Why are restaurant websites so awful? Because of restaurant culture. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2301228/ <comment><USER2> I was talking to a local business owner who runs a new Takoyaki place in town. I mentioned he didn't have a website. We had a good conversation about it, and he was hoping to get one up but wasn't quite sure what he needed. He's a young guy a pretty savvy overall, having acquired around 4,000 Likes on Facebook and frequently updating it.

I told him (and he seemed to agree) that he needed a simple website that was the following

\- No Flash, just HTML5/CSS.

\- No music/sound at all

\- No long story about the owner, style, etc. If I'm here, I'm likely already sold, just let me know how to get there. At most, a short line on what Takoyaki is, since many Americans in Ohio are unfamiliar with it.

\- One page only (SEO people will cringe, but its better than Flash likely and easier to maintain.

\- Basic information given upfront: Name, address, Google Maps widget, phone number, hours and their standard menu which consists of 5 items. Mention to check Facebook/Twitter for specials (thinking of maintainability). Making sure none of the items are done as photos, which is a favorite of auto repair and sales places for unknown reasons.

\- Very basic colors and formatting. Ugly? Yes. But if I'm on my iPhone and looking for dinner, I don't care. I just need the details.

\- Links to their Facebook and Twitter accounts (maybe widgets for each if he wants to get fancy).

\- Google Analytics for long term tracking

\- Maybe a photo of the front of the establishment, didn't need to be fancy, just something a person who looked online would recognize when they were looking for it. No photos of the owner, etc.

I don't claim to be an expert here, but this is what I want to see when I visit a website. Again, some of these are technically bad for SEO, but that isn't the point. Functionality should always trump SEO in my opinion.

I actually even offerred that I do this for him for some free Takoyaki, since literally it sounds like 20 minutes in Textmate and then just throwing a static page up. Might stop by later this week to confirm the details. I'd rather see a local business do it right than wrong.

<comment><USER3> Might want to have a look at <http://www.letseat.at/>

<comment><USER2> Cool site! Is it yours?

<comment><USER3> Nope. I just do a lot of CMS work (as a freelancer) and am always on the lookout for inexpensive solutions that I can direct people to when they can't afford me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem is that restaurant websites aren't seen as revenue makers, so they are merely vanity products and thus dominated by the whims of the restaurant owner, who (at the present time) likely has very little familiarity with web technologies, let alone web design.

When websites become more appreciated as a source of revenue then they will be taken seriously enough to actually improve. The big problem today is that whereas it's easy to show someone a competing restaurant and see how popular it is, it's a lot more difficult to see the effectiveness of other restaurants' websites since all of that data is more or less invisible to anyone but the owner.

<comment><USER5> So, the question is, how do we show the restaurant owners that having a better website will increase their revenue?

<comment><USER6> Why are you so sure it will? Can you give me use cases or examples where a restaurant owner stands to make money from his site anywhere other than booking reservations possibly?

<comment><USER7> Couple off the top of my head:

1) If you have live acts performing at your establishment Friday-Sunday, the website can raise awareness.

2) Specialty products / menu items.

3) Paraphernalia / SWAG from the restaurant.

4) Take out -- order online, pick up in store.

5) If you sell things like coffee beans, web presence increases the number of eyeballs on your product.

At the end of the day, restaurants are about putting bodies in chairs and serving them food. Thus, the focus of a good website should be increasing traffic into the restaurant.

One way I could see functionality between restaurant and website would be linking time-to-wait dynamically with the website. So if I go to a restaurant's website, I could see # of people waiting and average time to wait for the evening. This does go back to putting bodies in seats, but it would better link web presence with what actually happens in the restaurant.

<comment><USER8> Building something you might be interested in as far as wait times...

<comment><USER7> Really? I'd be curious to see how someone implements this. From my admittedly limited knowledge of the space, I see three different ways to tackling this. First, build out your own reservation system that uses your custom software to link the reservation system to the website and provide a vertical stack. Second, build plugins/hooks for existing electronic reservation/seating systems currently in use. Or third, work with the OpenTable's API.

<comment><USER8> OpenTable doesn't really have an official API. Urbanspoon has been touting Rez as an alternative but same story there. Will definitely let you know when we're ready for primetime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Restaurants have websites? I just use Google Places or Yelp. Not only do I get the hours of operation, a rough idea of the price, and a phone number without even clicking, I also get reviews.

Who would even think to look for a restaurant's own page?

<comment><USER2> One problem here is that these things often change and no one on Yelp will notice in a smaller community. Maybe they aren't open Monday anymore. Maybe they moved.

<comment><USER9> That's what the phone number is for. Nobody remembers to update their own websites either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Counterpoint: do restaurant customers (i.e. ordinary people) also think these websites are awful? When I see a website like that, I just think "it's not targeting me".

Also, I've actually given up on all websites of non-internet companies, including big retailers. It's just too tedious to find information, too slow loading. Their mobile sites often load quicker. but have even less info. You're better off ringing them.

(BTW: the kind of info I'm talking about is like opening hours - and often when they do post that info... it's _wrong_ Yes. It is actually _worse than useless_ ).

<comment><USER11> I think restaurant customers find restaurant websites, largely irrelevant.

Who the hell picks a restaurant by conducting a websearch to compare features as if entrees were laptops? I'm sure someone does, but most people pick a restaurant because they have been there and know what they are in for, or because someone they know has been there and recommended it.

<comment><USER12> Actually I know quite a few people who do that, myself included. Sure, past experience and advice from friends plays a big part, but even then I'll google for the menu in advance, pretty much just to get a feel for the place.

Also, if you or anyone you know is the slightest bit fussy when it comes to food, it's worth knowing in advance. For example I love pretentious restaurants where what the food looks like on the plate is important. My dad, on the other hand, doesn't - he wants basic food that tastes good, and plenty of it (admitedly I enjoy that too..), not original creations in small portions. He wants chips, not dauphinoise potatoes.

My sister on the other hand doesn't care about the type of cooking, but is very fussy on what she wants to eat in a restaurant. There are literally a few dishes she wants to eat, most of which are likely to be found in grill restaurants, pub restaurants, etc. So, whenever I'm eating with either of them, it's good to be able to look up the type of food available.

edit: Oh, and another case - when you need a restaurant and neither you nor people you know have any experience to base your choice on. What harm is there in taking a look at menus and trying to guess which you will like more. Maybe you'll still pick a bad one, but at least you tried not to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My next startup is targeting this problem. I'm pitching it as "About.me for restaurants" ... a single-page, instant setup site that has location/hours/menu/contact info.

I'm planning on posting it to HN for review in a few days.

If anyone wants a peak now, drop me an email.

<comment><USER14> Don't pitch it as "about.me for restaurants". I had no idea what about.me is and I'm in the startup community, read HN, TechCrunch, etc... The people you're selling to will have no idea what you're talking about.

What about "Facebook for restaurants"?

<comment><USER15> "Facebook for restaurants" is like another social network.

I know what about.me is, and if he pitched it to me, I would think, "a one page website for restaurants."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These words make me close tab for the site I'm looking at right away: "Click to launch site". I came to your website... shouldn't it have launched already? Oh it's not a website - it's a multimedia presentation? Great. That's not what I came to your "website" for. No thanks.

(Though I have to admit, there was a time when I actively looked for those sites. I made some good money going to restaurants and other small businesses around town offering to convert their sites from un-editable flash to a simple, skin-able CMS I had whipped up. They were always skeptical until I said "never pay for changing text or prices on your site again". After that, they were my customer and no longer the customer of the wannabe-techno-hipster that sold them the original contract for site and "updates".)

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has built a fair few restaurant sites, there are lots of reasons.

If a web design agency builds a site that doesn't work on the iPhone or iPad, which are both now considered critical to restaurant marketing, they get to charge extra for creating an iOS specific version, or an app, or whatever. If you create one site that works great on everything, you make less money.

Restaurants are also sometimes run dreadfully. There's a particular type of chef that just cannot delegate, cannot let go of the details. Some of the biggest names are barely breaking even - in recent news the "best restaurant in the world" shut down, having never made a profit!

Then there's communication: People running restaurants are often all over the country, hard to get hold of, it's quite difficult to get decisions made.

On splash screens etc: If the client wants it, they want it. You can try to talk them out of it but at the end of the day if they insist, you gotta build it, and sometimes what they ask for just isn't easily possible without flash (sorry!)

It's a bit unfair to pick on restaurants, to be honest. Pick a random, non- chain business off your high street. How good is their website? How many of them use flash? A lot of low-end websites are still in that quagmire, but the meat of it is that you don't need to visit the website for most of these businesses but for restaurants the web has become critical, so you notice it more.

Lastly, to anyone out there that does make restaurant websites: Push back. Try to explain to your clients why it's not such a great idea to use flash, or intro screens. Try to explain the use-cases etc, and above all show them there is a very good business case for having a good website. My current employer actually specialises in restaurant websites and I'm really, genuinely proud of what we're doing - and our clients love it too. It takes effort and it's risky, but helping your client have the best website possible can pay off.

