India bans PUBG, Baidu and more than 100 apps linked to China - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53998205 <comment><USER2> What I wish India would do is this: force Chinese phone companies to ship stock Android and full source code. They sell hundreds of millions of phones in India and will have to find middle ground, and the outcome will be good for everyone.

<comment><USER3> Okay, source code, then what about chip schematics and everything on the hardware layer you can't audit for?

<comment><USER4> How do you verify the chip on a schematic is the chip on the device you purchase?

<comment><USER5> X-ray it.

<comment><USER6> From my very basic understanding X-ray doesn't reveal silicon doping layers

<comment><USER7> Put it under an electron microscope then. That combined with carefully removing metal layer by layer should do the trick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this might be related to the Tibetan origin special forces soldier of Indian Army being killed in some recent altercation with PRC on their northern border.[1]

I do think India is going on a slippery slope now. With Tiktok, one can even make a case of it being used to manipulate sentiments and being used for propoganda, but that argument can hardly be made for a game like PubG. It also brings into question whether the ruling government can disrupt a business on its whim of the day.

Also, as far as I understand India is far more dependent economically on trade with China then China is on India. Do they really want to start a trade war with China?

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/indian- special...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/indian-special- forces-soldier-killed-in-skirmish-with-chinese-troops)

<comment><USER9> The ruling government has destroyed the Indian economy with its arbitrary decisions. And sometimes the get the judiciary to chip in as well.

The first real disaster to the Indian economy was the billions in retroactive taxes that were applied to telecoms. And then the attempt made by the government to break through the corporate firewalls and extract that money from foreign parents. That hit FDI immediately.

That was followed by demonetization, extremely poor rollout of GST, a terribly executed lockdown and subsequent reopening, and now the arbitrary control over Chinese companies when China is probably the largest private investor in India right now. All these things are hurting India with little benefit to show for, other than jingoistic support for the ruling party.

India is yet another example of "<Country> First" parties coming in and taking actions which undermine the absolute fundamentals of what the country is and damaging it and its citizens in so many ways.

Make life terrible for your citizens and blame China while looting your citizens left right and center is apparently a winning strategy in multiple countries.

<comment><USER10> Please cite your sources, exactly and to the point. Lockdown if executed in any way would have been abused by the people.

People went on a rampage in *religious ( Taliban linked)" gatherings, India didn't had much cases but these bunch of people made sure the cases spread.

It's the people to he blamed for the lockdown spread

<comment><USER11> Dont know why this is being downvoted. Sounds like a reasonable argument

<comment><USER12> Asking people to cite their sources without presuming good faith is not very welcome here.

<comment><USER13> No, it's totally welcome AFAIK.

But the comment made an inaccurate claim regarding the Taliban (which is not relevant in any way related to Covid infections in India) and neglected to provide any sources for their own claim while demanding sources from their parent.

<comment><USER12> Asking people to cite their sources in good faith is very welcome. Asking people to cite their sources _in bad faith_ is not welcome because commenting in bad faith is not welcome. It says so in the guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER13> My comment was about asking for sources, which is not mentioned in the guidelines specifically. "Assume good faith" is about how comments are to be interpreted, presumably when there is ambiguity. I don't see that it applies in this case.

<comment><USER12> > Please cite your sources, exactly and to the point.

This isn't a polite way to ask someone to provide evidence for their claim, it's a demand dressed up as a courteous request with the implication that the comment it was replying to was not "exactly and to the point" and that the author has some sort of onus to improve the quality of their conversation. But in fact it's really just a lazy comment because it costs almost nothing to post and yet puts significantly higher burden on the other side, especially because it is picky. Doing this is a classic example of engaging in bad faith.

(Good ways of asking for a citation might include "I don't agree with that, in fact I don't really think that I can find any examples of this occurring the way you have laid out. Would you mind giving some examples to show this actually happening?" This allows the author to provide sources without being left open to an immediate response that those sources are not "exactly and to the point" and is actually a deferential want rather than an imposition.)

<comment><USER13> Fair enough, thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > India's IT Ministry said it had "credible information" the latest batch were > acting against India's interests.

I'd venture to say many apps are against _everyone's_ interest due to the caustic effects on society they have.

<comment><USER15> Sort of calls into question the quality of the citizen in a modern democracy if they are asked to make judgments on war and industry and yet they cannot be trusted with online video games.

<comment><USER16> The founders of modern democracy already questioned the quality of the average citizen and whether they could be trusted with policy making. Hence the US was founded as a representative democracy. Citizens didn't make judgements on war and industry, they made judgements on politicians that would do so on their behalf.

<comment><USER17> The founding fathers were so concerned about this, that the US was also founded as a representative democracy, where the only people whose opinions counted were wealthy white landowning men.

Let's not look at a model where less than 2% of the population could vote as some brilliant stroke of foresight. It was created by aristocrats for aristocrats.

Mind you, this post does not advocate for direct democracy, but the origin myth of the founding fathers always needs to be looked at with a bit more context then it is usually afforded.

<comment><USER18> It's still true that only about 2% of people can vote in America today. That's because it's a right restricted to members of the privileged citizen class. You might say that foreigners shouldn't vote because it doesn't affect them, but it does. America has a lot of influence over other countries whose citizens are as helpless as blacks and women back then.

<comment><USER19> I think your math is a bit off. More than 2 percent of the US population voted in the previous election. Unless you are claiming that 330 million over the entire world population is 2 percent and thus only the people located in America (or citizens overseas) can vote which is and should be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I appreciate the sentiment of having more domestic alternatives and competition but there's an insignificant amount of work here. Indie developers and studios won't start making apps and games for India unless they can sustain themselves. That is hard. I expect bigger companies such as jio to take lion's share and have a default monopoly at this point.

> India has emerged as the fastest growing app market in the world with 19 > billion apps downloaded in 2019, up from 6.55 billion in 2016, according to > data from analytics and market intelligence firm App Annie's State of Mobile > 2020 report published last week.

> Indians have spent only $120 million on mobile apps whereas China dominates > mobile spending with $48 billion, which is 40% of total revenue generated > through mobile apps.

> In-app subscriptions contributed to 96% of spend in top non-gaming apps.

[https://entrackr.com/2020/01/india-is-fastest-growing- market...](https://entrackr.com/2020/01/india-is-fastest-growing-market-for- app-downloads-in-world/)

Some background:

> PM Narendra Modi on Sunday urged startups and entrepreneurs to develop > innovative "toys and games, for India and of India" to meet domestic demand > and increase its share in the global toy business, estimated at Rs 7 lakh > crore. He also called upon people to support indigenously developed apps > which could replace the ones currently in vogue and are controlled by > foreign companies.

[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india- business/...](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/pm- modi-bats-for-local-toy-industry-urges-people-to-support-desi- apps/articleshow/77841819.cms)

<comment><USER21> Jio unfortunately blatantly copies western apps and adds a 'Made in India' tag. Therefore people think it is patriotic to use it.

They copied Whatsapp but removed the end to end encryption. They copied Zoom and removed the decent security. They copied amazon and started JioMart, whose apps look exactly the same.

Am waiting for them to start Jioogle, as an alternative search engine.

<comment><USER22> The things is, that's kind of how it starts.

First you copy badly, then you copy well, then you improve.

Baby steps.

<comment><USER23> A monopoly doesn't have much incentive to improve, especially not one that the state is effectively enforcing.

<comment><USER22> India is a huge market. Wouldn't other local companies in other domains see how much money Jio is making and try to compete with them? Tata, etc.?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> green-bottle Like all other internet bans in India I doubt this one will have any teeth. Everyone has a "Free" VPN app that they use to bypass these restrictions.

Most people own Android phones where they can sideload apps downloaded from some third party APK website (of questionable trustworthiness)

iPhones have negligible penetration in India so are not even a part of the equation.

<comment><USER24> This is typical HN mentality to assume that other people are comparatively well versed in technical aspects. 99% indians (may be a little exaggerated figure) don't have any clue about VPN. Most don't even know how to side- install any app. So government actions do have some significance.

<comment><USER25> I don't think so.

I knew an Iranian women who told me in Iran everyone knew how to setup and configure a VPN due to the restrictions they have in place.

It's that way western countries because we don't have such restrictions.

<comment><USER26> I wonder how much of that is a networking effect. If you met an Iranian woman outside of Iran, the chances they had the money to travel or have a connected family is higher.

I think the government nets capture lots of people. Anyone who is trying to avoid it can but those groups tend to be middle class or higher. So maybe instead of 99% it's like 51%?

<comment><USER25> She was probably one of the most driven women I've ever seen. I had immense respect for her.

She hadn't been back to see her family for 10 years for fear of not being able to come back due to not having her green card yet. She finally got it and we were all super happy for her.

What you're saying might be true, I never got a good sense of how rich or poor her family was, but she was always studying, always trying to be better. It was a very sharp contrast to most/all Americans I know.

She came to this country through drive rather than money, of that I have no doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> China bans stuff from all over the world, they are just starting to get taste of their own game. ;)

</comment><comment><USER10> The Chinese government mandates that every app written in China must track and trace it's users. This applies to apps running outside China but owned by Chinese companies.

