Bitcoin has crossed $6,000 USD for the first time - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/coinhubplatform/status/921395537093332993 <comment><AUTHOR> If it makes anyone feel better. When the Bitcoin whitepaper came out, I read it and thought it was neat. Then came the first mining program and I installed it on my computer and it ran the CPU up. I said, "This is dumb." and uninstalled it.

Huge mistake.

<comment><USER3> It's not too late. If you think that it was dumb then, imagine 10 years from now..

<comment><USER4> Unsure why you being downvoted; its actually quite good advise. If you disagree then let's get into time machine and I tell you 10 years ago that one bitcoin will be $6,000. As laughable back then as it is to think one bitcoin will be $25,000, which I believe will become once all coins are mined and there is limited quantity available in circulation.

<comment><USER3> I meet people in NYC all the time that get angry when the topic of cryptos comes up. Not everyone likes change.

<comment><USER5> I think once it becomes more user friendly more outsiders will adopt. My friends complain about there being so many different exchanges and the process of buying altcoins too complicated. They don't like signing up for more than 1 different site, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do not mind having Bitcoin keep going up. But as a business owner that relies heavily on cryptocurrencies, I would really love it if things were more stable. We are building a business on privacy, anonymity, and cryptocurrency as a backbone. We're extrajurisdictional, so banking to USD or other fiat is very tricky. Tether is a great idea, but the current company looks very unstable. If there's a crash, they seem unlikely to be solvent.

Our company would pay a premium to get into a solid, pegged-to-USD coin. At least 5% if not more. Or even a coin that's pegged to an ETF. Of course we cannot satisfy KYC laws so it'd need to be a freely traded token, really.

I really hate the "hodlrs" and the complete lack of focus on how this is supposed to work for real businesses that use it as a means to an end, and not an end by itself.

I see this a lot talking about the 2x chain. People sometimes discuss it in terms of what's better for the BTC price. Why is that a goal at all? Other than the obvious reason of making current users richer?

<comment><USER7> If you want to transact in USD shouldn't you use USD rather than a different currency (BTC)? And if you want to use a block chain to transact in USD shouldn't you use something designed for that like Ripple?

<comment><USER6> That'd be swell. As an EJC, transacting in USD is more difficult, hence we must use cryptocurrencies.

Is Ripple pegged to USD? I do not want anything complicated, just a coin or token that has a 1:1 ratio with USD. Charge me 5% or 10% to buy them or 5% on cash out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's the volume / liquidity of Bitcoin these days?

Say you're Tim Draper and you're sitting on 30K (bought at $600 from the US Gov in 2014 [1]). Would it be possible to offload them for $180M or is the order book too thin?

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Draper#Bitcoin_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Draper#Bitcoin_auction)

<comment><USER9> Pretty good but still prob wouldn't want to dump that in a single day/single exchange

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've asked it before but: how is this a desirable characteristic for a _currency_?

This level of deflation is as bad as too much inflation, though the problems it creates are different. Why would anyone actually use Bitcoin if simply sitting on it will yield a greater return than investing it in anything? So far it seems more deflationary than gold. If this keeps happening won't this actually crowd out the currency application and lead to Bitcoin becoming nothing more than a speculative bubble?

It's hard to determine but I'd love to see some data on Bitcoin _use_ vs. its price in USD/EUR.

<comment><USER11> Central banks have (without evidence) claimed that deflation is a universally "bad thing" in order to justify inflating the currency every single year (AKA stealing from savers, and transferring wealth to the people who are the earliest recipients of the inflated currency).

Gold would have become the standard around the world if governments had not used coercion to prevent it from becoming so, and instead replacing it with fiat currency (which they can control and benefit from).

If Bitcoin, or another cryptocurrency, replaces fiat, it's value will be worth several orders of magnitude of what it's worth today, which is why many people are holding it instead of spending it at the moment.

However, people will not simply "horde" Bitcoin forever in anticipation of its price going up any more than people currently spend every single fiat dollar/euro/yen they have for fear of it going down in value due to inflation.

You may ask, "but why WOULDN'T they hold it instead of spend it if they anticipate the value increasing each year?" The answer is because people HAVE to live in the here and now, they have to pay for things like food, rent, entertainment, cars, fuel, etc. So they can't get around having to spend some amount of money to live.

But sound money (money with low to no inflation) does cause people to spend LESS money than fiat currency because there's a much larger opportunity cost.

<comment><USER12> Inflation encourages spending and investing while deflation encourages saving and hoarding. It isn't a surprise that people who want to see the economic activity want inflation over deflation. It also isn't a surprise why the general population would prefer deflation over inflation. I can understand how someone can make an ethical or moral argument for deflation, but I don't know how you make a economic argument that deflation is better for the future of the country than inflation.

<comment><USER11> There are certain people who benefit from inflation (banks who loan money, governments who have their debt denominated in fiat currency) and there are people who lose from inflation (anyone who saves their money in fiat, the value of which goes down the more money that's printed). There is no such thing as something that's "good/bad" for a "country" — countries don't exist, only people do.

Also, Bitcoin IS inflationary, there will continue to be more Bitcoin creates until sometime around year 2140 when the 21 Million supply cap is reached. It's just not nearly as inflationary as fiat currencies, which have no cap and no one knows how much more will be created from year to year.

<comment><USER12> Let me simplify things. Deflation is good for the individual. Inflation is good for the whole. It is basically the tragedy of the commons. What is good for a single person is not sustainable when scaled up to the whole of society. With deflation spending and investing are discouraged. That is bad for economic growth.

Also you are wrong about Bitcoin being inflationary. An expanding money supply is not enough to make a currency inflationary. The rate of the increase in the money supply needs to outpace growth in the economy. That isn't happening with Bitcoin. The obvious proof of this fact is the increase in the value of Bitcoin.

<comment><USER11> You're using a different definition of inflation.

There are two phenomena we're talking about here — an increase in the supply of money and the decrease in the purchasing power of money. The term inflation is broadly used to apply to both of these but they're different which is where part of the hang up is.

In any case, the supply of Bitcoin will continue to increase until it hits 21m coins in approximately 2140, but if it becomes the world's dominant currency, its purchasing power will continue to increase.

Why should spending and investing be encouraged, can you think of any downsides to encouraging this?

<comment><USER12> You are the one who described inflation as "stealing from savers, and transferring wealth to the people who are the earliest recipients of the inflated currency". That is talking about purchasing power and not money supply.

There are certainly some situations when you want to encourage saving over spending and investing. However I would argue it is not an ideal stable state. It is more difficult for an economy to grow when people don't circulate money through spending and don't increase future productivity through investing.

The benefit of a central bank that can control the money supply is that you can adjust these things on the fly depending on what is happening in the economy. Bitcoin cannot adjust the money supply in reaction to the economy.

<comment><USER11> Well, the Austrian Business Cycle Theory [0] has shown that the continuous, never ending increase in the money supply is actually responsible for greatly exacerbating the boom and bust cycle, so there are in fact many losers of this (people who invested money thinking it was safe when in reality it was a highly speculative market, eg real estate in 2007, internet stocks in 2001, etc).

Increasing the money supply ultimately leads to a decrease in purchasing power, which is stealing from savers.

If the market (individuals cooperating with one another voluntarily) valued a continuously inflated currency, then fiat currency will win and crypto will fail. I suspect the market values a fixed or slow-increase-in-the-money-supply version of money like gold as they demonstrated with their money preferences before governments used coercion to stop it, one of the biggest reasons crypto is so popular is because people can't use gold as money, but governments can't effectively stop people from using crypto.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theory)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love bitcoin, this rise comes just 3 days after it had its biggest one day drop in a month. At this point it must be a CTA's dream instrument, all it does is seem to trade on momentum:)

So if China shutting down exchanges, the CFTC coming out and claiming tokens used in ICO's fall under its jurisdiction, confusing regulations everywhere, and huge recent gains can't stop it, I'm not sure what will.

As a side note, if there are any Bloomberg engineers around, come on VCCY<GO> is really awful.

Put some time into it, its not like virtual currencies are going away any time soon.

<comment><USER14> CTAs tend to have built in risk control :)

<comment><USER13> No one said they didn't:)

Not a big deal most people don't understand that industry. The point I was going for is that CTA's, more than anyone else, love good momentum stories as they are the original trend followers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Probably related to [http://btcgpu.org/](http://btcgpu.org/) (another fork of the chain coming in 4 days)

It's interesting that despite bitcoin being deflationary by design, you can just fork the chain and do quantitative easing that way.

Pretty much all the cited benefits of cryptocurrencies are disappearing in implementation, unfortunately.

<comment><USER16> It only works if people use the forks, which ... doesn't seem to be happening yet.

<comment><USER17> The incentives are completely backwards on why anyone would want to. All the value is trapped in the blockstream bitcoin core client - deviating from that sets the value of all those coins, all of which were _already mined_ and are _already owned_ by wallets that may never even come on the fork.

Thats 80% of all coins. Yeah, your fork can kind of start from scratch, act like the 16.6m coins that came before never happened, that most of them will be dead forever, and start mining from there and treating all the new coins mined (of the remaining 4.4m let) as the monetary base. But then you get any momentum and suddenly "dead" money is flooding the market from legacy wallets. Wallets that didn't contribute to the growth of the fork, that didn't harden the blockchains integrity on the fork, that simply installed a program and had a fortune ready to go with no effort and no commitment to that currency at all.

