concerned. I know for a fact that the local authorities in Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland would bend over backwards for any project that has even the slightest whiff of economic development.

I can understand NYC being a special case that they don't want to deal with, but there are plenty of other cities in the region.

<comment><USER28> I would have liked to have seen one in Ohio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The Denver-Boulder corridor is going to start losing it's place as one of the top tech startup areas in the country if it doesn't get itself on this list of potential fiber installs.

<comment><USER30> As a resident of greater Denver-Boulder, I, too, was disappointed to see the big empty space on the map around Colorado. At least one ISP here is experimenting with residential gigabit, though -- I'm hoping that maybe someday I can get it in my neighborhood: [http://fiber.forethought.net/](http://fiber.forethought.net/)

<comment><USER31> interesting. Their website is a bit lacking in info. Do they offer residential service at all right now? Looks like they are just servicing larger multi- tenant buildings, I'm guessing where everyone needs to sign up to get them to come and install.

<comment><USER30> It's in the extremely nascent stages right now. I think they'll be turning on the first residential gigabit customers in downtown shortly. We've occasionally discussed the idea of getting my condo complex in Arvada lit up -- it's technically feasible, although I suppose the numbers would have to work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Cool to see they're expanding, but I'm disappointed to see that there's no love for the upper Midwest. Wouldn't expect it in Chicago but Milwaukee (where I am), Madison, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, and possibly a few smaller cities would all seem like reasonable candidates (although I acknowledge there's issues with all of them).

<comment><USER33> Minneapolis kinda sorta not-quite has at least some parts with fibre.

[http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage- areas/](http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas/)

Barely though to be honest. >.<

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The Triangle region of NC would be a great place for Google to start with this.

Seriously, with all of the technology workers working in RTP, and all the university students in the area, as well as the emerging startup hub(s) in Durham and Raleigh, the area could really put Google Fiber to great use.

</comment><comment><USER35> Love to see challenges to the pathetic cable monopolies. I'd be willing to pay more than I am now if it meant sticking it to TimeWarner.

<comment><USER36> I wonder when this will be a reality in New York. The place where we all want to stick it to Time Warner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why not San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston and NYC?

San Francisco, NYC and Boston because they are big tech hubs where a lot of Googlers live and Washington D.C. because it is the seat of politics in this country and the best way to show what good can happen when we have broadband connectivity.

In fact, rolling out Google Fiber in the capital cities of each state makes the most sense in general. You lobby the political class by giving their home base (state capitals) excellent broadband.

<comment><USER38> Suburbs of DC (at least NOVA) has a decent number of places that have FiOS. Also the cable situation isn't that bad if you have Cox rather than Time Warner.

But the dominating factor of what determines where people live in the suburbs seems to be schools more so than internet. Google fiber here would be more of a novelty.

<comment><USER39> Yes... there's also RCN in DC as well yet in my neighborhood I can only get Comcast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> At least for SLC there is already _Some_ fiber around the city: [http://www.utopianet.org/](http://www.utopianet.org/)

Much like Provo, I think google saw that utopia already had some infrastructure in place and wanted to swoop it up.

So while people are asking, why not this x,y,z city perhaps it's due to infrastructure not already being in place.

</comment><comment><USER41> Atlanta! Looks like they're targeting the nicer suburbs too. My mom's going to get fiber before I am.

</comment><comment><USER42> >We're asking cities to ensure that we, and other providers, can access and lease existing infrastructure.

This is probably my favorite part. They're not just trying to get special privileges for themselves, they are trying to level the barriers to entry so that there is actual competition in this space.

</comment><comment><USER43> Wish they had Google Fiber in Toronto :(

<comment><USER44> It would be quite fun watching the incumbents playing the "but we're Canadian" card in order to prevent such a thing.

Hard as it might be for Americans to believe the ISP scene in Canada is in danger of falling behind even them.

<comment><USER45> Canada related question. Do all the major ISPs in Canada have bandwidth caps on consumer broadband?

<comment><USER46> Yes, every major ISP has bandwidth caps, some of which are prohibitively small (20GB). Even the smaller upstart ISPs, like TekSavvy are forced to have a cap (though at 300GB) due to wholesale laws. At least they offer unlimited for a reasonable amount of money.

Canada is definitely behind the US for internet access, it's even behind many (if not most) third world countries.

<comment><USER45> I've seen a lot of complaints about the caps (wasn't sure if they were widespread or not). What keeps the caps in place if they're universally disliked? I've always thought of Canada as a fairly responsive democracy.

<comment><USER47> >I've always thought of Canada as a fairly responsive democracy.

Nope. We elect one group of corrupt assholes to run things, and then complain about them being corrupt assholes. We keep re-electing them till they do something so hugely scandalous that we elect the _other_ group of corrupt assholes instead. And then keep re-electing them until they fuck up so badly that we switch back to electing the first group of corrupt assholes again. Our government is currently pushing for more restrictive drug laws, including for weed. They are pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for non violent crimes, and for privatized prisons. These things are almost universally opposed by Canadians. It simply doesn't matter, we re-elect them anyways.

<comment><USER48> > Our government is currently pushing for more restrictive drug laws, > including for weed. They are pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for non > violent crimes, and for privatized prisons.

WTF!?! Is it that US is trying out National Healthcare, so now Canada is going to try out some of the worst American ideas? I don't know much about Canadian politics, but the things you listed are some of the worst policies United States ever implemented. Why on earth is Canada trying those things, I can assure you, private prisons and mandatory minimum sentences are NOT working here in US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> How is the residential Internet in the San Jose area cities listed? I'm in SF, and I can't believe how bad the Internet service is. It's worse and more expensive than what I had 4 years ago in my Midwest town of 100k people.

