Another 10 years of Internet evolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2018-06/10years.html <comment><USER2> > It may be slightly more disconcerting to realise that your electronic wallet > is on a device that is using a massive compilation of open source software > of largely unknown origin, with a security model that is not completely > understood, but appears to be susceptible to be coerced into being a "yes, > take all you want".

If only the entire stack was open-source. I have to say, I distrust the closed-source part of my phone's stack far more (both the hardware and the software).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always been fascinated by the idea of text-mode browsers, but for most of it the experience was more and more aggravating, and never practical. To the point where console-based browsers like w3m started to strive to work more like graphical browsers...

But I opened that page in eww (the browser mode in Emacs) and it just ran perfectly.

Up until just the other day, modern web pages were serving a decent text-mode fallout, but they were placing sidebar content _before_ the main content, so it came up _on top_. This in spite of the fact that they could very easily have put it afterwards -- CSS is handling everything, no?

For an "evolution of the internet", it's great how gracefully this page degrades.

<comment><USER4> NYTimes have recently moved their asides and nav _below_ main content, in the paagestream.

I'm increasingly using text browsers.

HN would benefit by a true nested (list) layout. Or a few <br /> tags within its table layout.

And visible voting buttons.

TFA here actually reads better as source than as rendered, on mobile (Chrome / Firefox).

<comment><USER3> I have a bash alias "ddg" that opens duckduckgo on w3m for searching error messages and such. Despite "responsiveness" and all that, the best way to use a graphical web browser is full-screen; with a tiling wm, text browsers are often the best choice.

I pity the fool that switches between jupyter notebooks and stack overflow answers using a mouse and tiny tiny tabs. That fool was me ~18 months ago.

<comment><USER5> I use a whole separate computer for browsing/documentation. I switch my keyboard and mouse with a hotkey through my kvm, but I use multiple monitors to keep both systems visible at all times. The only downside of this setup is it forces me to reimplement stack overflow answers rather than copy and paste, but I suspect this is actually a good thing.

<comment><USER4> Synergy should allow clipboard sharing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy_\(software\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> default-kramer The bit about the Internet of Things made me disappointed, as I realized that the next TV I buy will almost certainly be "smart" even though I don't want it to. I wonder what other products will go the same way?

<comment><USER6> Phones went down that path as well.

If you don't want your smart TV to be "smart" get one with a good screen but don't mind the smart features (do look at the input options though).

Then after you installed it don't plug it on ethernet, don't give it access to WLAN, and just use one of its inputs such as HDMI.

Pretty simple, isn't it? I'm using HDHomeRun together with DVB-C [1]. The public broadcast TV even delivers 1080p. Emby, Kodi, Plex, VLC, Apple TV, NVidia Shield TV, etc all support it.

[1] [https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/](https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Essentially, the public Internet is now a platform of apps on mobile devices"

insightful.

</comment><comment><USER8> An appropriate typo:

"Our computers will become more capable in terms of the rage and complexity of the tasks that they will be able to undertake."

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd like to add an observation regarding the application layer, as well as a prediction:

The last ten years have largely seen the internet (and technology in general) making things more convenient for the majority of the population: Think phones / "the internet at your fingertips", cloud apps that synchronize our data across devices, content platforms like Netflix & Spotify & <insert your favorite newspaper> which allow us to consume our favorite content anywhere, anytime, and online stores like Amazon that allow us to get our hands on practically any product we could wish for—now even within the same day. There are also fitness trackers which record all the data for us that, previously, we would have had to measure and jot down manually (which is why we didn't), and messengers like WhatsApp which allow us to get in touch with anyone at any time. (Anyone remember how the contacts we had in AIM/YIM/ICQ/MSN messenger used to be online only when they were at their computer? How annoying it used to be to exchange files and photos with friends?) We even have personal assistants now which remind us of upcoming events, notify us about traffic jams on our way to work and allow us to communicate with our devices through speech and thus in a more natural way. Finally, don't forget news feeds and content aggregators like Facebook, Instagram and Google News which make it so effortless to consume content that, for many users, they have basically become the only portal to the internet and any content outside these platforms is basically invisible unless some post on, say, Facebook links to it. Which, in turn, implies that providers outside these platforms necessarily have to somehow pick up their users on these platforms and bring them to theirs. (Remember how it used to be the other way around? But how many people really still type in URLs in their browser's address bar these days? How annoying and inconvenient!)

At the same time, almost all platforms that have risen over the past ten years are those whose value proposition is precisely this: Convenience. One could even say that the reason today's internet is an internet of monopolies and big walled gardens is that it's more convenient. Even the internet of things basically is/will be nothing else than added convenience (at least when it comes to private consumers).

On the other hand, the reason that privacy and security concerns don't matter to the vast majority of internet users is that they are not only not convenient—they are the exact opposite. The same thing goes for the algorithms that tell us what to consume. Even if they all were open-source, who would really take the time to understand how they work?

Call me a pessimist but I predict that this trend will prevail. Every consumer-oriented Next Big Thing® will make our lives even easier. At the same time, we will continue to lose control over our data and over what we consume as algorithms dictate our interests.

Remember how the internet of the 2000s used to be this promised land where, to us techies, anything seemed to be possible? This internet which was going to be oh-so egalitarian and which promised to bring democracy to the entire world? These times are over. Brave New World and The Circle, here we come.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I think you're right. Most people like the internet the way it is (at least based on their revealed preferences). That said, I'm not sure there is a better model we can replace it with. Pretty much anyone can think of ways the world could be better, but most of those ways aren't feasible in practice. I think the same is true of most alternative visions of the internet.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure if I like the revealed preferences explanation.

Most people weren't asked how would they like their Internet. They don't have any say in it. _They accept what they 're given_, and don't complain much, because there's no one who listens.

Most people flock to various Internet sites and services based on lots of reasons, many of which are unrelated to the actual form of a given service. People stick with Facebook or WhatsApp not because of their superior UX choices, but because of network effects. See what happens every time when Facebook changes something in the UI. People will complain very loudly, but will not go elsewhere, because of network effects.

Or consider New York Times. They can do absolutely whatever they want with their site without consequences - their readers go there because it's _the_ New York Times. For lots of people, _news sites are not substitute goods_.

I'd wager that most of the services on the Internet aren't substitute goods for majority of people, for one reason or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I share the author's dismal outlook on security. Folks simply cannot be bothered to care about it propter-hoc, and post-hoc is often too late. We might be fucked at this point.

</comment><comment><USER12> > However, I find it extremely challenging to be optimistic about security and > trust in the Internet.

This is what blockchain is good for. Security and trust. As the ecosystem matures, there will be boundless opportunities for innovation and evolution. I know there's an enormous amount of skepticism on here w.r.t blockchain, but the potential of it is incredibly exciting.</comment>


The most sensational news ever - <AUTHOR> https://artistdetective.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/the-most-sensational-news-ever/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting (author here). In retrospect I should have written "A.I. news" in the title, I hadn't expected to see it posted on boards with more general topics.</comment>


Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/us-rental-market-analysis-2016-11 <comment><USER2> Los Angeles though... :(

One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with _25_ other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually receiving the money.

I thought that kind of living arrangement only happened with undocumented workers (barring SF and NYC, which I've always considered to be ridiculous), who can't easily exercise tenant rights.

Now I really wonder how many of the apartments and homes around me are just completely packed with people who are splitting rooms.

<comment><USER3> Woah, I knew about things being bad in the USA, but I didn't know living conditions are going towards third-world standards :/ Where I live (The Netherlands) there are laws that even protect foreign workers (i.e. from Poland) from all being stuffed in a single room.

At this point it's starting to look like even jail cells have more room and privacy.

<comment><USER4> The problem isn't: "We are an exploited underclass unable to live in reasonable conditions." The problem is more along the lines of a gold rush type movement of people. Where large cities are attracting a large influx of people increasing demand on housing faster than it can be corrected.

Plenty of inexpensive housing in Ohio. Not so much along the California coast.

<comment><USER5> That, plus a complete refusal on the part of government and voters to build any more housing.

not to mention all the environmental impact fees, taxes, and endless regulation which increase housing costs way beyond where it would be without. It's not just LA and SF (gold rush cities that have housing problems). In CA, even the rural areas with miles of space in every direction, housing still costs a lot more than the national average.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure where you plan to build in new york for example?

Build even higher buildings?

<comment><USER7> Sure, why not? If zoning regulations were relaxed, developers would definitely be willing to build more housing. Even most of Manhattan doesn't have very tall buildings, just look at Google Maps in 3D view.

<comment><USER8> That's mostly because of the geography of Manhattan though. The places with tall buildings (Midtown and Downtown) sit on a solid base of bedrock, in between this base is much deeper a lot harder to build to. Housing in Manhattan isn't the big problem anyways, it's Brooklyn and Queens. But there are a lot of political issues in there.

Personally, I don't want to live in these new developments because I find them ugly. You can't tell the difference between a new flat NYC, London, Amsterdam and Paris anymore.

<comment><USER7> > Personally, I don't want to live in these new developments because I find > them ugly. You can't tell the difference between a new flat NYC, London, > Amsterdam and Paris anymore.

This seems like a solvable problem though. Like if everyone complains about how ugly everything is, why aren't there regulations passed specifying how things should look (or should not look)? Developers mostly just want a consistent way to build and make money, if you specify how things should look most will fall in line instantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A friend used to rent out a spare room in SF on a regular basis. Two years ago, he could get $1850 for a single room with it's own bath room, furnished. We're talking 6-10 replies from a Craiglist post within 24 hours. Stopped renting it out about a year ago.

