Cold calling for my startup and how I learned to embrace the challenge - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/cold-calling-for-my-startup-and-how-i-learned-to-embrace-the-challenge-31f16728de48 <comment><USER2> I hate _getting_ cold calls. So I avoid doing it to other people.

Yes that makes me less of a salesman. So be it.

Tangent: In India you can report unsolicited sales calls to a central (government) authority, where you can sign up to get on a "Do Not Disturb" list, and get any sales caller who ignores this fined, and eventually get his number disconnected etc.

The system isn't perfect, and there are some impressive hacks to bypass it, but the situation now is _much_ better than before these regulations existed. Where one used to get multiple spammers a day, now weeks and months can go by before getting one (who I promptly report). My number must be on some shared "cranky idiot who hates cold callers" list, I almost never get these calls now.

A minister was interrupted in parliament while presenting the annual national budget (iirc) by someone who wanted to sell him a credit card(!), which led to this regulation.

And it is a godsend. Cold callers should all burn in hellfire (imo)

<comment><USER3> Are you an entrepreneur? Have you built a business? When things are done to extreme sure.. the slimy salesman or the spammy robo-calls are a nuisance.

Take a list of the world's 400 billionaires and ask them who has NOT Cold- Called?

My guess is its less than 10. Or to put it another may, most successful people Cold-called, their "heros" or experts in their field or successful people in town etc.

So I disagree the way you put cold-calling.

If you want to start a business, I strongly suggest you to change you attitude towards Sales. Unfortunately, Engineers have this unjustified hate towards Sales, not every sales pitch or call is unethical or pushy.

<comment><USER4> Yes, all cold calling is horrible and unethical. Whether or not it works is besides the point.

<comment><USER5> This is an interesting perspective. I agree that some types of cold-calling are terrible, like if you sell credit cards and just randomly call anyone who might want a credit card. This is untargeted, and if everyone who sold general-purpose goods did it, we'd all be inundated.

In the B2B context, things seem a little different, especially for startups who have products that are not known. If you work in a particular field and someone calls you to tell you about their new product that is relevant to your company and your specific role, that seems much less terrible than the untargeted calling described above. And in some cases, you may actually be glad that you were called. I don't think it's fair to say that "all cold calling is horrible and unethical", since it can be done in very targeted ways. And small startups in particular (who are here on HN) often try to cold- call in as targeted a way as possible—because when you're spending CEO time on the phone, you're very sensitive to wasting anyone's time.

At the end of the day, it comes down to balancing the benefits to people who are glad you called and the detriment to people whose time you wasted. If you're not targeted, you're likely a net negative to society. If you're very targeted (as many small startups are), there's a much greater chance you're a net positive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you cold-call me, I will spend the first few minutes feeding you false information. I will deliberately drag out the process, and at about 12min into the call, I will confess that I've been faking everything. At this point, I will attempt to tilt you so that you lose your temper and start cursing at me. On a really good day, you'll be so angry that your manager will have to come onto the call. I will feed them a few minutes of fake information, then attempt to tilt them as well. On the best days, you and your manager will sit around a reverse phone book and dox me, looking to find ways to intimidate or control me while I laugh and attempt to keep you on the line. My record is 52min, lasting over multiple phone calls, ending in a dramatic reading of a maths paper over the phone to a speakerphone consisting of three levels of management.

I want your business to fail if you cold-call.

<comment><USER7> Lol. You do realize that you are wasting your time, not mine?

My business succeeds BECAUSE of cold calls. So your drop in the ocean matters not.

<comment><USER8> How many cold calls can you make per day?

What if they're 52 minutes long?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One useful tip I got from a friend in sales: open the call with an offer to set up a call at a more convenient time. It seems strange to immediately ask for another call, but it is really helpful in showing that you're friendly/flexible, and you recognize that the person you're calling is busy.

About 30% of the time, the person was happy to chat in the moment (they had chosen to answer a call from an unknown number, after all). And the rest of the time, you benefit from setting up a time that is more convenient for them. Some of the time you end up never having the later call—but it seems this happens where there wasn't a great fit to begin with, so it actually saves you time talking to an unlikely lead.

<comment><USER9> This is a great technique.

1\. Ask if they have 30 seconds to chat.

2\. If they say no, ask for another time that works better. People are polite, so many will not say no. Schedule this time immediately and have them confirm on the calendar right away.

3\. If they say yes, immediately start asking them empathetic questions that demonstrate knowledge of their problems, followed by, "Does any of this resonate with you?"

<comment><USER8> Being honest, what I would do: schedule a time for the call back and make sure to not pick up the phone at that time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cold calls like will likely get forwarded to our internal extension that relays to "Lenny". The longest we've had someone on the line talking to the bot is currently at 8:37 on the leaderboard. :D

<comment><USER7> I don't understand this. Say you're not interested and move on. Being a dick to someone trying to earn a living says a lot about your character. And I promise, the sales rep doesn't care. Their job is dials and talk time. Your bot is helping them reach their daily quota.

<comment><USER11> Cold calling people you have no previous relationship with is a dick move. Lenny just helps some people return the favor.

419 scammers are "just trying to earn a living" too.

<comment><USER7> I call people I don't know all the time because I have something valuable to offer and want to share that with them. It's no different than any form of advertising....its just more direct. Put another way, if I could call you today and offer you a service or product that solved a big problem you have for a fair renumeration you would be thankful.

<comment><USER11> Other forms of advertising don't make my office phone ring while I'm in the middle of something, or make my home phone ring while I'm eating dinner to ambush me. Cold calling makes e-mail spammers look polite by comparison.

Also, despite the fact that I despise and block everything the internet ad industry throws at me, that industry arguably provides something in return for the trouble of putting up with their bullshit. Cold calling provides me with absolutely nothing beyond a rude interruption of my day at best.

I don't care what you're offering, because I subconsciously tag anything associated with cold calling as a scam and file it in the same mental folder as that "free cruise" I "won".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cold calling is wildly effective. It just takes making more than 2 calls a week. I tell my team "get 100 on the phone without selling something and I'll give you $100" been doing that for years and have never paid a rep the $100.

<comment><USER12> Eh... I'm not sure about "wildly effective." A few years ago I started a business and cold called for several hours each day for the first four months. I didn't make a single sale, and I'm told I have an excellent phone presence.

What succeeded for me was SEO, direct mail, and email campaigns. I still had to do sales pitches, but I was working off warm leads from people that actually wanted to hear from me.

I'm not saying cold calling doesn't work. I'm saying it's an inefficient use of time. Yes, some people will buy, but there are far more efficient ways of reaching potential clients.

<comment><USER7> It wasn't wildly effective for you, over four months, for your product/service to the specific people you called at the price you offered. A valid data point for sure, but far from empirical.

<comment><USER13> No true cold caller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cold calling is not for me. I hate even answering email or inbound communication.

One thing I've realized working on my own is that you can do anything you want. You don't have to do the thing you hate the most to make progress. It will feel draining, feel like more work, and be less productive than focusing on where you are strong.

<comment><USER15> You've made a living being self-employed and by doing exactly what you want to do?

Is that it?

How do you accomplish that without communicating with others?

<comment><USER14> Yes. I find projects that do not require much human communication. Some is fine.

You always have to do things you don't like when building a business. I'm just saying don't make something you don't like part of your scaling strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cold calling me is a guaranteed way to prevent yourself from ever getting my business, and I know I'm not alone in that. My subconscious automatically tags companies that cold call as scams.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I have to say I fall into this bucket.

Most of the cold calls I get are, in fact, scams— so to save myself agony and time-out-of-life, that's the category it goes into for me.

\--

Two shorts:

Number one:

I regularly get rotating numbers calling from scam credit collection agencies (second-tier, purchased bad loans allegedly). I regularly now get called for somebody who isn't me, and they're always threatening. Though my favourite was receiving a threatening call once about 'urgent business matters' that pertained to me owing a significant amount of money in outstanding debt to the company I currently work for, and hold accounts with. Ridiculous. That's the camp cold calls fall under for me.

Number two, and so much more infuriating:

a major telecom company held a sales campaign in the lobby of my _apartment building_. For a week! Every day when I arrived home I would be confronted by two or three sales people to try and convince me to change internet providers. And god they were persistent. Even worse, two of the four elevators were down so most of the people in the building were sitting ducks who couldn't very well escape. Couldn't even deal with the doorman to pick up a package without one sidling up to try and sell to me while I was in a conversation.

Just thinking about it grinds me. If I need something, I will look to buy it. If I recognize inefficiency in my day or workflow or whatever—I will pursue a solution. If I am unhappy with how much I'm paying for internet or some other service, I will try to find something better.

What I don't want is to be confronted and put on the spot when I'm not actively seeking to do business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cold calling is an extremely effective strategy for us. Most important lesson I learned building our SDR program is that nobody natively likes cold calling so to do it well, it needs to be their only job.

When I had account managers that had to do their own cold calling they greatly underperformed. When I had someone whose only job was to cold call and book demos which were then closed by account managers one person was getting more meetings than all my account managers combined.

Some people don't like getting cold calls, I personally don't mind and the number of people that don't mind statistically out number the ones who do. We have tons of data to support this. I highly recommend evaluating this as a strategy in any B2B customer acquisition program.

