Poor people pay for parking even when they can't afford a car - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/15/why-free-parking-is-a-big-problem/ <comment><USER2> This topic is discussed at length in the book, "Green Metropolis". It's part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can't build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can't build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing.

Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum building height, and require minimum parking spaces. Many European cities have maximum parking spaces, and minimum building height. The latter produces higher population densities which make public transportation possible.

We need to push back against suburban sprawl and the car-first design. No required parking, no free curbside parking, and a carbon tax on gasoline. Once cities get a population density >7 people per acre, public transportation becomes viable. Population density follows a logarithmic curve with miles traveled per person, so you get as much of a reduction from moving from 2 to 20 people per square acre, as from 20 to 200.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that many people actually want higher population densities.

<comment><USER2> Actually, we are seeing a return towards urbanisation globally, which is a positive trends, since it's a vital component for curbing global warming. Residents of NYC use 1/3 as much electricity as their suburban counterparts, use a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions on transportation, and produce less garbage. All without convincing New Yorkers to recycle or drive electric cars. Environmental responsibility is baked into the city's design.

<comment><USER4> Residents of NYC pay $3000/mo for 1-bedroom apartments, while their suburban counterparts pay $1000/mo for 3-bedroom houses.

You could buy quite a few solar panels and lease _several_ electric cars for less than it would take to move to NYC.

<comment><USER5> Or you could move to a city with more reasonable housing costs, like Minneapolis where 2br apartments <$2k/mo.

<comment><USER6> > more reasonable housing costs

Your "reasonable" housing costs are still double the price for half the space.

A lot of Americans just don't have an extra $1,000/month sitting around to throw towards rent. Even if they ditch their car, they'd still be $800/month short.

<comment><USER5> You can definitely get a place in Minne for $1k. I was just quoting median numbers. $2k for a 2br is in some of the more posh areas. But my point was more reasonable that NYC. Much more space for much let money. And the suburbs here would be even cheaper than the $1k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Meh.

You also pay for the cost of public parks even if you never use them.

You pay for the cost of government elementary schools even if you homeschool your kids.

etc.

Now, I'm an anarchocapitalist and would love to see all of these costs unbundled, so that we each pay only for what we use.

...but the other 99.9% of folks in our society think that it is reasonable to have one-size-fits-all solutions, where a single basket of goods is created and handed to everyone, regardless of whether they want it or not.

To say "yes, I still want that policy, but I want EXACTLY the bundle of goods that __I __want forced on everyone, not some other basket of goods " seems like special pleading.

<comment> at-fates-hands Just in case someone wants to know:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho- capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism)

 _Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty, private property, and free markets. Anarcho-capitalists believe that, in the absence of statute (law by decree or legislation), society would improve itself through the discipline of the free market (or what its proponents describe as a "voluntary society").[2][3]_

One aspect that concerned me:

 _In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open market._

Sooooooooo private security firms for law enforcement? Pretty sure we saw how that worked out in Iraq with Blackwater. No thank you. There's a ton of flaws with this philosophy once you start thinking about it and following certain aspects to their logical conclusion.

Such as:

>>> I'm an anarchocapitalist and would love to see all of these costs unbundled, so that we each pay only for what we use.

So you only use 2.5 miles of a highway to get to and back from work - right? Should you pay for the entire highway or just the parts you use? So what if other people only use "parts" of that same highway? Does that mean we suddenly have huge gaps in our highways since people are only paying for the parts they use?

<comment><USER8> > So you only use 2.5 miles of a highway to get to and back from work - right? > Should you pay for the entire highway or just the parts you use? So what if > other people only use "parts" of that same highway? Does that mean we > suddenly have huge gaps in our highways since people are only paying for the > parts they use?

The irony is that society would probably quickly realize that it's a lot more efficient to just build a road than pay for the overhead of managing so many small individual segments.

To be fair, I assume the OP's point was that they would rather see a tax based upon their actual distance driven.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There was a study a while back that showed that the USA has eight times as many parking spaces as it has cars.

At first that seems crazy, but it makes sense if you think about the fact that all the places you go in a day need to have enough parking to meet their _peak_ demand all year, so places like malls have huge empty lots most of the year until Christmas rolls around. And then there is the spot your car is in at work that's empty at night and the spot you park in at home that's empty during the day.

Another nice benefit of self driving cars that are shared is the major reduction in the need to all this excess parking.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. Now you got me thinking more about what things might change with self-driving cars.

Will cars offer an "orbiting" mode where they keep driving in a circle until you are ready to be picked up.

Will stores offer a driving ring where cars can drive around in circles off the main street in the case where no parking slots are available?

Will cars be able to drop you off, and park themselves when a space becomes available? Will the cars notify you where they parked, or will they always come to your location? (And what if you are standing in an area that is impossible to drive to...where does the car go?)

I can't wait for self-driving cars. This will be a lot of fun to see how the world changes in both the large and small.

<comment><USER11> Cars moving take up more space that stationary parked cars. What you've stumbled on is actually a concern for transit planners - more traffic because self driving cars are circling without any passengers.

<comment><USER12> Well, I think this is probably a case where a bit of number crunching will save the day - considering a world in which driverless cars are the norm and fully embraced by the city, the coordination system can likely determine based on historical data and also current queue request pressure how many cars to launch into traffic at any given time to satisfy demand for a summon in less than 5 minutes or whatever target they want. When not summoned or being sent to meet demand, the cars return to an enclosure outside the city for maintenance.

Admittedly, there is a _lot_ of planning that needs to happen for even a prototype of this to happen, as well as some major cultural shifts, but when it does happen, I think it will run pretty smoothly. The biggest issue in my mind isn't the logistics as much as the cultural attitude that will need to happen - right now everyone seems to assume ownership of driverless cars, but the more reasonable approach seems to be summoned fleets instead. I can envision something like the city owning the control infrastructure and leasing slots to competing companies, or even just competing companies and leaving the city controller out of the picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Most of the commenters on this thread don't appear to have lived in a country with the opposite problem. Consider what happens when development and car ownership expands in a country without adequate government parking mandates.

You routinely find at least two road lanes blocked by parked traffic because buildings don't have adequate parking. This leads to very slow bumper to bumper traffic (try Bangalore, Mumbai, Cairo, Manila), higher air pollution leading to a public health crisis, waste of time, higher green house emissions etc. When calculating "rental increases", articles like these conveniently forget externalities that would result from jot providing for parking.

<comment><USER14> I'm afraid that you are comparing pears and oranges.

If you want to be fair, compare American cities with European cities. In Barcelona or the center of Copenhagen, there are not free parking spaces. And I can assure you that there are not the traffic issues that you are mentioning in your comment... It's quite on the contrary, actually.

<comment><USER13> Well if you want to compare that way to the cities mentioned in the list, the only appropriate comparisons in Europe are London and Paris which definitely have parking, traffic and pollution issues (or had till they started banning vehicles in the center of the cities). Paris even considered banning diesel altogether contrary to the rest of Europe.

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

Barcelona and Copenhagen arr about an order of magnitude smaller and likely don't even make it into the top 100 cities. In India in casual conversations we would call places with such populations "small towns" :-)

<comment><USER15> Parking and traffic issues aren't issues if you're not driving, and most people in those places aren't.

I mean, flying a helicopter around the city sounds like great fun but that doesn't mean everyone else should be forced to build places for me to store said helicopter.

