Show HN: Deaf? My iPhone app wakes you up if it hears an alarm - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deafalarm/id845405123?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><USER4> In the US, visual alarms are pretty much standard under all the life safety codes for commercial buildings including apartments.[1] When they are not provided, both ADA and the Fair Housing Act [1] both dictate that owners provide them to accommodate the disability. If there's a problem, the fire marshal is a good person to call. They've typically pulled enough bodies from tragedies to last a lifetime, and this shapes their attitude toward non- compliance.

[1] Life safety codes as distinct from building codes apply to all buildings not just those newly constructed.

[2] Likewise for ADA and the Fair Housing Act. There are also state equivalents of both of these in many states that may be more restrictive.

<comment><USER5> Can visual alarms wake a person up?

<comment><USER4> Appropriately placed, almost certainly. A 75 Candela strobe in a bedroom is pretty much impossible to sleep through.

<comment><USER6> Even if you sleep with a mask (which is pretty common), or sleep with your head under the covers (which is even more common)?

<comment><USER4> Not sleeping with one's iPhone is far more common, despite the belovedness of Apple products.

In design terms an alarm strobe has removed everything unnecessary for its purpose and its sole purpose is to save your life on the rare occurrence of fire. It won't be on a charger or in your pants or sitting on the table by the TV or off with your spouse on a business trip.

It will be hanging on the wall, with power or backup power, hardwired to the alarm panel because that's what field experience has shown works.

Don't get me wrong, the sentiment behind the product is admirable. But the alarm industry is already deadly serious and has robust proven solutions based not on theory but on close attention to the causes and consequences of actual fires.

US Fire Administration[http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/index.shtm](http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/index.shtm)

NFPA: [http://www.nfpa.org/](http://www.nfpa.org/)

Firehouse.com: [http://www.firehouse.com/](http://www.firehouse.com/)

<comment><USER7> It will however not be there if your sleeping somewhere else.

Not that I think an iPhone is the correct place for such a life saving device, but redundancy is rarely a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I really appreciate all of the positive feedback. This is quite thrilling as a college student. It's the first thing I've made that people actually understand and consider useful.

If any of you download Deafalarm, please let me know how it works for you and what you would like to see improved.

I could also use pointers on getting the word out to people in this niche market.

Thank you very much,

Alex

<comment><USER8> As someone who's deaf (not Deaf) thank you for making it. Sadly, the vibration the iPhone makes isn't strong enough for me but this is an awesome idea and I hope you succeed with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome, and thank you for the comment. I noticed this as well; I'm definitely searching a way to make the vibration more noticeable. Someone else suggested abandoning the mobile phone platform altogether to make a more robust product in general. If not me, maybe Nest will do something like this with their smoke detectors. They're already connected to wifi, so it would just take a wifi-enabled vibrator do the same thing, perhaps more reliably. Still, it might be a while before every smoke detector is as smart as a Nest ;)

<comment><USER9> What about a specialized device that operates off of low energy bluetooth for communicating to the iphone? Something like this could be built with Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

John Muir, the American environmentalist of the 1800-1900's, built an "alarm clock" in 1862 that would dump the occupant off the bed at the defined time.

<comment><USER10> I really wish that the Fitbit Flex was more hackable -- if I could get a low- power bluetooth fob that could vibrate and display a few lights embedded in my watchband, that would really be all the smartwatch I need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post fell in rank because it triggered the flamewar detector. I've just restored it. If you see things suddenly reappear on the front page, it's often because a moderator saw a case like this.

<comment><USER12> Curious, how does the flamewar detector work? Is it looking at velocity of commenting? Specific language perhaps?

<comment><USER11> We're committed to increasing transparency, but the HN algorithms will probably remain an exception to that; certainly for the time being.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not deaf, and I have virtually no experience building things specifically for those that are, but this seems like a great idea. Nice work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'm a college student with an early class (so I have to go to bed earlier than most people), and my dorm can be pretty loud, so I often sleep with earplugs. I didn't like the idea of possibly not waking up in a fire, so I made this to cure my paranoia :p

I don't know how many people will find it useful, but it seemed like something that should exist.

<comment><USER14> Great idea for an app! I sleep with earplugs occasionally and I can see myself using your app in that situation. That said, I've been wondering lately if using earplugs often is a healthy thing to do in the long run. I couldn't find any pertinent research about non-professional users.

Edit: phrasing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder the same thing. I find that I dream more when I can hear rain on the roof, so maybe ambient sounds (or a lack thereof) have a real effect on sleep

<comment><USER15> Humans aren't good judges of how often they dream. You have REM sleep several times a night and generally if you're woken up during REM sleep you will say that you were dreaming.

It is probably more likely that you are simply remembering dreams more when you can hear rain on the roof - either by power of suggestion, or because the stimulus of the rain noise is noticeable and memorable in your dreams, or because the rain itself is waking you up.

This isn't to say that you're wrong - there most certainly is an effect - <USER2> whether that effect is positive or negative is unclear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a good start, but it may serve best to remind us of the limitations of basic technology. Instead of an X detector, what we have is an X detector detector. From a design perspective this is obviously odd.

On the other hand, in a sense it's a multi-detector, since in theory it should respond to detectors of many sorts. There are some upsides to that.

<comment><USER17> You can also see this tool as a sense translator. It is translating hearing to touch, and maybe sight in the future (if the camera flash is also used).

This way we can let the detectors do what they do best, and translate the physical phenomenon used by the signal, if we don't have the physiological capacity necessary to detect it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome app, can see this coming in handy... you need to promote this and also have an android client before a clone comes out. :)

How is the battery consumption if it runs in the background? I'm guessing it isn't really a worry because if you are in bed you might have a charger, but the best use would be a in a pocket where it be awkward to use a charger, unless you place it under your pillow?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It uses around a quarter of your battery overnight. Maybe less. The ideal place is somewhere close to you, like under your pillow or in your pocket, but pillows and covers may dampen the noise.

Any suggestions on getting the word out? I'm psyched that it's on the front page of HN, and never would have thought it would be, but it would be great if anyone knows of places to reach more of the target market.

<comment><USER5> I'm not familiar with online deaf communities, but blogs and forums would probably be a good start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hi alexvr, a bit out of topic question: How did you manage to get the background sound analysis approved? I have an app that does also sound analysis in the background for a different purpose and it gets constantly rejected because of that.

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I think audio recording is one of the few things you're allowed to do in the background. I didn't do anything special. Did they give you any specific reasons?

<comment><USER19> This was the message after the appeal: "We still found the app is inappropriately using background audio because it is recording audio in the background for an indefinite period of time, which is not appropriate."

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe they don't think it's necessary or appropriate to what you're doing with the sound?

<comment><USER20> Maybe marpalmin was recording and storing big audio files, which might be a privacy issue I assume (if the user forgets the app is running in the background and ends up recording sensitive/private info).

On the other hand I assume that you don't need to keep long audio samples to run your alarm-recognition algorithm and just discard the audio almost right away.

That's just a wild guess of course, it would just seem reasonable to me if the Apple reviewers saw it that way.

<comment><USER19> I'm not storing audio. Just audio analysis, of course I have a small buffer but that's normal for realtime audio anaylsis. I'm using it to detect footsteps.

<comment><USER21> Likely that the use case for this app includes it being plugged in/charging.

<comment><USER19> Well at least is not the idea to use it being plugged. In fact I even added code so that the app leaves background after 1 hr if it did not go to the foreground in between.

I also found other people with the app being rejected for the same reason after asking about it in the apple dev forum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is very clever.

The fact that it has to analyze audio makes me wonder if anybody is trying to standardize broadcasting of local emergency signals. For example, a standardized way to broadcast a fire alarm over WiFi or Bluetooth. There's more than local humans that could be alerted. Local systems could use it a cue to shutdown and remote service providers could be alerted that they have to do something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think Nest is actually doing something similar with their smoke detector, which is great.

<comment><USER22> Ah, I didn't know that.

A specific use case I was thinking of is some local hotels that my company does IT for. Hotels have lots of third party systems embedded locally and service providers doing stuff for them. If the fire alarm sounds, I'm sure they would love to know about it so they can react faster, either for assisting with the immediate crisis or facilitating the recovery. As far as I can tell, the fire detection/alarm systems are stovepipes that don't tell any other systems (other than 911) what is going on.

<comment><USER23> One example of an existing use of this sort of thing, is that fire alarm systems commonly notify the building's lift controller, which sends the lift to the ground floor and opens the doors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In light of a recent HN discussion on the incomprehensibility of many product pages and "Show" posts[1], I think it's worth noting that this is a very clear page that lets me know exactly what the product is, how much it costs, and how to get it.

:-)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank Apple for that ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like the idea, and the objective it aims at fulfilling, I am not aware of the US regulations, but I think if you can hack a wristband like wearable gadget to work with it (of-course it needs to have a vibrator in it), then you can overcome the problem of keeping the cell phone close to your body.

