A summer job paid tuition back in '81, but then we got cheap - <AUTHOR> http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021250505_westneat23xml.html <comment><USER2> Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor emeritus of Berkeley, spoke at a fundraising event I attended and said something I thought was poignant:

"The University of California has gone from being a state-funded institution, to a state-sponsored institution, to a state- _located_ institution."

The level at which the State of California funds the university is practically nothing at this point. Alumni donations have filled _some_ gaps but don't nearly cover everything. Tuition has increased to the point where even I, who graduated in 2006, consider it ridiculous. It is now over 8 times the maximum semester tuition I paid.

I can't imagine considering Berkeley a "great value" anymore, as I did when I was there considering the (excellent) quality of education versus the price. It used to be a sense of pride; that a public university could be so great, to prove the experiment, to show that society could produce academic excellence without falling to the vices of money and the divisions that come with it. Now that experiment has failed, and only those who believe in it strongly—the Alumni and supporters—are upholding it, but that's not sustainable.

We need to grow up. This fantasy of American individualism is killing us. We need to grow up and learn how to share—and this is the worst part: _as we once did._

<comment><USER3> I earned half my undergrad tuition for Syracuse University (in no way an "inexpensive" school) working summer & part time, parents providing the other half from what they saved. No debts. No socialism. American individualism works.

ETA: individualism does not preclude working hard to save resources for your offspring (no strings attached at that), or anyone else you choose to assist entirely at your own discretion. Individualism does not require one start life under a rock and never accept gifted assistance. There is a profound difference between helping those you brought into this world, vs compelling strangers to give up their earnings for people they never met.

<comment><USER4> Today without any tuition assistance, the tuition for a year of undergrad study at Syracuse is tens of thousands of dollars. If you are having to feed yourself and pay rent while paying this tuition, the vast majority of available part time or summer jobs will not pay enough to meet even half of your financial needs.

Also:

> parents providing the other half from what they saved

and

> American individualism works

are contrary. You didn't do anything on your own to get the money your parents provided. This is not individualism, you relied on your existing social networks to meet your financial needs.

<comment><USER5> Well, duh. Handouts from parents = rugged individualism. Crush those lazy welfare peons who haven't worked hard enough to have rich parents!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sort of. The cost of higher-education skyrocketed when the government got involved in the student loan business. It became easy to get loans for higher- education and then tuition skyrocketed with the suddenly available capital.

There other contributing factors as well; for example, the rise of the ridiculous requirement to have a college degree to get anything close to a decent job these days has created tremendous demand for degrees and allowed colleges and universities to raise tuition into the stratosphere.

<comment><USER7> I'm one of the few who paid for his college tuition out of pocket. Not in the 80's; I graduate this December. I'm not rich, I live like a pauper. I've worked multiple jobs, I've done intense internships, and with the money I've made I've paid for as many classes as I could afford each semester. It's been 7 years now since I started college, and I'll be graduating after one more semester. I just recently found a company willing to hire me full time with just the promise that I will be a graduate in the near future. If I don't graduate in December, my salary gets cut (further limiting my ability to graduate). It's not good enough that I've been working in my industry for five years; I need a degree too.

I feel that people who pay their college on student loans don't really feel the full impact of how much their tuition cost them until it's far too late. People like me feel it all too well. Most of my friends have graduated and have nice jobs, taking vacations in Europe, and going to see the doctor (what I wouldn't give for health insurance...). They criticize me for not having graduated yet. But we'll see which plan pays off in the long run.

<comment><USER8> Actually the loans may very well have been a better deal for you. You have sacrificed three years of income (assuming you finish in seven years instead of four). If you would have been able to command $50,000 per year, but instead made, say, $20,000 per year, then you've left $90,000 on the table. That is your opportunity cost (as the economists say) for being debt-free. So unless your loans would have been greater than that amount, you should have just borrowed the money and finished sooner, then lived cheaply and paid down your debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Well, that's the part we don't want to talk about anymore._

That's not true at all: college costs are _constantly_ discussed. The book _Why Does College Cost So Much_ is the most comprehensive treatment of the issue I've seen, and it argues that the _main_ driver of college costs is Baumol's Cost Disease.

 _It's that taxpayers back then picked up 90 percent of the tab. We weren't Horatio Algers. We were socialists._

Universities like the University of Washington are also in a spending arms race: universities are _increasing_ their per-student spending, even in the face of falling state spending: [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/06/04/public_univer...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/06/04/public_university_spending_is_up_not_down.html) .

A side note: Danny Westneat is something of a joke among people who read the _Seattle Times_ , and it's a mistake to take almost anything he writes seriously. He's the sort of pious liberal that makes intellectually minded and honest liberals crazy because of his tendency to repeat various kinds of half- truths. This is a good example: he's right that if Washington picked up 90% of UW's tab, tuition would be cheaper.

But it's also true that if he'd read more, and read more about the people who actually study this issue, he'd have a more complete picture of the situation. You'll learn more reading this comment than reading his column.

<comment><USER10> Your speaking in half truths, taking inflation into account the increase intuition is mostly related to lack of funding for state schools. Consider a few states hand out fee rides to a significant faction of students who meet basic qualifications. The real issue is most states have been poorly run over the last 50 years and face a wide range of funding issues related to pensions and healthcare issues.

PS: _In the University of California system, the per-student cost of providing education has actually gone down: total university-system expenditures divided by number of students produces a number about 20-25% lower today than it was in the '70s, in real-dollar terms._

<comment><USER11> Time for the rich colleges to find better use of their endowments then. Berkley has three billion in endowments according to a 2011 report, I do not have current numbers. Some famous East coast schools have numbers that dwarf it.

According to Wikipedia the University of California system as a whole has over ten billion dollars in various endowment categories. More telling is they have over thirteen thousand administrative employees and just over ninety thousand academic employees. That compares to only two hundred thirty six thousand students. Gee, I wonder where the problem is? Two students per employee is a lot of money to make up

<comment><USER10> That 10 billion endowment for _all_ the university's in California (UC,CSU,CCC) would cover less than six months of the just the University of California's (UC) operating budget before being used up. So yes it's a big number but it's also not actually all that helpful. [http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/index/chapt...](http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/index/chapter/12)

 _state educational appropriations constituted only 12 percent of UC 's operating budget in 2010-11 compared to 23 percent in 2001-02. In 2011-12, the state cut UC's budget an additional $750 million._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I also paid for my college largely with high school jobs (I was fortunate enough to have had a home, clothes, food, etc. while I was earning that money). So kids, it is all true.

I work at a college and I am also just finishing putting my two children through college, so I am very interested in the topic. I find the report at [http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Anatomy-of- College...](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Anatomy-of-College- Tuition.pdf) informative. In particular, on page 2 you can see that the steady increases in the cost of college fits with the fact that college is a service industry (or at least it has been up to now).

On page 10 you see in a graph the point that the Seattle Times's article made with an anecdote, that state and local governments have reduced support and families have had to make good the difference. In my mind, just as we as a society pool our resources to build bridges, we also need to produce people who will lead tomorrow (but then, as I say, I work at a college).

<comment><USER13> I've been working since I was 15 (I'm 20). In total, I've made around $15k. My first year of school cost roughly twice that figure.

If I wasn't majoring in CS (or my Grandfather hadn't died), I would not be going to the school I am. This isn't how the system should work.

<comment><USER12> Oh, I absolutely agree (as does the original article) that a hard-working bright student from a middle class household who wants to go to a state school cannot do so from working hard, as you and I did, from age 15 through college, at the kinds of jobs that such students would hold (I worked in a resturant; that's the kind of job I meant). I agree with the article, and I assume with you, that it is wrong that such a thing is not possible today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Tuition has skyrocketed, but have universities changed that much? They act like they never have enough money, but yet... they have more than ever. What are the offering now for their 10x increase in tuition in 30 years?

<comment><USER15> Kids in a lot of colleges today are living a life of luxury compared to what I had in the 80s. Any dorm built or renevated in the last 10-15 or so years will have semi-private bathrooms. The dining options today are way better than what we had. I trudged down to the dorm cafeteria and ate whatever slop they were serving, high school cafeteria style. My son (at a small public university) has what amounts to a mall food court at school, and he can choose from burgers, pizza, wraps, vegetarian, Italian, Mexican, etc. every day. The libraries are more functional, the sports facilities are all updated, etc. All that costs money.

<comment><USER16> One out of many cafeterias on my college campus was reported to have cleared 100k in profit for the year. Food is definitely not the problem, and I wouldn't be surprised if college dorms were profitable as well (more expensive than living off campus).

<comment><USER17> How many meals do you figure they served each day?

$500 a day might not be all that much (or it could be quite a bit).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wage stagnation is probably a bigger factor.

        Minimum wage, 1951: $0.75/hr
        Minimum wage, 1981: $3.25/hr
        Minimum wage, 2011: $7.25/hr

<comment><USER19> While I don't agree with the status quo, if your labor isn't worth $15 an hour to someone (mainly because someone else is perfectly willing to do the work for less) then they don't have a moral obligation to pay you more, and minimum wage laws only artificially constrict the limits of what the value of unskilled labor is.

I'd rather see a basic income guarantee (mainly for creative people like artists or FOSS developers) and the removal of minimum wage, so businesses can correct the true value of labor in various fields.

