A Solution to Hackers? More Hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/technology/a-solution-to-hackers-more-hackers.html <comment><USER2> Step 1 would be to pardon Snowden. He was whistleblowing on an illegal and dangerous program that directly threatened our democracy and took steps to totalitarianism. But instead of honoring that, Obama and his DoJ instead go to SXSW and give insulting, condescending talks about how we should stop working on "cat apps" and come be a drone for Uncle Sam. Why? So you can demand all our expertise but trust none of our judgement? So you can underpay us, give us no voice at the table, but then insult our intelligence by acting like serving these crooks is some noble cause? Lawyers run the country, Congress is all lawyers and no engineers. But then they run into problems related to technology and they say "bring in the nerds". Well, the word you're looking for is experts, and they're in the West Coast making way more money and building real technology instead of bureaucratic bullshit and illegal authoritarian tools of oppression. And maybe smoking recreational marijuana without having to bullshit their way through some bogus polygraph (not that those even work). I can't imagine anyone but the most naive would work for the NSA, FBI, or CIA if they had any other options.

<comment><USER3> Regarding polygraphs, I've heard form a friend who gets administered them routinely, that they are actually fairly effective. By effective I don't mean that they can tell if a person is lying, the science behind them is as far as I know completely bogus, but in the hands of a skilled interrogator they can be very effective at convincing otherwise rational people to admit all shorts of things to the government that they shouldn't, and more importantly, that the government would otherwise have absolutely no way of finding out.

<comment><USER4> I don't really understand why people have an issue with polygraphs. They're pretty effective for the sole task they're designed for. As long as people don't try to involve them in legal cases (or otherwise use them as a genuine barometer for honesty), what's the problem?

<comment><USER5> Well, they create a culture of distrust, and when crossed with issues like drug use which may not be relevant to work concerns, it's going to scare high- value prospective employees.

<comment><USER4> Some kinds of organizations require some level of distrust in their culture. And the issue seems to really lie with how the employer handles past drug use. My understanding is many organizations, including some government agencies, tend to be fairly lenient about admitted past drug use (depending on many factors like how long ago it was and the kind of drug).

I think in an ideal world, questions about past use would never be asked and drug tests would be strictly limited to determining if someone is high/drunk on the job. The fundamental problem is employers losing potentially valuable employees due to their unnecessary and invasive drug policies. The polygraph isn't to blame.

<comment><USER6> If a culture exists which relies upon distrust, that culture is tightly- controlled, so that such distrust can be usefully exploited by the /elite/ to put the community in check, when required by the elite.

When you combine this with government, you have a recipe for "your life is over" workplace weather conditions. Maybe that storm only blows in once every 10 years, and doesn't take many people... so if you're high-functioning, you might not want to join the island where the heroes are fed to the Minotaur when the political climate goes South, sometimes without warning.

You might want to join the place where the worst-case scenario fail condition is a pink slip and a bad blog post. Naturally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure what the solution would be here besides being able to register for a "Licence to Hack" from the govt.

Edit: going to leave this link right here, since it's incredibly relevant: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researche...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researcher- who-stopped-wannacry-ransomware-detained-in-us)

<comment><USER8> Privateering for the digital age. I like it.

<comment><USER9> ...until Iran, NK, Russia, and China does the same thing

<comment><USER10> Like they already do?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Considering we're posting on a website called "Hacker News", I can only assume I'm not the only one deeply frustrated by that title, and the opening paragraph.

There's the hacker vs. cracker debate, but this is just profoundly disrespectful to me. There's no intentional disrespect here. The author probably has no idea. (Granted, a search for "hacker culture" does yield a Wikipedia article making it quite clear.) I feel disrespected for the complete lack of research on the term and because my core identity is being unintentionally slandered with such _brevity_ without even being understood or recognized. I continue to identify myself to others outside of the software community as a "free software hacker". And when someone sees this website on my computer---Hacker News---what are they to assume? When I'm sitting on an airplane looking at this site, what are they to assume?

Had to vent.

<comment><USER12> Some people will assume you are the one to call when their computer is broken. Some others will assume you are the reason why their computer is broken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Counter point,

#4) Hacking is cool

[http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...](http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> If only they'd realize the same thing in regard to gun ownership.

<comment><USER15> Gun control is a completely different kettle of fish, because it is so unlikely for someone to recover from an attack; these aren't beanbag shotguns we're talking about. Also, there are no procedures that you can follow to prevent an unexpected bullet from quickly killing you, whereas with, say, an unexpected DoS, you can take measures to mitigate it after it has already started to hit you. With a security breach, you can lock down, wipe and recover from backups. But that bullet, it is just so uniquely final (and therefore, off topic, hence the downvotes).

<comment><USER14> The National Research Council conducted a thorough review of evidence some years ago and found no correlation between the introduction of gun control measures and reduction in violent crime. In certain jurisdictions, there is a negative correlation (probably unethical to do a RCT, so we'll never know if causal) between certain thresholds in gun ownership rates and the rate of violent crime. The accidental injury and death figures are not convincing when compared with other common risks.

If your respirator monitoring machine gets hacked, or your records can not be retrieved to show a drug sensitivity, you could die from complications in an ER. I know for a fact that the hospitals near me run Windows XP, connected to the public internet, on mission critical systems. If a system which controls a switchable lane freeway signal gets hacked, even with generic malware which accidentally causes a crash, a distracted driver could plow into another.

P.S. I'm facinated by your turn of phrase _kettle of fish_ , here it would be a _can of worms_. Especially strange to me considering what I would think a _kettle_ is [0][1][2][3][4]. Turns out there's such a thing as a _fish kettle_ [5].

[0]: [https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle](https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle) [1]: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle](https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle) [2]: [https://www.google.com.au/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle](https://www.google.com.au/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle) [3]: [https://www.google.co.nz/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle](https://www.google.co.nz/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle) [4]: [https://www.google.co.in/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle](https://www.google.co.in/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle) [5]: [http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/fish- kettle.jpg](http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/fish-kettle.jpg)

<comment><USER16> I think that study found that there was no correlation between the introduction of _right to carry_ laws and gun violence.

They also found it was pretty hard to study general trends, due to an overwhelming number of factors and poor quality of source data.

<comment><USER14> > They also found it was pretty hard to study general trends, due to an > overwhelming number of factors and poor quality of source data.

If the effects of gun laws can be lost in noise among crime statistics, and the right of the people to keep and bear them shall not be infringed, it seems pretty outrageous to suggest that there is any reason to introduce equivalent laws which a) infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms and b) have had no effect that can be detected in the statistics in any implemented form.

