Teensy 4.1 Development Board - <AUTHOR> https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html <comment><USER3> PSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass.

Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life _dramatically_ easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight.

The hard part is not cramming in an Ethernet PHY or a 2.4 GHz radio, it's the mountain of software that you need to run on top of it to get the kind of reliable, secure communications channels that we've come to expect. Bare metal networking stacks like LwIP have a reputation for being buggy, and are nowhere near as battle-tested as the Linux/BSD networking stacks security-wise. Some of the more memory constrained devices can barely fit a complete certificate chain. Are you really prepared to roll out updates on a system like this when the next Heartbleed comes along?

Also, the layers tend to pile on, so while you might get away with a bare- bones wire protocol initially, you'll be starting your project close to the limits of what is practical. Somebody will eventually ask you if you can connect to a websocket. I know buildroot and yocto look a little scary at first, but they're better than designing yourself into a corner before you even get off the ground.

<comment><USER4> On a similar note, does anyone know of good resources for beginners for prototyping all the way through small-scale manufacturing of an embedded device?

As a web & backend developer who likes to tinker with Arduino/Teensy style projects, I've always been curious what all would be involved in actually getting some units manufactured, like for a small kickstarter run or something. It seems pretty doable these days to get pcb boards printed and even assembled once you have a final design. What I haven't been able to find much of, is advice along the lines of going from a prototype board like an Arduino or Teensy system, to a productionalized system in terms of both the software and hardware - what platform is easiest to build on (like this advice to use a Linux-based system if you need any networking), how to hook up a bootloader, how to build a system that allows users to update firmware for future bugfixes or features, etc. plus I'm sure there are a million other unknown unknowns I would never even think of.

<comment><USER5> I made a video course for getting up and running with KiCad, the open source electronics CAD program: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6EspFAKBCgRuE...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6EspFAKBCgRuEuzapuz_4aJCn)

If you're looking at broader focus on building hardware, Contextual Electronics helps to fill out some of the other elements you're looking to do. As luck would have it, I just started a new course today (no joke) where I'm showing how I'm designing a Raspberry Pi HAT with cellular and Bluetooth capabilities, which I'll be selling and using as a reference design for my hardware design consulting business.

<comment><USER6> How does KiCAD compare to Eagle? I find it being built in to Fusion 360 now (since Autodesk bought it) pretty compelling, but I haven't actually used any schematic/PCB CAD software since that I don't think.

<comment><USER5> I think they have been keeping apace for the most part, but the integration of F360 is a really nice feature if you do a lot of mechanical/electrical integration. I think it might be a bit overplayed, since my designs are usually, "Here's the mechanical space you're allotted, it's probably not going to change", but that's not the case for everyone.

As for KiCad, the most recent release (5.1.x) have been really stable and introduced a ton of features over the series 4 release. Like anything, once you're used to the methods, it's hard to get an objective look on how things work but I can tell you that I use KiCad for all of my professional design work and it has served me very well.

One thing I continue to be excited for is the extensibility of KiCad, since Python scripting is a main feature of KiCad (though the program is written in C++). This has developed a wide range of user plugins and scripts that have opened up some awesome new features.

One of my favorites is the Interactive BOM plugin, it's really quite amazing. Here's a user showcasing it on twitter: [https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1254376168322670593](https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1254376168322670593)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Teensy line is great for folks like me, who are doing one-off projects and who know more about software than hardware. There are good libraries, a helpful developer, and a supportive community. I've used Teensies to make millisecond-accurate camera controllers, radar-triggered music/light-show devices, and burning-man style LED hats. If I were doing production, they'd probably be overkill (and too expensive), but they save me time and effort and are easy to use.

<comment><USER8> Yup. I love Teensies for building USB input devices. It's trivial to get something basic working and not much harder to tweak it if you want to appear differently to the system or use a higher refresh rate for lower latency gaming.

They're breadboard friendly, as easy to use as an Arduino, etc. For one-off builds that need lower power or tighter timing than I can achieve with a Pi I pretty much default to looking at the Teensy line unless I need some kind of wireless communications, in which case an ESP variant is usually my choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Genuinely curious, what kinds of projects are better suited to a Teensy than an Arduino, ESP32 or some form of Raspberry Pi?

Is the main advantage the pin count?

<comment><USER10> Teensy has a nice audio library if you're interested in real-time sound synthesis and stuff like that, as well as MIDI-over-USB support. Along with a fast processor and a tiny footprint, it's pretty useful for making musical instruments.

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't you also need an ADC/DAC to interface with analog signals (e.g. for a custom Eurorack module)?

<comment><USER10> I don't know about Eurorack stuff, but yes, for analog audio output, Teensy sells an audio adapter board with line-level output and a headphone jack [1] and that's what I'm using. The audio data is sent digitally using I2S. The audio library also supports cruder ways to do DAC yourself if you don't need it to be as high quality.

It would be nice if there was a Teensy board with analog audio output, though.

[1] [https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy3_audio.html](https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy3_audio.html)

<comment><USER12> Depends on how you mean. My modular synth has many Chord Organ and Radio Music modules, by Tom Whitwell of Music Thing Modular. They're all Teensy 3.1 and the audio's taken off an extra pin (not in the DIP configuration, and I've forgotten to include it before) and buffered with simple TL07* op amps. It's mono, I think it's 44.1k and effectively 12-bit, and I suspect it needs the op-amps for buffering and boosting, but it's absolutely there and that's the 'cruder ways' and though it's primitive and mono it absolutely works, and works surprisingly well with filtering/reverb/etc.

What I'd like is a Teensy board with SERIOUS analog output that still works with my Chord Organ firmware. Like 192k (or indeed 96k) and 24 bit… but I could get a lot of use out of even low-bit at elevated sample rates, because one of my options for coding stuff on the firmware and Tom's eurorack module hardware is using the Teensy's library to produce multiple square waves.

If I'm outputting square waves I can use almost arbitrarily low-bit word length, but high sample rate will greatly reduce aliasing, and not just for high frequencies. The Teensy raw audio stuff has a characteristic grunginess on squares and saws that is mostly or entirely about aliasing.

<comment><USER13> I'd be interested to discuss this: email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cortex-M7 @ 600MHz, pads for PSRAM(8MB or more), microSD, wait, isn't this thing Linux Kernel compatible at that point?

<comment><USER15> μClinux, since there's no MMU.

<comment><USER16> μClinux is a variation of the Linux kernel, previously maintained as a fork, that targets microcontrollers without a memory management unit (MMU).

SOURCE: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux)

——————————-

How uClinux provides MMU-less processors with an alternative [https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less- proces...](https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-processors- with-an-alternative/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've worked with all the various Arduino and other MCU boards as well as Pis. My preferred chip is still an Arduino Nano in a screw terminal carrier (just today I wired up one to make a rotating stepper that rotated in sync with a camera trigger, to do 3D scanning for Meshroom).

I love the old Uno, it's solid as a rock but of course has very limited CPU and memory. I would only use an Uno if I had a specific shield that fit the Uno and needed 100% compatibility. The dupont connectors are too loose for permanent projets that get shaken around... it's 5V, which makes working with some hardware easier (although most things "kinda work" with 3.3v MCUs, some stuff doesn't).

The Nano is like the UNO but smaller, although you can get nice little screw terminal carriers that make permanent connections more reliable.

The Teensy is a faster arduino with some very good support libraries. It Just Works, most of the time. But I haven't ended up using it for anything; I've replaced it with Nanos or ESP8266 or ESP32.

The ESP2866 and ESP32 are great systems, truly amazing what they can do even if they're just emulating an Arduino. however, there is a fair amount of compatibility problems with the 32 (for example, I have a sketch for a self- balancing robot, it works fine on Nano and ESP2866, but hangs on the '32). But the 32 has a special trick up its sleeve: the arduino functionality is really just an emulator that runs inside an RTOS. I started to play with FreeRTOS on ESP32 ([https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp- idf/en/latest/esp32/...](https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp- idf/en/latest/esp32/api-reference/system/freertos.html)) and was really impressed. It feels a lot like my days using a 286- no virtual memory, a few megs of RAM, and basic networking.

</comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h Generally a very nice addition to the lineup. I'm personally fascinated by the support for soldering on an additional RAM chip; depending on how painful it is to actually access that memory, the extra 8MB could finally be enough to run uclinux.

<comment><USER18> The ESP32 can do that too. Note that PSRAM is a lot slower than the embedded SRAM, so if you need to access that memory a lot, you're going to have a bad time.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Rest assured, when I'm trying to figure out whether I can coerce Linux into running on a board that was never meant to support such a thing, "slow" is a secondary concern:)

<comment><USER19> Well in that case... [http://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit](http://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> With the supercheap sub $5 ESP32/STM32 boards (both have Arduino core support) and their equally cheap add onboards for camera, ethernet or USB OTG - <USER2> exactly are using the Teensy line today and why?

I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER21> These are substantially more powerful than both of those families.

<comment><USER22> Also substantially more expensive, especially compared to the likes of the banana pi zero, which gets you four cores at 1.2Ghz, 512MB RAM, Linux and a GPU for 35% cheaper. Pair that with a Blue Pill STM32 for $3 if you need realtime and you still have money left over.

