Green Threads Explained (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://c9x.me/articles/gthreads/intro.html <comment><USER2> Here's an interesting paper from a principal software developer at Microsoft comparing green thread implementations ("fibers" or "user-mode scheduling" in Windows terminology) on different operating systems:

"Fibers under the magnifying glass": [http://www.open- std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2018/p136...](http://www.open- std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2018/p1364r0.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> A thread from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439615)</comment>


The Definitive Reason Why Facebook Is Worth At Least $15 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-definitive-reason-why-facebook-is-worth-at-least-15-billion <comment><USER2> "From a less elementary perspective this means that Facebook, a website less than five years old, is now valued at as much money as Ford Motors."

<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=F>

Ford's enterprise value (as opposed to the value of their stock) is about $150 billion. One of the reasons new companies look deceptively valuable is that they're capitalized mostly with equity. A large company like Ford or GE will borrow pretty extensively, and their stock will be a small fraction of their total value (though probably the best proxy for how well they create wealth).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a pretty _not good_ argument. Like definition of bad.</comment>


Blockchains for Digital Artwork - <AUTHOR> http://monegraph.com/

<comment><USER2> last year, while having dinner with a friend, he asked me how to create a copyright system for artists, such that they can monetize their works based on the number of times their works have been used. I then had exactly the same idea. but later on I gave up, because although the block chain could prove who is the author of certain work, but it won't prevent the work from piracy.

</comment><comment><USER3> what is the exchange currency in this framework?</comment>


Who Cares What People Write? - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2009/05/31/who-cares-what-people-write/ <comment><USER2> a) seems like a major portion of this article is dedicated for Cuban to coin the "outtie" term.

b) Its pretty striking how Cuban's message is pretty much 180 degrees of Gary Vaynerchuk's, one bends over backwards chasing down the most obscure blogger/twitter to try to repair his brand, before it gets damaged, while the other pretty much ignores the little guys until the problem becomes mainstream

</comment><comment><USER3> I write because I like to participate. I think lots of people do. Not everyone cares about being "discovered". Not everyone is hungry. Some of us just want to participate.

<comment><USER4> That does prompt for some soul searching: why do you 'like to participate'? What is your motivation for spending time and energy to pen down your thoughts?

You may not feel the need to answer that question. If (not 'when') the moment comes when you wonder about it, you should realize that 'I _just_ like ...' cannot possibly be the ultimate answer.

I think that in the end, most of us (read: I) simply seek confirmation. We like nothing more than approval. That is probably why I actually feel bad when someone shreds my argument or when I'm voted down. If the participation itself was gratifying, that wouldn't be the case. If I was out to teach, I should be happy that someone corrects me.

There are many possible motivations for participating online, but only your deepest feelings surrounding your participation can identify your actual motivation.

<comment><USER5> For me, writing/commenting is a great way of improving my own understanding of the topic, since it requires focus and some research. So in keeping with that, blogging is simply good QA for my writing. Publishing is like the difference between running a site with a large userbase and one that doesn't - in the former you feel more pressure or responsibility to do your best.

Confirmation is something that we all seek but arguing online and with friends has also taught me that being challenged can only ever be healthy for your beliefs, to use Mill's words in _On Liberty_ , it yields _"[a] clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."_ \- whether the error is the opponent's or my own

<comment><USER4> I fully agree that discussions are often very educational and can change your beliefs for the better, but sometimes you aren't so much corrected and taught as disregarded, ridiculed, admonished or beaten down. That doesn't sit well for a short while, even if I agree it was an appropriate response.

<comment><USER3> I agree with what you're saying, it's tough, and more tough than is necessary. It's hard to see how it can be "fixed" but I do think that the more social it gets and the more we begin to recognize each other even in the more relatively anonymous forums like HN the more civil and easygoing it gets.

Plus, doesn't it seem that online culture is growing up? Even if very slowly?

But we'll never quite shake the fact that all of us come from different perspectives. We don't often talk about what I think is one of the most different of them all...AGE :-) Hacker forums will always have a percentage of pimply-faced 14 year olds, idealistic 21 year olds, cynical 36 year olds (me) and smug 45 year olds, and chilled out 55 year olds :-D

(Please don't aim all those big guns at me, I'm way over-generalizing and having fun at the same time, just to make a point: Age is a factor :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It will be interesting to see whether history proves him right or wrong in his admonition to not bother responding.

The invisible separation between the famous and the not so famous is getting thinner. The cost of not engaging with the commoners may be high. Mark Cuban himself does somewhat engage, perhaps not as much as it might appear he does. However, it's a crowded field, and only getting more crowded, and the ones who do engage may end up with more influence.

It's all abstract speculation though, and I think only time will tell.</comment>


Apple renames OS X to macOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11906214/apple-mac-os-10-announced-features-siri-wwdc-2016 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11895750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11895750), which ended up with the more active discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> This really looks like the barrier between iOS and OS X have been kicked down fully. I am wondering if anyone is going to see this as an improvement?</comment>


Statistics with the array language Klong - nils-m-holm http://t3x.org/klong-stat/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Despite only occasionally hacking around with array programming languages, I have always enjoyed the terse syntax. But I admittedly find weird syntax somewhat engaging.

I have wondered what was happening with statistics in the larger group of array languages. Do other HN readers know of J, Q/KDB+, Klong, or others in use by teams outside of the normal financial folks using Q/KDB+? I'd be quite interested in hearing any stories from the business world where it isn't a "lone hacker" situation, but rather even a small group of programmers were using array languages in production situations.

<comment><USER2> The terse syntax is totally off-putting to most people and it makes it a hard sell at work or to a research group. I suspect the only reason it found a niche in quant finance is that those guys are geniuses and can kinda do whatever the hell they want. They also don't have to share their code all that often AFAIK.

There's also no reason for it. Heck, you could even give each function an alias, write a "verbose language", and have it compile to the short form before being processed further. Then you could even write both long-form and short-form, and interleave the two if you really wanted.

<comment><USER3> Q is exactly that for K. Almost everyone switched from Q to K sooner or later, because once you grok the ideas, the verbosity gets in the way of both reading and writing.

There's also kerf, which is verbose; AFAIK it was not met was the same success that APL, J or K have -- though likely for unrelated reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dammit, another array language with cryptic syntax. It seems to be an unfortunate side effect of APL's custom character set that all languages inspired by it adopt the terse notation, minus the elegant symbology that made it work in the first place.

The only array language I've ever found that bucks this tendency is Nial, with the result that it's an extremely fun language to play around in, if impractical due to its ancient interpreter. J claims to have English synonyms for everything, but only as second-class citizens (no working interpreter support). Numpy, sadly, is probably the closest thing.

It's a shame because I think it's holding the paradigm back.

<comment> nils-m-holm It's only cryptic until you get used to it! I, for my part, would not want to go back to anything else after having used terse syntax for a while, even if it was not linked to the array paradigm.

Of course, the syntax requires a different way of reading/writing code. It is a bit like reading a math book versus reading a novel. In a novel, you can skim over a few sentences or paragraphs, in a math book you get lost when you do this. Personally, I think this is a feature. :)

<comment><USER5> "Personally, I think this is a feature."

That is how I see it.

The more terse the better.

If there is a downside to APL-inspired language interpreters, it is that too many are closed source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know these others, but I love Matlab (for its intended use-case of course). I'm fortunate enough to have it as part of my job. I do wish that it was less clunky in how it accommodates functional programming styles.

</comment><comment> a-nikolaev If you wonder what the license is, it is Public Domain:

Klong A Simple Array Language By Nils M Holm, 2015--2017

Nobody owns this code. It's in the public domain or whatever you call it.

Disclaimer, just in case:

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.</comment>


Officially, the Special Collection Service doesn't exist (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/226723/inside-the-secret-world-of-americas-super-sophisticated-eavesdropping-spies

<comment><USER2> I no longer believe a word spoken by any government shill, based solely upon the preponderance of the evidence.

Ergo, their credibility doesn't exist.

What was it that "Dubya" mangled when he said it? _" You can fool me once... But ya can't get fooled again..."_

[http://youtu.be/eKgPY1adc0A](http://youtu.be/eKgPY1adc0A)

</comment><comment><USER3> Everyone always says (including me) that NSA existed for a long time-- including the giant building at Ft. Meade--but it was never publicly acknowledged until many decades later. I went looking for a solid reference tonight and could not find one. I found a lot of sources repeating the same line but nothing saying "In XXXX the WH publicly acknowledged the existence of NSA for the first time since its formation in the 50s."

<comment><USER4> I doubt there was ever an actual, official point where they formally acknowledged its existence - that'd draw far too much attention.

<comment><USER3> Well they acknowledge NSA now so it seems that there must have been a point in the past when they acknowledged it for the first time. Furthermore as another commenter points out NRO was not acknowledged until 1991 even though NRO was mentioned in public documents in the 1970s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you go down Powdermill Road in Beltsville, you find yourself driving through incredibly spooky open fields and past "FEDERAL PROPERTY" signs on nondescript, unmarked buildings with huge numbers and no names. There's even a fire hydrant in the middle of some kind of field. Some buildings were marked USDA (a gate to APHIS leads to a bunch of buildings behind thick forest), but it seemed incredibly creepy.

