What's in those mysterious cabinets? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.plover.com/2018/05/01/#highway-stuff <comment><USER2> Re. technical domains you may not know exist: airplane flatware logistics.

When you want to look at something optimised, start with things that are expensive to run. Airports are expensive in nearly every sense of the word, so it's a place where you find things being optimised to hell and back. Outgoing passenger flights may need clean, fresh flatware. The window in time allocated to unload dirty flatwar and load a clean batch is small; that cart of flatware needs to be in exactly the right place at the right time, or there will be delays, which will cost a lot of money to someone.

So, naturally, the strategies on how to get flatware onto airplanes is an area of deep study.

I talked to a friend of a friend at a party about this, since it was their subject of study. They thought they were studying the most boring thing in the world and I couldn't make them understand why it fascinated me.

<comment><USER3> Native Brit here. Never come across the word flatware before. It appears to be a US term. Or maybe I'm just ignorant.

1\. utensils, as knives, forks, and spoons, used at the table for serving and eating food. 2. dishes or containers for the table that are more or less flat, as plates and saucers (source: the internet)

<comment><USER4> American here (Midwest), I've only ever heard it used in the sense of definition 1. It's always been utensils to me, never dishes or containers.

In my area, flatware == silverware, but not necessarily silver.

<comment><USER5> So… cutlery?

<comment><USER6> I was going to say those are knives, but I defer to wikipedia:

"Cutlery is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery usually means knives and related cutting instruments."

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _It 's such a big world out there, so much to know._

I love this type of articles, there really is so much out there to learn.

I always found myself thinking, while waiting for the green light:

* Who makes these traffic lights?

* What software controls the traffic system?

* Are all traffic systems controlled by the same organizations?

* Can they get hacked? Of course they can… Are they difficult to hack?

* How can someone land a job to work on this type of SCADA systems?

I am right now sending my resume to McCain [1] they are currently looking for .Net, Java and Embedded engineers. If I don't get any of these jobs, at least I know where to continue looking. My dream have always been to work in projects like that, someone people consider them boring, I find them very interesting.

Wish me luck :-)

[1] [https://www.mccain-inc.com/company/careers](https://www.mccain- inc.com/company/careers)

<comment><USER8> I once spent a slow weekend watching YouTube videos about elevators. There's a surprisingly large community of elevator nerds out there. Many fascinating videos out there on how elevator programming works (especially love the ones about old relay-based elevators [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjXdjj2m5Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjXdjj2m5Q) )

<comment><USER9> There's a fun little programming challenge set up around this if you want to try your own hand at it: [https://github.com/mshang/python-elevator- challenge](https://github.com/mshang/python-elevator-challenge)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _What is ramp metering?_

(The Bay Area contingent of HN can answer that!) Traffic lights (typically red/green only) at the bottom of on-ramps that rate-limit ("meter") traffic onto the freeway, typically during rush hour. You drive up to a red, stop, it turns green and you go. (Sometimes a sign indicates that 2 cars get to go per green given.) There are usually sensors embedded in the rightmost lane of the freeway shortly before the merge point, and on a good day, it feels like it gives you a green timed with a gap. (Although I think it also sometimes just times out and lets you go, in which case, no gap.)

The ones here have an HOV lane and a non-HOV lane, usually; typically they just force the HOV lane to come to a near stop before turning green; I think that's more to slow the HOV traffic down to avoid collisions with the adjoining non-HOV lane should their light also turn green, but it feels like a weird formality when driving it. Some days the cops sit on the ramp pulling people cheating in the HOV lane.

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

It is one of the two things I warn family visiting that have never visited before. (In the majority of the US, you just get on the highway, there isn't a traffic light at the bottom of a ramp, that'd be absurd, since you're wanting to accelerate to ~70mph.) (The other is lane splitting: motorcycles will (ab)use the dividing line, particularly between lanes 1 & 2, to pass.)

<comment><USER11> On a similar note:

> Did you know that the long pointy triangle thing is called a "gore"?

> Well, you might survive, because there is a thing there that is designed to > crush when you hit it. It might be a QuadGuard Elite Crash Cushion System

Or it might be the traditional solution, which is a bunch of rubbermaid garbage pails filled with water.

(Not that long ago, I was trying to let someone merge in front of me, but they couldn't make up their minds and ended up slamming their brakes into the gore. I bet they had fun getting out of there.)

<comment><USER12> >Or it might be the traditional solution, which is a bunch of rubbermaid garbage pails filled with water.

only if you live in a place where water doesn't freeze

<comment><USER13> I assumed they used antifreeze in places where it freezes. Maybe not applicable in _extreme_ cold, but seems to be good down to -40 or so.

[http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/project_ads_addenda/05/05-0T...](http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/project_ads_addenda/05/05-0T0004/supplemental_info/05-0T0004IH.pdf)

 _Some customers have indicated that common deicing and dust control chemicals that are used on the highway make excellent choices for antifreeze agents. These include:_

* Calcium Chloride (CaCl2)

* Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA)

* Potassium Acetate (KAc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At 5AM, as I sit waiting for a traffic light on a deserted stretch of road during my morning commute, glaring tempestuously at the nearby redlight camera, I wonder how we've gotten to driverless cars before getting to 'smart' intersection signaling systems that know there is a lone commuter patiently waiting to pass.

<comment><USER15> It has to do a lot with reliability and cost. A smart car has a lot of expensive sensors and an expected life of a few years with regular maintenance. There's also a huge market opportunity around smart cars. Those cabinets can last decades, in all conditions, with minimal upkeep. Adding sensors decreases reliability and increases maintenance cost. There isn't usually an appetite to put traffic signal upgrades or extra maintenance headcount in city budgets for non-critical infrastructure upgrades, so the financial incentives to innovate are more limited as well.

<comment><USER14> Thanks - interesting. I know traffic pattern/flow models and studies can be extremely complex. However, from the perspective of a 'dumb' commuter, it seems like the investment in smarter traffic signals would be offset by global savings from/economic benefits of reduced congestion (e.g. idle bus transit fuel/maintenance savings or generally increased standard of living and economic imprivements due to increased traffic flow).

<comment><USER2> It is useful to talk about both inefficiency (the thing you point out) and exploitability (the ability for any individual actor to make useful amounts of money out of fixing the inefficiency.)

Unless an area is both inefficient _and_ exploitable, it is plausible that it will go unfixed for a long time.

When you start viewing it in those terms, you find obvious inefficiencies everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> when I was a kid (a long time ago) those cabinets were full of electro- mechanical relays, you could hear them clicking.

I discovered that by thumping against the box hard the traffic lights would suddenly change so I could cross.

I did this exactly once because while no one had an accident the traffic got a bit hairy for a minute as lights changed early without a yellow phase ....

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure just how accurate it was, but I still remember the first season MacGyver episode "Thief of Budapest" where he adjusted the settings to create a traffic jam.

<comment><USER18> That sounds a lot like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job#Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job#Plot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In case anyone is wondering very similar cabinets are also used for telecom in major cities. Shaw has sidewalk mounted cabinets throughout Vancouver for part of their fiber and cable TV network, and there's Telus pedestal/junction cabinets as well.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=telecom+cabinet+outdoor&num=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=telecom+cabinet+outdoor&num=100&client=ubuntu&hs=mKR&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyxMzDlebaAhWHsVQKHW5UCqsQ_AUICigB&biw=1493&bih=2011)

I have seen models _very similar_ to traffic control system cabinets used for patch panels for fiber + 1RU sized routers and switches, medium sized UPS, etc.

<comment><USER20> Once you're used to looking at electrical enclosures they all sort of start to look the same. What you're describing in your photos are similar to what my company designs for all forms of industrial domains: agriculture, wastewater, oil & gas, mining, telecom, power, etc.

[https://www.hammfg.com/electrical](https://www.hammfg.com/electrical)

Elsewhere in this thread someone talks about "optimization" and electrical enclosures are no different. There's various levels of certification that they need to meet in regards to the different environments they're installed to work in, it only makes sense that a standard style of design emerges instead of specifically engineering something per task.

(EDIT: I should mention I do not work for hammond, I just linked their site because I know we use their enclosures a lot)

<comment><USER21> Guessing you work for a panel builder?

<comment><USER20> We have a shop that builds panels. I'm up in engineering working with guys who design them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This post is one of the many reasons I love HN. In depth discussion of obscure (but very interesting) topics; and the personal websites that host them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Want to rabbit-hole deep on traffic engineering? There's a long-running thread on the Something Awful forums about traffic engineering:

[https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=31...](https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3177805)

Traffic controls, intersection design, role playing regional transportation planning, and much much more.

</comment><comment><USER24> I only found out about these a few months ago because there was always a cop leaning against one outside a ballpark before and after games with a radio plugged into it.

I asked what he was doing and he gladly showed me that he was just manually cycling the lights, basically on a longer delay where required to clear jams and work with another cop directing traffic.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always wondered why those cabinets are so big. Traffic light controls seem like the kind of thing that could be reduced to a much smaller package given greater computing power combined with smaller and more efficient hardware. What does all the hardware inside actually do?