There is already the problem that vast amounts of bitcoins blockchain hasn't moved in years. Millions of coins that are being treated as dead that could come back to life at any time. But there is no way to know what wallets are actually gone - dat files lost, passwords forgotten, etc - and which ones are just waiting to cash out.

Fundamentally the problem is there are two groups of people here - <USER2> that want to overturn fiat, and investors that want to make (fiat) money. It is why we have not seen a cryptocurrency that can behave like real money yet - the closest we have gotten was dogecoin, which started as a joke and was completely abandoned by its original developers and left to rot.

To make a cash replacement, it would need enough minting of coins to cause inflation enough to keep people from stockpiling coins. But who wants to mine your cryptocurrency or hold it early on in its life if its depreciating in value from its own algorithms? The whole point of why people adopt early into cryptocurrencies is that _if_ they blow up they just made millions from trivial amounts of effort by just being there first. Classic pyramid scheme.

But all crypto today _has to be_ a pyramid scheme to get the adoption to start having momentum to operate as it is intended. Without the gamble of making a fortune how many people would have early on started bitcoin startups or invested in mining? If the promise was that a coin worth a dollar today would be worth a dollar ten years from now because the blockchain itself would generate enough coins to peg the exchange rate, the only first mover advantage you get is in how much less electricity it costs to mine early on _assuming the coin takes off_ and becomes popular.

That can still be an incentive. It is still a gamble of course, but it is also an incentive. The problem is when you are one of those investor types with some large cash in a small neighborhood shopping for your next get rich quick scheme the humble coin trying to push the future is a lot less interesting than the pyramid scheme promising ludicrous returns _if_ it can get enough fools to buy into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I always recommend this article to anyone interested in Bitcoin, it's a great read: [https://fee.org/articles/what-gave-bitcoin-its- value/](https://fee.org/articles/what-gave-bitcoin-its-value/)

</comment><comment><USER19> wishing i had actually kept my mining program running when I experimentally installed it and ran it for about 30 minutes ~5-6 years ago now.

<comment><USER20> This made me realize I think I just recycled the hard drive with my old bitcoin wallet on it. I had half a bitcoin that I mined in a few nights on my old Geforce 4 GPU. Fuck me!

<comment><USER21> I just learned last week. I found the word bitcoin next a last modified date of 2011 in my backups while looking for something else.

My heart kind of started racing as I looked through it. The backup was of a mining program I was using, and it had the address that I was mining to. Looked up the address, it has 13.3 BTC in it!

I started unpacking the whole archive to find the wallet, only to learn that I didn't backup the wallet.dat. I don't know why I didn't, probably some combination of it being worth like $30 at the time + not knowing exactly where the private key was stored.

But it brings the total amount of bitcoin i've lost over the years up to 23.3...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Remember that bitcoin pizza? Today worth $60 million.

</comment><comment><USER23> Say what you will, but this irrational exuberance is precisely that; irrational. I knew about Bitcoin 6+ years ago, when I read a blog about someone buying a sandwich with this newfangled currency. But I didn't rush to mine it. I didn't rush to buy it either. I was simply indifferent to the prospect of it, and I don't regret it.

Here's why. Bitcoin's thesis is that it possesses inherent value because it will become a medium of exchange i.e. people will trade in bitcoin, thereby using it as a store of value, and making it valuable. And yet, that hasn't happened yet. While it's hard to estimate the velocity of money for something like Bitcoin, and the "Bitcoin days destroyed" metric isn't accurate either, it is quite clear that as Bitcoin as a store of wealth rises rapidly in value, its utility as a currency correspondingly drops in value; thereby invalidating the central thesis on which the question of its value rests.

Here are rough estimations for the velocity of money for BTC;

[http://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin- velocity/](http://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-velocity/)

[https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/velocity](https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/velocity)

Even if these are filled with inaccuracies, the general trend seems to be quite clear. People use BTC as an asset not a currency. And as such, the idea that it's a savvy investment belies the fact that it's value as an asset is entirely psychological in nature and completely ungrounded from actual metrics like fiat currency (though again fiat currency does run on trust, but the difference is that it's a marker of exchange thereby measuring the economy and its productivity gives an estimate of its value).

Further, even if it was a valid currency, then what we're witnessing over here is hyperdeflation in action, and it is fundamentally irrational to expect it to continue.

The reasoning for the above points is quite straightforward and simple. The magic of money and capitalism isn't that you can hoard gold and get rich. No, it's that you can _make_ money. It's the idea that value can be created and destroyed through the economic actions of human beings, and that money as a concept serves as a measure of wealth as opposed to wealth. It's why we moved away from the gold standard - it was fundamentally irrational and in the long run, would have caused the exact phenomena we're seeing with BTC.

If you really think that somehow as a store of value BTC is going to become some significant fraction of human wealth, then go ahead buy this. But if you give it any rational thought whatsoever, then you'll see clearly that this is the tulip mania in action and that timing your actions to beat the market is even more irrational.

So no I don't regret passing up on buying BTC, precisely because it was and is a lottery ticket and I'm not in the business of buying lottery tickets no matter how well conceived they may be.

Right now, the most rational thing to do is to bet for it to fail. And then figure out how to time that bet. Because the farther it rises, the harder it will fall.

Good luck.

<comment><USER24> > So no I don't regret passing up on buying BTC, precisely because it was and > is a lottery ticket and I'm not in the business of buying lottery tickets no > matter how well conceived they may be.

Dude, this is nonsense. Everyone regrets passing up on buying BTC because it's currently worth $6k because you can sell it _right now_ for that money. Anything else is complex rationalization to make yourself feel better.

<comment><USER25> Nonsense indeed...

I made what I believed was a rational risk assessment at the time (back when MtGox was spinning up... Not exactly the most credible days for BTC) and decided to avoid the hype.

Could I use the money now? Sure. It's money.

But I don't regret the decision now because I was acting on the information I had.

Heck, even now, it's possible for someone to buy BTC and for it to crash. Should those people regret _their_ decision even if, in their estimation, it's rational now?

To be blunt: if you spend any time regretting these types of things you're a gambler, not an investor, and will find yourself tricked into trying to time markets. And that will eventually bite you in the ass.

As for me, the same reasoning that kept me out of the market then keeps me out now: I don't believe in the fundamentals and I'm not a gambler. Full stop.

For those who do, the should buy and hold for the long term to realize the most gains.

But "it's worth a lot more now than it was 10 years ago" is not fundamentals. It's just the irrational assumption that past performance predicts future behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone please tell me Is it a good time to buy ETH/BTC or am I too late?

<comment><USER27> If you get and aggregate everyone's advice you'll get to the conclusion that the correct price for Bitcoin is exactly where it's at now.

<comment><USER28> You're assuming it's priced fairly and there's no cheating or other manipulation in the price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think hackernews should rename to vcnews

</comment><comment><USER30> Basically I don't see any target value for bitcoins and there's no bubble since this is a once upon a life time opportunity. Basically since number of bitcoins will be limited - total value of all bitcoins must be a fraction to total human wealth. Tech leaders and SV have strongly stood behind bitcoin and blockchain with convincing arguments, and put their credibility behind it and each day by increasing valuation of Bitcoin they prove why tech matters on this planet.

Edit: /S If a bubble forms and people's finances get hurt, that'll have very negative effect on the credibility of SV and tech sadly.

<comment><USER31> > Basically since number of bitcoins will be limited - total value of all > bitcoins must be a fraction to total human wealth.

Or they could be worth nothing?

<comment><USER32> Are there no valuable use cases with Bitcoin?

<comment><USER5> I know fees are higher now, but a big use case could potentially be people sending money to friends/family overseas. They're much lower fees comparing them to Western Union. Saw that in the Banking on Bitcoin documentary on Netflix, I recommend watching!

<comment><USER31> Possibly lower fees than existing solutions, but you have to factor in converting currencies, crossing the bid ask spread twice on different exchanges and the risk of volatility during the transaction. If you want a low cost transfer you're much better off using something like TransferWise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think this is just the tip of the iceberg for Bitcoin. Time will tell if I am right or wrong. If we think of it as simply a currency, or a store of value we can place limits on its value based on what we know about gold, fiat currency, etc. We can extrapolate and come up with a valuation that we think is appropriate. However, its not just any of those things. It's a paradigm shift in digital ownership of value, and could potentially be a record of and a secure digital token for a huge variety of physical goods, virtual services, etc. Whether this happens is largely dependent on scale, but we will leave that argument for another thread since the troll army will show up. Bitcoin is something entirely new in the history of value transfer and ownership, stop trying to compare it directly with the systems that will be eclipsed by it.</comment>


Top Networking Features in Windows Server 2019: #10 Accurate Network Time - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/networking/2018/07/18/top10-ws2019-hatime/ <comment><USER2> The blog article title is a bit opaque, but a major topic is about handling leap seconds correctly. The other topic is about synchronization and traceability.</comment>


Show HN: Score My Resume – Automated Resume Feedback - <AUTHOR> http://resumeworded.com/score?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I launched the first version of Resume Worded on HN back in October last year and even though it was just a database of sample resume lines, there was a superb response here. Since then, I've been adding to the product every day and I'm super excited to show you guys Score My Resume.

