San Francisco Is Eating Itself - <AUTHOR> http://alexcastle.net/2014/01/17/san-francisco-is-eating-itself/ <comment><USER2> Do I complain about not being able to afford living in Manhattan? No. It's historically one of the most important areas in one of the most important cities in the world.

In the same way, why are people constantly complaining about not being able to afford living in San Francisco? It's one of the hottest cities on the planet right now. I don't get where this entitlement is coming from that people feel that they SHOULD be able to live there without paying the price?

I'm not saying there aren't real societal issues in San Francisco, but I think the entitlement from the people who can't afford to live there doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, we should try to make San Fran affordable as possible. Yes, more housing should be built, etc, etc. However, the entitled way in which the less fortunate approach this situation is what baffles me.

<comment><USER3> You used the word 'important' for 'expensive'. That, in my opinion, is a fallacy.

It is expensive. That's different from important.

<comment><USER2> But don't you agree that the reason an area would increase in value (which often converts to the monetary type) to a lot of people is because it holds some sort of importance to them?

Whether it be intellectual importance, industrial importance, creative importance, etc

<comment><USER3> To wrap the varied values of an area up into a single word - 'importance' \- is a gross oversimplification to the extent that it can even be considered incorrect.

It is, however, and undeniably, expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an outsider (London, UK based) I keep wondering why SF isn't building skywards?

By which, rent prices reflect supply and demand (and some other things, but mostly basic supply and demand), there is water on three sides and a park to the South.

The only thing to relieve pressure on prices will be more floor space for residential, and the only space for that is above the existing floor space.

For a long while there will be a lot of profit in supplying the additional demand, so I don't get why profiteering by developers hasn't led to enormous swathes of existing housing being knocked down and 8+ story buildings being laid in their place. And if this is happening, why it doesn't happen at a far more rapid pace.

Is there something preventing developers from doing this?

Are there local NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard!) groups who resist the building of additional residential units?

Are there city disincentives to doing this?

Or is this more a case of waiting for the "big one" and starting over when that happens?

To an outsider, can the question be answered: Why not build up?

<comment><USER5> Because San Francisco _greatly_ perceives itself, and desperately wants to remain, as a small friendly hamlet of sorts. It wants to have its cake and eat it too: the prestige and economy of a world city, and the friendliness and pleasantness of a small town.

Because also San Francisco perceives itself as radical - this is true both in SF tech and outside of it - and perceives mass urbanization as symptom of all that is stodgy, traditional, and old (see: Chicago, New York City, London, etc).

"Manhattanization" is a pejorative with no defense in the city - "being like New York" is anathema to a large number of people, and suggesting that SF should be like other skyward cities is immediately painting a giant bulls-eye on your own head and a guarantee that you'll never be a meaningful participant in civic discourse.

In simple words, SF hates skyward-building because its worst fear is becoming New York City.

To answer your questions more directly:

\- The city government, in response to voter demand, opposes most development outside of the downtown core, where there are actually plenty of tall buildings (almost entirely commercial). As a (shitty) compromise they've marked out a section of previously underdeveloped light industry just south of downtown for active development. This is where most of the action is. It's also not connected to mass transit, and there's currently an expensive project underway to build a brand new subway line to connect this area of town. This, despite other parts of SF being underdeveloped and _already_ accessible to transit.

\- The population of San Francisco, and this includes the techies, loudly opposes dense developments. San Francisco is well known for its picturesque neighborhoods of colorful old Victorian houses. The long-time residents are loathe to see this disappear in favor of mid-rises or high-rises, and the wealthy newcomers are loathe to lose what is an aesthetic gain. Neither side seems willing to admit that the price of their aesthetic preference comes directly out of their pocket book. Proposals to knock these houses down in favor of denser housing are opposed across the board and across the wealth spectrum.

All of this is official policy: [http://www.sf- planning.org/ftp/General_Plan/index.htm](http://www.sf- planning.org/ftp/General_Plan/index.htm) \- specifically this one: "That existing housing and neighborhood character be conserved and protected in order to preserve the cultural and economic diversity of our neighborhoods;"

<comment><USER4> But yet there are great examples of cities that allow building, have increased the heights of buildings, and maintain the character of the city. Paris springs to mind, as does Edinburgh.

So long as "character" isn't defined as "3 stories", it should be possible to build to 6 stories whilst maintaining façades, retail space, etc and yet doubling available space and improving the standard of housing that exists (oh man, that dodgy wiring in every place in Mission I've ever stayed).

Do the residents realise the connection between scarcity and price, and that they are able to do something about it?

From the stuff that appears on here, it seems that there is a lot of anger against large companies but little reflection that the root imbalance in supply is caused by policies set by the population (or at least, in their name).

<comment><AUTHOR> _" Do the residents realise the connection between scarcity and price, and that they are able to do something about it?"_

There's some truth to the parent comment (I've said parts of it myself), but it's also misleading. Yes, the city could stand to build up in places, but the people in the tech world are also _totally delusional_ when it comes to choosing where to live and work. Everyone is trying to cram into the same three hipster neighborhoods, and ignoring all of the cheaper parts of town. Price sensitivity is almost completely absent.

Notably, when people here talk about "bungalows" and "three-story buildings", what they're really talking about is the western half of the city (the part west of Mount Sutro). It's true that those neighborhoods are really low density, but it's also true that rents there are _already much lower_ than in SOMA or the Mission. You can move to the Richmond and save hundreds of dollars a month in rent, but nobody wants to do that.

There are good reasons for all of this, of course (transit, weather, etc.), but the point is that it isn't just "zoning laws" that are causing prices to spike here. There's good deal of irrationality on the demand side, too. You'd be surprised at the number of tech people who have _never even visited_ neighborhoods like West Portal, even though they're on major transit lines. If it's not hip in San Francisco, it doesn't exist.

<comment><USER6>
        "Everyone is trying to cram into the same three hipster
        neighborhoods, and ignoring all of the cheaper parts of
        town."

Those three hipster neighborhoods are probably the way they are because of their great access to public transit not only for traveling within the city but getting out of it via BART. No one ones to move to SF and live in a neighborhood with a suburban lifestyle that requires a car to maximize life's experiences.

Living in places like the Richmond and the Sunset for example are more isolating than living in Oakland. Living at the top of most of San Francisco's hills is relatively isolating as well. Furthermore, hills aren't conducive to human-powered transportation like biking and skateboarding. Being able to quickly move around via the power of your own two feet via walking, pedaling or pushing is one of the draws of all cities. Every relatively flat neighborhood with great transportation is destined to gentrify.

If you put a BART line under the Geary and California bus routes, all the neighborhoods in the far west would "hipsterfy" as well

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, as I said, there are reasons that these neighborhoods are popular. Another reason is the weather: the Mission and SOMA tend to be sunnier than the rest of the city. These features, in a rational world, demand a certain price premium. But the outer neighborhoods have nice features, too (e.g. they have less filth and crime, and more nature), so there's a trade-off.

That said, complaints about being "isolated" in the Sunset is mostly a lot of butthurt. The entire city of San Francisco is _seven miles wide_. There is literally _no part_ of this city that could be considered "isolated", unless your definition of "the city" begins and ends in the Mission. And I say that as someone who lives without a car -- there are rail lines that run to the Sunset, West Portal, Glen Park, Ocean View and so on. You're maybe 30 minutes away from downtown, at most. Still, ask a 20-something coder to consider living in the Inner Sunset, and you'd think you'd asked him to move to North Dakota.

No, the real problem is that most of the people flooding into SF are wealthy 20-somethings who will pay _nearly any price_ to live right in the middle of the hippest entertainment districts in the city. They don't want to live near icky married people and children, they don't want to travel more than ten minutes to meet their friends for a drink, and they _definitely_ don't want to go up or down any hills to get anywhere. There are basically two neighborhoods in the city that meet these constraints, and in both, rents are skyrocketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I dislike the most about the anti-techie rhetoric is how they seem to think every 22 year old kid who takes an offer from Google is basically a clone of Larry Ellison. This group may have a wage above the average but is still middle class. That guy's boss's boss's boss's boss is who they should be more worried about. (But he probably lives in the south bay.)

Then again, I was walking around SoMa with my family one day not too long ago and found myself stuck on the sidewalk in a large crowd of fratboy types who might as well have been straight out of the caricatures in a bunch of these articles... They were talking about working in the south bay and speculating on real estate. Really annoying kids. I get irritated too.

</comment><comment><USER8> I find it interesting how the SF's rent control seems to not be well understood by many.

For example, people quote the ellis act as a frequent way in which people are evicted, and hold it up as proof that long time renters have no security.

