Time-lapse video: How Japan handles long shopping lines - <AUTHOR> http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/23/time-lapse-video-how-japan-handles-long-shopping-lines/ <comment><USER3> I've been living in Japan for a few years now and I think maybe people are missing one of the key features of this video.

It's easy to look at a video like this and attribute it to stereotypes of the behavior of crowds in different countries. I think the overlooked thing is that lines in Japan are very often actively managed. If a new line opens up, very often there is a person standing by the ropes guiding people to the new opening in a fair way. If the ropes are too long (causing you to go back and forth unnaturally) there is a peson there who removes them and creates a short-cut. Similarly, they will add ropes or move the line into a better position or manage a 'cut' in the line when it passes in front of a doorway or path (like in the video).

This puts you at ease since you know there is an authority figure watching out for fairness. Its no longer a "me first" attitude. It also trains people on how to behave when in a line. When that authority figure is not there, people still adopt the conventions of when they are.

In summary, this kind of behavior is taught and socialized into people because it's valued. In America (where I'm from) it is considered inefficent to have a person standing by a line telling people what to do. People are expected to self-manage. This also means when you're waiting on a line in Japan, you're not really thinking about the line very much. You're free to talk, read or daydream without worrying about your place in line.

<comment><USER4> I've never been to Japan so I may not fully understand what you mean, but cutting in line isn't at all acceptable in the USA. The Black Friday riots that get press attention this time of the year are an exception, and usually involve a rare mix of retail incompetence and customer malice.

As far as managing lines of a few thousand people, I've seen many examples of everything functioning totally fine in the USA.

<comment><USER5> cutting a line, perhaps not, but think about what happens when there's a line at a supermarket counter and suddenly the counter closes and a new one opens up.

<comment><USER6> In Japan, when it happens, the new clerk usually goes in person fetch a few first-in-line people from other lines to make the new one. That goes along the parent's point of "you don't have to think about it, someone will do the fair thing for you".

<comment><USER5> that was what i expected from the rest of this discussion, but it's nice to have it confirmed. in the us, whoever was lucky enough to notice where the new line was going to open first would rush there and be the new first person in line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It certainly looks a lot more interesting from up high than from inside those blocks of people.

But it's not really a queue, more a buffer that prevents the entrances to the exhibition halls to be overwhelmed at opening time (with possibly lethal consequences). There are some much more queue-like arrangements inside - <USER2> remember rope barriers guiding people in a spiral pattern towards an escalator representing a bottleneck.

And the once you're in the actual exhibition halls, there are streams of people moving into various directions, but so crammed that you have to navigate by finding the stream that eventually reaches the place you want to go to.

Ah yes, here's some photos: <http://imgur.com/a/E6Aw6>

</comment><comment><USER8> In the TFA is linked the Japanese version: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwfZZG4Q_FE>

There is also an Enlgish version: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ermNqkUUiJw>

The caption of the English version gives some useful details on how the video was created:

      The footage, which was compiled from photographs taken at
      intervals of 5 seconds, was filmed on the last day of
      Comiket from around1:30 AM to 2:30 PM from the balcony of
      the nearby Washington Hotel.

</comment><comment><USER9> That is not really handling long lines -- that is people standing nicely in queues.

What would be interesting would be to compare how long these people stood in line to how long they would stand in western systems. Given that western people are famously impatient (and that shopping centers know this), I am guessing that ours are better optimized.

But, yeah, its a strange feeling looking down on all those humans -- almost as if you were looking at a bunch of really well trained sheep.

<comment><USER10> Asians are just as impatient - I am not sure what your frame of reference is. I am no expert but lived and worked in Asia for 3 yrs.

When things are properly organized here lines work fine.

This is an interesting subject for me. I am mildly agorophobic and happen to live in the most densely populated part of the US.

For the weeks after the recent East Coast hurricane, the NY Waterways (NYC ferry) has done a great job of managing brutally long commute lines. NJ Transit does not. As a result I am paying double what I would for the bus or subway.

Trader Joe's (in NYC) does a great job of managing lines that snake though the entire store. On Saturday morning shopping runs the end of the line is literally right inside the door. Yet I have never seen a fight on line...

Last year I went to a football game (Dallas @ NYJets on 9/11). I do not go to games often. The whole queueing up was horrible experience. Crowded on 'cattle car' trains to get to the station which then pour out into a crossing for a highway like ring road around the stadium.

Security with guns and dogs all around and no clear directions about where to go. It put me in a terrible frame of mind. I felt like something rotten could happen at any moment... And this was only a crowed of 75 - 80 thousand people.

Nothing actually happened, I had a minor freakout and got over it. But I deeply hated the experience.

That night I felt like an animal (and payed over $200- per ticket for the privledge ).

So no tomjen3 I do not think those people look like sheep. They look human.

<comment><USER11> Wow, the stereotypes are flying today.

Brits (westerners for crying out loud) are famously patient, I think they invented queuing but someone who knows better could correct me. The USA is also quite good, we seem to respect lines well enough.

Asians are also hard to stereotype, Japanese are also famously patient and orderly, it would be very hard to put them in the same bucket as say Chinese, the queuing cultures are just completely different. Try a Chinese train station just before Chinese New Year. I believe they just fill a (huge) square of people and somehow they manage to filter in somehow, I have no idea how they do that!

<comment><USER12> George Mikes (1912-1987) - Hungarian writer : "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one".

<comment><USER13> We Brits are profoundly discombobulated when we visit a country like Germany, famed for its order and regulations about crossing roads, only to find that the English word "queue" got mis-translated as "free for all".

<comment><USER14> Queue is a French word dating back to the 15th century.

Colloquial English usage didn't arise until the middle of the 19th century.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like at the end some sort of busker thing going on.

</comment><comment><USER16> i think this is a very cool system and why western lines are better? i dont get this? or was this sarcastic? i would wish that more people her would be so patient like they are!

and i dont stand in lines i order it on the internet ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like a line for a ride at Disney World, or cars at ferry terminal.

Don't like the chauvinism in the title. It is one location in Japan, not "how Japan does it".

<comment><USER18> OK, you are right, but this really is how Japan does it. See po's answers above for more background.</comment></comment>


Show HN: New Startup: All-In-One Website Heatmaps and User Session DVR and A/B Tests - <AUTHOR> https://www.concurra.com?1=hn <comment><AUTHOR> After 2+ years of work, I am soooo excited to show Concurra to the world and hear what HN thinks of it! All commentary, feedback, suggestions, ideas, criticism is welcome. Let us know what you think, and thanks in advance for taking the time to check it out. -Dan</comment>


Chef Kitchen for setting up servers with a standard Rails stack  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/federis/rails-fed-chef

<comment><USER2> I hate this about deploying Rails applications. It's always a teeny tiny little thing, but it almost always ends up with a trip through random stackoverflow answers, comments, blog posts and the occasional doc filed under 'known issues'.

I have _only_ 1 production application hosted on a hand-built DigitalOcean stack - hell it was a such a process I wrote a guide on how to do it, mainly for my own benefit in the future.

[http://tech.pro/tutorial/1335/devops-for-dummies-vps- configu...](http://tech.pro/tutorial/1335/devops-for-dummies-vps- configuration-from-scratch-rails-nginx-postgresql)

Surprise surprise, I try to follow _my own guide_ on a new project I started and it doesn't work as expected. Either RVM changed since writing it, Ubuntu issue with locales preventing postgres from starting, or the odd issue with postgres not installing with a default user. It's a cluster __ __.

Alright, enough fiddling about. I bought myself a book to learn from a professional [0]. Surprise surprise! Outdated not 1 month after it's been released. No longer working, again hunting down the comments area. :P

There's a reason why Heroku is so popular: it makes deployments mind-numbingly simple. (Plus you can scale, but let's worry about that after the app actually runs!)

I'm going to give this a shot using a brand new Ubuntu 13.10 x64 DigitalOcean VPS with a simple CRUD rails application I have. But I'd bet my left arm that something is going to go wrong and yet again I'll have to dive deep into the recesses of the web.

[0] - [https://leanpub.com/deploying_rails_applications](https://leanpub.com/deploying_rails_applications)

<comment><AUTHOR> 100% agree with you. FWIW, this is much more heavily tested on ubuntu 12.04. One of the reasons we submitted it was the hope that we'd get more people to test & contribute. Goal being that you don't necessarily have to pay for heroku & can still own your servers, but can set up a new server in just a few mins.

If you run into hiccups, feel free to hit me up directly - firstname.lastname@example.com. The plus side of this is that once you do get it figured out once, setting up other servers really is extremely quick.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> If this doesn't use RVM how do you handle multiple applications on 1 server that may or may not have different Ruby versions?

