Show HN: A marketplace for client-side apps - <AUTHOR> https://eager.io/developer/features?n <comment><USER2> I hate to do this because I don't like when the first or at least most upvoted comment is dismissive, but I really must ask:

Why?

What purpose does a marketplace serve for web apps? There is not reason for an app maker to give up revenue to a third-party gatekeeper like Apple or Google and discoverability is best done via what's worked for the almighty hyperlink?

Furthermore, why not use the same exact install metadata file format that Mozilla is already using? [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Apps/Build/Manifest](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Apps/Build/Manifest)

<comment><USER3> This is a really good question. I (one of the cofounders) have a few thoughts. Just to clarify, when we talk about apps, we mean single purpose client-side javascript and css which add functionality to an existing site, not web apps.

Installing client-side code is pretty difficult right now for non-technical people. You have to know how a script tag works, where to put it, how to host files, etc. There is great software on Github, but 99% of website owners just don't know how to find it. Even the best-in-class platforms like Wordpress lock you into a specific platform.

Most javascript library builders have zero revenue right now. I think that giving them a way to charge for what they do is great, if that's what they wish. Every app is free if that's what its creator chooses.

SaaS businesses which rely on client-side embeds have an uphill battle. It's difficult to get people to install something on their site (for the technical reasons above). We hope that by making it easier we can create an ecosystem where quality apps get found quickly, and generate users and revenue just as fast. We hope that in that world, the cost of customer acquisition will be so much lower that there is room for us to take a cut.

We didn't use the Mozilla format as that's intended for full web apps that run on a platform like FirefoxOS, not libraries which get included in other pages.

<comment><USER4> Hey! Thanks for the explanation. That's pretty neat. Like your parent commenter, I wasn't interpreting this in the way you described it. The term "app" is already quite overloaded, and I would call what you're describing a "widget" instead, but I suspect you may be hoping for a quick marketing win from the corollary to mobile app stores.

I'm really curious about your vision of who the potential customers are. It seems like it is targeted at a segment of the wordpress audience that is not using wordpress. Is there such a segment already, or is the goal for this project to create one?

In any case, it seems like a very good and novel (to me) idea! Kudos.

<comment><USER3> Hi and thanks! It's a really good point. We use apps because it's the most logical word in our minds for 'self contained bit of code which does something'. Widget is a good suggestion (although I have to admit it makes me think of [http://www.idealaunch.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2010/02/ya...](http://www.idealaunch.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2010/02/yahoo-widget-engine.jpg)).

The prospective customer is anyone who has a website but isn't technical enough to be considered a web developer. This definitely includes the 60+ million sites on WordPress. Many of the great open source client-side libraries and tools out there aren't available as WordPress plugins. We certainly think Eager is something you can use along with (or instead of) the WordPress plugin marketplace, along with SquareSpace or even static sites on GitHub.

The hope is that we can convince these people that they will have a better experience coming to Eager when they need a lead generation tool or a comment widget than the wordpress marketplace itself.

<comment><USER5> Honestly I think you should coin your own term...

I, like both other commenters had the same questioning nature when I heard the word app. But when I read your original explanation to the parent post, I realized that this actually is a pretty darn good idea.

Widget on the other hand just reminds me of windows vista and the awful of widgets of a few years ago.

This is where a new term, one that doesn't already have strong connotations, is very valuable in my mind. Because what you're doing doesn't really fit with any term out there. It also could do wonders from a marketing perspective. If I hear, oh, there is this new app store providing client side apps, I'm not intrigued. But If I hear hey there is this new store providing client side NEW_WORD, I'm immediately intrigued. I'm going to want to learn asap what this new technology that I've not heard of is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your landing page needs examples. I'm about 20% sure I understand exactly what the purpose of this is.

Also, something like this should be marketed as, "You know that thing you've been doing the hard way? We're helping you do it the easy way."

I don't really understand what it is I've been doing the hard way. If we haven't already been doing something that you're now making easier, you should go back to the drawing board. It's hard to create new behavior.

<comment><USER7> Hey, I'm Adam, and I designed this page. Thank you so much for this feedback.

When building this page, I definitely struggled with what to put where. The Steps 1, 2, 3 are hopefully clear about what action to take, but I agree that more motivation at the top would be great.

Here's the thing we believe can be made easier:

When my co-founder and I built Pace [1], Offline [2], Shepherd [3], etc. [4], one of the problems we came across was that while we could get stars on GitHub, non-developers struggled to get the benefit from these projects. Often, the step they struggled with was adding the `<script>` or `<link>` tags to their page, and configuring any of the options these apps/widgets/plugins had.

Our About page [5] explains something to this effect, but bringing some of that motivation to this landing page seems like a good place to start. Thanks again! I hope this was helpful.

Perhaps in addition to:

"Anything you can include in a <script> tag can be installed through our UI."

We could add:

"Example: You wrote a JavaScript library which works by having the user paste a `<script>` tag in their page. With Eager, instead you users can install your library by simply clicking a button."

[1]: [http://github.hubspot.com/pace/docs/welcome](http://github.hubspot.com/pace/docs/welcome)

[2]: [http://github.hubspot.com/offline/docs/welcome](http://github.hubspot.com/offline/docs/welcome)

[3]: [http://github.hubspot.com/shepherd/docs/welcome](http://github.hubspot.com/shepherd/docs/welcome)

[4]: [http://github.hubspot.com](http://github.hubspot.com)

[5]: [https://eager.io/about](https://eager.io/about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Couple of questions and observations. Referencing an app store page: [https://eager.io/app/uY5Di0FqBVvn](https://eager.io/app/uY5Di0FqBVvn)

1) Why install Bootstrap from Eager? As a developer I can pretty easily find, download and use the Bootstrap from getbootstrap.com

2) Not that I don't trust you but .... how can I verify that the Bootstrap source files haven't been tampered with in some way?

