Facebook Goes on a Hiring Spree for Washington Lobbyists - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/facebook-in-hiring-spree-for-washington-lobbyists-amid-scandal <comment><USER2> Even with all the outrage, and a few million profiles deleted, I feel this will be like a speeding ticket for FB in the long run. That's how it has always happened. Pardon my pessimism.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _a few million profiles deleted_

Unrelated to Cambridge Analytica, I started de-escalating my Facebook usage a few months ago.

First, I turned off notifications on my phone for Facebook and Facebook Messenger. (I've had e-mail notifications off for years.) Next, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. Then, I deleted the Facebook Messenger app from my phone. Finally, I force myself to log out of Facebook on my laptop every time I visit.

This combination strikes a better balance, for me, between the connecting benefits of Facebook and its addictive time- and emotion-sucking downsides.

<comment><USER3> You need to just remove it from your phone. I promise you won't miss it. I did this a few years ago. It's freed up so much more time to Reddit.

<comment><USER4> I never facebooked. You need to do much more than that to remove their tracking, since many pages have a Facebook like button, which tells Facebook what you are browsing based on your ip, which they undoubtedly already know is you.

They track you whether you join or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Albee started lobbying for the company on Oct. 30 -- two days before his former boss, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled Colin Stretch, the company's general counsel, in a hearing._

Yeah, that's not suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER6> So now they are trying to bribe their way out of their lack of ethics.

Pathetic bunch of liars - they're right on par with Trump.

<comment><USER7> There's also the other perspective here where they are hiring subject-matter experts to help them figure out how to work with the government in order to resolve this?

Remember a "lobbyist" is really a "government process consultant" at the end of the day.. and there are no doubt good and bad ones.

The same way you'd hire a technical consultant when your business encounters an obstacle or challenge you have insufficient experience with and can't afford to spend the time learning on the job.

<comment><USER8> I mean, given their track record can you honestly suggest that as a realistic perspective?

<comment><USER7> Can you disprove my statement? I may not have hard facts to back it up, but I have enough real-world experience to know that most companies, regardless of how "evil" they are made out to be, tend to be populated by people who are actually trying to do the right thing (and of course sometimes fail badly).

Not everything is a conspiracy of evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course, don't fix the cause of the problems. Just fix people's _perception_ of you, or more importantly, bribe Congress to protect you from the people asking for your head.

</comment><comment><USER10> What % of people do you think will actually delete their profiles? How many will deactivate? Use FB less?

I think about this a lot.

<comment><USER11> Very few. "Network effects."

This won't hurt them. Gen Z not joining FB will.

<comment><USER12> I agree, but the full effect of Gen Z won't be felt for 5 or 10 years. And they're definitely on Instagram, which still provides much more targeting ability to an advertiser than every other social site in the world apart from LinkedIn. Twitter doesn't even register.

<comment><USER13> Less Instagram and more snap for the younger kids.

In general, I find each generation has its own preferred social platform — Facebook for generation X, Instagram for millennials, and Snap for whatever we're calling whoever comes after. Each of these platforms seems to reflect the collective concerns of each generation.

<comment><USER12> I think FB has scooped up the older half of millennials. FB was the hot thing as they were just getting to college, when it was still limited to college kids. We can't discount outside of US/Europe though — they're big over there too.

As for Snap, they definitely have Gen Z or whatever it's called, but I don't think the data on Snap is as strong. And Instagram has a strong hold on them too. Most teenagers I know keep Snap/Insta, and if they had to pick between the two, it'd be Insta.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Large corporations usually lack a moral consciousness. Why should they have one, if it is bad for their sole purpose - generating value for it's shareholders?</comment>


How to get a city cycling - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150324-how-to-get-a-city-cycling <comment><USER2> > The number of cyclist deaths per 100 million kilometres cycled is 5.8 in the > United States and 3.6 in the UK. In contrast, a cycling-happy country like > Germany has a rate of just 1.7 deaths; and in Denmark it's 1.5 – four times > safer than in the US and twice as safe as in the UK. And cycling is even > safer in the Netherlands, with just 1.1 deaths per 100 million kilometres on > the road. It appears that the more cycling is encouraged and taken up, the > safer it becomes[2]

This conclusion is specious and these statistics are misleading as they do not account for vehicle exposure. If you travel 1,000 kilometers on a bike and never pass a car, obviously you can't get killed by one. I'm aware of no studies that account for vehicle exposure. Anyone who has been to the countries with low cycle death rates will know that vehicle exposure is far less than is typical in any American city.

EDIT: I don't understand why I'm receiving so many downvotes for this comment... HN has gotten bad lately.

<comment><USER3> I would expect causation to flow the other way, actually: make cycling safer and more people will be willing to do it.

<comment><USER4> Also, the implications of GP, if true, seem to be obvious to me: reduce the number of cars on the road to make cycling safer. Seems like a win-win to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Glaring omission in the article: Traffic laws that protect the weaker participants in traffic.

I do 7000k a year commuting alone, but there will be certain places I will never cycle.

Contrast this onboard video from New Zealand showing a car hitting a cyclist and the police response [1], with a car right hooking 4 cyclists and causing a "bruised knee" in the Netherlands [2].

[1]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEgXQIAyGF8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEgXQIAyGF8)

[2]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJ-d86pKsw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJ-d86pKsw)

</comment><comment><USER6> More cities will have to consider cycling infrastructure if they want to have happy and healthy residents. We're finally seeing changes in major American cities and it's great!

</comment><comment><USER7> I've learned a lot from these two bike blogs:

[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/)

[http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/](http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to cycle in Dublin until I got knocked off my bike and constantly aggressed/verbally abused by taxis and busses. There just isn't space on the road for cyclists and motorists to go safely. Pity.

<comment><USER9> When I lived in Dublin I cycled to commute. Never had any issues real issues except for oblivious people pulling out in front of me or similar. YMMV I suppose.

</comment></comment><comment> the-dude Here is my beautiful city : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlIBLQkxrbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlIBLQkxrbA)

And this video isn't even crowded yet : during rush hour we have cross sections with 100+ cyclists per red-green-cycle.

Everybody just watches each other : pedestrians, cyclist and vehicles.

<comment><USER10> At least in my experience, the Netherlands is by far the best country for cyclists.

Other European cities have inconsistent and often partially blocked bike lanes with people frequently riding on the sidewalk, but in Amsterdam you have clearly defined, reliable bike lanes everywhere. It reduces the amount of stress for everyone, including pedestrians.

<comment> the-dude Sometimes it is clearly defined, but Shared Space ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space) ) is used a lot as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm warming up to the SF cycle scene - [http://butterlap.com/](http://butterlap.com/) was a lot of fun last night!

</comment><comment><USER12> This guy works full time on getting cities cycling [http://www.copenhagenize.com/](http://www.copenhagenize.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I would not put nordic countries as an example. They taxed cars to oblivion without providing much alternative. Its freezing cold in there.

<comment><USER14> Is that a bad thing? In the US, cars take up enormous amounts of space which their users don't pay anything for.

<comment><USER13> Parking in NY is pretty expensive.

<comment><USER14> Yes, NY is one of the only places in the US where you're likely to consistently pay for the space your car takes up when it's at rest, which is awesome, and which other cities should emulate. Unfortunately, you still don't have congestion taxes to pay for the space you take up in motion. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York_City)

<comment><USER13> _Each state requires an annual registration fee which varies from state to state._

 _The state of New York, on the other hand, charges a tax based on the vehicle 's weight, rather than on its value, which is charged at the time of registration renewal._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_tax#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_tax#United_States)

<comment><USER14> Sure, but if you drive your vehicle down the highway, you're taking up cheap real estate; if you drive your vehicle into Manhattan, you're using _really freaking expensive_ real estate, and you should pay more for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra That's nice if you live in temperature optimum, but many places are too hot or too cold to cycle year round.

(Some are also too large)

<comment><USER15> > That's nice if you live in temperature optimum, but many places are too hot > or too cold to cycle year round.

You'd probably be surprised. It does certainly take a bigger amount of dedication than I have, but David Beazley's been cycling through Chicago winters (until he cracked a rib earlier this month: [https://twitter.com/dabeaz/status/570348015401050112](https://twitter.com/dabeaz/status/570348015401050112) kept him off for almost a week: [https://twitter.com/dabeaz/status/574891782498041857](https://twitter.com/dabeaz/status/574891782498041857)) as for too hot to ride, it's really a matter of good hydration (and physiology, some people can't handle heat at all, but that's cycling or not so they probably know themselves)

<comment><USER16> I'd say that it's also very much a matter of whether you have a shower near your place of work.

