Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/technology/uber-mired-in-corporate-scandals-sees-uptick-in-bookings.html <comment><USER2> Of course Uber sees an uptick in bookings. None of the people using the service in almost 200 countries worldwide are tuned into the daily drama of Silicon Valley.

Normal people want to get from point A to point B in the most comfortable, efficient, cheap way possible. If that means Uber then so be it. If that means Taxis then so be it. If that means Didi Chuxing then so be it.

It just turns out that Uber is well positioned and offers a compelling service in many countries around the world and so enjoys the resulting growing business.

I don't mean to downplay the importance of the events transpiring around and within Uber - they are unprecedented and important to varying degrees. But most normal people won't even have a cursory understanding of those events when it's all said and done. The world is vast and people are busy.

<comment><USER3> So true. Most people just don't care.

I've used this to my advantage over the past few years, as soon as a "big corporate scandal" breaks the stock tends to fall. Check their financials, buy the stock if it looks good, then wait a few months for it to all blow over.

My most recent was Wells Fargo during their opening accounts scandal. Bought early Oct, Sold late Jan. 20.06% profit.

There were so many headlines calling for boycotts of Wells, and to teach them a lesson with your wallet. In the long run people just don't give a damn.

For every one person saying: "Uber is evil, don't use them" There are ten saying "Meh, its cheap and convenient."

<comment><USER4> >For every one person saying: "Uber is evil, don't use them" There are ten saying "Meh, its cheap and convenient."

I guess there is actually an 11th person saying, awesome I can financially support this evil company in the short term and make a quick buck.

I've been talking a lot about boycotts lately on HN to curb unwanted corporate behavior, in particular as it relates to a lot of the recent 1st Amendment issues and concerns (because 1st amendment is a limit on governmental power, not private entities).

No doubt boycotts are hard, and I'm not sure there was ever a time in history where anyone ever felt real change was easy, or ever a time where the people seeking change felt others/the world cared.

From MLK's quote "all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing". To Gandhi's, "be the change you wish to see it this world." Maybe above all people just need to be inspired, and some historical perspective of what people can accomplish working together.

And as disheartening as a comment likes yours is, it's truthful, and I personally find it motivating and inspiring. I guess it's sort of like telling someone something can't be done and that being the catalyst for action. I'm pretty motivated at this time to create an organizational platform for boycotts in a crowdsourcing-esq style without need for funding.

If you don't mind, I guess like a sort of prelaunch feedback, what would it take for someone like you, willing to profit on bad corporate behavior, to instead become a leader for change?

<comment><USER5> How is buying a company's stock "financially supporting" them?

<comment><USER6> Directly

<comment><USER5> How? Buying stock doesn't transfer any money to the company (unless it's newly issued stock)

<comment><USER7> The act of buying stock signals demand and reduces supply, which will effectively cause the price to rise. Indirectly, rising stock prices are a positive indicator for the health of the company. Directly, if the company chooses to sell stock, it will be able to sell it at the higher price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here in the east bay, I've gotten 50% off in the past two weeks in Uber. So hell yeah take my business. Thanks VCs!

<comment><USER9> Yup - they've been heavily subsidizing rides recently (even more so than usual) to pull booking numbers up!

<comment><USER10> Suddenly the headline seems less amazing...

<comment><USER11> Losses as a percent of gross bookings: Uber: 8% Lyft: 13.5%

Lyft is the one buying marketshare, not Uber.

<comment><USER12> Both are buying, right?

<comment><USER13> sort of, but lyft's market share costs 50% more than uber's market share

<comment><USER14> Why?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yup. And United's business was unmarred after the Chicago PD violently removed a raving doctor from a flight. No surprises here.

<comment><USER16> There is weird regulatory capture in these markets. Taxi cabs are universally bad. Black cars are better but have always been expensive and harder to use b/c of pre-booking.

Hotels/Motels offer dubious over-priced quality. They hide behind no-refund policies and maintain in general poor standards.

So I support airBnb, uber, and lyft b/c I'm tired of being ripped off.

<comment><USER17> >Black cars are better but have always been expensive and harder to use b/c of pre-booking

They also offer a consistent experience and pre-booking is often a feature. I use black cars to go back and forth to my home airport way more often than I use Uber/taxis/etc. when traveling.

>Hotels/Motels offer dubious over-priced quality.

Again consistency and reliability. I don't generally love the chains but I also don't have complaints about them which is what I care about most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The value proposition of Uber is so good that with an empty C-level suites they are pretty much running on an auto-pilot of sort.

Honestly, this is a tremendous feat. In that case, they should get their CEO from inside rather than outside.

<comment><USER19> It's only a tremendous feat until they run out of cheap VC money to burn. They lost $650 million this quarter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For me it's because Lyft continues to get dramatically worse.

I'd love to use it more (and I hear drivers prefer it) but between the app UI being so poor, booking taking longer, frequent cancellations by drivers, etc... I only check it _second_ if there are no Uber drivers around.

It's a shame as I really like parts of it more but the overall experience has always been worse for me

</comment><comment><USER21> This remembers me how in Russia possible investors "test" local social networks. They make a scandal, ask the police to start an investigation and so on. TV, Radio, whole internet discuss this. In a month someone will buy shares in the company.

</comment><comment><USER22> I liked (and still like them in UK/NL/TH/US) Uber; it was more convenient and nicer than cabs. Cabbies in the countries I frequent are downright rude, their cars filthy and beaten; Uber was a welcome change. But in most of them now they are forbidden or mostly forbidden or on their way out. Some companies made their own horrible apps which half of the time do not work (in Barcelona I tried them all and none of them managed to get a ride, one of them simply crashed at startup etc) or are 'old' as in you have type a time and date when you want a ride and cannot order for 'now'. I have not seen one where the gps actually works so you see if your ride is actually coming and ofcourse, because usually they are made by a big taxi corp, no ratings, so back to rude, smelly drivers in crap cars.

In HKG there seem to be issues, the prices went up and drivers often cancel (more so than in other countries I noticed); I do not think it should be possible for a driver to just cancel because they find the trip too short. I should be able to rate them for that. But still more convenient than cabs who you wave over, tell the location and then they drive off for the same reason.

Another gripe is payments; in some countries payment card A works, in some B works etc. Paypal als payment doesn't work in Thailand. Still, while annoying, it is better than 'only cash mate' that often happens in cabs.

Anyway more competitors would be good ; any way to get all rides on an acceptable level. In countries like Spain where they now are forbidden, I was happy to see them in hopes they would fix the issues with cabs in general (especially in the south) but nope, it just returned to the comfortable bad behavior of always. Last weeks ride from Malaga airport had a cabdriver loudly burp garlic for 20 minutes. Can only complain by filling a form no-one will ever look at.

</comment><comment><USER23> 'Uber, mired in corporate scandals, sees an uptick in PR spend (again)'

<comment><USER13> this isn't PR spend, the author has been a thorn in uber's side through all the scandals and broken a bunch of big stories. Follow him on twitter @mikeissac

<comment><USER23> Fair, but any publicity is good publicity...new leadership launch pr blitz/new leaf turned/lessons learned etc will launch in the fall...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Frankly the outrage against Uber makes me more likely to use the service. Before it became politically incorrect to mention Uber, I was entirely impartial. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER25> You sound like someone who angrily voted for trump.

<comment><USER26> Things need to get worse before they get better?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> no one care about drama. just cheap rides home. good buisness model.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dear Lyft, you're screwing up your chance.

When Uber started to have a bunch of scandal, I tried to switch to Lyft. I really did. But, stuck at a hospital after an emergency room visit, trying to get home at 10pm, I sat there for 45 minutes, watching a driver go from 4 minutes away to 5 minutes away to 8 minutes away, then no driver, then a new driver is 4 minutes away, then 4 minutes away, then 5 minutes away, then no driver, then a new driver is 12 minutes away, then no driver...

Come on.

Raise the price if you have to, but making me wait while these drivers decided I was too far away?

Screw that, and screw you, Lyft.

