The End of Net Neutrality = the Beginning of the Fragmented Web - <AUTHOR> The internet as we know it today is the result of years of technological evolution. Now we have the hardware and the benefit of hindsight to make creating networks much easier than it was the first time around. I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free information exchange are going to start popping up. The internet will fragment as necessary for free information exchange.
When discussing this ideas, people often get hung up on infrastructure. Remember that Puerto Rico is enjoying wireless internet infrastructure right now.
And keep in mind that a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a valid means of exchanging free ideas- which is what is really at stake with NN. <comment><USER2> All this fighting for trying to convince the FCC not to dismantle net neutrality. This cause is _lost_. It was lost a year ago when Trump got elected. Fight in your state legislature to repeal any laws blocking municipal broadband then get it built locally. Bankrupt the big ISPs by providing better alternatives _everywhere_. Do it from the ground up. Two phone calls won't save you now. That's the road forward. No other way.

<comment><USER3> Seems like a strawman.

The media landscape's merging and anti-competitiveness started way back in the Clinton years and textbook revolving doors continued right up to Trump with Tom Wheeler being a textbook regulated becoming a regulator.

Nothing changed with Trump. He's just not (and probably not capable of) making an increased effort to reduce the permanence of power among money elites.

Having his personal net worth reduced pre vs post election as opposed to an increase for Clinton and Obama is probably as big a step in the right direction in favor of net neutrality than anything. A proper publicly funded election for the legislature is the next ultimate solution that will solve all this. The next best possibility is a self-funded election. An elite-funded election which is the state of the US is the worst option and the root cause of this.

<comment><USER4> Get out of here with that both sides the same bullshit. Wheeler was an industry man, but the the Obama administration fought to preserve net neutrality and Obama supported classifying ISPs as utilities.

Campaign donations and lobbying are a systematic problem, but laying the blame there and only there ignores the fact that there there are degrees of complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of the impact imposed by the corruption itself. Ultimately only one side of the aisle seems so eager to get in bed with ISPs to destroy the internet, to deny climate change in support of their fossil fuel benefactors, and to dismantle the healthcare system for the benefit of the rich.

Also, ask yourself which party supports citizen United, and which party obstructed any progress on legislative efforts to address it?

<comment><USER3> Identity politics is just today's means of mass control as an evolution on the use of violence or religion or some such. Classic Orwell vs Huxley.

Getting the oppressed to self-drain oxygen by subdividing everyone into every which way to stop conversation about their self interest is the success the elites are seeking. The only meaningful distinction in today's america's social struggles is the class distinction between the common and the elite.

The (CNN approved) examples you're giving are right. Though there are tons of non corporate news reported 'republican' things democrats have more success doing like making Bush elite tax cuts permanent, more wars of invasion, banking deregulation, social security privatization.

> but laying the blame there and only there ignores the fact that there there > are degrees of complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of > the impact imposed by the corruption itself

Sounds circular. Or maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Can you rephrase?

<comment><USER5> What a load of complete waffling nonsense. You admit that the OP was correct that things were different under the Obama administration, then say it doesn't matter because Democrats get the country involved in wars? Please.

"The only way to fix anything is to fix everything" is deeply intellectually lazy and allows you to disengage from any politics until it meets your idealised standard of what politics should be. Lets you feel great while you achieve absolutely nothing. We can all do better than that.

<comment><USER3> Are we on the same thread? Your comments seem unrelated to the post you're responding to.

> You admit that the OP was correct that things were different under the Obama > administration

What are you referring to?

> "The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"

What are you referring to? I'm saying let's fix the problem instead of being dragged into beating each other over unrelated bikeshedding while the beneficiaries of the problem continue to benefit. How did that translate into "The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The FTC is taking over and will uphold net neutrality, the FCC is giving it to the FTC who can run it better for consumer protections. The rules for the last 2 years and the 300+ page document will go away under the FCC, but that doesnt mean the FTC will not do anything. This will change the classification from title-2 regulation to title-1 regulation, and enforce privacy protections and access/censorship restrictions.

The end of the world it is not, and the hyperbole is at an alltime absurd level.

As for access, 5 years, LTE 5, Viasat3/4 will provide coverage around the world. FCC guidelines for internet access at the pole will go into communities to allow the breaking up of limited choice ISP for some communities. Google fiber and Facebook internet already helped promote the change.

<comment><USER7> Wrong. They _say_ the FTC will be responsible for enforcing consumer protections, but then they went right ahead and eliminated most of them, while giving some BS reasons for doing so:

> _" We eliminate the formal complaint procedures because the informal > complaint procedure, in conjunction with other redress options including > consumer protection laws, will sufficiently protect consumers._

> _Additionally, we eliminate the position of Open Internet Ombudsperson > because the staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau—other > than the Ombudsperson—have been performing the Ombudsperson functions > envisioned by the Title II Order._

> _We also eliminate the issuance of enforcement advisory opinions, because > enforcement advisory opinions do not diminish regulatory uncertainty, > particularly for small providers. Instead, they add costs and uncertain > timelines since there is no specific timeframe within which to act, which > can also inhibit innovation. "_

Also, I don't think any _other_ "consumer protection" ever upheld the idea that ISPs shouldn't be nickle and diming consumers by splitting the internet into service packages, like what's happening in Portugal.

The _net neutrality_ rules were those consumer protections, and the ones the ISPs wanted most to eliminate.

Oh, and as a bonus, they also eliminated the rules that said there shouldn't be any interconnection fees - like the stuff that got Verizon and Comcast to drastically slow-down Netflix and YouTube the last time around (before net neutrality passed), until the two companies had to pay up.

> _" We believe that applying Title II to Internet traffic exchange > arrangements was unnecessary and is likely to inhibit competition and > innovation. We find that freeing Internet traffic exchange arrangements from > burdensome government regulation, and allowing market forces to discipline > this emerging market is the better course. Indeed, the cost of Internet > transit fell over 99 percent on a cost-per-megabit basis from 2005 to 2015._

Google and Netflix didn't fight the net neutrality repeal this time around because they thought they were safe. I think they will regret not fighting the repeal very soon.

<comment><USER8> Brilliantly put.

Just to add one more point: many of us are now bound by forced arbitration agreements with our ISPs. That more or less eliminates the courts as an option for class _or_ individual action. It's convenient that Pai glossed over this little fact.

That means we're stuck with the FTC, and only the FTC. And if they don't do anything for you, that's too bad.

This will be devastating, mark my words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unless I'm horribly mistaken, switching to your small local ISP won't change things, either. Because they don't own the pipes. They lease them from (you guessed it) AT&T, et al.

And as a non-American, this still terrifies me, because the U.S. is the nucleus that holds the web together. It's darn near impossible to overstate how much decisions in the U.S. will impact the whole world.

This is not an issue that a free market can solve, because when it comes to main lines that connect the whole Web, it's practically a monopoly of the big boys. It's their sandbox.

Net Neutrality hid the consequences of this from us by forcing them to play nice. Scrap it and they have way too much power.

<comment><USER10> I have wireless Internet from a local ISP delivered to my building by point- to-point microwave. They have to get a license from the FCC but they effectively "own" their own pipes all they way up to the ISPs that they peer with.

Hopefully the silver lining in this is this will result in more wireless ISPs popping up since they can bypass the incumbent wired phone/cable providers.

<comment><USER11> That's the point, I think. CDNs are all tier one, and tier one is where the bandwidth shaping will happen?

<comment><USER10> True, maybe we will see more content providers following the Netflix model. They basically are their own CDN and will give ISPs free caching appliances/settlement free peering.

[https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/)

Unfortunately, ISPs such as Comcast have already perverted this model and demanded Netflix to pay up for access to their network despite throwing in free hardware and peering.

[https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix- came-t...](https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay- comcast-for-internet-traffic/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone outside of the US, I expect there would be such an uproar over here if we had to start waiting longer and longer for fb/twitter/youtube/etc pages to load, that people will just switch to a European business instead. Currently no one over here even talks about NN, but as soon as page loads increase dramatically and actually affect people in their day to day lives you can bet they'll switch. I imagine European businesses are scrambling right now in order to be the next big social network.

<comment><USER13> Remember the experiment from 2009 where net neutrality was thought to be implemented through competition in the EU? Horrible failure and definitely did not results in NN being maintained, EU had to intervene with legislation to stop the drift _away_ from NN.

<comment><USER14> Do you mean this proposal?

[https://euobserver.com/creative/27859](https://euobserver.com/creative/27859) (from 2009)

<comment><USER13> Yup

> This approach is backed by the European Commission, which argues that if > consumers feel their content is somehow being compromised, they will switch > to other providers.

So if anyone comes up with free-market will invisibly push for NN argument, slap them with this and see how they respond ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why wouldn't market pressures force some ISPs to provide unfettered access to the internet? As a consumer, you might choose an ISP that prioritises say Netflix above everything else to guarantee a good experience. For someone who prefers diversity of content, might pick an ISP that does not prioritise in the same way.