3) Related to #2 - Can anyone upload an app? How do you verify that an app doesn't contain XSS or other vulnerabilities?

4) Do you always load the latest version of Boostrap? That could be a problem. If I built a site using a 3.x version and automatic update to 4.x could be disastrous for the layout of a site.

<comment><USER3> 1) One simple reason is if you're one of the millions of website owners who is not technical enough to install it manually. We hope to have the ability to go one step further for example and select from a set of themes to make it even easier to make a beautiful site.

Another reason which relates to #4 is to make it easier to update versions in the future. We hope to build ways of testing those version changes to make version updates something better than the dredded task they are now.

Beyond that, when we chose the apps for our launch, part of the decision was based on showing variety and proving out the power of the system ("See, you can do CSS libraries, too!"). The plan is for anything which can be on a site to be in Eager.

2) Very good question. If you log in to the system, we show you the source ([http://oi60.tinypic.com/21kjn6c.jpg](http://oi60.tinypic.com/21kjn6c.jpg)).

In addition to the source, we'll show you the version (if in say, the case of jQuery), there's more than one [1].

One of the great benefits of client-side code is that all the cards are on the table. Anyone is able to inspect the content of what we deliver. We hope that by choosing Eager, you gain safety, by having access to an ecosystem of validated apps.

3) Yes! After creating an account [2], you'll be able to view the developer dashboard [3] which includes a button to create an app. You can create an app from any GitHub, Bitbucket, Launchpad, or Google Code project. Just provide the URL and your tagged versions will be ready for import.

All apps come from specific tagged releases of public projects, meaning you can't just paste some malicious code into our UI.

Right now we manually verify apps through a moderation process. We are experimenting with techniques that will hopefully allow app developers to specify what permissions they require (similar to Chrome Apps), and for us to validate those permissions in an automated way.

4) No, when you install the app you can choose which version you'd like to install (or we choose the latest version for you if that's the only one the app creator has made available). You are locked to that version until you decide to change it. We never change your bundle (the files delivered to your site) without your specific intervention.

[1] [https://eager.io/app/vP1PnpNHAG3j/install](https://eager.io/app/vP1PnpNHAG3j/install) [2] [https://eager.io/signup?developer](https://eager.io/signup?developer) [3] [https://eager.io/developer](https://eager.io/developer)

<comment><USER9> Sorry, I don't understand your Bootstrap example. If I'm not technical to "install" BS (script/CSS tags and uploading files to a host) then I'm probably not technical enough to use Bootstrap's CSS/JS components by writing HTML or little JS snippets. What real benefit is the one-click install if that's (probably) the easiest part of using a JS/CSS library?

Edit: It's not your Bootstrap example, it was the original question. Sorry to confuse that.

<comment><USER3> We can allow people to make themes for Bootstrap which depend on the original Bootstrap app. Those themes can be used out-of-the-box by non-technical people.

We can also help you to manage the version of Bootstrap you're using to make it easier to keep your site up-to-date.

Including Bootstrap now though is more of an example of the breadth of what can be included using Eager, rather than a specific suggestion. I agree that it's not particularly practical to include it directly in it's current form, but many of our other apps can be used directly with great success.

As much as I'd love to build something for developers by developers, the purpose of Eager right now is to help developers get their code to non- technical people. So the question might be not how to add Bootstrap to your site, but how can you build an Eager app on top of Bootstrap to make it accessible to others.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the response. (And responding throughout this thread, too.) I see the point in using this for dependencies, and there are other apps like Google Analytics that have minimal configuration to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _" Introducing install.json"_

The JS community is going to love having yet another *.json file in their projects.

<comment><USER3> We are considering allowing the information to be placed in an `install` field in the package.json. Is that something you would prefer?

<comment><USER10> I think that would be a step in the right direction!

<comment><USER7> While I fully support the ability of using an `install` property in a `package.json` as an alternative, as a frequent author of package.json, bower.json, component.json, and install.json files, I feel confident saying that install.json is a slightly different situation. Take github.com/HubSpot/Offline for example:

The package.json [1] and bower.json [2] share a lot of the same information: `name`, `version`, `authors`, and `description` are duplicated properties in both. Furthermore, updating the `version` property in a file in Git isn't always necessary when you can create tagged releases with version numbers.

`install.json` doesn't have the "Ugh, now I have to add the same information in a new place"-problem because it introduces two new root properties, namely `resources` and `options`, which do different (and very useful) things from the properties in these other json files. These properties define respectively the resources to include in a page when "installing" the app, and the JSON options to provide the app upon its initialization. They allow for a common way that JS and CSS resources be included in pages, which is a useful thing for the community to start to standardize around, even if this isn't the perfect thing yet.

[1] [https://github.com/HubSpot/offline/blob/master/package.json](https://github.com/HubSpot/offline/blob/master/package.json)

[2] [https://github.com/HubSpot/offline/blob/master/bower.json](https://github.com/HubSpot/offline/blob/master/bower.json)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this what tag managers like Google Tag Manager do? How is this different?

<comment><USER3> This is exactly like Google Tag Manager, except expanded to encompass all client side code you would wish to install. You can install Google Analytics with Eager, but you can also install InstantClick [1], Disqus [2], or any code someone can write an install.json [3] for.

[1] [http://instantclick.io/](http://instantclick.io/) [2] [https://disqus.com/](https://disqus.com/) [3] [https://github.com/EagerIO/DeveloperDocs/blob/master/docs/ad...](https://github.com/EagerIO/DeveloperDocs/blob/master/docs/adding- your-app.md#install-json)</comment></comment>


Why It's OK to Block Ads (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/ <comment><USER2> I've said this repeatedly[1], but I take the opportunity to say it every chance I get.

Ad-blocking is about trust—or more accurately, lack thereof.

