Whole Foods is struggling - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/09/why-whole-foods-is-now-struggling/ <comment><USER2> I don't really see why the whole foods hate is so hip. I shop there routinely and buy mostly the non packaged stuff. Organic vegetables and fruits are cheaper than in most chains and I really have not found any other place where I can get grass fed (tasty), pasteurized (convenient), non homogenized (yes it makes a difference. In taste and texture and arguably healthier) milk. Of course I do not buy the silly precut fruits and stuff. But if someone finds it convenient and doesn't mind spending the money I don't care. But in the end I shop there because most stuff there is made from good simple ingredients and I don't have to spend a long time reading ingredient lists especially the ones that changes often

<comment><USER3> My gripe with wholefoods goes beyond the price. I take issue with their business ethics and general operating philosophy. It's a pretty typical appeal to the "conscious" consumer that will only look skin deep when making a decision about products. It's a kind of slacktivism, wholefoods marketing team tells me that they care about the environment and the small farmer so _surely_ buying from them is the most ethical consumption.

I believe it is misleading though. The company's only goal is profit and this is very evident when you hear their libertarian CEO speak. He's a sociopath preying on the good will of middle class liberals. Combine that with the exploitation of cheap prison labour as a perfect example of the company's principles in execution and it just leaves a bad taste with those seasonal organic vegetables.

Edit: If you really want to get tasty, fresh, sustainable, local, and organic food then join or start a local food co-operative. This gets everyone a fair price for high quality products along with paying people fairly for their produce and work. It's also completely democratic so all practices are decided upon by the members and not just by some megalomanic CEO or greedy shareholders.

<comment><USER4> A company's goal should be profit. Why is profit a bad word so often? They aren't abusing customers or employees to get that profit... both of those groups regularly praise the company... so I don't see the problem in seeking as much profit as you can. Thats how free market works, right? And if they go to far in the name of profit, they will see it reflected and profits drop... on a site created around startups, its interesting that the "profit" as a bad word is still a thing here...

You can want to make as much profit as possible while ALSO doing the right thing ethically.

<comment><USER5> > A company's goal should be profit.

No. You've confused means with purpose.

A company with investors has to make enough profit to give the investors a fair return. And any company needs enough profit to reinvest in growth. But profit alone isn't a sustaining motivation. One entrepreneur I know sold his first company back in the 90s for >$100m. As he was working on his next venture, he said, "Profit isn't the point. Profit is permission to continue."

The purpose of a company is generally to create value for a given audience in particular ways, often ones that have a broader impact.

For example, the purpose of the New York Times is to inform readers about the things that matter to them and to the world. They do that because they see journalism as necessary to a healthy society, a healthy world.

If you approach the same audience and tools with a goal of pure profit, you end up with things like supermarket tabloids, viral clickbait, and Macedonian fake news farms. Those have a much higher ROI than real journalism; they're going to be much more profitable. By your theory, they're better companies. But they aren't.

<comment><USER6> >> One entrepreneur I know sold his first company back in the 90s for >$100m. As he was working on his next venture, he said, "Profit isn't the point. Profit is permission to continue."

Easy to say profit doesn't matter once you've cleared $100mm.

<comment><USER5> Of course if I hadn't mentioned how well his previous business did, somebody would have suggested the person knew nothing about business.

And since you missed it, let me be clear: he didn't say profit doesn't matter. He said profit wasn't the point. His previous business was quite profitable, but that's not why he did it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most if not all WFM stores hold tours for customers to teach how to affordably shop WFM. Ask about it.

The TL;DR is only buy fresh vegetables, single-item bulks, fruit, meats, and seafood in descending order of volume/mass. The less processing and packaging, the better as a rule of thumb. Round out very sparingly with exceptions.

This is how we should shop regardless of store. Mackey has publicly admitted he vastly regrets taking WFM to Wall Street. I get the impression if most customers shopped as described above, crushing profit margins, in the absence of shareholder pressure to change WFM's real mission and cost him strategic control, and the profits are self-sustained, he wouldn't mind.

I'd like to see more feedback from others on whether or not they noticed WFM's efforts to broaden beyond just an organic label. They did try, and to a smaller extent are still trying (meat stages are a prominent example), and are trying not to antagonize regulatory stakeholders by pointing out the mainstream organic label is deficient in many ways, but by and large it seems most of their customer base is more concerned about labels than actually delivering change.

<comment><USER8> If you think of it as a 'guilt tax' it makes a lot more sense, and also the direction these stores need to go to improve profits. It's never really been about the food itself: it's been about selling a positive self image. It's a reaction to the abundance of media showing modern chicken coops and mass migrant vegetable labour.

Once you understand that, you understand why the label is the single most important thing, and the less real details supplied the better. Any details you supply serves to break the facade that the organic label means you're doing good deeds - because ultimately, you're still killing that chicken. It's why "efforts to broaden beyond just an organic label" are doomed before they begin and will hurt sales more than they help.

<comment><USER9> I disagree that the animal welfare labels are doing some kind of lip service to animals, or paying a guilt tax. There is a big difference between a chicken from a factory slaughterhouse, and a grass-fed truly free-ranging (outside) one. When people come for a tour of my farm they get a better idea of what it's about and why it costs more. Over time more people will be informed about the origin of their food and why labels aren't just labels.

<comment><USER8> If you show most of your customers a factory slaughterhouse chicken being killed and packaged, or a grass-fed truly free-ranging chicken being taken inside and killed and packaged, they will actually have a worse reaction to the second one.

Most people cannot really identify with thousands of chickens in a cage being processed by a machine - but they can identify with a single chicken happily running around outside being taken and killed. So paradoxically, the second image would actually be something they see as even more cruel.

Informing people about this has to be done in a very clever way to ensure that people don't connect the packaged breast they buy with the actual chicken running around outside. One slip up, and your label becomes worse than the factory chickens.

While the people who choose to come for a farm tour likely know what to expect, the 'average' consumer would not react in the same way to being told that they're eating this happy, free ranging chicken. As with all marketing, it's important to come from a position of your customer's lifestyle than your own where you 'know' about death.

To put it in a completely different context - think about Target and their new bathroom policy. On the surface it seems great, and everyone supports it. The label is wonderful and everyone wants to be part of that movement. But when it actually comes time to go to a bathroom, many women freak out and refuse to actually enter that bathroom anymore. It's even costing Target customers, and now pulling back the policy would cost them even more. Marketing isn't easy and you need to fully understand what you're doing before you end up creating a marketing campaign that actually harms your business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Basic problem: "Organic" food production costs are not that much higher than "inorganic" (?) food.[1] Maybe 10-20%. But the retail markups average 85%. As organic farming has become larger and more efficient, Whole Foods' competitors have cut prices, killing Whole Foods' margins.

Whole Foods relies on high-margin items. The checkout areas are stuffed with homeopathic remedies, which are overpriced water. Now that's a markup.

