Britain's Next Megaproject: A Coast-To-Coast Forest - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/01/northern-forest-united-kingdom/550025/?utm_source=SFTwitter <comment><USER2> It's fun to consider that the British Isles (and indeed all of Europe) was once a vast forest. I visited Dartmoor a few years ago, and the moors have such a feeling of antiquity about them it's easy to forget that they, too, were once forested, though they've been denuded since the Neolithic era.

<comment><USER3> Were the moors deforested by humans for agricultural purposes? It doesn't seem like much is grown there.

<comment><USER4> Yes, mostly cleared with fire around the start of the Bronze Age for crop farming and livestock grazing. The soil's too acidic now to be good for much except looking scenic.

Hipster Britain: we were Brazil before it was mainstream.

<comment><USER5> What has made it acidic?

<comment><USER6> I would guess the organic matter from thousands of years of growth. Normally organic matter rich soil suits ericaceous (acid loving) plants.

<comment><USER4> > _ericaceous (acid loving) plants_

Not to be confused with erinaceous (pertaining to hedgehogs) plants.

Cacti, perhaps? English vocabulary can be weird.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It stings to know that in the US, state-level initiatives like this are exceedingly rare, and national ones are (and will continue to be) non- existent. Even most local efforts like this are met with resistance, usually from NIMBYs that have no argument aside from that they don't like it. Americans have a very hard time seeing beyond their property boundaries.

<comment><USER8> As a New Zealander currently living in the UK, the contrast in conservation approaches is stark.

I've come to the conclusion that New Zealand is beautiful in large part because a) it has a low population density and b) it hasn't had a sufficiently high population density for long enough to ruin it. Not so much because of broad public support for conservation. Luckily, I think some good basic protections exist (national parks), and are mostly respected.

In the UK, there's so little wilderness remaining that it commands a considerable respect, and considerable conservation effort and public support. Noticeably more so, I believe, than I witnessed in NZ.

<comment><USER9> Whilst it's true there's not much of what you'd call 'wilderness' in the UK - it's a small island after all where you are never more than 70 miles from the sea, surprisingly only 1% of the UK is built on and only 7% is considered an urban area.

Woodlands currently occupy 12.6% of the UK land area which is almost double the urban area.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, when I lived in the UK I was surprised by how much open space there was.

The cities and towns are better designed than those of new world countries which sprawl.

<comment><USER11> The old—even ancient—cities of Europe avoided the mistake of suburban building and have a naturally high-density shape from having been built before the automobile.

<comment><USER12> It's not visible in the center of cities, but an urban sprawl has developed on the periphery of cities. Such sprawls are similar to those existing in the US (car mandatory, few or no services, little public transportation).

<comment><USER13> the UK has the green belt system to try to prevent this happening

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_belt_(United_Kingdom)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_belt_\(United_Kingdom\))

if anything it's too successful

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't trust the motives here, but in Britain it is really hard to find a place where you can go and be alone with a campfire in woodland. 'Wild camping' is usually only an option in the high mountains where there is CROW land. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countryside_and_Rights_of_Wa...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countryside_and_Rights_of_Way_Act_2000)

<comment><USER15> Scotland has more liberal laws in this regard as I understand it.

<comment><USER16> We have the "Right to Roam" here in Scotland which means you can go pretty much anywhere you want by foot or on a bike and camp pretty much anywhere as long as you are sensible.

No lack of wild places in Scotland, thankfully (although more trees would be nice!).

<comment><USER10> That's great, are people generally respectful of the situation?

Here the central and local governments have been slowly restricting the rights of people to camp. This is because the Freedom Campers, as they're called, generally don't respect the places that they're staying - destroying the environment and leaving rubbish and human waste behind.

Sometimes when people go to another country they don't behave like guests should and it's the sad case of a few ruining it for everyone else.

<comment><USER16> Mostly yes - I believe there have been some problems on the shores on Loch Lomond, but that's a major tourist area and close to Glasgow so I think they've restricted some aspects of camping there. But that's a tiny part of the country.

Scotland also has a fantastic network of "bothies" which are houses in wildnerness areas that are free for anyone to stay in as long as you act sensibly, which most people do:

[https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/](https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/)

<comment><USER10> Similar idea to the hut network that the NZ Department of Conservation maintains:

[http://www.doc.govt.nz/huts](http://www.doc.govt.nz/huts)

The sad thing is they're looking to reduce them because some of them are quite old and the cost of maintenance is high and 1,000 odd buildings which are in very remote locations are no doubt a PITA to manage.

But people are constantly getting caught in the wilderness by a sudden change of weather and the hut network saves lives.

<comment><USER8> The huts are seriously fantastic. For any visitors to NZ who have any interest in hiking, buy a doc hut pass ($90 when I last bought one some years ago) and stay in most of these huts at no additional cost.

Some of the abandoned ones have been adopted. You might appreciate this: [http://remotehuts.co.nz/](http://remotehuts.co.nz/)

As far as I can tell doc seems to be engaging in more commercial activity, buying remote properties that are cheap (because they're remote), and renting them out Airbnb-style. My guess is they may actually make money from this activity. And they may need to because of years of reduction in government funding, in real terms. You may know more about this than I do.

<comment><USER10> Some of them are probably border line historic, with grafiti and messages dating back to the early 20th centuary. The visitor books in them are often a great read if stuck inside in bad weather.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The M62 across Saddleworth Moor is already breathtakingly beautiful, in its sparse way. I realise those hills were forrested long ago but I'd be sad to lose the views from up there.

Otherwise, I love the idea of returning even just this small corridor to the forest it once was.

Interesting, though, to see The National Forest mentioned. It is odd to drive down the A38 and see the road signs welcoming you to the forest but no actual trees.

<comment><USER18> The M62 is a motorway. It is ugly.

<comment><USER17> Whatever you think of the motorway itself, once you're on it you get some pretty nice views from it up on the moors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article hints at the driving force behind this vanity project:

> Current threats are numerous, including the endangering of 35 ancient forest > tracts destined to be damaged by the construction of England's new high- > speed rail link, because tunneling or diversion has been deemed too > expensive and inconvenient. Already, some critics are protesting that the > Northern Forest project is a fig leaf—albeit a vast one—intended to mask > neglect and abuse of woodlands elsewhere

<comment><USER20> You can just as easily paint this in a pragmatic light, rather than a sinister one. "We're going to clear some forest here where it's in our way, and to compensate, we're going to plant some additional forests elsewhere where they're more convenient" is very different from "we're going to spin up a forest-planting project so nobody notices we're cutting down trees elsewhere."

<comment><USER21> I'm curious if the new forest is actually a compensation that factors into the "diverting the railway is too expensive" math. Is reforesting actually part of the railway project's budget, or is it an externalized cost like environmental issues really are?

And even if it is included in their budget, are they accurately valuing an old-growth forest, or treating an acre of old-growth forest as equivalent to an acre of reforested area? I suspect if they put an accurate value on their old-growth forests and the ecosystems they support, then diverting the railway would look like the less expesive option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

<comment><USER23> Good one. There is some (maybe) Chinese proverb something like that too.

<comment><USER24> "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now."

<comment><USER25> There is a good story : [https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new- college-ox...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college- oxford)

<comment><USER23> Good story, thank you.

Nice last paragraph of the article:

"Ultimately, while the story is perhaps apocryphal, the idea of replacing and managing resources for the future, and the lesson in long term thinking is not."

Also interesting is that it is:

"In conjunction with the Long Now Foundation. Modified from original video and text by Stewart Brand at the Long Now Blog."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand)

My uncle had brought over a copy of The Whole Earth Catalog from the US when I was a teenager, it was a fantastic read, and partly the cause (although I was interested in such things from earlier) for my interest in nature, hiking, appropriate technology, organic gardening, woodworking and other crafts, etc. Done things in some of those areas, and hope to do more in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Trees shouldn't be planted on this scale. The land should be left idle, and nature will take its course, sprouting species that thrive in local conditions, i.e. the soil type and microclimate.

They might be planting "local, mainly broadleaf tree species", but the principle is still wrong. Why attempt to second guess what will work, when nature will do it better than we ever possibly could, saving a lot of labour, too. I'm sure the resulting woodland would be far more interesting.

<comment><USER27> There are not necessarily the local flora that should be taking hold. If you kill all of the trees in an area, you re going to have to wait an awful long time before they re-grow there, even though it will work, and can be support (and I would argue should be).

Additionally the land may still have a purpose, such as for flood defense down stream, in which case engineering the habitat should absolutely take place.

Frankly the lack of trees in some areas of the UK (even rural areas, such as large parts of the Yorkshire dales/moors where I am from) would mean that forest regeneration would take far longer (100's of years longer, as we would have to wait multiple times for trees to mature before spreading seeds in the local area.

Another thing to take into account is the local wildlife. Due to having a very unhealthy amount of predators tree growth is hampered by large numbers of deer, rabbits and in many areas sheep, which roam in un-enclosed fashion. Mature trees do very well, but saplings just get grazed to oblivion.

So yes, please plant trees on this scale, but they do need to take their time, and do it right.

<comment><USER26> The plan to plant trees as outlined in the article is wrong. That's not to say planting trees at all is wrong. As you say for flood defence it would seem like a good idea.

Re wildlife, yes they would need to be controlled if trees are to take root. Sheep and trees aren't natural bed fellows. I'm not a making a man vs nature argument here; support is necessary in all manner of ways, in some it means taking a hands-off approach.

