Securing Web Sites Made Them Less Accessible - <AUTHOR> https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/08/07/securing-sites-made-them-less-accessible/ <comment><USER2> Large tech companies seriously do not care. They say they do, and they point to all these heuristics and optimizations, they point to Chrome's dev tools where you can simulate slow connections, etc. Great.

The problem is, they're taking an experience that is fundamentally ridiculously heavy, and then spending thousands of man-hours trying to optimize it. No one even _considers_ that maybe its the experience itself that is too heavy, and no optimizations can help that.

Youtube Home Page. Load it up, and you'll find its making over 200 requests, transferring megabytes of data. Google's most obvious solution: Lets speed up TLS, make each request go faster, lets invent new image and video compression algorithms to lower the size of each response, lets batch requests to reduce latency, technology, complexity, more code, more code.

No one actually takes a step back and asks if the Youtube home page should make 200 requests. What if it only made 20 requests? We gotta load some thumbnails, so there's bound to be a lot of requests there, but otherwise what the heck is all this JS?

TLS on one request isn't the problem. The problem is the hundreds of requests a typical website leans on.

Uncomfortable opinion: The only reason the internet has survived for so long is because of Moores Law. We've developed all of this technology and SDLC process in an era where another 20% jump in performance is just around the corner, so who cares if it's slow today. Yeah, that era is done. And we, as an industry, are completely fucked. Its not an understatement to say its a "back to the fundamentals" moment, and its going to cost us billions of collective dollars engineering for it.

<comment><USER3> The industry is fucked because it's focusing on making core technologies better and faster instead of optimizing specific websites? I couldn't disagree more.

In 10 years, the fixes made to existing websites will have been replaced with a new set of inefficiencies, but the benefits and drawbacks of today's physical infrastructure, protocols, and algorithms will endure.

<comment><USER2> The industry is fucked because we've had 30 years of "X at any cost" mentality, which has permeated most product managers, developers, C-Suite, anyone technical.

X can be a few things. Growth. Data. Analytics. Usage. Engagement. Security. But the point is the "at any cost" part, because we rarely consider the costs of the engineering decisions we make across any of these.

Over 30 years, we've been able to sustain this because there's always been "more" around the corner. Facebook and Snapchat can sustain "growth at any cost" because there's always more people in some (moving target) country that the service hasn't hit yet. JS, Python, or Ruby is used to support "development speed at any cost" because we'll always have faster computers next year. Google wants "more data at any cost" because there will always be new applications of AI to find value in it, there will always be advancements in storage technology to store it, and users will never care that we're slurping up so much.

But... none of this is true over a long enough timeframe. And when this idea of "the cost doesn't matter because we'll figure that out later" permeates the core of our tech stacks and people, pivoting that is ridiculously difficult. Especially when the negative changes are beginning to happen so quickly.

Don't get me wrong; we need the people working on optimizing TLS, new media compression, leaner HTTP request formats, all that. But I'm saying that we need more; we need a mind-shift in the way we build software and our software companies.

I don't know what that should look like, but I think what we'll discover is: Keep it simple, Abstraction layers kill performance, Making it work exactly how you want is less important than it working, working fast, and working for everyone regardless of physical, technical, or geographical disabilities, and Backward compatibility might just have to be sacrificed every once in a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The complaints seem to be two-fold:

* Websites are big and take a long time to download.

* They had previously solved this problem with a caching server but theirs broke with TLS.

The author is apparently unaware of the options they have.

* Run a proxy server that caches pages. Basically all software supports proxies. Secure and well understood. No PKI to manage. And you can allow access to the proxy with no TLS or get a public cert. Works very well with those old devices too.

* Run a HTTPS caching server and add the CA to the systems. Little more effort but transparent.

<comment><USER5> > The author is apparently unaware of the options they have.

Do they really have the options you outlined? The author appears to dealing with a situation involving students in rural Uganda. It might not be as simple in that context as you suggest.

<comment><USER6> I thought that the ISP were providing that service as part of the package. Given they do a lot of IP traffic alteration (acknowledging TCP packets at the gateway level instead of letting the client doing it), this is not much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Lots of things along those long and lonely signal paths can cause the > packets to get dropped. 50% packet loss is not uncommon; 80% is not > unexpected.

TCP doesn't perform well with 5% packet loss. 50% packet loss coupled with the tremendous latency of the link makes it close to useless. The long and lonely signal path needs a link layer between the terminals and the sat. Unfortunately it's probably a bent pipe transponder.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Even in the highly-wired world, you can still find older installs of operating systems and browsers: public libraries, to pick but one example. Securing the web literally made it less accessible to many, many people around the world."

I'm a librarian and I talk to hundreds of other librarians a year about technology and security and all this stuff. In my experience it is incredible rare to find a library that is running anything THAT old.

<comment><USER9> Even here in rural Devon in England, nothing running in our libraries is particularly old, and there's nothing truly "ancient" left at all.

<comment><USER10> Ancient can be nice in some instances. I had Apple IIs in elementary school in the late 90s and to be honest I'd prefer that for elementary school kids over something more modern. It has less opportunities for distraction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I don't have to deal with high latency but I have to use 64kbit from time to time so I developed some processes to deal with this.

\- wiki, old.reddit, most news sites, github ... - css and js are loaded from my tampermonkey scripts and i update them every once a half year or so so. Then in umatrix i block loading css and js from their servers so that only my own is loaded(also has benefits of using custom themes/fixes)

\- google(youtube)/facebook sites are a major pita. You can use youtube-dl to download videos, you can even perform some basic search like `youtube-dl ytsearch5:keyword --get-title --get-description` but I haven't researched if there're any better youtube-alternative sites because on 64k it's unusable anyway. Otherwise using mobile apps instead of sites is the only option here because google changes these assets quite a lot and the compression/obfuscation changes the names of css classes

\- use RSS (inoreader) as much as possible - RSS you can get all the updates and especially inoreader has a neat feature called "Load mobilized content" which only grabs the text from the site and sends it back - also using it for my youtube subscriptions

</comment><comment><USER12> Middleboxes can intercept and cache HTTPS, you need to operate your own CA however (some Middleboxes can do this fairly automatically and it's fairly touch-and-go).

</comment><comment><USER13> It is a real problem. While traveling last summer and working remotely I experienced it first hand.

Is there was a really easy way of mimicking all the effects of this type of latency so I could periodically test the stuff I set up?

Also, if it is just HTTPS, then it is possible to proxy through something that downgrades the protocol, but it feels dirty.

<comment><USER14> > _Is there was a really easy way of mimicking all the effects of this type of > latency so I could periodically test the stuff I set up?_

Your browser's developer tools can simulate latency and constrained bandwidth, at least in Firefox and Chrome. Firefox instructions: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_Mode#Network_throttling)

At a system level, Clumsy ([https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/](https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/)), Comcast ([https://github.com/tylertreat/comcast](https://github.com/tylertreat/comcast)), and Network Link Conditioner ([https://nshipster.com/network-link- conditioner/](https://nshipster.com/network-link-conditioner/)) are relatively user-friendly and work at a lower level. Okay, Comcast isn't _as_ user friendly, but it has a really cheeky name. Also, the GIF on Clumsy's homepage is brilliantly well-done.

Apparently Charles ([https://www.charlesproxy.com/](https://www.charlesproxy.com/)) and Fiddler ([https://www.telerik.com/fiddler](https://www.telerik.com/fiddler)) can also simulate bad connections, if you're already using one of those tools.

> _Also, if it is just HTTPS, then it is possible to proxy through something > that downgrades the protocol, but it feels dirty._

Not necessarily. Consider HSTS, HPKP, Expect-CT, etc.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for these performance links, they're great.

> Not necessarily. Consider HSTS, HPKP, Expect-CT, etc.

Yeah, I'm aware of those (and use them on my own site) but the reality is that the vast majority of content sites out there do not use HPKP. Even if they use HSTS, many do not pre-load and as a worst case scenario the MITM can just switch the domain to something like google.unsecure.com or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The problem is caching, trust, and delegation. Too many proxy tools simply don't play well with SSL/TLS, and yes, there is good cause to not trust public infrastructure and ISPs, so HTTPS itself _is_ desireable.

There's also the problem, generally, of one-size-fits-all security so far as websites are concerned: there's really very little content I receive that's specific to me,and much of that is Hacker News and a few other forum sites. The content itself is almost wholly public. But I cannot cache or otherwwise proxy this.

Locally, I've setup both Squid and Privoxy, mostly for shins and grits, but also to explore the use and viability of proxies these days.

Squid caches less than 10% of my traffic.

Privoxy can filter by hostname, but little within pages -- no path or content actions work for HTTPS URLs.

I've looked at the SSL options of each -- Privoxy seems a lost cause, but Squid looks as if it _should_ be aable to MITM. TLS traffic, but I can't sort out how, or sensibly verify it. And I understand browsers will start screaming bloody murder if they detect this as well.

The notion of a trusted delegated proxy seems potentially useful. As with the author of the article, I'm wondering if there is any movement in developing HTTPS-friendly proxy tools, in a sane manner?

<comment><USER4> > Squid caches less than 10% of my traffic.

Well duh, ideally Squid without a TLS MITM would cache 0% of your traffic.

> And I understand browsers will start screaming bloody murder if they detect > this as well.

Sorta, you need to configure your clients to accept your proxy's CA but browsers should be good after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Couldn't a (relatively small) proxy server be set up that intercepts the request, checks URL+cookies against a cache, and makes its own HTTPS requests on cache misses? Maybe even whitelist cacheable domains so you reduce how fast it fills?

