Hostile Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture <comment><USER2> Sometimes, locals decide to respond to the installation of hostile architecture by "killing it with kindness," such as covering anti homeless spikes with pillows and cushions. Here is one such article:

[https://archive.attn.com/stories/14655/manchester-england- re...](https://archive.attn.com/stories/14655/manchester-england-residents- throw-pillows-hostile-architecture)

I think most hostile architecture is basically an admission that "We don't actually have a solution to our social problems, so we are resorting to a beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves model as an outward expression of our incompetence."

That's my _charitable_ take. My uncharitable take is that a lot of people in power don't care, have no heart and can't be arsed to pretend to care.

<comment><USER3> > My uncharitable take is that a lot of people in power don't care, have no > heart and can't be arsed to pretend to care.

Well, as someone who disagrees, but also likes to think I have a heart, I'll give my 2c. Why don't we consider locks on your doors "hostile architecture"? Social problems are complex and difficult to solve, and just because we haven't solved them doesn't mean, for example, that people should be discouraged from trying to prevent people from urinating on their property. I mean, take one of the examples from the wikipedia article: Just because some people have a drug problem doesn't mean blue lights in a public bathroom to prevent IV drug use there is a bad thing.

Take homelessness. It is no coincidence that the cities that actually provide the _most_ support and resources for the homeless actually have the worst homeless problems. With the lack of a national policy to deal with homelessness, providing better services does make your city a magnet for the homeless population (this is NOT an argument against providing those services, just a simple observation of cause and effect).[1] The fact that it would be good to be able to sit at a city bus stop I think is a good thing even if there are still homeless people in your city.

[1] [https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/homeless-buy-one-way-bus- ti...](https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/homeless-buy-one-way-bus-tickets-to- austin)

<comment><USER2> I spent years homeless.

A. Most services aimed at the homeless would be sued out of existence if they were intended for middle class clientele. They are frequently quite terrible.

For example: At a free meal from the Salvation Army, an older woman sitting next to me who had just gotten out of the hospital for a heart condition had all her stuff stolen for complying with their crappy policy of leaving her stuff in the unguarded designated area. It was cold and rainy that night and she had just lost all her extra clothes and bedding.

They were giving away bedding and clothes after the meal. No one walked her to the front of the line and said "Make sure she gets what she needs to make it safely through the night."

B. I'm mostly not interested in seeing more homeless services. They are mostly a "fuck you" solution.

If we actually cared about people in the US, we would have free national health care and an appropriate housing supply. We have neither, then we blame poor people as being _crazies_ and _junkies_ when they end up homeless.

Then we add insult to injury by giving them terrible food with long lines and similar "services" for which we expect them to be ever so grateful.

I'm wholly unimpressed with the entire thing. The system is quite broken.

<comment><USER4> Most homeless services here follow the "beggars can't be choosers" egotism of not attending to people's actual needs but rather looking down their noses on them, treating homeless people like criminals or make them jump through hoops like show animals.

For example, most of the doctor specialist services here have a "full" waiting list just to schedule an appointment and force people to call at a certain time in the morning for a few spots on said list, like animals jockeying to win the lottery.

Oh and the amount of food and cash aid is abysmal, not enough to feed or clothe anyone.

Most services demand either employment or only apply to certain groups, leaving many people to fall between the cracks.

The "social workers" are arrogant, obnoxious bureaucrats who don't listen to their clients but instead hold their aid over their heads and order them around without offering any solutions, strategies, resources or actual help... just judgement and control.

And it takes _years_ to get disability status reviewed and longer to get housing. There are at least 1500 people living rough and 500 people living in vehicles in the area.

<comment><USER5> I was out of work and _almost homeless_ (mostly extended couch-surfing) when the Affordable Care Act went into effect so I signed up for one of the subsidized low-income plans. They assigned me a primary care provider who was two cities away and told me I would have to see them in order for my care to be fully covered.

Later when I needed to see a doctor I dutifully made an appointment and rode the bus one and a half hours out there only to learn that my assigned provider was a pediatrician and she didn't feel comfortable taking me on as a patient. I contacted the plan provider and they assigned me a new doctor, but when I tried to make an appointment with him it turned out he was no longer practicing medicine. Fortunately one of his colleagues was able to take me and I finally received some care.

Three months later I was informed by his office that they were no longer in- network with my plan because they had had too much difficulty getting them to honor payments. I was assigned another primary care provider but thankfully I got a job not long after that and I never experienced the thrill of discovering whether the last one was a real living doctor or perhaps an inanimate can of Dr. Pepper.

<comment><USER6> Wow. Just excellent. This is done good journalism material for a stinger op.

On a less morbid note, while queues are slightly longer, nothing like that happens in any of UK, Canada or any part of EU.

USA is the "have no money, get bent" kind of country it seems. Kinda ruins the old American dream for everyone.

<comment><USER7> On a more morbid note, it's a frightening picture of the kind of country our current UK regime wants to create by leaving the EU at any cost and cosying up to Trump's America. They won't be able to dismantle the NHS all in one go but they'll certainly do everything they can to lower standards for all but the elite.

<comment><USER8> People voted Brexit like it or not so I think it's time to stop blaming the government for trying to deliver the referendum result. Lies were told of course but that's politics. Maybe investment and wages will increase and people won't care that much about free NHS anymore, at least that's the way I see it sold.

Either way EU will make a free trade deal(more or less limited) with the UK, the only real issue with Brexit is the irish border.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hostile architecture is usually focused on the local/micro, the area of influence of the builder/owner.

Solving the actual problems in society that lead to hostile architecture is a harder problem and the builder doesn't have complete control of that. A builder can choose to donate to a charity that assists the homeless but that doesn't mean people will stop peeing in their property.

Does anyone know of an organization that could collect money from lots of builders/owners, apply some root cause analysis and try to solve the real problems so private owners don't need to resort to hostile architecture? Preferably a public one.

<comment><USER10> While it might be rational from a owner's standpoint, their buildings usually have a public part (e.g. because it is directly accessible from the street) and my gut feeling is, that you should own up to it.

I know that many like their brutalist concrete surfaces clean, but ultimately your building stands in the public with public roads connecting to it and a public walking by and you have at least _some_ moral responsibility to also serve that public if it doesn't kill you.

If you wan't to avoid people peeing everywhere, lobby for public toiletts. Real estate owners are typically really good at that kind of lobbying, typically it is always for thwir own good and never for the public good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> LaGuardia airport blasts you with a loud piercing noise if you sit on the toilets - an obvious move to keep people from lingering too long. But I'm stubborn and I really had to go, so I can tell you from experience the noise shuts off after a few minutes - I either made it overheat or I was sitting so still the sensor thought the stall was empty.

<comment><USER12> They should tune it to the brown note, that'd help keep things moving efficiently:

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

<comment><USER11> If the brown note was real it would probably be abused to death. High school kids would drive down the road blasting it on their speakers. Debt collectors would play it over the phone to embarrass people. YouTube people would be wiring people's door bells to play it as pranks. CIA would lock people in ceramic rooms and play it for hours as torture. DARPA would spend a billion dollars developing an anti-brown note and weaponize constipation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Architecture becomes hostile when the design doesn't guide users to a better alternative. It's fine to create a pee-deflecting wall, but there better be a public bathroom nearby. Likewise it's fine to reserve some benches for people who want to sit at the bus stop, but there should be some spaces nearby for people who want to recline also.

<comment><USER14> > It's fine to create a pee-deflecting wall, but there better be a public > bathroom nrearby

I'd say it's perfectly fine for a private builder to arrange things such that people are discouraged from peeing on his building. There's no moral requirement to provide public restrooms.

<comment><USER15> And why not? They are using publicly serviced space. The buildings would be worthless without without publically funded roads.

If these buildings were truly private and exempt from the larger social society they wouldn't need hostile architecture in the first place.

<comment><USER16> Because the benefit of the public restrooms would extend to all private buildings in the area, but the cost would fall entirely on whichever sucker decided to pay for them -- and no one wants to be that sucker. That's why public funding is required to pay for public goods. This is basic economics.

<comment><USER5> I'd say the benefit would extend to all _citizens_ in the area, since the area would no longer smell like urine. This could increase consumer traffic through the area and raise the economic value of the sucker's property.

<comment><USER16> Yes, while also raising the value of every non-sucker's property, hence the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any experiences with intentionally hostile software architecture?

Curious how for example code project structure or inter-process messaging constraints can prohibit mixing concerns or breaking the domain model. Also curious how such a forceful environment is experienced and whether it has the intended effect.

<comment><USER18> Well, there are hostile user interfaces at least: [https://userinyerface.com/](https://userinyerface.com/) [https://www.darkpatterns.org/](https://www.darkpatterns.org/)

and in programming you have defensive/deterrent features like prefixing unsafe function names with "unsafe"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lots of major cities are dealing with growing Homeless populations.

Stuff like this just seems like a gross bandaid [https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/03/article-0-13E7211...](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/03/article-0-13E72117000005DC-269_964x640.jpg)

<comment><USER20> Holy shit, the bolt-studded steps in the wiki page were already gross, but putting "anti-homeless" dragon's teeth under bridges and overpasses steps way over it and into "abusively horrendous".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Related threads from 2016:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12041639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12041639)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13040313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13040313)

I feel like there was a discussion about this quite recently, too, but can't find it.

