An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/the-ai-dashcam-app-that-wants-to-rate-every-driver-in-the-world <comment><USER2> The real purpose of this app isn't the rating system, that's just the hook to get people to run this app and point the camera out their dashboards. The real purpose is to crowdsource collecting data about the drivers on the road in order to sell that data to interested parties.

<comment><USER3> Meh, all the purposes are real. It's a win-win. Get warned of idiots, collect data that will be useful to insurers (and probably to self driving cars too, I can imagine Google cars giving detected hotheads a wide berth).

I can see one group of people having a legit beef with this though: car rental companies. One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap.

<comment><USER4> "One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap."

Unless, of course, they pay this nice fee to have their fleet cars whitelisted in the app, call it "bad driver protection money"!

<comment><USER5> The point being, once everyone has this thing in their car and everyone is being watched while they are driving, everyone will be marked as an idiot. Even the safest drivers make stupid moves. Even worse, by what metric is an idiot made? I drive aggressively, trying to find open space on the road whenever I can. To do this I speed and otherwise make abrupt lane changes. If I'm on a road trip and someone is following me too closely I'll speed up to 140 MPH to put some distance between us in short order. The thing is, I've never been in an accident and have literally raced cars on the Nurburgring in Germany without incident. I have a driving style which works for me and works for others around me as I'm not in accidents and I don't cause accidents. My mother-in-law on the other hand who drives five under everywhere and by most people's metrics is a safe driver has been in two accidents in the last five years. Neither of which were her fault of course (said with some sarcasm).

All I can see this accomplishing is adding yet one more gadget app for people to be distracted by.

<comment><USER3> This sounds like you drive like an idiot. And so you should be marked as one, and are grumpy about it. Well, tough.

Basically what you're doing is playing Russian roulette, and you keep "winning", well yeah, that happens, right up until it doesn't.

Drive like a Google car. Stop being an idiot. Get a smiley face score.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, I bathe in idiocy because it works. One of the "tricks" I've picked up is that if I'm being tailgated in town or someone is otherwise driving next to me and won't stop I'll turn off traction control and "light up" the rear end of my car. Everyone 'scatters' at that point. A lot of people don't understand this driving style. I look like a complete idiot, but people pay attention to the idiots. They watch them, they hang back, thus making the idiot a lot safer. My car stops from 60 to 0 in 97 feet. It takes someone in the average sedan nearly twice as far. The further I can keep those people away from me the better. When I'm driving I'm engaged. I drive a low fast sports car which requires full engagement. This makes me the safest person on the road no matter how bad I look to other drivers. This is a key concept when on a motorcycle as well. If you are blending in by being "good", no one is paying attention to you. If you are driving a loud bike, speeding up and slowing down aggressively, popping wheelies, and otherwise behaving like an ass, you are visible. Scare those around you and those around you will give you room and on the road and room is king.

<comment><USER6> I agree to an extent. I also drive "like an idiot" and haven't been in an accident aside from being t-boned in traffic when a very old person didn't stop for a red light. I'm also very engaged while driving and pay lots of attention to everything going on around me. I don't listen to music or eat or have children or do phone calls while driving. I also consider driving a hobby / sport and value continual life-long improvement in it. I practice in realistic driving games and I've been doing so since I was very young. I'm very interested in participating in track days and auto cross events. I do most of my own car maintenance, drive a manual, and I know how my vehicle works in quite deep detail. I also know how it handles at and beyond the limit, when it will break loose in the front and rear, how quickly it can stop and accelerate, how hard it can swerve.

This app and the related one about insurance liability (posted here maybe a week or two ago) would unfairly rate me, because I go against the risk model and win consistently. I also agree that there are MANY "safe" drivers whose indecision and timid driving leads to bad situations; merging at 45mph, slowing way down for ramps, stoping at yield signs, driving under the speed of traffic, braking unnecessarily in traffic, etc. However, since in my situation, the insurance company gets to charge me a lot more, they're incentivized against modeling drivers like me as less risky than someone who is involved in more accidents than me but drives well within the limits and doesn't understand what happens when they approach or exceed them.

<comment><USER5> I'm in exactly your same boat. Do all the work on my car myself, only drive a manual, know how my tires will perform on various pavement at various temperatures, wear driving shoes, leave the radio off, etc., because I'm an enthusiast. A few years ago I was teaching my son to drive on slick roads so we were spinning cookies, doing bootlegger turns, and using engine power rather than braking to get out of situations in the county fairgrounds parking lot. There was no one around, nothing to run into, but yet a local officer started circling us on the perimeter lot road, at which point I had my son back off for safety reasons since there was another car in the parking lot. Anyway, he decided to light us up, then threatened my son and myself (because he had a learners permit) with reckless driving charges. And so it is in the US, land of the ignorant when it comes to actually learning how to drive or having the ability to teach our kids how to drive in an abandoned parking lot. I much, much, much prefer Germany in this regard. They really do get it on this front.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how well this will scale with time. I've certainly done things while driving that were reckless to varying degrees, I suspect most drivers have as well. How long until 50% of cars on the road have been tagged doing something reckless? Of course I can imagine a number of ways to handle this.

On a more broad note, I wonder how useful it really is to know that a specific vehicle acted recklessly sometime in the past. Seeing someone behaving poorly is good reason to avoid them on the roadway. However I also imagine a scenario where one driver did something to warrant an alert, and some time later every car on the roadway is trying to avoid that vehicle. Is there really any danger from that vehicle in the current situation?

What I would like to see is a map showing where the most incidents occur, and what type of incidents occur there. I assume most drivers genuinely set out intending to behave well, but do not for various reasons. Identifying locations where incidents happen would give civil engineers some valuable data about how their designs impact behavior, and would give police valuable information about where their presence would be useful.

<comment><USER8> I presume that the system would simply indicate the _proportion_ of times that a vehicle is seen driving and performing a dodgy manoeuvre. If I'm seen on the roads 1,000 times and seen performing a dodgy lane change once (and I would like to apologise to the Mondeo driver on the A21 yesterday), _that 's_ the fact that should be recorded.

<comment><USER6> The thing is that there's not a 1:1 relationship between a "risky" maneuver and causing an accident. An example could be an F1 driver who takes curves at 20mph over the recommended speed in a sports car. Compare this mentally to a Prius driver who drives under the speed limit in the left lane. The Prius driver is "being safe" but causing a long line of tailgaters and people passing unsafely on the right, as well as agitating people and causing them to drive more aggressively. I doubt that the first few iterations of this system will take psychological effects on other drivers into account (if they ever consider that / have a profit motive to do so at all).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Assuming that insurance is correctly priced, buying a policy in any form is negative expected value. The companies that write such policies would slowly bleed dry if that wasn't the case. However, that's irrelevant unless you have the bankroll to withstand tail risk. Given that most people don't, as a society, you pretty much have to make things like auto liability insurance compulsory.

If you're a "good driver," as defined by a lack of tickets and accidents, you get discounts. There's really no way to tell if you're _actually_ a "good driver" because "good driver" is a hidden variable, and the only observables from an insurance standpoint are tickets or accidents. I know horrible drivers who never have accidents and avoid tickets via luck or skill. Conversely, you can be a good driver who's unlucky enough to have multiple accidents in a short period of time. Outcomes = baseline truth + random noise.

Most corporate data grabs bad news, but I'm ok with it when it comes to pricing insurance (outside of health). If I run a business that has rock solid, well enforced policies in place to mitigate risk, I don't want the insurance company's priors over my company's sector driving the premium. I only want to pay for coverage on idiosyncratic risk - the risk that remains after addressing everything that I can. Same goes for driving habits. Things like health are almost entirely idiosyncratic risk (ergo, let's agree that doing this for health is a bad thing), but when that's not the case pricing policies using true states (the baseline) and not observables (baseline + noise) puts you as the policy buyer more in control, not less.

That said, I have major concerns over the implementation. A breach is all but inevitable, so there needs to be a means of updating models online, and rules against data retention. It's also bad news if flawed models or corner cases incorrectly price someone out of a policy and there's no sanity check. Unfortunately, that's not too different from the actuarial status quo.

<comment><USER10> > Assuming that insurance is correctly priced, buying a policy in any form is > negative expected value

Actually it's quite rare for insurance companies to record an underwriting profit, I believe. Their profit generally comes from investing the pool of premiums. If you invested your premium instead of buying insurance however, then I suppose the expected return would have to be better.

<comment><USER9> Yes that's totally correct but they're factoring the entire reinsurance/reinvestment pipeline into how aggressively they can price the policy in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Nexar will face some ethical dilemmas. For example, should the app inform > users when it spots a license plate that's the subject of an Amber Alert?

Absolutely. I'm not one to normally fall victim to the mindless "think of the children", but Amber Alerts are rare and specific enough that they seem perfectly useful and legitimate usage of this tech. (I find most of the rest of the tech between useless and invasive, but flagging Amber Alert tags I'd support.)

<comment><USER12> Absolutely _at the moment_. That stops being okay once amber alerts start to be misused.

