Geekbench Results for Apple A12Z (a.k.a. "Apple Silicon") - <AUTHOR> https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?q=eperm-d995af6e2ef02771 <comment><AUTHOR> Via [https://www.golem.de/news/developer-transition-kit- apples-a1...](https://www.golem.de/news/developer-transition-kit- apples-a12z-trotz-emulation-flotter-als-snapdragon-8cx-2006-149361.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> > a.k.a. "Apple Silicon"

It's not the chip that the new Macs will be running on, so these results don't really tell us anything.</comment>


Handy Docker commands for local development - <AUTHOR> https://andrewlock.net/handy-docker-commands-for-local-development-part-1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Links to the Second part don't yet work in part 1. Therefore Part 2:

[https://andrewlock.net/handy-docker-commands-for-local- devel...](https://andrewlock.net/handy-docker-commands-for-local-development- part-2/)</comment>


Whistleblower: Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Facility - <AUTHOR> https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/like-an-experimental-concentration-camp-whistleblower-complaint-alleges-mass-hysterectomies-at-ice-detention-center/ <comment><USER2> Link to original report [https://projectsouth.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/09/OIG-ICDC...](https://projectsouth.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/09/OIG-ICDC-Complaint-1.pdf)

Some testimonies from said report:

"Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody. He's even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman]. She was supposed to get her left ovary removed because it had a cyst on the left ovary; he took out the right one. She was upset. She had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy. She still wanted children—so she has to go back home now and tell her husband that she can't bear kids… she said she was not all the way out under anesthesia and heard him [doctor] tell the nurse that he took the wrong ovary."

"She was locked up in lockdown cells in E4 where the treatment was absolutely terrible. She was locked up with no right to commissary, no right to communicate with her family for many days, she had no right to use the microwave to prepare her food for two days. The rest of the time she was there, she was only allowed to go out for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon, depending on the guard who was there because there were days where she was not permitted to leave at all. During the day, she asked the guards for water and was denied many times, during her isolation in the cell she never had cleaning products to keep the space clean, the shower water was extremely hot and this prevented her from correctly completing her personal cleaning. She only received personal hygiene products once (four small bar soaps, four tubes of toothpastes, four bottles of body wash, and two toothbrushes) that were not enough for the whole period of time that she was isolated. The treatment by the guards is humiliating and since she doesn't speak English they make fun of her. She came out after 22 days of psychological, physical, and emotional torture."

<comment><USER3> Just fyi, that link 404s now.

This link seems to contain the report: [https://www.scribd.com/document/476013004/OIG- Complaint#from...](https://www.scribd.com/document/476013004/OIG- Complaint#from_embed)

<comment><USER2> Doessn't 404 for me, but here's an archive link [https://web.archive.org/web/20200914205425/https://projectso...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200914205425/https://projectsouth.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/09/OIG-ICDC-Complaint-1.pdf)

<comment><USER3> You're right, it works now, I must've made a typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The US has had a lot of history and practice with forced sterilizations over the centuries. This is nothing "new". It's despicable. It has nothing to do with what party it is. The Democrats and Republicans have both participated and signed off on these.

This is a problem with the state in general, and with unchecked and unmonitored authority. This is why people say ACAB. It's the unchecked authority you give someone (e.g. a cop, border agent, DA, Judges, etc) that create issues like this. It's a matter of removing and reducing authority as much as possible in these systems.

Until we realize that authority is the cause, we are not going to find a proper fix. Everything else is a reactionary bandaid on a systemic issue.

<comment> hobby-coder-guy When did the democrats do this?

<comment><USER4> Obama is directly responsible for the structure of ICE and the various authorities they use to indefinitely imprison people.

He's also responsible for tons of civilians deaths in the middle east.

<comment><USER5> They were asking about forced sterilization though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Before anyone flags this for being "political": don't. This is about human rights, not politics. Don't conflate the two.

<comment><USER7> Human rights are a subset of politics. (It's fashionable to label as "nonpolitical" any matter of politics that the speaker thinks is important, as if "politics" as a label only applied to trivialities, but that's not what it means and, more relevantly, not why HN often prefers to avoid things that are in that domain but not particularly intellectual novelties.)

<comment><USER8> It's the other way around.

Politics is that which fills the space when violence and scarcity do not dominate psychic considerations.

Political discussions can only occur in a context where there are human rights, where human beings in authoritative positions adhere to laws and rules related to their jobs.

Public talk that defends the systemic, ungoverned practice of violence is not political, it's propaganda (and worse).

Human rights comes first. Then politics.

Cheers.

<comment><USER6> Very well said. Thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Back when the news broke originally about these camps disappearing thousands of children at a time, separating families, and the rampant sexual abuse, we got to have the fun conversation of, "is it really a concentration camp?" I'm terrified at what deflection will be made in this instance, but we can unfortunately expect the deflection.

<comment><USER10> Regarding the disappearing children, are you referring to [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/29/us/immigration-refugee- ch...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/29/us/immigration-refugee-child- missing-hhs-obama-photo-trnd/index.html) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Had to vouch for this because this is the kind of uncomfortable truths people would rather not hear about, yet it's important that Americans are made aware of patent and flagrant humans rights violations made in their own soil.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean by 'you had to vouch for this'?

<comment><USER7> They mean that it was flagged a d they used the "vouch" option available to endorse it despite the flagging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It appears the medicare rate for a hysterectomy is about $1-$4k. Much higher with hospital stay. Possible medical billing scam?

[https://www.jnjmedicaldevices.com/sites/default/files/user_u...](https://www.jnjmedicaldevices.com/sites/default/files/user_uploaded_assets/pdf_assets/2020-04/2020-Hysterectomy- Reimbursement-Fact-Sheet-087502-191120.pdf)

<comment><USER3> There are much better ways to do a billing scam. If someone is doing hysterectomies in a camp where people have no rights it's not to jack up medicare charges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Posting this to r/news on Reddit resulted in the post being silently removed.

[https://snew.notabug.io/r/news/comments/isx4me/whistleblower...](https://snew.notabug.io/r/news/comments/isx4me/whistleblower_there_were_mass_hysterectomies_at/) (removed by moderators).

There are no duplicates on the subreddit, and the moderators have not sent any message.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm skeptical, people leave this facility and have been for years. The population is social media active and have friends and family who are in a position to speak out because we aren't China. It's difficult to fathom that this issue would surface precisely once by a lone whistleblower

<comment><USER15> Of course you are not China. You are the United States which has been systematically sterilizing indigenous populations up until the 70s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is terrible, and I feel powerless to prevent this type of injustice.

The people involved should be hung.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why the hell is this off the front page?

</comment><comment><USER17> Why did this get flagged? Is there something wrong with the facts?

<comment><USER18> The comment contents (and back and forth) is why, devolved conversations

<comment><USER17> I've seen much worse conversations on posts that remain unflagged, and the news itself seems important for people to hear about.

<comment><USER18> I'm reading the report, it's mostly about Covid, general lack of care, and possibly denial of care.

The hysterectomy part (a short section of the document) has twice removed testimony of an immigrant woman there / the nurses perception of a high rate, no numbers presented.

Flagging can be user induced, depends on how people feel about it and dang's choice on the matter I believe too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm going to remain skeptical until the extraordinary headlines manage to provide extraordinary evidence.

[https://www.dailydot.com/debug/forced-hysterectomy-story- rus...](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/forced-hysterectomy-story-russia/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Damn, this is Uighur level bad for the US...

</comment><comment><USER21> dang: should this really be flagged, while human rights violations from other countries aren't?

</comment><comment><USER22> "anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics" should be treated with skepticism.

I completely agree. There seems to be a spate of anonymous blockbusters lately.

<comment><USER3> Good thing this isn't an anonymous whistleblower, then. Did you read the article past the ICE denial? The whistleblower put their name on the allegations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wouldn't rule out a form of Magical Penis Theft - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_(medicine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_\(medicine\))

Mass hysteria induced by bad conditions and language difficulties. You see a little of this in the report. The medical error making the woman infertile setting it off.

The alternative is medical fraud by a doctor who knows complaints are hard given their conditions.

But records will have to have been kept. What would the profit to risk be?

Why not do un-needed procedures that are not so permanent.</comment>


Blind recruitment trial to boost gender equality making things worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 <comment><USER2> I'm glad to see some empirical testing of assertions about unconscious gender bias. I think people fall into a bit of a trap when they see the high-level statistics: they assume all other factors are equal and therefore the disparity is entirely due to gender discrimination. While this may indeed be an issue, there are a multitude of other factors at play. Even people who really ought to know better oversimplify this issue.

For example, at my workplace (a government department with a strong focus on economics) there's a big push on at the moment for promoting women. The reason for this is that women are severely under-represented (relative to the male- female population ratio) in the senior ranks. No one seems to have considered that, given the senior executive in the public service tend to be older, the main driver is probably the fact that enrolment in university economics courses was heavily male dominated when that age-cohort was attending university (if memory serves, the ratio was something like 80-20).

So the issue in my workplace isn't so much that there is discrimination against women, but rather that there is discrimination against people who haven't studied economics (and rightly so, given the department's function). I haven't checked the most recent census, but the one before that showed university economics enrolments was still around 60-40 male-female.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not suggesting gender discrimination does not exist. I just wish people would think a bit more carefully about this issue if they must insist on having such strong and vocal opinions about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great article. I remember when that lady recently accused Tesla of gender discrimination and tesla basically said that they had already given her special treatment because she was a lady.