<comment><USER26> Maybe one box needs to communicate with a network of other boxes to keep traffic in sync over a wider area. I'm guessing that the bottom rack with the yellow cables plugged into it is some kind of networking gear.

Also, the equipment has to switch some fairly high-power loads - until the recent adoption of LED-based traffic lights, I'd guess that traffic light bulbs probably drew a few hundred watts each, and there can be many lights in a large intersection. You can see a row of 15A and 20A circuit breakers in the box in the photo, on the left side of the second rack from the top, with a 50A main breaker below them. The equipment below that rack looks like power- switching modules.

It's also entirely possible that this equipment is 20 or 30 years old, built at a time when computer hardware was much bulkier. There would be little incentive to replace it with something smaller if it was still working reliably.

<comment><USER27> In fact, this being repairable in the field by a person with a soldering iron and a bag of parts is a consideration. Sometimes you cannot just get a full module to swap.

<comment><USER28> This. Repairability and durability are two reasons a lot of 'old tech' is in use.

I have a friend who is an engineer with PG&E who is great to take to parties full of tech nerds. They're always horrified by the '100 year old tech' running the grid. My take is that they're right to be horrified by the fragility of the grid, but have the 'why' exactly backwards - it isn't the vats of oil that make it fragile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reminds me of this scene from MI3 [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ojRRr3nOD3Y](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ojRRr3nOD3Y)

The joke was supposed to be that his cover job sounds boring, but I always thought it sounded fascinating

<comment><USER30> It reminds me of that scene in Hackers, which was based on this scene from the original Italian Job

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=5FzBMjJ803I](https://youtube.com/watch?v=5FzBMjJ803I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Follow-up post [1] with explanation of "ramp metering" and "sprinklers".

[1] [https://blog.plover.com/addenda/201804.html](https://blog.plover.com/addenda/201804.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> Further reading:

How Traffic Light Control Systems Work ([https://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-do-traffic-light- cont...](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-do-traffic-light-control- systems-work-41839.html))

Traffic Signal Operations and Maintenance Staffing Guidelines ([https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop09006/fhwahop09...](https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop09006/fhwahop09006.pdf))

TRAFFIC SIGNAL OPERATIONS HANDBOOK ([https://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents...](https://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-5629-P1.pdf))

TRAFFIC SIGNAL DESIGN – OPERATIONS AND COORDINATION ([https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/tdot/documents/TDOT_Traffi...](https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/tdot/documents/TDOT_Traffic_Design_Manual_Chapter_07_Dec2016.pdf))

Design of an ITS-Level Advanced Traffic Management System: A Human Factors Perspective (1996) [https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/95181/...](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/95181/95181.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER33> _I think I understand what variable message signs are, and I can guess at changeable lane control, but what are the sprinklers and pumps for? What is ramp metering?_

Very interesting (as always with good geekery almost regardless of actual subject matter), but so frustrating that the part about pumps and sprinklers not being answered.

The linked-to PDF in the article (the one that the quote above comes from) doesn't mention sprinklers or pumps more than once, either.

I guess traffic intersections often have decorative planting which might need watering and it would make sense to make the already-present light controller handle that, too. That's my best guess, at least. Some basic googling didn't turn up anything useful.

<comment><USER34> There has been a followup if you go to the homepage

"DOTs in California and presumably elsewhere often have a need for erosion control on the steep inclines of earth surrounding their highway ramps. So any time you see a 45-degree incline covered in greenery, chances are it has a sprinkler system attached and carefully maintained by the DOT. Those same sprinklers are often within a few feet of the ramp's metering lights…"

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is the first time I've seen an HC11 used outside of educational contexts.

<comment><USER36> You'd be amazed at how prevalent they are. I come across them at least a couple times a year when popping the lid off this thing or that. Generally older gear :). The most recent that comes to mind is a radio repeater.

<comment><USER21> At one point (maybe about 20 years ago), 'HC11, 'HC05 and 8051 variants made up the bulk of all microcontrollers in use.

I wonder what's replaced them. My vote is for Atmel Tiny/Mega, but I'm biased...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Yikes, those are some dirty fiber terminations! I wonder what's in there that needs single-mode fiber.

<comment><USER38> Could it be connections to other nearby signals for synchronizing the lights?

<comment><USER26> Also possibly a connection to a central traffic control center that can override signals during emergencies or special events that generate abnormal traffic flows.

<comment><USER39> I mentioned SCOOT elsewhere in this discussion. With such systems, overriding is (I was told) the _norm_. The isolated controller on fixed timing is the fallback case.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's your C migration plan? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://wingolog.org/archives/2011/10/13/whats-your-c-migration-plan

<comment><AUTHOR> In light of the heartbleed bug, it's time for us to minimize our use of non- memory-safe languages, efficiency be damned. For crypto in particular, there are well-tested implementations in pure Java and Go, and probably other safe languages as well; we should use them.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any good Stripe alternatives? - <AUTHOR> Stripe doesn't work in my country so I'm looking for some good alternatives.
I'm now working on a marketplace project so I need  something similar to Stripe's Relay. In other words, I need to provide a solution for other businesses to sell within my mobile app. P.S. PayPal works in my country but I don't know does it have something similar to Relay. <comment><USER2> Which country is that?</comment>


We just launched NewsBasis. What do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://newsbasis.com/?source=hn

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on this for around six months. It's just two of us at this point.

Check out the coverage in the NYT [1] and RWW [2]. I'd really love your feedback, suggestions, etc. Thanks!

\--

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/business/media/02startup.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/business/media/02startup.html?_r=2&ref=media)

[2] [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/newsbasis_connecting_jo...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/newsbasis_connecting_journalists_and_pr_in_new_ways.php)</comment>


Ask HN: What's with the sudden explosion of "University Memes" Facebook Pages? - <AUTHOR>

In the last day about half the posts appearing in mine and my colleagues' news feed are images from "[University-name] Memes" pages on Facebook. The images are the usual image macro jokes, referencing campus locations and university traditions.<p>Was this a planned marketing stunt of some kind or is this an "organic" craze? Any insights? <comment><USER2> Just a fad that jumps for one school to another. See also "overheard at [school]"

</comment><comment><USER3> I suppose you could call it a meta-meme.</comment>


Gödel's Loophole in the US constitution - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183 <comment><USER3> To be honest, I don't really see how this is a "loophole". The amendment process was intended to allow the Constitution to remain a living document, and balance longevity with future flexibility. I don't think the framers would have been at all surprised that it is possible to effectively dismantle the Constitution or the Union entirely through amendments. If this were not intended, why weren't additional restrictions placed on the scope of amendments? As it stands, Article V places the following limits:

 _"... provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."_

Unless I'm misunderstanding some part of this paper, this seems more like a feature, than a bug. It also reflects practical realities: if a legislature overwhelmingly supports a change, any roadblocks or restrictions will most likely be ineffective in the long term.

<comment><USER4> > _It also reflects practical realities: if a legislature overwhelmingly > supports a change, any roadblocks or restrictions will most likely be > ineffective in the long term._

Exactly. In the worst case, if an obstructionist minority of states were to block an overwhelmingly popular and desperately needed amendment, a sufficiently large number of states could simply write a new Constitution. After all, that's exactly how the current U.S. Constitution got put into place.

The Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of all 13 states. And of course, they needed unanimity to amend the unanimity clause. So it was an amendment clause without loopholes.

But only 12 states showed up at the Constitutional Convention! Unanimity was obviously not going to happen.

So the delegates wrote a new Constitution anyway, and specified a ratification threshold of 9 states. Once this threshold had been reached, the other 4 states could have fun governing their rump country under the old Articles. But the ratifying states would be in a customs union and have a strong central government, and they could make do just fine without the holdouts.

In the end, only two states held out. Eventually, both gave in. North Carolina didn't even last a year on its own. Rhode Island lasted 15 months.

The same people who pulled off this stunt also wrote the Constitution. So they were well-aware that a watertight amendment process was no bar to the truly determined. Might as well leave it leaky.

<comment><USER5> _Exactly. In the worst case, if an obstructionist minority of states were to block an overwhelmingly popular and desperately needed amendment, a sufficiently large number of states could simply write a new Constitution. After all, that 's exactly how the current U.S. Constitution got put into place._

Hopefully this doesn't result in another civil war over the issue of gun control. (The current stance seems to be to allow individual states great latitude in how they interpret the 2nd amendment.)

<comment><USER5> Great. Another knee-jerk downvote on a comment that is neither for nor against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of Nomic[1], a thought experiment which appears in an appendix to Peter Suber's excellent book, "The Paradox of Self-Amendment" [2]. Choice quote from the introduction to Nomic:

       If law-making is a game, then it is a game in which changing the rules is a move.

[1] [http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20...](http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20Suber%2c%20%20Nomic%20.html?sequence=1)

[2] [http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418](http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418)

<comment><USER7> People actually play this game:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play)

[http://agoranomic.org/](http://agoranomic.org/)

<comment><USER8> Less generically, I've played the game, using the rules straight from Hofstader's book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe the Founding Fathers were aware of this loophole, since Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it" [1]. Having a just government requires constant vigilance.

