Bitcoin's Price Falls 12%, to Lowest Value Since May - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/bitcoins-price-sinks-but-causes-little-alarm-among-traders/ <comment><USER2> And I'm happy to be someone about to jump fully on the Bitcoin train and never have to think about the price of Bitcoin.

As a U.S. citizen living abroad, Bitcoin is now at the intersection of cheapest, fast (but not instant) and most convenient for receiving my money. There are exchanges here which work automatically and have lots of options for me to receive my money. At this point, I can't say there is a better method available for me.

I'm getting the pathways setup (accounts mostly) and then all of my money transfers will be going through Bitcoin.

When people like me who don't care about the price, but get real utility out of Bitcoin (beyond just the gimmick of merchants accepting payments in Bitcoin which make up less than 1% of sales but much more than that in marketing publicity) then the prices will really start to take off. But, we still won't care about the prices then.

Edit: That said, Ripple or Stellar may be an even better option for moving money. Once Cryptocurrency becomes so widely used that Bitcoin is just another option, then Bitcoin could drop massively. But we still won't care about price. ;)

Edit2: I would NOT be holding Bitcoin. I would only be using it as a transfer medium.

<comment><USER2> You guys have got to be kidding me. I write a comment about transferring money to a 3rd world nation, which is one of the greatest possible uses of Bitcoin in the future and my comment is getting attacked?

Of course people in 3rd world nations won't hold Bitcoin. Low income workers can't afford any volatility and they often can't afford to hold anything anyways.

What I'm trying to say is that Bitcoin is emerging as the best remittance option. This is one of the most exciting uses of Bitcoin. But it's not quite there yet for most people in the world. In the Philippines, it's here!

If an option is good for remittances, it's also good for an expat to remit money to him / her self.

In this scenario, we don't care about what the price is.

What's the problem with that?

<comment><USER3> > In this scenario, we don't care about what the price is.

You don't, but you rely on people who do on both ends, which means that the long-term viability in the use case you are interested in is dependent on the viability of Bitcoin to people who do care about the price, even if the people using it for your use case do not directly care about that.

<comment><USER2> Maybe. We are getting into something which is a bit complex here. And I'm assuming neither one of us are experts.

People who are interested in holding Bitcoin probably aren't people I'm going to be interacting with. If you are holding, you aren't selling.

My use case will help Bitcoin by creating demand, and helping liquidity. I'm buying and then turning around and selling. I using up available liquidity and then selling to create more liquidity. That liquidity also helps other people looking to do the same as me. You then have a pool of Bitcoin which is basically just zipping between people who aren't affected by price.

People who are speculating on the very short term don't necessarily care about price either. They may only care about up and down movements. Just as day traders of stocks don't necessarily care about the name of the stock or even the history. All they see is movement. In this case, volatility may actually be good for these people (I don't know, I'm not a day trader.)

<comment><USER3> > People who are interested in holding Bitcoin probably aren't people I'm > going to be interacting with.

Sure they are.

> If you are holding, you aren't selling.

But if you are interested in holding, you are likely _buying_. And remittance use case requires you to interact with both a seller and a buyer.

> I using up available liquidity and then selling to create more liquidity.

Which is basically a net zero impact, but sure.

> That liquidity also helps other people looking to do the same as me. You > then have a pool of Bitcoin which is basically just zipping between people > who aren't affected by price.

Except that if you want those transactions to get processed, you need miners, who are interested in price, since they get paid in bitcoins (mining new blocks and/or transaction fees; over time moving from the former as the main reward to the latter.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't like the reasons this article gives for the decrease. I mean if regulations had been the cause of this price drop we would have seen this sort of thing happening in July.

My best guess is that this is caused by fear-based speculators who were trying to get rich on Bitcoin.

<comment><USER5> It was almost certainly caused by microstructure of the Bitcoin market: at least two exchanges allowed people to buy Bitcoins on margin, and published widely distributed statistics of how much aggregate margin was outstanding on a day to day basis. It did not take much Excel modeling to figure out the approximate price points for Bitcoin where the exchanges' published margin requirements would trigger cascading margin calls. [+]

If you can predict a cascading margin call in advance, that's tradeable. There is a fairly straightforward way to predict the timing of one.

[+] I'm using a bunch of words here which may not be common hacker jargon, though they're table stakes for trading. Margin is a loan securitized by assets kept with your broker (exchanges, in the Bitcoin world, since they don't separate functions) which allows you to employ "leverage", magnifying the gains if you trade well and the losses if you trade poorly. Margin makes it possible to lose more value than you started out with, something which is not possible when buying instruments like stock or Bitcoins outright. To avoid the problem of traders leaving the broker with the risk in the event of their position getting moved against, brokers do "margin calls", obligating customers to either a) post more collateral or b) liquidate positions involuntarily if their position is moved against in such a way that the equity threatens to go negative. If you're using margin to buy Bitcoins, a margin call forcing liquidation causes you to sell Bitcoins. This will tend to decrease the price of Bitcoins in the next few seconds. Decreasing prices cause _other_ people to hit margin calls. This causes a "margin cascade" feedback loop as the market _rapidly_ de-levers and a lot of over-margined traders lose their shirts.

For an example of someone who _correctly predicted this outcome in advance_ , see the Bitcoin Talk thread entitled "The Bitfinex Credit Bubble Cannot End Well."

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=667105.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=667105.0)

Another example of people correctly picking the outcome in advance would be the surge in BTC swaps (i.e. margin used by people shorting Bitcoin, expressing strong confidence that it will fall in price in the short term) in the 48 hours prior to the flash crashes. (I'm not necessarily saying that those folks intentionally precipitated the margin cascade.)

<comment><USER6> > published widely distributed statistics of how much aggregate margin was > outstanding on a day to day basis.

Do you have a link? I didn't find those stats after a cursory look at the Bitfinex and BTCE sites.

<comment><USER7> I don't know about BTC-e, but the swaps information from Bitfinex is usually available at bfxdata.com

e.g. [http://www.bfxdata.com/combined/btc.php](http://www.bfxdata.com/combined/btc.php)

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I am not sure if this also captures their margin trading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is pretty much a cheap and default comment, but I would be _so_ happy if everybody ( _especially_ websites calling themselves the "DealBook") would start plotting prices on a logarithmic scale.

<comment><USER9> Currency exchange rates aren't supposed to need a logarithmic scale. That would be a visual equivalent of burying the lede.

<comment><USER10> Logarithmic scale makes sense for everyone. If you buy at X dollars and has 100% return when the price is 2X it does not matter what X actually is. Logarithmic scale reflects relative changes which is the only interesting metric for investors. If Bitcoin was traded at $98 12 months ago and now trades at $480, it shows relative change of 400% while the prices themselves do not tell you much.

<comment><USER9> If bitcoin can go from $98 to $480 in twelve months, that's a glowing sign to merchants saying "BITCOIN TOO VOLATILE TO USE". Investors are not the only audience. I want that big, scary, spiky graph.

<comment><USER11> Merchants don't care (except to the extent consumers care), they almost all use BitPay / Coinbase to insulate themselves from volatility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Price drop was most likely caused by cascading margin calls.

As exchanges add more sophisticated features (such as trading on margin) amateurs continue to suffer and learn expensive lessons.

Many Bitcoin advocates will heave at the idea of any form of regulation, Bitcoin unfortunately appears to be most attractive to libertarians. Yet their fellow advocates are suffering all around them for it. As an example, any leveraged trading instrument regulated by the FSA in the UK is plastered with warnings about leveraged trading, in a (admittedly probably lacking) effort to warn amateurs of the dangers. I see no such warnings on Bitcoin exchanges offering leverage.

<comment><USER13> Part of the issue is that most exchanges will liquidate your entire position in the event of a margin call, rather than simply liquidating enough to bring you back above maintenance margin.

<comment><USER14> Why do they do it that way? Just because it's simpler to implement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the true colors of Bitcoin "believers" become pretty obvious when they are all so very preoccupied with the price per piece. I read some pretty ridiculous explanations that volatility is good, because it attracts "investors", and this is supposed to be good for it.

