Banks Paid $32.6B in Bonuses Amid U.S. Bailout (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHURVoSUqpho <comment><USER3> >"When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well," Cuomo's office said in the 22-page report. "When the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well. Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished."

Waaat. I think the government should stop bailing out businesses. Either you let the company go bankrupt or you nationalize.

Also I clearly need a job in banking...

<comment><USER4> > Either you let the company go bankrupt or you nationalize.

I vaguely agree with that sentiment, but the problem in practice is that government sucks at running things. They introduce layers of infrastructure that business doesn't and turn things into political footballs.

Although thinking about that for a moment, its a big problem on its own...

<comment><USER5> > the problem in practice is that government sucks at running things. They > introduce layers of infrastructure that business doesn't

Actually, there is no evidence of this. See this report that compares the Govt run industries before and after privatisation: [http://www.psiru.org/reports/public-and-private-sector- effic...](http://www.psiru.org/reports/public-and-private-sector-efficiency)

"The results are remarkably consistent across all sectors and all forms of privatisation and outsourcing: there is no empirical evidence that the private sector is intrinsically more efficient"

Even if it was more efficient, $31 billion of corrupt bonuses on top = no different from an inefficient government.

<comment><USER6> > "The results are remarkably consistent across all sectors and all forms of > privatisation and outsourcing: there is no empirical evidence that the > private sector is intrinsically more efficient"

Exactly this. I've spent years in both sectors. People suck at running things, not governments.

<comment><USER7> At least those inefficient companies could be disrupted by startups, and at least they don't get to take my money by force (apart from subsidies and bailouts). No such mechanism exists for government. That people suck at running things is the very reason we need this rise-and-fall structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While the data is accurate - the messenger, in this case, is Andrew Cuomo - <USER2> politician who aspires to run for President in the near-term. He had very little problem accepting campaign contributions from the financial services industry - they were his second-largest contributor by-sector.

[http://influenceexplorer.com/politician/andrew- cuomo/d83c545...](http://influenceexplorer.com/politician/andrew- cuomo/d83c5450d5604928ad35103ae2588e6f)

<comment><USER9> Well, hey if we're just going to ad hominem attack Andrew Cuomo, it'd probably be much more effective to point out the recent scandal where he disbanded an anti-corruption task force because it was too effective and started questioning his friends, and that there's allegedly an active federal investigation into his affairs.

Doesn't have much to do with the bank bailout though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> At the time these banks were claiming that they had to pay the bonuses to retain these employees ... I think this is logically false for two reasons:

1) Why do you want to retain the executive that helped run the business into the ground?

2) What other corporation in their right (collective?) mind would hire one of these executives (given their inflated salaries and poor performance).

I still think the right way to fix this would have been to send those who propagated the whole financial scam to jail.

<comment><USER11> Unless I'm mistaken it is not like the people handing out bonuses and the people who screwed up are completely separate. Also it is safe to assume that any organization of a sufficiently large size will have a fixed amount of incompetent people at any level, simply as a matter of statistics. Maybe the percentage will be less where the people come from field with a (different/harder) selection process like the natural sciences/law/medicine as opposed to business administration. The banking crisis also seems more of an institutional / regulatory failure than a failure of individuals.

The pseudo-democratization of credit availability was something explicitly wanted by the government as a means of stimulating consumption. That this policy was completely misguided wasn't really the fault of the banks themselves who mainly took advantage of the admittedly ridiculous situation.

<comment><USER12> Are banking jobs given out based on meritocratic ideals, or who your dad knows?

<comment><USER13> Most people are there because they got excellent grades at excellent colleges. These criteria objectively select for people who are sharp, though not necessarily geniuses, and have a demonstrated track record of working very hard and paying a lot of attention to detail and deadlines.

In many ways, banking hiring is more "meritocratic" than tech hiring. There is less emphasis on "fit" and "culture" and because new hires are viewed as _tabula rasa_ there is less emphasis on criteria that might be gender-biased (e.g. high-school extra-curricular activities).

<comment><USER14> It's funny that this got downvoted grey: my sense is that it _really_ gets under nerd skin that tech isn't a great example of a meritocracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. Given the current story re HSBC's misbehaviour, I thought it worth reminding everyone of the scale of the theft that took place during the bank bailout.

<comment><USER15> This, HSBC lending money to rouge nations and drug cartels, the LIBOR scandal, and not a single person is in jail.

Not to mention that the Fed made available and lent up to $7T to banks (without telling Congress) right before TARP was rushed through.

Smoke some weed, go to jail.

Do it three times, go to jail for life in CA. MANDATORY. Especially if you're black.

If these and other ongoing similar "crimes" don't convince you that we're living in an oligarchy, and our precious democracy/republic is a farce at best, well, I don't know what will.

<comment><USER13> California's three-strikes law was supported by a 72-28 vote in a public referendum. At the time of the vote, nation-wide, the public supported keeping marijuana illegal by an over 70-30 margin: [http://www.people- press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports...](http://www.people- press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-legalizing-marijuana).

Our drug and sentencing laws are the result of democracy, not oligarchy.

<comment><USER15> But we don't live in a democracy, and expect better from the Republic bound by the Constitution, which is pretty clear about unjust punishment.

If a democracy and majority rule were the true rule of the land, we may still have segregation, slavery, illegal mixed-race marriages, and so on, and so on...

Now look at what class our electorate is largely made up of. Mix that with a little Citizens United and it becomes clear again that money controls government (and now rather blatantly) and it's not often that decisions are made that benefit the weakest among us - drug policy and the war on drugs being just one example.

<comment><USER13> You're trying to tie-together two narratives that make no sense in conjunction. Do we have the drug war because of tyranny of the majority, or Citizens United money overriding the will of the majority? I'd posit the evidence shows that the majority strongly supported making drugs illegal and meting out harsh sentences, at least at the time the laws were put into place. If that's the case, the whole "oligarchy" narrative is superfluous.

<comment><USER15> The majority is often in support all sorts of policies that are against their best interests.

That has nothing to do with what agenda is moved forward by the oligarchy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think the bonuses is a problem per se. Companies should be allowed to pay their employee however they want, being true to the contract the employee signed, of course.

The bailout is the problem. If there was no bailout, these banks would have totally reduced the payout. They would feel the hit and have to adjust accordingly to keep the company afloat. Bailout gave them the go ahead to disregard all the losses.

It is extremely cynical for the same players to be crying for free enterprise, woe is regulation and the market always work its magic. But hey it's not their problem. We just had to be the sucker, pony up and bail them out.

</comment><comment><USER17> In other words taxpayers money was redistributed into the personal bank accounts of some of the richest people.

<comment><USER18> IIRC, The official narrative from politicians, news anchors and think-tanks was that:

\- If the bailouts didn't happen, it would be mayhem, "too big to fail", etc.

\- You got your money back with interest. It was all payed back (disregard economic theory and value of money in hand).

\- Why are you complaining, you banjo-playing hippie? You can't be in OWS if you have an iphone! (In Erin Burnett's voice)

\</comment></comment><comment>

Many people will talk situations that forced the banks to hand out these bonuses and maybe they're right but the deeper problem is that when companies/banks/people suffer no consequence (and even worse, benefit from) doing illegal/harmful things then they're going to keep up doing them. profit vs "cost of infraction".

<comment><USER19> Significant new regulations were enacted:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act)

In particular, the orderly liquidation authority created a legal framework to liquidate a broader range of financial institutions:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act#Title_II_.E2.80.93_Orderly_Liquidation_Authority)

Dodd Frank is at least toothy enough that banks are constantly whining about it now (and working to dismantle it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Funny, that's about the same amount of money as the budget for the NIH. Sadly, their research budget has remained stagnant for years as inflation has gone up.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its simple. People in the money chain-of-custody always take some. Corporation board members vote one another stock. Company executives (originally normal positions like secretary and treasurer, paid a normal salary) pay one another exorbitant sums. And bank employees always get paid.

</comment><comment><USER22> Banks are a collection of loosely related business that are only tied together by their participation in the capital markets. The equities derivatives desk has little to do with the mortgage desk which has little to do with the health care investment banking group.

As such, front office Wall Street bonuses are primarily based on personal and desk performance. In 2008 a handful of desks 'blew up' which took down the entire firm. Meanwhile equity and govie desks had a banner year. Does every desk deserve to get shafted? Do the back-office developers deserve to get shafted? I'm not here to defend the banks, but I can understand both sides of the argument. The Government should have just nationalized the banks if they wanted to control this.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey, wealth redistribution is OK if it's going from bottom to top.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't really think that this is that surprising or the worst thing about the recent financial crisis.

One thing about financial markets is that if everybody thinks you're doing badly suddenly they don't want to lend you money and this might do you in even if your problems had been survivable. And Lehman Brothers waited until the very last moment before telling the Fed they had a problem. So the Fed insisted on throwing money at every financial institution - even the ones that were hugely profitable during the crisis.

And if your company is short on money or dying the last thing you want to cut is bonuses. If your employees smell blood they'll be thinking about jumping ship. If you stop paying salary but leave bonuses intact you'll do better at keeping people at their desks until until they've finished wrapping the company up. And if somebody screwed up in a way that contributed to the crisis they should be fired and replaced, not have their bonus cut.