</comment><comment><USER22> By that definition (esp. with urinal example), I'd include: locks, steps and fences. All have the effect of stopping some people doing what they wanted.

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe a pointless comment but this very article was linked in another post[1] that was trending a few hours ago. Could it be that this post was made while browsing Wikipedia from that other post?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619947)

</comment><comment><USER24> This fella went all out with a challenge accepted attitude...

the fakir's rest [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3M7FxJqtM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3M7FxJqtM)

</comment><comment><USER25> Aren't skateboard deterrents example of this?

<comment><USER26> If skateboard deterrents refers to the nubs which are put on the railings for stairs, I'd say those come with more an ethos of, "This object is for the public to walk up stairs more safely. You will not use it as a ramp-bar. That both makes it unusable for anyone while you are doing that and also causes it to break down from friction more quickly."

Since there isn't really a fundamental human need to slide a skateboard down a handrail, I don't think it really counts as "hostile". It just represents, "I've agreed to provide a certain level of maintenance for this public handrail. Not enough to handle repeated skateboard friction."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Bus stops in the UK are terrible because of this. I could never sit on them, in fact I would stand outside unless it's raining.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hostile architecture is fundamentally sick. To take public space and purposely make it hostile to the human body is just so abhorrent, I don't understand how it isn't illegal everywhere. There's something about it that really gets to me. It's just so twisted at such a deep level that it feels like it is (or borderlines on) a human rights violation.

<comment><USER29> I take it you've never been to a playground taken over by the homeless and drug addicts? Had to wash down the the sidewalk at 5AM in the morning so people don't step in filth walking into the office or store?

I don't see anything wrong with hostile architecture, per se. What's wrong is hostile architecture in the absence of shelters and housing programs. But the solution isn't giving over playgrounds and store fronts, but to provide housing.

And as someone who has lived in multiple large cities, I've seen firsthand (as an observer, as an acquaintance) a not insubstantial fraction of homeless will simply refuse assistance, whether because of mental problems or drug addiction. So the presence of hostile architecture doesn't necessarily mean shelter doesn't exist, it simply reflects other societal ills.

<comment><USER28> It's not just about the homeless, although they are the most affected. The very idea of it is horrible. We are slowly turning our cities into giant torture champers where it's uncomfortable to sit, uncomfortable to stand, uncomfortable to lie down. Everything is covered in nubs and spikes and built at angles that force you to expend energy. You can't ever relax. It's like this new breed of shopping malls that have no clocks, no rubbish bins, no benches and no water fountains. You either have to be shopping or leaving. Eventually the only comfy place left will be at home.

<comment><USER29> Because these things are abused. Simply providing them doesn't solve the problem--we'll just have really disgusting facilities that few people, if anybody, uses.

I don't know how to solve the problem. But railing against the symptoms doesn't help. Filthy public spaces are worse than _no_ public spaces, and no public spaces is precisely what we'll get if we try to address the symptoms without addressing the underlying causes. Parks disappear, buildings are built without public spaces entirely or with "public spaces" _inside_ buildings where security patrol and which become inaccessible after hours, etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: review my 1st start-up launched 2 weeks ago - <AUTHOR>

I just launched http://www.VehicleShare.com - an extremely simple online car show for antique/classic car owners & enthusiasts <comment><USER2> I like the site and agree with most of the comments already here. I don't like the domain name for two reasons.

First, I don't like "vehicle". it's not strictly a car and it's just a non- commercial word in my opinion. Second, "share" makes me think it is a car- sharing service, rather than a picture sharing service.

Then, unrequested advice for monetization!! I think you should let the users add the story of the car (There's the "car blog" button but I am not really sure how that works - maybe it's me, but it's not clear and you should make sure that the website is clear even to the dumbest of your readers).

Then, you might want to add a box "for sale Y/N" and if yes, the yes is clickable and you can then start an auction or put the two parts in contact... and get a little cut of the transaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not the first person to bring up the domain issue, I might have to consider rebranding the site

The for sale option feature is currently in development, will hopefully launch next month!!

<comment><USER2> Also, since you think of rebranding... have you narrowed down to a smaller niche?

Yes car fanatics like all kind of cars, but you might create better, tighter communities if you selected one (and eventually replicate) niches: modders/racers could have some car porn to look at, antiques/american classics too but are very different than the fast&furious crowd...

It would help you get a better identity (just my 2 cents)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a future feature, it would be nice to be able to specify year ranges, like 1967-1969 along with model, say Camaro, in addition to just the make. Kind of like eBay motors search tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool idea, any ideas on how to approach that development wise? Is it possible to create a year drop down menu that can select more than 1 year at a time?

<comment><USER3> There are a couple different ways to do it. One example as I mentioned would be like eBay's search [1], where the parameters are input by text. Another good example I've seen is on the KSL Classifieds car search website [2]. There it's a single drop down, where you can select just one year, or if you input two years, it will become a range.

[1] <http://imgur.com/WjkkF> [2] <http://imgur.com/QutTt>

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome feedback, thx!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Beautiful site. I know someone that would love this. How are you going to encourage everyone to post their cars?

Anyone else producing a simple car gallery site or classic cars?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx I did all the dev & design, please send over the site to any car enthusiast friends u have.

I'm emailing as many car clubs as possible to try and gain users, currently only a very small % of users are adding cars, any comments on the signup / add car functionality? If ur friend uses the site I would really appreciate his/her feedback

As for competition there are some car galleries out there but none focus on user generated content / car profiles, at most users can send pics in by email ( very lame! )

Thx again!!</comment></comment>


Uber ruled illegal in Taiwan - <AUTHOR> http://international.thenewslens.com/post/286323/ <comment><USER2> Just to clarify, they're banned from offering Uber service until they register as a Taxi service.

>There are also cases in which legal loopholes have allowed the company to continue its operations. For example, Uber plans to purchase commercial licenses for its drivers in Germany, where ride-sharing services are banned from operating without taxi licenses.

It's similar in the country I'm currently in - Uber works as a Taxi service and Uber drivers have Taxi licenses. Altho I would not call this a "loophole" as this is the route Uber should have taken from the get go in those places where they don't allow those without Taxi licenses to operate Taxi services.

<comment><USER3> The irony is that Uber is somehow showing that you don't need taxi licenses to run a responsible taxi service from the point of view of the drivers. It's totally doable to run an effective and safe service without requiring taxi licenses.

The problem is their morals when it comes to how they treat their drivers.

<comment><USER4> The insurance of Uber cars outside the US is dubious. I'd question whether uninsured cabs are a safe option.

<comment><USER5> Here in Brazil at least, Uber requires drivers to pay insurance for both them and the passengers for any potential accidents.

<comment><USER6> Do any private insurers offer packages which permit the use of the vehicle as a taxi?

Does Uber check that their drivers have such insurance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was in Taipei, the cab system was 100 times better than uber and had none of the problems of the cab system in the US. If uber's main value proposition is superiority to taxis, then it makes no sense for it to try to take over in a city where the taxis are perfectly fine.

Honestly, the same is true in NYC. I rarely call an uber because it's just easier to get one of the hundreds of yellow cabs than it is to stand on the street like an idiot looking for the Toyota Prius with the right license plate.

Since uber arrived, all the issues I had with cabs seem to have disappeared. The fares are lower, drivers accept credit cards, and don't talk on their cellphone to their buddy in India. Uber put the pressure on cabs and it worked. I see no need to use uber.

<comment><USER8> A counter-anecdote to your anecdote: When I was in Taipei my friends and I tried to get a cab to Jiufen. The cab driver told us there was a special fixed rate for the trip and quoted us a number that seemed reasonable but was actually around a 50%-100% markup over the mileage/time-based price. So we called an Uber and saved about 50% vs what the cab quoted. The driver couldn't change the price and trick tourists.

<comment><USER9> I doubt the driver was trying to trick tourists. I've taken taxis to jiufen on a few occasions and drivers always typically want a fixed price that varies with each driver. This is with Taiwanese friends doing the negotiating.

I think it's somewhat understandable given it's a long way out of Taipei City and there's no guarantee of being able to find a return fare.

<comment><USER10> To me it sounds clear that uber has benefits there in that case, unlike the grandparent is claiming. Most consumers favour constant prices without surprises, and dislike negotiation processes.

<comment><USER6> Only because they force the driver to eat the loss (Or pay him with VC money).

If there is no guarantee of a fare back, this kind of pricing is not sustainable long-term.

<comment><USER11> Why not? It's definitely sustainable. The loss can be offset by the gains. And if the gains outweigh the loss then it's sustainable.

<comment><USER6> It's sustainable - if prices for regular rides rise to compensate for the losses drivers take on less profitable ones.

... and all of a sudden, you are back to taxi pricing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a side note, do any native Mandarin speakers have a good understanding of why app is usually spelled and pronounced as if it were an acronym (A.P.P.) instead of an abbreviation? Have been wondering about this for months, and the Quora thread on it is a little unsatisfactory: [https://www.quora.com/Why-do- some-Chinese-people-in-China-pr...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-Chinese- people-in-China-pronounce-app-as-a-p-p)

<comment><USER13> I'm a native mandarin speaker from Taiwan and now living in NY. I think it just comes down to the fact that english is not everyone's first language there.

