What's wrong with cheap food - <AUTHOR> http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2010/04/whats-wrong-with-cheap-food.html

<comment><USER4> It'd be nice if the government just stayed out of all this so that people could decide for themselves what food they wanted to support. Right now the real costs are all hidden and incentives directed in all the wrong ways. The food that is cheap isn't actually cheap it just looks that way because the price signal has been so badly distorted.

I don't want a "smarter" farm policy. I'd like no farm policy. It's clear that both parties don't actually care about this issue besides making sure that agribusiness is happy.

<comment><USER5> Food is tied to a nations security. If you haven't read Omnivore's Dilemma ([http://www.worldcat.org/title/omnivores-dilemma-a-natural- hi...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/omnivores-dilemma-a-natural-history-of- four-meals/oclc/62290639)) I highly recommend it. Michael Pollan, the author makes a much better and convincing argument.

Imagine having no Farm Policy and we end up having food shortages, there would be a revolution.

Personally, I try to buy/eat as much local organic food as I can and experiment by growing food indoors.

<comment><USER6> _Imagine having no Farm Policy and we end up having food shortages, there would be a revolution._

I can imagine. After all, this country has no Plate Policy, and I routinely end up eating off the floor. And I really wish we had a Consumer Electronics and Computers policy; I'm really jealous of the country that produced the iPhone and the Macbook because of those attributes.

Fortunately, the country I live in _does_ have a Real Estate Policy and a Banking System policy, and they're willing to put my money where their mouths are! It's working out about as well as one would expect.

<comment><USER7> Pure capitalist libertarianism like that works really well if you live in a society willing to stand back and let people die as a result of different decisions or even circumstances outside their control.

History has shown that's not really the society that civilized humans want to live in.

<comment><USER8> Pure capitalist libertarianism is a society where _government_ is willing to stand back and let people die. Not society. There's a difference.

In time of trouble, you can turn for help to family, friends, neighbors, private charity, or government. In roughly descending order of efficiency and humanity.

Including government at the end of that chain is a noble attempt to make sure no one falls through the cracks--like the federal reserve as a "lender of last resort". The problem is that, like the federal reserve, the guarantee at the end of the chain changes the dynamics at the front.

We respond to a government guarantee to care for the old and infirm by not doing it ourselves. Why plan to care for your mother when the government will do it? Why support private orphanages when you pay taxes to support institutionalizing them?

The result is emaciated expectations of family, friends and neighbors, and sickly private charity. Government may be inefficient and inhumane, but it's cheap--spending someone else's money--and it's guaranteed. So it dominates the space. And when the other options die away through disuse, it looks like there _are_ no other options. And all that's left is dependence on the state.

The idea that it's government care or no care is an illusion created by a couple generations of government dependence. I am convinced that our way -- institutions, beaurocrats -- is really the _inhumane_ way to care for the poor. I want to get rid of it, not because I don't care, but because I do.

<comment><USER7> I like this concept, I really do, but I'm wondering if it's a sort of idealized utopia. Are there any societies that take care of their most desperate members without that being a government function?

Almost all of the industrialized nation have some sort of safety net and/or universal health care. On the other side of the spectrum you get countries like Somalia, where they, you know, _do_ let people die.

<comment><USER8> I don't honestly know the proper role for government in charity. I reject it rhetorically to illustrate that rejection of government charity is not rejection of charity overall, but I do not know if the extreme case is practical. You do seem to be right that it is not practiced.

I had thought I would find counterexamples in places like the Antebellum south, or ancient Rome, and while I found a reduced emphasis on the state, I did not find it completely gone. And while my off the cuff memory is that there are places in the world, even today, where the obligation for children to care for their parents in old age is so complete that people have children for that very purpose, I don't have a citation for it. And I really don't have the experience to know whether it's preferable.

On a personal level, I see very vividly the evils of institution and bureaucracy: the people it misses, the way it mistreats even the people it helps. I have helped homeless friends with transitions from shelter to shelter, even opened my home to them when it was appropriate; I don't think highly of the treatment they get, well out of the public eye. And I'm pretty sure if the city hadn't been there as an option, I'd have done more, and they'd have been better off. Is it good the city was there? I guess. But I hate the false dilemma that says it is the only way, and my instinct is that family, friends, and community are far better.

I do not know what the correct role is for the state, but I cannot but hate anything that weakens the responsibility of a man to care for himself, or that seeks to replace the hospitality that family, friends and neighbors owe to each other.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the thoughtful response. A lot of people don't seem to like to look to other countries as examples of how individuals, societies, and governments can interact. Either as examples or as counter-examples.

NPR's excellent Planet Money podcast did a few shows on Denmark, which is like an economic bizarro-world. Employment law is such that it's really easy to fire people, but they have a very strong social safety net (2 years unemployment, or something like that) so the workforce is very fluid. Employers aren't as afraid to hire people (as they are in countries with strong labor laws like France) because they don't have the same fear of legal or interpersonal repercussions. Firing in Denmark is no big deal.

Taxes are progressive, crazy high, support fully subsidized health care, and the people there are the happiest in the world.

Note: I'm not trying to say every country should be just like Denmark, but just that the way we've always done things isn't the only way that can work.

On the other hand, you see people who complain about how "government can't do anything right" and "all regulation is bad" yet they don't realize the only reason that their houses survive earthquakes without killing them is that their houses comply with government designed and enforced building codes. There's a reason the Haitian earthquake killed more people than stronger earthquakes in other places. Haiti has had "limited government" for decades.

It's easy to paint limited government as a moral ideal, and it's easy to find prominent examples of government failures. I personally hate bureaucracy as much as anyone else. The fact remains that a lot of people (often quietly) get meaningful help from our overall society via democratically elected governments.

<comment><USER9> This has been a really interesting back and forth, just a quick point:

> There's a reason the Haitian earthquake killed more people than stronger > earthquakes in other places. Haiti has had "limited government" for decades.

That's actually false. Haiti ranks as the 141st economically free country in the world out of around 200, and 24th out of 29 in the Caribbean. Government spending is around 20% of GDP, the income tax rates are comparable to the USA, but the property tax rate is sky high - up to as much as 15%. So no, Haiti hasn't had "limited government" the way Singapore or Hong Kong has limited government. They've got quite a bit of government going on, it just happens to both inept and corrupt.

<comment><USER7> Good point. I was thinking of limited in terms of what the government does for people, but I see that it was a terrible example.

I still like building codes, though :)

<comment><USER8> The earthquake in Haiti was so destructive, in general, because Haiti has been a land under the heel of grinding poverty for many years. It was the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a place where children were sold into slavery to make ends meet, where eating dirt to avoid hunger pains was a practical enough approach to spawn an industry. And then natural disaster hit.