[https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.033795,-...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.033795,-76.844838&spn=0.005667,0.010654&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.033798,-76.844706&panoid=hOsNbb4cHDou31lLMR5qIA&cbp=12,17.02,,0,0)

Other weird links: here's the StreetView car passing some kind of weird truck with cables and tanks on it: [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.030349,-...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.030349,-76.838737&spn=0.000708,0.001332&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=39.030268,-76.838654&panoid=NhTKMGjKFY0Lbx1HLRFGgw&cbp=12,20,,0,13.46)

Turn around to find the "Area Under Video Surveillance" sign (surveillance? for a corn field, a barn and a forest?) [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.030268,-...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.030268,-76.838654&spn=0.000708,0.001332&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=39.030195,-76.838578&panoid=EpLN5KXDCitgEBEZ5A74ng&cbp=12,261.81,,1,12.37)

Zoom out, and there's one large barn on the map view. [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.02984,-7...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.02984,-76.839047&spn=0.001417,0.002663&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=m&z=19)

There are a lot of gates. A lot. [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.033753,-...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.033753,-76.848432&spn=0.005667,0.010654&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.03375,-76.848504&panoid=TGFU2CxwaEDk9HZmu_AHNg&cbp=12,1.81,,1,6.64)

Whatever this facility is, there are lots of gates and fences and lots of trees blocking view. The weird sprawling government fields could just be some kind of FDA testbeds (there's more nearby, I forget what road) but it's just... creepy. [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.037453,-...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=beltsville,+md&ll=39.037453,-76.837692&spn=0.011334,0.021307&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Beltsville,+Prince+George%27s,+Maryland&gl=us&t=m&z=16)

(Ironically close to Snowden Pond)

<comment><USER6> The Google map view clearly tells you that it is the Secret Service training center. Lots has been written about it; it is where they do training for protection details. [http://www.secretservice.gov/about_rtc.shtml](http://www.secretservice.gov/about_rtc.shtml)

The truck in the picture is a vacuum truck. Nothing odd about it, I see them in pretty much every city. They unclog pipes and remove material from dig sites.

<comment><USER5> Oh. Guess it was just unintentionally creepy then. I never saw SS mentioned on the map. Also sort of random, there is an SCS Lake below Beaver Dam rd.</comment></comment></comment>


Memory Translation and Segmentation - <AUTHOR> http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/memory-translation-and-segmentation <comment><USER2> Great article. I find that whenever I start jotting notes for an article I'm planning to write, I find it was recently written or exists already.

Same with software ideas..</comment>


A Different Kind of Transparency - <AUTHOR> https://puri.sm/posts/a-different-kind-of-transparency/ <comment><AUTHOR> [0] Librem 5 Development documentation - Hardware Reference - [https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Hardware_Reference/Birch.h...](https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Hardware_Reference/Birch.html#schematics)</comment>


Patrick Collison's Bookshelf - <AUTHOR> http://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf <comment><USER2> And I thought I was a pretty voracious reader, now I feel like I just left kindergarten. Thanks Patrick for giving me several years worth of reading (I'll probably need even stronger reading glasses after a fraction of this list).</comment>


Zillow CEO: Redfin 'a threat to organized real estate' - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Zillow-CEO-Redfin-a-threat-to-organized-real-11744590.php?ipid=articlerecirc <comment><USER2> In the same way the Uber is a threat to organized taxi services? Real estate agents have always been middlemen in the real estate transaction. Giving buyers/sellers the option to complete transactions with or without additional middlemen seems like a benefit for organized real estate from the buyer/seller perspective, doesn't it? Of course that's going to be a threat to everyone in the middle that makes money off the process. I've always thought that making the MLS exclusive was bullshit to begin with. As long as people have the choice to still work with agents (who obviously have experience and first-hand knowledge that you only get from that job), let it be a threat.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to work in the real estate tech industry. The vast majority of companies in that space view brokerages as their primary revenue source and develop software designed to give brokers more structural advantages to extract middle-man profits from renters and buyers. Zillow is the largest and most successful RE tech co to pursue that business model but they aren't alone.

Redfin is attempting a different business model that is in many ways hostile to brokerages. This is political stuff, basically. Changes to the relationship between landlords/sellers, brokers, and renters/buyers will have very large scale economic consequences and also likely result in long term changes to the way neighborhoods are constituted and populated.

<comment><USER4> It won't affect the market too much if brokers are taken out of the equation. Most people only use brokers nowadays (at least in the bigger cities) for paperwork.

<comment><USER5> yeah, for me, I prepared all the staff by myself when trying to buy a property. I just need an agent to make the offer, but I don't think that work worth 3% of the price

<comment><USER6> My lawyer (required by law in NY) did a lot more work for a small fixed fee then my real estate agent. If I'm buying another place in the future, I'm skipping a buyers agent and using the same lawyer.

On the sales side I'd still consider using one due to them arranging pictures, running open houses, following up with buyers. Depending on difficulty of sale / commission structure it's worth it.

<comment><USER7> Be aware that the way most seller's agent contracts are written, if the buyer has no agent, then the seller agents gets both (e.g. 6%). The reason is, they technically transfer the full commission for both agents to the sellers firm, then they kick back half to the buyer agent.

It's hard to avoid paying agents when buying a house.

<comment><USER6> I'm aware of the fact, but almost most sellers agents rather get 4% or 4.5% rather then 3% (which is what happens when there is a buyers agent).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> basically, with real estate info easily accessible these days, agents do not worth 6% anymore, they might be worthing 1% for paperwork and some very basic consultation, but that's it, in my opinion, that can also be eliminated, we should be able to buy house like buying a car, or like buying items from the supermarket, because, 6% is too much these days.</comment>


Stealth Start-Ups Suck - <AUTHOR> http://www.wingedpig.com/archives/000207.html

<comment><USER2> "24 Hour Laundry. Who knows what they do, but whatever it is, they're doing it wrong."

"My rule of thumb is that it should take no more than 3 months to go from conception to launch of a new web service. And that's being generous. I'm speaking from experience here."

Foot in mouth?</comment>


ElasticSearch - a new distributed, RESTful search engine based on Lucene - <AUTHOR> http://www.elasticsearch.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's kind of like Solr, but comes distributed and sharded out of the box with no configuration, uses JSON as the only document type and is completely schemaless. This leads to some really neat tricks - see here for a good example: [http://www.elasticsearch.com/blog/2010/02/12/yourdatayoursea...](http://www.elasticsearch.com/blog/2010/02/12/yourdatayoursearch.html)</comment>


Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/ <comment><USER2> If it turns out that we're in fact in a simulation, does that make you any less real than you think you are? Does that make you want to break the law? Does that make you want to ignore ethics? Does that make any difference in our lives?

</comment><comment><USER3> The idea that we are living in a simulation hosted by our human descendants strikes me as satanic.

On the other hand, are we in a "simulation" carried out in the mind of God? If we were, would it be a distinction without a meaningful difference?

</comment><comment><USER4> If we're living in a computer simulation then what are the cheat codes for infinite bread and fish?</comment>


London Phoneboxes are being turned into free 1Gbps Wi-Fi hotspots - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/link-free-wifi-london <comment><AUTHOR> BT press release [http://www.btplc.com/news/index.htm#/pressreleases/free- ultr...](http://www.btplc.com/news/index.htm#/pressreleases/free-ultrafast-wi- fi-mobile-charging-calls-and-local-information-coming-to-london-1621494)

Intersection post [https://medium.com/@intersection_co/announcing-linkuk- from-b...](https://medium.com/@intersection_co/announcing-linkuk-from-bt-a- new-link-between-new-york-and-london-e35a67ed604d#.1to7l8xmm)</comment>


Ask HN: Why am I never happy? - <AUTHOR>

I've been in the web design industry for a while now. Worked with a fair share of startups, had some success as a freelancer before that and am now happily committed to a start up working on amazing things.
But often when working on a new feature, or trying to redo my own personal site, I'm never truly happy with the outcome. At most I'm content with some of the things I push out. I'm not saying I release crappy designs but I'm not sitting there thinking "Shit, this is the best thing I've ever made."
Is this bad? Am I supposed to be extremely happy with my work? <comment><USER2> This is probably what most people call "perfectionism". I myself have this... "curse", if you want. It's perfectly normal to think that every piece of your work is not the best thing, cause by doing it you get a tiny little better, which for perfectionists is enough to look back and judge strictly. Learn to accept some little things here and there once in a while just to maintain normal levels for free time and sanity. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> You should be extremely happy with your results, but you should never be extremely happy with your work. You should set your goals high enough that you meet them no more than 90% of the time. You will learn to balance your goal of doing good enough work with your goal of continually improving. When you have learned that perfect is the enemy of good enough, and learn to see the forest for the trees, grasshopper will be the teacher.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this is exactly what makes you successful in your work. Because you are never truly satisfied with your work, you become very motivated to make improvements! I see this as a pursuit for excellence. I have seen people who are always so satisfied with their status quo that they never really improve.

</comment><comment><USER5> No artist is never happy with the stuff they make and those rare times that one is exhilarated by what they created... well, it came about as a result of serendipity, spilled paint or by accident rather than a solid plan.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is a lot easier to be finished than it is to be satisfied. You can tweak your work, no matter what you do or create, forever. At some point you have to say, "It's Finished".

</comment><comment><USER7> Hedonic treadmill <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill>

</comment><comment><USER8> Happiness is a choice.</comment>


Web Development in 2020: What Coding Tools You Should Learn - <AUTHOR> https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/web-development-2020/ <comment><USER2> > Rust is one of the languages you can use with WebAssembly (in addition to C > and C++). It's significantly easier to learn and use than C and C++.

