Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/san-francisco-startup-puts-everything-you-need-two-acre-farm-shipping-container-180961567/?no-ist <comment><USER2> This reminds me (somewhat unfortunately) of the Playpump[1] which I saw referenced again in some product reading about really understanding customer and user needs in building new product. The Playpump was a playground toy that pumped water - got great PR and raised lots of money. Unfortunately it was also less efficient than existing pumps, required training, was more expensive and was not field repairable.

[1] [http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the- story-o...](http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-of- playpumps-merry-go-rounds-water-and-failures-in-development-aid/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm having a difficult time finding what is included in the box from the official website. "Sensor Technology", "Basic Tools", these trigger alarm bells in my head. The biggest cost component seems to be for the solar power, which I believe is used to power the irrigation system. Overall this sounds costly, has few details about the components need for farming, and shows off bells and whistles like "solar power, micro-drip irrigation, wi-fi and cloud, and data mapping".

</comment><comment><USER4> I live on a 2 acre hobby farm. Here are some obvious pieces missing from the box:

Tractor Backhoe Rototiller Auger Fencing

First necessity: water. Where will you get it from? They include a pump. That's nice. How will you dig the hole to get down to the water in order to pump it?

How will you dig the holes for your fence posts? Yes you can use a manual post-hole digger. That's what I did. I don't recommend it. Does the box include posts and wire?

How will you compost? I have several animals that generate a lot of manure. The easiest way to turn it is with a rototiller--preferrably connected to the PTO on the tractor because the manure pile is very large. It would take a day to turn it with a walk-behind tiller. It would take one day a week to collect the new manure by hand without a box scraper on a tractor.

Ever have to bury livestock? You need a deep hole. Anything too shallow attracts predators. I've buried a few by hand. I don't recommend it.

So, a little 25 hp tractor with a 3-pt PTO and accessories including auger, tiller, box scraper, backhoe, and front-end bucket is almost mandatory unless you have a lot of free labor. And this is supposed to be sustainable off-grid, so that needs to be electric. See the Global Village Construction Set ([http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)).

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a similar idea years ago, the goal was to build a kit that someone from the developed world could use to go somewhere lacking in modern farming equipment, set themselves up as a sultan by buying cheap land, farming it effectively with hired labor, with the eventual goal of building yourself a palace. I called it Sultanomics... it was a fairly juvenile daydream, that also included acquiring a Harem...

But, the base idea was that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that by increasing efficiency you could help to kickstart the economic development in an area that otherwise would remain stagnant.

</comment><comment><USER6> So...we have a director in business and another in marketing that live in San Francisco who thought it would be a good idea to sell farmers a bunch of junk they don't need...or is there market American's who extra money to throw around? I don't get the need...

1\. Most people in undeveloped countries know how to farm, but just lack specific necessities.

2\. Unless you have knowledge of these electronic components, how would you ever fix them if they broke? That isn't very sustainable..

3\. What is the point if you have Amazon? Instead of a large container, FedEx drop's it off.

in other word's, they are attempting to create a business where there is no need.

<comment><USER7> > _they are attempting to create a business where there is no need._

As 99% of startups :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I dont see the point of this. If I were to start a farm I'd buy some farming books on amazon, do my research, and buy the best equipment part per part. I dont see why anyone would want to spend 50k on some random farming kit.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's gotten more expensive since I first read about this back in 2015.

[http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box- everyt...](http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everything- you-need-to-run-an-off-grid-f-1882128391.html)

So in two years, they're still just at a single prototype installation? This almost sounds like it's just a back end for the founder's other ambitions, whatever they might be. A quick search of the name shows her as a speaker at some women's forums, (with the typical theme of "empowering others" and other social buzzwords) SXSW, and pics of her at Burning Man.

I think the concept is nice, but totally unaffordable for the third world nations that they say they want to serve. It's also not that people in the middle east/etc don't know how to farm. They often times just lack modern farming equipment. Not sure if a 'farm in a box' solution is what they actually need.

</comment><comment><USER10> I used to work with a company that modified shipping containers for a whole slew of uses, including hydroponic growing of vegetables. Shipping containers present a great solution to food production but sadly many of the companies I've seen attempt to do this sort of thing get bogged down in the details of implementing them to various clients (such as the article's mention of testing in Ethiopia). One company, however, that has seemed to get it all right is [http://www.freightfarms.com/](http://www.freightfarms.com/) I'm very curious to see where they go. No affiliation, I just know a few happy customers of theirs.

<comment><USER11> Thought this was FreightFarms from the description. I haven't seen the important details on either side, but it seems a lot easier to guarantee yields and more automated / automate-able by FF than by DIY farm-in-a-box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ROI on this for the customer seems pretty terrible. Farms aren't known for their high margins. And in places like Oklahoma, the minimum viable commercial farm is about 640 acres. I'm having a hard time seeing how spending $50k on this farm kit is going to produce a commercial return. I could see how it might enable subsistence farming, maybe, but if you're at that level, you don't have $50k to spend.

</comment><comment><USER13> I love the idea, but as a fairly well-off hobby farmer myself, there is no way I would spend that much on this product.

I bought 1 mile of drip tape for $150 off of [https://www.berryhilldrip.com](https://www.berryhilldrip.com)

Solar panels are a cheap commodity. There are charge controllers which will only turn on the DC if you're over a certain voltage for the pump.

Again, I love the idea, but its way off on execution at this point.

<comment><USER8> Even if the parts were very optimized price/performance wise, would it still be a good idea? I would imagine that each place has a specific biome that is suitable for specific crops, each person has a different amount of acrerage, etc.

<comment><USER13> You're right that situations are individual - but actually the water distribution side of things can be fairly generic.

But note that drip tape is incompatible with tractor-based agriculture and will only be used with perennial or labor intensive annual crops.

<comment><USER14> Drip tape sometimes is used in tractor based agriculture. They have a reel mount that lays the tape (usually when plastic is applied to the bed).

Then they throw the tape away at the end of the season.

Commercial strawberry growers use this quite often.

But yes, to your point, high dollar crops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems very unlikely that anyone wishing to start a farm would spend 50k on an all in one kit but instead carefully select individual components

<comment><USER16> I could see their idea of a parts kit working better for specific tasks than for "farming in general".

