The human-driven driverless car - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/10/technology-and-productivity <comment><USER2> What if driverless cars can call upon a network of remote human drivers that can, in the case of computer confusion, take over and drive the car through the troublesome area? Sort of like an on-demand remote pilot, drone style.

That's actually what I figured this article was about, based on the title.

<comment><USER3> "Problems that humans will have to assist with" aren't randomly & evenly distributed. For instance, compared to what one good winter storm would do, for most of the year your "emergency drivers" will be twiddling their thumbs.

Also, the distribution of the problems themselves are going to be very time sensitive. When the car yells "Oh crap, I need a human!", you're looking at at _least_ 5 seconds for a human to respond. Even ignoring the "take a number" problem, which pushes that number arbitrarily high during times of high load. Whatever problem resulted in the car yelling "I need a human!" is probably resolved one way or another before the human gets there, because physics isn't waiting. If the car persistently needs a human, the answer is not to remote- drive the car but to stop driving entirely, so it's only the transient issues that matter.

Basically, I'm not clear on what problem this solves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well a driver less car is certainly more expensive than the uber provided driver if your ignore the costs of the drivers car, the costs of getting them to the age the can drive, teaching them to drive, and on and on and on.

The issue I see is that driver less cars have to be better than the better than average driver. Equal to an average driver is not sufficient. Even an average driver can tell the difference between a cardboard box and a block of concrete in the road, can follow detour signs, and more.

Driver less cars and public transportation may end up either competing or playing off each other. Who knows. Though I would expect driver less buses and semi trucks far sooner than individual cars - there is at least a market fo those. Heck I see still drives on trains, I guess until we can end that position how do we expect cars to go it alone? (and train drivers are responsible for some major accidents both with people and cargo)

<comment><USER5> > Heck I see still drives on trains, I guess until we can end that position > how do we expect cars to go it alone? (and train drivers are responsible for > some major accidents both with people and cargo)

I've always wondered why there hasn't been more progress on this front. Driverless trains have been around for 50 years now [0]. Anyone care to comment further?

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

<comment><USER6> At least here in Minneapolis, a good portion of the train operates down the middle of public streets. It follows red lights and has to deal with people pulling into intersections waiting on a turn signal, stupid pedestrians, etc.

Even WITH drivers two people (that I know of) have been hit in the last two months. The train line wasn't set up with driverless uses in mind in the first place, and the city is likely worried about liability and cost in switching over. Even if the number of accidents goes down with full automation, cities aren't likely to believe that until enough other places prove it for them.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but wouldn't automation provide something more? If people know it's automatic, they're less enclined to assume the driver will stop; There is also less risk that the computer-driver is at fault; and last but not least, the video of the accident could be tweeted immediately so everyone is convinced that the biker/pedestrian/car is at fault. As opposed to human drivers, who are more reluctant to be filmed because it invades their privacy.

<comment><USER6> All of those things are logical and make sense, but are unproven. Politicians are notoriously risk adverse when it comes to those kinds of risks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The argument being made here, while quite real and a possibility is irrational. But I guess humans are irrational.

This reminds me of a recent decision that was made by a fellow parent. They have 2 young kids. 1 in kindergarten and 1 in daycare. The oldest is a smart young girl. In fact she often gets bored during class because she already knows the material. Because of this she gets in a little trouble for goofing around.

Her parents came to the decision that because she knows the material and is goofing around, they are not going to work with their youngest as much as they did with her. That way he will be ready for kindergarten.

I feel this irrational decision shares the same thought process as deciding to pick cheaper manual labor over advanced technology. But I do understand that we may eventually need some jobs to keep all us busy and active. But lets now slow down our education to do so.

<comment><USER9> I have a young daughter and have come to the same conclusion; not to teach her too much before she starts school. My own parents, being teachers themselves, taught me as much as they could before I attended school. I remember being bored senseless in classes and, whilst doing great in tests, started to harbour a deep resentment against education from a young age. "Like, why is everyone forcing me to do this 100 times?! I get it already!" Gradually realising that the other kids hate your for being too smart didn't help.

I don't think you can call this irrational, it's just accepting of human behaviour.

<comment><USER10> How about, teach her at home, period? Then you don't have to stifle her just so the state can have an easier time domesticating her. Home schooling is for more than religious nuts these days.

<comment><USER11> I am not trying to be offensive, but I have never ever understood how can home schooling possibly work. The sheer amount of knowledge that is covered at school seems like way too much for a parent or even two to teach. How can you give your child expert knowledge of physics, mathematics, history, biology, foreign language of choice and sports? Or do I understand how it all works wrongly? Where I come from home schooling is incredibly rare(partially because it's illegal, unless you have a disability).

<comment><USER12> Why do you expect parents to turn kids into experts in all these subjects, when public school is not reaching anywhere near that goal?

And who said kids must know those exact topics and not others? Why do you think when you have the liberty to teach your kids about the world at home, that you still need to follow the government curriculum?

Open up your mind.

<comment><USER11> Well I would expect my child to be taught biology by someone who has a higher degree in that subject, a degree which I myself don't have so I don't feel qualified to teach it. And I would like the government curriculum to be applied because I pay for it in my taxes, so I equate home schooling with an all out anarchism.

And I have my mind fully opened to the idea of home schooling - I just have not seen a single compelling argument for it yet. If such is provided I will support the idea fully - but for now for me it looks like it's just a waste of time and money.

<comment><USER10> There's little biology in elementary school (planting the seed in the cup). The government curriculum is available to home-schoolers for free; your school district is required to provide a copy to you if asked. So no problems there.

The money is a sunk cost, no getting that back. And the real waste; the real cost to you is the education or lack of one that your child receives.

If you don't value your child over your tax bill, then maybe home-schooling isn't for you. Just lob your kid into the public school and feel like you're getting a bargain; I sure won't be there to stop you.

<comment><USER11> Maybe it's just a difference in how things are done in different countries. In mine private schools are almost non-existent, and those that exist have a really bad reputation for basically giving out diplomas for money. There is a broad selection of public schools, and where I grew up(city of only 15,000) there were 10 different schools,and you could either go to a one which was bad with education or one which was consistently in top 50 in the entire country. Every single one of them free. That's what I mean when I say that I pay for education in my taxes - every level of education over here is free, including higher education(so colleges and universities too) - not using it and resorting to home schooling seems borderline foolish.

<comment><USER10> Free is a temptation I'm sure. Education in America through College is 'free' too, in the same sense.

But if you can afford the time and effort, then home-schooling is a whole different process with a substantially different goal. Instead of babysitting its about engaging your youth in lifelong learning. Its got the advantages of personal attention and customized plans. The child is relieved of the risks of institutionalization, while taking advantage of the facilities as needed.

Its not such a radical notion, to manage the education part of your child's life in much the same way you provide food and housing. In America, home- schooling before the modern age had a different name - it was called 'schooling'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I guess a counter-argument against this idea would be all of the restrictions on commercial drivers. I think truck drivers are only allowed to drive so many hours per day.

Imagine self driving trucks could drive through the night, 24 hours per day. That alone could make quite a difference.

<comment><USER14> If the article is right and the cost of human labor really does fall, isn't it conceivable that you'd see teams of drivers driving day and night in shifts? (This would be much like pilots on long-haul flights).

<comment><USER11> That already happens on long coach journeys - you have 2 or even 3 drivers and they switch every 8 hours(maximum allowed in EU).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For me, the driverless car isn't about providing a chauffeur service that is otherwise too expensive. That's a nice side benefit. To me, the main benefit is safety, as automated systems can be more 'alert' at all times, and have carefully tuned algorithms to know what the safe limits are, and keep enough 'slack' in the system to react etc etc. Automated cars are consistent drivers.

</comment><comment><USER16> >At the same time firms like Uber are making the use of hired cars cheaper and more convenient

More convenient maybe, but I was under the impression that Uber was significantly more expensive than hailing a cab? (This is based on what I have read, as I don't live or visit anywhere near where Uber has services.)

<comment><USER17> It probably depends on where you are I imagine. In my area it's roughly the same cost as a cab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a great argument for a high minimum wage.

<comment><USER18> How is this an argument for a high minimum wage, as opposed to a basic human (non-employment-linked) wage?