Edit: Between this article and the recent attack from Cracked, I'm feeling a little under siege, especially as both were fairly light on actual facts. An issue that came up in both:

> This is because restaurants often don't have tools to update the text on > their sites—saving and replacing a PDF file of a menu is easier than messing > with the code on the site

This is a horrible simplification. In many cases the PDF menu is produced by a design agency, which is certainly a lot more effort than updating text on a website. It's also not hard to code either a PDF uploader or a page text editor or both, but you'll find plenty pick the PDF uploader. If you spent that sort of money on a PDF, you'd want to upload it too! And of course the menus are often very designed and they want that control (which the article does cover on other points)

My question on this issue is: Is a PDF download really so bad? It's not something I personally find particularly intrusive and for a restaurant menu it seems suitable enough.

<comment><USER18> I have about 120 paying restaurant customers, and I couldn't agree more about the PDF menu. You could give them the slickest, easiest interface in the world, and they'll never use it. They don't have time. The PDF menu already looks good, they already put a ton of time into it to get it exactly right, and they don't want to duplicate that effort. Restaurant menus are meticulously laid out and a lot of effort is put into their creation. It would take a lot more time, and a whole lot more money than 95% of restauranteurs would be willing to put into it to create HTML menus. It would be very difficult to generate a menu creation tool that would please even a small percentage of restaurant owners, since they all want wildly different things, and are almost universally very picky about their menu.

There is exactly one reason why most restaurants have bad websites, and that is money. The average price they're willing to pay for a website is $500-1800. It's rare to hear of one paying over $2,500. It's not necessarily that they're cheap, it's that they have no money, or think they don't need it at all, so only want the bare minimum. The good restaurants don't need a website, they have a two hour wait every time it isn't raining, and the restaurants that do need a good website have no money.

Most people grossly overestimate the profitability and ease of running a restaurant. I estimate that as many as 40% of restaurants are run unprofitably in perpetuity because the economics of the location are impossible. The owner purchases the restaurant, runs it for two or three years, runs out of money, sells it to the new owner who runs it unprofitably for two or three years, runs out of money, and the cycle repeats. You probably sit in restaurants like this regularly and think, "This place must be a goldmine, it's always packed." It isn't, it's a money pit and the next guy that buys it is going to discover that as well. If you are thinking of starting a restaurant to make money, I suggest you purchase the land and build a building that can house a restaurant, then lease the space to someone else, it's the only reliable way.

Running a restaurant is also a lot more difficult than most people think, and many owners amplify the difficulty by having little or no business management experience or training. They got into it thinking it would be easy, and thought they could handle it because they've been eating in restaurants forever. Take order, cook food, serve food, simple stuff, right? Restaurant employees are always stealing from the restaurant, especially the bartenders. Customers can be very, very difficult. The staff will be flaky. There will be problems, constantly and forever. It's not easy.

<comment><USER19> _The PDF menu already looks good, they already put a ton of time into it to get it exactly right, and they don't want to duplicate that effort._

Well... why bother cleaning the outside of your restaurant - washing the windows, trimming the landscaping, cleaning around the dumpster, etc? They've already put so much effort in to making the inside of the restaurant look perfect, why duplicate that effort?

A good website - fast loading, clean info, nice pics, optimized for the web - gets people to decide to spend money with you by coming in. A nice custom menu gets people to decide _how_ they'll spend money with you (and how much).

This shouldn't be an either/or decision, but it appears the majority of owners don't think this far ahead. Given the little I've known about restaurant owners (worked in a few restaurants growing up), this is not at all surprising.

<comment><USER18> They do that stuff because it doesn't really cost money, and because if they don't, they will always have empty tables. It's as simple as telling the existing staff to go do it.

The good website you are describing probably costs at least $5k, which is more than they have to spend. It also means they have to find someone that can do the work, tell them what they want, pay them, manage them, and evaluate the output. It's time consuming and expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's kind of true. I tried selling software to restaurants (<http://Tablely.com>) with some friends, and another Seattle company (<http://OrderSm.com>) is still trying, but working with the owners is terrible. They are too busy dealing with their day-to-day crap and technology is really not on their mind. It's sad, but it's true.

</comment><comment><USER21> > _The rest of the Web long ago did away with auto-playing music, Flash > buttons and menus, and elaborate intro pages, but restaurant sites seem > stuck in 1999._

I noticed medium sized bands tended to have the same godawful outdated website style, especially European metal bands. No idea if it is still like that -- I just started avoiding any such "official" pages.

<comment><USER22> professional (especially wedding) photographers are also common culprits.

<comment><USER23> Yes there seem to be fields where this problem is just rampant. Liquor websites are the worst of any I've seen (milagro, 1800, avion, grey goose, appleton, smirnoff, etc). Some are pretty good: Bacardi offers an HTML version, St. Germain is largely non-flash, Jose Cuervo (while really slow for whatever the reason) is non-flash.

With liquor I always thought that it was that 1) some brands have trouble differentiating themselves 2) the desire to create a 'culture' around their beverage--and that seems to fit the OP's description of the restaurant industry

<comment><USER24> Liquor companies' ads and websites are like those of car companies. I think it's because there's so little to say about such obvious products. Vodka is pretty much legally required to all be the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another example not in the article: <http://thecheesecakefactory.com>

<comment><USER25> I'm shocked by this one. I used to try to make sites like this - websites that mimic real-life interaction a la Microsoft Bob - around 10 years ago.

Although it's an instance of dated web concepts AND it features the dreaded 10 second Flash load wait time, it is an impressive achievement. If only in a "Winchester House" kind of way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Shake Shack (<http://shakeshack.com> on mobile device or <http://shakeshack.com/mobile/>) is an example of a beautifully designed, minimal, useful mobile web site.

Mobile websites are more than putting a mobile template on. Contrast Shake Shack with Walmart's <http://walmart.com> (on a mobile device)

> However, the design firm pitches to the owner, not to the customers. And > thus the website is designed to please them, rather than actually being > useful for potential customers.

> Is OpenTable too big to fail (e.g. restaurants will continue to pay them > annual maintenance because it is a legacy system)?

Yes and no. Once a restaurant has committed to a particular POS, it is very, very, very hard to get them away from it.

First, it cost them -- at a safe ballpark estimate -- $10,000 to install it in the first place, so they're going to milk it for as long as they can before paying for anything else, even if it costs them more money that way in the long run.

Second, change is really scary for these folks, because if they're trying a new POS, and it crashes on its first evening, they're going to have a lot of pissed off customers and that translates directly to empty seats. It doesn't help that every single system that they've tried -- or that their buddies in the industry have tried -- have been buggy, problematic, and prone to crankiness. It doesn't matter if you know that you're selling the best system in the world at the cheapest price; the owners are still going to be really gun-shy about converting.

For a credible, sexy Open Table competitor: check out <http://averoinc.com>

Note: Some comments taken out of context from the threads linked below. I linked to these threads because they contain some good previous discussions about the restaurant industry and their systems. OpenTable is a reservation system (as refulgentis has pointed out).

These comments taken out of context from previous related discussions on News.YC:

"The hell that is a restaurant website"

<http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1130419>

"Is OpenTable worth it?"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904689>

"Why are restaurant websites so bad?"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044259>

<comment><USER27> > Shake Shack (<http://shakeshack.com> on mobile device or > <http://shakeshack.com/mobile/>) is an example of a beautifully designed, > minimal, useful mobile web site.

 _To enjoy the full website you need Flash 9 or greater. Please visit this website using a web browser with Flash 9 or greater installed. DOWNLOAD IT HERE._

no comment

...

The mobile site is kinda cute but a mess in terms of usability:

On <http://shakeshack.com/mobile/menu/> links are not marked.

On <http://shakeshack.com/mobile/locations/> everything looks like a link.

On eg <http://shakeshack.com/mobile/menu/citifield.php> the categories are not divided well, it is not clear where the category "text icons" belong to.

<http://shakeshack.com/mobile/shackfans/> is serving huge (multiple hundreds of kilobytes) photos.

I would not call that a good example. The idea and structure is good(!) but execution is not so great.

<comment><USER26> I was commenting on ShakeShack's mobile website being nice from the perspective of a consumer, not from the technological implementation (I do not have experience coding in that domain). Do you have an example of a well designed mobile web site that implements best practices? I can only think of Basecamp's mobile project management site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >> Over the last few weeks I've spent countless hours, now lost forever, plumbing the depths of restaurant Web hell

I'm sorry but the author of this article has obviously missed the following sites built by the UK based company Engage Interactive. These guys have nailed the UK market and make awesome restaurant websites for some of the biggest chains / names.

www.strada.co.uk

www.bellaitalia.co.uk

www.caferouge.co.uk

www.giraffe.net

They feature exactly what you want, and they do it well. All of these sites make you want to eat in the Restuarants.

They also do www.pocketdiner.co.uk which redirects mobile traffic to a mobile version of the sites.

The culture at these restaurants is nothing like what is being described in the article. So all together I'm not sure where the author is coming from.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for noticing! My name is Magnus Hultberg, I work at Livebookings and collaborate with Engage around reservation services and Pocket Diner.

The sites you list above are in my opinion really great examples of what restaurant websites could and should be. There are also other agencies in the UK delivering really well such as Ignite Hospitality and Evolving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fashion web sites, including the sites for the large brands, are just as bad as restaurant web sites. Which is even more embarrassing for an industry that's so inherently visual. Even fairly successful fashion labels will have terrible, flash-based sites with autoplay music and (often) out-of-date content, because it's too expensive or too much trouble to update the site (which probably was built lacking any kind of real back-end CMS.)