[1] [https://attra.ncat.org/attra- pub/download.php?id=419](https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/download.php?id=419)

<comment><USER11> The link does not load for me but I doubt those numbers. Where I live (Austria) organic farming is significantly more expensive primarily because it requires more human labor. I suspect that depends on how tou regulate organic vs non organic food however.

<comment><USER12> I would be curious to hear a bit more about this. From my recollection, just about every single piece of vegetable matter in any given Viennese Billa would come from outside Austria (potatoes being the exception). Is there US style industrial agriculture in Austria (I'm afraid I never ventured out of Wien and surrounding Niederosterreich area)?

<comment><USER13> That depends on the season though, in summer almost everything seems to come from austrian farms.

we don't have us style industrial agriculture in austria. our fields are tiny compared to the US (avg farm size is 40 acres; and we really don't have those superfarms [2000+ acres] that seem to be common in the US). same goes for livestock, a farmer doesn't have anywhere near the same number of say kettle on his/her farm.

<comment><USER14> I drove through some farmlands in California on vacation a few years ago, and the magnitude is astonishing. Never seen anything close in Europe.

<comment><USER15> Driving between SF and Portland on the I-5 is definitely some impressive sights in terms of farm land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My perspective is maybe a little different from the rest of the country's. In NYC all of the stores are really expensive and quality control is pretty bad. Produce and product choices are limited and quality is absolutely terrible. Whole Foods is actually one of the less expensive grocery stores. The quality is easily the best in the neighborhood. The employees are noticeably nicer, and I can pay with my phone. They do have some local suppliers, which Gristedies doesn't. Lastly, and probably least important to everyone but it's a pet-peeve of mine, the ice cream hasn't thawed and frozen in to a brick (a common side-effect of living on an island, frozen things get melted).

<comment><USER17> Gristedes is a joke. Not sure why that's your go-to comparison.

Have you tried some more affordable "normal" supermarkets like Key Foods, C Town, Western Beef, etc? You might still complain about quality (don't know your standards), but you won't be complaining about price at least any more.

Trader Joe's is also fantastic (good quality, good deals on anything-but- produce, get that from C Town instead), if you can bear the lines (the wait time is not as bad as it looks) or just come in at an off-peak time.

<comment><USER18> Trader Joe's has terrible produce and meat with a short shelf life. Too many times I've bought rice and boxed pasta that contain dead bugs that float to the top when boiling.

<comment><USER19> The bugs are an indication of poor storage the rudimentary milling and processing. Most likely a one or two step processing before it hit the shelves.

Multi-stage milling usually get rid of that. If you're shopping organic you should be happy about the bugs, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The bullshit parts about Whole Foods were bullshit a decade ago.

The difference is that their quality has declined and others are catching up. The food bar was near restaurant quality in 2006, now it's slop at 3x the cost. You also have to be careful about date labels, my local store will relabel old inventory and add a few weeks to the sell by dare.

Also, Amazon impacts them harder because WF lost their monopoly on weird organic product.

It's the typical big company story. They grew too fast. I'm sure the supply chain is a shitshow.

<comment><USER21> _my local store will relabel old inventory and add a few weeks to the sell by dare_

Can you elaborate on this?

I totally agree with your other point that others are catching up and I think they realized they don't need to have an entire organic store just certain key items(grass fed beef, good produce to make everyone happy.

<comment><USER20> Perfect example: they sampled jalapeño Brie with some fancy cracker and fig jam. I was shopping for a Christmas party and bought two of each. We used one for the party. It was dated with a 2/28/17 sell by date.

The little cheese wheel was wrapped in plastic. Unwrap it, as I did last week, and lo and behold, the date sticker under the plastic wrap says 12/21/16.

They play similar games with cut fruit and other stuff. I can get same or better stuff at Hannaford for 1/3 the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> * Whole Foods produce is bad. We get better produce at our local major grocery chain, and _much_ better at the Mexican grocery.

* Whole Foods bet big on prepared food; about 1/4 of our local Whole Foods is essentially a food court.

* Whole Foods has a sort of Trader Joe's phenomenon where the place is gradually filling up with house brand stuff. But unlike TJ's, WF's house brands aren't relabeled good outside brands; they're mostly pretty bad, and WF tends to carry them to the exclusion of any other product, so I can get 5 different kinds of chicken stock at a big chain grocer and just WF's house brand at WF.

Things Whole Foods in Chicagoland is better at than other grocers:

* Meat.

* Seasonal vegetables; no other grocer is going to carry ramps this May.

* Cheese.

* A decent house-brand olive oil.

I think that's it.

<comment><USER23> Time for some local nits:

* Jewel's produce is fine, but as you note it's hard to find much of anything outside of the typical fruits and veggies. It's also highly dependent on the individual store.

* Mariano's is god-awful produce wise, so can't imagine that's what you're talking about. Which Mexican produce store?

* Coincidentally, I did this check very recently and can guarantee you that WF stocks 4-5 different brands of chicken stock.

But why does that matter? Ultimately, my research revealed the best price/quality sweet spot for stock was Kirkland (shocker!). Which only proves the point: single item (the TJ's approach) might be all the market really demands. Now admittedly, if the 365 brand isn't quality, that's a problem.

Things you are right about:

* WF way over-invested in prepared foods, probably because the markup is so damn high. Problem is, as another poster noted, the quality used to be consistently pretty high, but is now closer to slop.

* Your list of what WF excels at...with one huge omission: bulk raw ingredients.

But again, same question. Going by the rule that the outside of the store (fresh foods) is where you want to eat most of your food from anyway — if WF is consistently better at the majority of what we should be buying, what's the issue?

<comment><USER22> We've more or less switched from WF produce to Pete's, a local commodity grocery chain, and it puts WF to shame. I'm sure similar things are true in other markets.

I think maybe the issue is that grocery stores don't make nearly as much on produce as they do on prepared foods or even on house-brand packaged foods, and it's pretty plain to see that Whole Foods optimized itself over the last 10 years for revenue maximization. Competition is an issue, but so is wedging yourself into a local maxima.

Another thought is that grocery stores might be like drug stores in the sense that they are in significant part a commercial real estate bet; the store is really just a mechanism for extracting value from specific parcels of land. One other major difference between WF and "big box" chains is that WF tends to be smaller; it can't extract dollars from square feet by stocking them with Frito Lay and Coca Cola products the way Krogers can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Whole Foods just opened a new store in North Berkeley that no one wanted, and was in the midst of four! other natural grocery stores. They then had the gall to offer almost entirely their 365 brand of subpar products, compared to the very premium offers of their counterparts in the area. They are somewhat busy, but never packed, as locals all prefer the far better offerings at neighborhood locations.

As soon as they opened that store I realized someone at HQ was either clueless or arrogantly thought theyd just move in and dominate. Looks like they are getting their just desserts.

<comment><USER25> They don't have to initially dominate. They just have to outlast the other stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't understand why organic food is this expensive in the US in places like WFM.

In France for example 'bio' tagged food is getting cheaper everyday, some products are sometimes even cheaper than their counter-part.

