Flight Simulator 4 from 1989 running on three immersive monitors (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tinmith.net/wayne/blog/2017/06/immersive-flight-sim-4.htm <comment><USER2> I am constantly amazed at the clever ways people manage to extend, repurpose and rearchitect software. This is incredibly clever in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER3> [2017] Also previously on HN, 70 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14548162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14548162)

Still impressive.

Also, one of the comments there, from bluedino:

"I remember you could do this with DOS Doom using the -left and -right parameters: you just needed three PC's that could run Doom AND a local area network."

</comment><comment><USER4> > it is not possible to have two processes on the same machine listening on > the same port number.

This is not true.

One strategy is to use multicast[1].

Another strategy is to use SO_BROADCAST+SO_REUSEADDR[2].

[1]: [http://www.jarloo.com/c-udp-multicasting- tutorial/](http://www.jarloo.com/c-udp-multicasting-tutorial/)

[2]: [http://hacked10bits.blogspot.com/2014/12/udp-binding-and- por...](http://hacked10bits.blogspot.com/2014/12/udp-binding-and-port-reuse- in-linux.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> sometimes i find myself grumbling over some article where anybody doing a little coding calls himself a hacker and thinking "in my days we use to code our own (insert any now commercially o free available software) .." but this is hacking at its pure and best: radically transforming something with code.

</comment><comment><USER6> What ever happened to FS (and flight simulators in general) ?

Is there a current commercial version? Did people just lose interest?

Or maybe the current 10 (20?) year old stuff is simply good enough

<comment><USER7> \- rights to FSX have been acquired by a company which has re-released Steam edition, and made some minor improvements to the engine

\- Lockheed released its own version called Prepar3d: [https://www.prepar3d.com/](https://www.prepar3d.com/)

\- X-plane 11 is largely understood to be the main competitor. FSX and X-plane have different underlying modelling principles. You can easily start an internet flame-war on which one is "better", but X-plane is actively developed and improved

\- Aerofly FS2 is also a good "lighter alternative". Still a very solid sim, but easier to get into. Very pretty graphics as well.

All three of these support basic and advanced joysticks. I've had Saitek Yoke, Engine cluster, and Thrustmaster MFDs running in Aerofly in seconds.

From combat flight sim perspective, DCS suite is widely considered the current best-of-breed, though Falcon 4.0 modded / enhanced variations are still widely played. Tons of other "lighter" contenders as well.

<comment><USER8> To further elaborate on this... Flight simulators as a _game_ genre has all but disappeared. There used to be lots of flight simulator games, like F-15 Strike Eagle and Red Baron, etc. Every now and then there's an "arcade flight simulator" game, but it doesn't seem to be popular with gamers and even less so with simmers.

Flight simulators have become pretty hard core simulators these days. X-Plane 11 and P3D seem to be the most popular on simmer forums, with MS FSX (and derivatives) still enjoying popularity.

Flight sims are a pretty deep rabbit hole and big investment. When you purchase a simulator, it's just a platform for running 1st and 3rd party addon aircraft and scenery. Some of these are fairly expensive (up to $100 or more for a quality aircraft), and the investment in these is why people still fly with FSX.

Combat flight sims are still around too, DCS:World is popular, but IL-2 series and Rise of Flight have some players too. Falcon BMS is popular for hard core fans of modern air warfare (with complex weapons systems that need a manual of their own).

As much as I'd like to still be enjoying flight sims, it's too deep a rabbit hole for me. It takes investment in hardware, software, education and practice.

This explains also why it's not a mainstream activity. It's far beyond what a casual gamer would find entertaining or interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love this kind of tinkering. It sure is a lot of fun, given enough time.

> I decided to try just fuzzing over the memory locations that did change to > see which one would have an effect.

I've been thinking for a long time to do this in an automated way. But I guess even if you can automate the fuzzy generation + screenshots, a person with a lot of domain knowledge will need to check them.

<comment><USER10> There's a program called cheatengine that does this! It is absolutely fantastic imho and you can use it for way more than just 'cheating' at games.

[https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine](https://github.com/cheat- engine/cheat-engine)

<comment><USER9> Thanks! I just read the page and I didn't know it came with so many tools. I remember some people using it in games to actual 'cheats' like unlimited ammo, life, and so on. Also I was delighted when I saw you could use it to disable certain direct3d api calls that would make a game run very slow on integrated graphics, hence increasing the performance dramatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had classes with Wayne at Uni. His group was the only one to get better marks than me in this final year assignment for some subject where we had to write our own webbrowser and server in C and TCL.

Ours was great, but theirs was better. I don't remember the details, but theirs did something like implemented HTML tables. This was 1997, and tables were still not supported in things like Lynx.

Anyway, good times, and Wayne is a smart guy.

</comment><comment><USER12> A long time ago on some German computer show, they showed a flight sim hacker who basically made his own immersive cockpit. He had a camera rigged to his screen, right where the attitude indicator was, and this controlled servo motors who elevated parts of the platform he was sitting on. Mind you, that was way before Arduinos etc.

<comment><USER13> > _Mind you, that was way before Arduinos etc._

Maybe it was in the era of ubiquitous printer IO ports? There seems to be some sort of "dark age" of low-level/analog computer output right between printer ports and arduino/raspberri pi.

<comment><USER12> Or the various interfaces of the home computers. The BeBox was an interesting twist on this with its "GeekPort".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is great, and gives me hope of someday doing the same for my favorite DOS game EarthSiege (where the mech you piloted had four camera views)

</comment><comment><USER15> "In 1989, computers only supported a single small display"

Macs supported more than one display at that point, I think.

<comment><USER16> Technically, you could even do dual monitors with IBM PC, by having both a CGA card and a MDA/Hercules card. Obviously, the utility was limited, but apparently people did it.

<comment><USER17> Obviously, the utility was limited, but apparently people did it.

For graphics yes. But around that time all Borland (C, Pascal) products supported debugging with to monitors (VGA+Hercules). And I used a little TSR for years that transferred the contents of the main VGA Screen to Hercules via 'PtrScr' key, which was handy too. All text mode of course.

<comment><USER16> Definitely not saying it was useless, just that the utility was limited because of the usual limitations of MDA; that is, it's definitely not the same as what people would think of as a dual-head setup today.

That said, I literally was born after Windows 3.0. So... I never personally dealt with such a setup. Maybe some day, as a matter of exploring older computers, I will get a chance to actually run such a setup and see what it was like.

<comment><USER18> It was definitely a thing to run multiple screens in a "one-per-task" kind of setup - the real difference is that hardly anything back then networked or multitasked, and so you had to design the workflow you wanted to use specifically around the idea of using all your displays. In the context of any specific application(coding, document editing, CAD etc.) the possibility of a custom tailored solution existed - it just wasn't the highest priority most of the time. You could get a lot of multitasking mileage out of more antiquated technologies like printed documents and pens in tandem with your computer. "Code review" meant literally printing it out and going over it with highlighters like an exam grader. I'm sure it still does in some shops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Flight Sim 4 was the first fight simulator I played. Talk about a blast from the past.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I got a huge rush of nostalgia. It was so cool, I remember learning so much about how planes worked trying to figure that game out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That looks very similar to multiplayer game design. Here, side monitors are acting like spectators and getting dead reckoning after player synchronization.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for this: MS FS was literally the first PC game I ever tried to play on my grandfathers 386 - and I failed miserably for years.

</comment><comment><USER23> Beautiful stuff. I am so glad people continue to explore and keep alive technology from the years when I was growing up.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow a fellow Aussie! Good read.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER26> When I remember those softwares from the 90s, I almost (but not) think that software has not improved as much since.

Hardware improves much faster. Actually Software could always and can always be done without computers, like the old punch holes in the cards and Ada Lovelace's writings.

Still today, of course, Anything that can get done with real physical logic gates can get done with paper and pencil. Just takes longer, Result is the same.

Examples of great software that dropped my jaw back in the 90's:

\- Microsoft Flight Simulator (Instead of becoming better and more famous, is almost forgotten)

\- Bryce 4 (mind-blowing back then, wonder if still alive)

\- :at request - Simcity ( I had never play, but my sister was addicted)

-:at sister's request - Empire Earth ( not sure that old, it's like Age of Empires)

\- Myth: The Fallen Lords (best video-game ever made, for me, it is the saddening story you can hear about software death)

<comment><USER27> I'd add SimCity in there as well. Groundbreaking when it was made.

<comment><USER28> If you played SimCity to create the perfect city, there's still nothing with a similar engaging dynamic.

BUT, if you played it like a city-painter, I recommend Cities: Skylines as an evolution. You can also mod it and the language of choice is C#. Just look at the mods, the community is (was?) amazing.