Is this really true?</comment>


Non-Centralised Infrastructure - a partial list - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/12/non-centralised-infrastructure/index.htm

<comment><USER2> Despite the titles being completely different, this is a duplicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1991332></comment>


Ask YC: How many startups outsource? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know how many startups outsource their development?  Let me clear my point. Speaking about outsourcing, I am talking about offshore development, outside US, the power of freelancers, who stay below the US market rates.
Outsourcing sometimes can save a good chunk of money.  Isn't it a very valuable reason especially for brand new startups, when they count every single cent?
Here is my point: a lot of startups are looking for someone to join them for a tiny salary plus huge chunk of equity. So why wouldn't they consider outsources, using the same amount of money, they may not give any equity at all or just a small piece of it.
If you do, what're your major pros for it?
And if you don't, what're your cons against it?  Would you like to?
Personally speaking, we do outsource some of our development.  As far as I'm originally from different country, I still have a lot of connections and partners in my home country.
Please, share.  Thanks! <comment><USER3> There are thousands of extremely talented developers around the world that will work for much less than US salaries. I think every company should at least consider outsourcing as an option, especially if you are working on a "one zebra stripe" product or you are incredibly cash-strapped - <USER2> probably describes most young startup entrepreneurs.

That said, I've never outsourced development on anything that is the core technology of a company, be it the product itself or any technology that gives the firm its primary service advantage. I believe that if something can be explained and executed properly by an outsourced team at a significantly lower cost than we can do it ourselves, then it can essentially can be done by anyone else just as easily, so it isn't a worthwhile product for us to pursue. It's just a commodity. It could be an extremely profitable project, of course, but it loses its interest to me. And there are always more interesting projects to work on...projects where I or my team actually have something unique to offer.

I have outsourced several ancillary products to foreign developers, though. Every single one has been a complete nightmare. We used a few major Indian firms, including Wipro, and we even had our own dev leads move there to direct coding. All of the projects went over our time and cost budgets. The solutions were also, for lack of a better word, brittle. The Indian developers were very talented and nice people, but there was just too much communication overhead and something seemed to get lost in the back and forth. A few times, it seemed like we were paying the developers to learn and get up to speed on technology they claimed to be experts in.

We also outsourced a decent-sized project to a team of Ukrainian developers. I was ecstatic to get them (their lead developer had post-doc computer science experience and had worked for the Soviet space program, and he quoted us a salary that was about what we pay our interns. A genius for peanuts.) They finished a very elegant solution for us that was blazing fast and blew away our expectations. It was also finished four months early. But then they held it hostage to get more money. We ultimately negotiated to pay a portion of their "ransom," only to find out they had sold our solution to several other firms for the same price. We had just footed the development bill for our competitors. And good luck getting any kind of legal satisfaction in this type of scenario.

We've outsourced graphic design and the like to freelancers in the US with great success, though. Just budget extra time and money in case they don't deliver.

So, all in all, outsourcing can work out...but it is usually a bigger headache than it is worth and you need to be ultra-cautious.

<comment><USER4> I've done some outsourcing that worked on a smaller scale than what you described. My rules:

-Only outsource on a project basis.

-Find developers who have done almost exactly what I'm looking for previously, usually via rentacoder.com. Invite them to bid on the project.

-Use escrow.

-Don't outsource to companies, only individuals. Companies will have churn problems and will claim expertise in everything. If you're not doing a bid-based approach, you will get a sales guy to try and talk you up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the majority of the people here creating startups are broke, often in college, and in their early to mid 20s. I'd wager that the vast majority do not have any funding beyond credit cards and family. With that kind of budget, outsourcing isn't even something to be considered.

Beyond that, we're mostly hackers. Why would we outsource what we do best?

</comment><comment><USER6> We've had success outsourcing some of our non-core activities in our shop (4 p2p hackers working on distributed storage). For example, we've outsourced our website implementation and our Facebook app. Though any one of us could do them, it was much more efficient to draw up a set of screenshots and functional goals along with our API and then get back to working on our core project.

One key success factor is to find a high quality group to work with. We used recommendations, but I've also seen a few 2-person shops use oDesk find people for prototypes of applications they didn't have time/interest to build. The prices are extremely competitive, and often you can hire 3 people and use the best result.

</comment><comment><USER7> You've got to add value when outsourcing and the project has to be of a particular scale.

A friend recently outsourced development which could be concisely specified. From the UK, he got a student in the US to develop security software for 600 pounds. He installed it on two servers which cost 1000 pounds each. He sold the system to an existing client for 8000 pounds. The student required supervision but it allowed my friend to do on-site consulting while the outsourced software was being developed. The difference in timezone wasn't an issue. Indeed, if you're already working full time then outsourcing to a different timezone can be very beneficial.

However, there isn't much opportunity for a start-up to outsource development. Cost isn't a issue. You should be working in a small field, within your competence. There's also transaction cost which places a minimum size on the project to be outsourced. For a start-up, most projects will be too small to outsource.

If you're thinking of outsourcing a project, think whether you should do it at all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me clear my point. Speaking about outsourcing, I was talking about offshore development, outside US.

Well, still, a lot of startups are always looking for someone, either programmer, or designer, or database developer, etc. There are also a lot of single founders. To start a startup one man is not enough. Even if you are a hacker, it's always nice to have one more hacker.

Here is my point: a lot of startups are looking for someone to join them for a tiny salary plus huge chunk of equity. So why wouldn't they consider outsources, using the same amount of money, they may not give any equity at all or just a small piece of it.

kingnothing: you sound to me like you think that outsourcers require more money, than local people. Did I get you wrong?

mercurio: I'm not talking about corporate level outsourcing, B2B. I'm talking about using power of freelancers. They still stay below the US market rates.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't think too many startups outsource. Certainly not the type that YC funds, and certainly not development which is where you would hope to gain an edge.

The issue with outsourcing development is that to judge the quality of the outsourced job and whether it satisfies your requirements, you have to be competent enough to build it yourself. But if you could build it yourself, then you wouldn't be outsourcing.

So if you can, build it yourself, and if not, then hire somebody who has the skills that you lack. You really only should be outsourcing urgent one-off things and highly specialized non-core areas like PR and legal.

</comment><comment><USER9> I outsourced my email server to google apps.</comment>


Ask HN: REST architecture: many calls vs. rich responses? - <AUTHOR>

We're working on a REST API design & are discussing about the trade-offs of doing many calls vs. returning rich responses. Which style do you prefer as an end-developer? Any tips & tricks for API design? <comment><USER2> I would do more calls but only where those more calls help with self describing.

REST interfaces should help the caller find what they want to do and how to do it.

<comment><USER3> I have to agree with this. I have never seen the Swiss-Army knife servies work well, they lead to confusion and create an extremely complicated API. It is hard to make them comply with a REST architecture and they kill re-usability because different services will most likely require that data + some new data that is not available in the service because it did not exist at the time.

You would be better served to make the services small and specific and then really analyze the data in the services for caching and use the caching mechanism of the browser to limit data request to only those things that change frequently. This will give you the best of both worlds. Specific data points with less frequent requests.

With large aggregated data calls it is hard to cache because of the disparate uses of the data they contain.

As well, If you back end is done correctly and you build your services with no run-time interdependency, it is easy to scale you application for more request. Scaling at the infrastructure level is always easier than custom code written to avoid resource utilization.</comment></comment>


NASA Astronauts Eat Space-Grown Food - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431239435/one-small-bite-for-man-nasa-astronauts-to-eat-space-grown-food

<comment><USER2> The quote from the radio story on NPR was:

"That's one small bite for a man, one giant leaf for mankind."

</comment><comment><USER3> A minute of silence for the first spatial member of the plantae kingdom killed so many miles far away from home in such horrible lab accident.

"Ground control to major Tomato"

"Ground control to major Tomato"

"Absorb your pellets and put your helmet on..."

We'll miss you so much, little Latisha 'Redleaf' Stemstrong.

<comment><USER4> From the aptly named [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plants_in_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plants_in_space)

"The first organisms in space were "specially developed strains of seeds" launched to 134 km on July 9, 1946 on a U.S. launched V-2 rocket. These samples were not recovered."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Original Source:

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/meal...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/meals_ready_to_eat)

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder what the expense of scaling this would be. Could you blow up a large inflatable greenhouse on the side of the station, for example, to get more growing area. Could you scale to reduce oxygen-demand this way?

<comment><USER7> My first thought in the case of an inflatable greenhouse is that any small piece of debris is going to go straight through it. Not really a very knowledgeable area for me though.

<comment><USER8> Maybe we could use similar techniques we use for car tires to auto-close holes in them? Like two layers of outer surface and some chemical in between that would react with the air that's rushing out and seal off the hole? I don't know the details about such technologies, but it seems to me that inflatables should be much easier to make self-fixing than hard structures.

<comment><USER9> NASA has explored inflatable modules; they used a series of outer layers to reduce the energy of the debris, plus an inner layer made out of Kevlar.

[http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/station/transhab/](http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/station/transhab/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is an interesting from a protocol point of view, but I would like to see something more useful than leaf vegetable -- I imagine months of whatever nutrients this lettuce provides could be supplied by a handful of pills. What about actually calories? I guess with leaf you eat the _whole thing_ , but ... it just feels a bit .. gimicky.