</comment><comment><USER26> As a hearing-impaired user, I'd actually love something like this if I could "train" it to specific sounds, like my doorbell. Since my phone is almost always in my pocket or hand at home, it would be very easy to feel the vibration and I'd know someone rang the doorbell.

<comment><USER27> That's a cool idea. I'm not sure how reliable machine learning on audio would be with only a few samples though.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure either, but I want to say that since the sound will be at a given frequency in a given pattern, you could probably pick it out relatively reliably...

Also, unlike fire alarms, I think I'd be less worried about false positives or the thing not working -- it would be an annoyance, not something that could potentially endanger my life.

<comment><USER27> Unsupervised learning to extract high level features might work. Then get examples of the kinds of sounds people are training it on and use that to extract even better features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is fascinating. What do deaf people normally do in lieu of alarm clocks?

<comment><USER29> My girlfriend is partially deaf in one ear, so sometimes she will oversleep if she is lying on her good ear. A while back I built her an Arduino-powered alarm clock that uses a servo to repeatedly poke her with a foam finger (those big hands you wear at football games). It was a shoddy prototype, but the cool part was it synchronized with her iCal calendar.

So, to answer your question, some [partially] deaf people use a makeshift Arduino robot that is duct taped to the wall next to their bed.

<comment><USER30> Oh my goodness, that's brilliant. My boyfriend is partially deaf and also the heaviest sleeper I've ever met, and oversleeps pretty regularly even with the loudest blaring alarm I've ever heard, a wake-up light, and a vibrating alarm under his pillow. As a relatively light sleeper with normal hearing this combination nearly gives me a heart attack every morning, while he barely rolls over until I hit him enough times to actually wake him up and turn his alarm clock off, but if I'm not there he tends to oversleep a lot.

To answer GP's question, some partially deaf people use grumpy significant others as an alarm clock. But I might have to look into a similar robotic setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Very nice! Reminds me a bit from our effort to try to help deaf people dance:

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

Unfortunately we could not make the app really work as the precision of timer on Windows phone is horrible, and on IOS you don't have api to properly control vibration...

maybe some day.

</comment><comment><USER32> If you're deaf, how do you transfer the vibrations of the phone to your senses? Sleep with the phone on you somehow?

<comment><USER33> under the pillow

<comment><USER34> I used to keep my cellphone under my pillow when I was on-call, but I don't like the idea of zapping my head with direct radio signals for 8 hours at a time.

Unfortunately if I keep my iPhone to the side of the mattress, the vibrations aren't strong enough.

<comment><USER33> I've been using an old android phone on airplane mode for the same reason. I just end up snoozing it and sleeping so the bed shaker sounds great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "...listening out for loud and repetitive noises like fire alarms, and vibrates to wake you up when it hears anything similar" Would that include dog barking? And do you plan to offer it for iPad/Android at any stage?

</comment><comment><USER32> Am I the only one who can't view the website? It is briefly visible for a second, then redirects to a "itmss://" URL and says "The address wasn't understood".

<comment><USER36> It's an iTunes link, if you don't have iTunes installed it doesn't really work.

<comment><USER32> It does work, if you press "stop" within the second before it redirects.

Not very user friendly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm confused. iPhones have an alarm clock already, and you can already set it to vibrate. Why do I need this app?

(Serious question. I'm hard of hearing, and I do this with my iPhone already.)

To answer some other questions I see in the thread, they make alarm clocks and doorbells specifically for deaf people. I personally own an alarm clock that has an attachment that you slip under the mattress. The vibrations from the attachment shake the bed, waking me up. I don't use it anymore, since I share the bed with my girlfriend, but it worked wonders for me in college.

Here's a website with some deaf-centric things like alarm clocks and doorbells: [http://www.harriscomm.com/](http://www.harriscomm.com/)

<comment><USER38> From the description : " It stays up all night, listening out for loud and repetitive noises like fire alarms, and vibrates to wake you up when it hears anything similar."

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Great idea. I just hope this sort of thing isn't over-regulated.

<comment><USER40> I had a similar thought. Less about the regulation, more about liability.

If I'm deaf and I pay for an app to tell me when an alarm is sounding, I have a certain expectation that it has been rigorously tested and will work without fail. And I'm a software engineer who understands the limitations and failure modes of such applications on non-real-time, commodity kit.

Please be extra careful about how you market this. I absolutely applaud your ingenuity, but I'd feel differently if I found out my elderly, hard of hearing gran was relying on any app on her smartphone to wake her if she left the stove on and went to bed.

I expect a proportion of your customers may be less technical users (or well- meaning relatives) with little understanding of the limitations and risks.

However, it is indeed an interesting idea. There may already be something on the market, but what about developing it into a physical device running on dedicated hardware? Crowd-fund an "alerter badge" or pin or whatever, and budget heavily for testing & verification. You could be onto a winner.

EDIT: Please don't be put off altogether by the comments. It's simply that non-real-time, non-failsafe smartphones aren't built for life-critical applications like this. The idea isn't a bad one - you're just targeting the wrong platform.

<comment><USER41> This. There's a reason there are regulations for this sort of product–people need to be able to rely on life-saving devices completely and with 100% certainty.

At the very least, I'd suggest researching brudgers' post and adding a notice that the ADA requires accommodation visual alarms.

edit: You really can't add enough disclaimers to something like this. The last thing you want to do is leave someone thinking this is going to save their life. Maybe as a tertiary failsafe, but you can't guarantee that's how it's being used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I think it's a great idea, but at 2.99 I don't think it's going to be profitable enough to take on the lawsuit risk.

<comment><USER43> What exactly would the author be sued about? I can't see anything obviously inviting a user to sue.

EDIT: I think it would be a good idea to remove the language about fire alarms etc. and only mention alarm clocks and the like. It would be much harder to sue if the app didn't claim to respond to fire alarms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I will consider removing the stuff about emergency protection unless I can make it super reliable.

<comment><USER44> Or instead you could put a warning removing liability and stating that it is not a guaranteed protection and standard emergency protocols should still be performed. This is a helpful tool, not a be all end all guarantee of protection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Meaningful app. You are charging 2.99$ - but I still don't feel bad. It's a useful app and we need more of such apps, even though the price is > 0.99$.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is so useful. I am an extremely deep sleeper - when I do that is - <USER3> never hears his multiple alarms. God bless you.

</comment><comment><USER47> Why not set a vibrating alarm on your phone directly...?

<comment><USER48> It doesn't look like an alarm to wake you in the morning, but an alarm to listen for fire alarms and other such things and vibrates to wake you in the case of an emergency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Vibrating for it to wake you means you need to keep it close to your body. I wonder what health implications it may have -- In general its really bad to have a cell phone touching your body for prolonged periods of time because of the radiation it emits.

<comment><USER50> I would _really_ like to see a citation for that!

<comment><USER49> Google it. It's all over the internet

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_heal...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health)

<comment><USER50> Because if it's all over the internet, it must be true?

The wiki page even says: The WHO added that "to date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."

As far as I can tell there has, to date, not been a single proper study that actually showed any effects. Just a bunch of fearmongering and cases like this: [http://retractionwatch.com/2012/03/26/rabbits-neednt- worry-a...](http://retractionwatch.com/2012/03/26/rabbits-neednt-worry-about- cell-phones-effects-on-their-sperm-count-say-three-retractions/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Demo Day: Y Combinator's Spring Chicks - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/09/demo-day-y-combinators-spring-chicks/ <comment><USER2> Looks awesome! My favorite are,

Writewith: Google docs is a great application. But it is very limiting when it comes to collaboration. I have recently setup an article with an editor and 6 contributing authors; I know the collaboration on Google docs for such a project is going to be hell.

Octopart: I love vertical search engines since they have the potential to compete with mainstream search engines. Moreover, as an engineer and electronics enthusiast, I've always had trouble locating components, so Octopart will certainly come in handy. In fact, I am going to go ahead and recommend it to my EE friends.

Auctomatic: I am not a power user on eBay, but from the sound of it, this startup really has something going for them. There is a definite need for streamlining the process of listing on eBay. The downside is that their exit strategy is limited to eBay and perhaps a few other smaller companies.

<comment><USER3> With auctomatic thats not the only string to their bow. Go Kul & Harj..!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm very curious about this tsumobi thing, as it's basically exactly what Hecl is ( http://www.hecl.org ). I'd sort of abbandoned it as an idea for making any money with directly, though, figuring the advantage was just to be able to develop applications a lot faster. I was able to prototype ShopList ( http://shoplist.dedasys.com ) in a few minutes with it, for example.

Edit: BTW, I'd certainly be interested in chatting with the Tsumobi folks. It's a good idea - perhaps there are elements in common that can be reused from/added to Hecl, which is open source under a very liberal license, meaning you can take it and include it even in 'commercial' apps.

I really think that the 'common' bits in a space like that have to be either free or open source (think about browsers, html, javascript, java applets, etc...), and that that's not where the money is.