It would help eliminate the rampant service industry that destroys souls because most people don't have the fortitude to deal with random strangers idiocy.

<comment><USER20> How about an obligation to not shift your employee cost of living onto the government?

<comment><USER21> This is the important aspect that most people don't think about when discussing this issue. A quick google search reveals 80% of Walmart employees are on government assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This one's easy. It's obviously the availability of cheap money (loans) that has caused the price of college to go up. Just like homes and cars (which are equally ridiculously priced), we can only afford them because they are comparatively leveraged. If people _had_ to pay out of pocket for these things, you can bet they wouldn't cost nearly as much. If you can tack an additional X thousand dollars onto the price and only affect the payment for the item marginally, you can bloat pretty damn quickly.

That said, the quality of these things might also go down, but I have a hard time believing our elders got a comparatively worse education/home/car, adjusting for technological advances.

This may be a ridiculously sweeping statement, but I truly believe consumer credit is one of the worst inventions of the modern era, and has drastically reduced quality of life across the board.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here is something to look at

2013 Tuition: $12,500 Subsidized: 30% 2013 Total: $17,857

1981 Tuition: $687 Subsidized: 90% 1981 Total: $6870 2013 Dollars: $17,690 (at 3% inflation)

So the argument is not the cost of education as that hasn't changed in 30 years. Its more who is footing the bill which is implied in the article. Should taxpayers pay for the education?

<comment><USER24> That $12,500 tuition is wholly subsidized. The loan guarantees provided by the government are back-stopped by the tax payers (and ultimately the Fed, aka people holding dollars).

The sole reason students can get loans totaling $40k or $50k is the government is subsidizing the entire process with guaranteed loans.

Most likely as this soon to be multi-trillion dollar debt debacle explodes, the government is going to end up paying for a lot of that debt via bailouts. They're certainly not going to let that tower of debt truly fall over, so a bailout is the only likely outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't it also true that private institutions have seen an equally fast or faster growth in tuition expenses? That would invalidate the article. For reference btw, $3 to $6 in 1981 dollars is $7.50 to $15 in today's dollars according to Westegg.

<comment><USER26> Yes. Higher education is the only industry to give medicine a run for its money in cost inflation.

Some blame Baumol's cost disease[1], and that's probably an element of it, but so too are the multiplication of deanlets and deanlings[2], the cancerous growth of the physical facilities a of every school, spending per student being used as a proxy for quality by the USN&WR, the rise of bidding wars for celebraty faculty, ect.

Much or all these effects are enabled by incentives for those that run universities in which holding costs down play little to no role. That's partially a function of the student loan system and partially a function of lax oversight of "charitable" organizations in general.

[1][http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease) [2][http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all)

<comment><USER27> Once you get a group of customers who have been told and internalized "price doesn't matter," then you will only see one response from the producers.

Producers who tried to avoid the game got left behind. When the students don't care about the cost, then it becomes a losing proposition to skip out on (say) the $10 million expense that only provides $1 million of value to your students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The fault is shared between both parties: employers demand degrees because it's so much easier to recruit that way, and youngsters don't fight and just go to college.

In my opinion we need way (WAY) more smart dropouts, people who realize they don't belong in school but stay by fear are just as much at fault.

There's no fear or shame to have, I've been through it and it just disabled poor professionnals from hiring me, which is more of a blessing than anything else.

And of course, it's all debt-free from there on (except I bought a place in Paris before my friends even moved out of their parents').

<comment><USER29> Yeah but for that to work we need a big mass of people without degrees. Right now the status quo is on the other end of the spectrum so you get a trickle of fighters.

We need someone to pave the way :). Maybe rising tuition is the way to go. At some point uni education becomes so prohibitive that even the mass may avoid it.

(btw I was not a fighter)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I went to university in Canada in the early 90s. My tuition per year peaked at $2500/yr. I could make about $6000 over the summer, which would pay for my tuition and a big chunk of my dorm fees ($6000/yr). Nowadays, I don't know how anyone can afford to go to university, or even if it's worth it anymore. I believe there's a lot of value in higher education, but not if it means having $100k+ in debt.

<comment><USER31> Canada has been spared the American insanity if my understanding is correct. I pay ~7k/year for University of Calgary. Even University of Waterloo our most prestigious computer science university is only 10k. Provided you are not an international student tuition should be reason. I expect my Microsoft internship to pay for two years of uni including living expenses. Freelancing paid for another year.

Compared to the farm work, tree planting, and landlording which my father did to pay for University I'm on vacation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Someone who went to college in 1981 does seem ancient to me, after all my mom went to college just a few years before that and she smoked cigarettes in class ($0.25 a pack!), but this guy is only 48! Now I'm 35 and rapidly catching up! I think the theory of logarithmic experience of aging where you have experienced half your life by age 12 is totally true.

</comment><comment><USER33> I paid for my undergraduate education (97-03) by dropping out to work as a full time consultant. Because I did this twice, it took several extra years to graduate. For grad school, I worked a full time night job and missed out on the quintessential grad student experience of being a TA, getting to know the faculty, making friends, and being a part of the grad student and research community. I did manage to finish grad school with no debt, but I'll never know whether it was worth missing out on the social academic experience. It may technically be possible to pay for higher education through hard work, but the opportunity cost is hard to appreciate for those who do.

</comment><comment><USER34> Hate to break it to you but universities are in the business of research. Teaching is nearly worthless use of researcher's time - taken away from progressing science and getting those private and government grants. Or so the teachers told me in Canada. Some teachers believe in teaching - others treat students with contempt and shrug them off to assistants. And the bigger university, the bigger the stakes are in research at least - lower quality education you get.

Granted elevated acceptance requirements will get you in the boat with some smart people - for four years of tedium and exasperation but then you'll have the network to build from.

my 2c

<comment><USER35> >Teaching is nearly worthless use of researcher's time

No, it isn't or else you'll soon run out of researchers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know why the cost of the universities have skyrocketed? Do they offer a better staff/student relation, better equipment, better buildings, do they pay their staff better...? I honestly don't know but since a lot of the universities are non profits the money is not going to their shareholder's and if I understand the article correctly the (inflation adjusted) amount of money the government provides also has not decreased.

<comment><USER37> Bigger, newer buildings. Lots more administrators paid much higher salaries. Tuitions subsidizing very expensive football teams. Gourmet food and single rooms for students (so they can attract the best and brightest!) rather than hash-slinging cafeterias and dormitories. Fancy gyms for the same reason.

Faculty salaries, however, are much lower since a large percentage now are part time temps with PhDs.

<comment><USER15> //Tuitions subsidizing very expensive football teams.//

I'm happy to say that at my alma mater (Purdue) the athletic programs are run as a separate business. They don't get one penny from the University general fund. I think they are one of 5 schools like that. Personally, I think every public school should be required to fund athletics separately.

<comment><USER35> Normally when athletics are profitable, the athletic dep't grows. When they are not, the college makes up the difference. I've never heard of an athletic department that contributed anything back to the college, at least not willingly.

<comment><USER15> Well, Purdue does take a big chunk of the Big 10 Network proceeds for the University, when that money is almost entirely the result of the athletic program. However, I wouldn't say the athletic programs are willingly sharing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a little misleading. When adjusted for inflation, the average amount that students pay has increased only moderately. And on average students at public universities only pay about 18% of the money that's spent per student. There's no question it's a little bit harder now than it used to be, but it's not like its twice as expensive, let alone 10x as some people would claim.

<comment><USER35> You're looking at tuition increases. Food, Housing, Books, etc. have also increased in varying amounts.

<comment><USER38> Fair enough. But the average net tuition at public universities is only $4,900 per year. Assuming you make $10 per hour at a summer job, that works out to exactly 40 hours per week over the summer. Obviously there are still other expenses and considerations, but tuition itself isn't especially unreasonable. The bigger issues are the fact that education you'll receive is likely complete garbage, your degree won't be worth anything, and wages of the middle class have been decreasing for decades.

<comment><USER35> > Assuming you make $10 per hour at a summer job

Do you mean $10 per hour over the cost of living/driving/eating/etc ?

>The bigger issues are the fact that education you'll receive is likely complete garbage

The lectures are the same, the bar has been lowered too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> no one should have to do what I did.

I grew up in the mountains. there were no rich people around. it would be very rare to find a family that my family knew that had a college degree. also my family didn't really have any money and I needed to move out as soon as I finished high school.

I found tech jobs on the internet (yay IRC). I moved to different cities and worked entry level tech jobs. I went to community college at nights and then a state school during the day when I had a job with flexible enough hours. I worked full time and went to school part time and after seven years I should be done this fall, with no student debt (or really any other kind of debt).

but doing this really sucked. no one should have to do it. I've met more people than you would think who were like me. when I started, people referred to me as a "nontraditional" student but I think the "traditional" student is becoming the abnormality...

</comment><comment><USER24> The reason for this explosion in cost, is the Feds began fully subsidizing the cost of a college education. Colleges then had the green light to perpetually raise prices - even in the depths of the great recession - they knew Uncle Sam would cover the bill. Education costs have had no connection to reality because you could get a government backed loan for it. When you see an entire industry, with plenty of competition amongst schools, disconnecting from reality, you can almost always bet the government is involved in the cost inflation.