For your example, people end up pronounce A.P.P because not everyone knows that app comes from `application` and therefore you might run into conversations with people speaking with different pronunciations. Some people pronounce 'app' the normal way, and some people pronounce 'app' similar to (ape).

After awhile, people would explain what they're trying to say by spelling out, and eventually you'd learn to just say A.P.P instead of attempting to incorrectly pronounce the word.

Same thing goes with Facebook, which is referred as F.B, and Instagram, which is usually referred as I.G

<comment><USER14> Instagram is "eye jü". Nobody in Taiwan really says G.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I work at GoGoVan in Hong Kong.

We operate in 5 countries in Asia offering van hire and delivery services.

But in Taiwan we've had regulatory issues, so we only operate a scooter delivery service.

Its a similar issue to Uber. We'd need to have a license and a minimum size fleet of vehicles to do it.

[https://www.gogovan.tw](https://www.gogovan.tw)

<comment><USER16> Is there any English speaking site/app for non-Taiwanese living in Taiwan? I really think for every locality there should be English as an option.

<comment><USER15> That's a good question. We're currently talking about this.

But, even if our app and website works perfectly in english, there's little chance the driver will speak english.

In Hong Kong we have a "speaks english" service you can pay for.

<comment><USER16> I cannot completely tell from the app pictures on the site, but it would worth thinking about it how much English people need for delivery? E.g. Uber is in English here, and was using it pretty fine without much Chinese. It's less of an issue for me, have an "everyday" level of proficiency, but in general.

Also, do you have different apps for the different markets?

If it's the same app everywhere, then it would make sense that the people can bring the "service" with them e.g. going from Taiwan to HK on a business trip, or Singapore for a few months work stint (or any other direction), and they can still use it the same way.

It drives me crazy to no end when there's an international company, and language is completely tied to the location. Your case make a bit more sense than others, and it's a ton of work, I know. Just some thoughts.

<comment><USER15> It'd be fair to say that our customer base is mostly Chinese speaking in Taiwan.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be more friendly.

We have one app with a whole host of different options baked into it for each country.

* different graphics

* different mapping SDKs

* different languages

* different vehicle types and service options

I should give a technical talk in Taipei one day on it.

I used to live in Taipei, but moved full-time back to HK in September.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The Business Insider reports, some countries and regions have completely > banned the service, finding it illegal under national or state laws. These > places include Japan, Thailand, Nevada in the United States and Karnataka in > India.

Not in Karnataka, India - I and everyone uses it everyday.

<comment><USER18> Yep, even their website has a page for Bangalore.

[https://www.uber.com/cities/bangalore/](https://www.uber.com/cities/bangalore/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Uber and Airbnb participated in the vTaiwan e-deliberation process, with quite different results — [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbdvvStfWT0&list=PLdwQWxpS51...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbdvvStfWT0&list=PLdwQWxpS513DB98lg8kgEVG66dierWOio&index=3) explains the crowd-policymaking process in 14 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can someone enlighten me about the history of the taxi industry? I have a medical background and I know that HIPAA came to be because insurance companies were taking advantage of patients with known conditions. There were other reasons, of course, but horror stories of patient's protected health information being sold to the media and insurance companies prompted the legislation.

I have a hard time understanding how regulating personal transit is a governmental matter. A taxi driver may overcharge me a significant amount, and then there are instances of physical confrontation, but these are both rare and a risk that is inherent in accepting a ride with another person. It seems to me that the benefit to society (less pollution, traffic, easier commute, automotive scrap waste, etc) outweighs these risks.

<comment> vertex-four Road management is a Government matter - specifically, managing congestion, where vehicles are allowed to stop and when, etc. Add on top of that the not- uncommon story in many countries of a taxi driver charging an extortionate fare without notice. Add on top of that ensuring that taxi drivers actually do their jobs and get people where they're going, rather than refusing to take people to locations within the city that are "too far away". Add on top of that regulating taxis so that people with disabilities can actually get out and about, seeing as public transport is dire in the US.

All of these things are things that people had _huge_ problems with convincing taxi companies to actually solve - after all, it's more profitable not to - and eventually local Governments agreed that taxis are as important to a city's transport infrastructure as anything else and should be held to a certain standard. You can only realistically argue against that if you believe that everyone who was using taxis had an alternative, which isn't the case.

Uber solves many of these issues, I must admit - but what about five years down the line, once they have the near-monopoly they're seeking? Can we be absolutely certain it will continue to do what's best for the cities it services, even when it affects Uber's bottom line?

<comment><USER21> > ... the near-monopoly they're seeking ...

They will probably not get anywhere near a monopoly. Their businessmodel is flawed: anyone can start a similar service. In fact, many similar services already exist in Europe.

<comment><USER6> Anecdotally, none of my co-workers use Lyft in Seattle because "There's always an Uber 2 minutes away."

The network lock-in is quite real - if you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road, you can't get customers, and you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road without having customers paying fares.

What can really hurt Uber is unionization of their drivers - since nothing stops them from collectively switching to a competing service.

<comment><USER21> Well, here's a story of French drivers unionizing AND starting a competitor service: [1]

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9841562/french-uber- driver...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9841562/french-uber-drivers- launch-app-vtc-cab)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's a shame. When I rode in cabs in Taiwan, I'd get ripped off because I was a foreigner. Uber had consistently better cars and was cheaper too

<comment><USER14> Highly doubtful. In seven years and over a thousand cab rides in Taiwan that never happened to me. One one occasion my wallet fell out and the driver even called me to give it back.

Ripping off the foreigner is more of a mainland China thing.

<comment><USER22> Actually, I had no problems at all in Shanghai with the cabs (aside from their ostensibly "crazy" driving).

Anyway, since I'm not going to provide proof, you don't have to believe me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I live in the south of Taiwan and uber just became available here over the weekend.

Taxi service is already good if you speak Chinese. You can call a taxi automated system, give them a street corner, and they will give you a time estimate. It is usually 3 minutes and they show up on time.

The benefit uber provides is to foreigners. If you do not speak Chinese, then you previously needed to flag down a cab.

<comment><USER11> Also, there is no negative for a Taiwanese to have more options.

<comment><USER23> Maybe. Like I said the service is already good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are a few local factors that change the dynamics of app-based ride services in Taiwan. They include a solid public transportation infrastructure in Taipei, widespread scooter use (I estimate at least 20% of the population owns or has access to scooters), and relatively low-cost taxi rates.

On the last point, a 45-minute cab ride from eastern Taipei to the international airport cost NT$1200, or about $36, and if you call a private limo service by phone it's NT$1000 for a big van, probably less for a car. By comparison, rates from Boston' airport are about $60 for a 30 minute ride and $40 for an Uber.

FWIW, I found Uber cars to be somewhat rare in Taipei and nonexistent in Chiayi, a smaller city in the south that I visited earlier this month. That could be the crackdown mentioned in the article, but I suspect the demand isn't sufficient owing to the factors mentioned earlier.

<comment><USER14> Access to scooters is more like 85%. It's probably lowest in Taipei but still the vast majority of people if you rule out children and the very old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> In Toronto, Canada, taxis run 24/7 with 2 shifts of drivers. Insurance costs about $10,000 annually, more or less. On a per hour basis that = $1.14 per hour. Uber should obtain insurance on their driver fleet on that basis

<comment> vertex-four That would likely involve Uber admitting that their drivers are not, in fact, self-employed.

<comment><USER25> Well, Taxi drivers are self employed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Taiwan number one!

</comment><comment><USER27> isn't uber already on shaky legal footing nearly everywhere anyway?

</comment><comment><USER28> Taiwan's rule of law is mostly about connections, money and shady backroom deals (sure, most countries are like this, but it's a matter of degree). I'm sure this has come about because of taxi companies being unhappy rather than any proper legal reasoning.

<comment><USER19> The process leading to this was documented here: [https://blog.pol.is/vtaiwan- uberx/](https://blog.pol.is/vtaiwan-uberx/) Registration was cited as one of the six consensus items by the e-deliberation process, and so far the only one that Uber has not yet assented to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Huge fines

> According to the Highway Act, Uber has been fined NT$100,000 (approximately > US$3,070) to NT$150,000 (approximately US$4,605). Uber drivers have been > fined NT$50,000 (approximately US$1,535).