<comment><USER29> C:S is great if you want to plan a city, but its simulation elements are sorely lacking. I'd love to see the original design doc for SC2013 (fully agent-based, with histories) get made; that'd probably be the best you can get for a simulation engine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Descent ! 1995 and there in nothing close to it today in 6 degrees of freedom 6DOF flying.

</comment><comment><USER31> > It is amazing how low-res 640x350 is when displayed on a large 1920x1080 > display, although you didn't notice it as much on a 14 inch CRT, which is > smaller than many laptops these days

Yes and No. Screens are measured diagonally, not by square inches. A 14" screen could be 14"x0.1".

<comment><USER32> I don't understand what you're trying to say?

A 14 inch CRT was also measured diagonally.

<comment><USER33> The wider the aspect ratio, the smaller the area with the same diagonal measurement. A 14" 4:3 monitor (like the old CRTs) is about 94"^2, but a 14" 16:9 monitor is only about 84"^2.

<comment><USER34> Sure, but a 15" 16:9 display is a bit over 96 sq.in.

The original didn't say that a 14" CRT has the same area as a 14" laptop — just that it was "smaller than many laptops these days".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Run an Internet Speed Test from the Command Line - <AUTHOR> https://www.putorius.net/speed-test-command-line.html <comment><USER2> Note that some ISPs prioritise traffic to known speedtest targets, turning off traffic shaping rules that might otherwise slow bulk transfers. When this happens it means you are testing the likely maximum throughput of your connection not necessarily the throughput you will see more generally.

This is why Netflix started fast.com - because it draws data from the same distribution points as their video streaming apps it means you can't prioritise the speedtest without also doing so for the video traffic or (more likely) you can't de-prioritise the video traffic without also getting bad scores in that particular speedtest. From Netflix's point of view it is an answer to people contacting support with "my speedtest results are fine, the problem must be your servers" when they are experiencing video lag/drops and other such problems and the issue is due to ISP traffic shaping or the ISP simply not having enough backhaul bandwidth.

A more reliable test might be taking part in a busy public torrent: that way you are testing against arbitrary locations so your ISP can't be setting different shaping rules for them. Just remember to throttle upstream when testing downstream and vice-versa or saturation in the other direction will slow control packets that will in turn give you lower results for the one you are testing. This may fall into another trap though: unless you limit the number of active streams it may be an unrealistic test as more generally most processes use a small number of streams (or just a single one), and if you limit the number of streams too much you might get a lower result because each swarm member you connect to may be fairly saturated and sharing its bandwidth amongst many connections.

<comment><USER3> That said, I can and do get 200mbps+ on fast.com (my preferred/goto speedtest), and still experience constant buffering and the "sorry we can't play that video right now" message that kicks me out but then just clicking play again works.

I'm not saying it's their servers or network, but I haven't found a reason for it based on my fast.com results.

<comment><USER4> > but then just clicking pay again works

freudian slip much?

<comment><USER3> Good catch!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> speedtest-cli is _garbage_ if you have >100Mbps Speeds. The dev refuses to acknowledge this: [https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/226](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/226)

Also not just me: [https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/649](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/649)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/648](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/648)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/641](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/641)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/616](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/616)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/601](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/601)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/588](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/588)

[https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli/issues/546](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/issues/546)

<comment><USER6> He locked all above issues.

<comment><USER7> this project is the first time i've ever seen this kind of thing in problem reports. i've already seen enough to stay far away from that software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surprised no-one has mentioned `iperf` on linux [1,2] for what that is worth.

It lets you roll your own speed testing infrastructure basically: Run it as a server on one end you want to test, then run it as client against that server IP/hostname on the other end.

It is very handy for measuring throughput between two boxes in a network (or anywhere for that matter).

Several big ISPs have endpoints for testing it as well for a speedtest like experience [1].

[1] - [https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php](https://iperf.fr/iperf-doc.php)

[2] - [https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.htm...](https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/iperf.1.html)

<comment><USER9> Iperf is really useful to test your own LAN. Didn't know you could use it to test your ISP speed (in some cases)

<comment><USER10> Well, you need a endpoint outside your LAN to test. But there are some public servers[0] but not that many so it's hard to get good average speed unless you are willing to pay for some EC2 bandwidth.

[0] [https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php](https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> there is a standard package available in the debian repository

apt install speedtest-cli

Description: Command line interface for testing internet bandwidth using speedtest.net Speedtest.net is a webservice that allows you to test your broadband connection by downloading a file from one of many Speedtest.net servers from around the world. . This utility allows you to use the Speedtest.net service from the command line. . Note: This tool accesses speedtest.net over http, while the web-based client uses websockets. This tool has shown to become increasingly inacurate with high-speed connections. For more information, see the readme on: [https://github.com/sivel/speedtest- cli](https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli)

<comment><USER12> Might concern some users:

I had an issue on my 250/250Mbps-line using speedtest-cli in that it showed the correct download speed, but only 4Mbps upload.

Googling suggests it could be an issue with slow CPU/low RAM.

My (now old) server was by no means a beast as it had a throttled i3-3220T with 8GB RAM, but it should be plenty fast for that task.

The solution I came across on reddit/stack was to use this [0] instead, which solved the discrepancy for me:

[0] [https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest](https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest)

<comment><USER13> Indeed, my own raspberry pi was returning weird results with the python-based one; I switched to this one and it is more consistent. I had to add an "\--output json" option to it to not have to redo all my tooling around tracking the speedtest results, but forgot to make a pull request to the repo, and I've just done that: same json format as the python-based version.

<comment><USER14> a raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any sort of speed test, not only is the wifi weak/slow but the wired ethernet interface is also hanging off a usb2.0 bus.

<comment><USER15> > A raspberry pi 3/3b+ or whatever (not v4) should by no means be used for any > sort of speed test

You make a valid point though you could test the speed of the Raspberry Pi in question. As long as you take the caveats you mentioned into account, that's an OK context. Which is the problem with GP's post to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> maybe it's not as accurate, but on a lot of systems where wget is already installed one can do with a lot less hassle:

wget -O /dev/null [http://speedtest- ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test](http://speedtest- ams2.digitalocean.com/100mb.test)

Nota bene:

\- change the datacenter to a closer one when appropriate.

\- Unit is MB/s, rather than Mb/s, which is more common for this kind of test

<comment><USER17> I've been using the wget method for a long time also.

I think the only downside is that you need to know what you're fetching and from where.

Edit: And for latency, there is /bin/ping

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't use wget for upload speeds...

<comment><USER17> While strictly true, if you can download at link capacity it usually means the upstream is okay too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A few suggestions:

1\. look into what /usr/local/{,s}bin/ and ${HOME}/.local/bin/ are for (and how to add them to your ${PATH}, if necessary)

2\. look into why you shouldn't recommend things like "sudo wget ..." (at the least, use "wget" followed by a "sudo mv").

</comment><comment><USER19> For those who are more familiar with npm, there are two packages for this by Sindre Sorhus. You can run them without preinstalling them with npx, if you wish:

        npx speed-test
        npx fast-cli

The second one uses fast.com

<comment><USER20> Also speedtest-net is a great one, it also has an programmatic API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Users in Sweden might be better served by this:

[http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen- cli/](http://www.bredbandskollen.se/en/bredbandskollen-cli/)

<comment><USER22> Should work fine for most of europe or at least the north. All servers are in sweden

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you need to do this, you may also need to get your external IP address from the CLI. Two ways I like are:

      dig +short myip.opendns.com

      curl icanhazip.com

<comment><USER24> A little bit easier to remember: curl ifconfig.me

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Run speed test with ssh and pv:

      $ yes | pv | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null"

<comment><USER26> You can also

      pv /dev/zero | ssh your_server "cat > /dev/null"

Both yours and this one check upload speed.

To check download speed:

      ssh your_server 'cat /dev/zero' | pv > /dev/null

or based on your suggestion:

      ssh your_server yes | pv > /dev/null

And if you don't have a server to login to, you can find a big file on the web and use that to check download speed:

      curl -s http://some-place.com/big-file | pv > /dev/null

Though curl also reports speed, so I guess you may as well just:

      curl http://some-place.com/big-file > /dev/null

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hmm, it reports about a 10 times lower upload speed allthough my subscription is 50/50 symetrical. I can confirm that I usually do get to the correct speeds (~50 Mbit/s) when downloading things of my server... Where could this mismatch come form?

<comment><USER28> Maybe MB/s rather than Mb/s. The ratio is 8.</comment></comment>


Polars: Rust DataFrames Based on Apache Arrow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ritchie46/polars <comment><AUTHOR> As a hobby project I tried to build a DataFrame library in Rust. I got excited about the Apache Arrow project and wondered if this would succeed.

