Malaysia Opposition, Led by 92-Year-Old, Wins Upset Victory - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/asia/malaysia-election-najib-mahathir.html <comment><USER3> As a Malaysian, this win is so amazing. Literally against all odds. I've never been more proud of my fellow Malaysians.

Najib had control of the Election Comission, Registry of Socieities, Attorney General, Inspector General of Police, and his own political party.

With this power he shamelessly gerrymandered, deregistered the opposition coalition, appointed someone to proclaim him innocent in 1MDB investigations, locked up the opposition leader, and sacked critics within his own party including the deputy prime minister and a VP.

Then there was also the EC who set voting date on possibly the most inconvenient date, new laws to bar advertising of the opposition prime minister candidate's face, the Sultan who spoke out against the opposition and the Agong who stripped some opposition leaders of titles.

This is indeed a historic moment.

<comment><USER4> As an Englishman that has lived in Malaysia for about 15 years no, I share that pride :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As somebody who frequented Malaysia extensively in the first half of the 2000s (in the aftermath of the ruinous 1997 currency crisis) I'm very curious to see how the dynamic between Mahathir and Anwar plays out: the latter was a member of the former's government during the crisis and the former had the latter jailed on what were wildly held to be trumped-up sodomy charges (as the article mentions). This is going to be a very awkward working relationship.

<comment><USER6> Mahatir is insane (or as the post notes below, perhaps shrewdly taking advantage of ignorant or powerless populace). Asides from faking the sodomy charges against Anwar (who was widely popular and hence seen as a threat), he also believes an international conspiracy of Jewish people caused the Asian Financial Crisis:

[https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/16/world/malaysian- premier-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/16/world/malaysian-premier-sees- jews-behind-nation-s-money-crisis.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/17/malaysia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/17/malaysia)

<comment><USER7> The downvoting for pointing out the documented anti-semitism is interesting.

<comment><USER8> I do not think it gets downvotes for pointing out documented anti-semitism. My guess is that the first sentence is a downvote magnet. Nothing else in that post points to insanity. IMO, it rather indicates a very shrewd politician working to control public opinion and get rid of opponents using all tools available.

<comment><USER7> I think asserting that there is a vast global Jewish conspiracy points strongly to insanity.

<comment><USER8> The fine point though is that asserting != believing. In population with largely anti-Israel feelings asserting it may give you short term political benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a surprise. I was certain that when Najib Razak will be cornered, he would've resorted to election rigging.

Looks like his rating tanked so hard, that even foul play on a level available to him did not gained much for him.

Congratulating Malaysian people.

<comment><USER10> The sheer number of ads and propaganda by the ruling party actually convinced me that the elections _weren 't_ going to be rigged. No one in their right mind would have invested so much time and effort winning a battle that has already been won

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand the spin. The article doesn't mention that he was prime minister for more than 20 years previously until halfway through.

By most accounts a decent prime minister. But also a virulent anti-Semite: [http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp506.htm](http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp506.htm)

<comment><USER11> Because the leader isn't the point; the political parties _are_. He's a unifying figure for an ethnic-minority and liberal-opposition coalition very different from the one that's ruled the country since independence.

<comment><USER7> "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." - <USER2> Prime Minister Elect of Malaysia.

He's the _liberal_ opposition?

<comment><USER11> He leads a breakaway party (the Malaysian United Indigenous Party [1]) that jumped over two years ago from the ruling party to the opposition coalition. That party is only a bit over 10% of the coalition that won this election (12 / 113 seats); he's basically a figurehead/placeholder with good name recognition, holding the spot until the leader of the largest party in the coalition (Anwar Ibrahim of the People's Justice Party [2], with 49 of the coalition's seats) finishes the jail sentence for his politically-motivated sodomy charges.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_United_Indigenous_Pa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_United_Indigenous_Party)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Justice_Party_(Mala...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Justice_Party_\(Malaysia\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If any Malaysians can answer: Recently Malaysia has been in news for increased religious extremism/fundamentalism. Can any improvement on this front be expected by the new government?

<comment><USER5> _N.B._ ' _Malays_ ' is an ethnic group (the supposedly-native "people of the land" ( _bumiputra_ ) Muslim majority); nationality of Malaysia is fairly mixed including Malays, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Indians, and even _orang asli_ ("original people"). The correct term for this aggregate is _Malaysians_.

<comment><USER13> Correct. Just a minor typo at the end: it should be _Malaysians_.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _Malaysia Opposition, Led by 92-Year-Old, Wins Upset Victory_

The future is theirs!</comment>


Njalla – A privacy aware domain registration service - <AUTHOR> https://njal.la/#faq <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177597)

<comment><USER3> If you like see or link to past discussions: press the "past" link at the top of the page so you can make your list more complete. Currently this exact same article is listed there 7 times. You are welcome :)

<comment><USER4> OP said _discussion_ though, not past submissions. And they are correct, linking the only other submission with any comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess this is cheaper than having a Panamanian law firm handle domain name registrations amongst their other privacy-focused services.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does it work like a proxy that you owns your domain through them so you don't have to use your own name and contact info? If that's true, I think the extra dollars they charged might worth it.

<comment><USER7> It seems so. From the home page:

"When you buy a domain in our system, we're actually purchasing it for ourselves. We will be the actual owners of the domain, it's not an ownership by proxy as found with all other providers. However, you will still have the full control over the domain name. You can either use our information, our nameservers or you can go with your custom data."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why would I use this rather than some other domain privacy service?

<comment><USER9> I'm wondering the same.

>If you use our service in a way that affects anyones health or safety, we reserve the right to suspend your service.

The only possible reason I'd be interested in hearing about a service that has dozens of well known alternatives with much better reputations, is a guarantee that my domain would never be removed, nor my privacy compromised, even if the current mgmt. in charge of the company didn't agree with my site's political views.

Or in other words, are you guys going to buckle when the mob demands my white supremacist* or misogynistic site (as determined by a random tweet) be removed?

*I don't have a site like this, just using the comparison due to the whole Stormfront fiasco.

<comment><USER8> In fairness, many well-known domain privacy services will hand out your identity and contact information to anyone who sends a sufficiently lawyerly- sounding letter demanding that they do so. So there's lots of room for improvement. But I have no particular reason to trust this company, and furthermore, their marketing copy sounded like they were offering something beyond the current state of the art in domain privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> once you have the domain, how to find a server/host for your site that will also respect your privacy ??

<comment><USER11> gandi.net ;)</comment></comment>


The home screens of 37signals - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2913-the-home-screens-of-37signals

<comment><USER2> Most pages of apps: 6 Least pages of apps: 1

\+ no DHH there.

<comment><AUTHOR> DHH has been added.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best 2016/2017 Macbook Pro alternatives? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'd go with a beefy desktop, either an iMac or a beefier Linux box (I'd not bother to assemble one from parts - would probably order it from Dell, Lenovo or HP's line of workstations or smaller servers), and a thin MacBook/MacBook Pro for portability (because Macs are unbeatable laptops).

I also have a smaller laptop, for going to hackathons, an Acer "Cloudbook" that came with Windows and now runs Fedora. Very small, light, so-so in performance and cheap enough I don't care too much if I need to replace it.

</comment><comment><USER3> With the question posed that way, my top choice would be to wait for the 2018 MacBook Pros. Or if it works for you, an Air or simply a MacBook.

But maybe you mean non-Mac alternatives.

Purism is intriguing. I don't have personal experience with their stuff though.

If I really didn't want a MBP, I'd probably get a MacBook or a Chromebook and then lean on a Linux desktop system for heavy duty number crunching type stuff. That's similar to what I do now except with an older MBP.</comment>


AskHN: Ideas for side scrolling Dexter? - <AUTHOR>

2D gaming isn't out yet I guess, back in the age of atari, snes, gba, we used to see some amazing innovations & ideas in 2D games, we never saw the same for PC ever, Well I would like to contribute more to this shortage of quality full screen, eye catching engaging, platform style 2D games for PC. My tools of trade are allegro, gcc Planning a side scrolling game based on Dexter's laboratory.. any ideas are welcome! <comment><AUTHOR> any ideas ?? lol :P</comment>


NCSA Mosaic on GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic

<comment><USER2> Far more nostalgic: NCSA Mosaic on OpenVMS running on a VAX, and that's feasible by running on the simh VAX emulator on your (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows) box.

<http://vaxa.wvnet.edu/vmswww/vms_mosaic.html> <http://simh.trailing- edge.com/> <http://www.openvmshobbyist.org/> <http://www.decuserve.org/>

Total cost of this nostalgia is US$30 for the OpenVMS VAX CD. Mosaic, simh and the OpenVMS Hobbyist licenses are free.

<comment><USER3> Maybe I just found Dad's bday present :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://imgur.com/SW5Fi.png>

Nostalgic!

</comment><comment><USER5> This should come as a comfort to people who fear IE6 will never go away.

Mosaic at one point was used by a majority of web users and look now- no one cares about compatibility. People moved on and it is no longer in current use and no one would expect that your site should display properly in it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ah, C programs from the early nineties. I wonder which file has the most remotely-exploitable buffer overflows.