</comment><comment><USER30> For once an article translated by Bing without grammar errors all over the place.</comment>


State "Keep Right" Laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html <comment><USER2> My god do I wish they would enforce the law in Oklahoma! The entire state seems to have a culture of pulling into the left lane then hitting the brakes and pacing the slowest thing moving in the right lane. People look at me crazy when I start ranting about Okies and their driving habits but give me an hour of freeway time and I will make you a believer. If you are anywhere near Oklahoma and someone is clogging up the left lane, chances are they have Oklahoma plates. I used to think it was related to their stupid football rivalry with Texas - when I drive through Oklahoma with Texas plates I got a lot of beer cans thrown at my car and people yelling some football slogan at me, but I've also driven through with New Jersey plates and Vermont plates, and it doesn't matter - you might as well add 90 minutes to your travel time because everyone from Oklahoma drives ten miles under the limit in the left lane. So fire up your dash cams and take the Okie challenge, drive through Oklahoma/Texas/Kansas/Missouri/Arkansas, if someone is clogging up the left lane then try to get a look at their plates, will be Oklahoma the majority of the time.</comment>


Hundreds of Chinese have flooded Obama's Google+ page to post about human rights - <AUTHOR> http://technology.inquirer.net/8697/chinese-netizens-flood-obamas-google-page

<comment><USER2> When I read "Hundreds of Chinese", my immediate thought was, "That's not that many. Maybe 0.00001% of the population?" It doesn't make much sense in retrospect.</comment>


The mess we're in (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 <comment><AUTHOR> One of the best talks on software engineering I've seen so far.</comment>


Risk it When You're Young - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2010/july/207174.html

<comment><USER2> There is nothing wrong with a year or three in industry. You'll be a _much_ better coder, get exposed to problem domains outside the typical purview of twenty-something white and Asian males, build contacts, and improve your soft skills such as how to wear a suit and talk to people older than you outside of the teacher/student relationship. These things are enormously valuable.

If you're worried about getting spoiled by the huge paychecks, I recommend being a Japanese salaryman. We would never dream of inconveniencing you in that fashion. _grins_ Seriously though, if you put $4k a month towards your student loans (or a savings account you solemnly promise not to touch) your $80k salary will feel like, what, $20k or so after the tax differential?

<comment><USER3> I wanted to "just try the industry for a year" before going back to school to do a PhD. I have ended up being a "Java Enterprise Douchebag" for years :-(

I strongly advise against trying a normal job. Everything you could learn you could learn faster by simply watching the movie "Office Space".

<comment><USER4> Agree with your sentiments on enterprise douchbaggery, you are probably undervaluing what you have learned: You still have a chance to learn how to milk the enterprise when roles are reversed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sure, risk it when you're young, but don't think that the older you get the less risks you should take. It's just the opposite. The "old dogs, new tricks" adage is a fallacy designed to keep people in line. Don't believe it! Take risks when you're young, when you're middle-aged, and when you're old!

<comment><USER6> I think you should actually take more risks as you get older because you have a reduced amount of time to achieve things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm 30 now and just getting going on this. My startup is just starting to get some nice sales traction.

I've never really understood the assessment of risk that people apply to starting a company. If my company fails when I start full time on it then I'll get a job in a week tops unless I decide to take some time off. My family won't ever notice the difference except when I have to get the insurance information changed with our doctors.

I have a wife who stays home with our daughter and another kid on the way. Maybe I'm delusional but it really doesn't seem very risky to me.

<comment><USER8> What insurance did you change to for the startup?

<comment><USER9> For those of us in the US and over 30, I believe the $1600/mo health insurance bill (which may or may not cover everything for a family) is the single riskiest part of leaving the corp world, not the paycheck. It will likely stay this way for the next few years until the health reform takes effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [anonymously posted; skip to paragraph 9 for TL; DR.]

I cannot concur enough. I, perhaps, within me, have an entrepreneurial spirit. However, I perhaps am different than most. I did not see any way to get into any industry at all where I was: I got sucked into a game design curriculum believing that since a big-name game company was helping with the structure, my community college would be able to differentiate.

I ended up dropping out, selling my car, and moving six states north. I had no idea what I was going to do. I knew a little bit of CSS, a little bit of HTML, and a smattering of JavaScript - mostly gathered from cut-and-pastes. I had been programming since I was six (starting with qBasic on my father's Gateway machine - ostensibly, to cheat on qBricks: I had asked my father how to cheat, and he handed me a qBasic manual. Off and on I'd programmed: lego logo [robotics] in secondary school; computer science through AP comp sci in high school, covering things as esoteric - back then, to me - as red/black trees).

But the only applicable knowledge I knew was how to make a site look good given a mockup.

After that diatribe, having not gone through explicit training: I wish I had. I do not know data structures, algorithms, and parsing the way I wish I did - the best I did is generate parsing trees based on math input (up to parens - no exponents there). The best datastructure I built was a red-black tree for my final AP comp-sci grade: I never took the AP test. I may have kicked ass with my sorting algorithm a year earlier (dad's book, Dragon Compiler Design, helped - after he pointed me to a certain chapter), but I had barely a grasp of what was going on in that class.

I have not taken a math course higher than college algrebra. Ask me to find dx/xy given y=x^2 and I can barely do it: I've been teaching myselve calculus over the past two months. It's been slow. Thank goodness for 'calculus made easy' - a HN recommendation.

I could wax poetic about what I might have done or what I might have been. But I won't.

You have had education I wish I had had, in retrospect. I have been programming JavaScript (and studying aspects of functional programming I had never even heard mention of 'til Hacker News) in a professional capacity since I left (forcefully: I kept falling asleep building not-even-agency-of-record landing pages for online university direct marketing; thankfully, my manager recognized how bored I was in the role) my first position here.

I have worked for companies large and small. I have ideas I'm sure I could never execute. But I am positive - and this is the [return to the beginning for the TL; DR]

TL;DR: I am positive I would not serve the quality of code I do now, had it not been for peers (mostly superiors) reviewing my code and commenting on how it could be done better. This had never happened during school, as we were all rushing to complete our assignments on time. This only happened when I was working on a team that recognized that the work I was doing was valuable. And that I was worth schooling on style, format, and efficiency.

I may be a (community! I'd started for an associates in arts - english!!) college drop-out, but everything I've learned being a full-time front-end (again: mostly JavaScript) developer has been surpassed again and again by what I learned behind the desk. I don't think I would be the developer I am now without some/most of the lessons taught to me. But I _know_ I would not be the developer I am now without the peer involvement encouraged by working on a team populated by programmers much, _much_ more knowledgeable than I.

Bottom line? Wish I would've gone to school, but shit I've learned professionally is invaluable. Don't underestimate it, and don't think 'apprenticing' isn't worth shit. Because it is.

</comment><comment><USER11> Definitely do the things that you're passionate about, because you will only end up regretting and coming up with those "what-if" questions everyday. Do it anyway.

They WePay founders are right in a way. You do give up (or do not adapt) a certain lifestyle if you do choose the entrepreneurial path, but the long-term rewards are endless.

<comment><USER12> I agree. As they say "In 10 years you will regret more things you have not done than things you have"

<comment><USER13> "Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable." - - Sydney Harris

And I vaguely remember seeing another similar quote from Churchill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The sooner you risk it, the sooner you'll start learning.

</comment><comment><USER15> Steve Hafner (founder of Expedia, Kayak) sums it up perfectly with the theory of a personal Drag Coefficient:

<http://startupatwork.org/video/concept-of-drag-coefficients/>

</comment><comment><USER16> This applies to almost everyone: It will never be cheaper than it is today.

The older you get, the more responsibilities you take on. When you have a mortgage, a wife, kids, and car loans, you have to make your startup pay really fast. When you have little debt, can crash on your parents couch (if needed), and drive a crappy old car that is paid for, you can take extreme risks, and the payback can be tiny for the first few months or even a couple of years.

<comment><USER17> If you always live at the bleeding edge of your means then this is true. You'll set yourself up on a treadmill of expenses and never get off.

However, if you live well within your means and you make smart financial decisions then the reverse is true. Instead of building your debt you'll build up your savings and your assets. Someone who's just getting out of college and needs to spend money buying basic household goods, an automobile, and needs to pay down their student loans is in a much worse position than someone with savings who doesn't need to pay rent or a car payment because they've already paid off their mortgage and their cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't think it's responsible to advise people with negative cash to take big risks. Risk is for people with no debt and a year or two of living expenses in cash.

<comment><USER19> If you would truly be homeless if you went bankrupt, then yes, it's not prudent.

But many of the people who would be in this position have a safety net if things go bad. They can default on their debt, move in with a friend or relative, and get a job and get back on their feet.

<comment><USER20> I'm kind of shocked at how casually you say 'They can default on their debt'. What a fcked up attitude.

<comment><USER21> I thought one of the biggest advantage of US financial system is for people to take risks with their business but can fail without a huge hit on their future, i.e. bankruptcy.

Without this attitude, you'll have people that is a lot more hesitant to start a business.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, there's been some research on this, showing a positive relationship between how "forgiving" a country's personal bankruptcy laws are and the level of entrepreneurship in that country: <http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ahn008v1></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


First reported case of transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17436-6 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus- pregna...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-pregnancy- covid-19.html)</comment>


A Peek at Emacs 24 - <AUTHOR> http://batsov.com/Emacs/2011/08/19/a-peek-at-emacs24.html

<comment><USER2> Hm, this doesn't mention support for lexical closures (not turned on by default, of course) which supposedly has been merged into the master branch. I sure hope this will make it into the release.

<comment><USER3> Ultimately, this feature isn't as important as everyone thinks it is. One thing that's great about Emacs is that it's easy to extend in ways that were not intended. When everyone starts doing Java-style enforced privacy, that's one less way to extend Emacs. The whole system becomes more rigid with no actual benefit. (When you are writing a server-side Java application, it's worth the increase in reliability to be able to know that your local variables are in a well-defined state; not knowing that leads to subtle and annoying bugs. But when you are writing a text editor that has a programmer sitting in front of it, interacting with it for every second that it is alive, this becomes significantly less important. As a thought experiment, I tried writing an Emacs extension as though it were a Java or CL program. It sucked.)