<comment><USER17> > the number of people that don't mind (cold calls) statistically out number > the ones who do. We have tons of data to support this. I highly recommend > evaluating this as a strategy in any B2B customer acquisition program.

I don't doubt it's a good strategy, but I doubt most people actually "don't mind". What kind of data do you have to support your claim?

If you replace "don't mind" with "tolerate", I would find it more believable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cold calling can be extremely effective if you can make yourself do it. Some years ago I did that for a few weeks to promote a piece of software I wrote and I made a ton of interesting connections. Not just for my product but there are a lot of small business owners who are very willing to discuss business in general and you can gain a lot of business ideas that way. It can be very exhausting though if you don't enjoy talking a lot or take rejection personally.

</comment><comment><USER19> Are there any good resources on who to call and where to get phone numbers? Obviously it should be potential customers, but should it be the CTO of the company if it is tech product for example? And how do you get their phone number?

<comment><USER7> Yes. But you don't need them. You need Google, LinkedIn, a spreadsheet and time. Calling the main line of 99% of companies will get you to the person you are looking for. The other 1% are multibillion dollar companies that aren't going to buy from you.

<comment><USER20> Actually, multibillion dollar companies make the best customers, because they won't balk at a $400,000 contract, they'll expect it.</comment></comment></comment>


A Peek Inside a 400G Cisco Network Chip - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/09/14/rare-peek-inside-400g-cisco-network-chip/ <comment><USER2> As impressive as this is, it's likely 3-4 generations back from what's currently shipping. It's a switch-on-chip (SoC) set up for 12.5 Gbit SerDes. As pointed out elsewhere, it might have been deployed for 16 10G front panel ports, another 160G to a backplane ASIC and some of the remaining ports for control plane use.

Reading between the lines a bit it might have been used in one of the Nexus 5K's - which would put it at around 8 years old, depending on how we're counting.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't the fact that it's using a 22nm processor mean that 8 years is at least a couple years too far?

<comment><USER2> Possibly, but it's in the right neighborhood. It depends on whether we're counting from the time of design/initial fabrication or actual mass production and general sale.

The point is that 12.5Gb/s SerDes pretty much means they'd be practically to 10/40G. At least in the DC networking world this puts it several generations back.

<comment><USER4> NPUs are not used in data centers. They don't need the expensive but totally flexible network processing capabilities. Think carrier and enterprise access networks that have lower Ethernet bandwidth requirements, but higher processing requirements per packet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised that there's even a processor (as in a Turing-complete machine) in those ASICs at all --- at those speeds, I would've expected more along the lines of lots of hardcoded switching circuitry with any programmability restricted to lookup tables and configuration registers, closer to an FPGA than CPU in concept. Certainly, a lot of slower switch ASICs are designed as hardcoded switches; here's one example:

[https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...](https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/ethernet- switch-fm2112-datasheet.pdf)

<comment><USER6> That's not because it's slower; that's because it's the low-end (non- programmable) member of its family. It was designed by a company called Fulcrum, which produced the FocalPoint FM2000/FM3000/FM4000 (1/10G) and FM5000/FM6000 (10G/40G) switching ASICs before being acquired by Intel.

I think that a comparison to the FM4000, which is the programmable series of parts in the "Monaco" family, would be more fair. Here's their datasheet: [https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...](https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/ethernet- switch-fm4000-datasheet.pdf)

The FocalPoint ASICs were, as far as I know, some of the first to support (a demo-quality implementation of) OpenFlow in hardware. When Intel bought them, they released the datasheets, which is neat.

As a real-world example, these ASICs were used in Arista's 7100 series (c. 2008) switches. They published a two-part "Technical Evaluation Guide" for those switches which are, among other things, an interesting glance at how switches are constructed out of ASICs. Part 1 ([https://local.com.ua/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&...](https://local.com.ua/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=6518)) shows the topology of each switch (starting on page 13).

The 7124 is a single 24-port FM4224 with all 24 ports connected to front-panel ports. The 7148S has three FM4224 ASICs; each is connected to 16 front-panel ports and uses 4 ports (40 Gb/s) to connect to each of the other two ASICs in a ring. Intuitively, this means that it's possible that those inter-ASIC connections could cause bottlenecks (if e.g. all 16 ports connected to the first ASIC try to send 160 Gbit/s of traffic to the 16 connected to the second ASIC, they'll saturate the 40 Gbit/s of connectivity between the ASICs). Therefore, Arista also offered the 7148SX, which is non-blocking but needs six (!) FM4224s to make it happen!

<comment><USER5> The FM4000 doesn't appear to have an actual programmable CPU either; just the same "lots of lookup tables and configuration registers" (but more of them.)

<comment><USER7> The most interesting thing about the FMxxxx chips was the pipeline was async.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That number seems stupendous but I don't know enough to know that. My very casual understanding was that 100G was state of the art.

<comment><USER9> 100G has been around for a while and not that common in usage, other than extreme cases. 10g and 40G are still the most widely used ports. Considering that most switches and routers have a minimum 10-20 ports (10g-40g), that's already a stupendous amount of BW - and on routers, you can always add more cards. 100g routers/switches are very expensive.

Unless you are pushing google/facebook/Comcast level traffic - there are very few use cases. Apparently, Google/Facebook uses their own network hardware.

<comment><USER2> This isn't really true in the market today. 100G switches have emerged at roughly the same cost per port as 40G from a couple of years ago and, indeed, can often accept both 40 and 100 gig optics. Even at list price the cost per port for 100G switching has been under $1K for more than a year.

As a result it's actually fairly common to find new DC fabrics (read: inter- switch connections, not end hosts) being built with 100G because there's no significant economic disadvantage to doing so. That said, the pricing for inter-site 100G is still high enough that it hasn't commonly made its way to smaller organizations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The processor complex on this unnamed NPU has 672 processors, each with four > threads per core.

Very cool.

<comment><USER11> My favorite bit:

 _L2 instruction cache that also has an on-chip interconnect that links the clusters and caches to each other as well as packet storage, accelerators, on- chip memories, and DRAM controllers together. This interconnect runs at 1 GHz and has more than 9 Tb /sec of aggregate bandwidth_

I keep seeing elephant guns and experimental German artillery when I read that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is Cisco still using TCAM instead of HBM/HMC like Juniper?

<comment><USER13> (t)cam is specialized hardware for doing content based lookups. specifically, they are used for parallel table searching based on comparator values...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ok this is uncanny, I just commented on the need for something similar yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15244655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15244655)

I wish I could set up a notification of some kind to know when someone gets Erlang/Elixir running on this chip. It would be a great platform for stress- testing Go concurrency as well.

Beyond that, I would really like to see Octave running on it because it's the only approachable vector programming language that I know of. The holy grail for me is to be able to use something like the MATLAB libraries at 1000 times their current speed to simulate the interesting stuff.

<comment><USER15> You should instead look out for the 1024 core epiphany. It's a streaming processor so it may not perform as well on random memory access and there is no cache hierarchy but it's very close to your previous comment about "Something on the order of 256 or more 1 GHz MIPS, ARM, or even early PowerPC processors."

<comment><USER14> That's really cool, thank you! I would actually prefer a cacheless architecture like that because I don't think it really has a place in streaming or message-passing paradigms like Erlang or Go (it can still be relevant within the local address space of each process though, but I don't feel that the gain is worth it in most cases). Plus the problem space is still large so it might be better to let people discover alternative approaches to data locality like map reduce/sharding, copy on write and content-addressable memory.

I spent my teens writing blitters for shareware games and found that even then, the cache mostly got in the way. Processors like the PowerPC 603e had a pretty substantial cache miss penalty that was on the order of 5-20% for me depending on the situation. It was difficult to come up with appropriate cache hints for even relatively minor random access. I tried disabling the cache, but that made it even slower than a 601. So that's where my head is at, and the Epiphany sounds perfect. Here's a quick link for anyone curious:

[https://www.parallella.org/2016/10/05/epiphany- v-a-1024-core...](https://www.parallella.org/2016/10/05/epiphany- v-a-1024-core-64-bit-risc-processor/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there an e-commerce service offers "Bill Monthly" capabilities? - <AUTHOR>

Building a freemium e-commerce site and am looking to have monthly recurring payments... Is there some platform that manages this? I'm new to e-commerce, so thanks! <comment><USER2> Stripe is often cited as a good one -- lots of libraries you can hook into regardless of your programming language, and no CC information is stored on your servers (helpful to meet compliance laws).

I haven't used it myself, but it's where I will turn when I start building out an application I'm working on to include payments.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am familiar with Stripe but didn't realize this was within their capabilities. Will check out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Recurly is something that I have heard rave reviews about. There is also a guide to using Rails with Recurly that is pretty sweet and speaks of an easy integration.

</comment><comment><USER4> recurly.com

memberful.com

spacebox.io

<comment><AUTHOR> You are 100% awesome!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you ensure a good battery lifespan on modern laptop/tablets? - <AUTHOR> I can't seem to find a consensus on this. Maybe some battery tech experts lurking on HN can chime in. :)
Specifically, if you use a laptop primarily at home, in place of a desktop, do you leave it plugged 24/7, or is it a better idea to let it run on its battery for a while every day, even if you're not going anywhere?
Does leaving a laptop or tablet permanently plugged-in help its battery's lifespan or harm it?
For reference, I'm asking for the newer MacBooks and iPad Pros. <comment><USER2> My intuition is that a using the device normally (whatever that means) is more likely to produce better battery life than whatever scheme might work in theory because the design of the battery and charging system is tuned to normal use cases and the engineers have control of parameters directly rather than indirectly.

