Ron Conway Explained - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/

<comment><USER2> I read the book about Ron they mention, Godfather of Silicon Valley. It is not a good book, but it is interesting in that it captures the fervor of the dot com era.

The really funny thing is that the timing worked out so that the dot com bubble exploded just before the book was finished. Rivlin therefore spends the entire book building Conway up as the world's biggest jerk. The book is a character assassination. Conway lets Rivlin into his life, and Rivlin is unmerciful. Conway is depicted as the personification of the excesses of that era. The book comes out after the market crashes and it had to hurt.

Then... Google hits. Conway was an early investor. He's back. His methods are validated, his fund returns profit, he starts new funds. They prosper. And now Conway is the king of the world again, and Rivlin is the douche.

Oh the ironing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone here have experience working with Ron? anything else to add?

I really enjoyed reading through this article.

<comment><USER4> We have a lot. This article is right on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone has read The Tipping Point, Ron Conway is an amazing example of a 'connector'.

In this example, he made a single connection that Tipped Tellme towards success.

Would be interesting to put together a list of angel investors that similarly stand out as connectors.

<comment><USER6> Ron isn't so much a connector as he is THE connector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This link works for me: <http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway- explained/>

Could sharpn/a moderator replace it, please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the updated link (no idea why it was moved). I tried to edit, but couldn't - I guess it times out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love this quote from the post: "If Ron's awake, he's working. He can be at a party, in his pajamas, or at the Super Bowl. Ron is always on the job and the network is always on." That's the world I come from. You have to work your balls off to succeed (as I discuss in tip #6 here: <http://bit.ly/5Gccio>). Fuck this part-time shit that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (at 37signals) are pitching. Ask Larry Bird or Michael Jordan if they worked part- time on their basketball skills?

<comment><USER9> You know, there's probably a whole class of professional athletes that have a hard time supporting themselves. I don't have the numbers, but I'd expect that most minor-league players don't make remarkable salaries, but they continue for a chance to make it to the major leagues.

<comment><USER8> Maybe they're not working hard enough. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan both said they were the first to the gym and the last to leave. My point here is simple: there are no shortcuts to success (other than rare exceptions).

<comment><USER10> And for a contrasting view, from Allen Iverson:

"We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice, man! How silly is that?"

<comment><USER11> Thanks, now I have this stuck in my head again... :) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I>

I'm not sure why SWalker is being downvoted (unless it's just for his tone). We really need to clarify criteria/comparisons here. Iverson should not be compared to MJ or Bird (IMO), as 37signals should not be compared to Google.

Jerry Rice is probably the best counterexample to Iverson types. He's known for working harder than anyone. No one could keep up with him, and he was the best. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jerry_Rice)

If you want to be the next MJ, Bird, Rice, or Google, you better be working hard... I don't understand why it's trendy to believe otherwise (assuming SWalker is being downvoted in disagreement).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> LOVED the last ditch email haha...."we may be going down":

"So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: "hello, you don't know me, I'm an executive at a company you're an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can't make this happen, hey that's ok, but we may be going down—sorry." Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron's distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), "AM ON IT.""

<comment><USER12> Just to elaborate...I'm thinking back to some of the most memorable moments of my life, and they have come out of situations like this, where for some reason you need to accomplish the impossible in a very short amount of time. That's when you really do something drastic and operate on the edge of your ability, and amazing stuff happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure exactly why, but something about this kind of sits badly. Somehow, I don't like the idea that a person has this infrastructure role.

<comment><USER14> it seems human networks are inevitably composed of humans

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I sincerely hope I have the honor of working with Ron one day. The values described here are hard to come by and the same ones that I was taught to value growing up. The values of honor, loyalty, and timeliness transcend "money".

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one that _loathes_ those link previews?

<comment><USER17> Huh? Not getting any link previews here.

<comment><USER16> On the article, if your mouse passes over a link (and you have JS enabled), it pops up a snapshot of what that page is, using <http://www.snap.com/>.

It appears to require you to have your mouse over the link for a little while (like a tenth of a second), so if you always move your mouse fast and never considered clicking a link, you wouldn't have seen it.

It's really annoying.

<comment><USER17> Maybe it's being blocked by AdBlock Plus -- I hovered for several seconds and nothing showed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've always had a high opinion about Ron despite never meeting the man. After reading this, it makes you want him as an investor that much more...

</comment><comment><USER19> That is the most readable site layout I have ever seen.

<comment><USER20> I still used Readability on it. I appreciate that it's not gaudy or hard, but I couldn't resize the text to the size where I like it (which is a large size); after two Ctrl+Wheel-Up increments, the tab stops responding and has to be killed in Chromium on Linux. Just used Readability because it doesn't have the same problems.

<comment><USER17> Is chromium good? I just did ctrl+wheel up 10 times on that site in Firefox and had no problems.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, it's good. It's just the unbranded build of Google Chrome. I think it's just a bug with one of the features on that page; it seems to zoom to screen width and then crash when I try to go up more. Probably using a CSS shadow or something else uncommon and buggy.

<comment><USER17> I just went back, and zoomed in and out from max and min zoom levels back and forth several times, with a video streaming on my other monitor -- not a hitch. I really don't think there's anything wrong with the website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Game song, referenced: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g>

P.S. HipHopGoblin is now open source, a few of us from HN are working on bringing it back to life. We are implementing it now with DirectedEdge. Email me if interested.</comment>


11,000 Scientists Say Earth's Population Needs to Shrink to Beat Climate Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-05/scientists-call-for-population-control-in-mass-climate-alarm <comment><USER2> As usual, the process is already well underway. Birth rates are dropping fairly rapidly, and we are pretty close to seeing total population hit equilibrium and maybe even start declining.

Growth rates of 1.14-1.12-1.08 and lower, any predictions when it drops below zero? This site pegs it at 11 billion. [1]

Seems like infertility will be a major contributor, combined with technology, income distribution, and massively changing roles of women.

Children are all at once the best thing you will ever do, your greatest joy, tremendous pains in the ass, and terrifically expensive. I highly recommend it, and highly advise against it!

But seriously anyone who would sign a letter saying we need to reduce population as a solution to climate change doesn't merely lack imagination, they are actively damaging the goal to which they claim to aspire.

The way to fight for climate change is to recruit an ever larger plurality of humans to voting with their dollars and their voices for products and technologies and investments that make the Earth better. The way to fail is to alienate people with bullshit like population control and straw bans which betray a political agenda beyond mere climate.

[1] - [https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-–-W...](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-–-World- Population-Growth-1700-2100.png)

<comment><USER3> No matter what technology, there will be an absolute upper limit of what population earth can bear. So the the discussion can only be what the correct number is, isn't it? And it could well be that the number is lower than the current population. For our current technology, population is way too high. So either we regulate that or nature will do it for us.

I have two children and I am grateful for them. But it would be dangerous to miss that we run up to hard limits.

<comment><USER4> We don't know what the future carrying capacity of earth will be, and wild speculation there helps noone.

We do know current carrying capacity appears to be too low but what is the best way to fix that? Is it telling the people who have many kids today - primarily the poor and uneducated - to have fewer kids? Is that likely to work?

I believe Hans Rosling is right, who said birth rates are a direct consequence of how rich or poor you are. We've seen hundreds of millions lifted from poverty in the last few decades, with dropping birth rates as a result. The best action has to be to work to lift more out of poverty. Sitting in our ivory tower and declaring that people should have fewer kids is not going to work.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, if you start declaring that not everybody can have kids, then you're in the business of picking who gets to have kids, which would be extremely draconian to impose and enforce and could be done badly in all sorts of ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least we have 11000 willing volunteers that will stop reproducing immediately.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how many were economists.

This line of thinking is the old Malthusian catastrophy, expressed in terms of climate change instead of famine.

Malthus did some extrapolations and decided that population growth would outpase food production, causing famines. Now it is clear believe that a huge rise of agricultural productivity prevented this catastrophy. He thought the 19th century would not support more population growth and yet during the 20th century the human population grew more than ever.

Politicians and scientists need to learn to target the right problen with their policy, which is greenhouse emissions, not population growth. It is possible to increase productivity while controlling and even reducing emissions. Taxing carbon, investing RnD in greener technology, subsidising energy efficiency and banning the most poluting practices is actually more easy to implement in a non-totalitarian society than population control. With those policies the "output per ton of CO2" will increase. And also consider that reducing emissions would need a workforce, it would be more expensive to do it if a big chunk of it is used to care for elderly masses.. unless productivity rises of course.

<comment><USER8> The 'agricultural productivity' comes at a very high price. We have chemical Ag now and we turn fossil fuels into calories rather than sunlight+water into calories via photosynthesis.

The loss of biodiversity, habitat and the acidification of our oceans is going to bankrupt the future of the generations indiscriminately spawned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> An interesting criticism of this stance is the implication that nature is more important than humans, and that humans will never be space-faring.

Also, it is basically white countries telling Africa to stop having children.

<comment><USER10> > Also, it is basically white countries telling Africa to stop having > children.

Birth rates in europe + descendant countries, china, korea, and japan are already at stable or slightly falling levels. So this is more like asking Africa to make the same pro-stability adjustments others have made already.

<comment><USER11> > So this is more like asking Africa to make the same pro-stability > adjustments others have made already.

Notice that all of those countries are highly developed. So its less white countries, and more like countries that have made it pulling up the ladder behind them and telling everyone else that "its for their own good".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 11,000 Scientists and Thanos.

