Sick of cookie banners and popups? They're all changing, again - <AUTHOR> https://silktide.com/blog/2019/sick-of-cookie-banners-and-popups <comment><USER3> The article omits the really obvious solution: don't use all these cookies on your site. Many of us use google analytics for convenience but in reality there's really no reason for it on most sites. Basic login or technical protection measures are all perfectly fine - so storing an IP to make sure you're not getting ddosed is not an issue.

This law is not aimed at the average homebrew website or restaurant menu page - it's for the big abusers, like Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It's for the big abusers, like Google".

If the law actually said that, it would be great.

You never want laws to be ambiguously applied and to presume exemption because "it wouldn't happen to me". People will abuse laws: there will be spam scams aplenty selling snake-oil solutions, and ambulance chasers threatening to sue companies because they can. Excess legislation comes at a cost.

I am in favour of better privacy but I fail to see how counting unique visitors on a blog should become a crime. By setting the standard that everyone is violating the law, you encourage everyone to ignore your law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Their infographic is hilarious: [https://silktide.com/images/uploads/images/Cookie-Law- infogr...](https://silktide.com/images/uploads/images/Cookie-Law- infographic.png)

But I can't see this changing in the medium term without some high-profile fines; someone needs to fine a major media company or similar simply for having Google analytics enabled. Then everyone will shout about their world collapsing, and try to find new forms of allowed dark pattern.

Really the only way to get out ahead of this mess would be to "lean in" and make a browser-level technological mechanism for providing consent. Maybe standardise the "session cookie" somehow, so all the required functionality can hang off that.

<comment><USER5> > But I can't see this changing in the medium term without some high-profile > fines

I'm counting on the German cease-and-desist industry to kick-start that - <USER2> that I think about it, I'm actually surprised it has happened yet.

<comment><USER6> It hasn't happened because it only works against private people which can't afford good legal representation.

Their entire 'industry' is just shitting on people in the lower middle classes and below for a few hundreds bucks per case.

With this they'd actually have to represent in court for every case. It's easier for them to just keep leeching of people that can't fight back

<comment><USER7> There is a healthy cease-and-desist industry working in the field of online shops. I wouldn't classify their owners as lower middle class. You are right that a lot of cases go to court but they often side with the one sending the letter.

<comment><USER6> You mean the shops run by a single person, often as secondary income besides their day job? Yes, I consider them middle class.

It's very rare that they sue a gmbh or ag. They generally only go for soft targets

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This will be annoying if every single website spams permission requests on first visit.

I hope that if I say 'No' on one website to doubleclick, adwords, analytics, etc, those aren't going to just reappear for every other website.

If it's purely something each website is implementing, that won't happen, so I'm looking forward to some standard that all browsers will use.

The UK could have just developed their own adblocker or educated everyone about adblocking, cookie blacklisting, browser settings, anything would be fine.

Do you think the average visitor will take time to go through each message and only enable 1st party services required for the website to function? Just like the annoying cookie banner, people will quickly become blind to that section of the screen and spam click on whatever appears just so they can get rid of it and read the page.

</comment><comment><USER9> In my opinion the ability to give consent for cookies or anything else should be standardised part of browsers and another W3C standard. This should be integral part of browser, the same way as for consent for camera or microphone use.

</comment><comment><USER10> > It'll likely take heavy fines before people will care to go through the > whole process of "cookie-lawing" and "GDPR-ing" their websites again.

This line is a bit disingenuous, as all of these guidelines are simply what "GDPR-ing" was supposed to be in the first place. Any website owner that contracted for someone to make their website GDPR-compliant that runs afoul of these rules should insist on getting their money back.

</comment><comment><USER11> There is a setting for Google Analytics which makes it pinky promise to not store too much information and with that setting you don't need banners.

<comment><USER12> Would you trust that promise coming from a company whose bottom line relies on violating such promises?

<comment><USER11> It's not about you trusting them, it's about satisfying the requirements of the law.

<comment><USER12> If you don't mind letting a malicious company stalk your users then by all means go and "satisfy the requirements of the law".

<comment><USER11> Obviously around 0% of website owners do as they had to be forced into not pushing tracking cookies onto you by default. The decision is not mine to make as a user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a good thing. And there's probably still some way to go with this. A step-by-step approach makes sense to me. Sure it's a nuisance for developers (although I'm certainly not complaining about the extra work) but it's better for users to see regular progress regarding their privacy. Surveillance capitalism has gone a bit crazy over the last decade and lawmakers are steadily reeling it back in. I fully support the ICO's recommendations

<comment><USER14> : but it's better for users to see regular progress regarding their privacy.

First and foremost, it will desensitize people about these messages, until they habitually click on everything presented to them.

... including giving away the title to their soul.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is nothing new. These guidelines reflect the GDPR's intent and everyone had 2 years to prepare for it before it went into effect.

<comment><USER15> They are in effect and everyone breaks them. I guess we need to wait for first "cookie" fine for any panic/changes to happen.

<comment><USER16> yep, I work at what is a processor in terms of the GPDR and made a action plan of how we should comply and help our customers to comply. Guess how much of that got done? Absolutely nothing. But of luckely we have quarterly meetings to how to improve out compliance etc, of which we have so far had none.

The trouble is that the industry seems to focus more on what they can get away with then what they need to change. Even the GPDR consultants/privacy lawyers focus not on what is required by law, but on how to circumvent as much of it as possible.

All 'BeCAUse iT Is sUcH a drACOnian LaW' \- Well guess why that is the case. We keep perverting it in the name of marketing. It's just a race to the bottom in the end.

<comment><USER17> Part of the problem is the missing fines:

If there is no regulatory punishment for ignoring the law, than any organization following the law actually has a commercial disadvantage against all the opponents not following the law.

That's way no one is willing to follow the rules. Legal requirements that do not get enforced are just meaningless.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


iMoondo Video Classifieds - <AUTHOR> http://www.imoondo.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, this will be my first post. Just wondering what some fellow startup guys and gals think of my team's website. It's set up for video classifieds - pretty self explanatory but its basically a synergy of Craigs List and YouTube.

<comment><USER2> How is this different from realpeoplerealstuff.com?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ilike. You need to get out there and kick major butts and get the most content you can get. Maybe you should get hot colege chicks to post on "meet people". gr8 job</comment>


The truth about prediction markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.midasoracle.org/2009/02/14/the-truth-about-prediction-markets/ <comment><USER2> I think some analysis and thinking might help with this argument..</comment>


How to Work Remotely and Travel the World - <AUTHOR> http://jake-jorgovan.com/blog/remote

<comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing your experience! Reading your story, as well as many others on HN, opened my eyes to this new, exciting possibility. It won't be easy, but I'll try to do it.

I guess the hardest thing is to fully trust yourself. Other people are just noise, as their opinions aren't necessarily more backed up than yours. They often have a unconscious secret agenda that doesn't fully take into account your well-being and the more someone is close to you, the more biased he/she is. "Don't take risks", "Don't leave this place", "Don't leave me".</comment>


Ncc: Node.js Compiler Collection - <AUTHOR> https://zeit.co/blog/ncc <comment><USER2> This just looks like a bundler. The thing about gcc, the name you're aping here, is that it's a _collection_ of _compilers_. This looks like neither a compiler nor a collection of them.

As far as I can tell this seems to be approximately 2,000 lines of JavaScript (half of which is tests) that wires together existing tools in an rather un- novel way. Or, in other words: an ad for "zeit".

<comment><USER3> I thought the same when I read the article. It sounds like it's just a wrapper around webpack. Why wouldn't I just use webpack aside from this tool being marginally faster? Is there something I'm missing here? Couldn't we just take their improvements and implement them in webpack?

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal is to provide the experience that many other languages have, where you don't configure anything. You just run "$tool build"

<comment><USER4> Generally $tool has a config file in the root of the project or similar. Webpack and other js compilers/bundlers are the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This should be a `Show HN:`. OP is an author of the linked article.

</comment><comment><USER6> I will definitely give ncc a try. Our published npm artifacts on Artifactory are big, mainly because we are forced due to company policies to bundle node_modules into them. Npm installing them on our on premise instances are the main bottleneck of the deployment process.

<comment><USER7> if you can use `npm ci` closer to the release pipeline that can help. As will running SSD/NVME on the build/release server and zipping for transfer to/from artifact servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As other people mentioned before, the name is misleading. This project's analogy is closer to a linker than a compiler collection. Is this emitting any compiled code at all or just bundling functions? What is the roadmap for this project?

</comment><comment><USER9> This looks really interesting to me.

One of the things we're going through on our app right now is react-loadable style per-component bundling. The analogy would be to building .so files with GCC. Do you have any plans for ncc to address that use case?

</comment><comment><USER10> How about a fork that adds the suffix "-1701"? Subsequent versions could add letters, like a, b, c, d...

</comment><comment><USER11> i don't get how is this a compiler?

</comment><comment><USER12> Where's the compiler or even the collection of compilers in this? See this is why I'm sick of web dev, another project by "developers" who don't even know what a compiler is and on top of this name it ncc just to make it sound more important, lol.

