Losing Faith in the State, Some Mexican Towns Quietly Break Away - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/americas/mexico-state-corruption.html <comment><USER2> Nils Gilman has a great article on this phenomenon [https://www.the-american- interest.com/2014/06/15/the-twin-in...](https://www.the-american- interest.com/2014/06/15/the-twin-insurgency/)

 _States within the global political economy today face a twin insurgency, one from below, another from above. From below comes a series of interconnected criminal insurgencies in which the global disenfranchised resist, coopt, and route around states as they seek ways to empower and enrich themselves in the shadows of the global economy. Drug cartels, human traffickers, computer hackers, counterfeiters, arms dealers, and others exploit the loopholes, exceptions, and failures of governance institutions to build global commercial empires. These empires then deploy their resources to corrupt, coopt, or challenge incumbent political actors._

 _From above comes the plutocratic insurgency, in which globalized elites seek to disengage from traditional national obligations and responsibilities. From libertarian activists to tax-haven lawyers to currency speculators to mineral- extraction magnates, the new global super-rich and their hired help are waging a broad-based campaign to limit the reach and capacity of government tax- collectors and regulators, or to manipulate these functions as a tool in their own cut-throat business competition._

 _Unlike classic 20th-century insurgents, who sought control over the state apparatus in order to implement social reforms, criminal and plutocratic insurgents do not seek to take over the state. Nor do they wish to destroy the state, since they rely parasitically on it to provide the legacy goods of social welfare: health, education, infrastructure, and so on. Rather, their aim is simpler: to carve out_ de facto _zones of autonomy for themselves by crippling the state's ability to constrain their freedom of (economic) action._

<comment><USER3> I'm always a little skeptical of arguments made in the _American Interest_ , since they bill themselves as a magazine devoted to the idea of the nation- state. Whatever I read as the reasoning, I know their bottom-line commitment was pre-written. If there was a powerful but _positive_ movement against the nation-state (say... some form of Bookchinist libertarian municipalism), would the _American Interest_ admit its virtues? Well no, and so it makes sense that a search for "Rojava" turns up nothing, despite it being an extent, present- day experiment in politics without the state.

Also, claiming that communists tried to nurture a middle class is just plain _wrong_. Communists were, at least according to Communists, trying to _abolish_ class entirely, and initially to uplift the proletariat, the _working_ class.

<comment><USER4> When you try to abolish class, you're really trying to make everyone middle class. No one wants to make everyone working class, and upper class can only exist if there's at least one lower class to subjugate.

<comment><USER5> The upper class wants the fruits of being wealthy, they're generally not in it for the "subjugation" aspect. With sufficient automation and efficiency/recycling, everyone could be what we call "upper class".

<comment><USER6> You need to expand your social circle :P Obviously, a generalisation about an entire class is one generalisation on top of another, but i've had discussions with people who have explicitly told me they don't really care how good/bad things are, as long as they are better than others.

Ditto with skills, tests. Don't care, just as long as i'm above others.

A lot of people don't REALLY want to abolish slavery or heirachies. What really want is to ensure they're considered the masters.

<comment><USER7> > but i've had discussions with people who have explicitly told me they don't > really care how good/bad things are, as long as they are better than others.

No question that mentality exists, I'll argue that it's a very small minority of eg millionaires in any society that hold such a view.

There are around 11 to 13 million (not including primary residence) millionaires in the US; or around 4.5% to 5% of the adult population. The typical millionaire in the US is worth about $3 to $4 million. While it's a very large group of people spread across the country, they do have a few things in common.

The majority acquired that status from working extremely hard for a very long time, usually either operating and or selling relatively small businesses with no more than between a few dozen up to a hundred employees, or slogging away for decades piling up invested wealth slowly over their lifetime.

The millionaire class in the US is numerically overwhelmingly dominated by those types of outcomes and has been since the industrial revolution.

Extreme wealth on the other hand obviously is concentrated in a few thousand persons with unusual outlier situations, usually around very large business concerns. My suspicion is that group is dramatically more likely to have a master of the universe mentality.

<comment><USER8> Most millionaires acquired it, largely, via inheritance, not hard work.

<comment><USER9> That's true for most European countries, but not America.

<comment><USER10> Not challenging, just asking, do you have sources to back up your claim?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is insightful, but it's unfortunate that it does not even mention the EZLN [0] (colloquially, Zapatistas), the majority indigenous and rural breakaway communities in the southern state of Chiapas which have been autonomous since 1994.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_L...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation)

<comment><USER12> The New York Times would never mention the EZLN. =)

<comment><USER13> They've reported on them dozens of times

[https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista- nationa...](https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista-national- liberation-army)

though strangely apparently not between 2005 and 2017.

<comment><USER14> That's a pretty big gap

<comment><USER13> I thought so too, but another commenter here found that they were repeatedly reported on during that time, just not tagged as the main subject of the articles. (But maybe this change still does reflect a different level of editorial interest in them during that time.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sort of similar to how the Mafia is thought to have arose from protection schemes for Sicily's valuable, but vulnerable lemon crop. [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mafia-lemons-citrus- si...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mafia-lemons-citrus-sicily- economics)

<comment><USER16> Or, like, every paramilitary ruling a South American state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mexico is a country at civil war and in denial about it. The cartels and affiliated corrupt public officials effectively control large swaths of the country.

Yet when the central government tries to take action against them, naive people in Mexico City take to the streets to protest over civil liberties. The cartel problem is treated as one of _crime_ , when it is really one of _insurrection_.

When the US had its civil war, Lincoln did what needed to be done: civil liberties were abridged, habeas corpus was suspended, secessionist state legislators were arrested, seceding states were blockaded, and Lincoln openly violated court orders demanding otherwise. Sherman's March to the Sea had such a devastating effect on the South's economy that it caused mass starvation among Southern civilians. The time for magnanimity and kindness came _after_ the war, where a blanket pardon was issued on the condition of future loyalty. But until the final victory was achieved, nothing was off the table.

Mexico needs to eradicate the cancer within. Their survival as a nation-state depends on it.

<comment><USER18> > Mexico is a country at civil war and in denial about it.

No, it's a country split into trafficking fiefdoms with some violent disputes about the divisions that's in denial about _that_. But there's no general civil war.

> Yet when the central government tries to take action against them

The central government sometimes rearranges which traffickers are allowed which territories, which results in an upswing in violence. It rarely moves against them generally, though it uses that as the cover for shifting arrangements.

It's funny that you recognize that public officials involved with the cartels are a major factor, but somehow seem to exempt the central government.

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that while many federal politicians are also compromised, the army is mostly clean.

<comment><USER18> > the army is mostly clean.

That's very much at odds with most of what I've seen, which is that both regional commands and the highest levels of authority in the army have shown corruption by and, especially at the regional level, direct intervention on behalf of cartels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Government statistics show avocado exports now bring more money into the country than petroleum._

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/06/mexico-...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/06/mexico- considers-importing-avocados-as-global-demand-drives-up-prices)

<comment><USER20> mexico nationalized its oil industry and mainly uses it for internal supply (their choice), so I don't think this is a really useful comparison.

<comment><USER21> Mexico just mismanages it. They use it for Internal Supply because they have screwed up PEMEX so much they can't product enough oil for export.

<comment><USER22> Yes it's pretty crazy. They ship it to the US to be refined. Then they buy it back. Sounds like a huge bloated organization with little regards to efficiency.

Source: dated a woman who worked there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of the civic experiments listed, this quotation from a citizen in Neza seems to hit on a core issue - human trust and particularly in those who enforce laws:

"""

Yazmin Quroz, a longtime resident, said working with police officers, whom she now knows by name, had brought a sense of community. "We are united, which hadn't happened before," she said. "We're finally all talking to each other."

"""

<comment><USER24> I seem to have encountered similar notions when politicians have to face the people their decisions affect on a person to person level.

<comment><USER25> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER23> I think this is on-topic and exemplary with regard to trust in law makers/upholders/enactor: What comes to mind is video footage from the US of local meetings of reps with constituents in the US where the meetings are filled with the frustration of the constituents at the poor and short-sighted decision making by their representatives that would significantly affect the disaffected already - e.g. any anti "Obamacare" sentiment held by and voting against such things that would benefit their communities in the long run over short-sighted possibly political corruption based / greasing the wheels of the seemingly continuous seeking re-election that officials focus on over perhaps their duties to their constituents.

So those would be examples of lack of trust or dissolving of trust emerging as the reps return home from the voting grounds of the capitol(s) to meet their constituents who are questioning the motives and decisions of their representatives who should be acting in their constituents best interested (or whatever campaign promises they used to build themselves up as electable/elected).

(Let me know if this became too abstract, I just did not research and pull examples.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone able to provide any context as to why the cartels would care about a town like this?

As far as I am able to tell, the town is not: a tourist area, on a main route to anywhere, bordering the US, etc.