I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm telling you I value your content (enough to view it, anyway), and to stop getting in my way. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. Or because I don't know you well enough to _know_ your judgement, so my default assumption is that you're going to be a bad actor.

I agree there has to be a better way to sponsor websites. And ads as a mechanism are a fine way to do that. So, content creators, I'm OK with popups asking me to un-block your ads. But you need to show me you deserve that trust: it's _not_ that you need to keep the lights on. I get it. But that's your problem. That's why _you_ want me to unblock, not why _I_ will unblock. So tell me your ad network is trustworthy and be transparent about that commitment.

 _Don 't_ just ask me for my credit card number as an alternate form of sponsorship. I literally just told you I don't trust your infrastructure or your judgement, and your response is to ask for _financial information_? Nope.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910)

<comment><USER3> More briefly: Since any ad network's incentives align more closely with malware authors' than my own, I'm blocking a channel which is a known malware distribution vector.

<comment><USER2> I'm not seriously concerned about malware. I trust Google (Chrome) and Microsoft (Windows) enough to protect me if someone _does_ try to serve me malware. And on mobile, iOS malware really isn't a thing, and I trust Apple there, too.

It's mainly about _customer experience_. On desktop, that's auto-playing videos and terrible "sponsored content". On mobile, it's malicious redirects to the app store that not only takes me away from your content, but my entire _application_. (And, also on mobile, a real cost: your 1MB tracking JS costs me a couple cents and counts towards my cap _every time I load it_. I hope your caching logic is sound.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I doubt that anybody on HN is unfamiliar with the standard arguments for ad blocking. I find them persuasive, particularly the need to protect oneself from the security problems inherent in the third-party adtech system we have today.

I would, however, like to add one more. In the absence of government intervention to curb the worst aspects of the Internet's "surveillance capitalism" model, the moral imperative to ad block is even greater. If everyone ad blocked, it would devastate the economic value of our tracked data. Would my data mean anything to you if you couldn't use it to market to me? (Yes, I'm sure it would still have some value, but much, much less I believe)

Everybody should ad block as aggressively as they can.

<comment><USER5> ^-- This, a thousand times this. The ad revenue model is what's destroying the internet; creating walled gardens and attention feedback loops, furthering the commoditization of people, simply because, if you leave, they won't be able to serve you ads. I would argue that the only morally acceptable thing to do is to block ads, not the other way 'round.

It's pure garbage, and the sooner it dies the better.

<comment><USER6> Sure. Are you willing to promote alternative models? Do you currently do so, such as paying subscriptions for news?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I do. But I don't even consider that necessary for the "survival" of the net.

There was an internet before google/fb established the current status quo for revenue, and there will be one after. Maybe (hopefully) with less attention grabbing, utter garbage.

<comment><USER6> Great! I'm glad you're supporting sites you use.

And yes, there was an internet before the current ad-driven models promoted by Google and Facebook. However, the sites that were up were effectively subsidized by other business. I'm thinking primarily about media, here. Bloggers had other jobs and blogged on the side. Sites by established media were likewise side projects that were paid for by other divisions of their business, and a lot of that was income was from ads, either print or television. As those businesses have shrunk, and largely because people have been moving online for content, they no longer have the ability to pay for non-revenue generating web presences.

Please don't mistake this as some apologia for ad-based revenue models. I think the current model is largely encouraging some of the worst behavior of human psychology, as well as serious privacy concerns. However, I do think it's important to understand the the economics at play here and not dismiss these economics out of hand and recognize that this needs to be paid for somehow. Many of the people putting Google Ads on their sites or posting on Facebook aren't doing so because they want people to be tracked, for example, but they don't think they have a choice if they want to be able to support what they want to do.

I also think subscriptions do and will continue to play an important role in changing this, so I would encourage you not to dismiss them out of hand. One of the drivers for moving out of "yellow journalism" was the move from paying for each edition to the subscription model. We've seen the reverse of this with the rise of online, ad-based model. Each story has to sell itself and drive engagement, very similar to the edition-based models and tabloids.

<comment><USER5> I do understand the economics at play, and I haven't dismissed the subscription model. My point of view is simply this: if you're a media outlet producing content and you can't survive on a subscription based model (or any other model) alone, and have to revert to ads (malicious, annoying ads - I'll admit there are reasonable ways to advertise, but that's not what we're talking about here) to make ends meet, then your content isn't good enough.

That's like making a terrible burger and complaining you're going out of business because people aren't buying it. Tough luck, but that's capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be great that the people that promote blocking ads would also promote sponsoring the websites that they frequent somehow. There is a real problem out there for all sorts of websites trying to survive and their problems are at least as great as the privacy concerns the ads introduce. Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.

<comment><USER8> Regardless of promotion, ad blocking is inevitable on the web. Imagine if your TV could distinguish a sporting event from the ads and logos displayed on the field, and automatically hide (in real time) everything but the game you want to watch? Advertisers would lose their minds... but this is exactly how the web works and always has. The site delivers instructions for drawing its parts, and my browser can choose how/if to render that content. The business model has always been tenuous, and that's not my problem, because it's not even _a_ problem, it's just the fact of the matter.

<comment><USER9> "When I shoot you, you might be dead. It's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter"

Calling that line of reasoning tenuous would give it too much credit. I'm not surprised to hear it - it's a fairly common approach in the tech world. We only stop to think if we can do it, not if we should do it.

Which has landed us where we are, in an arms race around ads, where everybody mostly only cares about their personal interests and technological feasibility. It's time we started talking about ethics. And if you open up that dialog, what you're doing is deeply problematic - you deliberately violate an unspoken assumption, that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work.

It is, in the limit, giving up on the social compact in favor of pure individualism. It's never worked out in human history, and it won't work out this time, either. We can either all return to the table and try to find solutions that respect everybody, or we can devolve into individual greed followed by social chaos.

It's just the fact of the matter.

