Ask HN/Google: should Google link to hotel sites instead of aggregator sites? - <AUTHOR> You can expand this question to generalize: should Google link to, say, a tripadvisor hotel page first, or to the hotel website first? Whenever I search for a hotel or something, I always get a long list of aggregators, which I don't particularly enjoy. Hotel sites (however bad) would be better.
And more in general: should Google generally link to business sites (however bad) first, or link to aggregator sites (including their own) first?
I'm sure they could figure it out algorythmically. <comment><USER2> It has been my experience that more often than not, aggregator sites don't provide any value whatsoever because their only mission is to display ads and drive traffic by spamming Google's index. At least travel adviser sites offer _some_ benefit if they host real reviews (instead of just showing scraped content like the hotel's address and some images).

This is one symptom of a larger problem where I feel Google search is falling flat and the quality of search results is getting progressively worse. It's not the fault of the aggregator sites themselves, either (though some of them employ very shady SEO tricks) - instead I believe the problem is that Google search increasingly ignores specific user input to serve up "what I most likely meant as opposed to what I actually typed in". I would welcome a return to stricter search phrases and maybe a few options regarding what search mode I would like to use. For example, it would be nice to be able to explicitly include or exclude aggregator sites in search results. By now, Google certainly knows enough about the nature of the URLs it indexes, they should pass this knowledge on and empower their users to make more specific queries.

<comment><USER3> > aggregator sites don't provide any value whatsoever because their only > mission is to display ads and drive traffic by spamming Google's index

Tripadvisor has been really helpful to me and my wife, as in we don't go to any new hotel without first checking its ratings and comments on tripadvisor. You cannot have that on a hotel's website, objective reviews I mean, nor can you have actual non-photoshopped pictures taken inside said hotels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like "drake hotel" ought to get you to the Drake Hotel web site. "drake hotel reviews" ought to get you to an aggregator. "drake hotel reservations" ought to get you to whichever has the better prices.

Google's emphasis on domain name helps a lot here, though a lot of hotels are owned by holding companies and have domain names like: <http://holdingco.com/hotelname> (hard to differentiate between that and an aggregator URL).

It comes down to inbound links-- and the aggregators have armies of people doing link-building SEO work. I don't envy Google. Short of human editors, how would you fix it?

</comment><comment><USER5> Hotels online are a bit of a mess.

Personally I'll go straight to Tripadvisor to find a hotel in an unfamiliar area. I may book there but I will also _call_ the hotel in question, particularly when my company has a corporate rate. Not because the corporate rate is betteer but because when the website tells you the hotel is full for the requested dates a person at the hotel will tell you what dates are the problem and possibly bump you up to a higher room class to make your stay possible.

As an aside to people who develop hotel aggregates:

1\. Never make me register;

2\. When I search a date range show me, for each day, the rate, availability and include all room classes. This way I can easily see if a single day is the problem and adjust accordingly.

In fact I'd like to combine the hotel and flight so one _one page_ I can see flight costs on my requested dates (+/- 2 days) and the matrix of per day rates and availabilities.

All sites I've seen have these as too many separate steps. What's worse, refining the search can be problematic.

As for Google search results, this is one area where there is simply too much noise. Hotel affiliate programs combined with cheap hosting mean thee are 234245556345 aggregators, almost all of them useless and hotel sites, except for the largest chains generally, tend to be useless.

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends if the aggregator has reviews from previous customers or not, if they do then I would say it's a better source of information than the hotel website itself. Google probably thinks your more likely to be searching for reputation information on a particular hotel than stuff like "address" e.t.c.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, because I prefer the aggregator sites.

The aggregator sites usually contain some user reviews as well as a standardized UI - one I'm already familiar with - for booking a room. On the larger aggregators, I've also already got an account with some of my booking information saved. I also believe (perhaps irrationally) that buying through a large aggregator is more secure than buying through some random hotel site's booking solution.

If Google were to bump TripAdvisor in favor of direct links to hotel sites, Google would become less useful for me.

The same is true, as an aside, for restaurant websites vs. Yelp.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with the aggregator sites is that they tend to hide links to the original site, email addresses and phone numbers, in order to get you to book a room through their system.

<comment><USER7> Of course, and that's how it should be. They've added the value, so they should make the money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This one's debatable. I actually look at tripadvisor before the hotel's own web site for the reviews, and information on other nearby properties. (Hotels' own web sites are often... aspirational: <http://www.oyster.com/hotels/photo- fakeouts/>) That said, I do look at the hotel's own site too, but I've never personally seen a case where it wasn't on Google's first page.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does Google capture and use data on which of its search links people actually click on ? It seems like that information would be a very useful adjunct to PageRank for ranking search results.

They could then determine an optimal ranking by maximizing the likelihood that the user will click on the top result presented.

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact, I believe they even capture how many users click a result and then quickly come back (back button), which indicates a result that looks good in the search results list, but that is disappointing when users actually view the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Aggregators provide a lot of use.

Gives an instant overview of the hotels prices and ratings. It would take a long time to research just that basic information for say 10 hotels in an area.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another question: Would it be unfair for Google to redirect to a page where it's making money (via affiliate link)?</comment>


[Patent] Apple can tell your iPhone to disable video recording - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/apples-new-patent-will-block-your-iphone-from-recording-video-at-gigs/ <comment><USER2> I'm absolutely confident this has no potential for abuse when abuse is being filmed.

<comment><USER3> Instead of a big stage, maybe they should just make it into a badge.</comment></comment>


X-Ray Pin-Up Calendar 2010 By Butter - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailyartpress.com/2010/06/pin-up-calendar-2010-by-butter.html

<comment><USER2> I love that photographers are finally starting to focus on inner beauty

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously Photoshop collages and not real radiographs...

EDIT: I take that back. They're 3D renderings.

</comment><comment><USER4> Imagine being the model...

</comment><comment><USER5> Funny. I love the take on calendar models.</comment>


Give HN: Simple Hack to Track your Submissions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vannitotaro/hntrack

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this simple shell script some days ago to track in a terminal (and log on file) the HN submission about my startup (<http://asaclock.com>) pre-launch landing page and now I'm sharing it with you because sharing is caring :)

<comment><USER2> thanks!</comment></comment>


FBI asks to delay Apple trial so it can try hacking the iPhone again - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/21/11279714/fbi-iphone-apple-trial-delay?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> My speculation here is that the FBI realized it has a strong chance of losing the case and this is their way of backing out before the courts rule and there is a precedent.</comment>


'Build More Housing' Is No Match for Inequality - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/05/housing-supply-home-prices-economic-inequality-cities/588997/ <comment><USER2> > It mainly leads to building high-end housing in desirable locations

Which is perfectly fine! It still works, because houses do not have intrinsic price tags. They have intrinsic ordering of values, but their price is determined by what people are willing to pay.

Line up every person in the city in order of how much they're willing to spend on a home. Do the same with the homes available. Face the two lines across from each other. Everyone will buy a home nearby to what is across from them right now. Building a whole bunch more houses on the top end of the house scale doesn't leave those mansions empty, it just drives the mid-range homes further down the scale.

Supply shorter causes those further up the scale of "willing to spend on a home" to have only modest homes as options (what's across from them). At the same time, it pushes less and less desirable homes (often ones 2 hours commute from work) in front of those less able to afford homes.

If you want to argue that the divide between rich and poor is growing, and it's a problem, oh heck yeah I'm on board for that argument. But conflating the housing shortage problems with that allows the landlords to keep getting richer.

<comment><USER3> > Line up every person in the city in order of how much they're willing to > spend on a home.

This is the "city as a closed universe" fallacy. What you actually have to do is line up every potential purchase of a home (which may be more than one per buyer) in the city by any person in _the world_ in that order.

Which is why you can't move the needle very much in a high demand region by increasing supply in any way that is practical over any reasonable period [0]; there's usually a lot of available demand that must be filled before you see a perceptible price drop.