[1]: [http://quotes.liberty- tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Q...](http://quotes.liberty- tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Quote.21EA)

</comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps most likely is that the Constitutional Convention, in eyes of some anti-Federalists, did not have the legal authority to convene and propose a new Constitution.

As the National Archives describes: "Some continued to argue that the delegates in Philadelphia had exceeded their congressional authority by replacing the Articles of Confederation with an illegal new document." [1]

Because (i)the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote to alter it, (ii) the Constitutional Convention was only empowered to propose alterations to the Articles and (iii) the Constitution, as adopted, broke the "unanimous vote required for alterations" rule, these anti-Federalists, and perhaps Gödel, felt the US Constitution was not established on firm legal footing. [2, 3, 4]

The obvious answer — that the government derives its just consent from the governed, and should they choose to alter it, accept it in democratic votes in each of the states, and abide by it, it becomes both de jury and de facto law — is the superior one, IMHO.

[1] [http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution- day/r...](http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution- day/ratification.html)

[2] [http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html](http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratifi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratification_of_the_United_States_Constitution)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti- Federalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism)

<comment><USER11> Not sure why someone downvoted you.

You raised a very interesting meta-question. Not that it's of any practical significance 200 years later, but the Articles of Confederation are very much an important part of US history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The main flaw in this argument is the assumption that governmental systems can or ought to be reduced to logic puzzles. The real world doesn't operate on a mathematical plane. The Constitution is only meaningful so long as sufficient members of the government and the citizenry accept it as an authority and share a somewhat similar understanding of its implications.

If the government goes off track from the Constitution with the willingness of the populace there's nothing in the Constitution or the world that can stop it.

Consider the birth of the Constitution itself: there was no mandate for an entirely new baseline document to replace the Articles of Confederation. But one was created and the states adopted it. It came into power because the citizens of the United States gave it power. That's the only way governments are formed and changed. The founders of the US understood that very well.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't think it's anything to really worry about. Congress has sent thirty three amendments to the states in a period of 225 years. There have been over 11,000 proposals in that same time period[1].

Theoretically possible, sure. Fascinating, absolutely. Likely? Not really.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

<comment><USER14> The constant eroding of the State's sovereignty and the consolidation of power into the Federal Government's hands make this somewhat more troubling in the future however. Especially as we move towards more pure democratic systems and away from representative republicism. See for instance the National Popular Vote Compact: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)

A similar compact for approving amendments could be an issue for instance.

<comment><USER15> I'm curious as to how making the presidential election decided by popular national vote has an effect of "eroding State's sovereignty"? As I see it, a national election decided by a national vote is the most natural thing in the world. The only effect of arcane (and frankly, absurd) electoral college system is to put disproportionate power in the hand of _some_ of the states at the expense of other states.

<comment><USER16> The electoral college (and similarly, the now defunct election of US senators by state legislatures) only seems unnatural in the context of what states have become. They're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects.

 _edit:_ I mixed up my EU facts below. The European Parliament is filled by direct election. It's the Council that is elected by the executive branches of member states, and is thus more analogous to the US Senate before switching to direct election. The EU is complicated for my American brain to keep straight! I still might have some of this wrong.

Compare the electoral college to the European Parliamentary elections, which are decided not by all EU citizens but by the Council, or the President of the European Convention, who is elected by the European Parliament.

<comment><USER15> _They 're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects._

In other words, they are _states_ \-- as opposed to nations (as per your EU example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've only read the abstract. I feel no need to read the entire 37 page paper. This topic might be interesting to a philosopher, but I don't think it has any practical significance.

We had a flurry of amendments to the US constitution back in the 1960s. Since then, in 1971 we gave 18 year olds the right to vote. There was only one other amendment since then, in 1992, and it was "housekeeping". It delayed salary changes for legislators until after the next election.

I'm old enough to remember the contentious proposed Equal Rights Amendment. [1] It kicked around for years in the 1970s but was never ratified.

Since then, nothing. And, given the political climate in the USA (the "red state" vs "blue state" dichotomy) it's unlikely that any new amendment would pass anytime soon, unless it was necessary to solve a very very critical problem. It's hard to believe that an amendment to change Article V would ever pass both houses of Congress then get ratified by 38 states.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

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

<comment><USER8> Not even the balanced budget amendment? Michigan just voted for it, via a new constitutional convention, making it either the 23rd or 34th state to do so. See [http://www.mlive.com/lansing- news/index.ssf/2014/04/accident...](http://www.mlive.com/lansing- news/index.ssf/2014/04/accidental_history_how_michiga.html) .

<comment><USER11> You're right. That would be "interesting". Perhaps even "May you live in interesting times".[1]

It's definitely a wildcard.

The last time it was "threatened" is over 100 years ago. According to Wiki, Congress then passed [2] the 17th amendment:

       for fear that such a convention—if permitted
       to assemble—might stray to include issues above
       and beyond just the direct election of U.S. Senators

It's sad that each and every state has to maintain at least the pretense of a balanced budget, and yet the Federal government is utterly incapable of doing so. I wonder how different things might be if the 17th amendment never was ratified, if each state's Senators were still directly appointed by each state legislature? Would the states be able to more effectively check the growth of Federal power?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_tim...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article attempts to list various reasons why Einstein and Morgensten showed no interest in the flaw. I'll propose a fifth:

\- Einstein & Morgensten understood that the constitution is enforced by a set of institutions, beliefs, incentives and interpretations, not by an algorithmic execution of its rules. As such, Godel's point was irrelevant: of course the constitution didn't preclude the US from becoming a de facto dictatorship, and Godel's loophole would probably not be the practical way to go about it.

In the context of politics, it's a curiosity.

<comment><USER17> Everyone's favorite actual loophole is of course the commerce clause butterfly effect.

"The flap of the wing of a butterfly affects interstate commerce, therefore it can be regulated by the federal government"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Only read the abstract, but Godel's work is pretty well known. He was not interested in showing a "flaw" in the Constitution, but in showing the logical systems of sufficient complexity are ALL either incomplete or or inconsistent. The Constitution is only an example. There aren't any political implications to this at all.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this a joke?

</comment><comment><USER20> a single inconsistency in a formal logical system means you can prove anything. if both A and !A are true, then you can prove anything you wish via contradiction.

assume !B.

A & !A - which is a contradiction.

therefore, our assumption was wrong, and thus B is true.

this means a single contradiction in a legal system renders the whole thing meaningless. everything becomes both legal and illegal at the same time.

a single semicolon can break an entire program because the program _must_ be consistent. that doesn't happen in the law because you have a judge who, at some point, will get pissed off at you. it doesn't matter if two conflicting rules - one dealing with the importing of flowers, and the other dealing with navigating riverways - are in conflict with each other. the judge isn't going to accept that as an argument for why you should be allowed to jaywalk - <USER2> if a technically correct interpretation of the law would say you should.

all of this is to say that the claim 'we have a nation of laws, not a nation of men' is entirely fatuous. it's just not true. we have a nation of men interpreting rules that are in a very convoluted language, designed to be 'unambiguous' \- and yet still vague enough for an education person to find and exploit this ambiguity.

anyone reasonable would agree with me. if you disagree, you probably think 'reasonable cause' is reasonably clear.

<comment><USER21> The philosopher Wittengstein has something to say about this, in part of a discussion of formal logic. He says contradictions are not as bad as you might think.

"Or suppose that there is a contradiction in the statutes of a particular country. There might be a statute that on feast days the vice-president had to sit next to the president, and another statute that he had to sit between two ladies. This contradiction may remain unnoticed for some time, if he is constantly ill on feast-days. But one day a feast comes and he is not ill. Then what do we do? I may say 'We must get rid of this contradiction.' All right, but does that vitiate what we did before? Not at all. [...] When a contradiction appears, then there is time to eliminate it. We may even put a ring round the second rule and say 'This is obsolete.'"

<comment><USER22> Clearly the sensible way to resolve this is to ensure that the president is always a lady.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Computational Bio/Bioinformatics internships in Bay area? - <AUTHOR> I'm a CS undergrad at Stanford and was wondering if anyone could help/give tips with possible ways of landing a bioinformatics/computational biology/data analysis & ML -type internship for the summer. I know it is a big ask, especially given how late it is, but any help at all would be super useful. <comment><USER2> At the start of every month, HN has an automated "who is hiring" thread, and in addition to listings of jobs, there are a lot of companies looking for interns. The thread is automatically posted by the 'whoishiring' HN user [1], and if you look in the 'submissions' link [2] on this HN user profile, you'll find the most recent discussions.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring)

</comment><comment><USER3> Check the hiring sections of the national laboratory websites (e.g. Lawrence Livermore in the Bay Area). They post quite a few Technical Scholar/Undergrad Researcher positions in bioinformatics and computation that not many students know about! Plus they often focus on modern topics such as big data, supercomputing, and visualization.</comment>


Ask HN: What to do facing direct competition? - <AUTHOR>

I have a startup in Brazil [ www.tanlup.com ]. We are a (yet) small social e-commerce website. Basically, we enable people (mainly artists) to create their own webstores easily.
Till some days ago we didn't have a direct competidor, but we learned that there is a company doing pretty much the exactly thing we do, with some extras (things that we plan to add in the future). It looks like they copied some of our visuals and features (check it out: ours [http://www.lacosdefilo.com/], theirs [http://pokkuru.iluria.com/index.html?locale=pt-br]), but I don't really bother myself 'cause this is almost a standard (or not).
What I would like to know is this: They are ahead of us at some aspects (features). We don't know how mature is their plataform (we are running for 3 years now). How should we approach this competition? Should we run and try to overcome their features? Should we stay calm with our plans and don't bother ourselves? Should I be terribly worried or be glad that now we have some competition? <comment><USER2> 1\. Whatever marketing they do will also (somewhat) benefit you. That's good.