As for lack of trees in some areas, that might be for a good reason. Not every bit of land is suitable for woodland. Where it doesn't take root, it's a hint. And where it takes root, I would ask how you come up with a figure of hundreds of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When performing this kind of mass-scale planting, how do they ensure genetic diversity in the seeds? Or do they?

</comment><comment><USER29> Next step: re-introduce lions ;) They had them in England up until ~ 13,000 years ago, so it's at least vaguely feasible assuming the forest was large enough, and supported a sufficient number of prey animals.

<comment><USER30> Always wondered why the English national team was referred to as the three lions, I guess this helps explain it.

<comment><USER31> > Always wondered why the English national team was referred to as the three > lions, I guess this helps explain it

Prehistoric lions in what would much later be known as England aren't the source of that.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Arms_of_England](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Arms_of_England)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > So far, the government has pledged just an initial £5.7 million of the £500 > million needed to fully realize the project.

Hmm. This sounds like the new "garden bridge".

<comment><USER33> Not really.

The garden bridge was a terrible idea and in the wrong place. This is really quite a good idea and in a place that is at least defensible.

The article does mention the way the National Forest came into being. Perhaps that would be the model here too. This is another difference to the garden bridge: the luckless inhabitants of Lambeth were going to have to pony up for a bridge they would have to pay again to use...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The United Kingdom is fairly close to the Boreal Forest Biome [1] which spans across Eurasia and North America in a narrow band. I wonder if it used to include the UK region back in the olden days. Does anybody know?

[1] [http://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/boreal.htm](http://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/boreal.htm)

<comment><USER35> No idea, but I think the gulf stream might interfere with any plans to start living as a sable trapper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My sister and I often travel across Nevada, either Utah -> CA, or the reverse. We half-joke about planting a tree every time we do, and putting up a sign and calling it "The Nevada Reclamation Project."

(This is the part where, hopefully, some ultra-knowledgeable HN reader posts a link to how I should actually be doing it.)

</comment><comment><USER37> It's strange to imagine places like Saddleworth Moor being covered with trees.

<comment><USER38> In the US we have the opposite situation - vast forests that used to be farmland. In New England you can be hiking through a dense forest, far from any town, and come across stone walls that farmers built from the stones they dug up while clearing their fields.

<comment><USER23> Interesting, any idea why that is so? In some other places, it is often the reverse, i.e. forests chopped down and converted to farmland. Is it the way it is in New England because farms were abandoned, forests were restored, or some other reason?

<comment><USER39> In many cases it's likely due to early farming efforts that were shifted (in the generic unit sense) to superior farm land. Outcompeted, basically.

Part of my family were Appalachian farmers that owned sizable amounts of relatively low-value farm land. The land is difficult to work, almost nothing is flat or ideal. The soil is ok, but only for a select few things. The climate is mediocre for farming in many parts of the greater region.

As US farming industrialized, it concentrated, moved toward far superior farming land regions. If you were a small farmer in much of New England, you lost that economic battle.

<comment><USER40> I ran across this in Georgia once. A forest where there was once a rice field (during slavery days). I thought the terrain seemed a little different than surrounding areas and started researching. If you leave an area idle for long enough nature will take over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> woodland like 's-Hertogenbosch can be pretty open much of the time. I think people who read "children of the new forest" imagine some kind of dense dark mirkwood. its more like fields, scrubland, trees, ponies, wall-to-wall daytrippers cars..</comment>


Smokers seem less likely than non-smokers to fall ill with Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/smokers-seem-less-likely-than-non-smokers-to-fall-ill-with-covid-19 <comment><AUTHOR> unfortunately paywall. here is the text: [https://pastebin.com/F7XJQquU](https://pastebin.com/F7XJQquU)

Or use the Paywall Bypass FF extension and go to "reader-view", then reload the page from within reader-view. In the extension I had to activate "General Paywall Bypass" within the options.</comment>


Netflix Streaming = 20% of peak Internet traffic in the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.sandvine.com/news/pr_detail.asp?ID=288

<comment><USER2> From Netflix's own site they currently have around 15 million subscribers and from the world bank, there are about 230 million people with internet in the US so about 6% of the internet users are taking up 20% of the peak bandwidth (assuming that all 15 million actually use the streaming service which is probably a gross over estimation). It'd be very interesting to see how the YouTube/Hulu numbers compare. I can see why Netflix would be such a high consumer (longer content and now a lot more HD content) but even still 20% seems very high when you factor in things like YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon and file sharing like Bit Torrent.

</comment><comment><USER3> My sister-in-law and father-in-law both pay $10/mn to Netflix and never rent movies. They use it for streaming only. I have a feeling that there are a lot of these kinds of Netflix customers that pad the company's profits.

I'm not entirely surprised that most streaming is 8-10pm, but in my family, it's all from 8am to 10am. The kids just have to watch the same Thomas and Caillou over and over again.

<comment><USER4> One of my roommates has an Xbox 360 solely for streaming Netflix on his big TV in lieu of cable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok. This article seems to be saying that Netflix epsnds 500 mil/year on shipping, and they now spend more on streaming than shipping. Let's say they spend 500 mil/year on streaming.

[http://newteevee.com/2010/10/20/netflix-ceo-we-are-now-a- str...](http://newteevee.com/2010/10/20/netflix-ceo-we-are-now-a-streaming- company/)

Let's also assume that they spend 2 cents/gb on bandwith, so $1/50gb. 50gb * 500mil == 500 * 50pb == 25 exabytes.

Somebody with more knowledge: does the yearly US bandwidth sound like it's in the range of 125 exabytes?

<comment><USER6> They run their entire streaming service from EC2, which at the best price is 8 cents /GB. Assuming they worked out a deal (which I've never heard of Amazon doing), they might be as low as say 4 cents. So I'd say best case you need to at least 1/2 your numbers.

<comment><USER7> Where does it say that? If they're pushing as much transit as they say they are, they would be going straight to the Tier 1's and running their own servers.

Also, when you're doing as much traffic as Netflix is, then you should be measuring in line speed, not data transferred. Providers bill based on speed (by the Mbit or Gbit) because that represents best how much of their total capacity you're using. It doesn't cost them anything to transfer some amount of data, but it does cost them in the total amount of bandwidth they have left to sell to other customers.

<comment><USER8> _It doesn't cost them anything to transfer some amount of data, but it does cost them in the total amount of bandwidth they have left to sell to other customers._

At some level transfer quantity and rate are the same thing. A bit sent for customer A takes up space on the wire that can not be used for customer B, no matter how it's measured.

It's also unclear which line would be measured for purposes of Netflix's transfer rate. That's one of the beauties of the cloud... specific line transfer rates are abstracted away into an aggregate quantity of data.

If you're selling lines, you charge by rate. If you're selling transfer, you sell by bits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This definitely throws a wrench in the argument that high bandwidth user = illegal file sharing, baby punching terrorist.

I'd be surprised if Netflix didn't have some arrangement with the major ISPs. On the other hand, if Netflix is doing just fine without having to worry about negotiating with ISPs to avoid throttling, then maybe it _is_ still feasible to fund and launch a new high-bandwidth product.

<comment><USER10> Well, it depends what the other 80% is ;) Personally, I think this presents a compelling argument that transferring video content takes a shit ton of bandwidth.

<comment><USER11> Did you really need such an argument?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's more accurate and less misleading to say "bandwidth" rather than "traffic."

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder where Youtube falls in regards to % of bandwidth in North America.

<comment><USER14> 9.5%</comment></comment>


How to Revive Dead Ni-Cad Batteries Using a High Voltage Power Source - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENmAJ2GOAMY&feature=player_embedded

<comment><AUTHOR> I was skeptical when I saw this, but I figured what the heck and gave it a try. Fixed two completely dead 18V DeWalt drill batteries - they now hold a charge for about 45 minutes of use (new they gave just under an hour).

Explanation (via <http://ysuusy.com/easybatteryfix.html>):

"Over time the crystals within a NiCd cell begin to combine and get larger. This causes them to loose capacitance and also break through the inner seals of the cell. Surging the NiCd cell using a higher voltage causes the crystals within the NiCd cell to shatter and become smaller. These smaller crystals have a greater surface area and therefore contain a greater capacitance for energy."

</comment><comment><USER2> ya, this fix has been around a long time (came out for cell phone batteries back when cell phones used NiCad). FYI, the fix does not last, after a few charge cycles back to being dead. :(</comment>


Smart devices are eating the market for accessibly-priced watches - <AUTHOR> https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/smart-devices-swatch-daniel-wellington <comment><USER2> No @#$^. I have a traditional quartz wristwatch that I like but that I never use anymore because my $150 Garmin smartband is so much more capable, and I'm not gonna wear things on both wrists. The Garmin does an unbelievable number of things that the wristwatch doesn't do, including: (a) telling time more accurately and automatically adjusting for daylight saving time and travel timezone changes, (b) email/text/IM notifications, (c) GPS logging of biking/running, (d) step tracking, (e) heartrate monitoring. And this isn't even the pinnacle of what smartwatches can do; there's ones that play music directly to Bluetooth earbuds so you don't even need to bring along your phone.

I like the styling of a traditional wristwatch more, but I'm not gonna give up so much functionality to continue wearing it. It's just a no-brainer to get the more capable device.

<comment><USER3> The GPS logging sounds interesting (I'm not a smartwatch/smartband user). Where do the logs go, does it get send to a companion app on the phone, or to log files?