I haven't really caffeinated yet so I may be missing something important here but this seems like a few hours worth of work?

</comment><comment><USER17> A bit of a clickbait title, but let's entertain the idea for a second. Another one of those articles that claim that securing everything is a bad idea simply because their routine got shaken or altered. What is his alternative then? Remove it so you have 'slightly less slow' experience. (although, to be fair he states he does not know the solution) It's like complaining trams are less accessible because they have doors instead of just a platform with wheels. Sure, trough that lens you are right. But you are also willingly ignoring all the other facts. The problem here is super slow internet not encryption. And no matter how hard and often these sec-nay-sayers repeat it. It does not make it a valid reason to roll back. Slow internet in Africa needs to be solved for a multitude of reasons. Not one of them is 'experience'

</comment><comment><USER18> With the advent of LEO communication satellite constellations enabled by miniaturisation and reduced launch costs, hopefully the problem of satellite Internet access's extremely high latency should go away in the future. I expect the more localised signal could improve the bandwidth and cost too.

That said, I'm sure the weight of typical pages will grow leaps and bounds too, as they've been doing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Plain text websites load just fine with HTTPS/TLS via very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) ISPs. This is based on my experience with 1024k/256k Hughes service in rural US.

</comment><comment><USER20> Making systems less accessible is the defining characteristic of computer security. Steve Yegge addresses this very point cogently in one of his old rants.

</comment><comment><USER21> This may be extremely naive, but why wouldn't a service like AWS CloudFront or any other CDN that supports TLS solve this problem?

</comment><comment><USER22> There's also the question of does HTTPS even make sense for most sites. Why bother with the extra security overhead for a simple blog with no user login and a basic comment system. Surely there's a middle ground between preventing man in the middle attacks for simple content sites and creating a complete bidirectional encrypted connection right? Signed content hashes maybe?

<comment><USER23> _> Why bother with the extra security overhead for a simple blog with no user login and a basic comment system._

Can you clarify what you mean by "security overhead"? In 2018, there is virtually no performance difference between HTTP and HTTPS. For example, see performance evaluations and comparison overviews [1] and [2].

It's also very easy to set up HTTPS. If you have the technical capability to administer your own Apache or Nginx server, setting up HTTPS doesn't require much more configuration. Let's Encrypt is straightforward to use. If you're setting up a blog on WordPress or Squarespace, it's a matter of flicking a switch (or the choice has been conveniently made for you).

As for your idea regarding content digests, how do you propose to implement this? They need to be signed, sure, because an attacker intercepting my connection could just supply their own hash digest corresponding to the content. But then where do I obtain the public key corresponding to the site? How do I grab that key in such a way that I know it's the correct one? You'll find that any protocol you can device to safisfactorily resolve this problem will substantially reimplement TLS itself.

____________________________

1\. [https://www.httpvshttps.com](https://www.httpvshttps.com)

2\. [https://istlsfastyet.com](https://istlsfastyet.com)

<comment><USER24> > 1\. [https://www.httpvshttps.com](https://www.httpvshttps.com)

To be fair, this is in conjunction with HTTP/2.</comment></comment></comment>


'The Office' to Leave Netflix in 2020: NBC Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/office-leave-netflix-2020-stream-exclusively-nbcuniversals-forthcoming-service-1220954 <comment><USER2> Launching a new ad-supported streaming service in 2020? Brillia.. ehr, no. F%#@ng brain-dead, in my estimation. Nobody _wants_ a new streaming service, and nobody wants ads. I believe this is the kind of move companies make out of spite, even though they are ultimately hurting everybody involved.

NBC loses, because they'd probably have made more money by licensing the content to Netflix.

Netflix loses, because their service becomes less desirable without popular content like _The Office_.

Consumers lose because now they have to jump around between even more streaming service options to find what they want.

My personal suspicion is that we're near, or at, "peak streaming service subscription". I can't imagine very many people want One More Service to deal with. The NBC one might hang around for a while if it's purely ad-supported, but I still think this is a lose-lose-lose scenario.</comment>


Fidelity Writes Down Snapchat Investment 25% - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/10/fidelity-writes-down-snapchat-investment/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious as to what materially materially changed in 6 months since Fidelity invested (at $15bn pre-money)[1], considering Snapchat it looks like they have been ramping it's revenue[2]. Maybe slowing user acquisition or lower than projected revenue growth?

1\. [https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/4a2de2da69d5ccaac85...](https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/4a2de2da69d5ccaac8589108c8055e42) 2\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-is-on-track-to- gener...](http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-is-on-track-to- generate-100-million-in-revenue-2015-10)</comment>


Ask HN: GitHub topics no longer list all repositories? - <AUTHOR> It seems that tagged topics on github no longer list all repositories: https://github.com/topics/julia
Previously, all repositories tagged with a topic would be listed and could be filtered in various ways.
Now, there are only very few repositories listed in a seemingly random arrangement... what happened? <comment><USER2> Maybe the "curation" has begun.

<comment><AUTHOR> looks like it... embrace extend extinguish</comment></comment>


UK Government: Operation Yellowhammer Summary [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/831199/20190802_Latest_Yellowhammer_Planning_assumptions_CDL.pdf <comment><USER2> What's Number 15, it's been redacted.

I suppose one could work out what is missing from the list and deduce what Number 15 is about and why it's so sensitive; or just look up the previously leaked document.

<comment><USER2> From:

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/sep/11/b...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/sep/11/brexit- latest-news-public-would-not-benefit-from-hearing-official-worst-case-no-deal- assumptions-says-leadsom-live-news)

"15\. Facing EU tariffs makes petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability but UK Government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans." [More to come]

<comment><USER2> No mention of a celebratory piss up in a brewery once it's successfully finished...</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Air Force has shot down multiple air-launched missiles in a test - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27795/the-air-force-just-shot-down-multiple-missiles-with-a-laser-destined-for-fighter-aircraft <comment><USER4> Don't we simply need a missile covered with mirrors to defy these lasers?

It's just a light bean albeit concentrated one, how hard can it be to deflect it?

Edit: don't understand the downvoting, please enlighten. Your wisdom is not obvious to me. Thanks

<comment><USER5> No, it doesn't work like that. The military is of course tight-lipped about exactly how powerful SHiELD is, but at least one site claims that the goal is 50kw [1]. That's a lot of power. A few years ago, a 30kw laser test made the rounds in news outlets for destroying a few targets during testing. [2]

Mirrors don't perfectly reflect light in all frequencies. Mirrors are designed to reflect mostly visible light, lasers at this power level are infrared. Any imperfections in the reflective surface would immediately heat up, damaging the reflective surface, which would then heat up even more. And even if it were perfect, and were designed to reflect whatever frequency of radiation the laser's putting out, it's still not going to reflect 100% of the laser's output, and you've probably got yourself a material that's pretty impractical for a rocket.

[1]: [https://phys.org/news/2018-03-air-fighter-mounted-laser- summ...](https://phys.org/news/2018-03-air-fighter-mounted-laser-summer.html)

[2]: [https://newatlas.com/lockheed-martin-laser- truck/36377/](https://newatlas.com/lockheed-martin-laser-truck/36377/)

<comment><USER6> 50kw is actually not that powerful in terms of lasers. Petawatt systems are being built. The real question is how how much power you can deliver to a target.

In that context rotating reflective missiles make this much harder as does slightly thicker casings. Anything you deploy optimized for today's missiles is easy to design around, so you need to design for countermeasures.

<comment><USER7> Building a useful air launched missile that spins at a rate capable of being a countermeasure is difficult.

<comment><USER6> On it's own I agree, but even fairly slow rotation such as 1 RPM becomes useful on edge cases. That's not hard to achieve.

My point is if you find the minimum power output to be X kw, you want to deploy something at ~4x power output to deal with fairly easy modifications.

PS: Stealth capabilities is probably a bigger long term issue, but that's a large modification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All the acronyms are over the top. Have they heard of my Project SCIMITAR? (Symbolically Capturing Information by Making Inane Trite Acronyms to Rememberstuff)

Joking aside, if they can get this into a compact form that can be adequately supplied and cooled, it'll be a quantum leap in weaponry. You're talking about going from hurling chunks of matter that in turn impart kinetic and thermal energy, to being able to project energy directly.

<comment><USER9> The Scimitar? The name was already taken for a military project/equipment before you were even born. It is an armoured reconnaissance vehicle (sometimes classed as a light tank) used by the British Army, fielded starting in 1970s.

It is both amazing and slightly terrifying... Imagine when this weapon can be hand carried by an individual soldier. Or even a crew served weapon like a 'Ma Deuce".

<comment><USER8> Hey I was born pre-moonwalk, and not just the Michael Jackson kind either. (Don't let my immaturity fool you.)

Scimitar link: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Question: say one of these planes is flying above me and someone shoots a surface to air in the general direction of this plane, and in the process of destroying said missile an errant laser beam strikes me as I watch from the ground. What happens to me? Mainly curious as to the power of the beam as a thought experiment.

<comment><USER11> This scenario has been carefully explored since the mid-1980s. For clarification, are you made of popcorn?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rthHSISkM7A&t=16s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rthHSISkM7A&t=16s)

<comment><USER10> That was one of my first thoughts too. I am curious if/how deadly the lasers are, and I have resisted the Dr Evil quote fingers until now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I imagine Israel would be at the top of the list of interested parties for this technology -- it sounds much cheaper than the Iron Dome since I assume there isn't a real per-shot charge other than the energy required.