<comment><USER11> Here's where I believe "think of the children" madness works in favor of people who think like I do. Law enforcement and the DoJ will be very reluctant to start issuing Amber Alerts for drug dealers, bank robbers, bail skippers, and the like. Even missing elderly get Silver Alerts (where they could have just as easily be lumped into Amber Alerts).

Amber Alerts for my area come to my cell phone and I can't recall getting more than one per year. Looking up stats for 2014, they ranged from 9-21 per month (nationwide). I'm pretty comfortable that surveillance over-reaches will be a long time coming to Amber Alerts (if ever).

<comment><USER13> FWIW, Amber Alerts have already begun to include domestic custody battles, and whether one considers bringing the general public into a domestic dispute is an overreach or not, I guess is up to you.

In my area, until I turned them off, I received at least 2 alerts per week and the _vast_ majority of these were domestic-related (as in, one true parent of the child had the child when they were not legally allotted to - and the other parent reported it).

<comment><USER14> _FWIW, Amber Alerts have already begun to include domestic custody battles_

From my observation Amber Alerts have always been domestic squabbles. Before I turned them off on every device in the house, I don't recall a one that wasn't a divorce dispute. In other words, not a one was a reason to make every phone in the office make noise. In other other words, we collectively found out that all of these "abductions" wouldn't fit within the definition that most of us use for the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This strikes me as one of those great and terrible ideas. It has a tremendous potential for good, but it is one opt-out checkbox (Share the data you collect with the police to help catch criminals!) away from convincing the surveilled to create their own big brother.

[http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=346](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=346)

<comment><USER16> I highly doubt there will be such a checkbox. The "permission" to share will be buried in a EULA no one will ever read.

<comment><USER6> And every company who will sell you the compulsory insurance will have that verbiage in their EULA, thus making the choice "agree" vs "can't drive".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd expected autonomous vehicles to do it, but not that it would be a business targeted at drivers. Not clear what the end user benefit is. A system that recognizes unmarked police cars would have a market, but there would probably be objections to that.

As is typical today, it uploads all the data to a server and the service operator keeps all the rights to the data. Sigh.

Using it to pass around hard braking info is not useful, though. That's what radars are good for. They'll always see the car ahead, whether it's equipped or not. The widespread use of radar-controlled auto-braking is the next big thing in auto safety. BMW, Mercedes, etc. already have it, so it's a proven technology. Not car to car communications, which don't solve any non- advertising related problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> There seems to be a disturbing trend of Israeli developers creating software that crosses some serious ethical lines. A few offhand: this, an iPhone backdoor exploit they're hiding and have provided to the us government, I believe the biggest license plate reader developer is Israeli.

Can anyone speak to this? Am I observing this on some kind of bias?

<comment><USER19> This is probably just confirmation bias on your part. That being said, based on the political situation in Israel and the security culture in that country, it isn't surprising that many tech companies there would be developing tools that perpetuate that status quo. As a contrast, you would probably never see an app like this coming out of a hackathon in Gaza.[0]

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858963)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why won't the app report every tiny detail on the driver it knows best... You? This seems like a sure fire way to invite yourself to higher insurance rates and a big presence in every law enforcement database that tracks peoples' movements.

There'd have to be a very big reward for me voluntarily becoming Big Brother, and especially for tattling on myself.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great who needs debate around static ALPR (license plate readers) data collection when we will soon have swarm of cars running with connected dashcams. The resolution is already good enough for face recognition on bystanders/people crossing street. Things will get even more interesting once we get self driving cars equipped with omnidirectional video recording capabilities.

I am very interested in what can be done, with such data. I am currently working with long duration (>20 minutes) dashcam videos uploaded by users to youtube.

<comment><USER22> You realize that this kind of power will be banned and put under the control of the government only right?

We can't have companies violating privacy like this. Only the government can do that.

<comment><USER23> >Only the government can do that.

Why would the government want to spend the money and PR capital developing and rolling that out, when they can have a company do it for free, take the heat, chest beat about private enterprise, and then secretly NSL subpoena or crack it and distribute the intelligence to every interested agency, police department, and eventually favored corporate interest (using parallel construction as needed)?

<comment><USER24> I took it more as a comment on public opinion than on government policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Man this is a really creep company. What do they imagine their business model really is? The warning thing is not a good business. Presumably they really want to sell this data to insurance companies.

<comment><USER26> Actually this isn't a bad business model iMO they sell the data to insurance companies and you can lower your insurance costs.

And while your insurance cost might also go up if it deems you to be a reckless driver that can also have a good impact because it can force you to drive more safely in order to bring your insurance costs back down.

If they can incorporate the app with some instructional service like a weekly summary of all the misstakes you make and give you say 5 tips to drive better it can actually have quite a positive effect on road safety.

And while it's a bit "creepy" I see this to be pretty much similar to insurance companies "paying you" to quit smoking even sending you to "free" quitting smoking seminars/workshops or "paying you" to go to the Gym often even with a free yearly subscription.

Those things cost pennies to the insurance companies while saving them a lot of money in the long run, only a handful of less lung cancer cases or heart attacks a year can cover the cost of those programs for 1000's if not 10,000's of policies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Today I pulled into a turn lane and stopped alongside the car ahead of me to let them know their brake lights were out. Had to honk incessantly to get their attention. Then I waited in the wrong lane (no one behind me) to pull back into my original lane to go straight through the light.

Probably would get a demerit from an AI for that maneuver.

<comment><USER28> Pulling into a turn lane, stopping alongside another car and honking incessantly is dangerous and against the law. The other driver was probably scared and trying to ignore you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hopefully this can seed the discussion of privacy implications for tracking a driver's actions, especially tied to the (sort of) unique ID that is their vehicle's license plate.

I wonder if they'll be able to tell when someone else is driving your car from the "fingerprint" of their driving style.

<comment><USER30> There was an article recently about obd2 scanners recording information such as throttle application, brake pressure, etc and after recording information for 15 minutes could determine with X% accuracy who was driving and after 60 minutes of data, could fingerprint who was driving with 97 (or maybe it was 100%?) Accuracy.

Pretty interesting stuff

<comment><USER29> This is neat.

My roommate in grad school developed a somewhat related idea but for identifying someone's "typing cadence". He used it for an additional security factor in the way that a person types their passwords in a browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> I read an article about search engines using autocomplete keystroke timing for user fingerprinting, but can't find it at the moment. Wikipedia has a few references, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_dynamics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've considered building something like this for bikes.

For those who aren't cyclists, there are already informal networks of people who share helmet-cam videos of bad driving behaviour, with people who attempt to read license plates etc

<comment><USER32> In my experience as both a cyclist and a driver in the Bay Area, I have no interest in the opinions of other cyclists on driver behavior. Cyclists largely disregard the rules of the road and then blame drivers.

As a driver, I have been at the receiving end of abusive gestures and language even when following the law. In one case, I yielded to a bicyclist who was in blatant violation of the law[0], because failure to do so would have endangered him. He showed me his middle finger. Another was angry that I was in the bicycle lane making a right-hand turn, as required by law and common sense.

As a cyclist, I have given up trying to educate my fellow cyclists, and generally won't ride with others anymore.

[0]I was already turning through the intersection after having made a stop. The bicyclist arrived in the middle of my turn and entered the intersection without stopping for the stop sign.

Edit: Formatting.

<comment><USER31> So.. cameras == good for both, then?

<comment><USER32> Cameras frequently fail to capture context and released footage is often edited. Cameras often serve to justify existing biases.

I recently watched a video compilation put together by a truck driver who intended to show the dangerous behavior of passenger vehicles. It showed what it intended, but it also showed dangerous truck driver behavior. When this behavior was pointed out, the truck drivers in the comment section came up with many excuses for why this behavior was acceptable. One actually argued that in one of the scenarios the truck driver should not have had to yield (despite being required to do so by law) because accelerating back up to speed was expensive in terms of fuel.

So there was proof positive that this truck driver not only violated the law, but created an unsafe situation in a video _specifically edited_ to show it was not truck drivers but passenger vehicles which caused unsafe situations, and this group of truck drivers defended the behavior.

In that case, the truck driver was ignorant and stupid. His behavior wasn't changed. And I see that a lot in YouTube videos about drivers of vehicle X complaining about drivers of vehicle Y. Anyone pointing out mistakes made by the driver of vehicle X is shouted down, nonsense about what is legal is posted (most of it wrong or incomplete), and everyone who drives a vehicle X shares their own (possibly apocryphal) stories about people driving vehicle Y.

So no, even with camera, I don't care much about the opinions of cyclists on drivers. Cameras can be good, but they can also be bad or indifferent, and nine times out of ten, I've got questions even after seeing the video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> An idea to address privacy problems with this:

1) Only have the information for licence plate codes of people who have opted in be stored in a way associated with the specific licence plate code.

2) Have the system encourage opting in as part of setting up the system in one's own car.

3) Have an id which is used for all cars which have not opted in, so that cars which have not opted in have a collective rating. Possibly split this up by general location, and maybe time of day.