<comment><USER11> Presumably it was chosen for ease of growing. If you can grow lettuce, you can move onto growing rice/potatoes/corn for calories, although all of those have larger space/water requirements and maybe stalk issues in microgravity.(+)

It's rewarding to the astronauts to be able to eat fresh homegrown food rather than years of mush and pills on the proposed Mars trip.

I also suspect that, as on earth, it's easier to pack calories into your diet (especially sugar) than a full range of nutrients, some of which decay in air or storage.

(+) One of the great advantages of hybrid wheat was solving the problem that bigger ears of wheat snapped off the stalk. In microgravity this would no longer be a problem ..</comment></comment>


It takes 48 seconds to view an Oracle blog post - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/peterc/status/1040723744963080192 <comment><USER2> Mixing laws and big companies gets you this. Other sites will load faster but it's the government forcing you to get that popup.

<comment><USER3> The popup freezes at 99% when you click "No, you may not use cookies" but instantly completes when you click "Yes, you may track me with cookies."</comment></comment>


TPG fires Bill McGlashan over alleged role in college admissions scam - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tpg-fires-top-exec-bill-mcglashan-over-alleged-role-in-college-admissions-scam-2019-03-14 <comment><USER2> this seems really premature given they're allegations.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. They're probably all pretty much guilty as charged, but it's not right for these folks to be losing jobs and such without having yet been convicted.</comment></comment>


Updated 13in MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard, double storage, faster performance - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/apple-updates-13-inch-macbook-pro-with-magic-keyboard-double-the-storage-and-faster-performance/ <comment><USER2> > the new inverted-"T" arrangement for the arrow keys makes them easier to > find, whether users are navigating through spreadsheets or playing games. > Magic Keyboard also features a physical Escape key

Step 1: Remove features and call it an innovative new design.

Step 2: Add those same features back in and act like it is an innovative new design.

<comment><USER3> Alternatively, listening to user feedback and specifically addressing points of criticism in the announcement.

<comment><USER4> I just dont understand why would Apple with its billion of dollars for R&D would think removing the physical escape button and T arrangement would not cause any negative experience for its users.

<comment><USER5> _R &D_

Most (?) human's middle fingers are longer than the surrounding ones so from the ergonomic point of view an inverted T is the only thing which makes sense. Getting your middle finger on the same row as the other 2, or the row above, feels ok. Row below feels awkward. Multiple buttons on same row as well unless the keys are quite big: middle fingers are also not very small. It's likely also why an inverted T is the de facto standard for 'normal' keyboards I guess. So one can only wonder why anyone would ever do that differently. Just for the sake of being different and the revenue that might bring? Which would be a bit of a shame for a company which takes pride in design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disappointed they didn't expand the screen to 14".

That will allow them to reduce the screen bezel that looks very last gen now and also match the work the done on the 16" line.

<comment><USER7> Yup, that's pretty much the only thing I was hoping for. Guess I'll keep my 2018 version!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like how they gently reduced the Touch Bar.

A few more iterations and they'll hopefully realize what an awful idea it was and we'll go back to a normal and functional keyboard.

<comment><USER9> I disagree that its an awful idea. If anything its a pretty great idea with a lackluster execution. There are alot of problems it can solve but it needs to have a killer app first to drive adoption. "Contextually sensitive" actions are decent but not the killer app.

<comment><USER10> > I disagree that its an awful idea. If anything its a pretty great idea with > a lackluster execution.

I dont think any execution can overcome the fact that going from analogic to software keys _is_ a downgrade in terms of usability.

<comment><USER11> It's only true that a physical key is always better if you're sending a single key press event, which unfortunately is usually the case for most Touch Bar controls, but there are certain use cases where sending a stream of events is preferably: For example adjusting color sliders in Photoshop, or a volume fader in Logic Pro.

The foundational problem with the Touch Bar is that it's a UI only for some use cases that are desktop-first workflows (like design and music production). And not only is the Touch Bar not available for the desktop, the form factor is so compromised by the small size of a laptop that it ends up not even being good for the use cases that it is a good fit for on a laptop.

I was initially excited when I saw the Touch Bar, because I hate adjusting sliders and knobs with the mouse (and find that UI element to be nicer to use on an iPad for example). But the Touch Bar is so small it's terrible for adjusting sliders and knobs, and I usually use an Exeter all keyboard and mouse when I'm doing these tasks anyway...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a little disappointed tbh. It's good that they fixed the keyboard and brought back the escape key, but the screen hasn't been improved and I was really hoping they'd make it slightly larger, close to 14" with the bezel trimmed, which was what had been rumored.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting to see them show off Dota 2. Could this imply a closer Valve/Apple relationship?

<comment><USER14> Strange choice, given that the game (the port to Source 2 at least) is from 2014, and it's nearly unplayable with a touch bar.

<comment><USER7> I wondered the same thing, for the very same reason :). Feels like whoever picked that game never tried to play it with a touchpad and a mac keyboard :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This isn't that much better than the fully decked out quad core 2020 Air. The biggest difference is the ability to have 32GB of RAM. Both are 10nm Ice Lake processors, which offer much better battery life (can attest to this as I have a 2020 Air) and have hardware mitigations for at least some of the security bugs that have plagued Intel. The latter gives you some of your syscall performance back, which can be noticeable on I/O heavy apps.

I personally prefer the 2020 Air as it also has physical function keys (but still has Touch ID). If I wanted to go Pro I'd probably go for the 16 inch with eight cores.

<comment><USER16> Note that performance could be an issue with the Air, as it will throttle the CPU to prevent too much head. The MBP has much more thermal leg room.

That said, the Air indeed is a great machine and I too prefer the function keys to Touch ID.

<comment><USER17> But if you're after performance you'd go with the 16".

With no dedicated GPU and still quad core, the 13" MBP is a bit in no mans land in terms of Air vs 16" Performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _> the new inverted-"T" arrangement for the arrow keys makes them easier to find_

I checked my (now sadly defunct) 2010 13" MBP and they are arranged the same way. Is this just a sentence they left in for >=10 years?

<comment><USER19> On the 2016 series of Macbook Pros they are not in an inverted T shape. The up and down arrows are half-sized buttons stacked vertically. This results in a single line of 3 keys instead of the T shape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome. I wonder how single core performance compare to the current 16" Macbook CPU. (I have the maxed out one.) Most daily usage is unfortunately still bound to one thread.

</comment><comment><USER20> Good that they finally upgraded all mobile keyboards. But otherwise not too many enhancements.

\- going to 14 inch like with the transition from 15->16 inch sounded like the obvious thing to do, especially to separate from the Air.

\- just quad-core processors in a day and age where AMD launches 8-core low power mobile chips

\- no dedicated graphics unit.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can you downgrade to Mojave? 32 bit apps will not run on Catalina.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really hope they make the magic bar an option not the baseline. I just updated to the new air and would not buy another Mac if it doesn't have a fully physical keyboard

</comment><comment><USER13> Since this was marked as a dupe, could we not merge the comments here into the other thread?

</comment><comment><USER23> "Up to 32GB of memory for running multiple pro apps."

What is a "Pro" app?

<comment><USER24> Resource-intensive applications like Chrome and Slack

<comment><USER25> In seriousness, having to run 5+ tabs and Electron apps that each take 500-2500MB is the _only_ reason 8GB of memory feels cramped for work purposes, for my case. Take those out of the picture and I can run a few light VMs and still have enough room to work, on 8GB.

Main reason 2 cores + hyperthreading gets laggy and unresponsive at times, too, for that matter, compiling aside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was hoping for an ARM processor. Too soon I suppose.</comment>


LA Startups: I want to work for you for free - <AUTHOR>

If you are involved with a startup in the Los Angeles area, I want to come work for you for free.  No strings attached.  Heck, if it comes down to it I will make the coffee and clean the kitchen (really).
Here are some things that I can do besides make delicious coffee:
Development - Most of my recent web projects are written in Django and utilize Gearman for async jobs.  I also have one iOS app in the store written in Obj-C.  I setup and manage my servers on AWS for my own projects.  My current stack is Nginx, Green Unicorn, and Postgresql. Here are some things that I have built:
iOS Shared To Do Lists - http://www.ourtodolist.com
App Store Keyword Analytics - http://www.appstoredata.net
Marketing and Business Development - My background is in the nonprofit world, and for the past 3 years I worked as the Director of Marketing and Development (fundraising in this context) for a mid-sized symphony orchestra.  Further back, I was a music major in college.  I have an MBA with a focus in nonprofit management.  I am not the type of MBA that gets so much flak in the tech world.
Why am I doing this?  I want get involved in the LA startup community, meet some great people and learn a lot.  I am not ready to be a full-time software developer (I think...) but I want to get there and I can add value in a number of areas.  If are in the tech industry and don't have an opportunity for me, I would still love to take you out for a coffee or beer! <comment><AUTHOR> Any advice on how to step into the tech/startup world? I just moved out to LA, and have about 4 months before I must have some income coming in. I want to use that time to experiment with some different career paths and to learn.

My work experience is not related to tech work, but I have a passion for it and have been working on side projects for a long time. Where should I start to get my feet wet?