It would also be much faster than their current interceptors.

I just wonder how well it would work against low-tech targets.

<comment><USER13> It also would be well-suited to shorter-range attackers - Iron Dome can only intercept missiles with a _minimum_ range of about 2.5km.

Israel is pursuing its own high-energy laser defense program, Iron Beam (yes, not so creative). From public sources, it's not clear if the thing is 1-2 years from deployment, or if it's in development hell; the US is uniquely public about these high-budget prestige projects for internal political reasons.

<comment><USER14> > the US is uniquely public about these high-budget prestige projects for > internal political reasons.

I don't know if there's prestige in being _7 years_ late to the party.

Rheinmetall demonstrated this tech in 2012.

[https://newatlas.com/rheinmetall-laser- test/25504/](https://newatlas.com/rheinmetall-laser-test/25504/)

<comment><USER15> That's pretty amusing. The US has been far ahead of everyone else in military laser tech for decades.

Rheinmetall didn't demonstrate what you're implying. You're conflating two entirely different systems.

The US has so many laser programs that predate the Rheinmetall example, it's hard to decide where to start. HELLADS, AN/SEQ-3, Boeing YAL-1, HEL-MD, THEL, MLD, etc.

Like this one:

"On March 18, 2009 Northrop Grumman announced that its engineers in Redondo Beach had successfully built and tested an electric laser capable of producing a 100-kilowatt ray of light, powerful enough to destroy cruise missiles, artillery, rockets and mortar rounds."

Or:

Precursor to the Boeing YAL-1: "The Airborne Laser Laboratory was a less- powerful prototype installed in a Boeing NKC-135A. It shot down several missiles in tests conducted in the 1980s"

THEL:

"The Tactical High-Energy Laser, or THEL, was a laser developed for military use, also known as the Nautilus laser system. The mobile version is the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, or MTHEL. In 1996, the United States and Israel entered into an agreement to produce a cooperative THEL called the Demonstrator, which would utilize deuterium fluoride chemical laser technologies. In 2000 and 2001 THEL shot down 28 Katyusha artillery rockets and five artillery shells. On November 4, 2002, THEL shot down an incoming artillery shell. The prototype weapon was roughly the size of six city buses, made up of modules that held a command center, radar and a telescope for tracking targets, the chemical laser itself, fuel and reagent tanks, and a rotating mirror to reflect its beam toward speeding targets. It was discontinued in 2005"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Laser weapons might have their uses, just hope that the it isn't a cloudy day, or say, the enemy uses something like a mirror for that specific frequency, or even better, something that emits a dust cloud that eats the energy. Missiles, of course, can fly through dust clouds.

<comment><USER17> Scattering by droplets/aerosols is an effect that drastically reduces the capability of an optical system to focus at range, it's like shining a flashlight through milk - not the same as variations in air density that you could maybe partially compensate for using adaptive optics.

In rain, common LIDAR wavelengths, like 905nm and 1550nm lose about 0.1-1% of their power due to scattering per meter travelled and on top of that 0.1-1% due to absorption. Of course, this will not scale linearly with higher power but it's a lot even if it's ten times less.

For laser weapons to be effective you need a clear line of sight in the respective wavelength.

</comment></comment><comment> naval-gazer Power efficiency makes lasers in fighters problematic. The current cutting edge lasers have 35 percent efficiency. If you heat the target with 100 kW power, the fighter absorbs 300 kW of heat. You can use fuel to absorb the heat but heat exchangers adds lots of weight and extra complications.

<comment><USER18> I'd tend to assume that the airflow a fighter has to work with would help a lot with managing the heat it deals with.

<comment><USER19> The F-35 cools avionics by running lines through the fuel tanks and already has had thermal issues. Removing the heat of a ~50-100kw laser via a heat exchanger onto surface airflow is going to make a nice heat signature/target.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How wide is the beam ? How long does it need to stay focus on roughly the same point ? Wouldn't spinning your missile prevent a beam to being focused always on the same point ? Does adding random jitter to your missile trajectory prevent focusing ?

<comment><USER21> At what point do we have a pilot match speed with the missile and cast a net?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone else getting a "Real Genius" vibe from this turret?

I feel like Val Kilmer is about to make an epic bowl of popcorn with this thing.

<comment><USER23> The whole thing has Real Genius written all over it. I can only hope the Lockheed test engineers put a large JiffyPop out for target practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > A directed energy weapon also has an effectively bottomless magazine.

Is this true for a laser mounted on an airplane? How is the energy stored?

<comment><USER25> _How is the energy stored?_

Presumably as jet fuel, and the laser is charged by the plane's engines.

<comment><USER26> Most extreme high power lasers are chemical in nature, but these are probably somewhat similar to the setup in [1] by the laser power mentioned. I would guess using an APU to control conditions but it does not rule out your guess of using the onboard systems.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if there's any chance this could spur development of effective anti- ICBM laser systems. Considering that nuclear ICBMs are the only real existential threat to the United States, I'm often surprised they don't spend a huge chunk of their defense budget neutralizing that threat.

<comment><USER28> I worry if a single nation would be first to develop effective ICBM countermeasures, the whole MAD doctrine would collapse on the spot and we'd have a next world war on our hands.

<comment><USER29> MAD only works if the other side is concerned about the welfare of its people. I know that many would prefer to think otherwise but the USSR was just as concerned about their own people as the United States was. They don't have oceans on both sides as a buffer.

that out of the way, it is regimes that don't show a real concern for their people that is the danger. the only hold on them is the vulnerability of those making the decision. once they show disregard for their own welfare is when everyone should be worried.

<comment><USER30> > regimes that don't show a real concern for their people that is the danger.

I doubt that these exist, "look, these people are crazy and suicidal and don't even care about their own children" is a common propaganda statement, with the clear purpose of de-humanising the enemy. Even the most ferocious dictators care about some of the people, and about their own cultural heritage, and the country they rule. Nobody wants to be wiped off the face of the earth.

<comment><USER13> And even if they don't care about any of those things, their people are the source of their power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Take this all with some massive grains of salt. The language is very vague. When it comes to "shooting down" a missile much depends on definitions and locations.

An inbound air-to-air missile is a very tricky target. It is face-on. Your laser cannot target the explosive bits of the missile (the rocket motor that is active for the first few seconds of flight). But that doesn't matter. "Shooting down" can mean jamming the missile's IR sensor or damaging its radar dome, both of which would stop it as a threat. The real problem imho is the size of the emitting aperture. Focusing a laser tightly at any distance requires a device probably too large for a fighter aircraft.

Shooting down a missile from the side, from the ground or form an escort aircraft is another matter. Get it during the boost phase (the first few seconds after launch) and even a pinprick through the side of the rocket motor will cause it to explode. But in that scenario why wait for the missile to be launched? If you can burn through the rocket motor after launch, you can do so _before_ launch. My point: any weapon capable of explosively shooting down misses in flight is also capable of shooting down the launching aircraft before it gets a chance to fire.

Oh, and don't forget that such weapons are probably illegal under various treaties. If it can shoot down a missile a one mile it can blind a pilot at ten. Pointed at the ground it could blind scores of troops. Some legal hoops would need to be jumped before one could ever deploy such a laser.

<comment><USER32> > The real problem imho is the size of the emitting aperture. Focusing a laser > tightly at any distance requires a device probably too large for a fighter > aircraft.

Focusing a laser onto a 100mm point at 5km does not seem like it would take that large of an aperture, and that should be all you need to kill the seeker.

> Get it during the boost phase (the first few seconds after launch) and even > a pinprick through the side of the rocket motor will cause it to explode in > a true "shoot down".

IIRC most air to air missiles have a boost phase far longer than that - <USER2> think most will still be burning at intercept for shots inside the killbox. That's part of the selling point of the Meteor [0] - it can throttle, so it'll almost always be burning at intercept.

> But in that scenario why wait for the missile to be launched? If you can > burn through the rocket motor after launch, you can do so before launch.

It's a lot easier to argue that the other side shot first when you blow up the missile AFTER it leaves their plane. Not to mention the case where the responsible aircraft wasn't detected until after launch...

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_\(missile\))

<comment><USER31> >> 100mm point at 5km does not seem like it would take that large of an aperture.

It gets trickier than that. From the perspective of the target missile the laser is a pinpoint source, easily ignored/blocked. You have to hit is with enough power to actually do damage. 50KW over a 10cm seeker head won't be enough. A missile is supersonic. That seeker head is already being bombarded by plenty of IR/heat and is actively cooled. You need to focus down to far less than a centimeter to start burning things.

<comment><USER32> If it's an IR seeker, the cooling might be able to prevent damage, but is it enough to prevent heating the seeker sufficiently to cause the missile to lose lock? What happens if the laser turns off/loses track at 2 km while dropping flares - can your missile differentiate between flares and the skin of a plane in that scenario?

And I can't help but think that a pinpoint source coming from your target is harder to ignore than one coming from anywhere else.

Either way, at mach 4 it takes ~3.5 seconds to cover 5km. 50kw * 3.5s = 175kj, 42 grams of TNT equivalent. That's still a fair bit to mitigate. (but also not nearly as much as I was thinking)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everyone thought a huge laser taking up a dedicated 747 (Boeing YAL-1) was a stupid idea but looks like it was a good starting point.