4) Because most of the cars in a given area are there often (or, at least something similar to this is true) , it may be worthwhile for, for the cars that do not opt in, to still record behavior of those cars, but to not send it to a central location, only keeping it within one's own car. Cars which have not been seen in a long time can be automatically removed from the local storage. This should not significantly harm privacy, because it is basically the same as remembering that you saw that car before and that it tended to be driven poorly.

5) Possibly (this might always be pointless/counterproductive. I'm not sure.) , in some cases only store a hash of the license plate codes, instead of the license plate code itself?

A) I think this variation should be sufficient to protect privacy, because it only does widespread collection about identifiable individuals if they they consent to it. The information it collects about individuals that did not specifically (and presumably intentionally) express consent is only collected in aggregate about individuals in a geographic region, which does not personally identify anyone, or only collected by individuals and not shared, which is not much more of a privacy violation than an individual with excellent memory looking around.

B) So, while this variation might be less effective, I think it should be sufficient to protect privacy.

</comment><comment><USER34> In the UK a few years ago there were reports of people's license plate numbers being duplicated and stuck onto vehicles that matched the genuine vehicle's description and then used for various crimes, like filling up with petrol and driving off without paying.

This tech would be susceptible in a similar manner - stolen vehicle goes out and drives badly etc. etc. The only identifier would be the licence plate. How about using their phone account as the identifier rather than the vehicle?

Anyway sounds like an idea ripe for misuse and "feature creep".

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm all for this. Especially in Bay Area traffic. It looks like about 95% of the time I get some tailgater because I leave enough room in front of my car to brake. If I dont' want to get tailgated, I end up tailgating. I seriously wish these people would either shape up or stop driving cars altogether.

<comment><USER36> Small issue to potentially give up privacy for. This is rather a job for the police and sensibilisation campaigns.

Also think of this way: if you both tailgate, and you have to brake, you will be hitting both the one in front of you, and getting hit in the back. If you don't tailgate and only get tailgated, you will only get hit in the back. (And have a way better defence for your insurance company.)

(PS I'm going to assume this is tailgating on the highway ?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I should probably be horrified by the privacy implications, but I'm really not. I'm already trying to tone down some of the headgames that I've learned to play while driving. This would help by allowing me to just let everything slide and upload the video tagging data later.

</comment><comment><USER38> When these types of tracking become common, government tracking will look like a child's play.

</comment><comment><USER39> This looks like an excellent way to build the most robust car tracking eco- system ever.

</comment><comment><USER40> This type of system will inevitably become commonplace and through abuse by insurance companies, it will push people to adopt autonomous vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER41> In a couple of years it would just be driverless cars rating other driverless cars.

Google sees the car in front is a Tesla: 1 star :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Amen to this. There are so many horrendous and unsafe drivers on the road. Their actions must be curtailed.

</comment><comment><USER43> These kinds of apps are inevitable. We will see apps that rate drivers, workers, and just people. I'm not as worried about the apps, but rather with someone gaming the rankings.

Both Yelp and Travelocity turned from awesome to pretty much useless within a few years. Reviews and ratings can be bought. Employees are forced to leave positive reviews.

<comment><USER6> Yup, they're inventing another game to play here, just like credit scores. If you know that you're playing a game and you understand the rules, you can usually figure out how to play better than most while investing the minimum amount of time playing. If you don't know that you're playing a game or you aren't aware of the rules, you'll spend a lot of time being upset and losing money, typically.

It's also true with credit cards. If you don't understand merchant fees and maximizing your rewards from purchases you'd otherwise make while simultaneously bolstering your credit score, you're leaving money on the table.

Humans will hopefully look back in a few hundred years and realize how futile and terrible of an idea it was to attempt to gamify every aspect of our lives so some company or another can extract a profit from the unsavvy, but since there is so much "value" to be "created" right now, I doubt that it'll happen any time soon under our current system of governance and beliefs about property, taxes, "free" markets, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Car is a very crappy identifier. I've bought my car used, so at least one other irrelevant person (that is NOT ME) drove it. It also gets driven by my girlfriend and on two occasions by my two non drinking friends.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why would the average person get this app?

<comment> mk-61 Let's put aside possibility to get discounts for ones perfect driving.

Think about instant posts of driving achievements to Facebook, instagram, twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I read somewhere that the app doesn't only rate the drivers around you, but also looks at the person running the app and rates his/her driving. Add the inner facing camera recording they're using and why anyone would want to actively participate in something like this is beyond me.</comment>


Why I'm Giving Up On Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417613,00.asp

<comment><USER2> The author is giving up on Android because handset makers are producing large phones that can't comfortably be held in one hand? How is this the fault of Android itself? Android is an operating system, it doesn't enforce screen sizes, it's like saying you're quitting Windows because the 24" monitor on your new Windows PC is too small.

A pretty weak argument in my opinion. Maybe the author might find solace in an old Nokia 3315 instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> This feels to me more like there is a need to help Microsoft sell more Windows Phones so PC Mag can continue to have Microsoft as an advertiser.

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems to be a roundabout way of saying "I don't like designing configuration-independent apps, and my iPhone apps don't port well."

Nokia may have a better design heritage than other OEMs, and may still have better ID capabilities in-house, but that just tells me Nokia could do very well with some Android products in their product line.</comment>


Damn Small PHP Frameworks. Because size does matter. - <AUTHOR> http://jeez.eu/2009/09/12/damn-small-php-frameworks-because-size-does-matter/

<comment><USER2> This article focuses on the exact wrong reason you want to pick a lightweight framework: file size. Does it really make any difference whether your framework is 300kb vs. 3MB? Unless you're hosting off a floppy drive, no. Total size of all the files in a framework does not really say anything about its speed, scalability, ease of use, etc.

If you're going to compare frameworks to find one that's smaller/lighter _and therefore faster and/or more scalable_ , that's interesting and please show me the benchmarks, but listing a few features and the file sizes of each framework tells me absolutely nothing useful.

<comment><USER3> Why everyone thinks we compare things in this article? No! It is not a comparisson list. It is a report on new, small and lightweight frameworks that some people may not be aware of.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but even if the comparison is not explicit, it's still there. And my whole point is that your title is false: size doesn't really matter for a framework, at least at the size differences you're talking about. This is like comparing cars based on the size of the stereo knobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Self-diagnostic your position in a startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.drownout.com/blogdrwn/2011/12/managing_startup_talent_and_be.html

<comment><USER2> I like the summary in the last paragraph: _find out who you are, then either quit, innovate, or hold your horses_.</comment>


Programming in Lua, Third Edition released - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/dp/859037985X/

<comment><USER2> I've decided to take the time to learn a new language thoroughly for the new year to open my eyes to new programming techniques. Lua has really peaked my interest lately, along with Haskell and Clojure.

I figure I may as well ask, is Lua a good language for this (coming from a background in Ruby and Java)? If so, this book seems like the place to start.

<comment><USER3> It all depends on what the goal is of course. They're very different languages. Both should feel rather different than Ruby or Java, I think, in opposite directions: Haskell adds many new language-level features; Lua tosses out a lot.

Haskell is a "big" language, and it's an academic language, which seems to be a testbed for many sophisticated language features that are not so common elsewhere. This can be good (lots of interesting new ideas) or bad (esoteric concepts that may not be so useful elsewhere) depending on your point of view.

Lua is a "small" language, it's very elegant, but tries to pare down the feature set as much as possible while remaining a practical and usable language. Despite not being a lisp dialect, I'd say in many ways Lua _feels_ similar to old-school minimalist dialects of scheme (before scheme started to ... grow), though in general Lua has more of a "practical" bent. This tends to make the language itself very easy to learn, but of course actually learning a language is generally not enough, one must to some degree learn the culture and techniques to actually have a good grasp on it (and Lua tends to have a lot of subtlety beyond the basic language).

Besides the language itself, Lua's other famous property is that it's intended for embedding and use as an extension language, so it's small, fast, very easy to integrate and has a extremely well-designed C-level API.

Anyway, I'd say if you're not sure, just learn _both_... two's not that hard, and learning two such very different approaches at the same time may be quite informative... :]

<comment><USER2> Excellent response, thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


Exposing the Ripple Scam - <AUTHOR> http://ripplescam.org/?page=1

<comment><AUTHOR> Backed by many large firms, but a total scam ([http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ripple- labs](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ripple-labs))

\</comment><comment>-

" The creators of ripple created the network with 100 billion XRP, and gifted a for-profit company, Ripple Labs (originally called Opencoin), with 80 billion XRP"

\</comment><comment>-

From Jed, one of the principal architects:

Vinnie: ...What's the OpenCoin business model?

Jed: ...we hold xrp and hopefully they gain value</comment>


Everybody is a programmer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ryanckulp/everybody-is-a-programmer-16a31836c8a4 <comment><USER2> Your argument sounds like a bunch of pretty arrogant generalizations to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think I see what you're trying to get at, but regardless of its basis in fact, the ad hominem tangent in the third to last paragraph really derails and cheapens the argument.