THere were a _lot_ of things that should have been done differently in the crisis. Investors in insolvent companies really needed to be wiped out to encourage them to take better care in the future. Interest On Reserves was really not needed to prevent the economy from overheating the way the Fed feared (the Fed works with numbers months out of date and they still thought the larger economy was fine and that inflation has highish when the crisis hit). The bonuses are at best a distraction but one that's easy for politicians to make sound bites out of.

</comment><comment><USER4> an industry driven by greed is greedy... why am i not surprised.

that stuff needs some regulating. its all well and good making everyone richer and deregulating to encourage it, but if the gap widens, because of how the economy works, the poor get poorer in real terms :(

also we have big explosive crashes...

<comment><USER25> It was properly regulated before, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legisla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation). Until people go to jail for the crimes (see Iceland) nothing will get fixed.

<comment><USER26> > _Until people go to jail for the crimes (see Iceland) nothing will get > fixed._

This is such a bizarre argument. You don't think there were/are oodles of prosecutors frothing at the mouth to throw some bankers in jail? Look around the internet! They'd be heroes! The public would rejoice, yet it hasn't happened, because proving that some of the perceived corruption and missteps are _actual crimes_ is, apparently, more difficult than you think. And I don't want to live in a country when the government can decide, willy-nilly, to throw corporate executives in the slammer.

Second, tthrowing here are far more effective means of "punishment" than some low-ranking employee in white-collar prison (which costs us MORE money). Fines have been used, which punish earnings, executive pay, and shareholders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Everyone should watch this documentary by Adam Curtis about the history of extremism and the rise of the banks...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_%28film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_%28film%29)

</comment><comment><USER28> This is also some good reading material: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program)

</comment><comment><USER29> Well, this is obviously the way we want it since we keep electing people who make this possible.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's only a matter of time until the scheme crashes again.

135 comments and not one mention of Bitcoin?

<comment><USER31> Because bitcoin is no different. Virtual currency speculation is not the answer.</comment></comment>


Download Counts from Google Cloud Storage - <AUTHOR> https://fusionauth.io/blog/2018/09/20/download-counts-from-google-cloud-storage <comment><USER2> Haha Dan beat me to it. I was just about to post this blog post.</comment>


Ask HN: Is RSS dead? - <AUTHOR> I remember when RSS was "launched" in the early 2000s and was very excited about it. Fast forward to 2018, feeds are in a sense _the_ way we consume web content (facebook, twitter etc) but the only place where I find RSS to be the prominent protocol is in podcasting. Why is that? <comment><USER2> Weird how the title has nothing to do with the question below.

</comment><comment><USER3> Saw this article in my RSS reader.</comment>


Stop Watching Us Indiegogo Campaign Reaches Goal - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stop-watching-us-a-rally-against-nsa-surveillance-on-october-26th--2?

<comment><USER2> We've just launched a project asking anyone with a website to help spread the word on the rally:

[https://github.com/tfrce/project-megaphone](https://github.com/tfrce/project- megaphone)

<comment><USER3> I'd love to add this to my website but I run a health website and the implications of it (aka their personal health information they submit not really being fully protected by things like SSL [1] from surveillance) would startle my users and scare away sign-ups.

Balancing communicating necessary information vs running a business is a tough one.

[1] We use perfect-foward secrecy but not all browsers support that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely $30,000 dollars well spent, I cant wait to see all of the much needed change this will bring to mine and others lives. /s

<comment><USER5> Where do I go to donate to your project? Want to make sure my money's going to the most effective place possible!

<comment><USER4> The greatest part about my project is I can also do absolutely nothing, and I can do it for $30,000 dollars less than these guys. That's an infinite return on nothingness! My kickstarter to stop the big bad government from searching through our amazon shopping carts just reached it's goal of $0! Thanks guy's! We really taught them a lesson about collecting all that data we throw out in the open and give to multi-billion dollar corporations. Safety be damned! Plus the NSA is useless, look how few attacks we have had since 9/11, obviously the NSA has nothing to do with that. The government is out to get us people, this entity made up of hundreds of thousands of positions, changing and revolving all the time definitely has an organized long term goal set up to spy on everything we do, because it's not like they are also american citizens watching out for themselves as well. The government is a single entity that wants power just because, they don't care about observing and foiling terrorist plots, they just want to control you because big brother.

/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s</comment></comment></comment>


The reasons HMS Queen Elizabeth has two 'islands' - <AUTHOR> http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/the-reasons-hms-queen-elizabeth-has-two-islands/ <comment><USER2> > The captain has a day cabin just behind the bridge for use at sea but as is > usual on a carrier, his spacious main cabin is down aft with the other > officer accommodation. There is a small lift that allows him to quickly get > up or down from the bridge to the operations room which is situated seven > decks below.

> The Commander Air, "Wings" gets a day cabin in the aft island but does not > have his own lift, like the Captain up forward.

I know there's a perfectly good practical reason for the Commander Air not having a lift, but i do love the idea that we British are still playing silly little status games even at sea!

<comment><USER3> Status can be conferred in lieu of extra pay :)

In all seriousness, symbols of status are important in the military, and not just to stroke the top guy's ego. They reinforce the notion of hierarchy, which is something without which you lose battles you might have won.

Besides, if there's any people who know how to prepare for and execute surface warfare, it's you British. Clearly you've done _something_ right over the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The US uses nuclear power for it's Nimitz and Ford class carriers, so there is no need for extensive exhaust.

<comment><USER5> These ships can't use the Suez canal which can be problematic

<comment><USER6> The primary size constraint of US ships is the Panama canal.

<comment><USER7> The Suez restriction is due to politics and tolls, not size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The reason is very simple : after the Falklands war the Royal Navy adopted a design rule which states that all surface ships must have two islands. You can see it in the 45, 23 and 26.

My guess is that this is because of the fires which took Sheffield out of combat, the initial damage from the Exocet warhead was substantial, but what killed Sheffield and Coventry was the fire afterwards. The investigations afterwards showed that a split superstructure would have allowed continued operation including withdrawal from the combat space and low allocation of rescue resources.

I think/guess that this would have been critical should aggressor forces been slightly more substantial; it would have been very easy to get into a situation where the capability to manage the rescue and recovery of struck ships would have been lost, and this would have led to a substantial escalation in casualties and probable collapse of the fighting capability of the formation - hence to a strategic opportunity for aggressor forces.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is anyone else disturbed by the fact with all that money spent on this, they choose this horrendous decor for the chairs styling?

[http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/H...](http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/HMS-Ark-Royal-Bridge.jpg)

<comment><USER10> That screams "competition winner".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title is highly confusing. I believed that it was about the Queen (person) owning two physical (land) islands.

But HMS Queen Elizabeth is a ship and the islands are the two towering structures on it.

<comment><USER12> The HMS portion makes it clear that we're talking about a boat

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty%27s_Ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty%27s_Ship)

<comment><USER3> <wince>. A _ship_.

<comment><USER12> I do not accept or acknowledge "a ship is bigger than a boat" hegemony.

<comment><USER3> But if you call it a ship, then it can have a boat and you don't have to say things like "they launched the boat's boat".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With twice as many towers the enlisted personnel on Royal Navy carriers will have twice as many people pissed off at them when there's a minor slip up.</comment>


Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL's Armstrong Reverses 401(K) Policy - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/02/08/aol-reverses-401k-policy/ <comment><USER2> I'm baffled by Tim Armstrong's rise to the top. I think he got there by virtue of having founded Patch, which never did anything before getting (nearly) shut down .... he seems to constantly piss everyone off, while accomplishing nothing, and yet ... CEO of a major brand?! (Other unpleasant CEOs - I can point to what they've accomplished.)

What am I missing? Does he have some other claim to fame and fortune that is not documented? Or is AOL making a technology or market share comeback that I'm unaware of?

<comment><USER3> It wasn't Patch. He built up advertising sales at Google starting in 2000.

<comment><USER4> He _did_ found Patch in 2007, though I don't suspect that was instrumental in his pick as AOL CEO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's great that he apologized, but I think it shows how crappy things are that such a decision was made in the first place. An outstanding Q4, and yet they were planning to take benefits away from employees? That doesn't seem very "employee-first" to me.

<comment><USER6> According to Armstrong, Obamacare forced them to increase benefits for employees in healthcare. So reducing retirement benefits commensurately seems like a reasonable way to make sure comp stays the same.

This is exactly what you should expect when you mandate employers provide a benefit to employees - they will cut something else to make up the difference. Employees who liked the other thing more are screwed.

A single good quarter is NOT a reason to increase employee comp. Maybe a bonus (note: AOL has bonuses which are based mainly on profit sharing, not individual performance), but not a permanent comp increase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Makes me wonder what the missing word or phrase between "employee-first" and "culture" is. "To be cut"? "To be scapegoated"?

</comment><comment><USER7> I know it will sound unfeeling but I have to wonder why, in a world with billions of people, we would spend a million dollars to keep just one human alive?

<comment><USER8> All the other points about morality and such aside, a million dollars isn't even that much. Even from a pure cold-hearted rational perspective, the kid can be expected to contribute two or three times that much in economic activity over his life, so it's actually worth the money too.