</comment><comment><USER2> Why haven't you built out appstoredata.net ? Seems like a useful service.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually what I am working on right now. The current site has been up for about 2 weeks and I am adding all of the other features behind the scenes. I haven't had a lot of traffic to the site yet, but a decent number have left their emails so it does appear there is some demand for the service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Lots of good meetups for devs in LA. Let's grab a coffee sometime.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you given thought to issues with legal liability that your prospective startup would get themselves into should they take you on board?

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you referencing the work for free portion of my post, or a general liability that taking a new person onboard entails? I am not familiar with California's laws on the former, but would certainly want to be in compliance. My choice of the word 'free' was to highlight that I am looking for compensation in the form of learning and connections rather than money. Not sure how the latter would work exactly - I would hope to demonstrate to anyone interested that I am competent enough to not interfere with the status quo of their business and the legalities surrounding it.

Thanks for raising this issue, I hadn't considered it before.

<comment><USER5> So here's one perspective for you....

[http://work.ocregister.com/2010/04/05/working-for-free- unpai...](http://work.ocregister.com/2010/04/05/working-for-free-unpaid- internships-could-be-illegal/2061/)

Another way to do this would be to structure it as a contractor to be paid $100/week for general consulting; something that insulates your friendly employer from any risk with bringing you on board.</comment></comment></comment>


Reducing Memory Usage for DNN Training with Tensor Compression - <AUTHOR> https://liuliu.me/eyes/reduce-another-70-memory-usage-for-deep-neural-network-training-over-mixed-precision-with-tensor-compression/ <comment><USER2> This builds upon something he calls "adaptive quantization algorithm". Basically reducing precision of intermediate values to 8 or 4 bits.

Is this something that is supported on all GPUs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Precision reduced to 2-bits, with "codebook" of 2 within each 4x4 patch. Similar to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Truncation_Coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Truncation_Coding) but use 1 more bit. There are a lot of tuning left to do to find better ways to encode that reduces MSE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> with code! loose some precision, gain some DNN depth!</comment>


RBS did not have right risk measurement IT systems, says FSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3324445/royal-bank-of-scotland-did-not-have-right-risk-measurement-it-systems-says-fsa/

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't believe they cut back on risk management IT even tho they knew the risk was increasing</comment>


Ask HN: What's your ideal social network? - <AUTHOR> People on Twitter complain about LinkedIn, people on LinkedIn complain about Twitter. People on HN complain about Reddit, people on lobste.rs complain about HN. Everybody complains about Facebook. Is there an ideal social network? What would it be? <comment><USER2> None of them. I'm not sure what your experience has been like on the World Wide Web, but for me, immediately preceding social networks were just forums, and the best Internet community experiences of my life were on those websites. So there are entirely different models of communities outside of "social networks." The latter most is just the most recent phenomenon. And it will be replaced sooner or later.

In fact, I think we're overdue.

Anyway, at least forums were actual communities, where you recognized people's usernames, people had reputations instead of likes or karma, and people made up their own mind about things instead of having signals tell you what to think.

What we have with social networks are too many people spewing their worthless opinions with such velocity that any meaningful discourse or information you might hope to extract is drowned in uneducated or uninformed quips and blurts.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. Ephemerality and velocity is what influence the current state of social. With forums you had a community (often local) with a common (usually offline) interest. You had permanent topics and memorable members. I frequent subreddits which grew from 10k to 200k and 100k to 1M subscribers and I haven't memorized a single username. Maybe a creative troll or two but even they eventually gave up. Maybe all this is caused by a rapid growth and a lot of new people still figuring the things out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it depends on the purpose.

Instagram is great for sharing quick stories of interesting things throughout your day and for photographers who want to showcase their work to a casual audience. Snap is great if you're younger and want a more contained experience.

If I want to get rid of something that I don't use anymore or get a quick pulse of my neighborhood, I find Nextdoor very useful since everyone is verified.

LinkedIn is still great for getting a quick pulse on a company, team makeup, how they're growing, etc. It's not great, but it's better than nothing.

Pinterest is still a great way to collaborate on creative projects with other people. Especially if you're exploring something very visual.

Reddit/Twitter still have great interest-oriented content though you have to dig a bit to find the signal amongst the noise. Once you tune your subreddits and twitter feeds, they can be productive places.

The point I'm trying to make here is that there's no ONE social network that'll be great for everything. Just like there's no ONE social circle or social structure in real life that you rely on for everything.

Each of these networks have their issues but if you take the time to extract the value out of them, it can be productive. Of course, they can be used in unproductive ways as well. I've experienced both extremely productive and unproductive sides of each.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent summary. Almost any social network can be great if you put in some effort in personal curation and filtering. I feel that a lot of people are frustrated because they expect a great experience immediately. It took me a year to get my LinkedIn in good shape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm attempting to turn Indie Hackers[0] into a social network that motivates you and makes you more productive, or at least more effective. It's centered around developers helping each other monetize their side projects and start businesses, through a combination of asking/answering questions and sharing personal stories about what's worked.

It's quite interesting making tweaks to a social website, as there are usually all sorts of unpredictable second-order effects. I have a bit more respect for why websites like Twitter don't change much.

On Indie Hackers in particular, one thing I've noticed is that people tend to be kind without much moderation. My leading hypothesis at this point is that almost everyone has skin in the game. You're less likely to bash someone else's project if you know you'll be posting about your project soon, so norms have developed around being constructive and encouraging.

By contrast, HN has a norm around finding fault with whoever you're responding to, which is great for informative debate and conversation -- I learn a lot here from reading so many different opinions on each issue.

[0] [https://www.indiehackers.com](https://www.indiehackers.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> LinkedIn like Indie Hackers is another example of a self-moderated social network. People on LI are not always nice to each other but they are civil most of the time. I guess that's a magical combo: a network that is business oriented and people using their real identities. You're right about skin in the game which has a second-order effect of turning a community into an echo chamber. It's what happened with Behance and Dribbble, nobody gives any meaningful feedback any more, it's just praise left and right. Being constructive and friendly in giving feedback requires a lot of effort and with a new thread/article/design popping up every few seconds nobody has the time for that.

I read the other day a New Yorker's article [0] about the 2 Hacker News moderators and how lonely and emotionally draining their work is. Here rapid growth and anonymity lead to people being more ready to give fast feedback or opinion which sometimes causes bickering, misinterpretation and insults.

So a thriving network has to have:

\- The right mix of a moderate velocity and growth - just enough new content so it doesn't turn into a ghost town or echo chamber, but not too much so the quality is not diluted.

\- Self-moderation or non-stop moderation if necessary.

\- The right incentive built around a common interest for the users to create meaningful and constructive new content - seems like the hardest part.

[0] [https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon- valley/th...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the- lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would agree with the sentiment about Forums. I owe a lot of my younger development years to groups of people on niche forums. They can harbor a lot of negativity sometime, but I found that the real toxic ones tended to destroy themselves and because they're all mutually exclusive to their focuses, it was a pretty natural evolution of "community" if the forum survived for long periods of time.

I think that reddit has a foothold with subreddits, but they're just not the same. As of now, I'm searching for decent aviation forum communities to explore as it's my new learning focus.

Never heard of lobster, looks neat. If it doesn't bother you, I'd love an invite to that so I can check it out.

Overall, I think a singular place where all of humanity "socializes" isn't realistic. We need our corners and groups that belong to us individually.

</comment><comment><USER6> Decentralised where if I don't agree with any rule or ownership changes, I can easily jump ship and take my content elsewhere without impacting any existing people who are connected to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> And how would you spend your time there? Looking for entertainment? Professional development? Smart discussions? Instant connections with random groups?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A paid network with some rules on content (only original content, no spam, no ads).

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw a few attempts in this space, i.e. premium videos. Usually it's hard to find a viable business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A pub where people talk about science</comment>


How to stop the decline of public transport in rich countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/06/23/how-to-stop-the-decline-of-public-transport-in-rich-countries <comment><USER2> It's not rocket science. Establish tax-switching policies.

Make it less attractive to take the car by building automated car tolls and let the drivers pay. Subsidize public transportation to make it cheaper for the citizens.

That's basically what has been done in Stockholm (even though I wish it had been done to a greater degree, public transportation needs to be even cheaper). Cars destroys our shared environment and expanding it's infrastructure costs plenty (space, money, pollution). Of course it should be heavily taxed so that cycling, bus and subway infrastructure can be financed.

<comment><USER3> It's a bit of a chicken-egg problem, at least from my perspective in the US, as well as a bit of a vicious cycle. I'm not optimistic. Here's why. (and also why I think the fix wouldn't work for many cities in the US at the current time.)

In Seattle, if I want to get from a suburb on the east side into the city, during ANY trafficked time, it's going to be at least 2 busses (usually crowded, late, or full, so add another ~1), a decent amount of walking, and a 1.5-2 hour total trip. This compounds with the fact that many of the fringe buses only come once every half/hour, and not at all on weekends.

Compare this to a city that had proper infrastructure to start, Philadelphia. I lived a comparative distance, and the population is MUCH higher and denser. But a 5 minute walk and a single 20-30 minute train ride put me anywhere I wanted in center city. While Seattle "has light rail" it's an honest joke next to the coverage in the north-east.

As such, there's _no option_ to tax balance, it would end up being highly regressive punishing those forced to live further out and with no option but to use a car. The vicious cycle comes into play as the increased car traffic makes public transit less emphasized, convenient, and more of a perceived negative, leading to increased car traffic, etc etc. (compounded by less people wanting to take the tax burden they don't see a personal benefit to; there are a few different "tragedy of the commons" type effects in this mess.)