Building codes have got nothing to do with it. My sister went there a few weeks ago. I've seen pictures. Some of those houses look to me like they'd fall over in a stiff rainstorm.

[Edit: The hospital my sister helped build is the subject of the video featured on this page: <http://heartlineministries.org/EarthquakeNeeds.aspx> . If you haven't seen Haiti, it's worth looking at the community they served and the problems they solved.]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree with maybe half the things the author is saying, but I hate the way he tries to group them all together into some larger narrative of "the way we live has become synthetic and corrupted and we need to go back to a more natural way of life" Appealing to this story is only going to convince people who already believe it. If he has specific improvements in mind, he should describe them and make his case for how they will help.

Also, he opens up referring to 1 billion people going hungry, but never returns to this point. If we embrace techniques that produce less food, what happens to these people?

<comment><USER11> That's probably because the blog linked to is mostly just a cut-and-paste from the linked Time article ([http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458-1,00....](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458-1,00.html)). This blog post only quotes a part of page 2 of a five-page article, all of which is worth reading.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for pointing that out, I totally missed the attribution to time.com. I thought the article was just formatted weird.

I agree the full Time article is better, but it still doesn't address the billion people it mentions going hungry. Ultimately the agricultural system that is sustainable determines the population that is sustainable, and I am concerned that the people who aren't going to be sustained won't have much say in the matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you don't have the time to read the whole article

Quick summary :

\- subsidized cheap food has adverse health effects and health care is expensive

\- affects the ecological system and is not sustainable

\- animals raised in meat factories have to be fed a lot of antibiotics that have consequences on human health.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac?

<http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/health_pork.html>

<comment><USER13> I first saw the article you linked on a day when I'd made hamburgers and salad for dinner, and it didn't pass the smell test. I calculated the cost per person of a whole-dinner-plate salad (made from fresh veggies, including bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, with dressing) to be about half the cost per person of a quarter pound burger. This was right after the Chile quake, which had doubled the price of some of those veggies.

A McDonalds salad costs more than a Big Mac, not because veggies cost more than meat, but because _McDonalds salads typically come with meat_ (chicken/bacon) that's as expensive as ground beef, and the salad veggies, cheese, and dressing are more expensive than a hamburger bun and condiments. (The prices of non-meat salads are anchored to the prices of the meat- containing salads.)

I'm all for criticizing food subsidies, but let's do it honestly. Even with subsidies, ground beef costs about twice as much per pound as the veggies I commonly buy, and ground beef is at the bottom end of the meat spectrum. Subsidies don't make a Big Mac cheaper than a salad; price anchoring to chicken-bacon-ranch salads make McDonalds salads expensive.

<comment><USER14> You are forgetting about storage costs. Frozen ground beef, buns and condiments have a much longer shelf life than the typical salad ingredients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do you want cheap and healthy food? Eat organic (cost more) but cook yourself and grow your on condiments.

Cooking yourself it's a no-brainer, and you know exactly what you are eating. Also I have on my patio all the herbs and few vegetables (I live in a urban area in Miami, don't think I have fields behind my condo). When you go to the store you pay $3 for a couple of springs of sage, when you could buy a sage plant for $3 and keep using it all year long. And the money you save you can reinvest it in more healthy (and more expensive) food.

<comment><USER16> > Eat organic (cost more)

For the most part there is no real extra benefit for Organic food - <USER3> you are not opposed to the idea of pesticides and other treatments (which are mostly benign anyway).

Personally all I require from my food is that it has been farmed ethically and preferably produced on smaller scales (i.e. no Bernard Matthews Turkey)

That can save you a lot.

(seconded on the cook for yourself part - it doesn't have to take long and it's a great way to unwind :D)

<comment><USER17> "For the most part there is no real extra benefit for Organic food - <USER3> you are not opposed to the idea of pesticides and other treatments (which are mostly benign anyway)."

From a nutritional viewpoint, what you said agrees with what I've read. I think there's real worth, though, in experimenting with different farming techniques that don't rely on mass produced chemicals. Reliance on these chemicals makes me think of the "putting all your eggs in one basket" adage.

Recently I heard an NPR piece about nutrition studies done across decades. One line that struck me is an apple grown in the early 20th century in the US had the nutritional value of 3 apples grown today. I'm not sure how the researchers came to that conclusion. But, if it's true and if a similar ratio applies to other produce, we have the potential for a serious health issue coming up.

EDIT: Enclosed the quoted text in actual quotes for readability.

<comment><USER16> Yes, you're right there.

As I said in my main post I think the real important thing to work on is ethical farming - regardless of organic or not.

The other thing is that from a sustainability point of view (in terms of the farming infrastructure) Organic is very cost/labour intensive compared to other techniques.

There is probably a good balance; as you say we can reach it by experimenting.

<comment><USER18> The problem with saying organic has no benefit is that i can always say, "DDX", and refute your argument.

<comment><USER19> DDT has done a ton of good, too, saving millions of lives. From the wiki article:

"For example, in Sri Lanka, the program reduced cases from about 3 million per year before spraying to just 29 in 1964. Thereafter the program was halted to save money, and malaria rebounded to 600,000 cases in 1968 and the first quarter of 1969"

<comment><USER18> True.

it's pretty awesome at retarding growth of some of the most virulent disease vectors - but at the same time, it's also a fairly awful carcinogen and I wouldn't want it sprayed on my lettuce to keep away some pesky caterpillars. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hated this. Distorted statistics mixed with cliched sound bites and fermented in rhetoric.

For starters, sugar and starch have more calories than lettuce and fruit not just for each dollar, but also for every pound.

The author took a couple of well known symptoms(run-off! animal cruelty! resistant bacteria!), tossed it together in a salad bowl, and chucked it in the general direction of the nebulous "food industry".

He doesn't offer deeper reasons of why the system is how it is, doesn't suggest methods of fixing the situation, and goes no further than regurgitating one sided talking points.

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of it isn't food, but is instead a food-like substance containing some macronutrients.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just because something is edible doesn't mean it is food.

<comment><USER23> Especially when it makes you hungry 2 hours later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food on a per calorie basis and we eat too many calories, than why don't we just eat fewer calories in total, comprised of healthy food for the same amount of money?

<comment><USER25> One, because the math doesn't work. You can live on a few dollars a day if you eat unhealthy food. If you buy healthy food with those same dollars, you're going to see people going hungry again.

Two, because the choices aren't equally available. At least in Detroit (the only city I'm qualified to share anecdotes about) it's not as if healthy and unhealthy food choices are across the aisle, or even across the street from one another.

You simply can't make healthy choices without special scheduling, trips and thus even higher cost. Can people do it? Sure. Do they? Absolutely. The local gardens and the Eastern market are the absolute brightest spots in this city. The problem is that they simply can't afford (in time, energy or money) to make that choice nearly often enough.