<comment><USER16> The vast majority of Americans have one or two ISP choices for broadband. Where I am in Denver, it is only Xfinity. Some friends can choose between Xfinity and Century Link.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if you are aware or not, but Boulder is in the process of 'municipalizing' the electrical grid and will be moving on to broadband once complete. It will be interesting to observe the process, though it will not happen overnight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn't cause any problems. Why is this now the end of the world?

<comment><USER19> Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has never prevented any of the nefarious nonsense people are imagining.

<comment><USER20> It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning, perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth taking seriously.

<comment><USER21> The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories.

But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.

<comment><USER20> Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be easily verifiable.

For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise!

Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"

<comment><USER22> Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the absurdity of the proposition.

We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these services can't come fast enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a > valid means of exchanging free ideas

this ^^ a thousand times. the frequent focus on streaming media in the discussion about net neutrality is disconcerting, to me. I've previously gotten pushback for looking down my nose at the gems of modern creative storytelling, but I still think the collective human experience would be better served seeking fewer unidirectional modes of entertainment / more cooperative & collaborative types of entertainment for ourselves.

taking this opportunity to plug [https://scuttlebutt.nz](https://scuttlebutt.nz) which is where I get the majority of my social media these days.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is somewhat true. It's a fact that a lot of the bandwidth on the web at present is unwanted garbage - perhaps Sturgeon's law (that 90% of everything is crap) is inevitable and innovations are just temporary departures from that mean. I'm regularly horrified by the amount of bandwidth employed to deliver me a tiny little bit of information in text form like a news story.

Anyone remember Hotline? it was sort of like a last-gasp implementation of BBS culture across IP for a time when the web was small but heavily curated, and people needed a simple, user-friendly, but unregulated channel to exchange content in private, though from what I remember a lot of that inevitably ended up being porn and other stuff which you now get on the dark web. It was not unlike Facebook in terms of the actual UX (eg easy to send text, very limited markup options), but distributed and client-centric.

Nothing would make me happier than a resurgence of Usenet, or a deployment of the web annotation protocol (anyone know of activity in this area?) that was scriptable and could allow federations of affinity groups to cooperatively filter and trackback bullshit on the web, as a step towards the eventual realization of the Infosphere.

</comment><comment><USER25> People have been suggesting this for 20 years. Unless you think there has been some major change in how to achieve this it's not likely to happen. In fact it will probably be even harder now when people might get facebook (etc.) for free.

<comment><USER26> Until Google has another BGP "accident" and takes down Facebook for 6 hours. Think of the rise in GDP we might see from that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to see IPFS take off [https://ipfs.io](https://ipfs.io)

<comment><USER28> While I am a fan of the project, what's stopping your ISP from disabling or crippling all IPFS/P2P traffic?

<comment><USER8> Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The only solution to this is to organize and fight for NN in legislation at this point. All of these alternative internet systems are a complete waste of time until someone tells me how they're going to get around traffic shaping at the backbone level. There's not going to be a continent-wide wireless mesh network either.

I know regulations can be anathema to many HN readers, but if there was ever a justification for one, it's the 2015 Open Internet Order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Your last point is one that I find the most troubling. That NN would mean that the freedom of data is being subverted. Imagine the company (YC:2020!!) that could position themselves to be junctions on those disparate networks. I am sure there is a YC app being completed right now!

</comment><comment><USER29> A problem with the fragmented internet is at the current stage it wont be able to match the speeds. So some sort of non-neutrality would have to be possible anyway, otherwise people watching netflix would render the network unusable for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone know how to skip an ISP and plug directly into the internet?

<comment><USER19> Become an ISP

[https://hackaday.com/2017/11/18/becoming-your-own-isp- just-f...](https://hackaday.com/2017/11/18/becoming-your-own-isp-just-for- fun/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pai won't get away with it - he will likely lose in court. The problem is, that this will shift to the Congress, which is plagued by the same corruption.

</comment><comment><USER32> _> I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free information exchange are going to start popping up._

I don't think they would allow that.

<comment><USER26> That is the beautiful part implemented correctly, they wont have the chance to object. Heaven help all of us should it come to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> You don't need NN if you just pay per byte.

<comment><USER34> That's a separate issue. Even if you pay per byte, the ISP can charge more for bytes from one domain than from another, or refuse to transmit some bytes.

<comment><USER33> That's true, but when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to get you as many bytes as possible. I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs _want_ to be able to throttle isn't some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly providers, but simply to advertise more bandwidth than they have - in the past that's been fine because most customers didn't use much. But now that IP has replaced dedicated video bandwidth in the form of cable and FTA, the usage patterns no longer support that, because most customers are using shitloads of bandwidth- and more importantly, they're all doing it at the same time when they get home from work and sit down to watch some telly.

<comment><USER34> > when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to get you as > many bytes as possible

Yes, all other things being equal. But if the ISP owns a video streaming service, all other things aren't equal. Bytes from their own service bring them more revenue.

> I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs want to be able to throttle isn't > some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly providers, but simply to > advertise more bandwidth than they have

This would also be nefarious.

"We said we can deliver X but we can't, so let's selectively degrade our service to make it seem like we can" is a nefarious plan.

An honest plan would be to advertise "up to X Mbps, minimum of Y Mbps, charges prorated by available speed" and deliver on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How would this affect crypto currencies?

<comment><USER36> Consider that there is no way to inject ads or snoop on the sites you visit. There is no way they can productize crypto currencies. Unless they can steal it, or make you mine them on your machines for the ISP. So they'll probably cut them off to reduce the load on the network so they can spend less on infrastructure and stop any needed upgrades.

<comment><USER35> I was referring from the perspective of:

\- how the network would respond to degraded connectivity.

\- which protocol is more resilient? bitcoin, ethereum, etc.

<comment><USER36> Probably take forever to verify something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is one of the main reasons I am not panicked about net neutrality. Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's primary sponsors: Google and Netflix.

I think there are ISP options that net neutrality prohibits which are _worth exploring for some people_ , and if repealing net neutrality benefits decentralization or creates a radical shift in the Internet design instead, I won't consider that a catastrophic outcome.

Fragmentation, in this context, is the negative connotation of the word decentralization.

<comment><USER38> "Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's primary sponsors: Google and Netflix."

You clearly don't understand how any of this works. _Not_ having NN is much closer to what you're describing, as it will stop new competitors from being able to compete, because the big guys can pay to always be faster/cheaper/more accessible/free.

<comment><USER37> I heavily disagree. Google and Netflix together account for approximately 70-80% of all Internet traffic. All of the rest of the Internet is a footnote from the standpoint of traffic management.

The understanding that is so often missed here, is that Google and Netflix are large enough that ISPs want to negotiate those arrangements individually, because it's a significant part of their business. None of their competitors, none of the startups, even make a _blip_ on the radar of an ISP.

If ISPs start billing websites, they will be sending out bills to two companies, and only those two companies.</comment></comment></comment>


Parents naming their babies after Instagram photo filters - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/12/01/stop-naming-your-kids-after-instagram-filters-really/ <comment><AUTHOR> Link to original article, [http://www.babycenter.com/0_hottest-baby-name- trends-of-2015...](http://www.babycenter.com/0_hottest-baby-name-trends- of-2015_10408983.bc)</comment>


Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world - <AUTHOR> http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/tenprinciples.pdf

<comment><USER2> Making financial subjects into moral parables is not an effective way to deal with complexity. Simplicity will fall naturally out of the process of refining derivatives markets. Insurance is a derivative. Options are derivatives. Common Stock is actually arguably a derivative as well. Welcome to capitalism! Complexity is born of there being lots of people on Earth who trade goods and services. No way back except to wish calamity on us all?

<comment><USER3> > Simplicity will fall naturally out of the process of refining derivatives > markets.

Is there any empirical evidence that this is true?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Original source: [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11de-996a-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11de-996a-00144feabdc0.html)

needs Google referrer, though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Taleb's point is that there no real way to create a Black Swan proof world, but that by applying a few straight forward rules the impact of a Black Swan Event can be kept bounded. He also believes, that reckless behavior should not be encouraged by social and/or economic policies.

</comment><comment><USER6> Am I misreading number point two or does it basically say, "One mistake and you are out?"

<comment><USER7> Basically, he's saying that we should allow banks to go bankrupt instead of bailing them out.

<comment><USER8> Here's what he actually said. It's pretty clear:

      2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be
      bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be
      free, small and riskbearing.

And the next sentence criticises what was done.

      We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the
      1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took
      over the government. This is surreal.

<comment><USER6> Yikes, I just realized that I put down the wrong point. Point 3 was the one I objected to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never > need to "restore confidence".

I wholeheartedly disagree. Confidence in this instance is just trust that your assets won't suddenly become worthless or your standard of living won't drop drastically overnight. It is a GOOD thing that I have the choice to have or not have confidence in the Government. It means (a) I am not expected to have blind faith and (b) I have the right to assess the level of risk involved in trading and conduct my economic activities accordingly. I absolutely need the Government to restore consumer confidence in the housing market before I buy a new house. Last time people felt overconfident about the housing market, it caused a boom and bust.