<comment><USER13> Could you please not post unless you have something civil and substantive to say? We eventually ban accounts that only post snark.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


ArtistPage.me - <AUTHOR> http://www.artistpage.me/ Create an electronic presskit as an artist or dj that looks professional and is always up to date. Be the first to know about our launch. The first 100 signups get a pro account for free. <comment><AUTHOR> It's about.me for artists and dj's!</comment>


Now you can "embed" your phone into shoes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21443206

<comment><USER2> Would you actually hold your shoe up to your head? I can't even imagine..

<comment><USER3> This has long been the stuff of science fiction: [http://www.droidforums.net/forum/attachments/droid-razr- maxx...](http://www.droidforums.net/forum/attachments/droid-razr- maxx/50973d1339568192-what-were-old-days-like-maxwellsmart.jpg)</comment></comment>


BlueGreenDeployment (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://martinfowler.com/bliki/BlueGreenDeployment.html <comment><USER2> The most interesting thing for me was the link to [http://continuousdelivery.com/](http://continuousdelivery.com/) and the diagrams summarizing some of the concepts in the book (they're CC licensed):

[http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/01_...](http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/01_CD_the_idea_low-res.jpg)

[http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/02_...](http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/02_CD_test_strategy_low-res.jpg)

[http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/03_...](http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/03_CD_automated_acceptance_test_low-res.jpg)

[http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/04_...](http://continuousdelivery.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/04_CD_managing_data_low-res.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> I work at a big 3-letter multinational corporation, and we still compile and deploy manually. No continuous integration or, at least, automated testing. No build tool whatsoever, or a repo to store artifacts. Everything is compiled on the dev's workstation and sent by email.

We do have a disaster recovery server, but it sits outdated for weeks after a deployment in production. When something goes wrong, the switch is not automatic and transparent to the user, we have to email EVERYONE in the user's list to please use the DR server's address. There is no router or load balancer.

Crazy.

<comment><USER4> In a big 3-letter multinational corporation your experience with the build process might not be representative of the corporation at large.

<comment><USER3> You're right. But I've asked around and I haven't found any projects that use an automated build and test process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> BlueGreen deployments are easy to achieve using something like AWS ElasticBeanstalk (and they also force you to have your entire env setup in code so its quickly duplicatable for each deploy) with how easy it is to create a new stack and its 'Swap CNAME' feature.

However, now that Elastic Beanstalk supports incremental rollouts I don't see as much value in the approach.

We use Blue/Green deployments (with AWS EB) at Mi9 to deploy all our high traffic websites

<comment><USER6> Same here, we went to blue/green deploys when magic in Beanstalk broke and created an outage (we used to use beanstalk deploys where it does all the switching for you).

It is very sad and unfortunate that Amazon decided to limit the smaller number of instances to 1 in VPCs. In the old classic AWS you could set the minimum number of instances to 0, which allowed you to completely shutdown an environment without destroying it, effectively allowing you to turn back to it in a few seconds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Database is the sticky part of this strategy.

If Blue is in production and Green is on deck, how are updates to the Blue database pushed to Green?

<comment><USER8> I believe (in practice if not theory) it is common to handle db schema updates separately and to run both systems off the same database. This way the data only lives in one location but you get to run two slightly different app servers/frontends on top of it. You are then more careful with database changes. This sounds like a pain in the arse but a lot of people seem to be able to run with it without it causing a lot of additional overhead having to schedule your db changes to go out before your dependant code changes.

<comment> anton-107 So does this effectively mean - only create tables and add columns in your db schema migrations (no updating and removing)?

<comment><USER9> You can remove but you update the application to not read from the removed column (and test this in a test environment) first. "Updating" is best done by adding a new column, writing to the new column in parallel, back-populating it, reading from the new column, and then dropping the old column. It's a bit cumbersome but it works and it's safe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had the pleasure of working on a three node blue-green system at a Fortune 100 company (yes, enterprise can do some things right). Each cluster could be in either of two production modes or a staging mode, all switched with a simple command line request. The request created touchfiles that managed the load balancer behavior. Instantaneous switching, yeah!

On the other hand, the database was more or less a cache. It was very much availability over consistency, in CAP terms. If we had to keep transactional data, it would have been harder.

edit: When I started there and they described the architecture to me, I said "Cool, you're doing blue green deployment!", and the response was "What's blue green deployment?"

</comment><comment><USER11> The idea reminds me of double-buffering. I wonder if there are other parallels that can be drawn (pun not intended) from the similarities

<comment><USER12> This is exactly double buffering, and I think it would be better to call it that than "blue/green deployment", because "blue" and "green" suggest that there is some difference between the two environments, that the question whether current "production" is "blue" or "green" matters, whereas this seems to be just two environments and a pointer that switches between them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Betterment just posted an interesting set of slides from their #AnsibleFest presentation yesterday on 'Cyan' deployments powered by Ansible; kind of an evolution of the traditional 'Blue/Green' style described in Fowler's post: [http://www.slideshare.net/AlanNorton1/cyansible](http://www.slideshare.net/AlanNorton1/cyansible)

</comment><comment><USER14> The way I do it is to rsync my code to a path such as "app-v1.0.0"

I then create symlinks such as "live" & "beta":

"live" -> "app-v1.0.0"

I rsync the code from a CI server or local host, after running bower/composer & testing, this way I deploy a "snapshot" of the entire codebase.

I find a lot of people just casually deploy their code with git, and subsequently run "bower install", tolerating downtime in between, with no solid rollback mechanism in place. I hear Capistrano works in a similar way but is git based instead of rsync. To me its really important that the updates happen atomically & roll back atomically, and as a result of running a single command.

Simple example of a "deploy.sh" I would use in a new project:

gulp production && rsync --update-after --delay-updates --exclude- from="rsync_exclude.txt" -avr ./ server-www:/var/www/html/

</comment><comment><USER15> Netflix does it with two auto scaling groups: [http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/08/deploying-netflix- api.ht...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/08/deploying-netflix-api.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> This can be implemented easy using Ansible [http://docs.ansible.com/guide_rolling_upgrade.html](http://docs.ansible.com/guide_rolling_upgrade.html)

btw article is 4 years old

<comment><USER17> This actually doesn't describe a green/blue environment - it describes having a single environment that has code deployed in a rolling fashion. Which is useful, but not this use case.

It's also worth noting that this use case is actually pretty hard to model in ansible without external tools or the like. You basically need to deploy four jobs:

\- deploy new code to inactive environment

\- switch persona from inactive to active

\- reconfigure load balancer to send to newly active

\- switch formerly active persona to inactive

within some or all of those individual tasks you might want to apply these rolling techniques. But since rollouts may not be idempotent and this process isn't transactional, you have to be very careful indeed to code this out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some companies will also activate the new path only a small percentage of traffic and monitor the logs to be able to detect errors that were missed in testing.

<comment><USER18> Yes, I really like that strategy, not done it myself as a little (not a lot!) complicated for a small company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We use this at the (very large) corp that I work at, with very large, complex, high-traffic/revenue sites. Each component in the architecture has it's own "light/dark" deployment (in each environment), so any piece can be staged/tested/deployed/rolled-back with zero downtime. It has worked fairly well, with the majority of hiccups occuring during the ramp-up on the process.

</comment><comment><USER20> We've used this technique at Respondly for the past year and a half with a Meteor stack. It's saved a lot of headaches and has greatly minimized downtime. It does have some gotcha's though when pushing certain types of changes. Mostly things around message formatting changes in shared queueing systems.

</comment><comment><USER21> (looking for comments)

after reading that articles (some months ago) I've decided to implement that in our company , we're mostly using symfony2 and postgresql, and I came up with that [https://github.com/allan-simon/ansible-docker- symfony2-vagra...](https://github.com/allan-simon/ansible-docker- symfony2-vagrant/)

basically I have

              ______nginx__phpfpm+code  (blue)
             /                        \
       front nginx                      database
             \______nginx__phpfpm+code/  (green)

The front nginx play the role of "switch" between blue and green , and the database is shared

so basically for the database problem I solve by telling our dev to be aware of it, which translate into a two step process for database upgrade. (we use Dotrine's ORM with doctrine migrations for migrations, so when i talk about getter /setters I talk about the entities' )

      * if we add a column which must be "not null" , we add it with a default value first , so the few second the old code is still online , but the database is already updated , if an insert happen it will not fail . Then second time we drop that default value and put in the migration the SQL statement that handle previous data.

      * if we drop a column,  we first commit a version of our application which remove the code using this column , or make them return default value. and then the second deployement drop the column, so that the version N-1 is already made to not care about it.

etc. the base logic is "the database version N+1 should still work with version N of the code" , I like to image that with a "crossing a small river by always keeping a feet on earth rather than jumping the two feet at once "

after I have to admit that fortunately 99% of our deployment are not about database changes so this "need to do it carefully" only happen once in a while and it does not affect our productivity (especially with the gain of being able to do CI)

last thing, is that I've used this technique only on small to medium websites, nothing with HUGE traffic, so I don't know if it's 100% no downtime, my test (running several `while true; curl WEBSITE ; done ` ) shown no traffic lost.

