Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/canada-forgot-to-plan-for-its-future-by-leaning-on-oil-and-the-loonie/article28083772/ <comment><USER2> Canada didn't forget anything. We have a diverse economy with common sense measures like reducing our net debt to GDP, while keeping a fully funded retirement pension fund (CPP, unlike SS, actually invests in the public market).

Even the way we do provincial transfer payments is sane. While one industry is booming (Oil, manufacturing, tech) other "have not" provinces get payments through the federal government. This brings a measure of stability to the system.

No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's a ridiculous statement.

Criticizing Canada's action on climate change is warranted, but our federal economic policy has been quite level headed.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue Canada made concerted efforts to support natural resource industries at the cost of all other industries. Eg. expending massive political capital with the US to push for Keystone XL. We've hurt our image abroad by fighting climate change action, Canada even refused to consider asbestos a hazardous material because there's a single asbestos mine in the country. As soon as that mine closed we switched to considering it hazardous. These are short termed, unprincipled policy decisions that help the resource industry at the expense of the Canadian brand.

<comment><USER4> "expending massive political capital"

Luckily, political capital is a fiat currency and can be created or destroyed by the CBC in moments.

<comment><USER5> How many Americans (US + Mexico + South)/Europeans/Asians/Africans watch the CBC? I think the parent was referring to international political capital.

<comment><USER4> Sorry: I should not have implied that the CBC is the only one with a royal charter for political capital minting/disposal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If the Canadian government is serious about long-term growth, it must focus on how it can build cities and policies that attract people and businesses. But we have not been headed in the right direction on this front."

YES!

I live in Quebec city and there is a rampant idea in the population that the status quo is the only way forward. More petroleum exploration, larger highways, big government mining investments/subsidies initiative like 'plan Nord', big fat houses in the suburbs that you can spin after 2 years for 20% gain... we never allow ourselves to think outside the box.

I'm glad the US is 'embracing' successes like Space X, Tesla, Uber, AirBnb, ... to really show us what innovation looks like. You CANT innovate if your mind live in the status quo.

With the $CAD drop and the rise of remote work we should also expect a massive brain drain... although it's anecdotal, my brother just accepted a job (remote from Quebec) for a US-based company at double the salary he would have got from a local one. That can't be good for locally-made innovation.

Refs: [http://www.petrolia- inc.com/en/corporate/projects/anticosti-...](http://www.petrolia- inc.com/en/corporate/projects/anticosti-project) [http://plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/](http://plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/)

<comment><USER7> Agreed with the harm to locally-made innovation. In my city (Fredericton, NB) the tech industry has hade (seemingly) more and more bigger companies (Raytheon, Siemens, Salesforce, IBM) setting up shop and bringing better wages. It's a double-edged sword. We have a pretty interesting startup scene, but those smaller companies (startups and consultants) are now finding it harder to compete with the salaries and benefits the large companies can offer.

<comment><USER8> That's the only way to really drive salaries up though. Which is the only way to retain talent when it is so easy to cross the border and start making a whole lot more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short- sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, but the potential payoff could save us. If you're not growing, you're dying.

I'm reaching the point where I need to hire developers soon. I'm worried about what kind of talent I'll be able to find, simply because most people worth their salt are already employed, or work in the Bay.

Remote is an option of course, but it adds a lot of complexity that most early-stage startups can't manage well.

I'm seriously considering going back to SV.

<comment><USER10> Not to play second fiddle to Toronto and Vancouver, but here in Mtl we have a fairly lively startup scene and some bigger players like Ubisoft, Google, and Bombardier as well. I frequent our Montréal Python usergroup, and I'm routinely impressed by the calibre of the presentations and the work that people are showing off.[1]

If you want talent, it's certainly available, and it's cheaper than SV.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/user/MontrealPython/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/MontrealPython/videos)

<comment><USER11> Montreal has a fairly decent cluster of game studios, does it not?

If nothing else I'm hoping they're hard at work making the next Deus Ex game at Eidos Montreal :)

<comment><USER10> > Montreal has a fairly decent cluster of game studios, does it not?

Yeah. I work close to Ubisoft, and there's a cluster of startups around its offices. At lunch hour, all of the local eateries are full of hacker types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems like the effect of the low dollar is already helping the tech sectors. Companies like Shopify make their money in USD while salaries are a bargain. American companies like Amazon are expanding their offices in Toronto and Vancouver. The brain drain is real though. I feel like there's a problem when police officers make more than most software engineers.

<comment><USER12> Agreed on the brain drain. Toronto is a major (and expensive) world city. From talking with friends, 100K (Canadian, that's 70K US) is the ceiling for intermediate to senior developers. Junior devs make a lot less ... 50-60K (that's 35 to 42K US)!

That said, free healthcare counts for a lot. Also, as a dev in a Canadian tech company, you are probably not going to see as much stress and volatility as your average Silicon Valley company.

The high property prices are messing up lives of young people who don't have rich parents. In my friend circle, I can see it as a key source of strife among married couples. Buying a house ties you to a city .. even if you get a better offer some place else. I don't think real-estate is being recognized as the beast it is. The last Bank of Canada rate decrease seemed only about oil prices and oblivious to the flames in YVR and YYZ housing.

Sigh ... what a mess :(

<comment><USER13> Having worked in Toronto's tech scene for almost two decades I just have a big 'meh' response to it.

I now work at Google in Kitchener, and commute from a hobby farm near Hamilton. Quality of life is outstanding. I dread ever having to work in Toronto proper again.

The startup scene in Toronto is a clique. The quality of management talent is sad. After working as employee #4 in a Toronto startup, I jumped ship to work for a late stage startup HQ'd in NYC and the contrast in their management skills and treatment of employees was night and day. Working at a 'hip' company in Toronto they expect you to feel blessed and to take intense sacrifice on their behalf just because you have the privilege of working for something that isn't a bank or insurance company. Meanwhile compensation lags significantly behind what you'd get elsewhere in NA.

And then the rest of the non-startup scene in Toronto is primarily large financial companies, and the work is soul crushingly boring.

<comment><USER14> As a Toronto-based startup founder, I'm sorry you had that experience! (Shit, how Canadian of me... Apologizing for other people)

In any event, I think for the first time there's a really good cohort of Toronto founders with American-style vision and ability to execute. I don't think we're too far from seeing a couple of unicorns in Toronto that will help to build a stronger ecosystem. And yes, where necessary that means importing American management at great expense.

Toronto has a lot going for it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, as you can attest, but I think it's as good a place as anything to do something great.

<comment><USER13> With the CAD being low there might be a window where a lot more American capital invests here. Until the price of oil climbs again.

In general it seems like VC-funded companies that go through acquisition here get a far weaker deal than similar companies in the US. And the employees a lesser share of the pie. Maybe that's changing now, but unless the capital is there to invest, I can't see how.

<comment><USER14> It's improving. The capital is there, you just have to think globally fairly quickly.

We can always whine about how things in Canada are never as good as in <x>, in this case the Valley, but overall it's actually pretty good. I guess the secret sauce is to just get on with doing what you'd do regardless of your circumstances. I personally am not motivated by whether or not I'd get a 30% boost on an eventual exit if we were in the US.

