Highway Handbook: Why We Speed - <AUTHOR> http://deadcatbounce.com/features/featurescat/highway-handbook-why-we-speed

<comment><USER2> My wife's uncle taught a AAA defensive driving class for the elderly. The AAA approved course at that time (this was in the mid-90's) taught them that the safest speed is the average speed of traffic, regardless of the posted speed limit. If they could not drive comfortably at that speed, then they should stay in the right lane. If they were driving much slower than traffic and could not comfortably drive any faster, they should avoid the highways altogether.

<comment><USER3> Correct, and in California, this is codified as a traffic law.

Unfortunately, it is almost completely unenforced. Highway patrol and local agencies instead focus on speeders -- including those doing 5 over in highway "safe zones" -- because the fines for that are much higher, and it's less defensible in court.

<comment><USER4> It is not codified as traffic law. California traffic laws encourage you to follow the general speed of traffic, but only if that speed is legal vis-a-vis the speed limits. If you speed, saying everybody else was speeding is technically not an excuse.

<comment><USER3> CVC 21654: <http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21654.htm>

<comment><USER4> I think we are talking about different things. Yes, there is a rule that says that if you are driving slower than other traffic you should go into the right lane. But nothing in this rule or any other rule gives you a right to drive above the speed limit even if everyone else is driving above the speed limit.

<comment><USER5> It actually does say (from my reading) that speed limit shall not be a factor if other traffic is going a similar speed. The very first line, "Notwithstanding the prima facie speed limits..." is where I got this explanation.

<comment><USER3> Well, yes and no. Oddly enough, I think everyone is right in this section of the thread so far:

teilo said, "the _safest_ speed is the average speed of traffic, regardless of the posted speed limit." This is true; it may not be the legal speed, but a vehicle doing 60 MPH on a highway where the average vehicle speed is 80 MPH is indeed a traffic hazard, regardless of the posted speed limit.

teilo also said, "If they could not drive comfortably at that speed, then they should stay in the right lane." This is what I was responding to when I said "it" was codified as law, and provided a citation.

hristov responded by arguing that this doesn't make it legal to go over the posted speed limit: "But nothing in this rule or any other rule gives you a right to drive above the speed limit even if everyone else is driving above the speed limit." And he's right, too. By my reading of that law, it merely says that slower traffic must move as far to the right as possible. I don't think "notwithstanding" in that case means that the drivers can ignore the posted limits, although that's certainly unclear and a point of interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Drivers traveling at the limit should get a string of green lights."

I wish more civil engineers followed that. Realistically, there are a lot of other concerns leading to traffic flow management. For instance, some cities work with CHP to disrupt traffic flows in order to better stagger traffic entering the freeway.

Determining the effectiveness of this strategy is left to the reader.

<comment><USER7> Also remember that lights timed for 35 are also timed for 70.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> By the way, this article first appeared in a recent Something Awful thread. It is very long but has heaps of information for anyone interested in highway design.

[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=317...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3177805)

</comment><comment><USER9> Some good reading on HN today. Thanks for posting this.</comment>


Ask HN: Should we still apply to YC even after told not to? - <AUTHOR> Throwaway account for this one.. We're a team of 2 and have tremendous growth since we've been founded last year and we always wanted to be part of YC for a couple of specific reasons than just the funding or mentorship.
We're currently partnered with a big YC company and they've specifically requested us to not pursue VC money or apply to YC. I think the reason is when the time is right, they would want to acquire us at a very low price.
Since this is a YC company, would applying be a conflict of interest and we'd be just wasting our time or even worse.. cut ties on our trusted partnership? <comment><USER3> Tricky situation that only you can make the final call on. Some things to keep in mind though:

1\. Your YC partner is very clearly looking out for their own interests - <USER2> have more negotiating leverage when you're small, both in deals and in a potential acquisition. Nothing wrong with that. But remember that it's _your_ job to look out for your own interests and that of your company. Nobody else is gonna do it for you.

2\. Yes, it could damage the relationship with them if they find out. And it's fairly likely they will find out; YC alums help read applications. Plan accordingly.

3\. It's up to YC to decide whether it's a conflict of interest on their end. They have funded direct competitors in the past (with several hundred startups in their porfolio, it's kinda hard to avoid it), though, so I doubt they would consider it a dealbreaker if your startup looks good on its own merits.

<comment><USER4> Alums reading applications are asked to skip applications that are potential competitors. Of course, that doesn't preclude that other company from seeing the application and recognizing the name.

I'm surprised and disappointed that a YC company would discourage another group from applying that wants to, however. That's very much not in line with the YC culture I'm familiar with; but, there are a whole lot of YC companies now, so I guess there's all kinds.

This sounds like pretty shitty behavior, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds kind of dodgy honestly, I don't think it's any of the other company's business what you do in your own interest.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nobody at YC would balk at your applying, and all would probably encourage you.

If you're worried about a YC alum at the partner company seeing your application, reach out to YC - I'm no longer involved in the software, but there may be a way to ensure your application isn't seen, or bypasses alumni review completely. I think something like this may have even happened before.

That said, if you get in, you may lose the partnership. Only you can evaluate how disruptive that will be for you and if it's worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER7> Go sell the shit out of your service to other companies until their partnership isn't your primary source of income.

</comment><comment><USER8> You're being played. Let them believe they're controlling you until you've secured funding or joined YC.

Don't ever let someone outside your company tell you what to do.

<comment><USER9> That's sort of at odds with taking venture capital...

<comment><USER8> Touche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Assuming you get in, you can ask this question from the YC team. If you don't get in, I don't think YC will tell this company that you applied and didn't get in, so there's no tie-cutting.

Edit: nostrademons makes a good point, but the chance of the specific YC alum that is running this big company also being the one that reads your application seems pretty small to me.

</comment><comment><USER11> Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, once said "control your destiny, or somebody else will." Yep. Sounds about right.

Irrespective of what you ultimately decide to do, I would advise that you be upfront and candid about it, because you are not doing anything wrong. Rather than apply and hope that you slip under the radar, be firm but polite:

"After further reflection and consideration, we have decided that the best course of action for us this point is to pursue an application to YC. We are very excited about the prospect and look forward to continuing our collaboration under the YC umbrella!! :D"

Note the mandatory smiley to soften the message. I'm being facetious here, because there is no softening necessary.

You are not saying you wish to terminate your relationship with your partners, your relationship with your partners has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you apply to YC.

</comment><comment><USER12> You need to be willing to walk away from the partnership if necessary. Not that it's something you want to do, but you can't let fear of it control your actions.

Or conversely, if you decide you can't do that because you don't have a viable business without it, then you need to acknowledge that you aren't building something that has a chance of being an independent company, you're going for a pure acquihire play.

And if the latter is the case, you need to re-evaluate. Acquihire can be a fine plan B, but if it's plan A, is this still the best thing you could be doing with your time? Maybe it is, but maybe it's not; it's a question you have to ask yourselves.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey, why don't you talk to the YC company again? Ask them why they advised that, there might be a very different and valid reason, say you're tempted to apply.

Nothing like shining some sunlight on things to clear everything up.

</comment><comment><USER14> There is no conflict of interest in you applying to YC IMO. The YC company is likely being self serving here and your job is to look out for your own interests.

That said, there is another option that people aren't mentioning, and that is that their self serving interests may actually be somewhat aligned with your own. Having been through YC they understand the time commitment and the level of effort needed to go through it, the good and bad. They may be concerned about your ability to keep servicing them as they need and growing with them quick enough. So while self serving, it might not be because they want to hold you down, but are worried you won't be able to live up to your commitments with them. If you can grow organically, and not take (or delay) outside investment because you have paying clients you are better off too.

In the end, regardless of their reasoning you have to do what you feel is best for your team. If that means applying to YC do it. But I wouldn't do it without being up front and having a talk with the YC company. Ask them to give you their reasoning why you shouldn't apply, get their side. Maybe they are willing to fund you, beyond just paying for product/services. Help them see that your team being stronger is not bad for them, but a benefit. Even if their eye is on acquisition, they may be willing to fund you to keep your focus, after all they'd be basically paying themselves in the end. Outside of SV a lot of companies work this way, you have a strong partnership with a larger firm but you are small, so many times the larger firm will help keep you afloat in various ways to make sure they are taken care of. Yes you have to manage expectations properly, but it is quite successful a lot of times (like anything though, it can be tragically unsuccessful too).

Even if your goal is to pursue Angle/VC funding, you need to realize it becomes almost a full time job for 1 person (and both partners should be pitching), and might take you the better part of 6-12 months to make the necessary contacts, work them and get in front of enough people to get funded. So again, their concern might be you team being so small and not having the resources to keep them moving and get funding. If you have the contacts already then you are still looking at 3-6 months at minimum, assuming you have traction -- IMO.

No matter what, good luck and congrats on your growth!

</comment><comment><USER15> My random advice from the internet: Apply and then examine your options in the wake of the outcome. Unless of course, there is something prohibiting doing so in your contract with the big company. In that case talk to your attorney.