<comment><USER3> I used to pursue this same goal. Then I decided to reclaim my sanity and stopped swimming upstream. I dropped RVM in production environments and started using ruby-build to drop a Ruby in /usr/local.

When you do this you drop a ton of configuration overhead involved with custom paths to your Ruby interpreter. That doesn't sound like much, but when you're fighting with environments in login vs non-login shells, cron jobs, remotely executed Capistrano tasks, etc, it's an overhead that I'm happy to have behind me.

If one of our Ruby apps require a different Ruby version, it goes on a different VM. Sounds like overkill, but you can get a VM down to $5/month from DigitalOcean. How much time is $5/month worth?</comment></comment>


Persistent Vector Performance, summarised - <AUTHOR> http://hypirion.com/musings/persistent-vector-performance-summarised?hnrepost=true

<comment><USER2> I didn't read the whole blog series, but this data structure seems like it could support O(log(n)) insert/remove in middle or front. The equivalent operation in an ArrayList would take O(n).

Why not show off this performance advantage in the benchmark?

<comment><USER3> Clojure's built in PersistentVector does not support O(log(n)) inserts/removes from the middle/front, but there is another implementation that shares a lot of it's implementation with some extensions that does: [https://github.com/clojure/core.rrb- vector/](https://github.com/clojure/core.rrb-vector/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nit: most common cache line size is probably 32 bytes, due to smaller processors outnumbering desktop chips.</comment>


White House Indicates Potential Crackdown on Recreational Marijuana - <AUTHOR> http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2017/02/white-house-indicates-potential-crackdown-recreational-marijuana <comment><USER2> Here's an article that references the study they're likely referring to: [https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid- usage/](https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid-usage/)

The jist is: measuring opioid usage in people after a fatal car crash, states with medical marijuana had much lower rates of opioid usage. I haven't read the study, and while that measurement may be a bit dubious (pun?) I think the conclusion is probably correct.

A lot of people don't do illegal drugs, but will gladly and happily do legal ones. Opioids are legally prescribed and incredibly addictive, making them ripe for abuse by people who wouldn't normally be "drug addicts." With marijuana being legal it provides a non-addictive means of pain relief that's a much more pleasant and safe alternative to opioids. Hell even acetaminophen is vastly more dangerous than marijuana (and a cause of liver failure).

I think what Spicer said in the article is insane. I can only hope states fight back tooth and nail if the federal government attempts to "crack down." Marijuana is one of the few drugs we can do that's nearly harmless... Well, relative to any other drug we can do (alcohol or tobacco).

Edit: updates for grammar and clarity (damn you autocorrect!).

<comment><USER3> The opioid crisis is a product of, ironically, crackdowns on opioid abuse. For people with chronic pain, opioids may be the only option to live with it, and they need frequent doses. If it gets hard to acquire them because of "abuse- preventing" bureaucracy, they are forced to turn to the black market, not out of addiction, but dependency for pain relief.

There is a benefit to legal marijuana that it might be chosen instead of harder drugs, perhaps, but I don't think it should be mixed up with painkillers, which are their own issue.

<comment><USER4> That's not the argument of Quinones's book _Dreamland_ : [http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale- ame...](http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale-americas- opiate-epidemic-must-read-grant-writers), and _Dreamland_ , like most other books and articles I've seen, argues that availability and over-prescribing have been major contributors to the crisis.

<comment><USER5> Except people only started dying when crackdowns intensified on legal, pharmaceutical, sources and prescribers of opioids.

Crackdowns on "pill mills" and "overprescribing doctors" is what denies people a safe and legal source of pharmaceutical-grade opioids and forces them onto the black market of illegal, overpriced, and fentanyl-contaminated opioids.

Also crackdowns on "over-prescribing" invariably lead to people who experience chronic pain being denied medical access (or being subjected to extremely invasive and degrading treatment to weed out "drug seekers").

The DEA cracking skulls over opioids and investigating doctors is literally the only reason illicit fentanyl even is a thing. I am so very doubtful that skull-cracking and door-kicking will miraculously work after decades of it not working.

Do you want even nastier and even more potent (per unit volume) opioids than fentanyl? Because more prohibition (and yes, investigating and prosecuting doctors is absolutely a component of opioid prohibition) is just gonna give that result.

<comment><USER4> If you care about this issue you should really read the book, which addresses all of the points you raise in detail.

<comment><USER6> I just finished it last week, there were a lot of 'holy shit' moments along the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >But Spicer said that there is a big difference between medical and recreational marijuana, commenting that "When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people."

Pretty mind-numbing to see people still peddling gateway theory. Is there any real link between recreational pot and opioid addiction in any meaningful, causative way?

<comment><USER8> 53% of British Columbians have tried marijuana, and 2.4% use opioids. Not much of a gateway...

<comment><USER9> Heh heh. When I was growing up there was a big push to prevent kids from smoking, because smoking was supposed to be the gateway drug to marijuana. When I got to college I heard the same thing from all the smokers: "I never had any desire to smoke cigarettes until after I started smoking pot."

<comment><USER10> likely a result of its questionable legality, since cigarettes are a perfectly valid reason to smell like smoke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Support for legal marijuana and ending prohibition is up to 60% and over 70% for democrats and independents, republicans up to 42%[1].

They are fighting a losing battle and most politicians will not go against that type of landslide polling.

Good luck, 2.4 billion in Colorado, 20,000 new jobs and personal freedoms will not go away lightly[2].

They could legalize and end prohibition and throw the other side a bone, but if they pick this fight it will be a huge mistake and an attack on logical/smart people [3] and public opinion [1].

Prohibition makes the punishment on a non-violent personal action into a crime, wasting billions (20-50 billion)[4] of tax dollars and funding cartels, to the tune of 25-50+ billion [5], while harming decent people.

[1] [http://www.gallup.com/poll/196550/support-legal- marijuana.as...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/196550/support-legal- marijuana.aspx)

[2] [http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/26/colorado-weed- economic-...](http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/26/colorado-weed-economic- impact-report/)

[3] [http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/22/health/teens-smoking- drink...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/22/health/teens-smoking-drinking- study/index.html?sr=fbCNN022317teens-smoking-drinking- study0501AMStoryLink&linkId=34787205)

[4] [https://www.aclu.org/blog/hundreds-economists-marijuana- proh...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/hundreds-economists-marijuana-prohibition- costs-billions-legalization-would-earn-billions)

[5] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/03/legal...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/03/legal- marijuana-is-finally-doing-what-the-drug-war-couldnt/)

<comment><USER12> This administration is so weird that I wonder if there isn't a power Illuminati style group of trolls out there.

Hear me out, I don't think I am crazy. I don't believe this, I just see it as more and more plausible every news story that comes out of the white house.

What if several of the world's richest, perhaps Gates, Buffet and a few other like minded kind souls got together. What if they did everything in their power, legal and illegal, to elect the most preposterous candidate possible. All the shouting about the election being rigged has people looking for fake democrats, not trump supporters.

Then they have this candidate do everything the wrong way, and obviously the wrong way. This is intentional, is should mobilize and unify all the people against a bunch of idiocy. By the time this is done we will either have destroy the coastline or we will all understand what CO2 can do.

Instead of trying to shroud BS arguments in a veil of reason-ability like typical a GOP politician Trump comes out and does the dumbest thing he can for "his" side of the argument. There are GOP hardliners that back him, but it seems to taper off as the crazyness continues. Eventually everyone just towing the line will be unelectable or at least powerless for a brief time and we do a bunch of objectively smart things like end the war on terror, end the war on drugs, pass more laws protecting church and state, make sure future presidents can read, strengthen our healthcare, etc....

But that is just not as simple the other explanation: Americans, my fellow countrymen, elected someone just as dumb as them.

<comment><USER13> This reminds me of the well-known saying...

"Never attribute to a shadowy cabal of illuminati, what can be more easily explained by incompetence"

<comment><USER12> That is exactly how I ended my post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, Republicans go crazy over Roe v. Wade and the supreme court decision on gay marriage, citing 'activist' judges going against the will of the people. Now, recreational marijuana has been put to the people, and in those states where the majority approved, Republicans want the feds to come in and enforce prohibition. What happened to the party of small government and states' rights? The hypocrisy really never ends with the Republican party.

<comment><USER15> Clarence Thomas would agree with you. Hopefully Neil Gorsuch will be in his mold:

"Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent, stating in part:

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

Respondent's local cultivation and consumption of marijuana is not "Commerce... among the several States."