But that's not exactly 100% of the truth. Sure Ellis act can be used to do a owner-move-in (for a new owner of a rented house for example), and in theory can be used for condo conversion, BUT San Francisco strictly regulates condo conversions. Specifically buildings with > 6 units cannot be converted to condos:

[http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=2](http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=2)

Which means that, for all intents and purposes, renters in a larger building, are just as secure as any property owner.

There are guys in my building who have lived here since the moon landing. One was telling me he had to buy a black-and-white TV to watch it! In our building!

Amazing history here in SF.

<comment><USER9> No, not really. Buildings larger than six units can still be Ellis-ed and turned into TICs. Even if those TICs can never convert to condos, it's still often profitable to do that.

(Btw, owner-move-in evictions have nothing to do with the Ellis Act. Separate laws.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> " I don't have any answers to how to make it better. I'm not even sure it can be made better. "

Sorry, but isn't the answer just to change the zoning laws preventing residential buildings over 3 stories from being built in most neighborhoods? This seems pretty straightforward.

<comment><USER11> There are ultimately other constraints on density. For California, as with much of the West, water is an ultimate limit. Though the argument that San Francisco cannot increase housing densities on account of water access is ... even in this drought year ... likely invalid. Largely as the housing _is_ being constructed elsewhere within the same larger watershed.

There are other constraints. San Francisco traffic, parking, and transit are all fairly strained as it is, particularly in the the denser core of the City (downtown, SOMA, Mission). Access from the outer neighborhoods to the core can be as long or longer than suburban commutes, though bicycles offer a pretty good year-round alternative.

For San Francisco, biting the bullet and allowing additional housing to be built, yes, even housing that is primarily marketed to the nouveau riche and upscale, would likely relieve much of the pressure for the rest of the community.

Another solution, of course, would be to provide more housing and more attractive housing throughout the rest of the region. As Geoffrey Nunberg recently commented icily, Palo Alto is a wonderful place to raise a car (and PA is positively urban compared to much of the greater, or should I say, worser, Silicon Valley). While much of SF is limited to heights of 3 stories, the Valley is, with very, very few scattered exceptions, one. Accepting that it is in fact part of a larger megapolis and acting like it would be a net benefit.

Too would be for employers to locate to other locations accessible via transit. Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and other stops along BART have the benefit of a commute system with high levels of service and a broad collection region. And yet the bulk of tech jobs continue to be located either along the 101 corridor (a hellhole), in the South Bay, or, increasingly, in San Francisco. With the exception of the last, transit is a barely viable option, and even within SF, unless you're in the dense cores (again: downtown, SOMA, Mission), access to what transit there _is_ down the Peninsula is highly limited. The dedicated company shuttles are an extremely appropriate response to the situation, and the outrage against them wholly misplaced.

Is this a bubble? Probably. Are some of the new arrivals annoying and socially maladroit? Quite. Does that change any of my commentary? No.

San Francisco isn't the only region faced with high housing costs: New York, London, and Mumbai all have similar (and arguably worse) challenges. There are many parts of the world, and numerous of those within the US, which would love to have these problems. Addressing the situation rationally, unfortunately, seems difficult to impossible, and sadly many of the tantrum-throwing children (on all sides of the issue) draw the most attention. Shame on the media for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm pretty confused about how shuttle buses became the preferred metonymy for corporate evil. As if replacing each bus with twenty cars would make SF a better place for anyone?

<comment><USER13> My theory for this is that Google is essentially a functioning welfare state which is geographically co-located with a dysfunctioning welfare state. If it weren't the Google bus it would be the Google food kitchens, the Google social insurance, the Google healthcare, the Google subsidized apartments, the Google free education, etc etc.

Nothing so frustrating to hear that your dream polity has been realized in your town and you're not invited.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure I'd call Google a "welfare state". They're not really tolerant of slackers, if you stop pulling your weight then you're out in the street.

<comment><USER13> Among the type of people who think "'welfare state' describes the kind of society I wish to live in", welfare state does not mean "we pay people to be slackers", it means "we have fairly robust systems for preventing the vagaries of life from materially impacting our citizens."

n.b. Not to infringe upon the HN politics rule but, for avoidance of doubt, the above does not describe my personal politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > It is a free country, right? People are still free to live anywhere they can > pay the rent, right?

That's true, if you're white.

[http://www.propublica.org/series/living- apart](http://www.propublica.org/series/living-apart)

[http://www.urban.org/publications/410821.html](http://www.urban.org/publications/410821.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Cached version for those who are getting a database connection error: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S1lWjQ6...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S1lWjQ6p8wQJ:alexcastle.net/2014/01/17/san- francisco-is-eating-itself/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER17> As a foreigner rent control seems like a bizarre concept in a capitalist country even more bizarre that its america.

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe tech companies don't have to live in overpriced, overhyped coastal cities.

<comment><USER3> Fun fact: San Francisco is one of the few places where it's cheaper to live near the ocean, than it is to live inland!

That is, 'coastal' is irrelevant to your point.

<comment><USER18> Not going by any of the prices I can find for San Fran.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/San_Francisco,CA/37.719154916...](http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/San_Francisco,CA/37.719154916262774,37.78823846382069,-122.5297457519531,-122.38640850219724_xy/13_zm/map_v/)

Looking at that, the adage seems to hold true -- prices appear to fall off as you radiate away from the heart of the city. There's even a 1BR/1BA near the ocean by the USS San Francisco Memorial for $425k.

<comment><USER18> So we're pretending moving a few miles inland is not living on the two major US coasts.

<comment><USER3> Based on the urban layout and population distribution within the city, yes, those are two distinct regions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> " They're just individual people that learned a very _boring_ but high-paying skill," Wait, what?

<comment><USER14> Programming probably seems boring to the author; it's sad he/she generalizes like this (the article link didn't work for me, so I don't know who wrote it).

<comment><USER21> From the sidebar: "ALEX CASTLE is a writer, musician, filmmaker, editor, husband, father, and hand model based in Brooklyn."

Given his profile I'm not suprised he's not interested in programming, but the jump to suggesting that the activity itself is inherently boring is hilarious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This whole debate sounds as if they'd just invented gentrification. I'm having a hard time mustering outrage for anyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER23> And now we are at #111 on page four. Slow clap.

</comment><comment><USER24> 1400 for a 2br in Glen Park? Good luck getting that for 2000 today...

<comment><USER25> Glen Park doesn't really _have_ apartments; 99% of its residential buildings are houses.

If someone's advertising an apartment as "Glen Park" it's almost certainly going to turn out to actually be in Sunnyside or Diamond Heights.</comment></comment>


Prince Alwaleed says Bitcoin will implode: 'Enron in the making' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/23/prince-alwaleed-says-bitcoin-will-implode-enron-in-the-making.html <comment><USER2> And next week, when the BTC will have dropped $2000, you'll learn that Prince Alwaleed has bought for $50,000,000 of BTC, just like JPMorgan did last month.

<comment><USER3> If you're right... if one billionaire describing your currency as doomed is enough to cause its value to drop by 33%... then I don't want any of your currency. Too volatile.</comment></comment>


Remove trailing whitespace - <AUTHOR> http://rails-bestpractices.com/posts/60-remove-trailing-whitespace It annoys the hell out of the rest of the team. <comment><USER2> Not to pick on this submission in particular, but in a forum devoted to hackers and entrepreneurs, does this really belong here? I hesitate to flag it as inappropriate because maybe I'm just out-of-step with everyone else, and I'd appreciate some guidance, or some sense of what other people think.

Thanks.

<comment><USER3> I think so:

After playing this game for a decade and a half, including a lot of work on bad codebases, by the early '90s I developed a set of quickly discernible and amazingly reliable metrics that could help me judge the quality of random code. Trailing whitespace was a really good metric of sloppy coding, at least in the '80s and '90s. The fact that it confuses SCM systems is just another reason to be this sort of meticulous with your code's text and to e.g. select for programmers who are that sort of careful.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cross Platform .NET Desktop Application Framework - <AUTHOR> https://www.browseemall.com/Blog/index.php/2017/05/23/creating-a-cross-plattform-net-ui-application/ <comment><USER2> Eto is very interesting but unfortunately there seems to be just 1 (very active) developer behind it, from what I can see.

On the other hand, Xamarin.Forms had an announcement recently, an announcement that Hacker News missed. I submitted the news a few days ago but it didn't reach the first page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14383467](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14383467) ->

[https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin- forms-3-0/](https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin-forms-3-0/)

TL;DR:

Xamarin.Forms will support desktop environments:

\- Windows (WPF)

\- MacOS (Cocoa)

\- Linux (GTK#)

This is on top of the mobile bits: iOS, Android, UWP.