<comment><USER10> What do they think money is? It's basically just fungible units of "confidence". Or maybe "trust" is a better word. That goes for gold as well as the "fiat" variety.

<comment><USER11> You have misinterpreted this completely. The linked PDF doesn't mention fiat currency once. NNT says a lot of bullshit, but it's amazing how willing people are to comment without even reading the paper and taking some time to reflect upon it.

<comment><USER10> No, but it did mention "confidence". My point is that that is the entire basis for money. Deep down, the economy is psychological. You can't "shrug it off" and "remain robust" when the people who make up the economy stop believing in it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Give me a free trial, damn it - <AUTHOR> http://codeisking.posterous.com/give-me-a-free-trial-damn-it

<comment><USER2> This may apply with OS X apps, but with iOS apps it doesn't make sense. For $0.99 you have little to lose if you download my app and you hate it, but to make a dumbed down free version that will entice you to buy my paid app I have to redesign it. I have to think from a marketing perspective. What can I take out to make it painful enough for you to buy? Do I put in a nag screen? Do I put it on a timer? If I am going to do all that I might as well make the app free and put in iAds.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, as you can see in the article, he's talking about the Mac App Store. For iOS i can agree with your view. It is absolutely fine, to sell a $0.99 App without any trial or free version. But for $9.99 or more, it is a pig in the poke situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is it against app store policy to release a free app, then lock it down after 30 days (or some other time period) if they don't pay (purchase an in app payment or subscription)? That is a traditional "free trial" approach, but I don't think apple even let's you do it.</comment>


Installing Backtrack on the Chromebook - <AUTHOR> http://mihirsingh.com/kali-on-chromebook/ I had previously submitted the article on a .xxx domain but people were unhappy... here it is on a .com. <comment><AUTHOR> I had previously submitted this on a .xxx domain but some people couldn't see it... So, here it is on a .com domain.</comment>


The cost of games - <AUTHOR> https://www.raphkoster.com/2018/01/17/the-cost-of-games/ <comment><USER2> <rant>

This is a prime example of the practice of lying with numbers. There are two very basic "cost" graphs which are notably missing from this narrative, and the addition of "bytes" as a major factor in deciding the value of a game to players.

The two missing graphs are: Cost per unit sold, and revenue per unit sold. As basic as these are to any good cost/benefit analysis, their absence indicates that they do not agree with the narrative that the price of games needs to go up; that companies need to milk more money out of their customers.

As for bytes, the presence or absence of bytes has no practical impact on the value of a game to a consumer. If it did, Duke Nukem Forever would be a game worthy of game of the century, whereas Faster Than Light would be forever consigned to the scrapheap.

Perhaps the most telling in this narrative is EA's own comment to investors that shutting down the sale of lootboxes in Battlefront would not result in them losing money. This indicates that retail sales alone were sufficient to offset the cost of development, licensing, and marketing.

</rant>

I also don't condone piracy, but to imply that we should feel sorry for these companies who are barely scraping by is blatantly dishonest. It is especially dishonest when you consider that the bigger publishers (the ones making the outlier games on all of those cost charts) have annual profits in the billions while (oops, rant didn't end) they prey on those susceptible to gambling addictions.

<comment><USER3> Not everything is a conspiracy. I know the author of this article and he is a straightforward person.

The game industry is a big place with many different kinds of people in it, all of whom have different motivations.

If you build a picture for yourself wherein everyone is That Guy At EA Who Put Loot Boxes Into Battlefront 2, then that picture will probably get in the way of your understanding what everyone is being said by everyone else in the industry who is not that one guy.

This article is targeted primarily _at developers_ , not at gamers. It is an "oh crap what do we do" article, because believe me, that is a big problem and in general we do not know what to do.

This was not some "cost of games need to go up because blah blah" justification article ... it is a straightforward look at what has been happening and some musings about what we can do about it, with "cost of games will probably rise" thrown in as a 6-word aside near the end (at which time he also points out that nobody wants to do this, which is true).

You're reading the article you want to read, not the article that the author wrote.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Thanks for making Braid that was great

2\. I believe you that the author is a straightforward person and I don't think there's anything malicious here. Still, it's not a good dataset. It's 250 data points collected in an ad hoc way. A single decision like "do we include PUBG or not" can sway every statistic in here. So I don't think it's a good idea to make any conclusions based on this data.

<comment><USER5> If you have a better data set on which to make decisions, feel free to share it. People need to make the best decisions they can with the information available to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Play time in my Steam library is overwhelmingly tilted towards just a few titles. Overwhelmingly, these are older, sandboxy games that have had strong modding scenes. The number one game in my library is Medieval Total War 2. I believe I paid $10, on sale, for it plus all of its expansions. After Steam, and Sega took their cuts, Creative Assembly got a pittance, and I've gotten over a thousand hours of gameplay. The community mod makers that expanded that game massively (those that didn't end up hired by CA, anyway) never made a red cent for their labors of love. I love that game, and it's a tremendous value for me.

Much as I dislike it, trickle out DLC and in-app purchases are one way to try to extract more value out of that massive investment. But it's a tough proposition, going against everything that already exists. I could never buy another game, and have more gameplay available to me than I could ever exhaust in multiple lifetimes.

People will always make games, because they love doing it. But it's not really rational; you've got to be good _and_ catch lightning in a bottle

</comment><comment><USER7> "If you want to preserve the games you love, you can help by not pirating,"

conflicts with:

Did Nintendo actually sell us a Mario ROM on the Virtual Console?

[https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/01/22/nintendo-virtual- co...](https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/01/22/nintendo-virtual-console- super-mario-rom/)

Or if you go onto a retro gaming site like GOG you'll see that many of the "extras" are from pirated sources.

<comment><USER8> > Or if you go onto a retro gaming site like GOG you'll see that many of the > "extras" are from pirated sources.

Can you give one or two examples of this?

<comment><USER9> I'd be interested as well. Certainly being DRM-free GOG.com's content typically ends up on torrent sites, but I haven't heard of it the other way around—though there are of course various examples of pirated content appearing in officially published downloads elsewhere I've read about and even experienced first-hand. One that comes to mind was 90s hip-hop act De La Soul generously releasing their discography for free during Valentines Day a few years back to promote a new record, which from some ID3 tags mentioned the source were pirated copies.

You have to wonder when an artist finds it easier to copy the albums from such sources than from the collection of their own.

<comment><USER10> > but I haven't heard of it the other way around

I can't find the article I read this from, but a few years ago (back when GoG was 'Good Old Games'), there was an article about how license holders often didn't have any of the actual game material, they just happened to own the license to them through mergers / aquisitions / bankruptcies / whatever. So GoG would have to track down old published copies of games for them (either through second hand shops, or eBay, or the internet) and then restore them (using a combination of internet / open source tools, or their own work), in order to sell them on their store.

Presumably, if the internet 'pirates' had not done the work of backing this software up and preserving it, a number of GoG's titles simply would not exist today in any form, and could no longer be sold (even if the license holders wanted to)

I would imagine downloading a 'pirated' copy of the work _is not piracy_ when you already hold a valid legal license to that work, by definition.

<comment><USER11> >I would imagine downloading a 'pirated' copy of the work is not piracy when you already hold a valid legal license to that work, by definition.

You are not necessarily in the clear; it depends on type of license you have, and whatever personal copy/fair use protections your country has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Price per MB is a questionable metric that I think the author made insufficient effort to justify. The PS3, for instance, sent game sizes skyrocketing in an effort to try to demonstrate the perks of blu-ray. A number of games included all audio localizations on each disc in lossless formats. That likely saved studios money since localized distribution could all come from the same production line, but it sent the $/megabyte way down which this author implies means studios are earning less. It's a nonsensical datum without some justification and that justification was not provided in this article.

I also think that that datum leads to questionable conclusions. For instance you're paying _vastly_ more for AAA games today than you were in the past. The author is right that the upfront cost is certainly much lower, but we've changed from a model where you're paying for a fully fleshed out game to one where you pay for a stripped down product that is intended to be sold piecemeal. In many cases users are paying to unlock content that is literally already on the disc they purchased. That first $60 you pay is simply your "starter pack." And there are additional 'meta costs' as well. Instead of simply putting the game in and running it you're instead obligated to pay an annual fee to use your own internet connection and then exposed to various advertisements on your way to launching the game and games themselves increasingly even feature more advertisements on their launch screens. These advertisements, in effect, increase the cost to the player if we assume they are effective.