<comment><USER33> The YAL-1 ( horribly nonstandard designation ) was addressing a different and much harder problem; destroying ballistic missiles in the ascent phase at considerable range.

However destroying magnitude-smaller, nearby air-to-air missiles is much more achievable and was demonstrated by the NKC-135 / Airborne Laser Lab project back in 1979-85. Yes, 40 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> R73 missile was credited with shooting down other A2A missile back in eighties. So it is not the first time it was done somehow

</comment><comment><USER18> Now that off-boresight missiles are coming into service I wonder how long it'll be before fighters can use missiles to shoot down missiles like you see in modern naval engagements.

Also, I know the F-35 has the power plant to run one of these but could one be mounted on an F-22?

</comment><comment><USER35> Wondering what kind of recoil force this laser gun generates.

[https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/does-a-laser-have-a- re...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/does-a-laser-have-a- recoil.379922/)

<comment><USER17> You get about 1 Newton per 300MW of photon flux, it's not dependent on wavelength. So here with 50kW of continuous photon flux, the magnitude is about 166mN, the gravitic force of about 50 grains of rice, less than a paperclip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It seems pertinent to mention "laser" in the title. My initial thought was "so what? Missile defence is nothing new."

</comment><comment><USER37> I am thinking what if enemies just shoot fake projectiles and wait for the defense system runs out of missiles.

<comment><USER18> I'm not really sure what the point would be? Getting a hunk of metal moving quickly towards the target is most of what a missile does. In a conflict where airframes are a limited resource I don't see why it would make sense to waste payload on decoys when you could just load up more missiles.

<comment><USER38> You only need to get one nuke through.

Also, compared to building additional missiles, having your missile split into a bunch of decoys and a few warheads is fairly inexpensive.

<comment><USER18> Wait, where are nukes entering into this? The article was about tactical defenses for warplanes, I don't think anybody still has nukes in their air-to- air arsenals after the 70s. When you're talking about ICBMs with MIRVed warheads decoys can make a lot of sense because in space a 10 kg balloon looks a lot like a 500 kg warhead. But in the atmosphere they're very easy to tell apart and nobody talks about decoy _missiles_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Make love not war on rainy days

</comment><comment><USER40> So have we rounded up enough sharks so we can mount all these lasers or what??

</comment><comment><USER41> I feel like blinding sensors or pilots might be easier?

<comment><USER42> Easier, but prohibited by treaty.

See "The Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons"

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

It's quite short and to the point. No weapons designed to permanently blind people are allowed. Incidental blindness is ok, also if you get blinded while looking through binoculars that's fine. Blinding sensors is also fine.

<comment><USER41> This one seems odd. If this weren't explicitly allowed, it could rather easily stop most aerial operations. While it is nice for pilots, it seems to cancel out the potential to just make sending pilots on military runs in feasible in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So its just like the iron dome?

<comment><USER13> Very different systems.

Iron Dome uses ground-launched interceptor missiles, tied in to a theater- level control net, to intercept short-to-medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.

This uses a self-contained, at-some-point-aircraft-mounted laser, to shoot down guided, powered, maneuvering air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So, here's who WW3 will unfold, about 20 years from now. Once the USAF can mount laser weapons on a plane, not long after they'll be able to put them in missiles. And more precisely in those missiles that perform the anti-ballistic missile defense function. Currently the equation governing the ABM defense is that you need about 2 kinetic vehicles to destroy one warhead launched at you. If you replace this with one laser-equipped missile can zap 10 incoming targets, that's a complete different ballgame. The MAD concept can become very unstable. Instead of needing a many, many thousands of missiles to obtain impenetrable defense, two hundred missiles-mounted lasers could do the job (a single Ohio class submarine can carry up to 24 Trident-II SLBM's with up to 288 multiple independent re-entry vehicles; if you replace each such nuke with a laser, you are all set).

When will the US have this capability? I would ball-park this at about 15 years for now.

What options does Russia have. By my cont 3 options (hardware-based; I'm not counting cyber-warfare and psychological and subversive warfare).

1\. Deterrence in numbers. Currently Russia deploys 1600 warheads, and has a total of 6500 (deployed+stockpiled+retired). If they go to 20-30k warheads, in an all out war a few dozens might still find their way to some large urban areas in the US, and so even a 99.9% ABM capability might still leave a few tens of millions of Americans dead.

2\. Laser-equipped anti-anti-missiles. If you can zap a nuke out of the sky, you can zap the missile carrying the laser too. Provided you have the technology. I expect Russia to have a delay in implementing this technology, maybe 5 to 10 years

3\. Alternate threats that are immune to this defense. This is exactly what Russia demonstrated one year ago: a hypersonic nuclear-capable, nuclear- powered missile that can travel in the lower atmosphere (where the effective range of a laser is reduced, due to light absorption) plus a mega-nuke delivered by an autonomous submarine that purportedly can create a 500-foot tsunami that would wipe NYC from the map.

Where does that leave us? The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need to do? You need to take out the missile silos, the strategic nuclear submarines, and the strategic bombers (the nuclear triad). The silos are traditionally the targets of some nukes; in the past these nukes had about one megaton yield, but with the increase in missile accuracy the current US yield is about 100kt; this is still 5 times larger than Nagasaki. Is it possible to use a smaller nuke with an increased accuracy? A rule of thumb is that a 10-fold increase in accuracy can reduce the necessary effective yield by 100. Starting this year (2019) the US Navy will have a 5-7 kt nuke in its arsenal (W76-2 [1]). This type of nuke could ensure essentially zero civilian casualties, while still being able to destroy most missile silos. Oh, and it would also be a good anti-strategic-submarine weapon too.

So, about 20 years from now, the US will have a once-in-a-century opportunity to break the mutually-assured-destruction stalemate, and potentially rid the world of nuclear weapons. All with minimal loss of life (especially civilian life). But the window of opportunity will be very short, Russia will be able to close the MAD gap in a few years. Which will make this opportunity a very difficult one to pass on.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear- wea...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-weapons- first-low-yield-warheads-roll-off-the-production-line)

<comment><USER45> This is crazy talk.

> The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this > will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this > be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the > collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need > to do?

A decapitation strike couldn't be debated. It would have to be _done_. The US population would only accept it--and only in part, as some segments would never accept it--as a _fait accompli_ if there were zero US casualties, few foreign civilian casualties, no/minimal residual health risks, and limited reputational damage to the US. I highly doubt any, let alone all, could be accomplished with a nearly sufficient degree of confidence, even with groundbreaking missile defense systems.

The risks of miscalculation are staggering, and the immorality of attempting or even seriously considering (as a policymaker) such a "decapitation strike" in the current or foreseeable future global context is indisputable.

<comment><USER44> > This is crazy talk.

Quite succinct and accurate. I have to admit, reading my own words, I do sound like a crank.

So, let me give a more nuanced view. I think the probability of an all-out nuclear exchange is still quite reduced, but if the capability gap between Russia and the US extends considerably, this probability will increase from the current infinitesimal level to a non-negligible one. Other events that were once considered unthinkable (DJT, Brexit) have come to pass, so never say never.

With that said, how can we get to such an extreme event as a nuclear exchange? I think that whenever there is a military crisis in the world (Iran threatening to resume uranium enrichment ?) the POTUS asks his advisors for options. The spectrum of options ranges from PR spin machine, to diplomatic pressure, to military operations. All options will have listed their pros and cons, their best, base and worst outcomes. They will be judged in isolation and weighed against each other. After this careful comparative cost-benefit analysis, the POTUS makes the decision.

Now all things being equal, if the military gap between the US and the opponent is larger, the armed response options will comparatively have a better cost-benefit ratio. The more impenetrable the ABM defense becomes, the more the military option will look like the better deal.

Now the vicious cycle is that, as the military option is chosen more often (how long did it take DJT to send an aircraft carrier towards Iran?), the more tensions will appear, and the more crisis situations will emerge. Some of them will be de-escalated, but some will escalate to various levels. Sometimes cool heads will prevail, but sometimes the grown-ups will have left the room already. One day Russia might do something that would trigger Nato's article 5 [1], and the US will have to respond. You could say that we've been in many situations like that in the 60's, 70's and 80's, but the military gap between the US and the Soviet Union was never close to what it's now, and what will become in the coming decades.

Ok, ok, but nuclear, you say? Well, the US has dropped about 100 bombs in Nevada, just 60 miles from Las Vegas, and it was no big deal. A few (hundred) small-ish nukes going boom in the middle of Siberia will result in some condemnations from some pacifist organizations, but as long as there is some reasonable casus belli and minimal civilian collateral damage, people will move on quite soon.

[1] [https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato- articles-4-and-5/2462...](https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato- articles-4-and-5/24626653.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> "...In a test"

</comment><comment><USER47> While this seems promising it seems like it will be a short lived phenomenon. Missles will just become obsolete and then you have to come up with a deterrent for lasers.

Is anyone actively working on laser deflector shields?

<comment><USER48> I don't get your reasoning? Lasers need line of sight and hit a very small area, missiles can travel long distances and hit a massive area.

<comment><USER28> Go high enough, and you can have LOS to anything within half the planet of you. Wait for the world to spin a bit, and you have LOS to the other half.

<comment><USER49> Perhaps the catch being that if you have LOS to half the planet then half the planet has LOS to you and presumably its a lot easier to build and operate a high energy laser on the ground rather than in high orbit.

<comment><USER50> Missile-launched laser platforms.