The tool scans your resume for elements that are characteristic of a good resume, and gives you feedback/explanations on how you can improve. These range from simple things like word count (is your resume too short/long?) to a bit more complex things such as checking if you've quantified your bullet points, and suggesting similar lines in my database of lines (based on keyword ranking) and metrics (see [https://resumeworded.com/metrics](https://resumeworded.com/metrics)).

I think the hardest part was parsing a resume properly into its sections (e.g. people name their work experience, skills, etc sections differently e.g. 'Work experience', 'Work and leadership', …) and identifying what's a bullet point (people use hyphens, bullets, or no bullets at all), or what's a job title. Parsing resumes correctly is a pretty hard problem that modern HR systems seem to struggle at too imo. I used spaCy nlp mainly for pos tagging - I think it is the best nlp library out there (e.g. nltk out-of-the-box is ineffective, while stanford was just too slow) - highly recommend so wanted to give a shoutout. I think my model has a long way to go but I feel it's getting there. I have a few new features that I'm almost done with but thought i should just ship the product as is before I delay it any longer!

I hope you guys find it useful. Appreciate any and all feedback.

-Rohan

P.S. I've tried making the parser flexible enough so that it can read pretty much any template. However, sometimes pdf's don't get converted correctly, or your template/format is just not something I expected. So if for any reason your resume fails, try putting your content in this standard resume template from Harvard's career website ([http://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/template_bullet.doc](http://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/template_bullet.doc)) and reupload. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> I guess that makes us competitors :) I just recently launched a similar, non- automated service. [https://debugmyresume.com/](https://debugmyresume.com/)

I definitely think your service is attractive given the price point and (presumably) quick response time. Best of luck to you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very nice work! This looks a lot like TalentWorks [0] which must be validation that you have a good idea!

[0] [https://talent.works/](https://talent.works/)</comment>


Cartography Comparison: Google Maps and Apple Maps - <AUTHOR> https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison <comment><USER2> I am disappointed at the type of criticism of this post on Hacker News. This write-up is the kind of high-quality, original, analytical writing we so desperately need these days, in an online world that is completely saturated with clickbait that adds nothing to our understanding of the world.

Is the piece lacking in some semantics? Perhaps. But I was struck by the comments about market share and Android strategy, rather than directly discussing the article and the points it makes about the two maps at hand.

<comment><USER3> It is a rather long read about a specific topic. One could see it as a sign of respect of authority when the topic itself isn't discussed. At the very least the article isn't controversial.

I'll admit I haven't read the full article. I quit during P2. It is TMI, extremely well detailed. I'd like to address the following two quotes from P1:

> But today, with multiple zoom-levels, there's plenty of room to show > everything. Small businesses, apartment buildings, and even homes — no place > is too small or too unimportant to be shown on today's maps.

 _Less is more._ You don't want to show as much information as you can. The user does not want as much information as you can provide. This leads to information overflow. A user wants _relevant_ information. It is up the developers of the app to decide for the user what information they want. A way to do this, is to change it based on zoom. However, beyond that, the information could be drawn from a variety of factors, likely aided my ML/AI. For example, take method of transportation. _Is the user in a car (as passenger, or driver), or is the user cycling, or is the user using the metro, or bus?_ Another variable could be _is the user new to this environment?_ or yet another: who is the user? _ASL? Student? Income? Coffee drinker? Interested in a coffee right now based on previous habits? Etc_ Google knows those details much more accurate. They're after all an advertising company specialised in data gathering company. They also may know what the user is _not_ interested in based on profiling and behaviour. This gives Google a clear edge in this field. (But I believe Apple will follow Google's footsteps in becoming more oriented in user data -perhaps, even do a better job, too; we'll see-)

> The "POI" is dead — because today, every place is of interest.

For the developer perhaps, but certainly untrue for the user. If you take Google Maps, it appears to prioritise transit information. Apple Maps doesn't. That makes Google Maps a better use case if you're interested in public transport. Google Maps very recently (14 jan update) pushed a new version of Google Maps with native Uber support which gives them yet another use case functionality.

<comment><USER4> > Less is more. You don't want to show as much information as you can...

100% agree, but I don't think it's saying _more is better_.

Rather that because maps now have dozens of zoom-levels (as opposed to just 1 with paper maps), they can show all sorts of things that wouldn't have been included before. Things like houses, small businesses, etc. Things that would've never been on a paper map.

This makes the POI dead because now _anything_ can be included, anything can be on the map (regardless of its importance).

(Example from my own experience: Google maps has an outline of my house on it and even my backyard tool shed. But I've never seen a paper map that also had this.)

Also 100% agree with you that personalization is awesome, but it seems like the whole point was specifically to examine the defaults. To see what decisions were made for the defaults and how it made the two different.

<comment><USER3> > Rather that because maps now have dozens of zoom-levels (as opposed to just > 1 with paper maps), they can show all sorts of things that wouldn't have > been included before. Things like houses, small businesses, etc. Things that > would've never been on a paper map.

Yes, I got that point, but I think my counterpoint was stronger.

Perhaps I'm odd, but a POI which doesn't have my interest _is not a POI_. If I'm in Paris, and I have no interest in seeing the Eiffel Tower, then the Eiffel Tower is not a POI for me. It may very well be one for other people, and I respect that, but I've seen the damn thing on multiple pictures already (I've seen it IRL as well).

So from a technical PoV the POI is dead because everything _can_ be a POI? This suggests the developer believes more is better. Whereas when I looked at Google Maps reducing the amount of information I get the impression they realise _less is more_.

The default should not matter. Do the default search results on Google Search matter? Given the rise of the bubble, less and less. I hope the same can be true for Google Maps and Apple Maps. At the same time, we must be careful to regularly think outside of our bubbles, or look into the bubbles of others (e.g. your wife's, son's, aunt's, etc).

<comment><USER4> > I think my counterpoint was stronger.

No, what I was saying was that your counterpoint isn't a counterpoint. A counterpoint would be: Google _shouldn 't_ show new kinds of things on the map (such as houses, small businesses, etc.).

The OP is talking about _new kinds of things_ , while you're talking about the _density of things_. And the OP actually makes the same argument you're making a few paragraphs later:

> we're also seeing the argument for map personalization: Not everyone uses > transit, so there might be places—such as landmarks—that are more important > to some people. And when it's life-and-death, hospitals are the most > important places in the world. But how often does the average person visit a > hospital? Personalized maps are better at surfacing the most appropriate > places for each person; but for the default map, something still has to be > chosen… and that's what we saw above.

Personalization is great, but something still has to be chosen for the default. That's why the default matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems that google has a more coherent theory of how users use maps at different zoom levels.

At the outermost zoom, physical geography is emphasized : terrain shows prominently, and political boundaries at the national level with hints of state boundaries.

Zoom in farther, and political bondaries are more emphasized and physical features less. States are named and some cities.

Zoom in farther and you start to reach the domain of navigation. Large roads are prominent and labelled, as are some cities.

Zoom in farther and more roads are labelled, as well as rail/metro stops and some landmark destinations.

At the highest levels of zoom, finally it transitions to destinations and foot-navigation as the focus.

Apple has a similar progression, but with less coherence. It emphasizes cities/neighborhoods more at the expense of road labels. And landmarks and destinations appear at lower zoom levels, also at the expense of road labels. Rail/metro stations are much less prominent.

</comment><comment><USER6> Alternative: OpenStreetMap !

"The following companies offer consulting, tile-hosting or other services for sites wishing to switch to OpenStreetMap."

[https://switch2osm.org/providers/](https://switch2osm.org/providers/)

<comment><USER6> * [http://www.weeklyosm.eu/](http://www.weeklyosm.eu/)

* [http://www.openstreetmap.org/help](http://www.openstreetmap.org/help)

* Tips for new (Pokemon Go) mappers: [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2016/12/30/tips-pokemon-go/](https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2016/12/30/tips-pokemon-go/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From a cartographic perspective I would love to see this expanded to include Mapbox, and Bing. As well as Yandex, and any other foreign players whose names I cannot remember right now. I would probably be more interested in seeing how they compare, instead of just US based ones.

<comment><USER8> Here WeGo (formerly Nokia, originally NavteQ, now I think owned by BMW?) would also be interesting.

EDIT: Turns out it's VAG, BMW, Daimler, Intel and some more.

<comment><USER9> Here is owned by a consortium of automakers and recently, Intel and a couple others.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_(company)#Acquisition_by_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_\(company\)#Acquisition_by_car_companies)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > And both are in a race to become the world's first Universal Map — that is, > the first map used by a majority of the global population

This is a very US centric view.

The comparison is done in the city where the two companies are nearly located, the other city is the most important in US and the other is the most important of the English speaking cities in the world outside USA.

If you want to talk about global mapping, use global comparisons.

And not talking about the fact that Apple Maps are supported in just one platform and the market share in USA is very different than globally.

<comment><USER11> It is not a race to become the universal map. When Steve Jobs was breathing, there were a few fierce words about 'Android'. Having Google Maps or a Google browser on the phone was to be avoided at all costs so Apple shopped for maps and put something together so they would not be at the mercy of Google deciding to discontinue their maps app on iOS/Safari. So the Apple maps were never born out of vision, just spiteful thinking and a perceived need to have indigenous maps that were not supplied by the old sparring partner (Microsoft) or the evil Google.