I would have to ride eight miles, about 45 minutes - which is pretty close to my current commute - but I'd arrive sweaty and in need of a change of clothes at minimum.

Gonna have to join a nearby gym this spring.

<comment><USER17> I have a commute of about the same length which I do by bike. You do have to change clothes, yes, but provided you wear deodorant, odor isn't likely to be an issue.

<comment><USER16> Jokingly: check your sweat privilege.

Seriously: I sweat _a lot_. I might have to apply deodorant all over after riding, and that's definitely not healthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For me the first step is easy:

\- Stealing a bike is a capital crime

\- Capital crimes are .. punished as such

(Naa.. I'm not seriously suggesting to hang bike thieves, although I have commented about that in the past and certainly wished that this would happen to the persons who stole all my bikes so far. Maybe "Twice as much as for copyright infringements" would be okay? German cinemas try hard to educate the paying customers that you might get up to 5 years in prison for these offenses. So .. what about 'up to 10 years for stealing a bike'?)</comment>


Review your notions of time, state, mutability (talk by Rich Hickey) - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hickey/?q=RichHickey

<comment><AUTHOR> If people are interested, here's some extra reading matter courtesy of reddit: [http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/09/dining- philosoph...](http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/09/dining-philosophers- the-4th-solution/) <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/theses/okasaki.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER2> I really love his ideas, and think he's right on so much, but as for the question of STM, i'm gonna have to go with Cliff Click on this one:

[http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff- click/2008-05-27-cloju...](http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff- click/2008-05-27-clojure-stms-vs-locks)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great talk! Thanks for pointing this out.

"You superimpose the notion of cloud on a series of related cloud values." Whoa!</comment>


Amazon Is Looking More and More Like a Nation-State - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxbmn/amazon-is-looking-more-and-more-like-a-nation-state <comment><USER2> please. do they have an army? can they imprison you for smoking weed? can they tax you? vice inanity strikes again</comment>


Tim Cook Demands That the White House Defend Encryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/01/security-news-this-week-tim-cook-demands-that-the-white-house-support-encryption/ <comment><USER2> This is the better link, rather than the aggregated stories link above. [https://theintercept.com/2016/01/12/apples-tim-cook- lashes-o...](https://theintercept.com/2016/01/12/apples-tim-cook-lashes-out- at-white-house-officials-for-being-wishy-washy-on-encryption/)

It says in part: The White House should come out and say "no backdoors," Cook said.

Umm, OK. But what about no frontdoors, i.e. mandatory key escrow?

</comment><comment><USER3> In my eyes, Tim Cook has no credibility or rights to speak on civic matters until AAPL stops dodging taxes.

<comment><USER4> If I'm not mistaken your handle jgalt212 is a reference to John Galt from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

If Apple hatred is so strong that it makes Objectivists consider the obligation to pay taxes to be of crucial importance beyond a CEO's right to run their corporation as they see fit ... wow

<comment><USER3> Please don't be so literal, Aldous

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> OK good, but is he also demanding China defend encryption? U.K.? If not, why not?

<comment><USER5> He's American, right? Why would he demand that other nations do something before his own?

<comment><USER2> Because his own country hasn't made either backdoors or key escrow mandatory by law. China has.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is such a silly thing. Who really believes Cook. While Apple denied it, they gave access to their systems to the government. It was in Snowdens documents.</comment>


20 states take aim at 3D gun company, sue to get files off the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/20-states-take-aim-at-3d-gun-company-sue-to-get-files-off-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> Easy 1st amendment win for Defense Distributed. Also, the states in the suit will need to show they've been harmed (unlikely)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe Barbara Streisand should hire out as a consultant to these states...

</comment><comment><USER4> Call me crazy, but I'm only seeing eight states listed in the article and in the filing...</comment>


Ask: ACM vs IEEE Membership - <AUTHOR>

Hi folks, I am a software developer and just received coupons for ACM as well as IEEE. I'm just wondering which one should I apply for and is there anybody out there have a real experience with one of them. Thanks a bunch!! <comment><USER2> Look around and see which is more active. Where I currently live the ACM seems dead and the IEEE seems pretty lively by comparison. I have been other places where it was the other way around. It more depends on who and how your local branch is being run than anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see much use out of either other than as a line on a resume. With that in mind, I'd choose IEEE - more well known than ACM. (And if you're getting the type of membership providing access to research libraries, IEEE will cover a far broader range of topics than ACM).

</comment><comment><USER4> I have been a member of both organizations for about 10 years now. I like ACM's magazines but IEEE's local chapter activities. So, it may depend on why you are joining.</comment>


Welcome to the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://culdesac.com/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21574850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21574850)</comment>


The importance of visual design localisation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/carwow-product-engineering/lost-in-translation-the-importance-of-visual-design-localisation-b75586eec030 <comment><USER2> Why is the guy in the German image walking on the wrong side of his car, and why is the car parked on the wrong side of the street?

And now that I'm taking a closer look: the cars in the side street in the background, they are also on the wrong side of the street!

Something looked odd about this image. I'm not sure if the above is it.

<comment><USER3> Good catch!!! It's ironical that an article that talks about visual design localization shows incorrect examples as the chosen ones for a different audience. In this case it looks like they just took some UK images and manipulated those to add some German signboards.

Any localization effort needs a very deep attention to detail. Actually, that applies to any design effort. :)

<comment> et-al Actually, what they did was flip the original image (to make it match the UK), then edited the street signs, which is why Kleine Rosenthaler Straße has that nonsensical perspective.

Street View: [https://email@example.com,13.4025613,3a,75y,93...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,13.4025613,3a,75y,93.23h,74.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sw48i6GxxGkqREZvXqeQDuA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

It's on the left where the Hotel Amano is. If you get any closer, Street View jumps back to 2008 and just shows a construction site.

Like you said, it's fairly ironic they botched this example because most Germans would've recognized the streets are wrong, and also because for Berliners, it's not an obscure intersection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an example from video games, sometimes you might have to translate more than the spoken text, but screams, laughs, and other "non-spoken" sounds.

<comment><USER5> That seems counter-intuitive. Is there anyone you know of who's written on the topic? I would like to know more.

<comment><USER2> It took me a long time to understand that "oink" is a sound that a pig makes, and it's not related in any way to the sound that Tigger makes when jumping around on his tail.

And "ewww" (expression of disgust) in Cantonese sounds _very_ different... (I'm not an expert in "ewww" but the Cantonese version is the best I've heard :-) )

<comment><USER4> Thanks good example! From memory I think we ended up putting different scream/excite sounds for the french version on game I worked on.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile blows up, creating "mini-Chernobyl" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/08/russian-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile-blows-up-creating-mini-chernobyl/ <comment><USER2> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20681003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20681003). Also see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20674066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20674066)</comment>


In a social networking world, what's the future of TV? - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/henry-jenkins/in-a-social-networking-wo_b_292014.html

<comment><USER2> TV emphasising its difference and its production value compared to social networking. The things people do on social network sites are either worthless or have a value close to zero. Compare this to TV which is made by skilled professionals and has a high production value. If TV lowers itself down to the social networking space it will just fall into the noise of the web and lose its value amongst all the twittering and poking.

</comment><comment><USER3> TV will always have a place as something people can twitter about in real time.</comment>


The Air Force's Next Chief Might Be Its Space-War General - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/management/2016/04/air-force-general-space-war-chief/127437/ <comment><USER2> So... SDI 2.0?</comment>


Incredible Secret Money Machine - <AUTHOR> http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/9659 <comment><USER3> > The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated > from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means "get big fast."

No. Get yourself out of the filter bubble, because it is seriously warping your understanding of the world.

There are still orders of magnitude more "small-time" start-up businesses in the world than "get big fast" start-up businesses. Your town probably has dozens of them: they're restaurants, roofing companies, independent tradesman, etc. Those people are all doing exactly what you're talking about.

<comment><USER4> Those are called small businesses.

When you tell people you are doing a start-up it is deeply implied you're doing something with the hopes of hitting it big. Because if it wasn't you would just tell them you "run a roofing company" or are "an electrician" or "sell stationary on the internet"

A start-up, even to non-technicals, connotes an attempt to hit it big.

<comment><USER5> I've worked for two tech companies doing fairly cutting-edge R&D that were definitely "start-ups" in every sense of the word, called themselves such, but were never developed with the intention of getting a bunch of VC money then making a big exit. These are much more common than you probably realize, even within the tech sector.