Vital records and the corresponding court records are an excellent, high- quality datasource. If your "life saving" laws can not be detected in vital statistics, then you have failed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OCaml: Objects - <AUTHOR> https://haifengl.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/ocaml-objects/

<comment><USER2> What I never understood is why OCaml allows row polymorphism in objects, but not in record types. For example, we can write:

      let bar x = x#info + 1

and OCaml will give a type:

      val bar : < info : int; .. > -> int = <fun>

which is precisely what we want since we can now define functions on any object that has an info member. At the same time, we can't write

      let buz x = x.info + 1

because we receive the error

      Error: Unbound record field info

This is a big deal since the exposed members of objects must be methods in OCaml. Certainly, we can declare values and mutable values, but these are not exposed in the objects type. Specifically,

      # class foo = object val info = 1 end;;
      class foo : object val info : int end
      # let bar = new foo;;
      val bar : foo = <obj>
      # bar#info;;
      Error: This expression has type foo
             It has no method info

In order to get around this, we can change these values to methods (or add getter methods that return these values). However, the problem with doing that is then we can't make a new object with all of the same values, but with the specified valued changed:

      # class foo = object method info = 1 end;;
      class foo : object method info : int end
      # let bar = new foo;;
      val bar : foo = <obj>
      # bar # info;;
      - : int = 1
      # let buz = bar with info = 2;;
      Error: Parse error: [str_item] or ";;" expected (in [top_phrase])

In other words, we don't have a good mechanism for creating a bunch of immutable objects.

In other words, OCaml records allow immutable records, but they lack row polymorphsim. OCaml classes allow row polymorphism, but disallow immutable updates (immutable updates meaning create a new object with everything the same, but one element different.)

Does anyone know why this is the case?

<comment><USER3> I believe it's because #info (ie. method access) is kind of dynamic. The string "info" is hashed and then the hash is looked up at runtime against the class vtable. (For precise details, see 19.3.5 here: [http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml/intfc.html](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/intfc.html)) I'm not clear under what circumstances this can be optimized to a direct call, and there is also some kind of cache, so repeated method calls to the same method are fast. This is the reason people who value performance over everything else steer clear of using objects in OCaml.

Record fields are simply offsets in a struct, so the type must be fully known when compiling the code. It would not be possible to compile a function that could work on two different types of struct that both happened to have a .info field.

<comment><USER2> Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the insight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Total agreement!

OCaml's object system is wonderfully austere. It arises as a pretty natural extension of the more restrained signature subtyping relation---and this helps drive home, as this article also emphasizes, the vital distinction between subclassing and subtyping. That alone means that you'll have a more well- principled and reasonable object system than basically any other one I've ever used.

In day-to-day OCaml, I often hear people suggest that one should avoid the object system. The primary things it buys you are access to the row-typing system and class/object constructor hierarchies. It however is a bit slower due to the use of dynamic dispatch (instead of compiling vtables statically to their use site) and can face some inference issues.

That said, row types are an incredibly useful type construct (often Haskellers lament the fact that they're missing leading to the creation of things like Ermine and Vinyl). Cautious use of the object system is very exciting!

</comment><comment><USER5> This post is also a great demonstration as to why a programming language cannot be evaluated as a feature checklist.

OCaml's object system is certainly awesome but in practice you'll find it is unevenly used -- some never use it, while I'm sure there are others who use it heavily. Because it behaves in a way that is not quite compatible with the rest of the language it is inconvenient to mix APIs that use the two styles of programming. Another comment here on HN links to a post that summarizes with the rule of thumb of simply "don't use objects".

The lesson is that any given feature exists in an ecosystem of other features and its utility is dictated by many things (impedance mismatch with the rest of the language or even language cultural problems) other than the specification itself.

<comment><USER3> I have a slightly more nuanced point of view. I pretty much write OCaml code for a living, and rarely use objects, but that's because they are rarely useful (as a general concept, nothing to do with OCaml).

To give a concrete example of a program where I happened to use objects for the first time in ages[1], most of the program works by defining a set of types[2], and then using simple functions to work on those types. The program is essentially: transform the input structure to another structure to another structure. All the structures are publicly defined making it really easy to understand the program and debug when things go wrong. The flow of execution is simple and obvious, and the compiler picks up possible errors in that flow because of the strong typing.

But there happened to be one place that I wanted the ability to hide data + use implicit variant code alongside that data, and then I switched over to using objects[3]. It's a narrow use case and I've written a lot of code without ever needing that.

Of course in OOP languages you essentially have to use objects to get any work done, and so people go crazy and it's impossible to follow the flow of execution.

[1] [https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/tree/master/v2v](https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/tree/master/v2v)

[2] [https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/v2v/typ...](https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/v2v/types.mli)

[3] [https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/v2v/typ...](https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/v2v/types.mli#L164-L193)

<comment><USER6> I'm not a very experienced OCaml developer but after several iterations on a simple game engine in OCaml I found that there were a few places I could significantly reduce boilerplate by using objects. Entities in a game frequently need to carry around their own internal state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Older, hopefully still relevant, article about OCaml objects : [http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml- objects/](http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/) (from 0install author)

</comment><comment><USER8> I went in expecting to see a write up on Common Lisp's CLOS[1], because at a recent Clojure Meetup, the speaker put forth the claim that CLOS is the most powerful OO system out there. He didn't have time to validate the claim, but it may be of interest to those who like this article.

[1] [http://cl-cookbook.sourceforge.net/clos-tutorial/index.html](http://cl- cookbook.sourceforge.net/clos-tutorial/index.html)

<comment><USER9> Was that the one in Austin last week?

Also, I highly recommend Doug Hoyte's Let Over Lambda[1] where he goes into detail about a certain duality of closures and objects.

[1] [http://letoverlambda.com/](http://letoverlambda.com/)

<comment><USER10> SICP does the job of demonstrating the Closure-Object relationship just as fine, without boring the reader with endless references to the superiority of Lisp, as Let Over Lambda does.

<comment><USER11> From the blurb:

"Let Over Lambda is one of the most hardcore computer programming books out there. Starting with the fundamentals, it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: Common Lisp. Only the top percentile of programmers use lisp and if you can understand this book you are in the top percentile of lisp programmers. If you are looking for a dry coding manual that re-hashes common-sense techniques in whatever langue du jour, this book is not for you. This book is about pushing the boundaries of what we know about programming. While this book teaches useful skills that can help solve your programming problems today and now, it has also been designed to be entertaining and inspiring. If you have ever wondered what lisp or even programming itself is really about, this is the book you have been looking for."

<comment><USER10> I should have known better when I ordered the book.

Hoyte's first intention, writing a 2nd Volume for Paul Grahams On Lisp, which goes into detail about macros, is actually quite good. It just does not live up to "Volume 1".