<comment><USER16> I have to disagree here. I spent some time in Dhaka recently and they have some of the worst traffic problems on the planet, through a combination of incredible population density, lack-of-infrastructure, and partisan-political strong-arming.

Everyone suffers because of it, whether they are actively utilising the roads or not - because the people who are using the roads are their customers/staff/suppliers/whatever. If half of my staff can't get to work on time, my business suffers. If my customers can't get to me, or don't feel the time investment is worth it (I've done 3km in 3 hours in Dhaka), my business suffers.

Losses from Dhaka's traffic nightmare: [http://print.thefinancialexpress- bd.com/old/more.php?news_id...](http://print.thefinancialexpress- bd.com/old/more.php?news_id=95715&date=2012-01-25)

[https://newrepublic.com/article/118416/what-dhaka- bangladesh...](https://newrepublic.com/article/118416/what-dhaka-bangladesh- traffic-capital-world-can-teach-us)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't disagree with the analysis on how free parking makes things more expensive, but if you carry that argument forward, it gets kind silly.

Credit cards make everything more expensive when the poor often can't use them due to bad credit.

Putting grocery stores in really upscale areas makes the groceries cost more (across all stores), even though the poor don't shop at the fancy stores.

I'm sure what this article is arguing for.

<comment><USER18> _Credit cards make everything more expensive_

Full stop. Credit cards provide a service and that service isn't free. It gets factored into prices.

[https://www.merchantmaverick.com/the-complete-guide-to- credi...](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/the-complete-guide-to-credit-card- processing-rates-and-fees/)

I'll add that Visa charges 1.43% - 2.4% of the transaction. I'd be curious to know what the cost of a cash transaction is as a percentage of the transaction. I doubt it climbs that high.

<comment><USER19> Handling cash ain't free. At a minimum, a certain amount must be kept on hand to make change. Then theres insurance on that cash. Then theres the safe (and registers) you have to buy to store the cash. Then theres the transport of the cash to the bank.

Also, better hope your cashiers never make a mistake or accept a forged bill.

<comment><USER20> > Handling cash ain't free.

But it's so much cheaper than handling credit cards that many small stores in Germany won't accept any cards at all.

<comment><USER21> Don't German stores accept debit cards?

The cost is much lower on a debit card transaction.

<comment><USER22> Yes, debit cards are more widely accepted than credit cards, but many places take neither. Not just stores, bars and restaurants as well.

<comment><USER23> It's quite uncommon for stores not to accept debit cards in my experience, but next to nobody pays by card in bars and restaurants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My city just passed a bond measure which includes $36MM for a 300 space parking garage for the high school and city hall, literally meters from where a new light rail stop will be built. 25% of the city's families don't own a car. I have trouble not seeing this as a forced, direct subsidy for the lifestyle of the employees of the city. And this is supposedly one of the most transit-friendly cities around (in the US). But this is an enormous cost, for the benefit of so few... plus it will add 600 trips per day to some of our busiest local roads.

Free parking has all sorts of problems, and when government gets in on the game it only raises more questions, in my mind.

[edited to clarify that the city in question is in the USA]

<comment><USER25> A reasonable concern, but a few thoughts:

* Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions

* Almost everything government does benefits some citizens more than others. Police help some more than others; some make more use of the water system, fire department, the courts, health care, other forms of transit, Social Security, etc. I want my society to provide those services to those who need them; I need some services myself some days.

<comment><USER15> "Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions"

Which would be a good reason to put housing and amenities near the station instead of parking...

<comment><USER26> That does nothing to help existing residents utilize the rail station.

<comment><USER24> In this case, the city is only 4.3 square miles, and there's enough homes within walking distance to saturate the new transit stop. The garage isn't a commuter rail parking lot. Rather, it's a parking lot for people working at the school and city hall, on the presumption that they won't want to take the light rail to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't disagree with the numbers but you could make this same argument for literally any feature of a business that has the affect of making that business more attractive to customers with Y quality (where Y is not something all customers have).

Let's imagine that the parking lots of Walmart, $localSupermarketChain and other stores is cut to 1/4 it's present size. What happens then? I suspect the inability to draw wealthier customers from further away (because "why shop somewhere you can't find parking") would cause a price increase.

<comment><USER27> They specifically talk about the fact that cities require a minimum number of parking to be built for businesses and residences. Now, if this requirement wasn't present then economical forces would take over, places without parking would be ideal for less wealthy people because the prices would be lower.

<comment><USER28> > Now, if this requirement wasn't present then economical forces would take > over, places without parking would be ideal for less wealthy people because > the prices would be lower.

On the other hand, wouldn't those places tend to have fewer customers because people who are not willing or able to get their without driving will go someplace with more parking, and so would have to charge more per customer to cover fixed costs?

<comment><USER29> Maybe, maybe not. But isn't that for the businesses to decide, depending on their needs? As it stands, large numbers of businesses (and residences, etc.) are _required_ to have more parking than they ever need at any point. How does that make sense? Why can't the owners of a property determine how much it's worth to them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 1\. Stores that offer free parking have more customers

2\. Stores that have more customers can offer better prices to all their customers (including poor people) due to greater sales volumes

<comment><USER31> I never shop anywhere I can't park at

<comment><USER32> I only step foot in the mall when I must. I much prefer to walk to the corner grocery store or take the train to a downtown shopping district. I suppose we cancel each other out.

<comment><USER33> You probably live in a walkable city with good public transit, the parent poster probably lives in the other 95% of the USA.

<comment><USER34> And the reason transit sucks and cars are way more convenient in 95% of the USA is exactly what we're discussing: mandates from the government that prioritize cars over other modes.

<comment><USER35> I think the problem is that to transition to a public transit model would require the transportation to be built first. It would also require the public transit to operate at a loss for a decade or two while buildings and people transition to this new mode of transportation. Many people are against this in the US because it's expensive and nobody likes tax hikes. Also people love their cars.

<comment><USER34> Transit already exists in the US, it just usually sucks. And you're never going to get radical, system-wide improvement in one shot in a car-dominant area. But there's nothing stopping us from releasing mandatory minimum parking requirements while gradually improving transit, biking, and walking. Removing the minimums doesn't erase parking overnight.

> It would also require the public transit to operate at a loss for a decade > or two while buildings and people transition to this new mode of > transportation.

Transit always operates at a loss, same as driving, or biking, or walking.

> Many people are against this in the US because it's expensive and nobody > likes tax hikes.

Agreed, politically it's up in the air whether this will work. Mostly it is region-dependent, with a bunch of metros actually passing tax hikes to fund better transit the other day: [http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/north- america/nearly-70...](http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/north- america/nearly-70-of-us-transit-ballot-measures-pass.html)

> Also people love their cars.

Two things:

1\. Again, this is largely a chicken and egg situation. Over the course of decades, we've created an environment that's good for cars and hostile to everything else. People are mostly pretty rational about their personal transportation choices, and they quite rationally prefer the method that's much better supported, because it works better. But when other modes work well, people will choose them too.

2\. The younger generation does not like cars as much as previous ones. There's a steady shift underway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The trucks that deliver the goods that poor people buy (and carry away the waste) are hard as hell on roads - you could say that the car drivers are subsidizing (through gasoline taxes) the massive infrastructure costs of maintaining a road network. I don't know how the numbers would balance out, but I'd bet that the benefits of that subsidy are greater than the costs incurred from free parking.