In my limited experience with mushrooms I almost instantly went from too much wood and sawdust to know what to do with to the opposite. Even in the field of mushrooms there are the wood varieties and the animal waste compost varieties. And I suppose the psychedelic varieties. I grew my own shiitake with some modest success. The people who burn their scrap woodworking wood are on to something in that a fire turns scrap into heat with 100% success which is a much higher success rate than I experienced with mushrooms.

Surely a veg garden kit would look wildly different than a grain farm kit. Ditto orchards and berries. Then you get into cash crops, I can't live off peppers directly but I can certainly grow a lot of them, and I can trade.

There is an aspect of specialization that I've fooled around with most of the above or have a family member who did, but my green thumb is container-style- garden pepper production and given a marginally functional economic system I'd be better off maxing out my pepper production, selling almost all of it, and buying a nice balanced diet, than trying to grow my own "everything".

In a grid-up normalcy situation my mint production is economically worthless, but in grid-down crash situation I suspect my mint would be quite valuable for flavoring. Grid down in USA is unlikely but has Ethiopia been grid up at any time since the 60s? Perhaps now? If so good, for them. But the point remains that not all of the world is booted up in the world economy and for areas that are not, some weird stuff like sunflower oil probably would sell pretty well until the world economy boots up again in that country. It might not matter if you can't get a shipping crate delivered intact to a down-grid situation country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.).

</comment><comment><USER18> Since the jury is in, this is bad idea / vaporware I do find it interesting it's currently at 380 points on HN.

I' like to think it was up voted as an example of a bad idea, but I suspect not.

</comment><comment><USER19> These people don't actually make anything, they just buy a bunch of items and resell them as a package, it has to be overpriced for them to make any money. It seems like a really dumb idea for a business, anyone with any sense would just do their own research and buy what they need themselves. Notice they specifically want to work with governments, which typically means creating elaborate lying games in order to get access to stolen money.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why would you put it in a container? Containers are very hard to transport, you can't just throw it on the back of an ox cart, or pack mules. You need specialized - and expensive - transportation, as well as a special crane to unload it.

Not to mention that you kill the local suppliers of agricultural equipment.

And the price tag? Agricultural land is VERY cheap. You can buy an acre of the most expensive prime Corn Belt land for under $6000 [Edit: in some states this number is actually around $10k], while in emerging markets good land can go for as low as as few hundred dollars per acre.

So a single container that can be used to farm two acres of land, could be used to buy 10 acres of the best land in the US, or 200 acres of land (or more) in emerging markets. Or you could hire 20 farm workers for 4 years in India.

It is clear that the target is well-intended governments, who will write big checks, and leave the units rotting in some depot somewhere as they figure out what to do with it, draining resources which could be used in actual development (roads, infrastructure, rural insurance & credit).

San Francisco & Silicon Valley, please go back to solving First World problems.

<comment><USER3> Not to diminish your larger point, but your figures for expensive farm land in the cornbelt appears outdated to me. Farmland in southern Indiana (corn/soybeans/wheat) is selling above $10k per acre, with some specific plots around $15k (though this is not strictly because of farming potential so much as location and natural resources). There have been some great increases in value the past few years.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the info, I added a note!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is an agricultural startup also using containers, first for strawberries, but they literally want to grow fruits or vegetables in a container, while aiming at a better taste: [http://www.agricool.co/](http://www.agricool.co/)

The idea seems to target cities, to decrease the time to market, so that they can optimize the fruits or vegetables for taste and not for conservation.

</comment><comment><USER22> Kind of weird that they use a 40 foot container in most of their illustrations when it clearly states that they will be developing a 20 foot version first.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Every box also comes with its own renewable energy system. Everything is > solar. We've got three kilowatts of solar energy pre-installed on the actual > kit.

What do they mean by this? Kilowatt is not a unit of energy, but a unit of power. Does that mean they provide equipment that is rated to produce three kilowatts? I'm no farmer but that sounds like awfully little power for power- hungry farm equipment.

</comment><comment><USER24> This Brandi DiCarli?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8)

<comment><USER25> Yup, seems like it. hahaha

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It comes with WiFi, but not a tractor. Or even some small powered push-type tiller. Do they assume the farmer has an ox or a pair of mules? For $50K, they should at least throw in a decent garden tractor with a 3-point hitch and some basic attachments. Priorities.

For comparison, see this article in Modern Farmer.[1] This guy has revenue of about $100K per acre and has books and tools on how to replicate his farming techniques. He's working on a turnkey small farming package, and has a track record of making small farms work.

[1] [http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm- fortier/](http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/)

<comment><USER27> I assumed for the price that would be the first thing in the box. Seriously, a man can do quite a lot with a PTO and some hydraulics. Add to that the ability to move this power around the field and you can really get some work done.

<comment><USER28> Based on some experiences in rural Mexico, I think folks in the rich world underestimate how daunting power tools are to many people in the poor world. The majority of craftspeople I met and worked a touch with were extremely reluctant to try to use a circular saw, etc. These are folks that can use a machete with the precision of a surgeon. If you didn't grow up around powered equipment, it's a significant hurdle to get over, even when there are tremendous benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think the problem here is going to be with the agricultural industry. If major industry leaders perceive these as a threat to their operations, it's likely that they will lobby congress to either regulate these our of existence, or somehow just make them flat out illegal.

<comment><USER30> I had less capital tied up in my >100 acre farm for many years than this small box costs. I'm not quite sure who is going to buy it at all, let alone it reaching a point of it becoming some kind of threat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The average income in Africa is below $1000 / year. You aren't going to sell a $60,000 container to a subsistence farmer, even if the whole town pitches in.

</comment><comment><USER32> From the title I was hoping to see a farm _in_ a box (shipping container converted to a microfarm/greenhouse with solar panels or something).

</comment><comment><USER33> [http://www.agricool.co/](http://www.agricool.co/) does this better

</comment><comment><USER34> We'll look back on this article and it will sum up dysfunctional optimism around the idea of a 'startup'

</comment><comment><USER35> surprised no one has mentioned farmbot yet. for those with much less space than 2 acres, or just want to start smaller: [https://www.farmbot.io](https://www.farmbot.io)

</comment><comment><USER36> My first thought was "How can they fit two acres of topsoil in a shipping container?"

<comment><USER37> no, it's filled to the brim with 100% bullshit. taking the VC game to the next level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If anyone hasn't read it, check out _The One Straw Revolution_ , and compare to this approach.