<comment><USER4> It all gets synced to their app. They do allow you to export your data on their website, but it's not necessarily an easy process.. but the app that can do everything from monitoring your sleep cycles and reading heart rate to recording your route (and elevation change) on a hike with the ability to navigate you back to your starting position.

I have a Garmin Instinct that I bought a year and a half ago and wear it daily. It looks like a dumb-watch, and the battery lasts 2 weeks with daily tracked GPS runs... Can't say enough good things about it. Oh, it's also waterproof (I've swam and showered with it many times) and shockproof.

The privacy activist in me is pretty worried about what they can do with this data, since it's all synced (sleep patterns, exercise habbits, etc...), but I have just enough cognitive dissonance to use it anyways lol

<comment><USER5> At least they aren't in the ad selling business. Leaks are always a threat, but I can't see them selling it to advertisers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a $1200 Garmin smartwatch on my wrist, which will likely need to be replaced in 3 years time.

With that same money, I could have purchased an entry-level ETA Swiss-made automatic watch, that would last me a lifetime.

I'm lucky enough to own both. On the weekend I wear my Swiss watch, and during the week I wear my smart watch. As someone who's worn smart watches since the Pebble, the utility of a digital device can't be replaced by nostalgia.

Maybe there's a place for both.

<comment><USER7> I think the chance of you wearing the latter for more than three years before it's lost or you're bored of it or it's forgotten in a drawer somewhere is pretty low.

Longevity is overrated. People don't want to wear the same watch for a lifetime, no matter how fancy.

<comment><USER8> I don't know - at some point the age and history of the device itself become the dominant factor, not the fanciness. E.g. as I'm writing this, I'm wearing a relatively low-end watch (a Seiko Kinetic) that was a gift about 20 years ago, and even that tiny bit of history provides me with a fair bit of nostalgia and joy. I get the advantages of smart watches, but it _is_ a shame that they can't really be timeless in the same way.

<comment><USER9> Personally, I'm just not a fan of having to keep charging those smart watches every other night.

Especially when taking them off to charge at night means losing access to sleep tracking, which for me is the only killer feature smart watches have going for them over the smartphones that I already have.

<comment><USER10> I've got a Fitbit versa which has a 4-ish day battery life. I sleep with it on, and take it off to shower. I charge it when I shower and I've never once had it run out unexpectedly (since I started doing this)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm very happy with a middle way, the 200 EUR Withings Steel HR Sport, considered a "hybrid". Good usability and excellent 20 ... 25 day battery lifetime. Will run even longer if you synchronize it sparingly.

It looks like a regular mechanical watch at 40mm, with two complications: a step counter, and an AMOLED screen for notifications and other readouts. Supports the usual functionalities: pulse meter, step meter & other sports tracking, visual & tactile notifications and Bluetooth synchronization with smartphone.

About the only think I would add to it is time synchronization from atomic sourced radio signals, to make it truly independent from a cellphone for extended periods of time. Mine tends to drift about a minute ahead after about a month without phone synchronization.

<comment><USER12> Wow, that's exactly what I've been looking for. What's the size of the face on those? I have small wrists and regular men's watches look comically huge on me.

<comment><USER11> There are 40mm and 36mm variants; some patterns available in only one of the sizes. Frankly even the 40mm model is _optically_ small thanks to its understated design; it's got two rather unobtrusive complications, and one side button. The maximum thickness is significant, but the back side is convex and the rim is reasonably thin, so against your arm it looks about the same as an average self-winder. FWIW, I'm very happy with an alternative wristband - the black/gray silicone one which normally goes with Sapphire version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amusingly, the Casio G-Shock has been made more expensive. That thing solved timekeeping. Rugged, solar-charged, corrected from radio time signals, and under $100. At last, the zero-maintenance accurate watch.

But not expensive enough, so they now have models up to $500.

<comment><USER14> >At last, the zero-maintenance accurate watch.

I imagined this to be the case when purchasing my $500 solar G-Shock, but it needed the battery replaced every 3-5 years, and the work had to be done by an authorized Casio repair center; local watch repair people refused it.

<comment><USER15> The rechargable battery for one of these is literally $10 on eBay, and I can't believe there wasn't _anyone_ around you willing to fit it. I can believe larger chains refusing it, but come on, a small jeweler or watch repair shop would have done it I'm sure.

Anecdotally - I've had my solar powered Edifice watch for 10 years now and the battery still works fine.

<comment><USER16> A number of watch stores in my area won't replace a battery in _any_ watch. It's not because they're not able, it's because they've been burned by people who claim that the store ruined an expensive watch while changing the battery.

It's a liability issue, not a capability issue.

<comment><USER15> That's....crazy to me. Here in UK we have a chain called Timpsons and all they do is repair watches, shoes, keys etc, smaller jobs like this.

If it really is a liability issue, then it's solved the same as with literally anything else in the world - you sign a little piece of paper that releases them of liability. Done. When I bring my own brake pads to fit to my car at a nearby garage they just make me sign a paper that they don't and won't accept any responsibility for fitting my own pads. Problem solved.

<comment><USER17> Yeah when I got the battery in my gf's Galaxy S8 changed, the repair shop had me sign that there's a chance the phone won't be 100% afterwards and that I accepted this risk. Seemed reasonable enough, if I hadn't liked those terms I could have walked out the door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Funny that. I used to never wear a watch. I had a phone after all. One day I decided I might get myself a 'smartwatch' (primitive, it was about 5 years ago or so!) but not being sure I'd like 'wearing' a watch at all, I bought a cheap chinese automatic watch on Aliexpress for £9 shipped.

Guess what? I never bought a smartwatch, instead, I bought a whole collection of real watches, some vintage, some modern, some expensive, some cheapos and I love accessorising with them. Must have 20 of them by now.

The "crown" of my collection is a Bulova Spaceview in 18K gold. It's the nerd's nerd watch, it has _A TRANSISTOR_ in it, a resonator, it 'humes' a 360hz faint hum, and was made in 1964 before Quartz was invented; that movement was onboard the Apollo missions. And that watch has no 'face' so all you see is the innards with the tuning fork in the middle, and a pair of tiny coils around it. </orgasm>

</comment><comment><USER19> For a survey of a few watches I have owned:

\- $50-60 Fossil: Would break in under a year.

\- $500 Automatic Tissot: after a couple of years, it couldn't keep time (it added minutes in a period of a week).

\- $400 Quartz Citizen: something on it died after three years, and it wasn't the battery. Not worth it to save.

\- $4000 Automatic Omega: keeps time amazingly (off by ~7 seconds a week). No issues after two years.

\- $60 GPS Soleus: perfect watch for running/working out/rough activities.

When two of my sub $500 watches fail like they did in under give years, I am very hesitant to want another one. On top of that, there are many watches that are just branded watches from another company (e.g. a Burberry Watch is really a branded Fossil Watch).

I can see why someone would prefer a smart watch based on those experiences. The reason I don't get a smart watch is primarily that I dislike having yet another devices to charge. Well...that and I really like my Omega.

<comment><USER20> > $500 Automatic Tissot: after a couple of years, it couldn't keep time (it > added minutes in a period of a week).

Sounds like it got magnetized ([https://wornandwound.com/watches-and- magnetization/](https://wornandwound.com/watches-and-magnetization/)), which can happen quite easily. For instance, the magnetic closure of Mac laptops did that to one of my watches, from resting my wrist next to the touchpad.

The good news is it's easy to fix with an ~$10 watch demagnetizer.

<comment><USER19> I took it to an authorized repair shop, they said the cost of repair was more than the watch. I'm guessing they would have taken it into account?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why nobody is eating the market by making affordable (sub $50) hackable watches? The most widespread MT626x devices are so paranoidly closed that even changing clock face involves mucking with ROM image using third-party tools. Installing apps? Forget about that.

<comment><USER22> Curious to what you think that would achieve market wise. Hackable does not seem to matter much. Everything in the sub $100 dollar range I've tried is crappy (battery life, as well as functionality wise) because that's all that particular market segment is willing to pay for, those that want access to one of the viable app ecosystems seem to be prepared to pay the usual markup. Don't get me wrong, I love tinkering with the hardware form factor myself but that doesn't mean I'll create apps, no less an app ecosystem, that make this more viable to the manufacturing side of things. Maybe low cost devices with access to the Android ecosystem become more viable in the future but other than that changing this niche seems relatively hard and producing hackable devices historically goes counter to the approach of any company I can think of in the space. I could see somebody like Arduino creating something appealing and approachable for the rest of us but that would be unlikely to make a dent market wise.

<comment><USER23> What sort of 3rd party apps do you find yourself using?

Looking through my list the only two I (barely) use are PCalc and DarkSky, which if I didn't have, I'd just use the stock calculator and weather apps. I've tried maybe 20 other apps and none are compelling.

<comment><USER22> None really I'm afraid. I enjoy having notifications on my wrist sometimes but most days I just slap on a regular watch instead since they're more fashion than utility item for me honestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a Casio F-91W watch. Like $15. The strap started disintegrating (a known issue) in a year or so, but I replaced it with an awesome NATO strap ($10) and it has served me for years.

Ultra minimalist. Super cheap. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER25> This isn't the first time this has happened. I stopped wearing watches in normal situations when I got my first Nokia brick, in the late 90s.

</comment><comment><USER14> Amazfit Bip. $60 for GPS, heart rate monitor, step counter, notifications, 25 days of real battery life, more than 20,000 user-created watch faces, multiple third-party software that runs on the paired phone, and work moving forward on a third-party OS (BipOS).