You don't have to loiter for all time.

<comment><USER28> Loitering in space is near-free.

That said, I'm thinking pumped-laser-tipped missiles could be very effective as e.g. anti-ship weapons. You could launch one straight up from your territory, and have it snipe the enemy ship from far away. The enemy would have to monitor a large portion of the sky for relatively small objects _and_ react instantly with lasers of their own to counter that.

EDIT: I suspect these could be made into pumped-laser _shells_ ; good luck countering one that's launched from beyond the horizon.

<comment><USER49> Ships would appear to have access to an idea anti laser countermeasure - <USER3> lots of water into the air!

<comment><USER28> Water is also a good RF screen, so such shield would also effectively blind and cripple the ship. Even discounting the energy use, no way they could keep that up continuously. Ramp-up time is probably large enough too (on the order of seconds), making surprise attacks very feasible. Not an _ideal_ countermeasure, though I'm not sure what would be, beyond packing more ablative armor.

<comment><USER50> If you're in a position to be aware of an imminent attack, ramp-time is probably within reason. Power reqirements are fairly modest by military standards -- a small fireboat can pump impresive quantities of water, and since the goal in defence / obscuring is to blind (and absorb energy), a finer atomised mist would be more effective. Filter and system fouling is likely a bigger concern.

True bolt-from-the-blue attacks are rare, though possible.

The spray profile could be modified to enable sensor detection, or alternative (off-ship, buoy, balloon, drone, ...) sensor placement could enable both eyes _and_ shields.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Plivo Launches Bring Your Own Carrier - <AUTHOR> http://plivo.com/blog/plivo-launches-bring-your-own-carrier/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps I just haven't spent enough time dealing with telephony, but I still haven't got a clue what BYOC is. Can someone give me a TL;DR?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @j_baker tl;dr -> Cloud telephony platform consists of 3 main components - 1. Technology, 2. Infra/Ops 3. Carriers. Until now we and other providers have offered APIs which bundled all three together. This is good for folks who are just getting started, as customers want to get the best pricing and direct access to carrier when they start to grow. Just like how one can get own merchant accounts with Payment gateways.

Today's announcement means we basically allow you to use all 3 components from us, or just use us for Technology and Infra and bring your own carriers. Rest of the details in the post. let me know if you have any other questions :D

<comment><USER2> That seems like a far more useful introduction than the one in the article. I mean, I'm sure the plivo vision for telephony is interesting, but I'd rather learn more about what the changes mean to _me_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you @j_baker. I will bear your feedback in mind and try my best to make you not need me for some core questions like this next time. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I read that pilivo was allowing me to 'bring my own carrier' 3 times, but I have no idea wtf that means.

Does it have anything to do with paint samples?

Bad marketing page.

<comment><USER4> DH tried answering this above, pasting it here..

Cloud telephony platform consists of 3 main components - 1. Technology, 2. Infra/Ops 3. Carriers. Until now we and other providers have offered APIs which bundled all three together. This is good for folks who are just getting started, as customers want to get the best pricing and direct access to carrier when they start to grow. Just like how one can get own merchant accounts with Payment gateways. Today's announcement means we basically allow you to use all 3 components from us, or just use us for Technology and Infra and bring your own carriers. Rest of the details in the post. let me know if you have any other questions :D

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a related Forbes article: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/08/14/plivo- targ...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/08/14/plivo-targets-big- enterprises-with-bring-your-own-carrier-cloud-telephony/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this just SIP trunking?

<comment><USER4> @thesis, thats a great question.

Answer: No its not just SIP trunking. We have always supported native SIP trunking (in, out & device registrations) from day 1 we publicly launched in July 2012.

With BYOC launch, we now allow/make it simpler for any developer, business to be able to use existing VoIP carriers and plug in our APIs to build powerful apps. Its completely plug and play. e.g. we offer a dedicated IP to authenticate with, for folks who want to plug in outbound carriers to terminate calls.</comment></comment>


Review my twitter app - twitpare.com - <AUTHOR>

A fun app we created, it allows you to upload a bunch of photos (video and other content later) and start a discussion.  I think it will be more interesting than posting a single photo for certain content.<p>Let me know your thoughts, all feedback appreciated. <comment><USER2> It looks interesting, but (I didn't provide my twitter password yet) I still don't "get" what twitpare does. Does it send out a tweet or is it just using Twitter accounts for login or what?

I'm embarrassed to admit I can't tell how it works from the front page nor from the FAQ.

 _Edit_ : So after spending a minute or two thinking about it, maybe it takes my Twitter account, allows me to upload a couple of images, and then will auto tweet with a link back to twitpare.com for people to come view the pictures?

Ok, I thought "I'll see what happens if I click on one of these twitter- looking text boxes at the bottom of the front page. Wow, it takes me to another page-- I didn't expect that text div to be clickable."

When I get to the page why do I have to click on the individual tiny pictures to see them larger? Why are they not just shown side-by-side or over-and- under? I didn't think to click the thumbnail until I was like "umm, where's the other picture I'm comparing?"

Overall for such a small app, I expected the entire usability aspect to be nailed down completely, but I started out lost and it never felt intuitive.

Do the comments on a post come from tweets about it? Or are they local comments on your site and aren't broadcast?

For this sort of think, I absolutely think you should give Feedback Army a try to work out the usability stuff. Get them to blindly try it and see if they can figure out how your site is used.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback - the usability definitely isn't nailed down, but we launched as early as possible.

The comments do come from tweets - I think there needs a bit more text and fine tuning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The first and only thing I noticed was the huge twitter login box sitting there. You're not going to get too many early adopters if you have that. I suggest you switch to using OAuth as an immediate do-it-now thing. After all its the early adopters who really drive your usage for quite a long time to come, since they also happen to be quite active.

Edit: After looking at your front page alone for a few minutes, I guess you have a pretty nice idea. This could develop into a crowd sourced decision maker kind of thing (e.g. the tattoo pic). Also, is it absolutely necessary to upload two pics??? At times one pic is good enough to stimulate a lot of discussion, and at times people may want to compare more than two pics, especially if they are trying to make a decision or something like that. So you might want to look at changing the number of pics that can be uploaded.

<comment><AUTHOR> It will move to OAuth shortly, I agree with that.

Any number of pics can be uploaded...from 1..*.

Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.twitpare.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> clickable link: <http://twitpare.com/></comment>


The search volume for "web app" spikes every September - <AUTHOR> http://www.gibney.de/popularity_of_web_apps <comment><USER2> I know the answer!

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=web%20app,fifa%20web%20app)

<comment><USER3> How did you figure this out?

<comment><USER4> If you Google "web app" it's the first hit, which is a good starting point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The FIFA web app is of _particular_ interest in September not just because that's when the new one comes out, but because you can use the web app for a week or so _before_ the actual game is released.

This means you can buy packs, trade players, and start getting your squad together before you even play the actual game, and this is important if you want to get a jump on other players quickly. Once the game is out, more people just trade in game.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.easports.com/fifa/ultimate-team/coming- soon](https://www.easports.com/fifa/ultimate-team/coming-soon)

The FUT Web App and other FIFA Web features are down for maintenance while we prepare for FIFA 19. The new web app launches on September 19th.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, great to see my post on the front page!

One moment, I will add a fourth chart that shows the popularity of 'web app' when substracting the Fifa effect.

...

Ok, I added a chart for which I substracted the values for 'fifa web app' from the values for 'web app'.

The result is a pretty nice trend.

</comment><comment><USER7> Try comparing to iPhone app instead of iOS app if you want to see what laypeople think

</comment><comment><USER8> Fall semester student intake :P

<comment><USER9> Eternal September

<comment><USER10> I was thinking the same thing. ^__^;

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

<comment><USER11> There's also a band called Eternal September. I always assumed that this is where they took their name but maybe it's a coincidence.

[https://vimeo.com/700520](https://vimeo.com/700520)

<comment><USER10> Never heard of that band before. Considering they have an album called "Your Computer Lies" I would say that's probably more than a coincidence they chose that name... ^__^;

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> WTF, Fifa? Correlation does not imply Causation. More likely lots of September students started a web dev class. But that also is not proof of causation.

<comment><USER13> Fifa is way bigger than you think.

<comment><USER14> Yup. Fifa games sell 10M+ units yearly.

The number of students starting a new web dev class are... tens of thousands, worldwide? A hundred of thousands?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why would they mix substrings from multiple other search queries, without marking the trend as a union of overlapping queries?

What if order counts, and "app web" != "web app"?</comment>


Perpetual motion device available for pre-order - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2015/12/08/free-energy-for-sale-steorn.html <comment><USER2> What drives someone to keep pushing forward with something like this? They've had repeated, failed, public demonstrations of the technology. I mean, I guess plain old fraud could explain it, since they've managed to raise 20 million euros, and even the author of the post plans to buy one of these things (even saying, "Overturning science is an extremely high bar for Steorn to vault, but it's not necessarily impossible." after explaining in detail how what they're claiming to do is impossible). But, it seems like a passion project born of an actual belief that they've accomplished what they claim.