He just posted it again. Zero takers at $1850. Finally got someone for $1600 (-13% decrease in rent) after a month. A dramatic change.

The rental market in SF is definitely turning towards the buyer.

<comment><USER10> Yet $1600 is still absurdly high for such a simple living space.

<comment><USER11> That's about the cost of a studio in DC.

<comment><USER12> Odd. 4 years ago I paid almost $2400 for a 700sqft studio in DC. Have things changed? (Haven't lived in DC since).

<comment><USER11> I had a 2 bedroom lease in Adams Morgan, one block off 18th, for $2500 last year. We've since bought a place a few blocks away, so I'm unsure if it's risen.

<comment><USER13> How expensive was it to buy vs. to have continued the lease?

<comment><USER11> Well, it's much better to buy. But only if you have the capital. At the time listings were only on the market for one to two days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know nothing about the San Francisco housing market apart from what I've heard in discussions here on HN. The received wisdom here seemed to be that powerful NIMBY lobbies in SF were preventing needed development and causing the sky-high rent. But this article is talking about an "historic construction boom". Did something change regarding development in SF? Or was the NIMBY effect always a bit over-stated? Anyone care to speculate?

<comment><USER15> Speculation that this is the case in SF, but is an effect I've seen:

You can get a dip in average rent without (sufficiently) dropping bottom quartile rents, which is what NIMBYism tends to block, by having a lot of nice condos built.

The top quartile of rents dips heavily as places jockey for condo buyers, everyone moves in to a nicer place as the wave spreads, but the price at the bottom remains (mostly) the same (even if unit quality goes up), because the oldest buildings get torn down at the end of the wave, rather than genuinely increasing the housing supply (because land to develop on is still hard to come by).

So it's possible average rents dipped, but service workers still struggle to afford rent, even if they struggle in a nicer unit.

Tl;dr: I expect the building that happened raised low-end apartment quality rather than drop price, even if average rent is down. Because NIMBYism.

<comment><USER14> This sounds plausible, and it chimes with the article's statement that the new supply is at the high end. Thanks! If people were only blocking certain kinds of development, that would explain why low-end prices stay high even while there's a lot of construction causing the median price to drop.

<comment><USER15> I think of it as: NIMBYism keeps high-density zoned land high value, so the floor never comes out of the market, even if you squish the top down.

Houses don't belong in (the core of) major metros anymore, but there are a lot of wealthy home owners who live there, and have built up political networks over decades or centuries.

It's a tragedy of our system that we let 20 residents keep out 200.

<comment><USER16> Should the 20 just be bought out, or forced to sell, or allowed to rezone and then sell one by one (with the first person getting the most money, as each lot is turned into a high rise).

We are facing some of this in the city in which I live and I don't really know how to address it (I can see validity in the arguments of both sides) so was wondering what you see as the path forward.

<comment><USER15> This is a tough one.

I'm generally leery of things like eminent domain, because they can be very problematic. On the other hand, there's a good chance that converting a lot of blocks also means we need to up utility capacity in the area, which can be very disruptive for residents, so it also makes sense to rebuild an area at a time.

I like the idea of having the city nominate regions, and then any time 90% of a block agrees, the whole block is sold as a unit (or maybe auctioned with minimum bid) and rezoned at that time. (This kind of idea meshes well with the development plan of having several high density clusters smattered around the city as neighborhood focal points, which is what my city recently switched to.)

It doesn't quite fix the utilities problem or some people being forced out, but I think it balances out a lot of competing forces reasonably, and keeps us from working with weird lots during development (as the city can repartition the block during rezone).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Studio "luxury" apartments here in Nashville have long term leases at $1200/mo for a studio. I was not impressed when I did a tour across the city; I asked the occupancy rate at a few places, and was floored when they told me it was only ~25%; these were 1yr+ old developments, which is apparently common place. I've been telling people the city is in a bubble, but no one believes me. Everyone says now is the time to buy, I think they're insane.

A lot of people from out of state that had higher real estate values could sell their $400K-$500K home in California and come to Nashville and live like a king. Now they are just poaching people knowing they'll pay up. Our hotel rates are higher than New York City's on average. It's insane, and everything thinks this will last. We'll see. Nashville wasn't mentioned in the article, but I have a very hard time believing the city will sustain its current rent levels, with such low occupancy rates.

It's actually cheaper to just buy a condo outright (which I think is still too expensive $300K for a studio,) than to rent.

<comment><USER18> I'm in Nashville as well, and was just talking about this yesterday with people. The past couple of years has seemed to be almost entirely luxury apartment complexes being built, and anecdotally most of the young people I know here can't afford them, or if they can will just buy a house instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can this please be re-titled as a US study? First blush of the article title made me go "What? Seriously?"; the two markets I look at first are London and Sydney.

<comment><USER20> I've heard similar reports about the London rental market, but then again when it comes to the housing market, the UK press report on every scrap of noisy data they can get their hands on.

London has also seen a huge glut of (supposedly) high-end property come online. Builders are struggling to sell, so they're now starting to offer discounts on the new housing stock [1]. If what the article says is true, I would be surprised if the same scenario didn't play out in London.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/content/f6692d4e-8327-11e6-8897-2359a58ac...](https://www.ft.com/content/f6692d4e-8327-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5)

<comment><USER21> London, I believe, has a big problem with the Brexit because many banks plan on or are already leaving the country. No banksters, no tenants for outrageously expensive properties.

<comment><USER22> Hmm, I haven't heard of any banks leaving yet.

<comment><USER23> Here's some stories.[1][2] Of course, these are about future plans, not actually leaving, so take them however you want. AFAIK,the real concern is not that banks will actually "leave" the UK, but that they will downsize as they move operations to other areas of the EU, which makes complete sense. Some of the laws that allowed free access to EU citizens from the UK will end with brexit, and while UK officials will try to get something similar in place, there are EU officials that feel that a deal that's essentially the same is not in their favor, and that the UK should pay a penalty for leaving. This is the uncertain climate that is causing some banks to hedge their bets and move some operations to the EU.

1: [http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-banks- idUKKCN12M...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-banks- idUKKCN12M0TZ)

2: [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/22/leading- ban...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/22/leading-banks-set-to- pull-out-of-brexit-uk)

<comment><USER22> I was responding to the statement that some banks were planning to leave and some had already left - I have heard of banks planning to leave, but have definitely not heard of anyone doing so. Was curious if the poster might come back with any evidence for that claim but as they haven't, I think it was probably just hyperbole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Clicked on that list hoping to see good news in Seattle... turns out we're up more than any other city in the top 10. Sigh. There actually is a decent amount of housing construction in progress but it seems like it's not nearly enough.

<comment><USER25> Also Seattle Resident, has a few things going against it:

* Highly constricted physical space, poor public transit and almost continuous traffic problems due to natural bottlenecks. This means people have to live close or else risk a 60 min+ commute one way.

* Single family homes drive a lot of property demand here, not just luxury apartments. Those are still expensive and hard to come by, and they are not building much more of that within the city proper. Average home value is hovering around 500k. Apartment building will not offset this very easily.

* In general, the city was historically undervalued given the insane density of highly skilled and highly paid jobs. We have some heavy hitters and offices of some large international tech companies but rents remained low for quite awhile. This is just the adjustment.

The prices for apartments will level out eventually, but we still have some way to go imo.

<comment><USER26> > poor public transit

I disagree. It's not perfect, and it's definitely no Manhattan subway system, but I live car-free in Seattle while working on the other side of the lake and it has been pretty awesome. The trolleybuses are smooth, there are a bunch of regional express routes, and--especially after the prop 1 passage in 2014--the span of service and on-time performance have both increased.

If your measure of "quality of public transit" is defined in miles of light rail, yes, Seattle's is poor. But the buses, in my experience (though I don't usually travel during traditional commute hours), are a great companion to the light rail that we do have.

<comment><USER27> Seattle buses are okay compared to suburban non-cities like Phoenix or Silicon Valley.

They're a disaster compared to other desirable world power cities with functioning public transit, though. Seattle's transit system would be considered a disgrace anywhere in Europe or Asia, or even most parts of the northeastern US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd be curious to know what the breaking point is for luxury condo developers, i.e. how far do prices need to sink before they're in trouble? As an extension of that, who are the investors that will take the hit?

Presumably, the capital put down for the construction of these condos gives landlords and developers a hard floor on the prices they can accept. Is their solvency dependent upon charging luxury rents, or could they get by leasing at more moderate rates?

</comment><comment><USER29> The past 2 years for me have been about the enormous exposure of how rent has been going up and house affordability has become a real problem world-wide.

As legislation started to get promoted in different countries (Vancouver's foreign tax, Berlin's Airbnb ban, Argentina rent-caps) I always thought that the origin of this entire problem is the low rates for lending, and that these laws would only be a hinderance to recovery.

This is still early to take for granted, but my suspicion is getting more likely. I feel sympathy for the people that told me that houses are the safest investment, and that renting is always worse than buying.

<comment><USER30> I agree that laws passed to deal with high housing costs are often counterproductive in the long run. The classic example is rent control.

Can you explain your theory that low rates drive high rent inflation? Seems like it would be the opposite for several reasons: low rates are associated with low inflation, low rates make it much cheaper to build and operate apartment buildings, etc.

