Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/trust-busting-as-the-unsexy-answer-to-google-and-facebook/ <comment><USER2> Rather than trust busting, why not start with relaxing the federal laws which forbid the development of third-party applications?

The limits on third-party apps are legal, not technical. It is not technically challenging to build an application that collects Facebook credentials and then presents alternative views and features. It could, for example, finally be possible to see a time-ordered view of your friends' posts (Facebook doesn't allow this since it reduces engagement).

The development of such applications would serve as a threat and check on the market dominance of Facebook. A popular third-party application could consider adding its own features that Facebook does not have. It would also reduce Facebook's revenue.

What stops this? In the US, it is primarily the CFAA ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act)). Once Facebook formally tells a company to stop accessing their servers, they are in violation of federal law if they continue to do so.

It seems premature to pursue trust busting action while we still have federal laws that encourage and cement the dominance of a single provider.

<comment> B-Con > Rather than trust busting, why not start with relaxing the federal laws > which forbid the development of third-party applications?

Cute phrasing, but what this really means is "why not force anyone who develops a product to allow others to capitalize on it?"

> It seems premature to pursue trust busting action while we still have > federal laws that encourage and cement the dominance of a single provider.

You mean "allow a product to exist as a unified product". "Provider" is 100% misleading language.

<comment><USER2> I think you're misunderstanding. I'm not proposing that Facebook be _forced_ to allow third-party access, which would carry the risks you've pointed out. I'm simply proposing the federal government not aid them in their market dominance.

Facebook could still prevent third-party applications from functioning, but it would have to do so by methods inside of the HTTP specification rather than legal ones. For example, it could simply ban users who authenticate via a third-party app.

<comment> B-Con What's the difference? If it's desirable to reserve the right to disallow third-party frontends, why push the burden onto them (and everyone else) enforcing it through technical measures?

<comment><USER3> Because with technical measures, the cost is allocated to the party who benefits from vendor lock-in, rather than to the public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti- trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust.

For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, but for the majority of consumers these companies provide excellent service.

We really need more scrunity when it comes to acquisitions, the fact that Google was able to acquire YouTube and Facebook was able to acquire Instagram shows a real lack of foresight on regulators. Perhaps this is because when you're busting up Standard Oil you have more tangible view of what the monopoly looks like: the oil company owns the fields, the railroads, the refineries, the whole damn stack. When it comes to tech everything is a data play, Google (a search engine) and YouTube (a video site) look like distinct industry, but at the end of the day the main resource being competed for is attention and data.

<comment><USER5> I was just watching an interview between Scott Galloway and Richard Kramer discussing if the big 4 will be broken up. An insight I hadn't heard before was that anti-trust in the US is based on consumer harm, and since consumers get services from these companies for free, by this measure there can't be consumer harm. However, if you consider the advertisers (who are actually funding everything) are the consumers, they are being significantly harmed by the lack of competition. An advertiser has essentially no choice, if they wish to reach consumers online they have to deal with the big 4 on their terms. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7LyAJWkZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7LyAJWkZ0)

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's logical to say that just because consumers don't directly pay they aren't harmed. What if increased competition would make it such that there would be a way better search engine than today's Google? It's certainly harder to prove harm than monopolistic price fixing though.

<comment><USER7> In response to your argument, the U.S. courts would provably respond like the judge in My Cousin Vinny: "That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection. Overruled."

Silly as it is, that's just not how antitrust law works in the U.S.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "when AT&T was broken up in 1984, a torrent of new products came on the market, everything from the first answering machines to early ISPs."

Since the RBOCs were local monopolies, it wasn't the breakup which resulted in the opening of the network.

They didn't have competition until 1996, when the local loop was unbundled, allowing CLECs to appear. The tradeoff was that if they could demonstrate local competition, they were allowed to enter the long distance market.

It was FCC regulation which allowed interconnection of non-approved devices [1]. "In the 1960s and 1970s, the FCC gradually relaxed regulation of telephone terminal equipment (e.g., telephone handsets, private branch exchanges), known as customer premises equipment (CPE)."

[1] [https://www.nap.edu/read/10235/chapter/11#298](https://www.nap.edu/read/10235/chapter/11#298)

[2] [http://bpastudio.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/471/hout/telecomHistor...](http://bpastudio.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/471/hout/telecomHistory/)

[3] [https://www.mackinac.org/6033](https://www.mackinac.org/6033)

<comment><USER9> I think the post you're responding to is thinking of the unleashing of non- Bell-owned equipment on AT&T lines. This was prohibited by AT&T until the FCC forced them to drop this provision. Commonly known as the Carterphone decision, this happened in 1968. Fax machines, modems, answering machines and other devices were mostly only possible after this change.

<comment><USER8> Correct, that is what they are referring to. However, they are directly linking it to the 1984 breakup, which was not what allowed it. Thanks for the name of the decision [1], I had a hard time finding a reference. :)

So, yes, it's an argument for regulation, but not for breaking up a monopoly. :)

There are many good reasons to break up monopolies, but their thesis is that the 1984 breakup led to the development of ISPs because people were all of a sudden allowed to plug random things into the network.

[1] Carterfone Decision: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone#Landmark_regulatory...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone#Landmark_regulatory_decision)

<comment><USER10> case by case, maybe one is not directly linked to the other.

however in the mindset of ATT and telco management, all these things are linked. It's like when Microsoft supported Apple or soft pedalled some of it's legal case against linux in the late 90s and early 2000s - it wasn't directly linked to the government suing them for bundling a web browser circa late 90s, but in the management of Microsoft, they had to gauge their decisions against whether the government might object to their behavior, essentially whether their "brand" with the government regulators would be damaged if they, say, systematically obliterated linux the way they did Dr Dos in the late 80s/early 90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good article. I hope that trust-busting becomes popular again.

The article did not mention technological intervention in this situation. I believe we will eventually move past the technopolies and decentralized technologies will play a large part.

In my opinion the power and scope of some companies overlaps with or even effectively supercedes government in some ways. To me these are demonstrations of the obsolescence of current government structures.

The all-encompassing networks provided by these monopolies are extremely useful and I believe the main reason we tolerate them. They provide a platform.

Decentralized technologies are becoming increasingly capable and popular. The only realistic alternatives to the giant monopoly companies are platforms built on decentralized technologies. I also suspect that for government to be able to keep up or be effective it also needs to be decentralized and possibly integrated in some way into the decentralized systems or metasystems.

</comment><comment><USER12> The moat that each tech company owns is its network. Rather than trust-busting these companies up into their different businesses, I think it would promote more competition to impose network interoperability requirements once the network is entrenched for too long.

A useful example is craigslist: a company with virtually no innovation for decades that still dominates the classified listings space. Other companies that try to offer a better experience face the hurdle of creating their own network or attempting to scrape craigslist's items (and then being kicked off by their lawyers). What regulation would allow meaningful competition? A policy that requires craigslist to provide an API to competing firms for reading and writing at a reasonable price, and a requirement that changes to the network not favor craigslist vs. other firms.

<comment><USER2> You don't need new regulation; you just need to get rid of existing regulation.

It is currently illegal to build third-party applications once the first party tells you to stop.

Craigslist actually was involved in the court case that cemented this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist_Inc._v._3Taps_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist_Inc._v._3Taps_Inc).

<comment><USER13> > It is currently illegal to build third-party applications once the first > party tells you to stop.

No, it is illegal to access the data of a third-party with your own app if that third-party doesn't allow you to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Surprised that HN has this sort of myopia in tech history. Are things really different this time? Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, Bell, IBM, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner. Cries for antitrust action are often a bellwether for organic disruption. A lot of the discussion here is about how to "organically" break the trust via regulatory changes such as repealing CFAA, more scrutiny around acquisitions, etc.

It's not possible to understand the first order effects (let alone second and above) of regulation. Doing so without using the mighty/crude hammer of antitrust would presume that one knew how to organically disrupt these companies. "Oh! If only other people were to prevent Google from making all of these acquisitions we would have more competition in search!" "If only small companies could build 'third-party apps' legally!" Once you substitute out the ever-wise HN commenter with a member of our legislature does the absurdity of these statements become clear. Can we at least have the humility to say that we don't know how to disrupt these companies? There is already a massive profit incentive in the form of the net profits to be competed for. The answer to the question "How do you beat Google?" is for the market to answer.

Before trying to come up with a regulatory solution, it's worth stepping back and realizing that if you knew exactly how to beat Google, you'd hopefully try and do it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I work for Google, opinions are my own.

Have there been any studies or anything on how having or breaking up large companies affects a country's competitiveness on a global scale? I feel like an extremely large company may be more competitive but this may come at the expense of other companies in the same or other industries.

FWIW I personally agree with using antitrust to break up companies that don't harm consumers despite currently benefiting from the system.

<comment><USER16> I am not sure if fear of China is an adequate justification to allow rampant misconduct of a corporation here. Consider that we could just the same argue that having a minimum wage that's (still woefully inadequate, but higher than China) also significantly harms the competitiveness of our country's competitiveness in many industries on the global stage.

