New Zealand just abolished software patents. Here's why we should, too - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/29/new-zealand-just-abolished-software-patents-heres-why-we-should-too/?tid=rssfeed

<comment><USER2> Well, they abolished them the same way the EU did many many years ago. There have been tens of thousands of software patents granted in Europe since they were abolished there.

Like the EU, they are banning patents on computer programs "as such". A very large fraction of software patents are not patents on computer programs "as such".

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, there's another issue with software patents that causes me to dislike them. At least from the point of view of the free software world, there are often fears that coding some bit of free software will run into a patent that some large company owns and cause problems for that project. It just seems unreasonable from the mindset that you're coding something for the benefit of the world that the world will try to prevent you from using that idea — albeit independently formulated. Regardless of whether these patents work for companies, they certainly don't work for open source software.

</comment><comment><USER4> I doubt this will be fixed in my lifetime, there are too many entrenched interests. Once the government grants new kinds of property rights, it's very hard to curtail them.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article is one of the few that talks about the GAO report on patent litigation. You'd think it would be all over the media. Somehow it isn't.

An abstract of the report from the GAO website itself, worth reading as a TL;DR: [http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-465](http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-465)

The really interesting news here is that the report found that "troll" related lawsuits are actually a minority of patent litigation, somewhere around 20%, and that is despite a sharp rise in the recent years.

The EFF [1] makes a good point that this data does not look at non-litigation trolling preying on small entities and unrelated businesses, a la Lodsys, that extract payment simply through the threat of litigation. (Note that the EFF headline is also not the best representation of the report.)

However, such operations have typically attracted media attention. There have been many, but the first I recall reading was of Fotomedia, who sued anyone that had photo sharing on their website. That was a miniscule operation compared to Lodsys, yet it made news. (Ars Technica tracks a few such trolls. It has not yet covered this report, even though the OP has been a regular Ars contributor.) For now, I find it hard to believe that there are enough of these operations to change the GAOs conclusions.

The other interesting observations are:

1\. the rise in litigation, troll-related or otherwise, is attributed in part to the recent changes in patent law, specifically, the AIA. What this report, and many other studies in the area, miss is that even older decisions [2, 3] have had similar effects, something I have previously pointed out using another throwaway account.

2\. companies are realizing patents are something that can be monetized rather than just being used to protect ideas.

The OP glosses over all this and talks about vagueness in software patents, which is something I partially agree with. (Specifically, I believe patents being issued after the ~2004 - 2005 have much narrower claims.) However, it's not something that is endemic to software patents. The Doctrine of Equivalents [4] means that any element in any claim of any patent can be interpreted to cover other ways to implement it as long as it performs the same function. For instance, if the claim mentions using email, but somebody does it using SMS, it may still infringe if the main function is sending a message or notifying a user. However this, in turn works against the patentee when prosecuting patents at the USPTO, because examiners then apply the "broadest reasonable" interpretation of claims to find more and more prior art.

1\. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/gao-study-confirms- obv...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/gao-study-confirms-obvious-bad- patents-lead-trolls)

2\. Michael Donovan, "The Impact of MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc.and Its Progeny on Technology Licensing," [http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...](http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=jbel)

3\. Sara Jeruss, Robin Feldman, Joshua H. Walker, "The America Invents Act 500: Effects of Patent Monetization Entities on US Litigation," [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2158455](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2158455)

4\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents)

<comment><USER6> > You'd think it would be all over the media.

Don't get me wrong -- I care about this issue, but I'm curious why would you expect people outside the tech industry to care much?

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I should have said "tech media". Every "tech journalist" and their grandmother out there likes to write about patent trolls, and calling for the government to make changes.

And here we have a study by a branch of the US Congress, the one entity that, based on the constitution, can make sweeping changes to the patent system. The Congress' investigative branch went off to study the problem and essentially said trolls are not a big problem.

But as far as tech media patent-related reporting goes, this one has gone nigh unmentioned. Even though software patents are specifically called out. Why?

My suspicion is that the lack of attention is mostly because the study does not gel with the perception the tech media is trying to sell, that trolls are a huge burden on the economy. And typically, these complaints are made by practicing companies who, if one were to be uncharitable, one could say are actually doing most of the litigation [1].

To me, the signs point to a submarine [2]. And if that seems far-fetched, consider this:

You ever hear of a "study" that claimed trolls cost the economy something like 29 _billion_ (pinkie to corner of mouth) dollars a year? A number that gets mentioned in any article about trolls or patents in general? Well, last year multiple sources poked holes all over it [3, 4, 5, 6].

Would you like to guess how many tech media outlets reported about that?

Now, would you also like to guess how many tech media outlets continue to harp on about the debunked 29 billion number every chance they get?

1\. [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021696607_g...](http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021696607_gaopatenttrollsxml.html)

2\. [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

3\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117421](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117421)

4\. [http://blog.patentology.com.au/2012/06/29-billion-us- troll-t...](http://blog.patentology.com.au/2012/06/29-billion-us-troll-tax-or- just-another.html)

5\. (Pay-/Registration-walled) [http://www.iam- magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=454c1adc-52c3...](http://www.iam- magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=454c1adc-52c3-4c2d-8981-e4716361f219)

6\. (A recap of the previous 3 references, as well as highlighting the sources of funding for the authors of the "study") [http://gametimeip.com/2012/07/30/patent-scholars- challenge-b...](http://gametimeip.com/2012/07/30/patent-scholars-challenge- bessen-meurers-bogus-29-b-npe-costs-figure/)

<comment><USER7> I don't buy it. Who the fuck wants patents on not just well researched algorithms but something as simple as the doubly linked list? Even though I haven't seen that used in court, for good reason, I still can't see that and other signs as symptomatic of something that needs to be taken behind a shed.

Who profits from software patents? Who gets held back?

Why does the narrative matter at all? Don't you remember the fucking shit throwing contest over pinch to zoom?

What drugs are you taking. Are they legal?

<comment><USER5> _> Who profits from software patents? Who gets held back?_

That is the only question that matters (beyond just "software" patents,) And there is a lot of work by a lot of people that try to answer the question. Search ssrn for work by authors like Risch, Merges, Allison, Lemley, Mann, Zeidonis, Etro (just for starters) and you'll see that the issue is much more nuanced and complex than what the common narrative tells you.

So does the narrative matter? Well, let's look at the rest of your comment.

You mention a "doubly linked list" patent. That patent is not the greatest ever, but it is _not_ a doubly linked list: [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art- for...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art-for-linked- list-secondary-and-tertiary-traversal)

(Note that even the highest rated answers there get it slightly off.)

Then, pinch to zoom; I'm not sure what you refer to by that, but the last time Apple's patent was mentioned on HN, its scope was also grossly misrepresented.

Your reply makes two things clear:

1) you have strong emotions about this topic; and

2) you don't really understand how these things work.

And seeing other comments on HN over many years, I can safely extrapolate another thing:

3) your condition is common to the vast majority of commenters here.

At least to me it seems clear why the narrative matters.

<comment><USER7> Why can't an astroturfer at least use a good pseudonym.

a). A data structure is patented. I'll give you that it's not a doubly linked- list, but seriously. If we are going to start claiming modifications are unique enough for a patent I guess I should probably look into copying some n-array.

b). [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,844,915.PN.&OS=PN/7,844,915&RS=PN/7,844,915) That patent is for zooming and making the UI 'bounce' as though somehow that is an amazing and ingenious idea. No, it's not. Just because I'm too stupid too invent an iPhone does not mean I couldn't have invented that in less than a week.

I do have strong emotions about this topic! When a company infringes on the hard work of others I think it's a real fucking big deal. When tripe shit gets media attention and takes years to settle, it just fucks over everyone with a real patent.

Listen, I agree with the Rearden steel narrative. But if we are going to let any fucker who can fill out a patent application get dibs on a goddamn data structure, well you can go fuck yourself. I'd rather be a damn hermit at that point.

<comment><USER5> Apologies for late reply. Who would I be astroturfing for, exactly?

a. Can you make a logical argument _why_ data structures should not be patented, as opposed to, say, mechanical or electronic structures? Try to differentiate them using concrete, technical reasons rather than handwavy "software is math" (aka "mechanisms are just physics" or "electronics are just flowing particles") arguments.

Also, modifications have always been patentable ("a better mousetrap" etc.) The thing is, this patent is not even a straightforward modification; I still have not figured out a solid reason why anyone would use this, a single multiply-ordered linked list, over multiple differently-ordered linked lists.

b. That's not the "rubber banding" patent you linked, that's the "pinch-to- zoom-if-touch-input-is-multi-point-else-scroll" patent. Anyway. You could argue both of those are bogus patents, but you have the benefit of hindsight. Hindsight is a very powerful bias, which is precisely why US (and most other places) require examiners to provide concrete proof, in the form of dated, published documents, of non-novelty or obviousness to deny a claim. This is, as far as I can tell, the only way to truly _objectively_ quantify a claim's contribution, and this is why you see the patents you see.

Not saying it's a perfect system, but once you decide that patents should be a thing, I personally can't think of a more objective one.

Also, if you think it's as easy as "fill out a patent application to get dibs on something", I strongly encourage you to give it a shot. Assuming a micro- entity status in the US, it should cost you a couple hundred bucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's generally Good News, however NZ is a member of the TPPA negotiations, and a willing one at that under their current right-wing government. I'm not up on the details but I'd not be surprised to learn that the provisions in the TPPA will include some kind of software patents and that this will over-ride local law.