In any event, there's no reason not to keep taking the big company's money. But there's probably good reason to use it to develop other, potentially better, customers.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would have an opened and honest conversation with those at the YC company that requested that you do not apply to YC. This way you can get a sense of why they think you should not apply. Ultimately, the decision to apply or not is entirely yours.</comment>


Show HN: Search Hacker News with Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nicolashahn/py-search-hn/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this for a future project I have involving NLP and HN stories/comments, but thought that it might be useful to others as well. Let me know what you think is missing or really any way to make it better.</comment>


We Need G.M.O. Wheat - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/opinion/we-need-gmo-wheat.html

<comment><USER2> "Monsanto recently said that it had made significant progress in the development of herbicide-tolerant wheat."

Plain English Translation:

"We want to soak the soil with even more chemicals, to harm even more people and wildlife with various known effects that we won't admit to, & unknown effects that we'll try to suppress to stay unknown."

I can see the argument with having lower-water consuming variants. But why not grow one of the 100s other grains that can grow in such soils?

<comment><USER3> Plain english tanslation of comment above:

I don't care if there is a scientific consensus that GMOs are safe or if millions of people would starve without them but I won't change my opinion despite new information.

<comment><USER4> There's a really simple solution here.

Force produce that's GMO to be labelled as such and let the consumer decide. Many will decide they're happy to eat GMO foods and many will decide they're not.

It should be left to an individual to make the decision themselves.

<comment><USER5> I agree. Why doesn't every organic company just label their food as GMO-free. Then people can assume all others may have GMOs, because most do. The GMO-free business can stand out to the customers who are needing them and thrive.

Oh wait. That is how our food is labelled at the moment. Now we can save the millions of dollars on the cost of regulation of labeling, that could go to say, education. Phew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correction, we need good soil husbandry.

Super saturating soil with herbicide will only help western farmers, as its _expensive,_ So is buying GMOs, as they tend to be mules (that is they do not breed effectively and the farmer needs to buy more seed every year)

the people that really need this are the third world, and they need cheap practical husbandry skill (rotation, water management, sympathetic planting, soil improvment)

<comment><USER7> > GMOs, as they tend to be mules (that is they do not breed effectively and > the farmer needs to buy more seed every year)

There's a couple of myths in there. The issue of having to buy new seed every year isn't a GMO or not-GMO thing, it's about hybridization. Hybrid corn has been around since 1926. Farmers plant hybrid seeds to improve their productivity - to get crops that grow better. The seeds are a _cross_ between specific parent strains designed to grow especially well given the local conditions. The resulting crops aren't "mules" \- you _could_ just use their seeds to plant the next generation if you wanted to - but if you did so you would lose all the benefit of hybrid vigor. It'd be a dumb thing to do. (If you want to re-use seed, buy _normal_ seed, not a custom hybrid.)

Farmers choose to buy hybrid seeds - GMO or not - because doing so is on-net _cheaper_ than using regular seeds when one includes the value of the resulting improved productivity - in the case of corn, you get ~30% more corn per acre from hybrids.

[http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/corn- info3.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/corn-info3.htm)

As for where the myth came from, it's true that some people have talked about possibly using GMO technology to _prevent_ accidental seed reuse - there have even been patents issued related to that idea. But as far as I know the tech didn't work well and the idea has never resulted in any actual commercial product - there is nobody who is today buying and planting seeds that have been deliberately _designed_ not to allow re-seeding. It was just a scare story that made the rounds for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a plant scientist, like all plant scientists, we think GMOs are safe. There is just no credible science against this.

The point I want to bring up, which the article didn't, is wheat is an incredibly hard organism to deal with bioinformatically, since wheat has an incredibly complex genome owing to its polyploid nature. Therefore, making GMO wheat will be extremely hard. So even if there is a consensus on attempting to make GMO wheat. I pity the scientists who have to work on such a task and it will take a LONG time.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry for commenting around your main point, but I have a question regarding the safety of GMOs, since biologists are keen on declaring them "safe".

So there are ample evidence for the safety of their consumption. But is that the only criteria for safety? Is GMO safe for business? Are there social risks? Is there a risk of monopoly? Is it safe for the environment? Are butterfly spices at risk? Are less thorough plants loosing migration from escaped GMO plants?

I'm asking since there seems to be a really anthropocentric definition of "safety" at work here. In fact, there seems to be a really western centric definition. Is it really safe for the food production of this world to invest such time and money in an unsound production process, that is likely to leave the business of food production in few hands with minimum diversity for land use? Or is "safe to eat" enough to conclude the debate?

<comment><USER5> By safety, I am speaking of human health safety. You are absolutely right, this whole issue is very complex. Since it is not an easy topic, labeling something "safe" for _everything_ is something I cannot say in full confidence.

That being said, I do think GMOs are as safer overall then most other technologies at the moment.

Environment: We do have research on the environmental effects of disposable of computers/electronics, plastics, cars, pesticides ect. Being scared of GMOs as a environmental factor seems reasonable, but this should be applied to everything. I am surprised people attack GMO for this reason, when there are obvious other technologies that are doing some real scientifically proven harm.

Business: Yes. I do think GMOs can be dangerous as a business, especially with the patenting issues of a large corporation. The patent issue is the same issue that most developers and small businesses have to battle with all the time. So I do not really see this as a GMO specific issue either. The problem is that the more GMOs are attacked, the harder it is for a small business to have enough power and credibility, as a small business to even have a chance.

Social Risks: Not sure what you mean by this.

The last bit about GMOs being the best way: I totally agree. I personally think it is not the best option. Monoculture, seems is causing some real problems. Not to mention GMO production has a low and slow success rate, considering how so much money and research goes into it. Land use practices, I believe is our best bet to solving some of our problems.

I still think GMOs have potential of being a really innovative technology, I just want science to have a fair shot.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for this good and thorough answer. And sorry again I derailed your main point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm so annoyed with all the NIMBYs who don't want GM food as it's borne of stupidity and misunderstanding of basic science.

We need either GM food or population control, preferably both.

<comment><USER10> population control... = misunderstanding of basic science... GM food = NOT the GM Food the companies tell us about. We have been "modifying" genes for centuries thanks to simple, natural selection/crossing. Instead of putting more money into those methods (looking at crops region to region) the GM- maffia is only trying to patent a "universal/general" crop that should work in large areas.... anyhow, I am presenting all this very simplistically, but, I do not feel the need to insert genes from animals into plants n vice versa.

Is a study into GM necessary: yes, do we need to let monopolies decide policy for the people? no f'in way...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Genetically Modified Organism Wheat. Why not just call it G.M. Wheat?

<comment><USER9> RAS syndrome. People not knowing what GMO means other than being 'something to do with genetic modification'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh and another thought, all in the good mind-set of errrm "profit": patenting life = criminal...</comment>


Amazon's "second headquarters" may be no such thing - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2018/11/08/amazons-second-headquarters-may-be-no-such-thing <comment><USER4> I'd support a federal law basically outlawing these tax breaks for single companies.

Game theory means almost no single state can resist the temptation.

But it has the net effect of pushing the tax burden down onto smaller companies who are competing with the Amazons of the world.

<comment><USER5> But then they'll just move out of the country. This is a fundamental power imbalance between multinational corporations and governments. Governments are bound by jurisdiction while corporations are not.

<comment><USER6> If the country in question is the US, the list of alternative countries boils down to Canada. One real consideration that companies have when choosing where to put headquarters is aligning time zones and minimizing travel costs. International competition is a very real deal in Europe, where decamping from, say, France to Germany is unlikely to change all that much, but it is a lot more painful trying to move headquarters from the US to Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is just Amazon looking for welfare. This is not new. Cabela's was doing it for many years. Asking for tax breaks because they bring "jobs and prosperity" to the town. It turned out to be a plain lie. NFL teams are doing it to many cities. Making few hundred millions in profit while offloading stadium to tax payers. Sears, cboe and cme among other did it to Illinois for millions of dollars in tax breaks.

Pure and simple corporate greed.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like bait and switch to me -- quite literally.

"Hey, we have HQ2 for sale. Name your price."

"...hey, highest-bidders, we actually only have two smaller satellite offices for sale; each of you gets one for the prices you named."

Can't speak for NYC, but I hope Virginia refuses to honor any corporate welfare packages as a result of what's basically an entirely legal form of bait and switch.

<comment><USER9> Got bad news for you. There are a lot of states out there, (ie - all the other ones), that would give a whole lot more, for even a fraction of the jobs NoVA and NYC are getting.

It's a testimony to the wealth and power of NoVA and NYC that they scoff at 25,000 high paying jobs. I'm from Wisconsin, for instance, and we will have handed over roughly 4 to 5 BILLION dollars when it's all said and done.

And that was for only _HALF_ the jobs that NoVA is getting. (Each job likely paying _LESS_ than what most of the Amazon jobs will pay.)

I'm not jealous or anything. You guys know your value. Good for you. Self- Awareness is sorely lacking in the US these days. But I'm just pointing out that as corporate welfare goes, you guys in the coastal elite cities are in the best positions in the country. You're able to give out the least because all the good knowledge economy corporations basically have to be there in any case.