</comment><comment><USER13> While the climate crisis is very real, entirely too much attention is focused on it as part of the overall environmental destruction that has been caused, and is accelerating, due to massive overpopulation. The massive extinction of insects, animals and fish. The saturation of our environment with toxins, waste and industrial chemicals. The destruction of our soil from overfarming and monocropping. The mass extinction of plants and increasing deforestation. The list goes on and on. All direct results of massive overpopulation.

Unfortunately most people choose to ignore, or worse yet, deny the obvious because of a variety of factors. Some because of religion, some of of blind faith in technology to solve all of our problem, some out of denial because the problem seem too daunting to face and some out of sheer ignorance and/or stupidity. Many of these people engage in ridiculous hyperbole about potential solutions. They talk about people who understand the problem of overpopulation as seeking mass genocide or forced sterilization. Others talk about the "slowing birth rate" as if a deceleration in population growth (as opposed to a reduction) will cause the problem to solve itself.

The fact is that the problem of overpopulation is easily solved if we approach it rationally. Instead of incentivizing people to have children as we do now, offer incentives for people not to have children, both at home and abroad. Offer subsidies to couples who have one or no children and remove subsidies from those who choose to have 2 or more children. Its a problem that could be solved in a generation or two at most if we had the will and intelligence to implement common sense solutions.

Unfortunately even many of the people who realize overpopulation is an unsustainable problem refuse to address it out of concerns for our similarly unsustainable economy which depends on endless growth to keep our debt-service based economic pyramid from collapsing. The "wealth" of these people is illusory, based on "debts" that depend on future payments. The fact is that our overpopulation problem is tied to our economic problem. Neither will be solved unless and until people are willing to face reality and work towards solutions. Both will end disastrously in time if we choose to ignore them and pretend they are sustainable.

<comment><USER14> "Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor but because we cannot satisfy the rich" Anonymousa

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The original paper [https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance- article/doi/10.1...](https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance- article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's very simple. Half a surviving child non transferable quota per person. This ensures genetic diversity and reproductive rights across all economic stations.

I think 1-1.5 billion is the planet's carrying capacity.

The question tho is this..should this be absolute law or should following the quota be regarded with an incentive as in UBI plus for anyone until they procreate and upto 1/2 surviving child after they procreate and until they die. They lose benefits if they have more children.

All genetic material must be collected and preserved. Not just as in a DNA bank but also for future possibilities as in medical intervention as science gives us ways to stay alive longer. And hopefully healthier.

</comment><comment><USER16> The population argument is fundamentally flawed. It places the burden of climate change onto the global south, which is far from the actual truth

<comment><USER17> True for now... and when the global south further industrializes, modernizes? I don't think that the argument is flawed, but population is not an indicator of blame; it's a constraint on solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Overpopulation is a dangerous myth typically pushed by those advocating for genocide.

<comment><USER17> I fail to see how overpopulation is a myth. While I believe that we could raise the bar for how many humans the Earth can support at one time; I also believe that it's difficult to argue that our current trajectory is sustainable without relying on some not-guaranteed advancements.

The solution to creating a better future for humans is planning, not genocide.

<comment><USER18> Okay, I'll bite. Overpopulation certainly could be a concern in the future, but we aren't there yet, and things seem to be moving in the right direction. Over the past half-century we have seen birth rates dropping fast, particularly in the "third world", and many "first world" countries are already below replacement rates. Add in the fact that the average human has a dramatically smaller environmental footprint than the average American, and it becomes clear that the problem is not the number of people, but the inefficient use of resources. We have enough to provide for everyone, it just isn't evenly distributed.

<comment><USER17> I think all of your points are valid, but I'm not convinced that there is only one best solution worth pursuing. For instance, reframing the issue as a problem with the distribution of resources makes sense, but I wonder to what extent the actual problem is people's unwillingness to distribute themselves; i.e. go closer to where the resources are. People want to live where the people are; where the things and the jobs are, and it's these overpopulated urban / industrial centers that people collect in which have the large environmental footprints.

Basically, the population is sustainable if people decide to change their values; move out of cities, distribute themselves across the available land, participate in self-sufficient local economies / work remotely, etc. I just don't believe that betting on people changing according to some timeline to be a winning bet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We have a Universe to explore.

</comment><comment><USER20> Fuel needs to be more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER21> Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

<comment><USER22> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones)

<comment><USER23> Those slabs are pretty cool, except this 500 million number. That's Age of Discovery population. Back then, China and India both had like 120 million people each.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overpopulation](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overpopulation)

<comment><USER25> More confirmation that rationalwiki is poor quality and troll-oriented

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Actually it was 11,258.372 scientists, you know, for accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER27> One of the reasons I've committed to never having children is because there isn't a NEED for more children. We (our species) has a far excess of humans to survive just anything.

<comment><USER28> There is a big difference between opting out as an individual and suggesting that this is a reasonable solution for others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice excuse for war, hunger and misery. You should try better next time.

How about raising education levels and giving people a motive to live a good life?

I am afraid that this precludes rich people and inequality.

So let's proceed with the current extermination plan?</comment>


Larry Page does the right thing: Says "Whatever" To Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-larry-page-wall-street-2011-4 <comment><USER2> _In the past, Larry has championed projects like wind power and self-driving cars that there's no conceivable reason for Google to be pursuing._

There are very good reasons for Google to pursue self-driving cars. They have the mapping infrastructure and AI expertise, and it's potentially extraordinarily valuable. Tens of thousands of lives no longer lost annually due to human error, substantially reduced congestion and travel times, the ability to work or play rather than manually drive, reduced need for parking lots, greater freedom of movement for children and the elderly...

<comment><USER3> I would hate to have a self driving car... especially if it were connect to a network. Seems like it would become way to easy to kidnap someone, or drive their car into a wall or any number of other activities.</comment></comment>


Where did all the HTTP referrers go? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://smerity.com/articles/2013/where_did_all_the_http_referrers_go.html <comment><USER2> As the author, this was a pleasant surprise! :) It was written in 2013 (potentially note that in the title?) though people still frequently say they find it useful.

As @jstayton noted, browser support has come a long way[1], and @davecardwell notes that some of the keywords are deprecated[2]. I really should update both browser support and the "which websites use it" part. Hacker News now supports it for example, which I'm hugely glad to see! ^_^

Previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5778444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5778444)

[1]: [http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer- policy](http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer-policy)

[2]: [https://www.w3.org/TR/referrer-policy/#referrer-policy- state...](https://www.w3.org/TR/referrer-policy/#referrer-policy-states)

<comment><USER3> I didn't see this explicitly mentioned but if my site is HTTPS, I get referers, right? And so isn't that the easiest/best solution?

<comment><USER2> From the article:

> HTTPS websites will send referrers to any other HTTPS website even if it > contains sensitive information

As such, having a website which is HTTPS will get you referers from both HTTP and HTTPS if they're willing to send them, but it's also important to know you can control them in case there are privacy implications such as leaking your customer's information to external HTTPS sites.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this, because I think I'm about to learn from you, but I'm confused. How can you control them? Is there some way for a site to signal to a browser whether it should or send referrer headers and under what circumstances?

<comment><USER2> The site can signal, either via server headers or meta tags, whether to send or withhold referrers.

Adding <meta name="referrer" content="never"> will prevent referrers from being sent, whilst <meta name="referrer" content="always"> will ensure they're sent whether linking to HTTP or HTTPS.

The user can of course override these if so desired - see the extensions linked to by many other commenters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Note: Authors are encouraged to avoid the legacy keywords never, default, and always. The keywords none, none-when-downgrade, and unsafe-url respectively are preferred._

\- [https://www.w3.org/TR/referrer-policy/#referrer-policy- deliv...](https://www.w3.org/TR/referrer-policy/#referrer-policy-delivery- meta)

Although the current versions of Edge only support the legacy keywords according to [http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer- policy](http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer-policy)

<comment><USER6> Do you happen to know what Edge defaults to if it doesn't recognize the value? One would hope to "never"?

<comment><USER5> I don't know, sorry, although I would suspect they stick to "default".

<comment><USER6> Just tested this myself and it looks like you're right. With meta referrer set to content=never, Edge passes the referrer. With content=none it doesn't. Chrome is the opposite, and Firefox does not send the referrer in either case. (And of course IE sends it in both cases, since it doesn't recognize the referrer meta tag.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use referrer block for Chrome. I have only twice had anything break from it, and it was a simple fix to whitelist that website. Disqus and coursera both break without referrer.

I don't know why everyone doesn't block referrer. It seems like such a massive breach of privacy to leak that information on every link you click.

<comment><USER8> Referrers are useful and can be a friendly, automatic way of letting someone know how you found their page. I've discovered many links to my pages on other websites, and whole articles discussing my articles, through referrers. Since none of the other pinging mechanisms ever gained universal traction, it's the best thing we have, and I'm sorry that it's all but disappeared. And I remember how amazed I was to discover the existence of "referrer spam" years ago.

You can block referrers in a number of ways whenever you'd like, for example with a simple bookmarklet:

[http://lee-phillips.org/norefBookmarklet/](http://lee- phillips.org/norefBookmarklet/)

Finally, looking at search terms that led to your site can be very entertaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't you mean referer?

Edit: yes, I know. This was an HTTP joke. Not a very funny one. Here is another one: what is the difference between a hippo and a zippo? One is very heavy, the other is a little lighter.