As an added bonus, they've added Xamarin.Forms embedding into native interfaces.

It's actually major news since Xamarin.Forms would become the first cross platform UI toolkit that:

1\. supports both desktop and mobiles

2\. is backed by a major vendor

3\. is truly usable from a memory managed language as part of the core offering

<comment><USER3> I have never heard anything positive about Xamarin.Forms from people who have used it. Has this improved?

<comment><USER4> I've never used Xamarin, but I'm curious what their complaints are?

<comment><USER5> To be clear: "Xamarin.forms" is different than "Xamarin" and the following is based on my experience with "Xamarin.forms".

Also note that my experience with this is building an extremely simple business-y app for internal users.

1\. Its moving fast so documentation is lacking and the "right" way to do something, posted 6 months ago, is wrong\deprecated\wonky

2\. The tooling leaves a lot to be desired. Although this has greatly improved, there are still tons of steps to publish ([https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/android/deployment,_tes...](https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/android/deployment,_testing,_and_metrics/publishing_an_application/)).

3\. Updates constantly breaking things. To be fair, this is also improving

4\. There may still be instances where you have to drop into native code or split code based on platform. This means you sometimes will need to know: c#, xamarin.forms oddities, java\android stuff AND objective c\iOS. This may not be an issue for simple apps

5\. UI builder is limited. The apps will be native looking but you won't be winning any design awards. Some things also seem impossible so it helps if the customer\designer\stakeholder is really flexible. If someone asks for an app to collect and display data, you will probably be ok. If they give you pixel dimensions and other minutiae run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apparently this is a hot topic.

The options I'm aware of are:

[https://github.com/picoe/Eto](https://github.com/picoe/Eto) (OP - BSD)

[https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia](https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia) (MIT)

Currently only with a preview for Mac, Xamarin.Forms is roadmapped for desktop platforms "Q3 2017": [https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin- forms-3-0/](https://blog.xamarin.com/glimpse-future-xamarin-forms-3-0/)

Licensing for Xamarin Forms was funky for a while (required paying for Xamarin prior to MS acquisition) but appears to be MIT now.

<comment><USER7> And for games, there's MonoGame.

[http://www.monogame.net/](http://www.monogame.net/)

It's based on the old XNA framework. At least one successful commercial game (Fez) was written with it.

<comment><USER8> Quite a few successful games were written in it, before Unity changed their license model.

Bastion was another one that comes to my mind.

As additional remark, indies have been doing games in C# since the Managed DirectX days.

<comment><USER9> Also, Unity is more a tool for designers, while MonoGame or LibGDX are more coding oriented libraries.

<comment><USER8> Kind of agree, but if you look at the curriculum of universities teaching game development degrees, they have all moved into Unity/Unreal, plus the console SDKs.

Also the love they are getting from MS and Google for VR/AR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given the title, it seems that this should rather link to the framework itself ([https://github.com/picoe/Eto](https://github.com/picoe/Eto)).

<comment><USER11> Or even the blog post about the framework ([https://www.browseemall.com/Blog/index.php/2017/05/23/creati...](https://www.browseemall.com/Blog/index.php/2017/05/23/creating- a-cross-plattform-net-ui-application/)).

<comment><USER12> Thanks, we've updated the link from [https://bitbucket.org/positionfixed/crossplatform](https://bitbucket.org/positionfixed/crossplatform).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be wary about investing too much time into something like this. Microsoft is making a massive push with .NET Core and its availability on both Mac OS and Linux. Coupled with the expansion of the .NET Standard to encompass more of the .NET Framework APIs, it won't be long now before Microsoft announces the ability for the Universal Windows Platform to run on all major operating systems. Of course they may want to rename it to something more friendly - like Univeral .NET Platform, or just Universal Platform - but I suspect we'll see this in the next year or maybe two.

Build apps for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS with C# and XAML. Sounds pretty cool to me. So it isn't to say this isn't a great idea by the BrowseEmAll devs, but I'm just not sure how needed it'll be once Microsoft steps in.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I felt that trend too with XAML Standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I carry this file around to detect platforms with .NET:

[https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft/blob/master/TrueCraft....](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft/blob/master/TrueCraft.Core/RuntimeInfo.cs)

I hereby release it into the public domain.

<comment><USER16> Kudos for releasing to the public domain, but you should also attach a license to it (MIT is good)

Edit: sorry, I see there's a top level license. Browsing github on my phone wasn't giving me the info I wanted :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is exciting news, but in the world of Electron apps I do wonder if it is not too late already.

Qt has been around for a while and though it gained traction Electron is far outpacing it. It seems that there is no ASP.NET Core since it was borne out of an actual use case with ASP.NET.

Again, kudos to the author and it seems like a great technical feat, but to my knowledge what matters is adoption rate.

<comment><USER8> Thankfully no one around me is either using Electron or thinking about even trying it out.

As for Qt, web devs have C++ allergy, hence why the company behind Qt came up with QML. exactly to fight against this trend.

<comment><USER18> I'm feeling an increasing sense of hostility towards "web devs" lately.

<comment><USER5> It's frustration, not hostility. The solution is always HotNewFrameworkStillInBeta.js

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why not link to something that explains it first, like an overview?

</comment><comment><USER20> Can I use this in .net core projects?

<comment><USER21> No

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> c# for unity, asp and xamarian. wow.</comment>


New analysis shows where fish transfers that can obscure illegal catches happen - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-closes-in-on-big-scale-fish-poachers-in-the-wild-wet/ <comment><USER2> > The resulting map shows where transshipping mostcommonly takes place: Nearly > 40 percent of all encounters occurred within 200 nautical miles of Russia's > northern coastline,

yes, this is how Russian/USSR sea fishing industry has been organized for decades - a group of smaller fishing vessels around a large fish processing factory ship (similar to US aircraft carrier groups :). Russian illegal fishing is organized differently though - in particular it is usually smaller operations not involving transshipping.

<comment><USER3> It's also right next to Japan. And the Japanese fishing industry is not exactly known as an exemplar of sustainable practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The group behind this work tracked fishing craft worldwide using global, > publicly available data from systems vessels employ to communicate their > locations with one another. Whereas the data has its limitations—it only > tracks craft of a certain size, and boats can turn off their communications

Are the systems the article is referring to AIS transponders [1]? If so, we should probably use caution in cracking down on transshipping of illegal catches - incentivizing vessels to turn off their transponders may pose safety risks.

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

<comment><USER5> It's hard to say they deserve what they get if they choose to go dark to support their illegal fishing activities, but... they sure do deserve it at least a _little_ bit more. Failing to use this data because of the fear they might take steps to hide it, and thereby self endanger, is 1) an appeal to possibility, and 2) an inappropriate casting of blame if it does happen.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, ships that disable their transponder pose risks not only to themselves, but also others - especially smaller vessels, which may not have transponders of their own.

However, I agree that this data is valuable and should probably be used; I merely espouse caution in how we apply it, as there may be ways to use it without posing undue danger for fishermen, or alternate lower risk data sources (such as the satellite analysis mentioned in the article). There is relatively little cost in putting together a risk analysis prior to implementing any policies or law enforcement strategies from these analyses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have mixed feelings on this.

On the one hand, I feel there is some fear mongering in it. The equating of transshipping with standing in a dark alley waiting for someone to conduct an illegal transaction is disingenuous. It is what it is.

The concept of International waters recognizes that there is no one claimant with authority over the high seas. It isn't a case of a lack of political will. It's that any overt political will by one actor alone would be perceived as aggression by other major nations. International cooperation is essential difficult to build, and easy to have fall apart with the ebb and flow of popular sentiment.

Trying to reason from satellite and AIS data alone only illustrates operational patterns. Not whether the operation going on at the time is illegal or not unless the illegality is provable by geographic presence alone.

Anything that incentivizes non-participation in broadcasting a navigational aid is more than "appeal to possibility". It is a certainty that someone will eventually end up smacking into a shit running dark. It"s just like the Big Sky Fallacy. Yes there is a lot of sea out there, but there are a lot of vessels as well.

This is good exploratory work, but I would look at getting boots on the ground in terms of joining up with fishing crews to weed out illegal fishing behavior before doing anything drastic that may jeopardize the integrity of an incredibly valuable navigational aid.

<comment><USER7> This is just showing the areas on the map where the dark alleys might be, because that's also where all the streets and boulevards are.

Red spots are where two AIS transponders got close enough for a transfer between their vessels. Black spots are where one AIS transponder slowed or stopped long enough for a transfer with a non-transponder vessel.

A lot of the spots can be explained by completely legitimate floating factory ships, or cargo-ferrying vessels that bring the fish back to port while the fishing boats stay where the fish are.

