Could sonic booms stop hurricanes? (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.uakron.edu/about_ua/news_media/news_details.dot?newsId=377585&pageTitle=UA%20News&crumbTitle=Could+sonic+booms+stop+hurricanes%3F <comment><USER2> > Edward Teller's idea to use a nuclear bomb to destroy a hurricane.

But of course he did. Teller really loved the bomb. He proposed using the bomb for every problem.

* build a canal. just use a H-bomb.

* mining, a H-bomb.

* need a new a harbor in Alaska, a H-bomb.

* reflection seismology, use a H-bomb

* stimulate natural gas from tight fields, use a H-bomb.

<comment><USER3> Dis this man not understand radioactive fallout?

<comment> Tuna-Fish A very large H-bomb can be made almost arbitrarily clean, if you are willing to compromise (a lot!) on other qualities. It would be possible to use bombs for excavation work and have the resulting added radiation to be hard to distinguish from the natural background.

Not that this makes using bombs for excavation a good idea...

<comment><USER4> If there are no bad after effects, then why is it not a good idea? We already use explosives for all the things listed. Stopping hurricanes sounds pretty useful about now.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Firstly, stopping hurricanes with bombs will not actually work and will instead make them worse.

Secondly, because clean nukes need to be so huge that they are simply too dangerous for their utility. Think at minimum "more powerful than all conventional explosives ever produced" level huge.

While doing things like channeling to the Qattara depression sounds promising, the actual practical problems of operating with true city-busters are just too great. There are plenty of industrial accidents caused by explosives every year, you don't want to live in a world where a really bad accident can wipe out a city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As has been variously pointed out, this is extraordinarily unlikely to work. But, the discussion did get me wondering if it is possible to _cause_ a hurricane (or tropical storm). If you could cause them to happen on a more frequent basis, presumably each one would have a lot less energy. In other words, if the energy built up in the temperature imbalance of warm water on the surface is more regularly dispersed by storms, perhaps you could reduce the chance of a level 4 or 5 hurricane ever forming.

The "only" problem being you're creating hurricanes, of whatever size, and they will eventually hit somewhere, and that's not a neighborly thing to do. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hurricanes transfer heat energy from the Tropics to the temperate North. Suppresion of them would cause the energy imbalance to build up, making the next storm worse. Directing the storms away ftom land would be safer.

<comment><USER7> What would be some examples of ways to redirect a hurricane?

<comment><USER8> Huge walls aka "mountain ranges".

<comment><USER9> I've wondered if you could do something like that at airports that have problems with crosswinds. Could you build tall walls on both sides of the runway to block crosswinds?

I'd expect there would be turbulence around the entrance to the walled area which might be dangerous, but that could probably be addressed be having the walls flair out near and beyond the end of the runway, and also past the end have the height ramp down to 0 instead of just stopping abruptly.

<comment><USER10> They do that (for ships) in the Netherlands but extending it to planes seems impractical

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozenburg_wind_wall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozenburg_wind_wall):

 _"Rozenburg wind wall in Rozenburg, Netherlands, is a wall built to block wind from entering the Calandkanaal, and ease the passage of large cargo ships through the narrow canal, particularly through the Calandbrug bridge. The wall blocks about 75% of the wind and allows the ships to pass smoothly. The wall is 1600 meters long and it is made up of 125 rectangular and cylindrical slabs, each about 25 meters tall and 18 meters wide."_

Edit: beter photos at [http://googlesightseeing.com/2013/05/rozenburg-wind- wall/](http://googlesightseeing.com/2013/05/rozenburg-wind-wall/). That page points to a dutch-language video that shows hoe tight that passage is: [https://youtu.be/H4ZIMXjMRJk?t=3m5s](https://youtu.be/H4ZIMXjMRJk?t=3m5s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If the energy of the hurricane is not allowed to be released where does it end up?

<comment><USER12> Do hurricanes release enough energy to cool down the ocean?

<comment><USER11> Well I have read that it is a heat engine of at least the 12th power so there must be some accounting of where all that energy goes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a more recent thread [1] where the consensus seems to be that no, it's not possible to stop hurricanes this way, or with nukes. According to the thread, the energy in a hurricane is simply too great.

1: [https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/165281...](https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/165281-hurricane- dispersal-by-supersonic-booms-implications-of-building-real-life-star- destroyers/&do=findComment&comment=3167822)

</comment><comment><USER14> I think pumping cold water to the surface from lower depths could be very effective. I wish we'd try it out.

Edit. Bill gates actually filed a patent on this.

<comment><USER15> I doubt that you'd be able to do this at a large enough scale to make it worthwhile. And any storm is a moving target, so you'd need to have pumps all over the ocean.

<comment><USER14> Storms actually move fairly slowly. I would suggest placing the pump boats in the eye as it's forming before it gets to hurricane strength.

Remember you'd just be moving already cold water which takes orders of magnitude less energy than cooling the water.

<comment><USER16> And you'd be pumping warm water lower, thereby making the next storm worse.

<comment><USER14> I'd need to see a source on that. I'm not sure how you can assume that.

<comment><USER16> I will not provide you with a source, I don't have the time. I consider what I said basic, first-principles stuff. We two layers deep discussing an idea that is not feasible, anyway. Here is a source that the pumps will not work: [http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/28/hurricanes.gates....](http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/28/hurricanes.gates.gray/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome. I don't know why they stress over the need for a skilled pilot, this could easily be a drone/AI project.

<comment><USER18> > _I don 't know why they stress over the need for a skilled pilot, this could > easily be a drone_

The article was published in 2008. It's actually neat to consider a technological solution to hurricanes that became viable in the last ten years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow this could be fantastic, a peaceful application for what are otherwise over-engineered instruments of war.</comment>


Ask HN: Why would you choose to buy good from sites other than Amazon? - <AUTHOR> Why do people use other online shops/retailers other than Amazon, for reasons other than limited access to rare/special-interest products where other companies may be better serving those niches? I am curious about what other retailers do better than Amazon, or other reasons people don't always choose it, considering the convenience and low prices it provides, and other benefits such as Prime etc. Mostly interested in perceived shortcomings with the Amazon sites itself. <comment><USER2> How about because you don't want to support Amazon's abysmal work culture: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/22/amazon...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/22/amazon- brutal-work-culture)

</comment><comment><USER3> Lack of confidence that I'm going to receive an authentic version of the item I ordered. Background: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17327771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17327771)

</comment><comment><USER4> I find buying clothes on Amazon to be inconvenient, because of how poorly organized it is. Trying to find the same article of clothing in a different size or color is essentially a new search from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use eBay because the platform is designed to incentivize transparency. Prices are not generated algorithmically and the reputation of the actual seller is prominently displayed. Shipping terms and timelines are clearly stated alongside the item. So is the return policy.