<comment><USER26> Unfortunately, the Bip would always randomly crash for me during GPS recording. I got it to record tracks when hiking, and was never able to record more than 5h without it crashing and losing all data.

Too bad, because it was great for the money otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'll give you my Casio A168WA-1YES when you pry it from my cold, dead left wrist.

<comment><USER28> I prefer the terrorist edition, Casio F-91W. But I agree, truly the patrician's choice.

<comment><USER27> I need the luxury of "ElectroLuminescence", otherwise the F-91W is of course the choice of a true Spartan.

<comment><USER28> There must be a mod for that, flipping the polarising filter already does wonders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm frustrated enough that smartphones have a battery life that can barely last through the work day. Call me from your smartwatch once we've made enough advancements in battery technologies.

</comment><comment><USER30> In the age when everyone, even the lowest-income people have some kind of a mobile phone (not even a smartphone), the market for affordable watches all but disappears.

</comment><comment><USER31> I went back to my automatics when I found myself checking notifications and such too much. I had this fed up moment with my cell phone a few years ago where I felt like I was being programmed like a Pavlovian dog and I put the thing on silent permanently with a few custom settings for important people like my wife and parents etc. When I received a smartwatch (Samsung) I found myself slipping into the same habits and swapped back to my automatic watch. Full disclosure I also just love automatic watches, I find them fascinating and beautiful, but the ultimate driver was not wanting my cell phone/computer on my wrist.

<comment><USER32> I had a smartwatch for a while, and to my surprise I actually found it less stressful!

For me, one source of smartphone stress is that moment when its screen is out of view (in your pocket, sitting on a desk, etc.) and it makes a noise. At that moment, I have to choose between ignoring it or checking it.

If I ignore it, I have a little bit of worry in the back of my mind that I might be missing something important. If I check it, I have the interruption of figuring out where the phone is and grabbing it. And maybe of unlocking it.

With a smartwatch, the display is always within easy reach. I can check the notification very quickly and move on. I don't worry that maybe I ignored something important.

Also, it's cumbersome to do anything substantial on the smartwatch. On a smartphone, I am tempted to open up another app and get sidetracked with something. With a smartwatch, I don't have that temptation. Its limited usefulness is actually an advantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Still waiting on SwatchOS (From 2018):

[https://www.swatchgroup.com/en/swatch-group/innovation- power...](https://www.swatchgroup.com/en/swatch-group/innovation- powerhouse/internet-things/swatch-group-and-csem)

Swatch itself was born from the desire to keep the Swiss Watch industry alive against low cost quartz mechanisms. Not likely the same strategy will work twice (government propping up the entire industry).

</comment><comment><USER34> There's still quite a while to go before I'd consider replacing my trusty Casio wristwatch with a smartwatch. The Pebble got close to what I was looking for, and I have some hopes for the PineTime, but the ideal smartwatch for me has a nice balance between hackability and reliability.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you just want to tell time: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GB0G7A/?coliid=IM29FNJPX2F5S&c...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GB0G7A/?coliid=IM29FNJPX2F5S&colid=OTFWFGZF2FZ0&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

</comment><comment><USER36> I was confused by the headline until I read the article. Here "accessible" means "affordable", and specifically <US$500, and not "usable by people with disabilities".

<comment><USER37> Maybe not having $500+ to drop on a watch is considered a disability in that world

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Got a phone that does way more. Don't need a watch.

And if, for some reason, mechanical watches become necessary, I probably have way more immediate problems anyway.

<comment><USER39> I also got a phone that does way more. Then I got Apple Watch. I like how it greatly reduces the need to reach for the phone. Also, I am one of those guys who have their phone always on silent mode, so those subtle taptic notifications on a wrist don't hurt either.

<comment><USER40> An alarm/phone that doesn't wake up your spouse has been one of the most amazing features and has made Apple Watch worth it for me.

<comment><USER41> Annoying ringtones in the office have declined a lot in the last couple of years, and part of that seems to be due to smart watches.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Art of Computer Programming - eBook - <AUTHOR> http://www.informit.com/store/art-of-computer-programming-volume-1-fascicle-1-mmix-9780201853926 <comment><AUTHOR> Knuth says:

 _For many years I 've resisted temptations to put out a hasty electronic version of The Art of Computer Programming, because the samples sent to me were not well made.

But now, working together with experts at Mathematical Sciences Publishers, my publishers and I are launching an electronic edition that meets the highest standards. We've put special emphasis into making the search feature work well. Thousands of useful "clickable" cross-references are also provided --- from exercises to their answers and back, from the index to the text, from the text to important tables and figures, etc.

The first fascicle can now be ordered from Pearson's InformIT website, and we expect to release thousands of additional pages next year._

[http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html](http://www-cs- faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html)

<comment><USER2> > _For many years I 've resisted temptations to put out a hasty electronic > version of The Art of Computer Programming, because the samples sent to me > were not well made_

Not well made? It's a book that is a PDF at some point before it hits printing presses. What is there to make at all? The kindle has been out for how many years? how is the book so different when reading it on an e-ink display? He mentions that shortcuts were added, but still - how is it worse than a printed book (there are no links there either).

This seems disingenuous.

<comment><USER3> PDFs and ebook readers are not a good mix. PDFs are designed to look the same on every device and on paper, and that doesn't work well when you've got bigger and smaller readers. A well-made ebook—something that's been _made_ as an ebook—reflows well regardless of the form factor of the device (and there are many).

Also, most devices have zoom/text size capability, and PDFs don't play nicely with that, nor do they really work well with image placement on screen. When you bear in mind that a weighty technical tome like TAoCP has lots of equations, and equations use lots if images, it all gets pretty ugly when you're stuck with a fixed-form PDF.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure Knuth will be glad to know any customer can purchase TAoCP from Pearson/InformIT in any electronic format that he wants so long as it is PDF.

Additionally, Pearson/InformIT have chosen to enhance the layout of each page by discreetly reminding the reader of their full name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wait, I thought the whole point of this book was occupy space on my shelf in a highly visible area. Can they at least include a dust cover so I can subtly project my latent leetness?

</comment><comment><USER6> I recently graduated with a degree in math but not much programming experience (I am pretty familiar with Mathematica but nothing else). I was thinking about picking up an intro to CS book to begin learning CS. Would this book be good for this? Should I even bother with CS theory or just jump into using a language?

<comment><USER7> Read this: [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full- text/book/book.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html) \-- think most will agree with me.

<comment><USER8> These are HN favorites, along with K&R - I wouldn't recommend any of them to beginners no matter what their background is.

Instead I'd suggest a good succinct explanation of Big O notation to be digested and promptly forgotten (anybody who studied calculus should have intuition for it anyway, it just nicely ties in to the "cost" of the code they'll produce) and straight to scripting in Python with them. :)

<comment><USER7> K&R is not a good book to learn how to program from. SICP on the other hand is[1], it teaches how to create abstractions among other things. K&R just shows you how C works. Also, this person has a deep understanding in mathematics and should have no problems digesting an introductory book, such as SICP, at all.

[1] [http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/sicp.html](http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/sicp.html)

<comment><USER9> I really like Winston and Horn's Lisp. It actually is written assuming you don't know how to program at all, but quickly moves along into more complex stuff, really showing off what Lisp can do. Winston teaches (taught?) at MIT, and when the book was first written I guess it was still a reasonable possibility that you could be a freshman at MIT in computer science and have never programmed before.

[http://www.amazon.com/Lisp-3rd-Edition-Patrick- Winston/dp/02...](http://www.amazon.com/Lisp-3rd-Edition-Patrick- Winston/dp/0201083191)

<comment><USER7> Interesting book, thanks for the info! Will take a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While i'm glad about taocp being more available, my experience with Pearson and their ebook systems (due to their grasp on academia) quickly made me stop considering the purchase.

</comment><comment><USER11> FWIW, it's cheaper at Google Play: $9.99

<comment><USER12> Link: [https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Donald_E_Knuth_A...](https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Donald_E_Knuth_Art_of_Computer_Programming_Volume_?id=56LNfE2QGtYC)

edit: apparently this isn't the correct version, my mistake!

<comment><USER13> the description paragraphs wrap mid-word in IE and FF. fascinating.

<comment><USER14> Their stylesheet [https://play.google.com/static/client/css/2587577817-lowlife...](https://play.google.com/static/client/css/2587577817-lowlife_css_ltr.css) has these styles in it:

      .multicol-column {
        -ms-word-break: break-all;
        word-break: break-all;
        word-break: break-word;
      }

Very strange!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is probably OT, but how much is MIX/MMIX still used in the new books coming out? Volume1 had MIX code for everything, and IIRC by Volume3 it wasn't as pervasive.

Does Volume4 have MMIX code for all algorithms presented?

</comment><comment><USER16> FYI, this is just a PDF. It's not in ePub or mobi formats.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a sample chapter or section available. I normally like to see how an ebook containing math looks like on the different devices before buying.

<comment><USER18> See the other comments. If the result pleases Knuth, it probably is good enough for you, too.

<comment><USER19> Did Knuth read it on a 7-inch screen, or is the font going to be uncomfortably tiny without a lot of zooming and panning?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> who should read those book, i know for sure they are not for the average IT/Programmer guy

who is the right audience, and what would be a prerequisite reading

<comment><USER21> He starts at the beginning with math and works his way up. Your average IT/programmer guy will probably not have read this book, but it covers all the basics. Think of it as a replacement for a CS degree or at least the lower division courses.