2\. Decide how to position yourself. Will you be the cheapest? Will you provide the best support? Will you have better marketing? Will you have more features?

3\. Don't worry too much about it. If you're in a growing market, they won't steal many customers, instead they'll help you grow your market.

4\. Time to really talk to your users and find out what really matters to them. Probably, it's _not_ more features, but something else. Or perhaps 1 feature that's hard to do. Then focus on that, ignore all the rest.

5\. Most likely, you don't want to get into a feature war.

6\. Brand yourselves as "the first". Put that on your homepage, on all your branding and marketing. "The first". They can never compete with that, except by saying "we're the second". When you talk to the press, make sure to mention you're "the first". The first always sounds better than the second.

<comment><USER2> Also, now that you have competition, congrats, it's a movement and you can reach out to the press. Plan and start a press campaign.

1\. Prepare the story for them. The story is not "we're a startup". It's not "we have features". It's not "".

2\. The story is: "Artists are selling things online! Startups are letting them."

3\. Prepare a story pack for the press. Include contacts of artists (that like your product) that they can talk to, photos, even mention your competitors. Also make sure you mention you are the first.

4\. Now talk to all the press (also niche press), and answer your phone immediately when they call.

They'll write stories. They'll talk to artists (that you preseleced to be the ones that use your product). They'll print photos. They'll mention you are "the first startup that does this."

Awesome. Growth time. If and when you do get press, follow up with a marketing campaign if you have money to spend on that. But only after you get press/buzz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Keep a cool head. Get feedback. Do stuff that your users want. Let them worry about copying you. Seriously, it means you're doing something right.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys! :)

</comment><comment><USER4> first, i'd congratualte you on acknowledging competition, as this means you aren't locked in your comfort zone.

i probably don't have the best advice, but i'd think that try not 'run' after their features, instead, identify the things that have made you successful previously and think up ways you can push them to new heights - master your niche, before rushing to spread out.

by doing this, i believe your service will standout, and who knows, you might kick 'em out! most important? don't relax, though avoid panic too. think and then implement.</comment>


Uber Is Ripping Off Frequent Riders and Here's How to Avoid It - <AUTHOR> https://therideshareguy.com/uber-is-ripping-off-frequent-riders-and-heres-how-to-avoid-it/ <comment><USER2> That's one thing I have noticed in general. I used to think that as a long time customer you are valued and get better deals. But this seems to have changed to the opposite. Long time customers are viewed as something a company doesn't have to compete for anymore and instead more money can be extracted from them. See cell phones, TV cable, car insurance and others. Almost like employment where now the only way to get a raise is often to change jobs and not to stay.

It's a weird development and I wonder what the long term effects of this attitude will be.

<comment><USER3> The anecdote that comes to mind for this phenomenon is the more frequent flyer miles you have the more like you are to get a negative experience such as being bumped from a flight. This is because they know you're invested in their airline and are more likely to come back. A new customer might decide to take a different airline next time.

Edit: Apparently this was an old wive's tail or something. Oh well...

<comment><USER4> That's absolutely not logical.

With a lot of frequent flier miles you are very likely a status customer and airlines will bump those last and, depending on the status, will bump other low revenue passengers to make space for a high status customer.

I know a bit about aviation and if an airline really needs to involuntarily bump a passenger (which is quite rare) they will chose an infrequent flier with a cheap ticket.

Unless you can provide a source for your assessment I call bullshit.

<comment><USER5> > _airlines will bump...low revenue passengers_

This is accurate per everyone I know at airlines. The reason is it's trivial to shift one's loyalty. If an airline goes to shit, I'll switch from spending cash with them to burning down miles while I book work trips with someone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This behavior is as old as civilization. When you went to a market and wanted to buy something from the owner/operator of the business stand, none of the prices were marked. You asked the owner the price of something and he would respond. Or maybe he would try to hawk you something by giving you the price of something first. Then you start haggling. If you have a lot of time and like the game, you might get a very low price. If you are his cousin, you get a good price, no haggle. If you are in a hurry (your time is valuable too you at the moment) the price is likely to be higher. All sorts of bullshit/fun- time-shopping.

At some point in the 1600? the Quakers decided that a person morally should only get some fair markup on something they were selling and that to charge more was wrong. On thing they were selling they put fix prices on and no haggling. Lots of people liked this way of shopping. You save time and don't feel ripped off. This idea really spread, department stores took off, and fixed pricing was around for quite awhile. It is a much better way of selling things for society in many ways.

This fixed price for everyone has been eroding for awhile. Coupons have been around for all of my life. Not sure when they started or if they always existed since the first newspapers. In any case, with computers, businesses are able to change the price at will and everyone is carrying smartphones leaking their identity. I wouldn't be surprised to see digital prices in supermarkets that change depending on who is next to the tag. Sets the price when you pick it up. Amazons automatic stores could easily do this. I really like Trader Joe's because it does not do all of this coupon, sales, huge bulk discounts, etc stuff.

<comment><USER7> > I wouldn't be surprised to see digital prices in supermarkets that change > depending on who is next to the tag.

I think safeway already does this with their just-for-u coupons which gives personalized deals on frequently bought items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is basic market segmentation—charging more to people who pay more. Although I think rate regulation is a stupid idea, taxi rate regulation was designed to prevent exactly this sort of thing. (It's also why taxis can't compete "fairly" with Uber. They have to charge everyone the same all the time; surge pricing and price discrimination allows Uber to offset the cost of cheaper service for some people against increased revenues from other people.)

<comment><USER9> Wow. I didn't think about it like that but Uber is transforming itself into a pirate taxi (G*psy cab) company.

Thats pretty crazy.

<comment><USER10> Uber started as a pirate taxi company and has used enormous amounts of money, shady tactics, and market pressure to turn itself into a legitimate taxi company.

<comment><USER11> And provided very valuable service that has improved life quality for many costumers and drivers.

<comment><USER12> Many taxi drivers are of the opinion that they'd rather quit then work for Uber's rates.

<comment><USER13> They're free to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> First time commenting...I found this article highly reaffirming. I'm a frequent uber rider with almost 800 trips on my personal account alone. I take uber M-Th to and from work. The same exact end points. And I've noticed changes with pricing but ALSO with route times:

Pricing - yes it's going up - both from a "this seems higher" perspective but more concretely in the 30 day "pass" I buy that locks in a flat fare for 30 days between 2 specific endpoints. My flat pass fare when up 50 cents a ride between last month and this month. I believe it's gone up in the past as well but don't have my receipts readily available.

Route Time - I believe the uberpool route is no longer (if it ever was) calculated purely on efficiency. Instead, I suspect the individual riders are assigned a priority and then the route is calculated. And I'm guessing the flat fare pass riders are assigned a low priority. My ride times have increased dramatically over the last two months, with 8 rides marked as "late arrival" meaning they took longer than the longest time estimated by the uber app. These rides are approaching 1 hour to go 7 miles (that's right, that's an efficiency of 7mph if you will). The most egregious was a route that literally passed by my block (my home was 3 houses away from the intersection) and took me 10 minutes further out to drop off a co-rider and then 10 minutes to return to the intersection. (I realized too late to jump out.)

So I am guessing they are testing people's tolerances both for 1) pricing and 2) duration. I have some wiggle room with pricing and am willing to stomach some increases. However, I can't stomach the ridiculous routing and excessive ride times. I may be unique in that Uber is the only rideshare app I've used to date but I'm now planning to try out Lyft, read about Waze Carpool, and investigate any other rideshare solutions out there... :)

<comment><USER15> Seems crazy that they would allow routes that are this obviously inefficient. It's as if they're just catering to new folks and not checking to see if the route can be even slightly adjusted to increase total rider efficiency by large amounts (i.e., dropping off another passenger with a 30 second detour, saving 10 minutes).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is fairly similar to the way airlines can charge lower prices for a SFO- NYC-BTV route than they do for SFO-NYC. They know certain routes (SFO-NYC) are used by business travelers.

Some people try to game the airlines in the same way that the article describes, getting a price based on one route (SFO-BTV via NYC) and then actually taking a different one (SFO-NYC). I expect Uber will eventually prevent this the same way the airlines do: penalizing you for taking a trip that doesn't match what you told them you were doing by refusing to allow you to continue once you deviate.

<comment><USER17> I did not know that airlines penalize you for that. What happens when you have a sfo-nyc-btv flight and decide to get out in NYC?