I think that the Apple map product was designed in that era of skuomorphic thinking that went on until recently in iOS. So the maps are designed to be a familiar map, much like the atlas you had as a kid when it comes to typography.

The Google Maps evolved from looking like paper maps a long time ago and are about showing you the information you want, not everything that can be crammed on screen. This challenges us to think about how we see the world, for a long time 'A-Z' maps were the thing and you had page numbers and 'square' numbers, e.g. B7, page 126 instead of 'hyperlinks'. Apple maps are more in line with that 'old persons' way of dealing with cartography issues, the Google maps are pioneering a better UX for visualising the world.

<comment><USER12> It wasn't spite. Google introduced a large new feature as Android-only (turn- by-turn directions) and refused to put it on iOS. So this wasn't just a fear that Google would use its position to screw over Apple, Google was actually actively doing that.

<comment><USER10> No, they didn't refused, Apple and Google didn't agree in the terms to put the feature in iOs.

The maps apps was developed by Apple

<comment><USER12> Where are you getting your information? Because that's wrong. Google introduced turn-by-turn on Android and deliberately kept it out of iOS because they were trying to make Android more attractive. Google and Apple had an existing contract at that time, there were no terms to negotiate. And so when the contract did expire, Apple dropped Google Maps and introduced their own Apple Maps because Google had already demonstrated their willingness to screw over Apple.

<comment><USER10> The app was done by Apple, not by Google. Apple used the Google Maps API and that API doesn't allow turn by turn.

So no, Google did not screwed Apple, both companies didn't agree to for the terms to use the turn by turn.

That's all, none of them were guilty of anything.

<comment><USER12> The app's code was written by Apple, yes, but it was done so in close collaboration with Google. It's not like Apple was just another API consumer. And if Google hadn't had their heads up their asses, they would have given turn-by-turn to Apple and perhaps enjoyed still being the default mapping app on iOS.

Also FWIW it wasn't just turn-by-turn, it was also the fact that Google wanted Apple to give them more user data, which Apple didn't want to do. So even with turn-by-turn it's possible Apple may have chosen to do their own maps anyway, but turn-by-turn was definitely a major reason why Apple dropped Google and built their own service.

<comment><USER10> My God, I have said that both didn't agree in the terms, Apple wanted turn by turn and Google wanted more user data for giving it.

But yes. Evil Google sdcreweed Poor Little Apple.

They had to give ALL the features without receiving anything, who they tought they were?

<comment><USER12> You are aware that Google makes a large portion of its mobile profits from iOS, right? Even though Google wasn't getting as much user data as they wanted from Apple, being the default mapping app on iOS was still a big benefit for them. It's not like Google was being generous by providing maps for iOS. So Google just screwed themselves. Google thought they could force Apple to do what Google wanted, because they thought Apple didn't have a reasonable alternative. But it turns out that Apple did, which was to build their own independent mapping service.

<comment><USER10> > You are aware that Google makes a large portion of its mobile profits from > iOS

And you can provide a source for that claim, isn't?

But yes, we are aware that you're convinced that Google were just a evil and stupid company that screwed themselves.

In what world two companies can disagree, Apple was totally right demanding everything without giving more.

Problem is that reality is what it is, both of them are powerful companies, both of them have their interests and they didn't aligned. Nothin less, nothing more. Not he fracking black and whit world you paint

<comment><USER12> I really don't know what kind of argument you think you're having, but each new comment is making less and less sense. I also don't appreciate how you keep trying to put words in my mouth.

The whole point of my original comment was to just dispute the claim that Apple developed their own Maps out of spite. I don't know why you're trying so hard to pretend that the removal of Google Maps was entirely Apple's fault, and why you keep repeating the same claims that I've already debunked (e.g. "Apple was totally right demanding everything without giving more").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I strongly prefer apple maps.

Why?

Because I have low vision and only Apple Maps respects the system font size. I can actually read the map labels. Google maps renders the print too small.

If I can't read the map labels, I can't use the map. Everything else is gravy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish there were more settings and personalisations available in both Maps apps. I'd like to activate an option that always shows me all public transport stations, regardless of zoom level.

<comment><USER15> There's a reason why it is not being done - you wouldn't be satisfied with the speed. Try some old-fashioned GIS application, that queries and displays exactly what you have selected and compare that with Google Maps.

These map apps with cached tiles (whether raster or vector, doesn't matter) gain speed precisely because they limit what the user can choose and then cache that. The normal GIS apps cannot do that, but conversely, their users are complaining that Google Maps is much faster...

<comment><USER9> I would think that vector tiles + display filtering would be roughly just as fast as vector tiles without any filtering.

At least assuming a halfway decent implementation (it shouldn't take real long to process the few hundred items that would be present in the viewport).

<comment><USER7> You certainly could filter what you receive in the vector tile. However that vector tile is already a cached / filtered piece of the data. It limits what you would be able to do.

<comment><USER9> Sure, the client can only filter the data it receives. But the tiling approach and client side filtering can clearly be applied to POIs, and while I haven't actually experimented with such a thing, I would expect the performance to be quite good even if the user had lots of filters set.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article reads like there are no noteworthy alternatives to those two. But in my experience, at least HERE Maps and Bing Maps are quite up to par. Especially HERE is quite strong when it comes to navigation.

<comment><USER17> They lead with this, which is probably why others aren't considered...

>> both are in a race to become the world's first Universal Map — that is, the first map used by a majority of the global population

<comment><USER18> Is Apple actually trying to have a universal map? Can you even use Apple maps if you're not on an Apple device?

<comment><USER19> Exactly. There are a number of maps racing for world domination, Apple isn't one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ok, a very interesting way to analyze maps. Like a lot of engineers I enjoy different maps. It wasn't until we replaced our wall sized US Map this year (we got a large format US Map, World Map, and Globe when homeschooling our kids) that I realized how different maps could be (both good and bad).

In my fantasy science fiction imagination I've got a map on an large format HiDPI screen that I can drop a Surface Dial on to and turn it to pick out the features I want from Pilot to Topographic to Road Atlas to Political Districts. We have the bandwidth and storage to do that now, just need a designer and business case.

</comment><comment><USER9> Small discussion from when the article was newer: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11836584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11836584)

</comment><comment><USER21> While specifically cartography, the recent trend to 3D render satellite views by both Google and Apple is pretty bad, and a step backwards. Both companies try to project the 2D photograph onto a 3D mesh, which fails to work in many cases due to alignment and measurement errors. Instead of getting nicely wrapped polygons, you get weird crumpled shapes with distorted pixels projected on them. While annoying, this wouldn't be a show a stopper because you can always click "2D" to see the undistorted 2D photograph right?

WRONG! 2D simply rotates the 3D model so that the z-axis is perpendicular to your screen. All the distortions and artifacts remain in place! This is broken.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is so awesome. High quality, in-depth, and very on-point. I love whoever went to all the trouble to make this. Awesome content!

</comment><comment><USER23> All of the example images are too low resolution to actually make up your mind about what the author is talking about when referring to them.

<comment><USER24> The images enlarge when tapped upon

<comment><USER23> Not by any meaningful size on my machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The image loading on this site was pretty unbearable; the images loaded from the bottom up lazily and were pretty low resolution.

I ended up loading all the chapters before I read the 2nd page, so the rest of the pages would be ready for me. I don't know if the image loading was a design choice or just because of the HN traffic.

Very fascinating topic.

<comment><USER26> All of the images enlarge when you click on them. (It's mentioned in the Intro.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [May 2016]

</comment><comment><USER28> Thanks O'Beirne! That was really interesting.

</comment><comment><USER29> Off topic but I found this interesting:

Out of the top 10 mobile apps in the US 5 are owned by Google, 3 by Facebook, and 2 by Apple.

</comment><comment><USER19> > And both are in a race to become the world's first Universal Map — that is, > the first map used by a majority of the global population. In many ways, > this makes Google Maps and Apple Maps two of the most important maps ever > made.

> Who will get there first?

Isn't it pretty clear that Android is well ahead in global market share? I mean, Apple isn't even trying to become the market leader, they are solely focused on the premium segment.

<comment><USER30> I stopped reading right there.

If you live in a bubble that small I am probably not going to learn anything from reading your article...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> i am more interested in accuracy comparison than i am in design.

<comment><USER32> That's in there, see part 2.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra > And both are in a race to become the world's first Universal Map — that is, > the first map used by a majority of the global population

Actually, lol, no. OpenStreetMap is. Google Maps will be a contender for some time, but eventually it'll settle.

<comment><USER33> Then why does nearly every business use Google Maps and it's API for map features? You have to pay for maps access on a commercial basis, so they'd be stupid to ignore a free (and according to you superior) solution.

My guess is you're a FOSS zealot who can't admit that a commercial rendition of a particular idea is superior, because it would crush your ideologies and beliefs.. (and I say that as someone who has no problem with using _good_ FOSS like VLC or Transmission)

<comment><USER15> Many businesses use Mapbox (which is based on OSM, but is not free) and many consider that superior choice to GMaps. Others use Bing maps (Facebook, for example). Then there are Here maps, Yandex maps, etc.

