Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you - <AUTHOR> http://www.ofnumbers.com/2017/09/21/eight-things-cryptocurrency-enthusiasts-probably-wont-tell-you/ <comment><USER3> Well, we're about to find out if the Bitcoin exchanges in China have all the assets they should. The PBOC told them to stop trading, turn over copies of their records to the PBOC, and refund the balances of their customers. We should know within days which exchanges were stealing customer assets.

The exchange executives were told not to try to leave China.

(Remember Big Vern? Paul Vernon, CEO of Cryptsy. Took the money and fled to Liaoning, China. Started a Bitcoin exchange in China. Wanted in the US. Might be a good time to push through diplomatic channels for the government of China to find and return him. The PBOC investigators may have found him by now.)

<comment><USER4> People actually knowledgable in the crypto community would have told you literally years ago that the Chinese exchanges were shit. ChangPeng Zhao who now runs binance out of Hong Kong, made a reddit post (now deleted) stating exactly what was going on. The issue of exchanges "investing" client funds was known two years ago, and most people stayed away from these exchanges.

<comment><USER5> The exchanges investing client money does not surprise me at all. I worked in UK finance for 6 years or so where you have mandatory "CASS" training to warn you what is and is not OK to do with client money. I remember when I first started I was like "well _obviously_ you keep client money and assets separate from the corporate accounts..." and _EVERY_ year in the "refresher course" our Compliance dept gave they had new cases of banks fucking this up and getting insane fines for it [0].

If these supposedly respectable banks managed to repeatedly do this (this is after the financial crisis btw) then it's anyone's guess what goes on in the Wild West that is Bitcoin exchanges. That said, the stupidity and lack of common sense in UK financial industry continues blows my mind.

[0] - [https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/why-the-fca-rewrote-the- rul...](https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/why-the-fca-rewrote-the-rules-the- biggest-fines-for-client-money-breaches/)

<comment><USER6> Yes, we will see what the situation is in terms of exchange liquidity. With that said, the reports were of exchanges investing customer-deposited RMB funds, not selling customer-deposited crypto for fiat and then investing that fiat for profit.

<comment><USER5> Well investing the client deposits is pretty much exactly the situation I described. Probably could be seen as less directly scammy or intentional than selling their assets and investing it in <pick-a-product>, but certainly still a pretty standard client money breach

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that the cryptocurrency/blockchain space is the next big thing in the world on-par with the internet. But it still has a long way to go. In the late 90s you could say "X on the internet" and get tons of investment. Now it's the same but with "X on the blockchain". We are going through growing pains now, and there definitely needs to be some regulation introduced to curb the many scams. My personal hope though is that the regulators work, not to try to stop this industry, but rather to shape it. I mean, why do I need to make $1M/year in order to prove to the US government that I'm worthy of investing into a startup. This is why ICOs are such a big thing right now for westerners, it circumvents that (and internationally, it allows people that would have otherwise not had any route to do such a thing). But there definitely needs to be some regulation behind that, because it's ridiculously easy to make a sleek marketing page that says "buy now and the price will go up later"... and people will buy into it.

Also, this quote:

> using cryptocurrency networks are cheaper to send money overseas than > Western Union. No, it probably is not

Uhh, maybe not in some narrow cases (especially as pointed out in the source, for people that need to use cash agents or are unbankable), but for many people I know including myself, it is significantly cheaper to use bitcoin rather than Western Union (source: I receive my salary in bitcoin based on spot price tied to USD)

(disclaimer: co-founder of a blockchain project)

<comment><USER8> > I receive my salary in bitcoin based on spot price tied to USD

Why would you want that? Why not just receive USD, and buy BTC each month if you like the price?

<comment><USER4> exchange fees, and a general dedication to cryptocurrency

<comment><USER9> So the exchange fees magically vanished?

<comment><USER10> You can transfer money to Coinbase for free with a SEPA transfer. Transfer from Coinbase to GDAX for free. Buy crypto currency without fees by placing maker orders on GDAX. Then transfer the crypto coins into your own wallet without a fee.

<comment><USER11> Wow, that sounds insanely complex not to mention risky due to all the hacks cryptocurrencies have suffered.

I'll take my safe and free direct deposit. I actually had a case where a bank teller gave me the wrong state's routing number because she thought my account should be based in the one she lived and not the one that was set up. My entire month's pay went to the wrong account and I freaked out when i figured out what happened. I went to a chase bank and explained the problem, they found the money in the other account and were able to send it into mine.

Screw up the bitcoin address in any one of those transactions and your money is permanently gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most cryptos are definitely pump and dump ponzis designed to eat your money, there is definitely a technocracy-like barrier for entry if you want to join the crypto bandwagon. Focus your time and energy on BTC, ETH and an anonymous coin like XMR. Any other offering should be met with skepticism.

<comment><USER13> >Focus your time and energy on BTC, ETH and an anonymous coin like XMR. Any other offering should be met with skepticism.

To elaborate/explain on this point for those less familiar: those three cryptocurrencies actually are based on real technical innovation, and have developer communities producing more technical innovation. There are many other cryptocurrencies that have zero technical innovation (or completely nonsense innovation) and are merely clones of previous cryptocurrencies with some identifiers tweaked, made purely so investors can pump and dump.

The article in part 5 ("The decline of Maximalism") seems to be criticizing the idea that people would prefer some cryptocurrencies to others, which is completely ridiculous. There are real differences / issues with many.

<comment><USER14> Technical innovation is not the only type of innovation happening in the crypto space. There are tokens being developed whose innovations are financial, social, political, and economic. Don't assume technical innovation is the end all be all, Ethereum's technical innovation allows for the other types of innovation to occur, for example.

To strengthen my argument, you wouldn't expect every startup on the Internet to develop their own Apache server, HTTP protocol, and all the other technical innovations that allow for their business to exist, would you?

<comment><USER13> I don't exactly disagree; I think there are some ICOs that are promising. (And I'm happy that many are being built on top of a pre-existing blockchain like Ethereum's rather than pretending they're secure without a large group of miners securing their blockchain.)

Maybe I should drop the word "technical": There are many projects out there with no real innovation whatsoever that were created only to facilitate pump- and-dumps rather than to enable some kind of innovation.

<comment><USER15> The innovations are technical _yet_ in the sense of _theoretical_ mostly. Save the backlash, I'm just voicing the most critical opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> « _Bitfinex has provided no details about how it was hacked, who hacked it, or to where those funds were drained to._ »

Actually, Zane Tackett, Director of Community & Product Development at Bitfinex, has provided information, including the complete list of Bitcoin addresses where the stolen funds went: [http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitfinex- hack-2016/](http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitfinex-hack-2016/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sadly I believe the _ideals_ of cryptocurrency/blockchain technologies have been currently hijacked by those solely driven by a profit motive and greed. Altruism in the pursuit of a _better way_ is for dummies I guess.

I think that Satoshi's main thoughts at the moment would be bemusement about how the cryptocurrency mania seen today so well illustrates human behavior.

<comment><USER18> I think he hopped this would happen, actually in a non-judging standpoint.

I won't judge, but just state it's different from yourself: who apparently thinks egoism or profit-seeking is bad or undesired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure what the author wants bitcoin to be. They are correct in pointing out the various scams that litter bitcoin, but they also seem to want to shut out crime (silkroad et al) with better analysis tools and centralization. Without the various scams pumping the price criminals are the only ones who would be using bitcoin, as they are locked out of the much simpler & easier to use alternatives that any normal person will use.

<comment><USER20> > they also seem to want to shut out crime (silkroad et al)

Is there much _actual_ crime being facilitated by Bitcoin? I mean apart from the "things that are illegal now but they're going to be legal in a few years because one country started a misguided effort that everyone else blindly followed" crime.

<comment><USER19> Ransomware seemly pretty solidly illegal. It existed before bitcoin (mainly using ucash/paysafe/greendot codes) but bitcoin is what enabled it to scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What about blantant market manipulation?

[https://hackernoon.com/meet-spoofy-how-a-single-entity- domin...](https://hackernoon.com/meet-spoofy-how-a-single-entity-dominates- the-price-of-bitcoin-39c711d28eb4)

<comment><USER22> Well, there is undeniably spoofing and wash trading in these markets, I see both happen all the time- I'm not sure though why they are considered a bad thing: They obfuscate the order books, making it easier for other buyers/sellers to make trades without broadcasting their overall position to other traders.

I'd love to hear a good argument why these things are a "bad thing" besides just the argument that "it's wrong to lie". I don't really have a strong opinion either way and could probably be swayed- Any takers?

<comment><USER23> Disclaimer - this is using equities markets as the example.

Spoofing is bad for a lot of reasons. It's bad for retail investors who buy(sell) into a position when it's been spoofed high(low) believing the order book is real. It's bad for market makers who must widen their spread and/or add less liquidity since information in the order book isn't real. It's bad when a spoofed price wrongly activates a bunch of stop orders. It's bad when somebody exits a position wrongly believing that a different party has an informational advantage over them. It's just blatant market manipulation that benefits only the spoofers.

If a company released false earnings reports or somebody released fake information about a company to change the price, people would be up in arms, you would never hear anybody making your argument. I don't see how manipulating an order book is that different. The book is a fundamental part of how companies are valued since it's how people speculate on future value, act on informational advantages, hedge, and it's how that information itself is disseminated).