It's just so baffling. Are they mentally ill? Are all of their investors mentally ill, or are they merely deeply ignorant? (And, I'm not saying that as an insult. It just seems plausible that one explanation for flaunting the basic rules of physics repeatedly and with such gusto requires some sort of disconnect from reality in order to believe that the tests you're performing are producing results opposite of what everyone else is getting out of them.)</comment>


CERN - Accelerating Science with Puppet (PuppetConf 2012 Keynote) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ykb2j2ojYU&feature=colike

<comment><AUTHOR> The rest of the PuppetConf 2012 videos can be found here:

<http://puppetlabs.com/community/videos/puppetconf/></comment>


Touch bar for minimalists - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@craigmod/touch-bar-for-minimalists-d96c3ae6adfd#.lp4iv681z <comment><USER2> The main problem is that Touch Bar is _essentially_ a bunch of toolbar items in most apps, and toolbars are probably more convenient. The more elaborate slider-like stuff is pretty rare and still not obviously better. Same for color picker; it's _limited_ compared to on-screen and less precise (so why use it?).

I would have loved an iPhone-shaped iOS environment that could run much more interesting things _but_ perhaps have ways to integrate with the frontmost app (unlike a phone).</comment>


Ask HN: Books or online courses on the topic of implementing garbage collectors? - <AUTHOR>

What are the best books or online courses I should go through before writing my own GC? Are there any free ones? <comment><USER2> This article showed up on HN not too long ago: <http://blog.brownplt.org/2013/02/19/teaching-gc.html>

Maybe it will help.</comment>


Is Magic Leap Having a Nervous Breakdown or Making an Announcement? - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/is-magic-leap-having-a-nervous-breakdown-or-making-an-a-1818917858?IR=T <comment><USER2> Tragic Leap

</comment><comment><USER3> Back in my day Easter eggs were inside of finished products.</comment>


Google Drive client updated and is now broken on Windows 10 machines - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/Km-e-xRJ9b4;context-place=forum/drive <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this, I didn't get any hits for the error message on Google. It's a pretty bad way to botch an upgrade, displaying a worrying error message like this. A good reminder that I should back up all my Google stuff.</comment>


Show HN: Dating app focused on chatting and gamification - <AUTHOR> https://blurry.chat <comment><USER2> No offence, but I would get the landing page looked at by a native English speaker. A fair few instances of quirky language there.

But as for the product, having to earn virtual currency to keep using a dating app by watching videos? Tough proposition when most popular dating apps are free with purchasable benefits/ boosts.

<comment><AUTHOR> None taken:) We will check the landing page thank you for this feedback. This is a completely free app too. You dont need to use virtual currency to write or get messages. Coins are used to purchase gems. Those gems provide you climbing up in search results, privacy, boosting yourself, to change location etc. You can collect coins by claiming your daily reward, watching videos or purchasing them from store.</comment></comment>


OmniSci and Intel Collaborate to Bring Accelerated Analytics at Scale to CPUs - <AUTHOR> https://www.omnisci.com/company/news/omnisci-and-intel-collaborate-to-bring-accelerated-analytics-at-scale-to-cpus <comment><USER2> I'm curious what the relative acceleration is between NVIDIA and Intel and how this is affecting their NVIDIA relationship.

<comment><USER3> I'm with OmniSci, and it's a good point. The relationship between NVIDIA and OmniSci remains strong and strategic. We've always talked about our focus of running the fastest software on the fastest hardware, and in fact the platform has always taken advantage of both GPUs and CPUs. Adding Intel as a partner and offering a focused edition for CPUs expands the platform to an even larger community of developers and data analysts. So this is additive, it doesn't take away from our work with NVIDIA.</comment></comment>


Linux and programming languages quizzes, questions and answers - <AUTHOR> http://xquizzes.com/programming/Linux

<comment><USER2> If you are receiving these questions as an interview ones, you should re- consider your application at first point.</comment>


Last.fm staff member denies they gave data to the RIAA - <AUTHOR> http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996

<comment><USER2> Maybe TechCrunch should have asked first.

If this rumor is false and spreads widely doing appreciable financial harm to last.fm, this could very well be the end of Michael Arrington's TechCrunch. In that event, last.fm will have a very strong libel case and claim to very substantial damages.

I think last.fm would be forced to sue if this rumor does enough damage. I wonder how long TechCrunch's resources can hold up against a phalanx of CBS attorneys.

<comment><USER3> Lots of wrong stuff gets published by the press. How often does anyone sue over it?

<comment><USER4> This is a pretty bold claim that TechCrunch has made, they need to do some more fact checking.

I don't know if Last.fm can sue, but if the article causes some significant damage (high loss of users) then I believe they have the right to some reimbursement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't care for this story as it could potentially cause harm to a site I enjoy. Give a digg to the counter story

<http://twitter.com/strutting/statuses/1232835743>

If you feel as I do. Above is link to writer at DownloadSquad. I have no affiliation with any party, just enjoy Last.fm and feel this rumor could prove harmful.

<comment><USER6> So, you oppose all negative reporting that could potentially "cause harm to a site [you] enjoy"? I presume your attitude would change if they proved to be true? Well how are we going to know unless the story comes out and is investigated?

If last.fm gave the RIAA that information, they are toast. I think a very great number of people are interested in the truth coming out. Stock denials are utterly routine and mean nothing.

 _"Give a digg to the counter story"_

Does "digging" things increase their truthiness, or something? Does the side of the story that gets more "diggs" get declared the winner?

God, strange world some people live in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought the RIAA gave up their legal campaign against individuals. Unless they just need the data for an impact analysis.</comment>


Universities consider blocking controversial app - <AUTHOR> http://www.wral.com/universities-consider-blocking-controversial-app/14426363/

<comment><USER2> "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is considering banning a smartphone app that some say encourages hate speech, but other schools say free speech among students needs to be promoted."

Doesn't Reddit also promote hate speech? You can anonymously post disparaging comments.

If someone is offended by "Yik yak", they can uninstall it from their phone. I see no reason to ban it for everyone.</comment>


The Microsoft Surface Isn't Rosy - <AUTHOR> http://chasingperfection.co.uk/post/2013/02/01/surface-rosy <comment><USER2> More FUD about the disk space issue... yes - there is a large recovery partition and yes - you can delete it to free up space. Any yes - perhaps MS would have been better off if they included a USB drive for recovery purposes (although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB" to restore their partition would be a support nightmare).

This is just like the "omg - the desktop is gone and all we are left with is Metro!". Um yes... unless you "show desktop" and move on with your life...

And the "purpose of the surface pro"? How about "a tablet for those who need to be productive in a windows environment"?

<comment><USER3> >although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB"

How is that any worse than the current status quo of every Windows product ever sold? I'd say it would be harder to walk mom through deleting the restore files when she calls and says her tablet won't hold all her movies and music.

Let's just face it, MS made a very stupid decision. I could see this happening during the Vista era, but SSDs have been mainstream for YEARS now. Windows should have a smaller footprint and holy hell, should not have a 12-18gb cab file to restore from on limited storage.

Enthusiasts spend way too much time making Windows SSD friendly. We need to delete superseded update from winsxs, shrink the default massive page file, delete the hibernate file on machines that don't need it, manually stop superfetch/defrag even though windows is supposed to do this on its own, etc.

>And the "purpose of the surface pro"?

In the age of affordable ultrabooks, who knows. Essentially you're buying an ultrabook without a keyboard and with a super tiny screen.

That said, I love the RT product and if the RT tablet was $299 it would sell like hotcakes. Especially if the 'desktop mode' didn't exist. MS should never have bothered with the Pro line and instead should have made a proper android and ios competitor.

<comment><USER4> The screen isn't "super-tiny". It's 10.6". Compared to an 11" ultrabook, you're not loosing a lot of screen space (especially when you consider the 11" ultrabook probably has a much lower resolution than the Surface Pro). If you're comparing against 13" or larger ultrabooks, then sure, the Surface Pro's screen is small (though still higher resolution than most 13" ultrabooks), but then that's a different conversation, and one that people already have every time they choose between an 11" and a 13" ultrabook.

P.S. Disclosure: I work for Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> The popular ultrabooks and all of the ones I've seen in real life are 13". My comparison is between 10.6 and 13, which is a pretty big difference. Regardless, I can see how this is arguable.

<comment><USER4> Definitely, if you want a 13" screen, the Surface is a poor substitute. But by the same token, if you want a 15" screen, a 13" Ultrabook is a poor substitute. It's a tradeoff between portability and screen size. If you're willing to go down to the low-end of screen size for sake of portability, the Surface Pro looks very competitive with 11" ultrabooks. If you're not willing to go to that screen size, then the Surface Pro isn't really an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually thick the Surface Pro, or something like it, will be the future of home computing. It is exactly what everyone with an iPad, including myself, wishes the iPad would actually do. It is a tablet form factor with a the guts of a true computer and support for multiple peripherals. Dock it wherever and have a real computer system or take it on the go like any other tablet.

<comment><USER6> I think it's wrong that this level of product integration is what everyone wants; i.e. functioning as a tablet and as a laptop. One of Microsoft's most powerful profit generators was software integration (both in Office and Windows).

But integrated products (ones that do BOTH X and Y) are necessarily inferior at being the best X or the best Y. A designer must make trade offs in order to make the integration work. In the realm of software, the trade offs can be quite small, and so the integrated whole is quite good. But in a hardware device, integration imposes critical constraints that make integration across functions quite painful; limited screen size, battery life, memory and storage, etc. Perhaps the most insidious is overall UI complexity. Making a device for keyboard and mouse is quite different than making a device with a great touch experience. Having both (and even adding legacy Windows UI) is very challenging.

Microsoft should not have released a "turd" if they could not achieve a great experience within the design constraints. I think most people believe this first attempt has serious flaws and compromises.