<comment><USER13> As an employee trying to pay off a mortgage and save for my kids uni, that 30% is important to _me_. So for recruiting good talent (not claiming I'm good talent, but whatever) I'd think it matters a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We had a gov't for 10 years full of "Calgary-school" (Canada's right-wing ultra free market economic ideologues coming out of the University of Calgary econ/poli-sci program). They were overwhelmingly driven by an oil and gas agenda. From the gov't down to mutual fund investors, everyone was treating our economy like a one-trick pony, all oil and gas.

If you listened to people talk, Alberta's oil sector was supporting the whole economy. Snarky message board comments from people from out west (where I'm from originally, BTW) making comments about Ontario being a "have-not" province being propped up by the superior entrepreneurial hard-working western oil sector.

Meanwhile through all of this as a % of GDP, exports in manufacturing were _still_ triple those of oil and gas. Ontario's beleaguered auto-sector was still the primary export in the country. Followed by agriculture and other sectors.

I said it at the time, and now it is obvious. They were lying through ideological teeth, and telling a story to the country about resource driven prosperity which was factually incorrect. And it has led to our country as a whole inheriting many of the problems Alberta as a province has been plagued with for decades: highly cyclical, with a political culture verging on corrupt, and environmentally dirty dirty dirty.

And I'm afraid the new gov't is only half-heartedly interested in remedying any of this.

Ontario and Quebec could be the "Germany of North America"; the deliberate assassination of our manufacturing and engineering sectors by everyone from federal gov't officials to fund managers has been disgusting. We have a heavy infrastructure debt, are saddled by decades of ideologically-driven mismanagement, and an ineptitude at actually getting anything done.

<comment><USER15> I'm from Quebec and I have to agree with you that it could easily be north america's Germany. There is a lot of very talented software developers in Montreal but a lot of them leave to get higher salaries or work for foreign companies that love the very low, government subsidized wages [1].

If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous. Right now, profits are our biggest export. Not only that but the government insists on propping up big, mismanaged companies like CAE and bombardier time and time again [2] instead of investing in startups.

[1] [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-far- wi...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-far-will-quebec- go-to-nurture-its-video-game-industry/article14645301/) [2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/bombardier- corporate...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/bombardier-corporate- welfare-trap_b_4705751.html)

<comment><USER16> _If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous._

How exactly is anyone helped by money taking a round trip through the government rather than the same thing happening through free markets? You've made the cycle slower, you've made the recipients dependent on government bureaucratic decisions (who are not well-incentivized to decide well), and have reduced incentives for efficiency. And you've gained nothing.

Don't get me wrong. Government has important roles to play in our economy and society. We need government to create basic infrastructure, create regulations encouraging public goods, provide a stable system of law, and so on. But unless you are serving some legitimate purpose, channeling daily economic activity through the government is a net loss compared to doing the same through private enterprise.

Quebec being full of people who believe that the economy _should_ go through the government seems to be its second largest economic mistake, and one it is still making on a large scale. People like you complain about the predictable results of this mistake, but don't see that it is a mistake.

Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101. That made your province so hostile to anglophones that 1/3 of them "voluntarily emmigrated" within a few years. (The ones I know are inclined to dispute how voluntary that emmigration was...) They took with them the headquarters of many major companies, the associated jobs, and the general economic activity that would have come from those professionals spending locally. This is why, for example, The Bank of Montreal is now headquartered in Toronto.

There is a collective blind spot in Quebec to the true cost of this for your society. Major companies need to have a stream of professionals moving to their headquarters from elsewhere because that is how you move up in the hierarchy. If you have made professionals unwilling to move to Quebec (for instance by forcing their children to receive education in a language they don't speak), companies have to choose between moving headquarters or losing their most valued employees to competitors.

It proved to be cheaper to move headquarters. And they did. Quebec's economy has never recovered from this. (Though you did adjust your ethnic ratio by enough that you nearly managed to get a 50% vote to secede in the 90s...)

<comment><USER17> "Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101" ... I thought it was the almost won referendum that drove this exile, not Bill 101.

My impression is that if you lowered the income tax in Quebec (much higher then Ontario), most probably more professionals would be willing to work there, english or french or any other language.

I agree with your statement of "Quebec being full of people who believe that the economy should go through the government".

<comment><USER18> I moved to Montreal from Toronto because of the great urban environment which I found (and still believe to be) superior to Toronto. The rents were cheap and salaries were lower, which made me believe running a startup there would be much easier. From the outside I wondered why everyone from Toronto wasn't moving there to build companies.

But after a year living there I left - 100% due to the hostility to strictly English-speaking people.

I hoped my lack of french-speaking ability would only be a minor hurdle that I could slowly overcome as I grasped the language over the years. But every single store you go into requires that they start speaking in french first (a bylaw). I watched _three_ major street protests while walking downtown against stores who didn't change their globally-recognized retail brand names to french versions.

Plus I felt a large cliquey nature to the Montreal tech scene. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. I was happy to go back to Toronto where multiculturalism is actually fully embraced. Where almost everyone still speaks their native language first, often remaining in cultural divided in neighbourhoods, and despite this mixing at bars and events is never an uncomfortable experience.

Quebec's greatest economic problem is their obsession with cultural homogeneity.

<comment><USER17> I've never worked in Montreal, I'm from Northern Quebec, but I got to do university in Ontario and worked ever since in Ottawa. I got a job offer for a job in Toronto, and I really like the people and how being French-Canadian didn't seem like a barrier at all. Finally I declined for various reasons.

I always thought Quebec's problem were with the it's socialist approach and how taxed Quebecers are, thus professionals flocked away, but your experience has made me realize a different reality. I guess we aren't as welcoming if you're not french ... ?

<comment><USER18> It's the small things. Imagine having to apologize in every single store that you don't speak french well, even though you start the conversation speaking english or weak french.

Or feeling the hostility of older Quebecers who think I'm just another anglophile who didn't spend the time to learn their language. I heard many people casually complain about the American kids who came to the universities and never tried to speak french.

Before arriving I heard lots of rumours about how Quebec people aren't friendly and I was quick to ignore this as a stereotype. But going to many tech events I found it difficult to network. The image that has stuck in my mind of these occasions is finding many small tightnit groups of people packed together at bars or venues, who seemed to have known each other for years, and seemingly disinterested in the people around them.

I never experienced that in Toronto or SF.

> I always thought Quebec's problem were with the it's socialist approach and > how taxed Quebecers are

Bringing up Quebec in Toronto (which came up often moving there) the first thing people talk about is the people's attitudes, not socalism. I've actually never heard people talk about their socialist tendencies outside of the news. The only political stereotype that came up was that the tendency of Quebec people to complain about the government not giving them enough money/support, while simultaneously not contributing as much as Ontario economically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The scary part in my opinion is: "Housing is the only thing keeping the Canadian economy afloat."

This more an anecdote than an argument, but I know quite a few people who can barely pay their mortgage or have crazy margin debt (with mortgage) in Canada. I doubt their situation will get any better soon. There is this mentality around here that owning a house is a must or you are some kind of loser.