Colleges then took that massive influx of government sponsored cash and put it to work funding their bureaucracies, building an endless parade of buildings they didn't actually need, significantly boosting professor pay, and accumulating substantial endowments.

Meanwhile the actual education - their product - did not get more valuable. At a time of terrible economic performance, with 14% real unemployment, falling incomes, and lack of jobs post graduation, clearly the cost of an education should have fallen by quite a lot. It didn't because of a guaranteed loan back stop.

There is talk now that students should pay the same low interest rates on their debt that banks pay when they borrow money. If that is put into effect, all it will do is accelerate the debt accumulation. It'll enable students to borrow more, and colleges will accordingly charge more. This government fueled scheme can only end in tears (bailouts).

<comment><USER40> I loathe the trite "citation needed" when challenging disagreeable opinions. Especially when statements are so easily fact checked.

However, your thesis of more federal funding leading to raising prices doesn't square with my experience, what I understand of the current situation, and many of the sourced comments below. (I currently work in higher ed; funding, tuition, loans, worth of degrees are discussed ad nauseum. Though I sling code, many friends and coworkers deal with the money, budgets, and legislature.)

By "federal funding", do you mean research grants? I dimly recall that during my father's generation, Sputnik motivated huge influx of cash into both K-12 and higher ed. Also, my grandfather's generation benefitted from the GI Bill. Those initiatives lowered student costs.

It's accepted wisdom that our tuition has risen in direct proportion to the withdrawal of state funding. We're currently funded at 9%. It's completely, sadly accepted that we'll eventually be fully tuition funded.

I can't speak to the student loan gouging. Prior generations of students had very low interest rates with lenient payback enforcement. So your point seems counterfactual, leaning on some libertarian "free market" worldview.

<comment><USER41> I'm curious: does state funding apply to out-of-state students? When I went to college in the 90s, out-of-state tuition was about 3x as much as in-state, a ratio that seems to have held to today--at least for my school. I would have expected the ratio to decrease as in-state students presumably received less state funding, but both have risen equally about 300%.

(I worked at the cashier's office, so historical tuition prices are still in my memory, but I have no other schools to base this on.)

<comment><USER40> Good question.

We recently talked about that. I was surprised to learn that in-state tuition discounts were subsidized by the state. I had always assumed out-of-state students were charged a premium.

I'm told that, in my state, community college students will (likely) continue to get subsidized, whereas university students won't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Yes, I paid for MIT with five summers of work in the 1970s. When I graduated I had two months of living expenses left in the bank, the lowest ever in my life. the first three summers were blue collar, e.g. auto factories which paid triple minimum wage then.

</comment><comment><USER43> Yup its true and the norm. I made about $6K over the summer months and my college tuition was $350 a semester. Shared an apartment for $200/month. The thought of taking out a loan never entered my mind.

<comment><USER27> Depending on your age, you may have been able to discharge any debt you acquired after graduation, which made it nuts for anyone to loan you money.

The reasons for making student loans non-dischargeable was based on a theory that only rich students would be able to go to college. However, I think experience has been a very harsh teacher that we got something much worse out of that bargain than we thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm going to University of Illinois the tuition for the engineering department = $19,980, and the living expenses = $7,000 ($400 rent, $100 food, $40 internet per month with roommate).

That's a total of $26,980 not including books, parking permits, clothes, any possible fun, computer, etc.

I made ~$25,000 working a year at jimmy johns as a delivery driver 20 hours a week (averaged $18 an hour), my 40 hour a week summer job ($10 an hour), and my website/youtube income (only $500 or so). This year i'm broke, but I went to a junior college for two years at $4000 a year, saved up, and I should graduate with a bachelors in C.S. with a minor in BioE for a total loan (for two years) I took out myself of ~$50,000.

1-2 years to pay back the loan, did it myself (I did have a cosigner for the loan, but it is still in my name AKA I call it doing it myself because i'm liable and am pretty responsible)

Quite frankly I would rather require each student to take out a loan themselves, than have my future self pay for the students to drink and screw around. My GPA is 3.5/4.0, i'll graduate when i'm 22 (currently 21), I have always worked 20-60 hours a week, I have 110 credit hours and a year to go (i've taken classes every semester including summer), and I have kept a girlfriend even. Its possible, you just have to be serious enough to do it.

OR you could take $100,000 in loans, work 10 years to pay it back ($500,000 by the end with interest).

Part of the reason it costs so much to go to school is so many people default. Do you think I will? Perhaps take some of the pressure off the public to pay, put it on the student and less people will default because only the most serious will go to expensive universities. Like I said, $4000 a semester at a junior college and I honestly think my education there was about the same quality as U of I, I had professors from Argonne national labs, one guy even designed the electronics for the f-18 hornet and taught as a kind of retirement.

Sorry for the rant, but the point is, I did it all myself and all of these comments about how hard or ridiculous it is it is are pathetic. Go to a junior college for a couple years, transfer, take out some loans, pay them back and get off the public's back (too many college students party to consider it a worthy public investment). Although it's harder, its definitely more gratifying to do it yourself.

</comment><comment><USER45> It is hugely annoying when clicking on whitespace on a web page opens ads in a new tab.</comment>


'Child-friendly' search engine Kiddle is promoting ignorance, not safety - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/01/child-friendly-search-engine-kiddle-is-promoting-ignorance-not-safety/ <comment><USER2> > Well, it means your daughter won't be able check if the cramps she has in > her tummy might be her first period and your kids won't be able to search > for a clear definition of what it means to be gay or transsexual, so they > might have to rely on what they hear in the playground.

No, they'll rely on my _parenting_. Linking them to the Wikipedia article on sex doesn't count as as parent-to-child talk.

It's a big enough deal that I want to do this. I'm not going to just leave it up to sex ed, the playground, or the internet. I do what I can.

</comment><comment><USER3> >"I don't have kids yet..."

Enough said.

> "Instead of blocking terms like LGBT and intercourse, Kiddle would be much > better to help educate kids in an age-appropriate manner about these things, > not adding to the stigma."

If you have installed a block for kids... I should hope that it blocks the word "Intercourse"? Is this guy serious?

<comment><USER4> I have kids, 4 of them actually and I must say I agree with the author. The problem with the Kiddle approach is that it doesn't help kids when they need it. Additionally, telling them it's a "bad word" doesn't encourage them to talk to their parents about it, but may have the exact opposite effect.

A better approach would be curated results for these terms vs no results. Or maybe a banner that says "This is a great topic to talk to your parents about." Who knows, may actually work. Probably not thought...

<comment><USER3> I have kids as well, 3 of them actually.

I appreciated your response. I get the idea of the "better approach" and I liked that you admitted on the front side that .." who knows, may actually work. Probably not though...".

I don't think that's what the author had in mind ("talk to your parents"). That wouldn't be that bad.

What's scary is when adults outsource their parenting role.</comment></comment></comment>


To Help Prevent the Next Big Wildfire, Let the Forest Burn - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/opinion/sunday/california-wildfires-forest-management.html <comment><USER2> How realistic is it for vastly improved monitoring and rapid response to be able to snuff out a major fire before it develops?

For example, what if you had the surveillance coverage to detect a fire before it covers, say, even 1 acre, and if you could respond with a tanker of Phos- Chek (or whatever) within some number of minutes?

Aside from actually achieving the detection ability for alerting on a new fire, and having the equipment and personale distributed and on-call for rapid response, I am guessing the biggest challenge is "false positives" in the sense that you detect a real fire which is relatively tiny, but have no way to determine if it has the potential to develop into a catastrophic fire. In the long tail of forest fires there are perhaps 100,000 detectable fires, so that's a lot of response.

This goes against precisely the thesis of TFA and perhaps the counter-argument is that strictly controlling fires will just allow fuel to pile up to the point where it is no longer controllable — like a dam holding back the floodwaters until it is finally topped.

The biggest problem I have with the "let it burn" argument is just the macro level stats. We have about the same number of fires, burning about 10x the acreage as they did in the past. We are already letting these fires, intentionally or not, burn a lot more acreage and the number of fires is roughly constant.

<comment><USER3> We don't actually have good records for the number of fires in the past. As soon as white men came to North America they started putting out fires. The natives here before then didn't keep detailed written records, though the general verbal reports suggest they were actually lighting fires)

Letting the fires burns clears out the fuel. IF we go in next year and light that area again there won't be much fuel, so the fire will burn much colder - humans and wildlife caught in that second fire can easily leap over the flames to relative safety (don't get me wrong, some will die in the attempt, but it isn't a death sentence like the larger fires we have now).

That second fire has an additional benefit: carbon sequestration. The big fires we have now turn all carbon to CO2. The smaller fires we could have won't burn hot enough for that and so unburnt carbon will fall to the ground.

<comment><USER4> Given the rate at which these fires are happening and the size of the regions they are burning, I'm not sure how "let it burn" is materially different from what is currently happening, even with our best efforts to put them out.

<comment><USER3> Let it burn includes intentionally lighting fires as well.

<comment><USER5> My area used to do controlled burns but due to budget cuts hasn't in years, it's a tinder box in some of the forests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Note that the situation in California is VERY different from most of the US.