<comment><USER50> I live in Sunnyvale where the options are Comcast (who will happily sell a 105Mbit connection for $$$), or DSL from ATT or Sonic. I personally use Sonic since they are a great ISP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Got my hopes up there for a little bit... if only they came to Santa Barbara -- we have plenty of tech people here willing to pay for awesome internet! (and get away from Cox...)

I'll keep dreaming :)

<comment><USER52> I wish they'll come to Santa Barbara so badly (As I'm sure everyone also does for their cities). We do have lots of tech here and even good connections to Google, but I feel we're probably too small. Even Verizon pulled out from installing FiOS.

<comment><USER51> At least Cox isn't too bad in comparison with the horror stories I've heard about dealing with Comcast or TWC... still, it is not fun to deal with them. Plus, 1 gbps for $70 sounds a lot more appetizing than 50 mbps for $74.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It is hard to wait for signups to begin in Austin.

</comment><comment><USER54> The FAQ does not mention details about bandwidth other than "Internet that's up to 100 times faster than basic broadband", but Wikipedia says the free service is 5 Mbps down (1 Mbps up) and the pay service is 1 Gbps down and up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Technical_specifi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber#Technical_specifications)

</comment><comment><USER55> Excited for Salt Lake City. We are growing our reddit office there a lot. It's a really exciting city to be in and this helps us a lot!

<comment><USER23> Reddit has an office in Salt Lake City?? Need any DevOps? :-P

<comment><USER56> It's redditgifts.com. Doesn't look like they're hiring for DevOps at the moment, but they are looking for devs (among other things): [http://redditgifts.com/jobs/](http://redditgifts.com/jobs/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Very excited to see Portland,OR on the list! I'm tired of Comcast and the other options are quite lacking in one way or another.

<comment><USER58> East Portland is wired up with Fibre backbone DSL from Century Link. Its $30 a month for a connection that's roughly 40 mbps down / 15 mbps up. I generally get 4 megabytes a sec downloads, and my friend who lives south around Holgate and 65th sees about the same. No data caps that I'm aware of either.

Its faster than Comcast's two lower tier internet packages. I've heard North Portland isn't as lucky but its certainly worth checking out.

Also various complexes around town are already offering FiOS.

<comment><USER59> I'd love to see Google buy up Frontier's FIOS lines. Their service isn't bad, but I get the feeling they don't really want to be in the fiber business and just got stuck with it in the Verizon purchase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> So excited to to see Nashville on this list. Our technology scene has been thriving recently and this only adds fuel to the fire.

<comment><USER61> Nashville is a great city...I was totally unaware of the tech scene. Startups, big companies? I have no idea if I'll ever move away from the west coast, but Nashville is one of the few places in the eastern US that I could imagine living.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Seriously? No Seattle?

<comment><USER63> Up until the last month or two, Gigabit Squared was supposed to be taking over the city's fiber, which may have been keeping Google away.

<comment><USER62> Joke's on us :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Would love to see Google, or anyone, come shake up the Australian market. We are still beholden to low bandwidth, almost non existent upload and data usage caps.

We also have a national broadband network that most people will never see due to the politics played by the current government.

<comment><USER65> This +infinity.

The National Broadband Network is the one policy that had reasonably bi- partisan voter support, but the new conservative government has seen fit to abandon the admittedly more expensive, but more future-proof 'Fiber to the Premises' in exchange for what was going to be 'Fiber to the Node' but is now 'Multi-Technology Mix' or more appropriately 'Massive Telecommunications Mistake'...

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Still no San Diego, but still happy to see this as the more Google Fiber expands within different regions the more the dinosaur ISPs in those regions will be forced to compete, hopefully rising boats even in areas not yet covered by Google Fiber.

</comment><comment><USER67> Google needs to bring Google Fiber to Australia. The coalition have plans for a fiber/copper hybrid in which the fibre runs to a box and then you connect via outdated copper from the street to your house. It's like driving a sports car 90% of the way and a horse and cart the rest of the 10% — I think what Google are doing is great, they need to expand though. I know New Zealand could use something like Google Fiber as well.

<comment><USER68> While I won't argue that Fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) is better than Fibre-to- the-premises (FTTP) it is, at the very least, much cheaper.

The cost per consumer for "last mile" connections can be an order of magnitude more than those used in the core network because of the economies of scale at play. [1]

Most of the UK is currently being set up with FTTC, representing a dramatic increase in the country's average broadband speed over the past few years. [2] [1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/fiber-its-not- all...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/fiber-its-not-all-created- equal/) [2] [http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/03/14/average-uk-broadband- sp...](http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/03/14/average-uk-broadband-speeds-hit- double-figures/)

<comment><USER69> Is it cheaper? It depends on how long you expect your investment to be relevant for. If you accept that FTTH is going to be an ultimate 'end game', at least for the foreseeable future, then going FTTC is not cheaper. It may require less capital investment today than FTTH, but in 5 years, you're having to invest a similar amount all over again, in new equipment or by going FTTH.

FTTC is just delaying FTTH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> It seems one of the biggest costs of fiber is installation; i.e. trenching. Why is it not hung from poles? It must be much cheaper and quicker, surely?