It would probably be better to deal with issues of other country's power via trade agreements and political pressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One complement/substitute for this approach is mandating open standards. If Facebook had to be part of the Fediverse or something like that. The standards could be managed by a third-party, something like the Federal Reserve for APIs. This way they can move to accommodate fast-moving changes and competition from companies in other countries.

</comment><comment><USER18> Would trust-busting do any good? The main reason no practical alternatives to Facebook exist is the network effect. The main reason that competitors to Google don't do well is that people will just use the search engine that returns the most relevant results (unless your internet connection is censored). The only practical solution is regulating ethical behavior of these incomprehensibly powerful corporations.

<comment><USER19> _The main reason no practical alternatives to Facebook exist is the network effect._

Doesn't it creep you out that one company has a monopoly on the social graph? When we busted up Ma Bell, we basically put into place standards for interoperation. What if we had a law mandating social graph companies open themselves up for interoperation once they reach some critical threshold of size? Basically, the idea is that once you're massive enough in social media, you don't get to hold onto your lead purely through the network effect. Staying at the top, just because you're at the top doesn't really promote the general welfare of society or motivate people to make better products.

 _The main reason that competitors to Google don 't do well is that people will just use the search engine that returns the most relevant results (unless your internet connection is censored)._

At home, I use Duck Duck Go. It gives good enough results but comes with a better reputation with regards to privacy.

<comment><USER20> > What if we had a law mandating social graph companies open themselves up for > interoperation once they reach some critical threshold of size?

If we open up Facebook's data to other companies, what makes you think those companies are willing and capable of securing the data and respecting user privacy?

Facebook having all of that data is bad enough. Requiring Facebook to share it with other companies would not make that data more secure -- but it could definitely make it less secure.

<comment><USER21> For one, where sharing of data is concerned, none of this is about forcing Facebook to give your data to some random third party that asks for it. It is about you as a user being able to demand from Facebook that they make your data (or some selection of it) accessible to some third party of your choice.

But also, and maybe more importantly, interoperation does not really necessarily require any sharing of data. Think the telephone network: All telephone network operators world wide do interoperate, which is why it doesn't matter where you are a customer, you still can call any other telephone on the planet. But that doesn't mean that those telcos somehow share data of their customers, apart from the particular calls that happen between customers of two different telcos.

Also, one way in which Facebook could be forced to share data would be for migration to a different service: If you think Facebook is abusing your data, you could move to a different provider, and Facebook would have to allow them to pull your data over and then delete it on their side--and all that without you losing contact with people who stay on Facebook thanks to enforced interoperability.

<comment><USER19> _But also, and maybe more importantly, interoperation does not really necessarily require any sharing of data._

DRM actually has a potential for societal good. We should make companies like Facebook subject to DRM around _our data_. DRM is subject to the same asymmetry as privacy. Privacy for individuals is a societal good, in contrast to governments and big public companies, which should be as transparent as possible. Likewise, DRM used by big companies and organizations against individuals is bad for individuals and societies. However, DRM used on behalf of individuals to protect them from big companies would be a societal good.

<comment><USER21> Well, except it doesn't, because it necessarily either doesn't work or it is centrally controlled.

What does help is simply encryption and decentralized services, no need for DRM.

<comment><USER19> _Well, except it doesn 't, because it necessarily either doesn't work or it is centrally controlled._

Putting in another hoop for abusive corporations to jump through does have a function. There would be additional opportunities for whistleblowers to spot it happening, opening up the company to legal and regulatory action. Also, it wouldn't necessarily have to be centrally controlled. 3rd party companies could be hired to do the administration.

 _What does help is simply encryption and decentralized services, no need for DRM._

DRM could well be implemented as encryption and decentralized services.

<comment><USER21> > Putting in another hoop for abusive corporations to jump through does have a > function. There would be additional opportunities for whistleblowers to spot > it happening, opening up the company to legal and regulatory action. Also, > it wouldn't necessarily have to be centrally controlled. 3rd party companies > could be hired to do the administration.

In which case DRM doesn't do anything, but regulation and whistleblowers do?

> DRM could well be implemented as encryption and decentralized services.

How would that work? You don't have control over your own machine, but everyone else does?!

DRM is the idea that your property has a function that controls what you can do with your property based on instructions from a third party ... who would that "decentralized third party"(?) be? And what would even be the point of that? I am not sure I even understand what kind of construction you have in mind that would qualify as DRM and also be useful for the end user in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That was a good read. Having made a good living from programming since the early 1970s, I would like to give something back, but other than creating content and software with sharing licenses, I am not sure how to proceed.

I used to feel good about donating to EFF, ACLU, and FSF but I have reduced my donations because I don't feel like they are doing much good. I have read Tim Wu in the past and although he helps us understand the power dynamics of monopolies and controlling platforms, I don't really get any actionable suggestions from him. Same could be said for this article: a good read, but left me wondering what, if anything, I can do to help.

</comment><comment><USER23> At the heart of the article, the assertion that the power of these corporations is threatening our government implies that this is a problem -- which in turn implies that government is somehow superior to corporations. Why is this necessarily true?

<comment><USER24> It doesn't have to imply that government is outright superior to corporations. It would be sufficient to imply that neither should have overwhelming power over the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1) Doesn't seem so unsexy to me - though I havent gotten any in a while (actual trust busting that is)

2) If raising the issue, why start with these 2?

       Many bigger and much more entrenched fish in our sea

</comment><comment><USER26> But the factors that grew this giant remains, meaning this will turn into a whack-the-mole where nothing changes but the name and owner of the company that reeincarnates the by nature centralized public service these companies provide.

I would suggest a partially privat solution. Meaning. The public owns such projects, once the investment was returned. Sort of a lease from the allmende, that always returns -as rewards for the maintenance of investment. And any company can temporary (1 year max) own this infrastructure, once it contributes signifantly to it.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Tarbell's 19-part exposé on Rockefeller's Standard Oil would mark a turning > point in setting public sentiment against the trusts.

Seems modern tech monopolies have it much better, with far more control over the information the public sees and can share with each other. Particularly when they start buying up newspapers. Whatever the practicalities of going against them in this way, that's going to cause complications.

</comment><comment><USER28> Trust-Busting implies that we have to go out of our way to identify and bust monopolies every 10-20 years. That's the wrong fix here. Instead we should focus on finding alternative solutions that reduce the tendency to form these huge corporations or conglomerations. And encourage more companies/competition.

</comment><comment><USER29> As a self-defined libertarian, I think one of the most critical functions a government is responsible for is anti-trust and Monopoly busting. This is one of the critical issues of our time, but is only a symptom of the corruption of Congress, which is a deep topic in it's own right.

Free markets are like any hierarchy, and if theres no regulation mechanism the powerful will dominate the less powerful. I think history and established economic and game theory is fairly universal on this point.

I'd be interested to hear an argument that these international megacorporations without meaningful competition don't need to be broken up.

<comment><USER30> This doesn't sound like a liberatarian, at least not in the US. The one with the strongest competitive greed who wins the most money/power is viewed as the end-goal and the most successful under the ideology. Thus, a monopoly is really the end-goal of US libertarianism for they had the highest wealth and are assumed to have the highest drive to have the most wealth. Libertarianism opposes that the will of the people should constrain avarice or rich and powerful. Greed is always good under libertarianism. The philosophy is particular popular for the rich because it is a tool to prevent the will of the people from constraining their power through wealth.

So, Libertarianism blames regulation itself as the cause of monopolies because they look mainly at regulatory capture, which is done through greed-based corruption of government. Libertarian philosophy would view reducing the regulation, and thus any constraint on Facebook's avarice, as the solution to Facebook's monopoly.

So, you shouldn't, as a libertarian, propose trust-busting regulation for Facebook, as this is the opposite of libertarian.

<comment><USER31> There is plenty left in the libertarian philosophy even if you take away the concept of idly sitting by, watching perverse, runaway growth. For example, ideas like bounding government power and reducing it to a few minimum functions and letting the market handle most things by itself. This does not necessarily imply letting the market go _completely_ unchecked and requiring it to serve _every_ need.

I think that _decentralization of power_ is one of those profoundly libertarian ideas that is not often explicitly recognized as one.After all, a corporation in which power is extremely centralized is hard to differentiate from a government. Furthermore, if there is no one keeping it in any kind of check, what is preventing it from becoming a totalitarian government?

Markets work best when there is at least some level of decentralization. In other words, when you don't let any entity acquire a significant portion of total power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Will we ever again break up a monopoly?

The attempt instantly becomes a political battle. The moment a politician takes sides, the other party opposes, and the initial politician's party backs him up. Politicians collect lots of money. There is then a highly politicized court case which the company drags out until there is a change of political power. Once political power changes, the government purposely sabotages their own case until the company wins.

</comment><comment><USER33> Lot of people talking about third-party application development in this thread. It's also worth considering the opposite side of that, data portability. GDPR already requires companies allow users to easily export all their data [1], and if the US did the same it could really help mitigate the network effect social media companies use to hold onto their dominance (i.e. Facebook's properties)

[1] [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-20-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-20-gdpr/)

<comment> dane-pgp Competitors to Facebook really need to be aware of the power of this law. In particular, it says:

"The data subject shall have the right to ... transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data have been provided, where ... the processing is carried out by automated means... [, and] shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible."