<comment><USER19> The way that housing is keeping the Canadian economy afloat is that homes have appreciated a tremendous amount over the last 10 years. In Calgary it's over 2x in 10 years or 9% per year.

In Edmonton and Calgary I can echo that there is a strong social influence in buying real estate. Owning a home is expected. With homes appreciating over 9%/year for 10 years, people assume that that will continue into the distant future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for anything (and they're not happy about not finding "good enough" men either).

I can live with lower pay but after years of nothing but female rejection I'm really tempted to run to the US just for this reason. (Again, only anecdotally, but the way I'm treated by women in social settings is night vs day anywhere but Toronto.)

<comment><USER21> you are feeling the same frustration many men in large cities feel these days. look around on the internet.

all i can say is, don't expect different results if you keep doing the same things. it's on you to produce the outcomes you want in your life.

<comment><USER20> > look around on the internet.

I know the places you're talking about, and I can't stand them because they're dehumanizing and hypocritical. But believe me I've looked, and in my experience a disproportionate number of these men are actually from Toronto! I'm not saying men don't feel like this elsewhere, but it was surprising to me how this city sticks out.

[http://www.returnofkings.com/58796/15-reasons-why-toronto- is...](http://www.returnofkings.com/58796/15-reasons-why-toronto-is-the-worst- city-in-north-america-for-men)

(Edit: I don't endorse the above article, it's demeaning and ridiculous, but I'm using it as an example of how this city often comes up in "worst of" discussions.)

<comment><USER21> sounds like you should move. i'm sure you won't though.

<comment><USER20> If you've lived in Toronto and other major cities and can relate your personal experience, I'm interested. About your generic self help, less so.

<comment><USER21> my experience is that you should move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was recently in Calgary. I found the people there friendly, polite and nice just like all the Canadian stereotypes suggest. I would love to live up in Canada, but HOLY HELL is it COLD! I couldnt deal with that. I was just in Calgary, I cant imagine Edmonton, Red Deer or the like. Is it just as cold on the east coast? I would imagine it has to be.

Signed, Someone from Houston, Tx

<comment><USER13> Southern Ontario where the bulk of the Canadian population lives has basically the same climate as Chicago or Detroit. It is cold in the winter and blistering hot in the summer with a 170-ish day growing season. If you don't consider those places to be brutally cold you wouldn't consider it that way here. In fact the areas on the north shore of Lake Ontario have a milder climate (due to lake effect) than those of upstate NY to the south of us.

I grew up in Alberta. It is cold and dry and has a short summer. I prefer the weather here even if the summers can be a bit too humid and hot for me.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Upstate NY here, and we get the worst weather in the US from Canadian winds and lake effect snow. For half the year it's always windy, always cold, always snowy, and always so, so gray.

But aside from that it's a great place to live. Land is cheap, you can get good local food anywhere, and we're safe from nearly every natural disaster you can think of. Just bring a jacket.

<comment><USER13> Seems like many Americans near the border have this perception as Canada being the 'source' of their cold weather.

In reality the bulk of the nastiest storms here in Ontario come over the lakes from northern Michigan, which is, yes, north of us. Look on a map, most of the heavily populated areas of Canada are as far south as northern California. The parts that are north of the 49th are much less populated.

Yes, periodically there is a nasty cold front coming down from Hudson's bay, but the prevailing winds and weather patterns are west to east. So most of our weather blows over from the midwest U.S.

The really nasty awful cold weather last year for example, hit the U.S. midwest harder and nastier first.

<comment><USER23> I see elsewhere in this thread you mention you live near Hamilton. Well, I work in Hamilton and commute from Niagara, and that puts you and I south of the following: Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Maine, 2/3rds of Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont, and New Hampshire, 1/2 of Wyoming, Michigan, and New York.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's crazy and upsetting to watch Canada squander the talent its great engineering schools produce, especially given the low cost.

I left Toronto 8 years ago for the US but have close ties to home and keep regular tabs on the labour market. Even at 1:1 CAD:USD, before factoring in increased cost of living in Toronto (vs. where I am, which is not SF), I'm making close to double what I'd hope to fetch back home. If I really bust my ass and kill it where I am, the disparity is only going to grow.

Once you account for other factors like the increased cost of everything and the general rarity of high-paying tech jobs, returning to Toronto feels like too much of a risk: even if I were to strike relative "gold" and make $120k-140k+ CAD as a senior engineer (a far cry from what I get how), what happens when I move on to something else? A close, highly-talented friend of mine has one of those jobs but feels trapped and doesn't even know where else he could go.

I love that the Toronto startup scene is growing and maturing and I have friends who are really working to, but I fear what's going to happen when funding in the US begins to contract. SF, NYC, and Seattle all have profitable "anchor" employers which will continue to bid for talent even when startup funding won't sustain high tech salaries. Toronto has small branch offices of American companies and some banks (I'm skeptical about the latter). Is there much else?

As far as I can tell there just isn't as much good work. I want to go home some day, but as someone who was fortunate enough to land a good tech job in the US: returning is a massive step down in pay for: fewer choices of work, a more fleeting labour market, a less ambitious environment, an expensive city with overpriced real estate, and a public transit/commute crisis which might not get materially better before I retire. I really do love the place though.

tl;dr I'm an exceptionally fortunate Canadian spoiled by great career prospects in a major American tech hub and find it hard to justify returning home :(

<comment><USER24> Inequality really works both ways. Canada is a much better place to be if you make under 60k/year. Its also a much better place to be if you fall on the work to live side of the coin. The flip side is you'll get less aggressiveness both at the corporate and employee level and the pay to match.

I think its largely cultural. Theoretically Canada should be more welcoming to entrepreneurship. You don't have to worry about your health insurance when you quit and start your own company - and the safety net limits your fall in the case of failure. The government also heavily subsidizes new startups.

But entrepreneurship is generally looked down upon in a way that isn't true in America. A failed startup in the US is chalked to "at least you tried" whereas in Canada its looked upon as a moral tale of the risks of chasing childish dreams. This goes throughout society - from raising capital to what your in- laws hassle you about over the dinner table.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. The sad thing is I'm not even entrepreneurial in the "aggressive unicorn chase" sense; I'm just a lucky guy with a rewarding and enjoyable large tech company job with good pay and work/life balance. It feels like getting anywhere near what I have now, just in Canada, would be so much harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I run an online business in Canada (both products and services). I virtually never take Canadian clients now, since the exchange rate has shifted markedly, and Americans tend to view $100 USD the same as Canadians view $100 CAD.

I know a few others with cross border operations and they're also shifting towards US markets.

I noticed product sales to Canadians also dried up, as my products are now 40% more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's more like Canada is sticking to the same old plans and is failing to adapt to a future where its economic cycles no longer work.

Canada has what's known as Dutch disease. When the loonie is strong the natural resource sector booms since they get more value in return for selling these assets, however the services and manufacturing sector tend to fall off a cliff since labour cost become too high.

Historically the Ontario govt has banked on this cycle. When the loonie rises and Ontario crashes then govt spending increases to compensate. When the loonie crashes and employment increases, tax revenue increases and then they payoff the debt from the crash. Ditto can be said for Alberta using the opposite scenario.