In California (this probably only applies to parts of California - it is a big state) the trees are high oil and very flammable. When there is a fire after a drought (which is common) it will be big and hot. The only way to deal with it is to not build near these forests and let them burn naturally.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any links to support such a broad statement? I've lived in Northern CA almost my entire life, and I would not classify the Oaks etc. as "high oil" or any more flammable than trees in the rest of the continental united states.

In fact, looking at this study utilizing GIS data - it looks to me like the SE US actually contains some of the largest concentrations of fuel / fire risk:

[https://eos.org/articles/assessing-u-s-fire-risks-using- soil...](https://eos.org/articles/assessing-u-s-fire-risks-using-soil- moisture-satellite-data)

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature) is where I read this. The types of timber in the area [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Mountains) are known as high oil which means they burn hotter. Oaks are not high oil. Cedar and Pine are though.

Note that current concentration of fuel/fire risk is NOT what I was talking about. There are big problems all over the US because of mis-management. Different areas need different management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Forest fires (used) to be a natural occurrence which was healthy for forests.

70 years of "put every fire out" has resulted in forests with excess fuel. That coupled with dry spells and warmer temps = a powder keg instead of natural burns.

<comment><USER4> The places these fires are burning have no natural sources to start fires. California never gets lightning except in the Sierra's.

<comment><USER8> Rare, but it happens:

[https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lightning- strik...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lightning-strikes- southern-california-map-20140729-story.html)

The existence of adaptations to fire in the Californian ecology is good evidence for it being a significant factor (and if these were in response to human activity, then why not elsewhere?)

<comment><USER4> Native Americans had been setting fire to the whole landscape for 14 thousand years. That is not evidence for natural sources of fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a fact in wildfires that is often ignored. Often, (very often) this is not a case of bad luck or neglected nature, is just a problem of sabotage. A crime. Twenty five starting points in the same area the same night. People keep blaming nature instead.

You can't stop criminals just removing combustible and cleaning. They can and will provide their own combustible. A few gallons of gasoline is all that they need.

We would need something like the ink companies do since years. A way to put a fingerprint in the gasoline so, after a wildfire (or a home fire) some harmless chemical compound could remain in X concentration and point to the fuel station selling the combustible. Maybe a mix of several aditives in different concentrations and different times could provide enough variability to make a short code with station and month. Then you have the arsonists and their vehicles filmed in camera. Still a lot of people to check but, as many arsonists are recurrent, you can look for patterns. Could be silently implemented only for conflictive areas by the government and fine tune it to week or even day.

</comment><comment><USER10> These fires are going to burn extensively no matter what at this point. California does not have the money or resources to control it, Mother Nature will run its course.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't the frequency of fires mostly caused by the drought, which in turn is caused by climate change?

How do all of these policies matter of there is no more rain in California?

<comment><USER2> There will never be "no more rain in California". Also, fires are not becoming more frequent, but roughly the same number of fires are burning more acreage.

Apparently any and all weather pattern changes are "caused by climate change" whether that be drought or monsoon, heat or cold spells, increased or decreased hurricanes, etc.

And interestingly, no matter which direction the change is said to be occurring (e.g. more rain in the mid-west) it's always predicted to lead to a catastrophic outcome.

<comment><USER12> This sounds like Marxism. Every social phenomena can be explained by Marxism (ergo, it is not scientific).

A proper scientific theory is disprovable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does not seem like a valid argument at this point. The latest big wildfire in California (Paradise) included portions of the forest that had burned a few years prior and were mostly grassy at the time of the fire.

I can't find the source I had heard, but it was one of the firefighters giving an interview and talking about forest management... Maybe I should have taken what he said with a hint of salt though ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER14> I went through fire training for the CA Conservation Corps about 30 years ago and they brought up the let-it-burn theory in a class about forest management.

As support for the theory, they had a map showing recent wild land fire activity in California vs. Mexico. In CA the fires were growing larger over the decades while in Mexico they were not.

A quick search for updated data didn't yield anything for me. I would like to see if the comparison still holds up.

<comment><USER4> >As support for the theory, they had a map showing recent wild land fire activity in California vs. Mexico. In CA the fires were growing larger over the decades while in Mexico they were not.

That could just as easily be the result of climate change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some might find reading about a an Indigenous Australian practice known as "fire stick farming" [1] to be relevant and interesting.

TL;DR version is tha by intentionally burning areas of bushland, Aboriginals decreased the intensity of fires thus reducing damage to plant and animal life which worked to their advantage of course.

I've personally witnessed this happening in North Western Australia where FSF is still practiced in a rather traditional way and the scrub land looked incredibly healthy It's a place where I've never heard of out of control wildfires occurring.

Since witnessing the practice I've always found it really fascinating.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire- stick_farming](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming)

</comment><comment> shower-curtain Wouldn't it be better to practice proper forestry and harvest the timber, rather than let it burn and release hundreds of kilotons more CO2 and pollutants into the atmosphere?

<comment><USER16> _Stephen Pyne, an environmental historian who studies fire, emphasized that logging would not keep wildfires at bay. "Logging takes the big trunks and leaves the small stuff because there's no market for it," he said. "Fire burns the little and leaves the big."_

<comment> shower-curtain Great quote, but that's just not true. I suggest you research modern logging practices.

<comment><USER17> Since you're the expert (contesting the named expert cited in the article), why don't you point us in the right direction? Googling "modern logging practices" brings up Wikipedia, some industry websites, and a variety of random articles.

<comment><USER18> Not the parent, but what I've recently seen in Northern California is all underbrush and low branches gone. They were specifically prepping the area to manage fire. Quincy area.

<comment><USER19> This would equate to forest management practices, not logging. They likely chipped or burned the underbrush and low branches after removing them from the forest, which wouldn't be a profitable business practice.

<comment><USER18> True, it was forest management, not just commercial logging.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Case for Not Being Born (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born <comment> andrew-lucker So he thinks everyone's potential kids should commit suicide, and recommends preempting that choice. Why do philosophers have to be so damn arrogant and grandiose about everything they propose?</comment>


We Need to Save the Internet from the Internet of Things - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-need-to-save-the-internet-from-the-internet-of-things <comment><USER2> IPFS!!!</comment>


Google Just Made Rap Genius Disappear - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/26/rap_genius_faces_google_s_wrath.html <comment><USER2> This article acts like Rap Genius just got put out of business by Google. That is not what happened. They've suffered a serious short term penalty that will fade, and assuming they clean up their SEO mess, six months from now it'll be like this never happened.

</comment><comment><USER3> In SEO, all PR is good PR, the amount of links they are getting from all this news coverage could easily make them rebound from this. They need to cease these practices, disavow links and they'll be back, even stronger. Reminds me of that sunglasses website that was ranking really well even after the negative press. Obviously in that case Google had to do something drastic to save face. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all)

This is nothing but a media trial. If this didn't blow up on HN, it would have been largely ignored by Google and they would have just gotten away with a slap on the wrist.

Google likes to do this to send a message, but the funny thing is they do this to ACT like it doesn't matter who is breaking their guidelines, could be Fortune 500 or even Google itself, they will penalize you.

But the reality is that in each and every case, once the media moves on to the next shiny thing, the penalties were reversed:

[http://searchengineland.com/interflora-gets-google- rankings-...](http://searchengineland.com/interflora-gets-google-rankings- back-150366) [http://searchengineland.com/90-days-later-google-lets-j-c- pe...](http://searchengineland.com/90-days-later-google-lets-j-c-penney-out- of-timeout-78223) [http://searchengineland.com/google-chromes-paid-link- penalty...](http://searchengineland.com/google-chromes-paid-link-penalty-now- lifted-115560)

Spamming and grey hat SEO practices are like speeding, everyone does it, but only a few get caught.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is all this media coverage making rapgenius more popular?

<comment><USER5> Is all this eggnog making me fat?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't believe Google actually did that. They just proved that they can do whatever they want with no justification what so ever. They just proved that they aren't a service provider anymore, they're a service controller that will, if it wants to, filter the flux of information and let through only parts of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER7> Rap Genius is still #1 at Bing. I wonder if people these days think something doesn't exist if its not on Google.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't believe it. I just searched google (public results on btw) for "Rap Genius". Their homepage wasn't even in the first 10 results. All links to news articles. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER9> what about others that are doing the same thing.

for example TINT

tintup.com

once you create a free account they have the following:

Dear valued Tint customer, Would you like to write a review about Tint? In exchange for your opinions/blog post, we are giving away 50% off FOREVER promo code for our Plus Plan. To learn more, click the button below:

screen shot: [http://imgur.com/wDnAJ4c](http://imgur.com/wDnAJ4c)</comment>


20k+ lines of wave protocol code released today (wave federation day) - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/source/browse/#hg/src/org/waveprotocol/wave/model

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Maybe someone will make a good desktop client for Wave, which if you ask me, is needed for it to replace email.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Wave is complex enough that people are going to want to use their OS's native interface with it, for both usability and speed reasons.

<comment><USER2> Email isn't that complex, and I still prefer using Mail.app to Gmail's web interface.

<comment><USER4> I think you mean complicated not complex, but either way gmail's advantage isn't only the UX, there are many other advantages of the mail being hosted on the web. I think for most these other advantages far outweigh any UI/UX considerations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. Is this at the point where one could just buy a slice, run a server, and play around with the client or is Google holding some piece back until they open up their implementation to the public?