<comment><USER9> Right, it might make sense to save an infant (although it makes a lot more economic sense for women who cannot have healthy children to adopt instead).

But the bigger question is why we spend so much money to prolong the life of someone who's in their 70s or 80s (and often suffering and in pain) for another couple of years, or even just months.

<comment><USER10> That's part of what makes us human and not computers or animals. Some things are not rational yet we do them anyway.

<comment><USER9> Human folly has lead to a variety of illogical practices, many of which have been stamped out over the centuries. There's no reason the same couldn't be done here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While his comments are rather insensitive they do serve to illustrate the madness of the current employer paid health insurance system in the USA. We need to get employers out of the system. Require everyone to purchase individual policies on the private market and provide government subsidies to those who can't afford it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Karrie is married to my cousin Kyle. In 2005 their first child, Kathleen was born. Kathleen's birth was covered by insurance via Karrie's employer. Her employer was AOL.

Kathleen was named after Kyle's mother [my aunt]. She was killed in an automobile accident. At her funeral, I was ten. Kyle was in second grade.

Kathleen was what Mr. Armstrong would call a distressed baby. Medical costs associated with her treatment exceeded a million dollars. Insurance paid. She died from cancer anyway.

Logically I admit that there could be worse events to befall a human than the death of a child, but I am certain Mr Armstrong's abstraction doesn't capture the tears and pain and sadness of the events it references.

Imagine being the parent of one of the infants who Mr. Armstrong held responsible.</comment>


KLM is celebrating Comic Sans day today (NL only) - <AUTHOR> http://www.klm.com/travel/nl_nl/index.htm

<comment><USER2> It seems to be "organized" by a radio station. This radio station is organizing a Comic Sans day and KLM joined the Comic Sans day. In addition to using Comnic Sans KLM is also giving away tickets to Paris and back to the NL for people whose name is C. Sans. Neat idea...

[http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&h...](http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.klm.com/travel/nl_nl/index.htm%26biw%3D934%26bih%3D730&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=nl&u=http://nieuws.klm.com/ook- comicsansdag-bij-klm/&usg=ALkJrhg1EX3-sCG5-1Eonuu_PAwZe-L0Ug)

<comment><USER3> This is the radio station: [http://www.3fm.nl/](http://www.3fm.nl/) and their website is also fully in Comic Sans

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love it. It's what every big company can learn from Google's doodle: A little bit of non-conformity/strangeness makes the biggest giant appear humane.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, as awful as Comic Sans is, it really does make their homepage look more friendly. Considering how complicated some airline bookings can be, I don't think that's a bad thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really curious how this will affect their conversion. I'm betting that the traffic from people who want to take a look (because of this comic sans day) isn't that good and people who didn't hear about it will maybe convert worse.

<comment><USER7> On the other hand, if you are not Dutch (or perhaps West-European), you may not have heard of KLM before. And now you do.

Of course, with your username the probability is near one that you already knew them ;).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They're also giving away free tickets to Paris for anyone who can prove they're named C. Sans. I don't think that's a very popular surname in The Netherlands.

<comment><USER9> In 2007, there were 43 people named "Sans".

[http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nfb/detail_naam.php?gba_lcnaam=s...](http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nfb/detail_naam.php?gba_lcnaam=sans&gba_naam=Sans&nfd_naam=Sans&operator=eq&taal=)

<comment><USER8> I wonder how many of them have a first name starting with a C _and_ saw this contest.

I'm guessing none.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is OT but Ghostery blocked _20_ different tracking scripts on that page. I've never seen such a huge list from one site!

<comment><USER11> Strange. I see only one blocked, and I've got everything blocked and auto- update turned on. I think your ghostery may be malfuctioning, because a cursory glance at the resources doesn't reveal much out of the ordinary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This might be a feature rather than a drawback of the iPad but the Comic Sans font isn't rendering in Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER13> Mandatory link to the epic _" I'm Comic Sans, Asshole."_ published on McSweeney's: [http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans- asshole](http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole)

A fine day for Comic Sans to say " _Enough of this bullshit. I'm gonna go get hammered with Papyrus._ " Happy Comic Sans Day everybody!

<comment><USER14> Also mandatory link to 'So you need a typeface' flowchart: [http://julianhansen.com/](http://julianhansen.com/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: I launched a Musk scented air freshener called Elon's Musk - <AUTHOR> https://elonsmusk.co <comment><USER2> I saw your site. navigated it a little and eventually ended up in amazon getting a book on elon musk

</comment><comment><USER3> It better smell like rocket fuel in the morning.</comment>


AudioGL reaches beta - <AUTHOR> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/10/audiogl-beta-arrives-complete-with-futuristic-3d-musical-creation-flythroughs/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a highly-capable trial version (no saving, but otherwise functional) available for free if you just want to get your feet wet without throwing down $80 - windows only, for now. <https://www.audiogl.com/en/downloads></comment>


Cheap 3D-printed home is a start for the 1B who lack shelter - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17101856/3d-printed-housing-icon-shelter-housing-crisis <comment><USER2> Hard to tell, but it sounds like they're 3-D printing the building envelope, minus vapor barriers and whatnot. But nowadays the envelope is not the expensive part of a building, although it is the most visible. Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, floor finishing, decor, and so on accounts for most of the building cost. For some reason they aren't mentioned in the story, probably because nobody has a credible automation approach to them yet.

If you want to reduce the cost of the building envelope, possibly superadobe, shotcrete on airforms, ferrocrete, and flexible domes are better bets than 3-D printing of concrete. (The geodesic dome was conceived specifically as a solution to this problem, but I'm not convinced it actually does a good job at it.)

What's the current solution these things are competing with? Here in Argentina, the standard low-cost construction approach in the _villas miserias_ is masonry with hollow bricks (18×33 cm), which cost 50¢. So a 6m×6m×3m building envelope requires about 1200 bricks, costing US$600 (AR$12000) if you buy them new instead of scavenging, plus some mortar and a corrugated-metal roof, which add a bit to the cost. It takes several days or even, at times, weeks to finish the construction; usually the family who live there build the house themselves, which is less of an opportunity cost than it sounds like with the unemployment rate as high as it is, especially among youth. Some families pour concrete slabs, others use dirt floors.

So, roughly speaking, this approach has to come down in cost by 10× to even compete with our current vernacular architecture, let alone improve on its pricing.

The concrete-3-D-printing approaches I've seen, like Andrey Rudenko's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5Elbvvr1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5Elbvvr1M), all share the drawback that they require a long time, because you have to wait for the lower layers of the construction to cure a bit before you can add more layers. Their big advantage is not that they're cheaper than pouring concrete into forms — although they may be, especially if you're building a large building or a dense construction — but that they have a lot of freedom of geometry.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the cost of the land...

Short of a radical change in how our society works, the only realistic solution to homelessness is going to have to be some kind of decent social housing. Maybe it will somehow be cheaply 3D-printed but the government is going to have to buy the land first. (That, or stop making it exclusive to the rich.) Access to land was the original problem here (since Enclosure Acts) and it has to be part of the solution.

<comment><USER4> In the last few years I've lived in Cleveland OH (5 years in college), Denver CO / Colorado Springs (3 months), and San Jose / SF Bay area (1 year). All 3 of these places had homelessness issues and the root causes were very different in each.

In Cleveland, the homeless seemed to be mostly folks who grew up in low-income neighborhoods (median reported household income $14,000 [1]) from very broken families, who find themselves adults with few skills no motivation to help themselves because they've never known what hope is.

Homelessness in Colorado seemed to stem more from veterans with PTSD who can't hold down a job, or those with other forms of disabilities.

Homelessness in the SF Bay area was the most confusing to me. I met people there who could've been myself in 10 years, but they were homeless or had once been homeless just because they couldn't afford a place to live there. I don't know if this area just lacks housing or if it attracts the homeless but I know for certain that being homeless here is nothing like being homeless in Cleveland.

It's really not a one-size-fits-all problem.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hough%2C_Cleveland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hough%2C_Cleveland) I'm using this neighborhood as an example because I used to volunteer at a school here, but there are many neighborhoods like it.

<comment><USER5> > Homelessness in the SF Bay area was the most confusing to me. I met people > there who could've been myself in 10 years, but they were homeless or had > once been homeless just because they couldn't afford a place to live there.

Mental illness and drugs (which really should probably be folded into mental illness) is actually a bigger factor.

1) Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". Consequently, the mentally ill wind up on the streets or in jail--neither of which is actually a good solution. We've only had about 5 years since removing most of the nitwits from the state legislature/Congress (the jungle primaries and redistricting commission have been in effect since 2010 and it flushed most of the Republican nitwits--and Mueller may get the remaining ones), and building/fixing takes more time than dismantling.

2) It also didn't help that some places were actually busing in their mentally ill population to San Francisco.

3) San Francisco weather doesn't kill people. Morbidly, being sufficiently mentally ill in, say, Pittsburgh or Cleveland, probably kills you in winter (and possibly summer).

<comment><USER6> > Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those > with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the > private sector".

De-institutionalizing the mentally ill was broadly supported across the political spectrum; the institutionalized system was both ineffective and often inhumane.