The federal tax transfer system adds additional funding mechanics to level the playing field between provinces.

That all said, everything has become very different. Oil has crashed due to external forces and the loonie has crashed too. That's fine, but I think govt is trying to figure out why the manufacturing services sectors are not gaining traction as they historical would (which is because other countries are now more equipped to compete within Canada and are still much cheaper... Example Mexico has taken all the auto manufacturing work). At the same time housing prices are 30 to 50% overpriced and the energy sectors nose dive is not a typical down cycle, it's a long term structural change.

I'm probably wrong, but my spidey senses are telling me that Canada is going to go through a rough time and will continue to do so until the govt models these structural changes to compensate. If the Canadian govt jumps into a thoughtless spending spree (which is the current plan) using the old economic model then in 5 to 10 years Canadas outcome could be dire.

[Edit: removed "Greece 2.0" as it highlighted aspects that could not compare to Canada's circumstances.]

<comment><USER26> Care to explain the downvote?

<comment><USER25> Might be the Greece 2.0 prediction. I was with you till there. Greece's debt was in Euros, which the Greek government didn't control.

So Greece had no option to devalue it's currency in response to a slowing economy. Whereas Canada can devalue currency (as we're doing). We have the additional benefit that our debt load is in our domestic currency, so we don't face the debt appreciation challenge many countries face when they devalue their currency.

I think Canada's in trouble, but the Greek situation is fundamentally a different type of problem.

(I didn't downvote)

<comment><USER26> I thought that Greeces problems stemmed from excessive govt spending leading to a situation where the tax revenue could not compensate for the debt load with a consequence of either bankruptcy or bailouts from other countries. At least that's where my comparison starts and ends.

<comment><USER25> That's true. But it's only true because the debt load is in Euros, and Greece doesn't control the value of the Euro.

If you're a country with currency control + debt in your own currency, it's basically impossible to have that same kind of crisis.

(You can have other problems, but they wouldn't be so intractable as what Greece has.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Diversification of Canada's economy so that it isn't so dependent on commodities has been talked about for years, and successive governments have long been blamed for not doing it. That makes it worth asking whether governments have the power to do this in the first place. What examples are there of it having been done successfully?

</comment><comment><USER28> I accept the premise that the government spent too much time and effort focused on the resource sector, but this article, like all I see on this subject, is extremely vague on what exactly the government should be doing to create a better environment for tech companies in Canada.

</comment><comment><USER29> The article mentioned brain drain, but more specifically, Canada let Hinton, Lecun, and Sutskever go... :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Boo-hoo.

Same newspaper that endorsed Conservatives, whose economic policies for the past decade was to put oil sands above everything else, the government under which we saw Canada withdrawing from Kyoto and generally have terrible environmental record, is now having seconds thoughts when oil tanked as well as other commodities tanked dragging loonie with it.

Boo-hoo, sir, boo-hoo.

Refs: their endorsement -- [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe- debate/editorials/the-t...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe- debate/editorials/the-tories-deserve-another-mandate-stephen-harper- doesnt/article26842506/)

<comment><USER13> The Canadian bourgeoisie (yes I'm using that word) has a deep split in orientation -- resource extraction Calgary school vs a more established Bay st money, "Laurentian elite." With the collapse of oil price, the strength of the former has waned in favour of the latter, hence the Liberal party has hegemony instead of the Reform.

The Globe has for the last 15 years at least been schizophrenic about which of these two camps it supports. Its editorial board is a little different from the rest of the content in the paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that > "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's > a ridiculous statement.

Many "rational economists" have made that statement. Even the head of the Bank of Canada himself has suggested it is regrettable that our currency is so tied to oil. He can't openly criticize gov policy and so that's about as close as Poloz can get to condemnation.

Classic hacker news comment. "I must disagree with whatever the post says and declare that no rational person could disagree with my criticism."

<comment><USER32> I love how disingenuous people often use the term "rational." Like anyone who disagrees must be some irrational loon and there's no room for debate here. Its sad that even on HN, such namecalling is convincing to many with the upvote button.

Anytime I see commentary that include words "rational," "logical," or the term "man of science" I know I'm at least dealing with someone reductionist, pedantic, and usually extremist or marginalized.

<comment><USER31> I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I think a rational person probably wouldn't do is use the words "no rational person" so easily.

(yes I know the contradiction I just made)</comment></comment></comment>


Would you use the following app - <AUTHOR> http://linklyapp.com/ Would you use this app, easily collaborate around links and ideas with Linkly <comment><USER2> you would need to add a lot more features for me to be willing to pay. kind of a sharepoint knock off with document tracking, links anoucements, wiki, todo list. something like that. I'd probably still offer a free version with limited storage capacity. I might use it with just links if I could access it from my phone and it was free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, signup for beta if your interested.</comment></comment>


How Many Founders are You for Y Combinator's Winter 2008 Applications? - <AUTHOR>

PG and many others have insisted that it is not recommended that a team should be comprised of only one founder. <p>how many co-founders are you? our team is comprised of 2 and our combined age at this time is 53 years old. <comment><USER2> My god just apply! Your time is better spent working on your startup rather than cracking the PG code.

The last few days have been filled with posts like, "does PG prefer blonde or brunette founders?"

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for prioritizing my life. i couldn't have done it without you and your wisdom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 3 founders; 60 years old.

Interesting fact: 1 founder already has a bachelors in computer science(he's only 20).

</comment><comment><USER4> 2 founders, combined age 55 years old.

</comment><comment><USER5> I agree with uuilly, but... 3 and 66

</comment><comment><USER6> 2 founders, combined age 54.

</comment><comment><USER7> 2\. Combined age: 51.

</comment><comment><USER8> if we were applying, it would be 2 and 39.</comment>


Building Good Docker Images - <AUTHOR> http://jonathan.bergknoff.com/journal/building-good-docker-images <comment><USER3> Google takes this a step further and creates single binary containers with the minimal OS bits needed [1, 2]. Personally, I think this is where we need to be headed vs running a full blown ubuntu/debian/centos OS inside the container. Three benefits, 1) no OS to manage eg. no _apt-get update_ or configuration management, 2) container has less of an attack surface (think shellshock -- the container does not have bash, wget, curl, etc), 3) they are lightweight. The issue is that, how you do we (container creators) know the dependency tree for the app? Sure this might be easier for Go binaries, but what about complex apps like rails and mysql? It is a major pain to figure this out, so we just use an OS, and it takes all the thinking out of it.

Kelsey Hightower actually published something on this topic called "Building Docker Images for Static Go Binaries" [3].

[1] [https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/google/nodejs- hello/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/google/nodejs-hello/)

[2] [https://github.com/thockin/serve_hostname](https://github.com/thockin/serve_hostname)

[3] [https://medium.com/@kelseyhightower/optimizing-docker- images...](https://medium.com/@kelseyhightower/optimizing-docker-images-for- static-binaries-b5696e26eb07)

<comment><USER4> Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see how [1] can be used to create "single binary containers with the minimal OS bits needed"? It is from [https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/google/nodejs/dockerfile/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/google/nodejs/dockerfile/) and uses the full Debian stack that you discuss including apt-get etc.