<comment><USER12> Volatility will attract traders, the only benefit traders offer is liquidity (a marginal benefit).

<comment><USER15> I'm not discussing the validity of the ridiculous statement, just quoting "believers" who would find all excuses for their beloved Bitcoin. The term of the week is "flash crash"! The longer people repeat it (i.e. validating it's not a "flash crash" as time passes by and the price is not recovering), the more ridiculous it gets!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This price fluctuations will not end until the destiny of Bitcoin has been decided, either fail and drop to zero or succeed and rise probably well above 1000 dollars. It's kind of remarkable that it did not die within the first 5 years if you consider all the small and big disasters but in my opinion Bitcoin is still in is infancy and it is far from clear where the journey will end. Compared with other means of payment Bitcoin still plays no important role at all - its still a very nerdy thing only a tiny fraction of people know about and the hand full of opportunities to do something meaningful with your Bitcoins besides speculating with them is not even a drop in the ocean of the world's economy.

<comment><USER17> The fluctuations will never end unless bitcoin itself ends. Its nature prevents a dampening force like a central bank to control wild price swings.

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't mass adoption help? If the market capitalization was for example 10,000 times the current one, it seems to me it would be quite hard to move the market as much as it happened in the past.

<comment><USER17> No because it is a deflationary currency. Gold also had huge fluctuations. Silver too.

The counter argument (google "bitcoin deflationary") is that people won't hold Bitcoin because it is a payment system but I think that is ridiculous because the whole notion of bitcoin is that it is fungible property. Empirical reality obviously demonstrates people are hoarding bitcoins.

Bitcoins are more like the condominium market. You can make more condos but a diminishing number more a year. You can buy condos speculatively and not inhabit them (eg buy bitcoins and not spend them). Condo prices are also an unstable market. (Not to mention lots of interesting organized crime stories.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> At the end of the article the guy says: "What really defines the price is its reputation and expectations for the future."

But isn't that true of any currency? Isn't that why a green piece of paper with Benjamin Franklin's face on it is worth anything at all, just because we believe in the US government's stability?

<comment><USER19> "We" is doing a _lot_ of work in that last sentence. It's rather like saying "English is only useful because so many people speak it".

The US dollar is, like the existence of the US itself, supported by the collective belief of its citizens and quite a lot of people outside its borders. That belief carries quite a lot of weight because it's difficult to dislodge.

The reputation of bitcoin is shorter and less clear, and expectations vary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love how this is news when BTC value used to change by 40-60% a day lol...

</comment><comment><USER21> I shyed away from bitcoin after finding out about the group that captured 51% of the blockchain.

Just knowing that's a possibility is a big nope for me

</comment><comment><USER22> And this is NYT-worthy news?

<comment><USER23> The bitcoin market is worthwhile $6.3B at the current time so its value is not that negligible and might have an economical impact.

NB: I'm saying that "it may have" not that "it has".

<comment><USER24> Assuming every bit coin created still exists is a mistake. Nakamoto might still be in possession of roughly one million bitcoins. But if they where lost then it's a 6.0B commodity.

It might just qualify as part of the S&P 500, but that's not really a major hurdle.

PS: If bitcoin wants to be a stable currency it may be well served by invalidating any wallet without transactions for a long enough period of time aka 10 years. Otherwise, in the long term there is going to be a lot of possibly 'dead' coins which makes reasoning about the market difficult.

<comment><USER25> Suggesting "invalidating wallets" indicates a lack of understanding about the underlying system. Wallets are an abstraction; they do not exist in the Bitcoin protocol.

And why should we work to make the Bitcoin market easier to analyze? Our first priority should be to have a strong long-term (well over 10 years) store of value.

<comment><USER26> > Suggesting "invalidating wallets" indicates a lack of understanding about > the underlying system

It might be a wording mistake rather than a lack of understanding, but I see your point. If you think about it though, it's technically easy to do and maybe a good thing too. Since you can see any transaction ever done, you can easily lookup the last transaction done by any address with value (valueless addresses can be discarded from memory anyway). If that transaction is more than, let's say, 50 years ago, you could say that it can be discarded from memory too (no longer included in the block chain to preserve space).

People may want to store coins for over 10 years in cold storage (hot storage would simply be able to do a transaction to itself every few years) so maybe that's too short, but 50 years seems like a reasonable time. Looking at the future of Bitcoin (and I mean 100+ years), even though storage will get cheaper and cheaper, it might be smart to discard really old addresses.

Of course this is all just an idea, I'm not saying it really surely would be a great thing to do. It's just that it's possible and _not_ just a dumb remark from Retric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Awesome, my bot got me some while they were cheep :)

<comment><USER27> Ouch, -4 points - what's with the down votes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Goddamnit, my $50 is only worth $44 now...

</comment><comment><USER29> This isn't the end of it either. In a month or two, 475 dollars will look nice.

<comment><USER30> > In a month or two, 475 dollars will look nice.

Based on what? Serious question. When people say this about stocks they are either:

1) pulling it out of their ass..

2) They have done some quantitative analysis, based on some sort of CFA teachings.

I'm assuming you are in camp 1 here. Not that there is anything wrong with a "gut feeling", I"m just not going to invest based on it:)

As a question to anyone, what sort of analysis can one do on bitcoin to derive a proper price for it? I'd be open to any quantitative analysis techniques here!

My wheel house is market microstructure, but I'd love to work on a model to value bitcoin with someone if they had any ideas.

<comment><USER31> Well, if you're willing to ignore the existing base of bitcoin already mined (and even in some cases the sunk cost of buying hardware that can be used to mine them) go ahead and do your calculation based solely on the price per unit energy as a starting point.

If you use this calculator[1] you can see that if your 50GH/s array spends 300w which you had to pay for, you are burning about $0.48/day at the current price, assuming all of that from before. This is not top-of-the-line, but it is some relatively modern ASIC equipment from BFL. Previous generation miners, 5 and 10GH/s "Jalapenos" from the 65nm fab. They are supposedly rolling out 28nm "Monarch" now which are at least 10x as powerful and certainly more than just marginally better at power efficiency.

If you look at this chart[2] you can see an estimate of the next difficulty and adjust your calculations for next week, it becomes pretty clear that more people are turning on their Gigahashes than turning them off, even if that was only marginally the case two weeks ago. You have to imagine those people are mostly those with newer equipment.

I don't have a graph of price overlaid with difficulty, but it can't be too hard to find one. A few months ago it was possible to scale them and demonstrate a relatively good fit where price and difficulty were roughly correlated, but since difficulty shows no signs of falling yet, I suspect that fit is not so good anymore.

[1]: [http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/](http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/) [2]: [https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty](https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty)

<comment><USER32> A better graph might be _change_ in hashrate versus price.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why so many things cost exactly zero - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-12/sunday-strategist-why-so-many-things-cost-exactly-zero <comment><USER2> There's a very simple reason for this: Payment is complicated and adds overhead. Particularly payment that works for everyone internationally.

Every form of payment, no matter in which direction, needs to provide enough benefit to justify the costs of the complexity added by it.

<comment><USER3> This is why Let's Encrypt is zero cost by the way. I'm certain Hanno knows that, but for everybody else:

The purpose of ISRG (the not-for-profit which runs Let's Encrypt) is to drive automated issuance for Web PKI certificates. Nothing about this directly means they should be free - surely a not-for-profit could deliver this as an at-cost service, so why zero cost when that's not a core goal?

Machines don't have wallets. If they charge even 1¢ for a Let's Encrypt certificate (which would certainly cover costs at current issuance rates) now there needs to be a payment flow, which the machine needs help with because it doesn't have money. At zero cost all of that goes away and leaves you only solving engineering problems to achieve your goal of automated issuance.

<comment><USER4> I wish there were a way of sending $0.01, by sending $10 with probability 0.001. That is, you and I negotiate a random seed (using something like Diffie-Hellman) and then we can generate probabilistic microtransactions and only transfer the $10 in the p=0.001 case.

EDIT: fixed arithmetic, thanks skj

<comment><USER5> This is smart! Why not build it?