Women and men are very different. Diversity means accepting the good that those differences bring, not trying to eliminate it by making men and women the same.</comment>


Yahoo Buys IntoNow: Paradigm Shift or Wasted Potential? - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/can_yahoo_handle_to_potential_of_intonow.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4db5c77b263ec04d%2C0 <comment><USER2> I will begin hoping against hope that Yahoo! finally makes good use of one of their acquisitions. If only so that they stay as an independent company who provides exits for interesting start up companies like IntoNow.

However, based on experience, I expect to be disappointed.</comment>


Hacking Titanium applications with CoffeeScript, Haml, Jade, and friends. - <AUTHOR> http://koss.nocorp.me/js/crab-is-answer/

<comment><USER2> This approach could be a useful way to structure Titanium applications with multiple platforms sharing code. For native mobile app windows, I would only use CoffeeScript. I could additionally use haml, jade, and the other libraries for webviews.

For desktop apps, I would include the generated javascript files in index.html. For mobile apps, I would create an apps.js that includes the generated javascript files, perhaps generated from one CoffeeScript file per window.

With that in mind, I tried out the install. When I ran "npm install crab", npm gave an error: "Looks like 'underscore.string' is not in the npm registry." Since you (kossnocorp) are an author of underscore.string, perhaps you could add it to the npm registry? If not, you might want to add another step to the readme to first install underscore.string.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for that, I fixed this problem.</comment></comment>


FBI charged 80 people and arrested 14 for "Nigerian Money Scam" - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/08/23/nigeria-money-scam-fbi-80-arrested/ <comment><USER2> I'm getting very tired of being Nigerian.</comment>


Kawa in Languages shootout (vs Java, Scala, Clojure, JRuby) - <AUTHOR> http://per.bothner.com/blog/2010/Kawa-in-shootout/

<comment><AUTHOR> My main takeaway is that performance is not an issue using a non-Java language on the JVM, except with JRuby.</comment>


Notes from a production MongoDB deployment (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.serverdensity.com/notes-from-a-production-mongodb-deployment/

<comment> william-shulman This is from 2010 -- not the most up to date info.

<comment><USER2> Yes... it took me a while to realize that this was a very outdated article. (It hit me when I read about background indexing which was supposed to be coming in "1.3".. we're now on 2.2.2.

A mod really ought to append a (2010) to this post title.

<comment><USER3> I noticed it when I read "Fri 26th Feb" ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice to see also some positive (or rather balanced) posts about Mongo.</comment>


Using WebAssembly from .NET with Wasmtime - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/using-webassembly-from-dotnet-with-wasmtime/ <comment><USER2> I know MSFT technologies get a lot of hate here, but ASP.NET Core is pretty awesome. Blazor (the wasm based framework) is innovative and a positive step forward frontend web development.

You should leave your prejudices aside and give it a try if you haven't yet.

<comment><USER3> Since you seem to have a positive sentiment towards Blazor, can you point me to a good introduction that demonstrates the power and the benefits of the framework, e.g. increased expressiveness, reduced friction, etc? I've looked through a couple of intros but they never seemed to really sell the benefits of it. As someone who loves the C# language and .NET ecosystem I really want to like it but nothing has clicked so far.

<comment><USER4> Attended a Blazor session at MS Build in May. My impression was, Blazor seems like a super cool tool that I will never be able to justify in production. For one, the performance is poor right now. Your options are either to use Signal to send every action over the network, or to deliver the entire .NET libraries along with the page. The size of that download is both impressively small (given the volume of code you're transferring), and also still way too large for me to feel comfortable foisting that on users.

Additionally, it requires that your front-end team feels comfortable working in .NET technologies. Ours certainly doesn't, and it would be very hard to sell my director on anything that doesn't maintain the traditional backend/frontend split.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, don't use that for a blog (but please don't use a SPA for a blog either).

But think internal applications, legitimate SPA (webmail, trading platform), PWA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great work on the article and extension Peter!

I didn't see any reference to existing work in this area in the article, I'm curious to know how this differs from projects like WasmerSharp by Miguel de Icaza released a few months ago.

[https://github.com/migueldeicaza/WasmerSharp](https://github.com/migueldeicaza/WasmerSharp)

<comment><USER7> One obvious difference is that WasmerSharp wraps Wasmer. Wasmer and Wasmtime are different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone curious, the actual .NET Wasmtime package source is here: [https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/tree/master/cra...](https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/tree/master/crates/misc/dotnet)

</comment><comment><USER9> MS also have their own take on WebAssembly

[https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web- apps/blazor](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor)

<comment><USER10> That's something different. Blazor compiles c# to webassembly to run in the browser.

This software (Wasmtime) allows you to run webassembly code from within .net.

<comment><USER11> So in theory you could run Blazor on Wasmtime?

<comment><USER12> Yes and that's like going out the front door and coming in the back door to go from the Kitchen to the Den.

<comment><USER11> I'm not advocating anybody do that, but it's a fun experiment to think about. I've been intrigued about WebAssembly more than ever when I read a comment here on HN that the specs very generic allowing it to be used even outside the web.

<comment><USER13> I'll take a WebAssembly desktop app over an Electron desktop app any day of the week

<comment><USER14> You can always run webassembly inside of electron :P

Though I agree it could be a nice way to make software avaiable on all platforms.

<comment><USER11> The sweet spot would be something like Sciter supporting WebAssembly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Please don't pollute the web with .NET on the client side too. Do we _really_ need this?

<comment><USER16> MS has had ".NET on the client side" for quite a while now. It's called Silverlight.

<comment><USER15> Silverlight was deprecated.

<comment><USER17> Kind of,

[https://platform.uno/silverlight/](https://platform.uno/silverlight/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comedy club charges per laugh with facial recognition - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29551380

<comment><USER2> Aha this is amazing. Would be a nightmare if you were a bombing comedian and the audience was trying not to laugh at you to save money.</comment>


Rules for Your "About" Page - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/09/five-rules-for-your-about-page.html

<comment><USER2> How do you include third-party comments without it appearing unbelievable/dodgy? And should you include a non-stock photo of yourself?

<comment><USER3> this was my thought. unless the third party comment is from someone famous (which is to say, someone I know of; someone who has a reputation. Recommendations are worthless without a reputation to back them up.) my assumption is that they are made up. Really, they might as well be.

Now, if your marketing to less technical people, or people who are less sophisticated when it comes to seeing through advertising, then maybe quotes from joe random guy right next to some nice looking stock photos would be useful? I know of several real-estate ASPs who did rather well for themselves with the quotes from joe random guy plus stock photos.</comment></comment>


A Collection of Dev Checklists - <AUTHOR> https://devchecklists.com/ <comment><USER2> I must admit that clicking on "Critical Incidents Checklist" and getting "Server Error 500" was quite funny.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      X make sure the backend is up

500 Server Error

<comment><USER4> Seems to have been fixed as of two seconds ago

<comment><USER5> Not anymore though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised that this was built in a way where it's possible to throw a 500 error. This is a simple website. Why isn't it just a couple of static pages?

Here's something for your checklist: Make sure you use an appropriate technology for the problem you're solving.

<comment><USER7> I feel the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While it's down, those checklists are available on github[1]. I wondered whether they are general/reusable, but apparently it's mostly organizational (and rather specific) checklists of a software company as of now.

[1] [https://github.com/vintasoftware](https://github.com/vintasoftware)

<comment><USER9> They are also available on the wayback machine: [http://web.archive.org/web/20190405031607/https://devcheckli...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190405031607/https://devchecklists.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another set of dev checklists that I put together may be of help to some: [https://ch.ckl.st/r/comprehensive-web-application- checklist](https://ch.ckl.st/r/comprehensive-web-application-checklist)

</comment><comment><USER11> Hi folks, I'm Flávio from Vinta. Someone posted this before we made it almost- static and therefore HN-ready, so sorry for the issues! We were planning to launch it with more checklists and a better backend. For now, in case you face issues, please try the original markdown versions on GitHub:

 _Python_

Django Apps Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/django-apps- checklist/blob/...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/django-apps- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Python API Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/python-api- checklist/blob/m...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/python-api- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Celery tasks checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/celery-tasks- checklist/blob...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/celery-tasks- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Production Launch Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/production- launch-checklist...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/production-launch- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

 _Agile_

Pull Requests Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/pull-requests- checklist/blo...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/pull-requests- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Critical Incidents Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/critical- incidents-checklis...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/critical-incidents- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Weekly Meeting Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/weekly-meeting- checklist/bl...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/weekly-meeting- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Sprint Meeting Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/sprint-meeting- checklist/bl...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/sprint-meeting- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Feature Development Workflow [https://github.com/vintasoftware/feature- development-workflo...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/feature-development- workflow/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Feature Card Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/feature-card- creation-check...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/feature-card-creation- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

Bug Card Creation checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/bug-card- creation-checklist...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/bug-card-creation- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

PR Reviewer Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/pr-reviewer- checklist/blob/...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/pr-reviewer- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

 _Starting New Projects_

Landing Page Checklist [https://github.com/vintasoftware/landing-page- creation-check...](https://github.com/vintasoftware/landing-page-creation- checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md)

<comment><USER12> Hello Flávio,

Before I give you feedback on your wonderful set of checklists, wanted to give you some background for this message.