<comment><USER10> There is no unspoken assumption that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work at any and all cost to consumers of the work. The current methods go to far and deserve all the backlash they get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _I often hear people say, "I use AdBlock, so the ads don't affect me at > all." How head-smackingly wrong they are. Even if you don't see the ads, you > still see the ad for the ad (i.e. the product itself). You still get design > that exploits your non-rational psychological biases in ways that work > against you._

I don't understand how the website design manipulates you even when you've blocked the ad. I need an example here please.

<comment><USER12> I believe he speaks of things like buzzfeed or other clickbait sites that are designed to keep you surfing and clicking, in chase of ever higher view counts.

<comment><USER10> I have a personal list of domains I consider useless. Accidentally visiting one was annoying enough to me that I made an FF extension to hide any links to those sites on every page of the internet. I've been wishing uBlock Origin had this feature built in, I haven't found a way to do this if they do. They advertise as a general-purpose blocker and I think this falls under that category. I know I could add any domain I want and it will prevent the page from loading but that still leaves me vulnerable to the click-bait titles and wasting time clicking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's my computer, my web browser, my time, and my mind.

(Nice article and all, but the implicit question posed by the headline is a no-brainer.)

<comment><USER14> But what you are reading isn't your content - it was generated by someone else.

<comment><USER15> Ever walked through a tourist district and seen someone handing out freebies of some sort - palm readings, or flowers, or what have you?

Once in a while an inadequately wary tourist accepts the freebie, and then they're accosted angrily for payment/gratuity.

I understand it's not a perfect analogy, but the bottom line is largely the same: if you give your content away for free, you _want_ payment, you aren't _owed_ payment. Giving stuff away for free and then crying about the payment you're _owed_ is a bait and switch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jay-anderson Makes me think of the littering ads from the 70s ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful)). It focused on how littering was bad, but was led by many of the companies producing the stuff that was the litter. That is instead of them attempting to reduce the production of waste the ethical blame was moved people using their product.

It's not a perfect comparison because litter still is bad and I don't think ads always have to be. However it is similar in that we generally believe the production of ads is the default therefore blocking ads is unethical. As opposed to giving users alternate methods of funding your work. (Feels like these are popping up more so maybe ad blockers are making a small difference.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U2IFYJ:blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why- its-ok-to-block-ads/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

</comment><comment><USER17> Third party ad networks are one of the biggest vectors for exploit kits and malware on the Internet. That alone is a good enough reason to block any and all adverts, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's very easy in my opinion

\- I pay for my internet, which has bandwidth caps, so I'm selective about what I want to download.

\- websites have right not to serve me their content, and so I have a right not to download what I don't like

<comment><USER19> Exactly. I have nothing against adwalls or paywall, i might even pay to read the article if the quality is here (hello wsj). But i choose what's going onto my browser/computer. Someone remember this time when Forbes put an anti- adblock wall, then distributed malware-infested ads to some of its users? This is the reason why i use noscript: i don't trust all third party websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Personally I don't block ads, but I do block scripts from ad networks. There have been way too many drive by browser hijacks/bitcoin miners/etc... that come from shady third party networks.

Unfortunately some sites detect ad blockers and it's considered the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great line: "You still get the flypaper even if you don't get the swatter. A product or service does not magically redesign itself around your goals just because you block it from reaching its own."

</comment><comment><USER22> Philosophers are weird.

Why do they think we need their opinions on something being okay or not, or that their opinions are any more valid?

I don't need them to decide if ad blocking is okay.

<comment><USER23> Keynes sort of sums up this sentiment, just replace economist with philosopher:

>Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.

The bottom line is, all "practical" viewpoints begin from some particular way of looking at the world, which usually gets hammered out in philosophy. In this sense, I find that pragmatism is usually just someone taking for granted the etiology of their own ideas, which makes pragmatism one of the least interesting positions.

Obviously I don't know what you in particular believe, so I'm just talking about the kinds of people who I've personally seen advance these kinds of positions.

<comment><USER24> A good point. One thing: I've studied philosophy quite a lot, and _even I_ don't know, or have forgotten, the meaning of 'etiology'. So I assume there's no chance the person you're responding to knows what it means. It's technical philosophy jargon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> TL;DR: Marketing ("The large-scale effort to .. capture and exploit your attention") is bad.

OP should look inward. Him writing a blog post was an effort to capture and exploit my attention. He wants more views on his post. What an immoral thing to do.

<comment><USER26> Cute, but no. The blog post writer isn't doing it on a large scale, so isn't caught by their own definition. They're arguably not exploiting it, either (no return to them if you read it or not).

<comment><USER25> Scale isn't truly relevant.. a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one? And I'd argue him checking the number of views on his post and chasing higher numbers is exploiting my attention.

<comment><USER27> Why wouldn't scale be relevant? The harm that a tiny ad network causes is obviously smaller than the harm that a large ad network causes, so... yes, a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Photo Emerges of Alleged 'iPhone 8' 3D Sensing Camera Module - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/22/photo-alleged-iphone-8-3d-sensing-camera-module/ <comment><USER2> how will the face-recognition deal with aging, injuries and eyewear ?</comment>


What does Trump's victory say about data analysis for the social sciences? - <AUTHOR> There are enough media think-pieces about why mainstream media coverage and punditry misread the electorate [0], but how exactly do we explain the gross inaccuracy of some of our predictive data analysis?
For instance, on 11/5, Huffington Post was taking Nate Silver to task for "unskewing the polls," seemingly to create an image of a race that was closer than it "really is." [1]
For their own part, 538's forecast did have Clinton going into the election with a margin equivalent to polling error. [2] But that doesn't explain why the New York Times' Upshot, for instance, had Hillary at an 85% chance of winning on the eve of the election. [3]
(We should note also that the Trump "upset" was not just about white males without college education turning out in greater numbers than expected. Clinton shocked by underperforming 2012 Obama among black and Latino voters. [4])
So my question is: is the Trump "upset" an indictment all of big data as a tool for election prediction (or perhaps the social sciences at large)? Or do we just say that our models were largely miscalibrated and that the relative accuracy of 538's, for instance, shows that we simply need to learn from our mistakes to move forward using data in politics?
For some initial conversation on this topic, see this thread in the Trump victory HN post [5].
[0]: I found this one particularly insightful http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump-clinton.html [1]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nate-silver-election-forecast_us_581e1c33e4b0d9ce6fbc6f7f? [2]: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/794571867449421829 [3]: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html [4]: http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2016-election-results-coverage/?lpup=12607239#livepress-update-12607239 [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907961https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907961 <comment><USER2> Even the Iowa Electronic Markets [1] got it wrong despite of being so accurate in the past.

