The Tax Sleuth Who Took Down a Drug Lord - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html <comment><USER2> It's worth comparing this account with Joshuah Bearman's reporting in Wired in May: [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk- road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/). The NYT article describes a frustrated IRS agent (Alford) who strongly suspects Ulbricht is DPR and struggles in vain to get anybody on the investigation to listen.

In Wired's version of events, however, Alford's sleuthing had turned up the email address "rossulbricht@gmailcom", but "[t]he IRS didn't know what any of this meant, so that's where it ended. The info sat in a case file until dumb luck put Alford in Tarbell's lab ..."

The NYT's and Wired's depiction of Alford's role in the case seem at odds.

<comment><USER3> ssshhhh... you're getting in the way of revisionism. They need to bury the Parallel Construction somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Both agents declined to comment for this article, but according to two > people briefed on the investigation..."

What are the odds the "two people" are "both agents"? That's like the lamest off the record attribution ever. Also amazing that some random agent using Google broke the case. Apparently anyone could have figured out who DPR was.

<comment><USER5> > Apparently anyone could have figured out who DPR was.

I think that's the most interesting part. Obviously not just everyone would have the knowledge that he would log in as DPR from a coffee shop a few hundred feet from his apartment, but they could still place him as a strong suspect based on his posts as altoid that identify himself and mention Silk Road. Something that even the FBI didn't do.

I tried to use google to find his post as altoid to no avail. Maybe it was taken down.

<comment><USER6> \- Altoid mentions Silk Road: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175.msg42670#msg4267...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175.msg42670#msg42670)

\- Altoid identifies as Ross Ulbricht: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47811.msg568744#msg5...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47811.msg568744#msg568744)

(Looks like the NYT got mixed up about which post was deleted)

<comment><USER7> Also at some point the real IP of the silk road server was emitted via a lighthttpd config error.

Silk road was always going down, one way or another.

<comment><USER8> I thought the config error was debunked by his attorney. I think the question many people have is if parallel construction was at play and if TOR is compromised.

<comment><USER9> I wrote about it here:

[https://www.nikcub.com/posts/analyzing-fbi-explanation- silk-...](https://www.nikcub.com/posts/analyzing-fbi-explanation-silk-road/)

The FBI argument was 'leaky CAPTCHA'. The defense argument was that the application was hacked. The most likely scenario is an info leak or debug page as Ross was known to live edit/debug the application.

This evidence wasn't tested in court on 4th amendment grounds since the defense didn't demonstrate ownership of the server:

[http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge- technicality/](http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge-technicality/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.bitcoinwednesday.com/the-legacy-of-silk-road- part...](http://www.bitcoinwednesday.com/the-legacy-of-silk-road-part-4/)

What kind of "Drug Lord" orders fake IDs to his home or posts his own email address to an online forum?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is the NYT making the case against mass data collection and extended police privileges.

</comment><comment><USER12> This guy isn't unsung, he's no hero. Heros have just causes.

He's an enthusiastic, misguided, bureacratic cog.

<comment><USER13> Someone's bitter about Silk Road going down...

<comment><USER14> Since the downfall of Silk Road, the Deep Web market scene seems to have exploded. For some odd reason.

[https://www.deepdotweb.com/dark-net-market-comparison- chart/](https://www.deepdotweb.com/dark-net-market-comparison-chart/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is an IRS agent working with the DEA to find the proprietor of an illegal drug market? It's not like the IRS is going to ask for corporate profit tax on Silk Road's earnings.

<comment><USER16> > It's not like the IRS is going to ask for corporate profit tax on Silk > Road's earnings.

Why not?

IRS doesn't care if the activity is illegal or not. See for example this slate article describing how sex workers declare income.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/09/how_do_prostitutes_pay_their_taxes.html)

<comment><USER17> Exactly! Not sure if the law is still current but some states required a tax stamp for all marijuana sales (on top of it being illegal). If you sell marijuana you not only ciolate the drug laws, but the tax laws too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you can't prove that someone committed a crime, look if his financials provide evidence of tax evasion.

<comment><USER5> Except if you read the article it wasn't about tax evasion or even taxes. It was about an IRS tax agent using Google search and background checks to find a suspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Classy of him to refrain from pointing out that he probably had trouble getting people to take his ideas seriously at least partly because he was black.

<comment><USER20> For all we know based on the article, the people who wouldn't take him seriously were also black. The article puts the blame squarely on institutional infighting which has apparently been a problem for a very long time. Maybe that's actually the cause here.

Also - and slighly off topic - it's really amazing just how alive and well the old one-drop rule is. Alford is described as half-black, half-Filipino. But I gather most readers come away from the article thinking of him as black. I doubt anyone would come away from the article just calling him a Filipino. I'm biracial myself, so I always find this interesting.

<comment><USER21> > Alford is described as half-black, half-Filipino

This is one of those cases where "African American" is correct and "black" is not. Some Filipinos _are_ black: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito)</comment></comment></comment>


Leverage - <AUTHOR> http://sahillavingia.com/blog/leverage/ <comment><USER2> There's a superbly written piece by Xianhang Zhang on Quora, that talks about the same concept. It's titled "Disregard Ideas, Acquire Assets" and presents a really convincing case by citing examples of entrepreneurs that focused on building assets, until as he puts it "they couldn't not do a startup with them". (Leverage could qualify as one of the more important ones, or if you want to look at it another way, acquiring substantial assets equates to earning leverage).

[http://www.quora.com/Xianhang-Zhang/Disregard-ideas- acquire-...](http://www.quora.com/Xianhang-Zhang/Disregard-ideas-acquire- assets)

This notion runs contrary to the standard approach that most early stage entrepreneurs adopt, namely the "build a laundry list of ideas and filter the top ones out using a combination of a heuristic, common sense and (eventually) customer validation and keep at it until you have traction with a concept that matters" approach.

I'm going to stick my neck out here, and recommend the approach that Zhang proposes - "focus relentlessly on acquiring interesting assets and then execute on the startups that naturally fall out of them". This means you might be pursuing something for the longest time that doesn't remotely resemble a startup. I'd qualify this with one caveat - make sure whatever it is, it's something you love doing.

And I think this is an interesting way to go about becoming an entrepreneur. Maybe you shouldn't dive in the deep end straight away (if you haven't built sufficient leverage / assets). Maybe that's another way deferring gratification, what with how cool just 'being an entrepreneur' has recently become.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing Zhang's piece. That's the kind of simplistic (yet crucial) thinking that we almost always tend to overlook.

<comment><USER4> FYI "simplistic" is pejorative

<comment><USER5> simplistic can be pejorative, but in this case it doesn't seem to be, atleast from my perspective

> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pejorative> > A term can be regarded as > pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term > used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts.

<comment><USER5> downvotes?

For providing a factual statement that the word simplistic isn't always perjorative?

<comment><USER4> Well, I didn't downvote you, but I feel like I should reply...

Your comment was essentially of the form "Some Xs are Ys, Z is an X, therefore Z is a Y", which is of course wrong. "Simplistic" is not one of those words whose pejorativeness depends on context.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the response. I disagree though:)

Simplistic doesn't have to have a negative connotation. Infact the word simplistic can have, and very often does, a very positive connotation.

Perhaps I'm just getting the definition of pejorative wrong?

<comment><USER4> The dictionary's on my side, but maybe usage is changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the reason why we want to be startup founders is because it offers optimal balance of "direct implementation" vs. "impact."

At a certain scale, it's impossible to directly implement anything anymore. You can have tremendous impact but the more layers in between what's in your head and what's produced can only increase. Bill Gates wrote code that shipping in Microsoft products until the late 1980s[0]. At a certain point, he had to trade off having a bigger and bigger impact by managing the implementers instead of implementing himself.

Except somewhere along the line when you become the guy managing ten engineering departments with ten people each that help ten people write code, then you're not _doing_ anything anymore. You're just enabling people to do things. And it becomes more and more likely they may do things in a way that's not in your head. So you trade implementation for impact, but then eventually the impact you get may not be that impactful to you because it's no longer what you _did_ but what other people did.

In a startup, you have the best of both worlds. Impact and implementation. Eventually you fail because you didn't make enough of an impact, or you stop implementing because it's impossible for you to scale with the impact you're making. But I imagine the ride to that point is extremely fulfilling.

[0] [http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/...](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/1997/pdc.aspx)

<comment><USER7> The irony is that Sahil's posts are increasingly about something other than leverage. They are becoming more about stating completely obvious startup/entrepreneur bait. "We love leverage", "pivoting is hard", "think small". We'd do better to actually exercise our leverage rather than continue to read his inane and obvious drivel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Upvoted for being honest!

I try to write a lot knowing that some of what I write will be obvious to some people. It's tough to know what is obvious to others or not until you release it.

Derek Sivers puts it nicely: <http://sivers.org/obvious>

I do know that each of my posts results in a lot of positive emails and tweets. But, I respect your opinion and do agree that building stuff is almost always better than reading my blog posts!

(though hopefully reading my blog posts will help people do that, and anecdotally it has)

<comment><USER7> BTW, I do hope you continue to work on your blog and, more importantly, on your philosophy of getting stuff done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "It's all about leverage to him. He could write code, or he could help ten people write code. Or, he could help ten people manage ten people that write code. Or, he could help companies with ten engineering departments with ten people each that help ten people write code."