If the data transfer is automated and direct, then a Facebook user should be able to request that their posts on Facebook be continually synched over to their Mastodon account (for example).

As Facebook is already a member of the Data Transfer Project [1], it would look very bad for them if they only allowed data to be automatically synched one way, especially if most Fediverse implementations supported two way synch.

Of course, once your data is fully synched, you'd never need to actually browse Facebook itself again, and your friends on both Facebook and Mastodon would be able to read your Mastodon posts. (I suppose Facebook would similarly cite "data protection reasons" for why they can't synch your friend's Facebook posts out to you on another site, though).

Anyway, I'm sure an EU anti-trust investigator would enjoy the opportunity to examine claims against a big US social media company like Facebook, especially if it were a small EU social media provider bringing the complaint.

[1] [https://datatransferproject.dev/](https://datatransferproject.dev/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Capitalism, according to all these men, is about frictionless, seamless engorgement._

The writer is losing the thread a bit here. "Eating" in this context, means to disrupt with a more efficient way of doing things. "Eating people" is replacing manual jobs performed by people with automation and networks. If a job can be "eaten" then that means keeping it is just top-down mandated make- work.

 _More generally, he argues that we are, in fact, in an all-out return of the Gilded Age — and perhaps only the clothing has changed._

We are, in fact, in yet another variation of a "Gilded Age." [1] Only the clothing and particular cultural artifacts have changed. For years on this site, I've been making an analogy between SV of today and "Mad Men." I think people have misunderstood. In both cases, there's a tribe of people, recently imbued with greater socioeconomic status, mostly from all of the same schools, with the same subculture, dressing the same, consuming the same non-mainstream products, becoming increasingly out of touch with mainstream people and mainstream culture. In both cases, the interests of the subgroup have diverged and come to odds with the interests of society at large. In both cases, many members of the subgroup have come to look down upon the society and mainstream culture they originally came from.

When it comes down to it, groupthink is the underlying motivating factor in all of history's great tragedies and great evils. As an intellectual in 2019, it behooves you to constantly look over your shoulder for its approach. Look across the media landscape for its encroachment. Look the hardest at yourself and those nearest to you.

([1] - yes, I know the one referenced predates the Mad Men milieu. There are many gilded ages.)

</comment><comment><USER18> >Capitalism, according to all these men, is about frictionless, seamless engorgement.

I could not care less about the opinions of thirty-something techies about political ideologies. At a time when capitalism seems more attacked in the West than at any other time in modern history, I think it is deceitful to talk about capitalism from the point of view of the group of the most unethical business leaders in America. We wouldn't tolerate someone defining socialism from the point of view of dictators.

<comment><USER34> >We wouldn't tolerate someone defining socialism from the point of view of dictators.

Venezuela, Stalin, Mao, etc all get brought up constantly in discussions about socialism/communism.

<comment><USER18> >all get brought up constantly

and are quickly met with "that's not real socialism".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So, Google and Facebook suck up lots of personal information and some people don't like that. Splitting them apart wouldn't change their business models.

Arbitrary destruction of their business doesn't do anything to protect consumer privacy.

There's also nothing anti-competitive about either business. Using a different website is as simple as typing a URL into your web browser.</comment>


Custom UX checklist for your project - <AUTHOR> http://s87.eu/65vf

<comment><USER2> Creator here. I built this with Rails. We made it simple and fast to make a custom UX checklist for your project. We'd love feedback! - Nina from Userium

<comment><USER3> Since this is a UX site, here's my impression:

I found the landing page a little confusing.

"Edit my Free Checklist"

I don't have a checklist to edit, I think this should say Create a Free Checklist?

Also once I clicked that, and it took me to /accounts/new, I just clicked Checklist in the top bar to view the checklist, which is what I originally wanted to see.

It'd be cool if when you clicked something on /welcome/checklist, it did a 'gradual' sign-up and say something like: "Do you want to save this?".

<comment><USER2> The reason I called it "Edit my Free Checklist" is that we already prepared a checklist for you. But you are right, it is confusing, I will change that! Thanks for the feedback!

The checklist link shows our original usability checklist, but if you sign up, you can edit it as you wish.

Gradual sign-up would be great, good idea, thanks!

<comment><USER3> Ah, I see. Cool.

Another idea: you could add a little box to the bottom of each section that says "Add your own", which would gradually lead into a sign-up, as well.

<comment><USER2> True, another good idea, thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Checklist is maybe a good alternative to a boring usability report.

<comment><USER2> True, UX / usability reports are boring to read - and to write. This is something simple and fast you can do for any project.

Also gives the customer / team / boss a quick overview of UX issues in the project.</comment></comment>


Twitter now prohibits financial scams on its platform - <AUTHOR> https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/financial-scam <comment><AUTHOR> "We're always updating our rules based on how online behaviors change. Today we're expanding our policies to prohibit financial scams."

[https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1176190505757106177](https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1176190505757106177)</comment>


Show HN: Write on Par – Become a powerful writer without tedious grammar lessons - <AUTHOR> http://www.writeonpar.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to create something to help teach people concise writing without the pain of conventional writing classes. The result is a kind of "gamified" "learning by doing" sort of approach.

This is just an initial 'MVP' release so basic validation, leaderboards, etc. are still on the roadmap.

But if you think it might be helpful, speak up and tell me what you think!

</comment><comment><USER2> That was fun, thanks for sharing! I was a little confused on how the scoring worked, and the timer seemed short (but I kept trying to refine more).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah scoring can be made clearer. I'll try to refine that. Thanks for the feedback!</comment></comment>


Legacy Preference Gets Fresh Look Following College-Admissions Scandal - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/legacy-preference-gets-fresh-look-following-college-admissions-scandal-11582387200 <comment><AUTHOR> Free link: [https://archive.is/0YCsB](https://archive.is/0YCsB)</comment>


Show HN: A Twitter Clone (Hobby Project) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Xtremilicious/Shoutr-Front-End <comment><USER2> i liked the name

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: My Sort-of-DIY, Dual 30", Sit-Stand Treadmill Desk Setup - <AUTHOR> http://peterarm.tumblr.com/post/37021212588/sit-stand-treadmill-desk <comment><USER2> Monitor cable note: You don't have to use the expensive dual-link DVI adapters if you have a monitor that supports the standard sized DisplayPort. You can get a simple Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter (and DisplayPort cable) and it supports the full 2560x1600 resolution of monitors like the 30" Dell.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TSDG06/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=dr...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TSDG06/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=drewjoh-20)

(note: summary description says max of 1920x1200, but detailed description says up to 2560x1600. I'm using it on a 30" Dell, so it works :)

<comment><USER3> Or without the unmentioned referal link

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TSDG06/>

<comment><USER2> What's wrong with a referral link?

<comment><USER3> It's a common curtosy to mention it. Ufnortunately otherwise, when you recommend a link it sounds more like your trying to make a buck than help someone out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Working out and writing software are like beer and chocolate.

I love both, but _not at the same time_.

<comment><USER5> I understand your point (and agree), but a nice stout and some fancy chocolate go quite well together. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many of the comments here are arguing that walking desks aren't necessary because one can just exercise outside of working hours. What they're failing to consider is new research that shows that sitting all day and then exercising is still unhealthy on the whole. Walking desks are intended to reduce the number of hours just sitting. They're not intended to be your daily workout/break from the monitor, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> I hate this whole standing/treadmill desk fad. It solves the wrong end of the problem. Sitting on your ass is fine but don't do it all day.

I can understand if you're a hamster in a cage but seriously just go for a walk instead.

<comment><USER8> That's easy if 'sitting on your ass' amounts to grazing on facebook, watching idle entertainment or playing games. For the rest of us who work on a computer at a job and/or then again at home, that's a bit impractical at best and not the least feasible for many, even some who happen not to be hamsters in a cage. And though a treadmill is a bit extreme I see no reason to shrug off standing desks as an annoying fad--it's just as natural a position to work as sitting though not as culturally ingrained, and uncomfortable for long straight hours (but then sitting is seemingly comfortable while not at all healthy).

<comment><USER7> Perhaps the problem is that you shouldn't be sitting in front of the computer at work and at home rather than have a standing desk at either?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The best part is that mouse. Razer DeathAdder.

Awesome, awesome, awesome mouse. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER10> Even for not-gaming use?

<comment><USER9> Absolutely.

It's very comfortable, very accurate, very smooth. It's simple, but has all the basic buttons you need and none of the extra chaff. It has an awesome blue light, but you can disable this if you want. It's also easy to clean, and looks great! :)

There's also a button on the bottom, you can program this, but it is in a rather awkward place. My only complaint.

Newer models come with a braided cable which is very sturdy.

