Why we dropped out of Yale to start a dating website  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thislooksfun.com/

<comment><USER2> I tried to think of some constructive criticism (since that's more useful than "good luck guys!"), but couldn't really figure anything really penetrating, but here's my best shot at some question to think about, constructive criticism, etc.

1) how is this different than people just going out to events with friends and then randomly meeting friends of friends to date? My best guess is that this is different because there's more of a recognition that people are looking. How does this change the dynamics?

2) My guess is that this is going to be kind of a platform for matchmakers too. What, if anything, do they get out of it?

3) Will the businesses hosting/benefiting from the event pay a cut of their proceeds to TLF?

4) Will people who meet on the site attend the events as pairs? Or will it be like a singles event? If the latter, then we'll see an "alpha male" problem where a handful of males will be desired. The betas will drop out and more importantly many women will be turned off by the competition for a few men.

5) Finally, and most importantly, any play in the dating space is most likely not going to be a tech play (that's been done - OKCupid and eHarmony among many others have all sorts of fancy algorithms). Like most social media today, the business model will stand or fall based on very nuanced understanding of human nature, in particular very nuanced understanding of male/female romantic and sexual interactions.

Now, no offense, but when I think of "very nuanced understanding of male/female romantic and sexual interactions" the image of two college guys who read HN does not come to mind. Nothing personal, I would apply the same reasoning to myself (which is one of the reasons I have not started a dating site). It's just something to be aware of, you're stepping into an area that is one of the most misunderstand social arenas for our species.

All of the above are just my musings intended to plant some seeds in your head. I think this is a great idea and you should go for it with gusto.

The only real advice I have: If you don't already have one, get a woman on your team. Gone are the days where dating sites are just tech/algorithm plays, like I said above you've got to understand the psychology and there's just no way to do that with 50% of your target market missing from your founding team.

<comment><USER3> This should not be [dead]:

CJM13 11 minutes ago

Thanks a lot, certainly more helpful than a best of luck wish.

1) What we're doing really isn't any different at all than people just going to events with friends and then meeting potential friends to date. We want to replicate the way dating works in the real world online. So we are providing an online platform to generate more of these interactions. There is certainly the recognition that people are looking for dates so that changes things a bit.

2)Users will be able to search for dates for themselves or set their friends up on dates as a matchmaker. We're coming up with ways to incentivize the matchmakers but for the meantime are hoping users will find the experience of matchmaking fun. There is concern that the matchmaker will be put in an awkward situation if the date does not go well for their friend, but that really isn't any different than setting someone up offline.

3)There is no cost to businesses to use TLF. We help businesses solve the "butts in seats" problem so they are happy to work with us to arrange a deal that allows us to have users prepay for their dates.

4)We are starting with singles events.

5)We completely agree. Our focus is on the offline interaction between users. Our site will only serve as a means for quickly setting up a shared experience offline. We are actively looking for a woman to bring on board! When developing the concept we gathered feedback from as many of our girlfriends as we could.

P.S. Although we may be two college guys who read HN we'd like to think we have a decent understanding of the fairer sex.

Thanks again!

<comment><USER4> _"... We want to replicate the way dating works in the real world online. ..."_

Isn't the real world process broken? Are you taking into account _"Gutentag Secord theory?"_ [0]

 _"... the non-committers are out there in growing force. If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace—and of course it is—today we're contending with a new "dating gap," where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with either deadbeats or players. ..."_ [1]

Are you trying to solve this problem?

[0] Marcia Guttentag, Paul F.Secord ~ [http://www.amazon.com/Too-Many-Women- Ratio-Question/dp/08039...](http://www.amazon.com/Too-Many-Women-Ratio- Question/dp/0803919190)

[1] Atlantic, Kate Bolick, _"All the Single Ladies"_ ~ [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all- the-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single- ladies/8654/3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Their site <http://thislooksfun.com/> is currently unimpressive. It's noticeably slow on my broadband connection. Why? Huge background images changing on a relatively quick timer (sizes as large as 4.5mb, 7.56mb).

It's just an email gathering page, but a few minutes spent in an image editing program would give a much better first impression.

<comment><USER6> You dont need an image editing program, just imagemagick:

> convert a.jpg -strip -quality 60 a.jpg

<comment><USER5> The images need cropping/resizing, but yes, imagemagick could do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"Current dating sites suck … an undergrad could build something better as a class project." ~Paul Graham from his essay, How To Start a Startup

>we decided to take PG's advice a bit further and take time off of school.

A lot has changed in the online dating world. Hopefully they have a better argument than a 6 year old quote from one person, albeit being from PG.

<comment> steve-howard I imagine that "dating sites suck" is a way of saying "it's really hard to make a dating site that works for people." Sure, lots has changed in the dating world, but I would not be surprised if there is substantial room for improvement for a long time to come.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is definitely room for a ton of innovation and improvement in the online dating industry. Online dating isn't going anywhere and will continue to grow. Social networks and dating sites can be a great way to meet new people. We want to limit the online interaction and have people share an offline experience together as soon as possible. The artificial contact that current online dating platforms provide cannot replace the interpersonal connection that happens in the real life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Current dating sites are not the last word. Better ones will appear. But anyone who wants to start a dating startup has to answer two questions: in addition to the usual question about how you're going to approach dating differently, you have to answer the even more important question of how to overcome the huge chicken and egg problem every dating site faces. A site like Reddit is interesting when there are only 20 users. But no one wants to use a dating site with only 20 users—which of course becomes a self-perpetuating problem. So if you want to do a dating startup, don't focus on the novel take on dating that you're going to offer. That's the easy half. Focus on novel ways to get around the chicken and egg problem."

From <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> When you read about most founders who dropped out, they already had significant traction before making the leap. In my honest opinion you shouldn't drop out of college until you have a finished product(even if it's only a MVP) with traction and can show that this is a better alternative. Obviously you're free to do whatever you want but from an impartial observers perspective, this move seems unecessarily risky until you have a finished product, and enough users to prove it's viability.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dating sites don't inherently suck.

OKCupid is actually an amazing website. The problem, as always, is there will always, always be more men seeking women.

I'd like to see what would happen if a dating site somehow tried to keep the ratio of men to women more appealing to both sexes.

<comment><USER11> > The problem, as always, is there will always, always be more men seeking > women.

i don't think this is the case, exactly. after talking to people about it, the issue seems to be that men are just more aggressive about it, which turns away a significant segment of women. the women are out there, some just don't like putting up with the crap they get on dating sites.

<comment><USER12> _the issue seems to be that men are just more aggressive about it_

If that's the case, then it would be interesting if a site like OKCupid had a limit on the number of emails per day a straight guy could send to a straight woman. Say, only one every few days. That would require male users to think very carefully about who they email.

It's an arbitrary thing, but it would be interesting to see how the dynamic changes.

<comment><USER11> agreed. i've always thought that an interesting idea to try would be to create a (mostly) zero sum dating system where you have to respond to people in order to initiate conversations with others.

it de-incentivizes sending rapid-fire copy/pasted messages as well as completely ignoring messages. levels things out a bit.

<comment><USER12> That kind of reminds me of Slashdot's Karma system. I think it would work, I think the concept would have to be weighted towards dating, but not 100% a dating site. Something that's as much about being social as it is finding a partner. So maybe encourage people to email people they find interested on a "just-friends" basis.

Maybe instead of marking your profile with your intentions, you mark each individual email, ie, "New Friends", "Short-Term Dating", "Activity Partner".

I'm just spitballing here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> dating is really a niche that's more or less guaranteed slow growth, taking time off from school to pursue something this generic doesn't strike me as smart...since you'll spend a ton of time waiting for your user numbers to climb.

<comment><USER14> That's a bit of a fallacy to assume that more time = more users.

User growth doesn't happen by itself because you have a product out (outside of the rare viral hit).

It takes months of hard work and focus to build a user base.

<comment><USER15> months of hard work that should be spent hitting the books, learning something about the world and gaining the experience required in order to properly provide a solution for educated and experienced people over the age of thirty who can spot an immature product with their laptop closed.

I'm not saying there isn't a market for lbs dating sites, what I am saying that from what I'm reading it appears that a couple of intelligent people are dropping out of school at a young age to pursue what amounts to some low- hanging fruit.

<comment><USER16> Low-hanging fruit would be a good thing to pursue. Did you mean the opposite?