You would need a second data set, containing known-legitimate transfers, to filter out results from the first. As it is now, it's just a map of where fishing activity typically happens. Of course there will be shady transactions somewhere in there, using the massive amount of above-board activity as cover. It's about as useful as saying that one of the fast-food employees at a gigantic food court might also be selling marijuana.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This could be useful in conjunction with some of the work the AP and Digital Globe did where they were looking for human trafficking related to these practices. [http://explore.digitalglobe.com/see- freedom](http://explore.digitalglobe.com/see-freedom) Where this gives them a better idea where to point the satellites.</comment>


Amazon Workers Are Denouncing Unions by Using Suspiciously Similar Tweets - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/nyc-hq2-amazon-fulfillment-center-union-tweets.html <comment><USER2> Unions were terrible for the Big Three auto companies, and they will be terrible for America's new rising commercial powers: Amazon and Tesla

<comment><USER3> This is the same strawman used to gut the US government of any commitment it ever had to any of the people it claims to serve.

Terrible unions are terrible, just as terrible governments are terrible. Terrible cars are terrible. Terrible houses are terrible. Terrible schools are terrible.

By _maintaining_ these things instead of abandoning them, we can have good unions, good governments, good cars, good houses, and good schools.

Repeat for everything in your life, if you want to keep it.

<comment><USER2> Of course relatively speaking, all of these things exist in a spectrum from good to bad. But at a higher level of analysis, some things are categorically poor solutions to certain problems.

The problem of scarcity of rival, non-public goods is best addressed without regimenting the productive forces of the economy with one-size-fits-all solutions.

Even with a perfectly free market, the challenge of addressing the complexities of the economy is daunting. We don't need to add restrictions on private property and contracting rights to those challenges.

<comment><USER4> _We don 't need to add restrictions on private property and contracting rights to those challenges._

The axiom "reject improvements if we don't need to do them" (whatever "need" means - we don't "need" to do anything) seems a poor guide. What if we _want_ improvements?

Or is this axiom just "reject restrictions"? What if those restictions make things better? Is this a kind of religious axiom; that it's morally right at some higher level to reject restrictions, even if they'd make things better? Does that apply to everything, or just economics?

<comment><USER2> Restrictions on voluntary interaction will not outperform unrestricted voluntary coordination. The latter evolves toward more optimal configurations as a result of the incentive each individual has to improve their station in life. Interactions that don't make the circumstances of the two parties to the interaction better than they otherwise would be are not sustainable in a free market, while those that do, are selected for, and this is because both parties have a right to choose the best option available to them.

A broad-based restriction is a one-size-fits-all-solution that will inevitably lead to less optimal outcomes in numerous cases. Society and economy are too complex to deal with based on broad over-simplifying generalizations about entire classes of interaction.

<comment><USER4> _The latter evolves toward more optimal configurations as a result of the incentive each individual has to improve their station in life._

I understand that this economic axiom has been discredited. For example, by the work of Nash.

 _Society and economy are too complex to deal with based on broad over- simplifying generalizations about entire classes of interaction._

Yet you keep making them. If you think such broad, simplistic generalisations don't apply, why keep making them?

<comment><USER2> _I understand that this economic axiom has been discredited. For example, by the work of Nash._

Can you elaborate? I'm not familiar with any Nash work that discredits it.

I know that game theory models show that the principle of First Possession (which many animals exhibit and which is the foundation of free market interaction) minimizes conflict, and moreover, that in a perfectly competitive free market, all interactions lead to Pareto Improvements.

 _Yet you keep making them. If you think such broad, simplistic generalisations don 't apply, why keep making them?_

It's not a generalization. It's a conclusion based on inductive reasoning about the implications of the economic structure of reality, like people being self-interested, and companies that earn less revenue contracting while those that earn more expand.

It's no different than believing that all life is subject to evolutionary forces.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


MoviePass Is Now Testing Photo Verification of Ticket Stubs - <AUTHOR> https://moviepass.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360000329251-Ticket-Verification <comment><AUTHOR> I just feel like I am being punished with this since I was randomly picked for the beta. Here is a clause that just irks me: "If you fail to submit your ticket stub more than once, your account will be canceled and you'll be ineligible to sign up for a new MoviePass account."

I have now had it happen to me 3 times in 3 months where I have driven to a theater only to have the service fail on me where I was unable to purchase a ticket. So, with this rate of error, it seems highly likely that accounts can easily be cancelled due to their error and not mine.

<comment><USER2> There is another solution, although you may feel it is sub-optimal.

Simply stop going to the movies.</comment></comment>


Darpa SyNAPSE Program (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.artificialbrains.com/darpa-synapse-program <comment><USER2> The site is returning an error "This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.", but here's a cached version and some other links:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOJQO0i...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOJQO0iElAwJ:www.artificialbrains.com/darpa- synapse-program&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

[http://www.darpa.mil/program/systems-of-neuromorphic- adaptiv...](http://www.darpa.mil/program/systems-of-neuromorphic-adaptive- plastic-scalable-electronics)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyNAPSE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyNAPSE)</comment>


Self hosted open source video conferencing "in 5 minutes" with Jitsi Meet (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.adamhyde.net/tag/jitsi-meet/ <comment><USER2> Now I get why the app is in the top 10 most popular apps in Italy...</comment>


Google Fiber Plans & Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/ <comment><USER2> Thank GOD they're disrupting this industry. All the telcos are worthless "Soviet bureaus" that deserve death.

It's really sort of amazing to think about. In all my years on this planet I have _never_ been pleased with a telecom company. Never. I have always felt like I was paying far too much for inferior service, contemptible customer support, and endless efforts to further "monetize" me through harassing phone calls trying to sell me more stuff, intrusive DNS systems that redirect me to their crappy web sites, etc.

There is not a single other industry I can say that about, certainly not one that comes to mind so quickly. Hell, I can't even say that about the government.

As if that's not bad enough, this industry seems to spend a lot of money lobbying to destroy the open Internet, which is like a car company lobbying to increase the number of annoying traffic regulations in order to make it less enjoyable to drive.

<comment><USER3> > contemptible customer support

Because Google will be so much better? Look, I hate telcos just like the next guy, but the suckage is mostly due to the nature of the business. They form natural monopolies and that sort of thing doesn't lead to customer satisfaction. The only way that sector is going to get truly disrupted is through gigabit wireless internet. You can have multiple competitors in one space with comparatively limited infrastructure investment on their part.

That free tier? That is outright illegal and its sole purpose is to _eradicate_ all competition. It' a good thing for Google that sort of thing isn't really enforced anymore. They'll still get sued though. Look up price bashing.

Once Google is the only player in town, you still think they'll shit lilacs and spread rainbows and unicorns? That's just not how monopolies work.

<comment><USER4> "That free tier? That is outright illegal and its sole purpose is to eradicate all competition."

Why don't we sue Google for providing free WiFi in Mountain View? And Google Fiber isn't free - its $300 to cover the equipment costs. I'm pretty that 12 months of basic DSL for less than $300 anyway, installation included. Some neighbors will "freely" share their internet, should incumbent cable co sue them aswell for unfair competition?

What is to stop a cable co "recycling" old equipment to provide basic freemium internet to people who don't want to pay more for premimum plans.

The unfairness of having all that equipment already owned and built out... somebody stop them... oh wait what is Google doing?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I wouldn't consider $300 up front "free". It's an amortized price, similar to XM Radio's $400 lifetime subscription fee. Frankly, I'd like to see more amortized pricing like this.

<comment><USER6> I'm cynical about this kind of pricing. Once you've paid up, in the companies' books you're in the minus column until the end of time. Incentives are no longer aligned. Combine this with the way that telcos treat regular paying customers ... I wouldn't like to put myself in that position, even with a company that tries to be aggressively benevolent.

<comment><USER7> Just about every single person who uses the internet in any way is in Google's positive column. They might not be a positive for the Fiber division alone, but given where the vast majority of Google's income comes from, Fiber will have a lot of pressure to keep customers happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I was at Georgia Tech, I got 650 Mbps. You realize the bottleneck isn't your connection at that point -- it's everyone else's. Which means a lot of sites still download just as slow. Although the big sites have optimized data centers, so it was pretty cool downloading an entire OS in a few seconds (although I think my hard drive write speed limited that a bit too).

My father works in the fiber optics industry and has told me that if fiber was brought directly to each home, every person would have more bandwidth than they knew what to do with. One thin, tiny fiber can carry an INSANE amount of information. The problem is the processing circuitry that converts these light signals into digital signals. These NICs have a much lower throughput than the fiber itself, but if the fiber infrastructure was already in place everywhere, upgrades would be much cheaper and quicker. (In other words, Google Fiber has easy upgrade potential to 10, 100, ... Gbps).