<comment><USER12> What would be the good or service sold in order to generate the wealth to be distributed to all humans as basic wage?

And who would be the generous folks doing all the work to produce those goods and services, while being OK with sharing, with everyone, the goods (i.e. money) that they trade their goods for?

I'm just trying to understand your suggestion.

<comment><USER19> In a lot of ways, money is a measure of inefficiency. For example, if everyone had the education, experience and time to repair their own vehicles/homes etc, they wouldn't have to pay someone else to do it. We would see the costs of those services decrease, along with the income of people who would otherwise provide them.

We're seeing this all over in the economy with Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, etc. As better rapid prototyping, artificial general intelligence, and moneyless transactions like BitCoin become mainstream, there will be less and less exchange of money.

However, the overall wealth created in the economy will only increase. We're rapidly approaching a point in time (well before the singularity) where human labor can't compete with automation. We can stick with the current system of capitalism where all of the gains go to a few at the top and everyone else is in a race to the bottom to preserve their jobs. Or..

We can adopt a system that works to maximize the social good instead of production, profits, influence, things that we might think of as 20th century goals. My current favorite alternative is cooperativism, where the workers own the means of production so there is no need for unions. One example is WinCo, which simultaneously provides lower prices than Walmart and higher wages/benefits to its employees because it doesn't spend exorbitant amounts on advertising or dividends (which tend to run 15-30% of a for-profit corporation's overhead, sometimes more).

Ironically one of the biggest problems with cooperativism is the lack of community ownership. So a company like Valve can be regarded as the epitome of cooperativism, where the workers can potentially make billions of dollars and the community makes nothing other than taxes. In many cases even those are waived, for example in Boise where I live, Micron and hp get enormous tax waivers to attract them. Some cities even pay corporations bonuses to move there.

So the only solution that I see is to raise taxes on businesses and to abandon the idea of corporate profits so that high income individuals pay the tax rates that the US enjoyed in its highest growth decades. That would mean a readjustment of our tax brackets to match inflation since then. I would suggest few or no taxes at or below the median individual income of roughly $40,000 per year, and then use a logarithmic scale beyond that. If it was base 2, then to double one's net income, they would need to make 4 times as much, so $160,000 per year instead of $80,000. They would pay a tax of $80,000 on that or 50%. To make 4 times median, they would have to make $640,000 per year, and pay $480,000 in taxes or 75%. If base 2 seems too high, then society would vote on which base is most fair, probably settling on something similar to what we use today below $250,000 and eliminating the loopholes above that. This is basically a flat tax in a nonlinear system.

That way we get the wage/innovation benefits of a cooperative and the social benefit of a public income stream. As cooperatives become larger, they would have a choice to pay their workers in innovation (providing free food and benefits like Google) or pay society at large through taxes if they choose cash. In other words, society gets a win-win, because non-cash innovation is the stuff of Star Trek, and even cash is still cash.

The US GDP is $16 trillion, so spread over the 160 million workers, that's roughly $100,000 per person. The missing $60,000 reflects our wealth inequality, which means we could switch to this system today and give everyone a basic income of $40,000 and the rich would have $20,000 to spare. In other words, tax policy alone could provide for everyone right now (the way they do it in social democracies like Finland) but since the US seems averse to that, I expect cooperativism to be the path of least resistance, meaning that capitalism will eventually adopt it as the social ills of vast wealth inequality become unpalatable and we seek a peaceful reconciliation (as opposed to an uprising like the French Revolution).

To answer your original question: the endgame here is that our union (the United States was originally a union after all) becomes a conglomerate of cooperatives, and eventually a cooperative itself. So a person could join a co-op and earn $40,000 above and beyond their state-provided basic income of $40,000. But since wealth inequality already takes a larger share of income than most people earn, I think we'll find that people migrate toward a renaissance in leisure. After all, if wages had kept up with inflation, the minimum wage would be $22/hr today, and the median income would be twice as much, or about $80,000. That's more than most people need to live on, so we'd see a lot of 4 day work weeks, 6 hour work days, 2 months off a year, and people investing half their income and retiring at 30 anyway (essentially a private basic income as opposed to a public one). That was supposed to be the American dream, but we've been swindled out of it by 30 years of trickle down economics. If this seems inflammatory, well, it is, and you'll notice that you never hear about this on the mainstream media. Please check my figures. I stand by this premise and highly recommend learning about progressivism and the history of labor since the Gilded Age, and the various ways in which the country has backpedaled with things like the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which lowered regulations on wall street and led to the Dot Bomb, the Housing Bubble and the Great Recession.

<comment><USER12> Your seeing money as a measure of inefficiency is based on flawed premises, notwithstanding your pre-emptive "in a lot of ways" self-cut slack.

Money is just another product, and in that sense it isn't special. People sell their money for goods and services when they deem it profitable to them. For instance, I could build my own house, but the time required to learn and then build it is more than the time it takes me to trade my (preferred) labor for money, then use that money to trade for a housemaker's (preferred) labor, because people are better (ie. more efficient) at what they prefer to do. The housemaker accepts to trade their labor for money because they also want things for which it is more profitable for the housemaker to build a house for money and then trade that money for what they want. The process of trading something with someone else for something you prefer results in what we call profit.

This also means when you say "moneyless transactions like BitCoin", you're mistaken; bitcoin is money. Money is any product for which there is a large enough network of people willing to accept that product as payment for labor. So the rise of BitCoin won't decrease the exchange rate of money, because BitCoin will become money by definition, since it will be used by people to arbitrage their time in a profitable way as explained in the previous paragraph.

Then you say wealth will increase because machines can make things. But the more you have of something, the more its value goes down. This is supply and demand. So you don't get automatic wealth just because machines can produce, for instance, a bunch of tires, and a bunch of cars, if there's not enough people wanting those cars with tires to self-drive them around. That means customers will assign less value to tires and cars, as the overabundance of tires and cars drive their own prices down.

I haven't heard of WinCo, but if you're saying they're more profitable than Walmart, then I should hope they drive Walmart out of business. I have no hatred for Walmart, mind you; but I do have a love for better things, and charging cheaper prices than competitors while making more money seems to me like a win-win for everyone involved. If WinCo's business model really works, and yet it hasn't displaced Walmart, and assuming what you say is true, then I'm lead to believe other forces (likely regulatory) are keeping this outcome from being brought about. I'd appreciate if you could educate me as to why WinCo stores aren't popping up everywhere and displacing Walmart (or maybe they are and I'm ignorant).

I'm still having trouble understanding how you got so quickly to the conclusion that "the solution that I see is to raise taxes". I also find it weird that you say things like "the community makes nothing other than taxes". The community is constituted of people. People can make money by selling their labor. Why do they expect Valve to work for them? I'm confused.

Also when you talk about US's high tax rates (70-90%) in its highest growth decades (1950s and 60s), you should make sure to mention that they also had more loopholes than we have today, which means in effect that companies in general were paying nowhere near the official tax rate in taxes (they were paying around 30%). See [1] for a page with links to the studies. This is one of the most common economics history fallacy floating around today.

Your analysis of spreading over GDP to the population don't take into account the change effect; that once you do that, people's behaviors change unexpectedly in a way that you can't guarantee that the GDP will remain anywhere close to what it is. Numbers look into the past, not the future. The GDP now only means how much was produced given the variables in place. If the variables were different (eg. more income distribution) then the outcome would be different (either more or less, or the same for different reasons). But because Economics fails to produce falsifiable and reproducible theories, we can never know for sure. With that in mind, number gymnastics as you do it is baseless.

[1] - [http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/21/krugmans-twinkie- defense/](http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/21/krugmans-twinkie-defense/)

<comment><USER19> You make a lot of valid points and I'm not trying to argue against them, because they do apply to today's world. My main concern though is:

 _But the more you have of something, the more its value goes down. This is supply and demand._

This is the foundation of modern economics, but remarkably it isn't true. A carrot is always worth the value of a carrot. Maybe we assign it a monetary value based on scarcity, but I'm talking about the intrinsic value of stuff. We make more and more stuff every year, but the average US citizen is not seeing his or her wealth increase. The stuff is being hoarded in the hands of a select few, which is the end result of free market capitalism if it isn't regulated to provide a fair playing field. This bothers progressives to no end, but I think libertarians rather enjoy that outcome.