After two months of development it is faster than pandas for groupby's and left and inner joins. I still got some ideas for the join algorithms. Eventually I'd also want to add a query planner for lazy evaluation.</comment>


GaiaSup: A spatial publish/subscribe service for geospatial/location apps - <AUTHOR> http://gaiasup.com

<comment><USER2> Glad to see it finally launched. :-D

<comment><AUTHOR> yes.. will be interested to see whether there's a need for such services. :)</comment></comment>


Monads and Arrows: modelling a build system - <AUTHOR> http://jaspervdj.be/posts/2012-01-14-monads-arrows-build-systems.html

<comment><USER2> If for nothing else, this article has lead me to the paste command. Looks something which would be incredibly useful. Marking it down. Look forward to the rest of the article.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your AWS IAM controls for AWS datacenter environments? - <AUTHOR>

Especially around:

    - Providing development and test sandboxes
    - Environment isolations
    - Providing flexibility and control
 In a way, provide PaaS on AWS to dev/qa and test folks. <comment><USER2> here's how we manage our dev environment: [https://developers.coinbase.com/blog/2015/03/30/self- service...](https://developers.coinbase.com/blog/2015/03/30/self-service-iam)</comment>


FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to unveil new net neutrality plans - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2017/4/24/15412650/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-new-net-neutrality-plans <comment><USER2> this person doesn't think they work for the constituents

[https://theintellectualist.co/fcc-chairman-looking-to-gut- ne...](https://theintellectualist.co/fcc-chairman-looking-to-gut-net- neutrality/)</comment>


Before You Pay That Ransomware Demand… - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/12/before-you-pay-that-ransomware-demand/ <comment><AUTHOR> "The first place victims should look to find out is nomoreransom.org, a site backed by security firms and cybersecurity organizations in 22 countries. Since its launch on July 25, 2016, nomoreransom.org estimates that it has been able to save 6,000 victims of ransomware more than $2 million USD to date. ...

Visit the Crypto Sheriff page at nomoreransom.org, upload one of the files encrypted by the ransomware, and the site will let you know if there is a solution available to unlock all of your files for free."</comment>


The U.S. has 'worst elections of any long-established democracy,' report finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/21/the-u-s-has-worst-elections-of-any-long-established-democracy-report-finds/?postshare=781465681940400&tid=ss_fb <comment> aaron-lebo People aren't willing to make their politicians accountable. It's always the other person's fault, the other side's extremes; never their own.

You've got Clinton running an email server exposed to the world as secretary of state, ignoring warnings about it and then lying about it. Yet she will probably end up getting elected because it's all a "Republican conspiracy". Meanwhile, Trump is calling a judge's ruling into question about his if not fraudulent, largely worthless "university" due to their race. Then there's Bernie who refuses to acknowledge any extremes of socialism. Oh, yes, and then there's the Lt. Gov. from my state Tweeting a statement like this after the worst mass shooting in US history. It's either sick or incredibly tone deaf:

"A man reaps what he sows." [0]

Knowing his stances on Muslims and the LGBT community, it's not clear what he's referring to.

This is a sickness and the modern tech industry is directly responsible. We are creating echo chambers. There is endemic corruption and misinformation at all levels. Will we do something? We used to have big dreams, even if the reality on the ground didn't live up to them. Now we just Tweet.

[http://www.chron.com/news/article/Texas-Lt-Governor-Dan- Patr...](http://www.chron.com/news/article/Texas-Lt-Governor-Dan-Patrick- tweets-reap-what-8076147.php)

<comment><USER2> If Clinton wins, it won't be because her email stuff is dismissed as a conspiracy, it will be because we only have two choices and the other one is vastly worse. (Don't try to tell me about other choices. Third party candidates are the frictionless pulleys of American politics.)

<comment><USER3> If I have to listen to her speak for four years on the nightly news, I might bail and move to Canada. My ears can't take that kind of prolonged shrieking.

<comment><USER4> Misogyny has no place here.

<comment><USER3> You're projecting. I simply said I cannot tolerate the frequencies of her speaking voice. There are men whose voices are profoundly unpleasant to listen to also - it has no bearing on which variety of wedding tackle they are packing. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

<comment><USER5> Your "criticism" is the lowest of the low. What can anybody do about the "frequency" of their voice? _YOU are unpleasant to READ._ Consider that - unlike the "problem" you invent this is one that _you_ are actually 100% responsible for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gerrymandering has outrageous results [0] and voter suppression of minorities is right out of a novel [1]. It's so screwed up that votes almost don't matter, depending on who last classified what voting district you're in.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/13/this-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/13/this- is-actually-what-america-would-look-like-without-gerrymandering/)

[1] [http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/02/3745296/major- vo...](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/02/3745296/major-voter-id- study/)

<comment><USER7> Gerrymandering is completely overblown as a problem.

Proof: the 2016 Presidential primaries.

<comment><USER8> Would you mind expanding the thought a bit? Many states have closed primaries (so participating in one primary precludes participating in others) and the delegate allocation rules are pretty complicated. Lots of delegates are awarded at the state level, where Gerrymandering won't have much impact.

<comment><USER7> Please see my reply to "nitwit005". Basically, we're doing a terrible job electing people in all our races, but gerrymandering only affects US House races. Therefore, even if we completely fixed gerrymandering, it's not going to have much effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am not sure the term elections accurately describes what goes on.

I don't want to make this political, but the candidate I voted for, and which I know many voted for, in the 2012 election, received 0 votes in my district.

</comment><comment><USER10> The US is also the longest established continuously democratic government... so clearly there is also something going right, historically at least.

Ranking Brazilian government above the US is a joke.

<comment><USER11> This is not a government rank, it is an elections ranking.

From your comment history, I can see you have an axe to grind in Brazilian politics. Please keep it to relevant discussions.

<comment><USER10> It's from the first sentence of the article. Brazil is fair game.

<comment><USER11> "They all outranked the United States in a comparison of election standards and procedures conducted by the Electoral Integrity Project"

The sentence is specific about election process, not all the government. If you want to discredit the research, do it properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The US is not a democracy, it wasn't even founded as a democracy. You'll find pockets of it in certain state and local governments, but the US is a federal republic. Given the historical restrictions on who could vote and participate in government and more modern corporate influence, it's always been an oligarchy in practice. This is probably a problem intrinsic to the lack of democracy on a federal level.

</comment><comment><USER13> This doesn't even mention the very troubling questions that have been raised about the security of the electronic voting machines that some states are using [0].

[0] [https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting- equipment/](https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised this post hasn't been flagged as too political yet.</comment>


Best of ZSH Tips - <AUTHOR> http://www.rayninfo.co.uk/tips/zshtips.html

<comment><USER2> Fish-like syntax highlighting for zsh: <https://github.com/nicoulaj/zsh- syntax-highlighting>

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly related nostalgia: when I was 12 and we'd go on a holiday I'd print 300 pages of documents like this (unix&shell commands), and memorize them for fun, and I'd make my mom test me. I felt like a f __*ing wizard!

More on topic: I recently switched to zsh again (and loving it), so this is pure gold!

</comment><comment><USER4> Have a link to this from the desktop.</comment>


How many Hollywood stars does it take to make mathematicians glamorous? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/11/breakthrough_prize_ceremony_oscars_of_science_honor_mathematicians_life.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _Milner was poorly advised, however, if he was told that the winners were plausible rock star material._

It's a pity that von Neumann is gone. That was a man who knew how to party.</comment>


22 Maps That Show The Deepest Linguistic Conflicts In America - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-in-america-2013-6?op=1 <comment><USER2> Discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828348></comment>


Introducing LastPass 4.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lastpass.com/en/2016/01/introducing-lastpass-4-0.html/ <comment><AUTHOR> Ever since the company was bought by LogMeIn I have been looking around for alternatives. I think this update will speed up that process a bit.</comment>


Ethiopia's Authorities Have Shut Down the Internet Without Giving Any Reasons - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2017/06/01/ethiopias-authorities-have-shut-down-the-internet-without-giving-any-reasons/ <comment><USER2> I have an Ethiopian colleague. Well he got his American citizenship a few years ago. But the only way to communicate with his family without ridiculous long distance fees was the internet. It used to be FaceBook but that's been shut down for awhile. This isn't good</comment>


A Review of the Lean Startup Book - <AUTHOR> http://www.w2lessons.com/2011/10/lean-startup-book-reviewed.html

<comment><USER2> > For those expecting a detailed step-by-step roadmap of the Lean Startup, > you're likely to be disappointed. The subject is simply too large to be > covered in one book, and many of the individual concepts have already been > covered in other sources (Eric does a great job of suggesting further > reading).

This book makes my cynic sense tingle.

Anyone have a list of the further reading, because what I'm interested in are concrete things to do, not "high-level" concepts.