1+ or Xiaomi or Huawei, they can't really do anything about it.

They have to track users to be not banned.

<comment><USER28> Do you have a reference for this? Would love to see how this is written down and enforced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm hearing that China might impose secondary sanctions on Reliance Jio in retaliation - no Chinese manufacturer can sell them phones or help buildout/maintain their NW infrastructure; tech companies that operate in China would have to divest out of China entirely to do business with Jio, etc.

<comment><USER27> I as an Indian whole heartedly would welcome such moves by China. Even more opportunity for domestic manufacturers to UP the game.

Jio already proudly claims, No Chinese Equipment on their network.

<comment><USER30> As a guy who works in B2B supply business.

80% tool and machinery market is owned by China.

We simply can't afford German, US or Taiwan tools/machineries.

And if it's gone, big players will not affected by small players will have major problem. Getting manufacturing permission in India is not easy and very resource intensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can anyone tell me how a country is able to block these apps and sites? What is the hardware required? What's the process to do so. Any reference to existing articles would be amazing.

<comment><USER32> I believe most of this stuff is asking Google and Apple to remove the apps in questions from their Indian app stores.

<comment><USER31> So its just about the Indian Gov sending an email to Google and Apple. Didn't know its was this super easy once the country decides regardless of any knowledge about how this is actually done.

<comment><USER32> One of the many advantages of a centralised app store is just how easy you can support dictatorships and populist politicians ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So far in the news (that I consume) I only see countries being agressive towards Chinese software companies.

I can't imagine this goes on and continues escalating long before China reacts strongly.

What is China's response going to look like? I feel uneasy that their response is going to light the fire even more.

<comment><USER34> This is in response to Chinese incursion into disputed territory that has left soldiers on both sides dead.

Talking heads in India say these measures are Sun-Tsu like and mesmerized the enemy —Obviously the talking heads are propagandists, but on the other hand this is about the skirmishes on the Himalayas.

<comment><USER35> I'm glad that I've stopped watching TV news.

<comment><USER36> Me too, doomscrolling is such a waste of time. Any news I do follow is more local, constructive, positive. Lot less propaganda that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://internetfreedom.in](https://internetfreedom.in) is doing important work in challenging the Indian government's surveillance and censorship apparatus. If you're passionate about this, consider donating to them and/or participating in the conversation. They're active, from time to time, on r/India as well.

(not affiliated with them in anyway or form, but I do work on anti-censorship tech).

<comment><USER38> If you visit r/india do visit r/indiadiscussion as well to see how r/india bans anyone that does not go against their views. It is the most censored subreddit i have ever seen and likely a battleground of information warfare.

I would just suggest third party persons reading both this and above post to visit and analyze it for themselves.

<comment><USER21> r/Chodi wala ho kya?

I've always heard they ban people. Never seen any proof.

They ban people that abuse directly at a user I think. Or do personal promotion/spam.

<comment><USER38> Which is why i linked to r/indiadiscussion so that you can get proof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's not exactly clear if the Indian Government has authority enough to do this ban, without presenting concrete evidence, under existing laws. There seems to be no semblance of a due process. As a democratic country India seems to trust its own citizens very less.

Banning or not sufficient case has not been made in the public, only a cryptic communique from the Govt is all.

What exactly was the threat from PUBG, which is not there in other games?

<comment><USER23> PUBG was raking in the cash in India. I know quite a few people who snuck in games in breaks, and nearly every delivery guy I saw waiting around restaurants and stores was playing PUBG. PUBG mobile streams on YouTube were massive. IMO this is probably more about the economics, given we have no way of verifying whether or not PUBG was actually stealing any data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> per [https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/features/pubg-mobile-india- se...](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/features/pubg-mobile-india-series-csgo- dota-2-cobx-master-2019-rajdip-gupta-2019622)

PUBG has an installed base of 50 million in india (atleast), would love to see which other alternatives they jump to .. COD or free fire

VPN for a game is intolerable in my experience..

<comment><USER41> Tencent has a stake in Activision-blizzard so they may ban CoD later

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> One thing I find amusing in this saga that's been playing out since the last few months is TikTok's reaction to being banned. When it was banned in India a couple of months ago, it didn't file any lawsuits claiming that it's not a threat to national security (though it has rejected such claims in the past). But when the U.S. announced a ban last month, TikTok sued the U.S. government "on the grounds that it was enacted without evidence and without any due process." [1]

I wonder what action these companies will take with this ban or what leverage China may try to use to de-escalate the situation.

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-sues-the-u-s- govern...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-sues-the-u-s-government- over-its-forthcoming-ban/)

<comment><USER43> Are there any laws in India that would allow a banned company to sue the government?

<comment><USER35> There are. Tiktok was banned in India on an earlier occasion because some women's groups, or a ruling party politician, I fail to remember which, had claimed the app was morally corrupting the youth or some such thing. This ban was overturned once the company filed a case in the courts. IIRC, one of the arguments the defence successfully used was the ban would result in large job losses within the company. We are obviously way past any such argument now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This Chinese/India Cold War has been interesting to follow

</comment><comment><USER45> What if they ban like xiaomi or one plus. Those are like the most popular phones in India.

<comment><USER46> I mean, I guess that would be a great benefit to the non-Chinese competitors then, Samsung, Google, Apple, etc. I don't see that this would be hugely disruptive to the country.

Is there some reason you think it would be?

<comment><USER29> Xiaomi / Oneplus are ~50% of the cost of Samsung/Google/Apple phones

<comment><USER46> Are they? That hasn't been my experience in Canada but maybe pricing is different in India?

Could you point to some specific cheap phones by those companies so I could see if I can find comparable phones by non-Chinese companies?

<comment><USER47> extra tariffs on iPhones. Look here: [https://www.mi.com/in/](https://www.mi.com/in/)

<comment><USER46> At the top of that page is the Redmi 9a for 6,799. Here is a similar phone from samsung for Rs. 6,499.

[https://www.91mobiles.com/samsung-galaxy-m01-core-32gb- price...](https://www.91mobiles.com/samsung-galaxy-m01-core-32gb-price-in- india)

<comment><USER48> That Redmi has 8 cores (cpu released in 2020) compared to the Samsung with 4 cores (released in 2017).

On Antutu benchmark, the Redmi is almost 5x higher [0]. So I don't think they can be considered "similar".

[0]: [https://gadgetversus.com/processor/mediatek-mt6739-vs- mediat...](https://gadgetversus.com/processor/mediatek-mt6739-vs-mediatek- helio-g85/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Where is the Indian opposition on this? Are they fully behind Modi's nationalism?

There is a raging pandemic. Massive recession. Potential war with China. Internet bans. Crackdown in Kashmir.

There has to be some questions?

<comment><USER49> This is not related to any nationalism. Its the response of a sovereign nation in order to secure the data of its citizens which might face 'potential war with China'.

Its logical. If you apply logic.

<comment><USER23> > This is not related to any nationalism.

> Its the response of a sovereign nation in order to secure the data of its > citizens which.

That's... contradictory?

<comment><USER49> If a nation A attacks B, and nation B fights back for its cause, would would call the response of B to be 'nationalism'? Or just protecting sovereignty?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> 15days

</comment><comment><USER51> Why does this feel like a movie where there's a possibility of a digital cold war?

</comment><comment><USER52> Xi Jinping must laughing be at this response from Modi regime in India;

</comment><comment><USER53> Pure fearmongering to carry favor with polarized followers of the party, not unlike what Trump does.

</comment><comment><USER54> _sigh_. Instead of this immense opportunity to see the rise of open source community where EVERYONE is welcome to contribute and make better software, the government is somehow pushing towards making homegrown ad ridden closed source clones of popular ad ridden closed source Chinese apps. Yucks</comment>


A Provably Secure Proof-Of-Stake Blockchain Protocol - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/input-output-hk/pos-haskell-prototype <comment><USER2> I don't know why this paper needs to introduce so much already common terminology.

"Corrupt" is a re-org "stable transactions" are confirmed transactions

"Function maxvalid(C, C). Returns the longest chain from C ∪ {C} that does not fork from C more than k blocks."

This is the recipe for partitioning consensus. All you need to do is broadcast to anyone a lower-work chain and they will be on their own fork.

This is easy to do during a new sync in which the node has been offline for more than k blocks, or with a little more work you could stake grind and partition the network at the tip.

The former problem is covered in section 3.2.

Generally the nothing at stake problem will result in the problem of requiring some trusted source to not lie, regardless of the implementation, see [https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos/](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos/)

<comment><USER3> > has been offline for more than k blocks

These systems require you to be online at regular intervals for proper security guarantees.

<comment><USER4> So new users don't have proper security guarantees? That seems like a somewhat serious flaw.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is the weakness of POS systems. Of course, with a POW system new users still need to get a trusted copy of the genesis block.

<comment><USER2> They don't, however, need trust to determine which chain has had the most work done on it. An alternative genesis with much less work done on it is suspect immediately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some earlier discussion of the protocol itself: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/52qfwl/provably_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/52qfwl/provably_secure_proof_of_stake_algorithm/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting! Great to see people working on a more environmentally friendly blockchain.