</comment><comment><USER39> Love the profit margins!

</comment><comment><USER40> There really are different 'cliques' on HN, depending on which subject is posted. And this one seems to be the 'not so positive' clique.

If framework is bench marked, or if people create a great CSS suite and animations, you get (mostly) constructive criticism.

A company is actually doing something about bigger issues which could positively affect the lives of many people in a sustainable way ... and we get this.

I'm not saying to turn off our skepticism and critical thinking, but at least recognize the effort and the potential of such an idea. It might introduce people who never though of farming to a whole new way of life.

It's not VR, or a new JS framework, but it has a lot of potential.(BTW I am a developer, and am not affiliated in any way with them).

<comment><USER13> There are quite a few of us here with some farm experience that simply don't think this product ads up. Its like posting an article about a $50k Linux distro aimed at coffee shops.

<comment><USER40> I understand this, and maybe it's an opportunity for you to find out more about them considering your expertise.

Following your fact finding quest you could then post a detailed blog about your analysis for other HN'ers to read. I would be glad to read such a review with facts and figures explaining objectively what is wrong (or right!) about the proposed product.

Keep us posted!

<comment><USER41> One side of my family comes from a farming background, and I've been around working farms half my life, the impoverished near-subsistence type.

This product wouldn't be all that useful. The hard part of running a farm is knowing the local growing conditions, crops which work in these conditions, and then, the harrowing amount of work involved in getting the thing productive.

Drip irrigation is cool once set up, but it's not durable and you need to replace it frequently as it gets damaged, breaks down due to weather, some animal chews it, whatever. Their solar driven pump is indeed a labor saving device, but it's a low power low volume pump useful for drip irrigation. I can guarantee you that nobody's going to be supplying affordable drip irrigation gear in a poor area. However, given a well, a powerful irrigation pump would be a huge help, particularly if it can move enough volume to fill traditional irrigation ditches for the times drip tubing is unattainable.

The IoT metrics stuff isn't very useful. The sort of person who farms in the places targeted by this isn't very tech savvy, and what's more important than temperature and water delivery statistics is walking the field and inspecting for weeds and pests.

The shipping container could make a usable shed, but so would a traditional shed, usually made from scrounged, cheap, local materials.

If you want to help poor farmers, I would suggest the following \- A powerful irrigation pump, after helping to drill a well, solar driven is cool. \- A small ride-on type tractor built to be dead simple to fix and reliable with plowing, seeding, and harvesting attachments. This is the major work of running a farm. Bonus points if this thing doesn't require gasoline, but that would be prohibitively expensive in terms of solar and batteries, since duty cycle would be very high. \- Some kind of good, watertight and pest resistant grain storage containers, enough to store a few tons. \- A bunch of lessons in the local language teaching people how to maximize food production from minimal resources in a given part of the world. What crops, how to plant, weed, and harvest them, how to store the harvest. \- A bunch of fertilizer and pesticide. This will run out one day, so perhaps lessons on how to farm without it, but that drops production to like 1/4 of what's possible for a given unit of land. Modern high density farming requires a permanent supply of modern chemicals.

Now, A farm in a box is a cool idea, and the market may be affluent hobbyists, but this won't fix food shortage problems because the gear in it isn't particularly useful to a small farm, but also because food shortage problems are primarily political.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Water.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think I like the farmbot.io idea a little bit better as it seems far more practical. After all I'm not looking to grow all my food but mainly the dirty dozen vegetables/fruits (as well as seasonal ones I like).

One of the main reasons I want to grow food though is some vegetables are not carried by my local grocery stores (I have to go to a farmer market or expensive grocery store). For example many grocery stores do not sell Japanese yams, Yuca, various peppers, or plantains (I suppose plantains would be difficult to grow).

I also would like to do it all inside as well (because I live in New England and have more inside space than outside and various other reasons). Basically a refrigerator size farming appliance that you plugin with plumbing and electricity.

<comment><USER13> Unless they put the farmbot on wheels, you're talking about too small of a square footage to generate any interesting yields. You'll spend WAY more time maintaining the bot than you would just planting and mulching.

The farmbot development is important, but won't be commercially viable with the current fixed rail system.

<comment><USER43> Well that is what I'm wondering. One of the big issues is real estate. I wonder if it would be more viable instead of just going 2D to make a more 3D system (ie stack plants ala hydroponics).

Obviously the sun is way more efficient and preferred but if you live in an area where the sun isn't exactly available that much of the year it might be worth it for some automated easy to use large indoor like closet system or cabinet particularly in more urban areas.

<comment><USER13> As much as it's fun to think about, food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate.

Green houses and hydroponics are great, but they can just as well be done on cheap land.

The biggest difficulty in food production isn't land, water, and sunlight - its management at scale.

This is why the vast majority of everyone's calories comes from large tractor managed commodity crops.

As a metaphor, the easy part of IT is ordering the servers, switches, etc. The setup takes some labor, but the real difficulty is the ongoing management.

<comment><USER44> > food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate.

It doesn't _need to_. But there's an increasing push towards looking for ways to cut the environmental effects of farming, and there transport is part of the challenge. There's also an increasing push for cutting time to market, despite traditional farms being further and further away from most consumers.

Hydroponics in urban areas is likely to converge on the mass market from two directions: Environmentalists looking for options that cut land use and transport, and up-market foodies willing to pay extra for products that are "straight from the farm two doors down" in the middle of a city.

Whether it eventually will get cost effective enough to supplant normal farms is another matter.

<comment><USER13> I so sympathize with this view. I used to hold it.

After experimenting with the hydroponics, vertical growing, etc. I've come to realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of farming is to make traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and regenerative. Moving farms into cities simply won't produce enough calories profitably enough to make any meaningful positive environmental impact.

Amazingly enough, there are a large number of well-educated farmers out there that are moving to no-till, alley cropping, key line design for water retention, and perennial crops.

One of the best voices for this new generation of farmers is Mark Shepard:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnoeb1x-XVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnoeb1x-XVA)

<comment><USER44> _yet_

Maybe it never will, but we won't know without trying.

> I've come to realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of > farming is to make traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and > regenerative.

