Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xpgvx/amazons-is-trying-to-control-the-underlying-infrastructure-of-our-economy <comment><USER2> "Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2 Americans spent online. As recently as 2015, most people looking to buy something online started at a search engine. Today, a majority go straight to Amazon."

You know all those scifi movies where corporations in the future are the government in space and have giant armies and space ships? Well at this rate I am betting one of those solar empires will have "Amazon" on its flag.

In all seriousness though, people need to take the rise of companies like amazon and really think hard what we are loosing by enabling them to take over our lives. This is not a rant against corporations though, or even Amazon or the great people that work there, but its more about what we as a society allow.

<comment><USER3> One fascinating niche are online retailers which fill market voids Amazon deliberately creates out of corporate policy. For instance in the US one can readily purchase firearms and ammunition through the internet. Due to various legal formalities, Amazon won't touch that particular market segment. Visiting sites like www.sgammo.com, www.palmettostatearmory.com, or www.midwayusa.com, is like stepping into an uncanny PHP laden alternate reality where Amazon never existed. This federation of specialized retailers offers a glimpse into what the online shopping experience _could_ have become, if it weren't for Amazon's hegemony.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't sound that great, to be honest. None of those tiny institutions could ever reach the same amount of consumer trust that Amazon has engendered with its customer service/experience.

<comment><USER5> > It doesn't sound that great, to be honest. None of those tiny institutions > could ever reach the same amount of consumer trust that Amazon has > engendered with its customer service/experience.

You are paying for that trust.

For instance, right now, Amazon is charging $69.00 for a shoe we sell for $62.25 (including the item we list on their site, including shipping, etc.)

This is universally true for every item Amazon has cut us out on. It defaults to "Ships and Sold from Amazon.com" despite the fact they are the higher price.

Personally, at this point, I'd rather buy from smaller retailers. If you ever look outside of Amazon for "niche" items you'll start to notice Amazon stops being cheaper. Try looking at some of the clothing brands, the Guns&Ammo dystopia is unique to their industry. :P

To be honest, I'm surprised their valuation is what it is given I genuinely don't see how they can raise prices more than they have. Charging an extra 10% over your competitors is really already pushing the envelope as far as can be done.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing over $200B of Amazon's $475B valuation is from AWS and Amazon's subsidiaries. They have [small] stakes in some companies too. To be fair, the subsidiaries are peanuts^ (let's be generous and give them a combined value of $10B).

Amazon has their Kindle product line of e-readers (along with their ebooks infrastructure and Kindle Unlimited), tablets, and smart tv sticks. Their Alexa ecosystem is thriving for now and its products are at 5 now.

Amazon has around 70M prime members. That's over $6B in revenue alone. Reports say these members spend more at Amazon too. They probably don't care about prices being a bit higher on Amazon either. That last sentence is my own hunch.

And who knows how the Whole Foods acquisition will shake out.

I'm not sure how much debt Amazon has, but their cash pile is over $20B.

^Like Audible, IMDB, Goodreads, Twitch, Zappos, Alexa, Kiva, and Souq. Woot went to shit. And they shut down Quidsi's sites like soap.com so that didn't matter anymore.

<comment><USER5> > I'm guessing over $200B of Amazon's $475B valuation is from AWS and Amazon's > subsidiaries. They have [small] stakes in some companies too. To be fair, > the subsidiaries are peanuts^ (let's be generous and give them a combined > value of $10B).

I just believe (rightly or wrongly) that Amazon's customers are more price sensitive that is commonly believed and the merry-go-round of constant reinvestment isn't going to be something that can be stopped for that reason. I always thought Amazon was fairly valued around $300-400/share and pretty much dumped all my stock in Amazon accordingly.

Maybe I'm wrong but I have a suspicion I'm not.

Look at Alphabet's financials vs. Googles and I think you'll find one of these seems just a much more reasonable valuation than the other at ~$1000/share.

<comment><USER6> > I just believe (rightly or wrongly) that Amazon's customers are more price > sensitive that is commonly believed and the merry-go-round of constant > reinvestment isn't going to be something that can be stopped for that > reason.

Maybe. But the 70M prime members whose numbers just keep going up and we will see that number break 100M at some point. They don't account for a majority of Amazon's revenue but Amazon is doing over $6B in subscription revenue alone on them right now. Those members aren't as price conscious. And there's many people who aren't willing to pay the $80-100 yearly fee but still use Amazon as a default like Prime members. Those two groups combined most likely account for a majority of Amazon's ecommerce revenue and profit.

> I always thought Amazon was fairly valued around $300-400/share

But you quoted my part saying AWS itself (and technically I included the subsidiaries) is worth that much in share value itself/themselves. At $300/share you're talking about just a $150B market cap. At that point, whose values are you killing off? Amazon retail, value of all the prime members, AWS, Alexa/Kindle/Fire ecosystem, subsidiaries?

Their PE would be at 60 at that point. People once balked at FB's PE for being in the hundreds. Now it's at a cool 40. PE of 60 is about double Google's. Who coincidentally have been going harder in recent years on cutting spending with their latest CFO and continue with trying to raise profits of their golden goose.

Putting that into context, your thinking of $300-400 a share is too low. AWS has a lot of competition. But it's currently still growing and profit margins are huge. Most business don't seem to mind AWS's high prices.

Amazon is still growing too. They bought Souq, the Amazon of Saudi/ME. They are investing billions to fight for India. Google I believe has already won south east Asia.

Their retail/ecommerce revenue alone is around $100B. Overall, they are going to top $150B this year. Without AWS which is their primary profit machine right now, they are still at $135B+ in revenue. Don't you think if they wanted to, they'd be able to eek out a few billion in profit from that remaining $100B+ in revenue if they decided to go that way? That would get their PE below 100. I will note I don't think PE matters that much for Amazon right now. Just look at Netflix's or Salesforce's PE ratios now and in recent years.