What are the weak points of this cryptocurrency compared to Bitcoin? The white paper is very technical. Is it required that majority of stakeholders stay online and constantly take part in the network for it to function correctly?

<comment><USER3> Usually the main weakness of "Proof of Stake" protocols is something called "weak subjectivity" which means that nodes that connect to the internet at a regular basis (i.e. once per month or something) have strong correctness guarantees, but nodes that go offline for long periods of time reach a situation where they can no longer distinguish the "real" from a fraudulent blockchain. Nodes that reach this state need to be manually reconnected to the correct chain.

I think this is arguably an acceptable tradeoff, given the other advantages of POS.

<comment><USER7> ...and what _is_ the "correct" chain may be a highly contentious subject. For instance, this is likely to be contentious if a big theft happens, yet the same theft also makes it possible for the thieves to not only control the chain going forward, but also rewrite existing history as a theft can give control of private keys relevant in the past.

<comment><USER8> > what is the "correct" chain may be a highly contentious subject

But this can be true in POW blockchains as well. If the user disconnects his node for some arbitrarily long period of time during which there are durable forks created, said user also has to "reconnect manually to the correct chain" and the user may have to decide for him/herself what constitutes a valid chain under contentious circumstances. The user's preferred chain may have become a minority fork, for example.

<comment><USER9> In the case of the bitcoin blockchain, I think there is an extremely simple protocol: just use the longest (most work) chain among the various contenders for "correct".

<comment><USER3> Only if you have trusted the right person to give you the correct genesis block.

<comment><USER9> In the case of bitcoin, I don't believe anyone could mine their own genesis block and build a chain even remotely approaching the length of the "standard" bitcoin chain. In fact, this applies more generally: after a blockchain has been in existence even a short time, it becomes infeasible for anyone to replace it entirely; at best they can hope to produce a fork from a fairly recent point as anything else would be a DRASTICALLY shorter chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone actually mining this cryptocurrency? It seems a bit odd to say this is a proof of concept, without proving the concept by actually running the code. It might be happening somewhere, the topic just seemed avoided by the README.

<comment><USER11> Did you mistake Proof-of-Stake for Proof-of-Concept?

The Satoshi whitepaper that introduced Bitcoin was released before any running code and the code was in development for a while before the currency launched.

At this point in the development of cryptocurrencies there is room for experimental cryptocurrencies that aren't immediate attempts to get a production system running but provide research which currently adopted cryptocurrencies can draw from. Inventing a better jet engine should not require starting an aerospace company that builds and sells complete airplanes.</comment></comment>


With $30b in wealth, why is the Catholic Church struggling to pay for justice? - <AUTHOR> https://www.smh.com.au/national/with-30b-in-wealth-why-is-the-catholic-church-struggling-to-pay-for-justice-20180208-p4yzra.html <comment><USER2> They are using all legal avenues and loopholes as any rational actor would. Whether that is right or wrong is another matter. They are also aware of moral hazard and thus averse to settling and opening the floodgates of more lawsuits, which depending on future cases could severely impact the Catholic Church in Australia and even bankrupt it.

The other issue the Catholic Church has to battle is adverse selection of priests, who can have access to a captive audience of young choirboys. It seems that prefer to kick the can down the road on that front and opt for vigorous legal defenses of lawsuits from sexually assaulted parties.

This is not particular to the Catholic Church in Australia and seems to be pervasive everywhere.

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

Here is the South Park take on sexual molestations in the Catholic Church:

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

</comment><comment><USER3> That $30b is just their guestimated properties within Australia, but they have been landowners within most major cities of most western countries since centuries before Australia was even established. Wikipedia suggests the Catholic Church within Germany rivals the net worth of their Australian entity. They must be worth $100s of billions globally. [1]

Dishonesty and the scale of their crimes are the only reasons they are struggling to pay for justice. The world's rapiest, most corrupt organization simply cannot afford to be held accountable for the 10,000s or more times they raped women and children, buried the evidence and relocated the criminals as even $1m each to their victims would require selling one or two major properties.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizations)</comment>


Busted Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/gps-tracker-times-two/ <comment><USER2> I can understand that Greg doesn't want to be identified, but I would love to know a little more about him and what he does to make a little more sense of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> So what is the best tactic after finding one? Driving in an underground parking lot and sticking it on another car?

<comment><USER4> Put it in a plastic bottle and release it with the tide? :-)</comment></comment>


Hasselblad Ships 200 Megapixel Camera - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceivablytech.com/7678/products/hasselblad-ships-200-megapixel-camera

<comment><USER2> Not exactly for a photo that has any motion... it combines 6 50 megapixel shots into a single image by moving the sensor slightly for each shot.

</comment><comment><USER3> 32,000 Euros! And finally getting close to actual film resolution that is available for less than 1000$ <http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm>

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure why this is being downvoted given that it's essentially true (link to the widely disliked Ken Rockwell notwithstanding.)

The reason digital has eclipsed film is a combination of rapid results, ease of use, portability, and cost. This camera only hits 1 out of 4, with the added restriction of requiring multiple exposures per image.

For the kind of mega-high-res "slow" photography its marketed for, it's not really clear to me why you'd use this over medium/large format E6 film unless you had unlimited money, or needed absolute speed in delivering results.

Of course, OTOH, for 35mm/medium-format equivalent stuff it's fairly clear that digital (35mm or digital MF backs) has now been adopted pretty much entirely, at least for commercial & professional photography.

<comment><USER3> Why is Ken Rockwell disliked? (Curious, I like his site.)

<comment><USER4> I don't personally mind him either, I think he has written some useful things for the photographer world (and I also like film photography as a hobby, so confirmation bias helps there!)

I've seen him disliked on two fronts. I have some photographer friends who just think he's outspoken & over-opinionated for who he actually is (this is what jars me a bit about his site as well.)

I know he also gets flak from photography forum types as a gadget shill or for being allegedly clueless because they disagree with his opinion on some particular thing. Although I think that's mostly coming from armchair internet photographers who sit at home and stroke their L-series lenses but never take any actual photographs. ;)

<comment><USER3> "stroke their L-series lenses" priceless!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chirp: Limited Supply Twitter on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://chirpchain.com <comment><USER2> Great use case built on the Ethereum blockchain. People said a 'blockchain twitter' could not exist - yet here it is!</comment>


Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part II: Big Farms - <AUTHOR> https://acoup.blog/2020/07/31/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-ii-big-farms/ <comment><USER2> I kept thinking about Google and its farm of compute, or Youtube and its farm of content. There are so many analogies to make.</comment>


Ask HN: Do registrars sell searches? - <AUTHOR> I've been searching for a particular address frequently over the past couple of weeks on what I consider to be a reputable registrar and to my surprise the primary domain I've been considering was snapped up 3 days ago by a squatter.<p>Does anyone have any insight into this, ways to avoid it? If it wasn't my registar who looked at my search and sold it, who could it have been? It seems too much of a coincidence. <comment><USER2> I wouldn't be surprised. If I were to do it, I would set up a false "domain registar" page and log all searches and review them and register the domains of unique domains in order to block the original searcher in order to sell them it. It's kind of a grimy thing to do.</comment>


Bridge Stupidity in Copenhagen - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/McvZ68qlho4 <comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this video because of the interesting software parallels we can take away from it, in a city known for very good infrastructure.</comment>


#MeToo in the Monastery: Chinese Abbot's Fall Stirs Questions on Buddhism's Path - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/15/world/asia/metoo-china-monastery.html <comment><AUTHOR> "Many worry that Xuecheng's model of a supercharged Buddhism that embraces social trends lacks the very spirituality that drew people to the faith in the first place. His downfall also presents a potential setback in the Chinese government's efforts to push Buddhism as a kind of national religion that can win friends abroad and offer moral values at home."</comment>


Ask HN: Are you going to stay away from Parse after the Facebook acquisition? - <AUTHOR>

Why or why not? <comment><USER2> Yes.

According to them, they agreed to be acquired to gain resources from Facebook. This reminds me of what Youtube did with Google, and many other acquires. I expect Parse to become better and better.</comment>


HD video demonstrated streaming over a light bulb - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/hd-video-demonstrated-streaming-over-a-light-bulb-2011085/

<comment><USER2> This demo looks at a first glance convincing, but it is a one way data stream. The point of using existing infrastructure to fill the room with high speed data reminds me of all the R&D and attempts made by infrared LEDs. The line of sight (LoS) problem and interference by sunlight turned even simple applications like wireless speaker systems to complicated technologies. The supposedly simple ICs with an AGC (auto-gain-control) turned to complicated over 110dB solutions with all kind of stability problems. Extracting the datastream from multipoint sources without data corruption, the increased power demand for longer distance communication out of mobile devices were all application problems, which did not allow to get that solution of the ground. Dr. Haas lab solution looks great, but for me considering the idea form a practical implementation point of view using visible light via LEDs is a far distance.

<comment><USER3> One of the (many) issues with IrDa is that there are severe restrictions on the power output, since the radiation is invisible. Using visible light, especially in the context of general purpose lighting, allows you to achieve much higher SNR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suppose at night someone could pick this up if there is a window in the room being used, but this is no different than normal wifi which can be picked up outside the house.