Getting really big then exiting basically necessitates that you have to be in a mass-market business. But do only mass-market businesses get to call themselves start-ups? Is there no place for start-ups in specialized fields with significant revenue potential but without the kind of universal applicability that makes VC's wet their pants?

<comment><USER4> Isn't cutting edge research a very pure version of trying to hit it big? Sure, there might be no VC involved. But what does that matter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I spent the better part of high school with a copy of Lancaster's TTL Cookbook in hand (still have my dog-eared copy). Then as an undergrad in 78 I re-read this primer for success. While I was more inclined towards the 'enterprise' track, this book nonetheless helped shape my attitude about money, time, and purpose. I can't recall another book that combined (good) advice regarding cashflow, always giving customers something extra, working with your body's natural cycles of energy, retirement funding, and "modifying a television set for a better money machine" (by cutting the cord and throwing it away). Still a worthwhile read, IMO.

<comment><USER7> Oh! The book is by Don Lancaster! I missed that. His electronics books were a key part of my self-education in the early 80s, as I'm sure they were for a lot of computery types my age. Guy is a hacker in the most hackerist sense possible.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Site seems to be down or overloaded. Here's the Google cache copy:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/9659)

And the direct link to the "Incredible Secret Money Making Machine" by Don Lancaster:

<http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf>

I'm considering whether this might be a good business read for middle/high schoolers.

<comment><USER9> Made a few adjustments. Hows it loading for you now?

<comment><USER10> Are you by any chance the famous "Bee?"

<comment><USER9> Probably not!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, now that's an old book by a real guy who could breadboard TTL chips into the equivalent of a graphics card at that time. Sort of another Wozniak, though that kind of bare metal knowledge was expected of all EE's.

What he has to say is not compatible with the current pop culture "startup" hype but it's still valid.

One thing also mentioned is correct: when you're in business, sometimes you get more than you expected, just for showing up. That very rarely happens in a regular "job."

<comment><USER12> Lancaster's TV Typewriter project was actually an influence on Woz, IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> """Employees are a hassle, a waste of time and ploney and a psychic energy sink. You should avoid them at all costs. Your incredible secret money machine should have 0.834 employees-that is 83.4 percent of you, nothing more,no less. The remaining 16.6 percent of you should go for fun and rewind time"""

<comment><USER11> For most businesses, this idea is a little too hippy/artisan from my experience.

If the product is mostly YOU, you're going to burn out if you refuse to hire anyone to do those repetitive tasks that many, many other people can do for a modest wage.

For example only: you ship something physical, do you really want to spend 1/3 of your day, every day, forever, boxing up product and taking it to the post office?

If you've ever offered phone support, you know what I'm talking about too.

<comment><USER14> There's a guy who lives in my neighborhood that blows glass; his specialty is blowing Klein bottles (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottles>). I know about him because2 or 3 days a week he shows up at my local post office right before it shuts, with a net bag that has 5-10 boxes in which he is shipping out to customers. He knows everyone at the post office by name and always gives them a big hello; he has printed and affixed the postage at his home/workshop, but brings them to the post office so he can see the tracking numbers get scanned. As there is no paperwork to fill out, and they know him, he gets handled almost immediately - typically someone will come out to scan the packages when they hear him arrive.

And since there is usually a line of people at the post office near closing time, invariably someone asks what it is that he's shipping (because it's unusual to see someone turning up with a bag of packages like Santa Claus). And he tells them what he does. Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead. And they do. Now, I'm going froma small sample, but I've seen this repeat itself often enough to think of it as a schtick; at a conservative estimate, every time he drops off his packages, there's a 50% chance that he gets one new customer lead. He sells the bottles for ~$25-50 depending on the size, and marginal costs are pretty low. I'd say he's doing pretty well at his craft business, since he's shipping out a few hundred $ worth of product every time I see him, and more to the point he seems like he's having a really good time.

Obviously this sort of thing doesn't scale well, and imposes a ceiling on the amount one can earn. But as Adam Smith observed, while the division of labor may be highly efficient it's also soul-destroying. Running a one-man show like this is certainly a valid alternative to working in a shop where one is regularly called on for 'crunch time' or 'sprints' or 'hackathons'.

<comment><USER15> >Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead.

Did you mean the "Strangely" here? What he's doing is, in fact, very clever. A business card is a passive, easy thing that will rarely lead to further action. Asking for the phone number is a much better gauge of how serious the person is.

<comment><USER14> Well yes, that's the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He had a lot of prescient advice about patents, way before they became the giant sucking nuisance that they are today.

<http://www.tinaja.com/pasamp1.shtml>

<comment><USER17> Here's what KK quoted:

 _Over the years, I have seen hundreds of examples of money machine people being severely done in by the patent system. Even murdered by it in several heart-attack-during-litigation cases. And not once did I see anyone approaching the patent system on a small scale basis and profiting from it. Ever. Once again: Unless you are well within a Fortune 500 context, any and all involvement in the patent system in any, shape, or form is absolutely certain to cause you the net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. Besides ending up a totally useless and utterly unnecessary psychic energy sink._

Maybe the pdf has more information about building machines that either singularly or at least collectively are resilient to patent attacks.

<comment><USER5> I've worked for two non-F500 (think 10-25 engineers) companies that made their revenues developing, consulting on, and licensing, their patented technology.

<comment><USER18> Would they have made as much money if they didn't patent their technology?

<comment><USER5> We sold technology, not end user products, because we weren't in the business of who could find the cheapest Chinese manufacturer. If we didn't have patents, we'd have to replicate a fragile version of them contractually. Patents gave us a ready made legal instrument we could transact with. I think that's their real value to industry.

I don't think we ever sued anyone, but we probably would have had little use for the ability to sue people who arrived at the technology independently. Our worry wasn't about monopolizing the idea, because it wasn't obvious, but protecting ourselves from getting ripped off through copying. We probably wouldn't have published on it then though.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll reference it here. So you know about the Ansari X Prize. The company who won it was Scaled Composites, headed by Burt Rutan. The actual work was the result of investment by Paul Allen. The Spaceship One was patented, and the IP is held by a holding company that embodies Allen's investment. Allen didn't invest in the research for the piddling $10 million prize. He didn't do it so he could get into the spaceship manufacturing business. He did it so he could sell the IP to someone who wanted to handle the actual building and flying part of the equation. Burt Rutan is objectively a genius, and has invested 30 years in Scaled Composites. What is the end result of those 30 years of research by top-notch PhD's? The company doesn't have huge factories, a stockpile of cash, etc. The value of the business is a pile of IP.

I don't think the law has to protect every business model, but I do think it's a little weird that you can employ a team of construction workers for a year to build a house and have some hard assets to show for it, but people argue that you shouldn't have anything to show for employing a team of PhD's for a year. There has to be some mechanism for transacting in the results of research. Maybe that mechanism needs to look different than the existing patent mechanism, but I think it needs to exist. I think there is value in a company full of PhD's that's not intrinsically bogged down with the need to manufacture end-user products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The PDF is free. Kevin Kelly wrote "If I had to sum up this book in my own words it would be: If you are willing to build your business on expertise, you can make a living instead of making a fortune--and occasionally the fortune comes anyway."

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a great read, it talks to me, I've run my computer business like this and it's certainly worked as well as some friends who have taken great jobs, and had them taken. At least my way I create my own failures, there is something satisfying in that even if it does not always result in a lavish lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've read the book (and TTL Cookbook, of course) and met Don Lancaster a couple of times at social gatherings.

I think the biggest message of this book is how to bootstrap yourself in making money doing something you love to do. This book is important because it shows how Lancaster (and many people who have read this book) went from a "you can't get there from here" position to doing what they love. You don't have to be a hippy or limit yourself to a lifestyle business to make use of the knowledge in this book.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reading through the intro, he managed to get some things right and some things horribly wrong. Predictions from 1992 of technologies that would fail : solid state cooling, QWERTY alternatives, touch screens, NeXT computers, UNIX, TrueType, DVI video & Teletext.

</comment><comment><USER22> _The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means "get big fast."_

I dunno... I guess it depends on what filter bubble you live in and what echo chamber you participate in, and any number of other factors, but my feeling has been that, yes, "startup" - as opposed to "small busines" - does mean a business that's intended to grow very big (not _necessarily_ fast though) and is more in the mold of your typical Silicon Valley "startup". OTOH, I've always perceived that people use the term "entrepreneur" to refer to anyone from a one man plumbing company, to a startup that's aiming to be the next Facebook. "Entrepreneur" to me includes mom and pop restaurants, tradesmen of various kinds, small consulting companies, whatever.