And about the 1 percentile and "only the best" talk: Lisp and Lisp Macros are not really "magic". They are accessible to programmers like you and me and if someone does not bother to write them it is not about lack of understanding, but lack of time it takes to write them properly.

<comment><USER11> Interesting to hear. I don't have a particular opinion about the book, beyond having heard some praise, but I do think that blurb is assinine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> OCaml objects are pretty neat, although I rarely ever end up using them. Although I also rarely ever use OCaml for that matter.

One issue with the article - the author confuses duck typing and structural typing. While they are similar, there are important differences. OCaml uses structural typing (which enforces type at compile time) and not duck typing.

</comment><comment><USER13> To me the post is really not making the case at all that OCaml's object system is "best", as suggested in the HN headline. Really the only comparison to any other system is contrasting row polymorphism to duck typing. Like another user I was actually expecting this to be about CLOS based on the title. It'd still be a hard claim to make given some of the warts CLOS has, but at least it's a claim that people will often genuinely make.

(This also seems to be the fourth time the same post was submitted by the same user, with increasingly clickbaity headlines.)

<comment><USER14> A small number of reposts is ok if an article hasn't had significant attention yet (see the FAQ). I'd say this is about the limit, though.

You're right about the submitted headline ("Best object system is actually from a functional language").</comment></comment>


Yahoo Buzz - Digg & Reddit Competitor? - <AUTHOR> http://buzz.yahoo.com/

<comment><USER2> I think that collaborative filtering need a niche market to grow. Digg it's on the Technology news market. Reddit too, but there are many political news too. But Yahoo Buzz?

If you don't have a niche market, it's very dificult to focus and grow the community. Nobody is going to vote, only because they can.

<comment><USER3> Digg is too techie!! I like Yahoo's offbeat stories on their homepage.</comment></comment>


Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-10-01/children-of-the-yuan-percent-everyone-hates-china-s-rich-kids <comment><USER2> Further down in the article, some interesting points about the motivations behind philanthropy.

"philanthropy is about more than just social responsibility—it's about social stability."

So other than a genuine desire to do good or vanity seeking that can motivate philanthropy, you have a third element in China - preventing a revolt by the poor on the rich. If you give just enough, you'll keep the poor subdued.

I wonder if there are similar motivations for super rich American philanthropists. My guess is they're less worried about revolt and more motivated by vanity.

<comment><USER3> I really liked this sentiment of Oscar Wilde on charity:

"[Charity] is not a solution [to poverty]: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible…Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good…"

<comment><USER4> That quote has always bugged the shit out of me, because: those were only the worst slave owners for future generations of sociology and history students (who mostly didn't descend from slaves).

For the actual slaves themselves, the worst slaveowners were the ones who whipped and tortured their slaves in an attempt to extract more value (or just for fun), those who separated children from parents, raped the women or forcibly bred them, and who killed their loved ones for relatively minor insubordination (or just for fun).

It's one of those pithy cocktail party quotes that is complete bullshit。

<comment><USER5> >those were only the worst slave owners for future generations of sociology and history students

That's the thing, though: he wasn't speaking as an owned slave, but as a future sociologist/historian. So if they are the worst for future generations, why would it be bullshit that he's claiming they're the worst?

Maybe he simply isn't optimizing for immediate value, but for long-term value. And why would you be objecting to that?

<comment><USER6> Why should we care about a future sociologist's or historian's opinion about what was "worst"?

It seems like the determination of worst would need to be made by someone who actually experienced these things, not someone who never experienced them or even saw them.

<comment><USER5> _We_ are those future sociologists and historians. Why should we care about some long-dead slaves' opinion about what is good or bad?

The point is that we are trying to do what we can _now_ to make the world better _later_. It matters what those in the future will think of us, because they will be the ones with the resources to improve upon it after we are gone. And if we do it right, they will be better at handling this stuff than we are.

Of course, if you actually believe things can't improve, then by all means: maximize your own happiness.

<comment><USER6> >Why should we care about some long-dead slaves' opinion about what is good or bad?

Because they had a more direct experience of it than we can ever have.

I think the (even if implicit) claim that it is better to physically harm, rape, and kill slaves than to be nice to them is highly questionable.

Yes, both are bad situations, but adding additional physical violence doesn't make things better, only worse.

Edit: I guess I should also add that we can never truly know what someone else's experience was. It is especially difficult to know if all you have left after hundreds of years is some text.

<comment><USER5> I guess my own position is tainted by the belief that slavery is fundamentally wrong as a restriction of freedom, not as a matter of being beaten. So if I were a slave, though I would personally prefer not to be beaten, I would also prefer slavery be seen as a vile practice, and if I have to take a few beatings to make that be known, I would take them.

The alternate of nobody being beaten, but still being slaves where everybody is waffling and unsure about whether slavery is bad _because_ nobody is being beaten seems to me a bit like a losing proposition. It's the same reason we can't do effective political reform today: people will choose their own convenience when they're not facing a visible evil as a group.

The last thing I would want is for people to think I got beaten because I'm a "naughty slave" or because my owner was a particularly bad guy. No, the reason I got beaten was because I couldn't choose my path. Because I was a _slave_ , and slaves can't choose not to be beaten, even if they would prefer it. When a slave gets beaten, he or she is beaten by _slavery_ as an institution, not by some violent individual.

How much different would the world be if Hitler had announced from day 1 his play to conquer Europe and massacre millions of people? Heck, if we had ended slavery 100 years earlier, maybe we'd be 100 years closer to managing global warming. We don't have time for evils to fester in the margins pretending to be nice.

I remember a couple years ago there was some politician saying we don't need minimum wage laws because companies _already_ pay more than that, so the law is redundant. And in the name of "small government" declared that we should remove the law from the books. All because his favorite corporations are "nice slaveowners" who don't beat their slaves, he thinks that there's nothing wrong with destroying a very important institutional protection.

<comment><USER6> I do not consciously support slavery. I just find some objection to the apparent false dichotomy that beating slaves is a sound path to their freedom.

 _If_ (and it's a very big if), the only way to end slavery is to have slaves be beaten, then you might have a good point. However, I can think of no way to verify that, nor can I think of any evidence in support of that premise that can withstand even most most basic scrutiny.

>How much different would the world be if Hitler had announced from day 1 his play to conquer Europe and massacre millions of people?

How do you know he didn't?

<comment><USER5> Would you allow yourself to be beaten if it meant your children could be free? Or would you rather let your children be slaves and neither of you be beaten?

This isn't just about slavery: it could apply to any war-like situation. But if you aren't being beaten as a slave, how are you resisting slavery? Your owner just lets you get away with not doing what you're told?

Because I really don't see how not resisting is supposed to end slavery, and I don't see how avoiding beatings is any kind of resistance.

