It's time to rethink the purpose of travel - <AUTHOR> https://brightthemag.com/the-next-trend-in-travel-is-dont-226d4aba17f6 <comment><USER2> When I was a kid I thought the greatest thing in life would be to travel around the world, see interesting things, meet interesting people, and go to interesting places. This in turn would make _me_ a more interesting, worthwhile human being worthy of adoration. Somehow our generation was taught that our experiences define us. That by getting on a plane to London and taking some pictures somehow our lives would be more unique and amazing.

So I spent my early 20s traveling and doing just that. Seeing everything there was to see. Doing all the things I ever dreamed of as a 16 year old kid stuck in the midwest. Being a hobo, I guess you could say, and having all of these "experiences" that I was sure would add up to a life of meaning. The result was a profound lack of satisfaction, and a severe existential dread at perhaps never finding any actual purpose.

I was lucky to settle down, go back to school, and find a passion in programming and science which drives me toward working on bigger problems than myself, that might help humanity in some way. But I fear that the vast majority of people my age are still stuck in that mindset, having never got it out of their systems. Hoping and praying that this next trip to Bali will finally give them that satisfaction beyond filling 3 minutes in passing cocktail party conversation.

<comment><USER3> > I was lucky to settle down, go back to school, and find a passion in > programming and science which drives me toward working on bigger problems > than myself, that might help humanity in some way

This is exactly why everyone should travel. The thing that you find out is that the rest of the world isn't so different from wherever you're from. Perhaps the colors and shapes of the architecture and food is different, but people are pretty much people. There are some cultural differences that are helpful to learn too, but learning that the world is big and also that it isn't is extremely valuable.

My lessons from traveling (I still like doing it though): You cannot run away from yourself, taking pictures of things doesn't make you more interesting, people like to party, people are mostly good, you get to decide what matters

<comment><USER4> > This is exactly why everyone should travel. The thing that you find out is > that the rest of the world isn't so different...

Maybe some people could learn the lesson without having to personally experience it. A lacture plan that involves flying people around the globe seems environmentally problematic.

<comment><USER5> Unless you live on an island, traveling doesn't have to be by plane. Here in Europe many youths get an Interrail pass[1], and you can get to Africa with a short ferry crossing.

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

<comment><USER6> I think you have it somewhat backwards though. Europe is small. Unless you live in Europe, you are quite restricted in terms of how much variety you can experience without flying. For example, a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles takes over 6 hours of driving (bus is even worse). And that's "just next door" as far as US metropolitan cities go. And no, this isn't americanism or defending car culture. Consider also that rail system coverage in South America or Africa is severely lacking if compared to Europe. And for better or for worse, a very large number of popular destinations are indeed insular.

Ironically, Europe is also effectively inaccessible without planes for tourists from elsewhere (either because of geography or sheer distance)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000. The cruise ships carried ~5000 passengers, and they kept building new docks, so that there would be several at a time docked and anchored, each of which was bigger then our 10 story federal building. Picture a floating sky scraper. The part of town around their piers turns into theme park in the summer. They used to make announcements on their megaphones that I could hear from my house 2 miles away. They dumped sewage and trash in the ocean close to nearby towns sometimes using legal loopholes, but sometimes illegally, and were occasionally fined for this. They also set up company stores downtown, and bussed hundreds of people into small local parks, trails, and beaches.

The cruise companies are incorporated in low tax foreign jurisdictions, outside the political reach of the citizens of places they visit. Sometimes the city pushes back a bit. The last time I went home they seemed to have eased off of the megaphones, and I heard a head tax was proposed at some point to help clean up after the tourists and maintain the public parks, but I don't know if it passed. The city and state are both small enough that the cruise companies can out-lobby locals interests quite handily. They promise jobs, but import labor. They have PR campaigns that brag about their public service efforts, omitting that these are court ordered, etc. It seems to me that the ability to shop for jurisdiction creates great opportunity for legal arbitrage. I have no idea what to do about this, but I think it's interesting. Maybe there's a metaphor here… something something Panama papers. :)

<comment><USER8> >I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000.

How many of those people would not be living there if not for the revenue brought in by tourism?

Reading the article, my immediate thought was: of course the Balinese hate tourists, when the ill effects are so obvious, and the benefits more subtle; easy to take for granted. But where would they be economically if all the tourists just stopped coming? I would bet the resulting recession would make people yearn for what they once despised.

<comment><USER7> I would guess most of them. I don't think the population has grown proportionately with the tourist traffic. They used to only dock a couple of smaller ships at time, which had less impact on the town.

It's the state capital, and there are also various industries. Also, tourism jobs tend to be temporary/seasonal, and people often come from out of town to do them for a few months and then leave. We get a hundred inches of rain a year, and in the winter it's dark a lot so there is no tourism in the winter.

EDIT: Population has grown about 15% since 1990, but dock space has roughly trippled, and per ship passenger capacity has substantially increased.

I haven't heard anyone suggest that tourism should be banned, just that it would be nice for it occur at a scale similar to a few decades ago, and to externalize costs less; e.g. refrain from illegal dumping, contribute to the upkeep of public goods that are exploited, and only increase the population of the town by, let's say, %20 on a given day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a conundrum, isn't it? On one hand travel inspires people to learn about the world and, hopefully, become more open-minded. As the article said it's never been cheaper to travel, so people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to do so are now able to.

But as with anything we humans touch, if we aren't careful we inadvertently destroy it. So I wonder if there's a good solution here? The lazy one is to make everything incredibly expensive, but why should the world be limited to the rich (more than it already is, comparatively speaking)?

</comment><comment> trevor-e The article is trying to make the traveler feel guilty when to me the burden falls on local governments of these tourist destinations. If there's an impending ecological disaster isn't it in their best interest to have more regulations, eg by increasing fines/citations, limiting visas, increasing prices, etc?

If AirBnB is displacing local residents then ban the service, many cities have started to do so.

If the mangroves are being destroyed then disallow tourism to that area.

Easier said than done of course since tourism is often driving the economy and everyone wants to make a quick buck.

<comment><USER10> It's really only an issue for you once there's _already_ an impending disaster, and even then the responsibility doesn't lie with those that did the damage?!

That's hard to swallow, for me. Do people have no moral obligations, in your view? Is life only about the power to push back against something one doesn't like, rather than some deeper commitment to what is right and good?

<comment><USER8> >and even then the responsibility doesn't lie with those that did the damage?!

Doesn't responsibility for a rising teen birthrate lie with the teens? Doesn't responsibility for an opioid epidemic lie with users and traffickers? Doesn't responsibility for gridlock lie with drivers?

In a sense, yes, but realistically, this kind of collective action problem can only be solved at scale by governments. Telling Americans "STOP TRAVELING" will be about as effective as telling drug lords "STOP TRAFFICKING".

<comment><USER10> I agree that the collective action problem is solved by government, and that these problems are of that sort. It's just that the language of "but... the burden falls on local governments" makes it sound as though that _pragmatic_ reality replaces individual moral responsibility.

Especially if the problem would be even worse when we stop trying to reinforce each other's good actions, then throwing up your hands and saying "well, it's the government's problem" isn't good enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a regular traveller for leisure and living in a major tourist destination (Amsterdam), I've been thinking and experiencing a lot the issue of over- tourism. However, I disagree with the article's idea that the only solution is to stop traveling voluntarily.

Personally, I think pre-approved tourist visas will be the most efficient way of controlling how many people can travel to a country and then regions of a country. So, the solution already exists in part. Understandably, a few cities and areas of a country receive most tourists. You could therefore regulate the amount of visitors in each area by issuing location-depdendent visas. For example: "On the chosen dates you can come to the United States, but cannot visit New York or Florida. You may visit California, Nevada, Georgia etc etc."

It's terrifying and limiting, but realistically it's the only pro-active solution I can think of to improve the sustainability of a place, especially for the locals. Flight prices are likely to continue to drop and more people will have means to travel internationally. You cannot count on people's consciousness to address this issue.

<comment><USER12> Or you could use market dynamics to allocate a scarce resource (i.e., raise the price): [https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/359649/tourist- tax-...](https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/359649/tourist-tax-up- to-35-to-be-charged)

<comment><USER13> I think people are in general becoming a little disillusioned with using market dynamics to allocate leisure.

Nobody minds that only rich people can stay at fancy hotels. But if, hypothetically, only rich people can set foot in New Zealand? That offends people.

Yes, scarce resources need allocating. Market dynamics are not the _only_ way, see lottery permits in the NPS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are many places in the world where the local economy is driven by tourism. Everyone would love to receive the benefits of tourism without the drawbacks, but that's not really possible. Consider your impact when you travel, but don't let that stop you from seeing the world.

</comment><comment><USER15> One interesting counterexample: Bhutan. Open to all visitors, but they need to pay $200 _per day_ for the privilege. This includes basic/3-star accommodation and meals, you can opt to pay more if you wish and Aman has a string of resorts with $1000/night price tags if you do.

