Can a new mayor fix San Francisco's housing and homelessness problems? - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/02/can-a-new-mayor-fix-san-franciscos-housing-and-homelessness-problems <comment><USER2> The Economist is ignoring the fact that the city administration in San Francisco is now extremely busy, and I mean 24/7 busy, cracking down on electric scooters that - unlike needles, human excrements, tents and substance abuse - are a real problem that needs a resolution ASAP.

As soon as this insurmountable plague has been eradicated, the city administration will finally have time to talk again about the things that matter, like: Should Vaillancourt Fountain be finally removed or not? Or after introducing the soda tax, is it finally time for a burrito tax? Of course really anything that would prevent them from fixing the real problems that are affecting SF.

SF needs its own Rudy Giuliani and its own Broken Windows policy[1].

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

<comment><USER3> > The Economist is ignoring the fact that the city administration in San > Francisco is now extremely busy, and I mean 24/7 busy, cracking down on > electric scooters that - unlike needles, human excrements, tents and > substance abuse - are a real problem that needs a resolution ASAP.

Don't discount the virtue signaling that's going on here. It's an election year, and tech is still a reasonably good whipping boy for voters. Of all my friends, the non-tech ones seem much more likely to vote than the tech ones. Many of my tech friends in SF aren't even registered to vote here.

<comment><USER4> _Of all my friends, the non-tech ones seem much more likely to vote than the tech ones_

Interesting. I realize I'm asking you to spitball, and that's fine legitimately curious to hear something outside the box but why do you think that is?

Seems to me an unlikely division when it comes to voter participation, or at least a very unexpected one.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well. For the past month any time I've had a conversation with someone who had an opinion about politics and policies in SF, I've asked them if they have voted yet, or if they're going to vote; and while nearly everyone has had an opinion, only two people in tech out of probably two dozen have said yes. Of the remaining lot, a bunch have said they never registered to vote for a variety of reasons ("I forgot to", "Oh, I need to do that sometime", "I don't want my information getting sold", "I still don't have a California driver's license", etc).

On the other hand, friends not in tech (much more varied population by job; artists, food-service & bar industry, construction, medical) were much more motivated to tell me not only what their opinions were, but how they were voting (or had already voted) and why.

It's possible that this will change nearer to the mid-term, but it doesn't seem like primary elections get people that excited.

It's a great question though, and I'll start asking more deeply about it because I'm curious now as well!

<comment><USER5> > I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well.

When you have the income to:

1\. Rent a comfortable apartment pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area, without fear of rising rent displacing you. (Keep rent within a third of your income)

2\. Pay for a private solution (Rideshare, Private commuter buses, tech company shuttle) to the broken transportation infrastructure, dirty streets, and the homeless problem of the Bay.

3\. Have a fiscal safety net in case something happens to your income.

4\. Have the insurance needed to withstand the occasional curve-balls of life.

then you've mostly averted the endemic problems of the Bay Area. SF's gov't is incompetent, and private solutions have alleviated most of its systemic issues for its moneyed classes. Of course people in tech won't be as motivated to vote, they're insulated from all of the problems.

There's a growing sentiment (growing being an understatement, Google/Apple buses have been smashed/blocked for years now) that tech's private market solutions are priced to only help their own out. Until this perception changes, they're going to want to vote with their rage.

<comment><USER6> They're priced to clear markets so that functioning goods and services are actually available at their stated prices. Whereas for some reason populists prefer public transit that's uniformly abysmal and "affordable housing" that no individual applicant has a reasonable chance of winning.

<comment><USER7> Public transit in cities that aren't SF is not 'uniformally abysmal.'

One of the reasons for it, is that in cities with working transit, both the rich, and the poor, newcomers and decades-established people take the bus/train. When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit.

Pointing at Muni, and saying: "Look, you fools! Public transit doesn't work!" is a bit like pointing at Somalia, circa 2009, and saying: "Look, you fools! Rule of law doesn't work!"

<comment><USER6> >One of the reasons for it

Another being that community organizers and concerned citizens were sufficiently disenfranchised and disempowered that greedy developers obtained permission to destroy pre-existing communities, open space, and neighborhood character to create built environments that are dense enough for good public transit to be cost-effective. In some cases, this happened more than 1000 years ago, so no one minds anymore.

>When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit.

Is there any evidence for this? Has a population ever actually forced its leaders to ride shitty public transit, and subsequently seen a turnaround?

Most New York professionals rely on the subway, and it's falling apart anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's something that has been making me scratch my head lately.

San Francisco has had a Democratic mayor from 1964-now. It's widely regarded as the farthest left city in the country besides maybe Berkeley across the bay. Most Democrats/leftists want to reduce wealth inequality and are proponents of more taxation, welfare, etc.

Yet, San Francisco is one of the most economically unequal cities in this country [0]. So what's up? Why have the city's Democrats been so unable to help the poor if that's really something they believe in?

Democrats always say that if you elect the Republicans then the city will belong to the rich and powerful. But that's what we have now...

Note: I am a Democrat, I already voted for SF mayor this cycle and I voted for a Democratic candidate.

0: [https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality- in-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-the-bay- area-is-among-nations-highest/)

<comment><USER9> > Note: I am a Democrat, I already voted for SF mayor this cycle and I voted > for a Democratic candidate.

Would you mind elaborating on why you voted Democrat this time, after having just pointed out that for the last ~60 years a democratic mayor failed to live up to the virtues they espouse?

Not trying to be sarcastic. Generally curious if you considered republican but decided against it for some reason... Or if you just hardline vote one way?

<comment><USER10> Is there an implementation of Republican policy anywhere that has reduced wealth inequality?

<comment><USER9> True. It's almost as if politicians in general suck, and are unable to foster an environment that promotes the wellbeing of their constituents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apartments -- of any height! -- are illegal to build in 78.6% of SF: [http://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/](http://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/)

Fix that, and you'll fix the city's housing and homelessness problems. It wouldn't take ugly skyscrapers, just 4-to-6 story apartment buildings like they have all over the most beautiful cities in Europe.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, it's absurd. But good luck fixing it.

Whenever I tell people "the fix to SF's housing problem is to upzone the Sunset to allow 5-story buildings full of studio & 1-bedroom apartments with little shops on the ground floor and improve transit, so that 20-somethings aren't forced to sleep in bunk-beds 5 people to a rented 2-bedroom house with a back yard they don't use and ride Ubers to work in heavy traffic", they look at me like I'm crazy, and insist the solution is stricter low-income housing requirements and stronger protections against eviction.

This "world class city" is zoned to be a sleepy beach town.

Doesn't help that the whole rest of the Bay Area is mostly zoned the same way.

<comment><USER13>
      with little shops on the ground floor

There's tons of vacant ground floor retail spaces already. In the Amazon and on-demand era, viability is tough if you aren't moving primarily liquor and lottery tickets. Even fast food isn't viable in much of SF (something like 9 McDonald's alone have closed in the last few years... including the longstanding one at 3rd and Townsend).

<comment><USER12> Having mixed-use zoning doesn't mean every available space must be used for retail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _The city's zoning laws are among the most restrictive in the country. They > limit the height and density of new buildings and give local residents, > often property owners, the ability to severely delay new development. Most > of the city's land area, particularly the posh western bits, is zoned for > single-family homes, which now comprise one-third of its housing stock. > Almost all the city's land faces height limits of 40 feet, or about three > storeys. The result is a city where rents are sky-high but buildings are > not._

That is the central problem, and more government regulation on top of an already insane amount of red tape and restrictions will not fix it. You must allow developers to develop

</comment><comment> crooked-v No. Fixing the housing problem will take overriding the NIMBYs that are limiting housing density, which the mayor doesn't have the power to do.