But, in either case, regardless of how the terminology has been changed over time, the _idea_ of "entrepreneurship as a small-time life-style" clearly still exists. Maybe now people use the term "lifestyle business" but who really cares about the label?

</comment><comment><USER23> Every entrepreneur needs to make a decision before setting out - what is your goal? Is it to get rich or is it a better lifestyle through a job you love to do every day? Sometimes, rarely, these two meet. But there is a big difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business. Paul Hawken wrote a book about this particular subject and focused on the the lifestyle business - <USER2> that grow slowly and are more about the lifestyle of the owner than reaping massive profits. These tend to be smaller businesses with one1

I fall on the growth side right now. My lifestyle suffers greatly because I'm working so much. Hopefully that will change one day when I make my riches (LOL). But one day I will "retire" into a lifestyle business of some sort. I was thinking renting jet skis at the beach would be cool.

<comment><USER24> _Growing a Business_ [1] is the book you're talking about it. I picked it up on a whim from a book sale a couple years ago and it was an interesting read. Like this one, some things are fairly outdated (talks a fair bit about catalog sales), but overall pretty sound advice for building a sustainable business.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul- Hawken/dp/067167...](http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul- Hawken/dp/0671671642)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have read the book (paper copy) and recommend it. It is a relatively quick read, you can knock it out over three cups of coffee at a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon or on a medium length plane flight, and I think most people would benefit from it and feel inspired.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great read but needs a better title; it sounds like the subject line of spam.

<comment><USER27> Wasn't a whole lot of spam in 1978 when first published.

<comment><USER28> That DEC-20 offer was hot though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes, I read Lancaster's book back when it was published. It's crushingly out of date in today's world, however. No sane person in 2013 will subject him/herself and family to the risks of operating _any_ business as a sole proprietorship or even a partnership. Get a freaking lawyer and accountant and buy business insurance. Do it right or don't do it!

<comment><USER30> can you expand on why sole proprietorship or partnership is not "right"? IRS requirements?

<comment><USER24> An LLC is a very lightweight, easy to establish corporate vehicle that provides personal protection for the business owner. When running a sole proprietorship, if your business gets sued, they sue you for your personal money. If your LLC gets sued, it's much, much harder for them to go after your personal property. Today's society is too litigation happy to risk personal homes and wealth with a simple sole proprietorship/partnership. An LLC or C or S-corp is easy and fairly cheap to establish compared with how much it's possible to lose.

<comment><USER31> Is there a book out there that describes how to run a limited liability company in various jurisdictions, effectively "open sourcing" the company process for small players? Even better if it's coupled with code that guides you though the process.

<comment><USER32> Lawyers and accountants just aren't that expensive. Really. For the common case ("I just want to set up a company") you could be in and out in an hour and face only a moderate premium over the underlying fees.

I mean I don't try to do my own dentistry. And like others on HN I make fun of people who think they can program after doing a mail merge.

So why would I try to do my own legal and accounting stuff? Given the potential downsides, that's just _crazy_.

<comment><USER31> Why? Curiosity.

The chances are that once I knew more about it, I'd think it's crazy too, especially for the general case. I'm curious whether it is possible to reduce the difficulty of operating as a single person limited liability company to the same level of difficulty as operating as a sole-trader.

<comment><USER32> I'm Australian, I own a Pty Ltd.

The limit of my complexity is occasionally emailing my accountant to ask whether to book things against me or the company.

The people I work for require me to be incorporated, so that pretty much settles that.

As for curiousity: again, I just ask the professionals. They are likely to give me a correct answer.

I do sometimes look things up myself, but there's always the nagging doubt that I've mistaken a technical term for its common meaning, or that I lack some key conceptual framework or whathaveyou.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I loved reading Don Lancaster's articles in Radio Electronics when I was Junior and Senior High School (yes ... I'm that old).

</comment><comment><USER34> The author of the book: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster>

</comment><comment><USER35> Neck tingles... I gotta say that rarely does a post hit at the right time so well. Thank you.</comment>


Information cascade - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade <comment><USER2> This is trading in a nutshell. I love this stock at $40, but it's $50 now. And two weeks later, it's trading at $38 and our protagonist is afraid to buy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like cargo cult programming.

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

</comment><comment><USER4> A side note, since when has posting Wikipedia articles to Hacker News become so popular? I've seen it a number of times now in the past few days, and virtually never before.

<comment><USER5> It's been going on for as long as I can remember on HN. Anecdotally I've noticed peaks around the time one article is submitted then you get a rash of me-too submissions. After that things quieten down, on the front page, for a few months.

Some are interesting because they can be articles on, at the time of positing an idea, an obscure theory where current world events make the article more relevant. Everyone's mileage may vary of course.</comment></comment>


Is the stethoscope dying? High-tech rivals pose a threat - <AUTHOR> https://www.apnews.com/6cf7790448ee48b3a4844213c78e783b <comment><USER2> Ironically, I purchased a low-tech stethoscope last year to use in the course of developing my high tech electromechanical hobby projects. It was the best option in terms of cost/benefit and I have found it tremendously useful.</comment>


3 reasons fast databases will never be fast enough - <AUTHOR> https://www.exasol.com/en/blog/3-reasons-fast-databases-will-never-be-fast-enough/ <comment><USER2> In my opinion the three points described in the article boil down to one, data volume.</comment>


North Korea defied world with nuclear test. Now it seeks aid for flood disaster - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-defied-world-with-nuclear-test-now-it-seeks-aid-for-flood-disaster/2016/09/12/3e710483-476f-4f04-aae4-52af58064e91_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b <comment><USER2> The fundamental problem with NK is that it successfully sustains the fiction that the U.S. is going to attack "real soon now". That widespread (in NK) belief combined with nukes is a very dangerous combination. We can't do much about the nukes, but this humanitarian crisis provides an opportunity to move the needle on the Dangerous Fiction: make a public offer to provide humanitarian aid in exchange for a public acknowledgement that the aid is coming from the U.S. This acknowledgement would have to be broadcast on NK television so we can know that the NK people will see it.

Yes, it is unlikely that KJU would accept this. The goal here is not to actually extract the concession, but rather to sow seeds of doubt in the Dangerous Fiction in the minds of the NK elites by setting up a situation where the only reason that people are starving is KJU's refusal to acknowledge a simple truth: the U.S. is providing food.

<comment><USER3> The US has sustained the fiction that terrorists are going to attack "real soon now" and people still accept it like some existential threat. Meanwhile we're onto the 15th year of toddlers killing parents with their own handguns outnumbering terrorists attacks. So I guess we can't really be surprised by their fears - it's the whole world against them and it sort of makes sense for them to dig in deeper.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it a little insensitive to say that imply terrorist attacks on US soil are fiction when when 49 people got killed in an attack in June? I'll agree that public fear, and public official rhetoric is out of proportion to say, car accidents, but it's an apples to oranges comparison.

<comment><USER5> There's reality and there's sensitivity.

Sensitivity would be an awareness of the tragedy the Florida nightclub attacks were to the vicitms, their families, and friends.

Reality would be recognising that that event in no way, shape, or form presented the least existential threat to the US itself, and that the ties of the madman involved to organised international terrorist groups are tenuous at best. And that armed toddlers and children present a far larger clear and present danger to the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sadly, I think the best thing to do is to say no.

North Korea makes decisions that constantly harms it's people. Conducting nuclear test after nuclear test, for what? To say you have one? To have another toy to saber rattle with? All while preaching that it exists in a sheltered paradise. All while its people starve.

Giving them aid even though they defy what pretty much everyone in the world asks them to do (even China is getting towards their wits end), only allows them to defy even more. To abuse their people even more. Not aiding them at least gives their people a chance to see what is really going on. Sadly that means some people may starve, and I'd hate to see that happen, but honestly, what else do you do?

<comment><USER7> Speaking as an American -- to say no arguably puts us on a moral footing like North Korea's -- playing political hardball at the expense of innocent people.

<comment><USER6> I agree. It's a shitty situation either way. But really, to give them even MORE food that we already do, would be enabling abusers. They get fed if they play ball. (Problems with the continent aside) Look at how much we break our backs to feed Africa. We do it because it's the right thing to do.