<comment><USER10> Referrer is the correct English spelling. It's so easy to accidentally create a bug by forgetting that the standard relies on a spelling mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Current browser support: [http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer- policy](http://caniuse.com/#feat=referrer-policy)

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know the preferred (current) method of sending referrer directives between the referrer-policy header[1] and the referrer directive under Content Security Policy (CSP) 1.1[2]?

Since these specs are evolving, there is a lot of contradictory documentation online, and it's tough to weed out what's the accepted solution (if there is one). Presumably using headers (of some sort) is preferable to meta tags where possible though?

Edit: As mentioned by davecardwell, the always/never/default settings, which are referenced in my CSP link there, are deprecated. Perhaps the whole concept of serving the referrer policy via CSP is as well?

[1] [https://w3c.github.io/webappsec-referrer-policy/#referrer- po...](https://w3c.github.io/webappsec-referrer-policy/#referrer-policy- delivery) [2] [https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD- CSP11-20140211/#referrer](https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD- CSP11-20140211/#referrer)

</comment><comment><USER12> I knew about what happened with the referrers when going from HTTP to HTTPS but had not heard about the meta referrer and have been wondering why, even though my own site is HTTPS I see so many bare domain referrers. Now I know. Thank you both to author and submitter.

</comment><comment><USER13> Actually I like the fact that some people won't add a referrer meta. Not everbody needs to know where I came from.

</comment><comment><USER14> Google originally justified their blocking of search term data in HTTP referrer fields as being due to the security implications of HTTPS vs HTTP. The fact that they now use <meta name="referrer" content="origin"> proves it was just an excuse to obscure that data, since they have it at their disposal to transmit that information securely to the destination site.

<comment><USER15> All of this has always been about forcing everyone onto HTTPS at any cost. Denying referral headers, not allowing HTTP/2 over HTTP, treating self-signed certificates as the worst thing ever, soon putting red X'es in the URL bars, etc.

It's all disgustingly heavy-handed. But they get away with it because most people are on board with it. They seem to lack empathy of how this would look if they weren't on board with the change. The general idea is a great one: who doesn't love extra security? But all of those cons ... interfering with caching, costing money for wildcard certificates, all the security vulnerabilities in the TLS libraries, the (miniscule, but non-zero) extra computational power required, the added setup difficulty (yes, even _if_ you trust Let's Encrypt to execute code on your box, it's still an added burden), putting trust in the CA system that has shown several major flaws already (such as rogue certificates) ... all conveniently ignored or whitewashed away.

But all the posturing in the world won't be enough to eliminate HTTP from the web. It's going to outlive all of us. Not even because people like me want it to, but because there's just so much legacy code out there that's never going to get touched. Millions of devices and applications that only speak HTTP, that nobody's ever going to update. Hell, it's trivial to find Gopher proxy layers, and that never even got 1% of the uptake that HTTP has today.

<comment><USER16> This would have been OK if HTTPS truly did increase security.

In reality, however, the sensitive part is the 'who' and 'when', not the 'what'. HTTPS makes sense for hiding passwords or bank data, for everything else it's mostly pointless.

(If you've watched any police procedural shows you've noticed that they don't need wiretaps to make an arrest, a destination phone number and time is all that's needed.)

<comment><USER17> Have we already forgotten FireSheep?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Or you could just, you know, not include sensitive information in URLs, reducing the risk of it being leaked through sharing, referer, or other ways. HTTPS only prevents MITM. You should still think about the design if your site.</comment>


The Cost Of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years Of Regret - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-cost-of-free-doughnuts-70-years-of-regret

<comment><USER2> From the comments on that article: "My late uncle, Kenneth Hand, a captain of the 111th combat engineers, wouldn't tolerate criticism of Red Cross canteens or their personnel.

In 1944, he led a recon mission to find a river crossing for our army in southern France. He came under extremely heavy German machine gun and mortar fire and was forced to advance through a minefield to get his men to cover. In the process, he stepped on a mine and was severely wounded, losing his leg. Their mission being vital, he ordered his men to leave him and find that crossing, which they did. Although they sent a medic to recover their officer, upon finding him the medic refused to give him morphine, saying that he didn't have enough to waste on a man who would die in a few minutes anyway. He was then abandoned and listed as dead.

Some time later, a Red Cross doughnut wagon happened by. One of the two person crew noticed Kenny laying unconscious in the minefield and went to check if he was alive. Finding a pulse, they brought him to the doughnut wagon, which was cleared out and converted to an emergency operating room. These two Red Cross canteen workers performed major surgery on the spot and saved his life at the risk of their own.

What's a few cents for doughnuts compared to that?"

<comment><USER3> What was the donut wagon doing in a minefield?

Imagine, in a minefield, under heavy machine gun and mortar fire - "Donuts anyone?".

<comment><USER4> Everyone knew the Canadian combat military mission in Afghanistan was finally going to end in 2011, when the Tim Hortons' outlet closed down. Donut availability can have a predictive (or reactive) nature.

<comment><USER2> The KAF boardwalk Timmies was the first I'd ever had; it's surprisingly good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had a largely positive experience when I began charging for a site I created.

Initially, the site was free, but from day 1 I made it clear that we were going to charge a membership fee at some point. That, I think, was the biggest thing.

I also gave the first several thousand members - who had already become the most vocal and most dedicated members - a chance to earn a free lifetime membership if they completed certain goals that would help me to test the site's functionality. Things like sending ten private messages, making ten forum posts, things like that.

The business wasn't a smashing success, but this part of it was, I think. Some members left once we went for-pay because they simply weren't willing to pay for things online, basically. However, there was no rancor or anything.

<comment><USER6> > Some members left once we went for-pay because they simply weren't willing > to pay for things online

or weren't able to

<comment><USER5> You are right, of course. If it wasn't too late, I'd edit my initial reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The original Planet Money podcast episode is a bit longer and has some more detail, by the way:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/13/156723516/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/13/156723516/episode-386-the- cost-of-free-doughnuts)

I've been listening to Planet Money since it started during the 2007 meltdown. It's been a great resource for explaining some of the tougher financial stories in an easier fashion while keeping it interesting. Definitely a recommended podcast.

<comment><USER8> The story reminded me of the Planet Money about coke being 5 cents for 70 years.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why- coke...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why-coke-cost-a- nickel-for-70-years)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This touches on an interesting human behavior; the difference between $0.00 and $0.01 is huge, much larger than $0.01 to $0.02, or even $0.01 to $0.99 - this is talked about (among other interesting topics) in the book "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_irrational>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X68dm92HVI>

<comment><USER10> I suspect the penny gap is more due to the process of paying for something. That's not completely irrational. Unless you're paying in cash, you are either cluttering up your bank statement, or having to endure an annoying series of logins, confirmations, etc.

Where's the payment equivalent of a facebook "Like" button? Now that I mention it, facebook are probably well positioned to introduce such a thing.

<comment><USER11> _I suspect the penny gap is more due to the process of paying for something_

That is not the point Ariely makes. Charging anything at all changes the nature of the transaction from a social one to a market one and completely changes the context in which people view it. It's worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing I learned early on in business is: it's always easier to lower your prices than to raise them, so set your initial valuation high; you can always drop it later if you need to.

<comment><USER13> In the enterprise space, I have learned that if you drop your price for one customer, your other customers will quickly learn of the new "price floor."

<comment><USER12> While I don't deal with enterprise sales, I do security consulting for the enterprise, and one thing I do is never lower my prices. Instead, I'll just add additional value over top, e.g. an extra day of consulting. Yes, it has the same effect for me, but it doesn't get my clients in the habit of paying me less money.

<comment><USER14> Everyone likes getting something "for free". For an enterprise-level customer, another day of consulting. For smaller customers, a free t-shirt or water bottle. Goes back to the whole perceived-value thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I seriously thought this was going to be about diabetes or sugar addiction or something :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Predictably Irrational has a good take on this (Social Norms vs Market Norms). One of it's key points -- once you've changed from a Social Norm to a Market Norm, it's really hard to change back.

</comment><comment><USER17> And that is why Netflix customers freaked out when it was announced that they had to start paying for Netflix Streaming.

<comment><USER18> not really. i signed up because the product was dvd + steaming at the time. then it became one or the other (or paying twice).

It was never advertised as dvd plus free trial steaming. if it was, was in small print.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting historically (particularly that the U.S. Secretary of War bowed to a British request to have the Red Cross charge), but the parallels between holding a grudge for the perception of being treated poorly coming out of combat, and being asked in peacetime to pay for a previously free service, are weak.

My Dad, a (peacetime) Marine Lieutenant, had a Sergeant who was livid about being asked by the Red Cross volunteers to pay for coffee on his return trip from the Korean war in the early 50s. That left a lasting impression my Dad, who's saying on that was, "A Marine Never forgets." He never supported the Red Cross, though he was hardly stingy when it came to paying for things he thought deserved to be paid for, and that included accepting raised prices.

There's an element of moral indignation in the story that's missing from "Oh, snap, this used to be free and now I have to pay for it. That sucks."

<comment><USER20> >the parallels between holding a grudge for the perception of being treated poorly coming out of combat, and being asked in peacetime to pay for a previously free service, are weak

That was my thought exactly.

I think the main difference between the two scenarios is competition. There is only one Red Cross, but for most apps out there, there are likely a few others that do almost exactly the same thing. So, if one starts charging, you can decide to either switch to a different, free alternative, or you can decide to pay for the app.