<comment><USER20> That looks like a great stack!

In the "Pi" family, for a Linux SBC, which pi/clone gives a good bang for the buck?

banana pi zero has shown up multiple times but since you are in the know, I wanted to ask what's a good SBC to run OpenWRT on, for example

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish Teensy was open source, it is not. It is amazingly well engineered including the bootloader, just that it's all closed source.

<comment><USER24> Isn't the bootloader chip the only not-open thing?

<comment><USER23> Do I get a license for hardware schematics and board layout and other aspects besides the bootloader? Where can I find a license in writing? If a license is not provided, I can't do anything with it besides hobby work.

Here is the schematic page but no mention of a license: [https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html](https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html)

This is NOT open-source. It is visible-source.

Please note, I am not _demanding_ an open-source license. Closed source projects are totally fine, I feel absolutely no entitlement to get stuff for free. I am just pointing out projects that are closed-source but disguised as open-source, thereby taking advantage of the hobbyist community. Paul may be a cool guy, but objectively that doesn't change anything.

<comment><USER24> True, board layouts aren't either, forgot about that. The circuit itself can't be copyrighted, so you do not need a license to make your own board with the same components.

I personally quite like the approach of using the bootloader chip as light DRM: The majority of the value is in software you can freely use, with licenses provided. Prototyping with a Teensy and then making a product using the same parts and the libraries, not a problem. Just if you want to provide the same easy dev-board experience you need the bootloader chip (which you can buy and use for your own design) or invest your own development of an alternative.

<comment><USER23> Yep, I really like how the bootloader works - upgrades are drag and drop. I'll write to Paul if he is open for selling the bootloader license to me for commercial use. I am sure we can come to an agreement.

<comment><USER24> He sells the chip pre-programmed for the older versions: [https://www.pjrc.com/store/ic_mkl02.html](https://www.pjrc.com/store/ic_mkl02.html)

Support for the chip used in Teensy 4 is apparently coming in the near-ish future: [https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/57132-Bootloader-Chip-For- Tee...](https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/57132-Bootloader-Chip-For-Teensy-4-0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does this one have the JTAG/SWD pins available? I know that the teensy bootloader is one of its USPs, but not being able to connect a debugger is kind of a dealbreaker for any sort of complex project.

<comment><USER26> It does not.

This has been a longstanding issue with all of the ARM-based Teensy boards, and it's really the main reason I'd hesitate to recommend them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> These are great little boards, and they already have support in the latest beta of CircuitPython! [https://circuitpython.org](https://circuitpython.org)

</comment><comment><USER28> If you're interested in this and based in the UK then we have stock coming shortly and you can sign up for notification here: [https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/teensy-4-1](https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/teensy-4-1)

</comment><comment><USER29> Mirror: [http://archive.is/ewDJq](http://archive.is/ewDJq)

<comment><USER30> Archive.is seems to be down at the moment.

<comment><USER31> Works fine here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> To answer the frequent question about Teensy.

Paul. Paul is the reason to buy a Teensy.

His dedication and support is inspiring. Phenomenal.

<comment><USER20> Having raised this question [1], I am impressed at how well written the software is!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you want to see a cool project done with Teensy check this custom midi controller/sequencer interface with motorized sliders

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH- grgRmClY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-grgRmClY)

[https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/54995-Zeus-Commander- SPS-16-M...](https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/54995-Zeus-Commander-SPS-16-MIDI- step-amp-pattern-sequencer?p=196699#post196699)

</comment><comment><USER34> I remember using Teensy based on AT90USB1286 microcontroller for 4 quadrant 3phase AC motor torque control. Worked like a charm. Glad to hear they're stilll in business.

<comment><USER35> Sounds cool. What did you need 3 phase 4 quadrant for, if I may ask out of curiosity?

<comment><USER34> The product is known enough to reveal my identity unfortunately ;)

<comment><USER35> That's okay, I don't mind. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just out of curiosity, what could be a use case for this thingy?

<comment><USER36> Their blog (when it loads) gives some great examples: [https://www.pjrc.com/blog/](https://www.pjrc.com/blog/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The Teensy line just keeps getting better and better with each release.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been playing around with boards like this that keep getting smaller and smaller. Do people generally prototype something using these boards and then go directly to manufacturing? I imagine you'd want to have a smaller package than use these types of components as part of you larger product right?

<comment><USER39> I wouldn't hesitate to do so. It all depends on what kind of price / volume you're trying to target. For very short run, garage-shop types of operations, not only is handling surface-mount a headache, but there's a learning curve to getting any kind of circuit boards manufactured.

In addition to these microcontroller boards, you can find "breakout" boards for a variety of sophisticated components, and combine them on a carrier board that can be basic 2-layer hand soldered. It's quite a practical way for getting something simple out the door.

There's a lot of garage shop types of businesses that combine small scale manufacturing with customer support, and are not looking to get into high volume consumer market. For instance a friend of mine develops industrial solutions, where the customer might buy 10 to 1000 modules for their own use, or to support a product, such as some kind of weird agricultural machinery. These folks make their money by being local, easy to deal with, and willing to listen and understand the customer's need.

This is a clear case of "do things that don't scale."

<comment><USER40> Do these people write about what they do? Make and Hackaday are great for fun one-off projects, but I don't really know much about the world of small-scale commercial like this. Make went bankrupt because they couldn't support operations on a hobby budget... I'd love to know what the next step up looks like, especially if it's some large esoteric agricultural machine.

<comment><USER39> They rarely blog about it. Many of them are old school engineers, some are retired from engineering careers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Taking a look at this. It looks like it only supports ICMP and UDP? [https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/60532-Teensy-4-1-Beta- Test?p=...](https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/60532-Teensy-4-1-Beta- Test?p=237096&viewfull=1#post237096)

<comment><USER42> That was the low-level access. Below that they talk about porting a LWIP:

> I developed test sketches for NTP, DNS, multicast, web server, web client, > httpd with SD or SdFat-beta lib, tfttp server (SD, SdFat-beta, or SPIFFS), > ftpd (get/put) with SD lib, and TCP/UDP client/server

</comment></comment><comment> non-entity I've been playing around embedded stuff and hardware design recently and mostly started with arduino's and esp8266/32's, but have wanted to play around with both FPGA's and ARM boards for designing more complex things.

I'm kinda lost on what ARM board to get though. This thing seems pretty cool, and others have recommended an STM32 board, but theres dozens of those in various form factors and chip features and I'm just not sure.

Anyone know a good comparison of ARM based dev boards that gives a good description of the differences and maybe recommended applications?

<comment><USER43> "The Amazing $1 Microcontroller" is a great place to start. It covers the main ARM micro families. Essentially you're looking for differences in peripherals, since the CPU is the same for any given Cortex M0, M3, etc.

[https://jaycarlson.net/microcontrollers/](https://jaycarlson.net/microcontrollers/)

Edit: I guess if you're looking to move to "more complex" things you may be beyond the $1 chips that this site reviews.

<comment> non-entity > I guess if you're looking to move to "more complex" things you may be beyond > the $1 chips that this site reviews.

That's the end goal yeah, but ofc I need to learn the platforms first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Woah, Ethernet is nice to see on a Teensy!

</comment><comment><USER44> What would it take to make CAN work with this? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus)

<comment><USER45> It is supported in hardware for multiple protocols: CAN1.0, CAN2.0, and CANFD. I'm pretty sure there are 3 ports that can be used simultaneously and independently. I only use 2 with CAN1.0.

Edit: By hardware support I mean that a CAN transciever connects to two GPIO pins with access to CAN chip hardware. No SPI interface needed.

<comment><USER44> Do you need a CAN controller and a CAN transceiver or just a transceiver?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Every time I ran across these boards, I always think of "Apollo Guidance Computer"[1] which is used on Apollo spacecrafts.

They have 16KB ram 2000MHz cpu freq so I feel like I can build a spaceship witha couple of teensies :D

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

<comment><USER47> One note: they had a 2.048 MHz CPU, not a 2000 MHz CPU. 2000 MHz only slightly below modern clock speeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> No JTAG, not interested. JTAG is essential for being able to properly utilize chips like these. They need to pin it out.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is fantastic, especially with functional wired ethernet at such a price point. This is a lot of customizable horsepower in a small form factor with great peripheral support!</comment>


GoForCrew - <AUTHOR> http://www.goforcrew.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone!

We launched this service a few weeks ago and have gotten good traction so far. We are freelancers ourselves and are trying to create a community for people to connect easier. Would love any feedback you may have as we are both new to the start up world and are searching for mentors along the way. Really appreciate your thoughts/insight.

-GoForCrew</comment>


Show HN: Automated category tagging for any company - <AUTHOR> https://www.getcontext.io/company-tagger

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea ... ton of potential, both for the application and the technology. For now a good little time waster. One question, what kind of data is being used for the fingerprint generation? Because, it is sometimes inconsistent with what is expected (checkout Boston Dynamics) (or may be TIL that BD concentrates more on social network than robotics). Anyway, thumbs-up

<comment><AUTHOR> thx a lot for the feedback! Data is mostly scraped from websites etc. then our algo processes it. We are about to improve our underlying model, updates coming soon!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! With our MVP, we try to use concept extraction and classification to automatically provide a 'company fingerprint'. Feel free to give it a try, all feedback is welcome! Thanks

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty nice! The tagging is actually quite good. Is there any plans to provide an API? Would be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Peter, thx for giving our hack a spin. I'm glad it worked for you :) Feedback encourages us to continue and maybe working on an API, stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's cool, I'm getting pretty accurate tags for the companies I've searched. How does this work?