<comment><USER9> In general international agreements don't override national law, they just oblige the countries in question to pass laws that bring them in line with the agreement. Which they commonly fail to do in all sorts of interesting ways. Part of the mechanism in the New Zealand case has been closer to redefining what software is rather than what patents are.

For New Zealand to add software patents back in would require back tracking and quite a loss of political capital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few months ago we were got legal threats by patent troll. It sucks that intellectual property is being abused to the point where startups need more lawyers than engineers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't slightly confusing to see the article was written by "Timothy B. Lee".</comment>


The 4 Hour Workday - <AUTHOR> http://thinksimplenow.com/productivity/the-4-hour-workday/ <comment><USER2> Let me summarize: "I usually slack off half the day. I realized I could move all my slacking to the second half of the day, and viola, 4 hour workday! I'm genius!"

I don't know about most people, but I get twice as much done in an 8 hour workday as I do in a 4 hour workday. It may even be more, because 8 hours gives me a greater proportion of time "in the zone."

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I freely admit that I don't work every minute of every day, but that's because you need to take breaks in order to refocus and mull over what you are working on. You can't cut the time you work in half (which for me often includes evenings and weekends) and expect to get the same amount done. The "extra" work that you add is often work that was unforseen when you started but became necessary as you understood the problem better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This feels particular topical to me this week. We just had a 5 day weekend in Japan and I spent most of it programming. It was easily my most productive "workweek" ever, and I probably wasted _half_ of it.

Yesterday was pretty representative: started working at 10:00, madly hacking away at client/server integration. Worked four solid hours and finally broke for lunch at 2:00, figuring that I would just tweak the integration when I got back and then start working on the web side. Tweaking the integration required installing Delayed::Job, which required learning how to use Git. Several hours later I was knee deep in Linux permissions errors and cursing loudly -- the wheels were spinning but no progress was being made, and I hadn't even coded the first screen for the web. I ended up doing at 7:30 what I should have done at 2:00 -- called it a good day's work.

(Sidenote: version 3.0, coming to a blog near you soon enough.)

<comment><USER5> > _Several hours later I was knee deep in Linux permissions errors and cursing > loudly_

On the other hand, these diversions have taught me a lot of assorted technical knowledge that I wouldn't have picked up otherwise.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention improving my vocabulary - mostly of swear words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "How to complete a full workday by noon?"

Hmm. That would require going to sleep before 5am and waking up before noon.

<comment><USER8> This might be stupid, but I'm not seeing the joke (if it is a joke). What do you mean, going to sleep before 5am and waking up before noon?

<comment><USER9> many of us stay up until 5am and then don't wake up until noon, making it mathematically impossible to complete a full workday before noon.

I wonder if Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>) is more prevalent among hacker-types than the general population.

<comment><USER8> That makes a lot of sense, thanks :-P

 _I wonder if Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome is more prevalent among hacker- types than the general population._

Given the sample size of "me", absolutely.

<comment><USER10> Make that a rate of 100% with a sample size of 2...

<comment><USER11> 200%?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Same idea in a different light:

 _"It's not how many hours you work, but how much work per hour you get done"_

</comment><comment><USER13> This might come off as a bit sad, but save moving to a warm country, I wouldn't know how to spend my time if I really did follow this and end at noon.

<comment><USER14> Watch LOST.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recognize myself into this article. I always add more work to my day when my daily list is done.

<comment><USER16> Me too. A more balanced approach would be to have "minimum" and "maximum" hours. Say that you would work at least until 13.00 and at most until 19.00. Finishing in this time frame you will call it a day, but you add more work before 13.00 and just stop after 19.00.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So, looking at the definition of noon it says it's twelve o'clock...

Now lets do the math - starting from 9 and working until 12 is 12-9=3 hours.

Well, maybe I got something wrong:

      9 -> 10 = 0 + 1 = 1 hour
      10-> 11 = 1 + 2 = 2 hours
      11-> 12 = 2 + 1 = 3 hours

hmm...

How on earth can I trust someone writing this kind of lengthy blog post if he cannot even get the simple math right. I wouldn't complain if it was a bit smaller issue - but the whole article is talking about 4-hour workday that starts from 9 and ends at noon :)

<comment><USER18> I didn't read anything saying his day started at 9. how on earth can i trust someone writing such a lengthy complaint when he can't even get the simple facts right :)

<comment><USER19> "If you view work as something that starts at 9 and ends at 5, you won't be able to finish everything by noon."

"If You Work at Home, Never Work 9-5"

But it's only a fencepost error.</comment></comment></comment>


5 ways how a recruiter can **** me off - <AUTHOR> http://www.grobmeier.de/5-ways-how-a-recruiter-can-drive-me-away-28092012.html <comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this list. Having similar experiences is exactly what led me to do something about it and build a new approach to recruiting which we are in pre-launch mode: <http://betacave.com>

Here is how our platform addresses each of your concerns:

1\. Phone calls are the 2nd step and not the 1st

All personal information is private. On betacave, recruiters can't get access to you unless you specifically allow it. I'm now telling recruiters that call me that if they want to connect, they'll have to go through betacave.

2\. Read my CV

We will provide tools to hopefully enable recruiters (both 3rd party and companies) to see how a candidate who has expressed interest matches with what they are looking for. Although we hope to make easier, it is still up to recruiter to actually care and read about you.

3\. Know what you are doing

Same as #2, we hope to make that easier for recruiter to know about you (if you want them to).

4\. Don't ask me to fool my customer

Not much we can help with that. That's just common sense.

5\. Respect my requirements

Exactly! Our learning algorithm will learn about what your requirements are based on your input and some machine learning to only send you matches that fit your requirements.

I'd appreciate you check out betacave.com and let me know if you think it would help reduce the friction involved with dealing with recruiters.</comment>


India's Next Outsourcing Wave Is IPhone Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-23/india-s-next-outsource-market-converges-with-iphone-apps-tech.html <comment><USER2> I am not sure what point Bloomberg is trying to convey. Is that all current iPhone developers should be scared, because all the "iPhone development" jobs are going into India.

Hasn't the same argument been used many times before in the past? Their (the outsourcing advocates) crystal ball on outsourcing hasn't exactly been correct. Right now is the best time to be in software in the US, even in a down economy.

It pains me when the "suits" try to dumb down development to something that can be off shored without any issues. There will definitely be a surge of mobile developers in India, like any other country, and some of them might make very good apps, just like here.

But the crux of this story, that some business person will come up with an iPhone idea, and just outsource it to and Indian company and profit, it is just disingenuous.

In the best case, the Indian company gets the ability to create superb , top 50 in app store applications. If they have that ability, why would just accept 20-30 dollars per hour, when they can get 70% of how much their apps makes.

Sorry Bloomberg just fails!

<comment><USER3> You are right and the article misses the obvious. There is a wave of outsourcing every few years, it ends up not being the bill or goods it was sold as, it comes back and they end up paying 3X the cost because in the mean time people leave the development industry to find greener pastures. I fear we are doomed to repeat this cycle until accounting can account for non-tangible value. Every day we as US citizens are inundated with cultural knowledge stuff that we just take for granted about our culture. This stuff has profound impact on everything we do, even development things that we do will seem backwards to another culture and as such will be missed in creative processes that reflect systems within our culture. Until someone figures out how to convey that to other developers offshore project will carry with them a higher risk of failure.</comment></comment>


Study that said Diet Coke can help you lose weight was funded by Coca-Cola - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/study-that-said-diet-fizzy-drunks-can-help-weight-loss-was-quietly-funded-by-coca-cola-and-pepsi-a6817686.html <comment><USER2> Doesn't mean it's not true.

> "This research was published in the International Journal of Obesity, a > peer-reviewed journal, which means the data and conclusions have been > scrutinised by other scientists. We therefore stand by the findings. It was > funded by a range of bodies including the NHS and European Union, as well as > ILSI Europe."

<comment><USER3> But still, even with full review of the collected data, it calls into question any data "left on the cutting room floor" so to speak.

Peer review doesn't account for forgery of data.

The failure to declare a conflict of interest is pretty suspect.

> But the published paper does not disclose that it has given some of the co- > authors fees of around £750 each.

It may just be the appearance of impropriety, but it REALLY looks bad.

I'd say that until there are replicated results, its enough to consider it "likely invalid."</comment></comment>


Show HN: Impact Investment Funds – Growth-Enabled P2P Lending Donation Funds - <AUTHOR> https://p2p-microlending-blog.zidisha.org/2016/11/24/introducing-impact-investment-funds/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm Julia, the founder of Zidisha (YC W14 nonprofit). This is the first time in two years we've offered a loan fund that is designed to grow in value over time. I'd welcome feedback on the appeal of a compounding-value donation fund and on our implementation of it.

<comment><USER2> Hi Julia,

Congrats on the success so far! Wishing your team and the entrepreneurs you are helping even greater success to come.

I don't know all that much about microlending, but I do know quite a bit about investment funds, so I clicked the link hoping to learn more and maybe help offer some feedback if relevant.

