Save money on wifi using user agent switching - jclouds-fan http://cld.sg/wxHfyR

<comment><USER2> I was staying with my brothers at a hotel in Amsterdam and I had brought my laptop; the hotel offered free unencrypted WiFi for guests. Since it's in a big city, as you might imagine, you don't want the neighbors stealing all of your bandwidth, so even though it was free for us, there was a sign-in page -- you had to go downstairs and request that the desk official give you a token, then use that token to register with the system.

So I thought that, since I had permission to access this network anyway, I would break in -- just to see if I could. And I'd tell them about my results the next morning as we turned in our keys and headed off.

Actually since there wasn't any encryption there isn't much to say after that -- it was obvious that their system wasn't too sophisticated, so I just guessed "they check MAC addresses, don't they?"

Using the airotools-ng package for Ubuntu, I set my wireless card into "monitor mode", which (I'm not an expert) I guess is a fancy way of saying "it stopped ignoring everything it saw flying through the air in my hotel room." Normally your computer treats all of these other signals as noise relative to its own goal of connecting to the Internet -- but it's absolutely trivial to start listening to it. With the tool airodump-ng, I was able to see all of the routers at my hotel and MAC addresses of real users connecting to those routers. So I put one of those into my "Connect to the Internet" dialog box under "Cloned MAC address," and hey look, I just saved the desk clerk some time.

I mentioned that I'd done it the next day to the desk clerk as I checked out -- that any competent neighbor could steal their wireless access. I'll never forget his response: "yes, but they're all incompetent."

A similar experience: when I first came to live at my present household, I knew that we had shared WiFi but I didn't know the password -- and the guy who did know had just stepped into the shower. But it was using "WEP", a very old encryption policy which is vulnerable whenever you are transmitting data. So I fired up these same tools, found out that I was lucky -- he'd left a download running when he stepped into the shower or so -- and I captured a couple thousand data transactions. I didn't have to wait for him to finish showering before I had broken into my own Internet.

I'm always surprised by this sort of thing. The other day I had accidentally clobbered my sudo permission when reconfiguring Wireshark (something which can also listen to Internet traffic) to be more secure, and suddenly had no more root permissions. In about half an hour I had downloaded a live CD and burned it and broken into my own box with chroot magic to usurp root permissions to re-add myself to that group. (I have an encrypted disk, and I couldn't have done this without being able to decrypt it. However, most people that I know don't use disk encryption, so the point still stands.)

The lesson to take away: If some half-geek amateur like me can do these things, the professional inbreakers must have absolutely terrifying skills.

<comment><USER3> > [I] suddenly had no more root permissions. In about half an hour I had > downloaded a live CD and burned it and broken into my own box with chroot > magic to usurp root permissions to re-add myself to that group

Except the difference here is that there is nothing to "break into" as there is no pretense at security..

<comment><USER4> Very true, if you don't encrypt data (with a strong algorithm + key) then it will always be accessible to anyone with hardware access.

I remember with Windows XP a friend had a failing hard disk that would no longer boot Windows and they asked if I could try and recover some data from it.

I plugged the disk into my tower and booted my own copy of Windows and tried to access the "My Documents" folder of the broken disk from there. It gave me some theatre about not being allowed to access the files there because I didn't have permission.

Then I rebooted my computer into Linux and mounted it with the NTFS drivers and of course all the files were there to be accessed. As an experiment I rebooted to my Windows XP again and logged into my local administrator account, this also let me access the files.

I can't help but feel that some of these measures perhaps give an illusion of security.

I also wonder with say computer forensics whether something like a file timestamp could be used as evidence in court since these could be easily tampered with by someone using a non standard FS driver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Word to the wise: "circumventing the access restriction was easy to do, Your Honor, so I assumed it was OK" is not something you ever want to have to say.

There exist wifi systems where setting a cookie "paid=1" will save you $15. You might think there are no legal consequences for "writing a text file on your own computer." I strongly suggest not testing that.

<comment><USER6> I don't think those cases are even comparable. Lying that you paid (through whatever means) is different from using a different user agent, which has no (direct, expected) relation to money.

But if you think changing the user agent is somehow wrong, you could also go all the way of emulating the iPad browser on your laptop, and use that to sign in for the service.

<comment><USER7> You'd still have trouble explaining that to a judge. The hotel has a reasonable expectation that if the traffic says it is coming from an iPad, it's actually coming from an iPad, and you don't have any non-infringing excuses to be using an iPad browser on your laptop.

<comment><USER8> If they advertised the plan as an ipad plan, there would be a point. But if the plan is advertised as all-purpose, but only offered to certain user agents, i don't think there's any legal issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm looking forward to the day when I stay in a 100$/night hotel and I don't have to pay for my fricking internet. Every motel/hostel has it for free as it should. To me charging for internet (in hotels/resturatns) in 2012 is the same as charging for using the shower or lights.

<comment><USER10> I run iodine[1] on my server. Maybe it's illegal, maybe it's a grey area - <AUTHOR> don't care.

Here in Israel free wifi access is the norm, but in DE? They charge an arm and a leg. Switzerland (if we're talking about Swisscom anyway)? They are _insane_. The hotels already rip you off with prices like there's no tomorrow and charge for internet on top.

I fire up iodine on my client. If it works: Great. The network was obviously created by morons (it could easily be prevented). Morons won't be able to track me down the short while I'm on their network, on a trip, with a mac address like 'deadbeef' or somesuch nonsense.

If it doesn't work? I don't go online and leave to have a couple beers..

1: <http://code.kryo.se/iodine/>

<comment><USER11> > but in DE? They charge an arm and a leg.

Strongly depends on where you are, apparently. When I was in Berlin, there was free Internet all over the place. In our hostel, the hotel across the street, just about any coffee bar, pub, sandwich stand, pizzeria ... Sometimes you had to ask for a password, other times you could just connect, and other times you had to catch some air network from the place next door.

Or maybe that was just Berlin Mitte?

Though I went to some places near Cologne and I didn't have to donate a kidney to get online either.

Connectivity in the more rural areas can be pretty bad though.

<comment><USER10> I've to admit my experience in DE is limited to certain ~weird~ places. I _lived_ in CGN and rarely needed wifi outside of my own home. Got no experience w/ Berlin, but I might move there in a year.

My problem in DE was usually related to trips to customers, to the ~end of the world~. In CH it was more prevalent: I stayed in roughly 20 different hotels in Bern so far and most of them, ignoring the decoration from 50 years ago, were charging for internet access. On top of a very high room rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ugh, a bit.ly link? Can someone change the URL to point to the actual address of the page?

[http://viktorpetersson.com/2011/09/25/how-to- get-50-discount...](http://viktorpetersson.com/2011/09/25/how-to- get-50-discount-on-swisscoms-hotspot-and-possibly-also-others/)

I love that people get up in arms about the change to google's privacy policy but have no trouble funneling traffic through bit.ly and other link shorteners...

<comment><USER13> it is actually _not_ a bit.ly link, which is unsurprising, because bit.ly links are banned here. try submitting one, it will immediately go dead.

this is some other link shortening service, which the admins haven't gotten around to banning yet. but it's just a matter of time.

<comment><USER12> It _actually is a bit.ly link._ Did you do anything other than look at the URL before saying I was wrong?

I will help you out. What happens when you go to cld.sg? Or what happens when you append a plus sign to the link above?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had a similar experience on a US Airways flight last December. The Kindle Fire browser allows the user to choose whether to optimise for mobile or desktop, and this resulted in two different prices.

In relation to the legal questions raised elsewhere on this thread, I'm guessing that it's a non-issue when it's a built-in feature of the device. I think the argument could be logically extended to using plug-ins that switch user agent strings?

<comment><USER15> I wonder if that was segmenting potential customers or if it was an A/B test

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I feel particularly nerdy, I try to go the DNS2TCP[0] or iodine[1] route. DNS is pretty much always open in those networks.

[0] <http://hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dns2tcp/index.html.en> [1] <http://code.kryo.se/iodine/>

<comment><USER17> How does that work, when DNS always resolves to the paywall IP?

<comment><USER18> Not always. The three captive portals I've tried resolved DNS just fine, but then redirected any HTTP requests to their web server instead.

<comment><USER16> I've never encountered one that didn't have working DNS resolution

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> wouldn't it be cheaper to get a mobile router and a mobile flatrate for the country? Where I live 15€ would buy 1gb for a month.

I have wondered about easily obtaining prepaid cards for travel, might be a business opportunity if there is no good solution yet?

<comment><USER20> If you know of any source of such SIM cards, please post it here!

I've seen plenty of international-travel SIM cards that give cheap[er] texts and voice calls, but none that include any data. And trying to set up a pre- pay data SIM from a foreign ISP in a language you don't speak/read is a nightmare ...

<comment><USER21> I found this wiki(a) site useful:

<http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/Prepaid_SIM_with_data>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised there's still much money in selling wifi internet access.

People who want to use their internet on the move are very likely to have a smartphone or at least a dongle and 3G is usually fast enough.

Here in the UK the train services used to provide free wifi to travelers but recently they decided to charge for it and give the option of a free trial.

On my last journey I tried the free trial and found that it was just as slow as it had always been but was now £5 an hour.

I would have been seriously disappointed if I had paid for that service. Luckily I could just use my mobile phone tethering and get nice fast access.