At a certain point though, the politicians have to be held responsible to the people. And people are never more hungry for change, than when they are hungry for food.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure the U.S. doesn't provide food aid to African nations anymore; when it was occurring it was considered a subsidy to U.S. farmers at the expense of dumping food on local markets and destroying local agriculture.

U.S. foreign aid to developing nations is now delivered in the form of grants to local NGOs to help improve local farming practices, infrastructure (water wells mostly), and also military aid (aid earmarked to buying U.S.-made weaponry). As a percentage of federal spending, foreign aid amounts to less than one percent, dominated by aid to Israel and Egypt. West, Central, and Eastern African aid is not a significantly high percentage of U.S. federal spending.

I agree with your point about enabling abusers, I just thought I should let you know that U.S. foreign aid is more sophisticated than simply dumping food on local markets.

<comment><USER6> I didn't mean to say we just dump food in Africa. I meant that we make a concerted effort to direct food there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The headline and the conversation it provokes are part of the problem.

The point should be that humanitarian efforts exist for the sole benefit of humanity.

Once a humanitarian effort becomes leverage for a political, or military, or any other objective it ceases to be a humanitarian effort.

I don't think we should be concerned with the regime until it proves it is a responsible actor domestically and in the global community.

Demonstrating our humanity is the only way to constructively engage the people of North Korea. It's much more powerful to face the hate and vitriol in the propaganda of North Korean with something as seemingly irrational as humanitarian aid. What I mean is that the State's propaganda loses it's power, it loses the idea that is reasonable when we continue to help them despite nuclear threats, et al. Only then can the people of North Korea find their power and choose a path. I imagine, at some point, they will reach a tipping point like Egypt. Buying in to their provocations is simply taking the bait and allowing them to continue with business as usual.

<comment><USER9> _Once a humanitarian effort becomes leverage_

But that was true from the start. I appears that NK makes humanitarian efforts a political issue, but basing resource allocations on the assumption that the rest of the world will bail them out.

Thus, our aid to them is effectively allowing them to invest greater resources into weapons programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are so many jokes to be made about this country. I'm guilty as making them and finding them humorous. But there are people who live in this country, who can't escape, who are struck by fear, who are brainwashed, who know nothing of the outside world.

<comment><USER11> That's getting less and less common. Apparently its really easy for North Koreans to get smuggled media from other countries, and a lot of the guards look the other way or take bribes. Most North Koreans probably realize how bad their situation is but don't say anything because they don't want to go to a labor camp.

<comment><USER12> Yeah! In Cuba there's a whole network of USB thumb drives with new content each week. It's pretty awesome.

Of course, you still need a computer. Is this sort of thing going on in NK as well?

<comment><USER13> Yes it is, but with some other challenges.

Redstar OS is a linux distribution which is distributed by the North Korean government. It has a system built in pretty deep which watermarks files. [https://youtu.be/KTBemKiSgWI?t=1737](https://youtu.be/KTBemKiSgWI?t=1737)

If the government gets a copy of the file from someone, they can to some degree trace back where else the file has been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't think I'm better than any citizen of North Korea, and I have enormous sympathy for the people of South Korea who are prospering while their friends and relatives (such as they still have) may be suffering. That said, the North is a home for one of the deadliest ideological diseases the world has ever known. Democide by totalitarian governments with a "communist" flavor killed more people in the 20th century than every war combined. We should not send aid to the people of North Korea until North Korea changes internally. We should leave the door open to trade, to peace, to free exchange of ideas, and to offer support for democratization. We should make every effort to destabilize the current regime in North Korea (which is still in a state of war with us, lest we forget). Giving aid just helps stabilize the status quo, which is not an acceptable outcome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Humanitarian aid is destabilizing when the status quo is defined by the State's propaganda of hate.

At some point, and that may not be now, it begs the question: why should we hate those that are helping?

To not help, to ignore their need, is the surest way to maintain the status quo. That would preserve the framework and justifications for the State's propaganda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why can't we treat this like a hostage situation? Tell NK we will provide X amount of aid if they will release Y number of citizens of their choosing. That way we lighten suffering on the country as a whole but also end suffering for some of its citizens.

<comment><USER16> And where do they go? One of the reasons why China supports North Korea is because they don't want a bunch of refugees coming in.

<comment><USER15> That's the beauty of tying it to aid. You'll have a slow trickle instead of a huge flood. I'm sure the nations that are involved would figure something out on accepting 5k refugees at a time.

<comment><USER17> Right, just like how accepting the world has been of Syrian refugees?

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure if there was a South Syria, whose population considers themselves to be Syrians and Syrians to be exceptional in the world, with a stable government, a thriving economy, and a security guarantee from the US, they'd have zero problems taking 5K Syrian refugees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nuclear testing and flood relief are orthogonal issues. Particularly under a regime with limited consent from the governed.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is like when teachers are getting screwed and can't go on strike. In the teacher's case, if they go on strike it hurts the students the most, wheres the administration just has to deal with a small backlash.

In this case if we deny them help, we hurt the people of the DPRK, not really the administration.

So the global community are the teachers, who want to help the people of the DPRK, are angry at the administration, and can't do anything but keep helping.

</comment><comment><USER21> These are linked; every time NK wants something, it starts rattling its sabres so that when talks over _aid_ happen, they can leverage more.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why not just form an international coalition, invade and free, once and for all, the Korean people from that horror? It's gotta be the most justified military intervention in History.

Yes, besides a funny hairdo, the crazy in chief has a few nuclear fire crackers. Just destroy those installations before sending the troops.

<comment><USER18> It's a worthy task, and the key to doing so is getting China on board. On one hand, NK is probably the most exasperating "ally" China has, but on the other hand, China really doesn't want the combination of refugees and US bases on its borders in the event the government collapses. So perhaps a deal where North Korea becomes a Chinese SAR for a period of 25-50 years (since China is much better prepared to absorb the cost than South Korea)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Aiding DPRK would be a dangerous move. Either their populace starves or their weapons program loses money. If the population starves, there's a huge higher chance of revolution. As terrible as it is, it's a win-win for the international community, and even North Korea as well, in the long term.

<comment><USER24> I dunno. I see your point and if it were nearly any other nation, I'd even agree, but there's something special about the DPRK. I frankly don't see them _ever_ revolting. It's perhaps the only country that's so successfully isolated it's population and -- as much as I dislike the term -- brainwashed them.

I'm beginning to think they'd sooner starve than revolt. After all, they've already been through this so many times...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Generosity is the highest form of giving. The people in North Korea are in need. Providing the basics of food can empower and help many, and provide us with an opportunity for that kindness to be freely recognized, either directly or indirectly. If we needed something from them, the kindest thing they could do is give without expecting something in return. If they are our enemy, we will not win the day treating them as such when given the opportunity to be a friend.

</comment><comment><USER26> "defied the world"

Who are they talking about? I don't feel defied.

Mostly my feeling about North Korea is that they need help

</comment><comment><USER27> There's probably plenty of ways to use this as an opportunity to weaken the regime. Perhaps even just meeting outsiders will help shatter the propaganda bubble?

</comment><comment><USER28> I think it is important to make a distinction between the regime and the people. In this perspective, it is wrong to start mocking their country.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a little disappointed in the US. We have the best case you could make for an ethical forced regime change by a foreign power, (can you consent to be governed when you are brainwashed and not consenting is punishable by imprisonment?) and we aren't on this? I'd love to get some alternate reality tv a la rick and morty to watch america world police kim jong un's face.

<comment><USER29> Look at how successful we've been at regime change in the last 15 years! Do you really want a war with Russia and China?

<comment><USER4> I think Russia and China would be happy to (eventually) have a potential new economically productive neighbor country, but I don't know that much about politics so...

Either way though, the situation is already terrible. I don't think it could get much worse (assuming we could disable their nuclear capabilities before any kind of major military action). I'm not saying it's pretty, but it just doesn't look like we are making much progress through usual diplomatic channels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> North Korea's population is already starving.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm pretty cold, but that's ice cold.

What they should do is say, we'll give you aid if you let us build a military base in Pyongyang and then litter the whole country with flyers announcing the potential aide but on those conditions, and let it go from there.