GMaps are a quick and comfortable choice, but if your business really depends on communicating with maps, or you want to do something more than display pins or overlay kmls, it is not a best choice.</comment></comment></comment>


How the World's Most Iconic Logos Evolve over Time - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-logos-evolve/ <comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know until today Windows came with current W8/W10 logo full circle back to 1985 logo which would be perfectly suitable even 35 years later.</comment>


Android – Tackling technical debt with MVP - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/picnic-engineering/tackling-technical-debt-with-mvp-67e805ed5103#.qer2jr7h2 <comment><USER2> > _Anyone who has worked with Android long enough and on large enough > projects, has most likely reached a point where they've looked at their > codebase and thought there must be a better way._

Amen to that.

I also like the author's list of drawbacks that happen when you accumulate technical debt of the Android variety, especially:

> _Onboarding of new developers got harder_</comment>


Ask HN: Mobile dev...large JSON or multiple requests? - <AUTHOR>

When doing mobile development is it better to return a large JSON object with all the referential data or to make multiple requests to get the data. Also what is considered a large JSON response for mobile.<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> Depends on a lot of things.

Where will the users be? If they are in america/western europe/japan/korea, etc, mobile download speed is usually pretty fast, but the latency can be killer. In this case, I would tend to go more towards one large JSON request. The only reason I wouldn't is if it was something that requires a lot of communication (a chat app, for instance). In that case, since it is a high frequency of updates, I would work on making those updates as small as possible.

If it is a lot of users in poorly connected areas, where data is super expensive, just cut everything down as absolutely small as possible.

also - remember to remove all unnecessary whitespace and turn on compression on your server.</comment>


Email Isn't Broken, Email Clients Are - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alnewkirk/email-isnt-broken-email-clients-are-8badaa14af61 <comment><USER2> He's right, but IMO all that automation needs to be managed client-side, but most of it should be implemented server-side.

So, you would need a protocol for the client to speak to the server and communicate what needs to happen. And while Sieve exists, most IMAP clients don't speak it. And most IMAP servers don't implement it.

I, for one, do not want this intelligence about my mailbox, to exist only on the server side. The server needs to understand how to carry out the things it's told to do, but the real intelligence needs to live client side — and be mobile to other accounts at other providers.

Most importantly, no third-party SaaS should be involved.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for collaborator/partner - <AUTHOR>

I am launching a staff scheduling application to help small-to-medium businesses schedule and communicate with their employees.
A similar application can be seen at http://www.findmyshift.com/
My current plan is to bootstrap the MVP and land some early customers then iterate/grow the business from there.
If anyone is interested in collaborating on the project drop me a line on the email in my profile.
I would love to work with someone in the Dallas or Austin area but location is not a requirement.
I will be bringing a product vision and 10 years of experience in web application development to the party.
I am expecting the initial phase to be a part time project. <comment><USER2> I also had this idea and would love to talk to you more about it. I have some PSD's of the user interface I have been working on. I've developed the MVP and outline. Email is josh at joshmlewis.com. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER3> I have had this same idea on my plate but did not get around to building it. Would love to speak with you, email is in my profile (I live in Arkansas).</comment>


'Bloodless' Lung Transplants Offer Hint at Surgery's Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/us/bloodless-lung-transplants-for-jehovahs-witnesses.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> As good of an idea as reducing transfusions is, I can't help but think that this is the wrong way to do it.

> He said his focus was intensified by the knowledge that if a patient died > for lack of blood, a second life might hang in the balance — the wait-listed > patient who would otherwise have received the organ.

Doctors should not be adrenaline junkies playing with other peoples' lives, especially those who aren't even their patient. This looks like a pretty clear breach of the ethics I expect from doctors.

<comment><USER3> There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the base motivations that drive people so long as clear ethical decision procedures are maintained. The typical neurosurgeons _relishes_ pressure much more than the average human, and this is a contributor to them entering the specialty and to them being successful at it. (My father is a neurosurgeon.) Those kind of personality traits should be harnessed for good rather than eliminated.

This isn't to say that a doctor's decisions can't be colored. Evidence-backed, community accepted guidelines are very desirable, as are second opinions. But once the decision is made that someone needs surgery, I would want a guy who's _excited_ to operate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > By cherry-picking patients with low odds of complications, Dr. Scheinin felt > he could operate almost as safely without blood as with it.

And what does he suppose the odds would be if he applied the same cherry- picking whilst operating _with_ the option of a blood transfusion?

I'm not necessarily advocating for reliance on blood transfusions here, but the logic (and ethics) of this seem highly questionable.

<comment><USER3> I think the point is that if you have few complicating factor, then the risk of the bloodless (vs. normal) surgery is much reduced and possibly acceptable. On the other hand, if you have these factors, then the additional risk might be too high. I think you might just be responding to the loaded word "cherrypicked"; the poor wording is chosen by the NYTimes, not the doctor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really see what is so interesting about this. As I understand it those are just normal lung transplants, the difference is that you simply select patients so that complications that would require blood transfusions are minimal, to keep everyone concerned about the ethics of it happy.

It might be somewhat helpful to have doctors who are less trigger happy when it comes to giving blood transfusion but I don't see how that is particularly innovative or hinting in any way at the future. This only helps a couple of not too ill people who want to keep their imaginary friend happy.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can think that this is insane, but because Jehovah's Witnesses being stubborn about blood transfusions, much progress has been made in bloodless procedures. Most of the time they cost less, and there are less complications after the procedures. Even the US army was interested lately [1] in how to incorporate these procedures.

Full disclosure: I'm a Jehovah's Witness.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAWhRqCjT9w>

<comment><USER7> It's not insane that progress is being made -- that's pretty sensible (because more guinea pigs = more data, and in normal circumstances patients don't volunteer for more dangerous paths). Deciding to be the guinea pigs is... well, not insane (people simply don't behave logically much at all, for religious as well as non-religious reasons), but sure, somewhat foolish.

In this case, JWs are presenting themselves as the control group for experimenting with blood transfusions... in a "study" that would be utterly unethical.

Imagine a doctor that _refused_ a blood transfusion that would normally be called for in a serious surgery, because the patient was part of a study and fell into the "no transfusions even in dire need" group.

A randomized study like that is (still) impossible and unethical, but because we have this group of people who _place themselves_ onto the higher-risk path, doctors can test out the actual boundaries of where transfusions are needed -- and indeed, seriously advance the science.

The Jehovah's Witnesses _are_ at higher risk, and more of them will die because of this decision, but we're getting quite useful data in the meantime.

You mentioned the Army -- medicine is also advanced by the normally-unethical medical approaches to medicine that are required by battlefield medicine. There's some overlap with the real requirements there, and the self-imposed requirement of JWs refusing transfusions that actually are available -- so certainly they'd be interested.

Now we just need a new L Ron Hubbard to invent a religion that requires adherents to go all the way -- and always take the most-data-rich path through medical treatment -- then we'll be making progress in leaps & bounds (though of course more guinea pigs will die along the way).

<comment><USER8> > The Jehovah's Witnesses are at higher risk, and more of them will die > because of this decision, but we're getting quite useful data in the > meantime.

The article mentions that there's some evidence that transfusions carry their own risk. How closely has this been studied, and what are the risks? Without accurate knowledge of that, how can we make definitive statements as to the negative repercussions to people that opt out of transfusions?

Additionally, I fail to see how more Jehovah's Witnesses die because of this decision, which allows the operation to continue, when the alternative is that they don't get the procedure at all, which I believe results in death?

<comment><USER7> Because of their decision, certainly more will die that could have lived.

The grey area, where getting a transfusion might actually be riskier than not getting one, is what they're finding out more about. That's useful to know.

There are also cases that are not at all grey areas, where refusing transfusions means they will die. They're still refusing them (and unfortunately, that death doesn't provide any useful data, beyond "yes, what we were sure would happen, happened").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know if you can register that your organs only go to people of a particular group (religious beliefs, for example), but if that is possible then it would solve the ethical issue of giving an organ to someone who is a less suitable candidate (due to them refusing other life-saving treatment in the case of complications). Just have the various religious groups put on their organ donation form that they are to be donated only to others with similar beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems bizarre that they would allow an organ transplant but not a blood transfusion.

<comment> Tuna-Fish They believe that the protestant canon of the bible is the inspired, inerrant word of god, and that it should be taken literally. All commandments given should be followed without question.

One such commandment is in acts 15:28-29:

        For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay
        upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;

        That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from
        blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication:
        from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.
        Fare ye well.

For them, that's enough. Since organs are not mentioned, they are A-OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is what the United States was founded on. Jumping through hoops to respect other peoples' beliefs even when they make no sense to you.

<comment><USER12> ...

as it mentions in the article, there is " a growing body of research that transfusions often pose unnecessary risks and should be avoided when possible, even in complicated cases".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is an interesting read, especially in terms of the surgeon's framing of the ethical question. I just wish medicine focused more on helping people keep their own organs functional. But that isn't heroic and headline-worthy. Sigh.</comment>


The Problem With "Warby Parker for X" - <AUTHOR> http://jamiequint.com/warby-parker-for-x

<comment><USER2> There is a bigger trend that the article omits: the internet has become mainstream enough for "anyone" to open an online store, and best thing is, this is great for consumers.