<comment><USER27> Using France as an example, a liter of organic milk at my local Super U is about €0.50 more expensive than the equivalent non-organic -- this is comparing the Super U store brand -- which should eliminate "branding" markup from the equation.

<comment><USER28> What's funny is that the price difference between both countries is almost anecdotal in the case of milk. You would probably have a heart attack if you saw the price of cheese, and not only imported cheese, domestic 'artisanal' cheese too. The prices are just borderline grotesque, they are so extreme that they basically sell cheese pre-cut, in tiny tiny quantities. Most consumers ignore the fact that different kinds of cheeses should be cut a certain way for actual reasons and not out of sheer snobbism, consequently they sell them the pointe and the talon at the same price, lol!

Can't resist: the other day we made a 3 cheese fondue for four and it costed us close to a benjamin just in cheese at WF!

<comment><USER26> If you can read some French here there is a price comparison table [0], some 'organic' food is even cheaper than its branded counter-part.

[0] [http://www.consoglobe.com/achat-bio- cher-2846-cg](http://www.consoglobe.com/achat-bio-cher-2846-cg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, where I live, we don't have things like Whole Foods and Sprouts. We have a tiny little specialty store in town that carries a very small amount of interesting, but expensive, organic and whatnot brands (but almost invariably, not what I'm looking for, but they're always willing to order it and sell it to me for far more than I can just order online for)....

I've seen people both worship and shit on Whole Foods, have seen Sprouts described as a "Whole Foods that didn't sell its soul to Wall Street", and I've heard Trader Joes described as "half a grocery store, so you can't do all your shopping there, but its the half you want".

We have two national chains in town with big stores, a couple smaller quasi- chains (IGA, etc), and a Super Walmart, so its not like its some out of the place hole in the wall....

So, what's the draw of Whole Foods (and by extension, Sprouts and the other clones)?

<comment><USER29> The draw imo is the following: you try to find e.g. a tortilla at 'average big chain supermarket' without any hydrogenated oils, and it's going to take 20 minutes of reading ingredients, and even then maybe there just aren't any. At Trader Joe- the standard tortilla (i.e. the trader joe brand tortilla) is made of basically the same ingredients you would use if you made it at home, and the price is reasonable. Whole foods is like a version of that, but rather than having everything be 'whole foods' brand, it's a bunch of fancy hipster brands. Sprouts is like that but with a very large selection of fruits and vegetables of usually higher quality than you can find at your standard grocery.

<comment><USER30> Whole Foods has a store brand (365) that's good quality for the price. You do still have to shop carefully, because their idea of quality is more about making you feel like you're saving the planet than health.

One thing that surprises me about living in SV is how downmarket Safeway is here. I thought it would be like Publix in the South (nice, but not especially nice) but mine sells nothing but corporate brands, carbs, more carbs and Bud Light. People must like baked goods.

<comment><USER31> Living in the south, I LOVE Publix. It's not much more expensive, but a much more pleasant and clean experience than basically anywhere besides Whole Foods (which has vastly fewer stores). I've never lived more than a short drive from Publix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, why should I shop at Whole Foods when I can go to Sprouts (or some other alternative) and get basically the same thing for almost regular/non-organic prices?

Then again, the fine article says Sprouts et al are also hurting...

<comment><USER33> It appears Sprouts is suffering margin compression more than a sales hit. They're generating about the same net income as they did in fiscal 2014, but their sales are roughly 30% higher. If one believes in their long-term trajectory, the stock is 50% off from the IPO in 2013.

<comment><USER34> That's a shame, Sprouts is my family's primary grocery store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Lot of the comments talk about co-op as an alternative to whole foods. I live in Houston Texas. Other than " There in lies the problem" can some suggest a reasonable alternative for getting some good organic vegetables and fruits. The farmers markets are usually honey, eggs and beef stalls. The co-ops I have found usually are higher price per pound than whole foods. Traders Joe here has limited selection of everything. HEB is OK but not many organic choices for milk and meat. I understand this has nothing to do with the article. Are there any good options for people in biggish cities away from southern California. Gosh I miss those farmers markets..

<comment><USER15> I tend to just shop at the different stores mostly depending on the main thing I'm going for... one day may be mostly produce at sprouts.. another meat at Basha's... another general groceries at Fry's... another mostly frozen/boxed at WM superstore. I try to keep a few things on hand at all times, and will shop at different stores for mainly the thing they are best at with differing times/days.

I tend not to shop at multiple places on the same day, I just don't care for shopping that much. If you have a good spot for your preferred milk/meat, just get that there, get other stuff elsewhere. There's nothing that says you have to buy everything on the same day/trip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is aside from the organic thing, but probably plays a part.

I've had two friends work there for over a year, one in the 90s and one in the past couple of years, and in both cases, management was just grinding through employees. The recent run ended when they cut employees and expanded duties for the remaining folks (two or more jobs now in one), with no increase in pay and no increase in technology at hand to justify the ability of one person doing what used to take two in full-time shifts.

Yeahhh he quit soon after that. I tended to avoid WF in favor of Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Natural Grocers, and straight from farmers, but after hearing how they treat their employees, again, that's just one more reason not to give them business...

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't really shop there anymore other than the occasional thing that only they have that I really want.

I am in South Florida and it's the most expensive grocery store by far, like 20-30% it feels like for almost the same items.

This is subjective for sure.

Publix Greenwise stores and brand has done a really good job of giving me what I want for a lot cheaper.

Now, I feel like Whole foods has better quality, but it's just not worth the almost ~30% premium I feel like I pay when I shop there.

Also, Trader Joe's just opened up here and that place is so much better.

Really, I don't want to pay that huge ass premium.

</comment><comment><USER37> > Apart from shuttering stores and stalling expansion plans, the company is > continuing to focus on 365 by Whole Foods, a two-year-old division aimed at > launching stores for "value-conscious" consumers.

Without a doubt, generic organics is where we are going.

I don't often shop at Whole Foods because I can't get my whole list there for a reasonable price compared to buying mostly a mix of organic and Simple Truth at Kroger. It's not worth making a separate trip just for a few things. If WF zoned in on this space more that could change things.

</comment><comment><USER38> I stopped shopping there because the quality of both their produce and their salad bar food plummeted a year ago. Their fruit isn't as fresh as it used to be, and they now serve the same cheap slop at their salad/hot bar. There isn't much variety anymore, either. These things are true of any Whole Foods in SoCal I'd been visiting. I also question how well they treat their employees since they all seem perpetually malcontented. Meanwhile, Trader Joes employees continue to behave genuinely friendly and seem relatively happy. I even prefer shopping at Sprouts which doesn't have as big a selection(aside from their massive supplements section) but it's a less pretentious atmosphere and has more reasonably priced produce that's actually fresh.

Millenials(pukes in own mouth for using said term) aren't as brand-loyal as their parents were and are quick to ditch a brand when something better & faster comes along. Just because they're "Whole Foods" doesn't mean that they can stay complacent or start behaving like an average grocery store without sudden consequences.