<comment><USER9> Would Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, Amazon cloud storage, et al exist today if we could send data across the US at even just 650Mbps?

<comment><USER10> Oh yeah! Think: a harddrive writes at what an average of 75MB/s [1], and 1Gbit internet is 125MB/s [2]. (Note, Google currently advertises 'up to 1Gbit up and down').

This means that dropbox no longer "syncs". It's just another harddrive in terms of how it works. Copies to and from just as quickly as your harddrive.

Heck, it seems like if you installed an application to your dropbox, and ran your computer off of an SSD, it seems like you could enjoy BETTER performance than if you had that program installed on a 7200rpm drive and ran it locally...

Can't wait to see what we end doing with 1GBit ubiquity!

[1] [http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive- charts-200...](http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive- charts-2008/Average-WriteTransfer-Performance,659.html)

[2] <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1Gbit+in+MB%2Fs>

<comment><USER11> First, even if you "installed an application to your dropbox", it would still be running from your local machine - that's just how Dropbox works.

Second, even if it were running the application from Dropbox's server(s) (it seems like that's what you mean?), it would still have to read from their servers - you can't magically eliminate a bottleneck just by moving it to a different physical computer; data still has to be read from disk.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I messed that up, sorry. But it's still an impressive feat and I'm still very excited about getting 1Gbit internet!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Usually when people in Silicon Valley use the word "amazing", I roll my eyes.

But $0 internet is _very_ amazing.

On top of that, $120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to other service providers.

<comment><USER13> _$120/mo for cutting edge consumer entertainment is just a slap in the face to other service providers._

I pay $120/mo in New York and get high speed internet, and cable TV with HBO (conspicuously missing from Google's offering) and ESPN. Don't get me wrong, I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, but I don't actually think that $120 price point is much of a slap in the face to existing providers.

EDIT: and this is just in Kansas City. Given the existing variations in price across the country, I'll be very surprised if we are all paying $120 when (if?) it rolls out nationally.

<comment><USER14> Did it come with a free Nexus 7? Google's going to decimate the existing cable and DSL offerings in Kansas City in less than a week.

<comment><USER15> Wait, is this only in Kansas City? How long until everywhere gets it?

<comment><USER16> Yes, although there are rumblings about other locations. I can tell you that if it does 'decimate' the entrenched carriers they will go thermonuclear as well (so Google ends up opening another front in the legal wars) You can already see some of the tactics where cable companies have convinced legislatures to make it illegal to allow either public funds to be spent on infrastructure or to allow non-contracted third parties into a region.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I might just be overcome with the sheer impressiveness of this but it feels like the real reason behind everything that Google has done over the last 5 or so years (Youtube, Android, Chromebook, buying dark fibre, Chrome, G+, tablets etc.) has suddenly come in to crystal clear focus. They're going for the jugular with a grand unified strategy the likes of which the tech industry has never seen before.

<comment><USER18> There has been a good discussion on the previous article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4293530>

w1ntermute has a comment that has been highly up-voted:

"I don't know about you, but I'll take Google over Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. any day of the week, regardless of their conflicts of interest."

Google may have an impressive business strategy, but they haven't done anything to lock out a competitor. Google has tough competition in every single area you have listed.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, hadn't seen the other thread.

They have tough competition but who else is able (or even capable) of offering such a compellingly unified and cutting edge platform? If they can crack the content to go with the platform, they've won imho. Worst case: the incumbents are forced to up their game dramatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does this alter the trend towards mobile? Maybe not in terms of the kind of device you use - it might still be a tablet or a phone-like device - but in terms of data delivered over mobile telephony networks?

Perhaps part of the reason that my iPhone can compete with my desktop is that home internet is just so terrible. Maybe there will be a whole new class of bandwidth hungry apps that can't be duplicated in anything going over a phone network.

In places like Korea I believe they have high bandwidth fiber everywhere; what's the experience there?

</comment><comment><USER20> Was so excited then saw it was just limited to Kansas City, what a tease, but glad to see they're 'shaking' things up.

<comment><USER21> Right, I would have preferred a quiet roll out, until large metro areas were ready to go live. It's going to be at least 2013 before most of us even have the option to use it.

Sort of like hearing that the new Android upgrade is available, but only international phones for the next year, and your phone might not even support the new version.

<comment><USER22> They're offering it to an entire city, a public website was always going to be necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why start this in Kansas City? Is this like trying to produce a future Broadway show in New Haven or San Diego, so you can work out the kinks before you go to the big time?

<comment><USER24> They solicited proposals from cities ([http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig- ou...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our- experimental.html), [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for- our-ex...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for-our- experimental-fiber.html)), and ended up choosing Kansas City as the initial site ([http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed- broa...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-broadband-is- coming-to.html)).

It looks like they wanted a market with between 50,000 and 500,000 subscribers as the initial one, so not NYC or SF or LA. And, wanted strong local support to avoid regulatory problems.

<comment><USER25> "wanted strong local support to avoid regulatory problems."

Probably the most genius part of this whole thing. It may the reason we're not hearing about the lobbying backlash someone like Uber received.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm hoping that this becomes available in the bay area in the coming years. $70/month for gigabit connection is an absolute no brainer.

<comment><USER27> Given that I pay $69.16/month for service from Comcast that in theory should be 30 mbits, but in practice ranges all the way down to 3 megabits for hours at a time, depending on time of day, yes, it would be a no brainer. $70/month for an actual 30 megabit connection would be a no brainer as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER28> I'm paying around $100/mo for 50mbits, and it seems to fluctuate between 30 and 60 realistically. That's for just bare internet service and nothing else. I'd switch to Google in a heartbeat, provided they have atleast basic support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If this pans out it'll be a huge boost for civilization for one reason:

The distributed internet. Today the internet as a transport layer is a multiply redundant mesh, to some degree, but the _content_ of the internet is still highly centralized.

Now imagine a world 25 years from now where everyone has >100 mbit/s internet connections and multi-terabyte SSD (or memristor) drives are commonplace and cheap. Now the idea of caching huge chunks of the internet starts not only making sense but becomes imminently practical. Web sites will be viewed less like applications and more like git repos with front-ends.

</comment><comment><USER30> I guess living in Montreal means I'm not getting a piece of this action any time soon.

It had the merit of making me reconsider how I live my life though. When you think about moving to another country, even for just one quick second, for an internet service, it's probably way too central to your way of life to be healthy.

<comment><USER31> I'm sure big Canadian telcos are now forced to do something in the next 12-24 months, otherwise they will lose time, and then money very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I browsed around the site,

<http://fiber.google.com/how/>

and although I have friends and relatives who live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, I don't live there myself. So as rollout happens there, I'll be glad to hear from HN participants who live there what's happening in the local Internet access market. Meanwhile, I'll still be dealing with the same SMALL subset of providers who reach my neighborhood as I have for years. Please let us know what you think of Google Fiber when it arrives in your neighborhood, okay?

</comment><comment><USER33> The cable channel lineup looks limited (no ESPN? can you add HBO?), so I wonder if they will get much adoption there.

Internet pricing looks fantastic.

<comment><USER34> ESPN is the most expensive cable channel. They charge the provider roughly $4/month if it is part of a main package, or $20/month if it is part of an upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Comcast in my area has been hurting due to the local power company offering fast fiber speeds. This is going to be much worse for those local companies. I'm not saying it's bad, that's what happens when you spend 10 years without innovating.

</comment><comment><USER36> Here's a good quote from a friend of mine, Craig Clausen of New Paradigm Resources Group (a market research firm specializing in telecom):

"This is more of a strategic play for Google. As they mentioned, there are three essential components to the Internet (i.e. Google's business model): Computing power, cloud storage and access. The first two have worked in Google's favor. The third hasn't kept pace. The telcos and other access providers (like the cablecos) don't care about what's good for Google and broadband speeds aren't where Google would like them to be. As they've done in similar situations (such as wireless and energy), Google is signaling to the telcos that, while they'd prefer not to be in the telecom business, they are certainly capable of doing so. Picking Kansas City – smack dab in the middle of the country – has less to do with Kansas City showing the most interest and more about being able to distribute that message evenly between the coasts. It's a different type of investment for Google – one in which they hope to spur the access providers into stepping it up or risk having the guy with the deepest pockets step in for them."

</comment><comment><USER37> Is anything actually 'free' in this world?? I wonder how much of my data they will be using without my permission to serve me ads...although I guess targeted TV commercials are a heck of a lot better than random stuff I see now.

Double-edged sword if you ask me.