</comment><comment><USER3> one thing i know for sure: permanently plugged in definitly harms the battery's lifespan</comment>


Toward Copyleft Equality for All - <AUTHOR> https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality/ <comment><USER2> The premise of this post is that dual-licensing --- offering a piece of serverside or on-prem commercial software under (A)GPL terms, with a proprietary license available for firms that want unrestricted usage --- is "seedy". It's not clear to me how that premise is justified, and Kuhn's claim that the model has failed to increase software freedom seems totally unjustified.

At the heart of Kuhn's argument about "seediness" seems to be CLAs, which is where a third-party developer using software under FOSS terms is asked to sign the rights to their modifications over to the original vendor. If CLAs were coercive, this would indeed be seedy: FOSS developers would be getting baited into contributing to commercial products. But CLAs aren't coercive; the AGPL requires only that you meet the requirements of the license itself, not that you sign away your rights to your own modifications. People sign CLAs because they want their modifications upstreamed, and to avoid maintaining forks, not because they're legally required to do so.

Meanwhile, the kinds of software we talk about when we talk about the AGPL are overwhelmingly things that used to be (and in some cases in large part still are) closed source proprietary products. It's a little hard to imagine a closed source distributed database taking off in 2020; 20-30 years ago, to use Kuhn's framing, the opposite statement would have been more valid.

Fundamentally, software offered under the AGPL is almost always developed under the model of a single commercial vendor doing most of the heavy lifting, and, usually, all of the initial lift in getting a piece of software to the point of viability. It's hard to see how these vendors are taking something from the community by releasing their products under the AGPL when their alternatives would certainly be either a fully closed-source proprietary release, or no release at all. Kuhn writes as if licensing and advocacy decisions determine the economics of software development, but if the last 30 years has been an experiment conclusively demonstrating anything, it's that --- at least for the kinds of serverside code we're talking about --- no matter how you license it, companies paying software developers are what gets software built.

I have strong opinions only about the AGPL; I don't pretend to fully understand the ramifications of MongoDB's SS GPL, nor do I support the SS GPL unreservedly.

<comment><USER3> > People sign CLAs because they want their modifications upstreamed, and to > avoid maintaining forks, not because they're legally required to do so.

This is still coercive though. It is the big party using their power to get developers to give up their rights.

Notably, by giving up these rights, it becomes possible for the party to go against the FOSS principles that were the reason copy-left was invented.

<comment><USER4> Also, CLAs are yet another stumbling block for contributors. Many people that could easily contribute to a regular GPL/BSD project per company guidelines might be prevented from doing by the need to effectively sign a contract or might need to involve comapny legal department.

<comment><USER2> Remember the context here. Yes, commercially-owned AGPL projects that require CLAs are not especially easy to contribute to. FOSS projects can be more or less easy to contribute to for lots of reasons, and most of those reasons aren't "seedy". I'd argue that in most cases, the CLA case isn't "seedy" either: the commercial sponsor funds most of the work; the project isn't an elaborate scheme to get free dev cycles from the community, but rather trades access to code (and the potential for a hostile fork) for greater adoption. That seems like a trade that Kuhn should welcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This reminded me of the agreement between Qt and KDE, where if Qt is ever made proprietary, KDE can publish Qt under the BSD license:

[http://www.olafsw.de/a-better-qt-because-of-open-source- and-...](http://www.olafsw.de/a-better-qt-because-of-open-source-and-kde/) [https://old.reddit.com/r/QtFramework/comments/e9376a/trouble...](https://old.reddit.com/r/QtFramework/comments/e9376a/troublesome_development_about_relicensing_qt/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755337)

<comment><USER5> Indeed that Qt-KDE "treaty" was an inspiration for the feature of copyleft- next that bkuhn lauds in this article.

<comment><USER6> Any additional reading on the Qt-KDE treaty that you would recommend?

<comment><USER7> [https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php](https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php)

[http://www.olafsw.de/a-better-qt-because-of-open-source- and-...](http://www.olafsw.de/a-better-qt-because-of-open-source-and-kde/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _The essence in non-legalese is this: If you offer a license that isn 't a > copyleft license, the copyleft provisions collapse and the software is now > available to all under a non-copyleft, hyper-permissive FOSS license._

Why would anyone choose this?

It must be for the sake of giving the downstream users some sort of assurance that a Bad Thing won't happen to them, as a sort of promise.

"If we ever commercialize this, we will give all of you the opportunity to do the same."

It seems that the only authors for whom it would make sense to choosing this license would be authors who have no intention of going mixed proprietary licensing now, or in the future. Moreover, authors who believe in copyleft FOSS licenses and want to keep the project that way.

Someone who chooses that license knowing they will likely issue proprietary versions might as well skip straight to a simpler BSD-style license that is implied in that action.

Someone who doesn't believe in copyleft FOSS would also just skip this sort of thing and give the users the "hyper-permissive" license.

No matter what promises a copyright holder makes, they can retract them. However, at least this will be in force for users who hold existing copies. So that is to say, if the authors decide to commercialize and switch to Affero GPL, then only the new issues of the software going forward will be bound by that AGPL; the existing users will have the "hyper-permissive" license for the code up to that point.

<comment><USER9> I am guessing that now the software can't be included in something else that uses "predatory copyleft".

And those derivative works do not have the option to use a less restrictive license that allows such behavior.

Not sure of this though.

<comment><USER8> Ah, good thinking.

But is that true? Basically, the license is copyleft now, but if certain conditions occur in the future, it will become BSD-like (let's go with that designation for familiarity).

Thus, the license is effectively (copyleft | BSD).

A project which uses regular old predatory copyleft can therefore use it now and continue to use it, whichever way it plays out.

<comment><USER9> Confusing. I'll be interested to see this explained to mortals.

But I would assume that derived works could not choose to use the code as BSD - it's not "choice of copyleft or BSD" it's "copyleft unless you try to do something shady."

Somehow..?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Two standout points from this essay:

1\. I've long heard that various SaaS companies _really didn 't like_ the Affero General Public License. Kuhn makes a case for why this is a validly justified concern, something I'd not previously considered.

2\. The copyleft restriction termination is a _really_ interesting concept, though not without its own set of consequences which should be closely examined. Historically, the advantage of copyleft has been that it applies equally to all. The abuse of it (by firms also marketing properietary solutions) is a problem, but removing copyleft obligations entirely might not go as intended.

3\. Copyright assignments to copylefted codebases without an explicit restriction of those to require copyleft-only usage, a distinction which differentiates strongly between the uses at, say, FSF vs. MySQL AG / Oracle, clearly also present issues, as has long been argued.

<comment><USER8> That Affero license doesn't seem very useful, because if you depend on code running on someone else's server, it doesn't help you if you have an honest copy of the source code that is actually running on it. You still don't control it. You can't make changes and deploy it to that server, or update it yourself, etc..

Free, open-source software is about control: controlling what code manipulates your data.

In short, it seems that the license really doesn't really do much of substance for the user, and just saddles the operator with extra burdens.

<comment><USER10> The Affero license gives you _precisely_ the rights to the _code_. No, it doesn't give you rights to the _server_ the code runs on, but you can spin up your own server (often little more than a RaPi box, possibly more at scale), avoiding lock-in based on software alone.

But it obliges you to provide or make available those changes if the use will "propogate" the work.

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html)

<comment><USER8> If I spin my own server, why would I care what anyone else has done with their server, code-wise? Does everyone in the world who has publicly installed that server owe me a copy of their source code, even if what I run and use is strictly my own server built from the upstream code?

By the way, the AGPL3 definition of "propagate" looks exactly the same as that of the the regular GPL3. Operating software as a server doesn't fall under "propagate".

<comment><USER10> If you're _competing_ with a service, it means that you're not going to suffer disadvantage based on the coding / development capabilities of your competitor. What they produce is going to be something that's available to your own deployment.

For self-service, this means that you're not locked out of the development capabilities of the service you've left -- though that arguably creates a free-rider problem for that service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe that this is arguing from a false premise: the reason that companies despise the AGPL is not, I think, that they fear that they fear accidentally violating copyleft and thus being forced to buy a proprietary license but rather than they simply want to have their cake and eat it too: copyleft for thee but not for me. They want to use software for free but not grant the rights they received to their own users.

Thus a provision reverting to a BSD-style license in case of proprietary licensing would, I believe, do nothing to encourage them to use it in the first place.

<comment><USER12> In my experience, the copyleft provisions of the AGPL are misunderstood by just about everyone to be much more viral than they really are. E.g. "if there is some AGPL software on a workstation or server, we might have to release all source code in the company!"

I wouldn't be surprised if MongoDB has been spreading FUD for years to cause this.