So, to me, the question isn't "why don't people make better choices?" nearly as much as "why do we, as a society, make it so much harder to make better choices?".

There's certainly a willpower and personal responsibility component to this problem, but the larger issue is why our society has stacked the deck against it.

<comment><USER26> Another issue which is often ignored in discussions about food and health is that healthy food doesn't keep well. By that factor alone it's going to be more limited and more expensive, because it's harder to produce, transport and store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's funny that there are people who won't put ARCO gas in their car, but will gladly put AM-PM hot dogs in their stomach.

<comment><USER28> The government pays to fix your stomach problems, but not your car problems.

<comment><USER29> I don't think that fully explains it. Government paying for your health care is not the same as if government were to pay for your car repair. The former will always carry repercussions for you--diabetes is a very difficult condition to have, even if the bills are paid by Medicare--whereas there is no real other pain caused by a car repair, other than financial.

Many of those without health care insurance still eat food that is linked to detrimental health.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The worst is that cheap food usually tastes great... :)

<comment><USER18> not really. that's the msg which is there to trick you that it tastes good.

<comment><USER31> How is being tricked into thinking something tastes good and tasting good different?

<comment><USER18> It's a shame I've gotten downvoted here, and you got upvoted as much. I guess hackers like the idea of hacking food too.

Here's the deal, though:

You could conceivably add the right chemicals to a pile of offal cooked in a skin of some kind and it'd taste like a gourmet sausage. You might have in fact eaten such a thing. It's also common to add flavorings such as "grandma's special recipe" or that from a dude in a coat from Kentucky. All these things make us think that something tastes good, which as also commented in this thread translates in your brain to mean: "hey, this is good for you, have more!".

But the reality is, what you're eating is almost certainly mechanically reclaimed meat (where carcasses with so little meat it's almost pointless to continue cutting are put through a machine which crushes, juices, minces and turns out a slushy type 'meat' goo). and MRM is the place where salmonella and other friends live. It's also not really meat: there's plenty of cartilage (aka 'gristle') and such that is cut so small, you actually ingest it. It doesn't cook properly, and it's not really good for you to eat- you just pass it. But if it's carrying salmonella or e-coli... I hope you didn't have something important to do for the next couple weeks.

Also, the nutrition recovery from such a meal is incredibly limited. You feel bright and happy for a short period (the msg et al) and then you have a come down, a craving, and want some more- for that high again. So in fact, what you're eating is a bunch of mind-altering chemicals ontop of a bed of processed waste.

Food shouldn't be like that.

Food should melt in your mouth and be an explosion of flavor and something you genuinely feel excited about. It should be, you have a meal, which provides you with some instant energy, and also some which is "slow-burning". Brown grains (rice, some wheats, etc) are great for this. You will feel full and energised for longer periods.

Cheap base foods are cheap because they are often subsidized (e.g.: corn) or because their most common consumer is the cattle, pigs, chickens etc that you want to eat. This has given a false sense of price - people expect all food to be as cheap. So supermarkets etc will look to find ways to make everything else like it. So you'll see battery farmed chickens, who are so close together they often aren't able to stand up; You'll find chickens who are injected with water to make extra weight. (yeah, that chicken you just bought? probably a pound of it is water. You just paid chicken price for water).

Good food is good because it provides great nutrition, is often respectful of the environment and is sustainable.

Everything else is just yet another sign of man's dominance over everything else.

(BTW, no, i'm not an enviro-hippy, it's just that i refuse to eat crap if i can help it- why put yourself through that kind of thing when there's so much better choice out there?)

<comment><USER32> This is all irrelevant to your claim that food tasting good is different from thinking it tastes good. Taste is entirely a mental phenomenon. Maybe food should melt in your mouth and be an explosion of flavor and what-not — I can't tell you what food should be. But if something tastes good to you, it tastes good to you, whether or not it should.

<comment><USER18> OK, so if we want to get technical...

taste cells on the tongue contain chemoreceptors. Those turn chemical signals into potential - i.e nervous system signals.

Since normal food has normal type chemicals, whereas manufactured, msg type food has make-it-taste-nice chemicals. Those are two different sets of chemicals and so, yes. food which tastes good is different from thinking it tastes good - they activate different chemical pathways and trigger different receptors.

<comment><USER14> There is no difference between "normal type chemicals" and "make-it-taste- nice" chemicals. Salt is NaCl, whether it's found naturally or added to your food. Same with sugar (although it's true that fructose doesn't occur naturally in the same proportion as processed foods), and fats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just wondering, if vegetables were cheaper than corn, would McDonalds invent a vegetable bun with a small token pancake slipped in with the meat?

<comment><USER34> They would probably have to find a way to preserve the vegetable buns as well as the existing bread buns. They're currently loaded with a generous amount of sugar and miscellaneous preservatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think we have as much a knowledge problem as a food problem. If cheaper food has more calories, then for heaven's sake eat less of it! Split a supersized big mac meal into breakfast/lunch/dinner and you'll hit your daily caloric target right on the button.

Not saying this is healthy, but there's no reason it should cause obesity if you're smart about it.

</comment><comment><USER36> For those who are wondering, PEI is Prince Edward Island, a small province in Eastern Canada.

</comment><comment><USER37> "We have given up control of our food to people from far away" no most of the grain grown goes to feeding the animals to be slaughtered - not to third world countries.

</comment><comment><USER38> The mantra is very simple: Fresh. Organic. Seasonal.

<comment><USER39> Technically, I think that's a dogma, not a mantra. In a way, of course, one of the greatest triumphs of modern civilisation is that we now have so many folks who can afford to be picky about where their vegetables come from. I think that's great! More or less. However, I rather like the notion of getting certain produce all year-round...there's no talking me out of it, frankly.

<comment><USER38> In India or Nepal people are consuming exactly this kind of food, because it is local which means cheap. Locally grown vegetables is the cheapest food possible.

The main source of food is local markets, which operates at morning and evening times. Most of goods are managed to be sold the same day, and delivery agents adopts to this circles. So, each morning it is fresh.

If you enter into some local tea-shop or kitchen and take a look which kind of dishes they serve and how it was made and from which ingredients you could catch the idea.

Of course, most of fast foods are using not fresh or organic sources simply to get more profit, but if you can cook yourself you can choice whatever you want on nearest market.

<comment><USER39> No, thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Whoosh. Dyson Does For the Fan What it Did For the vacuum - <AUTHOR> http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/gadgetblog/index.php?blogid=15

<comment><USER2> From 6 and 7 months ago: <http://searchyc.com/dyson+blade>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878046>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878374>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878605>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=878650>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=879800>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=879806>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=879820>

</comment><comment><USER3> If it shifts air as fast as you shift news, how will I know when it's on and when it's off?