To me, this is apples and oranges. I write code. My goal is not "to be influential in the production of as much code as possible." My goal is "to personally build something cool and be able to say 'I built that.'"

Nothing wrong with either job, of course.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. I actually want less leverage because it means I'm directly in control of my work. I think that's necessary to build high quality stuff. I recognize that I'm working inside a larger framework in which someone is using me as a lever, but to me, the making is the glory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > We care about impact. It's the cure to everyone's mid-life crises.

What does someone do when they feel invisible? When the open-source projects they create aren't having an impact?

Sometimes I feel I have to be the very best to have an impact. If I'm not doing something on the cutting-edge at the right time, it feels like I'm nothing. Whatever I'm working on I feel, "this isn't groundbreaking. This isn't going to have an impact. Somebody already did this or is working on this."

I can't be the only one?</comment>


New Generation of Intel Graphics for Linux Requires Proprietary Firmware - <AUTHOR> https://01.org/zh/linuxgraphics/intel-linux-graphics-firmwares <comment><AUTHOR> Recently there was a discussion [1] in OpenBSD's mailing list and you can also see [2] Theo de Raadt's point of view.

[1] [https://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=143354954711286&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=143354954711286&w=2)

[2] [https://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=143355112811564&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=143355112811564&w=2)

<comment><USER2> I see de Raadt's still delivers his point of view in a hissy fit of insults.

<comment><USER3> Right, all I see is him coming off as an arrogant dickhead. The initial email from the user was nicely written and expressed the point clearly. De Raadt just started insulting the guy out of the blue. Yes, he did make a mistake and a bad point (we all do sometimes, what's the big fucking deal?), but he was very court.

Is it cool these days for open source OS/kernel development efforts to be run by these self-indulgent egotists?

<comment><USER4> It's not at all courteous for idiots to wonder into email lists and effectively steal a minute or more from every reader of the list. Now multiply this by the number of idiots in the world.

\-- someone who has had to triage an email list for an open source project

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recently there was a good discussion about difference between firmware and software/drivers: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671025)

Proprietary firmware is not a good thing, but it's not a very bad thing until we have open hardware, in my opinion.

<comment><USER6> This is not to mention that even if it were open source, it is not likely that the tool chain used to create it is even available, let alone open source. Firmware blobs are just a fact of life, for now at least.

<comment><USER7> Intel has licensed GPU designs from third-parties before, but typically only for their low-power (Atom) chips where they just didn't have the technology in-house.

Here, we're talking about a new micro-architecture for Intel's premium product line; I would be _very_ surprised to hear Intel licensed _anything_ in the design from third-parties. If Intel wanted their tool-chain to be available, they could make it so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > GuC is designed to perform graphics workload scheduling on the various > graphics parallel engines. In this scheduling model, host software submits > work through one of the 256 graphics doorbells and this invokes the > scheduling operation on the appropriate graphics engine.

I'm highly suspicious this idea is patent encumbered.

<comment><USER9> But...but...but...

They're using _doorbells_ instead of _schedulers_. That's different, right? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Will this affect graphics virtualization on Skylake, [https://01.org/zh/blogs/skjain/2014/intel%C2%AE-graphics- vir...](https://01.org/zh/blogs/skjain/2014/intel%C2%AE-graphics- virtualization-update?langredirect=1)?

<comment><USER11> Yes. It most closely corresponds to the GVT-g scenario in the blog post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I need a closed source driver on my pci bus as much as I need a bullet in the head.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why previous generations didn't?

</comment><comment><USER11> Could they have open sourced it? Yes. But it was never likely since firmware is almost always done as a binary blob from intel or otherwise.

They're actually being more open than most vendors, since skylake isn't even shipped yet.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am willing to tolerate custom firmware in hardware that lives behind an IOMMU and under an OS that uses it. That will at least make it unlikely that something scary lives in there and collects my data. Without an IOMMU in use, the entire RAM is fair game, and, with some creativity, the network card buffers to sneak the data out.

<comment><USER15> That is, if the device allows you to use an IOMMU:

[https://github.com/sstjohn/thundergate](https://github.com/sstjohn/thundergate)

additionally, how often do you do a firmware dump of your network card to ensure that what's flashed to it is what's intended to be there?

<comment><USER10> On every boot, when using TXT to compare current firmware measurements with known-installed values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's really too bad, but linux has failed as a consumer os. As an example, most of us use laptops and linux power management is horrendous on a laptop with battery life of 50% or less compared to Windows. And their consumer desktop UIs are a joke and the programmers have no interest in improving them in a consistent strategic manner. There is no distinctive driving force with a vision. It's no wonder graphics chips manufacturers don't see it as worth their time to provide source code.

I am sure everyone is tired of this argument. But keep hoping - we love you for it.

But on the server side it's great. The majority of my servers run some form of Linux. I used to run FreeBSD but have moved Linux.

<comment><USER17> If you're looking for consistently improving desktop with a good design vision, Gnome 3 is a good choice. I've been using it for about 3 years and it has never been better.

<comment><USER18> That's kind of your personal point of view. Highly subjective matter. I, for instance, like xfce — it's not perfect, but far better than anything else I tried. Some people, I know, like KDE. I tried to get used to it for a half a year to "get a feel of it", but never understood how it's even usable.

I mean, you better not pass opinions like that one as "a clever lifehack".

<comment><USER17> I didn't say it was the best, I said it was one with a clear design vision (which I happen to like), in a way that XFCE or Mate don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yeah, this isn't going to work.</comment>


Revenge of the Nerds - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/icad.html <comment><AUTHOR> It's a great piece, this little gem is the reason why I posted it:

"If you start a startup, don't design your product to please VCs or potential acquirers. Design your product to please the users. If you win the users, everything else will follow. And if you don't, no one will care how comfortingly orthodox your technology choices were."

at about 2/3rd into the essay.

<comment><USER2> The trouble with that, of course, is that even though tipjoy pleased users they just didn't have enough of them or enough transaction volume since the market wasn't ready.

What does one do in that case? Keep going (bleeding money) or give up? Lots of startup ideas are so bold that they're clearly early for their time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think tipjoys major problem was simply not being integrated in the platforms they were targeting, not that they did not please their users enough. You have to go through _all_ the gates to score, not a subset of them.

And not having enough users is just as much a reason for failure as having dissatisfied ones.

The market is ready alright, it's just that as a third party add on offering a payment service you have to cross one more hurdle.

I'm pretty sure if the tipjoy principle would be implemented from within the network that it would be an instant smash hit.

<comment><USER3> Hmmm... wonder how Tipjoy would work folded into Disqus or somthing like that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this an attempt to earn some quick karma?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think I'm in the need of that. You can have all of it, it wouldn't make any difference to me. Let's trade uids, my email is in the profile.

<comment><USER2> Wait, you can do that? Exchange uids?! I want nickb's... :-)

Oops. My bad. Pre-edit: "so why post this and why now? :)"

<comment><USER5> _"I want nickb's"_

Bah. I almost wish this place didn't have points, or at least didn't have them so visible. Just knowing they exist weighs on me, and discourages me from saying what I really think, towards what would be popular. I can't help it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know... it's my strong belief that karma works best 'behind the scenes'. Even if the system in general would remain it would be nicer to disable the visible points next to each item & article header.

I wonder if the poster really would feel better with nickb's user id, after all he wouldn't actually _be_ nickb...

<comment><USER5> More to the point, why would he want to be? What is the actual value of HN karma, outside the confines of one's head? I know none of my friends could care less - in fact they'd probably call me an idiot for spending so much time here. And I would like to think HN members resist judging each other by their karma; except in extreme cases the text should stand by itself.

Still, the system does seem to work(1). Perhaps this eternal fight with the inner "karma farmer" demon is the price we have to pay for effective group moderation.

(1) Unfortunately, there is only one data point, insufficient to form any firm conclusions

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not much of a programmer yet, and a lot of the C bashing I read complains about pointers and how necessary they are in C, yet according to this:

"Dynamic typing. In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers. Values are what have types, not variables, and assigning or binding variables means copying pointers, not what they point to."

They are even more fundamental to LISP. Also if dynamic typing is good and most posts seem to claim it is, and dynamic typing more or less equals pointers which is what this seems to be saying, doesn't that mean using pointers is good? Also, I have seen frequent complaints about C's "static typing", but if using pointers results in dynamic typing, doesn't that suggest that static or dynamic typing is a stylistic choice in C programming?

<comment><USER7> Pointers in Lisp are implicit. Lisp uses pointers only in the sense that loops use gotos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I highly recommend PG's book of essays Hackers and Painters (it contains this essay).

</comment><comment><USER9> (defun foo (n) (lambda (i) (incf n i)))

def foo(n): lambda i: n += i

Give me two powerful languages with the same features and I'll pick the latter for its syntax.

So no, lisp may be the best right now, but it won't be the best forever, its syntax is its best friend and worst enemy.

Something lispers will never understand. Love is blindness.

<comment><USER7> In this case it's more that ignorance is blindness. That syntax _is_ a feature. The fact that Lisp code is expressed in Lisp data structures makes it easy to write programs that write programs.