<comment><USER15> Actually, they are making changes. createthe has been transforming some high end brands towards HTML5.

Thing about fashion is that it's more about brand than usability. They get a lot of their sales from their boutiques, net-a-porter, or other 3rd parties.

<comment><USER30> I wasn't thinking of the large multinational brands so much as the smaller labels that are more similar to the food trade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> While I agree with some of the analysis, I'm not sure I can agree with all of it without some perspective from the customers. The author makes it quite obvious they would not pay for a $72 or $400 meal. However, what do the people who would pay those prices think of the site? Perhaps, they don't want to be reminded of the price on the website, but rather of the good experience.

</comment><comment><USER32> I agree with a number of the comments, I setup a business selling websites to Restaurants (another user beat me to it in mentioning it ;) ) and have now transformed it into an SaaS ( <http://www.theme-force.com> ). You can sign up for it and play around with it for free ( open beta ). Feel free to provide any feedback/suggestions.

Regarding the article; people have already touched on the main points, i.e. accessibility (html vs flash vs pdf) and content (essentials vs fluff), so there's not much to add here. However, I do feel Schema (something we've worked on a lot), will become more and more important.

Cheers

</comment><comment><USER33> _"a series of menu buttons that aren't labeled; you've got to mouse over each one to find out what you're about to click on"_

This actually has a name: 'Mystery Meat Navigation'[1]. It's one of the most irritating usability ailments. I thought it was extinct by now, but apparently it's still used on restaurant sites. It used to be quite popular on art- and band-related sites, some ten years ago.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation>

</comment><comment><USER34> I know there are a couple companies out there that focus just on making restaurant websites. There is Aioli (<http://aioliweb.com>) here in Seattle and I know that they do the site for James Beard Award winner Lark (<http://larkseattle.com>).

</comment><comment><USER35> Check out <http://infostripe.com> Giving flash heavy restaurant sites a mobile option for customers was one of the design objectives. We are making great progress in the local area restaurants, mostly because it's free but also it's easy for the owners to setup and manage themselves.

</comment><comment><USER36> Recently recommended cargo collective to a friend who just opened a restaurant... He still insisted on using images in place of text in some cases, but I think it turned out pretty good and its easy for him to update <http://higetaka.jp>

</comment><comment><USER37> I live and work in Santa Monica and two horrific ones are Santa Monica food staples:

Bay Cities: <http://www.baycitiesitaliandeli.com/> Swingers: <http://www.swingersdiner.com/>

</comment><comment><USER38> I can't relate to this at all. Restaurants in my area have crappy sites, but none of them annoying in ways this article describes. They're just a bit old, or the text is too small, or the pictures are ugly. You know, the usual.

Is this SF local news? If so, why is it on HN?

<comment> Apple-Guy Have you ever tried to access a site on the go using a smart phone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Incidentally, I came upon this restaurant site. Now _that_ is a restaurant site done right: <http://www.porte-sainte-claire.com/#home>

</comment><comment><USER40> We're going to make a CMS that focuses on the activities of local businesses. Our first focus is gonna be restaurants, cause indeed most of their website suck. So we're gonna give them the opportunity to be able to update their website via our CMS, their clients are gonna be able to order food online, order a table online (we still have to checkout opentable first tho, anyone know any other services like them?), the restaurant holder can easily edit their meu pages via a editor, upload images of their meals, divide the menu in appetisers etc, and ofcourse other pages like opening hours, contact page, album, ...

What do you guys think about this? Other local companies we're gonna focus on are hotels, sportclubs, hairdresser, beautsaloon, garage, ...

<comment><USER41> I've been toying around with something similar in my spare time, though mine focuses only specifically on restaurants. I like the idea quite a bit, just haven't found the hours to dedicate to it just yet. Maybe after my product launch...

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Really they would probably do better with something outputting xml/json and getting their items/ prices/ location/ operation hours on every local business site in existence.

</comment><comment><USER24> Facebook or Google should think about a specialized type of "page" for restaurants that's easy to use and plugs in to everything that's good about the web.

</comment><comment><USER43> While I agree that restaurant sites in particular are quite lousy, Fleur de Lys did not strike me as a good example. Hubert Keller is a genuine personality and aspiring DJ. The restaurant is small, has no trouble staying full, the menu changes frequently and wants to surprise diners anyway.

But I'll reiterate, even thought the point has already been made a million times: not providing a web site that can be viewed on an iOS device is criminally insane, particularly for restaurants which frequently would be accessed by mobile devices.

<comment><USER44> > While I agree that restaurant sites in particular are quite lousy, Fleur de > Lys did not strike me as a good example. Hubert Keller is a genuine > personality and aspiring DJ. The restaurant is small, has no trouble staying > full, the menu changes frequently and wants to surprise diners anyway.

I think Hubert Keller is a genius as a chef, but I have no idea what the connection is between the last two sentences and the first two. He's cool; the restaurant is successful and good. What does that have to do with the website, which is truly god-awful.

Here's what I see when I open it in Safari on OSX Lion (stock - Flash is not installed): <http://cl.ly/9AsG>.

If anything, an interesting chef at a good restaurant - _with a website this awful_ is the best example. It shows that even (otherwise) smart people and successful restaurants fall into this trap.

While I'm here, a favorite post on this theme: [http://venomousporridge.com/post/389785000/a-conversation-i-...](http://venomousporridge.com/post/389785000/a-conversation- i-have-every-month-or-so\[1\])

[1] HN discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130419>

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> In hong kong, openrice.com is a huge website for restaurants...and it's a disaster...so much opportunity for someone to clean their clock.

</comment><comment><USER46> Oblig: <http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website>

</comment><comment><USER47> The music on this pubs site convinced me to go. <http://www.thirstyscholarpub.com/home.htm>

</comment><comment><USER48> what about this one? www.parlapizza.com.br</comment>


WeWork May Lay Off Thousands - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/wework-layoffs.html <comment><USER2> Didn't see this coming /s.

Of course they are! With a (mostly) single source of investment, lack of public trust (no chance of an IPO any time soon), a disgraced CEO - they need to minimise costs ASAP otherwise they'll be into liquidation very soon. Wouldn't be surprised if that's the long term plan anyway - make as much money for the higher-ups as possible, become indebted to people-in-the-know, go into liquidation to pay them back, and laugh all the way to the bank.

It amazes me that anybody would still want to work there knowing their job could only have 3-months left. Unless they have incredible perks, I'd be updating my resume and going to interviews on my lunch break.

<comment><USER3> > It amazes me that anybody would still want to work there knowing their job > could only have 3-months left. Unless they have incredible perks, I'd be > updating my resume and going to interviews on my lunch break.

My impression from the article is that a lot of non-tech workers are being laid off. It's not as easy to just find another job for many. Heck, how many of them even know the layoffs are coming?

<comment> o-__-o Enron all over again

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An interesting observation: if you go on [https://h1bdata.info/](https://h1bdata.info/) and search for "senior software engineer" H1-B salaries in in San Francisco, sort by descending - you'll see WeWork pays senior software engineers more cash than almost anybody in SF.

<comment><USER5> Well, it's not their cash is it? Might as well splash it around</comment></comment>


John Doerr: Coursera 'Could Be Big The Way Google Was' - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Coursera-Throws-a-Massive/133227/ well-known venture capitalist John Doerr is backing Coursera, the upstart provider of MOOCs, or massive open online courses, that is working with elite universities. "It's doing something very, very valuable for free, so it's going to scale to be enormous," he said in an interview over the weekend. <comment><USER3> "My company is a small start-up, and we're looking actually to hire someone who is skilled, so the reason I came is to talk to Andrew and the people and see if they could recommend someone in the class," said an executive who asked not to be named. "People could be very good already and they just need that certificate or they can put on their résumé that they finished the class," she added. "I don't want someone who doesn't have any experience, but I believe there are people who just do it on the side maybe it took them 15 minutes a week, and now they can claim that certificate."

facepalm, pretty sure no one completes any of these classes in 15 minutes a week

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that Udemy has a better chance of being big. Coursera is a limited platform and only allows universities to make courses.

Udemy allows any expert to do this and allows them to charge for courses. This is awesome because it'll attract more attention from experts and it will give experts incentive to make free courses to increase their reputation.

<comment><USER5> I think you underestimate how much people value brand name in education.

<comment><USER6> But currently we overestimate how much people _should_ value brand name in education, and there's every reason to think that will change.

<comment><USER7> True. And because of this I think at this stage it's impossible to say which one will become huge. They're all lacking two extremely core components: credibility and any sort of structured curriculum.

Credibility: What employer understands the value of Udemy or Coursera courses? Essentially none. And understandably so.

Structured curriculum: No high school student today will spend on their own time, instead of going to university, 1-4 intense years of Udemy or Coursera courses. A very large majority of high school students haven't the slightest clue what they want to spend their life doing. Without any clue, there is no way they will have sufficient drive on their own to lead their own education efforts.

I haven't seen anything from either of these websites that even come remotely close to solving these issues.

