'Utopia for Realists?' – a review - <AUTHOR> https://www.opendemocracy.net/neil-howard/utopia-for-realists-review <comment><USER3> I vote for testing this out in Canada or Mexico first (let them have first dibs on these fantastic ideas.) Have them open their borders give everyone local and newcomer a basic income a fifteen hour workweek and if it all works out after a trial period, we can join their enviable party --they'll let us in, right?

Addendum. There seems to be a contradiction in the message, on the one hand people in developed economies make too much money (traded in time for more money to buy things they don't need nor actually want -they claim) but at the same time it's "unfair" they make 3-times what a comparable Bolivian makes (but cut our hours by two thirds) So it kind of reads as if they'd like to turn Bolivians into a consumerist society too, but they kind of trash consumerism ("neither need nor want").

<comment><USER4> Much like communism, it will turn out never to have been tried after all.

<comment><USER5> "After globalization and basic income, is this it? Have we achieved full utopia?"

"Oh no, things are gonna get a lot worse."

<comment><USER6> I'm really not sure what point you're making here. Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER7> It's a joke, famously told by Reagan. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8EstTUq0lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8EstTUq0lo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's encouraging that people are thinking about this. We have way too much zero-sum economic effort going on. Most of Wall Street trading and most of advertising are zero-sum.

In the near term, there are some obvious moves. The $15 minimum wage. The 8 hour day and 40 hour week. (That means everybody below the 1% gets paid time and a half for overtime, and wage theft is a crime.)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for bringing up the coexistence of zero-sum and non-zero-sum. Too many people talk about them without any real understanding. Just as a time-series can be infinite, it can also be non-infinite at any point in time. People who dismiss things as non-zero-sum don't understand this. Suffering is real - <USER2> it is immoral to dismiss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "if we're going to organise for a better world, we need to know who we're organising against"

Most vehemently against UBI are the trade unions. Their existence depends on unemployment being nasty ordeal. If unemployment was OKish, employees would vote with their feet. No unions needed. Next worst is McJobs companies.

Minimum wage making unemployment more prevalent and the employed more comfortable is furthering trade union goals like nothing else. These ideas may look the same, but they are completely opposed.

"how, for example, can we can open all the borders without eventually replacing countries with a global government?"

Nobody can, nor should. Currently somewhat open borders and somewhat good social security is already causing big problems in my country. The easy solution would be UBI for citizens, easy visas for everybody else. Everybody would be better off, except for the people who migrate only to get government benefits. Companies could hire foreign workforce easy, total incoming numbers would stay relatively low, people actually coming from war zones and escaping bullets would find safety.

The immigration fear mongers are against this, because solving this problem would end the justification for their existence. Also the left are against this, because they could not run around calling people "fascist" anymore. And the do-gooders would implode, as small numbers of poor third world citizens would keep on being poor, but now they would do it here! It's so nice to have them out of sight.

<comment><USER11> _" Most vehemently against UBI are the trade unions."_

Huh. I'll poll my union friends. This would surprise me.

(FWIW, apropos of nothing, union halls are temp agencies with collective bargaining.)

 _" The immigration fear mongers are against this..."_

I assume nowadays economic immigrants mostly want to make their fortune and then go home to retire. I read a study that tracked immigration to/from Puerto Rico. Many (the majority) return home or plan to. Asking all my immigrate coworkers, I get mostly the same answers.

About the nativists: hater's are gonna hate. Just route around them.

<comment><USER10> Economic immigrants who work are completely different breed than economic immigrants who come for unemployment benefits.

Currently in Finland if you can ~800e/month from the government if you get asylum. That's not "rich", but it's lot better than most things available in Iraq right now.

The fear mongers (perussuomalaiset) won the last election and got to the government. Their performance controlling the situation has been very lackluster so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Open borders is interesting because I suspect the vast majority of people do not wish to leave their current vicinity. They only do so to masively improve their lives, but if they could improve their current location that would usually be far preferable. Is there a short catchphrase like "open borders" for "making more places on the globe better places to live"? I feel we spend more time and effort making them worse (fighting wars in them, propping up dictators, bribing local official for access to resources, selling them guns, web filters and other tools of oppression etc

<comment><USER13> _Is there a short catchphrase like "open borders" for "making more places on the globe better places to live"?_

The word is "colonialism" and it was moderately successful. But lets not kid ourselves - there were lots of abuses and it was very far from the utopia that I think you wish for.

Due to nationalism and a desire to oppress their neighbors, most people would oppose this even if it makes their current vicinity better. Unfortunately this leaves the oppressed locals with no place to go.

</comment></comment><comment> james-watson What a hodgepodge of ideas. This is a perfect example of Douglas Hofstadter's chocolate/excrement milkshake.

The idea behind Basic Income is to remove government intervention in the economy. Coupled with a flat tax, it massively reduces government overhead and bureaucracy, and leaves government to it's main role as the arbiter of society.

Governments' main role is to enforce the rules a society is based upon via the social contract. Collect taxes, enforce laws, and invest in the unprofitable but necessary foundations of civilization (infrastructure, healthcare, research, conservation, etc.)

In societies, as in design, less is often more. The more lifelong government bureaucrats we create, the more perverse incentives exist for them to parasitize the government for their own gains.

So why do we need to legislate for minimum work hours if we have a sufficient BI? And in what fictional universe does open borders make sense?

Human beings are competitive, and we form tribes to compete against one another. This is healthy, and leads to great achievements when properly channeled. The Cold War, for example, caused an era of unprecedented technological innovation. As we enter the post-war era, we already see the downfalls of globalization. When there is no need to compete, decadence sets in. The rich hoard money, and governments refuse to invest in their people's future in the form of infrastructure, research, etc.

We need borders, and we need a competitive immigration system that behaves like a sports team manager who is constantly on the lookout to poach talented individuals from competitors.

Competition is the quintessential human trait which has brought us to where we are today. Setting it aside has always lead to decadence and downfall.

<comment><USER14> You start with a premise that is not universally accepted, even among proponents of the UBI: that the UBI exists to reduce government intervention in the economy (the UBI _is_ a government intervention in the economy, and many UBI proponents support it because it's such an intervention that replaces current interventions premised on a certain labor market model with one that they see as working in a different labor market model they see as emerging with automation, or because they see it as simply more effective than existing and other alternative interventions.)

That's not to defend the article, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How do supporters of the UBI deal with the real estate valuation problem? It seems that assets that are highly immobile and have elasticity that is directly proportional to income would eat up all or almost all of the transfer.

It is possible that there is a counterbalancing effect of people being able to live outside of the big city, but I still suspect a form of "minimum rent" would arise in the case there was a UBI and the whole transfer would end up consolidating with a few landlords.

<comment><USER3> Maybe you make UBI an income guarantee rather than a right to live in a given place guarantee. In such a structure the state could incentivize moving to areas which are losing population, such as Midwestern rustbelt cities and towns in the US, or any place not the MDF in MX or the Ruhr valley in DE, etc.

<comment><USER16> I don't think we should incentivize moving to such places unless we plan to also (somehow) massively increase the opportunities available in such places.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the whole idea of UBI that it's subsidizing the lack of good jobs for people who for one reason or another can't land decent jobs? I don't see why someone who isn't being overly productive also needs to live in a location where one could use more productive people.

In other words if a mill worker's site shutdown and this person now depends solely on UBI I don't see why they should feel like they should afford some place in the closest big city if they don't get a job since their active addition to productivity is nil. If they get a job then they may or may not afford a place in that city. Still, it's not "owed" anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ideas aren't the motor for people. Desire is the motor.

<comment><USER18> Relevant:

[https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc](https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc) \- "RSA Animate: Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us"

Short version: internal motivation is much stronger than external motivation.

<comment><USER19> What I'm wondering about is what motivates extremely smart people to work on social media apps and iGadgets, when they know that most people care much more about: food, health, a fair economy, energy, and safety. Why are these smart people not working in fundamental physics, or medicine, or why aren't they thinking up new models for the economy?

<comment><USER20> Social media apps and iGadgets are more profitable. It's almost impossible to get paid for thinking up new models for the economy.

<comment><USER19> I suspect that autonomy plays an important role here.

For writing apps, you need only your computer. You don't have to interact with other people a lot.

For medicine, fundamental physics, you need a huge amount of resources, and you need to cooperate with lots of people.

It seems that smart people prefer complete independence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> UBI has plenty of adherents among sophisticated economists. The 15 hour work week - not so much.

<comment><USER22> What are the arguments against it?

<comment><USER23> Personally, I worry about overal state productivity and its geopolitical ramifications. Productivity per capita would seem a big determinant in the power a nation has, though this is purely speculation on my part. :)

<comment><USER24> Productivity waxes and wanes. I've experienced hour-long periods in which I accomplished as much as a typical day or week. I suspect a shorter work week would increase the frequency of these occurrences. The perceived relationship between productivity and time needs to die. The true relation is between productivity and "energy." An internal store of productive capacity. The focus on time leads to the continual (and largely wasteful) depletion of energy and eventually to burnout. This state is far more common than you might think. It's rare that an individual experiences the alternative and realizes something is wrong. Most people, rather than complaining or quitting, simply work hard enough not to be fired.

<comment><USER25> That might be true with your line of work, but certainly doesn't hold for a plumber, teacher or an accountant. You just don't get the week worth of teaching students in an one hour burst. Most of the jobs out there have well defined expected workloads.

<comment><USER24> I disagree about teaching. Public school teachers are overworked, tired and do a crummy job. I'd rather have 7 hours of Khan Academy videos and 1 hour of solid instruction. You're right about anything involving manual labor. But even then the notion of an energy tank absolutely applies.

<comment><USER25> There's an upper bound to how efficiently say elementary school kids can learn unsupervised, and if you discard the outliers it's not very impressive. School teachers are not just doing busywork sent down by bureaucrats; much of it is still teaching in the class, checking student's progress, grading the homework and so on.