<comment><USER4> Anyone who thinks developers are sheep that can be fleeced behind the barn is invited to try it.

Sheep or not, any dollar that developers earn above the government-mandated minimum wage is due to the free market forces.</comment></comment>


(Ab)using crowdfunding to validate your market - <AUTHOR> http://www.debuggex.com/blog/2013/ab-using-crowdfunding-to-validate-your-market/

<comment><USER2> Just wondering, why Indiegogo? Pros and cons of other platforms?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indiegogo allows Canadians to participate :)</comment></comment>


Which of these 2 domain names should I use? - <AUTHOR> For my new project, a boilerplate for building serverless SaaS applications with React, I'm doubting which domain I should use. I bought both serverless.page and serverlesssaas.com. If you have some time to be a hero please check out the landing page and let me know what you think I should go with.<p>1: https://serverless.page/ 2: https://serverlesssaas.com/ <comment><USER2> [http://serverless.page/](http://serverless.page/) \- concise and easy to remember (.com is overrated now)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd use #1 and try and pick up serverlesspage.com while you're at it, if you can. Because you know people will go there instead.

If you don't think people will end up going to serverlessass.com if you use option #2, you clearly live on a different planet than I do.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd say pick #1. The other one reads a bit awkward due to the triple `s`. It's also possibly prone to be mistyped.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wile I agree that the triple "sss" is not great and very prone to mis-typing, I'll just add that MOZ recommends avoiding TLDs like .page for SEO reasons.

[https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain)</comment>


Ask HN: What are your feelings about OAuth 2.0? - <AUTHOR>

Will you be implementing 2.0 or sticking with 1.0? <comment><USER2> Depends on the use case, but OAuth in general is more trouble than its worth imho.</comment>


Visual.ly launches social network for data visualizations - <AUTHOR> http://blog.visual.ly/visual-ly-launches-social-network-for-data-visualization/

<comment><USER2> This site appears to be focused on the design aspects of visualizations, which is a shame. While I agree that design is an important consideration in info visualization, it's clearly less important than accurately representing the underlying data. I've seen far too many "infographics" which either misrepresented or presented false interpretations of data.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the things that bothers me about Visual.ly is its casual conflation of "data visualizations" and "infographics". The two aren't the same thing, yet there's really not a clear distinction in how Visual.ly talks about them.

e.g. [http://blog.visual.ly/12-infographics-about-running-to- motiv...](http://blog.visual.ly/12-infographics-about-running-to-motivate-you- out-the-door/)

* edit: I just signed up and tried to create a data visualization. But it looks like the only thing you can create is to signup through Facebook and then modify an existing infographic template.

<comment><USER4> >I just signed up and tried to create a data visualization. But it looks like the only thing you can create is to signup through Facebook and then modify an existing infographic template.

You can create any infographic you want and link to (submit) it, you do not have to use the 'create an infographic' link.

I think that visual.ly is more about finding and sharing great infographics and data visualizations from around the web. Designers can upload their own work and showcase it to people who are into that kind of thing. Yes there are some bad infographics, like there are bad designs on dribble, but there are some great ones too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Today, we are launching the world's first social network for data visualization"

Doesn't IBM's Many Eyes deserve that title?

(<http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/>)

<comment><USER6> I think you might give the title to Swivel, which beat Many Eyes by a couple months. [<http://eagereyes.org/criticism/swivel-vs-many-eyes>] I'm not sure which one of them lasted longer. [<http://eagereyes.org/criticism/the-rise- and-fall-of-swivel>] In contrast, Tableau Public headed in the opposite direction from both of those, striving not to be a social network but instead focus on being embedded elsewhere.

I think the number of true viz geeks in the world is dwarfed by the number of people who are interested in particular data. But I'm not even sure that Visual.ly is trying to be anything more than a niche network here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you guys think the future of social networking will be niche social networks like this, instead of facebook? I've been getting more and more annoyed with facebook lately, it's becoming more like Myspace every day. As the masses use it, I find it to become more useless.

Other than following my family and very close friends, it's annoying. I'd rather be part of a social network that I'm passionate about.

<comment><USER8> The aspects of Facebook that annoy you or I are the exact reasons why other people embrace it. It's become a part of people's lives--more than just a web application.

I think the tech community might gravitate towards these niche solutions, but it'll take a lot of time and poor decisions on Facebook's part to get several hundred million people to forsake it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also they got some interesting advisors[1], including Alexis Ohanian (Reddit founder) and Hiten Shah (from Kissmetrics).

[1] <http://visual.ly/about/investors>

</comment><comment><USER10> I can highly recommend their Blog. Every day almost new articles.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone else think the logo resembles that of Google Play?

</comment><comment><USER12> Social everything!</comment>


Dropbox Smeared in Week of Megabreaches - <AUTHOR> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/06/dropbox-smeared-in-week-of-megabreaches/ <comment><USER2> "CSID, an identity monitoring firm that is in the midst of being acquired by credit bureau giant Experian."

Experian a few months ago had a breach whereby millions of T mobile customers who had no idea that Experian was storing their data, had all of their sensitive data stolen. Experian's "solution" to the problem was to offer those who had their data stolen 2 years of _free_ credit monitoring. Think about that for a moment - "we allowed your sensitive data that you didn't approve of us storing to be compromised and so we will now offer you a 2 year service after which you will be charged."

That is so completely outrageous, people should be out with pitchforks and torches but you can't fight this stuff, these agencies are far too powerful.

Just to further underscore how outrageous Experian and the other two agencies are - Experian notified people who had their data compromised using snail mail! What kind of decision is that for a time-sensitive situation?!

Lastly the letter they sent to customers and I read my friend who was a victims letter, said that the data that was compromised was data they were storing on T Mobile's behalf, as if they were in no way culpable.

So I guess I this is their strategy going forward is to acquire a half-baked and suspect security firm that will damage innocent companies reputations the same way they themselves have damaged innocent people's credit and identities.

I would urge people to call the three big credit agencies - Trans Union, Experian and Equifax and request that your credit be "locked." This means that nobody can look at your credit profile, except for people you currently have a line of credit with. You will be issued a pin and if and when you need to apply for credit you can then unlock your credit profile and re0lock it afterward. You need to re-up on this every two years which is insane as having your credit profile locked should be the default and should be in perpetuity, but you do what you can.

<comment><USER3> > I would urge people to call the three big credit agencies - Trans Union, > Experian and Equifax and request that your credit be "locked." This means > that nobody can look at your credit profile, except for people you currently > have a line of credit with. You will be issued a pin and if and when you > need to apply for credit you can then unlock your credit profile and re0lock > it afterward. You need to re-up on this every two years which is insane as > having your credit profile locked should be the default and should be in > perpetuity, but you do what you can.

Keep in mind you will be charged for this.

[https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze- faq...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs)

> You'll need to supply your name, address, date of birth, Social Security > number and other personal information. Fees vary based on where you live, > but commonly range from $5 to $10.

<comment><USER2> By locking your credit however you are denying them the future business of selling your credit profile. Think if everyone did it.

But yes it's completely outrageous - you have to pay someone you didn't approve of having you data in the first place from giving it to another party likely did't approve of also having it.

<comment><USER4> Actually, freezing your credit does nothing to stop the bureaus from selling, mining, combining or otherwise doing what they want with the data they hold about you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Buried lede imo: TeamViewer having similar issues. Lots of folks claiming it's breached, TV denying it. A lot of potential mischief there, if breached.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4m7ay6/teamview...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4m7ay6/teamviewer_has_been_hacked_they_are_denying/)

<comment><USER6> I have found no indication that my TeamViewer computers were hacked, but after reading this for a few days I finally disabled TV on them last night and I'm looking for other solutions.

After using TeamViewer for over 5 years, I started getting a handful of invites on the service from random names about a month ago (I had never gotten a single invite prior). That alone signaled to me that something may be amiss. I'm afraid that where there is smoke, there's fire.

<comment><USER7> Have you considered NoMachine NX? I found it to be more or less comparable in terms of performance and settled on it because I wasn't very keen of the centralized TV model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Troy Hunt wrote an interesting post on how he verfies breaches recently[0]

The amount of fact checking tech "journalists" do means wrong information can really spiral out of control. I wonder if Dropbox can sue?

[0][https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-how-i-verify-data- breaches/](https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-how-i-verify-data-breaches/)

<comment><USER9> > tech "journalists"

ah the old cut and paste from one site's article, rearrange some words, grind it through a thesarus-izer, then repost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lifelock should just be regulated out of existence. If a company can add $100 of value per year by pretending to monitor credit reports, the credit bureaus can be instructed that whatever Lifelock is doing is table stakes for a company that is selling evaluations of creditworthiness.

<comment><USER11> Lifelock was just doing their job (they thought). Also they offer insurance of up to $1M for damages as a result of ID theft. As far as ID theft continues to be pervasive we need companies like LL.

<comment><USER12> What does that $1M actually cover though?

"But if someone takes out a mortgage in your name and now you owe the bank $100k or more – nobody covers that, and that's what they need to cover."