> Eric has done a great job of providing examples of the Lean Startup in the > context of large organizations such as Intuit and IGN, and devotes the last > few chapters of the book to this very topic

I think big companies are the target market for his book. He would like to sell his consulting services to them.

Nothing wrong with that - he seems like a really bright guy with a lot of good ideas, who does indeed know his stuff, and could provide a lot of value to companies. He also "walked the walk", having a successful company of his own. It's just that I don't know if real startups will derive that much value from the book, from what I've read of it.

Here's the top review for it on Amazon:

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R3287ICLQ9STI3/ref=cm_cr_dp_per...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R3287ICLQ9STI3/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0307887898&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=)

Not entirely positive...

<comment><USER3> The concrete things to do are build, measure, iterate. I think the case studies in the book are extremely helpful to entrepreneurs. I think you need to have some entrepreneurial experience to get much out of it though. Until you've run into some of the problems that the lean startup proposes to solve, you'll probably find the concepts too abstract.

If you're looking for a book to take you from step 1 to the end of building a successful, profitable business, you'll be looking for the rest of your life. There are far too many variables to create a completely replicable business. Instead, it's better to know what things to look for going in, and have a framework in place that makes it easy for you to see if you're on the right track. I think Eric's book does a great job of showing that side of things.

If you're looking for additional reading on the topic, you might find '4 Step to the Epiphany' worth reading. 'Business Model Generation' also gives some additional tools. You won't find anything (worth reading) that gives you step- by-step instructions, but there's enough literature out there on the Lean Startup methodologies that you should have enough to get started.

<comment><USER2> It's obviously impossible to provide a 'template' book that "walks you through it". If it were that simple, everyone would be doing it.

I've read plenty of business books, and most of them tend towards the "few big ideas, expanded to fill a book", and I'm getting the impression this one may fit that mold.

Rob Walling's (honest, I'm not paid to promote it:-) Start Small, Stay Small, gives you a bunch of very practical tools and numbers to use to work on a small startup, and is my new benchmark for this kind of book.

It's easy to write "build, measure, iterate". What kinds of useful details does Ries go into about those, though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This book was unreadably pretentious. Constantly capitalizing "Lean Startup Movement" (and for that matter, using the word "movement") makes it sound like some sort of religion.

Readers looking for something substantive or even thought provoking will be thoroughly disappointed.

<comment><USER5> I'm currently a 100 pages into TLS. If anything, Ries has attempted to bring more scientific process to a historically religious field that _achieves failure_ (successfully, faithfully, and rigorously executing a plan that turns out to be flawed) much too often. I would say he is trying to form a common language entrepreneurs can use to think effectively about entrepreneurism.

<comment><USER2> A genuinely scientific process would control for all variables, something that seems exceedingly difficult to do with a real startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you still confused, go read Running Lean (www.runningleanhq.com). A very concise and step-by-step approach.</comment>


Show HN: Rudo – A toy sudo clone written in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shawnanastasio/rudo <comment><USER2> Only one line of unsafe, and that's to call a C function. Nice.</comment>


Gitlab 13.3 with coverage-guided fuzz testing and a build matrix for CI/CD - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-released/ <comment><USER2> Hey all - GitLab's 13.3 release is live today. Quick preview of what is inside:

Coverage guided fuzz testing: You can now run coverage-guided fuzz tests against your Go and C/C++ apps!

Kubernetes Pod health dashboard: In GitLab 13.3, you can view the health of your Kubernetes pods in the new out-of-the-box Pod health metrics dashboard (personal commentary: super excited about this one!)

Merge Request Approvals shows who participated in the review: Code review often involves multiple people and multiple iterations. It can be hard to know who has been reviewing the merge request, and which of those reviewers has approved and who hasn't.

There is much more included in this release, so head over to our blog post (linked: [https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-rel...](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/08/22/gitlab-13-3-released/)) and check it out.

As always, let me, and our Product Team know what questions you have! (link to feedback issue: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/239761](https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/239761)) -LO</comment>


Plagiarism Among Programming Blogs and How to Resolve - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nraboy.com/2016/01/plagiarism-among-programming-blogs-and-how-to-resolve/ <comment><USER2> The author himself plagiarize the content from apache cordova example and calling others plagiarist.

Writing blog post is for the purpose of public sharing and dissemination. If you need your content to be secure keep them within the walled gardens. If every open source developer thinks like the author of this post, there won't be any open source software.

I hate this kind of leech. Open source is a community work and the more others use the better it is. Its a compliment if they are actually using your blog post as reference.

Consider your blog post as a service to open source software you are trying to explain rather then calling others for plagiarism.</comment>


A perpetual motion machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlx2PgESXhs#t=43

<comment><USER2> The magnets would loose their power over time which makes this "just" a large battery. Imagine all the energy put in making this machine, that is the "charge".</comment>


Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2016/5/13/11592570/china-startup-tech-economy-silicon-valley <comment><USER2> I'm not sure Beijing is the _only_ true competitor to SV, but it definitely has the combination of educated and motivated young people, huge target market, low cost of living, and tons of floating investment money to do interesting things. As the author points out, Chinese startups are also much better positioned on the hardware front than their US counterparts because they can easily work directly with factories to produce just about anything with no language, cultural, or time barriers.

<comment><USER3> The cost of living in Beijing is not low any more.</comment></comment>


The Scariest Earthquake Is Yet to Come - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/13/the-scariest-earthquake-is-yet-to-come.html <comment><USER2> San Fransisco? Not really. The largest San Andreas earthquake is probably 8.0 plus or minus, probably an order of magnitude smaller than Japan's. The damage will be comparable because because the fault runs through an urban area. The most likely next earthquake will be on the Hayward or Rogers Creek faults, still smaller. There may be hundreds killed, but not thousands, because there wont be that type of tsunami.

Seattle OTOH is a place to avoid. Possibly a 9 earth quake. Volcanoes. Lahars that could sweep the land nude to the ocean.

Now if you are a tsunami maven, Google La Palma tsunami (Canary Islands). That monster will be thousands of feet high and hit the east coast with a wave perhaps hundreds of feet high.

<comment><USER3> I googled "La Palma tsunami" ... 1st link indicates the topic is quite controversial: <http://www.lapalma-tsunami.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A couple points on this by one who is by no means a seismologist but who finds the topic fascinating and reads a great deal about it just out of curiosity:

(1) First, I tend to agree with russell that Hayward is one of the two most likely candidates for a devastating quake. This fault line seems the greatest threat to the SF Bay Area. That said, whether San Andreas, Hayward or otherwise, any quake on a Bay Area fault line around an M8 or larger will wreak havoc on the Bay, especially along the Marina Green and other places with similar landfill. And I agree such an event is inevitable within the next few years. Fortunately, the seismic retrofits to the Golden Gate and the current rush to rebuild the Doyle Drive Freeway should mean those structures will withstand most anything, as will the tallest skyscrapers around the Bay.

(2) That said, I think the LA basin stands the greatest risk of failure during a quake: from what I understand, LA functions like a bowl of Jell-o, geographically: bounded by the ocean to the west and mountains to the north and east, earthquake waves tend to reverberate within the "bowl" and generate far more damage than they would elsewhere due to the formation of standing waves.

(3) Either way, I think those of us living in earthquake-prone areas need to realize that it is all but a mathematical certainty that we will be struck by another devastating quake within our lifetimes. Accordingly, I think it is foolish to not take at least elementary precautions: I for one, even I could afford it, will simply never live in the Marina Green due to the risk of liquefaction. Similarly, I would far rather live in a tall skyscraper condo rather than a small home since (a) they are designed to withstand quakes far better than smaller structures and (b) it turns out they function like wind instruments (i.e., closed on one end, open on the other): when high frequency earthquake waves strike a tall building, they resonate at a much lower frequency than in a smaller building. These two factors alone -- along with stricter building codes -- explain why we've _never_ (?) seen a modern skyscraper fail in an earthquake.</comment>


Python is gonna miss Guido - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/message/6MYFHUJ52Z3ZGBS34R32QD72XZELEUMS/ <comment><AUTHOR> Once he focuses his time on things other than Python, I think the project will largely be in good hands, but having a thoughtful BDFL is a plus imo.

I think we'll come to think of Linux and Linus in the same way eventually. Neither of these guys has done everything perfectly - nobody is perfect, but they've been very very good for a very very long time.</comment>


Android System information command line tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sbz/android-sysinfo <comment><AUTHOR> android-sysinfo is a Android Native program which reports the system properties of any android device using the system properties C API existing in Android libc bionic.

Over the years, Android has evolved a lot and I don't have multiples device to test on them. This is a call for testing as I would like people to try and report android-sysinfo on their devices to make it evolve, robust, better and be more sustainable.</comment>


Show HN: Hackeroo the Better UI for Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://hackeroo.co/ <comment><USER2> Constructive feedback here. Don't take this thread personally, I'm sure it was a great learning experience but as a final product is not nearly there.