<comment><USER11> You can get a black edition DeathAdder, which doesn't have the blue light. I got this mouse even though I don't game, because it appears to be one of the only high quality corded mice on the market (Microsoft's mice have severely dropped in quality over the past few years).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did you consider any of the Lifespan Fitness models? They sell complete kits, some for less money than the cost of what you built yourself:

[http://www.lifespanfitness.com/tr800-dt5-treadmill- desk.html...](http://www.lifespanfitness.com/tr800-dt5-treadmill- desk.html#.ULt3ApPjmAQ) [http://www.lifespanfitness.com/treadmill- desk/tr1200-dt5-tre...](http://www.lifespanfitness.com/treadmill- desk/tr1200-dt5-treadmill-desk.html#.ULt3A5PjmAQ) [http://www.lifespanfitness.com/treadmill- desk/tr5000-dt5-tre...](http://www.lifespanfitness.com/treadmill- desk/tr5000-dt5-treadmill-desk-combination.html#.ULt3AZPjmAQ)

I have the mid-tier model and absolutely love it. Curious if there was anything in particular about it that turned you off (you obviously researched this project thoroughly).

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi, I built a running "desk" for situations when I consume podcasts/youtube. It is not for working but good for running/walking while watching.

Kettler treadmill + Griffin stand + MacBook: <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/559047/mbp-running.jpg>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome! I did something similar to that years ago with an old elliptical trainer: I clamped a dell laptop to it. But my problem I found is that I'd still spend all the other time sitting when doing real work.

You can actually get into a really good coding zone when walking, once you get used to it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Or just take a break for 1-2 hours during the day to go out and hit the gym or go for a run. I would argue it makes you feel better than trying to mix exercise with working on a computer.

<comment><USER15> Sadly, research suggests that's not sufficient enough to counteract being sedentary for the rest of the day.

[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39523298/ns/health- mens_health/#...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39523298/ns/health- mens_health/#.ULtjqoV-oXx)

The idea of these treadmill desks is to keep you from constantly sitting all day. I would agree that one should probably do some more vigorous exercise as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Get away from your desk every once in a while instead of exercising behind your desk. It clears your head and makes you focus better afterwards.

<comment><USER17> Why "instead" and not "as well"?

<comment><USER18> I feel you would get less work done running or walking on one of these, and you would also not get much exercise value out of it.

It would be better to take breaks often, and every other day take a 1 hour break to do a proper set of exercises in a gym, playing a sport or just running or biking outside.

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a study I remember seeing referenced a while ago (I think it was in an article about the Mayo clinic guy Levine) where the big point was that if you spent essentially most of your workday sitting, then an hour at the gym doesn't undo that. With this approach I can walk 3 - 6 miles while working. I'm not trying to get my heart rate up to cardio levels obviously; I'm just walking. And I'm not saying I'm a role model for perfect health, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used to stand. An then arranges for my MacBook Pro to sit nicely on my already existing high end treadmill.

Neither really did it for me and I think I was just sucked into the trend.

Now I do 5k a day on the treadmill and some basic work with light dumb bells. No more sore back. And RSI in the wrists is pretty much gone despite still pushing some 4 hour sessions without rest (which I know is wrong).

</comment><comment><USER20> Inspirarional. Good job on planning and make it happen for yourself! Everybody deserves a decent workstation.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been considering adding a treadmill to my standing desk, but am concerned about the whine of the treadmill and the sound of my footsteps on it bothering others in the room or who work below me. How is the noise from your setup? Have you had to address that in any way?

</comment><comment><USER22> It's awesome! But I don't see how you can have high-productivity by using a laptop keyboard.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also have a SteelSeries 7G keyboard, which is what I used when just using one 30" monitor. But I haven't figured out how to incorporate it with the dual 30" monitor setup. And dual 30" monitor + laptop keyboard > SteelSeries + single 30" monitor. Maybe I'll get a laptop stand and try incorporating all three plus the external keyboard...

<comment><USER23> I'm curious why you need the laptop at all. Do you like looking down on the tiny screen even though you have two huge ones above?

<comment><AUTHOR> The retina display is nice to look at when coding :)

My current workflow is to just put one Emacs buffer in it, and I also use one of the two 30" displays for a whole bunch of Emacs buffers, and the other 30" display has browsers and other stuff. But I'm still evolving it. I have a coworker who just leaves his laptop shut and uses the two 30" displays in this setup.

<comment><USER14> i would argue that the massive difference in DPI on the retina display compared to the Dells isnt very good from an ergonomic perspective.

I wonder why you need a Laptop at all in that setup. Wouldnt a Mac Pro and a Macbook Air for on the go make more sense ?

Cool stuff though! For a while i had a Crosstrainer facing to the wall where i mounted a 22" monitor to watch movies while working out..That was really nice, but unfortunately my current home office is too small for a big work out machine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I have a coworker that just puts the two 30" displays together (in a sitting desk). Right now I'm not sure whether my love for the SteelSeries 7G will end up winning out over my love for looking at a retina display. So far, no.

The funny thing is that the switching between "awesome sharpness" and "meh" isn't so bad. I put web browsers on the left 30" monitor and other Emacs buffers in the right 30" monitor (full screen Emacs in it, and then a couple of horizontal and vertical splits) showing other files I'm dealing with. The primary buffer I'm working on in the retina. But it's fine to do edits on the 30" monitor too, and there's no issue.

Divvy is essential here so I don't waste time resizing things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice! I have almost an exact same setup! www.treadmilldeskdiary.com

</comment><comment><USER25> While the dual-30" monitors certainly has its appeal, I find getting away from my screens and truly discovering the world to be my most enriching time. Why confine your walking to the scope of those foreboding screens when your walk could be toward something unknown? Something strange, something beautiful. Something to inspire. A show, a friend, or something you've never experienced. I know it takes more than a walk on a treadmill to open my mind to a new idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> I fully agree! I like snowboarding or going down to the ocean for that. But doing a startup requires massive hours at a computer, and the problem is that hours of sitting is fundamentally bad. Besides being bad for your health (see [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/06/treadmill- desks-i...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/06/treadmill-desks- invented-for-office-workers_n_1323506.html) and follow your nose) I find it's also easy to fall into a rut and end up on HN too much. Like now :) Goodnight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How can you possibly track text for reading, let alone type accurately while walking on a treadmill?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you walk at "going for a stroll" speed instead of "competing in the olympics" speed it's actually fine. For me, I can code or even play civ at 1.6 to 2 mph.

The only thing I've done where I was frustrated by walking at the same time was play StarCraft 2. This was just when I had one 30" monitor and was using my SteelSeries 7G. The mouse control is really hard for SC2, but I play zerg, so you can do macro cheese types of strats while walking. (I'm plat though. I think you'd get slaughtered if you tried this at diamond or higher.)</comment></comment>


Tired of Web Browsers? Try Nanosai Boards - <AUTHOR> https://nanosai.com/ <comment><USER2> The main differences of Boards compared to other web browsers will not really be clear until 1-2-3 releases from now. The current version just shows the core principles.

Boards is not designed to replace a standard web browser, but to supplement it for the use cases traditional web browsers do not support very well.

Eventually, we will not even classify Boards as a web browser, but as an alternative Internet Client - targeting the Internet of Data, Internet of Services, Internet of Things etc. However, we have to start somewhere, and this is our embarassingly simplistic and not-so-pretty MVP :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I watched the demo but, unless I'm missing something, I can't see any advantage over just dragging out another Chrome/Firefox/Edge window and putting them next to each other on the same screen. The UI is kind of strange, too.

It seems like an uphill battle to create what is, essentially, just a fixed- window browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess one of the advantages of Nanosai Boards over web browsers becomes very clear once you start having loads and loads of tabs open in your browser!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is that a Java application? Correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes JavaFX indeed!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Efficient integer ID obfuscation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/delight-im/PHP-IDs?hn=2016-10-07 <comment><USER2> Nice, there is also HashIds [1] with implementation in many languages

[1] [http://hashids.org/](http://hashids.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Please note that the presented solution is both more efficient and more "secure" (i.e. "obscure", which is all we want here). It turns sequential IDs into non-sequential IDs, in addition to converting the base for use of a larger alphabet.</comment></comment>


Cause of Antibiotic Resistance Identified - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2019/09/causeofantibioticresistanceidentified/ <comment><USER2> The video evidence of the L-form switching is no doubt very interesting, but a more accurate headline would be "One cause of resistance to certain antibiotics in UTIs identified." Or the original article's title, which is "Possible role of L-form switching in recurrent urinary tract infection"; see [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12359-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12359-3)

I would love to see data on how common this phenomenon is in various populations of UTI patients (elderly, young, inpatient, outpatient, etc), given different prior exposures to antibiotics; for now it looks like 30 patients were assessed.

There are obviously many different causes of resistance previously identified, going all the way back to penicillinase enzymes inactivating penicillin. As often happens with lay summaries, this makes it sound a little too much like the cause of all antibiotic resistance has been found.

<comment><USER3> Came here to make the exact same point.

Other known causes of antibiotic resistance include the formation of biofilm -- essentially a colony of bacteria -- and rapid genetic mutation in the face of harsh conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For an article released by a university press office, the grammatical errors are stunning.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080116)

<comment><USER6> It's the convention only to link to previous threads if there are interesting comments there. Otherwise you'll get downvoted by disappointed clickers.