Last Thursday was Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which I cofounded. A day meant for developers and designers to learn about the importance of coding accessibility. This is for the purpose of making it possible for people like my friend Tommy Edison to use the web. Here's a demo of him using a screen reader: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzffnbBex6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzffnbBex6c)

What's really important for accessibility is that sites that focus on teaching coders get accessibility right. It would be great if you added an accessibility checklist as well. For example [https://www.wuhcag.com/wcag- checklist/](https://www.wuhcag.com/wcag-checklist/).

Unfortunately your site has a few accessibility issues as well. A good place to check it is here: [https://wave.webaim.org/](https://wave.webaim.org/) or [https://www.deque.com/axe/](https://www.deque.com/axe/) .

I know coding is hard. So many things to know from security to front end to back end etc... So this is just meant as a friendly message.

Thanks! J

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://devchecklists.com/feature-card- checklist](https://devchecklists.com/feature-card-checklist)

Server error 500

</comment><comment><USER14> It's an unfortunate time to be down

<comment><USER15> An HN kiss!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 500 server error on most checklists

</comment><comment><USER17> I got back, and this site still contains 500 errors.

</comment><comment><USER18> It seems to be down. HN effect? :)

</comment><comment><USER19> having a look at some of these on github ( as the software 500s ), they aren't really checklists, they are more like guides where various points in the guide are simply given a check box.

</comment><comment><USER20> Server is down

<comment><USER21> It's not down, it's broken. Instantly getting a 500 indicates a bed being shit.

If it was down we'd expect 502/503/504</comment></comment>


Which jobs could a 100-year-old do? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34465190 <comment><USER2> The obvious answer would be non-physical jobs. Administrating obscure obsolete boxes running ancient Linux kernels such as v4.3 perhaps? :-) Who will still know these systems by heart 20 years from now?</comment>


Ask HN: Best PHP+MySQL Hosting provider in 2020? - <AUTHOR> What's the latest thoughts on what a good PHP+MySQL hosting provider (so not full blown VPS) is in 2020 for an early stage website + mobile app API backend experiment? (in terms of being cheap, available, good speed+latency and support)? People have mentioned having small Droplets in Digital Ocean, Hetzner being good, Bluehost might be decent, nearlyfreespeech.net looks neat etc.. <comment> open-source-ux Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, did a test of low cost VPS providers in October 2019. Still useful in 2020:

[https://toys.lerdorf.com/low-cost-vps-testing](https://toys.lerdorf.com/low- cost-vps-testing)

Also discussed on Hacker News: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725853)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was hoping to not go down the VPS route - why admin, secure and spend time on Linux when I don't have to. I don't want a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) either though because of the lock-in, but just a simple good 'ol' web host :) But thanks for the link anyway I'll read it.</comment></comment>


Browsers powered by user choice (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2009/02/browsers-powered-by-user-choice.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Second, Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users. This is because Internet Explorer is tied to Microsoft's dominant computer operating system, giving it an unfair advantage over other browsers. Compare this to the mobile market, where Microsoft cannot tie Internet Explorer to a dominant operating system, and its browser therefore has a much lower usage.</comment>


SynergyKit – Back end as a Service for your real–time apps - <AUTHOR> https://synergykit.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Build REST & real–time API in a few seconds and Cut up to 80 % of time and costs by developing your cloud mobile, desktop and web applications.

Could you please provide us a feedback? Thx Mark</comment>


A New Bike Lane That Could Save Lives and Make Cycling More Popular - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/06/a-new-bike-lane-design-that-could-make-biking-more-popular-and-save-lives/ <comment><USER2> Interesting ideas, though I can't imagine it getting a lot of support in the US, since it prioritizes bikes over cars.

Chicago recently added separated bike lanes to one of its streets, and it's definitely much more enjoyable and less stressful riding on that street than the rest of the city. In fact, whether or not I can spend most of my commute in that bike lane plays a huge factor in deciding if I'm going to bike to my destination. Unfortunately, even that bike line is flawed. For one, it relies on painted lines to separate the lane, which as the video in the article says, isn't that great a solution, since it doesn't physically keep the cars out. Taxis are the worst offenders and tend to treat the bike lane as their personal parking space.

Chicago also implemented dedicated traffic signals for bikes, as the article recommends, which sound amazing in theory. Unfortunately, most cars seem to completely ignore them and drive as they would on non-protected streets. For example, when the bike lane is green, the turn signal for cars is red. I rarely see cars actually obey that red light and regularly turn into oncoming bike traffic. Even worse is pedestrians who view the bike lane as an extension of the sidewalk, and will wait in the bike lane to cross the street.

These problems won't be fixed until protected bike lanes are the norm, rather than the exception, and following bike lane laws are taught in driver's ed and heavily enforced by police.

Unfortunately, nobody really cares about bikers. The New York Times had a great article last year about how hitting bicyclists isn't considered that big a deal[1].

1: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok- to...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill- cyclists.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><USER3> Belligerent, law-breaking drivers will foil most traffic flow schemes.

<comment><USER4> s/drivers/cyclists/

<comment><USER5> [http://www.sticksinspokes.com](http://www.sticksinspokes.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason people don't ride bikes in the US is not because unprotected bike lanes are scary. It's because our cities have been laid out with the premise in mind that everyone will have cars. We have disparate clusters/districts related to activities like 'work', 'play', 'shop', and 'sleep', rather than having these constructs evenly interspersed. We have supermarkets instead of markets. Monoliths instead of distributed systems.

<comment><USER7> We also have bad weather. Right now, where I live at least, a top 10 metro, it's around 90-95degF and 80-90% humidity or it's raining. Suppose I decide to ride to work. Google puts that at a 1 hour and 13 to 1 hour 23 minute ride depending on my route. It sucks but it's doable.

Now I arrive at work and I'm soaked either from sweat or rain. Now what? I can stink up the office with my B.O. all day while I desperately try to dry my clothes. Or I go through the indignity of getting to work, waiting an hour to cool-down and dry off, then trying to change out of my riding kit into some decent professional work clothes in a dirty stall in the men's room after giving myself a paper towel bath in the sink.

Then at the end of a long work-day, reverse this absurd course of events? Now instead of a 10 minute drive and 8.5 hours at the office followed by a 10 minute drive home (total time commitment under 9 hours), I've succeeded in turning my 9 hours of work time into a 10.5-11.5 hours of work time so I can put myself dangerously out in traffic, exposed to the elements and be uncomfortable the entire day and can't go anywhere else once I'm there?

Even if the stars aligned and I had door-to-door bike trails, I wouldn't partake in this uncivilized madness. I'd much rather just get home earlier, _not_ smelling like exhaust fumes and body odor and go do a leisurely jog around my neighborhood park for a half hour or go to one of the 3 gyms next to my house where I can ride a stationary bike in a temperature controlled environment while watching TV.

Edit: for the record, I support dedicated bike lanes and infrastructure almost everywhere because of all the side benefits it brings. But I'm also not treating it as a religious issue, mindful of acute practicalities that explain the world better than assuming one of the most technologically sophisticated countries on the planet doesn't like to ride bikes to work because they're too stupid to do so.

<comment><USER8> Because in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo or Singapore the weather is amazing all the time - this must be a reason for all the bikers there...

You prefer comfort over bikes - we get it. But bicycling is not "uncivilized madness". Its common way of transportation in most of the world (with exception of majority of the US). Healthy as well (much more healthy than gym).

<comment><USER7> In four total weeks in London, I can count on 1 hand the number of cyclists I saw.

Never been to Tokyo or Singapore, but if they're anything like Seoul, where I've spent months, riding a bike in the streets is both playing Russian Roulette and virtually impossible on account of the bad terrain (and for pretty much all the same reasons I brought up earlier). You also have almost no place to store them given the size of the average apartment. Outside of dedicated parks, I've almost never seen a person on a bike their either.

I've been to dozens of countries on almost every continent, and bikes are a very uncommon mode of transportation. That's why places like the Netherlands, where it is common, are so notable. If it was common, we wouldn't care.

Rather than being snarky, what's your suggestion for overcoming these practical and social issues?

<comment><USER9> Wow really? You spent 4 weeks in London and never saw a cyclist? Were you out in the suburbs? I spent a bunch of time in London and saw a TON of cyclists in central London. Many of them took the train out to where I was staying too (outside Brixton).

I also don't buy the "small apartments" thing. We live in a 650sq ft apartment and have 4 bikes hung up on our wall. Where there's a will, there's a way.

<comment><USER7> Not surprisingly, being London, the weather was lousy.

650 sq ft is a pretty large place by Korean standards. I expect by Tokyo or Singapore as well.

<comment><USER9> It was grey and lousy when I was there too :-) Still a lot of cyclists including my old coworkers.

I'd dare say we could fit 4 bikes in a much smaller place too. It's not the size of the place that's at debate here though.

<comment><USER7> It was so strange that I even remember one of the few riders I saw because he was using the DLR to get near the tower. I was curious if you could bring bikes on it and that answered my question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are we finally deciding to learn from the Dutch? The Netherlands has been doing this for a long time. I honestly don't know how long, but I'd expect someone from NL to read this, and have a _yawn_ \- you don't say?! kind of reaction. :)

I remember when Portland was called one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US, and its transit was also one of the top-rated.

After I spent ~2 years in Amsterdam, I think both biking and transit in Portland are a joke, in comparison.