<comment><USER5> It sounds a lot like the idea I was going to apply to YC with, bugger.

If you want fast prototyping for mobile I'd recommend using python on a nokia S60. Theres pretty much a full hardware api allowing you to access the camera, phone book, etc.

<comment><USER4> Hecl doesn't require Symbian, though - you can run it even on cheaper phones like my Nokia 3100.

<comment><USER5> True, getting stuff running on 'dumb' phones like the razr is crucial. Wonder if python could run on top of javame? I would anticipate it be very slow.

<comment><USER6> There was once upon a time a bit of rumbling about getting Jython going on javame. I don't think anything ever came of it, and if standard Jython is any indication, it would have been, as you said, /very/ slow.

<comment><USER4> You really have to start with a *small* core language, or you will end up with something on your phone that's "sort of" Python/Tcl/Ruby/whatever. Hecl isn't a speed demon on a slow phone, but it is still usable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> View3 is one that I'm particularly looking out for. The premise just sounds completely awesome.

I've tried Microsoft's Photosynth and I was pretty impressed. I can't wait to see what the team behind View3 has come up with.

</comment><comment><USER8> i'd just like to say it's great to read actual thoughtful comments about YC companies for once. i'm fed up of reading pathetic comments on Techcrunch from people who were rejected by YC and still like to claim they are into the startup scene without having anything to show for it.

i hope to meet some more of you guys at startup school this month.

<comment><USER7> Will you be joining our after school yc.news meetup, or do you YC alums have your own exclusive event?

If anyone's willing to participate, I would love to set up something where current YC founders and potential YC applicants can gather, chat, and pick each others' brains.

<comment><USER8> that sounds cool. we've all been so wrapped up in investor day we've not organized anything for startup school by way of meetups. keep me posted on what you plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Like Photosynth, View3 will let you walk into and explore 3D images of photos, but will let you use as little as one photo to get started." This sounds very interesting. Maybe this is related work?

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dhoiem/projects/popup/

http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pubs/pub_5164.html

http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mukta/cvpr06/1123_Prasad_M.pdf

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeah, I'm pretty impressed. I have to say some of the Y companies have tapped into my cynicism in the past.

<comment><USER7> Which ones are you referring to? Not all of the previous companies have appealed to me as a user, but they've all peaked my interest as a hacker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does YC offer $5K per founder for ~6% or 6% for $10K?

Some of these apps are very cool though!

<comment><USER7> They offer $5000 + $5000n, where n is the number of founders. The percentage claim ranges between 1-10%, with the reported median at about 6%.

<comment><USER11> Thanks Daniel!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool. This new crop of ventures is definitely the best yet.</comment>


Electron is Cancer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@caspervonb/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32 <comment><USER2> Ahhh get over it.

Electron is awesome. It lets me build powerful desktop apps in JavaScript. Nothing else lets me do that so well as electron.

And let me say something to you if you're concerned about its memory usage:

Don't use it. No one is forcing you.

If you don't use it then you won't need to whine about it.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the article? The author addresses this exact argument (being able to reuse web dev skills on a desktop app):

> Okay, sure having a plumber cut out a square wheel from a plank is also a > lot easier to do than having a woodworker carve a perfectly round wooden > wheel, but it is gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride, and square wheels are > actually fine, right?

<comment><USER4> I suppose that might loosely qualify as "addressing" the argument. It's really just a joke though, isn't it? Enabling rapid cross-platform application development with web skillsets is not really in any way similar to using square wheels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, many apps could just as well be developed with red[0], maybe not in javascript, but with the smoothest cross-platform compilation I've ever seen.

Runs in 1mb of ram, and the download size of most apps made with it won't exceed that either. It's no C for sure, but it's really amazing to have cross- platform gui-support bundled into the language itself (windows & mac is ready, android and linux are in the works)

So yes, no re-use of webdev skills, but a really fun language, and immediate results - had I known about red before javascript, I would've never picked up JS.

[0] [http://www.red-lang.org/](http://www.red-lang.org/)

<comment><USER6> For cross platform I've started looking at Free Pascal with Lazarus. It uses the native GUI so it looks like a MacOS app and also a Windows app. It also has support for Android and iOS. It may get passed over by most because it is based on Pascal but overall, I think it is great (from what I've done with it)

<comment><USER5> That sounds interesting - if I can compile to everywhere from linux, I might give it a shot. The language itself or its reputation is not a problem to me, as long as the syntax isn't quite brainfuck-like and the performance not completely abysmal, I'm fine.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately you aren't able to do that from Linux. It is a write once, compile everywhere language. If you want iOS and macOS you need to have a Mac to compile. Same goes with Windows. Here is a list of all platforms that the Free Pascal compiler is available on (and thus you can compile for): [https://www.freepascal.org/download.var](https://www.freepascal.org/download.var)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> personally, i feel that "X is cancer" is a gross and callous sort of language to use.

i agree that electron is a suboptimal choice for a variety of reasons. however, one should probably ask a) why aren't these electron-based tools written with another technology and b) would they even exist at all were it not for electron?

perhaps the answer to the "electron crisis" isn't whining, but developing a new and better option (or renovating an existing one) that developers will actually want to use.

<comment><USER8> > perhaps the answer to the "electron crisis" isn't whining, but developing a > new and better option (or renovating an existing one) that developers will > actually want to use.

This is a huge part of it.

If I want to make a cross platform app, and I don't want to spend 1/3rd of my dev budget on cross-plat abstraction layers, then electron solves a real problem.

I can spin up multiple teams, hiring talent that understands 3+ different UI toolkits in depth, write 3 different apps, or use Electron.

I can spin up a huge cross-plat team that papers over the file system, app permissions, authentication, the clipboard, sharing, media playback, and text editing, or use Electron.

Now as features get more advanced, platform specific implementations will be needed, but to get up and running quickly, and to get something that people want to use, Electron is a great solution.

As for the article's comment

> There is nothing desktop like about Electron applications, they always feel > out of place, even the simplest elements like the native menu bar is not > available.

Every app now days tries to be its own thing, Chrome feels out of place, Firefox feels out of place, Notepad++ is maybe the one app I use that feels like a Windows app. FWIW Microsoft Office, the parts of which, combined, likely make up the most commonly used Windows app, has always felt different from the rest of Windows, because they acknowledge that specialized apps can use specialized UIs.

In the case of Slack, the UI is designed around what the product does. And a browser as a chat room is obvious, chats have been hosted in HTML like containers for ages, and a browser engine supports all the types of things users want to do in chat now days. If you had to choose a tech stack that:

1\. Is primarily text based 2\. Allows for quick styling of text 3\. Supports media inline with text

Then a browser fits all of those pretty well. The new HTML5 features that make video chat possible are just icing on the cake. Browsers have made what once used to be a huge differentiating factor (video chat) into something that almost feels commoditized. Not to discount the huge amount of work that is still needed to get video chat working, but working video chat used to be an idea that got huge amounts of startup funding, but now with modern tech stacks, it is measured in engineering sprints.

What to do video chat natively? Well, I've certainly noticed that all the native video chat apps on my PC are sorta iffy. The effort to make it work was put into Chrome, why shouldn't everyone else benefit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I understand the performance concerns but comparing a graphical IDE to a command line based text editor is rather dishonest.

<comment><USER10> Excuse my ignorance, but last time i checked Atom and VSC are as much as text editors as Vim/Emacs/Sublime/Nano(only Nano having no plugin support). Also Vim and Emacs does have native GUIs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It surely is. The new desktop Skype is electron. why?

I can see why it appeals to front end web devs who feel the need to play at writing desktop apps - but Microsoft of all places, where they have an _existing_ native client, now decide to go backwards and use electron.

Makes sense I guess when you consider their whole revamp of the iOS app took a useful business tool and tried to make it into an app teenagers use to share photographs of their genitals.

Edit: On Mac at least, you _can_ still get the pre-Electron Skype.

Go to [https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/](https://www.skype.com/en/get- skype/), pick "Get classic Skype" in the blue button/dropdown combo thing.

You're welcome.

<comment><USER11> I feel like the snark directed at front-end devs was a little uncalled for, as if somehow they're lesser programmers. But I do agree that users of Skype (and Slack) would benefit greatly from them ditching Electron and going native (and my RAM would be a lot happier too).

<comment><USER3> Not at all. I have great respect for front-end devs, just as I have great respect for master builders. I just don't expect either of them to bake me a wedding cake, or write me a desktop application.