I just wanted to say that to get opinion from more experienced people, while telling to "normal company" fellows that it's possible to achieve that without "the cloud" and old-school server hosted in a DC or at customer's office.

Edit: of course we still have a dev and staging environment on which we validate code before deploying in production.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that's the way to do it. Provided nginx is working properly it should be zero downtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's from 5 years ago.

Also: Your database changes should be entirely backwards compatible and should happen in one location (not on its own slice).

</comment><comment><USER23> What's a good tool to automate the router configuration to point to the new deployment?</comment>


Where banks are both safe and profitable - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21586839-where-banks-are-both-safe-and-profitable-tips-ageing-model

<comment><USER2> The Economist surely loves Sweden. The reason the banks are so profitable is that in the last few years they have raised mortgages from about 2% to 4% across the board. So I and most other Swedes who has borrowed money to finance their home has been hit with a huge extra monthly interest cost. Meanwhile the government has lowered the interest rate banks has to pay it to loan money to record low levels. The gap is what gives them big profits. Big gap, big profits.

And there are only four major banks so competition is out of the question. They know it is much more profitable to cooperate instead of trying to steal each others customers.

In a fair system I would be able to borrow directly from the central bank like the private banks can. Then I wouldn't have to finance their profits.

<comment><USER3> Can't you get fixed-rate mortgages in Sweden?

<comment><USER4> In contrast to the US, mortgages in Scandinavia are rarely fixed-rate. The default is to get a mortgage with variable interest rate. The central bank publishes the "expected" central bank rate months in advance, just like in the US.

As pathy said, you can usually change your variable-interest loan into a fixed-rate loan for 3, 5 or 10 years at a time. Few people do this, because you can expect to pay more over the lifetime of the loan, as insurance. Although the percentage has been higher now, since long-term rates were at record low levels in 2011-2013.

The big killer of homeowners is unemployment, not climbing interest rates. In Norway, you regardless can't get a loan unless you are currently able to maintain a mortgage of 5 percentage points higher interest rate than the current variable rate. So the system is quite safe.

<comment><USER3> > you regardless can't get a loan unless you are currently able to maintain a > mortgage of 5 percentage points higher interest rate than the current > variable rate

Clever! Doubtless this prevents issues like what the US faced in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar situation in Australia - the 4 big banks are enormously profitable and safe. There's a range of smaller banks and building societies though, where you probably have a bit more risk, but a better interest rate on savings.

<comment><USER6> This is partly because the Big Four are protected by an automatic government bailout, while everyone else isn't. This creates an unfair competitive advantage against the smaller orgs.

The pro is that it creates supreme investor confidence in the Oz banks (and Oz); the con is that the Big Four are using this unfair advantage to hoover up all the smaller orgs. Which could leave Oz with a pigopoly of only four banks.

Basel2 helps to even the playing field for the smaller orgs for those that choose to comply, but I feel the Oz govt needs to start blocking any further acquisitions by the Big Four.

<comment><USER7> Oz gov needs to institute IBAN and free transfers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Mouthwatering returns and safe" simply means that the risk has been well disguised (e.g. is off balance sheet / using creative accounting) and it hasn't blown up yet.

It's the same situation in Australia and Canada. Their time will come.

<comment><USER6> _> simply means that the risk has been well disguised (e.g. is off balance sheet / using creative accounting)_

Basel2 creates end-to-end transparency[1]. It is specifically designed to prevent hiding risks.

[1] [http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/basel2.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/basel2.asp)

<comment><USER9> Not really, it has tons of flaws, some of which they are now trying to fix with Basel 3:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III)

<comment><USER6> Basel2 is not perfect, but it's one million times better that what many banks were using previously (nothing). I work with banks so I've seen it firsthand.

TFA was talking about how successful such systems have been in Sweden and Oz; let's hope Basel3 is even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _That crisis—in which Swedish authorities swiftly wrote down bad assets, > moved them into a "bad bank" and recapitalised the remaining "good > bank"—informed many of the bail-outs in the 2008 financial crisis._

I don't know where this came from. The swedish example was brought up many times during the crisis but always to argue that we should be doing what they did (wipe out the equity) and not what was effectively done (prop up the banks).

</comment><comment><USER11> The magazine Economist is part owned by the Rotschild banking family and it's reporters are attending Bilderberg meetings every year. Articles in the news paper are not signed so you do not know who wrote them. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist) [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-03/full- list-2013s-bil...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-03/full- list-2013s-bilderberg-attendees)

Loan to deposit ratios, look at the furthest to the left. Danskebank, SHB, Nordea, SEB are banks operating in Sweden. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-25/complete-and- very-d...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-25/complete-and-very- disturbing-european-bank-loan-deposit-ratios-redux)

If you want to know more about how the FED was started "The creature from Jekyll island" [http://www.bigeye.com/griffin.htm](http://www.bigeye.com/griffin.htm)

<comment><USER12> >The magazine Economist is part owned by the Rotschild banking family and it's reporters are attending Bilderberg meetings every year. Articles in the news paper are not signed so you do not know who wrote them.

So? Why does it matter if Rothchild's own part of The Economist. Who cares if they attend Bilderberg, many influential people do. If I recall correctly, it is a good mix of politicians, Banks & Insurance and media.

As for the anonymous nature of their pieces: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2013/09/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2013/09/economist-explains-itself-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was thinking they'd be talking about Canada, but yes, Sweden is sensible too.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yeah... no. Megan McArdle lays reality out pretty clearly: Banking Without Risk Is Impossible.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-19/banking-without- ris...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-19/banking-without-risk-is- impossible.html)

<comment><USER8> For anybody who wants to know who Megan McArdle is:

[http://shameproject.com/profile/megan- mcardle/](http://shameproject.com/profile/megan-mcardle/)

Examples:

>"In August 2007, The Atlantic hired McArdle as a business and economics blogger. Her first post, titled "Dont panic!" [sic], wrongly predicted that the liquidity shock that hit the financial system earlier that month was nothing to worry about: "Having a nasty market contraction does not mean that your economy automatically goes down the tubes.""

>That same month, in September 2008, McArdle transformed her blog at the The Atlantic into a feverish Wall Street crisis-management propaganda outlet. She argued that bankers were largely innocent, blamed government regulators and homeowners for tanking the economy, and mocked news of a criminal investigation into Wall Street crimes, writing, "For what, I have no idea." McArdle also bizarrely claimed that bankers were victims of the real estate bubble, while blaming borrowers for being greedy profiteers

It's not too difficult to see which team she is batting for.

<comment><USER14> I don't think I've ever read such a poorly founded hit piece.

<comment><USER8> Which facts in the article did you disagree with specifically?

<comment><USER14> Look at the snippet you posted and ask yourself if that could possibly by unbiased writing.

<comment><USER8> So you're of the opinion that it's invalid because the author has an open agenda, not because it's actually _wrong_?

You don't seem all that concerned about McArdles many biases.

<comment><USER14> No, the author is wrong. Take this, for instance:

>She argued that bankers were largely innocent, blamed government regulators and homeowners for tanking the economy, and mocked news of a criminal investigation into Wall Street crimes, writing, "For what, I have no idea."

What she's writing there shouldn't be particularly surprising to anyone who actually knows something about the industry (which she does).

<comment><USER8> There is nothing wrong with that sentence in the slightest. I could rattle off a list as long as my arm of criminal behavior by Wall Street that went unpunished (and wrecked the economy). What do you think the mortgage settlement was about? Do you think they asked for (and got) blanket indemnity against criminal prosecution from Obama for fun?

>What she's writing there shouldn't be particularly surprising to anyone who actually knows something about the industry (which she does).

She's a shill for the industry. No different to "insiders" who "know about the content industry" who predict that piracy causes trillions in economic damage.

<comment><USER14> Oh, rattle away with you "list as long as my arm". But only include behavior that's actually against the law.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Gentle Introduction to Verifiable Delay Functions - <AUTHOR> https://adlrocha.substack.com/p/adlrocha-a-gentle-introduction-to <comment><USER2> We actually build a whole public blockchain around VDFs. Although we are using it as a clock in the network before consensus to do the same kind of optimization tricks that cellular networks do like Time Division Multiple Access. Check it out, [https://solanabeach.io](https://solanabeach.io), a global permissionless cluster synchronized in 400ms :)</comment>


When Health Insurance Prices Rose, Around a Million Americans Dropped Coverage - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/upshot/when-health-insurance-prices-rose-last-year-around-a-million-americans-dropped-coverage.html <comment><USER2> sounds like that doesn't include people that dropped shitty company insurance because it's too expensive too.</comment>


China is crushing Europe's electric car dreams - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/business/europe-lithium-electric-batteries/index.html <comment><USER3> The biggest irony in all of this is that the European carmakers have lobbied and continue to lobby the EU _against_ too strict of a mandate for EVs or too large subsidies for EVs, while also lobbying against stricter emissions controls (which indirectly means they don't have to build as many EVs for their fleets either).