<comment><USER8> Share the wealth! There are other benefits to planting two QuarterHQs in places that aren't Virginia or NY:

If anything, Amazon QuarterHQ3 can go in Wisconsin (though my primary pick for this purpose might instead be a more disaster-resistant part of Florida) and QuarterHQ4 can go in the heart of Texas. It might draw some of the groupthink apart a bit and into areas that actually need new blood, or at least need some blood drawn from NorCal.

<comment><USER9> But none of what you just outlined has any effect on Amazon's bottom line, or on NoVA and NYC's tax base. The job of Amazon is to increase their bottom line. The job of the governments of the NoVA and NYC areas are to increase their tax bases. None of those entities have "draw some of the groupthink apart" or "bring new blood into areas that need new blood" as part of their job descriptions.

I just think you're being a little idealistic and naive. You're attempting to advance what seem to be almost quasi-political objectives using the market. But market participants in NYC or NoVA don't really care if Wisconsin needs new blood, or if SF has too much groupthink. Those are not issues the market is meant to address. You only set yourself up for more frustration and failure trying to use what are at their root market based devices to achieve these sorts of quasi-political goals.

<comment><USER8> > Got bad news for you.

...

> I just think you're being a little idealistic and naive.

In reading your initial reply to me and this subsequent comment of yours, it seems you're more focused on scratching an itch for a debate. I have no interest:

My initial reply to you was _entirely_ fantastic; it had absolutely no basis in reality. I can assure you that my personal pipe dream of dispersing rational and grounded ideologies for the sake of making more states purple during elections _was not intended to be confused with a legitimate argument._

I do hope someone else gives you the debate you're seeking. I'm just informing you that that wasn't the intent of my initial reply to you. I still stand by the idea that it's in everyone's best interests for Amazon to plant large satellite offices in locations that aren't thought-centers because they're more likely to get the tax breaks that they need and they won't have any issues attracting the necessary talent (it's Amazon), but I won't entangle that argument with my dreams.

Cheers

<comment><USER9> Not looking for a debate at all. (There's not really one to be had.)

> _My initial reply to you was entirely fantastic; it had absolutely no basis > in reality..._

As long as you realize this, it's good. But there have been so many comments on HN the past week or so putting forth ideas of the sort you, rightly, see as more fantasy based that it's become difficult to ascertain exactly when someone is being serious. Such people have to be "sobered up" if we're going to effectively concert in seeking a solution to the larger problem:

The "winner take all" nature of the tech economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really did say a lot about the state of government subsidizing big business that mayors and governors were falling over themselves to offer tax rebates to one of the richest companies on earth.

<comment><USER11> The country of Ireland has done much the same on a grand scale, much to their own benefit.

I agree it does seem crazy but if these businesses bring about a net benefit to where they are located it can't be all bad?

I'm not familiar with the US tax system but in the UK, and much of Europe, the system is lagging behind the real world of business by a measure of decades.

<comment><USER12> And, thankfully, EU has regulations against such schemes. We can have international treaties and organisations to prevent cases of tradegy of commons.

For example, EU forces Ireland to collect taxes from Apple, because it deemed such rebates to be illegal state aid. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_agai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland)

<comment><USER13> They did not force them to raise their tax _rate_ though, so it is still highly beneficial to Apple to be in Ireland compared to, say, France.

What member countries really should do is similar to the revenue tax that was recently proposed. But not exactly, because that's a pretty blunt tool. Instead, the calculation should go something like this.

        # Exclude payments to/from subsidiaries.
        global_revenue = all external revenue
        global_expenses = all external non-tax costs
        global_profit = global_revenue - <USER2>
        global_tax = this_country_tax_rate * global_profit
        country_tax = this_country_revenue / global_revenue
                      * global_tax

The goal being to remove the benefit of tax avoiding schemes like Ireland. It doesn't matter how you move the money around, you'll pay taxes to this country based on how much money you make here.

Require the company to estimate and pay this tax quarterly, and provide reasonable fines for underpayment. Granted the first two lines might be difficult to compute, so you would only do this for companies big enough to be worth going through the trouble for.

Disclaimer: not a tax policy expert. Would love to be corrected. Please poke holes.

<comment><USER14> While their rates are low, the issue was about additional, individual deals that lead to effective tax rates around .5% (instead of the official 12.5%, I believe).

I think the EU has done a pretty good job to find a balance here: when Ireland joined the EU in the 70s, it was among the poorest countries west of Moscow and north of Morocco. It became one of the largest recipients of net transfers over the next 30 years, but everyone knew that their chances of catching up required some economic competitiveness, and that it would take decades to pull even in terms of "Features" (infrastructure, local market etc)

Low taxes were therefore the only viable path to attract investments. That scenario is explicitly accepted even among those advocating for coordinated taxation.

In the case of Ireland, everything actually worked out extremely well: Speaking something almost resembling the english language, and having the strength of character to make peace with the English, Ireland established world-class universities and a rather remarkable knowledge economy in just one generation.

<comment><USER13> Sure. But are these subsidies still needed? In any case, my proposal was more along the lines of an approach to unilaterally prevent companies from benefiting from off-shoring tax schemes, under the assumption you want to do that. The thing I want holes poked in is the scheme itself, since I'm taking as given that some people want to institute a scheme with this goal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon putting two towns competing against each other in the amount of incentives they'll offer? Reason pretty much nailed it already:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_eG7leM6ew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_eG7leM6ew)

</comment><comment><USER16> None of this is really new. Back when factories actually meant big money, entire countries competed to get this or that manufacturer's plant - <USER3> time the plant would have been "the most advanced ", "key to the future of the company" etc etc. Then, a few years after the plant was built and subsidies were collected, they would close the plant and start the carousel again. RyanAir did it with regional airports for a bit. Every supermarket does it with their suppliers.

It's sad that politicians always think they are smarter than anybody else, that "this time it won't happen" or simply that, even considering negatives, the opportunity is still too good to pass. Unfortunately, nobody ever got re- elected for saying no to this sort of opportunities.

<comment> shaki-dora Politicians aren't quite as stupid as you (and, apparently, everyone else, believes).

The dynamics in such a situation are simply a prisoner's dilemma. Meaning: without cooperation, bidding for and getting HQ2 is net positive for the city. Nobody really sees much of a problem here, and your (and the sibling comment's) tiresome invocation of the lazy stupid-corrupt-politician-cliché is, as always, superfluous.

The actual issue is that, quite obviously, Amazon would expand and hire more employees anyway. This competition exploits the dynamic mentioned above to move money from the public to Amazon in a zero-sum game.

And the total loss of this scheme is even larger than "just" billions in taxes: when Amazon makes this decision based on the subsidies they are promised, they (by definition) must put lesser weight on all the factors that would otherwise dominate the decision. So they will end up at a location with lower quality-of-life, higher prices, or some other trade-offs. Amazon is essentially asking cities to pay them for crippling itself, and for compromising their employees happiness. Which, come to think of it, really does not strike me as the set of priorities one would expect from a stable company with a long-term focus and healthy values.

Anyway, that's why somewhat sane jurisdictions such as the EU put limits on subsidies and bespoke tax deals: it's cooperation that, when managed fairly, benefits everyone.

There's still competition between locations, but it's about quality-of-life, infrastructure, or education, instead of a voluntary effort to impoverish.

The fault, therefore, is the American fetishisation of market-based mechanisms[0], the seemingly endless willingness to starve public administrations of resources without any regard to their actual, absolute levels, and a somewhat pathological fear of showing weakness by treating any situation cooperatively, instead opting to turn everything into some sort of competition that at least guarantees the sweet payoff of others losing even worse.

[0]: This is particularly interesting here: The dedication to a free market runs so deep, that voters and politicians are essentially turning down the possibility to form a cartel amongst themselves. I one were to believe they are doing this knowing- and willingly, one would have admire it as a rather rare display of altruism in the service of a larger principle.

<comment><USER17> _"...American fetishisation of market-based mechanisms"_

Conflating incentives, pricing, and competition drives me nuts. They're orthogonal concerns.

Like conflating capitalism and corporatism. Corporations are anti market, driven to eliminate competition. Duh. But criticize corporatism and you're branded an anti capitalist nut bar.

It's almost as if there's a massive disinformation campaign about how economies work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a brilliantly capitalistic move. Amazon pretends to have a huge, one- locale supply of high-paying jobs and the promising ecosystem of economic activity around that center, and the demand is huge from cities. What if they grow into the next SV or Seattle from this?

Once the cities agreed to the deals with such growth prospects in mind, and given the huge demand from other cities, Amazon bait and switched these saps. They get to have their cake and eat it too, NYC and DC, non-HQ2 premises, but just satellite offices. Well, that could have been done without the theater, though the buzz was tantamount to free advertising for them and ratcheted up all the incentives.

</comment><comment><USER19> As a european the American view of "market" is always fascinating. Most tax breaks and subsidies amazon will get would be totally illegal under EU laws [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid_(European_Union)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid_\(European_Union\)) because they distort the market.