Surely a better model would be to provide access for free but use some DNS redirection of the popular ad services to redirect the ads to ones of your choice and reap the benefits of those clicks.

I also let a lady in the carriage use my connection for a few minutes to check her emails so it's not like you necessarily need your own connection either.

</comment><comment><USER22> Isn't this fraud and an open admission of guilty?

<comment><USER23> The wifi network never asked him what device type he was using, it just made an assumption based on something as unreliable as a user agent string. How is it fraud?

<comment><USER24> He knowingly manipulated their device detection system. Yes, it's true their device detection system is trivial to manipulate, but that doesn't change the legality. If a bank forgets to lock their vault, you still wouldn't want to clean them out and admit to it on your blog.

<comment> luca-giovanni What if you just choose to change your user agent to something different because you prefer the experience? If you then get different offers as a result you can't be held liable.

<comment><USER25> It's plausible deniability, nothing more. Illegal stays illegal.

<comment><USER26> If there were an expensive nightclub which had a cheaper bar round the corner that only admitted people with the first name of "Dan", who then get full access to the nightclub and cheaper drinks all night, would it be criminal fraud to lie about your name to the doorstaff?

<comment> no-downloads As someone named Dan I feel compelled to point out that such policies are really good and absolutely fair :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm using regularly the same trick to use free tethering with my phone. As I didn't buy some incredibly expensive option that explicitly allows it, simply declaring my firefox as a mobile browser allow to bypass the artificial limitation.

I certainly don't abuse it; simply from time to time you need some internet access (to check an email, to download some piece of software, to google for a technical problem) and I wouldn't pay 39 euros/month for a 3G "key" that I'd use maybe once a month, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd suggest using Opera with Turbo proxy instead — it'll compress all textual content and re-encodes images as WebP. That's likely to give you bigger savings than just a UA switch.

And if you can't trust Norwegian folk with your data, then you can roll your own "Turbo" with Ziproxy or at least SOCKS proxy over gzipped connection.

</comment><comment><USER29> Airlines which offer wi-fi connections usually offer a cheaper rate when signing in with a phone-based browser user-agent as well.</comment>


User registration pages suck - <AUTHOR> http://codeulate.com/?p=9

<comment><USER2> Although, for me, even reddit's is too much work--the only form I should see when registering is:

Enter e-mail: [ chandler@wherever ] [ Register ]

The system would auto-generate a username and password, then email me the results (along with a link to where I can change these, if dissatisfied).

A very low hurdle to jump, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely agree.

Hacker news has a pretty good one, too. Now if only I could change my password...</comment>


Swc – Fast JavaScript to JavaScript compiler - <AUTHOR> https://swc-project.github.io/blog/2019/02/08/Introducing-swc-1.0 <comment><USER2> Two things go unanswered for me:

First, why is it faster? We had Buble back in the day, and deviation from the spec turned out to mean that you were fine for a while until you weren't. Does this project cut corners? It looks like the project is mostly Rust, is the perf improvement simply because of that?

Second, it looks like it has its own parser for Typescript. That scares me. What version of Typescript does it target? How are you testing that it produces the same output as Typescript itself?

One of the biggest benefits to Typescript (in my opinion) is that a single tool verifies the correctness of your code and compiles it (and in all honesty, I've never been wanting when it came to tsc performance). You don't need to worry about your production build output differing from your debug version[0]. I'd be very hesitant to use this in production unless it was running the full suite of tests baked into the TS repo—and passing.

[0] Yes, you probably use a minifier on your production build, but the minifier operates on the ES code that you compile your Typescript down to.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you just run it on your target codebase and then run your test suite to make sure nothing is broken?

<comment><USER4> One suggestion I like is that open source projects include a TRADEOFFS.md file that details the technical decisions made on the project.

Hiding that information means that by default consumers don't have the information they need to make an informed decision. This leads to better marketing beating out better technology and, more importantly, fractures in the community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's suprisingly difficiult to use use these tools just to bundle your code, but not transpile it down.

I've seen code that transpired down to Es3, yet used webgl

<comment><USER6> Why is it difficult? It's just a command line tool with a config file.

I'm not familiar with this tool, but with Babel, you wouldn't use it to bundle your code. That's what Webpack/Rollup/Parcel is for.

If you don't care about targeting older browsers, you can use ES Modules today without a bundler. Even dynamic imports work without transpiling or polyfilling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to see Sucrase ([https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase](https://github.com/alangpierce/sucrase)) included in the performance comparison.

</comment><comment><USER8> My first thought is this was a rehast of the js2js joke: [https://eleks.github.io/js2js/](https://eleks.github.io/js2js/)

After looking over the website briefly I'm still trying to figure out if this is a joke or not. It's only after reading more that it's clear this is a transpiler. Not the clearest of communication.

<comment><USER9> Why would it be a joke?

We've had compilers that compile from newer JS syntax to older JS syntax for years (not to mention all the compilers that compile from another language into JS). Traceur was the first reasonably well-known one I remember hearing about, then Babel came out and took over the ecosystem.

Devs want to be able to use the latest JS syntax, but also have to target older browsers. Compiling new syntax to equivalent older syntax is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Effectively all JS build tools have been written in JS, but this looks like an attempt to recreate some of that functionality in Rust.

I'm curious how much of an actual perf difference there is in practice, given that Babel is usually just one part of the build pipeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Checked this using Webpack and _swc-loader_ vs _ts-loader_ on a tiny(300LOC) TypeScript project and got 4s vs 6s so maybe not 15-20x faster, but at least 50% faster, which is still an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER11> But why? For IE11? A browser for which support will end next year?

All current browsers support ES2015 already. If you really want to support the few users still using IE11, you can use Babel. Why invest many hours in a project to make this faster? And that will be obsolete in two years?

<comment><USER12> Tanspiling from ES2015 to ES5 is no longer the main usage of babel. For example, there is transforming JSX to normal JS. And object rest/spread proprerties (ES2018) is often used by front developers, even if it is not supported by Edge. So, I don't think that babel and swc will be obsolete in 2 years. The most used transform plugins for those will change, but the parser and engine will remain. And having fast and robust tool here is a good thing for this field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every github repo should have the prefix 'super-fast'

</comment><comment><USER14> > 15-20x times faster..

Compared to babel, big team, smart guys, using standards.... Sure

<comment><USER15> Babel actually doesn't have a big team. IIRC it's 3-4 developers who have stated that they don't have enough time as they would like to focus on performance.

That, plus this being written in Rust rather than JavaScript makes the claim entirely plausible.</comment></comment>


Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average - <AUTHOR> https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/03/on-average-older-adults-spend-over-half-their-waking-hours-alone/ <comment><USER2> My father passed away around 11 years back and it wasn't til several years later that it really hit me that my mom was basically all alone for large portions of her day out on the a country property. I now call her and chat for about 20 minutes a day on my commute home. I know that it has made a huge difference in her life and I feel more connected to her than ever before. I highly recommend that others take some time to see if their loved ones are in a similar situation and if so, try and reach out on some sort of scheduled basis.

<comment><USER3> This is also why a lot of spouses pass soon after the other. They lose hope and the reason to get out of bed each morning.

I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people. It also can more than pay for itself by keeping people on their medication regimens and preventing costly hospital visits.

<comment><USER4> A big hope of the UBI movement is that it will "pay" people to take care of one another in a way that our usual monetary transfer for services rendered simply can't handle well. That is, someone taking care of their parent is not going to be paid for that service in our economy, but with a UBI, it allows one to get that economic support without it being a usual "job". The work of maintaining genuine social relationships is not a source of income, but it is what humans are most designed to do and it would be good to have a mechanism that supports that rather than hinders it.

My personal hope is that a UBI leads to real communities where the old and the young have a place in our lives and they stop being seen as problems and as burdens on the middle-aged.

Andrew Yang talks about this a lot in terms of his wife taking care of their children, but the idea equally applies to people taking care of anyone else.

<comment><USER5> UBI will create the conditions for more suicides. Work can create purpose.

UBI alone would strengthen the family unit and reduce external relationships.

<comment><USER6> It's not hard to find purpose in life that doesn't revolve around sitting at a desk doing fuck all and pretending to work for 40 hours a week.

People will still work. Whether it's to get a leg up from the baseline or because it's something their passionate about, nothing will stop people from banding together to solve common goals. The current state of work is just a really shitty abstraction over that. I would have thought software engineers of all people would understand that.

<comment><USER5> That world doesn't and won't exist for most. In places where jobs are being lost and no one works people band together for crime more than innovation. The common goal being additional money.

If you look at the wealthiest innovation is not what they do with there freetime either.

Innovation requires motivation. Innovation requires resources.

<comment><USER7> > In places where jobs are being lost and no one works people band together > for crime more than innovation. The common goal being additional money.

Because they're being thrown into poverty with no way out.

The problem is not ennui.

> If you look at the wealthiest

Yeah sure, but UBI isn't going to make everyone multimillionaires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation.

American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that people are alone. Alone in life, alone at their apartment, alone when they struggle, alone when they die. It's to the point where we regard married couples that live a 20 minute drive from anything as not being alone when they really are.

Most adults I know have a relationship with their immediate family that I would regard as acquaintanceship.

Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism" where you alone can solve every problem you're faced with or else it's not a real problem) and part of it is civil engineering. You need a car to live nearly everywhere, there's almost no public transit infrastructure, etc.

EDIT: Since this is popular I wanna surface something that people have been saying: it definitely doesn't require being far away physically from others to feel alone. I live in Manhattan and big cities can be _extremely_ alienating depending on the person.

<comment><USER9> Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing.

Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

<comment><USER10> I love cities, structurally. But I find the people soul-killing. I just have very little in common with young, childless people anymore. Even when we're experiencing the same things, we're not really experiencing the same things. If I go to MOMA, it's because I want to show my daughter Starry Night. I'm scoping out tickets to take her to Hamilton, because I feel guilty for going without her. My kids are super well-behaved, but I hate going into a restaurant with them in tow and watching young childless people glare at me. I know brave souls who are toughing it out in cities with young children, and more power to them. Meanwhile, there are 8 small kids and two teenagers on my block of 15-20 houses. I walk into the Whole Foods, and see other parents from my kid's school. The _default_ is people like me.

<comment><USER11> >The default is people like me.

I think not finding things in common with young people isn't abnormal. My childhood was miserable partly BECAUSE of the sameness of it all. I find the suburban vanilla Stepford ways soul-killing. I had no exposure to culture. The internet didn't exist yet. I was ignorant and brainwashed in many ways. I felt out of place and like I was a freak because I didn't believe what I was told was "correct". The city was "bad" and "city folk" were "bad". The family and people in those places still have the same narrow beliefs and I am still "wrong". The people I know that grew up in multicultural cities had so much richer experiences and opportunities to grow and explore their beliefs and ideas without their parents ideologies infecting them as much.

<comment><USER10> Having rich experiences and exploring different ideas is admirable, in some respects, but I'm not convinced that's a good basis for sustainable, tight- knit communities. Your choice of phraseology is interesting--parents "infecting" kids with their ideologies. Most people would consider it a key function of parenting (and society) to socialize children in the community's values, rules, and orthodoxies.

One of the things I find ironic about "experience seeking" is how often people go to places like India or China to have "rich experiences." But people from those places generally would relate much more easily to people like your parents. Circling back to the topic at hand--people in my home country of Bangladesh, where there is a rigid social order and strict indoctrination of children, may suffer from many things, but loneliness is not one of them.

<comment><USER11> If the sustainable tight knit community is awash with horrible "values" like racism, homophobia, xenophobia, tribal bigotry and arrogance etc then I don't want to be a part of it. It's perpetuating the wrong things in my view and is like any bureaucracy just existing to serve itself. Kids should be taught the basics of human decency like honesty/empathy/kindness/sharing/helping etc, and then allowed to arrive at any specific spiritual or political views themselves through varied experience, not indoctrinated from a malleable age into mini- mes who never know anything else, as is usually the case in areas like I mentioned above.

<comment><USER10> Few tight-knit communities would consider those to be "values" ( _i.e._ beliefs that are core to identity). Your view is also a bit of "throwing the baby out with the bath water." Humanity has lots of vices, and those vices are often amplified in tight-knit communities. But those shortcomings can be improved without undermining the social order or adopting pernicious individualism.

Again, I can't help but notice the irony of your assertion. What is the virtue in not being xenophobic against Bangladeshis, if you're going to condemn the way they structure their communities and raise their children?

<comment><USER12> They absolutely are values. Just not good ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This resonates a lot with my experience and reminds me of a short book I read by Sebastian Junger called Tribe. His focus is more on the tribal aspect of military life and that the disassociation with a close knit group or a tribe is part of what leads to PTSD as there are quite a few people who have been in the military who have PTSD despite not ever being in combat. He claims that in smaller tribal communities mental illness is less common and that in times of extreme hardship or disaster people report decrease in symptoms of mental illness as they become more valued by their community as a helper during the hardship.

I interact with people normally at work, but outside of work I'm usually alone and it is hard to ignore the negative effects of it on my mental health. If I'm around people after work I generally feel more positive and have less anxiety, but left alone for too long and my anxiety will start to take over. I really miss my younger years where I had close groups of friends and we hung out all the time.

<comment><USER14> _If I 'm around people after work I generally feel more positive and have less anxiety, but left alone for too long and my anxiety will start to take over._

Interesting. I'm the exact opposite. When I have to do things like hang around with people from work for too long, my anxiety increases until I can get away and be alone. I'm not a social recluse, I have a wife and kid, and I enjoy spending time with them, I try to make time for my parents at least weekly, and I enjoy hanging out with my friends. But definitely anxiety builds as my time in contact with other people increases. Alone is often my "happy place".

<comment><USER15> I believe this is an "introvert" vs "extrovert" situation. I'm introverted and I'm like you - spending time with folks after work is a chore. I prefer to hang around "known associates" as it were - my wife, my kid, my in-laws, my friends. Spending time with folks outside those circles is draining for me; I dread doing it, and I look forward to getting home again.

However, I have a few folks in my close circles that are clear extroverts. They _love_ going out with people after work, always seem to be somewhere doing something talking to someone. They never want to go home because home is "boring."

<comment><USER13> It's funny I used to think I was an introvert for so many years because I spent so much time alone. My therapist always used to tell me different and I just thought he was disconnected on that subject. How could I be an extrovert when I spent so much time alone? Wasn't until I started having managers tell me the same that I started to consider it. Turns out I really like being around people but I had a few painful experiences that made me avoid it.

<comment><USER16> Same here. I adopted introverted patterns of life because I had no one to spend time with most of the time. Now I get anxiety when going to meet people. I still do it or try to and once I'm there, I enjoy it a lot. Of course, it has to be with the right people otherwise I'd rather just stay in. It's interesting how society shapes us into what we don't want to become.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am an introvert but the isolation I experience is soul crushing. Half of it is location and culture, rural nowhere and no public transport. Half of it is poor health. I am not here by choice and it's sapping my will each day. Living in a city and having people all around easily accessible you wasn't mentally exhausting for me as one would think, it was lovely and energizing. I'd love to be able to move back. But one can still be alone in a crowd.

I recall an experience I had in a large city, a dense capital and no lack of people around. I knocked on an apartment door to meet up with someone but had gotten the number wrong. A lovely old woman answered the door in her nightgown. I apologised for my mistake and asked if she knew where the person I was looking for lived. She did not, but she invited me in for tea. I accepted and even thought she didn't speak English and my command of her language was poor, we had a human interaction that both of us needed. She was so incredibly alone there. You could tell by how she lived in this little 25 square meter flat and how things came pouring out of her to me, this stranger. We had our tea, I had my tour and saw the photos, and politely excused myself as I had "things to do". My life hadn't fully collapsed yet, and while I have always been empathetic and didn't rush out, I can't help but often think that I should have stayed longer, done more for her, gone back. I always intended to go back when I had more time, but shortly after my own life accelerated downhill and I never found the chance. It was many years ago and she was quite elderly then. I imagine she might have passed by now. But I often think of her and that little room and if by some magic I can get back there I will knock on that door. There are lonely people all around us.

</comment><comment><USER17> I may be in the minority, but the older I get the more I want to be alone. I love my wife and kids, but there is almost too much pressure anymore to do this, do that. There are too many hands on my time. I recharge only when alone. I cannot do it with the TV on, kids in the background, etc. It's one of the reasons I like hunting. Just me and the great outdoors. I really like getting up at 0430 and being in the deer blind by 0600, watching the night drain from the firmament and knowing I'm alone for several miles in any direction save animals. It's a great feeling. It's also why I tend to favor holidays in remote places with few to no tourists. My wife also likes this approach.

Editing to say that schools are now offering summer sports, which I hate, because it means less time in the evenings to relax after work. American culture is too busy. Too many games, too many expectations of parents to commit to this and that. Too many schools begging for money when I already pay taxes. It goes on and on...

Some people need lots of social engagement; I don't. I don't like parties. I do like two or three couples over for a BBQ and beer. It's intimate enough, but controllable enough that there are not competing voices in the background.

At work, I'm fortunate to be able to keep the lights out in my office, draw the blinds and stream my psytrance while working. My colleague I office with likes the same things, so it's a win-win for us. People think we're weird that we like it dark, but I've never worked in an IT office where the lights were preferred. I think this may be an IT thing. I also dearly miss when IT was in the data center and not accessible to the general office staff.

<comment><USER18> I think I'm in a similar state as you. I loved living alone. Then I got married and had kids, so now I have three roommates, two of which frequently need interaction/help/etc. I _crave_ solitude. The most blissful vacation I can imagine is just being alone in a cabin on a lake sitting coffee and reading. I spent two days driving to see the 2016 eclipse and living in my truck alone and it was absolute bliss.

At the same time, I find it easy to project that desire too far. I get less solitude than I would like now, so I feel that need, but I definitely don't want infinite solitude. While I liked living alone, I also remember getting quite lonely at times. It's easy for me to take for granted my social needs because they are being (more than) met right now.

One thing I do find a real challenge is a life that feels both socially full and shallow. With all of the tasks of being a full-time employee and parent today, my social calendar fills up quickly. I can really only see a couple of people a week. Kid birthday parties and other events like that overwhelm it. Because my kids are constantly making new friends, there is this parade of parents that enter and recede from my life. They're all nice people, but over time it gets harder to invest effort into friendship with them because I only see any given one of them every couple of months and even that may fade if our kids stop being friends. Not quite the "single serving friends" of Fight Club, but close.

