Jailed researchers trying to protect threatened cheetahs in Iran await verdict - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/iran-wildlife-conservationists-jailed/ <comment><USER2> I went through that article and I can't figure out what is the Iranian authorities motivation to persecute those people, what are they going to gain?

From the article it seems that there is a group of passionate eco-activists which suddenly became a target of Iranian anti-espionage agency; this sounds like a waste of time. I know that authoritarian regimes behave in a non- logical way, but here it looks like really stupid move. Are those people members of opposition or something like this?

<comment><USER3> In Iran at least there is a reoccurring narrative that people with any connection to outside groups or people who are even distantly critical of Iran are targeted by conservative forces inside the country who do not want to move towards any kind of conciliatory position / open the country to the rest of the world and other policies. The idea is actions like this help to cement their somewhat isolationist positions / fit the propaganda of Iran under siege by outside forces.

I can't say how accurate that is, but that's the explanation you see a lot even from folks inside Iran, but generally government policy in Iran doesn't seem as unified as others and there are a lot of folks with their hands on the strings of government. You'll see someone released and it seems like a move towards less persecution, and in the same turn someone else picked up inexplicably for what seems like nothing at all. The idea being that different people are pulling the strings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You see things like this, and people like Tashpolat Tiyip in China, and it is scary how an authoritarian state can come down on people who seem to be no threat in any way, and in fact are working to help people or the environment in the state.... and still they're persecuted.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article fails to mention a growing problem associated with such cameras: class and economic disparity. All too often such cameras are setup in rural areas by outsiders. Whether in africa or texas, the story is generally the same. The educated and literate city folk setup cameras in a "wilderness" occupied by less-educated and less wealthy farmers and hunters. When asked to explain why the cameras are needed the response is some version of "counting animals to protect them". Locals understand this as counts today, new regulations tomorrow. Over this is a layer of legal nuance as to land rights. What is listed as wilderness or public space in a government registry may be understood very differently at the local level. So by setting up a camera a researcher can unwittingly aggravate some underlying land dispute. In the worst case, that local "game trail" you want to watch with a camera may also be a local smuggling route.

The answer is that researchers must bring local populations into the project _before_ cameras are used. And when they are installed, the locals need to retain control over their placement and the images they take.

We had a problem with cameras being setup in my area. One day I spotted a few in a local park boarding a watershed (canada, rain forest). Other people walking dogs had noticed at least four more in the area. Nobody knew who was installing them. So someone (not me) setup a hidden camera watching one of the cameras. A local cop was caught swapping the SD card. The cops were using cameras to count mountain bikers riding on trails where bikes were not allowed. Counting today, tickets tomorrow. After this became known the police cameras didn't survive the night.

<comment><USER3> Is that the case here?

<comment><USER4> Looks like it to me. Look at who was involved, at who they are connected with. These are well-educated people operating at an international level. They are rich elites. Then look at who gave them permission to setup cameras: a central government. And their supporters are international organizations. Did they have the support of the local mullah? Did the local police approve the project? Did they hire local hunters to help install the cameras? Who retained the copyright over the images? This looks like the very typical situation I described above.

<comment><USER3> What you cite about this case and what the article says all sounds pretty circumstantial to me as far as your larger theory. To you these look "like" a situation, but there's nothing to indicate it is, or if any of what you feel resembles something else even is that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Great American Single-Family Home Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/business/economy/single-family-home.html <comment><USER3> People are selfish; if they make a big investment and you're about to reduce its value, they will fight tooth and nail. Any conversation about 'right', 'wrong', 'moral', it all goes out the window.

It really sucks that so much of peoples' value is often tied up in a single property. It would be a gobsmackingly terrible investment decision, if you didn't need shelter to live reasonably well.

So let's be clear. These people are being incredibly selfish, and that is reprehensible. But they also don't really have a good alternative that wouldn't lose them a lot of money in a time where, if they're not in the class that owns multiple houses, they're already struggling. And that is sort of ameliorating imo.

<comment><USER4> > But they also don't really have a good alternative that wouldn't lose them a > lot of money in a time where, if they're not in the class that owns multiple > houses, they're already struggling

These people are _property owners in Berkeley, California_. While I'm sure yarns can be spun about the difference between asset value and cash liquidity, this is just not an impoverished class, sorry. They've seen their property values go through the roof, then the trees, now through the first cloud layer into the open sky with eyes toward low orbit. Arguing that they don't have an "alternative" is a little spun.

To wit: cry me a river. Build those homes.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I feel you. But I also feel for people who have worked their whole lives to build towards a comfortable retirement, put their lives' worth of sweat and tears into that, and then had it pulled out from under them.

There's a hyperbole to express on both sides, but I can understand why people who are worth $1-5 million and are past their 50s might feel threatened by this sort of development.

They aren't in a particularly marginalized position, but they are probably frightened about the rapid change and possibly out hundreds of thousands of dollars plus time they don't have.

I agree, build those homes and reduce the power of small groups to put up large barriers, but I also understand where the residents are coming from to some degree.

<comment><USER5> > There's a hyperbole to express on both sides, but I can understand why > people who are worth $1-5 million and are past their 50s might feel > threatened by this sort of development.

They can sell their house and live a life of luxury virtually anywhere else in the world.

I have a hard time sympathizing with such people. They're not out anything—they're amongst the most privileged people in the country.

Sure, I understand where they're coming from. That doesn't mean they have my sympathy. I _understand_ why billionaires advocate for lowering their own taxes—that doesn't mean I give them an ounce of sympathy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I live in a neighborhood built in the early 40s in the East Bay, and is marked red in the NYT article.

This crisis is one of those "You reap what you sow" moments caused in large part by institutionalized racism. It is not hyperbole, I have seen the old covenants included with my parent's house, also in the East Bay, that literally said no POC could live there. These covenants are of course now invalid, but thats where zoning comes to into play.

The rules now latched on by NIMBYs, such as minimum lot sizes, low lot occupancy, low heights etc. were precisely implemented to keep POC from being able to afford to move into largely white suburban neighborhoods. Depending on the racial composition of certain neighborhoods, they would be zoned to allow denser development, or restrict them to SFH. All this combined with lending practices where banks "redlined" neighborhoods that were deemed too full of POC has brought us where we are today, even in the progressive Bay Area [1].

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/books/review/richard- roth...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/books/review/richard-rothstein- color-of-law-forgotten-history.html)

<comment><USER7> _Of the first 67,000 mortgages insured by the G.I. Bill, fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites._ *

It is a figure that makes me want to throw up, and I'm not even black. I feel like this country owes blacks (as a group) probably a few billion dollars in some sense. Barriers to home buying for African Americans constitutes actively preventing them from creating savings and financial security. Homeownership has historically provided half or more of the value of the nest egg for most ordinary (aka not rich) Americans.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I._Bill)

<comment><USER8> > I feel like this country owes blacks (as a group) probably a few billion > dollars in some sense.

This might come as a surprise to you...but this country has exploited many people (immigrants, non-whites, etc.) over the course of history - if the country had to pay for all the wrongs, we'd be bankrupt.

<comment><USER9> > ...but this country

Every country.

Every time this conversation happens, everyone acts like the US is the only country that was ever involved in the slave trade. Almost every nation, including majority-black nations, were guilty of this. Many of them are still engaging in it to this day (there are more slaves right now than there have ever been at any point in history, and relatively few of them are in the US).

What's most exceptional about the US on this subject isn't that we have exploitation and slavery in our history, but that we fought a civil war (with more casualties than any other war in American history) in part to end slavery and that today we're further ahead of virtually every major nation on the planet in terms of race and gender equality.

<comment><USER10> To be fair, the slave markets most in the news _today_ only exist because USA killed Qaddafi after we made a deal to leave him alone once he gave up all his bad weapons.

Yes, I know, he was a bad guy so the good guys (who the hell is _that_?) didn't have to be ethical toward him, by good old American cartoon-character standards. _However_ , he wasn't selling thousands of migrants into slavery so that's something. Also, his continued existence after giving up his weapons had inspired others like DPRK to slow their nuclear roll. After we shoved a bayonet up his ass, they changed their minds...

<comment><USER11> Don't forget the UK and France are just as culpable if not more so with Libya.

<comment><USER10> One supposes you refer to Bernard-Henri Levy, but in general UK and France don't visit the loo without asking USA permission. The war pigs found a useful idiot in BHL, but they don't return his calls anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess I need to be the contrarian again, but unless I was forced to due to financial woes, I would never again willingly live in dense urban housing. Or dense suburban housing. Or even these "townhomes" which is really just a nice upscale-sounding word for "apartments".

I've lived enough of my life sharing a wall or two with neighbors. Smelling their soup. Listening to them have sex. Wondering if their meth cooking was going to burn down our whole building. Having to go for a long walk to find some green space for a kid to play in. Having everyone knowing when I'm coming and going. Screw that.

Let me keep the option of living in a single family home. Build more of them so I'm not confined to a tiny few 1960's-era neighborhoods. I'm fine with having to pay through the nose for a little privacy and a backyard, given the alternative. Go build your apartments and town-homes over in apartment-land. Being able to reach out my window and touch my neighbor's house is NOT a selling point.

<comment><USER13> That's totally fine and dandy. I encourage you to do so.