After reading your blog post I still didn't fully understand it so I went to your main site to try to learn more. I read through the FAQs too, but still have a couple questions:

For example: while exploring some of the projects on your site I came across Ms. Mwangi from Kenya asking for a loan to buy shoes and clothes for her clothing line. [https://www.zidisha.org/loan/shoes-clothes-for-my- clothline-...](https://www.zidisha.org/loan/shoes-clothes-for-my-clothline- bokiewear)

 _Ms. Mwangi is asking to borrow $509.00

The cost of the loan details show:

-Service Fee: 5% of $509.00 = $25.47

-Lifetime membership fee: $50.95

-Optional Pay into Zidisha Members Loan Fund in return for a higher starting credit limit: $428.02

The costs total: $504.44_

To me this looks like costs and fees totalling $504 in order for her to borrow $5?

So my sincere apologies for any misunderstanding on my part. I realize microlending has unique risks and challenges compared to other types of lending. And of course a practical amount of money needs to got to Zidisha to help cover costs and expenses of the good work you guys are doing.

But how can costs and fees be $504 for a $5 loan? Is that correct? The costs to loan value seem _very high_ to say the least. If you see this, I'd really appreciate a bit of clarity and info on these details. Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking a look and for your feedback. The default starting loan for first-time borrowers without a track record is very small (around $10). If a first-time borrower opts to start with the small default amount, there is no Members Loan Fund deposit required. But if a first-time borrower is confident they can repay larger amounts, we offer the option of depositing the difference between the ~$10 default first-time loan amount and the desired starting credit limit into the Members Loan Fund upon joining Zidisha. The net amount received for the first loan is still $10, but after successful repayment of the first loan, the borrower may take out larger loans commensurate with the starting loan they have repaid.

The Members Loan Fund deposit may be withdrawn at any time the borrower does not have an outstanding loan. It may also be used to pay off the remaining balance of an outstanding loan, if the borrower requests it. If the loan goes into arrears, it is used to reimburse lenders for the amount they had lent.

The lifetime membership fee is currently zero, but at the time this borrower joined, it was 10% of the starting credit limit chosen by the applicant. (So someone choosing the default starting credit limit of $10 would pay a lifetime membership fee of $1.)

The above costs are only paid once, at the time a borrower first joins Zidisha, and entitle the borrower to lifetime access to raise loans. You can learn more about why we developed a lending model that front-loads costs here: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/the-story-of- zidi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/the-story-of-zidisha- dram_b_9580894.html)

The 5% service fee is a flat percentage of each loan amount, and is independent of the loan term. If Ms. Mwangi opts to hold the loan for two years, she would still pay only $25.47.

We'll aim to make this clearer in the cost breakdown explanation. Thanks again!

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the reply.

1\. Part of the reason I found the Members Loan Fund confusing was the terminology in the FAQ wasn't clear it's a deposit which could be withdrawn if the borrower no longer has an outstanding loan.

2\. I understand depositing the difference of first loan into the MLF helps facilitate future larger loans at a higher credit limit. Though how it works seems to involve a borrower receiving a ~$10 loan, but then being asked to "repay" the lender a very different loan amount in some cases hundreds of dollars – over the course of only a few weeks...These entrepreneurs able to turn $10 into $100s in profits so quickly would be very impressive. Maybe repayments come from another source.

3\. There may be more behind this part but it looks like when good borrowers pay back their loans in full and they eventually move on from Zidisha they would take their MLF deposit with them as they leave. At the same time there are the borrowers who take out loans and default on repayment and don't come back; they end up creating a loss as their MLF deposit doesn't cover the full loan value.

Basically this sounds like a system exposed to some moral hazard and adverse selection but without a mechanism for good actors to help offset any losses from bad actors. ie people leaving Zidisha are either ~neutral to the fund or they created a loss, no one ever moves through leaving a net positive. It's comparable to insurance company model and doesn't sound sustainable if this is what's happening - and made more difficult if the biz model involves spending the principal and keeping the interest instead of spending interest and keeping the principal.

With that said, I do want to mention I read the huffpo link. It's awesome the way you guys are iterating based on observations and innovating as you build this - making it more efficient. It's really exciting to see this happening on this level in the non-profit space.

I realize you have a challenging two sided market to grow that requires balancing info and experience for many people across many countries. It seems really complicated too how to handle the different messaging that lenders and borrowers need here respectively and then also keeping things consistent as one platform. And it's P2P lending which brings with it all kinds of hurdles and biases. And it's also non-profit work! Which nobody seems to get is real work and too many crazy people love to complain about (PS I hope you are not underpaying yourself for this role, I see way too many underpaid non-profit workers). Basically what you are building looks darn hard to do, and it's super impressive what's been built so far, a ton of respect from me. Best of luck.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Did Google kill the long tail? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/01/did-google-kill-the-longtail/

<comment><USER2> No, dear, if your business relied on people spelling words incorrectly you were already doomed.

Google is a winner takes all deathmatch, except it creates many more winners by letting different products or services win in every individual search term. This is the long tail of stuff you couldn't even find out about before the internet landed in our laps. The long tail isn't even fully populated. You can't buy a book about unicorns riding skateboards, but I'm sure that once you can, you'll be able to find it easily through google, or bing, or amazon, or apple, or well, the whole wonderful internet.

You see, the "long tail" isn't about stuffing dreadful SEO optimised semi- products cloned from content mills, it's the outlet for creators of awesome products that no one ever knew they wanted, until the internet let each and every community of peculiar but particular consumers coalesce. Stop calling it the "long tail" but call it "commerce", call it "shopping", call it "stuff you never knew you wanted or could get" but don't confuse it with "stuff people can't spell".

</comment><comment><USER3> So - I had a mate that built an application that made it trivial to deploy a niche ebay site with tens of thousands of pages. He had an insane number of them - and briefly got his revenue upwards around two hundred k per year (tho panda kicked in before a year of that income level was achieved). Google raped his servers indexing all his pages and sent him an enormous amount of traffic.

This was the long tail. Folks trying to get to a place that have the niche item they are looking for - having to wade through an endless see of affiliate sites to get there.

Now ignoring for the moment Aaron Wall's thesis that this is all part of Google shitting on the little guy - here's an undeniable fact:

The proliferation and sophistication of affiliate spammers made it impossible for Google to continue taking chances on 'unknowns' that hadn't previously done the work of establishing themselves. Hence the reliance on brand strength that Google was forced to turn to.

This is unfortunate. It was wonderful to see so many deserving people getting ahead and building new brands on account of the relative freedom Google granted to the long tail previously. But making it so cheap and easy to get ahead in this way attracted a zillion folks that just wanted to suck as much juice from the system.

Does that mean Aaron Wall and others are wrong about Google intentions? (i.e. to keep users within their own garden) Probably not... But I think the onus on folks like Aaron Wall to provide a positive account of what else Google could have done. Otherwise, I remain convinced that Google was heading into Yahoo and Myspace land if they hadn't made the changes they have.

</comment><comment><USER4> The takeaway from this seems to be that Google no longer rewards attempts to game its SERPs. I can't help but think of this as a good thing.

<comment><USER5> The issue here is that it's still really easy to game SERPs, it just takes more money to do so and a willingness to step in gray hat territory. Search plus your world has the potential to make it very hard if not impossible to game SERPs, however.

The takeaway from the infographic should really be that Aaron Wall (of seobook.com) runs a business that teaches (white hat?) SEO to small business owners. It's in his best interest to make SEO seem incredibly complex, difficult, and full of dangers. Which is relatively true: effective SEO is hard to do. Wall, like any good SEO, keeps up with algorithm changes. He's a smart guy, and he's most likely figured out how to overcome all of the challenges in that infographic (for $X.XX he'll show you!). It's linkbait. And great inbound marketing.

Also, Aaron Wall is a very outspoken critic of Google. There's a post every week or two on his blog about Google's ethics (or lack thereof). It's really fascinating stuff, well worth a read [1].

1\. <http://www.seobook.com/blog>

<comment><USER6> Being knowledgable in internet marketing, the first thing I spotted was that the context of this article is to be an advertisement at hackernews et al.

I am tired of "marketers" posting content here, and I suggest that we should downvote the post and upload the image at an imagehost.

<comment><USER7> So you're tired of "marketers", yet you think the image has some value, so you want to rip it off the origin website to remove the attribution?

I'm guessing you're also vehemently against copyright laws.

Also, with a new account you're talking about _advertisement at hackernews_ and being _tired of marketers posting content here_?

I'm just fascinated by how 80% of all complaints about the degrading quality of HN come from new users.

<comment><USER4> Their username looks like random keyboard mashing, so it's likely a regular who doesn't want the comment associated with their usual profile.

<comment><USER7> Or maybe a username that got (hell) banned.

And while I get the need for anonymity, people really need to grow some balls and stand-up by their beliefs.

<comment><USER8> After you, bad_user.

<comment><USER7> My personal website, which gives away my name, my email and links to my detailed LinkedIn account (amongst others), is given in my profile and that link is there for quite some time. I'm not posting under anonymity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This infographic is like watching a politician spin their selfish agenda into a "think of the children!" plea. Pretty funny actually.

<comment><USER10> How so?

(Not knowing much about web marketing and SEO, I feel like I'm missing a lot of the context to understand this topic.)

<comment><USER4> They're complaining about a shady, user-harming tactic no longer working thanks to Google's malevolence. It would be analogous to the Drunk Drivers' Forum complaining about roadside checks penalizing those who had trained themselves to drive in a straight line while drunk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let me guess, Google is also evil for buying the domains "gooogle.com" and "gppgle.com". How will sellers of gppgles be able to compete with that evil monopoly!?