(The source code is good reading nonetheless. I love the PUBLIC macro to declare public "methods" in libwww2. A little C++ jealousy, I guess.)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is cool. Does anyone know if the code for Tim Berners Lee's NeXT browser is out there anywhere?

<comment><USER7> Nevermind, found it: <http://www.w3.org/History/1991-WWW-NeXT/Implementation/>

<comment><USER8> Awesome bit of objective-c, still looks rather readable then C code from the era. Its to bad C++ won out over Objective-C

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice, couldn't build it though on U9.10, at least x11-proto-print-dev does not exist there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, it's supposed to be x11proto-print-dev. I've updated the deps in the README, should build no problem on 9.10 now.</comment></comment>


Xxhashdir: Blazingly Fast Filesystem Fingerprinting - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lunatic-cat/xxhashdir <comment><USER2> Note that "find ... -exec" is always going to be slow, as it does one process spawn per file. You should process multiple files at once using xargs:

        find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 xxhsum -r

As a bonus, you can easily customize it to select only subset of files (find . -type f -name '*.js' -print0) , or to checksum using 16 cores (| xargs -P 16 -0 xxhsum -r)</comment>


Amazon job ad for an intelligence analyst to track 'labor organizing threats' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4aqw/amazon-hiring-intelligence-analyst-to-track-labor-organizing-threats <comment><USER2> It turns out that [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343361) was posted earlier and also on the front page, so we've merged most comments thither.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 'After this story was published, Amazon deleted the job listings and company spokesperson Maria Boschetti said in an email that "the job post was not an accurate description of the role — it was made in error and has since been corrected." The spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions about the alleged mistake.' (source: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4aqw/amazon- hiring-inte...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4aqw/amazon-hiring- intelligence-analyst-to-track-labor-organizing-threats))

<comment><USER2> Since that article gives a lot more information than [https://web.archive.org/web/20200901125228/https://www.amazo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200901125228/https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1026060/intelligence- analyst), we've switched the URL to it.

Submitted title was " _AMZN scraps job ad targeting "labor, activist groups, hostile political leaders"_ ". Please don't use titles that way. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, do so by adding a comment to the thread, so that then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is minimum wage or labor unions different from competing suppliers engaged in price fixing? (The suppliers being workers, and the product, human labor)

This is not rhetorical, I want perspectives I may have missed.

My initial thought is that it _Is_ similar to price fixing and has negative consequences, _but_ there are perceptions of positive consequences that make it socially unacceptable to not go along with it?

</comment><comment> munk-a As a note on presentation - can we avoid stock ticker shortenings in article titles and switch AMZN to Amazon?

<comment><USER4> You see it happen on HN often because of title length limits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that was my only reason for employing the abbreviation. In any case, it appears that the mods have chosen to switch out the title with a different one (my original carried an excerpt from the job posting which is now removed).</comment></comment></comment>


The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint - <AUTHOR> http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz0j43SNzRs

<comment><USER2> Ugh. Yes, 10-20-30 is what most VCs ask for. However, it's not what works in a first meeting. You can't demo a product and sell a dream with 10/20/30.

[http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2009/12/pitching.ht...](http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2009/12/pitching.html)

[http://www.kartme.com/blog/pitching-without- powerpoint-8-tip...](http://www.kartme.com/blog/pitching-without- powerpoint-8-tips-first-meeting)

<comment><USER3> I think that Beamer is a good alternative for those who want a relatively nice-looking presentation without shelling out $2000 for a Mac + another $80 for iWork.

<http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 10 KILL "POWERPNT.EXE"

20 PRINT "PROBLEM SOLVED!"

30 END

(Hint: The KILL command in old Microsoft BASIC deleted a file.)</comment>


Ask HN: Is the outrage over Unroll.me selling Lyft receipts to Uber warranted? - <AUTHOR> Unroll.me is a popular inbox tool for unsubscribing to email newsletters. They monetize by selling your data through Slice Media (and don't really talk about this on their marketing site). In Mike Isaac's profile on Travis Kalanick of Uber, it was revealed Uber engineer/growth folks bought this anonymized receipt data.<p>Original article: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/technology/travis-kalanick-pushes-uber-and-himself-to-the-precipice.html <comment><USER2> Yes!! Nobody reads the fine print on the EULA. Companies are hiding behind this to do things customers wouldn't otherwise allow. If unroll explicitly stated their inbox scraping and data selling aspect as loudly as their unsubscribe "USP", no one would use them

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I agree with you, but I'm not sure no one would use them. A lot of folks use Mint/Personal Capital and I believe they disclose a lot more about the data being the product for offers.

I'd be interested in slicing the outrage responses by age or tech sophistication. After all, my parents are still uncomfortable putting their CC in online. Just a different world now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes. The CEO is "heartbroken" for being caught, but he should probably be "pocketbook-broken" for it, since he apparently has no morals: [http://blog.unroll.me/we-can-do-better/](http://blog.unroll.me/we-can-do- better/) .

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes. I think it's fair to say Unroll.me wasn't being honest about data use.

The service was supposed to identify spammy e-mail by address or subject, and file them away. It's part of the business model to screen e-mail addresses and subject lines, I suppose. And I could understand them selling analytics on the contents of rolled-up items -- Wal-Mart wants to know what Target is selling, and demographics about those receiving offers, etc. You'd get some interesting data about what offers actually get clicks, too.

But the NYT article says they're selling numerical data out of Lyft receipts. That's not spam. At no point did they disclose they would troll through your non-spam e-mail for words or numbers interesting to the highest bidder.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> On one hand this is similar to all kinds of financial institutions who sell your data (which is why you'll get a bunch of credit card offers). It's a bit better than those, because it at least appears like the emails/receipts are anonymized.

On the other hand, this was hidden deep in the TOS and Privacy Policies, whereas some extra disclosure probably would have helped the backlash they're getting today.

I hate the phrase "if you're not paying, then you're the product", because plenty of freemium models don't follow that narrative, but in this case it seems crystal clear. I supposed we're just seeing how naive people can be with their personal data (email inboxes).

</comment><comment><USER5> If there is no outrage over SimilarWeb/Jumpshot buying Google Chrome browser extensions and tracking every url (even https ones like banking sites) you visit.. and selling that data, then why would anyone be outraged over this specific scenario?

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't know Unroll.me was using inbox data for this, but I can't say that I'm surprised. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. If you examine the freemium model, you're either the product or you're going to be sold too. Personally, if I'm getting value out of a product and it's free, I'd rather be sold to than have my data sold in some manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> All companies must have basic ethics. It's a given that nobody reads EULA, privacy & terms documents. Given that, each company must take the responsibility to explain to the customer what it knows will be objectionable. For example, if Lyft sold me travel information to 3rd parties, I expect them to tell me this up front and not hide this behind some legalese.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it is warranted in that it is surprise. They don't say "We will look at your emails and sell the data."

I used Unroll.me I thought they just sold ads.

The original article about the sale doesn't talk about selling the data [https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/24/rakuten-slice-buys- unroll-...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/24/rakuten-slice-buys-unroll-me/)</comment>


Ask HN: What made you decide to marry your spouse? - <AUTHOR> A popular "Ask HN" was posted recently, that asked how to find a wife[1].<p>Suppose you have found someone. When do you know it's the right time to get married?<p>[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14332698 <comment><USER2> Step 1: If your girlfriend is also your best friend then move to step 2.

Step 2: if you both want kids then move to step 3.

Step 3: If you want to protect your assests against your best friend with whom you want to build a family, go ahead and setup a prenup. Though, you might get stuck at that step because you'd put your money or your career first then your wife (best friend and mother of your kids) second. Why not? It's totally possible. Thought, I would NOT recommend a marriage in this case because it doesn't make any sense.

Step 4: let's say you skipped step 3 and made it to step 4. At this stage, you can pop the question, it makes sense.

Congrats.

<comment><USER3> Step 2: I would say its more "Do you both agree on wanting kids or not."

Step 2.1: If kids, what is your religions position for our children.

Step 2.2: Ensure sex drives and preferences aligned. Invariably its money or sex that result in marriage break-up so you want to make sure there is a compatibility here.

Step 3: Have to disagree about if you want a pre-nup not recommending a marriage. I would easily admit I'm more practical than romantic, but I see no problem with this conversation. I believe marriages would last longer if people were more practical about discussing these things rather than believing their commitment to each other overrides these realities. In my experience couples often haven't discussed money/religion/children core requirements. For modern relationships, I'd discuss money and assets before you got to marriage as I assume you'd move in together. This is a better point for this conversation and agreement given its more 'trial stage' and with defacto laws in many countries your assets sharing starts at this point.

...anyway I'm 15 years in with my partner with 2 kids and yet to marry. So not sure I fit the social norm.