<comment><USER32> Their response would most likely be "no thanks". Would that make it any better than not offering to help at all?</comment></comment>


Build to Rent – The new spin on the housing crisis in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://featherstoneleigh.briefyourmarket.com/Newsletters/Build-to-Rent-A-new-model-for-future-generations/Build-to-Rent-A-new-model-for-future-generations.aspx?brandId=10&utm_source=BriefYourMarket&utm_medium=Newsletter%2c+Email&utm_term=&utm_content=Build+to+Rent%3a+A+new+model+for+future+generations&utm_campaign=Instance%3a+featherstoneleigh.briefyourmarket.com+-+MessageId%3a+158 <comment><AUTHOR> I find this short piece released by a South West London estate agent rather appalling.

Most disgusting is how the situation of not being able to afford anything in London is being framed as a shift in the attitude of consumers and you buyers.

The problem is that not even middle class residents can afford to buy a basic property. It is definitely not that these people have chosen to rent instead of buy.</comment>


Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/robot-sewing-machines-could-make-made-in-china-obsolete <comment><USER2> How so?

The article is poorly researched.

As if the strategy of automation hasn't been tried in various areas to get back or keep jobs. In some areas this works, in others it hasn't. It also has been tried in this industry.

China is also not even the cheapest place. Clothing now comes from Vietnam, Philippines and other asian countries.

I'm also not sure making manual labor in that area obsolete is actually useful. Somehow the people in the developing countries also want to earn some money.

<comment><USER3> Science/Technology is not area where you try once, fail and never try again. Sooner or later it will be automated because there are lot of benefits: productivity, saving of nature and human resources and etc.

People in developing countries will figure out other ways to earn money. If people don't have food or money that usually because of stupid dictatorships (long-term) or not having protection against nature crisis (short-term, compare earthquake in Japan vs Haiti) but not because of lack of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > ...robots could return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to > U.S. shores

China will rule electronics for the foreseeable future. Even if its advantage in labor costs were eliminated, China's parts ecosystem, lax recycling regulations, and (increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals will keep it on top for some time to come.

Their manufacturing technology is also arguably the most advanced in the world. We can't assume that another player would win if this were just a technological problem.

<comment><USER5> "(increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals"

Is that after accounting for the reopening of rare-earth mines in California and other locations? E.g: [http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/rare-earth- mining-ris...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/rare-earth-mining-rises- again-in-united-states/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for that link; the article was solid.

It's the scale of China's monopoly on rare earth metals which scares me. I'm -very- happy that mines are re-opening in other countries, and I hope that they're around long enough that home-grown manufacturers become reliable customers.

But they simply won't have enough mines and production capacity to secure the supply. Molycorp is small enough that China can flood the market with cheap rare-earth metals just long enough to mess up their $753 MM investment in that mine and knock them out of business again. This has happened before:

<http://www.ndu.edu/press/chinas-ace-in-the-hole.html> "The Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, owned by Molycorp Minerals, was once the largest rare earth supplier in the world. Through the 1990s, however, China's exports of rare earth elements grew, causing prices worldwide to plunge. This undercut business for Molycorp and other producers around the world, and eventually either drove them out of business or significantly reduced production efforts."

Of course Chinese manufacturing temporarily loses that "access to rare earth metals" advantage if mines ramp up exports again, but if doing so can cripple foreign mining operations it may be strategically worthwhile in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has outsourcing manufacturing to developing countries delayed research into robotic manufacturing? Seems like such low-skilled labor is relatively easy to build into robots, but likely the already cheap costs of foreign labor has made it unnecessary to invest in large upfront costs to develop robots.

<comment><USER7> That's the conventional wisdom among commercial AI-research spinoffs: the fact that you can get _such_ cheap human labor in a globalized labor pool has been a major impediment to commercializing pretty big segments of AI research. The funding agencies even seem to agree, and have been putting quite a bit of funding in recent years into crowdsourcing and "human computation" projects to take advantage of that labor pool, instead of trying to replace it with machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just a minor problem: Chinese robots would cost less than yours, so you end up again building everything in China.

<comment><USER9> China hasn't demonstrated an ability to do widespread high quality manufacturing. Countries like Germany run circles around China on that front.

It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants, rather than China.

<comment><USER10> > It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate > building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants

I vaguely recall reading that the country that has had the foresight to stay at the top of the chain - making the tools that make the tools that make the goods - is Japan. I can't find a link right now, sorry.

<comment><USER9> You're right, they've been there from day one when it comes to robot manufacturing.

"The Japanese company Kawasaki Robotics started the commercial production of industrial robots over 40 years ago. Approximately 700,000 industrial robots were used all over the world in 1995, of which 500,000 operated in Japan"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#History_of_ind...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#History_of_industrial_robotics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

That could make a huge numbers of job in the US obsolete as well.

<comment><USER9> The biggest threat to simple repetitive manual labor based manufacturing is robotics. The US has seen that type of domestic manufacturing decline to almost nothing over the last 30 years. China by far and away dominates that.

High level manufacturing could certainly be threatened by robotics, but labor in the US is a much smaller portion of costs when you're talking about jet engines or medical devices than sewing a shirt (eg if you're paying $80k per year for labor, you're not going to be making $7 toasters in the US at that rate, you're going to be making million dollar jet engines; and you can't get labor costs below around $22,500 total in a manufacturing environment in the US).

The US lost the garment industry because its labor couldn't compete on wages. The average garment worker in China isn't making anywhere near $7.25 per hour, which is the US Federal minimum wage. Legally the US literally can't compete on wages.

</comment></comment><comment> stargazer-3 And what stops Chinese from making those machines?

<comment><USER9> Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost the garment industry.

China already has a massive supply of human labor, which is primarily why their labor costs are so low. If you were to automate their labor, it would cause substantial unemployment and or reductions in pay. I'd argue their society couldn't withstand that shock at this point. In the extremely near future, China's huge supply of labor is going to rupture their economy rather than being a net benefit. The robot productivity wave in manufacturing over the next quarter century will be extremely painful for them.

Whereas if the US re-acquires 50,000 jobs from robotics related to making garments (commodities & materials (farming, cotton), shipping, R&D, assembly of robots, maintenance of robots, etc etc) it's a massive win. Also, it would mean keeping wealth / capital in the US market, rather than sending it to another nation to the benefit of their future and labor pool. Then instead of buying a shirt made in China from Walmart, you buy the same shirt at Walmart and all the money stays domestically.

There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing.

<comment><USER12> I wonder how deeply this could transform the transportation industry: if the production of certain goods no longer require cheap labor, wouldn't production centers naturally move closer to demand to reduce transportation overhead?

<comment><USER13> Or they will move closer to supply. It becomes a question of what is cheaper. Transporting raw/component materials near population centers, and then deal with all your waste near population centers, or building everything close to supply, far away from population centers, and polluting where "no one really cares".

I am cynical, so I'm going to guess the second. Even if we get mass robot manufacturing, we'll just let China continue to build all sorts of stuff, cause it's easier to pollute there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here is a wired about this topic: <http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/darpa-sweatshop/> and here is a 2010 paper[[http://smartech.gatech.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1853/39196...](http://smartech.gatech.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1853/39196/GarmentMfg_ISFA_finalv.pdf?sequence=3)] that discusses the Computer Vision and automation involved.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

How so? Those robots are still made in China. Or robots making those robots, or orbot parts.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one surprised to see that this kind of research is financed by the Pentagon? What kind of military application does it have?

<comment><USER17> The military does buy a lot of clothes. So, anything that they could do to reduce the cost of military garments would be worthwhile to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In some time this may be the case. But I'm sceptical that the capital cost will be less than the labour cost in these countries. And is China the last post for cheap labour.

<comment><USER19> I guess it depends on the cost of shipping in terms of money and time and any other costs associated with buying from another continent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Those machines will soon be assembled or copycatted in China.

<comment><USER9> Let's say that's the case.

To what end? Selling them to the West and putting their own garment makers out of business?

Or using them domestically to put their own garment makers out of work? Do their garment makers then build robots? Does the math equal out? (I have no clue)

The labor dislocation would be extreme initially either way, and would be resisted. Take China's agriculture for example, they intentionally hold down productivity gains in agriculture to keep enough work available for the huge agriculture worker population and limit labor disruption.

It wouldn't take very long to severely reduce garment making in China and Vietnam once robotics gained a foot hold. The country with the least to lose in the robotic shift, that is highly capable of making that shift, would win very quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lets hope this comes soon.

<comment><USER22> Really? I usually love technological progress, but in this case it would mean many (millions?) of desperately poor people losing their jobs.

I'm hoping this comes much later.

<comment><USER23> And while we're at it, let's also destroy all mechanical looms?