Maybe the bitcoin markets are different enough from equities that the effects of spoofing aren't that bad (already super volatile, no outside information other than price speculation, no latency arbitrage). But I would need to see some really strong arguments to that effect to convince me of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Most of the author's points are silly. I was a customer of Bitfinex, and I lost a significant sum of money in the hack, but they paid me back. I couldn't be happier with their handling of it. I'm upset that their poor security practices led them to get hacked in the first place, but once it happened, their handling was pretty ideal. I don't know anyone who was a customer of theirs and doesn't approve of how they handled it, and I know several others that were impacted by the hack.

<comment><USER25> So you think the author's very intricately written, detailed arguments are "silly" and all you can offer in retort is an anecdote about how you weren't effected by the Bitfinex hack (which was a _tiny_ part of the author's argument).

<comment><USER24> I started writing a detailed rebuttal and debunking of the author's points, but then I noticed others had done it already, so I didn't waste my time. Suffice it to say that many of the things he says simply aren't true, and for the rest, his reasoning is poor. For details, you can read other posts in this comment thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As someone who has followed the crypto-currency scene for the past several years I don't disagree with a lot of the broad points presented about fraud being a problem but he is presenting some flat out false information to support his thesis.

To take one example, his claim that historically Coinbase has kept traction stats close to the vest is completely false. He says that the only accurate user numbers come from a filing in the IRS lawsuit. The IRS lawsuit was initially filed in November 2016 and has been ongoing. Coinbase has published user stats on their about page[0] since November of 2014 two full years before the IRS took Coinbase to court, you can go look in the wayback archive. So the claim that the lawsuit provides the only glimpse at the number of Coinbase users is categorically false.

[0] [https://www.coinbase.com/about](https://www.coinbase.com/about)

</comment><comment><USER27> Phenomenally detailed article and interesting subject matter. Thanks for sharing. Of particular concern to the community should be the issuance and solvency of Tether. An audit is long overdue.

As mentioned, our CEO, Arthur Hayes, wrote on Chinese exchanges running their customers' deposits in local bonds & stocks back in 2015 [1]. It's worth a read. We at BitMEX have brought a full-time writer into our employ just to bring more of these stories to the fore and help create the facts-first, inquisitive atmosphere crypto desperately needs. [2]

1\. [https://blog.bitmex.com/crypto-trader-digest- nov-30/#shadow-...](https://blog.bitmex.com/crypto-trader-digest- nov-30/#shadow-banks)

2\. [https://research.bitmex.com](https://research.bitmex.com)

</comment><comment><USER28> Great article (less the typos, but I feel that's understandable for something so lengthy in which the author did clearly put forth lots of effort to do his research).

I'm in the camp of people interested in cryptocurrencies due to their libertarian qualities and largely motivated by what I perceive to be repeated irresponsible behavior by governments in how they administer their currency (most recently notable in the years surrounding 2008 - just before Bitcoin was activated). In fact, I find it curious that the article did note even allude to the setting in which Bitcoin was born, as its roots go very much against regulation by governments.

The whole idea behind blockchains is distributed consensus. One of the greatest values behind bitcoin is its lack of centralization and a sort of distributed governance surrounding it (more so with some other cryptocurrencies, but bitcoin does have primitive mechanisms for users to vote towards such things as protocol evolution). It has some other advantages that government-operated currencies could make use of, such as being difficult to forge, but the real innovations are centered around the user not needing to trust third parties (govt included) to behave in the user's interest. If you embrace regulations to the extent that they exist in traditional currencies - if transactions/addresses are ever forced to be blacklisted (and thereby reversible), or funds made to be seizable by design, for example - then what _value_ do cryptocurrencies provide that couldn't be replicated by a non- cryptographic/centrally operated digital currency, and why then _wouldn't_ they be superseded by something easier to use/control?

It seems to me that the lack of regulation is a large part of the value behind bitcoin. So when the article quotes:

> The cryptocurrency world is basically rediscovering a vast framework of > securities and consumer protection laws that already exist; and now they > know why they exist.

I'm skeptical. If consumers want regulation, they'd use the established currencies. Bitcoin exists to be unregulated.

\----

On a less political note, this article was _full_ of useful information and thoughts, so thanks to the author. I popped out of the cryptocurrency world in 2013 and fell back into it two months ago, and it's disappointingly difficult to find articles like this that actually have some depth to them. There's too much get-rich-quick hype and not enough interest in understanding the social or technical developments associated with cryptocurrencies most places I visit.

</comment><comment><USER29> All these articles make it sound like anyone can launch a successful ICO and make millions on the spot but it's not true at all. Doing a successful ICO is very difficult and requires deep connections within the industry... It's probably only marginally easier than raising funding from a VC.

</comment><comment><USER30> > The cryptocurrency world is basically rediscovering a vast framework of > securities and consumer protection laws that already exist; and now they > know why they exist.

Can this framework be re-invented, perhaps on the blockchain, to be more efficient (less friction), more comprehensible, and machine checkable?

</comment><comment><USER31> In my opinion, the regulators should focus on exchanges applying KYC and make the exchanges function the same a stock exchanges. If I buy a stock in the US through a brokerage house, they have my info and every year they send me a 1099 with my profit/loss for the year that I give my accountant to add to my income tax report.

Once the exchanges are regulated like that it would be very difficult to launder money or avoid paying taxes on profits.

<comment><USER32> There is a focus on building decentralized exchanges at the moment.

Regulation will become more difficult when these become mainstream.

<comment><USER33> If bitcoin wants to be part of the global financial system avoiding regulation is not the way.

That just basically supports the OP.

Every thread devolves to how to avoid taxes, kyc etc.

<comment><USER34> The point of cryptocurrency is to restore privacy in financial matters, not become part of the new centralized financial establishment. The OP doesn't believe in financial privacy, so there is no way cryptocurrency will ever be acceptable to him. He believes in mass surveillance of currency transfers, something which is anathema to a significant segment of the population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > In other words, the ICO rackets have recreated many aspects of the financial > services industry (underwriters, broker/dealers)

This is all you need to know, end of article.

Of course, the tone of this article is "racket", "boiler room" etc. I call it price discovery, efficient, economic growth.

The article's only objectiveness is by saying that they don't have transparency and financial controls that the securities industry does. But makes no mistake in calling it controversial that one fund or one ICO is investing their proceeds in other ICOs, news flash this is how all economies work. But here it is controversial because "shareholders" don't know, except there are no shareholders, BUT WAIT THEY SHOULD BE SHAREHOLDERS as if these are equity securities!

It is hard to debate this article because each aspect has to be taken individually.

But this author consistently describes an aspect of cryptocurrency as controversial, while inadvertently describing how all capital markets work, but holding bitcoin at a different non-existent standard.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think cryptocurrency has reached or has perhaps just passed the peak of inflated expectations on the hype cycle chart and is now decending into the trough of dissolutionment. There are some pretty wild claims out there - <USER2> does seem like lots of the rhetoric out there is that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology will solve ALL of the problems. But i think blockchain has a ways to go before we see which problems it is particularly good at solving. People will learn, overtime as companies fail in their attempt to apply blockchain to every aspect of life. When a few of these companies to succeed, which im certain at least one will, we will see the real, unhyped value of the blockchain. Edit(spelling)

<comment><USER37> Thinking 'blockchain', which is just a linked-list with hashes, is going to solve anything is silly. It's even sillier than thinking internal intranets or TCP/IP would create huge value, when really the Internet, something much more than internal intranets and TCP/IP, was the innovation.

Bitcoin is an open, borderless distributed network with an economic and social system built on top of a data structure called a blockchain. The real innovation has very little to do with the 'blockchain' hype corporations are pushing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There are also some philosophical issues that add to the hype.

\- BTC or some other cryptocurrency as taking over local currencies in long term. There is such things as optimal currency region. Global single currency would not work well.

\- Money as good long term store of value. That's hoarders dream, but it would be harmful for economy as a whole. It's the idea that you work hour in 2017, store the value as a money and take that hour out 2027 and it's value has retained value or increased while the work done in 2017 is less valuable than work done in 2027 due to productivity increases. This kind of imbalance leads to deflationary spiral.

<comment><USER18> work in 2027 is more valuable? so instead of just buying a coffe, you should pay it NOW and tell the seller you will back in 2027 to get it. They will love it!

<comment><USER38> They would love it. Anyone would love it.

Especially if doing the work includes using technology. Buying your computer, phone or car now and getting it 10 years from now would be ideal for the seller.

<comment><USER18> I got confused by your previous claim. This doesn't "hurt the economy". Yes, 2027 tends to be more productive than 2017, but this requires an increase of investment, that implies savings.

Holding money allows others to use their money to invest _, so you actually facilitate productivity to increase.

_ This is "in general", since you allow _more_ good and services to be available to be consumed by others.

edit: this animation explains this coordination between savers and investors: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxIPPMR3fI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxIPPMR3fI)

<comment><USER38> >Holding money allows others to use their money to invest,

That's not holding money in this context.

Hoarding money is keeping cash in your house or bitcoin in your purse. The money is separated from the economy.