<comment><USER20> I'd agree with you if Ireland didn't exist

<comment><USER19> Yes, but we have to differentiate between general tax competition available to most companies and company specific offers, these are clearly illegal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_agai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yeah, we call those satellite offices.

</comment><comment><USER22> Foxconn in Wisconsin. Football stadiums everywhere. Car plants. This has been going on forever. Why was anybody surprised?

</comment><comment><USER23> Ive thought all along the second headquarters was just a bargaining chip. The fact that when the location was leaked that they came up with yet another "headquarters" proves it. They are just using it as leverage. These antics should be shut down!

<comment><USER24> Shutdown by who? Hopefully cities didn't write biding contracts with numbers without biding numbers from amazon. That'd be terrible bargaining...

<comment><USER25> We all know they did...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe it's just a scam and advertisement for Amazon? actually not all cities welcome Amazon, so Amazon if you have not totally lost your mind yet, don't push this kind of stuff too much.

While Amazon made a lot of correct decisions and is now a giant, without the benefit of 'internet tax', it simply could not grow this fast, to some extent the taxpayers carried it over the past two decades. Maybe it's time for it to consider paying back something instead of being intrusive like this stupid 2nd HQ propaganda.

<comment><USER13> > actually not all cities welcome Amazon

Based on the hilariously large stack of cities willing to bid on their presence, I'm guessing it'll be a while before that effect (to the extent it even exist) is a constraint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wisconsin governor Walker lost a sure bet at Governorship because of his giveaway to Foxconn. (it's in the name...)

</comment><comment><USER28> Scott Galloway on the Recode podcast made a good point that the whole "search" was a scam to get tax breaks. Bezos knew where he wanted the second (and third) HQ as they are both within 7 miles of his different homes. I don't know the truth in that but I don't doubt it for a second.

Here we are. All the little startups have grown up and are now the entitled little snowflakes we treated them like through their infancy on to corporate welfare adulthood.

</comment><comment><USER29> The Economist quoted the Onion! "The Onion got it right"

</comment><comment><USER30> This should be illegal.

</comment><comment><USER31> FWIW, you can bypass the Economist's paywall by reloading the page and then quickly stopping the reload. The HTML loads but not the js that implements the paywall.

Hope I don't jinx it!

</comment><comment> village-idiot I find the idea that localities are bidding on corporate offices with tax breaks extremely dystopic.

</comment><comment><USER32> why dont we just wait, and you know, see what amazon actually does.

</comment><comment><USER33> Paywall bypass:

[https://archive.is/osL0A](https://archive.is/osL0A)</comment>


OCaml All the Way Down – How Jane Street Builds FPGA Designs [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.janestreet.com/tech-talks/ocaml-all-the-way-down/ <comment><USER2> This is a talk. In case you just want the youtube link, it's here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1cgRXhpQLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1cgRXhpQLY)

</comment><comment><USER3> I do appreciate the presenters sense of humor.

"I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. That's like ten lines of Verilog, right? Naaaah. That's not how I roll. That's more like two hundred... thousand... lines of Ocaml."

</comment><comment><USER4> How does Jane St. use FPGAs to make money trading? My impression was that unless the application demands real speed (i.e., microseconds), write it as software that run in a general purpose processor, not in an FPGA. x86s always get the latest semiconductor processes, while FPGAs always lag.

<comment><USER5> High-frequency trading in a developed market demands response times on the order of nanoseconds, whereas anything in software is unlikely to get under a microsecond. If you're too slow, all the obvious efficiencies in the market have already been corrected by faster firms, so you miss out on a bunch of easy trades.

<comment><USER4> Where does this nanosecond number come from for HFT? 1 ns is the time light takes to travel 30 cm in a vacuum. Are these firms only trading with firms that are a few meters away? How about round trip times? I believe only 10s of microseconds are significant, not nanoseconds.

<comment><USER6> That is exactly what is happening in high frequency trading. Firms are paying crazy money to be colocated in the same data centers as the exchanges.

<comment><USER7> And we as a society know that and think it is normal. Crazy.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's a bad thing - theyre business model relies upon low latency, and so they do everything they can to reduce it

<comment><USER7> [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/trading](https://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/trading)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone who watched the video summarize? I'm interested in the subject, but don't have the time/concentration for long videos when an article often suffices.

<comment><USER10> my notes:

* HardCaml - DSP for FPGA/ASIC, * embedded SW in OCaml (running on Xilinx MicroBlaze), * HardCaml example: AXI interface, GPIO, SPI, cordic, * FPGA: LUTs and regs, BRAM, DSP,

skip to 9:40 if you are familiar with FPGA, skip to 17:50 if you know HDLs, go to 37:10 for a demo

* HardCaml datatypes: __registers, __wires (can be used before they are assigned), __memory, __...

* API: __arithmetic, __logic, __`pipeline`, `reg`, __bit selects, __`width` -- > useful for HW generation, __`inst` - use VHDL and Verilog in HardCaml

* signed and unsigned types: checks at compilation, * `bits` = non-synthesizable, `signal`= synthesizable, * `Always` ~ Verilog `always` - used mainly for FSM

* built-in cycle-accurate simulator: __supports multiple process, __MicroBlaze simulator (instruction set simulator)

* terminal-based waveform viewer and VCD export

* formal verification: __SAT solvers - boolean function -- > SAT/UNSAT

* software: __Ocaml - > bytecode -> Ocaml interpreter for MB, __C-stubs in Ocaml library, __no signals, no threads, no Unix

* code for HardCaml available on Jane Street GitHub

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What are some good resources for HardCaml?

<comment><USER12> Github: [https://github.com/janestreet/hardcaml](https://github.com/janestreet/hardcaml)

And Andy Ray and co's stuff:

Blogs: [http://www.ujamjar.com/](http://www.ujamjar.com/)

Getting started overview and tutorials: [http://www.ujamjar.com/hardcaml/](http://www.ujamjar.com/hardcaml/)

Running OCAML Bytecode in hardware: [https://github.com/ujamjar/hardcaml- zinc](https://github.com/ujamjar/hardcaml-zinc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> actually, we don't care how jane street does this and that with ocaml. it's such hype bullshit that makes me wanna vomit. Stop giving it publicity it doesnt deserve.

</comment><comment><USER14> Any mention of what vendor Jane Street is buying FPGAS from?

maybe: Arty A7 hobbyist FPGA board from Xilinx</comment>


Should We Loosen the Restrictions on Psychedelics? - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-we-loosen-the-restrictions-on-psychedelics/ <comment> white-flame The headline's question should really be reframed to question the validity of these restrictions in the first place.

I'm not a user of any of these sorts of substances, nor condone them, but there's zero reason for a free country to police personal use of such things. Sure, driving under the influence should be policed as a safety hazard, showing up to work out of your gourd should still get you fired, etc.

But there's little mandate that the government should be _policing and prosecuting_ adults for potentially self-destructive private behaviors. Especially in light of all the other addictive and potentially self- destructive legal activities people are heavily involved in, any pretense of that mandate crumbles. Only when it threatens the safety, or disrupts the public civility, of other non-involved people should there even be a thought of government intervention. Any other conception to reduce individual drug use should be positive pressure like awareness programs and rehab centers.

<comment><USER4> "but there's zero reason for a free country to police personal use of such things."

There are a lot of reasons.

The people on HN and their social circles are waaay on the high end of conscientiousness. They have nary any risk from something like LSD for the most part.

But - wide open and fairly unregulated use? Available at the corner store?

So many types will try it, more than a few times. Younger kids will definitely try it and I think for developing minds it's totally a no-go.

At least 1/3 of the population are very susceptible to vices or risky behaviours - in my 'very mixed' neighbourhood there are so many people who might be using it as part of their 'escape mix' (currently crack and alcohol) and consistent use of this stuff is just bad news, moreover, there's too many ways to have a 'bad trip' (in the psychological sense) even for those of us on the conscientious side.

Let's say I know 'a guy' who only did it twice but the second trip was so whacky he wouldn't ever touch it again and suffered a some of ego/identity collapse issues from it for a while.

Psychedelics are generally safe enough, and non-additive to the point where we really don't see a lot of crossover among the street level problem folks who's vices are crack and alcohol ... but that's because the supply/demand equation in the current 'regulated' scenario implies very little demand.

'Unregulated' almost means 'ubiquitous' and also much more integrated as part of 'accepted behaviour' in society, and there are just way, way too many people for whom this would be risky.

'Legalizing hard drugs' is kind of a theoretical issue because I think it's hard for us to contemplate what actual widespread use would look like, and also hard for us to consider how regular people behave.

More to the point: the regulations are not for you, they're for the 33%-ish of folks who have all sorts of problems.

It should definitely be decriminalized, to the point wherein anyone who wants to jump through a few hoops can have access, but I don't think we want to have widespread availability.

Maybe we might want to do an experiment in a city somewhere to see, but even then, I feel the results would be highly politicized, as they are with 'harm reduction clinics' ... it's hard to get at the truth of it.