Because Apple has shown the world what a great experience a tablet can provide, I think users are unwilling to compromise just so they can occasionally connect a keyboard and mouse to it, or run legacy applications. I'd rather carry two devices than use one (inferior) product.

<comment><USER5> I agree that the Surface is not the final realization of the ideal home computing device but it is a decent step towards it. Eventually the device will be a phone with the computing power of a laptop that you can dock and have a full environment ready for you. Clearly we are not there yet but this is a towards that reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually own a Surface RT and I like it. I get the feeling that a lot of people try out Windows 8 or the Surface RT for a few minutes and pan it as crap. There's definitely a learning curve associated with it but the payout is that it's got advanced gestures that allow you to do more without a keyboard.

One thing that could be impacting sales is that you have to go to a Microsoft Store (brick-and-mortar) or online there to purchase it. There is no try- before-you-buy experience unless you're lucky to live close to one of those stores.

As for the storage space what I've noticed is that I need just enough space locally to have certain files available to me. So local storage for me is basically a cache where I keep most of my documents in the cloud.

<comment><USER4> > _it's got advanced gestures that allow you to do more without a keyboard._

I really like the edge swiping. I miss it on other devices where menus and such are wasting my screen space all the time.

One thing I don't like is the "swipe from left to change apps". There's a setting to adjust that, though, so the left swipe pulls up the app switcher instead.

<comment><USER7> Coming from WebOS I love swipe gestures and am more sad more OS's don't utilize them.

I didn't know about that setting. Thanks, I'll have to check that out!

One other thing that I do like is the ability to show more than one app on the screen at the same time as appropriate. So you can see your music app in the left 25% of the screen while you type up a document or surf the web. Really underrated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > How many times do I have to say it: The Microsoft Surface is a turd.

This should have been the article's title, just so readers know what the author plans to say. Not to argue for or against the position, just for maximum candor.

</comment><comment><USER9> Comparing sales between a phone you find in every shopping mall and could buy without knowing the differentiators, and a new class of device? That doesn't sound like an unbiased argument.

</comment><comment><USER10> My take on this is that the Microsoft's strategy for the Surface wasn't necessarily to sell a ton of Surface tablets and take out the iPad. I think it was to illustrate what Windows 8 brings to the table in terms of a hybrid tablet experience. This is similar to how Google had lackluster sales of their Nexus phone but it was a reference model of what you could do with Android. The Surface opens up some eyes to the idea of the "convertible laptop", which I think ultimately is how Windows 8 starts to make more sense. On any other configuration it's a clunky experience. Windows 8 is a poor tablet experience and a lame desktop, but as a convertible laptop it's actually quite enjoyable (in my opinion).

<comment><USER11> I think Windows RT is an amazing tablet experience. As others have mentioned some of its UI conventions are different and require learning. Overall, its a very well made and pleasant to use device that does what I need it to do.

Though I should note that I've loved them Metro UI since I saw it on the Windows phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The strange thing is, in his self citing comment about it been a turd, it becomes apparent he hasn't touched one.

This is the issue MS have, not some cries of false advertising of free space. No one is buying them, no one is seeing them. A guy I work with commented that he's not seen one despite it been months after the RT launch. He quite liked it, just not the price tag.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've used one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _My 64GB iPad has 57.1GB free space. That's 89%._

57.1 - 32 - 16 = 9.1; 9.1 / 16 = 0.56875; 16GB iPad has 9.1GB free space? That's 56%.

 _My 16GB iPhone 5 has 13.4GB free. That's 83%._

13.4 + 16 + 32 = 61.4; 61.4 / 64 = 0.959375; 64GB iPhone 5 has 61.4GB free space? That's 95%.

Edit: These calculations are not accurate. Read replies.

<comment><USER14> This would seem to be correct but doesn't take into account different hardware specs.

For a start, the larger the disk, the more is used for formatting and is lost due to the difference in how manufacturers specify sizes, so you can't just add/subtract storage amounts, you need to scale.

Also, different combinations of processor, cellular modem, etc, will require different parts of the operating system, and Apple differentiates between these in the distributions it provides. It's not a massive difference, but it is something.

Finally, on Mac OS, the operating system reserves some space for a memory dump if the device loses power so that it can resume where it left off. This means if you have 8GB of RAM, you will always have 8GB of disk space reserved (search for sleepimage). I don't know for sure, but iOS may do something similar.

<comment><USER13> I agree with this. Also, if they calculate space in GiB instead of GB, we should add/subtract 14.9 and 29.8.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, let's start a conversation that we've never had on HN before. How relevant will Microsoft be in 5 years?

<comment><USER16> Still more relevant than SAP or Oracle are today and both of those companies are doing pretty well...

<comment><USER15> True, although they do have the advantage of being somewhat more niche in that they aren't developing an entire platform from the ground up with all the costs that entails.

For example if MS loses enough ground with Windows in the consumer / small business space and begin to cede the enterprise desktop too does it make sense for them to continue development of Windows as a pure server platform?

Or will we start to see ports of stuff like Exchange,Active Directory,VS,SQL Server to other platforms?

<comment><USER16> I think they will focus on higher level (and therefore value) enterprise applications - SharePoint, Dynamics ERPs (particularly AX) and Dynamics CRM.

It also wouldn't surprise me if they decided to take all product consulting in-house and become much more of a consulting company with products as a useful sideline - a bit like IBM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sales numbers for the Amazon Kindle have been famously opaque, and not disclosed by Amazon.

This is worth considering - I would guess Amazon is VERY PROUD of their sales numbers, but it's just "none of your damn business".</comment>


Open source cloud computing technologies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rgrossman.com/2009/11/11/cloud-computing-at-sc-09-from-la/

<comment><USER2> I tried to get sector working on a bunch of machines two weeks ago but it didn't work out.

I will get back to it when I have some more uninterrupted time though. I always love it when there is a tutorial on something, you follow it and it doesn't work :(

<comment><USER3> Check out Eucalyptus [open.eucalyptus.com/] It's compatible with amazon's EC2 and S3. The guide walked me through it. There was a hiccup but the forum helped me out in no time.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, I will definitely do that.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Friend is blind and programming genius, wants to learn math - <AUTHOR>

I have a (visually challenged) friend who has an uncanny talent for programming but he's completely self-taught. He can build any desktop/web app (he's a full stack dev), but he wants to go deeper – into AI/ML and stuff like that.
However, due to lack of any significant math education during childhood, he's lacking foundation into things like linear algebra/calculus/statistics ETC which are basic necessities for AI/ML.
On my recommendation, he has recently started following Khan videos and is picking up things (so far) fast. But obviously that is not the best format for a person challenged with sight. As per my discussions with him, it seems the ideal way to learn for him is by eBooks. But he doesn't know which one to pick.
So what I want to do to help him with the help of HN: find eBook(s) that can build a kind of math curriculum to cover topics like linear algebra, calculus, the same way a good programming book covers topics starting from introduction to the programming language up to using the standard library. Here's the catch: the book must be accessible which means it doesn't excessively use diagrams to explain concepts and if it uses any graphical symbols, it should provide explanations of those somewhere – say in the appendix.
Edit: Inspired by this recent post – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6854663 <comment><USER2> It may be better to see if you can find someone who is blind and studied mathematics to some degree to see how to proceed.

I know most universities have an accessibility department which might make it easier to take a math class than trying to read a book with obscure concepts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out this paper 'Audio Rendering of Mathematical Formulae Using MathML and AudioMath' from [http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/120/bok%253A978-3-54...](http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/120/bok%253A978-3-540-30111-0.pdf?auth66=1387523411_cee90ce76795a504ae65d679346979de&ext=.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: Review our app, textpanda (web-based input shortcuts for the lazy) - <AUTHOR> http://textpanda.com

<comment><AUTHOR> After getting such useful feedback on HN for typd.in this week (special thanks to huhtenberg/LogicHoleFlaw/ken), I thought I'd put our next project out there to get some more ideas.

textpanda is a simple bookmarklet that lets you define shortcuts for any text input on the web (think _really_ simple emacs bindings). Since it's more of a quick proof of concept than anything, we're not quite sure what to add next (functions and other dynamic replacement? real user authentication? subscriptions to other users' macros?) and would love to hear what you guys think.

</comment><comment><USER2> Very cool. Will be using this regularly.

Only problem I see is that the panda attaches to the very bottom right of text areas and can be oscured by scrollbars

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How do I actually use this on other sites? Seems I can't or am I missing something?

Also you probably know this but if I make the abbreviation: hh = hello hello Then add another one like: hhy = hello hello to you

hh is replaced with "hello hello" before I can finish typing hhy.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is almost as cool as typd.in! I wonder if there's a good way for the two to work together...

</comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea and interface a lot. It'd be nice if there was browser extensions to turn this on by default rather than to have to click a bookmarklet to have it enabled.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd pay you and you're not charging me...

Simple doesn't have to be free, I'd gladly pay 5 bucks a month to have this, so why not start charging?

<comment><USER7> I pay $10 a month to use a cell phone, and you'd happily pay $5 for a keyboard shortcut?

<comment><USER8> i agree nice service, but not chargeable ....

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. It's not monetizable in its current state, but I'm curious what features you think would get it closer, such as:

* more rich replacement (including functions/regex) * dynamic content like stock prices * ability to chain expansions quasi-recursively * SSL / privacy

As a reference point, TextExpander (<http://www.smileonmymac.com/TextExpander/>) is an OS X app that offers similar functionality, and it's $30.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When you type an abbreviation, if you type a comma right after that, the expanded text is doubled. I'm assuming this is a bug?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm having trouble recreating this. What's your OS/browser?