Holding money normally means keeping it in the bank account or in cash like instruments. That's fine. Bank loans it to others who use it. You receive interest for contributing capital.

<comment><USER18> Right, it's not exactly the same kind of "holding". But in this case also (burying the money), the economy (a free one) is not hurt.

To get a view of it: what if I have chests full of gold, then before dying I take tons of them, burn and bury so no one else ever put their hands on it? Nobody is hurt. Nobody is getting less food than they would, nobody is getting less anything than they would, because even if I bury the money I have, I didn't bury any other of the goods and services that are available in the economy in any time.

Because money is just a resources "coordinator's" power. If I burn mine, I'm just letting go of that power and letting someone else do it instead.

Sure, saying I had all that money not stealing or anything of the sort implies ppl I'm involved with (in/directly) are so much better that I "was allowed to coordinate more"/"received a lot of money". But still, in the end, the economy is not hurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What they really won't tell you about is; if you sign your account with a weak password, someone will brute-force it open and transfer your coins. Which is considerably more interesting and exciting than this article.

<comment><USER40> This really isn't a problem anymore if you don't store coins on an exchange. Just get a hardware wallet and you have incredibly good digital security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This article should be the README before getting into Crypto world.

First article to point out 21.co. What is their product ??? Read on twitter - A guy asked MA a question for 100$ on 21.co platform, got "NO" as answer. 100$ for a NO...So a guy spent his hard earned 100$ on a question to a VC. VC made money, Donated that to charity to show off and gather "philanthropy" point in his smug circle, got tax savings maybe, his invested firm 21.co made money, 21.co vanity metric of donating to charity increased further.

Poor soul who asked question, got scammed.

<comment><USER42> But 21.co has a legitimate business model. They should have some sort of 3rd party metric guaranteeing a quality answer but I definitely like the premise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "In the real world, "market cap" is based on a claim on a company's assets and future cash flows."

Is that true? I thought even in the real world, market cap simply meant price_per_share * num_shares_in_circulation.

</comment><comment><USER44> But why is NO ONE talking about the fact that these vehicles aren't even pretending to be currencies anymore?

</comment><comment><USER45> "Don't trust exchanges" is something _most_ cryptocurrency enthusiasts will tell you. Make a paper wallet or get a Ledger. If you have a lot of funds, a safe deposit box is also a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER46> (9) The Regression Theorem of Mises

</comment><comment><USER47> I w

</comment><comment><USER48> There is still no legitimate use of bitcoin beyond niche markets and speculation. Besides maybe a very risky (as in unpredictable value on delivery) method of money transfer. It is and has always been a criminal and launderer toy.

I am very excited by progress in Ethereum and see it as a model for a better way forward. Though I do not trust its maintainers and community to build a secure and reliable system. There have been far to many preventable losses due to their amateur efforts.

The future of crypto is exciting. The present currencies are the Diamond Rios and Creative Nomads of crytocurrency.

Downvote away.

<comment><USER49> It's also useful for cheaper & faster cross border remittances for the common person. For the common person paypal's %3+ currency exchange fees is more expensive than the equivalent %0.5-%1 in fees you get from a 2 bitcoin exchanges. And it's far faster since everything moves at the speed of local deposits & withdraws.

<comment><USER50> Transferwise is pretty friendly and uses real exchange rate + reasonable fees Usually around 1% or less. With Bitcoin, I can send the same transfer for 0.03% - which puts Transferwise to shame and makes PayPal look like an absurd joke. Granted there's much more involved with current volatility of bitcoin but once that gets more stable all of the other options will be a total joke. People who cant't understand the future of bitcoin as remittence are in for a rude awakening.

<comment><USER48> This is based on the assumption that bitcoin will stabilize.

I think bitcoin is a flawed first mover. The winner (and future stable cryptocurrency) likely hasn't been invented yet.

But I imagine it's mathematic properties will allows for a sustainable transaction rate (i.e.: thousands per second), short (as in sub 2-3 second) final confirmation times, and the ability to execute Ethereum like smart contracts without major security flaws and naive language implementation choices.

<comment><USER51> Bitcoin has Lightning with non-Turing complete smart contracts which offer better security

Ethereum has plasma and raiden with touring complete smart contracts

Pick one and build on it - there is no need to rip out the underlying blockchain to achieve what you're outlining - it exists today</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the easiest product to make that can sell for $500+? - <AUTHOR> Curious. What would be the most effecient type of product to work on that could be sold for the highest possible price tag?<p>Context: I enjoy working on sideprojects, but am mentally stuck in low price point hard to build products. <comment><USER2> "For highest profit always lean towards the less regulated areas of commerce." and "Big man pay big bucks for big talk." My grandpa always said.

Not really. But off the top of my head luxury car after market parts might be a good advanced setting. Selling art? Solving a problem that rich people have?

What do you have lots of access too? Sell that. Rocks? Clean 'em up and put 'em in a cardboard box.

Oh, wait are you talking about software? Month rentals seems to be the soup du jour. Give away the milk for free, but charge for some really cool glasses to drink from.

Stay honest, stay engaged with your community. Because what you're selling is kinda less important than how you sell it. A good salesman can sell anything. A mediocre salesman can sell a terrific thing. But a poor salesman can't sell anything.

<comment><USER3> What your selling does matter, and a good salesman can't sell anything forever. A decent product to sell goes a long way, and in sales theres no magic word to get the sale. Merely persistence, kindness, and quality of product are what make sales.

If the product is crap, even the best salesman is hosed.

<comment><USER2> 100% "...no magic word to get the sale" I love it! Sounds like something that should be the first lesson in a sales course.

I would also add that on the dark side a predatory empathy and penchant for exaggeration and fabrication can sell poison to a sick grandma, and Ponzi schemes to retirees and horrible things like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can aggregate data that is otherwise hard to find and put it in an easy to use format, businesses will pay big bucks. My last company paid $2k a month for a daily feed of coupons and deals from over 200 sites (e.g. Groupon, LivingSocial). There is also [https://www.aggdata.com/data](https://www.aggdata.com/data) which found a niche selling lists of company locations (e.g. the addresses, phone number, etc for every Jiffy Lube in the U.S.). They have a premium option which gives you access to all their data sets for a monthly fee.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can you elaborate on this question further? It may be more interesting if you can give more details.

What does 'efficient' mean to you? Why is $500+ considered the 'highest possible price tag'?

What are you really trying to get at?

Of course, the 'most efficient' way to sell something for $501 is to sell something worth $502. If efficiency is meant as something you can sell quickly.

If your definition of efficiency means efficient use of capital, then selling something for $500+ that costs you nothing is the best way to go. Does that make it easy? You could probably easily and quickly sell all sorts of illegal things, and for more than $500, and you could steal them, which means you are capital efficient.

So without further context of what you are trying to accomplish, the question isn't very valuable as it stands.

The other thing that comes to mind is, why? You'll get the most satisfaction not from the easiest/efficient/expensive item you can sell, but rather from something you are best suited to be selling.

<comment><AUTHOR> The 500 was picked to point towards a 'high ticket' sale vs a $10 ebook. The question came to mind after working on a ton of sideprojects. Instead of buulding a tool that people pay $5/mo for I wanted to find product types that would be more profitable pursuits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm thinking cow.

</comment><comment><USER7> An online course on how to make money.

It won't be easy in that at $500 it better had be comprehensive. And you may need to contactable via slack or something.

</comment><comment><USER8> The question of what product to make that people would buy is already an incredibly hard one.

Now you are asking for the most efficient?

You wont find any useful responses.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some artists are paid thousands for paintings, although your chances of becoming one of them are pretty minimal.</comment>


Ask HN: Investing Network Idea, can you help? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea for a project related to the stock market that I'd like your opinion before I start doing it (I'm validating one of my markets here).
The idea is pretty straightforward: A StartupToDo.com-like community (with small payments of $2-$5/mo) where users can share their investment ideas and receive money based on the number of upvotes (HN, Reddit style) given by other users. For each upvote the user receives an amount of money.
It allows the more knowledgeable investors to earn money sharing their ideas while the beginners can learn from the pros.
What do you think? Would you pay? Would you use? <comment><USER2> I don't have access to StartupToDo.com but essentially it's a bit like Flattr with a closed community, right? People earning small proportions of others' monthly fees based on upvotes acting as a tip.

The problem with this idea in relation to the stock market is that anyone with worthwhile investment ideas isn't sharing them for micropayments, and upvotes are very easy to game and bear very little relation to the one metric that actually matters - performance.

If you want to try the "paid community with upvotes being worth money" idea, your niche probably needs to be a considerably less cynical and big-money oriented one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think adding financial incentive would add too much incentive to game the system. I would not pay. I would not use it.