<comment><USER2> I actually was the practical one in the relationship. I brought up the prenup to my wife before we got married because I had some descent cash in my savings after working hard for 10 years. I also wanted to protect a little software company I was running on the side thinking I'd turn it into a big thing one day. The first reaction was pretty bad. Again, she's the romantic one and I'm the practical one so she took a big hit. Not because I wanted to protect my money, she understood that, it was the idea of a potential divorce that made her sad. Especially when you're in a marriage mood :) Again, I'm super practical and I always look for the worst case scenario. Thought, we worked it out, talked about it for a while, I told her about the modern way of getting married and all the BS around it. After reading about prenups online and learned about the process, she told me she would do it. Just because that is what would make me feel happy in the long run. She said if you're happy then I'm happy. That's all I really care about. She made the effort, went out there by herself and found a qualified attorney to setup the paperworks for us. Again, she cried when I first mentioned the prenup in the first place and here she was, running the process for us while I was working long hours. All I had to do was to sign a check in order to secure everything and to move on to the next step (marriage).

I realized how she taught me a lesson. During the whole process all she cared about was me. Not her, not the money or anything else and that made me realized what a true relationship is. I looked at her in the eyes and said "let's get married, forget about feeding attorneys". Money comes and goes but strong relationships are extremely rare. One year after our marriage I quite my full time job in order to focus on my side company. I thought it was time for me to give it a try and to make it big... I went from making $200K/year on a w2 to pretty much $0. She took on a second job to support us and worked long hours to make sure I could continue doing what I loved. I ended up using a lot of my savings because we couldn't afford living in the Bay area with only one income. Long story short, after a few years, my savings is almost gone and my company ended up being a failure. My wife is still there right next to me, she hasn't changed and keeps supporting whatever I do. I could be rich or broke, she doesn't care.

So, make sure to follow the proper steps, money should be out of the scope. Unfortunately, time will tell you if you made the right decision or not. If you're still thinking about a prenup, don't get married... it won't bring anything to your relationship but potential problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Her love for me and she didn't go away when I told her I battled psychological disorder (anxiety and depression) in the past. She was the person I could talk any topic with her and she was always on the money with her insightful advice. And she didn't drink alcohol, nor smoke, which is hard to find around here. She was religous and sang in church choir. Since I had a lot of bad experiances with girls in the past, mostly on my part, when I met her I told myself, this time go slow but smart. And it's been best last 7 yrs of my life. We are married for 2 years and when we felt we matured enough to take full responsibility over our lives that was the decision moment to get married.

</comment><comment><USER5> He didn't run away when he saw I was reading a nerdy book. Instead, he approached me. Is that your book? He liked my brain.

I knew it was time to get married about a week after we met. Everyone else paled in comparison. It took another 6 months to make it official - but I was really married in my own mind after that first week together.

<comment><USER6> >> He liked my brain.

Hahahaha. So creepy.

"Hey, I like your brain."

Or better yet: "hey, i can tell ur the one for me cuz i like your mucus."

Hahahahah

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome article on this very topic. [http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage- decision.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> After a 22 year trial period, we married for insurance purposes.

<comment><USER9> Having lived through my parents' unhappy marriage, I'm strongly resistant to getting married.

However, my current partner has better retirement benefits than I do (both Social Security and pension benefits). I recently joked with him that we should marry so that I inherit his benefits should he kick off before I do. That would be an unpleasant reason to get married.

Regarding health insurance, currently it looks like we're better off not being married. That's probably also true for tax purposes.

<comment><USER8> We got married before Obamacare so she needed to get on my insurance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> jaredhansen[0] posted a great response[1] to this question awhile back.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredhansen](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredhansen)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972765)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you need to ask, I can only advise you to read the cohabitation laws that apply where you live. You may already be "married" but only for the downsides.

</comment><comment><USER12> The fun and beautiful is what drew me in. As I got to know the rest of her (smart, good head on her shoulders, confident, compassionate) it became a no brainer.

</comment><comment><USER13> Right time? When you both love each other, when you both want to be married, and when you both are committed to staying married.

</comment><comment><USER14> The fact that I worked for an airline and we could only use the cheap flying perk if we got married.

Never used it. Still married.

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps best not to assume that it ever is.

</comment><comment><USER16> Met in HS at 15, it was super obvious to us by 19ish when we started living together.

<comment><USER6> Same here. It was super obvious to us too when we had been living together for 24 years and had 5 kids.

Not too obvious by year 23, but mos def by 24!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> She did!

</comment><comment><USER18> I had had two fairly good long term relationships before, both of which ended abruptly, The first time, I got kicked out, the second, I initiated the breakup. I said to my self, "the next one that comes along is going to be the one". I was playing guitar in a cheap bar one night and a friend's friend walked in with her friend. As they walked in, through the smoky, bleary light, that girl turned and smiled at me. End of story.</comment>


The Virtual Reality of John Carmack - <AUTHOR> http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2015/september/virtual-reality-of-john-carmack <comment><USER2> > "No, he would not leave Texas, he said. In fact, as a condition of his > acceptance, he said Oculus would have to open an office in Dallas—which it > has since done."

Power move

<comment><USER3> No kidding. They're hiring a Software Engineer according to their website. I'll have to keep checking back if there's ever anything I might be qualified for, like the Office Admin. I'm not joking! It's in my professional background!

<comment><USER4> You should make contact, get on their radar, and apply anyway. Lots of times available jobs never make it to a job board, but are given to people already in the common network. Go for it!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the positive encouragement! Also the valid point about never knowing what opportunities may exist. I think I'll reach out using their available channels and do just that, make an introduction, see if anything might come about. I don't intend to waste their time, but I'd love a foot in the door, so to speak!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "I embrace the mundane work and find insights while exploring it."

I love this quote. I'm still early in my career, and unfortunately find myself focusing far too much at the big picture and becoming overwhelmed by it. Any tips for "embracing the mundane"?

<comment><USER6> Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

<comment><USER7> I've asked this question before on HN and was down voted mercilessly, so I'll try to rephrase.

Why does everyone point to Zen as such a significant work? I've tried to read it on 3 separate occasions now, and I'm not "getting it". I'm fully willing to be completely wrong about this, but it frustrates me that Pirsig focuses so much on what I read as "the absolute value of quality" when - IMHO, it's merely a relative term.

I get the point he's making early in the book about "doing it yourself" vs "buying it", but as the book goes on I get more and more frustrated with what appears to me to be the central premise.

Can you point me to a "guide to reading 'Zen'" or something similar which can show me where I'm going wrong?

<comment><USER8> Why don't you just finish reading the book or just leave it alone? I understand there are books that are hard to read, but this is very much a do- or-don't thing. How can we help you finish a book? Just read it or don't.

Edit: I'm getting down-voted so let me put a fine point on it. Reading a book is a pretty low risk commitment. You could be reading dozens of a books a year. The book we are talking about is considered to be a "great American novel" and less risky still. No one should have to convince you to finish it. If you don't like it enough to finish it, then don't bother. [http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best- novels/](http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/)

<comment><USER7> I'm not down voting you, but you didn't actually answer my question. I didn't ask for help to finish the book. I asked for perspective why it's a "great novel".

<comment><USER8> I know, but the idea of struggling with a book? Can't you just think about it after you finish reading it?

<comment><USER9> You can't just hold the entirety of the massive brain dump that is a novel in your head at once. You have to stop and think along the way. Or at least, I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Everything John Carmack says he likes about Dallas is what I like about Dallas, and absolutely hated about Austin. I purposefuly fled Austin to return to Dallas years ago. There's something unique in the independent spirit in this area, and it persists year after year. I'm exceptionally pleased at his reasoning, and may quote some of his verbiage when appropriate.

<comment><USER10> After spending a couple of years in Austin, I always felt it had a veneer of "cool" that was mostly fake. It's cool because people say it is; it's really not a liberal oasis in a sea of conservatism, it just seems like it is. Having lived there, if you're not into going downtown or sweating your ass off doing something outdoors, there's not much in Austin that you can't find for cheaper elsewhere.

<comment><USER11> >> It's cool because people say it is.

I know a guy that moved to Michigan from LA. He said the same. People have a vision of California that dates from the 50's before the traffic, cost of living, and pollution got bad. The only thing nice about it now is the climate in his opinion. From what I've read and seen (a week in SF) he's about right.

<comment><USER12> No, the image most non-West-Coasters have of California was always a mirage. There was smog in the San Fernando Valley in the 50's.

But you can't really judge all of it from LA. California is huge, and LA is a small but uniquely artificial, plastic-y place, inhabited by pretend humans. If that's a problem for you, you're not going to like it. San Francisco has its own unique bullshit factor that you may also not like, but it's not the same culture as LA.

And the climate is getting worse (thanks to global warming).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My favorite quote from the article: _"A lot of people, especially from California, say, 'Texas? Why the hell are you in Texas?' But I am generally happy to wave the flag and say, 'No, I am not here under duress.' I actually like it here. And we appreciate the sense of the Southern hospitality. You don't get the sense that everyone needs to be coddled and taken care of. You get the sense of gumption."_

This is why many of us live in "flyover country".

<comment><USER14> I used to live in California, and now live in Austin.

Have to agree w/ other commenter, there's actually a pretty surprising overlap in personality types between the two places. Maybe Austin skews a little younger (both biologically and socially).

However... Texas is for materialists, hands down. You don't go there for natural splendor or the climate. The beach is a turd, and you're surrounded by 500 miles of polarized right wing fundamentalists in every direction. But it's centrally located! Which means you will be flying/renting a car to leave town, period.