</comment><comment><USER12> I was surprised by the fact that Google no longer passes along the search query for logged in users. Checked my analytics account and it is now about 7.5% of all organic search traffic and climbing up.

Anyone know the rationale behind this one? How does this help in fighting the spam? Or how does it improve search experience?

</comment><comment><USER13> Original source: [http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/infographics/longtail- fail....](http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/infographics/longtail-fail.php)

<comment><USER6> jpg source: <http://image.bayimg.com/hampdaadc.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually, I would think Googles new social search stuff will help promote small brands. If your friends are talking about a product it will be pushed to the top of your search results.

Could be great for a little games company like mine. I make very niche games and have no hope of being ranked for a term like "strategy game". I hope that if people are talking us in their circles we might get a few more hits.

</comment><comment><USER15> 80/20. They get more searches for the short tail(and more advertisers therefore), so they're trying to push more people that direction.

Makes good business sense, although it might be annoying for some SEOs</comment>


Right to speak freely about engineering is subject of First Amendment lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/right-to-speak-freely-about-engineering-is-subject-of-1st-amendment-lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> Two things. 1. This guy didn't just talk about traffic engineering, he specifically claimed to have special expertise _as an engineer_ to comment on the issue, blatantly disregarding what should have been his own professional ethics. 2. Unlike some states, it's against the law in Oregon to enter an intersection when the light is yellow, a fact not noted in the article and apparently missed by this guy's analysis.

Also, any actual licensed engineers want to comment on the ethics of using one's professional status to press a personal grudge?</comment>


Ask HN: Why imitating Apple is so hard for overall industry - <AUTHOR> why imitating Apple product, mindset and culture is so hard. I am seeing normal capability engineering folks doing normal product engineering development but the product quality is exceptionally high.
I understand that they make their own hardware and software and have better overall design thinking ,but it seems there is lot more than these individual pieces.
please share insights on same. <comment><USER3> I take it you're only talking about hardware product development, right? Apple's software product quality is pretty low. There certainly are lots of companies that far exceed Apple when it comes to software.

As for the hardware products, I think it mostly comes down to making quality a strategic priority. As a result they're willing to spend more money and make sacrifices in other areas in order to build great high-quality hardware and a cohesive overall experience for users. For example, I suspect they deliberately de-prioritize pre-installed/default apps, like maps and email, and make hardware and integration throughout their ecosystem a higher priority. They let their apps be just good enough to keep too many people from downloading alternatives but they don't try to make them great. People buy iPhones because they are widely seen as "the best" overall phone. Most people won't buy a phone because of any one app, so there is no point in making any one better than good enough. So that's one area where they allocate resources in a way that drives hardware quality.

Other smartphone makers have different strategic priorities that make them deprioritize quality. For example, some compete on low prices. Google got into the smartphone business largely for defensive reasons, and they've never put much focus on creating great phones. Microsoft was starting to follow Apple's strategy, and maybe could have given them a run for their money, but they gave up pretty quickly because they could make more money elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not only mentioning about the hardware product development, rather overall product experience. I mean in terms of software upgrade process, touchscreen latency , connecting to external monitor etc. etc.. all these features work so seamlessly working every time even after so many number of years. Even though the hardware and software is not the best in the industry but system overall performance and user experience is far far better than any other product out there. Question is why does this apple secretive system optimization process been easily followed for other consumer products like TV , Auto , VR glasses by other companies. Are they not trying enough or they don't know the complete picture of how to apply it ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Their focus on design and what the user feels is amazing. Not so much so now, but the Steve Jobs era.

My favorite example is a few years back (don't remember how many) - <USER2> perceived iPhones as waaay faster than android phones, even though they had similar CPUs. It's because Apple made sure that in the hardware + software, the screen refresh would take priority. So users would literally see everything faster. It took Google years to finally do the same - they simply didn't think it would matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right.. i am trying to understand if thats so obvious then why companies like google, samsung , amazon is unable to imitate that apple product mindset. in terms of technology they have everything or even better than apple but still product quality is far less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not working at Apple, but I just want to point out that there is a big power in terms of quality when a company controls the end-to-end process of creating a product.

Here are some examples:

\- It eliminates some quality issues due to requirements misunderstanding

\- It eliminates some delays specially the ones related to decision making

\- It might allow deployment of the same levels of QA and QC with impact in the final product

<comment><AUTHOR> I get it control over e2e process is important but there are other companies too like Samsung, MSFT ,AMAZ and even GOOG who has control over most of the e2e product pipeline but still cannot deliver Apple quality product, not even close.

I think there is something more deeper here which is worth putting effort to explore and to be spread across different companies, otherwise this product quality gap will never be closed.

I am huge fan of APPL but at same point I want their product decision knowhow to be spread across different industries like in health , education , automotive , VR to have deeper impact on overall society. APPL by itself cannot enter into all these segments on its own so there is no direct competition for them.

I am always fascinated by how APPL abstract solid technology(hardware and software both) underneath their minimalist design which make their products so painless to be used addictively on daily basis.</comment></comment>


Out for Blood in Silicon Valley: (Theranos Documentary Review) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley-review-a-bitter-pill-11552598086 <comment><USER2> She changed her _voice_? Wow.</comment>


Show HN: I ported an XBox Live Indie Game to HTML5 in 2 days. - <AUTHOR> http://www.luminance.org/blog/code/2012/04/14/bytown-lumberjack-html5-behind-the-scenes Site seems to be getting hammered, so here's a direct link to the demo: http://hildr.luminance.org/Lumberjack/Lumberjack.html <comment><USER2> Sigh, reading about javascript hacks reminds me how horrible the application development environment for browsers is. Web browsers are fundamentally not designed to enable the development of complex modern applications. That needs to change if web-apps are the future.

<comment><USER3> I didn't see anything horrible being said about the development for browsers. The problems were mostly XNA functionalities that he hadn't implemented in his XNA to html5 converter.

<comment><USER2> These kinds of sprite based games have been around for decades and used to be developed on hardware orders of magnitude less powerful. The fact that such a thing would ever have performance problems on modern hardware is a joke and shows how backwards web development is.

<comment><USER4> I like to think that web development with all these new "features" enable people a nice playground to get hooked. While I'm disappointed that the there is no easy "mode 13" to get started with fun graphics programming, I'm optimistic that a platform is getting built that enables people to iterate on making things fun that will then drive people to go deeper in the stack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cached version here: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OT6g2bc...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OT6g2bcmll0J:www.luminance.org/blog/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, despite having CloudFlare caching in front of it, the web server completely fell over. It should be redirecting to a working mirror now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome technology, thanks!

Crashed my Firefox and in Chrome it clips and moves worse than similar games on my 133MHz machine back in the day.

Now can you port it to pure CSS? How about ASCII art in streaming JSON?

i5/4GB MacBook Air

<comment><USER7> 9fps here on i7 with chrome, almost as fast as minecraft :)

<comment><USER8> Strange, my little 2.4 Core Duo was fine with it (~30fps) and typically does very badly with these games. For contrast Minecraft can cause this laptop to overheat and shut down if not using an additional cooling stand. Perhaps I don't need to upgrade after all!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Small nitpick: I would differentiate between HTML5 and WebGL and would describe this as a WebGL game.

That said I died two times in level 3.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't require WebGL. If you only have Canvas, it'll use Canvas. It works in IE9.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have no idea what do do with those rock throwing people.

The masked person bugged out and attacked me with no delay between his attacks - there was just a buzz of the sound effect being played and my character being taken from half health to 0.

<comment><USER11> Haha same here regarding the rock throwers - they should definitely stagger when heavy hit or something.

Technically the port was flawless for me, performance was good on 2.2GHz i7 Macbook Pro / Chrome 18.0.

edit: The unlock full version button didn't work for me (not sure if that's a technical issue or deliberate because it's not implemented yet.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The unlock link opens a popup, so that probably got blocked by your browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome port und JS/browser/canvas/webgl tech demo.

I think the gameplay is ok for a casual game (kind of doubledragon style and fun) but the overall style, the topic, the enemies, the beard, the story is not on par with the tech

</comment><comment><USER13> Do you think it is possible to do this in a generic fashion, or would you have to port games one at a time?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you had a generic implementation of all the libraries, you could probably do this automatically, but having the game source code and doing some tuning produces much better results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems not to work on Linux.

<comment><USER15> Works fine here: Arch x86_64, Chromium 18.0.1025.142, Radeon 4850 w/ xf86-video-ati.

<comment><USER16> Didn't work here. Arch x86_64, Chromium 18.0.1025.151, Intel Mobile 4.

Even starting with `chromium --enable-webgl --ignore-gpu-blacklist`.

Worked fine on Windows though. Good job porting it to the Web, very funny game :)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you clear your cache and try it again it might work now. I improved the handling of busted WebGL implementations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Here is my YC application. No interview - <AUTHOR> http://blog.truffle.io/truffles-yc-application <comment><USER2> Feedback:

1) I feel like including in your limited app space/pitch "finding people of your class" is a poor indicator of your ability to market the product. While there is some way to spin the whole "find people with similar intellectual interests/career aspirations/etc.), referring to "class" specifically seems elitist, and would be poor marketing IMO.

2) In the "impressive things," Nishant wrote "getting scholarship" though it should've said "getting a scholarship."

3) The tone of the app seems childish at points (references to "fat little boy," "I want to spread love"). While it's good to not take yourself too seriously, it might've been a little too much perhaps?