<comment><USER39> The staff "perpetual malcontent" is also a problem at my local Whole Foods, and the thing that keeps me shopping elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Does nobody care about their institutional dishonesty? Defrauding customers is good for short-term profits, but it might cause long-term issues.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Business/foods-accused-overcharging- ex...](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/foods-accused-overcharging-exaggerating- weight-packaged-foods-officials/story?id=32002573)

<comment><USER41> This seems to be part of the original company culture. Even back WF had only two stores, the original downtown and the one on mo pac (mid 1980s) they got in trouble with the attorney general for labeling conventional stuff as organic and marking it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Whole Foods is pretty awful when it comes to pricing. Sure they can up-charge for convenience, but when I'm out and about and want something like sliced up mango spears, why should I be paying 10+ dollars for 1.5 or 2 mangos sliced up? I could just get a couple for maybe 2 bucks at a regular grocery store and just carry a knife with me to do it myself at that point.

<comment><USER43> You can apply that argument to basically any convenience or luxury.

The answer being, some want mangos and value their time and effort more than the the difference in mango price and sliced mango price.

<comment><USER42> But in some circumstances it's not necessarily that the consumer is trying to cut time and effort.

For instance, if I'm out and about doing stuff and happen to want some sliced mango. It's not that I decided in advance not to buy bulk mangoes and slice them at home, I just decided spur of the moment to get some.

Of course there are people who don't like slicing mangoes themselves, so for added convenience they will buy pre-sliced mangoes and bring them home or wherever specifically to eat them.

<comment><USER43> > But in some circumstances it's not necessarily that the consumer is trying > to cut time and effort.

> I just decided spur of the moment to get some.

No, that's still cutting time and effort. Okay you want something spur of the moment. Your option is to buy it and then go home and slice it, buy it pre- sliced, or don't buy it at all. That is still a choice of convenience vs payment. You're not being forced to buy the mango.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Isn't one reason organic costs more that customers will pay more for it?

<comment><USER45> Yes. Also, see prices for "artisinal" cheeses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm surprised that the 365 concept does not have an in-house butcher. I think it strongly strongly correlates with the quality of meat. I've seen many friends go to Whole Foods just for fresh meat, then Trader Joes for everything else.

</comment><comment><USER47> I stopped going to whole foods after getting food poisoning from a lunch buffet plate that cost $18. They overcharge, and don't deliver the quality to justify the markup.

[http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/addressing-grocery- weig...](http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/addressing-grocery-weight-and- pricing)

> "As has been reported in the media, our New York City stores were audited by > the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) for weights-and- > measures errors, such as those that cause improper price labeling on some of > the products that are produced, packaged and labeled in our stores."

</comment><comment><USER48> Personally, if I can help it I'll find a small dirty old corner of some country side road veggie stand, for really fresh semi organic unprocessed foods. And if also if I can help it, I won't shop some where with an IPO. I just can not come to believe a process groomed to attract investment dollars is even half way close to the goal of being some what good for society, any part, any where in society

</comment><comment><USER49> I've been their loyal customer to the extent that I would try to book hotels not too far from one of their stores when going on extended business trips, say 1 week+. Because I tend to shop for the same items I also noticed that prices have gone up substantially, sometimes 3-4 times over the last 10 years, e.g. specialty teas. This is contrary to what's discussed in the article (prices falling).

<comment><USER50> In my store, they did lower the price of milk, eggs, flour, sugar, potatoes, and their house brand of cheeses. They really did try to lower the prices of some, some of the basics.

They do have a lost liter wine for $2.49 a bottle. They hide it. Forget the name.

I despised Whole Foods for years. It was just like throwing away money. My father couldn't even pass the stores--he would take a side road just to avoid the parking lot, even when he had a tumor in his liver. My dad didn't understand high prices, or throwing away money.

Anyways, a relative whom is too old to drive, had me take her there. She bought all the expensive items because she could. I didn't buy anything, until a few years ago; they really did lower the prices on certain foods.

(If anyone from corporate happens to read this--get rid of uniformed security. Hire undercover on the stores with high customer theft. For what you charge, I don't want to see security guards. While I'm at it get rid of the time clock sensors the Janitors scan. The job is degrading enough, you don't need to micromanage them. If I'm paying extra; treat all employees well. Yea, I do notice.)

<comment><USER51> > While I'm at it get rid of the time clock sensors the Janitors scan. The job > is degrading enough, you don't need to micromanage them. If I'm paying > extra; treat all employees well. Yea, I do notice.)

Those 'clock sensors' aka sweep logs [1] are for legal purposes. Slip and fall claims are a major liability in the grocery industry.

[1]: [http://www.blanelaw.com/blog/sweep-logs-establishing- notice-...](http://www.blanelaw.com/blog/sweep-logs-establishing-notice-of-a- store-owner-on-a-ca-slip-fall-case.cfm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Could also be a broader sign the economy is struggling. People have less money to blow on expensive groceries and are scaling back purchasing.

</comment><comment><USER53> Different perspective: I live in Canada, next to a Whole Foods (Unionville).

If you compare prices of organic food and quality, Whole Foods is better and chair than any other place. Maybe downtown Toronto would be cheaper, but then I won't travel 35km for groceries.

The only thing I really dislike is the lack of true organic meat selection (only ABF) and they don't have things like lard.

</comment><comment><USER54> OT, but Whole Foods Code Of Business Conduct at [http://s21.q4cdn.com/118642233/files/doc_downloads/governanc...](http://s21.q4cdn.com/118642233/files/doc_downloads/governance_documents/CodeofBusinessConduct- Dec-7-2016.pdf) still have the approval requirements for postings.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's not just about organic food. These sorts of stores cater to niches that the larger chains do not.

<comment><USER28> Exactly, and they also maintain a higher image of Quality/Luxury by not carrying a lot of products you'd find in most normal stores likes Safeway or similar (1).

1: Those stores that have carts that you can actually use to shop without being a CEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Whole Foods is struggling... ok, that was the easy part. Now what can they do about it? Most comments here are about their price. They can't race to the bottom. If you were running the business, what would you do?

<comment><USER15> Improve customer service in general, bring the food court options back to the quality they apparently used to be at. People will pay uprate prices for quality and service. WF has been slipping in these areas and that doesn't match the value for the pricing.

Also, they expanded well beyond what is supported based on their pricing demographic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Organic food is vastly more popular now and thus Whole foods had more competition from the likes of Walmart and Costco in the organic produce space. This has driven margins down and that has cut into their profit margins.

</comment><comment><USER58> A plastic bottle of water with a single asparagus in it labeled "asparagus water" for $4.99. That's why Whole Foods is struggling. People are sick of being screwed with by a corporation.

<comment><USER59> How is that "being screwed"? It's not like you're being forced to buy this particular item.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Our local Krogers has taken Whole Foods and Trader Joes head on offering a broad line of oganic, vegetarian and vegan items. I'll go there for the price and basics, then to TJ for variety.