<comment><USER27> The price of avocados has soared worldwide thanks to memes like avocado toast. Avocados themselves are now valuable enough for cartels. They're calling it green gold.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin- america-41635008](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41635008)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/mexican-farmers-in- michoacan-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mexican-farmers-in-michoacan- rely-on-vigilantes-to-protect-avocados-2017-12)

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-30/news/080130007...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-30/news/0801300071_1_avocado- consumption-mexican-avocados-avocado-production)

It has now become a joke to say "échale aguacate", (throw in some avocado) to express something like "go all out" or "be a big spender".

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmUQfURW8AAYQpY.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmUQfURW8AAYQpY.jpg)

<comment><USER28> I think it's more likely that many people like the taste of avocados and avocado products.

<comment><USER29> A delicious food is worthless without culutural knowledge about how to prepare it. Thus the attribution of cause to the meme, not the fruit itself, which has existed a very long time.

<comment><USER30> Doesn't one generally prepare avocado toast by ... spreading avocado on toast? And maybe adding salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, but that doesn't seem like particularly recent cultural knowledge - you do that to all sorts of foods. It's about as complicated as putting butter on toast.

<comment><USER31> The version I've been eating for a couple of decades goes like this:

Good bread is key, I like olive sourdough or something chewy with grain. Layer of avocado, layer of hummus, sprinkle feta cheese, sliced tomatoes, lettuce on the side as a "chaser" and... yum.

I guess that's "cultural" in that it's just adding avocado to a Greek thing. I'd guess that's the story of how a lot of people got into various new produce... add it to the familiar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Quietly?

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

It is fairly famous, in anarchist circles, that half of a state of Mexico consists of anarchist communes, independent from the state. It has been that way since at least 1994.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if this has to do with article I read the other day.

(From memory) there was a shooting in Acupulco a day or so ago which left like 8 dead. A local town security force arrested a guy and it turned into a gun battle. Then the feds showed up and attempted to arrest members of the local security force who fought back and some of them were killed also. It's nuts. Hope things stabilize down there. Feel awful for the people who have to put up with it all and used to really enjoy traveling in Mexico.

<comment><USER34> Acapulco is a warzone. It used to be a world renown tourist area but fell into chaos.

Search youtube for the video where cartels attack the police headquarters and hotel where they were staying.

<comment><USER33> You can't blame the people for trying to do something about corrupt government and cartel violence. Problem is the whole "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There's an excellent documentary about one of the first break away parapolice forces called Cartel Land.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Tancítaro represents a quiet but telling trend in Mexico, where a handful of towns and cities are effectively seceding, partly or in whole. These are acts of desperation, revealing the degree to which Mexico's police and politicians are seen as part of the threat."

Not to say this is far along the road of chaos, but chaos is always the correcting factor to things. At the end of the day people are going to look out for their best interests no matter the official state line/laws.

</comment><comment><USER37> Did they really "break away"?

I skimmed through the article so I may have missed something, but what I read was about how the municipal authorities took over many of the state / federal responsibilities. The last one is engaged in a turf war with the state police.

What about the federal taxes? Infrastructure projects? Salaries of the state employees?

<comment><USER38> One relevant detail was a town driving out the police force along with cartels, and replacing them with a militia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> O Americans, I would like you to keep it in mind that the only country than shares a land border with USA and is not a NATO member is Mexico.

It is generally a bad idea to have a failed state on your border, but moreover to have one that will be eager to host few Russian tank regiments.

Soviet agents were all around Mexico during cold war years, there is nothing to suggest that they were recalled after the fall of USSR.

</comment><comment><USER40> Thanks to weakening of the state, Mexico became in my eyes largest real world implementation of libertarian paradise where in the absence of state people are left to decide what's ok and what's not. Apparently plenty of weapons used on daily basis to resolve disputes about who has the right to what is two thumbs up ok.

<comment><USER22> Depends what part of the country you're talking about. Big cities are still strict about laws, especially Mexico City.

But yes, I tell people back home all the time, in a lot of ways it feels more free here than in the US. (I'm a gringo living in Mexico)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I feel like a lot of Americans don't realize or chose not to acknowledge that most of the violence in the South and Central Americas is directly caused by the United States. The Bay of Pigs, the School of the Americas, the Iranian- Contras, the CIA supported coupe in Chile on September 11th, 1973, United Fruit Company, .. the list is as long as you want to make it.

It's intentional. The lower Americas are pushed into this state by various corporate interests in the US which are large enough to dictate policy. I've written about this before:

[http://fightthefuture.org/article/america-and-the-mexican- dr...](http://fightthefuture.org/article/america-and-the-mexican-drug-trade/)

<comment><USER42> The US has its faults, but it didn't invent crime, corruption or stupidity.

And there is no corporate interest that wants mass killings and kidnappings.

<comment><USER43> Well, except the defense industry.

The guys who sell you x-ray machines and bomb sniffing dogs and private security services.

And the companies who build military tanks, planes, and ships.

And the companies that build guns, body-armor and night vision goggles.

And the ones that want you to be scared because scared people are easy to manipulate.

Oh, that stuff represents a shit-ton of the federal budget? Weird. I guess it's just a really dangerous world, nothing to be done about it...

<comment><USER44> The parts of the defense industry you listed are the parts that benefit most from arms races between well funded nation states and proxy wars.

Basic hardware is cheap. Anyone can make it and that drives down price. The Mexican police can buy cheap guns and bullets from whoever they want. Stuff like radar systems and guided missiles are what makes it into the highlights list of the quarterly all hands.

<comment><USER43> 9/11 (an incident of mass murder) caused the US to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, surely that sold enough guided missiles, attack helicopters and radar systems to make the quarterlies for a few years.

It also sold a ton of those bomb search machines and led to a couple of huge wings of the government (NSA and TSA).

Cheney's Haliburton stock being a singular example of this type of violence being beneficial to certain corporate interests.

People with power and money are much more cynical that we'd like to believe.

<comment><USER44> >People with power and money are much more cynical that we'd like to believe.

Than you'd like to believe. I have no illusions.

<comment><USER43> Indeed, I would personally prefer to live in the world where our leaders are idealists trying to make the world a better place rather than war-profiteers.

<comment><USER45> I'd prefer to live in the world with fewer leaders, each of whose leadership is inflicted on fewer of his fellow human beings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Reminds me [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_state_petitions_for_seces...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_state_petitions_for_secession)

</comment><comment><USER47> Its crazy that one of the most dysfunctional third world countries borders the most powerful and prosperous. Weird huh?

<comment><USER48> Mexico is really not that dysfunctional. Mexico is not even third world.

We just hear a disproportionate of news from Mexico because of how close it is.

<comment><USER49> On one side, I [selfishly, unfairly] like that Americans are conditioned by the media to be so scared of Mexico. I almost never see other Americans here. I meet a lot of people day to day who just haven't spoken to an American that wasn't a Mexican-American. Those experiences are some of the most interesting you can have when traveling.

But on the other side, that's not healthy for the people of either country. For example, I regularly meet Mexicans that think Americans hate them. And comments from the people who post in /r/the_donald regularly have me shaking my head muttering "poor sheltered bastard."

Even HN commenters will talk about how they want to pull the trigger on leaving their boring office job and move to Chiang Mai, but that's a pretty incredible move. It's far away and with a much different culture and language, which is a cool thing but increases the chances that you just won't do it.

Meanwhile I'd say I have a pretty exotic lifestyle living on nothing and I'm just a 2 hour flight from my family in Austin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Sad to read. The US has a big problems, but nothing like the total breakdown of order that seems to have occurred in Mexico. It's an enormous humanitarian crisis, and our response is to build a wall. No, we should legalize drugs, and undermine the economic power of the cartels. I'd love it if someone more familiar with Mexican culture could explain the nature of almost universal institutional corruption.

<comment><USER51> Why not both? Why can't we have strong border security and legalize drugs? I'm hoping with the recent Sessions announcement that he will be enforcing federal law in states where marijuana is "legal" that will put pressure on congress to legalize it. Or at least repeal all federal laws on it and truly leave it up to the states.

This is a pretty good short video about how building a wall can help Mexicans. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv8Z6bsI24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv8Z6bsI24)

<comment><USER52> It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological and political arguments. That's actually an abuse of the site, and we eventually ban accounts that do it. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN's core value is intellectual curiosity. That's the first casualty in ideological battle—actually it evaporates before the battle even begins—so we have to be proactive about this. If you'd please read the site guidelines and also [https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it.

<comment><USER53> reading through your history there is an obvious bias in who you choose to say this to based on your personal ideology. not to mention your various strictly ideological and political submissions. disappointing as that seems like an abuse of the guidelines and your power.

<comment><USER52> People's image of HN mods' political bias is entirely predictable from their own ideological affiliation. Strong rightists think we (and HN itself) lean left, strong leftists think we (and HN) lean right. Since the conclusions you all draw are so contradictory, I don't think these charges have much informational value—at least not about us. There's clearly a cognitive bias at work here.

If you don't believe me, here are some quite typical posts that run the contrary direction to yours:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034119)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529468)

These people are having the same reaction as you are, they just start from the opposite end of the football field.

That doesn't mean we're magic centrists in a centrist fairyland. It means the situation is affected by other factors, some of which aren't obvious. If you want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people want to.