<comment> munk-a I agree with this, AGPL is aimed to be comprehensible in its permissiveness, but most folks don't know AGPL from GPL and, even with AGPL, there are ways to have infectious copy-left licensing if the raw binaries are directly linked into an application.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The toxicity of this business model has only become apparent in hindsight.

I'm glad that Bradley is drawing critical attention to this issue.

> efforts to draft even more restrictive software copyleft licenses

A non-free "copyleft" license is not worthy of the name and is a problem because it is non-free, not because of "copyleft".

> The clause still needs work

The _license_ needs work,it seems to treat copyleft as a form of punishment for authors to be tolerated for a while rather than as a strategy to permanently protect the freedom of all software users.

> a basic approach to incorporating similar copyleft equality clauses into > written exceptions for existing copyleft licenses, such as the Affero GPL

These clauses can and will be removed by downstream users for any alterations or additions they make to the software in order to provide it to their cloud- based users. This will redouble the downstream use dynamics that VC-funded "open source" projects, some of the heaviest users of abusive CLAs, whine about.

<comment><USER8> Downstream users cannot remove clauses put in place by the copyright holder, even for alterations that they make, because those are derived works. A pure addition that you make to a copylefted program is your copyright; you have to license it in a way which is compatible with that program, but otherwise it can be anything. E.g. you can add 2-Clause-BSD-licensed code to a GPL-ed program and then redistribute that to your own downstream users. The GPL still applies to the thing as a whole; users can use just your portion alone under its BSD license (like borrow the code into another program).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm torn. On one side I do like this idea, on the other hand I don't see a practical way to work on exploratory open source software in some areas where your effort (even if it actually ends up delivering value to somebody) will be rewarded adequately. The existing models (open core, support contracts, donations, ...) may work here and there (although some of those would be invalidated by this suggestion), but compared to a traditional strategy just writing proprietary code it's quite a bit more difficult to make money. And I reckon that is difficult enough as it is...

<comment><USER15> I don't think anyone suggested that it should be easy to make money that way. It was and likely will always be more difficult. Which doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

<comment><USER14> Of course nobody suggested that, that's far off the point I was trying to make. If it's harder to do, less people will do it. Whereas I'd like the opposite to happen. If you take away the option to dual-license, it becomes harder still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I see a few comments in here, and have seen similar comments in similar topics in other threads, saying that they dont understand why anyone would choose this over other FOSS licenses. These questions are asked from a developer- centric perspective. FOSS never has been, and never will be, developer- centric. Free as in freedom software was created to be USER-centric. The whole point is to take power AWAY from the developer, because otherwise the balance is always in the developer's favor. The benefit for the developer is that developers are also users, so they in turn benefit from others releasing the software as FOSS, both as libraries to write better software with and as programs used in day to day computing.

Any issues companies have with FOSS licenses is entirely on them, assuming they arent one of the few who actively contributes to and fights for FOSS. MongoDB doesn't like competition from Amazon? Understandable. But don't play the victim and then turn around and screw everyone who isn't Amazon over with a license change. Maybe instead you could take some of your shake-down money and put it to good use by lobbying against these monopolistic conglomarates in the valley so that they can't use their overreaching power to screw you with your own code. Maybe instead, you could encourage ALL developers to start using copyleft licenses, instead of the weaker licenses everyone loves to throw on their project these days. Because those weaker licenses are somewhat to blame for this too. What good is a FOSS program if its just going to lead to more proprietary software? How does that help anyone? There's a reason most of the big tech monopolies release most of the open source code they do produce under non-copyleft licenses. Its not because they love FOSS, its so that they can pay lip service to the community and then use it with their the proprietary programs we're so concerned about them surveiling us with. Of course, the retort to all of this is "developers need to eat to, how can we make money off of copyleft?" I have two answers, one thats snarky but possibly helpful and one that's honest but possibly rude, and hopefully enlightening. The first answer is "Ask Qt." "Ask Blender." "Ask Redhat." Ask one of the many companies that do buisiness while still releasing their main software under a FOSS license. They all seem to be doing pretty well. The second answer is that I don't care how or even if you make money. Thats not the reason you release something as FOSS. Never has been, never will be. If you release software as FOSS, its because you believe that there should be a balance of power between developers and users. Its because you believe that sharing information and knowledge is the best way we can improve quality of life for ourselves and those around us. If you can't make those ideals your biggest priority even in the face of financial loss, frankly don't even bother releasing your software as FOSS. I'd rather your software be proprietary. That way I'll know to avoid it and we won't have to waste eachothers time.</comment>


Backbone.js: Hacker's Guide Part 3 - <AUTHOR> http://dailyjs.com/2012/08/02/mvstar-4/

<comment><USER2> Some additional stuff on Backbone's router and the history api support:

Essentially the history is "hashless hash url". This is fine, and a convenient use-case. It makes moving to the history api smooth, and allows some cool stuff on the backend too. However, if you want your app to go with the "progressive enhancement" style, rather than the "graceful degradation" style of development, you will have to essentially write your own router. This is because Backbone will revert to hash urls if pushState is not supported.

This is not a bad thing, but it is sort of a gotcha. It would be nice to see an alternate router that does "gradual enhancement" style handling[1].

I understand the argument that Backbone is really really aimed at single page apps, but at the same time, it is so useful as a general app framework that this use-case can't be uncommon.

[1] So what I mean is: you have a page that has content that you would like to pull from an api - click a link and the javascript gets the data. It renders the content and pushState()'s the url to the correct place -- bookmarkable etc. But if someone is browsing the site sans javascript or pushState, I don't want the link to be to a hash, I just want it to do a full page request from the server. Links and urls don't change, just some details of how the client handles them. Further, if you want to do this style of development, but have some extra features (e.g. for admins, certain users, whatever) that make sense with hash urls and requiring javascript, you now have a total mess with the router, unless you manually do the gradual enhancement anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, that's incorrect.

You can opt-in to the "graceful degradation" style of routing by using:

        Backbone.history.start({
          pushState: true,
          hashChange: false
        });

... which will route URLs using pushState where available, and will run full- page loads where pushState is not supported.

It's a pretty rare use case for a Backbone app that needs a router, but it's definitely supported.

<comment><USER2> I am aware of those settings, but they behaved unpredictably last time I tried to use them. They may have improved since.

Further, it just plain doesn't handle the case where you want to have hash urls and push-state urls in the same page. [1] The History object is a singleton, so you can't have different routers for different tasks, without getting into the embedded backbone stuff, which is complicated enough that just writing your own router for pushState and keeping the default hash routes for Backbone routers is simpler.

[1] Yes I know someone will come along and tell me how horrible my design must be, but here's the thing: hash urls are great for some things, particularly when you DON'T want the server side to know about WTF is happening with internal page state, while at the same time you want to be able to handle the back button nicely. Different tools, different jobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Virtru, A Secure Email App Built By An Ex-NSA Engineer, Raises $6M  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/virtru-a-secure-email-app-built-by-an-ex-nsa-engineer-raises-6m/

<comment><USER2> I hate to state the obvious but...is anyone going to want to use a product generated by NSA employees? Their crypto skills aside?</comment>


Little Known Ways to Ruby Mastery by Jay Fields - <AUTHOR> http://rubylearning.com/blog/2008/10/21/little-known-ways-to-ruby-mastery-by-jay-fields/

<comment><USER2> Jay was my colleague in a previous job and while I don't agree with everything he says he always has interesting things to say.

I particularly liked this part.

"A long time ago someone started telling people that they should be specializing generalists (sorry, I can't remember who to attribute there). It was good advice, but the sheep only heard "generalist". These days there's loads of programmers who know a bit of everything. Which is good, but they aren't deep in anything. They keep selling the idea of knowing a little of everything as a good thing, because they are a generalist. I'm not buying.

I prefer to compose teams of true specializing generalists. For example, if I'm building a Flex front end over a RESTful Rails application, I want everyone to be familiar with Flex, Ruby, ActionScript, REST, SQL, etc. But, I also want at least one team member to be deep with each of the key elements. I'm talking seriously deep. I want them to be so deep that they annoy the team with their "too detailed" explanations of what's going on and what needs to be done. Those guys drive innovation in their area of expertise, and the app is significantly better because of their low-level understanding."

</comment><comment><USER3> Jay Fields also has an excellent collection of blog posts on Ruby particularly useful stuff when you are looking into doing better Ruby testing.

Some I have found interesting <http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/09/rails-how-we- test.html> [http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/11/ruby-testing-private- metho...](http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/11/ruby-testing-private-methods.html) [http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/05/ruby-unit-testing- delegati...](http://blog.jayfields.com/2007/05/ruby-unit-testing- delegations.html) [http://blog.jayfields.com/2008/01/testing-one-expectation- pe...](http://blog.jayfields.com/2008/01/testing-one-expectation-per- test.html)</comment>


What's new in WordPress 3.7, "Basie" - <AUTHOR> http://www.poststat.us/wordpress-3-7-basie/ <comment><USER2> To me Wordpress is one of the most important things to happen to the internet, Not Facebook, not Twitter. Wordpress has democratized creating a site and helped millions of people create an online business, community, blog, helping bring in massive amounts of revenue for small business owners.

I've got 4 sites running wordpress: my portfolio, my online store, a design database for items under $50, and a magazine cutout marketplace. (See my profile for links) Those last two I mentioned took less than a week to tweak and hack together thanks to the speed and ease of setting up wordpress sites.