More of the problem is that it doesn't work room to room, only line of sight like with a remote control. Could be useful sending to wireless speakers from the media player, if the player is in a different location than the TV for some reason, but in the same room. I suppose it breaks down if you add a second device unless each one grabs its own specific light frequency and you have narrow optical filters able to distinguish between them.

<comment><USER5> >More of the problem is that it doesn't work room to room, only line of sight like with a remote control.

If you could cheaply make the lights transmit _and_ receive, and if the data were recoverable at very low illumination, you could employ mesh routing -- there's often quite a bit of overlap from lightbulb to lightbulb.

But you're correct -- answering the LoS problem is significant. This could be very useful in many applications, but it's no silver bullet.

<comment><USER6> While the LoS aspect is potentially desirable in specific applications, I agree that initially it can be perceived as a limiting factor. Researchers at Boston University,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Nakagawa Lab in Japan are working with software tools to characterize non LoS applications using reflective and refractive surfaces found indoors. A powerful system can be envisioned if someone managed to utilize these principles with a device that contains a receiver with a wide view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g This is not a new idea. Saw a functional demo more than eight years back. Checkout: <http://www.talking-lights.com/>

<comment><USER7> This seems to be different. In your link posted, the lights serve as simple positioning beacons. It seems analogous to the bandwidth we've come to expect from things like infrared remote controls.

In this case, and indeed the whole point of the talk, is they're transmitting HD video.

<comment><USER8> The concept of transmitting data through light has been around forever. For my undergrad physics lab class in college, my team used a laser to transmit audio. Another team did a similar thing except they hooked it up to computers and sent jpeg's. This was probably seven years ago, and this wasn't the first time that projects like this had been done for this class.

<comment><USER9> Edison only had you beat by 100 years

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Photophone>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This could also be useful for people who fear electro-smog.

<comment><USER11> Doubtable. Those people are not rational, they'll find a reason to not like it.

<comment><USER9> A high-speed pulsing current running nearby.... Should throw off radio and/or magnetic waves along with the light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Prof. Haas talked about using this technology in smartphones, but he didn't explain what would happen when my phone is in my (dark) pocket.

</comment><comment><USER13> This would be useful for some ad-hoc broadcasts (whatever that would be), not sure about any other use.</comment>


What I learned from Stack Overflow's massive survey of 64,000 developers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/73-of-programmers-are-web-developers-and-other-insights-from-stack-overflows-massive-2017-survey-89a13b11e370 <comment><USER2> > Most developers went to college, but nearly a quarter of working developers > never finished a 4-year degree.

Should limit this to USA.

Most of the world doesn't have the same curriculum as the USA. Please don't attempt to make worldwide statistics on degrees that don't exist.</comment>


Six Degrees of Swine Flu - <AUTHOR> http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/six-degrees-of-swine-flu.html <comment><USER2> Sunday, the swine flu story breaks. On the radio the next morning, it's even bigger. I go in to work, and one person is home sick for the day -- someone I've never known to take a sick day. The next morning he still sounds awful over the intercom, and goes home sick again later in the day.

True story ends. Now the hypothetical:

Tuesday evening, I get a robo-call asking me to press 1 if I know someone with swine flu, and 2 if I don't. I pause for a minute; do I? I didn't ask him directly, though I joked about it in the usual detached office banter way, and I wouldn't expect he'd have got it diagnosed anyway. It probably wasn't serious enough to go to a hospital. But surely it _had_ to be swine flu, right? So I press 1.

I wouldn't do that, but I'm sure many people would.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see that this study or analysis takes into account that a person with the swine flu _also_ knows 290 people. So all 290 of them would answer yes.

Multiplying out 290 x the 290 people those people know to give some impressive number ignores the possibility you might actually need to be dividing.

My math and probability analysis may be dodgy, but I hope my point is made: simply knowing how many people know someone in a category doesn't give any meaningful data about how many people are in the category.</comment>


What a PhD Really Means in the US National Security Community - <AUTHOR> https://news.vice.com/article/doctors-of-doom-what-a-phd-really-means-in-the-us-national-security-community-1 <comment><USER2> To summarize: contractors can bill the federal government at higher rates for PhDs, without respect to the origin or meaning of that degree, and pass on some of it to the employee, so these employees are getting PhDs in the most expedient way. The main difference between now and the 20th Century is the explosion of on-line schools and the expansion of the "national security community."

<comment><USER3> So (and I'm guessing here because I really can't stand to click on a Vice link) that a lot of those PhDs are in bullshit fields like "national security studies" or similar?

<comment><USER4> It seems worse than that from the article. A lot of PhDs are from non- accredited schools. Some of the PhDs are from a series of online "schools" that seem to be ran by the same man.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of a lot of mid-00s Army officers that I remember- a lot of the OCS crowd especially had bullshit online degrees from degree mills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> " _He adds that no one counseled him not to attend, and nobody has questioned his right to call himself a doctor._ "

This is the second or third article I've read (from Vice) on this subject, and there's never any discussion of the process of getting a PhD. You don't get one for taking classes, or for taking tests. If I can't find a copy of your dissertation and at least one published article, I'm very much going to question your doctorhood.

<comment><USER6> I admittedly do not know much about post-baccalaureate academia. If a non- accredited school in fact does offer a PhD simply for taking classes, can you call yourself doctor? What about a non-accredited school that still requires a dissertation but 99% of those submitted are approved? I am assuming that an accredited school handing out PhDs like this would lose their accreditation but maybe that's not the case.

I'm just not sure under what circumstances it's a legitimate decision to say "You may have a PhD but you're not really a doctor."

<comment><USER7> I'd say a majority of accredited schools also have very high dissertation acceptance rates. That is, you have been counseled by your adviser and other professors (a thesis committee) as to how things are going. They typically give you advice and want you to succeed.

Those that do not heed this advice do not get advised to turn in a dissertation.

<comment><USER8> This is correct. When I was a Ph.D student I was told that it was very rare for someone to fail their thesis defense, because their advisor will not let them defend until they know they are going to pass. It does happen, but it takes a special kind of effort and means your advisor screwed up.

<comment><USER9> One more amusing anecdote about "failing" a defence. I was told this happened in the EE department at Princeton.

There was a student whose defence wasn't going well and the committee's consensus was that the more work needed to be done. But if the student actually failed the defence, special university regulations would kick in for the second defence which would likely make it impossible for him to defend.

Not wanting to do that, the committee came up with an ingenious loophole. Apparently the committee is allowed to take coffee breaks. So they decided to take a coffee break - _for two months_ \- while the student went back and fixed up his thesis and managed to defend once proceedings resumed after the "break."

<comment><USER10> That is absolutely phenomenal. Any sourcing on this, so when I repeat it it's not just a case of "somebody wrote this online"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm also intrigued, and seemingly let down, by folks with degrees in "Cyber {defense|analysis|warfare}". These degrees are always laid out on a resume with other super-sexy sounding credentials and accolades. Unfortunately, the interviews always seem to reveal a lot of (sometimes serious) technical gaps. The only reliable indicators I've come to find for technical and engineering acumen are curiosity and experience. These sexy sounding degrees are starting to become indicators of candidates that don't meet requirements.

<comment><USER12> Yes presumably this whole thing unravels when you interview someone and say 'oh great you have PhD - can you tell me about your top three peer-reviewed papers'

<comment><USER13> Assuming that you are permitted to unravel the ruse. If your company's purpose is to suck on the Federal teat, such actions are discouraged. Just look next door at the Theranos thread! For the better of ten years, asking hard questions about Theranos was discouraged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This sounds like a problem with how contracts are written. They should be requiring that any degrees cited to fill contract qualification requirements come from an accredited university. That would at least take care of the worst cases. Some accredited schools with well known and prestigious names also operate diploma mills because they know large companies will pay for students to get advanced degrees.

In the wider sense I don't think this is a problem just in government though. Dubious and outright false credentials are a problem in industry too (ie: An HP CEO had to resign after it was found his advanced degree was fabricated.)

The bigger question maybe that if the person can perform at a certain level does it really matter what degree they have? At the same time dishonesty shouldn't be allowed just because the current system isn't ideal.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes the big name schools have an accredited ungraduate program, but an unaccredited masters/phd program.

<comment><USER5> I cannot find any information about accreditation at UT Austin (other than [1], which is out of date). I once had a discussion with someone from the academic staff of the CS department (name redacted to protect the guilty), which I may have misunderstood or be misremembering, but included a statement to the effect of, "we aren't accredited by anyone; they're all following us." (They did have an external visiting committee who reviewed and made comments on the curriculum.)

[1] [https://cns.utexas.edu/undergraduate-education/academic- reco...](https://cns.utexas.edu/undergraduate-education/academic-records/sacs- accreditation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Back in the 90s I was working for a very large IT contractor on a very large federal government contract.

The place sucked, but that's another story. I started as a senior dev, and within a year or so moved up 3 or 4 levels.

Even after moving up, after a year I couldn't do that no more. I wanted to build stuff. When I told them I was going to leave, we worked out a deal: I'd pick a team of 2. We'd work on a project with a couple of other large government agencies. Folks would leave us alone. We'd get shit done.