If we had trains that could get me to work like the sister post says about Stockholm's, no need for additional motivation, I wouldn't own a car for an instant, and didn't until my mid/late 20s when I left the east coast, but that's not the reality of the cities we've built, and now we're in a bit of a hole that I'm not sure how to incentivise people out of.

<comment><USER4> Zoning is the problem, especially parking minimums. Not only are areas zoned to only allow single-family homes (thus reducing density), but many zoning codes mandate a certain number of parking spots for every new business, leading to a car-centric lifestyle.

<comment><USER5> Put another way, letting people live in comfortable homes, free of noise, light, and smell pollution from neighbors, has transit costs. Having a miserable home in order to get fast commutes isn't a trade everyone wants.

<comment><USER6> While this may be true, I'd like to see some unrented apartments in major cities that can't be filled before we decry this solution. Rents have been skyrocketing - so it appears there's a lot of people who WOULD like this trade, but can't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where i'm at in Michigan, they always put any kind of transit funding proposal on the ballet. This obviously gets voted down because most people don't want higher taxes for system that will only benefit urbanites in the short term. And the politicians who don't want transit know this.

It becomes obvious what they are doing when more funding for freeway expansions just gets rubber-stamped. That is "an executive decision" by the politicians for "long-term success of the region".

The entire funding model is aligned where they can move money around for more roads, but any public transit funding should be "up to the people to decide"

<comment><USER8> > This obviously gets voted down because most people don't want higher taxes > for system that will only benefit urbanites in the short term.

There's more to it than that though. In cities not named Chicago, DC, and New York, these stupid light rail measures inevitably end up with trips that take waaaay longer than driving, and still involve driving to a bus station. Patronage is predictably low and the system loses money per passenger in perpetuity. No, that can't be why people vote these down, they're just hating on them fancy downtown folks.

<comment><USER7> I recently took a trip to Bochum, Germany. They have a light rail system that goes to every small suburb, the university, and is centered at the Bochum city train station where there are cabs, bus lines and connections that get you to any surrounding city.

It is maybe 6-8 lines total and was incredibly useful because it was _designed_ to be, I didnt need a car to get anywhere and it was clean and cheap (2 euros per trip) .

The new Q-line in Detroit is 1 line that is three miles total and is more designed as a tourist trap, most people dont work three miles away from where they live. You need to connect it to other systems like an airport or a bus station, and you need more than 1 line (duh).

If you gave everyone horses and only build a three mile road you wouldn't say that "cars are a failure, and roads lose money". For some reason in the States we build out a tiny one line system and then throw our hands up in the air when nobody rides it.

<comment><USER9> >Q-line

Most American streetcar systems suffer the same fate: Shiny but slow, much like a theme park monorail; and sold first as a way to boost property values and economic development. They are designed to do everything except provide a useful way to commute.

<comment><USER10> That's probably because "doing it right" is expensive.

There should be an 'express' bypass (which actually does this) that hops only among key points (such as the airport to a downtown hub, and maybe the next hub out on the other side).

There should also be /frequent/ service - which probably means you need fully automated routes (it might be best to move the humans to supervising the actual concourses, where human interactions are highest). I also like the idea of a couple days of subservience that's automatically deleted if not expressly copied out for legal proceedings.

Finally, everything should be enclosed and on it's own isolated layer. Subways sound great, above-surface enclosures might work too.

-

Why enclosed? Security, noise abatement, weather isolation. The middle point lets you run the trains faster and with less disruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For the NYC subway trains: get rid of the dance troupes, musicians, beggars, and crazy people.

I would pay extra for the NYC subway user experience to be like the LIRR user experience. Why can't it be?

Why do I have to dread getting on the subway after 10pm?

Why do I have to put up with mariachi bands playing in my ear at 6am?

Why do I have to worry about my face getting kicked by a dancer during my commute?

<comment><USER12> I like it though, so let's get separate cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One word: comfort.

Riding the public transportation systems meant I would arrive at work sweaty (hot crowded train and bus), with a backache (inadequate seats) and a headache (noisy engine).

Those issues made my life so miserable that I swore never to ride those again.

<comment><USER14> All those issues can be fixed with more funding and better equipment. Not saying you're wrong, but the issues are not unsurmountable. In most cases people will have a handful of bad experiences and default back to their comfort zone.

<comment><USER15> I prefer to travel by subway in Stockholm because of the comfort. It's a money issue, plain and simple. Jeff Bezos could fix the problem for the whole US all by himself. Will he? Will he, my ass!

<comment><USER16> Maybe it's a bad idea to let people get really rich.

<comment><USER17> Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US.

<comment><USER16> I'm not talking about the US. I'm talking about the world. This is not a competition. Maybe it is _generally_ a bad idea to concentrate financial means in few people.

I don't want to depend on a billionaire's altruism.

<comment><USER18> Counterpoints: 1\. It's not concentration, it's creation. There's probably not an active conspiracy to make the rich richer. (Your phrasing seemed to connotate that) [http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html)

2\. We tried forming a broad spanning coalition and charging it wit public transportation (among other things). Then we gave it 30-40% of all economic activity. And yet, people apparently still feel like only excitable billionaires can fix public transport. I don't see how taking more money from the billionaires and putting it into the government would help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> temp-dude-87844 Public transit works if large amounts of people move along predictable routes at predictable times, and the immense cost of infrastructure and operation is spread among a large pool. People desiring additional control and comfort can use personal vehicles, and use publicly-subsidized roadways, but fuel taxes, licensing fees, and tolls recoup a small portion of this cost from the operator.

As the article points out, newer car-hire services mount the most unfortunate competition, because they take advantage of the low costs of private vehicles' road use, and then turn around to collect a fare from each user, which, depending on market conditions, may or may not even result in an operating profit. While these are comfortable for their occupants, they clog up the streets more so than personal-use vehicles, which don't need to patrol the town when their driver is occupied. The fact that the likes of Uber notoriously ignore local regulations hurts even more. These car hire services pay the same way as private vehicles do, but the marginal difference between their usage goes not to the government's coffers, but to private operators.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Tokyo metro is doing fine, maybe try learning from Japan?

<comment><USER20> Public transit works great in other countries. People in the US don't like it because of the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" thing, so we make up all these reasons about why it can't work while setting up all future public transit up for failure (defunding, not letting it pass through areas people would want to travel to/from, failing to maintain it, bike-shedding for decades instead of building something, etc). As much as I hate to say it, I doubt we'll see any successful public works projects happen in the next decade or two, and only then if things drastically improve.

<comment><USER21> People don't like it in the US, because it's overwhelmingly a shit experience. Are there any other countries in the world with the vastness of the US, that have awesome public transit? Everyone here is waaaaay more spread out. No excuse for cities, but most of us don't live in giant cities. It's just easier to take your car.

<comment><USER22> There has to be a point where you stop relying on national exceptionalism as the reason for why something can't happen, because all it sounds like is an excuse. It's as if you're saying you have a lot of land so there's no point in improving anything.

Public transport in the US is an overwhelmingly shit experience not because of the geography of the country, but because it all got sold out to lobbyists who wanted to sell as many cars as they could. Shit public transport = more cars.

It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter suburbs far out of town, with no local amenities and no convenient transport connections in any reasonable walking distance. They never had to be designed that way.

Add to that the whole nuclear family rhetoric - a husband, a wife, some kids, a couple of cars...

People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure and provide these services knowing how much they've been gutted over the past hundred years, so it really requires a government who is willing to invest in it and support it and begin to change the perception of public transport. That will probably come at a loss but an arguable purpose of a government is to provide such services that a corporate entity won't, without profit motive, because it is still ultimately in service of its people.

This isn't the only topic where people in the US are convinced they're in a unique situation that nobody else in the world has ever encountered and then solved, and I'm sure that it almost always boils down to some element of corporate lobbying that rejects any attempt to make life easy for citizens.

<comment><USER23> > lobbyists who wanted to sell as many cars as they could.

That's such a boring scapegoat. Rail was a plenty powerful industry at the time who afforded themselves plenty of lobbyists. Personal vehicles were a literal revolution. What always seems left out is that people overwhelmingly wanted this state of affairs and largely still do. People here are acting like people would love public transportation if only their minds hadn't been corrupted by the bad people.

> It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter > suburbs.

But now that we're here what do you propose we do? Going back in time for a do over isn't exactly a solution.

> People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure.

* People who own cars don't use public transportation and have little desire to start.

* The overwhelming majority of people own cars.

* Public transportation comprehensive enough to replace cars is ludicrously expensive.

* People who don't use a thing don't want to pay for a thing.

=> It's not exactly a leap in logic that people wouldn't vote for it.

I think you've got a better chance of creating programs that just outright buy cars for the poor.

<comment><USER22> Fair points, but it feels like the product of an intensely individualistic society and at some point the impact of that has to be taken into consideration, considering the effect it has on government, policy, and culture.

If a group can look at evidence of successful public transport (and other things) and still decide that can never work for them, for various nonsensical reasons (big country, x million people, the guiding hand of the free market, whatever), then they can at least be honest with themselves and say what their problem really is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Only my limited personal experience here. In the last 20 years I've used the following public transport:

\- One bus ride in western mass with crazy drug head yelling crap.