<comment><USER9> Safari 3.1.2 on OS X 10.5.5 (I think). Just tried it now and it works fine. I might have been on Server 2008 with Firefox, it was 8 days ago... (I know late reply)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Excellent execution. It's earned a place on my toolbar. +1 User

</comment><comment><USER11> no lol?</comment>


Show HN: Destructible.io – Self-destructing, human-readable file storage - <AUTHOR> https://destructible.io/ <comment><USER2> > However, although there are nearly a billion possible auto-generated urls > for the download link and they generally only last a short time

Not enough. One leak can potentially ruin your reputation. So now, I fire dozens of thousand requests per minute and over a couple of hours I'll get something -- assuming there is dozens thousand of files at any given moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> How many would you recommend for better security? The thought was that these links wouldn't last long, and the files are deleted upon expiration. But of course trusting obscurity for security is a flawed concept in itself. But looking for a good middle ground.

<comment><USER3> reCAPTCHA and throttling after suspicious number of failed attempts by an IP.

Four digit PIN prompt that gets displayed even when requesting invalid URL. Make PIN verification backend request include some nonce associated with original request, and force nonce to be regenerated if PIN verification fails. PIN is also as easy to communicate verbally as URL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All file points to [https://destructibleio.s3.amazonaws.com/media/uploads/{FILEN...](https://destructibleio.s3.amazonaws.com/media/uploads/{FILENAME}).

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be working for me at the moment. Are you saying it's not functional for you, or that it shouldn't be uploaded to Amazon?

edit: Just to update, changed up the file upload structure so it's randomized with an appended uuid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This only works if you trust the owner of destructible.io.

<comment><USER6> This is the same with Github, Dropbox, Google, Apple, Bitbucket, Any email provider... Shall I go on?

You _always_ have a risk when you're storing your data at a 3rd party. Yes, some are new and have less reputation, others are old and have a terrible reputation, others are old and have a great reputation - but none of that stands for anything because your data is in the hands of someone else in every case.

If you don't want that, don't use it.

<comment><USER7> You don't have the risk if you store it cryptographically. My first use of Dropbox was moving stuff in Truecrypt volumes. I found even laypeople could be taught to do that as it was somewhat tedious rather than difficult. For implementers, CompSci keeps cranking out all kinds of ways for one to use 3rd party storage in untrusted fashion. Just gotta clone one of them with OSS code.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I completely agree! I have probably 5 separate TrueCrypt volumes in my Google Drive. That said, that's only maybe 15GB of my storage, and around 80GB is unencrypted.

It's all about what level of convenience you're willing to expose yourself for. I keep anything I want private in TrueCrypt, anything I don't mind "public" (Or at least exposed to Google / NSA) unencrypted as then I can access it so much easier from my phone, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does it comply with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency)

</comment><comment><USER9> This feels like a more advanced fork of cocaine.ninja.</comment>


Show HN: Live Simple – Tiny homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.livesimple.io <comment><USER2> Living a spartan existence is like travelling: it's a great way to broaden your mind and you really should do it when you're young and have few commitments.

<comment><USER3> It works when you are older, too, otherwise your worldly possessions, in particular your home, can become your commitments.

<comment><USER4> This is why I live in a van down by the river.

<comment><USER5> Really? Tell us more! Why? How big a van? Is having no permanent address problem-free?

<comment><USER6> See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Foley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Foley)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a person who recently had my house evicted from the land it was sitting on, I encourage you to read your local ordinances carefully, prepare for a legal fight, and don't talk to any curious reporters.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am indifferent until I see the overcharging, but maybe overpaying is because of tiny wallet/bank.

Disclaimer: builder

<comment><USER9> Its sort of crazy that this style of living isn't allowed by many local ordinances. There are tons of folks who could put these up as guest houses or detached offices and be super happy with them. Hell put one up and stick your obnoxious teen ager in it.

To your point they do seem pretty expensive. If you were building in your area what is the price per sq/ft. I understand that it is a terrible metric, but it is the only one that I can think of.

<comment><USER10> My wife and I are kicking around the idea of building one as a detached office. haven't looked into local laws yet, but it seems like it shouldn't be regulated as more than a shed (if no one is sleeping in it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The prices seem kinda ridiculous, or is it just me?

<comment><USER12> If you just measure in $/sq ft then sure.

It's about the total cost beeing affordable, an running costs beeing as low as possible.

Also this started out as a DIY movement, but now that professional builders are involved, prices go up.

<comment><USER13> You can live for a loooooong time in a suburb for these costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the tiny house movement says something about the economy in the new era of sustainability.

The classic economy wants to grow infinitely to be happy. But a sustainable approach means people are now focusing on conservation of resources, leading to behavior that is the opposite of growth.

The real economy actually wants to shrink, in some cases literally. You see that with tiny houses. If people could wave a wand and shrink their house to reduce their cost of living and footprint, they would.

I think the focus on sustainability is great, but we need to adjust our economic and social structures to accomodate that.

Here is an idea I had related to tiny houses: [http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/](http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Cool - some of these look like fancy motor homes for a five star road trip haha.

PS: The first listing is really just an ad for a small home custom builder? Savvy of him to get oodles of free promo for his business but may want to look into that?

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there's a way to hook up muni-sewer? If there's a way to avoid composting my own poop, this seems like a fun way to live.

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone have experience living in one of these? Even at 20 grand, sleeping above a chemical toilet is bound to get old fast.

<comment><USER18> I have no experience living in one, but my understanding is they can be hooked up to services if you desire. The reason they are on trailers is because the person who invented the first tiny house (now runs Tumbleweed Tiny House Company [http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/](http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/)) was looking for a way to get around zoning laws. These houses are so small they are not allowable under most zoning laws. But if you put them on wheels, they qualify as "trailer homes" and, voila!, now you are legal.

From what I gather, the fact that they are too small to be legal in most (urban/within city bounds) areas creates all kinds of challenges. I have long been interested in the subject, and I sometimes fantasize about living in a tiny house, but I have not yet in earnest tried to make it happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks fun. Wouldn't be surprised if AirBnB took this idea though and integrated into their platform.

</comment><comment><USER20> Love it, been watching Tiny House Nation and Tiny House Hunting for a while and this is right on time ;)

<comment><USER4> Trailers and prefab houses have existed for many decades. Why is now the time?

<comment><USER21> marketing.

Having watched some of the shows I still don't catch the full appeal. Perhaps so you can claim you don't live in a trailer? Modern campers are at times better finished and likely to pass more stringent inspections. Throw in that trend towards slide outs on campers/trailers and they have space on demand.

Custom workmanship might be the real key, still it is a trailer by any other name.

<comment><USER22> Most modern campers can't do winter though. I live in a 25' Airstream. The windows and insulation are crap. Living in an Airstream in a Vermont winter would be painful and miserable. But it has wheels, so I head south.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What do these things sell dollar / sq foot? Some quick calculation show about $240 / sq foot. Better then SF bay prices but probably not better than most of the rest of the country.

<comment><USER24> In many parts of the bay area you're not paying for the house as much as the _land_. In fact if the house is older and in a desirable location it has negative value because of the demo and related permits; a vacant lot would sell for more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Tried to sign up with Facebook and got an error, FYI.

</comment><comment><USER26> Feature request: sort results by price (ASC/DESC). Looks great BTW.

</comment><comment><USER27> Shouldn't it say "meet people who believe less is more"?

</comment><comment><USER28> Are there more tiny houses anywhere in or around Germany?

</comment><comment><USER29> "X for Y" type of services never succeed because Y will never be better than X. Describe your service for what it does, not what it can be.

<comment><USER30> I don't know exactly what your definition of success is, but products of hyper-specialization do indeed make money. Etsy is eBay for home crafts, Twitch.tv is Justin.tv/YouTube/Ustream for video games. And of course there are thousands of enterprise solutions that are simply domain specializations of Microsoft Office and Dropbox that are doing quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is AWESOME! Great listings already.

</comment><comment><USER32> IMHO: hipster overflow

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice site and cool listings but I don't quite understand. AirBnb is for short term rentals / sharing places. This seems to be a site to buy houses. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER34> Click on the "rentals" category. [https://www.livesimple.io/en?category=rentals](https://www.livesimple.io/en?category=rentals)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> What do startups have against adverbs?

<comment><USER36> Maybe we all read Strunk and White:

> "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs" [0]

0: [http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid- Grammar/2549...](http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid- Grammar/25497)

<comment><USER37> [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0521431468/](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0521431468/)

£188

Strunk and White is about £5

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How is this anything Airbnb like?

<comment><USER39> We've changed the title from "Show HN: Live Simple – Airbnb for extremely tiny homes" since you and others found the Airbnb part misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> /// cabinspacey.com /// A conscious and educated generation that embraces urban life, wants to live life to the fullest while likewise being responsible and resource efficient finally demands the housing solution they deserve. Sign up for Cabin Spacey and take part to design a new genre of urban living. Cabin Spacey is a smart pre-fab cabin that can host up to two people and is built with an independent functional unit that provides bed, bath and kitchenette in one innovative block. The cabins are minimal invasive and can be installed on a temporary or permanent basis to existing city infrastructure like rooftops, backyards, parking decks or even gable walls. /// cabinspacey.com ///</comment>