<comment><USER29> I guess this brings up the question: Is uber succeeding in its goal? Their value prop is that they can monopolize the taxi business, maybe they're actually pulling it off. Could explain why Lyft is starting to lag.

<comment><USER30> I think Uber is succeeding. But the goal is less obvious: burn cash to push through regulatory changes, loosening up the transportation market in preparation for self-driving taxis and logistics.

Imagine a new startup trying to convince you to switch your taxi for a new self-driving car? No way.

But an entrenched vendor that you have trusted for 5+ years? Ok, maybe next trip I'll accept your discount and try one of those self-driving cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In Victorian times, people didn't mind paying more for a shirt if it meant it was child labor free. These days, nobody cares if a company is a hotbed of discrimination and shitty practices if it means cheaper rides and an easy to use app. Same goes for Facebook, Google, Amazon - nobody cares.

<comment><USER32> None of my friends/family outside tech have any idea of what is/has been going on inside Uber. A bit unfair to say "they don't care".

<comment><USER31> Everyone that I've told still doesn't care.</comment></comment></comment>


Coco Controller (YC S12)  Will Turn Your iPhone Into A Gaming Powerhouse - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controller-will-turn-your-iphone-into-a-gaming-powerhouse/

<comment><USER2> YC will back anything these days. Paul Graham talks about "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas" and tackling the real hard problems, and then we get a little controller for an iPhone. Yawn.

<comment><USER3> <http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html>

"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."

<comment><USER4> but this _is_ a toy...

<comment><USER5> So was the JoyBoard.

Do you know what the JoyBoard's designers went on to create, what they were trying to build all along?

The freaking _Amiga_.

Actually, that was a toy too. But it was a phenomenally cool toy that was vastly more powerful than a lot of people's work computers.

<comment><USER6> And look how that turned out...

Just sayin

<comment><USER7> I'm looking... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Amiga_community> Looks awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why isn't there a link to Coco[1]? Or its Kickstarter page[2]?

[1]: <http://cococontroller.com/games/>

[2]: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco- controlle...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-controller)

</comment><comment><USER9> It feels like a tough sell to me. We've seen quite a few iPhone gamepads of varying quality and as far as I'm aware, none have really taken off. Even a super simple SDK takes time to implement properly, and if it's only going to benefit a few percent of your users at best, I don't see why devs would bother; and if there isn't much support, gamers won't bite.

What bothers me the most is their belief that "Real Games Need Real Buttons". On the contrary, game devs seem to be doing perfectly well without buttons on smartphones, and customers don't seem to be complaining either, judging by the success of touch-native games like Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Flight Control, Cut the Rope, etc. You might think that these aren't 'real games' but that's a remarkably narrow-minded opinion.

Regarding the price: the $42 coco is described as being "less than stores" which suggests a ~$50 price tag. If you got a few games for free, that'd be OK, but otherwise it's very steep.

<comment><USER10> I have to disagree. All of the games you just mentioned are casual titles with little to no complexity. Action and platformer titles in particular require more precise controls. As a long time gamer on both consoles and handhelds, I can tell you that there's a definite improvement when I can physically feel the buttons and build muscle memory.

Imagine as a developer having to switch to a keyboard with no tactile response. A completely button-less piece of glass with virtual keys on it. Your productivity would no doubt diminish greatly.

In addition, a large install base of these kinds of devices would make it easier and more profitable for studios to port their games over to the iOS platform, giving us even more game choices in the app store.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't mean they aren't fun and popular games. I don't doubt that there are things buttons can do that touchscreens can't - I like my Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect just as much as the next person - but they're different animals, ones that take full advantage of big screens, complex controllers, and comparatively long play sessions.

A lot of iPhone gaming takes place in short sessions, and I'm not about to keep snapping a coco on and off just for five minutes at a time.

In any case, I'd prefer it if studios didn't bother porting their games over to iOS. They're optimised for consoles, not for handhelds, and even with a millions cocos out there, the economics probably wouldn't be that attractive to most big devs when set alongside the hundreds of millions of people who don't have them.

<comment><USER11> You know I was persuaded by the big screen/long play session argument the other day, but don't the gameboy and DS seem like contradictory evidence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very awkward placement of the analog stick - you can use either the stick or the buttons, never both at the same time. I don't believe any of the mainstream handhelds or console controllers have had this arrangement, probably with good reason.

<comment><USER13> Doesn't the Xbox 360 controller have this? On the left, there is an analog stick (and d-pad), and on the right is an analog stick and 4 buttons.

<comment><USER12> Yes, and this allows you to use an analog stick and the buttons at the same time, unlike here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yet another device that interfaces through the audio port.

I think it is tragic that Apple's restrictive approach to hardware interfacing to iOS devices is leaving developers with no options. Talk about going back a few decades.

You can't even do a simple serial port interface on an iOS device without going through the MFI gauntlet. Absolutely ridiculous in 2012.

<comment><USER15> amen

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This could actually be huge. All they need is a few high DAU accounts to help them market this device. I totally agree with their premise that current games are limited by the touch functionality. If they can bring the price down and just get to a medium-sized installed base, their free app will work wonders for small indie-sized devs. Current game devs are being priced out of the market for advertising, but if they can innovate on the discovery end, they could become a low-cost Xbox competitor with a much larger catalog of games.

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats Connor and Colton! So excited to use this.

<comment><USER18> Second that!

<comment><USER19> third! :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is one of those ideas that, on the surface, seems to make sense...but I just don't see a big enough market out there for it to gain any traction.

I don't think people are going to carry this thing around with their iPhone, and if they _really_ care about games, they already have dedicated consoles with way better AAA titles than iOS will have for at least a few more years. These types of gamers may also have a 3DS.

If this somehow takes off like the Ouya did on kickstarter, it'll be interesting to see if it sticks. Good luck, regardless of my skepticism! :)

Also - this should be linking to the kickstarter, not some techcrunch babble.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco- controlle...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-controller)

</comment><comment><USER21> I have noticed that touchscreen implementations of controls and joysticks, while sometimes quite good, leave some things to be desired. (Meteor Blitz on the iPhone is a good example. It's very well done, but I find it's fatiguing for extended playing.)

Between this, the iCade, and the HDMI-out I wonder why someone isn't trying to develop TV/living room-oriented game hardware for iOS devices?

<comment><USER22> airplay to your tv. it already is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it going to become a new standard for incubator/investor backed startups to turn to Kickstarter?

Or is this specific to the gaming community?

</comment><comment><USER24> This is awesome. It opens the door to using your phone to play almost any game you'd usually play on an xbox or playstation (or n64 in my case). I didn't like the idea of playing first person shooters on my phone before. Or, really anything past simple tap or slide games. This definitely does change things.

</comment><comment><USER25> I make iOS games for a living, and our hands are full enough trying to handle the fragmentation of device capabilities on iOS/Android. Adding another code path we have to worry about testing so that we can support a market that will be a tiny, tiny percentage of the whole? Yea, no.

</comment><comment><USER26> This looked more interesting to me, but for whatever reason the kickstart has been canceled. [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bladepad/bladepadthe- det...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bladepad/bladepadthe-detachable- iphone-gamepad)

</comment><comment><USER27> This essentially makes your phone into an OUYA. Awesome. I hope these guys can capture some of the furor that fueled the OUYA kickstarter. If this takes off it will seriously change the face of mobile gaming.

</comment><comment><USER28> At first glance, I thought this had something to do with the TRS-80 CoCo. What a let down!

</comment><comment><USER29> This is great! One of the few products I've seen in HN that I think I would really buy.

</comment><comment><USER30> just use joypad instead. joypadapp.com :-)

<comment><USER30> oops <http://getjoypad.com/> instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> does 20 ms latency cut it?

</comment><comment><USER32> If this has any sign of success... A Chinese clone of it will be out on the US market for half the announced price before these even hit the store shelves.

Bookmark it.</comment>


California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact - <AUTHOR> https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/04/13/california-oregon-washington-announce-western-states-pact/ <comment><USER2> Also relevant is that the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware made a similar pact today.

Edit: Massachusetts has also joined this pact as well (I thought it was surprising that it hadn't when I first read the news).