Why not use profit margins? Total revenue / (total development + total marketing)? In either case, it doesn't really matter. Games are like music in that they are self sustaining since people will continue develop them even absent a profit motive. This is even more true today thanks to platforms like Steam removing the necessity of publishers from the entire industry. Seeing the end of 'fee-to-pay' or AAA games would bother me no more than seeing the end of Justin Biebers.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are two forecasts at the end based on exponential growth. The thing to remember about exponential growth is that it is inherently unsustainable. Consider Moore's law. I once read part of a book from 2005-ish about the singularity whose basic premise was that by ~2050 or so we'd have enough computing power to stuff orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more power into a now-sized CPU. And this was in a completely serious tone, mind you. Now we see the slow demise of Moore's law over the past 3-5 years and it seems ridiculous that we could have ever believed something like that just a decade ago!

The state of advancement in the fields of human society, technology, and science, at their current rates, is such that around 2500 all of human society will be overturned every week, day, hell, minute or so. Which obviously is nonsensical.

Note also, however, that forecast #2's best-fit line doesn't seem to fit the points very well...

<comment><USER14> Exponential growth can be sustained for millions of years, see life on earth. Moore's law lives on in GPUs and TPUs.

<comment><USER15> Total biomass actually peaked 540 million years ago, at the end of the Proterozoic era. See Figure 2 (on page 88) in Franck et al.: Causes and timing of future biosphere extinctions.

Link: [https://www.biogeosciences.net/3/85/2006/bg-3-85-2006.pdf](https://www.biogeosciences.net/3/85/2006/bg-3-85-2006.pdf)

<comment><USER16> You are not contradicting the parent at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just looking on Bungie LinkedIn, they employ 800 employees. Industry standard burn rate per month is 10k. So around 96m a year minimum. They will have tonnes of outsourcing expenses, testing etc etc.

So Destiny 2 on 3 year cycle at minimum 300m on dev costs alone, most likely higher.

<comment> aaron-lebo The worst part is it's a beautiful but poorly-made game. Even their biggest fans hate what they've done.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7raulk/bungie_has_ab...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7raulk/bungie_has_absolutely_bungled_its_communication/)

[https://www.pcgamesn.com/destiny-2/destiny-2-reboot-jason- sc...](https://www.pcgamesn.com/destiny-2/destiny-2-reboot-jason-schreier)

What good is employing 800 people and spending 100 million a year to develop a bad final product? If you want to know where the tech industry can be attacked, it's in that massive inefficiency.

<comment><USER18> >If you want to know where the tech industry can be attacked, it's in that massive inefficiency.

How is this different from any large, ambitious project? It's also essentially an art project where you have to make content people enjoy, so engineering resources won't save the day like they can in tech. And you can end up in a place where your lead visionary ended up in a place where they just couldn't deliver on it or it just wasn't the necessary vision, so you have to replace them.

Seems weird to ascribe all this to "tech". Turns out, things are hard. To me, Destiny 2's failure has more in parallel with the fact that most people never finish developing a game nor writing a book.

<comment> aaron-lebo It's probably not much different, but tech is a force multiplier, and we are discussing the tech industry. There are many companies that are oversized. It doesn't take 800 people to make a mediocre game. You can make a great one with 8, but many big orgs aren't structured in a way to take advantage of that.

If your goal is to put out the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster every few years, then that model "works" (or it works for the publisher), but if you want to make a great game, there must be better ways of doing it.

You don't reboot a project of that size a little over a year before release without major management issues (this is not even counting the issues that saw Joe Staten and a lot of the old Bungie team leave in the middle of Destiny 1). By all accounts, Destiny 2 is a step backwards from the original. If you've got a working engine and a lot of artists and virtually unlimited resources (as Bungie did), all you've got to do is not fuck things up. But they did.

There's an inefficiency there that's preventing good games from being made, and it's not just because things are hard, because they did most of the hard stuff 4 years ago.

<comment><USER19> > It doesn't take 800 people to make a mediocre game. You can make a great one > with 8, but many big orgs aren't structured in a way to take advantage of > that.

There is no sure path to making a great game (or a great anything), so corporate entities cannot depend on it - investors demand predictability. What they CAN depend on though is throwing hundreds of people into making a game of unknown quality (probably mediocre) but with amazing assets, and possibly with an outside IP (a Batman game etc.). So far, this strategy seems to be a valid one.

<comment><USER20> I don't know, some studios seem to have found a formula for consistently producing above average games. Look at From, Bethesda (the developers not the publishers) or Valve. I think it may have a lot to do with giving a medium sized team a long time, rather than a long one a short time.

<comment><USER21> Bethesda games are uniformly buggy piles of crap that are only fixed after 100s of hours of modded in fixes. Bethesda is only saved as an entity because they embrace modding.

Valve is a very bad example, yes they consistently make above average games, however they don't make many and as a dev studio i'm sure valve is deep in the red, they don't make money on their games, they make money on steam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Getting Over It: With Bennet Foddy breaks all these rules and was wildly successful.

The Witness sold at $40 and people bought it anyway.

Good games will sell. But you might not have a good game.

The market doesn't owe you anything.

Also what kind of bogus metric is "price per MB"?

<comment><USER23> I don't think it's necessarily true that good games will sell. Some will, sure, but others may not. There are massive numbers of games that fly under the radar and never really catch on, and some of these are bound to be good. Like anything else, there's an element of luck involved. Simply being good is not enough.

Price per MB seems like an attempt to capture the amount of work that goes into a game, but I agree it's not a great metric. You can decrease price per megabyte just by shipping models and textures with higher resolution, even though they don't cost you anything more to create.

</comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo This is interesting coming from Koster who was the lead designer of some of the the most interesting MMOs ever made in _Ultima Online_ and _Star Wars Galaxies_.

SWG had the misfortune of releasing in 2003, by 2005 EA was trying to compete with WoW and within a few years had nuked the game so much that they ended up canceling it. There is a great emulator out there for it, though the game at this point shows its age.

</comment><comment><USER24> Maybe the solution is to reuse or share content a bit more? Seems wasteful, for example, that the huge worlds created for some of todays AAA open world games are used only for those games.

</comment><comment><USER25> Money is important, but is there a place here to discuss the 'time' cost of games? Games are a useful tool for relaxation and other purposes (and a comparatively inexpensive hobby) but in my case it is easy to get carried away! For my most serious addiction I have chosen to time-box my gaming by only paying for two months each update (every other year-ish).

It takes conscious effort and self discipline to change direction toward creation instead of consumption. The tiny bit of gamification here on HN has me completely hooked, but I cling to the notion that my participation is creating some value (however slight). I look forward to the day when maintaining CRUD web apps is properly gamified, so I can earn money playing games!

PS. There is another opportunity cost of games vs. alternatives which require strenuous physical exertion that cumulatively improve health and conditioning (exercise, sports, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER26> I still play Morrowind regularly (it came out in 2003), and I sometimes wonder if gamedev would be more sustainable if we focused on increasing the half life of games. I think that approach is more viable with single player experiences, since multiplayer is more dependent on a critical mass of players.

<comment><USER27> Isn't this the opposite of the solution, though? If devs only made games that lasted 15 years, they would probably sell way fewer games in aggregate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cost per bytes? Makes no sense at all.

However cost per hours played... That would be a metric worth exploring. Using some combination of how many people own it, how many hours played on average and cost of game... That would give you the 'value' of each game.

[http://steamcharts.com/top](http://steamcharts.com/top)

I think back to a game like Manic Miner which was less than 48kB, giving me hours more fun than say Don't Starve (still a good game), which cost me a few bucks on sale and I've played about half an hour... yet comes with a 600Meg install size.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is pirating still a huge issue? Granted, I'm not a broke college student any more, but with the ease of Steam and outrageous sales and giveaways, I'm amazed even broke kids would still bother.</comment>


Videos from the Future Programming Workshop 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.future-programming.org/program.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Talk titles include:

"Dynamic Organisms in Céu"

"Shadershop"

"Lamdu - towards a next generation IDE"

"Two-way Dataflow"

"Moonchild"

"Traveling through Time and Code: Omniscient Debugging and Beyond"

"CodeHint: Dynamic and Interactive Synthesis for Modern IDEs"

"Genyris"

"Version Control Optimized for Teaching and Learning"

"Kaya: Declarative Reactive"

"Leisure overview"

"Virtual World Framework & OMeta: collaborative programming of distributed objects with user defined languages"</comment>


Big ideas from "Inspired" that helped me feel more confident as an entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.zacharyburt.com/2011/01/big-ideas-from-marty-cagans-inspired-that-helped-me-feel-more-confident-on-how-to-proceed-with-my-business/ <comment><USER2> The best part of the book is that each chapter is o Ly like 4 pages. So it doesn't spend 40 pages on one simple concept if it can be explained in 2 pages.

The bad side is that it only has a minimum number of examples. More examples would have been nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> In your post you present a lot of new information that could help your business but you don't have a lot of experience in those matters. Don't let this stop you from trying them. Instead learn as you go. Keep them under constant surveillance. Figure out what you want a strategy to accomplish. As you utilize it, if it isn't leading you to your goal, cut it off. If it is then foster and encourage it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any idea where can I purchase an epub version? I try not to buy printed book and I have no access to Kindle.</comment>


Hyper-Practical Tips on Starting Your Own Company - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/fifteen_hyper-practical_tips_o.html

<comment><USER3> Here are the highlights:

* Use Quickbooks.