I agree, Google's profitability much like Facebook is extraordinary. But they are the two main internet advertising companies. Apple is even more insane, but they only intersect in certain aspects. Finally, Google and Amazon had around the same revenue at the beginning of this decade. By the end of it, Amazon will be double (or just about) Google's revenue. Comparing them isn't as simple as apples to apples.

<comment><USER5> > Their retail/ecommerce revenue alone is around $100B. Overall, they are > going to top $150B this year. Without AWS which is their primary profit > machine right now, they are still at $135B+ in revenue. Don't you think if > they wanted to, they'd be able to eek out a few billion in profit from that > remaining $100B+ in revenue if they decided to go that way? That would get > their PE below 100.

Amazon can't actually compete with us on price without selling below their costs. That is the reason we are still alive despite Amazon moving into our market. They can't raise prices _at all_.

Their ability to do so _entirely depends_ on them becoming more efficient. I suspect they can't become substantially more efficient on the retail side than they already are.

<comment><USER6> Can they really not? I guess it really comes down to if people will shop at Amazon much less or at all if they raise prices by a few percent or don't decrease prices over the next few years (just an example). Both achieving the same thing. Not saying for all products, just some potentially.

I personally don't think they'd take that much of a hit. But i could be convinced by otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the article, but Amazon is more monopsony than monopoly. AMZN is like Walmart--they're the buyer producers must sell to in order to get to the consumer. They control access to the market. And as we've seen with Walmart, monopsony power can be very destructive to producers.

Great fast company article on Walmart's monopsony power: [https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal- mart](https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart)

<comment><USER8> So why not make a competing company? Just tell people that if they shop from you, they won't get the excellent speed, service and low prices they've come to expect from Amazon, but that they will benefit in other ways, somehow.

If you can't explain what those benefits are well enough to convince people to freely choose to buy from your company instead, you are not helping to make the world a better place. If you advocate running to the government to get them to smack down others who are more successful, you're just limiting choice, and that makes you part of the problem. (Assuming that you agree that the point of technology is to make lives easier, longer, more enjoyable, etc.)

Notice what Jobs did with regarding the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit stuff. He was very careful not to let all that groupthink pile on and rule his mind. Instead of joining in with all that sour grapes stuff, he focused on creating the future instead.

<comment><USER9> If the company achieved their success via externality of various costs that their competitor is unable or unwilling to, then you'd have an unfair market. This is where govt needs to step in.

<comment><USER10> All that matters is the result. Does X cause prices to be low or prices to be high.

I do not care about "unfair". What I care about is consumers. And consumer welfare.

Unless what you are describing helps consumers in a specific, measurable way, ex by lowering prices, then it is harmful.

<comment><USER9> if walmart is allowed to pay such a low wage to their workers that they have to be on food stamps, is it still "fair" to society? They surely gain more customers that way, but at the cost of tax payers - mum and dad corner stores or small groceries that don't pay such low wages can't compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://video- images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1498341777756-s...](https://video- images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1498341777756-shutterstock_445202842-copy.jpeg?resize=1050:*)

What the ever loving christ is this image?

"Jason Koebler" ought to be formally introduced to photoshop as at the minute he is a danger to the eye.

<comment><USER12> Maybe they have a program which generates vaguely relevant images automatically.

Further down, in an article about pythons, the snake, the publishing system inserts a plug for an article about Python, the language.

<comment><USER13> I don't think so; the image is captioned:

>Image: Shutterstock/remix Jason Koebler

Jason Koebler is a VICE contributor: [https://motherboard.vice.com/es/contributor/jason- koebler](https://motherboard.vice.com/es/contributor/jason-koebler)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wait, I thought Microsoft already took over the US economy, creating a toll- road by dominating the Internet?

[http://i.imgur.com/CfaOAxF.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/CfaOAxF.jpg)

[http://i.imgur.com/ZEMkiPk.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ZEMkiPk.jpg)

Oh right, this isn't 1997, Amazon is the new new fear monster click-bait machine. Bezos is the new new world's richest (soon to be). And Amazon is going to rule everything!

You know, or, it turns out the US economy is so massive that it takes so long to conquer any given big corner of it, that long before that happens the all- critical founder retires or dies, and whatever big conglomerate one happens to be speaking of at that time (whether Sears or Walmart or Alcoa or IBM or American Tobacco or GM) then goes into erosion or stagnation as competitors/government/technology change attacks it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I comparison shop - and while Amazon often beats other retailers in price due to Prime, it's not not always the case. Most times, unless Amazon stocks the item, the price of shipping is padded into the Prime cost compared to another retailer.

I smell an opportunity for google here to eject some kind of a price search engine that maes it eas/y/ier for us to find products ... That's usually what it comes down to anyway, once you know what you want to get.

<comment><USER16> It's already in there, in the Shop tab.

<comment><USER17> Yes, known in the good ol' days as [http://froogle.com](http://froogle.com) which I still use :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The irony is I don't hear much anymore about the unstoppable Walmart juggernaut destroying the retail businesses of America.

<comment><USER19> Then you haven't been listening. It's old news. Wal-Mart utterly destroyed the majority of main streets across rural America decades ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> FTA

>Ask Alexa to send you batteries and you won't get the option of Duracell or Energizer; you'll be shipped Amazon-branded batteries.

Amazon favors its own in-house products the same way Wal-Mart, Target and Costco put their private label brands in more effective places than their competitors.

In any case, if you tell her you don't want those, she will list competitors after.

<comment><USER21> I don't care which battery brand I use. The Amazon Basics brand is cheap. The packaging is subtle and minimal. Oh, and I can have them delivered in an hour!