<comment><USER4> I was gonna go with "Whoosh indeed", but that's better.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most challenging part of the home buying process? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You need to realize that no one (edit: except some, but not all, of the people you hire) will look out for your interests. If you are in California, the local government is set up to protect existing residents from people attempting to move in.

We bought a fixer-upper. After the sale, we found were discrepancies between what various people told us and reality. It ended up costing us 50% of the price we paid for the property.

The property was obviously distressed, so we knew it was a risk.

The seller, and, separately, the seller's agent withheld information, the home inspector found stuff but said it would be easy to fix, and the county permit office flat-out lied to us about our prospects to fix things up.

After we spent six months figuring out how to play by the book, the planning office added a further delay of construction of over six months by processing permits slowly.

For no good reason, PG&E probably won't hook up power until well after we are ready to move in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks you responding! Would you mind if I reached out to learn more about your challenges?</comment></comment>


Memory allocation for the curious - <AUTHOR> http://kahlonel.io/memory-allocation-for-the-curious/ <comment><USER2> _Or, wonder why the heck do I have to read 8k lines to understand how memory allocation works, …_

glibc isn't exactly known for having readable code. There are other libc implementations with more of a focus on simplicity. The malloc in musl libc, for example, is only 533 lines long: [https://git.musl- libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/malloc/malloc.c](https://git.musl- libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/malloc/malloc.c)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really wish the article would then follow up with much more depth. The presentation is good, and then it just stops. My brain was definitely desiring more.

<comment><USER4> I recommend writing a memory allocator. And then throwing it out and never using it because there are better off the shelf solutions, but now you'll understand why. Or read one of the white papers that accompanies new memory allocators. There's a couple good ones but I'm on mobile and can't pull them up.

I did so once, in my confused and reckless youth when I thought I could do better. I was running a level loader for a game, in 30 to 40% of the load time was being spent in memory allocation. How hard can that be I thought?

Turns out there's a whole heap (hah!) of trade-offs to be made, and a frightening amount of edge cases and performance concerns to be had with general allocation strategies. There is a wide spread belief that it is near impossible to design algorithms that scale horizontally with added cores. I'm convinced this belief started in academia with people writing memory allocators. The real takeaway I learned was to avoid memory allocation whenever and wherever possible, which actually works quite well.

Edit: Also the speech to text I'm using wants to transcribe memory allocator as memory alligator. I almost let that one stand. You should touch the allocator about as often and with as much caution as you want to touch an alligator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great post for learning.

I posted a similar test of sbrk() coding in my rt0 lib [0]. With less trivial examples, it's interesting to see how various addresses change as they're used to keep track of what the kernel is doing to the program's virtual address space.

[0] [https://github.com/lpsantil/rt0/blob/master/t/sbrk.c](https://github.com/lpsantil/rt0/blob/master/t/sbrk.c)

</comment><comment><USER6> In fact, sbrk() is pretty much deprecated and right way to get virtual address space is mmap(MAP_ANONYMOUS) or its equivalents.

Most significant problem with sbrk()-style heap growth is that the continuous heap area can grow into virtual addresses that are already allocated for something else (SysV IPC-style shared memory being prime example)

<comment><AUTHOR> malloc still uses sbrk() it seems; and only uses mmap() when requesting blocks larger than MMAP_THRESHOLD. I'll have to verify this I guess.

[http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man3/malloc.3.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/malloc.3.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup that's true on my machine atleast. Ran this:

      #include <stdio.h>
      #include <stdlib.h>

      int main(void)
      {
      	int i = 0;
    	for(i=0; i<200000; i+= 1000)
    	{
    		printf("%d",i);
    		fflush(stdout);
    		malloc(i);
    	}

      return 0;
      }

strace output where it switches from sbrk to mmap:

      write(1, "125000", 6125000)                   = 6
      write(1, "126000", 6126000)                   = 6
      brk(0x1a65000)                          = 0x1a65000
      write(1, "127000", 6127000)                   = 6
      write(1, "128000", 6128000)                   = 6
      brk(0x1aa3000)                          = 0x1aa3000
      write(1, "129000", 6129000)                   = 6
      write(1, "130000", 6130000)                   = 6
      brk(0x1ae2000)                          = 0x1ae2000
      write(1, "131000", 6131000)                   = 6
      write(1, "132000", 6132000)                   = 6
      mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f3aa9b04000
      write(1, "133000", 6133000)                   = 6
      mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f3aa9ae3000
      write(1, "134000", 6134000)                   = 6
      mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f3aa9ac2000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pretty cool blog post, I'd like to see a followup which discusses garbage collection, dealloc, release. et-all.

<comment><USER5> Skeeto/Chris Wellons [0] did a great write up on a basic Reference Counting Garbage Collector. I've done an initial translation [1][2] into a reusable library. Bob Nystrom also wrote a great tutorial on implementing a basic GC for a simple dynamic language [3].

[0] [http://nullprogram.com/blog/2015/02/17/](http://nullprogram.com/blog/2015/02/17/)

[1] [https://github.com/lpsantil/vgc/blob/master/original/t/t0000...](https://github.com/lpsantil/vgc/blob/master/original/t/t00000.c)

[2] [https://github.com/lpsantil/vgc/blob/master/original/include...](https://github.com/lpsantil/vgc/blob/master/original/include/vgc/vgc.h)

[3] [http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2013/12/08/babys-first- gar...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2013/12/08/babys-first-garbage- collector/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Too shallow from any point.</comment>


I'm the President of MIT America Needs Foreign Students - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/coronavirus-trump-immigration-students.html <comment><USER2> Universities need foreign students to pay full price.

<comment><USER3> Surely they can find a way to fund it without international students if they have it.

I think it's about all the other added values. So much comes out of these universities. All the researches, studies, entrepreneurs, inventors. That's the main goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me Dr. Michio Kaku talk about H1B visa as America's secret weapon [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM)

</comment><comment><USER4> The title of the HN post is confusing: "I'm the President of MIT America Needs Foreign Students".

Adding a period after MIT would be a lot better: "I'm the President of MIT. America Needs Foreign Students".

</comment><comment><USER3> At least some people could related a few issues when Trump was only targeting illegal immigrants. But, what is the deal with students and high-skill workers?

To me the logic is like this: "I have eight years max. And I know that I can't fix the unemployment problem. So let's go and blame other things and promise this problem will disappear when we solve those other things. If I repeat it, everyone will believe it"

</comment><comment><USER5> Survivorship bias notwithstanding, nothing hits home harder than Dr. Reif's personal anecdote:

 _" This country derives many intangible advantages from being a beacon of hope for people around the world; I first came to America in 1974 from Venezuela, where my parents finally settled as refugees from Hitler's Europe. I came to improve my own prospects through a graduate degree. But I found a culture of openness, boldness, ingenuity and meritocracy — a culture which taught me that in coming to America, I had truly come home."_

<comment><USER6> Statistically I wonder how many future Dr. Reifs are stuck in ICE detention. Or, for that matter, the vast refugee camps from Syria that are scattered over Europe and Turkey.