<comment><USER31> Counter productive in what ways? Rent control works great for Montreal and has for years. That city is very affordable to live in, because of it.

<comment><USER32> Rent control still leaves people who want apartments without them, it simply changes the allocation strategy from "willing to pay market price" to "was here first" or, in the case of designated affordable housing, lottery.

Increasing density limits, or improving transportation to allow wider sprawl, actually add housing supply in a way that might keep up with demand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Meh. "Plunging" is a strong word for an 8% drop. Even if you buy the "effective rent" argument, 22% isn't much of a plunge. This is a start, limited to a very few neighbourhoods, and merely makes the housing market slightly less insane.

<comment><USER34> 8% in a year is plunging. Factor in inflation, and 5 years at that rate and real rents drop 41%. That would be a massive decrease in a short period of time and it's hard to imagine it happening - which just supports the notion that 8% in a year is a pretty big drop.

You should be celebrating this news and not complaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The rent concessions are the real leading indicator. As every month of "free rent" in a 1 year lease lowers gross rent by 8% (4% for a 2 year lease, and 2.7% for a 3 year lease) As a strategy it assumes that the rent will come back up after the lease period. When it doesn't the rents actually get lowered to avoid being the highest rent in the list.

Also there is an impact on increasing AirBnB regulation both from cities and from landlords. Now there are often very explict callouts in a rental lease that specifically mentions getting money for the use of your apartment from non-family members. That means you're not going to be able to monetize that second bedroom to pare back your housing expense.

<comment><USER36> A whole bunch of big new 'luxury' rental buildings have flooded the market in my area of Brooklyn, and the 'free rent' concessions they're offering–especially with a bit of negotiation–are substantial. Some friends of mine recently moved into one (with a few months free rent), and it's shocking how few apartments have been rented despite how long the building has been available.

The effects of these buildings coming online have been noticeable in my nearby neighborhood: two apartments in my 6 unit building that otherwise would have been rented in a matter of days sat empty for several months until they lowered the asking rent multiple times, I got an immediate 'yes' to a lowball counter when it came time to re-sign our lease, and the number of nearby 1 bedroom listings under $3k has multiplied dramatically since the last time I was searching for a new apartment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My anecdotal evidence shows a dramatic shift of my 20-something and 30-something year old co-workers to Oakland from SF due to affordability. Oakland is close, cheaper (though rising), diverse, and close by BART. This is probably putting a good deal of supply back into the SF market, but putting pressures in the East Bay markets (Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda).

</comment><comment><USER38> The best cure for high prices is high prices.

Very few trust that supply vs demand doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Sure there will be temporary spikes in price, but as rents go to ridiculous heights (I think $5000 for a 2 br condo is utterly ridiculous, and that prices is about 5 years old in SOMA), it will abate at some point. As long as there isn't a monopoly, or people aren't manipulating the markets, fair and properly functioning markets will self-correct.

Always.

<comment><USER39> They are manipulating markets.

Apartment communities (I first saw this in Bay area) are doing whatever they can to make sure you end up in a particular month of a year. This is summer, at least now.

Most of them are doing this. Some use lower prices for 6-7-14 months (the number depends on what month right now). I personally signed up for 14 months without realizing what would happen to me. Some try to just cheat. One of apartment communities sent me a contract for 13 months without mentioning a word. Fortunately I knew about this scam at that time and didn't sign it.

So as long as many people need to renew their contracts at the same time - boom! Artificially heated market.

I hate them so much for doing it.

I wish more people were aware of it.

<comment><USER40> What if it's a more benign reason, like they just want to prevent leases from ending in fall or winter when the demand is lower ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A 2 bedroom in my building dropped from $3950 to $3250 over the past few weeks. The landlord can't unload it. And today I got a notice that they're raising my rent. Shortsighted -- they'll have another vacant apartment on their hands soon.

<comment><USER42> Ha, I'm in Hollywood, and my complex has been sending out emails offering promotions to recommend friends on a bi-weekly basis for a few months now. Vacancy has got to be around 20%. Meanwhile, there's 6 new luxury complexes with over 1500 units opening or that have opened this year-- _JUST ON MY BLOCK ALONE_ [2,3,4,5] (for reference, the entire population of Hollywood is roughly 22k [1]). The new complexes are practically ghost towns, Eastown in particular was offering a free month for ages before finally dropping rents 10%. Sunset Gordon Tower is literally kicking everyone out that moved in, which was only 17% occupied anyway [5].

Meanwhile, my lease is set to expire, and the renewal offer comes with a 10% bump in my rent (as it has for the last two years).

The sad part is, I feel like it's working from an economic standpoint. Vacancy was close to zero when I moved in (literally got the only apartment available). Even though it's now got to be around 20%, the rent has risen by over 30%. Pretty sure that means they're making 4% more over the course of 3 years, which given the dismal global economic growth, that yield isn't too shabby.

With all the vacancy, you'd think development would be slowing, but it's actually picking up even more. There's 7 new hotels planned for the block [6]. And there's several other residential towers planned for the block [7], 750 new units by 2018 just in one, the Palladium Towers [8].

Keep in mind that this is just one block. Roughly the same thing is happening a mile up Hollywood Blvd at Highland. And to a lesser degree a mile down the street at Western.

All of this is great. We desperately need the new units. The mixed-use walkability will be an example to the entire city for how great Los Angeles can be.

But where are this many luxury renters suddenly going to appear from? Wishful thinking?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood) \- 22k population

[2] [http://la.curbed.com/2016/7/16/12206104/camden-apartments- ho...](http://la.curbed.com/2016/7/16/12206104/camden-apartments-hollywood- mixed-use-luxury) \- Camden 287 units

[3] [http://la.curbed.com/2014/3/9/10134626/6201-hollywood- christ...](http://la.curbed.com/2014/3/9/10134626/6201-hollywood-christened- eastown-readies-for-summer-opening) \- Eastown I 535 units

[4] [http://urbanize.la/post/eastown-apartments-phase-ii- moving-a...](http://urbanize.la/post/eastown-apartments-phase-ii-moving-ahead) \- Eastown II 515 units

[5] [http://la.curbed.com/2015/9/14/9921562/sunset-gordon-cim- gro...](http://la.curbed.com/2015/9/14/9921562/sunset-gordon-cim-group- eviction) \- Sunset Gordon Tower - 299 units (quite the circus).

[6] [http://la.curbed.com/maps/hollywood-hotels- map](http://la.curbed.com/maps/hollywood-hotels-map) \- Hollywood Hotels Map

[7] [http://la.curbed.com/maps/a-guide-to-the-nearfuture-of- the-h...](http://la.curbed.com/maps/a-guide-to-the-nearfuture-of-the- hollywood-skyline-1) \- Hollywood Future Skyline Map

[8] [http://la.curbed.com/2016/3/22/11286562/hollywood- palladium-...](http://la.curbed.com/2016/3/22/11286562/hollywood-palladium- towers-approved) \- Hollywood Palladium Tower (planned)

<comment><USER43> Most of these projects were planned and approved many years ago. One of the challenges with development is that you start a project knowing people won't move in for 3-5 years (when construction completes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The rents are astounding to me as an Atlanta area resident. My fully loaded mortgage+escrow payment on an entire 3 BR house with a full basement (in which I have an office and wired for Cat6 ethernet) is less than $1100/month. There are tons of tech companies within commuting distance and even more remote work opportunities as a developer. Chances are good that we'll finally have gigabit fiber to the home within a year and current Comcast service is serviceable at 75 MBps.

<comment><USER26> > The rents are astounding to me as an Atlanta area resident. My fully loaded > mortgage+escrow payment...

I see this a lot of the time when rents for certain areas of the country come up. My friends in Dallas and Austin say the same thing. FWIW, I own a duplex unit inside the city of Seattle, so my views may also be a little skewed.

My usual response is, "yes, but then I'd have to live in [other city]." There are a lot of advantages to living where I do, in my opinion; that's why I chose to live there. The weather is a not-insignificant consideration. I don't ever have to look at a weather forecast and see that the expected high is 100F-or-above for the next month. Natural beauty is another. Local culture is yet another.

One other point about the cost of housing: you wrote "Atlanta area," so I imagine you're OTP. By comparison, I'm paying $1,600/month to own my 2BR house inside Seattle, and I don't begrudge any cent of it. Mortgages inside Atlanta proper are possibly in the same range.

So it's not a question of being astounding or out of the ordinary, just different life choices.

> Chances are good that we'll finally have gigabit fiber to the home

...and I have gigabit fiber, too. ;)

<comment><USER44> And yes, it is about weighing the pros and the cons. I personally have chosen very much to refuse any engagement/job that requires daily commute into an office. I understand that is a privilege that comes with being a developer and not something everyone can do.

<comment><USER45> I was in the same position, but decided to just move Jakarta to live in a fully furnished 2bd apt (along with other other amenities of the building) for about $750/month (I paid this much for a room in a 3bd apt in Boston, with nothing sort of the amenities). Different pros and cons (see remote working cross timezones).

I think in the long run as more and more work allow for it, it will free up pressure in extremely nominally inflated areas that I consider most top US cities to be, but I see this more as a long term trend since there's a lot of entrenched interests to treat real-estate more like a financial instrument.

<comment><USER16> And remote work needs to get more and more mainstream.

If that doesn't happen, then the pressure will remain on the geographies with many job opportunities, and most of the wealth will flow to the landowners.