<comment><USER32> You're right and you're wrong - trucks generally don't pay the true cost of their road usage, but neither do motorists, at least through gas taxes and tolls. Much of our road funding comes from other sources like sales taxes and such. Which seems really funny when public transportation is constantly expected to pay for itself, but far more inefficient private motor vehicles don't have to pay their fair share.

<comment><USER36> Here in Canada that's generally not the case:

[http://globalnews.ca/news/907665/ontario-motorist-fees- taxes...](http://globalnews.ca/news/907665/ontario-motorist-fees-taxes-cover- majority-of-road-costs-study/)

"The report released Thursday found Ontario road users driving cars, minivans, SUVs and light pickup trucks are paying 70 to 90 per cent of the costs of the road through fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, to the tune of $7.5 billion a year."

But the OP is a US article, so point taken!

<comment><USER32> Great point. Curious if that figure is talking about construction costs, maintenance costs, or a combination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There is a more in depth interview about this subject in podcast form, if that's what you prefer: [http://www.maximumfun.org/adam-ruins- everything/episode-10-p...](http://www.maximumfun.org/adam-ruins- everything/episode-10-parking-donald-shoup-dogg-shoup)

</comment><comment><USER38> The canonical opposite example of this is a nationalised healthcare system. Rich people pay for a healthcare system that they don't use.

Due to economies of scale the NHS in the UK costs less than half the money the American systems costs and has better outcomes. The government in the UK being very right wing are slowly trying to destroy the service. Numerous mostly Tory MPs are paid cash by private healthcare providers!

[1] [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/selling-nhs-profit- full...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/selling-nhs-profit-full- list-4646154)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare-...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare- companies-links-tories-nhs-contracts)

</comment><comment><USER39> Parking shouldn't be free. If it's to entice customers at a store/shopping mall, they can be provided an hour of parking for every x dollars spent.

Under-utilised parking spots should be leased or sold. (They sell for 80-300k where I live)

<comment><USER31> Given the choice between a mall with paid parking and a mall with free parking, I'm picking the mall with free parking.

Even if there's some sort of validation system if you buy something, dealing with the whole ticketing system on entry and exit is annoying, and in the circumstances where I don't end up buying anything I have to deal with paying for the parking. It's much less of a hassle to just avoid all that.

<comment><USER40> How much farther will you drive (wasting time and gas) to avoid paid parking? It's the 21st century, paid parking can be a radio transmitter in your car or on your receipt.

<comment><USER41> People assess visible and invisible costs very differently. We are, by nature, often penny wise and pound foolish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm wondering what are the myriad other ways that low-income folks are silently taxed?

higher interest rates, housing codes, regulatory compliance (leading to higher prices), and possibly even the minimum wage come to mind (I'm sure there's much more), thus always keeping "the basics" expensive enough to be out of reach.

<comment><USER43> <low-income folks are silently taxed?

I worked at a hotel and a woman asked to use the phone. She said she was robbed earlier and has no money. She called the local priest to get a ride. It was to the motel where she lived that night.

I drove her there and found out she worked at McDonald's. (Near the hotel).

When I talked to the priest he said she was homeless. That she had a network of people that help her.

That one instance made me realize how transportation especially a car was essential. Then - she uses same day places to cash her check. Keeps cash with her always since she has no bank. Has no phone number or address. How many silent taxes on her hurt entry back into my familiar society?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So we could argue that drivers are subsidizing the cost of mostly unused handicapped parking spaces as well. I'll see a parking lot with dozens of these spaces almost chronically unused, but since the ADA requires a certain (arbitrary) number of handicapped spots, businesses are forced to build an excess capacity of these spots despite many of them sitting unused, except occasionally by the Jaguar owner who is friends with a doctor.

A strange thing is that you have handicapped parking requirements yet the NYC subway is still not even close to being Accessible for those in wheelchairs. A suburban Target is required to have something like 90 handicapped spaces (obviously I'm exaggerating,) but the NYC subway still has huge swatches of stations that are accessible only by stairs. How NYC gets away with this is beyond me -- they can force businesses to bend over backwards to accommodate the disabled, but they themselves don't do much of anything to improve the public transportation situation for the disabled. (or even moms with strollers and kids.)

If anyone wants to know why public transportation isn't a bigger thing for families -- it's because going to a grocery store with a kid(s) in a stroller via the subway is a nightmare. -- not even talking about carrying your purchases home. Buying a weeks worth of groceries and then carrying all that home on a crowded bus or train with a kid in tow? No thanks.

<comment><USER34> > So we could argue that drivers are subsidizing the cost of mostly unused > handicapped parking spaces as well.

Sure, and we do this because there's a compelling public interest in requiring businesses to cater to the handicapped, where market incentives alone would probably not work.

What compelling public interest is there in forcing businesses to cater to all drivers that market incentives wouldn't work for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Implicitly, the author assumes that a car would be the last thing this hypothetical poor person would purchase.

There are in fact, many impoverished homeless people who live in cars. In this case, they might find themselves parking in one of those abundant spaces.

I wonder when the last time she walked by a walmart was.

<comment><USER34> The irony in this post is tremendous. The whole reason so many poor people in the US still own cars is precisely _because_ of these kinds of pro-car regulations! In western Europe, a poor person owning a car is much less common, because transit works well enough that they don't really need it, and driving is an expensive activity.

<comment><USER29> That's how these kinds of regulations frequently get ratcheted up.

A: "It's nice to have lots of parking available everywhere! Let's make it mandatory."

B:"But now everything is far apart, and I need a car to do anything."

A:"Hm, good point. Well, then we will make sure there's even more parking than anybody ever needs, so it doesn't cost you anything to park anywhere."

B:"What about letting the market decide?"

A:"The market? Why do you hate the poor?!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Yes, it can embed the cost. However the problem solving approach should be social one; more tax from who can afford, which means in this case, the car owners. Without social, community based approach, the solution surely become less protective and more discrimitive to poor people.

</comment><comment><USER47> And you know what? In countries with free healthcare the healthy pay for the care of the sick, even when they are healthy. Doesn't make it a bad system.

<comment><USER48> So are you saying that the poor are like healthy people, and the wealthy are like sick people who need the help of the poor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Minimum parking requirements are also a mechanism to prevent businesses from declining to build parking and free-riding on their neighbors.

They also effectively ensure maximum density, which in some areas is an explicit government policy objective.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is pretty obvious right?

A few years ago in the US there was talk about requiring the 1st checked airline bag to be free. This is the same thing. The bill was put forward by a respected politician.

These are the types of issues that make me think educating the public on this stuff is incredibly important.

</comment><comment><USER51> Here in my part of the greater Los Angeles area, in the poorer areas, you will see most houses with more than a few cars in each house. In my area we have some people who have more than five cars/household for houses that are probably no larger than 1500 sq. ft.

</comment><comment><USER52> So in principle WaPo or anyone else willing except that it is immoral to create regulations about X where people who do not benefit from X end up paying for it ?

Will WaPo argue the case to abolish things like college education subsidies where people who never even go to college end up subsidizing those who do ?

While WaPo is absolutely right in stating the facts it may or may not be bad for the poor people. I live in Sunnyvale and prefer to work around Sunnyvale precisely because of the ample parking spaces everywhere. If the regulations don't exist for those spaces I might consider moving to some other place where they have more parking space.