<comment><USER9> Dear Paul, when I say its syntax is its best friend, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Now, say I fork lisp and change one little thing:

(defun foo (n) (lambda (i) (incf n i)))

to this:

[defun foo [n] [lambda [i] [incf n i]]]

or even this:

{defun foo {n} {lambda {i} {incf n i}}}

or how about this?

<defun foo <n> <lambda <i> <incf n i>>>

Hmm, trees are powerful, no matter how they are expressed huh?

What if we can represent the same trees using colons and commas as delimiters?

:defun foo:n, :lambda:i, :incf n i.

Maybe spice it up a bit using periods as recursive closing delimiter.

See? still powerful trees!

Between common lisp and colon lisp, I still use the latter.

Love is blindness.

<comment><USER9> Taking a closer look at my macbook keyboard, of all the lisp forks, I'd go with squared brackets [lisp] for convenience.

Ergonomics win.

<comment><USER10> If that's the only thing stopping you, just tweak your editor's keymappings.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the desktop manager you use for mac? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for something similar to i3. Not exactly window managing features but desktop ones mainly. The desktop functionality in MacOs Mojave is half baked. There are features that conflict with other features such as fixing the apps to some desktop number but when you use cmd+tab the order will change. <comment><USER2> If you are willing to put some time in configuring your desktop, Slate [1] should do the trick for you.

If delving into yet another application-specific configuration language does't thrill you, then Magnet [2] gives you the baseline i3 functionality out of the box. It only provides shortcuts that allow you to arrange your windows similar with i3. It will not arrange your windows automatically, and its only configuration is changing the shortcuts to your liking.

[1] [https://github.com/jigish/slate](https://github.com/jigish/slate) [2] [https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/](https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've mostly been happy with TotalSpaces, but it has some weird issues with keyboard window switching when using multiple monitors. (Tho that might be a problem with OS X rather than TotalSpaces. Hard to say.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Slate for years. Not sure if it works in Mojave or not.</comment>


Android app in 3 days? - <AUTHOR> How to create easy list app in 3 days?<p>Thank you, Martin <comment><AUTHOR> I am fluent in English guys but I can't imagine learning programming apps and setting up development studios for 5 weeks...

</comment><comment><USER2> With RFO BASIC [http://www.rfo-basic.com](http://www.rfo-basic.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can do it in 3 hours. Depends on what you want the app to do. Any more details?

<comment><AUTHOR> Simple ordering of pizza.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> jello world in 5 seconds?</comment>


Real Time Personalization with Permutive (YC S14) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.permutive.com/live-chat-demo/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to share our product Permutive here, but thought instead of linking straight to it, I'd share a demo of something we've built. I hope you find it interesting.

<comment><USER2> Some feedback:

\+ I read the article and watched the video and had no idea what Permutive does.

\+ Two trips to the homepage and watching the video about how great it is for breaking browser navigation with an email popup gave me a bit better picture...grumble grumble.

\+ The pace of the videos was so high that I could not really follow what was happening. The email video though was a little slower.

\+ It's not clear who the target audience for the videos might be. On the one hand there are business people for whom the high level issues of shopping cart abandonment are relevant. On the other, there's an orthogonal interest that involves SDK's and Github.

The first group needs to be sold on the idea as a feature request with a high priority.

The second group needs to be sold on the idea as a way to implement an existing feature request.

Sometimes these groups are going to be the same people. But even then, they're wearing different hats and looking at the problem differently.

My advice: segment the videos and other sales collatoral into: 1. A collateral defining the business problem and suggesting a high level solution. The sales pitch is backed by business metrics. 2. A tutorials and technical documentation showing how to implement the solution using the product. The sales pitch is backed by programmer happiness metrics.

If it meets the guidelines, it might good "Show HN".

Good luck.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Alexa App for Self Affirmations - <AUTHOR> I just launched my app on producthunt. Would love your feedback! https://www.producthunt.com/posts/my-affirmations-2 <comment><USER2> Great little product! One thought - I think i could benefit from affirmations but might feel weird asking for it always. Tying it to something i set for myself most mornings like my wake-up alarm would be a nice little add-on and start my day on the right foot.

keep going!</comment>


AWS Free Usage Tier now Includes Microsoft Windows on EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/01/aws-free-usage-tier-now-includes-microsoft-windows-on-ec2.html <comment><USER2> Another option for devs seeking free .NET on AWS is AppHarbor (<https://appharbor.com/>) (YC W11) which has a free plan and also provides great deployment, build, add-on etc support.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm always a bit irritated when I see that companies provide new customers dreamy offers but the old customers get nothing (and are effectively subsidizing that).

<comment><USER4> If you already qualified for the free tier, you will still be able to have access to it, so it is not only for new customers but also for existing customers that qualified

<comment><USER5> The free tier is only for new customers. If you've been using AWS for years, you will not get this offer to test a Windows-server in the cloud.

<comment><USER4> If you already qualified for the free tier, meaning that you are already enjoying it because you signed within the last year, then it still applies to you. So it also applies to existing customers (who qualify for the free tier)

<comment><USER6> I think what fierarul means is that old customers, who have been using AWS for years, don't qualify for free tier while their money is being used to pay for it.

I am not sure it makes me happy either.

<comment><USER4> I know what fierarul means, he is the one that did not understand my comment. As an aside, I find it kind of funny that people would feel "irritated" by a move like this. The end goal of this for Amazon is to eventually get more customers in the paying tiers, which in turn will lead to them lowering their costs and passing those savings to all users (like they have been doing consistently). I, for one, think it is a great way of promoting EC2 and an alternative to, say, spending that money on Google ads.

<comment><USER6> I completely understand why Amazon is doing it and it's certainly their cloud to promote as they see fit. In fact, I am not sure why Microsoft doesn't do that with Azure.

In any case, I am a bit sad I no longer apply to the free tier.

<comment><USER7> Azure does have a free 3 month trial. <http://www.windowsazure.com/en- us/pricing/free-trial/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Along with 750 instance hours of Windows Server 2008 R2 per month, the Free Usage Tier also provides another 750 instance hours to run Linux (also on a t1.micro)_

Does that mean you can run two t1.micro servers concurrently?

Edit: yes it does - <http://aws.amazon.com/free>

<comment><USER9> Only one instance is free, and only for the evaluation period (1 year I think). You can buy more / bigger instances and do as you please though.

<comment><USER10> Does anything stops me from creating new Amazon account after one year and copying all data to new free instance?

<comment><USER11> Remember that you need to provide credit card information, and they're pretty smart to check that "you already have an account".

<comment><USER12> Ethics aside, I've had no issue when creating an alternate account with the same CC info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> last time i tried windows in micro instances it wasn't usable. just to download and install all windows updates on the first boot took something like 6 hours due to the heavy cpu throttling (something that took a couple of minutes on a small instance). but maybe it's fixed now?

<comment><USER14> The way to do this is start the image as a small or large instance, apply all patches, install SW, then restart it as a Micro. When you need to install something again, restart the server as a larger instance type first. It's a pain.

The Micro instance is actually _very_ fast for 5-10 seconds of CPU time, but is artificially throttled to _very_ slow (like <5% CPU) after you use a few seconds of CPU.

I'm curious how people use Micro Instances in production, b/c you have to manage the CPU time very carefully, and the machine becomes unusable if you exceed it.

I've been able to use it as an interactive windows or linux shell in the cloud, but not much else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Although they've increased free tier EBS limit to 30 GB, all windows images have root images of exactly 30 GB. So if you're planning (like me) to use both windows and linux instances in free tier you have to either install windows from installation media snapshot (on a EBS volume which is smaller than 30 GB) or pay for overage on EBS storage ...

<comment><USER4> At $0.10 / Gb, it is cheaper to pay the extra storage than go through the trouble of installing from scratch

<comment><USER15> You're probably right, but this is kind of fine print that isn't really visible (especially to new users) so it is important to put it in plain sight...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is great news for .NET devs. Any good tutorials on setting up an ASP.NET MVC application to run on a free micro-instance?

<comment><USER17> Will this do?

[https://aws.amazon.com/articles/3592?_encoding=UTF8&jive...](https://aws.amazon.com/articles/3592?_encoding=UTF8&jiveRedirect=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wonder if the FreeBSD 9 AMI on a "windows" t1.micro is also free tier? <http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-ec2/>

<comment><USER19> It should qualify, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if MSFT is subsidizing the cost? Either way it seems that market economics has now dictated that server operating systems are free as in beer.

<comment><USER21> I doubt MSFT would subsidize the cost, they are competing with Azure.

<comment><USER22> Think about how they make money from Android while competiting with Windows Phone. They're clever enough to realise you can make money from multiple angles.</comment></comment></comment>


Don't write tests - The Hidden Cost of TDD - <AUTHOR> http://tomblomfield.com/post/20285854071/dont-write-tests-the-hidden-cost-of-tdd

<comment><USER2> Testing is an infinitely complicated subject involving very difficult tradeoffs, but there are two axes I like to break down on when thinking about it:

1) Coverage vs. Speed/Understandability: you want as much coverage as is compatible with relatively fast feedback _and_ a suite where, when something goes wrong, it is sufficiently obvious what went wrong. As a system increases (non-linearly) in complexity, this becomes a more and more difficult tradeoff and you should expect to feel increasingly bad about the state of affairs as your code base grows in size: either stuff is gonna be slow and incomprehensible or you are not gonna have the coverage you want. Probably both.