<comment><USER6> I suspect the probabilistic aspect would not actually be popular.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I think people would hate it for the same reason they love gambling slot machines. People overweight rare and random events. You'd always remember the one time you got dinged $10 for looking at some lame clickbait article.

<comment><USER5> You wouldn't need to sell it as random to the end user.

<comment><USER6> That's a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's this awkward gap in online service pricing that I hate. I'd like to pay $3 per month for a 100GB Dropbox quota, but Dropbox decided (rationally--I don't blame them) than anyone paying less than $10 per month isn't worth their time.

Pretty much all ~consumer services like that are either free or at least $10.

<comment><USER8> Sadly, a flat per-transaction fee of 30 cents or so associated with credit card payment processing means that fees alone eat up over 10% of a $3 plan.

Until payment processing is an inherent feature of the monetary system, rather than through multiple third parties, small transactions like these are just bad for everyone.

<comment><USER9> If you are old like me you remember when stores had minimum purchase limits for credit cards, and some places (esp. gas stations) would charge different prices for cash or credit. The credit card issuers have strongarmed the retailers to curb those practices, so the only rational response for a service that would be entirely dependent on them would be to have a minimum for everything.

<comment><USER10> In NZ, those minimums and surcharges are coming back and relatively common. Retailers are getting vocal about the "evils" of credit cards companies too.

<comment><USER11> And many places simply don't accept credit card payments.

I find it interesting, because EFTPOS (like a debit card in the US) seems to be far-and-away the most popular way to pay for small items and is accepted virtually everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It's obvious why the likes of Facebook and Google don't charge for their > products: It costs nearly nothing to transmit, say, one Gmail or host, say, > one photo on Instagram.

This already doesn't make sense. This wrong logic could be extended to every paid service which doesn't rely on an external service, especially SaaS, on the internet. If this reasoning was correct, everything from Zendesk to Superhuman to GitHub (pre-Microsoft pricing) should be free. Development costs money, and hosting overall costs a fair bit of money (because every user doesn't just post one picture, or have one email, and it compounds).

The real reason it is free is because they want users, and make more money from ads than they would charging a reasonable price (which would massively cut adoption anyway).

<comment><USER13> Yes, I stopped reading at that point. What does the author think the small army of software engineers and researchers that create their products are paid? Nothing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've gotten to the point where I automatically and instantly discount any theory that proposes blockchain as a solution. I'm not saying blockchain technology will never be a good solution to a real world problem, but I have noticed that it is very often an ignorant assertion of faith rather than an argument based in fact. It walks like a religion and quacks like a religion, so I'm not sure why I should think it's something other than a religion.

<comment><USER12> > It walks like a religion and quacks like a religion, so I'm not sure why I > should think it's something other than a religion.

This is such a good way to describe the current state of blockchain.

It's a cult. And mostly spread around by people who are trying to increase the price so they can sell and profit off other people. It's a giant ponzi scheme, and wealth redistribution.

But I think the technology has promise. We just haven't bothered explore real applications of it, because we're too busy trying to use it to make a quick buck at someone else's expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's a lot of evidence that the bigger factor is transaction cost. People consume more under all-you-can-eat plans than per-transaction plans (e.g. internet service) even though the unmetered plans may cost more, simply because they don't want the mental overhead. People will drive out of their way to avoid a tool bridge even if the toll costs less than the cost of operating their vehicle for the other route.

All that billing infrastructure costs money as well. Think of how much of the phone and TV cable networks is consumed by nothing but managing tollbooths?

The post from Stratechery yesterday made this point differently: when credit cards were introduced _merchants_ liked them because they no longer needed the (pre-computerized in those days) infrastructure and headcount of billing customers, checking credit, etc.

<comment><USER16> > _People will drive out of their way to avoid a tool bridge even if the toll > costs less than the cost of operating their vehicle for the other route._

It's not just the mental overhead here. I specifically avoid toll roads because I think their concept is fundamentally wrong. I pay taxes to pay for roads and their maintenance. I shouldn't have to pay more taxes ("tolls") to pay to use those roads.

If it's a private road then it should be marked as such. The public shouldn't be permitted to drive on private roads marked as if they're a interstate or state highway or anything like that. It's deceptive and profiteering off of what the government already provides: transportation infrastructure. And it absolutely should not be permitted for a private entity to purchase an existing road and turn it into a tollway.

<comment><USER17> Would you be opposed to making all roads toll roads and no longer pay for them with outside taxes?

<comment><USER16> Yes. Roads and infrastructure should belong to the people.

<comment><USER17> They could still belong to the people. It's just that they are paid for by the people who use them. The more you drive, the more you pay. To a small extent the gasoline tax works like this.

<comment><USER16> Poor people cannot afford this. It's the whole reason that taxes were set up for road and infrastructure maintenance: so that _everyone_ can benefit instead of just the wealthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Payment friction.

Anything +/\- 0 by a little bit will be zero because there's huge friction costs in transferring money:

\+ UI complexity, sign up \+ Transaction costs (VISA, fraud protection) \+ Financial accounting \+ Hosting the relevant financial data \+ Legal issues

<comment><USER19> And, arguably, mental transaction costs. Getting people to pay anything at all is a big hurdle to get over whether it's a penny, a dollar, or ten dollars. Clay Shirky wrote way back when that this was the main problem with micropayments and I'm mostly inclined to agree. (It's true that $1 digital music and video rentals for a few dollars were/are something of a thing. But people seem to generally prefer all you can eat subscriptions.)

If people were really on board with micropayments, I suspect they could be made to work technically/financially.

<comment><USER18> Yes, definitely.

'Paying money' is not like the old days when you'd flip literally a few cents out of your pocket for some candy.

Money transfer in tech comes with huge headaches across the board.

Privacy, compliance, international taxation, VAT, risk, etc. etc..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Broadcast television and radio.

At least not in Germany. Every household has to pay a monthly fee even if they dont want to. No opt outs possible.

And for music licenses there is GEMA which is also financed by additional charges on empty media like SDcards or Hard disks. Also no opt out possible. Google/youtube was fighting it and they finally lost the battle.

So in principle the IP Providers could be forced to pay a monthly fee for internet searches and social media. For mobile networks this is already discussed.

It seems that the EU doesnt like the free services from the SV giants and will fight them in the time to come. The GDPR was only the beginning. The next one will be more about the money.

<comment><USER21> > Every household has to pay a monthly fee even if they dont want to

Even if you don't own any screen or audio devices they still make you pay for it. I always fail to see how this isn't pure theft.

<comment><USER22> > > Every household has to pay a monthly fee even if they dont want to

> Even if you don't own any screen or audio devices they still make you pay > for it. I always fail to see how this isn't pure theft.

The rationales is that you are benefiting from that service (public information) indirectly (other citizens make more informed decisions) even though you don't use it directly.

And, realistically, which household does not own a device that is able to receive a video via a web site?

BTW, you don't need to pay the Rundfunkbeitrag if, among others:

«* you receive BAföG and do not live with your parents, * for recipients of unemployment benefit II or social allowance benefits, * for recipients of social welfare benefits or basic subsistence benefits ("Grundsicherung"), * for recipients of assistance to blind people according to § 72 German Code of Social Law XII.»

Source: [https://www.studentenwerk-hannover.de/en/en-social/en- reduct...](https://www.studentenwerk-hannover.de/en/en-social/en- reductions/en-broadcast/)

That said, it is high time that these kind of levies get converted into normal taxes and progressively taxed like everything else. Why should the €30k/year household contribute as much to the public information as the €200k/year household?

<comment><USER21> If it's mandatory then make it a tax, like every other thing. This is kind of in limbo between tax and "you're not really obligated to pay, it's not illegal not to pay, but if you don't pay the state allow it to be processed by debt collectors".

It's like if you received a letter asking you 10 euros a month for building schools, another 15 euros for building new public buses, another 15 for a new train line. All these things are taken from your salary before it even reaches your bank account so why is this tv/radio thing any other way? We're already paying insane amount of tax in gerrmany, asking for 17 euros per months for thing like this on the side is an insult.