[1] [http://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/](http://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/)</comment>


Gordon: An open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon <comment><USER2> Quick link to demo:

[http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/raw/master/demos/tiger....](http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/raw/master/demos/tiger.html)

Wish people made github pages a bit more friendly. It's like being thrown into a pit of 1s and 0s.

<comment><USER3> Demos posted here: <http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/>

<comment><USER4> All three of them crashed my Chrome 4.0 tab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just in case anyone was wondering about the project name and is not too familiar with classic science fiction:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_gordon>

<comment><USER6> Flash! Ah ah. He's a miracle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The demo uses 1/3 as much CPU as a similar Flash app would on my Mac. Very cool.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if that says more about the poor optimization of the Mac Flash plugin or the great optimization of your browser's (Safari? Mac Chrome?) JS interpreter.

Probably both.

<comment><USER9> There's a lot more overhead to the plugin model, since the browser has to call to the plugin via NPAPI and the plugin has to draw itself separately, vs. just being integrated into the normal reflow/repaint of the webpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Flash Gordon: Worst Search Engine Terms Since A* Algorithm

<comment><USER11> I always thought a good anti-piracy measure would be to name your TV Show / Band / Game "The".

<comment><USER12> I always thought it would be funny to have a band named "Those Guys" and the first single would be "That Song"

Asking someone if they heard the single would thoroughly confuse people "Have you heard That Song by Those Guys?

<comment><USER13> Sort of like Van Morrisons band "Them" and of course "The Who"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Of course it's damn impressive, but it doesn't seem very _useful_ to me.

Nobody uses Flash for the language (actionscript is a terrible mash-up of javascript and Java, and haXe is not a lot better), or because we think the virtual machine is awesome in some way. Simply, we use it to bridge the gap between what web browsers can do and what native apps can do (access to webcams and microphones, local files, real tcp/ip sockets, etc, etc).

Having said all that, who knows - maybe web browsers really will eventually bridge those gaps themselves, and this will just be used to run legacy Flash code. It's possible I guess.

<comment><USER15> I invite you to switch your flash player off for a bit and see how many sites use it for all kinds of stuff.

It's a nuisance but it is so pervasive it's not even funny.

<comment><USER16> I already have, it is wonderful.

<http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was my 2009 new-years prediction... damn it, just out! The best demo is <http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/blue.html>

<comment><USER18> If you double click it it will kill Chrome. AW SNAP.

<comment><USER19> Don't know. Works fine for me..

<comment><USER18> Probably cause I am using the Dev build. Oops, time to submit a bug report.

<comment><USER19> Actually, I'm using Dev build as well.

<comment><USER20> Same here. Nothing happens. No Crashes. 4.0.288.1 stable build

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Has anyone tried this out? Is it more than a toy?

README says little <http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/blob/master/README>

<comment><USER22> <http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/demos> The demos are basically graphics tests: vector drawing, frame-by-frame animation, tweens.

[http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/swf-tag-support- ta...](http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/swf-tag-support-table) The tag support table shows just how much is missing: everything from SWF 2 onwards! Many of those tags aren't feasible in pure JS right now, anyway.

<comment><USER23> Interesting. Those work nicely using Safari on my iPhone. Looks promising.

But on Chrome 4.0.288.1 dev moving the mouse over any of the animations crashes the tab.

<comment><USER24> The demos don't work at all in IE8.

<comment><USER25> also nothing with opera 10

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does this actually implement the equivalent of Adobe's Flash runtime in Javascript? Does it work for all SWFs? If so, is there some sort of magic involved? If this works, how come things like Gnash and swfdec have never been able to achieve full compatability with Flash, yet this has seemingly come out of nowhere and done just that?

</comment><comment><USER27> "Dispatch war rocket AJAX to bring back his body!"

</comment><comment><USER28> I had already used the name for my lisp flash library :( <http://wiki.freaks- unidos.net/gordon> (not that it is a very original name or anything ;))

<comment><USER29> Dude!

Where on bloody earth have you been? Could you please MIT the source code for Gordon so we can work on it?

People refused to touch it because of the license.

<comment><USER30> What's wrong about LGPL?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Too bad the name is already used for a flash decompiler <http://www.futurecandy.net/>

</comment><comment><USER32> Cool technology to pursue but considering how Flash content's CPU requirements are often a problem on C-based interpreters, this doesn't seem like a practical thing.

<comment><USER15> When you see a pig dance it is impolite to comment on the quality of the dance, but you can express amazement at that it dances at all ;)

Let's give them a bit and see how far they take it. With a bit of luck they get some help from a nifty jit for js and who knows what might happen.

The evil .swf might turn in to a standard component after all, if only via a somewhat roundabout way.

I really wonder how they're going to do audio though, and capture devices and such are probably out (I can see a route to do video via the canvas, it's going to be bloody slow though unless js gets sped up a lot compared to where it is today).

<comment><USER33> If the new HTML5 <device> element gets implemented they could use that for capture devices: [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/multipage/...](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/multipage/commands.html#devices)

<comment><USER15> Yes, I can't wait. I've been waiting for that literally for years.