2) High-level vs. Unit tests: as your system matures, the high level tests are going to be the most valuable over time, since they are the abstract specification of the behavior of the system. They are also going to be the hardest to understand when they break, since they are inherently abstract. Your unit tests will keep running quickly and breaking in obvious ways, but will become increasingly useless for verifying system validity as second-order effects start dominating your bugs, and they will introduce lots of friction if you are trying to refactor code (which might be good: many a refactor has gone bad in my career.)

So, as usual, I come to a pessimistic conclusion: tests are necessary and, as your code base increases in size and complexity, they will come to dominate your development process. Holding test quality constant, the high level tests will run the slowest and break in the most incomprehensible manner, but will be the most valuable test you have, and you will develop a love-hate relationship with them.

So, my take aways are:

1) Write unit tests, but be prepared to nuke them once your implementation is done in favor of higher level tests. Make sure they run very fast so they don't get in the way of your development.

2) Try to write very clean high-level tests. This is hard and you have to trade off how much time you put into it vs. other priorities. Strive to make these fast, but accept that they will be slower than you'd like and will cause you a lot of pain. Every once in a while, they are gonna save you.

<comment><USER3> High-level tests and unit tests go hand in hand. Ideally you are striving for 100% coverage for both your high level tests and your unit tests. The value of that is that when a high-level test fails in some inscrutable way, in theory a corresponding unit test should also fail, which should make the actually point of breakage clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Once you've found traction, you'll likely need to re-write your codebase..._

The problem with this approach is that once you've got traction, you will be in the worst possible position to re-write your codebase. I understand the allure of just getting features out when you're trying things and don't have many customers to worry about. But the old adage of 'always time to do it over but never time to do it right' applies just as well early as it does later. Resist the temptation to throw away all discipline because 'it's just a prototype and we'll re-write it later.' The reality is, if your product catches on, you're going to be living with that code for a long time. Move fast, yes, but don't move sloppy.

</comment><comment><USER5> To paraphrase: either testing is useful in your situation or it isn't; when it is useful, use it, and otherwise don't.

Really, the "debate" comes from the fact that some folks have embraced testing and TDD _philosophically_ , and thus feel the need to evangelise it. The same thing happens with OOP, FP, you name it. We cleave tenaciously to our magic bullets. But I have found that the subjects of the most fervent evangelism tend also to be the least philosophically sound. Then again, maybe I'm just being contrarian (read: a hipster).

Like the author, my take is that if testing makes your development life easier, great. I use it too sometimes. But no, I don't want to hear the Good News.

</comment><comment><USER6> "declare bankruptcy on that technical debt"

I like that metaphor. Every shop I've worked in that's had awareness of "technical debt" has always looked at it like something that will have to be confronted, even to the point of including time in each iteration to address it.

But sometimes, you just carry it until you realize that what you bought with it is not worth anything. Then you just wipe it from the books (codebase) and move on.

<comment><USER5> I thought that was a cool turn of phrase as well. It's something many developers don't realise they _can_ do. And maybe that's why we find it so hard to justify throwing away code: we see the value, but miss the cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What about the cost of having your client finding bugs that could have been found if you were using tdd?

<comment><USER8> What about the cost of not having any clients at all because your competitor lapped you while you were busy writing tests?

<comment><USER7> It's best to deliver later a better written application than deliver something fast but full of bugs. Quality brings more clients than it loses.</comment></comment></comment>


Study finds most who recover from Covid-19 make antibodies - <AUTHOR> https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/05/07/study-finds-nearly-everyone-who-recovers-from-covid-19-makes-coronavirus-antibodies/ <comment><USER2> how could the opposite be true? How could it be possible to recover from covid-19 without making antibodies?

<comment><USER3> Yea, this doesn't make sense to me. Making antibodies is literally one of the key functions by which the body clears infections.

How can you eradicate that which you cannot detect?

Negative antibody results from this must mean that either the test was a false negative, or the person tested has a dysfunctional immune system which produced little to no antibodies. (How did they survive the infection?!)

<comment><USER4> With other human coronaviruses, it is speculated that we defeat them so easily that we don't develop long-term antibodies, explaining why we get colds with very mild symptoms so often.

<comment><USER5> At some point presumably there is a carrying cost to all the what-if scenarios. If your body contains/maintains a whole host of organisms going around checking whether an unrecognised something is 'one of these bad things' eventually you're going to run out of spare energy to do other basic tasks.

At what point does this become optimised to "you're probably one of these, therefore I exterminate you"? Note that when that system goes wrong you could end up in auto-immune disease land, or somehow eventually copy informational mistakes/signals land (cancer).

This is my overly-simplistic view though on limited understanding, I am not a medical professional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Evidence predominantly points towards temporary immunity after recovering from COVID-19. Thankfully!</comment>


Why a Career in Computer Programming Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/03/why_a_career_in.html

<comment><AUTHOR> My personal thoughts on this: For smart, generally capable people (ie, the people who actually become programmers), programming is a mildly bad but not terrible career. You make a decent salary, you can fairly easily find a new job in any major US city, and you don't have to wear a suit or do anything really dangerous or physically taxing. On the other hand, the upward mobility is quite low, the salary will never really be great, and you get little respect or social status (if you care about that).

<comment><USER2> You left out one thing, which this essay explicitly buys into: vicious age discrimination. It's very hard to keep yourself fully employed in this career unless you do one or more of the following things:

      Become a multi-client consultant.

      Specialize in embedded programming.

      Get a a serious government clearance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Completely disregards this little thing called "domain knowledge". Maybe no- one cares if you're just building websites, but in serious software, knowing about the problem your application solves in the real world does matter, and does get more valuable over time.</comment>


Sir Tim Berners-Lee Stars in Olympic Opening Ceremony  - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/uk/sir-tim-berners-lee-stars-in-olympics-opening-ceremony-7000001744/ <comment><USER2> This absolutely had my inner geek exploding in giddiness. It was one thing for the London Olympics to recognize him as a key part of the modern era, but to also place the (same model?) NeXT Cube next to him just topped it off. This made it memorable for me.

<comment><USER3> It made me very, very happy to see Tim there.

A lot of the media in the UK is very populist and anti-intellectual, celebrating questionable people (pop stars et al.) for their less than desirable achievements.

So it was good to see Tim being given such a platform celebrating his input into the world.

<comment><USER4> That's why Danny Boyle did such a good job. If the British media had been in charge of the ceremony in could have very easily been a cringeworthy ordeal featuring a cast of z-list celebrities dancing about. The inclusion of Tim Berners-Lee and the NHS section were excellent ideas.

<comment><USER5> I thought the NHS section was stupid. You might as well as had bin men.

<comment><USER6> NHS is our largest employer (5th in the world apparently, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786> \- c.5.8% of the working population when coupled with data here [http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market- statistics/f...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market- statistics/february-2012/statistical-bulletin.html)) and, despite it's failings, is an area the UK have led in (nationalised health care), and an important element of nearly everyone in the UKs life at one time or another.

Refuse collection is worthy and widespread but not really something the UK leads in I feel nor would it likely provide the visuals the designer was aiming for ...

<comment><USER5> I know the NHS is a huge sacred cow and is fetishised here in the UK, but I'm not sure the rest of the world would care how we pay our doctors and nurses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No credit to NBC, however, who apparently replaced a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 terrorist massacre with a talking head off American Idol, had _no idea_ who Sir Tim was, and censored the first lesbian kiss ever seen on Saudi TV:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc- opening-ceremony)

<comment><USER8> yeah, I thought NBC's coverage was horrible. Do they really believe that the majority of the world actually needs _all_ of the imagery explained? I mean, who doesn't know who that lady on the umbrella, flying out of the sky is (for example)?

<comment><USER9> > I mean, who doesn't know who that lady on the umbrella, flying out of the > sky is (for example)?

I actually wonder how many people under 20 know this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I saw a NeXTCube by his side, I knew this was going to be a memorable ceremony.

<comment><USER11> I was really happy to see the attention to detail having the NeXTCube :)

<comment><USER12> Me too, honestly I'm more interested in watching the NeXTCube than watching the rest of the Olympics.

<comment><USER13> The Cube certainly had more personality than the US NBC announcers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The industrial portion ceremony started with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, while the modern portion of the ceremony finished with Tim Berners-Lee. I definitely think that Danny Boyle was drawing a parallel between the two people, and it will be interesting to see if history does the same.

<comment><USER15> I do not see much of a parallel between the two. Brunel is known for zillions of physical objects, built over decades; TBL is known for only one thing, created in less than two years (probably not as his main project, I guess)

Also, Brunel must have been quite an organizer to get done what he got done; TBL created the web almost alone.

<comment><USER16> The parallel is their fame. Brunel didn't build the industrial world on his own any-more than TBL built the interweb on his own. Its just good to have heroes.

<comment><USER15> Surely, fame is insufficient reason to start drawing parallels? If not, what about Brunel vs Phelps or Paris Hilton?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IT angle: the Olympic budget was £2.4bn, this ballooned to £13bn, but surprisingly, it was delivered on time (unlike the project Accenture did for the NHS, £12bn and nothing delivered).