<comment><USER5> Mark Twain thought along the same lines: _" Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice."_ \--Mark Twain

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, but...

If you look at a place like Silicon Valley, high housing costs, dysfunctional taxes, and poor public services make it uncompetitive to raise children.

You can start them out in some village outside Bangalore, give them more advanced schooling in the city, then send them to the core for college or graduate school, then you have a capital-efficient worker.

I walked around in New York City with an Indian coworker who was waiting for an H-1B and told him about how my ancestors fled economic collapse in Quebec and impending war in Poland, how my mother-in-law was a hillbilly who married an Italian fleeing the economic collapse that came after the war... and how we were in a city in which linguists go to discover endangered languages, a country that was so able to benefit from immigration -- but I could tell he felt hurt that the U.S. didn't want him and I had no idea how to comfort him.

Talk to an African American man and you might find they don't like immigrants coming from Mexico (who would work in the chicken factories in the South if they didn't hire hundreds of illegals?) Many of them worked in jobs in the 1950s that are now mainly staffed by women. Many of them were just getting settled in to factory and call center jobs when those went overseas.

A person like that might identify their own struggles and oppressions with those of others and become more humanized (e.g. imagine Jewish people who traveled to the American South to put their bodies in front of black bodies) or they might feel that have a special burden and see themselves in competition with other ethnic groups (e.g. Korean grocers in the ghetto.)

So for one thing there is resentment of immigration in the U.S. which is based on class interests. If Trump makes explicit racism uncool for a generation but pedal-to-the-metal globalism reigns, you may see black people get together with "white people who have black problems" and form one of the two political poles maybe 20-30 years from now.

Another problem with the "import workers" concept is that it produces a person who is out of touch with their environment. A person who travels the world all over their career and spends their time in air conditioned building cannot understand the reality of global warming.

Farmers in any part of the world are intimately involved with the weather and they are adapting to global warming now, not thinking about what they will do in 20-30 years.

If I went to some place like India and tried to sell something I know I would have to learn about the culture, not in an abstract or comfortable sense, but probably in the school of hard knocks.

When companies try to develop products for the U.S. in an environment such as NYC or SV and the leadership and workforce are heavy in young immigrants they might make mistakes that they might not have been made if they were more representative of the target market and also had an age-mixed workforce bringing experience and a broader viewpoint.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why not take in African American students and thus improve their economic/social standing?

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand this nationalistic view that "America" needs to have the best innovators from everyone corralled into it.

Does the wealthiest country on the planet need the most talented people on the planet to succeed? No, it does not. Developing countries need those people. As long as America is the brain drain for everyone else, it's easier to exercise economic imperialism.

Too much immigration is tied to corporate welfare. Immigration should be based on human rights rather than importing white collar labor.

<comment><USER10> Hm. Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective.

Its an efficiency argument, that concentrating resources yields more results. Ideally, for everyone. That's not working out so great, but the solution is probably to work on that, and not cripple innovation for spite.

<comment><USER9> > Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country > without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective.

It's not clear that this person needs to be a medical researcher. Maybe they need to be an electrical engineer or civil engineer to help build this infrastructure to allow medical researchers to exist. Of course, there's no domestic market for those positions, civil authorities just hire engineering firms from developed countries.

It's also not clear if America needs a supply of this labor from elsewhere. Even if "America" did, if "America" was short on this supply, then wages would rise for the existing labor pool, this would stimulate growth in the other countries for this sector because the market is signaling there is money to be made.

Of course, it's better for American corporations if they can control as much of the talent capital as possible.

Taking in foreign students also distorts the education market place in developing countries. Everyone has heard of MIT, but what is the best engineering university in Kenya? The education industry as a result is underdeveloped in developing countries as well.

We can go into another can of worms about how many students and graduate students are essentially free labor for these institutions, and the 'students' are paying for the privilege. What they really look like to me are unpaid internships under the guise of 'education' in which major universities have a monopoly.</comment></comment></comment>


UNU will use 'human swarm intelligence' to make political predictions on Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2016/06/01/ai-that-picked-oscar-winners-could-predict-the-next-president/ <comment><USER2> Can anyone see how they use the data to form a result? It specifically says they do not poll & average the responses, but it doesn't say what actually happens.

I guess that might be the secret sauce, but can anyone educated-guess it for me?

<comment><USER3> I don't know what algorithms they use, but they don't seem to be any kind of secret sauce. It seems like the relevant computation is done by human brains playing their web game.

[http://go.unu.ai/lobby](http://go.unu.ai/lobby)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like a misnomer. The article's description of 'swarm intelligence' [1] sounds more like 'wisdom of the crowd' [2].

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

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

<comment><USER5> They (not really sure if associated with UNU) explain the difference here. [http://unanimous.ai/crowds-vs-swarms-which-is- smarter/](http://unanimous.ai/crowds-vs-swarms-which-is-smarter/)

With that said I don't see how they let you network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How well would this work when the right opinion is far outside the popular consensus? For example, can a predictive mechanism like this pick stocks and beat the S&P 500?

</comment><comment><USER7> Soon it'll be making predictions about fighting 1 horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses.</comment>


Would anyone wanna become a beta tester for a book-based social app I'm making? - <AUTHOR> The title says it all.  I'd really appreciate it if you could!<p>Here's the link: https://shrouded-lake-55833.herokuapp.com/<p>(Please tell me if this doesn't belong on HN and I'll delete it) <comment><USER2> Most people aren't going to want to sign-up without knowing more. The intro sentence doesn't do enough. You need to demonstrate the purpose of the product and the value proposition to the customer (i.e. your users).

No one is going to contribute their e-mail and their time for free. No one does anything for free, really.

I have no idea what I'm getting into by signing up. Make it more clear and I'd be tempted!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is probably better as a "Show HN". Just FYI.

I agree with the other comment. You aren't showing any value. And honestly, this looks like a scam to get email addressed (the fact that you are posting it here and asking for feedback means you might not be scamming, but looks matter).

Can you afford a domain name? Go get one. Seriously. You are asking us to invest time and effort into your idea and yet you haven't invested in a $5 domain name? Go get a domain name.

Take 4 hours today to go spruce up the landing page. Cheat and look at other landing pages and add some general elements from those. Show us what you want to do. Give us one good reason to sign up.

By the way, I think the idea is interesting enough for me to write this note :) so you might be on the right track!