<comment><USER15> That's insane. Who told you that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The title is alarming: "Why we dropped out of Yale to start a dating website"

But the first paragraph is less concerning: "... taking time off from school to build and grow our company"

Yale is generous in terms of granting leaves of absence, so the knowledge that you're not actually dropping out really changes my view of your decision (for the better). You'd be crazy to _drop out of Yale_ for an idea with no traction. To take a semester, or possibly a year, for the same? That's a much less drastic proposition.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are very fortunate that Yale makes the process of taking time off so easy. I emailed my Dean the day before registration and didn't need to do anything else. We do plan on going back and graduating.

<comment><USER18> So this article post was libkbait. Gotcha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> wishing you guys all the best - but you've probably picked one of the most difficult business models imaginable. building a user base for a dating site is even harder than building a new social network and competing against giants like match.com is gonna be _very_ difficult. my advice; try to appeal to a niche segment - don't target the masses. as far as I can tell online dating sites aren't broken, it's in most cases just a lemons market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment/advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I had this exact same idea about 8 months ago - connecting singles around events. I was a little more focused on bringing local businesses into the mix to promote the events though. I thought through it quite and bit and my conclusion was that it doesn't really differ much from a singles night.

An app that made facilitating a singles night easier is a pretty solid idea, however, selling it as a dating website is not the right way to go in my opinion.

The main demographic for dating websites has always been men. The problem with trying to put together a singles night is that the main value proposition (women) is difficult to come by with an online dating website.

Additionally, a lot of people who try dating websites are there for a few main reasons: 1) they are too busy to go out and meet people 2) they are too shy to go out to meet people. Either way, this solution doesn't solve those problems.

I actually built out a good portion of the backend of this product but have since pivoted into something different. They also will run into the chicken and egg issue, although with a little facebook marketing that's pretty easy to solve.

<comment><AUTHOR> We appreciate the feedback! Like every dating site we will have to address the chicken and egg problem of getting a solid user base (particularly women). However we are working on some clever ways to attract women to the site. More specifically we are developing a matchmaking component which will allow users to pick out dates for their friends and decide not only who their friend goes out with but also what they do.

Thanks for the comment!

<comment><USER21> Is it true that there is a dearth of women in online dating sites in general? If so, where did you see that info? Or is that an assumption you're working from based on the gender ratio in bars/clubs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just some feedback: I didn't see an easy link to your main page on the blog (not in the header, sidebar, or footer). There were plenty in the body text, but I didn't look there first for a link.

In signing up, I also had to re-enter my email address after the first username I tried was taken. You could repopulate the email address field based on the prior submission in the event that a username is unavailable.

As others have said, the background images on the splash page are huge. Even on my 15Mb connection I had to wait a moment for them to load.

</comment><comment><USER23> Be sure to get a fantastic front-end engineer/designer on board. It strikes me the online dating space more needs better design than algorithms. (even OKcupid is just OK. pun intended)

</comment><comment><USER24> Do you know about the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute's incubator program. Just do the summer incubation program, and see what happens. Dropping out is risky.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hi, just signed up to try your website.

2 comments: 1) the text box does not display underscore (_). A lot of emails contains _ character, so it could confuse ppl.

2) You should implement a 404 page. instead of the current error page when you go to thislooksgood.com/[xx]

</comment><comment><USER26> Here's an idea:

The current problem with dating sites is poor response rates from women.

Many sites have tried to solve it by scoring candidates and only letting you see candidates that meet criteria---i.e. reduce messages sent, and boost chances of being a match.

Why don't we instead treat it like a SPAM problem. Only show people the type of messages that they've responded to in the past. Don't necessarily believe what they say about what they like, trust their _revealed preference_.

<comment><USER27> Or why not create a dating site which only allows women to contact men?

By creating a one-way dating channel, you can filter out a lot of the behavior which drives women away from sites. Make it a virtual Sadie Hawkins dance.

<comment><USER28> FYI, this has been done: <http://www.herway.com/>. No idea how successful it has been.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Developing this space as a college undergrad means you should be able to do some things really well. Event planning, for one, seems like something people in their mid or early-twenties could disrupt. It'll be interesting to see how your perspective translates to older users. Especially because you can't dogfood a dating site (even OkCupid's founders never used it).

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment! We're gathering a lot of different events that cover a variety of interests, so we're hoping that we will have something to offer for everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> \- take out 'revolutionizing' verbiage \- describe benefits in a few sentences \- offer something concrete for signup \- address page load issues

</comment><comment><USER31> How is this really different than HowAboutWe?

<comment><USER32> We differ from HowAboutWe in that we're going to offer prearranged events for our users. We want them to avoid decision paralysis when picking a date or date idea, so we give them something fun, tested, and popular to try while meeting someone new who wants to do the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think it'd be smarter to put groups of people together and send them to events or create events for it. So long as the ratios are even, or could be set. The advantage of groups is that it's not a make or break situation, like a 1-on-1. And groups of friends can be matched with other groups of friends.

</comment><comment><USER34> My suitemates and I (BR '14) were talking about what it would be like to drop out of Yale. We realized that the school would pretty much take you back whenever as long as you were doing something cool in the spare time. That's a really nice "psuedo-assurance" to have imo.

Best of luck fellas!

<comment><USER35> I have to disagree on this one -- Yale's policy actually really sucks. I am currently taking time off, and was told that not only must I take course credits from an outside school to get readmitted from a personal withdrawal, but also have to go through an abridged re-application process. A lot of time commitments and question marks there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> _...teach ourselves how to code_

How are you guys going about doing this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Friends of ours started an open lecture/workshop series called HackYale. Besides that there are a ton of great resources on the web. My best advice would be to just start building something and practicing a lot. Tutorials and classes are a great place to start but there is no substitute for actually starting a project from scratch and figuring things out as you go along.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

<comment><USER36> Thanks for responding, I ask because I'm currently mentoring a friend who's trying to learn and I'm curious to see what works for others. When I was learning programming I did more or less the same thing, but also found choosing the right technical books to be instrumental.

<comment><AUTHOR> What books do you recommend in particular?

Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I couldn't find a way to comment on the blog post or a way to contact the author:

"Diving into online dating - it's not a zero sum game

Online dating is hear to stay,"

typo, should be "here to stay"

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed! Thanks! You can email us at email@example.com or email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> College is one of the best times of your lives. Don't drop out, I'm glad you're only taking leave. Work will be waiting for you when you're done, I promise.

</comment><comment><USER39> guys - your "tweet this" link is broken. Once I sign up thro the pop up, it goes to a dead page. Look fw to it though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Good luck guys...don't let all the negative comments get you down. Power through and stay on task.

<comment><USER32> Thanks. We really think that you have to be an unflinching optimist to be an entrepreneur!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Were you guys onstage for Office Hours at Startup School?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, that wasn't us, just proves that this is an exciting time for this industry

<comment><USER41> Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> reminds me of <http://chirpme.com/>

</comment><comment><USER43> Stay in school.. I can't imagine why you guys are dropping out of school to "start a dating website". That said, good luck and I'm sure will learn a lot.

<comment><USER44> I agree. I went to Yale and wouldn't trade those semesters for anything. You've got your whole life to start a company, but the opportunities you get to build yourself at a place like Yale don't often come up again.

And especially for another dating site -- this is a market that many smart people have spent a lot of time thinking about, and unless you have something truly revolutionary which is hard to replicate, the odds seem stacked against you.

But again, best of luck. And think about using Yale resources as well like YES, your summers, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Facebook was the ultimate online dating site, until they removed/restricted the search-within-network feature.</comment>


Ask HN: What startups have you witnessed from its inception to going big? - <AUTHOR>

I remember the time when Drew Houston announced his little project called Dropbox at Reddit / HN and now it seems destined for success. I wonder what other startup's ascent have the HN community been witness to? And how it did affect you? <comment><USER3> Reddit. I remember when PG posted on comp.lang.lisp about this startup that he'd funded that was using Lisp. Checked it out, thought it was lame, because it was just a bunch of links with voting arrows, and the links all seemed to be submitted by the founders, spez's girlfriend, and PG. Came back a couple months later when they added comments, and stayed ever since.

HN. I joined the day after it opened for public use (it had been in beta for YC founders for about 6 months previous).

FictionAlley.org. I started lurking when they had a couple hundred members, and joined as user 1881. Joined the staff a couple months later, when we were at around 2500 registered users, and when I left the staff 3 years later, we had over 100,000.