<comment><USER18> People do this a lot. This is a well-known and old issue known as "Hidden City Ticketing" and goes by other names, as well. It is against the typical Contract of Carriage agreement passengers have their airlines, though it's hard to actually enforce: [https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is- leaving-...](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17984/is-leaving- airport-at-a-stop-before-the-final-destination-illegal)

Note that while this tactic can be money-saving and useful in practice, it does have certain downsides, like if you need to check luggage, or if you expect to collect your airline miles and segments (typically requires completing the full itinerary, though not always).

<comment><USER19> The big one that nobody's mentioned is that the airline _will_ cancel any remaining flight segments on that ticket, without recourse unless you are very good at begging favors from customer service.

So don't book a round trip SFO-NYC-BTV-NYC-SFO on one ticket and skip the NYC- BTV segment, because you won't be able to rejoin either for BTV-NYC or NYC- SFO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hate companies doing this.

Uber is profiling passengers, it's been known, which is why I stopped using them. As convenient as they are, I hate being profiled.

I'm from Romania and our alternative over here is [https://taxify.eu;](https://taxify.eu;) the app is as polished, the cars and drivers are actually a little better due to being less popular and thus less noisy. And they do charge higher prices in rush hour, but their pricing is far more predictable.

I don't care if this is legal or not btw. It's my money, so fuck Uber.

<comment><USER21> Looks like you need a phone/login. Am I incorrect about that?

That means there is at least a simple object representing your profile of you. Unless you mean profiling in the racist sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This makes me wonder aloud ... why shouldn't we charge people who are more affluent more than those who are poor? We apply this idea already in our income tax systems.

I'm not sure I subscribe to this idea, but I notice I don't feel morally aghast at this story.

<comment><USER23> Uber has no idea if you are poor or not. Even if you want more price segmentation (maybe okay) you certainly can't ask each passenger their income. And Uber isn't indicating if a price is cheap or not, creating a very large disadvantage to the poor as they are unable to accurately judge the expected value of the service before planning their method of transportation somewhere.

<comment><USER24> >Uber has no idea if you are poor or not.

Seriously? Of course they do. They have your online id and your credit card so they know more about you than you do.

<comment><USER23> No, they don't. They have indicators and clues about your income based on your rides and credit spending at uber, but they _do not know_ if you are poor. All those indicators could and often are very wrong if that is what they draw assumptions from.

Their indicators can be wildly off because they do not know the person themselves and they can only make guesses.

Also,

> Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Of course seriously. Stop being insulting and rude.

<comment><USER25> I would have thought that they know enough to make a decently accurate guess.

Not that I know what they do of course, but without much thought I can think of a model that would allow me to predict income.

\- They're using Uber, that cuts out a decent chunk of poor people.

\- What areas do you visit and at what times?

\- Property prices in those areas, are they workplaces or urban commuter areas? Can likely predict value of someone's house if they use it from home.

\- Type of Uber taken

\- Size of tip

\- Frequency of travel

\- etc. etc.

I reckon that given some time and some people's ride data I could estimate their income, house value, and even perhaps job. I would guess Uber have done this and then some.

Of course it's not going to be 100%, but Uber don't need that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not an Uber fan but this just seems like price discrimination with better data, which in principle could subsidize rides for poorer drivers. Student rush tickets to the opera could be framed as price gouging of non-students (by probing into their personal lives, no less). But in reality more students get to go to the opera this way. Hard to judge without knowing the tradeoffs.

<comment><USER27> >which in principle could subsidize rides for poorer drivers.

I don't think you can specify this. In principle this could subsidize rides for some people or it could increase profit and even if the money were put towards subsidizing rides there is no guarantee it's going to subsidize rides for the poor, there is no law that says the poor are going to receive these subsidies - frequently they don't because they don't because they're a lower priority for the company due to their decreased spending power, have less information about the marketplace and are less able to substitute between alternatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I tweeted a couple of weeks ago about Uber Eats charging me way more than my wife for delivery. I use the app way more than her. Related? My tweet with photo comparison [https://twitter.com/kaimallea/status/974819433322557440](https://twitter.com/kaimallea/status/974819433322557440)

<comment><USER29> > (@uber_support) We're here to help! Please send us a note here; > [https://help.uber.com/h/c4699569-e59a-4e8e-950a-1ac0aa1bb6c1](https://help.uber.com/h/c4699569-e59a-4e8e-950a-1ac0aa1bb6c1) > … and our team will be able to help.

/sarcasm

We're here to help [you stop feeling discriminated by making your wife pay $12.16 fee too]!

/endsarcasm

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This hasn't been my experience at all. I have been using express pool basically every day to commute for months, and the price has always been between $5 and $8 for a 30-45 min ride (depending on traffic and how many people pool in the same car). Fare increases are pretty obviously correlated with how close to the peak rush hour window I request and things like rain (i.e. more demand)

What I did notice though is that prices can fluctuate plus or minus a dollar in a matter of minutes, so sometimes I can get a cheaper fare by simply waiting a couple of minutes (though that tends to only work if I'm not approaching peak rush hour).

<comment><USER31> We didn't test this with Express Pool but Pool in general is a different animal since the prices are so cheap to begin with, there's not a lot of variability that can come into play and affect the pricing.

Plus, Uber takes a huge loss on Pool and Express Pool especially when they first launch since they want to offer low prices to riders but they don't know the match % rates yet.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for the insight!

Can you qualify what you mean by a frequent rider? How frequently are we talking about?

I did experience lower prices when I first started using express pool (though not to commute to/from work), and at one time I got a $2.50 ride to go from downtown SF to Ocean beach (a 40-ish minute ride), which anyone with half a brain would suspect to be VC subsidies at play.

Could it be that this is a similar case, where the original "cheap" price is just subsidies for new rider/some desirable target audience and the "ripoff" price is just the regular price if VC money/competitive race to the bottom weren't in the equation?

Another theory I had was that congestion in pick up/drop-off areas would play a role in pricing (given that cheaper-than-expected rides happened to be nearer the freeway as opposed to, say, Market st)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here's what I do: I ride Uber for a while, then I ride Lyft. After a day or two of riding Lyft, Uber sends me a discount on my next 10 rides. When those run out, I go back to Lyft until Uber gives me some more. I never really end up riding Lyft for more than a day or two before I get the next discount email.

Im not sure if it's cause they're spying on Lyft like they've done in the past, or just noticing that I've stopped riding Uber. Either way, thanks go out to all the idiot VCs for making this happen.

<comment><USER33> Competition among ride services should keep this kind of thing in check. If you're in an area where Uber is the only option (don't know how likely that is) you may be stuck.

<comment><USER34> London is Uber only. Would be great if Lyft started in the UK.

<comment><USER35> I thought London had banned Uber? Did that end up getting repealed?

There are competitors to Uber in London [2], myTaxi seems to be the one that lets you hail London Cabs via an app. And apparently they're offering 33% discount over Easter [1]. (Never used them and I'm usually an Uber fan, but it seems myTaxi could be an alternative to try.)

[1] [https://uk.mytaxi.com/EasterDiscount](https://uk.mytaxi.com/EasterDiscount)

[2] [https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/uber/142333-best- taxi-...](https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/uber/142333-best-taxi-apps- uber-alternatives-to-get-you-a-cab-in-london)

<comment><USER34> No, it's still pending appeal but I would be very surprised if it actually goes ahead; Uber has 2-3M users in London and I think it's more a scare tactic to get them to play more ball with regulation here.

'Standard' taxis are really expensive, I would say 2-4x the price of Uber, so a 33% discount doesn't really get you anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Now that I switch between Uber and Lyft I notice the prices are lower for the same rides than when I used Iber exclusively. I noticed it by accident when I would use Uber out of habit instead of Lyft.

Similar for reserving hotels on travel sites. I started always checking the price on the hotel's own site and it's often cheaper. At first the gaps were huge, but they came down after I became a frequent-abandoner on Kayak

<comment><USER37> I've traveled a lot recently and was surprised by Lyft always being cheaper than Uber until I had my colleague check Uber rates for the same destination when together.

Uber has decided I'm a schmuck who must pay more for the same service. Not a fan.

For accommodation, the rates are usually a bit cheaper direct (often a few dollars), but unless you have/want hotel status, the rewards program at Hotels.com gives a lower effective rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is the opposite of false advertising - upfront pricing means you agreed to the price by definition. Uber is under no obligation to detail the pricing mechanism to the user.

<comment><USER39> While I see what you're saying, without the details of how the pricing structure works this is basically gambling from the consumers point of view and theres a lot of harm in that.

<comment><USER38> Flight pricing works in similarly opaque fashion (I generally compare pricing between different browsers and private sessions and sometimes even devices before buying).

<comment><USER37> Flight pricing is opaque, but there is no comparison possible with Uber since that price is based on your individual profile. United doesn't use my recent travel history and detailed personal information gleaned from data brokers before quoting me a fare class ticket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Am I the only one seeing an "Earn up to 1500$/week" Lyft banner right above the header of this article?