Ultimately, a closure is a (function . state) cons cell. Emacs doesn't need desperately need any new primitive to handle this; it's easy to pass in state to a function that needs it. So while I will certainly take advantage of closures when they become available, I'm not excited like a little kid waiting to open his Christmas. It's nice, but not Earth-shattering. And lexical variable binding comes with significant extensibility downsides when misused.

<comment><USER4> _And lexical variable binding comes with significant extensibility downsides when misused._

It sure does. Consider the draconian module system in Node.js that wraps all your code inside a lambda sandwich, shutting it away completely, and then forcing you to petition for access to it on a case-by-case basis. (The justification for this apparently being nothing more sophisticated than "But encapsulation is good.")

This is the programming equivalent of bureaucracy stifling innovation. It is particularly disastrous for writing new tools, which of course is an area where Emacs shines.

If something is not easy to extend in ways that were not intended, it is not easy to extend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >New scrolling commands scroll-up-line and scroll-down-line scroll a line instead of full screen.

Sorry, I never used Emacs, but are you trying to say that this was previously impossible? Or is it just some new binding?

<comment><USER6> Nothing is impossible in Emacs, but it did not ship with the function previously, yes. It also does not ship with a function for copying a line. It does, however, ship with a lisp which lets you do whatever the hell you want.

<comment><USER7> I've always gotten round the whole line copy thing with C-a C-k C-w, goto where you want, C-w. It's become second nature :(

<comment><USER6> You should look in to one of the functions listed here:

<http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CopyingWholeLines>

Not having to use 3 keystrokes in the place of one is the whole point of using Emacs.

<comment><USER8> C-S-backspace is already bound to kill-whole-line.

But barring that, I don't think the point of using Emacs is to write shortcuts for nearly everything. That will effectively kill many benefits of Emacs.

Emacs has various verbs for moving around and learning those and combining them with other verbs will allow you to reuse the same patterns on various types of files and use-cases.

For example, without shortcuts, copying one line is C-a C-SPC C-n M-w but actually you just keep your finger on control all the time and it becomes C-(a SPC n) to select: I can do that pretty much instantaneously. Then I can choose whether to kill or copy: in the latter, I just add M-w and the former goes even faster: C-(a SPC n w).

But the benefit of doing the more complex way is that if you want to copy/kill the line _above_ your current line, you just do C-(a SPC p w). Or if you want to kill a few words from the beginning of the line: C-a [M-d ...] or copy them: C-a [M-f ...] M-w. Or mark a few paragraphs, starting from the current one: M-{ [M-h ...] and you get the point.

If you had shortcut functions for various _complete_ combinations then you'd actually have to step out of the flow whenever you don't have a readily available shortcut for something. And it's much faster to type a couple of "extra" characters because you can leverage the same operations into more complex combinations without consciously thinking about it.

<comment><USER9> I've started trying to switch over from vim to emacs, due to the fact that emacs seems better designed in general, with more - better extensions. I'd been wondering if there was some standard way of doing line deletion than the one I'd come up with. Apparently not.

Well, time to go back to viper-mode, with my old friends 'yy', 'dd', and 'kyy'.

<comment><USER6> Vim _is_ better designed than Emacs for editing. Emacs is just better designed for everything else. To this day, there is no better way of scrolling text than j/k. That doesn't change the reality of Emacs' incredible flexibility.

<comment><USER10> Yes, and Emacs can also emulate ... Vim.

=> VIPER mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does GNU Emacs have standardized (out-of-the-box) parser generating facilities, or every package still has to hack their own?

<comment><USER3> But keep in mind that parsers are designed to parse well-formed documents, not to parse non-well-formed documents pretending that they are well-formed. When you are typing in code, you are often in an invalid state that a formal grammar would reject. Hence, syntax highlighters try to guess what a piece of text is in based on as little state (previous lines of the document) as possible. Yes, you lose absolute accuracy, but the heuristics get a lot right, run extremely quickly, and are tolerant of errors.

As an example, nobody has a formal grammar that will parse Perl 5, but cperl- mode highlights (and indents, etc.) almost everything you throw at it correctly. In fact, I can't think of anything that _doesn't_ highlight correctly!

(Also, CEDET is in core now, and it has a library for writing parsers. Never seems to work for me, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This still quite far away isn't it? I know there is a 24.50 and lots of activity but the release cycle is pretty long.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know the release schedule for this?

<comment><USER14> Theoretically some time around January, but that's what they said with 23, which was released in March. It's been in feature freeze since the beginning of July though.</comment></comment>


Amazon Job Ad by Jeff Bezos – "Startup Seeks Unix Developers" (1994) - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ba.jobs.offered/-rvJUMBbZ18 <comment><USER2> Nice one; here's Google Friends mailing list 1998, by Larry and Sergey:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20000304022602/http://www.egroups...](http://web.archive.org/web/20000304022602/http://www.egroups.com:80/list/google- friends/)</comment>


Goldman's traders use a proprietary programming language called "Slang" - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/38584613 <comment><USER2> A relevant thread from Wilmott Forums: [http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=16&threadid...](http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=16&threadid=59857)

In particular, this quote from Dominic Connor is telling:

"...[snip]... As Zmei says [SLang] a GS only language, which even within GS is not exactly universally loved. I hear tales of tragically poor performance, and the inability to cope with modern programming. Think of it as a equivalent to C# 1.0, ie old fashioned.

I don't know how much it is seen as protecting IP, but it is not clear how GS can give it up within the next decade even if they tried. There is just so much of it there.

There are spots of Java, VBA, and C++ in GS, who often value C++ experience in new hires, even if they don't use it.

The GS IT bonus pool is better than most people's IT bonus pool, but it's several tiers down. Mobility is no worse at GS than many other firms, but that is not saying much of course. Slang does in this context work to your advantage. Many IT department technologies have no value in quant and/or front office roles, but since Slang is prevalent in all aspects of GS, this barrier is much smaller. But of course the politics in all banks is far more of a problem than the technology."

Dominic is a very well known Quant head hunter. Well informed and generally well liked within the community. I'd wager that they don't want to use Slang in the spinoff simply because they have a change to do a reset and don't want the baggage.

<comment><USER3> When I was interviewing at GS we talked about Python vs Slang and several of the interviewers mentioned the biggest problem with slang was the lack of toolkit (good debuggers, IDE, etc.).

<comment><USER4> It's also worth noting that the SEC thinks python is a good language for specing ABS.

[http://kelloggfinance.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/the-sec- gets-...](http://kelloggfinance.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/the-sec-gets-one- right/)

<comment><USER5> I remember I see people using some sort of old fashioned Basic like IDE with blue screen and yellow fonts to work on it. Do not know if it has improved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read this article a while back, that said that Microsoft employs more millionaire secretary's that any other company in the world. They took stock options over Christmas bonuses. It was a good move. I remember there was this picture, of one of the groundskeepers next to his Ferrari. Blew my mind. you see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think its possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The $87 Million lottery winner, that kid actor that just made 20 million o his last movie, that internet stock that shot through the roof, you could have made millions if you had just gotten in early, and that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: "Either you're slangin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot." Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slanging crack-rock: I became a stock broker.

\- Seth Davis, Boiler Room

<comment><USER7> How is this at all relevant to GS porting their code to a standard programming language?

<comment><USER6> I meant it as a tongue-in-cheek reference. The mentality of the character in the movie boiler room gets involved with stock trading because he equates it to the young white male version of "slangin' crack rocks". I found it interesting that stock traders/programmers are literally "slang-in'".

The mentality in the movie also leads one to question the value of what is being created in the world of stock trading. So, to me, the comment had multiple levels of irony and coincidence. But having to explain it makes it lose some of the luster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _At initial stages, potential recruits are not even told that Goldman is the client._

Well, yeah. That's because if the recruiter tells you where the job is, you'll go directly to the client and keep the 30% of your salary that the recruiter gets to yourself.

<comment><USER9> Of course, at places like Goldman (in stark contrast to the Cloudera blog post the other week), coming in through a recruiter actually increases your chance of getting the job and a high salary. The recruiter can be the door-banger who pushes your paperwork through the organization and demands a high salary, while you get to be mild-mannered, not desperate for employment, and not a prima donna about money.

<comment><USER10> I assume the recruiter will take a percentage of the salary as their fee, so it's in their interest to do this.

<comment><USER11> most recruiters work for the company and the company pays the fee, sometimes a flat fee or a % of the yearly salary of the new employee

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Slang is a proprietory language developed by GS, it's been around for ~15 years I think. If I remember correctly they have a development/analysis environment called SecDB in which all coding is done with Slang. All their modelling, pricing and risking is done in SecDB across all asset classes so it's pretty widely embedded.