The same snark would be directed at people thinking GWT is/was a good solution for Java dev's trying to create web GUI's without understanding html&css.</comment></comment></comment>


WeWork Buys Meetup; Here Is How Meetup.Com Will Change - <AUTHOR> https://www.gaintap.com/blog/wework-buys-meetup-heres-meetup-will-change/ <comment><USER2> "None of those are direct sells to business users. These need to be updated to highlight meetups that appeal to business users with call to actions like:

Meet local entrepreneurs Grow your business Improve your marketing Learn about taxes Get more clients"

One my of biggest complaints of Meetup (which are many), is that many (social) Meetups nowadays are basically advertisements. It is not about building a community, it is about having a meetup to advertise their services. The huge monthly fee is part of the reason. This article basically wants Meetup to move more into that direction, which I would not be surprised if it did.

There is also an increase of tech meetups whose organizers is not a technical person, but a sales person. These meetups also tend to use eventbrite instead of the meetup RSVP interface so that they can harvest emails and sales leads.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is from Nov-28-2017 but I think think the analysis is still good. Meetup made some significant changes to their interface recently that have let to a lot of dissatisfaction and complaints from organizers complaining[1], I think these date from a regime where the focus was on growing attendees. I agree with this analysis that they will start to focus much more on organizer satisfaction because it's the organizer who determines meetup locations and WeWork wants to see these in WeWork facilities to introduce attendees to their offering.

[1] [https://medium.com/meetup/web-redesign- explained-5f5a4ae7e42...](https://medium.com/meetup/web-redesign- explained-5f5a4ae7e420) see comments for more than 100 detailed complaints from Meetup organizers about deleted functionality in new interface.

<comment><USER2> Nothing new when it comes to Meetup. They did another major redesign several years ago, and organizers were furious. They encouraged organizers to file tickets in their ticketing system and vote on the ones they want. The top five tickets were all marked as "Will not do" by Meetup.

I gave up being an organizer. Facebook does not work for tech groups. LinkedIn is supposedly bringing back Groups. Skeptical, but anything should be better than Meetup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm amazed there hasn't been another startup trying to be a better meetup, especially now when there's so much attention on loneliness and lack of social interaction.

<comment><USER4> I would love to see an open source meetup alternative, maybe one that I can host myself for my meetup.

<comment><USER3> you mean decentralized?

(i'm kidding, sort of)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A serious number of Meetup organizers have been really upset by the changes to the Meetup platform (sudden removal of features / zero customer support / redesign / switch of focus) after spending, in some cases, almost a decade on Meetup and paying thousands in monthly fees. We've been helping move sports and fitness groups off Meetup since the fall and the amount of inbound Meetup organizers just keeps increasing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Meetup: A community of people looking for a place to meetup.

WeWork: Nothing short of bachelor pads for people to meet up in.

This might be old news, but it's still interesting. It's a shame companies like Josephine are shutting down, WeWork and Meetup could be a vector for that kind of thing; or maybe even something like p2p classrooms. Everyone chips into a fund for a speaker, if it reaches the goal, they book an appropriate room within radius R of some agreed location. I don't know if people use Meetup for teaching sessions, though. They probably do? Yoga, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> Slightly off-topic but Meetup's redesign over the last year really sucks. Not sure what is going on there

<comment><USER8> The biggest issue has been the half-broken hybrid nature of the redesign. It's still not finished with significant inconsistencies between desktop and the mobile app. For a paid for service the state it's been in is disappointing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> good article. what i liked from meetup is that it emphasized meeting face-to- face.. something that is getting rarer all the time with our increasing tech use, and may now be de-emphasized in favor of wework stuff

<comment><USER10> I've been to some very quality meetups actually. I should go to more.

<comment><USER11> I went to meetups in big tech cities and less tech-oriented cities, the ones that I liked the most were the ones that had a permanent space in bigger cities. The one I liked the most was in LA, called nullspace labs. You could learn things like soldering, assembly language, gamedev, webpenetration(Radare32), and lots of other interesting topics that you wouldn't necessarily find good resources on youtube.

I think meetups with a clear goal in mind (e.g. Tennis-Only meetup, Javascript-Only meetup, Python-Only meetup) and have much more engaging / interesting conversation topics long term. Short term its nice to get to know 1 or 2 people at a large meetup ("Entreprenuers", "Young and Active"),or when visiting a new city for the first time.

That and meetup.com is just a load of notification spam if you just randomly join meetup groups. Some meetups IMO are very spammy in nature, especially those related to B2B, "entreprenuership" or "business" or "strategy" since its mostly consultants peddling their skillsets or startups. You'll find way more engaging topics on reddit for these.

So I'm pretty excited to see Meetup and WeWork merge together, hopefully this new change would be good. Possibly higher quality meetups overall

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Meetup majorly pissed me off. I've never been back.

I was going to the monthly IoT meetup up to about 2 years ago. The current maintainer was moving across the US, and wanted to transfer the group (nonprofit) to me. Seemed simple enough.

We go through the steps and then I get hit with the gotcha: pay $15 a month! Uhhh, $15 a month for what amounts to a email list and a webpage? I don't think so. Perhaps I could export the list and use my own platform? Nope! But they do offer _great_ suggestions, like charge dues.

In the end, I "let" the group die.

<comment><USER13> Isn't the fact that without meetup, the group died, proof that they provided some value? It's not like you couldn't send an email to the group saying "let's organize through this google groups mailing list instead", so I assume you needed the marketing features of meetup.

<comment><USER12> No, I wasn't able to do anything until I paid $15/month to use it.

I would have been happy in exporting the contact list and running it on my own mailserver and webserver. A single list of 200 people isn't hard. But I couldn't even get the data if I had paid.

<comment><USER14> The group wasn't worth paying $15 one time to save? You realize this story makes you sound bad, not Meetup?

<comment><USER12> Read the last sentence, and please reconsider your comment.

"But I couldn't even get the data if I had paid."

<comment><USER14> In case you're wondering why you're wrong; you could have passed the group to someone else, you could have started a discussion of where to move the group, you could have done any number of things rather than just killing the group because you didn't want to cough up $15/20.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Coming Chip Wars - <AUTHOR> https://steveblank.com/2020/06/18/the-coming-chip-wars-of-the-21st-century/ <comment><USER2> The real problem is that success or failure, the real damage is poisoning 1/6 of the world's population against you for a generation or more. What kind of world will that be? If every Chinese kid is taught from birth the U.S. is hellbent on keeping them in second place (which is exactly what looks like now, regardless of what previous administrations thought or how much CCP spin is put on it - the propaganda writes itself these days).

This is exactly the narrative that is held in the mind of every Chinese about the Opium War and the downfall of the late Qing and the Japanese. These things have long historical memories and human grudges really can span generations and generations (look at Hungry for instance).

From there it's very slippery slope to a race war, i.e. Chinese vs Anglos, I can easily imagine confiscating ethnic Chinese property in the U.S. and putting them internment camps in the next twenty years and attacks against the "whites" in China.

Ultimately this is about how to co-exist and share resources on this planet so we can solve problems on the planetary scale. Otherwise we will just become one of those species in this universe that failed to launch because they destroyed themselves on their own planet before inventing starflight.

<comment><USER3> The CCP is leveraging this historical narrative to harness the power of 1.4 billion people. They are creating a nationalistic fusion to grab power.

Up until the past 2-3 years, most Americans did not care about China as a whole. Just another country we do business with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The United States just did this to China by limiting Huawei's ability to > outsource its in-house chip designs for manufacture by Taiwan Semiconductor > Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a Taiwanese chip foundry. If negotiations > fail, China may respond and escalate, via one of many agile strategic > responses short of war, perhaps succeeding in coercing the foundry to stop > making chips for American companies – turning the tables on the United > States.

How would the PRC succeed in convincing TSMC to stop producing chips for the US, short of military action? The PRC is Taiwan's primary military adversary, and the US is Taiwan's primary military supplier and ally. IIRC, TSMC even recently agreed to build a foundry on US soil (which is kinda surprising, since that reduces the incentive of the US to defend Taiwan in a military conflict with the PRC).

<comment><USER5> If China were go to war with Taiwan, US would be involved in a civil war in China de jure if it wants to intervene.

Because US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one 'China', without specifying which. The internet would like to tell you that China and Taiwan are totally different country but US policy doesn't recognize that.

And changing that policy one week into the conflict does not look good on the optics.

<comment><USER4> > Because US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one 'China', without > specifying which. The internet would like to tell you that China and Taiwan > are totally different country but US policy doesn't recognize that.

US policy does _de facto_ recognizes Taiwan. For instance, it has an embassy there, it just doesn't call it one; and it sells Taiwan weapons over PRC objections.

The only reason the US doesn't recognize Taiwan de jure is a Cold War era compromise with _PRC_ diplomatic policy, and the fact that the current ambiguity works reasonably well for all parties right now. IIRC, some US political factions advocate for formally recognizing Taiwan (for example: [https://twitter.com/ambjohnbolton/status/1250501579070980099](https://twitter.com/ambjohnbolton/status/1250501579070980099)).

<comment><USER5> You're absolutely correct, but de facto is not de jure.

There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to this policy and say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China.

<comment><USER6> > _de facto is not de jure_

It is an executive communiqué [1]. There is no treaty. "One China" is based on a statement of convenience. It could literally be reversed with a tweet.