But none of that can fully counter the massive land use, nor does it address the increasing effects of transport necessary to handle increasingly urban populations and increasing expectations of short delivery times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Pretty light on details, even the website of this company itself. The claim of being able to feed 150 people off 2 acres (about 1 hectare, for those of us who like to think in units that make sense) is a pretty wild one. Maybe you could grow potatoes with [150 x 1700 x 365] calories in them in a climate where you can grow year round, but that's surely not what they're insinuating in their marketing pictures.

<comment><USER46> I would say corn, then potato. But you're right, the startup isn't being all that forthcoming with details and it's likely their claims are (greatly) exaggerated, or perhaps, from a purely "well, technically..." point-of-view.

There's an excellent article that champions the calories-per-acre metric by WP: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense- of-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the- worlds-most-important-food- crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html)

 _In the calorie department, corn is king [..] corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre [..] wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about 15 million [..] Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and spinach is under 2 million_

<comment><USER47> If I was designing a two-acre farm to feed my family, I wouldn't devote much space to corn. Corn is a very useful crop but mostly once it's processed and you need a lot of it.

Here's what I think I'd grow:

Potatoes - Incredibly easy to grow. Produces a ton of food. Can be grown in trash cans on otherwise unusable land. Very versatile and useful in so many cuisines. If I had to place my bets on one staple crop, it's potatoes.

Green beans (Blue Lake variety or similar) - Also very easy to grow. You trellis them and they don't take up a lot of ground space. Incredibly bountiful crop--you'll have trash bags full from 50 sq ft of beans. Puts nutrients back in the soil--very good crop to rotate.

Kale - Nutritious, versatile crop. Easy to grow.

Tomatoes - Nutritious and so easy to grow. Can be grown vertically in raised pots for more space efficiency.

Tomatillos - Tasty, good for sauces. These grow as voraciously as the green beans.

Pumpkins, squashes, etc. - These are wandering vines so you can plant them in good soil on the edge of unusable land and let them grow out over the areas that you couldn't plant in.

Various lettuces - Not easy to grow--they're susceptible to pests and they bolt as soon as the weather gets too warm--but they grow fast and if your family likes salad, you'll eat a lot of them.

<comment><USER48> Seconding this. My dad's been trying to grow a bit of corn on our land in Texas for years, probably decades at this point. All we have to show for it is a once-a-year small ear of corn on Thanksgiving.

The potatoes, on the other hand, he grows by the bucket in piles of hay thrown into old, bald tires. I suspect the damned things will grow in anything that's been near a nutrient.

<comment><USER49> Yup. Something that I can recommend if you have children: just buy a large flower pot (15" diameter), put it on your balcony, and stick 2 potatoes in it.

Your children will see potatoes grow live, and you can eat them with them. Fun thing to do, very easy, and works so well.

For soil, just some normal soil you can dig out anywhere is enough, but you can also buy pre-fertilized soil if you wish (as said, the potatoes would even grow in garbage cans)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> _> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that's why we have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you more than what we're charging._

I _seriously_ doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd.

It also looks like they've so far deployed exactly 1 of these setups in the real world and haven't even really started producing units for sale. Right now this venture is a complete pipe dream and feels awfully out of touch.

<comment><USER51> In my experience, Raspberry Pis are nice hobbyist toys but tend to corrupt data on their SD cards at random and generally are unreliable. For 50k you could at least send them a somewhat rugged fanless PC with a SSD raid for added reliability.

<comment><USER24> Off-topic, but I've become something of an unintentional expert on making Pis reliable.

First, consider using f2fs instead of ext4 with a nice big card (and get a good one).

Next, attempt to disable all of the unnecessary logging and writes to the SD. Either send them to a server, write them to a ramdisk or even consider mounting the partition in read-only mode. This will _drastically_ increase your duty cycle.

Finally, follow proper system shutdown procedures.

Do all of that (bonus points for putting heatsinks on your chips) and the Pi becomes rock-solid or something like it. Hint: it's not the Pi that fails, it's the SD card.

<comment><USER52> I will also comment on the SD card quality issue: STOP BUYING SHITTY LOW GRADE SD CARDS AND EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO WRITE TO THEM FREQUENTLY.

Just stop. There is a reason why companies like GoPro (which abusively write cards to death) bless only certain products (the top of their list being modern generations of Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Plus, Samsung Pro and Pro Plus, and Lexar Pro).

In this case, they also make industrial SDs that survive unusually high and low temperatures, which given the nature of this specific context, is worth looking into (although expensive and of low capacity).

<comment><USER53> I was just recently talking to someone who was very upset that their super cheap 32 GB card wasn't 32 GB and overwrote everything on the card when it ran out of actual space, wiping a whole heap of awesome GoPro footage and photos.

I've had a couple of cards like that before, but after reading an article about fake SD cards a while ago, I test every new SD card and flash drive I get to make sure it's to advertised capacity so I haven't been stung.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> It seems odd to me that this is a for-profit company.

<comment><USER13> Profits are the things that allow valuable products to scale.

Its odd to me that Venezuela thought that getting rid of profits for producers would help society.

<comment><USER54> Non-profit doesn't mean the company can't make a profit on what it sells or even pay employees a fair salary. It does mean that profits go back into the company, rather than having profits siphoned off by investors and shareholders. Non-profit _is_ pro-reinvestment and therefore pro-scaleup.

<comment><USER55> > _It does mean that profits go back into the company, rather than having > profits siphoned off by investors and shareholders._

Why is money going back into the company "good", but investors get the negative connotation of "siphoning" money? What is with the disdain for the people who _own_ the company making money from it?

<comment><USER49> > Why is money going back into the company "good", but investors get the > negative connotation of "siphoning" money?

Because that is exactly what's happening?

If the company produces just enough to break even, the money is distributed fairly.

But if more money is earnt, this entire surplus goes to the investors (or, in recent years, also to management).

This means that while the wages of the workers stagnate with increasing productivity, the profits of the investors go up. The worker is producing an additional vakue, but all of that goes to the capitalist.

— paraphrased from Das Kapital, by Karl Marx.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> $60,000 seems like a lot of amount for starving and underdeveloped areas.