As to the working in bursts I used to think of it as a manifestation of creativity and talent in heroic stunts. Years later I see it differently: if you do one hour of actual work in a week, you are procrastinating/slacking for the other 39 hours. Even, predictable pace of work is a hallmark of professionalism. At least now I try hard to keep my progress steady and predictable.

<comment><USER24> > Even, predictable pace of work is a hallmark of professionalism.

You are making an insestuous appeal to tradition while we discuss the merits of exactly that tradition.

<comment><USER25> Guess you can view it that way, although I meant that "it's a net positive". Sure makes estimation easier, and gives you higher overall productivity. Consider that if your normal, sustained rate hour only 1/20th as productive as the epic bursts one, you still end up being twice as productive throughout the 40 hour work week.

No point doing marathon as a series of sprints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If we want UBI, why not go full communalism or anarcho-collectivism?

<comment><USER27> Because systems based on pure ideology don't work well in reality. Its the whole idea behind implementing a UBI in our quasi-free-market capitalist system.

The larger point is that not only is the idea of a UBI decent and moral, because nobody should worry about being homeless or starving in a rich society, but because its much cheaper the the alternative! Only someone completely blinded by ideology (or somehow profiting off of the existing system) would argue that its better to spend $50,000 dollars a year per homeless person to manage shelters and run a bureaucracy if simply giving that homeless person $25,000 a year and achieves a better overall result.

<comment><USER28> > but because its much cheaper the the alternative

But it isn't. A fifth of the UK working age population, for example, is neither registered as unemployed or earning money. Most of them aren't homeless, or entitled to disability benefits and aren't registered as unemployed because for whatever reason they don't need the money. All of them would be eligible for basic income.

You can afford to provide much better support for homeless people (many of whose bigger problems cannot be addressed simply by providing them with a regular income) if your budget isn't being stretched by the need to subsidise the perceived basic needs of huge numbers of content people that aren't actually interested in claiming subsidies.

<comment><USER10> It's likely they are mostly students or enjoy some kind of disability benefit.

You can tax their parents and give the students UBI. The sick will cost anyhow. Or you can exclude students from UBI, that's what you are doing now. I'm not against either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> That might work but only after curing another evil of our time: the concept of sovereign nation. There must be effective (i.e. not nukes) policing force which may regulate things all around the world. Also, elites must become truly international, not bearing the mentality of any nation.

<comment><USER10> As citizen of nordic country, I would rather kill some people than accept someone taking the independence of my nation.

Our politicians are clowns, but they are our clowns. And they care about us lot more than EU clowns or U.S. clowns. So far it looks like bigger countries tend to have less efficient and more corrupt governments. If we make some kind of world government, that might turn incredibly inefficient and corrupt. And now you have absolutely nowhere to run to.

If you are US citizen, you can small tasting of your new world order by voting in the next election like some random person over the internet tells you. Are you willing to do that?

<comment><USER29> I mean that! That's why it is impossible! Too many people value their nationhood/independence too much. So it is a double-edged sword: if you value your independence and sovereighnity of your country and other countries, you must also accept the fact that most countries are shitty and put their subjects into conditions little short of genocide, while others (like yes Nordic countries) are well-off. It's hard to call that unfair, if you don't allow others to mess with your stuff, nobody can help you avoiding fucking things up.

<comment><USER10> If you have just one country, you have to accept that there is big likelihood that it's going to be shitty. End of the day you have fallible people in charge.

If you have less cohesion among voters, then you have less cohesion among leaders. Which leads to corruption and cronyism, as every leader thinks "fuck this country, I have to secure the benefits of my voters and myself".

I seriously think smaller is better in every respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I can't be the only one that cringes when reading this site on a landscape 1080p screen...

</comment><comment><USER31> So, formalizing the existing arrangement?</comment>


Ask HN: How can I experience SF and Silicon Valley in two weeks? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN.
We're two hackers from Korea, visiting SF from June 13 to June 24.
Our current plan is to just jump around good cafes and parks, while doing Kaggle competitions.
Any recommendations on places to visit? Things to do? Cool meetups?
What's the best way to experience the Bay Area?
On the small chance that anyone is super generous enough to give a tour around their HQ, I'd be greatly appreciative. (email in profile) <comment><USER3> Good lord, so much snark in this thread, so here's some actual suggestions if you want to enjoy yourself (note: I moved out 3.5 years ago).

Get coffee at Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass, Blue Bottle, Philz

Get tacos in the Missions at Taqueria Vallarta, Taqueria Cancun

Go to Noisebridge, Sudo Room, Hacker Dojo

Hike at Hawk Hill, Skeggs, Muir Woods, Mt. Tam

Look up local concerts at funcheapsf.com. There's so many fantastic gargage bands that should have record deals. $5 can get you an amazing show

Have a picnic at Lake Merrit

Walk around some of the university campuses (I quite like Berkeley)

Look at the street art on Clarion Alley

Go to Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences

To the Conservatory of Flowers

Drive up Twin Peaks on a foggy day and watch Carl roll over the city

Walk around Haight-Ashbury (possibly buy drugs) and check out the shops and food

Walk around Telegraph Ave in Berkeley (possibly buy drugs) and check out the shops and food

Drive CA-1 to Monterey. Stop in Santa Cruz.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this. As someone interviewing with a handful of companies in SV and considering relocating, this whole thread reenforces a whole host of misgivings I have of the area. Maybe I'm too Midwestern, but most of the comments read as a big "eff you - don't even bother." Does everyone hate it there so much? I know it isn't perfect, but what city/metro area is?

<comment><USER5> This is 100% anecdotal.

I'm from Minneapolis as are a number of my friends. Some of them moved out to CA (Irvine) and some later moved to Seattle.

They /can't wait/ to move back to MN. For a while, I didn't understand them (usually, when they tell me this in the winter). But the music scene, culture, and comparative lack of traffic make a big difference.

I've yet to go to CA outside of layovers, but I still want to experience it for myself.

<comment><USER6> Midwestern pride (and Minneapolitan pride in particular) is far stronger than most areas.

To me, it presents itself as a kind of Stockholm syndrome. It develops because your brain is aware of the fact that the weather there is capable of killing you 3 months out of the year and it has to find a way to justify the fact that you're not leaving. Obviously there must be something really great about this place when it's not 20 below.

Minnesotans are unusually aware of the primacy of their bike paths, healthcare coverage, skyway'd cities and educational system. They talk to each other a lot about how great each of these things are, reinforcing the special shared status of this land of hardship, but good working folks.

In my experience, most people don't speak so highly of their hometowns as Midwesterners- Minnesotans in particular. When you move to a place where everyone sees the bad stuff and doesn't try to sugar coat it, it can be offputing. If you don't get enough milage between you and the cult of the midwest, you inevitably return to a land where people endure because everyone talks about how good it is when it's not too bad. It could be worse!

-Former Minneapolitan.

<comment><USER7> Don't forget about Chicago, which is worst of all in the brainwashing department. I can't find the source sadly, but there's a crazy statistic about girls who grow up in Chicago being somewhere around 10x more likely to return to their hometown compared to their counterparts anywhere else in the US.

<comment><USER8> Well that's because Chicago is the best city in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sit in traffic on the 101. Take Caltrain to SF between 6am-10am or the other way from 5pm-7pm. Walk around Soma, east some food. Take Bart. Drive East across Dumbarton bridge between 4pm-6pm (actually go West and look at the traffic the other way). Drive by Facebook, drive by Google.

Walk around downtown Palo Alto.

Also there is Hacker Dojo in Mt. View which is a good place to meet others. You can also walk around downtown Mt. View.

There are some good hikes around the coast. Also go see the Golden Gate bridge. Santa Cruz is nice for a beach day.

*EDIT: Alternative lock yourself inside AirBnB for the whole trip, code, code, code, more code, order groceries from Instacart, takeout using DoorDash, sleep under desk. You could also stay at one of the AirBnB hacker mansions on your trip as well.

<comment><USER10> Don't forget to eat a $15 lunch special in Palo Alto and for bonus points get a parking ticket for failing to parse the insane special case parking signs.

A lot of people like to take selfies at the Facebook sign if you can get to it without being run over.

<comment><USER11> If you go to the Facebook sign, be sure to take a selfie with the Sun Microsystems sign on the back, too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> More serious than my first answer... the Bay area is really one of the most interesting places in the world to visit.

Go to some tech meetups you're interested in and just meet people. You might be able to catch someone who is a personal hero speaking. If there's someone you really want to meet (especially if it isn't a pitch!), try just emailing them and asking for lunch! You might get lucky.

Take a day to go north to Marin county. Experience Muir Woods and other natural wonders. Another day to visit Napa is good too, if you like wine.

If you can, I'd really recommend a trip south to Monterey Bay. See Santa Cruz and Monterey, and get to Carmel-by-the-Sea in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset on the beach. (this is really a two day trip). Another possible road trip is Yosemite National Park. But these are ambitious and time-consuming.

Visit the Computer History Museum (must-see!). Walk around the Stanford University campus. Drive up Sand Hill, and admire how much all the VC buildings look like dentist's offices. While you're in Silicon Valley proper, eat at Buck's.

San Francisco itself is tourist heaven. There's _so_ much to see and experience there.

edit: I'm not a local. I've just visited. These are things that worked for me!

</comment><comment><USER13> * Alcatraz (very touristy, but very cool. get tickets well in advance! make sure to take the audio tour, consider taking the night tour)

* Exploratorium (I recommend Thursday evenings when they serve drinks and there aren't any kids running around)

* Muir Woods (a forest full of gigantic redwoods, 20 min drive North of SF)

* Bike or walk across the Golden Gate Bridge

* Day trip South on Route 1 to Monterey to see the aquarium (the views on the way are stunning)

<comment><USER14> I second the Alcatraz night tour- not only is it a much cooler way to experience Alcatraz, you also get stunning views of both SF and the bridge. I really love your list, even though I don't know what the Exploratorium is.