So we did. In six months we delivered the project. I worked mostly from home. We 3 were delivering at a rate that was greater than the 10-20 person teams at the other agencies. It was sad.

After six months, I was getting ready to bail, but they beat me to the punch. They told me I could no longer be working at the job I was doing. Why? Because I was self-taught. Needed at least a Master's degree, preferably a PhD.

It really didn't bother me since I was leaving anyway. On the way out, though, I spoke to the number 3 guy on the contract. He asked me about a few of the PhDs I had working for me.

"They're pretty good, I guess. But this one guy? He's so arrogant nobody can work with him"

The guy basically told me that they had to fill seats with PhDs to meet the GSA schedule, didn't matter whether they did anything or not.

I liked all the people I worked with, but I'd never voluntarily go back to that kind of idiocy.

</comment><comment><USER17> FWIW, this phenomenon is not a "US National Security Community" thing, it's a government thing (although quality control can vary).

I saw it in the Army -- enlisted Soliders get a certain number of "points" towards their promotions for completing coursework and obtaining a degree. So, they find the most expedient methods -- and for-profit schools that catered to this nonsense were all over. An entire platoon could literally pass around the same papers and get through an associate's degree together. "Criminal justice" was a popular one, for some reason.

I have lots of teachers in my family. They get a big pay bump for a Master's degree (had to be accredited, admittedly, so that's a little better). If the pay bump is the same no matter which school you go to, why not take the path of least resistance, especially when you're working full-time and raising a family? They all have online degrees from one of the local state colleges that caters to this market. I don't think they try to argue that they are better teachers for it. It's just a way to hustle for more money (and can you blame them?)

If you have to make a one-sized-fits-all rule about "this degree is worth this amount of money," you're going to run into these issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain why "100% online" is used as a clear negative factor? What makes physical proximity to a whiteboard a better indicator of academic achievement?

The ability and willingness to have a family, a full-time job, _and_ earn an advanced degree should not be a negative signal.

<comment><USER18> So I just finished my MS in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University and completed it 100% online. The program is meant for working professionals and there were also students taking classes both on-campus and online, and students taking all classes on-campus.

I'm on the job hunt now, really hoping people do not frown on the degree. However, I would still look curiously at someone who received a doctorate online.

<comment><USER19> How did you like the JHU program? I'm genuinely curious about the rigor and experience with the school.

<comment><USER18> I enjoyed the program for the most part. I come from a life sciences background and found the biology based courses to be slightly boring/review. The CS courses were definitely challenging for me, I only had minor programming experience in Python going in.

However, I would avoid doing it 100% online if possible. Courses that were review for me and/or did not require detailed discussion I would not mind taking online again. The harder courses are a different story, as well as courses that require extensive discussion. It is really difficult to troubleshoot complex problems over blackboard.

<comment><USER19> I was looking at the CS Masters program. I have a strong desire to acquire a foundation in information security. I was looking at their cybersecurity program as an adjunct to the CS program.

How was the actual administration of the program? I find that your experience with the administration can drastically alter your learning potential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm bothered by the lack of labels on the y-axis of that graph. I don't hate Vice, but in my mind their credibility just went down a peg or two.

</comment><comment><USER21> There are a lot of ways degrees can be bogus. With online education seemingly at the nexus of technology, timing, investor interest & consumer demand we're hearing a lot about it lately. Most astute commentators spend some time on the question of credentialing.

It's one of these weird issues where the new thing needs a good solution, but when you look at the old thing you see that it has a pretty terrible solution and that the problem might not be solvable.

I went to a well respected school. A pass in an arts degree "Arts Degree" (meaning humanities, mostly) at that school was basically available to anyone willing to show up, turn in 20k-30k words per semester (regardless of quality) and attend 3-4 tutorial per week without preparation. They just don't normally fail someone who completes the requirements, with a very liberal definition of that concept. It's not like math where you can either solve the problem in the exam or you can't. They accepted that subjectivity and left a large loophole wide open.

At the same time, very few students actually took advantage of that, with prior intent. Most of the learning opportunity was ungraded. There was 4-500 weekly pages of required reading on Kant, North African Medieval History, the history of ideas in cognitive psychology or high classical interpretations of the allegory of the cave. If you showed up at lectures, tutorials and discussions ready to discuss these materials every day you would probably experience learning that is unlikely to occur outside a university.

The mechanism for making sure you actually learn is always some degree of lax. That's within a University that has no interest, need or intent to exchange pieces of paper for money. Throw in globalization, an infinite number of institutions , the monetary incentives faced by bottom tier schools, etc and you have a big chunk of bogus degrees.

So… We can open the door and turn the lights on a lot of rooms with a lot of sordid activity. We'll get to see a lot of things we'd rather not see with knickers indignantly bunched up around ankles. I seriously doubt the "Intelligence Community" is unique in any way.

It's tricky shedding light on problems we don't know how to solve.

</comment><comment><USER22> Skimmed article, not really getting the outrage. Since when do you need a "real" PhD to do the work described there?

If the issue is that the govt is obliged to pay the contractors higher for people with PhDs then, by all menas, let's complain. Otherwise this is just some pointless rending of clothes

<comment><USER12> I don't think the government is obliged to pay the contractors more for people with PhDs, but it does choose to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This tracks well with a report I heard this week on declining mean salaries in the federal government versus industry. As the government pays less, has declining pensions, and is under constant threat of "shutdown" it isn't surprising that the best people would rather look elsewhere. That doesn't even factor in people choosing not to work for the government for political and moral reasons.

Sadly, this means that the bureaucracy will increase and become more petty. People will become more concerned about protecting their jobs and less about doing them well. Because, government work on a resume will become a "bad smell" making it hard for government workers to find a job in the private sector. Who wants to hire someone with a fake PhD? Only the government.

</comment><comment><USER24> > _VICE News accessed information about the educational backgrounds of more > than 90,000 people who work in the national security domain and possess a > Top Secret clearance._

That's the data from the OPM breach. Interesting.

<comment><USER25> That's a pretty bold unsubstantiated claim you're making there.

<comment><USER24> It's purposefully _exactly_ as bold and unsubstantiated as the claim vice makes.

Ah, crap. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach) says 18-21.5 million. I was way off. :(

<comment><USER25> It's far more likely that many government contracts and departments have their team's qualifications on record due to government accountability guidelines. While it hasn't been proven _who_ exactly grabbed the OPM data, the chances are pretty low that someone with the capability to undertake this sort of work would share the spoils with an organization like VICE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> When did Vice become a source of hard-hitting investigative journalism?</comment>


Show HN: Shoutem v5 – build, publish, and manage native apps with ease - <AUTHOR> https://new.shoutem.com/ <comment><USER2> This popped up on product hunt for me today. It's not clear to me how this is different to straight up RN with other libraries e.g. [https://nativebase.io/](https://nativebase.io/) or [https://github.com/jondot/awesome-react- native](https://github.com/jondot/awesome-react-native) . Care to comment?

<comment><USER3> This is a great question! It's not different - with Shoutem you can use the React Native same way you're used to doing it. However, there are some advantages to use Shoutem on top of React Native: [http://shoutem.github.io/docs/extensions/tutorials/faq](http://shoutem.github.io/docs/extensions/tutorials/faq)</comment></comment>


Women Developer Removed from a Women in Tech Group - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/a-women-developer-i-know-with-many-years-of-experience-decided-that-she-wanted-to-give-back-to-6857862cee0a#.yakkd24yn <comment><AUTHOR> Some notes from the Editor and a continuation of the story. [https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/thoughts-from-the- editor...](https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/thoughts-from-the- editor-172e93eccbb1#.opxvdw5ot)</comment>


Air-conditioners do great good, but at a high environmental cost - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/international/2018/08/25/air-conditioners-do-great-good-but-at-a-high-environmental-cost <comment><USER2> I am very skeptical.

Air conditioning has enabled large amounts of people to move from cold climates to warm climates (places like Dallas and Hong Kong basically wouldn't exist like they do without it). And there is a lot more energy spent heating in the north than there is cooling in the south. So on average, I would assume there is a _net benefit_ if you consider the tradeoffs.

I think there is a stigma people have that heating is essential for life, but A/C is optional. But we should really compare them against each other.

<comment><USER3> A/C was considered absolutely critical in making Singapore's economy flourish, at least according to Singapore's ex prime minister: [http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2009_fall_2010_winter/16_y...](http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2009_fall_2010_winter/16_yew.html)

 _Lee | Air conditioning. Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.

Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency._

<comment><USER4> Someone should tell that to US government. The first internship that i had in a (state) government office would do early dismissal when the inside temp was over 90 degrees for 2 hours. It was a miserable experience.

<comment><USER5> I'm 100% certain that this is not the norm. However, there is good precedent for being more conservative with the AC than most Americans are. In at least one major European country, that is actually the law: new office buildings cannot have traditional AC.

<comment><USER6> What justification is offered for reducing people's quality of life like this?

<comment><USER7> Air conditioning uses large amounts of energy. This use has costs. Using it less reduces these costs.