Dropbox. Like you, I remember being super impressed by Drew's little demo on the HN forums. I actually had lunch with Drew, Arash, and Aston right after they got their Sequoia funding to discuss joining the company as employee #2. Had my own startup at the time and wouldn't leave my cofounder; I keep wondering if this'll be one of those decisions I'll regret forever, but OTOH the failure of my startup afterwards led me to Google, and that's been a pretty good experience too.

FaceBook. In September of 2004, a couple of my friends were all excited about this new social network that had just expanded to Amherst from the Ivy League. The founders had apparently just moved out to Silicon Valley, gotten some angel funding, and were shopping the company around to acquirers and VCs. I joined, found it kinda "meh", but friended all my friends (and a few people I met just once or twice at parties). At the time, they had profile photos, contact info, and the Wall, but nothing else. No private messaging, no chat, no photo-sharing, no apps, no events, no groups, etc.

Avici (remember them? They sold the massive routers that Enron Broadband and many of the major ISPs of the first dot-com boom used). Sometime in the summer of 1995 or 1996, we were sitting by the pool with the family of one of my friends from middle school, and talking computers. My friend's father said he and a bunch of his coworkers from BBN were founding a new company. They'd wanted to do these multi-terabit/second routers for years, and given how the Internet was exploding, it was now or never. They IPO'd at a market value of over a billion dollars in 2000, my friend's dad cashed out as soon as the lockup was over, and then the company promptly tanked.

Akamai. I was in a support group for gifted & talented kids with Reid Barton, the 4-time IMO gold medalist, when I was a teenager. Sometime around 1998, my dad was talking with his mom about what he was up to. He'd been working on the Cilk programming language at MIT, and one of the professors in the department was leaving to found this Akamai startup. Reid was going to join him as an intern. The irony is that I waited until the dot-com bust, after Danny Lewin was killed on 9/11, then picked up a whole bunch of Akamai shares on the open market at a price lower than the strike prices of virtually all the employees. That pretty much funded my first startup.

<comment><USER4> Since you seem to be good at picking the right horse early, what are your favorite new sites/companies right now?

<comment><USER3> I'm good at _looking at_ the right horse early. I suck at picking the right horse early, otherwise I'd be far wealthier than I actually am. I tend to move far too slowly, even once I think I know where the right place to be is, and get in just as it's becoming popular (and get out just before it crashes - <USER2> was telling my sister, before I took my latest job, that I've been a part of almost every major bubble of the 21st century. Was at an all-teenage dot-com in 2000, a financial software startup in 2005-2007, and a web 2.0 startup in 2007-2008. I hope that's not reflective of Google's future prospects...) Makes for a comfortable living, but for real wealth you need to take a few more risks than I tend to...

Some things that I've been looking at that seem quite interesting to me now, though:

\- LikeALittle.com

\- Android. I think that long-term, it has more potential than iOS. The mobile phone space in general has the potential to be huge.

\- OCR, computer vision, and other applications of machine learning to imaging problems.

\- Functional programming languages, particularly Haskell

\- YCombinator. I think PG's generally right about their being a trend toward startups in the future, and startups that serve startups will become quite big.

I also have the stinking suspicion that the next world-changing tech revolution is in the garage _now_ , and not one of the startups founded from 2004-2010. I, of course, do not know what it is. But there've been a bunch of enabling technologies recently developed - mobile phones and cloud-computing come to mind. And there's also a bigger concentration of brainpower in a smaller volume than we've seen before, with the rise of Google/Facebook/Twitter/Palantir and supporting universities and startups in Silicon Valley. I'm somewhat wondering what will happen when Google ceases to be a nice place to work, because for the last 10 years, they've been recruiting the best minds from all over the planet, putting them 5-to-a-cube in a handful of buildings, and working really hard together. Much of what they learn is probably applicable to a wide range of problems, but because the company is so focused on search, I doubt we've seen all the developments that could come out of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Facebook probably the biggest example. I remember when it was Harvard and MIT and actually just for college students. although I used it everyday, I did not at all foresee its skyrocket. now any service I visit every day I pretty much assume will go big. well HN maybe not...

</comment><comment><USER6> I remember something called the "Game Neverending" shutting down because its developers, while working on an updated version, accidentally created a photo sharing website instead.

</comment><comment><USER7> HNers of the right age have probably been witness to every big startup in the last decade. I would be more interested in hearing what effects the big startups have had each person's own projects.

<comment><USER3> For me, the biggest effect has been to make the idea of having a successful startup feel "real", like this is something actually achievable in my lifetime. For a lot of people, the idea of making millions of dollars is something that happens to other people, people far away that live in gated communities. But those people include parents of some of my childhood friends, teachers I had in school, and coworkers I've worked with. The idea of founding a startup and changing the world doesn't seem so remote when the guy who says "Sorry your code review is taking so long; I'd do it myself if I still understood the code" has a net worth of almost a billion dollars.

Basically, it takes away my excuses. A lot of people think "that sort of luck doesn't happen to people like me", and so they don't even try. But I've met a bunch of people that it _has_ happened to, and they're smart and they're dedicated, but they aren't fundamentally all that different from me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tumblr. I remember first posts around my online social circle mentioning this easy, simple blogging platform, and lots of people including me started using it right away. I'm still a big fan and use it in lots of different ways.

Posterous. Here the first thoughts were different and it didn't kick in among most of my friends. I used it for some time as an experiment and got to know it quite well, but somehow I didn't enjoy it too much, now I know I'll be using this platform for some projects soon.

Flickr. I wasn't much into photography back then, but my mates who were active photogs got crazy about it. At first I really didn't like it, partly because of the early UI/UX, partly because I wasn't really sure about the idea of hosting pics 'out there' and didn't like the ToS. After a few years, when I got into photography as a hobby, started using it right away (exploring and sharing) and I do it actively to this day.

Youtube.

Lots of local companies, which are probably irrelevant to most of the HN crowd, but I'll mention some anyway: gadu-gadu (from a simple sms gate app to being THE instant messenger in Poland completely killing ICQ here), grono.net (first leading social network), nasza-klasa (classmates social network), wykop.pl (digg clone).

<comment><USER9> I still remember receiving the patch to add gadu gadu support into gaim/pidgin. Good times. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Gee. Every YC startup since the first batch, that was successful, that people paid attention to, was witnessed by those people paying attention to it, except possibly during the dark period when Reddit was in decline and HN was not yet around, so it was a bit harder to notice. Well that's a rather snide way to put it.

Then there are some non-YC things, like Mibbit, Tarsnap, and BCC, which aren't actually "big," but have gotten enough coverage here, and seem to have gained some permanence.

I probably could have gotten a nice Twitter username if I had bothered. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember reading on TC a few years ago about a new P2P music sharing, micro- payments service (all the buzz words in). You would download a client and share your music collection on a P2P network and get paid for sharing (or something like that).

I don't know how big they are but they are quite well known: Grooveshark

</comment><comment><USER12> Posterous.

I used it a few days after it was launched public and thought it was just anther blogging platform. I hardly paid much attention. After an year or two the service started to gain traction when some famous bloggers moved to Posterous.

I still don't use it but it certainly has grown big.

</comment><comment><USER13> Heroku. I was member no. 601

</comment><comment><USER14> FedEx</comment>


Pattern Insight is using YUI to provide a Desktop like experience with a Web app - <AUTHOR> http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2009/12/04/pattern-insight/

<comment><USER2> please stop trying to do desktop things with web things...

<comment><USER3> Don't worry, it looks like "desktop" has just become a buzzword for rich, responsive UI. This ain't no powerpoint. Looks like a search engine and a code browser plus some kind of fancy analysis stuff. They mentioned TBs of data, and I know I wouldn't want to have to install that all on my desktop! Seems like a sensible choice.</comment></comment>


Why Alphabet Is the Most Google Move Ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3049693/the-invention-of-alphabet-is-the-ultimate-larry-page-move

<comment><USER2> It seems the key point is here: "It's kind of counterintuitive, but maybe you can actually do more projects that are less related to each other. Normally in a business, you think about, "What's the adjacent thing that I can do?" because that's where you must have experts."

I wonder if we'll see more companies doing the same, growing by moving into areas orthogonal to their first successful product?</comment>


Lyric clouds, genre maps and distinctive words - <AUTHOR> http://blog.last.fm/2011/06/22/lyric-clouds-genre-maps-and-distinctive-words

<comment><USER2> I did something similar with books[1], but drawing the words based on their F-score was a brilliant move. I think it gives the viewer much more information than word frequency, and thus is much more appropriate for generating word clouds. I wish I'd thought of it first.