<comment><USER5> Ahhh</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon will buy Target in 2018, influential tech analyst Gene Munster predicts - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-will-buy-target-in-2018-influential-tech-analyst-gene-munster-predicts.html <comment><USER2> Influential, perhaps; Accurate, not that much.

e.g. His constant predictions from 2011-2015 about an Apple TV set

[https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/15/gene-munster-leaving-piper- ja...](https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/15/gene-munster-leaving-piper-jaffray/)</comment>


StartupBritain website links to malware site - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12904585

<comment><USER2> > The exploit only affected users of Internet Explorer, including the most > recent versions. Other browsers, including Firefox, were not affected.

Shocker!

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty much what you'd expect from a site that is fairly obviously a poorly researched bunch of links thrown together to pay lip service to some ideal.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll bet there's egg on their faces right now. I'm sharing this news, and a link back here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Who do you sue or blame in this Situation ?</comment>


Ask HN:  putting electronics around a city - <AUTHOR>

Dear Hacker News, I'm curious about how groups have successfully installed sensor networks around a city.  Assume that money isn't the issue--you've got 1,000 sensors bought and paid for, and now you want to place them in public areas.  What's an effective way to go about this? <comment><USER2> I think it depends on a lot of things. I'm sure you could talk to your city officials and ask for some permission. But, I think their acceptance to going to be based on how permanent these things are going to be. You chances are probably higher if you explain that you just want to run a week-long experiment and explain to them what exactly your sensors do. The biggest problem is that you don't own anything of the property you'd like to put your sensors on.

</comment><comment><USER3> If your city has above ground telephone poles, you may be able to work something out with the utility. Light poles might also be an option. Power would be an issue though.</comment>


I'm seeing other people's photos in my Dropbox account on the iOS Mobile App - <AUTHOR>

Ummmmm, while scrolling through images in my Camera Uploads folder I'm seeing other people's photos in my folder as well! How do I know if other's aren't seeing my folder? I was wondering if someone was using my account, but these photos are nowhere to be seen on the web or any desktop running Dropbox.
Has anyone encountered this? Seriously thinking of removing important / unencrypted documents off of Dropbox.
This is for version 2.3.1 on iOS. <comment><USER2> It is just metadata now made public, do not fear.</comment>


Crypto-Patriarchy: The problem of Bitcoin's male domination - <AUTHOR> http://suitpossum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/crypto-patriarchy-problem-of-bitcoins.html

<comment><USER2> Not everything has to be a social network. If women want to get into cryptocurrencies, they'll do it. If men can find out about bitcoin, I do not see what is stopping women. I'm female and I had some bitcoins nearly 2 years ago, but I didn't expect it to go anywhere. I am of course a single case, the subject of my own anecdote, but all I am trying to explain that women are not blind.

It should not come as a surprise. Women typically have better things to do. Let's face it, even women that might be considered slightly "nerdy" (a word I detest) like those in UX/web design are not going to think too much about getting into bitcoin. They have cafés to attend, lunches to instagram and "meetings" to postpone.

For bitcoin, considering the prevalence of actual money and credit cards from daddy, you're looking at the small percentage of women that are like me: mathematicians, computer scientists, professional programmers, and maybe at a stretch economists, who actually have an interest in such things (not just possible salaries) and have the time to dick around with bitcoin.

Now, as soon as I specified the math/compsci/quantfin/prog interests that women would probably need to have to get into bitcoin, I eliminated a significant portion of all women. How many women of the minority left under my definition will want to get into cryptocurrencies?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe women of this generation are all programmers at heart and just need a responsive, flat-ui website or a desperately passionate white knight on a blogspot to help them realise their potential.

But I doubt it. All of these feminists/gender-rights people are nuts, trolls or both.

<comment><USER3> "lunches to instagram" "credit cards from daddy"

yea I don't think you're a woman

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> that this article is written by a male is a sad testament of the fall of Western civilization.

</comment><comment><USER5> a man writing to a bunch of men to get more women to materialise out of thin air to do something.

Good luck. If you want women involved, post this to pinterest or other points of female convergence.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Buzzword bingo!"</comment>


I get SLAs now. Duh. - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/10/11/i-get-slas-now-duh/ <comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but the Amazon SLA is nothing but a slap on the wrist if their service level drops to 'shocking' status. It might be true of a hosting only company that downtime would drive them into unprofitability with an SLA like that, but AWS is just a side business for Amazon. If that, even - if a hosting company got 90% uptime, their customers would leave in droves and not use the 25% credits anyway, which would be exactly the same result that you'd get without an SLA.

The point that Amazon made earlier - that they didn't believe a SLA was important because their internal customers are demanding and hold them to strict accountability - was, I believe, not just a cop out. That guarantees their services far more than some 25% refund for horrible services SLA would. Unless, of course, their internal customers get priority.</comment>


Show HN: GoFrienzy – Home of trusted reviews and referrals - <AUTHOR> https://www.gofrienzy.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I am Varun, founder of GoFrienzy. GoFrienzy combines social networking with review and referral sites to provide a trusted one-stop source for pre- purchase information. I founded GoFrienzy out of my own and my friends' necessity. I had my anniversary dinner ruined by fake online reviews. I was furious. However I soon realized this a common problem and it's impacts several million people every day who read reviews before making a purchase. Hence I decided to solve this problem by putting my technical skills together and creating GoFrienzy. I sincerely believe we would be able to create a network of trustworthy, honest and personal reviews and referrals. Hope you like it and please give us your valuable feedback.

Regards Varun</comment>


How fast could you travel across the U.S. in the 1800s? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-the-us-in-the-1800s <comment><USER2> A few months ago my friend saw an ad in his university newspaper for a hackathon that was scheduled to start the next day. I happened to not have anything scheduled that weekend, and he asked me if I could team up with him to participate.

The thing was, he lives in California, and I live in Washington. He found one last remaining seat on the last flight headed out that night and bought a ticket for me. By 9 PM, I was stepping off an airplane roughly 1600 miles from home. When I woke up that morning, I had no idea I'd sleep on a couch in a dorm room at SJSU.

We seriously live in the future.

<comment><USER3> I live 4 miles from work. I left my house at 8:20am and arrived in my office at 9:25am.

Try to grab a train from San Francisco to LA. That's about 400 miles. How long would you expect that to take in this future of which you speak?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps the future isn't evenly distributed.

Regarding the article, I'd like to see them plot the rate-of-change: how long it took to go from a month to a week to a day and so on, and then continue it into the present day. I think we've hit something of a cap on speed.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily. IIRC, outside of the East Coast corridor, the rails only allow the trains to go ~35mph. There are also high-speed / bullet trains as well, none of which are available in the US (for now).

<comment><USER6> The train from LA to Flagstaff hits 70+mph at times, though the average is around 50mph once you factor in stops and waiting for freight to pass.

The biggest thing slowing down US passenger trains is that the routes are leased from freight lines and the freight trains take priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The correctness of attributing of the improvement in speed of travel between 1800 and 1830 to railroads is dubious. This shows the extent of common carrier rail lines in 1835:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USRail1835.jpg>

What improved travel was the National Road, the Federal Roads, and the Military Road.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road_%28United_States%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road_%28United_States%29)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Road_%28Cherokee_lands%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Road_%28Cherokee_lands%29)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Road_%28Creek_lands%29>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson%27s_Military_Road>

<comment><USER8> <http://railroads.unl.edu/views/sources/1850%20Expansion.jpg>

[http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/19-century/railroads-187...](http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/19-century/railroads-1870.jpg)

Probably the railroads.

<comment><USER7> That's 1850. Between 1800 & 1830 much of the Southeast was still Native American nations, e.g. the portion of Alabama between Montgomery and the Georgia was the last part of the Creek Nation ceded in 1832.

The Federal and National Roads allowed stage travel, and that's what improved speed...for those who weren't walking. By 1850, other than the Seminoles, the Native American nations in the East had been conquered and rail road motive power had advanced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For another interesting look at the subject of travel times, check out Stanford's ORBIS (<http://orbis.stanford.edu/#map>), which lets you estimate travel times from one point in the Roman Empire circa 200 AD to another, based on several common modes of travel.

What's fascinating is how little transportation changed between 200 and 1800. Sixteen hundred years pass and the basic means of getting around are still the same: foot, horse, cart, boat. Then in the hundred years after that there comes an explosion of new options: bicycle, rail, automobile, airplane. Gives some perspective on how relatively new the travel technologies we take for granted today actually are.

<comment><USER10> Most of our newfound forms of travel depend on engines, which haven't been around long. That's the reason travel was fairly stagnant for so long, IMO.

Bicycles on the other hand have been around for a while. Why didn't they see more prolific use in Europe between 200 and 1800? I speculate lack of good enough roads. An oxcart road would not be the most pleasant place to ride an old-fashioned bicycle.

<comment><USER11> I suspect bicycles are one of those things that really seem obvious in retrospect but for some reason were invented well after the time when they were first feasible.

If you gave someone a bunch of gold, the ability to speak fluent Latin, and kicked them back into ancient Rome, I am sure they could commission the creation of a bicycle. It wouldn't be very good (no rubber for the wheels for starters, maybe replace that with several layers of leather? You might be able to make a leather belt-drive too.), but the general idea should have worked.