<comment><USER3> If only there was some sort of multi-state organization through which individual states could pull together on issues spanning multiple states. Such a "federal" approach would be very useful. If only someone had thought of this years ago. Of course it would have to be staffed by people selected and respected by all, but surely there is some way of doing that too.

<comment><USER4> It would be especially good if that kind of organization had limited and agreed-to powers that were written down in some sort of document, and then those constraints were respected and not repeatedly gamed around.

<comment><USER5> Surely any document is just as smart and wise as the people interpreting it. (Are we back to square one or do we have to go through Internet fueled partisan hyper-polarization and "big data" aided gerrymandering? Oh, yes, we need to vacant a seat on the Council of the Interpreters and mysteriously leave it empty and let the winner of the aforementioned social-media campaign pick the next interpreter!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell.

"We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be."

I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone want to try to explain it like I'm five?

<comment><USER7> My brother lives in Oregon.

He was complaining to me the other day that Oregon's requirement that you are not allowed to pump your own gas is an obvious COVID transmission vector.

To get gas in Oregon, he follows these steps:

1.) pull up to gas station 2.) Roll down window to hand attendant (who isn't wearing a mask, nor is required to) his debit card. 3.) Get card back from attendant. 4.) Sanitize the debit card 5.) Sanitize his hands 6.) Hope that the attendant is washing his hands, and that he didn't breathe COVID onto him through the open window.

Not saying this isn't a great, noble effort.

Just saying that, in some aspects, these states aren't doing a good job on obvious things within their own borders.

Why the hell is Oregon still doing this, and not requiring masks from gas attendants anyway? Maybe it is required, but my brother told me he has yet to have an attendant wearing a mask, so possibly not enforced???

<comment><USER8> Oregon has already lifted the restriction on pumping your own gas, for exactly this reason.

<comment><USER9> Add "not allowed to pump your own gas" to the list of "things that are completely unnecessary and stupid that have been removed because of COVID-19 and never need to come back".

<comment><USER10> It's a job creation/protection play, like grocery stores where the union won't allow self-checkout. No idea if the law is achieving its goals or if it just exists because of historical inertia now, but that's why it exists.

<comment> blaser-waffle Where are there checkout clerk unions blocking self-check out? Not saying it's impossible, but I've lived in WA, CA, VA, DC, TX, and NY, plus 1.5 years in Australia, and going on 6 years in Canada and have consistently seen self check-out everywhere.

<comment><USER11> Oregon, yet again?

[https://katu.com/news/local/initiative-looks-to-limit- number...](https://katu.com/news/local/initiative-looks-to-limit-number-of- self-checkout-machines-in-oregon)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Possibly relevant:

> President Trump tweeted Monday that the "decision to open up the states" > following shutdown measures taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus lies > with him, not governors.

[https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening- governors-...](https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening-governors- states-3ce510ff-cd94-4b4a-89b8-58d8bca5d69f.html)

<comment><USER13> Is this me or does this someone who wants control but not responsibility?

<comment><USER14> It's really someone who wants to own the success of others and blame others for failures. Zero accountability yet still wanting to call the shots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Stay at home is doing enormous economic damage, which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Especially in CA where high progressive taxation amplifies the impact of recessions.

So there's a lot of pressure to reopen but no political cover to do so. I think the entire point of this pact is to provide that cover.

<comment><USER16> > which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social > and health programs.

Do you have any actual data for this?

<comment><USER15> Unless you're arguing the budgets won't be cut or frozen, the data is the success metrics of those programs.

<comment><USER16> You're saying that cutting (meaning reducing, not zeroing) budgets of social and health programs can kill up to 0.5% of the entire population of a state? Because that's the CFR of the virus.

You're aware that even programs on reduced budgets can offer a reduced set of services, and prioritize the ones with most impact? (i.e. most lifesaving potential). And that their work will be far easier if there are fewer total sick people in the system? Have you balanced the effects of that versus letting the virus run amok so that the tax receipts aren't impacted?

That's why I'm asking for numbers. Otherwise "a bad economy will kill more people" is a fuzzy assertion that sounds "cool" and "contrarian" but has no actual substance.

Here are my numbers btw:

"Our finding that all-cause mortality decreased during the Great Recession is consistent with previous studies. Some categories of cause-specific mortality, notably cardiovascular disease, also follow this pattern, and are more pronounced for certain gender and age groups. Our study also suggests that the recent recession contributed to the growth in deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs in working-age adults in metropolitan areas. Additional research investigating the mechanisms underlying the health consequences of macroeconomic conditions is warranted."[1]

In the last big recession, deaths due to certain causes went up but _overall mortality decreased_. So what you're saying definitively _did not happen_ in the only other comparable situation.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108)

<comment><USER15> > You're saying that cutting (meaning reducing, not zeroing) budgets of social > and health programs can kill up to 0.5% of the entire population of a state? > Because that's the CFR of the virus.

I'm not saying that, but I could have been more clear.

The Great Recession is not a great comparison to a continued lockdown scenario, unemployment peaked at 10% while current reports are putting us already at ~14% and rising. The recession reduced demand but didn't wipe out sectors, nor did it cascade nearly as fast. Heart attacks and traffic fatalities will go down as the studies show.

I don't think I'm being contrarian, these pacts were setup to provide the political cover necessary for those qualified to make the call. My prediction is CA/OR/WA reopen on roughly the same schedule as everyone else, with just slight stricter restrictions. Such as quarantining the sick, isolating the high-risk, and other measures to bring the CFR down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations.

It's truly a great system.

<comment><USER18> It's not necessarily as flexible as to encompass such sub-federal cooperation: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_3:_Compact_Clause)

I'm curious if these recently announced state pacts will be challenged in court. But legal or illegal, it doesn't excuse the poor job of federal management.

<comment><USER8> That would prevent any such pact from being _legally binding_ on the states. It doesn't necessarily prevent states from coordinating at all.

<comment><USER17> Exactly, this seems like an friendly handshake agreement to cooperate with an official name and press release.

OTOH, pacts like the popular vote compact signed by some states in the past few years is almost certainly unconstitutional.

<comment><USER8> Is it? They're each deciding, independently, to handle their electors in a certain fashion. They each have the right to independently change that decision, without any penalty for doing so. It's not a binding agreement with another state in any fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From article 1, section 10 of the U.S. Constitution:

"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."

This scares me a bit. This agreement seems innocuous at first, but the constitution expressly forbids these (and all) kinds of agreements between states for a reason. A small pact like this today could tomorrow become leverage for secessionism or otherwise a power struggle with the federal government.

<comment><USER20> "State" in that context clearly refers to foreign nations (states) not states as in The United States Of America. Foreign power is distinct because it would refer to things like governments-in-exile or perhaps resistance groups.

<comment><USER21> Why would they use two different meanings of "State" (capitalized, no less) in the same sentence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my area (Vancouver Island, just north of this "pact") we are seeing something very odd. People are going out. Families are having BBQs in local parks. Restaurants aren't letting people dine in, but the grocery stores are operating essentially normally. I'm near the water and am seeing kayaks and boats out like any normal weekend. Vacation properties are in use. RV parks have customers. I see groups of old people chatting on the street like normal.

I think we are on a tipping point. Government directive or no, people are coming out of isolation. I don't think the local authorities have much choice at this point. Either they make some clear changes and/or issue timetables, or they risk loosing any control. These are Canadians, a people with national healthcare and a general respect for government authority. When this attitude hits America, a country that prides itself on individualism, things may move from lockdown to "what lockdown?" in a matter of days.

<comment><USER22> Because people realize that kayaking isn't a risk so why would they avoid it? This is why no restrictions should be imposed that don't have a very clear and obvious effect. If that means they must rely on people's ability to do the right thing (e.g not take the bus to go kayaking, not go places where it's crowded) then so be it. It's better to have a sustainable and accepted lockdown that is 95% water tight, than an unsustainable and less accepted lockdown. Otherwise, as you say, once people stop accepting the lockdowns anyway.