<comment><USER5> You said regulations. Regulations are set _after_ there is a problem. In case of psychedelics, it is a _law_.

If there is a problem, the regulation may be changed, and additional measures taken to get rid of it.

The main issue with these _laws_ is that they are speculative. It is actually very likely that nothing would change much if at all, except number of arrests and related costs. Oh and reduced cut for the black market.

Psychedelics have been available and used throughout history with few problems in ritual settings. (As opposed to drugs like opium, tobacco or alcohol which have always been one with few exceptions yet are less regulated.)

"Think of the children" is a cheap shot that can be used to set any number of odious laws. Show evidence of harm and how the law helps with it.

The real reason psychedelics were banned in the US is to have a reason to jail politically inconvenient people in Vietnam era and bunch of the world has followed the leader.

<comment><USER6> > _The main issue with these "laws" is that they are speculative_

Sorry to pull that quote out of context, but this is just peak HN. It's beautiful.

> _Psychedelics have been available and used throughout history with few > problems in ritual settings_

So we should only allow them in ritual settings then?

> _The real reason psychedelics were banned in the US is to have a reason to > jail politically inconvenient people in Vietnam era and bunch of the world > has followed the leader._

I actually agree with that point. However, I don't see how from any of this follows that you should simply allow them without any precautions or any restrictions. Alcohol, tobacco, even _coffee_ is regulated.

As an analogy, we deem it useful that you can purchase a car and drive around with it. Nevertheless, we demand that you get a driver's license first, because there is enough evidence that driving is an often highly counterintuitive activity that can lead to serious damage unless you had proper training first. There is also evidence that you need certain prerequisites even _with_ that training, which is the reason we e.g. wouldn't let a 10 year old drive at all.

<comment> J-dawg In what way are they anything other than speculative?

Drug laws are certainly not evidence based (in most places). They are based on ideologically driven speculation about the imagined consequences of legalisation.

<comment><USER5> Some actually were evidence based, such as opium laws. There was a big public health problem with opium a few centuries back - complicated with politics and economics of opium trade.

Likewise how barbiturates, amphetamines, cocaine and benzodiazepines are scheduled in various schedules. Many and high profile cases with deaths or major harm were linked to misuse of these drugs.

<comment><USER7> Errr...none of those are psychadelics?

<comment><USER5> Technically they are all psychoactive, but not chiefly or solely psychoactive - and usually also not hallucinogenic.

Psychedelic is not a right category anyway. It is a label given by users based on perceived effects.

<comment><USER8> >Psychedelic is not a right category anyway. It is a label given by users based on perceived effects.

I mean, "analgesic" is a label based entirely on perceived effects, and it's one of the most common medical drug classes (by sale volume).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> " Their safety and efficacy exist only within highly structured specialized treatment settings. In addition, desired outcomes depend upon the production of a temporary but profoundly regressed, disorganized and incapacitated state. Outside of that structure, psychedelics are no less abusable, acutely debilitating and liable to result in psychological damage—sometimes severe and unremitting—than they ever were."

This doesn't meet with my general experiences.

I've never understood how something like LSD can be "abused" in the way that alcohol can be abused... my experience (and the hundreds of folks I know who've used it) is that at some point, you have bad experiences with it and you stop. That's not a cyclical abuse pattern like with alcohol, where you become addicted and continue on despite the terrible toll on your health.

Similarly, of the people who have been heavily involved with psychedelics and the general outcomes aren't any worse than for the hundreds of functioning alcoholics I know.

While it is true that these kinds of drugs can put you in some really scary places and while it is true that they can possibly have longer-lasting negative effects, the article doesn't make a very compelling case to me to keep these chemicals scheduled so that only researchers have legal access to them.

Pieces like these are interesting... I can see a strand of "messianic utopianism" in some discussion of these drugs, but most of the folks I know who want these things legalized don't have an agenda beyond "I like it and have found it helpful in my life". It's a strange way to characterize the discourse... it'd be like characterizing pieces like these as having an agenda to keep these drugs out of peoples' had out some misguided sense that only clinicians know what kinds of things healthy people should do. That is clearly not what motivates most researchers I have met.

<comment> King-Aaron Anecdotally, I was at a doof (bush rave) a few years ago, where one of the punters decided to go for a stroll in the middle of the night - head full of acid - and got promptly lost. Police search and rescue were called out, big dollar costs to the state, and while the kid turned up fine in that instance, it's statistically more likely you won't turn up fine in the Australian bush.

I certainly feel that there's no absolute way to control the safety of participants in psychedelic experiences, but we should be wary of an open market approach without also considering a massive escalation in the way we teach people about safety with drug use.

<comment><USER10> I don't want to sound like one of those anti-alcohol, pro-drug people, but to continue with the anecdotes: I've seen people get into far more dangerous situations and states from drinking than I have from use of any recreational drugs.

Anytime you hear about somebody being king hit in town, I can guarantee you the perpetrator has had a skin full of piss.

<comment><USER11> Your username encourages me on the truthfulness of your anecdotes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The classification of LSD as a schedule I drug is unsupportable; it was researched for 20 years before it became a 60s plaything and the threat of the counter-culture movement to the establishment was enough to get all psychedelic research killed off.

But as the article points out, there are real risks. There are a large number of LSD zealots who have not just goofy but dangerous beliefs about LSD. Spend any amount of time looking at posts on /r/lsd and you'll find people claiming LSD is a sure-fire cure for depression. Sure, some people have found it helpful, but those who tried it and went off the deep end probably aren't hanging around on /r/lsd.

The other frightening thing about /r/lsd is how many teenagers are there. Part of the over-representation is due to the nature of reddit. Even so, little good can come out of that cohort dabbling in psychedelics.

<comment><USER13> I don't know what they're saying over on /r/lsd, but psychedelics can break you out of repetitive negative modes of thinking, giving you insights that last after the high is long gone. LSD is a tool that can work in in conjunction with other tools and changes you make in your life for some people some of the time.

<comment><USER14> key word being /can/; it's a statement and a belief that IMO is very sensitive to confirmation bias.

One of the key points of the psychedelics / soft drugs legalisation effort is that it would allow for a lot less red tape to do medical research on.

<comment><USER15> > it's a statement and a belief that IMO is very sensitive to confirmation > bias.

Are you saying people who no longer feel depressed are suffering from confirmation bias? :)

<comment><USER16> No, Surviorship Bias.

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

<comment><USER13> That's a dark thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Schedule 1 is clearly rediculous. I honestly think we need these powerful tools in therapeutic settings especially for addiction which is carving swathes through entire generations. I know multiple people who've gotten the ability and drive to grow past alcoholism using them, one can only hope it could be a tool for opiate addiction. Benefits for PTSD and traumatic experiences are practically proven at this point with MDMA.

<comment><USER18> As a counterpoint, I know multiple people who became insane after trying LSD.

<comment><USER19> I believe this comment as far as I can metaphorically throw it, which is to say not at all, because you can't throw comments.

This is the "my uncle works at Nintendo" of psychedelics.

<comment><USER9> "This is the "my uncle works at Nintendo" of psychedelics."

This thread is a long and predictably basic discussion on a topic that I think has been beaten to death. Your comment, however, made reading the thread worthwhile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Everything is driven by incentives. Alcohol is cheaper for mass production and guaranteed to have good sales and huge consumer base. A state can't just allow to flow money away by legalizing a new drug which is, probably, mutually exclusive to alcohol.

It might be sound cynical, sorry if so, but again, everything is just driven by incentives.

<comment><USER21> I'm sorry that you're being downvoted, but you're right. You can't easily sell, and make a profit on acid (you certainly can't patent it). The dose needed for a trip is so small; a "therapeutic" dose is even tinier.

The prison sentences for those who have produced acid are also completely ridiculous.

<comment><USER22> Huh?

Sandoz Labs produced pharmaceutical LSD for decades

<comment><USER23> I think the parent comment is saying that a person taking legal lsd would spend significantly less money than a person drinking. Lsd and alcohol would compete for recreational time. Lsd would reduce the tax income from alcohol sales, and not be able to replace it with new tax revenue. Governments have a fanical incentive to keep lsd illegal.

<comment><USER24> >Governments have a fanical incentive to keep lsd illegal.

They'd be taxing the sales of everything used to create it, they could require testing for purity, they could create an LSD tax, etc just like with tobacco and alcohol (and if they'd get their head out of their backside, THC containing products).

<comment><USER20> Take into account that alcohol comes in comparably big bottles and you need quite some of it to get drunk (if you are a professional of course). So, it is easier to control it's traffic than hunting for small pills which can be in everyones pockets.

<comment><USER24> Drug manufacturing isn't easy, most of the stuff is controlled and purchases of quantities of many required compounds will often immediately involve one or more government agencies, generally the DEA.

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

I see this a lot at work, I clear international freight through Customs (and any other applicable government agencies) for a living, and a lot of tariff numbers will flag as potential precursors by DEA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't think it will get the attention of marijuana, but I have hope we will legalize them again.