<comment><USER8> I think you've hit the nail on the head. This big educational startup land grab is futile until someone can address these two problems meaningfully. The first one isn't going to come down on its own in less than a couple generations--we're talking 20-40 years.

Whoever solves these problems first stands to reap the biggest rewards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with his sentiment that this will fundamentally change education - <USER2> I have no idea who's going to take over things like certification of achievement and certification of course quality. Certainly Coursera doesn't have any plan for the first and is relying on name recognition for the second, and ultimately that's not going to cut it.

But somebody _is_ going to get it right, and soon.

<comment><USER10> "I have no idea who's going to take over things like certification of achievement and certification of course quality"

Grade inflation and diploma mills, both incredibly popular in the brick and mortar .edu community, show "the market" doesn't care about those problems.

My gut level guess is massive gamification. I'm not going to get "a" cert for my coursera quantum computation class, I'll get a "medal" in qubit definition, a medal in inner product calculations, a medal in mastery of the implications of the two slot experiment, etc. So your QC crypto startup wants to hire a dude with minimum 500 medals in physics, minimum 300 medals in quantum physics, minimum 100 medals in quantum cryptography.

From the inside, as a coursera student, what I don't understand is why coursera is so chronologically limited. I must sign up before a certain date, must do homework before a certain date, must this date, must that date. I don't know why, other than they like arbitrary chronological limitations. So its youtube with a wiki and a quiz/survey program... why add a weird scheduling layer on top that doesn't fit the technology/culture of online education?

<comment><USER11> I read something where the goal is to mimic the offline community of students at a real university. By having a large group of people all taking the class at the same time, you maximize the chances that if someone asks a question on the forum, someone else who's at the same point in the class will come across it and be able to answer it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree. And further, a University's partnership with Coursera may work out much like Yahoo's partnership with Google.

</comment><comment><USER13> They are going to be huge. I totally buy it

</comment><comment><USER14> Doerr also said Segway would hit $1B in sales faster than any company in history. I'd look out the window if he told me the weather.

</comment><comment><USER15> > L. John Doerr, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who > is well-known in Silicon Valley, attended the cookout, and said he is an > enthusiastic supporter of the effort _(he's also on its board of > directors)._

He has a financial stake in seeing it become as big as Google so take with grain of salt.

<comment><USER16> "no conflict, no interest." seems appropriate here.

<comment><USER17> What does it mean? I can't parse it.

<comment><USER18> It's a John Doerr quote[1]. Here's the opening paragraphs from an article which discusses it:

 _Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr is said to have once described his investment philosophy as "no conflict, no interest."

In other words, when Doerr and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins aren't privileged enough to enjoy a potential conflict of interest with respect to a potential investment, they have no interest in making the investment._

[1]: [http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-11/tech/30001236...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-11/tech/30001236_1_twitter- twitter-board-investment)

<comment><USER17> That clarifies it, thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do darker pixels use less power? - <AUTHOR>

I am asking because it seems to me that the closer a pixel on an LCD monitor is to off, the less power it should take to display it.  If so, sites that are commonly used as homepages and/or just visited often (e.g. google, facebook), could reduce the energy usage of client machines by using a large percentage of darker pixels (e.g. black background, lighter text).  Considering the amount of client monitors displaying those sites on a daily basis, couldn't this make a significant difference?  background-color: #000; FTW?! <comment><USER2> On an LCD, black uses the _most_ energy. Granted, it's a miniscule difference. The backlight is always on, and energy has to be passed through the crystals to twist them and block the light at the individual pixels, in order to produce anything other than pure white.

On a CRT, black is probably the greenest color. But in both cases, I suspect the difference is so small that you wouldn't be able to measure it in pennies on your electric bill.

</comment><comment><USER3> This idea has come up a while ago and has been shot down. Research suggests that it would not reduce energy consumption. Here is Google's take on it: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new- green.ht...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html)

If you feel strongly about it you can always use: <http://www.blackle.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links - I had not seen these before.</comment></comment>


How the Olympics rotted Greece - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-olympics-rotted-greece/ <comment><USER2> The Olympics wrecked Greece like Gordon Ramsay wrecks the restaurants he visits on kitchen nightmares.

If you're struggling and you plan a big flashy show to save your economy, and it doesn't work, all your problems don't suddenly become the fault of the big flashy show you planned to fix them.

<comment><USER3> > like Gordon Ramsay wrecks the restaurants he visits on kitchen nightmares.

What's the evidence for this?

<comment><USER2> Every couple months it seems like I see another Facebook or Reddit post with the stat that 90% of the restaurants featured on kitchen nightmares go under within a year of their episode airing. As if a show that focuses on failing restaurants is somehow to blame when those restaurants fail.

It seemed like a good comparison for Greece and what they tried to do with the Olympics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article states that greek debt is $349 billion and that the Olympics totaled around $7 billion. The premise of this article is flawed.

<comment><USER5> Agreed.

Also, the author's sub-headline asks whether to blame the IOC then points how the olympics costing doesn't include incremental infrastructure projects -- which likely would've happened without the olympics, just not as fast, as is the case with most olympics[1].

From what I remember, Athens was one of the best executed, efficient olympics ever. Unfortunately, attendance was low as the timing of the Iraq War made travel undesirable.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Summer_Olympics#Costs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Summer_Olympics#Costs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The IOC could solve the problem of where to stage its increasingly costly > Games (and provide a helping hand to Greece) by putting the Games > permanently in Athens.

Not a great article, but I totally agree with the conclusion. The Summer Olympic Games should be held every four years in Athens. Why move it around the world? Greece is the perfect location.

</comment><comment><USER7> I honestly don't understand why any country would want to hold the olympics, unless they already have the vast majority of the infrastructure in place, it's just such a mind-bogglingly expensive proposition.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why, again, would Boston want 2024?

<comment><USER9> Poor leadership tends to make bad decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a relevant chart: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/HellenicOecon...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/HellenicOeconomy%28inCurrentEuros%29.png)</comment>


Target has launched an answer to Amazon Dash called Fetch - <AUTHOR> https://thespoon.tech/meet-fetch-targets-smart-home-powered-replenishment-service/ <comment><USER2> Any bets on how long it will take Target to stop trying to make Fetch happen?</comment>


Why your startup won't make it - <AUTHOR> http://codingwithlove.com/thoughts/why-your-startup-wont-make-it

<comment><USER2> This is more or less a linkbait headline. Regardless, if those who are successful listened to those who told them they would fail, they wouldn't have been successful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bingo ... :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, you had an idea, your idea was validated because there are competitors and someone else just got funding to make that particular idea.

And then, because you'd have competition, you gave up.

And our startups won't make it because we'd give up if we found a competitor, which most people actually think of as a good thing?

A very odd post. Feels more like an attempt to justify your decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry if it didn't make sense to you. I posted it, because I would find enjoyable reading it. Maybe you're just not kind of reader I tried to target, but I believe there are some.

<comment><USER3> The title is a bit inflammatory, that's all.

<comment><USER4> It fits a certain attention-getting trend with these titles, really.

* Why [bad thing will happen to you]

* Why I gave up [popular service].

* Why [popular tool] sucks [optional], and how to fix it [/optional]

There are a few more but I can't think of them now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://github.com/scrod/nv/blob/master/License.txt>

You wanted a mac client and you wanted tags.

You settled on a web interface "replacement".

Somehow I think the itch will return soon.

When it does, you can just fork Notational Velocity, add books/tags/whatever, make it sync with a web app, and get back in business!

<comment><USER6> >When it does, you can just fork Notational Velocity, add books/tags/whatever, make it sync with a web app, and get back in business!

Awesome! That should be easy then, because Notational Velocity already has tags, and it already syncs with Simplenote — very well, in fact:

[http://scrod.posterous.com/interesting-facts-about- simplenot...](http://scrod.posterous.com/interesting-facts-about-simplenote- support-in)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree that competition validates a market, but as an entrepreneur I'm still hesitant to launch a competing product that I had an idea for. Here's why:

1\. My competitors may be ahead of me. If something is just out there launched, that means that someone's been working on it for 3-6 months prior. I'm at month 0 and have catch-up to do.

2\. Sometimes, competitors are just really good-- like their products are fully adequate for your specific needs, and probably pretty good for a bunch of other people as well. I have a hard time saying I should pursue something if I'm content using someone else's product.

The whole issue is that this leads to a conundrum. If my idea is fresh and new, then market validation becomes difficult because competing startups are in stealth mode. Only 6 months later do I say "Shit, that was actually an awesome idea". The only thing I can rely on are my own convictions and market tests that customer need exists.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great post!

And the other reason you were smart to quit that idea is: "Easy to use note- taking application with cloud syncing and simple organization." That sounds like overkill if I've ever heard it for a simple note-taking tool. If I'm taking notes I use a text editor or paper. For task and project tracking, I use Jira.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I know it sounds like overkill - but it's exactly what SimpleNote dies :-) I would be very curious to know more about how successful they are.

<comment><USER9> Let's hope that SimpleNote never dies :)

They do something simple, but they hit it so far out of the park that it crosses town and lands in a completely different park! I think of it as Dropbox for Text. It's always where I need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I couldn't disagree more with the author of this post. When I think of entrepreneurship, I think of innovation. I think of creativity. I think of drive. The author expresses none of these qualities - especially drive. I'm all for knowing when to stop, but this is just pathetic.