Many years long we used a crappy old little javascript that I wrote long ago, it basically loads jpegs under water in to an off screen buffer and then flips them over the previous one when they're.

Using some trickery I could get pretty good framerates if the connection is good but the bandwidth cost is just terrible.

Now we've switched to (yuck) flash and it works ok I guess but something more standardized would be much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This leaks memory like a sieve on Chromium, unfortunately. Be very interested to see where this goes eventually though.

</comment><comment><USER35> SWF files on the iPhone.

<comment><USER14> But not _useful_ SWF files on the iPhone. This doesn't magically give you anything you didn't already have in javascript.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but that big Flash site you just finished with no budget for an iPhone version just got a _lot_ cheaper to re-target.

<comment><USER36> not really, if you're writing flash apps, there's a huge chance that you're actually writing as3 code, which gets compiled into DoABC tags (actionscript bytecode) and I don't think DoABC tags will ever be supported unless they implement a stack-based virtual machine in javascript.

It gives the appearance that it got cheaper to re-target, but really it will be a ton more work when you realize what will never be supported. Even if they managed to implement a virtual machine in javascript, they'd still need to implement all the library code that normally doesn't ship with every swf file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great! now people will go back to blocking JS to avoid ads like the old days.

All that easy ride of blocking just the flash player left the web all screwed up with that JS for content running loose.

Good ridance, ajax.</comment>


EU-U.S. Data Sharing Deal Can't Be Trusted, Top Court Aide Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/eu-u-s-data-sharing-deal-can-t-be-trusted-top-court-aide-says <comment><AUTHOR> This should be of interest to all American startups: if the court agrees with this assessment, you will have to store European user data on European servers and cannot transfer these to the US. Probably not even for data analysis. AWS and others will likely set up something quickly, but you'll still have to keep that in mind when trying to establish a presence in the EU.

So ultimately the NSA will have broken up the internet into separate regional entities.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer, never wanted to be one.

<comment><USER3> It's not just that, EU startups who currently depend on US-based services are going to be in quite a bit of trouble unless they got consent from their users to put their data in the US.

<comment><USER4> As a user, that sounds pretty awesome. Of course in practice it will probably mean that they will throw this in the "privacy" policy, where they also enumerate all the ways in which they can track you and share your information.

"By the way, we're also sending this data to US government-accessible servers. By reading or _not reading_ this you hereby consent to us doing that. Oh - <USER2> did we mention _how much_ we care about your privacy and security? We just wanted to make sure you got that."

Hopefully the EU will also mandate some kind of _real_ (but usable) consent mechanism to this sort of stuff, that's unlike the whole cookie story.

<comment><USER5> At least in Germany it's not possible to override laws by writing something different in a privacy policy or EULA. Even EULAs are mostly invalid. I guess it's the same in most European countries.

<comment><USER6> Once something becomes a "consumer" contract then a lot of extra legal protections kick in (at least here in the UK) e.g.

[https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/protection-for- th...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/protection-for-the- consumer/consumer-contracts/unfair-terms-in-consumer-contracts/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suspect this ruling will work out very well for Ireland. US multinationals already see Ireland as an "Atlantic bridge" for getting a foothold in Europe often by placing their EMEA HQ in Dublin.

Ireland is playing up to this role and this ruling sort of hammers home the status quo that if international tech companies want to deal with the EU they will have to have separate facilities to house European data as they can't ship it all back to California.

Ireland will become the EUs primary data centre -- it has the right combination of climate, tax rates, tech presence, political diplomacy and data protection laws.

In many cases though the ruling will probably just result in an extra line on the EULA.

<comment><USER8> Having lived in Ireland for 4 years, I can say that the physical environment was a mixed bag. Yes, it's beautifully green everywhere, but at the cost of tons of rain and cold, clammy days.

Or maybe you were referring to the political climate?

<comment><USER7> The soft rain and mild climate is good for data centres in a physical sense because of its stability. Irelands temperature range is like 25C degrees from trough to peak in winter and summer and even the daily change in temperature is slow.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland#Climate_cha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland#Climate_charts)

If you lived in Ireland I'm sure you'll agree the weather is "very consistent" in a sense.

<comment><USER8> The weather is most definitely consistent - consistently cool and very, very rarely hot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Safe harbor is sadly more of a guideline/joke. Smaller companies that do not have to hand over data to the nsa get training for it which is basically :

Change nothing of what you do, keep mishandling user data, but if ever eu sues us we will sue employees back.

So in the end data is not protected anyway and safe harbor is a smoke screen at best.

And yes i get the yearly joke training.

</comment><comment><USER10> The primary source: [http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015...](http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-09/cp150106en.pdf)

( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264410) )

</comment><comment><USER11> Similar law works in Russia. There was a lot of rant among developers. It's funny to see Europe going to the same direction.</comment>


Show HN: Updated wave method of building color palette - <AUTHOR> https://wavepalette.com/about/ <comment><AUTHOR> In colouristics there are several methods for constructing a color palette (color gamma) based on the arrangement of colors relative to each other in the color circle and, usually, having the same brightness. Harmonious perception of which is not sufficiently substantiated from the physical point of view. The wave method of building color palette based on the relationship of color and acoustic waves, and also the concept of consonance (harmony) in music theory. More detailed description of the method is here - [https://wavepalette.com/about/](https://wavepalette.com/about/)

A few days ago, the algorithm was completely finalized and posted on the site - [https://wavepalette.com/](https://wavepalette.com/). There is also a mobile application and ready-made palettes - [https://wavepalette.com/palettes/](https://wavepalette.com/palettes/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't understand this. Light wavelength and perceived color aren't directly related — just look at the hue color wheel in any painting app, and you can see there's a great "spectrum wasteland" of very similar blue-greens, while many aesthetically interesting variations of yellows and oranges are within a very narrow range. How does this harmonics model take those perceptual biases into account?