Being able to even make that decision is empowering (so what if donuts cost money? muffins are still free!). In the Red Cross's case, there was no choice; the soldiers had no power: you either pay for a donut, or you get nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> More facts from Red Cross: <http://www.hcredcross.org/pdffiles/Donut%20story.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER22> 100% spot on. It's much easier to go from $1/mo to $10/mo than to go from $0/mo to $1/mo

</comment><comment><USER23> There's a bigger thing around this too. One thing I've noticed visiting a lot of companies is that memories of good times can negatively impact assessments of the present.

People with very good work conditions may always long for that time when their favorite manager was there, or when the company was riding a wave of success. Their conditions may be objectively better than many other companies but because they had a great situation at one point, everything else pales in comparison. It can take years for that to change.

<comment><USER24> It is important to look down as well as up when assessing one's position. However, such behavior is not natural, since our animal survival chances are general higher when we always strive for more, than if we grow complacent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think this stems from the memory these people hold that the item (whatever it is, doughnut, site access etc) was once free. People will wonder "why did this change?". It could be many things, but people will most likely jump to the easiest conclusion, the seller is greedy.

Using the doughnuts analogy, I wonder how things would have worked out if they continued to give away the plain doughnuts for nothing, but added a new line of premium iced doughnuts which attracted a charge? Personally I wouldn't mind, and I think that a lot of people would be ok with this.

Stemming from this, you really need to have a good reason to charge people for something they were previously using for free.

Personally, I don't think you can start charging for something that was previously free (without significant value add). By all means offer a paid upgrade with particular value add, but never do the wrong thing by your (thus far) loyal users.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone have any resources pertaining to how people react to generous grandfathering? Like say you release a free service, then make it paid, but give everyone who signed up while it was free a 1 year loyalty bonus, can anyone give their experiences or link to others who have successfully/unsuccessfully tried this?

<comment><USER27> I did just that with LiberWriter.com (people who got in at an earlier set of prices got to keep them) and people were generally very happy and positive about it.

<comment><USER28> Well, of course. The question is "did you make more money with that than if you hadn't grandfathered?"

<comment><USER27> Who knows: there are too many variables at play, and it's not worth doing experiments with lest people raise a stink.

<comment><USER28> Yep, but that's why data would be valuable (although I don't think anyone will have any, due to the reasons you mentioned).

<comment><USER27> Due to the many variables, I think even rigorous data for one application might not apply to others. LiberWriter's customers are different from customers of other web businesses...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This really doesn't seem analogous to me.

>>>For the veterans, the Red Cross went from being a little like Mom, to being the corner store.

Who really thinks of Google, for example, as Mom?

<comment><USER30> For lack of a better word, geeks.

Edit: People tend to have feelings regarding companies and institutions. People who are interested in tech and computers have stronger feelings about companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft. At least in Google's early years, people had a tendency to see Google as a figurative Mom, more interested in providing the best search engine and some nice free services than making money at any cost.

<comment><USER31> I'm a geek ... and I think of Google as (my) "big brother".

<comment><USER32> I'm a geek, and I increasingly think of Google as Big Brother.

<comment><USER33> In "Nineteen Eighty-Four" they talked about telescreens with cameras and microphones spying on you in your home.

In 2013, we willingly have webcams and mobile phones which can conceivably monitor us the same way, and governments that are willing to do so.

Google ain't the only Big Brother.

<comment><USER29> See? I rest my case.

I think even people who love Apple to the point of slavishness think of them as a company, not as a Mom.

<comment><USER31> I have Apple products, but I think of them as "Fahrenheit 451" (Telling me what I can and can't have).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So where is the grudge against airlines charging for checked bags?

<comment><USER35> Many frequent travelers don't check bags anyway. The most frequent travelers have elite status on an airline that might allow them to check bags for free.

<comment><USER7> There's two angles I see:

1) Business travelers can expense the checked bag fee, so they don't care.

2) Other travelers still have a free option: the carry-on bag.

I always board my flights last for various reasons, and I've noticed how people are literally hanging over the ropes to get in the boarding line when their section is called. It started making sense when the staff would announce that ALL overheads were now full. People were packing even more into those carryons.

<comment><USER36> Which is why the checked bag fee never made any sense to me. They should be charging a carry-on fee instead. Carry-ons are a PITA for the airlines, with all the time the stowage adds to the boarding process.

<comment><USER37> > _They should be charging a carry-on fee instead._

At least one airline, Spirit Air, already does. I am sure more will follow this practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Previously <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244314>

</comment><comment><USER39> pinboard.in is always an interesting example. It started at a really low one- time sign-up fee, which grows as more users sign up: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=702914>.

It used to be something like a dollar on launch. Wonder how it follows inflation, though.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is why micropayments for individual pieces of content have never taken off, and never will.</comment>


Overseas outsourcing and intellectual property - <AUTHOR>

how do you cover your liability if you use overseas sub-contractors with regard to non-competes, intellectual property, ndas etc.  especially if they are not in the US.  How can you enforce them?  I am going to talk with a lawyer, but wondered if anyone had any advice. <comment><USER2> You cannot,IMO. Even if you outsource to a sub-contractor in a country with a strong IP regime it is probably not worth your time,money and effort to pursue infringement. The best way to protect your IP with sub-contractors is to not give them access to your IP.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback... are you suggesting i give them access to some source code but not the complete code? or just don't use people overseas at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In general, stick to a service like odesk or elance -- they both have built-in NDA/IP stuff that assigns everything to you.</comment>


Using an iPad to show software at networking events - <AUTHOR> http://bens.me.uk/2010/ipad-software-demo-at-networking-events

<comment><USER2> Hi Ben, I was one of the ones you demoed this to at the HN meetup last night. You're right, having to shout to try to explain some of the subtleties of your product isn't great and this tool was quite effective at communicating a lot of the details in a really casual manner. Would also like to see an iPad app specifically for this purpose.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad it worked! I was a little worried it would be inappropriate for the setting, but everyone seemed interested. I think the key is to bring it out to support the conversation, not as an opening line.

I hope someone will write an iPad app. I'm vaguely tempted, but there's just too much on my list right now.</comment></comment>


8 Straight Hurricanes Have Formed in the Atlantic, a First Since the Late 1800s - <AUTHOR> https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/8-straight-hurricanes-atlantic-2017 <comment><USER2> 1) we don't _know_ if this was a first because for the latter _half_ of that period, we generally didn't _know_ of the existence of a given hurricane unless it approached landfall. That ability only came with weather satellites.

2) note: this site tries to get the browser's location. Always use weather. _gov_ (the U.S. Weather Service site), not weather.com, for forecasts.

<comment><USER3> > for the latter half of that period...

First half...?

<comment><USER2> Yup, sorry. Those responsible have been sacked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So pre-global warming we where having at least 4 a century, now we are down to one or less (with the new ability of satellite data to catch them all, you'd conclude we are even better off)

1893: 10, 1886: 10, 1878: 10, 1880: 9</comment>


Google Registry - <AUTHOR> http://charlestonroadregistry.com/index.html <comment><USER2> If the top-level domain of a website can now be chosen from any number of 2-3 character combinations (i.e. other than "com"), reducing chances of it having each URL be "guessable", then why bother with top-level domains at all?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_doma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains)

<comment><USER3> One reason: there can only be so many root nameservers, which are capable of only so much traffic. Additional layers help keep DNS decentralised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get ready for your online identity to be [https://104233435224873922474.plus/](https://104233435224873922474.plus/)

<comment><USER5> Google is arguably the most web-focused company in the world (the other contender being Mozilla). So how the hell did they manage to screw up something as basic as URLs on Google+? (I've always liked the elegance of twitter.com/username)

<comment><USER6> You may have missed this: [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/you-can-now-finally- get-a-vanit...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/you-can-now-finally-get-a-vanity- url-for-your-google-plus-account-if-youre-eligible/)

<comment><USER5> It doesn't matter. At this point, the web is already polluted with millions of horrible URLs that will/should never change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised by this choice of domains; many of them don't seem to be very appealing for either businesses or individuals. How many people would really want .foo, .boo or .soy?

<comment><USER8> According to the site[0], .foo is supposed to be for developers, .boo for scary stories, and .soy for spanish autobiographies.

Given how well .me and .info did (can't remember the last time I saw one of those) I can't see this gaining much traction at all.

[0] [http://charlestonroadregistry.com/domains.html](http://charlestonroadregistry.com/domains.html)

<comment><USER9> .me is Montenegro's country TLD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would like EXE for top level domain; that would create lots of questions, like is this url a virus?

<comment><USER11> That's really no different from .com ... Except for that people seem to have forgotten about the .com executables file extension.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does _" Google is planning on being the registry for these new top level domains"_ mean that if I want a .dad or .new domain name my only option is to buy it through Google? (or through a Google reseller)

<comment><USER13> It means they will control the root nameservers. They have the ability to choose who gets it and to what. In theory, they have no obligation to charge anyone.

<comment><USER14> So how do I control a root nameserver for a TLD?

<comment><USER15> It's relatively easy.

      1. Download the root.zone file.  Add your new TLD to it, _but don't change anything else_.

      2. Configure and run the necessary DNS software (e.g., nsd, tinydns, etc. plus dnscache, or maybe pdns_recursor) on a computer with a publicly reachable IP address (a "server").