<comment><USER13> I've looked at Slang a bit. It's an interpreted dataflow language running on an in-memory database called SecDB. Untyped, Pascal-ish, single-threaded, and poor support for namespaces. Like a spreadsheet, it only needs to recompute the subgraph that has changed. It was probably innovative 25 years ago (I think it came out mid-80s), but today you could write Java code and use memoization aggressively to speed things up. Slang is not why GS traders are successful. AFAIK, GS succeeds because they listen to their risk people.

<comment><USER14> A former GS pricing quant describes Slang briefly in a footnote at the following URL. It doesn't go into much detail, but maybe adds a morsel to what's been mentioned:

[http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup- with-z...](http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-with-zero- revenue-is-better-than-working-for-goldman-sachs#footnote_4_195)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "That language plays a vital role in Goldman's prop trading, including it's computer driven high-frequency trading."

John Carney, Senior Editor, CNBC.com, needs to get himself an editor. :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a long history of using alternative in-house languages at Wall St. firms (and new ones are being developed at a few large firms I know).

<comment><USER17> Morgan Stanley and others were big users of APL, back in the day. Now _that's_ a wacky language!

<comment><USER16> APL isn't all that weird once you spend a little time with it. It's "just" a dynamically typed collection-oriented language. I think people look at some screenshots, make a stupid joke since they aren't familiar with the notation, and move on rather than digging in. I highly recommend Dyalog's dialect for a comfortable IDE, OO support, .NET support for GUIs on Windows etc.

For MS' APL dialect, you can get the whole thing from: <http://www.aplusdev.org/>

My understanding is that they still have many many lines of code written in this language running. They also use a commercial intellectual successor of this language called q from kx systems. Many other firms do as well, but I won't name them since I don't know which ones are public about it.

I'm pretty sure that the firms I know creating new languages are not public about it, but there are at least 3 very very large ones doing so. Aiming for a functional flavor, large-scale parallelism, streaming, low-latency processing of large data sets, high-quality compilation and leveraging new hardware are common themes.

<comment><USER17> Yep, I used to work with a bloke from IP Sharp ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._P._Sharp_Associates#APL_Impl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._P._Sharp_Associates#APL_Implementors)), he showed me some cool stuff. I have another friend who does q and kdb+ stuff.

<comment><USER18> I currently work with a bunch of Sharpies, including Dave Markwick (mentioned in that article). Dave still writes APL from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The "Why" is missing in this article. Anyone care to comment?

<comment><USER20> What I would like to know is why didn't they simply license it to them?

<comment><USER21> Most likely because they cannot afford to risk that someone will steal the intellectual property of their slow and bug-ridden language implementation.

<comment><USER22> Well, there's one big advantage to the whole Slang _system_ and that is that it's integrated throughout the company and the system can be used for relatively quick "what if?" and "where do we stand?" queries. Instead of the data being embedded in a zillion (often incorrect) spreadsheets and small databases or whatever that have to be manually scraped, reported and consolidated, it all happens automatically. It may not be "fast" but it's a lot faster than manual methods.

ADDED: see this comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1581604>

<comment><USER23> From what i know that was the original intention behind Slang and SecDB. Standardization of use across different departments and in some ways a way to subvert the politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It will be interesting to find out what the 'more standard' language that they decide on will be. With the resurgence of new Lisp-like languages, F# (which is already in wide use at Credit Suisse), and other functional types getting a little more mainstream, I wonder if something like that will be chosen over Java, C++ or C#.

</comment><comment><USER25> I thought Slang was a static subset Smalltalk used to implement virtual machines, like PreScheme (Scheme48) and Restricted Python (PyPy).

<comment><USER26> Also, the JED editor has an extension language of that name. It was my editor of choice during the late 90s, and I also used Slang as a scripting language in my youthful attempts at adventure games.

<http://www.jedsoft.org/jed/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Snake" in Dutch ... how appropriate.

<comment><USER28> "Hose" in Swedish, which I also found amusing. :)

Also, S-lang is the name of at least one well-known programming language, it's used to script the jed editor among other things. See <http://www.jedsoft.org/slang/>.

<comment><USER29> In Dutch, "hose" is another meaning of slang as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Unrelated to the story (looking at the stock price) Why would GS be worth $154 a share when they're paying dividends of $.35 a share?

Of course I guess the last time Apple paid a dividend was 1995, and they're trading at $259 a share.

<comment><USER31> When you buy a share you are buying a piece of a business and the future cash flows that it generates.

Looking at a figure like dividends is kind of meaningless. You specifically want to look at the cash flow that is available to owners. That cash flow can be used for different things (buybacks, reinvesting in the business, dividends, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "The problem is that Goldman's traders use a special computer language called "Slang" that was developed for internal use only."

^^^ What in God's name are traders doing going anywhere near a programming language? Surely this is some mistake.

<comment><USER33> Believe it or not, this is quite common in the industry. I developed some software for one of the Big 5 banks in Canada and I saw first hand traders learning to program using C++, Java, whatever they can get their hands on because they need to test out models, perform calculations that Excel can't do readily - although VBA is a trader's best friend.

Recently, they've been using R more and more. And as you'd imagine, their code is _horrendous_ but hey, it works.

What I learned is that the entire financial industry relies on Excel and really bad programming. It's really scary to think that 37Signals has better software and software practices than a bank.

<comment><USER16> Historically there has been some truly awful code, no doubt, and much still being written.

There is a growing breed of trader though who can code well. Coding well in a variety of languages is becoming a basic skill along with advanced math & stats for certain types of trading jobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D - <AUTHOR> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

<comment><USER2> _A severe influenza pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War, and Hurricane Katrina combined, perhaps a million people in the USA alone. Such a disaster would tear the fabric of American society. Our entire country might resemble the Superdome or Bourbon Street after Hurricane Katrina._

Is anyone else tired of these doomsday prophecies? Everyone was hysterical about H1N1 and it turned out to be milder than "normal" flu in the end. I'm not trying to say anything about the rest of the article, I'm just really tired of the attitude.

It's estimated that, in United States, about 40,000 people a year die in highway accidents. If we adopted the same sensationalist attitude, we could compare it to the Vietnam War, which (according to Wikipedia) claimed the lives of 58,236 US soldiers, over the course of several years. Obviously, highway accidents will be the doom of United States, right?

Sorry, rant over.

<comment><USER3> Sensationalist attitude? The 1918 influenza epidemic killed an estimated 100 million people at a time when the world was a lot 'smaller' than it is today. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic>

The H5N1 virus is wickedly deadly and treatment options are limited. Fortunately it hasn't yet mutated into a form that's easily transmitted between humans.

And then there's the SARS scare which might have been a little over the top but it had all the right ingredients: high morbidity and highly contagious.

Sorry that you find this stuff tiring but the risks are real.

<comment><USER2> I believe that the risks are real, I really do. I'm not disputing that. The reason why the attitude tiring is because medical issues have been handled very badly in the last few years. To be honest, it might also be that I started paying more attention to it in those few years and it has always been handled badly.

My point is that it's becoming really hard for an average person today to decide how to react to information from medical field. Every now and then there's a report of a "new study" which "concludes" this or that about some disease or condition or disorder. More often than not, the study is not really a study but a theory, or it's not sound for this or that reason, or it's not new, or it doesn't really conclude anything yet, etc. Plus, on top of it, you get stuff like that whole fiasco with vaccines.

What I'm driving at is that the way this stuff is handled makes it really hard for ordinary people like me to make decisions. If it was just about me, then I wouldn't worry so much, but my son is three years old and each time a new "threat" appears, I have to decide what to do.

Finally, regarding the article, was it really necessary to start it that way? Yes, the risks are real, but how does stating them yet again contribute to the article?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aside from the experience in his ward, mostly the other evidence seems to be the correlation between winter and the spread of influenza. There may be other causes for that correlation besides vitamin D (or they might all be contributing factors), such as: -People spend more time indoors, closer to other people. If the virus is airborne or spread through human contact, transmission rates would naturally go up in the winter. -People travel during the holidays so the virus has more opportunity to spread around: more people trapped in airplanes with sick people, and more sick people moving viruses from point A to point B.

That said, I'd like to see more evidence and discussion of whether taking vitamin D supplements are worthwhile, I suspect they are but am not convinced entirely by this article.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sometimes I want to move out to the country to get away from these types of risks. And to get away from the traffic, overcrowding, etc...</comment>


What the Bitfinex Tether Scandal Means for Crypto - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/coinblick/what-the-bitfinex-tether-scandal-means-for-crypto-d2febcf663f5 <comment><USER2> Just unbelievable if a company issued a loan to itself</comment>


Ask HN: AWS or Dedicated Server - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I'd like to hear you all host your websites/applications/businesses on and why. Is it AWS, or do you use something dedicated from companies like Softlayer/OVH/etc.
I'm currently researching both to host an application I'm working on, and would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> AWS should work fine for you, but I would spend a lot of time up front going through the AWS security blog to make sure your infrastructure is secure. I was bit by this and experienced a hack within 2 hours of starting up my first ec2 instance. I learned quite a bit back then from that.

AWS can be very expensive depending on what your application will do.</comment>


A Startup Making Paper Out of Stone, Not Trees - T-A https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/the-former-used-car-salesman-who-s-squeezing-paper-from-a-stone <comment><AUTHOR> Just a note: paper is either made of dead standing trees or wood that is so full of rot/defect that no lumber can be made from it. It is a common misconception that live green trees and whole forests are destroyed for paper.