I don't think the two ideologies will ever find common ground, so I've been trying to look beyond all of this and find a path to a Star Trek economy. We're approaching full automation within 1 or 2 decades, and the singularity no later than 3 or 4 (barring a global disaster or political interference). Already today the US has perhaps 2-3 times more stuff than it needs. More empty houses than homeless, for example. The cost of food is inverted, so that resource-intensive products like meat cost less than vegetables. Automobiles have an arbitrary value, depreciating 50% as they're driven off a lot. We basically waste more than most of the rest of the planet earns. We can analyze the reasons behind this to no end, meanwhile 6 billion people are living a subsistence lifestyle that would be like slavery to us.

Anyway, I don't see WinCo ever toppling Walmart. It has more to do with regulatory capture and monopoly than quality of service though. WinCo has a rather narrow niche and isn't willing to do the strong-arming to have a presence in every city. They aren't trying to maximize profits either. But I do think employee ownership is the next big thing. The costs to form a business are lower than ever, and the great failure of banks to provide seed capital has caused attention to turn to pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We just don't need bosses anymore, or venture capital for that matter, which means we don't need investors or the burden of paying dividends.

But it worries me that all of this emphasis on self-actualization is promoting selfishness. The "I've got mine" mentality is reminiscent of the Michael Douglas Wall Street days and I find it distasteful. I don't trust the majority of people who've made it to do the right thing and give something back to the community that got them there. So I prefer to leave it in the hands of the people and just vote for increased pay by raising taxes. We could double taxes tomorrow and pass a moratorium on government spending and raise everyone's income by $10,000 ($3 trillion divided by 300 million citizens) as a basic income. In other words, most people would see an increase in income if taxes were raised. This is counterintuitive, but what happened from roughly 1940 to 1980. Unfortunately a basic income was not in the picture, so most of the wealth created was in the form of public works. Now those roads, bridges, dams etc are crumbling because we've slashed government spending to unsustainable levels.

I've heard all of the arguments about how if we give everyone more money, inflation goes up. That turns out to be one of the great fallacies of all time and an easy way to get people to vote against their own self-interest. I worked at a business that charged $99/hr and paid the employees $15/hr. Doubling everyone's pay is more likely to mean taking $15 per employee out of the boss's pocket than doubling prices. This appears to be true across the board in most industries today (wages as a percentage of business overhead are lower than ever), and is an impetus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Well, this has become completely political now and I'm probably just spinning my wheels here. Paul Krugman is probably as divisive as, say, Milton Friedman, so I would recommend to anyone reading this far to look at the writings of someone like Noam Chomsky as a litmus test. If we're talking about the future, then it's going to be more productive to think at a meta-level. There are very basic measures of unfairness and prosperity that even a child can understand, and I think he does a good job of exploring policy ramifications through reductionism. I don't think either liberalism or conservatism are compatible with a post-scarcity future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What to do when the connection to the remote driver is broken?

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish the author the best in navigating this quagmire. Economics always struck me as political wonks arguing policy using calculus instead of rhetoric.

That said, this looks like a reply to Slate's recent article: [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.single.html)

What I immediately thought on reading the headline, without realizing we were diving into "robots are taking our jobs!" was this: how about people sitting at home driving our cars for us? If the packet was dropped or latency got high, the car would slow/stop/switch-to-auto-cruise. Badda boom, badda bing, you have the best of both worlds.

And it gets better. Since you're using real humans to drive, you can take the sensor input and match it up with the real-world driving patterns to try to tease out some edge case behaviors. It'd be like Uber with your own car.

<comment><USER22> I like my human driver to share the incentive with me that a crash can have fatal consequences.

<comment><USER10> A reasonable impulse. Yet I have the feeling that an expert driver with some emotional distance from the situation may do better than me in an emergency.</comment></comment></comment>


Can you identify novice programmers by how they say 'object orientated'? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thejanuarist.com/shibboleths-as-spoken-cultural-passwords/

<comment><USER2> I have never heard anyone pronounce "oriented" by saying "orientated". Maybe if they were 12?

<comment><AUTHOR> We interview quite a few developers, and I'd say about 25% of them pronounce it 'orientated'. Maybe it's a British thing? Most are graduates too, fresh out of college.

<comment><USER3> I've heard plenty of US-born / US-raised developers use the term as well. Moreso when I lived in the South than when I moved to the DC metro area.

Another pet peeve of mine are people who "Administrate" computers. I don't know of a polite way to correct them short of correctly using "Administer" in sentences that follow, but I usually come away from that feeling as if they think I'm the one using it incorrectly.

<comment><USER4> If someone said they "administer" computers, I would think they're MCSEs. Real BOFHs _sys admin_ (could have been just "admin", but the sys prefix is there to importantate.)

<comment><USER5> _there to importantate_

Clearly you meant "importantize". Sheesh.

<comment><USER6> iMuy importante! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The (short) article doesn't really mention OO - it's about shibboleths: terminology whose usage shows whether you're an insider.

<comment><USER7> Yep, and here's a better article from Dr. Dobb's with a bunch of good ones: [http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&sho...](http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Shibboleth.html&Itemid=29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's already been mentioned by some commentators, but "orientated" is the norm in British English outside of programming at least.

As an aside, not that I hear people talking about it much, but amongst the people I know it's referred to as "oh oh" anyway.

<comment><USER9> Interesting. In general use, I would assume that "oriented" would mean focused or directed with regards to some kind of value system (e.g. goal-oriented), whereas "orientated" would mean having completed some kind of initiation training (orientation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've heard coders of all abilities say orientated and oriented, and was under the impression they were interchangeable.

One that I have heard repeatedly is MySequel from the Windows devs, and S-Q-L Server from the other side :)

<comment><USER6> This is something I wonder about a lot - I'm mostly self-taught, and every once in a while I still get blindsided by the pronunciation of a word I've never heard spoken.

<comment><USER11> There were a lot of home-schoolers where I went to college. You could always tell them because they had very large vocabularies (which they used correctly) but pronounced everything phonetically.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't they get the right pronunciation from their parents? Home schooling != being locked in a basement for 18 years with a few textbooks, after all.

<comment><USER11> Arrangements for home-schooling varies but one common thread is that kids do a lot of reading and writing but not as much speaking so pronunciation slips through. It's just a result of the circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Has anyone seen a similar effect with UNIX / Linux admins in the pronunciation of /etc? Most newcomers say "et cetera", but veterans tend to say "et-see".

<comment><USER14> see also --> pronunciation of "sudo"

<comment><USER6> "soo-doo" vs. "pseudo"?

Other ones that come to mind:

       * char (like "char-broiled"? like "care"?)
       * /proc ("prock"?)
       * SQL ("see-quel" or "S Q L")
       * zsh - I guess that could be "zee shell" or "zed shell"

<comment><USER12> "care" is the most logical pronunciation (as that's how you pronounce the first syllable of "character"), but I've never heard anyone say that. "char" (as in burning to a crisp) is the second-most logical, and is what I say.

I think I actually avoid the word in practice; "cstring" instead of "char star", etc.

<comment><USER6> I say "care", but I also taught myself C from library books when I was a kid. It was a while before I talked with anyone about C data types, of all things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've heard it said (in the uk). It seems to identify programmers who don't like and don't read about programming.

<comment><USER16> I'd agree here too - if you enjoy programming enough to read about it, then you'll realize that while some people say "orientated" (be it correct or not), the majority of the industry from the inside uses "oriented."

I've also heard the former and immediately had thoughts along the lines of "they don't truly know OO." In my experience these people did not have an intuitive grasp on it.</comment></comment>


Scientists Disrupt Moral Reasoning With Magnets To The Skull - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5505122/scientists-disrupt-moral-reasoning-with-magnets-to-the-skull

<comment><USER2> That's a really terrible way to describe the study. What the study proved was that they could get people to interpret other people's actions using less empathy essentially. Specifically that they had a harder time interpreting an action that someone else did as harmful (not really talking about right or wrong - they tie right and wrong to harmful and not harmful which I think is a huge jump to make it sound a lot more carnal than it actually is.)</comment>


A Root Cause Analysis EBook [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.sologic.com/sites/default/files/pdf/RCA-ebook-my-boss-told-me-to-do-rca.pdf <comment><USER2> If you're into problem identification, may I recommend "Are your lights on?"