While all marketplaces are _caveat emptor_ , on Amazon I am up against Amazon with all its staff, scalable computing hardware, and algorithms out to maximize the amount I pay. I may not trust a particular seller on eBay, but that's better than not being able to trust Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reasons not to buy from Amazon - [https://stallman.org/amazon.html](https://stallman.org/amazon.html) .

</comment><comment><USER7> Because what I'm looking for isn't always on Amazon?

I know, it's hard to believe. But there are definitely quite a few niche pieces of software (and technology) which Amazon doesn't supply.

Outside of that, deals and things help too. I mean, why do people buy games on Steam or the likes? Because there's always a sale on and it's got a better selection than Amazon for that market.

</comment><comment><USER8> Believing that a monopoly is no better for the customer in ecommerce than for any other industry. Preferring to support companies with halfway decent employment practices.

The site itself? Fraud. Awful, useless search/filter results. Fraud. Did I mention fraud?

And this question reads a bit like an ad.</comment>


U.S. Is a Rich Country with Symptoms of a Developing Nation - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-21/u-s-is-a-rich-country-with-symptoms-of-a-developing-nation <comment><USER2> I am inclined to agree with the article.

As an American who has lived abroad for a sizable fraction of adulthood while frequently traveling back, the rising level of degradation — the people, public and private goods — in the U.S. simply can't be ignored or smugly explained away. The country is rotting.

Life looks so hard, the conditions and future tenuous, that my family is making the conscious choice to raise our child abroad. While our American friends miss us to be sure, not a single one has recommended we return — esp. those with children.

<comment><USER3> Comparing San Francisco to similarly sized Marseille; I would suggest that Europe doesn't necessarily have to answers either. I lived near Avignon and half of the storefronts in that town are boarded up. You'll find a similar story across much of France. Paris, Marseille and Lyon suburbs often look like war zones and while the US has some similar areas, there are still plenty of places that don't. Those that like to compare Europe to the US often look at the capital cities such as Paris as examples, but fail to look beyond the surface. France has considerable decay and economic malaise. Two of my kids were born in France and while it's a nice place, the opportunity there doesn't even come close to the US.

<comment><USER4> Using France as a representaiton of Europe isn't really sensible. And Europe as a representation of life outside the US even more so.

Travelling to France feels similar to travelling to the US to me. Horrible infrastructure (especially Paris IMHO). Similar feelings for some other European countries, Italy at the forefront.

Better models are places like the Nordics, New Zealand, Singapore. But more middlingly, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, all outclass life in the US or France. Heck, I'd even say China are doing a lot better in many regards (they have their own issues of course, but many aspects are strong).

<comment><USER5> Having spent 10 days in France and driving from Paris to Lyon to Nice, this doesn't jive with my experience at all. French cities were clean and nice. French villages look pristine and well managed. Unlike some of the broken rural areas in the US.

<comment><USER6> I've spent my vacations in rural France every year for the last 10 years or so. There are certainly some problems — smaller places just don't feel very dynamic economically. On the other hand, the French seem to have a vastly better life/work balance, and I really enjoy their unhurried way of life, even though as a customer, it's not always to my benefit. The one place in the US that reminds me most of this is the Big Island of Hawaii.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm reminded of the Breaking Bad Canada comic. "You have cancer. Treatment starts next week. The End."

When I see "heartwarming" stories on tv about people donating to people that need help I can't help but think it would be more "heartwarming" to have a government that tried to make sure people wouldn't need to depend on the kindness of strangers for health care.

<comment><USER8> People being forced to pay for someone's healthcare is more heartwarming to you than people voluntarily paying for someone's healthcare?

<comment><USER9> I would say so. It's very sad to think of someone dying from a treatable condition because their GoFundMe campaign wasn't popular enough.

<comment><USER10> The thing is that government doesn't reach everyone either. Often homeless vets don't seek VA help because why would you trust the government, which injured you and put you in the place you're in now (not to mention that the VA has a terrible track record of actually helping). The government also has a very terrifying incidents in it's history relative to providing healthcare, from the Tuskegee siphilis experiments, to offering healthcare in exchange for sterilization, and more recently, using a polio vaccination program as a cover to spy on bin laden.

<comment><USER11> > VA has a terrible track record of actually helping

Is this a fact? Would private industry do it better?

I ask because the VA is the closest thing we have to a single-payer experience in the US. Active or inactive, the VA is willing to treat you the only requirement being that you served.

Yet, when people bring up the failing VA they always pass along the Walter Reed VA hospital horror stories. I looked into it and you know what, Walter Reed is a huge military hospital base. It's so big there are multiple hospitals on site. And that site has government run VA hospitals and contractor run VA hospitals. And they are all called Walter Reed. But guess what? All the VA horror stories from Walter Reed come from the same contractor ran hospitals.

<comment><USER10> My dad was a hospital administrator at the VA. He complained about several issues and was rubber-roomed (dad was in the Navy, used to delivering products on time and in budget and was appalled at the treatment of his fellow vets). This was not at Walter Reed. The organization simply doesn't have a culture of taking care of veterans, or anything really, beyond CYA and job security for career bureaucrats.

> the VA is willing to treat you the only requirement being that you served.

They will make it very hard for you to qualify for VA disability by throwing bureaucracy at you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's with Americans constantly attempting to paint their situation as more dire than it actually is? Is it just a blatant lack of perspective on the rest of the world? Reminds me of an article I read attempting to claim that child mortality in Memphis was worse than in Bangladesh.

No, the United States isn't like the "developing world" if you're poor (and since when is Italy, the comparison country, considered "developing world"?)

Comparisons like these (which are rather frequent, I've found) are obnoxiously disrespectful to the millions of people actually living in developing world countries. The same millions who would give up their first kid (and often, in many ways, do) to be allowed into the US.

We can discuss improving the US while also still acknowledging that, on a global scale, their problems are fundamentally "first world problems". You don't need to spend hours crunching numbers finding some favourable metric to the South Sudan to make your damn point.

<comment><USER13> I guess this depends on what your definition of a first-world problem is.

People die here because they can't afford care. People avoiding the larger milestones in life like owning a home and having children because it's untenable. This will cause larger, show-stopping problems.

<comment><USER12> People in the rest of the world die because there literally isn't good care available, regardless of whether they can afford it. As a kid, I once got a big cut and my doctor's only solution was to dump an old vial of iodine on it because they didn't have bandaids.