What I don't suggest is moving to a dense urban area and then complaining about it being a dense urban area.

<comment><USER12> But that's what all this YIMBY stuff is: People wanting to drive bulldozers into existing suburban neighborhoods with 1/2 acre lots and single-family homes, and urbanize them with apartments and townhomes.

But you got yourself a deal: I won't argue for building single family homes in downtown San Francisco (really, who is?) and you don't argue for building apartment complexes in Tracy and Gilroy.

<comment><USER13> Who's talking about bulldozing Tracy? The article is about a three-unit condo in the already dense Berkeley/Emeryville area.

<comment><USER12> To use two extremes. Berkeley is probably somewhere in the middle with some single-family areas and some more urban areas.

<comment><USER14> Only due to the hills and the older homes. Berkeley is an urban area, full stop.

It just doesn't want to acknowledge that due to NIMBYs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You cannot just take all the single family home zones and subdivide them into 3, because the infrastructure needs to expand with it. If you're familiar with Edgewater, NJ, you know what I'm talking about. There is one main road that runs through this town, and you're essentially trapped if something happens to that road.

Seoul tried to address by going to outskirts of the city where land price was much cheaper and essentially built high rise clusters with parks, stores, and modern amenities. They took the, "build it and they will come" approach, with good success. Now some people in city center are kicking themselves in their undeveloped, old residential zones with tight ally.

It took well over 10 years to fully build out subway systems, but you have to start somewhere (literally and figuratively).

</comment><comment><USER16> This sort of thing happened to friends in Berkeley who wanted to add a second floor to a home they bought in a neighborhood already full of 2 story homes. The main neighbor opposing also had a 2 story home, but felt that the proposed second story would take away the visual privacy of their own backyard. The friends prevailed but not without a lot of delays and added costs.

In the end they asked that neighbor why they did it, and turned out that the neighbor obstructed just because they could, as a sort of last stand for their generation in the neighborhood.

On the other hand, places like Portland have made the opposite mistake of extreme (vs incremental) upzoning [1] which also causes housing market problems.

1\. [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/9/revisiting- what...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/9/revisiting-whats-the- matter-with-portland)

<comment><USER17> this article made the author's point more clear to me [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a- ris...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a-rising-tide)

incremental zoning increases is important for actually realizing developments. or at least that is the argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Other objections were particular to Berkeley — like a zoning board member's > complaint that shadows from the homes might hurt the supply of locally grown > food.

Bay Area housing woes summed up in one sentence.

<comment><USER19> When a statement so stupid is argued, you know you have a major problem...

<comment><USER20> It depends on the priorities of the people living there. If economic growth maximization for corporations is your priority, then high-density housing is incredibly important.

If, however, your priority is greenhouse gas emission control and mitigation, then solid locally grown food production would be seen as more important.

<comment><USER21> If you want to curb greenhouse gas emissions, you want to fight sprawl and all the huge car commutes it entails. The easiest way to do that is to allow denser living - including daily necessities withing walking or biking distance. When I lived in Italy, we had withing walking distance: kids schools, grocery store, a few cafes and bars, a barber, a pastry shop and a few other things.

A few urban gardens do not a serious supply chain make: better to preserve real farmland outside of cities.

<comment><USER22> I prefer my sprawl and an electric car over dense urban living.

The US has an enormous amount of farmland (915 million acres; two thirds of all land is farmland) [1], able to provide food for many times our current population. The problem with housing is "What do you want to be near, and how much will you pay to do so?" Try mandating or financially incentivizing remote work to employers, thereby disconnecting geography to income before dictating housing density. San Francisco's problem, for example, is that too many people want to live in the same place. You will never be able to satiate demand to be there (similar to how more roads begets more traffic).

[1] [https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resou...](https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Highlights/Farms_and_Farmland/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf)

<comment><USER21> There's room for everyone is kind of the point - live and let live and all that. Some places would still be suburbs, some still very rural.

<comment><USER20> If there's room for everyone, then why are there locations where it costs $3k/month for a studio apartment? What do you think causes such insane prices?

<comment><USER23> There's room for everyone in the country as a whole. Hell, there's room for everyone who currently lives in California in California as a whole. The problem is that too many people want to live in certain smaller parts.

<comment><USER24> It turns out that in the modern economy, life is sustained by proximity to other people and productive economic activity, not dirt.

That we'd all fit if the dirt were evenly divided among us is irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How about legislating a carrot rather than a stick - e.g. every housing unit within a given radius gets an annual $1000 rebate on their property tax if new, affordable housing is built within their neighborhood? As it stands today there is no perceived short-term benefit for home owners to support new development. No matter how many well heeled YIMBY groups sprout up, they will always be far outnumbered by local homeowners.

<comment><USER26> It is actually not correct that homeowners in SF outnumbers renters. 65% of the population are renters.

Because of prop 13 property taxes are also fixed and decreases to nothing as the property depreciates over 29 years. Prop 13 in effect removed much of homeowners incentive to support policies that promote development.

<comment><USER27> But many renters are opposed to increasing housing stock, no?

<comment><USER28> Hardly any renters in San Francisco are market rate renters. Market rate raters are the only ones who directly benefit if the market rate comes down.

<comment><USER26> Not necessarily. Life situations change so a rent control tenant might need to find a new place or people they love might need to. For instance

* get children

* get grandchildren they want to be close with while their child can't afford to live next door because of inflated rents caused by housing shortages

* become old and need to live in a building adapted to their needs

*their friends might move away because of high housing costs

Reducing prices solves these problems.

<comment><USER28> Oh, I totally agree, rent control makes it hard to move and that's terrible, we should have many more market renters and we should build enough to keep market rates reasonable. I'm just saying the political coalition isn't really there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Join your local YIMBY group! There are so many extremely polarized, "trench warfare" issues in politics. I feel this is one where there's room for real, bipartisan progress.

[https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use- regula...](https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regulations/)

"Reforming local land use controls is one of those rare areas in which the libertarian and the progressive agree. The current system restricts the freedom of the property owner, and also makes life harder for poorer Americans. The politics of zoning reform may be hard, but our land use regulations are badly in need of rethinking."

<comment><USER29> YIMBY should be YIYBY

<comment><USER30> And NIMBY should be niyby, what's your point? That decisions affect many people with different ideas?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't see how this problem can be solved in the short-run with anything other than money. Just buy out the entire neighborhood, raze all the houses, put up huge complexes and bake in the price of the beforementioned behavior into the new rent.

Doing this a house at a time is a fruitless effort. The neighbors will crush you -- rightfully so (why shouldn't the people who own propery have a say?). It sucks, but it seems like that's how it is.

EDIT:

The only interesting thing here is that people are so fixated on just a few spots in this country. You'd think the natural conclusion of this would be employers going to the cheaper areas and this problem would solve itself.

<comment><USER32> > It sucks, but it seems like that's how it is.

But maybe not how it should be? You own your plot of land... I don't see how it's reasonable for you to claim any control over how other owners use their plot(s) of land, within reason. If a building proposal fits within the current zoning, the default should be approval. I don't think it's reasonable for neighbors to be able to kill a project over shadows on their vegetables.

<comment><USER31> The problem with this is that zoning is inherently political. Even if it fits into the "current zoning" the neighbors will just change it.

<comment><USER33> That's exactly what we did in our neighborhood: change the zoning to disallow structures with more than one story.

<comment><USER34> You changed the rules after you got yours. Good for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Zoning laws more like Japan's would be useful here...

(former submission)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845)

[http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese- zoning.html](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html)

My take on staying low impact would be to encourage single-story //above// ground development, and require underground spaces for each building (potentially shared), including parking.

<comment><USER36> building underground is much more expensive (developers like to say 10X more, but that's probably a gross exaggeration to make us feel sorry for those poor developers), but i'm all for building parking underground in urban areas, even potentially for single family homes. put a good chunk of powered transportation underground and you could create more green space (for people and pets, to walk, exercise, play, bike, etc.).

to make that happen, cities should price in the cost of street parking (one of the externalities that developers try to take advantage of, in their arguments about the high cost of parking ordinances). for instance, require every car parking on the street to have a neighborhood permit (many municipalities do this, but not widely). price the permits progressively. make each additional permit per household more expensive. use the funds to maintain both roads and public green space.

as LA did in the 50's(?) in downtown bunker hill, on major thoroughfares, you could have two levels of streets, one at ground level and one underground. underground streets could have direct access to underground parking structures.

in higher density areas, you could even build single family homes on _top_ of mixed-use, multi-story buildings. it wouldn't be quite the same, but for many, it would be the best of both worlds.

ps - i saw the japanese zoning article the first time around and thought it was intriguing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> All of this could be solved if most companies embraced remote workers. I mean how old fashioned does it seem for a tech company to require most employees to move everything they own so they could waste weeks of the year driving back and forth to a building and mostly sit by themselves not talking to anyone the vast majority of every day?

In 100 years, it will seem as silly as archaic as making your own clothes rather than buying them.

<comment><USER38> There is value in face-to-face conversation, and while software solutions like Google Hangouts help bridge the gap to some extent, they don't eliminate it entirely. There may be some advantages to yield with VR, but even at its current state, it can't replicate the real world. It's likely we'll start to see direct neural interfaces before we actually have means to replicate the face-to-face aspect that remote work sorely misses out on.