It's a masterpiece.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like a good book - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just a minor nit. Both the mention of fishbone diagram (and an example) and 5-whys would have made it tad better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we mention that there are other methods but decided not to go into detail about each one. Based upon the comments we're getting, it sounds like we could have gone a bit further in describing the other methods available. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised that gathering data comes before create the problem statement. Surely if you aren't sure what you're actually trying to show, it's unlikely that you can effectively find it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not one mention of a fishbone diagram?

<comment><USER6> In their "defense," this looks like another thinly veiled "look how are awesome tool solves problems, call now!" article and not a book in any fashion whatsoever.

We've enjoyed great success with the post-mortem templates in PagerDuty, which is part of their open-source incident-response-docs [https://github.com/PagerDuty/incident-response- docs/blob/130...](https://github.com/PagerDuty/incident-response- docs/blob/130d56e2/docs/after/post_mortem_template.md)</comment></comment>


Leonardo Da Vinci's piano heard for the first time after 500 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da-vincis-wacky-piano-is-heard-for-the-first-time-after-500-years-20131118-2xpqs.html <comment><USER2> Direct link instead of 3rd-generation rewrite:

[http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da- vin...](http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da-vincis-wacky- piano-is-heard-for-the-first-time-after-500-years-20131118-2xpqs.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> According to wikipedia it is not first reconstruction of "viola organista''.

"Akio Obuchi built several instruments as early as 1993.[1] In 2004, a modern reconstruction of the viola organista by Akio Obuchi was used in a concert in Genoa, Italy . In 2013, Sławomir Zubrzycki constructed and performed on his own viola organista[2] at the Academy of Music in Kraków."

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

<comment><USER4> As soon as 100 years after Da Vinci, one was built in Nuremberg.

[http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/viola- organista/](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/viola-organista/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess you could say Da Vinci was a true resonance man.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting sound, a bit of a cross between a oboe and harpsichord with an air of church organ about it.

I do feel though this type of sound is more adapt towards lighter, slower tempo music and may not be played in its element in the video along with the article. I could very much imagine it being fantastic compliment music wise for stage shows and given the time and period this was conceieved, then too me that makes perfect sense. Perhaps if you got an electric guitar and went back 500 years and played music of the time and period then the aspect that certain instuments lend themselfs much easier too certain music types and styles and tempo would stand out more.

I do though often wonder how Da Vinchi would of got on with a patent system of out times and the endless media distractions, still think of the fun he would have with a 3D printer and in part many great inventions of past time never came about thru cost, time and in most cases technology of the time. This on the other hand does not appear to be a tecnology based limitation and would appear to be something that may of been made and past into anominimity beyond the blueprints per say. Though we do not know beyond "The effect is a sound that da Vinci dreamt of, but never heard; there are no historical records suggesting he or anyone else of his time built the instrument he designed.". Certainly would appear to be a commision based design and something that would be less elaborate than most and completely viable for the time to construct and with that I'm inclined to believe he did hear it, even if it was only in his head.

</comment><comment><USER7> it's very very cool, but i'm gonna be honest, i just want to pick it apart. as a string musician of many years, it sounds to me like a shitty viola that can play more notes at once. no offense to ol' da vinci.. but i think it could be improved. i say this because a huge amount of the skill in playing a bowed instrument is controlling changes of bow direction and the beginnings of bowings. if you aren't skilled enough, your bow transitions and beginnings are jarring, rather than the liquid sound of a skilled string player.

the reason this machine sounds so bad to me is that its design removes a lot of the variables that are important for nuanced tone quality. bowed instruments simply have a lot more variables involved than struck instruments such as pianos or harpsichords. in a violin, viola, or cello, the bow has uneven tension along its length, allowing for many different articulations - it also means that when you start the bowstroke at the top or bottom of the bow, the hair tension is higher at those points. so, given an even downward bow pressure, the start of the stroke at either end of the bow has less friction and therefore less volume than the higher-friction middle, creating a naturally smooth attack as you draw the bow. this says nothing of the ability of the musician to change the bow pressure along the bowstroke, another variable.

the viola organista, on the other hand, presses a metal string to a rotating bow of even tension with constant force. since the string and bow are both evenly tense along their length in this design, there is no possibility of controlling the attack and release of a note, giving a binary, on/off, jerky sound with less continuity between notes.

but theres even more to this. a traditional bowed instrument not only has uneven tension in the X-axis (the bow axis), but also has uneven tension in the string axis. violins, violas, and cellos all have a bridge. the bridge not only transmits the vibration to the soundboard, it creates a tension differential just like the bow. but the resonant property of the bridge means that the string tension corresponds to resonance. the closer you bow to the bridge, the louder, fuller, and more resonant the tone. but also, the closer you bow to the bridge, the less the tension of the string is affected by the downward bow pressure (since the string is higher tension). so, bowing closer to the bridge, the resonance is large and doesn't change very much with differing bow pressure, while bowing further away from the bridge, the resonance is relatively less but is also affected more by bow pressure (since the string is less tense, so increased downward pressure by the bow pushes the string down and raises its tension).

the point of all this shit is to say that traditional bowed string instruments are incredibly complex dynamic systems and a lot of their dynamism has been thrown away in this design, yielding something that offers less tonal control with no tangible benefits beyond being able to bow more strings at once. sorry da vinci.

<comment><USER8> I think you're looking at this the wrong way. I don't think anyone involved in this thing, from da Vinci, to the modern builders, to the performer, to the audience, thinks for one iota that the purpose or destiny of this machine is to replace or diminish string musicians to any extent.

I see this as an exercise in technology and history, and a celebration of what was certainly an innovative idea in da Vinci's time. Really, it makes more sense to think of the viola organista as a synthesizer or a sampler, invented centuries before the modern electric and electronic incarnations.

On the more practical side, before synthesizers and samplers, this would probably have been a ground-breaking tool for composers. To be able to play and hear rough arrangements of string pieces (again, not to replace string musicians, but rather to easily hear a much closer approximation than any contemporary keyboard instrument could produce) would no doubt have been amazing for composers in that period.

<comment><USER9> It has plenty of room to be perfected and I see no reason to discard the possibility that it could become a legitimate instrument in a concert hall.

There are plenty of possible variables in how you play it - the sharpness, speed and strength of hitting keys... the rate at which you spin the bow... and damping. It might be considered more complex than a piano.

<comment><USER10> It's a beautiful instrument for what it is, but absolutely not as much diversity or complexity as a piano. You can hear the entire music is at almost a single volume, more like a pump organ. The reverb you hear is from the room. I think it's an interesting and new way to hear Marais (which for me was the most successful of the pieces) but it's a period piece, the same way the harpsichord never made much past the 18th century.

note: Actually interesting to read the Youtube comments on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would love some samples from this so I can stick them in my Korg Triton.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a few issues with the claims or omissions made regarding this instrument. The piano forte wasn't invented until the 18th century. A few people have already mentioned that the hurdy-gurdy is very similar in function to this instrument. This instrument looks like four hurdy-gurdies stacked for an extended octal range stuck inside a piano enclosure. So what exactly was Da Vinci's contribution to this instrument and how much of Da Vinci's design was "augmented" by the builders?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would like to see it closer up in construction and operation.

<comment><USER13> It's called a "Viola Organista" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista)

Precious little detail on the construction and the only website of a builder seems to be down intermittently. [https://web.archive.org/web/20121031145914/http://obuchi.mus...](https://web.archive.org/web/20121031145914/http://obuchi.music.coocan.jp/index-e.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty amazing stuff! Makes me wonder what else is written in that Codex Atlanticus. Anyone got a link to a digital version of the original manuscript?

PS: Yes, the word "Codex" especially in conjuction with Da Vinci reminds me of Assassin's Creed

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone know how long use of this instrument persisted? Wikipedia says that a similar instrument was built in 1575.

I expected to hear period pieces, but instead the performer played Baroque and Classical era music.

<comment><USER16> The wording of the article suggests it has never been played to an audience until this year. I suspect it was never built until now.

<comment><USER17> According to this interview:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOrn_z9m9lU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOrn_z9m9lU)

There were several old builds of the instrument, but they were all lost one way or another.