[0] at least before considering the effect that population density outpacing service and infrastructure scaling can have on desirability, which isn't usually the effect people are looking to leverage to reduce price, though making the city into a hellhole _does_ have that effect.

<comment><USER4> If you build more housing and prices don't go down, that means your satisfying unmet demand. And that's a good thing too—you're increasing the tax base of your city. If you keep building, then at some point the unmet demand will be met and prices will go down. Every step of that is a win.

<comment><USER5> Only if constant growth is always good.

Every step of that has side effects that people may not like.

Nobody talks like this about traffic. More lanes, same slow traffic speed. Yep, that's newly satisfied demand. It's also widely considered undesirable and self-defeating.

It's not irrational to think that slowing down or distributing the growth elsewhere - geographically - would be preferred.

<comment><USER6> I can think of three mechanisms to bring down house prices:

1) Build more houses

2) Reduce the amount of lending banks do

3) Distant third, if the government has mucked up the tax/renting incentives so much that people are leaving houses empty that should be fixed.

They all sound good to me. However, if the complaint underlying "prices are too high" is that people don't have a place to live then that can't be fixed without growing the stock of available housing. Growth is required. We don't want people to have to chose where they live because there aren't enough houses being built, we want them to move based on economic opportunity or because they like the lifestyle.

Traffic is different from housing. In a moment of flippancy, I suggest that nobody wants to be sitting in traffic, but they are happy to be sitting in their own house.

<comment><USER7> I'd add:

4) move the jobs to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.

<comment><USER8> I'd add:

5) move the people to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand how papers like this get published. The title of the paper seems almost designed to lead you to the wrong conclusion. The paper is about income inequality, and it appears to be a meta-study proposing that building more houses won't help a given area reduce inequality. However the main thing people are discussing is pricing, and affordability, as you can note from the citylab subtitle (won't solve the urban affordability crisis)

Building more houses will absolutly help the urban affordability crisis, as the paper claims if you were to build more housing in San Fransicsco obviously it would be occupied by high paid tech workers, that doesn't mean it didn't make the situation better for everyone as all those people who are not living in the upzoned houses didn't go bid up the existing housing stock.

Right now California is estimated to have a four million housing unit shortage, doing a study about a few hundred units built and then claiming it didn't help anything is beyond dishonest.

Also the paper ends not with a solution, but with saying we should not try to build near transit. It really reads to me like the authors decided they didn't like the propsed legislation for upzoning so they picked a bunch of data that supported their views and cobbled together a paper.

<comment><USER10> The paper isn't published, it's put on a free Wordpress blog[1] run by two people[2]. As far as I can tell there's no peer review or editing.

1: [https://peeg.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/19-14-housing-urban- gr...](https://peeg.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/19-14-housing-urban-growth-and- inequalities-the-limits-to-deregulation-and-upzoning-in-reducing-economic-and- spatial-inequality/)

2: [https://peeg.wordpress.com/about-2/](https://peeg.wordpress.com/about-2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The paper attacks a straw man:

> The barrier that must be lifted in order to make this happen is, according > to this view, insufficient housing construction in prosperous areas due to > local restrictive zoning in those regions. The places where policy is needed > are therefore not the lagging and falling-behind regions, but the prosperous > areas, which are perceived as afflicted by the disease of NIMBYism (Not-In- > My-Back-Yard). Undoing NIMBY-ism would allow people from other regions, whom > are deemed to be excluded by high housing prices and low availability in > prosperous places, to move to prosperity (thus, a place-based policy leads > to a people-based outcome).

Of course, knobs that affect the supply and price of housing will not cause companies to hire workers without in-demand skills at higher wages. That is completely orthogonal to whether turning those knobs will decrease the price of housing.

Furthermore, "building more housing" is like planting trees. The right time to do it was 40 years ago. If you look at cities with relatively reasonably priced housing, like Chicago, you'll see that the bulk of the moderately- priced housing stock is older. Fancy new condos at sky-high prices are getting built, but you can still get a good deal on a unit in an older building. The problem in cities like San Francisco is that those units weren't built back in the 1970s and 1980s.

<comment><USER7> Isn't Chicago more a case of declining population than building? Chicago shrunk ~25% from its peak population in the 1950s. It is lot less of a challenge to have affordable housing with declining population. Add in the massive white flight, and I'm not sure what the Chicago lesson is.

<comment><USER11> Most but not all American cities have less people now then in the 1950s. But household sizes are much smaller and the amount of Housing units in most cities is actually higher then the 50s as a result of smaller household sizes. However many of these cities still have a housing affordability problem even though they have less people now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not intuitively clear to me what the point of this article is. Is it challenging the premise that building more housing stops the growth (or reverses the growth) of housing in urban areas? It seems to be but then most of what is talked about is not that.

The evidence for "more housing = slower rising or shrinking housing costs" is so strong in places like Brooklyn and Seattle that it seems almost impossible to really to challenge it.

<comment><USER13> The article's thesis is that building more housing does not reduce wealth inequality. Which makes sense. However, that's not why people are demanding more housing in places like San Francisco. They want more housing so that housing prices and rents will stabilize or decline. This allows people at lower income levels to have better quality of life. They are, of course, still at lower income levels. The article calls this a failure. Others may call it a success.

<comment><USER12> Thank you - that was incredibly hard to parse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can have a city with a large number of wealthy people and affordable housing, but it requires enough housing for everyone.

The big issue with affordable housing is that you can't build it now. Affordable living quarters are those which were built a long time ago and have depreciated in real terms over time. It's not really possible to build a decent house today for $30,000, but 40 years ago you could. That same house could go for $80k, $300k, or $600k today, depending upon how much new construction kept up with population growth over that time.

This fact is why areas of California are screwed. There's no quick fix for this problem, the treatment for a housing crisis is decades of construction that exceeds the pace of population growth. Given that treatment and enough time, there will be plenty of available housing stock at 2x median wages.

<comment><USER15> Housing developments are regularly proposed that have a certain percentage of units that are "affordable housing" in that their price is _artificially_ held low. (And there are restrictions on purchasing such units, so that a well-off person can't simply sweep them off the market.)

But even such developments are also being rejected by SF, even ones that would increase the number of affordable housing units available overall. For example, a project in SoMa was unanimously rejected because it overshadowed — on the day with the most shadow — 18% of a nearby park[1].

It is clear to anyone who is watching that SF is not concerned about the affordability of its city, or the livelihood of those who are not well-off enough to afford homes whose median price has been as high as $1.6M.

(And while I disagree that you can't build affordable housing now, I do agree with your treatment.)

[1]: [https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/10/18304717/shadow-housing- sf-p...](https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/10/18304717/shadow-housing-sf-park- supervisors-vote-reject-nimby)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I had to pick ONE hammer/nail to use to fix this problem, it would be more housing, orders of magnitude more housing.

Actual competition, in this case, actual choices for housing, having enough units on the market that slack is normal and expected, would definitely solve the inequality issue: and there's NO WAY the market's going to go back to that state naturally. Distorted market forces created a seller's (rent-seekers actually) market, and it's going to take drastic measures, or economic death, to correct it.

Edit: Though while we're at it, go ahead and encourage good community development and programs that make it easier for first time home buyers and stable jobs and all the other things that lead to better communities and more empowered people in general.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article presents a 'gentrification' view of development. Building new housing simply allows landowners and developers to build another luxury condo tower, and for additional rich and high skilled workers to move in. The network effects of which only drive up land values and costs even further. Concluding that upzoning and building only allows landlords to switch out low revenue tenants for high revenue tenants.

First off it seems to me like every city would love to have this sort of problem. "We can't possibly build enough housing to satisfy all the demand from highly paid/skilled knowledge workers who want to move to our city." To a city government sounds a lot like "I can't build enough garage space to park all my lamborghinis!"