[http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/03/are-credit-monitoring- ser...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/03/are-credit-monitoring-services- worth-it/)

<comment><USER11> Usually the banks take responsibility for that as it's their duty to do due diligence (say that six times fast!). I've had my credit card # stolen plenty of times and never been liable.

LifeLock's insurance covers court/lawyer fees/damages, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of my free credit monitoring services, which I received as compensation from a previous data leak, alerted me last week that a few email accounts of mine wound up in a dropbox. A few things I noticed:

The alert only says that the "Potential Site" of where the email was compromised is listed as www.dropbox.com .

The option for changing a password in online mail clients is lost in the menu clutter. In Gmail the process is to click _Menu Bubble_ > _My Account_ > _Signing in to Gmail_ > _Password_. The issue I had is that at the 1st menu level there are options for _Google+ Profile_ , _Settings_ , _Privacy_ , and _My Account_ which all seem like valid places for the _Change Password_ option to live. Each submenu is similarly cluttered, though when I found the correct path it made sense in retrospect.

I can't imagine Grandma changing her Gmail password this way. Maybe Google could replace the "Dvorak Keyboard" menu ( _Select Input Tool_ > _English Dvorak_ ) with an _Update Password_ button. Is there a simpler process I'm not aware of?

</comment><comment><USER14> So many people will believe anything a "hacker" says as long as it's bad for them. In general, these 100 million password dumps are almost always complete garbage, but everyone along the way says "better to be safe than sorry" and ignores all the warning signs (in this case, that the file obviously wasn't Dropbox credentials).

</comment><comment><USER15> Strangely enough, my Dropbox client just asked me for a password for the first time in... ages.

Says it's version 5.3.19.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if this file with the tumblr passwords was placed in an unprotected shared dropbox folder. Thus, although the actual passwords were from tumblr, the passwords were downloaded by "worm" via a dropbox "breach".

</comment><comment><USER17> Very irresponsible behavior.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, This happened to them before I believe. Besides Dropbox, I heard other companies like Linkedin recently were hacked and thousands of users passwords were leaked. I guess its safe to say in this day and age you can never be sure sometimes

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> And they want in to your kernel...</comment>


Show HN: Sshync – Auto-sync files over SSH - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mateogianolio/sshync <comment><USER2> This is a nice little project, but I think rsync is better suited for any serious use. It can do ssh, it's own protocol or any connection program that would tunnel bidirectionally. It does very efficient transfer, can create off- line patch files, and basically do any one-way file/dir sync function you can think of.

Edit: this one is continuous and rsync is one-shot. Personally, I've been using inotify+rsync+timeout (intofy+rsync has a race condition, so limiting the inotify wait and syncing anyway is essential). Does sshync avoid the race?

<comment><USER3> I use similar solution: my own shell script with inotify + timeout + unison over ssh. Unison is much better suited for two-way synchronization than rsync.

<comment><USER4> For [http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) your thoughts on why that is better than using rsync ?

Edit: I am now noticing this tool isn't even maintained anymore.

<comment><USER5> Larry - would you please email us at firstname.lastname@example.com ? We have a few items to discuss with you ...

(your profile mentions to respond to one of your comments if someone needs to reach you ...)

<comment><USER4> Thanks - I will but not just yet (a few reasons for that actually).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These are some pretty awful scripts, to be honest. Use Unison ([https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/](https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/)). Syncing is much more dangerous and difficult than people assume.

</comment><comment><USER7> There is a standard tool, ssh-copy-id, that does the job of sshpair.

<comment><USER8> This sshpair is actually quite dangerous as it simply overwrites your existing key.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I was just complaining about that elsewhere. It's a further symptom of the fact this whole project is reinventing wheels, badly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use lsyncd for this. Why would I switch?

<comment><USER11> (We do as well). From what I see, the only advantage this offers over lsyncd is that Windows is supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's also sshfs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSHFS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSHFS)

<comment><USER2> Note however that sshfs makes a file system available through ssh (with Some caching but not e.g. persistent cache across ssh reconnects), and no off-line persistence - whereas other solutions discussed (sshync, unison, lsync, syncthing) all replicate files (think dropbox) which comes with benefits (quicker access, offline availability) and problems (edit conflicts, stale versions)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey.

I appreciate the positive response, but this is just something I put together quickly and needs a little refurbishing before it can be considered a viable alternative to something like lsyncd.

Top priorities right now are to get rid of ssh-client dependency and to address security concerns. I'd also like to implement file diffing.

Your feedback is invaluable!

<comment><USER13> This is a small thing - but how do you pronounce the name? Looking at it, I want to call it "ssh sync", but it looks more like it should sound like "shync" (which sounds sort of like Garth from "Wayne's World" saying "schwing!") Just curious because it's hard to discuss a tool verbally if I don't know how to pronounce it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd go with "ssh sync".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> See also: [http://syncmaildir.sourceforge.net/](http://syncmaildir.sourceforge.net/)

This is how I do my email, exim running on a DO instance and I send and receive to my laptop via ssh.

</comment><comment><USER15> On Windows I use WinSCP, from menu "Commands\Synchronize" and "Commands\Keep Remote Directory up to Date", or from scripting "synchronize" and "keepuptodate".

</comment><comment><USER16> Why not use the existing rsync over ssh and ssh-copy-id?

I think newline is valid in filenames in most *nix filesystems, so the possibility to use an alternative RS would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER17> What's difference between this one and rsync?

<comment><USER18> It looks to me that this keeps running "in the background" and watches for changes; syncing things as they happen. Rsync can't do that.

<comment><USER19> rsync can however take a file list, and inotifywait can produce a file list with the help of awk or sed. Which means you can achieve continuous synchronisation with ~5 lines of shell script. A bit more care if you want to sync two ways.

I've found that my file syncing needs tends to be so varied that most of the dedicated tools I've looked at have almost always been just wrong enough not to be worth it compared to just composing something with rsync and inotifywait.

Of course your mileage will vary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I pronounced this 's-shync' in my head. I am happy.</comment>


[Let's crowd-source] Compiled Programming Languages by Wishlist Features - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BAiJR026ih1U8HoRw__nzbCSFnnHicWrjxpW5l6-O3w/edit?usp=sharing <comment><AUTHOR> Would you like to help me gather data on my list of "Compiled Programming Languages by Wishlist Features"?

(Feel free to add more "wishlist" features and languages, as well as add in or update details. Please add comments on the cells with your name, email and link to source ... which will help validate data, and to attribute contributions).

The background is that I've long been looking for a productive and performant general-purpose compiled programming language, that can stand up to at least the majority of tasks I would use a language for, while being something safer and more productive than pure C.

I understand that no single language might match all one's requirements, but that is why I felt this kind of list would make sense ... then maybe I could identify two or three languages to learn and use, for the different use cases where they shine the most.</comment>


A connected headband that helps you focus your thoughts - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/16/is-mindfulness-and-less-stress-worth-299-the-muse-makes-a-case-review/

<comment><USER2> I've got a muse, and it works wonderfully (at least, compared to Neurosky sets). The most frustrating bit is that there's no API -- meditation is good and all, but I'd really like a sensor of that quality that one could hack with.

<comment><USER3> I have NeuroSky headphones... very hard to use and apps crash all the time if they pair at all. Thing is that, while I understand the benefit, for $300 it isn't likely I will spend it on something like this.

<comment><USER4> I also have a NeuroSky headset. It's a nice toy but not really useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So there's a sleep tracking EEG gadget and a meditation EEG gadget, but not one that can do both.

I would like it if these devices all communicated over a common protocol so the sensor bands could be separated from the software.

I dissected the OCZ Nia protocol once and it wasn't pretty, it seemed a lot of smoothing happened in the proprietary driver. Maybe these devices all have the same issue, making smoothing in each band's firmware cost prohibitive.

<comment><USER6> Hopefully once Emotiv Insight comes out it'll be able to do both and more...

<comment><USER7> Emmotiv seem to take forever with their releases. I have given up hope.

It is nice to see more and more of these headsets coming out. It would be interesting to measure what tDCS actually does, although the tDCS devices may blow the ECG headsets.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/wiki/faq](https://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/wiki/faq)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wikipedia has a nice table listing all the EEG headsets and how to make your own. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2%80%93computer_interfaces)

</comment><comment><USER8> Tim Ferriss just posted a detailed article by Shane Snow that goes into some detail as well: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/12/muse- interaxon/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/12/muse-interaxon/)

<comment><USER7> That's a good review. It seems like the product is unfinished, though:

" Disappointingly, though Garten and Muse Calm both promised me these "additional features and special insights into my brain", once I unlocked the screen, I got simply a blank, broken page:blankbonus"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Coming soon to an episode of Silicon Valley I'm sure</comment>


Introduction to TurboFan - <AUTHOR> https://doar-e.github.io/blog/2019/01/28/introduction-to-turbofan/ <comment><USER2> This article needs a better title. "Break down of a V8 exploit via TurboFan" or something

</comment><comment><USER3> We need more this kind of articles!