<comment><USER37> Yes, there is value, but IMO, it's nowhere near what it costs directly in dollars not only the employer, but all the employees. I mean they are essentially doubling everyone's salary in the big SV companies, just so they can meet "face-to-face," on rare occasions.

<comment><USER39> From my experience, remote work can easily be less than half as productive as non-remote work (if done over many weeks). I doubt every valley company is wrong in trying to maximize same office time.

<comment><USER40> I have similar experiences. Try to have a design whiteboarding session remotely...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I guess the bottom line is that homeowners are never going to stop fighting growth in their neighborhoods and are never going to be swayed over to the YIMBY viewpoint. And people who can't afford housing are going to continue trying to implement measures that might make housing more affordable for them and will never give credit to the NIMBY viewpoint.

This is not a problem that can be solved by piecemeal legislation or random lawsuits. It is also inextricably tied to effective mass transportation and needs regional planning, legislation, and funding over the next couple of decades. We should be designating major swaths of the Bay Area as urban corridors with high density housing, world class rail service, and highly incentivized job centers. We would also need to overpay the existing residents in the path of these new urban corridors with either shiny new digs in the luxury high rises or well above market buyouts.

We need a regional leader who can articulate and sell this vision to all the residents and politicians of the Bay Area, not just the young, professional city dwellers. The approach has got to be a win-win investment that every type of person sees some benefit with (even if that benefit is "great, focus all the city folk to those corridors and stop bugging me about changing my neighborhood").

<comment><USER41> Whenever people fantasize about some mysterious fourth "regional" level of government in the Bay Area, it is always assumed that this plays to their advantage...that someone from San Francisco will hold sway over the suburbs and impose their will.

But San Jose is larger by population...if you propose that this same layer of government instead be centered in San Jose, all of a sudden people lose interest.

If three levels of government can't get anything done, how will four help?

In any case this "regional" government already exists in the form of transit agencies, utilities, waste and water districts, etc....I see very few people clamoring to give the bureaucrats of BART any more power.

<comment><USER42> You don't seem to understand. The point of a regional authority is that it could play fair and spread the necessary changes. Most people in the bay area agree we need more housing already, they just want it in a different neighborhood or different city, hence the use of the term NIMBY. But when almost all of the cities push the problem onto someone else, nobody does anything. A regional authority could spread out the development appropriately.

<comment><USER43> I think OP understands fine: a regional government will be unpopular unless it benefits you. SF has money and influence, San Jose has population. Oakland and Santa Clara will simply reject this out of hand since it's less likely they will be adequately represented. If the issue wasn't so highly politicized, then sure, it's a great idea, but ultimately it will fall victim to the same problem local governments have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Around the country, many fast-growing metropolitan areas are facing a brutal shortage of affordable places to live, leading to gentrification, homelessness, even disease._

Nice to see someone say that there is an actual connection between insane housing prices and homelessness. Most discussions of homelessness frame it as if it is merely a personal problem, like people on the street are merely junkies and losers and not in any way, shape or form victims of something gone bad wrong with the fabric of society. And most discussions of housing problems in the US don't really acknowledge that this issue is pertinent to the folks on the street.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you're interested in this issue, Vox has a good explainer on it: [https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing- explained](https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained).

This problem has substantial costs throughout the U.S., too: [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/new...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/new- hsieh-moretti-paper-land-use-restrictions-economic-growth.html) : "Using a spatial equilibrium model and data from 220 metropolitan areas we find that __these constraints lowered aggregate US growth by more than 50% __from 1964 to 2009. "

</comment><comment><USER45> This might be an unpopular opinion here. It seems a general sentiment here in HN is that building more houses will result in a lower home price.

I'm not so sure if that's always going to be the case. Increased supply could very well turn San Francisco into cities like Hong Kong or New York - <USER2> houses but just as expensive.

If you think the current San Francisco as a small bucket full of water, will increase the size of the bucket stop the water from being full? well, that will depend on out how much water out there that wants to flow in right? If there are more water wants to come in than the size increase, you will just end up with a bigger bucket full of water.

<comment><USER24> I don't understand. Are you asserting that the set people who are willing to move to San Francisco and pay $X/mo grows and shrinks with San Francisco's housing supply? By what mechanism?

Certainly the set of people who are willing to move to SF and pay $Y < $X is larger, but then SF is not "just as expensive" anymore if it achieves rent $Y. If rents start to rise up towards $X again, then the pool of people willing to move here shrinks accordingly.

<comment><USER24> I thought about this some more... maybe the price dips slightly in the short term, which lets a few more engineers in. These incremental engineers take the tech industry over an inflection point, meaning it's now ravenous for engineers and paying them enough for rent $Z > $X. Is this what people mean when they say they're concerned that more housing would not lower the price?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would care about this issue more if it wasn't just a handful of cities in the country experiencing economic growth. However, there are probably hundreds of cities in the midwest declining while the remaining jobs continue to be centralized.

Instead of finding ways to pack more people into those handful of cities, why not spread the economic development out a bit? That would improve quality of life for the people of an area while reducing regional inequality at the same time.

<comment><USER24> Because we don't have central planning in this country. There is no public policy lever that makes Google and Facebook happen in Detroit and Cleveland instead of Mountain View and Palo Alto.

Housing is such a clusterfuck because we've decided to centrally plan where people live (claiming they should be uniformly dispersed over the country) while leaving in place a system of economic growth that overwhelmingly tends towards centralization.

<comment><USER46> No reason that couldn't be the case, and there's some history of that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_List](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_List)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_\(economics\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Berkeley recently made it easier to build accessory dwelling units on a residential lot [http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/03/20/new-laws-make-even- ea...](http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/03/20/new-laws-make-even-easier-build- backyard-cottages-berkeley/). I think people are pricing this in when they're buying property in Berkeley now - people who have the cash to invest in building these structures are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the next best offers if the property has a good sized yard.

Sonja Trauss sure gets mentioned in a lot of articles for her work at the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation. No surprise to see she's running for Supervisor now.

</comment><comment><USER48> "Kurt Caudle, a neighbor of 1310 Haskell, grows tomatoes, squash and greens outside his back door. He worries that denser development on the adjoining lot could obstruct sunlight for his garden."

Oh, the horror!

<comment><USER33> As an outsider, it's easy to dismiss this.

But now think if you happen to live on just that one plot of land in the street, right next to the development, that will now be in the shadow of the new building.

Would you be happy about it?

I wouldn't, and neither would you.

<comment><USER49> It doesn't matter if he's happy about it. The owners of the land are doing what they are legally entitled to. Right to light is repudiated in the US.

If having a garden is a high priority for him, he has several options. He could buy the plot of land from the developer for $1.4MM or he could move to an area more amenable to gardening.

<comment><USER33> In the context of a belittleing "Oh, the horror", it's perfectly acceptable to argue that he has he right to not be happy about it.

<comment><USER48> It's fine to be unhappy. The distinction is whether or not you use your slight dissatisfaction as reason enough to take away their rights as a property owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Yeah I'm on the side of the residents that have lived there for a long time and want to keep it low density single family.

Surely they have more rights that people moving to the bay area. If they want to keep things as they are that should be all that counts.

Yes replacing these suburbs with medium or high density housing will temporarily reduce prices and allow more people to move there but why should current residents have to sacrifice their lifestyle?

<comment><USER51> Do you feel the same way about national or state level immigration?

> If they want to keep things as they are that should be all that counts.

I'm of many minds about both your original statement as well as, to me, the obviously related immigration issues. There's no obvious right answer, to me. Conflict is inevitable!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> When I first started reading about housing affordability, I was all for the kinds of upzoning this article (among many others like it) is advocating. Today I still believe it would be an effective approach to improving housing affordability, but some recurrent gaps in logic have started to bug me, so today I avoid the debate rather than take part, or rather stand on the sidelines and cast aspersions, like this:

\- there's a lack of deep investigation and analysis into why people prefer single-family neighborhoods so strongly; the few articles that do go into the social and psychological picture tend to be ultra-leftist and include such themes as "anti-privacy" which I'm obviously against

\- the debate over housing types is tied to the debate over transportation types, and there's no representation for people who agree modern houses are too big but still prefer to own a car (even if we don't use them all the time)

\- the whole conversation is pretty much set up and run (on both sides) by people who aren't severely affected by any of the policies they're advocating, and who will be able to afford the lifestyle they want regardless of what policy passes, even if it might force them to take two annual trips to Jackson Hole instead of three

\- truly unique ideas have a tendency to get lost in the fray, like even if you run the one of most popular blogs in urban planning and propose a solution to housing prices in (e.g.) Portland [1], the typical voter will never ever hear about your idea, nobody will ever turn it into a workable policy or perform a serious analysis of what it might do, and legislators won't give it a moment's thought, so why are we even posting about this (I'll throw in my $0.02 -- green roofs should count at least partially towards open space requirements)

\- the fact that some people just don't like certain kinds of people, motivated by race, religion, lifestyle, politics, aesthetic sensibilities, or even vocation, is always bubbling beneath the surface

\- it's not clear how we're going to modify political, legal, and educational systems so that if people ever DO accept sensible growth policies, they're doing it because they understand it will improve their lives and not because they've been threatened or bribed or shamed into genuflecting in the presence of economists

1: [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a- ris...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a-rising-tide)

</comment><comment> Chiba-City Think schedules, skills and resources against relocation patterns and not just proportions abstracted from schedules. Think of the housing industry as a CPU. Think of babies as data coming across buses and switches. Never forget mortgage deductions were never states of "American dream" grace but subsidized and still subsidize wealthier purchasers. Tons of Americans purchased and are still purchasing depreciating "Levittown" type assets all over the USA. We are not just cutting ribbons for bad purchases. All the policy details matter where and when they matter. Rentals are just as important as purchases. Many Americans move quite frequently and do not enjoy corporation relocation bonuses.