</comment><comment><USER4> How would you market it? How do you find and attract people who's advise and knowledge is worth knowing? The value in a site like this lives and dies by the quality of the people using it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We want to work niches that normally aren't approached by stock market websites. In the first phase we have a team that will produce high-quality content. Our objective with this app is to build a simpler interface where users can find and analyse what they want, with the backup of the community, instead of working alone searching uncountable hours over the Internet. This is a REAL problem I have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks good to me, it depends on the quality of the content. Will you make the content or have some sort of moderation to guarantee a high quality ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we want to have a heavy moderation system. We will only approve high- quality content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this like <http://covestor.com/>?</comment>


Riemann, a distributed systems monitor (built in Clojure) - <AUTHOR> http://aphyr.github.com/riemann/

<comment><USER2> i've been using mango <http://mango.serotoninsoftware.com> since 2006 to monitor control systems, mostly for small hydro power plants but also communications networks, smart homes, solar arrays, etc. Unfortunately development on the freely available source has stopped so I no longer get a better product every year.

Bigger projects i've used either citect or wonderware, both of which get the job done but show their age and are at times painful to use, although not as horrible as many of the other legacy control system HMI software out there.

Mostly data is collected by polling modbus slaves, although OPC would be another important protocol to support.

It seems like wonderare or citect is ready to be replaced by a distributed system that uses the web browser as the display client. systems monitoring software such as nagios, openNMS, cacti overlaps with the control system HMI software arena as both

1\. display real time data, preferably with some context (eg gauges to indicate how close to maximum or minimum limit, alarm or shutdown thresholds the variable is) and sometimes overlayed on a diagram to assist in visualizing or understanding the process

2\. "trend" (log and plot) historical data for analysis and reporting purposes. Better yet would be interactive plotting (zoom etc).

I've been wondering about graphite (which riemann can use) as part of the solution, and people seem to be producing great plots with d3.js. As an aside I've used kst and veusz for desktop interactive plotting with success.

In summary: if riemann supported the modbus protocol it could be useful for control systems.

<comment><USER3> 1\. The dashboard is in a rough spot right now--I haven't quite finished the transition to the next-gen dash--but it does do "realtime" visualization of events matching arbitrary queries with under 50-ms end-to-end latency. It'll push about a thousand events/sec, depending on size and rendering complexity. The websocket protocol is pretty straightforward, if you wanted to build one- off system diagrams with streaming updates.

2\. Yeah, that would be great. The historical event store space is pretty terrible right now, and it's such a big problem that I doubt I could realistically tackle it. Librato Metrics and Hosted Graphite are both approaching this as a service, and there's openTSDB if you have Hadoop people in-staff. Riemann has out-of-the-box integration with librato and graphite, but I haven't set up an openTSDB cluster yet.

Modbus: that'd be cool. Implementing a Riemann server (i.e. a thing that accepts events from the wire) is pretty straightforward, though I'd need to understand the protocol. If you're interested in building it, I'm happy to discuss how.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for your interest everyone. I'll try to answer any questions here. Going through some rough health stuff at the moment so I won't be on IRC, but I do read the backlog and will respond when I get a chance. Cheers! :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm having a little trouble following your examples. In particular some of the examples are wrapped in (streams) which I am interpreting as the data source to query, but then many of the examples are just a bare (where) with clause. Or is that the final target ie you wrap it in streams if you want to make a new stream? The system looks pretty slick, but I am having some problems with understanding some of the core concepts in the query DSL.

<comment><USER3> Ah, yeah I should standardize the docs a bit. It'll be clearer when you've looked at the stock config: (streams ...) just denotes the section of the config where streams live. Since most streams are composable, I sometimes omit the context.

It might be easier to think of streams as literal streams, rivulets, deltas, and tributaries, which events flow through, rather than a query language with well-defined clauses like sql.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks great, I'd love to read the code. Any idea if this is in the same space as Esper?

<comment><USER6> From the mouth of the project's owner:

 _From skimming the docs, it looks like Esper is much bigger, much cooler, and with a more abstract version of events. It implements a lot of the primitives I've been considering but haven't built yet. It looks more difficult to set up, and has a commercial offering for support and HA; neither of which are present in Riemann right now._ [1]

I recently finished building a monitoring system using Esper and JRuby since the client asked specifically for that, but I wished I had used Riemann from the beginning.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/riemann- users/GhVMYJow...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/riemann- users/GhVMYJowfe4/Me-6a7OQ8U0J)

<comment><USER5> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I built something like this once for a client, also in Clojure. I'm going to download and read the code to see how it compares.

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only troubled by the name? Riemann's interest were far from monitoring systems...

<comment><USER3> Riemann originated as a system for discrete calculus over metric streams; e.g. Riemann sums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> systems monitors are often in themselves too complex :-(

<comment><USER3> You're right to be concerned about complexity: simple things are easy to understand, easy to predict, and easy to change.

That said, I think you'll find many of the ideas in Riemann to be radically simple. The config file is just a Clojure program. Streams are just functions that take events. Events are just maps of keys to values. Everything is an event: there is no concept of a first-class host or service, no need to update the config when you add a host, and no poller loops.

Riemann tries to draw strong boundaries between the different layers of monitoring. It speaks a simple network protocol and interoperates with other systems for event collection, visualization, alerting, and storage, instead of building in those systems. In many ways Riemann is defined not by what it includes, but by what it leaves out.

That said, there's a lot of work required to make simple abstractions behave correctly, especially around IO and error handling. Wherever possible I try to draw clear internal boundaries to isolate this complexity, but it's still there. If you have specific complaints about code or interfaces which seem too complex to you, I'd be happy to try and explain or change them.

<comment><USER10> The tone around here is often negative, but I want to give you a huge compliment: _you understand simplicity._

Reducing hairy things to simple abstractions can save weeks of work in a matter of minutes. It is the single most powerful programming technique I know of. And I'm going to seriously consider switching a bunch of stuff over to Riemann.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b This looks pretty cool. Has anyone tried it and liked it?

<comment><USER11> I use it (and like it) to monitor a middleware we wrote. The developer, Kyle Kingsbury, has a pretty good talk about it here: <http://vimeo.com/45807716></comment></comment>


Google Finance Stock Screener - <AUTHOR> http://finance.google.com/finance/stockscreener

<comment><USER2> This is one area that google just doesn't get it:

Look at their front page: <http://finance.google.com/finance>

Readibility (i am not sure this word exists), is aweful, it looks like a mess of random things placed on a white page.

This is one of the features that yahoo actually does a decent job: <http://finance.yahoo.com/>

Sure, it looks like an average portal page, but it does the job. Much easier in the eye.

<comment><USER3> I disagree.

If you look at how they arrange data around a symbol (e.g. <http://finance.google.com/finance?q=KO>) it's much better than Yahoo's version.

In particular, tying news updates to price points on the chart (as well as updating prices and volumes on mouse over) is excellent.

Another nice touch is putting the latest price and tick in the html page's title tag, so I can see what's happening even while in another browser tab.

<comment><USER2> until last year Goog finance was trailing heavily after yahoo finance. I know that the best product doesn't always win, but in this case it seems that users like Yahoo finance much better. Yahoo! Finance Market Share 52 times Bigger than Google Finance <http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070319-114123>

Perhaps things have changed this year, with the release of the real-time quotes.

<comment><USER4> Yahoo! Finance was already well established when Google Finance was launched. It's not surprising that it still leads, just as the bloated Yahoo! email service leads Gmail.

<comment><USER2> I don't want to argue too much about this, but Yahoo search existed way before Google search, yet many users switched eventually to google, and they took the lion share of search.

Also mapquest was a service with lots of users, but google's maps were such a better offering that people switched overnight to it.

You could argue that google hasn't made enough of compelling service for people to bother switching from yahoo finance to it.

As for email, is a totally different thing. I still use hotmail, mainly b/c it happen to be the first email i signed up with, and many of my old friends have that address, so it is not the easiest thing to switch. (I also do have gmail, and a yahoo email account).

While simple financial info lookup, just as search, are less sticky.

<comment><USER5> Yahoo finance has message boards. They're very sticky -- when I used to visit them in 2001-2002, there were people who had known each other on the boards for _years_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stock Screeners have been around for a while, The one that I like (not necessarily for aesthetics but for data quality and quantity)

<http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/stockresearch/screener/>

</comment><comment><USER7> How is this news? Didn't this come out 4 months ago?

<comment><AUTHOR> It says its new on <http://finance.google.com/>. I doubt Google would mark it new for 4 months.

<comment><USER5> It must have been out in March, because I was able to complain that it didn't work then:

[http://groups.google.com/group/Google- Finance/browse_thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/Google- Finance/browse_thread/thread/2440eed7df789372)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has been around for at least few months now. I like it because it's much more user friendly and faster compared to the one at my brokerage account, without the hassle of logging in.

</comment><comment><USER9> It would be nice to be able to back-test screens over specified time periods.

</comment><comment><USER10> The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was potential acquisition for Digg. Google+Digg rumors have been on for quite some time now.</comment>


Game developers must avoid the 'wage-slave' attitude - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/16/game-developers-must-avoid-the-wage-slave-attitude/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just so it's clear, I think this guy is out to lunch:

> "Don't be in the game industry if you can't love all 80 hours/week of it — > you're taking a job from somebody who would really value it."</comment>


Cloud Drive is not an attack on iTunes or Spotify, it's an attack on Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://concertwindow.com/3392/how-will-cloud-drive-affect-online-media-streaming-and-backup

<comment><USER2> We all knew this.</comment>


Wikipedia policies on what editors should do in the case of impending apocalypse - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Terminal_Event_Management_Policy <comment><USER2> I love this bit:

 _> Archivists should try to make the contents of the encyclopedia available in as much as circumstances will allow. All contents of the encyclopedia are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. As this license allows distribution of content in any medium, either commercially or non-commercially, copies of articles may be bartered for essentials such as food and water, although "all previous authors of the work must be attributed" in any copy._

I mean, sure, civilization has completely collapsed and we've all been reduced to bartering for food and water, but that's no reason to stop paying attention to licenses!