Couple this with an authoritarian monarchy that does things like enforce local dress code by law, and you get most of the benefits of tourism without many of the downsides.

Of course, it's debatable how well this model would adapt to tourist destinations that aren't obscure mountainous hermit kingdoms...

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not only low prices that helped tourism gain traction. It's one of the areas massively impacted by technology in recent years...3G/4G, online maps, AirBnb, aviation safety ...all these allow the average teenager to take a tour across Europe with ease. It's a trend now that young people take a year off between high school and university, just for travelling.

Sounds absurd but some years ago people would think twice about travelling just because of the fear of getting lost.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems like many people visit Bali as tourists because of geoarbitrage — dollar for dollar meals and housing are so much cheaper than in the states, and overall it's a nice place to work remotely (except internet) or vacation.

It does sound like tourism has the potential to be exploitative. Maybe they can find a way to charge more only to tourists borrowing tricks like "resort fees" from Las Vegas. Or doubling prices and giving only residents discounts somehow.

<comment><USER18> I feel like the internet in Bali is actually quite good. South-east asia has world class internet.

<comment><USER17> Haven't been there myself, but I've mostly heard speeds along the lines of "Internet: 8mbps" [1][2]. Maybe it's that we've gotten use to 100+ Mbps in the US, or perhaps Ubud is an outlier?

[1]: [https://nomadlist.com/ubud-bali-indonesia](https://nomadlist.com/ubud- bali-indonesia)

[2]: [https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/50033/any-fast- in...](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/50033/any-fast-internet- good-wifi-in-ubud-bali)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Depending on your brain structure and circumstances travel can have a different effect on different people. I have some form of 4D memory - I can go back to any place i've seen, including my dreams and spend time there any time I want. The sights, the smells, the sounds. As a result I don't feel a need to travel to the same place twice, but I do miss the people and the food at every place I go. So in a way with every trip, I leave a piece of me behind and I miss it, until no place can ever be perfect for all the precious people it's missing.

Others I know see travel as therapy, as an escape. They photoshop the people out of their photos to keep the place pure and go back to it by looking at albums. They enjoy the experience of being in the warm water of a favorite beach, and would do anything to go back there as often as possible.

Travel should not be limited, but there needs to be an international protocol of conservationist behavior that we all abide by whenever leave home. More people have the means to travel every year, and likely a safe thing to do would be to print a protocol brochure/terms of travel if you will, and request agreement from everyone as a part of the ticket purchasing or customs process.

</comment><comment><USER20> "It's time" to stop saying "it's time" for this or that. I've noticed it, which means being annoyed isn't far off. It's time to come up with a new way of titling your (usually) prescriptive and preachy shit.

Nonetheless I still agree with the idea that you really don't need to go. Going and seeing some amazing thing is usually not that amazing. Especially when everyone else on this crowded-ass planet has the same idea. But sometimes you have to go do it, just to figure that out.

Travel is the kind of thing where there's almost an inverse relationship between the amount you spend and the level of "meaning" you get out of it. At least in my experience. The trips I took "deluxe" style were pretty bland, while the ones where I had to problem-solve, use my wits, suffer a little, even dodge law enforcement (thinking of freight-hopping trips there) stand out more in memory.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go."

</comment><comment><USER22> You know, they're not making any more land.

The world has gotten significantly richer since 1945, and a result of that is that more and more of the world's population has the ability to travel to the most beautiful and popular places in the world. However, this explosion in wealth hasn't been matched by an explosion in the number of truly beautiful and popular places in the world. The ones we do have just get more crowded.

<comment><USER23> You should see how overrun tourist spots are in China by the growing number of domestic travelers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> As if Indonesia ever needed tourism to throw garbages out, even in untouristy areas in Asia it's moutains of garbages everwhere. About the tourists being too many, that's a country's authority to regulate tourism, by enforcing Visa laws for example, Balinese corruption is to blame for what the place has become, not the tourists.

</comment><comment><USER25> best quote from the article: "why call it tourist season if we can't shoot them"

</comment><comment><USER26> _" So is it possible to travel anywhere and feel OK about it?"_

 _" Ultimately, there's only one surefire way to avoid contributing to the problems of tourism: don't go."_

Hello clickbait, my old friend... I've come to talk with you again... Can you please stop over-generalizing? About the cause and effect of everything? Like the sweat from my balls causing avalanches in Nepal? That's a little far. I think it's time.... to flag this.

<comment><USER27> While I dislike the suggestion of flagging this - just ignoring it is a much better choice, there is enough censorship as it is - I do commend you for this piece of poetry. It neatly fits the metrum and I can almost hear that bald 'Disturbed' singer mumble out these alternative lyrics to the sounds of silence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Air travel is exceptionally affordable because the fuel is not taxed. [1] We can curb frivolous air travel by fixing this anomoly, which is long overdue considering the global climate situation we find ourselves in.

[1] [http://www.parliament.uk/briefing- papers/SN00523.pdf](http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN00523.pdf)

<comment><USER29> Automotive fuel is taxed to pay for roads. Aircraft pay fees to use airports but that's independent of distance travel as that does not impact the airports.

So, really if we want to tax CO2 we should tax all forms of CO2 equally in addition to current taxes.

<comment><USER30> Not in many countries. Some countries subsidise automatice fuel. In Europe it's taxed far more than transport budgets (to contribute to the externalities).

Pollution from 1kw of fuel in an ICE is far higher than that in a power station too.

Most of the world has been trying to capture the externalities of carbon emissions. It's not perfect, but we are admitting that our economy is reliant on spending our environmental resources. Effectively borrowing to be repaid later.

The US is pulling out of that agreement though because reasons.

<comment><USER29> > Pollution from 1kw in an ICE is far higher than that in a power plant too.

Not nessisarily automotive fuel contains both Carbon and Hydrogen. So you're producing both CO2 and H20. Coal power plants often have higher thermal efficiency, but that's not nessisarily enough to make up for the difference in fuel. Further, the highest car engine is 50% fuel efficient and in cold weather can boost a little further by using waste heat for passenger comfort. [https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1115473_mercedes- created...](https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1115473_mercedes-created-the- worlds-most-efficient-racing-engine) The vast majority of automotive engines are far lower, but many coal power plants are sub 40% where many hybrids are over 40%.

Granted the extraction, refinement, and transportation of automotive fuel produces CO2. But those stages can and should be taxed separately.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Easy approaches make learning math hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24299980/

<comment><USER2> The experiments were done on college students, and yet they seem to be trying to draw conclusions about elementary school students. This seems like a pretty big flaw -- I suspect they learn in very different ways.

<comment><USER3> While not directly related to this methodology, in my work (as a business coach) we observe that adults learn through experience, not just observation, which may support your point.</comment></comment>


A paper about eye damage in astronauts got pulled for "security concerns." Huh? - <AUTHOR> http://retractionwatch.com/2017/11/03/paper-eye-damage-astronauts-got-pulled-security-concerns-huh/ <comment><USER2> There's only a relatively small number of astronauts, so it seems the concern here is that the medical condition of individual test subjects is at risk of being disclosed by the paper.

<comment><USER3> I would consider it a condition of astronauts' employment that their medical condition will be made public where a link with astronautical activity is plausibly hypothesized (ie. with a very low standard of proof).

They are test subjects, after all, funded at least in part by the taxpayer. Medical investigation is part of the point of their jobs. Suppression of the results harms scientific progress and is not in the public interest.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure they wouldn't see it that way, and neither do I.

There are lots of things that we could do to speed up scientific progress, but they're not all necessarily ethical. Making private individuals' medical records effectively public is quite possibly one of those things.

<comment> j-pb I'm pretty sure there are enough people that voluntarily give up their medical privacy AND want to go to space.

If you don't want to disclose your medical record, fine. But don't expect others to funnel billions into you just to make your dream of going to space come true.

<comment><USER5> Maybe they can do so voluntarily. If you exclude people from the program because they're not bending to the will of "my tax dollars" arguments you'll assuredly lose out on talented people in a small specialization pool.

<comment><USER6> My understanding is that there are literally hundreds of qualified, passionate applicants for each spot. I've met a few. If we are spending billions of dollars to strap that particular person to a rocket, I think humanity should be able to benefit as much as possible. I don't think its unreasonable to have as a requirement for that service that certain health records might not remain private. Just like it would not be unreasonable to require certain high level public servants to divulge their tax records, as long as it was understood as a requirement beforehand.

<comment><USER7> The problem is not, if we have enough applicants. It's did THESE people agree to it. If not, it's wrong to disclose this data publicly without their consent. This is an example of better to ask permission, not forgiveness.

Combined with the notion that I'm sure the paper will be anonmised and re- released. I'd even bet this is a non-issue. (Assuming the assertions previously made in this thread of course).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article is:

Role of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Spaceflight-induced Ocular Changes and Visual Impairment in Astronauts

[https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2017161981](https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2017161981)

It can be found, as usual at SciHub Moscow. So the Russians who use Sci Hub Moscow can read it, but American doctors who subscribe to Radiology cannot...