<comment><USER53> this isn't a mathematical proof. a few counter-examples are easy to create. i looked pretty comprehensively at your history and i think the bias is beyond obvious.

> If you want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own > political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people > want to.

And something I think you have failed at doing. (As you believe of me, so I guess agree to disagree.) However, you are the one bringing it up in a moralistic and pedantic way from a position of power as a moderator.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Exploring Swift Memory Layout - <AUTHOR> https://mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2014-07-18-exploring-swift-memory-layout.html <comment><USER2> This was on the front page a few days ago.

<comment><USER3> Do you have a link? I can't find a previous discussion.

<comment><USER4> I doubt this was on the frontpage, but here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053155)</comment></comment></comment>


The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies. Place 50 is Y Combinator. - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/full-list

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that Microsoft is not mentioned.</comment>


The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste - <AUTHOR> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html <comment><USER2> The problem with this sort of thinking is that there needs to be a rat race of some sorts, otherwise how will we determine who gets what jobs?

Let's say we wipe the slate clean.

Universities are abolished, and after high school your grades are tallied and people seek out employment. If you slacked off during high school, well, have fun stocking shelves for the rest of your life. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You just don't have a choice because the rat race has been abolished! Huzzah!

Well, some people are fed up with stocking shelves and realize they made a huge mistake in high school. They desperately want to better themselves, so they begin thinking of ways to advertise their actual worth to employers.

Many of them realize that even though Universities have been abolished, they can still read textbooks on their own and teach themselves. So many of them do that, thinking they'll impress employers with their knowledge and appear desirable.

The employers say ok, prove to us that you're knowledgeable. Candidates tell them about all the textbooks they read. Employers say that's all well and good, but how do we know you're not lying?

The candidates leave dejected, but then realize if they only had a collection of domain experts to grade them on what they knew, they could then take those grades to the employers as proof of their intelligence!

The domain experts, who themselves are gainfully employed, say that they will administer the tests and help out with conceptual understanding on one condition: that they get paid, because hey, they need to make a living. Ok! Say the eager students....

See where this is going?

The rat race is an inherent feature of a free society. It can't be removed. If you try to abolish it in one form it will appear in some other form. Superficially the features of the rat race may be different but ultimately it will still be a rat race.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are entirely right. But if we admit that education's purpose is mostly signaling (without denying that some parts of it do have uses for some students), we can't justify spending so much on it. From the introduction:

"At this point, one could object, 'Though education teaches few practical skills, that hardly makes it wasteful. By your own admission, education serves a vital function: certifying the quality of labor. That's useful, isn't it?' Indeed. However, this is a dangerous admission for the champion of education. If education merely certifies labor quality, society would be better off if we all got less. Think about it like this: A college degree now puts you in the top third of the education distribution, so employers who seek a top-third worker require this credential. Now imagine everyone with one fewer degree. In this world, employers in need of a top-third worker would require only a high school diploma. The quality of labor would be certified about as accurately as now—at a cost savings of four years of school per person.

[…]

Suppose you agree society would benefit if average education declined. Is this achievable? Verily. Government heavily subsidizes education. In 2011, U.S. federal, state, and local governments spent almost a trillion dollars on it. The simplest way to get less education, then, is to cut the subsidies. This would not eliminate wasteful signaling, but at least government would pour less gasoline on the fire.

The thought of education cuts horrifies most people because 'we all benefit from education.' I maintain their horror rests on what logicians call a _fallacy of composition_ —the belief that what is true for a part must also be true for the whole. The classic example: You want a better view at a concert. What can you do? Stand up. Individually, standing works. What happens, though, if everyone copies you? Can _everyone_ see better by standing? No way."

<comment><USER2> In general I think education is good for society, but it doesn't really matter. The rat race will emerge in some form or another. The first paragraph of the excerpt you posted misses that point in my view.

Now the second paragraph. It's not clear that government spending cuts lowers general education. For instance, state governments have been lowering their support of public universities for a long time now, while tuition simultaneously has increased. Yet more and more people keep going to college. And taking out tremendous loans to do so! This is evidence that the draw of participating in the rat race is so strong that it can't really be stopped.

Of course most government spending on education consists of K-12 spending. If we eliminate public schools then either a permanent underclass that cannot participate in the rat race will be created, which has been a state of society in the past, or people will take out loans just to participate in k-12 education. That would put the poor at a bigger disadvantage than they are at now though. Is that what we want as a society?

So it's not really about "bettering us all" at the cost of enduring a rat race.

The dilemma is really between lowering government spending and accepting severely limited social mobility vs having a more inclusive rat race with more government spending.</comment></comment></comment>


Fluid: A UI Prototyping Tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/ <comment><USER2> The tutorial is well done and fluid is very fun to use. I love how simple it is to setup simple transitions and "play" the app.

Dragging a page into the trashcan is inconsistent with deleting an element by hitting the trashcan button; it took me a bit of frustration to figure out. There's no way to figure out what the buttons do short of clicking on them to figure it out. Most features are intuitive but as evidenced by the "Actually it looks to me like it's only for iPhone design." comment the UI could use a little more explanation (there's no rule against using an icon /and/ text for menu options).

I really don't understand why there are so many negative comments, this is very nicely done and I can see it being useful. I'll definitely give using it a shot on my next mobile project.

<comment><USER3> I too was impressed with the smoothness of the UI transitions, and the zoomed- out view. Engaging to play around with. Same confusion about menus - they jump around quite a bit, it's hard to re-focus on relatively small controls that are in a slightly different spot each time. I'm somewhat guilty of this as well, so take the feedback as you may.

Lots of templates, almost overwhelming. Looks great for detailed app interface prototyping.

I wonder about the code it exports - One of my goals with Edit Room is to have semantic, clean HTML and CSS that is as close to production-ready as needed, with skilled developers picking up the design prototypes, in close collaboration with designers using the app.

For more general communication designs, do check it out: <http://www.edit- room.com> (my project). It is perhaps more suited to the web design and publishing workflow. Edit Room takes up the task of complete visual design + prototyping. Inspired by AE and PS, but streamlined and focused on building high-fidelity, live, shareable prototype HTML/CSS documents. The visual design and animation editor generates flexible, responsive layouts that look exactly like what you've created on-screen. Etc... Oh, it works just fine with Firefox.

Cheers, and good luck with Fluid!

<comment><USER4> Thanks so much - The Edit Room looks very interesting, I like the immediate connection - will check it out some more. If you'd like to talk, drop me a line on email@example.com

Cheers, Ian

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Browser not currently supported_

Firefox that is.

<comment><USER6> Sorry to disappoint on the firefox front, we'd love to support it and we will as soon as we can, but we're a small startup and sometimes we need to make tough decisions about where we spend our time and resources. We'll get to it!

<comment><USER7> You could at least let me look at the site with a warning that my browser is unsupported rather than blocking me.

I can understand the view that this would make you look worse, but my personal response is that I don't want to give your tool a second chance because of the annoyance (if everyone says it is the best thing since vim, of course, I'll get over myself and look :P).

If it was truly broken in Firefox I would've been curious enough to try it in Chrome. Sorry.

<comment><USER4> Fair points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice. Needs more snapping. I hate pixel-perfect aligning stuff by hand.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree - it's high on our list.

<comment><USER9> I'm just amazed you use divs containing data-uri images instead of, say, a canvas element for drawing icons like the battery level and connection signal bars. You must have fought hard with superhuman patience to do battle with the DOM in this way.

I myself have neither the grit nor the will to endure what you must have suffered, but I recognise this amazing achievement. As another poster has said, you deserve your $29 a month for your effort. I take my hat off to you sir.

<comment><USER6> Safari and Chrome might both run webkit, but there are still significant differences in how fast they render and handle transitions for different things. In this case, both draw on canvas initially as you suggest, but chrome then uses toDataURI() to draw the canvas to an image as otherwise the scale/zoom transitions run unacceptably slowly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm getting overwhelmed by all these nifty browser based prototyping tools coming out. Very cool stuff, but it seems like the market is starting to get a little saturated

<comment><USER11> I'd actually prefer a desktop app that does some of these things, considering I don't want to install Air for Balsamiq, and don't really want to do all my work in a browser, on a service that could disappear at any moment.

Sadly, I'm not the person with the expertise to do it.

<comment><USER12> There's a tool called Pencil[1] that runs on the browser, but works offline. Haven't explored a lot, but does simple tasks well.

[1] <http://pencil.evolus.vn/en-US/Home.aspx>

<comment><USER13> That's awesome! I have searched for an offline tool like that and it looks very good. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Fluid: A Clever UI Prototyping Tool*

* for mobile designs

<comment><USER15> You can set any arbitrary size on a page (click the gear in the topleft corner of a page) and almost all of the widgets are suited for any prototype, mobile, desktop or anything else.

<comment><USER14> The widgets have an entirely mobile design to them, though.

I was really looking forward to something like this, but incorporating elements from something like Twitter's Bootstrap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looking great! I love that 'clone' icon :) Does it generate a URL which I can try on my own device?