<comment><USER45> There are some economic incentives for companies to push towards more remote working: less capital expenditures of offices (which might matter more for smaller companies), possibly some downward pressure on wages (depending on the industry/skills), but I'm not too optimistic about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Surprisingly, everyone sees in this data exactly what they thought before looking at it.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is quite a news. I just looked at renting page of my formal apartment in Wayback Machine. They had listed 3 bedroom + garage at $2200 in Puget Sound area from January to May. Now its $2100. Not a big decrease but I don't recall I had ever seen a decrease during past 5 year or so. It's actually quite shocking.

This probably means that the real estate price cycle theory is right. First house prices goes up so construction boom starts and then supply overfloods the market and suddenly there are no takers which brings rent as well as house prices down. It's closed loop with delays so you get overshoots and undershoots. This can be mark of price fall for next 3-5 years in real estate as well rents.

<comment><USER48> It's fascinating that it's happening at a time when wage growth across the board is at a eight to nine year high (and plausibly heading even higher so long as unemployment remains where it is). So whatever supply is coming on- line, is entirely cancelling out that wage growth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Apartments have been the last frontier of expensive mass-produced products. Hopefully this is the end, and not just a temporary blip.

<comment><USER50> Its the land not the apartment which is expensive. Land, especially in cities, is finite. This makes it different to other mass produced products

<comment><USER51> So build up. Here in London people don't build up, for some reason (I mean other than office spaces, obviously). I think it's this nefarious british mentality that old is good. So you never demolish any 2 story buildings, you just build more outwards. Then you complain that the prices are insane.

<comment><USER52> The main problem is the greenbelt.

<comment><USER51> See, there we go again. Why is the problem the greenbelt? Between central London and the greenbelt there's a mind-blowing extension of small houses in every direction. There is A LOT that could be built before getting to the greenbelt. The greenbelt is only a problem if you want to continue building small houses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Do we know what policies are genuinely effective at improving housing affordability? This is the one biggest thing the (proverbial?) middle class have been struggling to make gains on over the last generation in a lot of otherwise successful places.

<comment><USER54> Public Transit/road infrastructure helps costs too. If you can get around an area faster you effectively increase the number of units that are available for people working at your location keeping prices a bit lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> And I thought Jersey City and Hoboken were bad. I pay 1825 in rent for a 2 bedroom that's 30 min from my work. But thats because the landlord has not jacked up the rent since I moved in 2 years ago. A new place as big as mine today will probably rent at 2500, which is still not as bad as many other places like SF.

</comment><comment><USER56> Amazing, supply and demand actually works!

Someone should tell all the protestors who opposed construction of new luxury condos because they thought it would somehow increase rents.

<comment><USER57> Yes, rents are set by wages as you have to pay them out of your wages.

Supply and demand also works for buying. Because central banks have ran with ultra-loose monetary policy since forever credit supply is huge and prices detach from wages.

What a total mess these guys have created. Easy on the way down, chaos on the way back up.

<comment><USER58> > rents are set by wages as you have to pay them out of your wages.

Are you implying that there's some sort of grand-scale collusion on rent prices? If most rent takers think "hey, the median salary is X so I'll just charge X * 0.33" then what's stopping another rent taker from drastically undercutting that price?

<comment><USER59> You could argue that home prices are tied to wages and rent is tied to home prices.

<comment><USER60> I would say that easy access to loaned capital has perversed the connection between wages and house prices a bit.

<comment><USER58> >easy access to loaned capital has perversed the connection between wages and house prices a bit

Only to a certain extent. Loaned capital is still limited by wages (no one is going to give a $1 million mortgage to someone who makes $40k per year). But again, I don't think wages has hardly anything to do with house prices; it's all about supply and demand. Sure, most people might only be willing to pay 1/3 their salary on housing. That doesn't mean that the price for housing is that number. If a huge supply of housing for less than that price floods the market, then why would everyone continue to pay 1/3 their salary for housing when they could pay 1/4 or 1/6?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Strange concluding sentence about the prospect of an influx of Chinese investors to rekindle rising rents. Is there evidence that such a trend is likely in the near future? I have seen reports that a lot of money is expatriated from China into real estate because it's easy to launder that way. In general is it expected to increase so much that it would have a noticeable impact on rents in the major markets?

<comment><USER62> _I have seen reports that a lot of money is expatriated from China into real estate because it 's easy to launder that way._

I don't know about rents, but overseas investment certainly drive up price to own in Auckland NZ and Vancouver, Canada, though the latter may have stopped due to changing tax policies. Auckland is as big as SF.

If you're investing in property overseas you want the value to be stable or increasing, though. I don't think these people are value investors who would jump into a market with declining prices because the houses were suddenly underpriced -- quite the opposite, I think some would rush to get out in that case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> This looks like a short term dip while the market adsorbs new units. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER64> No, that seems about right. The "Progressives" (I consider them to be a peculiar West Coast form of conservative) have now made unprofitable subsidized housing an integral part of any large-scale housing project, which means housing can't be built unless the financiers can expect the market-rate prices to remain sky-high. So, when prices go down, they have to stop building.

What would make a difference is additional YIMBY pressure to roll back these harmful restrictions and delays, and allow housing to be _affordable to build_.

[http://www.sfyimby.org](http://www.sfyimby.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I am glad I had my SF adventure when I did. I lived there from 1996-2001 and paid less than US$900 for a charming Nob Hill bachelor. That same apartment goes for $3k today.

Currently I am in Toronto, paying CAD$1400 for a rent controlled one bedroom downtown that I have been in for over a decade. Current market price for same is CAD$1700, but this includes a flood of new condo units more luxurious than mine.

Toronto is looking good in comparison to US cities. It has all the amenities of SF, Seattle or Boston, though the IT salaries are not as high. Plus, no Republicans.

</comment><comment><USER66> PSA: if you're looking, be on guard

[https://www.bbb.org/council/news-events/bbb-scam- alerts/2016...](https://www.bbb.org/council/news-events/bbb-scam- alerts/2016/03/craigslist-abounds-with-rental-scams/)

</comment><comment><USER5> SF still has a loooonnng way to "plunge" before the rates resemble anything half way reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER67> everyone I know in New York City is complain about rent INCREASES and GENTRIFICATION

Article: "East Harlem rents are among Manhattan's fastest-rising this fall" [http://ny.curbed.com/2016/11/21/13703220/fall-market- report-...](http://ny.curbed.com/2016/11/21/13703220/fall-market-report-nyc)

so I have no idea where business insider is getting it's data from. Also here is a lovely map of the subway stations and the median rents near by.

Notice that Bronx hardly exceeds $2000 (compared to the reported NYC median of $3100).

[http://ny.curbed.com/2016/4/29/11535674/map-nyc-subway- rent-...](http://ny.curbed.com/2016/4/29/11535674/map-nyc-subway-rent- comparison-renthop-analysis)

<comment><USER68> That's because those are low rent areas that are still playing catch up to the extremely high rent central city.

The article is most talking about the high rent areas that are now less extremely high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Not LA though!

</comment><comment><USER70> Market corrections in overpriced cities. Seattle still growing, turns out sustainable growth is sustainable.

<comment><USER71> Why do you think Seattle's growth in housing costs is sustainable? Certainly the cost increases in single family detached units have been large and rapid. My naive interpretation of that would be that such increases are a) unlikely to continue indefinitely and b) are pushing demand for 2+br apartments to unusually high levels. That's weakly supported by this data, which show a 6.4% increase in 1br prices and 8.2% for larger units. Of course, many other markets have completely taken single family detached off the table, so maybe I'm not making an apples to apples comparison.

<comment><USER72> seattle has more growth counted in the number of construction cranes than any city in the us. prices of standlone houses seem to be increasing, apartment pricing is less clear, but this article seems to know.

<comment><USER71> Not trying to be dense, but possibly succeeding: why does this indicate that Seattle's price growth is sustainable? If Seattle builds too many apartments with those cranes surely the growth in prices will collapse (homes seem to be supply constricted and to some degree a lack of supply has dampened demand, but this might change if condos became very affordable). Alternatively, if Seattle builds out too little then prices will grow unsustainably until they collapse to sustainable levels due to supply restricted demand dampening. So there seem to be two goldilocks zones: one where demand and supply are in harmony, and the other where they're totally out of whack and the combination of effectively liquid real estate and fluctuating value overdampen to produce stable averages with unstable individual outcomes. Which is the claim here?

<comment><USER72> You are right, current growth doesn't mean sustainable. I'd look at the example of the bay area and the endless growth there. Seattle is cheaper, less dense, has all the same pieces, allowing for lots of growth to catch up to that level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Not in Orlando.

</comment><comment><USER74> Even with the rents decreasing, they are still way to high for most people and adjusted for inflation, far higher than they were 30 years ago.

The reason for the high rents are structural -- the use of politics to create artificial shortages in housing by use of zoning density restrictions. This is the deliberate creation of market failures due to "rent seeking" \-- use of politics to create artificial scarcity to benefit a special interest group. The artificial scarcity inflates the value of property to landlords such as Donald Trump harming renters.

An example, regarding taxi cabs: NYC had a law creating a limit on taxi cabs to 13,000 medallions --needed in order to drive a yellow, hail-able cab. The market value of the taxi medallion was $1.2 million which meant that for drivers who typically lease cabs, a substantial part of their income went towards leasing the cab with medallion. Thus, taxi riders (renters of use of cabs for trips) were paying far more than they should and taxi medallion owners (landlords) were receiving a huge windfall.