Secondly, what happens when we run this theory in reverse? If we bulldoze a quarter of the housing does that mean that home prices go down? I guess at some point that might actually be true. It might constrict business/growth enough that the remaining houses would be less expensive. Call it the Detroit plan for affordable housing. Make all the high paying jobs leave and housing prices become more affordable. Which I guess 'works' to supply affordable housing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone have the paper? The dot com bust was a pretty strong counter narrative to this paper and I'd like to understand their reasoning. For those not fortunate enough to live it, when the bubble burst on the dot.coms a lot of people moved out of the Bay Area, the economic downturn was harsh, but it was mechanical rather than systemic. In that a number of firms that had been injecting capital into the market simply vanished. As a result the number of available jobs shrank, and people who were renting simply moved away (at one point there was a 6 to 8 week waiting period to get a U-haul truck to rent and people were being paid to fly to different cities and drive the trucks back to the bay area)

The effect on housing was that fewer people were competing for homes and so prices stabilized (and people who had used stock options to buy were sometimes forced to sell instead of buy the home). This lead to a large drop in prices in homes that were far away (Livermore, Modesto, Sacramento, Etc) making the isolines for cost vs closeness to the bay much shallower. People in companies that were not dead found that they could buy a house in one of the 'close' counties (Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Mateo) and did so.

Anyway, it is impossible to control all the variables in economics generally but I would like to see how the authors came to their conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER19> "It's supply and demand at work, they argue".. hmmm yep, that's how it works. These problems are not going to get addressed if people keep on coming up with other theories that don't really address the problem.

Build more to increase supply and spread out demand by facilitating good transport.

Good news is that all those high paying jobs should provide plenty of budget for the government to address this problem...

</comment><comment><USER20> > _"The idea that upzoning will cause housing affordability to trickle down > \\[ ... \\] is just a lot to promise"_

Increasing housing supply is not the same thing as trickle down. It confuses the issue to call it this.

Trickle down refers to the idea of giving out money (in the form of tax breaks) to stimulate the economy. It essentially says that cash handouts to businesses and investors will indirectly make it into poorer people's hands.

Removing limits on housing is fundamentally different than this because there is no handout involved. Instead of rich people _receiving_ money, rich people (also called investors) _put up_ money to finance the costs of increasing the supply.

Also, nobody is saying that increasing supply will eliminate inequality. That part is kind of a straw man. Real estate is still "location, location, location", and living in a desirable area (near jobs, etc.) will continue to cost more. What increasing supply does is change _one multiplier_ on costs. In my mind, the relevant question to ask is: if affordability is a big problem, why wouldn't you want to turning one of the knobs you can turn to change a multiplier and make it better?

<comment><USER21> You're reading too deep into the analogy. It's just similar to trickle-down economics in that the idea is "if you let more rich people get houses, that will help poor people get houses too."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, cities don't get cheaper as they grow in size and density. They become more desirable due to better availability of jobs and services, and therefore more expensive.

Of course a myopic analysis of building a single tower is not going to capture long term effects of building a hundred of such towers over many years. Especially if your incentives say you should build.

If governments want cities to be affordable they need to

\- make cities less desirable compared to currently semi urban areas by spreading out the location of government services and jobs, providing incentives for private companies to do the same

\- allow for building reasonable amounts of housing, but only the kinds and locations that match policy objectives

\- cut off all "investment" demand for housing by eliminating the expectation of risk free profit. Ban foreign money, add much higher property taxes on anything but primary residences and purpose built rentals, etc.

If you set up a proper incentive structure for everyone, things will settle in a much much better equilibrium than today. Desirable places will still be expensive, but general affordability would improve a lot due to layers of profit seeking parasites exiting the market.

</comment><comment><USER23> It turns out denser housing is better for the environment too, so we should upzone even if the premise of this article were true (to me it seems kind of suspect to deny that supply and demand don't really work for housing):

[https://www.thenation.com/article/zoning-housing-homeless- se...](https://www.thenation.com/article/zoning-housing-homeless-segregation/)

<comment><USER24> Density isn't a lock for environmental friendliness. High density structures require environmentally unfriendly building materials relative to lower density structures, and a local environment has a limited ability to deal with pollutants and waste, requiring significant additional infrastructure to accommodate. Furthermore, higher density means more transportation infrastructure to bring resources to the people who live in an area, whereas a lot of these resources could be locally sourced if the density was lower.

I think modern large multi-story wooden structures surrounded by food forests and urban farms is probably optimal in terms of environmental impact, while also being extremely livable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This seems to be the central argument:

> "While building more affordable housing in core agglomerations would > accommodate more people," the authors note, "the collapse of the urban wage > premium for less-educated workers means that the extra housing would mostly > attract additional skilled workers."

In other words,they seem to argue that building more only attracts more high- paid works.

Ok... so let's build even MORE, until a new equilibrium is reached at a lower price. There is a finite number of the higher paid jobs and a finite number of people who can perform them without additional training. That number is not small, so if want to change the market for housing, amount of new supply must also not be small.

Seattle has been making a dent, but unfortunately not a very big one: [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid- build...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-building- boom-1-in-10-seattle-apartments-are-empty-and-rents-are-dropping/)

Imagine what would happen if they built even more?

However, if we did build enough, a significant number of people would be impacted in a different way - it's impossible to build just the right number, so we are much more likely to significantly reduce the value of homes if we built enough (in actuality too much) to not price people out. Anyone that bought around the time of the boom would likely see prices fall.

<comment><USER26> The alternative is to avoid creating high-paying jobs in already crowded areas.

That sounds counterintuitive, but put it this way: there are many other places that would love to have more of these jobs. Rather than competing with them, cooperate in proving incentives for companies to move or expand elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Isn't this ignoring that a lot of upzoning comes with the requirement that a percentage of new units are made to be affordable? (at least that's the case in recent Seattle projects I've seen)

Sure, if the market is completely free then it will build the highest value items (shwanky condos), but that's (thankfully) not the world we live in.

</comment><comment><USER28> >doing so won't magically solve economic and spatial inequality, because both are deeply rooted in the very nature of the geographically clustered and concentrated knowledge economy.

This is one of the great paradoxes to me. The knowledge economy would seem to the one sector that could entirely function on remote work. Instead, workers are concentrated in a few cities (SF, Silicon Valley, NYC, Seattle) and drive up the housing costs and prices in general exacerbating inequality. The average non-tech worker in these cities has trouble with housing and daycare due to these tech workers driving up the costs.

One of the best way tech companies could address inequality would be to foster a culture of remote work. This would ease up on the housing crisis. Well paid tech workers could go to other parts of the country/world where they would be a benefit to the local economy and culture instead of a harm because they would be spread out.

<comment><USER29> There are a few problems with this.

One, lots of people want to work in physical proximity to their coworkers. I know I am one of those people; I could work remote, but I enjoy the social aspect of working in an office.

Second, part of the appeal of living in one of these expensive cities is that the amenities are also nice. When you cluster a lot of wealthy people together, the public services get better, there are more entertainment options, etc. Being a wealthy person in a cheaper part of the country might sound nice and have its perks, but you are going to find fewer places to spend the money you have.

Third, people like to live with people in their same class. We really hate talking about class in the US, but it is there nonetheless. It is not easy to be a well off tech worker when the people in your social circle are blue collar workers struggling to make ends meet.

<comment><USER30> > Third, people like to live with people in their same class. We really hate > talking about class in the US, but it is there nonetheless. It is not easy > to be a well off tech worker when the people in your social circle are blue > collar workers struggling to make ends meet.

I don't know if I agree with that. I am a low level engineer but still consider myself fairly privileged. It makes me really happy when I'm able to help my friends buy something they couldn't otherwise afford. Yes it pains me to see they are struggling but I am happy knowing I can help them if they ever need it and it gives me a reason to keep working.

I also have friends who are significantly more well off than I am. In my opinion, they don't understand the value of money well.