Duracell on the other hand... They've been showing me ads on Twitter for months, probably because I googled "2032 vs 2025 battery"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am very curious how Walmart will fight back. As we all know Walmart is the biggest company in the world. Their board is consist of famous politicians who have powers.

They will fight back with Amazon as hard as they can.

<comment><USER8> _Their board is consist of famous politicians who have powers._

This is exactly what a just government should stop. The winner should rise up via their _economic_ prowess (i.e., their ability to provide a better/cheaper/lighter/denser good or service that improves human life). NOT their _political_ power (i.e., lobbying for regulations to kneecap an innovative competitor).

What hangs in the balance is your access to a better life. Words cannot describe how much better life is when you don't have to babysit physical servers, drive to the mall to buy a pair of jeans, drive to the grocery store to get things like food and soap, etc. If you don't speak up and root for the innovators - those that make long bets when everyone else is against them - you are doing nothing more than shutting down your own future. (It is not an inevitability that achievement is rewarded. There are periods in history and in other cultures where this does not occur! Thus it is a mistake to take wealth and technology for granted - it didn't always exist, and it may not exist in the future. Especially if those that take great risks to drive humanity forward are mercilessly swatted down by lesser minds.)

Amazon is a company that made several such long bets.

Exhibit A: an article, entitled "Can Amazon Survive?" from 1999: [http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-amazon- surviv...](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-amazon-survive/)

Exhibit B: "Jeff Bezos' Risky Bet," wherein Bloomberg heaped nothing but doubt on AWS when it first came out: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-11-12/jeff- bezo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-11-12/jeff-bezos-risky- bet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't think amazon has an interest in that, because it will lead governments to make amazons life uneasy, and they are capable of making it very uneasy.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2 Americans spent online." Actually, 43%. Online sales were 11.7% of US retail. So Amazon is taking over the country with a whopping 5% of total retail. Buy hey, got you to click on it and upvote it.

</comment><comment><USER25> The centrally-planned rational economy of the future is emerging from a few blocks in downtown Seattle.

</comment><comment><USER26> Shouldn't anti-trust address this?

<comment><USER27> Yeah, Jeff Sessions is gonna get right on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> *succeeding at controlling FTFY</comment>


Thank goodness for the dot com bubble - <AUTHOR> http://baglady.dreamhosters.com/2008/10/09/thank-goodness-for-the-dot-com-bubble

<comment><USER2> It is quite true - both bubbles represented market speculations that outstripped the underlying financial realities. And I believe the reverse can be said that the massive corrections after both bubbles burst are also results of investment confidence dropping below the underlying financial realities. We in the IT sector are very lucky these bubbles didn't align or the bubble bursts may have been much much more severe.</comment>


First eCommerce contract, Need Advice. - <AUTHOR>

So I am fluent in PHP, Java/Script, html, css yaddadada etc. I recently landed my first eCommerce contract. I decided to use the opencart framework as the building block for this website. The website has the ability to upload files with the order, dynamic pricing, blog etc. I can handle the dev aspects of it but am a novice in the business end of things. Just looking for advice from experienced eCommerce developers on the common pitfalls or issues you all have run into. This can be business geared or QOS geared or any advice really. Anything you wish you were told when you began! <comment><USER2> 1\. Choose your platform wisely. Customers ask for a "simple" shopping cart, but then they want complex shipping calculations and wholesale pricing groups and things. Find out ahead of time if your customer needs those features

2\. Allow a bunch of time in your quote for training and support

3\. Compared to brochure websites, there is a lot more room for scope creep in ecommerce sites. Scope out the project well and communicate with the client what is and importantly what isn't in the scope

good luck!</comment>


Show HN: My Book on Evolutionary Algorithms, Written in Python Notebooks - <AUTHOR> https://shahinrostami.com/posts/search-and-optimisation/practical-evolutionary-algorithms/preface/ <comment><USER3> Your patron link to chord is broken which may confuse some people.

This looks really great!

To be honest I tend to tinker a bit in the simulation space so this all is really interesting. It seems like a github pledge is better for you than patron at the moment, as you keep all the money, would you prefer that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for spotting that and letting me know, I'll fix it now!

I'm glad you like it! I'm trying out both GitHub sponsors and Patreon at the moment to fund more projects, I'm not sure which will stick! So far it looks like Patreon has better support for giving back to your backers, but GitHub also doesn't take a cut. I am of course very grateful and flattered - <USER2> choose whichever you prefer!

<comment><USER3> Well if you plan on mirroring access via discord, then github's better as I can support you =)...

If you are thinking of making patron only content then that's better.

Hence why I was asking ;)...

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah I see! Let's go with Patreon then :) As it grows I think it will allow for better engagement from supporters. Plenty of features for sharing updates and getting feedback that are perhaps worth the cut they take!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool! Bought a copy. Some questions

\- Have you looked into Latin Hypercube Sampling for your initial population creation? Or in general, some initial set that tries to cover the space better than a pseudo-random sample? LHS tries to guarantee some distance between the points, which can be beneficial for rather non-convex problems.

\- For very high dimensionality, have you considered classification to identify which dimensions are significant?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I didn't realise this post received any attention, I thought it had faded away!

With a sufficient population size, taking advantage of better sampling techniques for initial population generation can make a significant difference. I've used LHS and modified LHS approaches before, but I wanted to keep things simple, at least in the earlier parts of the book!

Something I've worked on with a colleague recently is using a more data science with pre-optimisation exploration ([https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43722-0_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43722-0_1)), hoping to do more work on this soon. With regards to high dimensionality in the search space, this kind of approach could be useful.