Not every internet business needs to have an "innovative business model", but these businesses can still be highly profitable just by selling a product/service that people want.

Take German bicycle manufacturer Canyon (www.canyon.com). They are a direct- to-consumer business, they sell bicycles which have been around for over 100 years, and they are wildly profitable. Still, their business model is not innovative.

This article comes across as very negative towards people who want to start an online business, but the reality is that the internet is what electricity was to the second industrial revolution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here, the article is not meant to come out against starting a business. The point is that the for physical products (at least apparel) there is not much leverage to be gained from being online rather than offline so your differentiator has to be something other than "its X but online!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There were a number of online eyewear stores that sold online only direct-to- consumer glasses before Warby Parker in the "upscale" price range of $100 GlassesUSA.com (2007), ~ 45% of SKUs are private label Glassesshop.com (2004), ~ 90% SKUs are private label

and many more online stores that sold even cheaper private label RX eyewear: zennioptical.com (2007), 100% SKUs PL, price range $6-45 Eyebuydirect.com (2005), 90% SKUs PL, price range $6-45 39dollarglasses.com (2000), 100% SKUs PL, price $39-109

So, at least part of your argument is unjustified. The guys at Warby Parker created a very unique product perceived at the edge of cool/"retro- intellectual" / boutique-quality / affordable / with a noble mission. That was unique.

<comment><USER4> For ecommerce, you can't just create a product that solves a problem (Low cost glasses), you also have to create a successful brand. Stand for something more than just a product (or what you're selling). That's why Warby Parker is so successful, because they carefully cultivated a brand while solving a huge problem in a market. That brand affinity is a piece of what they are selling you and what consumers are latching on to (in addition to the fact that they are saving you hundreds of dollars on your eye glass purchases).

Product alone isn't sustainable for the future of ecommerce. This is why I don't think niche ecommerce businesses like Dollar Shave Club / Harry's (shaving) and HelloFlo (Tampons) are sustainable and scalable in the long run. Is it really that big of a problem they are solving and can you really build a brand around it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting article, but tangentially (heh) ... if anyone wants to get into the "DollarSockClub" business with me, I'm so effing tired of buying packs of expensive socks.

Is it really that hard to source and deliver quality socks at a reasonable price?

Maybe it is.

<comment><USER6> Why do you need so many socks that a sock delivery service is necessary?

I imagine I buy socks about once a year (max).

<comment><USER5> {A wild potential partner appears} :)

My good sir, you know that retailers strive to maximize dollar-per-square- foot. As such, the inventory changes to squeeze more money from folks like me who come back a year later and can't figure out why the hell the Puritan socks they had last year are no longer on the shelf.

I just want someone to offer me a product that I like and deliver that same great product to me for 20 years. Won't someone take my money?

<comment><USER7> If you're returning for the same socks year after year, why not simply buy 20 years worth of socks?

<comment><USER5> Cash poor, cash-flow rich.

Edit: Strictly speaking, I have a liquidity preference. I tend to think that others do too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google CEO Appeases Publishers with Subscriptions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-02/-news-geek-google-ceo-appeases-publishers-with-subscriptions <comment><USER2> _" Google is now pledging to index all subscription news outlets in search, let publishers determine how many articles to provide free through the search engine, and will not demote them in results if they have little or no free content."_

Very useful, indexing inaccessible content.

<comment><USER3> I almost agreed with your comment, then I re-read it and decided you are being sarcastic.

But it _is_ very useful, in contexts in which you are searching for things that are important to you and in which you want to have a fuller sense of what information is available, even if it may cost money.

It might not improve the casual news-reading experience, but if it's something important like learning about your child's illness, researching a prospective new employer, or something like that... it's a lot better to know what articles and stories exist on the topic, even if they might cost money to read, rather than having no idea those pieces relevant to your search even exist.

<comment><USER4> These aren't mutually exclusive. PubMed solved this ages ago: if it was freely available, it was tagged accordingly, and you could filter your search results that way.

If this were meant to benefit users, it would be an optional filter at the discretion of the user, not a built-in "feature" of the algo.

<comment><USER3> I agree. That would be awesome, but probably beyond what we can expect an ad company to do as part of its mission to sell ads.

But they _might_ do it if they thought doing so would cause more people to use their their search engine more, thereby generating more ad clicks. I know I probably would, but otoh I'm probably not their target demo (since I only click about 7 ads per year, usually after coming home drunk from some event).

<comment><USER2> _" Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."_

([https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/](https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/) according to Google search today, although I can't see that text in the throng of large images.)

Needs tweaked, that 'universally' is now melting away. Must be the water heating up, as the frog didn't say.

Croak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This solution is far from ideal. In the majority of cases, publishers would be selling access to a single article for a price of subscription. What we need for a healthy content market, is perhaps a micropayment system.

<comment><USER6> I think we need more flat rates, Readly is a great example IMHO:

[https://global.readly.com/en](https://global.readly.com/en)

For 10 € / month, you get a virtual newsstand with magazines from all over the world.

<comment><USER7> Sounded interesting but it looks like they've disallowed Australians from signing up.

<comment><USER8> geolocalisation is censure. It should never be accepted as a good practice.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, it'd be nice if there was a way to spoof your location without connecting to an offshore VPN (or a DNS proxy in some cases) but we just don't seem to be there yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Original source: [https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/driving- futur...](https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/driving-future- digital-subscriptions/)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a disappointing decision. As a user, I don't want Google to rank page content for me based on something other than what I'll see when I visit the page. With this system, presumably, Google sees one thing (the actual article) while I will see something else (a useless paywall): bait and switch. When I search the World Wide Web, I'm not trying to find content within private walled gardens.

It's fine if Google wants to add support for ranking paywall-restricted pages, but _those results should only show up for people who have a subscription at the website_ , and not for everyone else who doesn't. This would be easy to implement: the publisher sets a cookie with Google on each user who has access. Only users with a cookie will see restricted articles in their search results by default.

You could further improve the search experience by allowing users to set a preference determining whether they want to see restricted content in their search results for which they don't have a subscription.

To be fair, the previous policy requiring three free articles per day was probably excessively deleterious for subscription websites. That's probably more than 95% of casual users will ever read. I think there's a better middle ground in here somewhere. Most of the time, I want to filter websites out of my search results if I don't have the ability to read the article right now.

<comment><USER11> Google should give the user the option to hide paywall articles

<comment><USER12> Google should give the user the option to include paywalled articles.

<comment><USER13> Can't have one without the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _More than 42 percent of U.S. digital ad revenue in 2017 will go to Google_

The rest is arranging chairs on Titanic... My guess is that number will only go up, making things much worst.

<comment><USER15> I guess other big domain-specific players, such as Facebook or Twitter, are not in huge danger. But direct competitors are probably fighting a losing battle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The AMP end game begins to materialize.

<comment><USER4> How does this relate to AMP?

<comment><USER16> AMP onboards the publishers onto Google's platform and effectively holds their content for ransom. Makes it easy to implement revenue sharing on advertisements or subscriptions, especially when all AMP ads must be "approved" and "compatible." Watch, the next move from Google will be a paywall subscription service for publishers with 30% revshare to Google and some kind of unified subscription management and/or bundling for users. Or before that maybe we'll even see "AMP for desktop".

<comment><USER17> The only way I can consider that you're not vastly over exaggerating for no reason is if you do not understand what ransom means.

<comment><USER16> You're a publisher. Google takes your content. They host it on their server, behind their domain name. If you want it back, you can forego implementing AMP. But good luck with that, because your content will rank behind the dozens of other publishers who do comply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if this will have an impact on combating fake news. I would suspect that few people would pay subscriptions for fake news, so there probably isn't a lot of that out there. On the other hand, legitimate journalistic content is far more likely to require a subscription.

Perhaps this policy change is, in addition to appeasing publishers, part of Google's broader initiatives to promote journalistic reporting and combat fake news.

<comment><USER18> Fake news is spread through social media, not Googled.

<comment><USER10> I'd probably agree that seems to be how it's most widely shared. But note that Google did announce in Feb 2017 that they're changed their algorithm to combat fake news:

> Google announced changes to its search algorithm Tuesday that will combat > the dissemination of "fake news" and conspiracy theories through new ways to > report inaccurate information.

> The technology giant will change its search rankings to "help surface more > authoritative pages and demote low-quality content," a company executive > said in a blog post. This feature aims to prevent issues like the Holocaust > denial results that Google saw in December — which placed an article from a > neo-Nazi white supremacist website at the top of search results.

[http://fortune.com/2017/04/25/google-search-algorithm- fake-n...](http://fortune.com/2017/04/25/google-search-algorithm-fake-news/)

Original source: [https://www.blog.google/products/search/our-latest- quality-i...](https://www.blog.google/products/search/our-latest-quality- improvements-search/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's suprising anti-monopoly laws have not kicked in yet. The is no point in having laws if they are not going to be applied.

Maybe it's in the governments immediate interest to not rein in a global stalker vacuuming up the world's personal information to have access but paying lip service fundamentally undermines and discredits your own principles and governance systems.

Giving in to temporary expedience is a losing end game as other governments will inevitably take action to protect their citizens data. Democracy and capitalism only work if you do what it says on the tin, or you will have to resort to increasingly undemocratic methods to hold on ie bullying, bribing and doing deals with other countries not to take action. Ultimately citizens everywhere lose.