<comment><USER6> Surely there are other ways to resist slavery than being beaten?

If there were some highly effective and rapid communication system, for example, the slaves could possibly organize and GTFO before their owners had any way to stop them. Yes, there's the chance that it could turn bloody, but I can imagine scenarios where it might end peacefully (as far as one can imagine such a hypothetical).

<comment><USER5> Even if such a thing were possible, it seems highly unlikely that a bunch of slaves could pull it off successfully. How's a slave going to gain access to a high-speed communication network in a way that doesn't immediately prompt retribution?

Slaves are either compliant or tortured for not being compliant. That's why slavery is so brutal; if your owner doesn't beat you, he'll either kill you or sell you to someone who will. There's really no other option for dealing with a slave who refuses to obey. (And I don't see how a compliant slave can help end slavery.)

> I can imagine scenarios where it might end peacefully

How? People who legally own slaves aren't going to just let their slaves walk away anymore than any company now is going to let their employees walk away with all their profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well it sounds like they have the same problems other rich kids have. Mainly that it's hard to get away from from your parents' influence, and anything you achieve is credited to the family. Also there's a wariness about new people, and a feeling of being disconnected from ordinary society.

I know a couple of heirs, and they've handled it differently. One kid works in the family office, investing the family fortune. He takes the view that his life belongs to the family, and he's just a temporary caretaker, whose duty is to keep things good for the next generation.

Another has avoided the family business, and doesn't use the family name (everyone who read Forbes would recognise him). He works a job that he didn't need connections to get, and seems happy with it now. When we were in school, it took a while to come to terms with the fact that he didn't have to work, ever.

<comment><USER8> TBH, if you can accept a lower standard of living, few people really need to work that much - at least in developed nations.

Most people work for social pride and connection to the community. Which is a good reason.

I just wish we could remake how to generate this social pride. Buying a nice car or nice house shouldn't be a reason to feel proud. Teaching, doing or learning something new and useful for your community - should be.

<comment><USER9> most people i know do need to work if they dont want to sleep in the streets. i program others wait tables or clean out the garbage. you think somebody does that for 'pride'? it does not matter if the country is developed or not you still have to work because real estate is expensive even if food is not. if you dont well congrats but then you (and your buddies) are one of these second generation dandies.

<comment><USER10> _even if food is not._

 _Good_ food is not cheap. In NYC, we pay 8$ for a decent sized watermelon - almost all fruits are expensive, and most vegetables too. Only _shitty_ food like chips, soda, candy, fast food etc are cheap.

<comment><USER11> Watermelons are out of season dude. They're only cheap in the summer. Its fall, so citrus (ie: oranges, tangerines) and apples are now cheap.

Carrots, Celery, Potatoes, Oats (Oatmeal), Breakfast Cereal, Cereal Cereal, Onions, Kidney Beans, Green Beans, Milk make a good baseline for a cheap and nutritious meals year round.

You grab Broccoli in the Winter, Pineapples and Lettuce in the Spring, Cherries and Watermelons in the Summer, and Apples in the fall. Farms literally can't make Watermelons in the fall or winter, so you're importing those Watermelons from the southern hemisphere. Of course it's expensive.

But in the summer, Watermelons are made locally and are probably $2 or $3 a pop.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

If you don't know what's in season, here's a little trick. Look at the coupons at your local grocery store. Everything that is on sale is what is in-season.

A sampling of my store is $5 for 5lbs of tangerines and $0.88/lb for Gala Apples. Clearly, these are the fruits in season and what I'll be eating.

Eventually, as winter sets in... the prices of oranges and apples will increase while Broccoli and Winter Squash will become cheap.

<comment><USER12> Being in NYC probably inflates the prices overall too.

<comment><USER11> Not much compared to my area, which is also one of the highest cost of living spots in the US.

In fact, the primary difference is that $8 per fast food meal in NYC. The Milk, Eggs, Bread, Apples, and Potatoes are hit and miss (some cheaper where I live, some cheaper in NYC)

At least according to this: www.expatistan.com/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I visited China in 1982, when the capitalist revolution was just getting started. Such wealth did not exist, but there was a deep, simmering anger among the people over Communist corruption and general unfairness and inequity. I witnessed it personally.

Now that there's a bit more prosperity and availability of material goods, but still no freedom and still a simmering resentment of government corruption, this fuerdai generation of spoiled children have put themselves out there with brash behavior and big targets painted on their foreheads.

An economic slowdown and a loss of jobs to cheaper locales in South Asia and to manufacturing technologies like 3D printing could be the catalyst to large scale social unrest. It's a worrisome situation.

<comment> o0-0o Large scale social unrest is just what the communists fear the most. To me, that's not worrisome - it's hopeful. Just opining, and I understand that the collateral costs would be worrisome for everyone in the short term.

<comment><USER14> You probably don't know what you are wishing for.

Just scroll through this list : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll)

4 out of the 10 most deadliest human conflicts in human history happened in China. I have a suspicion that the Chinese leadership is acutely aware of this, and their world-view has been moulded by this (favouring stability over everything else including justice, freedom or human rights). When things go wrong there, they tend to go wrong in a big way.

edit: To get some idea of the scale, The An Lushan Rebellion that occurred in the 7th century wiped out 15% of the world population at the time.

<comment><USER15> The An Lushan rebellion probably did _not_ wipe out 15% of the world's population. This number comes from comparing before and after census numbers, which is hard because (a) the census was vastly disrupted by the war, and (b) the size of the empire was decreased by the war, so former provinces weren't counted in the later censuses.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_Rebellion#Death_toll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_Rebellion#Death_toll)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An underlying motif of the article seems to be that the fuerdai not only do not want to work hard but also that they only deserve the best jobs. One example:

"It's no surprise that most fuerdai, after summering in Bali and wintering in the Alps, reading philosophy at Oxford and getting MBAs from Stanford, are reluctant to take over the family toothpaste cap factory."

However, at least some of the parents fortunes came from precisely working hard at menial work (e.g. owning and operating a toothpaste cap factory). For those that didn't build companies, while luck may have played a role, I suspect the parents who found their way into the upper levels of government or political jobs also had some degree of working hard or being smarter than others.

"the son of Wang Jianlin, a real estate mogul and the richest man in China"

Or taken risks - because unless you inherit or are granted land there is no other way to make the vast fortunes from real estate than leveraging and risk. Bankrupt or rich, it could have gone either way.

<comment><USER17> I think you are underestimating the amount of graft and corruption that may have been involved in a lot of these fortunes. From knowing folks who have opened factories and businesses in China, there is a staggering amount of market manipulation by various government functionaries who pick and choose who gets to win and lose.