<comment><USER5> we start with some automated content acquisition, before we use nlp for keyword extraction and tagging. The company-tag description is then located in a huge tech-domain-specific vector space. From vector space similarities and a couple of heuristics, we derive the company classification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great idea, but unfortunately I did not get results for some companies I've searched.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for trying it out, sorry if we did not find the companies you've searched for. What companies did you search? I'd like to investigate, where the problem comes from...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pretty neat! Love the company fingerprint btw!

</comment><comment><USER8> not 100% accurate yet, but I like it. Any API-plans?</comment>


Weebly CEO David Rusenko: It's Time to Take Us Seriously - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120502/weebly-ceo-david-rusenko-its-time-to-take-us-seriously/ <comment><USER2> I just booked an interview with him for Mixergy.

Anything I should know about Weebly? Or that I should ask about?

<comment><USER3> They run 2% of the websites on the internet:

<http://www.weebly.com/jobs.php> => "Running 2% of all of the websites on the Internet presents some very interesting technical challenges."

<comment><USER4> I have heard these guys run a great service, however that seems like an amazing statement. 2% seems like a massive amount - especially considering the international reach that I suspect would be needed. Anyone have any stats to back that up or how they came to that number?

<comment><USER5> I spoke with David a few months ago. He said that the percentage was based on the number of active websites, which according to <http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/> is 139,902,673.

I don't know for sure if Weebly uses this number to calculate the percentage. But probably not, since it only indicates ~2.8 million Weebly websites, and they claim 11 million (7.8% of that active domain number).

<comment><USER6> Isn't this the number of domain names that point to a nameserver rather than the number of websites?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Weebly website creator for iPhone is an amazing experience. The hands down easiest way to make a website that I've seen.

<comment><USER8> I assume you mean it's the easiest way to make a website from your phone. Which is like being the easiest way to cook in the shower.

<comment><USER9> Just because you don't want to get clean and make scrambled eggs at the same time doesn't mean others wouldn't like to.

<comment><USER10> Personally I prefer to do my dishes in the shower to save water and soap.

I tried scrambled eggs but the egg packet drop rate was worse than wi-fi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why would they need or want to go public? It sounds like they already have a great product and they're profitable. Do they need to raise money for something in particular?

<comment><USER12> Going public creates a liquid market in the company's shares, which allows the owners to convert equity to cash. This ability is especially prized by investors, but founders and employees-with-options also benefit. (It's hard to buy a house with stock.)

<comment><USER11> So please correct me if I'm wrong, but put more bluntly, you're saying that it is selling your company in order to get rich, no?

<comment><USER13> No. You don't get any richer by a trade at market price. The goal is usually diversification.

<comment><USER14> I will have to respectfully disagree with pg here. Going public usually involves getting quite a bit richer by some multiple of the original value.

In a hot IPO market you generate what Adam Smith(a pseudonym) called "Supermoney" in the late 1960s.

A company which catches public's fancy can generate market values hugely over what the company would be worth in a private sale(think NFLX, think AMZN, most likely Facebook shares and so on). The liquidity and with it coming diversification is a nice plus but not the sole reason.

Of course, the company can fall from grace at some point, but even then it retains a premium over what it would be worth as a private company. This is almost by definition, otherwise the company does get taken private.

<comment><USER15> His point is that going public increases liquidity on static wealth. The act of going public doesn't make more wealth, even if it lets people convert stock notes to dollar notes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's harder to take you seriously when your name is Weebly. Just saying. ;)

The websites! They weebly and they wobble but they never fall down!

<comment><USER17> it's a little silly, but not much more so than 'google' or 'yahoo'.

<comment><USER18> I was trying to remember how I felt early on. Google didn't seem silly to me cause it just made me think of the number. I do remember 'Amazon' sounding like the batshitcraziest name you could possibly pick for an bookstore though.

<comment><USER19> Silly names become brands, wherein the name becomes irrelevant IMHO. I've always thought so thinking about 'Tool' as a band, and how the word itself, is silly. But you wouldn't notice it (symbolism etc. aside)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 10 years ago only enthusiasts could create a website. 5 years ago more people could thanks to Wordpress. What will come in 5 or 10 years from now? I feel like Weebly is coming close to that _99% consumer's needs_ tipping point.

<comment><USER21> I agree. I build expensive beautiful custom-designed websites on open source CMS platforms (mostly Concrete5 these days, which is ideal for the kinds of sites I do). But 90% of people don't need that and I refer a lot of people to Weebly. And it seems that most of the innovation in CMS's these days is happening with hosted services, so it will be very interesting to see how things play out over the next 5 years.

<comment><USER22> How do you find Concrete5? I discovered it relatively recently and I've been investigating it in comparison to WordPress, which is starting to feel more than a little bloated. (A WordPress installation with a bunch of plugins installed starts feeling like a Windows installation with a bunch of crap set to start automatically, with everything putting its little infobox, ads, and all manner of dross all over the place. I was turned off it totally the other day when a plugin update filled my entire screen with an ad.)

I'd love to jump ship to something a little more modern, that's been developed from scratch with today's tech instead of patched together over the years. Do you find Concrete5 a decent replacement for WordPress for relatively simple content sites?

<comment><USER23> I very much agree with 12345j, creating templates is really clean and easy with concrete5. A basic concrete5 theme has 4 lines of php: one to include header scripts, one to include footer scripts, one to create an editable area (like a widget area) and one to display it. To add further editable areas, you add the same two lines.

With Wordpress, theming is very well documented, but there are a bunch of different files for the posts/categories/comments/etc. I know wordpress themes can be very simple too, but I'm convinced that to a newcomer it's more complicated than concrete5.

Areas in concrete are way more flexible (and easier to understand) than Widget areas. When I first started using Wordpress I couldn't believe I couldn't easily set up different sidebar areas for different pages - it took extra plugins and config.

There are so many things in concrete5 that I've found that solve typical development 'problems' that other systems don't handle well. In particular, the Composer, custom block types, page attributes and block template overrides. All these things come into play when you have a client that wants to adjust something or have an easy way to add content. They're things you might not see straight away with the system, but when you find them, you're really glad they are there.

If you are a programmer, it's an incredibly powerful and well designed system. You don't have to learn at all at once too, you can learn how to create 'block' templates to tweak up some output, move on to overriding block functionality and then on to creating your own blocks.

So I'm very happy using concrete5 - it's easy for clients, easy to theme and highly customisable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think that building sites and applications with tools along the lines of Weebly is going to become fairly mainstream even for people who call themselves software developers.

My question about Weebly: how do I create my own widgets? I saw something on a page at developers.weebly.com that said something about emailing someone, I think his name is Chris?

I am working on my own system based on Node.js/HTML5 which will be totally open and make it easy for developers to create and publish their own widgets/plugins right in the interface with their github accounts. I am extremely early on but I am hoping by the 7th I can have a very basic demo ready. The code such as it is is at <https://github.com/ithkuil/cureblog> .. on the remote chance that anyone has any thoughts related to my project.

<comment><USER25> Would love to talk. I work for another YCS11 company and we have some APIs for turning widgets / apps into content sharing and advertising tools. Let me know if you want to talk more. Looking forward to seeing your demo.

<comment><USER24> Cool I am looking forward to my demo also. LOL. What is the name of your company so I can google it, and what did you want to talk about? Oh actually it says on your ycombinator. NowSpots. Interesting.

Actually to be honest, you could create a plugin/tool/widget that would make it easy to select NowSpot ads to drag onto their site or integrate the NowSpot Composer or something right into their site, because basically my plugin frontends are just whatever jQuery you want that will fit in with the tools panel somehow (and the backend is whatever Node.js you want), but I am not sure that would be that great to come out with this platform and have one of the first things people notice is that the blogs made with it are full of ads. Just to be honest.

Having said that, the goal is for this to be a totally open platform, ideally most widgets would be MIT licensed (the part they expose at least), and my goal is to only remove plugins from the database if they are completely junk, i.e. people were just testing something and the widget just says 'Hi there testing asdf' or whatever. And adding plugins with new widgets/tools/components is going to be just a matter of entering a github login and a name for a repo and pressing the publish button or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Two things for weebly to improve IMO:

More templates. You just can't have too many.

A better undo when editing. It seems to not work sometimes. Also it would be great if it had versioning so if an employees totally goofs I can just revert.

</comment><comment><USER27> I had not heard of Weebly before. I just looked at their website and two things turned me off:

1\. No pricing information, other than "It's Free". Is everything in Weebly free? If it is, I assume there is not much it does, which makes me lose interest in it. If it is not, I want to know the details before signing up.

2\. aboutus.php: Can Weebly not do clean URLs? If it can, then why do I see ".php" on the Weebly site itself?