<comment><USER6> The most I've been able to achieve is to get the server running with Openfire (but it would probably work with ejabberd too). I can verify that it is connected to the external components part of Openfire, so I believe the server is setup correctly. I have also been able to get the basic example client they include running, but it did take some hacking, and I have not been able to successfully connect to my server yet, much less work with waves. I don't see ANY web-gui code in any of this, so I seriously doubt it's what you're looking for. If you want to setup the reference server and play around with it, you can now do that, anything else is iffy at best.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/wiki/Installation> instructions just went online

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it me or 20k+ lines for a protocol implementation sounds like an over engineered system which is bound to fail?

</comment><comment><USER8> I hear people saying oh great that will replace eMail.. don't think so. M$ and others tried that and failed, why should it be different now? Google will try to keep a crucial piece of the pie like M$ does with the .NET platform.

<comment><USER8> You can downvote me to infinity. Google is a company and as such it is only interested in earning money, everything else is second.

<comment><USER9> Pretty sure it's because you wrote "M$", not what you said about G¢¢gle.</comment></comment></comment>


Revolut's botched BIC update - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/revolut/update-on-bank-transfer-top-up-issue-784108626737 <comment><AUTHOR> or: The blog post, Revolut doesn't want you to read ;o)

or: How Revolut self-owned by ways of XSS

That page was presented to me as an in-app communication, that I noticed after not getting through a transfer to my debit card and I wanted to to get the url, to send to my bank. After failing to google it, I noticed a tag below the article, saying `unlisted`.

Not being easily frustrated by such a feeble attempt, I cranked out android- studio and apktool, but stopped after tracking a build error (in my attempt at recompiling for debug), back to a ticket in something called apk-backdoor ...

It seems, like Revolut at least has their basic security measures right. At that point, I also want to applaud Revolut for communicating openly with their customers, even if not posting this publicly seems ridiculous to me.

So how did I actually get at the url? Logcat? Binary disassembly? MITMing myself? Nope. I just pushed the floating `open in app` button, which triggered a 404 page with a broken Medium in-app link. <lol.gif>

[https://imgur.com/a/eRaTZ](https://imgur.com/a/eRaTZ)</comment>


Ask HN: How to build a minified Linux kernel for my Docker? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to create a specialized (minified) Linux kernel based on my Dockerfile. Is there a solution that an automatically create a kernel image containing only the absolutely necessary functionality, specific to my Docker configuration? Default kernel shipped with a distro seems to contain a lot of unnecessary functionality, and poses high security risks. <comment><USER2> My understanding (perhaps wrong) is that the linux _kernel_ is in the host machine that is running the docker containers, and is not contained in the container image you define in the docker file & build into an image with docker.

So if you don't like how the kernel is configured, that'd require you to reconfigure the kernel on each host that will run your containers, independently of what is inside the container. But perhaps your question is about what is in the container, and not really about the kernel?

Maybe to make your question clearer: what are explicit examples of things that don't you like about the current configuration that you are trying to change or disable?

In terms of removing unnecessary stuff from a container image, the easiest/simplest way to do this probably depends on what application you're packaging into a container & how it is implemented.

For example, it is possible to build container image for a go application that starts with an empty "scratch" container base image (ie there's no layer of distro such as debian, debian-slim or Alpine Linux).

Not sure if this is a great guide but it has an example: [https://medium.com/@chemidy/create-the-smallest-and- secured-...](https://medium.com/@chemidy/create-the-smallest-and-secured- golang-docker-image-based-on-scratch-4752223b7324)

The same approach of starting without a distro as the base layer of the docker container image won't be as easy for deploying a different application that does not contain its own dependencies and assumes it can load a bunch of shared libraries that the distribution provides & read files the distribution has prepared for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I should have made it clearer. Yes, I'm talking about the Linux kernel on the host that's running Docker containers. If I use the default Ubuntu kernel, it contains a bunch of unnecessary functionality. Is there a tool that I can use to configure the host kernel to only contain the absolutely necessary functionality required by the Docker container image?

<comment><USER3> In my opinion you're wasting your time. The Ubuntu kernel is very modular to begin with and only needed functionality for the hardware you're booting on is going to load anyways.

Just use the stock config and do your Docker work as is. You're going to be more productive not chasing down this yak-shaving pursuit that will get you very little benefit to begin with. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER3> And if you really seriously _MUST_ have this optimization you're after… Gentoo or LFS are probably better suited for the job.

Again, that's a lot of time to waste for very little ROI.

<comment><USER3> Another one that came to mind… Alpine Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Download the kernel source, once unpacked you can configure it to build only the modules you have currently loaded via "make localmodconfig".

Of course if you've never built a kernel before you'll need to read the documentation, and you'll probably want to look at the Ubuntu documentation too - since you'll want to build a .deb package, rather than a raw kernel. You'll want to search for "ubuntu make-kpkg".

But really you're not going to gain much, except learning. Sure a kernel with less stuff available might save disk space, but there are easier ways to save disk-space on Ubuntu systems..

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking to improve the security posture by stripping the kernel off unwanted stuff (ebpf, zillion different file systems, drivers) that introduce CVEs into the kernel.

<comment><USER4> There are probably better approaches; for example you could disable loading modules for code you don't use - without the need to rebuild the whole thing.

I guess it comes down to understanding your threat model.</comment></comment></comment>


A Witch-Hunt on Instagram - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/02/17/a-witch-hunt-on-instagram/ <comment><USER2> Outrage culture is a cancer.

You can find offense in literally any statement. Try to think of any statement that can't be twisted into offense.

The fact that it can now (thanks to both SJWs and Alt-Right) be weaponized is perhaps only second to the complete archiving of everyone's personal data, as the worst thing about the Internet.

"Boycotts" consist not of refusing to buy something from a company, but systematically harassing every element in a company's supply chain until they just give in and do what you want to stop the drama.

"Witch-hunts" ruin lives and have driven people to suicide.

Some people say, "well you shouldn't say things if you don't want the response", and I think TFA shows a great example of that not being the case at all. You could be (from your perspective) talking or sharing with friends, and offend someone (as established above, this is impossible not to do) and now you are off to the races!

Others claim it is a powerful tool to stop racists and bigots. I would say that a nuclear bomb would also stop racists and bigots, but like this cancer, it will also destroy everyone else in the process.

People should be called out on this shit, even if they are doing it for a noble reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is indeed comical when people object to so-called cultural appropriation, say Japan, when those who are supposed to be appropriated have no objection at all.

<comment><USER4> What's even funnier is it's often people (who are not British nor their descendants) raising this objection in the English language...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You don't have to humor every opinion, nor rebut them, and it's quite okay to tell people that you don't care about their opinions at all. They can go seethe and sulk somewhere else.

It's also okay to publicly laugh at people who demand the world revolve around them, or insist that you can't wear a certain hat or eat a certain food or travel to a certain place for fun.

Be a little less afraid of opinions.

edit: and maybe a little more vicious in your own defense, lest this all get worse.

<comment><USER6> Except that in cases like this, the people objecting aren't just "voicing an opinion", they're what amount to keen amateur oppo research/reputation and business destruction operatives.

Read the article, they go straight to how do we destroy this person's sponsors, purchasers, kill their following.

<comment><USER5> In the end you have two options, give in, or don't -- and if you give in, they may still say "not good enough" or "I don't believe you".

If you negotiate with hostage takers, you encourage hostage taking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> all these witch hunts can be boiled down to the fact that everybody loves drama, it's just entertaining

<comment><USER6> It's not drama that people love, it's a group identity based on perceived injustice, gives one like a thrill of self righteousness. If it was drama, it wouldn't be all about the identity politics we'd be reading some gossip mag to find out who is sleeping with whose ex.

<comment><USER8> Basicslly a modern version of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_\(novel\)) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can picture them all with rocks and knitted beards...

Now look, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle. _Even_...and I want to make this absolutely clear... _even_ if they _do_ say "White."

</comment><comment><USER10> When accusations of 'isms become a sport, it's a wonder there's anybody left using their real name online to say anything but the most mundane.

</comment><comment><USER11> Late-stage socialism: when what creators look like, think and say matters more than their actual creations.

<comment><USER10> These "late-stage" memes strike me as very optimistic; things could get a lot worse than they are today.</comment></comment>


New Tesla Model S software update lets car park itself with no one inside it - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2016/01/09/tesla-model-s-software-update-7-1-summon/ <comment><USER2> One thing I love to do with my manual transmission car (common in my country), purely to impress my passengers, is to attempt perfect backward parking: swiftly, in one go, preferably into a small spot. Our streets are small, usually not designed for cars in the first place, or at least not so many of them. So this type of parking really is not an easy thing to do for many people. It takes effort, skill, and some luck, depending on the car of course.