At the same time, it's hard for me to maintain my own independent friendships on _top_ of those acquaintances because there just isn't that much time. If I've already got a birthday party on Saturday and a playdate on Sunday, it's really hard to enjoy another social activity with my own friends on top of that. Even with people I consider close friends, I sometimes only see them once every couple of months.

I try to be mindful that this phase won't last forever. As my kids get older, they'll do more drop-off parties and eventually will get to their own social functions without me at all. They'll want less of my time until one day I'll wake up and the nest will be empty. I try to enjoy this time for what it is while it lasts.

My biggest worry is that by the time the kids are older and I have more room for my own close friends, those bonds will have withered along with my skills at socializing and I'll fail to reinvigorate them.

<comment><USER17> That was a fantastic post. I feel exactly the same way.

My kids sometimes feel too needy. Oftentimes I never get the desired downtime.

My wife got mad at me one day and said "You need to listen to Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle. Then come talk with me." It's a shock to listen to that song, because it's true. It would be easy to end up like that and no one want it.

<comment><USER19> I've always thought the best thing would be to have a time-travel machine. You could spend a day with your kids as infants and enjoy it. The next day you could spend with them as teens and enjoy it. Then the third day spend with them as 11 year-olds and enjoy it.

Each of those ages are incredible and filled with irreplaceable experiences. It's easy to get jaded when you move through them so slowly.

<comment><USER18> What I wouldn't give to be able to bank days for my future self.

"You know, I feel like having a me day. I'll hand this one off to 60-year-old me."

My 60-year-old self magically time travels in and has a blast with the kids he hasn't seen as children in decades. Meanwhile I get to relax. Then, twenty years from now, when the nest is cold and empty, the memories of my kids' childhood is fading, and I long to feel their little arms wrapped around me, I get zipped back in time to live a whole day of it afresh.

They say youth is wasted on the young. Sometimes it feels like parenting is wasted on young parents too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Many Americans own a lot of idle property. There is a problem now where baby boomers want to age in place in their suburban homes, which locks younger people out of those properties. However these suburban homes have huge yards by global standards, that could easily support the construction of grandparent/in-law structures. It seems like one solution is for the suburban elderly to, maybe with their children's assistance, build an outlying house in the back yard and downsize to there, and let their children occupy the main house for raising grandchildren.

Multi-generational housing is a good solution to this problem of elder isolation and general social isolation, and the friction associated with that can be eased given the amount of land many suburban properties contain.

I have always thought that the turn towards the nuclear family caused many of the social problems that began to appear in the 1960s. I think we should return to more extended family living situations.

<comment><USER21> A big obstacle to having extended families under one roof is that often the children don't want to live where the parents' home is located. I am certain I could move in with my mom tomorrow if I wanted--but it would mean leaving a city I've come to love and the career I've built here to live in a small town with little culture and zero opportunities.

I think this is what you see in many rural American towns where only a small elderly population remains, while the young people all moved to cities for economic opportunity.

<comment><USER22> > often the children don't want to live where the parents' home is located

I lived with my parents during college. It was expected because they couldn't afford to pay for a dorm for me.

I think it delayed my growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When I was a yute my grandmother used to go to a senior center for cards, talk, company, and her three children lived around the corner or upstairs. In NYC that was possible: Everything walkable. She lived well into her 100s. I don't now how they do it down here in Fla where nothing's walkable and public transportation's laughable and social services can't keep up.

<comment><USER8> Hey so i upvoted this because you used the word "yute" :D

<comment><USER23> You can take the Brooklyn out of the boy...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A thing to remember, which psychology will remind you, is that there is a balance between having social experiences and having solitary experiences. Introversion/extraversion is a spectrum.

The problem is that modern, sedentary, good-living-standard, individualistic life tend to isolate people. That's the current model.

In more ancient times we were all living in communities because the infrastructure forced us to do so. Now the standard is individual housing, kitchen, toilets, bathroom, etc.

I'm okay to have a solitary bedroom for myself, but I wish activities like cooking and food were shared in neighborhoods. Similarly, fences exist for security but they also damage socialization.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm a grad student. I work in an empty lab. I'm lucky if somebody else is there 4 hours a week. I go home to an empty house. Once a week, I have beers with a friend. Count that up. I'm alone (168-8)/168 hours a week. Cry me a fucking river.

<comment><USER26> I did that too when I was young, but I think it would kill me now.

Having painful experiences can either help you be more empathetic to others with the same kind of pain, or less. Why not try for more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just turned 40 and have done a complete 180 from extroversion to introversion in the last two years so don't see this as a bad thing. Was checking up on the psychology of it and checks out as totally normal. Extroversion in youth was selected for to provide mating opportunities, but wears off as we age.

</comment><comment><USER28> So they're more social than I am?

<comment><USER29> i bet you are not alone if you consider online messaging.

<comment><USER30> Not even close to being with people in person.

<comment><USER31> It actually might be worse. I hypothesize that the kinds of interactions we have online are the social equivalent of "empty calories". They tweak the brain's reward mechanism for socializing without actually getting any of the real benefits.

<comment><USER32> Oh man, I think you hit on something there. You get all of the satisfaction of interaction, but don't have to worry about being challenged, learning from any mistakes, or really learning anything; you can block anything you don't like.

I think you're onto something with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My mother has been living alone for over a decade now. Luckily for her, she's very introverted--alone is her preference. Sitting in her rocking chair, reading a mystery novel, is exactly what she wants out of life.

I'm sure this isn't normal, particularly for extroverts. My wife doesn't understand it at all. But I take after my mom, and I 100% know that she feels fine with a minimum of human interaction. I do feel bad for the people who aren't like her, though.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you look at the richest people in the world, particularly those that are American... they are all introverts. As much as we used to fetishize celebrity, we now love wealth more. And the wealthiest of us have been made that way due to sitting for hours alone behind a computer. You have to imagine, there have always been these kinds of people; the general culture just didn't give them the space in the narrative of the past ( I remember my great-grandfather would hike 20 miles in the snow both ways to completely alone to read or something... These are rare stories of the past).

This is less a binary question than a, can we provide outlets for both ways of thinking, kind of question. Of all the a-la-carte subscriptions many extroverts pay for (Netflix....), I bet they would be willing to pay for a "I don't want to be lonely" service (whatever that looks like).

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm 34 and once you add in the weekends I am and talking is extremely discouraged at work, in an open office, so even at work you're basically alone just siting there listening to music or podcasts all day.

At Gym1 I talk to my lifting coach but most of the time I'm in my head focused on training, after that at Gym2 I'm just trying to do my accessory work and conditioning and don't talk to anyone other than "hey" back to "hey Ryan" from the staff at the door. I go home and my retired mother that lives with me stays in her room and I go to mine, rinse and repeat.

Not entirely by choice but all my friends are married with kids and have zero free time.

<comment><USER35> "talking is extremely discouraged at work, in an open office, so even at work you're basically alone just siting there listening to music or podcasts all day"

That's the nutty thing about open office. The thing that's officially supposed to encourage collaboration leads to people sitting there with headphones trying to isolate themselves and rules to not talk to each other.

<comment><USER34> Our open office isn't for fostering communication or anything, we don't need to communicate, if you have time to communicate you aren't working. Our open office is so the team lead at the back of each row can watch everyone. :/

<comment><USER17> A sort of paid-worker panopticon situation is how I see it. I did the cube farm thing back when I worked for UUNet, and it sucked. Everyone talking, prairie dogging talking to the guy in the next cube, people farting out loud, the stinky food, the phone conversations of the admin next to you trying to work out some awful multi-spoke VPN issue with a distant office, cursing all the while and everyone within earshot hearing it. Not a good scene. One of the senior admins got a talking to for one night on his shift printed out name tags with "Winston Smith" and taping them over the 90 cubes in the office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm jealous. Being alone for 60% of my waking hours is the sweet spot.

<comment><USER35> There is a difference between being alone by choice or just being alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Strange article. All it does is recite the statistics but it doesn't explain why anyone should care.

It seems from the comments here that solitude is equated with isolation and with loneliness but this is not necessarily the case.

I think the problem for many who are lonely is that they feel, perhaps correctly, that they have no choice, no power to change the situation. For me solitude is a necessity but of course if I cannot choose it but instead have it thrust upon me then it would eventually become a burden.

<comment><USER38> > While time spent alone is not necessarily associated with adverse effects, > it can be used as a measure of social isolation, which in turn is linked > with negative health outcomes among older adults. Medical experts suspect > that lifestyle factors may explain some of this association – for instance, > someone who is socially isolated may have less cognitive stimulation and > more difficulty staying active or taking their medications. In some cases, > social isolation may mean there is no one on hand to help in case of a > medical emergency.

It's literally bad for you.

<comment><USER37> Looks like you missed my point. Chosen solitude does not imply that there is no one on hand for a medical emergency nor that one has less cognitive stimulation. Nor does it necessarily imply that one is socially isolated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I always read this threads wondering if there's something wrong with me. I just never get lonely. It's kinda a scary thought but I feel like I could go my entire my life not needing to socialize. I'm married so I do socialize obviously with her and her family and my family and my friends but I've never felt any desire to be around any of them (except my wife).