<comment><USER18> Thanks! A much better video since you can see partly how the instrument works. I like his decoration of the instrument, including the text and year in latin; I guess he is planning for this reconstruction to survive the centuries where the others didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The principle seems similar to organistrum: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy)

</comment><comment><USER20> sounds like shit!</comment>


US gives first-ever OK for small commercial nuclear reactor - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/910766c07afd96fbe2bd875e16087464? <comment><USER2> Because this can't possibly end badly - letting nuclear reactors be operated by a nuclear power cooperative whose founder created the company as part of a Ponzi scheme [1]. Idaho is a beautiful state with awesome people, but if I lived there right now I'd move. All it will take is a few cut corners on training or parts [2] to cause something similar to Three-Mile island.

In fairness there are currently 96 nuclear reactors operating in the U.S. The average age of these reactors is 38 years old. And there have only been 13 nuclear incidents during that time, that we know about, resulting in 7 dead total. That however is 7 dead directly. A number of people who got Cancer around Three Mile Island attribute it to the incident, so that death toll could be much higher, or it could be accurate - we don't have the means to verify it at this point.

However, this permit allows them to build 12 reactors, with no history of operating a reactor safely AFAIK. Also, these reactors are a new type, smaller and modular, which may mean they are less risk but also means they are more of an unknown.

In my opinion this is an insane risk.

[1] [http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/59407581/nuscale-...](http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/59407581/nuscale- cuts-back-as-feds-sue-funder)

[2] [https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety- and...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and- security/safety-of-plants/three-mile-island- accident.aspx#:~:text=In%201979%20at%20Three%20Mile,background%20levels%20to%20local%20residents).

<comment><USER3> Eh? The founder of NuScale did not create the company as a Ponzi scheme. The _two_ founders _raised money_ from a guy who was running a Ponzi scheme.

NuScale founded by Paul Lorenzini + Jose Reyes

Michael Kenwood Group founded by Francisco Illarramendi

Michael Kenwood Group was managing some half billion dollars and funded and owned lots of things, among which was NuScale. Of the half billion, Illarramendi funneled out a tenth into funds he managed for personal value.

I hesitate to speculate but did you, uh, did you read 'funder' as 'founder' and then construct the remainder of the story around that? Usually when you raise money you don't get to look at the books of the guy you're raising from, so how exactly were they supposed to know the guy was busy embezzling?</comment></comment>


Google Fiber's Next Stop: Austin, Texas - <AUTHOR> http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/google-fibers-next-stop-austin-texas_9.html <comment><USER2> For those wondering where Google will roll out, we don't have exact details, but we have some information.

1) They said they will stick to Austin City Limits, which means within these boundaries [1].

2) For those that followed up with how KC operated, Google runs their lines on electrical poles and all places the city power company has lines. This is one of the big things KC and Austin have in common: city owned electric utility. With that google can run all their lines much easier. So, if you get electricity from Austin Energy, you will likely be eligible to get Google Fiber at some point.

3) Beyond that, it will be up to people like us to advocate in our neighborhood to get people to sign up for the service. Whatever areas have a large # of people pledge to sign up will be more likely to get it. To me this means south and east Austin. But at the same time, north austin has a lot of tech employees from Dell, Freescale, PayPal, and other large companies (though many of those people may live in Round Rock).

[1] <http://www.zipmap.net/Texas/Travis_County/Austin.htm>

[1.1] (easier on the eyes map) [http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary- map/city/Austin/...](http://www.maptechnica.com/us-city-boundary- map/city/Austin/state/TX/cityid/4805000)

<comment><USER3> I spoke with someone in Grande's (competing ISP) network planning division and he explained that getting into new buildings downtown was very expensive / difficult given Austin's telco requirements (have to dig up streets, etc.). Is this also the case for Google's fiber layout, or is there any speculation that buildings (condo and apartment) downtown will see this service?

<comment><USER4> what's expensive to the local isp is probably not to google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _> Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014._

The timeline Google's followed in Kansas City suggests it will be another year until service is available to a significant chunk of Austin, and likely well into 2016 or beyond before the whole city is hooked up. Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that.

But hopefully the build-out gets ramped up, both in Austin and KC, now that Google's had some time to work out some of the early kinks.

<comment><USER5> This is how it goes with most service roll outs. If the people in the suburbs are really miffed that they aren't one of the first areas picked for Google Fiber, perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl.

Congrats to any Austin HNers on your freedom from [insert Austin cable monopoly here]

<comment><USER6> We actually have a bit of a cable duopoly in a lot of the city. Both Grande Communications and Time Warner run systems here, although Grande's build-out area is a bit smaller.

<comment><USER7> I've been really happy with Grande, they provide the best cable internet I've ever had (65/5 mb/s) for $70. Great uptime, with very consistent service. That said google fiber at 1gb/s, yes plz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Google here is doing what they do best which is sticking to their core business of advertising/search while spending a bit here and there to disrupt businesses that they see as threatening to their core business. It is to Google's advantage to have fast pipes to their users.

Right now they are getting their intended result from people in the USA. If Kansas City can have gigabit internet for a low price why can't I? The consumers then will pressure their provider to do the same. However it is not as easy for every other telco.

1\. They need to be profitable. 2\. They cannot cherry pick areas with high density yet low costs of rollout/living like KC and Austin.

So I do not think Google will ever do this nationwide as it is a bad business to be in with enormous red tape, capital expenditures and geographic distribution. It is a smart move on their behalf to do this but people should not get their hopes up for a nationwide distribution, it will never happen.

<comment><USER9> "In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats" - Warren Buffett

I completely agree that its in Google's interest to have faster pipes. But I think Google Fiber may just be another moat for Google, another way for them to hinder their perceived threats.

This was an excellent write up on Google's strategy to build business moats (from 2011): [http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is- an...](http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-android/)

<comment><USER10> _But I think Google Fiber may just be another moat for Google, another way for them to hinder their perceived threats._

When FB was asked about a phone they said that any phone user they'd get it wouldn't move the scale given their 1 billion+ users. Same with Google, it's extremely expensive to wire a significant number of their users, so they are doing this hoping AT&T, Comcast etc upgrade their connection and match the price. Which they might--in the areas where Google is entering. Personally, I would not count of the price being, say $70 for a long time.

<comment><USER11> > Same with Google, it's extremely expensive to wire a significant number of > their users

Recent published estimates have been that it would about $11 billion to roll out nationwide in the US. That _is_ a lot of money, sure, but _less_ than they paid for Motorola Mobility recently. Not prohibitively expensive for Google.

<comment><USER10> _Recent published estimates have been that it would about $11 billion to roll out nationwide in the US._

Maybe $110 billion, $11 Billion doesn't go far in US

<comment><USER11> > Maybe $110 billion, $11 Billion doesn't go far in US

I've gone and rechecked, the $11 billion number from recently published estimates is for a nationwide rollout to a scale comparable to other nationwide broadband providers "passing" about 15% of homes, and is exclusive of costs of actually acquiring customers.

<comment><USER10> Nationwide and 15% of homes is kinda different. I say this because Verizon did spend tens of billion on FIOS and barely reached tens of millions of people.

Also doing it in a few cities as an experiment and doing it as telecom provider are very different too (heavily regulated and extremely expensive). Just imagine what it takes to dig in Manhattan with all the permits, payments, licenses, unions etc etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now AT&T is announcing that they are building a 1Gbps fiber service in Austin as well.

[http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber- internet-...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet- austin-texas-official/)

<comment><USER13> I've heard a lot of things from AT&T customers, and "satisfied" is never one of them. This is too little too late, and I'm pretty sure that most of their current customers can't wait to jump ship -- regardless of whatever carrots that they bring out at the last minute.

<comment><USER2> Uverse has been solid for me. I've had them for 4 years now and they've had very limited downtime (a lot less then I had with TimeWarner). I'll happily move to Google Fiber, but Uverse has treated me just fine. While I wish their upload speeds were faster, but I haven't really had any options that were faster.

What issues have you had with them exactly?

<comment><USER14> Maybe you're referring to Internet access only, but the over-compressed picture quality on Uverse is horrible, especially compared to easily-obtained OTA in the Austin area.