<comment><USER38> The only thing free here is low-tier internet if you pay for the installation. This isn't about ads, this is about installation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Nexus 7 as the remote. This could really be a game changer for tablets, and for google.

</comment><comment><USER40> Free internet. That's rather creepy from Google. When they roll this big it would hurt other providers, which in itself isn't bad, but having only Google as a choice is. Can they even do that by the way (anti-monopoly regulations)?

<comment><USER41> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)#Action...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_\(pricing_policy\)#Actions_in_the_United_States)

Maybe?

<comment><USER42> That only seems to apply to dumping as an action by international firms, intended to damage domestic companies, and the rights domestic companies have to address it. It's not strictly applicable between two local firms competing for customers.

<comment><USER40> I see, I don't think there's a difference between domestic/foreign firm when it comes to dumping in EU. I think that you can't operate with loss in order to crush competition. But Google might have it covered with other sources of revenue coming from "free" users.

<comment><USER41> The big difference is say a Japanese Steel maker dumps a bunch of foreign steel on the US market, then suddenly disappears... there's a structural crisis because the US steel industry has to rebuild from scratch. Or that's the argument anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 1 Gigabit Download _and_ Upload!

I have always believed that the internet would have been and fundamentally different place if we had fast upload from the beginning.

Rather than having everything in the cloud (i.e big corporate datacenters) people would have gotten used to running small server at home. After all was the web not originally designed to work more in this way?

This would have fostered a much better culture of privacy and freedom when you have ultimate control of what you are putting online, freedom from TOS etc. Sure there are advantages to big datacenters such as backup and fireproofing etc but is every piece of data really that precious?

</comment><comment><USER44> The rally concept is pretty neat. If your fiberhood gets enough registrations you will get the next install batch plus all schools, government buildings and other public establishments will get gigabit in your fiberhood.

</comment><comment><USER45> This might just make Kansas City the tech center scene for colocation startups. Run this out of your bedroom. Amazon watch out!

Note to self: Cross KC off my list of colo locations if an offer appears with outrageously low pricing.

</comment><comment><USER46> As a matter of comparison. Here a regular situation in France :

I pay 63€ for a nominal 100MBps fiber connection + free calls from my landline (to other landlines in most of the world (more than 100 countries, and all the big ones (but neither Africa nor the Middle East)) and mobile phones in France and US), plus 170 televion channels (that I don't watch anyway), plus a femtocell device, plus a smartphone subsidized (2 years contract) with illimited calls to other mobiles or landlines in France, free SMS and MMS, 1Gb of "high speed" (in average 2Mbps) 3G , after 1Gb it switches to low speed (512Kbps). Oh, and I get Spotify Premium. All that for 63€ a month (That's 78 american $) (but I'm in a 24 months contract) It's quite the usual "quadplay" offer (Television + Phone + Internet + Mobile Phone) here in France. There are cheaper ones.

So yeah, at 200$ there is somebody being ripped off. But the Google 120$ option doesn't seem too bad, it's a little less than twice the price I pay here in France, but with great goodies like the tablet, and an incredible 1Gbps... Ten times my official speed. So the markup is deserved.

To French people, I have the SFR MultiPack offer with the Carré Web + the Spotify Premium at 5€ option, and the Classic Fiber option (not the Evolution one) cf. [http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/multi-packs-de-sfr-mobile-et- adsl.j...](http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/multi-packs-de-sfr-mobile-et-adsl.jspe)

</comment><comment><USER47> Damn!!!! Their free tier is better (with a higher upload speed) that what the max AT&T can provide my home, via DSL, in San Jose, Capital of Silicon Valley. Go figure....

</comment><comment><USER48> Very interesting. All the packages sound great but it's really the free internet that's going to prove to be disruptive. I, as many other I'm guessing, have moved away from traditional television, watching a lot of stuff on my laptop and iPad. There are a couple of TV shows I enjoy but I'm not bound to them and don't mind purchasing the episodes at a later time. And you have to imagine that Apple and Google will strike their own deals with content creators at some point.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think Google has another unmentioned monopoly. Some of the smartest people in the world are employed by them. They have experience in AI, and as seen by the self driving car they also know how to do practical things with it.

Google being the kind of company that is opposed to hiring an army of manual labors, could very well create an army of digging robots to lay the fiber for them. I can see google scaling this faster then anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER50> <https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html>

Read this first, and read it well.

</comment><comment><USER51> How would they get this into SF or NYC? Verizon currently testing a 300mps I am sure they will scale that a bit in next 1-2 years.

<comment><USER9> What about smaller markets like Seattle, Portland, or other cities up here?

Is there any more info about their plan for build-out or how soon it'll be available in our neighborhoods?

<comment><USER52> I'd imagine it would get to Seattle sooner than later since there's a Google office here?

<comment><USER9> I would think so too...though technically it's in Kirkland...

<comment><USER52> There's an office in Fremont too, though, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The $120/mo plan is incredible for what you get, considering 1TB on Google Drive is normally $50/mo. So jealous ...

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm surprised that I wasn't able to find the word privacy mentioned in the first page.

I think that Google is clearly losing the "don't be evil" credo, whatever you may think about a specific industry.

Google is trying to do everything, Google is not satisfied with ads and is trying to remove the middlemen, all the possible ones.

They tried to attack the fashion ecommerce niche with Google Boutiques, they tried to attack Groupon with Google Offers, now they become an Internet Provider, but why? Here are my two cents:

-they will be able to know everything, and I mean everything, their users do online, and they are one of the few organizations actually able to parse and exploit this size of data -they will be able to know the identity of their users -they may be able to control the speed or stability of the connection to specific sites, they may even hijack specific banner ads without anyone noticing

</comment><comment><USER55> I want this in Austin. Now. Yesterday.

Seriously, the customer service is a non-issue. You can't do any worse than the telcos/cablecos other than having zero customer service ever.

If this forces the entrenched companies to man up and throw down some fiber, it's worth whatever it costs as long as no one is getting physically injured.

</comment><comment><USER56> This would be awesome if it wasn't coming from Google. If they control the browser, a good chunk of websites/services _and_ the delivery mechanism, there are just too many opportunities for abuse. Although, maybe this will force other telecom providers to stop sucking so much.

</comment><comment><USER57> Does anyone know how they make money from the free option?

<comment><USER58> They don't. The $300 installation fee doesn't cover the cost of running fiber to your house + the cost of the box.

But it's hugely cheaper to wire your house at the same time they are wiring your neighbours. That's the catch -- the deal disappears once the neighbourhood is connected. They're not going to do a truck roll for $300.

Once your house is connected, upsell potential is a lot better than if it isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Living in Argentina, and paying quite a lot for a 3Mb/s connection, now I hate America a bit more :D

</comment><comment><USER60> Even their homepage blows away the others. Simple and flat. It tells me the mbps for each and whether there are data caps. Contrast that with, say, Windstream where you have to go searching to find out the speed of "Merge"

The homepage alone is going to do good for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER61> having spent the summer on true gigabit internet, it's a shame people won't even understand how big of a difference this makes. Their site makes a cute attempt at it, but I don't think it does it justice. Gig internet just has to be experienced.

</comment><comment><USER62> I looked at their Term * Resale and Redistribution

The Fiber Services are intended for the personal use of you and others with whom you share your residence (including, within reason, guests who are visiting you). You agree not to resell or repackage the Services for use by people other than those with whom you share your residence. If you wish to use the Google Fiber Services to provide Internet service to others, you must enter a separate agreement with Google Fiber that specifically authorizes you to do so. *

I do have some questions though. I get that a Fiber user cannot resell the bandwidth like a VPS provider. But how about hosting his own web server running a HN clone site?

</comment><comment><USER63> Read through a couple of comments and all I see is people bitching about phone and cable companies.

The problem is, you can only get Google fiber if you get enough people in your neighborhood that want it and you meet a preregistration goal. Then you can choose the DSL crappy free internet, or the gigabit one for 70/month which is comparable to the Comcast rate, except faster speeds. Of course, the more people that choose Gigabit, the more demand there is to justify a price increase.

And, to be honest, my employer is running on fiber with a link speed of 1 Gbps and there isn't that much of a difference between Internet browsing at home.

</comment><comment><USER64> The country of Australia is spending over $31 billion on a project called the National Broadband Network (NBN) to bring fiber directly to 97% of homes. That project is enormous in scale compared to the Kansas City experiment.

</comment><comment><USER65> The most important piece of information I see than the speeds is "No Data Caps". Will this mean the end of Fair Usage Policies? I am anxiously hoping that this is the start of the end of the evil FUP policies.

<comment><USER66> Is it dedicated fiber, or are you sharing with neighbors? If shared, just how many of your neighbors can shoving blu-ray rips around before your VOIP suffers?