I don't have data to back up it but I feel that the actual UI and the lack of ads of HN are important factors on its success. Simple, in the long term, usually wins. Ok you like dark mode, make a browser extension that does it.

Examples of relevant alternative front-ends for HN:

[https://hckrnews.com/](https://hckrnews.com/)

[https://hnews.xyz/](https://hnews.xyz/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the look of it. I prefer dark themes. Having a bunch of different togglable sources is a nice touch.

I'm ad tolerant. I'm pleased that ads are clearly delineated as ads.

It's less dense than HN. On HN /new I can see 15 stories. On Hackeroo I can see 6. The "read later" and "discussion" links don't need to be there, and could be toggled off maybe?

But it's nice!

<comment><USER4> I agree w/ this sentiment. Might be a thought to have a pro version that maybe lets you bookmark and write 'notes' about things seen on these. I get startup ideas and app ideas from these sources, and it'd be nice to be able to star them in one place, order the stars by priority, have one unified inbox, and stuff like that.... probably a lot more work, but it'd be cool as hell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would be interested to know by which qualities Hackeroo is the better UI.

<comment><USER6> By the very measurable metric of distance between the UI elements - as every self respecting Ux designer knows, the larger the distance, the higher the quality.

<comment><USER7> Then as one without the slightest insight to the UX world, I can still happily report you can increase the distance quite a lot more!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Low information density, on the landing page I see only 6 rows per viewport whereas hckrnews gives me 15. Do wish hckrnews had a nightmode though

<comment><USER9> Computer or mobile?

Brave has a dark mode flag on Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hacker news with ads? No, thank you.

Also some of the discussion links don't work.

And I couldn't use the back-button to get back to regular HN.

Frankly, this sucks.

</comment><comment><USER11> What good is an alternative view if every time I click on a comment I land on the "real" HN? Personally the comments are the reason why I use HN.

</comment><comment><USER12> What a bold statement! No, thanks, it's not a better UI. You might now say that it's subjective but so is your claim.

</comment><comment><USER13> White on black is absolutely unreadable

<comment><USER3> I find it very readable. I'd agree that #fff on #000 would be hard to read, but this is (I think) #f8f8f2 on #272822.

<comment><USER14> I'm not the original commenter but I agree that it's generally readable, although it's not exactly pleasant on my AMOLED phone where the background is _really_ dark if not black. If I turn the brightness down the white text becomes a little dimmer which helps, though I would prefer a slightly less dark background instead.

EDIT: Yes, the background is #161718, so not quite black.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think somehow the simplicity is lost. I think the upvote and downvote colors are too bright that makes it annoying.

I'm kinda was confused by the sorting functionality between different sources. I think I would prefer HN itself or Feedly.

</comment><comment><USER16> There is no support for comments though. Which I believe is the soul of hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER17> How about mine [http://repo.memkits.org/hn- reader/?id=23122813](http://repo.memkits.org/hn-reader/?id=23122813) .

</comment><comment><USER18> Could not figure out what to top row icons mean. what is going on over there?. Dark mode should not be default give the choice to users

</comment><comment><USER19> Hard pass.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's unusable without JavaScript enabled. Complexity is not inherently better. Less is more.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's better if it gets rid of the obnoxious and offensive "you're posting too fast" bullshit.</comment>


Python 101: An Intro to logging - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2012/08/02/python-101-an-intro-to-logging/ <comment><USER2> Logging is the worst kind of Python standard-library module: too clunky and ugly to be pleasant, but not bad enough to justify the breakage of using a third-party alternative. In comparison, urllib and urllib2 are great, because they suck so much that everybody just uses requests instead.

</rant>

<comment><USER3> How can urllib be great when it sucks?

<comment><USER4> I think his point is that it is great because it is bad enough that it forces people use a much nicer library.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One extremely useful method that I almost never see in tutorials is

        >>> logging.exception("an exception happened here and will be printed")

This will print out the message and then the full formatted error traceback. In many of my old projects I built a whole string formatting mess that would print out and format exceptions and just recently discovered that logging.exception() does that all for you.

<comment><USER6> I would add 3 (three!) things which either are not covered in the article or (worse) are mis-handled.

1\. `exc_info`. The truth is that `logging.exception(message)` is roughly equivalent to `logging.error(message, exc_info=True)`. Now it also expresses intent more clearly so it is a fine method, but what if you want to log an exception at DEBUG level (because it's not an error and you have some sort of fallback)?

        logging.debug(message, exc_info=True)

will do that for you (note: it should only used from within an `except` clause)

2\. Do _not_ perform string formatting calls in your logging call, let the library do it, just provide the parameters. Instead of TFA's

        logging.info("added %s and %s to get %s" % (x, y, x+y))

      write

        logging.info("added %s and %s to get %s", x, y, x+y)

it's slightly less verbose, and it lets `logging` _not to the formatting at all_ if it does not need to

3\. Last, but not least, if you're trying to log expensive-to-fetch information, use `Logger.isEnabledFor(level)` e.g.

        if logger.isEnabledFor(logging.DEBUG):
            logger.debug("Something: %s", super_expensive_call())

that avoids `super_expensive_call()` if the current logging configuration would not lead to `debug` messages being broadcast for the logger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, I don't see a reason to repeat what Doug Hellman did with Python Module Of The Week a while ago:

<http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/py-modindex.html>

His articles are comprehensive (were made into a book). For example, the one on logging is here:

[http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/logging/index.html#module...](http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/logging/index.html#module- logging)

</comment><comment><USER8> You know, I really love the Python posts on here.

Obviously there is a (hard-to-get-to) search function here. But it would be cool if you could set up like newslists or something for certain keywords in post titles, such as Python, etc.</comment>


Reaching the right people - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/09/reaching-the-ri.html

<comment><USER2> Makes a big assumption that I don't think is questioned enough.

That you know who the "right people" are or even what your product is.

Might not be as true with products but how many times have you heard about software or website. "We started out to do X by Y is what users latched onto so we did that instead.

Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection.

His example might work it's expensive and time consuming. Better to just upload sample tracks and even let people pirate your whole album. Your real fans(if any, you might just suck) will buy your next albulm, your merchandise and go to your show. They'll also spread the word.

<comment><USER3> You say "Also why target such a niche when you can target everyone with an internet connection."

The answer is, that targeting everyone with an internet connection is not targeting. It's called carpet bombing the internet, and it's expensive. Invariably, you can't carpet bomb the whole internet, so you only carpet bomb a tiny faction, which ends up being chosen not by smarts, but by chance and the nature of whatever advertising you are doing.

Even if you just upload tracks and let people "pirate" your whole album, you are leaving it up to chance that the people want your music will find it. People do not download every free track out there and listen to every single one just because it's free. So putting it out there for free is not an automatic answer -- it's better than changing $15 a CD and then just waiting, but it's still a pretty basic attempt.

The example given is expensive and time consuming. It doesn't have to expensive in money, you could buy used B-52 CDs and re-sell them at cost, for example, but it will be time consuming and take care and attention to detail to do it right. But seems likely to me that any success in internet marketing will take time, money (or even more time), and care and miticulous attention to detail. It's just not as easy as it was when banner ads were first invented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, to summarize, Slashdot style:

1) Identify the most likely consumers, and then give them the product for free. 2) ????????????? 3) Profit!

It reminds me of the sales guys at one of my previous jobs-- _"Sure, we'll lose $10 on each sale, but we'll make up for it in volume!"_

<comment><USER5> >What a shame that Amazon hasn't figured out how to provide this as a useful service. Amazon knows who buys a lot, they know who reviews a lot... why not ask those people if they want a free prize now and then? An influential person would earn the right to a huge number of free samples.

The idea is that people who might influence other people to buy something would get it for free.

<comment><USER6> The good thing about reviews on Amazon is that they are by other customers who actually had to shell out for the product. If there was any suggestion that they were being written to get freebies, wouldn't they lose whatever credibility they currently have?

<comment><USER5> Amazon reviews are kind of questionable anyway because anybody can write a review. If your name is, say, John Lott, you can create an account with the name Mary Rosh and write yourself some 5 star reviews. Also, Amazon has been known to scrub negative reviews. You have to read between the lines. I don't think that would really change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 'What if your new rock group appeals to fans of the B52s?'

Then it's going to appear in the 'Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought' section when I'm looking for B52s stuff on amazon.

'If you have a massage service that is the perfect complement to customers of a personal training service down the street, why not give that trainer a dozen intro gift certificates she can use to thank her best customers?'

Vouchers and free gifts? Hardly a new idea.

<comment><USER7> An interesting low budget guerilla self marketing tip. It goes beyond just giving a few of X away for free, and it's really about the targeting/pre- selection of your audience to maximize your 'advertising' budget.