Previously I've been more interested in high-dimensional objective space and how to deal with them, primarily using progressive preference articulation.

If you have any requests for additional sections in the book I would love to hear them! Something high up on my list is doing a section or two on my neuroevolution algorithm, but keeping it at the right level is tricky.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if dimensionality reduction fits in the book, but it is one other thing we are considering in our problem. I am HOPING that with good coverage of early populations, we can 1. drop an order of magnitude off our dimensions (probably not) 2. select the most significant dimensions to apply our evolution techniques.

Do you have any favorite approaches to reduction?

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on the nature of the problem! Are you able to share any specifics e.g. context, number and relationship between decision variables, number of objectives (single or multi?), the optimisation operators in use, and so on?

My main use of dimensionality reduction is to improve visualisation to support decision making. I've seen PCA and differential evolution approaches in the decision space to show promising results on benchmarks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Marten – Use PostgreSQL as a DocumentDB from .NET (modeled after RavenDB) - <AUTHOR> http://jasperfx.github.io/marten/documentation/documents/ <comment><AUTHOR> Quite like the idea, it's similar in concept to massive-js [http://massive- js.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://massive-js.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

Haven't used it in production yet but I have used RavenDB successfully for quite some time. Anyone aware of similar efforts to make PostgreSQL usable as a DocumentDB from other languages? It's an intriguing concept as it allows combining document+relational data models in a single database.</comment>


Tim Berners-Lee Officially Supports DRM in HTML - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170707/15544137737/tim-berners-lee-sells-out-his-creation-officially-supports-drm-html.shtml <comment><USER2> Heavily discussed 5 days ago, about the same time this article was published:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720591](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720591)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well that's an awfully uncharitable title. Isn't it possible he simply thinks EME is a better alternative than Flash/Silverlight? Because I sure do.

<comment><USER4> It's not a better alternative, because it makes DRM too easily accessible. Many companies that would never have used Flash for DRM are now using EME or considering it. Including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

In a few years every video on the web will use DRM, and you won't even be able to download YouTube videos.

<comment><USER5> If that's what content creators want, isn't it in their right?

You're technically not allowed to download YouTube videos anyway, there just isn't a convenient measure against it. You're not paying, you're probably blocking ads and now you want to download stuff for free? You're _worthless_ to creators.

Also, you're not getting to see all the videos that aren't on Youtube exactly because there is no DRM.

<comment><USER6> > If that's what content creators want, isn't it in their right?

No, because DRM + DMCA has repeatedly been used to violate consumers' and researchers' fair use rights. It's my right to lock my house, unless you're inside it and I'm effectively turning it into a prison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Choice summary quote:

> The problem here seemed to be that Netflix and the MPAA realized that they > had enough power to push this through without needing to protect security > researchers, and just decided "we can do it, so fuck it, let's do it." And > Tim Berners-Lee -- who had the ability to block it -- caved in and let it > happen. The whole thing is a travesty.

<comment><USER8> Also, this line of thinking really stood out to me -

> [...] this argument [that DRM is a necessary evil] rests on the assumption > that the web needs those content producers more than those content producers > need the web -- and I'm not convinced that's an accurate portrayal of > reality. It is fair to note that, especially with the rise of smart devices > from phones to tablets to TVs, you could envision a world in which the big > content producers "abandoned" the web and only put their content in > proprietary DRM'd apps. And maybe that does happen. But my response to that > is... so what?

I have to agree with the author here - so what? I don't think such "proprietary DRM'd apps" would have any trouble taking off for people seeking content from big providers, so why does W3C feel it needs to bend so far to the will of Netflix and the like?

<comment><USER9> I don't know the scenario you provided is what I had hoped would happen not that they would html would have DRM support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree that DRM is a bad thing, but in this instance, what is the alternative to implementing in the browser? Media companies will each have their own DRM plugins, which won't work on all browsers and platforms. Which is worse?

<comment><USER11> Being in the spec is worse, because now it is the browser's responsibility. This is what EME defenders don't seem to understand, it's all about offloading the responsibility off of media companies and onto browser vendors.

Let me repeat that, EME is a redistribution of software maintenance (bugs, etc.) off of the media companies and onto browser vendors.

<comment><USER12> Past experience with buggy software has shown me media companies are way worse at this than Microsoft/Google/Mozilla whose job is to ship working code.

<comment><USER13> > Past experience with buggy software has shown me media companies are way > worse at this than Microsoft/Google/Mozilla whose job is to ship working > code.

With EME, you still have to download a proprietary binary written by the media companies and run it on your computer. It's not inherently any less buggy than the previous approaches were.

<comment><USER14> The proprietary DRM components come from Google, Microsoft and Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't get the gripe. EME is used solely for wrangling media bits and it doesn't insist on any specific CDM. It's up to the browser manufacturers to decide if they want to include any closed-source implementations.

The fact that commercial browser manufacturers include their own closed-source implementation makes perfect sense (IE = playready, Safari = fairplay, Chrome = widevine).

If ARRI decides to create a web browser, would you expect them _not_ to allow their end users to natively play ARRI raw files if they could provide it, simply because other browsers can't include that closed-source capability? Seems to me like an arbitrary restriction.

If I want to use open-source-only browser, and lose out on some of the proprietary commercial stuff I get elsewhere, that's a respectable choice, but it shouldn't be the only one.

<comment><USER11> It's not the only choice. This is not about what browsers implement, this is about what open-standards spec.

<comment><USER15> Sure, but EME with an open-source clearkeys-only CDM is essentially equivalent to a vanilla js aes lib, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can't browser manufacturers simply refuse to implement this standard? After all if Google doesn't implement it there will be some 70% of users not able to use Netflix (Or whatever other service requires this) and that might be a good enough incentive for Netflix to skip out on DRM.