Meanwhile, the same European automakers seem very willing to adopt China's super-strict schedule for EV adoption over the next few years in the country.

The European auto-makers should count their lucky stars that on one hand Tesla is pushing them to go into EVs from the consumer side, and on the other China is doing the same through those strict regulations I mentioned.

Without these two, the European carmakers would have probably gone bankrupt one by one (or purchased by multi-billion dollar Chinese companies in the future). At least now they have a role in the future of cars. But losing their _leadership_ in car-making is pretty much guaranteed already. They just don't know it yet.

<comment><USER4> I grew up near Mercedes and Porsche in Germany and from what I remember they were always very reactive. Every time something like catalytic filters, safety belts or emission standard became mandated they always fought and claimed the world would go under. And soon after they adopted these things and did really well.

<comment><USER5> They're just buying more time. German automakers are quite risk-averse but usually they have the details sorted out before they go to market. Porsche already has hybrid cars and they're working on the Taycan. Audi has the e-tron in production. Daimler has the EQ concept which will go into production by 2022. What they don't have yet is the charging infrastructure. It should be standardised amongst all German automakers if they're smart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've never quite understood why our industry heavy weights didn't push heavily into battery technology. It seems fairly obvious energetic density is a big bottleneck in a number of industries. I'm under the impression all the attention went into theoretical research and patenting schemes, but nothing into actual production processes.

In that respect, I'm quite thankful to Tesla for pushing the envelop with Panasonic.

<comment><USER7> I think because it's a solved problem, where we can't advance. This has a few reasons:

1) All the obvious avenues (like simple battery chemistry) are explored and provide no obvious avenues for success

So you can't reasonably expect to advance here. Otoh, we could just stumble on a huge advance.

2) it is perfectly well known how to make ridiculous capacity, light batteries. There's even 2 known ways:

* chemical energy storage

* magnetic/electrical energy storage

In both cases it's solved ... only in the theoretical sense. If we have a way to arrange individual atoms on a large scale (or even 100nm portions of material) and fuse them, we would be able to make awesome batteries. But we don't know how to do this.

So this is now a manufacturing problem where you just won't get anywhere without incredible amounts of knowledge and fundamental advances.

3) What Elon Musk is doing is standardizing existing battery technology and making it widely available.

On the plus side, we need this. The standard batteries from decades ago can be improved electrically (e.g. fast charging by actually having 10000 batteries instead of one big one and charging all of them, which also enables fast discharging by discharging a lot of batteries at the same time, or even charging and discharging at the same time). An electrically complex, but well understood problem.

On the downside, this doesn't actually solve any issues we have with batteries. They're a little too big, a LOT too heavy. Elon Musk's batteries ... are a little too big, and a LOT too heavy.

<comment><USER8> > it's solved ... If we have a way to arrange individual atoms on a large > scale (or even 100nm portions of material) and fuse them...

What exactly do you mean by this? Fuse them in what sense? What advantages would there be at a smaller scale?

<comment><USER7> I mean we can come up with designs that we know will have battery capacities 10x or 1000x even of current battery capacities.

But we can't build those designs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As I see it, in a few years time the market for batteries for electic cars will be a little like the market for DRAM or Flash today. The upfront costs to be able to produce competitively at volume are very high, and although the market is large, there will be just enough competition and cells will be commodity enough that profit margins will be both slim and volatile. I'd much rather be in the business of making cars to use those batteries, where there's potential to differentiate your product with good design (like say, Apple in computers and phones) than in the business of making batteries.

<comment><USER10> While this kind of commodity products might not make huge profits, it might still be a huge provider of low to mid class jobs.

<comment><USER11> Or, more likely I'm home, a huge provider for robotics line production suppliers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article is irritatingly wrong in the numbers it gives. It says tesla will make 100k cars in the us and 500k in china. Tesla is already producing at the rate of 300k cars in the us, and it's increasing (200k m3, 100k s&x). The US battery factory isn't even at full size. This article says telsa is producing more batteries than all the rest of the world together - [0].

I'm sure the rest of the world can catch up and pass Tesla in battery production - but they have to try. According to info available from recent articles (see above), Tesla does have half battery production at least. There's nothing that stops Tesla from making more factories, or anyone else. They just have to spend the money to get started. The weakest auto company was able to do this (weakest in finances), so other ones can do it too if they want to. They don't want to because auto companies would lose all their expertise in drivetrains if they switch to evs. They are being reluctantly drug into it. see [1].

I do agree with the basic idea that the European automobile companies will get decimated in about 10 years unless they react to this. Also Tesla plans massive new investments in batteries - [2]. (that includes the new China factory but also giga factory #2 and 3).

0 - [https://electrek.co/2018/08/02/tesla- gigafactory-1-battery-p...](https://electrek.co/2018/08/02/tesla- gigafactory-1-battery-production-20-gwh/).

1 - [https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/25/tesla-an- uncomfortable-...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/25/tesla-an- uncomfortable-wake-up-call-for-germany-all-hands-on-deck/)

2 - [https://electrek.co/2018/11/02/tesla-multi-billion- investmen...](https://electrek.co/2018/11/02/tesla-multi-billion-investments- gigafactories/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't forget, these are the same automakers that faked their diesel results for years - poisoning (their own) cities with noxious fumes. Its fair to say that the environment is not high on their agenda.

Instead, its simply that ICE cars offer higher barriers to entry, and higher revenue. Higher barriers to entry since the engines and fuel systems are incredibly complex, and higher revenue since they need more repairs and spare parts.

EVs by contrast are much simpler, and will encourage the commodification of vehicle transport - look at what is happening in China with 'Low Speed Electric Vehicles'.

Its kind of a shame that countries like Poland havn't launched their own low- cost EV companies, to take over the low-end of the European market. But its unsurprising as Europe, even the East, is indeed very bureaucratic and unaccommodating to startups. The continent would help itself massively if all countries adopted English as an official second language.

<comment><USER5> You still need to replace the battery pack, sell the car at a hefty discount with a degraded pack or pay for a new and expensive pack replacement. Don't worry, the barrier of entry into EV is still high. The complexity moves from the mecahanical side into the battery cooling and adaptive charge/discharge strategy, adaptive software for drive assist and instead of the spare parts costs you've got a hefty battery replacement cost that's like 20-30% or a new car. Plus less competition from used cars, since they come with degraded batteries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Chairman Kees Koolen told CNN that Lithium Werks was investing in China because the infrastructure is better and it's easier to get the permits needed to build a factory. The company said it was put off by the amount of red tape needed to invest in Europe."

I don't really see a path to Europe becoming relevant in emerging technologies with comments like this from what few companies they do have.

<comment><USER15> Is that a problem of the EU or China? Things become cheaper when you don't care about the wellbeing of your citizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _> Building electric cars in China makes sense for companies because that's where most customers are_

Why are there less customers in Europe or US?

<comment><USER17> Because the Chinese government is pushing electric vehicles very hard. It is doing this for several reasons

1) to counter global climate change

2) to reduce local pollution

3) to reduce dependency on foreign oil

4) to establish global dominance in batteries and vehicles.

From what I have read, the experts expect that falling battery prices will lead to electric cars costing about as much as ICE ones by around 2025, and this will lead to EV sales skyrocketing and ICE sales plummeting. All the traditional manufacturers will be in deep trouble then except the ones that had decided a number of years before to focus on switching over to electrics. Unfortunately in the US the President is deeply committed to fossil fuels forever.

<comment><USER18> Is this some kind of joke?

ICE manufacturers produce ICEs because they are cheaper than EVs and that's where the market is at right now. You can't expect the average buyer of a vehicle to pay $15k - $20k more (depending on the model this is a 100%+ markup) just because it is electric. This is a problem that solves itself automatically by simply waiting for cheaper batteries which is the strategy ICE companies are following right now. Almost every ICE company already produces EVs but the price makes them completely uncompetitive compared to ICEs except as a luxury product.

Just look at the statistics...

When VW released the e-Golf 3 years ago it outsold Tesla in Norway [0] by a factor of 2x but nobody is making news about it today because it's not as trendy as a $100k Tesla or $50k Model 3, it's just a damn expensive golf and it will stay that way until battery prices come down.

[0] "Sent i går kveld offentliggjorde Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken (OFV) registreringstallene. De viser at det ble nysolgt 25.779 elektriske personbiler i Norge i 2015. De tre bestselgerne delte 62 prosent av markedet: Volkswagen e-Golf (8.943), Tesla Model S (4.039) og Nissan LEAF (3.189)." [0]

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160206212025/http://www.elbil....](https://web.archive.org/web/20160206212025/http://www.elbil.no/nyheter/elbiler/3698-nesten-26-000-nye- elbiler-i-fjor)

<comment><USER17> >ICE manufacturers produce ICEs because they are cheaper than EVs and that's where the market is at right now.