<comment><USER28> Why is showing the file extension a bad thing? Why do you care if you see ".php"?

<comment><USER29> It's a good question.

It is best practice to have well-thought-out URLs that do not have extensions. The reasons include:

\- If your site's back-end technology changes, all those URLs will either break, or need redirected, or be specially handled with have extra cruft forever.

\- It takes longer to type and is harder to remember.

\- It makes your technology obvious instead of receding into the background.

\- It limits your ability to make awesome URLs, because now your URLs are dictated by how you name and organize your server-side scripts. (URLs are a user interface, just like GUIs, though they don't get as much attention! <http://alanhogan.com/url-as-ui>)

\- There is no benefit to outweigh the above negatives.

<comment><USER28> These are excellent points. A few of them I would have a small bit of disagreement over the perceived negativity, but they are too small to bother with. I would say it's more like there is not enough benefit to outweigh the perceived, possible, and/or actual negatives. But that seems a silly statement to make in of itself.

I think it revolves what your website actually is and how deeply invested you are in your URLs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This does seem like the perfect solution for recommending to or building quick websites for friends and family!

</comment><comment><USER31> Just gotta say congrats to these guys. Such a beautiful example of determined and consistent execution.

</comment><comment><USER32> I hope I can buy their stock long before Wall Street starts to take them seriously.

</comment><comment><USER33> How is this different from Geocities or the half-dozen other me-too free, easy website providers we had the last time around the internet bubble merry-go- round? The feature lists even look pretty similar.

Or is that too long ago for anybody to remember? I worked for a startup that was racking up millions of hits a day and chewing through tens of millions of dollars in funding in _1999_. Guess what? It's really hard to make money this way.

I'm starting to suspect Prince knew a lot more than he was saying when he wrote that song.

</comment><comment><USER34> Weebly is awesome. I recommend it to every non-techie friend who asks me for help setting up a website. So happy to see them doing well building a solid fundamental technology.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you want an interesting puzzle from Weebly, check out their jobs page: <http://www.weebly.com/jobs.php>

Prior HN Discussion on the Puzzle: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1892693>

I just spent a solid 2.5 hours working on it... Fun stuff and I learned a lot about the Chrome Developer Tools!

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon For a (way too long) moment I thought their Designer Platform cost [1] $7.95/month for 15 _domains_... The fact that it isn't the case hints that they may provide reliable hosting.

[1] <http://designers.weebly.com/designer_pricing.php>

</comment><comment><USER36> I've not actually heard of these guys before (maybe I've not been paying enough attention) but this looks like a fantastic product/service.

This looks to be perfect for me to recommend to friends and family who want me to create them "a quick website", with minimal costs.

The iPhone app video looks pretty compelling. Congrats.</comment>


Female Inmates Sterilized In California Prisons Without Approval - <AUTHOR> http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/07/5549696/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california.html <comment><USER2> Mother of all misleading headlines... the doctors received the approval of the patients. They didn't receive _state_ approval.

<comment><USER3> Approval under continual coercion, especially by people with significant authority over you, isn't actually approval in any meaningful sense. It's not a misleading headline at all.

<comment><USER2> I'm not a doctor, and I cannot speak for the ethical standards that doctors hold themselves to. I understand only that they are stringent. Quite possibly, I am on the wrong side here as far as doctors are concerned.

However, to me, the methods of coercion are entirely relevant here, and make all the difference. From what these doctors weren't holding lengthened sentences or reduced meal quality over these women... I would describe it more as "convincing" than "coercing". Perhaps they were too persistent in seeking approval, but that is something that is subject to individual interpretation.

Regardless, even if what they were doing was clearly deplorable coercion, the headline _is_ clearly misleading. I went from _" What century is this!?!"_ to _" eeeh..."_ in record time...

<comment><USER3> Given the history of forced sterilization in California, I think it's clear that at least some doctors do not hold themselves to a high ethical standard at all, but in fact, a quite low one. Pressuring an inmate or even offering if they are in labor a tubual ligation is now illegal as a result of that history:

"Since then, it's been illegal to pressure anyone to be sterilized or ask for consent during labor or childbirth."

Moreover, it has been documented in the article that at least some of the "approval" was given while patients were under sedation, which cannot be taken as approval in any ethical way, given the nature of the procedure. That is basically enough for an unethical doctor to cover his or her ass, but it is not appropriate for a journalist to refer to that as approval.

At any rate, it's good that you're asking why this is going on in this century. Just a shame you seem to be concern trolling about a very valid headline instead of addressing the issue at hand.

<comment><USER2> I mean ethical standards of the profession in general, as in: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_ethics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_ethics)

If they were getting approval after drugging up their patients or while their patients were in labor then that is clearly an issue; an issue that deserves an accurate headline.

<comment><USER3> You got an accurate headline: approval was not obtained. You cannot call drugged up statements approval. You're trying to split a hair that isn't there, about what kinds of coerced approval can be counted as approval and what kinds can't. By doing so, you're ignoring that the prison medical staff abused positions of authority and abused drugs even to obtain consent for permanent medical procedures.

What you're arguing is much like arguing that if a woman had sex while drunk (under the influence of a drug that impedes judgement), then no headline should call it rape. In that context, the error should, I hope, be quite clear.

<comment><USER2> If the controversy here is limited to the times that doctors pressured sedated patients, then the article does not make that clear. It sounds like they are talking about doctors doing this in the more general case.

 _" What you're arguing is much like arguing that if a woman had sex while drunk (under the influence of a drug that impedes judgement), then no headline should call it rape."_

HELL NO what I am arguing is not like that. _I am not okay with doctors pressuring drugged up patients._ As I said: "If they were getting approval after drugging up their patients or while their patients were in labor _then that is clearly an issue_ "

Holy hell... Do try to be more careful when you accuse somebody of being like a rape apologist...

The headline matches only a subset of the articles content. A subset that it mentions only _very_ briefly, almost as an aside. That particular incident was clear coercion, but if the other incidents involved similar coercion then the article fails to say so.

Instead the article focuses on the failure of the doctors to seek _state_ approval. It is a poor headline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it."

Ya know, if you have 5 kids and you're in prison and a candidate "likely to return" then guess what? You ARE a bad mother whether you prevent fucking up a 6th, 7th, nth child in the future won't change that.</comment>


Vocdoni – voting system technical overview v1 - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You forgot the URL. Try submitting again.</comment>


Show HN: Draw Something Solver - <AUTHOR> http://dsolver.com Created a small program over the weekend. Had a great time surprising and surpassing all my friends. <comment><AUTHOR> Created a small program over the weekend. Had so much fun in beating, surprising all my friends in the popular game :)</comment>


Conservatives are flocking to the social media app Parler - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/27/parler-ceo-wants-liberal-to-join-the-pro-trump-crowd-on-the-app.html <comment><USER3> In describing the site as a bastion of free speech, the Parler CEO says "If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler."

But, according to the article, "the app doesn't allow terrorist organizations or support for terrorism, the sharing of false rumors, violent language (what the site describes as 'fighting words') toward others, blackmail or pornography."

Last I was in NYC, "fighting words" were most certainly allowed, as was pornography, as was the sharing of false rumors (most of the time). Seems like he's just drawing a different arbitrary line and trying to claim he's a purist for free speech.

<comment><USER4> Those are cases where the supreme court has found restrictions on speech to be justifiable, in case you thought it was just a grab bag of random stuff.

<comment><USER5> Well, seeing that Supreme Court decisions on what is legal to censor has absolutely no bearing on what a private corporation can do. The right to free speech only applies to what the government can and can't do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm trying out Parler. While I absolutely hated having to add a phone number to sign up, a positive side effect is that I have not run into any obvious troll or bot accounts. So far, it's keeping everyone honest.

This will probably also turn out much better than Gab due to the presence of high-profile politicians.

<comment><USER7> Twitter will hit you with a suspension and a demand for a phone number shortly after signing up. It hasn't helped with the troll or bot problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You have to be careful: given a rallying cry of free speech and no censorship, the main appeal of the platform is going to be attracting those holding unpopular opinions.

This happened with the mass exodus from Reddit to Voat of r/the_donald and similar, and I absolutely can see it happening here. Voat became host to a ton of toxic communities.

And because of that, it's going to push more orthodox people people away from the site towards Twitter in a self-reinforcing loop.

The plan for the site to get a broad range of opinions (in this case, the bounty of $20k for a prominent liberal) seems doomed as a result.

Still - hopefully the founders have learned from Voat and have plans in action to stop it before it gets too stuck in the cycle. The bounty is an interesting idea, though I don't think it'll be strong enough to break the perverse social dynamics involved. More competition with Twitter is a good thing.

<comment><USER9> The terms of service PDF is really clear on what and what is not allowed.

Particularly interesting were links to the US Entity list of defined terriorist organizations. Downloadable in a text file (and it's large).

Since it's not pseudo-anonymous like Voat, and is also being endorsed pretty much by politicians, I think it won't fall into the same traps. I think it's going to become a de facto pipeline to politicians though.

The Terms of Service sound like the vision of a social media network after a Section 230 crackdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think I see where this is going: Twitter will be the new CNN and Parler will be the new Fox News, and both will be insufferable politicized dumpster fires just like the old media companies they're replacing.