It's sad that Matt Mullenweg never got the same recognition that Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg got. He definitely deserves it. We've got to stop only celebrating and worshiping people who make money. I think Matt empowered people just as much if not more.

<comment><USER3> Mullenweg probably isn't crying all the way to the bank; Automattic does pretty well and might be worth as much as Tumblr:

[http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/24/automattic- nears-t...](http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/24/automattic-nears-tumblr- valuation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The automatic background updates feature might be the most important feature of all in 3.7. Hopefully this goes a long way to plug some of the rampant security issues that plague the CMS because of failure to update to a later version. The new date querying features are also a welcome addition as it has been notoriously hacky in prior versions querying advanced date values in Wordpress and finally we search has been given a little love and is no longer so horrible that it requires a third party plugin to fill the void. Best version of Wordpress to date by far, wonder how they can top this list in 3.8.

<comment><USER5> Ugh. I'm extremely skeptical of auto-updates. My servers don't auto-update, my workstation doesn't auto-update..nothing I own, auto-updates if it's capable of it.

Can anyone tell me if it can be turned off? All I'm seeing is this:

 _For developers there are lots of options around how to control the new updates feature, including allowing it to handle major upgrades as well as minor ones, more sophisticated date query support, and multisite improvements._

I've been burned one too many times. I see a MASSIVE WP failure in the near future where an update gets pushed out and takes _millions_ of Wordpress sites offline...

It's happened with Bitdefender. It's happened with AVG. It's happened with Windows 8.1 RT.

<comment><USER6> I'm fine with it, but i understand the concern. It sounds pretty easy to disable the feature...

> The simplest way to disable it is to add define( > 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true ); to your wp-config.php file

<comment><USER7> Urg. It should be off by default in my opinion. You should have to explicitly turn it on.

<comment><USER8> I think it should ask the user, explicitly giving him information about what's wrong with both approaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I for one am very excited about all of the new functions and classes available. [http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.7](http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.7) \- things like wp_extract_urls() and a WP_Http_Streams class look really exciting.

Not so excited about auto updates, but every site I build is in some kind of version control anyway.

<comment><USER10> I agree on that! I also like the new look of WordPress but the auto update option is not effective for all sites. Specially for developers who don't want to get clear the coding mess after every update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great write up! Tons of useful features in the new release.

</comment><comment><USER12> > AUTOMATIC BACKGROUND UPDATES

Great, now my plugins and themes can break automatically!</comment>


Spiders and ants inspire metal that won't sink - <AUTHOR> https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/superhydrophobic-metal-wont-sink-406272/ <comment><USER2> As a child, hanging out by the community pool in the summers, I learned the following trick:

If you can trap and drown a fly, you can then cover the dead fly with salt, which will suck the water out of the fly, and bring the "resurrected" fly back to life.

The relevance here: it is surprisingly difficult to drown a fly, because the weird hairs around their bodies create an air bubble around them, which protects them. A fly in a bubble of air can survive for at least 20 minutes underwater. Released, they will float to the surface inside this bubble and fly away.

Don't ask how I know.

<comment><USER3> Similar to funnel web spiders. You have to be careful removing 'dead' ones from a pool as they can survive over 24 hours underwater.

[https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/spiders/funnel...](https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/spiders/funnel- web-spiders-group/)

<comment><USER4> > australianmuseum.net

Why am I not surprised?

<comment><USER5> Yup. Everything in Australia looks scary AF, knows how to play dead and kill you.

<comment><USER6> Especially those drop bears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some commenters on reddit are not so hyped by this PR piece.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/dssixi/inspired_by...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/dssixi/inspired_by_diving_bell_spiders_and_rafts_of_fire/f6rprkf/)

<comment><USER8> HN has loose posting standards, but /r/science is heavily moderated. They zealously delete comments witn an inch of speculation, but for some reason allow University press releases, whose only purpose is to take a science paper and dress it up in a pile of nonscience for marketing use. I don't understand why the mods there allow it.

<comment><USER9> > I don't understand why the mods there allow it.

Precisely because it can result in excellent comments like the current top comments on the article.

Providing an opportunity for experts to exercise critical analysis is a good thing and an excellent teaching/learning opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thinking about this method, I think that a much better use for the technique could be:

1) either engrave the inner surface of metallic parts in airplanes or spatial stations with a microscopic pattern allowing the recognition ot metal scrapes stolen or found in the sea after an accident (hours count and you could be searching in the wrong area). This could accelerate a lot the identification of the remains and help identifying corpses found next to some metallic part. Many metallic parts are hollow and as long as the pattern is placed in inner surface (inside a tube for example) would not create any problem with dirt, paint or gloss of the final product. That could be a real application.

2) or try to engrave the outer surface to make the airplane surface smoother without losing too much efficience and properties. I assume that this in hands of a competent engineer could reduce a little the noise emited by the airplane.

3) same as point one, but for guns and weapons would be also really useful

</comment><comment><USER11> In short:

> The [metal floats because they use] bursts of lasers to "etch" the surfaces > of metals with intricate micro- and nanoscale patterns that trap air and > make the surfaces superhydrophobic, or water repellent.

Neat!

<comment><USER10> And will not work in the real life, because they are not paying attention to biology, just copying it without understanding the ecological processes.

Anything with tiny pores put on the sea will either be covered in life in weeks, or will need anti-fouling painting to avoid rust and life (distroying the effect), or this pores will be filled with lime and mud in no time. A ship hull that is not easily cleanable and can't be polished is creating many new problems.

I could be wrong but translating this to the real life applications seems really complicated to implement. Specially when you can just create a sealed metal box filled with multiple air cameras or a buoy.

<comment><USER12> They could put it on planes so the material floats and becomes easier to find in the case of the plane crashing into the sea. Doesn't need to work for long, only long enough for it to be found.

<comment><USER13> The main issue is that this only works on things that are tiny enough that a micro-layer of surface air can substantially affect their buoyancy. It's a cool trick, and I'm sure it has uses, but it's not going to do a thing for planes and ships. It'd be like trying to float a Buick by tying a party balloon to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this has applications in the food market. Could you make metal cans/bottles that wouldn't hold their contents? (e.g. a ketchup bottle that poured out the last drop) Would the uneven surface provide a haven for bacteria?

<comment><USER15> If you want simple hydrophobic properties, just use PTFE coating. It has its limitations but you don't have to wait for commercialization as the tech is pretty mature.

<comment><USER5> It sounds incredibly toxic, though - Polytetrafluoroethylene.

Would be nicer to just point lasers and the existing cans or glass bottles and be done with it.

<comment><USER16> If you call it Teflon, would you be less scared of the name?

<comment><USER17> No. Teflon manufacture has led to long-term contamination of waterways, plus illness caused be workers exposure ("teflon flu").

So I would prefer nanoengineering to manipulate surface tension.

<comment><USER18> _> So I would prefer nanoengineering to manipulate surface tension._

Nanotoxicity is a very poorly understood field and any nanomaterials are at the very least likely to flake away bits that are similar to asbestos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This changes nothing for ships. Ships float because they already "trap" a huge "air bubble" inside because of their hull shape. Making the hull walls repel water might lower the drag but won't change buoyancy.

And after a week these etchings will be covered by sealife and won't work anyway.

<comment><USER20> The theory here is that if the hull was punctured with a cannon-ball sized hole, then the one that repels water may still be filled with that air bubble.

I do see your point. This is easier to envision on a smaller scale in production, however. In theory, if it works for a small vessel, it should also work for a larger one. Although I don't see large sea-bearing vessels changing any time soon.

Either way, innovation is cool...and it always starts somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Without knowing much about ship dynamics it sounds suspicious that you could make an unsinkable ship based upon this concept. Isn't the above water mass of the ship held up by the (large) amount of air in the hull? If you punctured the hull (releasing the air) then wouldn't this material have to support the entirety of the ship with the minuscule layer of air bubbles across the surface of the hull? I notice the person's hand pushing the disc down with relative ease so I'd assume its buoyant but not super-buoyant

<comment><USER22> It's not the air holding a ship up, it's the displaced water. Once the weight of displaced water is equivalent to the ship's weight, it floats.

Another way to think about it is specific weight. Ships have fewer kilograms per cubic meter than water does so they float. When pierced they start filling up with water which makes their specific weight go up and eventually become more kilo per cubic meter than water. At that point the ship sinks.

<comment><USER23> Yes, it's displaced water... So I'm guessing the trapped air bubbles here increase the displacement of the water while only adding the weight of the air? It seems like such a small amount of displacement you'd get from these tiny air bubbles. Then again, those discs look super thin too.

<comment><USER24> You'd only need as much air volume as you have volume of things heavier than water. A boat sinks because air is displaced by water, increasing the density of the boat. If you make sure the displaceable air runs out _before_ the density of the boat is higher than water it'll never sink.

In practice this is something that's actually done quite a bit. Fill a lot of air spaces in a boat with foam and you get to the point where if your boat fills with water you can simply pull the plug in de bottom of the boat and it will un-sink itself most of the way. You see this for example on small sailboats, the only caveat being you can't be on the boat as it's un-sinking since you'd weigh it down.