[...]

Certainly no evidence from the founding suggests that "commerce" included the mere possession of a good or some personal activity that did not involve trade or exchange for value. In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.

[...]

If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers – as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause – have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to "appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."

[...]

If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."[12]"

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

<comment><USER16> I have often wondered about the legal basis for the prohibition on cannabis. I always assumed it must be the interstate commerce clause but I could never make out why we needed an amendment to outlaw alcohol.

<comment><USER17> > I could never make out why we needed an amendment to outlaw alcohol.

We didn't. We needed an amendment to ban alcohol in a way which could not be undone without a subsequent Amendment; the 18th Amendment banned alcohol itself, it didn't grant Congress discretion to do so.

<comment><USER10> iirc, we largely ended prohibition because it was giving massive profits to organized crime

a bit ironic now when we have a president railing against mexican cartels and promoting prohibition of marijuana.

those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it and all that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Speaking as someone with no particular interest in using either, I'd much rather have a neighbour who was a recreational marijuana user than one who was a a recreational gun user.

But, you know, tastes vary, and apparently the laws reflect a different aesthetic to mine.

<comment><USER19> Personally, I'd prefer the recreational gun user. But what I'd _really_ prefer is _not_ both - not a recreational marijuana _and_ gun user.

<comment><USER20> You should be in favor of alcohol prohibition then, because a drunk gun user is far, far more dangerous than a high one.

<comment><USER19> I am in favor of people not mixing alcohol and guns, yes. But I didn't say I was in favor of marijuana prohibition, so your conclusion does not follow at all from what I said.

> ... a drunk gun user is far, far more dangerous than a high one.

Source? I could argue that, due to pot still being illegal most places, there are more people drunk than there are high. One would expect therefore that there are more gun mishaps involving drunks than people who are high. If you know of any reasonably rigorous studies that get down to rates per capita per episode of getting drunk/high, I'd be interested in a reference.

I think we agree on this, though: If you are going to drink or get high, stay away from guns. If you're going to have guns, stay away from booze _and_ pot...

<comment><USER21> There's plenty of evidence that alcohol leads many to aggressive and violent behavior and a fair amount of evidence that pot has the opposite effect. I think that's reason enough to belief that a drunk gun user is apt to be more dangerous than a high (on weed) one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong There's a trend to many of Trump's decisions so far, which is that they are punitive. He knows there are things liberals want and support, and he's going to go after those things. Not because he cares about them, but because it's important to him to "get back at" his detractors.

<comment><USER14> That's a good point, he seems to be a very petty and vengeful person. Just look at his feud with rosie o'donnell.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP7Lixcc_jQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP7Lixcc_jQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Trump says abortion and transgender bathroom use should be a states issue, then what about recreational marijuana?

His lapdog Chris Christie even called it months ago when he said "enjoy it while you can..."

<comment><USER23> Typically, Conservatives and Republicans care about states' rights issues when they believe states will tend to agree with and uphold their values. What matters to them is ideological purity and political power, not consistency.

<comment><USER24> Everyone is like this; we'll endorse any semi-reasonable means to achieve our desired ends. Should just be honest about that.

I think in a way, Republican rhetoric ("states' rights", "activist judges", "small government") is simply lagging behind their actual positions and values, rather than it being a totally cynical and hypocritical mask. These are slogans which still sound good and make sense situationally. It's easy to agree with them without really thinking it through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What did people expect? I'm sure trump is surrounded by people who have fully bought into the 'gateway drug' myth. The worst is somehow claiming this will aid in the fight against opioids. What a joke!

<comment><USER26> It's just as likely that they aren't doing this because they bought into the gateway drug myth, but because they are waging a culture war.

You can't make it illegal to oppose the president, but you can make half the people opposing the president criminals for smoking.

<comment><USER27> Which apparently was the original reason behind the war on drugs in the first place. Source [1] [1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/richard- nix...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/richard-nixon-used- america-s-war-on-drugs-as-excuse-to-target-anti-war-left-and-black-people- claims-a6948521.html)

<comment><USER28> I'd imagine that's exactly what OP was referring to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How come Republicans/Conservatives want to regulate people but de-regulate businesses ?

<comment><USER30> Because Pharma pays more than people?

All snark aside, traditional Republicans are more in favor of societal stability. And this is achieved, in their mind, via social institutions and a thriving economy. Thus, their values that align with moral institutions, corporations (economic and potential societal homogeneity), and a strong military (both defense and because it shares it's values of a highly connected, dependent structure of individuals striving for a bigger cause).

I'd recommend reading up on the Moral Foundations Theory, especially the work looking at the differences between Liberals and Conservatives in light of this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory) [http://www.moralfoundations.org/](http://www.moralfoundations.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Marijuana legality is one of the things the the Obama administration should have settled but never did. I only hope enforcement of the law encourages movement to finally remove marijuana from the schedule drug list.

<comment><USER32> Not that it wouldn't have been nice for Obama to give everyone a little vacation from pot being on the schedule 1 list, but why do you think it couldn't have been re-added after Obama left office? Anything one executive can order the next can un-order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is not terribly surprising. For good or for ill, recreational marijuana use never ceased to be illegal under federal law. And despite the various states passing laws legalizing it, there was that pesky little Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution.

It's been kinda annoying that people seemed to forget or ignore that. Hoping that the fed won't enforce a law was always risky. As we've recently seen, the political climate can shift suddenly and severely. And now people who think a law is a Good Thing that should be enforced have the power to do so.

<comment><USER34> The Supremacy Clause is immaterial, because while — yes — federal law overrules state law, that only matters if the law itself is constitutional. The Congress has no authority to ban marijuana from intrastate trade: that power is simply not given to it anywhere.

<comment><USER33> The Supreme court decided that the Fed could regular intrastate commerce in Wickard v. Filburn, and that ruling has also been used since to go after marijuana that stayed intrastate. [1]

I think it's a bullshit interpretation of the text of the Constitution too, but that doesn't change the current legal landscape, however much I or anyone else might want it to.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn#Subsequent_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn#Subsequent_developments)

<comment><USER35> Police power was something meant for the states, not the Federal.

Excesses like this are a good reason to advocate for originalists to SCOTUS.

Thankfully, United States v. Lopez (1995) started to reverse things a little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It will be interesting whether they will respect "states rights" in this case.

<comment><USER37> States rights is a ruse. The heart decides, and the head justifies. People use states rights when it is convenient, and toss it aside when it contradicts their other beliefs.

<comment><USER38> Especially because some of the "states' rights" issues involve state legislatures overruling more local jurisdiction--case in point, transgender bathroom law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Of course they have to push back on recreational drug legalization. Cross- border drug trade fueled by prohibition is the primary justification for their signature issue.

"They're bringing drugs..."

<comment><USER40> you identified why the illegal drug trade is so hot:

> Cross-border drug trade fueled by prohibition

Legalizing marijuana would probably mean more domestic growers, maybe even blowing up like craft beer did.

<comment><USER41> Legalization could have deeper economic benefits domestically than just access to weed [1]. California regulators are looking at legalization from all angles [2].

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-la- cann...](http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-la- cannabis-20170212-story.html)

[2] [http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/CPUCNewsDetail.aspx?id=6442452320](http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/CPUCNewsDetail.aspx?id=6442452320)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I totally support this, even as someone who voted to legalize it in MA this past election.

The current situation where it's legal at the state level and illegal but "hands off" at the federal is totally ridiculous. Even worse than having marijuana be illegal is having laws applied randomly and with a sizeable portion of the population able to be arrested at someone's whim.

I think legalizing at the state level was probably a good strategy to get the momentum going, but at some point we have to stop it being illegal at the federal level (individual states can outlaw, that's fine). Hopefully this will be the impetus to get that done.

</comment><comment><USER43> How could he possibly justify the loss in income and jobs which is a cornerstone of his platform? Someone should present the economic opportunity cost to him in a very clear manor and I think the decision will become clear.

<comment><USER44> You assume that he is rational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is a good idea. Not because I think it's good policy, but because the current situation is ridiculous and promotes the uneven application of law. I don't believe federal possession statutes are constitutional, and even if they were I don't think they're good policy, but laws should either be enforced or struck from the books.

<comment><USER45> The breadth and depth of federal law and regulation itself supports the uneven application. Those who have money can find a lawyer. The remainder of us are chattel kept only for cleaning the toilets of the wealthy.

<comment><USER9> If the breadth and depth of federal law and regulation supports uneven application, the solution is to pare back the breadth and depth of federal law and regulation, not pick and choose which laws you're going to enforce. The latter leads to a situation where all sorts of draconian laws are passed and nobody cares because they don't expect those laws to be appllied to _them_.