<comment><USER11> The polarization of every company to serve one half of a political divide does not seem terribly healthy.

<comment><USER12> Because it deserts the other half of the public, because it doesn't make for a large enough addressable market, both, or other?

<comment><USER13> Likely in relation to "One Nation, _indivisible_ , under God" (emphasis mine, quoted from the pledge of allegiance.) A nation so divided it needs two of every company seems brittle and fragile.

<comment><USER11> It seems like two nations, in the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised that a "Free Speech" network would demand that its users indemnify it against liability arising from their speech. Here's Parler's ToS:

> You agree to defend and indemnify Parler [...] from and against any and all > claims, actions, damages, obligations losses, liabilities, costs or debt, > and expenses (including but not limited to all attorneys fees) arising from > or relating to your access to and use of the Services. Parler will have the > right to conduct its own defense, at your expense, in any action or > proceeding covered by this indemnity.

Twitter has no similar clause, because 47 USC § 230 provides computer services with a pretty good shield against liability of this kind. I'm not sure why Parler would include such a clause.

<comment><USER15> That shield might be weakening [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.natlawreview.com/article/pr...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.natlawreview.com/article/president- signs-executive-order-directing-agencies-to-probe-contours-cda-immunity%3famp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This submission seems to have been censored; it has fallen off the front page of HN.

I signed up for Parler. It seems refreshingly welcoming to me. That might be problematic for those currently censoring existing spaces.

<comment><USER17> Disappeared from the front page after just a few minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _"If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler."_

Even if his claim were true, he's going to hit the same problem Twitter did: profitability. Twitter doesn't censor because its CEO is some kind of bleeding-heart softie, it censors because advertisers won't engage with it unless it meets a certain reputational standard.

<comment><USER19> I dunno; I'm tempted to turn on Fox News to analyze which companies advertise on there. I suspect advertisers' squeamishness only runs skin deep and they really don't want to give up ad reach to 40+% of the country.

[EDIT] Interesting. According to this link ([https://www.mediamatters.org/fox- news/these-are-fox-news-lea...](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/these- are-fox-news-leading-advertisers)), very prominent national brands advertise on Fox News, including Verizon, who recently garnered mention for boycotting Facebook ads. Kind of reinforces my hypothesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> These are the guidelines of this "free speech social network": [https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf](https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf)

Apart from the clear US-centric worldview of acceptable and unacceptable speech (e.g., using the US list of foreign terrorist organizations - <USER2> instance, many countries would not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization), I don't understand the "fighting words" portion. It references a US Supreme Court case, _Terminiello v. Chicago_ , in which the speaker was ruled to have _not_ been a "clear and present danger" or have used "fighting words" \- so it's not clear what "fighting words" _are_. The term was defined in an earlier case, _Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_ , where it was ruled that calling someone "a damned fascist" was not protected by the First Amendment - is that the point of view that Parler takes?

Meanwhile, in US jurisprudence, the "clear and present danger" test was replaced by the "imminent lawless action" one in 1969 ( _Brandenburg v. Ohio_ ), which specifically constitutionally guarantees quite a bit more free speech, including non-imminent advocacy of breaking laws. Does Parler follow the "clear and present danger" standard or the "imminent lawless action" one?

Also, the network bans "pornography," "obscenity," and "indecency" (which goes farther than the FCC, which permits "indecent" content on TV or the radio between 10 pm and 6 am, and doesn't regulate them in print etc.) and adds the suggestion, "Make sure everyone in your photos has clothes." Are shirtless men acceptable? Shirtless women (permitted in public in at least six US states)? Are medical diagrams acceptable? (Content is merely indecent and not obscene if it has "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value".)

</comment><comment><USER5> And this is how it should work Instead of whining about "regulating tech" every time they do something you don't like, create your own platform where like minded individuals are free to congregate.

It's surprising that so many conservative groups who are the first to want deregulation and the free market when it suits them wanted government interference when big tech was being mean to them.

<comment><USER21> It's not "being mean" it's being unable to participate in discussions when you don't tow the line. This is true on Twitter and Reddit, even HN. You are also not supposed to even bring up the issue as that will be down regulated even more heavily.

The problem needs to be solved one way or another because things are spiralling out of control. The solution isn't "conservatives should just stop not saying what I want them to say" as that will never happen.

<comment><USER5> Sure. If you want to have a discussion where you don't have to be dependent on other people's rules. Create your own forum. That's how you solve it.

The open source community didn't just complain about the closed source products that other vendors released. They created their own alternatives.

Why can't conservatives come up with successful forums? Are there no conservative entrepreneurs with the technological wherewithal?

<comment><USER21> Just as systemic racism can occur in institutions, systemic bias can occur in the technology sector. Once momentum builds in a political direction, there becomes a cost associated with going against that grain. Over time it has built up to a breaking point where dissent from that bias effectively removes people from being able to participate.

I think it's not intellectually honest to believe systemic issues in one instance require intervention, but not in the other.

<comment><USER5> Really? HN is a forum of technical people. The technology behind creating a forum is not rocket science. Getting a colocated server is not rocket science.

There are enough conservative outlets that should both be willing to fund the development and for a marketing outlet.

Hell, I am the furthest thing from a conservative but if conservatives are really so inept that they can't create their own forums, give me the money. I'll figure it out. I'm not going to do your marketing for you. But if an atheist can make it big selling bible apps,I'll take their money to create a forum.

Oh and BTW, I think I probably know a little more about "systemic racism" than you do. You can't imagine the looks we got when we first started searching for homes and getting one built in the neighborhoods where "we don't belong" or the number of times that consultants came in to talk to the dev lead and started talking to one of my reports and walked right past me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ah, good. More echo chambers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why are people still trying to build businesses on the idea that people need a new way to talk to each other?

It feels like these solutions cater to the lazy or the distract-able. All of these businesses start looking so shiny and inevitably are masticated, then digested, and then reach the final state associated with excretion.

Free services just fuck their users.

</comment><comment><USER24> ActivityPub, the web standard that powers the software that currently holds the #1 spot on top of HN today, is better.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's not clear it's a bastion for free speech.

According to this tweet, folks are getting banned for imitating politicians.

[https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/127659055637488025...](https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/1276590556374880258?s=19)

<comment><USER26> >folks are getting banned for imitating politicians

Why is this bad? Freedom to impersonate other people is an issue orthogonal to free speech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps there could be a new internet standard which allows every website in existence to run parallel political left/right instances. Segment ourselves into two entirely separate realities since we clearly aren't able to get along together.

</comment><comment><USER27> I like seeing the competition. Maybe that's the answer for the social media bias. But I fear that any private platform will eventually get corrupted. I would strongly prefer an open-source standard to beat out the big tech monopolies.

<comment><USER24> that standard exists.

<comment><USER27> What's the user friendly, normie friendly open source social media service that rivals Twitter and Facebook in usability?

<comment><USER24> Go to the front page of HN, and view the top post today. That is just one example of software that uses open web standards published by the W3C.

There is a healthy ecosystem of software being designed to conform with these specifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It'll be very interesting to see if a social media network exclusively of political content will be viable. Twitter may have a lot of politics on it, but that's not its raison d'etre.

I have to laugh at the article though:

>"With Devin Nunes came a whole pack of haters," said Matze. He said that parody accounts are fine and even welcome, but Parler draws a line when it comes to spammers. "You can't spam people's comment sections with unrelated content," he said.

Well, firstly, it's well documented that Devin Nunes has _sued_ parody accounts, and seccondly, making editorial decisions about which comments are suitably related is the editorial control that right wing partisans are falsly claiming is a red line abot twitter.

Given that we know Parler is offering a bounty for users, how much did they pay CNBC for the puff piece?

</comment><comment><USER29> You know someone's a wanker if you see Parler on their phone. Could be useful in this way.

</comment><comment><USER30> So if this is the platform for the conservatives - what's the platform for the liberals?

<comment><USER6> Reddit

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well that is great ... give nutjobs like Alex Jones their own echo chamber to rant and rave about Bill Gates, Soros 5G , Corona and the evil of vaccines.

</comment><comment><USER32> CNBC title: "Trump fans..."

HN title: "Conservatives..."

Are conservatives regarded as indistinguishable from Trump fans these days?

<comment><USER33> >Are conservatives regarded as indistinguishable from Trump fans these days?

In what meaningful way can they be distinguished?

<comment><USER34> Favoring a certain style of government doesn't mean you have to be a fan of every politician advocating for that style of government. It's like a quote from one of the main characters on The Newsroom.

>First off, I'm a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barrometric pressure, and not gay marriage.

<comment><USER33> I've seen that series as well, and what it fails to portray is that for all intents and purposes, the social conservatives define the Republican party. To be a social liberal and still vote Republican is to be manipulated.