<comment><USER16> Sure, in many instances, corruption may have played a role too, but corruption requires work too - something the article implies is beneath the fuerdai.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Funny to think that China was reforged under communist ideals only 50 years ago, and that the hatred of the poor rural folk for the wealthy, corrupt royals and warlords was strong enough to unite allow the country to expel the Japanese, the British, and the KMT.

It's my view that the standard of living for the poor and lower classes has improved enough that there would not be enough hatred to fuel a revolution. Disgust and indignation, maybe, but it seems like a quaint notion that a leader could unite peasants and farmworkers, outfit them with weapons and train well enough to fight against the PLA and its allies.

Anyone from China/living in China travel to any rural areas and have any insights they're willing to share?

<comment><USER19> It really only takes a single spark and semi-charismatic leadership to start a revolution if there is widespread hostility to the ruling party. The Taiping nearly overthrew the Qing dynasty, and they were led by a deranged religious fanatic who had a breakdown after failing repeatedly to get into civil service and claimed to be the second coming of Jesus. This came at a time when the expansion and prosperity of the Qianlong emperor was well in the rear-view, and population pressures, corruption, monetary shifts (the massive influx of Spanish silver in exchange for tea, silk, china, etc, was replaced by opium, which threw off the rates of exchange between gold, silver and cash) and other factors were resulting in a real decline in standard of living.

Today, any rebellion would probably need to involve a dissatisfied faction of the PLA, because China is so disarmed - the Communists arose at a time when the supply of firearms within China was probably at it its all-time high, between the decades of warlord control, the war with Japan, and military aid arriving from all sides in WW2. And quite frankly, the KMT armies were not particularly professional or formidable adversaries, compared even with the rank-and-file of the PLA today.

<comment><USER20> A rebellion can take more peaceful forms. In the United States, we have the opportunity to change the government entirely every six years (House, President, and Senate).

China's single-party system is, of course, different on the surface, but competing factions within the party provide the opportunity for change.

Today's Chinese Communist Party's policies are substantially different from those of Mao. History won't end, even if outright violence is tempered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had trouble understanding this title, and I realized it's because I speak Chinese. "Yuan" doesn't sound anything like one. it's more like "you" \+ "an"

<comment><USER22> I was told in China it was pronounced "wahn", so the title makes sense to me.

<comment><USER23> Eh, thats simply wrong though. Maybe it'd sound like that with a thick accent/someone who doesn't speaks putonghua well...

Either that or you're thinking of 万 / wan / 10,000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just in case you wonder how to pronounce the Chinese word 'fuerdai', it sounds like 'foo-earl-die', which literally means 'rich second generation'

<comment><USER25> Uhhh... I think Foo Arr Die is a more accurate pronunciation, no?

<comment><USER24> No, it has 'er' instead of 'ar' sound. In fact, 'err' is a better word than 'earl'

<comment><USER26> In Standard Mandarin pronunciation, er is definitely pronounced like "arr". If you don't believe me, listen to the pronunciation given by Google Translate.

[https://translate.google.com/#zh- CN/en/%E4%BA%8C](https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E4%BA%8C)

There might be some regional accents which pronounce it more like "err", but "arr" is the standard pronunciation.

<comment><USER24> I agree the google translate link above pronounces this character very close to 'Arr', however do note the Pinyin (Chinese phonetic system), 'Er' starts with 'E'.

Just for the sake of discussion, here is character that starts with 'A'. See if you feel the difference.

[https://translate.google.com/#zh- CN/en/%E5%95%8A](https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E5%95%8A)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This reminds me a bit of _Born Rich_ , the documentary by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o46HH- TfNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o46HH-TfNY)

</comment><comment><USER28> It seems to me that, while wealthy, these _fuerdai_ kids are uncomfortable bordering on neurotic. They're mainly notable because of their connection to their parents, and anything that they do accomplish is suspect because they never know if they got (hired|admitted|published|married) because someone was trying to curry favor with their folks. Attempts to branch out, to find wealth and power on their own, are not usually successful, especially when compared to their parents[0]. Their whole identity seems to be formed around "being wealthy", yet that wealth is based on things that they have little control over.

Thus the concern that at some point the money's going to stop flowing, whether because their parents fall out of favor with the government, or because a popular uprising takes place. They talk about emigrating to the US[1], or how philanthropy is really just a way of ensuring social stability.

In contrast, first generation rich people[2] seem to talk as if business were interesting (if not downright fun), and only discuss emigrating as some sort of inside joke whenever Obama wins an election.

\---

0\. Although maybe that's because they're starting fashion lines, concierge agencies, or magazines, while their parents run toothpaste conglomerates or shoe manufacturers. Missing opportunities because they're not sufficiently exciting, and then rushing off to compete in already crowded (but sexy!) businesses seems to be universal.

1\. I thought that Britain was supposed to be the top destination for fleeing oligarchs and their scions? Is there like a Yelp for billionaires? Maybe Berezovsky left a bad review?

2\. Jim Clark from that Michael Lewis book springs to mind, or any character meant to represent capitalism from Ayn Rand.

</comment><comment><USER29> "You deserve to be poor because you don't work hard."

I wonder how they can allow themselves to be rich if they don't work?

<comment><USER30> That's a bit out of context. The full quote radically changes the meaning:

"There are two groups of poor people. One is, you don't work hard. You deserve to be poor because you don't work hard. Second is, you work hard but can't succeed. I think we should help the second group of people."

<comment><USER31> Which is still ridiculous because the Chinese are the hardest working people I've ever seen. I would assume she and her friends are by far the least hard working demographic in China. It's a just world fallacy if anything.

<comment><USER32> A sixth of the world's population lives in China. Not every one is hard working.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "A survey conducted in 2013 found that 64 percent of Chinese high-net-worth individuals had emigrated or wanted to emigrate overseas" that's a pretty impressive figure (even if an outdated one).

</comment><comment><USER34> Cool headline, but given the population of China, we're probably talking children of the 0.001%

<comment><USER35> Wasn't "The 1%" really "The 0.001%" in the US already?

<comment><USER36> Pretty much. The bottom of the 1% is the elite of people who still actually work for a living, such as lawyers, dentists, and doctors.

<comment><USER37> And software engineers. :)

<comment><USER38> 1% in terms of income, or in terms of wealth?

A low-to-mid 6 figures household income? Definitely possible. 8 million net worth? You're gonna have to be a rather.. senior software engineer.