<comment><USER15> But do landowners have majority voting power in SF? If not, then maybe some people aren't voting to their interests.

<comment><USER16> "But do landowners have majority voting power in SF? If not, then maybe some people aren't voting to their interests."

It is implied (and sometimes expressed) that "NIMBY" outcomes in elections like this are illegitimate and not "true" democratic outcomes.

I reject this notion. I am very much in favor of urban in-fill in San Francisco and increased density in many parts of the city - but not at the expense of democratic processes.

<comment><USER17> I can't verify with real numbers but my mental model is that votes on housing are not representative of the population.

SF has a very high foreigner population that cant vote. They are moslty renters. US renters also might not live enough time in the city to register, be politically active, or end up moving due to lifestyle or economic reasons. And of renters you will have those that have rent control, which end up in tandem with owners about de-regularization.

Im sure that if you put up a vote landowners and rent-controlled renters have a concentrated interest, and renters and foreigners dont have representation _even if they are the majority_. If you took all renters of SF in the last 6 years you might get a higher number than landowners but they cannot fight it politically.

So I adhere to the notion of unrepresentative democratic outcomes.

<comment><USER18> The last time I registered to vote after moving I was able to do it the week I moved, when I went to the DMV to get my driver's license. I would imagine it's similar in the Bay Area.

I think it's reasonable not to allow foreigners to vote on local political issues, just as we do on national ones. I wouldn't expect to have a say on political issues in countries I'm not a citizen of. Otherwise you don't have any skin in the game. You can just leave if you don't like the way things are going.

I think part of the problem is there aren't clear policy proposals to solve housing issues so it's hard to get people to support them. Plus the good land is already developed so you'd have to use eminent domain or something to build affordable housing.

<comment><USER17> > I think it's reasonable not to allow foreigners to vote on local political > issues, just as we do on national ones. I wouldn't expect to have a say on > political issues in countries I'm not a citizen of. Otherwise you don't have > any skin in the game. You can just leave if you don't like the way things > are going.

Countries have fought their independence fighting under the concept of "No Taxation without representation".

Reasonable or not I can assure you that foreigners pay the highest rents, have the least rent-control and less land in San Francisco.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure I agree about foreigners paying the highest rents, since it really depends what groups of foreigners you're talking about. SV tech employees? Maybe. Refugees? Definitely not. Rent control and land ownership are probably true, but again, that's true of foreign nationals working anywhere, not just in SF or the US.

I think we fundamentally disagree on whether foreigners should have a say in local politics, so we can't really have a productive conversation on this topic while we remain divided on that issue.

<comment><USER17> > I think we fundamentally disagree on whether foreigners should have a say in > local politics, so we can't really have a productive conversation on this > topic while we remain divided on that issue.

Not if you cop-out to Refugees, how many are they, 1000?

Rental prices increases affect everyone and affect every single foreigner migrating into the bay are. It also affects people from other states, and those also cannot vote. When the situation becomes untenable they leave the city.

The implementation of democracy can never be absolutely representative, anywhere, and in this situation that 'leaky implementation' is obvious.

<comment><USER18> If you're a citizen you can vote just by proving you live in the district you want to vote in. The only people being excluded are non-citizens who I don't think should have the same say in local politics as citizens because they can return to their home country if they don't like the effects of the policies they help to enact.

<comment><USER19> I guess that makes sense on the national level, but couldn't you say that same thing about citizens voting in local politics? They can just move to a different city or state. I don't see a difference right away, but I'm interested in another take on it as far as where the line should be drawn on who gets to vote or not.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I think that's a fair criticism. I guess to be logically consistent I'd have to be on board with not letting people vote unless they've lived in an area long enough or own property or something (requiring property ownership seems like a bad idea). I'm not sure how I feel about that though. I guess one thing I can think of is that if you're a citizen you at least nominally share many American values, which is not necessarily true for someone who is just here for career reasons.

<comment><USER20> Your reasoning doesn't make any sense. The criteria for people to have a voice in local politics shouldn't be a test as to whether they share in "American" values, whatever that means. If you had all those neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottsville move to SF tomorrow, who are US citizens but presumably (hopefully?) don't share in American values in your view, they would have the ability to vote in local elections.

People who pay rent and establish a residence should have a voice in their local(city) elections. Full Stop. Immigrants were allowed limited voting rights in State elections until the 1920's when very anti-immigrant sentiments lead to laws that prohibit that kind of voting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hadn't decided who to vote for, this helps. There is no more urgent problem in the bay area than housing and there is no way to fix it other than by building more housing.

London Breed for mayor it is.

<comment><USER22> FYI Breed skipped out on practically all of the mayoral debates with no compunction whatsoever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I suspect, as in Vancouver, a lot of foreign-originated dirty money is getting parked in SF real estate, where the structures sit vacant.

One of Vancouver's innovative approaches was a special tax assessment on vacant structures.

I honestly wonder what percentage of SF, including its commercial office space, is simply a vehicle for money laundering. Switzerland and the Cayman Islands have nothing on Uncle Sam when it comes to real estate opacity.

<comment><USER24> > I suspect, as in Vancouver, a lot of foreign-originated dirty money is > getting parked in SF real estate, where the structures sit vacant.

That's not the case. Vacancy rates in San Francisco are very low, at 3.6%: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/04/16/san- fran...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/04/16/san-francisco- tops-forbes-2015-list-of-worst-cities-for-renters/#4ec2bab362fa)

You can see this in the rent-to-buy ratios. While high in the Bay Area, it's nowhere near the out-of-control bubble levels of Vancouver and, to a lesser extent, Toronto. Housing prices are high in the Bay Area because people _actually_ need to live here.

<comment><USER23> Those appear to be vacancy rates calculated from submissions by landlords, but what about absentee owners who don't want to be landlords?

I don't think we're measuring the real figure of merit here.

<comment><USER25> There are plenty of companies that will take care of finding tenants, doing maintenance and generally handling landlord responsibilities, in exchange for a cut of the rent. Since the rent is quite a lot of money, it would be crazy to leave a building vacant unless you're planning to spend time in it.

<comment><USER18> But people do it in high rent areas like London, NYC, and Vancouver.

<comment><USER26> It doesn't make it any less dumb. It's the difference of ~80k / year for free you leave on the table.

<comment><USER23> It's not dumb, and it's not for free.

If you robbed a bank and had a nice big pile o' cash, how smart would you be to put it in a bank and collect interest on it?

You jeopardize (or devalue) the asset by trying to play landlord. By leaping after $80k/year, you may cost yourself $500k/year appreciation in the asset.

<comment><USER27> >You jeopardize (or devalue) the asset by trying to play landlord. By leaping after $80k/year, you may cost yourself $500k/year appreciation in the asset.

Unless your tenant literally burns the building down and you don't have insurance, I'm not sure how this works.

<comment><USER28> A building that would otherwise be subject to rent control or other tenant protections is worth less than the same building that is empty of tenants. By leaping after 80K/year you can massively decrease the value of an empty building, or a building that is likely to soon empty, or a building that can be condo converted without Ellis acting anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here in Seattle we have the $12 million per mile bike lanes, and the mayor's latest proposal, beds for the homeless at $12,600 per bed. The city government spending is so cost-ineffective it's clear they'll never solve any problems.