<comment><USER40> I feel like people who say "I feel like I could go my entire life not needing to socializing" and then continue with "I'm married" clearly aren't seeing how their POV could be massively different if they didn't have an SO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This seems like an area where technology would be well suited to help. I'm not simply saying "Just give 'em a Chromebook and a Facebook account" but VoIP and VTC would be ideal for helping the "alone elderly" be connected with the community around them... perhaps connecting with and mentoring children who are themselves frequently alone. Just a thought... it's certainly something I can easily imaging being in an Apple/Google/Microsoft keynote about how they are using technology to help improve the lives and communities of people.

<comment><USER42> I don't know anything about this, but I've seen ads on TV. [https://www.grandpad.net/](https://www.grandpad.net/)

<comment><USER41> Seems like more of a device than something meant to be a community effort/project which just happens to use technology, which is what I was trying to describe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wonder if we're ever going to have a real online friending app. Feels like we're still in a stage where it's weird to attempt to find close friends online like it was weird to date online 10-20 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wonder how much of this can be attributed to suburbanization

Also, having had grandparents who were quite lonely in their later years, a lot of this can probably be attributed to a reluctance to move out of their house and into group living situations specifically for the elderly (such as assisted living). If you are not very mobile and staying in a SFH, it can be a 30m ordeal just to get up and use the landline. And traveling outside your home requires someone else to drive and help you get in/out of the car.

</comment><comment><USER45> Perhaps something to look forward to in old age then. I get a lot done when I am left completely alone for about 5 days in a row. Having completed difficult tasks I am then relaxed and ready to socially interact and have a wonderful time, with more meaningful depth and connection than is possible when exhausted from the ordeal of interacting with others on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER46> Reminds me of this poetic data visualization: [https://www.theatlas.com/charts/HJFYm4uQ-](https://www.theatlas.com/charts/HJFYm4uQ-)

</comment><comment><USER47> Hey man, I am like 35 and alone all the time.

</comment><comment><USER48> Looking forward to more alone time for sure.

</comment><comment><USER49> A YC company, Papa, is trying to solve this problem joinpapa.com

<comment><USER50> Tech ruined privacy, the internet, and large parts of democracy.

I think maybe it's time we put tech where it belongs: in the damn trunk.

Going to a YC company to fulfill a basic human need is exactly why tech belongs in aforementioned trunk.

<comment><USER31> I'd pretty much agree. Technology should be a tool to make our lives better, and when it is obvious it is not doing that we should get rid of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Obligatory reminder: alone does not equal lonely. Not all the time. Not for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is that supposed to be a negative?

</comment><comment><USER53> Ah, the benefits of individualism and big distances.

</comment><comment><USER54> Personally, I have gotten somewhat use to being alone. I can only imagine what it must feel like too someone who has spent the majority of their lives with someone else. I think I will start visiting a senior living facility with some of my spare time each week. If you are alone and its weighing you down then my heart goes out to you.

</comment><comment><USER55> joinpapa.com!

</comment><comment><USER56> is-is that a bad thing?

<comment><USER57> If you are someone who needs regular instances of social contact in order to feel connected to the world and to avoid depression and feelings of isolation, then yes. The important thing to remember is that many elderly are alone for such significant chunks of their days by force, not by choice. If you choose to be alone because you (like me) are an introvert and value your time to yourself to explore your interests, that is a very different situation than someone who is essentially house bound and has no choice in the matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> That's not a bad thing, people she embrace loneliness and learn to be able to enjoy it. What's the point of speaking about it like it's some kind of a problem with the person. If someone wants company then they can go socialize with whoever is available, otherwise maybe they don't wanna socialize with what's available and prefer to just chill on their own.

<comment><USER59> While you make a good point, I think you're missing the distinction between people who ___choose_ __to be alone and people who are alone not by choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Stop making assumptions about other people (they're lazy/dangerous/whatever) and go out and be friendly.

This Wednesday I wandered around the city playing ukulele at 3 in the morning and I met all kinds of interesting people, everything from this beautiful female graduate student who just wanted to talk about schoastics to someone who wanted me to call his "friend in Florida."

Just go out and be with people, they're all lonely too.

<comment><USER61> I don't know how people do that man, it's just very hard for some (quite a lot nevertheless) people to get out there and be vulnerable.

<comment><USER62> I can't tell if you're actually interested in suggestions, but if you are, start with something less intimidating that late-night ukulele, and try reframing what you're doing. If you do encounter something negative when you experiment, try to treat it analytically as well as emotionally. Just how bad, objectively speaking, was feeling a little embarrassed around some folks you'll never see again?

Paradoxically, you may find that putting yourself out there a little can be a surprising source of strength.</comment></comment></comment>


The Profit Motive Behind Financial Complexity - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-12/the-profit-motive-behind-financial-complexity <comment><USER3> There was a time when the US Congress tried to prevent complexity in financial products. The Utility Holding Company Act limited utility ownership to a tree depth of 3. This was in response to a mess created by Samuel Insull in the 1920s. The Glass-Stegall Act kept banks and brokerages separate. All that ended in the 1990s, because the banking industry managed to convince or pay off enough legislators to get the idea accepted that risk was now quantifiable.

Economists fell for the myth of Black–Scholes. This is a neat way of quantifying risk, but it assumes that risk has a Gaussian distribution. Sometimes it doesn't.

<comment><USER4> >Economists fell for the myth of Black–Scholes. This is a neat way of quantifying risk, but it assumes that risk has a Gaussian distribution. Sometimes it doesn't.

Maybe you're being loose with your terminology, but there is no such assumption. The simplest versions of Black-Scholes does assume that stock price is a lognormal process with constant variance/volatility, which empirically it isn't.

The point of Black-Scholes is to price derivatives not quantify risk, but the price also has an empirical market price. Just as you can use the 'assumed' variance/volatility to try to compute the derivative price (according to B-S), you can use the market price of the derivative to compute the 'implied' variance/volatility.

If you look at the options page for AAPL on yahoo finance[0], you'll see a column for implied volatility, the above method is precisely how it is calculated.

[0][https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/options?p=AAPL](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/options?p=AAPL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The same thing applies at the consumer level. A standard immediate annuity is a relatively simple product — a consumer pays a lump sum up front and gets back a stream of payments for the rest of his life. Ditto for standard term life insurance — consumer pays a premium and he dies his estate gets a payout. Both of these markets are competitive, products from different sellers can be directly compared, and margins are relatively tight.

But as you add more and more riders, variants, bells, and whistles the products become less comoditized and more profitable for companies that issue them. Their profit is your cost.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's an enormous amount of deception going on by politicians and how government operates, too. I wouldn't single out libertarians as particularly naive - the people who believe in government solutions to every economic issue are equally or worse naive. Governments regularly use accounting methods that would land any private company in jail, for example.

<comment><USER7> > Governments regularly use accounting methods that would land any private > company in jail, for example.

Genuinely curious, could you give examples of these? Maybe it's time to start a country for tax reasons :)

<comment><USER6> The social security trust fund was spent. The government replaced the funds with an IOU, and treats it as an asset. No company could get away with that.

<comment><USER8> The IOUs are backed by US treasuries, the safest, most reliable investment product in the world. Of course a company can't get away with that, it has no ability to tax a populace, which guarantees the revenue stream.

Now of course there's the argument that the US government borrows too much: totally true. Someone has to jump on the grenade and cut military spending (the greatest discretionary income spend) and raise taxes (they're at the lowest levels in US history, and must go up), but that's a bitter pill to swallow.

<comment><USER6> The IOUs are "invested" in a special type of bond only issued to and redeemable by the SSA. It's clear by accounting laws that calling a debt an "asset" is illegal. There is no money in the SSA trust fund.

As for reliability, consider the gold bonds the government used to issue. They guaranteed repayment in gold, and hence sold at a premium. In the 1930s, Roosevelt repudiated them, paid them off in dollars, and pocketed the difference.

The government can, and has, simply printed money and forced people to accept that as payment of debt.

<comment><USER9> Of course the SSA's bonds are assets. If you lend yourself money, you create an asset and a debt (else where does the money go?) The debt is on the Treasury's books already; the Treasury bonds held by the SSA are the other half required to balance the books, and reflect actual payroll taxes. If we called those treasuries debts, we would be double - actually triple - <USER2> debt.

This is an extremely mild accounting practice compared to what private companies routinely engage in. Not all of Google's IP actually originates from an Irish-owned company headquartered in Bermuda.

"Reliable" gold with its 30% annual price swings - well, enough said on that.

> The government can, and has, simply printed money and forced people to > accept that as payment of debt.

Forced who - investors who willingly buy Treasuries, understanding full well how the dollar works?

Or did you mean 1930s investors who got fiat instead of gold-backed dollars? There were rather more significant victims of the Depression.

<comment><USER6> > Of course the SSA's bonds are assets. If you lend yourself money, you create > an asset and a debt (else where does the money go?)

And when you spend the money (the asset), you're left with just debt.

> This is an extremely mild accounting practice

Spending trillions, and then still calling it an asset?

> Forced who - investors who willingly buy Treasuries, understanding full well > how the dollar works?