</comment></comment><comment> r-s I filled out their survey and it only cost me $11.xx.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can't wait until the rest of the volumes are offered. This particular volume is just a small supplement.

</comment><comment><USER16> This link is only for a tiny section of "The Art of Computer Programming".

</comment><comment><USER23> Misleading title. This is only a tiny section of TAOCP.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I really wanted to share was Knuth's announcement on his own website, which is that (1) this first small chunk of TAOCP is available now in eBook form, and (2) much more of TAOCP will be released in eBook form next year. Linking to Knuth's news.html page seemed wrong, since it's not a static link to this topic, so I linked to the current product offering, and then posted a comment here with more details.

No misleading intended, but I apologize for it coming across that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you are learning to program in Rails, www.hackhands.com will be a great resource. It is a real time expert marketplace where you can instantly connect with an expert (Uber for programmers). If you are a Rails programmer, sign up to become an expert today so you can get paid to help others and build your reputation.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you participate in a website like this? - <AUTHOR>

A website where 5 pages are written per day, and you get to choose what you want the main event to happen in the next 5 pages (That will come out the next day). <comment><AUTHOR> There will be a poll, where users can choose between 5 options. They can also put up their own options, and the option with the most votes is what will be in the next 5 pages the next day. The options that people put up can be anything, which makes it more interesting. I am also trying to figure out a way to get it more interactive.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is this a directed serialization of written fiction? How are the choices presented, multiple choice, user suggestion?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds potentially interesting, tell us more.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you a solo founder? How do you deal with stress? - <AUTHOR> I'm a mentally tough individual, and I deal with stress very well. I have no issue with managing teams while coding on large projects that have tight deadlines, but there's a 'different' type of stress when starting your own company by yourself.
After all that self-proclaim tough guy shit, let me cut to the chase. Doing a start-up alone is an intense personal challenge at first. You quickly become aware of your flaws, shortcomings and you need to adapt and adjust soon; or you fail.
How do you deal with this deep level of personal stress? Vitamins, Working out, talking to other people in the start-up space, etc.?
I'm starting to take vitamins and going to local hotels to work out; Yes, I walk into hotels act like I'm staying there and use the gym.
I do feel better, but I wanted to see what others are doing. I've been reading about how a lot of entrepreneurs are struggling with depression and wanted to start this thread.
I hope this thread helps another entrepreneur out. Stay strong, stay focused and believe in yourself. Remember, each time we screw up, we found another way we can become better. <comment><USER3> I've been a serial "solo founder" since I was 12 years old or so (now 33), and I don't really identify with this. Working solo means there's nothing on the line should one of my ideas not pan out; all I'll have lost is some of my own time.

<comment><USER4> Seconded. Working solo means I can move at whatever pace I'm comfortable with, and even halt development entirely for a while if something more interesting crops up.

Supporting customers is not particularly stressful either, so long as you don't make the mistake of trying to answer every email immediately and treat every issue from a $10 account as a hair-on-fire, drop everything emergency.

Build it to run in the background, and it will.

<comment><USER5> I honestly feel this is how startup should be bootstrapped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's no way around it. Have a cry about it. Accept that it hurts, don't deny or suppress the pain.

What helped me a lot was reading Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

In the end you just have to admit it sucks and that's okay. You have to be the tough guy/girl. I remember a YC lecture once which said that the ideal founder is like James Bond. It's a strange image but it got me through it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I became a long distance (10km+) runner to deal with uncertainty. I run 3 times a week; about an hour each time. To me its a form of meditation. When I am running, I focus on breathing and let go of most other thoughts. The ability to not think takes your mind away from your product and lets you think more objectively.

<comment><USER8> does the ability to not have your mind wander off increase with time? I have trouble focusing on breathing, 1 hr on the treadmill is a long time to be fully focused on breathing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most helpful for me has been to develop a solid daily and weekly routine. This helps me knowing when to stop so I don't burn out, ensure I have enough social interaction, take care of my health and keep my sanity. Also, having a wife who believes more in me than myself has been a tremendous asset, so make sure you have a strong support system.

When things get really tough, I just remind myself of my personal freedom and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Watching everyone else during rush hour is also a good exercise, especially on a Monday morning.

</comment><comment><USER10> I run, bike (it's something to progress at when other things arent, meditation) Also, I was very fortunate to find a local entrapaneur group - <USER2> glue factory. For me it's been like a support group of, and for, entrapaneurs. [https://atgluefactory.com](https://atgluefactory.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have found that talking with other founders, speaking with friends and being open and honest that it's a journey of personal self-development.

What I've also found is self-reflection and chanting for appreciation of life has helped significantly to see the brighter side when things are tough.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's a timely post on the HN front page that discusses the benefits of social isolation [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16536904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16536904)

</comment><comment><USER13> >> Yes, I walk into hotels act like I'm staying there and use the gym.

What? That seems unethical. Why are you doing that? Why not be honest and pay for a gym.</comment>


What if you're homepage was a command prompt? - <AUTHOR> http://www.elevenyellow.com/ <comment><USER2> That's an interesting idea.

Minor typo in the title of this post, though: you're > your.

</comment><comment><USER3> Idea for the next iteration: make the keywords in bold into links which can be clicked, then get rid of the command prompt.

<comment><USER4> It's cumbersome on mobile, so making the bold keywords into links would be a good idea.

But I don't think they should get rid of the command prompt. One of my most immersive gaming experience was with Space Quest III and that was mainly because of the keyboard (even though my version also featured mouse support).

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I was being a bit snarky there (if you make the bold keywords clickable, it of course obviates the need for the command prompt - but the command prompt is fun in and of itself, even if it's more cumbersome to use).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I'd rather see something like...

"Telnet into www.example.com 8080 for the text version of our site" and have the main site more friendly.

Also, I don't intend to discount the work here but... this has been done... many times. I wish I could find a link right now. I've also seen homepages with vim key bindings.

There is also a bug where you can't copy and paste because the text immediately deselects. That might be intentional though.

Edit: also there might be a missed opportunity here. You could make applying for a job use the prompt as well. Might have the added bonus of testing how well the candidate knows command line. Right now it asks for applications via email.

<comment><USER6> [https://uni.xkcd.com/](https://uni.xkcd.com/) still works

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should check out [http://terminal.jcubic.pl/](http://terminal.jcubic.pl/), it has a lot of nice terminal-like features and wouldn't be hard to drop in as a replacement if you were looking for something that feels a little more realistic. I used it for a side-project of mine, [https://cmdchallenge.com](https://cmdchallenge.com)

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Neat! If anything, the novelty of a command prompt hooked me to read more about the company than the slick-and-snazzy sites usually get me to do.

</comment><comment><USER8> For those wondering what happens if you try view this page in a text-only browser, Elinks just shows a blank page with the text "Ey_Terminal :: Home" in the upper left corner.

</comment><comment><USER9> I tried to tab for autocomplete and it toggles Chrome's info button showing the sites not secure. How to I put in a pull request for autocomplete?

</comment><comment><USER10> Neat idea. Tab completion (+auto complete?) would have been really good too!

</comment><comment><USER11> Breaks if you type this into the command line:

<comment><USER12> And  works :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> type hacking in prompt :-)</comment>


UberCab Ordered to Cease And Desist - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/24/ubercab-ordered-to-cease-and-desist/ <comment><USER3> I think there is a pattern across both UberCan and AirBnb where both are facing opposition from existing, regulated industries (taxi services and hotels respectively).

Among all the posturing essentially meant to protect their existing businesses, I do think they have one valid point - that they both skirt around laws and regs in place. Though a lot of these laws and regulations are outdated/driven by special interests, some of them are in place for a reason. For example, not having hotels in residential areas so that neighbors aren't disturbed. Or having safety training for drivers of cabs.

I do worry about the risk that UberCab/AirBnb could cause to its users (or others indirectly impacted).

In both cases, the existing industries aren't doing themselves any favors. The argument around existing dispatchers maybe not making a living anymore - <USER2> someone else provides a better service than I do, it isn't their fault if I can't make money anymore. Reading the comments on the cab drivers' blog [1] is a bit sad. One of the commenters recognizes how good Ubercab is but uses that as an argument on why they should be shut down, instead of going "Hey, what if we started doing some of the things they do and improve?"

[http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2010/09/tac- iii-p...](http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2010/09/tac-iii- part-2.html)

<comment><USER4> _Or having safety training for drivers of cabs._

If only that were true. Taxi drivers are among the most reckless drivers in my city, and pretty well every other major city in North America that I've visited. If there is any training, it is not taken too seriously.

<comment><USER5> _every other major city in North America_ Why stop at North America? It's worldwide.

BUT: The only good thing about taxis in London is that they need to pass a test called The Knowledge (refs below) which means they are able to figure out the best route to anywhere in London on the fly. And if you think this is easy, it's not: the structure of the brains of taxi drivers is actually bigger in the part responsible for spacial memory, the discovery of which led the researchers winning the Ig Nobel prize.

Refs:

[http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehir...](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehire/1412.aspx)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge)

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/677048.stm>

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7613621.stm>

<http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2003>

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate on why this is a good thing ?

Instead of using a 200$ GPS, they are required to spend a long time studying a body of knowledge superseded by technology.

And this translates to higher costs for the casual cab-rider.

<comment><USER7> I suppose there are cases where people want to go to certain places, eg. "the shopping center", without having specific enough information to look it up with a GPS. Also, the driver knows ways that may be faster than what a GPS will suggest, since he knows about traffic, construction, etc.