<comment><USER41> It's hosted on the domain and links to [https://therideshareguy.com/NewLyft1](https://therideshareguy.com/NewLyft1) so it appears the blog is an affiliate

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> As a rider, I use Uber and Lyft interchangeably to get a roughly stable price whenever I come to work. This price is about 40% more than what I would like to pay based on my budget, but I don't have a choice but to pay it sometimes because neither app is willing to give me a lower price (which I have paid in the past). I know I'm being overcharged, but I still need to get home or to work so I have to pay the higher price. Also, because I'm using a transportation program through work, I can only use the carpool services, which means I can't take advantage of the tactic in this article since you are not allowed to change your destination after booking for pools. I was really hoping Waze's carpool would help, but I can't get connected to someone else at the times I need to leave and they are not recognized as a valid candidate for our work program. Uber once had a monthly pass available, which was a huge help for me financially, but it hasn't been available in over a year. Would really love to get some more affordable options as I use these services almost daily.

<comment><USER5> > _I don 't have a choice but to pay it sometimes because neither app is > willing to give me a lower price_

Depending on your market, you may have a choice. I use Juno in New York and Scoop or Waze Carpool in the Bay Area as my primary choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Man I thought the point of all this shiny app crap is that you don't have to know what's going on with it and everything "just works."

I'll stick with my non-mobile command line tools and keeping all my cash under my bed.

</comment><comment><USER44> Increasing the price? Or reducing the discount?

I ask, because Uber is operating at a loss, hemorrhaging money.

<comment><USER45> Their US business has been profitable for a while.

<comment><USER46> Is it really? [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-usa/uber-boss- says-u...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-usa/uber-boss-says-u-s- market-unprofitable-amid-tough-competition-from-lyft-idUSKBN1D9348)

<comment><USER45> From the same article

> For a brief period last year, Uber was profitable in the United States and > Canada, the company said

Recent troubles have been due to negative press and Lyft's popularity, but again in the same article (from November) they said they could be profitable again in 6 months. So overall their business is pretty stable and not really on the brink of death as people here usually make it out to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Seems like an easy thing for Uber to fix; it's not running its price gouging calculation on mid-trip changes.

</comment><comment><USER48> It says the algorithm is based on time and distance. Was there more traffic? Is it possible that the up front pricing algorithm knew that the time portion of the trip would be more than usual and charged more because of that?

<comment><USER31> We tested all different times and traffic levels but in general, Uber's algorithm is terrible at predicting traffic since they use their own internal maps system (as opposed to gmaps or waze).

<comment><USER48> > Uber's algorithm is terrible at predicting traffic

So how does that rule out that their algorithm is looking at estimated traffic? I usually get an estimated arrival time right after booking and that's generally correct on the few Uber trips I've taken. How different was your estimated arrival time and your actual arrival time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It seems like its time for consumer-driven AI to combat these shenanigans. Like if there is an app I could open that would automatically do the Uber/Lyft rate arbitrage for me, create false positives/negatives to thwart the business traveller flags and then to automatically reset the destination mid-way to ensure I get the honest price.

Is there some reason this wouldn't be viable? I would think such apps would have applications beyond just fighting the latest discriminatory or dynamic pricing exploitation by Uber.

</comment><comment><USER50> Additionally as the article hints at, imagine they detect that you use Uber to commute to work (destination is a business and Monday - Friday at near the same time each morning and evening). Of course they can charge you more because often times the companies are reimbursing, or it's a tax write-off.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yes, Uber's opacity is shady, but raising their rates is a business necessity.

If rides are still being subsidized by Uber (via losses) and its drivers (via low wages), would it be more accurate to say that new riders are given a promotional discount and frequent riders are charged a more sustainable rate?

<comment><USER52> >would it be more accurate to say that new riders are given a promotional discount and frequent riders are charged a more sustainable rate?

The government had already regulated cab fares to where they couldn't just gouge the customer and (hopefully) the prices were fair to both the cab driver and the rider. Uber re-introduced risk into the equation, along with the opportunity to capture the consumer surplus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This doesn't seem any different than the known behavior of online merchants (particularly airlines in my experience) of listing different prices based on what they can infer about the user, or than a mechanic quoting an artificially high price to someone who seems less knowledgable about what's actually required (Seinfeld has an episode touching on this, blanking on which one).

That said, I have noticed that, the rare times I Uber to work (I work in a pretty big corporate office space), if I enter a nearby Target as my location, my price is often notably lower. This happens with Lyft as well. It's hard to tell if this is just timing based (sometimes just re-requesting fares to the same destination has a similar effect).

</comment><comment><USER53> The person who's hosting this article is a jerk. The ads are crazy and max out all cores.

</comment><comment><USER54> Everyone, including Uber, said this would happen, so...

To all the people talking about giving up their car to use Uber, just realize that once Uber realizes you don't have a car, your rates just doubled.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is very true, I used to get offers but right after I took some insane surge of 3x no new offers were coming. Other than that, none of the usual coupon codes were working for me.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've definitely noticed that if use Uber infrequently, I consistently get marketing promotions for "40% off" of your rides.

This might be specific to my market, but it happens really consistently.

Honestly, I just think about it like a marketing analyst. Who would you try to entice back onto your platform? High value users, who show interest (i.e. opening the app but not taking rides). It really becomes easy to game most marketing promos this way, but Uber's is particularly gullible.

</comment><comment><USER57> Digging into ride data I have access too, I see this is definitely the case for UberXL / UberBlack rides. Seems they are fairly consistently "overcharging" for those types of rides by 20-25% with upfront pricing. Unfortunately most of the data I have access to for other types of rides has RidePass's associated with it, so the difference isn't as pronounced, but that could potentially be the advantage of the Ride Pass.

</comment><comment><USER58> My semi-regular Lyft ride to work has increased steadily from ~$7 to ~$10 over the last 3 months.

The only change is that the pattern of days and times has become much more consistent.

I don't know if they're doing a similar thing or if they've just steadily increased prices.

Now that the weather is getting better, I'll just be riding my bike more often.

<comment><USER31> Lyft has switched to an upfront pricing model too so it wouldn't surprise me if they are doing something similar. But I haven't seen any examples that are as bad as with Uber, where I'm constantly seeing big discrepancies like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> It takes just a few moments to bring up Lyft and Uber and compare prices to your destination. The one you don't choose will likely see an abandoned cart type of metric as feedback as you did not complete the transaction. This is the only method I can think of for keeping prices competitive.

</comment><comment><USER60> Couldn't a higher upfront price also partly be because Uber tries to predict the travel time and need to add some error margin due to uncertainty? That would probably explain only a small part of it and certainly not why different people seem to get different deals.

<comment><USER61> In that case they could let you choose. If you know the trip is always around $60, you'd probably not hand over the risk to uber for a 25% higher fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Uber seems very actively hostile to its employees, drivers, and riders.

It's kind of impressive in a bad way.

</comment><comment><USER63> I basically used uber to commute (exclusively for a few weeks and as a second option for the rest) during an internship. I noticed my pricing going up from $16 to $22 at the same times during the same season. By the end I ended up using Lyft.

</comment><comment><USER64> I've noticed that Uber gives discounts when you don't use them for a while. Uber will give 10 rides at 50% off. I'll do 10 rides with them and then go back to Lyft...until Uber notifies me of the next round of discounts.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is how Comcast works too: introductory offer and then the price goes up. So about every two years I call them acting like an over sharing man-child and say my parents cut me off and I can't afford Comcast anymore.

</comment><comment><USER66> I've notified this a lot in San Francisco/Oakland coming and going from the airport. I always comparison shop with lyft and sometimes their is a $10-$20 difference in price.

<comment><USER67> Agreed. Last week landed opened both applications and picked the cheapest. Lyft this time by almost $20.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> While it always weird to see just how much Uber plays both the local laws as well as its customers, it's also quite an interesting insight into what I would call peak capitalism.

</comment><comment><USER69> Here's how to avoid it: use Lyft. Thanks, free market!

<comment><USER70> I only use Lyft for personal reasons but FWIW Lyft almost certainly uses this type of predatory regularly trip pricing. As I mentioned in another comment, I take the same trip at roughly the same time 1-2x per week. After doing that for awhile, I noticed the price went up 10-20%. When I adjust the locations just a few hundred meters from my usual endpoints, the real time price drops 10-20%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I've had $5 Ubers for the past like 4 months. No idea why they keep giving me $5 ubers, but I save a TON of money every month thanks to it.

</comment><comment><USER72> Here's how to avoid it: Use Juno, Via, or Lyft. They are all better than Uber, at least in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER73> Easy to avoid. Use Lyft, Use Juno, Use anything else and compare prices.

<comment><USER70> Lyft is definitely doing it too. I take the same trip at roughly the same time 1-2x per week. After doing that for awhile, i noticed the price went up like 10-20%. When I adjust the locations just a few hundred meters from my usual endpoints, the real time price drops 10-20%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> TL;DR: Uber charges more if it thinks you might be expensing the trip. When going home from the airport try setting as destination a place close to your house. That will fool the system and will give you a non inflated upfront price. Then wait to be in the middle of the ride and ask driver to change destination and take you home.

</comment><comment><USER75> Milking the whales, film at 11.