That said, seems to me that foam is a lot cheaper and easier than micro- engineering every surface on the boat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This looks like a novel and not immediately intuitive way of trapping air in a narrow space between two plates of metal. Neat.

There are other ways of trapping air between two pieces of metal.

I wonder how this compares against a sandwich of metal-bubble-wrap-metal. Or with styrofoam, or an injectable foam. It would also float. It would also withstand multiple punctures. I imagine it is cheaper than etching metal.

</comment><comment><USER26> If this makes it into warships, we can expect torpedos and anti-ship missiles to contain something like laundry detergent that stops the bubbles from forming.

Come to think of it: they better make sure this bubble isn't influenced by some trivial chemicals, otherwise they don't need explosives to sink a ship...

<comment><USER27> If this tech makes it to industry I suspect it will make it to the inside high performance hydraulics before it makes it to the outside of ships. Those parts are already manufactured to high tolerances and operate in a chemically controlled environment. A little etching somewhere in a pump body or in a key place on an impeller to reduce friction by a percent or two could pay off big time over the life of the device.

</comment></comment><comment> d--b Mmmh, you'd need quite a lot of air for your device to be overall lighter than water...

</comment><comment><USER28> Would be awesome to see this done on a model boat to prove out the concept.

<comment><USER29> Boats already float

<comment><USER30> Yeah, but are they made out of ants?

<comment><USER31> Leininger would like a word with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yes but why not simply a metal honeycomb structure, with air bubbles trapped permanently _inside_?

Also, an "unsinkable flotation device" can be made out of styrofoam?

</comment><comment><USER33> Url changed from [https://phys.org/news/2019-11-spiders-ants-metal- wont.html](https://phys.org/news/2019-11-spiders-ants-metal-wont.html), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any ways to approximate university learning experience? - <AUTHOR> For all the hype about online learning, I find no way of learning most standard academic topics at a rigorous level other than:
1) enrolling in a traditional university with all the cost and bureaucratic nonsense that entails, or
2) patiently working my way through a textbook (or worse, recorded lectures) and scrambling to find decent sets of problems with solutions. It's a lonely endeavour.
MOOCs don't exist for most topics above a very basic level, and even then, they are typically ghost town outside of a handful of popular subjects.
It would be great to have a way to connect with other people wishing to study at any given time, say, introductory quantum field theory, for exchange of ideas and motivation. <comment><USER2> Assume a spherical university.</comment>


TLS clients should reject static Diffie-Hellman - <AUTHOR> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dkg-tls-reject-static-dh/?include_text=1 <comment><AUTHOR> "We have recently become aware of the publication of the "Middlebox Security Protocol, Part 3: Profile for enterprise network and data centre access control" by ETSI TC CYBER ([https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/103500_103599/10352303/...](https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/103500_103599/10352303/01.01.01_60/ts_10352303v010101p.pdf)), which specifies what it calls "enterprise TLS" or "eTLS." We are writing to express serious concerns about the publication of this specification. This work appears to be related to the previous "mcTLS" work about which we also expressed concerns ([https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1538/](https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1538/)), and our foremost concern remains the use of a name that implies the aegis of Transport Layer Security (TLS), a well-known protocol which has been developed by the IETF for over twenty years."

[https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1616/](https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1616/)

[https://www.heise.de/security/meldung/IETF-an-ETSI-Finger- we...](https://www.heise.de/security/meldung/IETF-an-ETSI-Finger-weg-von- TLS-4245220.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Is PHP more scalable than Ruby or Python? - <AUTHOR>

Edit: I just realized how generic my post was... so I want HN to weigh in on something a friend said:
"PHP is more scalable than Ruby and most languages"
//start old post Let me preface this with: I'm not trying to start a language war.
I have very little experience coding, but have learned enough (some may say 'caught') PHP to get by.
I want to take it a step further but I'm getting thrown in a thousand different directions. I want a language/framework that's fairly straightforward and somewhat scalable.
I am looking at Python/Django, but getting pulled towards Ruby/Rails by friends - and some people saying that PHP is more scalable than either Python or Ruby and I should be looking at the Cake or CodeIgniter frameworks.
Can someone push me in the right direction? I want to invest the time in a language but I'm not sure which to start with. //end old post <comment><USER2> Scalability for web applications has -nothing to do with the programming language-. PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP.net, they all use the same strategies to scale. Three things: cache religiously, index well, and refactor your database queries.

Take it from me: I've worked on a Java site with over 2 million monthly uniques. I built a Ruby on Rails app from the ground up that grew to over 15 million pageviews a day. I also helped build a PHP-backed api the handled a few million hits a month.

I'm sick and tired of the "X scales better than Y" debate. It's pointless.

<comment><USER3> Not only pointless but willfully ignorant. Think about it, people who say one language is more scalable than another don't even understand scaling means. Only slightly better are the religious rants about some framework or another.

In reality, the most a language or framework can provide is a slight head start in terms of absolute performance. The dominant factor will always be nature of the application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't freak out about it. This is not like getting married.

First the easy advice: If you have friends pulling you toward Ruby and Rails... learn Ruby and Rails. Momentum is a good thing. Comradeship is a good thing. Don't worry: If it turns out in two years that we'd all rather be using Python and/or Django, we can switch. It will still be there.

Now we begin to edge toward personal opinion: I'd avoid sticking with PHP. Not merely because PHP is often like a parody of a programming language, but because variety is the spice of life. Learn something different. Take a look at how other languages do things.

Now, if you really want to stay out of a language war, ignore anyone who goes on about the "scalability" of their chosen language. Most of those claims are just posturing, backed up with no relevant data. [1] If your PHP friends won't shut up about their language's unbeatable super speed, show them the first fifteen minutes or so of Yehuda Katz's Merbcamp keynote:

<http://www.merbcamp.com/video/katz3.mp4>

... and once they're done rending their garments and throwing things at the screen tell them to take some data and go argue with someone who cares. You've got better things to do.

\---

[1] Why do most language scalability arguments have such dubious data to back them up? Because, as others have taken pains to point out, languages don't scale: _application architectures_ scale. If your webapp is much more complex than "Hello, World" its efficiency will depends on a host of factors, of which the speed of any particular language construct is usually a tiny one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Any mainstream language you choose will be scalable enough.

Spend some time reading online rails and django documentation. Either one will be fine for you to learn.

My personal opinion is that Python is easier to learn for a beginner, but not by much. Ruby has <http://hacketyhack.net/> which is a fun way to learn, and Python has <http://www.diveintopython.org/> which is a tremendous (and free!) resource.

I say flip a coin and roll with it. They're both great languages and both frameworks are great for learning.

[Errr... The submission changed after my response was entered, sorry if it seems a bit off-topic.]

<comment><USER6> That's true; Ruby and Python would both be worth learning. I'd push you toward Python, though, mainly because it has more traction outside of web development too (e.g. system administration, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Scaling software has much more to do with the architecture of the software than with the language.

It is possible to write software in any language that scales poorly as well as to write software that scales very well.

Right now I'm working on a site that pulls in about 1/2 million uniques daily written in Java (chosen by the programmer before me), before that that same site was written in PHP.

Ruby, perl, PHP they're all just different hammers, a good programmer should be able to write scalable web applications with all of the above, but will find a matter of personal preference (or historical accidents) to make the decision.

In the beginning it is probably smarter to learn how to program in a language for which there is a market, not to focus so much on scalability issues because when just starting out getting paying work is probably more important.

Another issue when learning how to code is to learn how to write clean code, I know I'm showing my age here but you could do worse than to have a look at the source code to the GNU utils package, there is a ton of 'good' code in there that will help you to develop a legible style. That will come in handy in any language, scalable or not :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I assume you're asking about scalability in terms of pages per second or whatever, but what you should be more worried about is the scalability of your development effort. As other posters have said, speed of the platform is not the issue.

Rather you should consider what platform you think you can get the most done in the shortest amount of time - having friends that use the same platform counts for a lot. Similarly, many people think (including myself,) that you can get more done faster using RoR or Django than you can PHP, particularly if your project has any complexity.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just made a very similar thread to this!

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460456>

<comment><AUTHOR> I decided to change it up to 'is php more scalable' - realized how generic my question was. Checking out your thread right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why are you worried about scalability when you're just learning to program?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to keep it in mind and I find it fascinating. Plus, in the future I don't want to have to tear down what I've built and rebuild again just because it wasn't scalable from the start.

Basically I know enough PHP to get by and if it's possible to code some awesome, and scalable, apps in PHP then I might as well expand my knowledge of PHP instead of starting with something new and completely foreign.

<comment><USER11> PHP advocate Terry Chay has said:

 _Rails is like a rounded rectangle and PHP is like a ball of nails._

 _When I say that PHP is a ball of nails, basically, PHP is just this piece of shit that you just put together put all the parts together and you throw it against the wall and it fucking sticks._

Putting aside the comparison between a framework and a language (maybe he really meant Ruby rather than Rails, I don't know), These quotes really rung true to me as a person who has some experience with PHP and Ruby on Rails.