Then there's the social aspect: by being more strict and maintaining an image of quality, you can attract better, nicer drivers.

<comment><USER6> Obviously a driver shouldn't be someone who is in the city for the first time. They know all the major points (like shopping centers).

The other points just shows that GPS have a bit to go yet, and they are going there. There are quite a lot of GPS solutions who get real-time traffic updates, construction, etc (look at waze.com)

The second point is true, wonder if there is a better way to solve it tho

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe I'm just misinformed but... basically they're running a taxi service without a license to do that, then acting surprised when the city calls them on it?

There's a taxi company I use whenever I'm in London called Addison Lee, and they've done the same as UberCab - using nice technology to know where you are, where the nearest available cars are, how long it will take for a car to get to you... In actual fact, at least based on <http://www.ubercab.com/learn>, AdLee is better: it has all the benefits of UberCab, plus they tell you the price of the journey before you book the car (it won't become more expensive if you get stuck in traffic, or if the driver takes a longer route), which always works out cheaper than a black cab, in my experience. Oh, and in adition to letting you pay with the credit card on your account, you can chose to pay by cash if you so wish.

Anyway, my point? Seems that Addison Lee have been (albeit in a different city/country) doing what UberCab is doing, slightly better, and for quite a bit longer: and they actually bothered to pay to be a licensed taxi provider, meaning that the London officials don't have a problem with them.

<comment><USER9> Ubercab is not a taxi service and does not own or operate limo vehicles. We simply connect consumers with existing Limo Drivers. We do make sure that all limo drivers that connect are properly licensed and have the appropriate insurance.

<comment><USER8> "Its cars don't have insurance equivalent to taxis' insurance" is taken directly from the TC article.

As to the logic of "we are not a taxi service, we just make money putting customers into taxis", I really can't comment on how the law views this.

If the SF Metro Transit Authority withdraws the cease and desist order then please accept my apologies for making bad assumptions, but given the law enforcers say what you are doing is not allowed, I can only assume that it is, indeed, not allowed, regardless of how you word what exactly you do.

Either way, I hope you get it resolved (whether that means them backing down, or you agreeing to whatever they're wanting of you), other than this current situation your service looks pretty great, and I'm sure I'll use you some day when I'm on your side of the pond.

<comment><USER10> _If the SF Metro Transit Authority withdraws the cease and desist order then please accept my apologies for making bad assumptions, but given the law enforcers say what you are doing is not allowed, I can only assume that it is, indeed, not allowed, regardless of how you word what exactly you do._

I'm sorry but you're arguing that SF MTA is infallible and you are wrong.

<comment><USER8> My views have been based on the facts I've been given. I'm not from SF, until I'm given a reason to believe that the MTA isn't actually following the law, I'll keep assuming they are.

Maybe I should have been more specific before: I'll also apologise if the MTA don't withdraw, but are instead shown to be in the wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The conflict was inevitable but as we often see in business, old players use regulation, unions and back room deals to protect their markets. Look at the RIAA, TV and movie industries. The technology is available to bring content to any device, anytime but they use regulation to stop it.

It's bullshit. SF taxis are inefficient and difficult to use. Ubercab solves a problem and calls out just how ridiculous the SF Taxi system is. Instead of fighting to make their business more relevant, the taxi unions fight with regulation.

I use Ubercab a lot. Why? * Because a car comes to me in a few minutes. * I don't have to stand in the rain and wonder if the illuminated taxi light means the taxi will stop or not. * I don't have to wonder if the cab takes cards or if the driver will simply refuse to take them even if his company does. * Most importantly, I don't have to hold on for dear life wondering if I'm going to die before i get where I'm going.

Let's all stand up and say screw you unions. Ubercab is an innovator. SF taxis, be more efficient and you'll win. Otherwise, get out of the way.

</comment><comment><USER12> This sounds familiar:

        "Ubercab threatens dispatchers' way of earning a living"

Oh, yeah:

        "[TECHNOLOGY] threatens [PROFESSION]s' way of earning a living"

Not a valid argument.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but neither is ignoring the law because you disagree with it.

<comment><USER14> I think "ignoring the law because you disagree with it" is called civil disobedience. Although the term usually means individuals breaking laws for moral reasons, not companies doing it for efficiency and profit.

Edit: I just wanted to point out that it is sometimes valid to ignore a law because you disagree with it. I'm not saying Ubercab is in the right.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but the argument "Companies have the right to ignore the law if doing so increases profits" seems rather...unconventional.

<comment><USER14> That is twisting my words beyond even the most uncharitable reading.

<comment><USER15> The charitable reading of your words, if I didn't misunderstand, is "many people think that people are sometimes justified in ignoring the law, depending on the situation." That's more or less a truism.

Edit: Upvoted you back to 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This seems like the perfect business to run from outside of the US. To run a traditional taxi company, you need to have a presence in the area where the taxicabs are. To run a website that connects two people together, you can be anywhere. And you are outside of the legal reach of the City of San Francisco.

Sure, the _users_ will be violating some city regulation, but that, like file sharing, is unprofitable to follow up on. (AirBnB is in a similar situation. No need to give the irritated local governments a legal target.)

<comment><USER8> Unless they relocate all drivers to live outside the US they're going to have a slight problem, I think...

<comment><USER16> The drivers are already licensed. They can drive wherever they want to, and pick up whomever they want to.

The specific legal problem that the article mentions is that operating the dispatching company is illegal.

<comment><USER8> Presumably these two issues would still exist:

      - Its cars don't have insurance equivalent to taxis' insurance.
      - Limos in U.S. cities usually have to prebook an hour in advance, by law

<comment><USER17> The overriding issue is that there is a taxi cartel and the city enforces its quotas:

<http://www.medallionholders.com/medallions.html>

You can't just pay for insurance and be legal. You're not allowed to compete, period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> i've given up on trying to get a cab in sf.

there's only 1381 highly regulated taxi medallions and a constant shortage. most potential customers have, just like me, given up on ever getting a cab when they need one, so there's not only artificially decreased supply, but also artificially decreased demand.

there's been extensive comparative research into taxi regulation for decades. the reason SF is so much worse even than other cities that restrict the amount of cabs, is that SF doesn't only regulate street pick-up but also dispatch.

google scholar is full of papers on taxi regulation research, and there's <http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/> and other pages.

unsurprisingly deregulation is in the interest of the drivers because a competitive market increases customer demand. would you sometimes pay double the fare if you could get a cab _right now_, instead of waiting 25 minutes and praying? hell yeah, if only they let you!

let's hope uber can make on-demand transportation in SF usable again.

<comment><USER19> This is funny, because having lived in London it's SO much easier to catch cabs here, I assumed SF was pretty good about taxi regulation.

You have not experienced unavailable taxis until you have lived in London, where outside of the city center they literally do not operate.

<comment><USER18> in vienna, which usually is the worst regulation hell, i could get a cab anywhere in the city within 4 minutes, any hour of any day. and that's a city with 1.75 times the population of SF (not including all the people who commute to SF to work there.

this has been extensively studied. taxi service quality is essentially dependent only on regulation quality (with some delay as customers get used to the fact that they can actually get a cab)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Who actually uses UberCab?

Taxi Magic is a fantastic app that's totally legit. Open the app, use your location to book a cab and within 5 minutes it's there. It's Luxor Cabs who are fully licensed and use computerized dispatch.

I tried UberCab once and it was a nicer car but the experience was no better than Taxi Magic, and significantly more expensive to get around town.

I hate non-metered cabs. Taxis are one place where regulation is good. We all know what it's like to deal with a shady taxi driver. The tendency is to gouge vulnerable travelers, not to set lower prices. The consistency that regulation offers is the most important.

I also can't believe the complaints about the taxis in SF. The cab companies are downright excellent when you actually call, and plentiful on the streets.

<comment><USER21> I used to be a huge fan of Taxi Magic but the past few months have found it less and less reliable. Basically if the cab is over .2 miles away it will pick up a fare on the street instead. When UberCab tells me that a car is coming, I can trust that it will actually come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one who finds it naive to name a startup UberCAB and then act as if it had nothing to do with taxi dispatching services? It's as if the PayPal founders decided to call it "UberBank."

<comment><USER23> It might not be seen this way in general, which goes to the PR problem another poster mentioned, but my perception is that when someone markets something as über-, they mean it transcends or supersedes what they're prefixing. So not "cabs" but "better than cabs".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Taxi dispatchers make money on tips. Ubercab threatens dispatchers' way of earning a living. Limos have to prebook an hour in advance, only licensed taxis can pick someone up right away by San Francisco law, yet Ubercab picks people up right away, yet doesn't have a taxi license." Not like you can get a taxi in under an hour in SF anyways ;)

Seriously, this just validates their model and I hope they can figure this out.

</comment><comment><USER25> Three points:

1\. Sounds like UberCab should look into licensing out their platform to existing cab companies. It would mean lower margins, but they can quickly scale throughout the US and beyond much faster.

2\. UberCab's blog post is arrogant. Did they really think they can avoid paying expensive licensing fees because they are using black cars instead of yellow cabs? Taxi licenses are very expensive and a lucrative revenue source for every major city. A taxi seat can cost as much as 1 million to purchase in NYC, and I know other cities such as SF and LV are not much cheaper due to the fixed number of licenses. I can only imagine the outrage of other cab drivers losing work to cheaper services (i.e. UberCab) because they are not paying licensing fees.