What _isn 't_ just buttered-up memos are the Taiwan Relations Act [2] and Taiwan Travel Act [3]. Unlike the joint communiqué, these are U.S. law.

Lots of Americans live in Taiwan. Taiwan hosts scores of American-made military assets defending it from Beijing. And high-ranking Americans are almost constantly in Taiwan. If Beijing attacked Taiwan, these would be among the collateral damage.

> _say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China_

Everyone says everything when war breaks out. If Beijing blew up a bunch of Taiwanese assets, taking out a handful of Americans in the process, I see no obstacle to strong political support in America to intervene.

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

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Travel_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Travel_Act)

<comment><USER5> From [2]:

> treating Taiwan as a sub-sovereign foreign state equivalent

Also nothing from [2] or [3] guarantees American military intervention. Essentially, [2] and [3] solidified the status of Taiwan as 'not a full sovereign'.

<comment><USER6> > _nothing from [2] or [3] guarantees American military intervention_

This was never the goalpost. The original comment contrasted the legal flimsiness of the joint communiqué with the Acts underlying the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.

> _solidified the status of Taiwan as 'not a full sovereign'_

Not really. The Acts give deference to the executive branch.

Usually, the U.S. can't sell fighter jets to non-sovereign customers. The Acts created exceptions for Taiwan, so the President could continue paying lip service to Beijing while treating Taiwan like a sovereign nation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even though it's far from over, I'm sick of talking about coronavirus. But we can't stop until we've learned everything we can from it. Obviously, it's human impact is awful. It has been a brutal stress test for so many of our health and economic systems: healthcare, food, ppe, school, etc.

So, if there's one good thing that comes out of this, and I'm sure there will be many, it has to be that manufacturing returns to all advanced countries. No longer should we outsource nearly all of our manufacturing to various parts of Asia. Nothing against Asia, but we've known for a long time that it is high risk to put all of your "eggs", of any kind, in one basket -- it's very risky for everyone if we concentrate all of those abilities into a handful of countries in one part of the world. In might be cheaper in the short term, but it could be devastating for all of us in the long run.

This time it was a pandemic, but next time it could be something that destroys those countries and the timeline to rebuild is years. The survival of the planet may depend on our ability to manufacture. It already does in some ways, but the timeline is rather long at this point. What if the danger is imminent? Do we really want most high (and low) tech manufacturing concentrated in one part of the world? No, we need to spread it globally for the potential benefit of everyone.

The same way you balance your investment portfolio between different types of assets, we need to balance our investment in the future of the planet across the globe as well. Sure, some assets aren't as profitable, but you still hang on to them for security, stability and risk reduction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Huge gap in this article is ASML. The guys that make the machines that make the chips that are designed by intel and the like. They have about 80% market share. They could supply/deploy those Machines anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER9> Recent article about US pressure on the Netherlands to prevent ASML exports to China: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-usa-china- in...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-usa-china- insight/trump-administration-pressed-dutch-hard-to-cancel-china-chip- equipment-sale-sources-idUSKBN1Z50HN)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One very important piece that doesn't get enough time in the article is China's in country fab, SMIC.

They've got 14nm in risk production, and are making good progress on something equivalent to 10nm TSMC (that they're calling 7nm, but feature sizes are made up anyway). And perhaps most importantly China is making good progress on in country EUV litho steppers to cut ASML out of the picture too.

</comment><comment><USER11> It is pretty obvious that we will not be able to maintain leadership with arbitrary hardware process technology advantages for much longer.

The next generation of strategic advantage is in the software that runs on this hardware. We really need to start thinking harder about how we protect highly-complex and strategically-important software IP from theft, because theft of software is pretty much immediate and absolute. I have personally started to pull some of my experimental projects I would otherwise keep public into private repositories because of these sorts of concerns. I do not want to enable the CCP in any way whatsoever.

Hypothetically, if your 7nm chip supply was constrained because of war, but you were able to optimize the software that runs on that hardware by 15-30%, you could theoretically run it on a 14-22nm chip with a similar performance envelope. The larger process tech is easier to manufacture and you will more likely have domestic facilities which can accommodate. Anything that does not require EUV is instantly 100x easier to produce. Additionally, the more advanced process tech is arguably less advantageous in a military setting, as these chips are highly vulnerable to electromagnetic warfare relative to older process technology.

<comment><USER12> 99% of the software in the US is currently available to the CCP if they care enough. Pretty much all private companies could have their IP exposed by a nation-state level actor at this point.

It's typical for read-only source-code access to be available to everyone inside the corporate network, so if any device used by anyone with such access is compromised (or if the person is themselves compromised), so is the source- code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Meanwhile, American semiconductor and technology hardware companies spend exorbitantly on stock buybacks.

Set up factories outside of Asia Pacific with that money.

<comment><USER14> Publicly traded US companies are beholden to investor returns. This is going to make them less able to respond to international competition.

Think about the Fair Trade laws that aim to prevent large companies from dropping their prices to below cost to drive small plantations out of business. There's no reason china needs to make 1,000% profit on their latest CPU when they can sell at a very low price, and put US manufacturers out of business.

And FTA:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/u-s- lawma...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/u-s-lawmakers- propose-25-billion-to-aid-semiconductor-industry)

I just barfed a little in my mouth. This is what is so eff'd up about the US. Semicon stock prices drove the creation of millions of millionaires over the last 2 decades, and now they need a handout.

<comment><USER15> ? US strategic investment in semiconductors is probably the only way to fight Large State Actors dumping on world markets, by your very own logic.

$25B is about the right number as well, the challenge will be related to how efficiently it is spent.

<comment><USER14> I know, my comments sure do sound like a contradiction if viewed this way.

There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong here.

Semicon companies have been massive wealth generators for almost 4 decades, and how all of that wealth was genreated by clearly dubious means (Intel's lawsuits are legendary, as is there attempts at shuffling money out of the US buy building fabs in other countries to avoid tarrifs). But now they need taxpayer dollars to be competitive? Sure, the state of the US economy _might_ be at risk, but that doesn't square with the industry leaders' malign actions in the past 20 years.

It's like if you were getting beat up by a bully every day on your way to school, and he took your lunch money. Then one day a bigger bully from another town shows up, and the school starts paying your bully your lunch money, plus additional money from your allowance, to beat up the other one to protect the school (a bigger risk), when they didn't care about protecting you as an individual (a non-important risk).

<comment><USER16> It's more like if a big bully were taking your money, so to make sure he got less, you built off-shore fabs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting that the article chides the US military for not preventing China from militarising their own neighbourhood (South China Sea). However there's nothing wrong apparently with the US militarising the Caribbean, or the South China Sea for that matter.

The same could be said for access to manufacturing for Huawei vs US companies.

<comment><USER15> There is no equivalence between the two actions.

China is claiming vast regions which are currently regarded as 'international waters', or worse 'sovereign waters of other nations' as it's own, sovereign territory.

The US is not declaring the Bahamas to be 'US Territory', for example.

Not only that, the US Navy ensures that _everyone_ \- including China, Russia, Iran etc. can have 'safe passage' in international waters, and especially Panama Canal, Suez, Gulf etc. - which is quite literally the opposite of China's intentions in the S. China sea.

<comment><USER18> People can't even trust US police, not to mention US military.

<comment><USER19> You don't have to, the US navy's role in securing free trade on the seas speaks for itself.

<comment><USER20> As in, enforcing US sanctions against their competitors?

<comment><USER15> The US Navy does not enforce sanctions against economic competitors. It may be involved in enforcing sanctions against military threats, like North Korea and Iran, but even then, not really.

The US Navy defends the interests of the US largely by defending allies and promoting rules-based order. This is constantly the norm, day in day out, around the world. You see it in Panama Canal, Suez, especially the Gulf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I feel pangs of sadness reading articles like this. I'm just about 30 and when I look around at my peer group I see themes of learned helplessness.

I see children in adult bodies who whine to compel others to fix their own problems. I see people unwilling to entertain conversation that may challenge their point of view. And parents, well into their old age, seem to be content in keeping this status quo. They acquiesce to the complaining, they solve their children's problems. And the tools of being self sufficient and goal oriented seem to suffer.

If I buy into one of the points of the article- that there are people in China who are in positions of power who are unified, know what they want, know where they are, and thus will figure out to get there- and I think about how my peer group would respond, I get worried. The panacea would be for my generation to become just as tenacious in seeking our own goals. But I just don't see what transformations would have to happen to make this a reality.

P.S. I will continue improving the community of people within arm's reach. I think that's all us motivated people can do.

<comment><USER22> > If I buy into one of the points of the article- that there are people in > China who are in positions of power who are unified, know what they want, > know where they are, and thus will figure out to get there- and I think > about how my peer group would respond, I get worried.