Another example is the phonograph. You can make a rudimentary phonograph with some very very basic clockwork, some wax, a needle, and a sheet of something taught and thin (I bet parchment would work fine.) The biggest issue would probably be figuring out how to present it without being burnt as a witch. But nobody did it until the late 19th century.

<comment><USER12> In what way is a bicycle an improvement over a horse as long as the infrastructure for maintaining a horse already exists? I am sure it could have been built but why bother? A phonograph provides a service that would have been unknown at the time and is a much better plan to send back with your time traveller.

<comment><USER13> Horses must be bred, raised, trained (as does the rider), fed, watered, stabled, mucked, cleaned, saddled, and shod. Streets traversed by horses must be cleaned (the first urban transport pollution crisis revolved around horse and other draft animal dung, a/k/a "soil"). They're only useful for traveling so far, so coach roads and mail services (such as the Pony Express) needed frequent changing stations where horses could be switched and rested (every 10 miles for the Pony Express). Horses were a major expense and even during times when they were principle land transport were the privilege of the rich, or farmers who relied on horses for productive capacity.

Once built, a bike requires minimal maintenance, is _vastly_ cheaper than a horse, can be ridden with minimal skill (and only the rider, not the bike, requires training), and can be stored in a house or small shed. Bicycle manufacture is highly amenable to mass production techniques (horses, not so much). Other than reinflating tyres and oiling chains, little maintenance is required. On good roads, a bike can easily be ridden 20-40 miles by even a cyclist of moderate skill, and single-day rides of 200-300 miles are attainable. Even loaded with camping gear, a bike can be ridden 60-90 miles per day, continuously, reasonably. Cargo bikes can carry substantial loads locally. Bike jitneys compete with horse-drawn vehicles for human carriage.

Horses or oxen, particularly teamed, can carry much heavier loads. In parts of the world, oxcarts, fitted with modern truck wheels and axles, still compete with automobiles for drayage.

<comment><USER14> You're right that bicycles are amenable to mass production techniques, but those weren't invented until the early 19th century at the earliest (specifically the invention of interchangeable parts and the 'American System' in the American arms industry). Realistically, these techniques weren't widespread until the last few decades of the 19th century.

This latter period is sometimes called the Second Industrial Revolution and is characterised by the invention of interchangeability, assembly lines, automated jigs for machining, and the use of electricity and non-coal petroleum fuels.

While the first industrial revolution produced coal and water powered machines, these machines were still themselves made by craftsmen. The introduction of interchangeable parts meant that it was no longer neccesary for a craftsman to hand fit the various components* together - you could make thousands of bicycle wheels and thousands of bicycles and fit them all together with almost no difficult to learn custom fitting. Automated jigs made it possible to mass produce standard sized parts.

(*) It's not even clear that the idea of a 'component' is a very useful one before interchangeable parts were invented because turning a barrel (even if it had already been bored), a stock, and various parts of the action into a rifle isn't something that a non-gunsmith can do. These were 'components' only in the sense that a felled tree is a 'component' of a timber house.

There's a video on Youtube of a gunsmith making a rifle the way it would have been made in the era of the American revolution - in the very early years of the first industrial revolution - and you can see how difficult and finicky it is.

<comment><USER13> I was answering the question of advantages of bicycles over horses, not on the feasibility of their production in ancient times.

That said, history is interesting.

Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ describes mass-production techniques, including specialization, special tools adapted to single sub-tasks, and a style of production approaching an assembly-line (work produced at stations, with the pieces moving from station to station. In 1776.

The Chinese were employing mass production techniques in the manufacture of crossbos in the Warring States period (475 BC - 201 BC): [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/aaa/2008/0000000...](http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/aaa/2008/00000005/00000002/art00003)

Modern mass production dates to 1803 and production of sailing blocks (used to raise and lower rigging on ships) in England, from which it spread to the US for clock and armaments manufacture. Eli Whitney (of cotton gin fame) attempted mass armaments production in 1798 but failed to achieve quantity output for another 8 years. Refinements in metalurgy, scientific management, steam and electric power, etc., produced further advances -- as with most developments, the seeds were planted early and incrementally developed over time.

As I note in another post, the two specific advances that really made the bicycle possible were advanced metalurgy and vulcanized pneumatic tyres. Both of these weren't particularly feasible until they actually emerged. That said, high-quality Damascus steel dates to 300 BC. The Greeks and Romans had and used coal (used in the production of both steel and synthetic rubber). Rubber was known as far back as 1600 BC, but among the Mayans in South America (it wasn't introduced to Europe until 1736): <http://www.essortment.com/history- rubber-21100.html>

But the biggest trigger for widespread bicycle adoption was probably socioeconomic, not technological. By the late 19th Century, a middle class with both discretionary income and free time had emerged. And though bikes were used for utility (commuting, errends, light transport), the real driver was recreation. The presence of intense socioeconomic stratification, slavery, feudal systems, and the like, had a serious damping effect on both creation and adoption of new technolgies and products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very interesting. But the focus on New York probably skews the analysis a lot, particularly in early years when rivers and canals would have been important routes. Notice the bend of the 1800 curves up the eastern NY border, and into southeastern Pennsylvania? I bet those reflect the use of the Hudson and Delaware rivers for travel, and possibly linkage to other rivers like the Ohio, Susquehanna and Potomac. Likewise I suspect that in 1830 Chicago was probably closer to New Orleans, on the Mississippi, than it was to New York.

Likewise the transport of goods, rather than passengers, was probably more important in forming perceptions of distance, as that's what would drive commerce and thus ongoing relationships.

Attention to goods and other point pairings probably matter a lot when you get to 1857. I expect internal communications, of goods, in the South reflected high proximity to the nearest port, and that NY was essentially on the other side of the moon. Whereas the North was probably much more homogenous in its travel times (proportionately more railroad, less river) -- but largely isolated from the South. Which would have done a lot to foster disunion among the two geographies.

That view would probably also say a lot about the border states, I bet that would show these were essentially islands unto themselves.

<comment><USER13> New York was the commercial and population center of the 13 Colonies and early US, a position it never really ceded, though New York State was surpassed in population by California and then Texas in the 1960s and 1980s. Point-to-point travel from other locations would have been largely similar to

Water travel _was_ the first "highway" system in the US, first along the seacoast, then along rivers, then along canals (notably the Erie Canal, opened in 1825). The Saint Lawrence Seaway, offering deepwater access to Chicago and northern Minnesota, and the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio river systems, offering access to roughly 1/3 of the present conterminious United States, was (and is) hugely important to commerce. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippi_watershed_map_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippi_watershed_map_1.jpg)

Rail, then highway, then air travel are faster than ships and barges, but if you want to maximize ton-miles per hour, you bulk-load or container-load a ship or barge. Coal, grain, and other bulk goods simply cannot be moved economically by other means, and issues such as the lack of water flow on the Mississippi River will have huge knock-on effects on commerce.

During the Civil War, the Union focused a great deal of effort on blockading and controlling southern ports, particularly Savannah and New Orleans, through which the bulk of Confederate exports (and revenues) flowed. Chocking off the South's access to finance had a great deal to do with eventual Union victory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've seen a couple of these kinds of visualizations over the years. I think they are really fascinating... here's one that shows how long it will take to travel to the nearest city of 50,000:

<http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/small-world>

There are definitely still some very remote places on this planet.

</comment><comment><USER17> The thing that amazes me is that the map hasn't really changed if you are going by rail. My grandma lived in Colorado Springs and my mom and I used to drive there to see her for Thanksgiving because flights were too expensive. Leaving out of Chicago, it would take about 15 to 18 hours of driving to get to Colorado Springs. We would try to make the trip all at once and as a tall teen, it would be miserable being stuck in the passenger seat of a smaller two door convertible for so long. I asked my mom why don't we take the train and her response shocked me. Not only was the train from Chicago to Colorado Springs more expensive than flying, it was a 24 hour trip as well. If you look at the map from 1930, it it shows as about 1 day from Chicago to Denver/Colorado Springs area.

<comment><USER18> By itself that isn't so surprising. After all, the trip by horse-drawn coach hasn't improved much either.

Cars are point-to-point. Berlin to Paris by train is about 12 hours. By car it's about 10, because there's no need to stop and change. While Frankfurt->Paris is 4 hours by non-stop ICE, and 5 by car.

<comment><USER19> > Berlin to Paris by train is about 12 hours. By car it's about 10, because > there's no need to stop and change.

Actually, Berlin to Paris by train is 12h if you take direct night trains. During the day, the best trips are ~8h15 with 1 train change (Paris Nord through Köln [Thalys + ICE] or Paris Est through Mannheim [TGV + ICE])

<comment><USER20> You forgot to mention that it IS possible to make a 17 minute connection time with this :). My dad and I only 3... it was amazing.

<comment><USER19> Did you reply to the wrong comment? I can't see the relation between my comment and your response.

<comment><USER20> Eh it was in response to the Paris->Berlin train and that you can make connections with TGV+DBahn versus Amtrak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it's worth it for anybody to take a long haul passenger rail trip at least once. I took one that lasted about 80 hours (about 40 each way) and it really was a struggle to keep yourself engaged the entire way.