All you (and a few other comments here) are doing is proving my point. Complain all you want, but don't for a second think your problems are even remotely close to what the majority of the rest of the world endures.

I suspect the West as a whole hasn't had real problems in a very long time, so a generation is growing up magnifying their own to victimize themselves. Americans are particularly bad about this.

<comment><USER14> I think I agree with your summary of what's happening in the US re: magnifying problems - our range of experiences has become much narrower as things have become safer and more controlled, so it takes less and less extreme experiences to reach the extremes of our personal experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Always wanted to move to the US, but having:

Crohn's disease

MEN-1 [0]

and medications for them, and bi-yearly MRIs and CTs as well as expected surguries to remove tumours now and then

I have just dismissed the possibility of ever moving there.

Here in Sweden I pay less per earned dollar in taxes towards healthcare, and my total healthcare costs (all inclusive) are <$270/year (~half for maxing out pharmacy costs, other half for maxing out medical treatments/doctor's visits etc).

How much would insurance cost me per month in the US to make me covered so that I never had to worry about not being able to afford medications or a surgury?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_endocrine_neoplasia_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_endocrine_neoplasia_type_1)

<comment><USER16> Assuming you're an engineer and a decent one at that?

Move to SV, get a job with Google/FB/etc.

If you're single, you'll have a max-out-of-pocket of a few thousand dollars, but that will more than be made up for by the increase in salary. And you will have good insurance subsidized by your employer.

<comment><USER17> Do insurance companies in the US pay out for preexisting conditions?

<comment><USER18> Not if they can help it. Iirc, that portion of the ACA was just repealed in the courts. Group insurance for a large employer will though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd say the obvious comparison is to Brazil. The upper end of Brazilian society lives in first-world conditions. Some of them a really rich. But the bottom end lives in the third world, in gang-run unregulated slums that have dodgy water and power.

The US isn't there yet, but that's where things seem to be headed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I grew up in the USA but have lived abroad for many years. After seeing life in Europe and Asia, I agree with this article. Generalization below:

Americans are isolated from other countries and from each other. It creates fear insofar as that we don't even let our children play in the front yards anymore, all the while kids in Tokyo ride the metro unattended by an adult.

My life is much better outside of America, but yet I remain for now, because of the money I make here. Few more years to go and I'm done.

<comment><USER21> It depends on how you define better. I happen to love Tokyo but let's not pretend like it's universally better than the US in all regards. In fact a lot of the countries people would think of as having better quality of life than the US have a _higher_ per capita suicide rate:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan#/media/File:S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan#/media/File:Suicide- deaths-per-100000-trend.jpg)

<comment><USER20> I regret bringing up any country by name, because every country has at least one issue that is easily searchable on the internet.

<comment><USER22> That's a favorite trick of politicians for criticizing health care proposals.

There are hundreds of different factors that you could use to compare the health care systems of any two countries.

When someone proposes some change, and offers country X as an example of a place that works that way, opponents can always find among those hundreds of factors some particular things where we have better care than X, and then that's all they talk about.

And of course if you propose a change and do NOT cite places that already work that way, then the opponents say you are trying something that is just theoretical and it would be irresponsible to risk our health on such experiments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The first time I moved to the US was in 1981. Coming from Germany, a lot of it was quite shocking and seemed like a developing nation even back then, relatively speaking. Infrastructure crumbling. Highways made of concrete slabs that go badum-badum at the seams. Can tell if you're going too fast just by following the rhythm. The cars (rigid axle? seriously?). The appliances. The furniture. Windows that don't really close. Power lines on poles.

We had an ice-storm once that knocked out power in a 500 mi radius. For at least three days. This was, at the time, one of the wealthiest communities in the country.

All that despite a _significantly_ higher GDP/person.

Came back in 2007 to the Bay Area. A lot still the same, though the highways are nice and most people drive foreign cars. You have to be really quite well off in order to get things that don't suck, and I determined I could maintain the same standard of living for a lot less income if I moved back to Berlin, which I eventually did. On the other hand you can learn to fly for (comparatively) cheap. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, some of my colleagues at <super-wealthy-top-bay-area-tech-firm> had this idea for an automatic washer-dryer combo: you put the washer on top, then when it's done the clothes drop into the dryer on the bottom. They had a hard time believing that single-unit washer-dryer units have existed for quite some time.

<comment><USER24> >>The first time I moved to the US was in 1981. Coming from Germany, a lot of it was quite shocking and seemed like a developing nation even back then

Actually, the USA has been improved much since the 70's and 80's it's not even funny.

Large cities like NYC and SF were hell holes with tons of crimes and murders and poor people. They've really gotten rid of most of the crime and cleaned up the streets and neighborhoods. Watch a movie set in either city from 40 years ago compared to now. The pollution has improved drastically as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've studied abroad for some brief periods, but I've lived almost all of my life in the US, particularly in some of the more rural states. I'm at this weird place mentally where I'm sometimes both exasperated by the economic situation here, while still annoyed by 'outsiders' who draw attention to it. Sometimes I feel that the faults of the US get more negative international publicity than other countries, leading people who don't really know the situation here to constantly try to bring up our issues. At the same time, there is still a Cold War-esque "We're number 1" attitude that makes some people here unwilling to see the faults.

In the end, I wish I had an answer. Even more so, I wish I knew what the problem is. As the article says: I'm not surprised that bridges and roads built primarily from the 50s-70s are crumbling and need to be repaired. I'm just surprised that it costs so much to do so, and no one is sure why.

</comment><comment><USER26> People have gotten too comfortable. We no longer have the will to care for the things we are surrounded by.

We wait for government regulations and lawsuits to make things happen. That was not how this country was built.

Once you concentrate power in corporations or in politics, people just don't have the will or say anymore to do anything.

It takes too much time to build a bridge, and too many players involved and everyone seems to need more checklists and committees and regulations and vendors and contractors just to build a damn bridge. Private construction/ builders are only slightly more efficient because they don't run for election but due to monopolies or regulations they are ever more inefficient than before.

And everything gets amplified a million times through Twitter with not much substance but just generally shouting about things and not actually doing shit.

</comment><comment><USER27> I remember when it took almost a year to refurbish a small bridge in downtown Ithaca.

There used to people who said the Egyptian Pyramids were built by aliens, but the experience with that bridge made me wonder if the Tappan Zee bridge was built by aliens.

</comment><comment><USER28> From a very long article on healthcare, "High US health care spending is quite well explained by its high material standard of living", I got an idea that neatly explains my experience in the USA and the perception of various groups from outside in (I'm from Moscow, that some people jokingly claim is a separate country from the rest of Russia). It's still not a well-formed idea, just a gist of it.