I've heard whisperings on the wind of research being done with respect to monitoring what files a Docker container uses, and then removing everything that the container doesn't need to run the app. I agree that this is the future- I shouldn't have apt-get, curl, etc. taking up space in my final image if I don't need them - but how do you tell a "good" file from a "bad" one? (Just thinking out loud here - what if my app depends on imagemagick, libffmpeg etc.?) Nix looks pretty cool I suppose.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote [https://github.com/jwilder/docker- squash](https://github.com/jwilder/docker-squash) to remove things that I know I don't need in the final image such as curl, wget, temp files, various packages, etc..

I've managed to get most images to basically the size of the base image + my app.

This process is sort of the reverse of building a single binary and adding it to a minimal image. I like that approach but it's not always straightforward w/ some applications.

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, I've played with docker-squash and like it, I wish there was a built- in docker solution for squashing layers (perhaps any contiguous string of instructions starting with ~ would be squashed into one layer?).

Mostly the problem I've run into is figuring out what to remove without b0rking the containerized app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really think there are no good reasons to include build tools in a docker image. The author lists three possible reasons:

\- you need a specific version (e.g. redis is pretty old in the Debian repositories).

\- you need to compile with specific options.

\- you will need to npm install (or equivalent) some modules which compile to binary.

But you can avoid all of these by building your own DEB/RPM packages and installing those into the container.

This might make the container less "whitebox", in that the Dockerfile no longer contains the full steps to reproduce the built image from public sources. But having an internal package repository makes a lot of sense, and not just for building small Docker images. Keeping your own package repository helps make your server builds more reproducible in general, and provides clean mechanisms for performing updates on your own software as well as third-party packages.

(edited for formatting)

<comment><USER6> I wish I could upvote this a few times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is a case where gentoo can really shine. Although tooling might not be there just yet, the linux meta distribution allows you to build a strict set of dependencies based on what you need and nothing else. There's already been pretty successful attempts at this, such as [https://github.com/edannenberg/gentoo- bb](https://github.com/edannenberg/gentoo-bb) (63mb custom nginx sound ok to you?) or [https://github.com/wking/dockerfile](https://github.com/wking/dockerfile).

edit: To elaborate for people not very familiar with gentoo; it solves what a lot of the discussion in this thread seems to be about - having complete control of the dependency chain based on how you choose to build your software. Using nginx as an example, enabling mod_security would pull and build its own dependencies (which also can be limited based on its compiler options). Strip man pages? Done. Change libc library? No problem (if the packages support it).

The work that needs to be done is expanding the toolset to a point where you say "I want this in docker, plx" and anything else (dependencies disregarded) basically goes out the window. The current attempts builds upon a small set of packages for convenience then removes "safe" stuff. When time allows, I'd like to be much more aggressive in terms of what's considered safe. :edit

I'm personally also very interested in progrium's work with bundling busybox with opkg ([https://github.com/progrium/busybox](https://github.com/progrium/busybox)), but still think that docker containers should not be built from within - <USER2> why cross compiling from gentoo to create a minimal docker image is the way to go.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the pointer. I've been thinking about this kind of scheme: \- using a vanilla gentoo \- install portage \- emerge my package \- at the end, do a diff of the filesystem to apply it to the vanilla gentoo.

And using docker filesytem feature for that. I'm still quiete new to Docker and don't know if it is easy to do.

But I'll have a look to gentoo-bb, I think it is exactly what I need!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This gave me an (probably non-novel) idea: "double-layered" Docker image creation. One thing that rubs me the wrong way is how Docker images contain stuff like apt (and all the related supporting stuff) when they don't really need them (at runtime). On the other hand you need to install/compile/setup the environment somewhere, and relying on the host system would break any hopes of reproducibility.

To reconcile these issues I propose two-phased building of Docker image. First you setup a regular Docker image based on Debian or whatnot which contains all the tools you need to build/setup the application. Then inside that container you build the final image based on empty image (eg [http://docs.docker.com/articles/baseimages/#creating-a- simpl...](http://docs.docker.com/articles/baseimages/#creating-a-simple-base- image-using-scratch) ), adding only the files that are really needed at runtime.

<comment><USER10> Yep cool idea. This is being addressed by the (not yet merged) docker nested build feature:

[https://github.com/docker/docker/pull/8021](https://github.com/docker/docker/pull/8021)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Docker hub is - after such a short time - an even darker place than the wordpress plugin registry and is already a source of security problems and a useless waste of bandwith, time and effort. Besides too many amateurs publishing BS, the real problem is that the company behind this is not taking responsibility to assure the quality of their containerized-app-store. This does not have to end in censorship, like our beloved Big Brother Apple does - some automated checks on each uploaded image could be a way to go plus a team of reviewers, that approves everything uploaded. Of course, the amount of information attached to any image currently is a joke, the whole hub is a one- day-of-work prototype that never should have been published in the first place in this premature state, but now it´s too late, so there is no other way than burning it down and restarting it with some more thinking before.

Much better concept would be: share layers, not images, based on verified base images with preinstalled saltstack. This effectively boils down to sharing good and up2date provisioning scripts.

There are some more conceptual problems with the whole docker idea that are rooted in a "need-to-productize-quick" infected thinking and do make everything seem immature and not really thought out - very basic problems that pop up with orchestration and networking should have been solved before releasing the product, now millions of half-assed "products" step into that gap and the result is a bizarr level of overcomplication of any infrastructure that was not possible before with virtualization alone, and still there are important things that "will be contributed in the future by somebody, hopefully".

Docker should not be a product itself with it´s own "market", but the basic docker ideas should be added to already existing concepts and inherit already existing infrastructure. The docker execution model should be a standard feature of any linux distribution with a standardized container modell (with some security added!) and the existing packaging infrastructure should be extended to handle what is needed to support it, including userspace updates and provisioning or on-the-fly rebuilds, so people can concentrate on writing provisioning scripts and not fighting another layer of system config BS. Getting rid of the VM is great, but building even more complicated overhead is totally absurd. Meanwhile something like Vagrant is a great thing to learn from.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is minimizing the size of a docker image really the top priority?

I would hold that making docker images easy to use, transparent as possible, reliable, versatile and easy to use (did I mention that already? oops) are far more important priorities.

Admittedly, I use docker primarily for development/testing purposes and my use-cases are a bit different than the average production use-case, however, having a large toolbox easily accessible for me to use (yes, including the ability to ssh into the docker container) is invaluable to me.

I may be missing something here, but racing to make docker images "as small as possible" feels like a bit of premature optimisation.

<comment><USER13> If we were talking about shaving a couple of bytes off a layer, I'd agree that attention might be better focused elsewhere.

However, I've seen (and am guilty of) a few of the pitfalls in the parent post. When you suddenly start adding 100mb+ unnecessarily to a Docker image, it can have some nasty ramifications in devspeed, and also deployments. A classic way to accidentally dramatically increase the weight of a Docker image is to apt-get install build-essential.