<comment><USER23> If all taxes were itemized like that it would probably lead to a lot more government accountability of how money is spent, and it would be a forcing function to create a budget ahead of time.

I'm sure there's a million issues I haven't thought of, but I like the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've been paid a total of 35 BAT (~$8) for using the Brave browser since October '19\. STEEM was supposed to be like Facebook, but you get paid. It turned out to be more of a "rich get richer" ecosystem, so I stopped using it. Facebook's Libra may yet turn out to be a way for people to get paid for using Facebook. I stopped using Facebook entirely following all the negative press. I only recently signed in to strengthen my password and enable 2FA. I don't use it anymore at all. Maybe I would start again if they paid me.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've never heard an email sent via Gmail referred to as a "Gmail" before.

<comment><USER26> It's a common thing to happen and I've noticed it a lot with middle age non tech crowds. It's not a new phenomenon overall but people talk about how their son made a YouTube or they sent a Gmail quite regularly. For some reason tech folks find it natural to use the verbs (e.g. I googled/youtubed it) but not the nouns.

It doesn't always require the service have 100% market dominance either, just that it be popular enough people hear others use it and commonly used in exclusivity by the user.

<comment><USER27> This must be a local thing. I've never heard "gmail" used as a verb, ever, by any one of any age.

<comment><USER26> It's not really a local speech pattern thing it has more to do with associating <product name> with <name of tool>. If you can think of examples for a dozen other traditional products (kleenex, ketchup, jello, aspirin..) it shouldn't be hard to imagine that people do it for gmail and technology products/services. It's also certainly not unheard of though it is still less popular than traditional "emailed" [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=h...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=how%20to%20send%20a%20gmail,how%20to%20send%20a%20email)

<comment><USER27> That's a different part of speech.

No one says they're going to "Kleenex their nose" or "aspirin their headache" so why would they "gmail their friend"?

<comment><USER26> For the same reason they "email my friend" but don't "tissue my nose" or "drug their head". If it doesn't sound right to start with it won't sound right after you swap the generic term for the brand name.

You've at least heard someone say "let me Google that" or "that's photoshopped" right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There are a lot of reasons things cost zero.

I think one is _complements_ [1] (if the price of jelly goes down, peanut butter sales increase)

Apps are complementary to iPhones, so if Apple drives the cost of apps to zero, they sell more iphones.

For Google, if data sales are complementary to services, making the services free makes data sales rise.

Only thing I've noticed though is that free is associated with lots of unintended consequences. Free electric car charging means it's hard to reliably charge your car. Free web services means nobody gets good customer service. Even a modest co-pay leads to significant cost savings for insureres because free visits can easily tie up all health-care resources.

[1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy- letter-v/](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/)

</comment><comment><USER29> I think this is just the same problem of micropayments on the web: nobody's "solved" it, so free is just the most convenient option by far.

<comment><USER30> Not true, app stores solved it ...

<comment><USER31> Don't they skim like 30% or something crazy like that off the top of every purchase? If so, I wouldn't call it "solved".

<comment><USER32> When you consider the infrastructure provided for hosting, payment processing, distribution, and the storefront itself, 30% is not unreasonable.

<comment><USER33> That 30% is on more than $60B/yr for apple. Are you suggesting that their overhead for running app store is anywhere within even a couple orders of magnitude of $20B/yr?

<comment><USER32> I'm suggesting that, compared to what you'd pay to do these things for yourself, 30% is a steal. There's a reason people are ok with paying it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Apparently bus fares in San Francisco just cover the costs of collecting the fares. When a recent Mayor attempted to just make the buses free he was told it was impractical because they would become "rolling dumpsters".

</comment><comment><USER35> The MER cost of an ETF could go below zero too. Many make some extra money from securities lending.

In theory a regular shareholder could earn this money too, but it's not worthwhile except at scale.

But I doubt anyone other than Vanguard would do this at scale.

</comment><comment><USER36> "maybe blockchain will fix it"

</comment><comment><USER37> I think another reason that Google et al don't pay customers is because they might realise how much their data is worth and get uppity.

</comment><comment><USER38> This article's only value is as a counterexample to the assertion "there are no stupid questions." Not charging (or paying) people at all is not the same as charging them zero, you have to be being deliberately obtuse to pretend that it is.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think most of the microtransaction argument here is forgetting about Swagbucks [1]. I would argue micro transactions are doable, either through networks or payout systems that wait until you have enough for a payout.

I believe the real reason is that Google isn't exactly a commodity. People are used to the brand, the user interface, the web url, and maybe the occasional quality or exact flavor of the search results.

Because it's not a commodity, people don't just instantly change to whichever site pays the most, and because of that there would have to be a large pay difference for customers to make a switch. Users are basically willing to "forfeight" the money they would get using Swagbucks to use Google.

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

</comment><comment><USER40> > It's obvious why the likes of Facebook and Google don't charge for their > products: It costs nearly nothing to transmit...

That's not why. They don't charge because it's not lucrative to do so. Charging - however small - would change expectations on SLA, privacy, security, etc.

Most importantly, as everyone on HN knows, they can't charge for access to their platform because the platform isn't the product. You and I are the product.

Finally, Bloomberg should be more careful with their word choice. They are prestigious enough to know that __nothing__ is free. There is always a cost(s) involved. The transaction might not call for an exchange of financial wampum but that does not make it free.

<comment><USER41> >Finally, Bloomberg should be more careful with their word choice. They are prestigious enough to know that __nothing__ is free. There is always a cost(s) involved. The transaction might not call for an exchange of financial wampum but that does not make it free.

I read the article. It is a synopsis of a paper. The word "free" does not appear in the article, and to my reading the author does not imply "free".

<comment><USER40> Cost zero? That's not free?

My point is, free or cost zero...neither exits. There is no free. There is no zero cost. Those are myths.

There is always a cost. It might not be tangible (i.e., money) but there is always a cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's just friction. Zero just means no payments have to take place. It's tv e friction that puts people off not the amount of money

</comment><comment><USER43> [http://archive.ph/JbFkn](http://archive.ph/JbFkn)

</comment><comment> c-smile Just in case, I've answered similar question "Why are C++ libraries mostly paid such as QT, Poco, and Sciter?" on Quora: [https://qr.ae/TS4BUI](https://qr.ae/TS4BUI)

<comment><USER44> I've seen more of this - people linking semi-relevant question/answers on quora. Even with similar wording. I'm not sure why? Is there a rise of people using quora as a sort of blogging platform? Incentives to get views on your answers for users?

Maybe I'm just overly sensitive as Quora initially got on my bad side when they used to put everything behind a login wall and required accounts with real names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I got paywalled. Guess I'll never know!</comment>


Audio Ruler – Measure distance between iPhone and earphone - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
This app measures distance between earphone and iPhone.
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1509013330
I am not the maker of the app explicitly, but I did develop the algorithm behind it. The main problem was that any delay caused by the device disqualified the result as 1 nanosecond delayed made the measurement inaccurate. I spent 2 years and made the scientific paper on my University which began my adventure with measuring Sound Waves.
Just to add - I am not a physicist, but I like challenges.
If there are any people that are sound waves masters reading this - we can make many exciting apps together just DM me.
The next app we will make using the sound algorithms is a thermometer. I already have a proof of concept working. Have a nice day y'all! <comment><AUTHOR> There is a video how this app works on Product Hunt Landing page if you want to see first

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/audio- ruler](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/audio-ruler)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://apps.apple.com/app/id1509013330](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1509013330) Link to the app</comment>


Mobile First Web Second (continued) - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/mobile-first-web-second-continued.html

<comment><USER2> I love mobile as much as every other geek out there. I have them all, iphone, ipad, android, laptops etc. It's fantastic and wonderful and all that.

But there is a certain amount of echo chamber to all this talk about mobile.

Yes it's one of the most important areas out there and especially for consumer oriented location aware stuff. But not all of us can do our jobs, just by answering emails.

So perhaps the principle should really be product first, platform second.

<comment><USER3> It's more of a product design/user experience thing. Designing for mobile first (small screen etc, limited input controls etc.) and then moving to web is much easier than doing it the other way around.