<comment><USER71> Yes, whereas Europe puts everything underground, US operators will go cheap and string stuff across poles. My supplier of infrastructure management software was astonished when they saw at our data an realized we have almost no aerial spans in France.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> When I saw the headline, I cringed. At this point, whenever I see a Google article titled, "The future of [google product]," I assume it's an announcement that the product is being phased out. Needless to say, I'm glad that's not what's happening here, but I'm still not holding my breath that Google Fiber is going to take over the world.

</comment><comment><USER73> I wish Google would publish more technical information about their fiber project. I am quite interested in what equipment they have chosen, what types of cabling they are using, etc. (and why) Also, any other information that could be used by community internet providers looking to roll out fiber!

</comment><comment><USER74> Always wondered why they didn't buy out Surewest or Consolidated Communications. Instant fiber subscriber base, right-of-ways, and complementary service areas. And the money found in Google's couch cushions would probably more than cover the costs. Easy way to add 100K subscribers...

</comment><comment><USER75> Is mountain view count as San Jose?

<comment><USER76> Yep, according to the FAQ: "San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto"

<comment><USER77> No Campbell. Guess I'm too sticks for Google Fiber. :\

<comment><USER78> LOL, I'm right on the border of SJ and Cupertino around De Anza and 85. I am so hoping I can get it just to dump Comcast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Awesome. They added Leawood to the list of cities. Now they need to complete some of the neighboring areas they have already started on and make some progress. Although I wouldn't complain if they just abandoned those and started on Leawood.

</comment><comment><USER80> Google should install their fiber in the cities of corporate headquarters for at&t, time warner, quest, verizon, and cox.

Should have an interesting effect on the top-down mentality of price setting.

FCC also needs to rule ISPs as common carriers.

</comment><comment><USER81> "announce the next round of cities who'll be getting Google Fiber by the end of 2014."

\- announce which cities are chosen by the end of 2014? or those cities that will have fiber in them by the end of 2014?

</comment><comment><USER82> If you want to save money with Fiber, it's okay. But please use VPN with encryption or other traffic-encryption methods to no let Big Brother intercept all of your your data.

</comment><comment><USER83> I live in Scottsdale and this is excellent news! Cox is the longstanding primary internet/cable provider here and their speeds are good but service is atrocious.

</comment><comment><USER84> I live near DC... shit! I wanted Google Fiber just for the awesome TV. DirecTV is incredibly awful. Hopefully they can expand to even more cities in the future.

</comment><comment><USER85> I don't understand, obviously there is a demand for this, so why aren't more companies rolling this stuff out? Give the people what they want!

<comment><USER86> "15/1 should be enough for anybody!" \- something TWC would say.

Seriously though. Why are most of us still in the bandwidth dark ages?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Does 'do no evil' include canonical net-neutrality, or will it end up like Animal Farm: but already it was impossible to say which was which.

</comment><comment><USER81> how do people feel about mobile networks? In a lot of locations the speeds are getting as good as or better than broadband. They're cost ineffective right now for anything but short term tethering but that problem could be solved in 2 - 4 years. I just wonder if laying down fiber house to house is going to seem outdated in 5 years or so for anyone except the hard core work at home dev.

</comment><comment> dav- How is the free plan going to work? Are they going to monetize it somehow by collecting data or serving ads?

<comment><USER88> It is free for "only" the first seven years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I have a question does the cities Google picks have anything to do with their CDN locations?

</comment><comment><USER90> So I guess I have a 1 in 34 chance of getting Google Fiber. Better than nothing...

</comment><comment><USER91> Pfft. I'm waiting on Google Drone/Blimp; it solves the last-mile problem.

</comment><comment><USER92> anything to get away from Comcast or Time Warner helps the greater population!

</comment><comment><USER93> Not a single city in the upper-Midwest, Great Lakes region... :(

</comment><comment><USER94> Great. Google should just push for it everywhere gradually.

</comment><comment><USER95> Why San Antonio over Dallas/Houston?

</comment><comment><USER96> As an Englishman, I feel left out :(

</comment><comment><USER97> I currently live in NYC, and I've lived in Raleigh. It seems pretty clear that tearing up New York City to lay fiber is a much more expensive and tedious process than it would be in Raleigh. The state and local governments also seem much more friendly to that kind of thing.

<comment><USER98> _I currently live in NYC, and I 've lived in Raleigh_

Howdy neighbor: I live in NYC too. A lot of NYC already does have fiber in the form of FiOS. I'll also observe that NYC's overall Internet situation appears to be much better than many places; right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN. In Tucson, where I used to live, I was paying $70 for 12 down / 1 or 2 up.

Google is presumably targeting the places with the crappiest service and the most amenable local governments; NYC's service isn't terrible and its government isn't exactly known for being responsive.

<comment><USER99> > right now I'm paying $50 a month for 50 Mbs down / 5 Mbs up through RCN

And I'm paying $54 for 20 Mbs/down on Time Warner, which is already a "discounted rate". (I'm in Manhattan).

The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too.

I agree that New York City isn't the best target for Google Fiber, but the Internet situation here varies _very_ heavily based on where in the city you live (not just the neighborhood, but which physical _building_ and management company).

<comment><USER100> "The building next door to me has FiOS, but my landlord has no incentive to let them wire my building too."

Is your building rent controlled?

If not, I suspect your landlord is short sighted. I am curious to see whether property values will start to diverge based on quality of internet access. With more people wanting to work from home, I think availability, speed, cost, and quality of Internet access will have an impact on property values.

(Of course, you're in Manhattan, which means landlords can do almost anything and still charge insane rents, so this may not apply to you. Sorry.)