The US government gold bonds promised to pay in gold. That's why they sold at a premium. Are you arguing that the bondholders shouldn't have trusted the government to keep its word?

> There were rather more significant victims of the Depression.

The topic is how government bonds are "the safest, most reliable investment product in the world", not who is the bigger victim.

<comment><USER10> Regarding SS funds, this "it's all one big government" view muddles more than it clarifies.

Instead, consider a 3-node chain, where the US government discretionary budget has debts coming due to the SS budget, and the SS budget has obligations to the public.

When demagogues claim the SS fund is empty, they are actually trying to trick the public into _writing off_ that debt, instead of going after the upstream debtors... Which is basically Congress.

After all, every dollar that isn't being spent servicing the debt to SS is a dollar that can be used in tax cuts for the wealthy...

<comment><USER8> So strange this is downvoted when it's fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The case that people can be easily conned into believing risks are lower than they are for endeavors that have elements that they don't understand is sensible, but I think that it leaves out an argument of why people would choose a product that they don't understand over a product that they do.

I'd argue that 1) there are more opportunities for graft in more complex products because a cut can be taken at every layer of indirection, so therefore amongst salespeople confusing multiply layered products will crowd out simpler products with fewer levels of commission and kickback, and

2) Making uncommon choices is a sign of expertise, because one has to be somewhat more knowledgeable about a domain to know of the existence of uncommon choices. This makes those choices easier to sell through flattery and/or the appeal of being an insider and getting a special deal. An example of where looking like an expert is an appeal that allows people to be suckered is the fact that the best odds at a craps table are on pass/don't pass, and every other bet is far worse, going from doubling the house edge to nearly multiplying it 10x.

[http://www.crapsage.com/craps_payouts.php](http://www.crapsage.com/craps_payouts.php)

<comment><USER12> >Making uncommon choices is a sign of expertise, because one has to be somewhat more knowledgeable about a domain to know of the existence of uncommon choices. This makes those choices easier to sell through flattery and/or the appeal of being an insider and getting a special deal.

That's a very insightful observation. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really think economists should get mandatory training in evolutionary biology to get a feeling of how even the smallest glitches in the system, loopholes so small as not to be visible even under detailed scrutiny are unavoidably exploited by opportunistic organisms. Alternatively, some practical work in computer security may help to get the same point across.

<comment><USER14> Economists were captured long ago, to tell pleasing lies to power; I originally wanted to go into economics, but I knew too much about computer programming - it was too obvious economists had become mere computer fetishists, to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I agree that customers generally get worse pricing on more complex products, but I don't think this is necessarily bad for the customer. To use a simple example, the market for on the run treasuries is much more liquid than the market for off the run.

If I need to take an old long bond off my books that has 10 years left until maturity then it might better to just sell it instead of going short the on the run 10 year even though the on the run has better pricing.

Dealers are just better equipped to handle the complexity so the higher profit margin on more complex products doesn't necessarily lead to a worse result for the customer.

<comment><USER16> I think the complaint of the article is that complex products are being sold to customers who don't understand them. You certainly can witness that with municipalities that are close to going bankrupt because they bought instruments that backfired on them. The while financial crisis of 2008 was pretty much about people buying things where they couldn't assess the risks.

<comment><USER6> People don't understand how cars work, but that doesn't stop them from buying them and benefiting. Occasionally, not understanding cars gets people in trouble. In fact, very few of the things we deal with every day are generally understood - like the computer you're reading this on.

<comment><USER16> People have a very good understanding of a car's risks. Same for computers.

<comment><USER17> That's a very questionable assertion.

<comment><USER18> uh - no its not. It's near common sense the things that can go wrong with owning and operating a car. that doesn't help people mitigate the risks themselves, but they are so prevalent you need to take a test that covers them before you can get a license to operate one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the problem now is that all the complexity is to take advantage of the current debt-based economy. For example, I suspect that better returns on stocks than bonds contributed to the Glass-Stegaall repeal.

</comment><comment><USER20> > "That might not come as a shock to most people, but to economists of the > libertarian, free-market bent, it's tantamount to heresy. Tricksters and con > men, they say, will be weeded out of the market by their bad reputations. > That's a pretty big assumption, and might rightfully strike most non- > economists as wishful thinking. But if you look at economic models, you'll > find that few of them include successful fraud and deception as a > possibility. Modern econ relies so heavily on the assumption of rationality > that there's just not much room for tricks and scams. Obviously these models > are far removed from most people's experience of real markets, in which > deception is common."

this is the achille's heal of libertarianism. it simply leans too heavily on the rationality assumption, while also ignoring many things of value in our lives like love, empathy, conversations, the future (unknowable) value of natural resources, homemaking activities, etc. it's political use (in the _mano a mano_ sense, not in the government sense) is as a rationalization to be a jerk to your neighbor.

complex financial instruments are simply a manifestation of that mindset.

<comment><USER6> > leans too heavily on the rationality assumption, while also ignoring many > things of value in our lives like love, empathy, conversations, the future > (unknowable) value of natural resources, homemaking activities, etc.

I don't see any justification for that assessment. How does libertarianism overlook empathy, for example?

> it's political use (in the mano a mano sense, not in the government sense) > is as a rationalization to be a jerk to your neighbor.

That's not remotely true.

<comment><USER21> > That's not remotely true.

I've witnessed self-described libertarians doing exactly that. It usually goes along with a lack of understanding of the power they have over someone far less economically fortunate.

<comment><USER22> It seems quite silly to argue against a viewpoint by citing that you've met some douchebags who follow that philosophy.

I'm met plenty of republicans who lack understanding of the power they have over the less fortunate. I've also met many liberals who can't comprehend why someone would want to own a gun, or who constantly look for any excuse to peg someone as racist/sexist/classist/etc. (Obviously these are all United States- centric examples since I've spent most of my life here)

To me it seems far more productive to examine the "best form" of each philosophy rather than the worst

<comment><USER21> I don't think any reasonable person could disagree with either of your first two paragraphs. On the third, though, I think it is worthwhile to examine the good, bad, and ugly of each viewpoint.

I only meant to point out an example of ugliness that sometimes falls out of libertarianism.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my 6hr project, StartupFollower.com - <AUTHOR> http://startupfollower.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a little project I whipped together now that I don't have time to read TechCrunch every day. You just add any startup you're interested in using an autocomplete form hooked into the CrunchBase API, and it emails you daily if there are new posts on TechCrunch about any of the startups you're following. Just an experiment right now, but would love any feedback you have.

</comment><comment><USER2> one of the best uses of the crunchbase api i've seen... something related & useful you could offer is a daily digest of TC articles minus 15+ per day related to Foursquare, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, Google & Facebook...

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the UI. any advantages over google alerts?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a bit easier to add and edit which startups you're following using StartupFollower, and it should work more consistently; Google alerts often sends the same article over and over as it gets syndicated to different sites (you could get around this using a more specific search but I bet most people don't). Google also sends any page that even mentions your term, regardless of whether the article is actually about it or not. For example, if someone mentions your term in the comments, you might not want an alert about it. StartupFollower only return posts that the TC author tagged with one of the companies you're following. But yes, they have similar functionality.</comment></comment>


PsychOS - <AUTHOR> https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/ <comment><USER2> > that puts lighter/older hardware first.

Perhaps the same approach should be carried through to their website. The 3mb background gif is janky in Safari, and in Chrome makes my MacBook fans spin up.

</comment><comment><USER3> 3,000+ default packages? I'm a *nix minimalist, so this makes me uneasy. It really is insane.

I'm digging in my closet for a 32 bit machine so I can put it on bare metal immediately.

<comment><USER4> As a *nix minimalist, you should probably run everything else than linux, NetBSD? OpenBSD?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That animated background is straight from a 90s GeoCities page.</comment>


Show HN: Orbital physics game in Node.js #nodeknockout - <AUTHOR> http://disasteroids.com

<comment><AUTHOR> The core physics are run on the server and synced to the client 30 times a second while particle physics are handled on the frontend.

feel free to vote for us if you like it ;)</comment>


Strange but True: Turning a Wobbly Table Will Make It Steady - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-turning/ <comment><USER2> In the field, this works only about half the time, despite the Mathematical proofs. Other factors must be at play.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on what is making it wobble, and the surface on which it is placed.

<comment><USER2> Which means that table turning is not a universal solution to the problem. It might work, it might not.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Free Online Fax Site? - <AUTHOR>

How do you send faxes using the Internet (preferably for free)? <comment><USER2> It's not free but it's cheap and it integrates with Skype (uses your Skype credit for payment as well): <http://www.pamfax.biz/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Perfect. Thanks.</comment></comment>


The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With Ustream Live Broadcaster - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/09/iphone-live-streaming-ustream/

<comment><USER2> Just as AT&T announces plans to reduce bandwidth... wonderful timing.

</comment><comment><USER3> The iPhone has had it for a while if you are jailbroken. Qik, Bambuser, and Flixwagon come to mind.</comment>


Show HN: I researched 63 business opportunities that will continue post-lockdown - <AUTHOR> https://explodingtopics.com/post-covid-trends <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, Josh here, one of the creators of this report.

I posted a while back about how I built and sold my show HN trend-spotting tool, Exploding Topics, in 6 months. Since it was an acqui-hire, I've still been working on the tool and improving how it works.