All I want to say is that I'm not looking forward to meeting _that one guy_ who takes notice and keeps looking just to see how I do my best, tongue hanging out, checking the mirrors, making sure I steer and drive in exactly the right way, and then when I get out tells me I should take a look at this, after which he tells his car to park which it then does better than I ever could. I wouldn't blame him though. Who wouldn't want to be Michael Knight?!</comment>


Starting a Django 1.4 Project the Right Way - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2012/10/24/starting-a-django-14-project-the-right-way/

<comment><USER2> Pretty good writeup. I've used all of these tools in Django production, and he's right that they're all necessary if you want your development to scale in any way.</comment>


Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps - <AUTHOR> https://e360.yale.edu/digest/arborists-have-cloned-ancient-redwoods-from-their-massive-stumps <comment><USER2> "Cloning" here seems the wrong (click-batey) choice of words.

They have horticulturally propagated redwood trees - that's a relatively simple technique, commonly used by your average gardener.

What's special here is that they found which conditions maximize the yield of the redwoods propagation and they are planting colonies of the new trees in areas around the world that offer particularly good/promising climatic conditions.

As these are very large trees, establishing large colonies can have a relatively meaningful impact in carbon capture.

<comment><USER3> > As these are very large trees, establishing large colonies can have a > relatively meaningful impact in carbon capture.

Surely it's not size but speed of growth that matters? Wouldn't forests of Leylandii (a fast-growing conifer that can grow as fast as 1m/year) felled and resowed every few years/decades capture more carbon?

<comment><USER4> I guess it matters a lot what happens to the grown out wood as well. If it's burned after cutting it down, you're back to zero for that particular tree. So assuming you're not storing large amounts of cut-down wood, the relevant metric is amount of bound carbon per surface area, and I think larger trees might have a higher density (in the long run) than smaller ones.

<comment><USER5> Coastal redwood lives for a looong time, up to 3000 years. All that carbon is eventually going to go back to the atmosphere one way or another, but the time scale looks long enough to keep some carbon safely sequestered until after we've figured out how to live in harmony with our planet -- assuming we don't manage to kill all the trees in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where and when can I buy one?

Look, this is one of those cool cases where the free market may be able to _help_ the environment instead of harming it. Sell these seedlings for $200/each. Some number of people (myself included) will happily buy them, then plant them _wherever_ and the world has more of these amazing trees. The funds can be used to further the cause of helping forests and old trees.

<comment><USER7> You can currently purchase redwood seeds online to grow yourself! Plant them in peat moss in large groups to be sure they survive, as most seeds are not viable. Keep them warm until they germinate, too!

However, redwoods are really, really destructive anywhere that isn't a wide open field. Their roots will tear up concrete and pipes. Also, they shed branches like crazy during rapid growth, which deals damage to surrounding structures or flora.

Just something to keep in mind! If you have space and they won't be a danger to current inhabitants of the area, go for it.

<comment><USER8> Found them to be difficult to grow. Average dry flat air is not good, to wet and they rot. Need water spray regularly.

<comment><USER9> Yes, coast redwoods grow where there's plenty of ocean influence. Hence the name..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I went to a planting a few years ago put on by this same group in Ann Arbor, MI at the Nichols Arboretum [0]. It was pretty inspiring to see a real living clone and hear David Milarch speak about the science and art of cloning these old growth trees. IIRC, the clones planted in Ann Arbor are from one of the Giant Sequoias at [1] in northern MI.

[0] [http://sustainability.umich.edu/events/sequoia- planting](http://sustainability.umich.edu/events/sequoia-planting) [1] [https://www.michigan.org/property/lake-bluff-bird- sanctuary](https://www.michigan.org/property/lake-bluff-bird-sanctuary)

<comment><USER11> I had ego death from 1/4 of mushrooms in that amazing place many years ago. Such a beautiful little area that will be with me until I die.

<comment><USER12> Huh, can say the same actually.

Small world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fun fact: Metasequoia are in New York City and New Jersey. Around the five boroughs are 100 year old, towering Dawn redwood! I have even seen full grown trees in Cresskill, NJ. Recently, a two year art exhibit in Brooklyn [1] concluded that used more than four thousand live, baby Metasequoia. All of the trees have since found new homes, but I am unsure where the recipients are.

I now have a baby Metasequoia growing in the corner of my front lawn. The tree was a gift from the owner of the tree farm that supplied the Dawn redwood for the exhibit.

[1] [https://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/6126_spencer_...](https://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/6126_spencer_finch_lost_man_creek)

<comment><USER14> Thank you. Another surprising redwood tree is in the "Rieterpark" in central Zurich.

<comment><USER15> And further down the lake of Zurich was this one planted in 1860:

[https://email@example.com,8.6713386,3a,60y,287...](https://email@example.com,8.6713386,3a,60y,287.47h,94.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8tMzvEYgewAqqS4Q2ghjsg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This species of tree grows all over Northern Coastal California and there huge preserved areas of old growth trees throughout the region. It is great to keep replanting coastal redwoods to help replace all the ones that were cut down, but this cloning of gigantic old stumps sure feels like a pure propaganda move with no ecological benefit over using seeds. It is likely a bad idea to plant a lot of clones of single individuals, especially in concentrated areas next to each other.

<comment><USER17> Except the trees that were used for cloning have a proven track record of being able to survive for hundreds of years ("some of which were 3,000 years old").

<comment> quixoticelixer- It would be highly unlikely that the seeds aren't also capable doing that.

<comment><USER17> Right. But the clones were made from stumps, not from seed-bearing trees.

And even if you used seeds from "old trees", there would be no guarantee that the entire genome in the seed originated from "old trees", or that the relevant genes responsible for "getting old" are expressed to the same extend as in the old tree stumps.

I'm all for genetic diversity, but I think the researchers have a point when they use living cells from provably very, very old trees to establish new trees. Even if you took seeds that were known to have a genome originating from one or two "old trees" there would be significant genetic variation in the seeds, and it would take centuries before we know if a plant from a given seed has what it takes to become as old as its parent(s).

<comment><USER16> Sure. But there are thousands and thousands of really big, old redwood trees that are growing today. It cool and all to clone the biggest old stumps. But they are likely the biggest because they were growing in very good locations. I would say taking almost as big trees from less ideal locations growing today have even a better chance of getting really old and big.

My point is that the stump thing is for marketing to an unknowing public, not based on trying to find the redwood tree genomes that will grow the oldest trees. I was trying to help public be a bit less unknowing on the subject.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nitpick:

> ...some of the world's oldest and largest coast redwoods, some of which were > 3,000 years old... > a nonprofit working to reestablish ancient redwood > forests to help combat climate change. Coastal redwoods, which can grow an > average 10 feet per year, sequester 250 tons of carbon dioxide from the > atmosphere over their lives, compared to 1 ton for an average tree.

Yes, but over <3000 years, so the comparison doesn't tell anything without knowing the lifespan of an "average tree".

Not that it matters though, the achievement is great, and I hope this helps us return many species that went extinct only because they had the misfortune to exist at the same time as humans.

</comment><comment><USER19> This isn't the Wooly Mammoth. My impression is we already have the same species of Redwoods living today, they just need a lot more years of growth to reach such epic proportions.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER20> I wonder the same; did they 'clone' the tree, or just propagate the saplings? I think the latter is a lot more believable and less clickbait.

<comment><USER21> The article specifies that they took cuttings, a pretty ancient technology. But the fact that the technology is old doesn't mean it's not cloning. Plants are easy to clone.

<comment><USER22> It says "DNA" and "genetic material", while also talking about finding living tissue and growing from it. I think the presentation is either misleading or confusing.

<comment><USER23> It's a tissue culture. The result is an exact clone of the tissue doner. They didn't get Dino DNA from amber but a clones a clone.

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

<comment><USER22> Thank you, though I do understand. I'm saying that the article's repeated mention of DNA is misleading, since it's not being directly used by humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sadly a lot of our forest eco-systems, especially in CA are at risk. Drought, poor forest management, bark beattle, over forestation, etc. Were forestry practices 100+ years ago good, not really - a lot of these ancient trees spawned eco-systems in themselves (evident in the Headwaters groves).

That said, modern "do nothing" approaches pushed by environmental "concerns" are the exact opposite of the over-logging. Sadly, no middle-ground was approched with towns that relied on sustainable logging and good forest management practices. I don't ever recall a conversation about such happening.

The recent debacles with PG&E? They are highly to blame for funneling "maintenance money" to their parent corporation for profits. However, in California, the National Forests vary greatly in their management practices as well. Plumas is pretty good at cleaning duff, downed trees, etc. Some of the others, not at all.

During the Detweiller and related fires, PG&E was offering to work with the NPS around Yosemite to clear dead trees due to bark beattle. NPS said no. Why? It would ruin the ambiance (of dead brown trees).

Drought, the beattle, etc. cause a number of issues for our forests in CA. However, management practices and hinderances due to some over reactions in environmental policy are jsut as bad.

<comment><USER25> Can you explain what's wrong with the "do nothing" approach?

It seems to me to be the most natural and clearly the cheapest too.

Perhaps simple steps like putting up fences or signs saying 'nature reserve, keep out" might be worthwhile, but I don't see how any more invasive steps will lead to a more natural forest.

<comment><USER26> Death is the natural outcome of heart attacks, but you don't seem to apply your logic to what hospitals do. There's no a priori reason to believe the "natural" outcome is a good outcome.

Large wildfires are natural, like heart attacks. If we want to let nature be nature, we need to stay well clear, put up defined firebreaks, and let the forest burn down everything next to it periodically. And then accept half or more of certain states will be clouded in smoke some years.