Congrats - you're a quitter. The next time you feel like spreading your pessimism, keep it to yourself. I don't think your little rant is benefiting anybody.

"The only real failure in life is the failure to try." Trying is what drives humanity - it's all we have. If nobody ever tried, we'd have nothing.

</comment><comment><USER11> You need to think about the whole market size. What if the existing note taking applications like Simple Note are utilizied by only a tiny percentage of the possible market? Intead of just giving up, think of what other features you could introduce to beat Simple Note. Have you done any research to see how they are even doing? Don't be discouraged by competition. Google always pops up in my mind whenever I hear a story like this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What a #FAIL my server died :-/

PDF: <http://cl.ly/12dd4e4abff3939fa3c8>

</comment><comment><USER12> The post/link doesn't seem to work :( update?</comment>


Master of His Virtual Domain - Addicted to Clash of Clans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/technology/master-of-his-virtual-domain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

<comment><USER2> "On weekends, Mr. Yao could inoculate himself against attacks by staying online. This meant ordering in meals, when he ate at all, and taking the iPad with him into the bathroom."

heh. like i keep the tablet any other place in the house.</comment>


Are you replaceable? - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/are_you_replaceable_redux.php

<comment><USER2> Optimistically, 100% of us are eventually replaceable by someone (or something) as capable (or more capable) and cheaper.

It leads to more unemployment, but the step from unemployment to poverty is wrong. As efficiency rises, poverty should diminish, or in other words, society's monetary support (basic income) for its people should rise in relation to GDP. It's hard to see a futuristic society (where most tasks are completed by machines) functioning otherwise.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income>

<comment><USER3> I'd argue that we're (almost) already there. Right now in the UK it would be cheaper to scrap our entire welfare system and just give every man, woman and child in the country GBP 3000/year, no questions asked, no strings attached. A family of 4 could live on GBP 12k (tax-free) outside of London - and anything earned over and above that would be subject to taxation as normal.

<comment><USER4> _scrap our entire welfare system and just give every man, woman and child in the country GBP 3000/year, no questions asked_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The graveyards are full of irreplaceable men - Charles de Gaulle.

<comment><USER5> Even if you are irreplaceable, that is no guarantee for others to recognize it.</comment></comment>


Why I'm Leaving America - <AUTHOR> http://sailboatdiaries.com/wordpress/2012/07/20/why-im-leaving-america/

<comment><USER2> This essay is pseudo-intellectual. I'm not here to defend the USA, my beef with this article honestly has nothing to do with its message. I've heard several reasons people move out of their home countries, and as the child of immigrants (and the friend of many expats) I fully support these kinds of decisions.

What annoys me is this article is written abstractly and is saturated with metaphors, but actually lacks well-argued points to support its wild claims. How can someone argue against "it's clear your path is unsustainable. Collapse is mathematically guaranteed"? It reads like a diatribe from someone who has seen very little of the world.

I want my 10 minutes back.

<comment><USER3> It's a bit rambling at points. But I can't say I don't disagree with many points.

I have been living in a third world country for close to four years and in many ways it feels more free living here. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about this country that makes me feel that way though. Perhaps it was largely just the act of moving. Perhaps it's that this country has less resources to put people away.

I have been looking into the easiest options to get a second passport so that I always have a plan B.

What this article (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't seem to hit on is that the U.S. is made up of fifty different states. Perhaps the federal government just needs to shrink and let the states do their thing.</comment></comment>


Should Have Bought – Hindsight to see what you should have bought - <AUTHOR> https://shouldhavebought.com <comment><USER2> "Should have bought" is nowhere near as painful as "had but didn't see the point and lost the wallet."

We were one of the relatively early businesses to accept BTC as a payment option, and even though we only took a few hundred dollars worth of BTC in 2011, it boggles the mind what it would have been worth today.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, finding ones old wallet is even more of a delight. I lost mine (luckily I kept the keys in a backup, but I forgot about it until now) somewhere around 2015, with about 20€. When I managed to recover it a few days back, I was happy to see that it was now nearly worth 130€!

And the best thing was that I didn't even spend a cent to buy the coins in the first place, but instead someone just gifted them to me on /r/Bitcoin when they were worth around 15€. One time it even fell down to 6€...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tools like this just add to the bubble. Pretty much all "ICOs" are just pump and dump. Very few people actually know what they are getting in to.

</comment><comment><USER5> Exactly the type of FOMO and greed that's driving up prices now.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. The fact that the site only supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ether makes me even suspect that it's only purpose is to fan the flames.

<comment><USER7> Well, someone has to buy these coins for earlier investors to realize their profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a Coinbase commercial. Good work.

<comment><USER9> Beyond that, it seems that it's actually been set up by someone called Jason van den Berg(@jayvdb1 on twitter) to bait people into using their referral link.

<comment><USER10> My bad, wasn't intended to come across as just baiting people. Put this together 2 days ago as an experiment using the coinbase api. Figured couldn't hurt putting the referral in. I'm going to add more investments like Apple shares and a few other popular ones. Would that make it less scammy? Appreciate the feedback

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the only thing this shows is that there's no bad moment to get in :P

</comment><comment><USER12> These are the kinds of tools who's design is such that I can't tell if they're evil or brilliant. On one hand, I know it's a manipulation of "could have, should have" \-- the fear of missing out or having missed out -- and much like a visual illusion you know it's a completely fake form of regret. At the same time, no matter how much you stare at it, even knowing it's completely fake, you can't make it go away.

</comment><comment><USER13> Made something similar for visualizing a dollar-cost averaging strategy: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uic759wn21aJo6COMtxg...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uic759wn21aJo6COMtxg857gH1Uv0gGzimGxhN53XWc/edit) (see 2nd sheet)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is kind of amusing; they should add more currencies and maybe other types of assets. Although, as others have mentioned, the kind of thinking this encourages isn't healthy to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Very few important developments are driven by a fear of missing out.

<comment><USER15> > Very few important developments are driven by a fear of missing out.

Space program? Code-breaking? Nuclear weapons? Dot-com boom? Real-estate? Search-engines? Social media? Oil? Gold-rush?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> this is depressing (gif) [http://gph.is/2c6rAL9](http://gph.is/2c6rAL9)

<comment><USER17> It's meant to be. No different from an "app" showcasing whether you should or should not have bought apple stock in 2004.</comment></comment>


German Parliament says: Stop Granting Software Patents - <AUTHOR> https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130422-01.en.html <comment><USER2> As explained in the comments here, it's difficult to tell what is and isn't a "software patent". Remember that the famous Unix crypt() patent was described in terms of a circuit, and then also mentioned in passing that software implementations of the same logic would also be covered. (A dependent claim, I assume? I haven't read the patent.)

It seems to me that what we need is not immunity from _granting_ patents on software, but immunity from _enforcing patents against_ software. I propose a very simple test: if a system with its software erased would not infringe the patent, then the system should be considered not to infringe the patent. Thus, arrangements of machine parts, formulations of coatings, and non-programmable circuits would be subject to patent litigation; but entire machines that wouldn't function at all without software would not be.

<comment><USER3> > It seems to me that what we need is not immunity from granting patents on > software, but immunity from enforcing patents against software.

If we're not going to enforce a patent against software, why grant it in the first place?

<comment><USER2> I'm not proposing abolishing the patent system altogether; I'm proposing to protect software from it, while allowing the enforcement of patents against things that are legitimately subject to patents.

<comment><USER3> So why grant patents on software?

<comment><USER2> Because you can't tell if a patent might cover software or not when you grant it, in the way that the patent law is currently applied under the influence of WIPO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Software patents are illegal under the European Patent Convention. Nevertheless, the European Patent Office has granted tens of thousands of patents covering software._

Then what's the point of the European Patent Convention?

<comment><USER5> [http://archive.epo.org/epo/pubs/oj007/11_07/11_5947.pdf](http://archive.epo.org/epo/pubs/oj007/11_07/11_5947.pdf)

The above link gives details over the approach taken by the EPO, giving examples of pure software patents which were rejected whilst also illustrating the approach taken to granted patents in the area.

My understanding is that software in its own right cannot be patented but where software is incorporated into a specific product to provide functionality it can be patented.

/edit The following link also provides good information. Essentially, the barrier is very low to establishing that a software patent achieves a technical measure and falls outside the exception. For example in HTC v Apple, a lower court judge found a multi-touch related patent invalid as a computer programme, however a higher court overturned this ruling.

[http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/from-alice-to- apple-p...](http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/from-alice-to-apple- patentable-subject.html)

<comment><USER6> > _where software is incorporated into a specific product to provide > functionality it can be patented._

Actually it is more like when a process like the one that can usually be patented contains software, then the software part can be included in the patent covering the whole process.

The key part of Art. 52 §3 creating exemptions from §2 is _" as such"_ [0].