Most psychedelic drugs are very niche. Telling someone you've smoked pot or telling someone you've taken 2 hits of LSD generate very different reactions. The stigma around it will have trouble wearing off because psychedelics are such an unknown. Most people don't do them but have heard about people having bad experiences. I hope the overall idea of moving past the War on Drugs can make things like LSD less foreign and delinquent

<comment><USER10> If you think the reaction from telling people you've dropped acid is weird, just wait until you see the reaction when you say that you enjoy the odd spot of ketamine!

I think that for most people, the closest experience they've ever had with LSD or other psychedelics is the movies, where they're portrayed as this wacky drug that makes you see dragons and other weird shit. They've all heard stories about how someone dropped a tab and their trip never ended or how they became possessed by demons or some other urban myth that they heard from someone years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> After being prescribed benzos, SSRIs, etc. for years for coping with issues a single dose of psilocybin managed to wipe out in 3 hours, I say yes.

<comment><USER27> What about the people being prescribed benzos, SSRIs, etc. for life to cope with the issues brought on by a single does of psilocybin/LSD/salvia/DMT/etc?

<comment><USER28> They don't exist. Continuing to repeat reefer madness propaganda does not make it any more true.

Show one scientific study that shows any long term effect from a single dose of any of your listed substances and I will be happy to take your comment seriously.

<comment><USER27> "Perceptual disturbances may last for 5 years or more and represent a real psychosocial distress. We reported here a case of a 18-year-old young man presenting HPPD after a mixed intoxication with psylocibin and cannabis. This report shows symptomatic recurrences persisting more than 8 months."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15963699](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15963699)

[https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-trip-that- doesnt-e...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-trip-that-doesnt-end)

"Evidence supports the association of LSD use with panic reactions, prolonged schizoaffective psychoses and post-hallucinogen perceptual disorder, the latter being present continually for as long as 5 years."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8251869](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8251869)

"Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder (HPPD) is a syndrome characterized by prolonged or reoccurring perceptual symptoms, reminiscent of acute hallucinogen effects. HPPD was associated with a broader range of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)-like substances, cannabis, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), psilocybin, mescaline, and psychostimulants."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29209235](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29209235)

"The Association of Salvia divinorum and Psychotic Disorders: A Review of the Literature and Case Series"

[https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/02791072.2015.1073815](https://sci- hub.tw/10.1080/02791072.2015.1073815)

<comment><USER29> "New Studies Fail To Find Associations Between Psychedelic Drugs And Mental Health Problems"

[http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new-studies-fail-find- associ...](http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new-studies-fail-find-associations- between-psychedelic-drugs-and-mental-health-problems/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From criminalising we need to move to regulating these drugs so more people could use it and new type of products could come into existence while people who buy them get full disclosure of what they are getting into.

Linking Tobacco with Cancer was not a simple battle and was possible only because it was legal and people were open about its use. The lower tobacco consumption in developing countries was achieved because of regulation and not criminalisation.

</comment><comment><USER31> Psychedelics are a good thing yet sure as hell not for everyone. I really doubt selling them freely in every supermarket is a good idea but I believe nobody should ever get arrested for possessing them nor even for producing them for personal consumption or sharing it with friends IMHO. I think Schedule IV is probably the most adequate status for things like LSD (which is safe physiologically but can harm some mentally sick people psyche/adequacy seriously). As for things like MDMA (which can hardly cause any psychological harm and only causes physiological harm if used improperly) or 6-APB (which has effects similar to those of MDMA but isn't known to inflict any harm at all) I would vote to legalize recreational use. And there also are some more exotic psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT (don't confuse with regular DMT! ordinary DMT can indeed harm some people psyche though this doesn't happen often) that have little if any abuse potential for which I can see no reason to control them at all.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure about the legal status of san pedro and peyote cactus in the USA but it doesn't seem like the original native Americans should be oppressed further [1]. So specifically about the USA, these should be legal for religious reasons.

There was a court case in The Netherlands concerning the legal status of these cactus by a religious group who used these during rituals. They won; they were allowed to use these for religious reasons. Ever since, smartshops sell these cactus. I owned a san pedro and peyote cactus myself. The peyote didn't last long, but the san pedro become _huge_. Eventually it was easily 2,5 meters tall. Unfortunately, it did have "spint" (red spider mite?). I never used them for drugs-related reasons.

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

</comment><comment><USER33> YES absolutely. The research potential is there, the therapeutic potential is there, the archetypal research into the collective unconscious is there, the field is ripe and the benefits can be many many.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've tried psychedelics before, and I've found them pretty boring in terms of their effects (like a minor VR experience that doesn't go away and leaves headaches) and don't see the point of their classification. I have also since avoided psychedelics because they last so long and you aren't productive during those hours.

</comment><comment><USER35> Wonder what the story with Salvia should be, you don't see people talk much about it. Seems like it's still legal in some states.

<comment><USER36> The "good" thing about salvia (re: people here talking about addiction and abuse) is that once you try it, there's a an even chance you'll never want to try psychedelics again.

<comment><USER37> People don't get addicted to psychedelics.

<comment><USER36> Indeed, they've helped me overcome many of my addictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> META:

Many people like psychedelics because they hate themselves.

Permanently rewire your personality, maybe blow out your mind entirely? No big deal.

</comment><comment><USER38> To the extent that drug users are burdens on society, drug use should be regulated.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yes, a great look into some of them is on Hamilton's Pharmacopeia on VICELAND [1] and early version of the show on Youtube [2] that delves into many of psychedelics and other drugs. Hamilton Morris does the show and is the son of Errol Morris who is a great documentary filmmaker. The documentary show takes an honest look at the origins, stories and science of substances from a scientific objective point of view.

The point across many of the episodes is that locking up drugs in the immutable prison of the Controlled Substances scheduling is possibly locking up cures that might be useful down the line, besides the obvious issue of the state telling people what they can and can't put in their body, the drug wars are a unnecessary violence and costly enforcement over a health matter.

The war on vegetables and plants should end and this generation should do it. Adults are responsible enough to know what they put in their body and for the ones that have trouble with addiction, the focus should be on healthcare not executive criminal force that is very costly in funds and possible uses of drugs that are locked up in the prison of the Controlled Substances Act as a controlled substance. In a free country you are responsible for yourself, the state should back off on drugs because they are more dangerous illegal than legal due to black markets, cartels, legal issues harsher than the drug and more.

Due to the hard line, we miss out on scientific health advantages of these drugs and people aim to make more synthetics that mimic them that may be more harmful than the original with unknown effects.

Unfortunately it looks like the US is doubling down on the drug war with the new Schedule A that allows them to put on biologically similar drugs and synthetics on the list with SITSA [3].

My take is that drugs should be legal or at a minimum entirely decriminalized, there should be substance warnings but ultimately the liability of the user taking the drug is on the user, not a doctor. The only time a producer should get in legal issues is when they are selling what isn't on the label just like with food. A big problem with overdoses and drug deaths is due to people getting the wrong substance, for instance fentanyl because it is cheaper in other opioids. The hardline of putting liability on the doctors and pharma companies is also leading to patients looking for alternatives after their doctor stops their prescription for fear of legal issues, what follows is where most overdoses and trouble happens as there is no addiction help after even legal use of drugs. The hardline on opioids even further exacerbate the problem.

We need a new Bill of Rights amendment for Right to Body to do this. This is a health issue not a criminal one and it is too costly to possible health advances to lock up helpful chemical configurations that need more study. We need a Right to Body amendment at some point to get the state out of it and make drugs a health related matter not a criminal one.

The Controlled Substances Act is flawed because of the locked and immutable nature of it, besides the fact that the drug wars are a failure and it is a health issue not a criminal one.

Any drug on the CSA should have to be re-proven every year to be medically dangerous to be kept on the list.

The problem is that once drugs get classified as a controlled substance, it is very difficult to get them out because neither the public nor legislature can easily remove it. The CSA list is managed entirely wrong. The CSA was setup to target certain dissidents initially by Nixon, it is nearly criminal that the drug war is ran by an organization that is untouchable and maintained by the enforcer not the health institutions.

The CSA should be completely abolished or recreated with expiring classifications, and the FDA can make recommendations on safety but then it is up to the people to decide what they do with their bodies with the liability on them.

Marijuana is an example where the Controlled Substances Act harms medical uses of drugs on the list, if is very difficult to change it even with 93% medical marijuana support [4] and 64% recreational marijuana support [5] in the US. It is nearly criminal that marijuana/cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and other drugs and psychedelics that help people which are also safer than most drugs and alcohol, based on the user themselves rather than what the state says, are criminal and not medical.

[1] [https://www.hulu.com/hamiltons- pharmacopeia](https://www.hulu.com/hamiltons-pharmacopeia)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDbSvEZka6GH9XhvsMrwH...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDbSvEZka6GH9XhvsMrwH7hC52LGWbXEQ)

[3] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house- bill/2851](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2851)

[4] [http://thehill.com/homenews/news/385018-poll-support-for- leg...](http://thehill.com/homenews/news/385018-poll-support-for-legal- marijuana-hits-all-time-high)

[5] [https://news.gallup.com/poll/221018/record-high-support- lega...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/221018/record-high-support-legalizing- marijuana.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER40> Yes, no victim, no crime.