</comment><comment><USER53> So what's stopping the Bay Area from growing out onto uninhabited land instead of trying to pack the existing areas even more densely?

<comment><USER54> The uninhabited land you speak of is:

* mountains: expensive to build on, definitely not a good place for affordable housing

* water: in the past 100+ years there has been substantial build-out onto the Bay. Any further encroachments are met with stiff resistance.

* far: to get past the above 2 difficulties, you're looking at an hour+ to get to SF. Things are (relatively) affordable in Sacramento, if you're willing to deal with that commute.

It's a beautiful but cursed geography, this SF Bay area.

And then there's this, from the article: "Neighborhoods in which single-family homes make up 90 percent of the housing stock account for a little over half the land mass in both the Bay Area and Los Angeles metropolitan areas", so there is an understandable urge to increase density in some of those SFH areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> > The house at 1310 Haskell Street does not look worthy of a bitter > neighborhood war.

That often happens to people unfamiliar with Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER56> Why is it that people think new construction needs to be affordable? Of course new construction is going to be expensive, it's new. You can still increase the number of affordable housing by only building "luxury" apartments through filtering. Rich people move to the new apartments, then less rich people move to their apartments...and so on.

</comment><comment><USER57> I never understood the density issue. If remote work becomes a default hiring practice, this will not be a problem. Nobody is going to fight to stay close to work. I see this in Manhattan, people struggle commuting from NJ/Connecticut/PA to come to the city for work. Why not address it in a different way?

<comment><USER58> Remote work is extremely difficult to get. There are few remote positions available.

<comment><USER59> ^^ So many companies are managed by people that seem to absolutely require you to be butt-in-seat or else they assume you will turn into an island or not get any work done, despite all evidence to the contrary.

About a year ago I decided I was going to stop moving around the country chasing opportunities and move to a place I actually wanted to live, assuming I'd be able to get reasonable remote work. My salary fell from $180K to $60K because it was impossible to find suitable remote work after 6 months of looking and I got stuck at a local small-time outfit. Hell just take a look at the "Who's Hiring" post on the homepage, even in the tech space remote work is basically non-existent.

<comment><USER57> That's really sad state of affairs. Thank you for sharing your story and good luck with your gigs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> There is another whole side to prices, and that is demand. Decrease the demand, and you decrease the prices. I haven't researched the issue in depth, but what I did research seemed to show that demand has at least as much effect on prices as supply.

So, how do you decrease demand? For one, prevent non-citizens from purchasing property. That is common in the rest of the world.

But, if you're not a fan of that, you can still decrease demand by encouraging growth in other urban areas - give out grants, economic development, tax incentives, education funding, infrastructure funding, etc.

And, if that doesn't work, then just make high-demand areas less attractive. Some of that would just work out naturally as wages increase and services become more expensive.

I respect the NYT, but I can't help but wonder if the building and development industry influenced this.

<comment><USER61> The author is a homeowner whose parents have also owned a house in Noe Valley kitty corner to one of Airbnb founders. He's a massive beneficiary of the status quo system who also happens to think that it needs to change given that more and more Californians are being born every day and that we should change our land-use and infrastructure to be even more inclusive, not less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Well, given the Trump tax plan has passed both houses, I expect it to affect any state with high taxes, be they income (California/NY) or property (Texas). Who needs a double-taxed carrying cost like this? House prices will likely drop IMO.

</comment><comment><USER63> I am wondering why there are no laws forcing cities to add residental capcity for every new job created/office building built. It should be obvious, that if the number of jobs in a city grows significantly, you have to have more residental space, or you will have a real estate price hike and a traffic problem at your hand. In many places, building permits could be limited to mixed office/appartment buildings, or alternatively, the permits should be possible only if the city can show corresponding residental developments (it would be up to the city how much they would charge the office space developer for this).

</comment><comment><USER64> Zoning and housing development affect a large portion of household spending. Municipal elections typically have terribly turnout.

Would a prize for tweeting your photo at polling place improve turnout? Change policies?

<comment><USER26> In the bay area renters vote in lockstep with landlords/homeowners. Breaking that by helping educating renters on how developers interests largely align with theirs and that landlord/homeowner interests often doesn't is by far the biggest impact we can make. In politics it is all about the coalitions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Its much more likely about the degradation in the quality of life if you were not thinking about moving in the near future than improving your investment. Its likely not about the one bungalow getting converted to 3 townhouses its the 10 more bungalows on the same block (that already has minimal parking) that will get converted once the first 3 townhouses sell for $1.5M each.

And then your house will get re-appraised for higher and your property taxes will go up, all while you were busy planting tomatoes.

Here's an example of what happens when there is a rapid increase in density in a formerly suburban town with minimal transit options: [https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/12/02/traffic- mess-...](https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/12/02/traffic-mess- gridlocks-palo-alto-for-hours)

'The number of exhaust-spewing vehicles lined up in front of Downtown North and the Crescent Park homes was stunning, even to residents who endure heavy traffic in those neighborhoods.

"Last night was similar what happens most weeknights on Middlefield, just on steroids and over a wider area. There were double lanes of traffic on the four blocks of Middlefield north from about 3:30 to after 7:30 p.m. I did not see exactly when it cleared," said John Guislin, who has been working for years on traffic-calming measures along Middlefield.

"I had planned to go out to do errands but was completely blocked from leaving my driveway. Remember, Middlefield has two lanes in each direction, so backing out is extremely difficult because even if a car in the curb lane stops for you, the center lane can't see you until it's too late." he said.'

Silicon Valley VCs and YCombinator need to encourage growth where there is existing mass transit and the infrastructure/city services can support 20 story residential. They should definitely look south toward San Jose (BART, High Speed Rail).

Watch this PBS news hour segment starting at minute 7. [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ever-growing-tech- giants-h...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ever-growing-tech-giants-have- changed-the-pace-and-price-of-life-in-silicon-valley)

</comment><comment><USER66> Here is my current thinking as an alternative to regular large single family homes: [https://i.imgur.com/7Gx4MMb.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7Gx4MMb.jpg) . I explain the picture at the bottom of this comment.

My take on this is to compare the types of proposed lot layouts in the article where they have three almost normal sized buildings per plot instead of one, with the "tiny house" concept. If people aren't aware, "tiny house" is a really interesting concept that you may want to google. I would argue the sustainability of tiny homes is more of a plus than a primary reason for most people really, but since people are sustainability-minded and for practical purposes, some of these homes do not have wet toilets and instead have composting toilets.

The reason people are going for tiny homes is because of the lack of affordable "normal-size" housing. So, if people are willing to buy a house that is actually tiny and does not have a flush feature, maybe the next step up is a quite small but not tiny two-story house that has normal features like flush toilets.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Details on picture:

So I have been thinking for awhile along the lines of the article, but my buildings are two stories, fairly small but not quite "tiny", and have more space between them, which is explicitly dedicated to something like permaculture in order to be more sustainable. They are built with space-saving furniture and designed somewhat similarly to tiny-homes, except they have two full floors.

As noted in the picture, I am proposing much more living space than is available in tiny homes.

The permaculturish part means that the landscaping is designed to produce food. So the large circles on the picture are dwarf fruit or nut trees, the smaller circles berry and nut bushes (like American filbert for example). The rectangular strip is something like walking onion or maybe another perennial like yam. Around the entire property is an artificial raceway stream/pond with paddles to keep the water moving. This artificial stream/pond is used to farm a few fish. There are also one or two chickens on the property to produce eggs.

The furniture can be things like wall beds that convert to sofas for downstairs, wall beds that convert to desks for upstairs. The construction would use SIPs and HRV/ERV. The raceway pond could also have a pipe at the bottom for purposes of geothermal cooling/heating for the buildings. The buildings would have solar panels on the top of course.

</comment><comment><USER67> Having grown up in a large single family home that was built in the 60's, I've enjoyed great freedom thanks to the privacy in the large garden surrounding our house. After marriage I moved cities and live in a small duplex with a really tiny private garden and a common community space. I must say I do not miss the space of the large independent house. The need of the hour today is functional living for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER68> Replace state and/or federal income taxes with a LVT (land value tax). Its egregious that a single family home in downtown Portland cost $5000 a year in property taxes. You'll deduct that amount in interest every year. Its essentially free for people to take up space.

</comment><comment><USER69> If you are truly interested in the moral and economic arguments around this topic, i strongly recommend Progress and Poverty from henry george from before the 1900's.

With that in your arsenal you understand that this is a political issue.

<comment><USER46> The more appropriate as George was from and writing about San Francisco, in large part.