The original article is worth reading, it talks about choroidal folds and visual impairment that lasts for years after space flight.

<comment><USER8> American doctors cannot use SciHub?

<comment><USER9> Well, they can but they can't really publicly admit they do.

<comment><USER10> I use it on a BID basis (medical).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php?s=10.1148%2Fradiol.2017161...](http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php?s=10.1148%2Fradiol.2017161981&journalid=&v=&i=&p=&redirect=1)

Libgen and SciHub Moscow links to the censored paper.

<comment><USER11> retracted, not censored.

<comment><USER12> The mechanism used was a retraction notice, however there was no debate that the research was legitimate and valid, so it could plausibly be said that the retraction mechanism was used to censor the radiology journal that had published the paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the article, it sounds like NASA felt the author didn't respond promptly enough to their request for him to redact personally identifiable information (though he did redact it eventually), and is punishing him for it (by pulling both his research and the grant they gave him).

</comment><comment><USER14> Wait, why are you worrying about Scott Kelly's medical data?

That's what he was in space for, right?

</comment><comment><USER15> For those interested: the paper is available on researchgate.net apparently

<comment><USER9> Streisand effect in 5..4..3..

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The page is not responding. I smell Bigfoot.</comment>


Free secure email with unlimited space - <AUTHOR> https://xfsmail.com/register.html

<comment><USER2> Meh - no TLS on oubound email, no DKIM, no SPF.

Received: from mail.xfsmail.com (MAIL.XFSMAIL.com [188.8.131.52]) by mx1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 68701F20E80

X-Spam-hits: BAYES_80 2, HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, RP_MATCHES_RCVD -0.473, LANGUAGES unknown, BAYES_USED user, SA_VERSION 3.3.2

At least it used TLS on the return email:

Received: from out4-smtp.messagingengine.com (out4-smtp.messagingengine.com [188.8.131.52]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.xfsmail.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 348821446D7

And noticed the DKIM and SPF on my email:

X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2 tagged_above=-999 required=6.31 tests=[BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001] autolearn=ham

\----

It didn't send me an SMS after signup, or appear to have any method to stop a botnet signing up few thousand accounts and going on a spamming run. It happens to us all.

I do wonder how they are planning to fund their hobby if it gets popular.

(disclaimer, I've worked for FastMail for nearly 10 years - I have a decent idea what goes into running an email service)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for doing this test. I've contacted XFSmail about this. Hopefually they can fix this issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> At this point, I'm not really sure I can trust the "free" services, as there's always a "catch" or changes in TOS down the road when they want/need to make money.

I'm moving my main email to fastmail [1]. It's worth $10/year to not get ads shoved in my face or wonder who owns my data.

[1] [http://fastmail.fm](http://fastmail.fm)

</comment><comment><USER4> Physical address points at a virtual office company. No About page, want personal details, offer a free deal that too good... Sold!

</comment><comment><USER5> Question is - who do you trust?

How many national spy agencies are currently planning to roll out "free" email services sold on being secure?

Much safer to assume that every such service has been compromised and keep your private messages private. I suppose the "bad guys" have plans of their own but historical events have shown that they do not in fact have to be all that careful as there is so much "noise" out there.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They use 256-bit with TLS 1.0 and support IMAPS, POP3S and SMTP which you can use with Thunderbird and also RoundCube web mail. Tested it my self works very well ^_^ In fact I found it better working for me then some premium services like HushMail.com or free service like Safe-Mail.net I'm very happy to find something that finaly just work without too many registration questions or phone activation.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm being pedantic but encrypted != secure, of course.

<comment><USER7> Of course it doesn't. This email service doesn't do anything that other email services don't offer

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They are virus-scanning and spam-filtering my email. So they at least have the ability to read all my email. Doesn't sound secure to me.

<comment><USER9> every server passing email to the next server in the hop has the same problem..

The security is what controls exist not only in the severs between you and your email provider but also what controls are in place with the email provider.

<comment><USER8> True. That's why you should use end-to-end encryption for your mail.

There's a reason I'm sceptical about these things: over here in Germany, the government is trying to establish a nation-wide email service (DE-mail) that is supposed to be so secure that you can even use it for government interaction such as filing your taxes. They even argue that they are using encryption to protect your mail. However, they explicitly say that encryption of course only happens between servers and that your email can of course be read on the servers, making all security useless.

This might not be the same as xfsmail, but it doesn't feel secure to me. In general I'm less worried about some random attacker trying to hack into the providers' servers than into provider employees reading my email.</comment></comment></comment>


TCP Sack Kernel Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/tcpsack <comment><AUTHOR> Kind of like a modern equivalent to the old Windows NT Ping of Death.</comment>


Accounts of the financial crisis leave out the dollar swap deals between banks - <AUTHOR> https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-secret-history-of-the-banking-crisis <comment><USER2> Page doesn't seem to work. I only see 2 paragraphs and the second one fades out at the bottom.

I have not disabled javascript.

<comment><USER3> Let it load all the way. Was happening to me, but once the page fully loads the article becomes full size.

<comment><USER4> But don't wait too long? I think I made it farther than OP but eventually some OMG subscribe to our newsletter overlay jumped over top that I couldn't dismiss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tldr

<comment><USER6> During thee financial crisis the Fed allowed the ECB and other European central banks to buy a large amount of dollars, which were lent to European commercial banks who had short-term liabilities denominated in USD.

For reasons that I cannot grasp, the author thinks this is bad for the global economy.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and you have to go through a lot of ranting about banks before getting to the actual story. Which isn't much of a story. I looked on the Fed B/S, the amounts don't seem very large in comparison with the magnitude of QE.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Iran's space monkey a fake? - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9842580/Is-Irans-space-monkey-a-fake.html

<comment><USER2> This would be only the latest in a long series of Iranian announcements which turned out to be nothing more than hoaxes or photoshopped inventions.</comment>


OpenBSD developers: Ted Unangst - <AUTHOR> http://beastie.pl/deweloperzy-openbsd-ted-unangst/ <comment><USER2> Some would rather nitpick this interview than see the good in it. This is disappointing considering it covers practical and useful topics.

\- Ted's progression from first time user to contributor. Start with small diffs in an area you're interested in, and build up if you can.

\- Re-factoring programs with a strong emphasis on maintenance and security. Technical debt is real, and you certainly don't want it in an OS.

\- Balancing more menial tasks (maintenance to the existing platform) with interesting additions (new security techniques).

The peace of mind from knowing an upgrade won't break or fail, and that security is taken seriously is refreshing. Give OpenBSD a shot, read some of the source or man 9 style (it's more informative than HN arguments).

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone care to explain why this is on the front page here? Skimmed through it but just seems like a pretty typical interview with a developer?

<comment><USER4> The BSDs are nice operating systems with considerable interest here.

These interviews are interesting.

The subject of this particular interview is a respected member of HN [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tedunangst](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tedunangst)

<comment><USER3> You both answered my question, thanks. I did a cursory Google search and could not determine why this developer would garner any more interest than others interviewed in this series, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _As I said before, OpenBSD prefers to move a little slow. This has saved us a lot of wasted effort chasing the latest fad, only to switch directions a year later. At the same time, in order to stay relevant and not fall too far behind, we have to guess what's a passing fad and what's an inevitable change._

"Slow" and "internet" don't go well together in a sentence. Can you imagine taking this "slow" approach as a startup? You'd be left behind in a jiffy! I guess a not-for-profit mentality shields you from obsolescence. That and the NSA has saved OpenBSD big time.

More power to them!

<comment><USER6> This is a bit disingenuous and you probably know it. Not everything in the world is about startups, and OpenBSD would do just fine without the recent Internet security news.

Can you really blame a project for being ahead of the curve on security? Is that really your point?

<comment><USER5> Startups aside, how come OpenBSD hasn't made strides in virtualization (not counting QEMU)? Virtualization isn't a fad. Can you imagine OpenBSD as a virtualization host? I'd switch in a heart beat. Can you really justify not being virtualization-ready in 2015/2016?

I use Linux as a VM platform but I've donated to OpenBSD because I've always rooted for them. I'm just disappointed they haven't done much in this area.