EDIT: changed wording for clarity

<comment><USER11> As a Dutch person, I think the US has a long way to go, and these proposed bike paths won't really help all that much. I also feel that the US and the Netherlands can't be compared when it comes to biking. Some of the problems I see with biking in the U.S.

* The speed limit in residential zones in the Netherlands is always 50 km/h (31 mph). This doesn't seem to be the case in the U.S.

* Bicyclists are considered full first-class participants in traffic on the road in the Netherlands.

* We have no policy of allowing turning-on-right here. It seems like a dangerous thing to have if bicyclists are involved in traffic. These new bike lanes might help with this.

* In accidents involving both a car and a bicyclist, the burden of proof always lies with the driver of the car, not the bicyclist.

* Our cities are way, way smaller and arranged completely differently. Everything I need in daily life is within a 3 mile radius of my house. Convenience stores, clothes shops, electronics stores, restaurants, etc. I've never been to the U.S, but I wonder if that's the case over there.

I think the biggest problem the U.S has is that car drivers and law enforcement don't give a shit about bicyclists.

It also seems to me that the people who bike in the U.S. take it _way_ to seriously. I could very well be wrong on this; I'm not intimately familiar with bike culture in the U.S., but to me it seems you all ride extremely fancy bikes, work up a sweat on each ride and change clothes and shower every time you hop on or off a bike. That seems like a huge effort, and if I had to do it every time I took my bike, I'd probably just say "screw this, I'll take the car". In comparison, when I commute to work, I just get on my cheap $200 bike (not the cheapest category either) in my work clothes and slowly paddle to work. If there are hills, which we don't get much in the Netherlands of course, or if there are strong head-winds, which we _do_ get a lot, I simply paddle slower. I could be completely mistaken of course, so please do point that out, but biking in the U.S. seems like a very tiring experience.

 _edit_ Some more differences:

* Round-abouts in the Netherlands are everywhere. Bikes and pedestrians have the right of way on these. Stop-light intersections are annoying and are easily avoided in the Netherlands.

* Nearly every city center (the shopping zones) is car-free in the Netherlands.

* The roads in our cities are layed out completely differently. There are usually a few main roads with heavy car traffic and lots of smaller side roads for destination-specific traffic. These side roads are much less crowded, and less car-friendly. That means cars generally stay on the "doorgaand verkeer" (passing-through traffic) roads. These generally have separate bike paths. This works because cars and bikes don't have to intermix all the time on those roads, unlike the grid-like road system in U.S. cities.

<comment><USER12> I use to live in Cambridge, which seemed to ban right-on-red citywide (more or less). This made the roads much safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and automobiles.

I think you're right about some cyclists in the US taking it WAAY to seriously. Because they're such a marginalized group, they define themselves by their difference. It's the American way :)

<comment><USER13> There's nothing inherently wrong with right on red; it's a _massive_ fuel saving. The only issue is if it's allowed without stopping first.

<comment><USER11> Ever since the introduction of roundabouts, car-on-cyclist accidents have risen in the Netherlands. Why? Because when a car leaves the roundabout, it basically has to take an almost blind right turn, where it's very difficult to see a cyclist approaching from the side / behind. Just a few months ago I was hit by a car in this exact scenario. It happens about two to three times a week where a car will not spot me in time when it leaves the roundabout (I cross about 50 roundabouts a week). I know this, so I adjust my cycling speed at roundabouts to near-nothing.

I'm not convinced right on red doesn't pose a dangerous situation, even if cars come to a full stop first. In a right on red scenario, the bicyclist always approaches from behind, in the blind spot of the mirror. I'm not saying the right on red policy should be abolished, just as I don't want roundabouts to be abolished in the Netherlands (I love those things). Just that, as a cyclist, it's primarily _your_ duty to ensure cars have seen you. Let's hope that as cycling increases in the U.S., motorists become more aware of cyclists in the street.

<comment><USER12> It shouldn't be incumbent upon the cyclist to ensure motorists see her, beyond doing the things required by law. Cars are bigger, faster, and there's more of 'em. They need to watch out for everyone that is more vulnerable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is more or less how they do it all over Germany. Parked cars next to traffic buffering bikes and then peds all the way on the inside. Much safer and more sensible design. The key word being design, not hacked on after thought that reduces the number of lanes for traffic.

<comment><USER15> If the bike lane were sidewalk-side of the parking lane in USA, 10+% of parked cars would intrude on bike lane. :-(

<comment><USER16> not if it has a curb or planters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the Dutch example the video cites is more a roundabout like this: [http://thisoldcity.com/sites/default/files/images/netherland...](http://thisoldcity.com/sites/default/files/images/netherlands_bike_lane_rbt.jpg) which also incorporates the typical roundabout center island, and of course, no confusing light signaling system.

Edit: as a note, some people are concerned about losing lanes, but if the lanes are (almost) always moving, and there is no redundant middle left-turn lane, you don't need as many lanes, freeing up the space for sidewalks and bike paths.

<comment><USER17> Here is an old video about the Dutch system: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA). Looks pretty similar to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is not a thing that can be changed overnight. It takes decades to update the city infrastructure, but the city planners can take small steps in the right direction each year.

Take a look at this short film from 2009 from my home town of how we re- invented the biking culture:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtX8qiC_rXE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtX8qiC_rXE)

Edit: My comment is more a reaction to the general theme of the comments on this post, rather than a comment to the linked article

</comment><comment><USER19> _From a cyclist 's perspective, intersections are basically death traps, where right-turning drivers threaten collisions at any moment._

A bike can travel on the right near an intersection only when it's passing traffic that is _completely stopped_. If traffic is moving _at all_ , you shouldn't be on the right, you should be _in the lane_. If you still want to pass, pass on the left, although if there's only a single lane of traffic in each direction you should probably just ride in the lane and wait to pass until after the intersection.

I appreciate attempts to solve real problems like this, but I doubt this design will be an improvement. The _most_ dangerous thing a cyclist can do at an intersection is blast off the sidewalk into the crosswalk. Such a cyclist is more dangerous than properly-crossing cyclists, because from motorists' perspectives he appears out of nowhere instead of simply continuing to travel in the street. He is more dangerous than pedestrians, because he's moving much faster. This new design appears to force _all_ cyclists into that situation: traveling quickly and appearing, to motorists, out of nowhere.

Another problem with this design is it prevents large trucks from turning right.

<comment><USER20> Not sure of your familiarity with biking in major metro's, but separated bike lanes are getting more and more common. These bike lanes put you on the right side of the road and cars often times turn right into the path of the bike lane without looking for bikers.

<comment><USER21> My city is getting more of these and I always check before turning right. But last week I witnessed a car-bike collision that I'm unsure how to ever avoid: traffic in my lane was backed up to a standstill, but oncoming cars were flowing freely and one took a left into a restaurant parking entrance (between two stopped cars in my lane) just as a bike was passing the stopped cars in my lane on the right (NOT in a designated bike lane but even if it was, the left- turning car would have had no way of seeing the bike coming because all cars were stopped and blocking view.) Bike hit side of turning car at full speed. Neither saw each other coming. Bicyclist was seemingly ok and kept riding after 30 seconds. Do you just outlaw left turns in the presence of bike lanes?

As I said in this case there was no bike lane and my understanding is that this is a known danger and the cyclist should not have been passing all the stopped cars on the right. See example #8 on this page: [http://bicyclesafe.com/](http://bicyclesafe.com/)

<comment><USER15> Indeed, passing on the right is unsafe for bikers and for car-on-car scenarios as well

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd love to see something like this paired with a project like this that takes parks and parklets and treats them like nodes in a graph and converting part of the streets into dedicated park lanes forming green edges between the green nodes. Taken all together, this turns the city into a veritable park.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/721576231926...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/72157623192662899/show)

<comment><USER23> Read about Singapore's "Park Connector Network." It's more or less what you're describing, and it's already (partially!) implemented.

<comment><USER24> Most of the PCN I ride on isn't converted from streets. Usually, it's part of a park or a sidewalk. So it's pretty much like biking on a sidewalk, including having to dodge pedestrians who zig zag around while staring at their phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Falbo proposes that at big intersections bike lanes should have their own signals to synchronize movement.

I'm not sure if this is the same in the US, but at least here (UK), cyclists are extremely infamous for ignoring traffic lights, to the frustration and occasional fear of both pedestrians and drivers alike.

In the case of a car, they always have to use extreme caution when a cyclist is coming up to a junction as there's probably a 50% chance they will blast straight through a red light without slowing, and if you hit them, you're going to be the one they expect people to blame. In the case of a pedestrian, you always have to look out for ones who do similar things at crossings, in addition to treating the pavement as a cycle lane in roads without a dedicated lane.

I know that both represent a minority (albeit a large one) and I personally know many responsible cyclists, but I think perception of cycling in general (and so concessions made) won't change until the irresponsible ones are a thing of the past.

<comment> jack-r-abbit It is very common in the US as well. Cyclists are meant to have equal right to the road and, in turn, are meant to follow the vehicle traffic rules. We have lots of campaigns for drivers to "share the road" and "watch for cyclists". But I have yet to see a campaign imploring cyclists to actually follow vehicle traffic rules. Occasionally, I've seen a story about a cyclist getting a speeding ticket and it is usually met with much criticism of the police. I have never heard of a cyclist getting a ticket for blowing a stop sign/light.

<comment><USER13> Same situation here - I think it has happened once or twice ever for simple traffic violations; most action has been when they actually run someone down on the pavement or crash into the side of a car after running a red light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I dont know if its april fools, but this is how all bike lanes are in the Netherlands, it works and already has for tens of years..