Absolute power corrupts helping build more monopolies and its in Google's and its own employees interests that they are split up. Search, Youtube, Maps and Android come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER20> We need more good search engines.

<comment><USER21> I've recently made the switch to DuckDuckGo and have been pretty happy. Anything I'm missing I just use !g but DDG is only going to get better!

<comment><USER22> !s is the better option, Searchpage is Google results without tracking.

<comment><USER23> It's startpage, not searchpage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There would be no way this would fly if Google wasn't a monopoly. If I was the government I'd spit them into two competitors and we'd all benefit from and expansion of possible ideas. It'd be good for Google too.

</comment><comment><USER25> Are there any public lists of who has all their articles locked behind paywalls? It'd be good to have an addon to mark all these links if there's no way to read any I'm not paying for any more.

</comment><comment><USER26> Well fuck.

</comment><comment><USER27> Google, facebook etc are not services anymore. They are necessities to everyday life. They should have been regulated already to the point where they'd turn non-profit. (Like wikipedia)

We are not talking about businesses anymore, we are talking about necessities in life that have the monopoly to do whatever they want and change people's lives around.

Btw I am using duckduckgo, its results are quite good compared to what it was 2 years go. I don't miss google and its 2-5 ad's per search. Thing is I don't see duckduckgo overcoming google at any point, as for the normal everyday person google is just a searchgod and thats it. An everyday normal guy can't understand the implications to his privacy by google,fb etc getting data off him/her. So he/she won't change to something else, until is forced to.

<comment><USER28> So is Google a necessity, as you assert in your first paragraph, or isn't it, as you demonstrate in the last?

<comment><USER29> Google is something you choose to use for a user.

But Google is a necessary infrastructure for businesses and developers, as they can't not use Google, due to the market share it has.

Google also uses their power in one market to affect other markets, and grow further.

This, again, is monopolistic action.

Try going a week without using Google, fine.

Try running a major website a week without being listed on Google?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: QuickSite - <AUTHOR> http://getquicksite.com/

<comment><USER2> If I remember correctly Quicksite is a TM of web hosting company, also offering template(s). You might want to reconsider the name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh! I wasn't aware of that. I will take care of that.</comment></comment>


Would it make sense to automatically require cars to obey to speed limits? - <AUTHOR> Given that:
- speeding causes many fatal accidents, especially in built-up areas - GPS is cheap - we have detailed information of speed limits in built-up areas - self-driving cars likely obey these speed limits - lower speeds produce less emissions
Why not implement a hard requirement that cars simply cannot exceed local speed limits in built-up areas (and school zones)?
If anything, in exchange for a discount in insurance premium, but as time moves on, simply make this a requirement for new cars.
I see this as very low-hanging fruit to implement, and leverage existing technology that is already available to everyone. <comment><USER2> Simplistic solutions always appeal to the young and inexperienced.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm 40 years old and have been coding since 1996.

And trust me that policy makers who would enable this are not your average HN crowd.

On the contrary, convoluted solutions rarely evolve past academia, and a lot of the self-driving cars/drones news out there is hype to help boost valuations of companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is it a given that a speeding car emits more emissions per the distance traveled?

<comment><AUTHOR> Google is your friend: [https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/transport/speed- limits](https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/transport/speed-limits)

<comment><USER3> Skimming through this Im not sure that this answers this question (maybe Im missing it). Think about it from the perspective of the pollution on a square block. Does a speeding higher emitting car that leaves the block quickly leave more pollution than a slower lower emitting car that takes longer to leave the block? Im pretty sure there has got to be something to this because at the very extreme Id imagine if I idled at 1 mph down a block Id leave a lot more pollution</comment></comment></comment>


Announcing HipChat Connect beta – Chat will never be the same again - <AUTHOR> https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/10/announcing-hipchat-connect/ <comment><USER2> Looks awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> cool!</comment>


Evolve or die - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/thinkux/archive/2012/04/17/evolve-or-die.aspx

<comment><USER2> Forget about BBC.. I'm still hating the new Twitter design. It is awful. It is far more unfriendlier then the older version. Making me completely switch to Hootsuite.</comment>


Ten things we know to be true - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/about/philosophy.html <comment><USER2> > It's best to do one thing really, really well.

They should probably revisit that at this point …</comment>


Office space available for hackers in Brookline, MA (SF-like neighborhood) - <AUTHOR> http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/off/950623758.html I'm a single-person startup founder.  Looking for other hackers to share an office with.  There is room for 2-8 people here.<p>This is a really awesome neigborhood - perfect for hackers.  Boston doesn't have many places where you can enjoy walking around outside - this is one of the few.  Three coffee houses at the same intersection - reminiscent of San Francisco! <comment><AUTHOR> I'm a solo startup founder. Hoping to find other hackers to share this really cool space in a great neighborhood.</comment>


FBI Says a Mysterious Hacking Group Has Had Access to US Govt Files for Years - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/fbi-flash-alert-hacking-group-has-had-access-to-us-govt-files-for-years?utm_source=mbtwitter <comment><USER3> All the more reason why the US government shouldn't be running mass surveillance programs. You may trust the US government with your data, but what if they can't protect your data once they've obtained it?

Do you trust the Chinese government with your personal information? How about organized crime groups with the resources to hire expert black-hats?

We're talking about people who haven't done anything wrong, and aren't suspected of any wrongdoing. Innocent people are having private data gathered without their consent (and arguably in violation of the constitution) by people who have had a series of embarrassing security blunders in recent years.

You might argue that the NSA has tighter security standards than the OPM and whichever departments were compromised in this attack. In response to that, I'd point out that Edward Snowden was only a contracter, and shouldn't have had access to the information he leaked to the press. Clearly security wasn't that great at the NSA.

<comment><USER4> > You may trust the US government with your data, but what if they can't > protect your data once they've obtained it?

I've never understood this idea. The US government is dangerous to anyone located in the US. The Russian government is not. It will never matter to you if the Russian government has your data; it can matter a lot if the US does.

<comment><USER5> Tell that to Alexander Litvinenko.

<comment><USER6> That poor poor Soviet Spy turned traitor. Spilling state secrets - <USER2> target for assassination.

And his mistake was trusting a friend. Not some data collection Russian operation.

If you enter that game - you know the risks.

<comment><USER7> "If you enter that game - you know the risks"

That's a poor justification for executing somebody without trial.

<comment><USER6> He was a rogue traitor - what kind of trial would you like him to get?

<comment><USER8> A fair one. Like everybody else.

<comment><USER6> He was in UK. Generally speaking Russia has no jurisdiction there even if it owns most of inner london.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is the government or anyone else trying to develop secure systems? I don't mean stock technology (Intel/Arm + Windows/*nix/etc.) retrofitted or 'locked down', I mean new tech built from the ground up for high security.

Given the exceptionally high value to foreign governents (and other actors) of breaking into US government computers, the latter approach seems like the only potential option. The stock tech just can't be secured effectively enough, IMHO.

\----

EDIT: Answering my own question to a degree, here are presentations on High- Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS), which apparently utilize seL4:

[http://www.cyber.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/sympo...](http://www.cyber.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/symposium/fisher- HACMS-MD.pdf)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqRdbgRPYw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqRdbgRPYw8)

<comment><USER10> Yes.

One project is SeL4, which is a provably correct microkernel. I listened to a talk by one of the developers and it sounded like they were getting funding from DARPA.

[https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/](https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/)

I also remember reading on Wikipedia about some proprietary closed-source OS that's used by the US government to work with very highly classified information. Apparently the requirement was that the kernel and every program be formally verified, so it had very limited features. IIRC, it still maintained, but newer versions support a Linux environment for less classified work.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was called so I can't link to the page.

edit: found it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evalua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evaluation_Criteria#A_.E2.80.94_Verified_protection)

> Examples of A1-class systems are Honeywell's SCOMP, Aesec's GEMSOS, and > Boeing's SNS Server.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that at a certain level of government, you will have administrators who aren't technical experts and who have no interest in deferring to the opinions of technical experts.

Such folks just don't want to bother with the limitations that a secure system implies, even if such a system became much more featureful than the present ones. They want their Windows/Mac and probably want it for their work-groups.

It's not just a lack of technical know-how but a variety of psychological tendencies that stands against this. It's taken a long time for companies to develop UIs that people want to use but the existence of these "easy to UIs" is a barrier to any UI which requires even a small amount of training to use.

<comment><USER12> Fine. Then those people don't get access to secure systems _or information that needs to be secured_. Just don't let them have any kind of job that means they need to work with information that should be secure. Let them have their Windows/Mac machine, and let them work on writing Word docs and Powerpoint about stuff that nobody cares about.

<comment><USER9> Unforunately that's not how government (or any large institution) works. That person has enough political capital to hold onto that job, or probably they wouldn't have obtained the job in the first place. Try firing or moving them and you might find that someone powerful, whose good will you need in order to get important things done, will be unhappy with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hardly surprising when most resources are spent on mass surveillance, reliant on weak security.

Snowden's leaks show the focus is to "prevent public debate about the mass surveillance program." \- GCHQ, leaked slide.