But that gives the government all the tools it needs to make life a living hell for people who irritate the mandarins in Washinton. I'd be curious to know just how many people in federal prison for possessing less than an ounce of pot are really there for possessing less than an ounce of pot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If you're disabled they'll stick you on fentynal for $0 on Medicaid, keep you on opiates for life but medical cannabis has no support for the disabled even though the side effects are nothing compared to opiates. Lack of Medicaid funding for medical cannabis is a major driver behind the opiate crisis.

<comment><USER47> I am by no means a fan of Trump and I think this crackdown is a terrible idea but to be fair...

 _Spicer noted that Trump supports medical marijuana and understands that patients are in pain and facing terminal illness and have a right to medical marijuana. He also noted the Congressional rider – commonly known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment – was in force and prevents DOJ from intervening in medical marijuana states._

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> and users from HN argued with me saying that trump's admin wasn't anti marijuana.

<comment><USER49> The argument was that Trump wasn't anti-pot, not his cohorts. Trump did in fact make public pro-legalisation comments starting in the 90s iirc.

<comment><USER48> and he also made anti-legalization comments.

<comment><USER50> You can find evidence of Trump being pro and anti on just about every issue you can think of, with the exception of immigration.

<comment><USER48> exactly, which makes splitting his positions from his administration's a meaningless endeavor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Reason for rolling back transgender bathroom access: STATES' RIGHTS.

Reason for rolling back state legalization / decriminalization laws: ...

</comment><comment><USER52> Since all current and just voted recreational states also have a medical program, most people will probably just get a recommendation from a doctor, depending on how lax the laws of their state are. If they're not lax, they will hopefully be changed to be (lawmakers, please see California for a great example). This will either set back progress and the will of the people, or hopefully, stage a huge fight where the states stand up for themselves and demand that this administration respect their constitutions and therefore the will of the people.

</comment><comment><USER37> What a colossal waste of money.

</comment><comment><USER53> Unfortunately not surprising. Sheldon Adelson provides a lot of $$$ to the Republican party.

[https://theintercept.com/2016/11/02/sheldon-adelson- fights-m...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/02/sheldon-adelson-fights- marijuana-legalization-while-funding-pro-marijuana-research/)

</comment><comment><USER34> What part of the Constitution gives the United States power over marijuana, recreational or not? If it required amendments to outlaw alcohol and slavery, why doesn't it require an amendment to outlaw marijuana?

If the United States have no power over marijuana, then the several states, or the people thereof, retain it.

<comment><USER54> As has been mentioned elsewhere, a 1942 Supreme Court case, (Wickard vs. Filburn) greatly increased the power that Congress could exercise in pursuit of regulating "interstate commerce". Pretty much any activity, by anyone, anywhere, could be put under "interstate commerce". Literally growing your own vegetables on your own farm could now be regulated by Congress, on the assumption that if you were growing those vegetables yourself, you wouldn't be buying them, and would so affect the market price for said vegetables.

Yes, the Supreme Court really did rule that way.

<comment><USER55> And decision was unanimous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It will be interesting to see what happens if a recreational drug user mounts a defense based on the 10th amendment -- that the federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate drug use.

100 years ago, we thought a constitutional amendment was necessary to ban a substance within a state.

<comment><USER17> > It will be interesting to see what happens if a recreational drug user > mounts a defense based on the 10th amendment -- that the federal govt has no > jurisdiction over intrastate drug use.

It's already been tried and failed with medical marijuana, Gonzales v. Raich (2005). And, for that matter, commercial wheat farming, in Wickard v. Filburn (1942).

It's unlikely recreational marijuana would result in a different result.

<comment><USER56> > It's already been tried and failed with medical marijuana. And, for that > matter, commercial wheat farming, in Wickard v. Filburn (1942).

> It's unlikely recreational marijuana would result in a different result.

I dunno, with originalists like Thomas & (hopefully) Gorsuch it's certainly _possible_. Bad precedent needn't necessarily stand, after all.

<comment><USER17> > I dunno, with originalists like Thomas & (hopefully) Gorsuch it's certainly > possible.

Compared to Raich (2005), even if Gorsuch flipped from the way Scalia went you need another vote; Thomas was on the Court then so is no change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> "When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people."

So uh... where's the action on opiate addiction?

<comment><USER17> No, see, because opiate addiction exists, we shouldn't be encouraging people. Only the premise, not the action in the conclusion, references opiates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I have no idea which of Trumps statements on this topic are going to end up being accurate. All I know is that one side will start mass producing articles with click-bait titles, and another side will ramp up every possible anti- marijuana talking point imaginable.

<comment><USER59> Mass production of meaningless articles is the worst thing about Trump. It has saturated the media around the world and further lowered the bar of journalism. I really hope people (and especially the media) will learn to ignore him, to take away his power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> That and the reversal on federal use of private prison.. Time to buy private prison stock...

</comment><comment><USER61> Of course.

The police unions strongly backed Trump and probably helped carry swing states.

This is patronage.

</comment><comment><USER62> This is just the political disaster anti-fascists need. The public will be overwhelmingly opposed to this and will wake a few people up.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm in all favor of the fedgov ignoring marijuana laws if they do the same for gun laws. Unfortunately many who want recreational marijuana legalized want gun control.

</comment><comment><USER64> Ganja cures the Babylon mind sickness. It shows you the truth.

Truth is the mortal enemy of the state.

For this reason Ganja is and will always be illegal.

They live. We sleep.

</comment><comment><USER65> Good move! The more they tighten their grip, the more states will slip through their fingers with relegalization backlash.</comment>


Show HN: TechScenes – A dashboard of U.S. tech scenes, from 180k job listings - <AUTHOR> https://techscenes.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> I made this a few days ago as a way to get some interesting data about the tech demand in different cities.

There's a lot of changes I want to make, but I'm posting now to get real feedback as quick as possible before I iterate. So all feedback is welcome!

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks pretty neat but 1st thing I thought of was a heat map. Show me the hot spots and an animation over time (as you have/gather historical data).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea, cheers. I'll have to gather more data before I can do historical changes.</comment></comment>


Can you split equity with the Shapley value? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fairandsquare.ie/?p=841

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this article and a quick calculator to divide shared costs. But assuming you just measure amount owed by time spent in a startup the calculator could be used to price contributions.

Resolving Bankruptcy Claims [http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature- column/fcarc-bankruptcy](http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc- bankruptcy)

If you could calculate how much individual alliances are worth it becomes closer to a full Shapley value calculation but how would this be done?</comment>


Transcript: Paul Graham in Conversation with Nathan Blecharczyk - <AUTHOR> http://www.bnjs.co/transcript-paul-graham-in-conversation-with-nathan-blecharczyk

<comment><USER2> Great interview that reinforced some of PG's ideas that I am familiar with from his essays. The one that intrigues me the most though is that all really great ideas look like crazy ideas to begin with. While very counter-intuitive this seems to be true and is borne out by the data from actually funding hundreds of startups. [1]

So here is a question for PG. At one point in the interview he says that the majority of applications that YC gets seem to be terrible ideas.

 _" And so I have seen huge numbers of terrible ideas, you know? No one has seen more terrible startup ideas in the world, I'm sure."_

If [1] is true, wouldn't that imply that this set of terrible ideas, may in fact contain a few gems - some really great ideas? In fact, based on the analysis and data, one could even argue that the magnitude of the effect (how good the idea is) may be proportional to how bad it sounds in the beginning! So in selecting startups to fund, how does YC distinguish between terrible ideas that would actually be terrible, vs terrible ideas that would actually turn out to be great. Maybe there is no simple way except a gut feeling, or based on how good the founders are. Or maybe the only way to really find out is to actually build the product and let the market decide?

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's possible to make the case that there's a difference between crazy ideas and terrible ideas.</comment></comment>


Fair Use Dejà Vu - <AUTHOR> http://kcoyle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/fair-use-deja-vu.html

<comment><USER2> They always kick and scream when dragged into digital age.

<comment><USER3> It's really true. I didn't realize the Author's Guild also decided to separately sue the university libraries as well, even though (as far as I know) the libraries' use was going to be far more limited (students and faculty only, and only to get you to books the libraries already provide) _and_ fair use is even stronger for educational uses:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/09/no-authors-have- been-h...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/09/no-authors-have-been-harmed- making-library)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why Google wouldn't have to pay for at least one copy of each book they index.