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o)

</comment><comment><USER12> You all have heard of sneckdowns, right? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneckdown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneckdown)

Road geometry goes a long way to influence driver speed and perception.

<comment><USER4> "the term first appeared on Twitter on January 2, 2014 at 11:19pm EST" :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Major problem with people on bikes in the cities is not safety caused by cars (its issue, but not major for regular biker that drives from a to b at regular speed). Its the fact that most bikers ignore laws. They drive through red lights, use side walks as their own, change lines like crazy... I am a biker myself and I see first hand all this people getting themselves in dangerous situations by ignoring road rules and then complaining how bad and ignorant car drivers are. Bicycle bays wont help much here...

<comment><USER26> I used to blame other cyclists for this, but at some level I understand. After getting buzzed by yet another car while going downhill at 30 mph on a 25 mph road, and then getting pulled out in front of by a car off a side street, who assumed that I was moving slowly. I then got to a stop light that didn't change in my favor due to the sensors not being quite sensitive enough to pick up a bike which forced me to make a decision between running the (traffic- less) red light or fully unclipping, and shuffling my way 20 feet and up a 6 inch curb to the pedestrian button.

While technically I may be a "vehicle" in the eyes of the law, in reality, I'm between a pedestrian and a "real vehicle" without the benefits of either. Add to this strange intersections with traffic, where the cars have a stop sign (side road) and the bike path traffic have the right of way (in theory). Or worse, places where bike paths strangely end leaving a biker unfamiliar with the area unsure as to how to proceed. Adopting seemingly inconsistent and strange behavior is the only way to make cycling feasible in many places. The adoption of standard ways for interaction with traffic and better signage would decrease the cognitive load required to cycle and produce more consistent cyclist/vehicle interactions.

Regardless of my dislike of certain car behavior, such as overtaking without giving space, and misjudging speed, I much prefer riding on speed limited (25mph-35mph) streets to bike paths simply because I know how to act like a car, and people generally expect me to act like a car.

<comment><USER4> I try to sympathize with reasonable cyclists like you, but I can't help but think of it as swimming with sharks and complaining about it being dangerous. Humans aren't designed to live in the ocean. Roads (the ocean) are filled with cars (sharks). People who swim with sharks do so in cages (cars). Forego the cage at your own risk.

A more reasonable solution, as strange as it might seem, would be to have elevated or underground bike tunnels. Cars and bikes SHOULD be completely separated. Trying to cram them into the same space is asking for trouble.

<comment><USER26> But you're assuming a car first approach. And on a high-way, I agree with you. It's a car's world, but in a city, or town on a non-major thoroughfare, cars and bikes should be able to co-exist peacefully. To stretch your analogy a bit, low speed roadways would be like swimming in non-shark infested waters. Sure, you are liable to see car but you shouldn't feel like you are in danger when your are passed by the car, and on the other side, drivers shouldn't feel like they are within inches of killing a cyclist when they use a road legally and responsibly. (I add responsibly there because many drivers will complain that they feel they have to pay more attention when the drive near cyclists. I find this a wholly unconvincing argument, if you aren't paying attention while driving you aren't driving responsibly)

I also don't have any desire to use a car frequently. I shouldn't be forced to resort to a car to travel anything less than 15 miles due to fear or lack of infrastructure. And we face a chicken and egg problem. It would be great if we could have elevated bikeways tomorrow, but the truth of the matter is we should be encouraging bike use now not hypothetically in a utopian future. Because without proven use, there's no way major bike infrastructure projects will happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why are motorcycles and mopeds never part of the discussion? Better fuel economy versus a car. No need to revamp basic infrastructure because they keep up with traffic. And, at least for motorcycles, a requirement to carry insurance and generally accept personal responsibility for one's safety instead of demanding bogeymen cagers change three generations of urban habits. For example: killed on a bicycle implies stupid car; killed on a motorcycle implies idiot motorcyclist. I see no difference.

</comment><comment><USER27> As a long time bike commuter, I've never liked the "protected" bike lanes put in in Chicago. The few streets they work WELL on were already great cycling routes before they had the lanes, and the other streets they haven't worked well on they are often repurposed by whatever entity decides to repurpose them.

Several of them are somehow converted into school children drop off zones for cars during the morning (i.e., at the time that people should be commuting on them they're made even more dangerous - Des Plaines Ave near the church school for example) And of course despite multiple calls out to advocacy groups and local leadership, nothing seems to beat the "for the children" argument, despite the fact that what it's really doing is "for the traffic" more than anything.

That's one of many examples though, but the short of it is - things like protected bike lanes ignore the real problems in urban commuting, of which there are essentially four, in my opinion:

1 - Traffic is too fast - The basic speed limit unless posted otherwise, in the city of Chicago is 30mph. this speed limit is nearly NEVER enforced by police (Hello free revenue stream?) and traffic down major streets regularly goes at 50+ mph.

2 - Traffic is too slow - congested streets cause just as many problems as speeding. Being in a car when you're stuck in stop light to stop light traffic is infuriating. People are constantly looking for a move they can make to avoid it. Even with a bike lane, cars will constantly try to pass on the right, use what's supposed to be parking to make moves towards turning early, etc. This has been the source of my own collisions with automobiles 4/5 times I've had them in 10 years.

3 - Lack of a safe place to stow the bike. Any respectable bike will cost $500.00 and up. Sure, you can get some used single speed or old ten speed for less, but walk into any shop, and you won't see much below that. Locking those outside, especially on a regular schedule, makes them not last very long. (not to mention weather, which while often fine to do a short ride in, all day exposed to can wreak havoc on even a great bike).

4 - The whole, stinky at work, work stigma, aging building infrastructure problem. Sure, a few downtown offices have showers, but it's certainly the exception (spoken as a developer who's worked in many offices over the years) and in some companies being "that guy" seems to have it's own negative connotations.

Want to spend that bike-focused infrastructure money well? Start offering tax breaks to companies providing showers (I'd hear this was a thing once, but never found any proof of it), or safe places to store bicycles indoors. Want to create more of that bike-focused infrastructure money? Start enforcing speed limit laws that exist already, and start looking more towards traffic patterns for cars as a whole, and stick to shared lanes and painted lanes.

<comment><USER9> I both agree and disagree with you. As a bike commuter in San Francisco, which is a much more bike friendly city than New York where I used to commute to Union Square from Park Slope, I definitely experience the "traffic too fast" thing. I am lucky to have an office now where I can store my bike in our office (we have dedicated bike parking inside on the 11th floor where our office is), but I also know that is rare. However, it does make it more likely that I'll ride to work (and do every day).

Regarding getting to work sweaty, why not ride slower? Sure, you might live in a hotter place than I do, but if you reduce your speed you'll sweat less. I think many of us on bikes are still getting out of the lead foot mentality of driving a car.

Traffic too fast can be controlled. Traffic too slow? That's one that can be solved by separated bike lanes. Look at the Netherlands and how they solve it. I personally hate the combined bike/traffic sections of Market St in San Francisco. Those are the most terrifying 7 blocks of my commute.

<comment><USER27> Disclosure here - I'm a racer, own some 10 odd bikes for various disciplines, but realize my 4 mile commute to the loop every day does nothing to further that. It's essentially the "garbage miles" your typical racer talks about. As a result, I typically ride at a pace into work that is focused on not sweating as much as possible, but there are 4 months out of the year that it's so cold out that I've got to put on enough clothes that unless I get it JUST right (almost impossible in chicago) I have to err on the side of being too hot, and 2-3 other months where no matter if I'm wearing my fancy near-mesh high tech Assos jersey or not, barely going at a pace to beat walking, I'm going to be soaking wet from the heat.

As far as "Separated" I guess it becomes important to define separated. If there were physical curbs between, I could see it - but where I have seen that those tend to become even more pedestrian travelled, but even the flexible post at interval type ones, I've seen most of those destroyed in the first year they'd been put in by plows, UPS drivers, you name it. It's a bit of a tall ask to put in full on curbs, as much as I think it could work. Most of our major downtown streets aren't much wider than SF's smaller streets, with parking on both sides.

<comment><USER9> Interesting points for sure. At some point I just say that sweating after a commute is something we have to deal with (same as getting fat by driving a car :-)). I'd rather bike and be sweaty than fat and driving a car (yes, I know not all car commuters are fat, but in generalities...).

The separated thing is super interesting to me. Obviously we couldn't do it on all streets, like the very skinny SF ones you talk about (I live near many of them in the Lower Haight). On those, which are not major thoroughfares, mixing bikes and cars is fine. But when it comes to a 4-6 lane street like Market St (or some in Chicago), separated makes sense. The traffic will go around if the street is less amenable to them. It's the same argument as taking down a freeway through a city. SF did it both at the Embarcardero (well, that one was by natural causes aka an earthquake), but then also at Octavia. Traffic slowed, neighborhoods revitalized. Studies have been done showing that taking these down doesn't greatly increase driving times, and often the traffic driving them doesn't actually stop in the city that they pass through. Instead they pollute the air and leave. Strong argument for taking them down, IMO.

But I've digressed. I agree there are challenges and never a one-size-fits-all solution. But there are solutions that are not currently being put into place that benefit the vast majority.