On a side note, provisioning long haul rail in the age of steam must have been an incredible logistics exercise, on-top of that moving mail and other information around the country. Imagine not knowing that a new law was passed for 6 weeks!

<comment><USER22> I've done two 24 hour (one way) train journeys, they're fantastic. Paris to Lisbon (for honeymoon) changing trains to Iberian gauge at Irun/Hendaye. And Viedma to Bariloche with the desolation of the pampas and the stunning views as you approach the mountains. I've also done a 3 night 4 day ferry through the Chilean Fjords from Puerto Montt down to Puerto Natales (in order to go do the "W" in Torres del Paine). So much stunning scenery to look at (and a bar at night!).

Travelling in Argentina many people use coaches to go long distances between cities as air travel is so much more expensive. You can get a coach from Puerto Iguazu to Ushuaia if you've got a spare 60 odd hours. The coaches are surprisingly comfy with big reclining seats that are not far off being full beds. We mainly did 12-14h overnight trips between cities so we got some sleep and saved on a night's accommodation.

<comment><USER23> Try the Amritsar to New Dehli overnight. For the real experience, try second class, where my friend and I shared a small cubby with a family of five (all flights cancelled for weather, no first class left).

That'll make you appreciate the Shinkansen or ICE networks.

<comment><USER24> Ah yes, spent 3 days on a train in India. First night with nowhere to sleep due to double booking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The 1930s railroad map is about the same as what you'd experience doing a road or rail trip today. It's air travel that has improved since then. Concerning air travel, the situation there regarding travel time hasn't improved much in the last 40 years or so ever since commercial jet service first appeared.

Costs have of course come way down.

<comment><USER26> Note, however, that it's rail travel in North America that has been static since 1930 -- if you applied the same exercise to Western Europe you'd see dramatic improvements in surface travel times since 1960, with the spread of electrification and in-cab signaling and then the expansion of the TGV, LGV and ICE networks.

<comment><USER19> Indeed. Although there would be little point for the distance involved (compared to air travel), a cross-US high-speed rail line using the best existing technology on a non-stop trip would go through in ~15h (the Wuhan–Guangzhou line non-stop service averaged 194mph station to station, although non-stop service has ended and the best average commercial train service has gone back to the french LGV Est with 174mph)

<comment><USER27> For traveling from coast to coast there would be little point, but for shorter distances within the US high-speed rail should beat air travel.

<comment><USER6> I dunno. 15 hours in relative comfort might win sometimes over 4 hours of crampedness and annoyance.

The bigger question would be price, which I suspect would be higher than average air fares.

<comment><USER18> I've tried both, for the Sweden<->Germany route. I've usually been disappointed that the train was more expensive than a flight. The train has much fewer luggage restrictions, but lugging lots of luggage around when changing trains is also a hassle, while with flights they do that for you. With 4 hours of travel, you don't need to worry about food. With 15, you do. Though you can bring a full meal, including drinks and a knife, on the train. Plus, there's AC power for the laptop.

My break-even point is at about 6-8 hours by train, vs. a plane. That gets me to Hamburg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Original page: <http://imgur.com/Mokjd>

from "Atlas of the historical geography of the United States" (1932)

Page here: [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/abl7462.0001.001/390?view...](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/abl7462.0001.001/390?view=image)

ToC: <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/abl7462.0001.001?view=toc>

</comment><comment><USER29> "As you can see in the map above, in 1800, it took a whole day to barely get outside of the city"

Considering the traffic, not much has changed for people with four wheels.

</comment><comment><USER30> I just finished reading the book "Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869" ([http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World- Transcontinental-18...](http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World- Transcontinental-1863-1869/dp/0743203178)). It talks about the building of the transcontinental railroad. The railroad greatly changed the shape of the country due to the fact that within a span of a few years, travel times across the country dropped from months to a week.

What is particularly interesting about this was how similar the methodology that they used was to the Lean Startup methodology. With the way that the Railroad Act was structured, there was significant award for moving fast. While they were in the wilderness, it was rather difficult/expensive getting supplies. They used lower quality cottonwood ties to build out fast knowing that once the railroads were built, higher quality replacements could be brought in for far cheaper.

Anyways, I'd highly recommend this book for those of you in the startup scene.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's depressing how little travel time has changed in the past several decades. The Boeing 747 was introduced in 1970, and we're still traveling at around Mach 0.85. In the past four decades, we haven't made any significant improvements to travel time. How sad is that, when in the span of 3 decades in the 1830s, rail travel time doubled?

I think (hope) that we're on a path to change this in the near future. The main reason for our lack of advancement in travel time is the cost of gasoline. The Concorde demonstrated that supersonic transport was technically possible, but economically impossible. What will change the landscape is electric planes. This is not a fantasy - there are several companies with (somewhat) viable piston planes being engineered right now.

The first company is Beyond Aviation (www.beyond-aviation.com) which is producing an electric varient of the venerable Cessna 172 (most popular plane produced, the default trainer option for pilots). It's not a perfect plane -- only 2 people can ride in it, and it's designed for flight schools, not for cruising around, but it's a big step forward for aviation.

The second company is Pipistrel, which is developing the Panthera (<http://www.pipistrel.si/plane/panthera/technical-data>). The Panthera Electro is a huge step in the right direction. Although it only seats 2, and cruises at 118 knots, it can go for 215NM. This is just shy of NYC -> DC. Imagine if you could travel between these cities for essentially free (solar power).

On the more viable replace-business-jets route, Elon Musk has stated that he wants to build a VTVL electric jet. From what he's stated, it sounds like his main approach to overcoming the lack of energy density is flying higher. Current jets are limited to efficient operation at ~35k feet because the oxygen density any higher is too low for an ICE to operate. Current li-ion batteries, however, don't need oxygen to operate! So they can go to 50,60,70,80k feet for reduced drag and operate just as efficiently as if they were at 35k feet. Musk has stated that he thinks battery density needs to double before this jet can become a reality (and has shown that battery density doubles once every ~10 years historically).

I'm extremely optimistic about the future of aviation. As soon as we can hook up cheap (nuclear, coal, wind, solar) and efficiently generated (~2x efficiency gains at large plants) power to planes, the cost of flying will take a huge drop.

<comment><USER32> None of the electric aircraft you mention will have performance approaching that of any commercial jetliner. Not in speed, range, and definitely not on cost. It will be that way for a very long time due to the dismal energy density of batteries next to fossil fuels. You know how most powerplants generate power? Turbines, like these GE ones derived from their own jet engines: [http://www.ge- energy.com/products_and_services/services/gas_...](http://www.ge- energy.com/products_and_services/services/gas_turbines_power_generation_services/index.jsp) .

Higher altitude isn't everything for speed. You need to generate high-speed exhaust to produce thrust. A gas turbine compresses air and burns it so that explosively shoots out the back. How do you generate this electrically without combustion to raise the pressure? You can't just spin the turbine faster; the blade tips will go supersonic and efficiency will plummet, not to mention material stresses. Supersonic wind tunnels mechanically compress air into huge tanks, sometimes taking weeks to store enough pressure for minutes of runtime, but that obviously wouldn't work for aircraft.

Jets already produce power efficiently (constantly running at nearly the same RPM, never idling in traffic) so there's much less incentive to create electric aircraft. The cost of energy from an electric aircraft in $/joule could be _higher_ than that of a fueled one because you're introducing an additional energy conversion. Gas/coal -> turbine -> battery -> turbine versus gas -> turbine. You're also not getting the range benefit from burning off fuel and lightening the aircraft.

You shift argument from "aircraft are too slow" to "aircraft are too inefficient," going electric won't fix either. There are applications for electric aircraft, mainly low-speed, long-endurance aircraft that can recharge from solar power without landing, and perhaps more maintainable private aircraft. These will not be challengers to the 0.85 mach 747 though.

<comment><USER33> _A gas turbine compresses air and burns it so that explosively shoots out the back_

The high-bypass turbofans used on jet airliners produce most of their thrust by using shaft power to drive a fan that directly accelerates the air. Thrust from the engine exhaust itself contributes a smaller fraction.

With electric ducted fans, presumably you would have a higher number of smaller-diameter fans.

(That's not to say that I think that large electric passenger aircraft are going to be feasible anytime soon - I don't).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Travel infrastructure seems like a 'chicken or egg' problem. Why build a rail line to the middle of nowhere? Conversely how will towns develop if people can't reach them? Much of the development of the heartland US was bootstrapped by the transportation/rail needs between the east and west coasts.

I wonder how different the US would be today without the CA gold rush. Or if the gold rush had been somewhere closer to the eastern seaboard like the Appalachians.

</comment><comment><USER35> Improvements between 1857 and 1930 is truly impressive (6 weeks to 3 days from NY to CA). The lack of progress since then (1930 to 2013, almost the same amount of time) is stark; it still takes 3 days to get to CA from NY by train. Almost no investment in railroads since US started building highways.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wish there were a 1848 date in there -- before the gold rush. The difference in time between 1830 and 57 are dramatic, and I think most of that happened in the few years after the rush.