<comment><USER5> They probably paid for it already, their issue is the use of it and availability. As most copyright on the book mention that no reproduction should ( even partial ) should be made without the publisher or author approval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is exactly the arguments to apply in Padmapper vs Craigslist case.</comment>


Ex-Goldman Sachs programmer found guilty, again, of source code theft - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/ex-goldman-sachs-programmer-found-guilty-again-of-source-code-theft/ <comment><USER2> Top comment alleges the code in question was GPL'd and that the firm stripped the license headers and replaced it with their own copyright:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3cgck1/former_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3cgck1/former_goldman_sachs_programmer_wins_criminal)

<comment><USER3> Well, now that we know it was really Goldman Sachs who stole code, I'm sure they'll let this programmer free and immediately arrest the offending employee at GS!

<comment><USER4> _sad trombone_</comment></comment></comment>


I used an online platform to create a successfull android app and need your help - <AUTHOR> I have used an online platform that offers the ability to customize a predesigned apk and create your own app.
I have created around 10 apps that are getting some publicity and becoming successful. I started to receive a fair amount of money from ads as well.
Everyone that had an experience with those tools can tell that you get an OK app but you have some limitations on customization and adding new features. My question is, when will it be the right point to go find a proper developer to create a native app to replace the current apps?
Any input/experience will be highly appreciated.
Thanks <comment><USER2> To me, the only reason to create native versions is when there is a _business_ case to do so. Nothing I see in the question, suggests that a business case for replacing working code.

A business case for rewriting working code from the ground up would require a very high probability of new features resulting in significant increases in revenue and a pessimistic view of successfully rewriting that includes the cost of finding and paying a professional developer from current cash reserves and the long term cost of retaining that developer to perform maintenance and upgrades.

Long term support is among the potential benefits of using a platform. An individual developer may love to build new apps and hate to maintain them after a year -- or maybe they get a regular job or found a startup.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> \- Do your planned features bring extra value for the customer? \- Will they bring extra revenue for you?

\- Does the platform take a cut from your ad-revenue?

\- Are you able to find and coordinate a developer (android + iOS) by yourself?

\- Are the revenues high enough to sustain regular development efforts on both platforms (pay your dev) + pay yourself a fair share for the effort?

That would be the questions I'd ask myself before re-building the apps. Just keep in mind re-building them is not a one-time effort but a regular expense... especially if you add more complexity with new features.

<comment><AUTHOR> \- Yes i have some ideas that implementing them will offer extra value, in result acquire more users and money via ads.

\- Yes it takes 30%, one of the reasons

\- I am not a developer but i have technical background so i believe yes.

\- The revelues are not high enough for a full time or even part time developer, i was thinking maybe a once-off outsourcing job. Yes i understand the complexity concern. What worries me is that if I make the move i cannot go back..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which self-hosted email solution do you use? - <AUTHOR>

There is enough to choose from these days apparently (kolab/indimail/modoboa/more manual setups like sovereign). I don't really have time nor am I savvy enough to evaluate them all and figure out which one suits me best. Ideally I'd just install something, tell it what my domain is and add a single email-adress and then have instant 'everything' ready without having to crawl through tons of config files. <comment><USER2> IMO, "self hosted email solution" is, to a first approximation, somewhat an oxymoron. An email server is a target, email is a commodity, and there are significant economies of scale: 1 or 100 users require about the same amount of administrative work.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Debian. Postfix. Dovecot.

What are you looking for relative to what Gmail offers? It lets you specify a domain and have instant 'everything' ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> _What are you looking for relative to what Gmail offers?_

Just the idea I can host it myself, I guess. All the NSA/Prism stuff also plays a role. Last time I set up Postfix/Dovecot/Spamassassin etc it took me a while to get it working properly and I'm still not even sure it is really secure (let alone I can define what 'secure' would be).

<comment><USER4> What makes you think postfix is safe from prying eyes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> WHM/CPanel based hosting has/does it for you. Advantage - you're in full control, just rent server with WHM/CPanel and setup everything with a few clicks.

DNS, sites, access, self-hosted email if you want.</comment>


Dollar falls after President-elect Donald Trump describes it as 'too strong' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-comments-send-dollar-reeling-1484666714 <comment><AUTHOR> OP note: I have chosen the subtitle instead of the headline for this article as I feel like it's more descriptive.</comment>


Merb-1.0 it out - <AUTHOR> http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/11/08/merb-1-0

<comment><USER2> Why the dot in the URL?</comment>


A Dying Banker's Last Instructions - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/your-money/27money.html

<comment><USER2> Single page:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/your- money/27money.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/your- money/27money.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's an interesting story about how Google invited a bunch of brokers and wealth managers to present to their employees, along WITH Nobel laureate Bill Sharpe (and others) who basically torpedoed the active wealth manangers' hopes of scoring clients.

Posted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1949158>

I like the idea of having evidence that i couldn't be doing better by trying harder. I prefer to focus my energy on building value thanks very much.

</comment><comment><USER4> This guy was a bond salesman, not an investor, it is no wonder why he didn't even understand the basics. It didn't matter. His job was to convince people to buy what his company was selling and to generate commissions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why yes, I work on Wall Street and the man's got a point. In fact, the situation he describes is part of what inspired me to change careers.

</comment><comment><USER6> I started that article feeling very cynical. "He's dying of cancer, and his last work is to write an investment book?"

Then I read the whole story. He's trying to leave something behind that will improve people's lives by giving them more control over one of the most important things in their lives - their finances.

I was genuinely moved.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Keep in mind that putting anything less than about half of your stock money in foreign securities is a bet in and of itself, given that American stocks' share of the overall global equities market keeps falling._

Could someone explain this sentence please? What does he mean by "a bet", and why is the fraction of global shares that are American important?

</comment><comment><USER8> That's an awfully long article to say his dying and written a book on his 'new found' way of investing.

<comment><USER9> And to save everyone the trouble, his "new found" way of investing is:

 _The book asks readers to make just five decisions.

First, will you go it alone? The two authors suggest hiring an adviser who earns fees only from you and not from mutual funds or insurance companies, which is how Mr. Goldie now runs his business.

Second, divide your money among stocks and bonds, big and small, and value and growth. The pair notes that a less volatile portfolio may earn more over time than one with higher volatility and identical average returns. "If you don't have big drops, the portfolio can compound at a greater rate," Mr. Goldie said.

Then, further subdivide between foreign and domestic. Keep in mind that putting anything less than about half of your stock money in foreign securities is a bet in and of itself, given that American stocks' share of the overall global equities market keeps falling.

Fourth, decide whether you will be investing in active or passively managed mutual funds. No one can predict the future with any regularity, the pair note, so why would you think that active managers can beat their respective indexes over time?

Finally, rebalance, by selling your winners and buying more of the losers. Most people can't bring themselves to do this, even though it improves returns over the long run._

If you think the article is full of filler, wait 'til you see how filler- chocked the book is!

<comment><USER10> Aren't 2 and 3 fairly basic and obvious?

<comment><USER11> Perhaps yes, but the old ideas were that diversification was for the incompetent. Literally the more competent you were, the less diverse your portfolio would be. If you keep only a handful of high-strong earners, you're golden.

Consider that if you invested $5,000 in Apple in early 2003 you'd have around $212,000. If you sold a 1/4 million dollar home and invested it all, you'd have 10 million dollars.

If you're Prometheus, you might have enough foresight and intelligence to play the market amazingly. If you kept money in stocks like Apple that are making like 60% growth annually, you'd be able to invest $1 at 18 and retire with 15 billion dollars at 68.

However, given that homeless people don't suddenly move into mansions by playing the stock market is a clear illustration that this doesn't work in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While it is disheartening to hear about someone battling cancer, why is this on the front page of HN?

<comment> brown9-2 Because its about the futility of conventional investment wisdom.</comment></comment>


With Domain Name Seizures Increasing, It's Time For A Decentralized DNS System - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101129/01445312034/with-domain-name-seizures-increasing-its-time-decentralized-dns-system.shtml <comment><USER2> Kneejerkitis.

1) ICANN has nothing to do with ICE seizing domains.

2) wikileaks.org was NOT seized by ICE, in case you didn't know (their nameserver operator, everydns, terminated service due to alleged AUP breach). They should probably just run their own nameservers if it's too much for a free provider to handle.

3) DNS is hierarchical in structure, but very decentralised from a technical point of view. In fact, you might call it "P2P", since anybody can join the network and run their own resolver.

4) #dnsissexy - the average user doesn't even know it exists.

5) Not happy with something? ICANN is a community. (I'm not saying it's perfect - nothing is!).

6) Really really pissed about something? Free speech, courts, democracy.