<comment><USER37> I've heard numbers for the top 1% in wealth for Americans being more like $14M. At any rate, most doctors and lawyers I know get there by saving their 1% incomes, which software engineers can also do (although I think it's easier for a lawyer/doctor to get north of $300K than it is for a software engineer, excluding stock)

And speaking of stock... you can get lucky that way, although you still need to save / diversify!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Sounds like a Brave New World kind of hell</comment>


Can the video games industry make a 'B Game'? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22568

<comment><USER2> They already do, all the time. The difference between B-movies and B-games is the effort involved to make something that provides passive vs. interactive entertainment. People will sit through an entire movie as long as it doesn't completely suck. To play through a game, it has to be genuinely good on several counts or _seriously_ good at at least one thing.

Ex: My favorite B-game that I remember playing was Black on the original XBox. It basically scrapped all the evolution of the FPS genre over the past decade: laughably nonexistent storyline, dumb AI, old school style health packs randomly laying around. The team focused entirely on the weapons and the intensity of the firefights; I still don't think any game has had better weapon sounds since. Played through it in a week, had tons of fun, never felt a need to pick it up again. Though, after writing this, I might try to track down a copy.</comment>


There is no bubble. There is no bubble. There is no — oops. - <AUTHOR> http://realdanlyons.com/blog/2008/10/20/there-is-no-bubble-there-is-no-bubble-there-is-no-oops/

<comment><USER2> There is definitely a bubble forming. Look no further than Facebook, a company with a multi-billion dollar valuation, negative revenues, and no business model in sight. CEO Zuckerburg says that for the next few years he is more worried about growth than turning a profit...well he can say that because he has a healthy cash reserve and therefore the time to come up with a business model. So for at least 3 more years their plan is to lose 50+ mil a year while they come up with a way to make it all back. This is an example Google set that everyone else seems to be content to follow. That is why fb's valuation really irks me.

Even though Facebook is arguably the premiere social networking site in the world they have been unable to figure out how to make money. It is one of the big questions in the Web 2.0 world, especially with social networking- we have users, now what?

Ironically, I think part of the reason they are so popular is because they have no business model. Like many popular web sites, users can get a whole lot of value for free. The magic advertising pixie dust dollars are disappearing fast, so relying purely on serving ads is no longer viable (unless you are Google). Running a simple web forum with a lot of users is one thing, but the magnitude of data being shared on Facebook is unprecedented really, and arguably should not be free.</comment>


7 hackathons back to back? - <AUTHOR> http://thomasknoll.info/crazy-awesome-or-crazyawesome-91343

<comment><USER2> We're in the middle of the 3rd hackathon, so still need more data to justify this tactic. But, as of right now, we would _definitely_ do this again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Way to treat your team like a bunch of monkeys.

<comment><USER2> What exactly makes us a bunch of monkeys?

<comment><USER3> A life outside of work is not a virtue, it is a baseline

<comment><USER2> Absolutely agree! That's why this is a time boxed experiment outside the normal workflow. This isn't how we work everyday, it is how we are working for one month.

A lot of startups go into a crazy mode like this _after_ they run out of money. We're just trying to do a little more of the crazy up front.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will carriers destroy the Android vision? - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/12/entelligence-will-carriers-destroy-the-android-vision/ <comment><USER3> I won't get into the murky waters of iPhone vs. Android - usually these end in both sides calling the other fanboys.

I will say that I tried to get into JavaME development and had a few leads (back in 2006 - 2007) but it was such a nightmare to test on many devices and know which would work, that I got out of that business.

When the iPhone came out and set its own terms, I sighed with relief. Yes, its closed and has its issues, but I really like knowing that there are rules and as long as I play nice, I will be able to distribute my app in that platform and it will work perfectly in all devices. I have an iPod Touch running 3.1.3, a 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 (all bought on launch and kept them as I upgraded) on iOS 4.0 and 4.1, and an iPad on 3.2, where I can quickly deploy and test and be pretty much sure that the application will work across 95% of iOS devices.

We haven't turned our back on Android development, but we tread that soil lightly. I could perhaps have various devices on 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 to test, but then even that is not enough as the screens vary, carriers add different enhancements and the hardware is different for each device. Before Android users gang up on me, keep in mind that I am not criticizing it from an user's POV. Rather, as a company doing mobile app development for clients, it is a very risky endeavor to sign a contract that includes Android app development for these reasons stated above. Also, since I am already an iPhone user, having all these devices around for testing is a given - I would have to invest some more to gather various Android devices in addition to the G1 we got two years ago when we were thinking about offering services on both platforms.

<comment><USER4> As more models are launched and new versions of the OS are published, there will be more fragmentation. This is expected and the odds are that it will happen to Apple too.

Take a look at Symbian, where not only do you have different resolutions, but touch and non-touch phones and a myriad of OS update versions. Luckily, you have access to a virtual device hub where you can do online testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This issue is the philosophical equivalent of Apple's App Store censorship, for Android fans. Android's partisans are so fixated on victory over Apple that they ignore or excuse the fact that carriers are steadily chipping away at the 'openness' that Android is supposed to embody.

<comment><USER6> here is the difference, with android you can erase the O.S. from the device and re install a clean version, and still all applications will work.

Can you do that with iOS.

Comparing Android and iOS is like comparing freedom in America to that of Iran.

US still has death penalty sadly, but they are not stoning women for adultery.

<comment><USER7>
        with android you can erase the O.S. from the device and re install
        a clean version, and still all applications will work

Rooting is a complicated process, and it's by no means a certainty that it will continue to be possible. The carriers and the manufacturers are getting better at patching the holes used to get root access and are coming out with technologies like e-fuse that are designed to prevent unauthorized firmwares from being installed.

        Can you do that with iOS.

Yes, much more so than Android. At any time I can run a restore on my iPhone and install a clean version of iOS. With most Android phones it's impossible to run a stock version of the OS unless it came with it or the phone is rooted.

<comment><USER8> That's the good thing about choice. By buying an Nexus One (or an ADP1) you can do all that without _any_ hassle.

That choice is not available with any iOS-device as of now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is the 'android vision'? Seems to me the problem outlined in the article was an issue well before Android was even available, and certainly well-known. If carriers adding crap and restricting stuff wasn't supposed to be part of Android's 'vision', Google could easily have created licensing terms to enforce that. They didn't.

<comment><USER10> I think the "android vision" is the mythical belief that certain consumers have that Google wanted to release an open phone platform for the benefit of the users.

I disagree about Google having much choice about how they set up the licensing terms however. In order for Android to become the defacto platform for handset manufacturers, they needed to license it in a way which was more attractive to the companies building and deploying the phones.

I don't think that carriers mucking with Android is some fatal flaw that will doom the platform, but I also absolutely don't believe that when Google was launching Android, that they envisioned carriers in China replacing all their services with Baidu.

If they did anticipate that, and still opted to release Android the way they did, then they are idiots; which I don't really believe.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't be that surprised if that (Chinese Android phones minus Google) was actually part of the plan.