</rant>

<comment><USER28> Your association with being fat and driving is idiotic. A commute to work on a bike is not an intense activity so it's still very easy for overweight people to do. About 1/5 of the bikers I see (South Bay) are overweight. 95% of them I see commuting are not exerting themselves so they aren't getting meaningful exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Looks like a death trap to me. My problem when cycling is the j-hook when cars pass me and then turn right. That's killed at least two cyclists in the bay area in the past couple years. This intersection makes the problem worse -- it moves cyclists where they are less likely to be seen. Better to add a handful of "right turn must merge to bike lane" signs which is the law but poorly followed.

(Other states may vary from CA)

<comment><USER30> I saw it happen to someone two days ago crossing the Caltrain tracks and going over Alma on Meadow in Palo Alto. White van went past the cyclist and then turned right into him -- luckily he just hit his front wheel (though the van drove off, ignorant of everything).

It happens all the time and it's a function of poor design. I'm not sure what the right fix is (preventing right turns on some Alma crossings? Forced right turn lane to the right of a green lane?). With this intersection at least the cyclists start out ahead of the traffic when waiting on a red -- but if the light is green and a cyclist is at the speed of traffic then this design does nothing to prevent right hooks...

<comment><USER4> The solution is simple:

1\. License and insure all cyclists on public streets. Equal rights, equal responsibilities. 2\. Require all cyclists to stop at all intersections, no matter what. Any cyclist who runs into a vehicle is at fault by definition.

This is the only realistic solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Have we ever considered underground biking lanes? I wonder if they could be fairly shallow compared to subways, and would definitely be safer than the proposed option above by entirely avoiding conflict with cars. Better even, with underground biking lanes, we could try to build infrastructure to avoid weather problems. Snow, rain, flooding and cold are the problems I'm referring to.

<comment><USER32> Digging tunnels is super expensive and you have to take care of lighting and ventilation.

<comment><USER33> That got me thinking. What if instead of tunnels, you dug channels in place of sidewalks and put grates along the top. Basically tunnels under the sidewalk except you don't have to worry about the weight of earth or cars on top of the tunnel--just pedestrians. You do the digging much cheaper from the surface, and it wouldn't require ventilation.

<comment><USER32> Digging is still expensive and now you have people spitting on cyclists and raining dirt from their shoes and you prevent women from wearing skirts.

<comment><USER33> Excellent points. OK so the grating is solid on the top with mesh on the sides for ventilation.

It was just a half baked idea, and now that I think about it drainage would be a pretty big problem as well. If the drains got clogged it could turn into a death trap pretty fast in a heavy downpour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This design is like all others that involve separated, segregated facilities: Cyclists are at extreme risk of getting right hooked by turning drivers who will assume they have the supreme right of way even if they do see the bicyclists they mow over. Little tweaks like moving the stopping positions around have no effect on oblivious cagers.

</comment><comment><USER35> Sort of reminds me of the buffered bike lanes in Portland, Oregon up on Broadway on the East side. [https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/50346](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/50346)

</comment><comment><USER36> So his solution for cyclists feeling uncomfortable is to take away a lane of traffic at every intersection? And he wants a special light for cyclists to proceed while all the cars are stopped? This would be a traffic nightmare.

<comment><USER37> I agree that the taking away the lane would likely be a problem for traffic, the special light for cyclists works very well over here in The Netherlands. Once every few minutes the green light turns on for all cyclists and is red for all cars -- cyclists can manage having a "free for all" while crossing the intersection where cars cannot.

Before you say "but that means that there is less time for cars to cross the intersection", consider the fact that a lot of the people using bikes would otherwise have to use other means of transportation, resulting (at least partially) in reduced traffic.

<comment><USER38> Does the bike free for all really work that well on popular routes? In my old bike commute there were a couple spots where lots of cyclists would pile up (draw bridges, stop lights on a bike path) and I can't imagine having that many cyclists having to wait and then crossing each others direction of travel at every intersection.

<comment><USER37> Well most of the time it does. Whether to go for a free for all or more "complex" strategies depends upon the complexity of the intersection.

For a lot of the less popular intersections, free for alls work good enough and trying to be clever would be a premature optimization. In other situations, there are generally two approaches:

* implement a more complex routing strategy that can route both cyclists and cars concurrently; an example would be [1], where the blue line is how the cyclist should travel.

* avoid the intersection al together with tunnels[2] or bridges[3] -- this is the most desirable strategy, but probably the most expensive one. It is used fairly often in popular-by-cycle cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam.

[1] [http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/3652/kruispunt2pz8.jpg](http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/3652/kruispunt2pz8.jpg)

[2] [http://www.n246.nl/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/4398.jpg](http://www.n246.nl/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/4398.jpg)

[3] [http://www.provincie.drenthe.nl/publish/pages/72918/afbeeldi...](http://www.provincie.drenthe.nl/publish/pages/72918/afbeelding1.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seems like a fine design, but doesn't it require a lot of space? It looks like you would have to widen existing roads by at least 10 ft or so, which wouldn't be practical for a lot of roads in the city.

<comment><USER40> So, if more people are on bikes, less lanes are needed for cars.

<comment><USER36> Bikes are not a viable replacement for cars for most people in most cities.

<comment><USER20> They are in the major east coast cities and some west coast cities. I'm sure they aren't _currently_ viable in plenty of cities, but that doesn't mean the infrastructure shouldn't be built to allow for bikes.

<comment><USER36> Are you going to take your kids to school on a bike? Ride in your business suit? Go to Ikea or Costco? Going to ride in from the suburbs?

Bikes work as primary transportation for active 20-somethings who live in cities near work. They do not work for the vast majority of people, and never will. Wanting to make cities bike-friendly is fine. Wanting to do so at the expense of the 80% of the population that needs a car is addle-brained.

<comment><USER41> I live in one of the worst cities for cycling in the US and I do all of those things regularly.

I bike to Costco and Ikea all the time, but sure you do have to get big stuff delivered unless you have a trailer ([https://www.bikesatwork.com/blog/move- it-by-bike-moving-serv...](https://www.bikesatwork.com/blog/move-it-by-bike- moving-service)). I used to commute to downtown from the suburbs daily. When I was young my dad used to bike me to daycare/school all the time. If you need to be somewhere in a suit you bike in pants + undershirt and add the rest when you get there.

All of these things are possible, admittedly there is a real limitation of needing to live within a 15-20 mile radius of work. The best data I can find suggests about 23% of commuters have a commute of more than 20 miles. So I would say cycling is a perfectly reasonable solution for the majority of people.

<comment><USER42> > When I was young my dad used to bike me to daycare/school all the time.

How did all your siblings fit? Or did your Dad make multiple trips?

> live within a 15-20 mile radius of work

You really think people want to bike 20 miles? That's going to cost you about 2,000 calories (round trip). That's completely unrealistic for most people. They would have to double their food, plus end up exhausted every day at work.

And that's for perfectly flat terrain!

(The weirdest part is the extra food costs more than the equivalent gasoline, and produces more CO2.)

<comment><USER41> My dad used a bike seat for me, which was doable since my brother and I were different ages and weren't often going to the same place. There are of course bike trailers for hauling 2-3 children around and don't forget pedicabs which regularly haul around 3-4 adults.

After you get used to it you don't really feel exhausted. Yes commuting 20 miles by bike is definitely an upper limit, at least for me, but I do know people with longer bike commutes.

So assuming you fuel yourself with pure beef, the most unsustainable food I could find, you'd need about .85 kg to get 2000 calories. On average the production of beef releases about 13.3 kg of CO2 per kg of beef, so we're looking at 11.305 kg of CO2 per commute. The average CO2 produced for a medium sized car is about .5 kg per mile. So for the same 40 mile commute you're looking at around 20 kg of emissions. So even if you choose to only eat the most unsustainable food it's still better than driving. If you switch to pork or poultry you can reduce that 11.305 kg of CO2 by about 75%. Cars just don't even come close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is not "new" as other commenters have pointed out.

I'm a proponent of the floating parking lane we've adopted in NYC as it also keeps cyclists away from pedestrians and melds nicely when a bike line ends.

</comment><comment><USER44> How do you do right hand turns on red in this? Oh, it's actually worse -- it basically means every 2 lane road is now a one lane road. Also, you're going to slow down every intersection for cars and pedestrians by a minute or two per cycle?

Seems highly unlikely to be something people support unless bikes are >25% of all traffic in an area. I don't know anywhere in the US where that's the case. (Maybe on a university campus or something?)

<comment><USER20> It's a catch 22. Less people ride bikes when the infrastructure sucks.

In Washington, DC, 4.1 percent of working residents regularly commuted by bike last year; it was 3.8 percent in San Francisco, 2.3 percent in Philadelphia, 2 percent in Boston, 1.6 percent in Chicago, and 1 percent in NYC. NYC increased from .6 percent to 1 percent over the course of a few years by investing more heavily in bike infrastructure.

One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers are for daily commuters. When you look at casual riders, people running errands, etc, and then hone in on certain neighborhoods the numbers can sky rocket. The Brooklyn chapter of Transportation Alternatives has done mode (of transportation) counts in certain neighborhoods and in many areas count 20-30% of all traffic on the street as being bikes, going over 50% in some neighborhoods for some sprints.

<comment><USER45> Japan might be a partial counter-example to that.... There's traditionally been almost no dedicated bike routes or even lanes in Japan, although this has ( _very_ slowly) been improving a little in recent years and there's fairly extensive bike _parking_ infrastructure in many places. Despite this, bike usage is _very_ high in many parts of Japan, with numbers dwarfing anyplace in the U.S. (~20% mode share in some places).