</comment><comment><USER3> >The datastream will include a specially designed primer, or set of simple scientific principles and data that would be common to all extraterrestrial intelligences, providing a common base of reference to enable those receiving the signal to commence the mammoth task of decoding the encyclopedia. _The message will be accompanied by a short video message by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and images required for the re-creation of fundraiser banners._

Yes it's humor, but there's a plan for the _banners_ to live on after the extinction of mankind.

<comment><USER4>
        IF YOU'RE READING THIS, PLEASE DONATE DNA SEQUENCERS TO RECREATE WIKIPEDIA MAINTAINERS

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> If you're interested in this sort of thing, I managed to drag the U.S. government's Cold War plans for keeping regulatory agencies operating after World War III out of the depths of classification a few years back. You can read about and download them here:

[https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/11/regulating-the- apocalypse...](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/11/regulating-the-apocalypse- inside-the-code-of-emergency-federal-regulations/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone got any idea what the "primer" [1] represents?

It is vaguely reminiscent of the Pioneer plaque [2], but not really.

EDIT to add: Oh, it's the Arecibo message [3]. Hope the aliens are smarter than me.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Terminal_Event_Manag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Terminal_Event_Management_Policy#/media/File:Arecibo_message_bw.svg)

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

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

</comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to see the disinterest of comments so far. It's good to hope for the best but we cannot eliminate the possibility of catastrophic event.

I was hoping that there would be some plan to download as much information as possible and send it to orbit (I dont know what will happen after that). And at same time copying it in several locations across planet in a "easy" to read format/technology (hard copy, anyone?).

I think there should be a growing body of people downloading dumps of Wikipedia/arxiv.org (add other such websites) and dumping them in a silo in local library or basement etc.

But that's just me. Let the down votes begin. =)

<comment><USER7> A visible satellite in a very stable orbit isn't a terrible contingency plan...

<comment><USER6> Oh yea... and it can constantly transmit data to earth and whoever is listening can re-create entire dump over time!

<comment><USER7> On the timescales it would be truly useful, any reasonable power source would degrade and electronics would fail due to solar radiation. That would be made worse because (I think) a stable orbit would be outside the Van Allen belts and subject to stronger radiation.

Physical plates would be best... but honestly, a visible and obviously man made object in orbit would be in and of itself symbolic and perhaps inspiring to a follow up civilization if ours were to collapse and enter a dark age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems a little grandiose, but at the same time, I can't think of many projects as critical to the preservation of human history and knowledge as Wikipedia, so...good on them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Code orange. Level 3 warning. The world is ending in 2 hours. Please:

> check existing articles for typographical errors, errors of fact and style > issues

</comment><comment><USER10> "On the implementation of the TEMP protocol, a laser etched version of Wikipedia will be created using plates of a resilient alloy to store miniaturized versions of every page. "

If the TEMP is so severe that Wikipedia will need to close, how they expect to finish laser etching the whole wikipedia before everyone is dead, or their power is out for good?

<comment><USER4> They should print it in discount coupons instead. I know people who will hang to them until the stores reopen :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a joke but they (we!) really should have one.</comment>


Plunging loonie may be a blessing in disguise for Canadian startups - <AUTHOR> http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/plunging-loonie-may-be-a-blessing-in-disguise-for-local-startups-1.2744989 <comment><USER2> Forget "in disguise". It's awesome for most Canadian startups, period. The majority of sales for many, if not most, online businesses (and even many hardware startups) are going to be in the US, so you basically earn more while your costs remain the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm seeing nothing but benefits from my startup[0] due to the low loonie. We've seen more customers since the drop. Legalization is happening (sooner than anyone believes), and, while the government is talking down the revenue, all estimates point to over 100 billion in sales.

However, I'd disagree about funding. All the American VC's I've talked to are hesitant to join in before the end of prohibition. And now that the VC's are starting to get burnt by the unicorns, they're pulling out of everything that isn't a sure thing. And we aren't a sure thing yet. We can make money hand- over-fist, but good luck getting investment capital before Trudeau rubber- stamps legalization.

0\. [http://medicalcannab.is](http://medicalcannab.is)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm advising a company right now based on Toronto who is fundraising, and it is definitely easier for them. The CEO tells me that investors will literally say, "I get 50% more for every dollar I put in!".

It's totally true -- American investors love Canadian companies right now.

<comment><USER5> I appreciate that labour costs are lower in general in Canada, but as CAD falls and Canadian talent begins to look south of the border, won't everyone start to demand a commensurate increase in salary? Every Canadian programmer is a skip, a hop and a TN visa away from a USD$100k job. Taking less money to stay home in Canada was one thing with the dollar at parity, but all of a sudden the pay differential from the employee's perspective is pushing 100%. Canadian companies already want people worth USD$100k in the US to take CAD$80k in Vancouver or Toronto. That's now just USD$55k.

The biggest struggle I've heard from a lot of Canadian companies is the difficulty of holding onto talent given the proximity of the US and the fact that Canadians are blessed with a far simpler visa process than other foreigners. Doesn't that effect become even worse as CAD drops relative to USD if employers in Canada don't make up the difference?

<comment><USER6> It also depends on the cost of living. Your rent doesn't change much when the Canadian dollar goes down. Your medical care is still free, some utility bills stay the same. Buying things are more expensive now although.

For example, that $2000/mo USD rent is now $2900/mo CAD instead of the $2000 CAD it used to be. Your $900/mo rent in Canada is now $600/mo USD!

So you have to look at the total profit margin to make more sense of it. It's definitely a great time to start paying your Canadian student loans and to work in the USA! It's also really good to work remotely and still live in Canada.

<comment><USER7> > It's also really good to work remotely and still live in Canada.

You'd think, but every bigcorp I've suggested this arrangement to says it would want to put me on the payroll of their Canadian subcorporation, paid out in CAD at a 1:1 conversion of the USD rate. Kind of a lousy bargain, all told (though one I'm currently taking anyway from IBM.)

<comment><USER6> Yup they will all do that. The key is to not work with bigcorp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have to say, I love this exchange rate. But I have to keep reminding myself that the Canadian dollar will be going back up eventually so I can't just sit back and enjoy the boost in profits.</comment>


Dynamics of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://sss.cs.purdue.edu/projects/dynjs/

<comment><AUTHOR> I just read one of the papers that is a part of this project, "An Analysis of the Dynamic Behavior of JavaScript Programs" (<http://sss.cs.purdue.edu/projects/dynjs/pldi275-richards.pdf>), and I thought it was an excellent study of how JavaScript is used in the wild. They also have a more recent paper that goes into uses of eval in depth which I have yet to read (<http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/jv/pubs/ecoop11.pdf>).

Also, it's worth noting that the authors have the code and data available from for their experiments.</comment>


Potholes abound on the road to car-to-car communication - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/potholes-abound-on-the-road-to-car-to-car-communication/

<comment><AUTHOR> Not mentioned in the article, but perhaps a relevent comment on the privacy concerns: In the UK at least, the government have already installed license- plate tracking cameras on overpasses on almost every major road in the country. Sniffing the RF V2V data wouldn't really reveal much more (apart from speed).

I suspect that it would be politically unacceptable to routinely prosecute for speeding offences that were identified with this data (although perhaps there would be a grey area when very high speeds were identified).

<comment><USER3> >I suspect that it would be politically unacceptable to routinely prosecute for speeding offences that were identified with this data

Authorities issue speeding citations to fast drivers all the time based on toll road time-stamps.

You shouldn't be surprised about the government's actions when there's a windfall at stake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No mention of the impact to bicycles and pedestrians if people start to rely on these systems. Installing these on bikes might help a lot, making them more equal.

<comment><USER5> It would bring surface transportation up to par with sea (AIS) and air (ADS-B) transport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My first thoughts after reading the NTSB press release:

* Police are going to love this. Why sit in your cruiser and fire a radar/laser gun (which requires aim, patience, concentration , and a is error-prone) when you can just sit back and let the cars themselves tell you when they're speeding. For the same reason, once people figure it out, consumers are going to hate this.

* Hacks will abound - some good, some bad (you get to apply the labels you want ;) For example, I can imagine a car being hacked to report 99mph when going through intersections so everyone else stays out of the way, but if a police officer is nearby (thank you, Waze), 55 allllll the way home.

</comment><comment><USER7> "But what worries some is that the system could be used to target "bad actors" on the highways, as they were referred to in a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Cars may become informants on drivers who speed or drive erratically"

This is a feature, not a bug. Cars should become informants on dangerous drivers.

<comment><USER8>
            INT.  CAB - <USER2>

            Korben tries to control his car, reeling from the impact.

    						VOICE (O.S.)
    				You have just had an accident.
    				Seven points have been temporarily
    				removed...