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone else annoyed by the random lines on both sides of the text? I don't understand the appeal since they do not convey any useful information.

<comment><USER5> A classic example of beauty erroneously being choosen over readability.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some of the upcoming travel startups? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I've tried Trippy and liked the experience but I like Tripit because even though it has a terrible interface it's easy to share to it and it automatically posts to my Facebook.

<http://trippy.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Wasn't Tripit acquired by concur or something?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you are a designer, what would you want in a CMS? - <AUTHOR>

I am building an inexpensive hosted CMS (for the 3rd time), I am trying to figure out the things which would make designers happy. Thanks for all the feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> I am planning on creating a sync adapter to push the site to S3 to placate people who don't trust my CMS for uptime.</comment>


Ripgrep Code Review: Looking at a Great Example of Good Rust - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20190401042439/http://blog.mbrt.it/2016-12-01-ripgrep-code-review/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm working through this as I try to learn Rust. I think that large projects teach a lot that toy examples, while extremely helpful, can never.

For example, the lower-level argument parsing code shoen in the CLI example in The Book wouldn't be the right choice for most programs. (Note that for this example the awesome Rust Cookbook provides essentially the same answer as you'd get from reading ripgrep's source: [https://rust-lang- nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/cli/argume...](https://rust-lang- nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/cli/arguments.html))

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The title comes from the original title and two portions of a sentence in the intro. I changed the ordering of those portions to make it work within the length requirements. Is that OK? I'm relatively new here, and know I shouldn't edit titles much, but I'm unsure how much is too much.

Note: The original title is "ripgrep code review" and I added on a modification of the sentence "This post attempts to target those intermediate- level-Rustaceans (like me), by looking at the ripgrep crate by Andrew Gallant, a great example of good Rust."</comment>


Semiconductor Fabs Still Operational in Wuhan - <AUTHOR> https://technode.com/2020/02/12/what-industry-cant-stop-semiconductors/ <comment><AUTHOR> A noteworthy point:

> Fabs are the cleanest places around, so they should know what they are doing > when it comes to prevention.</comment>


Amazon Aurora Postgres: First Thoughts - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-aurora-postgres-first-thoughts-eric-green/ <comment><USER2> > What's the point of Aurora? Aurora does have a couple of positives. You can > create additional read replicas virtually instantly, since they're just > pointed at the same shared block storage.

If I understand this correctly, they're using the same block store backing the primary database for the replicas. If that's the case, then wouldn't an issue with the blocking store hose both simultaneously? Or are they just jump starting the replicas copy of the data from the primary's block store until it's fully replicated?

> And from a management point of view, Aurora makes the database > administrator's job far simpler since you no longer have to closely monitor > your tablespaces and expand your block storage as needed (and reallocate > tables and indexes across multiple tablespaces using pg_repack) in order to > handle growing your dataset.

This is indeed very cool. Scaling from 1 MB, to 1 GB, to 1 TB, and beyond with no manual interaction is truly amazing. The storage pricing is a net win for Aurora as you only pay for what you use at the same price as gp2 EBS volumes ($.10/GB/month) whereas the latter has to be preallocated.

<comment><USER3> The block store is related to EBS, which is what AWS's other postgres option, RDS, also uses. An EBS system failure is rare and could potentially take down both services, and EC2 as well.

<comment><USER4> [https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/aurora- design-...](https://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/2017/aurora-design- considerations-paper.pdf)

""" These are each replicated 6 ways into Protection Groups (PGs) so that each PG consists of six 10 GB segments, organized across three AZs, with two segments in each AZ. A storage volume is a concatenated set of PGs, physically implemented using a large fleet of storage nodes that are provisioned as virtual hosts with attached SSDs using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). """

The storage nodes are using local SSD instance storage, not EBS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Aurora Postgres doesn't have a filesystem for its tablespace. It has a block store. Instead, Aurora Postgres instances that are doing large sorts or indexing large files use local storage, which is currently 2x the size of memory. That is, if an Aurora database instance has 72gb of memory, you only have 144gb of temporary space. Good luck sorting that 150gb table."

That seems like a problem that's easy to overcome. Allow people to configure the local storage size and you have a reasonably fair solution.

Still has its limitations for really large datasets, but that's also one you have with vanilla postgres.

<comment><USER6> Also "good luck sorting..." makes it sound like such sorting is impossible. It's just slower. [https://madusudanan.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about- sort...](https://madusudanan.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-sorting-in- postgres/#DiskMerge)

<comment><USER7> I'm not clear what you are trying to suggest with that link. The whole point of the claim in the article around sorting is that in Aurora, for using disk to sort, postgres only has access to a relatively small filesystem that runs out of space and can't use the Aurora storage that is actually backing the database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Postgres RDS any different? Isn't it also run on EBS?

<comment><USER9> Postgres RDS is indeed different, yes it runs on EBS, but the Aurora in a sense isn't truly Postgres. What they've done is forked away from vanilla Postgres and tweaked the storage layer to work on the block based storage they've built just for it. It's why you see it advertised at "Postgres compatible" vs. just being will standard Postgres.

This article is definitely an interesting one as it highlights some of those trade-offs that they now need to account for.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, I haven't had the opportunity to experiment with Aurora yet, but I knew there would be issues. It's nice to get a field report, now I have a better idea what to expect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >I'm currently managing about 2 billion rows in Postgres.

Not sure the type of data he's storing, but 2 billion seems a bit much for 1 or a few tables. Hopefully he's thought of sharding those into multiple tables by date or key.

<comment><USER11> We don't do that in Postgres any more. We use table partitioning.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A movies recommendations engine based on famous directors tastes - <AUTHOR> http://theylovepictures.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

A few weeks ago, I shared on the quarantine side-projects thread my idea of a recommendation engine based on famous directors tastes ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23185673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23185673) ). At this time, I was procrastinating, but your warm messages motivated me to complete it, so thank you HN!

I had for a long time this idea of a movie recommendation engine built not on the tastes of people like you or peoples you follow but on favorite film director tastes. I became a film buff with starting watching Tarantino movies, then watching movies of directors that influenced Tarantino (Melville, Godard, Woo), and so on. It helped me to become aware of all the phases, periods in film history and to develop a critical approach to movies. Conversely, I'm often frustrated by movies recommendation systems today. Most of the recommendations I get are often the same, too out of context, too cold. This is why I made this small website, to generate recommendations based on the favorite movies of the directors you like the most.

To use it, you just have to export your Letterboxd profile to CSV ("Settings" > "Export your data") and import it here: [http://theylovepictures.com/](http://theylovepictures.com/)

It'll generate you recommendations like this: [http://theylovepictures.com/recommendation/33241372-cc7e-4fe...](http://theylovepictures.com/recommendation/33241372-cc7e-4fed-b0dd- ee4998a7c1af) (they're mine!)

I also develop a Directors section, where you can access to a "family tree" of a director. For instance, here is Martin Scorsese's: [http://theylovepictures.com/director/Martin%20Scorsese](http://theylovepictures.com/director/Martin%20Scorsese)

Feel free to give me some feedback, but please keep in mind that I don't really plan to make it more than just a side project. I know that the UI/UX is very basic and that having to import a CSV is not user-friendly, and I don't really know if it will scale or if it will work for all kind of profiles, but again, it's nothing more than a toy project, and if it gives some good idea of movies to watch to a couple of film buffs, I'll be happy!

</comment><comment><USER2> The director page would be much better if it listed the favorite movies of the director. By the way, how do you get that data? Can it be trusted?

</comment><comment><USER3> could be cool to have a button to search for a random director</comment>


This Time, Slump Hits Well-Educated, Too - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/nyregion/05unemployed.html

<comment><USER2> It would be interesting to see data on the types and distribution of degrees that are being laid off. The article does suggest a certain trend:

"In many ways, this recession resembles the deep downturn that began in 1989, "which was really the first white-collar-driven recession," Mr. Hughes said. Then, too, there was a broad decline in employment in finance and related professions like law and accounting, he said."

If the same thing is happening now as well, perhaps there are better ways to optimize business, even when not in recession?

<comment><USER3> I agree. I'd like to see what people we are specifically talking about here. I think there's a fallacy out there that having a high level degree means you're an educated person but in my experience that often isn't the case. A lot of people who have MBAs retained very little of the actual curriculum in school.

This is why companies tend to cut middle managers in a downturn. Because they are essentially unskilled skilled workers in that they got an education but failed to retain the skill. The examples given in the article (a manager at a marketing firm and an editorial assistant) seem to fall in that category.

<comment><USER4> In my experience there's an inverse correlation for high level education (MS, PhD) and being smart, productive, etc. My approach was finish undergrad and then take my "education" into my own hands. It's worked well.

<comment><USER5> Are the PhDs you know in the sciences? The ones I've met, even the bottom rank, are at least solidly smart.