<comment><USER17> Yea but what's the incentive for Google ? They are a player in this space as well, and if anything they seem to want to scale up (Youtube Red, etc).

 _(And suddenly, people remember how monopolies hurt consumers and regret giving Chrome so much market-share. Or not.)_

<comment><USER18> This is somewhat ironic, since Youtube became big because of content right infringements.

<comment><USER19> Cross the bridge and then burn it is a proven strategy, I wouldn't exactly consider it ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> EME removes much of the cost associated with adding DRM to content in exchange for increased portability of content that is DRM'd.

This doesn't seem like a good trade-off to me. Yes it's only for "media", but once it's essentially free to add DRM, I foresee a whole bunch of current content becoming "media" in ways that I'm going to find unfortunate even totally disregarding the DRM aspects.

That said, I neither consume much content that's currently DRM'd nor do I have any technical difficulty accessing such content, so other's might want different trade-offs.

</comment><comment> keithb- I definitely do not understand what's going on here. As noted in the appeal posted by Doctorow [1], DMCA prohibits bypassing DRM so this W3C "approval" seems completely unnecessary. If it's oversight that you want, then a W3C standard isn't the way. A W3C standard is just a description of system behavior; it doesn't carry with it any penalties for deviation. If it did, I would have sued all the browser devs who delayed support HTML5 elements citing compensatory damages: my livelihood was affected!

At the same time, the appeal seems misaligned because (again) the specification may be superior in accessibility, privacy, etc. but the implementation can be total crap. What option do you have? Open a ticket for Chrome or Firefox? Stop watching Fox News because their plugin is buggy and slow?

This whole thing seems like a polite disagreement among intellectuals. The EFF expected more from Berners-Lee but it turns out that he chose to act differently.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/notice-w3c-effs- appeal...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/notice-w3c-effs-appeal- directors-decision-eme)

</comment><comment><USER21> Don't blame Tim for what we ALL have done to the Internet since three decades. This was the inevitable result of commercialisation. Tim can't stop it, no matter how much respect/influence he might have. DRM (as an abstract idea) won't go until we stop having to earn money to survive, and I don't see THAT happening soon. The Internet has just become the latest arena where the age- old battle is playing out.

<comment><USER19> This. People don't understand the forces at work here. They think we can get a coalition of free software advocates to prevent the march of DRM, but they fail to realize that content rights-holders have market clout. Consumers will jump through whatever stupid hoops they put up. Meanwhile, free software advocates have no market clout, if they succeed in killing EME in a browser, then the general consumer perception will be that that browser is broken and will lose marketshare.

This situation sucks, and I fought against it professionally for almost a decade, but at the end of the day if there's a market need for something, tech will be built for it in a completely amoral fashion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Considering Firefox is open-source, is patching in a backdoor to the EME implementation a feasible way of handling the DRM situation? I don't see many reasons why I would not want to be running client-side intentionally backdoored EME?

<comment><USER4> Firefox includes a proprietary binary for EME.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has major political ramifications re: fair use. Given how many media outlets are known to be deceptive & to push agendas, it's important to be able to save the video to keep these organizations accountable...

[https://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html](https://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> Honest question:

What is different about this compared to all the previous things we've had that used plugins?

<comment><USER25> The DRM plugin is for decryption only and runs in a sandbox (in Firefox anyways). Flash has a much larger attack surface. Performance of flash is usually much poorer when compared to the browser's video player.

<comment><USER26> Not trolling, just genuinely curious: what about this is so awful then? This sounds like a step in the right direction?

<comment><USER4> This makes DRM easy. Very easy.

So easy that Twitter and Facebook are considering to implement it for all videos. So easy that YouTube is starting to implement it.

This kills the web.

<comment><USER27> So, just like the web until ~2014, when Flash video was the default and sites could very easily add DRM to their players?

<comment><USER4> And building DRM was so complicated close to no sites had it? Yes, exactly that.

Right now, YouTube is working on adding EME based DRM, as are Twitter and Facebook.

Even with their Flash based video, you could always easily download it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't find where in the article people are being forced to use this?

<comment><USER29> When content providers, a la YouTube switch to it.

<comment><USER5> YouTube probably won't force this, but even if they do, nobody forces you to use YouTube.

<comment><USER29> YouTube doesn't need to want to use this, the content providers will be breathing in its neck about NotDoingEnoughToStopPirates, and they'll comply out of wish to avoid frivolous lawsuits.

Riiight, I'll just move to next high speed, high capacity video platform, that will magically grow in the meantime.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sweet obsession: China's manuka madness - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150828-the-golden-elixir-worth-more-than-gold <comment><USER2> From the article:

 _From virtually no imports of New Zealand honey just seven years ago, China has drawn level with Hong Kong as the second largest market in the world, according to government statistics, importing nearly 1,500 tonnes in 2014 — the large majority of which is manuka honey. Taken together, the China and Hong Kong markets far outpace the UK, which has been the world's largest market for a decade but has seen imports steadily decline since 2009._

And from Wikipedia:

 _In the wake of the high premium paid for mānuka honey, the majority of product now labelled as such worldwide is counterfeit or adulterated. According to research by UMFHA, the main trade association of New Zealand mānuka honey producers, whereas 1,700 tons of mānuka honey are made there annually representing almost all the world 's production, some 10,000 tons of produce is being sold internationally as mānuka honey, including 1,800 tons in the UK.[1]_

Those number definitely don't add up. Presumably the vast majority of Manuka being consumed in China is counterfeit.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey)

<comment><USER3> Counterfeit goods sold in China- what a surprise.