<comment><USER13> It's a science museum... the most amazing one I've ever seen by far. It's super geeky and full of interesting exhibits and gizmos, most (all?) of them made by hand on-site. It's an absolute must for anyone interested in science or technology. Go see it!!!

Interesting fact about it that I only recently found out:

The Exploratorium was founded by Robert Oppenheimer[1] ("the father of the atomic bomb") after his forced resignation.[2] If you keep an eye out, there are some plaques talking about this history at the museum, and there's also at least one uncaptioned atomic-bomb-related photo (of the first milliseconds of an atomic bomb explosion) on the walls.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer)

[2] - [https://www.exploratorium.edu/about/history/frank](https://www.exploratorium.edu/about/history/frank)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To find meetups, search meetup.com

A good park is Lands End. Or, take a bus up to the redwoods in Muir Wood. Or, enjoy the drive up to Hog Island for oysters.

A good cafe is Caffe Trieste in North Beach. While you are in NB, stop by Molinari's for a North Beach or South Beach Special sandwich.

Visit the NoiseBridge hacker space.

Contact Stanford and see if the audio lab (or any lab) will give you a tour. Do the same for Berkeley. I hear San Jose State has a really fun VR lab.

Contact companies located in The Vault coworking space and see if you can get one of them to give you a tour.

You might get lucky and find an event here [http://sf.funcheap.com/category/event/event-types/geek- event...](http://sf.funcheap.com/category/event/event-types/geek-event/) or here [https://www.eventbrite.com/d/ca--san-francisco/geek- events/](https://www.eventbrite.com/d/ca--san-francisco/geek-events/) I miss the Laughing Squid calendar...

Go see a random show at Bottom of the Hill. Just go in with low expectations ;) But, you might get lucky and see a band you end up liking.

Take the Anchor Steam brewery tour. Get a drink at Tommy's Mexican, Mikkeller Bar, Bourbon and Branch, Smuggler's Cove.

Avoid Pier 38 and Haight Street. They're tourist traps. The Castro is still fun. The Mission is still dirty, but delicious. The Tenderloin between O'Farrell and Market is still sketchy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Visit the Computer history museum and try to resist the impulse to hugh the Cray-1.

The tech in San Jose is also interesting.

Try to visit a state park or natural reserve nearby. Visit Carmel and point lobos (2hr drive from SF), Half Moon bay...

<comment><USER17> I googled "hugh verb" to see first if I wasn't missing some slang (not a native English speaker).. it seems not so.. I wonder in what way is the Cray-1 particularly huggable? (genuinely curious)

<comment><USER18> Probably the impulse to hug is out of pity because our phones in our pockets have way more computational power xD

<comment><USER17> I admit I'd probably be tempted to sit on the 2001-Space-Odyssey-style bench around it.. but hug it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To understand Silicon Valley, you really need to see the peninsula and the South Bay.

I'd spend a day, start with breakfast at Hobees in Sunnyvale or Cupertino, check out 1 Infinite Loop, drive around the Google campus area, _maybe_ stop at the NASA Ames visitor center.

Drive down to San Jose to see that peculiar city, and have lunch at yeh newish San Pedro Square Market or SoFA market - or the classics like Henry's Hi-Life or Original Joe's.

Maybe check out the old-school tech beomoths like Intel.

Spend some time at the Computer History Museum (and the food trucks there on Friday evenings!). That could be a day trip in itself.

Skip the Tech Museum in San Jose (it's a great museum, but its not something unmissable if you're short on time).

End your day with a trip to one of the peninsula city centers and have a meal at a place with good Yelp reviews. I'd recommend Dish Dash in Sunnyvale.

That's not the most touristy or startup-focused of trips, but you'll see the Silicon Valley that's really lived in by the people that make their homes here.

<comment><USER19> Oh, and if you're interested in pre-SV history, check out a local museum, like the Sunnyvale Heritage Park (I'd recommend this to anyone who lives here and doesn't know how we got to where we are too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> SF: Spend a night doing coke with the ladies at Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, bring lots of money...stumble home stepping around the street relics. Don't loose your phone. Goto some snobish coffee shops while hung over. This is about as SF as you can get.

(spoken from experience)

San Jose: Rent a car and park on the 101. Cruise the suburbs and price snap houses for shock and entertainment!

<comment><USER21> don't forget about the irish coffees and overpriced mediocre croissants. or pretending not to be alcoholics at brunch the next morning, with 5 of your closest enablers, slamming bottomless mimosas and bloody marys. do this while talking about work, and how drunk you got last night, and how amazing the benedict is while posting pictures of it to instagram, even though you can barely taste it after waiting 90 minutes in line for the privilege of paying $75 per person not including tip and the foodservice healthcare surcharge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Best way to quickly experience the _Bay_? That would be the 1:1000 horizontal scale, 1:100 vertical and temporal scale _model_ [1][2] just across the Golden Gate in Sausalito, built by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Ok, maybe not the most interesting place to visit in SF, but it's an amazing feat of engineering history built about 20 years before Silicon Valley _existed_.

As for food, SF is full of great places to eat of all types. If you want roast _meat_ at very reasonable prices (for SF), I've always liked Tommy's Joynt[3].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_Bay_Model)

[2] [http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Bay- Model-...](http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Bay-Model- Visitor-Center/)

[3] [http://tommysjoynt.com/](http://tommysjoynt.com/) (warning: horizontal- scrolling - their food is much better than their website design)

</comment><comment><USER23> One suggestion I haven't seen is doing an SF bike tour. I did a 5h bike tour around SF years back and it was the highlight of my trip. You get to see many parts of the city and it's far more personal than the buses. The ride was pretty easy, it was designed for people who don't ride often. Do it early in the trip to get a feel for the city.

</comment><comment><USER24> Grab a Getaround or Zipcar and get north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone only goes as far a Muir woods - don't it's packed of tourists with visor caps and selfie sticks and you'll get annoyed. Drive a little further and Hike Mount Tam - amazing views of the bay. Go to Sonoma for wine, not Napa.

<comment><USER25> Not sure you can sign up for Getaround as a tourist. Zipcar is possible though.

+1 for Sonoma county for wine, and arguably the best brewery in the world too (Russian River ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://www.evernote.com/shard/s11/sh/136ff1bb-957d-48b7-a99...](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s11/sh/136ff1bb-957d-48b7-a998-7c153c35257e/2f79f88894e4d96116438481e321dd15)

</comment><comment><USER27> Go to Filoli. It's a formal garden, an estate, and an oasis of beauty.

[http://www.filoli.org](http://www.filoli.org)

</comment><comment><USER28> Sign up for the Meetup.com event at Google HQ on June 23rd. They've put a cover on the event($10) but I've been to many of these and can confidently say it will be worth it. Plus, they serve food, beer, and wine. I just signed up and I'd be happy to meet you there. (HN lurker and FrontEnd Dev in downtown SF).

</comment><comment><USER29> If you do make it to Stanford, I'd be happy to take you up to the Hoover Tower (it's free for employees).

</comment><comment><USER30> * Dolores Park [buy ice cream at Bi-Rite / get lunch on valencia]

* Bike across golden gate [$50 for a bike] / ferry back

* Check out an amazon loft meeting [https://aws.amazon.com/start-ups/loft/sf-loft/](https://aws.amazon.com/start-ups/loft/sf-loft/)

* Computer History Museum (If going south, otherwise skip)

* Presidio picnic is really fun [https://offthegrid.com/event/presidio-picnic/2017-6-11-2pm](https://offthegrid.com/event/presidio-picnic/2017-6-11-2pm)

* See comedy show Cobbs sf

* Take San Francisco cable car to Hyde and Union walk & get a slice of pizza at ZA - then walk to lombard and hyde

</comment><comment><USER31> Go get a sandwich at the Molinari Delicatessen ([https://www.yelp.com/biz/molinari-delicatessen-san- francisco](https://www.yelp.com/biz/molinari-delicatessen-san-francisco)).

</comment><comment><USER32> Here's a list of nerdy sites to visit in Silicon Valley: [http://siliconvalleyguide.org/](http://siliconvalleyguide.org/)

Disclaimer: I made this.

</comment><comment><USER33> Rent a bike from SF , explore the city and travel to Salsalito

</comment><comment><USER34> Ignore the populist suggestions.

Get a Zipcar account and use your instincts.

You will meet people and many of these suggestions are a guaranteed wait in a queue for no real good reason.

</comment><comment><USER35> Surprisingly few food-related recommendations in this thread. I did see some, but for a trendy and multi-cultural place like the Bay Area, would have expected more.

Edit. - to highlight what the area can offer - on the food front. I mean. Double edit: to make it more clear - all the other activities are great too (okay, not necessarily all :), don't mean to imply that they are not and that only food is.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you want tours of tech companies, go to a meetup (through meetup.com) and ask for a tour from one of the employees after the talks finish.

</comment><comment><USER37> The symphony is amazing: [http://www.sfsymphony.org](http://www.sfsymphony.org)

<comment><USER38> Saw Ben Gibbard in the Davies Symphony Hall last night. ;)

<comment><USER39> Really jealous - I assume it was wonderful :D

<comment><USER38> It was, yes. Amazed at how young he is. He's 40 and I remember really enjoying his music almost 20 years ago..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I went there for training, I recall I bought a two day ticket for hop-on, hop- off tour that was more than enough for SF, and regarding the bay area I took the Caltrain and I went to one stop each day from SF to San Jose. I was lucky to visit FB at Menlo Park thanks to friend that is working there.

</comment><comment><USER41> Watch Silicon Valley. Ride the Caltrain.

</comment><comment><USER42> Feel free to give me a buzz (DM @gctaylor on Twitter) if you want to do lunch at Reddit HQ and have a peek.