(Of course, even with dedicated, you still are meeting other people's bits _somewhere_.)

<comment><USER65> I presume it's dedicated. "No data caps" is a huge bonus in the world of FUPs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I am living in Europe/Vienna. I do not know the US situation too well. However I think they really need an option in between. I think neither option is really interesting to the average user. The buy once option with 5/1Mbps seems too low for the average user, while the 1GBit seems really too expensive.

Wouldn't offers from 30 to 100MBit make much more sense. That's the broadly available offer here for 20 to 50EUR.

Of course we have symmetric fiber offers with 10MBit for 17EUR and 100 for 25EUR too, but that's only available in bigger cities.

</comment><comment><USER44> During the live event it was mentioned that premium channels will be available at an extra charge per month. Google wanted to simplify the cable line up as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER68> Being in Canada this is going to suck immensely having people just across the border with 1Gbps meanwhile I pay $100 for 15Mbps/950Kbps (cable TV included).

Pretty soon I bet I'll come across someone say _"Here look at this file...what wrong? It's only 9GB you should be able to download this no problem."_

Or Xbox oh crap I'll forever be stuck with racist Scottish ten year-olds since I'll never get matched to my own region everyone will be 1Gbps.

<comment><USER69> So true. The other I went to change my cellphone plan and god forbid, I asked why the monthly fees are so high in Canada compared to US. The answer "the cost of running a country wide network for so few people is costly" Let me say this, bulls __*.

<comment><USER68> I know it's not like we are spread evenly across the country just Great Toronto Area (GTA) alone has over six million people out of a country of 34 million.

My small city in my small province has almost 50% of the entire population of the province in and around the one main capital city.

Clusters of people are in cities in fact I believe a few years ago Canada tipped past being a rural country to an urban one with more people in cities than in the country.

If anything you would think that would make it easier to supply mobile phone, TV and Internet service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> In the FAQ :

> Can I run a server from my home? > > Google Fiber is intended as a > residential Internet service. Our Terms of Service prohibit running a > server.

This scares me.

</comment><comment><USER71> Can't believe no one has mentioned that the TV option does not include AMC, HBO, ESPN, Disney Channel, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network. (List from the Verge).

So the only channel it has that I actually would watch is The Daily Show, I mean Comedy Central, which I can watch on the net for free (in a much better extended length version).

Spreading real modern internet infrastructure to the masses in the US though, yes that is a very positive thing.

</comment><comment><USER72> It sucks that I turned down a job in KC during the spring because I didn't want to move away from my house. It would be very cool to have a chance to use Google Fiber.

I wonder what the timeline will be to spread this baby nationwide. Then again, I wonder what Congress will do because Google is in yet another industry. Hopefully then can pull this off. It'll be a great future!

</comment><comment><USER73> If Google Fiber catches on, and you consider combining it with Google TV, Youtube content and Google TV Ads, the strategic possibilities are fascinating.

I wish I knew whether enough consumers are willing to pay to justify a large- scale infrastructure rollout. There is a whiff of that old saying here - Google engineers are great at building products for Google engineers.

</comment><comment><USER74> One day Google will launch something new and there will be a highlighted note at the top "based on your IP this release doesn't apply where you are [and probably won't ever]" and then I won't need to stare blankly for 10 seconds at an address form working out how it's possible to enter a real [read: my] address in to that weird configuration.

But then again, maybe not.

</comment><comment><USER75> Does it surprise anyone else that they're offering television with this package?

Clearly it makes sense, and seems like a great way to give Apple TV/Roku etc. a run for their money. Plus, if they expand this program, which they presumably will, it could put Google TV in a lot of homes... although it doesn't explicitly state that the 'tv box' will be running Google TV.

</comment><comment><USER76> This reminds me of when Bill Gates was purported saying that he'd enter the RAM market if prices didn't go down. Google has nothing to lose here. They want a faster web because it means more chances to provide ads. If ISPs aren't willing to provide it they will... and once they start the ISPs will have to follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER77> I noticed that there are no FOX Broadcast Company channels on their channel list. That's a shame because I'd really want to keep Fox Soccer Channel if I was switching.

I would guess that has something to do with Google and Rupert Murdoch's well publicized icy relationship. It'll be interesting to see who blinks first if this takes off.

</comment><comment><USER78> What's the average price for an average connection in the US ?

Here in France, I get Internet + TV + free phone to 50+ countries for about 40$/mo.

I don't think there is anything above 60-80£/mo here (that would include all of the above + mobile + paid TV channels), so 120$/mo seems really kind of expensive to me!

<comment><USER79> Usually you'd expect to pay $100 or so for that.

But the history is that a cable TV package alone is generally $60 and has been increasing. The secondary TV channels have figured out that if they produce high quality original content (like Breaking Bad or Mad Men) they will be considered essential by the consumer, and can raise their price to the TV cable operators. Who then passes that on to the consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> I'm sorry but this is not actually happening in a meaningful way for the vast majority of people. Your city will never be on the list. There's way too much local government corruption and cable-co monopoly. Please stop wet dreaming on your HDTV. You'll void the warranty.

</comment><comment><USER81> When this comes to Vegas I will buy a TV specifically to take advantage of this. If anyone at Google is reading this, please come here as soon as possible. Seriously, the internet quality out here is atrocious and I REALLY want to support this business model.

</comment><comment><USER82> This is another demonstration of why federal network neutrality regulations would be premature.

</comment><comment><USER83> I really want this to succeed. I have never had a great experience with high speed Internet.

I'd even consider adopting a KC home, and paying some or all of their $300 for free Internet if it meant it would come to the San Jose area sooner.

Maybe a Kickstarter to wire a fiberhood?

</comment><comment><USER84> I wish, this could come up in India early , Internet is worse here. If you want high speed internet,the charges are too high to afford for common man. I remember before 5 years i used to download at 2 kbps :(, now it's better but not cheap

</comment><comment><USER85> Coming from a 3rd world country, free Internet sounds like a fiction, my expensive connection is slower than the free one Google is offering! Though I'm happy I will be one of the first homes to have fiber on the country.

</comment><comment><USER86> After living in Australia for about two years (probably worst internet in the developed world) and now living in Japan with gigabit speeds I can confidently say: Do thank Google for this and do give them all your money!

</comment><comment><USER87> Kansas, KS and Kansas, MO - what's with the Kansas fixation Google?

This sounds good but if they are going to take more than a few years just to move out of Kansas I am not sure if it would even relevant in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER88> Kansas City is partly in both states. Why KC? Google had a competition and they won.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> With this announcement by Google, we're at stage in the game were cable company execs hear this --> <http://youtu.be/_hHDxlm66dE> #finishhim #mortalcombat

</comment><comment><USER90> Meanwhile Verizon FIOS (fiber) is available in hundreds of cities. <http://www.consumerfiber.com/fios-availability>

<comment><USER91> Of course on all of their plans they limit your speed. The top speed at over $200 is only 300/65Mbps

Edit: and that is only for the connect, not the TV service. And the router they give you isn't very good and same goes for the 'cable/tv box' which sucks up more power than my PC and likes to die once a week forcing me or my wife to physically unplug and re-plug it if we want to watch Tv. It would be a far stretch to say Fios is good, it is only better than the alternatives in my area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Did anyone else catch the "2 year contract" bullet point? Despite that, of all the Telcos out there, I suppose I would be more willing to sign one with Google than any of them.

</comment><comment><USER93> Good for KC. Here, 3 blocks from Empire State building in Midtown Manhattan, the max I can get is 10/2 from TWC. FiOS is still negotiating with building authorities.

</comment><comment><USER94> In comparison the pricing of my local provider: <http://www.onsbrabantnet.nl/internet-weert>

</comment><comment><USER95> With the "Free Internet" plan, what happens if I pay the construction fee, then move out of my "fiberhood" into a house that isn't part of a fiberhood?

</comment><comment><USER96> Google: The moment you're in my area, I'll sign up.

Unless sonic.net beats you to it. ;-)

( _Please_ do whatever you can to speed up planning and deployments in additional areas!)

</comment><comment><USER97> Who wants to bet these have HD's (or SSDs) in them and are set up for peer-to- peer content caching on the local city network?

They'd be stupid if they didn't do that.

</comment><comment><USER98> I don't live in KC, but I'm very excited to see what kind of splash this will make in the industry. A lot of neat things might come from this.

</comment><comment><USER99> We Canadians need this so badly it's not even funny. I would honestly pay for a 5 year long contract as long if that's what it takes.

</comment><comment><USER100> Is Google going pull a Google with this and keep a copy of every you packet transmit and receive, holding onto it for ever and ever?