The examples on the site are not convincing. They bring to mind the palettes used in IBM's ancient CGA hardware: [https://wavepalette.com/palettes/](https://wavepalette.com/palettes/)

<comment><AUTHOR> In 1926-1930 Wright and Guild conducted experiments on 15 independent observers. They compared the spectral color with a specific wavelength to a mixture of red (700 nm.), blue (435.8 nm.) and green (546.1 nm.). In 1931 the International Lighting Congress (CIE) adopted a characteristic of the color properties of the average (standard) observer, based on this results.

Later, for comfort calculations, the International Lighting Congress introduced the abstract system CIE XYZ, based on unreal colors. This coordinate system is very comfort for the transition from one system to another. Also, the wavelengths of visible light and the corresponding coordinates of the CIE XYZ mixture were calculated, based on the results obtained for the RGB system (Wright and Guild).

sRGB system of monitors have many non-spectral colors. The wave method is applied in this case (on "RGB" site page) to each of the three colors (red, green, blue) individually, not all colors are harmonious and you will have to make a choice manually. This method allows you to get more interesting combinations of colors, but requires a self-dependent choice.</comment></comment>


USPS Size and Scope - <AUTHOR> https://facts.usps.com/size-and-scope/ <comment><USER2> This was interesting to read. A feel like just how expansive the USPS is is lost on many Americans.

<comment><AUTHOR> I found it quite interesting as well. I stumbled across this page because I was trying to find the number of post offices in the US after noticing the sheer number of tiny towns in Kansas. The scale of their operations is mind boggling to me.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Envdb – Ask your environment questions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mephux/envdb

<comment><USER2> Looks awesome, thanks for making this!

osquery has two RFCs related to backend infrastructure[1] and distributed queries[2]. Have you looked at their proposals? How do you think Envdb compares?

I'm curious about the choice of wrapping osquery instead of implementing a logger plugin[3]. Was it easier to implement and deploy as a wrapper?

[1] [https://github.com/facebook/osquery/issues/881](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/issues/881)

[2] [https://github.com/facebook/osquery/issues/201](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/issues/201)

[3] [https://github.com/facebook/osquery/wiki/registering- logger-...](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/wiki/registering-logger- plugins)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I looked at them. EnvDB has plans to extend past just using osquery. Work could be done to connect deeper or use libosquery directly. I chose to wrap it and plan to build a plugin system for wrapping other processes. It would make wrapping other stuff to conform to a sql question/answer model easier and faster to implement imho. (either way.. whatever they add wont break envdb ;) hehe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw this on reddit yesterday and it is definitely intriguing..

However, I'm still trying to understand what the actual real-world use-case is for this tool. Can any of you enlighten me?

Also, zero unit tests makes me sad. The end product and codebase can be so much better when you start with a little testing.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Security is a huge one. One of the saved queries is checking for processes running that don't have the original binary still on disk. etc. Being able to query stuff like that on demand is powerful. It also has a lot of ops related wins.

2\. Well, agree but when you're solo and doing it for fun.. getting it working is half the battle. I know my expectations for the app now and that makes it much easier to write meaningful tests. I must have redid the node/server setup 3 times.. writing tests for failed implementation just sounds like a poor use of time. Also, the project is 0.1.1.. thats super beta man.. give it time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat - in production we use Foreman which gathers facts from our 300~ servers every 15 minutes when puppet runs.

This could be a nice little alternative for fact finding on smaller deployments or for headless nodes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed! Whats also great about osquery is the security related tables available. I.e process_memeory_map, crontab, passwd_changes, shell_history etc. A lot of the stuff osquery gets is right from the kernel (system calls etc.)</comment></comment>


A conversation about how public transport really works - <AUTHOR> https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/01/26/2198114/a-conversation-about-how-public-transport-really-works/ <comment><USER2> I like Jarrett Walker. He does come at the problem from a certain perspective though -- he wants to solve problems with mass transit. Just like he talks about there being immutable laws of geometry, there are some immutable laws of transit. Mass transit fundamentally depends on having a lot of people who want to get from point A to point B, all at the same time. Since this is never true, you have to relax the requirements. You can make people wait until there are enough of them, you can make them walk to or from a stop, you can make them detour, slow down, stop and then speed up to let others get on and off, and you can make them switch vehicles. Fundamentally those are your options given some set of vehicles, whether they're planes, trains, or automobiles. All forms of transit exist on the tradeoff surface between these possibilities. As population density goes up, it's easier to find lots of trips that are close enough in the five dimensional space of origin, destination, time.

Where I perhaps differ from Jarrett is that I see no problem in having transit options that have one or two people per vehicle. The 2-5 person capacity mass transit vehicle has been a very underexplored space because someone has to own it and someone has to drive it. Services like Uberpool and Lyft Line are exploring this because smartphones make it possible, and this will only increase when you don't have to pay someone who isn't riding to operate the vehicle.

<comment><USER3> America use to have more rail at one point in time than Europe has today. It wasn't that long ago. We're talking less than 70 years.

If we start building infrastructure in our cities again for rail and express buses, you will see things being to naturally be more compact. Business spring up around rail stations, and people who want to live close to one another fill in those spaces and move closer to the city.

The "America is too spread out" argument is total bullshit. At the very least, make the cities have good transport and walkable areas. It can happen in a very short time frame. We lost it in a short time frame. Northern Indiana has the same population density of Scotland, so it can work if we build it. We use to have trains from Nashville to Atlanta. The famous "Chattanooga Choo-choo" doesn't even have an AmTrak anymore.

Transportation is the largest factor in the ability of people to move up from poverty. This isn't some subjective statement. There are tons of objective studies to support this[1].