<comment><USER2> But that obviously depends on what you are doing.

Not all products are 4Square.

And often mobile is an extension of the core product not the product itself.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but 1. more and more, mobile is becoming the product itself, and 2. even if it's not, it's still helpful (from a UX perspective) to do mobile first. For me it's been helpful to try mobile first, even when it's not the core product.

<comment><USER2> I don't think mobile is becoming the product itself more and more. It's just that mobile allow for new kinds of products.

But that does not mean that mobile will take over everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> API first. Mobile or Web second (depends on where your market is). Whatever you still need to do third.</comment>


Ask HN: How companies use Twitter for customer service? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering about how companies use Twitter for customer service. Are they periodically search for "company name" tweets to contact with customer via DM or tweet?<p>And if they're giving password of Twitter account to support staff, how they rely on the staff? <comment><USER2> Most of the companies doing customer support via Twitter are either very small (as in, 20-100 people) or very large (as in major banking companies).

In both cases, very few people handle the Twitter accounts in general, and usually they reveal some part of their identity. Some companies decide to create multiple customer service accounts for multiple people as well.

My guess is, they have some power-user applications running some searches for key words (obviously company names) and maybe, if they are really serious, some sentiment analysis (e.g. "Regions sucks!" is much more important than "headed to Regions then to lunch.")

The larger companies will hire a small team, or may add this to the responsibility list of someone who they feel takes initiative. Companies like MediaTemple have customer support folks who monitor this like any other channel, with a scheduled switchoff to other support reps. Small companies have someone doing this and usually many other tasks at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't directly related to the question, but I wanted to share my story anyway: I successfully used Twitter when I had some issues with Expedia.

Long story short, one leg of my flight was cancelled and I instead took a bus. I was promised I would get a refund with 2 weeks, yada yada, and I end up not getting it. After 2-3 more phone calls and similar cycles, I get tired and post to them publicly on twitter and facebook.

Lo and behold, they got on the case immediately and I got my refund in the next day or two.

Is there a moral there though? Should one use twitter and/or facebook to give a company poor publicity and then have them specially take care of you? Unclear, but since this was a case where I had already tried to deal with them on the phone 3-4 times, I felt justified.

</comment><comment><USER4> My two cents: there are companies providing social media CRM services that provide real time 1\. market sentiment on their customers opinions 2\. alert when complaining tweets require client service to follow up. The monitored tweet volume is very small as the key words are mostly limited to company names or key products. Especially most complain directly @company handle. Most of this can be done manually, to take my previous CPG client as an example, people from each merchandise group manually check the amazon review on the product skew they run and work with customer service together to follow up on bad reviews. They try really hard to collect online feedback to understand what people like and not like about the products.

</comment><comment><USER5> They do it the same way as narcissistic techies do it. They "listen" for @ mentions throughout the day via twitter clients. Years ago I tweeted about comcast service issues and 5 min later I received a phone call from a comcast service manager. They must have a customer service team who deals with customers on twitter and a small team of "managers" who jump on cases to put out the fires that need immediate attention.</comment>


Summly's founder on competitors: "They keep getting bought out." (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://saadmalik.net/summlys-founder-on-competition-2012/

<comment><USER2> Wasn't Summly bought due to an agreement between Yahoo and SRI?</comment>


Multicore Haskell Now (slides) - <AUTHOR> http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/multicore-haskell-now-acm-reflections-projections-2009/

<comment><USER2> Good slides. I didn't know about the potential for auto-parallelizing vector operations. This should allow me to eliminate my boilerplate chunk/send to worker/reassemble code.</comment>


If Seo is Dead? 10 Questions - <AUTHOR> http://wisdomtalks.com/if-seo-is-dead-10-questions/ <comment><USER2> SEO is changing its direction. I don't think SEO will be dead. Fresh material and Social media are the key.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please give your valueable comments</comment>


Psychologists figure out why your toxic colleagues climb to the top at work - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90479073/psychologists-have-finally-figured-out-why-your-toxic-colleagues-climb-to-the-top-at-work <comment><USER2> Everything I needed to learn about corporate psychology I learned from ribbonfarm:

[https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER3> very interesting blog! is there any reading list on similar topics like Moral Mazes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reproducibility crisis.</comment>


Why Rapid7 Is Shutting Down Its Offices on October 20 - <AUTHOR> http://tugg.org/news/2016/9/14/tgb-2016-why-rapid7-is-shutting-down-its-offices-for-tech-gives-back <comment><AUTHOR> Rapid7's Chief People Officer and culture architect, Christina Luconi, spearheaded the company's decision to shut down their offices for the entire day on October 20th to participate in Tech Gives Back.</comment>


As France reopens, just 4.4% of population infected by coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-france-reopens-population-infected-coronaviruswell.html <comment><USER2> This article is based on a false premise it makes very early: "[scientists] note that in the absence of a vaccine, the only way out of the pandemic is through herd immunity".

No, scientists do not note that. The clear consensus is that you reduce the number of cases down to the capacity of your contact tracing capability and you use quarantine to shut down local outbreaks. China, South Korea, Australia... what do you think they are doing?

Letting the virus go wild among the population to establish "herd immunity" is nobody's idea of a good time. Are 70% of people under the age of 50? Is it ok to kill 0.2% of the country? Even if you don't die, what is it like to have Covid? Are you even immune after having it? Nobody is seriously considering letting the virus loose.

Western Australia currently has nobody in hospital with Covid, and restrictions are significantly easing on Monday. Their rate of immunity is basically zero and they seem to be doing just fine.

<comment><USER3> ^ herd immunity is a 19th century solution to a pandemic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So the message is that the lockdown is a failure, the only way it could help if it is maintained until there is a vaccine.

Good luck with that!

<comment><USER5> That's the message you are reading. The lockdown brought precious times for supply chains to start relocating, for cosmetic industries to start producing hydro-alcoholic gel, for hospitals to enter crisis mode without the staff burning out too fast, for legislators to discuss emergency measures, etc.

All these things helped France prepare for the lockdown measures lifting, and most likely saved lives.

No country except Sweden is setting a goal of reaching herd immunity. Reaching herd immunity is a failure in itself, it means a good fraction of the population will die (whether the hospitals are overloaded or not).

<comment><USER6> Herd immunity is absolutely not a failure. The point is to have young healthy people get the virus who will neither die, nor require hospitalization. Once this population has substantial immunity, risk drops drastically for the at risk people.

<comment><USER5> > The point is to have young healthy people get the virus who will neither > die, nor require hospitalization.

This is a novel virus that is not entirely understood yet. Maybe the majority of these young healthy people would not die (only 0.2%, and I wish you won't be one of them), but they might get serious complications that will accompany them for the rest of their lives. Maybe they will be more subject to strokes, lung failures, etc. later in life. Maybe the virus won't kill them now but reduce their life expectancy by 10 years. How does that sound?

<comment><USER6> > How does that sound?

It sounds hypothetical. You said herd immunity involves a good fraction of the population dying which you don't know. Serious complications for the non-risk population is neither known nor expected.

<comment><USER5> > You said herd immunity involves a good fraction of the population dying > which you don't know

It's well-known by now that even the low-risk population (<50 age group) still has a 0.x% risk of dying directly from covid. It's insane that people are still minimising this.

> Serious complications for the non-risk population is neither known nor > expected.

1) it's "low-risk". "No-risk" is for the 0-20 age group, and they are not enough to provide herd immunity.

2) here is one known and documented complication for young people affected with covid.

Doctors Link COVID-19 To Potentially Deadly Blood Clots And Strokes [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/04/29/8479170...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/04/29/847917017/doctors-link-covid-19-to-potentially-deadly-blood- clots-and-strokes)

There is not enough data yet to infer on long-term complications yet. But doctors are definitely monitoring this.

<comment><USER7> for what it is worth, I believe it is a 0.0X% chance of dying for < 50\. Alternatively put, x/10,000.

[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/12/scie...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/12/science.abc3517)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: NeedProgrammer – Freelancers and gigs by city - <AUTHOR> https://needprogrammer.com/#/home/map <comment><USER2> Very broken on Chrome Version 45.0.2454.101.