Personally I think it's dangerous to put yourself in a position where you can just forget that there are other people who are genuinely struggling as it can distort your perception of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> it turns out that if you care about everyone having a place to live that they can afford given the jobs available to them, the free market sucks.

the solution is to build more (socially owned, permanently affordable, high quality) housing. emphasis on the part where it isn't a slum that is doomed to fail and is horrible to live in.

<comment><USER32> And where is that mythical place that actually has free market for housing? Most countries/states have building codes and other regulations that mess up simple supply/demand dynamic.

<comment><USER21> The "free market" is not a binary value. Surely you agree that there's a difference between building codes and state-owned housing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd heavily tax un-rented properties. If property is not being actually used for housing it should be expensive to keep it. Administration should disincentive hoarding of houses.

</comment><comment><USER34> There are two related issues: one is density overall, and the other is the housing to jobs ratio.

Adding a tall office building adds to density but skews the housing to jobs ratio. Probably increases inequality, worsens transit problems, and increases housing prices.

Adding a tall apartment building in SF or Palo Alto would rebalance the ratio of jobs to housing, alleviate transit problems, and make housing more affordable.

I guess the article is arguing that imcreasing density in the abstact increases inequality, which may be true. But the argument is not to just "build"; it's "build housing to rebalance the ratio" which actually would solve a lot of problems.

Density had positives and negatives. If you want to keep a given density ina given city, then fine. But crazy skew where you puts jobs far from housing is just bad policy.

It might be more precise to say "either build housing or raze office space" but it seems a little ridiculous to tear down vibrant office buildings, so the answer is to build housing.

</comment><comment><USER35> A better way of improving housing equality is by adding a new renter tax. Every time a property is rented out, the landlord would need to pay a one-time tax. Landlords will be incentivized to keep tenants in their homes longer, as increasing the rent and forcing someone out will look less attractive if they have to pay a tax for a new renter.

</comment><comment><USER36> Look at all the cities that don't have Zoning, like Houston, TX. They don't have the kind of housing problems that over regulated CA does. Despite a population of over 2million (3 times more than SF) and growing much faster too, those places are much much more cost effect (100$ per sq foot vs over 1200$ per sq foot in SF). People need to learn how supply and demand work.

Sure, if you start building in SF, it's going to take time to fix. But not adding more supply is like saying, "Well, we've turning coal plants into solar panels but C02 levels are still rising". Just like every solar panel, Every bit more supply will help.

And even more important, is the underlying cost to build. If that's not low enough, the problem will never be fixed entirely. The underlying cost, is usually to high in Blue cities due to regulation, zoning and the loss of the middle class which raises labor costs.

<comment><USER37> Houston doesn't have zoning, but does have fairly stringent land-use regulations on single-family homes (min. lot size, setbacks, etc.) See: [https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston- regulates-...](https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston-regulates- land-use/)

Houston is also surrounded by sparsely-populated countryside, rather than on three sides by water like SF, giving it more room to grow cheaply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "They would, however, increase gentrification within prosperous regions and would not appreciably decrease income inequality"

From the paper. That makes me question if an actually competent person wrote this. Income inequality is not a problem. Lack of housing and housing prices are.

</comment><comment><USER39> For what it's worth, I agree with the headline as stated. Without controls, the scenario of NYC or Hong Kong appear.

One answer to this particular problem for Singapore has been public housing. Public housing is completely different concept in SG as 70% of all housing is "public".

There are no direct price controls but only PR or Citizens are allowed to own these places which places a natural cap on housing. New developments are handed out via lottery with preference going to first time owners.

This naturally limits who can buy into new developments allowing younger families to inflow into said locations thus keeping prices low.

US Cities would be hard pressed to find a scheme that works (article hardly proposes a solution), but I agree simply supplying more would not work.

<comment><USER40> > Without controls, the scenario of NYC or Hong Kong appear.

SF is now more expensive than Manhattan, so I'm not sure what you're arguing here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What a silly article. In many places affordability is not the issue. The real issue is availability. You just cannot work around shortage of apartments. It just physically can never work -- unless maybe you forcefully restrict the population of a city (hukou style).

</comment><comment><USER42> > the collapse of the urban wage premium for less-educated workers means that > the extra housing would mostly attract additional skilled workers

Doesn't this contradict their conclusion? What are those workers attracted by if not more affordable housing?

</comment><comment><USER43> For every residential building built mandate 20% units allocated for low income housing.

You end up with incentivized developers and low income families distributed throughout the region and not centralized in projects.

Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER44> "Build more Housing" is not the answer. Okay fine, add "Not everybody in the world needs to or should live in San Francisco or Manhattan" to the list of rules

</comment><comment><USER45> Why not aim for more of a distributed economy and/or distributed housing instead of trying to crowd in on small patches of highly-desirable/expensive locations?

</comment><comment><USER46> This paragraph summarizes the entire article:

> They agree that housing is part of the problem: "Housing market failures can > imperil local economic growth and generate problems such as segregation, > long commute times, deteriorating quality of life, homelessness, and > barriers to social mobility for certain populations," they write. But > housing policy, and zoning restrictions in particular, are certainly not the > be-all and end-all of urban problems. Upzoning expensive cities is no match > for the deep divides within—and especially between—cities, and is wholly > insufficient to remedy them.

I haven't heard anyone argue that just "upzoning San Francisco" is going to fix all urban problems, much less "[set] up Los Angeles and San Francisco as the new golden land for people in less prosperous regions," as the article says.

However to say that "It mainly leads to building high-end housing in desirable locations," is practically a tautology. Upper / high-end housing in desirable locations is virtually all that developers have ever built. [1]

The article is completely missing the domino effect, and why "mostly building high-end housing in desirable locations" is still helpful. Where there is high-income job-creation (like SF or NYC) there WILL be wealthy people moving in. You can either (a) build nice new houses for them, or (b) let them buy up the existing stock of housing and displace everyone who is lower than them on the economic ladder. That's the part that's basic supply and demand.

Thus the domino effect - with fixed supply the wealthy displace the less wealthy.

Where I think the article is really missing the point is in its failure to see how restricting housing in the hottest job markets just makes the domino effect even broader. If it were feasible for San Francisco to soak up all the tech jobs it probably would. Instead, many "mid market" companies are being displaced to secondary hubs like Seattle and Austin, where -- shocker -- they have similar restrictive policies and are experiencing exactly the same housing crisis and displacement problem just with scaled down dollar amounts involved.

American cities - and many others around the world - are dealing with fundamental problems of scaling. In the industrial era we were a bit better at scaling up: we built simple grids that could be extended indefinitely, and when the technology came around we built trams and subways to help move people about the region. The building codes of the era allowed neighborhoods to change over time so long as the health and safety standards were met.

And then we fell in love with our cars, adopted the suburban car-oriented pattern and passed laws that mostly forbid the development of anything else. That pattern is specifically designed _not_ to change over time - so we shouldn't be suprised when it buckles under the load of steady population growth.

[1]: [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/7/25/why-are- develo...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/7/25/why-are-developers- only-building-luxury-housing)

</comment><comment><USER47> The cost of living in a lot of cities is horrible, even if you can afford housing.

I think the commute from beyond the city, where housing is more affordable and zoning more permissive, could be improved and promoted as a compromise.

</comment><comment><USER48> doesn't matter. zoning is the issue. if you don't have more density, you won't have ANY opportunity for housing access.

</comment><comment><USER49> its supposed to be a solution for homelessness.

</comment><comment><USER50> This article kinda misses the point.

Even _if_ your only goal is to produce more affordable/low income housing, and you do not believe that market rate housing helps, you _still_ have to admit that upzoning helps with the problem.

This is because in major cities, like San Francisco, there are low income housing requirements for many new housing projects.

Or in other words, if a company builds an expensive apartment complex, they might be required to make 20% of those apartments as affordable housing stock.

Therefore, upzoning areas still definitely creates more affordable housing stock (because of that 20%), and should therefore be desirable for people who care about this issue.