<comment><USER8> Airbags have cost too. And big, fancy jets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have one "problem" with airconditioning: it's a "cure" for cooling down a building after it heats up too much, but the more cost-effective, sustainable solution is _prevention_.

If we prioritize battling the urban heat island effect first, the remaining temperature problems can be tackled at a much lower energy cost with with airco.

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

[1] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented- cities...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented-cities-1-the- solar-envelope.html)

[2] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented- cities...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented- cities-2-solar-access-in-19th-century-cities.html)

[3] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented- cities...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/03/solar-oriented- cities-3-housing-density.html)

<comment><USER10> Isn't the "urban heat island" effect a fundamental property of the way we've designed and built our cities?

To fix it, wouldn't we need to redesign buildings to have things like green roofs and use construction materials that reflect heat. And we'd have to tear up much of our paving and roads and replace them with trees, water, and green space. That all sounds nice, and it's a good principle to consider when designing new urban areas.

But it's extremely expensive and disruptive to go rebuilding existing cities, and all the construction itself would have an environmental cost. Surely air conditioning is cheaper?

<comment><USER11> First thing to do is stop making the problem _worse_.

Last I checked we are still building our cities. Mine is in the process of knocking down all the one story commercial space and replacing it with six story mixed use buildings.

<comment><USER12> Your proposed alternative is to increase urban sprawl?

<comment><USER11> What? No. My point is that each new building is a chance to do better. Claiming it's too late because we have built up areas is helplessness.

If you double the size of a town and build the new half well you solve more than half of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Without drastic improvements in air-conditioners' efficiency, the IEA > reckons, they will be burning up 6,000 TWhs by 2050.

I feel like future improvements in the efficiency and greenness of energy production have the potential to offset increasing energy demands. We could solve much of this faster if we'd just properly utilize nuclear, but politics get in the way of using efficient designs and public perception is unfairly negative despite it being the safest of all energy production methods[1]. If electric vehicles gain more traction then the emissions from the transport of materials for nuclear etc. also stop being a factor.

Side note, I hate this font they use that makes a 1 look like a seriffed I. Unnecessarily hard to read.

1: [https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of- energy](https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy)

<comment><USER14> The problem with energy efficiency is that it paradoxically tends to increase consumption.

There's a basic economic aspect we mustn't forget - supply and demand. When energy prices drop, consumers often buy more if it.

I'm on mobile so I don't have a link at hand, but I recall reading that people drove a lot less when gas prices were higher. When they went back down, people went back to driving more.

If you really want to lower energy consumption- just raise the price.

<comment><USER13> Lowering energy consumption isn't the end goal, lowering harmful emissions is. If in the future, energy is produced entirely by solar, hydro, and nuclear, vehicles/machinery use little or no fossil fuels, and air conditioners have continued to be improved wrt use of coolant/leakage, then there's no need to reduce consumption because consumption is harmless.

In the meantime, pricing poor people out of electric is not a good solution.

<comment><USER15> At some point waste heat itself will warm the planet enough to matter. With exponential growth one can get there pretty quickly. A few hundred years. At some point we should add a heat tax to compliment the carbon tax (that we should already have in place).

<comment><USER16> True, but very low priority compared to getting CO2 under control. From "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" by David MacKay, pages 170 to 171:

"the average solar power absorbed by atmosphere, land, and oceans is 238 W/m^2; doubling the atmospheric CO2 concentration would effectively increase the net heating by 4 W/m^2. This 1.7% increase in heating is believed to be bad news for climate. Variations in solar power during the 11-year solar cycle have a range of 0.25 W/m^2. So now let's assume that in 100 years or so, the world population is 10 billion, and everyone is living at a European standard of living, using 125 kWh per day derived from fossil sources, from nuclear power, or from mined geothermal power. The area of the earth per person would be 51 000 m^2. Dividing the power per person by the area per person, we find that the extra power contributed by human energy use would be 0.1 W/m^2. That's one fortieth of the 4 W/m^2 that we're currently fretting about, and a little smaller than the 0.25 W/m^2 effect of solar variations. So yes, under these assumptions, human power production would /just/ show up as a contributor to global climate change."

[http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_170.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_170.shtml)

<comment><USER15> It seems to me the assumption that energy consumption per person has peaked at the current European level and not increase in 100 years wildly false. Compelling new uses for energy will be found and other cultures are less likely, I think, to restrict personal energy consumption as much as Europe does currently.

<comment><USER16> That might be true, but remember that MacKay's numbers assume 100% non- renewable energy. In reality, solar panel prices are dropping fast, and they'll likely make up a substantial portion of the energy supply. Solar energy captured with photovoltaic panels is solar energy that's not heating the earth directly, so the waste heat problem is much smaller. The same is true for all renewable sources, e.g. winds and tides heat the earth uselessly if we don't capture them.

<comment><USER15> I agree. Keep power production on Earth to like 50% solar (wind, sunlight, tidal, etc) and there will be no problem with this heat issue. Bezos has specifically stated that he hopes to put industrial production off earth to avoid the industrial heat production problem in the far future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Something I've long wondered about: Do restaurants, malls and movie theaters need to be that damn cold? Does it really increase sales that much?

It's a major pet peeve of mine. Office buildings are often much cooler than they need to be too. I think most places, including homes, could reduce A/C significantly.

<comment><USER18> Part of the problem is humidity removal. There are many times when I'll lower the thermostat even though the temperature is already at 76F, but I need to get the humidity lower in order to make the room/house comfortable.

It's especially the case at night where, if the humidity were lower, I'd just turn off A/C and open the windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A/C consumes less energy than heating.

A/C is effectively a closed system when operating. A fireplace or furnace is not.

A/C is needed most in places and times where solar panels work the best. Heating is the opposite.

Objectively living in Maine has a significantly higher environmental cost than living in Arizona.

<comment><USER20> Seriously, what's with the AC-shaming in this thread and in this article, which doesn't once mention the energy required to heat homes, and that it's several times that to cool [1]. Must be some northern elitism.

[1] [https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10271](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10271)

<comment><USER21> Because nearly all warm weather is objectively livable, whereas cold weather is actively dangerous. If you're using AC to be able to survive then you aren't the target. The target is the Walmarts that cool the building to 68 degrees when it's 80 and beautiful outside or the people who just refuse to open a window and use AC instead, or the people who can't stand a single iota of sweat or slight discomfort.

<comment><USER22> The same applies to heating. Even when it is below-freezing people heat buildings to the point that you can wear a t-shirt indoors. Instead of wearing more clothing, or enduring slight discomfort, people waste energy.

One particularly annoying example is the train. The trains always have the heat blasting. I, like most people, have to walk to the train, and stand on the (often outdoor) platform, so I wear clothing that will keep me comfortable while walking, and while waiting on the platform. As soon as I'm on the oven- like train, I have to strip off all layers to avoid sweating. I assume this is for the benefit of people who do not dress appropriately for the cold. I would prefer that they optimised for the opposite.

<comment><USER23> The heat on the train may be 'free', as waste head from the engine? In that case cooling it is the real cost.

<comment><USER22> I don't think that is the case. If it is, I am fine with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We probably don't need to do much of anything about air conditioning specifically, we just need to price in the externalities of energy use generally.

But it might make sense to incentivize (whether through positive incentives or negative incentives on traditional AC, or both) use of geothermal heat pumps instead of air-source heat pumps, since the latter is, pretty much by definition, least efficient when most needed—long-term, they are already a net win for the consumer as well as the environment, but the payoff time is long enough and traditional AC culturally-established enough that it doesn't even tend to be considered as an option enough.

<comment><USER25> In Toronto we have this huge system of underground cooling that transfers cool from the lake. It's great.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_source_cooling#Firs...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_source_cooling#First_system_in_Canada)

<comment><USER26> Pretty cool! One thing to note is the cooling capacity is limited to the consumption rate of the city based on how it's designed right now.

> The cold water drawn from Lake Ontario's deep layer in the Enwave system is > not returned directly to the lake once it has been run through the heat > exchange system. The Enwave system only uses water that is destined to meet > the city's domestic water needs. Therefore, the Enwave system does not > pollute the lake with a plume of waste heat.

<comment><USER23> And then it goes down the drain in the homes an goes ….?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The amount of harm from refrigerants, the chemicals used in cooling systems to move heat around, is vastly underappreciated so its good to see it mentioned.

"HFCs trap between 1,000 and 9,000 times as much heat as the same amount of CO2, meaning they are much more potent causes of global warming. On this basis, Paul Hawken of Project Drawdown, a think-tank, calculates that improving air-conditioners could do more than anything else to reduce greenhouse gases."

<comment><USER28> There are heat pumps which use CO2 as their refrigerant. Apparently they are more efficient (and less potentially hazardous for people and climate) than most alternatives.

<comment><USER27> From what I've seen it's used in water heater heat pumps, not space heating and cooling. Perhaps with tighter regulations on HFCs CO2 will be more widely used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Whenever I go to the USA, I just hate how cold (summer)/hot (winter) are the malls and other closed spaces. Why can't they set it at a reasonable temp? I'm sure that will help a bit to reduce energy waste.