<comment><USER15> Hm. I don't live in Austin, but Uverse here in Oklahoma City has fine quality (about equivalent to OTA). (It's night and day with the other TV provider here, Cox, whose picture quality is terrible at best.) Also concur with GP that their internet service is pretty decent (although a bit overpriced for my liking).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm in Austin and can't wait. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to continue to pay TimeWarner for another 1-2 years at least.

I'm interested to see where the first 'fiberhood' is going to be in Austin. South Austin, 78704 would be awesome. Any Austin people on here have any guesses?

<comment><USER17> I would bet you'll be in the first (or second) roll out of fiberhoods. My best bet is UT Austin and downtown first, plus surrounding neighborhoods. Then they'll move West, then South.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Announced the day after I signed a contract on a house outside the service area. It was clearly me holding you back the whole time, Austin. I'm so sorry.

<comment><USER19> You can redeem yourself by washing your car and summoning the rain gods. That little sprinkle we got last week was a bit of a tease.

<comment><USER18> I literally did get my car washed last week, and the next evening, we had water 10 feet past the doors at work. Willie Nelson never should've built this place below the parking lot.

This is the worst superpower.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is kind of funny... AT&T suddenly decided to offer a 1gb network: [http://www.att.com/gen/press- room?pid=24032&cdvn=news...](http://www.att.com/gen/press- room?pid=24032&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=36275)

<comment><USER20> "This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T's anticipated 2013 capital expenditures."

This is what pisses me off. Telcos have the capability and it won't even hit them that hard, financially. They just want to drag their feet to eek out whatever extra sliver of profit they can out of the current status quo.

<comment><USER21> In big-co speak that could mean either it's close to free, or they're rearranging their capex to prioritize Austin in order to compete (e.g. someone else isn't getting upgrades)

<comment><USER22> Or that AT&T already has a TON of fiber in the ground in Austin, from back in the 90s.

<comment><USER21> Even if they have dark or underutilized fiber it doesn't mean that it's a 0 expenditure. So you don't have to rip up the street, but optics are pretty expensive. That's not even counting a need for new switches if it's not 1 Gbps capable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I realize this is very much a "first-world problem," but I find it infinitely frustrating that Google Fiber will probably never be available where I live (Long Beach, CA). Apparently this is because the various environmental regulations in California make it prohibitively expensive to deploy it here.

On the one hand I like the environment. On the other, I'm on DSL. :(

<comment><USER24> The great thing about working for an Internet company (I'm assuming you do since you've been on Hacker News for a while) is that you can really live anywhere. I moved my most recent startup to Austin after living in the Valley for 10 years and SoCal for 2. I'm already ridiculously happy with the move. And it seems like much of California is following me here--we are even getting an In-N-Out Burger this year!

Austin is a great place to run a company. Lower cost of living, lower taxes, and now Google Fiber. Plus the people here are amazingly friendly. I'm happy to compare/contrast vs. the Valley or SoCal--shoot me an email (email in my profile) if you have questions.

<comment><USER25> I live in Dallas and I like the lower cost of living and everything. But now I wish I lived in Austin. :)

The thing I hate about both Dallas and Austin is driving. I used to live northeast and could walk everywhere much easier. Austin seems to be pretty bike-friendly though, and Dallas is becoming more so.

<comment><USER26> If you choose where you live and work carefully, living without a car in Austin isn't so bad. In particular, car2go is a godsend. That plus my bike and the bus get me around.

<comment><USER27> I would agree with you if it weren't for the heat. And don't give me anything of that "It's a dry heat" bullshit; >90 days in a row over 100 degrees is enough to make the city turn into Do The Right Thing.

<comment><USER26> My office for the past few summers has had a shower, so I biked most of the time. Riding the bus isn't bad either as long as you can wait in the shade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Love it, Austin is such a great tech bubble right now, this will just continue the trend for a long while, they picked a great spot to do this (mainly because I live in Austin, lol)

<comment><USER29> Austin is in a state, (Texas), with a lot of pending issues coming to roost... education, traffic, migration, water/drought, social safety net. As much as I love my native state, I don't see any leadership addressing these.

<comment><USER30> It's important to note that California is just as bad or worse in a lot of those areas.

All the things you mentioned are pretty bad in California. Public education is terrible, traffic is outrageous, there is a huge immigration 'problem', and the forest fires are pretty bad. To each his own but Californian leadership isn't really that great.

I just can't decide who is worse Perry or Brown.

<comment><USER31> Nyc also had a pretty bad immigration problem. Those pesky italians and their mafia. The Irish were no better. And on top of that Mexicans are no arriving in droves. When will it ever end? When?

<comment><USER29> Most of the current migration into Texas is from California and NY. How can I tell?

They are constantly bitching that Texas isn't California or NY.

<comment><USER32> Don't forget Florida!

130,000 people are expected to immigrate to Austin in the next 2 years. Insane!

<comment><USER33> It's going to be _awesome_. Austin is growing like crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is going to be awesome, I feel lucky to live here (double lucky that my neighborhood is a prime target).

I'd love to connect with some hackers in KC to hear how Google Fiber has affected them. Does anyone have any resources about KC startups, what Google Fiber opens up, etc.?

</comment><comment><USER35> Google, come launch in a small subset of Houston! I'll bet the city would love to make a deal for you to deploy in EaDo. START Houston is there and it'd attract significant investment to an underutilized area literally a few blocks from downtown that Houston is eager to develop.

</comment><comment><USER36> I really want to see the ROI google is planning on having for theses projects. If my calculations[1] are correct they only need something like 200,000 customers to sign up to get a ROI of one year on both roll outs.

~ 100M for both rollouts @ $70 per customer per month

<comment><USER37> I'd argue Google's ROI on the service itself a very small piece of the pie and almost irrelevant. Google gains most of their revenue from advertising on their properties. More people online + faster access = more advertising revenue.

Especially in a market like Kansas City which is dominated by TWC who is notorious for misrepresenting bandwidth, throttling against high bandwidth sites (youtube & netflix) and has noticeable capacity issues during peak usage times.

<comment><USER38> I imagine they're aiming for a high multiplier effect, too. Even if Google Fiber never reaches a large percentage of the American public, its mere existence may spur action on the part of other ISPs. For every Fiber customer Google signs up directly, they might indirectly obtain much better internet (and thus more advertising revenue) for maybe 10 other people using other ISPs.

<comment><USER36> but what do you do if that multiplier doesn't appear ? From what I have seen even when Verizon started a massive rollout of FiOS it didn't spur other ISP's to offer a competing service, they just relied on the fact that rolling out to _every_ market would be cost prohibitive. It looks like with Google Fiber the existing ISP's are taking the same track.

<comment><USER38> I don't know, my Comcast offerings got substantially better over the last few years before I moved, going from 6/1Mbps to about 20/5, and I could have had well beyond 100Mbps down by the end if I felt like paying for it.

<comment><USER36> FiOS clocks in at 150+ Mbps and starts at 25/25 Comcast is the prime offender in the you have no other options game.

<comment><USER38> I'm quite aware in both cases, as I have FiOS now, and Comcast was the only game in town at my old place.

My point, which you seem to have missed, or at least not addressed, is that Comcast did substantially improve their offering while Verizon was rolling out FiOS, even though they remained the only real broadband provider in my area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if we'll see a counter measure by cable companies: offer google to run their tv ads and build them set top boxesand share profits, while google stops this broadband stuff ? That would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how hard it would be to get both AT&T gigabit and google gigabit in the same place.

</comment><comment><USER41> Google, Tulsa, Oklahoma is waiting with open arms.

</comment><comment><USER42> Google, Chicago wants gigabit speeds:P

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm so jealous.</comment>


Crayfis: Cosmic rays found in smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://crayfis.ps.uci.edu/

<comment><USER2> It would be nice to have a bit more info about what the app is actually doing. All could glean from the (irritating) slideshow was that it turns on the camera whenever the phone is plugged in and idle and uploads the "data" to UCI servers. It's not clear if any client-side processing is done - if so, there's bound to be user impact (idle apps being killed for memory), and if not they've got a hell of a privacy problem on their hands.

EDIT: I looked at the paper, which does address these concerns:

"Frames which contain any above-threshold pixels are stored and passed to the second stage which examines the stored frames, saving only the pixels above a second, lower threshold. All qualifying pixels, typically a few per frame, are stored as a sparse array in a buffer on the phone, along with their arrival time and the geolocation of the phone. When a wi-fi connection is available, the collected pixels are up- loaded to a central server for offline shower reconstruc- tion; most events are between 50-200 bytes of data."