That both community mental health treatment and poverty support was and remains inadequate are problems, and de-institutionalization certainly highlighted those problems, but let's not create a false historical narrative that de-institutionalization was a policy forced on the country by one political faction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi, this is Matthew, one of the cofounders at New Story (YC S15). We're the nonprofit developing this 3D printed home. I'd like to share why we decided to invest in an innovation like this and where we're headed. For context, in 3 years, we've built over 1,000 homes in 11 communities around the world through local partners.

The challenge we face is monumental; there are more than a billion people across the globe living without safe shelter. To make a dent in that number, our ability to scale up has to change.

Steady, linear improvements will never reach the total addressable market of families in need.

We believe R&D and product innovation is essential with a problem of this magnitude. We have to take big swings with forward-thinking technology to achieve a quantum leap in speed, affordability, and quality.

Our goal is to help power anyone building homes for the poor — governments and non-profits alike — to do their best work. As we make these strides, it means more families around the world will have safe shelter and can better actualize their potential.

We're looking at a one billion person deficit of a basic human need. We believe maintaining the status quo is irresponsible — it's terrifying to us — as it'll never tackle this deficit. Our hypothesis today is that this breakthrough to reach more families can be achieved through robotics and 3D home printing.

A year ago, the technology we needed didn't exist. That's when we began working with ICON to create a solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem. The exciting result is "the Vulcan," a 3D Home Printer designed to print a home for less than $4,000 in less than 24 hours. This robotic breakthrough delivers:

* Cost decrease (from $6,500/home to ~$4,000 and even lower future cost) * Speed increase (from ~15 days to 12–24hrs to build one home) * Improved quality and customization of the home unit for families

More here -> newstorycharity.org/3d-home

We'd love to answer any and all questions.

<comment><USER8> With all due respect for your work and intentions, please explain to me (hairy reasoner) two things:

1) How would the hypothetical 15 days/home reduced to 24h/home be relevant [1]

2) How the new machine is compatible with the statement on your site:

[https://newstorycharity.org/sponsor/](https://newstorycharity.org/sponsor/)

>Built By Locals

>By training local labor and buying locally sourced construction materials your donation not only builds a home, but it stimulates local economies and teaches skills in the process.

[1] Please consider also how the 24h are per home is also per machine/robot, if you assemble 15 teams of local builders you have exactly the same production

<comment><USER9> I am similarly cynical. Can you explain why it is not better to use something simple, like cinder blocks, and put people to work in low wage/low employment/low skill environment? My only guess is because there is no place for your tech in that equation but, it seems better if you are really trying to make this a social mission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the problems with such schemes is that it is not vernacular housing. It is a top down, one size fits all scheme that contains zero local knowledge and no means to incorporate local knowledge.

Vernacular housing is local traditional housing built with local materials and suited to the local climate. So, adobe in the American Southwest and deep porches in the American Southeast so you can have windows open in rainy weather.

It typically winds up working about as well as transplanting a New York apartment to a farm. A New York apartment makes sense in New York. It doesn't make sense on a farm.

<comment><USER11> In addition, what happens to the local building trades, whether established or nascent? Are they integrated into the scheme or made redundant?

After watching the video, it's evident this method of construction has another disadvantage over the lifecycle of the structure: The walls cannot be easily modified. (And this is a characteristic and complaint of nearly all poured-in- place concrete construction, often cited by institutional caretakers of brutalist buildings.)

An economical house should be able to change and grow according to the needs and means of its owners. That's much more difficult when adding a door or window requires a diamond-blade, water-cooled saw to cut through a thick structural concrete web while avoiding embedded service conduits. In comparison, walls of concrete block, brick, and wooden studs are more readily modified, though each has other favorable and unfavorable characteristics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The folks that put together this 3D printer maybe should have visited a country like Mexico to understand the houses are already put together ad-hoc with cinder blocks. You can put together a cinder block house for about $10,000 [1] and pay as you go over months or years requiring no loan or interaction with a bank. You can carry cinder blocks by hand or truck up the side of a mountain and it doesn't require much skill to put together.

[1] [https://www.curbed.com/2015/1/2/10006114/mexico- affordable-h...](https://www.curbed.com/2015/1/2/10006114/mexico-affordable- housing-box-house-s-ar)

<comment><USER13> And that is including the massive cement markups found in Mexico thanks to PEMEX. Imagine if Mexicans could purchase cement at the prices their neighbors to the North do.

See [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1019426769244153760](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1019426769244153760) for a dated explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to be in the home-building industry...

With a team of three carpenters a hand-saw and hammers I could build a house like the one in the picture in 48 hours out of a sustainable material - softwood. With a nailgun I could go quicker still.

I could use a 4x2 studding wall, plywood, breather membrane, counter-batten, clad with larch featheredge. Once up a vapour barrier could stapled inside and recycled paper insulation blown in. Inside that I could line out with fire resistant plasterboard (drywall to my transatlantic cousins) (backed with urethane if extra insulation is needed). This design is easily prefabricated if desired.

To contrast with the concrete one this would

a) use sustainable materials

b) meet the building code of a developed nation.

If you are dead set on a concrete wall then just build a set of plywood forms (shuttering as it was called in my day) and cast it in place. A day to put the forms up and pour. The forms are reusable too once set. Now you have a bunker to insulate, waterproof and line out. In the UK you would need to build some kind of studding inside your pill-box for insulation and damp control, much like the 'barn-conversions' the UK is full of. This makes the concrete bit semi-redundant.

Sorry but I think this is a poor application of 3d printing. All we need now is a start-up to build a house with a cloud-based block-chain to get the VC's really excited.

If you want to look at some really quick constructions there are the brilliant post war 'pre-fabs' of the UK, designed to replace housing lost to bombing. Some could be assembled on-site in 4 hours! There are many still in use today. If it wasn't for the amount of asbestos used there may have been many more still remaining. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdom)

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't it the case that the vast majority of people lacking housing are really lacking in land (or at least, stable land)?

$10K on a permanent structure is only viable if you have permanent title on the land below it.

There are places in the UK in which you could buy brick-and-mortar constructed homes, fully wired in to electricity, water, gas and telephone lines with a freehold for approx 5x that - the cost usually isn't prohibitive as such, it's the fact that they're in the wrong place (local jobs pay barely anything, or the community is bad).

Similarly I can go out and buy a car for 300 GBP, but the insurance costs (especially if young), excise duty, fuel costs, ongoing maintenance absolutely dwarf it.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I don't feel construction costs are relevant here, there are a whole bunch of regulatory / community / cultural issues in play.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's just poured concrete. Building house shells from poured concrete is done worldwide. Edison started that; his system for low-cost housing used standard forms that locked together. Then you pour in concrete, wait, remove the forms, and you have a house. He even built in concrete furniture, which wasn't popular.

Much of the world lives in poured-concrete apartment blocks. It's just so cheap. The main problem is crap concrete mixes. If you want to improve concrete construction, come up with a hand-held device where you stick a probe into the mix and it tells you if it's OK.

This has been tried a few times.[1][2] Just pouring on concrete like that doesn't compact it properly. Compare the Lil Bubba curb making machine, a simple machine which makes concrete curbs.[3] It's a slip-form machine; the form gives the concrete a smooth edge and top, and as someone shovels in more concrete, it compacts it and pushes itself along. The 3D concrete printing people need to develop something as good as the Lil Bubba. Then they can make flat, solid walls in place. Some of the competing machines have some slip-form guides, so they get a flat surface.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ_WqvjJtDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ_WqvjJtDw) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-iebHRxJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-iebHRxJk) [3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZMpu4MKn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZMpu4MKn8)

<comment><USER17> >It's just poured concrete. Building house shells from poured concrete is done worldwide. Edison started that; his system for low-cost housing used standard forms that locked together. Then you pour in concrete, wait, remove the forms, and you have a house. He even built in concrete furniture, which wasn't popular.

Totally true. And these days it is possible to go even further than that.

Concrete construction can be made even cheaper if the cost is a genuine impediment. If material cost is the issue, you can use large aggregate filler, foaming agents, flyash based cements. If it is the time that is at premium, than you can go for SIPs or stay in place formworks. If workforce is the limiting factor, go for larger concrete pours with concrete flowability enhancers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How much homelessness exists in developing world because houses are too expensive to build? $4,000 already builds a nice house in many areas, especially when labor is very cheap.

To build a house one must first own or rent the land where to build the house. Investing $4,000 for a house you build illegally is stupid. When city planning and zoning is inadequate and ownership uncertain, slums naturally emerge.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have seen a lot of these "neat" solutions over the past few years. And the counter arguments I've seen are "we already have this, it's 10x cheaper, faster to setup, etc...". These arguments are based on things like the Ikea shelters/homes, or other prefab stuff that's _super_ cheap.

But, the arguments against these is that it doesn't provide income for local labor, or use local resources... but neither does this 3d printed house.

So, where is this all really going, when we have multiple solutions right now that could help people, but they are not being used?

Is the problem actually political and corruption, and not technical or monetary? Or are these other solutions just as much hot air, and we really do need a new tech to fill in the gap?

<comment><USER20> Housing is rarely limited by construction, it's limited by land rights and infrastructure buildout. Oh, and credit availability; even down to "microcredit" for the really poor places.