            Korben manages to stop his cab, pulls over to the side.

    						VOICE / KORBEN
    				You have one point left on your license.
    				Have a good day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm working on a similar system. The impact this will have on the tech industry is potentially huge. Imagine your mobile device pairing with cars. All of your preferences are automatically uploaded to the vehicle. Including predetermined destinations that you might have already defined before leaving. As you move down the road, the applications you have installed on your mobile device will give you data regarding the surroundings. Yes, it will probably contain advertisements, but it will also contain valuable information about the area.

I know that privacy is a concern (which is shared among all). It is the biggest challenge faced at the moment. Implementation is heavily dependent on third party systems over which we don't have any controls.

</comment><comment><USER10> V2V is a great idea, maybe the equal of airbags, or ABS. But if I can't actually trust the government to _implement_ it, well...

<comment><USER11> In this case I trust the government to implement it more than I trust the world to never create a tiny, throwable "I'm going straight in your direction at 200mph" beacons. Unfortunately that's just a question of time.

<comment><USER10> Encrypt transmissions with NTSB provided secret keys.

In that case, the point of least resistance moves to spoofing the accelerometer readings...

<comment><USER11> Yeah... encrypt the transmission with a secret key that is embedded in every public car. That will stop it being reused! Like CSS, bluray and other DRM solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a argument against such help, because the drivers will learn to rely solely on the warnings and stop properly monitoring the road. As soon as the system fails, accidents will start to happen.

<comment><USER13> Accidents already happen, and frequently. The question is "will these systems fail enough such accidents happen more often than they do now?"

<comment><USER12> That is different from my experience. If an automatic system that replaces a human is adopted, it has to be almost perfect in the eyes of the public and regulators. For example; plane autopilot is more reliable that the pilot, yet we still have them( pilots ).

<comment><USER14> Yes, and autopilots are absolutely terrible at dealing with unexpected events. See: UA232, BA38, US1549, AC143. In each of those accidents, passengers survived who would have died in the hands of an autopilot.

1) In the BA case, the autopilot blindly commanded full thrust and then pitched up in spite of decreasing airspeed. Humans correctly determined that the engines were not producing thrust and elected to make an off-runway landing instead of stalling the plane into airport-adjacent houses.

2) In the UA case, an engine failure disabled all three hydraulic systems, leaving the plane without primary flight controls. The autopilot had no provision to command differential thrust from the two working engines, and would have driven the plane into the ground.

3) In the AC case, humans flew the plane at best L/D after running out of fuel, which enabled the airplane to land at a closed airport (any airport database would have told the autopilot it couldn't land there).

4) In the US case, humans determined that making an airport landing would be impossible and elected to land the airplane on the Hudson river, which has (and never will have) a published approach procedure.

Please explain how you expect autopilot programmers to anticipate these scenarios and correctly chose a solution.

<comment><USER12> We can't. Thank you for making my original point, which was that human drivers are very hard to replace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> But wouldn't this turn every vehicle into a moving GPS beacon for drone strikes?</comment>


Biologists Discover Bacteria Communicate Like Neurons in the Brain - <AUTHOR> http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/biologists_discover_bacteria_communicate_like_neurons_in_the_brain <comment><USER2> There's obviously no blood-brain barrier for bacteria so I wonder how they protect themselves from being affected by surrounding metabolites or hijacked by competing organisms.

Here's the paper: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html)

I'd love a copy of the pdf - my school login's not working right now.

<comment><USER3> Just append 'sci-hub.org' to the domain name of a journal article URL to get it for free: [http://www.nature.com.sci- hub.org/nature/journal/vaop/ncurre...](http://www.nature.com.sci- hub.org/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html)

<comment><USER2> Amazing, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I actually went to undergrad with the lead author - he lived right down the hall from me and was a chemical engineer. I wonder what incentivized him to switch to biology?

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if anyone in the know is reading and wants to comment on this, but even if bacterial cells are exchanging messages, do they have connections back to other specific cells or are they just broadcasting to the local soup? If it's the latter, then it's definitely not going to function like neurons.

<comment> florian-f The latter. According to the article the 'like neurons' part just means that they use ion channels to communicate. You could argue that the title of the article is slightly misleading, but then again this is an article that talks about 'charged ions'.

From the abstract of the paper ([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html))

"[...] ion channels conduct long-range electrical signals within bacterial biofilm communities through spatially propagating waves of potassium. These waves result from a positive feedback loop, in which a metabolic trigger induces release of intracellular potassium, which in turn depolarizes neighbouring cells. Propagating through the biofilm, this wave of depolarization coordinates metabolic states among cells in the interior and periphery of the biofilm."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't quite understand biology, but the similarities exist in objects of different scales may be another proof to show that the universe is programmed by programmer who reuses many functions.</comment>


Snowden be damned: Government renews US call record order - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/snowden-be-damned-government-renews-us-call-record-order/

<comment><USER2> That press release is very odd. It negatively impacts the standing arguments in the pending litigation, and it's also just flat strange for the government to release information about classified surveillance programs.

It almost reads as a personal message to Snowden, which fits with the generally ham-fisted manner in which the affair thus far has been handled.

There was a legitimate chance to get him to come back and stand trial in Hawaii, but the government instead went into full bore attack mode.

Threatening powerful nations like China and Russia, grounding the plane of a sitting head of state, and having an NGO deliver a personal message that said essentially "we consider you a traitor, so expect to be treated as such..." The list goes on.

The most frustrating part is that these tactics had the exact opposite of the intended effect. When other countries ignored our threats, it made us look impotent. When Snowden was not on Morales's plane, it made us look inept. When we delivered a threat to Snowden, it underscored exactly how beyond our reach he really is.

Morality aside, this is just bad tradecraft.

<comment><USER3> _That press release is very odd. It negatively impacts the standing arguments in the pending litigation, and it 's also just flat strange for the government to release information about classified surveillance programs._

I don't mean this as a criticism of you, as I know everyone has different opinions, but it frustrates me because criticizing the United States for being more transparent about their surveillance programs while also previously criticizing the US for lack of transparency seems unfairly hypocritical.

I think a lot of commenters have made the United States into a villain; it doesn't matter what they do now, it'll be construed as the wrong move.

<comment><USER2> The transparency argument rings hollow to me. Either you believe it's permissible for them to conduct this surveillance, or you don't. If you don't, then the solution is to stop the programs. If you do, then it helps that the programs remain secret.

How does it help anyone if the government tells me they're spying on me?

As an aside, look through my comment history. I doubt you'll feel that I'm making the US into a villain in this scenario.

<comment><USER4> > Either you believe it's permissible for them to conduct this surveillance, > or you don't. If you don't, then the solution is to stop the programs. If > you do, then it helps that the programs remain secret.

This is a very good point.

As much as I fiercely despise these programs and the men that designed and enacted them, if one thinks that they're permissible, then keeping them as secret as possible makes logical sense.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Results Of My Year-Long Physical Product Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://needwant.com/p/results-physical-product-experiment/

<comment><USER2> >After a lot of back and forth with a few different factories, I managed to find one that could do what I wanted.

This is glossed over, yet I have no idea how I would even start contacting factories.

<comment><USER3> Makersrow.com custommade.com fabhub.com

<comment><USER2> Interesting links. The first is for American factories only, which is neat, but I'd be surprised if this case was made in America. I'm familiar with the second link, but I don't believe it's related to factories/mass production. The third link is being squatted on.

<comment><USER3> Ah yes sorry, meant fabhub.io. Ironic to get the address wrong as its my site. Belated disclaimer.

For outsourcing, alibaba.com and mfg.com are the big ones. Starting onshore / digital may be good for short run & prototyping. Trade mags and manufacturer associations have local directories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > We're almost at the stage now where we will never have to even see another > iPhone case.

"We successfully made the transition from being an ad agency with attached warehouse and fulfillment center to being solely an ad agency."

So you never had anything to do with the physical product anyway, no development or manufacturing or anything. Naturally you had to streamline your business process to reflect this, but it's not what I'd call a "Physical Product Experiment".

</comment><comment><USER5> I own a Peel case. It's really great, in fact it's the only case I have ever been satisfied with using.

<comment><USER6> Any you chance you have the "white" model? I'm having a hard time telling from the pictures how translucent it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome read. BTW, both UPS and USPS (don't know about FedEx, etc) will pickup packages on demand. Of course, if you live in an apartment, this does mean you have to be home at the time.

<comment><USER8> Last time I did that with FedEx there was a charge for it ($10 I believe). I don't believe that's changed.

<comment><USER7> UPS also charges, but IIRC it's less if you have an account with them. Pickup is free with USPS.

<comment><USER6> Not sure whether it's changed, but USPS pickup was only free a few years ago when you shipped Priority or higher.

I'm surprised how much time was spent writing addresses by hand. Paypal Multi- Order Shipping and cheap adhesive shipping labels, which can be found on eBay, take a lot of pain out of that process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any insights where the factories are located and how they found the manufacturing partner?

<comment><USER10> Your best bet is to find a "Gold" supplier on Alibaba.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That "exit intent popup" had better not be a big modal thing or else I hate you.

<comment><USER6> It's better than _alert()_

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Exit offers for Shopify are powered by Sticky[1].