That's correct. But as I said, battery prices are falling and so around 2025 they won't be more expensive.

>This is a problem that solves itself automatically by simply waiting for cheaper batteries which is the strategy ICE companies are following right now.

The problem with that strategy is that an auto company can't just one day switch over from almost all ICE's to majority EV's. It takes at least half a decade to do so, so a company needs to be working very hard on the change-over before it comes.

One example is batteries. If VW should want in 2025 to switch over, it couldn't do so because there would not be remotely enough batteries being produced, and building new battery factories will take many years. So what VW and every other ICE manufacturer needs to be doing right now is investing billions in battery factories.

However they just are not doing that, or many of the other things needed to get ready, and so when the time comes they are going to get totally clobbered by Chinese manufacturers who have been ramping up EV production at a very rapid rate, and Tesla.

And the reason the Chinese companies are rapidly expanding EV production is the government is pushing them so hard. But in Europe, not to mention the US, the governments are mistakenly assuming that it is going to be ICE's forever, or at least that the EV revolution will be two or three decades from now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So Volkswagen is about to be the Nokia of the car industry.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is another short term problem that has to be resolved before we get to EV cars in Europe. The E.U. car market is in a bit of a holding pattern due to Brexit. This is cramping the style of the European manufacturers even if they have no components coming from little Britain, no manufacturing plant there and no customers there. You would think companies like FCA (Fiat) or Mercedes would be exempt but they are not.

I am an evangelist when it comes to EV cars however I don't think that everyone is so keen, particularly in the cynical UK. Relatively speaking Americans are falling over themselves to buy Tesla cars, Tesla being a great American success story, even with Elon Musk upsetting people in his own special way and the prices being so high.

With the European brands there are tells, if VW come out with a new car there is nobody asking where the EV version is. Same with other makes, that is just not on most people's radar, exhaust note matters more. I think it is a sad state of affairs. There are promises that they will be fully electric/hybrid by such and such a date and then they launch a 'G-Wagen' type behemoth with a monster ICE engine in it. It is like they are hooked on heroin and promise they will give up next week.

China is showing leadership and it is about their domestic market and having cleaner cities. You can't get permits to drive an ICE car into some cities now, unless you live there and already have an ICE car then your only option is EV. That is fantastic. The Chinese know that they really will be conquering the world with their EV cars. We may mock their cars as not being crash worthy and rip-offs of European designs but we said that about the Japanese and their sub-compact cars. And the Koreans. It is not rocket science, just poach the design team from another company and get styling from an Italian specialist - Italdesign, Pininfarina, there are plenty of good ones.

The Chinese cars I am looking forward to seeing are the basic electric cars. When you have a quiet car with no gearbox or vibrations there is no need to make up for having an ICE with cupholders galore, speakers galore, carpets galore and other cruft. People in China have cottoned on to this already through buying second cars - EV cars - to enter the city with. They find that they don't really need that 'luxury' car after all.

Once these things enter the EU market the European marques will be doomed, maybe with a few exceptions. The Nissan Leaf/Renault Zoe is a product that is going somewhere but consumers are not that interested apart from evangelists. I also doubt that the insistence on 500 km range will be lasting forever - range anxiety. In China you can have 50 mile range and with a supercapacitor that can be achieved with far less batteries. Anything further just hop on a plane. Can't do this in Europe where it takes four hours to get in and out the airport.

The European makes and the European customers had their chance and they blew it. Tough. I look forward to the 5 year plan of China and a flood of Chinese EV Volvos coming over to Europe to be totally taken up by millenials with kids, leaving fuddy duddy ICE addicts to grow old and die off.

<comment><USER21> "little Britain, no manufacturing plant there and no customers there"

The UK is a large market for German cars. [https://www.acea.be/statistics/article/motor-vehicle- trade-b...](https://www.acea.be/statistics/article/motor-vehicle-trade- between-the-uk-and-main-eu-partners)

This one says 20% of the market [https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/906047/German-car- fir...](https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/906047/German-car-firms-brexit- chaos-Merkel-mercedes-BMW)

Also I'm not sure what you class as German manufacturers but Vauxhall/Opel have a factory in Ellesmere port building Astras (Opel and Vauxhall), and Opel is a German brand. Alternatively Minis are made I Cowley and owned by BMW. I assume RR and Bentley are still in the UK also and they too are owned by German companies.

As to parts suppliers. I cant point to any one supplier that supplys German car companies but I cant believe there aren't any.

<comment><USER20> I just saw the street outside and all the cars are German, although there is a Renault Zoe looking good without the tailpipe - had to check that. But yes, you are right, German cars are what everyone wants to buy in the UK.

Opel and Vauxhall were owned by GM until a year ago, they are now owned by Peugeot/Citroen - 'PSA group'. When the Astra gets to the end of its life expect Ellesmere Port to close. Regarding Luton there will be vans made there on the PSA platform, this will be badge engineering with the same vans having many different inprints, possibly for other non PSA brands as that already goes on a lot in the sector.

PSA also bought Chrysler Europe many aeons ago and only kept the Ryton plant going in the UK, the Peugeot 309 was supposed to by a Chrysler originally. That really was decades ago and it kind of vanished, much like how GM/Ford dropped a few brands after 2008, closing production here and there.

Bentley do have some British badge on them but they make the Bentayga alongside the Porsche and Audi SUVs somewhere in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, I would have to fact check there, but you get the idea. They might send them off to England to have the badges slapped on but the point is that it is an integrated supply chain.

Rolls Royce have invested in plant in the UK but that again is part of a complicated supply network, the engine is German in a Rolls, originally - <USER2> century ago - Rolls did the engine and chassis, you were having to shop elsewhere for the 'coachwork', in 2018 they do just the 'coachwork'. Rolls Royce is ultimately a halo brand, bespoke but very much made possible by BMW 7 series type of platforms.

MINI production is in the UK however there is also a lot of MINI cars made by Magna in Austria (the MINI Clubman things) as well as in the former DAF factory in the Netherlands. MINI are well placed to shut up shop completely, for good in the UK. Notionally they are changing the UK production facilities for the EV models promised.

Getting back to Vauxhall, they were not just Opel with a different badge, in the days before the common market GM had lots of different subsidiaries with their own design and engineering. Same with Ford, British Fords were different to German Fords.

In that era there was a cross licensing deal with components so Lucas/Girling in the UK did not compete in the same markets as Bosch in Germany. With things like disc brakes, lighting and much else that was how it worked, Lucas could make the whole range for the UK and Bosch could for their markets, sharing patents and IP. Lucas got merged, acquired, split up and sold, so some bits of it are owned by companies in Germany like ZF. These companies know no borders though.

<comment><USER21> On some levels you appear to know more about this than me. For example I didn't know "When the Astra gets to the end of its life expect Ellesmere Port to close." But then when I check up all I can find is a threat from March which isn't quite so definitive. And theres no mention on wikipedia either, so do you have a better source? [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43300201](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43300201) [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Ellesmere_Port](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Ellesmere_Port)

<comment><USER20> It is a loss making concern. Hence offloaded to PSA. There is over-capacity in the market, too many cars, not enough buyers. Life is on hold due to Brexit plus there are unions, politicians and the media to manage.

They have cut the shifts from two to one, let go of a few hundred workers, so, as of now it is half closed already.

There is another Opel plant in Poland making the Astra, the Astra being the only model they make there. The next Astra model comes along in 2020, which is two years away. There is no money on the table from the UK government to make this happen.

The plant in Poland is brand new, Ellesmere Port is vintage. Wages are cheaper in Poland, Poland will also have better access to the EU market if Brexit happens. Brexit is happening unless there is some fluke event that obliterates parliament and miraculously restores sanity.

The engines, transmission and much else that lurks beneath the Astra all comes from Europe, none of that is made in the UK. In Poland these important sub- assemblies can come from over the border in Germany, no post-Brexit WTO tariffs needed.

Everyone wants crossovers these days, the Astra as it exists is at the end of the model life, is not a crossover and limps on in the UK market because it is notionally British.

Luton is a different story, vans come from there and PSA like their vans. Right now their main van is a joint venture with Renault, effectively from the purchase of GM Europe PSA get to where they need to be with vans.

There are dealer networks as well as factories, the former, particularly with vans, is of interest to PSA.

Renault have ended the joint venture with PSA, they now have a partnership going with Mercedes. The depths of this I don't know, they share engines and South America is a big part of the plans.

Here is an earlier story about how Ellesmere Port must 'shape up', note how the Corsa (made in Spain) already has plans laid out for the new Corsa and electric Corsa. There is no 'electric Astra' mentioned. The 'electric Astra' (if it ever exists) won't be designed from scratch for some people in The Wirral to put together with their existing screwdriver operation, you can good-as-guarantee it will be an electrified PSA model with a different badge on it, if at all.

[https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-geneva- motor-...](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-geneva-motor- show/vauxhalls-ellesmere-port-plant-must-close-cost-gap-survive)

<comment><USER21> Your link just seems to mirror mine, and came out at virtually the same time. The only mention of job cuts at Ellesmere port that I could find are 400 jobs last year and sales are down all over Europe so even if shifts were cut I dont see what your point is.