US to me looks like a first world country with a 3rd world country attached to it; with the bleed of culture both ways (making urban-rural divide worse, sort of), and obviously economic effects both ways. It's sort of like if Russia joined the EU as far as people and economics are concerned - it'd still be a hellhole outside few major cities, but overall richer and with lots of angry anti-EU people. The US is like that, and the states are much more integrated than the EU is.

The strongest case for this can probably be built by analyzing human capital as well as metrics such as healthcare (like the original article did), crime, etc by county. The weaker case for me personally is that the "feel" (and the norms if online sources are any indication) of rural/small-town places in the US vs urban/rich places in the US, is much more like small-town Russia vs Moscow (except more pissed instead of resigned to their fate), or other semi 3rd world countries, than the same in Europe.

I don't actually think that Civil War was a war between those countries, but its interpretation these days by many people seems to cast it as such... and the present-day GOP leadership looks to me basically like United Russia in Russia - it's a party of power, plain and simple, that aspires to unleash the freedom to shear the great unwashed.. a typical 3rd world party of which there are few or no European equivalents. The Dems (and centrist GOP, I guess) are such a bizarre party these days because they, in turn, have to represent almost the entire spectrum of the first-world parties - from Bill Clinton liberal and Christian centrists, to Greens and Socialists.

</comment><comment><USER29> My rule of thumb: if an article has a line chart with non 0-based Y axis it most probably tries to manipulate the reader's opinion by trying to present an increasing/decreasing trend as more significant than it actually is.

</comment><comment><USER30> Surely this is just normal for a big country. USA, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia. There are some outliers - Germany, Japan, France, but they're stagnant with falling populations as people want to leave them. There are also some smaller countries Australia, Sweden, South Korea that have done well the last few decades, but we'll see how much longer for.

</comment><comment><USER31> When you have a sizable underclass because the upper classes want that sort of thing, then you have these sorts of issues.

<comment><USER32> I think we should acknowledge that we accept over a million legal immigrants every year - comprising over 12% of our population.

Obviously many of them are immensely beneficial and some are not - but I think this statistic belongs as part of the equation.

<comment><USER33> 1 million legal immigrants comprises over 12% of our population? What exactly do you believe the US population is?

I can't tell if I'm on Facebook or hacker news.

<comment><USER32> Year over year a million immigrants adds up to 14.2% of our population as stated in this UN report:

[http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/d...](http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml)

This is germane to the topic because many of our recent immigrates are from developing countries.

<comment><USER33> Broken link

<comment><USER32> Looks like they're having some server issues.

Here's a PDF of the UN 2017 report - it shows America has over 49 million immigrants on page 6.

[http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/p...](http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017_Highlights.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Strong Towns has the best explanation of this phenomenon that I've seen: [https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi- scheme](https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme)

</comment><comment><USER35> I recently started to understand US politics a lot better by realising that it's a global moon-landing superpower _and_ a Latin American banana republic that occupy the same physical space.

</comment><comment><USER36> It seems it is both the richest and the most unequal among the developed countries.

Most issues are a consequence of this inequality.

</comment><comment><USER37> Sigh I am sad we cant have a productive discussion without going into "grass is greener on the other side".

</comment><comment><USER38> From a European point of view, the growing use of GoFundMe campaigns to pay for health care bills in the US feels like a wild capitalist dystopia. Your Facebook friends decide if you'll live or die.

</comment><comment><USER39> You guys need a good dose of socialism!

</comment><comment><USER40> The US is a rich country with the symptoms of a rich country.

</comment><comment><USER41> _Symptoms?_

That makes it sound like being a developing country is a disease.

</comment><comment><USER42> Welcome to the effect of too much government, between Federal, State, and Local, there is so many layers of inefficiency, graft, and corruption, it has become incredibly expensive to get a lot done. Corruption isn't simply down to giving and taking of bribes but the outright placing campaign officials in places of authority and nepotism.

County level in many states works out just fine but even they are subject to harassment if not extortion by higher levels of government.

We have a government too big it fails. Worse it costs the poorest of our country an inordinate amount due to taxes, fees, and penalties.

<comment><USER43> And yet there are countries with more government and much better outcomes along many axes, e.g. Denmark. So maybe there's a difference between a big government and corrupt one?

<comment><USER44> This.

Also it's hard to define "too much government."

Too many/too steep of taxes?

Too many Government employees?

Too much regulation of industry?

There's definitely some correlation, but I don't think these are strictly coupled.

It would be possible to have France-like tax rates but not employ many government workers by paying private industry to handle tasks like health and education.

I'm of the belief that practices like this might be part of the reason the US has so many healthcare inefficiencies though. Corporations are solely focused on making profit and there just isn't enough competition in areas like telecom, healthcare, etc. to keep prices down.

I'm Canadian and our healthcare isn't perfect, but it's also not the kind of political talking point it is in the US for a reason.</comment></comment></comment>


First OLPC deployment: now it's real! - <AUTHOR> http://radian.org/notebook/first-deployment

<comment><USER2> I'm really eager to get mine (ordered on the third day, so I haven't heard any news on shipping dates...though I've heard that first day orders have begun to ship). It'll be the coolest lappy in the room at conferences, and YC events.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I'd love to get one to play with and try and use seriously for a while. It'll be even better to give the future version of the XO to any kids I may have. I wonder what percentage of kids will discover the "view/edit source" button and at what age.

<comment><USER2> Weird as it may sound, I plan to use it as my primary laptop when traveling and when working from the bubble tea shops over on Castro. All I need is ssh and a browser (I use vim, which runs fine remotely), though I also plan to buy a 16GB USB drive for extra storage...keeping a local working copy of my projects will mean I don't have to have connectivity to work, though I suspect it'll be slower than working on the server when WiFi is available.

I like little lappies anyway--my current one is a Dell 700n, and I only got it instead of a smaller one because the smaller ones were twice as expensive.

<comment><USER4> I too plan to use mine as my primary travel laptop. I've realized that 97.482% of the time I'm just coding/web browsing/emailing/chatting, which doesn't require too much horsepower. I also think the XO will make an excellent ebook reader. Screw the Kindle!

It will be a pleasant downgrade from the ginormous 17" PowerBook I've been lugging around for the past 4 years.

<comment><USER3> Do you guys think the high resolution black and white screen will be better for general use and/or coding than the lower resolution color screen?

<comment><USER4> The black and white mode is front lit, not back lit, so it definitely won't work well in the dark.