California is for people who value quality of life, and are willing to pay every penny they have now and forever, to approach it, to the point that they have no quality.

After these and other living arrangements, I'm done with population centers. Give me a rail connected village please.

<comment><USER3> "You don't go to Texas for natural splendor" sounds exactly like what a California transplant to Austin would say because they can't ride their bike to the Hill Country, the pine forests of East Texas, or the Trinity River in North Texas.

<comment><USER15> As an East Texas native who's now in California... sorry, Texas has some pretty vistas, but there's no comparison to the Sierras and California Coast.

God, I miss good Mexican food and TexMex though.

<comment><USER3> Never said Texas surpassed California in the nature department, but to claim Texas is devoid of natural beauty in such a blase fashion is just ignorant, methinks.

<comment><USER16> Pretty much. I'm in Fredericksburg. There are other places and they all have their positive virtues, but not much better IME.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > In fact, as he continues he leans forward and seems on the verge of standing > up

I always stops on sentences like this one and admire the writing.

</comment><comment><USER18> We should have the technology to do VR acceptably now, although display technology and tracking technology both needed an upgrade. The problem remains, what do you use it for? If there's a killer app for VR, it hasn't been invented yet.

Also, the headgear needs to be far less clunky. Samsung is making progress in this area. The Oculus Rift is as bulky as some of the 1990s headgear.

</comment><comment><USER19> ""It was a binary thing," he says matter-of-factly. "We didn't get into suborbital space within the 10 years; thus it was not a success."" I had to read that sentence twice. I saw "binary" and didn't think 10=ten.

<comment><USER20> Binary outcome - a success or not a success

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What is good (and inexpensive) kit to start doing things with VR?

<comment><USER22> Google Cardboard (or one of the many versions thereof- I prefer the C1 Glass)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: now that Mavericks broke gmail support, what will you use? - <AUTHOR> Mail.app does not play well with gmail. Sparrow was bought by Google (and therefore has uncertain future on OS X. Inky seems nice, but it's terribly slow and is a resource monster. So what do you use for your email? <comment><USER2> I'm using MailMate[1], which is a brilliant client developed by the Danish coder Benny Kjaer Nielsen. It has too many neat features to name, but the one I absolutely couldn't live without is the ability to write emails in Markdown.

[1]: [http://freron.com/](http://freron.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why not just wait and see if Apple manages to fix Mail.app? [http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/04/apple-preparing-bug- fix-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/04/apple-preparing-bug-fix-updates- to-mail-ibooks-safari-and-remote-desktop/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I need email for work. If I cannot be sure about my mail client I must change client. However, Mail.app never satisfied me 100%, so I took the opportunity to scout for better clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started using Airmail[1], and I love it. Mainly for label support with Gmail, but there's lots of little bits of UI features that I love about. Definitely worth the $1.99 or whatever it is on the App Store.

[1]: [http://airmailapp.com/](http://airmailapp.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen it, but I read that it's very bugged. Did you experienced any problem?

<comment><USER5> None here, thus far. Best mail client I've ever used.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know. 2$ is definitely worth. Pity there is not a trial version on the app store.

BTW, is it good to keep zero inbox? I'm so desperate that I was thinking about writing my own zero inbox-oriented client ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use mutt[1] for all of my e-mail. It's a bit of a bear to set up intially, but really worth it. There are lots of guides online that ease the pain of setting it up.

[1]: [http://www.mutt.org/](http://www.mutt.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I could switch to mutt either :-). I've read that gmail IMAP support is a little broken. Are you having problems with mutt?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm using outlook.com + mail.app to spread things out. One side benefit is you can still get firstname.lastname@example.com lol.

<comment><USER8> Have migrated over to Outlook.com as well and can confirm that the user interface is quite refreshing when compared to the deteriorating state that is gmail. Be aware that Outlook.com is not 365 and there is unfortunately no paid or premium support option, however entire domains are supported via going to domains.live.com. Perfect for family emails/domains, etc.

After migrating I authored a plugin for Google Chrome that makes Outlook.com your default email application and provides a button to compose a message to quickly share a link via email. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-from- outlookc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-from-outlookcom- by-g/jgjbncjbianlocbolfhpanbbpaobldod?hl=en) if your using Chrome + Outlook.com check it out.

</comment></comment><comment> adam-_- What's wrong with gmail.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't like the interface. I find it too clumsy with features I don't use. Said this, at the moment I'm using it :-(. I used Gmelius to get rid of most of the interface and it is usable. However I'd like a better integration with the operating system.</comment></comment>


What's the point of a Covid-19 test that takes 19 days for results? - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/coronavirus-testing-delays-backlog <comment><USER2> It's so sad to watch, but compared to any other developed and affluent nation (and with equal time to prepare), the US is a complete shitshow at this point.

The complete lack of leadership and resulting power vacuum resulted in valuable time lost bickering, blaming and thumb twiddling that could have gone towards preventing the second wave. This is a community spread at this stage and another hundred thousand people are all but guaranteed to die. It's mindblowing.

Here in Germany, I'm getting my test results within 3 days via SMS (usually same-day for positive results) and can enter it into an app to warn others.

Everybody wears a mask indoors and nobody but a very small minority complains. Social distancing is enforced by usually friendly police which the people mostly trusts to do its job.

It's just so sad to see how personal "freedom to choose" turned into the achilles heel of one of the formerly greatest nations on Earth.

<comment><USER3> No, that's just yellow journalism. The USA is doing just fine thank you. The "second wave" is the whole point of flattening the curve, as long as hospitals aren't overwhelmed, our response is successful.

Look at our respective stock markets for a more accurate view of the situation. They're tracking very close, even adjusting for currency float. The USA is nowhere near falling apart.

<comment><USER4> Ahh yes. The stock market is doing great hence we are fine.

I'm sure our president and his sycophants also completely believe this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the cases given as examples in the article, from Georgia and Texas, even if they got prompt test results both those states are doing badly at contact tracing which further exacerbates the situation.

Georgia is currently tracing just 7% of contacts. They were in the 7-9% range from mid May to early June, then fell slowly to about 4%, then briefly in late June got up to 19%, and then immediately went into decline back down to 7%.

Texas is doing 6%. They were at 19% in mid May, rising to 42% near the end of May, fell to 25% in early to mid June, jumped to 33% by June 11, and then have been on a decline down to the current 6%.

Experts say this needs to be 90% withing 48 hours of infection.

California peaked at 39% in mid May and has followed roughly a declining sawtooth since then, currently at 22%.

Florida is just 3%. They peaked at 40% at the start of June and went steadily down hill since then. They curve looks like a capacitor discharge curve.

The only states that currently either have enough contact tracers or have planned expansions that will get them enough are: Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, and everything north or east of Pennsylvania except for Rhode Island, .

Of those, all but New Jersey, Massachusetts, Alaska, and Hawaii currently have sufficient contact tracers on hand.

The remaining ~40 states do not have enough and do not plan to get enough.

A state needs 5-15 tracers per daily positive test. Georgia has 0.33, Texas 0.31, California 1.07, and Florida 0.15. Compare to New York at 13.75. (Missouri and Alabama are tied for the worst here, at a paltry 0.08).

Reading between the lines, I think that several states hired enough to handle the load near the end of lockdown, with perhaps some room to spare for a minor raise as they reopened. When the rise was faster than they anticipated, they failed to slow down reopening or to boost their budget for contract tracing.

Above data from [https://testandtrace.com/](https://testandtrace.com/) and [https://covidactnow.org/](https://covidactnow.org/)

<comment><USER6> No amount of budget-boosting would be enough to keep up with exponential growth. If they hired enough people to cope with the contact tracing load near the end of lockdown plus a little bit of an increase, and then the increase was faster than expected, that sounds like a pretty clear sign that contact tracing is not a workable solution. (Which is, as I understand it, pretty much what we'd expect. Contact tracing has not conventionally been seen as even remotely viable for a respiratory disease like this one.)

<comment><USER7> I thought contact tracing was exactly how countries like South Korea kept their numbers so low?

<comment><USER8> It's unclear. Rates in South Korea are rising, and they've generally used somewhat broad shutdowns in addition to contact tracing. (For example, when there were positive cases found in Seoul bars, they closed all the bars in the city for weeks.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want to be incredibly angry at the ineffectiveness of the current testing regime that we as a country are heavily investing in, listen to this episode of the This Week In Virology podcast:

[https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/](https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/) [TWiV 640: Test often, fast turnaround, with Michael Mina]

The way to beat the pandemic is to have cheap, disposable instant tests that anybody can take in their homes, everyday, to see if they have a large amount of virus in their system. These instant tests will not have the sensitivity or specificity of the PCR style test, but it doesn't matter. The PCR style test can test for levels of virus that are _billions_ or _trillions_ times smaller than necessary, yet we disqualify other types of tests because they aren't as accurate as the PCR tests. So we set an impossible standard that all other tests, no matter how practically useful they could be, fail to reach.

We all could have cheap, _accurate enough_ instant tests, but do not because they aren't as accurate as a test that is ridiculously accurate but takes so long to get results at scale it becomes completely ineffective. It's complete madness.

<comment><USER10> Is there such a thing as an instant test on the market?