Seems smart, and might get things done...

<comment><USER6> It would be more interesting if he'd actually _tried_ this himself, and was blogging about the success or otherwise after the event. I can't access the link at the moment, so I don't know if the other guy actually gave it a go or not.

<comment><USER8> I get the impression that Seth Godin is a really smart guy.

I've got a few of his books and I have to say that he makes some great points.

I also think, like most (or all as he said in one book) marketers he is a liar (I mean that in the sense of the book, not in the ad hominem sense of the term).

I don't believe for one second that he eats all of his own dog food. Whilst he's great at what he does (marketing), he's not great at doing what he tells others to do.

Let me take the example from the article regarding the B52s as a case in point.

One commenter has already mentioned that similar items are listed in Amazon.

Another point is that in doing the CD giveaway, you're not making a sale (unless you sell the whole package at a profit, which may be lower than your normal profit due to differences between new and used CDs).

Yet another point is that the CD giveaway is only effective if you know your target market. If you think you sound like the B52s, then great. If the buyer only likes Rock Lobster by the B52s or the Flintstones you've not really gained much (unless your 'giveaway' was profitable).

My final point is this. In the example of the CD giveaway, he missed something: What you really want is dedicated fans of the B52s to talk about your music. This means that you may need to start the conversation. You'll need to get bloggers, community forums etc. to talk about you as an Amazon seller, to talk about your band and to use the opportunity to raise awareness. Giving away the CDs to people who buy B52s music on Amazon alone is not going to achieve this.

As usual from Seth Godin, it's interesting advice in a kind of 'why didn't I think of that' way, but the applicability of it changes substantially once you give it some thought.

On a final note, has anyone else noticed a distinct increase in the amount of Seth Godin material linked to from here? I get the feeling that not all this is strictly relevant to HN...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lyft, Didi, Ola and GrabTaxi Partner in Global Tech, Alliance to Rival Uber - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-partner-in-global-tech-service-alliance-to-rival-uber/ <comment><USER2> Do you want to beat Uber? Pay the drivers better.

Uber has shown that this is plenty of money to be made. Let the drivers get it. Choke off Uber's resources.

<comment><USER3> > _Do you want to beat Uber? Pay the drivers better._

In a race towards a self-driving fleet, this does not appear to be the winning strategy.

<comment><USER4> Uber has to survive until they can get a self-driving fleet. The winning strategy in the short term is to choke off Uber's cash flow, so paying drivers more so they drive for you rather than Uber is the winning strategy at this point of the game.

<comment><USER5> > Uber has to survive until they can get a self-driving fleet.

Which is hilarious. Tesla already has a semi-autonomous fleet of tens of thousands of cars, improving daily.

Best of luck Uber.

<comment><USER6> Can someone explain the logic there? That's never made sense to me and yet gets repeated a lot.

Ride-hailing services are a saturated market with major network effects (the more drivers on a service, the faster they can get to you) and thus, expensive barriers to entry.

It just seems like it makes more business sense for Tesla to sell/license as many self-driving cars as they can to any and all services that want them, and concentrate on their core business, rather than branch out into an entirely new market and write a whole new app from scratch and market it.

Can someone make the opposite case?

<comment><USER5> > Ride-hailing services are a saturated market with major network effects

Not so much. Drivers frequently run Uber and Lyft simultaneously. There is no "stickiness".

> It just seems like it makes more business sense for Tesla to sell/license as > many self-driving cars as they can to any and all services that want them, > and concentrate on their core business, rather than branch out into an > entirely new market and write a whole new app from scratch and market it.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But apparently that's the direction Elon is going: [http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-hints-tesla-may-enter- ri...](http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-hints-tesla-may-enter-ride-sharing- space-2015-11)

> write a whole new app from scratch and market it.

I think its humorous this is thought of as expensive. How much does it cost to build an iOS/Android app and run the infrastructure to match riders to drivers? $3-5/million/year? Tesla has _hundreds of millions of dollars of credit available to it_. And you know, _the cars receiving software updates constantly_.

<comment><USER6> >Not so much. Drivers frequently run Uber and Lyft simultaneously. There is no "stickiness".

I meant from the perspective of users and providers, not drivers (which are irrelevant in the case of self-driving cars...). You have to get all these users to download another app when their existing one works fine. That's money that Tesla could be further investing in their core specialty rather.

>You'd think so, wouldn't you? But apparently that's the direction Elon is going

Yes, which is why I'm asking; the fact that someone is in fact doing it doesn't resolve this mystery.

>I think its humorous this is thought of as expensive. How much does it cost to build an iOS/Android app and run the infrastructure to match riders to drivers? $3-5/million/year? Tesla has hundreds of millions of dollars of credit available to it. And you know, the cars receiving software updates constantly.

Right, but they haven't trodden the path of scaling up a ride-hailing app and made the numerous optimizations that Uber/Lyft have made based on the unique problems of that domain.

<comment><USER7> > I meant from the perspective of users and providers, not drivers (which are > irrelevant in the case of self-driving cars...). You have to get all these > users to download another app when their existing one works fine. That's > money that Tesla could be further investing in their core specialty rather.

That isn't what network effects are. That same argument applies to anyone competing against an incumbent.

<comment><USER6> Then incumbence effects -- either way, the point is that it's a barrier to entry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The more I read such stories, the more I feel Uber will rule.

<comment><USER9> Why is that? Right now the local players seem to be competing very effectively.

<comment><USER10> Because they're trying so hard, and the only time I ever hear of people using Lyft instead of Uber is when Lyft is offering some massive promotion.

(disclaimer: anecdote, but then again we're talking about vague feelings)

<comment><USER11> It's funny you say that, because this is exactly how Uber itself expands (or used to at least). Lyft does indeed need to offer a promotion to get people to use it, it's almost always like that when cutting into an existing, (somewhat) established market. When Uber started, they had to do the same thing to convince people to use Uber, not only on the customer facing side, but on the driver side too.

<comment><USER12> Uber still has promotions in new markets, at least as of late 2014. I registered about a year ago when they showed up in New Haven and periodically get emails reminding me that I have a $20 credit for my first ride.

<comment><USER13> Lyft does much more aggressive deals though. When I moved to San Diego ~ 3 months back, they gave me 1month of half price rides. Considering I spend > $1000 per month on rides, that was over $500 of savings.

<comment><USER14> Woah, over $1000/month in rides? I have to ask why? Assuming you do not own a car but I would assume its efficient to own a vehicle in SD?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If more and more intermediates are allowed to enter this meta-market, it should cause all of the intermediates to commodify. Drivers already run multiple ride-sharing apps to get the best price. This deal means that now all of the apps have made it trivial for riders to do the same. So what value are the intermediates (lyft, didi, ect) creating/capturing?

</comment><comment><USER16> If you add a bunch of turds together you don't get a diamond... you just get a larger turd.</comment>


Building backbone network infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://code.fb.com/connectivity/fiber-optic-cable/ <comment><USER2> AT&T didn't think they could make money on the route? If we have monopoly telecoms shouldn't they be providing this as part of "universal service" etc, part of the reason they get to be the monopoly? ( I'm sure I remember reading some justifications about that in the long ago)

Just how much money and how big a company do you have to be to undertake something like this? Since the railway right of ways got snapped up it seemed there'd be no possibility of real infrastructure until perhaps the government noticed the lack of it. Perhaps this shows that logjam is breaking.

<comment><USER3> AT&T doesn't have a monopoly on long-haul fiber. There are several providers FB could have purchased the capacity from. FB did a build vs. buy decision and build came out on top.

How big do you have to be to construct your own long-haul fiber network if long-haul fiber isn't one of your core businesses? FB, Google, Amazon, Microsoft big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whoever made that promo video. Wow, great work there. Love the visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER5> They said they are going to sell fiber to others. Here is the TOS

<joke>

Using our fiber is free, but you have to allow us to capture all the traffic.

</joke>

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there a non-Facebook link?

<comment><USER7> I believe this is a post by Facebook about Facebook engineering. I may be wrong, but I think that it is a facebook blog thing.</comment></comment>


Year One at Code Academy - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeacademy.org/post/21546096708/year-one-at-code-academy

<comment><USER2> I attended the first Code Academy demo day back in December and immediately upon walking into the (insanely packed) room, I felt this feeling of community and comfort.

As I watched each student present one by one, I felt the feeling even more. There was something in the air. These students had gathered in Chicago from around the world to learn a programing language together, in person. They came from a variety of background and levels of technical knowledge.

When I attended the second Demo Day, same thing.

After 12 weeks, it was if they'd all known each other a life time. Sure, they were nervous presenting, but you could just FEEL the support from the other students as each one took the microphone.