I am sure that many developers would increase the percentage of affordable housing that they create, if they were offered height limit relaxations in return. Ie, they can build that 30 story apartment complex, that was disallowed previously, if they make ~30% affordable.

Housing upzoning efforts should be focused on these unilateral wins that help everyone.</comment>


Stop Shaming Your Users for Micro Conversions - <AUTHOR> https://www.nngroup.com/articles/shaming-users/ <comment><AUTHOR> As much as these "manipulinks" are obviously manipulative, it's amazing how well they work on me. It's psychologically much harder to click a link for me that says "I don't need to work out" than a simple "No, thanks." Much like click-bait titles, people use them because they are effective.</comment>


Galaxy S3: Did Samsung just out-iPhone Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/128575-galaxy-s3-did-samsung-just-out-iphone-apple

<comment><USER2> Based on the touchwiz look and feel and the annoying nature of Kies, I'm skeptical of samsung's ability to deliver great software. The screen sharing feature really is an application where current iOS really beats out android, so if they did this well, it will be a good step forward.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably not: my Galaxy Nexus started out promising enough with only a few annoying issues but in the 4 1/2 months I've owned it, I've watched it become almost as much of an unresponsive brick as my late Droid G1. And while we're at, they have yet to release ICS for my Samsung Galaxy 10.1. Google/Samsung/I don't really care anymore are all falling flat on their faces pretending to support these devices and that's their real downfall.

<comment><USER4> I've had my GNexus since January. Still fast and responsive here.

I wonder if certain usage profiles of varying demographics degrades a phone over time analagous to Windows XP needing a reformat every now and then. If unresponsiveness is your only problem I wonder if a factory reset would do it any good ?

<comment><USER3> I could certainly do just that and when I find the time to do so I will (around the same time I jailbreak my 10.1 to install CM once the camera support works). But this is a consumer device, not some sort of hacker's toy and that means (IMO of course) that different rules apply here. And that's where Apple gets it right: my fiancee's 2 year-old IPhone is as responsive as the day she got it.

PS A factory reset on my G1 last year restored its responsiveness for a day or two. Sigh...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree that extremetech is pretty link baitey but if they are accurate in their assessment that Samsung has decided to invest in a usability features, then it would be a big step toward a more useful device.

Of all the Android Phone manufacturers, Samsung and Motorola Mobility have been the most active in 'enhancing' the Android experience. Sometimes that enhancement is in the form of ways to lock you into their gear (custom app stores, capabilities, Etc) but the capability is there to generally improve the user experience.

One might ask why Google isn't at the forefront of this sort of change but I think they have their hands full at the moment. All in all it looks like an improvement in the marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER6> Judging from the photo, iphone looks too thick compared to Galaxy S3. And the roundness makes it unlike the iPhone, which means the designs now diverge away.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that picture is misleading-- the two devices aren't on the same scale at all.

<comment><USER8> Yea, I was going to try and scale it accurately, but the S3 is in the foreground, so there's perspective to deal with as well -- so I decided to just leave it as-is. Maybe I should've put 'image is for illustration purpose only' at the bottom...

<comment><USER9> Perspective? That doesn't even begin to explain it. That picture looked odd to me before, but after looking at the specs it simply can not happen. That sort of arrangement could distort the apparent difference in thickness and mask the difference in width. But it would exacerbate the difference in length.

You can't possibly put the Galaxy S3 in front of the iPhone and create that scene. That picture is a mess.

iPhone 4/4S: 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3mm

Galaxy S3: 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6mm

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whenever a headline asks a question, the answer is always no.

</comment><comment><USER11> How many times have we heard that the next Android phone is the _real_ iPhone killer, for real this time, really seriously for real this time? Come on. What does "out-iPhoning" Apple even _mean_?

Pundits. Grr.

<comment><USER3> It means that pundits are morons for the most part that repackage and regurgitate the content of press releases and make grandiose statements about products based on a couple hours of use.

Kind of like financial analysts and their amusing predictions about tech stock prices based on what the voices told them last night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another embarrassingly bad extremetech article.

<comment><USER12> Would anyone care to explain the downvote? Did you miss the egregious misspell of "renaissance"?

<comment><USER8> As much as I'd love to spell it "renaissance", it's an American site, so I have to write in American English :)

God save the Queen!

<comment><USER13> That's the en-US for renaissance‽ You live and learn.

<comment><USER14> Etymologically, the word comes from the French for rebirth, which is spelled 'renaissance'. Normally, it's prudent to take a live-and-let-live approach to the development of language as that's how language evolves, but in this instance the Americanised spelling is downright barbarous and not holding with the origins or spirit of the word. In this case, I'd argue that the American spelling isn't different in the way color or aluminum are, it's just wrong.

<comment><USER13> At least with aluminium the US spelling is the original spelling, it was just anglicised with an -ium ending to fit in with the other elements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Samsung and their phones fill an important role in cell phone sales for both the telcos and the salespeople at their retail stores.

If a non-technical buyer walks into a Verizon store and wants to buy an iPhone, but for whatever reason (sales kick-back, slow inventory, late deliveries) the store or the telco don't want to or can't sell them an iPhone, they want an almost-iPhone to give them.

Nevermind that the technology in all of these phones is copied and borrowed left and right (like the iOS 5 notification system). Samsung's design and marketing is a gauche copy of Apple's because it needs to be to ride on Apple's brand recognition.</comment>


What Are Some Stupid Things That Smart People Do? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid-things-that-smart-people-do?share=1 <comment><USER2> "take pride in using programming languages and text editors that have been designed by programmers, not updated since the 1970s, and never touched by anyone with a modicum of design sense."

Sounds like this was written by a web developer.

<comment><USER3> Programming in a text editor designed by a programmer for programming? Sounds...logical?

<comment><USER4> Using an editor designed by programmers means you're most likely not getting a well-designed interface.

Developers are notorious for not knowing much (if anything) about good UI design.

<comment><USER5> Well, yeah, this pretty much describes vim. No cues are told how to save, exit, search, or insert.

But, it's functional, and once you learn the functions, it's quicker than using a mouse and many other tools.

<comment><USER6> I think vim has the best designed interface. This is reason why so many other editors always have a vim mode. Remember, imitation is the best form of flattery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > What Are Some Stupid Things That Smart People Do? (quora.com)

The "stupid things" list should certainly include visiting quora.com, a tar- pit masquerading as a website.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: This has been edited to change it from the Forbes link to the raw Quora post. The post I was attempting to highlight was by "Lee Semel"

<comment><USER8> Lee's answer[0] is a good one, and worth a look, but there are other good answers there as well. Andrea Martin's answer[1] just below Lee's is especially interesting because it takes an entirely different viewpoint to the question than the typical "intellectual biases" or "networking/superficial social skills" type of answers:

"Fail to develop and maintain mutual support systems among mature, benevolent, competent people. Without a good support system, anyone can begin to slide down a slippery slope when they encounter hardship, miscalculate something major, or fall victim to the misdeeds of others."

Go read the whole thing. It's worth it.

[0] Permalink to Lee's answer: [http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are- some-stupid-thi...](http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid- things-that-smart-people-do/answer/Lee-Semel-10289)

[1] Permalink to Andrea's answer: [http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What- are-some-stupid-thi...](http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some- stupid-things-that-smart-people-do/answer/Andrea-Martin-3)

<comment><USER9> Postfix those URLs with ?share=1 so us without Quora accounts see something useful.

[0] [http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid- thi...](http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid-things-that- smart-people-do/answer/Lee-Semel-10289?share=1)

[1] [http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid- thi...](http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid-things-that- smart-people-do/answer/Andrea-Martin-3?share=1)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that. I can't edit my post anymore, so I can't fix it above.

Quora's really aggressive about getting people to sign up. I had to log in with a dummy account just to _get_ the permalinks in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this on quora or forbes ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its on Forbes sourced by Quara ... I'm not sure if Forbes has taken over Quara or if it's just syndicating that post.