<comment><USER11> A company here in Canada tried to bring one to market, but I think it was completely disapproved because it was not precise and specific enough, which baffled me since I don't really see the downside of it being available even if that's the case.

Yes, accuracy is a nice thing to have, but if you _aren 't tested at all_ you are worse off. You can still follow precautions if you are negative on an inaccurate test, but we can't afford to have everyone take the precautions that those with positive tests should.

If the test is highly sensitive but biased toward false positives, that would also be a useful form of test.

<comment><USER12> If it's not specific enough a significant portion of the population will have to go into quarantine for no obvious reason, and if it's no precise enough you either need to keep the restrictions or let a significant portion of the infected population move around with no precautions whatsoever.

I'm not sure why you're not seeing any problems with this.

<comment><USER13> It doesn't have to lead to quarantine. Many people are running around acting as though the virus is gone. Some are staying indoors with a cold thinking they might have the virus. If they could self-test and make their own decision about the risk of changing their behavior, it would help immensely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did this pervasive level of criticism, animosity, and negativity exist a hundred years ago during the last serious pandemic? Every week there's some new crisis.

It feels like the entire media is always trying to highlight the next systemic failure. "This is wrong." "This failed." "We don't have enough ventilators." "New York cases are surging." "California cases are surging." "We don't have enough PPE." "We don't have hand sanitizer." "We don't have masks." "We don't have enough tests."

Are things actually this consistently bad, or does the media magnify the negative and ignore the positive developments (of which there are plenty)?

It's like the difference between acute inflammation (which is good for the body when it's fighting an infection) and chronic inflammation (which causes a lot of problems).

<comment><USER15> I mean, in the United States, 149,324 deaths _is_ a systemic failure. Another 834 today, and the day isn't over. Do you not think that constitutes a massive crisis?

<comment><USER14> That's my point. The Spanish flu killed 750,000 in the United States at a time when the population was around 100 million. It was certainly a massive crisis.

What was the reporting like and how has it changed?

<comment><USER16> When talking about mortality rates I don't think it is easy to make a comparison of these two virus.

Firstly, the medical technologies of 1918 were nothing like what we have today.

For example, even though it would have been no help fighting Spanish Flu, wide spread use of penicillin was still some 20 years, showing just how far behind the medical system of that time really was.

That difference also shows up in things like life expectancy which back then was in the low 50s where as today it is in the 70s.

Finally the two virus are very different.

One factor that made the Spanish Flu virus so deadly was it killed both young and old.

If COVID-19 had the same _death profile_ I suspect we would be seeing those same 750,000 totals.

<comment><USER17> All of that, plus a context of wartime

And this deathcount was for an event that extended for 16 months between 2918 and 1920. We are in the eight month of covid-19 still

<comment><USER17> 2918... (LOL)

1918

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If tests are much more useful if they come back quickly, then first come first served with huge queues is the exact wrong way to handle excessive demand. Instead you should test the _newest_ round of specimens that you have ready, and catch up on older ones if you can when you have a lull.

<comment><USER19> That incentivizes gaming the system by getting multiple tests, though, and hoping one will be lucky to be the newest batch.

If you can centralise test assignment enough to eliminate that, you can do something smarter, like prioritising health workers, at-risk demographics and those who are already asymptomatic. Assign any remaining capacity quasi- randomly to get the best possible statistical data for your epidemiologists: if your systems are that overwhelmed it's far too late for contact tracing to be useful, but the data scientists may learn something.

Having inefficient assignment of test resources is a problem inherent to privatised distributed healthcare that doesn't just go away if you solve the financial side with Obamacare or the like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thus the need for cheaper, quicker tests, even if the accuracy is t that great. TWIV Podcast episode #640 covers this. $1 per day test that quickly gives a result, but perhaps is only 50% accurate.

<comment><USER21> I've lost count of the amount of times I've been tested, and it never took more than 15 minutes. There are plenty of quick and cheap tests out there.

<comment><USER22> Curious, if you can explain without going into any sensitive details:

1) Why are you getting tested so often?

2) Where/how are are you getting tested and getting quick results?

<comment><USER23> I'm not the person you asked, but I also get tested often and quickly due to some work on physical access controls.

Often being: once a week. Not considered often compared to physical contact workers, but considered often compared to work-from-home workers. Heck, even considered often compared to the entire continent of North America.

Quickly being: drive-in test or walk-in test that is done in 5 minutes, results within 3 days, usually within 24h, either by SMS text message or phone call (depending on the test center).

Test center appointments are generally divided based on proximity, there are 4 test centers nearby for me (4 kilometres to max 30 kilometres -- sadly the one closest is usually queued up full for 1 or 2 days). So far my experience has been that they are very efficient; a lot of open space, about 6 people physically there at the most, testing room is about the size of a shipping container, one person doing the tests, one person observing/checking/entering data. The most efficient one was actually in a parking lot next to the hospital that also has a lab where they do mass testing. There is space for about 30 cars, but they regulate the appointments in a way that even when some people come early only 4 cars are there. Half the spaces are blocked/crossed out, entry and exit are made using ramps and zigzags (if that makes sense) so they are very accessible but also naturally prompt people to keep their distance (aside from the stickers/billboards all over the place). Because it's a single-direction flow for both cars and people and the people flow exit ends where the car parking flow starts you never run in to anyone getting in or out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is _some_ value in knowing that you had it even after the fact. Having a positive PCR test is way better than a positive antibody test. This knowledge means that it is unlikely that you will get it again soon. (Though, we don't have very good data on that. It will take some time till we know how long immunity lasts and how well it works.)

For test and trace to suppress the epidemic you'd want to have results before people become infectious to chase the infection chain quicker than it spreads. That means contact identification and test results in the order of 1-2 days (the faster the better but with peak about 3-8 days after infection you want to be on the lower end). Right now this strategy is not feasible since there are just too many cases coming in. Therefore this calls for a hard lockdown until the case rate is manageable again. Since the lockdown is not going to happen it will continue to spread till the hot zones burn out. Getting to herd immunity without overloading the hospitals is unlikely and would probably take years. Therefore overloading the hospitals is inevitable now. The difference between hospitals overloaded by a factor 3, 10, 100 does not seem so very big since you can't care for most patients anyways. Overloading heavily on the other hand has the advantage that it might be over soon and you are done with it (or maybe not, we don't know how long lasting immunity is and how many people will have serious health problems afterwards). So in summary: We are probably beyond the point of no return and whatever happens will happen. I wish you all and your loved ones good health and good luck.

<comment><USER25> > Having a positive PCR test is way better than a positive antibody test. This > knowledge means that it is unlikely that you will get it again soon.

I believe positive "antibody" test could hint to some chance of faring better "next time".

But even that is still not clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I find it interesting how daily new deaths in Sweden seem to have levelled off to a low level. Of course there could be a second wave in the fall, but I think Sweden might have reached the low herd immunity threshold.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

<comment><USER27> What I'm wondering is why it seems to have levelled off despite case numbers being wildly different in different regions of Sweden. Are people's habits different, leading to very different thresholds for herd immunity? Are reported case numbers off? Something else?

<comment><USER28> In lower density areas, you'll have fewer contacts, so "herd immunity" numbers (with some interventions) are lower

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The point is that if they administered tests daily at the daily capacity for testing (24h result turnaround) then many people who want to be tested would be turned away, and become aware immediately of the testing bottlenecks.

It's a form of bufferbloat.

I sometimes wonder how many fewer USians would have died in this pandemic had it occurred outside of an election year.

<comment><USER6> I don't think there's any need for a deliberate conspiracy here; hard capping the number of tests at exactly the daily capacity would require quite complicated real-time feedback between the multiple sites taking samples and the labs processing them, and would be worse in that it couldn't prioritize cases which need test results most urgently. This problem isn't unique to the US either; back when the press in other countries was pointing to Germany's testing program as proof their country was falling behind, I even had a conversation with a German on here who was convinced their testing was the failure because of similar delays.

<comment><USER30> People would be mad about it, but it would be reasonably straightforward to discard samples that were not urgent (so that testing for urgent samples remained prompt and available).

There also seem to be some utilization problems. Some folks I know got tested after 1 person had enough symptoms. The person with symptoms got sampled several days before 3 other people and got their result last, probably because of which lab was used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Even in a place like Oregon which seems fairly well managed, we have major test shortages. It just seems to me that the _first_ benchmark should be if we have enough test availability (some combo of more tests and less infections) to be able to get results with 24 hours of symptoms, so we can effectively contact trace. If we don't have that, then all this Phase1 Phase2 stuff just means that you're increasing the epidemic. But here in Oregon, all the counties are in Phase1 or Phase2, none of them are in the "Baseline" lockdown phase. Shouldn't we all be in the Baseline phase until we have enough test availability?

I'm betting there's a good answer, like maybe the amount of test availability Oregon has is dependent on the rest of the nation. Like, if our epidemic goes down 90%, maybe our test availability will go down 90% anyway because other states will get further prioritized.

But anyway, it seems like that should be the basic standard nationwide. Lock it down until you can get test results within 24 hours, and then only slowly open it up while proving you can keep that test availability - if you can't, freeze or go back.