<comment><USER3> We are told not to travel unless necessary. Kayaking is never necessary. The Canadian military, the people responsible for search and rescue over HUGE areas, are themselves locked into extraordinary isolation measures. Many are living far from loved ones specifically to maintain operational readiness for real national emergencies. They aren't going to be very happy if they have to break isolation to rescue a kayak party too bored to stay home when asked so to do by their government.

<comment><USER22> So you kayak in a lake within swimming distance of shore. This is the thing: people need to be trusted to do the right thing. What we want to avoid wasn't people kayaking but people requiring rescue. That should just _work_ by asking it of people.

<comment><USER3> Talk to any first responder. Playing around near shore results in plenty of calls. It isn't just the big helicopter that pulls people off icebergs. A needless ambulance callout, followed by a kid sitting in hospital with a badly broken bone, is exactly the sort of thing we need to avoid. Doing anything recreational on the water is to be avoided.

There is a horse farm near my house. They are curtailing riding as much as possible specifically because they know that riding horses can be dangerous, especially for kids. They don't want any trips to hospital right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [http://nationofpacifica.com/](http://nationofpacifica.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> > Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide these decisions.

And I definitely promise you that my news organization will have no bias or slant, and will only report facts.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yes. I love this from an executive-action standpoint. They are _doing_ something about something, in the face of a lot of fearful messaging. And that gives the rest of us an even better "emotional/energy vector" which is based on a promise of government support and action in support of business.

We are participants in the most creative and powerful world economy of all time. Regardless of geographical location, cultures are generally more unified and geared toward working together than ever. Markets have shown an impressive amount of resilience in the face of unprecedented fear messaging. People are ready to work hard; in fact they're wearing themselves out by working harder than they have before in many cases.

This is exactly the kind of action we need right now.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm a little disturbed that I feel like the country has been tearing apart for a while. There is a major political bifurcation, and now pacts between states. Right now the pacts are for the pandemic, but what else might these coalitions be used for in the future? I'm not saying that they'll be used for some nafarious purpose, but the fact that they are like-minded politically makes it more likely to deepen the divides.

<comment><USER27> Because, Conservatives have completely lost their minds. If they want to commit to a suicide run to try and sustain the market then competent states have the imperative to not follow them into the abyss. You have to remember, each state is tasked with the welfare of their citizenry, not the furtherance of the political ambitions of a federal administrator.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying "good riddance, let's just split the country in a few pieces and get it over with"? Or do you see some path toward unifying the two factions again?

I guess you could reasonably say that groups with different political allegiances should just split up. But what's weird about that to me is it's basically like the states' rights platform, sans Constitution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have yet to see a cogent validation of the total lives saved by lockdown when considering all other health impacts such as suicide rates from isolation, heart disease/stroke/diabetes from extra sedentary lifestyle etc.

not to mention the suicide by fentanyl in a subsequent economic recession/depression.

Any aware of such an analysis?

<comment><USER9> I'm generally worried about this sort of thing as well, and wish people were looking into this.

However, we have pretty good estimates on how many people _will_ die if we don't shelter and isolate, and I think that trumps what would inevitably be some very vague guesses as to how many people _might_ die as side effects of sheltering and isolation.

And regardless, many of those potential deaths could be preventable with the right focus on mental health and financial support during and after the lockdown. (Not saying we do have the right focus; I expect we definitely don't. But that's not a reason to give up on isolation.)

<comment><USER28> > we have pretty good estimates on how many people will die if we don't > shelter and isolate

This is a fantastic point/rebuttal and has helped shift my perspective somewhat. We can do things about tomorrow's suicides, heart attacks and diabetes later, though not too too much later.

<comment><USER9> Right, I think it's a "one thing at a time" sort of situation. Like: we have a clear problem with a potential solution that will mitigate the problem immediately. That solution may create _other_ problems, but we do have some time (though, as you suggest, not a _lot_ ) to try to fix that up after dealing with the first problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > We need to see a decline in the rate of spread of the virus before large- > scale reopening, and we will be working in coordination to identify the best > metrics to guide this.

What's the end game here?

If you slow the spread, and then reopen, it'll spread again. Nothing will have changed, you'll just have delayed it a bit.

<comment><USER20> If you read the announcement:

> Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and > other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and > supplies of personal protective equipment.

Delaying it is the point, it ensures we have enough hospital capacity and PPE to handle the inevitable burst of cases when reopening. This is what people mean when they say "flatten the curve". If we simply open whenever and aren't prepared we'll have a massive spike in cases that exceeds hospital capacity, vs the current situation where the case growth is slower and hospitals are less burdened.

<comment><USER29> At the current rate of infection that plan will require many years of quarantine. We need more people exposed, not fewer.

<comment><USER9> That assumes no investment in upgrading our hospital capacity and testing & PPE production.

At one end of the spectrum you have (mythically) infinite hospital capacity and staffing, testing capacity, and contact tracing ability. In that world, you reopen everything, and let people go about their lives.

At _current_ capacity, we need to slow things down. If we can increase capacity enough in the coming weeks and months, we'll need to slow things down much less.

<comment><USER30> Things were quite bad but they've improved rapidly over the past weeks and months.

Hospitals have actually, counter-intuitively, seen a reduction in usage. The number of hospitalizations has been far lower than expected (~20% of IHME's modeled values) and when combined with the fact that non-COVID patients have been avoiding hospitals (even for serious emergencies like heart attacks and strokes!), many are reporting entire wards being completely unused according to reports from medical professionals on Twitter, Facebook, and r/medicine.

Also, 150,000 test results are coming in every day. That's 5x the per-capita testing rate of South Korea (~5,000 tests per day) and while we certainly can and should increase testing dramatically, the US is actually doing pretty well on testing relative to global numbers.

<comment><USER31> South Korea has excess testing capacity: [https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/south-korea-ramps-up- exports...](https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/south-korea-ramps-up-exports-of- covid-19-testing-kits/)

So far they have done 500000 tests, but they got started early, and controlled their outbreak much better. In recent news the US just bought 600000 tests from South Korea.

"The South Korean companies behind the kits are now churning out enough to test at least 135,000 people per day. The stabilizing situation at home has enabled these firms to export more of this extra capacity."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Regardless of how sad a situation this reflects, I regard it at least as a positive sign of some resilience of our federal structure.

Criticize the state/federal model though you might for how it sometimes dilutes the ability to get things done in a unified way, at least in times of national or federal-level dysfunction, the people who can step in locally to provide some guidance and coordination are able to do so, and not actually be stymied or prevented from doing so by some authoritarian framework.

Imagine instead if we lived in a country with more organized / powerful central control, but was both authoritative _and_ incompetent. We would be really fucked.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm in Oregon.

My first read: CTRL-F for "test" to see if there's any new statement on serological testing. Nothing.

This is all we want right now. This is the first priority, and whatever is second is somewhat distant.

Not having widespread serological testing to understand the prevalence in our communities really gives a feeling of being in a third-world country.

It's awesome that Drs. Bhattacharya and Bendavid have pushed the Stanford study forward (hopefully we have results this week). But seriously, there's no excuse for not having already done a round of random testing in every city, several times.

<comment><USER22> Serological testing is really bleeding edge still. It's only done as part of research projects as far as I heard, and you can't really buy the capacity to do it on an industrial scale yet. Perhaps this varies between countries (where manufacturers exist and so on) but many countries in Europe still have few or no serological tests done, and we are weeks ahead of the US in terms of the epidemic progress.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, that's the point right there. Why the heck is this so bleeding edge? A small team at Stanford made it happen rather quickly. With a small budget.

And yet our leaders aren't even _talking_ about it. Where's the will to do this obvious first priority?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Naive question: how is this better than each of these states doing its own thing (even if those things end up looking similar)? What does California gain by teaming up with WA and OR, for example?

<comment><USER22> Look at the Netherlands and Belgium screaming at each other and threatening to close borders because one felt the other had too little restrictions.

Let's just say it's very much bad for your neighborhood of states to have that kind of situation. Closing borders or having diplomatic disasters isn't worth it. It's better to reach a common decision.