[1]: <http://www.korokithakis.net/posts/book-clouds/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Dunno, I think the raw frequencies work fine in your case, because there aren't really any themes that all (or many) authors across your selections keep returning to.

But, thanks :-)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, probably. I'd have to do a hybrid weighted frequency/f-score thing, otherwise I'd lose some information, but yes, great idea with the F-score overall.</comment></comment></comment>


The Hidden Student-Debt Bomb - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/jason-delisle-the-hidden-student-debt-bomb-1419983516

<comment><USER2> That's a Google redirect to [http://www.wsj.com/articles/jason-delisle-the- hidden-student...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/jason-delisle-the-hidden- student-debt-bomb-1419983516) .

<comment><USER3> Thanks. We changed the url.

Submitters: please don't submit stories using Google redirects to paywalled sites. They tend not to work after a while, and they obscure the source of the story. Posting links to them in comments isn't as bad.</comment></comment>


DjangoCon US Program Published - <AUTHOR> http://www.djangocon.us/schedule/ <comment><AUTHOR> I am the DjangoCon US Community Char and would be happy to answer any questions or comments you have about the program or the conference.

<comment><USER2> Any idea when the sponsors will be listed on the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Should be pretty soon but I'm not 100% up to speed on the sponsorship side of things. Definitely send a note to firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any questions about sponsorship stuff and feel free to give me a ping at firstname.lastname@example.com if that doesn't work.</comment></comment></comment>


DoorDash and Amazon Flex will keep their tipping policies, despite outcry - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/10/18218329/doordash-amazon-flex-instacart-tipping-policies-controversy <comment><USER2> Previous discussion (<48 hours ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122521)</comment>


Myspace's Tom Anderson was an 80s "WarGames" Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/myspace-cofounder-tom-anderson-was-a-real-life-wargames-hacker-in-1980s/

<comment><USER2> My respect for MySpace Tom almost rose significantly, until I got to this bit...

 _"Anderson obtained or guessed the passwords necessary to get through the first level of security and, once connected, changed at least two passwords to prevent bank officials from accessing the system. The group also created fictitious accounts, and Anderson, using the Lord Flathead name, left a message saying that unless he was given free use of the system he would destroy records."_

Not cool. Pretty stupid too.

<comment><AUTHOR> 14 years old hacking into a major banks computer system in the 1980s, with a group of (40+) hackers looking up to him.

At that age he was bound to let that go to his head and get a little too confident.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That was actually a damn fine article. Informative, and completely devoid of that TechCrunch fluff. I've got a whole new look at Tom now..

<comment><USER4> The things you find out about your friends...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to think that Myspace left open the possibility for embeds by sheer ignorance. It now seems a lot more likely that they knew what they were doing...

<comment><USER6> Part of the thing that people think is fun about myspace is the feeling that they're hacking it by customizing their profile.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Customization pushes a very fundamental human button.

I'm reminded of some archaeological studies of human culture, using gene studies and recovered tools and a million other pieces of evidence. They determined that clothes were developed nearly 70,000 years ago, whereas spoken language, as we now know it, arose around 50,000 years ago.

In other words, fashion predated language.

<comment><USER7> clothing != fashion

<comment><USER5> Good point. As wikipedia informs me, "the oldest art objects in the world: a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000yrs old, were discovered in a South African cave," yet any indisputably fashion art from that period would be irrecoverable by now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> +1 for techcrunch doing actual investigative journalism.

</comment><comment><USER9> Smart people tend to do smart things that keep surprising the rest throughout their lives.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if he hacked into his schools mainframe and altered his academic record (like in the movie). hmmmm...

kids...

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't see what's so interesting about this article...

<comment><USER11> Anyone care to enlighten me?

edit: I just reread the article... Let's see, Tom Anderson created MySpace, did war-dialing in the WarGames times, got access to the Chase bank system (apparently with a default or weak password), told 40 of his friends how to do it, and they all got raided simultaneously.

Public figure + black hat hacking in the past = interesting?

There's _one_ thing I found really interesting:

"One of the reasons Anderson would hack into living room sized mainframe systems was to get access to computers that could run a C compiler to learn programming. There were no open source or free C compilers at the time, and personal computers had very limited memory and processing power, so hackers would try to access them on other systems."

<comment><USER2> I think most people assumed the MySpace guys knew just enough PHP to get MySpace off the ground and then got lucky. It's interesting to see there's a little more to it than that.

<comment><USER12> Dialing into a no password-system is hardly any tougher than knowing a bit of PHP.

<comment><USER13> What's tough about it is that he was 14 and it was the 80's... way before it was popular to take pot shots at PHP.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


129 new Taskforce sites launched - <AUTHOR> https://www.brianstaskforce.com/blog/129-new-taskforce-sites-launched

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my personal project. I originally launched it a while back with coverage for Los Angeles cities but decided to just open it up to all states and a metro area in each state.

The basic idea is to combine local activism ("petitions") with charitable giving. I like to call it doing something "more than a petition."

</comment><comment><USER2> That location selector is very nice looking, and intuitive.</comment>


What Your Startup Should Copy From 37signals - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/10386/7-Things-Your-Startup-SHOULD-Copy-From-37signals.aspx

<comment><USER2> Learn from your peers in industry, sure, but make sure you take the lessons to heart and make them your own rather than just engaging in blind cargo cult imitation.

</comment><comment><USER3> When you know nothing copy. Artist have been copying each other for centuries. The Roman's copied the Greeks, the French copied the Romans, etc. I think when you start out you have no choice but to copy. As you get better you can start to do things differently adding your own to it. Eventually you are the one innovating.

Remember copying alone never pays off, but it's a great way to learn quickly when you know nothing. Microsoft was the best at this back in the day. First version was always a copy of what existed out there. After that they got feedback and iterated on that design surpassing the incumbents. Eating your own dog food helps in this process. They did this over and over with lots of success.

As noted in these posts, copying you copy success and failure. It's your job to sort which is which for your customers/community. You have to know the point when copying won't help you, and innovation should take over.

</comment><comment><USER4> "2. Be your own customer. Try (if you can) to eat your own cooking. A product works out much better when you use it yourself. Solve your own problems. Fix the things that annoy you the most. Beyond just 37signals, there are lots of examples where people built software that succeeded in part because they use it themselves. GMail comes to mind."

This is kind of ancient wisdom in the software industry (even Microsoft does this), but as you say, it may be worth repeating.

<comment><USER5> I have a biased opinion (I wrote the article), but I'm not sure that advice necessarily needs to be "fresh" in order to be useful/good.

I learn "new" things all the time that it seems others have known for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The best things I've learned from 37signals are

      - You can build cool things that people need and will pay for.
      - You can keep it simple and effective.
      - You can do it in whatever style suits you best.

Copying's got nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER7> "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal."

When you learn, you steal. ;)

<comment><USER8> It is an art form in itself to copy what's working rather than what's incidential to the success of a firm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't agree with "5. Charge early, charge often." as being one of the things a startup SHOULD copy from 37Signals. Sure, it has many benefits, but it's just not feasible for websites that heavily rely on 'network effects' or user capital to provide value.

The chicken and egg problem is hard to overcome already, and charging for access early obviously doesn't make sense for these types of websites.</comment>


The New Nostradamus (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/the-new-nostradamus/

<comment><USER2> A list of the predictions this guy got right (at the end of the article, and sprinkled throughout) is near useless when unaccompanied by a list of everything he got wrong.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. Loses credibility by not discussing what he got wrong, and then calling this a prediction:

"Predicted China's reclaiming of Hong Kong and the exact manner the handover would take place, 12 years before it happened."

Britain had a 99 year lease which began in 1898. Predicting it would end in 1997 requires slightly-more-simple math than game theory. I would posit most people could have predicted that more than 12 years before it happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is interesting that the Republican candidate (which he apparently backed) did not make it through last year despite all voodoo and magic.

</comment><comment><USER5> As always in such cases, the article is devoid of relevant content that could actually bring a scientific mind to even remotely consider the possibility that it might be true. The fundamental questions that always prop up are not being answered: how many predictions were made and what were the exact phrasings?

<comment><USER6> Exactly, the article is full of impressive sounding stuff but no real information. So what if random-guy-I've-never-heard-of was impressed by his predictions, even if said guy does/did work for the CIA.