Poor people benefit by having well off people living around them for many number of reasons.

<comment><USER34> > So in principle WaPo or anyone else willing except that it is immoral to > create regulations about X where people who do not benefit from X end up > paying for it ?

No, it's a given that subsidies happen all the time. But there needs to be (or should be, rather) a compelling public interest in doing so. For forcing businesses to build parking all over the place, there isn't one; to the extent that their customers desire parking, businesses will build it so that they can get those customers. Requiring parking just means that in cases where they _don 't_ need to build parking, they still do, which is a waste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> ...And I pay for public schools even though I do not and will not have children. I'm not complaining, mind you, but of the problems we could be trying to solve, this seems like a relatively low priority.

My state also passed a sales tax (you know, the regressive kind) intended to preserve natural resources and cultural heritage, and most of the money has gone to art projects in the major metropolitan area that are mostly unappreciated. The point here is, yes, governments waste money, but making parking easier is hardly the worst offense.

<comment><USER29> But it's a large deadweight on the economy. It requires the production of considerable amounts of parking that is never, or almost never, used or needed by anybody. It makes parking easier only by hiding the cost of parking in everything else, in a wholly regressive way. And it's not a "commons problem" like air pollution - it's just the government deciding that a particular private good is nice, and everybody should be forced to provide it. It's silly.

<comment><USER53> That precisely describes the example I gave (sales tax that funds pointless art projects noone likes), except the cost to the economy, and the impact on the poor, is readily quantifiable, unlike hypotheses of various opportunity costs regarding parking.

Saying all parking is funded the same way and has the same externalities is both reductionist and absurd. Furthermore, what value empty lots provide is entirely up to the people who control them; several around here are used for farmers markets and other activities outside of peak time usage.

We've got light rail and buses where I live; one of the light rail lines was poorly planned and is now subsidised somewhere around $20-30 per passenger per trip. Another was promised to ease traffic congestion and revitalize several neighborhoods along the path; it has done neither and has arguably made both worse (traffic has to stop when it goes by, and the horns contribute significant noise pollution) and driven down property values to a certain degree.

Basically, costs are relative, and arguing over parking is far less productive than what we could be working on in our communities.

<comment><USER29> I'm not saying "all parking has the same externalities" \- obviously, the first parking spot at a house has different impacts than the tenth. And of course people can do creative things with parking lots. I never said that they couldn't. What I am saying is that mandated parking, above what property owners want to provide, is a deadweight loss and can't be ignored. And, as is common in many suburbs, when parking and roads is frequently one-quarter of total land use, we have to consider that this could have a significant impact.

If what you desire is a walkable or Main-Street-y type urban form, you have to tackle parking minimums. Likewise if you want compact row housing and multi- storey apartments. If you don't want those things, that's fine, no problem. But if you do, you should consider that the dense urban form of older downtowns and main streets is basically impossible to build with current parking regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I haven't read the actual study, but I don't really buy this on the basis of the article alone.

Allocated parking that you're not using? Let it out.

Abundant parking at supermarkets? Pfft - only in locations with an abundance of space anyway. At least in the UK, I'd argue that supermarkets with plenty of parking have lower prices than those without - since they're not in city centres.

<comment><USER29> The problem is that the requirements are so high, and demand the creation of so much parking (indeed, parking lots for commercial uses are generally required to be larger than the buildings they serve) that the price for parking is driven down to $0. Most parking lots in the suburban US fill up either never, or on a single day per year.

The point is that _forcing_ businesses to have excess parking imposes a real cost on them that they make up with prices increased over what they otherwise would have been.

<comment><USER54> Okay, I think I might retract my comment then, on the basis that this seems to be US-centric issue due to specific regulations.

Definitely sounds odd, why is it that way? (I generally believe that even the maddest of regulations had sound reasoning at some point in time or for some circumstance, even if hypothetical!)

<comment><USER29> Well, a lot of it originated around street parking. When cars were becoming very popular and common, they would generally be parked on the street. Of course, since most street parking spaces were not metered (that is, free parking) this meant that parking was constantly scarce. Huge parking congestion, conflict over spaces, etcetera. Even where the parking was metered, the price was usually set too low (since it was owned by municipalities, with no incentive to maximize revenue). So street parking was still congested everywhere, but the straightforward solution of just raising the price of street parking was too unpopular for most cities.

This led, mostly post-1940s, to urban planners requiring homes, businesses and offices to have a minimum amount of parking. However, the way they usually determined the "appropriate minimum" was to estimate the maximum probable use: measuring the busiest day of the year at a shopping mall, or requiring one parking space per bedroom in a house, etcetera. This basically ensured that, no matter where you go, there's almost always parking available. However, this also means that most parking is never used. The secondary effect of this means that everything becomes surrounded by large amounts of parking, causing everything to be further apart, making driving much more appealing. Also, people become very accustomed to free parking, so anywhere that there is a parking shortage, they demand not _better pricing_ , but _more mandatory supply_. In the US at least, you will typically only pay for parking in areas built before 1940.

But it's not necessarily US-centric. While the US tends to have the most extreme parking minimums, they're common all over the world, from England to Malaysia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Everything there is to know

"The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup

</comment><comment><USER56> Yes, heavy-handed government regulations (to which planning belongs) means that you pay, directly or indirectly, for a lot of things you never use.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm feeling more attuned than usual to the fact that I inhabit a filter bubble. Thus I observe the preponderance of anti-car posts on Hacker News and wonder, what's the other side of this issue? What are the arguments in favor of sprawl and car-first development? Surely it's more complicated than just "cars are evil, why don't we change this!?"

</comment><comment><USER58> The same phenomenon applies to credit cards, for which all the merchants bake the processing fees into the prices of goods and services whether you pay with a card or not.

I'm not sure which instance of this phenomenon incurs the greater cost for most people, though.

<comment><USER59> Some shops in Germany require cash below a certain threshold (anywhere between 3€ and 10€) because of card transaction fees (which are in the 5-10 cent range as far as I'm told).

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> 1) Any economist will tell you, NOTHING is "free."

2) Like it or not, one hand subsidizing the other is the DNA of any social contract. In a perfect world, it would be ideally otherwise. We don't live in a perfect world.

</comment><comment><USER61> I used to believe this for a long time, but now I dont.

Here's why:

If there was a Walmart that had zero parking lots, only those without cars would do business with that Walmart. That'd probably be 1/10th or 1/100th the revenue compared to that of a Walmart with a parking lot. Its because people with cars come in and purchase more and larger stuff, revenue goes up. The increased revenue justifies the cost of building such a parking lot or a structure.

Now, this argument holds true, only if there's a Walmart that has a huge parking lot and is always empty.

fwiw: I think these are the types of articles paid for by TNCs like Uber and Lyft, to popularize the idea of getting rid of parking everywhere so that their market expands. (I'm not judjing, but this is my observation).

<comment><USER62> If Walmart needs parking spaces in order to make revenue, then Walmart will put up parking spaces, government-mandated minimums or not.

<comment><USER63> You are forgetting that if Walmart doesn't provide the parking spaces people will park in the nearby residential areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Thought the title was saying poor people buy parking to alleviate their feelings of not being able to afford a car. Seemed like an interesting sociological phenomenon.