7) Really pissed AND lazy? Use a ccTLD. I hear .ly is cool.

What are people like Sunde proposing? The PR is sensationalist and contradictory, with talk of an alternative root (where would it be located? who would control it?), and a new bittorrent-like protocol (no idea how this could even work).

Anyway, I'm standing up for the status quo. It works phenomenally well.

<comment><USER3> The goal is to build a naming system that is decentralized and therefore free and hard to take down.

> You might call DNS "P2P", since anybody can join the network and run their > own resolver.

Single point of attack. They shut down your custom resolver, and they shut down your custom naming system. Also this proposal fails in terms of availability and resilience.

Also it's hierarchical P2P, so if you control the root servers, you control the naming system. It is decentralized only to aid availability and resilience.

> the average user doesn't even know it exists.

Those who do, understand that it can be controlled.

> Not happy with something? ICANN is a community.

I want free names for 10 websites. ICANN't get that without paying $7 * 10 per year. Some things are not worth lobbying for, because they are obviously not going to happen.

> Really really pissed about something? Free speech, courts, democracy.

Such a naming system would be outside the immediate control of governments, therefore democracy has nothing to do with it. Indeed, the idea is that you could use this in China and Chechnya too.

> Use a ccTLD. I hear .ly is cool.

This still uses DNS, and does not solve anything.

<comment><USER4> > Single point of attack. They shut down your custom resolver, and they shut > down your custom naming system. Also this proposal fails in terms of > availability and resilience.

Peer-to-peer networks are easy to overthrow completely even with a relatively small number of malicious nodes.

> Also it's hierarchical P2P, so if you control the root servers, you control > the naming system. It is decentralized only to aid availability and > resilience.

ICANN only controls delegation to TLDs.

> I want free names for 10 websites.

I want free beer.

> Such a naming system would be outside the immediate control of governments, > therefore democracy has nothing to do with it.

In the real world people care about ownership disputes, protecting trademarks, accountability and other legal matters.

> This still uses DNS, and does not solve anything.

Actually, it does. DNS solves everything just fine.

<comment><USER3> I think you're missing the point here. The goal is not to create a mainstream replacement for DNS. Its to create an "alternative" naming system.

> I want free beer.

A p2p naming system would use free software and shared computing resources. There are numerous examples of both (GNU and BOINC/Gnutella/Bittorrent respectively.) So striving for a free naming system is not the same as striving for free beer.

> Peer-to-peer networks are easy to overthrow completely even with a > relatively small number of malicious nodes.

Not if your p2p model uses a web of trust model like PGP. This is what the proposed model uses.

I don't agree with the proposed model, for what its worth. I think they should be looking at leveraging the work done on semantic free referencing at MIT, instead of the existing name to IP model.

(<http://nms.csail.mit.edu/projects/sfr/>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a quick, dirty, temporary hack I threw together today. It's a script that manages entries in your hosts file (it can do things like merge, pull from web pages, etc).

<https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet>

Feel free to fork and improve.

<comment><USER6> How does the system like it if you actually have ~200 million entries in that file? Or make it just one million for a start.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but sometimes worse is better - a small step in a pragmatic direction can do some good now and be a stepping stone to something better in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's my problem. It's great that some censorship will be prevented, but what about stuff like child pornography. I'm worried that, if successful, this will turn into a "we don't like our government so let's go create our own country where there are no laws", without thinking about the laws that we actually do want enforced...

<comment><USER8> [Edit: I wish people would stop voting down the parent. It is a legitimate point of view and down-voting is supposed to express a lack of value, not disagreement with content]

Child pornography is basically the trump card of the pro-censorship argument. Nobody is in favour of it, everybody thinks it's awful, even really passionate freedom-of-speech types often think an "except for child pornography" clause is an allowable compromise.

But the truth is that anybody who wants child pornography on the Internet can already get it, if they try hard enough. Many of us who've worked for large web companies are aware that one of the first forms of abuse that happens to any service that allows image uploading is that it starts getting used to distribute child porn. Shutting down domain names will do nothing because the people who deal in this stuff have been having their shit seized and shut down for years already.

By the same token, DNS is not essential to preventing censorship. We can send each other IP addresses through social networks, distribute shortlinks to servers that change every hour, or any one of a hundred other methods.

The balance to strike is: is censorship of material we think legitimate happening often enough right now that we want to make it _easier_ to route around, knowing that doing so will make it harder to censor stuff that we find universally objectionable? A month ago I'd have said no, but today I'm not so sure. And that's a dangerous consequence of the actions the US government is taking in response to these leaks. By cracking down, they risk provoking a revolution that will make it impossible to control these things in future.

<comment><USER9> > down-voting is supposed to express a lack of value, not > disagreement with > content

Let's face it: we mostly upvote posts we agree with. Then the trouble is, that for the symmetrical acction we must have symmetrical meaning. If I press on the gas and it makes a car to go faster I expect it to go slower when pressing less. If I click up-arrow to express agreement, I expect that down-arrow will express disagreemet.

I wish people will continue to vote down to express disagreement and use "flag" to express lack of the value or inapropriate content.

<comment><USER10> At the time of the edit, that post might have been in negative numbers. Voting expresses agreement, yes, but any score below 1 should be reserved for troll/frivolous/vulgar posts.

<comment><USER8> Precisely why I specified what "down-voting" is for. In my view, the correct score for a valid opinion that nobody else agrees with is 1. I feel up-voting can express both agreement and/or belief that something is valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't wait for all the new logistical & security issues that come from a decentralized system. It will make the old DNS system seem like Fort Meade.

</comment><comment><USER12> <http://dot-p2p.org>

<comment><USER13> "We currently believe the best way to create a stable environment for TLDs is to enact a central authority. We know this will cause much argument within the community, but we have made the decision that we believe will be best for the continued development of this project."

That is the answer to the question I was going to ask, namely "what does decentralized DNS even mean?" People throw around the word "decentralized" as a presumed solution to centralized control, but at the end of the day _someone_ has to decide who wins if two different people both claim that microsoft.com points to their server.

Also, "visit mybiz.yo after adding altdns.com as a DNS authority" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it as "visit mybiz.com". It also doesn't fit on the side of a truck, nor is it something that you will ever convince 99.9% of the population to do just to visit a website.

<comment> mike-cardwell I envisage a system where a few dozen independent organisations around the World run the root. They all have the same data. If any of them modify their local copy of the data or try to poison the distributed data, their trusted status is revoked. Child DNS resolvers should be able to detect new trusted organisations and remove untrusted organisations quickly.

This could all be handled through public key encryption and automatic voting. DNSSEC or similar should be complete and enforced for all zones and lookups.

You would need to compromise over half of the trusted organisations running the root in order to break this system.

<comment><USER14> _I envisage a system where a few dozen independent organisations around the World run the root. They all have the same data. If any of them modify their local copy of the data or try to poison the distributed data, their trusted status is revoked._

So what happens if someone attacks/compromises more than half of these trusted nodes at once with bad data? Is the bad data then the good data

<comment> mike-cardwell If there are 35 trusted organisations and governments around the World colluded to take over the network by taking over 18 of these organisations and getting them to "untrust" the other 17, then this would splinter the network, and people around the World would need to manually repoint their resolvers at the other group of 17.

This system relies on the fact that it is difficult to take down lots of independent organisations that are spread around the World at the same time easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell A distributed DNS platform wont stop censorship. Governments will just find a different method of censorship.

Null routing IPs would cause collateral damage, but to block illegal content that the hosts refuse to take down? They might go ahead and do it anyway...

I would still love to see a distributed DNS platform. The issue that needs resolving for a distributed platform is trust. We will always need a trusted authority. That could be split over 50 hosts over 50 countries, but we still need one.

<comment><USER15> Verizon and AT&T will do what they are told as will other large ISPs, if they want to keep doing business as usual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think another big problem with ICAAN and our DNS is the TLD. The fact that somebody who wants to represent their self on the internet might not be able to do so in a manner of their choosing because the domain they want is "owned" across all major and minor TLDs is very anti-internet-philosophy.

Top-Level is anti-web, because the web is not meant to be a top-down system. To me, this is a fundamentally flawed implementation. And why not? In terms of mass web, it was the first. When are first iterations ever correct?

Destinations are IP addresses. We all have em. What you want to call yours should be up to you. Ever since there was a postal service, people could be reached at the address they had. Even phone numbers weren't top-down (area codes), so that you could reach a local address, even it was the same as one in another county, without pre-(or post-) fix. I don't have the solution, but it wouldn't hurt for the public to learn and understand their IP address same as they do their home one.