This would appear to be a very simple matter to settle, show a bunch of predictions and see how many are correct and how many fail. Even showing a few of his previous predictions would be interesting, along as you didn't do something absolutely moronic like cherry pick the ones that turned out to be correct (but oh what a surprise, the journalist goes and does that exact thing at the bottom of the article).

So most likely just a bunch of bullshit reported by and incredulous reporter with no notion of critical thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I want to know how his technique works. Anyone have links?

</comment><comment><USER8> This story is straight out of Asimov's Foundation.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29>

<comment><USER9> How far ahead is Bueno de Mesquita forecasting? Two years?</comment></comment>


Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/25/mumbai-india-bans-plastic-bags-and-bottles <comment><USER2> Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away.

I agree that "we", the people need to take a pledge to stop using plastic as much as we can. But if there's no restriction put on giant FMCG companies such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Patanjali, Netsle, Procter and Gamble, etc. from supplying their products wrapped in plastic, I consider all of these government initiatives merely as a gimmick.

EDIT 1: Another comment I left on this thread - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17400028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17400028).

EDIT 2: In India, plastic is a major contributor of blocking sewers and rivers, especially in rainy seasons. Another important problem plastic waste produces is that since government bodies (such as, municipal corporations, gram panchayats, etc.) are unable to dump and/or recycle plastic waste properly, it is accidentally consumed by animals and is the major reason for their deaths. Another issue is that, often "dumping waste" is considered as "burning" it. Burning plastic waste disturbs healthy air and is a major factor among others responsible for the increased air pollution in Indian cities recently.

<comment><USER3> _> Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away._

Broadly speaking, that would be a terrible backwards step for the environment. Plastic packaging often reduces waste by protecting the product from spoilage and damage.

A lot of people bemoan the plastic wrapping on cucumbers, but that wrapping doubles the shelf life of the product. It's a net win, because the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping.

Many people argue that milk should be sold in re-usable glass containers rather than disposable bottles or cartons, but the environmental case is really marginal. The glass bottle is considerably more energy-intensive to produce and transport, with more energy used to collect and wash it for re- use. Returnable glass bottles are often worse than disposable plastic if the transport distance is too great and/or the breakage rate is too high. In many cases, the best option is reusable plastic bottles, which are less energy- intensive to manufacture, lighter to transport and more durable than glass.

Plastic is a wonderful material that has an important role to play in a sustainable economy. There has been a huge increase in the quality and availability of bio-based and biodegradable plastics in the packaging industry. We have irrationally demonised a very useful material, creating a huge distraction from much more serious environmental problems.

If you buy a beef steak wrapped in plastic, the problem is the steak, not the wrapper. The plastic wrapper produced ~10g of CO2 and required ~100ml of water to produce; the steak produced ~7kg of CO2 and required ~4,000 litres of water to produce. As long as it is disposed of responsibly, a whole trash bag full of plastic packaging has a negligible environmental impact compared to a single portion of beef.

<comment><USER4> Cucumbers are more harmful than plastic?!? I stopped reading right there. One timely biodegrades, the other doesn't. That's the whole problem.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly the kind of tunnel vision that annoys me.

Things take much more energy to PRODUCE than to dispose of.

Agriculture is incredibly energy, land, and water intensive.

<comment><USER6> We can and should do better. What if we had a robot that would drive through the fields, detecting weeds and crushing or cutting them out instead of chemical solutions? Couldn't we deliver the water more directly as well?

Shouldn't transportation use battery powered vehicles instead of fossil fuel based vehicles?

Can't we steam wash with renewable energy?

Maybe it costs more to do some of these things now, but I think folks could use some good goals to work toward.

<comment><USER7> On a happy note "no-till" is starting to prove itself. There are mixtures of effectiveness and chemical usage but checkout the No Till vids the USDA is promoting [https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUSDANRCS](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUSDANRCS)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great to see that my city, Mumbai, is setting an example here. Plastic ban is a no brainer. People must move to either biodegradable carry bags and packaging or move to jute/steel/metal bags/utensils etc. Plastic would choke our world one day otherwise.

At the same time, I know it would be huge pain for a lot of people. In Mumbai, it rains really heavy. Like really really heavy. It rains more than 2x it rains in London and that too in just 4 months. So for a lot of people, plastic is literally the roof they need. Zoom in on Mumbai and you would see many shanties with blue "roof"s. That is all plastic. Hope municipality will allow such plastic sheets as they are not single use.

<comment><USER9> Doesnt Mumbai do that every couple of years and the the whole thing fizzles out and then some new bureaucrat tries it again.

This is from 2009

[http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/dec/30/bmc-plans- to-b...](http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/dec/30/bmc-plans-to-ban- plastic-bags-in-mumbai.htm)

<comment><USER10> In Mumbai (and India), law enforcement is a huge challenge regardless of the laws.

<comment><USER11> What makes this issue worse is the existence of bullshit impractical laws, such as this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thank goodness somewhere is taking the obvious action of banning the packaging, which is really just pre-garbage.

However, banning packaging only works if it is backed by a system for precisely standardised, refundable and washable containers that food and other products can be shipped in.

You can't just say "no packaging". We need a MUCH better form of packaging than disposable/recyclable because recycling only works a little bit to solve the problem of packaging turning into garbage. That better form is re-usable standardised containers.

<comment><USER13> Better to use paper packaging. For food it can be waxed like in the olden days.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't paper bags literally mean demand for more papers and consequently more jungle would be destroyed?

<comment><USER15> No.

Paper bags don't add up to much. The Indians use vast numbers of small bags. I weighed a paper bag I got some fruit in just now, 7g. Divide by x to compensate for realistic recycling. A tree weighs several million grams. Not all of it becomes paper, but still, one tree is a lot of 7g bags.

Adding to that: Once the paper is burned or rots, the route back to a new tree is fairly short. Not like plastic, which forms new oil in fifty million years.

<comment><USER16> On top of that, these days paper isn't manufactured by cutting down forests we have more eco friendly ways of manufacturing paper, in and out of India

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think this is a good step but what a lot of countries lack is also proper disposal of trash.

Landfills are a poor solution, better are clean trash burning facilities[1] that also produce energy as well as proper pre sorting.

China is building the largest in the world which is to open in 2020. [2]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.html)

[2] [https://www.sciencealert.com/china-is-building-the- largest-w...](https://www.sciencealert.com/china-is-building-the-largest- waste-to-energy-plant-in-the-world)

<comment><USER18> The "ban single-use plastic" hype train seems illogical to me. Having your city littered with garbage is a government services problem - they should provide convenient waste disposal receptacles, empty them frequently to be disposed of properly, and give citations to litterers. We should not be cheering this short-sighted law.

I also don't understand why plastic in a landfill is all that bad. The fact that it is biodegradable is a positive here - it won't break down into toxic substances.

Evaluating environmental impact is a complex process. Everything we do has multiple consequences. I believe global warning is the most serious environmental disaster we are facing today. Plastics use significantly less energy in production and transportation (because of lower weight and less material needed.) With an eye toward AGW, how can paper packaging and burning refuse be seen as a responsible choice?

It is critical that we consider the effects of our consumption habits in a serious and reasonable fashion. I just don't see the anti-plastic panic to be rational or constructive.

<comment><USER19> > _With an eye toward AGW, how can paper packaging and burning refuse be seen > as a responsible choice?_

Plastic takes oil and therefore carbon out of the depths of the Earth, until it eventually gets burnt, biodegrades or otherwise degrades and turns into CO2 contributing to global warming.

Trees instead take CO2 from the atmosphere, turn it into solid cellulose that we make paper from, until the paper biodegrades or gets burnt and returns to the atmosphere from which it came in the first place. If a new tree is planted for each tree that gets cut for paper, as is done in most developed countries, paper can be carbon neutral (it all depends on the source of the energy used for processing it).

<comment><USER20> Plastic is a nearly free byproduct of refining oil for fuel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The offset in reduced plastic use by consumers will be more than compensated with the rapidly growing e-commerce market.

I am terrified of the amount of plastic my Amazon purchases bring with their packing.

It is a step in the right direction, but the govt. should invest and provide alternatives, perhaps use existing research institutions to come up with new, eco-friendly packing materials, and popularize them.

<comment><USER22> I don't buy from Amazon, but weren't they pushing for minimal and plastic-free packaging? Has the program been dropped?