What kinds of ramifications you might ask? Well, I live in Australia. I don't know if Docker Registry has a CDN POP here, but that extra 100mb tends to take a solid minute or two longer for me to pull down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Pin package versions" \-- yes. One of the things that has been bugging me about Docker is that if you begin every Dockerfile with an `apt-get -y update`, you never know what you're going to end up with.

On the other hand, pinning _every_ package that you install would end up being pretty verbose.

<comment><USER15> Why do an update if you prefer your packages to be pinned?

<comment><USER16> Depending on what your base image is, the pinned versions you want to install may not be available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One additional tip for readability is to replace the && with set -e at the top of any RUN commands that combine more than one command.

before:

      RUN curl -SLO "http://nodejs.org/dist/v$NODE_VERSION/node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz" \
        && tar -xzf "node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz" -C /usr/local --strip-components=1 \
        && rm "node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz"

after:

      RUN set -e; \
        curl -SLO "http://nodejs.org/dist/v$NODE_VERSION/node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz"; \
        tar -xzf "node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz" -C /usr/local --strip-components=1; \
        rm "node-v$NODE_VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz

<comment><USER17> Hmm, needs additional semi-colons.

<comment><USER10> where?

I was trying to use the example given... Here's another, smaller example:

      # install wget without artifacts
      RUN set -e; \
        apt-get update; \
        apt-get install -y wget; \
        apt-get clean; \
        rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

<comment><USER18> I think parent meant you trade two &&s for one ;.

Personally I also don't think the meaning is as clear, and you now need to maintain the top line if you cut'n'paste. I suppose it's a matter of taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Docker images are like if some high school kids decided to sell mass-produced beer. Instead of writing down a recipe with the ingredients, measurements, temperatures, elevation, times, and distributor-sourced quality-assured materials, the kids go to random stores and buy whatever they think they need to make beer in huuuuge quantities. They make huge batches of beer so that they won't need to make it again for months or years. Then the next time they brew a batch, the beer tastes completely different, they say, "Oh, we might need to write some of this stuff down, and make sure it was the same as last time."

</comment><comment><USER20> This patch is essential for creating minimal, best images with Docker. [https://github.com/docker/docker/pull/8021](https://github.com/docker/docker/pull/8021)

<comment><USER10> I hope nested build functionality get merged soon. From reading the last proposal minutes, I wasn't sure if it's been shelved for later?

[https://github.com/docker/irc-minutes/blob/master/docker- dev...](https://github.com/docker/irc-minutes/blob/master/docker- dev/2014-10-02--17-30.md#nested-build---proppy)

It'll replace a bunch of unnecessary shell scripts that are currently required to get similar functionality working.

</comment></comment><comment> robinson-wall Something the article doesn't touch on in its pursuit of a smaller image - when you run "apt-get install" or "apt-get upgrade" you should do "&& apt-get clean" in the same RUN command.

This will remove the .debs apt just downloaded and installed that are being cached in /var/cache/apt/archives, saving you a little disk space.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for pointing this out. In the "debian:wheezy" docker image, "apt-get clean" didn't seem to have an effect. I dug around a bit and found that, in this image, aptitude is configured to not cache the downloaded packages (via /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean).

On one hand, I consider this a good default behavior for building docker containers, so I'm glad it's there. On the other hand, I didn't know about it until I investigated. It's strong evidence for the great point @amouat made regarding base images being blackboxes in most (all?) cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is a great topic. I hope these docker image thingy gets a bit more mature and quickly.

i wanted to use public docker images and spin on it AWS and quickly use a sanity check/vet the app if it can be something I want to use internally or recommend for customers.

Realized there is nothing of such sort and started xdocker.io -- open source initiative.

Currently we support security monkey and ice (both from netflix).

Just love docker and learning quite a bit of tricks along the way.

This article just helps us to do our job better by following the best practices to build docker images.

I would also appreciate if experts on this can help us screen the docker files we have created and share the feedback with us. [https://github.com/XDocker/Dockerfiles](https://github.com/XDocker/Dockerfiles).

</comment><comment><USER23> Great post. It shows there's a bit to do in Docker to make transient data a bit more user friendly.

There are lots of proposal sitting in Github, it'd be great to get more feedback.

</comment><comment><USER24> Lately we've been using shell scripts to do a lot of boiler-plate container preparation. We copy that script in and run it at the beginning of the container build. The nice thing about doing things this way is that you keep your Dockerfile a little cleaner, you end up with less layers, and that layer will only rebuild if you change the source file.

</comment><comment><USER25> The author mentions a good image is a "whitebox" if it publishes its Dockerfile on the Hub. Unfortunately this isn't really enough; many (even most) Dockerfiles depend on scripts and data files which aren't hosted on the Hub.

I would suggest the only truly whitebox images are the ones that can be recreated from github (or similar) repositories.

<comment><USER21> You're right that a published Dockerfile isn't enough to really know what went into the image, but I think it's the closest thing we have at the moment. I would love to see some tools for building truly minimal docker images from scratch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Curious if the sizes quoted Debian netinst vs Ubuntu server, or a standard Debian install vs Ubuntu server? We base all our installs (regular VMs, not Docker) off of Debian netinst because we get to choose exactly what goes on to the server.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Pin package versions

This is true for any packages you use, not just Docker. For example, rails gems. If you don't pin them your app _will_ break at some point on an update. Always manually update packages and test before deploying.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Thus it seems that if you leave a file on disk between steps in your Dockerfile, the space will not be reclaimed when you delete the file."

This must be a bug? Why should it legitimately behave this way?

<comment><USER29> From what I understand, docker caches the state of its world during each step. So you add a file, it caches, remove the file, it can't free that space from the layered filesystem. But if you create & remove in the same `RUN` command, it never gets persisted as a step, so doesn't take up space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OP makes a good point about buildpack-deps being quite huge. My only complaint about the official images is that they take a LONG time to pull.

</comment><comment><USER30> Thanks for writing such stuff. Too many images available today are just a pain in the ass to use!

</comment><comment><USER31> This is Gold, if only for the info about temp/transitory files and resultant image size.</comment>


Eclipse goal to become 'management-aware' in 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/20/eclipse_senior_management/

<comment><AUTHOR> And good news for Php developpers. I didn't know PDT was so popular.</comment>


Night train connecting Amsterdam to Scandinavian capitals under consideration - <AUTHOR> https://nltimes.nl/2020/01/24/night-train-connecting-amsterdam-scandinavian-capital-consideration <comment><USER2> I cannot understand why they aren't more night trains. For me, it's the perfect way to travel. You have your own room which you can lock and do whatever you want, you have a bed, some storage room, a table, a sink, and if you spend a little more money, you even have a shower. I enjoyed using night trains when I was single, I enjoyed them as a couple, and I enjoy them _very_ much now as a father, as it is basically the most comfortable way to travel with small children. For inner-European travel, it is often cheaper than flying, but _much_ more comfortable. Who cares if takes 12 hours to Kopenhagen if you are sleeping 8 of them, and relaxing on a bed with your laptop, eating breakfast or looking out of the window drinking wine for the remaining 4. You arrive fresh, relaxed, with brushed teeth and shaven and you do not have to worry about getting into town from the airport, because the train station will usually be near the town center.