</comment><comment><USER43> Make sure to catch a Giants baseball game if you can - AT&T is the best park in the major leagues.

<comment><USER44> Boo. Boo. :-) It may well be the best of the newer parks though.

<comment><USER43> Fair enough :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> On a Sunday afternoon, go to open houses in some city to see how the typical homes for sales are like.

</comment><comment><USER46> If you are looking for public spaces to work - the lobby of LinkedIn at 222 2nd is very nice and has access to free wifi/coffee.

Adding to places to visit: * SF Museum of Modern Art * Hike Point Reyes - <USER2> some oysters in Tomales Bay on the way back * SF Cable Car museum - Free!

</comment><comment><USER47> Two weeks isn't a ton of time, so I'd stick around SF with some short trips down to the Peninsula. Here are some ideas:

SAN FRANCISCO

1\. Mission

Get off at 24th st BART and start at Ritual Coffee. Walk down Valencia street toward 16th st BART station and stop into the variety of stores. At lunchtime go to 18th street and grab a sandwich from Bi-rite -- eat it at Dolores park nearby. At night go to The Chapel and see what's playing, you might be able to get tickets. If not, try stopping by Noisebridge (google it!)

2\. FiDi

Start at Philz (300 Folsom) and walk to the Google @ Spear St. If you know someone there you can get a tour. If not, you're now standing near the base of the Bay Bridge and it's quite beautiful. Mozilla is right next door as well if you want a tour. They have a nice monument outside their office. Walk away from the Bay Bridge toward the Ferry Building, and get lunch there. Take the Ferry to Sausalito and work from there in the afternoon -- get dinner there and catch a ferry back to SF. Alternatively you can stick around downtown. If you know someone at Salesforce they are right in the area as well.

Night: Try hitting up some local bars for drinks. Some popular ones include Local Edition, Novela, and Rickhouse.

Bonus: Go see a giants baseball game. It's super cheap and really fun. [https://seatgeek.com/san-francisco-giants- tickets?oq=SF+gian...](https://seatgeek.com/san-francisco-giants- tickets?oq=SF+giants) \-- the cheap seats high up are the best. You get a great view and you can eat stadium snacks while watching an inconsequential baseball game.

I'm assuming others will give you more tips about San Francisco + tourist stuff, so I'll move on to the Peninsula.

PENINSULA

1\. Palo Alto

Take Caltrain from 4th and King in San Francisco to the Palo Alto station. Get off and walk down University Avenue. There are lots of coffee shops you can work from (Philz is popular here). There's also lots of good food options. If you know someone who works at Palantir, their office is right here. Paxti's deep dish pizza is a local favorite and they have reasonable lunch specials. In the afternoon you can stop by Stanford Campus (it's on the opposite side of the Caltrain -- head back to Caltrain from University Avenue and walk down a palm-tree lined road). If you know someone there you can tour the insides of the buildings, otherwise the outside of buildings is nice too.

Night: Rose & Crown is an English pub that has pretty yummy food and is something different after a day of Palo Alto.

2\. Mountain View

Get off Caltrain and walk down Castro street toward Red Rock Cafe. This is a non-profit cafe with free wifi and is a fantastic place to get some work done. For lunch there are myriad options -- just walk down Castro street some more, you can't quite go wrong.

If you have friends at Google you should ask for a campus tour, as there is a free shuttle from the Mountain View Caltrain to the Google Campus. Even if you can't get a tour inside the building, go to the campus and walk around. You can bike to Shoreline Park (there's a small lake there) and rent paddleboats / kayaks.

You can also visit Y Combinator HQ (320 Pioneer Way) but I'm not sure there's much to see.

For dinner I'd stay around Castro street as well. There are tons of great options. Afterwards try getting drinks at St. Stephen's Green or Tied House. Make sure you catch one of the Caltrains back to the city (they stop running at a certain time in the evening, probably around 11pm is the last train up from Mountain View).

3\. Sunnyvale

When you get off the Caltrain head to Philz for morning work. Then for lunch go over to S. Murphy Ave -- if you don't know what you want to eat, Dish Dash is a local favorite. If you have friends at LinkedIn you should ask them for a tour here.

There's not much in Sunnyvale -- it's pretty suburban.

4\. Menlo Park

I'm running out of steam so the basics here are -- Santa Cruz Ave is their downtown and there's a number of coffee shops to choose from. If you know someone at Facebook, get a tour, but it's not quite walking distance from Caltrain; I'd take an uber once you're in the downtown. Their campus is pretty cool...and their food is ridiculously yummy. Another interesting thing would be to go to Sand Hill Road and walk down -- you can see all the VC firms there. Not sure that's an interesting tourist thing to do, but it's something you can if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER48> \- Hang out at Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto for a few hours

\- Visit the coffee shop in the AirBnB lobby, to at least check out the HQ

\- Buy a day pass at a co-working space, such as WeWork or Bespoke and talk to everyone there

</comment><comment><USER49> Visit Antonio's Nut House and finish in Bert's Alibi

</comment><comment><USER50> Also be sure to visit the Hall of Heroes I think it was called. Watch a western sunset, absolutely stunning if you're from any other coast, err -the east.

</comment><comment><USER51> Where will you be staying? When you're in Palo Alto, I highly recommend staying at or at least visiting StartupEmbassy. I'm happy to make an intro.

</comment><comment><USER52> Visit the Mission District and get a nice, big burrito.

</comment><comment><USER53> A historic house to visit in San Jose:

[http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com](http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com)

</comment><comment><USER54> LSD / forage for & consume magic mushrooms in Golden Gate Park. Hike Mt. Tam. Jog the Golden Gate Bridge. Palace of Fine Arts. Presidio.

<comment><USER34> You can't forage psychedelic mushrooms in Ggp

<comment><USER54> You mean I can't or you can't?

There are numerous reports of folks who have found some great magic mushrooms in the park.

There are even folks who will guide you around and show you where they are.

Here is one such field report. [https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/1364950...](https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/13649507)

<comment><USER34> Generally speaking, psychedelic species are uncommon in Northern California, and at Golden Gate Park in particular.

This report found one elusive group of only _five_ mushrooms.

There are peak times are certain species are certainly psychoactive, but the average person isn't gonna walk around and 'get lucky'.

<comment><USER54> ^This is mostly incorrect, save the reference to peak harvest times.

 _Psilocybe allenii_ has been hunted regularly since at least the 1960's in Golden Gate Park, previously under its informal name _Psilocybe cyanofriscosa_.

According to Psychedelic Society of San Francisco lecturer and mycologist Alan Rockefeller, _Psilocybe allenii_ occurs from BC, Canada to Los Angeles, and is _common_ in San Francisco.[1]

Allenii is also one of the strongest psychedelic mushrooms known, possibly taking second place to _Psilocybe azurescens_.

Allenii is not alone in the Park either, " _Psilocybe cyanescens_ is also very common in San Francisco. It is almost as potent. If you go to Golden Gate Park in December you will see hundreds of hippies looking at the wood chip landscaping for _Psilocybe cyanescens_ and _Psilocybe allenii_." says Rockefeller.

The average person _shouldn 't_ be walking around hunting mushrooms, period, as there are several species that will kill you from ingesting even a small amount. However, there are a number of commercial services and recurring events[2] that offer to take folks on "day trips" through the park and point out where to find these mushrooms.

Relatively speaking, however, psychedelic mushroom species have a high concentration in the Pacific Northwest and CA in particular. [3]

Appreciate the chance to brush up on my mycology!

[1] Golden Gate Park magic mushroom finally classified, just in time for high season [http://48hills.org/sfbgarchive/2012/12/18/golden-gate- park-m...](http://48hills.org/sfbgarchive/2012/12/18/golden-gate-park-magic- mushroom-finally-classified-just-time-high-season/)

[2] IN THE WILD! Mushroom Hunt and Identification [https://www.meetup.com/psychedelics/events/95388602/](https://www.meetup.com/psychedelics/events/95388602/)

[3] Map of Psychedelic Mushroom Concentrations [https://www.shroomology.org/uploads/monthly_10_2012/post-1-0...](https://www.shroomology.org/uploads/monthly_10_2012/post-1-0-74297600-1349142665.jpg)

<comment><USER34> Interesting stuff, but anecdotes about people searching non-native environments don't change my position.

Speaking as an amateur mycologist with first hand experience hunting GGP.

<comment><USER54> What do you mean "non-native enviroments"? Wood chips? The mushrooms are native to the area for at least decades, probably millennia.. they are common.

Did you miss the part where the full blown _professional_ mycologist says that the mushroom is common -- his words -- in GGP? As does the Psychedelic Society of San Fransisco?

Did you read _any_ of the links I provided?

Who should we listen to? The self styled amature? Or the experts and people who discovered the mushroom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Rent a car and drive down to Santa Cruz and walk along the beach. Also, go hiking in Big Basin State Park, which is very close to Santa Cruz.

</comment><comment><USER53> Take the nighttime tour of SF on a Segway.

Have an Irish Coffee at the famous Buena Vista where it was invented.

Take a 1AM ride on the cable car trolley thru the fog.

</comment><comment><USER56> Apply for jobs and attend interviews. Interviews will give you a more realistic sense of companies compared to a walkthrough/visit.

Skip meetups

<comment><USER57> > Skip meetups, they're mostly for people on the outside trying to get in

Wow. Unfortunately, I think this is mostly true. A lot of great meetups out there, but unfortunately the people "on the outside trying to get in" have way more of an interest/time to be able to do this.

My favorite meetup ever was the VIM meetup. The fact that it didn't seem like a plausible way to get a job meant that only people actually really interested in going went and so there was tons of cool people.

<comment><USER56> It's true that some meetups are really useful, you're right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Philz FTW. Go to the In-n-Out on Rengsgtorff.