The Republican party hasn't been about responsible small government in decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you think we will ever see VS on linux? - <AUTHOR> Following the recent development of events at MSFT, am I too dreamy to want VS on linux ? <comment><USER2> Too early to say, but unlikely in my opinion. I expect VS code to continue to gain features and language support, one day we might even see a R# plugins for it but I don't expect it to bring Windows heavy features like WPF/xaml and Winforms across. Apparently C# and F# story on VS code is already pretty solid for server side apps

</comment><comment><USER3> Visual Studio is written in C++ and C# and expects the Win32 API. Moving that to Linux would be a massive, many year project even for Microsoft. Will never happen. Instead something new like Visual Studio Code that is cross platform is more likely to continue development.</comment>


Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you? - <AUTHOR> http://www.uab.edu/news/innovation/item/6127-will-your-self-driving-car-be-programmed-to-kill-you <comment><USER5> Like the general trolly problem, this formulation of the self-driving car problem assumes some agents are passive. The trolly problem assumes nobody is trying to rescue the potential victims. This formulation of the self-driving car problem assumes the school bus and other vehicles are passive.

Thus the conventional trolly problem doesn't really do the problem of self- driving car decision trees justice. The school bus isn't a dumb trolly. When your car is heading toward the school bus, the school bus will also running down it's decision tree and the best outcome based on its 15 passengers may be to take you out directly rather than run the risk of miscalculating what will happen if your car dives into the guardrail. Which is to say, that statistical predictions bring confidence intervals into play.

I believe this is why trolly problems in general reveal more about their formulation than about our ethical reasoning. We will throw a switch to shunt the trolly because the bad outcome will remain in the future and the possibility of changing circumstances remains very real. We know from experience that any of our predictions may be fallible and that the more temporally remote the event the more our prediction is fallible. Pushing the fat man off the bridge elicits a different reaction: the outcome is immediate and our prediction less fallible.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't think we're going to ask computers to count the cost of a life, anytime soon. Especially since humans have a hard enough job doing it [1].

It will be designed, I imagine, to do the safest thing possible given an emergency. Which is in this instance, as most people suggest, stop as quickly as possible.

Nothing to see, move on.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/business/economy/17regulat...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/business/economy/17regulation.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER7> I totally agree, but…. :)

As silly and pointless as it to worry about whether robocar morality should be primarily deontology or utilitarian, I have to admit I love it. I'm a sucker for this kind of science fiction thinking, brought on by everyone's expectations of technological progress. The average person has a tremendous amount of confidence of the "they'll figure it out" kind.

I think it's a good sign, the opposite of cynicism. Also, I think moral questions are interesting and if teaching is the best way to learn, maybe imagining how to teach a machine to be moral is a good exercise.

On that note, deontology fits nicely with the way computers tend to think - rules. OTOH, utilitarianism means seeing the future - a nice use for all our future computational power. While we're on that, do computers have a duty to be true to their nature?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Your car is already designed to kill you, it doesn't contain equipment to protect you at the cost of many other people's lives. There's no cow catcher type device on the front for example

</comment><comment><USER9> Remember: we do not even have cruise control that is usable in the winter. Once any autonomous driving system can provide even this basic function (not soon, I fear), then we can talk about more complex behavior...

This debate about what autonomous vehicles will do in extreme situations is but the "tip of the iceberg".

Until all autonomous drive systems can be "unit tested" under a standard suite of simulated sensor inputs, one would be wise to assume that they are wildly unsuitable for anything but the most trivial driving situations (eg. Golf courses, closed estates).

<comment><USER10> I don't think slippery is an issue for computers. We have the quick on off brakes of ABS Braking. We also have AWD of Subaru for a decade that can transfer power to other wheels if it starts to slip. Also it can steer into a slid quicker and more precise than 99% of people right now.

<comment><USER9> You are quite correct.

The main problem right now is -- there is no way for you to _know_ how any particular autonomous driving system will handle it. With every second auto maker and start-up claiming to have independently developed super-duper auto- drive technology, I think it will get worse before it gets better.

Without standardised testing frameworks (ie. sending my car's autonomous driving system through a simulator to see what it will do), I remain ... unconvinced.

Being an industrial programmer for 30 years, I think I'll continue to err on the side of assuming incompetence and failure, until proven otherwise.

<comment><USER10> In the same regard I think in the next 20 years there will not be human driven trucks, buses and anything over a certain weight, because the cost of life to not do that will be over whelming.

This is because one thing. They all can stop quickly and will have their own lane on all Interstates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> hmm... perhaps "the default" should be programmed maximize human life as a headcount. But maybe they could sell a pricey "upgrade option" that would cause the computer to favor preserving the life of the driver as top priority. The proceeds from these upgrade options could then go into pay-outs for the families of people killed by drivers with this option enabled?

<comment><USER12> /s, right?

<comment><USER13> If not officialy I'm sure there will be unofficial path to do this.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but if we ever get driverless cars, you can bet on it that the log files will be detailed enough for really fine accident reconstruction. In other words, a "replay" could expose such hacking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can imagine this scenario: in a bridge without any place to go but ahead ..

       </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
          5 people <-- car w/ 1 people <-- heavy truck
       </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

a) The car can break, but the heavy truck below will certainly kill the car's only passenger, who's on the back seat

b) The car hit and potentially kill most of the people standing, but save its passenger

c) The car can jump to the void

Scary as it sounds, what the car would do depends on the software

<comment><USER15> (d) The car would stop because unlike human drivers, a self-driving car would be programmed to avoid going so fast that it can't stop if a sudden obstacle would appear (aside from maybe something falling from the sky).

<comment><USER15> A human would drive too fast on in icy conditions... if the computer knows there are icy conditions and it doesn't slow down before it even senses trouble then the car was programmed to be going too fast. If it is so dangerous there is no way to remove these scenarios (like a blizzard) then a human should be forced to override the system in which case the human is at fault.

I trust sensors to detect icy conditions better than a trust myself.

[edit] Most bridges where I am have signs that explicitly warn that bridges freeze over. And people intuitively know... bridge + recent precipitation + cold whether = slow down. I don't know why a computer wouldn't know that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great time to offer in-app purchases.

</comment><comment><USER17> The car should protect it's occupants at all cost because that would be the normal reaction of someone driving the car themselves. In that case the car has been pre-programmed not to make a choice.

When faced with a split second decision whether to live or die, humans choose to live, that's how we made it this far...

</comment><comment><USER18> A superior intelligence planning to kill is not superior. I'd love a computer to answer 'lol, boring' when asked to harm humanity.

<comment><USER19> So when humans mount horses and go into the woods to hunt as entertainment, they are not superior either?

<comment><USER20> Computer may have the same intelligence as human, but their fundamental inner drive will be completely different. Human like any other animal has a deep genetically programmed drive: survive and reproduce. Hunting as entertainment, for example, is actually practicing for survival - all hunting animals do that. This deep drive is the result of evolution. AI on the other hand has a completely different evolution process - that is, us. We will ultimately decide that deep drive for AI.

<comment><USER21> That is in no way certain. In the case where a AI is the result of a evolutionary algorithm for example, there is a distinct possibility that the AI has necessarily a taste for competition. Or if important parts of the AI are modeled on the human brain, then it is entirely possible that a AI is closer to a modified human.

<comment><USER20> I am not talking about a single AI. I am talking about AI as a species. A specific AI could have any drive, but ultimately (at least at current stage) what determines its survival is us. Just like how natural select the most "fit" species during evolution, we select AI that fit our needs the most. The nature selection is relatively simple: "not get killed and reproduce yourself." So only species who strongly don't want get killed and strongly want to reproduce get to survive.

The AI evolution is completely different - "nobody is going to kill you except human and you don't need to reproduce yourself, , that's usually human's job." I believe the result is a completely different inner drive for the AI - <USER2> is more likely to be more useful to human, that's how you get selected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wait, just one computer? Because right now I have an entire freeway full of inattentive and occasionally drunk/angry humans trying to kill me. I can deal with just the car.

</comment><comment><USER23> If a technology poses questions like these in front of you, you know it's really disruptive. Our technical development forces us to find answers to those questions, but that will be harder than developing the tech, and those answers possibly won't hold for long. I don't think it probable, but it may still turn out that we really don't want machines to make that kind of decision.

</comment><comment><USER24> I (perhaps somewhat naively) assumed that a self-driving car would be programmed to prioritise the occupants of the vehicle (as that most closely emulates the likely reactions of a human driver in that situation).

Self-driving cars are likely to be safer than human drivers anyway, so one has to consider how much risk there is of a situation like the Trolley Problem arising - i.e. not much.

<comment><USER25> So here's the thing. The first time that an accident kills pedestrians with a self driving car involved the creator of that car will be open to a lawsuit. And in court the question of what that car should have been programmed to prioritize will come up. A response of we tried to emulate the likely reactions of a human driver in this situation won't hold up. The whole point of a self driving car as you said is that they are safer. In fact safer to the community as a whole. So if a car plows into crowd in order to avoid colliding with an obstacle and killing the rider. (something a real human would likely due without even realizing it) Would be grounds for that suit to award damages to the creator of the cars software.

It's not as simple as it sounds at first.

<comment><USER24> Actually, that's a good point - I hadn't considered the legal ramifications of such a stance. It's interesting that you mention people seeking damages from the creator of the car's software, because that makes the entire situation more complex.

As for the concept of "safer to the community as a whole" \- well, the idea is that they're a safer product overall, and this is mostly targeted at the individual (i.e. "if you own a self-driving car, you're less likely to die"). If people have the knowledge that their cars may (in certain situations) elect to kill them in preference of others, then I doubt that self-driving cars will sell particularly well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's an interesting thought experiment, but I think a real situation with such a stark binary choice is so improbable that it's barely worth considering.