[1]: [http://www.addsticky.com/](http://www.addsticky.com/)

<comment><USER12> Any idea about their rates? Honestly, this seems pretty easy to set up yourself.

<comment><USER10> $10.00 / month

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So this is the same guy that bought the Las Vegas apartment and rents it on Airbnb?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6655492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6655492)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd love to buy several of these. Would you consider accepting Bitcoin? I'm always looking for ways to spend it and I see you're on Shopify which should make it very, very easy.

</comment><comment><USER15> Have you considered outsourcing your shipping to a third party logistics company? Slightly added cost but takes away a bunch of the pain as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great post. Mind sharing the company that did the packaging and shipping for you? (Or any alternatives)</comment>


Energy Efficiency: A New Concern for Application Software Developers - <AUTHOR> https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/12/223044-energy-efficiency/fulltext <comment><USER2> I like the articles [1] by Bruce Dawson where he investigates power consumption on his laptop. He also gives some advice about writing power efficient software.

[1] [https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/power- wastage-o...](https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/power-wastage-on- an-idle-laptop/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple's tooling in Xcode for measuring this for native mobile apps is pretty good, but I imagine it's much harder to optimise for mobile web apps and I don't know of any comparable tooling.

<comment><USER4> It is possible to do it "the hard way". In 2012/2013 I consulted on power consumption measurement of one communications app where separate measuring jigs were built for iPhone 5. Little bit of custom electronics and automation made wonders -- IIRC the app shipped with 4x lower power consumption than initially measured. There are really no barriers to doing this the same way today for web apps. On platforms where you have a good access to the battery monitor and high res RTC, you may even get along without extra hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For what it's worth, I also seem to have sqlserver installed because of Visual Studio, but I have no SQLEXPRESS process (checked in services.msc). Perhaps they did change how this works by default since 2016/03/08

</comment><comment> etr-strike And back to C we go.

<comment><USER6> I'd have to agree. :) Many of these new technologies like electron and node are more RAM hogs than anything else. Sure they boost productivity but you need a really high end laptop with at least 8GB of RAM to run anything smoothly.

<comment><USER7> C is neither here nor there. Really anything compiling down to the platform code would improve things. Running a browser environment for these applications is just not as efficient. But also the UI tooling outside of web is also not very good. While you're right about productivity, we also just happen to have a large workforce that knows the webstack very well, but not so much QT or UWP or AppKit.</comment></comment></comment>


It's not exponential, it's sigmoidal - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/sigmoidal_not_exponential.html

<comment><USER2> Except that's a silly distinction, when you don't yet have any information about what the upper bound is, or any evidence that growth is slowing from its exponential stage. The growth of real-world things clearly has some upper bound, and in saying that it's "exponential" this is understood by all listeners.

Since calling a real-world trend "exponential growth" is always an approximation, pointing out that it's actually "approximately sigmoidal growth, i.e. only approximately exponential until it flattens out sometime in the eventual future" is (you guessed it) a redundant waste of breath.

And to say that pointless pedantry is the same as "mathematical literacy" is even sillier.

<comment><USER3> Even so, you can't argue that the growth is exponential by simply looking at the graph. It could just as well be polynomial. To conclude that it is exponential you need some kind of analysis, like "every user brings two, those bring two each etc".

<comment><USER4> I believe this article is referencing the the metaphor and the hyperbole of "Exponential Growth!!!"...not a mathematical treatment of growth rates.

That growth eventually slows is a very very simple point, but it's important to never forget. Maybe everybody is making this too complicated because Saul Griffith is supposed to be a 'genius' now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "And as Saul noted a few moments later, most of these curves aren't even sigmoidal, they are sinusoidal. (This is, incidentally, why Ray Kurzweil is most likely wrong about the singularity.)"

Am I the only one who gets tired of sweeping bullshit generalizations like this? I can't believe people will pay to hear this kind of nonsense.

He isn't actually saying anything you can rebut.

</comment><comment><USER6> Modding this up is an even truer sign of mathematical illiteracy. The sigmoid itself contains an exponent that is damped at higher values. One could go further and say that it is not even a sigmoid because all web traffic will peter off eventually, with the eventuality in the undefined horizon. Does anyone really assume an exponential growth in the literal sense with users rushing in via some inter-galactic network when all earth users are exhausted?

<comment><USER7> "Does anyone really assume an exponential growth in the literal sense with users rushing in via some inter-galactic network when all earth users are exhausted?"

Some valuations for .com companies at the end of the 20th century did seem to have factored this expectation into their analysis.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Add live, fun interaction to any video - <AUTHOR> https://upstreamer.app/?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

During the lockdown, I and a group of EPFL students organised The Curve, an online music festival to raise funds towards Coronavirus research. We developed a custom platform to enable live, fun interaction during the event.

Today, I'm releasing this platform on its own, named Upstreamer, for any broadcaster or event organiser.

Using Upstreamer, you can also add branding, donation forms, or any HTML on top of your stream; or even let your viewers watch multiple of your streams at a time, like in a music festival where you would move between different stages.

Looking forward to getting your feedback, and hopefully we can get in touch!</comment>


On Becoming a Better Teacher - <AUTHOR> http://www.monkeysnatchbanana.com/2015/04/12/on-becoming-a-better-teacher/

<comment><USER2> A similar thing happens fairly commonly on college campuses. A professor will use their unpublished book as a textbook for the class. Whenever students ask questions about the content of the book (which they no doubt will, eventually), the professor will then update the book and use it in another class until they receive little to no questions about the topics and it appears to provide a functional understanding of the topic. I know quite a few who will ask that their spouses or close friends work through the book, then will talk with them about the content and their understanding when they've completed it.

When writing Storm Applied, did you test it out on any of your new developers during the onboarding process? It sound like training your new employees influenced Storm Applied.

<comment><AUTHOR> We did indeed test it out on coworkers without previous experience with Storm. The inclusion of the chapter on the Storm UI that I detail in the post was the biggest outcome from that but there were other changes as well that came from questions as we were onboarding people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a bit of a chuckle at anyone who uses the term "web-scale" in serious conversation. The idea of 'web-scale' is an inside joke that the author has clearly missed: [https://twitter.com/search?q=web%20scale%20from%3Atomdale&sr...](https://twitter.com/search?q=web%20scale%20from%3Atomdale&src=typd)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is not just about teaching but clarity. If you don't define what terms like 'web scale' mean then the reader brings their own baggage about what they think it means.

The classic example is "the MVC pattern". Which one?!

</comment><comment><USER5> A better teacher is when your students really understands what you are teaching about.

</comment><comment> r-w This should've been the foreword. I respect those who learn from teaching.</comment>


The Sinking of HMS 'Victoria' Led the Royal Navy Astray - <AUTHOR> http://warisboring.com/the-sinking-of-hms-victoria-led-the-royal-navy-astray/ <comment><USER3> I think about this a lot these days with regard to the US/NATO and land-based combat. We built up power for decades during the cold war to prevail on land against major powers, and our Battle of Trafalgar was Desert Storm in 1991. In the following years, absorbed in our sense of supremacy, we shifted our focus to asymmetrical warfare, optimizing our vehicles and doctrines for light war against dispersed forces mixed with civilians.

I think of this every time I hear, "XXX is irrelevant in this age of asymmetric warfare." Sure, maybe that system or doctrine is not useful when fighting 1,000 militants blended into a city of 1,000,000. But what happens if/when we get into a shooting war with an adversary that has a real army, a real air force, and/or a real navy? Will it look like Desert Storm? Or will it look like the Bay of Pigs invasion? And could the US in 2040 look like France in 1940?

<comment><USER4> > But what happens if/when we get into a shooting war with an adversary that > has a real army, a real air force, and/or a real navy?

Either the shooting war ends real quick with a diplomatic solution, or the territories of both adversaries quickly turn into faintly glowing wastelands uninhabitable for a thousand years.

The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against relatively low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states. Once you credibly threaten the homeland of any opponent near the US's level of military sophistication, you've already lost the war.

<comment><USER5> >The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against relatively low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states.

No, that's not correct, and is emblematic of the insistence to "always train for the last war." The reality of what future war might look like is much more nuanced than "either MAD or more COIN." General Milley talked about this last summer, and I tend to agree with his assessment. Incidentally his critique is inline with the posted article about mindless obedience.

[http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient- vic...](http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-victorious- gen-milleys-future-us-soldier/)

<comment><USER4> I read the article, but Gen. Milley doesn't make the case for why mutually- assured destruction is no longer relevant (he doesn't mention it at all, actually). After 50 years in which it has arguably been the primary strategic factor maintaining the peace among the great powers, I'm curious about why the future would look different.

<comment><USER6> The problem with mutually assured destruction is the "assured" part. There is nothing assured about it. Cyber, space, and other weapons could dismantle the assurance and we could be in a totally different warfare environment. Certainly this doesn't seem to be the case yet, but I wouldn't make assumptions about the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not clear At all clear that at Jutland lack of individual initiative swung the battle. The battle was fairly skilfully fought between two state of the art combatants and errors of judgement, while costly, were retrieved on both sides, making the affair something of a score draw.