<comment><USER7> _You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can 't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes._ \--Theo de Raadt</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are github pages down? - <AUTHOR>

I am not able to access the blog http://engineering.hackerearth.com/ which is hosted via github pages. It shows the error related to varnish cache.<p>Error 503 Backend is unhealthy Backend is unhealthy Guru Meditation: XID: 2373250785 Varnish cache server <comment><USER2> Yes. [https://status.github.com/](https://status.github.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ahh no, I've just submited to HN my new library [https://github.com/salboaie/harvests](https://github.com/salboaie/harvests) (simpler replacement to promises and flow control libraries)

</comment><comment><USER4> What is the point in this thread? [http://status.github.com](http://status.github.com) will answer that question. HN doesn't need threads asking / telling people whether things are down

</comment><comment><USER5> Either GitHub is making headway in mitigating the DDoS attack, or not all GH pages sites were affected. (My repos pages are working fine.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Github gets DDoS'd a lot more than I'd expect. How did they even make enemies like that?</comment>


Show HN: Online bookmarking alpha site for your consideration - <AUTHOR>

I wanted to get the general opinion of HN on a bookmarking site that i wrote as a side project.
The site is called http://www.MarkMyPlace.com and it features:
category and tag based organization bookmark groups very basic user groups for sharing called reading circles very basic friends list complete filtering and sorting capability for all grids
public and private bookmarks, categories, tags, and bookmark groups
It requests your email when you register but it only does this for as yet unimplemented system notification.
Full disclosure, the company is one me and my friends incorporated in case any of this gets big.
I just wanted to know what people thought. Am I going in the right direction. What recommendations might you make.
The home page is going through some turmoil. I am a developer and sometimes i am not very good with designs especially when i am focusing on functionality. This is an ALPHA website. Sometimes it crashes. I actually wanted to make something very simple (I thought) to use. I actually use this daily. The previous iteration is here http://aps.mentalimprovement.com/default.aspx (queue laugh track)
Thanks for your time. <comment><USER2> For the couch potatoes <http://aps.mentalimprovement.com/default.aspx></comment>


Possible to install Adobe Reader without installing AIR and Download Manager? - <AUTHOR>

Is there any way to minimize your security exposure to Adobe products (avoid the Google toolbar, Adobe Download manager, Adobe AIR)? <comment><USER2> Look, it is possible to download Adobe Reader without all the junk, however you won't be touching any of the new version stuff (9 or higher) but look around Adobe's web site (through Google if need be) and find the Adobe Reader v8.20 ... with any luck, Adobe will upgrade by myself overtime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not using a Windows desktop?

Both Macs and more traditional Unix-like desktops are mostly 100% Adobe-free. If you go with a non-x86 or non-AMD64 processor, all the better.</comment>


Abundance: Morning Ritual - <AUTHOR> http://psi-40.blogspot.com/2019/04/abundance-morning-ritual.html <comment><AUTHOR> This will help make your day better.</comment>


Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-26/rising-rents-are-pushing-more-tenants-past-the-breaking-point <comment><USER2> In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices.

In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in the states). They've made millions on just this speculation.

In the short term, this means housing prices are absurd. In the long term, when these houses are no longer appreciating in value at such large scales, we can expect a crash in the housing market. Which will likely mean something similar to the housing crisis of 2008.

The Seattle city council has wanted to pass a law that would make it visible to the public which houses were being bought by foreign investors, but it was deemed illegal.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/politics/proposed-...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/politics/proposed-seattle-taxes-targeting-foreign-buyers-investment- properties-take-fire/)

To me, this is absurd. This is a human rights issue (homelessness is growing by a large amount). This is also a national security issue; this speculation cannot happen forever, and when it ends, I forsee an awful crash.

<comment><USER3> "To me, this is absurd. This is a human rights issue (homelessness is growing by a large amount)."

Homelessness is a mental health issue. Nobody is homeless because of foreign speculators.

Yes, people are indeed incentivized to relocate to housing markets that Chinese people have never heard of like, for instance, _Tacoma_.

If those people spent half their time working and saving (like their parents did) as they spent bitching about their basic human right to live in a walkable neighborhood with artisanal foodstuffs they would then have a nice down payment when the _inevitable crash comes to the hot housing market in question_.

<comment><USER4> It probably was the case 5 years ago that most homeless people in the US has some kind of mental problem. These people were almost all men and you would see them sleeping on the sidewalks or parks with almost nothing in the way of possessions. Now, at least in Oakland, there are tents everywhere. From single ones trying not to get noticed to tent cities with 10-50 tents all in one area. Many of these people have a piles of possessions and some still have jobs. Maybe not quite on the scale of Hoovervilles in the Great Depression, but getting there.

<comment><USER5> I'm confused... Are you saying homelessness can't be a mental health issue because they now have tents? Or because they have possessions?

<comment><USER4> Not at all. I even stated directly that in the recent past most homeless people had mental health issues. Now added to this first group are people that just can't afford the rent and have been evicted or pushed onto the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems the economy is finding the sweet spot where education, housing and health extract the maximum amount of money from people right before they break. Finding that spot while a avoiding a revolution has been the biggest challenge for ruling classes throughout all of history.

<comment><USER7> That's a simple take on a very complex system.

<comment><USER8> The simpler the insight, the more valuable and powerful it is -- if correct.

I think it does capture a key basic principle underlying current trends. In any economic system, there is some total amount of "welfare" or value generated, and it gets split in some way.

So maybe you have a constant value of $2,000 per month for having a place to live. 10 years ago your rent was $1,000 per month and so of the $2,000 worth of utility generated by you living there, you got half and your landlord got half.

Now your rent is $1900 and you still would rather pay it than be homeless, and by many reasonable metrics the economy is better than ever, but your landlord is capturing almost all of the value in the system and _you are reaching the breaking point_.

And I personally don't think it's too simplistic to be true that, as powerful companies optimize (including politically), this kind of transfer is occurring in a lot of sectors in the US this decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rent is an amazingly effective means of redistributing wealth upwards. I have easily paid over £100k rent in my life, always to people substantially richer than I am.

Always enjoyed this Churchill quote - from 1909!

 _Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived._

<comment><USER10> So what's your point? Do you want to eliminate rent? Should people who either can't afford to purchase a house, or who simply don't want to, be forced into homelessness?

Personally I've paid over $115,000 in rent over the past 12 years, but I don't begrudge my landlord their money. I attained utility in exchange for the rent I paid, and have no problem with the arrangement. Not, of course, to say that I'm _happy_ when rent goes up. But it's a conscious choice I make to live this way, not some sort of exploitation.

 _He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare_

Housing isn't a service that contributes to the general welfare? I call bollocks.

<comment><USER11> Land Value Tax. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)

This is distinct from a property tax in that it only measures the value of the soil it sits on, so doesn't punish the landlord for improvements. The value of the land itself is almost entirely outside of the landlord's control, it's determined by the community around it. As a result, this is one of the least distortive taxes.

<comment><USER12> > This is distinct from a property tax in that it only measures the value of > the soil it sits on, so doesn't punish the landlord for improvements. The > value of the land itself is almost entirely outside of the landlord's > control, it's determined by the community around it. As a result, this is > one of the least distortive taxes.

When land value is taxed at a higher rate than property value, it creates a perverse incentive for landlords - especially those who _don 't_ live in the area in which they own property - to encourage blighting and sabotage the value of the land, while instead reinvesting this money into improvements on the property itself. That concentrates wealth even further in the hands of people who can afford to own these insular properties in otherwise "undesirable" areas.

Actively blighting a neighborhood to depress values and make it easier to purchase land for new properties (either on the market or via eminent domain) is _already_ a problem, and one that significantly skews power towards the extremely wealthy and massively-capitalized institutions. Taxing the value of the land separately from the property that sits on it (and at a higher rate) would exacerbate this unbelievably.

<comment><USER13> How have all the economists missed this obvious point?

Murder also hurts property values. Fortunately, we have the ability to create laws to punish destructive behavior.

Why would a landlord destroy the value of their own property, harming their own ability to draw rent?

<comment><USER12> > How have all the economists missed this obvious point?

They haven't. That's why taxing land value at a higher rate than property values _doesn 't_ have support from mainstream economists.

> Murder also hurts property values. Fortunately, we have the ability to > create laws to punish destructive behavior.

Murder is a lot easier to identify and prosecute than blighting. We already have laws against blighting. They don't seem to work. Increasing the incentive to blight is unlikely to make blighting _less_ attractive.

> Why would a landlord destroy the value of their own property, harming their > own ability to draw rent?

You're missing the point. They wouldn't destroy the value of their property; they'd extract value from the land (and neighboring land) to _build up_ the value of their property. Land-value taxes encourage consolidating wealth in improvements to private property that have _zero_ impact on anybody other than the property owner (or tenant). That's the exact opposite of the desired outcome, because it clearly works against the public benefit.

There are plenty of areas where this already happens, because there's enough of an incentive for property owners to do this even without skewing the tax code specifically to reward them for this behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really hope the economy shifts toward remote work as the standard (at least in the career tracks where it is possible). The ever increasing share of higher jobs moving to metropolitan regions will continue to make the places on this list worse off. More remote work might also even out the salaries across the US a little bit. One can dream...

<comment><USER15> It will mostly help India, not the rural US.

<comment><USER14> Even though flying throughout the US is much easier and cheaper than to India and back? Tons of companies already use talent from other countries to create products, the lack of remote work hasn't stopped them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The solution is to build more. The free market should take of it. But the market is not free, local economic interests wield sufficient political power to prevent this.