Then Uber/Lyft came to NYC and the political artificial scarcity of (electronic) hail-able cabs was relieved. The result is that the medallion price went from $1.2 million to < $700,000 and far more drivers were no longer paying high leases to medallion owners and driving for Uber/Lyft instead. Our prices for taking hail-able cabs have decreased and continue to decrease. Everyone gains except the medallion "landlords."

This rent-seeking market inefficiency tremendously damages the economy. Fewer housing units are built than they should be in an efficient market. Tenants are paying a far greater proportion of their income for rent instead of goods and services. Simply fixing this law that benefits wealthy landlords can be a substantial stimulus to the economy.

Another cause of high rents is the number of illegal immigrants that are allowed to stay in certain cities. This NYTimes article claims there are about 600,000 "undocumented" immigrants in NYC (of a population of 8.5 million)[1]. Almost all undocumented immigrants are in the country illegally and hence the more correct word is illegal. These 600,000 illegal immigrants adds substantial market pressure that otherwise would not be there if the law were enforced and hence the rents are far higher for low-income New Yorker American citizens than they otherwise would be.

[1]. "Some 574,000 city residents are undocumented,..." [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/nyregion/economic- tsunami-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/nyregion/economic-tsunami- fearing-donald-trump-immigrants-in-new-york-spend-less.html)

<comment><USER75> Can you explain how illegal immigrants are able to rent in the New York market? Surely the landlords will demand identification and references and would refuse someone who is illegal?

<comment><USER74> In Manhattan, generally, there is more background checking and credit rating, etc. But I'm not so certain that is true in the outer reaches of NYC which would have housing that is more affordable to lower-wage workers.

Overall, NYC (and others) do not check papers for public school, health care, ... at least as far as I know. In fact, there was a NYTimes op-ed within the past month where 200 students at Berkeley are illegal immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Where in Boston could someone possibly find a two bedroom for $2600? Shenanigans

<comment><USER77> So here's the results[1] from Zillow for a 2BR for $2500 or less in an actual Boston zipcode. These aren't all the results, as it limits the results to 500. If you're not looking for a managed, new luxury apartment, it's tremendously easy to find.

Moreover, if you go on Craigslist, you'll find far, far more. Zillow listings are almost always represented by a realtor, broker or property management company so it's only a subset of the market.

[1][http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boston- MA/house,condo,a...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boston- MA/house,condo,apartment_duplex,mobile,townhouse_type/44269_rid/2-_beds/0-656706_price/0-2500_mp/42.47197,-70.893574,42.199911,-71.258183_rect/11_zm/)

<comment><USER78> They're mostly in Brighton and way deep Dorchester. The commonwealth ave one is as ridiculous as the same price being advertised for a real 2br in a doorman building in Chelsea. This is akin to measuring salaries by the high end of glass door. Sure. Someone may have gotten that price, or it could be a lie, but you won't.

<comment><USER79> Yep, flawed study. The stuff in Brighton, deep Dorchester, Hyde Park and Roxbury should be thrown out since a lot of it is very much not TOD and you'd barely know you were living in Boston.

<comment><USER78> What is TOD btw? I think I agree with you but I'm curious about the term.

<comment><USER80> Transit-oriented development - built along trams/metro/rapid bus cooridors

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> adblocked. bye!

<comment><USER82> It is extremely frustrating that they actually show the content, let you read a paragraph or so, THEN won't let you continue without paying in some way. I won't be supporting this website.

<comment><USER83> You already weren't supporting this website. You want them to produce content and then give it to you for free while using Adblock.

<comment><USER84> While I don't agree w/ the parent posts necessarily, sometimes providing discussion around an article has the effect of promoting it which is a way of supporting the website by drawing eyes which do not adblock. Promotion is not always direct to final consumer; popularity plays, especially on news aggregation sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Have there been any experiments in legislating ceilings for housing prices? If so, what has been the effect?

<comment><USER86> > Have there been any experiments in legislating ceilings for housing prices? > If so, what has been the effect?

As Assar Lindbeck put it, "next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to be the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities." For instance, in 1970s when the Bronx was burning, a major contributing factor was New York City rent control. In some neighborhoods of the Bronx and in Harlem, fully a third of the housing stock was literally abandoned by its owners: it was easier to just walk away and let the building rot than to take any action to repair it and continue to collect rent-controlled rents.

Even notoriously planned-economy San Francisco has backpedalled from the price-ceiling approach, favoring instead a mandatory "right to lease at the same inflation-adjusted price forever" in all its housing contracts.

<comment><USER87> _it was easier to just walk away and let the building rot than to take any action to repair it and continue to collect rent-controlled rents._

My parents and I lived in a rent-controlled apt in Manhattan in the early 1970s. Rent was $80/month. The 1973 oil embargo happened and heating oil prices went up. Oh, did I forget to mention that the $80 rent included heat?!!!!

Basically things were so bad for the landlord that it cost as much to heat the average apt in the building as that apt paid in rent. Clearly not a sustainable situation.

We moved out of the city the next year. But in retrospect we should have bought our apt (for about $7,000) when the building went coop/condo.

So the tenants not only enjoyed below market rents for decades, but after the landlord was bled dry they were able buy their apts for a pittance.

Hmmm ... 12 apts, maybe two voters each, vs an older couple, the landlords, only two votes. I wonder why rent control existed for so long? (that was sarcasm, I know exactly why it existed!).

As Maggie Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. I'm sure the tenants saw some large cost increases once they went coop, because now they had to pay 100% of all the building costs. But that only moved them into fair value territory. All the money they "stole" from the old landlord in the previous decades would never be paid back.

<comment><USER88> Ironically, rent control may have been the single biggest factor leading to the consolidation of ownership of New York real estate by the ultra-wealthy.

If you were a landlord, you couldn't afford to pay enough to buy your tenants out of their apartments. But massively wealthy investors and big banks could - and they _did_. They bought the rent-controlled apartments that were money pits for small landlords, and then paid large sums of cash (under the table) to the tenants to get them to leave. Once the tenants had left, the apartments could be easily converted back to unregulated, market-rate apartments.

Small landlords literally couldn't afford to own the buildings, because they had to spend money to operate them and received next-to-nothing in rent. So, they had no choice but to sell them to the investors and banks who were well- capitalized enough to negotiate these buyouts, resulting in the mass consolidation of real-estate by a relatively small number of owners.

And of course, the original goal of rent control (ensuring that long-time residents would continue living in the same neighborhoods) went completely out the window, because it was in their best financial interest at that point to _move_. And the secondary goal (providing "affordable" housing) was gone long before that

> We moved out of the city the next year. But in retrospect we should have > bought our apt (for about $7,000) when the building went coop/condo.

In retrospect, you should probably have kept living there as tenants. If you were there in the early 1970s, you'd have been grandfathered into rent control, and rent _control_ in New York (as opposed to rent stabilization) is insanely profitable for the tenants, even if you weren't offered the type of buyout that I described above.

It'd have taken you 7 years just to break even on the savings in rent by itself, but between maintenance costs (which your landlord was required to give you for free) and property taxes (easily more than you were paying in rent), you'd probably still come out ahead today if you'd just stayed on as tenants.

Of course, you'd have to live there continuously and never move, and the apartment wouldn't be yours to pass on in inheritance. But the money you'd save would be worth way more than that.

<comment><USER85> _" Once the tenants had left, the apartments could be easily converted back to unregulated, market-rate apartments."_

This is why rent-controlled apartments should never be allowed to go back to "market rates". They should remain rent controlled in perpetuity. Problem solved.

<comment><USER89> Carried to its logical conclusion, this probably creates a situation where it's worth it to knock down the building and make all new apartments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Well, duh. The dumb money has been funding way too many apartment projects.

Where I live (Albany, NY), they just built thousands of rental units within a 15 mile radius. In one example, they are trying to rent a "luxury" two bedroom for $2500/mo, when you have a much nicer home a few blocks away for $200k+$50k for a fancy kitchen, etc.

</comment><comment><USER91> Zumper is pretty inaccurate when it comes to SF I have found. The influx of new residents still vastly outpaces new construction + people leaving SF. As such, rents are not going down. The easiest way to verify this is just to ask anyone trying to rent in SF.

<comment><USER92> Rents are going down. I am moving this weekend, and in the 2 months I've been looking a bit, it's very, very obvious. At first, it was just that you no longer had to essentially arrive with 3 months of rent in hand and sign on the spot. Next, there was emphasis on how "this is the only property at X price" (which was false on it's face). When we finally signed, the leasing agent told us "if the price is too high, make an offer." So we came in 10% below list price and asked for a discounted first month of rent. They agreed immediately. Stories like this are common to anyone currently in the process of finding a new apartment.

<comment><USER93> sf? Which neighborhood?

<comment><USER92> The only ones that I encountered that weren't notably going down were Russian Hill and the Marina, but even then, the prices weren't rising, and it was far easier to find a place in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Letter from the grave (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/01/letter-from-the.html <comment><AUTHOR> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Mexican_Drug_War)

During the time I lived in Mexico there were 10 journalists killed in the state of Veracruz where I lived. They were journalists that spoke out about government corruption or cartel violence.

During the same time the entire police force of Veracruz were fired in one day and the navy replaced them.

Currently there's blogo del narco, borderland beat and a few other places online to read uncensored stories, but almost all have the writer's name. Something like Wikileaks for safe, anonymous reporting would be great for these countries.