Google alone, or with the help of other major "linkers", could go a long way in changing our DNS structure, by indexing different systems.

Decentralization is every nerd's dream, aint it? Eventually the serving capacity of consumer devices should be adequate to resolve standardized requests.

I think this holds promise: telehash.org

<comment><USER17> IP address blocks are allocated by IANA, which is managed by, you guessed it, ICANN. Just sayin'.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Autho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority#Oversight)

It all is top-down at the core. (And it kind of has to be, because as much as we think of the Internet as "decentralized", it is a communication network, and so centralized administration is often the most efficient and sane way of doing things.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Please do not propose technological solutions to political problem, one that needs political solution.

Meaning, centralized DNS system will work just fine, we only need a law prohibiting government blocking or removing domain entries. That is, we need similar prohibition that limits government actions like first amendment.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm still not sure how a decentralized DNS would handle registration, if domains were free-for-all, what's to prevent squatters from ruining everything. What if someone's domain is totally abandoned? Is there any way for someone else to take it?

From what I understand from the dotp2p wiki, there's still going to be a registration party, OpenNIC (which is an existing alternative DNS root that runs .geek, .free, etc. I'm guessing it's a DHT but it would use some public key crypto so that each entry needs to be signed by OpenNIC.

But this still leaves OpenNIC as a central point. It wouldn't be a point of failure, but it would prevent scaling if it was taken over.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure what they're up to these days, but I remember when they got started (by some guys from K5, IIRC). It was an alternative root, and not any more decentralized in the technical sense than "regular" DNS. More responsive to users and democratic, but the structure was exactly the same.

There were a bunch of other alternative roots that have taken on ICANN at one point or another, although it's been a long time since I've tried any of them.

It strikes me as a doomed effort unless you can get some ISPs somewhere to buy in and point users towards your root rather than ICANN's. Most users aren't going to change their DNS settings (most probably don't know how), so it seems difficult to achieve any sort of critical mass of users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A decentralized DNS has nothing to do with solving the (presumed) problem. The solution is a registrar (and DNS) that is not answerable to any nation state.

The corollary to this demands an answer: are nation states that afraid of information (and the truth that may lurk within) ?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure if a decentralized DNS system could ever be secure, instead the current management of the top level domain space should be taken out of the hands of ICANN and placed under the control of a internationally governed body.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why the P2P DNS project will not work:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1972834>

</comment><comment><USER24> It's time for IPV6.</comment>


A Small Business Owner Figures Out How to Save on His Health Insurance - <AUTHOR> http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/an-owner-figures-out-how-to-save-on-health-insurance/

<comment><USER2> Scroll down and look at the 'Various Health Plans Cost Curve' which shows cost versus age for 7 different plans this employer was considering.

They key takeaway is the all have the exact curve, the only difference being a scalar dollar offset per plan. I knew that pricing insurance plans was actually startlingly easy, I knew ACA limits the maximum rate adjustment due to age at 3x, but I was surprised the entire age-vs-cost curves are actually identical across plans. Apparently it's not just the 3x overall delta, but the exact rating adjustment year-by-year which is mandated by law for all federally run exchanges.

That means to exactly accurately price a family's insurance policy on Healthcare.gov, you need one array of 46 values (< 20, and 20 - 64), a 'base cost' per plan per zipcode, and a tobacco adjustment. That is all, system ready for launch, thank you.

So then you have to ask, why doesn't the calculator which lets you browse plan pricing let you enter ages for members of the family, and instead make you pick an age range and then give the lowest price within that age rate? When they could have given exactly accurate pre-subsidy pricing by asking for ages and looking up the multiplier in a _global array_.

Now I'm really happy Paul Downs dug enough to uncover this, but I think he does make one false assumption. While the 2014 per-age rating factor curve is consistent across all plans, that does not mean that you can use 2014 rates to predict 2015 rates. The base prices for plans can change from year-to-year, and perhaps even the age rating factor curve itself will change in 2015. Just because the array is static/global, doesn't mean it will be constant over time.

Paul does correctly conclude however that this pricing structure means you can take a single number for each policy and multiply times the employee count to immediately see the total price difference across plans. Of course, if you provide employees any choice in their own plan, it's not that simple, but being able to boil down "Plan A costs $X more than Plan B per person" is cute.

However, it's extremely hard to enumerate, let alone appreciate all the implications, trade-offs, benefits and hidden costs that come with imposing such strict and perhaps over-simplified pricing controls on a market.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're male, and particularly if you're a single male, you should check out Chart 5 which is the actual cost curve by age as calculated by Society for Actuaries in 2013. Before ACA you would pay based on cost...

Based on the data in that report, females consume ~33% more health care than males from age 20 - 65. But under ACA men and women pay the same amount (men subsidize women). That seems mighty chivalrous. More specifically, it's a very significant financial penalty for single men, and doubly so for men who marry men.

If you sum up health care costs for men versus women Age 0 - 64 (See Chart 28: Group PPO/POS data for calendar year 2010) you get $252k per man versus $309k per woman. I'm not sure I quite understand the justification why every man should be paying an extra $28,500 (on average) so that every woman can pay $28,500 less (on average) for their health care?

Interesting to consider... Given the demographics of most startups (young single men) and how ACA has a double sucker punch against being young and male... male dominated startups who want to offer insurance will be paying a hell of a lot more -- around 50% more to insure a team of 25 year old single men under ACA's pricing regime.</comment>


Ford seen ditching Microsoft for Blackberry in future cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140222/BIZ/302220033/Ford-seen-ditching-Microsoft-Blackberry-future-cars <comment><USER2> Not Blackberry the phone but Blackberry the company and it's real time operating system QNX.

QNX is an excellent RTOS and is already used in cars, appliances, machinery, and industry. QNX also has a serious R&D initiative for cars.

So it's no surprise that Ford is considering it. There's off the shelf products that Ford could purchase and drop into a dash tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> QNX (which BB bought a few years ago) has a QNX Car Platform, for example here is a press release with some details on it from last year. [http://www.qnx.com/news/pr_5602_1.html](http://www.qnx.com/news/pr_5602_1.html) So they might be using the car platform, but as the article doesn't mention explicitly mention it they could just be using the QNX OS and writing their own thing on top.

Videos of recent demo cars QNX showed off at CES: CES 2013 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl_uVHg_SSs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl_uVHg_SSs) CES 2014 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MbXvyCTVV0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MbXvyCTVV0)

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Former Ford Sync engineer here.

It's good that Ford is ditching Sync... but what killed Sync was Ford not Microsoft. Sync is a forked version of Windows CE that is maintained by Ford (and offshored to a 3rd party vendor for maintenance).

The bugs, the poor UX, it's all a result of extremely poor execution on the part of Ford. Switching to a new OS doesn't solve that problem.

<comment><USER5> I have worked with both QNX (learned C on it) and Windows CE (the Brazilian electronic voting system used CE for the 2002 version ballots) and, while CE is very insular, with some Windows skills being translatable, many developers already familiar with Unix-like OSs would be readily at home with it. Also, being used in other subsystems, it will make the potential talent pool much larger as someone from the on-board entertainment system can be allocated to engine management without extensive retraining.

Poor execution is still possible, but it's now easier to execute it well.

<comment><USER4> Thanks rbanffy. I don't mean to make any comments for or against QNX. It's just that the problem wasn't engineering IMHO, it was product management. Engineering and product are very divorced, in separate buildings, and often only talk to each other after the product team has written API specs by fiat to enable some last minute feature they dreamed up.

A very real example I witnessed many times: Bob the Product Manager has an idea. He calls the contractors in Germany who own the embedded Sync code to tell them this idea and they take it as a spec requirement. They write the APIs exactly the way the PM thought aloud. The PM then tells the in-house Ford team who supports the code after its written this idea and they freak out because it completely breaks the semantics of the API. German folks didn't care because they get paid more and they need to keep their customer happy, the PM. Ford engineers care but don't have much power to fix the solution other than one off hacks to get the software done in time to meet the vehicle launch date. Customers suffer. Ever wonder why if you enter the Bluetooth menu from the phone vs from a media stream it actually does two completely different things? Or the fact that iPhone requires you're connected over the Apple cord and protocol but actually streams over Bluetooth and weird edge cases ensue? All caused by this style of execution.

<comment><USER5> If there ever was a case for abandoning waterfall ("waterfail"?) and embracing agile and embed product into engineering, this would be it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My understanding of the situation (based on no inside knowledge, just reading car blogs) was that Sync was good until Ford decided to take development in- house and turned it into MyFord Touch. The reviews were universally positive til then, universally negative after.