<comment><USER30> I don't know of many malls that still exist, but I often find that most large enclosed spaces set a temperature and leave it at that 24/7 365. It is often about 70-75.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> AC can use refrigerants that are not pollutants. Also AC by definition can always be solar powered. This is literally a non-issue.

Here's a question: why do we not shelter our homes and buildings? It doesn't make any sense to let the sun bake the house and then continually refrigerate the inside of it. Just string some cloth or literally any material over the house with an air gap. It would cost almost nothing compared the the total cost of the house and it would save tons of money on cooling alone. So why isn't it done? Well it is, but if your shade structure isn't organic and green leafed, you get run out of town. Such a shame. We need some kind of artificial tree.

<comment><USER18> What if you like the view? You can't consider these things in isolation from other factors.

<comment><USER31> I don't understand. The view would be the same. It would be the same as having as having roofs. Just slightly raised and maybe a different color. No problem with views.

<comment><USER18> When I read "over the house" I was thinking that this shield would go around the house.

Most of the heat entering my house is through the walls and windows. There's a huge air gap and thick insulation below the roof, so that's not much of a problem.

<comment><USER31> A little overhang would solve that mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Nobody is going to listen to people in heated homes asking other people to stop cooling their homes. It's not going to happen.

According to [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142150...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508005168) cooling will exceed heating in 2060. So the real problem here are rich cold countries.

</comment><comment><USER33> > Without drastic improvements in air-conditioners' efficiency

The biggest gain in air conditioner efficiency is not in the air conditioner itself, but in the housing it is used in. In Asia, lots of housing is built cheaply with terrible insulation, so the air conditioning is burning electricity in waste to cool the great outdoors.

<comment> jay-anderson I heard on the radio recently that even though cities have been growing the overall water usage hasn't grown with it. The report attributed it to more efficient toilets. If cities required better insulation would we see a similar effect or are there better things to attack in general?

It makes sense that moving from terrible insulation to decent insulation would be a good move. Do we know how good? Have there been estimates on the savings? How about moving from decent insulation to excellent insulation?

<comment><USER34> From what I'm seeing, moving from terrible insulation to decent insulation is an excellent idea.

Moving from decent insulation to excellent insulation... maybe not so much. There is a point of diminishing returns where more R values in your insulation does not gain you much.

According to this fact sheet from the North Carolina energy office: [https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/Environmental%20Assistance%20and%...](https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/Environmental%20Assistance%20and%20Customer%20Service/IAS%20Energy%20Efficiency/Opportunities/Insulation_Guidelines.pdf)

"Insulation installation which brings a building up to standard can result in a savings of 1—5% of HVAC costs depending on the conditions before the improvements are implemented."

However, if you combine insulation with inspecting ductwork / windows / doors / attics and plugging as many air leaks as practically possible, the estimated savings rate rises considerably. Energystar's site ([https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_impro...](https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_methodology)) for instance estimates 11% of utility bill savings with a combination of methods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> In the Nordic countries, we just can't survive without our heating. Without it, we could probably not produce as much during the winter as we do now. Even with triple pane glass being the norm up here, we still consume massive amounts of energy every winter to keep warm. People are genuinely scared of having variable utility prices and many rather opt for a fixed price for a fixed time period, because you never know if you're going to have a really harsh winter, like we did this one that saw enormous amounts of snow.

If we could use the radiators and central heating to transform our countries into economic power houses, I don't see how we have the right to stop countries in the tropics from making virtually the same journey, albeit with cooling rather than heating.

</comment><comment><USER36> Energy-wise, Airconditioning is quite cheap. In Japan we use "aircon" pretty much all the time in summer (it's really, really hard to live without when it's 35C+ in 90% humidity) yet the electricity bills are much more reasonable compared to what we need to pay in winter when we need to heat up the place (temporarily only).

</comment><comment><USER37> Interesting...there a few comments putting forward the case for energy expenditure to provide heating and cooling. Can't really argue with any of them. However, I wonder how much of the need is driven by the modern lifestyles we have now. I appreciate that the planet is getting warmer (and that perhaps we're seeing more severe winters) but how did people get by 100 years ago? Or a 1000 years ago? How did people survive the heat? How did they survive the cold? We can't turn back the clock but perhaps there's something to gain by looking at the past...

<comment><USER38> > How did people survive the heat? How did they survive the cold?

Well they often didn't. People still die from cold winters and hot summers, especially old people. Air conditioning and heating is not a luxury for some of these people.

<comment><USER39> This. I'm from a tropical country. My grandmother told me stories about plantation work back in the day - people used to literally drop dead from the heat all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _At current rates, Saudi Arabia will be using more energy to run air- conditioners in 2030 than it now exports as oil._

There are 33 million people in Saudi Arabia.

</comment><comment><USER41> With global climate change, energy use for air conditioning will arguably increase. Given the timing, it's a good use for PV. But to the extent that CO2 emissions result, you have a positive feedback.

</comment><comment><USER42> Some tips to minimize a/c usage with zero loss of comfort:

1\. You only need you to be cool, not the entire room or building. Find solutions that cool you - including wearing cool, loose-fitting clothing. It's absurd to warm yourself up by trapping body heat and then to use an a/c unit to cool the entire room / suite / building in order to cool yourself down again.

2\. Use fans; enjoy the pleasures of a gentle breeze. Convection is a powerful thing, and unless the ambient air is warmer than your body temperature, the breeze probably will cool you off. The new tower fans are especially effective and user-friendly - they aren't ugly, you don't need to attach them to anything and they don't need much clearance, and the breeze is well- attenuated. Their effect is surprisingly powerful.

3\. Imagine what temperature would be comfortable for sitting outside, in the shade, with a breeze (see #2). 26-27C (~79-81F)? A little lower? A little higher? Maybe even experiment a little, and set your thermostat to that temperature.

4\. Never turn on the a/c if it's cool enough outside (see #3). If you need more air exchange with the outside, get an exhaust fan.

5\. Open the windows when it's cool outside, then as soon as it starts warming up - probably at sunrise - close them. (I wish there was a home automation system that would do it for me). Even on ~30C+ (86F+) days, that's been enough to keep the place cool until mid-afternoon.

6\. If none of that is enough, turn on the a/c. I'll bet you won't want it nearly as often.

I'd guess that we've cut our a/c usage by ~80% with zero impact on our comfort.

</comment><comment><USER43> Scrolled through comments up to time of writing this, and didn't see much discussion of the low-hanging fruit still available to reduce A/C-related electrical demand in the US.

Commenters are bringing up insulation, but not in detail. We need the PassivHaus insulation standard with droplet-based air tightness treatment (that brings the air tightness to about twice or better than PassivHaus specifies) as the _minimum_ required. Ideally, city-scale recycling centers would redirect used styrofoam to re-form with limonene into insulating blocks, keeping it out of landfills and oceans, and entrain into a more permanent use.

Real estate industry needs go along; advertise and market that 4-8 foot thick insulation in walls are attractive for starters. 3-6 inch gap rain screen on all outside surfaces, white or light-colored reflective takes out ~5 degrees F of cooling effort with completely passive design.

Overrule all HOAs and city building codes nationwide at the federal level, and anyone who wants to re-position their property improvement to take advantage of the solar path may do so without seeking permission. That is, the footprint alignment of any planned improvement (new or modification) that is aligned with a federally-published local solar path is an instant "shall-issue" permit; the actual footprint size, dimensions, permeable cover ratio, _etc._ still goes through normal permitting processes. Anyone who wants to build long-overhang porches that screen out all but the last X minutes of sunrise or sunset may do so without seeking permission.

Overrule all local jurisdictions at the federal level, and any enclosed space that does not use A/C, that is, only has dehumidification (no active cooling) and/or ceiling fans, do not count in property taxes, or count for something like 10% of normal assessment.

</comment><comment><USER44> Why do articles like these never mention the fact that air conditioners are heat pumps, and therefore quite a bit more efficient at cooling than oil or electric furnaces are at heating?

I rarely see similar articles bemoaning the carbon emissions associated with heating, say, wealthy New England apartments. It's always those damn poor people in the South ruining the environment.

<comment><USER45> I think people have an assumption that sweltering heat may be uncomfortable, but is "less likely" to kill you compared to 20 degree weather.

I don't know if that's even remotely true. Also keep in mind the vast majority of people heating their New England apartments are NOT wealthy, by the simple fact that the majority of New Englanders are not wealthy

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Everything in life is a calculation and needs to be balanced. We need to encourage people and businesses to use their ACs only when required, but at the end of the day, we need to find better ways of saving the environment while still supporting 7B people on the planet to live reasonably comfortably.

</comment><comment><USER47> The story with aircon efficiency is the same as with heating in high latitudes.

Building with high volume, aspect ratio and thermal insulation are more efficient, but very few high rises are made like that: luxury high rises are made for people who can bang few hundred bucks per month on heating/cooling just to have panoramic windows, and cheapest high rises are made with a single consideration of maximising kilobucks per square metre.

Were building codes to enforce energy efficiency, builders of luxury high rises will scream murder.

What I calculated with my level of math, it is safe to say that proper insulation, reducing glazing to 30-40% of the facade, and proper central air conditioning will drop energy use of a 40 storey high rise by 30 to 40 percents.