You should check out <http://delight.io>

Maybe we can open up an API which your users can quickly get feedback on their prototypes.

<comment><USER4> Yes it generates a URL. email@example.com and we can talk some more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me a lot of Denim [1]. I like it.

[1] <http://dub.washington.edu:2007/denim/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Clearly top-notch design and functionality, very impressive. I'm believe you deserve $29 a month for all your hard work, but I could never justify this expense. Again, the product probably is worth it, but out of price range for some smaller companies. I'm not looking to start a flame war about being cheap or not paying for quality work, I just want to give you a little feedback about pricing. Do you have any other pricing schemes in mind - one-off or limited functionality type deals.

<comment><USER19> If you can't afford $29/month then you're probably not in their target market. If you used this tool to do UI prototyping as part of a mobile development project you could be charging companies $29,000/month which would justify the 0.1% investment.

<comment><USER20> Serious question: Where do you find companies that pay $29k a month? I'm trying to start a mobile dev shop with a YC alum and we haven't seen budgets anywhere near this.

<comment><USER19> I know a company that's building a mobile app and they're paying $150/hour (one developer plus project management) to a dev shop. At 8 hours a day and 20 days a month that's $24K/month. Put in an extra hour a day and you're there. Of course, the trick is finding clients willing to pay full rate, but if you're good they're out there.

<comment><USER20> > (one developer plus project management)

It's just 2 people, I'm guessing the dev gets around $120/hr and the PM $30/hr? A Dev and Project Manager? Can you PM me their portfolio/website please?

<comment><USER21> We're a mobile dev house (iOS and Android), and we charge around $60-$80 / hour. www.polymorph.co.za . Sounds like we should get some US clients if $150 / hour is realistic.

<comment><USER20> can you share any apps you have on the market?

<comment><USER21> Sure. Most of our work is actually for corporate clients, so not commercial apps found on the market under our name, but a few examples of commercial apps are:

iOS: Construct-O-Set : [http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/construct-o- set/id373042556?m...](http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/construct-o- set/id373042556?mt=8) Wining and Dining SA : [http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/wining-dining-south- africa/id...](http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/wining-dining-south- africa/id401109007?mt=8) 22Tracks (Netherlands & Belgium only) : <http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/22tracks/id397202887?mt=8>

Android: ExpenZa (only available in South Africa at the moment): [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=coza.appositio...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=coza.apposition.finance.expenseza) 22Tracks (Netherlands & Belgium only) : [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fonkmobile...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fonkmobile.player22tracks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> not sure how many people still use fltk [<http://www.fltk.org/>] but fluid is the name of their visual ui designer.

<comment><USER23> I was confused by this as well - we still use fltk on some of our robot control stations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thank you to everyone for the excellent comments and feedback about Fluid UI. So many points of view and really excellent issues raised here - we _love_ feedback, good and bad.

Just as a note, if you want to log any issues/glitches or praise our support forum is <http://getsatisfaction.com/fluidui> \- we are pretty active following up there.

We will try to reply to as many comments here as possible.

Cheers, Ian

</comment><comment><USER24> I love how the sheep icon clones the object. It literally made me smile.

<comment><USER4> Seems to be the star of the show :) <http://blog.sprawsm.com/post/27547701265/sheep-in-fluidui>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> All I want to say is that I absolutely love the icon for cloning. I do appreciate a clever sense of humour.

<comment><USER26> First thing i noticed as well, i wonder if that's a new idea. Once you get it it's the perfect little icon for the action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is some sample output. This is a mockup that simply shows some of the Android ICS phone library. This is an example of the URL that you can output from the tool, including with a free account. QR straight to phone, email link and one-click social sharing.

[https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_mcEkMTfZpIcMp5...](https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_mcEkMTfZpIcMp5l0Ai58zEAIVM1BrdtC.1342734679565)

Here's a similar one for the iPhone library. [https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_m1TR9R6ag2rUag...](https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_m1TR9R6ag2rUagvWy3cKIMOMoi2fgn8k.1342734912884)

</comment><comment><USER27> I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. Yeah there are a few wrinkles but it's a great start. I can see myself using this. People seem upset that it isn't 100% fully what they would expect. Personally I think releasing it and using customer feedback to help improve it is the only really viable way to develop a product that your user base will be happy with. An impressive tool that I'll be keeping an eye on.

<comment><USER4> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is quite good.

One thing this is lacking for me is a way to display page hierarchy or flow through the application. Just being able to connect pages with lines or arrows would be great. Or as a bonus it would be nice to be able to connect page elements to pages or elements on other pages.

<comment><USER4> You can do this right now. Select a widget and click the link icon (circle) in the little menu that pops up - you will see linking then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great tool, just tried buildin mockup for client.

Few issues: * There is a problem moving labels in buttons/tables using the keyboard. Everything jumps * The labels in editing and preview don't look the same * Please add "Undo/Redo" * Can't find a way to delete new window

</comment><comment><USER30> Quick bug report...

I made two pages. They were overlapping (Not sure if this is intended). When dragging elements onto the top page, they went to the bottom page. When I moved them around the top page they went to the bottom page.

Chrome/OSX

<comment><USER4> Thanks have logged that issue in our support forum: [https://getsatisfaction.com/fluidui/topics/widgets_falling_t...](https://getsatisfaction.com/fluidui/topics/widgets_falling_through_overlapping_pages) if you notice any other issues please log them there because we don't want to lose any of this great info. <http://getsatisfaction.com/fluidui>

Cheers, Ian

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Looks interesting. I'm very interested in the infinite canvas feel like <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4113866>

How did you do it here?

<comment><USER4> We're doing a blog post on fluidui.com soon about the prototyping process that we used to build Fluid UI - we have the first infinite canvas prototypes that we made and we can include them in the post. That will explain it better :) Thanks!

<comment><USER32> Wow! I'm really looking forward to reading that post. I've been reading up on canvas and JS lately and am interested in seeing some full application case studies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mck- Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter -- an instant try-out with a "wow" moment is a necessity. Very well done, held my attention long enough and will refer to for future use

<comment><USER4> Thanks so much - we still have work to do on it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Really excellent piece of work. I've been using Omnigraffle for almost 10yrs and this is the first web-based tool that I've felt good about. Really great work.

<comment><USER4> Wow thanks - that praise is too high - Omni is a really amazing tool!

Ian

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Great job on the page linking UX. Very intuitive. I'm working on a similar product so it's good to see what others have come up with.

Good Luck!

<comment><USER4> Thanks - we still have a lot of polish to add there but the core of it is working well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I clicked on a circle I just created, then I hit backspace. The whole tab closed! That's a bit problematic for me.

</comment><comment><USER36> Be careful overriding useful keyboard shortcuts like cmd-d... Because of this, I can't bookmark for later.

<comment><USER4> Agreed - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I second the wow. I love how quickly you've made it for someone to get started using the tool. Bravo!

<comment><USER4> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why only for mobile?

<comment><USER39> It is (generally) necessary to start someplace.

<comment><USER4> :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Fantastic ... Exactly what I was looking for Thanx :)

<comment><USER4> Great - thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> No option to change DPI for iPad 3.

<comment><USER42> Nor the iPhones. Probably because in theory you shouldn't be designing to the DPI. Pixel values (frames, sizes, etc) are still the low-res values. It matches everything else you do with iOS devices (IB works at the low res, for instance), not sure why they'd need to differentiate them here.

<comment><USER4> Exactly - it up-scales

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How does this compare to Pencil?

</comment><comment><USER44> just signed up. looks nice.

<comment><USER4> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> awesome!

</comment><comment><USER46> Browser not supported is a bullshit cop-out that puts you in a lower league than "Best viewed in Netscape".

<comment><USER4> Sorry about that - we're working on it. Not supported yet is a better description :)</comment></comment>


Larry Summers: Data collection is the ultimate public good - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/larry-summers-data-collection-is-the-ultimate-public-good <comment><USER2> Wow, this is naive. He's only thinking about the positive, honest applications of collected data.

I've noticed before this tendency of some elite-educated elite-circle types to forget that one-sided self-interest (at best) and full-blown psychopathy (at worst) are a "thing" that happens in the real world.

Some people take a conspiracy theory view on this blind spot, but from what I've seen there's a component of actual naivete here. When you're surrounded by the best of the best and the system's been quite good to you and you're effectively living in a post-scarcity world, it's easy to forget that the elite win-win bubble you inhabit is _not_ reality.

The real world does not consist of a bunch of Gentlemen of Harvard patting each other on the back. The real world is lies and cheating and domination and death. The reality is that we still live in a Darwinian world of scarcity and suffering and we are less than ten generations away from a time when murder was a normal thing you saw every day. (If you're lucky and live in the "developed world." Easily a billion people still live that kind of brutish life.)

Machiavellian personality traits and brutal zero-sum political behaviors are a product of this Darwinian reality, and they have not gone away.