<comment><USER18> Does anyone know why it would cost more than 5 times more than the original budget? And how did they manage to reallocate that much resources?

This being the 3rd Olympic event in London, I'm surprised the estimate was that much off.

<comment><USER19> Most big projects of this nature come in over budget. The reason is the incentives of the politicians coming up with budget estimates.

If they come up with a realistic (high) estimate, the project doesn't get done. That's a political loss - their cronies don't get paid, and they don't get to put their name on a big project. If they come up with an unrealistically low estimate, their cronies get paid and they rarely get voted out of office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I didn't see the opening ceremony - and not the NeXTCube scene either. Is there a video on YouTube or somewhere else?

<comment><USER20> You can watch the highlightd on the BBC if you have access: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19022259>

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the link but it doesn't appear it's available to my country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there any way for me to watch the "This is for everyone" moment on the Internet, or is it not for me?

</comment><comment><USER22> His message was a nice warning for us all to work harder to keep the web a thing for people, all people, not corporations.

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess that keyboard and the monitor are somehow wired to an iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER24> fitting the scence: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19021660>

Long PR story short: RPC was prevalent, that is how you control(led) your stuff remotely. Like Tim. Today, if you'd ask for a NeXT-like toy, you'd be denied were you an average Eastern. But western equivalent asked for it and got one, and put the gopher link address ptr in the reserved field of the text font properties (where things like bold and italics properties are stored) and voilà. You can also hire a cheap student to actually write the web client to be cross platform (its true virtue/value). Thanks to Nicola Pellow, of whom almost nobody knows about. Not to mention Groff, doing his compulsory civil service. Would the "web" have just run on NeXT, it would be long extinct, let alone take off.

On linking and hypertext: all post-war era stuff is spin. The real stuff comes from Belgium:

For ADD-ers: <http://youtu.be/qwRN5m64I7Y>

The story: <http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet>

[http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul...](http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul_otlet)

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper

<http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343?ln=en>

The answer is a nice PR story on the web -- [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_%28publi...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_%28public_relations%29#Techniques)

On values at CERN, as a warning for non-western members:

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y)" [where Y>X]

source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

ISBN: 9290831693 <http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264>

<comment><USER25> Why you are getting downvoted:

Everyone here knows (or should know) that the internet started in the 60s (kinda, 1986 definitely), and WWW was a short project in 1989-1990 by TimBL, which just happened to catch on like wildfire (due to bandwidth increases, and cheap PCs more than anything else).

Tim Berners-Lee invented the first cut of HTTP (GET / POST etc), and got the ball rolling on HTML (which was basically a clone of the 1960s SGML).

Paul Otlet seems to have been something of a visionary (just like Ted Nelson, Project Xanadu's head).

TimBL was just in the right place, at the right time.

But it's silly to say that his only contribution was a few months writing WWW. He also wrote ENQUIRE 10 years before, which was kind of like Apple's HyperCard (1987 - between ENQUIRE and WWW).

There were lots of other Hypertext systems (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext#Implementations>). But that doesn't mean TimBL was a fraud, simply that the media loves to simplify this kind of thing.

<comment><USER24> I am being downvoted, because my assertions (admittedly in unpolished form) aren't backed by popular views (some of which are polished products, _Manufacturing Consent_ ) and because I stick to my guns and do my best to warn others about some things that are (not) supposed to happen especially at CERN.

 _simply that the media loves to simplify this kind of thing._

The media (and the beeb, almost openly since Dr. Kelly) does what it has been "ordered" to do, ie. "maximising opportunity and minimising threat":

<http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343>

ps: Enquire was a Gutenberg project alike of a book (read digital form), which is admitted by TimBL. But you are right: information systems existed for a long time, and presumably will for a long time.

<comment><USER26> > I am being downvoted, because my assertions (admittedly in unpolished form)

You're being downvoted because you keep reposting (word-for-word) the same nonsensical rant on HN[0] and various other places around the web. Perhaps you could tidy it up between now and the next time you repost it so that we can understand your argument.

[0]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842382>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, is the British media claiming TimBL (and, by extension, the UK) invented the Internet?

<comment><USER28> Um, no, he invented the web.

<comment><USER27> > Um, no, he invented the web.

I know that. It seems fewer and fewer others do.

Also, condescension works incredibly badly when you clearly did not read what you were responding to.

<comment><USER29> the television caption here said "Inventor of the World Wide Web"

another cool things, the NeXT Cube was live on the web at the time and he tweeted from it.

Edit: someone just replied to me on twitter and mentioned that it was actually _the_ Cube that he used at CERN, taken out of a museum for the ceremony.

This is the tweet that was sent out during the ceremony while he was on stage:

<https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/228960085672599552>

although it says 'via Twitter for iPhone' :)

<comment><USER28> Actually, I don't think it was really running.

At least, judging by the photos I've seen ([http://cdn- static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001744/berners-lee...](http://cdn- static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001744/berners-lee-olympic-2.png)) the monitor was shining bright yellow, when in reality they are greyscale monitors with a bluish cast. I think the monitor was a shell, fitted with a lamp to illuminate TBL from that side.

Perhaps the keyboard was wired up to a modern laptop or tablet, or some custom system tied in with the LED system at the stadium. Most likely, it was automated for precision and correctness, and he was just miming the typing.

Which is fine, IMHO, it's good stagecraft. Voldemort and the parachuting Queen weren't real either. The rest of the light show would have been preprogrammed, so it would make sense to do the same with the message written on the LED system.

But it was definitely a Cube, NeXT keyboard, NeXT mouse, and either a modified NeXT monochrome monitor or a close facsimile. There's a lot to be said for that, given how much easier it would have been to use, say, an iPad than a full Cube system - and an iPad would be _vastly_ more recognizable to the audience, as well.

<comment><USER30> No, the Queen parachuting was definitely real.

Its because she eats McDonalds and drinks Coca-cola that she has the physical prowess to pull off such a stunt.

I know, I'm British and have been paying attention to the carefully crafted messages from our Olympic Overseers for the past year. Open your eyes and you too can learn the truth...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HBO's new show Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69V__a49xtw&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> Looks very similar to Amazon's "Betas", even down to the first character.

[http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-HD/dp/B00CDBX1PA](http://www.amazon.com/Pilot- HD/dp/B00CDBX1PA)

</comment><comment><USER3> From a description of the show :

> " _The dark comedy that will reportedly focus on a group of programmers in > East Palo Alto_ "

Slightly OT, but are startups setting up shop in EPA now?

<comment><USER4> FB is technically in East Menlo Park..</comment></comment>


Report a Google Ad for "Image Knew Too Much" - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/3IgQ1 <comment><USER2> And then Google:s algorithms responds by sending you ads that are more subtle and yet more convincing, things you don't even know about yourself...

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of when Target "knew" a girl was pregnant before she/her family did.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of- how-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-how-target- exposed-a-teen-girls-pregnancy-2012-2?international=true&r=US&IR=T)

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, the usual explanation comes to mind:

"Itching? Rash? Buy our Universal Genital Fungus Remover And Floor Polish!"

That would be "knows too much", I guess.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> found this on NYTimes home page. kind of funny but more disturbing.</comment>


jMockups Can Now Automatically Create Detailed Specs Of Your Website Mockups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jmockups.com/2011/03/jmockups-can-now-automatically-create-detailed-specs-of-your-website-mockups/

<comment><USER2> Great blog post Matt. I've been using jMockups on and off and I really like it. I'm a designer and it really speeds up the process of iterating through ideas.

That being said, Matt, it'd be awesome(for you, as marketing material perhaps) if you could showcase how jMockups helped increase sales/conversion rate of a certain website that uses your product.

Keep hustling man!

<comment><USER3> Tools like this are meant to streamline and speed up your design process rather than specifically increase your sales or conversion rate. One wouldn't ask that about an IDE, for instance, or a photo editing program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there something similar that works with Blueprint (or such) ?

This is very _cool_, but Blueprint style col/row instead of absolute positions will be a bit better.

<comment><AUTHOR> I could implement that if its something more folks are interested in. Maybe give users the options to specify the 960gs options or Blueprint positioning, etc.

<comment><USER5> If this works: name your price, I'll pay it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The jMockups demo crashes my Chrome tab. It's been like this every time I try it. Chrome beta 10.0.648.151 and Win7. Really odd, crashes normally never happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you email me so we can troubleshoot? (I don't see a contact email in your profile.) I'd love to narrow down the cause. email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the new feature That you added it really helps out the developers when they have to develop out the design.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great stuff Matt. Your continued, _valuable_ iterations of this product are inspiring! Keep up the good work.</comment>


Getting in the Python Mindset: What is Pythonic? - <AUTHOR> http://avinashv.net/2008/04/getting-in-the-python-mindset/

<comment><USER2> He presented the idiomatic C way of applying a function to a list. The idiomatic C++ way for STL style containers is:

      for_each(spam.begin(), spam.end(), eggs);

And for native arrays:

      for_each(spam[0], spam[spam_length], eggs);

<comment><USER3> Are you sure about that? Say spam is:

        int[] spam = {1,2,3};

How will for_each know what to do with this argument list? You would be passing in: 1, segfault, and a function object named eggs?