It's like the counterfeit Champagne they have that is too pressurized, and occasionally kills a billionaire when the cork flies into his temple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So no one has figured out what the chemical is in the Manuka that has antibacterial properties and then tried to synthesize it? I have no idea if this sort of thing is always doable or economical but sounds like it would be a good business opportunity.

<comment><USER5> It wouldn't be Manuka honey then. You forgot the marketing angle, which is sells more of the stuff than any actual antibacterial prowess. And the Chinese consume all sorts of whacky stuff - rhino horns, tiger balls, ground-up cockroaches, etc. With the right marketing you could get the Chinese to consume anything.

I used to eat a lot of Manuka honey when I grew up in New Zealand. It is strong-tasting. The Chinese have raised the prices and now I won't buy the stuff in Australia because it is too expensive.

<comment><USER6> >And the Chinese consume all sorts of whacky stuff - rhino horns, tiger balls, ground-up cockroaches, etc

This is my thinking as well. This sounds like yet another Chinese health fad, which often has roots in "traditional" and "alternative" Chinese medicine, which has been shown to be almost all nonsense, with the rare exception that's due more to luck than anything else.

The linked paper describes manuka as having antibacteria properties in regards to dressing wounds. I'm not sure if eating it is giving anyone any benefits and considering what we now know about gut flora and antibiotics, well, people shouldn't just be eating antibiotics like tic-tacs.

> With the right marketing you could get the Chinese to consume anything.

Autocratic states generally don't have any sort of democratic movements for medicine, industrial, air, or food safety, so they never get the proper regulatory bodies to make this stuff safe. Case in point, my wife brought some cold medicine back from Russia. It was chock full of mercury. There were a few articles last year about some common cold medicine marketed to children in China. It was full of lead. FDA advisory here:

[http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm416220.htm](http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm416220.htm)

<comment><USER7> What was the name of the cold medicine from Russia? How did you know it was full of mercury?

<comment><USER6> It was listed as an ingredient. Apparently, mercury appeals to the 'naturalist' and 'folk cures' crowd which is big in Russia.

Don't recall name, this was four or five years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >and help boost the immune system.

My BS detector goes off whenever I see a phrase like that.

The human immune system is just that a system and the word system seems to be glossed over as if it's a thing not a bunch of separate parts.

From the smallest molecule to larger cells it's an incredibly complex bunch of biological process and one food affecting all of it simultaneously is probably not true.

<comment><USER9> I think that phrase was just mostly meant for the average reader of the article.

If you read the study they link, it explains the immune boosting/modulating functions of the honey.

Example: Furthermore, the ability of honey to reduce 'reactive intermediates release'[23] may well limit tissue damage by activated macrophages during wound healing. Thus, the immunomodulatory property of honey is relevant to wound repair.

I've seen this stuff work for wound repair first hand, and I've read enough first hand accounts of people successfully treating gut-related diseases with the help of this stuff.. so maybe don't dismiss it just yet, but if this gets very popular, I don't think NZ will be able to keep up.. the prices on the stuff are already a bit much for any average shopper.

<comment><USER10> Personally I dismiss any "medicine" that only has anecdotal "evidence" until there is an actual successful clinical trial.. and even then just consuming the raw honey is probably not the way to go since you can't know exactly the concentration of whatever the active chemical(s) is/are. If you have a disease, see a doctor.

<comment><USER9> The concentrations are actually known, there are rating scales, with UMF being the most popular where the honey is tested for its bacterial killing properties, and each honey is labeled accordingly.

Yes, the testing isn't perfect, but at least it's something, and for many people with diseases like ulcerative colitis, where the doctor's recommendation is to remove the entire colon, this honey has offered many an alternative way to manage their disease and keep their colon.

Now, if it were me, personally I would try the honey first, even if it's never been through clinical trials, before removing my entire colon. I mean worse case I eat a bunch of honey.

I get where you're coming from, but until the science is there, there's no reason not to try foods that we already consume regularly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> comparing honey to ginseng is not accurate. ginseng is a root. honey is 40% glucose 30% fructose and the good stuff is mixed with those high ammounts of sugar. whatever good stuff there is in it believe me it won't matter compared to what sugar will do to your liver

<comment><USER12> It isn't meant to be a literal comparison. It's a comparison of the way Chinese consumers and Korean consumers _view_ manuka honey and ginseng, respectively.</comment></comment>


Fastwords - the future in mobile authentication - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastword.me/ <comment><USER2> Fastwords are unsafe. The alphabet has a size of 64.000 symbols (= words), and people will use 3-4 of them. For 3 words there are just 262.144.000.000.000 different combinations to try. Renting a cluster of 30.000 machines for one hour costs less than 2k dollars. With such an attack you can try 5 trillion combinations per minute, which makes just max 52 minutes to crack such a password.

Mobile security can be achieved with LastPass for example, a password manager. This can generate a password for you that is 20 chars long, with an alphabet of more than 70 symbols. If we assume 70 symbols and just 10 of those in a password, then we already have 2.824.752.490.000.000.000 combinations, which is 10.775 times more secure than the fastwords example. So instead of cracking one hour, with a good 10 char password that includes symbols, uppercase and lowercase and digits, it would take around 416 days to crack a short mobile password, and it would cost millions.</comment>


Google spinoff Dandelion uses ground energy to heat and cool homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/google-spinoff-dandelion-uses-ground-energy-to-heat-and-cool-homes/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=52352248#ftag=CAD590a51e <comment><USER3> Ground Source (geothermal) heat pumps are not new, but Dandelion is doing interesting/innovative things. Here is my understanding from keeping track of what they're up to for a little while.

First they've developed a new drilling rig to try and drop the drilling time, cost and mess by 10x. Call the drilling traditionally 50% of the cost. This is for doing vertical bore holes, instead of horizontal trenches.