<comment><USER30> And yet they also whine for a head-tax because they apparently don't have enough money. That's why I oppose head-taxes because they don't even spend the money they have responsibly; I certainly don't want them to have more. It's like feeding an addict.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing I haven't heard discussed, and would like to, is the notion that there might be (effectively) _an unlimited number of people willing to be homeless in California_.

Which is to say, you might be able to "solve" homeless problems in Denver or Salt Lake or St. Paul - and there have been some very interesting and encouraging policy moves there, especially in Salt Lake City. This might be because there are _only so many people willing to be homeless in St. Paul_. Or Green Bay or Denver - because of the cold and snow.

What does it mean if the stream of homeless into SF/LA/SD is, effectively, unlimited ? How would that change our proposed solutions ?

<comment><USER31> I think it's incredibly insensitive to assume that just because the weather is nice that people are fine being homeless.

Homelessness is by and large a product of mental health issues, and a lack of a good mental health system.

>only so many people willing to be homeless... right, because so much of the homeless population just needs to try harder. If this is how people really see the issue it's no wonder that its still an issue.

<comment><USER17> I think it is an important concept to understand that the state of california cant reasonably fix this.

If san francisco opened a state mental hospital for its homeless population, then all california counties would send people to them. And if california did, then all states would.

Mental health does need some sort of federal solution.

<comment><USER32> > If san francisco opened a state mental hospital for its homeless population, > then all california counties would send people to them

Well, why not take that first step? I see the "we need more mental hospitals" solution trotted out over and over again but it seems that these cities spend a fortune doing everything for the homeless _but_ tackle mental health.

Is your concern really that creating mental hospitals would attract too many homeless, moreso than the current policy of providing free drug paraphernalia, safe places to do drugs, lax drug law enforcement, lax attitudes towards panhandling, shelter, good weather, etc.?

<comment><USER17> That the cost of a single mental patient can rack up tens of thousands of dollars a month. Multiply by 10k homeless, you get a fiscal hole, and then you might end up with more nominal homeless on the streets because they are sent to the facilty that cant take them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why can't tech companies out-muscle NIMBY's and get 30-50 story residential buildings approved? After spending time in different parts of China, it seems asinine that most buildings here don't exceed ~4 stories.

<comment><USER34> The question you're really wanting to ask is "why don't tech companies want to be good corporate citizens?"

It's because of profit. Amazon opposing the per-employee tax that would provide critical city services should help explain exactly where their priorities lie.

<comment><USER35> Did you read the response of Amazon and other companies? It was less "we want higher profits" and "you have enough money, you're just spending it in the wrong places".

<comment><USER28> Ahhh yes. And Amazon has no incentive to mis-characterize the reason they want to lower their tax burden. I dislike the waste of tax money on defense boondoggles. I still pay my taxes.

<comment><USER35> And so does Amazon. This was a debate over a _new_ head tax for companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Jason Calacanis makes comments about this from time to time on his podcast. There's some pretty nontrivial problems with the whole NIMBY stuff, and it seems like it will likely have to involve some seriously legislation that I think might be more at the governor / state senate level. The homelessness problem is something that no one has solved really well and is perhaps even more complicated than the housing crisis itself (though they're part of the same challenge in many ways).

This is one of those big daunting problems that feels increasingly make or break for SF as a whole, and given it the size and complexity of the problem, will likely involve a very disruptive and painful change to address.

If I'm taking a bet here, I think it's more likely that they don't handle the problem effectively and the workforce and economy distribute out of the system, followed by a sudden and severe real-estate market correction, and then the growth will settle and flatten for a while

<comment><USER37> _This is one of those big daunting problems that feels increasingly make or break for SF as a whole_

My sense is that it's "make or break" only for people who have been here for three years and are trying to decide whether to remain for two more.

<comment><USER38> That's kind of the whole point. Is the city full and now only open to the wealthy and people who got lucky enough to buy houses > 5 years ago (or get locked into rent control > 5 years ago), or should it be allowed to grow to welcome new people from around the country and world who want to move here in search of better opportunities? Because people who have lived here 3 years or less by extension includes everyone who doesn't live here yet (as well as basically everyone under 25 unless they grew up here).

I would also push back on the "deciding whether to stay for 2 more years" part - sure, maybe young people tend to plan 2 years ahead at a time, but they're really deciding if it's a place they want to settle down in permanently. If they stay 2 more years they may well end up staying 20 more.

So I don't think it's at all a stretch to say this is a make or break issue for the city.

<comment><USER37> I'm on my third or fourth iteration of watching the waves of carpetbaggers make their way through the city, which is a 150+ year tradition, mind. Not only do the loudest complainers not know enough about homelessness in SF to demand a simple solution that doesn't exist, they're going to be the first people to find a reason to leave. From all outward appearances, they just want to complain.

Nothing is "make or break" for a city like SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This article is a bit unfair to Kim and Leno. It says they are "cooler" on housing than Breed, but that's not really accurate. They all want more housing. The policy difference is over how hard to negotiate with developers for working class housing.

The only quote from Kim is this: "If I'm going to give you ten additional storeys, I'm going to want you to increase your middle-income housing programme."

You can debate whether a purely free market approach will address this effectively, but it's inaccurate to characterize fighting hardest for low- and middle-income housing _now_ as a "cooler approach". Cities need housing for service industry workers -- especially as more professionals move in.

<comment><USER11> The problem is, Kim doesn't seek to maximize below-market-rate _units produced_ \-- she instead seeks to maximize the _percent_ of all units produced that are below-market-rate.

In other words, given a choice between building 1,000 market-rate units and 200 BMR, or building 100 market-rate units and 100 BMR, she'll pick the latter.

<comment><USER39> Do you have a source for that claim? She claims to have "negotiated and won more affordable and middle-income housing than any city legislator."[1]

[1] [http://kalw.org/post/mayoral-candidate-jane-kim-takes- afford...](http://kalw.org/post/mayoral-candidate-jane-kim-takes-affordable- housing-crisis)

<comment><USER11> See, for example, <[https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real- estate/20...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real- estate/2016/01/s-f-affordable-housing-jane-kim-developers.html>), which refers to "Supervisor Jane Kim's proposed ballot measure that would more than double the amount of affordable housing that every market-rate project over 25 units has to provide" and how "it would destroy the businesses of both market-rate and affordable developers", and yet, "Kim is standing by her proposal".

As predicted by the city economist, after this passed we saw a huge drop in the production of both BMR _and_ market-rate units: [https://medium.com/yes- in-my-blog-yes/the-25-inclusionary-ra...](https://medium.com/yes-in-my-blog- yes/the-25-inclusionary-rate-is-killing-affordable-housing-db143c4abd31)

<comment><USER39> Your example is from 2016. She ended up compromising at 18%.[1] It doesn't support your characterization. In her district she's facilitated the most new housing construction by a long shot.

Your second citation is anonymously written and of questionable quality -- check the comments.

[1] [https://hoodline.com/2017/05/supervisors-reach-compromise- on...](https://hoodline.com/2017/05/supervisors-reach-compromise-on- affordable-housing-mandates)

<comment><USER40> Can you help me understand why she changed her position on SB827 and held rallies opposing 827? She says she is "not against housing & this is not the right way to build". Her actions prove different. I have not seen any solutions from her. She is not building enough to compensate for the growing economy.

Like @raldi notes any apartments -- of any height ! -- are illegal to build in 78.6% of SF: [http://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/](http://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/) . what are her solutions to fix this then?