<comment><USER21> Is it so? I haven't heard of it. I recently ordered a set of knives and they came wrapped in a plastic cover (black) and wrapped with a cardboard box. But the knives themselves are packed in plastic and cardboard boxes.

If I'd gone to a store, I could have picked them up by hand and avoided the plastic covering required for transport.

E-commerce generates additional non-biodegradable waste and that is a problem that has to be solved considering the rapid rise of online shopping.

<comment><USER23> At the store just the other day - shopkeeper ringing up the guy in front of me asked "Do you want a bag for that?" It was a product, in a box, wrapped in plastic. And the guy had his own canvas bag out already.

If he'd accepted, he'd have had the product in a box in a bag in a bag. My god. When does it all end?

What was the product? Plastic bags.

<comment><USER24> It's getting annoying when I go to a store. Put my backpack on the counter and get asked about a bag for the two small items I am buying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is nothing.

I was entering my workplace yesterday and as usual, the guard at the first checkpoint rummaged through my backpack. I was shocked when he said the plastic bag I was using to protect my notebooks from rain could not be taken inside. Upon asking for an explanation, he said plastic bags are outlawed and we cannot risk them in company premises.

I had to keep that bag in my vehicle trunk and then was allowed to enter premises.

<comment><USER22> Wait, why do you have guards rummaging through your bags? Do you work in a high-security facility?

<comment><USER26> Some IT companies in India check your bags _" for security purposes"_ while coming in/going out, or both. Yes, very disrespectful and insulting, but no one revolts so it's been going on (while their HRs will give powerpoint presentations on how trust is "one of the pillars" of their company). Most of them have a (probably made-up) story of how it was not the case before but someone broke their trust by stealing code in a hard disk etc., but no one has actually seen that happening in-person.

Our software product company (headquartered in US) had the same policy in its Indian offices, and I (being a relatively new employee) last year pointed out in our surveys how hypocritical it is of the company to expect trust from the employees but not do the same in return. Fortunately they stopped doing it after that.

<comment><USER27> This has nothing to do with trust. One terror attack and the employees and their families would be getting back at the management for lax security and having made the big mistake of trusting their lives with the company. Workplace violence is a thing and it's better for everyone to go through security checks than risk liability. You never know how, when or why someone snaps (however mentally stable s/he was during recruitment). And if you think it's impossible for something like that to happen, just take a look at what happened at YouTube HQ few months ago.

<comment><USER28> I really hope this is sarcasm... You think it's appropriate for every employee to be searched before entering a facility because there might be a "terror attack"? How many IT workers are there in the country, how many attacks have occurred in IT offices, and how many attacks have been prevented by searching employees bags? Giving up personal liberties and freedoms out of unsubstantiated fears based on a few fringe cases is a slippery slope. Also, I highly doubt that's what the policy is even about. The person you are replying to is probably correct that the policy is an attempt to prevent employees from leaving with company data

<comment><USER27> How do you prevent employees from leaving with company data if one copies all the sensitive data onto a pen drive? Does security check the pen drives too? It's actually ridiculous to cast aspersion on the security when their job is to prevent threats.

> You think it's appropriate for every employee to be searched before entering > a facility because there might be a "terror attack"? How many IT workers are > there in the country, how many attacks have occurred in IT offices, and how > many attacks have been prevented by searching employees bags?

It just takes one attack to lose a loved one and put a family in complete disarray. In India there have been multiple terror threats to software companies in the past decade alone. You forget that the agencies work 24/7 preventing terror plots and if even one of them slips through it would be disaster for everyone involved. Multi layered security is the only way to thwart terror plots. Here are few examples:

1\. [http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-terror-plot-against- inf...](http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-terror-plot-against-infy-in- mysore-busted-1060458)

2\. [http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/05blore.htm](http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/05blore.htm)

3\. [https://www.indiatoday.in/latest-headlines/story/infosys- wip...](https://www.indiatoday.in/latest-headlines/story/infosys-wipro-get- terror-threats-36574-2009-01-04)

You can use logic and statistics to argue about probability of terror threats but none of your statistics takes into account the mental health or the radical motivation of an individual/group.

> I really hope this is sarcasm... You think it's appropriate for every > employee to be searched before entering a facility because there might be a > "terror attack"?

EDIT: I am not being sarcastic. I am being a realist. In an ideal world I wouldn't want any sort of security. But we don't live in an ideal world.

<comment><USER22> So, from your links, nobody was actually killed by terrorists, nor has a security guard actually stopped any terrorist.

Meanwhile, you know who actually _has_ killed Infosys employees? A security guard: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9MenY2dEs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9MenY2dEs)

<comment><USER27> > So, from your links, nobody was actually killed by terrorists

That is not a justification for no security checks. That's my only argument. If one is willing to go through security checks at malls, airports, movie theaters, sports game at a stadium, a music concert without any fuss I don't see why one would want to be treated differently at the workplace. You don't find anyone talking of "giving up personal liberties and freedoms out of unsubstantiated fears based on a few fringe cases is a slippery slope" when trying to enter any of these secured areas do they? I don't see people complaining about feeling insulted while being frisked trying to enter a stadium but the very same people feel insulted while being frisked entering their workplace!

> nor has a security guard actually stopped any terrorist.

Nope. I never claimed that a security guard actually stopped a terrorist. If you read my comment you would understand that I spoke of multi-layered security and that terror threats on those companies are real and not a figment of one's imagination. If those terror threats were not thwarted by agencies do you agree that having security at the gates of an IT enterprise would be a second line of defence? Or is your assertion that until there is a terror attack of significant magnitude one should not care about security?

> Meanwhile, you know who actually has killed Infosys employees? A security > guard: > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9MenY2dEs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9MenY2dEs)

So you say just because of this one incident we remove all security from these companies and let anyone walk in and out?

Maybe better security here: [http://time.com/5226892/youtube-headquarters- security-silico...](http://time.com/5226892/youtube-headquarters-security- silicon-valley/) could have prevented 3 employees from getting injured don't you think?

<comment><USER22> _If one is willing to go through security checks at malls, airports, movie theaters, sports game at a stadium, a music concert without any fuss I don 't see why one would want to be treated differently at the workplace. You don't find anyone talking of "giving up personal liberties and freedoms out of unsubstantiated fears based on a few fringe cases is a slippery slope" when trying to enter any of these secured areas do they?_

Yes. Yes, I do. In fact, I'm one of them. Thankfully I live in a relatively sane country, so there's no such nonsense except on airports, where we must comply with global rules.

By the way, Brussels - which as you may know has had a recent history of multiple terrorist attacks - doesn't have that nonsense either. Even in the main train station, where some poor lunatic tried to harm others and only ended up immolating himself, the doors are all wide open without any checks.

 _If those terror threats were not thwarted by agencies do you agree that having security at the gates of an IT enterprise would be a second line of defence?_

My complaint wasn't with any security checks, it was with rummaging through people's bags. Guys carrying AK-47s are not going to be deterred by a bag check. Having secure doors that only open with a badge makes sense.

 _So you say just because of this one incident we remove all security from these companies and let anyone walk in and out?_

Just like you never claimed a security guard actually stopped a terrorist, I never claimed we should remove all security. All I'm saying is that the importance of terrorists is being overblown. In practice, even security guards themselves are more dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The real reason to ban plastic so strictly in Mumbai is because plastic garbage chokes Mumbai's drainage systems and storm water system. And given the city's population and usage of plastic, the chokes are quite severe during the monsoon (rainy season) when it rains heavily. It is so severe that chokes can lead to extreme flooding and loss of life when it rains heavily and there is an onset of high-tide. The water sometimes has a few hours to leave the land and hence it is critical for the stormwater lines to work efficiently.

Come September this ban will be forgotten again as the monsoon season recedes. While the ban has environment benefits, "they" care little about the "environment"

<comment><USER30> The choking nullahs aren't merely full of plastic. It's debris from the massive construction, both private and govt. Has anyone seen road design in Mumbai? The "expressway" signal junctions are made of paver blocks. Gutters are full of mud. The floods won't stop even if all plastic vanished

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> When will US cities do the same? Most restaurants offer plastic togo containers, which ends up in the landfill. Some restaurants even use plastic bowls and plates for dine-in customers, arguably so they don't have to invest in equipment and labor to wash dishes.

With The China recycling ban, this becomes more of a pressing issue. I'm surprised cities aren't outright banning or imposing a tax on the use of plastics at restaurants.