However, the situations aren't entirely comparable, as typical bike usage in Japan is fairly local (to local shops or between home and the station), with public transport being used for longer trips (thus the emphasis on bike parking around stations and other major destinations). Japanese urban layout, which clusters housing and commerce around the nodes of an extremely large and dense public transport network, tends to encourage such usage.

Americans, as I understand it are more likely to view bicycling as an _alternative_ to public transport rather than as an adjunct to it, and thus want faster speeds and more extensive bike routes.

<comment><USER44> I don't think I'd ever consider taking a bike on BART, even though my commute is essentially optimal for bike + BART (15 min walk, BART for 10+15min, 15 min walk, each way, with SF commuter check paying the $3.30 each way fare). I'd rather BART+walk (which I tend to do on game days), or drive (which sucks because it's $4-6 bridge toll + $10 car operating costs + $12-90 to park, but can be done in 18-30 minutes each way, depending on traffic).

Probably buying a street motorcycle as soon as my health insurance kicks in, though, which solves all of this.

<comment><USER45> People in Japan don't bring bikes on public transport either (it would be utterly unworkable given the crowding levels), but the transport network is generally structured so that most work/shopping destinations are a reasonable walk from transit. So it's typically only the "home" end where people use bikes, and suburban stations can have massive amounts of bike parking to accommodate people leaving their bikes there while they go off to work or play. [There's parking for many thousands of bikes around the biggest station near my house (distributed amongst many locations of varying sizes, some underground or multi-story)....and no car parking at all.]

Because of that greater transit-network density in the more central areas, bike usage is generally greater in the suburbs and slightly less dense areas of the city.

<comment><USER44> I assume bike-theft in Japan is lower than in a place like Oakland (or even normal parts of the USA), so they can have high density vs. high-security bike parking, too.

<comment><USER45> So far as I'm aware, yes that's true... There is some theft but I think not so much the pervasive professional theft that seems to be an issue in some other places. The sort of giant bike lock which is pretty much standard equipment in the U.S. is something you almost never see in Japan....

When people lock their bikes at all, it's mostly with very simple locks, thin cable or just a sort of built-in thing that stops the wheels from rotating. That's enough to discourage very casual (or accidental) theft.

I guess partly it's cultural, but also compared to the modern U.S., I think expensive high-end bikes are less common in Japan, so maybe bike theft is also less profitable. [Though I have seen obviously very expensive carbon fiber road bikes and the like just locked up in an alleyway with a thin cheap cable lock...!]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Munich has similar bike lanes and it seems to work out pretty well, though I only spent a few days there.

<comment><USER47> Every bigger intersection has a similar system in Munich. Works pretty well. But in Munich (and Germany as a whole), the road-hierarchy is "the weaker one is right", thus car drivers must be very careful not to run over pedestrians and bicycles.

When you take driving lessons in Germany, an essential part of it is how to handle traffic around you. There are many intersections you need to watch out for pedestrians and bicycles, when turning left, and the hard part is, sometimes bicycles drive faster than cars!

But when you have a lot of bicycles, this also gives room for new ideas like mobile repair services: [http://www.startnext.de/en/harryandmarv](http://www.startnext.de/en/harryandmarv)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Like many pointed out, I didn't get this straight away, since this has been done before.

</comment><comment><USER49> So the big idea is to remove a car lane and give it to bikes. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why not just give bike lanes a pedestrian crossing button?

</comment><comment><USER51> Url changed from [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/if-your-city-had- bi...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/if-your-city-had-bike-lanes- these-would-you-ride-more-1-180951812), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER52> Another short term improvement until self-driving cars take over. Asking for better bike lanes is like asking for a faster horse. I'd even consider modern public transportation to fit that bill although I recognize that puts me in a minority viewpoint.

<comment><USER26> Explain to me how automated transportation replaces biking?

<comment><USER53> He didn't say it replaces biking. He implied that it replaces the need for bike lanes.

I can see that as being plausible, assuming self-driving cars become required. We won't need bike lanes to provide safety for cyclists then because the self- driving cars will be good at not running into cyclists.

<comment><USER26> If that's the case I disagree, even if self driving cars were flawless I would want to have signage that makes my interaction with the self driving cars obvious and obviously safe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> In a city with half-decent public transportation, bikes don't take cars off the road, they take people off the trains/buses and pedestrians off the sidewalk (on nice days).

I've lived and/or worked in Boston/Cambridge for 20 years and can't think of a single person who ever took a bike that would have otherwise driven (as evidenced by the fact that they would take the train during the winter or bad weather).

<comment><USER55> This is probably true for marginal cases, but I expect it's not true on average.

Bikes, trains, buses and walkable neighborhoods all offer alternatives to cars. If a city only had the last three but not bikes, I expect more people would have cars.

Some people uses cases would be fully covers by the final three, but some might find it more difficult and drive.

For example, I live in Montreal. I walk, take metros, and bike. I don't like buses, and can't be bothered to figure out schedules.

Without bikes, I'd just walk and metro. But if I didn't live near a metro, and couldn't bike, I'd probably use the local short term car rental options more often.

All four options are complementary. Remove one, and you'll harm the ensemble.

<comment><USER54> "Without bikes, I'd just walk and metro."

Exactly my point. You wouldn't buy a car. People who live in Boston/Cambridge only use their car to get out of the city, not travel within it. For people outside of the city coming in, bikes are not a replacement (trains and buses are).

Now if the plan is to have fewer people coming into the city, then bike lanes are great for discouraging that, but I'm going to guess that is not what the cities want. For example, I have a new startup and since we mostly live outside of the city proper and are tired of commuting in (especially to the nightmare of Kendall Square), we're setting up shop in the suburbs where there is unfortunately no public transportation.

<comment><USER55> I feel you're quoting me out of context. I used to not live near a metro. If I hadn't had bikes then, and could have afforded a car, I would have driven.

My point was that all factors count. In cities without metros, some people still take transit and bike, but more people take cars. In cities with poor biking, some people still metro and bus. But the more non-car options you have, the easier it is the not have a car.

You're making the argument "since bikes are not required in most cases, they're not useful". But you could say the same about any of the other four factors I listed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to report a problem with Google Talk to Google? - <AUTHOR>

Recently[1] DuckDuckGo updated their XMPP server (Prosody) to the new version which makes server to server encryption mandatory. This broke federation with the Google Talk service, essentially cutting off all users who were communicating between these two services before. While the move to mandatory encryption is reasonable in this day and age, if Google won't fix that on their end, many would lose communication with majority of their contact lists.
Is there any way to report this bug to Google? Since Google focuses on walled garden / non federated Hangouts now, they don't make it easy to report anything about Google Talk to them. On the other hand they still run the service, so some maintenance should be normal to expect. Any advice how to reach Google with this problem?
Thanks.
[1]: https://duck.co/blog/xmpp-s2s <comment><USER2> I think Google no longer cares about XMPP or its federation especially since XMPP is not really build for mobile use. So I don't think they will fix this.

There is the Hangouts help forum where there is already a thread about it though but I wouldn't hope for a fix. If you want to use XMPP you need another provider or your contacts need another one.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/itHl...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/itHlShnUtsA)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure if that thread is the right place, that's why I'm asking. May be someone has contacts with Google XMPP team and can deliver this bug to them. They probably don't read these groups.

I agree, that Google doesn't care about XMPP. Not because it's not suitable for mobile needs - it can be made suitable. Google could work on needed XEPs.

Google just became selfish and turned their back to the whole open IM movement. It was a complete reversal, since Google advocated strongly for it before. Explanation from Eric Schmidt was really weird - something like "since others didn't join, we quit".</comment></comment>


Opensource ionic Reddit reader - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DreamWebTeam/ionic2-reddit-reader <comment><USER2> Is there an iOS app in the App Store?</comment>


I built a delightful currency converter for iOS - let me know what you think - <AUTHOR> http://www.ratesapp.com

<comment><USER2> Link is broken</comment>


How we autoscale our EC2 Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> http://blog.railsonfire.com/2012/11/19/Amazon-auto-scaling.html

<comment><USER3> As a developer who's never been entirely comfortable with the hardware end of things, it seems like there is a tremendous opportunity here. I would pay a lot for set it and forget it hosting, where if you get TechCrunched or HNed the only consequence would be a spike in the amount of your bill.

It seems like this would be a very difficult problem to solve - kind of like Dropbox getting their service to work seamlessly on every device and OS - <USER2> doable, and very lucrative for whoever gets there first.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at Google App Engine :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the tip :)

No, I'm well aware of App Engine and Heroku. I guess I'm talking about an even greater level of abstraction and simplicity - an "Apple Easy" layer where you never have to think about any aspect of the servers, and that scales all aspects of the app seamlessly without any user intervention.

In my opinion, Heroku and App Engine aren't there yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whenever anyone asks me about autoscaling, I always point out that making the autoscaling rules is more art than science. There is a lot of trial and error, but in the end you have to kind of go with your gut on what the business needs.