</comment><comment><USER101> No thanks. Google already harvests enough data on me that I don't need to pipe my entire internet & TV connection through them.

</comment><comment><USER102> Could this ever come to Canada, or would Google be stuck behind the same Canadian ownership requirements that nearly blocked Wind?

</comment><comment><USER103> Note to telcos: If all your customers hate you, you are begging to be made obsolete. Looks like your wish is about to be granted.

</comment><comment><USER104> So, anyone know if this is coming outside the US any time soon? I'm getting that "nose pressed against the glass" feeling...

</comment><comment><USER105> Does anyone know what hardware companies they are using for their network?

Are customers going to have an optical transceiver in their house?

</comment><comment><USER106> I hadn't seen the rabbit mascot before, but I hope it's meant as a nod to Mr. Rabbit from Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.

</comment><comment><USER107> It's still limited to just Kansas City? Hm.

</comment><comment><USER108> Cool, but do they have a plan that doesn't freely give my data to law enforcement as part of a regular dragnet?

</comment><comment><USER109> I really like the little SVG animations on this site. Any ideas of how you would go about authoring this?

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems like Google TV now done right.

</comment><comment><USER110> I'm astonished! Free 5mb/1mb connection? I have to pay close to us$40/mo for 3mb down in Argentina.

</comment><comment><USER100> There's no point even checking to see if it's coming to my city. I already know the answer is no.

</comment><comment><USER111> Please GOOGLE, please come compete with ATT and TIME Warner in San Diego. I am ready to pay....

</comment><comment><USER112> Kansas City - yeah, that'll do it. I'm sure everyone in Kansas City needs Gigabit Ethernet.

</comment><comment><USER113> One of these gigabit subscriptions is enough for a few houses / apartment floor. :-)

</comment><comment><USER114> "fiber" is a horrible name for a suite of products! (But this still looks awesome)

</comment><comment><USER115> So does it cut your Internet and your TV when your Google account gets suspended ?

</comment><comment><USER116> Onlive must be very excited.

</comment><comment><USER117> the whole Comcast Experiene is really bad. We bought new HDTV and went comcast store to get HD cable box to watch 2012 Olympics tonight. but they gave some wrong box and said they're sorry.

</comment><comment><USER118> How is Google going to get past all the state and city monopolies?

</comment><comment><USER119> Anybody else thinking of moving there just for fiber?

</comment><comment><USER120> I'm so sad that I can't get this where I live... :(

</comment><comment><USER121> This is exploding with awesome at every seam.

</comment><comment><USER122> So... I can get gigabit internet for either $70/month locked in for 2 years or $25/month locked in for 1 year. I'm not seeing the point of the $70 pricing option.

<comment><USER123> The Free plan ($25/mo 1 year)says:

Up to 5Mbps download, 1Mbps upload speed.

The $70/mo for 2 years says:

Up to one gigabit upload & download.

Big difference

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> Anyone know when is so cal is in pipeline

</comment><comment><USER125> God I hope they bring this to the UK!

</comment><comment><USER126> It is great, but never can use it.

</comment><comment><USER127> Google is taking over our lives :(

</comment><comment><USER128> WOW! what a great news! I hope Google keep this job quicken in another country. We here in Taiwan need a REAL FAST Internet!

</comment><comment><USER129> Why Kansas and not Durango, MX?

</comment><comment><USER130> DDoS will never be the same

</comment><comment><USER131> Holy shit, I want this.

</comment><comment><USER132> Anyone read Snow Crash?

</comment><comment><USER133> This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER134> WANT

</comment><comment><USER135> Only available in Kansas City?

</comment><comment><USER136> While I am super happy that the cable industry is getting disrupted as it deserves to be(the wireless industry sucks too, maybe a tech company can buy TMobile or Sprint), I feel uneasy about the following two points:

1) Profitability: I wonder how profitable and sustainable this is for Google? They can subsidize it for only so long before deciding to discontinue it as has been happening to many of their services recently.

2) With Google as your ISP and TV channel provider, they will have the potential to know everything about you, probably even more than you know about yourself! Imagine you use all their services, they will know about your surfing habits(via ISP, Google searches and clicks, G+ buttons, Google ads, Google analytics etc.), your location(Android location services/GPS. Google Maps), TV channel viewing habits, Gmail, social network(Google+), phone calls(Google voice), etc. etc. It will also provide malicious and state actors with a one stop shop to steal/request information from.

<comment><USER105> re: #2

have you been following this story at all?

<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+binney>

(lmgtfy used not because I'm trying to be a dick, but rather because the direct google search gives a url that contains all kinds of extra parameters)

<comment><USER137> You only need one:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+bi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+whistleblower+william+binney)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> > Free internet at today's average speeds

> $300 construction fee (one time or 12 monthly payments of $25) + taxes and > fees

Google is going full circle. I wonder if the cost for Google to give internet to people who didn't otherwise have it (and at no charge to them) actually paid dividends because that person is going to immediately generate new revenue for google from the inevitable use of Google/adwords. I think John D. Rockefeller would tip his hat.

</comment><comment><USER139> Wow - impressive. Can't wait to say goodbye to comcast.

</comment><comment><USER140> aww i wish they were around philly

</comment><comment><USER141> Holy shit.

That's a lot of porn.</comment>


Espresso: Art and Science - <AUTHOR> http://lightbulbmanifesto.com/2014/03/13/espresso-art-and-science/

<comment><AUTHOR> the magic behind the espresso machine. the extraction and particle levels. the barista.</comment>


The Negro Travelers' Green Book (1956) - <AUTHOR> http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/greenbook/id/88 <comment><USER2> I learned of it by watching my parents use it while growing up in the Jim Crow south.

You people were never supposed to know of it. You could not be trusted not to burn the businesses to the ground.

      Are any reader surprised to learn that such is still very much needed and that several things things may well still exist and be in use to this day?

Same as it ever was. Thats why those of us who live through it still teach our children and grandchildren to "Never Trust Whitey". Funny how White folk are offended by that concept.

<comment><USER3> Some people you can trust. Others you can't. This has no correlation with skin color. To think otherwise is... well... racist.

<comment><USER4> That's a naive belief to have in practice. If you are part of a group that has been systematically oppressed by a different group because of your skin color, there is a valid correlation between trust and skin color. To think otherwise is... well... naive.

<comment><USER5> There are quite a few valid correlations that judging individuals on the basis of would be considered racist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since this site seems to be down, here are some other resources:

Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book)

A very powerful clipping from the book: [https://i.imgur.com/fo8vKHO.png](https://i.imgur.com/fo8vKHO.png)

You can read the full book here: [https://archive.org/stream/history_green_book/87_135_1736_Gr...](https://archive.org/stream/history_green_book/87_135_1736_GreenBk)

And there's an article here: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/read- these-chillin...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/read-these- chilling-charming-guides-black-travelers-during-jim-crow-era-180957131/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I first learned of the existence of the Green Book thanks to Matt Ruff's "Lovecraft Country", which features a similar work called the "Safe Negro Travel Guide": [http://www.bymattruff.com/my-novels/lovecraft- country/a-read...](http://www.bymattruff.com/my-novels/lovecraft- country/a-readers-guide-to-lovecraft-country/the-real-safe-negro-travel- guide/)

</comment><comment><USER8> 99% Invisible did a good episode about the Green Book. [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-green- book/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-green-book/)

</comment><comment><USER9> There is an interactive display of the Green Book at the National Museum of African American History and Culture [https://nmaahc.si.edu/](https://nmaahc.si.edu/) (I think on the second or third floor).

Also the New York Public Library has an interactive map fro their public domain collection [http://publicdomain.nypl.org/greenbook- map/](http://publicdomain.nypl.org/greenbook-map/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I saw this very eye-opening video of a presentation on the Green Book, which I hadn't heard of before. The stories some of the participants tell transformed how I look at the experiences of black Americans.

[https://www.c-span.org/video/?404885-1/travel-guides- african...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?404885-1/travel-guides-african- americans)

Per the link above, the presenter Calvin Ramsey is making a documentary, "The Green Book Chronicles", in progress (and looking for funding):

[https://greenbookchronicles.com/](https://greenbookchronicles.com/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Crickets

<comment><USER11> Is that a reference to something?

<comment><USER2> yes... The absence of participants. "The only sound in the room is the sound of crickets"

<comment><USER6> In fairness, there's not a lot to say. It was a horrible time in the country for blacks. I wish I had a time machine to see what it was like.

<comment><USER10> > It was a horrible time in the country for blacks.

It still is, it's just better than it was when this book was published. However, we are back to people openly espousing racism and white supremacy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>