</comment><comment><USER48> In case anyone else was curious -

According to various internet sources: [0]"according to a 1958 NASA report people can live indefinitely in environments that range between roughly 40 degrees F and 95 degrees F (4 and 35 degrees C), if the latter temperature occurs at no more than 50 percent relative humidity."

[0][https://www.livescience.com/34131-infographic-limits-of- huma...](https://www.livescience.com/34131-infographic-limits-of-human- survival.html)

</comment><comment><USER49> The good thing about AC is that it generates heat as a by-product but in most cases, this is not used. Imagine if local air-con could provide all of a hospital/school/government building's hot water (and heating since they tend to roast in the UK).

Perhaps there is a market for a company that links the air-con user and local large users of hot water or even factories that need heat for their work.

<comment><USER50> Yes heat exchangers are well understood. You're mainly talking about the condenser side of an HVAC system. Cooling towers have been around a while. I imagine you'd need a hybrid approach. I doubt you'll find many buildings where the hot water needs are 1:1 with the waste heat from the HVAC system. Now you have two problems. Your hot water heater just got really complex.

However, building codes could mandate that energy for heating water first come from waste heat from the HVAC system. That would drive innovation in the space and who knows maybe it would become common. It's kind of like killing a fly with a hammer though, plus existing structures would get grandfathered in. Energy generation seem to me to be the better bang for the buck.

What would be really awesome is if someone invented a very efficient industrial thermoelectric generator that could be used in the condenser of an HVAC system. Think, regenerative breaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I've often wondered how feasible it would be to combine thermal storage with battery storage and solar energy production. During the winter such a system could heat water while producing excess solar power and during the summer maybe produce ice with excess solar power during. I wonder if that could be more efficient than storing chemical energy through batteries alone.

</comment><comment><USER52> In 1955, when I was 5 years old, my family moved to Pasadena, CA. There was no air conditioning anywhere I can recall, definitely not at home or at school. I moved to Seattle about 30 years later. I returned to Southern California a few years ago and was surprised to find that most people here think they can't live without air-conditioning.

</comment><comment><USER53> Having more available productive hours per day in hot climates helps everyone get further in their lives, however they may choose.

I didn't grow up with A/C, but it's definitely the one thing I don't hesitate to turn on when needed.

It would help if air conditioning technology could innovate and improve immensely to attack some of the valid issues it has.

</comment><comment><USER54> Is geothermal hvac a more efficient option? Has it been used in large buildings?

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/great- energy-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/great-energy- challenge/2013/10-myths-about-geothermal-heating-and-cooling/)

</comment><comment><USER55> Not totally on topic, but the thing that shocks me as ridiculously inefficient is huge freezer aisles in grocery stores in cold climates. They heat the store and then cool the freezers. Can't they just pump in outside air? Granted this wouldn't work year round in many places, but I feel like there is a better solution.

<comment><USER56> Freezers provide heat outside the freezer - which is in the store. So while not the most efficient kind of heating it's not "heat the store _and_ cool the freezers". 1kWh spent cooling a fridge is 1kWh heat added to the store.

(This depends on where the freezer heat exchangers are)

<comment><USER55> That makes sense. So it is better to have freezers running in a store you are trying to heat up than one you are trying to cool. I had it completely backward.

<comment><USER57> No, you had it right. You need to cool the freezer because you put it in the store. The more you heat the store (and the freezer is heating the store), the more you need to cool the freezer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The ironic thing about the replacement of CFCs is that the replacement refrigerants have all tended to be less efficient, toxic, flammable, or a combination of all those. One has to wonder how the environmental effects of the latter compare.

</comment><comment><USER59> Reverse cycle arconditioners use between 3 to 5x more power than a dedicated cooling system in cooling mode or a dedicated heating system in heating mode

</comment><comment><USER60> Don't tell anyone that thinks A/C comes at a high environmental cost, anything about what would be needed to make Mars viable for even a single person to _stay_ there. They might blow a gasket. Forget about if we get to building a small village on the Red Planet.

</comment><comment><USER61> We are cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that's still habitable.

<comment><USER62> And to heat the part that isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm surprised that there isn't some kind of huge multi-billion dollar prize to improve air conditioners.

Environmental groups have so much money, and they waste it lobbying for bans on plastic straws. How about some R&D, please.

</comment><comment><USER64> I don't have a subscription currently so I didn't read the full article but I find it almost impossible to get any work done without air-conditioning on a very hot day so limiting their use seems impossible without also impacting productivity and economic output. For this reason the only solution seems to be either a technological breakthrough or the continuation of iterative efficiency gains.

<comment><USER65> One could also just move to (northern coastal) California, but that has its own costs.

<comment><USER66> Why, they don't run A/C there? 'cuz they do in Seattle, which I find to be ridiculous. I keep a fleece vest in my office during the summer. There are going to be historians digging through our rubble, trying to figure out what happened four hundred years from now, and they're going to say, "they lived in a temperate climate where it rarely got above 80F, but they ran A/C non-stop for four months out of the year. No wonder the fucking ice caps melted."

And I think that's something some commenters are missing: no one is asking India to turn off the A/C. But maybe we don't need to replicate the grocer's freezer section in my office just because the weather finally turned nice.

<comment><USER67> Seattle may be over air-conditioned in offices, but when it comes to homes the story is quite different.

Seattle has the lowest percentage of households with air conditioning of any of the metro areas included in the Census Bureau's American Housing Survey. The only place almost as low is San Francisco. Here are the five lowest:

      33.7% Seattle
      36.3% San Francisco
      69.9% Portland
      72.8% Los Angeles
      79.4% Denver

and the five highest:

      99.5% New Orleans
      99.3% Tampa
      99.3% Austin
      99.3% Las Vegas
      99.2% Kansas City

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is- le...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-is-least-air- conditioned-metro-area-in-the-u-s-census-data-show-so-how-do-locals-keep- cool/)

<comment><USER68> Not too long ago, I was exploring places to move to should my state (Texas) pass a law hostile to trans people that they were considering. The bill failed, so I stayed, but before then I did _a lot_ of research.

I had a number of people recommend certain Seattle suburbs to me (particularly Bellevue and Renton), and it was towards the top of my list for a while... until some friends of mine who lived there told me that very few homes have central AC. That was an immediate nope. Crossed the whole state off my list.

I cannot tolerate any level of heat. I keep my AC at 60°F or below all the time, and I blast it even in winter. The only time I ever turn my AC off is when it's below freezing out.

On a side note, should Texas revive that bill next year and it passes, I've decided I'm moving to Las Vegas.

<comment><USER69> Perhaps you should move somewhere cooler anyways? 60F year round in _Texas_ is absurd, and borderline appalling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I am ever amazed at the usage fahrenheit in the US. Do even the weather reports state temp like in fahrenheit?

Also sometimes wonder if the weather reports should be tell ing wet bulb temperatures, because it also gives an indication of humidity.

<comment><USER71> What amazes me the most is how I never see any Americans online trying to convince others that the imperial system is better than the ISU. Like... they know that it's just out of habit :].

Day-to-day the inches/feet dance is more annoying to me than the celsius- farenheit thing though.

<comment><USER72> Inches and feet are easier to approximate though (e.g. 3 feet = 1 m is "good enough" for most practical uses), whereas Fahrenheit and Celsius have this weird 5/9 conversion factor. There are simplified formulae for F/C conversions as well, but they produce deviations that are too large for practical use for many common temperatures, especially if you live in an area with real winter & summer.

<comment><USER73> You don't really need to remember that many mappings of Fahrenheit to Celsius, at least for weather. Remembering approximately mappings for 0-100 by 10s should be enough for most people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Let's focus more on the worthless wastes of energy like cryptocurrency, and less on life saving ones like air conditioning. The latter does FAR more right than wrong. Should we have more energy efficient machines, and less harmful chemicals? Of course. But out of ALL of the technology to write about, air conditioning contributing to environmental destruction should be on the bottom of the list. When it's 120F inside a tin can house in India, you go tell those people they should be laying off the harmful AC while you're trading imaginary internet coins.

<comment><USER75> I don't have numbers at hand, but I'm willing to bet the energy spent on air conditioning dwarfs crypto by at least an order of magnitude. Focusing on the biggest areas first is usually the most efficient.

<comment><USER74> I don't agree. It's like reducing your debt. Focusing on paying off the smallest debts first is most efficient. Always start with low hanging fruit. Knock those out, and you see real progress.

<comment><USER75> There's _tons_ of low-hanging fruit in regards to air-conditioning. Even a simple thing like relaxing dress codes so that people could dress appropriately for the weather, so the set point for the air conditioning moved up a few degrees, could be a huge savings if everybody did it. Nobody should be wearing a wool suit in the middle of summer.

Meanwhile something like "stop using cryptocurrency" is not feasible. Are we supposed to have every country enact laws to ban it? Who's going to enforce that? Let me guess, a bunch of people wearing wool suits sitting in an air conditioned office...

<comment><USER74> So, don't focus on the biggest areas first then? Make up your mind. Are we supposed to have every country enact laws to enforce weather appropriate dress codes? Who is going to be the fashion police?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>