<comment><USER39> She's approved more housing in her district than anywhere else in the city combined, so that's a little unfair. And she has answered exactly your question, if you care to take a look:

[http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-postmortem-lets-build- housi...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-postmortem-lets-build-housing- right-way/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> TBF, SF has build a fair number of housing compared to the Bay Area. It is cities like San Mateo, Palo Alto, and Mountain View that are primarily to blame for the housing crisis.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm re-reading Gladwells What the Dog saw, and just came to Million Dollar Murray: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million- dollar...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar- murray)

The conclusions to this certainly made sense to me. Were they debunked or forgotten?

</comment><comment><USER43> Only political will will fix its problems. And I don't think the proposed leaders have that.

</comment><comment><USER44> Two points I want to mention: first, this article is pretty informative (it's been on HN before I'm pretty sure) about rents, construction, etc. in SF: [https://experimental- geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...](https://experimental- geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html)

> Building enough housing to roll back prices to the "good old days" is > probably not realistic, because the necessary construction rates were never > achieved even when planning and zoning were considerably less restrictive > than they are now. Building enough to compensate for the growing economy is > a somewhat more realistic goal and would keep things from getting worse.

> In the long run, San Francisco's CPI-adjusted average income is growing by > 1.72% per year, and the number of employed people is growing by 0.326% per > year, which together (if you believe the first model) will raise CPI- > adjusted housing costs by 3.8% per year. Therefore, if price stability is > the goal, the city and its citizens should try to increase the housing > supply by an average of 1.5% per year (which is about 3.75 times the general > rate since 1975, and with the current inventory would mean 5700 units per > year). If visual stability is the goal instead, prices will probably > continue to rise uncontrollably.

\- - - - -

Second, SF city politics, always a bit freaky in the best of times, has gotten _really_ weird since Mayor Lee passed away. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/us/san-francisco-mayor- br...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/us/san-francisco-mayor-breed- farrell.html)

\- - - - -

Put these two items together and the short answer to the question in the title is, "No."

As mentioned in the article, we already spend one quarter of a _billion_ dollars on homelessness in SF. That's not a typo: 0.25 * 10 to the _ninth_ power.

> San Francisco's programmes, which cost $250m per year, are praised by many > campaigners against homelessness. Still, the city could spend its money more > efficiently.

There's plenty of money, even after:

> About two-thirds of its homelessness budget goes on rent subsidies and > "permanent supportive housing".

So ~$170m for housing (never mind that folks aren't homeless if they live in a house) still leaves ~$80m to deal with a few thousand people.

> Early intervention is often much cheaper.

Yes. Something like 60% of EMS response downtown is related to issues with a small handful of people. The ambulance drivers know them by name.

\- - - - -

Last but not least, a random thought in re:

> Jeff Kositsky, the city's director of homelessness services, cites the > example of a driver for Lyft, a ride-hailing service, who nearly fell into > homelessness after his car was damaged. The city kept him off the streets by > simply paying off the cost of his car.

What? As an S.F. resident this doesn't seem right. I appreciate that this guy isn't homeless, that's great, I'm not disturbed by that. The thing that I find unsettling is why didn't his car insurance pay for it? Or Lyft for that matter?

But then I have to remind myself that this is the city that passed a law to just give money to certain businesses if they were considered "Legacy" enough. I'm left-leaning but that blew me away:

[https://www.sfheritage.org/legacy/legacy-business- registry-p...](https://www.sfheritage.org/legacy/legacy-business-registry- preservation-fund/)

> The registry is open to businesses and nonprofits that are 30 years or > older, have been nominated by a member of the Board of Supervisors or Mayor, > and in a hearing before the Small Business Commission, prove that they have > made a significant impact on the history or culture of their neighborhood. > Only 300 business can be nominated annually and all applicants must agree to > maintain the historic name and craft of their businesses.

[https://sfosb.org/legacy-business](https://sfosb.org/legacy-business)

> Through the Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund, Legacy Businesses on > the registry may receive Business Assistance Grants of $500 per full-time > employee per year, while landlords who extend the leases of such businesses > for at least 10 years may receive Rent Stabilization Grants of $4.50 per > square foot of space leased per year. The business grants will be capped at > $50,000 annually; the landlord grants will be capped at $22,500 a year. For > fiscal years 2017-18 and 2018-19, a Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment of > 3.1% will be added to the grants. Additional CPI adjustments will be made > every two years.

Yes, Virgina, we collect taxpayer money and then give some of it to businesses we like just because we like them.

</comment><comment><USER45> "No"

</comment><comment><USER37> tl;dr: Betteridge's Law of Headlines

One of the tragic tropes of San Francisco is that people often and loudly think homelessness just needs to be "fixed," and that it just takes getting the right person into office to do so. But there ain't no silver bullet and these issues are complicated.

It seems like SF has been moving in good directions as far as dialing down the "arrest the homeless" strategy propounded by carpetbaggers offended that the sidewalks don't remind them of Topeka, the evolution of Navigation Centers, and other homeless-directed policies.

Frankly, zoning and development issues seem easy compared to homelessness. It's popular to dehumanize those without money, so the ideas only trickle in. Flint, MI still has poisoned tap water, after all.

</comment><comment><USER46> No.

</comment><comment><USER47> > A further constraint... is its wide-ranging rent-control scheme... All three > leading candidates... would like to see it expanded.

I read this in about the same light as if I read that all three candidates believe in homeopathy and intelligent design.

<comment><USER28> I am rent controlled. It is the only reason I still live in SF. I would love for more housing to be built that I could afford to buy. In the meantime, I would also love to be able to move into a rent controlled single family home, even if that raised rent prices %5 (estimate of effect of rent control on rent prices from other poster). It's the stability I crave. I know too many people who rented a single family home and then their rent tripled over night.</comment></comment>


We Are All Confident Idiots (2014) - who-knows https://psmag.com/social-justice/confident-idiots-92793 <comment><USER2> Hey, I built a 40 year career on 'fake it until you have to leave or learn how to make it' -So don't knock this. And, all you young whippersnappers remember that its only old fools like me messing up in the code which gives you meaningful jobs fixing bugs in the future.

<comment><USER3> >Hey, I built a 40 year career on 'fake it until you have to leave or learn how to make it' -So don't knock this

This comments illustrates the article, which has nothing to do with "fake it till you make it", and is all about how people often _think_ they know something, when, in fact, they have little knowledge on the subject (in this case, the subject being the article in question).

To clarify: "fake it till you make it" is pretending you know something when _you know_ you don't, the exact opposite of what the article is about ( _not knowing_ that you really _don 't know_ something, and being confident that you do).

Not to knock the OP (hey, we all go straight into the comments from time to time) :)

<comment><USER4> I don't think 'fake it till you make it' is as simple as that. The whole thing about imposter syndrome is that plenty of fully competent people 'know' they are incompetent (and conversely plenty of incompetent ones 'know' that they are the most valuable employee in the company.) Therefore, 'fake it till you make it' isn't directly about basically being a fraud, it's about presenting yourself as the competent professional you (hopefully) pretty much are.

Or, at least, the realisation that everyone else is probably faking it too.

<comment><USER5> Well, what about the rockstar junior devs who whipped fully functional applications who are later humbled with experiences and cringes at their previously ego-maniacally written code? I was one, and I wouldn't say I was aware of my mistakes, I definitely believed my code was superior (early 20s at the time)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression.

False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

<comment><USER7> >those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression.

No, depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially seeing that there is no meaning to it. Logic can not live without meaning, but life is tremendously bigger that our limited logic, regardless how fanciful we make it.

>False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

No, this comes from the same point of view. Actually there is no route to happiness because it's here already. There are only routes away and making logic dominating in your life is one of them.