This is happening in almost every medium and big cities in the U.S. It is capturing a big chunk of the productivity gains in the whole economy. It is a tax from one generation to the next. A national solution is needed.

</comment><comment><USER17> Where I live (Orlando) monthly rent has been rising at a rate of 8 percent per year while wages have essentially stayed still. In the long run this is an unsustainable trend.

If a low income individual is able to rent a house while working a full time job and just make it every month, at the end of their current lease when rent adjust upwards they will be forced out. Moving costs alone will cost them several hundred to a thousand dollars. On top of that they need to find another place to live which may not be possible due to the upwards pricing trend. With little in the way of increased income, what is that person to do, especially if they cannot afford to move and don't have a family able to assist them?

I have no solution for this issue and certainly don't want to curtail anyone's ability to purchase and profit from property but the future prospects of those on the lower spectrum of incomes does not look good.

</comment><comment><USER18> I live in eastern europe, in a city where the life quality is supposed to be the best in my country, working as a software engineer, making ~4 times more than the average salary and the rent and houses grew more than 100% in under 3 years. The problem is that the market adapted to us, the IT workers who can afford a decent rent or buy a house but what happens to students (which are a lot of them here) and people who make the minimum salary (which is ~250 euros / month) ? They are forced to live 3 or 4 in the same apartment or stay in a nearby location outside the city and then commute a longer distance. I expect a market crash in a few years and I'm wondering what will happen. My landlord did borrow a crazy amount of money to pay for an apartment and if the market crashes I expect my rent to go down but that won't happen anyway since the bank probably won't lower his rate. We are all fucked really. This is something that will happen in all growing cities, at one point something will explode.

<comment><USER19> Inflation might bring the rent and prices back in line without the euro/dollar amounts having to come back down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Heavily regulated (construction) market => high cost of building new (housing) units => low supply => high sale prices + heavily regulated (rental) market => high rents

Simple economics, no?

<comment><USER21> Sale prices aren't coupled to rents like you think. Landlords charge what the market will bear - how high housing prices increase rents is through making purchasing housing impossible for more people, who are then force to bid up rents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It should come as no surprise that housing is appreciating as rapidly as it is. If someone is going to loan you $500,000 at 3% and that property is going to appreciate at 8% a year, you'd be a fool not to take that deal.

We really need interest rates to get back in line with what it costs to loan people money.

</comment><comment><USER23> Google Cache Link to avoid paywall: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-cyHPK...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-cyHPKwMGE4J:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-26/rising- rents-are-pushing-more-tenants-past-the-breaking- point+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER24> The problem is getting worse as new jobs are mainly created in cities. They also offer a more attractive infrastructure such as fast internet speeds and shorter commutes, than rural areas. There are of course many other advantages, but I think these are some of the most significant ones. This creates an unhealthy growth, which we see now manifests in the completely out-of-control rents worldwide. The only way this problem can be tackled is to invest massively in the rural infrastructure and stop this disturbing trend towards growing megacities and sparsely inhabited rural areas. Rising rents contribute to an large extent on social inequality. As a renter will only get living space for each month but nothing else of value in return, as opposed to buying a house/flat. The calculation for renting has been fine in the past decades as renting was often cheaper than buying a house, but this changed as we see now.

<comment><USER25> The issue with rising rents is zoning laws.

Since investors can't as easily build new housing, they invest in existing ones as speculation.

If the demand is there, the skies should be filled with construction cranes and new tech investment in building cheaper, faster, etc.

Instead we slap protectionism on it so everybody fights over a smaller piece of the real estate pie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm so tired of seeing these articles, and then seeing nothing done to fix the problem.

I feel like we've been seeing "HOUSING COSTS PROHIBITIVELY HIGH" and "RENTS OUT OF CONTROL" for years now in California and yet can anyone point to meaningful progress on a solution? The legislature is inept and completely unable or unwilling to address the issue head on.

SB-2 for example. This is the kind of legislation we're getting in 2017, when the median home price in CA is twice the national average, and less than a third of CA households can afford a median priced home?

Most reform I've seen focusses solely on building more affordable housing (i.e. government programs for low income), but never addresses the fact that even market rates are stratospheric in some areas. Asking for better market rates does not mean we can't also solve low income housing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Same in Vancouver

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/census- data-r...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/census-data-reveals- what-metro-vancouverites-already-know-rents-are-through-the-roof-1.4371734)

It's the Chinese purchasing places (to dump their laundered money at any price), then leaving them empty, so they don't get worn down from use.

And Canadians paying those same insane prices and they trying to get renters to pay their mortgage.

And everyone renting on AirBNB instead of to locals

Re: down-votes, you think I'm being racist but this is what is actually happening:

[http://vancouversun.com/news/national/exclusive-how-b-c- casi...](http://vancouversun.com/news/national/exclusive-how-b-c-casinos-are- used-to-launder-millions-in-drug-cash)

<comment><USER28> That article describes the process but it doesn't actually say how much property was purchased or whether this affected the real estate market.

It might be other Canadians performing the real estate purchases. Until BC actually publishes some stats about what percentage of places are foreign- owned, we won't really know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> right now i spend 80% percent of my money on rent. through a lot of thought and iteration, ive been able to reduce all of my expenses quite dramatically. but rent absolutely resists my efforts to reduce. it is unmitigated greed. i was talking to my previous landlord and i very carefully broached the subject of why he charges so much and his response was kind of a mental double-think -- he charges what the market can bare. he gets way more money than he needs, and so i call it greed.

i find it very strange to look at the situation in renting -- you have some people who are called "owners" who own the land and they make other people, "renters," pay to stay on the land. what is the difference between renter and owner? why do owners get to sit back and sit on their asses, contributing absolutely nothing, having all their bills paid, not working more than a few days in a month? why do renters have to break their backs all day long just to afford to be able to sleep underneath a roof at night? i just find it very strange that nobody thinks this is unfair -- it is unfair isnt it? one guy does no work and another does tons of work and the guy who works is worse off?

anyway, the whole system is completely unfair and insane, so i decided that i should get out of it. im planning on buying land within 100 to 200 miles of the city. im going to build an icf house with metal roofing and near passive climate control. interestingly, doing this can cost less than buying a new suv, which i would have never guessed before doing the calculations. if you add a healthy solar system and trade your car in for a chevy bolt, one might even commute 150 miles both ways for free quite regularly. as is usual, i expect there to be many people who will call me an idiot and say none of this is possible -- i am looking forward to scrutinizing actual arguments or evidence if they bring any to the table. for those who arent triggered by the concept of cheap, low maintenance living, i would love to connect and exchange tips. check out these awesome websites while youre at it.

[http://earlyretirementextreme.com/](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/) [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Rising rents doesn't seem to effect the number of applicants though, every time I've viewed a place here there was a lineup of 20+ other renters there waiting as well. They pushed us through in under 10 minutes then another 20+ people showed up for the second appointment already gathering outside. There was no time to dispute the lease they dangled which stipulated you had to vacate the day the lease expired in order they could bypass provincial rent increase limits of 3.7%, and make you sign a new lease with any increase they wished.

<comment><USER31> I wonder if breaking point be when rents exceed the means of _2_ people? Something like 60% of their combined take home pay.

<comment><USER32> In urban centers, you'll just see three or four professionals per family home or apartment. The families will leave town, either to the suburbs with a soul- crushing commute or to a smaller city.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Everybody on this thread should spend the next five minutes reading about Henry George, his historic work "Progress and Poverty" and the Single Tax:

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

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

An except from his book:

 _" Take now... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?" He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of the common labor be any higher...?" He will tell you, "No the wages of common labor will not be any higher..." "What, then, will be higher?" "Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession." And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse."_

<comment><USER33> That's like saying it's easy to buy a stock and sit on it when you know for sure it's going to go up. Obviously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Govt should adopt a policy of gradually increased property tax based on the number of housing units (or total assessed value of all housing property) one person/business owns.

It should be to the point where one cannot use buying/selling/holding housing property as a way to amass wealth infinitely. Maybe to a certain point, but not to the extent allowed now.

To me, holding a vast number of rental units and amassing a huge income (not for one's living expense but for increasing wealth) is not much different from extracting oil from the ground. Maybe even worse, because high rent/housing is negatively affecting a regular citizen even more directly than dirty oil.

<comment><USER35> I'm under the impression that New York City does this. Effective property tax rates in the 5 boroughs are strikingly low contrasted with surrounding counties, but only for a certain number of units. After a certain number, your property tax notches up to a rate I believe is comparable to surrounding areas.

Not saying this particular policy ameliorates the issues you're talking about, just that a precedent for it exists in taxation policy in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> These comments underscore the fact that real estate is increasing everywhere, not just city centers. However, it is magnified in city centers, and here are the (apparently not) obvious primary causes:

\- A higher proportion of people want to live in small city centers.