</comment><comment><USER76> I avoid this by using Lyft.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Uber involved in $shady_business_practice, news at 10!"

Seriously, they're scum, this isn't surprising at all.

I deleted my account a while back and although _sometimes_ it's less convenient, I've managed. I don't regret it. I hate the idea of supporting such a bunch of thieves and liars.

</comment><comment><USER77> How to avoid it: use lyft?

</comment><comment><USER78> An even better way to avoid it: don't use Uber.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Here's How to Avoid It

Stop using Uber.

</comment><comment><USER79> Very simple way to avoid it. DON'T USE UBER

<comment><USER80> Cabs can be next to impossible outside downtown core. Calling in advance had minimum half hour wait in Hamilton, even an hour wait when when you're only 10 minutes outside the downtown. And street pickups have massive discrimination. Everyone except cab drivers was happy for Uber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Please don't call it "ride sharing" or "ride hailing", that's what they want to be called despite being very clearly a taxi service.

</comment><comment><USER82> My first and only uber ride was a 80$ one. Enjoying the special 3x tarif, according to them to help me having the fastest service. Felt like a very hypocritical scam.

I don't know how they keep these sort of things.

<comment><USER83> I don't see what's hypocritical about it.

<comment><USER82> Felt like a very weak excuse to benefit from hurried people at night to shell out way to much.

<comment><USER83> Why didn't you get a cab? Maybe then you'd see that it's not such a weak excuse after all. At least, my experience is that it isn't.

<comment><USER82> Was let down in the middle of the night, angry and impatient, I thought I'd try uber because f. it. Actually I think I installed the app because I thought it would be cheaper than a traditional taxi, but a quick calculation the next day showed that they would have asked for 50$ end to end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Oh look another negative article about Uber.

Also they are struggling to make money and they just killed an innocent woman. I wonder if the lawsuit or lawsuits from their murder prompted by following the startup adage move fast, break things and learn will cause them irreparable harm?

Does anyone know if the victim has next of kins?

<comment><USER25> > Also they are struggling to make money

Isn't this largely their own choosing? They're deliberately undercutting the competition to at best gain a foothold, or worst eliminate the competition entirely so they can put prices up.

<comment><USER84> Yet they are doing everything including 3rd degree murder to be the winner. Can anyone name a previous modern company who succeeded via this type of playbook?

Wonder why people downvote my loathe for Uber who stole 1k from me and then laughed in my face and 1000s of other users who fell the same fate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This is fake news.

The media is purposefully generating outrage for ad clicks.

People need to think when they see a headline, "Is this title clickbait?", "Is it purposefully angled in a way to increase likelihood of me sharing the article?"

EDIT: This article should be flagged, since it's spreading misinformation.

<comment><USER86> Are you going to say what the misinformation is, or just make a vague nonproductive comment?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> > I started regularly taking a Monday morning trip to the airport, then > another ride home from the airport Tuesday evening.

My first thought from the headline: Walk, bike, or take public transit. But the pollution I expected wasn't in the same league as his actual behavior. He's a global warming machine.

<comment><USER88> Yes, walk or bike >30 miles between cities before getting on an airplane for work. Your fellow passengers in coach will appreciate your odiferous devotion to the environment.

Sometimes the comments in here are truly insane. How could you even suggest walking or biking between two California cities?

Just to add to the hilarity of your "global warming machine", here's a Google breakdown of the THIRTEEN HOUR WALK you suggested that this man take [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Diego+International+Airp...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Diego+International+Airport+\(SAN\),+3225+N+Harbor+Dr,+San+Diego,+CA+92101/33.2090363,-email@example.com,-117.4064659,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x80deab3944f1e6ef:0xdc2e46f957550b6b!2m2!1d-117.1933038!2d32.7338006!1m0!3e2)

<comment><USER89> > Walk, bike, _or take public transit._

Here is a tip: comments are a lot less insane if you actually read them.

<comment><USER88> "Here is a tip: comments are a lot less insane if you actually read them."

Oh, so when he said "walk, bike or take public transit" he actually meant "walking and biking aren't options for you, only public transit is"

Wow, I'm so glad we have folks like you to literally rewrite posts.

And of course it's completely beyond the pale that I dared quote someone and judge their words as they wrote them!

The reality here is that this person obviously did not read the post and wrote a boilerplate "green shame" post, assuming that walking was valid, assuming because they obviously did not read.

The "insanity" is people not reading and just running to the comments to parrot their script even when the script is absurdism when applied to the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tom-_- This is the Ride Share Guy's false assumption:

"It's important to understand that traffic is rarely an issue when I'm going to and from the airport, as I'm usually doing it in non-peak hours. So the part of the cost having to do with time shouldn't fluctuate by more than a few dollars."

The time has a very large impact on the price, because morning is when demand is commonly the least elastic (people need to get to work)

Uber is not "ripping off frequent riders", it's charging more for trips where riders will accept higher prices. And now, the Ride Share Guy has ripped off Uber (and it's drivers) by publicizing a flaw in pricing.</comment>


ConfigParser Shootout - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.python.org/moin/ConfigParserShootout <comment><AUTHOR> What's the current state of config file parsers in Python?

Has any clarity or consensus come about in the 10 or so years since this wiki page was written?</comment>


Nov 15 Webinar: A Case Study of NoSQL Adoption - <AUTHOR> http://www.dataversity.net/archives/6362

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a technical case study on what drove wordnik non-relational. Wordnik has one of the largest deployments of MongoDB.</comment>


If a programming language was a boat... - <AUTHOR> http://compsci.ca/blog/if-a-programming-language-was-a-boat/

<comment><USER2> how did this get on the front page?</comment>


Frightening Math - <AUTHOR> http://expertenough.com/1658/frightening-math

<comment><USER2> That's why I cut my cable and never looked back. Even if I do watch TV, I'm always working on something at the same time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I only wish I had that kind of willpower.</comment></comment>


The Tiger Mother (Amy Chua) Responds to Readers  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/13/the-tiger-mother-responds-to-readers/

<comment><USER2> From the article the author seems a well balanced woman, that reflects on her life. The 'splashy' title of her original article was not chosen by her as she mentions in the interview. I guess this interview will be also the last part of this stimulating series of posts on Asian parenthood on HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting to hear her daughters thoughts on her parenting.

<comment><USER4> When they are 30. Not now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll be glad when we're done posting things related to this one. I found _both_ the original Dragon Lady article and the well,-my-kids-are-holier-than- thine rebuttal to be arrogant and unrelated to either hacking or news.</comment>


Customer Development Interviews How-to: Finding People - <AUTHOR> http://www.cindyalvarez.com/best-practices/customer-development-interviews-how-to-finding-people

<comment><USER2> I was trying to figure out how I can use Steve Blank's ideas on customer development. But my biggest issue was finding potential customers to interview. This post helps a lot.

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER3> i feel pretty strongly that making an explicit hypothesis about who the customer is (it's okay to be wrong!) completely solves this problem, because if you know who you are trying to reach, it's obvious. if you say: "im making scheduling software for film festivals" it's trivial to find an email or phone number and call them up and find out if you correct. if it's a consumer niche, find a forum or a blog and email someone.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very helpful!

Other tools that helps find such people (influencers), if I may add, are: Topsy, wefollow, bit.ly, mylikes!</comment>


The Forecaster: The Man Who Decided D-Day - <AUTHOR> https://blog.usejournal.com/the-weatherman-the-man-who-decided-d-day-d0eb5cad3f7e?sk=c7f5ab95b53b2761e5c8d4f460aa82a3 <comment><USER2> My grandfather was a weatherman stationed on an island in the south pacific. He almost never talked about his experiences in the war, but he once told us that he was asked to give a weather report for Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped. He didn't understand the significance of why they wanted the weather for Hiroshima until later. Though he did say that he and a buddy went to a hill to look over the airfield after being told that the area was restricted all of the sudden. They saw a bomber, but he said he didn't know if it was actually the Enola Gay or some sort of decoy bomber.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its funny I was just reading Timmy Mallett, who was a morning TV host during the early-90's, tweet that his mum was Stagg's secretary during this time, ad witnessed the decision to go -

[https://twitter.com/TimmyMallett/status/1136194279439831041](https://twitter.com/TimmyMallett/status/1136194279439831041)

Another Timmy Mallett footnote is Mike Myers got his break on TV doing sketches on Timmy's saturday morning show

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact - there is some disagreement as to what the "D" in D-Day stands for. It seems most people agree it's just D for Day (so Day Day, sort of like how the LA Angels translates to the the angels angels), although some people think it's short for decision.

[https://time.com/5599811/d-day-meaning/](https://time.com/5599811/d-day- meaning/)

<comment><USER5> I suspected it meant Doomsday, when I was little (too much Superfriends on TV).

However, I believe it's just military lingo, as the military seems to treat acronyms and symbols as an art of functional entertainment.