<comment> blubb-fish it really is that simple.

</comment></comment><comment> blubb-fish For me this is a simple philosophical question.

An adult should be allowed to do whatever s/he likes as long as it is not harming others. If harm to others is done - even under the influence - <USER2> punishment is due. But as long as somebody just does something in private - <USER3> must be okay.

I have plenty of experience with psychedlics - be it LSD, Psilocibin, DMT or 4-ACO-DMT. I know from own experience that a bad trip can be very unsettling. But as an adult it is first of all my right to take that risk and second of all it is a maturing experience.

The state should not be allowed to prohibit anything when done in private. The concepts behind drug prohibition are pretty much the same as behind prohibition of homosexual practices. People also say this should not be allowed because it is bad and young children will be molested etc pp.

<comment><USER41> For me it's a complex philosophical question without a clear answer.

Where I live (downtown of big city) there are a lot of people visibly addicted to drugs, on the streets, generally living lives that appear tragic to themselves and others. We can say "punishment is due" for each offense they take (theft, violence, public nudity, etc.), but it's probably better to describe those as symptoms of a drug addiction. "Punishment" rarely helps people get out of a downward spiral.

Humans are complex. We do things that we know we don't want to do. Sometimes we need help from ourselves. And the general society _does_ have an interest in keeping people out of a life of addiction that leads to crime and self- injury.

I'm not at all an expert on these matters and I don't advocate a particular set of regulations or deregulations to try and "solve" these sets of problems. But I'm not sold by your simple narrative, because there is a strong link between (some types of) drug use and harm to others (and self). So it just doesn't seem clear-cut.

<comment> blubb-fish But with this approach to train adults to not take responsibility. I am all for placing full responsibility on every adult - one has to learn to deal with this of course and the current state of society is opposing it. Otherwise people couldn't sue manufacturers for having put their pets into microwave ovens or for getting cancer from smoking. I know this will cause colateral damage from people doing stupid or bad things on drugs - but the opposite isn't much better - to train a generation towards non-responsibility - this is probably causing more damage. We are just used to it. If somebody decides to take drugs and destroy his/her life - that is very sad - but so be it. Those people should be helped - and even this will be easier when taking drugs is not being criminalized.

<comment><USER41> Does the idea of "training adults to not take responsibility" have merit? It sounds like naive pop psychology.

We could remove all guard-rails (literal and figurative) from society. I guess you could say I'd be more "responsible" for staying alive under this scenario. But why is that good? It's just more inefficient and unpleasant for everyone to have to carefully check their every move in case something's trying to scam or possess them. The more you're tested, the more likely you'll fail. When instead we can just generally agree, via democratic means, to fix those systemic problems across-the-board. Then we can get on to solving better problems.

My own pop psych: you don't "conquer" temptation, so much as it wears at you. And it wears at some members of your community more than others. You solve it by removing the temptation (or yourself from it), not by facing it over and over.

As adults we should take responsibility for our community by fixing what ails us. I will gladly accept limitations on my own entertainment if it helps my neighbour through a difficult struggle.

<comment> blubb-fish well - with more responsibility the force of natural selection will become more prominent - I don't think that is a bad thing.

and the idea of recent generations having to face less and less responsibility is not just pop psychology. I think it is quite obvious with parents picking up their children at school (helicopter parenting) despite public transportation being more comfortable and crime rates being lower than in the past.

> And it wears at some members of your community more than others.

Those may seek help or suffer - their choice.

> As adults we should take responsibility for our community by fixing what > ails us.

And this is not being done by prohibiting drugs but by working on the reasons why people start to abuse drugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Sure why not?

</comment><comment><USER43> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER44> Link only goes to the "Observations" page, should probably point to [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should- we-...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-we-loosen- the-restrictions-on-psychedelics/)

Content: Psychedelics are a purely political issue at this point, as far as I know. Physiologically, they're far, far less dangerous than eg alcohol.

<comment><USER45> You haven't read the content, then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Yes.</comment>


Why one search engine for the whole internet is not a good idea anymore - <AUTHOR> http://dynamicguy.com/post/160792434677/1-search-engine-not-good-anymore <comment><USER3> I work on Google Search. Having one search engine per country doesn't seem like the correct approach to the problem.

> Every country has a mammoth collection of valid results for your query.

Having seen the corpus of content available from each language, this is categorically false. Consider Wikipedia, which is a fairly ubiquitous information source on the web that provides answers to tons of searches. English documents: 5.4M, Romanian documents: 376k.

Perhaps the solution to the OP's woes is more tools for filtering. This post conflates the ideas between language and country. Search typically returns to you results and search features that are in the query language. Today's solution where filtering is done through query refinement and query operators seems to cover a lot of use cases already.

Further, by having an integrated product, ML models can learn behaviors specific to certain locales where those behaviors differ from region to region, and balance with more universal behaviors that apply to more than one region.

<comment><USER4> Agree and, as I work for Seznam, especially agree on the ability to train models properly to satisfy local users. Not to mention that the user can choose what should be the language of the results.

<comment><USER3> I guess I wasn't too far off geographically with Romanian Wikipedia :)

Keep up the great work at [https://www.seznam.cz/](https://www.seznam.cz/) ! Lots of interesting search features, maps, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's what I get for "iPhone price": [http://i.imgur.com/VOE0Q1q.png](http://i.imgur.com/VOE0Q1q.png) which shows the actual prices.

The thesis of the post seems to be that it's a bad idea to have one search engine because people will reverse engineer it. That's true, but the billions of dollars flowing into Google means they throw the smartest people at staying ahead of SEO. It seems pretty effective.

<comment><USER6> For that query I get a range of prices (sponsored result) ranging from £0.00 to £300. Obviously, the £0.00 result is going to get the click-through despite the £300 option being likely to be the better deal?

The organic results (below the fold) seem to be worse than would have been the case 5 years ago.

SEO has been replaced with chuck money at adwords and hope some of it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Sooner or later the internet will have to be decentralized.

It sounds like a pipe dream. Centralisation exists for a reason: it's far easier to coordinate complex efforts within a single organisation, rather than a host of unreliable entities. Supposedly, we develop a protocol where we share the responsibility of crawling, indexing, and searching the whole web. Isn't is unrealistic to expect that millions of computers (an optimistic estimate considering number of Google servers dedicated to Search) would voluntarily want to participate in the effort? Who ensures redundancy, speed, and abuse handling?

If a single company commanding the whole power is untrustworthy, a million entities having no stake in the game is multifold more.

<comment><USER8> I hear you. Nobody claims it's gonna be easy to go the decentralization route however. Quite the contrary, it's gonna be extremely hard, probably even harder than what it took to arrive at today's status quo. But IMO it will be worth it.

Centralization and monopoly never end well. Only benevolent dictatorship systems _kind of_ worked half-well, historically. I don't think we should just blindly believe a person in a position of power is benevolent. We humans are easily corruptible, that's the sad truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I couldn't agree more - one search engine is a terrible thing. But for other reasons. It's amazing to see how in other areas people complain about monopolies but when it comes to our window to the digital world, most of us seem to be fine with it. One US monopoly that dictates what should be important for us, filters what we see based on secret algorithms, forces us to "optimize" _our_ websites in this and that way along their "standards". Google has good technology but we should wake up and see they are not the altruists they like to tell everyone.

</comment><comment><USER10> The author says a lot of correct things. When information belongs to one organization, then there is no future. Do you really think that we will receive information only from 1 organization? Monopoly on information, like any other monopoly will not be eternal.

Today the information growing rapidly and they try to place everything on first page - it is impossible to display all the relevant information on 1 page, it is very restrictive.

And I'm not talking about the fact that on this first page there are a lot of advertising links and artificially advanced sites.

Model Yahoo has a future. And we are developing it: we are developing the Bubblehunt project, where each user can create his own search engine. This is decentralization, where each user can act as an independent information provider, like miniGoogle.

A bit of advertising, sorry: [https://bubblehunt.com](https://bubblehunt.com) \- tell me, what do we need to improve?

We strive to enable each user to influence the quality of Internet search and make it more social, transparent and dynamic.

People are increasingly talking about the need to change something in search.

Google is an excellent search engine, but it hides from us a huge amount of information. Every day born a lot of interesting resources and we get information only from sites that are on the 1 page of search. They become only more popular. And you need to pay money so people see your website!

Is this correct in your opinion? In my opinion, Google will make a huge profit here and this is not very correct. People just do not have alternatives.

<comment><USER8> Feedback on your product: very bland landing page (I know Google does it too but they can get away with it).

Consider showing some random examples from popular searches. I think DuckDuckGo have been doing this a while ago -- was showing search result page which was more relevant than what Google was showing.

Just one thought. Try to engage potential users. To me, your landing page says nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One search engine per country seems like the wrong way to slice the problem up to me.