4) I don't think you explained/framed very well what exactly is the problem that people are facing that you are solving. If you can draw upon some references to people really preferring to date others with similar educational/professional background or something, that would've probably helped.

Just wanted to give some constructive (but conjectural) feedback. Good luck guys! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> -> class thing specifically backfired for us but the intent was as you said "people with similar intellectual interests/career aspirations/"

Thanks for the feedback, I guess this is going on our next one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'll say this, I feel for the YC partners reading through submission after submission. After reading the few that have been posted on HN the past few days, I'm exhausted. It's hard to give a lot of attention to each of these without skimming through and just saying "meh, next".

Much like an English teacher reading through 30 essays.

<comment><USER4> >It's hard to give a lot of attention to each of these without skimming through and just saying "meh, next".

>Much like an English teacher reading through 30 essays.

An English teacher gets it worse as s/he forced to actually read and comment through "meh" content (i pity ones who read my essays back then in Russian and here in English)

For this application I read only first couple phrases until "3 matches every 3 days", and just being an HN reader for 4 years, i see that this startup isn't YC-material (that isn't saying that they aren't A+/brilliant grade material in general as i didn't read further)

<comment><AUTHOR> >For this application I read only first couple phrases until "3 matches every 3 days", and just being an HN reader for 4 years, i see that this startup isn't YC-material

Please elaborate on this so we can circle back on our marketing pitch.

<comment><USER4> Boring, sounds like something that has been done before. 3 by 3 and bonus 4th on fish taco Thurdays. To put it in the terms of your business area, [my impression that] YC is looking to be swept from their feet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would use Truffle if it were in my locale (British Columbia).

I like how you wrote the application answers. You come across as smart (but not cocky), engaged, and enthusiastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thanks, I guess writing YC application answers helped me in defining my vision and pitch better.

BC is not far from Seattle, should be there by end of this year :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think if you want to get into YC you have to fulfill one of the three criteria:

1\. You are hugely changing the world

2\. You can completely disrupt an existing industry

3\. You can be a billion dollar company

Good apps do fulfill all the three, however I think yours wouldn't be able to fulfill one of these unfortunately.

Let look at the points:

1\. It looks like you have a cool app, but it's not much different to other dating sites. You will probably be a good dating website, but not "change the world"

2\. You are not specifically in an industry like taxis, golf or cars. You are in the dating industry, which has 1000s of established competitors

3\. I'm confident you probably can be a $50M company, but not "billion-dollar" company. There are 1000s of established competitors already in the market and it will be very hard to be 10x better than everyone else. It's also hard, because dating websites were competitive 10 years ago. Nowadays you might get a market share in the super competitive Dating-space as a viral mobile app like Tinder, however as a website it is just impossible.

Didn't want to shoot you guys down, but hope I could give you useful feedback so that you know what is important to focus on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love your feedback, I do agree that there is a lot of competition in the online dating market but still I believe that the way it is done currently will be disrupted. People are just used to the current way of browsing a catalogue of images and brute forcing their way to get some one reply to their messages.

<comment><USER6> Hey thanks!

I think you can monetize pretty early with your model, so once you rake a few thousand dollars in per month and show that it will be in the ten thousands in three months, you can easily get Angel investment.

Once you have decent traction, nobody cares about the "billion-dollar" startup anymore and everybody invests ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I met my girlfriend on an online dating site and being able to send messages was essential. I know it's a drag for guys to constantly send messages without a response, but for women it's a critical safety filter. Tinder strikes a good balance where you get to message only of there is a match, but if there were no chat, then I'm positive no one would use it for dating.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like the quality of application really is sky high if something like this didn't even get an interview.

The team sounds smart and accomplished, and objectively interesting. You guys have done a lot of data driven user research as well, which shows maturity when compared to a lot of the other startups out there.

I wish you guys the best of luck, don't give up and keep working on that :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Please keep your chins up on this one. I think this is a great concept and it could legitimately solve the one major beef I've always had with dating sites like OkCupid (for long-term relationships, I'm only interested in working professionals, and it's quite a hassle to filter out the right profiles sometimes; I also generally find the messaging phase to be worthless, as most people decide whether they want to meet someone based only on the profile).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, YC rejection has made us even stronger to improve our product further.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given that the YC partners have a ton of applications to read, and given that your second sentence ("It simple.") suggests you didn't proofread your application, it's possible they didn't continue reading it.

<comment><USER11> "...people using traditional online dating loose hope..."

It is nitpicking, but when you're in ultra-intense competition with lots of other good applications, I'm sure these things matter at least on a subconscious level. If I were to apply, I'd proof-read my application until it was perfect.

Oh, and is it just me, or was this one very long? If this is the hundredth application you're reading, you might look at this and be scared off by its length. Not saying anything about the quality of the applicants -- I'm sure they're talented and motivated -- but this little text they're submitting is what gets them either in or out. It's important.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. This is great, YC doesn't give you feedback on the rejection but the HN community does. Thank you guys so much for reading through our application and giving us some very useful feedback.

</comment><comment><USER12> The grammar was atrocious. There were too many grammatical errors to list here, but for God's sake please use a grammar check. Paul Graham's grammar is perfect and yours should be, too.

</comment><comment><USER13> You only have 57 users? That's not enough traction for a dating site with _a lot_ of assumptions regarding what users want to garner any attention from the likes of YC.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have 315 users now(still not much, I totally agree in terms of YC numbers). "57" is the number that we converted from the likes of okCupid and match on to truffle

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dating meets Groupon meet Uber.

Guy and Girl both pay for a date

Site matches Guy, Girl selects 1 activity and 1 dinner a driver and autopays for everything. The two people just show up and enjoy there date.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1) Can you elaborate on the 'no messaging' logic?

2) I hope you have a rockstar marketing/leadgen guru.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. On dating websites like okCupid and match.com, you have to write a message to the other person to start a conversation. On Truffle, there is no online messaging. You are presented with 3 users every 3 days, if you like them, you send them a coffee invitation at one of our Truffle meet up cafes.

<comment><USER16> Why this? Why no messages?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, would love to get comments from the HN community.

<comment><USER17> It offers to match you with people in the same "class". Class is verboten in Canada/US unless it's "the middle class". There's probably a nicer way to say that.

<comment><USER18> This isn't one of the apps that I read, but that would definitely be a negative for me. The world doesn't need more class divisions.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, I agree. I guess @mlyang put that in better words than us "people with similar intellectual interests/career aspirations"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe because this isn't an original idea at all.</comment>


Ask HN: Parser for Java - <AUTHOR>

I've done google searches, and generally get back Parser Generators in Java / how to write Parsers in Java.
What I want instead, is just a single industrial parser that can parse Java source code (like anything that the jvm can run). (Doing some really simple static analysis stuff).
Is there anything "official" that's easy to modify, like a parser from Sun or IBM or eclipse?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I believe that one of the ANTLR examples (as provided in the source download), is a Java parser. <http://www.antlr.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you looking for JavaCC? <https://javacc.dev.java.net/>

</comment><comment><USER4> >> industrial parser that can parse Java source code (like anything that the jvm can run)

Do you mean a parser for Java source code or bytecode? I would guess the former, but the reference to "anything that the jvm can run" suggests you may be looking for bytecode...

<comment><AUTHOR> Java source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eclipse has the JDT package which gives you access to the parser that Eclipse uses internally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah; this is closest to what I want; though if I can use the Sun one Sun uses for javac, it'd be even better.

<comment><USER6> Yes, Javac is open source. You can't get any more official than that. <http://openjdk.java.net/groups/compiler/></comment></comment></comment>


The U.S. economy is growing and using less and less stuff to do so - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/ideacast/2019/09/dematerialization-and-what-it-means-for-the-economy-and-climate-change <comment><USER2> So I read the Jesse Ausubel essay that apparently inspired this, and while I'm tempted to dismiss it all as utter unsupported horseshit, that would be unsupported as well. The most I can say that is defensible is that I'm suspicious of it, and here are some random thoughts about reasons why, in no particular order:

It could be clearer throughout, whether he's talking per capita or overall.

Data is selective and ignores resource utilization shifts. Example: In the 1940s crop acreage decoupled from crop yield, he says. Great! Instead it coupled to petroleum and energy, he doesn't say. American farms today are in the business of converting fossil fuels to food. For example, the 1940s are when when cheap internal-combustion tractors started being mass-produced, thanks to all that spare manufacturing capacity left over after the war. There's also a graph where he looks at "every input" into growing corn, even down to the phosphates, while scrupulously avoiding any talk of fuel or energy.

A resource shift of a different kind: efficiency gains in chicken production are due mostly to inhumane factory farm conditions. (Ones to which pork & beef are less amenable, hence chicken outdoes them.)

Wood is no longer used for railroad ties, because we use concrete. Which has its own problems! The point in most of this _kind_ of example is that we stop using A because B comes along to fill the void. Nobody uses paper anymore, but they sure use a lot more lithium than they used to. And so on.

Finally, and speaking of stepping in to fill the void: ctrl-F - "China" \- 1 match. The single mention is to refer to it as a developing country, not to acknowledge it as the present-day location of much of the USA's manufacturing.

<comment><USER3> Re concrete, I've been hearing a lot that we are running out of sand (the kind we make glass out of and the kind we make concrete out of).

Is that true? Anyone have numbers/research on sand that's good?

<comment><USER4> Depends who you mean by "we". Seems there are regional shortages [1], but the US only hits supply constraints occasionally.