</comment><comment><USER32> I work for a big institution that includes a massively funded hospital network. I don't actually work for the medical part of the institution. I am technically deemed an essential worker because we have servers on-site.

Recently I had some minor symptoms and wanted to get a test. By going through my employer's employee testing process I

      A) got a test scheduled for the same day I called
      B) got my negative result under 12 hours later

This was a transformative moment for me in recognizing that there is an intentional, and centralized project to stress testing capacity in the United States. There is no shortage of materials or staff, just funding for lab capacity. This is an incredibly solvable problem that our leaders are choosing not to solve.

I truly believe the future historical narrative of this moment will cast our elected leaders as the orchestrators of mass genocide. It's hard to consider living, breathing, contemporary people who hold esteemed positions to be on the level of evil as historical Nazis. But as time passes and we consider the impact their choices are having, it will both become easier to cast them in such a light, and to question the passivity of a population that accepts their decisions. It has never been more clear to me how such atrocities can happen and at the same time become normalized.

<comment><USER33> so you are saying that test results are intentionally being delayed?

i am not a fan of this administration and feel there is plenty of blame to go around but i would love for more insight on why you think there is some intentional malice happening...

<comment><USER34> Virus stats make the people at the top look bad. More testing - more accurate stats. More accurate stats - more outraged people. So they delay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> While a wait time of 19 days is much too long, the connection drawn by the article to the CDC recommended 2-week quarantine ("That's five days longer than the quarantine period of two weeks recommended by the CDC") is spurious. That's the time in which the virus is expected to present, not the point at which it's okay to leave your home regardless.

From the CDC article which they link right there, "[q]uarantine helps prevent spread of disease that can occur before a person knows they are sick or if they are infected with the virus without feeling symptoms."

</comment><comment><USER36> Delayed test results are a nightmare that will guaranteed plunge us exponentially deeper into the mess we're in in the US

</comment><comment><USER37> What's the point of testing at all in places that aren't taking steps to reduce the spread?

Testing isn't the goal, it's data to use for an informed response. If the response isn't going to come it's just a morbid and useless statistic.

<comment><USER8> Even in places that are willing to accept some amount of spread, testing allows people to make informed decisions before doing particularly risky things. I have friends who for example take a test just before visiting their grandparents - if we lived in an area with week-long turnarounds, they wouldn't be able to do that, and would have to choose between a significant risk of infecting them or leaving them isolated for months on end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Because the official government policy is "just deal with it" and proper testing isn't compatible with that policy. Essentially the test is a fobbing off measure.

</comment><comment><USER39> Sorry but i didn't get claims about lack of public investing in healthcare.

Why when i am already paying like 500$/mo for insurance and making one physical in a year at most. Also during this physical i asked about help with my panic attacks and was told "well we don't have capacity at all for this, you will wait for ~month for your visit and it won't be useful since they are not going to have enough time to look at you". And this visit would be paid.

May be AHA shouldn't limit number of doctors educated to make it available to public? Money is clearly not an issue.

<comment><USER40> Spending is not synonymous with investment. Around half of your money is going to middlemen - think about how many people have full time jobs deciding what to charge, coding it, shipping invoices around, etc. not to mention trying to figure out how to profit as much as possible? How much goes to emergency care because preventative care is not covered and healthy lifestyles are actively discouraged by public policy?

None of that is going to medical professionals, infrastructure, or research. We pay considerably more than anyone else per-capita but that's waste: as far as outcomes go we rank much lower than our peers.

This is also interesting when you compare tax rates: Americans pay taxes + insurance at a combined rate around "expensive" countries like Denmark but we don't get anywhere near as much for our money.

<comment><USER41> You're right! Only about 20% of healthcare spending goes to physicians and half of that does to practice expenses like malpractice insurance. So even forcing physicians to work for free wouldn't do very much to lower healthcare prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not only the time frame but it seems like all the tests have significant false + and false - results.

I don't see any benefit from being tested at this time.

I definitely don't want to spread the virus if I'm positive or be around people who are positive and can spread it to me but the time frame and false +/\- results, testing doesn't seem viable to provide any actionable knowledge.

I think we'll see the limits of what testing can do to prevent the spread of the virus with the start of NFL training camp/season.

<comment><USER43> the roche antibody test has high specificity and sensitivity

<comment><USER44> Without knowing the base rate for a community isn't specificity and sensitivity like a numerator without a denominator?

"Roche's SARS-CoV2 antibody test, which has a specificity greater than 99.8% and 100% sensitivity3 (14 Days post-PCR confirmation), can help assess patients' immune response to the virus."

[https://www.roche.com/media/releases/med- cor-2020-05-03.htm](https://www.roche.com/media/releases/med- cor-2020-05-03.htm)

<comment><USER45> Roche validated the test using stored blood samples from before the pandemic started, when the base rate was 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> What percentage of the current population has already been infected?

What is the latest death rate of confirmed cases?

</comment><comment><USER47> " So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'".

Mission accomplished.

</comment><comment><USER48> Incremental improvement

</comment><comment><USER49> We are in this mess fully because of trump. It's unfortunate we have a president that has no empathy for people and is constantly fanning the conspiracy theories as he also doesn't believe in science. But finally he seems to have realize it's bad for him so he might actually try to listen to his scientists for a day or two.

Given people are already so predisposed to their theories not sure how many people actually will listen without a full lockdown. Also it's highly unlikely the red states will lockdown ahead of the election and go against trump. We are in a real mess. The pessimist in me is thinking we will probably have to really solve it after the election it if trump wins probably never until we get a vaccine.

</comment><comment><USER50> This will not get resolved because both major parties have decided America isn't worth saving (because the other party exists).

</comment><comment><USER51> Without contact tracing, there's an argument that tests don't give you much actionable information. If you're sick, you'll (hopefully) self-quarentine anyway. If you're sick enough to go to the hospital, you'll go anyway and be presumed to have covid. If you feel healthy, unless you're being tested because of your job, you probably aren't going to get tested.

The case that's somewhat interesting is the one in article where someone might have gotten people sick at a party.

<comment><USER52> The tests helped my wife make a decision. She and I slept through most of one weekend (very unusual) and had mild congestion and headaches. However, calling off work for two weeks would've been difficult for her. She works at a daycare where staff have been leaving one after another. And the daycare doesn't give paid sick days. (I still insisted she stay home until the results came in 2 days later). We had to go with likelihood of being a spreader instead of getting to play it safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Clearly, the reporter didn't really want the question answered because three points come to mind, immediately.

1) Testing of corpses and blood samples thereof. The CDC recently changed its guidelines for cause of death determination to be "if it looks like COVID, just mark it down as COVID." Being able to test corpses, who are in no rush, could help more accurately pin down mortality rates.

2) Knowing that you are not likely to catch it again, or, alternately, are still at risk. Yes, I know there's some debate as to whether or not you can catch it again due to declining antibodies. I am not believing that at current.

3) Being able to use antibodies cultivated from patients who have recovered in those who are currently quite ill. That's a common enough concept, cheaper than cultivating monoclonal antibodies.

Boom, three right there. How hard was that?</comment>


Running Groupon or Living Social Deal Leads to 10% Decrease in Yelp Rating - <AUTHOR> http://www.launch.is/blog/running-groupon-or-living-social-deal-leads-to-10-decrease-i.html

<comment><USER2> The reply from LivingSocial is disappointing; the defense of the issue as "well, you don't know what we know" may be true, but doesn't make much sense on the surface. How can that be good for a company, given the buying public doesn't know those things either?

A more reasonable response, that would have been more believable, would have been something like "We have read the studies and want to work with the researchers to share our data on retention, engagement, and (whatever), as we think there are pieces of this complex problem missing from the analysis" - even better, point out if the researchers didn't reach out to them.

After the Groupon fiasco, both companies need to embrace a more open, transparent process (and communication style) if they want to change the perception of their market space.</comment>


Snarky: A new programming language for verifiable computation - <AUTHOR> https://o1labs.org/blog/posts/snarky.html <comment><USER2> Very informative and exciting technology!</comment>


Show HN: The Simplest Way to Write - <AUTHOR> https://somewordsfor.me <comment><USER2> Awesome! A whole new meaning to having your head in the clouds.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesomeness!

</comment><comment><USER5> Good stuff!

</comment><comment><USER6> love it!</comment>


Setting this image as wallpaper could soft-brick your phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/image-wallpaper-crash-soft-brick-1124505 <comment><USER2> Would love to hear some theories about this from anyone with expertise in such things.

<comment><USER3> It's pretty obvious from the description. The lock screen is just a program running on the phone, as is the launcher that displays the home screen. If those programs crash, you won't be able to do very much with the phone. Apparently images with uncommon features (such as color profiles), or images that are malformed, can cause an error condition that causes both of these applications to exit or crash. Since displaying the background image is not critical to the operation of these programs, any failures in loading or displaying that image should have been caught and handled in such a way that the program doesn't crash. It should simply display a solid color background instead. Depending on the language used to implement these programs, that might be more or less engineering effort.</comment></comment>


DragonFly BSD 4.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.dragonflybsd.org/release40

<comment><USER2> Out of the BSDs, I would say DragonFly is the most innovative. Its implementation of virtual kernels, HammerFS, thread scheduling via message passing and it has been rock solid as an NFS file server, serving all my local media to other *nix nodes on my LAN. Wikipedia gives a great rundown on the innovations and why Matt decided to fork.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD)

<comment><USER3> I would almost term it as a permanent research platform for FreeBSD. Never would I recommend someone run it in production, but if I'm looking for cutting-edge parallel OS techniques, Dragonfly is definitely on the short list. Come to think of it, it might be the only one on my short list—OS innovations seems to be driven by virtualization, container, filesystem, and network concerns more than anything these days.