That sounds like you are comparing your (probably average) peer group to an imagined group of people in positions of power. Doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope that US and Europe politicians are looking at this seriously and are able to think long-term.

I completely agree with the author about the vital importance of this technology, it should be considered as a resource.

The long-term solution is not military, but industrial.

</comment><comment><USER24> Tangential to this discussion, what was AMD's original reasoning for getting rid of its own fabs and spinning them out into Global Foundries? It seems these days that fabs are so strategic. Did they realize they can't compete in that space? Thanks!

<comment><USER25> Maintaining fabs is expensive. AMD got to push debt onto Globalfoundries with the deal, and Globalfoundries could focus on other opportunities, not just AMD. Globalfoundries has since fallen behind in process node, with TSMC and Intel leading the way. Given the struggles Intel has had, it is hard to say that AMD would have been in a better position to get to 10nm or 7nm had they kept their fab facilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is maybe a dumb question, but how much would it cost for a e.g. NATO- country led initiative to create a foundry like TSMC in X years. Surely this can't be harder than building the LHC, and the diversity would clearly reduce conflicts.

<comment><USER27> TSMC's Fab15 300mm wafer fab cost about $2 billion more than the LHC. Not that money == difficulty, but still. It's not a completely trivial amount of money.

<comment><USER28> You can't really compare a cost which returns zero profit versus one that turns a profit.

There is nearly an unlimited supply of money for projects that are guaranteed to return a profit - especially today with the bond market desperately searching for yields.

...so the moment asian chip factories become untenable - we will have fabe here in the US overnight. As an example, Israel built its own Intel fabs in under 3 years.

<comment><USER29> > There is nearly an unlimited supply of money for projects that are > guaranteed to return a profit - especially today with the bond market > desperately searching for yields.

There is nearly an unlimited supply of money for projects that are guaranteed to have _positive cash flow_ \- especially today with the bond market desperately searching for yields.

Plenty of companies are loaded up with debt with negative eps with positive cashflow.

I believe this distorts the gymnastics of "You can't really compare a cost which returns zero profit versus one that turns a profit" when many companies haven't turned a net profit since their existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> And to add to this, the new wrinkle in this TechWar, is how the USA just banned a Chinese university from buying Matlab.

Yes, Matlab.

They banned a university with a bunch of students from using a fancy calculator.

This is like banning the sales of Microsoft Excel to China.

The next interesting play, is what China will do to countermeasure this.

They will likely have to make their own Matlab program, thus eliminating all future profits for Matlab in China. And then, Matlab might even now have a new international competitor in this area.

Then, will China also ban Microsoft products in the future, in retaliation, after they make their own version of Excel.

If I were them, I would think that the American side is also next planning on banning the sales of Excel to China.

<comment><USER31> The software isn't banned in all of China yet though. Just organizations on the sanction list. So to retaliate in that way China would effectively be increasing the sanctions on themselves.

There's multiple competitors to matlab already that even some US schools use. It isn't as lopsided as Excel versus, uh... google sheets?

<comment><USER30> Well, the problem is that, China has likely invested and spent, hundreds of billions of dollars, and millions of man years, on American technology products.

They have built their own applications and business processes, on top of American technology systems.

American companies have benefited handsomely from this engagement with China. Their stock prices reflect that, in how much they earned from China, and how much future potential they will earn from China.

What the USA government is doing here, is saying that America is no longer reliable. Essentially, that they can take away their products on a whim.

This puts the onus of the risk on China. Why should they continue to spend and invest in American technology, when it can all be taken away, and their applications on top of it will be useless.

Imagine if a Chinese company spent 5 years, and millions of dollars, to build an application on top of the Microsoft Windows framework. Then one day, the American government says: Hey, we will no longer allow you to use Windows.

Now, your expensive program, is wasted, and is now worth less than a paperweight. Even a paperweight is more useful than your program.

Will this happen? Who knows. But it is clearly a risk. And it must be a violation of some WTO trading rules somewhere. Because something like this, is clearly a monopolistic and predatory action, akin to an all-out economic war, designed to force the Chinese to their knees, and which would force the Chinese side to counter-react to.

<comment><USER31> > Imagine if a Chinese company spent 5 years, and millions of dollars, to > build an application on top of the Microsoft Windows framework. Then one > day, the American government says: Hey, we will no longer allow you to use > Windows.

> Now, your expensive program, is wasted, and is now worth less than a > paperweight. Even a paperweight is more useful than your program.

Didn't this essentially happen with Android? I'm not as familiar with that market but it seems there's no need for imaginary scenarios.

And private firms do this kind of thing to each other all the time. Google is notorious for suddenly dumping things people depend on. And in hardware it is a big headache as you can unexpectedly lose the source to components of your product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Europe and NA lead the world in solid state physics, and this is where real computing power for the future comes from. Europe and North America should continue to invest heavily in basic research and create incentives for science that can be applied to computing.

<comment><USER28> I agree. ...but in a crunch, during a global political crisis, you don't just setup a chip fab overnight. It'll take 3 years, minimum to get the first batch out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand the military implications. The US has had long range missiles and defenses that are effective with stuff from the 80's and 90's. If China somehow got complete control over TSMC to the point they no longer supplied the US, it doesn't take much to sabotage the factories. If not missiles, then using spies, or attacking the systems that run the factories. This seems like a fragile advantage. Advanced chips don't even give you advantages in cyberwar.

Even if this triggered a longer conflict, the US could just buy through other countries that can buy from TSMC. Or just start using consumer off-the-shelf stuff. I'm fairly certain my gaming PC could guide a missile. There's lots of data centers in the US to pull from too.

If we lose all access to buying chips tomorrow, how does that affect our weapons?

<comment><USER34> > The US has had long range missiles and defenses that are effective with > stuff from the 80's and 90's

All of our weapons systems have undergone significant modifications and upgrades since then, which make heavy use of modern computing. Missile seekers can take advantage of this increased computing power to better track targets, especially when being jammed. We could probably develop replacements for these that used less high-end chips, but that will take time and would probably still result in worse performance, and there will likely be certain features that would have to be dropped.

> If China somehow got complete control over TSMC to the point they no longer > supplied the US, it doesn't take much to sabotage the factories

This is true, but it isn't guaranteed, and the PLA could stockpile a whole bunch of chips pre-war to satisfy their wartime production ordnance needs for a least a little while. While this is viable, it becomes a race to the bottom where neither side has access to advanced chips, and is stuck with whatever the advanced weapons they had stockpiled.

> I'm fairly certain my gaming PC could guide a missile

They need some custom chips, for a couple regions. First is they need to do some digital signal processing stuff that is implemented in hardware. Second is that the chip needs to be rugged: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_computers#MIL_standar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_computers#MIL_standards_and_specifications)

<comment><USER35> I thought the military sourced chips domestically for such applications.

<comment><USER34> Not always. TSMC, for example, is one of the only sources of chips for parts of the F-35. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/technology/pentagon- taiwa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/technology/pentagon-taiwan-tsmc- chipmaker.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It seems like they should stop trying to block China's access to TSMC until we have the factories in the US.

And we should be investing billions in the US factories.

Either that, or do a complete 180 and go back to the globalization mode where we play nice with China. I mean, if there could somehow be a non-violent cultural and political integration that would be ideal.

It seems like we are going to get one of two extremes though. Either people who think that China is ultimately irredeemably evil will stay in power or people who don't care what China does as long as they can make money there come back into power.

Neither one of those extremes really seems like a good approach though. Both seem to kind of be making things worse.

I believe the only safe outcome will involve very difficult cultural,political and technological integration. The economic integration to the degree it exists might be a stepping stone to that stuff but it seems we have seen it's limitations.

I don't have faith that people will recognize the depth of the problems, understand it and address it is a sane way. Most likely outcome still seems to be a horrific war.

This type of thing is why I have recently been thinking that actually it may be best if we just go full speed ahead with the AGI development. Because if we could have a safe world, then I would say the opposite, that we should avoid creating a new species that makes us obsolete. But now it may be a race to create this new species before our own poor organization destroys us or sends us back to the iron age.

</comment><comment><USER37> Predicting what is next is hard. Turning what is next to be successful is even harder. China may be able to push into AI and microprocessors, but it will need to have the culture of trial and honest admission of failure if it is to actually deliver on the next big thing. I think it is still unclear (despite the great results they have with 5G) that China knows how to do that.

</comment><comment><USER38> Coming chip wars? I remember stories of vax boxen filled with concrete in previous export restriction wars, not to mention japan losing chip production to south korea.