</comment><comment><USER4> > _By signing up, you are agreeing to our mumble jumble of ding dong._

Needs more effort, or to be removed.

> _This website (in beta) lets you enter the books you 've read and the genres > you're interested in, and matches you with people with similar taste based > on it._

Removing all the "this x lets you do y" may be helpful.

Maybe "Connect with your bookmates" or "Swipe right for book readers". It's connecting you to the friends you didn't know you had.</comment>


Ask HN: Do all websites look the same these days? - <AUTHOR> There seems to be a design monoculture.  Websites all seem to look the same. <comment><USER2> no. not hacker news. :)

Web frameworks like bootstrap, and Material design are partly to blame.

</comment><comment><USER3> bootstrap

</comment><comment><USER4> yes</comment>


Another Model S fire - <AUTHOR> http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh-Another-Model-S-fire-2013-11-06

<comment><USER2> Why is this one accident getting so much attention. In 2011 there were 500 vehicle fires every single day! [http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire- statistics/the-us-fire-pro...](http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire- statistics/the-us-fire-problem/highway-vehicle-fires) tesla has 3 fires in 6 weeks. I'd say thats pretty damn good!

Leading cause of highway vehicle fires, "mechanical failure" [http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm](http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm)

<comment><USER3> So with 250M vehicles in the USA, there is about a 1 in 1333 chance of the average vehicle catching on fire. Tesla has about 15k Model S cars sold in the USA. If there are 12 Tesla fires per year, we get around that same 1 in 1333 number.

Are Tesla cars less likely to catch on fire? Maybe. There isn't enough data to determine yet.

Are Tesla cars much safer than gas vehicles when they do catch on fire? Yes! This should be the focus.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree with your statement about combustion and safety when the do catch on fire. Have you seen a car on fire when it hits the gas tank? its crazy! have you seen a battery on fire? Kinda boring.

<comment><USER4> Have _you_ ever seen a fire when it hits the gas tank? In real life, not a movie.

<comment><USER2> yup

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would expect more of these stories as more of these cars are purchased and on the road. Three fires in six weeks and all three related to accidents. But since it's the new fancy all-electric cars then it's prime for sensational headlines or at least just heavier than usual coverage.

Take a Tesla to an empty field, pour gasoline all over it, apply flame, watch headlines of "yet another Tesla catches fire" to appear.

<comment><USER6> "Three fires in six weeks and all three related to accidents."

This fire is related to an accident? Can you help me out, and tell me which of the 21 pages I can skip to to read that part.

I've clicked on most of the pages, and I just see speculation that goes back in forth about whether there was an accident or not, based on a handful of pics someone posted.

<comment><USER7> > The company said the fire was the result of an accident and was not a > spontaneous event.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla- fire-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire- idUSL2N0IS0TL20131107)

<comment><USER6> But that seems to be based on this:

"It's possible that it ran over a piece of metal in the roadway and it got up in the engine compartment," police dispatcher Kathy Bryant said.

Apparently speculation by a police dispatcher now counts as confirmed facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reuters wire service reporting just in: "Tesla Motor Inc's Model S electric car has suffered its third fire in six weeks, sending its shares down about 7 percent in early Thursday trading."

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla- fire-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire- idUSL2N0IS0TL20131107)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't know if anybody else has ever witnessed a gasoline car fire but I for one find it quite impressive that these "fires" are so minor that first responders can just walk up and use suppressant.

With a gasoline vehicle fire that actually gets going you often see the road cleared so the thing can just burn into a giant fireball leaving behind nothing beyond a steel skeleton and 30 ft of charred ground.

Even at 100+ yds you can feel the heat from a gasoline vehicle inferno.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is probably going to come across a little fanboyish, but I would be interested in knowing the _rate_ of Tesla fires (Mean Time Before Fire?). Cars catch on fire in accidents all the time, so I'm wondering if the Tesla fires are being covered more because it's a magical technology fire and therefore more dramatic than a your usual car-destroyed-in-accident fire.

<comment><USER11> I would think most gasoline cars catch on fire because there is severe damage to the front-end, the fuel lines are ruptured, and gasoline ends up on the hot engine and ignites. I would think a major advantage of an electric car is that it doesn't have that mode of failure. So replacing it with another mode of failure that also results in front-end fires is... not great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's the Google cache mirror since the site seems to be down: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.tes...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh- Another-Model-S-fire-2013-11-06)

</comment><comment><USER13> Bonus points for the ISO-8601 date format in the headline!

</comment><comment><USER14> In all the tesla fires it looks like the front hood compartment burns most. Looking at this picture you'd have time to get out of the car, and unbuckle kids from a car seat in the rear.

I'd say it speaks to the safety of electric cars. In a case where a gas tank is ruptured and catches fire it can spread through the entire undercarriage as the gas spills out of the tank onto the pavement.

</comment><comment><USER15> Quote from the forums: >>police said that the tesla fire was caused by car running over a tow hitch.<<

[http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh- Anot...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh-Another- Model-S-fire-2013-11-06/page21)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think Tesla needs to add fire suppression system found on some police cars. Shouldn't add too much price to already quite expensive car. See here it in action - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSm6Dnu0EPM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSm6Dnu0EPM)

</comment><comment><USER17> Ironic that this fire took place in Smyrna, TN, where Nissan North America manufactures Nissan Leafs.

<comment><USER11> Some might say "suspicious". (I mean, that would be a pretty sweet black hat move by Nissan.)

Edit: I was joking, you silly people.

<comment><USER18> I'd be very surprised is this was actually the case. Otherwise we would have heard of Prius' and Insights catching fire a long time ago.

Besides, if Tesla went and crashed a few hundred cars and could not reproduce the fire I'd feel pretty good about their safety. They may have already done this as part of road/crash certification.

<comment><USER5> Looks like we need a new "Road Debris Hitting the Undercarriage" safety testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still don't think we can draw any conclusions from this. Unless all 3 cars caught fire in the exact same way I still think we need a few more incidents to be even close to finding the facts (as horrible as that sounds).

<comment><USER2> Tesla has done a very good job of providing post mortem reports on each of their car fires. I'm sure they will do the same for this one as well in the coming weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is it better to be in a car that is more likely to save your life and burst into flames in an accident or or one that has lower safety ratings and lower likelihood of catching fire?

<comment><USER21> I'd say it's better to be in a car that is more likely to save your life (e.g. a Model S), _and_ is also _less_ likely to burst into flames in an accident (e.g. any electric vehicle on the market).

In a major accident, gasoline cars are still statistically much more likely to catch fire than EVs, which is exactly why it doesn't make the news when a gas car catches fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why does that fireman's bottom say "CHUNK" on it?

<comment><USER23> usually the last name of the firefighter

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very objective title...