<comment><USER4> Yes, in the sciences. In my experience I've noticed PhD comes along with a certain lack of emotional maturity... which plays out in various negative ways (overly emotional technical debates, focused more on blaming people for problems rather than pursuing the simplest solution and so on).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why don't online shops have shop assistants? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Mabye it is the stupidest question ever, but with so many people worrying about their jobs, especially as computers take over, wouldn't it be possible that new useful jobs could be created? Maybe it is just because the right technology is missing?

<comment><USER2> Visit Rackspace.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.liveperson.com/></comment>


Snowden about to step forward, live. - <AUTHOR> http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article17121859.ab

<comment><USER2> Whistle Blower Edward Snowden has convened a meeting with representatives of several human rights organsiationer. The meeting is expected to take place today at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.

\- I can confirm that the meeting will take place at 16:00 local time at the airport. We will not increase security at the airport ahead of the meeting, says Roman Genis head of the press office at Sheremetyevo Airport.

Already around 13:00 Swedish time flocked to reporters at the airport to talk to the representatives invited by Snowden. For the first time since Snowden's revelations reached the press caught him now in view of Human Rights Watch's photographer. To the west the picture is Sarah Harrison from WikiLeaks. Great interest

A number of journalists have gathered at the airport while waiting for the whistle-blower's performance. The meeting, taking place right now behind closed doors.

\- Snowden's revelations have shown the problem. He has not identified any people but only highlights the major problems, said Sergei Nikitin, head of Amnesty International Russian to AP from the airport.

Snowden will have sent invitations to representatives of Amnesty International in Russia, Transparency International, Human Rights Watch and the UN in Russia. Although Russian parliamentarians and lawyers have accepted Snowden's invitation and is now at the airport in Moscow. "Campaign Against Me"

In inbjudningsbreven to Edward Snowden according to the Guardian have written that the United States is leading a campaign against him, trying to block his right to seek and obtain asylum in other countries. Snowden thank the letter also those who have offered to help him.

The former CIA employee Edward Snowden fled the United States when he revealed the extent of its supervision. He has lived on the transit portion of the airport in Moscow since June 23. Snowden has applied for asylum in more than 20 countries. Several South American countries have offered him protection, but it has proved problematic to leave the airport. Edward Snowden has been stripped of his U.S. passport and without it he can not buy a new ticket. Last week also forced the Bolivian president Evo Morales stopover in Austria when there was suspicion that Snowden was aboard his aircraft.

<comment><USER3> Cheers for the translation, saves me from having to use my rough knowledge of Swedish. Couple of grammatical errors, but it makes sense.

<comment><USER4> One of the benefits of being a freelancer is today, I learn Swedish until I can understand this article!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Guardian is (of course) carrying it as well: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/edward- snowden-t...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/edward-snowden-to- meet-amnesty-and-human-rights-watch-at-moscow-airport-live-coverag)

</comment><comment><USER6> Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin: "He doesn't look very well fed, a skinny guy. But he has a great haircut"

<comment><USER7> Indeed: [https://twitter.com/KooyJan/status/355693261291151360/photo/...](https://twitter.com/KooyJan/status/355693261291151360/photo/1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I appreciate Edward Snowden for having the courage to do what he did and what he did, but I feel like there is a disproportionate amount of coverage about him versus what he blew the whistle on.

</comment><comment><USER9> He is a very well trained CIA man - the picture released is him with two woman at his side. Well played. Nice to see.

<comment><USER10> What do two women have to do with anything? Your comment confused me...

<comment><USER11> "because these women, although professional lawyers and activists on one side of a very important global case, are nevertheless females, and as such assets to be collected and coveted by the bad-boy James Bond Mr Spy-man" .. or some such.

Asinine, but not an unusual way of thinking among some.

<comment><USER9> No, thats not what I had in mind, thats a little bit misogynist, thats precisely what he does not show in the picture - pissing contest and power games, it looks like concerned cooperation devoid of pissing contests and sex.

The importance of the woman is to show that Snowden is not alone, he has people that care and are concerned about him. No stuff like Ana Chapman style.

<comment><USER11> I read too much into your previous statement then, apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the record, local time in Moscow is UTC+4; at the time of writing this comment, that is about 18 o'clock.

<comment><USER13> Isn't the convention to only use the phrase o'clock when using a 12 hour notation?

<comment><USER14> With 24 hour time, the proper way to say it would be 18 hundred.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What does this have to do with hacking/technology?

<comment><USER16> [http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _" If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."_</comment></comment>


Wait – maybe JavaScript IS the top programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/364194/wait-maybe-javascript-top-programming-language?utm_source=javascriptweekly&utm_medium=email <comment><USER2> Wait, your not comparing JS with C are you?

No, seriously with all the respect, I love JS.</comment>


Colossal Water Battery Reduces University's Energy Expenses - <AUTHOR> http://boomvibes.com/colossal-water-battery-reduces-universitys-energy-expenses/ <comment><USER2> From the title, I thought it would be a pumped-storage system basically using gravity as the energy medium. They're instead using it as a thermal system and cooling the water for use in air conditioning. It's an interesting setup for areas where AC is almost always needed.</comment>


Wireless charging of electric cars looks increasingly promising - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/16/wireless-charging-of-electric-cars-looks-increasingly-promising <comment><USER2> [http://archive.today/5tope](http://archive.today/5tope)</comment>


Zillow Said to Be Seeking to Buy Rival Real-Estate Site Trulia - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-24/zillow-said-to-be-seeking-to-buy-rival-real-estate-site-trulia.html

<comment><USER2> The real estate market is huge and inefficient, a ripe opportunity for technologists to capitalize on. But I don't understand what Zillow brings to the table. Do they have any plan beyond their current business model (advertising)?

As a consumer, I think I should oppose Zillow. They seem to just take public data, present it nicely, and slather it with advertisements. Real estate agents play the same heavy-handed role they always have, except now they have to give some of their profits to Zillow else lose visibility to their competitors.

I'm more excited about Redfin. Redfin makes shopping for a home closer to the self-service experience it should be, with agents dealing in higher volume with lower margins playing a lighter role. Unlike Zillow, Redfin seems to make that market more efficient, and I think that's the bigger opportunity for capitalization.

<comment><USER3> The MLS and agent-based system is the real culprit. Until Zillow and Trulia came around and really captured attention, that data was accessed on a few larger sites, like Realtor.com, but also a massive amount of smaller agent sites.

While Zillow is ultimately doing the same thing, I think they can eventually position themselves strong enough to start wedging agents out of the process. One of the huge issues is that the MLS listings are the go-to source for information. If you want to buy a house that's in MLS, or want to list your house for sale in MLS, you gotta play ball with agents. Since MLS is such a dominant marketing tool, they're able to maintain the archaic, but profitable, agent system. If Zillow, minus the MLS, becomes a strong enough marketplace for homes, you'll have viable competition to MLS.

There are already flat-fee MLS agents out there, where you control the commission on the buyer-side and pay a flat fee on the seller-side to get into the MLS listings. That's a decent hack for sellers right now, but it's still just a small improvement on a crappy system.

<comment><USER4> What if a Seller paid a broker (super small fee)just to get on the MLS, but not handle the ins and outs of the transaction? Is this possible?

<comment><USER3> This is readily available by a variety of services. Google "flat fee mls" to see the options.

I sold my house using one of these services in 2011. I saw seller agents adding zero value outside of MLS, so I just paid what it cost to get on there. Buyer agents are actually a little more useful to their clients, but ironically, the seller has to pay them as well. When you do flat fee MLS, you specify on the MLS contract what % of the sale will go to the seller agent. I actually don't know if you can write in "0" or "0.5" in that box on the contract, but I know for sure you don't have to write in the industry standard 3% (standard is 6%, with 3% on the buyer broker/agent and 3% on the seller broker/agent).

In my experience, we did not need to do anything that required an agent. The paperwork is mostly prepared by the buyer's loan company and then a title agency handles the rest. Paperwork like the purchase agreement is basically boilerplate and I had a lawyer review ours just to be sure.

The lawyer cost me $50. That plus the flat-fee totaled less than $600, saving me thousands on what I would have payed if I had to send an extra 2.5-3% to another agent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a real estate broker, I think the major problem isn't Zillow, Trulia, or any other repackager of information. The problem is the MLS. There is still one source/database of legit listings that is bought into by every other broker. Other site (ForSaleByOwner, etc) do not appear legit and nobody trusts a listing put there.

Democratizing the listing information is where disruption needs to happen. What do you think about me as a broker charging a small fee ($100-$200) to post your listing to the MLS, managing in/out calls, but letting the Seller keep the vast majority of the commission and letting a lawyer/broker service to handle the close/escrow process. Selling a home shouldn't be wasted on 15k to a broker who doesn't do anything. (Yes I realize CA has some laws that would make this tricky)

Another idea: How about having homeowners list their properties on a reverse- bidding listing site, where brokers bid for the listing in exchange for the lowest commission? Ideas?

<comment><USER5> Redfin is the site that has tried harder to disrupt the space, although it hasn't been as successful.

They still use the traditional model, but with lower commission.