\- There are more people, and the same amount of land.

This is one of those things that can never truly be solved, without questionable eugenics programs, some other rate-limiter on population (like famine), or expansion into space.

Please, tell me I'm wrong and continue to blame it all on foreign speculators, corporations, and landlords, like most of these existing comments do.

</comment><comment><USER37> Can't such a story be written pretty much any time?

When landlords can't find people to pay the rent, they'll lower the price (relative to inflation).

Inequality on the other hand leads to speculators usurping the use price of houses and other things for investment purposes.

That was the real cause of the financial crash, not NINJA loan recipients as many conservatives have claimed. Remember all those seminars on how to "flip your house"? Many of those speculators declared bankruptcies.

These days, though, speculation on that scale can only be done by the top percentiles of people.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is about households < 30k/yr. What can be done I wonder?

Social housing? Minimum wage increase? Rent assistance?

<comment><USER39> > What can be done I wonder?

The best option would be to build more. Unfortunately, this also seems to be the least popular option.

<comment><USER40> Building expensive housing is the game right now and they go unpopulated. There is no desire to build affordable housing.

<comment><USER41> It's not so simple as "luxury housing" vs "affordable housing". Location dominates every other factor when it comes to how much a place should rent for, including fancy amenities. Why else does a shoebox in SF cost twice as much as a modern 2-bedroom apartment in downtown Atlanta?

If developers build more luxury units then the prices of the older apartments will drop. At worst it's better than having no new housing stock at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Don't rents simply reflect supply and demand? It seems unlikely that they would rise beyond the "breaking point" for _everyone_ or even most people.

Also, whenever someone is homeless, that's someone for whom the rents are above the breaking point.

<comment><USER43> Just because enough people can pay $2,500 per month for a studio doesn't mean the people who can't deserve to be homeless.

<comment><USER42> I say nothing about who deserves it.

I'm talking about the headline, which makes it sound like rents being past people's breaking point (0) is something that could happen to the population at large, and (1) hasn't always been the case for some.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> _> The share of households considered rent-burdened--meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on debt--ticked down in 2015_

Do they mean more than 30% of income on rent? And does it mean income minus taxes?

<comment><USER45> It looks like it's defined based on pre-tax gross income. (Here's one reference that mentions it[1] and I saw a few others as well)

So it would be an even higher percentage of after-tax income.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/realestate/how-much-of- my...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/realestate/how-much-of-my-income- should-be-budgeted-for-rent.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> A friend today listed an ocean view property where the owner bought it sight unseen, never visited from overseas and is selling it at double digit gain. It was empty the entire time.

</comment><comment><USER47> The rent is too damn high!

<comment><USER48> I'm assuming this is a reference to the short lived political party, who's sole platform item was based on rent.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Or the book. [https://smile.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters- ebook/dp...](https://smile.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters- ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> There are 6 vacant homes, with often rooms plural, for every single homeless person in the US.

</comment><comment><USER50> Bernie 2020!</comment>


Learn to Code, Get Hired - <AUTHOR> http://blog.careerfoundry.com/learn-code-get-hired <comment><USER3> For what it's worth, I think articles like this do a huge disservice to people looking for an easy way to "get hired coding", at least in terms of setting peoples' expectations. Reading this, this article makes it seem (to me, at least) like there are just thousands and thousands of companies who will happily hire you right away once you go through a few of these courses.

It's simply just not the reality, at least from my perspective as an architect at relatively decent sized consulting company (600+ people). It would be extremely unlikely for us to hire someone without a 4 year degree in a relative discipline (CS, software engineering, etc.). That's not to say we don't hire people without a 4 year degree, but those people have years of hardcore experience and are just as advanced/mature as their counterparts with degree - a far cry from taking a few online courses and declaring yourself "a coder".

I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything here - just being realistic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi King_Magic I understand the point you're making, but for people who haven't studied computer science at university, or haven't been tinkering on a computer since they were a small child, these courses are a way they can break into this career. Tech should not be an elusive industry - especially when their is such a huge shortage of skills. These courses open up the scene for people who don't have the background in the industry, but want to change careers or expand in their current roles. No one is saying (and the article certainly isn't) that you can just jump straight into a job after a few weeks studying an online course, but what is true is that by studying online people can acquire skills via a course, then build up their experience over time, build a portfolio and then get a job.

<comment><USER4> I'm thinking this may be an illusion. Is there any evidence that this route works?

I know that the effective programmers I work with, have similar life stories. They love programming, have done it since they were young, do it for themselves and not just for work.

The guy who gets a CS degree because there's money in it may get a job somewhere, but not in the circles I travel in. Which is architecture, design, backends, libraries and embedded solutions.

So what is the real opportunity to a part-time online-course student?

<comment><USER5> I know this isn't exactly what you are saying, but just because someone learned to program later in life doesn't mean that they are only in it for the money or that they inherently aren't as competent.

There seems to be this attitude in tech that if you weren't coding in kindergarten then you haven't met the prerequisite for being truly "one of us" in the tech elite, so why bother trying?

But to address your main question, there are many roles that benefit from programming knowledge aside from the 'hard CS' ones you list. For example, in my previous job as a technical writer learning to program was helpful for a) documenting our APIs and writing sample code, b) creating web-based documentation and c) running scripts in Adobe InDesign to generate automated documentation.

<comment><USER4> Grant all that. The question remains: what kind of skills can you get taking the 'soft' route? They won't be the same as a University degree, and not nearly the same as a lifetime of devotion to the art. Did we really address that yet?

"Programming knowledge" is a deep, deep well. Its not going to be captured without real effort over a long time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course 'programming knowledge' covers a spectrum. At CareerFoundry we have never claimed to be training people to become Senior Full Stack Web Developers - like with many careers there is progression within the job. You start off at one level, you learn more, you progress and hopefully get promoted. We teach Ruby on Rails, HTML5, CSS and Javascript. With these coding languages under your belt, and the sufficient experience, you could get a job as a Junior Developer. Of course, like you said - and like with so many careers - <USER2> that next level takes real effort and dedication over a long time. But there is absolutely no reason why people can't get started in their careers at the bottom rung of the web development ladder with these skills, and work their way up by learning on the job and alongside their colleagues and peers.

Many thanks for your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's like 1998 all over again, when basic HTML knowledge promised the key to a comfortable middle class existence. And if you knew tables and how to use spacer GIFs, the sky was the limit!

The only difference is that in 1998, you actually _did_ have a realistic chance of finding a job in tech with limited knowledge and skill. Today's supposed tech labor shortage is more the result of a lack of experienced, highly-qualified candidates who fit a certain mold and reside in a handful of geographic areas. There is no shortage of the inexperienced, under-qualified candidates bootcamps and online programs produce.

<comment><USER7> This is exactly right. In '98-'00 people in this situation were actually getting hired, _in droves_. I'd venture to guess most of them lost their jobs a couple years later and fell out of software development altogether, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? I feel like most people I know who were developers before the bust are either millionaires or still rocking. A few moves on when the bubble blew out, I even lived in an apartment in SF of a failed 2 man company during that time period; they both went to back to being finance guys. But that was the catalyst of the industry we're now all talking about, and its grown more and faster than many other.

It also took a lot of crappy people to produce the few genuine talents that took the industry by storm. The industry is growing faster than talent because its not standardized or accessible enough for all potential to be found. The problem is greater than a discussion of the validity of bootcamps, and though business driven I would argue bootcamps are a step towards understanding the true needs on a global scale.

<comment><USER7> _> most people I know who were developers before the bust are either millionaires or still rocking_

My experience varies. Of the (admittedly few) people I can think of that I knew personally and who were trained-on-the-job during this time none are still developing software (though one works in QA and one is a project manager of a tech company last I heard).

 _> I would argue bootcamps are a step towards understanding the true needs on a global scale_

Yeah, I buy that there's non-zero insight to be gleaned from some experience running these code camps for the industry at large. But we'll be doing that on the backs of people who guinea pig these programs in the short term with misaligned expectations, and relatively short term desires for new employment.

You're selling people something they can "sell" to others (marketable skills). The people being expected to evaluate (and then pony up for) the value proposition here are _by definition_ uniquely unqualified to do so.

That's why it feels like a scam. If Facebook decided they wanted to run people through these programs for free because they thought it might have some value and solve a real need for talent that they have, I wouldn't be complaining.

As a matter of fact, it's telling that they aren't.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You're selling people something they can "sell" to others (marketable > skills).

Of course we are, but that's part of any career motivation so I'm not sure I see this as criticism. "I went to university to learn XYZ skills, which are marketable to the industry and people I want to work with...". At the end of Uni most people are lucky to get an internship. Students leaving our program are looking for exactly that, at best a junior position or their first couple small freelance contracts.

Its not that I disagree with the claim that many, most, maybe almost all bootcamps fail to educate their students on the status they leave the course in (before they do the course) and on how to effectively approach the industry, but that's business side unfortunately.