1) Enter city in search box, hit enter, nothing happens. 2) Enter city, select from auto-suggest, zero results even when trying San Francisco which clearly has results based on the initial load.

<comment><AUTHOR> All fixed, thanks!</comment></comment>


An All New Rails Security Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.railsinside.com/misc/123-new-rails-security-guide.html <comment><USER2> Don't love it, don't hate it. Wish people would stop coming up with ad-hoc Rails security guides, because you have to read all of them to catch the collected wisdom now. For instance, this document is the first formal doc that talks about Redcloth injection --- something you're not going to care about until you happen to use Redcloth for Textile rendering.

Generally I think this particular guide is satisfactory on details but very poor on structure. For instance, it starts the section on SQL Injection off by saying that Rails is mostly immune to it, due to clever design choices. Nonsense. The same corner cases that cause all modern apps to still have SQLi apply to Rails as well --- sort columns on tables, query builders, and everything else that requires you to concatenate SQL expression tokens instead of using stored procedures. If you con yourself into believing Rails protects you from this, you're the dev who's going to wind up with the Rails SQLi vulns.

Not a particularly big fan of their coverage of session security, either: a passing mention of httpOnly, just enough to give people the impression that it does something that it doesn't do, but a total miss on something that is going to cause Rails devs to fail PCI audits: poor domain scoping on cookies and lack of the "secure" flag.

<comment><USER3> nice, solid review.

if only there were some sort of wiki where all these ad-hoc Rails security guides could be coalesced. hmm, what to do.</comment></comment>


Elm from a Business Perspective - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizra.com/content/elm-business-perspective/ <comment><USER2> Well.

Summary: "I have no idea about the technical criticism or type classes, but we use Elm and it works for us. It's easy, you are productive quickly (quicker than with React/Angular), it prevents bugs, devs like it, and so it saves us money."

It's nice to hear that a company is able to utilize Elm effectively.

It would be nice to know how big their 5 Elm projects "in various stages and different scale" are to judge whether Elm in it's current form is a good fit for larger apps. Especially since the Elm library ecosystem is still very immature, so experience with building good, reusable libraries is not that great.

Would also be nice to know how they deal with boilerplate, which is a big annoyance with Elm in my opinion when you come from, eg, Haskell.

In terms of maintainability (refactoring, etc) you can't get much worse than Javascript, so Elm will probably be a win there, regardless of a limited type system.

As long as you don't have to build and maintain lot of required libraries yourself, that is.

<comment><USER3> > Would also be nice to know how they deal with boilerplate, which is a big > annoyance with Elm in my opinion when you come from, eg, Haskell.

We have over 55,000 lines of Elm code in production at [http://noredink.com](http://noredink.com) and it's now the majority of our front-end. Students use our site to answer millions of questions per day, and they've answered over 2 billion questions total. I think this qualifies us as a "big project." ;)

Our Elm code is about as DRY as our JavaScript code, and adding language features to squeeze even more DRYness out of it is way down my priority list. When I think about ways I want Elm to improve, I'm thinking about better support for server-side rendering and asset management (e.g. code splitting), not wanting to add type system features.

I'm always a bit confused by "I tried Elm and disliked how it wasn't enough like Haskell" posts. PureScript is a fine language that's already on board with this design philosophy. Instead of lobbying for Elm to change, why not use PureScript? There's plenty enough room in the programming world for both languages to coexist!

<comment><USER4> The creator of Elm works for your company though [1]. Seems like your experience is going to be a lot different from the average developer because you can probably walk 20 steps to the designer of Elm to ask a question. I haven't used Elm just raising the point.

[1] [https://twitter.com/czaplic](https://twitter.com/czaplic)

<comment><USER5> Not only does the creator of Elm work there but so do the people who know Elm more than anyone else in the world. Literally. While it's proof Elm can work it's not really a fair comparison for teams wanting to adopt it.

<comment><USER3> That's true for me, yes, but the author of this article works at a totally different company halfway around the world. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The academics always miss this part. They assume the most elegant and concise form of expression for an idea or a concept is equivalent to pragmatism. When in reality pragmatism in software engineering is mostly about making things obvious enough at a cheap enough price point. This is why golang is so popular even though all the academics on r/programming hate it.

<comment><USER5> This is interesting because Elm has been removing features that Evan considers "too hard" and confusing for the average developer. I'd argue it's not "academic" any more (though it might be interesting for an academic who wants to do UI).

<comment><USER6> Yes, that is my point. I don't think Elm is "too academic". I think it strives for pragmatism in real world engineering scenarios and that is why it gets flak from a certain segment of the programming community. Similar to how golang does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > But than again, Elm is not too easy. This means that almost every developer > I see that is already involved in Elm is a seasoned developer. Getting > experienced developers on board means that they are immediately productive, > which means we gain more per hour.

Not really seeing this as a strong point. It feels like the same mindset that drove me away from Scala (and many others [0]!). Sure, it might be good for the company in short term, but what happens when you run out of experienced Elm developers? At least Elm fairs fairly better with having usable samples on their own (clean) site.

[0] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/scala- internals/r2Gn...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/scala- internals/r2GnzCFc3TY)

<comment><USER8> I don't think he's saying that Elm is actually hard to learn (like Scala or Haskell).

<comment><USER9> Yup, Elm isn't actually hard to learn. Nor is Scala (I had a team of people productive with it in under 2 weeks, with no significant prior FP experience).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This typeclasses discussion reminds me a lot of complaints about Go's lack of generics. Even without this "glaring shortcoming" Go became the de facto winner in the ops space, by staying a simple language with a smaller learning surface. Elm could be walking down the same route.

Personally I find composability under The Elm Architecture more of an issue than pure language abstractions.

<comment><USER11> > Go became the de facto winner in the ops space

Can you explain what you mean by this and possibly provide a source? I'd like to know how the different languages / platforms compare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get how having type classes makes the learning curve steeper. It's not like the mere existence of type classes means you have to start writing your own and doing functional dependencies and all that.

For a beginner, it just means being able to write filter instead of List.filter or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER13> There is no business perspective to programming languages. Stop kidding yourself to explain your favorite tool of the week as good for business.

Successful companies have used plain st* languages like PHP and Java, thousands of companies that use the tool of the week go bust. There is no correlation (perhaps you should not use Assembler or COBOL for web development)

If there is any then companies that use the tool of the week do too many rewrites instead of focusing on delivering business value, the correlation is negative if any.

<comment><USER14> As someone who worked at a large software company that suffered huge losses because of 1) client data loss caused by using unsophisticated tools and strategies and 2) accounting errors caused by a lack of type-safety: I disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I always think that usage of such technologies can be only in some cases – mostly for small companies, which are not sure that this product will be maintained more than few years. Like, it is not that bad to use it in startups, in some small projects, or if you have pretty strong and enthusiastic team with a lot passion, which are ready to dive into new cool technology. Moreover, in the short term it can be even more beneficial, because you can attract even better developers, who like cutting edge stuff.

But the problem is what if this product will be maintained throughout years? Then to support it, you have definitely hire much more skilled engineer than for the same in stable JS framework. I completely understand about types, strict rules how to write Elm code, etc, but there are literally no guarantees that it will be the same after some time, that new developers will pick it up quickly, and, if you decide to rewrite it much later, there is a big chance that you'd have to rewrite it completely (this applies for JS too, but there are quite a lot of success stories of gradual integration of new framework).

To summarize, I don't think it is bad, it just doesn't scale and creates big technical debt, so you'd pay for it later; though it is a great chance to attract very skillfull and passionate developers – so, it is all about risk.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm guessing pragmatism and practicality is why they went with Elm over PureScript? If their backend is in Haskell then it seems like they have devs who know it well enough to use PS.

<comment><USER16> From my limited experience, I would say PureScript sounds more practical. You can choose your own UI engine, and has additional language features that are useful like typeclasses. It also compiles without needing a runtime baked in to the output.