But then I'm not even sure why it's being presented as a problem by media outlets. Similar to piracy of music or games, it's only really a loss if that pirate was originally going to be buying in the first place. Having Android forks on phones is only a loss to Google if they were going to have pure Android on them in the first place (rather than WM, Symbian, Bada, Meego or whatever other competitor OS).

Just like Bill Gates said he'd rather have China running pirated Windows than a competitor and he'd figure out how to monitize it later, I'm sure Google are overjoyed that a fork of their mobile OS making it easier for Billions of people to get on the net and start clicking on ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And this article is from the same guy that predicted that the Kin would be a massive success.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't mean that we should automatically ignore everything else he says.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Question is who won this battle when Verizon and Apple negotiated the iphone coming out next year. I'm guessing Verizon wasn't able to get any crapware on there but you never know, Apple really did want to expand beyond AT&T.

As far as Android, I get the sense that Google is not happy with this situation and they do have one big stick they can use, access to Android Market.

</comment><comment><USER14> Users that want to speak with their wallets will use iPhone where such problems do not exist. Other problems may exist but bundled crap is not one of them.

Crapware didn't kill the low margin bargain PC market and it's not going to kill the low margin bargain smart phone market either. There are plenty of consumers in the high end and low end market.

<comment><USER10> I'm not so sure that the comparison with the bargain PC market is apt.

I bought a Samsung Vibrant (not a low-end market phone) and returned it after a week. All of the crapware installed on it was absolutely one of the reasons I returned it (albeit not the only reason).

There is no distinction presently between which phones come with crapware (basically all phones that aren't the Nexus One), the only distinction is which particular crapware the manufacturers/carriers put on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> GPLv3 is looking better and better.

<comment><USER6> on a sidenote GPL v3 or any other GPL license is not allowed on apple iOS.

<comment><USER7> It's not as though Apple is rejecting GPL'd apps. Quite the opposite, the terms of the GPL are what prevent apps licensed under it from being included in the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hope all the Android fans show up to this thread: I am going to buy a new smart phone to celebrate my birthday. Since I don't love the iPhone, I'm thinking of getting an Android. What's the best phone on the market - <USER2> should I wait a bit for one yet to come out? I'm on the AT&T contract.

<comment> old-gregg The way I see it, there is only one Android phone out there: Nexus One. Getting anything else does not make sense - you're essentially getting a loan (!) for a dumbed-down, restricted and less capable phone hampered even more by "value adding" crapware, running an obsolete OS without any guarantees of an upgrade in the future.

T-Mobile offers cheaper plans for those who don't need a loan to buy a phone, i.e. getting a financed/subsidized crap actually ends up being expensive in the long (2yr) run.

Its not the carriers who are guilty, it is the users who keep flocking towards subsidized crap. Its like buying laptops from Dell at 50% off financed at 20%APR that have Windows+crapware engraved in ROM, incapable of booting anything else.

<comment><USER17> No - there are several "Android" phones. These are the ones which Cyanogenmod supports.

Cyanogenmod is a community supported Android distro made for each and every phone model that it supports. My HTC MAgic (equiv. T-Mobile Mytouch 3G) is now running Cyanogenmod 6 based on Android 2.2

 _Most_ of the other custom firmware for phones are based off Cyanogenmod, rather than stock Android.

Support the project financially or otherwise, and request for your particular phone. Usually, all HTC phones are supported.

<comment><USER18> Does this method rely on security holes, like the iPhone jailbreaks, or is it something explicitly allowed by handset makers (and operators)?

<comment><USER17> Quite a few of the phones allow it (most of the HTC, the original Moto Droid, the Nexus One of course, etc.). I think even the Samsungs allow it.

For some of them (early HTC, etc.) the process exploits a hole. The install process for both is the same though: install new bootloader -> choose your flavor of Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To be frank Google wants to actively discourage, native app development. And they are right, their vision involves everyone using Web as their source for information or applications.

The only issue is that internet is not as ubiquitous as they would want it to be. But wait for 2-3 years and then we will live in truly internet filled world.

Regarding iPhone, Apple wants to own all parts of their users experience, which is even worse than having crapware.

Apple is one of the most old-world corporate minded corporation. and wants resurgence of old large corporate entities like newspapers, etc. They want an internet which is about selling stuff by large corporations to general consumers and not about sharing information between people. They are the ones who slept with crappy companies such as EMI.

<comment><USER19> >Apple is one of the most old-world corporate minded corporation. and wants resurgence of old large corporate entities like newspapers

Exactly. That's why when they released the first iPhone it didn't even have native apps. They said the web is where your apps are! Oh wait... that's the opposite of what you're saying.

<comment><USER20> Apple only talked about web apps for a while because their native app SDK wasn't ready yet. Apple has never fully embraced the Web, preferring to stick with "rich" better-than-web UIs.</comment></comment></comment>


If you're founding alone, who's got your back? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.apprabbit.com/whos-got-your-back-7

<comment><USER2> Been thinking about the cofounder matching problem a lot [http://entrepreneurialactivism.com/2010/03/25/the-co- founder...](http://entrepreneurialactivism.com/2010/03/25/the-co-founder- matching-problem/) and it was really good to hear the perspective of what to do if you are a sole founder.

Personal relationships are key especially when dealing with the highs and lows of startup life.. sounds like you have a great wife and companion though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great writeup! I found this quote from your post especially fitting:

"You don't "find" a cofounder, just like you don't "find" a wife. It's a relationship with someone else that evolves over time and then someday, someone pops the question."

I hope to find a good cofounder someday to compliment my skills and strengths, but until then I keep moving forward.

<comment><USER3> _"I hope to find a good cofounder someday to compliment my skills and strengths, but until then I keep moving forward."_

I've been doing the same, but chatting with PG today uncovered the disquieting possibility that making progress on my own project is making it harder to sync up with potential cofounders. I've met several good people in the last few months, sometimes with _very_ similar ideas. It seems easier to keep pushing on what I'm doing rather than to return to an empty page..

I'm not sure what the answer is. Waiting to find a co-founder seems like a leap into the unknown.

<comment><USER2> "making progress on my own project is making it harder to sync up with potential cofounders"

never thought of that, thanks for sharing! I guess working startup life hours would make it hard to really connect with someone. I would suggest trying to take at least a couple hours out of your day to do something social (events, other interests, sports, etc) and really take the time to disconnect and meet others. You never know where your co-founder will be.