<comment><USER21> I'd rather everyone close their borders for now (except for cargo and essential travel, with testing/quarantine) and countries/states/regions respond however they see fit for their own populations. The regions with the best responses can be examples for the others to follow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Floreat Cascadia!

<comment><USER36> Not to be pedantic or anything but Cascadia definitely doesn't include California. Nuh-uh, no way José, no siree.

<comment><USER37> It's the economic core of Cascadia. It's a necessary thing.

<comment><USER36> Kind of like saying that the US is the "economic core" of Canada.

<comment><USER37> How do you figure?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> They should do a shared healthcare system as well. The future is states working together on their own thing, while letting chudland sink further into poverty.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm surprised they didn't include Nevada given how much of California's population travels to Nevada.

</comment><comment><USER40> Meanwhile, 7 northeastern states are forming a "multi-state council"

</comment><comment><USER41> Some historians go as early as 2020 and see the "Western States Pact" as the first establishing document for the Pacific Union and the beginning of the unraveling of the USA.

Nt Rly though.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is great, and it's a big chunk of population, but I keep feeling like we could do better. For example, these three States could do a great job, but there's nothing stopping a bunch of the other States from bungling it (like, say, ignoring health experts and exempting certain groups from mass gathering restrictions). Then those States end up exporting infectious individuals into the States which are doing things right, and creating more clusters.

If only we had some sort of united group of all the States, where the response could be coordinated and centralized for maximum effectiveness.

<comment><USER24> > If only we had some sort of united group of all the States, where the > response could be coordinated and centralized for maximum effectiveness.

We do! It's called the United States government. I'll be letting the president know you're interested in him taking over and using his own ideas, instead of this one you seem to be particularly fond of.

Or, if that idea is slightly terrifying for you, perhaps it's a better idea that the states are handling this themselves. Your state conglomeration thing can always decide to use the National Guard to prevent outside travelers.

<comment><USER43> You have no idea how crazy you sound as a European lol, the most straightforward way to put it is you're using an anonymous account on a website to dunk on someone in the comments section for implying they may care about avoiding infection during a pandemic

<comment><USER29> > You have no idea how crazy you sound as a European

Europe, a group of many independent states, trying different approaches to a common problem, with an over-arching bureaucracy to coordinate between them... and the US approach sounds crazy to you?

<comment><USER44> You're comparing apples to oranges. Europe is comprised of sovereign states which can and actually have closed their borders. From my understanding, but correct me if I'm wrong, this would be a legal and political nightmare in the US right?

Edit: not endorsing parent comment

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So we're going to need a new name for this future sovereignty. Sierra Cascadia? New Pacifica?

<comment><USER46> California and Cascadia Republic. Put a tree on the bear flag and call it a day.

<comment><USER47> Something like this? [https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt](https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well, that was quick.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354)

Today it is pandemic resolution. I fear that tomorrow, it might be economic ties, lockstep voting at the federal level, and National Guard drills, deployments, and contingency planning, where the West Coast slowly splits away from the rest of the country, with other states teaming up and following suit.

This isn't the end, and it's the only appropriate response to a federal government that cannot or will not execute on behalf of all states. It is, however, a reflection of the true state of our Union, and a sign of things to come if we don't reconcile our national identity.

I'm saddened, but not surprised, that a step like this was necessary given the circumstances.

<comment><USER49> > I fear that tomorrow

Why fear? This is my dream!

The Senate is irreparably broken. There is no conceivable way that it can become more fairly representative of the people without a breakup of the United States. The smaller less populous states aren't going to just give up their outsized power voluntarily.

California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from succession. I hope it happens in my lifetime.

<comment><USER48> Dude...if we're talking about secession, we're talking about civil war. In a country with the second most nuclear weapons in the world. With a federal government already looking to adversaries for cooperation.

You're talking nuclear missiles or chemical weapons fired against San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle from land-based silos in the Dakotas, or mutinies aboard our SSBNs, or Russian troops landing en masse in South Carolina to offer foreign assistance. It will mean the Balkanization of the country, where California has to station permanent garrisons in the Sierra Nevada mountains to ward off invasions from Texas or Mexico. You're not talking about a 40% drop in GDP this quarter, you're talking about famine and starvation, and complete international irrelevance after the dust settles. If only tens of millions of Americans die, that probably counts as a win.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

<comment><USER50> > You're talking nuclear missiles or chemical weapons fired against San > Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle from land-based silos in the Dakotas.

This is pretty unlikely, if only because the fallout from nuclear weapons launched at the West Coast will blow back over the rest of the country, including over the regions that launch the missiles themselves. There's a reason short-range and battlefield nukes were never used in anger and it has nothing to do with morals.

The rest of your point stands. From a global perspective, a break-up of the U.S. is a very bad thing. Aside from the potential civil war here, it also means open-season on any countries that are basically U.S. protectorates (Taiwan, Japan, Israel, and much of Europe are toast); it hands global leadership over to China; it means financial chaos; and it could result in famines and food instability throughout the world (the U.S. is a major food exporter).

<comment><USER48> I'm not quite sure. We only have nukes in hundreds of kilotons, which might not be enough to crack steel and concrete and burn all combustibles at once. If there's no firestorm, the nuclear fallout might not make it to the stratosphere and the jet stream because it gets dammed in by the mountains and precipitates out.

Not to mention, hatred is irrational anyways. At this stage, we're talking about an organization that will reduce its own negotiating lever on the world stage in order to subjugate innocent civilians, which we've already seen take place at various points in Syria and the Soviet Union. I would expect political commissars taking over the nuclear command authority to turn the keys, not USAF or USN personnel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If wonder if Barr will sue, arguing that the pact violates the Interstate Compact Clause, especially considering that Trump has recently tweeted that only _he_ gets to decide when to lift restrictions.

<comment><USER51> I hope he does, and in the process both increases his ownership of this fiasco and dispels any notions that his party still has any real support for "States' rights".

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Waiting for the announcement of the formation of the 'Confederacy of Southern States' (I don't believe for a moment that Trump and the Republicans would hesitate to seize the opportunity and claim that it's simply 'parity'). In these times of hyper-partisanship, in the midst of a global pandemic, on the tip of a great recession or depression with untold economic hardship; I shudder at the potential for what politically aligned states banding together could lead to.

I hope I am overreacting, but my parameters for what I used to consider normal and possible have been shifted significantly and there seems to have formed a great open space of terrible possibility to be filled.

<comment><USER53> What about this inspired you to compare it to the civil war? Seems hyperbolic given states cooperate in similar ways all the time. It makes sense for bordering states to be on the same page here, _especially_ given the erratic behavior exhibited by federal officials who will remain nameless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> > Protecting the general public by ensuring any successful lifting of > interventions includes the development of a system for testing, tracking and > isolating. The states will work together to share best practices.

If there is a reasonable expectation of that happening in the next couple of weeks, then ok. If this is just "hope", then we should end the lockdown and let the flu run its course, like every year.

The overall mortality rate is about 2%, which may be unavoidable in the US even with social distancing, since I don't see any way for the US to emulate S. Korea's testing and tracing success.

Does anybody have any logical reason for thinking that the US can copy S. Korea?

Does the US have any way to do up to 600 million tests per week and see the result in an hour?

<comment><USER55> Why would we need to test everyone twice a week?</comment></comment>


The Europa mission is real and could very well happen - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2014/03/heres-why-the-europa-mission-is-real-and-could-very-well-happen/#21279101=0 <comment><USER2> I talked with a NASA engineer in 1998 who was working on the planned Europa probe, and hoping it would be funded enough to include a lander and not just a Europa orbiter. Sad to see how little progress we've made since then, and how arbitrarily the cause advances.

Even more, it's continuously sad to see how arbitrarily NASA's space missions, and overarching goals and strategies, in both robotic exploration and human spaceflight, fluctuate almost randomly with the whims of incoming and outgoing congresspeople and presidents. Space exploration missions by their nature have a longer timeline than the terms and attention spans of elected officials. NASA has no real chief executive but a board of directors with 536 people on it, all of whom have dozens of more important priorities, none of whom has expertise in its operations, and almost all of whom don't have the qualifications to be a substitute science teacher in middle school.