<comment><USER99> In New York City, buildings aren't rent-controlled (or rent-stabilized); individual apartments are. I highly doubt that any units in my building are rent-controlled (that's very rare in NYC these days). There may be one or two that's rent-stabilized, but given the neighborhood and the tenancy of the building, I doubt it.

> I think availability, speed, cost, and quality of Internet access will have > an impact on property values.

In New York, that's vastly dwarfed by the many other factors that affect property values. As much as you and I think Internet access is important, most NYC tenants care more about location, bedbug history, sunlight, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Nice try Google, I was really happy about Atlanta until I saw the cities listed.

Most of the cities they listed are in very sketchy areas that probably dont even know the difference between their regular connection and a faster fiber connection.

Avondale Estates - not so nice Brookhaven - will probably benefit College Park - crime area, could care less about fiber Decatur - some areas will benefit East Point - crime area Hapeville - crime area Sandy Springs - will benefit, lots of Apartment Complexes Smyrna - will benefit in some areas

<comment><USER88> Yeah, God forbid anyone should bring high-speed networking to poor areas. Fiber should be reserved for rich white people.

<comment><USER101> When they laid fiber down in KC they had each neighborhood sign up and based on how much interest each community had they would have precedence over the others.

If the cities they choose dont have an interest then what is the point?

Who said anything about white people?</comment></comment></comment>


Hey – Personal commandline assistant - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Max00355/Hey

<comment><USER2> I would prefer to have some kind of confirmation before something is actually done. For example Hey could show the actual command sequence to be executed and then ask if that is ok to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> When would this really be needed? Hey isn't working with anything really sensitive right now.

<comment><USER2> For one thing it would be interesting to learn something about Linux. The command would show what would actually be needed. In my opinion Hey is probably only useful (used) by (would be / wannabe) programmers. For the other thing: I would expect it to do more sensitive things in the future. And also: if it would create a directory where I would it not want to be, it would help to say simply no instead of having to remove it later ('Oh, thats the root where it was created; it should have been the Documents folder').

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This could be good if you figure out how to support advanced arguments etc. Right now it seems to be a system to handle a large number of aliases for common commands.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I need some ideas for commands, if anyone had any suggestions that'd be appreciated.

<comment><USER4> So, Siri for the terminal? Cool idea but your implementation won't scale (more complex commands and/or beyond English). You need a grammer file and some NLP library. Look at how this is implemented: [http://natty.joestelmach.com/](http://natty.joestelmach.com/) Their core is implemented in this grammer file: [https://github.com/joestelmach/natty/blob/master/src/main/an...](https://github.com/joestelmach/natty/blob/master/src/main/antlr3/com/joestelmach/natty/generated/DateLexer.g) Take a look at this too since you wrote it in python: [http://www.nltk.org/](http://www.nltk.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting, thanks for the tip. This is my first time parsing natural language like this, it is a bit challenging.</comment></comment></comment>


The Speech Accent Archive - <AUTHOR> http://accent.gmu.edu/

<comment><USER2> Just spent an hour playing with the sound bites - made me wonder how much it costs southerners in lost productivity from speaking so slowly</comment>


Awesome Visual Regression Testing Tool - <AUTHOR> https://applitools.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not affiliated, I'm just a huge fan.</comment>


Weighing the Price of Safety in OSHA's New Video Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/weighing-the-price-of-safety-in-oshas-new-video-game/

<comment><USER2> I think that the writer has somewhat misread the situation.

Occupational health and safety is often perceived by management as little more than an bureaucratic burden. Of course in an ideal world all managers would put people above profit, but that's probably not a realistic expectation. By illustrating the real financial costs to business of health and safety lapses, this game helps drag the agenda of a business into alignment with the objectives of OSHA. The take-away message is that risk assessment and mitigation is an essential part of business decision making, not merely a checklist that needs to be ticked off to satisfy an inspector.

</comment><comment><USER3> Makes me wonder if anyone has created a video game for software management where the player must minimize defects in the shipping product while making the most money possible.

Edit: better yet, close security holes, but not at the expense of profits.</comment>


Get Off the Couch Baby Boomers, or You May Not Be Able to Later - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/09/04/547580952/get-off-the-couch-baby-boomers-or-you-may-not-be-able-to-later <comment><USER2> "Sitting and watching TV for long periods, especially in the evening," she says, "has got to be one of the most dangerous things that older people can do."

This will also be an issue for my generation (Millennial). I'm guilty of sitting around and Netflixing after a day's work. Imagine how different it would be if the Wii became extremely popular a la Netflix - entertainment that required you to move around.</comment>


The Astonishingly High Administrative Costs of U.S. Health Care - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/upshot/costs-health-care-us.html <comment><USER2> I wish I had a link for this, but I believe as Obamacare was being drafted / the economy was in dire straits in 2009, the Obama administration had to make a choice about whether to radically streamline health care, but at the cost of killing employment in (at the time) the only growing sector of the United States.

They chose to not streamline it, which is understandable, but obviously a price had to be paid at some point.

Related story, went with my wife into a small but advanced local hospital where she has a surgical consult about her sinuses. This hospital was beautiful and fully loaded with all the latest technology, big screen TVs, tablets, etc. Nonetheless, in the waiting room there were 5 office admins each with dual monitors checking people in. It's like they didn't get any benefit at all from the technology......

<comment><USER3> Graeber in "Bullshit Jobs" quotes President Obama, but I can't find an independent source of the quote right now.