<comment><USER5> Variations over time like this may also reflect a changing set of expectations and a product that does not evolve much.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This might seem crazy to those on HN. But Ford has had a lot of problems with the MS software and it has hurt them.

What you might not know is that Detroit is one of the few remaining beachheads for Blackberry in the US. Detroit is one of the last two cities in the USA to have Blackberry retail stores. So the company brand isn't as tainted here as it might be elsewhere even though I realize this isn't the phone OS.

Perhaps this is how Blackberry makes their comeback - as a car OS?

<comment><USER7> Oh it's not just ford having problems with that MS software. I've had enough Fords as rental cars to know that that software is utter garbage. Putting that in the cars had nothing to do with actual users. It's obviously a case of Microsoft offering Ford a good deal for doing it.

<comment><USER8> "I've had enough Fords as rental cars to know that that software is utter garbage"

Same, except everything else about the car too.

<comment><USER9> I drove about 500 miles in Ford C-Max Hybrid rental car last summer, and really liked it. But was horrified that I had to pull off the freeway and reboot because the nav/radio/console had frozen. I would never buy a Ford with Microsoft software, so I hope this switch works out better for them.

<comment><USER8> The last Ford I rented I could only get my iphone to play out through the speakers about one out of every three tries, and only if it was all plugged in and ready to go when I put the key in (and forget doing anything other than listening to songs in alphabetical order).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I first read the headline and thought "oh god, how can they strike a deal with a company that will be dead in a few years". However since QNX is a separate business line than the phones, that could easily be spun off to its own biz.

I have a Ford now and the Microsoft sync software is atrocious. I have to run patches every few months and it takes hours to do it each time. Still randomly crashes on me too.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a Ford with the older, speech only Sync system (2009), and I've been pretty happy with it. Has is quirks, but does what it needs to do for the most part.

Am I correct in my history that it's really with the touchscreen version that Microsoft fell on it's face? That's when I recall hearing super toxic reviews.

<comment><USER12> You are correct.

The original Sync system was developed by Microsoft for Ford and has gotten generally positive reviews.

MyFord Touch, the touchscreen system, was contracted out by Ford and developed on the Microsoft Automotive platform. So it is "powered by" Microsoft but was not originally built by them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a 2013 Ford Fiesta SE owner, I can attest to the poor quality of Microsoft's SYNC system. I was so frustrated that I even wrote a blog post about it some time ago. I would have even more negative commentary now.

The Sept. 2013 post, for anyone curious: [http://oddshocks.com/2013/09/microsoft-ford-sync- review/](http://oddshocks.com/2013/09/microsoft-ford-sync-review/)

<comment><USER14> Ford electronics were a good part of the reason I'm a 2013 VW GTI owner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The title is so misleading. Hello link bait. They are considering switch to QNX, which has been used my many car nav systems for years (e.g. BMW). While yes, QNX has been bought by RIM (now Blackberry), it makes it sound like the godawful ugly Blackberry phone software was now running in Ford trucks...

</comment><comment><USER16> I think the QNX purchase by BlackBerry was a very wise move. I have been hoping they could hang on long enough to leverage it in the market again. It is a really nice product with a lot of potential. This is good to see.

<comment><USER17> They have been trying. The problem is the first version was the overpriced and missing key features (the playbook had no email at launch). The next attempts were years late and after the brand already had a rep for being boring old tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wonder what % of non-fleet Ford buyers have smart phones?

The transition away from bloated onboard software can't happen soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER19> The main problem that I experienced on our 2013 ford edge is when I would play Spotify over bluetooth audio, for some reason the car itself would start skipping songs halfway through for no reason at all. After install the latest update for the my ford touch, it doesn't seem to happen anymore.

</comment><comment><USER20> These guys at Ford seem to really have their finger on the pulse of technology, don't they? Ditching one bad company for an even worse one.

From what I've seen, QNX is technically pretty great and has the most advanced and smoothest multi-tasking system on mobile, in a very battery-efficient way. I just don't think Blackberry, the company, will be around for long or in a very strong shape to support big customers in the future. That's why I believe Ford made a bad bet for the future, here.

That being said, my hope is Blackberry open sources QNX before it goes belly up, so it can benefit all of humanity. To do otherwise, and leave it for dead on the shelf of a corporate scavenger or a patent troll like IV or Rockstar when the inevitable sell-off comes, would be a damn shame.

<comment><USER21> Ford could easily buy the QNX business. PE could also come in and buy the automotive RTOS business (if they didn't want to be only used by Ford. I assume Ford purchasing is smart enough to negotiate this -- the biggest risk is that QNX development efforts might stagnate if Blackberry is failing, but if the QNX business is viable enough on its own, that seems unlikely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yay, a car company is choosing between two closed-source, almost certainly compromised, podunk OSes.

It's not that either is particularly bad (even though at least one is); it's that there is a free, as-good-or-better option. It's a much more secure, much more _trustable_ option, and it's obviously to use Linux, *BSD or even Android instead.

I'd rather not have the speakers in my car turned into roving wiretaps, thanks. My conversations might not be relevant to national security, but their privacy -- even hypothetical privacy -- is relevant to _me_.

<comment><USER17> When did linux become a real time OS?

<comment><USER23> ...and when did some glorified clock radio need a RTOS?

Or, put another way, what happened to Americans to go from normal people to these obese things that spend an inordinate amount of time 'sitting in traffic' every day, trashing the planet with their vehicle emissions? Is that trip to Burger King so mission critical from a glorified clock radio perspective that they need to listen to something really important on their iPhone connected wirelessly to the vehicle's 'Real Time Operating System'? Or will plain Android/Linux suffice?

Maybe 'Peak Oil' will bring back the street car, bicycles, conversation, buskers and things like bird song and we won't have these quandaries!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Sassbook-Create text content much faster; have fun too (Just launched) - <AUTHOR> https://sassbook.com <comment><AUTHOR> Looking for feedback and any advice you may have.

Thanks!</comment>


UX is making me dumb - <AUTHOR> http://dougmccune.com/blog/2009/09/21/ux-is-making-me-dumb/

<comment><USER2> Of course, we could just turn this around entirely and ask the UX guy, "Why can't we add feature X?" And his response could just as well be: "I don't know. I just design UI. I don't code it."

UX doesn't make you dumber. We really need the UX guys, but what we __don't __need is to compartmentalize them from the developers. This is a two-way street. UX needs to understand code enough to be able to read it and follow it. Coders need to be able to work within an existing UI design and not make it suck if they need to extend it or change it.

I have seen this work REALLY well. But what will break it every time is the "not my problem" attitude expressed in this post. It's not the fault of the UX paradigm when people abuse the necessary separation between design and code.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I'm an "interaction designer", basically a combination of the two; I design and code the UI. Often there is someone directing the overall UX, but the nitty gritty specifics of the UI functionality are my department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He has a good point, but I think the problem is more that developers don't want to take the time to really think through the user experience--they want to jump in and code.

I'm doing "user experience" design this whole week, for a fairly simple project, and it's darned tedious work. But it's worth it in the end.

And, of course, once we start coding, we'll have to modify things as we go, and as we get user feedback...

<comment><USER5> Yup, my point wasn't at all that there's something wrong with UX design in general or the people doing UX design. It was an observation about myself that I noticed happening a few times. I found myself turning off the "UX part" of my brain and copping out by throwing questions back to our UX guy that I should have been able to do myself. Somehow the distinction of a UX-specific job title and role made me get lazy when it came to designing good software. This was really just a wake-up call to remind myself that good design is (and always should have been) a key part of my job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let me retitle that for you.

"Other people doing work I could theoretically do, at least in part, is making me lazy."

It's got nothing to do with UX and he even admits it. Linkbait.</comment>


Show HN: GreatDJ – Create and save playlists that sync across devices - <AUTHOR> http://great.dj

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, Wanted to show you a small side project I've been working on - GreatDJ, where you can create and save Youtube playlists and optionally have them sync across clients/devices. They main use case was to allow everyone at a party to push songs into a common playlist (say, a computer that's connected to the main speakers).

Lately I've been working on making that easier: if you have a computer on 'party mode' and use a phone on the same network to access the site, you'll be automagically redirected to the same playlist so you can start pushing songs straight away!

The whole thing is also open source: [https://github.com/ruiramos/greatdj](https://github.com/ruiramos/greatdj)

Have fun, feedback would be amazing, thanks!

<comment><USER2> Congrats on shipping! I was at a party the other day and we needed a way to all contribute to the same youtub playlist. Now we have a solution!</comment></comment>