Our space program would be light-years ahead (maybe even literally) if it were just given its annual funding in a single block grant with a simple mandate to further the exploration and settlement of space, period, full stop, overseen by a real board of unelected technocratic experts, and with any specific direction from Congress forbidden.

<comment><USER3> > _with any specific direction from Congress forbidden_

The only way for a present Congress to bind a future Congress like so would be by way of a Constitutional amendment. That seems like overkill.

An alternative is giving NASA independence in the model of the Federal Reserve, FDA, or NIH. This is more workable. The problem is the public doesn't value space travel _per se_. There are sound economic reasons for maintaining an independent central bank. Voters understand the benefits of better medicine. But space travel is less accepted in itself. It is pitched as an article of national prestige, or as a way of encouraging other technological development.

At its core, NASA suffers from an asset-liability mismatch. Its liabilities, missions, carry decade-long terms. Its asset, Congressional funding, comes in election cycles. A myopic NASA, considering only projects realisable in the current election cycle, would be disastrous. Moving to locking in, each year, NASA funding for the next N years seems like a good first step. It avoids the messiness of NASA's year-to-year budget variance. It also side-steps the politics of granting NASA independence.

<comment><USER2> > "An alternative is giving NASA independence in the model of the Federal > Reserve, FDA, or NIH."

This would almost certainly be the best way forward.

<comment><USER3> The politics would be arduous. If NASA can choose which projects it pursues it can also choose where to base operations. NASA has facilities in states and Congressional districts which make no sense beyond politics. Those who stand to lose from a de-politicisation of NASA would bring a hard fight. That is the political reality.

<comment><USER2> Yes. It would take a president and/or members of Congress who cared enough about having an effective space program instead of using NASA as a pork delivery truck, to make the change.

It would also be resisted at least as much by members of Congress who represent NASA's contractors, besides just its facilities (like Dana Rohrabacher, the congressman from Boeing). On the other hand, it would also naturally be supported by members of Congress representing at least some NASA centers and contractors who would clearly gain from the move.

A reform like this will also be boosted though by SpaceX as it keeps accomplishing more and more on a comparatively low budget, making forward- looking technologies readily available of its own volition (Grasshopper, Falcon Heavy, methane rocket engines that can use Mars in situ manufactured fuel, etc.), and creating more and more embarrassment for the traditional space program and its contractors (like the Senate Launch System (SLS)), and forcing everyone to ask, why can't NASA do that? Hopefully they will eventually shame Congress and the President into reforming NASA into a professionally-managed organization, i.e. reforming away their own control over it and making it more like a Federal Reserve for space exploration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel compelled to plug the 2013 sci-fi film "Europa Report"[1], a great movie that no one watched.

Space.com called it "awesome" and "stunningly realistic"[2].

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

[2] [http://www.space.com/21247-europa-report-scifi-film- trailer....](http://www.space.com/21247-europa-report-scifi-film-trailer.html)

<comment><USER5> It was an advertisement for manned spaceflight that ironically showed why it's a bad idea.

<comment><USER6> Advertisement ? It's borderline a space horror movie, no irony here...

The mockups of mission branding and press conferences were rather well made though, so I can imagine why you'd get that impression.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This would most probably end up being a New Frontiers class mission with a cost cap of a billion dollars or so. This is much less than the proposed 4.7-billion-dollar Jupiter Europa Orbiter [1], and also less than the already very much slimmed-down "Europa Clipper" concept [2] with a price tag of $1.5 billion or so. For reference, the Mars Science Laboratory mission cost about $2.4 billion.

With a sub-billion dollar budget, the achievable science objectives would be severely limited. It would probably still be worth it -- these days we have to take what we're given.

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

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

<comment><USER8> To say nothing of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, whose price tag was $16 billion.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since Europan life is separated from the sky by a kilometer thick shell of ice, could there be an entire global civilization down there we're unaware of? (Since they're aquatic, maybe low frequency acoustics have taken the place of radio for them, so we would not have detected them.)

<comment><USER10> Well, if there's life in that ocean, they're probably not tool builders (otherwise we'd have detected something). But microbes and maybe multicellular life isn't out of the question. It's also interesting to think about if we should count, say, a global population of whale-equivalents as a civilization or not.

<comment><USER11> I would not rule out that they have a way to build tools, assuming for a moment they exist. So earth technology is closely related to fire as a energy source. ( During the early development for smelting.) But this role could be filled by black smokers, or volcanic activity. But further development would of course be completely different, so I think it is entirely conceivable that we did not detect anything.

<comment><USER10> True, it's a matter of definitions. Octopuses also use tools, but do they qualify as an intelligent civilization? Probably not (yet). We assume, because we have little reference of what an intelligent human-equivalent entity might be like, that they'd probably build very complex tools over time as we have.

This judgement of what constitutes an advanced life form sadly carries a cultural component. If we encountered our own species at the very beginning of its intellectual journey, would we have labeled them a civilization? Would we have described them as having human-equivalent intelligence? It's tricky. But then we move hundreds of thousands of years ahead and suddenly there are monumental buildings and clever machines, suddenly you can meet individuals with astonishing capabilities, and now it's very easy to categorize them.

So if our hypothetical space Euroctopus species is in its early intellectual development, we might not be able to correctly attribute their intelligence. There's always the possibility of that development being stagnant too, and again we'd have a difficult time recognizing that. Therefore, the only real chances at discerning an intelligent civilization would be by either directly observing its behavior or by looking at the capabilities of their tools.

<comment><USER12> The funny thing is, we can only categorize intelligence to the peak and adjacent possibilities of where we're at now. Go back over 100,000 years or more and it would be very hard to categorize us as extremely intelligent beings.

<comment><USER11> Not sure if this is what you meant, but assume you are showing a picture of a programmer to someone from the past. One hundred years ago, the person would probably recognize a computer as some kind of type writer, and from his background then assume that the person is a typist. 200 years ago, there were no jobs which could be described as 'sitting in front of a box,' so the person would have no frame of reference to understand the picture. ( And it seems likely to conclude the same into the future.)

<comment><USER13> Medieval monks copying manuscripts had jobs that were essentially "sitting in front of a box all day":

[http://www.studenthandouts.com/photo_gallery/Pics1/MiddleAge...](http://www.studenthandouts.com/photo_gallery/Pics1/MiddleAges-4.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks like NASA may be dragged into it kicking and screaming. It may be time to change some people at the top. There's no point having this kind of a mission if leadership doesn't believe in it.

<comment><USER15> I know personally that Europa is actually pretty high on Charlie Bolden's (and other NASA HQ folk's) as well as academia's radar, but has thus far lost out to other programmatic/political necessities.

NASA has a very hard time devoting resources to planetary science and exploration programs when key legislators continue to earmark NASA'S budget for (what are essentially) jobs programs in their own districts. SLS has shaped up to be a perfect example of that.

<comment><USER16> Well, the other problem is Europa is not an easy mission by any stretch. It's airless - so wave goodbye to parachute landings, which means we need to carry all the propulsion we need to decelerate into orbit with us.

No magnetic field either, so tethers for orbital adjustment are out to. And it's flying out to one of the more radiation hard environments in the solar system, where we have very little data on what exactly it'll experience.

And it's going to be a long long way a way. 1 hour signal round-trip time.

<comment><USER17> Think of all the new technologies and solutions that will have to be developed for it, and then will find their way to commercial sector. NASA at it's best!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> ESA also has a planned probe going to Jupiter's moons - hopefully launching in 2022, JUICE - JUpiter ICy moons Explorer:

[http://sci.esa.int/juice/](http://sci.esa.int/juice/)

</comment><comment><USER19> ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome, though it will obviously take a lot more than $15m or even $100m - Cassini-Huygens cost $3.6 billion. Personally I'd like to see NASA's project merge with the ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer project - add some instruments or another probe to their launch instead of launching a completely separate craft. Although I guess this increases the risk - if the launch fails, both missions fail...