Betty's taking the initiative the way he did without telling Jellicoe what he faced or where he was going could have cost Britain the battle, as Beattie sailed into the German trap. Scheer's about turn when his T was crossed saved the fleet, so you could say the superb manoeuvring discipline of the German fleet saved it. You could also say that prioritising speed and heavy gunnery over armour (German ships prioritised armour) in the British battle cruisers didn't help them when they came up against German battleships. Or that the German gunnery was superior, or that the British munitions appeared to malfunction (or was that the German armour). There was, however, at least one instance in which faulty signalling from Beatty's flagship was very costly.

I think I understand the point the author is trying to make, but I would need a much clearer account of what he thought went wrong at Jutland to appreciate or agree with it.

<comment><USER8> Just a pedantic note. British gunnery was actually pretty good at Jutland (see e.g. here [http://www.jutland1916.com/tactics-and- technologies-4/gunner...](http://www.jutland1916.com/tactics-and- technologies-4/gunnery-performance/) and here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_to_major_ships_at_the_B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_to_major_ships_at_the_Battle_of_Jutland)). The German gunnery was more obviously effective because it succeeded in blowing up some of the battlecruisers, but in terms of accuracy and hits landed, the British ships put in a pretty good performance.

<comment><USER9> Wow. Those accuracy number are crazy, I had no idea they would be so low (<5%).

<comment><USER8> Hitting a moving target over 10,000 yards away from a moving platform using optical rangefinders and analogue fire control computers. It's a miracle they ever hit anything IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Rules of the Game is a fascinating book because it starts with the lead-up Jutland, goes back in time to explain how the culture and personalities of the Royal Navy came to be, before going back to Jutland. It made my head hurt the first time I read it, because so much was unfamiliar, but a second read really brought things to life.

The synopsis / review this book offers is a good one but it could, perhaps, be generalised. Though Gordon doesn't make it explicit as such, the lesson I ended up taking away from the book is that cultures tend to go through alternating periods of encouraging initiative or obedience. You can see this in armies (perhaps the classic example is the Prussian / German army: it started off with Frederick the Great as an army of obedience; became (at the top levels at least) an army of initiative under von Moltke the Elder; and (in the West, at least) went back to an army of obedience for most of WWI), technology (look at any well known company's research lab culture), and even wider society. If I had to briefly summarise the consequences of this, it tends to come down to when two broadly equal organisations square up against each other: if one uses obedience as its model, and the other initiative, the latter will tend to win; if the two both use the same system, the outcome seems to be mostly random.

[That said, Jutland isn't a great example of this in my opinion, as it was so protracted and its outcome so muddy. Poor ship design and some sloppy practises with explosives meant the British came off worse in terms of casualties, so arguably the Germans won the day. However, the (smaller) German Navy realised that it had only survived through luck, and basically stayed in port for the rest of the war, whereas the British were out sailing in force less than a week later and continuing the blockade of Germany. The Germans eventually thought the only way to win at sea was unrestricted submarine warfare, which turned out to be perhaps the biggest PR disaster in history. I was astonished to realise that the German Navy's inferiority complex from Jutland persisted into WWII: the German Navy stalled shamelessly when asked to help invade Britain, as the lesson they learnt from Jutland was that the British Navy could never be defeated, so what was the point of trying? So Jutland had complex long-term effects that defy easy classification. Which is, perhaps, why it's so fascinating.]

<comment><USER11> There's a separate, fascinating, historical incident that shaped the Royal Navy and by extension world affairs for centuries. The execution of Admiral Byng for "failing to do his utmost" lead to a culture of aggression in the RN. This resulted over the years in many impressive, against the odds, victories such as Pellew's two frigates taking the 74 Droits de l'Homme. It also led to sacrifices such as HMS Glowworm's attack on the Hipper during the Norway campaign in 1940.

The Royal Navy differs from the British Army in taking a more holistic view of traditions and history. Trafalgar is celebrated by all every year, Taranto is celebrated by all aviators every year - rather than only those descended from units involved. This combined with the length of time to draw lessons from has led to the saying "The Navy has traditions, the Army history and the Air Force has habits. And nasty, dirty habits they are too".

<comment><USER12> I can strongly recommend "The Silent Deep" about the Royal Navy submarine service. The parts describing the Perisher course are fascinating (the author, perhaps because he is a Peer, actually got to go on subs during the course) - imagine a training course where if you deemed to have failed you are immediately removed from the training area (by helicopter) and never allowed to work in that area of the Navy again! Mind you, apparently you do get a bottle of whisky to make up for your career being in shreds.

[https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/183977/the-silent- deep/](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/183977/the-silent-deep/)

<comment><USER13> There has been a couple of programs on the UK channels (I think mostly Channel4/Five) that dealt with with Perisher course. It is brutal, hard, and exhausting.

And yeah, bottle of whisky on your leave and you can't work on subs anymore (though you do get to keep the Dolphin pin apparently).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interestingly, this lesson having been learned in war, it lay hibernating to be discovered in engineering decades later.

While most modern safety advice recommends empowering line workers to report safety failures, this also extends to engineering quality. The quintessential example of devolving power down to individuals is Andon[0], the most recognisable feature of which is a little cord any line worker in the factory can pull to stop the entire line.

0: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_\(manufacturing\))

</comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, yeah, individual initiative. Nest read an analysis of the Charge of the Light Brigade and see how Cardigan's initiative (or stupidity) led the charge in the wrong direction, despite orders from Lucan.

For a serious discussion of how much initiative is too much or too little, read MCDP 1, "Warfighting", the USMC manual on how to run a battle. Good military forces work hard at that balance.

<comment><USER11> Initiative is very different at sea, and was especially so before the era of effective radio communications. Nations trusted their admirals and captains to effectively be ambassadors as the effect they could have on foreign affairs during peacetime was enormous. From the USS Pueblo to the USS Vincennes the position naval captains are put is often significantly more isolated, complicated, and symbolically important than any other armed service.

<comment><USER12> Speaking of trusting naval crews - the UK Tridents subs don't require any codes being sent to authorize launches, they have all the required information and we simply trust them not to abuse it.

<comment><USER16> I think that's true for all countries that have submarine-launched nuclear weapons. One of the purposes of having nuclear missiles on submarines is for them to pose a credible threat of retaliation against a first strike, even if the first strike is successful enough to destroy land-based installations and the command chain. So the theory is that they need to be able to retaliate without a functioning chain of command.

<comment><USER12> Of course getting detailed information on these things is difficult but I've seen more than one reference claiming that UK Tridents subs are unusual in this respect - Wikipedia claims that launch keys on US Tridents subs are kept in safes to which the crew do not have the combinations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Two- man...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Two-man_rule)

Apparently the reasoning is that the UK is so close to potential enemies that there would be no time for the PM or equivalent to give authorization - the so called "4 minute warning" being very optimistic. The US is much further away from the Soviets/Russia so there would be far more time to broadcast a launch order. Also the UK is notoriously cheap about these kinds of things!

<comment><USER17> The US had a secret launch code - Permissive Action Link (PAL) - but that code was allegedly set to 00000000 and launch operators were told this.

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

The combination was changed in 1977.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I turn my head to the left and look out of my study window I can look over that exact bit of the Forth in that picture of the British Grand Fleet - <USER2> only thing that looks like a battleship there today being the island of Inchmickery:

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

<comment><USER11> Though just the other side of the bridges, up at Rosyth, there are two rather large aircraft carriers being built. Also several aging examples of what arguably replaced the battleship, nuclear attack submarines.

<comment><USER12> Och yes, I am quite looking forward to watching the carriers sail past, even if I am a bit dubious about their utility.

Must have been quite a site to have the Forth _full_ of ships though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Airlines went through this issue back after the Tenerife disaster where the two 747s collided. It was determined that crew must always be allowed to challenge the actions of another.

<comment><USER19> Now the problem is excess reliance in computer aided flying and procedures. New pilots are receiving less hands on flying instruction and are heavilly drilled in following the procedures to the letter(this is not an exageration). It's like a theater play, like the blind obedience and spit and polish of the navy. So assets that are extremely useful become a problem when something goes out of the script. It's hard to maintain the equilibrium, and we have yet to swing the pendulum in the other direction.

<comment><USER20> We had another discussion yesterday about what happens when the automation go awry.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336897)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Victory begets cultural decay by sparing the navy the rigors of future > combat, the truest test of martial adequacy.

Reminds me of a fiction quote:

> The general was only warming up. [...] "You infants who've come up in the > past decade and more have no concept of combat. These long periods of > unbroken peace weaken the Service. If they go on much longer, when a crisis > comes there'll be no one left who's had any real practice in a crunch."

> Miles's eyes crossed slightly, from internal pressure. Then should His > Imperial Majesty provide a war every five years, as a convenience for the > advancement of his officers' careers? His mind boggled slightly over the > concept of "real practice." Had Miles maybe acquired his first clue why this > superb-looking officer had washed up on Kyril Island?

(The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold)

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13194/13194-h/13194-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13194/13194-h/13194-h.htm)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm completely distracted by the name of the website: "War is boring".

The vehement disagreement is almost repulsing me to RTFA.

<comment><USER24> Well, if you followed the blog (as I have over several publishers -- wtf?) I think you'd find it's like minded.</comment></comment>