Cars are not on trolley tracks and computers can brake or swerve harder and faster than any human could.

<comment><USER27> No matter how fast they break or swerve, it's not improbable that they might be in a situation where the computer has a choice - hit someone standing on the side of the road, or don't hit them,but potentially kill everyone on board of the vehicle. What should it do? Would anyone of us want to be the programmer who writes that code? Because I know that I definitely wouldn't want to be in charge of that.

<comment><USER28> Well the issue is, we need to program the cars so that we optimize the outcome when _every car on the road behaves that way and is expected to behave that way_.

Do we get the best outcome when everyone expects the computer to spare the pedestrian? When everyone expects the computer to drive "selfishly" or to try to minimize its own impact velocity?

I don't think it's a good idea to program the cars with a "utilitarian" policy of saving the most human lives possible, as not only does that require quite a lot of inferential power to be packed into the car, it doesn't set up any concrete expectations for the passengers and pedestrians. You would have to add a mechanism for the car to first, in bounded real-time, infer how to save the most lives, and then signal to all passengers and bystanders exactly what course of action it has chosen, so that they can avoid acting randomly and getting more people killed.

This is why we always demand very regimented behavior in emergency procedures: trying to behave "smartly" in an emergency situation, in ways that don't coordinate well with others, _actually gets more people dead_. Following a policy may "feel" less "ethical" or "heroic", but it actually does save the most lives over the long run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes. It certainly will. (Credentials: I've worked in the industry).

There are a lot of comments below which are variations on the theme of "this is a stupid scenario; just apply the brakes". These people have a terribly naive understanding of the reality in which cars operate.

The truth is that self-driving cars are part of a dynamic, open-ended system which includes roads of arbitrary quality, and pedestrians and cyclists who will be never be under automated control. Such a system is _fundamentally unsafe by design_. Its operation relies on probabilistic assumptions of safety rather than secondary safety systems, as you would have in a system which is _designed_ to be safe (eg., airplanes and airports). These probabilistic assumptions include assuming that a tire will not blow out, or that a large pothole will not exist on the other side of a hump in a country road, or that a pedestrian will not trip laterally into the path of a high-speed vehicle. When such events do occur, property damage and/or loss of life is a certainty. This is a low-probability event, but one to which we have so utterly habituated that many people -- such as many of the commenters on this article -- are no longer consciously aware that it is even possible.

Nonetheless, it certainly is possible, and happens all the time. Currently, cars kill more than 2 million people per year, worldwide. Many of those fatalities are due to drunkenness or glitches in human attentiveness -- problems which a competently-designed self-driving car will not suffer from -- but many of these fatalities are due to scenarios such as I mention above. Those will continue. Unless we radically change the entire system -- that is, change the way way we build and maintain roads, and the way we integrate or segregate cars from other users of the road -- then this system will remain unsafe by design. Even if the world converts entirely to self-driving cars which operate _perfectly_ , they will still, with an absolute certainty, kill hundreds of thousands of people per year.

Seriously, y'all need to stop being in denial about this.

Hundreds of thousands of fatalities per year is still a tremendous improvement over millions of fatalities per year. It's an unalloyed good and we should doubtless do it. Nonetheless, it represents a hell of a liability problem for the manufacturers. When a human being has a blowout at speed, we never question the correctness of their actions in the milliseconds immediately afterwards. Of _course_ they don't have an opportunity to respond in an appropriate fashion. Human brains can't do that. Instead, we assign liability based on conditions before the crash. If the driver was speeding, we say that the consequences of the blowout (which can easily be fatal) are their fault. If they weren't speeding, it's the tire's fault. Liability ends somewhere between the tire and the driver. As long as the car company has not sold faulty tires, they have nothing to worry about.

When the driver is both _created_ by the car company _and_ has the ability to react in the milliseconds following an incident, it's a different matter. Lawsuits will be inevitable, and car companies will do everything they can to minimise their exposure.

The scenario where your self-driving car needs to make a decision between sending you over a cliff, or forcing a schoolbus over a cliff, may seem terribly contrived. But in reality, on a worldwide basis, this general class of scenario happens hundreds of times every day, creating a level of liability that manufactures must take _damn_ seriously. If they are able to choose between lawsuits from your family, or lawsuits from every family of every kid on that bus, they'll choose the former every time.

And this is why your car will be programmed to kill you.

</comment><comment><USER30> If people become aware enough of this, the answer is almost certainly that cars will choose the life of their passengers in any situation, unless manufacturers will agree not to compete on this.

<comment><USER31> you forgot that the government has final say, in everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sounds like a plot for a sci-fi novel, but things get serious when software can kill you.

<comment><USER33> Software _flaws_ have been know to kill, so "killing software" has been with us for awhile.

For more details, check out Peter G Neumann's "Computer-Related Risks". Automatic doors crushing people, radiation equipment (for the treatment of cancer) going way out of spec, and many more.

<comment><USER11> Yes, there are interesting lessons in that, but we're entering new territory when software systems will be explicitly tasked to make life-or-death "decisions" without the active control of a human. The correct answer might be ethically foggy even for humans. This is definitely problematic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> don't program it to swerve in any direction, brakes and tires should do the trick.

<comment><USER27> what if going straight will kill more people than swerving? You are driving in a turn, a tyre blows - a system which "gives up" and just applies the brakes as hard as it can allows the car to continue forward - maybe in a path of a school bus, maybe into a group of bystanders, maybe off a cliff. But if you allow it to turn,even a little - how do you know you are not injuring more people?

<comment><USER15> Under what situation would that happen? It happens with human drivers because they are driving too fast to stop in time. It's very simple... if you need 50 feet to stop you make sure at minimum you have 50 feet to stop. If there are things obscuring your view to the left and right you drive slower to reduce your stopping distance and make sure if something jumps out you still have enough time.

Now, if you are to consider that something jumps out in front of your car (say a deer) which reduces your reaction time, the car should do the same thing a human would do. Slam on the breaks to reduce impact speed.

<comment><USER27> A tyre blows. A rock hits the sensor on top of the car. An electrical contact gets disconnected due to vibration. Water gets into computer. Those things happen thousands of times, daily, to cars around the world. Automatic cars will have to deal with all of them, in one way or the other. Like you said - the most "failsafe" solution the computer can do is slam the brakes. Which will be good enough in most cases. But I will repeat my question again - <USER3> if slamming the brakes causes more injuries than doing something else, and computer "knows" it(as in - it has calculated that it would cause more damage)? Should it still do it?

Edit: The difference between a human slamming on brakes and a computer doing the same is that humans are not perfectly rational. If I see a deer in front of me, I'm probably going to break as hard as I can. But will I take into account that the road is slippery and braking will cause the car to spin and land in front of a lorry, and maybe the correct decision is to not brake and hit the deer? Of course I won't - humans are not quick enough to decide on that. The problem here is, that computers are fast enough - and now we have to decide whatever they should behave in a "dumb" way, like a human would - <USER4> whatever they should be making those decisions no human could make, even if they verge on being unethical?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dirty Looking Hygiene (what Scheme can learn from Arc) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plt-scheme.org/2008/02/dirty-looking-hygiene.html

<comment><USER2> Eli was my programming languages professor. It's neat to see these two worlds collide.</comment>


"Willpower" book notes - <AUTHOR> http://leopolovets.com/blog/2011/10/23/book-notes-on-willpower/

<comment><AUTHOR> I read Willpower ([http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest- Human...](http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human- Strength/dp/1594203075)) recently and took extensive book notes. A few of my friends enjoyed the notes and thought they might be of interest to the HN crowd.</comment>


The Lean Love Life - Apply Lean Business Principles to your Relationship - <AUTHOR> http://www.leanlovelife.com/

<comment><USER2> Erm.. I can't actually tell if this is serious or not..</comment>


The Internet Trolls Have Won. Sorry, There's Not Much You Can Do - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/technology/personaltech/internet-trolls-comments.html <comment><USER2> Everybody is going to hate this comment.

People are going to be assholes, Always. They will yell at you for standing in their way They will insult you and your entire family if they don't like the way you drive your car. They will try to undermine your competence at the workplace and spread rumors.

All of this has happened to me in real life before social was that big. I'm not even going to start saying what happened to me on the Internet. Let me just say that after what I have experienced I only upload pictures that are guaranteed free of metadata double and tripple checked for content (reflections, business fronts, street names,etc)

Is it okay? No! should we just take it? No! Should we just ban everybody and everything? Also No!

Either you can handle that or you don't

I totally agree that some things are going too far and should have consequences. Telling somebody that they completely suck at coding is not nice but is an expression of free speech. Telling somebody that they are a useless piece of shit and should be shot is completely over the line.

<comment><AUTHOR> This in part addresses your remarks: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17722767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17722767)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have never really understood the extend to which people take troll comments seriously. It just seems no more than a bit annoying to me, to start reading a comment and find out halfway through it's just a bunch of insults with no real content. I won't let a few wasted seconds make my day worse than it would otherwise have been. Why do people get so invested in what others say online? Don't they realize it's nothing more than a cheap attempt to get some attention?