      3. Tell your users the IP address of your server.  They can then change their DNS settings to point to your server.

You now control the root nameserver for a new TLD.

I run my own root.zone and DNS service for my devices at home and I have some custom TLDs. As such, I "control the root nameserver for a TLD". And I did not pay ICANN anything.

What gives ICANN their ability to make money from this stuff is that for some reason not many people run their own root.zone.[1] Almost everyone points their DNS caches at the ICANN root.zone. Blind faith?

1\. Running your own root.zone allows you to add or remove whatever TLDs or individual domainnames you wish. Quite a few people do desire the removal of individual domainnames, i.e., "filtering" and pay OpenDNS for this "service". You can accomplish this by running your own root.zone, for free.

<comment><USER16> To add to this OpenNIC[1] is a project encourages people to host their own name servers and even add additional TLDs to their DNS network.

[1][http://www.opennicproject.org/](http://www.opennicproject.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At this point, what is the rationale behind limiting .TLDs anyway? Is it simply a means to create artificial scarcity so that the companies who control .TLDs can make money? Or is there a legitimate technical reason?

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's a nice list: [http://www.101domain.com/new_gtld_extensions.htm](http://www.101domain.com/new_gtld_extensions.htm)

If these become really popular won't they break a ton of code? "My email is email@example.com"

Personally, I've seen users struggle with anything other than .com. I had a .net once and there were so many "I couldn't find your website" issues from users because it wasn't a .com.

<comment><USER19> I've had regexps reject my domain (3e.org) because it's "too short" or (more frequently) "domains cannot start with a number".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't particularly recognise any of the registrars. Does anyone have any experience they'd like to share, to help us choose?

      101Domain, Inc.
      Ascio Technologies
      DOMAINREGISTRY.DE
      EBrandServices
      eNom
      EuroDNS
      Interlink Co., Ltd.
      Key-Systems
      Mailcub SAS
      MarkMonitor
      Name.com
      Openprovider
      Super Registry Inc.

<comment><USER21> Markmonitor is very popular with enterprise folks for domain registry/management.

<comment><USER22> They are the type that charges $10,000 per year, but will make a bunch of phone calls and a background check before doing a transfer or a nameserver change.

Not sure they are relevant for the $10/year crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting that .app isn't in their list of domains "Google is planning on being the registry" for.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm still haven't seen a .aero or .mobi once, ever.

I can imagine .ing being very popular however, much as .ly is now.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, wtf ever happened to .aero!? I see the occasional .info, but wasn't there also supposed to be a .museum?

Hurrah for someone actually doing something with TLDs.

<comment><USER3> There are a couple: [https://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3A.museum](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3A.museum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just hope we can set reserve .dev as a loopback interface like 127.0.0.1 or 169.254.0.0/16.

</comment><comment><USER27> ahhhh .com. The original bitcoin. Sort of?

</comment><comment><USER28> .DAD but no .MOM?

<comment><USER3> Or .MUM?</comment></comment>


At LAX's new private terminal, the rich are pampered while normal people suffer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/12/lax-private-terminal-rich-people-celebrities <comment><USER2> Yet another virtue-signaling inequality "the people suffer while the rich thrive" drivel from the Guardian.

That service is catered to a market which affords an annual membership of $7,000 and an additional $2,700 per each domestic flight.

Does "the people" pay anything close to that amount for a domestic flight?

So, why do these idiots expect getting $10.000 treatment by paying a small fraction of that cost?

Or do they believe it is even remotely reasonable to assume that airports should not cater to demand coming from high-paying, deep pocketed clients?

This article is nothing more than socialist virtue signaling at its worse.</comment>


All American Airlines Flights Grounded, Experiencing Nationwide Computer Outage - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/16/all-american-airlines-flights-grounded-experiencing-nationwide-computer-outage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

<comment><USER2> I'm at DFW right now heading to LAX on AA. Computers just came up and they are going to begin boarding shortly. Lots of unhappy travelers here as you can imagine I'm sure.

Edit--

To follow up. It's been about an hour since the computers came back up in the terminal and I'm finally in my seat on the plane. About 3 hours after it was supposed to depart.

There were several canceled flights in my terminal and no other flights going out so people had to stay overnight. Most were very mad as American was not supplying food or hotel vouchers - all those people are coming out of pocket I guess.

I heard quite a few saying things like, "No wonder they are going out of business" and "I will never fly American again no matter what".

<comment><USER3> > American was not supplying food or hotel vouchers - all those people are > coming out of pocket I guess.

Why are they not subject to a class action lawsuit? The problems rather obviously seem to be American's fault.

Seems like some enterprising lawyer should buy a ticket, drive to the airport, go to the AA gates, and start handing out business cards to everyone in sight.

<comment><USER4> > go to the AA gates

You have to be a ticketed passenger to get _to_ the gates.

<comment><USER5> Then buy a ticket. It'd be a worthwhile expenditure.

<comment><USER6> Great answer (but if the computers are down, can he buy a ticket?).

<comment><USER7> Doesn't have to be a ticket on AA.

<comment><USER8> And it can be fully refundable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "American said the issue was caused by an inability to get access to its reservations system, called Sabre. The electronic system, often described as the brains of an airline, is responsible for bookings and reservations but also manages a wide variety of functions related to flights, including printing boarding passes, online check-ins, ticketing, and tracking checked bags. [...]

Sabre, meanwhile, said American's system outage did not come from its own computer systems. Other airlines, including Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, use the reservation system and have not experienced any outages, said Nancy St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for Sabre."

Source:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/business/american- airlines...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/business/american-airlines- cancels-flights-after-outage.html)

<comment><USER10> SABRE was fine. Some of the systems at AA couldn't talk to it. Having seen their systems none of this surprises me.

<comment><USER11> Somebody probably let an API key expire...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like how it says "apologize for ANY inconvenience" as if theres the possibility that all planes being grounded making hundreds of people late for meetings offers any room for there not to be an inconvenience.

<comment><USER13> Or worse, parents with young children stuck at airports losing their mind.

<comment><USER14> Or worse than that, missing a meeting and being stuck with _other people's_ young children at airports.

<comment><USER13> Unsure if you have kids but trust me. It's worse for the parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't wrap my head around how extraordinarily complex airline reservations/logistics systems are. I'm kind of surprised you don't see this more often.

<comment><USER16> Looks like they use Sabre:

UPDATE, 1:43 P.M.: The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed the ground stop. "GROUNDSTOP IMPLEMENTED BY ATCSCC ON AMERICAN AIRLINES NATIONWIDE AND AMR AMERICAN EAGLE INTO DFW, LGA, AND ORD AT THE REQUEST OF AMERICAN OPS. STOP REQUESTED AS RESULT OF AAL SABRE SYSTEM FAILURE."

from [http://www.dallasnews.com/business/airline- industry/20130416...](http://www.dallasnews.com/business/airline- industry/20130416-all-american-airlines-flights-now-grounded-nationwide-till- at-least-7-p.m..ece)

<comment><USER17> Looking at Sabre's own timeline, I cringe at what I suspect the codebase must look like. From what I read between the lines here, it looks like neither a carefully maintained legacy system, _nor_ a proper rewrite at any point along the way, but more like 50 years of things bolted onto each other: <http://www.sabre.com/home/about/sabre_history>

<comment><USER18> I have the utmost respect for systems that have been running for decades without major rewrites, but having said that, I imagine there is a rock-solid core that has, literally, withstood the test of time, surrounded by semi- compatible systems that accreted around it since the mid-80's, with most current systems only touching this peripheral mass rather than the core services.

I've had contact with many systems that have their cores running on IBM mainframes with peripheral systems running on .NET. I fear those.

<comment><USER19> Transaction processing on IBM mainframes is typically very robust. It's what they were built to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am surprised no one has mentioned Rule 240. I have, more than once, gone up to the agent when a flight was delayed and asked about this rule. They always hesitate at first, but if you insist, they quickly make provisions to put you on another flight.

This only works when it is the airlines fault and not an issue with weather.

Rule 240: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_240>

</comment><comment><USER21> Putting my tinfoil hat on for a moment...

I wonder if there was a threat against the airline? Perhaps something enough to be credible but not so specific as to be pinpointable, and rather than cause widespread panic by saying "ground every AA flight until we sort it out" (which would freak people out beyond belief), someone figured out that pulling the plug on their mainframe for a few hours would have the same result without the panic. Just some pissed off passengers.

Or maybe I've just been watching too much Homeland. Sigh.

<comment><USER10> That's just your paranoia. I wish I could speak more freely than I already have (see my other comments) but the fact is, crappy software, written by crappy contractors all tied to a 53 year old system of record.

<comment><USER22>
      Old software + "wish I could say more" = conspiracy

      /joke
      /defensive mechanism

<comment><USER10> Comedy of errors... sometimes a very dark comedy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just a general comment on airlines:

With US-based carriers, expect low prices, inflating awards points/miles, and bottom-level service.

With non-US based carriers, expect higher prices, no awards programs, and excellent service.

This is my experience flying in N. America, Europe, and Asia.

<comment><USER24> Huh... Explain how Southwest has done so well then? They are cheap, profitable, and have the best service.

<comment><USER23> I compared US-based carriers with non-US based carriers. Southwest, a US-based carrier, competes with other US-based carriers. You're right, Southwest is a great choice if you're flying in the US, but that's not what my post is about. You can't compare Southwest with Cathay Pacific or EVA Airlines because they operate totally different routes.