Locality is missing from many queries because the data is generally not relevant or is relevant but not available.

I would propose that instead of breaking it per country, breaking the search based on what sort of content you are looking for.

Programming data or food recipes have nothing to do with locality but finding the nearest place to get chocolate covered coffee beans is.

I know this is going to seem like total self-promotion but this article caught my eye and thought that it would be valid to say I have been thinking about this problem a while, which is why I built [https://www.closient.com/](https://www.closient.com/) \- mind you I am still building it but it does work.

Maybe I am not seeing the same problem as the author is but I do see locality as being a critical part of merging the logical/virtual world with the physical.

<comment><USER3> How does it work? Searching for book store ([https://www.closient.com/?q=book_store](https://www.closient.com/?q=book_store) the underscore was autocompleted) gave me results that were 1200+ km away from my current location. Other queries did the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The internet is quite independent of countries and regions. Sure, sites are localised and internationalised but the idea of an "[insert country here] internet" is meaningless. One of the major reasons that the internet is successful is that it is effectively borderless.

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally, when I know that a certain topic is of high value to advertisers, I don't even bother googling anymore, and try to find someone qualified instead. For example, I recently was trying to look up theory behind working out, how differenr muscles work, how nutrition works and all that - <USER2> there're so many people who're trying to sell their courses, apps, books and stuff, that I have no idea how to go around looking for unbiased and at least semi-scientific source of information.

Edit: I would be thankful for pointers as to why this comment was downvoted, so I can increase quality of my content in the future.

<comment><USER14> Thankfully we still have journals and conference papers. Look for the ones with high impact factor and go from there. That's what I did when I was looking into creatine supplementation.

You can't even ask experts for their opinion since they are the ones selling the stuff!

<comment><USER13> Good advice - but in my experience, reading the latest research in any field requires a lot of more basic knowledge first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of course Google has its short comings. But I don't see "a search engine per country" is going to change anything. First of all, why limit the boundary to countries? There could be vastly different areas in the same country or two countries with similar culture and languages. Second not every country can afford / has enough resource for setting up their own Google. Search engine requires expertise that builds up through many years of experience. Instead of reinventing the wheel for every country, why not work on better localisation of existing search engines?

</comment><comment><USER16> Google works surprisingly well with languages other than English. I've been looking for Russian-language originals of some of Chekhov's short stories and plays, and pasting, e.g., "Чехов чайка"into the search bar finds the full text of The Seagull (on a .ru site) with no problem. I'm not sure how having a Russian-only search engine helps here.

</comment><comment><USER4> Google is not the only search engine available. Bing has still a big market share in the US, Yandex in Russia, and Seznam in the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, the dominance of Google often means that SEO follows their ideas but often we see SEO masters adjusting to these search engines too because they want to reach also their users.</comment>


React used on 5% of 5.3M URLs - <AUTHOR> https://perf-track.web.app/ <comment><USER2> I see react used for internal apps or SaaS offerings. I imagine most uses of react and other FE tech are not caught in any URL list. So it seems that we will have a hard time making measurements of the usage of all of these no matter the technique used.</comment>


What do you wish you could do with S3 that currently isn't possible? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I got very excited with S3 first came out, but I found when designing several schemes to make some profitable use of it, I'd find prohibitive limitations in its functionality. Is it just a fancy cache, or could it/should it be something more? What would you add to it, if you could?

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm interested to see what people say here.

I've been using S3 for some time; my primary complaint is the lackluster performance. So my request would be additional caching to accelerate things far away from wherever the S3 data center is.</comment>


How to find free Beta Testers for new app? - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1466922522 <comment><USER2> This should go directly on /r/ChoosingBeggars

<comment><USER3> [https://www.reddit.com/r/alphaandbetausers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/alphaandbetausers/) is more relevant. [https://old.reddit.com/r/startups/wiki/index#wiki_where_to_g...](https://old.reddit.com/r/startups/wiki/index#wiki_where_to_get_testers) has a couple of more hints.</comment></comment>


Introducing Hello – Facebook's New Android-Only Social Caller ID App - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.stfi.re/news/2015/04/introducing-hello/?sf=301

<comment><USER2> I do have a name concern for this...

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/hello/)</comment>


A shadowy group trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un likely raided N. Korean embassy - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-shadowy-group-trying-to-overthrow-kim-jong-un-raided-a-north-korean-embassy-in-broad-daylight/2019/03/15/ae4208a4-c451-4886-b608-f5ac1f182d3d_story.html <comment><USER2> Archived version without paywall/registerwall:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190316011737/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190316011737/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/a-shadowy-group-trying-to-overthrow-kim-jong-un-raided-a-north- korean-embassy-in-broad- daylight/2019/03/15/ae4208a4-c451-4886-b608-f5ac1f182d3d_story.html)</comment>


Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to? - <AUTHOR>

We are 3, and "MySeeen" is our first project and startup. We have built it from nothing since 2 years, but with a goal: Making an app you just have to open to get a movie you will have fun watching.
It could be achieved easily by making a social app allowing you to get movies information (length, casting, posters, …), to share about the movies you have seen or want to see and rate them to finally correctly advice a movie for anyone.
MySeeen is available on iOS and Windows Phone. (Info here: http://www.myseeenapp.com)
Unfortunately, after 1 great year in the company, as full time job, without knowing how to earn money and how to enhance our baby, we needed money and slowly stopped maintaining our project. Now we haven't touched the code for 1 year because we all have started a new life and don't have the time to maintain it.
We have a good amount of users, and it still growing daily by a good number of people. We don't want to turn our back to our users, so we have decided to maintain (up and running) the back-end as long as we can, but we need to shut down the company because we still have fees to pay (bank, government, etc…). We post here to get people's advices, potential users, current or former start-up fans, coders, CEO's, what would you do if you were us? <comment><USER2> I recently removed an app from the store; it had only a few thousand users, and made no significant revenue. It felt good to not have to worry about it anymore.

So my suggestion is: Shut it down. Write a short goodbye email to your customers explaining why you are shutting down, then remove it from the App Stores and turn off your servers.

A side project will always take some space in your mind and distract you. If you see no future for a project, there's no point to keep it alive. You built a nice thing, but it seems it is not comercially feasible. Stop, and concentrate on the next thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our service/app is generating 0, we could generate some revenus through ads but this is not our goal. We also have a ton of ideas for a V2, which can make some revenues, but as we said, w don't have time for it.

Removing it is kinda heart breaking, because we still got feedbacks and tweet from people who use it daily.

<comment><USER3> Either find time and give the v2 a try or shut it down. it is that simple. Just make a decision. Nobody can make this decision for you. I would try to sell it only if there is something to sell, otherwise it will be waste of time. Do you have significant userbase, some interesting data, and etc? If yes, poke your competitors first.

<comment><USER4> Could you not just abandon it and leave it on the app store? Obviously, leave caveat on the app description that this app is abandon and no support will be provided. In this manner, at least if someone wants to use it, they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Put it on [https://flippa.com/](https://flippa.com/)

You can get some decent money if you have significant reach—how many MAUs/DAUs do you have?

<comment><USER6> Thanks, this sound a good idea.

\- DAU: 110 (Base on the last 31 days)

\- MAU: 537 (based on the last 12 months)

We're pretty sure that it's because of the lack of evolution. We used to have better numbers...

<comment><USER7> No offense, but being a consumer-oriented project, with these counts after 2 years, IMHO you need to shut it down. Anything else would be most likely more costly in effort trying to sell it than any cash it will bring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Open-source it and let the community maintain it?

<comment><USER9> I agree, in part: if putting advertisements on your app doesn't help (raise enough money) and selling doesn't work/attempting to sell proves unfruitful, open-sourcing is certainly better than just shutting down. Might as well let people have it, if they're unwilling to pay for it, and the work of actually developing the app is already done. Simply shutting down without open-sourcing means that that work was wasted, whereas open-sourcing it might mean that it remains useful to the user community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Put it on Assembly ([https://assembly.com](https://assembly.com)). A great place where your project will continue to be developed by other interested contributors, and you will keep getting a share of the revenue generated

</comment><comment><USER11> Hello. I maintain a site called "SideProjectors". Would love to help you out if you want to give it a try.

[https://www.sideprojectors.com](https://www.sideprojectors.com)

<comment><USER12> Great site, but the "sell my project" and "find a cofounder" buttons at the top of the page give me a full PHP (well, Whoops-formatted) error listing with stack trace and offending lines of source code. You probably shouldn't have error reporting turned on in production!

<comment><USER13> Same for me. If you login/register first using the buttons on the left then it works fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Open source the code, will add value to your resume, so indirectly you're still going to profit from this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sit together, give it a last effort and sell it. I'm sure somebody would love to buy it :)

<comment><USER6> This is also something we were thinking about. But... How and where to find someone interested?

<comment><USER15> Never tried it myself, but you may want to attend local enterpreneurship meetups, networking events and similar. If you have a passion for your product and it is working (you said it's growing in users, which is nice) I'm pretty sure you can sell it face to face.</comment></comment></comment>