</comment><comment><USER61> Do you guys know of organic is worth it?

I guess if I could get a list of pesticides and herbicides I'm avoiding it would bring me more value. Right now I have no idea if it's a gimmic or what.

</comment><comment><USER62> It would be ironic if mainstream commercialization of a movement led to the utter dilution of its ideals into nothing more than a catchy, empty buzzword.

 _continues strolling around in a Che shirt_

</comment><comment><USER63> > Cummins pointed out that some of the most successful, most mainstream > organic products don't meet his organization's strict definition of what > organic should be. Those include the ubiquitous Earthbound Farms, which > grows its lettuces in monocultures, and Aurora Organic Dairy, which has been > criticized for running its operation like an industrial factory farm.

What is the point of "organic" if we don't even agree on what it means? Perhaps some sort of governing agency should give it a strict legal definition.

But that's probably in nobody's business interest ...

<comment><USER64> The USDA does define a legal definition of "organic". When they started doing this in the 90s it was very controversial in the health food community, because up until then there were various private certifications. The worry was that the USDA definition was a lowest common denominator and customers would not recognize the value in the more strict private certifications.

<comment><USER65> I'm pretty sure that prior to the USDA stepping in, "organic" had no regulatory definition and could be used pretty willy-nilly.

Now it has a definition, but I guess I am a contrarian. I find the organic industry to be pretty much a scam. It promised healthier, better tasting food. You can find studies showing that, but if you look at the totality of the literature, you find out that it isn't inherently either of those things. It is basically the naturalistic fallacy applied to the food industry on a wide- scale.

<comment><USER66> > but if you look at the totality of the literature, you find out that it > isn't inherently either of those things

I haven't actually looked at the available lit in a year or so, but if this is true, it's a huge change from the last time I did. My understanding is that several very good, large studies had shown dramatic differences in organic vs orthodox food.

<comment><USER65> I don't doubt you saw studies with conclusions like "50% more omega-3s." Sounds good. The devil, unfortunately, is in the details. I can elaborate if you want, but in an example such as this one, the amount of omega-3s went from one insignificant, but measurable number to another insignificant, but measurable number.

Or maybe you've seen reports on greater antioxidants or whatever. To make the leap to healthier is actually a completely separate matter. (Side note--too many antioxidants actually appears to interfere with your own cancer fighting processes. It was believed that free radicals were evil in the body, but it turns out they serve important functions too. As with most health news, things are more nuanced than the headlines suggest).

While talking about nutrients, I should point out that there are other studies showing conventional food have more of this or that nutrient. Those don't make big headlines, nor should they. Again, the amounts we're talking about are usually insignificant. The foods may be "different" in small ways, but "better?" Nope.

I could go on and on (e.g., let's say the numbers are significant--does it lead to better health in practice or is it a simple, possibly unjustified, extrapolation from other studies on the component in question). I could talk about dietary pesticides (99.99% that you consume are those produced by the plant itself) or herbicides or whatever. Careful observation makes you less trustful of the marketing hype.

Eating good food is important. Eat a reasonable amount of a variety of foods, mostly plants. Process it appropriately, according to established guidelines. That stuff is important. Organic? Probably not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Have any of you guys looked into CSAs? It's basically a seasonal subscription to products from individual local farms.

<comment><USER68> We've done numerous CSAs, even a bean CSA. The issue that we had with most CSAs is that we didn't have choices in what vegetables we got. There were just some vegetables in our house, that no matter how you cooked them, they just wouldn't get eaten.

On the plus side though, you're exposed to a wide variety of stuff to choose from and it can be a great way to get more veggies in your life and support your local farmers.

<comment><USER67> Were the recipes not that good or was it more a lack of motivation to prepare and eat all those vegetables? Would it make a difference if you knew which varieties were coming ahead of time or is it more just a function of having choice?

<comment><USER68> It wasn't the recipes, my wife is an awesome cook.

The lack of choice was just irritating. There are only so many ways you can use garlic whistles.

<comment><USER67> They're pretty good for pickling and flame-grilling. I get your point though. I'm actually hacking on an idea I had 2 days ago that I think might address this issue of choice with CSA distributions.

<comment><USER68> I would be extremely interested in seeing what you come up with. Will it be on terra.farm?

<comment><USER67> Yes it will. I'll let you know when I put out a prototype.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Competition has lowered the prices on the same goods and its killing their business model.

Time for them to lower prices, increase automation to cut labor costs and end employee benefits to be as competitive. Except of course they can't because politically their customers want to feel good about shopping there. That would vanish if the employees benefited less.

</comment><comment><USER70> I don't shop at WF because the parking lot is too small, always full, and there's just no place to park anywhere near it.

<comment><USER71> Same here. Used to live somewhat close to a Whole Foods in DC. It had a small parking lot that filled in peak hours, and there was no other place to park even if I paid. Of course the lot was half filled with cab drivers buying $10 worth of food, thus pushing out customers willing to fill a $200 cart. The full lot and tiny carts showed this store was not set up for someone buying a lot of food. I stopped going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> South Park? :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Kill your food before eating, then it won't struggle.

</comment><comment><USER74> Whole Food's prices went way past absurd. I can't afford too shop there anymore unless I'm very careful about what I buy. Almost every single item is 40-50% more expensive. When I first started shopping there I feel like it was closer to 15-20% more expensive which was acceptable. I don't care if $2.50 poor people grocery store PopTarts kill me 15 minutes sooner than the Whole Foods bullshit whatever alternative. That's just fine. I'll give up my 15 minutes to save all that money.

<comment><USER75> > Almost every single item is 40-50% more expensive.

This study begs to differ, and it was done 8 months ago. Regular produce is about 20% more expensive, and meat is 50% more expensive, as it turns out. [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-more-expensive-is- wh...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-more-expensive-is-whole- foods-2016-6)

> I don't care if $2.50 poor people grocery store PopTarts kill me 15 minutes > sooner than the Whole Foods bullshit whatever alternative.

The "Whole Foods bullshit whatever alternative" is making your own toast with jam, which is orders of magnitude less expensive. If you're really concerned about food budgets, processed foods are the worst possible thing you can buy.

<comment><USER76> > The "Whole Foods bullshit whatever alternative" is making your own toast > with jam

No, I'm not sure where you'd get that idea - WF sells several fancy organic and overpriced 'toaster pastries'.

<comment><USER75> Well, the next sentence explains.

Basically, if you are that badly off that spending 3 bucks for pop tarts is a splurge, either that's the only thing you splurge on or you buy something more economical.

With some hyperbole used, buying a pop tart or equivalent when you're poor is like buying soda when you're poor. You either sacrifice for it, or you use something cheaper that does roughly the same thing (water), or you go without.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> One of my friends nicknamed Whole Foods as "Whole Paycheck" \- its apt.