<comment><USER19> Then doesn't seem like then the most likely successful solution will be the _easiest_ to get past the bureaucracy?

Seems like a discouraging thought. Maybe a fancy 3d printed solution would appeal to some politicians ego, and that's the trick to getting it to happen?

<comment><USER20> There's an excellent discussion of this in The Other Path : [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Path:_The_Economic...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Path:_The_Economic_Answer_to_Terrorism)

Basically the author points out that so much housing in Peru was slums built on illegally occupied land that technically belongs to the government, what was needed was a route to legitimacy. Give people proper title to the land they had already had possession of for decades and suddenly they can use it as collateral.

Legitimacy also causes people to choose more durable building methods. If there's a risk of being thrown out there's no point making anything more than a tin shed.

<comment><USER21> > Give people proper title to the land they had already had possession of for > decades and suddenly they can use it as collateral.

Makes you wonder how the municipality keeps track of titles and tax assessments. Without collecting proper taxes how can the local government provide water/sanitation/energy/education? Perhaps what these people need more than affordable housing is affordable yet sustainable government.

Give the people the tools they need to self organize, trade, set up courts and resolve disputes. With the basics in place it might be possible to attract capital via municipal bonds to invest in critical infrastructure. Having running water and electricity makes it easier to attract business which in return generates taxable revenue.

<comment><USER20> Considerable progress has been made: [http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00819C/WEB/PDF/PERU_...](http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00819C/WEB/PDF/PERU_LAN.PDF)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm never quite sure what these approaches add to prefab. This process costs $10k to produce up to an 800 sq ft (74m^2) home. They say this is a fraction of the cost of the average American home, but the average new American home since ~2013 is 2500 sq ft (232 m^2), so of course its a fraction of that, and I guess it cuts out the labor. However, I would imagine that even in El Salvador, the principal cost of a new home is acquiring the land. Surely labor and materials are cheaper there, so what am I missing here?

<comment><USER23> Outside of cities land is not a big component of the cost.

There's acre lots near town here that are $10,000; further away prices go down.

<comment><USER24> But is there much homelessness to solve outside of cities? When I think of poor rural areas I think of abandoned houses, not of people sleeping under the stars for lack of novel construction techniques.

The "help the poor" angle could be a clever attention hack though, if the technology is fast and cheap enough there might be a nice market in civil engineering somewhere between concrete and gabions to pivot to.

<comment><USER23> I was just making a narrow point about construction of homes in the US. People that want to live in exclusive areas pay a lot for land, others not so much.

And for homelessness, the problem isn't really that housing costs a lot to build, it's that no one wants to build it. This is probably true in a lot of places that aren't as wealthy as the US.

The town planning commission here just rejected a $10 million project that was mostly low income housing. Some of them had the brass to come right out and say that they didn't want low income people living in that part of town and some of the others used the "historic character" of the shoddy commercial building presently on the site as a fig leaf. One guy dissembled, saying that the project should happen somewhere else. But of course the developer has a different set of concerns and won't necessarily be willing to make the same investment in a different location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At first sight it seems to me like it is the usual "flawed" approach to third world problems by people having only first world experience.

Loosely building a house is made of costs coming out of:

1) base materials (and the plants to make them and the logistics to bring them on site)

2) equipment

3) labour

In "first world" countries they can be _roughly_ weighted (as percentage of building costs) as:

1) 40%-50%

2) 10%-15%

3) 35%-50%

So everyone is trying to make more "industrial" the building using prefabricated components, standardized parts, etc, attempting to reduce the labour on site, it is logical.

In not-developed countries, usually pure labour is extremely cheap, while materials (and the logistics) are extremely expensive, besides equipment that (not being available for rent or sub-contracting on the local market) needs to be imported and is only justified on larger projects.

It is not unusual that the same percentages in a not-developed country become:

1) 70%-75%

2) 15%-20%

3) 5%-10%

Additionally the problem might be finding locally _skilled_ labour capable of managing the high tech equipment.

<comment><USER25> Skill is a significant factor.

Tech can mitigate it as can mentoring and enabling at scale.

Quality matters. The better the homes are, the better the return on investment and quality of life is, both being necessary goals.

<comment><USER26> I'd say technology can also increase the burden of skill. I.e. an average jigsaw and pencil line requires less skill and is safer than operating a CNC router, until the router gets a ton of failsafes, sensors, etc implemented. the Anti-crash features probably cost more in a CNC than the rest of the machine does (and that is why mine doesn't have any except the minimum).

You're right that quality matters. My take on this is designing for poor tolerances to still yield strong structures. This 3D printing approach looks good for some aspects, but the lack of a roof seems disqualifying for me. The roof is the hard part, and potentially the easiest part to do incorrectly/unsafely. I'm surprised they didn't just print in crenelations in the top edge to allow drop-in roof joists. a simple shed roof seems like it could have easily been integrated.

<comment><USER25> Agreed. They could also make a similar process to create roofs. Building some support structures maybe a layup type thing, print over the top of that and now you got roofs that can drop in maybe be drilled and bolted together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> They want to get costs down to $4,000.

You can already build a home of that size for $4,000. The lack of permanent shelter for the world's poorest isn't a technology problem.

</comment><comment><USER23> Comparing the price to a "typical" American home is ridiculous. The typical American home is not a small rectangle.

Compare the price to a similar structure built using the same techniques used to build a home and you end up right in the same ballpark:

[http://84homes.84lumber.com/Garage%20prices.pdf](http://84homes.84lumber.com/Garage%20prices.pdf)

<comment><USER28> _The typical American home is not a small rectangle._

So we should just compare it to the typical Bay Area home then?

(I kid, I kid)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Technology is not always the solution to all problems.

1\. You could ameliorate the misery of homelessness by providing a low cost "locker" system where people could store a cubic meter of so of goods while homeless. 2\. There are various low cost home plans, shelters made from a single sheet of plywood, hot-bunk and ultra high density housing plans. 3\. So far, no one has a sustainable economic model that would encourage an municipality to compete for the existing homeless.

Both architecture and civil engineering are the wrong advances to solve this problem.

</comment><comment><USER30> How is this in any way locally sustainable. If you want to shelter people then the people need to be able to build and sustain that level of technology.

</comment><comment><USER31> I applaud the intention behind it but it would be yet another addition to such endeavors. Problem is not the lack of such ideas, the problem is lack of any organized approach to address this problem at a Global Stage.

Similar to World coming together to fight against measles and polio, basic human needs such as shelter, etc. need to be met.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is ludicrous.

It's the solution one comes up with if they haven't given a minute to ask why 1B people don't have adequate shelter. I don't think this will move the needle a bit.

</comment><comment><USER33> Constructing walls by laying down layers of cement does not constitute a 3d printed home. How does this automatic wall maker compare to El Salvador labor in cost and quality?

<comment><USER34> This is exactly what I think of when I think of "3d printed home." I'm curious what you think it would mean?

<comment><USER33> I think of a house as more than just concrete verticals. A house has insulation, wiring, wood framing, windows, plumbing, heating, flooring, siding, roofing, ventilation not to mention all the decor that is considered part of a house. Just look at the picture in the article and ask yourself what was "printed" in that image. I think the only thing that was printed was that ugly concrete vertical layered stuff.

<comment><USER34> So, how about "3d printed house frame"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A house, any house, needs to be placed on some plot of land. So as for those who lack shelter, do they already have a piece of land and just can't cheaply build on it, or is it not having land at all that is the problem

</comment><comment><USER36> This seems like a better solution for the massive homeless populations in the United States. These could be govt funded and placed on state owned land. I'd love to see it tested out in California. Los Angeles funded the $1.2b proposition HHH. We have around 58,000 homeless. For less than half the allocated funds, you've built a house for all of them. Yes, it's more complicated than that. But it's a start.

<comment><USER37> They need jobs too, so if you're going to house homeless people it probably makes more sense to have dorm style housing somewhere close to jobs they can do, rather than individual homes farther out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Interesting idea. What's the cost of this home vs a timber home? Life span, cost of upkeep, R factor, etc.

From my observations building the frame of the house is relatively quick here in the states. I would be that the habitat for humanities groups could put up a similar size house frame in less than 8 hours. So what is the advantage here?

</comment><comment><USER39> Article says they _hope_ to bring the cost down to to $4000 from $15000. Meanwhile projects like this exist: [http://www.300house.com/](http://www.300house.com/) That's $300. So what's revolutionary about $15000 or $4000 for a "cheap" home?

<comment><USER40> Interesting article, but odd to frame the cheapest possible house as the last word in ultra-affordable housing. Has anyone actually built one of these? Would Americans live in one?

<comment><USER41> It is built. v1 was built in Austin,TX (sxsw) and we'll be rolling out to the developing world later this year

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Replace "concrete" with "lunar soil" and we're talking.[1]

[1]: [https://www.space.com/19602-moon-colony-3d-printing-lunar- di...](https://www.space.com/19602-moon-colony-3d-printing-lunar-dirt.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> There's a reason concrete isn't generally used for housing : it retains heat very well in the summer, and transmits cold in the winter just as well. A double shell or foamy concrete could solve this, however.

</comment><comment><USER44> Well god bless good intentions, and it's a cool idea, but it seems better- suited to the first world than the third.