<comment><USER4> >I would almost term it as a permanent research platform for FreeBSD

DragonFly BSD was forked from FreeBSD because of fundamental design disagreements between Matthew Dillon and the rest of the FreeBSD developers. Thus I doubt that the characterization as "research platform for FreeBSD" fits. You might as well say OpenBSD is a research platform for NetBSD.

<comment><USER5> DragonFly actually adopts a lot of tech from freebsd.

<comment><USER6> As far as I know, all of the BSDs have adopted code from each other over time. It might simply be a side of effect of the common heritage and license, but it seems to be one that none of the people involved have a problem with and often consider desirable.

But that does not make Dragonfly a "research platform" for FreeBSD. Both systems have different priorities and goals.

(Although I wonder if any of the things that Dragonfly set out to do differently has been adopted back into FreeBSD?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also worth mentioning, BSDTalk has an interview with Matthew Dillon about the 4.0 release of DragonFly BSD : [http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2014/11/bsdtalk248-dragonflybsd-...](http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2014/11/bsdtalk248-dragonflybsd- with-matthew.html)

<comment><USER7> Just listened to this BSD Talk episode yesterday. Matt is doing some extremely interesting work, not only on the kernel and file system research side, but also in terms of their completely customised networking stack, which utilises multi-core non-blocking networking I/O to achieve really high speeds. I would like to see some of that incorporated back into the FreeBSD kernel (not sure if it has been done, but I doubt it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The drm/i915 driver is now mostly based on the Linux 3.8.13 implementation and is no longer similar to the FreeBSD driver. Many Linux APIs and data structures have been implemented in the DragonFly kernel in order to reuse as many parts as possible of the Linux drm/i915 code without modifications."

I was wondering how did they deal with licensing issue. I thought Linux drivers are all under GPL. And DragonFly is (obviously) under BSD. Then I've noticed gpu/drm/i915 has a permissive (MIT?) license. E.g.:

[https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/gpu/dr...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.c)

Is it true for everything else under gpu/drm directory? What license does DRM have?

<comment> glass- > I thought Linux drivers are all under GPL.

Nope, in fact some of Linux's drivers are licensed with the old-style BSD license with the advertising clause: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?q=%22advertising+ma...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?q=%22advertising+materials%22&type=Code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd love to see these 2.5 year old performance benchmarks re-ran.

[http://www.dragonflybsd.org/performance/](http://www.dragonflybsd.org/performance/)

Does anyone know where I can gain the benchmark config/setup so that I can re- run myself?

<comment><USER10> I ran the Postgres benchmarks again in March of this year and DragonFly was the fastest of all the operating system I tested.

Look at page 20 of these PGCon slides: [https://www.pgcon.org/2014/schedule/events/754.en.html](https://www.pgcon.org/2014/schedule/events/754.en.html)

I also published the methodology along with results in the pdf files I originally posted to the DragonFly mailing-lists. Direct link to one of these: [http://dl.wolfpond.org/benchs/Pg- benchmarks.2012-10.pdf](http://dl.wolfpond.org/benchs/Pg- benchmarks.2012-10.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Is there any reason why the DBSD website isn't updated with your data?

Nice report btw

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great news, the DragonFly project keeps doing really interesting things. The interview linked elsewhere in the thread give a good overview of how the project is doing. Matthew Dillon mentions in the interview that DragonFly will be able to be much more than an experimental operating system.

</comment><comment><USER12> This project has intrigued me for a long time. I seriously believe it could eventually become the premiere BSD-flavor OS. Although given all the low-level changes they've made it may not be easy to "label" it BSD in the future.

<comment><USER13> FreeBSD itself has diverged significantly from its own 4.x release, which is where DFBSD forked. I would still call DragonFlyBSD a "BSD" now and in the future since it still leverages a lot of work from FreeBSD (and other BSDs) to this day. It would be stupid to not continue to leverage the upstream work.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I think it's a fantastic ecosystem, and they should all continue to feed off one another. A great example was discussed in the interview. The decision to integrate FreeBSD ports will almost certainly make it easier for folks who are considering adopting / experimenting with it. (not a recent decision, but an important one)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The first OS to drop 32 bit support, thus eg fixing the year 2038 problem the easy way. Not sure if any others will though, at least not until arm64 is more widespread.

<comment><USER15> _> The first OS to drop 32 bit support_

The first? What about Windows Server 2008 R2? Or PC-BSD 9.2?

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure PC-BSD qualifies as an OS unto itself.

Last time I checked, they were mostly a FreeBSD distribution with a bunch of user friendly sugar coating on top (an easier package manager, default installation includes a fully configured desktop environment, ...)

I don't mean that as a bad thing - I used PC-BSD for a while and it was great. Not everyone needs to reinvent the wheel and reimplement drivers etc. But I see it more as a distribution of an OS than an OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The graphics support sounds neat for (developer) workstation usage, hope it gets at least a basic suspend/hibernate support soon to complete the picture.

</comment><comment><USER9> What single feature/change caused this to be a major release as opposed to a minor release?

In reading the OP link, nothing in particular stood out to me.

(Please don't take offense to my statement. The changes are all great. I'm just typically use to major releases to be when something foundational has changed and I'm just not seeing that here)

<comment><USER10> Dropping i386 can be considered a big feature.

<comment><USER18> Certainly qualifies as a "breaking" change that could justify a major version bump.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know if DragonFly's code gets merged inro the FreeBSD codebase?

<comment><USER20> > Despite this, the DragonFly BSD and FreeBSD projects still work together > contributing bug fixes, driver updates, and other system improvements to > each other.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, nice set of features. It's time I checked Dragonfly BSD again!

[http://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/](http://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Apple has a lot invested in Darwin, but DragonFly BSD would be a nice foundation for OS X.

<comment><USER23> I'd take HAMMER over HFS+

<comment><USER24> I'd take just about any new filesystem over HFS+.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Really nice to see DragonFly is still alive and progressing. I tend to like OpenBSD but choices are good!</comment>


Tesla prevails in top Massachusetts court over direct sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/15/us-tesla-motors-massachusetts-lawsuit-idUSKBN0HA29620140915 <comment><USER2> Any dissenters around here? We're going through this stuff now in Georgia. I like the ideal of trying different market approaches than your competitors, and I generally think businesses should; but I did read a counter point[0] that at least made me think.

If a large number of individuals or businesses are heavily invested in the- way-things-are, is it ever dangerous to _rapidly_ change the market rules that we've built up- usually for the purposes of consumer protection or fostering businesses that benefit the larger community?

\--

[0] [http://www.peachpundit.com/2014/09/05/tesla-uber-internet- sa...](http://www.peachpundit.com/2014/09/05/tesla-uber-internet-sales-taxes- quit-being-so-easily-duped/)

<comment><USER3> Somewhat of a dissent: A law that protects dealers from being screwed over by manufacturers and distributors is a good thing, but the court said that the law protects dealers for car maker G from being harmed by the actions of G, not the actions of car maker T. But if car maker T _can_ act in ways that harm dealers for other car maker G, then some protection is probably needed.

I would expect that the standing issue would be different if dealer for G could show harm by the actions of maker T.

This article gives more info about the decision: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/15/us-tesla-motors- ma...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/15/us-tesla-motors- massachusetts-lawsuit-idUSKBN0HA29620140915)

<comment><USER4> What's this thing about protecting others from harm? Isn't harming your opponent what competition is all about? Not directly harming them, of course, but simply by being better than them, which is the case here.

<comment><USER3> There's a specific legal definition of "harm" that applies. Someone with experience in litigating that kind of thing could explain it, but like most things legal, it isn't what the dictionary says.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I support the Tesla case for reasons other than that they advocate for electric vehicles.

I really hate buying cars. I don't like the games that are played during the process.

I've walked away from several car deals, and felt kinda sh*tty about 3 that i didn't walk away from.

That is (as much as any other reason) why many people will support a change to the status quo.

<comment><USER6> _felt kinda sh_ tty about 3 that i didn't walk away from.*

They say that's the hallmark of a fair deal; both parties walk away feeling mildly dissatisfied.

<comment><USER7> I doubt any car dealership ever feels mildly dissatisfied after selling a car...

<comment><USER5> Agreed, it's the hallmark of a fair deal as suggested by a saying i've heard people repeat. But I never bought again from those dealers for the reason that I felt I got a little hosed but was worn down by the process or simply needed to move quickly on a vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Text of the decision: [http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/sjc/reporter-of- decisions/ne...](http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/sjc/reporter-of- decisions/new-opinions/11545.pdf)

\---

Edit: having read the decision, I thought it might be fun to explain what the Court did here. Reading statutes is a lot like reading code. Reading cases is like ... not running the code, because we can't do that, but more like having it explained by a particularly skillful coder with decades of experience. It's fascinating if you're into that stuff.