</comment><comment><USER65> i can't wait for [http://www.seasteading.org](http://www.seasteading.org) to take off and live where there are no cars. Or maybe [http://freedomship.com](http://freedomship.com) is what I need as long as it has free wifi.

<comment><USER16> >as long as it has free wifi.

"You may pay for the cost of free-wifi even if you never go online"

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> If you have an empty parking space in your apartment, well just rent the spot

<comment><USER67> Since excess parking is required by law, everyone will just park somewhere else rather than renting my spot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> If you can't see this article by the Bezos-owned Washington Post as a propaganda piece to push aside obstacles he faces in his redevelopment of Seattle, then you need to brush up on your critical thinking skills. Bezos gives fuck-all about the poor unless they're buying his products.

</comment><comment><USER69> Come on, now, why was the title changed? The originally submitted title, "Poor people pay for parking even when they can't afford a car," is the title of the article, and it's _true_ , not click bait at all.

<comment><USER70> Because the 'poor people' angle is a red herring and thus arguably misleading, and perhaps clickbait as well since it makes the story more sensational. Those are the two reasons why titles should be changed on HN, as described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

The article's actual argument is that free parking forces people who don't drive to subsidize those who do. That's a sentence from the article, so it could make a legit title, but in this case we picked another representative sentence, from the article's second paragraph. Either of those seems fine to me.

Edit: ok, since we got other complaints and this is a borderline call anyhow, we've restored the "Poor people..." title.

<comment><USER71> But the poor people thing is the main thrust of the article.

>"People who are too poor to own a car," Shoup writes in the University of California's ACCESS Magazine, "pay more for their groceries to ensure that richer people can park free when they drive to the store."

You could argue that the article is in itself overly sensational but the title is accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Build wicked fast trains and tons of subways and people will use them when they make sense to use them.

A high speed along DC-Boston corridor that stopped in downtown of major cities would be full all day, every day.

</comment><comment><USER73> I'm getting really sick of these media companies pushing their anti-rich agenda. Blaming rich people for parking that causes costs to rise for poor people is just insulting.

I didn't believe in much liberal bias in the media until this election. This is simply another extent of it, it's really eye opening.

<comment><USER74> The argument isn't blaming rich people for parking that causes costs to rise for poor people.

The argument is:

* mandatory parking is imposed by urban planners

* mandatory parking raises costs for all people

* poor people are less able to absorb the increased costs

Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking goes into a lot of detail and approaches it from the point of view of planning theory. It's a good read, I recommend it.

<comment><USER75> Also, traffic lights, fire stations, rural mail deliver.... everything makes society expensive to some degree.

<comment><USER48> The difference is that fire stations have some tangible benefit, like a form of mandatory insurance that pays out before your house and everything you own burns down.

<comment><USER75> ...if you own a house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Fire code make everything more expensive. Why have them?

<comment><USER29> Because if your building catches on fire, the people inside could die and it could spread to other buildings. Classic externality problem. Nobody is going to die because the owners of buildings get to choose how much parking their building needs, any more than they will if they get to decide how many bathrooms their house has.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> > _pay more for their groceries to ensure that richer people can park free > when they drive to the store._

That seems to assume that the richer people just park there "for free" and then don't buy anything.

How much volume would that store move without those customers, and what would that do to the prices? Hard to say. On the one hand, there would be lower demand. On the other, worse economy of scale.

Heaven fucking forbid that the poor pay even a tiny share for for something that doesn't directly benefit them.

Paying for this and that which doesn't benefit oneself: isn't that squarely the job of the working class? Don't foist that onto the poor, _or_ the rich.</comment>


Offline Voice AI in a Web Browser - <AUTHOR> https://picovoice.ai/blog/offline-voice-ai-in-a-web-browser/ <comment><USER2> This is a really impressive demo, anything about the pricing for personal projects?

<comment><USER3> Mehrdad from Picovoice here; We have made several models available for use in personal projects for free on our GitHub page. [https://github.com/picovoice](https://github.com/picovoice)

<comment><USER2> Awesome! I will try it over the weekend. Thank you Mehrdad</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A GPT-2-based name brainstormer - <AUTHOR> http://nametango.ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here - I'm anything but a UI/UX person, as you can tell. I built this because I wanted a tool for myself and to play around with making the pipeline closer to production-quality (it's not - it runs in my basement on a few GPUs and a good hug will probably knock it down, but it was fun to work on). Would love suggestions all around!</comment>


Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/us/us-secretly-monitoring-mail-of-thousands.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> This is a great example of growing executive power at the expense of a company's (in this case the USPS's) credibility. Across most industries, technology and tracking are used to make businesses run more efficiently and provide better services. That's great and definitely adds value.

However, law enforcement seems to think that now that companies are collecting all this data, they should have access to it, too, without restriction. The problem is that once these sorts of programs become common knowledge, the companies start being viewed as just an arm of law enforcement. Do you trust the local police? FBI? NSA?

No? Then don't trust these companies.

The solution to this is not to stop the mail tracking (tracking numbers are an awesome feature), but to curtail the reach and powers of the executive. Law enforcement shouldn't be able to request whatever they want from these company datasets.

So how do you fix it?

First, the business records laws on which these data requests rely are incredibly antiquated and not meant for huge networks of communications. So a solution is to update these laws to better protect user tracking data when it is in the hands of a company. However, Congress doesn't seem to want to do anything, so the legislative branch is losing power more and more.

Second, the judicial branch could step in and rule that these searches are protected under the Fourth Amendment. However, the executive has been claiming privileged on most of these cases, which means they get dragged on for years and years. Kudos to the EFF and ACLU for sticking it out, but the judicial branch is simply not keeping up with executive power grabs.

Third, users of the companies can start fuzzing or encrypting their data. In this article, a solution could be for someone to offer an aggregated address to which people can send letters. It's basically a manual VPN or onion-routing technique. Unfortunately, this tactic is very difficult to hide all metadata, so I'd prefer the first two options over asking users to fuzz their data.

Disclosure: I volunteer for Restore the Fourth, which is a 501(c)(4) organization advocating for greater barriers to warrantless or broad surveillance. We are currently focusing on getting local cities to pass privacy policies that limit what data local law enforcement can gather and share.

EDIT: I realize that the USPS is a part of the government, but it is not an arm of law enforcement. It should still require a warrant to obtain user tracking data from the USPS just like any other business.

<comment><USER3> The USPS has been tracking mail in this way for well over a hundred years. Why should we see this as a problem to be fixed now, as opposed to 100 years ago?

<comment><USER4> Why haven't we seen any benefits from this hundred years of dragnet surveillance? I get all kinds of creepy junk mail, obviously sketchy load offers, someone who very carefully offers to remind me to renew my domain name for a sumptuous fee, stuff like that. Why doesn't the TLA in charge of this data shut stuff down? The FBI might have been able to avert the 2008 financial crisis by intercepting subprime mortgage offers, and prosecuting the hell out of the shady mortgage vendors. Terrorism can't hold a candle to the damage that the 2008 financial crisis did to the USA.

<comment><USER5> You raise an interesting question. I would love to be able to refuse delivery of postal spam (as you can in the Netherlands, where almost everyone has a sticker on their mail box saying whether or not they accept unsolicited commercial communications addressed to a generic 'resident', and commercial communications addressed to them personally).