When you hit a wall you can probably work around it in Purescript whereas I feel you are too sandboxed in with Elm and you'd have to start patching your Elm source to get around it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really love this Elm drama. We get to discuss Elm a lot, talk about it, think about it, keep it in out minds. I don't like negativity, but it is good to popularize language, to let people know about it.

</comment><comment><USER18> I thought this was going to be about the email client: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_(email_client)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_\(email_client\))

<comment><USER19> You were wrong.</comment></comment>


Bloomberg Joins The New York Times in Detecting Chrome's Incognito Mode - <AUTHOR> see: https://i.imgur.com/MSGQbIm.png<p>In August some (e.g. [1],[2]) were writing about sites detecting private browsing, specifically the NYT, in order to block people who were using Incognito mode in Chrome to get around free article limits. Looks like Bloomberg now has this feature active as well.<p>[1] https://9to5google.com/2019/08/09/new-york-times-detect-incognito-chrome-76/<p>[2] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-chrome-incognito-mode-can-still-be-detected-by-these-methods/ <comment><USER2> For those who don't know, you can get around their incognito detection. Go to chrome://flags/ and set "Filesystem API in Incognito" to enabled.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't work for me, unfortunately :-/

<comment><USER4> Didn't work for me. But hitting the Escape key once main content had loaded and before Icognito warning initiated did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Firefox containers is the solution, especially with this addon: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary- con...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/)

What it does is create a new container every time you visit the specified site.

*Edit: Spelling.

<comment><USER6> There must be a Chrome version of this extension, its trivial to implement (shim all the storage APIs to delete data on page close).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not just Chrome: they do the same thing if you're using Firefox Focus on mobile (which probably means they block Firefox Private Browsing on desktop, too).

<comment><USER8> I just checked and they detect private browsing in mobile Firefox so I assume the same is true for desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> chrome profiles is another solution for this

</comment><comment><USER10> brave private mode is still undetected</comment>


FCC approves first wireless power at a distance charging system - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/26/fcc-approves-first-wireless-power-at-a-distance-charging-syste/ <comment><USER2> For some more details, you can look at there press release[0]. It says the device "can deliver power via radio frequency (RF) energy to WattUp-enabled electronic devices at a distance of up to three feet".

You could also listen to their conference call[1] where they "review the FCC certification details in greater depth and answer questions". I haven't gone through it, though.

[0] [https://ir.energous.com/press- releases/detail/596/energous-r...](https://ir.energous.com/press- releases/detail/596/energous-receives-industry-first-fcc-certification-for)

[1] [https://services.choruscall.com/links/watt171227.html](https://services.choruscall.com/links/watt171227.html)

<comment><USER3> Blog with some analysis and a lot of older info on Energous:

[https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2017/12/energous- and-f...](https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2017/12/energous-and-fcc- approval-for-mid-range.html)

Previously on HN:

CES announcement (3 years ago)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8860644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8860644)

Apple reported working with Energous (1 yr ago)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508409)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ... and shareholders were richly rewarded: [https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/WATT:US](https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/WATT:US)

(the stock was up 168.10% on the day)

<comment><USER5> Also first time since IPO that it's above the IPO price. Right on time for the first employees to cash out.

Everybody wins!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't seem to get any info on how much power is actually transmitted/received... it's hard to beat the Inverse Square Law.

<comment><USER7> It looks like the FCC approval pertains to a device delivering ~10W at a distance of 0.5m in the 900MHz band. [https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm...](https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=B6rKOmC6QGs13hWdV%2FM5%2Fg%3D%3D&fcc_id=2ADNG- MS300)

<comment><USER8> So what makes the radio waves magically drop off the face of the earth after .5m? And who allows 40 dBm (much more if we're talking _at_ .5m distance) in an ISM band?

I mean, that test report is making a lot of assumptions and setup constraints that are now magically not present in the video..

<comment><USER7> Yes, I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get my head around how the test setup would translate into a practical application. And that the certification appears to violate the FCC's own 30dBm power limit in the 900MHz ISM band. Very strange.

<comment><USER9> The ISM field strength levels here are defined in 47 Part 18.305. they are measured in an anechoic chamber and inverse square law scaled to the field strength at the stated distance.

Source: I used to work with RF lighting devices, which need to meet the levels of 18.305(c), and were usually tested the same way in pre-compliance before final OATS testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the title: "from 3 feet away."

From article and press release: "of up to three feet."

As usual, the devil is in the details: one angstrom would satisfy the "up to three feet" claim as well.

I also would like to see the actual throughput. Wasting say 10 watts to get 1 watt of available power because one doesn't want to use a cable seems pretty lame to me.

</comment><comment><USER11> > The transmitter converts electricity into radio frequencies, then beams the > energy to nearby devices outfitted with a corresponding receiver.

Just curious, any thoughts on radiation impact to people?

<comment><USER12> EDIT: I didn't consider dielectric heating ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating)). Seeing as how microwave ovens have 500W rating on the low end, I assume heat generated by 10W source can be dissipated fast enough that proteins don't get denatured even if it's directed at a small area of the body.

Most energetic photon in radio frequencies has wavelength of 1mm and energy of 0.00124eV ([http://www.photonics.byu.edu/fwnomograph.phtml](http://www.photonics.byu.edu/fwnomograph.phtml)) I think. Would just pass through a single cell as cell is much smaller than the wavelength. And 0.0012eV is really small amount of energy. "Van der Waals bonds are weak bonds with a dissociation energy of about 0.01 eV" ([http://lamp.tu- graz.ac.at/~hadley/ss1/crystalbinding/bonds/b...](http://lamp.tu- graz.ac.at/~hadley/ss1/crystalbinding/bonds/bonds.php)) I wouldn't expect it to do anything cellular/molecular level.

Not really a biology person so don't know if there's some effect on aggregate of cells on the millimeter level that could be harmful. Human body's electrical resistance inside is high and through skin is higher so I don't expect much effect on that scale either?

<comment><USER13> I'm no biology person either, but in terms of photons, I do find these interesting;

'Biological tissues typically produce an observed radiant emittance in the visible and ultraviolet frequencies ranging from 10−17 to 10−23 W/cm2 (approx 1-1000 photons/cm2/second).[1] This low level of light has a much weaker intensity than the visible light produced by bioluminescence, but biophotons are detectable above the background of thermal radiation that is emitted by tissues at their normal temperature.

While detection of biophotons has been reported by several groups,[2][3][4] hypotheses that such biophotons indicate the state of biological tissues and facilitate a form of cellular communication are still under investigation,[5][6] and claims that biophotons are responsible for physical healing are unsupported. Alexander Gurwitsch, who discovered the existence of biophotons, was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941 for his mitogenic radiation work.[7]'

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What are some situations that:

1\. Has a device in question draw less than the wireless charging could input (both practical and theoretical). Obviously, unless it's OK with the device still running in a "net negative" state, you'd want the wireless charging to at least cover the device's use.

and

2\. Necessitate motion or usage, or in other words, have the item not be at rest The idea here is that if the device primarily sits, there's little advantage to wireless charging

\- Power tools, for example cover (2), however not (1).

\- An iPhone may cover (1), but not (2).

</comment><comment><USER15> Can't uBeam already do this??

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/01/ubeams-m...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/01/ubeams- meredith-perry-shows-her-stealth-wireless-charging-technology-really- works/102336880/)

<comment><USER7> No. Perry's scam utilizes ultrasound, and it works as well as you would expect if you do the math, i.e. pretty much not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it normal to feel a tad bit scared of wireless charging?

<comment><USER17> Until it's been independently tested and used in the real world for a while, it makes sense to be suspicious of any form of energy transmission or storage. Energy is dangerous.

Just don't let the suspicion last long enough to become superstition.

<comment><USER18> There is considerable wisdom in this response.

<comment><USER17> Thank you, but be careful. It sounds wiser because that last line is so pithy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sounds really cool! I can't wait to charge my phone just by setting it on my nightstand at the end of the day. And my smart watch, and my headphones.

<comment><USER20> You can already do that? Apple has a charging pad for the iPhone X, watch and earpods.