<comment><USER69> "Land in New York is more valuable than in San Francisco; and in New York, the San Franciscan may see squalor and misery that will make him stand aghast."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Talk about treating the symptoms. The root cause is the sprawl of business insisting on locating themselves in The Bay Area / Silicon Valley. Want to solve the housing problem? Limit commercial space.

</comment><comment><USER71> > What [the press] says is important usually isn't.

Really? I know a certain President who emphatically agrees, but in my experience what the more serious parts of the press say is important very much is.

</comment><comment><USER72> The fun thing is that it increased adoptions of EVs in the short term. It is easier to design a building for them in the beginning than to add it after it is constructed.

<comment><USER73> Is putting in a 240V outlet that hard? It seems easy if the house has room to park next to it.

Meanwhile in San Mateo County, everyone parks on the street for free when that land should be just as valuable as their $2 million houses.

<comment><USER72> I am talking about apartments not houses, which was my point.

<comment><USER74> It's still not hard, one can use apparent ducts and sockets (instead of embedding both in the walls and ceilings). The main difficulty with apartments is social: since the garage is a shared space, it has to be approved at a meeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> A rental-proportionate value tax might make all of these problems dissapear. As time passes I find Henry George's idea to be better and better everyday.

</comment><comment><USER75> 50 units a megaproject? Several thousands in one building would be a megaproject. 50 units is what's considered a boutique low-rise development in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER76> HN really loves their housing problems of california (or new york) articles...

I'm surprised everyone's not tired of the same news over and over again.

<comment><USER77> I pay the same absurd rent over and over again, so no, I'm not tired of talking about how it's a problem.

<comment><USER78> And it sounds like you are quite willing as well as able to pay that high rent over and over again. If it was really so unaffordable and so absurd, you'd be living in a more affordable area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> As an aside, I love how the one picture of the new construction just randomly includes a guy zooming by in the foreground on a cargo bicycle, as if the photographer didn't sit there for a while waiting for one to go by so he could snap his picture. Gotta throw all the Berkeley stereotypes in there while you can, I guess.

<comment><USER80> Waiting for 15 minutes for a cyclist to go by is pretty minor in terms of what a professional photographer will go through to snap a good picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Tax land and smoke the boomers out their oversized houses.

Voila.

</comment><comment><USER82> Single family homes are historically how populations insulate themselves from the consequences of the policies the NYT advocates. On a macro scale, they're a defensive architecture. They make your neighborhood expensive enough that the population is (by selection) wealthy enough to ensure sufficiently low crime rates and sufficiently Good Schools, with enough geographic buffer to survive natural population movements.

<comment><USER73> Single family suburbia was partly created to spread out the population in case of nuclear attacks, but mostly so you wouldn't have to see any black people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Right, American Sprawl has to be put out of its misery. The Nuclear Family - as in born under the angst of MAD - and it's millions of little castles and fake porticos is over, but beware the European madness of the likes of Courbusier, the banlieues, and the speculative investments aiming at stuffing millions with expensive mortgages and lifetime obligations.

<comment><USER84> > Right, American Sprawl has to be put out of its misery.

Don't want a single-family suburban home? Don't buy one.

Your tastes are not those of others, and you don't get to tell them how they should live.

<comment><USER85> I would argue that is it still in everyone's best interest to curb sprawl. Taxpayers are still paying for highways and infrastructure to go out into suburbs where we could instead be spending it in a more efficient manner: in an urban environment. I could go on and on about the negative externalities of sprawl (pollution, obesity, etc.), but money is typically at the top of the list of motivating factors for the voting public.

<comment><USER84> "Taxpayers are still paying for highways and infrastructure to go out into suburbs"

You mean highways that go to where they want to go?

"could instead be spending it in a more efficient manner: in an urban environment"

Well, we could be spending it all on barracks where we all sleep in bunks and eat in military-style chow halls. That would be even more efficient, right?

"Efficiency" is not the primary purpose of human life. It's probably not even in the top ten.

<comment><USER86> The real problem is that people don't realize how expensive all that infrastructure actually is: [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the- real-reason...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason- your-city-has-no-money)

The suburban lifestyle needs to be subsidized in order to be sustainable, but good luck getting people to keep up with proper infrastructure investment. Even cities are failing at it ([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york- subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway- system-failure-delays.html)), but suburbs have even more infrastructure to maintain with a much smaller tax base.

<comment><USER84> > The suburban lifestyle needs to be subsidized

All infrastructure is subsidized, including the lifestyle so beloved by young urban hipsters with no children. So?

Lafayette, Louisiana is in trouble because it had an oil boom followed by an oil bust.

And the idea of dividing up regions of the city by whether they "make a profit" or not is, to be blunt, just goofy. Yeah, revenue is generated in the industrial and business regions of town rather than in the residential regions. That's...unsurprising.

To expand a bit, imagine a block that has a branch of Bank of America, five apartment buildings, a small park, and a clinic operated by a non-profit.

Using the exact technique shown in your article (but on a smaller scale), the BofA branch would have a huge green spike, while all of the others would be red.

By the "reasoning" in the article, everyone except BofA should have their taxes raised.

Umm... no.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Attn iPhone Devs: Is there a marketplace for buying & selling iPhone app IP? - <AUTHOR>

... in the case where you have an iPhone app that has done relatively well on AppStore but you'd like to sell the IP over to a corporate buyer?  Is there a B2B eBay for iPhone devs to sell their software? <comment><USER2> I remember <http://flippa.com/> allows that. Just list your app's site for sale and include your app. Check with them.</comment>


My experience learning IPFS and publishing my personal website - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/N4RKKHSyZlk <comment><AUTHOR> I've been meaning to update my personal website for a while - and learning IPFS gave me a great excuse to get started!

I had a great time learning IPFS basics and getting something published. I'm a total n00b with this stuff - but the IPFS learning resources were great.

I wrote a blog post too: [http://justinpoliachik.com/posts/2020-03_ipfs_website/](http://justinpoliachik.com/posts/2020-03_ipfs_website/)

Working on a Part 2 where I talk about building the blog and publishing via GitHub Actions.

Feedback welcome! Let me know if I missed any technical details...

<comment><USER2> You don't seem to actually talk about where the data is stored. Someone on IPFS has to pin your content, who is doing that? Or you're running your own node + gateway to serve the content? (I only read the blogpost, not a fan of video content, so maybe you answered it in the video)

<comment><AUTHOR> I could run my own node, but I opted to use pinata.cloud instead.

<comment><USER2> Ok, so in the end, what are you really using IPFS for here? You might as well gone with Netlify and ask people to do `wget --mirror` and you would have built exactly the same thing, albeit not on experimental technology, am I right?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python is Beautiful - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/22036016858/python-is-beautiful

<comment><USER2> I am a Python and JavaScript developer myself, recently getting into Go, but I took a look at Ruby not too long ago and was really impressed how beautiful Ruby code looked. I do not really have a reason to use Ruby, I feel like Python and JavaScript+node.js satisfy my scripting needs, but I wonder why Python seems to be so popular given how nice Ruby seemed. Just came around a little too late?

<comment><USER3> I remember trying Ruby out years ago and being turned off by a REPL I couldn't understand (Python's REPL was excellent) and a lot of Perlisms in the syntax (e.g: sigil support, regexps built-into syntax). Going back from indentation based syntax was also a minus.

More recently, when I looked at Ruby, I was somewhat turned off by the use of code blocks as a building block, rather than lexically scoped functions. I find functions simpler to compose and reason about than code-blocks, and found it peculiar that functions were expressed on top of blocks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are a few more that a believed to be using Python in the backend Path and Turntable.fm

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd have loved to see a link to the original allegation.

This is one of those nonsense things to me, as there is really very little tying the backend programming language to the presentation layer, except at the bottom, where people are still using the generic Django stylesheets and the like.

In short, that Instagram is pretty has nothing to do with it having been built in Python. It could even be that pretty if it were built in C, or Java, or even (gasp) ASP Classic.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly what I am trying to get at with the post; for him to say python applications are ugly is ridiculous. <http://grokcode.com/746/dear- python-why-are-you-so-ugly/>

<comment><USER4> I get it, but it feels like fighting nonsense with more nonsense though.

Regardless, while I'll grant that most of his assertions are at least true as presented, some of those are questionable - specifically, and maybe I'm the outlier, but I've always thought that the Heroku page was downright ugly, and I much prefer the AppEngine homepage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the point is to combat the ideal that python applications are ugly. It may be nonsense but that isn't a prequisite in forming opinions in people's minds.

<comment><USER4> That, I 100% understand. I didn't mean to imply that somebody didn't need to respond, it just makes me sad that somebody did have to.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


5 Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/five-economic-reforms-millennials-should-be-fighting-for-20140103

<comment><USER2> is this a joke?</comment>


Show HN: Nifty Gifts - Share your Unique Gift Ideas To Help Each Other Out - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure everyone has this problem, most of my friends have a lot of cool stuff already so I'm always on the lookout for nifty gift ideas.
I came across these hand-made little sound devices which is a cool gadget for both kids and adults with music/sound interests: https://www.etsy.com/shop/brandnewnoise?ref=l2-shopheader-name
Anyway, was wondering if others have found unique gifts that they would like to share with everyone, it's hard to find good gifts for our loved ones so let's help each other out! <comment><USER2> Not Show HN.