* Make it a Delaware C-Corporation.

* Put 100% of expenditures on a single credit card.

* Practice interviewing.

* Let the law firm handle your cap table

* Print long emails. You'll actually read them.

* Get Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance early.

* Buy a computer and chair you like.

* Pay yourself something.

* Always get Proprietary Inventions Agreements from every employee and contractor.

* Never ask for an NDA from third parties, (with three exceptions)

* ... decide when your company's "day" starts

* Rent month to month.

* Get good t-shirts.

* Pick a company name based on URL availability.

Now if you care, go read the article.

<comment><USER4> > Print long emails. You'll actually read them.

It is working ?

<comment><USER3> Why are you asking me? I'm just summarising the article to help save people time.

<comment><USER5> other people will read that question too..

<comment><USER3> I can't parse that. What question will other people read?

I summarised the article - if you want to know more, go read it - <USER2> justifications are there. I don't understand why people should ask me the questions.

<comment><USER3> OK, color me deeply confused. I provided a summary so people could decide whether they wanted to go and read the article. Then I get asked a question:

      Article> Print long emails. You'll actually read them.
      Pella> It is working ?

Why ask me? I didn't write the article, I just read it and provided the bullet points. If you want to know more, go to the original. For one thing, I personally don't print long emails because I don't usually get long emails. For another, I'm not the original author.

So when I asked why I'm being asked the question, the reply comes:

      fgf>  other people will read that question too..

Well, I don't understand that comment. People will read _what_ question?

So I say that, asking for clarification. And both comments get down-voted?

I just don't understand. Please, if someone can enlighten me on this issue I'd appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We need more posts like this. The nuts and bolts of bootstrapping. Too many articles talking about what to do at step 43, need more about steps 2-5.

Speaking of, has anybody had success with rather than dumping the 9-5 and jumping straight into your startup, tried going contractor for a while and use the down time to work on the start-up?

<comment><USER7> I didn't find the article particularly helpful actually. Didn't learn anything new. But maybe in the sense of the author pushing his own opinion/bias it was useful: if you trust him, it makes decisionmaking earier. Things like "Use Quickbooks", "Do the Delaware Dance" are just opinion.

<comment><USER8> I agree. He makes it sound like a Delaware C corp a no-brainer, but it's a lot more complex than that. Delaware is geared toward larger companies but and is great if you plan to get acquired. the legal system in Delaware is very favorable to corporations. I don't think it's right for every business, or every businessperson.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Quickbooks really is the best thing going then somebody should invent a better Quickbooks. It really is a terrible piece of software with terrible support.

</comment><comment><USER10> This link already submitted. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1612299>

</comment><comment><USER11> Quite insightful compared to your run-of-the-mill checklists. I guess it wouldn't have come up on hbr.org otherwise. Its nice it covers some really diverse aspects of a business.

I am glad I have followed some of them which I was already aware of and gotta agree, definitely got some new things to think about from this list.

</comment><comment><USER12> what do you need to make it a delaware C-Corporation? any source or url?

<comment><USER13> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_General_Corporation_La...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_General_Corporation_Law)</comment></comment>


How does HN keep the signal:noise ratio high? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a journalist and contributing editor at Tech Review. I've been lucky to have some of my work featured on HN, and I find it a consistently excellent source of thought-provoking ideas. I'm wondering how 1) HN keeps the signal:noise ratio high, and 2) whether this might be generalizable to other communities on the web. I hope to include any responses to this question in a write-up on Tech Review. Thanks. <comment><USER2> An army of human editors who filter out the noise.

<comment><USER3> And to add to this, give more control to regulate the comments/submissions to users with higher Karma points. it becomes a privilege to those people spending more time to give value to the community, to also curate the comments.

<comment><USER4> On the flipside, this also tends to promote group-think and echo-chamber symptoms. It's an interesting thought experiment how to best balance things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i) A clear set things which are known to be off-topic. (Topics which are almost entirely polarising, where you're never going to change someone's opinion, and normally not welcome here.)

ii) Insisting on reasonable behaviour, letting users know what's expected, and being able to down mod them when they fail.

iii) Use of down arrows only to moderate unsuitable comments, not just comments with which you disagree.

iv) A niche target audience, who may need to buy / sell things to from each other, or who may work for each other, or who may need to raise money etc etc.

If you're interested in online communities I usually recommend "meatball wiki", but that's more about wikis.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It seems as if, beyond the mechanics of the site, iv) is the most important. Reddit has all the tools of HN, does it not? Yet it's much more dillute, and still has trolls.</comment></comment>


Apple Confirms It's Working on an Ultra-Powerful Mac Pro Update - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/12/15/apple-mac-pro-update-2/ <comment><USER2> Neither Apple's statement nor Fortune's article about the statement contains the words "ultra-powerful."

Here's the entire statement, taken from the end of the iMac Pro press release: "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest performance, high-throughput system in a modular, upgradeable design, as well as a new high-end pro display."

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/12/imac-pro-the-most- pow...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/12/imac-pro-the-most-powerful-mac- ever-available-today/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I happened to write an email to Tim & Phil today (or whomever reads those public addresses) saying:

      - My maxed out 2012 rMBP is going to be obsolete soon.
      - The laptops available have unsatisfactory trackpads and keyboards.
      - Those same laptops have poor I/O for professional use cases.
      - There is no reasonable desktop solution either (I don't consider Late 2017 iMac Pro to be as good of an answer as a 2003 Mac Tower design with upgradable components, or just a custom Windows PC).

If they continue to sacrifice sleek design and limited I/O on laptops, and provide what I think is a lackluster long-term desktop solution, I have no clue what I'll buy when this machine bites the dust (someday)

<comment><USER4> Sounds like Apple computers just aren't for you then and you should switch to some other hardware.

Personally I love my 2017 MBP, the keyboard, trackpad, and USB-C ports.

<comment><USER5> I'm with you there. Small gripe with the keyboard is when it heats up the clickiness changes or goes away - like the keys stick. Since all of their modern laptops have this issue there's no point in returning it like everyone suggests.

No idea what op was complaining about with the trackpad. It's simply the best on the market.

<comment><USER6> If you're talking about the keyboard on the MBP 2016 or 2017 I don't know what you're talking about. My keyboard works fine all day long - so does my office mate who has the same keyboard and who codes on it all day.

<comment><USER5> 2017 for sure. The MacBook has the same problem. Run the run until it throttles and tap the keys around the middle right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh fuck, just give me a decent keyboard on the MBP. Is that so much to ask?

<comment><USER8> I like the feel of the new keyboards but I've heard that they're much less reliable. (keys get stuck with the smallest of debris). And since Apple's obsessed with integrating everything now, you have to replace the entire assembly for a stuck key, which costs something like $500. And that's an absolutely ridiculous tradeoff and the epitome of "form over function"

I don't have one but my wife's new laptop has the keyboard. I really hope we don't have to deal with that.

<comment><USER9> Friend with a 15" MBP just went through it this week. Shift key got stuck in the down position.

He took it to an authorized service center and the solution was to replace the entire top case assembly. That includes the case, keyboard, touchbar, trackpad, battery, and I'm not sure what else.

It's out of stock on PowerBookMedic, but their price on this part is $800. Eight. Hundred. Dollars. For a single broken key. This is _insane_.

I have a 13" version and I'm very concerned. I've got Apple Care but I'm careful with my laptops and I expect them to last more than 3 years.

[http://www.powerbookmedic.com/MacBook-Pro-15-w--Touch-Bar- To...](http://www.powerbookmedic.com/MacBook-Pro-15-w--Touch-Bar-Top-Case- with-Battery-Late-2016-Space-Gray-p-133625.html)

<comment><USER8> We got AppleCare for exactly this reason. But I'm not even sure it's covered.

Her past laptop was $1,100 (2010 MacBook Air) and lasted 7 years. If this one ($1,500) doesn't last that long, it'll be a waste of money.

<comment><USER9> Similar boat, my previous laptop was a 2011 MacBook Air, the one before that I think was 2006.

FWIW my friend's replacement was covered. Not sure how much of that is the shop's judgement on "well you shouldn't have gotten dust in it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use a 2013 Mac Pro at work, and it's a really nice machine. It's running Ubuntu 16.04, and the huge amount of cores are great for compiling.</comment>


53% of 'light' AWS users are paying too much - <AUTHOR> http://webdev360.com/53-of-light-aws-users-are-paying-too-much-42187.html

<comment><USER2> This article discredits itself:

      Newvem does not provide any information on how it defines the 'light user'
      category, but [...] The company is also somewhat vague about the area under
      consideration -- do the figures refer to computing power (EC2), storage
      (S3), or the whole AWS package combined?

There is really nothing of substance to see here. On the other hand, the main point being made is probably not wrong. It makes sense for most server owners who only experience light traffic to have 99%+ of their EC2 capacity unused.