Say you invent a robot able to weld faster and more precisely. You can request a patent covering the robot and, being a fundamental part of it, the control logic implemented in software. Yet you can not try and patent the control logic by itself, nor sue anyone using the exact same control logic anywhere else, including in robots (as long as they themselves don't infringe on the patent). Conversely, someone using the same robot design but a different software algorithm may not be infringing the original patent. This protects both the innovator from being flat out ripped of and everyone's right to use algorithms and mathematics freely, while incremental innovations are allowed either in software or in hardware.

[0] [http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal- texts/html/epc/2010/e/...](http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal- texts/html/epc/2010/e/ar52.html)

<comment><USER7> The problem is that the meaning of "software as such" has been almost completely eroded over the past decades by the EPO and some national courts (including, in particular, the X. Civil Senate of the German Federal Court of Justice).

"Software as such" used to be excluded because inventions were required to be technical, which meant that a patent had to teach a methodical use of controllable forces of nature that attained a goal based on cause and effect. The criterion of "being technical" predated "software as such", but the latter term was indeed intended to distinguish between pure software and combined software/hardware solutions, where the software was integral to the overall solution, reflecting previous exclusions of business methods, mathematics, etc. under the same criterion.

What happened was that the "use of controllable forces of nature" got watered down incrementally until now practically anything that isn't defined in terms of a Turing Machine satisfies the criterion (sadly, I'm not really exaggerating much here). For example, anything that is designed to operate in finite (not even practically limited, just not infinite) memory can be argued to be related to managing resources and thus be technical. Any algorithm that is more efficient than another (uses less memory, is more cache-friendly, requires less I/O, etc.) is potentially technical.

As a result, tying your algorithm to a device as an integral part of a combined hardware/software system is not really a necessity any longer. That does not mean that anything goes, but there are way too many patents relating to what developers (but not the EPO) think of as pure software solutions that are patented and which can trip you up.

This is precisely what the German parliament is referring to when it complains that "in practice -- in particular by the European Patent Office (EPO) -- patents were granted for computer programs where the patent grant for teachings relating to pure data processing received only a formal disguise as a 'technical process' or 'technical device' and claims explicitly included also the computer programs implementing these processes or devices".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> See the correction in the text:

[Correction 2013-04-24: Parliament did not yet adopt the motion, but rather decided to pass it to the parliament committees for further consideration.]

<comment><AUTHOR> The subcommittee met last Friday and unanimously recommended the motion be accepted. See [http://www.gewerblicher- rechtsschutz.jurion.de/news/?user_ak...](http://www.gewerblicher- rechtsschutz.jurion.de/news/?user_aktuelles_pi1%5Baid%5D=271414&cHash=c51e94e8ce556591e978e83cfe4d365b) (in German). Since Die Linke have said they will abstain, the motion should pass overwhelmingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have an idea to curb patent damage. Leave patent registrars as just that: a proof that the holder registered the idea. Actually that's exactly what the USPTO is now really.

If they want to use the patent in a suit for the first time, then trigger a much more rigorous process to test its validity.

<comment><USER10> I like that idea too. The FFII (not known for their love of the patent system as used for software in some places) has proposed a more complex approach based on that idea, where there's a bounty system in place to act as a sort of garbage-collection mechanism to remove duplicate ideas:

[http://eupat.ffii.org/07/p2parl/exam/](http://eupat.ffii.org/07/p2parl/exam/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's sing along: There's a long way to Tipperary, there's a long way to gooo. Sincerely Hans der Lobbyist

</comment><comment><USER12> This seems a month old. Has it become a law yet?

<comment><USER7> It is a resolution, not legislation. In practice, almost any legislation with significant effect would have to occur at the European level.

It is still a big story, because it is a motion supported by all parties in the German parliament except the "Linke" (who don't like software patents, either). That would at the very least indicate that German interests seem to be pretty strongly aligned against software patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Google Economy has hurt the web in a number of ways.

There are some very large web sites I could deliver as a single page app (looks cool, loads faster, etc.) but that's like having a "cloak of invisibility" so far as Google is concerned.

<comment><USER14> Single-page apps hurt the web; they break navigation. It's a good thing that Google penalizes them.

<comment><USER15> plus.google.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If software patents are illegal then how the hell they can grant ten thousands software patents? I hope they modify the copyright approach a little better and remove software patents to help save open source softwares.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wasn't fraunhoffer a german institution - the one behind mp3 codec?

</comment><comment><USER18> Not compatible with FOSS licensing? Sure that may be true for AGPL but BSD is the framework that grants patent rights under FOSS and is precisely the thing to mitigate copyright shortfalls. This is just the EU not being helpful. Again...</comment>


ICLR 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://developers.lyst.com/2015/05/08/iclr-2015/

<comment><USER2> Another review which covers some different papers: [http://www.machinedlearnings.com/2015/05/iclr-2015-review.ht...](http://www.machinedlearnings.com/2015/05/iclr-2015-review.html)</comment>


Not everything is awesome - <AUTHOR> http://labs.ft.com/2014/08/not-everything-is-awesome/

<comment><USER2> Halleleujah! –it's not just me then.

The fact that when I read the word "awesome" I always hear it in my head in a whiny nasal American teenager voice and pronounced like "Arse-Sum" makes it even more irritating.

Hence my oft-used comment on articles here, that I've bailed out of reading after hipster-speak overload kicked in:

 _" Stopped reading at Arse-Sum!"_</comment>


Ryan Dahl addresses comments on his recent rant - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/VZJbdwwfiAD <comment><USER2> I agreed with the general ideas in its original rant, but IMHO the problem is not the POSIX API nor the C language (including "volatile"), those are both well designed and simple stuff, for the most part (the C standard library is horrid unfortunately).

IMHO most of the problems are about the other layers: tricks you need to know about the operating system _implementation_ of POSIX, or dynamic library loading, all the subtle things with different binaries formats, and so forth.

A few of this things are easy to solve, for me it is impossible to understand how the libC can be in this sad state, and how the replacements and improvements to it like glib are also a mess. If one day I'll not hack on Redis anymore my mission will be, assuming I'll have another way to pay my bills, to create a replacement for the C standard library.

While we are at it, not C++ nor Objective C are the final words on making C better and more comfortable to use (but I think the latter is much better than the former at it). This is surely an area where there is a lot to do. Unfortunately "D" is diverging so much form C that it should completely replacing it to get mainstream: very unlikely given the role C is playing today and the code base. A backward compatible improvement is still what we need I think.

<comment><USER3> What is so bad about the C standard library? What would you change?

I find it lacking a lot of essential features -- can you believe strdup isn't part of the C standard? -- but simplicity and minimalism has always been C's strongest point.

<comment><USER4> Lack of real string type. String manipulation is a pain and you have to allocate everything by yourself which result in inefficient and dangerous code.

<comment><USER3> Shouldn't string manipulation be more efficient if you have to everything by hand? Besides, using a recursive memory allocator takes away most of the pain and it's more efficient than a garbage collector.

<comment><USER5> It's quite easy to overuse strlen or strcat or otherwise turn an O(n) algorithm into O(n^2). But the efficiency I'd be more concerned with is programmer efficiency finding and fixing security bugs caused by off-by-one buffer lengths and input length checking, and the like (e.g. copying k characters into a char buf[k]).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Can you not imagine a world where one could operate in native code without the concept of volatile variables?_

Sometimes you want the compiler to do its best with register optimizations and code ordering etc and sometimes you have to explicitly tell it to go to memory every time. You could layer an abstraction over this but some people would still need to burrow under it. The point of working at the C/C++ systems layer is you have this control but also the responsibility that comes with it.

<comment><USER7> Or maybe he is hoping for something more elegant than plain shared memory, at the hardware level.

<comment><USER8> There are 3 problems with this statement that I can see.

1) people haven't even agreed on the best technique for utilizing multiple cores, or heck, on the difference between concurrency and parallelism, and quite the contrary, I think the x86 architecture is too smart and carries a lot of baggage compared to the elegance and simplicity of pure RISC processors

2) most of the time you're not really working directly with hardware -- like, for example modern kernels do not allow you to access the memory of another process directly, and that value that you wanted to save in RAM may end up in a swap file on your hard-disk.

3) what hardware does have is a separation between hard-disk, RAM, L2 cache, L1 cache and CPU registers. In a perfect world there would only be one type of memory, unfortunately that would be too expensive and without much benefit versus the current state of the art.

For maximum performance (which is required in many instances) you do have to know about the difference between these multiple layers of memory and take appropriate action, even though many times this is abstracted away from you.

The problem with "volatile" is different in nature - the behavior of volatile is not really portable and in practice it is also useless as higher-level APIs, like POSIX threads, do have better atomic and fence semantics that are more portable. Basically "volatile" was added in for good measure and it is now a legacy generating lots of problems.

<comment><USER6> Volatile is useful in implementing things like lock-free queues, at least on X86. For some real-time applications you can't afford to take a kernel lock or spin on a spinlock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> His first point here really hit home for me. Indeed, people like Ryan Dahl hate software for us so we don't have to.

</comment><comment><USER10> """We should program as if we were perched atop of 20 floors of bamboo scaffolding - because that's the state of the Unix userland."""

Genius.

</comment><comment><USER11> POSIX is beautiful. d-bus != POSIX.