\- Six T rides in Boston, one ended with some drunk dude yelling and cursing at me. Another with some bum hassling a woman and then pretending to have a gun when my buddy stepped in.

\- Four Metro train rides from CT to NY. Not too bad. Only saw two fights that didn't involve me.

\- A few metro rides in Paris, nothing bad, just a few harmless beggars.

\- A few time in the Tube in London. Jolly good there.

So, my personal answer to this question is safety. Fewer crazy passengers and more security.

<comment><USER25> Safety probably requires reducing poverty..

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Vancouver has never legalized Uber/Lyft.

Vancouver has the highest gas prices in NA.

Vancouver's transit operator Translink is enjoying a big influx of funding from the government and is increasing service hours.

Unsurprisingly Vancouver transit ridership is experiencing record growth.

> Average weekday boardings on buses were up 9.5 per cent. Expo/Millennium > Line average weekday boardings were up 9.2 per cent, while Canada Line's > boardings grew 8.1 per cent. On SeaBus, average weekday boardings increased > by 13.1 per cent, thanks in part to increased sailings. Even West Coast > Express ridership is on the rise, up 6.7 per cent.

[http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/transit-ridership- hi...](http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/transit-ridership-hits-a-high- in-metro-vancouver)

</comment><comment><USER27> in this town there would be simple solutions, first is that here if you need to get anywhere generally you have to take not one but two buses, this makes it petty expensive, but thats not the biggest flaw.

oh no, the main problem is one of time, none of these buses match up so despite being a mere 3-4 miles an average commute via public transport is well over an hour, not only that but the timetable is not even close to accurate, youll often wait for a bus marked on the digital info boards as coming any min only to find that bus actually never existed and you have another 30 min wait

basically if you want to get to work on time be prepared to leave at least 2 hours early. you may be thinking "hey its only 3-4 miles, just walk you lazy bastard!" but sadly again this town does not lend itself well to things such as walking or cycling because there is no such thing as flat roads here, youre either going up a steep hill or down one

a reasonably priced tram system or even a properly organised and reasonably priced bus service could fix these issues easily but sadly that will never happen

</comment><comment><USER28> We can start by stopping the political influence of those who benefit from declining public transportation.

How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country

[https://nyti.ms/2lmrvVP](https://nyti.ms/2lmrvVP)

</comment><comment><USER29> I was in London a couple of weeks ago and used the subway extensively and it was, overall, an excellent experience. It made me wonder if there are cities that have made big investments in subway or other light rail systems and then later regretted it.

<comment><USER30> Interesting. The London system is ancient, creaking, lacks modern conveniences like mobile coverage/wifi/aircon, and has comparatively small trains that get horribly overcrowded at peak times. It it probably a worse experience than most European metros (unless you're using one of the few new lines). But it does get a decent amount of investment and fundamentally it _works_. If only we could get a comparable level of investment in the rest of the UK.

Regretted systems: guided buses. Both Edinburgh and Cambridge regret theirs and Edinburgh built trams over it instead (with massive disruption and cost overrun, but not actually regretted yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Arrived in Singapore recently and I'm quite impressed with the public transportation system here. My base is the slow Metro transit in Los Angeles and the over crowded system in Manila.

</comment><comment><USER32> Meanwhile in Singapore: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_\(Singapore\)#/media/File%3AEvolution_of_the_MRT.gif)

Best city public transport ever and getting better every day. For the most part.

</comment><comment><USER33> If I were to take public transportation to work Google maps says it would look like this:

2 min: Walk to bus stop

15 min: Bus to transit center

35 min: Bus to rail

20 min: Train 1 then switch

15 min: Train 2

45 min: Bus to transit center

20 min: Another bus

15 min: Another bus

3 min: Walk to work

Including wait times, we are at 3 hours 45 minutes. Compared to 1.5-2hrs by car depending on traffic. I don't think more funding can realistically fix this. People are spread out and the USA is a big place.

<comment><USER34> A 2 hour commute by car sounds kind of insane to begin with. You spend 3-4 hours a day commuting to a 8 hour workday?

<comment><USER35> Not sure about him. For me living in mid-size city in US and 10-12 miles to work. It is about ~2 hr commute everyday. I think bay area gets more coverage but even smaller cities are having terrible traffic nowadays.

<comment><USER36> 2 hours for 20-24 miles? Just.. wow. You'd be faster with a bike if the infrastructure was there.. (e-bike for no sweat)

<comment><USER37> I think you hugely overestimate the number of people who can ride a bicycle for 24 miles - let alone those who can do that in 2 hours.

I ride a bicycle a 3 miles to work every day, and while I'm sure I could work up to it I'm not entirely sure if I can do 24 miles without stopping because I haven't done it in so long. And keep in mind my 3 miles commute is more than the vast majority of westerners ever do - I probably have a higher base fitness just by using a bicycle at all.

<comment><USER36> Good point. It's only half the distance without stopping since there is a full workday before going back, but it's still not close.

3 miles is pretty standard around here, I think about 75% of people could do it. (excluding small kids and bedbound elderly) (some of them will have muscle aches at first, maybe, and be really slow)

<comment><USER37> Oh you're talking round trip? That's a bit more realistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> FWIW, as an avid hypermiler (who also owns an EV and pays for wind power), and works from home, the mpg per person of public transport isn't that great, I have no problem exceeding it, even without passengers (though I usually have passengers when I go somewhere).

[https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10311](https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10311)

Certainly there are plenty of motorcycles that beat it without much effort/technique as well.

So, what am I supposed to be taxed for again? The environment inside a moving box full of strangers, and the scheduling headaches, doesn't excite me much as an alternative.

I wonder how much of the "decline" is because of people who work from home. I don't think uber is entirely the cause, more like uber displaced taxi drivers.

<comment> crooked-v > So, what am I supposed to be taxed for again?

The societal benefits of poor people being able to get to work every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> What Chinese electric bike is worth buying? Electric bike review seems to point to Western brands costing several thousand dollars.

Any recommendations on where to start looking?

<comment><USER40> I don't have a brand recommendation, but if you are handy, it is possible to convert an existing bike by adding a motor and batteries. For a bike like experience (as opposed to a light electric motorcycle experience) the components can be had for between $500 to $800 depending on how much battery you need. Some resources:

\- ebikes.ca - Informative website, sell high quality items with a lot of the problems worked out and with support. Prices are fair given the added value. Motor and trip simulators for calculating speeds and feeds etc.

\- bmsbattery.com - Chinese vendor of cheap but mostly functional components. Not much support and shipping will add 30% to prices, but very inexpensive if you can make it work.

\- lunacycle.com (US), e3emv.com(China) - Sell high quality battery packs

\- endless-sphere.com - massive discussion board full of good information leavened with the usual opinionated know nothings, but mostly civil.

Assuming you need to go less than 25 miles and don't need to climb long steep hills and intend to pedal lightly I'd say you are looking for a small front geared hub motor rated for 250-350 watts and a small controller rated for 20A or less along with a 48v battery between 350-600 watt hours capacity. Target speed should be around 18 to 20 mph. Start with a nice used practical commuter bike, older mountain and road bikes and hybrids will all work. Get something that started out as a decent bike, not big-box store "bike shaped object".

I've built a few now and am pretty happy with the process and results.

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the reply.

I'm considering the BBS02 but I really like the torque sensors. I was hoping that there was some mass produced Chinese model T but couldn't find it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The real problem that no one wants to admit is overpopulation. If every couple had only 1 child, the problem would gradually go away as the population shrank.

<comment><USER42> Hong Kong has one of the highest population densities in the world and their transportation is excellent. Your argument isn't supported by data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why not have fleets of electric vehicles with varying sizes, from 2 person mini cars to 20 person vans for large parties? Where I live, there are no subways, and busses are very energy/money inefficient. You may have a nearly full bus here and there, but the majority of the time there are barely any people in the busses, probably because it's $2.50 and it's a poor service. You don't get door-to-door service, increased road surface damage (y=x^4, where y= road damage with x=vehicle weight), crappy diesel fuels spewing pollution onto pedestrians/cyclists, hitting sidewalks and causing cars to back up whenever they make turns. I don't believe in the investment path to useful public transport here when we can have decentralized, electric, personalized services in the near future.

<comment><USER44> My understanding is that road damage is linked to tire pressure and contact surface, and that bus and trucks with bigger tires have a larger contact surface hence the same pressure as a car and therefore don't do more damage than a car.

<comment><USER43> See the following analysis by Brad Templeton, a SDC expert:

Road wear There is strong potential to reduce the damage to roads (and thus the cost of maintaining them, which is immense and seriously in arrears) thanks to the robotruck. That's because heavy trucks and big buses cause almost all the road wear today. A surprising rule of thumb is that road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight per axle. As such an 80,000lb truck with 34,000lb on two sets of 2 axles and 6,000lb on the front axle does around 2,000 times the road damage of a typical car! An interesting solution is now possible. With fully self-driving trucks (or platoons with nobody in the rear vehicle) you can have two half-weight trucks, which would do 1/8th the damage. 4 1/4 weight trucks would do roughly 1/16th the damage. This is a bit more expensive in fuel and truck wear, though you can get back some of it with platooning. The platoon can space out further on bridges to avoid stressing them.

[https://ideas.4brad.com/otto-and-self-driving-trucks-what- do...](https://ideas.4brad.com/otto-and-self-driving-trucks-what-do-they-mean)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I don't think it's wild Silicon Valley chatter to say that public transportation along fixed routes WILL decline as a result of new technology, and this is a great thing.