I went to their funding page and read more about what's inside the "box" [https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box](https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box)

1: micro-drip irrigation system

2: 3kW solar power

3: Pumping System

4: IOT setup

5: Energy management

6: Basic farm tools

As of 2016, average cost of solar power is approximately $3.00 per watt so ~ $9K. I have installed a decent sized drip water irrigation system in my backyard purchased with stuff off of Amazon for a total of $200 max. IOT is unnecessary here. I mean would "poor" people require to purchase Iphones and Macbooks too to see data collected from the IOT setup? A manual water pump like this ([http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg](http://www.top- pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg) )or even an electric one does not go north of $1k-1.5k. Most solar panels and reserve battery system come with a built-in energy management feature. This box does not even contain a variety of seeds, soil, fertilizer and other mandatory things required for proper farming. Think outside the box.

<comment><USER57> I worked on a project to create affordable, electric vegetable graters for rural farmers in Ghana [1]. For comparison, the price point of our grater was $150USD and was still seen as too expensive by a substantial portion of our customers, some of whom opted to purchase the graters on an installment basis (3 x $50 every 6 months as our group traveled to Ghana bi-annually).

The main problems our rural customers faced were much more basic in nature and cannot be solved by a $60k farming kit: uncontrollable and sometimes devastating wet/dry seasonal cycles that could decimate an entire crop, making financial planning very difficult. Subsequently many of our customers lived day-to-day off whatever they sold their produce for at the market, making securing loans/financing to invest in capital (more land, equipment, livestock) impossible.

At one of the farms we visited, I noticed a half-built brick house next to the main family house. The farm owner explained that they were building a second home, but that they had to do it literally "brick-by-brick", purchasing a few bricks with extra income when they could afford to buy them. He explained this investment in bricks was their form of saving for the future: the small amounts of extra money would get spent otherwise on food or other necessities rather than put into a bank account or stashed under a mattress.

Other basic problems included a relatively high marginal cost of transporting goods to market and little access to market price data. No agricultural education info. Communal access to heavy farming machinery (graters, plows, etc.) with no accountability for these devices (they end up breaking and nobody wants to pay to fix them). Unreliable electric grid, and no chance the cellular service would be reliable/affordable enough to get an IoT system up and running on a small farm, even if the farmers did have time left over after planting, harvesting, and processing their crops, and looking after their families. Everything is harder and more manual when you lack scale, and you can't order a replacement solar panel/battery/raspberry pi off amazon.

Since the goal of our project was to get the grater into the hands of as many cassava-grating women as possible, at marginally-above-cost, we decided to sell into restaurants and explore other cash-rich markets to cross-subsidize sales to small acreage farmers. We also wanted to sell direct, or close-to- direct (at least in the beginning) to build a relationship with our customers, get to know them, get feedback on the products, and spread news of the product thru word of mouth.

That said, maybe we should have looked to sell our graters to governments/NGOs so we could have scaled up faster.

[1] [http://www.olin.edu/academics/experience/engineering- capston...](http://www.olin.edu/academics/experience/engineering-capstone/ade- ghana/)

<comment><USER58> Based on what you have said here I feel like technology such as iPhones and IoT networks is not what these people need. Would it help to provide some kind of farming manual with instructions on how to build and maintain farm equipment, how to create a co-op to sell locally, etc? Has it been done? What about providing a printing press to publish pricing data on a daily/weekly basis to try and make that information available to more people? These seem like problems that must have existed in the US in the last 100-150 years, what did we do?

<comment><USER57> To go one level deeper than the unpredictable weather and poor economics of the small-time farm, I think much of the "problem" of subsistence farming is cultural/societal and there's not much the rural farmers or the NGOs/charities can do to help other than one-off projects like the cassava grater that address specific, painful parts of the process, such as manual grating, but not the entire subsistence farming process/system as a whole.

We spent some time with the best and the brightest Ghanaian college students at Ashesi University [1], many of whom were middle/upper class and set on entering business and politics after graduation. Some discussed practical solutions to the problem, such as farmer co-ops. But all were fed up with the corruption and unstable governance of the country - which is actually extremely stable compared to Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad (Boko Haram). I heard that word 20 times during the half a day we spent with them - corruption this, corruption that. I left with the feeling that the current government and previous generations had let these students down, but that they were determined not to repeat those mistakes.

We also met the CEO and founder of the University, Patrick Awuah, who studied at Swarthmore in 1985 on a full scholarship and went on to work at Microsoft for 8 years as a software engineer and manager. He firmly believes in instilling ethics and self-reliance through education is the way forward for the country, and indeed the entire continent: "If you come back in 30 years, universities will be competing for the best and brightest students. I hope that universities will also be competing on things such as whose students are the most ethical. If that happens, it will change the continent."

I used to believe that religion was a crucial and effective way of passing an ethical code from one generation to the next. But every Ghanaian I met was either Christian or Muslim, and some even expressed concern for my soul when I said I wasn't religious. All taxi drivers would say a prayer and touch their jesus piece hanging from the rear view mirror before every journey (very disconcerting). I also spent some time in Afghanistan, where during the month of Ramadan, I and the other expats had to drink water out of sight in the bathroom at work when we were thirsty so as not to offend practicing muslims, and the entire country shut down after 2pm every day.

Yet despite hugely religious populations, both of these countries experience high levels of corruption, which I think isn't worse than the corruption that occurs in the US, it's just more visible - there's not enough to go around so favor currying/bribes/tribalism is more apparent than it is in wealthier nations where we've developed discrete ways of channeling and accumulating wealth. Corruption in poorer countries is very "in your face" \- bribes to the police or politicians, kidnapping, torture, murder.

I'm not sure how it happened, but we were able to build better infrastructure in the US over the past 150 years - both physical (power, water, transportation, internet) and social (checks and balances, constitution, BOR, legal system, decently-managed welfare system). There was a lot of prosperity to go around, after WWII ended the great depression at least.

I suspect it had a lot to do with our financial successes following WWII and the unprecedented technological progress over the past century that allowed the majority of people in the US to prosper. I think our strong capitalist roots also helped, as we moved from an agriculture -> industrial -> services based economy (not a value judgment), while much of Africa was subjected to colonization and many of its resources, both material and human capital, were sent elsewhere. We corporatized and scaled up our agricultural sector, which has its pros (less back breaking labor, a lot more food) and cons (blander, genetically-weaker crops, danger of oligopoly). I think Mr. Awuah's comment is interesting because in 30 years, the best and the brightest Ghanaians may feel compelled to return home and improve life for their fellow Ghanaians, the same way he did after studying and working abroad.