(Partly thanks to the great feedback you guys gave me!)

And I spent all last week using it to figure out what the long-term impacts of COVID-19 might be.

Specifically what new business opportunities have been accelerated by the virus… and are outlasting the lockdowns.

There are some pretty surprising ones. Check it out and let me know what you think.

<comment><USER2> This is nice! I like the graphs and the general feeling, and the utility is important as well. One minor UX tweak: remove the tile description text ellipsis and nowrap and just let it flow and wrap. Makes browsing the main page much better, otherwise I have to navigate into each tile and then back just to understand what it is about.

<comment><USER3> The site is really interesting!

I agree with this comment. I wish I could see the full desc on each card on the homepage, and most descriptions are only a few lines anyways. I was also having an issue with the x button. It wouldn't respond and then I'd tap again eventually causing it to open the card behind it.</comment></comment></comment>


YC W2019 invites – Share the results here - <AUTHOR> At what time are the interview invitations sent? If you receive the email share the results here! <comment><USER2> for those who want to chat with other people who have applied: [https://ycombinator.metachat.com](https://ycombinator.metachat.com)</comment>


China will scrap limit on presidential term, meaning Xi Jinping can stay on - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2134624/china-will-scrap-limit-presidents-term-meaning-xi <comment><USER2> Did anybody seriously doubt this would pass? This vote was utterly meaningless.</comment>


60 days to NES mini launch. What are your guesses on HW used? - <AUTHOR> https://ldom22.github.io/NES-classic-reminder/ <comment><AUTHOR> Given Nintendo has preferred HW for legacy support (i.e. Included older cpu's on newer gameboys for supporting older games) I am thinking they included the original nes cpu plus another newer chip for game selection GUI and HDMI up conversion</comment>


Why don't they implement Python and Ruby on the web browsers? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3722334/why-dont-they-implement-python-and-ruby-on-the-web-browsers <comment><USER2> The top comment states that any other options are impossible: "At this point we must concentrate on improving the language."

I can't stand this willfully defeatist attitude. It's also not restricted to stack-overflow participants -- this position is pervasive at Mozilla.

Why can't we have a standardized generic bytecode and VMs to run it? Why should the web be locked to a single language _forever_? Can you imagine if we had locked desktops and mobile only a single implementation language?

Google seems to be the only company actively looking for a solution via NaCL. Most of the web community, on the other hand, regularly opposes efforts to move away from JavaScript as the one true language.

<comment><USER3> Mozilla is not against a bytecode VM. Mozilla (and the WebKit team minus Google) is against arbitrarily adding new language VMs because they create a major compatibility burden. Remember this:

1) JavaScript is locked in. It's too entrenched, it's never going away. Let's just accept that.

2) That means that adding additional languages creates a burden. You're now supporting, at minimum 2 VMs. If you're going to support a second VM you better get it positively right. That doesn't proclude doing it, it just means it's not coming tomorrow.

<comment><USER2> > _JavaScript is locked in. It's too entrenched, it's never going away. Let's > just accept that._

JavaScript doesn't have to go anywhere, it can run on a shared VM like any other language.

> _That means that adding additional languages creates a burden. You're now > supporting, at minimum 2 VMs. If you're going to support a second VM you > better get it positively right. That doesn't proclude doing it, it just > means it's not coming tomorrow._

There is literally zero investment in moving such an idea forward on the part of Mozilla and WebKit (sans Google). In fact, there's active resistance, while at the same time strongly favoring JavaScript as the one option.

The position more seems to be "we might chip in if someone else comes up with the perfect answer" rather than "yes, this is a problem that needs to be solved to improve developer productivity, application quality, and help the web compete with other platforms".

<comment><USER4> > JavaScript doesn't have to go anywhere, it can run on a shared VM like any > other language.

JS running on a general VM would be slower. That's against the interests of the user.

People should stop caring what language it is. If you really don't have the skill required to use Javascript, use something easier for you and get it to compile to JS.

I've really never understood developers that bitch and whine about programming languages all day.

Adding alternate languages to the browser does absolutely nothing for the user. It would only be there to appease the "I shall only develop in lisp" extremist developers.

<comment><USER2> > _JS running on a general VM would be slower. That's against the interests of > the user._

What do you base this on? It's sounds like an unsupported assumption regarding the complex technical constraints involved in implementing a general purpose VM and JIT.

Putting the technical specifics aside, intuitively, why would the general VM be slower, especially since the requirement to support JavaScript would be obvious to everyone involved from day 1?

<comment><USER5> >> JS running on a general VM would be slower. That's against the interests of the user.

> What do you base this on? It's sounds like an unsupported assumption

No, he is entirely correct.

JavaScript and most dynamic languages do not run at full speed on static- language VMs like the JVM and .NET. This is despite tremendous efforts and motivation to run those languages quickly on such environments, see for example Microsoft's SPUR paper and everything it has done in the CLR to speed up dynamic languages.

The fact is, despite all those efforts, even Microsoft did not implement JS on .NET in IE. This despite Microsoft more than anyone having the capability and moreso the motivation ("everything on .NET"). Microsoft gave up and implemented a new JS engine in native code, and it made that new native JS VM a peer of .NET in Windows 8.

The reasons for this are technical: We do not know __how __to make a single VM that runs all languages quickly. It's very difficult to do! Dynamic languages need hand-crafted PICs for example, which are extremely difficult to make portable and safe, which is necessary for a VM on the web. Also, low-level details like even how to implement numbers are significant: NaNboxing for example is used in most JS engines, but it probably doesn't make sense in a static language VM. Having both NaNboxed numbers and 'normal' ones in one VM is cumbersome and complex.

<comment><USER2> > _JavaScript and most dynamic languages do not run at full speed on static- > language VMs like the JVM and .NET. This is despite tremendous efforts and > motivation to run those languages quickly on such environments, see for > example Microsoft's SPUR paper and everything it has done in the CLR to > speed up dynamic languages._

I'd argue the opposite regarding tremendous efforts and motivation; dynamic languages were an after-thought for both the JVM and .NET, and on the JVM side you've only seen any attempts to improve performance recently, with invokedynamic for Java 7.

The investments here occurred long after the VMs were developed.

> _The reasons for this are technical: We do not know how to make a single VM > that runs all languages quickly._

The same applies to compilers across the board; we do not know how to make a compiler that applies all possible optimization available to code always, either. I still have to manually vectorize critical paths, re-order code (sometimes in C!) to help the compiler avoid pipeline stalls, etc.

Instead, we do the best general purpose job we can, and it's usually more than fast enough.

What we're talking about here is a VM that has JS support as its first-order target. Using the JVM and CLR as performance examples here -- given what they were built for, and when -- is not particularly valid.

Speaking to NaN-boxing in particular; it's one solution to the problem, but not the only one. I'm going to remain unconvinced here, given that dynamic languages have almost always been a late, second-tier concern for anyone investing serious R&D in the development of a VM/JIT/compiler.

All that said ...

> _The fact is, despite all those efforts, even Microsoft did not implement JS > on .NET in IE. This despite Microsoft more than anyone having the capability > and moreso the motivation ("everything on .NET"). Microsoft gave up and > implemented a new JS engine in native code, and it made that new native JS > VM a peer of .NET in Windows 8._

Even given the above, implementing a custom optimized JavaScript VM -- even if it was only available in JS-only case -- would not be a failure scenario.

<comment><USER5> > I'd argue the opposite regarding tremendous efforts and motivation; dynamic > languages were an after-thought for both the JVM and .NET, and on the JVM > side you've only seen any attempts to improve performance recently, with > invokedynamic for Java 7.

> The investments here occurred long after the VMs were developed.

That's a valid point. It is possible that some entirely new kind of VM could work, that was designed from the ground up for both static and dynamic languages. But I don't think we have any good idea of such a thing!

Until we do know how to do this, replacing the JS VMs in browsers would slow everything currently running. And adding another VM alongside it would decrease speed in other ways (see for example the papers that the Apple dev mentions in the WebKit discussion for why Apple opposes adding the Dart VM into WebKit).

<comment><USER2> I think your points are valid as well.

I'm not ready to take it as a given that we _can't_ build a general purpose VM capable of running JS at or very near current speeds, but it's also not a solved problem.

<comment><USER5> I agree, I don't think it's impossible. But, we don't know how yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The browsers themselves are already built and powered using JS. Maintaining a comprehensive API at the speed that web tech advances in more than one client- side scripting language would be hellish -- browser vendors already have enough trouble agreeing on CSS and JS standards. The Stack Overflow article already raised a number of good reasons why not. Not sure why this is garnering so much attention from HN.

<comment><USER7> Because we all hate javascript.

I just wish they decoupled javascript engines and browsers, made a language agnostic api spec for the DOM, and just let html <script> tags require a language ref and the browser would be expected to try to find a runtime on the local machine or ask the user to install it. The monopolistic nature of javascript in client web browsing is bad for innovation.

<comment><USER8> Really? You're discounting all of the incredible webapps, games, and social networking on the web. If Javascript was bad for innovation, I sure don't see it.

You're talking language syntax. Although it matters, it practically doesn't. People build stuff no matter what the language looks like. Look at Obj-C, that thing is horrid (syntax-wise) but look at all the developer adoption.