</comment><comment><USER6> i really like the google docs as a reporting/monitoring outlet idea, it's not the gist of what your article is about, but i usually always had my own reporting wired up, seems like an interesting thought to use google docs for that. is that a common thing, do people do their reporting through google docs? going to try this out.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are there still human teachers?  - <AUTHOR>

Shouldn't students learn via software that provides a personalized learning experience just right for their abilities?<p>If a student has a question that the software can't understand/answer, then it could be forwarded to a qualified human who is responsible for answering questions related to a certain subset of topics. <comment><USER3> HN readers are a _vastly_ different audience than Joe Student. I would bet that over half (or more) are autodidacts, extremely capable learners with few mental obstacles to motivation or learning.

All of the good research I've read on online learning is done with self- selected groups of adults who would probably learn well regardless of their modality. All of the research I've read on K-12 studies suggest that computer use in the classroom lowers students' scores (though computer use as a supplement outside of the classroom can improve scores).

Besides that, this ethereal "software that provides a personalized learning experience just right for their abilities" doesn't exist.

I'd really really love for there to be some magical software that can figure out what a child needs and start from there, and we could probably hit a decent percentage of the population, especially those children created in our own (autodidactical) image, but if you spend any time in K-12 schools (I'm a founder and currently on the board of our local charter school and have 4 kids of my own), you'll notice that children have _vastly_ different learning abilities, interests, needs, etc.

I would guess that more than half of what a K-12 teacher does doesn't have anything to do with teaching facts, but teaching about life and how to motivate, how to behave, how to stop flicking boogers on your friends, how to deal with disappointment when you can't "get it", etc. Learning for children is much different than learning for adults. And we're not even addressing more subjective education such as creativity, synthesis, and higher-order thinking skills. These don't translate well to computers because they require direct human judgement and some subjective evaluation.

<comment><USER4> I've rarely met people who are excellent at everything. For the areas they have problems with, I imagine human teachers are great.

I imagine such people on HN who think they are 'brilliant' (see a recent question) are actually only adept are certain subjects, sometimes quite a narrow subset. I'm guessing they drop the other subjects asap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sorry you only had bad teachers. If you had had a good teacher sometime in your life, you would not ask this question.

</comment><comment><USER6> Because humans are social beings. Sure, most of us are good at self-learning, but a good teacher can provide so much more than a textbook can. A good teacher is a mentor and a dispenser of wisdom (and opinion). They've been there before, so they know what the hard stuff is, and where you might go wrong in your thinking.

And it's more fun to learn from a person than from a book. There's interaction. You can ask hard questions and they can provide profound answers that lead to other questions. Try doing that with a textbook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why do you think the wisdom dispensed by some random teacher is worth listening to?

Why not dispense wisdom via software from highly successful people?

<comment><USER7> Because wisdom (and, more to the point, advice and mentoring) is highly context-dependent. It depends not only on your current understanding of the material, which software has trouble measuring anyway, but also on the way you are thinking about the particular problem and the types of related subjects you have worked with. Not to mention your life situation and overall attitude at the time. A good teacher can take all these into account, deciding when to challenge a student versus focus on reinforcement, pulling in examples from related material with which the student might be familiar, etc.

Software-based learning _might_ work for the subset of people and subjects which can be commonly learned from textbooks by self-motivated individuals now: things like programming, math, some science. But many people require the social interaction, and many topics cannot be easily managed in a purely information-dump approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the most difficult things to do is to create an effective mechanical way of measuring that student has learned the subject matter.

Naturally for some subjects it is more straightforward than others, but the problem is still challenging on balance.

Early childhood development requires a lot of psychological growth, in addition to knowledge growth. Abstract thought is not always acquired at different rates, and recognizing its emergence isn't very deterministic.

A solely software-based system also requires that the user provide honest input. It's hard to diagnose a lying patient.

Some parts intuition, some parts adaptability.

As the ability of software to handle these tasks improves, it will surely become a larger part of the equation. I don't think it will replace live humans in my lifetime though.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've found that the best thing teachers do for me is to nudge me out of my comfort zone. I self-learned pretty much most of the things I know and I am very self-motivated. I thought I don't need human teachers at all. Teachers in my school seemed to just slow me down. Then I took a drawing course in a local community college recently and realized that there is no way I would have learned all that in that short span of time without my teacher. Since learning drawing is something I'm not as comfortable with as I am with, say, learning Physics or CS, I gained a lot by having a human teacher.

</comment><comment><USER10> The strict answer to your question has to do with humans being social, motivation, and strong AI, I think.

However, if we allow teachers to stay in the picture, software could (and should I think) be used more to support learning. It could improve students' abilities significantly if done sensibly.

Data-mining would probably be useful to tune such a program, but I wouldn't expect it to outcompete teachers on the structuring of materials and answering students' questions any time soon.

The question on how to grade students is fascinating. There's an argument for one long exam at the end of your studies: you get the grade corresponding to your performance at the end of your studies. If you "get it" late in the course you're not penalised for earlier performance and, more importantly, it encourages you to take a long-term perspective on what you learn. I've experienced both teacher + frequent non-standard test assessment in school and one shot at two weeks of exams after 3 years at university. The former is problematic because grades become uncalibrated (thus losing much of their intended usefulness). My main concern with the latter is that you can end up testing things you don't intend.

Calculating the grade from appropriate data captured over a long time would be great -- comparisons and profiles could be both more detailed and more stable than what a teacher could provide. (There are some things it couldn't test, like handling the pressure of final exams.)

Do you think computers should have replaced teachers? Why do you think that hasn't happend?

</comment><comment><USER11> Teaching/learning is _far more_ than just acquiring knowledge. Just the mere presence of a human being, let alone a sympathetic one, transforms the whole learning experience.

A good teacher shapes the children's mind, inspires and motivates children to do things that otherwise they would probably not dream of doing. I still remember some of my old high-school and college teachers.

With that being said, I'm sure the learning/teaching experience can be vastly increased by using appropriate software.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm sorry about all of you, guys who think this is a stupid question. You are all romantic people, saying there exist good teachers, and teacher is a friend of a student and blahblahblah. But the reality is - most of the teachers are BAD. I know much more examples of bad teachers, who even demotivate students, instead of inspiring and teaching them. And it is better to use a program, made by a good teacher, than to be taught by a bad teacher in person. And that is what the good teachers should concentrate upon, writing good pedagogical strategies for a teaching computer program. And don't be so ignorant - <USER2> about Chinese - they would need hundred millions of good teachers, which is not possible to have. And believe me, I had good teachers and I know what it means. I learned math, which is the most complicated thing to learn, and I still believe math teaching can be automatized to a big percent, without all these sentimental tears of joy about how good the human teachers are. Don't be so narrow-minded. In the future, there will be robots.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is one of the reasons why we _need_ human teachers:

[http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear- algebra...](http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebra.html)

more at : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850485>

</comment><comment><USER14> Many people still have trouble with computer skills.

Even more people (me included) prefer printed and taught material to staring at a PC screen all day.

Language is very expressive: you can teach things with the tone of your voice that might take 20 lines of text just to describe.

Passion for a subject.

Social skills teaching.

<comment><USER15> _Passion for a subject_

This would be my best answer. I love technology and think it can do a lot but it can't make you love a subject in the same way a great teacher makes you love a subject. To this day I find one of my most profound interests is U.S. History and that's largely due to my High School Teacher whose love of the topic carried over into his teaching (and hence made me love the topic as much as he did)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What advantages do you think software offers in this respect that books don't? All I can think of are: a) Logging successes/failures b) Suggesting questions

Both of these are partially replicated in books by a) Having a list of answers at the end of the book the student can check their answers against and so mark their own work. b) Students can look at the entire list of exercises and choose whichever they think appropriate - the very height of a "personalized learning experience"

Think about the reason we still have human teachers even though books have been available for hundreds of years and you'll probably answer your own question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Software can adapt to student ability and evaluate student progress. The software is like one long exam and the resulting grades should matter.

Moreover, the data obtained from this software can be used to improve it (e.g., by making it better adapt to ability).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My brother goes to a school where they use computers to work through lessons at their own pace. There are humans lecturing (kind of a youtube with powerpoint split video) and they solve the questioning problem by having teachers for each subject in the same room as the students.

Personally I think this is a rather stupid way to do school because you don't get that interaction that you would in a normal school, one such example would be when a teacher asks you about the current subject and you have to quickly use critical thinking to come up with an appropriate answer. This is completely lost when such a learning system is used.

</comment><comment><USER18> One of the most stupid questions I've ever seen.

<comment><USER19> amichail is deliberately trolling.

<comment><USER20> It's not quite trolling.

<comment><USER19> do you think he is engaging in dialectic?

<comment><USER20> Dialogue, possibly, but I would not have said dialectic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the biggest role that a teacher plays is baby sitter. Through 12th grade, most of the class is there because they are required to be there. If you could write software that sends kids to detention, then you might have a good replacement.

Besides the social part, software probably could be a great way to teach some subjects. Human teachers still exist to fill non-educational roles.

</comment><comment><USER22> The success of such a scheme would depend on the quality of the software. I could imagine software that would have many advantages over traditional teachers. It would be a hell of a piece of machine learning, however. Given what I've seen of the very best of the chatbots, it is a long, long way off. If you really want to see this come to pass, I suggest you get programming.

<comment><USER23> Agreed. The best thing human teachers bring is their ability to adapt. Its not about answering questions, but seeing where a student is having problems and figuring out how best to solve that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps machine learning with a massive data set would do a better job of adapting?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Same reasons the Turing test hasn't been passed.

</comment><comment><USER25> To learn to be human.

</comment><comment><USER26> Also see a sci-fi story by Robert F. Young called "Thirty Days Has September".</comment>