Look. The first paragraph of your first post claimed German manufacturers sold no cars in the Uk, didn't manufacture there, and didn't source any parts from there. That quite obviously isn't true so I challenged it. Your followup response suggests a factory is going to be closing, when that isn't really true. If you have a point to make you'll make it much better by not surrounding it by things that aren't accurate.

<comment><USER20> You misread me, the brands that are not British are not exempt from Brexit fallout with that being regardless of whether they sell anything in the UK, regardless of whether they have components coming from the UK and regardless of whether they have assembly plants in the UK.

You read into that something else.

Regarding Ellesmere Port, there is no plan for it after the current Astra model goes. This was decided a long time ago but the deal is to keep it open until 2020 and the new owners have not renegaded on the deal.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26342093](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26342093)

It is an old plant and it is as good as gone. There is no point trying to argue otherwise unless you work there.

<comment><USER21> You're right I did mis read you. I took you to mean there were no German companies with manufacturing in Britain. And none with any customers.

Re Ellesmere port. We will have to see. Brexit is a massive unknown. But hopefully wont be by 2020 (ha). But 2020 will probably be an election year so I'm not sure that the Torys will want the factory closing 'due to Brexit', so I'm sure some big juicy 'grants' will be offered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Although the paper proposes to merge all kinds of EU-based EV and battery companies together, the issue is still that the European market is 1% of the global market. EU companies will be likely selling to Asian EV markets for a long time.

<comment><USER6> It won't be a big market until there's an actual offering that grows the market. In Europe gas is very expensive, but electricity is mostly cheap. The grid is solid. The fundamentals are there.

<comment><USER23> Mostly cheap?

Come pay the prices in Southern Europe.

In Portugal gas reigns in households. Most people would never have electricity based heating or stoves, given the cost spike if they did so.

<comment><USER24> Portugal is slightly more expensive than the EU average for electricity.

It's somewhere around average for petrol too, so I don't see Portugal being much different here.

[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Homebrew Z80 Microcomputer - <AUTHOR> http://calculon80.j89.se <comment><USER2> _Build Your Own Z80 Computer_ by Steve Ciarcia of Byte Magazine and Circuit Cellar fame may also be useful :

[https://smile.amazon.com/Build-Your- Own-Z80-Computer/dp/0070...](https://smile.amazon.com/Build-Your- Own-Z80-Computer/dp/0070109621/)

<comment><USER3> While not a how-to guide, the Z80 book by William Barden and published by Howard Sams, has been placed online. I believe the same book was printed and sold by Radio Shack.

I read that book after Don Lancaster's TTL Cookbook, also published by Howard Sams. That was around 1981, while I was in high school, and I had practically no electronics knowledge before that. Those books were extremely clearly written, and even today provide the foundation of my knowledge of microprocessors and digital logic. I never actually built or programmed a Z80 machine, but the basic knowledge was readily applicable to 6502 and 8088 hardware and software, and even to today's microcontrollers.

Because of the relative simplicity of those systems, I think they are still a good place for anybody to start. Those articles by Steve Ciarcia too. What a genius, at making the microcomputer revolution accessible to hobbyists.

I loaned those books to my best friend, who vanished with them when his family became missionaries, but I don't think he did it out of malice. I'm glad that I can find them online today, just to take me back to those exciting years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree, I have the Z-80 Handbook by William Barden, and it is really well written and contains a lot of information without being a tutorial :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recently found Z80 video of how a guy makes ZX Spectrum computer from ground up, fixes bugs and problems as he proceeds. Video is in Russian, but still amazing even if you don't understand it!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWCYo1UcOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWCYo1UcOQ)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, I'm thinking about making it possible to connect it directly to a display/TV and keyboard. Now, I have to have a terminal or laptop + terminal emulator.

<comment><USER5> It seems hard to drive a vga display without resorting to fpgas or an avr.

If composite is enough, the NES PPU could be a fun addition to that design :)

<comment><USER6> Apparently, it can be done with a bunch of TTL logic chips.

[http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3329](http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3329)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another z80 kit: [https://www.tindie.com/products/Semachthemonkey/rc2014-homeb...](https://www.tindie.com/products/Semachthemonkey/rc2014-homebrew-z80-computer- kit/)

2014RC Computerphile video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2NKHJygD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2NKHJygD8)

<comment><USER8> I built an RC2014 and I really like it. I'm using some of Dr. Scott M Baker's boards (WD37C65 floppy controller and 512k banked RAM/ROM) so I can run CP/M. I'd like to get things set up so I can build CP/M on the RC2014, but for now I'm just starting to learn the tools.

I have a Wyse-55 terminal acting as a display with some ACIA board modifications to allow hardware flow control so it doesn't get overrun. I also have a VFD that'll do 40x15 characters or so, which is narrow for a CP/M system, but I should be able to modify the few programs that'll really make a mess on a narrow screen.

I've got a bunch of pictures on twitter if anyone is interested: [https://twitter.com/FeatherOrNot/media](https://twitter.com/FeatherOrNot/media)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Z80 micros are a lot of fun. I was looking for a kit last year and ended up building this one:

[http://cpuville.com/Z80_kit.html](http://cpuville.com/Z80_kit.html)

Getting it to work and writing simple programs is really satisfying and totally worth the burns from learning how to solder.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the programming is the fun part so if you don't want to design a new computer from ground up, a kit or a complete computer is to recommend :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love this. I started on a project to do a homebrew Z80 machine late last year as well. I haven't made much progress yet, but I'm really champing at the bit (no pun intended) to get this going. Reading stories like this is really motivational! And it's always good to learn from those who went before...

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a really fun project to do, so I think you should continue :-) I'm going to add more documentation on the website, like timing diagrams etc. that may be useful for other people building a Z80 computer.

<comment><USER10> _It is a really fun project to do, so I think you should continue :-)_

Oh I will. Things just got bogged down over the holidays and everything late last year. My next step is to get everything setup so I can program an EEPROM with my Arduino so I'll have a way to load a program to bootstrap the system. I'm intentionally doing things the hard way though, to maximize my learning. For example, I'm using an Arduino Uno which doesn't have enough digital output pins to represent both the address bus and the data bus for the EEPROM. So instead of just grabbing a Mega out of the parts box, I am using SIPO shift registers to setup a serial -> parallel bus so I can program the EEPROM with fewer wires from the Arduino. No, it isn't efficient, but it'll teach me to use shift registers.

One of my other "next steps" is to just breadboard that Z80 "test circuit" and see if I can get some LED's to blink. I have to get the clock stuff figured out as well...

Like you said, it's a lot of fun. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sound like you have the right mindset ;-) The most boring part of the project was routing of all the bus lines in KiCad, but I knew that if a kept on working, the reward would be big :-)

I was actually planning to do a ROM emulator with a PIC MCU at first, but ended up using a regular EPROM, SIO/UART and a bootloader to load programs via RS232. When I had a stable program, I burned it to the ROM and continued. This is because when I got started with the "test circuit" I didn't want to go back to the PIC :-D

I'm currently developing my ROM monitor so that I can get CP/M running :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quick note: if you want a full-hardware "computer" (screen, keys, cup and I/O stuff) consider buying an old Texas Instruments calculator: models up to Ti86 have a Zilog Z80-similar (ISA-compatible) inside, the TI89 and later have a Motorola 68000 cpu inside.

The Ti86/Ti89 are programmable in both Assembly and BASIC (interpreter on- rom). If you are willing to buy the data cable and fiddle with SDCC (Small- devices C compiler, a "mod" of gcc) you might program them in C as well.

Links:

* Ti86: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-86](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-86)

* Ti89: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-89_series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-89_series)

* SDCC: [http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/](http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually own a Ti-82, but I have never programmed it :-)

<comment><USER11> You can program it without any hardware. There is an intepreter and an "ide" on-board, look for the PRGM key.

Also, I saw there is an "ASM" command, but I didn't check if it can assemble stuff or anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds great :-) Only problem is the "not-so-great" keyboard :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It looks awesome. I'm looking forward for your documentation.

Is the PCB multi-layered, or two layers? Could you also comment which software did you use to design it? I've used Eagle CAD quite a lot in past and it works great, though I always wished to use KiCAD because it's open source. Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I will write and publish much more documentation as soon as possible :-) It is a four layer PCB, one for Vcc, one for ground and the other two for signals. I designed it in KiCad and ordered it from PCBWay.com.

I will also upload the schematic etc. if anyone wants to have a look or create one their self. However, if anyone wants to build it, it may be a bit expensive due to the high IC count.