In summary I believe more forward-thinking universities like Ashesi and more leaders like Patrick Awuah need to step forward to help instill a love for ethics, altruism, and the feeling of eating hard-earned bread after a long day of work in bright young students. This will address the core of the problem of the back-breaking labor needed for subsistence farming, but will take a long time. Until then we can chip away at edge problems, like cassava grating, and as another commenter pointed out, information access through smart phones.

This is all conjecture though, and I'm not big on either African or US history, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[1] In 2012, the university was ranked by PwC as the seventh most respected organisation in Ghana, becoming the first university to make the list. Ashesi's President, Dr. Patrick Awuah, was also ranked the 4th Most Respected CEO in Ghana. In 2015, Africa.com again named Ashesi among its list of top 10 African Universities (excluding South Africa). (From > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashesi_University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashesi_University))

<comment><USER59> > I used to believe that religion was a crucial and effective way of passing > an ethical code from one generation to the next. But every Ghanaian I met > was either Christian or Muslim, and some even expressed concern for my soul > when I said I wasn't religious.

I suspect what you might be seeing is moral licensing. I was first introduced to this as a discrete concept in Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History (episode 1). Interestingly, he predicted that because of it Hillary Clinton would suffer quite harsh criticism if she were to be elected (prior to the election). Listening to it for the first time after the election I couldn't help but think he was right in general but quite off about how it would be expressed. We had just elected the first black president, after all...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> >...and even individuals who want to start a farm.

As a person who lives in a farming area this seems like putting a computer and a box of red bull in a box and labeling it "computer programmer kit".

I'm not a farmer but things like crop rotation, regulations, WHIMIS (pesticides/herbicides), dangers such as the PTO on the tractor and other farm dangers all needed training. You see at least once per year some farm hand injured by crushing or falling there are so many dangers.

<comment><USER61> >We have a three-part training program that comes with the box. One: Covering sustainable farming, making sure everyone knows a little bit in terms of crop rotation, and composting, and intercropping. Two: Covering technology use and maintenance, making sure that the individuals know how to maintain and troubleshoot all of the components of the farm. Three: Farming as an enterprise, making sure that there is a market-based approach to farming.

So it's more like they give you a computer, a box of redbull, and a couple books on putting together a MEAN stack. I think it's a good start for someone who wants to get their feet wet.

<comment><USER47> That's a lot of investment for someone getting their feet wet. I've been growing food for my family at home for the last four years and while I don't have two acres to farm, I can tell you that equipment has been the least of my problems.

Learning to grow food has been a gradual process for me, learning what works for my soil and my climate. I can't imagine trying to start with a Conex full of equipment and two acres to farm, unless you have a local farmer there to help you along. It's so much easier to start small, a few hundred square feet, and to get the advice of a local gardening club or garden store when it comes to choosing what to plant.

<comment><USER62> Not everyone has the luxury or desire for a "gradual process", but may have at least a sensible starting fund and the motivation to make it work. Sometimes the window of opportunity is small, and diving in fast is important (say, realize you have to grow your own food and spring is progressing - if you don't plant ASAP you're not getting to harvest).

I've long considered a similar "in a [shipping container] box" for fast-start retail establishments. Have access to retail space? have just days/hours to put up a fast-food shop? won't be perfect, but the box contains what you need to get a functioning restaurant delivered & running in hours. Likewise I can appreciate an "in a box" for a farm; get some cheap land and get what you need to reach harvest before snowfall.

<comment><USER63> I think if you have $50,000 you probably aren't really worried about what you will be eating in 5 months.

<comment><USER62> Supply chain and employment aren't guaranteed. Dependents need be fed. For some of us, self-sufficiency is axiomatic and dropping $50k for a starter box might seem sensible.

<comment><USER63> So the trucks will reliably deliver the $50,000 of valuable agricultural equipment but not $5000 of pasta?

I understand the idea of becoming self sufficient. It's the idea of spending $50,000 to make it happen because it suddenly became urgent that I think is not very realistic.

(of course 10 man-years of pasta is not an exciting nutritional adventure. I'd argue it's far more pragmatic than hoping you figure out how to farm in 8 weeks...)

<comment><USER16> If you're more than self sufficient you're of inherent value to your self sufficient rural neighbors and can expect a long happy life.

If you have $5K of easily movable commodity dollars, gold, pasta, in your basement, you're of value in another way, and you're probably not going to like that outcome.

<comment><USER63> So hard. If we end up in a world where neighbors are shooting neighbors for pasta I hope someone gets me quick. I guess I'll make at least 1 tasty meal, even for a big band of brigands.

The post I initially responded to wasn't about self sufficiency, it was about buying it in a box and making it work in 1 season. I replied about the making it work in 1 season not being a particularly likely thing. Hence buying an easily movable commodity probably being a better use of the money, even if you aren't a cold blooded crack shot.

<comment><USER16> I guess I was looking at it from a long term community perspective rather than just brutality.

If in the long run you're a net positive to the neighbors you'll be "in" and life will be very good. Everyone loves the village blacksmith or brewer or fellow farmer or whatever.

On the other hand if you don't bring something to the table or just have a shopping bag of temporary loot then life will be much harder without the community.

<comment><USER63> You think the $50,000 kit is relevant in that perspective?

Or is it something like 10 years of practice that is relevant?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> "a test plot [in Ethiopia] for Farm From a Box had to be cancelled, due to ethnic protests there"

There's a sentence that asks more questions than it answers.

<comment><USER65> Not specifically related to the farm. Ethiopia is a _very_ non-free country, as is nearby Eritrea. We just don't hear much about it because journalism is impossible and the government is pro-west.

<comment><USER66> Can you explain "pro-west"? I suspect it means somebody who says "I like West. West will help us", not a liberal mind.

Liberal philosophy roughly means freedom and same rights to everyone, including very bad persons, in exchange to strict execution of written laws. So to be truly pro-west, person must advocate same right to everyone, including e.g. gays, and strong independent court for everyone, including e.g. top leaders and officials, which will adhere to written laws religiously. He also must fight to death with bribes and bribers.

Are you sure you labeling correct person with "pro-west" label?

PS.

It's looks like offtopic here. Should I delete this message?