The problem seems to be that their once glamorous image has been lost. At least in Europe, they have gained a somewhat dubious reputation over the last decades.

Deutsche Bahn stopped their night train services 2 years ago, they sold if off completely to the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), which now run it with a profit. Their idea? Clean up the trains, fix the reputation and attract families. As a passenger, I am happy about that, they are also planning to extend the network. As a German, I am a bit sad that the Austrians are now running our night trains, but providing train services does not exactly seem to be the main area of expertise of Deutsche Bahn.

PS: in case anyone is wondering, this is what a standard 2 bed night train room looks like in Europe (only one bed is flipped out): [https://fidelgastro83.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/img_1272.j...](https://fidelgastro83.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/img_1272.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Took a night train in central Europe once. It was a lot of money, and to reserve a whole compartment was even more. And if you don't get the whole compartment the other travelers may talk at all hours of the night on the phone...

Then there are border crossings where they check passports. Such checks make it impossible to get uninterrupted sleep.

<comment><USER4> > And if you don't get the whole compartment the other travelers may talk at > all hours of the night on the phone...

You don't have to accept such.

I recommend you ask them to tone down. If that does not work, talk to the conductor. Keep it friendly. As a last resort, you can try to interact in the conversation or play some music (like a DoS) but that might lead to one thing or another.

Recommend to not travel alone. That way, one person can stay on watch for your belongings. That, or don't have valuables with you (though you always do, such as your passport or ID). I remember using my ThinkPad as pillow in Central Europe. Which, btw, got electricity from the German train now driving through Balkan.

That being said, my experience is that other people also want to sleep at night. The majority does. Noise cancelling headset might help, but mind your belongings. If you end up with other people who are backpacking alone, they're in the same boat as you are. Effectively, you together defend your train coupee, in a kind of unwritten covenant. Either way, smart scam artists will be able to creep up when your defenses are down.

Check if you can book in advance. In Germany especially, this can save you 50-75% of the regular price, and you reserve a seat which means you can keep sleeping on that seat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a Dutchman, I would 100% use this. Been meaning to see more of Scandinavia (without flying there for pollution reasons) and I've also been meaning to use a night train after reading an article about it via HN, both for about 2-3 years now, but haven't gotten around to either yet!

<comment><USER6> I appreciate your emphasize on reducing flying. This seems like an unfortunately rare attitude though perhaps changing quickly.

<comment><USER7> If we reduce flying by half, how much would that reduce the climate change problem?

The world is still generating an incredible amount of electricity using coal.

[http://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal- with-c...](http://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-climate- change/)

I was pleasantly surprised to see BlackRock recently come out against coal:

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/16/blackr...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/16/blackrock- coal-divestment-regulation-fund-manager)

<comment><USER8> IIRC taking a single long flight per year (~5 hours in the air) is equivalent to commuting an hour by car each day (regional fuel efficiency notwithstanding). Airplanes burn the most fuel during the take off stage which makes short haul flights particularly bad. Replacing those flights with night trains and high speed rail would be an easy win for the environment.

<comment><USER9> That sounds slightly excessive if flying long-haul is about on par with solo car travel per passenger per km. [https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-49349566](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566)

Agreed with rest of points, it's a shame flying is so much cheaper. In the end it doesn't matter whether something is available if it's too expensive for mainstream use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how they planned to route from Stockholm to Helsinki. Going around the gulf is a damn long sidetrack (1700 kilometers).

I feel rather disconnected from central Europe since the only practical way to get there involves flight or ship or a detour via St. Petersburg. On that front, this seems like an interesting project: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki%E2%80%93Tallinn_Tunne...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki%E2%80%93Tallinn_Tunnel)

I'd love to take a cozy train to hamsterdamn.

<comment><USER11> Going via Åland is definitely practicable--the eastern side is about 80-90 km of shallow sea, which means you need basically a series of trestle bridges similar to the Florida Overseas Railroad (which was 200 km end-to-end). The western side is more difficult, since it's 40km at its narrowest point, which is slightly longer than the Channel Tunnel, and most of the sea appears to be about 200-300m deep. But if you detour around a bit more to the north, you could again use a trestle bridge for most of it, and use a large bridge only to cross the deepest portion of it.

The point is crossing via Åland is firmly in the category of "we've crossed these kinds of gaps before."

<comment><USER12> A fixed link via Åland (if at all seriously considered) would not open within 30 years [imho, based on previous projects].

<comment><USER10> And it probably would be expensive enough that funding might be impossible to secure. It's not like it'd be an enabler for some sort of massive economic activity.

Shame we don't have a Musk to start The Suspending Company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Stupidly enough the width of the railway track is not the same in all European countries. Notably, relevant for the article, it's different in Finland. But also in Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

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

<comment><USER11> All of the HSR systems in Europe have standardized on 1435mm. (The highest- speed line in Finland is the 220km/h link between Helsinki and Laht, which is on the slowest end of high speed rail).

The integration of the Baltic states into the European HSR system, Rail Baltica, including the Helsinki/Tallinn tunnel, are planned to be 1435mm.

<comment><USER14> Has that tunnel moved beyond the "wild dream" stage?

[https://www.dezeen.com/2019/11/21/zaha-hadid-architects- ulem...](https://www.dezeen.com/2019/11/21/zaha-hadid-architects-ulemiste- terminal-rail-baltica-network/) BTW. I'm definitely going to go there, by train, the year Rail Baltica is finished.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> not sure, what's requiring billions of euros, a full, factory new train (e.g. classic cars and a locomotive) built for relative high-speeds on existing rails (e.g. maxing out at 160 to 200km/h) costs around 20-30Mio euros iirc (Austrian Railjets). If you go the used, traditional car route, you are more realistically looking at 10Mio euros max.

So: the only problem is getting your route approved by all states network operators, which is a complex problem of congestion, neglect and slow, european style processes. Case in point (no joke): a hotel sued the Deutsche Bahn because some train tracks were not operating within the permitted legal framework. Now you say: that's a democratic, rule-of-law society. I say: the train has been there for 90 years, no living human has ever been at a disadvantage because the state pushed trough with the train without proper permissions...

And of course, the rail needs to be high speed, because otherwise the environment, rail service companies and people could actually profit from the latter rediscovering how cheap and nice train travel could be... (for example: a single ICE (german high speed train, which generally goes 160-200km/h, because there is no dedicated high-speed-track) costs at least thrice the aforementioned Railjet and also more maintenance (higher safety margins for higher speeds) - now talk about the high cost of car/bus-rivaling rail again)

</comment><comment><USER16> I used to take the night train to go back to my parents as a student back in France. Was a nice feeling, having a bed and reading a good book during the night while enjoying the scenery and the relaxing sound of the tracks under you. I really miss it and would love doing it again. They removed those trains like 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone that loves to travel by train, I would appreciate to have this opportunity, but as prices usually go on European wide trains, I doubt that the prices would be competitive to flying. :\

<comment><USER18> I once tried to plan such a train trip – I travel semi-regularly between Scandinavia and Central Europe – and while I wouldn't mind to take a two day trip as a bit of an adventure, the price was prohibitively expensive.