<comment><USER22> Interesting. Destroying mechanical looms is not a practical solution of course, but in theory yes: The benefit to so many poor people would be so great that it could be worth having an inefficient textile industry. There are probably less costly ways of helping the poor, but it would be better than the status quo.

<comment><USER24> I've thought this for years.

Automation makes people redundant and you end up with people who consume but produce nothing. Those people are labelled as 'poor' as they are given minimal cash to survive on as they have no value to add to mainstream society.

If you increase automation and drop the retirement age in most countries to shorten the workforce and allow people to exist comfortably after retirement, I reckon you'd solve both ends of the problem i.e. less "poor" people and more people doing something constructive.

Smashing looms however doesn't do anything other than commit more people to slavery and poverty.

<comment><USER25> It would probably be preferable to subsidize education than to subsidize retirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to U.S. shores

The problem with all that manufacturing being moved overseas is that local jobs are "destroyed". Moving back production for production's sake with the help of robots won't solve this problem. It will only give you a warm cozy patriotic feeling whenever you read "made in $your_country".

Now I think full automation is the future and in the remote future it will liberate humanity from physical labor. But there will be more changes needed than only stuffing factories with robots. We will need an economic system that can cope with a mass of seemingly unemployed/unemployable people.

<comment><USER9> I don't think that's correct at all. It will help a lot, specifically because it's not a zero sum game of just swapping Chinese based manufactured goods out for robot based goods.

The US would stop sending that capital to China (a huge wealth drain), which is helping build out their economy. The US would gain wealth and capital incentives for further robotic development. The US would gain jobs around robotics in all forms. Profitable manufacturing would need and pay for energy, buildings, transportation, and on and on. Profitable manufacturing would also pay taxes, keeping more teachers etc. employed and bolstering the weak US tax base.

Workers would be needed to create buildings, build roads and transmission lines, repair robots, scrap robots, replace robots, R&D robot tech, provide materials, and so on. It would cultivate a huge ecosystem.

<comment><USER27> _Workers would be needed to create buildings, build roads and transmission lines, repair robots, scrap robots, replace robots, R &D robot tech, provide materials, and so on. It would cultivate a huge ecosystem._

Wouldn't robots eventually move into those fields as well?

<comment><USER9> Are we talking 100 years out? Because you'll still need engineers to decide where to put a building, what it should look like based on financial restrictions (a robot reading your bank account to decide how much building you can afford?) and future demand projections.

The robots aren't doing the financial decision making in the next 35 to 50 years. Assisted analysis (software), sure.

A robot isn't going to understand civil codes when it comes to laying down power lines (humans barely understand the civil codes). A human would be required to follow such guidelines and then could perhaps instruct a robot toward the actual labor.

Maybe one day in a very far off future civil laws will be understood by robots, but I'm betting that's not going to be very high on the list of things to get around to automating. It would also likely require extremely advanced AI, because the robot might have to negotiate civil code conflicts based on decisions made (and this just seems far beyond the next few decades). Who takes responsibility for a robot failing to navigate zoning laws properly?

<comment><USER28> Were not that far from mostly automated architectural design. This is from an article(in 2005) about an automated system to design custom metal buildings[1]:

"The automated engineering done with the EDS, which is still being extended, is close to 98% complete for the simplest buildings and 50-60% complete for the most complex buildings. The tasks that are remaining are not automated, as they are either highly custom, or occur so seldom that the added knowledge capture for these few occurrences does not justify the automation cost."

There's also a similar tool for design of private construction[2].I think the software even understand civil codes.

[1]<http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2005/RCCstudy.html> [2]<http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2005/Norway_prefab.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Something that a shift to robotic manufacturing plays to is the theory of inflection points in systems. In this case, the inflection points are very very long markers in time.

1) You start at highly domestic manufacturing for most goods (mostly the case right up until the mid 19th to 20th century).

2) Global outsourcing brings huge efficiency gains through specialization and optimizations with regulation and labor costs.

3) The inflection swings back to domestic manufacturing of most goods. If the US could automate the sewing of its clothing, why not most every other country? There's no reason Italy couldn't buy enough materials to then sew all of its own clothing domestically; ditto Spain or Belgium or whomever.

The swing back also brings all sorts of benefits for security when it comes to being less dependent on other nations for your basic goods. If you could make your own clothing at a cost parity with outsourcing it to China, why wouldn't you do so? And even more important than a cost parity, is a net value parity: the capital kept domestically, the jobs kept or created domestically thrown into the value calculation.

<comment><USER29> > the jobs kept or created domestically thrown into the value calculation.

The thing is, this is not creating much jobs. Far less than it replaces. On the global level, this causes job loss. I loath luddites, but we need to understand that, and to understand that the obstacles won't be technological but political.</comment></comment>


China set to swoop on purchase of distressed / bankrupt Australian assets - <AUTHOR> https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-investment-board-braces-for-chinese-takeovers-of-distressed-australian-assets-20200326-p54e3z.html <comment><USER2> That's nothing new. During the recessions of the 90s and 00s, it was the Americans who came in and snapped up Australian companies as bargains. Mainly food companies such as Arnotts Biscuits, etc.

[https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/us-ownership-of- aus...](https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/us-ownership-of-australias- biggest-companies/news-story/5e0361d3e4433be0c4c1c40c8254cac1)

</comment><comment><USER3> The original title is:

Foreign Investment Board braces for Chinese takeovers of distressed Australian assets

And just some ruminations and guesses with no concrete examples. The Australian government can easily pass laws to block all sorts of takeovers including from the Chinese or Private Equity firms.</comment>


The Amount of Money Senators Received from NRA Who Voted Against Gun Reform - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@CAPAction/here-is-how-much-money-the-senators-who-voted-against-gun-reform-received-from-the-nra-63607c42093b#.c6q6bj3j8 <comment><USER2> If I ran for Senate, I would vote against most gun regulations. It wouldn't matter if the NRA donated or not.

Is it possible, that the cause and effect have been reverse here? Perhaps the NRA gives them money because the candidate already believes the 2nd Amendment must be protected and they obviously want that type of person elected.

It's the same thing with Unions and Democrats. Unions aren't buying their vote, they're helping to put them in office because they already believe unions are a good thing.</comment>


Harmful Communication, Part One: Intent is Magic - <AUTHOR> http://www.shakesville.com/2011/12/harmful-communication-part-one-intent.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I've noticed this theme of people getting offended and other people saying they shouldn't be offended a lot. I enjoyed reading this analysis of the dynamics involved, although I'm still not sure where I stand.

I can see how it can start to feel like you're walking on eggshells around certain people and how that can damage a relationship. I also know how easy it is to be hurt by someone even when they weren't trying to cause any harm. In fact sometimes it's been the thoughtlessness that has hurt the most.

I did think fannie's comment was good; he or she did a good job of putting into words something that I've wondered about in the past:

"It also seems like it's pretty common for many people to think that, like, the only people capable of having racist thoughts are those who are, say, in white supremacist movements. Or that the only people capable of being homophobic are, say, the Westboro Baptist Church. Or, that the only people capable of being sexist against women are like, fundamentalist religious types.

And so, when a person who doesn't think of hirself as being extreme or hateful is called out for having some sort *-ist opinion, they are really scared of the weight of that. In their head, they didn't intend to cause any harm (and they are truly sincere in that intent), but they feel like they're being compared to, like Fred Phelps and they don't understand why.... They think that only these ridiculous caricaturized villains are the only beings capable of being problematic, and I think that misperception contributes to Magical Intent."

I don't know how to link directly to the comment, but you can just search for fannie. It's not too far down.</comment>


Mindfulness Mitigates Biases You May Not Know You Have - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2014/12/mindfulness-mitigates-biases-you-may-not-know-you-have

<comment><USER2> > The test group listened to a recording that made them aware of their heart > rate and breathing. It told them to accept these sensations and thoughts > "without restriction, resistance, or judgment."

From this excerpt, it seems like the study results may be contaminated by framing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28social_sciences%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28social_sciences%29)) rather than meditation alone. A better study would use an exercise without such terminology.

If there is an effect from meditation, I wonder how permanent the effect is, or if your implicit associations ebb and flow with how mindful you are at any given moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, how would you control for that? Most folks don't know how to do mindfulness meditation without a bit of guidance, so there's going to need to be some coaching.

Would simply using the same words to another group without the meditation stage of the process be an appropriate control? Or, is it necessary to only use people who already know what mindfulness meditation is? (And if that, how would you control for the other differences longterm mindfulness meditation might have on the study?)