Same thing regarding EasyJet comments, which is another "niche" airline. Try flying EasyJet from LAX to NRT, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel for the poor sods thrashing away trying to make this right. Do developers in mission critical areas earn a premium? This could knock a couple of years off your life in stress.

<comment><USER10> LOL, yah right. No they don't earn more. AA does not pay well. Also most of the legacy systems are maintained by contractors.

<comment><USER26> What do they earn?

<comment><USER10> I'm told, "well below market". I've talked to probably 40 programmers there. Only one of them knew what any of the SOLID principles were as I named them off.

<comment><USER27> > Only one of them knew what any of the SOLID principles were as I named them > off.

Here's to hoping I don't ever end up where you are. Let's just let programmers do programming instead of brushing up on their MBA/"Six Sigma" style time wasting.

<comment><USER28> It is very useful to know about the lessons of those that came before so that you don't end up making the same mistakes. I'm not the OP, but if you don't care about theory at all, then I'm the one hoping I never end up where you are. I don't want to waste thoughts on trying to figure out the same damn problem that was solved 20 years ago. Yet, this is exactly what many programmers spend most of their time on.

<comment><USER27> Right, because principals related to OOP would clearly be useful to COBOL running legacy systems and remembering marketing acronyms are indicative of how much a programmer is going to waste time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you board, you will be on the tarmac for a while:

[http://www.dallasnews.com/business/airline- industry/20130416...](http://www.dallasnews.com/business/airline- industry/20130416-all-american-airlines-flights-now-grounded-nationwide-till- at-least-7-p.m..ece)

<comment><USER30> "A while" -- no kidding!

 _UPDATE: 3:02 P.M.: The Federal Aviation Administration has advised that American Airlines has extended its ground stop to at least 7 p.m._

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm picturing a disk failure, or a RAID5 with two dead drives. Someone at AA franticly running disk recovery software.

<comment><USER32> "Oh god please work ddrescue...."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Nice to see their legacy systems were kept up to date and maintained.

<comment><USER34> I guess this is part of the "maintenance"... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> As a frequent US Airways flier, this makes me feel really warm and fuzzy about the upcoming merger with American Airlines.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd like to see a paper on American Airlines software architecture. Although I doubt it'll pop up on "High Scalability" any time soon. Do we know anything about Sabre's platform? I imagine its highly redundant..how could they have a nationwide outage?

<comment><USER37> On twitter, Sabre says they're not having any issues, and American Airlines retracted their statement pointing the finger at Sabre:

 _Clarification: The issue is w/ our ability to access our res system & not w/ @SabreNews. We apologize to Sabre & customers for confusion._

<https://twitter.com/AmericanAir/status/324227267066736640>

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The hosting company that American Airlines uses is Sabre

This is the same company used by Virgin America, US Airways, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines

<comment> sjm-lbm Also, a bit of trivia: AA invented Sabre. Sabre can actually trace itself back to AA's first attempts at using computerized business process automation in the 1950s, before it was spun off into a separate company in 2000.

Should anyone be bored enough for a read, I actually think SABRE's history is sort of interesting: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)>

<comment><USER38> A really interesting book I read about this is Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger Jr. This contains more than just a history of Sabre. I read it more because I work in the travel industry ;-)

[http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Landing-Contest-Profits- Airlines/...](http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Landing-Contest-Profits- Airlines/dp/0812928350)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Prescient article: [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513391/why-a-botched- it...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513391/why-a-botched-it-project- will-destroy-a-major-corporation-in-the-near-future/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I got stuck for 2 hours waiting for "paperwork" flying from Chicago to Philly. At least I managed to finish my book.

<comment><USER41> It's more than just paperwork: one of the systems that was down calculates things like fuel loads and flight plans

<comment><USER42> I imagine that paperwork was on quotes because that's what one of the employees told him/her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why haven't carriers like AA been displaced by more competent (and passenger friendly) alternatives yet?

<comment><USER43> "How do you become a millionaire? Make a billion dollars and then buy an airline." -- Warren Buffett [[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/23/if-you- have...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/23/if-you-have-to- invest-in-airlines-dont.aspx)]

<comment><USER44> Thought that was a Branson quote:

"If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline." -- Richard Branson

<comment><USER45> That sounds like something Richard Branson would say (I think I remember reading it in _Business Stripped Bare_ ), but I believe Buffett's quote predates Virgin Airlines entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Android anyone?

</comment><comment><USER47> For a minute I had a '24' flashback and started packing canned goods and ammunition into a 'bug out bag'..</comment>


Ask HN: If a Hadoop cluster were free, what would you do? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'd use it for running optical character recognition on millions of pages of government documents to make public information truly free, at [http://citizenaudit.org/](http://citizenaudit.org/). But I really just need the 26 cores with a master node feeding documents for that, not actually map- reduce.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, if there's no MR involved, I'm not sure our GPUs would be very helpful for this type of job. What do you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've recently became interested in Hadoop, map/reduce, HDFS. I would like to use it for learning purpose.

<comment><AUTHOR> What types of jobs are you trying to implement?

<comment><USER3> Would like to use it primarily for configuration purpose. Admin/devops kinds of jobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you provide me your preferred email? Is it the one in your HN profile?

<comment><USER3> The one in my HN profile should be good. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a Tera-butte-ton of security data that I could use hadoop for analysis. Have you a free cluster?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've developed a parallel architecture using GPUs thereby reducing the cost by a few hundred factors. So, yes, we will have a freemium plan, and an affordable pricing model.

Email me at email@example.com if you're interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I might use it to analyze email conversations related to customer service.

<comment><AUTHOR> What types of algorithms would you implement? Would they be compute bound?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How many cores, how much RAM, how much HDFS storage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our free tier will be:

26 CPU cores, 15 GB RAM, 60GB of SSD storage 1536 GPU cores, and 2GB RAM

for a certain amount of time. If you'd like a reserve instance, or more power/storage/throughput, we'll charge more accordingly.

<comment><USER6> Most typical usage of Hadoop I've seen (so far) is people dumping many terabytes of data into HDFS and then analyzing it. But maybe you're more focused on distributed computing than the "big data" side of it.</comment></comment></comment>


On semicolons, pseudo-technical and subjective arguments, revisited - <AUTHOR> http://robotlolita.me/2012/04/16/on-semicolons-and-subjective-discussions-revisited.html <comment><USER2> The length of the post is an argument against ASI. If you are not writing code for others then be my guest. Don't expect others to put up with your clever antics. Another reason I hate the JavaScript world. Waste of talent.

<comment><USER3> > Another reason I hate the JavaScript world. Waste of talent.

This about sums up every clever thing I've seen in JS land.

I just wonder what people who are so adept at banging rocks together could do with proper tools.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the biggest API development issues that you face? - <AUTHOR> Some issues that I face are :
1. Deciding on a common API structure amongst teams.
2. Keeping up to date with the changing API structures.
3. Suggesting modifications to an existing API.
4. Waiting for backend developers to finish APIs before getting started.
5. Notifying co-workers of deprecations/breaking changes.
If yes then How do you tackle these issues in your current work? <comment><USER2> A common API structure amongst teams? It's hard enough coming up with a good API abstraction WITHOUT a team! I do my best to keep things as abstract as possible and leaving myself in a place where I can pass along versioning data with different object information so I don't massively break things.

Some of the biggest issues I face still include lack of foresight, thankfully I haven't had to have any truly major redesigns in any of my projects but there are always things you don't expect.

Working in the private sector FOR someone the challenges are more along the lines of "Can the other team really define what they want?" I can't define a good well abstracted API when they're unexperienced or just don't know what to ask for or even what they want.. but that problem tends to extend beyond programming :)

Other big problem: Documentation. I tend to be a 1 man team that interfaces with other teams of multiple people. I don't usually document well. That sometimes bites me in the ass months later, but that's a typical story -- document and comment! Know WHY you chose to implement an API the way you did. Was it your choice? Was it the other guy? Did you miscalculate something or not realize how a project might expand? Documentation goes beyond defining the API/ABI and again something I'm pretty bad at.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel most of the times API structures are decided in meetings on whiteboards and it becomes a pain maintaining context across such meetings. Also with remote teams the same process is usually done over email.

Also propagating deprecations/breaking changes to the entire system is also a big pain point.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you tackle such problems?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Keeping the API documentation updated is a major pain point IMO. Many developers do not update it at all and often times it does not get updated when something is deprecated or removed from the API

</comment><comment><USER5> Documenting the API contracts and keeping it updated is a major pain-point. Mocking the api until the real API is ready also takes up time.

<comment><USER6> Are you doing model driven development for the contract - building the contract artifacts first (e.g. the wsdl/wadl/whatever) and generating documentation and some of the code off them? If you can then the documentation problem goes away. You just regenerate the docs from the contract as part of the build.

Mocking takes time but means other teams can develop against your API before you've written any code, so while your coding effort is a little more, the elapsed development time across all teams is shorter. That can be a big win.</comment></comment>


Offensive or not, Groupon won the Super Bowl ad game on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/offensive_or_not_groupon_won_the_super_bowl_ad_gam.php

<comment><USER2> The title of the article says "Groupon won", but the content says this is only 'if you go by the mantra "any press is good press."'

I'm guessing most people don't go by that mantra. People talking about how offensive Groupon's ads were is not a "win".