None of the naysayers have yet mentioned the fact that concrete (especially its ingredient Portland cement) is one of the most energy- and greenhouse-gas- intensive building materials available. (It's made by baking certain minerals in an oven at high temperature.)

We who live in large, energy-intensive houses would actually do better for the environment, and for global housing inequity, by living outdoors and in improvised huts of natural materials, rather than trying to get the people who are doing it _right_ to come "up" to an Austin, TX standard of living. But nobody wants to hear that kind of idea. Therefore, we wait until nature imposes that solution on us.

</comment><comment><USER45> > Using the Vulcan printer, ICON can print an entire home for $10,000 and > plans to bring costs down to $4,000 per house.

OK, according to the "global wealth pyramid" [1], a graphical representation of global wealth distribution, the bottom 3 billion own less than 10'000$. I'm not saying that being poor is equal to lacking shelter, but there is probably a correlation there.

3d printing homes is cool and might have potential, but it won't help a poor farmer in rural Azerbaijan get shelter. It would be great if the media could stop presenting this as a panacea to homelessness.

[1] [https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/articles/news- and...](https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/articles/news-and- expertise/the-global-wealth-pyramid-2016-201612.html)

<comment><USER46> Sorry, I'm confused by this.

Almost no one in the United States owns their homes. Can't the poor farmer in Azerbaijan finance this just like we do?

The payments on a 30 year loan like we have for $4,000 would be like $10 a month before interest.

<comment><USER2> No. Generally speaking, this kind of low-cost financing only exists in rich countries. In poor countries, interest rates, default rates, and often inflation rates are high and unpredictable. (There may be exceptions, and in particular I've never been to Azerbaijan, but I don't know of any exceptions.)

One element that contributes to the unavailability of financing is the unpredictable nature of many people's land tenure; I wrote a bit about that in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16569078)

<comment><USER14> Then wouldn't a low cost way to introduce proper land title and efficient banking systems to third world countries be a better use of our first world technology/skills/knowledge?

<comment><USER2> As it turns out, invading "third world" countries, overthrowing their existing institutions, and installing "proper" systems designed in "first world" countries has been tried. It was, broadly speaking, the foreign policy of Europe toward poor countries during roughly the period 1600 to 1950. It was called "colonialism", and it caused the problems we see there today, as well as much worse problems (up to and including the extermination of entire populations) while it was going on.

I do not think that attempting to re-establish colonialism, as you propose, would be a good use of our technology, skills, or knowledge. However, Peter Thiel and the current government of Honduras seem to disagree.

<comment><USER14> I'm really glad you replied. I hadn't realised that it was impossible to offer help and technical support without invading. Strawman-of-the-month-award goes to....

<comment><USER2> It's not a strawman. You didn't propose offering help and technical support. You proposed introducing "proper" systems of banking and land title. If you can decide how a country's systems of banking and land title work, you are governing that country. Thus, your proposal is that "third-world" countries be governed by people from "first-world" countries. That's nothing more or less than colonialism. It is a terrible idea.

Perhaps you think that poor countries don't have existing systems of land tenure or credit. We do. We aren't monkeys banging on rocks. The problem is that those systems suck. You might think they suck because nobody here knows how better systems work. But in fact, not only do we have internet access and universities, many of us have studied overseas in rich countries and even worked there, some even in banking and real estate. They suck because of resistance to change by the people in power, who are not entirely wrong, because change often looks like the Congo Free State, the Khmer Rouge, the Second Opium War, or Donald Trump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Offshoot question. Why can't we do this with plastic. Plastic sheds hold up great. And plastic lasts for 1000s of years.

<comment><USER48> Well, one concern may be that plastic lasts for 1000s of years. What do you do when you decide to renovate a village of ten thousand plastic silos or boxes? Transporting and recycling that volume of material would probably be expensive, even if it were a type of plastic that was largely recoverable without losing much of its material properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> this is a waste of time. besides all the great points made elsewhere, about the availability of land, there is the fact that this technique does not provide a good house. concrete houses are usually re-enforced with steel. where is the re-enforcement? concrete is supposed to have "aggregate." without it, you basically have a pile of hardened mortar that expands and contracts way too much when exposed to water.

</comment><comment><USER50> Having adequate mental health services in the United States would be a good start.</comment>


How I got funded by future customers - <AUTHOR>

When I started looking for money for my project, I had no idea how to find funders. I don't live in the US, I'm from Italy and spend too much living in different countries to be able to build the right relationships with funders. So I decided to ask future potential customers.
The system I am building allows people to create their own online business. In Italy I am known as "the guy who lives traveling" and everybody asks me all the time how I do it (I have a small online business...not a very big deal) and I kind of "sold the dream": in short I said "I have been working online and traveling for 10 years. Now I am going to build a platform so that also you can do this. I need money, would you pay in advance 1000 euro to be part of it?". It worked and I collected 25.000..not much but enough to start.
If they decide to leave I have to give the money back (not immediately), while if they stay I made the sale before even writing a single line of code. There's really a lot to say (it's going quite well), it deserves a few blog posts. The best thing is not only that I got the money to go ahead but the community we built together. Amazing people, with a common dream: work online and quit the day job to travel or simply have more control on one's life. Nobody wants to be a millionaire.
I just wanted to share this with you as some may be interested about it. Feel free to ask any questions of course and thank you for HN, it's my first read in the morning! Greetings from Bali. <comment><USER2> I'd be interested in seeing what you're thinking about, because I might know some people who would also be "future customers."

You ought to write up your plans, blog about your progress, and give as a link.

Please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here it is :) [http://www.adormo.com/blog/marketing/how-adormo-was- funded-b...](http://www.adormo.com/blog/marketing/how-adormo-was-funded-by- its-future-customers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> WOWOW!!! How have we missed each other? hehe.

I founded Project Getaway last year (an event in Bali for people with online businesses/location independence), and we had an absolute blast. I now live here in Bali (just north of Sanur), because I love it so much, and really enjoy life. Where in Bali are you situated?

I'm working on building up an office for online entrepreneurs here in Bali too. Have you considered doing that too?

Finally, I just announced our 2011 event, which has some cool videos from last year which you can see here: [http://www.projectgetaway.com/blog/bali-2011-adventurous- ent...](http://www.projectgetaway.com/blog/bali-2011-adventurous- entrepreneurs)

<comment><USER4> eh, me too. I'm in Jakarta for 2 months (ok, not very glamorous), planning to go to Maluku for some time after that, building an online business. Maybe there should be a directory of expat entrepreneurs in indonesia :-)

<comment><USER3> Let me know if you come to Bali and need a place to stay. I am very interested in such an expat entrepreneurs in Indonesia list.

I'm attending IMULAI in Jakarta on April 8th as an investor (Indonesia's version of Y-combinator) and will be in Jakarta for a few days. Would be fun to meet up there if you're in town.

<comment><USER4> I should be in jakarta at that time. My email toumhi at yahoo dot fr

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea. Kind of an airbnb builder. I just have a comment though on this page "<http://www.adormo.com/project/ownersite/en/features.htm>. I would replace "cheapest" by "least expensive", or "cost effective". Cheapest well sounds cheap most of the times. Just a personal preference. That being said, i would love to hear more about your plans.

<comment><AUTHOR> done! Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I will write a blog post then. Just a few quick comments for now:

link: <http://www.adormo.com/> we have a blog too, but I haven't linked it yet from the home page as it has only 4 posts: <http://www.adormo.com/blog>

> Kind of an airbnb builder yes, eventually you may build something like > airbnb. Of course by the time we get there airbnb will be on the moon :) The > idea did not come from there though, I have been working with online > apartments since 2001 and needed a way to build my own websites. Then it > struck me...I can do something for others too!

> Did you solicit your future customers online? yes

> Did you know them from before? no, but many knew my travel blog or were part > of my travel forum.

> Are you an affiliate marketer? I'm not

</comment><comment><USER6> Your attitude is an inspiration to us all.

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Did you solicit your future customers online? 2\. Did you know them from before? 3\. Link to your website

<comment><USER7> from the user's profile, he built this site: <http://www.adormo.com/> which brings airbnb to mind.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like he helps owners of entire apartments to build a reservation website. Different to airbnb. I think this is a grammatical error: "You rent apartments." -> "You lease apartments."

<comment><USER6> It depends on where you are from. I think in America "lease" is more correct, but in many other English speaking countries, "lease" is the name of the legal contract, and "you rent apartments" is perfectly OK.

<comment><USER9> > I think in America "lease" is more correct, but in many other English > speaking countries, "lease" is the name of the legal contract, and "you rent > apartments" is perfectly OK.

In America, there are both rental agreements and lease agreements. Rental agreements are open-ended while lease agreements are for a fixed period of time.

One of the most common forms is actually a hybrid - it's a one year lease that then becomes a month-to-month rental agreement.

FWIW, many "apartment/house for rent" advertisements are actually solicitations for the hybrid agreement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have drafted a product that might fit your customers perfectly, and compliment what you are doing. Maybe we should talk. It would be great if you gave some detail, like in a blog post.