Anyway, my sources for finding gifts are:

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

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

[https://quarterly.co/](https://quarterly.co/)

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

I used to watch ThinkGeek but honestly they're pretty lame.

</comment><comment><USER3> Agree with eglover, this isn't Show HN.

I like:

[http://gadgetsin.com/](http://gadgetsin.com/) [http://thegadgetflow.com/](http://thegadgetflow.com/)

And Kickstarter's design and technology sections often have interesting stuff.</comment>


Ask HN: Founders whose startups failed, what happens to VC/angel relationships? - <AUTHOR>

Do they keep in touch with you? Are they open to new ideas? How do you keep your relationships going post failure? <comment><USER2> The truth is, when you fail, your investors tend to have a bad taste in their mouths. Nobody likes to lose money. Nobody likes to be wrong. Nobody likes to sit in that space that isn't so happy…and unfortunately for a founder, his person at the point of failure is an embodiment of many things that nobody likes. Now sure, an investor doesn't dislike the founder himself. If the founder does right and doesn't succeed, there is no "black ball", or malevolent desires on behalf of an investor…but I'd be lying if I said there isn't a slight tinge on that relationship…and unfortunately, in this world, a slight tinge is all the friction necessary to turn momentum into something less. Note: this tinge is not permanent, and it is not insurmountable…but coming off a failure…you are only as good as your next act…and weather we say it openly or not, clawing your way to the next act, you are starting not at neutral or positive, but with a headwind.

I'll give the example of my own experience as a founder. My first company, I raised about $600K. I operated for a year, failed, and returned about 50% of the capital I raised. I felt terrible. Everyone said I did the right thing returning the capital, that I was a standup guy for doing it, but still I lost them money. Nobody turned their back on me, once the company wound down…but they just weren't leaning into investing more time and energy on me. When I went to raise money for my second company, Hyperpublic, weather I asked them or not, not a single investor in my first company invested in my second. Just gives you a sense of the increased friction you face, coming off a failure. Sure I was able to raise money from new investors, but I had to answer the question "is so and so from your last company investing?" and so on. New investors call old investors and say "What do you think of Jordan?" Of course, again, investors who lose $ with you don't "blackball" you, so they say "stand up guy, did the right thing, etc…" but still their signal of not reaching out to put $ into the next thing becomes something a founder has to overcome.

[http://jordancooper.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/what-really- hap...](http://jordancooper.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/what-really-happens-when- you-fail-in-startupland/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing your story and being candid about it. You only hear of the uber success in the news and everybody feels good. But the reality is most VC funded companies fail or under perform expectations and the few winners hit homerun and make up for everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you're going to get a range of answers simply due to the diversity of people and their personalities.

If you crash and burn miserably due to factors that you realistically could and should have known about and been able to control, your VC's probably won't be open to any new ideas from you - keeping in touch and a personal relationship would depend on the people in question and how much they like you as a person.

If you gave it your best and failed for reasons outside your control, or because of things realistically the VC couldn't expect you to predict, it's more likely they would be open to future endeavors.

At the same time though, you are going to have some VC's that if you fail, that's it, end of relationship - many probably have more tact than just deleting your phone number and ignoring you, but in their minds you will become a much lower priority.

Conversely, I've seen some people who just have a great personality that form a legitimate friendship with a VC that no matter how bad that person failed (this instance was quite bad) the VC still loved this person.

tl;dr: People have very different personalities - it's all dependent on the nature of the specific relationships in question.

</comment><comment><USER5> I forgot who wrote about this publicly, but I remember reading that an investor whose money you've lost in the past is far more likely to fund you in the future than one you've never met. I thought that was kind of funny, and having succeeded once and failed twice, I can now say that it's true.

Also, as an entrepreneur when doing diligence on whether to accept an investment, I always lookup some of their failed investments and contact the founder. I want to know how the investor behaved when things were going poorly. It's a much better indicator of whether you want to work with them then the padded references they give you (especially when it's to companies that badly want the investor to follow-on in their next round).

Posted anonymously as losing someone's money is still something I prefer to not be associated with.

<comment><USER6> _Posted anonymously as losing someone 's money is still something I prefer to not be associated with._

I try not to post this on every thread, but this kind of thing is horrible. I am talking about the reason OP have to post anonymously.

<comment><USER7> Have you lost anybody's money?

<comment><USER8> an investor isn't just anybody, it's someone who has signed on for the risk inherently involved in investment for a chance at larger rewards.

There is (should be) less moral obligation since an investor should be more acutely aware of this risk than a regular old person off the street.

I would feel terrible losing someone's money who didn't realize it was an option to lose; an investor should not be capable of being that person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ron Conway had invested in this startup Ev Williams was doing before Twitter that did not work out. Ev Williams returned money to Ron Conway, and I believe the story goes Ron said he would invest in whatever startup Williams starts next. That happened to be Twitter in which Ron Conway invested.

I guess the moral of this story is to do the right thing. This may sound cliche', but sometimes doing the right thing may be the most courageous thing to do.

<comment><USER10> Maybe this is a dumb question, but do most failed startups still have enough capital to repay seed investors when the founder pulls the plug?

I wonder if there's a more subtle lesson in that story about knowing when to quit.

<comment><USER11> We did have about 1/5th of our angel money left when we decided to call it quits. There were a number of reasons for doing so at that time. Primarily, the remaining money would not have gotten us to where we wanted to be and we were not able to raise more money due to our inexperience (first time founders). We did return the remaining amount because that's the right thing to do. No need to burn bridges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thais is a very good question. As much as you need their cash, you also need their connections and friendship. I would love to see the answers for this question.</comment>


Time Inc.: The latest to get the iTunes/print comparison wrong - <AUTHOR> http://trueslant.com/paulsmalera/2009/06/17/time-incs-john-squires-the-latest-to-get-the-itunesprint-comparison-wrong/

<comment><USER2> Agree with most of what he says, but the author doesn't take into consideration price point. While I may not pay $1 per Time article when there are free alternatives floating around the net, I would definitely fork over a few cents for an article I know that is (or at least has a greater chance of being) well researched, written and edited. This is contingent on a good universal micro payment system, which may or may not arrive.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The subscription model is a weak hack around the historical lack of a good micropayments system.</comment></comment>


Yahoo's hadoop-based Latent Dirichlet Allocation On Github - <AUTHOR> http://blog.smola.org/post/6359713161/speeding-up-latent-dirichlet-allocation

<comment><USER2> This is very cool. If you want to play with topic modeling I'd suggest starting with Mallet (<http://mallet.cs.umass.edu>) For an idea of what topic modeling can do, check out <http://bit.ly/wikitopics> which provides a web- based UI for browsing through Wikileaks' Cablegate dump (powered by topic modeling/LDA/Mallet).

</comment><comment><USER3> Vowpal Wabbit (one of the fastest learning implementations, from John Langford, also of Yahoo!) now has an "online" LDA implementation (Hoffman et al 2010: [http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~blei/papers/HoffmanBleiBach2010...](http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~blei/papers/HoffmanBleiBach2010b.pdf)). It's probably the fastest single-core LDA implementation.

<http://hunch.net/?p=1594>

[http://www.machinedlearnings.com/2010/12/lightning-fast- lda....](http://www.machinedlearnings.com/2010/12/lightning-fast-lda.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Context: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_model></comment>


On Dual Booting Linux on a MacBook Air - <AUTHOR> https://int3ractive.com/2018/08/on-dual-booting-linux-on-a-macbook-air.html <comment><USER2> Here is a great sierra inspired gtk theme if you miss the look and feel: [https://github.com/vinceliuice/Sierra-gtk- theme](https://github.com/vinceliuice/Sierra-gtk-theme)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that, but I don't really miss the macOS skin. Seeing Communitheme on GNOME is actually a nice refresh for me. What I missed is the UX patterns: global menu, dock with running apps indicator, app indicators on top bar...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Peer-to-peer secure file transfer using WebRTC - <AUTHOR> https://bitf.ly/ <comment><USER2> Similar project: FilePizza – [https://file.pizza/](https://file.pizza/)

github: [https://github.com/kern/filepizza](https://github.com/kern/filepizza) show hn: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9535332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9535332)

<comment><USER3> [http://xkcd949.com/](http://xkcd949.com/)

<comment><USER4>
        cat $FILE | nc -l -p 80

<comment><USER5> firewalls?

<comment><USER4> The limitation of this method is that you do need your own port exposed to the internet. The advantage of this method is that you don't have to trust a third party.

For the explicit example above, your guest's firewall would have to be pretty brutal to not allow port 80 through.

<comment><USER5> Yeah it was mostly the senders firewall (or the NAT you find on most consumer routers) that i had in mind.

The OS may also balk at opening such a low port as a user, now that i think about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the HN title: "secure"

I have a question: Secure against what thread model?

The FAQ has an entry for "How do I know you're not sending all my data to the NSA?" but that's the wrong question to ask (i.e. Even if you're not behaving maliciously, that doesn't mean our data is safe against highly sophisticated threats).

It would really be great if you could demonstrate what makes this more secure than alternative solutions.

That said, this is kind of neat.