PHP is ugly, no one will really disagree with that. But when used in the domain is was designed for (websites) it gets the job done. It's a ball of nails that sticks to the wall. Until recently at least, Rails was a bit more hassle to deploy, PHP is ever present, even on super cheap shared hosting packages and more "plug and play" in deployment. The fact that PHP is so popular means there's a massive amount of pre-existing apps and help (of varying quality) only a Google search away. This is true for any language, I guess, but PHP more so than most.

But Ruby (like Python) is a bit more general purpose and compared to PHP just seems more thought through to me. More consistent. I've always felt that aside from any other factors, this possibly also has to do with the age of the languages and what time they "grew up" in. But in any case, I actually find it easier to conceptualise more in depth concepts when using Ruby and Rails. So Ruby - and by extension - Rails is more like a rounded rectangle, it feels nice with no sharp bits, somehow balanced and symmetrical in my mind. But I feel the initial learning curve of Ruby (and I assume Python) might be a little steeper than PHP. Maybe that's just because I had gotten more ambitious by the time I'd hit Ruby.

Hopefully my ramblings have helped you a little. But to more directly answer you, yes it is absolutely possible to code some awesome and scalable apps in PHP. Just look around, the Internet is full of them. But would you benefit from learning some Ruby or Python along side your existing PHP knowledge, the answer is again absolutely yes. I probably don't have to add it, but just to be clear, you can of course also code some awesome and scalable apps with Ruby or Python.

I don't think these choices are as "either or" as a novice might generally think. Many concepts are similar regardless of which language you use. Putting time into one language does not necessarily mean that time is wasted if you later choose to switch.

<comment><USER3> PHP is a great language to get stuff done. And if you're a decent programmer, the later versions even give you the tools to get things done relatively nicely.

The only problem for a beginner is that you'd have a hell of a time finding any decent code to learn from. This can be a problem in any language to some degree, but PHP is the worst, followed shortly by Javascript.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kim Dotcom Awarded Millions for Legal Bills and Living Expenses - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-awarded-millions-plus-128k-per-month-expenses-150502s/

<comment><USER2> "Awarded" = He's allowed to spend (some) of his own money.</comment>


A History of Tug-Of-War Fatalities (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://priceonomics.com/a-history-of-tug-of-war-fatalities/ <comment><USER2> >2,300 students ... The rope, provided by Pennsylvania Power and Light Co., had been intended for use in heavy construction, and was rated to withstand 13,000 pounds of stress.

What's astounding is that at least in this case simple arithmetic could have shown it was unsuitable - since 13,000 / 2,300 is just 5.6 pounds - a force any below-average middle schooler can obviously exert at least briefly (being well under 10% of their body weight and for reference the weight of less than two stacked 13-inch Macbook Pro notebooks[1] -- which would weigh 6 pounds. A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds.) It could have been expected that perhaps every one of those students would exert it continuously through the whole contest to say nothing of their maximum extra effort on top of it.

While 13,000 pounds is very strong - a full 6.5 tons - it sounds like a simple arithmetic check could have saved the disaster mentioned in the write-up. The lesson - or at least one lesson - is, never feel above a simple calculation.

[1] [https://s.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/10/dsc0890...](https://s.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/10/dsc08906.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Technically you'd have to divide the 2300 by two. (1150 students pulling on a rope attached to an immovable wall exerts the same force on the rope as 1150 students pulling in each direction.) Still, even at 11.2lb per student, it's obviously easily attainable.

Edit: also not all the students were competing at once. _Still_ , even with only a few hundred it'd be too close for comfort. For a safety-critical thing like this you want a healthy margin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something I learned in climbing: Never ever put your hand or finger in a hook or loop or similar.

It feels natural to do so, when standing on a ladder for example, but you can easily lose it.

<comment><USER5> This is a great rule. It's most obvious when avoiding slipknots or knotless loops, but people should also be aware that you can get into real trouble with fixed loops - if you fall or are pulled, you don't want to catch your whole weight on a single joint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Random bit of information cluttering my brain. When playing tug of war, hold the rope with your thumbs pointed towards yourself. A trained professional can usually pull about 0.8-1.0x their body weight that way vs. about .5-.7x with thumbs away. Looped around a waist and the same person can get up to about 1.0-1.5x with cleats on turf. Obviously there is lots of variance for type and thickness of rope as well as footwear and surface but the general principal stands, hold the rope thumbs towards yourself. Source: I studied thrown rope rescues in swift water situations.

<comment><USER7> The article mentions a hand being ripped off because a guy looped the rope around his... I'm not sure you want to loop it around your waist.

<comment><USER8> I don't think pilom is arguing looping the rope around your hand; he's arguing to zig-zag the rope a bit so that he force pulling on it tried pulling it through your fingers (pinkie first), perpendicular to the direction of the rope, instead of parallel to it, so that it can slide out of your fingers.

I am not sure that works with tug of war ropes, though, as they, given the forces used, are too thick to allow for that zig-zaggy bend.

I certainly don't see it in photos on [http://www.tug-of- war.org.uk/towtactics.htm](http://www.tug-of-war.org.uk/towtactics.htm)

<comment><USER9> He was referencing this statement from the GP: "Looped around a waist and the same person can get up to about 1.0-1.5x with cleats on turf." Point is, if tug-of-war players have been known to lose hands because the rope was wrapped around them, do you really want to see what happens when you wrap it around your waist? Maybe it's safer because your body is much thicker than your wrist, but is that really an experiment you want to run?

<comment><USER10> > do you really want to see what happens when you wrap it around your waist?

The last player on each end can safely wrap the rope around themselves if they like. The rope behind them is slack, so the only tension on the rope is the tension they put on it themselves. Where people get into trouble is when they are somewhere in the middle where there is (significant)tension being applied to their section of rope by people on either side.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly what I was referencing, in the wikipedia page you can see a 1904 olympic competition where the anchor man has safely wrapped the rope partially around his waist: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war#/media/File:1904_tu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war#/media/File:1904_tug_of_war.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The xkcd What If? on tug-of-war is also interesting: [https://what- if.xkcd.com/127/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/127/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The Caterpillar version: [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS9D1VqBcmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS9D1VqBcmI)

</comment><comment><USER13> A footnote of history, but fraternities were once known for intense competition and a yearly tug of war between houses was common. Part of the history of tug of war I guess?

Anyways, my school is one of the few left which still honors the tradition [http://huskiesifc.org/the_site/?page_id=45](http://huskiesifc.org/the_site/?page_id=45)

The fraternities train like hell for months, it's the real deal.

If you want to see one hell of a tug of war look up "NIU tugs" on youtube.

The really old pictures show it was traditional done over stream so the losers get soaked. Now it's done on dry ground but it's still just as serious. The ropes and other equipment we used likely dated back to the 60's or earlier. The rope was so huge...Maybe 5 inches... It was definitely made for boat anchors

<comment><USER14> NIU tugs: [https://youtu.be/vQ3OPHeSOB0?t=66](https://youtu.be/vQ3OPHeSOB0?t=66)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7786159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7786159).</comment>


How did the U.S. end up with nurses wearing garbage bags? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-coronavirus-and-how-the-united-states-ended-up-with-nurses-wearing-garbage-bags <comment><USER2> Just in time manufacturing is a recipe for disaster when you allow a single nation to do the lion's share of everyone's manufacturing, and that nation is the first to shut down.

A decentralized manufacturing system with distribution through regional warehouses was more resilient, if less cost effective.

Some states, California and New York among them, did create their own local stockpiles of ventilators and PPE after the bird and swine flu scares, but did away with them in the fiscal crunch after the financial meltdown.

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-once-had- mobile...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-once-had-mobile- hospitals-and-a-ventilator-stockpile-but-it-dismantled-them/ar-BB11O8Gs)

[https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city- emergen...](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergency- ventilator-stockpile-ended-up-on-the-auction-block)

<comment><USER3> Remember that our generals will always fight the last battle. We will be well prepared for the next pandemic. But the next big thing probably won't be a pandemic.

<comment><USER4> It's not just about fighting the last war, though. It's also about having competent leadership that's able to adapt to a new reality, quickly discover which of their current heuristics are wrong, and then reason from first principles about what needs to be done for a good outcome in the current situation.

There has been a spectacular difference in various nations' performance during this crisis. As a Scandinavian I'm a bit skewed in my judgement, but I'm especially in awe at Denmark and Norway's actions, given their lack of recent history with infectious disease:

Quickly discover from external evidence what the new reality is, that it's much worse than anything seen during the lifetimes of current leaders, that it requires extreme measures normally only deployed during times of war, and then use science-based leadership and a broad array of expertise to choose what measures to apply. Then apply them with vigor and competently deal with the fallout.

This is not trivial - crucially, it requires that the central leadership avoids dogmatic and heuristic reasoning adapted to conditions that no longer apply. Because even if you have such top leadership, there will be leaders on the second tier of this hierarchy that are not used to reasoning on a war footing. They will act or give advice that's normally sound, but counterproductive in the new and extreme reality. Top leadership needs to catch onto this fast, and strike down or disregard advice that's not applicable to the crisis at hand.

You can see these phenomena in a plethora of fields. Scientists grasping for N=100,000 double-blind randomized peer-reviewed studies for a novel phenomenon, rather than make the best educated guess from reasoning and available evidence. National leadership trying to solve a health-induced economic crisis by printing money and nothing else. Politicians infighting and posturing by old routine, as if the enemy army isn't already banging down the gates. Reasoning by analogy, let's do the same as we do in a bad flu season. Blame the other party, has always worked before.