This is a nice idea though, I could see it being popular if they manage to keep the price reasonable. The journey itself could actually become part of the experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Holidays in the sun seem to be out of fashion in Sweden right now. Everyone is talking and doing hemesters and tours within Sweden. Trains to Hamburg would be really popular for nearby tourism.

<comment><USER20> This was definitely true last summer, when it was trendy to flight-shame. But human nature being what it is, the itch to travel to the sun is inevitably creeping back, and I've noticed several colleagues returning from breaks in Bali, Goa, Thailand and Sri Lanka. They just don't talk very much about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I missed yet another easyJet plane from Berlin last month. Damn gate closing 45 min before flight. Anyway, I took a night bus from Berlin to Amsterdam. Among the many amenities on the €30, 9 hour Flixbus were Ukrainians with excessive amounts of liquor to share. I arrived at 7am, 3 hours earlier than the next plane or train.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yes, please. I fondly remember taking trips on the night train to France when I was little.

Rail is a great semi-long distance (<= 500mi/800km) mode of transportation in general. It's unfortunate that it's so expensive to construct (high speed) railways.

<comment><USER23> Is it really that much more expensive as an airport, or asphalt travel? I'm just curious whether you have found some pricing details somewhere :)

<comment><USER24> Rail networks require land for tracks. Acquiring new land for new networks is very expensive. Airspace is sort of abundant.

Both modes of transport require a lot of energy. Airline fuel is apparently virtually untaxed. Train operators, on the other hand, pay the full price for electricity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've never used one but imagining to go by night train from one part of Europe to another gives me a feeling of _travelling somewhere as experience_ instead of it being a chore where being-en-route rather feels like not-being-there- yet.

<comment><USER26> For my next vacation I'm planning on taking the train from Seattle to San Francisco, for exactly this reason. I've told people about this and they all think I'm crazy: "It costs as much as flying and takes 22 hours, why would you do that?" But they're not getting that the train ride is the point.

<comment><USER27> Do it! The coast starlight is great. I have taken it a few times from Los Angeles to Oakland. It is so relaxing, the diner car is great and so is the observation car which is a fantastic place to camp out with a book. I've been meaning to take it up to Seattle. I'm sure it's beautiful going through Oregon and Northern California. When you take it to Los Angeles you go right by vendenberg air force base and the Space X and Nasa hangers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Intercity rail is great. In Germany it allows people to self select the density and lifestyle they desire, while still working in bigger agglomeration. I can see this being a big economic and quality of life benefit.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd love for one connecting through the Baltics to Helsinki.

That would unlock a huge part of Europe that is right now only accessible via airtravel (if you value your life).

<comment><USER30> Why does valuing your life have to do with it? It takes a fair bit of time, but there's a ferry to Helsinki from Germany that takes a day, a 5 hour train from Copenhagen to Stockholm, an overnight ferry Copenhagen to Oslo etc.

<comment><USER29> Have you ever driven from Amsterdam to Riga? I have. It's not something I care to repeat. Several near misses on such a distance is not something that I care for.

<comment><USER30> Train to Stockholm and then ferry to Riga

7AM Wed day trip arrives 2340, stay overnight, then get the 5PM Thursday evening ferry to Riga, arriving Friday morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is Finland now officially Scandinavian? Or is this some other Helsinki they speak of.

Looks like a nice project, then I don't have to drive up anymore.

<comment><USER32> Technically Finland is _not_ a part of Scandinavia, but neither is Iceland nor Greenland. However Finland is very much a part of the _Nordic Countries_ (and so is Iceland and Greenland, et al.). And people sort of use the terms "Scandinavia" and "The Nordic Countries" interchangeably, as the distinction isn't that important[1]. So for for all intents and purposes (barring being pedantic) Finland is a part of Scandinavia.

[1]: I'm not an expert on this, but I doubt there are many inter-Scandinavian cooperation happening any more that excludes the other Nordic Countries.

<comment><USER33> ⇧ What he said :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is a night train the same thing as a sleeper?

Night Bus

Sleeper Train, no?

</comment><comment><USER35> i think this nightline trend is largely pointless. there isnt much traffic between these aside of a bunch of tourists. but that doesn't mean i wouldn't use it, once or twice. scandinavia is the kind of place i like to hate for trying to be better than everywhere, but would like to see anyway, just in case i am wrong and it actually is. what we do need is high speed infrastructure to more cities and metro lines in more cities if we want to improve accessibility. Edit: having actually read the thing, i see this is an extension of an hsl line to groningen. i'd love to see that line happen. and if the night train becomes an hsl as well, maybe the project isn't quite so doomed from the start. after all, a one hour trip on the hsl would make commuting between amsterdam and up to Bremen possible.

<comment><USER24> You might enjoy reading these articles about how high speed rail is detrimental to the European rail network.

1\. [https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains- ar...](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing- the-european-railway-network.html)

2\. [https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains- ar...](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-not- sustainable.html)

Sleeper trains are the best in my opinion. You board, shut your eyes, and when you wake up, you've arrived. No wasted time. A lot cheaper and a lot more pleasant than this "high speed" malarky. Especially now that "high speed" has come to equate "invasive security checks".

<comment><USER35> your opinion is not the only possible opinion. I used the hsl to paris once. it was amazing. In three hours i was home and could go on with my life. a plane would not have been faster. paris is a little bit too far to commute these days but one would imagine people will use it to commute to brussels. that's also the real weakness of sleeper trains: they are only useful for tourists. whereas most trains are being used for home-work commute.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you been to any conferences that changed your life in some way? - <AUTHOR> Ask HN: Have you been to any conferences that changed your life in some way? How? <comment><USER2> I went to the first World Domination Summit in 2011, a conference in Portland for readers of the "Art Of Nonconformity" blog. It was popular with one-person businesses, people who created & sold their own products (typically online). Though when I got there, the crowd had lots of life coaches & people starting their first blog.

It changed my life in that I got a job out of it - I ended up being hired by someone I met in the hallway between talks. We bonded over how much we _weren 't_ enjoying the talks, finding them to be more "motivational" than actionable & substantial. (Something about people singing "Kumbaya" a lot.)

I've since realized the value in conferences is usually not in the talks themselves, but the people you meet in the "hallway track" or the conference social events like evening drinks, bungee jumping, skydiving, etc. The talks & speakers are there to attract like-minded people and provide a shared topic of conversation. I've always made more business contacts & friends from the skydiving, and learned much more from the private conversations over drinks at the bar.

</comment><comment><USER3> Somewhat spontaneously attending the GF (Grammatical Framework) summer school gave me a totally different appreciation for natural language formal grammars. Now when I'm learning a foreign language I can actually look at its GF grammar and understand it in the same way I'd understand a purely functional program library. And I hope to use GF in future businesses and projects.</comment>


Twitter rolled out headers, how to add yours today - <AUTHOR> http://blog.timel.es/twitter-rolled-out-headers-how-to-add-yours-today/

<comment><USER2> Nice one! Will check it out! :-)</comment>