The playing field for data collection and use is not level. Access to data is nearly always gated, and someone with money (corporation, rich individual, organized crime, government) can afford both to purchase more data and to crunch and analyze it more. The latter takes capital and labor/time, things the rich and powerful have a lot more of than everyone else.

Can I pull Facebook's entire data set (even in a very anonymized form) and use it to ask analytical questions about, say, the dynamics of privilege in society? No, of course not. First of all I don't have access. Secondly, I don't have the money to warehouse and crunch it all (hardware and/or cloud storage). Third, I don't have time. But someone with deep pockets and access can ask any question they want about me (as an individual or as a "class").

Summers talks about how more data will hold leaders accountable. How? Why? The leaders (political and economic) are the only ones who can access and use it.

It's the height of naivete to think that this advantage will _only_ be used to cure disease, transition to renewable energy, and prevent conflict. It will also be used to cause disease, murder, pollute, exploit, and create conflict. Slavery, pollution (transferring your externalities onto others), dishonest propaganda, peddling addiction, and war are all very profitable for those positioned to profit from them... usually quite a bit more so than hospitals and schools. ... and we haven't even brought up dangerous fanatics yet. Osama bin Laden was not poor.

Does Larry think only those rich and powerful with positive motives will use these powers?

Edit: to understand elite naivete more, if you live in the affluent West start looking into how your products are made in China and the working conditions of the average Chinese peasant worker. We are guilty of it too. We forget that this kind of abuse and exploitation happens because it's out of sight, out of mind. The elite in our own culture can easily do the same; they're as insulated from the evils of our culture as we are from what goes on "over there." If you live, work, and study in the orbit of other "top people" and are insulated from your externalities by layers of lawyers and corporate power, the world can easily start looking like some kind of Starfleet Academy utopia.</comment>


The Killer Twitter App Hasn't Been Built Yet - <AUTHOR> http://john-sheehan.com/blog/the-killer-twitter-app-hasnt-been-built-yet/ <comment><USER2> This is a great start, but I don't want this for JUST twitter. Twitter is ONE source of "information" I get. I have a feedreader, imap email, facebook notifications, financial info,twitter replies/messages, and probably even more. I just want it all pushed to me, with "iphone push notifications" for the important things: email, dms, @ replies, certain words I designate,etc. Do you have any idea the amount of time you'll save me or someone else who is consuming tons of info? With all this talk of "push/real time,etc.", I'm still doing a shitload of "pulling", which is complete bullshit. And YES, I will pay you for the app. My credit card sits in my wallet everyday waiting to be taken out for this exact purpose.

<comment><USER3> I think what you are describing is the intention of gnip - <http://www.gnip.com/>

<comment><USER2> Yes gnip rocks, but it seems they provide the business service for companies to provide this. I want an app as a consumer. Gnip could build this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an amalgamation of lots of different Twitter apps. More importantly, it's an amalgamation of _this guy's favourite_ Twitter apps. It's his killer app. However, many other people will want a different set of apps in their killer app.

What this guy is really saying is, "Build me a custom version of this thing." Sounds like enterprise software.

Some progress may me made by rolling up some of the popular/complementary apps and, thus, satisfy a large enough group of users.

</comment><comment><USER5> My killer twitter app idea: Search twitter for genuine requests "I need" "I want" and match with service providers. If someone tweets "I need a new car", a highest bidder, (perhaps carmax.com in this case) will have a reply sent automatically with a link to a landing page automatically customized to welcome that twitter user/potential buyer.

This is so obvious to me, but I'm no engineer. I would love to partner with an engineer to make this a reality.

<comment><USER6> Everything seems like an obviously good programming idea to a non-programmer.

Programming is like magic. You should learn some.

<comment><USER5> I'm having trouble getting started with Rails and Ruby but I am tinkering with php/javascript. edit: I found <http://tryruby.hobix.com/> !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd thought about building this but threw it out when I figured I couldn't get my various devices to talk through it to Twitter. Computer, sure that's easy: fix your host to api.twitter.com, but fixing all the iPhone apps to point to this service instead of api.twitter.com? Not likely.

Unless you harnessed the existing applications then it wouldn't be useful.

</comment><comment><USER8> >No more multi-device API limitations getting in your way.

I'm guessing api limitations are exactly why it doesn't exist

<comment><AUTHOR> But if you only have one central service hitting the Twitter API your account can max out the API limit but still update multiple devices.

<comment><USER9> To some extent solving a similar (albeit much larger) problem was what made Summize valuable, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this GNIP.com

</comment><comment><USER11> Google Wave?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Wave was presented as a way to collaborate with people you knew to some extent. I follow a lot of people on Twitter that don't know I exist. Same concept (real-time distribution) though. Maybe Twitter is just the biggest Wave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Spec out what you want, and how much you will pay for it, and I will build this for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> $10/month. Negotiable. :)

<comment><USER13> As a subscription fee?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I would pay for a subscription to a service like the one I described.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Springpad is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://springpad.com/about <comment><USER2> All for respecting the dead, but I'm more curious in terms of how you can have 5 million users and still need to shut down. Any commentary on whether it's a monetization issue or more along the lines of "5 million isn't worth the VC"?

<comment><USER3> [https://springpad.com/blog/2014/05/springpad-says- goodbye/](https://springpad.com/blog/2014/05/springpad-says-goodbye/)

"As part of closing our business, a portion of our team is joining Google."

So those are the facts. My probably inaccurate opinion is an acqui-hire gone somewhat off the rails.

<comment><USER2> Looks less like it though, as there's definitely a postmortem being given about the ebb and flow of freemium/revenue models: [http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/05/28/five-lessons-for- co...](http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/05/28/five-lessons-for-consumer- tech-startups-in-springpad-shutdown/)

This begs the question: figure it out later once you have a lot of users or figure it out with a small number of users and then try to get a lot of users?

Obviously not that simple, but curious.

<comment><USER4> I dunno... that article you linked has this part in it:

 _" Springpad co-founder Jeff Chow, who previously worked with Janer at Third Screen Media (acquired by AOL), is joining Google in Kendall Square, along with Springpad's top four engineers:"_

Sounds exactly like an acqhire that somehow instead became a poach. And a pretty rip-the-heart-out poach too. I can't think of any start-ups that could survive that kind of talent loss. I envision some upper-management person suggesting buying SpringPad, Google-execs veto it, but said upper-management person secured the funds to poach out the core.

<comment><USER2> That's a fascinating take on things I didn't really internalize. In the Boston community (which I'm a part of) it's being treated more like a "we couldn't raise the B, so we needed to shut things down and admit defeat."

That being said, a core team poach would definitely have killed the team, as well.

Consumer plays are hard in general, but particularly difficult in Beantown.

<comment><USER4> I guess it's all about the order of events. __If__ the poaching happened first, then the investors found out that core-talent got poached they might hesitate to invest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think their big issue was that they couldn't get to "we're the best at X" \- there was no use case where they were top dog. They tried to find it - recipes, etc - but they just couldn't get out of Evernote's shadow. I wasn't surprised when they announced they were shutting down - they were pretty clearly thrashing around, trying to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a longtime Evernote Premium user and for I while I ran Springpad simultaneously, saving my notes both in Evernote and Springpad. I really liked the Springpad interface, but in the end I decided to stick with Evernote. The main reason? Springpad was free, with no paid plans.

I don't really like free services for important stuff like my personal of professional notes. I want to be sure I'm dealing with a reliable service, with revenue to cover the bills, with a real chance to stick around. It's hard to trust a free service.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ugh, sorry to see them go, their idea of how notes app should look like pretty much complemented my workflow.

Having migrated everything to Evernote... it just reminded me just how atrocious their web and Android apps are UX wise.

<comment><USER8> I'd agree about the web client but what's atrocious about the Android app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good for having the export/migrate option.

<comment><USER10> Especially to Evernote, that's really helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will they open source it?

</comment><comment><USER12> Ironic. I switched from Evernote to Springpad a year or so ago, because Evernote was so awful. No great loss though. I never really found much use for either service.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always preferred Springpad's UX and way of structuring data over Evernote's. Not sure why everyone is obessed with the later.

<comment><USER14> Marketing... Springpad for me is much better. Maybe we can recreate it with The Drogulous as a backend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> what was springpad

<comment><USER16> IMO a superior version of Evernote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> and no one was surprised</comment>


The UK government spent £2.9M on this web site? - <AUTHOR> https://www.eureferendum.gov.uk/ <comment><AUTHOR> They claim that some of that money goes to "digital promotion", but that still seems like a hefty sum of money for a pretty bog standard web site.</comment>


Ask HN: Help me repurpose my old laptop - <AUTHOR>

I've got 2 old laptops sitting around and have no idea what to do with them apart from using them as local backup servers. Does HN have any creative ideas? <comment><USER2> You can donate them to Think Computer Foundation (<http://www.thinkcomputer.org>), and we'll use them as cash registers for small business FaceCash (<http://www.facecash.com>) merchants that need them.</comment>


Guide to Landing Page Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://moz.com/blog/most-entertaining-guide-to-landing-page-optimization <comment><USER2> An okay summary of landing page basics.