</comment><comment><USER59> Amazon Startup Loft, Joy's Place Cafe, both good free places to work with internet.

</comment><comment><USER60> Hit a few dive bars. Seriously. Old SF colliding with new SF.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, definitely did not expect this to blow up like this.

Thanks everyone!

OP

</comment><comment><USER12> Two weeks should be plenty of time to propose "Uber for ____", get it funded, get front-paged on TechCrunch, run out of money, and be forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER61> Work for a startup.

</comment><comment><USER62> Rent a car, drive 3 hours to Yosemite. Idk why others haven't suggested that.

<comment><USER63> Because it's neither in SF nor SV.

<comment><USER62> So what? It's something you can do from there, and they are in the area for 2 weeks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Binge watch 'Silicon Valley' from your AirBnb.</comment>


Maaxi app aims to help black cabs counter rise of Uber - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29458897

<comment><USER3> This strikes me as the "right" response from aggrieved taxi drivers - <USER2> of trying to quash competition via legislation, innovate in the space and use your key strengths (i.e., The Knowledge) to make your product more competitive.

I understand that The Knowledge is a big differentiator in London taxis, so it should be used as one. It shouldn't be decried as a hurdle.

If given the choice between an Uber driver who might not know London but will get me around cheaply, or a black cab driver who will know the way but charge me more, I might take my chances either way. But if the black cab driver can compete on price through a shared ride, then Uber isn't getting a look in.</comment>


Why you absolutely should be using Sugar.js   - <AUTHOR> http://labnotes.org/2011/08/25/why-you-absolutely-should-be-using-sugar-js/

<comment><AUTHOR> Asides from being more readable than underscore/lodash, the neat thing with sugar is that it doesn't actually modify Object.prototype by default. You create extended objects as you need them. Only if you explicitly choose to, you may make all objects extended.

See <http://sugarjs.com/native></comment>


Node.js core contributor explains why it's ready for the big time [video] - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/33248104

<comment><USER2> Going slightly off-topic; It's always said that a great interview is really in the hands of the interviewer. That lady is a very good interviewer. She's researched and understood the topic at hand, and she's given then interviewee the right cues to convey his message well.

She should definitely get more recognition if she hasn't received any already.</comment>


Atom Reaches One Million Active Users - <AUTHOR> http://blog.atom.io/ <comment><USER2> Them being able to tell how many active users they have means that they track this in the Atom app. Atom never told me about this during startup. I'm personally not bothered by this, but I know that a lot of techies are against phoning-home practices. Is there anybody here who IS bothered by this?

<comment><USER3> It's pretty much expected at this point. I gave up online privacy last decade.

<comment><USER4> I didn't give up my online privacy yet. Apps have no business to phone home. Little Snitch FTW ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would really like to use it too, but the latency while typing is killing me whenever I try.

<comment><USER6> Atom is in competition with Brackets (Ace), Visual Studio Code (CodeMirror), Advanced Editor (Ace), to cite only the free software. All the others are quicker. I wonder how they get all these users.

<comment><USER7> Small correction: Brackets uses Codemirror, Visual Studio Code uses its own editor called monaco, Advanced Editor (if you mean the wordpress plugin) uses Codemirror as well, Ace is used by c9.io and RStudio for example.

I'd expect some part of their users are people who have it installed, and check from time to time if it became faster or not, but the main thing making it popular is the promise of being easily extensible.

<comment><USER6> You are right, Adobe Brackets is in the list of CodeMirror users. But I mean Advanced Editor based on Node.js and Ace ([https://github.com/Scriptol/Advanced- Editor](https://github.com/Scriptol/Advanced-Editor)). VSC uses Electron, hence the confusion, but not Atom and Codemirror.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I stopped using Atom after I ran into this issue:[0]

Basically it's possible to accidentally do a mass replace of a word you did not intend to. In sublime, if you do a mass find/replace, it doesn't save the file. However by default atom saves all the files you make a find/replace in. So you could lose a lot of time undoing an accidental replace. Given my habits (listed in the issue) while in a text editor, this was unacceptable risk for using atom, so of course I filed a ticket which promptly died out.

I would like to continue using atom, even with the latency startup issue, but there's too much risk for me in accidentally wasting a lot of time getting bit by this issue.

[0][https://github.com/atom/find-and- replace/issues/550](https://github.com/atom/find-and-replace/issues/550)

<comment><USER9> I agree that this is an annoying issue, but doesn't your version control take care about undoing things like that?

<comment><USER10> I don't really use version control for text because it is often pointless (how helpful are one or two commits when I will never touch the text again after getting graded). And yet I still use More tradition text ediots for that (WYSIWYG editors can get really annoying). Though i personal vim over atom but that is not the point. The point is that undoing things is really important.

I've also often been in a position where I do big commits that contain about 200 lines of code and messed up by using replace/etc in the wrong way

<comment><USER11> You can add files to the index before doing find/replace and then go back to that if something goes wrong.

When you only add files to the index right before you commit, you are wasting a lot of your VCS' potential.

<comment><USER10> I sometimes do that for as a kind of backup, when there is a chance that something disastrous could happen but that requires that I use a version control system (which is pointless for text documents with less then 2000 Words IMO) or that I remember doing that. Because once I add files to the index, i might as well create a commit and squash it later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yet I need to find one area where Atom is best of breed in. HTML + JS + CSS => Brackets because of the preview function or Webstorm; Golang => SublimeText or vscode; Java => IntelliJ or Netbeans or Eclipse; Atom UI is nice and I can imagine Atom becoming a superpower editor within the next years but it just isn't there yet.

<comment><USER11> >I need to find one area where Atom is best of breed in.

It has the best collection of packages for web development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Serious question: why don't Atom users use other products?

If you just need a free text editor that works well with source code, why not Vim or Emacs? With the right plugin (or a terminal) it probably integrates better with what you're doing than Atom-- excepting React Native with their Atom plugin.

If you're willing to pay, why not JetBrains or Sublime?

I just don't understand the middle ground that Atom seems to exist in. What is it best at?

<comment><USER14> > Vim or Emacs -- UI is too foreign > JetBrains or Sublime - not free

Some people just want a free Sublime clone.

<comment><USER15> Sublime isn't free?

<comment><USER16> Nope. Commercial software that cost $70. However they don't disable or cripple the software after your 30 day trial is up, they just pop up regular reminders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Atom is a madhouse. It's what you might expect from Github, a company with no experience in deep, complex IDE tools but lots of experience bringing together a small army of amateurs to contribute to a stone soup, open source project. It's wide with wonderful, useful conveniences, and not very deep in the kind of tools that take CS PhDs years to get right at places like Microsoft.

It's a perfect reflection of the madness that is front-end web dev: a crazy quilt of evolving technologies on which a significant portion of its functionality is built by stacking up extensions like Jenga blocks, and each day some of those blocks are upgraded, the ones causing the latest 100% CPU issue are identified and deactivated for the next version or two, another stab is made at resolving conflicts between independent autocompleters with undefined priority, a wonderful new extension is discovered, it gradually gets slower and slower until you restart it, then it's nice and quick doing whatever it can do today....

Then there's Visual Studio Code from Microsoft, which is also what you might expect given their background. These people know how to build a deep, powerful IDE, and it's an amazing statement about their technical depth that they managed to build such a snappy, solid-feeling editor (that never needs to be restarted and opens multiMB files with aplomb) on top of the same Electron base Atom is built on, and doubly amazing when you consider that Electron itself was built by Github.

But in contrast to their technical depth, MS seems out of their depth when dealing with an open community of developers. In contrast to Atom's chaotic, buzzing discussion forum, Visual Studio Code's forum is...well, actually it doesn't even exist. The closest they have is an "issues" list hosted by, yes, Github, and a list of feature requests you can vote on which can accommodate comments, but which the MS team warns candidly that they never look at. (They only look at the vote count and even then, there's little evidence they look beyond the top 5% or so of requests.) Neither of these is a discussion forum where users get together and help each other, and MS doesn't seem to have the resources to both do what they want with VS Code and find out what users want, so they stick to the former.

VS Code lacks so many common editing conveniences available in Atom (a minimap, drag and drop text editing, a project switcher, indentation lines, a way to make the faint bracket matching highlight visible....) and adds these so slowly if at all that, for these fairly shallow but very useful features, you seem to have some poor guy volunteering his 20% time at MS vs. a small army of volunteer developers contributing to Atom.

And yet, the MS people are talking about deep, ambitious, full-blown IDE features planned for VS Code--and these people understand how to build such things--while Github can't seem to get past the challenge of how to open a big file and say they aren't interested in ever becoming a powerful IDE.

So, will Atom's furious beehive of JavaScript-style chaos eventually evolve deep tools and a fast, solid base? Or will Microsoft's old school, tiny team of experts figure out a way to get the conveniences done by others without undermining the foundation while they build a serious, deep dev tool?

I hope it won't take too long for at least one of them to be solid, wide, and deep.

</comment><comment><USER14> The one thing putting me off Atom is that it is a battery hog on laptops.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some items you have on your desk? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Survey meter (Geiger counter), big book of table of radioactive isotopes, in- vivo dosimetry system, lab notebooks, radon monitor, funny card from co- workers (outside: "Want to hear something really fun about science?" inside: "You would. Nerd."), polycarbonate art piece, computer, phone. And around 10^2 post-it notes.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's actually a folding table.

There's two laptops, a monitor, mousepad, fluorescent desk lamp, supermarket receipt, mouse, MP3/CD player, flashlight, waterproof Walkman (currently charging), a large mug of tea, two Sharpie markers, some opened envelopes, a few watches, tape measure, slide rule, notebook, miscellaneous detached legal pad paper, a pencil sharpener that's not plugged in, a couple of books, a mechanical pencil, stapler, old broken headphones, a hard drive, some batteries, and a small bicycle front point-light.