[https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-d- day](https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-d-day)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pity they didn't see fit to mention Walter Munk in there. He only died in February. [https://theconversation.com/hang-ten-decades-walter-munk- inv...](https://theconversation.com/hang-ten-decades-walter-munk-inventor-of- the-surf-forecast-turns-100-85117)

</comment><comment><USER7> Short reenactment of the final decision to postpone for one day this at today's ceremonies:

[https://youtu.be/mSL9NJ8WJMM?t=3808](https://youtu.be/mSL9NJ8WJMM?t=3808)</comment>


Reasons why you wouldn't sign up. - <AUTHOR>

I've realized that getting feedback for a landing page on HN can be rather gnarly. Maybe we ought to change the way we leave feedback. Instead of asking for feedback, let's write about why you wouldn't sign up for that particular service. Keep  it short and one reason per comment please.<p>Reasons why you wouldn't sign up for: www.grooovy.me<p>(I know not everyone has an iPhone, but let's not use that as a reason.) <comment><USER2> I don't feel the "pain" of wanting more friends, so maybe I'm not your target market. This probably makes me a bad person to take feedback from, but since giving opinions is fun...

The problem for me isn't not knowing how to meet new people (e.g. going to interesting meetups), it's getting past the social anxiety of leaving the house and trying to make friends from strangers. At a glance, your app doesn't help solve that -- it looks like another kind of meetup aggregator (albeit a more casual one). While it may be something else and/or technically be a perfectly great service to help me, it doesn't _seem_ like it helps me get past the irrational mental resistance of going somewhere uncomfortable. So when I look at your page and see headers like "GROOOVY FOR IPHONE" and "WE'RE LAUNCHING SOON" and see what looks like a list view of a calendar, it doesn't get me excited. I eventually noticed that clicking the little circles lets me look at different "pages", but that feels like work and I lost interest quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> The app was directly intended for users to have a need or want to meet people so it might be a little different in your scenario as you've mentioned in your first sentence. We don't have any solutions as to getting past the social anxiety of leaving the house and making friends with strangers because that's something that needs to be personally overcome by the individual. Here's an example: If John Smith considers himself overweight and would like to loose weight, he needs to mentally prepare himself to begin dieting and working out. Nothing will work if John himself refuses to make the first step. If it helps, users can also have their friends RSVP for the event and attend the event together.

We realize that the event list that we have on the first page seems pretty generic and so doesn't trigger a lot of excitement. We'll see if we can do something about that. Our next revision will probably be to get rid of the circles completely- it seems that there's just too much information right now. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I want to make new friends. Let's have a read of the blurb:

>GROOOVY LETS YOU MEET >NEW FRIENDS COMFORTABLY >AT YOUR OWN PACE.

That's exactly what I need; nice and gentle and not scary. I am your target users. I'm not looking to date or hook up; I'm not sketchy or skeezy. So, who are these people? Where do they come from? What's the "pool of people"?

>Join or create customized >events. Chat with the people you'll meet, check-in and add >them as friends. Finish off your event experience by >writing your first thoughts of each other.

Wait, what? I have no idea who these other people are. Are they all just randoms that sign up to your service? How do I know they're not crazy axe- murderers? Are they taken from Facebook or some such? Do we pay to join? Do we pay to send messages? Let's say I set up and event: Do I just ping people and ask if they want to go? Or does my event get listed and other people say they'd like to turn up? What happens if Bob (a made up name) has been to an event and I HATE HIM? Can I not let him see events I create? Can I filter events Bob goes to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi DanBC. I hope I can clarify some questions.

So, who are these people? Where do they come from? What's the "pool of people"?

These will be people around your local area that likewise have an interest in meeting up.

Wait, what? I have no idea who these other people are. Are they all just randoms that sign up to your service? How do I know they're not crazy axe- murderers? Are they taken from Facebook or some such? Do we pay to join? Do we pay to send messages? Let's say I set up and event: Do I just ping people and ask if they want to go? Or does my event get listed and other people say they'd like to turn up? What happens if Bob (a made up name) has been to an event and I HATE HIM? Can I not let him see events I create? Can I filter events Bob goes to?

We have no selection criteria when it comes to signing up for the service. Just like many of the public events you might attend such as concerts, HN meetups, bowling leagues, Reddit meetups, or even church groups are consisted of randoms that sign up for that service. As for crazy axe-murderers- there's no way to know for sure. But the same could apply to your landlord, your roommates, your local barista and even your next-door neighbor.

Users have an ability to connect via Facebook but it will be optional. It's free to join, free to send messages via the message board. Your event automatically gets listed in your local area where other people RSVP for it if they're interested in meeting you.

As of our first version, we don't plan on having any blocking or filtering features in place. Like any other service such as meetup, grubwithus, or reddit, you can't control whether or not other people show up to your event. If you have concerns about your safety and privacy, it would be best to apply common sense and notify your local law enforcement. If it is still a concern, you can choose to participate in events farther away from your local area or limit the number of people who are allowed to join your event(decreasing the chances that Bob will be one of the attendees). Bob has no way of knowing what events are created by you or what events you have joined unless Bob personally checks each and every event made in all the cities in the database.

I hope I've answered your questions and resolved your concerns. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I thought the > on the first page was connected to the email submission thing. I didn't notice it at first. I didn't click it. I only knew to click it after reading another comment here about the little circles and then I saw both < and >, and realised they were clicky.

Suggestion: Make the extra pages much easier to find, make the < and > more discoverable, make the little circles more obvious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that you mention the >, it does seem like it's connected to the email submission. We'll definitely look into making it easier to navigate or redesign it to not even have to scroll at all. Thanks for the feedback, very helpful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot of "Coming Soon" sites out there. So I don't sign up for that reason. I figure if it's any good then I'll hear about it again when they're up and running.

Also, the tag line.

"GROOOVY LETS YOU MEET NEW FRIENDS COMFORTABLY AT YOUR OWN PACE."

I'm not sure what it is you have.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like you, I also don't sign up for a lot of sites until people start talking about it. If I keep hearing about it, it must be good right? All I can say is that I'll probably start signing up for more of those sites now that I've realized how difficult it is to get conversions ;).

Thanks for the feedback on the tagline! I agree, it needs to be more concise. Definitely helpful, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't like going out in most cases, and I like it even less with people I don't know already.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry that the app doesn't have any usefulness for you. Thank you for your feedback anyways!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The email submission area should stand out more. This is one of the major points for the homepage so the user should be able to identify it and its purpose immediately and feel inclined to submit. Also, the response after sending the email is very dry.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe the email submission area is actually one of the first things I notice when I visit the landing page. I'm not sure if the problem is the email submission area. Does anyone else have a problem with this? I agree that the response after sending the email is dry- I'll figure out a better message to thank the user for their submission in the next revision. Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll go first:

The page seems a bit bland. The design is clean and clear but it doesn't have the "pop" that makes it stand out from other landing pages like the camera plus app. Maybe it needs more color to brighten up the page

</comment><comment><USER7> The idea doesn't "pop" for me. I don't see why I should try this vs. the alternatives (like Match.com, Meetup, grubwith.us). I need to feel persuaded that this is going to work where the others did not.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've made a good point. I should have clearly stated the differences as a selling point in the landing page. I originally thought that it would be alright to just let the visitor read about app and be able to spot the differences on their own, but it takes too much time to do so. I probably wouldn't scroll all the way to the last page myself.

We're different than the alternatives because we allow you to take control. You decide on the location where you'll meet for breakfast, lunch, coffee etc., when you have the time to meet up, and how many people you are comfortable with meeting at one time. Other people come to the event to meet you.

You can say that we're trying to make it comfortable for the user to meet new people by allowing them to create events at their pace, in their neighborhood at their favorite restaurant.

Thanks for the feedback, very useful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> at a glance it doesn't seem interesting to me. Trying to think analytically I'd say it just, in a boring way, tells me what it will do, not what it will do for me.

Which car would you buy:

* (a) The new Zappino is slick, good-looking, and modern.

* (b) The new Zappino: Women will find you irrestible and Men will be jealous.

Your landing page is (a).

Edit: as an added note, I was so un-thrilled by your landing page that I _just_ noticed there's more information to be had, on my third look.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your examples hit the spot. We definitely need to spice up some of the copywriting on the site. Thanks for the feedback!

As a note, your b example works. I ended up googling 'Zappino' :).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you ship your Kickstarter - <AUTHOR> I'm getting ready to launch a notebook on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1498851720/206468379?token=2c4545f2). My issue is that I want to be able to ship books internationally, but it's damn expensive. I went to the post office today (I'm in the US) and it's like $25 to ship one book to Europe or Australia. Is there any kind of a service where I can bundle all my books together and ship them to one location, somewhere in the UK for example, and then have them each shipped domestically throughout the EU? I'm assuming that would be cheaper than sending each one individually from the US. If this isn't already a service, then why not? I refuse to believe I am the first one to have this idea. <comment><USER2> Check out [https://www.blackbox.cool](https://www.blackbox.cool).</comment>


Harvard Thinks It's Found the Next Einstein – And She's 23 - <AUTHOR> http://secondnexus.com/technology-and-innovation/23-year-old-einstein/?viewall=true <comment><USER2> She looks and sounds impressive; however, another part of me wonders if she is just getting this press because she's a woman.

<comment><USER3> I'm impressed with anyone who has built their own airplane at a young age and writing quantum physics papers at 23.</comment></comment>