The part about 1,440 more new trial signups equaling over a million dollars per year is plain silly. Not all trials will convert into paying customers-- especially when plans start at $49/month.

The main lesson you should take away from this is to A/B test your hypotheses. (By the way, that means _starting with a hypothesis_.)

Also, keep your expectations in check. Reading stories about a single test resulting in +$1,000,000 will delude you into thinking that every test will result in huge improvements. In reality, most tests _don 't_ have a conclusive winner. Optimization is a _process_... It is not a one-day or get-rich-quick affair.

Edit: Apparently it's not OK to mention I'm a marketer...? I removed that bit. If you're downvoting for some other reason it would help me if you explained.

<comment><USER3> To clarify. The lifetime value of a customer shown in the post is based on an average after churn and cancellations are taken into account. So it is based on actual paying customers who have stayed beyond 2 paid cycles after the 30-day trial.

Do I think this will be an everlasting impact? That's hard to say, results fluctuate over time for a variety of reasons.

My hypothesis, after listening to 1,700 instances of visitor feedback, was that by demonstrating the context of use, we would be able to provide an experience that told an accurate story.

It did, and it worked exceptionally well.

Am I in any way implying that million dollar tests are a dime a dozen? Of course not. I'm trying to illustrate that business value is another way to look at conversion lift.

Most tests are just a flat line zero impact. Some lose, and some win. But yes, the vast majority do nothing. I wrote about this because it was an exception.

Perhaps there wasn't enough clarity in the write up of the test. Hopefully this extra info helps that.

Thanks for discussing! Cheers Oli

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't comment much on the subject for my lack on knowledge, but that was a very well written, entertaining article that I enjoyed reading.

<comment><USER5> Agreed! This was a good read using simple terms and examples. Most of these examples I've picked up from bunch of different sources. Love that this is all bunched up into one page.

Only downside of that site is some optimizely.com scrip that never finishes loading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I totally agree, never send people to your site's home page. Unless your site's home page is a landing page.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone else notice that Mozilla's advice mentions nothing about mobile and looks terrible on mobile browsers.

Have they not heard of this new "mobile" thing?

<comment><USER8> Moz (formerly SEOMoz) has no affiliation with Mozilla.

<comment><USER9> At one point I thought "why am I here"? I clicked misguided by the domain name, expecting optimization advice from Mozilla...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are there any simple ways to build a simple landing page for a product idea I'd like to test?

<comment><USER11> unbounce.com has a pretty nifty system going, especially if you want to try a bunch of different systems quick. beyond that you can just grab a template from some place like themeforest and try out a few different WP landing page themes.

<comment><USER12> Instapage offers basically the same feature set for a lower monthly subscription and offers a way easier to use builder. Have you tried it?

<comment><USER13> I feel like the "same thing but cheaper" biz model is a terrible way to compete. Unless you have a dramatically lower cost structure, it basically means that you're kneecapping yourself in terms of revenue and profits.

From a potential customer standpoint, price is important, but your site makes price hard to find and it looks like you took the Unbounce prices and lowered each by $20/mo. Also, the single get started now button across all three plans is confusing, it looks like a mistake.

Your service looks cool, but I hope you can develop a stronger pitch than "Unbounce but cheaper, and maybe a bit easier." That feels like a commodity to me. I'm not sure what the stronger value proposition is, but I'm sure you'll find it. Your product looks great.

<comment><USER12> I forgot to mention that we do have features that unbounce does not provide.

Example: We provide a wordpress plugin to easily publish pages to a website built on Wordpress.

<comment><USER14> look forward to trying it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a great list of tips, thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For the last few years, I've read a lot on conversion optimization articles.

Reading this, summarizes 90% of the tips and tricks that I learned. Glad you HNers enjoy it!

</comment><comment><USER16> 1\. User clicks CTA

2\. ???

3\. Profit</comment>


Ask HN: Which domain name registrar provide API to register domain names? - <AUTHOR>

For small service I am working on, I would like to let the customers register their own domain names. What is a good domain name registrar that provide an API for registering domain names? <comment><USER2> TuCows and OpenSRS

</comment><comment><USER3> eNom.

Also I think AWS Route 53 now lets you do it via API too but I haven't confirmed that.

<comment><AUTHOR> AWS Route 53 allows domain name registrations but they don't provide an API.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for clearing that up for me. I hadn't researched it yet, so that is good to know.</comment></comment></comment>


The problem with parallelisation - <AUTHOR> https://cartesianproduct.wordpress.com/2020/01/03/the-problem-with-parallelisation/ <comment><USER2> This guy really misses the point. You don't put 1024 x86 cores on a chip because the programming model of individual threads being scheduled ad-hoc doesn't scale that well (and imposes a lot of overhead on the control apparatus).

But on a GPU, it is typical to have well over 1000 cores using a different programming model that accounts for memory access and grouping threads together to accomplish shared work and shared memory accesses.

So, the same work is now being done with slightly different algorithms that exploit this programming model.

<comment><USER3> CUDA/SPIR-V "cores" are not true cores - they're the equivalent of CPU execution units (ALU's). You don't really "group threads together" on a GPU, so much as use a single real "thread" to execute a whole bunch of computations in lockstep, using a lightly-extended SIMD model. That's the only way you can make such a huge amount of execution units/ALU's useful, and not all domains are well-suited to this approach. (Which is one reason why a _lot_ of code still runs on plain multicore CPU's.)

<comment><USER4> Yah, though I think there is more to be gained than often realized. Many algorithms can be rewritten to run much faster on gpus, though it takes some effort (and a different perspective, as a designer and programmer).

I rewrote a toeplitz matrix solver not so long ago; it was pretty fun! Treat conditional statements as plagues, and don't worry as much about early stopping... Every example takes the worst case time to handle, but you can do thousands of them at the same time. Ended up getting about a 1000x speed up against the baseline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Counterpoint: The NVIDIA Titan RTX has 4608 CUDA cores. We won't see 1024-core CPUs because GPUs cover that use case already.

<comment><USER6> If you're treating that number as accurate, then I'm running on a 896-core x86 computer.

As a comparison between GPUs and CPUs, each "CUDA core" is approximately equal to a SIMD lane on an x86 core. So 56 cores, times 16 lanes (AVX-512) per core, is 896 cores.

<comment><USER7> (initial comment deleted since one part addressed integer 'lanes' instead of the 32-bit FP that's more directly relevant in a comparison with a GPU, and the other part was incorrect.)

<comment><USER6> I'm counting the number of single-precision FP units. Although, strictly speaking, AVX-512 hardware actually has two FMA units per core.

<comment><USER8> I thought AVX-512 ALU resources varied between models?

<comment><USER6> This is Skylake server part (which should be implied by the high core count), which is using this block diagram: [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Skylake- Microarchitectur...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Skylake- Microarchitecture-CPU-Core-Block-Diagram-6_fig5_332543387)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "For code that is 99.9% parallel then using 1000 processors (each of which is about 250 times slower than the one faster chip they collectively replace) we can double the speed, more or less."

Where does that 250x slower come from? That doesn't seem a very reasonable assumption.

<comment><USER10> It's almost as if the author took a conventional quad core CPU and imagined it divided up into 1000 cores instead of 4.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you read the paper referenced in the article you will see it comes from the formula used there to define the Pareto frontier of CPU performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's true that you can't do the same work 1000 times faster with 1000 cores, but what analysis like this misses is that often you can do 1000 times more work, work that you wouldn't even attempt with a single core system.

<comment><USER12> Yes - so if you put 1000 cores with 1000 caches on a chip you could run 1000 vm's - more or less, perhaps 10000 in fact? Why aren't there chips like this... I think because it would blow apart the server manufacturers business models, and Intel's business model as well.

<comment><USER13> Those caches take up space. Or rather, if you could have 1000 cores each with 16 MiB L3 on-die cache, then why don't we see machines now with 10 cores and 1.6 GiB on-die L3 cache?

After all, there already exists plenty of software (including some I wrote) which is limited by memory bandwidth, or by latency.

Also, all of those 1000 cores would compete for the same main-memory bandwidth, so are much more likely to be bandwidth starved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> OP does not talk about data parallelism vs task parallelism at all.

SIMD instructions and GPGPU has come a long way and while clock rates have somewhat stagnated, we can solve many problems on consumer hardware today that were impossible in Pentium 3 days (big ML models, augmented reality, live ray tracing, ...). It was a painful transition from existing computation models, but it has been a gigantic success imho.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is interesting and would enjoy reading more about it in the white paper when it's shared. Could it be the next paradigm shift in computing is really the mastery of parallelization techniques baked into the hardware? I'm seeing a similar theme to recent posts about microservices as biological systems[1] and that Cerebras chip[2], which could mean that instead of improving monolothic performance, multiple monoliths converge into a new, higher level processing paradigm that is able to go above and beyond the performance of the individual architecture improvements.