<comment><USER8> >> depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially seeing that there is no meaning to it.

Depression is not a question of philosophy of your life.

Philosophy may help you approach the depression, but you can't get depressed because life is too logical - you may get sad, on the other hand.

<comment><USER9> > Depression is not a question of philosophy of your life.

Oh I strongly disagree with this assessment. I am not a psychologist, but have suffered from depression on and off my whole life, and I assert that depression is indeed a philosophical problem.

Depression, I think, is the experience of one's mind realizing that its model of reality (philosophy) is too flawed or incomplete to see a concrete path towards meaningful change in one's life, and attempting to build a better model.

This is evidenced by:

1) depressive realism. the mind is being careful to make more accurate assessments.

2) a preference towards inaction. The mind does not trust its model of reality, and is reluctant to take actions with unpredictable results.

3) similar behavior in children undergoing cognitive schema shifts.

Further, I assert that part of the reason society is unable to effect meaningful treatment (for lack of a better word) of many cases of depression is that society's baseline philosophy (empiricism) is part of the model known by the subject to be flawed, and so it has no pre-existing better model to guide the individual towards (though I contend such models do exist if actively sought).

Depression, in my experience, is overcome in only 2 ways:

1) The mind gives up and returns to its previous, known flawed, philosophy and simply rejects the information that highlighted the flaws. This is an unstable state prone to relapse for obvious reasons. In the worst cases, the subject seeks to actively destroy the source of such information. This, I suspect, is essentially the cause of religious or ideological violence.

2) The mind constructs a better model that allows it to once again place confidence in its prediction of the outcomes of its actions. This is more stable, but the new model may still have significant flaws that will ultimate result in a new round of depression.

Needless to say for anyone who has actually been through severe depression, the experience is intensely unpleasant. If a mind is unable to resolve the dissonance between its current model and reality, it may take desperate action to relieve this suffering.

Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is that if my hypothesis is accurate then you can indeed become depressed from trying to apply logic to your life and discovering that logic (empirical logic anyway) alone is not sufficient.

<comment><USER10> This is the most accurate description of my depression and why it is seemingly impervious to therapy. It's not debilitating to the point of not being able to function in daily life, but is instead a constant, low-grade friction resulting in less drive and confidence and more inaction. Basically, life has taught me that my self-esteem was misguided, and I'm unsure of how to meaningfully act without it, so I just sort of fade away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We are all confident idiots and this is why the ego was created in evolution.

Ego is needed to make you think you are better than others at something, eventhough initially you may not be. Without ego, people would be Marvin The Paranoid Android but depressed because we didn't have the capabilities or opportunities to compete with all the smarter people around or in history. People that are laser focused and don't listen to any naysayers, those people can become successful more than people that don't even attempt to due to humbling competition.

The reason why childhood is so nice is that you can dream and imagine on becoming anything. Reality bites that in the behind, but the ones that can overcome and pursue, prevail over the ones that do not go beyond their limit. The trick is to be rooted in the real adult world, but break the rules and don't listen to others when you have a desire to push in an area with a beginners or child mind. Just do it says your ego.

The internet is a humbling experience for the ego. Competition was only your local tribe before the internet, now it is worldwide. This is both humbling and also allows humans an insight that has never before been able to be realized, you can see how you need to compete with the entire world. It is inspiring all the time and seemingly insurmountable at times, but jump start that ego and you to can be competing. Everyone can be good at something, time and focus, as well as competition can push you.

Without ego humanity may not have made it this far.

When you convince yourself you can do it, by making iterative gains to fuel more motivation, it must turn to discipline and professionalism, and that means blocks of time all the time on your focused goal or project in both the open (creative / brainstorming / ideas / play) and closed (prototypes / ship time) mode. The overnight successes are always in a multi-year focused strategy.

Check out the market, but don't be too focused on chasing what others are doing, focus on your area that meets your goals. Use that ego motivation and stay away from getting too beat down because others are far ahead.

 _" Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer" \-- Stephen King_

 _" Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and got to work" \-- Stephen King_

 _" The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." \-- Walt Disney_

<comment><USER12> > Without ego humanity may not have made it this far.

Not sure. Many teachings, religions are addressing removing ego from your thoughts. I heard that if you take LSD you can actually feel your ego gone with the feeling of being the one with the universe. Might be a great experience?

<comment><USER11> Agreed. I am a traveler and we are all connected, everything has beauty.

Ego death from psychedelics is realizing ego is a tool, that it isn't truly you, just a tool or armor you use to navigate reality. We live in a self- interested world, people must have an ego or you get steamrolled by the machine and divided by walls. Ego can help you tear down the walls or ignore them entirely as they are the ego of the real world and others. It helps you realize the world is nothing, unless you make it something, unless you create it for yourself.

Ego is "a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance" and "the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity".

Awareness of ego is key, psychedelics help you recognize it is an abstraction to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Our school system.. We don't dare to be honest we do not know stuff. For our entire youth we are punished for that with bad figures and bullying.

Therefore the picture at the top of the article is so fitting. Especially lots of people that are graduated have some kind of air around them. Our educational system fucks the mind and ego. Is Einstein not enough prove for the 'being educated' fallacy? He despised the educational system, and I think he was also very right about that.

<comment><USER14> But tbh our school system just teaches a baseline of abilities we think our youths should know. I honestly don't believe pupils are expected to know everything besides what was agreed on...

<comment><USER13> > But tbh our school system just teaches a baseline of abilities we think our > youths should know.

Just teaches? You mean forces upon children maybe? So what about being punished for not reaching that baseline? What do we learn from that? We learn so much more than the stuff in the textbooks. Our schools and surroundings teach us to be stupid about so many things, it's completely overlooked.

If the result of schools were to be good, how come this civilization is characterized by: war, pollution, destruction of species, poverty, etc, etc.. Something must be wrong there, it must be our education not coincidence.

> a baseline of abilities we think our youths should know.

Yes interesting. What 'we' think.. I think differently, for sure.

<comment><USER15> While school can and should be improved in many countries, I think it's not really fair to make it out as the root of all evil. That assumes school is an all powerful tool to mold children's minds, when there are so many environmental and genetic factors influencing behavior. As for the societal issues you mention: I think they all have massively complex root causes I couldn't do justice just in a HN comment. But in short: Can world peace be achieved through education? I don't see how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Being perceived as an unintelligent individual can lead to social rejection, and as with all things that pose the risk of social rejection, it will be avoided at all costs. When one feels that the group accepts them on their other merits, this reaction is defused. None of this seems particularly surprising - we humans have been avoiding social rejection for a very, very long time.

</comment><comment><USER17> How do you work with an individual who _insists_ they understand how it all works? Even when faced with hard evidence that contradicts their assessments, I'm still told I don't understand or I misinterpreted their words - <AUTHOR> gas-lighting me.

Arguing leaves me unmotivated and frustrated. Giving in is the wrong path. Going to others doesn't seem to move the needle.

Help.

<comment><USER18> Document, and shut up.

Document every time they say something false - time and date and medium, and exact words.

Shut up: for each instance, say once that they're wrong, then don't argue.

When it matters, when there's a decision where this person's view is threatening to sway matters in the wrong direction, go with a massive documentation dump - everything they've said on the subject, exact words and date and time and context, and evidence of what reality is.

Or else quit. If you quit, when you go, say why.

<comment><USER19> This is terrible advice. When you quit you no longer have a stake in the game. Say NOTHING beyond platitudes.