<comment><USER2> Actually, it should be:

      for_each(&spam[0], &spam[spam_length-1], eggs);

I need to take the address of the arrays, not their contents, and if I'm going to use the same definition of spam_length as the author. This kind of mistake is why one should avoid native arrays in C++ - the abstractions provided by the STL are more expressive and no more expensive.

The STL algorithms have no concept of length of a sequence, they only deal with iterators. This is the definition of for_each that Stroustrup provides in _The C++ Programming Language_ :

      template<class In, class Op> Op for_each(In first, In last, Op f)
      {
        while (first != last) f(*first++);
        return f;
      }

Notice that first and last can be pointers or STL style iterators, and that f can be a function object or an actual function. The template parameter In resolves to int* at compile time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not use map?

spam = map (eggs, spam)

Even shorter, more concise and clearer. What is not to like, as Seinfeld would say?

<comment><USER2> Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. If you allow me to generalize this to list comprehensions vs. standard functional techniques, sometimes the list comprehension is cleaner. Take the list comprehension

      [f for f in os.listdir('.') if f.endswith('.csv') and not f.endswith('_avg.csv')]

The lambda alternative (which would make a great blog name) is

      filter(lambda f: f.endswith('.csv') and not f.endswith('_avg.csv'), os.listdir('.'))

I find the list comprehension cleaner because it introduces less noise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.

> The lambda alternative (which would make a great blog name)

I'm stealing that.

<comment><USER5> Dammit!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The insight re: tight integration of data structures into the syntax is pretty brilliant. I've struggled to articulate that several times, but never managed to get it right. It makes C laughable, highlights C++'s improvements were bolt-ons and Java's verbosity.

I do wish regex's were as tightly integrated, a la Perl.

</comment><comment><USER7> After a few months of Python programming, I started using list comprehensions more and more. I really think they're an elegant solution for dealing with lists.

<comment><USER8> They're the best thing since sliced lists.

That said, I've started to consciously cut back on my use of list comprehensions. They are powerful, but there's a temptation to cram too much into one line - which makes debugging harder, and reduces readability. Breaking things out into a for loop often makes things clearer again.

<comment><USER9> This is actually one of my big gripes with Python: loops don't scale.

If I've got something small, it looks great to say [f(x) for x in Y], and then I add "...if x.z > m", and then I add something else, and 10 minutes later I say "ugh, too much!", and have to rewrite it as a for-loop. If I want to add a "print" in there while I'm experimenting, I'm completely SOL (yes, I know about 3.0a). The final form of a loop might not look anything like its initial form, even though they're nearly identical, both to me and to the computer.

In Common Lisp, in contrast, I can start with (loop for x in Y collect (f x)), and then add clauses all day -- LOOP, for all of its flaws, scales great from a couple words of pseudo-English surrounded by a pair of parens, up to just about anything that can be expressed as a loop. (CL-ITERATE might be even better, but I haven't gotten around to learning it yet.)

Maybe if I had an Emacs function to convert between list comprehensions and for-loops this wouldn't bug me so much.</comment></comment></comment>


PaperTTY – Python module to render a TTY on e-ink - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joukos/PaperTTY <comment><AUTHOR> Is anyone aware of a netbook-form device with an e-ink display? I've always felt that'd be my ideal device for writing on-the-go; especially if it'd run vi, nvi or vim.

<comment><USER2> Holy carp.

The link from the user below you, which I am reposting, as his link is [dead] is quite amazing... Lenovo's Yoga Book... I want this device:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17788476/lenovo-yoga- book...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17788476/lenovo-yoga- book-c930-dual-e-ink-screen-price-photos-release-date-ifa-2018)

<comment><USER3> Afaik you can't use the e-ink as a normal display though, bummer

<comment><USER2> I wonder what this machine will do if you install other OS' onto it though

<comment><USER4> Probably not much, unless someone reverse engineers the drivers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks really nice. I have been working on something that might perhaps be of interest to you.

[https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable](https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable)

I would love it if someone built a terminal emulator using it. All the pieces needed to achieve that is already in place.

<comment><USER6> I'm a huge fan of libremarkable ! Thanks for making my remarkable more hackeable !

<comment><USER5> Always happy to hear stuff like that. Thank you for saying that. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would love to have something like this in front of every meeting room at work displaying the occupancy of the current day.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.visionect.com/blog/digital-signage-how-we- built-...](https://www.visionect.com/blog/digital-signage-how-we-built-an-e- paper-room-booking-system-with-google-calendar/)

Google also did something like this but I can't find that write up.

<comment><USER9> You seem to know the market a bit.

Can I buy an e-ink device that I can hang on the wall or put on the table and that will display today's appointments from my calendar for me?

<comment><USER10> You can do this with a rooted Kindle: [https://lifehacker.com/add-weather-and- google-calendar-infor...](https://lifehacker.com/add-weather-and-google- calendar-information-to-your-kin-1215852264)

<comment><USER9> But this doesn't automatically update itself, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Demo-ing with nethack gets my +1, regardless. Anyway, I love e-ink. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I realise it isn't exactly the same thing, but it feels like we've finally come full circle :)

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

</comment><comment><USER13> I think this is a great idea! Small (3x6") e-ink displays are now widely available on alibaba and eBay. I'm very weary about the refresh rate. The ones I see available now look like 6s total refresh by the looks of them.

<comment><USER14> weary == leery?

Fixing the world, one typo at a time.

<comment><USER15> I'm assuming "wary"</comment></comment></comment>


A Manifesto for Me (time to get things done) - <AUTHOR> http://unpopop.com/people/fd/read/a-manifesto-for-me/

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly a tech announcement, but my work is in technology and it addresses a problem I believe many of us deal with -- time management, focus, lack of structure, lack of measurable goals. Take it or leave it -- I apologize (sincerely) if I wasted your time!</comment>


New York passes bill making it illegal to advertise entire apartments on Airbnb - <AUTHOR> http://gothamist.com/2016/06/18/its_about_to_be_illegal_to_advertis.php <comment><USER2> I have lived in Manhattan for a long time and it is very important to limit Airbnb for a number of reasons. First, people who live in apartment buildings do not want transients living there for personal safety and other reasons. We have doormen for a reason, part of which is to keep strangers out. Airbnb decreases the supply of housing and makes it more expensive for residents. How are either of these helpful?

Airbnb and its investors have no respect for New Yorkers who don't want these transients in our buildings. The know that New Yorkers don't want transients living in their buildings and they know we have a housing shortage yet they make things worse.

In cities like NYC what Airbnb needs to do is to pivot and build their own hotels under the Airbnb brand and rent them out at much lower costs than the outrageous rates of "name brand" hotels. Airbnb has a huge valuation and can afford to build these hotels and make a profit, while not impinging on the local housing supply and safety of New Yorkers.

Startups like Uber are welcomed because they help New Yorkers and visitors by making the supply of taxis and taxi-like vehicles __* more available and safe __ _. Airbnb makes the housing market_ __less available and less safe __*.

<comment><USER3> >First, people who live in apartment buildings do not want transients living there for personal safety and other reasons.

This doesn't need to be a legal issue. It's simply a rule of the building. People violating it are violating their contract with their building just like when they violate any other rule.

> Airbnb decreases the supply of housing and makes it more expensive for > residents.

Long term it should not decrease the supply of housing. Visitors are either going to stay in airbnbs, with friends, or at hotels. If visitors stay in Airbnbs, then there is less demand for hotels space and more space for residential properties. Demand for hotels also decreases residential supply.

Ultimately the issue of Airbnb on housing supply is a small one. Instead, question why so many neighborhoods have height restrictions and restrictions on building anything new. Most people supporting these laws are landowners and will admit that they are trying to protect the value of their property (i.e. keep housing prices high).

<comment><USER4> > Long term it should not decrease the supply of housing. Visitors are either > going to stay in airbnbs, with friends, or at hotels.

This is a slices-of-pie argument, neglecting changes in the size of the pie. By being a better value than hotels, airbnbs make traveling more attractive, meaning there will be somewhat more visitors and that they will stay longer. I think this is on balance a good thing for NYC (tourism is an industry, after all) but it does put a little more stress on an already-tight housing market.

<comment><USER5> Increased tourism might be "on balance a good thing" for NYC economically, but NYC also has an obligation to the welfare of its citizens. Does this new law bill strike the right balance between welfare and economics? I don't know, but the situation before was out of control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is misleading. It, if you read it at face value, suggests that they've just banned all full apartments on AirBNB. The truth is, they've banned advertising full apartments for stays of < 30 days[1].

Note that since 2010, it's already been illegal to rent out a full unit for less than 30 days [2]. It's just that now, advertising on AirBNB (or similar service) could subject you to fines. This is the 'answer' to AirBNB refusing to pull illegal listings themselves.

 _caution: rant ahead_

The Gothamist has some of the worst proofreading of any rag out there that I've across. And if you comment and correct (nicely) the information presented, they'll ban you on the spot. It's a news source with a closed circle jerk of certain ideologies and perspectives.