[1] [https://battlepenguin.com/tech/microservices-and- biological-...](https://battlepenguin.com/tech/microservices-and-biological- systems/)

[2] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/cerebras...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/cerebrass- giant-chip-will-smash-deep-learnings-speed-barrier)

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder, have people done research on the parallelizability of different tasks? This is hard in that there obviously different algorithms with different characteristics regarding the same problem where you might tradeoff paralizability for computational difficulty. But there seem to be some domains, like graphics, where million way parallelism aren't uncommon.

We tend to think that replacing a O(n) algorithm with an O(n ln(n)) algorithm is a bad idea. But if it lets you spread out your problem over multiple threads it might very well be worth it. Within a certain range the power and silicon required to execute sequentially at a certain speed is, to simplify hugely, a bit more than the square of that speed so there's a lot of potential for improvement.

Certainly anything a human brain can do can be done in an embarrassingly parallel way which ought to be of some comfort.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think Cliff click of Java on 1000 cores might disagree.

[https://youtu.be/5uljtqyBLxI](https://youtu.be/5uljtqyBLxI)

<comment><USER13> That was 54 cores per die, 864 cores max.

This essay concerns 1024-core _chips_. ("When I started the PhD as a part-time student in 2012 the firm expectation in industry was that we would by now be well into the era of 1024-core chips. That simply hasn't happened because, at least in part, there is no firm commercial reason for it")

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure what the cores actually are, but the PEZY chips have 1024 and 2048 cores, end Epiphany V taped out at 1024. There are others, at least Kalray and Sunway (Taihulight), with 256 cores. They may not be sufficiently general-purpose -- Taihulight is imbalanced against memory bandwidth -- but can clearly do well on the right sort of problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Epiphany did indeed tape out at 1024 - which is why there is the acknowledgement that large scale manufacture of such chips is probably perfectly possible. But Epiphany never went to manufacture, which is sort of the point here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law) Can't sure what this PhD is adding.</comment>


Facebook readies global launch of its TikTok competitor - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-readies-global-launch-its-tiktok-competitor-n1234013 <comment><USER2> Facebook seems to prefer to let others do the first-mover work to carve out a social market, and then come in a bit later and use their existing scale (with FB, IG, Whatsapp) to copy the same features into their apps.

It's basically what they did with Instagram Stories after Snapchat existed.

There's the whole China aspect with TikTok, but regardless this is just how Facebook competes with whatever is popular.

<comment><USER3> Except facebook's base is aging and many of the youth are not interested in jumping on the next facebook offering. They had to purchase instagram to get a younger audience but their insta story pivot was successful. Gotta be honest, the last thing tiktok needs is a bunch of 40+ yr olds opening up accounts and creating content, as they are much more inflammatory than the fun content creators filling up my For You Page on tiktok. Tiktok is still very different than most other social media because its not really about following people you know as discovering interesting content nooks thru the For Your Page.

<comment><USER4> I share your enthusiasm for TikTok. It's the first social media app that felt like fun instead of an obligation. I have no doubt something will come along and ruin it (olds, monetization, acquisition). For now, it's really magical. It genuinely gives me hope for the next generation. They are impressively clever short-form story-tellers and continuously innovating techniques.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I personally would much rather Facebook succeed in this space. I'm extremely apprehensive about TikTok and how China is using the data.

I'm fully aware that Facebook will collect data (possible the same data), but I believe the motives and outcomes are more in my favor when it's my country doing it.

<comment><USER6> I'd rather the whole idea fucked off out of existence.

<comment><USER7> What is wrong with the idea? I don't use it because i don't enjoy the content but I don't find anything wrong with the idea. Genuine question.

<comment><USER6> 52 minutes a day is average engagement. 800M users. 32,000 man years or 400 human lifetimes of attention wasted every day (if I got my mathematics right).

We could be colonising mars or something instead of watching short videos of something totally ephemeral. And I'm sure in time it will be used much like Facebook to polarise people.

Then again I'm shitposting on HN so perhaps I'm just a hypocrite :)

Edit: the colonising mars thing was facetious and I probably should outline that. The issue is that our attention and mental health is more valuable than wasting on these shitty platforms.

<comment><USER8> Must produce. Must create value. Life worthless if no create value.

Seriously, let people have their free time why don't you. A lot of the western world is already half stuck in deadass jobs they hate, getting barely enough money to get through life so they can have the privilege of working more. It's quite something to read, on HN, in a place that has a majority of people lucky enough to not be stuck in that kind of life, judgement on how other people spend their free time instead of "colonizing Mars".

<comment><USER6> Yeah you're right but staring at 30 second clips of better lives than your selected by algorithm to bias your mind in some way to perpetuate either the existence of the platform or the product being sold is part of the downward spiral. At some point it becomes compulsion rather than choice. That's mental slavery by shitting in your head and I will judge that with extreme prejudice.

<comment><USER9> > Yeah you're right but staring at 30 second clips of better lives

That's instagram. TikTok is about average people having normal lives doing funny skits, often making fun of their own hardship rather than bragging about how they're living the high life as in other social medias.

<comment><USER6> That's your bubble. I've seen other people's and it's not. Instagram is worse I agree.

<comment><USER9> There are people flexing indeed and it shows up in my bubble too but I would say average people doing funny skits is what defines TikTok and what made it so appealing to many and still makes up the biggest part of TikTok content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem I have with FB and to a lesser extent, IG is that you can't get away from politics. The issue with that is that in addition to data scraping, it opens users up to political manipulation (i.e., vote hacking).

How is it on TikTok? I'm not an avid user and never got hooked. My impression is that it's just dumb dance videos.

<comment><USER11> Tik Tok is INSANELY good at figuring out what you want to watch. At first it shows you a random selection of videos, but it pays very good attention to what you're lingering at, and starts showing you more and more of those types of videos.

My wife and I downloaded Tik Tok at the same time, were shown the same videos in the beginning. Now, I basically see only Call of Duty: Warzone clips along with a few prank videos. My wife (far more political than I) sees a lot of videos of the protests, BLM activists, and other stuff.

Tik Tok does not try to force you to watch videos that you're not going to watch. It's crazy good (and scary).

<comment><USER12> Sadly there is a completely lack of appreciation of TikTok here on HN.

TikTok is really the next generation of social media. The way the algorithm adapts to the user is unlike anything out there plus the integrated videographic tools are incredible. Plus it is cheerful and playful, and not full of conflict or self promotion.

However the only thing we can focus on is that it is Chinese.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. It's hard for me not to suspect that there's some strong motivation by interested parties to make TikTok a boogeyman. I'm much more concerned about unintentional harm caused by incompetence (Facebook) or deliberate messaging for a purpose (Fox News, or pick whoever your personal least favorite media source is).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What are the odds of it launching just after TikTok gets banned? I wonder if Facebook has turned into the social media version of the US dollar to the US government, it is just too valuable, all this information. They have a defacto monopoly on social media around the world and they're not going to let it go, even if force needs to be used (in this case banning the competition).

</comment><comment><USER13> There was no new original product from FB in the last 15 years.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lol. The only thing I want less than China spying on the cat videos I watch is Zuck spying on them, and reselling it to a 3rd party to hack my voting decisions....

<comment><USER15> Sure, but in the case of TikTok, there's one less intermediary in the chain trying to hack your voting decisions.

<comment><USER3> Are people using the same TikTok that I am? There is currently a single skippable ad when I open the app (that appears maybe 75% of the time). Other than that, its a bunch of people under the age of 35 doing skits.. What am I supposed to be worried about when it comes to election engineering here?

<comment><USER16> I suspect if I were TikTok, I could keep track of the skits you watch and start directing similar skits with subtle political messages towards you in their place. If I were really nefarious, I might be able to professionally produce skits that look amature that are essentially well designed propoganda.

I've never used the app but I'm sure they also request location information and a lot of people agree, so I can make a reasonable guess for most people where their home location and corresponding voting districts are.

Also, over time, the type of media delivered may subtly shift anyways. When I started using Facebook, it required a .edu domain to register and focused on listing your courses, finding peers in your courses, campus events, and so forth. Now, it looks absolutely nothing like that, yet I still have a Facebook account (which I rarely check but thats another story, many of my peers appear to still actively use it). For now it's a bunch of silly videos, maybe it won't always be that way.

You may be lured into a platform, grow accustomed to it and the convenience of a user base, then slowly go along for the ride as the platform shifts direction. Perhaps you may be vigilant of this (the reason I stopped using Facebook many years ago), however, a large portion of people may not.

Now, whoever manages TikTok has a direct route of information to a wide group of people providing they don't upset them or a competitor doesn't lure them away.

<comment><USER3> What young pretty American is making that subtle political content that china will start to slowly move me towards? I gotta be honest, the potential for abuse so much less than facebook as it is a video medium. Their best attack vector is to use that information outside of tiktok by trying to target ads on other American owned platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Google.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google's Hotzle on brawny and wimpy cores - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/17/hotzle_on_brawny_and_wimpy_cores/

<comment><USER2> You have to judge the costs of each alternative when choosing? Really!? Tell us more!