There are a lot of online resources these days that help people learn and help others teach. But I think there's really something to be said for something like Code Academy and that amazing feeling of community it creates.

</comment><comment><USER3> I went through Code Academy class one in the Fall of 2011. I was a little unsure how it would turn out but Mike and Neal seemed to have everything under control.

Jeff was an excellent teacher, the class was full of incredibly passionate people and the course work was tough but effective. It's awesome to see how far Code Academy has come. Congrats!

I would recommend this program to anyone interested in working at or starting their own technology company. No more excuses to 'find a technical co-founder' - build the MVP yourself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Super inspiring. Sounds like every startup founder needs to take a lesson out of the Code Academy founders' playbook. They hustled their butts off and made something great. Congrats.

There are quite a few "learn to write rails" schools out there, but the thing that excites me about Code Academy is that they seem to have an amazing focus on community.

The students, alum, and mentors seem to hang out with one another socially and go out of their way to help each other technically.

Very cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, we love what we do, and we can't wait to keep doing it. And it really is about the community, that's one of the biggest reasons why so many of us are choosing to move to Chicago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am in Code Academy Spring 2012 and they do have quite an active community surrounding it. For example there's book clubs, entrpnr classes, learning groups, mentors(though I'm in the third week and have yet to meet mine), hackathons, and many different social nights.

It's worth it.

It's a good program</comment>


"Some Did Not Have Socks. Their Hair Was Dirty." - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/kids-at-clint-border-crisis-immigration-lawyer-weighs-in.html <comment><USER2> This is just horrible and disgusting and words can't even describe how I feel. I can't stand to see my country doing this to children. Yet I feel helpless to do anything. My federal government representatives have all come out strongly against this inhuman treatment so... what do I do next? Imagine this happening to your own kids. To anyone's kids.</comment>


Bitcoin, what took ye so long? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://unenumerated.blogspot.de/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html

<comment><USER2> It's Satoshi speculation day, I see! Well, this is all new to me, so I'm looking forward to learning more of the Bitcoin backstory.

</comment><comment><USER3> the legend himself.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3;sa=show...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3;sa=showPosts)</comment>


Jerome Svigals is doing an AMA right now - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/h5kby/my_name_is_jerome_svigals_in_1950_i_became_one_of

<comment><USER2> Blah, he was doing an AMA, but now reddit is down, as usual. Hope he continues after it comes back up.</comment>


Chirp.io beta SDK Now Available for Android, Arduino, and iOS - <AUTHOR> https://developer.chirp.io/sdk/evaluation

<comment><AUTHOR> I met one of their directors a few months back at an exhibition in London. Their app allows you to transmit media as an audible "chirp" so it can be received on mobile devices.

It looks interesting and certainly has applications in my own industry (face to face marketing). The Arduino SDK makes it very appealing to those involved in building physical marketing materials, e.g. click the big red button to get a link to our website.

The Android app seems well polished and is fun to use, and from what I can tell the team behind it has a vision that extends far beyond sending snippets of media (think bitcoin, lead capture, event ticketing etc).</comment>


Japan: To Fix Your Economy, Honor Your Failed Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/17/japan-to-fix-your-economy-honor-your-failed-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> I'm suspect of his statements about Japan, which I don't know much about, given his statements on Germany, which I do, and are complete bollocks.

Germany, like most rich countries, has various incorporation forms, some which limit liability and some which do not. The GmbH and AG (translated literally "company with limited liability" and "stock company") are the standard startup vehicles. Recently there was also a new simpler form created, the UG ("founders' company"), which is also limited liability and doesn't require the initial stock value to any particular amount, unlike the GmbH (€25k+) and AG (€50k+).

Furthermore, Germany is _very_ much a country of entrepreneurs. 66% of Germans are employed at a company that has fewer than 250 employees [1]. Germany _does not_ have nearly as much of the shoot-for-the-moon entrepreneurship that the US is famous for, but to claim that founding companies is an oddity is nowhere close to being factually correct.

In contrast, in the US, half of Americans work for companies of under _500_ people [2].

[1] [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleine_und_mittlere_Unternehmen...](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleine_und_mittlere_Unternehmen#Deutschland)

[2] [http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/international/news/upload/BERLIN%...](http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/international/news/upload/BERLIN%20SME%20report.pdf)

<comment><USER3> OK, but the distribution of company sizes is a only a good metric if you take a dictionary definition of "entrepreneurship". Yes, you can call a country which has a bunch of old-fashioned mom-and-pop book stores "entrepreneurial" in the sense that the risk/reward of the businesses are concentrated (high variance) because they are individually owned. But that's not the disruptive, innovative entrepreneurship that interests HNers. I think there's a broad range of HN-style entrepreneurship that shouldn't be characterized as shoot- for-the-moon but would not at all be measured by distribution of company size.

<comment><USER4> yeah, its disruption that creates wealth, not doing things the way they've always been done. Its not the scale of an enterprise or even growth in the number of employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Japan has a lot of smart businessmen, but their problem is actually that the government has supported their businesses too much. Japan is in a horrible economic situation precisely because they've honored failed entrepreneurs (or at least their ventures) too much. They've honored them by preventing them from failing completely when they should have -- they've backed them with state funds and as a result have created zombie entities that have contributed to the prolonged deflationary cycle that Japanese citizens continue to experience.

It's a fine idea to honor peoples' attempts at entrepreneurship, but by propping up failed ventures instead of making room for new innovators sends the wrong message to their economy and is causing untold number of problems.

<comment><USER3> The article is about honoring failed entrepreneurs in the sense of valuing people who start companies and fail (by correctly realizing that the success of a start-up is almost completely uncorrelated with the technical skill of it's employees and only weakly correlated with their future start-up success rate). It doesn't have anything to do with government subsidies.

<comment><USER6> Subsidies are highly relevant to startups.

When companies break up, the employees, assets, and consumers are freed to be used again. If that doesn't happen, the company's operations continue to serve the existing demand and tie up resources, but there are no productivity gains, or possibly even diminishing ones. A zombie company is a company that should be destroyed by disruptive innovators.

This is the situation in recorded music right now. The major labels have consistently succeeded in winning strong copyright protection, so instead of collapsing, they are now seeing their position eroded by the innovators at a very, very slow rate; if it were not for the government's protection enabling the "copyright mafia" scenario, this situation wouldn't have happened and we would not have an unending trainwreck of music startups that try to reinvent the distribution process, but end up getting destroyed with fees or legal battles. The situation is so bad that it hinders even the companies that try to eschew all major label music(e.g. Jamendo), because the existing trade groups get in the way of non-traditional licensing schemes.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't making a claim about subsidies. I was just saying I don't think your comment was relevant to the article because of a misunderstanding about the article's use of the word "honor".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _There is also no shortage of experienced engineering talent._

Yes, but no. Japan has many, many, many talented engineers. Comparatively few of them work in web applications. Of those, most work on corporate IT apps serving the needs of Japan's multi-nationals.

To the extent that there is a coherent body of practice involved in the design, creation, operation, and evolution ofmodern web applications outside of the enterprise, that body is largely understudied here. Everything from modern web frameworks to metrics to split testing to making stuff pretty (many Japanese sites are stuck in early 2000 web design, partially a function of supporting obsolete mobile clients and partially of underuse of modern technologies) is underdone here.

My views are partially colored due to living in Japan's answer to Kansas. It may be better in the trendy Tokyo startup scene.

<comment><USER8> That's rather ironic considering that the creator of Ruby is Japanese. I mean, sure, Merb was created by EY people; Sinatra was created by a bunch of folks working for Heroku; and Rails was spearheaded by a legendarily foul-mouthed Dane, but none of those "trendy" web frameworks would've been possible without Yukihiro Matsumoto.

<comment><USER9> And so again, we have really sharp engineers producing great work, but it's just not "sexy" enough for web 2.0 startups on its own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel that this fear of failure is one of many issues with the lack of Entrepreneurs in Japan, but cannot by a long-shot be called the sole reason. And that is not to say that Entrepreneurs are non-existent in Japan, or even as rare as the article states.

I also see a lot of Entrepreneurs making it big in Japan (I live near a tech incubator that is now 30%(?) iphone application companies, and the companies there are doing very well. The largest web-design company in my tri-prefecture area was started by an Entrepreneur.

In addition, I think of companies like Gree, Mobage (which just got purchased by Yahoo) and other startups who are making it big right now.

Another thing to consider is the size of the market. The Japanese market is a fraction of the English-speaking market, so even if a start-up does hit it big, they are pulling from a smaller pool of possible income. This might be another reason (no big dividends) why the Japanese are less reluctant to become an Entrepreneur rather than work at a company and have (fairly) stable job security.

>>So if the business fails, they lose their house; their savings; practically everything they have. What's worse: the Japanese and German entrepreneurs may also face criminal penalties and go to jail.