/rant

1 - [http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160617/BLOGS04/160619...](http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160617/BLOGS04/160619868/in- last-minute-move-albany-whacks-airbnb)

2 - [http://ny.curbed.com/2013/3/25/10260752/an-introduction- to-n...](http://ny.curbed.com/2013/3/25/10260752/an-introduction-to-new-yorks- short-term-rental-laws)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a little disappointed by Tweets like this one from pg: [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/743877723257331713](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/743877723257331713).

He says: "You can't have it both ways, @NYSenate. You can't both be a startup hub and give incumbents laws banning startups."

I disagree with this sentiment on so many levels.

First, while Airbnb has been working hard to frame this as "the hotel industry vs the disruptive startup," there are plenty of regular New Yorkers who oppose "entire apartment" listings, either because they make bad neighbors, or because they further constrain the apartment supply in an already tight rental market.

Second, we can argue over the semantics of what makes a company a "startup," but Airbnb is a large tech company worth billions of dollars that is impacting communities all over the world, for better or worse. It is unfair to take the position that to be a "startup hub" a city must support Airbnb's practices, even if is to the detriment of that city's residents.

And lastly, this law doesn't "ban" Airbnb. Short term "entire apartment" rentals were already illegal in NY. This just makes it easier to go after violators. And you can still rent out an extra room on Airbnb, or rent an apartment with an extra bedroom and rent that out.

Anyway, would love for PG or someone from YC who agrees with him to respond.

<comment><USER7> Why should not be able to advertise/rent your apartment on Airbnb?

<comment><USER8> For one, it's against every rental agreement I've ever signed (no subletting clause). Another reason people don't like it is due to the party people who frequently rent these, the extra parking spaces being used, people moving around at all hours, people not caring about the space because they don't own it, etc. Basically all the things which are incentivized in normal multi-month rental contracts which are not present in Airbnb contracts. People who live in an apartment building don't want a hotel room next to them.

<comment><USER7> The you don't need a law, just enforcement of a private contract.

People who live in apartment buildings have no say in who lives mext to them and no guarantee how long they will stay

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Entire apartment" short-term rentals have been illegal for some time under NY law, but it happens a lot anyway, especially in NYC, because it is difficult to enforce, since law enforcement has to prove that a violation occurred. There is a task force dedicated to that, but because of the effort involved in going after violators, they have pretty much only gone after the "big players," like entire buildings being converted to hotel operations.

Since this bill makes the advertising of the apartment itself illegal, it should actually be able put a stop to the practice, at least in NYC. This feels like a big deal to me because I live in a pretty trendy Manhattan neighborhood, and in addition to the annoyance of being a neighbor to a full- time Airbnb operation, I also have to assume it is making it harder for me and my friends to find apartments.

<comment><USER9> Berlin's court has just upheld the city's ban on short-term rentals. There, the penalty can be much higher: €100000 ($113000).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930098)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> AirBnB could solve these problems in 1 second by limiting it to 1 rental per account. The problem isn't someone renting out their full apartment, it's the professional operation of apartments on AirBnB by firms, sometimes very large firms, and enterprising individuals. They rent a bunch of units full time, taking significant real estate from would-be renters.

<comment><USER6> I think that's a very sensible compromise.

I own a duplex in a multi-family, and thought about renting out one floor (which might come across as a separate apartment in photos) on an occasional basis for extra money. That's very different from a vast enterprise that's doing it at scale. Unfortunately, New York laws have a tendency to affect the small and the large equally, despite the fact that the latter have a lot more financial buffers as protection and the former is more exposed to risk.

That said we can still rent it out for 30+ days at a time, legally.

<comment><USER11> Be careful about that as well - I'm pretty sure that in a lot of cases 30 days is the trigger point for a lot of tenant's rights issues such as having to go to court to try to evict someone who stops paying rent.

<comment><USER12> Yup, after 30 days they are a tenant. You then need to give them 30 days' notice to terminate their lease, have to go to housing court for evictions, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having lived in a Manhattan building where other tenants were basically subleasing their apartments on a daily and weekly basis to obnoxious guests, this is an excellent step forward. I'm disappointed to see so many tweets from tech leaders (lots of them investors in AirBnb, so taken with a grain of salt) about how this will kill startups in NY, since that is very hyperbolic.

<comment><USER14> this is not an "excellent step forward". This is a quick fix, later to be known as technical debt. An excellent step forward would have been if you could call Police for any neighbour that misbehave, no matter how he got inside that apartment.

<comment><USER13> So you're going to call the police five times a month and say what? "My neighbor is renting his apartment illegally and his guests are loud and left trash in the hallway?" The police have better things to do. The building managers are a better place to start but this kind of abuse is quite widespread and not easily stopped. There are some people who have purchased or rented multiple units and then AirBnb them out like hotels. It's unsafe for the other residents, it's annoying for those who are paying rent and living in those apartments, and, it's illegal. This law now makes it easier to actually enforce since perviously it was very difficult to catch violators. Now, someone can just browse the site and find them without having to set up some form of sting operation.

<comment><USER14> I was thinking about big fines for noise and the like. If not paid by guest make the owner pay. But this needs time to be implemented (in law and in practice) and nobody has an financial interest to do it. So instead of that, what you have is all kinds of groups that request what sounds to me to be very absurd laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On the general issue of if something like AirBnB should be allowed I'm mixed but on the specific of AirBnB they're an evil company in my experience.

They aren't even trying not to be evil. They are trying to take ZERO responsibility for anything. They don't care how much their hosts lie and take zero efforts to hold hosts accountable for their lies.

I've rented places that claimed to be 1 bed room but were actually a studio. I've rented places that claimed to have "parking on premises" but didn't. I've rented places that claimed to include internet but didn't. The latest is I rented a place the claimed to be at a certain location but was actually several blocks away. When I complained the AirBnB rep told me it was company policy to allowed hosts to lie about their locations because putting actual locations on the internet would be dangerous. When I pointed out Redfin, Craigslist, VRBO, etc don't have such a BS policy he claimed it was one reason AirBnB is more successful. In other words, because they allow lying they are more successful.

If they ever start taking some responsibility, say fining lying hosts or banning them from the site or marking their ratings down maybe I'll start rooting for them but until then I hope they get banned.

<comment><USER16> I've used airbnb 10 times in the past 5 months, for stays ranging from a few days to 6 weeks. Every stay has been great so far. Airbnb has some problems they need to fix, but they are an immensely valuable service for travelers. I am not sure how I would have done this trip without it. Craigslist is a massive pain in the ass compared to airbnb (for anything but long term rentals). And hotels are far too expensive for my budget. For the longer stays, even hostels cost more. I've been spending $15 to $25 a day for the longer stays.

<comment><USER15> I've stayed in 22 places of which about 1 out of 4 has lied about their accommodations. One place claimed internet included, turned out they were stealing it from a neighbor and it only worked if you sat the the side of the sofa closest to the window. One place claimed 1 bedroom but was actually a studio with a wardrobe used as a separator. The difference between a 1 bedroom and a studio is whether or not there is a door to shut out the noise of the refrigerator. 2 places advertised parking on premises but didn't have it. I paid for those places so I wouldn't have to deal with searching for parking. Several places have claimed to have internet but when I show up it turns out they only have a MiFi and a notice saying "Please don't use the internet much or it will run out because it has a 5Gig limit for the entire month". And of course I've rented the place for 4-6 weeks as a place TO LIVE not to be a tourist. The last place lied about its location.

Since then I've gotten better about spotting the lies before hand but AirBnB won't do anything about it when you try to report them. Places I've messaged to verify the listed amenities actually exist (like parking), get told they don't actually exist, I then flag the listing, report the issue, check back a few weeks later, no change to the listing.

AirBnB is an evil company because they purposely let people lie about their listings. I don't disagree with you they could be a useful service but as long as their official policy is that false advertising is ok they are clearly not a company with any sense of ethics.

<comment><USER16> Hmm. Thanks for your note. I haven't had to deal with any disputes so far. It is good to know that I should be careful about that.

What were the reviews like for these places that had false advertising? So far I've only stayed at places that had good reviews.

<comment><USER15> I've only stayed at places with good reviews as well. For the last one with the false location I can only think of a few possible explanations

 _) the users didn 't look at the AirBnB map and only looked the instructions received a day or 2 before arriving

_) the users noticed but didn't care

If you're visiting a city you've never been to you're more likely not to care. If on the other hand you're visiting a city you're familiar with (me) then you're more likely to be using the map to choose a place you actually know.

I don't know where you live but I'm sure you know some places where the difference of a 1-3 blocks would be the difference between some place you want to stay vs some place you don't. Next to a freeway/highway vs not. In a safe neighborhood vs in a dangerous neighborhood. On a scenic street vs on a non- scenic street.

For others maybe people are more forgiving. Example: I only rent 1 bedroom or larger because loud refrigerators keep me awake. (at least in the USA where they are loud) So when a listing lied about a studio being a 1 bedroom it meant I didn't sleep well the entire time. If that kind of noise doesn't bother you then you're not going to complain.

Similarly if you rent a place that says it comes with parking but you don't bring a car then you're not likely to complain about false advertising. If you come to a place to sight-see then you might not care about limited internet where as if you rent a place for a business trip then you probably do care since you'll likely be trying to do work from the place.