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, this story has already been flagged into oblivion and disappeared from the front page in under one hour.

</comment><comment><USER26> lol. posted on a tesla forum by someone with bmw i3 blog link signature. totally not a bmw "community manager".

<comment><USER27> This argument is called 'ad hominem'. Does not matter who posted it -- it definitely happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's bound to happen. There's too much energy stored in the batteries.

<comment><USER29> Yeah. Like 12 times less than rides around in flammable liquid form in grandmas Buick. That much energy.

<comment><USER30> Are you counting the energy that can be released from the batteries by reacting the lithium with oxygen in a fire? As I recall, the electrical energy storage of a lithium battery is only about 10% of the energy that gets released if you burn it.

<comment><USER29> Yeah. Its meaningless to say "energy stored" without indicating the kind. Electrical potential? Chemical potential etc. I just looked it up. I'm going to have _much_ fun the next time someone tells me that lithium batteries have a much lesser energy density than gas.

If you love something, set it on fire.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WeGoLook: Product inspection service for long-distance buying - <AUTHOR> http://www.wegolook.com/

<comment><USER2> Love it! Now you can actually have a pair-of-eyes working for you anywhere in the United States. Goodbye Fraud!</comment>


Banning cars on SF's Market Street, once a radical idea, approved unanimously - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Plan-to-remake-SF-s-Market-Street-without-car-14535887.php <comment><USER2> All of the press releases state that cars are banned. In fact, taxis are still allowed (except for Uber and Lyft). As a daily bike commuter on Market street, this is hugely disappointing. There's very few cars on Market already, and taxis are the most dangerous of those left.

<comment><USER3> Why are taxis given special treatment in cities? As a cyclist & public transport user it really frustrates me. In London they serve a tiny minority and cause the bulk of the congestion relative to the population they serve.

What would the outcome be of a total taxi ban in a major city? I imagine strikes, outcries etc, but no major disruption to the net ability for people to get around.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by tiny minority? I feel like I'd have a problem finding an employed person in London who never used a standard black cab.

<comment><USER5> A very small percentage earn enough to be able to use them regularly. One five minute trip costs more than a TfL day pass.

<comment><USER6> Is it possible they all use them once every few months? For example I've gone to a store, bought something rather large, and took it back to my apartment in a cab. I don't take a cab daily be I do take one once or twice a month. Note: I could try to get it delivered, that would generally require me taking a day off from work to be home for the delivery. With a cab I effectively get to choose the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Once the redesign is under way, drivers who steer their cars onto Market > will risk a moving violation. Cars will still be able to cross Market at > intersections.

When I first read this article, I had a vision of a mixed use pedestrian and cyclist space in place of the street, like one long thin plaza.

If cars are allowed to cross the road perpendicularly, will there be any significant effects from this change?

<comment><USER8> You can't realistically take a whole city and draw a line down the middle and say "no cars can cross this ever".

<comment><USER9> Sure you could. We have more than 2 dimensions.

<comment><USER10> I guess, but the amount of space and inefficiency that building a highway that literally runs over 1 block over the middle of a city would seem to be not at all worth it.

<comment><USER11> it wouldn't be a highway, it's called an overpass. and they're quite common.

<comment><USER12> An overpass tends to make the area underneath it pretty grim: surrounded by concrete with little natural light. I can't think of any examples of a nice shopping street with an overpass above it.

An _underpass_ works well, but is likely to be much more expensive.

<comment><USER13> My city has a two-way overpass over a popular pedestrian street: [https://cdn.olhares.pt/client/files/foto/big/980/9808889.jpg](https://cdn.olhares.pt/client/files/foto/big/980/9808889.jpg)

I think it works well as long as the overpass isn't too wide. Also, using colours and stone instead of raw concrete on the outside helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What exactly is costing 600 million dollars? thats a huge sum of money to rebuild a few blocks on a single surface level road.

<comment><USER15> There's a little more information at [https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Market-Street- ma...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Market-Street-makeover- safe-bike-lanes-and-no-14499546.php)

The $600m includes upgrades of sewers and utilities so it's likely all of Market street is getting dug up some way down. $600m still seems like a lot for that, but it is more than repaving.

<comment><USER16> If there are going to dig it up anyway they should dig in a subway while they are at it.

<comment><USER15> Conveniently, there are two running right under Market St! Muni Metro, and then BART below that. I assume some aspect of that also drives up the cost.

<comment><USER16> I have to admit my ignorance of SF, my comment is a more general comment that city planners should be considering opportunities to share costs more. For that matter, if they have a subway, why dig up streets now - shouldn't the subway tunnels been made a little wider so the pipes are maintainable without digging? (this is a complex question - obviously a bigger tunnel costs more than a smaller one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the only potential issue is that it isn't clear what sections of Market are not intended for cars currently from the signs visible from the side streets intersecting it, so major improvements to signage need to be made or unsuspecting people are going to constantly end up turning on to the car- prohibited sections of the street.

<comment><USER18> Can't they just put up bollards[1] like most places do when they want to restrict traffic?

Some systems require the vehicle going through the retractable bollard to have high clearance in order to make it less palatable to circumvent.

[1]Pneumatic bollards can retract and can rise to become a barrier.

<comment><USER19> Buses will still be allowed. This is just passenger vehicles.

So they'd need bollards that can retract for the buses if they were to do that.

<comment><USER20> Bollards that automatically retract for certain classes of vehicles (like buses) are very common and have been in use in many places for a long time. That's very much a solved problem, although it's not especially cheap

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How this costs $604 million is beyond me. Why do costs spiral out of control so much in California?

Am I missing something maybe?

<comment><USER22> Says the engineer making 300k a year in San Francisco.

<comment><USER23> Except the $300k salary is coming out of the pocket of Proctor and Gamble and other advertisers, while the $600 million in public expenditures is coming out of state and local taxes.

Public sector cost inflation and inefficiency at the state and local level hurts the poor and lower middle class the most. They both pay for the excess, and are most reliant on the poor services delivered in return.

(And saying "just tax the rich more" doesn't fix the problem either. Even if you totally overhaul the state and local tax system, you're then diverting that money to public sector workers, who are generally comfortably middle class, instead of the people who need it the most.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> that would be freaking amazing, I really miss public streets in Europe and restaurants and bars with terasses. I have to cross Market by foot every day to commute and it's a nightmare. I also like to use kick scooters along Market to travel in San Francisco and it's also a nightmare because of the car and the state of the road :/

<comment><USER25> In what way is it a nightmare to cross? Most of the time you don't even need to wait for a signal. Market Street is usually empty aside from buses.

<comment><USER24> not from castro to church, there's a bunch of traffic and it's not straight forward to get from one point to another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good riddance. It was impossible to drive on anyway, no rules whatsoever.