<comment><USER13> would you be willing to share a pricetag?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes :-)

Five PCBs cost me $250, but they can be made cheaper. Otherwise the price depends a lot on the components. Ceramic ones are very expensive and the whole computer would probably end up at around $300 - $400. For plastic components, the price would be more close to $200.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is awesome. Coincidentally, I've been spending my weekend revisiting my Z-80 based Nascom 2 (see [http://nascomhomepage.com/](http://nascomhomepage.com/)) and playing with Turbo Pascal's great grandfather, BLS Pascal. Even now, ~ 35 years later, I still think good code generation on the Z-80 is a significant challenge and wonder what else could have been done with the transistor budget and technology constraints of the time.

Good times

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not heard of BLS Pascal, but it is possible to run Turbo Pascal (version 3, I think) on CP/M, which I intend to do when I have the OS in place :-)

<comment><USER14> The original CP/M version was called Compass Pascal (and might have been Poly Pascal also). Under Borland it was renamed (and expanded?) as Turbo Pascal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been wanting to do a project like this for a while. Specifically, wanting to write a basic program to visualize ALDL data from my 88 fiero on an 8 or 16 bit homebrew mini system, for extra retro goodness. Ideally I want a keyboard and serial port, a vga out, and a spot for a cf or sd card. Maybe running cp/m or similar. I've looked at rc2014 and similar and even some fpga options, but haven't settled on the right starting point yet. Ideas?

<comment><AUTHOR> The easiest way is probably to buy an old computer from the eighties, but they can be very expensive :0 I don't know much about other homebrew computers, but mine (Calculon/80) could probably be expanded with those things. I haven't tested the expansion port yet, but I will when have some time :-) Also, if it does not have to be using the Z80 CPU, I would recommend the Motorola 68000 CPU, which I will use in my next project.

<comment><USER15> I'll check out the 68000 stuff. I've mostly been looking at z80 and 6502 at this point, so maybe that's the key to a wider world.

I enjoyed reading about the Calculon/80 and look forward to seeing your next project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :-)

I think that the 68k will be more fun to write OS and other software for as it is 32-bit, has memory protection, and can run UNIX :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps not the "world's smallest", but pretty small:

[http://noplabs.com/cpm50/cpm50.html](http://noplabs.com/cpm50/cpm50.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Gosh, that PCB is a thing of beauty. Besides being a sucker for black soldermask, labelling less really seems to make the labels more useful.

<comment><USER18> There's something nice about all that classic silicon on such a clean, modern looking board.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, it was exactly the look I was after :-) But the logo was supposed to be copper but it is "silver". I don't really know why...

This was the effect I was looking for: [https://encrypted- tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHkdLM...](https://encrypted- tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHkdLMZGFgtIPDCgwjpn-9IR2JLjhdbPJG7jRJtjvixruE3R6jMA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Similar project featuring a screen and I2C bus: [http://benryves.com/projects/z80computer](http://benryves.com/projects/z80computer)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is just remarkably uninteresting. Interesting fact however is that there is no CP/M simulator for Linux. Only MSDOS has. So you have to first run DOSBOX and then CP/M. -- I recently found copy of MUMATH from 1979 and it was as good as I remember it was.

<comment> david-given There are plenty of CP/M simulators for Linux, but they're very niche and hard to find (and use).

I used to do C development for the Z80 using one; it translated CP/M syscalls to Linux ones, and would let me run the CP/M version of Hitech C more or less as if it were native. It worked all right. Hitech C was only a K&R C compiler and didn't produce great code, but it was entirely self-hosted.

The script and emulator I used came from here (look for 'Hitech C on Linux'):

[http://uzix.sourceforge.net/uzix2.0/index.php?page=down](http://uzix.sourceforge.net/uzix2.0/index.php?page=down)

...but while searching for that I found this other emulator, which looks a bit more maintained:

[http://www.seasip.info/Unix/Zxcc/index.html](http://www.seasip.info/Unix/Zxcc/index.html)</comment></comment>


Spotify to Introduce Free Mobile Music Service - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304096104579240432005003354-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwNTEwNDUyWj <comment><USER2> Its good Spotify is finally going to get to do this (to bad licensing negotiations took an entire year to iron out though). I'll be looking forward to hearing exactly how similar this is to the service Pandora already offers (although I doubt it will sway me back away from Google Music).</comment>


Why Microsoft Word Must Die (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/10/why-microsoft-word-must-die.html <comment><USER2> > Arguments raged internally: should it use control codes, or hierarchical > style sheets? In the end, the decree went out: Word should implement both > formatting paradigms.

just like inline styles + css on the web

</comment><comment><USER3> I do have similar sentiment, and I just work with Org-mode, and export to whatever format recipients want. (PDF through LaTeX, Doc via ODT export, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Still a big fan of notepad. Uses very little memory, but you must not forget to save periodically.

</comment><comment><USER5> I still use Word 2000. Am I missing anything?</comment>


Ask HN: Email hosting for your customers. What is the best soln? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> The user base might be really huge. So, solutions such as google apps are not financially viable. Hosting your own server might be a pain. Please share any experience (exactly how painful is that). Both cloud based and server based are options and something really cost effective is desired.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many companies doing this for bulk email sending like sendgrid, mailjet, mailchimp etc. but no one is doing it for hosting emails with bulk pricing.

<comment><USER2> i don't know what rates you consider reasonable, but there are plenty of services that do it. rackspace and fastmail are two off the top of my head. I consider them far too expensive for myself though.

<comment><AUTHOR> exactly, thats just too costly. I mean it should really not be this expensive. Why email hosting is being charged per mailbox I do not understand. The maintenance is not per mailbox. Its per mail server and hence should be the costing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Day Merb Joined Rails - <AUTHOR> http://rubyonrails.org/merb

<comment><USER2> "On December 23rd, we decided to end the duplication and the paradox of choice."

Let's be clear about one thing: They didn't eliminate "the paradox of choice," they eliminated "choice." The Paradox of Choice comes into play when there are so many choices that people have difficulty making a choice at all -- like 23 varieties of white bread. The Paradox of Choice does not come into play when there are two choices. But I guess this was destined to happen because eliminating choice has been the philosophy of the Rails team all along.

BTW, the book "The Paradox of Choice" is a great read and every hacker should read it. And the best part is that you don't even have to read it all the way to the end to 'get it.'

[http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More- Less/dp/006000...](http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More- Less/dp/0060005696/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230085613&sr=8-1)

(Yes, this is my second rant on this topic. I will shut up now).

<comment><USER3> That book was a great read. Here's his talk at TED for a taste what it's about:

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_par...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm still tripping on this. Not sure what to think of it yet. It _sounds_ like it could be quite awesome.

</comment><comment><USER5> amazing. i'm all for a less-cluttered field of choices.

anyone know of another high-profile project that has merged with a "competitor"?

<comment><USER6> From jm4:

"Compiz and Beryl. Beryl forked from Compiz and, if I remember correctly, relations were very sour between the two projects. Several months later they merged into Compiz Fusion."

<comment><USER7> ...and it was awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not a Ruby guy, so I may be completely off here, but it struck me as kind of inaccurate to describe Merb as "an alternative Rails stack"...I thought Merb was an alternative _to_ the Rails stack?

<comment><USER7> To disambiguate: It was a separate project, with similar goals and similar, though meaningfully improved, architecture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool. Can we get some Django news now, please? :)

<comment><USER10> Merge Pylons. ;)

<comment><USER11> Merge SqlAlchemy</comment></comment></comment>


A short history of the O'Reilly animals - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/content/a-short-history-of-the-oreilly-animals/ <comment><USER2> Thanks, Edie! Your creativity has caused all of our eyes to linger pleasantly on those O'Reilly covers!</comment>


Number of groundstations needed to cover LEO: An optimization approach - <AUTHOR> http://papachristoumarios.blogspot.com/2015/04/number-of-groundstations-needed-to.html

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting number but less so if you're constellation of satellites can talk to each other, then you only need a couple of ground stations.

That said, having lived near the "blue cube"[1] it was hard for them to hit satellites on the horizon because they had to punch through a lot of atmosphere. I would expect that if you were to say, put radar systems around the planet in order to monitor LEO 24/7 for all debris/satellites you'd want to keep them close enough that they were less than 45 degrees off vertical.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onizuka_Air_Force_Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onizuka_Air_Force_Station)</comment>


Massive new study lifts the lid on top websites' tracking secrets - <AUTHOR> https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/08/03/massive-new-study-lifts-the-lid-on-top-websites-tracking-secrets/ <comment><USER3> I worked on designing tracking scripts for six months (fortunately they aren't in production). Flash cookies aren't a very useful tracking mechanism anymore, mainly because Google and other browsers now clear Flash cookies when you clear your regular cookies. Fingerprinting was very difficult to pull off in practice: even with canvas fingerprinting, font enumeration, plugin enumeration, etc. etc. most mobile phones are indistinguishable, and even when you find devices with unique fingerprints (usually because of the unique set of plugins installed) it's difficult to be certain the new device you've seen is the same as the old device unless they are coming from the same ip address.