I was absolutely aghast at the prices at whole foods the first time I went in. 6 dollars for a gallon of milk, for example. I love the selection of Whole Foods - I don't like the price however enough to shop there. When I need something you'd typically find at the "organic" food store, I'm much more likely to go find a local co-op type place, which while not much cheaper, leaves me feeling a little better about myself when I'm done shopping.

<comment><USER13> I have never been to the US but is 6 dollars for a gallon of organic milk considered a lot? What do you normally pay for it?

<comment><USER28> That would be cheap for a gallon!

<comment><USER27> Agreed -- Europe has all sorts of government-sanctioned price fixing. If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks.

However, in the US, agriculture subsidies are less transparent. But then again, in France, you get to pay high taxes AND pay higher prices.

The problem in France, from my perspective is that there is an obsession with 'saving farmers,' when many of them really ought to leave the market due to inefficiencies.

You see similar dynamics in Korea with rice import quotas -- high consumer prices for rice because rice farming has been a protected industry.

Henry Hazlit's "Economics in One Lesson" explains this idea pretty succinctly. Essentially "protecting" the special interest harms the general interest, but that harm isn't easily identified since your average consumer isn't protesting higher milk prices but farmers often violently or vocally protest lower milk prices.

<comment><USER78> _If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks._

A year ago, taxi drivers were assaulting Uber drivers/passengers for similar reasons. Apparently farmers do this too? Are large segments of French society just a bunch of thugs who will engage in violence against society if they are not given tribute?

Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly sanctioned by the government?

This situation sounds really surprising from an American perspective and I'm really curious what's going on.

<comment><USER28> > Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is > not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American > South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly > sanctioned by the government?

There's actually a branch of law enforcement named CRSs dedicated at this, they do make arrests sometimes, but seldomly as they usually favor the baton usage, which is an art they are very well known for.

Generally speaking, each protest is a war of opinion involving 3 participants: the government, the protesters, and the rest of the population. The latter is key as the way its sympathy swings usually designates the winner. It's usually an equation including the level of justification claimed by the protesters, how proportionate the law enforcement usage of force was, and of course the level of violence used by the protesters. e.g: \- Too violent a crackdown makes the government look bad \- Destructions of public infrastructures, or vicious display of violence for the other side. Infiltration with unidentifiable agent provocateurs is typical.

<comment><USER78> Terrorism as performance art, successfully gaining the sympathies of the population (provided it isn't too extreme) and driving the government to give the terrorists what they want?

This is the kind of thing I'd expect in Yemen or Somalia, not western Europe.

I think I'm shocked mainly because I never viewed the cultural differences between the US and Europe as being this large. Admittedly I've only been to France once; I suspect in the UK or Netherlands (places I'm more familiar with) attitudes would be a lot closer to US.

<comment><USER28> > Terrorism as performance art, successfully gaining the sympathies of the > population (provided it isn't too extreme) and driving the government to > give the terrorists what they want?

While the term 'terrorist' seems a bit connoted to me, there is indeed a sort of bargain/blackmail dynamic in most protests and funnily the french population routinely describes itself 'hostage' when the situation leads to disturbance of public services or infrastructures.

> This is the kind of thing I'd expect in Yemen or Somalia, not western > Europe.

Right, peaceful protesting in countries at war is probably not too frequent. Although in the case of Somalia, protests must be kind of interesting since there is essentially no government.

>I suspect in the UK or Netherlands (places I'm more familiar with) attitudes would be a lot closer to US.

Absolutely, for tons of cultural and social reasons. Although I observe that all the countries you listed did at times have violent rioting as well.

<comment><USER78> According to the dictionary, terrorists are people who engage in premeditated violence to achieve political ends.

I know that the media doesn't usually use the term to describe left wing white people [1], but I prefer to use the same term regardless of the ideology or ethnicity of the terrorist.

[1] My favorite euphemism comes from TechCrunch: "illegal armed groups". [https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed- bump...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed-bumps/)

<comment><USER28> > According to the dictionary, terrorists are people who engage in > premeditated violence to achieve political ends.

Eh, good dictionaries usually have more than just a literal section for definitions, something that covers the connotative meaning and it can actually be useful sometimes :P

<comment><USER78> I'm aware that "terrorist" often connotes "islamic terrorist". I'm deliberately pushing against this connotation - I don't think white people should get a pass when they engage in similar actions.

<comment><USER28> I think I see your point more clearly now. It's probably a matter of interpretation as the connotation I had in mind wasn't the one your proposed, but the idea we tend to imagine any form of terrorism as exercising violence on innocent humans usually called victims. In this particular case, I was thinking it didn't legitimate appropriate use of the term since we are essentially talking burnt cars and beaten up cops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I used to shop only at whole foods, happily paying $200 for 3 paper bags of groceries. Then in 2009 their CEO spouted some libertarian crap how he was against healthcare reform. I was shocked that whole foods wasn't run by hippies. At that point I did some research and found that the 365 store brand that claims to be organic actually just buys ingredients from china that china claims is organic. Who is verifying it is genuinely organic, the crazy libertarian CEO? I doubt it!</comment>


Transform News: Apply to be a 2012/13 Knight-Mozilla Fellow - <AUTHOR> http://mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/apply.html

<comment><USER2> Eight newsrooms around the world will be hosting Knight-Mozilla Fellows in 2012/13. Fellows work in the open, creating innovative open-source projects to help transform journalism. We're looking for talented developers and technologists who are looking for an opportunity to spend 10 months at some of the best news organizations in the world making awesome new things.</comment>


A Few Thoughts on Teaching and Learning - <AUTHOR> http://sophisticatedfinance.typepad.com/sophisticated_finance/2011/06/a-few-thoughts-on-teaching-and-learning.html

<comment><USER2> In today's world we are already seeing a dramatic shift in educational methods. Examples include Internet classes where you only meet your teacher face to face for the final exam, the usage of Youtube and other internet media in the classroom and the acceptance of Wikipedia as a source in a paper. We've known for a long time that traditional classroom schooling does not work for everyone. The difference is that students growing up with technology today have better opportunities to discover how they learn the best. Institutions are slowly catching on.

Garciag said..."I'd be interested in seeing how long the students would need to adapt to the new classroom dynamic. I would suspect that the students would at first present cautiously, seeking your approval of the material, until you are seen as the mentor and not just a traditional teacher observing and grading."