</comment><comment><USER4> LED lantern (to donate to the Scouts); burglar alarm kit; funnel for oil change; deck of cards for prototype game; pitch folder for a startup; glasses case; blank paper notebook I write all my design points in; CDs for various obsolete games; package of brass fittings for air pump; plexiglass frame with pictures of my kids about 20 years ago; ancient mouse pad advertising a friends long-defunct company; Program for St Olaf College Christmas Festival; my badge as a Credentials Committee Member for 2016 Democratic county convention; carved pencil holder with image of Ganesh; 21" LCD monitor; GigaWare keyboard and Lenovo mouse.

<comment><USER5> > deck of cards for prototype game

Do tell

<comment><USER4> I sponsored a game club (ok I buy the pizza) for some teenagers. They invented games. Hobo Hoedown. Orion Empire. Merchants of Ur. Bloodline. Gangsta. Holmgang.

Its Hobo cards on my desk (plus some stray pasteboard printed cards from a game that never got off the ground). You have a Hobo, Dumpster Dive (draw from the Dumpster deck) to outfit your hobo until you have Shirt and Pants slots filled at least, then draw Grifter cards to Fight! Opponents like the Home- owners Association, Burger Stand Doug, or Ed the Bicylist. Then you roll dice against their Power, have to make as many successes as the number of fights you've won. Add dice to roll by equipping Bicycle Chain, Dead Cat or even Jorts!

Yeah, not very correct but a big hit with everybody who's play-tested it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an odd question.

Like a few others I believe in a clutter free work environment. However, life doesn't, and my desk is a mess. I clear it once a month, but after a week it's piled high with junk. Right now, USB cables, batteries, notes, documents, bills, tools, pen drives and sd cards, toys to be fixed, books , cable ties, scraps of wrapping paper, tape, a pair of socks, lego bits, a battery from an old phone, the back panel from a Samsung tablet. I can't even see my keyboard right now. Major clean required before I can do any work

</comment><comment><USER6> Laptop riser. Rarely used external monitor. Snacks. Hand sanitizer. Black pen, red pen, sharpie. Noise canceling headphones. Box of business cards. Meeting agenda printout with notes waiting to be transcribed. Scrap paper. External backup drive. Desk lamp. Other desk lamp that needs rewiring. Box of Kleenex. Coin rolls waiting to go to the bank. Coaster. "Junk drawer" box. Router. Pad of sticky notes.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://topatoco.com/products/kcg-tfdog- plush](https://topatoco.com/products/kcg-tfdog-plush)

</comment><comment><USER8> Beyond the computer and monitor: headphones; lip balm; couple of spare adaptors (I'm currently juggling two laptops, one which is thoroughly USB- Cified and one which... isn't); stud finder; pencil.

It's relatively clear at the moment. I'm definitely not one of those people who sees tidiness as a moral good. As long as I can find the stuff I need, I'm happy.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a small desk, about 1.6m by 0.6m. At the moment, it has my laptop and mouse, five USB external drives, notepads, pens, pencils, etc. On the other half of the desk is a Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope, 24v power supply, power controller and an A3 cutting board with a small handful of leads, components and two small prototype boards with my latest projects.

</comment><comment><USER10> My desk is as clean as possible. Keyboard, 4K monitor, SD monitor, mouse, place for cup. I clear it every evening before I go home.

Bookshelf: some religious stuff, a plant pot, D&D books (they're the prettiest books I have), one algorithm book.

Middle shelf is purposely kept empty. I put everything I want to remind myself to take out of the room - keys, wallet, phone, cups, plates, pizza boxes.

</comment><comment><USER11> A clock on PST (I live in EST). 3d Printed various objects. 3d Printer (I overtook the desk next to me). Lots of clutter. Papers, Misc. Junk. Misc D&D items (Team building). Peak Proformer Award 2017 (Q1). Scatterd notebooks and pens. Of course Computer, 2 monitors, 3rd USB smaller monitor. Nurf Gun. Cirtic Acid. Water bottle. Chromebook as aux computer.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm a big believer in a clutter free work environment so I only have what I NEED.

So: 1\. 27in monitor

2\. MBP stand for my laptop which I use as a second screen

3\. Matias mechanical keyboard

4\. Wireless mouse + mousepad

5\. Coffee mug

Occasionally I pull out a notepad, but I've found that using the Notes app on my laptop works better for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like to keep a clean desk, the cleaner the desk the better my mental state. However I do leave checks and dollars bills on the desk, it's like some kind crazy motivation.

</comment><comment><USER14> 2 Monitors, Keyboard, Mouse, Mouse Pad, Pen, Notepad, Phone Charger and Headphones. Not too exciting but that's all I need!

</comment><comment><USER15> A laptop with broken screen connected to cheap monitor using VGA cable. Some crayons and a barbie.

</comment><comment><USER16> Speakers, keyboard, mouse, mousepad, 4 books.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lots of plants.

</comment><comment><USER18> Display, mechanical keyboard, two studio monitors (speakers), audio interface, scanner, mouse and pad, a kalimba and two juggling balls (just starting out!) that double as kind of stress balls.</comment>


Candy Japan 2014 Year in Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.candyjapan.com/2014-year-in-review

<comment><USER2> Some feedback as a user: I canceled my subscription recently after about half a year. Some things I didn't like with the service:

\- The service said that candy was shipped bi-monthly. I assumed it would come like every two weeks, but it always arrived quite simultaneous for me, a few days to a week later once a month.

\- Maybe it's me, but the flavors often ranged from weird to inedible (like rose flavored candy)

\- There is no way to re-order candy that I actually like. Actually, it's hard to even gather the name of the candy often enough in order to search for it.

\- The cancel subscription link / process was hard to find on your page.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback.

International mail is a bit unpredictable, even post office says the packages can take 2-4 weeks, so it is possible there could be overlap.

I try to balance between easy to eat and truly bizarre. Sorry you didn't like those rose flavored ones, but many people actually loved them. Taste preferences are so varied I can't hope to keep everyone happy. I would rather sometimes shock and sometimes dazzle instead of just keeping it safe.

Definitely looking into starting a shop in the future to re-order more of the good ones.

Cancel instructions are in the FAQ, they are complicated a bit because I don't have user accounts on the site (need to verify you have the subscription you are trying to cancel). Easiest way is to drop me an email and ask for cancel.

<comment><USER4> I haven't used your service, so I be making some wrong assumptions here, but if some users would like to be able to find some of the candies they have eaten, you could include a list in their account with the name of candies they have received in Japanese (and English or Romaji) and a photo. Probably should wait until after they receive the package to maintain the element of surprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats Bemmu - I love the 'overnight success story' that was 2014.

In my experience, businesses tend to grow in jumps with a plateau in between and it looks like 2014 was that sort of year (as a deserved reward for the years of platform investment you had made). Best of luck getting over that 1,000 item milestone and then the next big jump beyond!

<comment><USER3> If I could just keep at 1000, that would be great success. I think if somehow the site doubled again, it would become possible to even hire full-time help.

Interestingly not all sweets makers are that interested in selling in bulk. My approach seems to need some tweaking. Currently I would just send an email like "hey I'd like to buy 1000 of these cute candies you make, how much would it be?". But instead of a price, I just get "we don't sell wholesale". It's strange to me as I would imagine they would be happy to sell more of their product, but apparently a more gentle approach is called for here. My first hire would likely be someone who is really good at this, unless I can somehow turn into that person myself during this year.

<comment><USER6> Are there Costco-like outlets in Japan? Places that sell in bulk at a lower cost?

Just signed up for a trial. Really looking forward to it. A couple of things: 1\. The sign up process is SO EASY. Fantastic - wish other sites would make it so simple. Choose your level of service, pay, done. Fast and quick.

2\. Email newsletter signup? Didn't notice one. Would be a great way to keep people who pay for gift subscriptions in the loop.

3\. Provide a custom email for people who have bought a gift subscription. At the moment, it's just the link. If you provided a page or sample email that was like 'Hey, I've bought you a subscription to Candy Japan!!!! Here's what happens... etc etc' \- I think it would make the impact of the gift greater.

<comment><USER3> I don't really know how wholesale works, not sure how to learn more about it.

What I called the newsletter is really just a description of the items that we send to subscribers when stuff is shipped to them.

Good idea about the explanation page for gift subscriptions.

<comment><USER7> This is American focused, but I think the story is very similar in Korea, so it might parallel how it works in Japan as well.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Wholesale](http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Wholesale)

I know in Korea that some of the big "traditional" style markets have shop fronts that are only wholesalers and won't sell to regular customers. If there's an analog where you live you might want to hit those up. I wouldn't at all be surprised if there's a wholesale confectionary market of some sort that meets once a month or whatever.

My sister-in-law ran a small store for a few years and she'd go to a local convention center/stadium and buy all kinds of inventory at such places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-app Great write-up, Bemmu. Glad to hear Candy Japan is still going strong. I had a subscription for a couple of months last year, I got my first batch right after we met on a warm sunny day here in Amsterdam!

Unfortunately I had to cancel the subscription, though. This is because the frequency was just too high for me. Although I do love all the weird and funny types of candy, I'm not that much of a sweet tooth and some of the candies kept piling up! If 2015 also brings different types of subscription, I'll probably sign up again for once a month.

All the best!

<comment><USER8> Does Bemmu offer an "every other month" subscription for 2/3 the price?

If not... you should. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I still love this idea Bemmu. One suggestion - I think you should invest in design and copywriting for the homepage. What you're selling is an emotional experience but it isn't being presented that way.

To Americans like me, Japan is mysterious and fun. I actually don't WANT to see what the box looks like. If you play up the mystery more, it becomes less of a transaction and more of a emotional experience which will help justify your higher price.

Congrats on the good year!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion. Do you have some example of a site that would in your mind be closer to how Candy Japan should be?