Other than that, I'm not sure, but I'll definitely be interested to try it.

<comment><USER5> Just code in the light. :>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad to see this project working out. I saw Negroponte give a presentation about the OLPC at UCLA a year ago, and it was amazing how genuinely enthusiastic he was about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Uruguay is one of the richest countries in Latin America.

<comment><USER8> USD$188 per pupil isn't exactly chump change. Hopefully the increase in volume from early customers like Uruguay will reduce the price for future customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw Ivan Krstic speak once... he is very good at using Powerpoint, or the GNU equivalent.</comment>


HealthCare.Gov Looks Like A Bargain Compared With State Exchanges - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/08/310721495/healthcare-gov-looks-like-a-bargain-compared-with-state-exchanges <comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does even the 'bargain' price of $647/enrollment from the federal website... seem surprisingly bizarrely high? (by an order of magnitude or more)?

But I'm not really sure exactly what to compare it to as 'typical' for website costs. Any ideas?

And of course, presumably (hopefully) the cost will continue to be amortized over the next few years -- more money will surely have to spent on it (continually), but the overall cost per enrollment should theoretically go down, as the initial work continues to be used for more and more enrollments. At least theoretically; in reality, who knows.

<comment><USER3> It's really quite ridiculous for the linked report to use a capital:user ratio as a meaningful metric -- it's a bit like building an auto factory, building the first car, then arguing that the car cost $100m to build.

Having said that, it's obvious that some states, like Hawaii, are going to fight an uphill battle to make a cost-effective case for their revenue, while states like Oregon failed spectacularly to make good on their requirements.

OR's new CIO, Alex Pettit, just recommended killing the whole Oracle-belabored mess and moving the state onto the federal exchange. Pettit doesn't have any blood on his hands from the Cover Oregon debacle (he was hired away from OK after the exchange's failure), but it's still a gutsy move to kill it, since he's the one who has to deal with the politicians. (Plus he's not making any friends at Redwood Shores, and Oracle is going to outlast _all_ the politicians.)

I would take away from this the lesson that the political desire to use states as "laboratories of democracy" is sometimes the completely wrong move; one critical, massive, high-risk and poorly-managed rollout was enough, thanks. Adding fifteen more projects on the HHS dime to replicate functionality (leaving aside state-level Medicaid systems) ended up driving up costs and adding more failure points to the system. Ironically, the states that were _most_ resistant to the ACA contributed the most to federalizing healthcare enrollment, a centralization that might be politically antithetical to those politicians but that will probably save time and money in the long run.

<comment><USER4> > I would take away from this the lesson that the political desire to use > states as "laboratories of democracy" is sometimes the completely wrong > move;

Well, in this case, since the mandate was essentially "implement this very specific federally-mandated policy monoculture!" there's really not a lot of gain you could hope to have from the Laboratory model. If the states had the freedom to vary health care policy in meaningful ways, it would be a different matter.

<comment><USER5> Is the requirement to setup an health insurance exchange (or grant residents access to the federal exchange) a "monoculture"?

If you're informed about the situation, what parts of the state exchange requirement are "onerous" when compared with the status quo (i.e., what the insurance industry already requires)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In other news: Dozens of insurance companies got 8.1 million signups and got the tax payer to fund the marketing campaign and the website that brought the customers to their doors. These insurance companies should be grateful but instead are being dicks about it.

The U.S. government should bill the health insurance companies for the cost of the websites.

<comment><USER7> The insurance companies are whining because the exchanges force them to actually compete. This will put strong negative pressure on their margins. The extra volume won't come close to making up for their losses.

Before the exchanges and the standardized tiers of care, plans were very difficult for consumers to quantitatively compare. Most consumers didn't bother, so insurance companies were able to differentiate themselves with advertising and "fluff features" (easy) rather than by cutting costs and increasing efficiency (hard). Not only did consumers pay for the higher margins that came from fluff-differentiation, but they also never benefitted from competition over efficiency. The setup was good for insurance companies and bad for consumers. Now the party is over and the insurance companies are upset that their cash cow has been slaughtered.

Good riddance.

<comment><USER8> Insurance companies are not whining; on the other hand media do on their behalf, but insurance companies basically wrote the law, so you won't see BlueCross or Athena CEO on the news anytime soon "whining" on the new law.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. Not about the fact that politicians and the media put words into the mouths of insurance companies for the purposes of political gain, but about you claim that "insurance companies basically wrote the law." I don't think they made off nearly as well as you think they did.

Also, we wouldn't expect their CEOs to make much of a stink about this, at least not publicly (perhaps I should have said "hurting" instead of "whining"). We would expect them to be busy telling investors how they plan to best take advantage of the new rules. Because that's what they're paid to do. Any CEO who says they don't know how to do this is begging to be replaced.

We'll be able to tell who was right in 3-4 years by comparing their margins (or another metric like administrative overhead) to what we see today in the individual insurance market. I would bet a sizable chunk of money that they will be much closer to the margins we see in the employer-provided insurance market today.

<comment><USER9> The insurance companies were consulted and included while the law was being drafted (over decades, because remember a lot of the groundwork was laid by the Republicans during the Clinton Administration). But it's not all rosy for them. They accepted the downside of this approach to healthcare reform because they saw potential alternatives as being much worse. A single-payer system would put the lot of them out of business, so they were willing to take some lumps to ensure that they're part of the American healthcare system moving forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That number seems ridiculously high, but shouldn't CPA be calculated from the money spent on "acquiring" the user, not the entire cost of starting the business?

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems kind of a dumb analysis since you will be signing people up for years and it will only get cheaper. If it didn't get cheaper it would be scandalous. This article also seems like a win for federalism. Hawaii's exchange is really expensive. California's isn't as cheap as the Federal Government but it was way more reliable. Having alternatives lets you compare how programs are performing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nowhere in the article is the cost of "acquiring" a user, or CPA mentioned. This article is speaking in regards to the total cost of "signing up an enrollee". That is a fairly broad term, and could use some clarification for it to be of any real use.

<comment><USER13> Yes, the title was editorialized and we reverted it.

Submitters: As the guidelines ask, please do not rewrite a title except when it is misleading or linkbait.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry! I was trying to clarify not editorialize, as writing " cost of signing up an enrollee" would have bloated the title. will not touch the titles if that's discouraged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Being quite familiar with some of these projects I'd been saying this for quite a while. I'm glad to see that someone has come out and evidenced it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd like to see what the projected ongoing costs are for enrollees that continue in the system for the next year. Surely, the cost of maintaining an enrollee is substantially lower?