<comment><USER32> An American family I visited a while ago would use paper plates and plastic forks for every meal at home to save on dishes. I was shocked, but they seemed to think it was standard behaviour in the US. Is it?

<comment><USER33> > to save on dishes

To save what, money or labor? I fail to see how this could be economical in the sense "cheaper"?

<comment><USER32> I believe labour, all that time spent scrubbing plates...

<comment><USER34> And to think the dishwasher was invented in the US, :p.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm curious how this will affect the economy of the Dharavi slums where a huge portion of their economy is based around recycling goods found throughout the city. [1] It is great for the city to cut down on pollution, and I'm sure Dharavi will adapt, just curious is all.

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

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm from India.

This is one of the most asinine steps the Govt has taken. If plastic is banned, the need will be replaced by another substance (perhaps with similar properties; also demand for a need doesn't evaporate) which will overflow in our landfills. A wiser step would've been to figure out a way to recycle plastic, which has already been figured out by other countries ([1],[2],[3]). Instead, we're setting ourselves up to blame another substance a few years down the line.

We're inconveniencing people, ruining existing businesses and capabilities for a non-solution or at the very least pushing the problem to another substance another day. Completely asinine indeed. Deeds of the government as usual.

[1] [https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/scandinavian-plastic- re...](https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/scandinavian-plastic-recycling- system-uk-adopt/)

[2] [https://sweden.se/nature/the-swedish-recycling- revolution/](https://sweden.se/nature/the-swedish-recycling-revolution/)

[3] [https://guce.oath.com/collectConsent?brandType=eu&.done=http...](https://guce.oath.com/collectConsent?brandType=eu&.done=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.co.uk%2Fentry%2Fnorway- has-perfected-plastic-recycling-heres-what-the-uk-can-learn-from- them_uk_5a7acbc5e4b06505b4e9983e%3Fguccounter%3D1&sessionId=4_cc- session_3a4e22dd-b5f6-4a30-aa2a-2bd2751a1678&lang=en-gb&inline=false)

Edit 1: Comment about demand

Edit 2: formatting

Edit 3: added "...some years down the line..."

</comment><comment><USER37> Why can't we agree to just do what Musk says about carbon: tax goods which create negative externalities for society?

You could even do it this way: write the law such that an institution, whose job is to eliminate these externalities, is created, and then funded only with taxes on said products.

There's two competing special interest groups to keep each in check so in theory it's even a institution which shouldn't have too much bureaucratic inertia.

There are economists who endorse the idea, it's called a Pigouvian tax--the most notable economist is Mankiw.

<comment><USER38> Carbon neutral atmospheric recapture of personal vehicle transportation carbon is probably about 600-700$ per ton of carbon. (Based off of practical experiments in the UK.) My read of the literature doesn't show any hope of this number decreasing. A gallon of gasoline produces 20 lbs of carbon. This puts a carbon neutral tax on consumer gasoline at ~6-7$ per gallon. If you allow 20% "inefficiencies" (tax collection; frisson; profit margins), you're at 7.2-8.4$/gallon. My fuel costs would go from 2.75$/gallon to ~10.50$/gallon. My yearly commute costs would go from ~1100$/yr to ~4000$/yr. I suppose it makes even a medium range electric vehicle look cheap—especially given the far cheaper costs of capturing carbon "at the stack" at the power plant would mean that central power wouldn't be taxed as heavily.

<comment><USER3> The price of gasoline in the UK is currently over $6 per US gallon; A few years ago, it exceeded $9 per gallon. Most of that price is tax. The American way of life might be significantly affected by a recapture tax, but it wouldn't make a huge amount of difference in most of Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Now if only we could do the same in Japan. I am always amazed to see individually-wrapped cookies wrapped in plastic, inside a box, wrapped by more plastic, inside paper inside a single-use shopping bag. I mean... C'MON!!!!

</comment><comment><USER40> > Chaudhary, a taxi driver, said he had started carrying a cloth bag and that > his local mutton vendor had begun wrapping the meat in newspaper rather than > plastic sheets.

I am sure this is healthy.

<comment><USER41> FWIW, newspaper was the traditional wrapping for fish and chips in the UK. Many still use wraps printed to look like a newspaper.

The practice was common enough that it occurs in Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" (p14 in my copy), which was written in 1958. The line is "I had the _Centerville Clarion_ but it's only fit for wrapping salami."

<comment><USER40> Yes, it was the traditional way of doing things. But things have changed. Recycled paper contains diisobutyl phthalate and di-n-butyl phthalate. Ink residues in recycled paper may contain benzophenones and mineral oils. If they still use lead-lettered printing, you may got actual lead on your newspaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Starting to see single-use plastics being banned across Australia also which is great to see. Turns out paper bags are actually really handy things for putting recycling in.

</comment><comment><USER43> A few clarifications,

1\. It's not Mumbai banning plastics, the state of Maharashtra has done so. I live in another district of the same state.

2\. Maharashtra is the 18th state to do so. So this is not as much of an unique law.

3\. The State has also made it compulsory to utilize plastics waste in road construction.

</comment><comment><USER26> Again, nice objective but like demonetization, it's a decision without any planning/preparation, and the terms and conditions are changing almost everyday.

This is from today (small shop owners might be given relief from this rule): [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/plastic- ban-...](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/plastic-ban-kirana- shops-may-get-relief/articleshow/64739988.cms)

They should have first researched and offered cheap environment friendly alternatives before doing the same. According to food delivery networks/start- ups, online food ordering was heavily impacted and a lot of restaurants have stopped home delivery because there are no feasible alternatives to delivering wet food (chutneys/sambhar etc.) The plastic cups, spoons and forks in mall food courts have been replaced too, but with wooden ones which just don't do their jobs properly.

<comment><AUTHOR> The decision to ban plastics has been communicated for a few months. It's only in the last few days that the law went into effect, but businesses have had time to plan. One could argue if the 3 months notice was enough, but people shouldn't be caught by surprise.

Wet food is a challenge in delivery. There are wax lined paper cups that are more environmental friendly, although not entirely eco safe.

<comment><USER26> Most of the 'wax lined' paper cups you're talking about are plastic coated paper cups in reality, and the actual wax lined ones are very bad for one's health.

So you are saying businesses had a whole 3 months time to find a reasonably priced plastic alternative that has the same properties as plastic (insoluble in liquid, durability, flexibility, and lightweight nature) but are eco- friendly and bio-degradable, which is a problem researchers of the world have no solution to? :) . In my opinion it was also government's job to suggest those cheap alternatives, or even give subsidy on them at least for the time being.

There is a reason rest of the world hasn't done it so far, because when they take some decision, it's backed by proper research by experts including suggesting the alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Another district in state Kerala is the first district to ban plastic bags in India. I had been the reduction in plastic waste can be felt across the town.

[https://www.thebetterindia.com/97890/first-plastic-free- dist...](https://www.thebetterindia.com/97890/first-plastic-free-district- kannur/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Rwanda seems to be first country which imposed complete ban on plastic bags. It looks they've been successful on that:

[http://www.dw.com/en/ten-years-on-rwandas-plastic- ban/av-428...](http://www.dw.com/en/ten-years-on-rwandas-plastic- ban/av-42897883)

</comment><comment><USER46> This is a Maharashtra wide ban. It's being strictly implemented in my neighborhood(a Mumbai suburb).

<comment><USER16> Truth be told, this came quote late. A friend of mine told me that the town of alibag banned plastics few years back. Of course they are a tourism based economy

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Officially, :)

In reality we all know how this will go. If anything plastic use may now increase. Because it will now go unregulated.

Bans in India need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

They banned tinted glasses on cars. In Bangalore, some people prefer to pay fine/bribe than remove the sticker.

<comment><USER47> Agree. Anyone who has been to India knows how small a role regulations play in everyday life. Nobody cares. At most this will give a couple of corrupt police officers another opportunity to hand out 'fines'.

<comment><USER48> I think the time will tell and it's better than having no regulations at all.

Btw, the consumption of alcohol in Bihar and other states where it's prohibated has reduced significantly- I am not advocating the ban of alcohol, personally I feel it's as a wrong move- after the regulations.

<comment><USER16> Pray tell me how you found out that Bihar's alcohol ban has worked out?

I was under the impression that there is a vibrant black market in Bihar too

<comment><USER49> The answer is a simple google search away. It's worked out pretty well with all sorts of social indicators trending better.

An alcohol ban doesn't need to lead to 100% reduction to be deemed a success. In fact it almost certainly won't. It just needs to make things reasonably better than they were before.