<comment><USER20> Serious question: What actually goes wrong, in concrete terms, if you explain that you're leaving because you don't want to work with someone who is aggressively incompetent? I get that people won't like it, but how am I actually harmed by speaking the truth? I've heard a lot of wishy-washy answers about burning bridges, but I have trouble making myself believe that's enough reason to let someone continue fucking shit up when they might be stopped if someone just knew what was happening.

Edit: Assume I've already accepted the risk of slightly lower lifetime earnings due to following principles rather than the money.

<comment><USER18> Slightly lower lifetime earnings? How would that happen?

It might happen if word ever got back to the aggressively incompetent one, and he (maybe it's a stereotype, but I'll assume male gender given the description of the behavior) was in some position of influence at a future job of yours. Well, people do change, sometimes even for the better, but I'd think twice before hiring at such a place in the future.

Or, managers believe him instead of you (or choose to keep him in place and blame you for the message that they didn't like), and those managers wind up at a future place. Same story - it's your cue to not work there.

If this burns you, it burns you at places you didn't want to work for anyway.

Note well: If it's a small job market, this may be a more costly action.

<comment><USER20> > Slightly lower lifetime earnings? How would that happen?

" _Something something_ burned bridges _something_ opportunities _something_ ", I expect. I don't know, it just seems like something the "keep it to yourself" crowd would warn me about. I really want to believe you, which is why I'm looking for good counter arguments (I swear I don't _only_ do this in comment threads about intellectual humility).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519764)

<comment><USER22> The phrase "well-trained idiot" appeared in an HN comment earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21123542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21123542)

Although they mean different things -- a confident idiot is uninformed but convinced he is the opposite; a well-trained idiot has been brought up (usually in an upper social class) learning how to fake intelligence -- I wonder if [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=who- knows](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=who-knows) (who submitted this post) read this comment and had the notion bouncing around in their head.

In any case, there's also an "educated idiot": [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Educated%20I...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Educated%20Idiot)

<comment><USER23> Not to mention the "useful idiot".

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I may have been faking it and making it till I caught on.

I was faced with a trade-off I don't know how to make.

Do I prioritize urgent work or important work when not doing either has tragic consequences along similar timelines?

Oh! We invented two words that mean the same thing so we can fake our own inability to prioritize?

 _sigh_

<comment><USER25> Urgent does not mean the same thing as important. Urgent tasks can be important or unimportant, but what makes them urgent is that they must be done soon/now rather than later, or that their value drops greatly if left to later.

Armed with this knowledge, we can categorise tasks in four: urgent-important, urgent-unimportant, unurgent-important, and unurgent-unimportant. Urgent- important tasks are always the highest priority, and unurgent-unimportant tasks the lowest. Where it gets interesting is between unurgent-important and urgent-unimportant tasks, the former should be prioritised if you do not have time to complete all the tasks, and the latter should be prioritised if you do.

<comment><USER24> This is a perfect example of faking it! The very thing this thread is about.

Instead of figuring out how to make the hard choice between Urgent<->Important in the first place, you've drawn a distinction which lets you kick the can down the road.

Choosing between Unurgent-Important<->Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between Urgent<->Important.

You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work on first?

The one which is most important/urgent/crucial/paramount/valuable/critical/indispensable/pressing/essential/serious/vital/exigent/burning/paramount/<insert more synonyms here>, obviously!

Is that task A or task B?

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." \- Richard P. Feynman

If you can't assign relative priorities to things - you can't implement a priority queue ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_queue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_queue) ).

<comment><USER25> Perhaps its my stupidity, but I don't see what this has to do with faking?

The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the parent comment didn't seem to understand.

>Choosing between Unurgent-Important<->Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between Urgent<->Important.

Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

>You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work on first?

I actually did address this. If you have time for both the urgent one comes first, if you may have time for only one the important one comes first.

Urgent is not a synonym for important, and the point of drawing the distinction is to recognise that relative priorities can be different depending on context, such as how much time is available.

<comment><USER24> >The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the parent comment didn't seem to understand.

There is nothing to understand about that point. It's a linguistic distinction which makes no practical difference.

The prioritisation problem is like this: When forced to choose which task do you schedule first?

The Urgent one or the Important one?

If you always lean towards Urgent things, you will neglect the Important. If you always lean towards Important things, you will neglect the Urgent.

>Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

We are on the same page. It doesn't matter how you label them, if two tasks have equal priorities you have no way to decide which task to schedule first.

Conversely: if you have a way to decide which task to schedule first, then (to you) they clearly have different priorities.

The one you've chosen to do is the task with higher priority! Obviously - because you chose to do it first.

You have no solution to this problem. You are faking the fact that you do. You are flipping a proverbial coin (like the rest of us).

<comment><USER25> >There is nothing to understand about that point. It's a linguistic distinction which makes no practical difference.

It does make a practical difference. Important tasks are higher priority under tighter time constraints and vice versa. I fail to see how this isn't a practical distinction.

>If you always lean towards Urgent things, you will neglect the Important. If you always lean towards Important things, you will neglect the Urgent.

If you do this you failed. The point is lean important when time constrained, urgent when not.

>Conversely: if you have a way to decide which task to schedule first, then (to you) they clearly have different priorities.

They have different priorities IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS. One is higher when time constrained, the other higher when not. It is clear from reading your comments that you have not understood this.

<comment><USER24> In what universe do you live in that you operate under different time contexts/constraints to the rest of us?

The very fact that you are forced to make a choice between Urgent and Important indicates that you ARE time-constrained within your context.

If you could do both in parallel it wouldn't be a prioritisation problem.

There is only one time context. It's called The Universe. For each worker (human!) Time is a finite resource. It is clear form your comments that you do not understand this.

Having 'different time contexts' means having multiple workers. Multi- threading.

<comment><USER25> Contrived hypothetical: It's tuesday evening, and I'm updating my to-do's before tomorrow. I have 3 hours after work, and 3 tasks:

1) A meeting (Important Urgent) 1 or 2 hours

2) Buy a gift for someone's birthday (Important - can be done any time but must be done) 1 hour

3) Check the marketplace for a limited sale (Urgent - much better if done immediately, but doesn't matter so much if not done) 1 hour

If task 1 takes only one hour, I do 3 then 2. If it takes two hours, I do 2.

There's two contexts above. Obviously as you pointed out, once you actually get to doing a task, there's only one context. But the point is that when adding a task to your to-do list you don't yet necessarily know what that future context will be.

Your choices here are to either make a priority queue for every possible future context (reasonable for this simple case, but doesn't scale to a more complex one), or mark tasks with the relevant information that will let you easily assemble the appropriate priority queue on the fly, once the context becomes clear.

<comment><USER24> And what happens if your time-estimates are wrong; or unbounded?

You have two tasks (one Urgent, one Important) and 10 days at your disposal.

If each task takes at least 4 days, which one do you do first?

> But the point is that when adding a task to your to-do list you don't yet > necessarily know what that future context will be.

I am not talking about pushing tasks on the queue. I am taking about popping them off the queue.

If you don't know how long a particular task takes how do you decide whether to pop a task off your Urgent or Important queue?

Just-in-Time prioritisation under uncertainty is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's a financial quiz embedded in one of the links in the article. To test my own false confidence, I decided to try it. So before taking the quiz, I decided I would describe myself as reasonably well informed amateur, nowhere close to expert. I got 6 out of 6, but they were fairly easy questions (except for one question about bond yields which I had to think about). After the quiz I'm more certain that I really don't have the kind of deep knowledge that a quant or someone like that has. So yeah I'd rank myself as a layman.

I'm curious as to how some of the rest of us do? Rank yourself before and after?