<comment><USER16> so the website and organization behind it cost a small pittance. I still want to know what happened to the other forty million uninsured.

<comment><USER17> >> I still want to know what happened to the other forty million uninsured.

Forty million? It was estimated at 23 million. Here is the breakdown of uninsured from Wikipedia:

 _Illegal immigrants, estimated at around 8 million—or roughly a third of the 23 million projection—will be ineligible for insurance subsidies and Medicaid.[121] [126] They will also be exempt from the health insurance mandate but will remain eligible for emergency services under provisions in the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).

Citizens not enrolled in Medicaid despite being eligible.[127]

Citizens not otherwise covered and opting to pay the annual penalty instead of purchasing insurance, mostly younger and single Americans.[127]

Citizens whose insurance coverage would cost more than 8% of household income and are exempt from paying the annual penalty.[127]

Citizens who live in states that opt out of the Medicaid expansion and who qualify for neither existing Medicaid coverage nor subsidized coverage through the states' new insurance exchanges.[125]_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So basically, (at least some) states that created their own exchanges made a big mistake in doing so.

<comment><USER19> Why was it ever an option for states to create their own sites? Why bother with redundancy?

<comment><USER7> 1\. Because federalism and states-rights are considered by many Americans to be an important check/balance and 2. because the redundant work created by "upholding that philosophy" is an exploitable opportunity for those in power.

#1 = political capital #2 = $$$

What's not to love (if you're a politician)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why didn't they just create a standardized open source tool? Why have 50 separate efforts?

<comment><USER21> Who is "they?" Most of the people in charge of crafting and passing the ACA barely have an understanding of where software comes from, much less anything resembling a best practice for crafting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone have (finally?) a good explanation as of why a Canadian company was given the task to create the hc website? Especially since they screwed up in the UK so bad they been basically barred from Gov. contracts?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For the record, I don't think this is a good way to judge value (at this point, certainly). But it does seem more odd to argue the program had a good ROI based on such a cost.

</comment><comment><USER22> CPA is ~meaningless when the 'acquisition' is mandated by law. It's not like there is any competitive "choice" here. this is simply y taxes spent divided by x people impacted by the law (who have complied). This is basically asking what is the "cost of user aquisition" for an IRS audit.

[edit: CPA reference was deleted by mods> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7716613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7716613) . NB: The "cost of signing up an enrollee" is logically consistent with the context; whereas "user acquisition cost" is really out of place in the context of compelled behaviour (ie, individual mandate).]</comment>


Why Do Canadians Drink Milk in Bags? - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/81468/why-do-canadians-drink-milk-bags <comment><USER2> very likely because it's more convenient/cheaper/transportable for the distributors than other options.

Different countries have different advantages/disadvantages. In Australia, cardboard cartons are only used for specialty milk products or ordinary milk in less than one litre packs, with very, very few collapsible bags.

Most customers buy plastic bottles of 1,2 3, or 4 litres. The ones larger than 1 litre have a handle.

[https://static.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/931/003/602...](https://static.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/931/003/602/6877/front_en.6.400.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> The other thing Americans find odd is that we call whole milk "Homo" (as in Homogenized).</comment>


The coronavirus could devastate poor countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus-could-devastate-poor-countries <comment><USER2> It's the developed countries with their easily-disruptable intricate systems that are more likely to get devastated.

Just look at the empty supermarket shelves for evidence of that. 'Just in Time' doesn't work when normal flows are disrupted.

There's more 'slack' in the poor countries' systems and that's more flexible.</comment>


NDC 2012 - Azure Dancing Girls. Skip to 1:30 for the lyrics. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUMjxnKzUlQ&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> I feel bad for all who will continue to develop for the Windows platform or use their operating system even after watching this video.

</comment><comment><USER3> This truly is the new dancemonkeyboy.mpeg</comment>


Southwest Boeing 737 Max Makes Emergency Landing at Orlando International - <AUTHOR> http://www.fox35orlando.com/news/local-news/southwest-boeing-737-max-makes-emergency-landing-at-orlando-international-airport <comment><USER2> So:

\- this was (per FAA) a regular engine problem and seems unrelated to the MAX control issues. As such it could have happened to any flight.

\- Since people have asked repeatedly: 737MAX can still fly, just not regular passenger traffic. Airlines now shuffle them around to where they want them (where there is room to store them, where they can get necessary fixes quickly once they are available etc. Typically a hub airport for the airline in question).

All in all this was a pretty uninteresting event.

<comment><USER3> Why do they still allow this though? Its not like the plane can't crash if there are no passengers in it. There is still a risk of the plane crashing in a residential area for example.

<comment><USER4> The failure mode is pretty well known, there's already was a known workaround (but pilots need to be properly briefed on it to know to actually apply it in these cases).

There's not official certification on said workaround, and a longer term and more proper fix is currently in testing, so it doesn't make sense to create a procedure to use the current operating configuration in a passenger context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > after one crashed in Nairobi

The Ethiopian Airways flight crashed outside of Addis Ababa - in a whole other country.

<comment><USER6> Fox News

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a non story... The plane turned back because of engine trouble. Sounds pretty routine to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Playback of flight: [https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/wn8701#1ff0449a](https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/wn8701#1ff0449a)

</comment><comment><USER9> The brief article does not list what type of 737 Max this was. I know type 8 and 9 were grounded. I'm assuming this is a different type, but am unsure.

 _edit_ the playback linked by a different user shows that it was a Max 8. Why wasn't this grounded?

<comment><USER10> It's a ferry flight with no passengers so that the airline can move the airplane from Florida to California where parking rates are cheaper.

You can apply for a ferry permit from the FAA to get special permission to move a non-airworthy aircraft provided specific conditions are met.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know exactly how grounding works, but is there a reason why the plane can't just stay in Orlando?

<comment><USER11> They probably don't have hanger space in Orlando.

<comment><USER12> hangar

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> TLDR: _The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the plane experienced an engine problem._</comment>


Troubled Times Ahead for Supercomputers - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/04/troubled-times-ahead-supercomputers <comment><USER2> The Green 500 is more than a concern for global warming. It is also a measure of scalability due to heat dissipation and power supply concerns. The difficulty of achieving a human-brain sized supercomputer will be more about energy efficiency than actual computational ability.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually a problem few people are aware of and are working on is the problem of IO. While there is the old quip of supercomputers being devices to turn CPU bound problems into IO bound problems, it is a real problem to keep a well tuned HPC application on a supercomputer fed with data. And even if you are lucky and have an application with with a small input dataset, it gets hard to write snapshots (e.g. for checkpointing) once you go beyond 100000 CPUs or so. And at that point you really want checkpointing, because the failure probabilty of the nodes rears it's ugly head.