3\. UberCab can easily recover albeit at lower margins. They need aggressive biz dev to quickly secure licenses. I hope they can continue to disrupt city transportation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm putting money on UberCab becoming a members-only service/co-op type system where you have to be a member in order to request a car. I'm not intimately familiar with the taxi laws, but I bet they don't specify what private organizations can do.

<comment><USER26> > I'm not intimately familiar with the taxi laws, but I bet they don't specify > what private organizations can do.

Huh? They have to. They don't let private limo organizations pick you up without a 1-hour reservation, for example, as stated in the article.

Furthermore, Ubercab already is a private organization.

I'm sure I'm missing something, can you explain why it would somehow become legal if it was a members-only organization?

<comment><USER27> The regulations read that a livery services ride must be "pre-arranged".

We've not seen the hour prior requirement in any law. If it does exist please send it our way, (email@example.com) but we believe that this is opinion not fact.

<comment><USER28> I think you should post the C&D order, actually, so as to put the focus on the MTA rather than wasting your time fending off uninformed speculation.

It looks to me as if the $5,000/day fine they're speaking of refers to a modification of the Transportation code creating (among other things) a new offense of 'running a dispatch service without a permit,' which was passed by the SFMTA baord just last Tuesday - although it's still questionable whether or not it would apply to your firm.

Regardless, it has not yet been made law by the Board of Supervisors, nor is it on their legislative agenda for next week's meeting. From what I can see, it can takes months for something to work its way up the Supervisors' calendar. Of course, a lot depends on what sort of lobbying power the Taxi establishment has at City Hall, but it's fair to assume they have years of experience in working the system.

[http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/documents/10-19-10calendaritem...](http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/documents/10-19-10calendaritemsredline.pdf)

IANAL, mind; just my personal views. I've developed an unhealthy interest in the (dys)function of my local government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> Ubercab operates much like a cab company but does not have a taxi license.

^ Why is the taxi license process so difficult to go through? Why does it take 10 years or so?

>> Limos in U.S. cities usually have to prebook an hour in advance, by law, while only licensed taxis can pick someone up right away but Ubercab picks people up right away (again without a taxi license).

^What is this but protecting special interests? Viva creative destruction.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think UberCab will end up needing to change their name (UberCar?) to distance themselves from the "cab" or "taxi" connotation, and position themselves as an alternative to cabs, vs. a kind of cab, more forcefully.

Other than that, I think they now have the moral justification to trash the taxi industry and cartel in their marketing. This can probably end up being a net win for them.

</comment><comment><USER31> So is ubercab connecting people with "car services" that aren't licensed taxi companies?

Are these the drivers you see often in NYC when arriving at the airport? My understanding is that there are risks to using such services (like if you leave something in the vehicle you're unlikely to recover it whereas a taxi co. can usually track it down). True?

<comment><USER32> I think it's four or five steps up from the rogue drivers at NYC airports. The drivers are licensed limo drivers, and everything is official/on-the-books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> ubercab could relocate their business to russia.

SF customers and drivers could still pay for the app.

let's see them regulate that

I want to make a taxi dispatcher that is outsourced to an Indian call centre. These dispatchers don't realize how deeply obsolete they are.

<comment><USER34> > let's see them regulate that

Regulating the dispatchers would be difficult, but they could easily go after the owner/operators of the cars involved in actually transporting folks.

<comment><USER33> What if they decentralize it even more?

I'm imagining regular drivers (like me) being txt'd when there is a nearby person who wants a ride.

Like hitchhiking but using GPS and money.

The hitchhiker would specify his destination and how much he is willing to pay. The software would know my location as well as destination (optional) and notify me when I'm near him.

Make everyone into a taxi driver.

For added value you could also give individuals special badges and such that certify their driving credentials, and let the buyers decide how much their driving credentials are worth.

Credentials could be on a graded scale: \- Confirmed driver's license \- Confirmed professional driving certification

Naturally you'd have a reputation system where passengers can rate the quality of the drivers, and drivers could respond to the criticisms.

Decentralized taxi service. The biggest hurdle is reaching critical mass of users, which UberCab has achieved. I want to see them destroy the conventional taxi industry (disruptive technology makes me tingle)

<comment><USER35> Imagine you get a text from a person who wants a ride. You pick them up, arrange a fee, deliver them to the destination, accept the money, and then get arrested for being an unlicensed cab operator. How many arrests would it take before your services is a dim memory? How long would it take if the law was modified slightly so that the car used in the "criminal enterprise" was impounded as evidence until the case was dealt with by the court?

The risk is entirely upon the driver, who, by the way the service is structured, must risk a large chunk of capital (their car) just to participate.

<comment><USER33> The point is that there are so many legal grey areas.

Is car pooling now a taxi service, because I pay the driver?

At which point is it illegal for me to give someone a ride?

What if they give me services instead of cash, like an hour of web design?

What if they give me virtual tokens/karma instead?

What if the transportation didn't take place strictly in the city but was half in the city and half outside?

Are you really running a taxi service by giving ONE PERSON a lift, or does it have to be several? Does it have to be publicly advertised?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I actually had this idea when I had dropped out of web design and became a taxi driver for a few years in 2001. It's a natural. However: "Taxi dispatchers make money on tips..." is an incorrect statement. Taxi dispatchers make money on BRIBES. Drivers do not tip out dispatchers. Nor do drivers' tips go to the company. What dispatchers euphemistically refer to as "tips" are actually bribes paid to them by some cab drivers to refer the best fares to those drivers - usually at the expense of the passenger, who has to wait outside longer for their cab because a closer driver was not dispatched. The exact reason why UberCab or similar services ARE such a good idea is that they can improve the customer experience by cutting out dispatcher corruption.</comment>


Swype - iOS 8 Keyboard - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swype-keyboard/id916365675?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Swype is now - what, four or five years old? They were fantastic in 2010, but what they offer is now default on Android (and apparently also now iOS) keyboards. They should have exited before their main feature became a commodity.

<comment><USER3> They did - [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/06/swype-the-maker-of- speedy-v...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/06/swype-the-maker-of-speedy- virtual-keyboards-to-be-acquired-by-nuance-for-100-million/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this offer the same functionality that SwiftKey offers on Android? SwiftKey has been the best keyboard I've used so far on any phone.

<comment><USER5> SwiftKey Keyboard is now on iOS as well.

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/swiftkey- keyboard/id911813648](https://itunes.apple.com/app/swiftkey- keyboard/id911813648)</comment></comment>


Linux noob, lesson learned - <AUTHOR> http://ericio.blogspot.com/2012/01/adventures-of-linux-noob-thou-shalt-not.html

<comment><USER2> The triple blink reminds me of back when I used ATI's proprietary video card driver, compiled from source. Every time I would upgrade the Linux kernel and reboot, X* wouldn't start (it would try three times and fail, kicking me back to a TTY login).

I think the reason is because closed-source code can only link to the Linux kernel dynamically in order to be compatible with the GPL license, so the kernel updates would break the linking.

*I use X as a nebulous reference to anything related to Linux graphics as I still haven't taken the time to see how all the pieces fit together.

</comment><comment><USER3> From another Linux noob--what went wrong? What is the correct way out of that situation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, when this happens you could do ctrl-shift-f2 and get into a shell and see if you could work out what is missing. But for me the easiest way was to boot into a live usb, this way you are able to access the file system where your installation is and the just transfer the files.

I did get a error message when I edited the kernel boot (press e in GRUB) and was able to see which file did cause the first hiccup. But it could be dozens of files corrupted.

The files was: /usr/lib64/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 and the error message was that it was to short.

After knowing that and with a internet connection (I run on a 3g dongle, couldn't get it connect via terminal) I could reinstall the pixbuf packages and hope that that was the only file corrupted (not likely from what I got).

As for a correct way, I don't know. One thing in windows that is good (and I don't know if there is this functionality in linux) is that you can just restore the system to a earlier state. The one thing I think linux is lacking, if it doesn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Happens to the best of us. Don't let it discourage you.

</comment><comment><USER5> What filesystem are you running?

<comment><AUTHOR> ext4 if I'm not mistaken</comment></comment>


Politics or technology – which will save the world? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/23/politics-technology-save-world-david-runciman

<comment><USER2> I don't see the two as mutually exclusive, it's just that technology largely hasn't been applied to Politics yet.</comment>


Why I fought for open source in the Air Force - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/life/16/2/why-i-fought-for-open-source-in-the-air-force?sc_cid=701600000011jJVAAY <comment><USER2> I was some of the "technical support" for Hanscom AFB when they were deploying dotProject and then the fork web2project for web-based project management. They were replacing hundreds of Microsoft Project licenses and projected to save over $200k/year at the time.

As noted in the article, the biggest things for them were being able to review security, fix bugs, and affect the roadmap. While I didn't add their requirements to the core system, I added a number of hooks and interfaces they specifically requested.

For contractual/legal reasons, they had issues around making the fixes themselves or even providing them to me but I received a lot of "highly specific explanations" to issues and approaches on resolving them.

Getting started with Hanscom's team was painful on the contractual side but excellent to work with once things were rolling.

</comment><comment><USER3> A couple of things on the "lawyers" and "management" points.

The "DoD's clarifying guidance" he's talking about is almost certainly this[1]. It's got some good information about open source in general, even if it is a little dry.

If you can prove that there is support and training available for a piece of software and you can get it approved by your local information assurance officer then you can put it on the Air Force network. As far as getting it approved by your local IAO; let's say you want Python on your computer and the IAO says no then you can point to your local Redhat server (which comes already built with Python) and point out that you have already accepted any risks associated with Python by using Redhat. Another good resource for getting management to buy off on any risk is the EPL[2]. If the software is on that list then someone else in the Air Force is already using it, and the software has already gone through an approval process.