[1] [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/world- facing-g...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/world-facing- global-sand-crisis-180964815/)

<comment><USER5> Also discussed on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15739917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15739917)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This does not take into account materials use in other countries that is in direct relation to the US economy. US is not primarily a resource-extraction economy, and many of its firms do most of their manufacturing overseas. Rarely will a high-tech company buy natural resources directly / from a US source. It won't show up in any of the studies' metrics of 'stuff used'. This objection came up recently in a panel discussion about this study as well.

<comment><USER7> Yes, it's either disingenuous or incredibly naive to ignore the outsourcing of materials-intensive activities to other countries, the most obvious example being manufacturing. Would our rate of material use look so low if we included the materials used for every retail good sold, regardless of where it was manufactured? I doubt it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting quote from the (long) transcript:

"The USGS tracks, I believe, 72 different materials. I think all, but six-ish of them are now on a downward trend. The biggest exception is actually plastics, but there's something interesting going on there as well. Overall plastics consumption used to grow even more quickly than the economy did. Plastics are super useful. We use them all over the place. Now, plastics use is still increasing, but it's increasing more slowly than the overall economy is."

</comment><comment><USER9> There was a big moment this decade where metrics like life expectancy and quality of life decoupled from energy consumption. Which is a capitalized Big Deal in economics.

If you actually believe that software has the ability to change the world, this is it in action.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, as software and frameworks get more complex, they require more compute to run. Software hasn't decoupled economic growth from energy consumption, it has just made the energy consumption harder to see.

Edit: since people are asking for examples, I would have to point to the insane cost of training modern ML models. For instance, according to [1], training a single big NLP model can burn up to 620,000 lbs of CO2.

I say a lot of energy consumption is hidden because it's generally moved to data centres, which by the way use up astronomical amounts of energy [2]

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.02243](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.02243)

[2] [https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/trends-data- centre-e...](https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/trends-data-centre- energy-consumption-under-european-code-conduct-data-centre-energy-efficiency)

<comment><USER11> Moore's law has decreased amount of energy required to run the same code.

<comment><USER12> I think Moore's law was just about compute capability, not energy consumption. I could be wrong, though. That being said, processors have become more efficient. I think the other poster was saying that our code complexity often expands to fill the voids. Obvious examples are neutral nets, render farms, crypto mining. But then there is the cost of React vs vanilla, electron vs native. Efficient processors don't necessarily mean less energy consumption, though I think in general that had still proven to be true.

<comment><USER13> The way Moore's law worked was that ever more fraction of energy was being used for compute instead of fort waste heat.

<comment><USER14> I deal with low power microcontrollers. They keep using less and less power while running faster.

Old Z80 based board I first worked on drew 1A at 5V, so 5W. Put your hand on it, it's nice a warm. Current board I'm dicking with draws 8ma at 3V or 0.024W. 200 times less power. But it's 50 to 100 times faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems like it's a natural result of the US economy being concentrated in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, i.e just shuffling money around rather than production.

<comment><USER16> If only it was just shuffling money around. From another post today:

> in the three years since the signing of the Paris climate accord, which was > designed to help the world shift away from fossil fuels, the banks' lending > to the [fossil fuels] industry has increased every year, and much of the > money goes toward the most extreme forms of energy development. [0]

Also I wonder how much of that "dematerialization" is due to outsourcing manufacturing to other countries.

[0] [https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/money-is-the- ox...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/money-is-the-oxygen-on- which-the-fire-of-global-warming-burns)

<comment><USER17> That's nice virtue signalling, but at what point would finance's share of US GDP be alarming to you? Should 1 in 10 people really be working to allocate resources?

In another industry, healthcare, people complain passionately about the costs but never about the fact that while technology, efficiencies have improved there has been a 100-fold increase in the number of healthcare administrators per capita. A lot of our economy is just shuffling people and money around -- not actually efficiently allocating resources to produce useful goods and services--oh about that abnormal growth in the people who are supposed to be responsible for that?

<comment><USER16> The finance's share of US GDP, as well as the number of BS administrative jobs, _IS_ alarming to me. I am not sure how my comment implied otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Increasing efficiency is different than lowering total waste. People push for efficiency thinking it will lower total waste, but you can easily increase efficiency and increase total waste.

In the physical environment, total waste is our biggest concern. Our economies are more efficient than ever, but we're also producing more total waste than ever.

We have to focus on lowering total waste. I talked about this in my podcast episode 183: "Reusing and recycling are tactical. Reducing is strategic." [https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the- environment/episod...](https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the- environment/episodes/183-reusing-and-recycling-are-tactical-reducing-is- strategic)

<comment><USER19> "Jevon's Paradox"

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the reference, today I learned: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a theory that "the solution to pollution is economic growth"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve#Environmental_Ku...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve#Environmental_Kuznets_curve)

It is controversial (and I'm uncertain about it personally)

<comment><USER22> Are we just exporting the pollution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I believe in the power of software, but also wonder how much of this growth is due to financial engineering (specifically debt being bought and sold at varying interest rates)?

</comment><comment><USER24> The point is that it keeps adding up year after year. Sure we could use less plastic and still the series of partial sums converges to a really large number.

This is not sustainable. Elephants in Africa. Insects and birds. Desertification. Deforestation. Brazil chopped down the size of Hong Kong in a few weeks. Plastic in the oceans. CO2 PPM is on a steady rise. Permafrost is melting. And we are saying what?

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeralization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeralization)

> Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of > technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until > eventually you can do everything with nothing," that is, an accelerating > increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output (products, > services, information, etc.) while requiring less input (effort, time, > resources, etc.).[1] Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result > in ever-increasing standards of living for an ever-growing population > despite finite resources.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wait, things are not as bad as has been crammed down our throats for years? Imagine my surprise. But, yet many armchair doomsayers will still only find the negative. Yes, this isn't perfect. But neither am I. Or you. Peace

</comment><comment><USER27> This can easily be reversed. What exactly is being measured as growth if it does not result in more stuff being consumed and produced?

Growth measures aren't usually linked to soft outcomes (eg, happiness, moral fulfilment, access to basic needs, etc) because they are too hard to measure. Growth measures aren't linked to stuff produced (thesis of article).

We're measuring something. Probably some sort of technological advancement. Does it make sense to call it growth? If resources Energy per capita is dropping; I would call that contraction rather than growth. I like having access to stuff.

<comment><USER28> If your car gets twice the mpg and you're consuming half as much gas do you consider that a bad thing? You're deriving the same amount of utility at half the resource cost.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, but that isn't growth. Growth is my car gets twice the mpg and I now have a petrol heater on cold nights. Or I drive twice as far. My lifestyle staying the same from one week to the next is stagnation even if I'm using less resources.

This is an appeal to Jeveron's paradox. If efficiencies increase, growth looks like getting _much_ more output. Getting the same output when efficiencies increase doesn't signal growth.

I suspect the disconnect is people think that "good" and "growth" mean the same thing. That isn't a real link. The situation doesn't look like it is growing, even if it is good.

<comment><USER29> Your savings on gasoline would be put in banks which would create growth by reinventment. Also while your car getting twice the mpg may not open up new possibilities for you, it could make a huge difference for people and businesses and nations where cost of transportation is significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Dematerialization" is a term that is not very commonly used.

Economists usually talk the resource intensity of production and consumption. You can divide the concept into material intensity and energy intensity. If you use them as a start of your search you find more Resource productivity is also more commonly used term.

There is evidence of a relative decoupling in resource extraction from global economic growth. In developed economies this is clearly happening.

Resource Productivity in the G8 and the OECD [https://www.oecd.org/env/waste/47944428.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/env/waste/47944428.pdf)

>Global extraction of material resources continues to grow, but there are signs of decoupling from global economic growth. G8 countries' resource productivity has been improving , their material intensity decreased by more than 47% between 1980 and 2008 and their annual per capita material consumption declined from nearly 20 tonnes to less than 18 tonnes. Over the same period, OECD economies have reduced their material intensity by 42% and their per capita consumption declined by 1.5% to 17.6 t.

OECD library has "Green Growth Indicators 2017" [https://www.oecd.org/environment/green-growth- indicators-201...](https://www.oecd.org/environment/green-growth- indicators-2017-9789264268586-en.htm)

OECD "Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060" [https://www.oecd.org/environment/waste/highlights-global- mat...](https://www.oecd.org/environment/waste/highlights-global-material- resources-outlook-to-2060.pdf)

There is negative relation between total factor productivity and material and energy intensity per unit of GDP. When productivity increases, most of the value is created buy other means than using materials and energy.

The catch is "per GDP". Per capita material consumption in OECD countries remains unsustainable. Developed nations produce their high living standard more efficiently but the living standard is so high that resource usage in absolute terms per capita extremely high.

</comment><comment><USER31> You can't actually substitute something with nothing, and conservation laws (of mass, energy, etc) do hold. But in practice, substituting with, say, atmosphere, is almost as good. OP discussed the case of substituting copper network with atmospheric spectrum.

Consider guano: guano use for manufacturing fertilizer is down, because Harber-Bosch process substituted guano nitrogen with atmospheric nitrogen. Atmospheric nitrogen is still a material thing, but it sure does look like dematerialization.

<comment><USER32> You can also shift the structure of the things people care about to be things that are easier to make. If people buy less cars and spend more time backpacking across Mexico, that also substitutes something with nothing (or at least less).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm wondering if this has anything to do with Bernanke's "global savings glut" or Larry Summer's "secular stagnation?" It seems you may not need as much money to make money?