<comment><AUTHOR> please contact me info at adormo com

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Impressive approach. Keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER12> Not much to add, but congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER13> Are you an affiliate marketer?</comment>


Captain American in a Turban - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/captain_america_in_a_turban/ <comment><AUTHOR> I thought the article was intriguing and understand the underlying principles, but the photos look so obviously photoshopped. I don't understand writing the story and faking the photos. Did any of it even happen?

Photos -> [http://www.redbubble.com/people/sikhcaptain/works/10813204-c...](http://www.redbubble.com/people/sikhcaptain/works/10813204-captain- america-on-a-rock?ref=work_carousel_work_portfolio_1)

<comment><USER2> They look HDR'd to me which is all the rage these days. I too thought the article interesting though. Although the narrative of Captain America is that he enlisted in the 40's so chances of him having a turban and a beard are really really low, but it the dissonance effect is one that can be used to great advantage by artists to surface presumptions we don't know we are holding.

<comment><USER3> > Although the narrative of Captain America is that he enlisted in the 40's so > chances of him having a turban and a beard are really really low

Interestingly, one of the first known Sikhs in the US army was Bhagat Singh Thind[1] during the first world war. He was also involved in a legal battle[2][3] for naturalization which eventually lead to the landmark decision to allow "non-whites" to naturalize as US citizens.

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

[2] [http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/204/case.html](http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/204/case.html)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_T...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind)

<comment><USER2> Didn't say it was impossible, just low :-).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On topic: Superman did something somewhat similar, in 2011, where he renounced his U.S. citizenship. [0]

Off topic: Captain America __n __? Editor needs to be spoken to in very serious tones for letting that one slide through (it 's Captain America, no 'n'). And if it turns out the pictures are photoshopped, then this feels way more like some kind of satire to me than honest reporting.

[0] [http://newsok.com/superman-announces-plans-to- renounce-u.s.-...](http://newsok.com/superman-announces-plans-to- renounce-u.s.-citizenship/article/3563431)

<comment><USER5> It's the fault of the HN submitter. If you look at the title on the article, it's fine.

<comment><USER4> Hm, I really thought the article title was wrong, too. You're right, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason some of the photos look unnatural is because the photographer used fill flash [1]. Her crime was not putting a colored filter over the flash to match its color to the ambient light, so the bluish light from the flash stands out as wrong.

[1] [http://strobist.blogspot.tw/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing-f...](http://strobist.blogspot.tw/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing- flash-and.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Photoshopped: [http://media.salon.com/2013/09/vishavjit_singh_embed3.jpg](http://media.salon.com/2013/09/vishavjit_singh_embed3.jpg)

<comment><USER6> It's a little more low-tech:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_%28photography%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_%28photography%29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ok, I applaud the spirit of this, but the execution is lacking. All I have to say to this guy is, do you even lift bro?</comment>


Offer HN: Web/Interface Design - <AUTHOR>

I am a freelance web designer (madebyargon.com) and I have some free time on my hands so I am offering a free web/UI design to HN members.
I am doing this completely free of charge. Just email me your project, and I'll create a design that is (hopefully) more usable and appealing to the users.
Please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and put "Offer HN" in the subject.
Note: While I would try my best to help whoever needs it the most, I am interested in working on a project that has already been launched and is being used by a decent no. of users.
Also, I am more interested in designing interfaces than websites. <comment><AUTHOR> I have receive a lot of requests so far (probably more than I can handle). I will not be providing any more free designs for now. You can still email me for advice, or if you can pay (paid projects obviously get priority).

Thanks.</comment>


Show HN: Color drop animation - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/wentin/pen/doYyrj

<comment><USER2> Cool effect, but does not seem to work on Safari (8.0.5, OSX 10.10.3)

</comment><comment><USER3> Want to show it off on Glitch Club? [http://glitchclub.com](http://glitchclub.com)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> that might be a safari bug on iframe. When open it without the iframe, it works on safari, link: [http://codepen.io/wentin/full/doYyrj/](http://codepen.io/wentin/full/doYyrj/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. But it does not work on Safari. Ok with Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not working in FF 37.0.2 either.</comment>


A Math Paradox: The Widening Gap Between High School and College Math - <AUTHOR> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/2009/11/a_math_paradox_the_widening_ga/

<comment><USER2> The book mentioned in this blog post is a pretty good book. I like another book

<http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Israel-M-Gelfand/dp/0817636773>

for slightly more advanced math learners, including those I teach in the more experienced section of the math classes I teach in my town. Below is a set of quotations and links about math education I send out to parents of newly enrolled students in my classes:

LINKS ABOUT LEARNING MATH AND OTHER SUBJECTS

I was first introduced to a mathematician writing about how to teach math when a parent told me a decade ago about the article "Basic Skills Versus Conceptual Understanding: A Bogus Dichotomy in Mathematics Education,"

[http://www.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/wu....](http://www.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf)

by Professor Hung-hsi Wu. His writings have been very influential on my thinking about math education.

A link that furthered my process of pondering how to teach mathematics better was Richard Askey's review of the book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma.

[http://www.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/ame...](http://www.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/amed1.pdf)

Another review of that excellent book

<http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf>

is also food for thought.

Professor John Stillwell writes, in the preface to his book Numbers and Geometry (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998):

"What should every aspiring mathematician know? The answer for most of the 20th century has been: calculus. . . . Mathematics today is . . . much more than calculus; and the calculus now taught is, sadly, much less than it used to be. Little by little, calculus has been deprived of the algebra, geometry, and logic it needs to sustain it, until many institutions have had to put it on high-tech life-support systems. A subject struggling to survive is hardly a good introduction to the vigor of real mathematics.

". . . . In the current situation, we need to revive not only calculus, but also algebra, geometry, and the whole idea that mathematics is a rigorous, cumulative discipline in which each mathematician stands on the shoulders of giants.

"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down, with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the 'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet at the same time to include more spice and variety."

Stillwell demonstrates what he means about the interconnectedness and depth of "elementary" topics in the rest of his book, which is a delight to read and full of thought-provoking problems.

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/>

Richard Rusczyk, a champion math competitor in high school and now a publisher of math textbooks, among other ventures, has written an interesting article "The Calculus Trap":

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calcul...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php)

I particularly like this article's statement,

"If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom. Students of like interest and ability feed off of each other. They learn from each other; they challenge and inspire each other."

which is one reason to encourage able math learners to learn together.

Another good article about a broader rather than narrower mathematics education is

<http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf>

by William Thurston, a Fields medalist.

"Another problem is that precocious students get the idea that the reward is in being 'ahead' of others in the same age group, rather than in the quality of learning and thinking. With a lifetime to learn, this is a shortsighted attitude. By the time they are 25 or 30, they are judged not by precociousness but on the quality of work."

I recently read an issue of the MAA Focus newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America, and in the newsletter I saw a link to an article by a math professor

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

who is very concerned about the quality of elementary mathematics education in the United States. She provides many interesting examples of ways elementary teachers can think more mathematically about elementary mathematics and thus teach better.

A very interesting article about overcoming learning challenges and thriving from them

[http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat...](http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html)

reports the work of psychologist Carol Dweck, who shows how "growth mindset" can make learners smarter.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a younger sister who is currently going through the High School system in Canada, and as the son of a Teacher and an Engineer (both of Russian upbringing), education is a constant hot topic at family gatherings. While we are not experts on these topics, I'll share some of the opinions that we've reached.

The education in North America (not necessarily the US alone, I live in Canada) is significantly lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to mathematics. This should come to no surprise to anyone who has studied with anyone outside of this country. The Asian and Israeli kids (I am singling them out as I lived in a predominantly immigrant heavy Jewish/Asian neighborhood of Toronto, so I only have them to compare against) in my High School classes _consistently_ scored higher than those born in Canada in all math courses, and this continued throughout my undergrad.

This widening gap between high school and college math is most prominent here, as compared to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In my humble opinion, this is largely due to our policy of "no child left behind" when it comes to Education and, as a secondary cause, due to Teachers teaching the "Fear of Math" (I'll get to that later).

As a society, we are constantly attempting to make sure that all our kids have an equal opportunity at success in life. Pursuing this endeavor, we have decided that rather than recognizing that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, we should level the playing field. But how do we level this field? We simply adjust to the lowest common denominator. We want our children to score higher on the standardized tests, and when the scores are low, we simply make the tests simpler. This lowers the bar so that the weakest links in a particular subject area can keep up (it also allows politicians to get reelected and show how "great" of a job they're doing).

I think this is inherently wrong. First, not everyone needs to be educated with the same level of intensity on a particular subject area. Second, you are preventing "super stars" in particular areas from ever developing since they will never get to grow to their full potential. Integration is too hard for some Grade 12's? Let's remove it altogether. My sister, who is a decade my junior, will never learn even derivatives in high school. Algebra and geometry? Gone. My dad's high school ended in grade 10, and by the end of Grade 10 they have learnt derivatives, integration, and the importance of the natural logarithm. How many of us in our 20's can say the same thing? Yes, the drop out rate was higher, and if you didn't push yourself the system sure as hell did not care, but this is also the system that sent a man who shares my first name into space.