<comment><USER27> It's true, driving on Market was a comedy of horrors.

<comment><USER28> Indeed! Just this morning, I saw a black Town car with the plate "REGENCY1" make an illegal left turn from Market to 9th in order to pick up some fatcat at NEMA. This was a professional driver who will still be allowed down Market under the new rules.

The only solution is to ban all auto traffic and only allow busses in concrete separated lanes.

<comment><USER27> The street is a clusterfuck.

Most of my experiences driving it are late at night, after last-call, sharing the road with intoxicated tourists, it was total insanity. Between the copious amounts of confusing signage, partial lane divisions, crazy painted lane colors, taxis/ride shares obstructing the right lanes compelling drivers to use the bus/taxi/carpool lane to get around them... oh man.

I remember one night mowing down the flexible plastic divider posts in protest, at about 2MPH. Thud, Thud, Thud, Thud, nobody even seemed to notice, well, other than my passenger. It's such a circus.

<comment><USER29> Why would you mow down the bollards? You're acting like a bully, just because you're big and strong (in other words: you have a car), you're throwing your weight around. The bollards are an essential part of keeping cyclists safe, and you driving a multi-ton hunk of metal doesn't give you the right to endanger cyclists in "protest".

<comment><USER27> If you're going to get your panties in a wad over rolling over some bollards at 2MPH I'll spare you the stories of the real shenanigans.

No cyclists were threatened or harmed, there was nobody at risk. Bollards won't stop an inattentive driver from hitting anything, as evidenced by my trivial rolling over them without even scratching my car's bumper.

<comment><USER29> Your "evidence" doesn't mean anything, multiple statistics [1] have shown that protected bike lanes are safer for cyclists. Moreover I'm saddened that you have so little consideration for vulnerable road users.

[1]: [http://peopleforbikes.org/our-work/statistics/statistics- cat...](http://peopleforbikes.org/our-work/statistics/statistics- category/?cat=protected-bike-lane-statistics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Disappointingly, taxis are still allowed.

</comment><comment><USER31> Didn't Jello Biafra run on that in the 70s?

<comment><USER32> Well, Jello wanted to ban all cars in the city. He had some other fun ideas as well.

> His platform included unconventional points such as forcing businessmen to > wear clown suits within city limits, erecting statues of Dan White, who > assassinated Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978, > around the city and allowing the parks department to sell eggs and tomatoes > with which people could pelt the statues,[45] hiring workers who'd lost > their jobs due to a tax initiative to panhandle in wealthy neighborhoods > (including Dianne Feinstein's), and a citywide ban on cars.[38] Biafra has > expressed irritation that these parts of his platform attained such > notoriety, preferring instead to be remembered for serious proposals such as > legalizing squatting in vacant, tax-delinquent buildings and requiring > police officers to run for election by the people of the neighborhoods they > patrol.[44]

> He finished third out of a field of ten, receiving 3.79% of the vote (6,591 > votes);[46] the election ended in a runoff that did not involve him > (Feinstein was declared the winner).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_Biafra#Mayoral_campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_Biafra#Mayoral_campaign)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Now let's get the government to create two lanes for bus and bike. It makes no sense to share them as buses aggressive cut off poor cyclists at every light.

<comment><USER34> In my experience it is the cyclists that aggressively cut everyone off, especially pedestrians.

<comment><USER35> Really? How many cars have cyclists killed over the last 20 years? Not sure how you can get more aggressive than that.

<comment><USER34> Not sure how this is relevant. Just because bicycles can't kill cars it does not mean that cyclists do not "aggressively cut everyone off, especially pedestrians".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> `Thanks its terrible to drive. Get a motorcycle, bike or scooter

</comment><comment><USER37> I can't wait to ride that first Critical Mass straight down Market.

<comment><USER38> Make sure there's fenders on your bike -- you don't want a stripe of what's on that road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The cars seem to be much less of a problem than the limitless hordes of insane drug addicts and their excrement.

<comment><USER34> Cars are one of the leading causes of death, resource usage, pollution, and noise pollution. Drug addiction and homelessness is a problem indeed but this is a step in the right direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The cars are a danger to the people passed out on heroin and a threat to the open air drug market by sixth. Good thing they banned them.

<comment><USER41> That's true, why fix one problem when there are also other problems?

<comment><USER42> Because some problems are bigger than others. If you're going to make a pedestrian area, try to make it at least mildly inviting to pedestrians. Who would want to go walking on Market now? Even if all cars were gone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Because San Francisco is being ran by radicals.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wouldn't this just create more traffic? How are cars supposed to get from south of market to like... anywhere else in the city?

SF really loves to bike shed.

<comment><USER45> This is not the meaning of bikeshed. If they spent years debating whether a particular spot on the block should be a loading zone or a taxi zone, that would be bikeshedding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This will turn San Francisco's Market St into a "Transit Mall", an urban planning idea from decades ago that failed 85%+ of the times it has been tried. The one new and hopeful element is the protected bike path. However because the area is already overwhelmed with a crime, drug and homeless problems and struggling retail and restaurants this project seems almost certain to end in disaster.

More info here:

[https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/pedestrian_and_transit_malls_stu...](https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/pedestrian_and_transit_malls_study_center_city_commission.pdf)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RW09rbBLB5A](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RW09rbBLB5A)

[https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/revisiting_pedestrian_malls_scmi...](https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/revisiting_pedestrian_malls_scmidt.pdf)

[https://www.boulderdowntown.com/_files/docs/americanpedmalle...](https://www.boulderdowntown.com/_files/docs/americanpedmallexperiment.pdf)

[https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/30/20885226/best-pedestrian- ma...](https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/30/20885226/best-pedestrian-mall-design)

<comment><USER47> Market street is already filthy, crime ridden, and covered in homeless drug addict urine/feces.

Removing vehicle traffic is something the city can do.

Dealing with the real issues is something they cannot.

<comment><USER48> > Dealing with the real issues is something they cannot.

Huh? Is helping homeless people not possible in San Francisco? In Prague we have a pretty good success with it

<comment><USER49> It's not just San Francisco's homeless people, it's all of America's homeless people.

<comment><USER42> Homelessness is confined to only certain cities in the US, mostly those located on the West Coast. So please don't imply that the entire country has the same political points of view as the West does. Philosophies, when tried, have consequences. The homeless of West Coast are suffering through them.

<comment><USER49> Seeing as how US cities cannot enforce borders, and literally other states shipped their homeless via buses to SF... the reason you'e being downvoted is because homeless people flock to the West coast because these are urban, wealthy areas with good taxpayer support for homeless services. We didn't necessarily generate these homeless. They come here for the same reason why they wouldn't congregate in the middle of a desert.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>