<comment><USER11> Quara has been syndicating their content to several outlets. I believe Slate has a number of questions from Quara on their site as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Before you start a company, answer these questions - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/15/before-you-start-a-company-answer-these-questions/ <comment><USER2> > Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at > hacker meetups?

The ideal spouse/significant other would be one that asks why you're hanging out at hacker meetups every other night when you've just quit your job.

<comment><USER3> lol, yeah. I don't think that if I was a founder I'd be at hacker meetups? I don't get great coding done there. I'd rather come home, have a simple dinner, and then put a few hours in after catching up with the fam. If I was trying to hire I would go to hacker meetups, but I think you can filter for meetups that have high-quality candidates and a good engineers::non-techies ratio. And of course, only stay for the first hour of networking, skip the presentation.

<comment><USER4> I read comments like this "I want a couple of hours after work to see people I love before I get back to the very important task of more work" and cannot decide if I'm lazy, or the average startup'r is a bit mad.

Doing a 10-12 hour day every now and again because there's a deadline is fine, planning ahead for that to be an average day boggles my mind.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like you don't pass the founder test ')

<comment><USER6> Sounds a lot like my approach. I've been in business for over 8 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Are you motivated by the prospect of getting rich?" ... " These are perfectly normal human emotions but horrible reasons on their own to start a business."

Being motivated to get rich is an extremely good reason to start a business. In fact it's one of the few reasons to do so. It's very difficult to get rich if you don't own generative assets (short of being a radiologist and plowing your after taxes/expenses salary into a bank account for 20 years). There are three ways to do it: acquire ownership in a business, either privately or in the public markets; buy assets such as real estate and turn it over at a profit; start a business. The theme of nearly all wealth in the developed world, is ownership. One of the best ways to guarantee you get a shot at that sort of outcome is by starting a business. I grew up in a poor area and knew several millionaires, they were all self-made small business owners.

Being motivated to be rich, is not the same as defining your business around or by that premise, which is what the author is confusing.

<comment><USER8> 100x This.

As a corollary: If you're not motivated by getting rich a job at a big tech firm will probably satisfy most of your non-monetary motivations while at the same time giving you more impact and a much easier life than going the startup route.

<comment><USER9> A job at a big tech firm, reasonable spending habits, and 20 years investing in the markets is likely to make you extremely comfortable financially. With almost perfect certainty.

It's not going to be private jet money, but it's going to be easily flying first class money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The more you contemplate these questions, the least likely you are to do anything. The only question I think is valuable is: "How many months can you go without a paycheck?" I think the original idea is seldom where most startups end up. It's more than likely a problem you encounter while working on the original idea. In fact, I think the less money you have to start the more hungry you will be for success.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would add to this, can you convince at least one person to work on this with you? Solo founding isn't just a little harder than having a co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER12> i've got a really cushy job making great money, and the work life balance is tolerable, but i feel that it's not that exciting. i have had lots of ideas, but i finally think that i've figured out what i really enjoy which is sports and technology. i have been working on madsportslab.com for about a year now, i taught myself golang and swift as part of the process and have released my app to the appstore, now just have to start the marketing part.

the cmo definitely agrees in theory that she can deal with me going full time on this, but i seriously doubt that and think it would make things really bad.

financially i could easily live a few years without salary, but i need to support my daughter so this makes things difficult where i live.

i am thinking of leveraging kickstarter and will continue to work on this as a side hobby, but once i see any traction, i may seriously consider taking the plunge

</comment><comment><USER13> I started a company, by myself, November 2012. I'm still in business but haven't released the original intended product.

1) What was my motivation? I was tired of working for someone else, I'd had it with commuting, working with people that kept bringing diseases from their kids in daycare and hence getting colds and flus mutliple times per year, living in a state with absurd taxes and cost of living. Working hard to afford a "condo" that might be paid off once I hit 65 was beyond stupid. Oh and I wouldn't work in an "open office space" setup if you paid me $1 million a year. I don't do headphones, ever.

2) Is this idea worth my time? The idea was an iPhone game, I did complete it, but never released it. They released new phones, new ipads with new resolutions, so I was in the process of adding that capability when a consulting opportunity arose (work 100% from home). I could get into why I abandoned releasing iPhone and Android apps, but have decided to redo it in HTML5 and free myself from the rules the stores impose and cut they take. But ultimately I had decided even if my product only generated $30k a year that was good enough. To own and control my time and product was worth that drastic cut if it came down to it.

3) What have you done to validate this idea? I did research into the potential market size, I used to play a similar game on yahoo games before it was shut down and they would have 10's of thousands of players every day. I looked at similar games on iTunes that were pathetic weekend hacks that left much to be desired and they had downloads, so the market existed. And I really liked the game, still do, I play my game on an ipod touch that I hacked to an older date so the certificate never expires. My UI, and the options that I added also made it far more enjoyable to play. I had big plans for multiplayer.

4) Are there real customers for this? Yep, see above. Maybe it won't make me a millionaire, but I could live off of it.

5) Do you have the endurance for the marathon version of your company? Absolutely, I worked non stop for 2 years when I was about to release. I did not make any money during that time, in fact if I had a "real" job I would have given up. A regular job sucks away all mental energy and leaves one like an empty shell at the end of the day (at least that is my experience).

6) CMO (Chief Marital Officer)? Don't have one, did have a girlfriend back then but we lived in different cities so going for a visit was a nice vacation from the work.

7) Is quitting the right next step? As far as I'm concerned you are either all in or it's a hobby that is going nowhere. If I kept working I'd never even had developed a prototype non the less a full working product, with multiplayer server on the back end. So if you really believe in your product, quit the day job. You can't do both, period.

Where is my company now?

Well, I've gotten side-tracked with consulting business. I've never met a customer on site, I work 100% at home. They send me their devices, buy whatever compiler licenses so I can do the work. I work when I want to, so if I want to take a week off to work on a project at home, or take a trip I do.

Last year was crazy, I moved to Wyoming to drastically lower my taxes, even Nevada was not low enough. Bought a house, while taking care of multiple clients sometimes work ing 260 hours a month. Billables were just under $250k last year. Now that I'm settled in the new house, which cost less that just property tax payments in CA, I've cut back the work to maybe $150k this year, which will free me up to migrate my Objective-C app to HTML5. All the valuable code exists on the game server anyway, so no risk there.

Was it worth just quitting and going for it? Absolutely. Did it turn out exactly as planned? Not even close.

If anyone else out there is trying to decide and wants to know more about my adventure, send me an email. I'm happy to share what I've learned if it helps others to escape the rat race too...

<comment><USER14> what's your email?

<comment><USER13> I thought my email was visible in my about page... it's firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The undertones of VB jokingly writing Chief Martial Officer is pretty sad from an equality perspective IMO.

</comment><comment><USER16> These are somewhat irrelevant questions... one thing that is almost guaranteed is that your original idea will change, and all your loft projections will not come to pass.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Is quitting the right next step?

Why do all these Entrepreneurial articles and stories promote quitting and going 'All in'.

If you develop the discipline and commitment and have the 'applied faith' that your product or startup idea will succeed (based on the parameters you set for success) then you should be able to do it nights and weekends.

Even Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder didn't straight up 'Quit' and work on wordpress full time. He was still working at CNet to pay the bills, and bootstrapped Wordpress with 10,000 $ that he saved from his day job and worked on it nights and weekends.

"I quit my day job and started my own company and make a good living" stories are very very few. The media only focussed on these success stories and not the other 99% that fail and have to go back to a day job, with a mountain of debt.

<comment><USER18> Probably because most people are incapable of documenting that their work occurred off-hours and without company resources. And even if they are, their employer can still tie them up in litigation if the company ever takes off.