</comment><comment><USER37> Two Words: Donner Party

They did eventually get where they were going. So worst-case travel times have improved even more than these common-case data suggest.</comment>


Packnback: asymmetrically encrypted backups - <AUTHOR> https://packnback.github.io/ <comment><USER2> While everyone is of course free to start his/hers project there is a whole bunch of projects which basically does the same thing like: deduplication, client can append backups only, server side client backup rotation / pruning, etc.

For example restic ( [https://restic.net/](https://restic.net/) ) does everything the author describes in the ideal feature set ( [https://packnback.github.io/blog/work_begins/](https://packnback.github.io/blog/work_begins/) ) except for asymmetric encrpytion. Though there is an issue open for that and iirc they are working on it. Contributing to that project would probably be easier?

Another existing very interesting project to contribute to is rdedup ( [https://github.com/dpc/rdedup](https://github.com/dpc/rdedup) ) which is written in Rust.

There is a whole list over here of existing backup solutions: [https://github.com/restic/others](https://github.com/restic/others)

Judging from the comparisons made in the introduction blog post by the author I think he / she missed the existence of a bunch of existing solutions.

EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to the comment in which marmaduke asked "why start a new project?"

<comment><USER3> > client can append backups only

You mention Restic but I don't see how it enforces append-only security. According to its S3 documentation[1], Restic requires PutObject, DeleteObject and ListBucket permissions.

[1] [https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/080_examples.html#se...](https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/080_examples.html#setting- up-restic-with-amazon-s3)

<comment><USER4> You can also just enable versioning on the bucket which prevents PutObject from doing any permanent damage.

If restic needs DeleteObject, you can also configure IAM to not allow deleting of specific versions, which means it can only tombstone objects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Duplicity [https://www.nongnu.org/duplicity/](https://www.nongnu.org/duplicity/) also supports asymmetric encryption (and works with many protocol/file servers).

</comment><comment><USER6> Why aren't borg keys good enough? Why not just contribute that to borg?

<comment><USER7> Because the Borg code base is a hot mess while the existing crypto in Borg is pretty much the equivalent of a dumpster fire.

("The project" also has rather severe contributor and maintainer retention issues given it went through four maintainers in only two years.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > To access the source code see it on github. remember this project is just > starting, so there is not much to see yet.

In fact, there is nothing to see yet, because there isn't any code on Github.</comment>


Ask HN: Is spending on surveillance a bad economic decision? - <AUTHOR> After yet another terrorist attack the debate over the need to invest more money on surveillance has been brought up more than once.
Considering the vast amount of money spent already and the non quantifiable cost of privacy loss, wouldn't a better solution be to spend those money in education and better integration of minorities in the local communities rather than keeping tab on an ever growing number of people that may or may not be suspects?
I would not propose this as an immediate shift, but rather spread it over a decade or more, even from a cost perspective wouldn't it be more viable. <comment><USER2> I think surveillance is completely retarded. Not completely but pushing for more and more, I see people asking to give away their privacy because terrorist succeeded an operation?

All of the french terrorist (yes, they are also french, born in France and turned in France), including the ones from january, were already known from the police. We knew they traveled to Syria. Some official said back in january that they just couldn't afford to follow them 24/7, just not enough manpower.

So what more surveillance will do? We already know who they are, we can't arrest them before they do anything, and from interviews on french TV (I am french), our services already stopped a lot of them before they act already. Like earlier this august, apparently some dudes was planning on hitting a music concert, probably during one of the numerous summer festivals.

I realize that this could be an argument for more surveillance since it is working for most cases, but I still strongly believe that more surveillance means:

\- Working on consequences instead of causes (causes would be french people getting radicalised)

\- Completely prepare the field for abuse if futures gouvernements feel like it, which I believe they will (they already do basically, to some extent). Let's remind everyone Hitler was elected, majority of people voted for him. I'm not saying I'm scared that a new devil will rise in France, or even western countries, but none of our liberties and rights are secured by any means.

</comment><comment><USER3> I bet there's a world wide natural experiment going on right now (since the late 90's) on that very subject. I also bet that there's several very smart people working on that very question.

The real questions are who are these people, what is their data, and what can they conclude? Maybe the fine folks over at Freakonomics might have a hint.

In the end, I believe we should believe what the academic Economists have to say about it.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much money are we talking about? Which country?

Just because you can't quantify the cost of privacy loss doesn't mean we shouldn't spend money on surveillance.

<comment><USER5> Well, we know from the Snowden disclosures that the NSA gets about $50 BILLION a year ([https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/black...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/black-budget-leaked-by-edward-snowden-describes-nsa-team-that-hacks- foreign-targets/2013/08/30/8b7e684c-119b-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html)). Neither CIA/NRO nor FBI are included in that, I think, and we know that both run extensive/expensive surveillance.

So, the USA may spend around $100 BILLION a year on various surveillance activities. Spy satellites are pretty expensive to develop, launch and operate.

It's also pretty clear that some of the surveillance is turned inward, against US citizens inside the USA's boundaries. That would be the FBI part of the surveillance picture.

Given that US citizens are supposed to be presumed innocent, and protected from unreasonable search and seizure, we have a binary decision to make, and I don't see how anyone can say that dragnet surveillance of all/nearly all US citizens lies within Constitutional limits. At the very least, we should change the rules, and make performances of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" some kind of mild federal crime. You know, just to be honest and consistent.

On a sociological level, we know that being under surveillance all the time causes some psychological effects ([https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564), but it's easy to find lots of serious stuff about those effects). Do we, the citizens of the USA, want those effects? If we all go about censoring ourselves, how does that affect the technological and social innovation that we depend on to keep our civilization running? Keep in mind the fate of the Spanish Empire after the Inquisition, and China's "one eye open, one eye shut" enforcement.

Let's also keep in mind that surveillance will be used against politicians and potential politicians, and leaders at all scales. Do the citizens of the USA want that?

Do we want the market distortions that secret knowledge gives some people ([http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html))?

We haven't discussed _any_ of this openly. Hardly any of it has an easy cost to calculate, but it's probably not worth $100 BILLION a year.</comment></comment>


Dremel – Google's tool for analyzing trillion-row tables in seconds [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://sergey.melnix.com/pub/melnik_VLDB10.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Quick view: [http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsergey.melnix...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsergey.melnix.com%2Fpub%2Fmelnik_VLDB10.pdf)

Abstract:

Dremel is a scalable, interactive ad-hoc query system for analysis of read- only nested data. By combining multi-level execution trees and columnar data layout, it is capable of running aggregation queries over trillion-row tables in seconds. The system scales to thousands of CPUs and petabytes of data, and has thousands of users at Google. In this paper, we describe the architecture and implementation of Dremel, and explain how it complements MapReduce-based computing. We present a novel columnar storage representation for nested records and discuss experiments on few-thousand node instances of the system.

Overview by Greg Linden: [http://glinden.blogspot.com/2010/12/papers-on- specialized-da...](http://glinden.blogspot.com/2010/12/papers-on-specialized- databases-at.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Yahoo also had a tool for interactively querying night datasets. Dremel was way faster... many orders of magnitude.

The ability to query and re-query and refine in real-time lets you learn so much more about your data - the leverage is simply unreal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dremel is the technology behind BigQuery. The talk from Google IO is informative.

<http://code.google.com/apis/bigquery/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Having fast turn around on data of this size is immeasurably important and a significant competitive advantage. I have worked on large search-engine systems up until very recently and I can say without a doubt that turnaround time is more important than overall dataset size.

Our not-so-awesome mitigations were to have strictly defined preprocessed pipes to plug into. This meant having to either rigidly define queries or suck it up and wait hours, if not days for results.

</comment><comment><USER5> Dremel, Sawzall, what's next?

<comment><USER6> I don't know, but I wonder if this may get them in a little hot water. Both Dremel and Sawzall are trademarked.

I also don't particularly like the use of the words, I am very attached to my Dremel and I don't see how it applies to processing a database :)

<comment><USER7> Trademark restrictions are tied to the field of use.

If Google was releasing power tools and calling them Dremel, they would have a problem. But they can release a programming language called Dremel and are likely to be legally in the clear.

(Or such is my non-lawyerly understanding. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

((The reason people say that about not legal advice is that if you give legal advice and someone gets in trouble because of it - even if the advice was correct and the person misunderstood - you are liable for the consequences of that advice.))

<comment><USER8> But these are not products. They're internal code names and there's no chance that Google will ever be releasing these pieces of software to the public. Thus no possible trademark issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, but not very useful w/out code =)

<comment><USER10> The paper describes the algorithms, implementation and operation in several real-world scenarios. The essential routines are described using pseudo code in the appendix.

Not really seeing the problem here. This is actually more useful than a dump of some source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Its certainly tough to come up with project names that are unique these days, but Dremel? Its a well-known consumer brand of tools in the US. Did Google's Dremel name derive from something other than the tool brand?

Google's project is certainly not in the same market that the Dremel tools brand, but is it ok for a company like Google to borrow from a brand name in a different market?

<comment><USER12> Footnote on the first page:

       Dremel is a brand of power tools that primarily rely
       on their speed as opposed to torque. We use this
       name for an internal project only.</comment></comment>