\- a former woodsman for 13 years

Edit: My experience is in western Canada. I forgot that hackernews is a global site. Some countries do grow pine specifically for paper.

<comment><USER2> Here in south America paper mills work with massive pine plantations, in deforested land or in former wetlands.

<comment><USER3> But they grow the pines for paper and then regrow them? Is the whole operation sustainable? According to Penn and Teller's "Bullshit", it is.

<comment><USER2> Yes, they use mostly young pines which are easily chipped. I think in about 6 years you can cut them for paper.

<comment><USER4> 8-10 years. Most (~80%) of the power needed in a paper mill is generated from the bark of the tree which is converted into fuel using several chemical mixtures. Overall, the paper industry is actually very sustainable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _To make a ton of regular paper requires 100 tons of water, TBM says, while its Limex paper is made without water. In place of 20 trees, it uses less than a ton of limestone, as well as 200 kilograms of polyolefin.

...

"Making paper from wood chips involves planting trees, which can be carbon neutral, so I'm not sure how much appeal this will have" from an environmental perspective._

Appeal from an environmental perspective: zero. Less than zero. Polyolefins are plastics. The vast majority are made from fossils. Polyolefins _can_ be made starting from biomass but then so is ordinary paper. It's baffling if the inventor or his customers think that he's improved on the traditional environmental tradeoffs associated with paper production.

<comment><USER6> Polyolefins are some of the safest plastics around, environmentally speaking, and are fully recyclable. The paper may actually be as good or better than standard pulp paper is.

It may not be, too! Calculating the lifecycle is complex. But it isn't something than is easy to assume one way or the other.

<comment><USER7> They're starting off by replacing a potentially renewable resource (trees) with two nonrenewable resources (plastic and limestone). It could still come out ahead in the lifecycle analysis, but it's not a great place to start.

> _and are fully recyclable_

How about after mixing them with a bunch of limestone? Generally "hybrid" materials aren't recyclable (tetrapacks, mylar bags, wet strength cardboard, etc).

<comment><USER8> Serious question.

So I know limestone is technically a non-renewable resource, since we're using it far faster than it is being created.

Should, uh, we actually be worried? It's like 7% of the Earth's crust; are we actually using limestone fast enough to use up a significant fraction of the usable limestone in the expected lifetime of humanity?

<comment><USER9> I've always wondered the same about iron ore, granite, marble etc.

<comment><USER6> The BBC put together a world resource list a couple years back that I think you might find interesting.

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources- st...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-stock-check)

It lists a variety of elements (like antimony) that are surprisingly constrained. If I were to pick the most critical material on the list, though, it would be phosphates. The green boom that feeds the world needs phosphates, the world supply of phosphate-bearing rock is small, and there are no possible substitutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't hemp one of the most ecologically sound materials to make paper from?

random link [http://www.hemphasis.net/Paper/paper_files/hempvtree.htm](http://www.hemphasis.net/Paper/paper_files/hempvtree.htm)

And one of the reasons marijuana was originally prohibited in the US was due to lobbying from wood-based paper companies.

<comment><USER11> The fact hemp is illegal is silly, but it isn't as amazing as all the potheads would have you believe.

Hemp is legal to grow elsewhere in the world, and importing it into the US has been legal since the 90s. Yet the worldwide demand for hemp has stayed flat, mostly because it requires a massive amount of water and humus rich soil compared to alternatives. The plant itself has a weak stalk that makes mechanical harvesting difficult, and can't be harvested year-round like trees can.

If it was a commercially viable alternative, you'd see usage in Europe and Asia. Remember that poor countries tend to gravitate to cost efficient materials for domestic use, yet almost all hemp produced is exported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Buried in the article is that the binder is polyolefin, which basically just means plastic. So, this is plastic paper. Granted, the examples given were for semi durable items like menus and business cards, but i still see that as a net negative.

<comment><USER13> Depending on the type of restaurant menus can need frequent re-printing. I'm sure even at lower-end corporate chains there is a cycle time where new dishes are cycled through while older ones are removed.

<comment><USER14> I imagine in those types of restaurants, menus might be cycled-out due to wear and tear more often than due to changing dishes. In which case, the increased durability and water-resistance of this stone-based paper might result in less waste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've got a notebook of stone paper that I bought from a local office supplier which I use for general note taking. It's not the brand in the article however. Writing on stone paper feels quite amazing. The pen just glides over the paper, and the paper feels very high quality. It's waterproof and doesn't tear like normal paper (when you pull it apart it pulls like a flimsy elastic plastic that eventually rips). I thoroughly enjoy using it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I see 2 problems with this:

* the other ingredient is polyolefin resins - unless they are obtained from recycled plastic bags or similar, this probably makes Limex worse than normal paper (how much water is involved, we do't know for sure).

* what happens at the product's EOL? Will it end up together with recycled paper and cause problems in that process? Will it have to be recycled separately and if yes, who's going to be able to tell these types of paper apart?

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure about this. Trees are sustainable and renewable. Rocks are not. This is why mining can be so devastating to an area

<comment><USER6> We're never going to run out of lime. Ever. It is literally everywhere.

<comment><USER18> > We're never going to run out of lime. Ever. It is literally everywhere.

Not true. Limestone suitable for mining is a limited resource. That's why cement companies like Lafarge pay millions for mining rights in South East Asia. They clear out entire mountain ranges to turn into cement.

<comment><USER6> They will mine wherever they can make the greatest profit.

That doesn't mean we will ever run out, or even ever run out of good-quality limestone. It just means that for a variety of reasons (mostly lax taxation laws and a population in poverty that will work for terrible wages) Vietnam is a hotspot for mining in SE Asia, but its total production is a rounding error compared to what is produced in China alone.

There is a lot to be discussed about exploiting poorer areas for resource extraction. It's a subject that goes beyond any one particular resource. But (in the case of lime) it also does not imply scarcity. Keep in mind that lime can be regenerated- the lime cycle is an endless loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Paper is a declining consumer of wood. "Peak paper" was years ago, after print newspapers tanked. There are many abandoned paper mills, if you want one. It's possible to make paper from rice hulls (works fine, and common in China, but a bit hard as a writing surface), kenaf (works, but nobody bothers), and hemp (niche product for potheads).

It's just not a problem.

<comment><USER20> It shifted rather, newspaper paper is down yes, but hygienic products and all sort of package material is up by allot

<comment><USER21> Ecommerce will probably play an even bigger role there. The demand for paper packaging has been increasing constantly over the last decade. Amazon probably uses more paper than even a major newspaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Silliness. Paper is a sustainable, and easily renewable resource...we don't need to find alternatives if we just keep planting trees.

<comment><USER23> From the article: "To make a ton of regular paper requires 100 tons of water". It hardly seems silly to avoid that cost, fresh water is on it's way to being a scarce resource in many parts of the planet.

<comment><USER24> The water doesn't just disappear into thin air. It gets reused sometimes and then get treated and released or reused.

<comment><USER25> Side point: water literally just disappears into thin air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am worried about the dust this type of paper might produce when it is shredded or ripped, similar to the dust from rockwool insulation materials made from stone fibres. If I remember correctly, the persistence time of rockwool dust (current generation not 1970s) in your lungs is about 4 weeks, during which it is /may be cancerogenic?

</comment><comment><USER27> I had one of the most beautiful writing experiences with pencil on stone paper, it is amazing (Field Notes).

On the other hand, it is not for fountain pens. I think it is specialty paper that is very useful but will not replace regular paper and also should not be sold as ecological alternative.

</comment><comment><USER28> Years ago, when I got the original Nexus One smartphone, I'm fairly certain the box it came in contained a small card with instructions on it that was made from limestone. I can't remember the name of the company responsible but I remember it being printed on the card and that I checked out their website since I was intrigued. I never saw those non-paper cards in any subsequent Nexus packages.

Edit: I wonder why Google stopped using them. Or maybe they didn't and I just never noticed since they were so paper-like.

</comment><comment><USER29> I can imagine cutting trees, burning large areas of vegetation to allow for mining, which is even worse. Lands get deformed, parts of limestone mountains start collapsing. Plants never grow again in the area unless aggressive regenaration of the land and planting is done. The soil gets fragile and unstable.

I also wonder how the process of production is done. To process limestone usually produces a lot of co2 (I have no reference, but that's what I remember from reading stuff online). Additionally, as many have noted the plastics used (20% of the final mass of the product) still are plastics made from fossil resources. Is a way for recycling known, especially considering the final product is a mixture of plastics and limestone?

It seems that the producer does not have a real, scientific proof that his production is environmentally good, but does it as a 'novel', and 'fascinating' idea with the only goal of making money. The article itself says that the producer looks forward to making a product that will last, but does not indicate that the producer ever had a goal of protecting the environment.

Finally, the subject is very much worth of discussion in HN, and I personally feel thankful for the one who submitted it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Trees aside, this is not a new concept, stone paper notebooks have been around for a while. The ones I had wrote incredibly smooth and I loved every one of them. I think Walgreens still carries a small one.