Or a subtle insidious variant that's currently responsible for Sweden's problems: let the experts handle it, and dictate public policy without regard for what happens _outside_ of their field of expertise. Turns out an expert in a narrow field with an IQ of 120 and a track record of success is a very dangerous leader. They often aren't aware of their blind spots.

<comment><USER5> Yes, competent leadership. Doing things in the way you described. I have a real conundrum, however, when I compare countries that are held up as good examples and the place where I live, Thailand, which is largely ignored in all the multi-country charts.

You see, as of today we have 2,473 confirmed cases and 33 deaths in Thailand. Denmark, on the other had 5,819 confirmed cases and 247 deaths as of a couple of days ago. I am sure the data is noisy and that testing here is not nearly widespread enough. But the bodies are not piling up and we don't really have the kind of censorship here that would keep it hidden if there were a lot of deaths from Covid-19. And most importantly, the words "competent government leadership" and "Thailand" should never be uttered in the same sentence.

So I guess leaders have done some things right by listening to the right experts (a form of competence I suppose). Or maybe it's the weather (popular theory that seems to have been dismissed). Or cultural habits have saved Thailand. Because I look to more _advanced_ countries, especially in Scandinavia, and don't understand why they are doing so much worse than where I live.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure that the proportions (confirmed cases) / (actual cases) and (confirmed deaths) / (actual deaths) are the same in these countries? That's my biggest concern whenever I see dramatically (i.e. 2x or more) different death rates between countries.

Climate, general health, age distribution and other unknown factors certainly play into it, and could easily affect the rate of deaths by such a factor. But I smell a rat when I hear that Norway get 5% positives and NYC gets 25% when they test. Also, Italy makes it clear that even with a relatively consistent approach to hunting down the corpses, a big factor can get lost in the noise. Way above 2x.

So it's not trivial to compare this between countries, but it seems feasible to (by critical judgement) at least distinguish between a wildly incompetent and a good response.

<comment><USER5> Not sure, of course, because testing is insufficient and the data is noisy. But it seems pretty clear that there are not a lot of dead bodies piling up. That would be all over social media even if it wasn't reported by local MSM. All of the reported deaths here had serious comorbidities. Are Thais really that much healthier on average? I wouldn't think so, but I'm not sure. Climate? If hot humid weather is the answer then we are safe because we are into hot season now and the weather is miserably hot and humid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a difficult follow up to this. When the dust settles months from now and some 40% of the country becomes convinced none of these problems ever happened, how shall we prevent this or other fiascos next time?

<comment><USER7> There's already movements being made in Japan and other countries to move manufacturing out of China, I'm hopeful policies will come out of this that get rid of the just-in-time supply chain for critical things like PPE for Dr's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The news agency found that _not a single shipment of medical-grade N95 masks arrived at U.S. ports during the month of March_... Federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders for the urgently needed supplies... The first large U.S. government order ... was not placed until March 21st—the same day that Ries got his first phone call about the Kushner effort. The order... did not even require the supplies to be delivered until the end of April" (emphasis mine, edited for length)

Though the article goes into more detail to the question that the title asks, I thought this part was pertinent.

How did we end up with nurses in garbage PPE? The same way they still are in them. The problems that existed a month ago still exist today and are likely to continue to exist.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a tremendous amount of bureaucratic infighting and cluelessness in many countries just now (I'm in the UK). There have been debates for many years about streamlining the chain of command and responsibility in the USA; just think about the post-9/11 debates. I understand that the federal structure makes some things hard but it would seem to me that a proper central authority to manage a crisis like this would be very useful - but isn't this what FEMA is for? After the dust settles, some heads need to be bashed together.

<comment><USER10> The incompetence of CDC and FDA is staggering.

It is not hard to imagine an alternative reality where the CDC-FDA testing fiasco did not occur, there was some test-and-trace early in the epidemic, and the cost and extent of the shut-downs were lesser and far fewer deaths occurred.

It is a bit dismaying to say this: but CDC and FDA have a lot of blood on their hands.

<comment><USER11> Who installed the CDC leadership and gutted their budget? It's easy to foist the blame on some faceless TLA govt org without digging just one level deeper to figure out how the gross incompetence was able to manifest.

<comment><USER10> You'd be right, if CDC's Covid-19 response isn't a repeat of their initial incompetence during Ebola, SARS, etc. [https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/04/11/the-covid- pand...](https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/04/11/the-covid-pandemic-who- dunnit/)

"To be fair, what's on display here is a broader institutional malady. The US version of the WHO, the CDC, took a similar stance with another controversial topic—quarantines for health care workers returning from treating patients with Ebola. Four states—New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois—instituted policies to quarantine anyone who had contact with someone infected with the Ebola virus while in west Africa, including medical personnel who cared for patients. No less than the Obama administration, backed by the CDC, attempted to squash these policies, arguing that this would serve as a disincentive for US health workers to travel to Africa to combat the disease at a time this help was sorely needed."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a terrific debate to be had about the role of the federal government in a national emergency. Is it the air support for state led initiatives, or should it be more of a quarterback coordinating action across all state lines?

<comment><USER13> A pandemic that affects all states and all countries in the world and requires almost unprecedented collective action to solve? How can forcing states to figure it out themselves possibly be beneficial? Why is the Governor of NY negotiating directly with Chinese suppliers? Why are states bidding against each for the same scarce equipment, enriching only the middlemen who have suddenly and suspiciously inserted themselves in the process?

<comment><USER14> FWIW, states like New York and California have larger populations and economies than most European countries. That, I think, is an argument in favor of being more hands off and letting the governors figure out what's right in their state. They'll have a much better understanding of what their local problems and capabilities are.

<comment><USER15> The EU organised a joint purchase.

I'm not sure how much single-country purchasing has also happened.

[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_523)

<comment><USER16> That article was from March 24th, more recently (and as things got even more serious) bigger EU countries like Germany have started going solo, like documented in this recent article [1]. The article is in German (which I don't know) but I'm going to post a translation provided by some other guy from whom I've taken the link:

> During the Corona crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in talks with China's > President Xi, created the conditions for Germany to gain direct access to a > state-owned Chinese manufacturer of protective clothing. This is stated in a > paper with which the Federal Ministry of Health informed the Bundestag about > the procurement of protective clothing.

> The paper for the Bundestag states that after a discussion between Merkel > and Xi and subsequent talks between the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the > Federal Ministry of Health, "direct access to a state producer (Moheco) > could be established" at the beginning of April. Moheco promised a "higher > level of quality and delivery reliability". In addition, an "air bridge" > between China and Germany will be established with unused Lufthansa > passenger planes to transport the masks.

As a non-German EU citizen I find this type of tactics very, very wrong and fundamentally detrimental to the future of the Union.

[1] [https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/schutzausruestung- merkel...](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/schutzausruestung-merkels- direkter-draht-nach-china-1.4871798)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kakistocracy at its finest, that's how.

</comment><comment><USER18> There would have been more substantial stockpiles of all essentials and safety equipment if price 'gouging' wasn't illegal.

When you restrict prices to below a arbitrary level of any good, you get shortages during those periods when the price should be above that level.

</comment><comment><USER19> If it looks stupid but it works, it ain't stupid.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.businessinsider.com/kious-kelly-hospital- nurse-d...](https://www.businessinsider.com/kious-kelly-hospital-nurse-dies- trash-bags-2020-3?r=US&IR=T)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-uk-nurses- forced...](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-uk-nurses-forced-to- wear-bin-bags-test-positive-2020-4?r=US&IR=T)

so, doesn't really work no, but is a desperate measure which is at best better than nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Interdependence" was a nice theory, but it seems to have it's limitations.

</comment><comment><USER22> That's easy. Hospital administrators were more interested in selling Tylenol pills available $5.00 retail for $500.00.

</comment><comment><USER23> Do they even work?

</comment><comment><USER24> The United States: your global leader in self-afflicted wounds.

<comment><USER25> Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN.

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


Ask HN: Why aren't p2p borrowing/lending as popular as car sharing or rental? - <AUTHOR> Just a thought on this, in the peer-to-peer space, there are many car sharing companies or room/apartment rental companies. How come there isn't a big name when it comes to borrowing/lending? Something that would work the same way as Airbnb where people could list items they own (such as books, tools, games, sporting equipment, bikes, etc). People would rent these items and pay the lender a fee. What are some potential problems with this idea? <comment><USER2> Bulk of the "transaction cost" in sharing-economy transactions is measured in time (registering, shopping, messaging, verifying, negotiating, meeting). In the case of renting/borrowing that's pretty much a fixed cost independent of the value of the item. So it ends up seeming more worth it for big purchases. I think that's why this type of thing is often seen on school campuses (students have a surplus of time and a lack of money), but not out in the rest of the world as much.

These guys are working in this space but they've switched from a borrow/lend model to more of a store: [https://yerdle.com/](https://yerdle.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There are a few in specific verticals (e.g. camera equipment - [https://www.cameralends.com/](https://www.cameralends.com/) or clothes - [https://www.stylelend.com/](https://www.stylelend.com/))</comment>