For example, I rent a Micro instance for all my stuff and server load is mostly 0.00 with less than 3% of CPU utilization - that's a couple of dynamic websites with about 8-10 HTTP requests per second overall. I'm willing to bet there are a lot of customers out there having an even lower traffic rate and Micro _is_ the smallest server you can rent so of course there will be a lot of unused capacity.

<comment><USER3> Don't know if it's the same definition, but their GigaOM post defines light as: "light" AWS users — those with fewer than 8 instances [http://gigaom.com/cloud/newvem-pulls-back-the-curtain-on- ama...](http://gigaom.com/cloud/newvem-pulls-back-the-curtain-on-amazon-cloud- usage/)

Obviously it wouldn't make sense for people who only use micro instances, but then again people who only use one micro instance don't use a third party cost management tool.

<comment><USER4> Yes this is correct. Those numbers are based on data published at <http://www.newvem.com/topic/cloud-radar>. For reference, light user are those with up to 8 instances, medium users have between 9 and 35 instances, and heavy users above 35. We didn't publish the total number of users in each segment, but I can confirm that that the survey was based on a sample of around 200 customers, as mentioned in GigaOm's article

The reason we chose to segment by number of instances is that we consider this as a good metric for the complexity of one's cloud footprint, and the corresponding effort required to manage this footprint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of the excess charges I saw during my AWS consulting were due to dev/test environments with fat 64-bit instances that were left running overnight and during the weekends.

Why? It's relatively easy to stand up environments in the cloud, but shutting them off and redeploying takes forever. There is no efficient way to turn complex stacks off and on without a massive time investment from the cloud ops team.

OpDemand solves this with a management toolbar that includes stop/restart functionality. Under the hood we use a combination of EBS volumes and configuration management to allow users to put their cloud environments on ice when not in use. Restarting everything on Monday is a 1-click affair.

</comment><comment><USER6> OK, this is probably correct, but so what? Keeping a prepaid micro and/or small instance running all of the time is more a matter of convenience than cost effectiveness.

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like a study driven by a marketing department.

I think there's an assumption here that idle or stopped servers are bad in themselves. There's definitely a cost associated with spinning up and configuring a new instance, so I don't think this assumption always holds true.</comment>


Daily caffeine 'protects brain' - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7326839.stm <comment><USER2> This reminds me of "The Suit is Back" phenomena pg expressed in his submarine essay. I see so many articles that say coffee is healthy that it actually makes me question it more.

<comment><USER3> (possibly misinterpreted) medical research is on par with PR fluff/astroturfing, huh?

<comment><USER2> Yes and no. Not all medical research is created equal. The tobacco industry has done a lot of "research" that's not scientifically honest. Google news used to be my home page and once a week in the health section there was an article about coffee. My mom is a coffee junkie and she always talks about the latest coffee health story in the washington post. I'm not levying a formal accusation of foul play, I'm just saying that coffee articles get a disproportionate amount of play for their importance in human health.

<comment><USER4> (1) Because of how much money coffee generates for its producers and (especially) retailers, I'd guess there are a lot of industry funds being slushed around for research and PR.

(2) Even so, it would be possible to account for far more articles about coffee than would be "proportional" to the magnitude of its health effects, simply because of how wildly popular it is, and its role as a modern 'social icon' of sorts.

Put (1) and (2) together and you get the media equivalent of a caffeine addiction.

<comment><USER2> Right on. Combine that with an ambient fear that coffee is bad for you and we may have an explanation.

<comment><USER5> My gut tells me this whole caffeine craze is going to be a major health concern in 10-20 years. The amount of caffeine people consume versus 20 years ago is absolutely insane.

I used to drink the equivalent of 12 shots of espresso a day. In fact, I could rock out a cup of nasty NYC bodega sludge and fall asleep 20 minutes later. Now I can't drink it at all lest I have a panic attack, save a small decaf in the morning to fool my brain.

Caffeinism, caffeine allergy and caffeine induced organic mental disorder are real things.

I also wonder if there is any causality between the decline in the number of smokers and the rise in the amount of caffeine we consume.

<comment><USER6> _I also wonder if there is any causality between the decline in the number of smokers and the rise in the amount of caffeine we consume._

That wouldn't surprise me at all. The idea that people with addictions often substitute one addictive behavior for another is conventional wisdom in counseling circles, I believe.

But I'm a former cancer researcher, I know people who have drunk themselves to death, and I have friends who counsel heroin addicts. So trust me when I say this: Caffeine is an _excellent_ alternative.

At least you were able to stop drinking caffeine, and we're pretty sure that your liver or lungs aren't going to explode in ten years from the espresso abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First its bad for you, then its good - I wish they would make up their mind!

I actually don't like the taste of coffee, which makes me a bit of a weirdo apparently, but I believe you can get your caffeine hit from tea instead (or red bull if your really brave!) - but I tend to avoid those too. I would hate to think that I need a hit of caffeine through the day just to keep me awake.

Feel sleepy in the mornings? Goto the gym before work.

Feel sleepy in the afternoon - go for a walk or get away from your desk for a while. I always find those two things wake me up better than anything else.

<comment><USER8> amen on the afternoon walks... i recently kicked an 8 cup a day habit and, besides afternoon grogginess, I feel frikin' great. Getting up and walking around usually does the trick better than a bump of caffeine any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i worked a barista for a year at yahoo hq when i was much younger. they gave out free espresso drinks (how i wish my fortune 100 company would do the same) and other stuff so there were always customers waiting to get their morning go-juice.

the problem was that the heavy drinkers became extremely dependent on caffeine to function properly. some would literally shake from having deprived of coffee while others would tell me to low-fat milk when mixing their caramel machiattos with whipped cream because they want to lose weight.

i myself never touch coffee products.

<comment><USER10> > while others would tell me to low-fat milk when mixing their caramel > machiattos with whipped cream because they want to lose weight.

Magic milk! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like, excepting for artificial foods like twinkies, doritos, coke, etc, there's a trend toward stronger-flavor being more nutritious. I'm thinking of coffee, broccoli, liver, chocolate, red wine, and even produce. Modern-day produce is sold by the pound and bloated with water, unless it's organic. I notice, probably because of this, organic produce has a stronger taste. I remember an NPR program discussing how, per pound, produce is less nutritious now than 50 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER12> Then my brain is a Sherman Tank.

</comment><comment><USER13> In a related topic, it seems that pulsed microwaves (such as GSM signals) increase the blood-brain barrier permeability. Could that explain their cognitive effects? Could caffeine protect from GSM hazards?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you illustrate your books? - <AUTHOR> What tools do you recommend for illustrating a technical book on basic programming (Yes there are over 2^100 already but mine will be hard to miss :P). I am considering some master art works of arrays, and other data structures that appear drawn by the master artists. There was a link posted on HN this year if not this month. I really regret not bookmarking it. <comment><USER2> I haven't personally written any books, but I have seen this blog article [1] written by Bob Nystrom. He talks about creating his book (about writing an interpreter) in general, but there is a part dedicated to explaining how he illustrated the book by hand and scanned the pictures to include them in the book.

Maybe such a low-tech solution will suit you.

[1] [http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2020/04/05/crafting- crafti...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2020/04/05/crafting-crafting- interpreters/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is the article I regretted notbookmarking. Thank You.</comment></comment>


Sean Parker: Now Is the Most Toxic Time Ever In Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-parker-now-is-the-most-toxic-time-ever-in-silicon-valley-2012-10

<comment><USER2> Sob story by a company that doesn't have a price? It seems to me that Jason Fried is talking about companies like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not surprising , They should choose mobile instead of web and also very less people interested to talk strangers if its not a dating site.</comment>


Show HN: Tez, an HTTP interface for Redis written in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jatinsandilya/tez <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, this is a little project that I made to retrieve/store JSON data into Redis directly via an API. So no more serialising and deserialising on JSON in your own service code.</comment>


Thoughts of a thinking bot - <AUTHOR> http://prettypebble.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a sort of book I'm writing. Wanted to publish online to get some feedback! Thanks!</comment>


2010 Unibody Macbook schematic [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://fast.partsdirect.ru/docs/models/19282_051-7537%20M97.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> It all started with a guy who came to ##apple and asked for help with repairing his computer.

Things... escalated quickly from there, mini-Streisand effect and heavy use of banhammer included.

<http://pastebin.com/8CJLkdwm>

<comment><USER2> Looking at the log: thanks for reminding me why I no longer do IRC. All the banhammer dramas, all the time.

(This has nothing to do with information leakage or Apple.)

<comment><USER3> > All the banhammer dramas, all the time.

Thank god there's none of that on HN.

<comment><USER4> We got hellbans. Much cleaner.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how hellbanning would work on IRC. Seems like it could be brilliant.

<comment><USER4> A server could easily implement it, there must be some plugins that do exactly that. Disclaimer: I'm pretty much opposed to any type of hellban except in some very specific circumstances (that wouldn't apply to HN).