It turns out that you _do_ have a right to prevent delivery of junk mail, thanks to a 1970 court case called _Rowan c. Post Office Department_ ([http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3558098989148411...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3558098989148411069&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr)). In fact, you can download a form 1500 from the US postal service toput this into effect....but you have to do it for each sender of mail, and the form requires you to affirm that you find the amterial 'erotically arousing or sexually provocative,' even though the holding in _Rowan_ is _not_ limited to such cases. Right now the Postal Service redirects consumers to the FTC for help with getting off mailing lists - presumably because a) it does not want the additional hassle and expense of presorting and not delivering junk mail and b) because the Postal Service is famously under financial pressure and the delivery of bulk mail provides a huge chunk of its revenue - bulk mail makes up roughly half of all mail delivered and about 1/3 of USPS revenues (as of 2011 - [http://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how- junk...](http://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-junk-mail-is- helping-to-prop-up-the-postal-service/)).

I can think of a strategy for forcing the USPS to let consumers opt out of receiving junk mail, but it would involve some expensive and protracted litigation and would likely drive the price of first-class mail up to $1 if implemented, so it would generate a great deal of political opposition. I have not done in-depth research on the legality of the USPS dumping this problem into the lap of the FTC, so my impression that the USPS could be compelled not to deliver junk mail in the first place may be incorrect.

<comment><USER6> A while back on HN, there was an article about private mail filtering services. You would have your ground mail sent to them, they would get rid of the junk mail and send you only the "good stuff" that you specified.

(Anecdotal) Well, these guys had a meeting with Postal Inspector who didn't think much of what they were doing. When informed that it was a voluntary service, he pretty bluntly informed them that it would upset the 400 or so of his (the Postal Inspector's) largest customers.

Upshot, the Postal Service has a vested interested in you receiving junk mail because they are paid to deliver it, and woe betide anyone who interrupts that.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, hence my comments about it requiring expensive litigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And who builds the sorting systems for the USPS? The largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/08/06/AR2006080600630.html)

Dun dun dun...

</comment><comment><USER8> Someone should figure out what law enforcers are and aren't allowed to do as part of their investigations. They should figure out what people's rights are.

Then, they should write it down on a piece of velum. Maybe some more people could sign it.

</comment><comment><USER9> 50000 requests for "mail metadata", no warrant required? You'd like to know just what dangerous crimes were solved with those pieces of data.

</comment><comment><USER10> Pmg Donahoe says systems don't store address info long term (>30 days) and are not linked nationwide

They ask us how to monitize last mile or get new revenue. I suggested giving patrons data on what pieces went through sorters. Have a table view where you see letters processed that day. You could know what will be in your mailbox. You could see history of when stuff gets mailed to you. So many possibilities.

USPS really has no profit thinking mindset whatsoever. Coming from telecom it's polar opposite.

If bed bath & beyond mails a $5 coupon, ad space on the patrons table view could be sold to linens n things or Wally (like my online bank transactions). This is just the beginning

We know (without any help from electrons) who gets arrested, where they work, car they drive, marital status, divorced or about to be, kids, age, political involvement, Prime customer, when they are home and when they are not, animal lover, catalogue orderer/receiver, has parents at home, previous city, tax bill, Cable/telco/direct tv, lawn service/snow removal, ultra rich and ultra poor. We see changes first too, often before they even tell other family members.

Imagine a good analyst having at it with just the to/from addresses / names.

The USPS has no clue, not even a crumb of a clue, how valuable letters, flats and parcels are to a company who wants to acquire new customers.

Ahh.. oh well..

By the way, the USPS takes no taxpayer money...

</comment><comment><USER11> every piece of mail in the United States is tracked. Every package, every envelope.

<comment><USER12> And photographed.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service- confirms...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms- photographing-all-us-mail.html)

<comment><USER13> Of course, they have to detect your address with a computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just assume that everything you do in the U.S., anywhere, is being watched or tracked in some way.

<comment><USER15> It would be patriotic to turn ourselves in for pre-thought-crime, or rather just continue to vote with the status quo and keep our heads down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article might be a good rebuttal to claims that totally insecure writing on some paper might somehow be more secure than encryption.

</comment><comment><USER17> Given recent NSA revelations, could good old fashioned sealed envelopes might be more secure than encryption? I wonder if they have a smart, undetectable way of getting into the mail contents itself.

<comment><USER18> Before the electronic age, the FBI, CIA and their predecessors would regularly do that. The skills needed to do so without detection might be rare these days (as people retire).

<comment><USER19> Just wait until some terrorists use only mail to prepare an attack. Then probably every piece of mail will be read to protect us.

<comment><USER18> Like the anthrax that was sent through the mail starting about a week after 9/11? The attacks killed five people in the US.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks)

<comment><USER19> Reading those letters wouldn't have prevented the attacks. I am talking about people avoiding E-mail or phone and exclusively using mail to coordinate attacks.

<comment><USER20> Reading those letters would have killed some postal workers instead of the intended targets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's called a "tracking number" for a reason.

<comment><USER22> There is a difference between the USPS tracking mail to ensure it does not get lost and the USPS giving that information to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the mail tracking data is sold to credit reporting agencies. Oh look he got an old fashioned paper bill from his water utility, and then he replied with a letter (payment) from the mailbox across the street exactly 3 days later. How fascinating and presumably useful as a metric, somehow.

Marketing agencies would likely be interested. Oh look he's exchanging correspondence with a known estate lawyer, someone must have died, how can we profit off that?

I suppose interesting environmental studies could be possible, since at least 90% of my incoming paper mail is garbage.

Big Brother doesn't throw away things very often, all CYA you know. I bet a century from now looking at the social network of old fashioned paper Christmas Cards would be interesting genealogy research. (edited to add: Mothers day cards!)</comment>


Facebook's Ads System Suffers Glitch Days Before Black Friday - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/facebook-s-ads-system-suffers-glitch-days-before-black-friday <comment><USER2> Was this caused by changes rushed before a holiday code freeze? I know nothing about FB, but it's customary for companies to stop pushing new binaries in early-mid December and to leave ad systems alone a week before Black Friday or so.

<comment><USER3> At another big company we had a code freeze as well, but we found a bug in a new feature that we released. We were not allowed to fix the bug, so we were reverting binaries of the data processing pipeline. The problem is that the data was already created and not backwards compatible, so we just created new problems... strict code freeze together with a huge feature push is always a nightmare.

<comment><USER4> That's why you should first have a feature freeze, and after a while go into a code freeze.

<comment><USER3> It took weeks for the bug to be surfaced. I was working with conversions, which is rare and noisy data. The problem is that most policies are not adjusted for the subteams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Probably related the other outages on Tuesday?

[https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/outages-hit- facebook-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/outages-hit-facebook-s- apps-including-instagram-whatsapp-n938506)

</comment><comment><USER6> I can speak for all FB advertisers when I say this was a huge pain in the ass.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps, but it sounds like a rare win for actual users of facebook.

<comment><USER6> Facebook users, as a whole, like the Facebook ads I run for my clients. They click, share, comment and buy the products or services or advertise, which are all pretty solid.

There's almost no where else on the web where my products (SMB services, mostly) can be connected to my customers (business owners) at scale and at a reasonable cost, by the way.

<comment><USER8> Got an email address?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I work in an Ad Tech company and this week is crazy. We also try to make a code freeze but the reality is many deploys in production to fix things thursday evening...