<comment><USER2> >Something like Wikileaks for safe, anonymous reporting would be great for these countries.

Couldn't agree more. If anybody is interested in building something in this area, please get in touch with me.

I'm part of a group of investigative journalists looking at organized crime and corruption (<http://occrp.org/>). Security is a big worry for us -- our journalists regularly receive threats and other harassment. We've talked about setting up an anonymous publishing system, but don't have the capacity to build it ourselves.

I'd love to talk with anybody who has thoughts on how to do anonymous reporting. Especially, how do you put something up anonymously or pseudonymously, but still publicise and get a decent readership for it?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps consider reaching out to the security folk at e.g. Tor Project? They've multiple mailing lists (<https://lists.torproject.org/cgi- bin/mailman/listinfo>) and many friendly people on them. In particular, 'tor- talk' often finds itself engaged in all sorts of general Tor / anonymity- related discussions as well as Tor-specific technical nuances. It is usually rather welcoming and often sensitive to more or less any security-related (especially when Tor software does / can play a role in them) issues and questions.

Of course this is the 'less hairy' technical side of anonymity; probably what you have in mind would involve social as well as network/software-based infrastructure, especially if outreach / readership (as you said) are important (and I suppose they would be rather central, as impact would basically (maybe) very much be / is a function of / directly depend(s) on readership sizes etc.) I suppose one would need to answer questions such as e.g. how to maintain an image of credibility(?) etc. if article authors only use pseudonyms. But making sure anonymity of the publishers / authors is possible at least in the narrow internet networking sense might be a start, perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something many take for granted here in the U.S. is constantly under attack from corrupt governments and powerful organizations(cartels, financial conglomerates and multinationals) in the developed and developing world. I would dare say that even our own press is somewhat more bridled now then ever.

My respects for a man who walked tall despite the threats to his family and life.

</comment><comment><USER5> Who is the power behind the throne the author is talking about? Is it Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother and minister of defense?

<comment><USER6> According to the following account by his wife, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is responsible: [http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january122013/lasantha- vi...](http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january122013/lasantha-vid.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting line - "we recognize that all human beings are created different." I feel as if humans are created equal, and are molded by different cultures. Nevertheless I agree with his plea for reverence of differences.

<comment><USER8> Culture isn't the only thing that separates people. We aren't blank slates and this means we are not "equal" in the sense of being "exactly the same". That's what he means by "created different". I think you mean we are born with equal moral value / rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is definitely not news, and it's a general interest article that's not particularly related to hackers in any way. Top spot on Hacker News right now.

Admins, the community is telling you something: this site has become a Reddit clone with a more highbrow tone.

Edit: if you downvote, please reply too.

<comment><USER10> Downvoted. I like the article and find it refreshing compared to the "I built X in Y" and such, and your comment is not informative. If you don't like the article, just skip the comments and read something you believe is more related to hackers.

>>Admins, the community is telling you something: this site has become a Reddit clone with a more highbrow tone.

Please, don't speak in the name of the community. Actually, it's the main reason I downvoted you.

<comment><USER9> I liked it too. It's just not hacker news. It's not even news. I'd seen it before on a mainstream site.

I like to see hacker news on Hacker News.

<comment><USER11> Part of what makes a community like this is the diversity of intellectual stimulation. If all we read about was hacker stuff, we would start to suffer from homogenization of thought.

Another huge benefit of non-hacker submissions that you clearly overlook is that it gets hackers out of the Silicon Valley tunnel vision and starts to get them thinking about other industries, cities, countries, and problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> (2009)

<comment><USER13> Another journalist from the same newspaper was shot (but not killed) today: [http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2013/02/17/attempt-to- silence-...](http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2013/02/17/attempt-to-silence-the- pen-again/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Gyms are reopening but I don't want to go back yet. Covid exercise tips? - <AUTHOR> Hello!
My New Year's Resolution this year was to reach a
- 1 plate OHP - 2 plate bench - 3 plate squat - 4 plate deadlift - run 500 miles
Well, I don't have access to weightlifting materials so my lifting goals have been made impossible to reach by the end of the year, lol. My gym is reopening but there's no way I'll go there right now and put my family in danger to get a workout in.
To make matters worse, I dove into running as a noob with too much intensity (from roughly 0 miles a week in April to two 5.5 mile runs a week at the beginning of June).. At the time of writing, I am on week 2 of recovery from shin splints, lol. I really loved running but it seems like I am going to be sticking to 1 mile runs, then 2 mile runs, etc, for a while as my body adapts to the sport.
So! I would really be interested in hearing about good tips from people who managed to adapt their exercise to this moment of crisis. <comment><USER2> Go back to the gym. Quit being fearful about Covid-19 if you're under 60 (which you likely are) and healthy (no autoimmune disorders and not diabetic) - the odds you will catch it are low and the odds it will kill or even damage you should you catch it are ridiculously low.

As for the shin splints, quit running until your body heals. Take up rowing, recumbent cycling, elliptical machine or (my nemesis) the stairmaster. I favor swimming too but it doesn't do much for your legs unless you use fins and do kickboard work or have a helluva breastroke.

The single lesson about exercise that a young man should learn after the age of about 22 is _do not injure yourself_. The reason is that you can no longer heal as you did when you were younger. This only gets worse after your mid-20s. Do not try strange exercises that your friends or gym buddies recommend or that you see someone else doing in the gym - be they unusually heavy weights, random martial arts moves, etc. and especially never ever do anything based on a dare. (Instead, if you must, practice them alone on your own terms at low speed, low weight, and low effort first).

If you _do_ injure yourself don't tough it out, take Advil. The usual dose is 200 mg twice a day but when injured (cracked bones) I've taken 800mg twice a day for weeks (I think 3200 mg/day is max, but at (2 X 800mg)/day I was feelin' no pain!) If you're planning an adventure where you'll be making unusual moves (e.g., hiking, distance swimming in open water, climbing.etc.) start taking Advil a day _before_ you start and keep taking it until you return home.

Finally, your next year's New Year's Resolution should be to quit making New Year's Resolutions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I was lucky because I was already on a "no-gym" mentality before COVID-19. I use a full-body bodyweight routine twice a week, and once a week I train with a sandbag. I run 6 days a week. I also train with a personal trainer once a week. I'm 38, live in the USA and work from home as a software developer.

Bodyweight training: I use the routine and progressions from startbodyweight.com.

Sandbag training: I started out shouldering a 60 lb sandbag. I now shoulder a 150 lb sandbag and use an 80 lb bag for supplemental exercises (zercher squats, clean and press). Some days just a few sets of shouldering is enough. Making one or two bags is pretty cheap. Ross Enamait has a very good video/ebook you can buy that covers construction, exercise ideas and technique.

Running: I also suffered from shin pain/fatigue from running, but stopped before they progressed to full-blown shin splints. I missed running however, so I took the COVID period as a time to learn how to run barefoot. If you go this route you MUST read a book on proper technique (I read the Ken Bob book) and practice your form a lot before doing anything more than 5-minute runs. That being said, I don't think going barefoot is a requirement for learning how to run pain-free, I think the important bit is spending a bunch of time focused on learning a pain-free running technique and then building up slowly.

I'm still in the volume-building phase so I measure my running by time, not distance. I don't track my speed. I run at an intentionally "easy" pace--I only breathe through my nose and stay focused on keeping my feet happy. Three days are very short "recovery" runs. I add 10 minutes to my total weekly time if/when I felt good after the previous week. I also incorporate a warm-up and post-run routine from [https://coachjayjohnson.com/samvidoes/](https://coachjayjohnson.com/samvidoes/).

Personal trainer: has been very valuable for double-checking technique, fixing minor pains and adding some creative movements that I occasionally incorporate. Shop around for a trainer that can work with your goals.

Don't forget about diet and sleep! My recovery and enthusiasm for these activities are very directly impacted by how well I'm sleeping and eating.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not sure if VR fitness is an option for you but I designed my own game for my daily workouts.

It's mainly for the Oculus Quest due to the hand tracking but it's free and open source

[https://vrworkout.at](https://vrworkout.at)

</comment><comment><USER5> Anecdata: shin splints injuries are usually bad biomechanics and easy to solve given interest on the topic. After many years without any running at all, it took me 6 months from 0km to running 5 half-marathons (1 every 15 days at the end of such period) without injuries. I was 35 when I started, I think. I enjoy barefoot techniques quite a lot, but I recommend caution.</comment>


Attack of the Clone Attackers - <AUTHOR> http://killscreendaily.com/articles/attack-clone-attackers

<comment><USER2> Very thoughtful examination of the issues surrounding Zynga's cloning of Tiny Tower. We hardly need another thicket of IP law ossifying game mechanics. Yet shameless, mindless cloning deserves contempt and shame.</comment>


Show HN: Quotescube - Your daily dose of quotes - <AUTHOR> http://quotescube.com/

<comment><USER2> The first thing I saw was a truncated quote. <http://i.imgur.com/3Seye.png>

The complete version: "Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Instead, shake things up today! Live through today. Don't just exist through it - _live_ through it!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Will fix it shortly. Thanks for pointing out.</comment></comment>


Looking for startup partners. Developer and Designer.  Here is the idea. - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to create an app which will enable people to create their own designs for a niche market.
It is a high end consumer product.  This market actually needs a sales team to guide customers through the purchase.  People are not comfortable buying such a high end item online without speaking to a real person.  I have a sales team in this industry that will guide the sales.
There is no company doing it for this market yet.  Spreadshirts = t-shirts. Etsy = cheap handmade items. Ponoko = design bracelets and cheapish chachkas.  Shapeways = design 3d objects.
So think of it as spreadshirts for a high end industry.  Go on, give it to me over the head for not stating the industry, that is what makes HN exciting.  I am waiting for it, :-).
Contact me if you are interested agrinshtein [at] the big g. If you cant figure out what that is, I don't want you. <comment><USER2> "If you cant figure out what that is, I don't want you"

I have to confess I have no idea what you'd define as "a high end consumer product"

<comment><USER3> I think what (s)he means is 'the big G' = 'google.com' in his/her email address.