Since people generally seem unwilling to do that, and live next to the forest, or just don't like smokey cities, the next choice is to manage the forest and minimize the intensity of forest fires while having some control over the timing through managed burns. This has side benefits like increasing the air quality across the whole state, because you never get these giant fires.

The worst outcome seems to be having people live next to the forest while doing nothing, because we periodically have random disasters and financial messes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Won't they have problems with the low genetic diversity the same way Cavendish bananas seem to be in problem now?

<comment><USER28> The redwood trees are still able to sexually reproduce with other variants, unlike the banana trees that are cultivated for crops.

<comment> mark-r The issue is that they appear to be establishing groves of genetically identical trees, so sexual reproduction is irrelevant. Unless you're planting next to an established forest.

<comment><USER28> The difference still lay in that the groves are still genetically different from each other, unlike bananas which are the same genetic organism planted on thousands of acres.

<comment> mark-r That does no good unless the groves are close enough to allow interbreeding. From what I understand they're trying to establish these groves all around the world, and most won't have any neighbors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Total aside, but as an undergraduate, I was part of the school tissue culture club. We brought 'albino' redwoods into culture and made a pretty hefty profit selling carnivorous plants on Fridays.

We did a tour of a local redwood companies tissue culture lab, and almost all the employees were female, and a fair few had developed severe arthritis in their work. Was very depressing to see.

<comment><USER30> Would it be possible to automate tissue culture with precision robotics?

<comment><USER29> Totally. Especially considering that plants are a kind of biological machine which works to turn light into plant stuff. This means that how the plant interacts with light can tell you _a-lot_ about the health and well being of the light. A pinch of machine vision, and you are pretty much there.

<comment><USER30> Thanks. Is this already being done? Or is it a tech waiting to be delivered?

<comment><USER29> I'm almost 100% convinced its already being done by private industry; you can do the vast majority of it w.out any ML/AI component. Biggest issue however is that it only makes sense on high margin plants.

See, as it turns out, plants already have this novel/ ingenious way of packaging the data required to make complete copies of into very discrete packages. They're called seeds, and in general, for the vast majority of cases, seeds which are often actually cheaper than dirt are just fine. Only when you have a plant that has certain characteristics (GMO in a non- hereditary trait etc..) does this make real sense.

<comment><USER30> I understand. I was thinking of Apple and stone fruit orchards where commercially fruit is grown in a standard way and would require exact clones etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> That stump is sad reminder of greedy destruction we have bought to the world. I hope we can reverse it.

<comment><USER32> For anyone looking to offset their carbon emissions, I looked into the various options and settled on Cool Earth[0] as the most promising charity for this. Here's some commentary on them from independent research on charities[1]: "We estimate that Cool Earth is able to reduce emissions by 1 tonne of CO2-equivalent for every $1.34 donated, for directly protected forest specifically (although this figure may be as low as $0.65). If indirectly shielded forest is also included, this drops to $0.38 per tonne of CO2-equivalent. This is 25 times less expensive than most carbon offset providers, which typically reduce emissions by 1 tonne for roughly every $10 spent"

Having said that, it's even better to not produce the CO₂ in the first place of course.

[0] [https://www.coolearth.org/](https://www.coolearth.org/)

[1] [https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/report/cool- earth/](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/report/cool-earth/)

<comment><USER33> "At this stage the information gathered doesn't allow me to give a strong opinion on Cool Earth, but I would recommend that we now consider the earlier [Giving What We Can] analysis out of date."

[https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnmZ62kuuC8XzeTBq/...](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnmZ62kuuC8XzeTBq/why- we-have-over-rated-cool-earth)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is a great thing that will pay increasingly high dividends for decades and centuries: [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914)

</comment><comment><USER35> How is the CO2 capture for redwood (250t over 3000yrs per tree) compared with other trees ? Would be interesting to know if the lifecycle of those short lived trees (compared with redwood) have better efficiency regarding the carbon capture ...

</comment><comment><USER36> Just seeing that stump makes me terribly sad for what has already been lost.

<comment><USER37> Many forested parts of the US were stripped bare 100 years ago. These will become old growth in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I always wonder how grafting and budding were discovered.

<comment><USER39> This might help: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting#History,_society_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting#History,_society_and_culture)

<comment><USER38> Thanks for the link. I meant in a more narrative sense though. I like to imagine that some fool cut down a tree and changed his or her mind and tried to stick it back together and lo and behold it worked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r Unfortunately these clones are establishing monocultures that are unlikely to do well long term. You need some genetic diversity.

<comment><USER40> Redwoods commonly grow as clones in the wild: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens#Reproduct...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens#Reproduction)

<comment> mark-r Yes, but they're not all the _same_ clones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Wow! That is one big tree.

</comment><comment><USER42> 3000 years! Isn't mother nature amazing?!</comment>


Ask HN: I'm having trouble finding the right mail hoster - <AUTHOR>

I'm about to own my very first domain and of course I really like the idea of having a mailbox on my own domain, especially because I now feel confident to put stuff on github without having to worry that the mail address in every commit is about to change in the near future.
But I know that I don't use mail that often. I'll probably use it to sign up and send out applications, but that's about it. Shelling out $10 a month for something I rarely use seems a bit steep to me.
Some domain resellers offer free mailboxes with every purchase.
1. Is it a bad idea to have the domain and the mailbox associated with it in the same place? Is the cheapest namecheap box alright?
I've been looking trough a few mail hosters and I'm still not sure which one is the best fit. Only real requirement is payment via other options than a credit card (don't/can't have one). Pay-pal, wire transfer, Bitcoin, all is fine. Also IMAP.
I only heard good things about Rackspace, but has a minimum of 5 mailboxes ($10). Google Apps isn't free anymore and I'd rather want to get away from them. Zoho Mail offers free mailboxes and so far is my first choice (there must be a catch I haven't found yet). Fastmail.fm is only somewhat cheap if I pay in advance and their sign-up form seems ancient. Atmail Cloud doesn't say anything about payment options before signing up. Anything from Microsoft rather not. Hushmail, too expensive.
2. With most of them so expensive, wouldn't it make more sense to just buy a cheap dedicated server (like the 5$ OVH one) and host mail myself? Far more space and it allows me to do other stuff with it.
3. Living in Europe, is it a good idea to choose a mail hoster in the US or is there some downside/privacy concern? (or the domain as well, for that matter) <comment> workhere-io Try Gandi ([https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)). Their domains aren't the cheapest in the world, but several services are included with the domains, including a 1 GB IMAP/POP account that seems to work very well. That option is cheaper than FastMail, especially if you pay several years in advance.

The downside is that Gandi's webmail (Roundcube) isn't as good as e.g. FastMail's or Gmail's. So you should only use Gandi if you mostly read email through IMAP.

Don't host email yourself - it's simply not worth the time.

<comment><USER2> I don't agree, I'm hosting my email myself on a Debian VPS with installed [http://iredmail.org/](http://iredmail.org/). I have unlimited domains, customizations, full control and there is virtually no maintenance needed, just regular updates.

<comment> workhere-io Sure, but then you're paying for both a domain and a VPS, and you're spending a little time on setting it up - whereas with Gandi (or other registrars that include IMAP with domain purchases) you're only paying for the domain.

<comment><USER2> It's worth the comfort and features :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend against hosting your own email unless you want to learn from the experience. Otherwise, pick a good company and focus on other things.

Personally, I would recommend Rackspace; perhaps from a reseller that can sell you a single address ($24/year). (contact me if you want) Free services scare me unless I can find how and why they are doing it.

</comment><comment><USER4> FOR RECEIVING EMAIL: Most domain registrars will have free email forwarding as part of their DNS/MAIL settings, so you should be able to get your registrar to forward all email to your personal account free of charge.

FOR SENDING EMAIL: postfix is free but a hassle to learn. Sendgrid is good for transactional emails and has two options: (1) a free level that lets you send up to 200 emails per day, and (2) a "lite" plan that charges $0.10 per thousand emails. It can take a bit of digging to find the free signup, but the link is on the front page if you scroll down.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use Runbox ([http://www.runbox.com/](http://www.runbox.com/)).

They're based in Norway, run off open source with strong privacy, and use mainly renewable energy,

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That's an acceptable price for a mailbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But I know that I don't use mail that often. I'll probably use it to sign up > and send out applications, but that's about it. Shelling out $10 a month for > something I rarely use seems a bit steep to me.

If this is your true use case, then self hosting is your lowest cost option. Self hosting on your own server in your own home costs you only the amount of electricity that server consumes. And for email hosting, you can utilize a very low powered server. An email server is very low load (unless you are getting DDOS'ed, but then your real problem is not a low power email server).

Take a look at Postfix ( [http://www.postfix.org/](http://www.postfix.org/) ). It is quite easy to setup for simple email serving (and your description is of simple serving). You will have to learn a little bit, but will be better for having done so.

<comment><AUTHOR> My home IP isn't static which would make that a bit more complicated and add the cost of a dyndns account or something similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> FWIW, I'm using Zoho and it's working quite well. If there's a catch, I haven't found it yet :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why don't just use gmail personal apps

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to get away from Google. And since they don't offer any more free accounts they offer nothing special, except the large amount of apps like calendars and stuff, which I don't need at all.