</comment><comment><USER10> Hot take I know, but this has not bee a good year for Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fixers need good air cover.</comment>


30+ Tools For Cheap and Convenient Air Travel - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2008/06/17/tools-for-cheap-air-travel/ <comment><USER2> they forgot kayak and yapta, the two sites i actually do use.</comment>


In 2015, Allegiant Air jets made unexpected landings at least 77 times - <AUTHOR> http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/investigations/allegiant-air/mechanical-breakdowns/ <comment><USER2> Here's why this article is not FUD.

First of all, everything with mechanical parts needs regular maintenance, and almost always will reach a point where it should be replaced. If you aren't maintaining it, you are opening yourself up to unnecessary risk.

Second, these are maintenance-related issues which are required by law and are not being followed up on, so they're not following the law, even if the FAA claims they're hunky dory. They're clearly not.

Third, when a vehicle like a car has a maintenance or human operator error, a small handful of people's lives at risk. With planes, it's a couple hundred people's lives, and you can't just pull off to the shoulder of the highway to change a flat. Not to mention the things you may hit when you "unexpectedly forceably land".

Planes are designed to withstand multiple serious malfunctions, because there is no alternative: you're 30 thousand fucking feet in the air going 500 miles per hour. So just because there are major failures that have _not yet killed anyone_ is not because there is no problem: it's because planes were designed to be bomb-proof and they are barely holding on to their shakey safety record.

Airline safety is incredibly important because even a single safety issue can cause a large impact in the public's perception of the industry's safety, which affects how many tickets are sold. So from a selfish perspective, you want them to be safe so your ticket price doesn't go up.

Finally, there's the whole point of the article: THE AIRLINE IS TWO TO FOUR TIMES LESS SAFE THAN ALL THE OTHERS, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING?!

</comment><comment><USER3> Is that a lot? Nobody has actually died. Nobody has crashed.

US airlines are incredibly safe as a form of transit. An airline flying older planes will have more issues.

Someone will always have the most issues. I think it's cheap journalism to call them out without an actual compelling reason to think lives are at risk.

<comment><USER4> The thing most major disasters involving human built things have in common is that it is often a series of failures. An 'alignment of the planets' where everything happens to fall in to place and that string of 1-s comes up on the cosmic die to let you die.

What this article is covering is how much closer, by a wide margin, Allegiant's running to that result than other airlines in the US.

<comment><USER5> The 'alignment of the planets' is known in certain industries as the Swiss cheese model[1].

[1][https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Swiss_cheese_model](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Swiss_cheese_model)

<comment><USER6> That is an interesting way to describe "defense in depth" to non-technical people that ought to be easy to understand. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article makes it sound like their planes are failing all the time, while the statistics say that Allegiant has 12 failures per 10000 flights. That sure is more than any other American airline, but it is not nearly as alarming as this article is describing it.

Add to that that there was not a single fatality, and you can safely conclude that this article is alarmist FUD, nothing more.

<comment><USER8> The airline industry functions as a whole. One bad actor can seriously hurt the whole industry. With such a poor safety record (2 - 3 times worse than any of the others), they are not credible. There is a danger that if this is not taken care of, others may follow suit and this will become the new normal.

It is very strange that the FAA is so serious about on time statistics and enabling comparisons between airlines on that basis, but not on this basis.

<comment><USER9> If we are looking at the airline industry as a whole, wouldn't the worst offender always be a certain number of standard deviations from the norm? I don't think we can make a judgment unless we can see a graph that represents failures per 10000 flights amongst the industry as a whole, and see if Allegiant falls within the bell curve that produces.

<comment><USER8> I don't think so. It's a dynamic system, not a static one. If one actor gets away with it and is more successful, then others will follow. The regulator's responsibility is to minimize safety critical differences between the carriers by getting the worst performers to improve or leave the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you think about it, there's a really good reason why you might not want to punish airlines for making emergency landings.

<comment><USER11> Not one by one, no. But if your airline makes emergency landings at more than twice the rate anyone else does, it's hard to complain when someone asks questions about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > But industry observers say there's a reason most air travel is so expensive. > It's difficult both to offer great deals and spend the money needed for a > reliable fleet.

In Europe it seems to work ok for low-cost airlines. Compared to state- airlines the aircraft are newer and cleaner, and they aren't know for reliability issues. As a customer that suggests they are better maintained - and nobody is going to prop them up if something goes wrong, so they have more incentive to do so.

<comment><USER13> You can check here how they manage to do that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069y1MpOkQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069y1MpOkQY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It says they fly the MD-80, also known as the mechanical disaster.

This is off topic, but A fascinating thing about these planes is the control surfaces are aero powered through tab surfaces. They hang and move freely when the plane is stopped and only become controllable after the plane starts rolling down the runway.

<comment><USER11> I've looked at several sources now, and still haven't got a clear mental picture of exactly how that works. I suppose it must, since the aircraft don't usually fall out of the sky, but it's hard to see a reason why such complexity would be necessary.

<comment><USER15> Tabs are a way to reduce the amount of stick force (i.e. force applied by the pilot) required to deflect a control surface in a mechanically linked system. In most modern aircraft hydraulic or electric systems fill the same purpose

To give a simplified explanation, a small tab located at the trailing edge of the surface is deflected by the control linkage. The deflection of the tab generates an aerodynamic force which then creates a moment around the control surface hinge, moving the entire surface.

So if you deflect the tab upwards, that air flow over the tab generates a downwards force that acts to move the control surface down.

<comment><USER16> And another layer of simplification: the pilot controls small control tabs which fly the main control surface into the position the pilot wants it to be in, which then moves the wing.

Usually the connection between pilot intent and wing movement is:

Pilot moves the stick->Aileron moves, changing lift on the wing->wing moves

In the MD-80:

Pilot moves the stick->Tab moves, changing lift on the aileron->aileron moves, changing lift on the wing->wing moves

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is probably the worst thing to read the day after buying plane tickets for my family to fly Allegiant Air down to... Tampa.

</comment><comment><USER18> Allegiant.

<comment><USER19> Thank you for this. I went and read the article anyway, but this title is absolute garbage.

<comment><USER20> I didn't make anything of it but after reading your comment I'm guessing Allegiant is an airline with frequent trouble? Because the word doesn't mean anything by itself in this context that I can see.

<comment><USER20> 4 downvotes, so apparently it means something to everyone but me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Samsung Announces "Artificial Human" Called "Neon" - <AUTHOR> https://www.neon.life/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some leaked videos has been compiled and annotated by a person on YouTube - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6f6EXX-79w&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6f6EXX-79w&feature=emb_title) \- looks like the most life-like automatically generated non-human-recorded characters I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hard to believe.</comment>


What has Internet done to Media? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aleksj/what-has-internet-done-to-media-becbb610006b <comment><USER2> This is a huge, well written article. I wish I found such an article everyday, but they are rare. I disagree with some of the points the author makes. It is clear that he is biased towards content creators and against sharing, but at least he mentions the opposing points of view and tries to be inclusive.

It might be true that music and media have been squeezed. I find it surprising, because a few years ago there were some articles stating record profits. But let's say it is true - many traditional domains are in decline, and creators are not creating quality content as much as they used to, because they receive less income.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. People stop using old media and forms of art because they are developing new forms. In the past we were talking about fishing, now about JavaScript. We used to get all our reading from books, now the lion share is taken by forums and online articles. We are developing new ways to create and enjoy, and that is why the old ways are in decline.