 _To account for that persistence, Graeber quotes President Barack Obama on the topic of privatized health care. "Everybody who supports single-payer health care says, 'Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork,' " the former President noted. "That represents one million, two million, three million jobs."_

[https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit- jo...](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)

<comment><USER4> A more optimistic formulation would be that that represents millions of people who could be doing something a bit more generally useful than mastering the intricacies of the layers and layers of bureaucracy built up around medical billing. And probably wouldn't mind having a slightly less mind-numbing job themselves.

Too bad the US is also epically bad at supporting people in career transitions.

<comment><USER5> The magnitude of the data systems migration is usually discounted as well.

Insurance companies generally have atrocious IT (it's not their core competency) and consequently inflexible IT stacks.

Elimination the layers and layers of bureaucracy also means change / rewritting all the places that's embedded in code.

... and the real kicker? Those changes have to happen on both sides of any party / counterparty transaction. While supporting a normal volume of work.

Small example? ICD-10 code support [https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/index.html](https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/index.html)

<comment><USER4> I think, though, that they would find a way to clean this all up toute de suite, if only they were given a proper incentive to do so.

For example, if there were real competition in the marketplace (say, by moving to a system where most consumers go to actually shop around and choose their own health insurance company), I expect you'd find insurance companies start to streamline their own processes, both internal and external, more-or-less immediately.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, imagine a system where some providers are cash-only. They wouldn't even care about that ICD-10 stuff, let alone pay even the cost of entry for the proprietary coding system.

Of course, I realize, that were an insured patient to use such a provider, that would shift the insurance claims burden onto the patient (much as is often the case PPO out-of-network claims today), but this could be a point of competition for would-be insurers under your proposed system.

<comment><USER5> If a patient is cash-only, how would their electronic records be stored, if not ICD-* compatible?

<comment><USER6> Using any technology that predates ICD-*, including paper.

Current regulations may preclude using anything but a compatible EMR, but this implementatino detail is hardly fundamental to the practice of medicine.

<comment><USER5> Ironically, when I asked an old timer about the IDC field format, I was told they were that way "because that's how they were on the previous paper forms."

Point being, using proprietary data formats works up until you need to share data (e.g. labs, consults). And then the forms _are_ the API. So either you're writting a translator or you aren't communicating with the other system.

But this is prolly a bit of a tangent. Standardized forms and coding are actually a huge benefit to efficiency.

The biggest loss in productivity (I saw) is the back-and-forth nature of the system. Provider submits claim. Insurance rejects it. Phone call is made. Claim is updated. Insurance rejects it for a different reason. Claim is updated. Claim goes through. Note: rejections are usually for technical / procedural reasons, not necessarily not wanting to pay the claim. And that process is different for each insurer.

If you really wanted to eliminate hours spent in billing, enriching the "negotiation" phase somehow would be best. But also difficult because you're essentially coding the legal contract between insurer and provider, then attempting to apply it to an actual situation. And have to play nice with the existing systems on both sides.

<comment><USER6> > when I asked an old timer about the IDC field format, I was told they were > that way "because that's how they were on the previous paper forms."

That's not actually surprising, since the current insurance/billing situation easily predates the prevalence of EMRs (the recency of which those of us in the computer industry may have forgotten).

> But this is prolly a bit of a tangent. Standardized forms and coding are > actually a huge benefit to efficiency.

I don't doubt standardization is a boon to efficiency by some measure. However, it doesn't _necessarily_ translate into better medicine (which was my tangent). Less tangentially, it may not translate to cost savings, especially for a cash-only business, where it may be merely a premature optimization.

Least tangentially, there's little reason to believe that continuing with existing standards, skewed toward insurance/billing (which I admit more describes CPT than ICD), is more efficient for a cash-only provider than an alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At my wife's practice they employ two people full time _just_ to do insurance authorizations.

edit: actually one of those people does verification (checking to see what insurance patients have, what is covered, and estimate what they will owe) and the other person just does authorization (getting the insurance company to approve the procedure)

<comment><USER8> What's interesting is I heard that if you pay cash, up front the doctor's office will charge you less. So I had this appointment (forgot for what) and they gave an estimate with my insurance. I asked...if I wanted to pay for all of it right now, how much would it cost...and she said it would be the same.

Of course I said ok, fine...run it through insurance. That year I wasn't going to meet deductible so I had no incentive to go through insurance.

<comment><USER9> My wife needed an MRI last year. The hospital quoted us $4000 as self-pay, but would knock it down to $2000 if we paid cash up front. This was late December, so we picked up insurance through the marketplace and she had the MRI done in January, billed to insurance at $250.

This still boggles my mind... I understand the insurance provider negotiates bulk rates, but we were paying up front, in cash, and were still quoted 8x the insurance price.

<comment><USER10> I've had a doctors office tell me that it was literally impossible for them to estimate, let alone quote me, a price for how much my visit would cost.

(My finger was infected. I needed a week of antibiotics. That was it.)

<comment><USER11> Yup. Same experience here... had to have an emergency appendectomy and my biggest worry wasn't the operation itself but its cost. I persisted in asking the doctors for an estimate, but they wouldn't budge. Neither would the clerical staff... which made 0 sense to me. Its not the first operation they have done, I just wanted rough figures (i.e. 5k? 50k? 500k?) but they wouldn't give me that either.

Final billing: 55k in total, but because of insurance I paid about 5k. Which still left me wondering... what did people without insurance do? How could they possibly pay that much money, if they couldn't even get insurance?

<comment><USER12> They go broke. The exact number is disputed [0], but health costs are a major cause of bankruptcy in the USA (as opposed to most other developed countries where this uncertainty about costs doesn't exist).