[https://www.redfin.com/sell-a-home/how-you-save](https://www.redfin.com/sell- a-home/how-you-save)

[http://www.redfin.com/buy-a-home/refund](http://www.redfin.com/buy-a- home/refund)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No bias here as I don't have any affiliation with Zillow/Trulia/Redfin but...

I feel like the only real disruptor in this market has been Redfin - the only one with actual real estate agents.

Zillow and Trulia are, put extremely simply, a map with ads on it. Useful tool, absolutely, but not going to shake up the real estate industry, which is undoubtedly a dinosaur.

When you look at a company like Redfin, who is an actual brokerage but with non commissioned agents, and lower commissions across the board, they're actually disrupting a market that has been ripe for change for years, and they now are offering a better service/product at a cheaper price. I'd expect big things out of them, and expect several brokerages will either change gears to match them or more competition to pop up here soon.

<comment><USER7> I was originally using Trulia to send me emails on new homes in the market, and it works fairly well. Problem is that the data can be sort of dated fairly quickly as it doesn't get MLS data immediately (at least in my area). This is sort of troublesome in markets where a home can be sold in 48 hours from being listed.

Someone on HN mentioned Redfin, and I tried it out. It's incredibly fast (guessing 24-48 hours quicker than Trulia) to get emails on new listings as it's using the MLS data directly. Give it another year, and I feel like the UI will be on par with Trulia on the desktop.

<comment><USER8> I think Trulia and Zillow rely on RE agents to post the information or they take it from other postings. They view it as a great marketing arm for RE agents, while agents (some) view it as a cost that isn't worth it.

With this announcement[1], if I am a broker in NY, why would I post to Zillow if this other agency's listings are always going to be higher than my listings.

1 - [http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2014-06-24-Zillow-and-Douglas- El...](http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2014-06-24-Zillow-and-Douglas-Elliman-Real- Estate-Company-Launch-Strategic-Marketing-Partnership)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If this deal were to go-through, it'd be a massive consolidation of the online real estate industry. Zillow keeps saying otherwise, but local MLSs are going away.

<comment><USER10> And they should go away. Local MLS's are fraud and add very little value to either buyer or seller collecting 6% of total value.

When I bought the house, My agent spent total of less than ten hours showing the houses and made 30K with 3% he collects. (He was even absent at final walk through vacationing)

I believe Real Estate Agents even got a law passed where you can't be a real estate agent unless you work for someone for year in California. Really? You can be a doctor and do surgery on Patients on your day 1 as a Doctor but you apparently being real estate agent requires some unknown skills.

<comment><USER11> It is a fucking sham!

I'm about to make a big move, and it is absurd that the only value the agents I'm talking to are (that a user on Reddit can't provide by telling me about the area) providing is the MLS they have access to.

The 6% commission, you would think, would be a price subject to market forces, but due to collusion among realtors, its locked in. Why anti-trust isn't investigating? Lobbying, that's why.

<comment><USER12> The commission is subject to market forces. There are a number of agents in my area (South Bay) that will accept a $5,000 flat fee.

A good agent really shines when you get into "unusual" situations, by providing you with good advice when the way is not clear. If you buy and sell houses a few times you will see some of these situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I never thought of Zillow being the bigger company until I compared their listings to Trulia's. Looks like Zillow has been acquiring other real estate sites like crazy over the past few years to get to where they are now. Pretty impressive. However I feel like the Zestimates are still not very accurate. Not even sure how they get those estimates. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Also, I wonder how long it will be until Amazon acquires Zillow and 'homes' will be listed in departments.

<comment><USER14> Zestimates are worse than random. There seems to be no sanity-checks in the algo whatsoever.

Check out this Baltimore home. In a single month it's estimate went from $700k to $300k, then back to over $700k during the worst part of the housing slump, and back down to $300k during the recovery. lol wut?

[http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/Zil...](http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/ZillowChart.jpg)

<comment><USER15> I did an analysis on the accurate of Zestimates a few years ago. I took sales data for my county from the previous month (that Zillow had not imported yet) and compared it to the Zestimates Zillow computed. The mean error was almost 0, but the standard deviation was about 20%. An engineer from Zillow wrote to me and said my analysis was close to their own internal measurements. Their algorithms might have improved since then since it sounded like it was something they were continuously trying to improve.

<comment><USER16> do you have a link to that analysis?

<comment><USER15> It was on my old blog which is no longer online. I'll see if I can find the article in my backups and post it somewhere. I should probably do the analysis again since my original test was during the end of the housing bubble when prices were unstable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> With 10 years experience in the real estate brokerage business I have witnessed the value of a good agent in the home buying/selling process.

The number of things that can and do go wrong on the eve of a sale, are often things that a good agent with good vendor/contractor/mortgage relationships can fix so the deal can close.

With tight lending standards post-2009 an agent with good mortgage broker relationships can get loans approved that would have otherwise fallen through. I have seen this a hundred times.

90% of agents are useless middlemen/women that want to collect a few commissions a year to supplement their income.

A full time, capable agent/broker is like having a good lawyer on your side.

Being a real estate agent/broker is not an easy job. It's extremely competitive, the margins on a brokerage are often very thin.

It's a demanding 7 day per week job, and putting in a lot of work to get no payment is an ordinary occurrence.

The MLS and the mandatory broker councils that one must belong to are another story. I have found them to be petty dictatorships at least 10 years behind technology wise.

One MLS I have worked with has for over ten years had an internet explorer only web interface. The MLS API is a giant XML beast that is the most confusing API I have ever worked with.

The MLS has great value, and the freshness and integrity of the data come at a large cost. I am not surprised that brokers and associations protect it the way that they do.

</comment><comment><USER18> even if zillow & trulia merge, none of the potential disruptors in the real estate listings space (zillow, trulia, redfin, fsbo, etc.) have any real chance until the MLS system is dismantled... and brokers have a massive disincentive against that--brokers have exclusive access to property data via their local MLS before anyone else. the MLS's allow some access to this data to zillow & trulia, but will never let them have instant & complete info since it's the MLS's core competitive advantage.

agent commissions will remain at 5-7% as long as the MLS system is in place. but MLS's are not going away any time soon. even the DOJ looked into breaking them up via legal action and gave up.

interestingly, new york city does not have a strong MLS presence, but is basically an oligopoly of 6 major brokers, so the effect is the same.

figure out a way to dismantle the MLS system and you're looking at a >billion dollar business (just note that zillow & trulia have been trying for ~decade, so it's not an easy problem).

</comment><comment><USER19> The way it works is : seller pay 5%-6% of commission to his agent. Seller agent then posts what the buyer agent will get. Buyer agent will get equal or more, as he to do more legwork.

now interesting part:

a buyer can negotiate with his agent to get some of the commission a buyer agent gets in range of 1.5%-2%. But buyer has to work with smaller agents, not affiliated with big firms : century 21. There is glut of agents, and you can get the deal. (me and some of my friends have)

needless to say : you have to do lot of legwork : finding house urself, and just the agent to do the paperwork.

Same goes with seller : he has to give 3% for buyer agent, but for his agent (seller agent) he can negotiate to 1% - 1.5% (know of that happening too)

while looking for a next house, I just made a aggregator to scrape multiple sites and let me know when new house is available in bay area. ([http://www.twikstik.com/](http://www.twikstik.com/) : running on appengine)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's relevant to link to Citron Research's scathing report that Zillow is among the most egregiously overvalued public tech companies, with large insider selling and video footage from management admitting to its partners that it does not have profits with which to pay them.

[http://www.citronresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/09/zil...](http://www.citronresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/09/zillow-final.pdf)

<comment><USER21> Keep in mind that Citron Research is known for providing info for short- sellers. So it's somewhat in their interest to see the stock go down for companies they review and, in turn, suggest their readers short.

Note: they've recently been doing lots of reviews on Z

<comment><USER20> Largely true, but they've also put out Long reports, namely Blackberry recently which they highlighted about a year ago and have reiterated their positive stance, which has played out in the market. I add this not to toot their own but even out the message that although they're known for their shorts, that's not all they research and pick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good. When I have a problem, I can get a hold of a human at Zillow and they're nice to work with.

As far as I know Trulia is just a very complicated cron job.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm currently hunting for a home and the only two sites I've found relevant are Zillow and Redfin. Can someone explain to me why I'd use Trulia?

<comment><USER19> which areas are you hunting? i wrote a aggregator for some cities at [http://twikstik.com](http://twikstik.com), and can add cities for you.

<comment><USER23> I'm looking in Portland, Oregon. Looks like your site is Bay Area-only? Looks like a fun side project!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> and the most important truth in all of this.... the agent/brokers make peanuts compared to the mortgage companies.</comment>


The Case Against Boeing - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/the-case-against-boeing <comment><USER2> "Since Samya Stumo's death in a 737 MAX crash, her parents and her great- uncle, Ralph Nader, have devoted themselves to proving that the airline put profit over safety."

Isn't starting with a conclusion and then looking for information to support it the very definition of bad investigative practices? Anything ambiguous will be classified as proof of your premise because of confirmation bias while exculpatory evidence will be classified as ambiguous or tangential.</comment>