<comment><USER21> JUICE came about due to the effective cancellation of Laplace ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EJSM/Laplace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EJSM/Laplace)), a joint ESA/NASA mission. Laplace died because the ESA didn't think that NASA's budget allowed it. The ESA mightn't be hugely keen on risking that scenario again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Mars has been very well explored. Titan just recently got a drop-in probe. Except for maybe Venus (which presents logistical challenges that would likely make a lander mission impossible) Europa is by far the most interesting place in our solar system that hasn't been extensively explored.

What are we talking about here, expense wise? $5 billion over 15-20 years? Totally worth it.

<comment><USER23> Probably more like $15 to $20 billion over that span (accounting for inflation, cost bloat, unexpected b.s. etc).

Still worth it. I'm hoping our technology for traveling the solar system, and the robotic systems to explore it, will get cheaper and cheaper on a cost per unit of result basis (meaning the nominal cost will rise as expected, but the value we receive from our technology will rise much faster).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I know we're all science geeks and enjoy the possibility of a Europa mission - but doesn't it bother anyone that we have a system whereby some congressman with a pet project can ram through tens of millions of dollars in the budget that will likely balloon to billions of dollars?

Yay, the broken clock shows the right time for this minute.

</comment><comment><USER25> Funny. No money for a moon or another Mars mission but NASA is basically given a command for a mission to Europa because one congress person said so.

Quite strange.

I'm still excited. I think anyone who has read the Odyssey series by Clarke would be ecstatic too! :)

<comment><USER26> We've been to the Moon and Mars. Europa's yet unvisited, and as a science mission, there's considerable potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "I want to make sure you and I are here to see those first tube worms and lobsters on Europa."

If he wasn't joking, he is in for a disappointment and I am depressed with the quality of people who are deciding these budgets. But if its that or more weapons expenses, take the money and run NASA!

<comment><USER28> Likely he didn't specifically mean tube worms and lobsters (excepting the case of convergent evolution) but if he had said something like "life" or "aliens" then the sort of imagery that comes to most people's minds are the classic Roswell Greys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The relevant mission concept, still in flux as more observations of the plumes coming from the surface are taken ([http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article- xml/AW_...](http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article- xml/AW_02_17_2014_p37-663090.xml&p=1)), is Europa Clipper:

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa- clipper/](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/)

</comment><comment><USER30> NASA should collaborate with the ISRO scientists as they too have good experience with space exploration and can suggest cost optimizations etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> I was very scared when i saw that headline. Thank god this is not about military missions in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER32> I find it amazing to see how cheap that price tag is for something so technology worthy.

<comment><USER33> Um, that's not the price tag. That's the amount of money they're going to spend now to keep working on it.

<comment><USER34> $15 million (or for that matter, $100 million) is still a very small fraction of the federal budget, and in my opinion, a much more well spent $15 million than a lot of the other $15 millions in there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Awesome, as long as we don't breach the Prime Directive.

</comment><comment><USER36> So we're not going to leave Europa alone.

Wonder if this is going to end well.

<comment><USER37> Clarke is dead.</comment></comment>


China systematically hijacks internet traffic: researchers - <AUTHOR> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/china-systematically-hijacks-internet-traffic-researchers-514537 <comment><AUTHOR> Original Paper: [https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...](https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=mca)

Bruce Schneier's blog post on this paper: [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/10/chinas_hackin...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/10/chinas_hacking_.html)

<comment><USER2> thnkz

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From an ISP perspective this is really hard to hide. If somebody announces my /16 from Pakistan and traffic goes there, it's going to get noticed. Like the time PTCL broke YouTube...

You basically can't bgp hijack without breaking basic internet connectivity for the legit users of the IP space (where it is intended to be announced to peers and transits), so anything lasting more than 30 seconds will generate a huge flurry of phone calls and noc emails.

There are third party services you can pay, and software you can set up yourself to watch for bgp announcements for "your" Arin/ripe/apnic/whatever prefixes, and generate alerts based on that. Pretty common stuff with Linux based systems (FRR, etc) that can hold the entire global v4+v6 routing table in RAM and do quick analysis on it.

Google "bgp hijack", this is a well known issue in the ISP operational community. RPKI validation of announced routes and best common practices for what you accept from your bgp neighbors go a long way.

</comment><comment><USER4> Could someone explain how out-of-ordinary these hijacks are? I thought network traffic is similar to connecting flights: it's not uncommon to fly from NY to Seoul with a transit stop in China. Network traffic may follow a non-optimal path for various reasons, such as complicated deal/rebate structures among AS, third party ASN spoofing, technical failures within AS and state-sponsored hacks. The paper seemed to cherry-pick some examples of "hijacks" involving China. But it would be more convincing to show whether they are happening all over the world or are specific to China.

In addition, network traffic at ISP level are never intended to be secure. That's why we have/need end-to-end encryption.

</comment><comment><USER5> Back in 2010 I had Chinese IPs show up in my traceroute - I guess they hijacked my traffic as well. Oh well..

[https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1627912](https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1627912)

[https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=60181](https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=60181)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's clear that the internet is too insecure, and the world's super powers can't help themselves, they simply _have_ to meddle with it.

Maybe it's time we started using Tor hidden services for everything.

<comment><USER7> Just like programming languages can only have two out of three concepts ( soundness, completeness, decidability ), the creators of the internet had to choose two out of three concepts ( openness, robustness, security ).

It's theoretically impossible to have a language that is sound, complete and decidable. It's probably also impossible to have an internet that is open, robust and secure.

<comment><USER6> I don't think that argument holds water.

Which one of "open, robust, secure" do you think Tor doesn't meet?

You can pick any 3 concepts and group them together like that, but it doesn't mean you can't have all 3, e.g. a house can be "large, cheap, and well- decorated" (e.g. if it is in the middle of nowhere).

<comment><USER8> Tor lacks usability and efficiency.

<comment><USER6> The efficiency isn't as bad as it used to be. I browse using Tor as a matter of course now, and it's fine.

What's the usability problem? Just that you have to download Tor Browser instead of Firefox?

The usability of setting up a hidden service is actually easier than getting an SSL certificate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "then an appropriate defence policy in response could state that no traffic to or from the US or ally is allowed to enter a China Telecom PoP in the US or in the ally's networks"

The fact that this is possible today seems incredible to me when i think of the number of times i've heard cybersecurity and cyberespionage was a priority of the US security agencies during the last decade.

<comment><USER10> On the contrary, I think as phrased that's a "break the internet" policy, especially if more than one country does it - what if China asks for a reciprocal version?

<comment><USER9> the article in fact points out that china does exactly that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone with a trip to Beijing on the horizon, aside from using a VPN, are there any other best practices to keep data secure while traveling there?

<comment><USER12> (I live in China) I would advise against VPN entirely. I am unsure about the state ability to decrypt the content of the connection (heavily depends on how the VPN is configured really — weak and legacy ciphers, etc.). But they will detect it and eventually you'll start dropping packets like crazy.

A simple way to evade all of this is to use shadowsocks with a strong cipher and strong password between your computer in China and your server outside of it. Don't use any free server and don't use any commercial shadowsocks offerings. Set it up yourself, it's pretty easy.

On the mobile phone side of things. I wouldn't trust anything. Especially Apple that has been very complaisant with local authorities.

China plays a tactical game: they _pretend_ (or we suspect, and they want us to) that they can do a lot of things. But nobody knows the extent of what they are actually capable of.

<comment><USER13> shadowsocks is on their radar now...and they have been able to detect its usage with some success, unfortunately...

i.e. The Random Forest Based Detection of Shadowsock's Traffic, [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/)

I don't really understand what kind of scientists would do such researches to help the government carry out the censorship more efficiently, over their fellow people...it's either those intellectuals have no brain, or no heart...

<comment><USER14> this is correct, SS is on the radar and is not as dependable as it used to be, there is a variant of SS that is said to be an improved version but it is still not 100% dependable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Important

</comment><comment><USER16> Traffic heading to China gets intercepted-- you don't say?

<comment><USER17> This is not what the article says happened. Rather, the researchers found that China was able to reroute traffic going to other countries to instead go to China, presumably to analyze or decrypt it, before sending it on to its original destination later.