For example I spend more time reading arxiv articles (and their github repos when available) instead of newspaper articles. I prefer the commentary of a small subreddit to that of most newspapers. I take music discovery in my own hands and have never been happier (much more than in the age of CD and radio, when availability was scarce). I almost never need their guidance to discover music, or their articles to discuss events. I can get the gist of an evolving media event from Wikipedia, and it's much better structured. If I am interested in gaming, I can watch free live game streaming created by other players. That is why the old content creation for money is in decline - because we are creating new ways to get what we need.

<comment><USER3> Very well put. To make your point in another way: an additional pressure on traditional content creators is having to compete with those who can create content but have no plans to generate rents from it. Traditionally that crowd had no ability to distribute their creation to the masses and it was thus not a viable alternative to the major publishers and distributors.

The democratizing of content creation is a huge and a new competitive force in the market.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there's a difference between receiving basic compensation for the work put in -- and extracting excessive rents.

How much better could Internet be if it was easier for non-programmers and non-marketers to earn a living contributing to the Internet?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've thought for a while now that the design of the internet may have been fundamentally sabotaged by that fact that it was primarily created by government funded academics. In that scenario, there wasn't any need to attach a price to any part of the resources used by this new creation, since it's creators paid few if any costs for it themselves. So eventually the internet grew up to be fundamentally free, where to charge a price to download a webpage goes against every instinct baked into the system and the user.

What other method of information transfer has _no_ default method of requiring payment before transferring information? If the internet had had to pay for itself at any point during it's beginning, you can bet that HTTP status code "402 Payment Required" wouldn't of sat abandoned for 20 years with no implementation.

<comment><USER5> > ? If the internet had had to pay for itself at any point during it's > beginning, you can bet that HTTP status code "402 Payment Required" wouldn't > of sat abandoned

However, it's also fairly likely that the internet would've collapsed before ever reaching event the state of the Compuserve/AOL walled gardens.

Free software unfortunately is the same thing. It won't kick in for another 30-40+ years (or maybe more) because of the insane growth in the industry still supports enormous numbers of well-paying positions.

And I view it as a huge plus because of the incredible rewards it provides and multiplicative effect. It has increased the speed of innovation many times over.

But long term we should remember there is a reason why there are no industries in the world mainly backed by volunteerism. Software development at zero monetary cost right now is the equivalent of the early days of the internet. But then again, by the time is actually becomes a problem we might have AI's doing all the coding for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some points to consider: \- Self publishing of ebooks seem to work better for a bunch of authors (source: Planet Money Podcast) \- There are bands which make money by having concerts and releasing there music for free. \- I prefer not having my gouvernment to decide what is propaganda and what not. -Big media companies where screwing their artists for decades. Now there are alternatives. \- I'm still not using Facebook, and I'm fine. \- Freedom enables so much, like Netflix or the Brave browser, I like it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just about everything he has listed is correct.

The advertising model is failing the internet and content creation in general. The person who solves this will not only have content creators absolutely flocking to them out of absolute need to save their industries, they will also have the benefit of knowing they made a huge contribution in saving the internet.

<comment><USER2> Author payment could be handled directly by the state, from taxes, that is, if they can manage to find a way to divide it fairly. People would be free to access any content without further pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Government-funded systems tend towards a very mafia-like insider-crowd funding model - very far from an inclusive ideal.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that is a good objection. The state is mafia and large companies are predatory and monopolistic. It's a bad situation all around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I liked the first half of the article, especially the analysis of aggregators' profiteering on the backs of creators.

But it has a few serious problems.

\- If economists are to be believed, the cost/value of a good tends towards its marginal cost, without regard for sunken capital costs. This is the trend that seems hard for musicians to fight. Movies are slightly less affected because the cost of transferring multiple GBs (and then getting them piped into the screen of your choosing) is further from zero (esp. if you take time into account), but that will tend downward with time.

\- He laments the loss of magazine or other expert reviewers who can guide purchasers. Crowdsourced reviews on Amazon or Steam for games are amazing and only augment, not replace, expert reviews. The number of websites with expert reviewers seems to outnumber (and out-expert) the available reviewers of old. Amazon is currently losing the battle against spam reviews, imo, but I'm holding out hope that the situation will improve (and there are browser plugins to help).

He also begins the article talking about the open, sharing nature of academics but then strays quite far into advocating that society should not promote the free sharing of ideas and discoveries. Because he fears that if the ideas can be freely shared then the big players will be the only ones to profit while the creators get no reward. That's likely true, but his medicine (ramping up all copyright violations to full criminal status) seems worse than the disease.

Interesting ideas and I learned a lot from the piece, but so many of his solutions boil down to applying pre-digital mechanisms to digital media or just trying to unwind the clock and effects of the digital age. And a depressing hopelessness that I don't share.

Finally, he gives zero credit to the value that his villains (Google, Apple, Amazon, et al) have contributed to society. Maybe the price we've paid for those benefits in giving up privacy have been too high, that is maybe we are getting the raw end of the deal, but you can't discount to zero what we've gotten in return. As for me, I think we've gotten a pretty good deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Marginal costs can be upheld through protection, self-regulation, and enforcement -- essentially of human rights.

I think people who are able to make a living by doing such work - won't burn all the money by buying yachts and party airplanes (like modern Internet "heroes" of entrepreneurship) - but by creating more pro-bono information work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> On the author's points on content creation and advertising revenue, I think services like Patreon are making a huge dent in the right direction:

[http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-patreon-is-disrupting- yout...](http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-patreon-is-disrupting-youtube-and- other-ad-supported-services/)

<comment><USER8> "Huge" is relative compared to what the industry lost due to lower circulation and the almost-complete disappearance of classifieds.

I'd also fear that something like Patreon works for individual creators with strong personalities, but I doubt you can find enough support for the whoever it may be that the New York Times currently has attending the weekly press conference of the African Union's commission on water preservation in South Sudan (fictional example).

It's comparable to the idea of relying entirely on private donations for welfare and charity: Cute homeless kittens will enjoy a life of luxury, but nobody is going to finance job-training for middle-aged exhibitionists just out of jail.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to create a new Twitter account - <AUTHOR> I created a twitter account for my app a while back to keep people updated after we launch. Today I tried to log in and realized the account is suspended without every interacting with anybody and there is no info on how to fix this. I tried to add a phone number but this fails because suspended accounts can't be edited.<p>How am I supposed to create a fresh nowadays? <comment><USER2> It's been a requirement for a while that you have to have a real (non-VoIP) cell number for doing 2FA. Personally, I hate this idea since getting a VoIP number for 2FA isn't vulnerable to SIM Swapping attacks like my number issued by T-Mobile is. The last time I set up a Twitter account I had to do the "unsuspend me" thing half a dozen times before Twitter stopped insisting on auto-suspending because I smelled like a bot for some reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> They don't even show me the "enter your phone number to unlock" dialog. I'm just logged in but can't do anything, including setting a phone number without getting an error saying that the account is suspended.</comment></comment>


Introducing Hadoop Screencasts - <AUTHOR> http://www.rohitmenon.com/index.php/introducing-hadoop-screencasts/

<comment><USER2> This looks promising. Just signed up and looking forward to watching these in my lunch breaks!</comment>