<comment><USER21> I had a Nexus 5 a couple of years ago that could do that and I am sure there have been phones way before that with induction charging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another Wattup company with tech specs in the faq [http://energous.com](http://energous.com)

</comment><comment><USER23> What's the proper way to flag these obvious PR pieces with no technical information at all?

<comment><USER24> If you have enough karma there's a "flag" button, but I don't see any reason to flag PR pieces that have useful information in them

<comment><USER23> Well, it's "useful" to know the FCC actually approved this, but it's at the barest end of that. But this piece doesn't include even the barest of technical details.

If it included things like which band (5GHz), what power (claimed to be 4 watts at 5 feet--how does that get by FCC?), or any other technological point, I probably wouldn't be so annoyed.

As it stands, this is quite obviously a stock pump PR piece, and this company has a history of doing this since at least 2014.

I do have a flag button, but I normally reserve that for things which are ferociously offensive rather than just scummy.</comment></comment></comment>


The Rise of No Code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rrhoover/the-rise-of-no-code-e733d7c0944d <comment><USER2> FYI: I've put together an Awesome No Code [1] page over on github. All about the Chief Digital Officer's (CDO) clicky-clicky-clicky dream future. No code. No text. No numbers. Goodbye, code monkeys! Hello, business architects!

[1]: [https://github.com/bigkorupto/awesome- nocode](https://github.com/bigkorupto/awesome-nocode)</comment>


Karma Hack - Encourage the creation of interesting content - <AUTHOR>

I'm honestly not much of a karma-whore, so I'm not terribly motivated by it.
However, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to roll content creation into the karma score.
Example:  Paul Buchheit writes a lot of good stuff.  Other people submit it.  They get points.  However, if you could associate Paul's blog to his YC.News account, then you could have some of that karma attach itself to him.
Now, how to reliably "claim" a blog is a challenge.  And WTF you do with a site like the BBC, Wired, SFGate, etc.
for reference: (http://searchyc.com/top/domains_by_points) <comment><USER3> On a related note, the community's voting patterns encourage the witty one- line comments over the thoughtful 3-sentence comments. Look at any article, and you'll see the type of comments this incentive produces.

<comment><USER4> It's hard to represent something subjective in a single number. This problem isn't really solvable. Making the karma algorithm too complex could make it even worse.

<comment><USER5> I think making someone's karma filter subjective could solve the problem. Then it would also be hard to game the system, since you'd have to know how most people filtered karma.

This filter could either be based on how people vote, or using karma and something else as the criteria.

An example of the latter, I've thought the good comments would be those that maximize length and karma. That means they are both substantive and well written enough to hold people's attention. Plus, it's too long to be witty:) This could be implemented entirely client side without the need to open up voting data.

Finally, it'd fit great into the whole hacker mentality, since people could pass around and hack the best filters.

(note: this idea has been said by many others, I'm merely trying to perpetuate the meme)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems to question the whole purpose of karma. When a user upvote a story, isn't he saying "Thanks for sharing this with the community.I want more people to see this" rather than "i agree with the content of this article"?

Karma encourages users to participate in the sharing activity.Its purpose is not to thank the content creator, but the person who took time to share it.

[Vote ≠ Karma]

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say that an upvote is saying:

"This is good content. I'm glad you submitted it, I'm glad the writer wrote it, and I'm glad I read it."

Upvotes are NOT saying "I agree with this" (I don't think).

The current karma encourages scouring the web for good content for the community. It does not reward creating of good content for the community... I suppose a person could submit their own stuff if they cared that much.

<comment><USER7> There are more than two reasons a user might upvote another user's post.

Some of the many situations one might click the up arrow:

\- to thank others for posting to one's thread in order to create a positive feedback loop

\- to increase visibility of what a user wrote or submitted

\- to display agreement with points made in the submission

\- to "save" the submission for future reference, as users can track what they've upvoted in the past

\- to promote a specific idea or ideology

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tipjoy has a system of associating sites with users. Manually finding that someone owns a site is easy. Automatic authentication involves a detectable change in the site.

For example, if PG wrote a crawler to find HackerNews:ivankirigin on my blog, it would be known that I own that blog (just the subdomain though, not all of blogspot.com).

The vast majority of content on HackerNews is created by non-hackernews readers. They aren't going to do anything like this.

So while such a system would be useful, it would be practically difficult to make a real impact.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ha, I can't imagine what my karma would be if I got points for the articles I submitted that others posted. But I guess if I cared, I would just post them myself.

</comment><comment><USER10> The 'problem' of claiming site/post ownership could be solved with public key cryptography. However, so far, no one's bothered to do so.

</comment><comment><USER11> >> how to reliably "claim" a blog is a challenge

OpenID

</comment><comment><USER12> Does the karma really do anything? Or is there a complicated algorithm that sorts comments based on people's karma?

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure the sorting of comments has nothing to do with karma of the poster, just the votes on that particular comment, and how old it is - <USER2> to how stories are ranked on the front page.

<comment><USER12> If that's the case, then why do people even have a karma score? The karma should just be a score for each comment/article.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's making a game out of it, which gets a small subset of users maniacal about their Karma score and thus submitting tons of good content. PG = Crafty Devil.

<comment><USER12> The karma score of each person should show up next to people's names then. It's kinda hidden away right now.

<comment><USER13> This sounds like a good idea for a greasemonkey script.

<comment><USER14> [http://userscripts.org/scripts/search?q=reddit&sort=inst...](http://userscripts.org/scripts/search?q=reddit&sort=installs)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Create HTML select dropdown for states of any country - <AUTHOR> http://geek.akhil.me/utility/2012/create-html-select-dropdown-for-states-of-any-country/ <comment><USER2> Source/License?</comment>


Ask HN : Can we see who down voted us? - <AUTHOR>

I've just seen minus (-) in-front of my comments, not who did it. Is is true with more karma we can see who down voted us ? <comment><USER2> It's not true. You can never see who downvoted you (a good thing, imo).

<comment><AUTHOR> I heard, more and more such features get unlocked when you get more karma. Thanks for making it clear about down vote stuff.

<comment><USER2> The ability _to_ downvote gets unlocked when you get enough karma. There are other abilities (e.g. creating a poll, flagging posts). I don't know whether there's a definitive list with thresholds anywhere (possibly in the Arc source code to HN).</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to 'Unavoidable' Relocation of Entire Neighborhoods - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/climate/flooding-relocation-managed-retreat.html <comment><USER2> FHA decided way back when to not allow FHA mortgages for houses built in flood plains. This was a good move. You could still get a private mortgage.

However, there are a lot of people living in flood plains, and they got the rule changed to allow FHA mortgages if flood insurance was available. Note that beach front property is in a flood plain, and is often owned by politically powerful people.

However, no insurance company in their right mind would insure a house that is going to flood over and over again.

So, the people in flood prone areas got the federal government to subsidize flood insurance.

Now the federal government is on the hook whenever these houses get flooded. In some cases, houses have been rebuilt many times in the exact same place after being flooded.

Many of these houses are owned by wealthy individuals (who else can afford to buy waterfront property on coasts?)

The solution is just to stop subsidizing flood insurance. It serves no benefit other than to subsidize housing to be built in flood prone areas. If they can't afford the insurance, then too bad for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is it the government's job to rebuild or relocate these flood prone areas? Why not create special assessment districts to pay for flood control themselves, devaluing property and discouraging new investment?

</comment><comment><USER4> It's about time this happened. My step mother worked for FEMA for decades and used to talk about all the wasted money going into rebuilding stuff, they knew would go away. All federally funded.</comment>


A Smartphone App That Allows Insurance Companies To Spy On Your Driving - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679025/a-smartphone-app-that-allows-insurance-companies-to-spy-on-your-driving <comment><AUTHOR> Is it just me, or does this bother anyone else, concerning privacy and such?</comment>


Phoenix is not Rails - <AUTHOR> https://dockyard.com/blog/2015/11/18/phoenix-is-not-rails <comment><AUTHOR> When you discover that your Phoenix app is really just another OTP app is when you can start to tap into some of the great stuff Erlang has to offer.</comment>