</comment><comment><USER4> >The ratio can now be as much as 1:100, so a supercomputer is forced to spend the vast majority of its time moving data to and from memory. This is spurring the adoption of data-tiering hardware and software that try to maximize CPU effectiveness by storing frequently accessed data in high-speed tiers such as solid-state drive

Err... this isn't new, wouldn't the high speed tiers be processor registers and cache and we've been doing this for over 30 years?

<comment><USER5> Absolutely it's nothing new, it's just a case of the scale of the problem being larger than ever. IO speed increases haven't kept up with floating operation performance of processors. If you're performing operations on a large, distributed dataset it's easier than ever to have your processor be data starved. Of course, that's why any decent HPC system will include high speed local data stores such as an SSD and plenty of RAM. That's why cache size on these processors is important. That's why systems are more heterogeneous than ever.

I feel like some writers in HPC (ironically) miss the free lunch of faster and faster systems with not much extra effort. With more complexity in your supercomputer comes more power and more difficulty in writing software. That's unavoidable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Trying to figure out why the menu is borked on the iPhone. If you reload the article in landscape it works. Sorry!</comment>


Ask HN: Where Are People Moving To? - <AUTHOR> I see more and more moving trucks in San Francisco. Where are people moving to? <comment><USER2> I was chatting with a friend on this topic. Based on anecdotal evidence, I heard Oregon is turning out to be an attractive option.

<comment><USER3> Really? One look at Portland and I start running.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I thought the same. But I know a group of friends who moved to a beach side town with dead cheap rental. Of course, I can't generalize based on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've seen articles stating that people are moving out of big cities since the pandemic started. I also saw an article that suggested a good number of Californians are moving to AZ, but I think this was more anecdotal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Austin Tx. Not a joke, not hyperbole.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sitting here in NYC with a lease thru March rip

<comment><USER6> Might be cheaper to break the lease. Most have out clauses, mine is 2 months rent.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Calculate Your Chance to Die from Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://textcritics.com/what-is-the-chance-that-i-will-die-from-coronavirus/ <comment><AUTHOR> Please be aware that this is totally unsubstantiated and for fun purposes only (if you can call calculating your chances to die "fun"). I've taken way too many liberties with the data that exists online and I seriously have no idea what I'm doing.</comment>


Promises: Linguistic Support for Async Calls in Distributed Systems (1988) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://heather.miller.am/teaching/cs7680/pdfs/liskov1988.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> The actual title is over the 80 character limit.

Promises: Efficient Linguistic Support for Asynchronous Procedure Calls in Distributed Systems by Barbara Liskov and Liuba Shrira</comment>


Teaching and Learning "What Is Mathematics" [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.discretization.de/media/filer_public/2014/09/05/20140413icm-proceedings-ziegler.pdf <comment><USER2> I think the problem with defining Mathematics is that everyone interested in defining Mathematics has a tendency to cast an overtly wide net such that nearly can be considered some form of Math. Wikipedia's definition of math (in the article) seems to have the same implications as wikipedia's definition of philosophy ("Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems") in terms of scope without the confidence to say it in as blunt terms. Philosophy can get away with it because it is the historical ancestor of most organized mental endeavors, but the math page can't seem to admit it.

Speaking of Wikipedia, it's well-documented that first link in many pages is the parent of that subject, and that the great ancestor of nearly all pages is "Philosophy" [0].For instance, Delaware is a US. State which is a political entity which is an entity which is something that exists, making it the subject of Ontology (study of existence) which is a subject of Philosophy. Mathematics however is partly the study of quantities, which can exist as a magnitude which is, of course, a subject of math. This means, nearly all of WikiProject Mathematics is determined to stay detached from the rest of human knowledge (admittedly based on this one, anecdotal and inconsequential metric).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosoph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy)

<comment><USER3> But what of the philosophy of mathematics! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics)

 _All_ intellectual roads lead to philosophy.

Joking aside, I think we also run into problems with defining mathematics because its application and the thing itself are not really separable. One can have the philosophy of something, e.g. philosophy of mathematics, because philosophy as a method or type of intellectual excursion is not a single thing --you can go about philosophizing in many different ways, even if your topic is the same (e.g. logical positivist handling of philosophy of language vs. the ordinary language philosophers)--in the case of mathematics it is a field of study but it is more fixed as a method or tool of thought--there are several ways to go about philosophizing no matter what branch of philosophy you tackle, whereas with mathematics, while there are different branches of study, there is really only one mathematics--i.,e. there's only one way to go about mathematicizing correctly for a given problem, whereas there's not really a 'correct' way to philosophize about a given problem.

I would define mathematics as a particular mechanism of human thought/a particular way we understand the world (the human mechanism of quantification and manipulation of said quantities)

Of course mathematical realists will disagree with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> good quote: "Why do so many pupils and students fail in mathematics, both at school and at universities? There are certainly many reasons, but we believe that motivation is a key factor. Mathematics is hard. It is abstract (that is, most of it is not directly connected to everyday-life experiences). It is not considered worth-while. But a lot of the insufficent motivation comes from the fact that students and their teachers do not know "What is Mathematics." Thus a multifacetted image of mathematics as a coherent subject, all of whose many aspects are well connected, is important for a successful teaching of mathematics to students with diverse (possible) motivations."

<comment><USER5> > Thus a multifacetted image of mathematics as a coherent subject, all of > whose many aspects are well connected, is important for a successful > teaching of mathematics to students with diverse (possible) motivations.

Somewhat useless personal anecdote to follow on this quote that I also liked:

Prior to my PhD studies I had heard of math and experienced it largely as computation. Arithmetic, matrix multiplication, integration by parts etc etc. This is, to my mind, the most terribly boring part of mathematics.

It's not certain, but I suspect that providing at least a few alternate characterizations of mathematics to students stuck doing computations for years and years will almost certainly help some of them find their way to regions of the subject that they find interesting.

<comment><USER3> I had a somewhat similar experience. No PhD but I had always hated math as a kid learning nothing but, as you say, rote computations in school.

By chance I stumbled on Frege's philosophy of mathematics/investigations into the foundations of mathematics in college and suddenly math was actually really interesting. I find proofs, set theory, algebras, and other mathematical domains closely related to logic way more fun than rote computations. I recall thinking I could have really fell in love with math and maybe even excelled at it if my schooling had ever given me so much as a hint that this stuff was also part of mathematics and it wasn't mere repetition of the same old computations, and that all those formulas build on each other and actually have very interesting justifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An old saying with a deep truth: A mathematician is a person who will assume anything except responsibility.