20th century: [https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html](https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html) (my russian is atrocious, but it's good enough to know the story given has obviously been elaborated in the telling before it hit this web page)

21st century: [https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/FP_2020...](https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/FP_20200427_computer_chips_khan_flynn.pdf)

(much of Blank's "secret history" of SV is an outline that chips have been strategic since before they existed [https://steveblank.com/secret- history/](https://steveblank.com/secret-history/) )

</comment><comment><USER39> This neglects one critical piece of the foundry business. The equipment for EUV lithography and prior generations comes from ASML in Europe and another company I cant remember. If eastern fabs are damaged in a conflict they will be blocked from rebuilding. That is, until China manages to copy that stuff which is something they are likely already trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER40> TSMC having all its fabs in one place is a big risk if there is an earthquake. It makes sense to diversify

<comment><USER41> Definitely. That happened not too long ago:

[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/07/2...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/07/2003639025)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you imagine this as a board game along the lines of Risk, you'd have to much prefer being in China's position. They have so many options and can also just bide their time.

</comment><comment><USER43> China will likely be dealing with massive internal dissent and eventually revolution. The history of authoritarian regimes always ends there.

</comment><comment><USER44> Did Taiwan become a leader in microchip fabrication out of a strategic or economic interest?

Because it surely has strategic value.

</comment><comment><USER45> China is keeping things surprisingly civil considering they could just limit the supply of or manipulate the cost of rare earth minerals. Many Western companies would soon find themselves in Huawei's shoes, counting down the days until the stockpiles run out.

<comment><USER46> The moment they start doing this, other countries will restart their mines and the Chinese leverage (and profits) will evaporate. Rare earth minerals aren't that rare.

<comment><USER45> Found the estimate in the report the Pentagon gave to Congress on this issue in 2013. Your proposed action would take the US, alone, 15 years ([https://imgur.com/olWM3Xi](https://imgur.com/olWM3Xi)).

Report: [https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41744.pdf](https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41744.pdf)

<comment><USER47> I believe there's a few Australian mining companies with plans ready to go if China ever does this. The prices will go up, a lot, but the spice will flow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > China may respond and escalate, via one of many agile strategic responses > short of war, perhaps succeeding in coercing the foundry [TSMC] to stop > making chips for American companies

...how? Taiwan is even more of an adversary to the PRC than the USA.

</comment><comment><USER49> All that government driven industrial espionage is paying off, apparently.

</comment><comment><USER50> What a cool article.

</comment><comment><USER14> Alibaba is making huge investment in AI, 5G and IoT chips. They are totally bypassing the Intel<>Arm general purpose CPU battle because that isn't the future. The new fabs in Pingtouge are just the beginning. China has the skill, the money, and the motiviation. There's no reason why they need to be dependent on chips from Intel and Arm licensees. Ever since the mid-1990s the US has tried to use laws to prevent exports and hinder China (P6 export laws anyone?), 5G laws are nothing new.

This will end up with China exceeding US fab capacity and supplying chips to all non US & European countries in 10 years.

I'm not making a value judgement, I'm saying that if a country is going to try to hold you back by limiting your access to technology, you just develop your own.

<comment><USER51> It's interesting how all the actions the author thinks China will take involves military coercion of Taiwan in some form. When all you know how to use is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The idea that China could build an alternative to TSMC instead of trying to take it apparently doesn't compute.

<comment><USER30> Exactly. Taiwan is really useless in regards to CPU manufacturing for China.

Why? Assuming people thinks that China will invade Taiwan just to take over TSMC, then what?

1) TSMC doesn't build the tools that builds the microchips. In fact, they probably don't even know how to build it, or even know the optical science to research and develop it. That dubious honor goes to ASML, and some other Japanese companies. But ASML, the euro company is currently in the lead for 5nm. TSMC just knows how to use their machine, and to get better at it. And to be clear, ASML doesn't know how to manufacture the chips like TSMC can, so both companies need each other, in a symbiotic type of relationship.

2) In the event of war, then the losing side can just bomb TSMC factories. Then everyone is screwed. No more advanced microchips for anyone.

3) If China succeeds in invading Taiwan, then the USA will just force ASML to stop selling their equipment to China, like they already do now. So, China is back at square one. They might have the current technology, but no ability to advance to newer technologies.

The only viable solution for China, is to build their own chip making tools, and fabrication factories. Thus removing ASML and TSMC from the equation completely. Also, they will gain independent Intellectual Property rights and patents to their own indigenous R&D.

The American government is apparently thinking that China doesn't have the skills to do this.

<comment><USER52> Can the US actually prevent ASML from selling equipment to China? ASML is not American.

Also, given how obscenely expensive a war would be, couldn't China save money by just hiring the entirety of TSMC's and ASML's technical staff at 10x the market rate for ten years?

Paying a premium to headhunt technical experts is a tried-and-true method of catching up to a front-runner. In fact, both Taiwan and South Korea did this, poaching underpaid Japanese talent.

<comment><USER53> _just hiring the entirety of TSMC 's and ASML's technical staff at 10x the market rate for ten years_

That's assuming those folks would want to move to China and work there. If strategic tensions are increasing to the point where war is feared and China uses this as an alternative, who would want to move there and risk becoming a hostage?

<comment><USER54> You can hire them in Europe, Huawei has R&D sites in Europe.

<comment><USER55> SMIC also has a fab in Italy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The CCP is getting ever more ambitious (perhaps reckless) in the wake of the pandemic. I am not sure if it's overconfidence or calculated tactical moves. The timing of the border conflict with India is no mere coincidence -- it seems like an attempt to secure assets (CPEC) on the Western theatre in anticipation to any action on the Eastern front.

<comment><USER51> The flareup is over 60km2 of territory on the other side of Kashmir and the CPEC highways, it's not going to have any impact on them. More likely that local forces got rowdy as infantrymen tend to do and now the higher ups are scrambling to defuse the situation. If this was an actual calculated move to take significant amounts of territory the big guns would be firing by now.

<comment><USER57> I've been reading a ton of geopolitical and military experts over the last few weeks, and there is a unanimous consensus that China never makes moves on the border without explicit instructions from the top.

Their reaction here has been paired with new movement in the South China Sea, changed messaging through proxy Government (Oli in Nepal and Pakistan at large) and claims over new land that has never been claimed by them before.

Xi is using the fallout from Corona as a way to impose China on countries that are distracted by the pandemic as of this time.

> If this was an actual calculated move to take significant amounts of > territory the big guns would be firing by now.

That isn't how China works. They are well know for their salami slicing ([https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/03/salami-slicing-in- the-s...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/03/salami-slicing-in-the-south- china-sea/)) approach to expansionism. Their current actions are perfectly in line with previous attempts at expanding borders and signaling intent for armed invasion.

<comment><USER58> Since when is Nepal Chinese proxy?

<comment><USER59> since the Maoist Govt took hold. Since Chinese promised to pay for all Nepal schools to teach Mandarin which was adopted by a lot of schools. They extended their claims on Mt. Everest. Nepal claimed new territory from India on Chinese pressure in an area which is open border. Nepal is now almost a part of OBOR. Connectivity via Tibet and lure of easy Chinese money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It's good to see people in the tech circle thinking about China. China's rise to dominance is unquestionable now. The current US administration has failed miserably. In the past 4 years, China has made gains on all fronts. I don't think they suffered any setback. The US does not seem to have a coherent strategy to counter this trend. The trade war was lauded as an achievement. But it has failed. The US is now going back to something similar to TPP, a policy championed by the previous administration. One step forward, 2 steps backward.

This pandemic started in China. But they somehow turned the table back to the US. The virus has done more damage to the US than China. The US leadership is incompetent. The government and the Fed are fixated on keeping the S&P 500 index. Tech investors make calls to build. Then, they invest in the next app trend. People seem to lose their moral compass. I think in the near future, the US won't be able to print money to fix its problems.

China seems to play a war of attrition. It engages the US in small conflicts and tends to drag them out. The US is the top dog. So it wants to win all of its battles. These conflicts distract the US from the big picture. The US is fighting fires on all fronts. Then China slowly makes gains.

<comment><USER61> _China 's rise to dominance is unquestionable now. The current US administration has failed miserably._

Breathe into a bag, dude. You and everyone else fear-mongering in here. China has a lot of talent, but they also consist of a government that controls its people and stifles their freedoms on every possible level. And because of that their innovation will always be constrained. An un-free people is an un- innovative people.

The US has one great thing that no other country has, and it's why we're still the only country to put a man on the moon, to land rockets backwards onto a floating platform, to continue to shift the landscape in transportation, and why Google and Facebook and Microsoft still dominate the net landscape, while the best China can do is make their garbage rip-offs and steal the hard-won intellectual property that we continue to churn out. It's also why Beijing often has a thick fog of pollution, and why you can protest, speak, and worship in this country without being thrown into a re-education camp.

Any guesses on what that thing is? That thing that keeps people in the US innovating and churning out fresh material that China can only steal? It's because the US is a country unified by a set of ideas, not borders drawn around a people group. The key governing concept that man is _free_ to pursue their own happiness and shape their destiny.

Man irresistibly is drawn to freedom, and until the CCP releases its grasp on its citizens' freedom, their dominance is only an illusion. Stop pushing a narrative based on fear.