<comment><USER3> _"I guess working startup life hours would make it hard to really connect with someone."_

Even if you resolve the logistics of meeting people, there's more to finding a co-founder than that. In fact, meeting people is the _easy_ part. The two of you have to get excited about something together. That's hard. And it's harder if you're already excited about something by yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's also been useful to keep up with the dozen or so potential co-founders I've gotten to know and enjoy the company of. They're all working on their own projects, but there's always the possibility of a collaboration. In particular, if one of us suddenly finds traction the other may end up joining him.</comment>


The End of the College Textbook as We Know It? - <AUTHOR> http://www.benzinga.com/10/10/548867/the-end-of-the-college-textbook-as-we-know-it

<comment><USER2> FYI you need an account/to register to read this article. . . (might be available to you is you're on a .edu network, which I'm not at the moment)</comment>


How big was the global climate strike? Here's the best city-by-city estimate - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1713587/global-climate-strike-city-by-city-crowd-estimate/ <comment><USER2> Strike? Or gathering for a few hours?

<comment><USER3> It was during the workday for a whole lot of people. Leaving work for it makes it a strike of sorts.

<comment><USER2> Gathering for a couple of hours ona nice sunny weekend then</comment></comment></comment>


The 5 craziest hours in the White House - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/local/white-house-transition/ <comment><USER2> tldr; ["transfer of families," a five-hour tsunami of activity that transforms President Obama's home into President Trump's.]

I thought I'd see a list including the Cuban missile crisis.</comment>


Do something new everyday - <AUTHOR> http://you-can-today.herokuapp.com

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but the grammatical errors in the text of that site are awful, such that I don't even want to re-visit the site. The only thing going through my head while attempting to decipher some of the 'suggestions' was "All your base are belong to us". I am not trying to be rude, but that hurt.

<comment><AUTHOR> tell the creator: [https://twitter.com/ajimix](https://twitter.com/ajimix)</comment></comment>


These Guys Want to Hack Your Home And You Should Let Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/06/internet-of-things-ifttt/ <comment><USER2> Whoever does the PR for IFTTT needs a raise. That is supposed to be an article on home automation, and reads like a press release. Barely mentions the hardware vendors, the arduino hackers, the competing standards and the ways to get started. Just repeats the name of one web service!?

Wow. Pay the firm whatever they ask.

<comment><USER3> I just expect that from Wired & Ars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the top comment

"CKP obr4610 • 8 hours ago − User goes to flick on bathroom light switch...

"Sorry Dave, But I cannot complete this command. The Government has activated the Energy Conservation Program during these hours."

"Dammit" goes to flush toilet...

"Sorry Dave, But I cannot complete this command. The Government has activated the Water Conservation Program during these hours."

"fine then" goes to leave to go out to eat since refrigerated food spoiled...

"Sorry Dave, But I cannot complete this command. The Government has activated the Curfew Program during these hours.""

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have recommendations for good vendor(s) for home automation devices/systems/software/etc...? I'd love my house to be more "smart" but not really sure how to approach it. I need stuff that is either hidden or good looking, works well with iOS and OS X. Ideally would love a combination of home automation, HVAC control, alarms (smoke, CO, etc...), and security.

There's also some logic that I haven't seen offered, for instance: if someone drives up my driveway, I'd like to hear a chime (and/or get a text with a photo of the car). If they drive up at 2 AM I want to be woken up! Unless it's me or my wife (RFID chips in our bumpers for ID?). Etc...

<comment><USER3> How good are you with hardware? I'm building mine with rPi, Arduino, msp430, self-designed circuits (LM35 for temperature, phototransistor for light), COTS relay boards, all sorts of stuff I have lying about. I had thought about making it a serious design effort, but I hate doing printed circuit boards, and since you can buy this hobbyist stuff so cheap now, I usually just use what I can find cheap at the time. Someday I may put it all together after I've got the kinks worked out. Here are some sources: moderndevice.com, adafruit.com, sparkfun.com, pololu.com, mpja.com, taydaelectronics.com, surpluscenter.com, futurelec.com (flammable gas sensors, CO sensors, misc components), and then Allied, Digikey, Mouser, Future, etc. I used a cheap little relay breakout and 74HCT595's to control incandescent/halogen/fluorescent lights and 120VAC devices (search for "sainsmart relay"). Audio stuff came mostly from PartsExpress.com

Good old X10 stuff works with OSX (it's just serial port controlled RF dongle), I think that new fancy Phillips HUE works with iOS, but it is mega expensive, you can create the same functionality from COTS parts for much less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For folks that are interested, I'm working on an open source platform called Nitrogen that helps you get devices online easily and communicating with applications using a consistent JavaScript development model. Still a little early but I'd love to find folks interested in hacking on it either as a user or contributor to the project.

You can read more at: [http://github.com/nitrogenjs/service](http://github.com/nitrogenjs/service)

</shamelessPlug>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is kind of my pet project for the summer. I've already got the lights in my children's rooms done. I've got dawn/dusk sensing to turn off my outdoor audio system. I've got a temperature controlled attic-exhaust fan (my attic gets over 150F / 65C without it). I played with IFTTT a bit last year, but kind of forgot about it since I don't need it. But thinking about it again, I really do need it or something like it because the other residents of my house aren't programmers, but they might like to automate some action. I mostly use PachubeCosmXively for remote control of actions, but I don't think IFTTT has any integration with them. PachubeCosmXively can send emails based on trigger thresholds so it shouldn't be too hard to get something working. A great complement to IFTTT would be direct integration to an rPi or other open-ish platform cum home automation server.

</comment><comment><USER7> I live in a house with automated lights, and I ABSOLUTELY HATE THEM.

They turn on when I want them off...

And turn off when I want them on...

It is really, really, really annoying.

<comment><USER8> You may have some incorrect boolean logic somewhere then, I'd check that out first. Do you have any system tests for these lights?

<comment><USER7> I mean, sometimes I want them on for example when I am trying to install a router in a corridor, or put clothes to hang, and the light turns off too early...

Or I want them off, when I arrive home at night, and do not want to wake up other people already sleeping...

And many other examples...

Yes, it could be fixed with code maybe, but then I would with 100.000 lines of code just to turn on and off lights in the correct time, it is not easier to just have a on and off button?

<comment><USER3> >I want them on for example when I am trying to install a router in a corridor,

If you used a motion sensor, you need to have used a re-triggerable motion sensor there. Some are, some are not. It's annoying to have the wrong kind in the wrong place.

>when I arrive home at night, and do not want to wake up other people already sleeping...

Try this or something like this [http://www.legrand.us/~/media/E07D151FCE954D82A7B6A7204FF5D3...](http://www.legrand.us/~/media/E07D151FCE954D82A7B6A7204FF5D320.ashx?w=370&h=400&bc=ffffff&as=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're doing something like that, you should make damn sure it's NOT connected to the internet. Did you learn nothing the last few days?

</comment><comment><USER10> Has anyone watched Battlestar Galactica?</comment>