Fixed-route 19th-20th century public transportation networks are inefficient because most of the vehicles are pretty empty most of the time. This makes these systems expensive on a passenger-per-seat-mile basis. Not to mention the colossal waste of people's time spent trying to accommodate their journeys to those fixed routes (and schedules).

Example: LA's Metro system is subsidized to the tune of about 50 cents per passenger seat/mile, or was as of 2009 ([http://www.newgeography.com/content/002361-los-angeles- metro...](http://www.newgeography.com/content/002361-los-angeles-metro-bus- system-compares-favorably-with-its-peer-group))

In 10-15 years, transport companies like Lyft/Uber/Didi will be able to offer municipalities a much better deal than that. An electric car or van without a driver in it, with an operating lifetime of a million miles, will cost on the order of 20-40 cents a mile to run. Get 3-8 paying customers into the vehicle, and there is absolutely no need for a 50 cent per passenger seat mile subsidy.

<comment><USER46> How does that affect those who have to take public transit due to finances?

<comment><USER47> Personally, I expect there will always be a need for high throughput fixed line transit in some areas. But, to answer your question, if some portion of the population requires transportation subsidies to participate in society then the best policy answer would seem to be to provide them with subsidies directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I think it's worth starting to question the term 'Rich Countries' when what we mean is countries with a richer elite.

<comment><USER49> Specifically "rich countries with a contingent of multibillionaire ideologues actively working to destroy public infrastructure".

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers- pub...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public- transit.html)

<comment><USER15> In contrast, the richest family in Sweden (Wallenberg) just contributed 100m Euro to a research programme on AI - [http://wasp-sweden.org/](http://wasp- sweden.org/) Proper Noblesse oblige. The Koch family are evil, in contrast.

<comment><USER50> From all available evidence there is no need to add the qualifier "by contrast" to that statement. The problem is that it seems about half of the American electorate support the Koch's and others like them for ideological reasons. As a non-American it's a really strange thing to see. Dirt poor families from generations of bad education and dirt poor seem to think distant billionaires have their best interests at heart. They all seem to think they're about to join the ranks of those billionaires any day now, and they'd hate the idea of hurting their prospects. It's so weird...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > rich counties

I am unaware of this trend across multiple rich countries of less public transit. Anyone have actual numbers instead of hersay?

I could believe that people travel longer distances than they used to, in ways that transit never served. But less public transit itself? Is love to learn more.

</comment><comment><USER52> How to stop the decline of public transport in rich countries:

1) Allow transit systems to provide a luxury tier of service with no upper limit on price

2) Mandate that 100% of the money that comes from (1) has to be pumped back into expanding transit infrastructure

</comment><comment><USER53> My commute: * driving: 10 minutes * biking: 24 minutes * bus: 12 minutes walk + 20 minutes on bus 1 + 11 minute wait for transfer + 29 minute bus 2

</comment><comment><USER54> Somewhat interesting. I have a different reason for the declining weekday rates of the MTA (NYC's subway system). More and more companies every year seem to be alright with their employees being remote on a more regular basis, which would attribute for the _slight_ decline in weekday ridership.

<comment><USER55> How many factory workers, construction workers, waiters, barbers, etc. do you know whom work remote?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> it's not declining in Tokyo afaict. I believe that's because they privatised it?

[https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos- pr...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-privately- owned-rail-systems-work-so-well/389/)

</comment><comment><USER57> The rich country I live in is investing billions in public transport. Its also investing heavily in cycling.

Trying to meet the Paris climate accord and making sure people don't die from poor air quality makes this a legal requirement. Ofcourse the US has Trump so there is no such pressure to get people out of their SUVs.

</comment><comment><USER53> Money. QED.

</comment><comment><USER58> Hey, if I lived in the city centre and worked a few blocks a way, I too would probably want to hate on the car. Same people get families, move out of the centre, get car, regret they voted for politicians who put in place huge tolls on roads.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, for starters the right fix is probably to make public transit free.

Just reducing traffic would payoff in terms of less wear and tear on the roads, and less need to expand the roads.

And with any luck, free public transit would help poor people the most. Allowing more people to find work.

<comment><USER58> Ok, so the ones with jobs should pay for those without a job? I have a better solution, why not let the unemployed drive the busses without pay. Then they get to do something, I get free transportation. Win-win?

<comment><USER25> > Ok, so the ones with jobs should pay for those without a job?

Yes.

And if by some miracle we can help people get jobs, by making transportation cheaper then we call it a win-win.

Note, even if public transit was free that wouldn't make everybody use it all the time. But it might reduce the number of cars on the road, and help a few people out of poverty.

<comment><USER58> How much of your salary do you donate today? This is not something the government has to enforce. You are free to do it by yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Self driving vehicles will solve all of this. You don't need centralized routes, it can be door-to-door, it can be tiered for comfort, it can be high density transport, it can be on demand, it can be safe and secure, it can be automated, it can be taxed to incentivize density or usage patterns or demand as needed.

<comment><USER60> Serious question: how would it be door to door and high density at the same time? So far, all self driving car proposals I saw looked just like cars, or vans at best. Compare this to a fully loaded double-decker bus in e.g. London. So much more efficient use of road space.

<comment><USER59> Let's look at a traditional bus route in an urban area:

Scheduled set of stops between basically two places.

Each of those stops rely on people walking a couple blocks or more to a stop for the route.

Basically, you deconstruct and make on-demand the route. As people register for a trip, you combine a set of origination and destination points into closely grouped numbers, pick up a set of people in close proximity, and drop off them off.

At high density times, there will be opportunities for substantial "rideshare" efficiencies.

At less high density times, you save overhead of the busses with a couple riders.

If you've ever taken the cheaper alternative airport -> city hotel van that goes to all the hotels in a downtown from an airport, that is basically the idea. It isn't as convenient as 1:1 taxi transport, but it's a lot better than the vagaries of train/bus hopping.

It seems strange that with all the graph and NP-complete interview-ready people on this site that this isn't completely obvious. Self-driving vehicles will obviate all but the highest density mass transport.

And then if you get self-flying drones going...</comment></comment></comment>


How the World's Oldest Diamond Monopoly is Trying to Become an IT Juggernaut - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425921/how-the-worlds-oldest-diamond-monopoly-is-trying/

<comment><USER2> Slight nit: Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene have both shown higher thermal conductivity than diamond.

</comment><comment><USER3> Relevant/background:

 _Pure diamond is a super-tough electrical insulator, but given the right impurities it becomes a semiconductor_

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4534717></comment>


On the Work of Edward Witten (1990) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://bohr.physics.berkeley.edu/reinsch/phys105spr2014/files/Witten_Atiyah.pdf <comment><USER2> Two years ago, I had the profound honor of having lunch with Prof Witten. He is also a very kind and generous human being. A small tidbit I learned: He spends a disproportionate amount of time thinking, and very little time on the desk with a pen and a paper. His students told me that he likes to work things out in his head -- which could last for days -- before he would commit things to paper. I thought that was interesting, although not unexpected for a genius at his level. If I am not mistaken, he is the most cited theoretical physicist.

He deserves to be celebrated in popular culture -- like Einstein and Newton. For me, he is the definition of a "living legend".

</comment><comment><USER3> Physicist here. Just wanted to add a little context. Anyone in string theory will tell you that Witten is possibly the greatest physicist that has ever lived. Interestingly he's completely unknown to the general public.

<comment><USER4> What happens to that evaluation if string theory never has a successful experimental prediction? Is there some way his work would keep such a high standing _as physics_ then? No argument that he must be incredibly smart, but that's not the same.

My layperson's impression is that string theory implies supersymmetry and supersymmetry doesn't easily comport with the latest accelerator results.

<comment><USER5> Witten's work has taught us an enormous amount about the structure of ordinary quantum field theory. It's important even without strings. Indeed, Witten was already a dominant influence in the physics community when he began working on string theory.

<comment><USER6> Another nugget: one of the leading experimental approaches to search for dark matter "direct detection" (which would be a Nobel prize worthy discovery) has its origins in a paper coauthored by Ed Witten: [http://inspirehep.net/record/207030](http://inspirehep.net/record/207030)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My memory isn't as good as it used to be. I thought the article was about Edward Frenkel at first who wrote the fantastic novel Love and Math [1]. It's about his life growing up in Soviet Russia as a Jewish mathematician. He was good friends with the famed physicist Murray Gell-Mann who discovered a theory of hadrons, leading to the quark model we have today [2]. In the novel he talks about some of the groundbreaking work he has done. But he's mostly known for his cinema work on the emotional fullness of mathematics and physics. I would nominate him for a Nobel if I could. But Fields medals are about pure mathematical achievement, right? So I'm not sure he would qualify.

[1] [http://amzn.to/2HKD3Mc](http://amzn.to/2HKD3Mc) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eightfold_Way_(physics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eightfold_Way_\(physics\))

<comment><USER5> Frenkel was tenured at Berkeley in his early 20s, at an age when most people are still in grad school. His mathematical achievements are substantial. I've no doubt that he was on the list of candidates for the Fields at some point in the late 90s & early 2000s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Small correction to the submission title: it's "Witten" not "Whitten"

<comment><USER9> Whoops! Thanks, fixed.</comment></comment>