[http://www.usfinancialcapability.org/quiz.php](http://www.usfinancialcapability.org/quiz.php)

</comment><comment><USER27> According to the Gita, there is a fundamental difference between "real" ego and what it defines as the "false" ego. Real ego is our very essence, the consciousness that makes us aware and awake to reality. The false ego is a false identity crafted to preserve the sense of being the most significant and the most important all the time. In short, it is a narcissistic search for being loved, validated and appreciated. This is what we generally refer to as the ego. The Gita further describes the subtleties of the ego and how it manifests moment to moment in our thoughts, words and deeds.

The concept seems to be stretched too far when we first read about it. But when we honestly study our own lives, we can clearly isolate various episodes of how this tendency manifests itself in our personality, either covertly or explicitly. The events can range from simple conversations on which football team is the best to intense debates in boardrooms on the next important decision for the organization. What's worse is that the ego blinds us from seeing its own ploy, the ultimate of which is rationalized excuses for avoiding honest introspection and admittance.

</comment><comment><USER28> Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367)

"Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience" \--Mark Twain

</comment><comment><USER29> I would say the root of this behaviour is our clinging for the acceptance of others. It is a pathos fueling our neurosis and it is also the foundation of society.

</comment><comment><USER30> What do you expect from a species that has literally only just, barely achieved enough sentience to scrape together a technological society.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do people believe evolution has, like, actual agency? Unbelievable. If true, this phenomenon is worth studying by itself.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've just found this site fascinating and also learned that they were shutting down as of Aug. 7. Very sad.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect.

<comment><USER34> Yes, as mentioned by the linked article. Which was written by David Dunning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I must be broken, because I am 100% sure I would always respond with letting the interviewer know I do not know that band.

Could this lying behavior be more present in specific countries?

<comment><USER36> It's probably because they are at a music festival and don't want to come across as people not "in the know" at said festival in front of thousands of people. I'm sure if it was just a newspaper reporter or a random person, they probably would just admit that.</comment></comment>


If you haven't pushed it to revision control, it doesn't exist - <AUTHOR> http://yakking.branchable.com/posts/truism-3-if-you-havent-pushed-it/

<comment><USER2> Minor historical point. SCCS dates from 1972 and was first written for the IBM 370 and then for Unix on the PDP 11. See [http://basepath.com/aup/talks/SCCS- Slideshow.pdf](http://basepath.com/aup/talks/SCCS-Slideshow.pdf) .

Tar didn't come out until years later, so the text:

> A long long time ago, in the dim and distant past, revision control > consisted entirely of making a tarball of your code tree from time to time > and calling that "releases". We passed from there to "local" revision > control such as RCS and SCCS and from there to ways to collaborate with > tools like CVS and thence to SVN, TLA, BZR, git etc.

reflects a personal history of "we" rather than a global one.

For what it's worth, some of my code has been published in books and magazines, so it does exist in the sense the author means, even though it wasn't in revision control.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the differences between Influxdb+Grafana and ELK? - <AUTHOR>

I've been looking into both stacks and it seems like they are both capable of visualizing and analyzing your collected metrics. Are there specific use-cases for each that differentiate the two? <comment><USER2> Elasitcsearch is really a document database of sorts. Think of using it to store logs or messages.

InfluxDB is a time series database. Think of using it to store periodic measurement data (generally samples or point in time measurements).

For a complete solution you really need both of them.</comment>


CDC says 'nightmare bacteria' a growing threat - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-warns-of-rise-in-nightmare-bacteria/2013/03/05/5596b952-85cb-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official report "Vital Signs: Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae":

[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm62e0305a1.htm?s_c...](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm62e0305a1.htm?s_cid=mm62e0305a1_e)

The report abstract, which leads into many more details:

"Background: Enterobacteriaceae are a family of bacteria that commonly cause infections in health-care settings as well as in the community. Among Enterobacteriaceae, resistance to broad-spectrum carbapenem antimicrobials has been uncommon. Over the past decade, however, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) have been recognized in health-care settings as a cause of difficult-to-treat infections associated with high mortality.

"Methods: The percentage of acute-care hospitals reporting at least one CRE from health-care–associated infections (HAIs) in 2012 was estimated using data submitted to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) in 2012. The proportion of Enterobacteriaceae infections that were CRE was calculated using two surveillance systems: 1) the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system (NNIS) and NHSN (for 2001 and 2011, respectively) and 2) the Surveillance Network–USA (TSN) (for 2001 and 2010). Characteristics of CRE culture-positive episodes were determined using data collected as part of a population-based CRE surveillance project conducted by the Emerging Infections Program (EIP) in three states.

"Results: In 2012, 4.6% of acute-care hospitals reported at least one CRE HAI (short-stay hospitals, 3.9%; long-term acute-care hospitals, 17.8%). The proportion of Enterobacteriaceae that were CRE increased from 1.2% in 2001 to 4.2% in 2011 in NNIS/NHSN and from 0% in 2001 to 1.4% in 2010 in TSN; most of the increase was observed in Klebsiella species (from 1.6% to 10.4% in NNIS/NHSN). In the EIP surveillance, 92% of CRE episodes occurred in patients with substantial health-care exposures.

"Conclusions: Carbapenem resistance among common Enterobacteriaceae has increased over the past decade; most CRE are associated with health-care exposures.

"Implications for Public Health: Interventions exist that could slow the dissemination of CRE. Health departments are well positioned to play a leading role in prevention efforts by assisting with surveillance, situational awareness, and coordinating prevention efforts."

</comment><comment><USER2> "During the first half of 2012, almost 200 hospitals and long-term acute-care facilities treated at least one patient infected with these bacteria. The CDC did not have statistics for fatalities."</comment>


Elon Musk frets about love life and sheds tears in Rolling Stone Interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2017/elon-musk-frets-love-life-sheds-tears-rolling-stone-interview/ <comment><USER2> Does this improve much upon the original article?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15704618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15704618)</comment>


GCC 4.5.0 is out - <AUTHOR> http://h3manth.com/content/gcc-450-released Status report form From: Richard Guenther <comment><USER2> Probably the more important page to visit: <http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html>

<comment><USER3> Does anyone have a summary of the most important changes?

<comment><USER4> The following things look neat and/or interesting for me:

\- MPC library integration means that evaluation of complex constants at compile time is more accurate. It also can evaluate calls to complex math functions with constant arguments at compile time.

-Wenum-compare now works for C.

\- When the compiler prints template instantiations, it ignores arguments that haven't changed from the default. I think the idea is to make things like std::map<std::string, std::vector<std::string> > look less like vomit.

\- Plugin support has been released.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> LTO, finally.

[http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize- Options.html#inde...](http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize- Options.html#index-flto-801)

</comment><comment><USER6> wow, headache medicine for CS lab proctors!

 _If a header named in a #include directive is not found, the compiler exits immediately. This avoids a cascade of errors arising from declarations expected to be found in that header being missing._

<comment><USER7> It should have been that way from the beginning. This 'cascade of error messages' style is pretty damn bad.

Also, the compiler _must_ quit on the first error: Continuing with the known- bad state is not only asking for trouble, it's inviting it in and setting up the guest room for it to stay a month.

We aren't on mainframes anymore. Getting an error message means you go back to the editor _immediately_ , not in a week when your next time slot comes around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool I asked for -Wlogical-op 9 years ago :) <http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4412>

</comment><comment><USER9> I would just like to thank the FSF & GNU team and everybody ever associated with them - we owe them ALOT!!!!