I tried asking about this on /r/AskEconomics and it seems that some still believe that more savings is better, based on the Solow model.

</comment><comment><USER34> Could this also be indicative of a bubble?

<comment><USER35> Quite the opposite. Money is getting more efficient not less

<comment><USER14> If money is getting more efficient why have interest rates been heading into the toilet for 35 years?

<comment><USER35> Massive misallocation of resource mainly from the financial crisis into bad financial products. But if you look around the rate of technological development and the amount of money to start one of those ventures it's only been failing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am a bit surprised it took this long to show up really given so many other trends

</comment><comment><USER37> Glad to hear this merely because is has positive downstream effects. No need to beat one's chest, just maybe a moment to reflect on humility and figure out how to continue the trend.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is the thing that those doomsday prophets talking about next economic downturn don't take into account.

Whole virtual goods economy that is not visible.

</comment><comment><USER39> The article cites low-tech raw resources like timber, paper, nickel, and gold (okay this can be hiigh-tech) being used less in advanced economies. What about ones like rare earth minerals used in high-tech? It would have been nice for the article to touch on that. I would love if someone could find that information. A quick Google search didn't yield much.

The author does mention the energy usage rate is leveling out. Not believing this, I did a basic search on electricity usage and it does appear to be true: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity- co...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption- since-1975/). I did not check total energy usage though (petrol, natural gas, etc.)

This confirms my belief that has been derided a bit here on HN. That is, I believe Capitalism one-day, in the far distant future, will end or at the least mitigate resource scarcity. When Capitalism achieves that, it in effect nearly goes away or is at least greatly reduced. Humanity will then reap the benefits of abundance. Hopefully moving beyond Capitalism, thanks to Capitalism.

</comment><comment><USER40> Which in turn means that more and more of the benefit gets accumulated at the top.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is this some shill HN implant article? lol

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm seeing a lot of inflation. Maybe not in the things used to measure it?

<comment><USER43> Where are you seeing "a lot of inflation"?

The inflation rate in the US has been pretty low for the past decade or so, relative to history.

Source: [https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-inflation-rate-history-by- yea...](https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-inflation-rate-history-by-year-and- forecast-3306093)

<comment><USER44> Healthcare, education, real estate in desirable areas, and taxes. I can also see that I spend more on hotel room nights, restaurant meals, groceries, supplies for my businesses. I don't know where the inflation stats are coming from, but I'm certainly spending more every year for the same quantity.

<comment><USER45> I wonder how much the averages bring that down. Healthcare is up across the board, but real estate may not be up much if at all in non-growing areas. Wages just aren't growing I think.

<comment><USER46> A large fraction of the population lives in growing areas, so the rising cost of real estate in growing areas is an extremely important factor, and on average it's been rising faster than wages for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder how long pretending _literally nothing_ is a "growing economy" can continue before something bad happens. I have a feeling I won't have to wonder for long.

<comment><USER32> The point of the economy growing is so that the society as a whole can do more things that it wants, not about using more natural resources. If we can do more things that we want and also use less natural resources, that's what we want, not an omen of something bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This story is an example of why "mainstream media" (The big 4 outlets) need to have all of their major and minor publications banned from this site going forward or be reduced to being allowed to post 1 or 2 articles per week, tops.

When I come to HN, I come here to learn about some cool doohickey someone is working on or a study that someone published about a different approach to security. I come here to learn about a bitcoin heist or something novel and new and most importantly, to learn from the comments. Lots of interesting people here with interesting views to contribute.

I don't come here to read about MIT flamebait; there's no in-depth study to read, no conclusions to draw, just a re-hash of CPI numbers which are at best horribly inaccurate, aside from the name, this might as well be a short novel. Worse, we're re-hashing something that's already there; CPI Numbers. This article is utter trite and a total and complete waste of time.

Then, the entire community begins discussing this Trite, which lets be honest, there's some interesting studies and observations in the comments but at the end of the day, the discussion has no direction or conclusion and that is dangerous because it invites an scopeless conversation. We should be talking about how this professors study is or is not accurate or interesting sidebars, which is useful to the professor for feedback and to the reader for coming to a conclusion, not talking in generalities and in circles because someone at a Big 4 wants to stay "relevant" and thinks getting the geeks talking to each other about their topic is a good way to do that.

Leave the trite where it belongs; on CNN or NYT or on any big 4 publication.

</comment><comment><USER49> Dematerialization is the biggest fallacy in the industry. Data centers need energy to run. Buying the latest servers, network equipments, iPhones and more every year or two, requires an enormous amount of energy. GDP is directly correlated with energy, so there is no sign of change: an economy cannot grow without energy. I wish more people understood the economy from a physics standpoint.

<comment><USER50> Also why I believe nuclear power must play a vital role in carbon neutral power generation. Wind and solar is great for homes, but what else can power the steel industry? The duty cycle is enormous.

<comment><USER51> Steel and aluminium manufacturing actually are somewhat well-situated to make use of solar and wind power. The energy-intensive processes (i. e. heating metal until it melts) has somewhat flexible timing. So you can heat it up when energy supply is plenty or other demand is low and smooth out the grid.

And nuclear energy is simply too expensive. I know it hurts that some people were maybe too afraid of it in the past, but that's no longer the argument. It loses not just to un-subsidised wind and solar now, but even to natural gas + planting trees to offset carbon.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any cheaper but good alternatives to DigitalOcean? - <AUTHOR> I am working on a project but I have limited resources since I don't have a job currently. I am looking if there are any good alternatives to DigitalOcean with support for additional disks/volumes, that do not cost too much. I have tried several providers including UpCloud, Hetzner Cloud, Vultr and Linode. UpCloud seems to have the best performance but all of these apart from Hetzner charge $40/month for a cloud server with 4 cores and 8 GB of ram. Hetzner gives me twice as much memory at half of the price, but performance isn't great from my testing/benchmarking, especially concerning the storage. I would use UpCloud if pricing was more affordable.  I will probably need 7 servers for my setup initially with 4 cores and at least 8 GB of ram and decent storage performance. Am I asking too much or are there more options for me? Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Sorry if I'm reading between the lines too much, but 28 cores and 56GB RAM for a business that is not covering it's own cloud costs sounds like a lot of compute resources. Unless maybe you're doing something unusual and have a lot of data when you don't have a lot of users yet. I would try to aggressively cut those numbers, not the price per core, and stay with DigitalOcean if it was me. I've been forced to use cheap, less reliable VMs and it's a huge time waster unless you have a big team and big dev budget to code around it.

You might need to slightly, "prematurely" optimize your computations to get by with less compute power, but if you're broke you're broke. Don't forget that the first few times you really need more compute resources, you can resize production to a bigger machine(s) in 10 minutes and that's not "wrong", even if it's not going to be the long term solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't take me the wrong way here but it sounds like you're trying to get blood out of a stone. I have no doubt that you can find cheaper hosting, but you're probably better off just getting some outside money for the project (customers, investors, etc)... worrying about a couple hundred dollars difference shouldn't be the primary concern if your venture has legs.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I was scared to hear although I should have expected it... The problem is my particular situation. I am not in a position at the moment where I could commit with investors etc even if I were able to handle these things (not super confident from this point of view). So a few hundred bucks is unfortunately a concern for me right now.

<comment><USER4> If you want to save this much try to find some free credits, if you didn't use Google Cloud yet you'll get $300 for free, DigitalOcean and Linode also usually have some free credit offers rolling. Don't forget to sign up for the upcoming Startup School to also get some free AWS credits!

<comment><USER5> I didn't try this, but maybe Gitlab's partner offer for Google Cloud, which lifts the credit to 500$ might still be working (link to Gitlab's article here [1], direct link here [2]).

If you or anyone else finds out if this is still valid, let us know :)

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/05/gke-gitlab- integration/](https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/05/gke-gitlab-integration/) [2] [https://cloud.google.com/partners/partnercredit/?PCN=a0n6000...](https://cloud.google.com/partners/partnercredit/?PCN=a0n60000006Vpz4AAC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> VMs from these providers are always shared cores (in the affordable price tier at least). So if you think you need seven 4-core VMs, either you'll end up needing much more, because you're not getting dedicated cores, or you'll end up needing fewer resources, because you're underestimating the power you'll get from dedicated cores. That said, my advice is to leave the flexibility of cloud for those with flexibility of budget and just get a dedicated Xeon server from Hetzner at hetzner.de/sb. Four cores / eight threads with 2 HDDs go from 29€, and with SSDs from 34€ (at the moment). That kind of box has a lot of horsepower to offer, and I'm sure you'll find a way to make that work for your project.

<comment><USER7> This.

I'm not sure of your use case, but it seems likely that you'd be able to use 1-2 32GB or 1 64GB dedicated machine instead of 7 8GB machines. You can get those cheap at Hetzner or OVH or OVH's surplus site Soyoustart.com

<comment><USER8> [https://rimuhosting.com/order/vps-on- dedicated.jsp](https://rimuhosting.com/order/vps-on-dedicated.jsp) Also has some interesting options for dedicated hosts (they're generally ex-VPS hosts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Have you considered self hosting on an old laptop (built in UPS ;), and port forwarding your router? Just stick it in a closet, and have backups for importance stuff? Might be good enough for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cheaper than the ones you mentioned? There are a few. Ramnode comes to mind. Their billing system breaks sometimes, but the VM performance is "ok" for what you pay.