Second, they're targeting/marketing directly to home owners in cold regions who use heating oil for heating. The data collection/marketing is ground breaking for residential HVAC, but I would guess probably nothing too amazing compared to any modern web company.

Third, they're bringing modern financing to the ground source heat pump space. Similar to solar leases/PPA's is my understanding.

<comment><USER4> >The data collection/marketing is ground breaking for residential HVAC, but I would guess probably nothing too amazing compared to any modern web company.

Is there some way to see what data they collect/ provide? My client has been providing insight into geothermal installs for 4-5 years now: [http://groundenergysupport.com/wp/](http://groundenergysupport.com/wp/) \-- still the most fulfilling thing I ever built.

<comment><USER3> My understanding of their data innovation is on the marketing side. What I heard is they're narrowing their marketing to only homes on heating oil or propane, essentially not going after houses on the natural gas infrastructure. The gas distribution data at the residence level is not super public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Current estimate of costs in Finland A) electric heating, B) air-pump 2) geothermal

New house, floor heating, 150 m2, 4 persons.

                            A       B       C
        price installed €   3500    10500   13500
        kWh/year .......    16000   8000    4000
        COP-estimate ....   1,0	2,0     4,0
        cost per year €     2080 	1040    520
        saving per year €   -       1040    1560
        payback difference  -       7 y     6 y

saving and cost compared to option A, price of electricity 0.13€/kWh

</comment><comment><USER6> There doesn't appear to be anything new about this, ground-source heat pumps have been available for domestic use for quite some time. And going by the name, and looks, it's actually an air-source heat-pump, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER7> I had heard that these types of systems existed/were used in places like Iceland (or was it Sweden?)...But I wasn't aware they could be leveraged in areas where there might not be as much underground geothermal activity. Unless, I'm misunderstanding what dependencies are needed for these types of systems to work. In any case, if this is not new, any competition to the way we heat/cool our homes - assuming it brings lower prices/more options - <USER2> welcomed!

<comment><USER8> They don't depend on geothermal activity. They depend on the relatively constant temp of the ground below the freeze line. In most places if you go down a few feet the earth is 40-50 degrees F. Its basically a heat pump that uses water instead of air.

My sister outside of Pittsburgh, PA has had a [https://www.waterfurnace.com](https://www.waterfurnace.com) for 17 years. Her system has paid for itself a few times over. She has 1500 ft of plastic tubing burried in her front yard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Misprint? Commonly available ground source systems can save upto 75%. That's way ahead of the article's claimed 20%. At 20% it's simply not worth the cost of installation.

Dandelion's website won't load to let me check.

<comment><USER10> If I'm reading it correctly, the 20% annual savings figure is for the financed installation. They claim 70% annual savings for the cash installation. So their claim is that even if you include the financing payments, you'll still be paying >20% less for energy throughout the year.

See the graphic at the top here:

[https://dandelionenergy.com/much-money-will-i-save- poughkeep...](https://dandelionenergy.com/much-money-will-i-save- poughkeepsie/)

<comment><USER11> I wonder how their economic viability changes if interest rates double. A lot of these kinds of companies seem to have assumptions of historically cheap money baked in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While Dandelion is the flashiest player in the Geothermal space right now because of their relationship with Google, they really aren't offering too much innovation inside the industry where some really exciting things are happening.

For example, there is startup, Geothermal Drilling Solutions [1], that is, in my opinion, poised to disrupt the entire industry.

Their website isn't great, but from what saw and heard from them at a recent conference, they have a rig that can drill in the basements of existing structures. They are going to bring geothermal to major population centers where it is otherwise impossible, and I'm hopeful from the demo I saw, do it faster and cheaper than "traditional" drillers like Dandelion.

[1]: [https://www.geothermaldrillingsolutions.com/](https://www.geothermaldrillingsolutions.com/)

<comment><USER13> Most cities don't include adequate ground-depth rights in land titles, so home-scale geothermal in cities is almost certainly out. This isn't a regulatory thing; you literally only own the first 10 feet of ground or so (hence so many horizontal geothermal systems).

Should play pretty well in the suburbs, where oil heat is more common.

<comment><USER12> You're right that does prevent some drilling depending on the city and it is a shame as it locks out a lot of downtown properties. I'm also not a big fan of horizontal systems and prefer vertical fields whenever possible.

Still, I'm excited because I think there is a big market for residential and commercial spaces that don't have the footprint or alley access to fit a conventional rig.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Installation isn't cheap. Dandelion estimates the cost at around $20,000, > depending on home size and state and federal incentives. But the company > notes that consumers are likely to save about 20 percent annually on the > cost of home heating and cooling.

Are they aiming at regular home owners?

Our heating/cooling is ~ $2.4k/year - about $200/month. Fluctuates - summertime is sometimes higher, winter can bring high heating months, but our electric bill is often under $100 for the spring months, so ... it evens out.

This would mean a ... $500 savings per year? $40/month? Are other people paying much much higher heating/cooling costs than I am, and this would make sense?

<comment><USER15> Maybe it makes sense for an apartment building or an entire block, together? (That said, a 2.5% inflation-adjusting yield isn't terrible.)

<comment><USER16> Maintenance will be a recurring cost (amortised) cutting into the yield percentage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This makes no sense.. systems like this have existed for many years, and are not uncommon here in Denmark. But the newest thing is air to water heatpumps. They are even more effective, and have lower upfront cost. I just had one installed at my vacation home. It heats about 200 square meters and an indoor pool. It even has en app.. [https://volundvt.dk/produkter/luft-til-vand- varmepumpe/sorti...](https://volundvt.dk/produkter/luft-til-vand- varmepumpe/sortimentsoversigt/produkt/f2120-luft-vand-varmepumpe)

<comment><USER18> I think that's the beauty of it. Just need to reframe the negative spin into a positive spin.