<comment><USER11> Let me get this straight, in a country like India bans never work.

Bans are a way of getting deregulated and ensuring a tax holiday.

You can't tax something that you have declared shouldn't even exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I have been thinking a lot about the plastic problem. Isn't plastic a great way to store carbon in solid form for a long time and prevent it coming back into the atmosphere?

I mean, doesn't plastic work the same way the wooden furniture works? Storing carbon away and preventing global warming?

If this is the case, perhaps we should look into ways to store plastic in more environment friendly ways instead to trying to prevent its production and use. All the alternatives that quickly degrade seem to allow the carbon to quickly get back into air and increase the global warming effect.

<comment><USER51> As far as I know, the carbon in plastic mostly comes from crude oil, which is already "stored away" deep in the earth. If you found a 100% effective and safe way to store all plastic after it's use you'd simply be carbon neutral (minus production costs), you wouldn't be capturing carbon from the atmosphere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Which in India means politicians see potential plastic bag black market.

</comment><comment><USER53> Banning at the time of monsoon is really clever move. When you can wrap yourself in plastic raincoats but you cannot carry a plastic bag in which you can carry that same raincoats.

<comment><USER54> Monsoons show plastic blocking sewer systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> One must acknowledge that there's no such thing as "ban" in India given the numerous past records of people not obliging to regulations set by the govt.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a heavy amazon user, and am disappointed that they haven't eliminated plastic from the packaging. They use those inflatable plastic balloons (which are still far better than styrofoam peanuts), and they inexplicably use plastic bubblewrap mailers.

On the news today they reported the tons of recyclable paper that nobody knows what to do with. It could be shredded and used for packaging instead of plastic.

<comment><USER56> It depends. In Austria, almost all Amazon stuff comes in a cardboard envelope, without any plastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Amazon,H&M, other multinationals pressing to soften Indian state's plastic ban - [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-plastic- ban/amazon-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-plastic-ban/amazon- hm-and-other-multinationals-pressing-to-soften-indian-states-plastic-ban- idUSKBN1JP0BU?il=0)

</comment><comment><USER58> Ive been thinking theres a better classification one could make for wrapping food products using entropy. Food with short shelf life and not a survival food should be packaged in high entropy packaging.

Although, sweet items would need to be taken care of since these would have a long shelf life but shouldnt be packaged in plastics.

But in general, so long as there is adequate recyclable replacements, then this is great

</comment><comment><USER59> Honest question: What will plastic bottles be replaced with that's more environmentally friendly? I can easily see plastic bags being replaced by jute bags, but the only alternative material for bottles that I know of is glass, which does not seem like a good alternative given its weight and fragility (and possibly energy use during production).

<comment><USER60> [http://www.algopack.com/indexgb.php](http://www.algopack.com/indexgb.php) makes bottles out of seaweed (brown algae) and there're other companies trying to make reuseable bioplastic bottles out of sugarcane

<comment><USER61> > reuseable bioplastic bottles

That's not any better if they still don't degrade, no?

<comment><USER62> Bioplastic (PLA) is biodegradable in a commercial facility, unlike petroleum- based bottle plastic (PET)

<comment><USER63> The key point being that someone has to get the bottle back to the facility instead of throwing it in the trash, or worse, littering.

<comment><USER60> That's true, but bioplastics degrade on timelines that are magnitudes smaller than actual plastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Seems like a big challenge. When I travelled to Mumbai i remember so many plastic bottles around the shoreline

<comment><USER43> Mumbai is one of those places where the sea dumps all it's waste. Of course, a lot of it must have been generated by Mumbai itself, but some must also be coming from elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Great. Let's roll this out everywhere.

Actually it would be nice to do something about cigeratte butts too.

<comment><USER66> Just ban cigarettes? They're ridiculous, I don't understand why we allow them.

<comment><USER9> > I don't understand why we allow them.

because some people like them.

Should we ban Alcohol, fast food and sugar as well?

<comment><USER34> People like cocaine too; enjoyment of something isn't grounds to keep it legal. Smoking (and alcohol) just can't be made illegal now; the US tried that for a couple of years, and all it managed to do was give rise to organized crime and illegal (and dangerous) manufacture of alcohol.

In my country, smoking and alcohol are more passively discouraged; high taxes, a ban on advertising, strict age checks, and (for smoking, lately) shocking imagery, removal of brands, removal of any kind of interesting packaging, and (most recently) a ban on displaying it.

I mean I'd still be in favor of outright banning it already, because all of these measures are just idk, weird, but at the same time criminalising it would cause more problems than the current measures.

<comment><USER9> Cocaine should made legal too, with all the measures which you listed.

If people like something, they will try anything to get it, if its illegal is just goes underground.

<comment><USER67> I don't understand this logic. We tax alcohol and cigarettes. We ban cocaine. And look at the result: hundreds of millions addicted to smoking, but almost zero usage of cocaine. Looks like a ban is a good way to curtail usage. Which is what we want, right?

<comment><USER9> > but almost zero usage of cocaine.

This is where the disconnect happens, since you dont see people using cocaine you assume that the ban is working. Meanwhile people who really want it, can get it with money or their bodies (women).

Just because you dont see it does not mean its not happening.

<comment><USER67> It's still insignificant compared to smokers.

<comment><USER9> Is it almost zero?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Meanwhile in Texas, the supreme court has just ruled that city-wide bag bans are illegal:

[http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1441865/160748.pdf](http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1441865/160748.pdf)

<comment><USER69> From what I've understood from the last two pages, it seems that under the law, cities lack enough legal authority to perform these types of bans.

> The Act's exemption does not save the Ordinance because the City has not > identified a law authorizing the manner in which the City seeks to regulate. > The general grants of regulatory authority the City relies on do not > authorize the manner the City has chosen and, more to the point, do not > supersede the express directive in the Act.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Plastic has become an eyesore in most of India, this couldn't come sooner.

</comment><comment><USER71> excellent decision!

This will hopefully have a affect on Pakistan as well as Pakistanis view Mumbai as the commercial role model for their geographic region. Hopefully my city Karachi can also follow this example.

</comment><comment><USER72> The news about a plastic bag being found at the bottom of the mariana trench was the trigger for me. We got a bunch of multiuse bags from publix and stopped using plastic bags cold turkey.

</comment><comment><USER73> A tax seems the fair solution, if it costs X to dispose of a plastic bottle then tax X each bottle, use the money to dispose of the bottle, adjust X if costs change.

<comment><USER74> But such a tax gives no incentive for companies to change their packaging. The tax is paid by the customer who usually has few or no options.

For example in the UK plastic one-litre milk pitcher bottles are ubiquitous. Even the few remaining door-to-door milkmen deliver them, instead of the old one-pint reusable glass bottles. I simply can't buy fresh milk in anything else and i have a recycling bin full of them.

Reverting to glass would add weight, breakages and collection costs to the companies. So they wouldn't have any incentive to change under a tax scheme when they don't pay it. Only a ban will change their behaviour.

<comment><USER75> > Reverting to glass would add weight, breakages and collection costs

So how exactly is glass superior to plastic in this application? Seems to me that they moved to plastic because plastic is the better material for the job.

<comment><USER76> Need to ask not just which is better, but which is better for who?

With glass, producing new bottles for each delivery would be super expensive, so it is in their interest to bear the cost of collecting the bottles for reuse and recycling.

With plastic, producing new containers is super cheap, so it is fine to continuously produce new ones, but the waste is still produced, so the customers and their local government must bear the cost of waste disposal or recycling instead.

Essentially, moving from glass to plastic is good for the producers, as they no-longer need to care how much it costs to recycle, since they don't do it any more. But the overall cost to society might be higher, depending exactly on what the recycling costs are.

<comment><USER77> One problem is that we don't know the full cost, including the environmental impact, of each option.

Glass can be cleaned and reused, but it's heavier, so transporting it both ways results in increased emissions. They could also choose to use reusable plastic containers (soda companies did this in Norway up until around 5-6 years ago), but collecting the used containers takes up much more space if they can't be compacted, which I think some grocery stores do now.

There's quite a bit of energy that goes into washing containers as well. Supposedly sometimes more than what is required to manufacture new ones.

I'm not sure we as society are really able to quantify the environmental costs of each just yet.

<comment><USER78> We could at least get somewhat reasonable estimates I think, there should be enough countries with bottle-collecting schemes to get useful data about actual effort involved.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>