I discovered an interesting fact the other day about the US's massive % of GDP spent on health; they spend about the same % of public monies on health that other developed countries do, the extra % is private spending! [1]

Anecdata: I am in Australia and have private health insurance (notably: otherwise I'd be paying an extra tax levy and be worse of in $ terms), but all that has meant is that I can go to a private hospital instead of a public one for elective surgery. For ~$2k a year. A few years back I broke both my collarbone and my ankle on separate occasions. The ankle repair was entirely free. The collarbone was setting too slowly (opportunity cost: I needed to get back to work ASAP... normally they just put your arm in a sling and let it stitch naturally), so I opted to have a surgical repair, which was about $2k all up for the out-of-pockets.

[0]: [https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy- statistics-415...](https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy- statistics-4154729) [1]: [https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart- collection/health-...](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart- collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-u-s-similar-public- spending-private-sector-spending-triple-comparable-countries)

<comment><USER13> go broke as you mention, and often go without care.

Sometimes being dumped from a hospital in the middle of the night drugged at some random location.

Often times a small problem gets put off and becomes a much larger problem.

It becomes a burden on family and friends, sometimes leads to amputations and other surgeries such that otherwise could of been avoided with better care.

This a huge problem for a lot of people, especially if you add in the dental care that is needed and not obtained around the country.

ymmv

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As worded, it sounds like emulating the Switzerland or Germany model is the best solution. They offer decent patient choice but don't pay significantly higher for that choice than single-system countries. USA citizens on average prefer choice, and would probably agree to pay a little more to get choice.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the biggest driver of healthcare costs is the middle-men. All of the people who pad the bill, add fees, etc. The doctors who step into the O.R. for a minute and charge a fee[0]. They all add to feeding at the trough, so to speak..

[0]. [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring- sur...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise- medical-bills.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder with more frequency every day if there will ever truly be a solution to the problem of rising health care costs in the US. I see a lot of posts here suggesting that privatization should be removed, and any jobs lost that are related to the current industry will be unfortunate byproducts of getting rid of a broken system; a necessary evil that will ultimately make way for a health care system that is both cheaper and available to all.

It's tempting and easy to adopt that line of thinking given where, I would suspect most of us here, are at in our lives from a career and financial perspective. As a software developer, it's easy for me to switch jobs and make a good wage. I can weather most unforeseen costs. In the decade plus that I spent working blue collar jobs for a very low wage, I would've been screwed if I'd lost my job.

This speaks to a much larger problem that is consuming the US every day. I don't have any answers, but I can empathize with those who fear their livelihoods being taken away, even if saving those jobs has a net negative effect on the economy and job market. There isn't a day that goes by, especially in today's political climate, where I'm not thankful for having the opportunity to put myself in a better position. I'm the outlier, though. Most people can never bring themselves up out of poverty.

<comment><USER17> _...any jobs lost that are related to the current industry will be unfortunate byproducts of getting rid of a broken system_

I'm tempted to argue that an equal number of jobs are lost every day to the opportunity cost of people not taking business risks due to the added risk of losing their healthcare, myself included. My optimistic vision is that the economic growth resulting from removing this burden will absorb the displaced workers, plus create even more jobs on top of that.

<comment><USER18> We forget. This isn't going to happen overnight. Sure people will lose jobs, but not millions overnight.

Imagine how many humans are spending their lives doing busy work. We can free them up to do better things.

Imagine how many good doctors have to join a medical factory where they churn out patients and slap big bills. Going solo doesn't make sense.

Just the way cloud made it so Indie hackers can build great products with a small team, Healthcare needs this "cloud" like system which takes care of all the unnecessary bullshit related to insurance and payments so they can focus on the core of providing great service and making people healthier.

<comment><USER17> Going one step further, just eliminate insurance, and the entire billing system becomes unnecessary.

My mom had an experience in a country with national health care. She got injured while hiking, and got treated at the clinic in the first town she reached. Whey they were done, she asked how to pay. They said: "You don't pay for health care." Well, what about foreigners? It turned out they simply didn't have any way of figuring out a price or taking her money. Those mechanisms didn't exist. It was probably cheaper for them to dish out free care to a few foreigners, than to manage a complete billing and collection infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Administrative = bureaucratic.

Government-run healthcare has the same problems associated with heavily regulated sectors like our current healthcare system, but to a much larger degree because of lack of incentives to improve performance.

The way to decrease cost is decrease regulation and get rid of all the unnecessary paper pushers we have right now.

<comment><USER20> Back in Health Care Policy class I dug through these numbers and the opposite was true: bureaucratic overhead was much larger in the US system. The US system also wound up being twice as expensive overall.

Has that changed or are you just repeating a talking point you heard somewhere?

Markets serve the person with bargaining power. If doctors and drug companies have all the bargaining power -- and in the most important health care situations, they do -- why do you think a free-er market will give you a better deal?

<comment><USER21> > Markets serve the person with bargaining power. If doctors and drug > companies have all the bargaining power -- and in the most important health > care situations, they do -- why do you think a free-er market will give you > a better deal?

Contrary to popular opinion, doctors have close to zero bargaining power in the US. That's why private practices have been rapidly shutting their doors over the last 10-15 years - they've been losing money, so they've had to sell their practices to large provider networks. But even those hospital networks don't have much bargaining power, which is why many of those have been going out of business and either shutting their doors or consolidating in the last 5-10 years.