As a society, we have gone soft. We are babying our kids into believing that everything is roses. It made me _furious_ when even as early as Grade 4, my sister would come home with a poor mark and say that it's ok because she "did her best". Really? What do kids really know about doing their best? _of course_ if she truly did her best it would be ok and often when I see someone truly struggling to grasp a concept that they can't I feel both sympathy and have great respect for them, even if they fail. But at such a young age, there is no way that anyone knows what "their best" is, and this constant statement from her teachers is certainly not helping. In fact, I've never heard of "doing your best" until I immigrated to Canada.

And then, then there's the teachers. Oh the teachers. Few people are as important to a society's success as the teachers of children. They are in a _direct_ position to influence and train our minds at a very important stage. And yet, they are underpaid and disrespected, such that only "those who can't do, teach" has become an unfortunate reality in many school systems. This is of course (and luckily) not always true, as some of my closest friends have dreamt of being teachers for as long as I can remember prior to ever beginning their Bachelor's degrees. In a high school environment the situation is also not as terrible as in the elementary schools as the teachers have at least specialized in the subjects they are now teaching.

However, in the elementary school, the situation is in fact worrisome. Class coordinators (those that you spend most of your day with), teach practically everything from Math, to English, to History, at least until grade 5, and sometimes even through middle school. As such, they are in a particularly strong position to put the fear of _____ into you. Generally, this happens to be the "Fear of Math". The teachers may in fact be great educators of English, and may have a very strong foundation in early childhood education, but _quite_ often, these same teachers are the ones who were not great at math growing up, and so they subconsciously teach their own fear and lack of understanding to the kids. I've seen this first hand from kids who are _afraid_ of math without having even _tried_ , and it used to baffle me, until I talked to some of my Math teachers in high school and they explained this concept to me (yeah, I was a nerd growing up and still keep in touch with some of my teachers ;)

I realize that I place a lot of blame and offer few solutions. The truth is, I don't really have many solutions, if I did I would be trying to implement them. I think the position of teacher should be highly respected -- as much as a Doctor and/or a Lawyer or even an Engineer. I think this can only be achieved if teachers are not as heavily underpaid as they are today... I think that the policy of "no child left behind", is fantastic, but it needs to incorporate the realization that not everyone is the same.

Finally, I think that Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math is something everyone should spend 3 minutes, watch, and think about: [http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education.html)

I'd like to apologize to my sister for singling her out in this post, she is a great kid with a good head on her shoulder's. I'd also like to apologize to any teachers that I have inadvertently offended -- I have nothing but the greatest respect for you and your profession. I have been BLESSED by having teachers who did not tell me to just "do my best", but rather challenged me at every turn.

<comment><USER4> As someone who has been through the education system in Israel, I am very suspicious of anyone claiming anything about Israeli high schools is better.

The state of education there is terrible & getting worse. It is common for high school students to go to private tutors who in 5-10 sessions can do more for them then school does in 2 years.

<comment><USER3> I haven't gone through their high school education system, but I studied with plenty of kids who went through it. I don't know if they went to tutors to be honest, since it never came up, but many of those who came to us in grade 10 were much further ahead of those of us in grade 10 in the field of mathematics.

As someone who _did_ study in Israel until the end of grade 6, I can safely and without exaggeration say that when I started grade 7 here, the material we were covering in math was equivalent to what I learnt in grade 5. In fact, I was advised to skip grades, but my parents decided not to advance me as my English was quite poor at the time.

<comment><USER4> When was this?

<comment><USER3> 13 years ago :) Keep in mind, I'm not saying that the High School education system in Israel isn't going to hell and back. It very well may be. The purpose of my post was to discuss Canadian/North American education...My comment on Israel was largely anecdotal in relation to how those kids do in the Canadian high school education system...

<comment><USER4> Well, if they are doing any worse then Israel, they are in trouble. Israel requires math to graduate, but the level is not high. It was my experience that the level is set such that a relatively unmotivated & unintelligent teenager can pass without listening in any classes by doing some preparation in the weeks before.

BTW, I went in the other direction about that time & age as you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the "Lockhart's Lament" explains a good part of the source of this apparent paradox: <http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_08.html>

For some reason they don't teach math in high school, but instead "math" class seems to focus on developing your memorization and robotic homework-completion skills.

<comment><USER6> Anybody who hasn't read this paper half a dozen times should give it another read. It's a fascinating article that will change your outlook on education a little bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something that burned a friend of mine is that college math is nothing like high school math even conceptually. She liked calculus and algebra and became a math major to discover that the math classes she was taking contained very little algebra and no calculus but required really abstract thinking that she had trouble with.

I came at this from the other side, where I dislike mathematics and calculus but love abstract thinking.

<comment><USER8> The education system is like a low pass filter follwed by a high pass filter. The people who really enjoy school math, doing sums, applying equestions, get to university and find it's really hard and abstract and switch courses or drop out. The ones who might be really good at university style math get bored, disengaged, and don't do math at university, never suspecting that it's completely different.

The problem is that school math is trying to accomplish two things at once, and they're at odds with each other.

On the one hand, regular people who go on to regular jobs need numeracy and some facility to understand graphs, sums, and to follow a line of reasoning.

On the other hand, anyone going on to the sciences needs a good background in (school-type) algebra, some geometry, a little calculus, and some statistics. Way more than most people need in everyday life.

The latter group also needs a glimpse of some cool stuff to keep them interested. That's why in the UK there are math masterclasses, "Maths Inspiration", Further Maths, and other groups that try to get kids interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a high school student presently. The Math is trivial.

The only way to learn anything is to read by myself and audit university courses.

I'm actually trying to write a math textbook that will actually teach math. If you're interested email me at email@example.com and I'll email you a copy. Please include `math textbook' in you subject (I get lots of emails).

</comment><comment><USER10> What is most clever about this article (besides the intense and long dialogue created by the subject matter which has resulted in some of the longest comments and replies I have seen for any article) is how his wife purchased that book for their child.

Think about the reactions many parents would fall to by default: Lecturing their child that if they want to be "x" they have to do "x" in school.

Or, not taking seriously what their child wants to do in the future or finding it too much effort to debate why they should be doing their school work because "kids, teenagers, heck even adults, change their minds frequently about what they want to do in the future and look at how many college students change their majors."

That was an impressive solution to the issue his wife pursued and an example that will stay with me a very long time.

+1 to the author of this post and his wife for parenting ingenuity.</comment>


How to choose an open source license for an app - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/450378/how-to-choose-an-open-source-license-for-an-app

<comment><USER2> it's simply a matter of you to decide how your product should be used and how much control over it you want in the future.

up until recently, I published all my code under GPL. One recent project was to develop an interface library which is supposed to work with proprietary modules, so I used the MIT license: <http://search.cpan.org/dist/SIAM/>

</comment><comment><USER2> the rule of thumb is quite simple: if you're in a project where your work is intended for a mixed enterprise environment, with parts of non-opensource code integrated with your work, then choose MIT or Apache license.

Otherwise, GPL works fine for most cases.

for example, an open-source library which is intended to be extended by enterprise-specific drivers, is better to be published under MIT than GPL

<comment><AUTHOR> What about BSD? I hear it falls in with Apache and MIT. Is that accurate?

<comment><USER2> yes. I was just too lazy to type all three :)

there are slight differences between them, so it makes sense to read them anyway before using :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Slowest Mail Delivery System Ever. - <AUTHOR> http://therfidiva.com/2011/04/04/the-slowest-mail-delivery-system-ever/

<comment><AUTHOR> I love that snails are actually delivering mail.</comment>


Fast Incident Response: a cybersecurity incident management platform - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/certsocietegenerale/FIR <comment><USER2> kinda sad that a web app for managing security failures has XSS directly via the UI (you can just copy/paste HTML into it).

I'd be extremely hesitant to put sensitive information into an application that lacks even a basic understanding of how to secure itself.

[https://github.com/certsocietegenerale/FIR/issues/50](https://github.com/certsocietegenerale/FIR/issues/50)

<comment><USER3> Although it's faster to fix a XSS than to build this very system from scratch again. It's better to contribute rather than complain. We all should be thankful because it is open source. Don't you agree?

<comment><USER4> Just think about the momentum open source would have if each time somebody spent time submitting a comment to complain, they instead did a PR and fixed the issue.

#PRsBeforeComplaints, or something like that

<comment><USER5> That's not really viable though is it? It's easy enough to spot flaws without knowing how to fix them.

<comment><USER4> If you've got the skills, open a PR. If you don't, an Issue is sufficient (unless you're demanding a feature).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > FIR is not greedy performance-wise. It will run smoothly on a Ubuntu 14.04 > virtual machine with 1 core, a 40 GB disk and 1 GB RAM.

It's a simple CRUD App, why does it need a whole gig of RAM‽

Also, Is there a demo site, or more screenshots than in the README?

<comment><USER7> requirements.txt:

Django==1.7.6 argparse==1.2.1 cssselect==0.9.1 flup==1.0.2 lxml==3.4.2 pymongo==2.8 pyquery==1.2.9 python-dateutil==2.4.1 pytz==2014.10 six==1.9.0 wsgiref==0.1.2

Also I see Docker mentioned. Not sure if it is supposed to be used in production or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is this #4?

<comment><USER9> Because users of HN found it interesting and decided to upvote it.

It certainly fits in with the HN Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>