I also don't see it hurting the industry at all, but that's not what you're saying. What you claim is that it hurts the individuals who are misguided, therefore the guinea pigs. Totally fair. We work pretty closely with each student and though we might sell big at signup, the conversations before enrollment are all based around realistic expectations and getting them psyched to start the long haul towards a new career. Of course I could just be saying that, but its one way we try to define ourselves and the quality of our students.

I'm not sure I understand the Facebook comment. Do you work there? I had a friend at Facebook and there were all sorts of CPD programs available to him in different formats. He did several I believe...

I keep coming back to the topic of traditional education because I think that's where the saturation and awareness should be happening, instead of the bootcamp level. Lots of governments and school systems working towards this. We actually launched something today which is part of our first attempt at helping this effort along, providing training specifically designed for teaching teachers how to teach code, as that's currently the ed system's biggest barrier. Would love your thoughts on the concept, not as a business but as a way of advancing technology, filling the "skills" gap by creating early awareness, and then putting bootcamps in a position to advance people with perspective should it come to that... [http://bit.ly/teach-the- teachers](http://bit.ly/teach-the-teachers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Matchbook programmers"

Imagine a talent shortage; you are lacking skilled programmers. No, really! :-)

So what you do is print out (say, on matchbook covers) a very small ad "Learn programming! Start a career!" with a phone number to call and you basically spam the whole country / world with these things. And a few people call in, and you screen them, and a few of those you bring in and talk to, and a few of those you might wind up hiring. And you plonk them into a classroom and teach them some programming, and a few people turn out to be just incredibly good natural programmers that you might not have gotten otherwise. (The ones you hired that didn't work out so well? You use them on government contracts).

IBM's model in the 1970s (and probably a few other shops as well).

It takes quite an investment, and you need to be able to deal with people at scale, which is something that start-ups and even most big companies (like Microsoft) are terrible at, for various reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an awesome comment. Is there documentation on the IMB model you describe? I'd love to see data on this!

<comment><USER8> Another drawback: A lot of the candidates you get are smokers. But hey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm still excited for the day when a 2 hours a week, 6 week bootcamp sets me up to easily become a pilot or an architect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! I guess the only real difference there is that both those skills directly endanger other people! :-p

<comment><USER3> So poor software _doesn 't_ directly endanger other people? This is why I'm so nervous about a generation of "coders" \- they just don't know what they don't know. Software can get people killed. Or (far more likely) can get peoples' bank accounts wiped clean.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think if we're talking about someone coding portfolio websites and ecommerce shops using validated API's, we're not talking rocket science but we are talking the basis of a career.

I have a hard time believing that wordpress developers end up endangering many people. Even more advanced software technicians, guys who are brilliant are making games and a great living but aren't putting anyone in harm's way.

Cardeology? Yes. Draw bridge tech, probably. Car computers, for sure. A social responsbility to recognize that you're good enough for that? Yes but I'm sure the people hiring you aren't going to mess around with that kind of thing.

People who want to learn web development to make fun/cool products and living don't need to be concerned about the complexities of banking software unless that's what they want to be doing with their lives, and I would hope that people like you, people advanced enough to do the hiring, aren't going to hire any dummies to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is one of the biggest problems with the industry now; a lot of people learning to code without learning computer science. Coding is applying computer science fundamentals and without those fundamentals, you end up writing terrible and unmanageable code. Bootcamps are one of the worst ideas because they charge a lot of money, waste a lot of time with overzealous promises and, worst of all, hurt the industry by cranking out sub-par developers. Don't push people to learn to code, push people to learn computer science, math and algorithms.

<comment><USER11> CS grads write shitty code too--and often, it's harder to figure out what they're trying to accomplish, because they use some weird non-standard red/black balanced bloom filter with LZ sliding window compression instead of just, say, a fucking hashmap.

At least with coders you often find code that is obviously wrong, instead of code that is non-obviously wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> I honestly never thought of it this way (your last sentence). But yes, to your first point many of our students are CS grads who realized they wanted to work as developers but didn't know how to code... They might start with a stronger theoretical understanding, and perhaps can code more complex functionality or software than our non CS grad students, but ultimately they're on a similar level. Just depends on what the individual wants to be doing long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gack! No! Nearly all of the recommendations are a really bad disservice.

Learning to code is relatively straightforward. Learning to do it well, applying the fundamental principles of computer science, is a different kind of horse (transportation device). People in the industry KNOW this. It's _obvious_. You have to put in the time to really know what you're about, and bootcamps & MOOCs don't really bridge the gap between 'ignoramus' and 'junior professional' as a rule of thumb. Of course, if you subject yourself to a diet of these things and study the field for some time (months at least), doing serious investigation of the fundamentals, I don't think you'd be much different than a particularly motivated intern or new grad. :)

That said - if you are, e.g., a marketing person, learning coding to help do your job and simplify your work will do _amazing_ things for you, I hear. Learning source control will drastically make "copy 1 of report final 1" type problems go away. As patio11 often says, automating business process has huge value. (Which, by the by, doesn't make you a professional software developer if you do it).

Coding is a great skill, applicable in many places, but professional software creation with the high salary comes at the cost of serious competition with people who have seriously studied this topic for a long time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree with this. Reaching the top level of anything takes time and dedication, but there is huge value to having a rudimentary understanding of code regardless of your professional focus.

Code is slowly becoming a mandatory part of education in primary and secondary schools in Europe. Do you think this helps approach the greater infrastructure of tech?

<comment><USER12> A followup:

Do you support the idea of "professional guilds" or other associations that delineate the "people who just learned to code" from "people who have seriously invested the time to learn the fundamentals of their field in a very professional fashion"

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a crazy interesting concept. In part because I just never considered it before, but also because its kind of a midway: Let the elitists feel elite and set the standards, and the rebels and riff-raff fight amongst themselves for status.

Honestly, having worked in media (film) and with those guilds (SAG, DGA, etc) its very difficult for me to say this is a good idea. The guilds were constructed the way they are because of the in-and-out nature of working in production. Without going into detail, the model just doesn't fit unless all devs turn freelance.

Now a union, as the states has for many different labor professions etc: this is a concept that could work, but without an effective standardization system (something VERY hard to do in a world of open source, fast moving technology development, and new coding languages) it would be for show and simply an opportunity for the 5% who shook the right hands to sit on their golden thrones. Sounds very American though. ;-)

The thing is, neither guilds or unions were really built to enforce standards of work-quality. They were built to protect the workers against potential abuse from corporations/foundations/government firms/private sector contractors. So this would be inverse to the problem we're trying to solve, which is qualification of good devs versus "bad" or under qualified.

So what would work? Well if we all started by doing Oracle IT and Microsoft certificates, the furiously patient devs of the world could at least recognize each other for it. Actually... they already sort of do. :-p

I think ultimately the next form of standards is going to have to be written by the academic world OR some other government sponsored party of incredibly savvy individuals who's entire "business" revolves around standardization testing for devs. Not that there aren't companies kind of doing this, but well? And on a government level of respect and reach? Nope.

I suppose the only back draw is that it risks removing the creativity and how problem solving abilities are associated to personality type. I'm sure you could eventually formulate that as well, but sheesh, what data mayhem. Would be awesome. I guess one point for it is hell, if google and amazon can do it for themselves, who's to say evaluations couldn't be built across the board?

That was really long, sorry, but super interesting question!

<comment><USER12> H'm.

Kinda surprised that you've not heard it before, it's knocked around the professional programming circles for a while now. Anyway.

You're quite right that it's not a trivial problem. IEEE promulgated the SWEBOK, which the ACM publically refused to support (I read through the SWEBOK, it's, imo, generally irrelevant).

It's also not a question of creativity and problem solving, it's a question of quality assurance - i.e., the downside of being in such a group would be the culpability for being sued for malpractice. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I heard talk about SWEBOK, but honestly didn't have it in a context that lead me to compare it to guilds and unions like that.

I DO like the idea of "coding malpractice" law suits though. ;-P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I haven't an opinion on boot camps as they currently run (but am entirely self taught and having a great time architecting and building APIs and front end applications); however, I wish that the " Interested in learning to code, but not so keen on leaving your current employer?" section was the focus of the article and the boot camps.

A buddy of mine told me about the cascading discounts that he and his coworkers calculated by hand. They all know how to do it, but he wanted an quicker way. A little recursive function later and I made him a simple little calculator he could pull up on his phone. It saves him—and his coworkers—time and would completely be within everyone's grasp to create with a little bit of training.

I wish there was a push for practical programming and automation for everyone. Boot camps to help you improve your work through simple programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> But did he WANT to code that himself? Or was it really a job for you?

I actually agree, but as a business of course you go where the interest market is most stable. If nothing else than for the sake of your investor's heart- rate. ;-)

Jokes aside, I'm wondering if the increasing demand for education in school systems and traditional education is the long term solution to exactly this problem. We're working hard in Europe to participate as much as we can as we feel the skills-gap philosophy is actually an education gap it just hasn't been figured out yet.