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally didn't find it that offensive.

If you were aware of Tibet's long running predicament, then you could appreciate the absurdity. If not, then hopefully it would prompt you to find out more about Tibet.</comment>


Detroit police chief admits facial recognition is wrong "96% of the time" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/detroit-police-chief-admits-facial-recognition-is-wrong-96-of-the-time/ <comment><USER2> Unscientific. The best facial recognition is accurate 98%-99.9% of the time. There are minor known problems with blacks (~2% worse), bad lighting, bad cameras, but big problems with small databases to compare against. There are yearly vendor tests and challenges. E.g [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_Recognition_Grand_Challen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_Recognition_Grand_Challenge) Latest winners are all in the 99.9% ballpark, not 4%.

If the Detroit police has no faces to compare against and the image quality is crap, it's certain that their success rate cannot be much better than 10%.

</comment><comment><USER3> 4% success rate is fantastic for one tool bring the perpetrator to the attention of investigators.

The problem is in abusing the tool as in the watch theft case.

<comment><USER4> More like 96% distraction.

<comment><USER5> Depends on how many results it brings you -- if it declares 10 candidate matches, and 1 is correct, then its still 90% wrong -- but still very useful.

<comment><USER6> And it ruins the lives of the 9 incorrect matches, because of the way the legal system works in America. I'd say that that's 9 lives too many.

<comment><USER7> Is this life ruining thing a thing, or is it a generalizing of that episode that hit the news a week ago, or is it an instantiation of the current zeitgeist according to which there is no ill that can't be associated with US law enforcement

<comment><USER8> I don't know why but for some reason US law enforcement always manages to find a way to maximize harm.

When you give them less lethal weapons what happens is that they just use them in every possible situation and often they increase lethality by aiming at vulnerable body parts or shoot them from a very short distance. What they really should do is show some restraint and not let themselves get provoked easily.

Facial recognition is basically ending in the same situation. 96% failure rate means you have a lead but not evidence and only get to interview people for more clues. Instead they just arrest the leads because the wanted criminal could attack during the interview or flee afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's simply not realistic to expect highly accurate facial recognition from public surveillance cameras.

Resolution is often lacking, angles are distorted, illumination is poor, people are moving, features are hidden or blurred, people wear hats, etc., etc..

Mug shots, maybe. Frame grabs from public surveillance, not very likely.</comment>


Show HN: Python library to extract tabular data from images and scanned pdfs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ExtractTable/ExtractTable-py <comment><AUTHOR> The motivation is to make it easy for developers to extract tabular data from images or scanned PDF files without worrying about the table area, column coordinates, rotation et al.</comment>


How to Not Get Ripped off when Shopping for HDMI Cables for Your Gadgets - <AUTHOR> http://www.carrypad.com/2011/05/23/how-to-not-get-ripped-off-when-shopping-for-hdmi-cables-for-your-gadgets/

<comment><USER2> tl;DR AmazonBasics HDMI cables</comment>


Anonymous Open Letter to the Ember.js Core Team - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuicool.com/articles/a6FjIn

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this guy has a point with:

[https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/commits/master/ember.jso...](https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/commits/master/ember.json)

"Ember is released in "revisions", because it's not production ready and not ready to be 1.0. Hence the core team chose to rather call breaking changes a new "revision". Well guess what dudes, that's exactly what versions are for. Why couldn't you just like normal people release 0.4, 0.5? Why do you need to hit 1.0 directly?"

</comment><comment><USER2> Why doesn't he get more involved in the project and stop complaining. Yes Ember is lacking in the prioritizing department but it's a community project and there is always room for more people.

There are a number of forks/patches out there that provide hasOne semantics and saving for multiple records in the same commit (ours are the mhelabs ones)

\- [https://github.com/mhelabs/ember- data/tree/has_one](https://github.com/mhelabs/ember-data/tree/has_one)

\- [https://github.com/mhelabs/ember-data/tree/parent-child- comm...](https://github.com/mhelabs/ember-data/tree/parent-child-commit-fix)

\- [https://github.com/ghempton/data/tree/relational- adapter](https://github.com/ghempton/data/tree/relational-adapter)

</comment><comment><USER3> This just goes to show that there is so much more than a feature-list to consider when selecting your stack.</comment>


How Bad Could Markets Get? History Says Much Worse - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-bad-could-markets-get-history-says-much-worse-11584442802 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.is/EG39G](https://archive.is/EG39G)</comment>


Coronavirus patients flew to US after CDC "explicitly recommended against it" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/coronavirus-patients-flew-to-us-after-cdc-explicitly-recommended-against-it/ <comment><USER2> This isn't particularly strange - it's as good as certain that many of those repatriated are infected. Having some already confirmed before getting home is just a PR or bureaucratic issue, not practically meaningful.

> As American evacuees sat crammed into buses idling on an airport tarmac in > Japan

This however is just... I don't understand how civilization failed so completely on that ship. You have controlled conditions and people that have nowhere to go - there's absolutely no excuse to having extra infections. As far as we can tell from the news, they just treated it like flu.</comment>


A new build tool for Clojure abstracting away Maven/Ant - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/README.md

<comment><USER2> layer on top of maven(for dependency resolution) and ant(build). seems pretty nice. Will certainly try this one out.</comment>


In 1984, an 8 year old with sickle cell was cured as a side effect - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/c1mhut/til_in_1984_an_8_year_old_girl_with_sickle_cell/ <comment><USER2> Wow, that is amazing!</comment>


The nuclear option – China is vigorously promoting nuclear energy - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/the-nuclear-option-1.19844 <comment><USER2> I'm wondering if it's wise to push nuclear energy in a country that has so much difficulty keeping its factories and chemical storage all over the country from exploding all the time...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I cut the last part of the lead text because titles are limited to 80 characters.</comment>


Peer-To-Peer Communication Across Network Address Translators - <AUTHOR> http://www.brynosaurus.com/pub/net/p2pnat/ <comment><USER2> For context, the article is from 2005 and the representative Windows version is XP Service Pack 2.</comment>


Chinese entrepreneurs, investors on Google: 'Just quit. We don't care.' - <AUTHOR> http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/01/14/google-china/ <comment><USER2> _They only wanted to publish their first names because they were worried about making critical comments of the government publicly._

So the ones that DO care are too scared to care too much?</comment>


An architecture of diversity for commonsense reasoning (2002) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.jfsowa.com/ikl/McCarthy02.pdf <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in this then I think that Patrick Winston's Genesis group/project is a good place to see where things have got to.

[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/genesis/index.html](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/genesis/index.html)</comment>


Rupert Murdoch on the coming "Golden Age of Freedom" (Audio) - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures/default.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> I recommend listening to Lectures 3, 5 and 6

1,2 and 4 are more directly related to Australia's future and probably won't be as interesting to most of you.

BTW these lecture are around ~30+ minutes each.

</comment><comment><USER2> _"... In Australia, we pride ourselves on our passion for equality—we have popularised the word 'egalitarian'. That passion is an attractive part of the Australian personality. But it is getting harder and harder to square Australian pride in equality with the realities of the Australian system of public education ..."_

You could also argue that the ability to work and become leaders in foreign companies is just as aggreable to Australians. All except NewsCorp where nepotism has replaced meritocracy.</comment>


Ask HN: Well written / designed "spec" document? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone have examples of a well written spec document and if available approx. how many hours went into coming up with it?  I heard Seth Godin talk about how they did a spec so good they just handed it off to a development shop and let them roll with it but my experience has been far from that.  I know part of the issue is internally we're not spending enough time developing the spec but I'd like to see some well designed ones as a frame of reference for how things should be done.  TIA. <comment><USER2> Well, I have written this: [https://git.sr.ht/~djhaskin987/onecli/tree/master/doc/rfc.rs...](https://git.sr.ht/~djhaskin987/onecli/tree/master/doc/rfc.rst)

It took me a couple of days to write. Does it seem clear to you? Would you be able to take it and run?

My guess is that you wouldn't because I haven't tested and made sure that the spec was clear.

Atul Gawande in his book "The Checklist Manifesto" makes the point that specs (in his case, checklists) are like programs in that they need to be tested and tweaked many, many times over the course of several iterations before they are clear, actionable, and useful.

Thinking of it this way, a spec is like a human program: it is telling the human what to do, or at least (as in declarative programming) what is wanted. like a normal program, it needs "work" (revisions, having a different person / "compiler" read the work and comment) before it shines, just like any writing.

Or you could come back from reading that spec that I linked to and think "Wow this sounds clear, I could implement this." In which case I'd be wrong, because I wrote that in one go.</comment>


Bitcoin: Lifeline for Venezuela - <AUTHOR> http://www.tokentalk.co/TokenTalk/press-release/Bitcoin%3A%20Lifeline%20For%20Venezuela <comment><USER2> Venezuelan here, bitcoin is only used as a fast bridge between VEF and USD* mostly money laundering.

That's it.

So how it works is that people have tons of VEF from different sources, go to localbitcoins and get some btc and sell as soon as possible for usd in other places.

The thing got so crazy that USD:VEF black market rate was stable at 1USD:200,000 VEF for like 2 weeks but the "bitcoin dollar" was trading at 1USD:350,000VEF

Besides that, bitcoin has absolutely no use.