So to start with, we have this statute in Massachusetts that says it is unlawful for a car manufacturer "to own or operate, either directly or indirectly through any subsidiary, parent company or firm, a motor vehicle dealership located in the commonwealth of the same line make as any of the vehicles manufactured ... by the manufacturer[.]"

Sounds pretty clear cut, right? Tesla can't run a dealership in Massachusetts that sells Teslas -- there's no helpful exception left out of that quote. But the Court didn't come out that way.

If you really want the reading-unfamiliar-code experience, go read the surrounding parts of the statute[1] and see how you think the Court understood that section. It's under subsection (10).

...

So, it turns out the Court looked to the legislative history, which is the closest we have to comments -- statements of legislators and the Governor explaining why they were voting for (or not vetoing) the statute. (As a side note, Massachusetts has terrible legislative history, because not much was recorded of the debates, many decisions are made behind closed doors by the Democratic super-majority, and unlike Congress, we rarely explain why a statute is being passed in the text itself -- but there seems to be some history in this case.) The Court concluded that the statute is intended to protect dealers from their _own_ manufacturers. The Court finds: "the purpose of c.93B historically was to protect motor vehicle dealers from a host of unfair acts and practices historically directed at them by their own brand manufacturers and distributors." Or, quoting an earlier case, it's about "preserving a sound competitive market free of the domination of oligopolists[.]"

That matters because intent matters -- the Court isn't a computer, and if at all possible it tries to do what the Legislature actually wanted.

So then the Court looks back at the statute, and lo and behold, subsection 10 is only one of 12 subsections! (We knew there had to be at least 10.) And every single one of them (besides #10) is obviously designed to regulate relationships between dealers and their own manufacturers. So the Court says, "It would be anomalous to find, within this detailed list of rights and protections that are conferred on dealers vis-à-vis their manufacturers and distributors, a lone provision giving dealers protection against competition from an unaffiliated manufacturer." Instead, they conclude that the Legislature -- which was trying to promote competition -- must have intended subsection 10, like the others, to be a right of dealers against their own manufacturers.

And that's why this is ultimately dismissed on the basis of "standing." Cases (almost always) have to be filed by someone with a legally protected interest at stake. If the statute is designed to protect Tesla dealers (if any), then only Tesla dealers can file a case. That means, for now, no one can.

(It's an interesting side effect that this essentially means there can be no third-party Tesla dealers in Massachusetts as long as Tesla is selling directly. It's an open question whether that's a good thing.)

[1] [https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/Cha...](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/Chapter93B/Section4)

<comment><USER9> I actually find the first part of the decision's discussion on standing fairly persuasive:

 _" Motor vehicle dealership" is a term defined in c. 93B as: "any person who, in the ordinary course of its business, is engaged in the business of selling new motor vehicles to consumers or other end users pursuant to a franchise agreement and who has obtained a class 1 license pursuant to the provisions of [G. L. c. 140, §§ 58 & 59]"_

 _Because neither Tesla nor Tesla MA is engaged in the business of selling new Tesla motor vehicles in Massachusetts "pursuant to a franchise agreement," there appears to be a question whether Tesla's business model involves the operation of a "motor vehicle dealership" ... and therefore whether, by its literal terms, the proscription of § 4 (c) (10) applies to the defendants at all._

I suppose that if Ford set up "showrooms" in the Natick Mall and tried to claim they weren't "franchises", the Court would consider reading the definition more broadly, but I'd rather any Court read statutes as being as minimally intrusive as possible: No franchise agreement? No problem.

<comment><USER10> > I suppose that if Ford set up "showrooms" in the Natick Mall and tried to > claim they weren't "franchises", the Court would consider reading the > definition more broadly, but I'd rather any Court read statutes as being as > minimally intrusive as possible: No franchise agreement? No problem.

Can Ford not put vehicles in public areas with associated literature (paper marketing, iPad kiosks, etc), and take orders from that mobile device or via a customer's phone?

The order takes place where the servers are (the same as when you buy a Model S on teslamotors.com), and you would be prohibiting the corporation's freedom of speech (finally! a use for Citizens United that sucks less) by preventing them from putting a vehicle out in public (if they have approval of whomever owns/controls the underlying space).

<comment><USER11> If Ford has franchise dealerships in MA then they may not do this, if they don't have dealerships then they may.

Citizen United was about political speech, not selling cars. There's a long history of the court taking differing approaches to commercial speech vs political speech. Ford most likely could open up stores to distribute political literature. They could even likely make a Ford movie. What they can't do is sell cars.

The court generally errs on the side of the people when it comes to political speech and on the side of the state when it comes to commercial speech. I don't see Ford having much of a case opening up dealerships under Citizens United.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So you need to be very careful in being happy about this: All the court said was that the dealers have no private cause of action. That is, they can't sue to block tesla themselves.

The state AG/etc could still do it.

<comment><USER8> I'm not so sure that's true. The conclusion is that the statute "was intended and understood only to prohibit manufacturer-owned dealerships when, unlike Tesla, the manufacturer already had an affiliated dealer or dealers in Massachusetts." I think there would have to be a third-party Tesla franchisee in Massachusetts before the AG could sue on their behalf.

<comment><USER12> That reasoning will be held to be not dicta on the standing issue of private dealers, but would probably be relitigated if the AG sued :)

This is because the _legal conclusion_ (under the heading "Conclusion") is limited to the dealers and their private right of action, and thus, only the reasoning that applied to that is considered stare decisis.

BUt otherwise, you may end up right. Courts tend to be finicky about this stuff, depending on circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Between Tesla and Uber the auto industry is quickly reorganising, becoming more efficient and cutting out the middle man, aka dealerships and taxi companies.

It's only a matter of time before drivers are cut out of the equation as well with riders ordering a cab and getting picked up by a self driving Tesla.

<comment><USER14> I think Uber is great, but I don't think it's cutting out a middleman. It's just replacing one middleman with another, albeit a more efficient one.

<comment><USER10> Uber is the stepping stone to self driving cars. Their valuation will drop when investors realize that anyone can purchase a self-driving car with financing. There is an ocean of mobility demand out there, and its naive to think its going to be captured by Uber because someone installed the Uber app first.

<comment><USER15> > anyone can purchase a self-driving car with financing.

To assert this as obvious strikes me as a bit ridiculous. Let's think through one facet of what happens once services like Uber, Car2Go, Lyft, etc. have self-driving cars. Those living in urban areas would then have a very viable option to avoid ownership, maintenance, storage, parking, etc. for what's commonly cited as the second most costly (and _massively_ depreciating) asset they own after a home. It would allow a practical shift for many people from car ownership to car sharing. The cultural transition won't happen overnight, especially in the US where car ownership is practically a rite of passage. Yet I suspect that the economics will eventually be so favorable that once the business and technology pieces are in place, the transition will happen for a large percentage of the population no matter what.

In this light, Uber is one of several companies positioned for a massive transition of transportation from a product-oriented business to a service- oriented one. We'll see how it all plays out.

<comment><USER10> You misunderstand me. Anyone, not just consumers, but businesses as well, could buy self-driving vehicles.

Uber is simply an app with supply/demand machine learning, an army of drivers who are becoming more irate by how they're being treated, and community managers. What would it cost to reproduce Uber's app and backend? $500K? $1 million?

What happens if cities simply say, "You're out Uber" and buy their own self- driving cars for their citizens? Is Uber going to build their own roads?

<comment><USER14> I don't think cities are going to be buying self-driving cars like this. What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country? It makes more sense for a corporation to provide this service.

By and large, people seem to love Uber. If they fall out of favor, I think it would be more natural for competitors to put pressure on them to improve (or supplant them), not city governments.

<comment><USER10> > What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country?

They use the public transit available to them where they move to? Why would self-driving vehicles not be like the postal service, a business but also an essential service?

Just because I left Chicago doesn't mean I get to take the Metra and the CTA with me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To me the last paragraph seems a bit funny - "In an unusual blog posting in April, three top U.S. Federal Trade Commission officials expressed opposition to laws banning direct sales, saying they could harm consumers."

Maybe the FTC should investigate the way current dealer sales operate if they care about protecting consumers.

</comment><comment><USER17> nice! i'd read somewhere that the dealership model was actually a key aspect to universal car ownership in the US (wish i could find the link). manufacturers apparently had to lobby state legislatures to allow them to set up auto franchises and had to entice franchisees to set up dealerships (this is where all the complicated kickbacks apparently came into play).

now the franchisees are understandably lobbying for the opposite to keep manufacturers out. i'm sympathetic to dealers as small business owners but i'm no fan of (most) car salesmen. will be interesting to see if this means dealerships become more competitive (better customer service?) or get pushed out. i've also heard that most dealerships make their money on service, but at least with teslas, that's not a big business (and it's more IT than auto mechanic).

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great to hear. The decision lacks any limits on the number of dealerships in MA, unlike similar decisions in NJ and PA (from what I could see, correct me if I am wrong). I hope more states in the future take this route of allowing sales without any limitations.</comment>