<comment><USER67> It's a tricky turn of phrase, as a UK English user I'd use "pro-West" to mean that a government was complicit with Western _governments_ requests. So things like allowing USA to have an airbase. Pro-West is along way off "sharing Western liberal ideals" which appears to be how you interpreted it. As the parent responded many Westerners don't do that.

<comment><USER66> For you, pro-west means what you are said. For me, if a politic is elected by us, I will expect that "pro-west" will serve _us_ by standards of West, not serve West government requests at expense of us. It's relative term. It's why I'm trying to clarify.

Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Does it pack a tractor in? Who's gonna till the soil? Very click-baity.

I can pack in all the required farming equipment needed for a 2 acre land in under $20,000 in India (including a good tractor!). And I get to chose what I want.

$50,000-$60,000 is a STEEP price tag to suggest to African farmers I assume! And then there would be a maintenance costs.

These are just two of the field tested equipments that work (with spare parts available throught the Indian market at least) and are available with many options - [https://www.mahindratractor.com/](https://www.mahindratractor.com/) [http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.h...](http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.htm)

<comment><USER68> Also farms usually have a store room attached to keep the equipment. It's also cool in there cause it's made in a traditional way - thatched roof, wood, mud, thick walls etc. So it makes for a nice resting place when it's hot.

Why would anyone want to lose a piece of their farm land to keep a container and also pay for it!

<comment><USER69> One reason why you may want a container is because it is a movable structure. That means that you do not need a building permit. Acquiring a building permit requires at least a class 5 road. This is the case for New Hampshire. I don't know how representative it is though. Also this not uncommon when for larger lots, but I'm not really sure if there are differences from lots as small as 2 acres.

<comment><USER70> If that were indeed a hard requirement, it seems like it would prevent a farmer building any structure within his property that's not adjoining a public (i.e. Class V) road.

And indeed the planning board can make an exception:

 _A private road, but as with Class VI roads, only if the governing body, after consulting with the planning board has adopted a policy allowing building on that particular private road, or portion thereof, and then only if the owner has recorded a notice in the registry of deeds acknowledging that the town is not liable for maintenance..._

So I would think that a farmer that wants to build a storage shed on the far side of his field would be able to get a permit as long as it's accessible by some private road (even a class VI dirt road)

<comment><USER69> Right, the governing body can make an exception for a particular private road. And in that case, you would be able to apply for a building permit. There are also provisions for exceptions in RSA 674:41 that would cause excessive hardship or practical difficulties. So it seems that the law has been made so that a local governing body has the discretion to made a pragmatic decision. However, this all assumes that the local governing body would indeed grant such an exception and that the land owner believes it is worth to effort. In the case of your hypothetical farmer, it is probably worth the effort. However, if you have a 2 acre lot and want to put a farm in a box on it, you might be happy to simply avoid dealing with the governing body and just plant your farm in a box on your lot and get to work.

<comment><USER68> Why are you guys talking about building policies in US, when this project is supposedly for under-developed countries?

<comment><USER69> I guess the first reason is that I was providing an answer to question about why would you want to use a container. My answer comes from personal experience in New Hampshire. I mention New Hampshire specifically because I do not know how general that situation for the rest of the US or other countries. However, it seems reasonable that they may be equivalent restrictions in other place, thus providing a reason for why a container may be desirable.

Secondly, the project is not being marketed for specifically for under- developed countries. In the linked article they do mention their experience in Kenya and that one of their target markets are governments to support development projects or refugee camps. But they also state that they are targeting individuals in the US. Also their website makes it clear that under- developed countries are not the major focus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ng2 and ES6 = Love. Updated docs are finally here - <AUTHOR> https://angular.io/docs/js/latest/cookbook/ts-to-js.html <comment><USER2> I have to say that from what I've seen/done in ng2, that I wouldn't want to do it without at least the babel level of support... the decorators are just too useful.</comment>


Web Hosting's Dirty Laundry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/04/web-hostings-dirty-laundry/

<comment><USER2> I do a little web hosting on the side. Only for friends or companies that are run by friends, though. Depending on what they want I charge somewhere between 10 and 40 euros a year. If you don't know the dollar/euro exchange rate, just assume it's 1:1 for now.

I've also built several web-hosting (static HTML and PHP/MySQL) systems for ISPs (years ago) along with the management and backup solutions to go with them.

I make a small loss doing the hosting I do for friends, but that doesn't bother me.

I over the years I've often been asked by the people buying my services why I am more expensive than a lot of advertised hosting services.

Ha! More expensive, now there's a joke. The key word is 'advertised'. I basically re-sell capacity below cost and re-sell domain registration at cost plus one euro a year for administrative overhead (read : the cost of sending a yearly invoice through snail-mail).

My hosting services are 'expensive' because this is what the actual cost is.

If I'm running this at a loss in my spare time on a good-will basis, why are there parties out there with full-time staff charging _less_ for (superficially) identical services?

Well, let's see..

Registering a domain with a random party is generally a bad idea. For example, some hosting companies put themselves in the registrant information (as owner). In other words, the domain doesn't belong to you and you do not have control over it. Not something a non-techie will know or understand (unless you explain it to them).

The price for registering a domain is generally lower when you go with a big hoster, because these organizations have bulk registration deals, which lowers the price they have to pay to register an individual domain. Buy 1 domain at 10 euros, buy 1000 at 1000.

Some hosters also play bandwidth games. Ooops, you got linked from a major site and that's caused a spike - which is why your site is now shut down. Please wait 24 hours or upgrade to 'premium'.

Pay extra for email. Oh yeah, this is a popular one. Besides not having proper forwarding facilities (or a POP or IMAP server - forward to one address only), many providers will store any email on their own systems and charge for it. Bonus points for "adding email addresses to your domain", which will cost more (of course).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is true. Fake review sites are one of the top categories of spam here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=Jaheem12>

(You have to turn on showdead in your profile to see spam.)

<comment><USER4> I may be the only one, but I'd rather the link was left as clickable, even if the item has been deaded.

Otherwise there seems no way to find what the original url was.

I think the items deaded are pretty much spot on, but sometimes I'd like to be able to see what the fuss was about, or points raised in discussions.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Dead worries me and I'm very happy I turned showdead on - not because spam shouldn't be deaded, but because I've seen plenty of legitimate comments "deaded" on threads..