<comment><USER7> Webrtc itself requires perfect forward secrecy. While you cannot do authentication with it - you need to provide that yourself - you can be certain besides yourself and whomever your signaling server told you is your peer are the only two able to decrypt the packets going between you two.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the server know the token id? I didn't inspect the requests, but it's possible to send the token to the server.

Therefore, can't they download the sample just like the connected client?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I also made a similar project to this using WebRTC: [https://www.mkstream.club/#/](https://www.mkstream.club/#/)

Github: [https://github.com/make-sity/mkstream](https://github.com/make- sity/mkstream)

<comment><USER10> Might be just me, but "look I made something similar here is the link" without any more info or mention of how it's relevant sounds a lot like piggybacking off of the success of this thread to promote your own project.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry. that wasn't my intent. I just thought that I'd link it for anyone who wants to see another example of a filesharing app made with WebRTC.

<comment><USER11> Don't worry, this is how HN works and we are able to discover different programs around a similar theme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's also [http://sharedrop.io](http://sharedrop.io), which was featured on HN a couple years ago and also uses WebRTC.

Source: [https://github.com/cowbell/sharedrop](https://github.com/cowbell/sharedrop) Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7468328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7468328)

<comment><USER3> fipelines.org is another one (their cert is expired but if you ignore that the site works well)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Secure" but "we advise against using Bitfly for highly sensitive data. You have been warned.".

So is it secure or isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I trust my browser's developers with my most sensitive data (online banking password, government id etc.) but that does not mean I believe I am fully secure in doing so. There could always be a bug in the WebRTC implementation or the SSL library or the hardware. Maybe I should rephrase the FAQ to read "Don't put your highly sensitive data on the Internet at all".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My favorite of these tools is magic womhole (command-line only):

[https://github.com/warner/magic-wormhole](https://github.com/warner/magic- wormhole)

It gives you a few words for you to give the recipient, they type them in, and boom, transfer starts.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sorry for off-topic, does anyone know why Google phone calling (Voice / Hangouts) still doesn't work with WebRTC and requires native plugin? And are there any other services for making phone calls which actually work with WebRTC?

<comment> TD-Linux They use nonstandard APIs, and send data over the network in a way incompatible with WebRTC. This post is a bit old at this point but afaik the situation hasn't changed: [https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp- hancke/](https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/)

<comment><USER15> Thanks! What a mess. No wonder it's not working for me - I'm using Firefox. Somehow I doubt Google are interested in fixing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> With some sort of peer discovery functionality, this could be a pretty cool open, cross-platform replacement for Apple's AirDrop.

...but would probably need WebRTC functionality in Safari to work on iOS devices

<comment><USER12> I mentioned it in another comment upthread, but [http://sharedrop.io](http://sharedrop.io) is exactly this. WebRTC file transfer with LAN peer discovery.

<comment><USER17> Nice! Right, I forgot I had come across that one too. Using firebase was clever too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very cool! We built something similar using flash and RTMFP back in 2010 and actually got into YC W11 with the project (with dreams of building something like airdrop until Apple went and actually built airdrop causing us to pivot into high speed data transport instead).

It's great to see this being implemented using WebRTC now, which was just popping onto the radar back then. I envy you building this without having to write any action script or flex code! Best of luck with the project.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome, I'm looking to incorporate some of this into a project I'm working on.

</comment><comment> n-gauge Slightly off topic, but can anyone recommend a webrtc tutorial for data channels or any projects which can be used for player v player over the browser (chrome) . I guess like one player has to be the master and the other players join his/her webrtc connection ?

</comment><comment><USER20> I was wondering if it is possible to transfer streaming video data over WebRTC already, for example to implement a video chat service, without wasting too much CPU power and/or bandwidth?

<comment><USER21> Icecomm lets you use Webrtc to do this pretty easily (icecomm.io)

<comment><USER20> Interesting. Are they doing image processing / compression in javascript?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why not just use [http://instant.io](http://instant.io) ?

If you are worried about security, encrypt before sending.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow. Now implement this with file search and you've basically got something like Napster.</comment>


The Importance of Right-Left-Up-Down Standards in Product Design - <AUTHOR> http://modern-products.tumblr.com/post/26654410455/android-standard-right-left-top-bottom-ui-standard

<comment><USER2> This is spot on, and it's something I didn't even notice yet just always had a slightly uneasy feeling about since I've been using ICS on the Galaxy Nexus.

Another one that I did notice is after going one or more levels deep in folders in your bookmarks requires you to tap the breadcrumbs to go back up a level, and _not_ the back button, since that takes you back to the main browser view. But the breadcrumbs are too long for a portait-mode screen, so you can never actually read more than the first letters of the first folder! So I end up hitting the back button almost every time, and cursing about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is precisely the kind of thing that Apple excels at. It's what makes John Q. and Jane B. Public think Apple products are "magical." It's the kind of thing Normals don't think about. If they buy solely on price ("this robot thing is a smart phone, too, and it's cheaper") they tend to get a subpar experience.

If the more open ecosystems can agree on some kind of continuity, user experiences will improve. But by being more open, they necessarily allow developers to impart their own ideas completely out of step with others in the community or even apart from the platform.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, I've never paid any attention to the cut/copy/paste icons on any platform before. I've always use keyboard shortcuts. So I'm never sure if I'm hitting the right one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure why you're surprised. The UX on Android is dreadful and is reminiscent of the bad days of Linux on the desktop. I still get very confused when the hardware back button does and doesn't apply.

The problem is that Google was really late in putting out UI Guidelines similar to what Apple and Motorola do. They only really come out around Honeycomb meaning there are lots of apps that had no guidance.</comment>


BFL ASIC hosting at affiliate data centers could control bitcoin 50% hash rate - bitcoin-fool https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:MiniRig+SC+and+Single+SC+Hosting

<comment> bitcoin-fool BFL has affiliate data centers where those purchasing the more powerful BFL machines can have their systems hosted, for a fee.

The default option: "Your hosted units will be added to a mining farm and you will be paid out regularly based on their collective output." Datacenter and BFL personnel will be monitoring and maintaining the machines for defects. The hosting option makes sense for new untested hardware like this ...

So, it's likely the pools will control > 50% of the bitcoin hashrate at some point.</comment>


Show HN: Flask-Arrested – A Framework for Rapidly Building REST APIs with Flask - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mikeywaites/flask-arrested/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are some great Python REST frameworks out there, but we wanted something un-opinionated and easy to get started with but flexible enough to customise.

We've previously released our serialization/marshaling framework Kim ([https://github.com/mikeywaites/kim](https://github.com/mikeywaites/kim)), and Arrested includes built in integration for it. If you'd prefer to use another serializer, it's easy to customise Arrested to do so and we'd love to receive a PR for it.

To get started quickly, there's a cookiecutter ([https://github.com/mikeywaites/arrested- cookiecutter](https://github.com/mikeywaites/arrested-cookiecutter)) and quick start documentation ([http://arrested.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://arrested.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)).

If you have any questions please ask!</comment>


30 instruction TCP receive - <AUTHOR> http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/mailinglists/ips/mail/msg00133.html

<comment><USER2> Ah, yes, lightweight TCP processing...

I remember working (as the MIT-EECS department systems guy) in the late 70's with the huge, galumphing, tortured BBN TCP/IP code for TOPS-20/TENEX, the first generation of TCP implementations, after the "big switch" that turned off all NCP (pre-TCP ARPAnet protocol) implementations in favor of TCP.

Then I joined a startup in 80/81 building the first typesetting-quality laser printers, Imagen (a spin-off from Knuth's TeX project). We built controllers on the Andy Bechtolstein-designed SUN-1 boards that Sun later licensed as the basis for their first workstations). Meanwhile, I had built a home-grown real- time OS for the SUN-1, and hired Geoff Steckel from Dave Clark's group at MIT (Dave was one of the co-designers of TCP/IP).

Geoff had already built several small lightweight implementations of TCP/IP in C, and he did it again for us, so we had a full multi-tasking kernel with multiple TCP/IP connections in a few hundred lines of code (for the TCP portion).

The moral of the story is, you have to throw a bunch of implementations away before you can begin to see the essential simplicity of the task at hand.

Van Jacobsen did the same, later, by developing a "fast path" through the Berkeley Unix TCP/IP implementation that could drive an 100BaseT Ethernet at nearly full hardware bandwidth between two Sun workstations. That was quite something for the mid-80's.

<comment><USER3> _That was quite something for the mid-80's._

Yes, especially because the 100BaseT specs didn't come about until the mid-90's. Even 10BaseT wasn't really predominant until the early 90's. I seem to recall Cat5 just barely coming about in around 1995. Twisted pair of any kind was pretty rare in the 80's.

10Base2 (coax, thin Ethernet) came about in 1985, and was (AFAICR) pretty much "the standard" until about 1990(ish).

I could see driving a _10_ BaseT NIC at full bandwidth in the mid-80's, but don't believe there was a 100Mbs ANYTHING at that time.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, faulty memory...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Beautiful. And also kind of bad-ass.</comment>


Static vs Dynamic language challenge - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/26558/static-vs-dynamic-languages

<comment><USER2> There is more to programming languages than static and dynamic type systems ( heck even the post removed type system as if the languages themselves are simply static or dynamic.. ) and there is plenty of range in between. It is a shame that this little war gets beaten on over and over again. Or rather it is a shame they get beaten on in the same way over and over again w/ very little new ever being added.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly, no one is denying this but people often stick to a single paradigm and tout it as the best thing since slice bread. People often make claims without any backing and since the argument is about programming languages it should be really easy to back up claims with actual working code. It's hard to argue with code that compiles and does what its creator claims it does.