> " _The mass surveillance program has done nothing to prevent terrorist > attacks, it has not stopped a single one._ ", concludes Obama's 2014 report > chaired by the ex-deputy director of the CIA.

Compromising public safety by starving resources from real investigative intelligence.

> " _If you collect it all, you understand nothing._ " Snowden

They were warned of the Belgian Bombers by Turkish Intelligence. Warned he had just returned from training camps. Warned a Tsarnev brother had been at a training camp just before he bombed Boston.

Real warnings about activated radical, single dangerous individuals - not a needle in haystack - direct advance warnings. Same with London 7/7 and in all cases the response is "we didn't have sufficient resources to target these individuals."

 _If these attacks were preventable - why weren 't they ?_

This question must be asked again and again and we should be unsatisfied with 'closing the stable door' answers like ' _because they had burner phones_ '. Because that is not their focus is the awful, sad, inescapable truth.

All sources from this debate between Greenwald, Chomsky & Snowden: [https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/edward-snowden-noam- chom...](https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/edward-snowden-noam-chomsky- glenn-greenwald-a-conversation-on-privacy/)

</comment><comment><USER14> When we first heard about how Snowden actually got access to the files which he leaked, I remember being astounded that the USG was so incompetent about information security. My next thought was, how could Snowden be the first to get this stuff when there are professional spies from several nations, not to mention organized crime, who also want access to the info.

In fact it is entirely possible that deep cover agents within the USG had rigged the system so that info security was practically non-existent but only if you had the eyes of a UNIX system administrator like Snowden. Or some foreign spy agency operatives.

Remember that supposed cyber attack on Ukraine's power systems. It is precisely the same thing. Incompetence in security administration, nobody even caring to do the simplest things to secure systems and networks, no real security audits. Just handwaving and powerpoints and lots of impressive jargon, and no doubt, impressive checks being written.

Can we do better than this? Serious question, can we?

<comment><USER15> People get the security they pay for. Look how much a security expert will get paid. Look at the training offered in our society to developer people into security experts, be it during childhood, at college, or once they are part of the work force.

Now look at how our society handles sport stars. Their pay. The training kids get which is needed to give rise to the stars.

I'm not convince our society cares about being secure when you measure by actions instead of words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dupe of the same story/URL I posted yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11426849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11426849)

(On topic: the more data they collect, the more tempting of a target they become.)

<comment><USER17> Why would you get down-voted for pointing out that this is a dupe. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The US government should develop (when needed) and deploy everywhere things such as OSS solutions that eliminate attack vectors like the Quark web browser (formally verified via shim verification), Hardened OSS operating systems, OSS software routing (no hidden back doors in things implementing network isolation), RSA-based authentication TFA with physical elements (and physical key pads on the secure elements for pin entry, ban internal wireless communications (no office wifi and no Bluetooth equipment), destroy equipment if it is suspected to be compromised, etcetera.

The idea would be to put mitigations into place for every imagationable attack vector by breaking everything but the things that are necessary and isolating the things that are left. That ought to make breaking into systems harder. It will likely never happen though. If anyone in charge of IT for even a portion of the US government did this, he would probably get fired as soon as those who can fire him experience proper security.

</comment><comment><USER19> Amazing. I can't help but wonder though why the FBI is telling us this at all. Are there disclosure laws prompting them?

</comment><comment><USER13> The Ken Thompson Hack : [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack)

A compiler that inserts a backdoor ( and the backdoor inserter ) into anything it compiles but contains no backdoor in the source code.

Infect one compiler and then everything that follows has a backdoor.

<comment><USER19> Isn't DDC a sound countermeasure? And hasn't it been shown that up to this point that has not happened?

IMO that attack is as grandiose as it is unlikely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> ... but they still think they can keep cryptographic backdoors secret.

/s

</comment><comment><USER21> Incoming Patriot/USA Freedom Act 2.0

</comment><comment><USER22> Presumably you can never know you are clean from this point on. Any state sponsored group that has been in government servers this long will have spread to pretty much every part.

is there anyway to break the cycle?

<comment><USER23> Germany is buying a lot of typewriters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is two months old. I guess vice made it new again.

</comment><comment><USER25> MHG sounds like a really good hacking group name.

</comment><comment><USER26> This shouldn't be news. Snowden broke the NSA leaks ages ago, everyone should know a mysterious hacking group has access to gov files...</comment>


Can We Really Blame DNSSEC for Larger-Volume DDoS Attacks? - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2016/02/can-we-really-blame-dnssec-for-larger-volume-ddos-attacks/ <comment><USER2> Ian Betteridge to the rescue! ;)

( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines) )</comment>


Twitter poll to better understand which domain naming schemes are more favored - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/vidbina/status/743388307825041408 <comment><USER2> You forgot ohthis.thing

Also, HN supports polls.</comment>


XKCD: Depth Perception Enhancer (can someone make this app) - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/941/

<comment><USER2> It's been done: <http://eyestilts.com/>

Also, Cassidy Curtis is a rather interesting person: <http://www.otherthings.com/uw/>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome. I still would want to try something with a greater distance between the "eyes" to view something like clouds though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I see your extended depth perception cameras and raise you one pair of PTZ's and a "Fat Shark" RC head tracker so you can move your head as well.

Oh, and I call this prior art so no numb-nutz can go try to patent it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think the hardest part of this app is having access to a good place to put the webcams.

<comment><USER4> Just one guy has to do this, i am sure there is a xkcd reader who has access to a football field.

<comment><USER5> I'm wondering what the distance really needs to be. Many people could do something similar if it was plausible to use say the ends of a house, or an office building.

Wouldn't the orientation of the cameras need to be precise? I suppose you could correct for that in software...

<comment><AUTHOR> I did some basic back of the envelope math to determine what distance it should be. According to [http://times-news.com/bobdoyle/x546406583/How-far- away-and-h...](http://times-news.com/bobdoyle/x546406583/How-far-away-and-how- big-are-clouds) an observed Cumulus cloud was about .25 miles wide. If you want it to feel like you're looking at an object relatively the size of a computer screen (I just said 1ft across), and your eyes are about 2.5in across. Then the ratio is 2.5in/12in = Distance_between_cameras/.25mi

Which results in about 300ft or a football field. The you make that distance, the less the clouds will feel like tangible objects.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why are all programming languages in English? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jennymandl/why-are-all-programming-languages-in-english-12b1312bada4#.o3lhofbw3 <comment><USER2> Because a universal language is more useful than innumerable balkanized languages. Even for those who have yet to learn it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the Windev RAD tool use French keywords and I'm pretty sure Soviet programming languages were in Russian.</comment>


Microfinance pioneer Prof Yunus raises concerns over SKS IPO - <AUTHOR> http://www.microfinancefocus.com/news/2010/04/09/microfinance-pioneer-prof-yunus-raises-concerns-over-sks-ipo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+MicrofinanceFocus+(Microfinance+Focus)

<comment><USER2> Mr Yunus has got a point.. Recently read an article about SKS lending no longer only for make-a-living activities like buying a rickshaw but also for consumer products like gold and TVs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a link or anything? I would be really interested in reading about that.

<comment><USER2> had to dig this out of my twitter timeline :)

[http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/25/crossroads-vikram-akula- sks...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/25/crossroads-vikram-akula-sks- microfinance-suresh-gurumani-forbes-india.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This kind or argument is very common, you shouldn't make money of the back of poor people.

However I can't stand that - he who assumes that attitude essentially says "I know what a person whom I have never met and who has a life that is very different from mine wants better than he himselfs does". If you can make money of the poor such that they are in a better position (and that seemed to be the idea behind microlending in the first place) then all the more power to you.

And if you can't, well then it is your money to waste.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, thats not what he is saying at all.

Micro-finance only helps people if its done carefully. The MFIs need to have pretty stringent requirements for giving out loans, otherwise they just put people in more debt. The fear is that the IPO will lead to a more profit driven company and therefore to giving loans to people who maybe shouldn't get them and forcing them to pay it back when they can't.

There are instances of pressure put on clients causing things like suicides, which causes problem for micro finance as a whole.

I'm not necessarily against the IPO, but I think your're misunderstanding his argument.</comment></comment>


How Florida's Prisons and DRM Made $11.3M Worth of Prisoners' Music Disappear - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/captive-audience-how-floridas-prisons-and-drm-made-113m-worth-prisoners-music <comment><USER2> The whole idea that family members (outside prison) can pay money to give perks to someone inside prison seems wrong...

If prison is a punishment, you shouldn't be able to pay money to make it less bad.

<comment><USER3> I would challenge you to eat state prison supplied food for two weeks then tell me how unfair it is for someone outside sending in either your own or someone elses money to buy things in the commissary.

<comment><USER4> This seems like a good argument for improving the quality of prison food in general, rather than only allowing prisoners with access to money to improve their own situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems it would put the state in a better position to negotiate if they forced equipment providers to use open standards. Of course, that assumes the state cares about the prisoner's best interest.

Jpay sounds like an extremely scummy company. I wonder what it's like working in that IT department.</comment>


Solar-Electric Drone Calculations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gusgordon/atmospheric_satellite <comment><USER2> So a wing only aircraft of 8m wingspan is able to sustainly fly? What does a loss of 1, -1, -90000 translate to or is this a relative value. Did you find out if this matches real world experiments?</comment>