One of the things he notes is that it's more expensive to program for multiple cores at the moment than just 1 core. And that's true, but the cost will go down as more software is developed to that end. And as long as there is some profit in doing so (money or otherwise) people will work on it.</comment>


"I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living" - <AUTHOR> http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/what_do_you_do/213599-cryonics-interview <comment><USER2> Ideally, the process of cryonically preserving someone's brain would be like an extreme form of the stasis we hope to be able to put people in for long space voyages. You might be legally dead by today's standards, but just asleep in practice.

This is where things get incredibly weird for cryonics. Any competent practitioner is going to amass a large number of people who are legally dead today, but may be viewed as "just sleeping" in the future. Where is the boundary between these two states? At what point do these frozen brains transition from specimens with no rights to human beings?

Say that, in the not too distant future, the technology is invented to resurrect the frozen. At this point, the cryonics company will have something clearly different from medical specimens in their tanks. However, what if the resurrection tech is prohibitively expensive? Even at cryogenic temperatures there is atomic movement and, necessarily, slow and subtle degradation. Some frozen "sleepers" might not survive long enough for resurrection to become affordable enough for them, assuming the assets they set aside for resurrection weren't wiped out by bad investments. Do these doomed sleepers have any rights? Will the cryonics company be obligated to revive them at a loss? What if the company goes bankrupt? Could people be brought back as indentured "heads in jars" and expected to work off their debt? Will brains frozen today even have any skills or knowledge the future will want?

Cryonics raises a lot of questions for the present and, potentially, even more problems for the future to solve.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps I'm too cynical, but if I had to guess I'd say cryonics companies don't give a damn about future ethical and/or legal implications as long as it's a profitable business as it stands today. I very much doubt they have plan on what to do with the brains or bodies they preserve, though I'd love to be proven otherwise.

<comment><USER4> On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. A good place to start is the Alcor Patient Care Trust [1]:

 _At Alcor, patient storage costs are paid from the Patient Care Trust. This conservative funding arrangement is designed to cover the cost of patient storage solely from the income from the Trust, thereby assuring that such funding will continue indefinitely into the future. The irrevocable Patient Care Trust is included under Alcor 's tax-exempt status, but nevertheless is a separate legal entity that provides liability protection for these assets. This arrangement is one of the reasons our members have confidence in Alcor.

It doesn't do any good to use the most advanced techniques to get our members into cryopreservation unless we can keep them there, as well as build capital to eventually fund revival and reintegration. Ongoing care for cryopreservation patients is the number one element of our purpose in being cryonicists, and financial protection for the patients is a critical component of this. There is no use in starting this possibly centuries-long project, if we don't do centuries-long financial planning. Providing this kind of protection through a conservative, long-term view of storage costs is one of the main reasons why cryopreservation costs so much._

[1]: [http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/patientcaretrustfund.html](http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/patientcaretrustfund.html)

<comment><USER5> > _On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics > organizations._

Legally. Not ethically. Most business owners in this "industry" could not care less.

<comment><USER6> Do you have some reason for believing this, or are you just being cynical? (Not that I have any particular problem with cynicism, rather I'm honestly curious.) I know of some serious breaches of ethics early in the history of cryonics, however I know of nothing that would besmirch Alcor in particular at least. If there is something I'd like to know about it.

<comment><USER5> I feel like I have legitimate reasons, from everything I know about humanity and history, to start from a cynical standpoint, especially regarding certain areas.

E.g. mails that announce me that I won some lottery. Random people offering to sell me cheap "authentic" Rolex on the street. Attempts to bring down some government to bring "democracy" to a country. Cryonics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      If somebody's been pronounced dead and then you start CPR, you don't want the
      embarrassing situation where they start to wake up again. For older people that
      are really far gone it's not a concern, but sometimes life can start
      to come back a bit so general anesthetic takes care of that.

That someone is coming back to life is considered "embarrassing", and ought to be stopped with a general anesthetic? That doesn't sound like someone I'd want in the emergency room by my bed...

<comment><USER8> That's exactly what I though! Holly cow......maybe I should take my name off the organ donors list. Have heard of people 'coming back to life' after being incorrectly pronounced dead (even young ones) and from memory there has been a few cases where people were buried alive, waking up in the coffin only to find out that they will come out of it alive again. If that is the common practice I think that medical practitioners should start questioning their suitability for this job!

<comment><USER9> This just reminded me of a short story called "Guilt" by Judy Budnitz. This American Life has a transcript of a reading, scroll down to "Act Four."

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/256/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/256/transcript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What I don't really get from the article is, why? The article seems to be a technical explanation of the procedure to freeze someone's brain. but it doesn't really explain why you'd do that in the first place (probably being revived in the future) and what the actual possibilities of this are.

<comment><USER11> Insurance. You're betting technology will come far enough to build you a replacement body. You have nothing to lose because your other option is irreversible death.

<comment><USER12> Nothing to lose except the money you're spending on an icebox that you could've spent bettering the world you're leaving.

<comment><USER13> That presumes that one couldn't see the funding of cryonics organizations as itself a social good, aside from whatever small chance of self-preservation it comes with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious about the finances and the practical aspects of resuscitation. Do you stipulate when you want to be resuscitated and for how much money? Do some people volunteer to be early resuscitation subjects? Is there a discount for that?

</comment><comment><USER14> That interview reads like it's written by a character out of Gregory Benford's 1993 novel, Chiller -- only here we are in 2015; it's just like Benford wrote about then.

</comment><comment><USER15> Could I freeze my brain now and come back in thirty years?

<comment><USER16> No, the procedure has never been demonstrated to work. There is no empirical evidence. These companies can not give a single instance of them resuscitating a human after undergoing these procedures. Not one. You are paying to have yourself frozen and stored, and that's it. The entire process is based on a combination of cynical opportunists, PR agents and deluded religious faithful who believe in "the procedure" without a shred of scientific proof, and gullible desperate rubes ignorant of empirical science.

<comment><USER17> If your bar for evidence is that a human revival process has been shown to work, I don't think you'll see that for quite some time. But to say there's no evidence it can work is pretty out there... 10 years ago they vitrified a rabbit kidney, then warmed it up, and successfully transplanted it.

A kidney's a lot less complicated than the brain, and that was 10 years ago. The research has been pretty underfunded. If you'd actually like the field to progress and uncover evidence for or against the prospect of those who have been suspended up until now ever even having the slimmest chance of revival greater than that of cremation, maybe you should encourage legislation that lets them test on volunteering criminals heading for lethal injection or other end-of-life volunteers who don't want to be preserved but are happy to contribute to Science or large animals. Don't get squeamish over experiments like this: [http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/bringingdixieback.html](http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/bringingdixieback.html)

<comment><USER16> Fair enough. I will offer $10 million for a demonstration that this technology works and has a scientific basis, with the proof being the successful resuscitation and revivification into a whole functioning human from any human brain that is in cryogenic storage at this company. I'll even give you a generous whole year to demonstrate it, since you have stated the only problem is insufficient support and funding, well here it is, your big chance. And of course should the year pass and there is still no evidence, just like each of the last 40 years this has been claimed to be a viable technology without a shred of evidence, then you will pay $10 million, to be used for anti-cult deprogramming efforts. Looking forward to acceptance of this offer, followed by either your verifiable evidence or your payment.

<comment><USER17> Get back to me when you've read: [http://chronopause.com/chronopause.com/index.php/2011/02/23/...](http://chronopause.com/chronopause.com/index.php/2011/02/23/does- personal-identity-survive-cryopreservation/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cryonics. A tax on people who are bad on biology.

<comment><USER13> It's not like there's much else to spend the money on, what with being dead and all.

<comment><USER5> No, just the usual things, ending world hunger, helping your city, sponsoring a university, cancer research, your children, etc.

And even if you're that selfish, you could always throw some great parties with models and champagne, or pay to have your enemies killed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would love to see some articles on statistics regarding the number of people who have been revived after this procedure.

Is it still at 0%, with no scientific basis at all other than the evidence- free religious devotion of the faithful devotees, constantly posting claims without a shred of solid evidence?

<comment><USER13> > the number of people who have been revived after this procedure

This is going to be zero by default even with perfect preservation, given that the whole point is to freeze people because current medical technology can't keep them reliably alive for whatever reason.

There's no reason to even think about trying to revive people (rather than simply preserving them as thoroughly as possible) until geriatrics, cancer medicine, or whatever have advanced considerably.</comment></comment>


A POLITICS FOR TECHNOLOGY - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2016/a-politics-for-technology/ <comment><USER2> Your article got me thinking about colored coins and different was to signal prices versus storing value and things that shouldn't be for sale. It seems that for price signaling to work best each person should get the same allotment per day. and some other currency for time storage and resource allocation. not sure how a system like this would work but kind interesting. already examples of it. voting can't be purchased. food stamps can't be traded etc. maybe instead one system there should many. or they could be partially intermingled. for instance a meal token could trump a general token because everyone only gets 3 meal tokens and you can have many general tokens.</comment>


Ycomb's API and karma level - <AUTHOR>

Why does ycombinator's news API require my karma to be higher to use? <comment><USER2> The official read-only API is public, and doesn't require a Hacker News account. Please email firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any questions.</comment>