<comment><USER3> The reason you see dead comments is not because they've been individually killed, but because they were posted by banned users. Often it's obvious from the comments why they were banned, but there are some who oscillate between reasonable and trolling.

<comment><USER5> That's useful to know - thanks! It's a shame that good comments die with the user, though, although I expect few users with consistently good comments are banned anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hosting is a 'market for lemons':

<http://www.welton.it/articles/webhosting_market_lemons.html>

Interestingly, one of the ways to get around information asymmetry problems is testing, certification, and, yes, reviews. But if the review sites are corrupt, that kind of brings you back to square one.

<comment><USER7> Not only that, but even if the reviews are honest, the reviewers may not be reasonable at all. For instance, there was a rash of complaints about Dreamhost a few years back because of cutting people off for too much CPU usage. This is usually from people running PhpBB and WordPress with a zillion poorly-written modules, who were too cheap to pay for a VPS or something more appropriate to their traffic levels.

A lot of them moved to places like Site5 where they tended not to cut off customers. Sounds great if you're one of these guys using all the resources, but it sucks for the other 50 people on the shared box. I experienced this firsthand where Site5 would sometimes become tremendously slow for no apparent reason, and the support staff would always just say they were "looking into it", but would never come up with a solution after months and months. Meanwhile on Dreamhost, things might not always be as fast as my Xen VPS, but neither would I log in and see a load of 10+. Plus they responded professionally and dealt with serious technical issues with refreshing candor.

<comment><USER8> > _Meanwhile on Dreamhost, things might not always be as fast as my Xen VPS, > but neither would I log in and see a load of 10+._

Funny; I don't think I ever logged into my DreamHost account and saw a load any lower than 14-16 on a good day...

<comment><USER7> Ask them to move you to a different server:

12:24:03 up 80 days, 11:29, 5 users, load average: 2.58, 2.16, 2.35

Which is a little on the high end of what I usually see. More importantly, when there has been a problem they've identified it and dealt with it.

<comment><USER8> I did, multiple times, and they refused, even when I told them I would leave because of that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So right now the old I-hate-Java-frameworks post from 2005 and this one from 2006 are both front page "news." Has the internet finally run out of actual news? Perhaps it is a dump truck, after all, as opposed to a series of tubes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted this as I was reminded of it when I read through the comments here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=432299>

Thought it was an excellent blog post and still relevant today and so I posted it after a quick search revealed that it hadn't been posted yet here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I did the crappy logo for the #1 hosting company on that site when I was a young Padawan. Think I'm going to go take a shower now.

</comment><comment><USER11> Payola and affiliate programs and such are not particular news.

Industry analysts and consulting houses can have similar profit motives for their recommendations and implementations over the years, too.

There was a bogus application that showed how shady some of the software award sites can be, too: [http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software- awards...](http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards-scam/)

Even grocery and department stores can have financial considerations around product placement and the location and quantity of shelf space for a product that is made available within the store.

When in doubt (and when you can), always follow the money.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like a market opportunity. No-BS Hosting Reviews. Affiliate free. Require proof of being a customer (placing an HTML file on their server) to reduce gaming. Sell ads, but make a clear distinction between reviews and ads.

<comment><USER13> That would require that your users have an implicit distrust of hosting reviews, which they almost certainly don't.

<comment><USER12> If you google for hosting reviews, and find one that says "No-BS", contrasted against the others, it may stand out. You'd have to develop a reputation for being reliable, like any other site.

<comment><USER14> When the fake review sites see one that says "No-BS", exactly how long until 10 of them say "No-BS"?

<comment><USER12> That's a good point. Good branding and good execution could overcome that. There are a lot of successful sites out there that position themselves as the no-crap version of crappy sites that do very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have my own problems with Dreamhost, which I think hurts my business sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER5> They're right, but I doubt this post will have much effect. It's a profitable game and of the thousands of people who click through to that hosting review site, very few are already Dreamhost customers, have read Dreamhost's blog, or, heck, probably even know what a "blog" is.

All those horrendous price comparison sites, catalog sites, and other junk sites are still out there and still thriving just because consumers are pretty ignorant when it comes to online research. These sites won't be going away any time soon, alas.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm actually launching a hosting review site right now (tonight) so it's interesting this came up. I've found this is very much the case across all hosting review sites.

I decided to shift focus towards working with hosts (any host) that want to be included in the directory, whether they had an affiliate program or not.

Of course if a host happens to have an affiliate program, I see no reason to not use it as long as your transparent with your users.

Plus it keeps the site free of regular banner advertising.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow, they aren't even shy about it: all of the advertisers on their front page (except adsense) are also in the top 10 list. Shouldn't that be a conflict of interest?

</comment><comment><USER18> But they just seem so trustworthy!

Maybe there's a market for a hosting reviews site run by some company or some person with a good existing reputation.

Same goes for domain registrations, DNS providers etc.

<comment><USER19> Maybe we just need hosting review website review websites.

<comment><USER18> Brilliant! All we need to do now is set up a hosting review website review website review website and we'll be all set!:p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A web hosting review site sounds like an opportunity to make money. But like all profitable ideas, the competition reaches a critical mass and the inefficient die.

</comment><comment><USER21> I knew it.</comment>


Taking YesGraph in a New Direction - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yesgraph.com/new-direction/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is my post here. Ask me anything.</comment>


Ask HN: What language do you like to see compiling into WebAssembly? - <AUTHOR> WebAssembly gives you an entirely new perspective for writing applications. What language do you like to see compiled into WebAssembly and Why? If it is already compiling into WebAssembly what is your favourite feature in it. <comment><USER2> Anything with a garbage collector. I don't want to manage memory manually anymore.

But why are you asking?

<comment><AUTHOR> What if a tool does memory management?

To understand what is the general opinion and who wants to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Scheme, there chibi-scheme that compiles to wasm. My favorite feature is that it is very easy to express (html (code "in s-expr")). On the bad side, the interaction with JavaScript side is kind of pain. I did not figure out (nor tried whatsoever) to create a (general?) message passing kind of facility, that would allow me to do both DOM manipulation and XHR.

</comment><comment><USER4> QBasic, it was part of my childhood memories, I want it to have a new life.

<comment><USER5> You could use DOSBox for that: [https://archive.org/details/msdos_qbasic_megapack](https://archive.org/details/msdos_qbasic_megapack)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> WebAssembly with macros.</comment>