<comment><USER4> My guess is "gmail.com", not "google.com".

<comment><USER3> yeah - I wasn't concentrating properly as I typed & meant 'googlemail', but 'gmail' works better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm going to guess a car.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope.

It would be pretty hard to empower regular consumers with the ability to design their own cars.

Hint- size<car by a lot. Price=>car. Depending on the specs of the item and the car.

It would be cool if you guys could get it :)</comment></comment>


Dgit: Git with decentralized remotes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/quorumcontrol/dgit <comment><USER2> As others have commented, this appears to be a decentralised alternative to GitHUB rather than Git itself (which is already decentralised).

For a similar project, see git-ssb [https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25n92DiQh7ietE%2BR%2BX%2FI403LQoy...](https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25n92DiQh7ietE%2BR%2BX%2FI403LQoyf2DtR3WQfCkDKlheQU%3D.sha256)

<comment><USER3> Another Dgit deve here. You're right. Git is decentralized, but most people use centralized git remotes like GitHub. Dgit makes using a decentralized git remote easier. Eventually we'll build more decentralized alternatives to other GitHub features, but the most important value proposition that GitHub provides now is as a git remote, so that's what we started with. We've provide a GitHub action that allows you to use GitHub's other features until we build more decentralized alternatives

<comment><USER2> While I know there are many devs out there who confuse & conflate "Git" and "Github" and don't really know the difference between the two, I don't think bringing the conflation into "informed" discussion is particularly helpful.

Conceptually, Github is not different for the local ".git" folder sitting on my machine. I can do `git clone '../some/local/dir/.git" just as easily as I can with any SSH or HTTPS link: the underlying protocol used for the transaction changes but the concept does not. So I think defining a "remote" as something inherently centralised by definition just because Github et al are popular isn't helpful: it simply persists the misconception.

Basically: I'm still actually struggling to really fully understand what dgit is.

git-ssb is a protocol for accessing git repos stored in an ssb-db (which is a distributed db). git-ssb-web is a web UI for exposing git repositories stored in an ssb-db.

Can you explain dgit in those terms?

<comment><USER4> I too am confused.

My immediate thought was that Dgit offered a centralized remote, packaged around decentralized technology. Which is to say, many people have a main "master"; a single, centralized repo/branch. Dgit might be offering the same thing, but hosted in a decentralized fashion. I could see the value in this for backup, I suppose.

Sure, Git is decentralized but many of us still prefer having some centralization. Bundling that up into a decentralized system (aka no third party host) has some value.

Though really to me if I was avoiding Github/Gitlab/etc, the primary value add I'd want to see is all of the Github/Gitlab UI features. Notably pull requests, code reviews, comments, basic issue tracking, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a little confused. Isn't git already decentralized? Like, most of the time there one true repo everyone else grabs from, but it doesn't have to be. What am I missing?

Edit: oooooh, this takes the centralization away from Git _Hub_. I feel like that's non obvious from the name, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER6> With three simple steps you can create a decentralized mirror of your existing github project. All changes will be automatically propogated to the mirror version and the git services you depend on will be there when you need them.

<comment><USER7> Isn't this more about replication / mirroring then than about decentralization?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is very hard to understand what dgit really does when its using terminology (decentralized git) clearly incorrectly.

</comment><comment><USER9> I actually do p2p syncing of git repos almost every day, with git-annex's sync feature[1].

It is pretty clever, when you sync, it will push the current branch to every eligible remote into an unchecked out branch (master -> remote/synced/master), which gets merged when that peer syncs (or there can be a daemon that does it for you on the remote).

I use git for filesets and wikis, so true p2p is really helpful. I love seeing new stuff that can be done with git.

[1]: [https://git-annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/syncing/](https://git- annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/syncing/)

</comment><comment><USER10> The description says that my repo is uploaded to the "decentralized service Skynet" \-- But I can't seem to figure out how one would participate in hosting this service. Does only Sia, the company, host nodes for Skynet? Or is this a plot to increase the visibility of Siacoin?

<comment><USER11> dgit dev here. Good question. For starters, dgit is not 100% tied to Sia, it's just a great decentralized file hosting service so we started with it as the first default.

But to answer your question, anyone can host Sia nodes. Here are their docs on that: [https://support.sia.tech/category/0OpBuOHIVD- hosting](https://support.sia.tech/category/0OpBuOHIVD-hosting)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the info.

Is there a simple way right now to use another storage backend than Sia? E.g. If I have a group of people that want to participate in hosting, but only want to host data from the people in the group?

Essentially, can you use dgit to store a repo decentralised without having to set up git synchronisation tools, but while still having control over the hosting infrastructure?

<comment><USER12> hey cfstras, another dgit dev here. Each repo has a storage adapter specified, so any storage infrastructure is possible, but at this moment we've only written two: sia and on tupelo network.

We've had a lot of experience with running IPFS nodes internally, that might be a great option for you in this case? We are in early stages and will add more adapters as feedback informs.

Also, its open source and we would love PRs :) - the storage interface is pretty straight forward:

[https://github.com/go-git/go- git/blob/master/storage/storer....](https://github.com/go-git/go- git/blob/master/storage/storer.go#L16-L23)

Here is an example within dgit: [https://github.com/quorumcontrol/dgit/blob/master/storage/ch...](https://github.com/quorumcontrol/dgit/blob/master/storage/chaintree/storage.go)

<comment><USER13> Curious why you guys didn't got with IPFS by default? Is it related to how you wanted to incentivize backups by default, or was there a more technical reason?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not being able to pull from or push to the git remote is pretty low on the list of problems when GitHub goes down. If that's the main problem I'll just set up gitolite on a server (and I do) and call it a day.

All the issue/PR discussions and CI/CD are the real problems, and this doesn't seem to help at all, so good luck collaborating without changing your workflow when GitHub is down.

<comment><USER11> Our setup process is a much lighter lift than standing up a server and installing gitolite on it.

But yes, if GitHub is down, then your workflow is going to change. We're hoping to close that gap down the road, but having a way to continue pushing and pulling with collaborators with a very quick setup seemed compelling to us. Not to mention the benefits that decentralization itself brings.

The vast majority of git users tend to agree on one "origin" remote and 99-100% of their pushes and pulls are to/from that remote. So git, in practice, tends to be centralized when it comes time to collaborate with others. We're trying to re-decentralize that aspect while accommodating the convenient workflows we're all used to.

<comment><USER14> > Our setup process is a much lighter lift than standing up a server and > installing gitolite on it.

I think a counter to that is only one person needs to set up the additional git remote, compared to everyone having to install additional software to use dgit.

<comment><USER11> Totally fair. We definitely want to make that install process very simple and fast for as many people as we can. And it only needs to be done once per machine. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A thread from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430009)

<comment><USER16> I think that's a different dgit

<comment><USER15> Two different dgits from github? wow!

<comment><USER17> the previous one is from github, the new one is hosted on github but not from github.

<comment><USER15> I obviously needed to read this more closely.

<comment><USER17> Eventually everything will be of, by and for the github so you're probably fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So Sia's Skynet is used for hosting the blobs and Tupelo is used for pointers to the blobs & metadata?

<comment><USER3> Exactly

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks like many commenters are clearly struggling with "decentralized like bitcoin" vs. "decentralized like git" distinction

</comment><comment><USER20> What problem/threat is dgit meant to solve/guard against? Is it:

a) the people problem of coworkers not knowing the difference between a repository (e.g. on github), a remote (the name "origin") or even a branch (the label "master")

b) github.com turning evil or going away forever

c) myhost.example.com failing for hours or days

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't see any mention of issue/wiki support? Without that my GitHub workflow would be dramatically changed.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. Our strategy is to give you a decentralized on-ramp by starting with GitHub's central value proposition of the "one true git remote" that everyone can share. We made a GitHub action ([https://github.com/quorumcontrol/dgit-github- action](https://github.com/quorumcontrol/dgit-github-action)) to automatically mirror GitHub pushes on dgit so you can continue using GitHub's other tools (like issues and wikis) until dgit offers a compelling alternative for those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is cool, but is anyone aware of a system that is like GitHub/GitLab, but PR/MRs and commits are actually voted on by the community rather than a handful of maintainers? Something like the way DAOs are supposed to work, but applied to code?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's still early days, but that's part of the eventual plan for dgit. We're starting with decentralized git remotes, but we will eventually enable DAO like functionality like paying in to repos to support them, voting on things like feature/pull requests, and automatic payouts when an independent dev gets one of their pull requests merged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How do you maintain identity in dgit? i.e how do I claim my user/org name in this decentralized manner? It isn't clear how it works, can you elaborate on this part a little bit?

<comment><USER3> Sure. First, a little background. The Tupelo distributed ledger manages repo identities and permissions, while Sia persists the actual git objects.