I agree with him. I believe that this model would be easier to adjust to if each "teaching project" was graded as pass/fail. Either you did it, or you didn't go it. Anyone in an undergraduate entrepreneurship class should LOVE what they are doing. If they don't, then they will never succeed as an entrepreneur. So, if they do it at all, the chances are they will put effort into it. I believe that this concept of teaching in order to learn is absolutely correct. However, just like your favorite chocolate, it must be done in moderation. Along with the chocolate metaphor, you don't want to eat straight cocoa, you want to add powdered sugar with it to balance the sweetness and bitterness. Likewise, a typical lecture dynamic and breaking students out into groups are equally as important. Try to tap into different forms of learning so that all the students will latch onto the concepts. In conclusion, the model of teaching in order to learn is a form of learning that is rarely used. It should be used almost as regularly as breaking students out into groups.</comment>


How to define custom, colored labels (like TODO) in VIM - <AUTHOR> http://dtuite.github.com/define-custom-vim-tags-and-labels.html

<comment><USER2> The link to the article is: [http://dtuite.github.com/define-custom-vim-tags- and-labels.h...](http://dtuite.github.com/define-custom-vim-tags-and- labels.html)

yet Chrome tries to take me to: [http://onlyvariance.comdavidtuite.com/define- custom-vim-tags...](http://onlyvariance.comdavidtuite.com/define-custom-vim- tags-and-labels.html)

which is an invalid domain.

Anyone know what to do to get to the article?

<comment><USER3> Type "cache:[http://dtuite.github.com/define-custom-vim-tags-and- labels.h...](http://dtuite.github.com/define-custom-vim-tags-and-labels.html) into Chrome's address bar and hit enter to see the content.

The repo is no longer visible (<http://davidtuite.com/define-custom-vim-tags- and-labels.html>), so I'm guessing it was either deleted or made private. The CNAME file in that repo probably inadvertently pointed to "onlyvariance.comdavidtuite.com" and GitHub is still caching it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The true extensibility of vim never ceases to amaze me.</comment>


Is Parallel Programming Hard, and, If So, What Can You Do About It? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfbook/perfbook.2015.01.31a.pdf <comment><USER2> Since it's a really big, technical book here are some quick quotes I thought were useful in general:

"This book is a handbook of widely applicable and heavily used design techniques, rather than a collection of optimal algorithms with tiny areas of applicability."

"As a rough rule of thumb, use the simplest tool that will get the job done. If you can, simply program sequentially. If that is insufficient, try using a shell script to mediate parallelism."

"[...] parallelism is but one potential optimization of many. A successful design needs to focus on the most important optimization. Much though I might wish to claim otherwise, that optimization might or might not be parallelism."

It's a very good handbook for advanced developers who use native languages. It basically adresses any problem you might encounter when dealing with sync, locks etc...

Near page 300 the author writes about higher level languages and clearly states the shortcomings of these new types of programming. Not sure what to think about it. Are we really discussing the usage of high level "scripts" to handle heavy computations in the 10 next years? I'd love to hear a math or physics Ph.D about this.

EDIT: I mean, Wolfram is kind of a "ultra high level scripted platform" and seems to work pretty well. Isn't that the future?

<comment><USER3> Well, scripting languages are actually pretty popular even now. I work in uncertainty quantification for nuclear engineering. One common task is to run the same simulation many times with slightly different parameters. Scripting languages like Python are popular for this and they give you easy parallelism.

The current pattern in research is usually to hammer out a prototype in a scripting language, profile, then migrate hot code paths to Fortran or C++. That's only if necessary though, you can get remarkable performance most of the time just using NumPy and similar.

I'm a long time user/lover of Mathematica and now what I guess is the Wolfram language, definitely an expert on it. There's one thing I know about it, which is that it isn't the future, at least not in my industry. Open source is surprisingly popular in the NE research community and as long as WL stays closed, it won't be significant.

<comment><USER4> Bioinformatics largely takes a similar approach. Because the field is rooted in Statistics, statistical theories are often prototyped in GNU R by Ph.Ds without formal computer science backgrounds. While statistically sound, R implementations often lack the performance properties necessary to crunch large datasets. This is where those of us with backgrounds in computation will optimize and parallelize code using lower level languages. There is no shame in starting from a scripting language. I often prototype ideas using R, Perl or Python before finalizing them in C, Java, OpenCL, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is also a 1-column pdf ([http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfbook/p...](http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfbook/perfbook-1c.2015.01.31a.pdf)) for those annoyed by the 2-column format. The margins are enormous, but at least you dont have to scroll down then up.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, my pdf reader can trim margins and make two columns out of one, but it can't make one column out of two.

<comment><USER5> Which reader is this?

<comment><USER6> Okular

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is about large-calculation parallelism. It covers bus architectures and language primitives.

There's another whole parallel (multi-threaded) conversation that's not about raw compute speed, but about latency. Does your app keep running when somebody holds a mouse button down? Does the API stay live when data is being crunched? Does your service handle hundreds or thousands of client requests serially or in parallel?

Those problems have completely different solutions from those addressed in the OP. The language-primitive approach doesn't begin to touch the issues involved.

<comment><USER8> That's not what I see. The book delves into the coordination of shared resources in a shared space (like RAM). This could take the form of task parallelism for speedup, or more likely in this case, task parallelism for concurrency and resource sharing. Since there's so little discussion in the book of issues related to speedup (task decomposition or resource allocation or load balancing), I'm inclined to think it's of most use to someone building a shared memory RDBMS or the like, where semaphores and locks are critical to avoidance of bugs and data corruption.

<comment><USER7> Those things are of course at bottom of any multi-task discussion. But they are so far below the actionable layer for service designers as to be moot. For that we need to talk about transactional data, about restartable processes, about context and state and where its kept, from a language and data structure point of view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There should be a warning of some sort that this is a 7.5 MB book, not just an article. It just wiped out my mobile roaming.

There's a lot to be said for hiding technical details from the non-technical general public, but there's something to be said for having occasional warnings.

<comment><USER10> What's next? Stop signs?

<comment><USER11> So that's how we arrived at "Caution: Slippery When Wet"…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The hard part of nearly any parallel activity that aims for order over chaos is synchronisation. It strikes me that part of the problem with parallel programming is that the margin for error with regards to synchronisation can be very slim.

Some would say that we need to improve our code to fit into this margin for error, and I can agree with that, but what if we look at the issue from the other direction. What methods could we employ for increasing our margin of error? What might these methods look like?

If we treat the goal as improving adjustment to synchronisation mistakes, we'll first need to know when adjustments should be made. One way to do that is to predict how long each process is likely to take, then measure the success of this model against real world performance. In this way, a system could get better at synchronisation the longer it runs for. It doesn't matter if the original guess was way off, as long as you correct it with feedback.

<comment><USER13> > What methods could we employ for increasing our margin of error? What might > these methods look like?

These methods and their applications are the field of distributed computing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The book is good. BTW, the title is a bit misleading, in my opinion: handling paralelism at low level is hard, but parallel programing is hard only because of the languages we use are not transparent enough, and because many problems are hard to split in parallel tasks.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've got the book in my queue to read, but parallel programming is hard. I think it pretty much still stands that there is no way to show that parallel code works, other than to do a formal proof of each section of the code.

<comment><USER16> Might be worth looking at "Doing Hard Time" by Bruce Powell Douglass. It's drenched in "executable UML" flavor but the toolchains that existed before Rose RT included less of that.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You could have done the recent Heterogeneous Parallel Programming MOOC ( [https://class.coursera.org/hetero-004](https://class.coursera.org/hetero-004) ).