<comment><USER5> Just curious, why do you oppose hellbanning? I find it a rather neat solution, but have little experience with it in general.

<comment><USER6> I am opposed to hellbanning on hacker news. I believe it hurts our community for the following reasons:

* It lacks transparency - nobody knows who is hellbanned, and why they were hellbanned. There is no appeal.

* It is a crude tool - hellbanning somebody fails to take into account that they could reform their behavior, or just have made some bad decisions in the heat of an argument.

* There have been cases I have seen where useful or interesting comments have been lost because the poster is hellbanned. This demonstrates that it doesn't just have theoretical flaws - it actually is causing us to lose valuable content.

<comment><USER7> I am opposed as it is implemented in some cases algorithmicly and I've been hellbanned for using the wrong brand name in an on topic comment.

I don't use brand names in comments anymore.

<comment><USER7> Looking at my threads page I found that I lied: I used to brand-name today.

I suck.

And brands are unescapable....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And to think, the Apple ][ shipped with a manual that included schematics for the p/s, keyboard, and motherboard. As a 10 year old geek this manual was gold.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/documentation/misc/a2_reference_manual_alt.pdf

<comment><USER9> So did the original IBM PC BTW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So now, I will build a Mac Book pro out of old Pentium IIIs and 128MB DIMMs. I knew those spare parts collecting mouse poop in my parent's garage would come in useful.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is their Apple logo (printed at the bottom of every page) so horrendously ugly? <http://d.pr/i/dCoo>

<comment><USER12> Probably because these were designed to be printed on a plotter, not a conventional printer, and thus line art is the standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tell me - is everyone else as nervous as I am clicking on a .pdf from a .ru domain?

<comment><USER14> No, but the Apple legal team has been informed about it so you're technically downloading illegal content.

<comment><USER15> The content may have been a civil breach of contract for the originator to disseminate, but you commit no breach nor crime by looking at it, as you have no non-disclosure agreement with Apple.

<comment><USER16> Quite a few of us probably DO have an active NDA with Apple (e.g. from being a Registered Apple Developer). Though IANAL ,from my reading of the terms viewing the materials shouldn't constitute a breach of the NDA either.

<comment><USER5> You're not Disclosing anything by downloading it, so I don't think the Non- Disclosure Agreement would apply.

<comment><USER15> Right. And unless the materials were specifically enumerated, even then, it'd be hard to argue that your NDA for software development would apply to "a service manual I obtained from someone who didn't have the right to distribute".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> how big deal is this?

(serious question)

<comment> X-Istence Not a big deal at all. Schematics only show how to connect the various bits and pieces. Maybe there is one or two things that were secret before, but anyone with a little time, a scope, a voltage meter and some time could have figured out how most of it connected anyway.

<comment><USER18> And they also show what those bits and pieces are, which is actually quite a big deal, because the components often have non-helpful labels on them (like "Apple" "some internal ID"), which makes it almost impossible to find datasheets on them or source them (say you want to replace a component on the board that you suspect is broken).

So not really sure what would have been a big deal if not this..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's all over the Internet right now.

</comment><comment><USER20> What other than repair is this really good for?

</comment><comment><USER21> Snitches get stitches.

<comment><USER21> I realized this is getting downvoted because I didn't put it up in the IRC thread, where I originally attempted.

An uptight taddle-tale handles something poorly in IRC. Completely textbook.</comment></comment>


Why Are Japan's Cherry Blossom Trees Blooming in Fall? - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-are-japans-cherry-blossom-trees-blooming-fall-180970590/?no-ist <comment><USER3> The Economist published a remarkable chart last year that shows 1200 years of cherry blossom data: [https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2017/04/07/japans-c...](https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2017/04/07/japans-cherry-blossoms-are-emerging-increasingly-early)

<comment><USER4> Note that is for the cherry blossoms of Kyoto. So I'd say that the graph means next to nothing in terms of global or even national climate trends. This is about a very small city-dominated local climate. Any variation from a norm could have more to do with the heating/cooling of buildings and local traffic rather than global warming. The trend towards the use of glass in new buildings could have as much an impact as global carbon.

<comment><USER5> Despite the down votes this is a perfectly valid point. In the last 100 years Kyoto has turned from a quiet backwater into a city of over 1 million, liberally slathered in concrete like every other Japanese city. This will have an impact on the local climate, above and beyond global warming as a whole.

<comment><USER6> The population of Kyoto has been over 1 million since 1932.

<comment><USER7> It was also hardly a backwater... The Fall of Edo was only 150 years ago and before that Kyoto was the seat of the Emperor.

<comment><USER4> Not a political or historical backwater, but also not the booming metropolis that was Tokyo. It was a backwater in terms of urbanization and urban heat island impacts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a similar phenomenon in play in the US. Foliage is not as beautiful this fall because of all the rain that we got this summer: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/23/fall-f...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/23/fall- foliage-disappointing-east-but-west-best/1730956002/)

<comment><USER9> Interesting. I live on the West coast and I cannot remember the fall foliage ever being as spectacular as it has been this year. I was just wondering the other day why it was so much better than ever before.

<comment><USER10> Do you mean West Coast USA? I'm in Oregon and I'll say that fall foliage has been nice the last few days, but we also didn't get much rain this summer, and the last few winters have been lacking in moisture as well. My parents tell me it used to rain and snow quite a lot more than it has been these last few decades.

<comment><USER4> You can see it on TV if you are a scifi fan. Look at the x-files, Outer Limits, and early Stargate episodes filmed in 1990s Vancouver. Vancouver's wet climate gave them a very specific tone that became an industry standard. 1990's scifi was generally dark, as opposed to the more colorful productions filmed in California (Trek) or Australia (farscape). But today Vancouver suffers droughts every summer. The Flash is a colourful production. The foggy grey backdrop is now a blue sky. Rainfall numbers might not be very different, but the perpetual cloud that coloured scifi for a generation is gone.

<comment><USER11> So you're saying that Seacouver doesn't exist anymore?

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

<comment><USER4> The real joke of 'seacouver' is the an old adage for filming TV in Canada: Film in Vancouver, but never admit so in the script. If you want to tap the US market (who doesn't?) then the story cannot ever be set outside the US. The few shows that did (The Crow series etc) died quick deaths. X-Men went out on a limb by repeatedly saying Wolverine lived in Canada (Rouge finds him there). That was a risk. Everyone assumed they would have put him in Alaska. X-Files set a short arc on a train heading to Vancouver, but even there the bad guys were Japanese. None of the main story could ever happen in Canada.

Sell also Scrubs, filmed in LA but set in "San Frangeles" although never admitted in the script. They wanted to avoid the LA/SF/NY trend of mentioning place names and expecting the whole world to know what you are talking about. For the longest time I thought scrubs was set in Florida.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Similarly (and as an anecdote), I have seen cherry blossom trees blooming in the wrong weeks of the year where I live in southern Brazil. I live across a garden-ish square with dozens of them right across the street. The city is sprayed with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handroanthus_albus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handroanthus_albus) too — as I have one in my front yard — and every year I notice the blooming season shifting a bit, to the point that we are now in late October and the yellow blooming is either quite late AND timid or even inexistent because the tree decided to flip the bird (pun intended) to the weather changes.

</comment><comment><USER13> My plum trees here in Tennessee are now blooming as well :(

</comment><comment><USER14> This has happened before in my hometown (Livermore CA) with our beautiful cherry trees. One year about 8-10 years ago we had a few very warm weeks in January and the blossoms were out by Valentines Day - quite pretty, but probably not ideal for the tree's reproductive cycle...

</comment><comment><USER15> TL;DR: Two typhoons followed by warm weather triggered them.

<comment><USER16> And it has happened before.

And it's not widespread.

<comment><USER17> I'm assuming you're trying to claim this is not related to global warming (" it has happened before").

Global warming is a large scale and long term problem, and the first thing you would expect is an increase in frequency of previously uncommon events - <USER2> warm weather: historically there may have been a few year where the temp got to X degrees, from an average of Y degrees. But now the average Temperature has increased by a small amount. That shifts the entire normal curve of temperatures up. So now instead of X degrees being the 99th percentile (say) it becomes the 90th. The wonders of normal curves and statistics ensures that as small changes accrue the current extremes will rapidly become more common - a 1% increase in average temperature (random Number here) results in a frequency shift of more than 1% for the extremes.

Then we get to the localized vs global issue. Global warming in an average increase in temperature across the world. The world is big, and so there will always be area that are substantially higher or lower temperature than other places, but by virtue of the above statistics over time the high temperature pockets will become larger and more common. The high temperature pockets and the increased energy in the atmosphere increase movement of the atmosphere around the globe - so yes you may also get occasional pockets of uncommon low temperature. that is likely cause by uncommonly "high" temperatures in the cold parts of the world pushing the higher than average cold air into new locations. Over time the average temperature of the cold areas will become "warm".