EDIT: Note that I am not talking about anything that actually incites violence. There's a big difference between "I hope X gets shot" and "Here's Xs address, let's all meet up at their house and actually shoot them". The latter is (rightfully) illegal in most places anyway.

</comment><comment><USER4> > our faith in the internet may erode until we distrust it as much as we do TV > news

strange comparison from a European perspective, as TV news are seen as balanced and trustworthy (at least in UK and Germany, where I lived).

<comment><USER5> How did you come to this conclusion? In Germany survey after survey shows some deep mistrust. Between 40%-60% depending on where and how the survey took place describe mainstream media as "not trustworthy", whilst a certain survey asked for malicious intent specifically and 20% agrees with the notion main stream media is manipulating the public with false information on certain topics.

Source: [https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Das-Vertrauen-in-Medien- ist...](https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Das-Vertrauen-in-Medien-ist-nicht- nur-in-Deutschland-gering-3176801.html)

<comment><USER4> Interesting - wasn't aware of that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> About the comments, here is a solution that might work: a persistent upvote/downvote score along with a default view filter based on voting.

Say you are someone who consistently spews out racist comments? as you are being downvoted, the initial vote number for new comments goes down. Any new comment you make will start with a negative number, and hence people will not see it if the number goes beyond what is the current view filter limit.

This number will go up as you are upvoted or not downvoted.

<comment><USER7> Aside from the whole echo chamber problem this wouldn't be granular enough. Imagine the perfect HN user, always giving well thought it, well reasoned and informative posts and they usually only post about topic X which is their expertise. When they then post something not so well thought out about topic Y in which they are not well versed should their comment by at the top?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll freely admit that despite my considered screed above, it's often far simpler to merely downvote.

HN mods _are_ responsive to emailed notices of questionable (or flagrant) misbehaviour. Not always in agreement, though often so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does the writer realise that a clickbait title followed without any statistics to back up the claim is also just a form of trolling?

<comment><USER3> It's not though. The title already makes it quite clear that what follows is just an opinion. That being said, the article seemed kind of lacking in substance beyond what was already said in the title.</comment></comment>


ShareThis vs. AddThis - <AUTHOR>

I am currently using ShareThis on my site but are there any differences between ShareThis and AddThis? Which one should I use? <comment><USER2> As I recall, ShareThis has better email integration. Personally, they both provide too many 'posting options' for my taste and are always two actions away for the user. There is also neat css hack floating around that can detect what popular domains users frequent (ie, delicious) by observing a:visited link color. I wish these widgets would take advantage of that, at least optionally.</comment>


When Will the Tech Bubble Burst? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/opinion/sunday/when-will-the-tech-bubble-burst.html <comment><USER2> The article doesn't seem to address the question of if there is a tech bubble. How does assigning an acronym for the top companies indicates a bubble? Yes, 7 out of top ten valuable companies are tech companies, but they are dominant players of large and highly profitable markets. Am I delusional?

<comment><USER3> When regular people, who normally talk to you about recent movies, are telling you how much money they made on XYZ stock recently, that tends to be a sign that the market is starting to get inundated by novice investors who are essentially fueling an irrational rise. This is of course purely anecdotal but I do believe once the mainstream media latches onto a story and you start hearing the regular folks investing their money into that particular story there is a problem.

<comment><USER4> Are you saying that the novices are the cause of overly high valuations? If so I'm rather skeptical because these novices control very small amounts of money even in aggregate.

If you're saying that the novices are just bad investors who always buy at the wrong time then I'd want a little more evidence of that. My base assumption is that the novices do not have predictive power and are simply "noise traders".

Note that I'm not expressing a view on the market in this comment.

<comment><USER5> The big investing fad now is all about indexing. That's what everyone recommends, including Warren Buffet.

This means that with less than $1000, you can own a representation of the S&P500, weighted by market cap, either through ETFs or mutual funds. Weighted by market cap means that you're putting a larger percentage of that $1000 into the bigger companies, versus the smaller companies.

When a few companies start to dominate the market, everyone can be overweight a few stocks in the same way, and not even know it.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/17/four-tech-heavyweights- make-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/17/four-tech-heavyweights-make-up-a- huge-share-of-the-sp-500.html)

<comment><USER6> Overindexing of the public market is certainly a potential issue for consumers of investment services. That said, if and when it becomes an issue, it likely won't be an issue for very long. Should index funds start to consistently underperform high-management-fee actively managed portfolios, investors will simply move funds there over time.

Of course, that's little consolation for those who lose out during the correction period - so your point stands. But AFAIK we're well below the danger zone for too much public market capital being passively indexed.

<comment><USER5> I agree we're not to over indexing in the US, but I think people really have to keep watching the central banks, especially Japan and the BOJ [1]. While the US federal reserve doesn't buy stocks, other central banks do, and a lot of them use indexing/ETFs. The swiss national bank also has a fair amount of US stock holdings.[2]

Given how the central banks act, this affects the currency markets and interest rates.

(1) [https://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Equities/Japan-s-central- ban...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Equities/Japan-s-central-bank-nearly- doubles-ETF-holdings-in-one-year)

(2) [http://www.businessinsider.com/swiss-national-bank- owns-80-b...](http://www.businessinsider.com/swiss-national-bank- owns-80-billion-us-stocks-2017-6)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This my emotional, biased opinion. But humanity has begun a fundamental shift in the way we live due to widespread, cheap access to digital technology and information via the internet. Whatever happened before the past 10 years of insane growth we have seen is completely relevant. The relics of a bygone era. People will say "yeah, everyone thinks _this_ time is different". Except it is. We have never had anything even remotely as game changing as this before. For the first time in human history, absolutely no one can imagine what will come even 10 years from now.

<comment><USER8> I know you addressed this, but this literally could have been written in 1999, and what's more, it was probably more accurate then.

Technology has continued to expand, but I'd say the last 20 years have been a continuation of growth that's been happening since the 90's. Not all that much is fundamentally different today than it was in the early 2000's. Yeah, we all have smart phones and social media, and those are certainly cool and important things, but not quite up to breathlessly heralding a new age of humanity like you're doing.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't you say autonomous vehicles (2020-30), mass adoption of seeing robots for manufacturing and warehouse work (2020-2030), CRISPR-based gene drive to nearly eliminate disease-carrying mosquitoes and other organisms (2020-2030), embryonic germline-editing for human enhancement (2025-40), and possibly Artificial General Intelligence (2030-2050) cause changes as massive as or more so than the rise of the Internet?

<comment><USER10> Let's see when (and if) those materialize. Flying cars have been 15 years away for about 50 years now. And self-driving cars have already missed their initial target.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think iPhone X or whatever will be a dud. Okay it'll rocket off the shelves and people will think "why did I buy this?" And android phones after the latest Samsung release will be largely stagnant. Mobile already does what we want. I have an LG G3 and still love it. First(ish) 500+ ppi phone, I'm more than happy, no need to upgrade.

There's going to be a thing that happens when everyone realizes, no need to upgrade. Less money goes into tech. Tech sector has a big barf. Much of modern economy is based on tech, so it has a big barf too. I see a modern-day medium- term middle ages coming, just because, meh, everything is good enough.

The one light I see is autonomous cars. They could change the whole landscape. The random thing I'm thinking now is restaurants as we know them will be replaced. By those who specialize in exactly one dish. You order it for your family on Tuesdays and it comes in compostable packing, you eat and enjoy. The whole idea of going _to_ a restaurant seems outdated. They'll die. Of course autonomous kitchen-cars (open sourced so you know exactly what you're getting?!) is even a step further.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have been thinking about the ad bubble in particular, for which Google is not the only one responsible of course. Of course, it is all ultimately funded by debt. I wonder what Larry and Sergey will do when it ends.

<comment><USER13> What "ad bubble"? Ads are merely how other bubbles monetize.

<comment><USER12> Yea, that is part of why I knew that printing money using basic income would only encourage it.

<comment><USER14> What?

<comment><USER15> I believe my non native speaker friend means that UBI does not address fundamental flaws in valuation in a Capitalistic system. Flaws thar would amount to concentration of wealth via advertising conglomerates , although I may be way off the mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The tech bubble is always bursting in the sense that 99% of all startups do not make any money for either the founders or the vc's.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've a casual worry that $SNAP will hit the bricks and trigger something significant (and negative) within the industry in the near future.

Is this worry justifiable?

<comment><USER18> It's a reasonable worry. Your average investor is not tech savvy and definitely not the target age for most tech companies. Will an investor know the difference between FB, Twitter and Snap? Or will he come to a sell conclusion after seeing Snap and Twitter fumbling the ball deciding to cash out on tech. Pretty reasonable.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Live video stream of our Internet connected Christmas Tree - <AUTHOR> http://port57tree.com <comment><AUTHOR> You can tweet a new colour for the tree to @port57tree.

The tree is driven by two Raspberry Pis, four FadeCandy boards, 2048 RGB LEDs and four 60 amp power supplies. It took about 100 hours to plan and build with another 50 hours spent writing the code.

We also made Tetris run on the Christmas tree but the video latency is too high to play that over the Internet :-)</comment>