Edit: I just realized my second link might be CAC only ... hopefully it will be useful for any contractors/military folks that browse HN.

[1] [http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx](http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx) [2] [https://cs3.eis.af.mil/sites/afao/Lists/COTSGOTS%20Software/...](https://cs3.eis.af.mil/sites/afao/Lists/COTSGOTS%20Software/EPL.aspx)

<comment><USER4> Getting sec_error_unknown_issuer on your [2] link

<comment><USER5> It's using the DoD CA which is not distributed with major browsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a strong advocate for FOSS where I'm at in NASA. It can be tough to approve, but has actually become much easier in the past few years as the concept becomes more familiar to decision makers.

<comment><USER7> I think it's interesting, too, the tail end "If I did it again I might have used OpenStack" and the fact that OpenStack has some early roots in NASA's open source efforts.

Also, I find the 18F Open Source Policy [1], which I saw in a recent HN topic elsewhere, seems like a good "default stance" for government use of open source and reiterates some of the same points in the article, and maybe we'll see some of that attitude prevail in the end.

[1] [https://github.com/18F/open-source- policy/blob/master/policy...](https://github.com/18F/open-source- policy/blob/master/policy.md)

<comment><USER8> 18F is very unique in this regard. They somehow managed to get approval to issue their own ATOs (ie Authority to Operate) as well as provide and use their own Ubuntu-LTS gold master image as a base.

They largely circumvent a lot of the process with help from policy makers at the highest levels.

Even then, I'm pretty sure they don't offer hosting/authorizing deployments from party sources. So they essentially have a monopoly on the ability to use OSS freely for bulding government websites.

<comment><USER9> > They largely circumvent a lot of the process with help from policy makers at > the highest levels.

> Even then, I'm pretty sure they don't offer hosting/authorizing deployments > from party sources. So they essentially have a monopoly on the ability to > use OSS freely for bulding government websites.

That's not quite the case. Many agencies use a ton of OSS to build websites and other services.

[https://github.com/cfpb/source-code-policy](https://github.com/cfpb/source- code-policy) [https://github.com/uscensusbureau/open-source- policy](https://github.com/uscensusbureau/open-source-policy) [https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy](https://github.com/18F/open- source-policy)

The policy links above refer to those teams releasing their own code as open source, but you will find huge amounts of outside open source code being used there, and in many other agencies.

The Department of Defense is famous for (in 2003!) making sure their department knew that open source software was A-okay to use, and people refer to their amazing FAQ all the time:

[http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx](http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx)

(I'm an 18F employee.)

<comment><USER8> Thank you very much for the clarification and links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's an amusing episode of Debug where Wil Shipley talks about The Omni Group's dealings with the Air Force. They'd released OmniWeb as a free product, and got a call that IIRC went like this:

"We'd like to buy your web browser."

"Well, we actually give that away for free."

"Yeah but we need to buy it."

It's 2 hours long, but worth a listen if you have the time: [http://www.imore.com/debug-19-wil-shipley-next-delicious- mon...](http://www.imore.com/debug-19-wil-shipley-next-delicious-monster)

</comment><comment><USER11> "I was responsible for the majority of the Air Force's software programs" \- as a former Computer Systems Officer in the US Air Force at a pretty high level operations center, this seems pretty hyperbolic, as no person is in this position. Maybe majority of the software for their area of work.

<comment><USER12> When he said "at a small base outside of the Hanscom U.S. Air Force Base" I took his responsibility to be that of one of these two bases (or perhaps the AOC if that was elsewhere). I'd agree that it seems unreasonable for a single person to have such responsibility, even for their 'ground' software. Operational battle management software would also probably come from a different place than the payroll systems, for example. The software in the various air platforms would likely come from each platform's development programme.

In the UK and Canadian military, there is no single overall software person, although there are technical authorities who define standards, etc, that should be used when software is developed.

FWIW, the UK Ministry of Defence actively supports the use of Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) software. This isn't always OSS, but is at least better than building everything from scratch. A good ongoing example is the use of 'serious games' to support military training, e.g. as image generators inside simulators or as standalone desktop training packages. There are various COTS packages that fulfill both of these and other roles.

[EDIT: Typo]

<comment><USER8> Smells like BS. At most, the person may have acted as an ISSM (Information Systems Security Manager). Even then, I doubt the 'general purpose' config used by the majority of the Air Force is created by any one person.

By 'general purpose' I mean the baseline configuration that all non-POR (Program of Record) systems use. Ie, hardened Windows, MS Office, security monitoring, CAC authentication, and DOD certificates. There's no chance in hell that the 'general purpose' configuration will ever be changed to include OSS because it's intent is to be the 'lowest common demominator' of connected systems.

This person probably works as a grunt for the AF branch equivalent of G-6.

The COTS systems you're referring to are POR (Program of Record) systems created and supported by the product development branch. I think for the AF, it's the Air Materiel Command. They fall outside the scope of general systems support, therefore they require their own infrastructure for maintenance/support.

 _Source: I used to support a POR system._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am trying to ride the op n source wave in government in the UK (I want to make open source software that makes a difference in real lives).

But even though all _new_ software produced for government should be FOSS, there is little movement because all the small authorities buy licenses at a speed and cost too low to allow productive n of new software.

A coder must develop the code first then try to sell it. All the risk is on the coders, but they won't get paid unless they sell licenses - which defeats the whole point

In short if there are 60 councils in the UK who all want a new system for one of the 2000'legally obligated services they must provide, they will generally ask for a license of say 1/10 of the cost of production. If they all do that then the UK overpays by six fold.

If the first one went FOSS and ponied up the money the UK saves six fold.

However no council will pay for everyone else's free software.

So we keep over paying

"""The Council would like to hear from organisations willing to share information about their e-recruitment systems to gauge the likely level of interest in the project from the market. This will enable the Council to gain a better understanding of the systems available, the ways in which they could be supplied, an indication of the likely costs, and help determine the most effective way of packaging and scoping its requirements for any future procurement opportunity. As such the Council is undertaking this soft market testing exercise to engage with organisations and share information."""

So I am looking to build some forms of mutualised contract where the first authority to want finds say nine others and agree upfront payments.

Anyone with ideas pease shout

<comment><USER14> Nobody wants to go first because they pay for everyone.

One solution is to have everyone agree to put limited resources on a shared project that they will all use, but this has problems. Many projects fail or don't go as well as hoped. The distributed nature of it may increase the possibility of failure and the politics as well.

Another option is to get everyone together and agree on specs. Then outsource it with the requirement to the provider that the result be open source. After that first development effort you can all collaborate. This should go over better in government than in industry because your different groups aren't competing with each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> Management: "There's too much risk, even if I can't explain why."

This sums up one of my major frustrations of being a programmer for the Air Force Research Lab(AFRL).

You have branch and division managers that are completely incompetent trying to micromanage Software Engineers and Project Managers.'Why' isn't ever a thing they think about because they're afraid to admit as managers what they don't know why, and they aren't interested what would make software and integrations more effective. Within projects there was a great deal of expertise that was squandered by poor management and management structure within the Air Force.

I worked there for 5 and a half years, then quit because I couldn't deal with the frustration of upper level incompetence and blatant fraud waste and abuse.

</comment><comment><USER16> In many agencies today you can implement in open source software almost as easily and in some cases it is the standard, but here is the reality. OSS didn't solve most of the problems associated with proprietary vendor software and in many cases simply shifted the money and problems around to new vendors.

How's that? Yes, now in order to use any OSS you have to have support and maintenance contracts from OSS vendors like Red Hat, Cloudera, VMware, there are a bunch of them. Their formula is to offer a productized version of the community editions that are closely managed and generally running a few iterations behind the latest dev versions supposedly for security and stability (though in my experience neither is often the case). At a Marine Corps shop I was working with last year it was actually more expensive to bring in OSS and support for this very reason, given they already paid M$oft licenses. Are they cheaper generally yes, far from free though.

Last thing I will offer up is the security profile of most OSS is atrocious. We routinely pull dozens of critical CVE's from systems built using OSS for the simple fact that fixes are difficult to obtain for libraries that other libraries depend on. Massive problem as evidenced by current state of our (lack of) cyber defenses. On the whole I support OSS and am a primary developer of it but you can't just drink the kool-aid.

</comment><comment><USER17> Author is responsible for a majority of the Air Force software programs, but this experience is his first trial-by-fire. That said, not surprised that his first approach to the problem was to develop his own hardware and software standard. It would have been better to identify AOCs with the best practices and standardize a proven setup.

I admire his advocacy for use of open source software, but his primary pitch is a reduction of costs. Any organization that switches to open source for the purpose of promised dramatically reduced operating costs is fooling themselves. The true benefit of open source is much more than savings.

<comment><USER18> I think it depends on the situation. In some specific niches, there is an obvious cost savings. Tomcat, for example, pretty much decimated the old, highly expensive J2EE app server market.

<comment><USER3> Postgres in favor of Oracle is another big one.

<comment><USER19> Which is why Oracle started buying up every CRM or CMS system it could get it's hands on and makes them drop support for anything that isn't Oracle DB or MS-SQL. Then it cripples the MS-SQL support to the point that you willingly switch to Oracle DB.

<comment><USER20> Also things like Hyperion - which certainly used to support SQL Server but has since moved (or going to move) to Oracle support only.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>