Humans are complicated. I've been reading a lot of this kind of research lately, and I don't think I'm even beginning to grasp how to do rigorous science with the human psyche.

<comment><USER2> You're right, the human psyche is a difficult to test rigorously. However, mindfulness of the breath is simple can be done without priming the subjects to be "without judgment:" [https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/mindfulness- breathing](https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/mindfulness-breathing)

Controlling for this particular instance of framing seems doable.</comment></comment></comment>


Florida prisons sued for erasing $11M worth of prisoner music purchases - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/20/18233317/florida-department-of-corrections-class-action-lawsuit-william-demler-jpay-mp3-song-access <comment><USER2> Sadly, disowning the customer is very common in the new age of digital copyright enforcement.

For example, your itunes collection is specific to you. If you die, it's deleted and is not transfered to your heirs. Similarly, Amazon is removing any books you purchased from your kindles if the seller sold them illegally. Also, if you violate any of their terms of service, they often delete the entire collection as well.

IMO there should be a law requiring digital licenses of any content to be fungible similar to physical copies. You should be allowed to transfer them to another service, even if the service stops existing, or they believe you breached some contract.

This would make licenses even more fungible than bank money is today: right now if a bank goes bankrupt, you might not see any money in your accounts, even though it's _your_ money and you are no investor or anything. It's because every bank is "minting" it's own currency. There are models which are different where you have a central bank handing out digital money to the banks.

<comment><USER3> That's pretty much true with DRM free music files though isn't it? That's one of the few bright lights in the whole digital media space. My MP3s aren't tied to either Apple or Amazon.

<comment><USER2> The file is fungible and that's great, but the license isn't. It's still bound to Amazon/Apple etc. and you can't give it to someone else, without Apple's/Amazon's permission. With CDs/DVDs, Walmart or wherever you bought the CD from, has no say onto what you do with it afterwards. Whether you give it to someone else, sell it, etc.

Of course, if you have a perfectly fungible system, you could have websites where you are being lended a medium for a short time (e.g. one day) for really low amounts of money and of course this would be bad for content creators as it would dramatically lower the sales. However, that can be countered by other means e.g. minimum restriction on lending duration (e.g. one day) and fees that content creators get on ownership transfer and each lending interaction (e.g. 5% for the first 5 years after movie release, afterwards 1%).

<comment><USER3> All that (may) be true in theory. In practice, absolutely nothing keeps you from sharing MP3s with friends so long as it's not with your 10,000 closest friends and I'm not sure how seriously the publishers even care about that any longer given the rise of streaming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't life in prison hell allready, by beeing locked in?

Why make it more miserable on purpose and forbid people to use a own mp3 player? (aside from exploiting money)

And why not allow a smartphone or laptop with internet access in general? (and only make exceptions for cartell leaders etc. to not let them continue their buisness inside)

How can you hope to reintegrate people back to society, if you allmost totally disconnect them from normal people and give them only other disconnected criminals to interact with?

<comment><USER5> Cartel owner: Can I borrow your laptop?

<comment><USER4> Yes you can said the snitch...

Obviously there can be surveillance for dangerous people.

<comment><USER6> Strip SSL, wait until the cartel uses OTP.

<comment><USER7> What is the meaning of OTP in this context? One time pad crypto?

<comment><USER6> Yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems like every private sector prison services company is abusing prisoners for profit. Whether it's outrageously expensive phone calls, this nonsense, or the worst quality food they could find, it's disappointing to see the profit motive crush human dignity.

Prisions should serve to reform inmates, not slowly antagonize them every day.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Demler's complaint involves Florida's digital music player program, which > let inmates buy a specially designed media player for $99 or $119, then buy > individual songs or audiobooks for $1.70 apiece.

I guess that the bigger is the inmate population the easier is to make more money.

> But in 2018, the FDOC switched to a new company called JPay, which didn't > honor the earlier purchases. The agency required inmates to trade in their > music players for new multimedia tablets, or to pay $25 and have the players > shipped to someone outside prison.

That is a perfect business. You have literally captivated customers.

I think that USA do not see inmates as human beings. That is the only way to explain what happens there. But, they are human and abusing them is as much as a crime as abusing anyone else.

<comment><USER10> > I think that USA do not see inmates as human beings. That is the only way to > explain what happens there. But, they are human and abusing them is as much > as a crime as abusing anyone else.

Most people in the US don't. Which, combined with its history of racism, goes a long way towards explaining the school-to-prison pipeline.

<comment><USER11> > history of racism

US is one of the least racist - up to and including freeing slaves.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating- map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant- countries/?utm_term=.a56a927e068b)

<comment><USER12> The article is about something else -- whether people admit racism to a survey. Americans know that racism is "politically incorrect".

How many countries had millions of slaves (15% of the population) to free?

Also interesting that you say "up to and including freeing slaves", which _excluded_ the racially founded prison industrial complex that was created to replac e slavery after the 13th Amendment.

Not saying US is the worst, am saying not to ignore USA's ugly history and present, especially USA claims to be the world leader in freedom and human rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tucked as an aside at the end of a paragraph:

       (They could also pay to ship a CD containing the music)

How much was that? Strangely lots of other prices are mentioned, but not that price. My guess is that it was low and possibly reasonable. Not that it really excuses the prisoners getting sort of f'ed over, just that it would kind of cut into the article's main thrust.

<comment><USER14> No inmate service is ever low- or reasonably-priced.

It costs inmates $1/minute just to make a domestic phone call.

Even the digital items purchased are almost 2x retail price.

May not seem like much to you, but also mind that prison wages are measured in cents and subject to taxation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a corrupt nation this is that such practices could come to exist.

</comment><comment><USER16> The headline was confusing to me...all inmates spent $11M collectively, there isn't a single inmate who spent $11M on songs.

<comment><USER10> That's why the headline says "inmate _s_ ".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Alternatives to Grammarly? - <AUTHOR> Any privacy-respecting grammar/spell checker you are aware of? (self-hosted is fine) <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/markfullmer/grammark](https://github.com/markfullmer/grammark), example config file [https://github.com/markfullmer/grammark/blob/master/app/scri...](https://github.com/markfullmer/grammark/blob/master/app/scripts/models/academic.js)

<comment><USER3> Nice, thanks. Going to check into this. Have been using Hemingway App locally on my Mac & Windows machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hemingway is nice. They have a browser based mode at [http://www.hemingwayapp.com/](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/) as well as a desktop app for Windows & Mac. [http://www.hemingwayapp.com/desktop.html](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/desktop.html)

Last I checked you have to pay for the Windows & Mac apps separately, not sure if anything has changed. [http://www.hemingwayapp.com/desktop.html](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/desktop.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Antidote is one time license and offline. Available for french and english. It has a lot of integration.

[https://www.antidote.info/en/antidote](https://www.antidote.info/en/antidote)

<comment><USER3> Nice, going to look into this. Have you ever compared it to Hemingway?

<comment><USER4> No sorry, I don't know Hemingway but I'm going to look as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would pay for one that ran offline/locally and integrated with my browsers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Emacs writegood-mode [https://github.com/bnbeckwith/writegood- mode](https://github.com/bnbeckwith/writegood-mode)

</comment><comment><USER7> Languagetool

</comment><comment><USER8> The Handbook For Writers

<comment><USER9> The OP isn't asking for a grammar book. The implication in the title/posting is that it's some sort of grammar check software...

<comment><USER8> But others recommended the dictionary. Using software is fine but knowing in your head is also important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The dictionary. Highly underrated, extremely high signal-to-noise ratio.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't really help with the grammar side of things though does it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Self Hosted Google Inbox Alternative? - <AUTHOR> I am addicted to Google Inbox. It finally got me to inbox zero and I love how it's set up. Mainly the snooze and done feature.<p>Is there a way to do this self hosted? Something open source would be best. <comment><USER2> That'll be a no, I think. If you can carry over your discipline in inbox- zeroing, you can set up mutt with gmail and never have to suffer a clunky, slow interface again... Tagging and saving 'do later' messages into a 'Snooze' and 'Done' folders wouldn't take much setting up.</comment>


Is this the end of the laptop? - <AUTHOR> http://theonda.org/articles/2008/03/15/rip-laptop-formfactor-you-served-us-well

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect that we can, as yet, only see the first incling of the laptop's replacement but it would be fair to point out that with a VPN and something like (dare I say it) Microsoft's Remote Desktop you can get some work done without toting a heavy hitting machine around with you.</comment>