<comment><USER12> why does he keep mentioning dbus and glib? I havent been following node.js development and last time i checked in, node was written in c++.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if perhaps he doesn't realize that Ted Dziuba is not a fan of Twisted either. He's generally recognized as a very belligerent, assertive personality, in the same vein as Zed Shaw, and you have to have a certain amount of thick skin when reading his commentary.

That said, the fact that Node doesn't provide the tools necessary to defer blocking JS code to a thread does pose a problem for these sorts of situations. Apparently (and correct me if I'm wrong; I'm not a Node expert!) Node won't let you run JS in any thread which is not the main thread. Twisted _does_ let you run Python in non-main threads with the deferToThread()/callFromThread()[1] functionality.

I also agree with him about JS being a poor language for server-side work, but that's because I don't think JS's object model is well-suited to large, interface-driven/service-driven applications, and that isn't really a gripe with Node.

[1] [http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.inter...](http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.internet.interfaces.IReactorThreads.html) and [http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.inter...](http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.internet.threads.html) document threading in Twisted.

<comment><USER14> What's wrong with JS's object model? It's certainly more flexible than say Java's. If the problem is the flexibility, do you feel the same way about Ruby?

<comment><USER15> There's plenty not to like about JavaScript, but the biggest mess is this:

js> x = 1 1 js> z = x.y js> // WTF??

In other words: it's not an error to access an attribute of an object which isn't there. It's dicey enough that you can have attributes in Python and Ruby that can be misspelled, and mismatch their declarations, without an immediate compiler error. But, that is reasonable to deal with as long as you have pretty good unit test coverage: after all, if you run the code that is actually accessing the attribute, you'll quickly see that there's a run-time error and fix it:

irb(main):001:0> x = 1 => 1 irb(main):002:0> z = x.y NoMethodError: undefined method `y' for 1:Fixnum from (irb):2

~or~

>>> x = 1 >>> z = x.y Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribute 'y'

... and you need unit test coverage _anyway_ , because the compiler can't save you from a huge variety of other violations, so it's not like this is really making much extra work for you.

In JavaScript, by the time you actually encounter an error, it's too late to figure out where the heck the erroneous object is getting generated. So, if you have some code like 'this.observers.push(object.somefunc);', every test case which adds an observer must also verify what happens when the observer gets called: and it has to be _the same test_ so you have some idea where the observer came from, whereas you can easily make those things different tests in Python.

Then, in order to get reasonable error-reporting behavior from quick things which aren't tested, you have to have tons of manual type-checks anywhere that objects are put into a persistent container, because by the time you have some random 'undefined' in your list of observers, it's far too late to figure out how it got there.

This type of paranoid defensive programming is a bad idea in Python and Ruby, because you can just let the language runtime do its job and inform you if there's an error, and your stacktraces will give you a good idea where it is.

The fact that sometimes unknown things are 'undefined' and sometimes they're 'null' and sometimes they're '"undefined"' and sometimes they're the empty string and sometimes they're 0 really compounds this problem. Python has None, Ruby has nil, and nobody uses random ad-hoc sentinel values because why would you do that?

The thing that just blows my mind is that the designers of JavaScript must have _known_ that this was a terrible idea, because:

js> undefined.undefined typein:1: TypeError: undefined has no properties js> null.nothing typein:2: TypeError: null has no properties

so when you are _two_ steps out from the misspelling that caused your error, you can figure out that something has in fact gone wrong. And:

js> blub typein:3: ReferenceError: blub is not defined

since the assumption that everything you _really_ care about in JavaScript is going to be a global variable, and prototype attributes are kind of an afterthought. After all, why would you store data in organized structures when you can just stuff it all into an undifferentiated bag of crap in the global namespace! It's all going to go away when you reload the page, right?

Except then Node comes along and changes the equation so you actually have to live with your persistent data structures and you probably want to know when things go wrong in your long-running servers. Oops.

Here I really have to agree with Ted: despite the fact that there are advantages to be had from keeping your client and your server in the same language and leveraging your investment in utility libraries in both places, JavaScript really is bad enough language that it's worth the effort to use something different when you can.</comment></comment></comment>


'Harry Potter' Series to Be Sold as E-Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/23/world/europe/AP-EU-Britain-Potter.html?pagewanted=print

<comment><AUTHOR> Given that these have been available illegitimately in e within hours after publication, in multiple languages, worldwide, their sales will be very interesting to see and provide ammo for one or the other side of the piracy debate.

</comment><comment><USER2> Alternate link, in case you hit the NYTimes paywall:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13889578></comment>


How Drinking Bottled Water Became a Thing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.socialrank.com/2014/11/11/how-drinking-bottled-water-became-a-thing/?v=1 <comment><USER2> I know expecting rigorous science from an entertainment program is always asking a bit much, but the Penn & Teller gourmet-water prank always struck me as flawed given the social dynamics at play. Most people in that situation are going to feel some social pressure to acknowledge some sort of qualities in what they are being served, whether from fear of appearing unsophisticated or simply out of a desire to be polite, even if what they're drinking does consciously taste like tap water to them.

Personally, while I don't buy any branded, single-serve waters, I do actually buy gallon jugs of house-brand "drinking water" from my local grocery store for the taste. Whatever minerals they add "for taste," I prefer it to tap or even spring water.

<comment><USER3> It's been pretty well documented that presentation affects the perception of taste. Adding some fancy adjectives (and possibly a fancy price) to the menu can make people perceive the food as tasting better. I believe it's been shown to work with wine too. So it's not surprising that the same thing can happen with water.

<comment><USER4> Also, wine is barely better than water in terms of taste perception. Even wine "experts" can't differentiate wine in a blind test - they've been known to confuse red and white wine, give wildly inconsistent ratings to a single wine over multiple tests, and correlate high ratings with high price - even if the "expensive" wine is really a cheap on with a fake fancy label and price tag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to drink bottled water exclusively, mainly because I thought the taste was unambiguously better. However, three things got me to switch to using filtered tap water.

#1) having to carry multiple gallons from the store to the car to the house was getting to be a chore. given the amount of water of i drank, it was a headache. now that i've switched to filtered tap water, it's so much easier.

#2) i received a brochure from the local water municipality that documented all the steps that the water went through to be purified. It was way more involved than I thought. Plus, the purchased filter literature claims to remove impurities to several significant digits - post coming from the tap.

#3) it's cheaper overall. sure there's a fixed cost to buying a filter system, but once it's up and running, it pays for itself.

<comment><USER6> Same here. Also, when at a restaurant squeeze a lemon (or lime) wedge into your water to help handle odd tastes.

I would avoid dropping the wedge into the water since you have no idea if the rind is clean.

<comment><USER7> > I would avoid dropping the wedge into the water since you have no idea if > the rind is clean.

Why are you eating there if you can't trust them to provide clean food?

<comment><USER8> Former barkeeper here: usually the limes and lemons are bought as-is- available, which usually means mass-produced stuff laced with pesticides. Organic fruits are, due to their higher price, normally only available in hipster places.

The rind is not considered edible in any way, and the pesticides don't migrate through the rind. Which is, btw, a good reason to rinse any fruit or vegetable (prior to USE, not directly after you get home from shopping!!!) and also wash your hands afterwards so you don't ingest the toxins via your skin.

<comment><USER9> Never mind pesticides; rinds are great places for bacteria to grow. Peel all fruits and vegetables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If places sold an empty bottle for 5c or whatever that you had to fill up by yourself at a tap, then that's what I would buy.

Sometimes you're out and you want something to drink but you don't have a container, bottled water is kind of an obvious choice. All the purity shit is just capitalist competition in action. And I still don't understand what is worse about it than bottled Coke or whatever.

<comment><USER11> But who would buy it?

Contra the article, I would argue that there's three reasons bottled water became popular:

1) Convenience: no need to tote an empty container around with you, or find one when you're thirsty

2) Status signaling: a.k.a. "tap water is what the proles drink"

3) Collapse of faith in the efficacy of collective action: the rise of Perrier was driven by sales in the US & UK, and occurred during the late '70s and early '80s, the same time as the rise of Reagan and Thatcher and the beginning of the era we live in now. Guarantees of the purity of tap water rested on the authority of government, which people had stopped believing in. The purity of bottled water rested on the authority of the Free Market™, which was more in fashion.

Empty bottle plus tap would be much better for the environment, and probably cost people less over time than bottled water does, but it fails in comparison on all three of those points. And since history shows these are the points people care about, the prospects of the concept don't seem bright; at least not without another major shift in society.

<comment><USER12> Point 3 is confusing to me. In the U.S., government regulation of water quality got a lot stronger in the 1970s:

[http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations/history-clean-water- act](http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations/history-clean-water-act)

[http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/index.cfm](http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/index.cfm)

Between that, advances in technology and the wider deployment of municipal water supplies, U.S. tap water is probably as clean and safe as it has ever been, at least since the beginning of the industrial era.

<comment><USER11> I'm referring to public perception, not facts.

The environmental wave that was symbolized by the first Earth Day resulted in lots of environmental policy improvements in the US by the end of the '70s. But by the time those policy improvements happened, public sentiment had turned away from collective action towards private, market-based action.

Remember, laws lag public opinion, they don't lead it. So the laws that pass today are responses to public opinion as it stood at some point in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No commentary about entertainment venues removing/hiding the water fountains and making carry ins (like my refillable bottle) illegal for security theater reasons?