</comment><comment><USER18> Don't use a language that doesn't provide you with the tools to handle it?

I don't have many issues with concurrent code in Clojure, or C#, or Go.

But in pre-1.8 Java or Python or Ruby or C++, I'm guessing you're going to have a really, really bad time...

<comment><USER16> Ignoring issues like potential non-reentrance of code and other library issues, C++ is perfectly capable of being used to make programs that use pthreads. It's not a bad time at all...

Python apparently has threading and I've seen "from miltiprocessing import.." in Python before.

Tcl also has threads, or you can just write things to be event driven. I have never used Tcl to implement a multiprocessor solution, but others have. Because sockets are a first-class object in Tcl, _that_ approach is quite fruitful. I use something you could roughly call "coroutines over a network" daily in Tcl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Learn you some Joe Armstrong's books..)</comment>


Stargit - Browse the Github collaborations network - <AUTHOR> http://www.stargit.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also see this earlier post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2673660></comment>


Branson admits Virgin space mission was going the wrong direction - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2017/03/03/branson-quietly-admits-20-year-space-mission-was-going-the-wrong-way/ <comment><USER2> There's no indication that they've figured out that Virgin's real problem is their architecture. They're still trying to use _wings_ to get to space.

The Germans and NASA back in the 50s understood that "mass is mass", and wings compete with fuel for weight. They're dead mass you have to accelerate. The lift they provide isn't worth it.

The Russians put Sputnik and Gegarin in orbit with a rocket.

NASA went to the Moon with a rocket.

ICBMs are rockets.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are making rockets.

Branson's problem is that he founded a company started by Burt Rutan (a brilliant airplane designer), and never hired the right rocket designers, and he doesn't have the technical expertise himself to realize what he's doing wrong.

For an example of a rocket company that understands this, but is trying to square the circle anyway, read about Skylon.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_\(spacecraft\))

They at least understand the mass trade-offs being made and are trying to develop new technology that helps skirt around them.

<comment><USER3> Would you say that achieving orbit is a problem of achieving velocity more than lifting to a certain altitude, and that wings are a delicate tool for decelerating when coming back to earth?

<comment><USER2> Yes, absolutely. That's why the Apollo capsules and the Dragon spacecraft don't have them. The loads and heat involved are enormous. Even the Space Shuttle had pretty stubby wings, and the special tiles those wings needed to protect themselves were a constant source of high-cost maintenance (and ended up destroying one of the Shuttles and killing all its crew when they failed).

The wings on SpaceShipOne were pretty light and flimsy because they didn't need to be any stronger considering how slow SpaceShipOne's top speed was. It topped out at Mach 3, and you need to reach Mach 25 to achieve orbit. Wings strong enough to handle Mach 25 would be too heavy to ever reach Mach 25; Catch 22!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I must say - both physically compelled by the pun and because that it is a pun makes it no less true - that SpaceX has been a rousing success for the "launch and iterate" mantra so often pushed on HN. Having a product, that works, that people can pay you for, as soon as possible makes a huge difference, even if what you push out first is no where near what you want your finished product to be. The contrast to Virgin Galactic is startling.

<comment><USER5> SpaceX looks like a software company that has had success with their product so far but is in the process of a major refactoring to a new technology base.

Basically if they want to fly reusable rockets with high reliability and low refurbishment time and cost, they have to redesign and rebuild quite a lot. And they need new philosophies and processes.

You can for example look at their current Merlin gas generator technology engines. The chosen cycle results in high temperatures for the turbine, something which works against reliability and reusability. They have the staged combustion Raptor engine coming up, but they are too big to be used as landing engines, so they have to do that in another way.

Gas generator as a first engine (and pressure fed upper stage) makes a lot of sense though.

On the other hand, Virgin Galactic chose an unconventional and hard to scale technology: hybrid rockets, which has proved even more problematic.

As a fairly technical person, you look at these companies and organizations (NASA) and feel how they just simply can't make technically informed decisions higher up. SpaceX has improved a lot historically though.

Do you know if there are companies with technical leadership?

<comment><USER6> Projects are never going to pick the perfect solution out of the gate. But, tested compromises also have value.

I would suggest SpaceX freeze a design every 5-7 years that's good enough to scale while cheaper than it's completion and then have a more experimental path. If option A costs 20 million more, but has a 98+% success rate and option B saves 20 million then the market can chose which to focus on.

The real 'problem' spaceX is facing is humans simply don't send all that much stuff into space, so they are never get enough data get the experimental path stable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A sensible shift, but comes a bit late. The success india, spacex, ula, are having will lead to kepler syndrome before he gets operational if I had to bet on it. Still, I support every dollar spent on space tech. I only hope the tech developed for dead end projects is released if unused.

<comment><USER8> I like "Kepler Syndrome".

The runaway proliferation of humans on nearby habitable planets.

<comment><USER9> So, Earth?

<comment><USER10> Well, that certainly _is_ the majority of cases we're aware of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Too early for space tourism.

<comment><USER12> Musk announced couple of days ago a plan to send tourists on a sightseeing trip around Moon. And not as some hypothetical plan, but in a sense that the said tourists have bought the tickets.

Now, with their track record it looks like it's probably going to take 2x more time than the announced schedule says, but on the other hand, 2x is quite much sooner than 'never'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> yes, diagonal not vertical how it should be.

</comment><comment><USER14> down?</comment>


Open source Nextdoor alternative? - <AUTHOR>

https://www.nextdoor.com/ isn't yet available in my country, so I'm looking for another solution. As this isn't a service that will connect the whole world, I think some sort of CMS installed at a shared hosting provider would work great.<p>Anyone know of such a solution? <comment> extropic-engine You might be able to use something like [http://librarybox.us/](http://librarybox.us/). You could also just host forums for your neighborhood. [http://www.discourse.org/](http://www.discourse.org/)</comment>


J2TeaM Security – A Chrome extension to protect your Facebook account - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hmlcjjclebjnfohgmgikjfnbmfkigocc <comment><USER2> It's really fucking good bro :P</comment>


The Believers - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-Believers/190147

<comment><USER2> For such a short article, it was very accurate and didn't succumb completely to hype, while conveying a lot of fair history. I missed it the first time(s) around here.

Here's a link to the author's website: [http://voosen.me/#home](http://voosen.me/#home)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9093156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9093156)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098937)</comment>


The Matrix Updated - <AUTHOR> http://www.bfilipek.com/2016/03/the-matrix-updated.html <comment><USER2> your the better programmer but heres my suggestion.

webscript that picks a live streamed security camera that occcasionally has a people walk by it (ie street cam), based on the users location/timezone

and then asciivideo that in the background of the stream

might try this if i have the time :D. very cool stuff btw

<comment><USER3> the postprocessing effects if very simple, you just apply a glyph (even random) instead of a pixel. So if might be used in lots of places... like you mention - for camera input. This was done 13 years ago for Desktop, C++... but now WebGL would be definitely a better choice.</comment></comment>