And:

"To address user security concerns, no frames will be stored or uploaded if the average pixel response value over the frame exceeds a threshold, such that full images cannot be re- constructed offline."

</comment><comment><USER3> Url changed from [http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/cosmic-ray- particle-s...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/cosmic-ray-particle- shower-theres-an-app-for-that/), which points to this.</comment>


Chrome blocks Java by default, declares it a plug-in that's "not widely used" - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/zXJ6m.png <comment><USER2> Does anyone know the statistics on how widely Java is used for client-side stuff on the web?

I get the feeling that Flash, JavaScript, and even Silverlight are used far more often today (client-side).

One notable exception is Wikipedia, which uses Java to play its Ogg Vorbis (audio) files in browsers without native Ogg Vorbis support. But that's just a stop-gap measure to fix a deficiency in older browsers.</comment>


I've improved myself hard for 10 years and feel lonely now – what should I do? - garlic-fiction Ten years ago, i was very shy, naive and could not focus on a thing for more than 10 minutes. Somehow i got annoyed by being a looser and started to improve my self as fast as possible. i have read lots of books about efficiency, health, intelligence and life. Spent a lot time in the gym and took care about my nutrition. Now, i have a decent salary, a beautiful wife and probably everything that someone would describe as a pretty nice life. I can focus for 2 hours without a problem, burn 1000 calories in the gym within an hour and my life is pretty much optimized in terms of efficiency.
When i compare myself to what i was 10 year ago, i am pretty much ashamed of how much i was behind. And i wish that everyone could have such an improvement. If i could choose between 10 million dollars but being how i was 10 years ago and staying how i am today, i would always choose the version of today without a thought.
The problem that i have now, is that i get annoyed by all the inefficiencies others have. And when i try to help someone to get more efficient, i always see that they are too lazy to sacrifice a little of their comfort zone. Even my wife is lazy. She witnesses day by day how easily i go through life and how little issues i have. But she is not willing to improve or change herself much. I guess they are satisfied with their plateau. Most of my friends are nice and funny, but i can not have much interesting discussions with them. Event with the ones that hold PhD's.
Does anyone has a similar experience? And what did you do to not have the feeling that meeting friends or going to a party is a waste of time? <comment><AUTHOR> Credit to you for asking a very original question. I don't know anymore than I just read mind you but consider taking up a physical hobby of some sort. Preferably the kind that makes you feel like a little kid inside. Biking, rock climbing, martial arts etc (whatever it is for you). There is a thing we forget to do when we become successful, busy grown-ups and its called Play. And whatever you do, do not measure your time or progress in any way when you're playing.

For me at least, the impact of truly having a great time at something all by myself at least once a week makes me a far more intersting person. Also worthy of mention, going to parties is a total waste of time - and thats the point. Unstructured social time with a drink in the hand etc. Tell a few stories, have a few laughs and take a little play time.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think you still need to improve and stop being annoyed by inefficiencies others have. You expect much from the people and this makes you unhappy.

I also though that spending time with people that do not bring direct value is not very efficient, but now I would say that best relationships are with people that are independent and do not want to get some value from you and are honest/happy where they are now.

Make a choice to be happy no matter if friends don't meet your expectations.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kQTk6FJgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kQTk6FJgs)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are as intelligent as you say you are, volunteer to work for a group you can help with your skills.

<comment> garlic-fiction I would describe myself rather as efficient than intelligent. Because i also make lots of mistakes and struggle sometimes with easy things.

The question is, aren't there already enough blogs and services out there that help you to improve yourself?

All i can add is that it works and it is true that when you constantly work on yourself, you have a much easier life. 95% of the people i talk to only change themselves when there is no other way around it. Unless someone can bring up the intrinsic motivation to change him-/herself, it is hard to convince them. Probably an important reason is also, most people do not want to see the truth. This would mean they constantly observe their mistakes and realize that they are not as good as they thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you go more in detail how you improved your self?

<comment> garlic-fiction I just see everything as a challenge to get better. How can i fill the dish washer differently to get a better result? How can i schedule my day to get everything done? How can i refill my energy as fast as possible? How can i best memorize things that i use daily (for example my credit card number)?

In short, your brain is a muscle. If you train it every day, it gets better and better. Like doing push ups every day. First it is hard, but it gets easier and you can do more and more.

After a while you are able to absorb and process much more details. For example when you talk to another person you not only hear the words, you also start to notice the facial expressions and how the voice changes. Also your brain automatically processes more and more if you do not distract it.

The way i see it is, we are a bag of experiences. The more experiences we make, the more we can link and adapt. Therefore, reading lots of books certainly helps much. Because you get lots of new ideas that you can try out and experiment with.

The key is to question everything. I not only read it but also experiment with the new knowledge and see for myself what works best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Volunteer for a group you can help with your skills.

</comment><comment><USER5> You still haven't learned to spell "loser", and you have yet to learn patience. You've still got a long way to go.

<comment> garlic-fiction I am fully aware that I still have lots of room for improvement. I realise that every December when I reflect on myself and see how much I have improved throughout the year.

To avoid annoying you too much, I will now use a spell checker, since English is not my mother tongue. But enough about me.

It looks like you are going through a rough time right now. Do you want to talk about it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about when you "zone out"? - <AUTHOR> I started paying attention to my "zone outs" a lot this week, taking note of how I use them.
I realized that for me, I use them as a form of rehearsal. These rehearsals tend to take the shape of a conversation (verbal or written) where I'm sorting through some difficult concept. Usually these conversations are with someone close to me (my wife, co-founder, mother).
As an example, yesterday I found a lump on my dog's leg. I started rehearsing (while zoning out on a walk) different conversations I might have with the vet on Monday when she's examined. Sometimes they were positive, sometimes they were dark. Either way, I was clearly mentally preparing myself for multiple outcomes.
How do you use your daydreams / "zone outs"? <comment><USER2> I do _exactly_ the same thing. When I was younger they were more confrontational conversations that I fantasized about, but these days I find myself trying to find the right words and phrases to express concepts I'm preoccupied with. I don't do it on purpose but once I recognized it I realized that I'm able to find the words I'm looking for in conversation with much more ease.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a fun question -- I think my zone outs work as memory processing time. I often find myself replaying certain memories, particularly recent interactions I've had with people, and just re-watching the events that transpired in my mind. I sometimes will smile or cringe as I recall these events but rarely do I think about them "critically" (oh, Bob probably asked me that question for such and such a reason!) or have any kind of internal monologue doing commentary over these memories -- I just sort of passively remember them.

It is interesting to think about how this kind of blank thinking time could be used better -- like a rehearsal, as you experience, or thinking in a more directed way. I wonder how automatic this process is -- in my case, will I always by default just re-remembering events? Anyway, thanks for a neat question!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for a neat answer.

I thought similarly to you on day zero of thinking about this question, asking if I could spend this time more effectively. I've decidedly answered no, and mostly because it seems subconscious and effective. I don't tend to fight my "lizard brain", particularly when it comes to non destructive behavior.

Tonight I walked home from a movie and found myself passively daydreaming about a conversation with my wife. I came home, she asked me about the movie, and I felt prepared to answer. It's a trivial thing, but it felt remarkably purposeful in the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do exactly what you just described!</comment>


Raspberry Pi Competitor Pine64 Opens Pinebook Pro Notebook Pre-Orders - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/pine64-opens-pinebook-pro-pre-orders,40034.html <comment><USER2> Great specs for a $200 laptop. Love the weight.</comment>


Ask HN: Is storing my stem cells worth it? - <AUTHOR> Saw that YC launch. Intriguing particularly because if I don't store them, it seems like I might regret it.<p>What do you think? <comment><USER2> That's what they want you to think.