Working contract jobs to support your startup aspirations can make sense, but working as an FTE is pretty risky.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you ask a Chief Technology Officer? - <AUTHOR> I'm podcast interviewing CTOs who have responsibility for software development, and I'm formulating questions.<p>What would you be interested to hear from a CTO in a podcast interview? <comment><USER2> 1\. How do they keep on top of their technical debt ? 2\. How do their peers especially CFO's perceive technology investments and processes ? 3\. How they see their roles differentiating from CIO's ? 4\. Their approach to build Vs buy 5\. How do they keep abreast of Innovation and what do they invest in themselves staying upskilled ? 6\. How often do they peer review the code or spend time with developers ? 7\. What keeps them awake at night ? 8\. Views and adoption of open source 9\. What makes a good CTO in their opinion. 10\. How are they approaching diversity and inclusion 11\. How do they see the role of CTO changing in a few years ? 12\. Do they genuinely believe they have a seat at the table ( at the board level )

</comment><comment><USER3> "Ever had to let a person go? How did you handle the situation? Looking back how would you handle it now?"

"Which tools do you use for capacity planning and forecasting?"

"What's your approach to document the whole system? (bird's-eye view)"

"Do you see office IT (printers, wifi, broken mouse) as part of your job? Why, why not?"

</comment><comment><USER4> Do they have a mechanism for product/service customer feedback to actually _get to_ decisionmakers?

Daily, I see site issues, logic fails, missing features in apps and sites, but there is generally no mechanism for sharing my genius insights.

</comment><comment><USER5> CTOs of companies of what size and what level of maturity? I'd ask very different questions of a CTO of a 5-person startup than the CTO of a 50-year- old multinational that employs tens of thousands.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the most important skill for a CTO, or the most difficult skill to learn? Infra? Managing? Product?

</comment><comment><USER7> How come CTOs are "chief" technology officers, but no one else is referred to as a technology officer?

<comment><USER8> Isn't that true of most CxOs? I've always read CxO as "the corporate officer who is the chief of x" (well, with a special case for CEOs who are the chief of everything rather than the chief of executive.)</comment></comment>


Elon Musk's 'working Neuralink device will debut this Friday over a live webcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-computer-chip-ai-event-when-a9688966.html <comment><USER2> I'm interested in what his definition of 'working' is. It could be anything from moving a large block cursor around on the screen to controlling a RC car, though I am better it's closer to the cursor movement end. It also could be a brain imaging display and a neuralink device on a person and you see it pick up neurons firing - which is something medical technology has had for a while, though not in a portable form. Either way, it's a fascinating line of research and I'm glad he is putting money into it.</comment>


Jony Ive on Apple's New HQ and the Disappearing iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://www.wallpaper.com/design/jony-ive-apple-park <comment><USER2> They talk about the "disappearing" iPhone. That's the kind of thing that every designer talks about and strives for: putting the user and product first and making the design an invisible servant of that. But, unfortunately, Ive's design have been the opposite of that in the last few years. Most of his designs are about design.

The Steve Jobs Theatre is a good example. It's very impressive and looks great. But it serves the designer more than the user. It's so "perfect" that staircases would ruin it, so they are invisible. In the last iPhone event Apple employees were standing there to show people where are the stairs. That is not good design. It's a conference venue but they had put temporary desks outside for information/cards/… because it does not have a place for that. Even bathrooms are hidden because they would ruin the designer's great vision. The whole thing is very impressive, but it's bad design.

Edit: I'm not saying that Ive's a bad designer. Not at all. He's one of the best. A great example from Apple's recent works is how the lid of the new MacBook Pros opens without the keyboard part moving up. And you can do it with one finger. But, unfortunately, there are so many examples of bad design that looks good.

<comment><USER3> > Edit: I'm not saying that Ive's a bad designer. Not at all.

No, that's exactly what you're saying. Would you mind providing an example of your Platonic ideal of a designer?

<comment><USER4> And I totally agree.

I'm moving away from Apple because it's now looks over functionality.

<comment><USER5> All iOS updates fall into one of these categories:

1\. New bugs are introduced

2\. The text messaging app has some new feature or widget I'll never use adding a button to misclick or taking up more vertical space, and I need to figure out how to hide it

3\. Some stock app has been completely redesigned for no discernible reason whatsoever, and the new design is more visually appealing but renders some or all of the app completely unusable or broken in some way

4\. A new stock app has been introduced that does nothing and doesn't matter at all, and can't be removed

I can't think of a single part of any recent update to iOS that wasn't one of those 4 things.

The most recent victim of #3 is the Podcasts app. What could be simpler than this? I want to search for podcasts, maintain a list of my favorites, and then view a list of their episodes starting with the most recent.

Apparently this is no longer possible.

There's a list called "Listen Now" that's showing me episodes from weeks ago. Who the fuck knows how that list is populated, and what I'm seeing is outdated, so moving on and never looking at that list again.

Then in "Library" there's a list of "Shows." When I click on a show it shows me "My Episodes", which doesn't show me the most recent episodes, so moving on and never looking at that again. Also, what exactly is "My Episode" supposed to mean? What exactly is "mine" about an episode of a podcast?? Does this imply all the other 7 lists of podcast episodes contain episodes that aren't mine? So then whose are they?

Also in "Library" there's a list just called "Episodes." This also doesn't show me the most recent episodes as far as I can tell, and certain podcasts are missing entirely. Moving on and never looking at that again.

Below that is "Recently Updated" shows, which is identical to "Shows" except ordered by update recency. Most every podcast is constantly being updated, so this is functionally a random scramble of the Shows list. Completely pointless, moving on and never looking at that again.

All in all, there are literally 8 separate lists of podcasts and podcast episodes (outside of browse and search), and every single one of them is completely useless except Library > Shows > [Show] > (Scroll all the way to the bottom) > Available Episodes, and it's the single most deeply buried list out of all of the lists.

For the life of me I cannot understand why they're going to such great lengths to improve upon and bury a simple reverse chronological feed of episodes. You can't improve it, you don't need to improve it, nobody asked you to improve it, it's FINE. JUST SHOW ME THE EPISODE THAT HAPPENED THE MOST RECENTLY ok I'm done.

<comment><USER6> I never understood why Apple made a podcast app, there were several really good ones in the store already matching a number of different tastes. Creating their own took away from the overall environment rather than adding to it.

<comment><USER4> From what I've read, it used to be bundled into iTunes, and they wanted to simplify iTunes so they made a standalone app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like a cool building, but I wonder how much mental bandwidth designing it took up at Apple. The mac mini needs an update, they need to release a Mac Pro that is viable for video pros, and they definitely haven't sold me on their new macbook pros (without mag safe!) Also, where's the Apple equivalent to the Hololens? And what happened to all the rumors about Apple cars and Apple Smart TVs? How are they doing on creating smart home devices?

I'm not sure that they really should make cars, or TVs, but they are basically an amazing phone company at this point and that's about it. Maybe, I don't know, build an ad-free search engine and bake it into all your products so that you can give google a run for their money instead of obsessing over a $5 billion building.

Edit: I forgot about the Apple watch, which I'm a fan of.

<comment><USER8> One functional use of the building is that it will attract top employees. I would rather spend ~1/4 of my time in a really nice building than what some competitors use.

<comment><USER9> Meh, it's still open office. The campus looks nice, but design is how it works.

<comment><USER10> They go out of their way to describe the segments as "configurable" with "everything from open plan to individual offices." I makes me wonder if initial reactions caught them by surprise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those who also wondered what espionage incident this might be about, the "disappearing iPhone" seems to refer to this:

> But if Ive is a maker and industrial designer in the classic mould […] he is > also the man most responsible for making our new most essential objects all > but disappear. 'As a design team our goal has been, in some ways, to get > design out of the way. We try to define a solution that seems so inevitable > that it does recede.'

</comment><comment><USER11> Those stairs [0] are reminiscent of those hugging the wall of the reading room in the courtyard of the British Museum [1,2].