And for the people saying that "mining" bitcoin is good in venezuela, they are totally wrong, mining bitcoin is a business you wouldn't want to go in, there is alot of mafia (because of what i said above) and alot of weird things happening, only those who are related to mafia/gov/drugs/illegal gold mining/corruption in general are the ones who can mine without the risks, if you are the average techie guy you are in huge risk, from like getting all your hardware stolen [1][2][3] to even be jailed and charged as terrorist [4]

[1] [https://losbenjamins.com/2018/01/vea-regimen-roba- maquinas-b...](https://losbenjamins.com/2018/01/vea-regimen-roba-maquinas- bitcoin/)

[2] [https://www.criptonoticias.com/sucesos/desmantelan-centro- mi...](https://www.criptonoticias.com/sucesos/desmantelan-centro-mineria- bitcoins-once-mil-equipos-venezuela/)

[3] [https://www.el-carabobeno.com/pareja-detenida-por- comercio-i...](https://www.el-carabobeno.com/pareja-detenida-por-comercio- ilegal-con-7-maquinas-bitcoin-en-guacara/)

[4] [http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/sucesos/incautaron- compu...](http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/sucesos/incautaron-computadores- para-minar-bitcoins-lara_215326)

<comment><USER3> For a counter-point from another self-purported Venezuelan:

[https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/60x8wv/freed...](https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/60x8wv/freedom_of_the_masses/)

<comment><USER4> That's not so much a tale of "how Bitcoin is useful for normal people in Venezuela" as "here's why I, a cryptolibertarian, think Bitcoin is going to beat down fiat currency" where the cryptolibertarian happens to live in Venezuela.

<comment><USER3> It's not just a political statement. He/she provides a practical effect of cryptocurrency on their life:

>>I´d rather buy bitcoins from localbitcoins in less than 5 minutes than risk my safety buying USD from some really speculating, shady people. I invest most of my crypto savings long term in alt coins

For someone whose private wealth is always at risk of seizure, and is in a impoverished country where the majority are at the brink of extreme deprivation, it seems pretty reasonable that cryptocurrency would help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I seriously doubt the author has spoken to a single Venezuelan about Bitcoin. A couple realities:

\- dozens of miners have gone to prison for exploiting power subsidies. Mining now requires pooling electricity from neighbors to hide high-usage households

\- vast majority of Venezuelans don't even know about Bitcoin, remains a niche topic, not a useful currency at the moment

\- unlike Bitcoin, the Bolivar has a military and police force behind it, they will squash competing currencies that begin gaining momentum

</comment><comment><USER6> Mining is really riskful. If the electricity spike is noticed they can search your house and jail you.

Only selected individuals can do it without consequences, mostly people from the government and military. For example, there is a rumor going around that they are restoring an entire floor of a public university with the front that they are going to "research" how to mine more effectively. It's not a coincidence that it's Vicerector was imposed just last year by the government[1].

I don't think Bitcoin will get more popular in Venezuela, there are other ways to exchange VEF:USD, in hard cash and wire transfers that generates more trust in most of the population.

[1] [http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/educacion/vicerrector- ac...](http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/educacion/vicerrector-academico- para-usb-tiene-meritos-academicos_192561)

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is exactly 100% correct, but only if you replace the word "bitcoin" with "USD" throughout the entire thing.

<comment><USER8> The article states:

 _" According to a recent report by The Economist, Venezuela is the cheapest region on earth to mine bitcoin, because of its cheap electricity and the worthless Bolivar."_

How does that relate to USD? There are hundreds of stable currencies that _could_ replace the Bolivar but due to extremely cheap electricity, Bitcoin is in a unique position to help Venezuelans.

<comment><USER9> USD is most popular

<comment><USER8> Right, but it's the functional uniqueness of Bitcoin that allows Venezuelans to acquire the USD. They aren't getting it directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I call bullshit.

It's a nice story, and I don't doubt that _some_ Venezuelans benefit from bitcoin somehow. But for BTC to be considered a "lifeline" for the population would require people to actually do day-to-day transactions with it. That's not happening.

<comment><USER11> Not really, it could also serve as an inflation hedging store of value. To which you might respond that Bitcoin is highly volatile, and you'd be correct. But it's substantially less volatile than the Bolivar.

<comment><USER12> But way, way more volatile than USD, EUR, or any currency of a neighboring country, as well as being much harder to buy anything with.

<comment><USER11> Yep, possibly easier to obtain and/or hide, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The only real use for Bitcoin in Venezuela that I've seen is sending money to people there.

I did that for a friend a while back, and he was able to exchange for Bolivares and buy food and essentials. He also reported that the exchange was illegal and carried substantial risk, but that the exchange rate was so good $100 was basically a life-changing amount of money and worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER14> The original source referenced in The Economist : [https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2018/04/e...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2018/04/economist-explains-2)

</comment><comment><USER15> This article completely ignores all of the reasons _why_ the economy collapsed, and seems to just happily go on with the unstated assumption that a new currency can help. The truth is that Venezuela is dead, what you're seeing now is just agonal breathing, not life. Society is divided, the economy is destroyed, so of course the currency based on that failed. How does inventing a new currency on top of that failed system help? How is it not rearranging deck chairs on the Lusitania?

Maybe a few miners can strike it rich through money laundering, based on heavily subsidized mining, but that fixes nothing. Cryptocurrency isn't an escape from reality.

<comment><USER16> umm...what? The article simply talks about how Bitcoin is used in Venezuela to deal with the crisis, not how it is a solution that will fix all of its problems. Its obviously a pro-crypto website talking about utilization (which is something the space really needs), and there is no harm in that.

<comment><USER15> It opens with a very strong claim.

 _Bitcoin is a lifeline for citizens and residents of Venezuela._

It actually does seem harmful to frame "pro-crypto" in those unlikely terms. Or in other words, how does inventing an abstraction layer on top of your original failed currency, obtained by burning fossile fuels, help the average Venezuelan trying to buy food and sundries? It seems more like slapping a bandaid on a sucking chest wound and claiming that you've helped the patient.

I'm not interested in the "crypto space" and what it needs, especially in a discussion of an article purporting to describe what the people of Venezuela need. Unless those two things overlap to the degree that it's a "lifeline" for those people, it reeks of the usual pumping of cryptocurrency that seems to pervade the "space" in question.

Bmelton: Between the distortion of the original Economist article used in this article, and this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16783272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16783272)

I'd say that's not what this is about. This currency is just a laundry for dollar bills.

<comment><USER17> I agree with (some of) your original post in that Venezuela is an ailing nation at best, but at the same time, it shouldn't take too much imagination to see that if you can convert cheap (in Bolivars) electricity into currency that is accepted at a much better exchange rate outside of the country that one can have supplies shipped in.

Moreover, we know that in currency crises, black and gray markets spring up like wildfire, so it takes even less imagination to picture a proprietor starting to prefer crypto currencies in exchange for tangible goods vs. the already bad -- and more importantly, still declining local currency.

Despite the volatility of crypto currencies, and the fact that they've been on a hard slide lately, it's still a better depreciation than hanging on to Bolivars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What happened with the petro?

</comment><comment><USER19> Hold on. How can the mafia, or government for that matter, systematically stop people from mining small amounts crypto (possibly arbitraging a huge gulf between electricity prices and USD exchange rates)?

Other than the electricity cost how can they find you? People have found many more clever ways to hide economic activity in dangerous situations (see black markets in North Korea).

I thought the whole point of cryptocurrencies was to exactly to get around this central control. If this wasn't possible, it's an unfortunate and interesting example of how bitcoins ideologies don't work in reality.

Edit: Huh, what's with the downvotes?

<comment><USER4> What, you mean the simplified world ideologies don't hold up in practice to the real world? What kind of craziness is this?

Less sarcastically... that's kind of the big issue that people forget. The price of bitcoin is approximately the cost it takes to mine it less the cost of capital or so--in other words, you should expect to spend something like 95¢ in electricity to make $1 of bitcoin. Electricity prices aren't consistent across the world, but the notability of bitcoin is such that you have to compete against the lowest-cost places. In order to make a decent amount of money from bitcoin, you have to consume a decent amount of electricity. And that electricity has to be converted into some other form of energy, which usually comes out as heat or (in some cases) RF leakage.

What that means is detecting mining is as simple as noticing who's using all the electricity (trivial, if you're the electric company), or walking down the street with a wide-spectrum RF sensor and IR gun.

When you look at that kind of power draw,

<comment><USER19> >What, you mean the simplified world ideologies don't hold up in practice to the real world? What kind of craziness is this?

Your derogatory tone is uncalled for, nothing in my comment was pro-crypto.

Stashing of small to moderate currency against a low-quality government or mafia (via the conversion of electricity) seems like one good use case of currencies. If this isn't the case, it would be genuinely interesting to know why.

> ...you should expect to spend something like 95¢ in electricity to make $1 > of bitcoin

Got a quote for this 95% figure? Yes, I understand efficient markets. Presumably, a lot of the value of crypto is amortized from the hardware.

> When you look at that kind of power draw,

Your criticism relies on two unstated assumptions.

1\. Large scale. If I can stash a small rig somewhere, then I can produce currency. This process doesn't require scale or major investment, so you could mine at a small enough scale to be below notice (see also: black markets). This seems like a viable way to save funds at a personal/family level.

2\. Has electricity prices risen correspondingly with inflation? I would expect in a dev country electricity is subsidized or small relative to other living costs. The same energy it takes to run a home I could generate a few bucks here. A few bucks in our country is incredibly valuable right now in V.</comment></comment></comment>