Some people want you to think you already missed the boat:

[https://alphacord.com/](https://alphacord.com/)</comment>


Hiring Tip: Pair Program on Open Source Bugs - <AUTHOR>

During our last hiring round, I had a really nice cross-browser bug at hand, and I ran our finalists through a coding session where they remoted to my laptop and had one hour to fix the bug or get as far as they could. Instead of a contrived puzzle they were working on production code. It was great! And since they all worked on the same bug, I was able to score them on a ten point scale for easy comparison.
We've started another hiring round, and this time I didn't have any good Python bugs at hand. What to do? Open source! We use the CherryPy framework a fair bit here (the maintainer is on our team). So this round I am pairing up for an hour of work on CherryPy. It moves an open source project forward, it's cleaner than having people work on proprietary code, and we still get a great picture of each candidate. Win all over the place. This time I am inviting candidates to share their screen with me rather than vice versa. Last time I tried at least installing the person's editor of choice, but there's no place like ~, ya know? Another thing that happened last time is that by the end of the interviews I had gone through the exercise so many times that it felt much less like pair programming and much more like thumb-screwing. At the expense of a neat scoring system, I am not going to go over the same ground this time. I already updated one CherryPy ticket, and we'll keep chipping away at that one and others. I expect some level of familiarity with Python and its tools, but I'm happy to teach you what I know. A nice side-effect is that I get to learn what you know too. :^)
We've got three spots open and we're just starting interviews, so if you'd like to pair together for an hour on CherryPy, hit me up at email@example.com. <comment><USER2> Lots of arguments on why not to hire this way, but if it works for you, all the best.

However, do you find a pattern with candidates hitting snags that aren't really technical? Like, environmental issues etc?

Think really the only way to do this right is to control it as much as possible, possibly providing a failing unit test, or extremely detailed instructions. I can see a lot of wasted time trying to figure out dependencies, system path problems, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> What are the arguments? And FYI, this isn't the only interview we do. It's one data point.

I go back and forth on the question of "snags that aren't really technical." The fact is that on a distributed team with multiple projects going, setting up a screenshare and a dev environment for an existing project are not uncommon tasks in their own right.

The first round cross-browser bug was controlled. But then the candidate isn't in their own environment and I'm getting burned out doing the same problem over and over. I want it to feel like we are working together on a problem rather than like the candidate is trying to guess an answer that I am trying to hide from them. This way it is genuine: I have no special canned knowledge of the problems we are working on.

I'm trying to simulate an actual pair programming exercise ... by doing an actual pair programming exercise. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I bet you will never attract the best, only those how are desperate will spend an hour with your tedious real bug solving interview. I'm pretty sure you are happy that this thing of yours is working out but let me tell you are not getting the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. If someone thinks that writing code for an hour is a tedious act of desperation, they are not the right candidate for us.

<comment><USER4> Boom! goes the dynamite... Loved your response. What exactly are you testing? What are you looking for, traits wise, and which aspects of the test reveal the said traits?

I am not planning on applying, but am I just interested in learning more about your methodology. On the surface, it seems way better than those silly "how many potholes in America" or those memorizable algorithms.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

With the first round of hiring I looked at how far the candidate got in fixing the bug. There was a workaround and then there was a fix for the root cause. If the candidate found the workaround quickly then that was equal to fixing the root cause less quickly. Almost no-one actually fixed it though, so mostly it was a measure of progress. How efficient are you at developing hypotheses and testing them? How good are your hypotheses?

Now in this round I can't cross-compare as easily, so I'm expecting it to be more subjective. Basically I'm looking for people that I have a hard time keeping up with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Innovator Who Introduced Cherry Blossoms to the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2018/03-04/cherry-blossoms-come-to-d-c-/ <comment><USER2> When I lived in DC I had very mixed feelings about the impact of the Cherry Blossom Festival. On one hand its creates a ton of Tourism Revenue for the city, on the other the streets and parks become over crowded and you see the increase in litter and pollution at the parks.

I never heard this story and was only familiar with the story the Mayor of Tokyo donated the trees to establish friendly connections with the capital.

A quick search to the Wikipedia page though includes some detail about the Fairchild family.

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

<comment><USER3> I'm always torn--I love to see the cherry blossoms, but hate wading through the crowds of tourists.

<comment><USER2> Everyone wants their Facebook photo with the Jefferson Memorial in the background. I just wish they were aware enough to obey basic traffic rules and avoid walking in clearly marked bike lanes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I saw the headline, I expected this article would be about Jokichi Takamine, a biotechnology pioneer from Japan who paid for the 2000 sakura trees donated to DC by the governor of Tokyo. I wasn't aware of the Fairchild/Marlatt stories, so it's interesting to see how the multiple historical threads converge.

[https://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v04/i12/html/12ti...](https://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v04/i12/html/12timeline.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Fun Fact: The largest collection of Cherry Blossoms in the United States is in Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ

[http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/the_story_behind_br...](http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/the_story_behind_branch_brook_parks_cherry_blossom.html)

[https://www.newarkhappening.com/cherry-blossom- festival/](https://www.newarkhappening.com/cherry-blossom-festival/)

</comment><comment><USER6> related, Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Miami, [https://www.fairchildgarden.org/](https://www.fairchildgarden.org/)

<comment><USER7> You can also visit his house in Coconut Grove (the Kampong) but advanced reservations are required. It's worth it:

[https://ntbg.org/gardens/kampong#tours](https://ntbg.org/gardens/kampong#tours)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought it was going to be about the chocolate treat[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Blossom_(candy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Blossom_\(candy\))</comment>


Facebook in talks to add a "panic button" - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8614787.stm

<comment><USER2>
      Facebook had previously said it would not install a "panic button" on its
      main pages for users to report suspected paedophiles ... Mr Gamble said
      he could not understand why Facebook would not agree to adopt the button
      on every page as it was a free way to "help save some children".

Yeah, because a "tell the cops this user is a paedophile" button on _every page_ sounds totally reasonable. Perhaps it'll look nice alongside "report user as terrorist" and "accuse user of dealing drugs" buttons.

</comment><comment><USER3> _a free way to "help save some children"._

Free to whom? I don't know how much it costs to make a regional UI alteration to Facebook, but I suspect that Mt Gamble doesn't either, and I doubt that it's free. I presume it can only help to save children if it results in the conviction of a paedophile. How many have been convicted as a result of the button on Bebo or elsewhere?

 _Last week Mr Gamble announced the agency had received 252 complaints about Facebook during the first three months of the year - with 40% of them about the potential "grooming" of children._

Were these complaints about specific incidents or were they of a general "Facebook sucks" variety? If the latter, bear in mind that Facebook has 23 million users in the UK (according to [http://www.clickymedia.co.uk/2010/01/facebook-user- statistic...](http://www.clickymedia.co.uk/2010/01/facebook-user-statistics- january-2010/)).

 _He said the complaints had come via e-mails and people using other means to complain to the centre as they could not do so via Facebook._

So people who wanted to complain to CEOP did so by emailing CEOP rather than Facebook. What's wrong with that? Or is Mr Gamble implying that it is impossible to send a complaint to Facebook, or that Facebook will not act on an allegation?

Finally, the sad story of Miss Hall suggests that the real problem is not the absence of a button, but the difficulty in identifying the likes of Peter Chapman as potential rapists and murderers in the first place.

Maybe Facebook _should_ provide CEOP's button, but CEOP has so far failed to make good case.

</comment><comment><USER4> Call me old fashioned, but without exaggeration, Facebook is THE site where I am least likely to engage with strangers.</comment>


Show HN: BRTTR – Barter goods and services - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brttr/id1042103854?mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> Would like to get feedback on this concept of Barter application. I have put it up on the app store so that you can download and play with it. I am are very much interested in hearing what you think of barter as an alternative to buy/sell options we currently use. This is an experimental app, if people like it, I would like to understand what worked and what did not work and how I can improve it :)

Thanks for taking time to review it.</comment>


Show HN: One Comment lead to 200 downloads of "Understanding SEO" - <AUTHOR> https://gumroad.com/l/understanding-seo/hacker-news <comment><AUTHOR> Nice, left a singular comment on this thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22181093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22181093) and one week later my book was downloaded ~200 times. Nice & Thx.

<comment><USER2> Does that method of triggering downloads fit into your framework for thinking about SEO?

Also: SEO is kind of a bad word. I'm sure most practitioners are on the up- and-up, but SEO certainly shades off into bottom feeders doing blog-spamming on old/unmaintained WordPress installations, and probably worse. This needs to be addressed, you can't just shrug your shoulders and say "that's on them". What keeps an upstanding SEO person from joining the dark side?</comment></comment>