Tupelo validates transactions against individual ChainTrees, and you can think of a ChainTree as an independent ledger (or blockchain) that represents the state of one independent real world (or digital) object. In this case, that object is a git repository.

Tupelo only allows the "owner" of a ChainTree to make modifications to that ChainTree (such as updating the current HEAD), and ownership is determined by control of a private key.

Each ChainTree has a unique DID (decentralized identifier) that is uniquely determined by the key that first created it, and the controller of that key is the initial owner. Tupelo also has a transaction type that allows the current owner to transfer a ChainTree to a different key maintained by the new owner, but its DID stays the same after that transfer.

Tupelo uses a strategy similar to the WarpWallet[1] to manage identities. We can deterministically create a private key from a string like a repo name, and use that private key to create a ChainTree with a DID derived from that key (and hence, the DID is derived from the string). This gives us a mapping from repos to Tupelo ChainTrees. Since the initial "private" key is deterministically derived from the repo name, that initial private key is insecure. The second step of the repo registration process is to submit a ChainTree transaction to transfer ownership of the repo ChainTree to a secure private key. That way, only the controller of the secure private key can make changes to the repo ChainTree, even if anyone can reproduce the original key from the repo name.

[1]: [https://keybase.io/warp/warp_1.0.9_SHA256_a2067491ab582bde77...](https://keybase.io/warp/warp_1.0.9_SHA256_a2067491ab582bde779f4505055807c2479354633a2216b22cf1e92d1a6e4a87.html)

<comment><USER23> So, two things I see here, 1) only one person is allowed to push changes to the dgit repo then? How are you supposed to collaborate on a remote dgit repo, in that manner it is very different than a github remote, or am I missing something? and 2) Someone can hoard all popular repos and make it seem that they are original versions, pointing people to clone them from dgit, when in fact they could have been modified with malicious code? How do you address these issues?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So who pays for this? It says it uses Sia as backend, but I know sia costs money. Is this currently being paid for by some org?

</comment><comment><USER25> From a quick look, I believe "Dgit is a Git remote helper for decentralized [...]" would be a more accurate title.

</comment><comment><USER26> The author has a very unique understanding of online security given the readme starts out with "just try it by running this unknown binary".

</comment><comment><USER27> A little disappointing they took the name already in use by another project. Dgit is a system exposing the Debian archive as Git, allowing to upload packages with a git push.</comment>


Show HN: YouTube Decade – The most-viewed videos posted 10 years ago - <AUTHOR> https://youtubedecade.netlify.com/ <comment><USER2> Woah. Great idea, so many interesting things to explore. I'm surprised there's no comment yet about the video titled "The most dangerous Barack Obama video ever!!!". It's such an obvious precursor for what the internet would be come. I was genuinely shocked that it had 10,000,000+ views.

Preserved in a screenshot:

[https://i.imgur.com/mnerRgk.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/mnerRgk.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Also in that screenshot is a video from the UKF Dubstep channel.

23.4M views. Is that the number of views now or the number of views ten years ago?

<comment><USER4> Probably now, I doubt they could get that kind of historical data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unreal. Front page: 6.9M people[1] watched a video of a small dog trying to mate with a cat. The cat wasn't interested but showed surprising forbearance.

 _[1] OK, yes, I know, it 's 6.9M views, and probably some people watched it multiple, so it's probably 2 - 3M people, but that's still a lot of people watching a dog mating with a cat._

<comment><USER6> I thought YT counted multiple viewings from the same person as a single view. Or it would be too easy to game. I at least imagine there would be a time cutoff before it considered counting a new view from the same person.

<comment><USER7> There are videos with billions of views, I doubt that much fraction of the planet saw them.

I imagine it would horrible performance-wise. You would need to store list of browser fingerprints and check it on every view.

<comment><USER8> I think youtube does a bit of checking on views. The view counter is not real, IIRC the delay is due to asynchronous processing, youtube has time to do stuff in some cases. That's why a lot of videos are stuck at 320 views, that's the supposed limit above which the counting goes async and you get lots of vid with false views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Spider cat. I watched the Simpson movie with my first girl friend. She hated it, I loved it. Heck, am I getting old...

<comment><USER10> Same for me!

First girlfriend. Opposite opinions of the movie.

We broke up soon after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is neat, I tried to make a video series a while ago where I compared and contrasted what was in the front page of YouTube 10 years ago. This would have been super helpful for that. But I was shocked with how much of the stuff from back then on that site is just gone.

<comment><USER12> What is happening at youtube? Do they delete old content? Only storing a single copy for old content and the disks are dying?

<comment><USER13> Copyright takedowns, probably.

<comment><USER14> I made a video using YouTube's own Audio tracks thing and put a classical piano tuner from its library. It still got a copy right claim and someone makes money every view.

How? The track is from YouTube. It was written more than two hundred years ago. In any case, a claim against YouTube's own tracks should be auto rejected and the violater banned. Instead...

Why?

<comment><USER15> Performance copyright applies to classical music as much as for everything else. You're free to play, record and distribute copies of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 as the copyright to the composition has expired, but you're not free to redistribute recordings of someone else performing Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 without the explicit permission from the author(s) of that performance.

<comment><USER14> Sorry but that makes no sense to me. I didn't upload a video with a sound track. I added the sound track with YouTube's tool.

The track I used is from YouTube's library. YouTube knows it because I used it. There should be no confusion about who the performer is and nobody should be able to claim the video.

<comment><USER16> have you rebutted the claim? and if so what was the response?

also we have a whole other thread on the HN front page about this RN

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice work! Would be great if you could navigate one day forward and backward.

<comment><USER18> [https://youtubedecade.netlify.com/data/2019_8_24.json](https://youtubedecade.netlify.com/data/2019_8_24.json)

[https://youtubedecade.netlify.com/data/2019_8_26.json](https://youtubedecade.netlify.com/data/2019_8_26.json)

<comment><USER17> This is why it's called _Hacker News_ I suppose :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Similarly, [https://favrd.it](https://favrd.it) has been posting the top tweets of 2009 (as compiled by Favrd, RIP)

</comment><comment><USER20> This just makes me deeply miss YouTube Time Machine.

</comment><comment><USER21> Kudos to the creator for the responsible advertising strategy. The "hey -- you're using an ad blocker" message was thoughtful and non-guilt-tripping. Ads are clearly delineated as such, and the actual ads aren't spammy (carbon). Online advertising needs an overhaul and this is a step in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER22> There was a fun similar thing for Reddit on [https://www.reddit.com/r/TenYearsAgoOnReddit/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TenYearsAgoOnReddit/) (and [https://www.reddit.com/r/FiveYearsAgoOnReddit/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FiveYearsAgoOnReddit/)), sadly it stopped posting ~9 months ago.

Is it possible to use the search API to create something like this for HN?

<comment><USER23> Create a bookmarklet of this:

        let d = new Date()
        d.setFullYear(d.getFullYear() - 10)
        location.href = `https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=${d.getFullYear()}-${d.getMonth() + 1}-${d.getDate()}`

<comment><USER24> This will break on February 29 :)

<comment><USER25> Unless it's ten years past a leap year!

<comment><USER26> If it's Feb 29 then you know for sure it isn't 10 years past a leap year, since they are every four years.

<comment><USER25> Ah, yes, I am an idiot. Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The old-school YouTube iOS icon for the favicon is a great touch!</comment>


Common Lisp Quick Reference - <AUTHOR> http://clqr.berlios.de/ <comment><USER2> Excellent effort, as elegant as the language. Page on top should be card stock. Q&D method is to print all as instructed then take pile to Kinko's. The have both coil binding, folders and saddle style staplers. Run you about 5 bucks. Some thing(sadly out of print) for Mathematica would be more like 35 bucks so think yourself fortunate...

</comment><comment><USER3> I was about to try and finally learn some lisp but now I am scared... Are there really nearly 1000 symbols? All in the same namespace? I thought you guys were always trashing php for having too many symbols.

<comment><USER4> 978, actually.

It's not as bad as it sounds, when you consider that that includes not only (the names of) functions and macros, (of which there are many groups of similar/related ones, e.g. car, cdr, cadr, cdar etc. or char<, char>, char= etc.,) but also system constants and variables, and types and classes.

<comment><USER5> Also there's some functions you use all the time so you'll get to know them quickly (ex: find, remove, push, mapcar, assoc) and others you'll probably never need (ex: tagbody, prog, progv). In short you only have to learn a fraction of those 978 to be able to make something significant.

You can consult <http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/Chapter-Index.html> when you need deeper knowledge in a particular topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice to have, but how many of you actually using Common Lisp?

<comment><USER7> I use Lisp whenever I can. I think most people who have been initiated into thinking in Lisp would prefer to use it over other languages in most circumstances. Many recent languages have grown to accommodate Lisp thinking in differently branded packages for this reason. It is fair to view Lisp as the ultimate high-level language that will persist as other languages come and go. The main reason is its ability to process itself. That's a key innovation that makes it more than just another programming language. There are programming languages, and then there is Lisp.</comment></comment>


What are the best programming interview questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-programming-interview-questions-youve-ever-asked-or-been-asked?share=1

<comment><USER2> The best interview questions go like this: "tell me something about your favourite project you worked on". Then it's easy to tell apart people who can and cannot do programming well, if one is a decent programmer himself.

</comment><comment><USER3> But if anyone can find lists like these on Quora... they can't be all that useful, can they?</comment>