<comment><USER9> I've been happy using tuffmail.com .

Fine for my needs, no problems that I know of, and they're helpful</comment></comment></comment>


Is there an excellent bookmark manager? - <AUTHOR>

I regularly use 7 different browsing platforms. Chrome, IE, and FF on both my work and home PCs and Safari on iPad. I want to keep my bookmarks organized in one reliable place accessible from anywhere. Ideally it would be easy to export from one of my browsers to this solution to get started. Reliability is important. Backup would be a nice feature. Ease of use is important. It should seamlessly work with all 4 browsers. <comment><USER2> I suspect delicious will be your best bet. See <http://delicious.com/help/tools> and <http://delicious.com/help/thirdpartytools>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a huge fan of pinboard.in - minimal and fast.</comment>


Slap me when I stop working (Mac App) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rinik.net/slap

<comment><USER2> The code is not open source, or atleast not under a permissive license.

The code clearly has a copyright statement stating all rights reserved and there is no mention of a license file.

Anyone who modifies the code and rebuilds is violating the author's copyright

</comment><comment><USER3> Strangely, double clicking on the binary opens Chrome for me.

Oh, just noticed there is a little creepy eye watching me in the menu bar as well.

But it shouldn't open Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> This should be fixed, I forgot that AppleScript will open application if it's not running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a big fan of SelfControl [1]. Though again, OSX-only.

[1] <http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

</comment><comment><USER5> 10.7 support please. Out of radical optimism I tried changing the target and rebuilding but of course I got a bunch of errors I don't know how to fix :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Updating link, but I didn't test it on 10.7.

<comment><USER6> If you just run the image, on 10.7 the program appears to silently just not work. So far as I can tell. There's an icon and I can set prefs, but nothing happens when I visit the specified sites using Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Needs to be a bit louder, or even customizable :)

</comment><comment><USER8> no windows version or mobile native apps?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I can't code for Windows.

Mobile app wouldn't really work, because the application has to find out what websites are open on your computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could you add Firefox?

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked into it, but there's no easy way, Firefox doesn't implement AppleScript API. :-(</comment></comment>


Introducing LivelyCouch Part 1 – writing Node.js handlers - <AUTHOR> http://mirkokiefer.com/blog/2010/11/introducing-livelycouch-part-1-writing-node-js-handler/

<comment><AUTHOR> The new HTTP externals proxy handler is a big deal and makes pairing CouchDB and Node.js really clean. Thanks Paul for writing it!</comment>


Binary Stream Parsing in Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://substack.net/posts/cb328d

<comment><USER2> Also check out node-binary: <https://github.com/substack/node-binary> which has a similar interface but nicer internals and only needs to keep 2 buffers in memory at any given time instead of a linked list like bufferlist.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I realize this is somewhat oldish in Internet time, and might have been here before, but I just discovered it. I'm rewriting some clients for a binary protocol into Node.js and this found this to be _very_ interesting.

<comment><USER3> SubStack is a rare gem: he is an excellent coder AND a great communicator. This article is good to read even if you aren't into node specifically, but want to learn about parsing streams in an async environment</comment></comment>


What To Do When Projects Are Behind Schedule? - <AUTHOR> http://raminasser.com/2007/06/19/what-to-do-when-projects-are-behind-schedule/ <comment><USER2> Projects are never finished...

</comment><comment><USER3> Change philosophy to "when it's done".</comment>


Show HN: Traverse JavaScript object graphs with jQuery - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nrkn/h5on

<comment> brett-anderson Neat! I hadn't thought about representing a DOM tree as a JSON object before. How do you pronounce H5ON?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been awkwardly saying "Aitch Five Oh En" in my head, but my work colleague says "Aitch Son", which even though it's a 5 and not an S sort of makes sense given the relationship to JSON :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You know what, could be "Aitch Fon" as well (the 5 starts with F, right?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This seems pretty similar to XML

<comment><AUTHOR> It certainly is - but with a much narrower intended scope of use. It's really not intended as a data transport mechanism for example. It's also homologous with JSON, XML is more flexible in its data representation. And finally, it makes use of HTML5 conventions, such as prefixing custom tags with a hyphen delimited string, data-* attributes etc.</comment></comment>


cvdazzle: Camouflage from Computer Vision - <AUTHOR> http://www.cvdazzle.com/

<comment><USER2> Some conversation from a few months ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426310></comment>


First photograph of light as both a particle and wave (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://m.phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html <comment><USER2> This article is much more clear on what the image actually represents: [http://www.livescience.com/50019-image-light-wave- particle.h...](http://www.livescience.com/50019-image-light-wave- particle.html)

"A clever technique and an ultrafast electron microscope have caught an image of light behaving as both particle and wave at the same time. Here, the wave nature is demonstrated in the wavy upper portion, while the particle behavior is revealed below, in the outlines showing energy quantization."

Credit: Fabrizio Carbone/EPFL

Also, this was all published on March 2, 2015.

</comment><comment><USER3> It took me a few reads for this to sink in.

Quantum interference causes standing waves. Electron-photon particle collisions cause detectable energy release. The particle collisions occur in an interference pattern.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and the colors describe the speeds of the particles as a result of tbe electron-photon collisions.

It's not necessarily the particles we're seeing, just the particle behaviors from their collisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Swiss here. The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where this experiment has been carried out, is one of the two federal institutes of technology, the other one is the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_F%C3%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_F%C3%A9d%C3%A9rale_de_Lausanne) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETH_Zurich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETH_Zurich)

</comment><comment><USER6> It didn't explain the picture.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I don't know how to interpret it. It's not immediately obvious to me that I'm looking at a wave and particles at the same time.

<comment><USER8> What the image represents is the energy loss/gain of a whole bunch of electrons that interact one at a time with a light wave traveling along a tiny metal wire (we call this kind of captive light wave a "phonon").

For each electron fired at the wire, it can either pass through unscathed, or it can interact with an electron and scatter off with a different energy, like two billiard balls hitting each other. The collision is fundamentally a collision between two particles. However, the fact that the properties of the collisions vary sinusoidally along the length of the wire imply that the photon is also acting like a wave oscillating up and down the wire.

I disagree that this is the "first time" that we've observed simultaneous wave-particle behavior, you can see the same thing by firing photons at two narrowly-placed slits. This results in a diffraction pattern as if the photons were interfering like waves, but we can confirm that we're detecting single photons at the detector, and you can even confirm that each photon travels through one slit or the other ... See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- slit_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment)

<comment><USER9> One nit: A phonon is a vibration of a lattice, not light.

<comment><USER8> Yep, that should have said "plasmon". I messed up all of my comments on this thread. A plasmon isn't technically light either, it's an oscillation of the electric field in a conductor -- but it has wave/particle duality like a photon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's hard to grasp what was really captured on that image, but this still doesn't rule out the pilot wave theory. I think it's misleading to call it a photograph of light "as both a particle and wave".

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a question about QM, which perhaps somebody here can answer: Is quantization an inherent property of the photon, or is it a property of the material (or of the interaction with it)?

<comment><USER8> The other answers posted here are not quite right. Light energy is indeed inherently quantized, and a photon is one quantum of light. In other words, you can't have a half-photon of light, only even multiples.

Einstein wrote the equation "E = h*(nu)", where h is the so-called "Planck's constant", and nu is the frequency of light. Translated, this means that each photon carries an amount of energy proportional to its frequency, higher- frequency photons (IR -> red -> blue -> UV -> X-ray) carry more energy.

tl;dr: Quantization is an inherent property of light.

<comment><USER11> > E = h*(nu)

Yes, but the question is whether that is due to the material not being able to produce non-quantized photons. Stated differently, suppose we had a different way of generating photons, then could we theoretically create them in a non- quantized way?

<comment><USER12> Yep. They called "radiowaves".

<comment><USER11> Sounds logical, but then again, how fundamental is the "Q" in "QM"?

<comment><USER12> Extremely. Broken quanta will release its energy. Check solitons (example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD32kkoFU3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD32kkoFU3Y) ). Soliton wave can cross ocean, but if you broke it pattern, you will have regular waves, not a half of solition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is really cool! What's the reason for the blue & violet colors to be raised more than others in the wave?

Is it just the timing of the snapshot? As in, another picture might show another color at the top of the wave? Or is the standing wave "stuck" in that position?

<comment><USER14> That's just the color scale they've used for the z axis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/epfd- tfe0301...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/epfd- tfe030115.php)

</comment><comment><USER16> > _an exchange of energy "packets" (quanta) between electrons and photons_

I thought that photons _are_ the energy quanta (that electrons can _absorb_ or lose).

</comment><comment><USER17> Darn the ambiguous english language, do they mean the photograph is a particle-wave? because that wouldn't be a first. /s</comment>


Logic Noise: Sweet, Sweet Oscillator Sounds (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2015/02/04/logic-noise-sweet-sweet-oscillator-sounds/ <comment><USER2> Thank you! This is amazing.

I've recently started getting back into electronics and am learning how synthesizers work. This comes in handy. The simplicity of the circuit and the richness of sound is really mind blowing to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> these noise makers can be a lot of fun to make and play with.

I found the the decaying effect at around 1:10 is really neat.</comment>