<comment><USER9> Sure, I think there's a couple ways you could go:

Maybe you play off Japanese cartoons, with characters like this: [http://drbl.in/bTYf](http://drbl.in/bTYf)

Or maybe you could have loud and over the top illustrations of the candy like this, but 10 times louder [http://drbl.in/kgdq](http://drbl.in/kgdq)

Since your product is candy, I would go for the playful/quirky/over-the-top aspects of Japanese culture. Lots of fun color and illustrations. As opposed to the traditional, serious, craft focused parts of the culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> feedback from current customer (approx 20 months): i set up a subscription for my small team of devs--try to convince them i'm a thoughtful, generous manager, or at least buy their love. They "care packages" are a huge hit with this gang--every candy type (a team of six with varied tastes so not too surprising). Initially, when the twice-monthly shipments arrived, i would but the box on a bookcase in our area; i don't think the candy ever lasted more than 24 hours. After the first couple of months, they began retrieving them directly from the mailroom, then putting the box on my desk once it was empty. I would love to try some, or even one, but you see why that hasn't worked out so far. About a months or so ago, one of the devs on the team told me how awesome she thought were these sweets, and kudos to whomever orders them for the whole team.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have stumbled upon Candy Japan about half a year ago when I was moving house and said I'd try it after I settle down. I have recently come back to this topic and did some research on different Japanese snack subscription options.

\- Most services cost around $25 monthly.

\- Candy Japan seems to offer the most frequent service, with almost all of the other options only offer monthly delivery.

\- But Candy Japan also offers the smallest amount - 282 grams (141 grams * 2) compared to others who usually offer 1lb (450 grams) monthly.

Has anyone tried other subscription services? How do they compared to Candy Japan?

<comment><USER12> Can you list those other services, please?

<comment><USER11> Here's a review on (probably) all boxes available:

[http://beejuboxes.com/box-list/japanese-snack- boxes/](http://beejuboxes.com/box-list/japanese-snack-boxes/)

After some comparison, looking at sample boxes, weighing pros & cons, I signed up for a taste box from TasteJapan, and I'm very excited to see what it's like!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have noticed a similar graph on Twitch viewership - you hover around 1000 viewers for a year or two, and then suddenly start gaining hundreds of viewers, and in just a few months, you may have doubled your numbers.

Congrats on your success!

<comment><USER14> Where did you see those numbers? Is it from personal experience?

<comment><USER13> Yes, just noticed it from regular viewing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love Candy Japan but do have a couple of suggestions:

\- The email you send out is great, but it often arrives well after I have received the package. One arrived a couple of days ago and I really want to wait on the email, but my willpower is usually no match for (possibly) delicious candy :/

\- The email always goes to spam. Maybe check your DKIM settings or contact MailChimp? Or maybe it's just me? (Gmail / Google Apps)

\- A small card with the name/photo/short description of each item would be great. If they were well designed and of decent quality I'd even collect them!

</comment><comment><USER16> Are there any regulatory hurdles, or are you flying under the radar, so to speak?

Congratulations in any case - it always cheers me up to see a niche business like this do well.

<comment><USER17> He may well be.

One anecdote: one of his shipments had quite a variety of candies. While other boxes were unopened by customs, this one had stickers all over it. Upon opening, I noticed that one of the candy boxes had been opened, which happened to be the one with candies that looked like white round pill-like things. I assume it was flagged as suspicious and a sample was taken. It had a sticker with the word 'food' (in Portuguese) written on it.

There are a few regulations regarding 'food' imports. I even expect to run into some trouble because of the regular deliveries. I suspect the amounts are small enough that it hasn't hit any triggers yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How do you source your candies? Did you ever have any logistics issues with order fulfillment being time consuming? How did you get around that?

<comment><USER3> I've built a relationship with a supermarket owner. He gives me a discount and also does a lot of the work of calling around manufacturers to see which candies he can get. I suspect he probably makes a nice profit, too, compared to if I did all that sourcing myself.

The biggest challenge is that many items are region bound or limited time sales, so practically we cannot get them. If I took the train to various prefectures in Japan and chatted with manufacturers, I could probably get even more variety going. I was thinking of starting a new tier (Candy Japan premium) for that, but still thinking about it.

It does take time to prepare the packages. First of all we don't know exactly how many subscribers we'll have until the last minute. Then we want to order an amount of items that best matches that count. That takes more time than if we pre-ordered. Then stuffing the boxes takes about 3 days. I think the post also takes an extra day for them to calculate all the postage for a pile of 1000 boxes. So yes there are currently some delays, but from the customer point of view they get something every 2 weeks, only the initial shipment being slow to arrive.

<comment><USER19> You might consider preordering extra so you can cover your count, and sell additional boxes/ordering of individual items as one off items. A one off box of some of the same stuff you shipped out might make a good gift or a way for a person to get some more of a box they really enjoyed, or a way to try out the service (perhaps at a slight discount) without subscribing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hey Bemmu, great story! Come and talk about it in one of the next HN Kansai :)

<comment><USER3> You all already know about it. I should rather take a trip to Hacker News meetup Seattle or somewhere :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some more feedback:

I did a "test run" with a subscription for my mother. She enjoyed it as a gift/novelty idea, but the quantity was too much for her... I am now considering (prompted by the post of some other customer in the thread) to get a subscription for my office. But ... one of the shippings to my mother included some crazy "hamburger facsimiles" that you had to prepare by mixing different powders, pouring in stamps, cooking in microwave and then cut up and assemble. While fun, this is impractical for office use, I'd prefer to be sure I get actual candies mostly (salted snacks would be ok, too, but anything involving such a preparation would be wasted on us).

Finally: I was really disappointed when you canceled the stationery project... I had at least three people who could get this as a gift (and possibly renew on their own after the first run).

<comment><USER12> _" but the quantity was too much for her"_

What is the real quantity? All I could find is a photo of two empty envelopes from a distance and a single nicely done box of candies (what does it have to do with envelopes?).

<comment><USER21> Sorry but I am far away from her home and cannot check - I am just reporting her reaction after 3-4 shipments.

(And this is not criticism about the service: it was me who had misjudged the situation - anyway she was happy about the idea, it is just that she prefers not to eat "too much" candies for health reasons).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'v very recently (few days ago) launched a service with the same business model but for Japanese tea, called Tomotcha: [https://tomotcha.com](https://tomotcha.com)

I'll most certainly do a Show HN soon, just a couple of things to fix before. For instance the price is currently only listed in EUR, but if you prefer to be billed in USD just drop us an email saying so and we will bill you in USD ($25/month).

<comment><USER23> Looks interesting. I'm certainly interested in Japanese teas and like being able to sample a variety ( [http://gwern.net/Tea](http://gwern.net/Tea) \- might I encourage you to also explore the world of oolongs as well as greens?), but looking at your current front page, my first thought is 'it sounds like a good idea, but how do I know the tea they send will be any good? What have they sent in the past and/or plan to send for launch?' You have a listing of families, but not the specific ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe consider a different currency? The USD is really strong at the moment, causing the price to be really expensive for most countries.

</comment><comment><USER25> @bemmu, Non-subscriber here (Although potential subscriber). Could you start a mailing list for the website that would feature new stuff or offers that you may have. It's a wonderful service, but my memory defeats me often 'coz of which I may miss out on new stuff or simply forget about the service, so, please consider the option.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hi Bemmu, I found something similar on PH some time ago (japancrate.com), although is seems more recent, do you know them? How common are these 'subscription box' services (I had no idea this was a thing)? Do you have more subscriptions in Europe or the US?

</comment><comment><USER27> I think your page need a good way to graphically browse all those candy.

I don't understand the difference between the box from April 2014 and the size of "two standard Japanese envelopes".

</comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like you're going to be getting more new customers today!

</comment><comment><USER29> おめでとうベッム!Nice to hear that the business is doing well! 明けましておめでとう!

</comment><comment><USER30> Idea: Gift subscription should have an option to send the first package to you, so that you can wrap it up and physically give it. Then they can add their mailing address.

</comment><comment><USER31> Free idea (worth as much as it costs!): You could franchise in other countries. Candy Korea, Candy Taiwan, that sort of thing.

Thanks for the good, clear write-up.

<comment><USER3> Thanks.

I tried launching one site called Pen Japan. But what I realized is that any time I considered putting in some effort to promote Pen Japan, I was better off putting that effort into promoting Candy Japan instead. If I look for bloggers to reach out to or write guest posts, I can't justify doing it for the new site when I would much rather promote the existing one.

Why would I prefer promoting existing one? Two reasons: running two sites is almost twice the work. Why launch a new site and promote that, when I could instead push the existing site? Secondly, there are some minor scale benefits when shipping a lot of the same item. You can get a better margin when buying 1000 pieces of the same item vs. 500 pieces of two different items. So it makes sense to push hard on just one direction.

If the sites were somehow less related, but with some synergy benefits, then that would make sense. For example if I launched a buy-and-ship reshipping service where customers can request any item they want from Japan which I then go out to buy and ship to them. It would make sense to promote that, because the avenues to promote it would be different enough not to compete against Candy Japan. It would also make sense in that those services could be cross- sold, so that is something I might consider. But not really wanting to start a "Candy X" where X is just some other country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> You should change your FB share image to the professional photo of the box of candy, rather than the comic image, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER33> I subscribed after reading this review - I love what you've done, Bemmu.

</comment><comment><USER34> Any coupon code for HN community?

</comment><comment><USER35> What happened in July 2014?

</comment><comment><USER36> I enjoy my Candy Japan subscription, including the occasional joy of not enjoying a strange foreign food :D</comment>


Ask HN: What is the future computer architecture paradigm? - <AUTHOR> I recently saw a computerphile video on neuromorphic computers(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qow8pIvExH4), and over the course of the past few months studied quantum computing out of interest.<p>This got me thinking, what alternatives to the von neumann architecture are there? Which alternative seems most likely to cause a paradigm swap, if any? <comment><USER2> There will probably be more than one.