Finally the fact that hosts are people you actually interact with one-on-one makes it harder to leave a bad review for most people. It's easy to leave a bad review for Marriott. It's not so easy to leave a bad review for Jane ArtStudent renting out her apartment for extra cash while she stays with her S.O. She was really nice when she handed over the keys. It feels bad to give her a bad review so I'm guessing people pull their punches. I know I have even when I probably shouldn't have because the people I rented from felt like nice people even if they were falsely advertising.

I've learned my lesson though and now leave 1 star reviews if they lied to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Listing #95459: "Half of connected apartment available,see listing #95462 if you'd like to see the other half instead!"

Listing #95462: "Half of connected apartment available,see listing #95459 if you'd like to see the other half instead!"

<comment><USER18> With fines starting out at $1,000, pretty sure it'd be worth it to have a full-time city employee to scan for violations. Heck, you could outsource it, letting the third-party keep a % of the fine. While we're at it, there could be a startup for this.. disrupting the disrupters!

<comment><USER19> >While we're at it, there could be a startup for this.. disrupting the disrupters

This isn't as crazy as it sounds. "Hello, mid-size municipality! If you implement our easily-tailored boilerplate-legalese bylaw suite, our specially trained twentysomethings will provide same-day firing solutions to your bylaw officers for the likes of Uber, AirBnB, Lyft, wind turbines, factory farms, people who park in the bike lane, and much more!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Laws that protect affordable housing?

Shouldn't that be considered a band-aids to actually increasing the supply of housing?

I admit the solution, 'building more apartments' is a political problems. Humans are making it far more difficult than it has to be.

<comment><USER21> > Shouldn't that be considered a band-aids to actually increasing the supply > of housing?

Manhattan is a little tight on space for fill-in (I doubt this legislation was targeted at Staten Island...), although I'd be curious how much denser one could make Manhattan with modern building techniques.

<comment><USER3> Manhattan could be much denser. Most of Manhattan is not skyscrapers or high rises.

Manhattan currently has a population of 1.6 million. In 1910, it has 2.3 million. In 1950, it had 2 million.

The current density of Manhattan itself is just 12 people per 5,000 square feet. There's plenty of room to grow, plus, why just consider Manhattan? Many of us are happy to live in the nearby boroughs (which are also, unfortunately, very limited in what they're allowed to build).

<comment><USER9> _" Manhattan could be much denser."_

One big problem with cramming more people into Manhattan is that putting up new buildings isn't sufficient. All those new residents will also need to get to work, further taxing a mass transit system whose aging infrastructure is already packed to capacity. Life would be much more pleasant for existing New Yorkers if the city upgraded its transit infrastructure _before_ it allowed the building of massive numbers of new apartment buildings. There are also issues like having adequate electricity for all these new residents - on a hot summer day, NYC operates dangerously close to peak power capacity, and all those new residents are going to want to have air conditioning too.

 _" Manhattan currently has a population of 1.6 million. In 1910, it has 2.3 million. In 1950, it had 2 million."_

In 1910, lots of people in NYC were living in tenements with multiple families packed into a couple of rooms. We really don't want to go back to those conditions.

The number of single-person households has increased significantly since the 1950s, so my guess is that many of those 400K extra residents in 1950 were kids living with their parents, who didn't require apartments of their own and didn't commute to work by subway.

<comment><USER3> > Life would be much more pleasant for existing New Yorkers if the city > upgraded its transit infrastructure before it allowed the building of > massive numbers of new apartment buildings.

This is true, but essentially making it illegal for new people to move here (by making it impossible to build anything new), doesn't seem to be an appropriate solution. Rather, the MTA should be more under control of the city rather than the state. Further, increased density (and therefore more taxes and subway revenue), _should_ in a reasonable world make it easier to upgrade infrastructure.

I get this concern, but the problems of infrastructure in NYC are primarily political, and punishing everyone (including people who just want to rent out their place when they go on a trip themselves), seems unjust.

> In 1910, lots of people in NYC were living in tenements with multiple > families packed into a couple of rooms. We really don't want to go back to > those conditions.

Maybe not, but many young single people would love to be allowed to live in a modern 300 square foot microapartment in Manhattan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Airbnb's unchecked growth is depleting our affordable housing stock and driving up rent, while threatening good-paying middle class union hotel jobs in New York City and around the country, " Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council, said in a statement. "This bill will go a long way toward better protecting tens of thousands of affordable housing units our members and their families rely on to remain in the neighborhoods they call home, and preserving the quality jobs and quality of life in our communities our members deserve._ (Posted not from the weak Gothamist article but from Crain's)

You have to love the hotel lobby, coming out in protection of 'communities' and affordability.

<comment><USER22> It's not like AirBnb is advocating for affordable housing either.

<comment><USER23> Not only that, but I think there is reason to believe that AirBnB further stresses the housing market and adds additional fuel to the existing divide between the Haves and Have Nots by putting more rent monies into the hands of the Haves and creating more scarcity of housing for those looking for a long- term rental, not an alternative to a hotel.

<comment><USER6> They are, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. However, that the Hotel Lobby makes a statement about affordability is a little much, it has such a rhetorical, trendy ring to it (these days a speech has to use the words community, affordable housing, 'your homes', etc.)

Out of a housing stock of about 2.2M or so units, AirBNB takes something like 30K off the market, apparently, in this particular instance (short term rentals).

People will always skirt the system, though. It's unclear what impact this will have.

<comment><USER24> I wonder what would happen if it was not illegal and there was actually a spot and contract market in housing.

<comment><USER25> Maybe we'd call it a hotel or something like that.

<comment><USER24> That is not what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Has anyone experienced poor usability if they search their own city? Load up the VPN and suddenly it works? I have a suspicion that airbnb likes to prevent airbnb strata-enforcers from searching the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't personally noticed that, but I attempted a VPN comparison like you did. On one hand, it would would make it harder for neighbors, regulators, and law enforcement to take action against Airbnb hosts, but on the other it would also make it more difficult for guests to hop rentals when they are visiting a city and choose to extend their stay.

Of course, Airbnb has been accused of manipulating data before, when it was noticed that they removed a large number of listings just before handing a dump to the NY attorney general, so I wouldn't put it past them by any means.

<comment><USER27> If I'm a guest, visting NYC and looking for the next place to stay, I would be logged in and Airbnb would know very well I'm from out of town (payment details etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I live in the Lower East Side, which is the most concentrated neighborhood in NYC for illegal airbnb's. There is literally no inventory here and the apartments that are available have skyrocketed in price in the last 4 years since I moved here. Thanks airbnb.

<comment><USER3> The Lower East Side is plagued with height limits, zoning restrictions, heavy parking requirements, etc. Thankfully, DeBlasio has been fighting these rules in order to allow more building, but for the most part, the Lower East Side's problem is simply that new housing has not really been built there and lots of people want to live there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> More than half the buildings in Manhattan today violate the modern zoning laws and couldn't be built today. There was a NYtimes article about it recently.

<comment><USER30> > _More than half the buildings in Manhattan today violate the modern zoning_

Close. The number is 40% [1].

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-p...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty- percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why nkt let the building owners decide? If you own a condo apt or coop, amend the operating agreement to not allow short term rentals without board approval... Assuming the rest of your building agrees.

</comment><comment><USER32> The problem is enforcing the law. I'm pretty sure there are enough laws against subletting in N.Y already, they are just hard to enforce.

<comment><USER33> The new law is against advertising the apartment. So NYC can go after people just for putting the apartment online instead of having to rely on AirBnB taking it down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Now if only I could get a hotel of the same quality at the same price. Wish hotel rooms came with a kitchen.

</comment><comment><USER35> As a libertarian I really dislike any restrictions placed on the use of property I paid for and worse pay taxes on. As long as it does not threaten the health or safety of others/environment the state should not be telling me how I can use my property. If its a residence then I should be able to decide who who can reside there and how long pursuant to that I do not cause them harm or harm others by hosting them.

There is an apartment shortage specifically because regulation so restricts what you can build, where you can build, and worse at times what you can sell for; setting aside "affordable" units and such

<comment><USER36> You do as least recognize that under our current system land ownership is a long way away from being a free market path? The government subsidizes and insures a large portion of lending for home ownership. Also large tax breaks are typically given for new large scale construction. On top of that transportation to and from that land is provided by the government as well as government supplied protection for that property. Not to mention government supplied utilities for that property to access resources such as water and electricity.

I definitely not trying to get into a base line discussion about libertarian property rights ideas. But at least to help you understand what we have right now is a long long way from individual free and clear property ownership of land. Maybe before we start letting people do whatever they want with what you feel like is solely their land we need to address the massive amount of government supplied resources that land owner is currently enjoying.

<comment><USER37> No. The problem is that people who currently own houses want their properties values to go up.

The solution to all of this is to build so many houses that rent prices and housing prices are driven into the freaking ground. But the rich people who own all the land and buildings don't want them to happen because it would hurt their profits.

The enemy is not airbnb. The enemy is those who are using the government to protect their investments by preventing the free market from building.

<comment><USER25> One often sees this argument here. Speaking for myself, well sure, I don't want my property value to plummet so that I had to give it away if I ever wanted to move. But _far_ more important is that I have the continued ability to use and enjoy my property on more or less the terms that existed when I purchased it. Yes, I understand that those terms evolve over time, especially in a city. But it's not just about the money.</comment></comment></comment></comment>