I'm curious about this. Someone I know was an entrepreneur who recently went under. He's now happily working on his next project, and has no criminal penalties, and other than losing the building and land for the offices he had built, suffered no life-altering penalties.

At the risk of sounding Wikipedian: [citation needed]

<comment><USER11> [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30195/Yahoo_and_DeNA_Debu...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30195/Yahoo_and_DeNA_Debuting_Yahoo_Mobage_Japanese_Social_Game_Site.php)

It's a joint project between DeNA and Yahoo, not an acquisition of DeNA's Mobage by Yahoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This has been a hot topic recently here in Japan. Very happy to see more attention being paid to the entrepreneurial environment in Japan.

However, it's important to point out that the web/high-tech entrepreneurial industry is still fairly young and seems to be in its infancy compared to areas referenced in another comment regarding government subsidies and whatnot.

For the past four years, I worked as a head-hunter recruiting Japanese talent for companies in the web space. I've met and spoken with over 3,000 industry professionals ranging from company owners, entrepreneurs, engineers and designers. Here's what I've learned:

1\. Those most considered risk-takers, confident and willing to forgo the security and stability for more entrepreneur-driven opportunities are normally educated outside of Japan, or have spent a significant amount of time outside of Japan.

2\. Start-ups created in Japan, in the web space or high-tech space are considered too risky. Even foreign companies that have been successful in other markets have a stigma attached to them and are not considered as attractive options.

In my experience, most Japanese like to see either a track record of success in Japan as well as a partnership with or backing from a major Japanese company in order for the start-up stigma to be removed.

3\. Tokyo is beginning to have a great start-up and entrepreneur community in the high-tech space however, there is a language barrier that, in my opinion contributes to the slow growth of the community. For example, there was recently a conference title New Context Conference 2010, in which several companies from a new YC Clone seed accelerator (Open NetworkLab) were able to demo their start-ups. A part of the program is that companies receive mentoring from international and Japanese investors, founders and the like to help improve their start-ups. Watching the presentations, it's clear that the Japanese start-up founders for the most part were struggling most with presentation skills.

My point is, when your language ability is limited and you can only access resources in Japanese, it's tough to really push and challenge yourself, especially when a lot of the most exciting things happening in this space are in English. It's unfortunate, but Japanese is not the language of business outside of Japan.

4\. Have you tried starting a company here? With the long set-up time at least 1 month, expensive office space, taxes, banking fees, not to mention the difficulty in closing a company down-- they don't make it easy to take a risk.

5\. If you're a former founder of a failed start-up here, unless you have a great network it's highly likely that the only companies that will find your failed start-up experience highly attractive are foreign owned. Most domestic companies would be too blinded by your failure and/or the fact the founder is used to being independent and most senior in their company, and may not be able to adjust to a team environment again.

I could go on, but overall there's a lot that contributes to the current state of Japan's lagging entrepreneur state.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always thought that if corporate raiders were allowed to descend upon Japan, the companies could be kicked into action.

There just seems to be a lot of bloat, not only from conglomerates with tons of subsidiaries but also from their ballooning cash hordes and debt free balance sheets. It makes the corporate loan demand very very low in Japan which creates issues for their banks when it comes to acquiring good borrowers for loan income.

We had this happen in the 70s when raiders went after old school economy companies (think Asher Edelman). They really helped weed out the inefficient enterprises.

</comment><comment><USER14> The article laments the lack of innovation, then introduces a groupon clone as an exemplar of how things should be. <eyeroll/>

<comment><USER10> I also wish that when they do these "The problem with Japan" articles, that they actually interview someone Japanese.

While I'm sure that Jeff Char is an amazing man, and has done great things for tech incubation in Japan -- I would like to know what problems the _Japanese_ feel they have with Entrepreneurship.

<comment><USER15> I agree that speaking with some "locals" is useful, but don't entirely discount foreigners who have lived there for a while - they tend to see the quirks more clearly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would somewhat agree. In Asian culture losing face is probably the biggest social fear there is. Americans for the most part don't have this fear. Americans love the comeback story, the rags to riches, etc. We also have government incentives in place that encourage you to keep trying even if you failed.

<comment><USER17> There are more significant issues than just losing face. Being at the head of a company is a huge responsibility because you have to deal with your employees welfare. Now, it may sound like anywhere else, but Japanese society takes responsibility very seriously. It goes both ways, but it means that the whole idea of having a small company for a couple of months and scrapping it if it does not work is not really doable if you need other people to work with you. You will look like a joke.

Also, being fired is still a significant stigma in Japan. Not just socially (which matters a lot), but also practically because most jobs openings in Japan happen twice a year, and because most big companies hate people who have "hole" in their career, even if that's only a few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> On the other hand, the Japanese fear is an opportunity for foreigners with more mercenary spirit.

The lack of biz contacts are daunting but if Softbank can make it with a Korean president, there is nothing stopping us. (or at least that's how I justify trying things here)

</comment><comment><USER4> If green Japanese entrepreneurs believe that you shouldn't take a risk with someone who's failed and thus can't learn from them and are more likely to fail themselves, isn't that their own fault?

Regardless of this, Japan's economy will begin to recover when the government stops interfering with interest rates.

If the market set rates, marginal businesses would fail, making room for new companies.

And savers would have more incentive to save, making more capital available for businesses that stand a better chance of generating returns that justify the higher rates.

More viable business mean more capital returned to investors and more capital for investment.

These low rates are really a subsidy for mediocre investments. And we all pay for this subsidy through inflation and dumb idea bubbles.

</comment><comment><USER19> True scientists celebrate failures.

<comment><USER20> > True scientists celebrate failures.

No.

Scientists try to produce knowledge. Scientists don't "celebrate" failing to produce knowledge.

Note that producing knowledge is not the same as producing other goods or services that may be related to said knowledge.

For example, learning why something that "should work" doesn't is a knowledge success. However, it's a failure to do whatever "should work" is supposed to do.

By the same token, just doing something that should work is a knowledge failure even as it's a success at doing whatever "should work" is supposed to do.

<comment><USER19> "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Edison

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Given the parlous state of more liberal economies, perhaps the Japanese and the Germans have a point.

<comment><USER22> This is nonsense. According to the World Bank at <http://data.worldbank.org>, the total cumulative GDP growth of Japan between 1991 and 2009 was 18.15% while it was 59.47% for the United States. Even though measuring economic development with GDP growth has its problems, the difference is so enormous that it cannot be denied that the US economy did a lot better, even with all the recent developments.

<comment><USER23> Those numbers are somewhat arbitrary move it back 6 years and Japan grew faster from 1985 to now. The real story is Japan's growth from 1960 - 1995 was ridiculous. To the point where it's still grown more from 1960 to now than the US did. They had a significant collapse in 1995 which they are still recovering from.

<comment><USER22> Germany had no collapse in the nineties (although it had to deal with the reunification), still the same number for Germany is 29%, still very far from the US.

The same numbers for the 1984-2009 period are: Japan 61.7%, Germany 59.7%, United States 108.8%. A very large difference.

<comment><USER23> We are not looking at the same numbers (Not inflation adjusted but relative growth should work out).

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&met=ny_gdp_mk...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+usa#met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA:JPN)

      JP 1.347T (1985) > 4.991T (2008)  = 3.7x
      USA 4.188T (1985) > 14.591T (2008) = 3.48x

<comment><USER17> I think you could prove almost anything depending on the time period you take. Basically, since 1995, Japanese gdp has been very slow growing. In 2009, the GDP has decreased of 5 %, which is far worse than any other rich country of a significant size AFAIK in the last few years.

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&met=ny_gdp_mk...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japanese+gdp+growth#met=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:JPN:FRA:USA:DEU) (beware that 2009 is missing, I guess the definite numbers may not be there yet).

I think it is fair to say that Japanese economy is in a really bad shape, although the explanation is not as simplistic as the one given by techrunch, obviously. Paul Krugman has a few papers on this which are well know, although maybe not up to date anymore (<http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/japtrap.html>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm eagerly awaiting Patrick McKenzie to chime in...</comment>


Helping organizations do more without collecting more data - <AUTHOR> https://security.googleblog.com/2019/06/helping-organizations-do-more-without-collecting-more-data.html <comment><USER2> From [https://github.com/google/private-join-and- compute](https://github.com/google/private-join-and-compute):

 _" Our protocol has security against honest-but-curious adversaries. This means that as long as both participants follow the protocol honestly, neither will learn more than the size of the intersection and the intersection-sum. However, if a participant deviates from the protocol, it is possible they could learn more than the prescribed information."_

Also: _" Disclaimers: This is not an officially supported Google product. The software is provided as-is without any guarantees or warranties, express or implied."_</comment>