Here is one of the many aggregation lists: [1] The cheap ones are really the bottom of the barrel though. Don't expect uptime or performance. I would also suggest using a dedicated CC or a virtual credit card (only a few banks do this) as the security of some of those sites is less than stellar.

[1] - [https://vpscomp.com/servers](https://vpscomp.com/servers)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Ramnode seems limited in the plans they offer (as in, if I need to resize my servers etc). I know that I kinda need to be careful with cheaper providers... Thanks for sharing that site, very useful!

<comment><USER10> You're welcome.

Indeed, as they get cheaper, options are reduced, as is uptime, performance, user portal, billing portal quality, etc..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like Scaleway: [https://www.scaleway.com/](https://www.scaleway.com/)

<comment><USER12> +1 for scaleway, super easy to use and very reliable, been using it for years and never had a single issue

<comment><USER13> This is a subsidiary of OVH.

<comment><USER14> I think you got mixed up with SoYouStart

>Scaleway is an Iliad Group brand supplying a range of pioneering cloud infrastructure covering a full range of services for professionals: public cloud services with Scaleway, private infrastructure with Scaleway Datacenter and bare-metal cloud services with Online by Scaleway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > I will probably need 7 servers for my setup initially with 4 cores and at > least 8 GB of ram and decent storage performance.

How did you determine that? Can you think of ways to make it require less?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, maybe prototype with tiny VMs first? Can you make several things share one VM initially? If you're not sufficiently confident in the idea to secure investment, it might be smart to build a smaller/leaner proof-of-concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The only option I know would be Scaleway, 4 Core 8GB RAM is €15.99/mo, or roughly $18.

Edit: Have you consider dedicated from OVH or Others? Remember your Cloud vCPU is really just a thread. Those dedicated sever would be 4C/8T with more memory and higher CPU performance.

<comment><USER6> Worse, if you run the numbers, at DO you get 1 dedicated core (2 threads) with 8G RAM for $60, but 4 "normal" cores with same RAM for $40. Only possible conclusion is that "normal" cores are less than a full thread.

<comment><USER17> Isn't that exactly what the distinction between dedicated (="not shared") and not-dedicated (="shared") normally means?

<comment><USER6> Providers are not always transparent about whether CPU is dedicated or shared (and what exactly shared means). Most importantly, this distinction generally gets lost when people compare offerings of different providers, and so they end up comparing apples and oranges.

Next, when the actual "share" of a shared core is completely undefined, the idea that net performance can be improved by adding more of these shares becomes at least questionable.

Last but not least, one important takeaway from the speculative execution flaws is that a security boundary between software running on the same hyperthread is an indefensible position due to unmitigateable flaws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Try GCP(google compute platform). You get a $300 credit good for one year. That should get you by for several months. If I remember(it's been awhile), there is a similar free offering from AWS(amazon) as well.

<comment><USER19> This is a good suggestion but be careful of runaway costs. It's easy to misjudge the amount of money you can get charged for SD logging and ingress/egress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Use the AWS free tier, it's extremely unlikely you actually need 7 servers, in fact I'm positive you don't. Just one will go a long way especially starting out.

[https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/?ft=n&trk=ft_card&trk=ft_card](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/?ft=n&trk=ft_card&trk=ft_card).

</comment><comment><USER21> All of the major cloud providers have free credits for new customers.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just migrated 2 weeks ago a fairly sized DB (300GB) from Digitalocean to Hetzner cloud.

The previous DO plan was an old one not offered anymore, 2vcpu dedicated, 6GB ram, costs 80usd + 2 storage volumes (~500GB) with cost totalling around 150usd. This instance has been in DO for more than 2 years.

I have been testing Hetzner cloud for almost a year without hiccups. plus late last year, they added block storage, which is what ive been waiting. When an opportunity to migrate opened in our schedule, we decided to jump.

The HC instance has 4vcpu dedicated, 16GB ram, instance cost 40usd + block storage cost totalling around 80usd.

We got 2-3x cpu and ram, while performance of the HC setup is slightly better, if not on par, than the older DO setup; at half the cost!

The downsides so far with HC are slightly worse support (less helpful, language barrier), and currently no way to snapshot block storage volumes. And less goodies (like monitoring, networking, etc of DO)

</comment><comment><USER23> I will say this much.... Stay away from serverhub.com -- I picked them because they offered more disk space than DO for about the same price. My VM went offline in late December, opened a ticket with them, basically got the run around for 3 months, with them claiming 2 months in that their "30TB Storage Array" was still, I shit you not.... "fsck'ing". Luckily this wasn't anything important, but still. They even had the balls to bill me for it monthly until I finally told them to pound sand and refund all charges made this year (which they did)

</comment><comment><USER24> How about ssdnodes ([https://www.ssdnodes.com/](https://www.ssdnodes.com/))? I've only used them for personal sites but so far, so good and it seems to be a good value. I also like webfaction ([https://www.webfaction.com/](https://www.webfaction.com/)). You get shell access but they manage the OS and provide a GUI for installing and configuring things.

<comment><USER25> Webfaction is pretty amazing. Setting up and getting started with them is quick and easy. Although GoDaddy has acquired them and webfaction will be shutting down by the end of August. They will be migrating all the customers to GoDaddy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You could have a look at Netcup.de, depending whether you can live without a hosted LB like DigitalOcean has. Netcup does not have nested KVM - or at least it costs a tiny bit extra.

I had tried Scaleway roughly 2 years ago. restart times, provisioning times were bad. Maybe they are better now. I think you can finally bring your own kernel. Nested KVM works. Plus point for Scaleway is that you can use terraform. I don't know the state of automation for Hetzner or Netcup

</comment><comment><USER27> As long as your service can be spun in some way as a startup you should definitely apply to this grant from google.

[https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/](https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/)

In my experience it's very easy to get, and the minimum is 1000$ credit for a year (scroll down to Program options). If you're lucky you can even get 3000$ and few other goodies.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you care about cost efficiency and know how much hardware you need, stop looking at Cloud and start looking at dedicated.

Hetzner's PX62-NVME can probably do everything you need for 80EUR/month. Hexa- core Coffee Lake CPU, 64GB RAM and 2x960GB NVMe SSDs [https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix- px](https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-px)

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't mean to be rude, but why do you need 7 servers for a project that isn't making you any money?

Couldn't you start with less, and then scale when you need to?

</comment><comment><USER30> What is your idea? Maybe someone here would be interested in working with you. Sounds like you need about $300/month. Is that correct?

</comment><comment><USER31> I do linode + Wasabi - [https://wasabi.com/](https://wasabi.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> [https://contabo.com/?show=vps](https://contabo.com/?show=vps)

cheap; average CPU; SSD : ideal for personal dev machine

VPS M SSD: 8.99 EUR / month* :6core; 16GB RAM; 400GB SSD

VPS L SSD: 14.99 EUR / month* :8core; 30GB RAM; 800GB SSD

VPS XL SSD: 26.99 EUR / month* :10core; 60GB RAM; 1600GB SSD

</comment><comment><USER33> I use VPSdime to serve a fasttext model. Low end VPS providers could be flaky, but honestly at 1/5 the price I can just buy from a few different providers and have better redundancy. ($7 6gb vs $40 8gb at linode)

I do host my main application server with linode though.

</comment><comment><USER34> there is also vultr [1], but it's the same price you mentioned for what you want.

[1] - [https://www.vultr.com/pricing/](https://www.vultr.com/pricing/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Can I ask (just generally) what you're doing that you need that setup to just start? a SAAS? Machine Learning? Scraping the web?

Just curious if there's a better approach/your estimates are way off.

</comment><comment><USER36> About 5 years ago, this question was asked in relation to Linode. Dejavu

</comment><comment><USER37> Have you check OVH's offerings?

[https://www.ovh.com/world/vps/vps- cloud.xml](https://www.ovh.com/world/vps/vps-cloud.xml)

</comment><comment><USER38> Having a look on [https://lowendbox.com/](https://lowendbox.com/) maybe worth a go

</comment><comment><USER39> Hi m8,

Long story short : if you are on the mission, you will find a way to get these 50$ every month until you find out a way to get those from a client.

</comment><comment><USER40> Check WebHostingTalk forum for hot deals.

Check LowEndTalk.

Consider getting a dedicated, bare metal server to save costs. You can install Kubernetes on it.

</comment><comment><USER41> I can probably help you out for a while as I have some unused credit with DO. Is there a way to contact you ?

</comment><comment><USER42> Hi, have you tried Contabo.com ? There is vm's for 5euros with 4 cores and 8gb ram

</comment><comment><USER13> Hetzner

</comment><comment><USER43> Lowendbox

</comment><comment><USER44> Linode is half the price of DigitalOcean.

<comment><USER45> For the sizes he is talking about, their pricing is literally identical:

4gb: DO $20 / Linode: $20

8gb: DO $40 / Linode: $40

16gb: DO $80 / Linode: $80

Sure there are some pricing differences in the >32gb memory space, but they're not apples-apples comparisons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why do you need so much compute power?

</comment><comment><USER47> kimsufi. They have dedicated servers in Canada and can be pretty cheap.

</comment><comment><USER48> I really like HyperExpert.

</comment><comment><USER49> create multiple accounts and take advantage of free tiers

</comment><comment><USER50> box.cock.li has always been a solid option for me ;)</comment>