If it's truly a future paradigm, then we probably don't know enough of the details to explain it in adequately and it would just be theory. It might also use tech that we have not yet discovered. Many of these futuristic predictions change drastically or never come true. I'm still waiting on my flying car and robot maid...

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not saying it's the best big thing, but NoC(Network on Chip) seems really interesting. Essentially the computing units(CPU, GPU) and resources(memory, I/O devices) form a grid. They communicate with each other by exchanging packets. Each node can route packets forward toward its destination. So you've got routing algos and all that good stuff. The supposed benefit of this is the flexibility and capacity to adapt to different work loads.

</comment><comment><USER4> teraqubit</comment>


Ask HN: What happens when you start selling internationally  - <AUTHOR>

So I am thinking about marketing my simple web app to the canadian market. We are in a very niche industry and feel professionals in Canada could benefit from our service so why not help them out right?
Well my question for you all is do I need to do anything on the business end of things? We are an LLC in NH, do we need to set anything up in addition to this to make it legal to do business in Canada?
I'm not sure what the process is because all of our business is done through the internet. Any help is much appreciated!
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Now, I don't specifically target the international market, but a large portion of my customers (less than 50%, but, I think, more than 20%) are from outside of the country. To the best of my knowledge (and I do pay someone for tax advice) being as I'm providing a service and not leaving the country I don't need to do anything special because these customers are outside the country.

I've still gotta pay US taxes on my profits, of course, just like if my customers were all within the US, but to my knowledge the US government is happy if I pay my US taxes, and none of the other governments have any authority over me, so I as long as I'm square with the IRS here in the US, I don't need to worry about the laws of every country where a customer might come from.

This may be different if you have employees in other countries (all my employees and current contractors are US citizens working here in the US. I have had foreign contractors in the past, and I'm _much_ less sure of what the law is in that case.)

This may also be different if you have infrastructure outside the country. All my stuff is currently in the US.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply..

I'm in the US..and am a single founder. I figured since I was in the US and since my service is offered over the internet I shouldn't have to do anything special. I just see an opportunity in going beyond the US.

If anyone else knows some solid facts on this I would appreciate it!

<comment><USER2> You need a tax professional if you want anything like solid facts.

I mean, really the US tax system is so complex that there really isn't any such thing as a "solid fact" - It's law. Complex law. there is precedent, sure, but it's never 100%.

Advice from HN won't cover your ass when the IRS comes knocking. Now, a tax professional doesn't absolutely cover your ass, either, but aside from the fact that they are probably right more often than random people on the Internet, it does go towards the "I was trying to follow the law" bit, and will probably result in lighter penalties even if you are still at fault.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, just was curious to see if anyone had any experience with a situation like this. I'm already planning on getting in touch with our "tax guy" Thanks for the reply though!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to make a racist AI without really trying - <AUTHOR> https://blog.conceptnet.io/2017/07/13/how-to-make-a-racist-ai-without-really-trying/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. Looks like it should be applicable to other cases where words _should_ be given equivalent sentiment, but aren't.

And funny how, despite the "Let's go get Chinese food", Asians yet again get ignored when talking about racism.</comment>


New D programming language forum, written entirely in D  - <AUTHOR> http://forum.dlang.org/ <comment><USER2> The site is amazingly fast (at least subjectively), even though there must be a higher traffic coming from HN. Has anyone inspected the code to see how it's done and if there's some kind of a web framework for D?

<comment><USER3> Funny that people notice this. I think this is how all pages on the internet should be! Lately I'm getting tired of all those fancy Javascript pages or pages build on bloated frameworks.

The speed of this forum has nothing to do with D. You can achieve this in a language like PHP as well.

Just skip the bloat (server and client side).

<comment><USER4> Here are some of the things that play a part in the forum's performance:

* Optimized and deflated static resources

* Deflated HTML output

* SQLite prepared statements

* Integrated HTTP server (although it's currently in front of an Apache proxy)

* An optimized string builder (<https://github.com/CyberShadow/DAppenderResearch>)

* RAM cache of frequent DB queries

While there are equivalents available for interpreted/CGI languages (e.g. opcode caches, memcached), there is still a significant performance advantage. With a warm cache, most pages can be written out in under 5ms, and the busiest in under 50.

For some perspective, the time needed to compose the busiest view (threaded or split-view) halved when I moved from naive string concatenation to an optimized appender.

<comment><USER5> Great work. I wonder if there is a way to turn this into a more general purpose framework then just serving up one specific forum.

<comment><USER4> Yes, there are way too many things hard-coded at the moment. I want to refactor all of it out into templates, config files and library code. There's apparently some interest of adopting some code into D's standard library, too.

<comment><USER6> s/some/a ton of/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The source is available on github:

<https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed>

</comment><comment><USER7> Hell yes, that's what I'm talking about. We need good tools in nice, statically typed, native languages to make web applications!

<comment><USER8> Opa/OCaml?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
       D's design goals attempt to combine the performance of
       compiled languages with the safety and expressive power
       of modern dynamic languages. Idiomatic D code is
       commonly as fast as equivalent C++ code, while being
       shorter and memory-safe.

D seems to have similar goals with Go (golang). Has anybody here used both?

[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_%28programming_language%29>]

<comment><USER9> For those interested, more info on the differences between D and Go: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3554956/d-versus-go- compa...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3554956/d-versus-go-comparison)

More different than I thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have always thought D was an interesting language. I never got into it because I thought it was pretty dormant. Has it been resurrected?

<comment><USER4> There's been an explosion of contributions to the compiler, runtime and standard library since their development was moved to GitHub about a year ago.

<comment><USER11> Cool! I may consider trying it again. Are the gcc or LLVM compilers up to date these days?

<comment><USER4> GDC is in really good shape (on *nix at least). LDC seems up-to-date, but not sure how stable it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It looks site your main site is still linking to the old forum:

HN -> <http://forum.dlang.org/> -> <http://dlang.org/overview.html> -> <http://digitalmars.com/NewsGroup.html>

</comment><comment><USER13> Nicely done!</comment>


Introducing Stormcrow: Dropbox's feature gating / population management system - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2017/03/introducing-stormcrow/ <comment><USER2> It's great to see companies building this category of products once they reach a certain scale where customer experience matters. Gatekeeper from Facebook, LiX from LinkedIn (where I am from), and now you guys. I really like the way Stormcrow taps into data on Hive to enable richer targeting. Any plans on tying Stormcrow to analytics?

Btw, I wrote a quick post based on this trend:

[http://www.split.io/blog/dropboxs-stormcrow-and-the-new- era-...](http://www.split.io/blog/dropboxs-stormcrow-and-the-new-era-of- customer-experience-control)

</comment><comment><USER3> Author here, happy to answer any questions about this post!

<comment><USER4> Hi, Tom. Great post!

1) How do you synchronize features between micro-services? Each service may have a different state of the feature set during a request.

2) When you flip the feature on or off, how is that reflected in the UI? Does the UI tell you when the feature propagated to all services?

Thanks!</comment></comment>


Show HN: using Backbone to make multiselects useful - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.github.com/checkbox-field/

<comment><USER2> _A bunch of checkboxes look better, but they are difficult for the backend developer to handle._

Really? I've never found this a problem -- and if I did, I wouldn't push a load of JavaScript cruft to the front-end to work around it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not putting down the project by any means, I'm sure it's useful, but worth pointing out that I just looked at it on my iPad and the "vanilla multiselect" was nicer and clearer, and easier to use, than the checkboxes!

<comment><USER4> While I do agree that the "vanilla multiselect" is better on tablets (I just checked on my galaxy tab), I have to point out, that it's only better, because the tablet shows me that multiselect as a checkbox array. That is exactly what this checkbox-field does, so it looks to be a steb in the right direction.

And one other thing, using multiselect in a browser with a mouse, I see no easy way of selecting just option 1 and 3, without holding the control key. This might seem perfectly normal to "us", but try telling that to someone with less computer skill. I bet that an average computer user would find the checkbox-field more intuitive.

<comment><USER3> The iPad has a native control, with no checkboxes in sight.

Please note I said IPad, not tablet. Call me a dick, but I don't believe other tablets are worth considering as part of any relevant target market anyway, at least at this stage.

<comment><USER4> Big market or not, my point was that I like the solution I see on my android device (tablet or a phone) and that it's a far better solution than what I see in the regular computer browser.

And to turn your words around a bit, the number of desktop and leptop users surfing the web, is far greater than iPad users, so your iPad should not be considered a target market as well. But that is not the point, even if iPad has this native awesome solution, it's like you're saying "people should just by iPads to be able to use multiselect normally."

This project is simple and easy and in my opinion, it helps make the web a bit nicer for developers and users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see the need for the Backbone and Handlebars requirements to accomplish this? Wouldn't writing it as a jQuery plugin or the like suffice?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I could write it so the only dependency is jQuery. But using Backbone makes the implementation much cleaner and more robust.

Especially considering there are three data representations that all have to be in sync:

\- the actual multiselect

\- the visible checkboxes

\- the internal state

I thought about using pure jQuery, but my head soon started spinning and I decided to do it right.

<comment><USER6> I hope you don't mind, made a quick jQuery only version. <http://gillesmaes.github.com/Multibox/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really don't see the point.

The problem it aims to overcome is the handling of the input on the back end, but surely just using checkboxes as an input array would accomplish the same thing e.g.: <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1010941/html-input-arrays>

</comment><comment><USER8> _"You can use jQueries for that? :O"_</comment>


The forces that drove this election's media failure are likely to get worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/the-forces-that-drove-this-elections-media-failure-are-likely-to-get-worse/ <comment> xkcd-sucks This article's central thesis reeks of smugness:

>There were just too many people voting in this election because they were infuriated by made-up things</comment>