<comment><USER7> Which is why devops will always have troubles.</comment></comment>


The Cost of Mobile Ads on News Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html <comment><USER2> This is what annoys me about the supposed moral hazard around ad blocking. Content sites, particularly news providers have no respect for their users and just pile layer upon layer of crap.

At one point the huge org I worked for blocked all ads for local newspapers. Not because we hate ads, but because they were frequently used to deliver malware, and in one case malware suspected to be targeted at our organization.

We called the media outlet and even offered to help, but were rebuffed. So screw them I say.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fine print at the bottom:

> The data does not account for text compression, which reduces the size of > text files.

I feel like this hugely downweights the differences, HTML and JS compress very well so this means images and other Ad data really take a huge chunk of the bandwidth.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty terrible name for the article. It should be "The Bandwidth Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites"

<comment><USER5> They do show the real dollar cost as well. I assume this is if you had to pay for each MB of data usage though.

<comment><USER6> I think what piratebroadcast meant is that the title of the article makes it sound like it will be about what advertisers have to pay to advertise on 50 different websites

<comment><USER7> That's what I was expecting when I clicked on the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 30 seconds of loading just for ads?! Come on, this is ridiculous. I know they are supported by ads, but this excessive advertising is not the way to do it. There must be a better way.

<comment><USER9> I agree. Some famous website has even longer loading time. See the discuss on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9940202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9940202)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, recently I stopped going there entirely. Mostly because of their heavy website, but also because of their clickbaity non-stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I found the comparisons wanting, as they only estimated the delays caused by the downloading of the data. They apparently made no attempt to measure the performance impact of actually running all the trackers/ads in the browser. From results posted elsewhere, I believe this is also a meaningful amount of time for many sites.

So the net improvement of an ad blocker may be even higher than stated here.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is what really annoys me about not being able to block ads on Android. I am really hoping content blockers on iOS will convince Google to do it as well. 30 seconds of ads for an 8 second page is unacceptable. Not only that but the potential for malware with no protection is huge. Who knows what those ads are able to send back in tracking, or inject into the phone.

<comment><USER12> >not being able to block ads on Android

Not only are there multiple browsers that block ads on android (including firefox, Adblock Browser for Android, nochromo). There are also non-root apps that block ads in other apps by using an on-device proxy (ad blockplus, adguard). There are also very powerful root apps that remove ads from browsers and apps (such a minminguard, which eliminates app ads entirely so that it doesn't even leave behind an empty UI box).

<comment><USER11> Right, I definitely phrased it badly. Content blockers on iOS are very different than using a specific browser on Android though. Proxying though abp and adguard has been a pain to set up in my experience. Though I have not done so recently. I was unaware of minminguard, and will check it out later today, but again not a simple OS level solution like content blockers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I expect big sites to start serving ads in a way that appears to be organic and would be hard to block. As long as people serve ads direct from ad network domains blocks is fairly easy. If the content looks like part of an article then it's much more difficult to differentiate.

<comment><USER14> TV tried this - remember Bones one season how every episode she'd demonstrate to Booth how her iPhone worked? Or on Elementary how Sherlock would flip open his Surface in the john and send an email, while the camera lovingly watched over his shoulder?

Viewers rebel, ratings drop, and directors quickly ban such perversions of their art. Its not sustainable. Will you read articles on HN that are half ads? Neither will I.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reason why I started using Adblock is because of NFL.com

If you go to nfl.com to watch a 30 second play you will end up watching a commercial first. Super annoying !!!!

</comment><comment><USER16> Classic poem with a modern twist..

First they came for the computer game developers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a computer game developer.

Then they came for the Musicians, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Musician.

Then they came for the the film makers, and I did not speak out—Because I did not make movies.

Then they came for news—and there was no one left to speak for me.

<comment><USER17> You've got it backwards: The travesty of degrading things with shitty advertisements was _early_ in the News sector.</comment></comment>


Today's Resource: Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned - <AUTHOR> http://vospe.com/2010/09/14/todays-resource-dropbox-startup-lessons-learned/

<comment><USER2> Wow, these slides are impressive. I knew dropbox was big but not this big.</comment>


Show HN: When can you retire? An early retirement calculator - <AUTHOR> http://networthify.com/earlyretirement/

<comment><USER2> I think this is an interesting tool, and it's very easy to use. I had a couple of thoughts:

1)What does the withdrawal rate measure? I took it to mean the % of your portfolio value needed to cover your annual expenses after retirement. Might be worth clarifying this somewhere.

2) Would be cool to see a similar chart for annual rate of return (if for nothing more than to drive home the importance of savings rate).

Either way, I think it does a great job of highlighting just how big an impact little changes can have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I like the idea of a chart for annual rates of return.

The withdrawal rate is a little tricky. The withdrawal rate is the percentage of your retirement nest egg you will be spending each year. If you decrease your withdrawal rate you will need to save a bigger lump sum to compensate for the smaller amount of income you are generating. Therefore it will take longer for you to retire.

<comment><USER3> It would be helpful to see at what age you will run out of money for a given withdrawal rate. Without that it's difficult to know what rate of withdrawal to enter.

<comment><AUTHOR> The calculator assumes you never want to draw down your nest egg -- ie your savings will only grow larger. It also assumes you will spend the same amount in retirement that you spend now. Your rate of withdrawal is pretty much a wild guess as it depends on your rate of return, taxes in the future and inflation in the future. Historically 4% has been a good bet. See this article for a summary of this topic:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i- need...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need-for- retirement/)

and this article for more in depth writing:

[http://financialmentor.com/free-articles/retirement- planning...](http://financialmentor.com/free-articles/retirement-planning/how- much-to-retire/are-safe-withdrawal-rates-really-safe)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me know if you want help with anything related to the finance and tax calculations. One thing I'd mention is that these calculators are fairly common, but the problem is that most people dont understand them. Putting them into context would probably much more useful. I'm a CPA, JD by trade so I have a good amount of experience in this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear any ideas/reviews. I was inspired to create this calculator after reading this Mr Money Mustache article:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

If you are interested in the math behind the calculator see my blog post about it here:

[http://blog.networthify.com/math/the-math-behind-the- calcula...](http://blog.networthify.com/math/the-math-behind-the-calculator/)

<comment><USER5> I'd like to see a way of incorporating real life variances in there. For example the probability of getting the same inflation adjusted salary for the remaining time is zero. Many are likely to experience periods of unemployment or temporary higher expenses. Similarly the markets don't give such a predictable return. Throw in a business cycle and the numbers are far less certain.</comment></comment>