<comment><USER2> i find most of the 'pro-dynamic' stuff to be kind of well... not very impressive. and i say that as someone who primarily uses 'dynamic' languages. to be the big win for dynamic languages is the ability to debugger driven development but many dynamic languages don't have a debugger that will allow you to do that. i never really understood the power that 'dynamic' gives you until i started using lisp and smalltalk environments. ruby, as an example, is nice- i use it all the time- but it doesn't have the same power as a smalltalk or lisp w/ a serious dev environment- and that has nothing to do with the typing system.

with smalltalk, i can write a test, have it fail and from the debugger, add my needed classes, add instance variables, change variable values, check state, move back to previous points in the stack and restart after making those changes and continue on my way. once you've tried it, it is a very addictive and pain free way to develop. just doing dynamic typing doesn't give you that. it requires much more, in the end that is what really interests me. i find that to be far more of a productivity boost day to day than the stuff that these static vs dynamic arguments usually turn on.

As to people who stick to a single paradigm and tout it as the best thing since sliced bread well... except when I get a little cranky I don't have much use for that and try to tune it out as background noise.</comment></comment></comment>


A case against "It's only one more year" - <AUTHOR> http://scottkle.in/a-case-against-its-only-one-more-year

<comment> space-monkey "You'll never go back to school - The statistics don't lie on this one: people who take terms off are disproportionately unlikely to finish up, even if its only a couple classes."

Is this just evidence that once people start working, they find the value of the degree to be less than cost of finishing it?

<comment><AUTHOR> A traditional economist's view of behavior would answer "yes" to this question even if that isn't always the reality. You hit on the point though - not going back to school could very well be the best thing for you. You won't know until you try, and the opportunity cost of time is rarely factored into that equation.</comment></comment>


Opera Unite developer's primer - <AUTHOR> http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-unite-developer-primer/ I'm not sure yet, but this appears more exciting than google wave. <comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty sweet entry level system for teaching programming to school children. Very social, since they can easily show each other what they have developed. Javascript is also a very likable language.

A standalone V8-based server with this js-api and it could even become a web technology to depend on for real use.</comment>


How Technology Can Enable Better Work-Life Balance - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@karti/how-technology-can-enable-better-work-life-balance-26337f1e8f9a <comment><USER2> Technology isn't the reason work-life balance is diminishing. _People_ are the reason, technology has only enabled these people and the solution to problems with people will not lie in technology.</comment>


Show HN: Kata – A Template Engine for Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://smcmurray.github.io/kata/

<comment><AUTHOR> Kata has the normal Interpolate, Iterate, and Conditional blocks. It also has mixins, extensions, imports, and plugins.

And jsperf says it is blazing fast ([http://jsperf.com/hogan-vs-dot-js-vs- trimpath-zepto-js/24](http://jsperf.com/hogan-vs-dot-js-vs-trimpath-zepto- js/24)).</comment>


Strong type checking in Python? - <AUTHOR> http://rgomes-info.blogspot.de/2014/02/strong-type-checking-in-python-what.html

<comment><USER2> > def d(p1, p2):

I think giving functions and variables meaningful names would help a lot more then telling the types.

Also if you want static types then use a language that has them.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's better to pick proper language for proper tasks, scripting is supposed to be a bit messy though.

<comment><USER4> Python is a "proper language", whatever that means.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How dirty is your keyboard? - <AUTHOR>

My IT guy (I'll call him Deeter) walked in my office wanting to do an <i>important</i> security fix on my box.  He jumped a foot in the air when he saw my keyboard.  "Um, Wow,  Dude," he said, hiding his hands behind his back. "That's a lot of crumbs.  You must eat over your keyboard?"  Yeah, it's true.  I eat at my desk.  Sorry.  And yeah, my keyboard has some grime.  And, well, perhaps a significant amount of crumbs.  But not enough to make a rice cake.  What's the prob?  Is this really a sanitary issue?  Anyway, Deeter refused to touch it.  He left my office, suggesting I open a ticket and ask for an entirely new keyboard. . . <comment><USER2> A real hacker can live for a month on food stored in his keyboard.

Seriously though, my keyboard's pretty clean. I wash my hands, so there's no grime, and I make sure that any crumbs end up in the trash can. It's not that hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's too cold and wet out, I just turn it upside down and shake out a meal ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Extremely. I think there is an entire pizza in my keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm at the point of replacing my keyboard.</comment>


Why Sell at a Loss - <AUTHOR> http://www.trizle.com/topics/1134-why-sell-at-a-loss <comment><AUTHOR> Trizle is thinking like a plumber ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412785> )</comment>


GraalPython: Python 3.7 on GraalVM (Java) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/graalvm/graalpython <comment><USER2> Well this is interesting.

I've been following GraalVM for a long time now and this looks like a very "possible" project.</comment>


Speech enhancement for professionals – Clear Edge - <AUTHOR> https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200512005236/en/BabbleLabs-Launches-Clear-Edge-Client-Superior-Speech <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, we are Babblelabs and we recently released our speech enhancement app. It can can remove really strong noises without affecting the speech. Currently works on Windows and we're working on a Mac version.

All you need is a CPU. If you have any questions please ask. It will be good to know the opinions of others.

Thanks</comment>


Airbitz to Leverage US JOBS Act to Raise Funding for Expansion - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoinist.net/airbitz-jobs-act-funding-expansion/ <comment><AUTHOR> Is this going to help Airbitz raise funds?</comment>


My life with Oliver Sacks: 'The most unusual person I had ever known' (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/26/bill-hayes-insomniac-city-my-life-with-oliver-sacks-new-york <comment><USER3> Captivating read, a rare glimpse. It's based on a personal diary, but sounds off more like an elegy. It's truly remarkable how Dr. Sacks could remain so actively writing in his final months, maintaining emotional discipline and his genius in face of impending fate.

At the same time the text left a feeling of solitude, not the loneliness kind, but the one devoid of distractions, very much determined and concentrated. Perhaps this is unfair to those last 6 or so years which were marked with his opening up to love and new relationship, and which surely had a great share of joy to them.

Thank you for sharing your genius, Dr. Sacks.

</comment><comment><USER4> The thing I like about Oliver Sacks wasn't just his academic achievements - <USER2> was how strong he got [1]. A 600lb squat is pretty immense. He truly was a renaissance man.

[1] [https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-bodybuilder- olive...](https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-bodybuilder-oliver-sacks- days-on-muscle-beach/)

<comment><USER5> Hm not sure. The article you quote ends with:

 _We looked at each other, our bodies half-destroyed by lifting.

"What fools we were," Dave said. I nodded and agreed._

<comment><USER4> Maybe. They definitely pushed their bodies to extremes. But then a lot of people half destroy their bodies by sitting on a sofa eating Haribo. At least they generated some useful adaptations and learnt something from inflicting voluntary hardship on themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> His autobiography "On the Move" is deeply personal and humbling. The guy was a neurologist, bodybuilder, crazy motorcyclist, marathon swimmer and a top-notch human being all rolled into one.

</comment><comment><USER7> I miss Oliver Sacks. It is enjoyable to hear episodes of Radiolab and hear him describe his current passion, or read his candid descriptions of his illness.

I have such respect for him because his unusualness was wrapped in a lack of pretension. Wouldn't we all do better by trying to emulate his focus on learning and his lack of regard for status and fame?

</comment><comment><USER8> This is beautifully written.

My birthday is the 28th of August. I find it very interesting that, in 2012, when I was celebrating my birthday, Oliver Sacks, Bill Hayes and Bjork were having dinner at her home in Iceland.

</comment><comment><USER9> My take-away from Oliver Sacks memoir is the value of a historically grounded science. Sacks got a lot of grief for reading the primary sources of naturalists writing in the 19th century, but it helped him develop a phenomenal facility for science communication and exposed him to useful ideas that had lapsed in popularity.

</comment><comment><USER10> Article makes me want to have lunch with Bjork

</comment><comment><USER11> Did someone say Oliver Sacks is on Radiolab? Link gratefully received! Loved On The Road, superb.

Check out BBC Radio Great Lives on him. It's quite touching. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001xt7](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001xt7) Wonderful man.

</comment><comment><USER12> His "Uncle Tungsten" is in my lifetime top 10 favorite books. It is ridiculously amazing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Talking of dinner parties with Oliver Sacks as a guest... [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008pdv](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008pdv)

</comment><comment><USER13> A great death story. It's good to celebrate excellent last days and moments.

My father died recently and it was truly beautiful to be there and help him go. Sadness, yes, but we shouldn't fear.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sacks' book about his broken leg is a huge insight into the loss of identity in illness. I think many of us consider him one of the authors we'd have invited to tea, because we like him as he is (and the tea with Bjork only confirmed that to me). Other tea party guests are usually interesting but jerks, Elvis with Hitler type mashups, but Sacks, you wanted him there as a genuinely interesting but also compassionate person.</comment>