<comment><USER10> go thank them where they can see it at least

<comment><USER11> Or give them some money.</comment></comment></comment>


Virtual Conferences: A Guide to Best Practices - <AUTHOR> https://www.acm.org/virtual-conferences <comment><USER2> Pdf: [https://people.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/acm/VirtualConferences...](https://people.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/acm/VirtualConferences_GuideToBestPractices_CURRENT.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Table of like 30 videoconf programs but misses Big Blue Button, the best free software one I've used. And it doesn't mention the license of any of the programs.

<comment><USER4> The Google doc referenced is nice to get an overview of some options, what they're capable of, and how they work.

They're definitely missing some key players, and some of the information is slightly incorrect or misleading (Jitsi user limit for example), but it looks like a good resource regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm slogging through the Oxidize 1k video (singular. It's 4 1/2 hours as a single file) and noticing a bunch of things that I hope the next conference starts to figure out.

>Another issue that organizers should keep in mind is that virtual conferences maybeless forgiving than physical ones if something is not working as planned, such as a microphone notworking or the location of a workshop changing. Testing and rehearsing ahead of time mitigates these problems.

This is essentially a throwaway line at the end of a section and it should be its own section.

Get your presenters together ahead of time. Like a week ahead of time, and then again an hour before the conference. Test their mic levels. Have them show you the outline for their slide deck (so everyone has shared their desktop at least a couple of times). If you are recording the conference, record the rehearsal. Get people used to the idea that all the faffing about they do getting their system set up after their name is called is going to be the beginning of their video. So no faffing.

And something I picked up at a pretty large national company: You might actually want to have the MC and the coordinator be two different people. It's so much less distracting on a conference call with hundreds of people if it's one person's whole job to moderate the microphones, and maybe play a video at the right moment.

But now the moderator and the MC have to rehearse so that they can pick up on each other's cues, and they may need an out of band communication mechanism for that (or in this scenario, be someone they already live with).

Also, get your giant microphone out of the frame, even if you have to mount it in a weird way to do it.

And I'm not really sure what to suggest here, but it's worth thinking about how your slide deck looks with your face showing in a floating rectangle in the bottom corner. The recording of the first meeting may help you sort that out. For instance, color bar across the bottom of your deck? Probably a bad idea.</comment>


RavenDB auto certificate renewal: The feature you hopefully never know we have - <AUTHOR> https://ayende.com/blog/186561-C/automatic-certificate-updates-in-ravendb-the-feature-you-hopefully-never-know-we-have <comment><AUTHOR> I'm wondering about the security of using the same key pair - isn't the point of frequent renewal to limit the timeframe of the damage if your private key is compromised?

OTOH, if we think about SSH keys, they are generally _not_ short lived like with certificates - yet that seems to be an accepted thing (at least, I've never known anyone to change /roll SSH keys).</comment>


German Brute Forces SHA1 in 49 Minutes for $2  - <AUTHOR> http://www.itproportal.com/2010/11/19/german-hacks-national-security-agencys-sha1/

<comment><USER2> Really poor headline. This has nothing to do with hacking SHA1: it's just a dictionary attack on the passwords in question.

SHA1 (and MD5 and similar constructions) are especially vulnerable because they are fast to evaluate (OpenBSD's Blowfish scheme and cperciva's scrypt feature a scalable amount of work), but this is _not_ a break of SHA1 per se.

Still, a nice demonstration of what GPU programming can do.

<comment><USER3> It turns out the 10 passwords he 'hacked' were in the range of 1-6 characters.

More details here: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/18/amazon_cloud_sha_pas...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/18/amazon_cloud_sha_password_hack/)

<comment><USER4> If he had just Google'd the hashes he'd have saved himself $2, considering there was no salting.

<comment><USER5> The point is that "salting" doesn't slow down the GPU attack.

<comment><USER6> the "attack" was using a dictionary. Salting would certainly defeat that, so he'd have to brute-force the key-space which would take years despite the parallel GPU power.

<comment><USER4> (in response to tptacek below)

it doesn't help against a single hash, but for multiple hashes you scale up the amount of work required by the number of salts in use.

<comment><USER5> If the observation made here was "this guy got unrealistically impressive results because he was able to parallelize across every password hash", I'd agree.

But the observation was instead "this attack worked largely because the passwords weren't salted". No, false. This attack set a price of $1.62 per password using the simplest available GPU cluster resource. In no definition of cryptographic security is $1.62 a reasonable threshold.

Scrypt, bcrypt, or PBKDF2 can increase that cost factor to many tens of thousands of dollars per password without incurring appreciable costs to the applications using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The headline is inaccurate; according to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1921848>, he cracked SHA1 _14 times_ in 49 minutes.

<comment><USER6> he ran 14 SHA1 hashes of very poor passwords through his dictionary in 49 minutes.

If these were salted hashes or even just better passwords he'd still be calculating. And he'd STILL be calculating years from now.

<comment><USER8> If the passwords were salted, he would have cracked one in 49 minutes instead of 14.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For anyone that wants to try this out, here is the 'german guy's post on the matter:

[http://stacksmashing.net/2010/11/15/cracking-in-the-cloud- am...](http://stacksmashing.net/2010/11/15/cracking-in-the-cloud-amazons-new- ec2-gpu-instances/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Switching to one of the SHA-2 hashes should be good enough till SHA-3 is selected.

<comment><USER5> Switching to SHA2 would do absolutely nothing to defend against GPU-optimized brute force dictionary searches.</comment></comment>


Finding topics in Harry Potter using K-Means clustering - <AUTHOR> http://dogdogfish.com/2015/05/11/finding-topics-in-harry-potter-using-k-means-clustering/ <comment><USER2> This is neat... I love projects like this. When the number of clusters is unknown or hard to predict ahead of time, I'd lean toward something like affinity propagation or mean-shift. Why k-means?

[http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_af...](http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_affinity_propagation.html) [http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_me...](http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/cluster/plot_mean_shift.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny he mentions Latent Dirichlet Allocation. If you want to see it applied to Harry Potter, you're out of luck. However, if you want to see it applied to Harry Potter fanfiction, Kaj Sotala wrote a post three days ago! [http://kajsotala.fi/2015/05/harry-potter-and-the-methods- of-...](http://kajsotala.fi/2015/05/harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-latent- dirichlet-allocation/)</comment>


Google API out for opening links in Chrome (for iOS) - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/ios-links

<comment><USER2> It's a real shame that they have to come up with such workarounds, simply because Apple won't allow their users to use their preferred browser as default.</comment>


Schema 0.2.0: back with Clojure(Script) data coercion - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getprismatic.com/blog/2014/1/4/schema-020-back-with-clojurescript-data-coercion

<comment><USER2> I'm very impressed with some of the tools that have recently come out of Prismatic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here, interested in your comments and happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER3> Jason this looks sweet! I don't ever comment on HN, but I couldn't hold back when I read the post.

I've been writing the same boiler plate code in my API layer as well and have been thinking about something like this for a while. This is the first validation library I've seen that provides the coercion needed when dealing with user generated data. I've seen plenty of libraries that do one or the other, but when you use two libraries you end up duplicating the schema definition or writing custom transformation functions to make the libraries play nicely together.

I haven't play with it yet, but am extremely excited to do so and will post my thoughts soon. Thanks for all the great stuff you and the Prismatic team are putting out; it's greatly appreciated!</comment></comment>


New organ named in digestive system - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38506708 <comment><USER2> In case anyone is interested there is some discussion of this over here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13308092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13308092)

The same story has been submitted from other sources as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315995)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315751)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13313220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13313220)

There may be others, if you're interested in the different reports from different sources you can easily search for them.</comment>