<comment><USER20> My point: the consumers are powerless. Whether doctors are individually powerful or only powerful as a member of an organization is entirely tangential, except in that the consumer is even less powerful in the second case.

EDIT: I now have two people providing evidence that actually reinforces my core point in order to argue with me about a synechdoche. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

<comment><USER21> > My point: the consumers are powerless.

Yes, but that's a far cry from saying the doctors are powerful. They're not. They're powerless too.

> Whether doctors are individually powerful or only powerful as a member of an > organization is entirely tangential.

Doctors are neither powerful as individuals _nor_ as members of any organization. Despite common misconception, they have almost as little power as patients do.

<comment><USER20> s/Doctors/Health Care Providers then. The more you insist on precision, the less accessible this debate becomes. I hope you have a good reason.

The salaries say that doctors are more powerful than patients -- but we both agree that they are powerless compared to the organizations that employ them. What of it?

<comment><USER21> > s/Doctors/Health Care Providers then. The more you insist on precision, the > less accessible this debate becomes. I hope you have a good reason.

Yes, because there's a big difference between doctors and provider networks, and as I've already explained above, _neither_ has the level of power that people generally believe they do.

> The salaries say that doctors are more powerful than patients

I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean. You're not comparing like quantities.

> we both agree that they are powerless compared to the organizations that > employ them.

No, we don't, because I've already said that the hospital networks (which employ the majority of doctors these days) don't really have much power either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Healthcare tends towards natural monopolies. Without competitive pressures, what incentives are there for them to slim?

</comment><comment><USER23> The health care and pharma industry is in serious need of some whistle- blowers.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Your desire to live is my opportunity" \- some health care administrator.

<comment><USER5> Never ascribe to malice, what can be explained by apathy.

<comment><USER25> If you're so apathetic as to be actively harmful that's still malicious.

Also, as they are actively looking to increase profits, I can't possibly see how this is "apathetic".

Quit making excuses for garbage people.

<comment><USER5> You know what's easy? Blaming people.

"How could they be so evil / greedy / stupid / mean / etc? Don't worry. We'll fire them and bring in new people. Everything fixed."

You know what's harder but more productive? Admitting there are systemic, _structural_ issues. And having enough compassion for people trying to do their jobs.

Because suddenly there's no easy scapegoat. And the only response is to actually change the system.

\--

The issue with the US health system isn't some malevolent Oz pulling strings behind the scenes, but that none of the legally defined and empowered players have their interests fully aligned with the patient.

<comment><USER25> Suggesting there aren't malicious forces actively pushing for their bottom line over say, structural changes that would improve healthcare for everyone is really really dumb.

Sometimes there really are just evil greedy people being bad.

<comment><USER5> Are there greedy people out there? Of course. Do I spend time focusing on them? Not a minute. That's what the justice system is for, and it's not terrible at punishing people who break the law.

Th difference is in outcome.

If you focus on people, you get to feel righteous, targeted anger, and nothing ever changes.

If you focus on the system, you're left viscerally unsatisfied ("The US healthcare system is dysfunctional? I can't yell at that..."), but might effect real change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you ever want to know why something sucks, just look at who is bribing politicians:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s)

So here is the process it takes to get medicine that is legal in china.

>Schedule appointment, talk to 1 person

>Wait in the lobby, talk to 1 person and fill out government HIPPA + clinic paperwork

>Go to back room, talk to nurse. Fill out paperwork

>Wait

>Talk to Physicians Assistant or Physician, get perscription

>Pay office 120 dollars

>forward perscription to pharmacy 1-2 people involved

>Go to pharmacy

>Talk to person at register

>Pay

Remember that in China, you just go to the store to buy 4$ amoxicillin. And despite the Physicians in the United States screaming about superbugs, China and Mexico both havent made superbugs despite not having massive regulations.

This is a self made problem from corruption. The Medical profession milks the consumer because the consumer has no other option.

<comment><USER8> You're being downvoted probably because of the superbug statement...but my wife had surgery to remove a breast lump. It cost $3k and with all these appointments it happened over the course of 2 months. The cost does not include all these other scans and crap before.

My cousin went to China (family visit). Lump was discovered here...surgery in China. Got seen in one day, surgery the next. $800.

When my wife discovered a new lump...just doing follow up scans was $900. $500 for imaging center, $200 for the doctor at the imaging center...and $200 for her annual physical (they billed it as a problem visit and not an annual because she brought up the fact she has a lump, rather than the doctor finding it, even though breast cancer detection is part of annual!...still fighting, but I'll probably drop it because it's so stressful and time consuming)

<comment><USER27> So that's why I can't be seen for a physical and problem at the same time. What a load of shit.

<comment><USER8> Yeah...its all about the money. I have mild allergies in the spring that don't really bother me... Last year I did my appointment for my annual in the spring. Doctor goes, you have allergies. If I write you a prescription I gotta charge you as a problem visit. I recommend you try over the counter Claritan and if it doesn't help, come back.

Now this doctor didn't own the practice, it's a decent size local franchise. Maybe that's their policy. But atleast the doctor told me up front. For my wife...we didn't know till we got the bill. Funny thing is the doctor signed paperwork that my wife did an annual (i get $$ from work if we do annuals)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The reason that health care costs rise in almost all countries is that we are doing something wrong. The question is what? Can it be that doctors who do not try to find the root causes of diseases have no solutions ? Can it be that doctors who prescribe drugs to suppress symtoms cause problems in the long run ?