Please read the article before commenting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> And the US and the rest of the 5-eyes don't? that doesn't make it right, just more wrong, if you're angry that China is doing this then you should be equally because the US and 'friends' are doing it to you too

<comment><USER19> At least in theory FVEY nations are democratically accountable for the behavior.

<comment><USER20> Being spied upon by a non-democratic nation is the same as being spied upon by a democratic nation if you're not a citizen - you don't hold any influence over either and neither is accountable to you.

So from an outside perspective the US and China are pretty much the same thing in that regard.

To top it off, the five eyes nations are spying on each other - so even if you're a citizen of one you're _tolerating_ being spied upon by four other surveillance apparati that aren't accountable to you.</comment></comment></comment>


TSA has completely removed revealing X-ray scanners from America's airports - <AUTHOR> http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tsa-completely-removed-full-body-scanners-rep-article-1.1360143

<comment><USER2> So the images are processed to draw the cartoon like representation, but I assume there are more accurate images somewhere in the system still. Is that much better?</comment>


Estonian E-Residency program - <AUTHOR> https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/apply/ <comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone already have experience with this? This sounds like an incredibly innovative approach.</comment>


Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/greenaddress/bips/blob/bip-payment-request-instant-confirmations/bip-payment-request-instant-confirmations.mediawiki

<comment><USER2> Hello :) author of the proposal here, if you have any question or comment feel free to ask!

Users that trust [https://GreenAddress.it](https://GreenAddress.it) can check the instant confirmation inside their wallet (on a UI 'badge' similar to the N confirmations or unconfirmed).

While some platforms are interested in the instant confirmation some will take longer or won't.

For this reason and for external wallet users you can still manually check if a specific transaction is instant via [https://greenaddress.it/instant](https://greenaddress.it/instant) provided that you are the recipient of the transaction and can prove it - and of course that you trust GreenAddress to not allow users to double spend.

The external instant confirmation link does not work for multisig or P2SH external addresses yet.

Link to the reddit discussion [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/284me8/instant_conf...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/284me8/instant_confirmation_via_payment_protocol_bip70/)

Cheers!

Lawrence

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought of something like this when I read this entry: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732463)</comment>


Visual Website Optimizer new interface + new features + 10,000 accounts - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/split-testing-software/ <comment><USER2> I will mention some technologies/resources we used in the new interface. Hope it helps others.

* For generating screenshots, we used the awesome PhantomJS <http://www.phantomjs.org/>

* Color scheme was decided using <http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html> and <http://colorschemedesigner.com/>

* We used fonts from Google Open fonts <http://www.google.com/webfonts>

* Icon set was discovered (and subsequently purchased) via <http://www.iconfinder.com/>

* We used jQuery heavily for AJAX based test creation and reports

* The charts developed using Flot library <http://code.google.com/p/flot/>

Would love to hear feedback on the new interface. We worked hard on this one :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for posting the list. A couple of cool things in there that I hadn't heard of. The design looks great too, by the way.

<comment><USER2> Now I think about it there are couple of more technologies we used:

* TinyMCE for WYSIWYG editor: <http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/>

* Redis for heatmap and screenshot queue <http://redis.io/>

* Tipsy for Facebook-like tips <http://onehackoranother.com/projects/jquery/tipsy/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love it, good job.

Is the voice-over woman on the demo video a bot? Her sentences don't flow well and sound awkward, why not use a real person?

<comment><USER2> Nope, voice-over is not a bot but we outsourced it. Didn't realize she sounds like a bot. Let me collect some more feedback on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a crazy idea about demo videos which you might want to A/B test against your current video: get your customers to record videos showing how they actually use VWO on their sites. At least I always find it a lot more convincing when I see a video in a normal voice showing me a real use-case rather than a scripted marketing video.

For example, the Basecamp landing page with real customer interviews and screenshots of the app looks a lot more appealing to me - <http://basecamphq.com>

<comment><USER2> It's an excellent idea and we do have a video from customer titled "Why I love Visual Website Optimizer" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5fPdpdVAE>

However it is for the old interface.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a really good video. A lot more engaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just logged in and saw the lightbox announcing the changes. The first line says "World's easiest A/B testing tool just became even more easier.". That should be either "became even more easy" or "became even easier".

Also, what happened to the section that tells me whether the test is finished or not? There used to be something saying that the results aren't conclusive yet, and the test needs to run longer. Now... nothing?

<comment><USER2> Oops, yes! Good catch. Fixing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the few profitable, promising Indian startups. Keep rocking.

<comment><USER7> Given that 84,000 businesses were registered in India in 2008 [1] I imagine there's considerably more than "a few" profitable indian startups out there.

1) [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=new+businesses+register...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=new+businesses+registered+in+India)

<comment><USER8> For the HN crowd, startup means web-startup.

<comment><USER9> Which is kind of sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Out of curiosity what made you decide to switch from vertical navigation to horizontal navigation ?

I've been trying to decide which would be better for my own app and VWO's was among the better vertical navigation websites in terms of how "intuitive" it seemed.

<comment><USER2> I agree that it was a tough decision but our users gave feedback that with vertical navigation they had to do a lot of scrolling and since they compare performance on conversion goals, it is a lot of back and forth with navigation. With horizontal navigation, there is no need to do scrolling.

I think we may give an option to switch between vertical or horizontal navigation. It should be easy feature to build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 2.2 billion pageviews a month? really?

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's right!</comment></comment>


Show HN: I built my dream puzzle game Shapeuku - <AUTHOR> It's like a mix between Picross (Nonograms) and Polyominoes. It's a minimalist puzzler which has no text, no tutorials (none required) and no ads set in a relaxing environment.
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shapeuku-shape-puzzle-game/i...
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dtbgames.s...
I have a bulk load of Android promo codes to give away, so if you'd like one let me know! (Sorry iOS users, I have no free codes left!) <comment><USER2> I'm enjoying playing this game. It's a fun puzzle. I'm right near the beginning, so it's pretty easy solution far.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I realised I can't message you on here, so send an email to dtbgamestudio at gmail.com instead!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to test it too, could I have a promo code, please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :) Send me an email to dtbgamestudio at gmail.com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to try it out! Send a promocode for android?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I sent you an email :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks interesting, could you send me a promo code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :) Send me an email to dtbgamestudio at gmail.com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll take an Android promo as well!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :) Send me an email to dtbgamestudio at gmail.com!</comment></comment>


How to Reach Female Solo Travelers, the Biggest Market in the US - <AUTHOR> https://ux.nearsoft.com/blog/travel/how-to-reach-female-solo-travelers-the-biggest-market-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> I'm trying to understand the logical contortions involved in justifying that headline. Clearly they're not the unqualified "biggest market in the US", they're not the biggest market of travelers, I guess they're the biggest group of solo travelers when divided by gender? So a more accurate headline might be "slightly more women travel solo than men"?

</comment><comment><USER3> The sample size of '7' is insufficient to reach any real conclusions about patterns and behaviors, let alone statistics like '10%'

Overall there is nothing in this article that actually tells you how to reach 'FSTs', it just looks like a generic set of traveler behaviors.

</comment><comment><USER4> The study referenced by this article ([https://news.booking.com/do-not- disturb-more-than-half-of-am...](https://news.booking.com/do-not-disturb-more- than-half-of-american-women-travelers-are-going-solo)) does not seem to pass the sniff test:

>Commissioned by Booking.com, the independent research spanning five countries revealed that 72 percent of American women have embraced solo travel and are taking advantage of unique destinations for inspiration and self-discovery. In comparison to other countries surveyed*,

<comment><USER5> Note that this is 72% of a sample of 500 American women _who have traveled in the last year_.

This is kind of an important caveat that is relegated to a footnote.</comment></comment>


Judge rules pacemarker data can be used against defendant - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/judge-rules-pacemaker-data-can-be-used-against-defendant/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=39705414 <comment><USER2> What a sloppy ruling. It's so easy to misinterpret heart rhythm data, especially since there has been virtually no research nor precedents into using data like this as factual evidence.

</comment><comment><USER3> It will likely go the same or similar way as vehicle "black box" data.</comment>