Finally, many biological and physical behaviors are purely a function of very specific temperatures. A lot of the biological behaviors (in plants especially) are direct products of physical laws - gas and fluid expansion being most common. Plenty of amphibians have gender determined entirely by temperature - something like 23.4c being the exact cutoff. Water freezes/thaws at exactly 0c - it doesn't matter how small the difference is.

<comment><USER18> And this is 100% correct. And, it has happened before. The world has had warming and cooling cycles for as long as there has been earth. The idea that all of this is a "new" thing isn't supported by evidence.

<comment><USER17> Seriously, it isn't we have ice cores, and direct records for the last 200 years that show that the periodic changes in planet temperature are nothing like what has been happening for the last hundred years.

That said, I'm going to assume that based on your comment, you aren't actually interested in science or anything beyond talking points provided by others.

If you were actually interested in the science of this you would be able to provide studies that haven't been subsequently refuted, or been demonstrated to not actually compensate for the measured effect of global warming.

Solar cycles have been demonstrated to not explain the current changes in global temperature. The impact is not anywhere near fast enough to match current the last hundred years of change.

Random variance doesn't explain it - models for global warming predict increases in extremes of basically all events. Random variance is _random_ so does not explain any changes with a measurable bias.

Conspiracy theories don't explain anything. 1) they're conspiracy theories, not science; 2) they depend on everyone lying about the temperature over time, except everyone agrees on what the temperatures are.

No hypothesis put forward, matches the core predictive ability of global warming theory: global temperature is increasing, as a result of increased CO2 and other pollutants introduced into the atmosphere by human, and human driven industries. This theory predicts increased global average temperature as long as greenhouse emissions continue, it explains ocean acidification, and it explains increased frequency "extreme" weather.

If you have some alternative hypothesis that matches prior atmospheric behavior over the last 200 years, and can also explain the things that global warming does, I'm all ears.

But I suspect you're just either a troll, or a talking point driven internet commenter.

<comment> y-c-o-m-b Reading this is is like reading a batman comic, I picture comic bubbles with "POW!" and "BOOM!" after each sentence.

I like how you explain things, very easy to understand. Thanks for the insightful comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> TL;DR: The unusual bloom seems to be a direct consequence of the natural disasters hitting Japan over the course of this year. "Direct" as in "typhoons ripped off a lot of the cherry trees' leaves, but missing leaves are also a biological signal that start the blooming process".

Unrelated to that, the _regular_ cherry blossom event has been happening progressively earlier due to climate change. The typhoons and heatwave that caused the irregular bloom were likely influenced by it as well.

<comment><USER20> I'm starting to give more thought to the term "natural disaster".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We have some ducks in our backyard, who aren't the same pairs I usually see during the Spring. This group showed up a few weeks ago, and haven't left... I imagine they're coming from somewhere in Canada far north, but it's unusual to see them linger for so long. Seems like the current climate is confusing to the animals and the trees.</comment>


The parable of the parking lots (1971) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080523_197102302theparableoftheparkinglotshenrygmanne.pdf <comment><USER2> About the author: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Manne](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Manne)

Interview arguing insider trading should be legal: [http://capitalismmagazine.com/2004/09/legalize-insider- tradi...](http://capitalismmagazine.com/2004/09/legalize-insider-trading/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Obvious parallel with food trucks versus bricks and mortar restaurants. Funnily enough, I see pro-free-market candidates (funded by commercial property owners and restaurant owners) suddenly talking about regulations when their slice of the pie is threatened.

If you're a fixed restaurant and you have the opportunity to start a food truck in addition to your established restaurant, then fair's fair.

</comment><comment><USER4> One important item discussed in the parable was the "slush fund", and how it succeeded in influencing the city council. This is the most corrosive aspect.

About 35 years ago the FBI's Abscam[1] public corruption investigation and sting operation brought down quite a few people, including Congressmen. My favorite excuse was from the Congressman videotaped stuffing cash into his pockets, and who later claimed he "was only pretending to be involved with the bribery" and "was conducting his own operation dealing with corruption and that the FBI was ruining his own investigation".

IIRC Congress was so upset about being caught taking bribes that they actually cut the FBI budget the following year!

Public corruption needs to be investigated and prosecuted more often.

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

</comment><comment><USER5> "All professions are conspiracies against the laity" \-- GBS

</comment><comment><USER6> The only reason we don't have more actual stories similar to this is we don't know the inside scoop on what happens. We aren't a fly on the wall for such meetings.

<comment><USER3> It's a fairly broad representation of what has happened in thousands of cities and thousands of industries in the past. The lobbying, the promise of self- regulation, the meagre efforts to improve, etc - anytime you see mention of any aspect of this, you can reasonably assume what's gone down. Self-interest is a powerful force.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So... hotels = APPLE and AirBnB = homeowners parking cars in their driveways?

<comment><USER8> I was going to say something about Uber and traditional taxis in the same vein.

But then I was also going to say something about doctors, lawyers, and other professionals that form some kind of barrier around themselves... being someone who is in one of those groups.

the further I take this down the road(no pun intended), the more perplexed I find myself.

:: edited for clarity

<comment><USER7> Me too, the question mark in my post is real. Although regulatory capture is a problem, it's rather easy to use that as justification for the idea that any regulation is simply a boondoggle and exists for no other reason than to hinder the economy.

<comment><USER9> but the actual definition of regulatory capture is that _regardless of_ the reason regulation exists (which usually is a real reason, not an invented one as in the article - the article doesn't have regulation resulting from anything any member of the public actually objected to), the regulating bodies will be captured. So take a real reason: let's say we (the public) want to improve Comcast's level of (notoriously bad) service, even in areas where they happen to be a sole provider. So how do we do this - we can only do it through some regulating body. So, okay, let's improve Comcast's atrocious service. The idea of regulatory capture is _even though_ we have a great reason to do this, Comcast can still capture that body, and be better-off than before the regulator existed - at the expense of the public. Which is why we don't do it!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

<comment><USER10> But the general argument applies to _all_ regulation, yet we still have regulation. And Comcast's business was literally created by regulation: it is a municipal monopoly.

Your argument needs more nuance. Regulatory capture happens when no one in the general public is organized or invested enough to be part of the lobbying pool, or generally due to attrition caused by government corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR of the parable. Incumbent businesses will lobby and use professionalism as an excuse against individuals using their own resources to do ad-hoc business. Article makes an argument that this is bad.

I found this article as print out on the floor of a bathroom on an equities trading floor of Goldman Sachs circa 2010. It intrigued me and since then I have shared it with my friends and family, who seemed to have enjoyed it. I post it now because it reminds me of the arguments surrounding new car hailing services and on demand short term housing rentals. Our problems aren't entirely new, so why not leverage some wisdom of decades past when reasoning about them?

<comment><USER11> Thanks very much for sharing. Do you know more about its source?

<comment><USER12> Not OP, but for more, see: [http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/29/the- collected-works-o...](http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/29/the-collected- works-of-henry-g-manne/)

As a thought experiment, in an environment where for-profit entities will tend to try to increase their profits, consider: in what cases is it appropriate for governments to interfere with economic activities?

To protect individuals, or _caveat emptor_?

To protect businesses, or "free market"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Url changed from [http://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/the- pa...](http://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/the-parable-of- the-parking-lots), which points to this.</comment>


Hacker News Tokyo Japan Meetup #11 – March 2nd 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/events/729-hacker-news-tokyo-japan-meetup-11-march-2nd-2012

<comment><USER2> Ooh, I should be able to make this one. See you all there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Aw damn ... I will be back in Europe for The spring vacation this time. Really sucks that I am gonna miss this. Had no idea that there is an HN meetup in Tokyo. When is the next one gonna be? Who arranges the meetups? Definitely gonna become a regular attendee

</comment><comment><USER4> I would love to be there, but the JAWS (Japan AWS) Summit meeting is also taking place that day:

<http://jaws-ug.jp/summit2012/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> Won't be able to make it this time, as I will be heading for the PyCon 2012 in Santa Clara.

Have lots of fun!

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice! I will be in Tokyo for a few days and should be able to make it

</comment><comment><USER7> Will attend for the first time! See you there.</comment>


Reflex: a new programming language for reactive programming by Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGkSHE15BSs <comment><USER2> Is there some website with some more info to read, for all those like me who dislike videos? I already googled "reflex facebook programming language" and found very little.

Quoting the talk abstract ([http://www.curry-on.org/2017/sessions/reflex- reactive-progra...](http://www.curry-on.org/2017/sessions/reflex-reactive- programming-at-facebook.html)):

> Reflex is a new programming language for reactive programming developed at > Facebook. It has many interesting characteristics, mixing OO and functional > programming, it allows rapid development of applications with "spreadsheet > semantics.

EDIT: to clarify: that's literally all I found. (I dislike videos so much I had missed that abstract is also on Youtube).

<comment><USER3> I don't think you'll find more about Reflex. The language is still in the late design stages, it has not yet been released. That video is probably the only public information about Reflex, straight from its creator's lips.</comment></comment>