<comment><USER62> Its funny to see all the subtle racism come pouring back as soon as the west feels threatened. "the best China can do is make their garbage rip-offs and steal the hard-won intellectual property" \- typical western superiority bullshit. Why don't you go to a country and live there for a year before regurgitating uninformed cliches like this? I doubt you have any real understanding at all about what daily life is like in China.

Somehow its inconceivable that any other country besides the mighty and noble 'Murca can innovate lol. Believe me, there are plenty of countries with far far more innovative public infrastructure like transport. Many countries with more "innovative" health systems in that you don't die or go bankrupt without insurance.

When all the xenophobia and fear stops the trickle of immigrants into the US, they will understand what drove innovation was not some magical freedom that 90% of democracies have, it was talented people from all over the globe.

<comment><USER63> > When all the xenophobia and fear stops the trickle of immigrants into the > US, they will understand what drove innovation was not some magical freedom > that 90% of democracies have, it was talented people from all over the > globe.

How is China going to attract talented people from all over the globe?

Even with 1.5B people, they'll be competing with 6B who can't (and don't want to) join them and would prefer to join a Western country that will eventually give them naturalized citizenship and treat them somewhat as equals.

<comment><USER64> Outrageous compensation packages. Last figure I read, they've already poached 20% of Taiwan's semi engineers over the years. That's before recent initiatives to compensate foreign workers 3x-5x salary. They're flying in Korean specialists on daytrips to accommodate their desires to still live in Korea, building churches on campuses etc. Basically what western companies did in the 90s to entice foreign specialists to work in China, a lot of cash and allure of royal treatment i.e. specifically because they won't be equals. Work in a nice tier1 city for 5-10 years and retire or naturalize / work in the west. Semi engineers are project paperclip tier assets in the coming years, they're get work and fast-track citizenship considerations regardless of their past affiliations and most likely, because of it.

<comment><USER65> If the US didn't pay 3-4x the salary for software engineers compared to Canada, I wouldn't be here either. If China paid me more, I'd move in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER66> This comment encapsulates in a very crisp way why people are skeptical of immigration free-for-alls. Many feel the same way you do, that it's just a method of economic extraction and they don't have any skin in the game for the long term health and viability of the host Country.

<comment><USER67> Why should global citizens be tied to an outdated Westphalian concept of a nation state?

Note that during the time they're in a certain country, these experts are most likely paying taxes at the top tax bracket.

<comment><USER66> Because there is no such thing as a "global citizen", first of all. And just taking a look around, the death of the nation state must've been greatly exaggerated in some circles.

>these experts are most likely paying taxes at the top tax bracket.

Who cares. This is a thinly veiled attempt to say that any person's worth in a given society is approximately equal to how much they pay in taxes - which is insane, for a great many reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Not to mention, the next war will be the last one ever. It would be an extinction level event. That choice wouldn't be rational.

<comment><USER69> Well, world war yes, but we just saw Russia annex a part of a different country by force. So China could say: Taiwan is Chinese, we belong together. And would the rest of the world not say: Well, we can't start a world war, because it's an extinction level event, so let's just condemn China in a very strongly worded letter?

<comment><USER70> >by force

It was so forceful, that it was effectively bloodless and an overwhelming portion of the "annexed" populace has actively supported it.

Meanwhile situation in Taiwan is drastically different. Pro-mainland faction is really weak and can not be used to provide sufficient support for quiet absorption. And since Taiwan has deep military connections with USA for many decades, any military intervention will inevitably escalate into a major military conflict.

The only scenario in which something like that can happen is civil-war-level turmoil in USA. Probability of which, worryingly, is noticeably bigger than zero.

<comment><USER71> > It was so forceful, that it was effectively bloodless and an overwhelming > portion of the "annexed" populace has actively supported it.

That seems like an unusual perspective.

If by "bloodless" you mean "lots of people died, but nowhere near as many as a world war" though, then sure.

For the "actively supported", where are you getting that information? My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that it's universally condemned.

<comment><USER70> By it I mean that only total 6 people have died from both sides, of which only 2 can be attributed to direct actions of Russian armed forces (well, if you trust Ukrainian version of events, which should be taken with a lot of salt, same as with the Russian one). Now compare it with number of deaths in Kiev, Odessa or Donbas. (note that majority of deaths in the latter case are Ukrainian citizens killed directly by Ukrainian army, so much for "war with Russia")

>For the "actively supported", where are you getting that information?

Directly from Crimeans. I have visited Crimea last year as a tourist and talked with them personally (in Massandra and Alushta, btw the wine is really great, recommend trying it). Try watching 2014 videos, for example this one is before Russian forces have became active:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atm0W5wA2y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atm0W5wA2y4)

If you don't trust my anecdotal experience, then how about "The Crimea conundrum: legitimacy and public opinion after annexation" published in the Eurasian Geography and Economics journal? Or how about "To Russia With Love" article published in Foreign Affairs? They both confirm strong local support in favor of the transfer.

>My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that it's universally condemned.

I hope you understand that your friend quite probably is really biased regarding this issue, right? Always try looking outside of the media narrative (one may call it soft propaganda), usually world issues are far more complex than the version painted by media.

<comment><USER72> I think you are purposely narrowly referring to 1 action of many in a crisis that has had >10,000 deaths.

<comment><USER70> Wat? We are discussing the "annexation of Crimea", not the larger context. I just provided examples for comparison to show that the "annexation" itself is indeed can be called "effectively bloodless".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> How did we get in this situation? How did both parties - Democrat and Republican fail us so bad?

It's a total institutional failure.

<comment><USER74> The propaganda that demonized the TPP at every turn and led to Trump leaving the table day 1 of taking office seems to have worked.

<comment><USER75> TPP was a terrible response to the opportunity. Write better treaty text and you get a better result.

Killing TPP was the correct result.</comment></comment></comment>


Can you help this mother? - <AUTHOR>

A friend of a friend needs help. If you can't donate that's OK, just post it everywhere you can.<p>http://www.gofundme.com/e00qn4 <comment><USER2> "... As long as [the kids] no longer reside in the same house as her, Medicaid will likely not accept her."

ASK THEM! Really! You should ask.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, I love the USA, such a great country.</comment>


Startup Events - <AUTHOR> http://blog.filepicker.io/post/35640812478/startup-events

<comment><USER2> There is little value in attending events with $3000 price tags. You get to hear Sean Parker speak, which is also posted online and they usually sneak speakers out of the back to a car or to the speakers lounge so that they don't have to interact with attendees. There's nothing wrong with this, just that conferences can oversell the value.

I've spoken at a few startup conferences, mostly because it's a great way to meet investors, other founders and useful contacts. The ones I found most valuable as a speaker and attendee were the events that were less well known. My favourite for meeting great people was in Luxembourg and ran at the same time as LeWeb London, where most of the tech elite were. <http://www.ictspring.com>

I got to speak to Randi Zuckerberg, Hiroshi Mikitani from Rakuten but far more importantly a lot of great investors and founders from Silicon Valley that were actually creating value. The people that speak at the top conferences aren't necessarily the people building the best companies

Startup school is a great balance between both, you hear from some of the best thought leaders in tech that don't speak very often and get the opportunity to meet lots of people in a similar position to you.

<comment><USER3> Startup School was the best I've been to by far: a) free b) great speakers who were surprisingly candid c) high quality attendees including yc alums

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> unfortunately, this is true as a vast majority of events offer no REAL value. It's simply a forum for folks to tell their story..not offer actionable advice.

I intent to host a different type of event - <http://www.meetup.com/silicon>, whereby attendees will learn real tactics on how to grow their business from folks that have done it.

</comment><comment><USER5> why the hell is this on the front page?</comment>


CSV dump of reddit voting data  - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/bubhl/csv_dump_of_reddit_voting_data/

<comment><USER2> Interestingly enough, only 498 users out of ~32K have 2000 or more votes. Whereas 4877 users only have one vote. Someone feel free to double check this.

<comment><USER3> The data was opt-in (redditors had to specifically elect to enter this dataset), so it's probably biased somewhat.

<comment><USER2> as mentioned in the reddit thread, one coud assume that power users would allow public voting and therefore would be voting more. I of course, just looked at the extremes and do not have a timeframe

<comment><USER4> > one coud assume that power users would allow public voting and therefore > would be voting more

I don't think that's a good assumption. I surely have more than 2000 votes on reddit, but some of them are on political stories and I don't particularly want a public record of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat related: I've been archiving the stories (and vote/comment counts over time) via the JSON API for the last few months or so. Post is here if anyone is interested: [http://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/comments/bttjw/top_1000_ral...](http://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/comments/bttjw/top_1000_rall_stories_for_the_last_several_weeks/)</comment>


Judge William Alsup: Master of the court and Java - <AUTHOR> http://m.cnet.com/news/judge-william-alsup-master-of-the-court-and-java/57445082

<comment><USER2> It is soo nice to hear about competence and common sense when it comes to copyright and legal matters for a change.</comment>