Now, the one mechanism that was very effective was ETag tracking. When you request a picture or other asset from a website, the website can send you an etag id which is supposed to signify the picture's version. When the client revisits the page, the client sends back the etag to confirm the version cached is the same as the version on the server. The security leak is that the etag protocol allows arbitrary text to be set as an etag, so to set an etag cookie all you have to do is place a 1x1 pixel on each page with a random GUID, and when the user revisits the page the browser will resend the tracking etag in its request for the 1x1 tracking pixel. This works for browsers with cookies disabled, and will remain when cookies are cleared. The only way to clear it is to clear all browsing history entirely, including cached images.

<comment><USER4> Is there any hope for this getting fixed in major browsers? Seems like if you want privacy now you also have to disable any caching, which sucks.

<comment><USER3> It looks like Chrome now defaults to clearing your cache when you clear history, which is good news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> REI knows how to close the deal:

I was shopping a while back for a new tent. Wondered if I should wait for a 20% off single item coupon event like they do a couple times a year. Googled "when is the next rei 20% coupon?". I got the expected results: probably around labor day.

Lo and behold, a couple days after this I received an email from REI with a 25% off single item offer code.

I don't know of I should be frightened or not, but I got a new tent!

<comment><USER6> Standard procedure I try and do on most sites if I can wait a week or two. 1) Add items to basket 2) Checkout until they have at least my email saved. 3) Wait up to a week. 4) Purchase applying discount code that was emailed to me usually with a "Hey you didn't finalise your purchase".

I was working for a sex toy company in the UK and remember one of the developers running a mail shot process with a bug that accidentally resent the "abandoned baskets" email for all abandoned baskets for the last 4 years or so with a 20% off voucher. Busiest unexpected sales spike in the history of the company :)

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a SaaS waiting to happen.

<comment><USER8> Search "abandoned cart promotion" and you'll find plenty of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there any tool that tries to prevent fingerprinting by unifying browsers' behavior into one single promoted "common" one? Well, completely preventing is probably impossible, but at least lower the number of unique properties.

E.g. a software-only... err... shim (or how should I call it?) for canvas and audio APIs, and only allow fast native one to a trusted whitelisted parties. And an uniform list of fonts and plugins, despite of what's actually installed.

Of course, I know about NoScript. It can't be mass-used as a "just install this and you're good" strategy, thus doesn't help much - the fingerprints would still remain quite unique. Yet, if something is less obtrusive - <USER2> slow at times (and then it asks "hey, this site does something fancy with canvas, maybe allow it to speed up at the cost of your privacy?") may work.

<comment><USER10> Blender, firefox plug-in, sends generic user-agent characteristics to mitigate some fingerprinting techniques. "Blend into the crowd":

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/blender-1/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/blender-1/)

<comment><USER11> one of the reviews

      Out of date 2/5 stars

      Language spoofing no longer works (assuming it ever worked). Chosen user-agent, etc is pretty out of date. Should choose the same ones as the Tor Browser Bundle or something

how accurate is this? is this extension still worth it?

<comment><USER10> Perhaps, somewhat...? It does claim to additionally spoof fonts, OS and browser metrics. It has _not_ been updated since April and that came after a long maintenance drought preceding it. In the past it did well on the various browser fingerprint detection sites. Today, I am _unique_ with the only difference between Blender enabled and disabled on Panopticlick[1] is the OS & Browser are indeed spoofed in the results and too many fonts to audit... w/ AB+ disabled, NS disabled(all/globally).

[1] [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I seem to recall that this study had a major discussion on HN not too long ago. Anybody have a link?

<comment><USER13> This one perhaps?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729438)

<comment><USER12> That's the one. Thanks!

(I suppose it doesn't make sense to swap the above URL out at this point.)</comment></comment></comment>


GeeRemit Blockchain App - <AUTHOR> https://ifundwomen.com/projects/geeremit-blockchain-app <comment><USER2> "a Master Inventor with over 40 issued and pending patents" and you don't list or go into detail about a single one?.. That's just being vague with an attempt to deceive.

Maybe the creator should actually list what successful, useful products they have made in the past - what they learned from those experiences rather than just 'oh i met some woman who wrote some book.'

I wouldn't have even considered the authors race and gender except its the only part of their identity they seem to put on the page (aside from having 40 issued and pending patents.) It's sad that this is what their main way of convincing me of their aptitude is.

This website (iFundWomen) is also inherently sexist. If there was an iFundMen, I will bet you $100 that it would get so much shit.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the about page of the website? "Despite these amazing gains, women still only receive 2-6% of venture capital funding"

I feel like that makes it pretty clear why this website is normal and why "iFundMen" would be odd. This stuff is really not as complex as people are making it out to be. Also, ifundwomen != ionlyfundwomen.

<comment><USER2> This isn't on their front page, its on their about page. There is also no source of information attached.</comment></comment></comment>


PARC Movies [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqW6Sp279Z0

<comment><USER3> Can somebody provide some context for the video?

It's incredible to see how many of the concepts in this video is still present in a modern user interface.

<comment><USER4> The voice is Alan Kay who lead the invention of the modern day Desktop computer / GUI. The system is probably a prototype of the Dynabook, a laptop / tablet for children.

The code is Smalltalk which Alan and team created while inventing Object Oriented programming.

You can play with Squeak, which is the modern version of this system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> PARC was great.

Every time I get hold of documentation about their systems, I cry a little tear that we are still playing catchup with those environments.

Specially when I see developers happily coding as if they had a PDP-11 on their lap.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting video. The response time is clearly better than OS X, but this OS will never take off with those fonts.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another version of this video (with Alan Key reviewing this same video from the 70's later in 1987 and giving some more context) is: "alan kay - <USER2> with images makes symbols" [http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987?start=2240](http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987?start=2240)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish this software was still around to play with in some sort of simulator.</comment>


Turns out we probably can't colonize the moon - <AUTHOR> http://nerdist.com/turns-out-we-probably-cant-colonize-the-moon/ <comment><USER2> It doesn't make any real difference.

Just for radiation protection, lunar colonists will spend most of their time under at least six feet of rock.

</comment><comment><USER3> <Arizona State University has been studying the moon, and they recently let everyone know that those projectiles are smacking into our friendly moon 100 times faster than originally thought.>

This is a gross misrepresentation of the ASU article. The _surface turnover rate_ is 100x faster than thought. It's not the velocity of bodies that is 100x faster.</comment>


Meteor 0.7.1: Oplog support for complex queries, Meteor developer accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.meteor.com/blog/2014/02/24/meteor-071-oplog-support-for-complex-queries-meteor-developer-accounts

<comment><USER2> Any python backend examples for Meteor yet?

<comment><USER3> A backend for Meteor, fronted in another language doesn't exist. What I'll assume you're looking for is a bridge. Which Meteor.JS provides access to via the Distributed Data Protocol (DDP). There are clients for most languages, from javascript to ruby and etc. However, there are no servers operating the DDP outside of Meteor to the best of my knowledge. The DDP itself is kind of like REST over sockets on steroids.

[https://github.com/meteor/meteor/blob/devel/packages/livedat...](https://github.com/meteor/meteor/blob/devel/packages/livedata/DDP.md)

[https://github.com/search?q=meteor+ddp&ref=cmdform](https://github.com/search?q=meteor+ddp&ref=cmdform)

<comment><USER4> > The DDP itself is kind of like REST over sockets on steroids.

Wait, could you help me grok that? The way I see DDP, it's more like "just" RPC + notifications. Where does the RESTfulness come from?

<comment><USER3> I worded it as an oversimplification, but it does offer the same service a REST endpoint would offer (CRUD docs), and more via subscriptions. REST in itself is just an RPC, what I'm trying to convey is that it offers the same, plus more over a socket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a simple rails app now I want to add realtime to it, it seems I have those options:

a. rails + node.js + reddis

b. 'rewrite' the rails app in meteor.js

c. rails + firebase

Any suggestions? Anyone uses meteor.js from a rails background?

<comment><USER6> meteor.js is really cool, but it is not ready for production, so it depends on how important your app is. Scaling it beyond a single server is actually not that simple.

Another factor to look at is how extensive the realtime functionality will be. If you just want to make a realtime dashboard for your app, using ajax with a partial to redraw a div every second (or do nothing if the ajax returns no change) is _really_ simple compared to having to add the complexity of another service in a different language (remember that node.js will run on a different port and as a separate process from rails).

If your app is highly dependent on realtime, and you're not planning on launching to a wide audience in 6 months, sure, rewrite in meteor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure it is -- people are using Meteor in production already, and on multiple servers. Oplog tailing is the big story there.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your biggest issue with todays cities? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Traffic, lack of cycle lanes, getting a seat in a pub, people walking too slow, people carrying oversized umbrellas, public transport being too expensive, not enough healthy fast food places, puddles, roadworks, security, carpark prices, coffee prices

<comment><USER3> I agree that most are systemic problem and could be fixed with enough care and attention. But I would propose that a few are side effects of a healthy urban area, namely your last few: roadworks, security, carpark prices, and coffee prices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Too many people.

</comment><comment><USER3> Homelessness.

</comment><comment><USER5> The rent is too damn high.</comment>