If what you are saying is true, i.e.:

a.) the technology for geothermal exists and is commonplace in Europe

b.) the financials for geothermal work out

c.) all geothermal requires is awareness of a.) and b.)

then marketing to get US consumers to adopt it is an amazing idea. Dandelion and Google should be applauded!

<comment><USER17> That wasnt really my point. My point was twofold, that 1. the tech exists, so way praise google X etc? 2. Its already outdated.. air to water heatpumps are moore efficient, cheaper and easier to install. The ground based heat system require a very large yard or similar to lay pretty massive amounts of pipes to be effective. Thats also a very big part of the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Dandelions have long taproots that descend deep below the surface to pull up water and nutrients. Clever name.

Image of dandelion roots - [http://d21h34pqo0rkag.cloudfront.net/wp- content/uploads/2013...](http://d21h34pqo0rkag.cloudfront.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/dandelion-greens-info-recipes- videos-e1367272385946.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER20> So, a geothermal heat pump?

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

<comment><USER21> It's not a novelty, but they aim to bring traditional costs down.

One of the founders is Bob Wyman, who was one of the most interesting characters at Google. He could talk for hours about prospective search (he had founded PubSub), his time at DEC working on All-in-1 or his advocacy to get rid of No. 6 fuel oil in NYC buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The EER on their ground source heat pump is abysmal.

For a 4 ton pump, they have 17.5 EER, 3.9 COP

For the O(same price) for the unit, the waterfurnace 7 series is 41.0 EER, 5.3 COP.

(Both can provide all hot water, etc).

The waterfurnace also carries a 10 year warranty instead of 5 year labor/10 year parts.

Can't speak to the drilling rig, which also seems interesting.

</comment><comment><USER23> Dandelion Air is a geothermal system that moves heat between the house and the ground using plastic pipes and a pump -- bringing heat to the building in winter and pushing heat to the ground in summer.

So what we've been putting in homes for ~40 years already. Thanks Google!

<comment><USER24> My local well drilling guy has offered "geothermal" for years (decades?) Despite a large inventory of wealthy second home owners, he didn't get and still doesn't get many takers. Meanwhile, rooftop solar is everywhere.

My parents almost bought their "retirement home" with an existing geothermal system - it remains the only "real world" home instance of this technology that I have encountered.

$20K also seems very close to the price he told me years ago - I fail to see the innovation here. I'm sure there's _something_ here, but the article doesn't help illuminate it.

Edit: Another HNer posted this, apparently it's a cheaper drilling technique: [https://blog.x.company/introducing- dandelion-2706eded169a](https://blog.x.company/introducing- dandelion-2706eded169a)

<comment><USER25> I wonder, how "compatible" this is with solar.

I.e. if you install solar by itself, you save X dollars/month. If you install this by itself, you save Y dollars a month. If you install both, is it close to X+Y, or is there some substitution there?

On one hand, you can sell solar back to the grid, but you can't always sell it back at retail, so I would guess your savings would be smaller, but how much smaller? Or would you be able to achieve the same ROI with a smaller rooftop solar installation?

TBH, I'm not really a big fan of rooftop solar, it seems like a hack to deal with shitty environmental policy that undermines the electricity grid itself.

<comment><USER26> Depends on how you heat.

If you live in a climate where you need to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, ground source heat pump are cheaper to operate than oil, gas and A/C. Solar will contribute to reducing your A/C electricity bills and also all the other power you use year-long, so they work together.

If you live in a climate where you occasionally turn on an electric heater for those really cold days, this will only help during cooling season, while solar will contribute all year long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Feels like a bit of 'jump the shark' moment for google...a geothermal heat pump called dandelion from an advertising and search company. Does it connect to nest and phone home information about our homes?

<comment><USER28> Yes, it comes with a Nest thermostat.

<comment><USER27> It appears they are using a better drilling method [https://blog.x.company/introducing- dandelion-2706eded169a](https://blog.x.company/introducing- dandelion-2706eded169a) I was being cynical as we have a nest that underperforms and sometimes behaves erratically. The website focuses on exploiting subsidies to install. I'd like to know more about Dandelion in case I missed something, will be interesting to get feedback on effectiveness, performance and noise levels</comment></comment></comment>


FarmLogs (YC W12) Nabs $10M Series B from SV Angel, Sam Altman and Others - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/17/farmlogs-nabs-10m-series-b-from-sv-angel-sam-altman-and-others/

<comment><USER2> Congrats FarmLogs team!

Q1: Does the data you collect include weather/atmosphere data?

Q2: Does your system inform the equipment/farms of the weather forecast? Or, will it?

I am building high-accuracy weather forecast systems using connected sensor networks; maybe you'd like to chat?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Cryptoz, thanks!

We do make use of weather and climate data in some of our models and visualizations. For instance, we use the gridded precip AHPS dataset from the National Weather Service to determine water accumulation at the field. We also use some large temperature datasets.

In the past, we experimented with using the DarkSky API to alert farmers (while in the field) that rain is coming. We've since dropped that feature.

In any case, we generally make use of remote sensed data and are not deploying sensors on farm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats, nice to see entrepreneurs in A^2.

<comment><USER4> There's a lot of us, including a few series B companies and a couple YCers: [http://www.madeina2.com/](http://www.madeina2.com/)

<comment><USER5> Also a growing Google Ventures presence!

[http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/duo- security](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/duo-security)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats, team FarmLogs!

</comment><comment><USER7> Great job guys! Keep pushing the field forward.

</comment><comment><USER8> Huge congrats from your pals at Duo!

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats Jesse et al, go team FarmLogs!

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice work Jesse & team!</comment>