[0] [https://cdn.wallpaper.com/main/93wpr17dec118-2.jpg](https://cdn.wallpaper.com/main/93wpr17dec118-2.jpg)

[1] [http://www.thecosytraveller.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/2015/08...](http://www.thecosytraveller.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/2015/08/20150725_151217.jpg)

[2] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/British_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/British_Museum_Great_Court%2C_London%2C_UK_- _Diliff.jpg)

<comment><USER12> I wonder what material are the walls and the handrails made of?

<comment><USER13> Limestone

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Meh the new Apple HQ reminds me of everything that is wrong with modern architecture and planning. Isolated (suburban) and fake (random offices mixed with meticulously landscaped "parks").

</comment><comment><USER4> Ive both saved and is ruining Apple.

I'm eying a Surface because all the stuff Apple makes is now more about looks (not design, mind you) than functionality, and I'm totally fed up with giving a lot of money to someone who cares more about how the thing looks then if it convenient for me.

Ive or whoever designs both hardware and software there has lost touch. Most of the stuff they make puts huge compromises and sacrifices convenience to improve looks.

<comment><USER15> Switching to a Surface because you want long term quality is kind of hilarious tbh.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft- surface/microso...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft- surface/microsoft-surface-devices-fail-on-reliability-consumer-reports- idUSKBN1AQ1EP)

<comment><USER4> > Switching to a Surface because you want long term quality is kind of > hilarious tbh.

Perhaps, but I never said that. Where did you get that from?

<comment><USER16> Quality is actually a great illustration of your original point, though. Apple recently went to great lengths to redesign the MacBook keyboard for no good reason. As if compromising the key feel for many (most?) users just to shave a millimeter or two off an already very thin device wasn't enough, it turns out that the new keyboards have some serious reliability issues[1] and repairs cost $700. I think John Gruber said it best: "I find these keyboards — specifically, the tales of woe about keys getting stuck or ceasing to work properly — a deeply worrisome sign about Apple's priorities today."

While the Surface line has had its reliability issues (especially Surface 4), rumor has it that the omission of USB-C from the latest Surfaces was part of a deliberate effort to focus on refining the current design (and improving its reliability) rather than adding new features and risking creating even more issues. They also have a point that USB-C isn't quite ready for prime time and I can't say I miss it having recently switched from a MacBook to a Surface Pro.

I'm not saying that these companies should stop trying to innovate (far from it). What I'm seeing is a big difference in priorities, and I'm not a fan of Apple's of late -- too much focus on design ideals and not enough on things that actually help me get my work done.

[1] [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston- macboo...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macbook- keyboard)

<comment><USER4> My MacBook Pro keyboard would get stuck and behave erratically, and when I finally took the laptop to the Apple Store they also found out that the batter was damaged. They're replacing the whole top case.

I keep my keyboard very clean, but it's so shallow that even dust can mess up the keys. No idea what was wrong with the battery, they just said it didn't pass their tests.

I'm selling the laptop while it's still under warranty.

One would think EUR1800 are enough to buy a laptop that you can actually use because the keyboard works, but Apple don't agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ultimate disappearing trick was performed by Apple in Mac Mini design.

</comment><comment><USER18> What an amazing place to work! As much as I hate the phones designed by Jony, this building is a work of art and the people who will work here are extremely fortunate.

<comment><USER19> The people there will not work in the amazing design-chair laden paradise. The people there will work in by-the-numbers open-office meat factories (see the corner of one in one of the pictures).

Many people (including Gruber) reported the massive internal outrage Apple employees had when they learned about the actual working conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What are the acoustics like in that 4000 seat cafe?

</comment><comment><USER13> So Jony, if your goal is to get design out of the way, why the notch?

<comment><USER21> Compromise?

<comment><USER22> Throwing out the selfie cam, now that would have been a compromise and a move in the spirit of Jobs. Think different.

<comment><USER23> Ad where would the sensors for FaceID go? Or is compromise taking away a new feature too? Also, thinking in the spirit of Jobs is ritualising the process, the very antithesis of what Jobs was about! Jobs' advice to Cook was "Do what is right" - like the hockey-puck mouse…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I remember reading here on HN some time ago that some privileged teams could ask to be outside the new Apple HQ building so that they don't have to be part of the damaging open office culture.

<comment><USER25> Everyone keeps bangers by on about that. Tons of companies have open offices. I've not worked in anything else for the last 25 years. It's not like they're embarking on some unknown experiment never before imagined.

<comment><USER26> I work in an open office. I'm less productive at work than I am at home. No amount of noise cancelling headphones can counter someone tapping you on he shoulder for help.

<comment><USER6> I had that problem when I started working from home, I just made it clear when the door is shut not to disturb me unless the house is burning down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Now we know why we need to pay $1000 for iPhoneX.

<comment><USER28> i am on xiaomi and it rocks

<comment><USER29> It's also one third the speed of iPhone 8 or X. Apple's chips are ridiculously good, and worth the expense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Note how no pictures in the article show the actual work spaces where people will spend most of their time. Save for one picture showing the corner of a by-the-numbers openspace with non-ergonomic chairs

</comment><comment><USER30> They talk about the disappearing iPhone but what we all really want to hear about is Jony Ive's opinion on the disappearing taxes.

<comment><USER23> What disappearing taxes? They pay more tax than anyone else. If you are referring to tax on money they made outside of the USA, then go fish. They pay tax where they earn it. The USA is literally the only country that taxes it's business and citizens for income earned outside of its borders.

<comment><USER31> > They pay tax where they earn it.

No they don't. They employ offshore tax havens, shell companies and exploit various loop holes in order to avoid doing so. It's lawful yes. But it's immoral and unfair to smaller businesses who do pay their share. Buying an iPhone in Europe means less money for infrastructure, schools, hospitals and universities. The iPhone itself piggybacks on decades of tax funded research and development, yet Apple do not contribute back.

Apple are of course one of many corporations that employ these practices, but they are the largest and often market themselves as being ethical.

<comment><USER23> [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about- apple...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about-apple-tax- payments/)

<comment><USER31> Not surprisingly, most information on this is outside apple.com:

[http://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/06/apple- secretly-m...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/06/apple-secretly- moved-jersey-ireland-tax-row-paradise-papers)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Everyone Missed the Most Important Invention in the Last 500 Years - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169 <comment><USER2> I believe blockchain is an idea that will contribute to a better world but this 'blockchain' phenomena is being oversold. Like the concept of Internet, Facebook, Google, Amazon came out from the age of Internet. We should stop selling blockchain like selling the concept of Internet. Instead we should focus on finding the use cases or business model on top of blockchain.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's about triple-entry accounting, not about blockchain. However they have an intersection.</comment></comment>


Why Vitamins May Be Bad for Your Workout - <AUTHOR> https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/why-vitamins-may-be-bad-for-your-workout/ <comment><AUTHOR> Forgot to put (2014) in title.

<comment><USER2> The Edit link should still be active.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do we really need real-time social networks? - <AUTHOR>

Facebook and twitter have put a lot of engineering effort into making their services real-time. You get the notification of a like the second another person clicks the button. You see comments (almost) immediately after they are published. You get tweets immediately.<p>But is that needed? Won't it be nearly the same if things happened with 30 or 60 seconds delay? (apart from the chat, of course). Would such a delay be a deal-breaker? <comment><USER2> A web site is a canvas. You paint, and visitors touch. If all you want to show is one frame of video, which is a static image, that is your prerogative. If the goal of your canvas is to get people to socialize, then it is to your advantage to minimize friction when people attempt to socialize. Why make your audience wait for the show they are there to see? In your question you have elevated the importance of real-time chat above that of posting and commenting, but I say all these concepts are the same. It's just engagement. Invert the question: Under what circumstances should you delay your audience from the goal of your canvas?

</comment><comment><USER3> Leads to more activity, good for the company

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://java.dzone.com/articles/future-not-real-time-0></comment>