[https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/oxford-stone-paper-note- bo...](https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/oxford-stone-paper-note- book/ID=prod6000650-product)

<comment><USER31> Seems true. A "stone paper" search on Amazon shows there are items already available:

[https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Paper-Notebook-13x21cm- Cobalt/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Paper-Notebook-13x21cm- Cobalt/dp/B06W56LCF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497614854&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=stone+paper&psc=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [https://www.wired.com/2013/02/stone-paper- notebook/](https://www.wired.com/2013/02/stone-paper-notebook/): _" this paper is made from stone, but it isn't exactly eco-friendly"_.

Not surprising given that it is around one fifth plastic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_paper): _" The process for creating Stone Paper was first developed by Taiwan Lung Meng Tech Co. in Taiwan during the late 1990s. Stone Paper has been patented in over 40 countries, where its products are marketed under a variety of other trade names such as GPA UltraGreen, MIST Paper, Parax Paper, Terraskin, ViaStone, Kampier, Limex, CleanSlate, EmanaGreen and Rockstock, Pixz Printing, KYStone Paper and Nu Stone."_

So, the main idea it isn't new either. What, if anything, is special about this startup's process?

</comment><comment><USER33> Would this be considered a business, not a startup? I don't see major disruption happening in this space. Lots of companies make non-wood paper, e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_paper) and plastic.

<comment><USER34> Does a startup have to be majorly disruptive? Does it have to be (one of) the first in its market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There doesn't seem to be mention of few existing companies that have been producing notebooks and other products from limestone, for years now. One example:

* [http://nuco-direct.com/nu-stone/](http://nuco-direct.com/nu-stone/)

<comment><USER36> Well, the article did say that the owner of the company saw this type of "paper" in Korea and decided to set up a similar factory in Japan...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> So instead of carbon neutral pulp paper that can be recycled and biodegrades, this paper is 1/5 plastic, doesn't biodegrade, and probably ruins the batch if mixed with pulp-based paper for recycling.

The water savings are good, but this doesn't seem like a net gain.

</comment><comment><USER38> Just an FYI that Koch-owned Georgia-Pacific papermills release tons of cancer- causing pollutants including PCBs, hydrogen sulfide, cyanide, formaldehyde, dioxin, acetaldehyde and chloroform into neighboring communities.

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1007148](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1007148)

[http://www.newsweek.com/2016/04/29/crossett-arkansas- georgia...](http://www.newsweek.com/2016/04/29/crossett-arkansas-georgia- pacific-factory-pollution-446954.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> Quick question: what are the properties of this paper? Can I burn it? Fold it? Eat it?

<comment><USER6> Yes. Polyolefins are highly flammable. They aren't the worst plastic to burn, but they will melt and stick to things, and you really shouldn't breathe the smoke.

Yes.

With the right attitude, anything is possible! (really, don't, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I have a notebook made from stone paper. I use it in my kitchen because water won't kill it and I can write on it in sharpie without it bleeding, even onto the opposite side of the page. This is not new.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've been using these "Ogami Collection" notebooks apparently made from limestone for a while now: [https://origin68.com/collections/notebooks- stationery/produc...](https://origin68.com/collections/notebooks- stationery/products/professional-black-notebook?variant=7229226053)

They're like much more durable Moleskins, in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER42> "He says it's the answer to concerns over deforestation and water shortages, with world demand for paper set to double by 2030."

I'm very curious as to what is expected to be driving this increase in demand. If anything, I would expect electronics to make paper more and more obsolete. But what am I missing?

<comment><USER43> If we build enough desalination plants, there'd be no such thing as [fresh] water shortage; 2/3rds of the planet is covered in it.

That said... Why aren't Paper pulping factories located near the sea, and have desalination on site if using fresh water is such a problem?

<comment><USER44> Paper pulping factories are built where fresh water is abundant, they don't have a problem. These areas also tend to coincide with wood sources. It would be incredibly inefficient to make paper on desalination water when you can just ship it from a rainy place.

Whenever someone is making a big topic out of water consumption (not to be confused with water pollution!) without specific ties to an arid environment it's just a desperate attempt at greenwashing. Water scarcity is real, but it is not universally real everywhere.

<comment><USER45> Agreed. But exceptions do exist. Singapore is neither arid nor self-sufficient in fresh water.

<comment><USER44> If water is really that scarce there ( = expensive), they are most likely using a much more water-efficient process than the typical pulp factory close to arid wood resources. The rough ballpark numbers for "water use in paper production" include a majority of factories located in places where investment in water reuse facilities simply does not work out economically, and quite possibly not even ecologically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder what takes more CO2 output. Mining stone, or growing trees and processing them in paper farms?

Smrt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Processed wood is considered carbon neutral until it breaks down, minus the transportation emissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> You can view the end result, including when they attempt to tear it, in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KchJZKoT16w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KchJZKoT16w)

</comment><comment><USER48> This seems way less sustainable than pulp based paper. What's the appeal?

</comment><comment><USER49> And this startup aims to replace concrete by a wood based material.

[https://woodoo.fr/home/](https://woodoo.fr/home/)

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm assuming that besides it being waterproof, it's also fireproof? That would make it interesting.

Other than that, limestone isn't renewable while trees are so...

</comment><comment><USER51> why is there no effort to make artificial tree mass? this could be done by creating genetically engineered trees that use as little resources as possible to grow as much wood as possible in lab environments. one could even go as far as powering the cells electrically -- it is theoretically possible and has been done in the lab before. or, why is there no effort to synthesize wood itself chemically, industrially?

<comment><USER52> are you serious? like - really? because we already do solar powered, mass- industrial-scale, genetically engineered, hyper-optimized paper feedstock production in _forests_.

<comment><USER53> I don't think that's an unreasonable question. Your answer suggests that we already have the most optimal solution, which by analogy cows would be too. I assume you know cows aren't.

But like with cows, it is not inconceivable that "regular" trees are not the most effective way of making wood. They need to stay alive which means they "waste" energy doing so. While I personally don't think we can outdo trees with regular chemical compounds, I think we can at least genetically modify some already-optimized tree family in a way that require less water, sun, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Stone.... and polyolefins. This somewhat pollutes the message. Is it anywhere near as recyclable or biodegradable as 'normal' paper?

<comment><USER8> From a market perspective, there are really two distinct markets: temporary paper users (newspapers, mailers, the stuff you write your school papers on...) and archival paper users (eg libraries). For archival users, the biodegradability of paper is a bug, not a feature, even though for the bulk of overall paper users are probably the temporary users, and need to be able to compost or recycle your waste paper.

Imagine being able to drop your book in the bathtub and just shake it off; imagine future historians finding a thousand year old abandoned library in mint condition. A non-biodegradable paper wouldn't replace wood/rag pulp paper in any meaningful way, but it would have its uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Trees = renewable resource

Stone = not renewable resource

I don't think we should waste stone even faster than we already are.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder what the archival properties of this paper are like. Is it fully inert? That would be useful.

</comment><comment><USER57> There used to be a company called EarthShell which made biodegradable food packaging and other containers out of limestone and other stuff. It went public in 1998[0], filed for bankruptcy protection a decade ago[1], and their twitter account was last updated in 2010[2].

I wish TBM better luck.

[0] [https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/earthshell-begins-to- cr...](https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/earthshell-begins-to-crumble)

[1] "After losing more than $331 million during its 14 years of operations, EarthShell Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection." \- [http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2007/01/29/stor...](http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2007/01/29/story1.html) (paywalled)

[2] [https://twitter.com/EarthShell](https://twitter.com/EarthShell)

Interesting trivia: the founder and chairman, Essam Khashoggi, is the brother of Adnan Khashoggi - a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair.

</comment><comment><USER58> Paper sequesters carbon. Why is using stone a good thing here?

</comment><comment><USER59> I guess this is what it mean to be written in stone.

</comment><comment><USER60> What's the archival permanence of this stuff?

</comment><comment><USER61> Going back to Flinstone age ?

</comment><comment><USER62> FINALLY, I'll be able to take notes while scuba-diving.

</comment><comment><USER63> > world demand for paper set to double by 2030

We have failed.

</comment><comment><USER64> paper? What is this 1995?

<comment><USER65> Computers and the Internet existed back then too. Over two decades later and sending paper through the mail is still a thing. WHY?!?!?!</comment></comment>


Stop peeing away vitamins. Chew gum instead? - <AUTHOR> https://www.heartstronggum.com/blog/3-reasons-chewing-gum-is-better-for-you-than-swallowing-pills/

<comment><AUTHOR> I just love the first line of this, it is what I feel like every time I pull a bottle of multivitamin off the shelf. Some interesting points in here

<comment><USER2> Ok but why are you posting this on Hacker News? Totally irrelevant.</comment></comment>


Is your VPN lying to you? - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/28/is-your-vpn-lying-to-you/ <comment><USER2> > Regarding the Hidemyass claim of "physical servers in 190+ countries," > RestorePrivacy's post countered saying if users believe that, "I have a > bridge to sell you."

Why do people still use HideMyAss? It was found to be scammy and ineffective multiple times over the past decade.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not to mention Hola :D Anyway, I'm sad to have my VPN provider (VPNSecure) mentioned somewhat badly.</comment></comment>