<comment><USER13> He was banging away at excel for a while trying to come up with a way to do it, and he probably would have hit on something sooner or later but wanted something for the next day, so I figured I'd give him a hand.

I figure, as programming is able to become more abstract and high level, "practical programming" will become a lot easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What if I can already do the first part, what automatically provides the second part?

I might post a more detailed comment if I could actually find somewhere to view this content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing automatically provides the job. We're talking about a process hidden behind a click-happy headline.

A huge part of the comments in this feed have been discussing the challenge of teaching bootcamp students what the actual career is about, what getting jobs is about, that realistically learning to code is just one small part of being a developer.

Does the headline say all that? God now. Does the article say that? Nope, because its trying to draw in all interested parties. The problem is that some, perhaps many, maybe even almost all bootcamps on that list? They might not clarify it until to late.

Some of us are trying to figure it out. Both how to communicate it, but maybe even the actual solution!

In the mean time, if you can code start pitching on elance, man! There is always work even for those of us who are, quiet frankly, sub-par developers> our CMO can code, he sucks at it.

;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm currently conducting a survey on the effectiveness of code bootcamps. If you've recently attended one, please share your experiences at: [http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student](http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! This is awesome! Will you be publishing your results!?! Would love to see the data!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Site is down for me and no webarchive yet, does someone have another cached link?

e: Its back, but in case it goes down again:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20141016140435/http://blog.career...](http://web.archive.org/web/20141016140435/http://blog.careerfoundry.com/learn- code-get-hired/)

<comment><AUTHOR> We got KILLED by traffic today, sorry about that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> But which schools are the best is the question?

Anyone taken courses at these places? What were the good and bad of it?

<comment><USER18> As an entirely self-taught programmer, I say skip these programs entirely. When I got my first real programming gig, my company sent me to a quick, 7-or-8 session long bootcamp for rails, although I'd already taught myself all the rails conventions. The program was a huge waste of time for me, and a waste of money for my employer.

I had already gotten 500% more out of just reading guides.rubyonrails.org than I did in the entire program. If I had been required to pay for the instruction, I'd have come out feeling distinctly ripped off, especially if I had been a web designer who'd never used command-line build tools before.

This might vary with the program. The particular format of the one I attended just wasn't well-suited to getting people up and running quickly, or addressing the varied needs of students at different levels. That being said, learning _how to learn to program_ is much more important. Learning that failure is the first step to success and a prerequisite to actually synthesizing knowledge. If they could teach that in these courses, they'd be priceless.

Hope that helps, kind of rambling but, that's my experience :)

<comment><USER19> It varies WIDELY with the program. Not all of these are rip offs. Not all of the students get the same or need the same things as you. There are all kinds of different ways that people learn. There are also lots of different levels that people are coming into things on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, The site is back up again now - please try again!</comment>


The basic income is dead - <AUTHOR> http://embraceunity.com/economics/the-basic-income-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> Date: 2012</comment>


Using pushState? Make sure your links are fine - <AUTHOR> http://dev.tenfarms.com/posts/proper-link-handling

<comment><USER2> Something seems fundamentally wrong here. If I middle-click or ctrl-click on a link, the browser shouldn't _allow_ the site to interfere with that, accidentally or otherwise. Those shortcuts represent part of browser chrome, just like the shortcuts for the URL bar, the search bar, and the back button.

<comment><USER3> It's not that pushState() apps _interfere_ with middle-clicking on links, it's that they have no real links to middle-click on. Common practice is to have a
 or  (or maybe  without an href) styled to look like a link/button, then onclick run some code that performs a task and changes the URL with pushState(). This article suggests making your pushState() "links" actual links to the desired URL, then overriding the unmodified click case to run the desired code rather than fetch a new page from the server.

<comment><USER4> Oh god — that's common practice? … What happened to progressive enhancement & unobtrusive JS being best practices?

<comment><USER5> Both progressive enhancement and unobtrusive JS are dead. They died, in my opinion, for a lot of good reasons:

\- basically everyone has JS enabled

\- they were too hard to do

\- IE6 went away

\- you can make significantly better UX without them

\- there is business value to usable apps

\- there is no business value to catering to people who disable javascript

\- the existence of things like Modernizer make it possible to assume that everyone has the fancy features you need.

<comment><USER4> Some of your points are quite valid, but I must disagree progressive enhancement & unobtrusive JS are "dead" or should be.

> _\- you can make significantly better UX without them_

This is the biggest place where you're wrong, as the examples of right- clicking or middle-clicking a "div with JavaScript" plainly illustrate.

Now obviously complicated web apps can't work 100% or sometimes even 10% without JavaScript, but when reasonably possible, using progressive enhancement & unobtrusive JS will increase your compatibility across UAs, search engines, and other agents, and will avoid cases where your site seems broken in some crucial way.

Not to mention users with accessibility needs will do much better interacting with your `<a>` tags than scripted `<div>`s. Have we forgotten about them again, already?

 _Edited to add:_ Biggest tips w.r.t. accessibility: (a) Spend an hour using a screenreader and no mouse — e.g. VoiceOver, which comes with your Mac and works just fine in Safari. (b) Using semantic tags & progressive enhancement means your code will make the most sense to the screenreader — e.g. you will be able to tab onto your button/link because you actually defined it as one — and it will be described fairly accurately. Your "clickable"  is plainly going to be trickier for a screenreader… (c) Read up on WAI-ARIA, which lets you define roles for certain elements (like "notification" or "button"). If you want to make your AJAX work well for those with accessibility needs, this becomes fairly important as it can also help you manage focus and direct user attention.

<comment><USER5> Certainly, there's the right way and the wrong way, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's still early days for pushstate apps, and they have yet to get their "Rails moment". Middle-clicking problems and the like are inevitable. (Do you remember sites used sessions to remember where you clicked, so tabs didnt work at all? This too shall pass).

You say progressive enhancement helps you out in all these cases, but I just see opinion, and very little evidence. So all I have to offer you in rebuttal is the same - I believe the opposite.

I agree about accessibility. I frankly don't know what to do there. On the one hand, I hate the idea that I might be excluding somebody. On the other hand, I tend to implement things lazily, so if I'm never asked for a feature, I probably won't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your post brings up a great point, and I _hate_ it when I can't open links in new windows (Harvest invoice/estimate list, I'm looking at you!). But I wonder if there's a way to handle it in a more abstract fashion -- in the sense that you let the browser tell you if a link is to be opened in a new window/tab, as opposed to hardcoding various keyboard buttons.

For example, does your technique handle middle-clicks (clicking on the middle mouse button, which is equivalent to shift-clicking)?

<comment><USER5> On a Mac, middle-click is not exactly the same as Cmd-clicking. Middle-click can't be overridden, Cmd-click can. On my site, middle clicking works fine, but I have to put in a hack to make Cmd-click work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      rel="internal"

raised my eyebrows. Yes, it makes sense. But the `rel` attribute is not to be used lightly and values are not to be invented on a whim, because eventually the value can be defined for _all_ sites, not just yours.

Without thoroughly researching it, it looks like `rel=internal` is not standardized. That means you should not use it!

Instead, consider:

      Foo

and

      jQuery('a[data-push-state=push]')

The data-* attributes are explicitly defined as open for your own invention and use.

<comment><USER7> Or `jQuery("a[href^='/']")` and you don't need extra attributes at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion, thanks! I just updated the blog post with. I'll be happy to link to your site/twitter at the end of the post if you give me that information :)

<comment><USER8> Do you really never use relative URLs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author is very right. The links on my site (<https://circleci.com>) don't work if you middle-click them. Some kind StackOverflow users found the problem, which appears to be the click handler in Sammy.JS.

A lot more info about this is in the question, an the links from it, including history, Mozilla accessibility discussion, and code samples:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10660360/command-click- do...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10660360/command-click-doesnt-open- a-new-tab-but-middle-click-does)

</comment><comment><USER9> Good timing. About 5 minutes ago I pushed this live on my site. Click any of the video thumbnails here to see (and report bugs if you find any..:)

Also, I'm using hashbangs if the browser doesn't support pushState (like IE).

And if you're visiting from a mobile browser, I don't do any of the pushState fanciness either.

<http://fandalism.com>

<comment><USER10> Looks borked from here: <http://imgur.com/6ZDvR>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd argue the majority of the time hashbangs should be used over pushstate. Until HTML5 is the norm (>99%, so basically never) there isn't much reason to use pushstate. I know this is not what this article is about so I'm not going to go into detail.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, I feel really stupid. I had no idea that the browser let JS override the default on regular 's with onclick handlers with modifier keys.

No wonder so many gdamn sites get it wrong. Nothing infuriates me more than whichever lightbox implementation always sieves control of my ctrl+clicks and then _doesn't allow me to view the picture in a larger size_. Infuriating.</comment>