What _is_ bad for innovation is to move back to the 90's where people had to handle local instances of applications, fix versioning problems, and have to install something just because they want one small piece of functionality.

<comment><USER9> > If Javascript was bad for innovation, I sure don't see it.

This is a fallacy: in absence of a peek at some alternative world where something else was available, you can't tell that javascript improved or worsened the innovation rate.

<comment><USER10> It seems pretty reasonable to observe the desktop world, though, since it has the properties under discussion, and ask ourselves whether it's easier to deploy an application to a wide audience there or on the web.

<comment><USER11> Well, the problem is that this confounds all the properties of "the desktop world" with the properties of another client-side substitute for Javascript (like, say, Dart or some language using NaCl)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One point not in the existing comments is the event driven nature of the browser - even if you're eventually able to have good support for other runtimes in the browser (e.g., you can use Python via the Native Client plugin) most of them have such a large existing codebase of blocking code that I think you'd run into a lot of the same issues that you do now with Ruby & EventMachine, or Python & Twisted.

It's what made Javascript such a great fit for nodejs - no big existing libraries of blocking code, and everybody was already accustomed to doing things in an event driven style due to the browser.

<comment><USER13> That doesn't make any sense. Javascript libs are just as blocking as any python or ruby lib.

"no big existing libraries of blocking code" (for js) just translates to "no big existing libraries", period.

It's not like javascript has any special support for non blocking code --or that any code that does anything useful and specific (ie. not just handling out work to be done and callback/returned but actually _doing_ the work) can ever be non blocking.

<comment><USER14> Javascript has anonymous function closures - nice sugar for a non-blocking API. Python doesn't have them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Javascript is a perfectly reasonable underlying language. Nothing that I know of stops people from compiling python or ruby into javascript.

I would never write pure javascript, but using languages that compile to javascript has been pure joy.

See <http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/>

</comment><comment><USER16> A byetcode/VM approach would be an improvement on the web client. This has been used successfully for 10+ years on the server (JVM, CLR), so why not learn from things and advance the state of web development.

I don't understand why people defend JS so passionately. It was build in like 2 weeks, wasn't designed to build large complex applications, and hasn't really advanced at all since its inception. There are better options out there and the web development community should welcome any improvements to close the gap from Native to web.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's an announcement for a project implementing the Erlang VM in the browser: [http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- questions/2011-November/0...](http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang- questions/2011-November/062879.html)

While not _exactly_ what the OP is calling for, this is interesting nonetheless, and it does provide a mechanism for using at least one other language in the browser, even if it uses JS as the platform, rather than natively supported.

<comment><USER18> Tons of languages are doing that: OCaml, Python, Java (and Dart and GWT), C, C++ off the top of my head. I don't think it will catch on, because Javascript has been good enough and these runtimes have overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "closed as off topic by casperOne♦ 8 mins ago"

...

The number of programming topics I have had closed on that site angers me. They are becoming Wikipedia.

<comment><USER18> It's justified. The site is used for problem solving.

Here the problem isn't the asker's, it can't be meaningfully solved by anyone on the site, and it is a matter of opinion whether any answer comes closer to solving it, or that there is a problem at all.

<comment><USER19> re: "The site is used for problem solving."

So says YOU. What's so inherently wrong with letting the people decide? Obviously, a few hundred people found that post quite relevant to the website's topic, helpful, and interesting.

What gives Casper the right to destroy hundreds of people's discussion on a topic that they all deem relevant.

The "vote" on that action was approximately 300 to 1. That 1 vote of no confidence by Casper counts more than everybody's for some reason. That is what really gets me.

<comment><USER18> So says the sites' FAQ:

> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems > that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our > site and push other questions off the front page.

The ability to decide what Stack Overflow is and isn't is what makes it a community, and not a jumble like Yahoo Answers.

And the specifics of closing questions don't have the violence of Wikipedia deletions. I don't approve of deleting user-contributed content, especially when it takes effort to build; closing on SO removes linking to the question, adds a little explanatory blurb, and diverts new attention away from the question. It doesn't destroy user contributions.

<comment><USER19> Now you (and the site's rules) are just getting pedantic.

What's the legal definition of a "Chatty, open-ended question" or a "practicable, answerable question"? No question is un-answerable or impracticable imho.

Those are some very ridiculous requirements if you ask me, and 300 odd other people who voted in favor of this question and it's answers.

P.S. in the midst of all this argument... CasperOne has added and removed his vote of no confidence for this question. It is now "closed as not constructive by Tim Cooper, lwburk, Tobu, 一二三, Graviton 8 hours ago". So which is it then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Quoting a comment under the question:

 _Language preference aside, the fact that no language has good support in the browser, the server and stand-alone totally baffles me._

I do wonder about this. I don't think the challenge of the task is the only answer. I think - guess - the rest of the answer might be that in practice, _most_ developers focus on one of those, maybe two (most probably server and browser), rarely the three of them. I know first hand that some do work on the three, but they must be rare, seeing the interest in this. Maybe the momentum of the app stores bringing web devs to work on apps could gradually make people more aware of the benefits of having a universal language. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the variety of languages, but I would be very happy to be able to focus and become proficient at one only language, even if that means giving up on some language specific advantages.

Ironically (given of the context of the comment), javascript might be what comes closest today.

</comment><comment><USER21> The other way to put this question is - Is there sufficient reason/motivation to try to replace Javascript with something else? What does JS lack or what are its limitations?

<comment><USER22> The lack of keyword default arguments drives me nuts, python just does it so well. Not to mention ===, etc, etc.

None of these things are a showstoppers, but rather amount to "death by paper cut" that in my mind that make the language unsatisfying to use.

<comment><USER23> You can just use CoffeScript for those little problems.

<comment><USER22> I've looked at it, and while nifty, makes me worry about leaky abstractions and future support.

Now that you mention it if I'm going to do that, why not use the python-to- javascript compiler from pyjamas? ... hmm.

<comment><USER23> The difference is that CF is very close to javascript and makes it very easy to transition. But of course, if you prefer python, why not :)

Talking about future support, as CF is included in Rails 3.1, I guess that it should be guaranteed enough.

<comment><USER22> I looked in to it. While technically possible it looks like you'll have to include a script to implement the python-like objects. That's a bit more than I wanted, just to write javascript in python syntax... so I guess it's not very practical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I remember being impressed by a Microsoft project[1] a few years ago that did exactly this, it seems it never took off.

[1] <http://visitmix.com/labs/gestalt/>

<comment><USER25> It's based on IronPython/IronRuby/DLR. I've been to a few PyCons and the CPython-based developers never seemed all that interested in it due to library support, and the majority of work happening on UNIX platforms. At the same time .NET developers didn't know what to do with this great set of tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you spend all your energy complaining about JavaScript and demanding the browser vendors provide you with a better replacement the problem here is not JavaScript, it's you.

JavaScript is far from the best language ever created, but it's also far from the worst.

The biggest pain in the ass working with JavaScript on a day to day basis is not JavaScript itself -- most of its follies can be avoided by good programming practices -- it's the DOM.

<comment><USER16> JS has lots and lots of fundametal issues. Weird OO implementation (argue all you want but prototype inheritance is not what the prevailing wisdom is on how to do OO), no type system (at least give the option!), no packages/modules, no generics.

Don't people want dev tools to better help them building and refactoring web code? Web dev is like 15 years behind server development.

<comment><USER27> Of course some of these things are being fixed (e.g. modules are being added; there has been talk of optional types). At least when Google or Microsoft aren't dragging their feet and sabotaging the process.

As for generics, I'm not sure what you're looking for there; it's pretty simple to write generic functions in JS, or indeed any language with duck typing, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just don't tell me we need to have JavaScript on the server side too, for like, consistency, man.

</comment><comment><USER29> Mono (actually a fork of it) can already compile C# to run on Chrome NativeClient. So, you're very close, there.

Also, this:

[http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-June/090038...](http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-June/090038.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> If Python uses indentation rather than curly braces or keywords, then it would not allow for minimization or obfuscation when used in the browser. This is the main reason IMO Google chose to design Dart with curly braces.

<comment><USER31> Playing the devil's advocate, if the browser just had a VM and ran bytecode, the syntax wouldn't matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is an interesting implementation of python in the browser. It's a python interpreter written in JS, so you wouldn't need any new software on the users end.

<http://www.skulpt.org/>

</comment><comment><USER33> I would prefer a standard byte-code VM inside of every browser so we could just make compilers targeting that VM. Then anyone could choose their preferred language :)

<comment><USER11> I would too, but what will be the characteristics of that VM?

And who 'owns' the technology?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Well people are doing something:

<http://repl.it/>

<http://syntensity.com/static/python.html>

<https://github.com/replit/emscripted-ruby>

</comment><comment><USER35> The shortest good answer I can come up with is reducing security exposure. Ending support for JavaScript is not an option, so browser makers would have to deal with the surface of one or two extra languages in addition to JavaScript.

I don't think they need the extra work.

</comment><comment><USER36> Those languages (which I both quite enjoy) are a bit slow though. Maybe something like Lua which already has a pretty amazing JIT available?

</comment><comment><USER37> 1\. why does stackoverflow close all the interesting questions?

2\. fuck is wrong with javascript?

<comment><USER38> Interesting questions don't have definitive answers.</comment></comment>