I'm not saying that explains 35 gallons a year unless you go out a heck of a lot more than I do, but it is something of a gateway drug, that once you get used to going to the state fair and spending $7 for a brat and ... $2 for the bottled water to go with it, you're on a slippery slope to buying more bottled water later. Look how cheap the bottles are at the store, why I paid $2 for one bottle at the fair, and I can get a dozen bottles at the food store for $3 what an awesome great deal bottled water is I'm gonna buy some for next time I go out...

<comment><USER14> It's getting better. SFO, for one, has long-neck water dispensers for filling your own bottle. I've found other airports often have something similar. Of course, you need to think ahead to actually BRING your empty bottle (or dump the water before security), because my first thought when packing is "oh, I can't take my Nalgene because they won't let the water through security". It takes an extra step to say "oh, wait, I can take it through EMPTY".

Of course, it also seems silly to pack a large empty container.

I'm more likely to use a disposable bottle if I'm going to an event, or I'm walking around a city all day as a tourist, and want to be able to ditch the bottle rather than carrying it around empty.

That said, I virtually never buy water, I dislike it on principle and only do so in special circumstances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Every reason mentioned except the main one - that you can't charge $4 for a cup w/tap water in it? Also when fast food/day-to-day restaurants give you a cup for water, it's tiny and uncovered.

I would prefer tap water in all cases. It is never a convenient choice.

edit: If you wanted to legislate effectively (rather than in a Bloombergian manner), just require that tap water be a first class citizen at restaurants (same cups, same sizes), and that the purchase of soda/bottled water cannot be involved in a package discount, unless tap water would give you the same discount.

</comment><comment><USER16> Since last year, I have tried my best to avoid any drink that comes in a plastic bottle and as well as saving me a decent amount of money, I feel much better about not adding to the obscene amount of waste and the fact that when i do have a drink out, I am helping independents too rather than fueling the corporate monster..!

<comment><USER17> Bottled water is so expensive. Really adds up quickly. Never order it at restaurants. Tap water please.

<comment><USER18> I buy 36 bottles of water from Kroger at around $3.50 (plus 7% taxes). Taking one with me on my bike every weekday means they last around two months, at less than $2 per mo.

(Yes, I know it's better for the environment to save plastic. Kroger bottles are not as bad as others, as they feel as thin as a plastic bag, but still I plan to eventually phase them out, but not because of the $)

<comment><USER19> Have you considered taking a sports water bottle or nalgene or some reusable bottle?

<comment><USER18> Yes, but they feel way too heavy/big, and then I have to wash them regularly which is kinda hard to do with a bottle. I know that would be the best long term thing to do though..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's a big difference between bottled sparkling water, filtered water, and plain old tap water.

Also, there's differing qualities of tap water as well, because it does depend on your tap and sink itself.

If you have a good tap, and you are serving the water without carbonation, sure, there's going to be little noticeable difference in general. But try running water directly from an average to low quality tap directly into a soda stream (without any time to even allow chlorine dissipate) and you'll find that's nowhere near as pleasant as a bottle of perrier.

</comment><comment><USER21> The downside of bottled water is BPA from the plastic container that is released when exposed to sunlight/heat but the downside of tap water is that you can't control the level of nitrites, PH levels, chlorine and debris from building pipes.

<comment><USER22> But you _can_ get a lot of that out of your tap water with a filter, which in my opinion makes tap water the healthier choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Evian is the only non flavored water that I have tasted that actually has a different taste to it.

Either way I dont drink bottled water because I dislike tap water. Most of the times I dont have a container or a tap to fill up with water. So I am stuck getting a Dasani or Evian from a gas station or vending machine at work.

<comment><USER24> Fiji is unique, because it's softened more so than others. In my opinion, it's delicious. While I normally don't buy battled water, if I must, it's Fiji, if available.

<comment><USER4> Well, perhaps some sunlight will change your habits:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/fiji-spin- bottle](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/fiji-spin-bottle)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The reason why I finally switched to only drinking bottled spring water is because of things like hexavalent chromium, which appears to be very prevalent in the Bay Area for some reason. The Bay Area has an amount which is hundreds of times higher than the maximum recommended amount.

[http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/12/30/chromium-6-found- in-...](http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/12/30/chromium-6-found-in-tap-water- of-31-u-s-cities/)

I might explore a home filtration system at some point, though, if it is cost effective and reliable.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is why I drink bottled water.

"The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle."

"...some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law."

"radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways."

And the EPA has not intervened.

from [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html)

Also:

"Environmental officials in Pennsylvania have failed to adequately regulate the state's booming natural gas industry, a state report said, reflecting what critics say is weak oversight of the oil and gas industry at a time when drilling is spreading across the United States."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/us/pennsylvanias- auditor-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/us/pennsylvanias-auditor- general-faults-oversight-of-natural-gas-industry.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> It's a well-known fact that New York City tap water is delicious, even compared to other municipal water supplies.

<comment><USER28> It's why New York Pizza is so good, it's the minerals in the water.

<comment><USER29> I'd never heard of that and it's remotely plausible but apparently debunked:

[http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/01/does-nyc- water...](http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/01/does-nyc-water-make-a- difference-in-pizza-quality.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The crazy thing about Fiji water is that it is actually bottled in Fiji and shipped around the world. So now even plain potable water can have a significant carbon footprint.

<comment><USER31> All the more reason to buy locally-sourced bottled water. I have Eldorado Natural Spring Water ([http://www.eldoradosprings.com/](http://www.eldoradosprings.com/)) delivered, which actually comes from a local natural artesian spring.

<comment><USER32> This has been the convincing argument for me when it comes to bottled water. I hesitate to argue this though because I know the scientific numbers, methods for water quality measurement, and general advice from people like the penn and teller episode completely disprove this argument, but here it is anyways:

I dislike the idea of drinking water that has been circulating through pipes and filters in the city for decades, including through our toilets and showers and huge amounts of chemical waste. Of course, the methods have completely purified the water, but claims that tap water still isn't good are attributed to the sort of last mile dirty pipe system, which is solved by more filtering.

I like the idea of nature filtering the water that I drink. That's why I like the idea of water springs. I would be less interested in spring water that still just comes from municipal water supplies that similarly recycles the water, and would prefer it coming directly from a spring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In the northeast in PA/NJ, tap water has had a distinct taste, presumably from the high calcium content. My experience with tap water in Orlando, Florida also had a very distinct odor to it. Thus bottled water it is.

For filtering, I just got one of the iSpring reverse osmosis units to filter water for me. It tastes equivalent to the other bottled water brands while being appreciably cheaper than bottled water.

</comment><comment><USER34> The tap water in my apartment is disgusting. I tried filtering it, but it still tastes terrible. It doesn't even do a good job of cleaning my dishes in my dishwasher. I buy Poland Spring by the case, keep it in the refrigerator, and drink that instead. I have nothing against drinking tap water in principle, but my actual tap water leaves a lot to be desired.

<comment><USER35> Interesting, what filter did you use? For simple taste filtering I've used a Brita pitcher with its built in filter, at home I installed a reverse osmosis system that feeds into a silica (sand) filter and an activated charcoal filter. The house one is a bit larger so that it can filter tap water and water that goes to the ice maker in the freezer (the refrigerator has its own filter which on top of the house filter gets replaced every 3 - 4 years).

The reason I've gone to some 'extremes' is that in earthquake country the house filter can do double duty for making drinkable water out of pretty much anything that might get into it after an earthquake.

My experience though has been that pretty much a basic charcoal filter like the Brita gets rid of taste issues pretty effectively.

<comment><USER34> I tried an on-tap Brita filter. Maybe the pitcher would have worked better, I did not try it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I drink bottled water when I'm out and about, the main reason is that it's frequently the most/only healthy option available. Fruit juices can be good for you too, but they're high in sugar and not great for your teeth if you drink them frequently.

</comment><comment><USER37> It all depends on __what __tap water you compare it with. In many places in the US I've been, the tap water was heavily chlorinated, and that's not exactly a subtle taste note in the water.

<comment><USER38> Simply fill a jug of that heavily chlorinated water and put it in the fridge, all the chlorine will evaporate after few hours. You will get free, cold and good tasting water always available. No need for filter.

<comment><USER39> I don't know how it is in the US in particular, but in addition to Chlorine, tap water usually contains Al, Cu traces, lacks Ca and Mg and is low on bicarbonates.

So not only tap water already lacks compared to mineral, just letting it gas out, although can help with taste, is not enough to ensure quality, a filter is recommended. I don't know why you claim a filter is _not_ necessary, I've never seen that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> As a side note, "Agua de Culo," one of the brands offered during the Penn & Teller experiment, translates as "Ass Water."

</comment><comment><USER41> Love that last paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER29> Part of the bottled water craze is due to the fact that youngsters are mistakenly made to believe that you will get dehydrated if you take a walk around the block, do your math homework or just sit around. If you don't drink x glasses of water (insert random number for x) your health will be at risk.

So, for those situations where you find yourself with your (BPA-free) water bottle empty of course you're going to spring for a bottle of tap water. And since you're afraid of catching Ebola you're not going to use anyone's tap, it has to be a one-way safe and sanitized bottle.</comment>