Cancer is a disease with high costs where a lot can be gained. Watch a documentary about Dr Burzynski who has a cure for various types of cancer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBUGVkmmwbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBUGVkmmwbk) The documentary shows how officials and the National Cancer Institute work against him and hence continue the high cost.

On websites like [https://drhyman.com](https://drhyman.com) and [https://www.chriskresser.com](https://www.chriskresser.com) you can find doctors who explain a lot about root causes of diseases and how to cure oneself. If all would read these sites the costs for health would drop more than 50%.

<comment><USER29> Chris Kresser -- despite his many virtues -- is not a doctor. Moreover, he has never published any research indicating his findings or results are statistically significant. While his advice is often good, there is no reason to believe that it offers 'cures' to diseases hitherto considered uncurable. If anything, the fact that you think he's a doctor with magic cures suggests the need for ever more regulation, and thus bureaucracy.

<comment><USER30> > If anything, the fact that you think he's a doctor with magic cures suggests > the need for ever more regulation, and thus bureaucracy.

Why? Why should the state assume the burden of protecting someone from themselves?

I might see it differently if knowledgeable, well-researched care were difficult to find... but it's not. If someone decides they want to go to a homeopath to treat their terminal illness, why should we stop them?

<comment><USER31> Because working out if someone is a competent doctor is hard and expecting every single person in society to work it out for themselves, regardless of their level of free time, education, or access to information, is a massive burden.

<comment><USER32> To rephrase this. As wasteful as it may seem to "protect people from themselves" there is a good reason to believe not having some of those protections is actually more expensive.

Consider the costs of seatbelt enforcement. They are real and exist. More, for most people and most rides, the seatbelt truly did nothing for you. To the point that if you got a ticket, it almost certainly cost you more than you are projected to save from having a seatbelt in the short term.

However, for society at large, we tremendously benefit by having everyone use seatbelts. From less time lost on the job, to fewer ER trips from lower collision wrecks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


20 Christian academics speaking about God - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/20-christian-academics-speaking-about-god.html

<comment><USER2> A bunch of short clips, out of context, with refutations cut out. Pretty much all of them engaging in the logical fallacy called "argument from ignorance". Pretty much all of them pre-supposing _their_ god's existence.

Lame.</comment>


What the DAO Attack Means in the Netherlands - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitcoinwednesday.com/what-the-dao-attack-means-in-the-netherlands/ <comment><USER2> It's about the intention.

In Civil Law jurisdictions (like the Netherlands) the intention is a very important part of a contract. It's like a secret: laymen think they have to read the contract carefully and not to believe the promises. Mostly this is true because of difficulties of proof. It is often impossible to claim intentions after the fact.

However if you have proof (for example countersigned own notes), the judge doesn't have qualms to change the contract wording to conform to intentions. I am studying law, and one old famous case in Germany of the twenties last century has been presented in private contract law: There was a mutual agreement to buy whale meat from Norway. In the contract it was about «Haakjöringsköd». However this was a mutual misunderstanding. Haakjöringsköd is shark meat. The judge decided that the contract is about whale meat, not shark meat.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakj%C3%B6ringsk%C3%B6d-Fall](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakj%C3%B6ringsk%C3%B6d-Fall) (German)</comment>


Organizing the world of fonts with AI - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/ideo-stories/organizing-the-world-of-fonts-with-ai-7d9e49ff2b25 <comment><USER2> This is really fun and interesting work, but it also goes to show how diluted the term/buzzword "AI" really is.

This is barely even machine learning (what exactly is being "learned" here?). 5 years ago this would have been "dimension reduction and clustering".

<comment><USER3> Dimension reduction and clustering have long been the focus of AI/ML. Reference, Bishops book an early 2000's classic, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, chapter 9.1 is k-means clustering.

<comment><USER4> People started using machine learning as a term to differentiate the goal from actual intelligence. They're not the same. Early work in AI was generally about achieving goals (aka A*, blocks world, etc), which is not the same thing as dimensionality reduction or clustering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Russell and Norvig (1995) include machine learning as one of the four elements needed to pass the Turing Test. They cite Gold's _Identification of Language in the Limit_ from 1967 as a laying the groundwork for machine learning applied to natural language processing.

[http://stpk.cs.rtu.lv/sites/all/files/stpk/materiali/mi/arti...](http://stpk.cs.rtu.lv/sites/all/files/stpk/materiali/mi/artificial%20intelligence%20a%20modern%20approach.pdf)

[http://web.mit.edu/~6.863/www/spring2009/readings/gold67limi...](http://web.mit.edu/~6.863/www/spring2009/readings/gold67limit.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had seen a similar research project by people from Microsoft. They had mapped fonts onto a higher dimensional data. Then you can generate new fonts on the fly by specifying a new point and getting a font for that.

[https://github.com/erikbern/deep-fonts](https://github.com/erikbern/deep- fonts)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised it was all driven solely by rendering a single word "handgloves". The diagram hints that it might have even been an all-caps "HANDGLOVES". I wonder if the results would have been better with a longer phrase that included other characters, or some mix of lower/upper case.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice and promising thing. I would suggest performing a second iteration with the following improvements:

\- classify on all characters (not only one word)

\- add some more fonts, at least those most popular ones. I tried with a few very popular (i'd say classic) fonts, but none was found

</comment><comment><USER8> I would imagine most designers would prefer to see something like "RSOgfcq" if they're font surfing. An 'A' conveys so little about a typeface.

<comment><USER4> Doing that forces you to focus on the trees instead of the forest. If you use an actual English word then you can compare gestalts, which is typically more important. That allows you to understand the emotional impact, etc.</comment></comment>