The idea that you need to own a car (and insurance an maintenance) in most of America is pretty insane. A car shouldn't ever be a necessity. Associating it with freedom, as the American car companies have, and buses with poverty, is ass fucking backwards.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjfTG8DbwA&t=316s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjfTG8DbwA&t=316s)

<comment><USER4> > _We use[d] to have trains from Nashville to Atlanta. The famous "Chattanooga > Choo-choo" doesn't even have an AmTrak anymore._

Why do you think that is? Because nobody bought tickets from Nashville to Atlanta. Do you think that route was throwing off millions a year in profit to AmTrak and some executive sat back and said "No, I hate poor people let's get rid of that route."? Of course not.

If people bought the tickets but the business was mismanaged, that's one thing. But not enough people bought the tickets.

<comment><USER5> pc86 you are wrong. I have bought tickets on Amtrak, and Amtrak sucks. I have done the price/time opportunity cost calculation for several destinations, and Amtrak came out a big loser, and I ended up driving. I have taken trains in Europe many times, and the overall difference is astounding. I don't know how to fix it, but American trains just seem to want to fail.

<comment><USER6> Amtrak is a bit of a special beast. It's a Frankenstein's monster that the government assembled from the corpses of the many independent rail companies that were failing in the mid 20th century.

As for why Amtrak's service is so poor, my personal sense is that Amtrak made a bunch of bad decisions that maximized their bottom line, such as using excessively cushy (and heavy, and low-capacity) rolling stock for the kinds of routes that would be covered by something more like IC service in Europe. In essence, they made a gamble that what rail travelers want is luxury, which translated into 250lb seats with half an acre of leg room and 3" of foam padding, when what they really want is frequent, regular service.

Commuter train systems like Chicago's Metra are much better, but they're unable to extend themselves out to full-fledged intercity service, no matter how successful they might be at it, because Amtrak enjoys a statutory monopoly.

<comment><USER7> Amtrak is something the government assembled from the corpses of the passenger operations of many independent rail companies. Those passenger operations were (all of them) losing money, even if the rail companies themselves were not failing (some were, some weren't).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wrote about this a while back. Self driving cars are not a solution, at least in America where they won't solve the last leg problem from trains to home (because we have so few trains or even express buses).

[http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not- sol...](http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the- transportation-problem/)

Self driving vehicles on dedicated road ways can't even expect to match a tiny percentage of what trains or even express buses can deliver. Singapore already has autonomous fully automated trains. The same tech has been sold to Kuala Lumpar. London has several driver-less trains with more of their underground being switched over to semi/full-autonomous as well.

We've already had two articles on HN about NYC's crumbling rail infrastructure (both the subway and Penn Station). Chicago hasn't expanded their lines in decades. Our two biggest European style rail cities are not expanding, and are actively falling apart.

There is hope though. Seattle is expanding with ST3 and Florida's high speed line just went operational, with additional stops opening over the next few years which will eventually connect Miami with Orlando. Now if California doesn't fuck things up, we might finally have two real high speed lines in this country (and no, I'm not counting the Acela).

<comment><USER8> You can add Texas to that list. They're aggressively working on building high- speed rail. They will beat California to it and do it at a far cheaper cost. Once they build the first line from Dallas to Houston, I think it's extremely likely they'll continue building more lines between other major cities. You do Dallas to Austin & San Antonio. Then you look at Dallas to Oklahoma City. They'll show it works, that it's financially beneficial, and that it can be done within a reasonable cost.

[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2018/01/29/te...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2018/01/29/texas- central-announces-downtown-dallas-high-speed-rail-passenger-station-site)

[https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/Dallas-Terminal- Renderi...](https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/Dallas-Terminal-Renderings- Maps-Released-in-Bullet-Train-High-Speed-Rail-Project-471650694.html)

<comment><USER9> If Texas can't build a HSR on flat terrain at a cheaper cost than a HSR that must go over/through/around mountains, above valleys and rivers, around world- famous national parks and forests, and is twice as long...quite frankly, they're doing something wrong.

The CA HSR authority has fucked many things up, but you're comparing apples to oranges here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://archive.is/zIs6Z](http://archive.is/zIs6Z)

<comment><USER11> thx !

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >And so this is why it's tricky and this is why in your example of a bridge, if you widened the bridge but lots of people want to cross it, you'll end up with a wider bridge that's exactly as congested as it is now.

Widening the bridge does increase throughput; people who used to be unable to use the bridge are now doing so. There's a benefit there, it's just siphoned off from "reducing congestion" to "people are no longer forced to stay home rather than deal with congestion".

<comment><USER3> Wenover productions does a great video on how increasing traffic lanes makes traffic worse in every city. People who normally wouldn't drive, will now drive thinking they'll be less congestion.

Atlanta had some major closures recently and the city migrated around the problem, people took different paths to work and more people decided to get on public transport.

The fact is car lanes can never reach a fraction of the capacity of a train running at regular intervals. Even if you had nothing but self driving cars running bumper to bumper at 120kph and all filled to a capacity of 4.2 people, on a four lane road, you wouldn't even approach 8% of the capacity of a single rail line running at 2 minute intervals! Singapore's trains are automated. They're already self driving and run at <1.5min intervals during peak hours.

<comment><USER13> There's something wrong with your numbers. 120kph for two minutes is 1km, or 250 4-meter cars, bumper to bumper. Four lanes, 4.2 occupants, that's 16,800 passengers per two minutes, which is a full order of magnitude more than a 12-carriage train packed with standing passengers[1] - and the people in the cars are all sitting down.

1: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_700](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_700)

<comment><USER3> [http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/RPTD/RPTD%20Document%20Library/ma...](http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/RPTD/RPTD%20Document%20Library/maximum- theoretical-person-capacity-24-hour-period.pdf)

<comment><USER14> Ahh, that explains it. The paper assumes a sane minimum of 1.6 seconds/car (aka 2250 pcphpl), but 4 m spacing at 120 kph would be 0.12 seconds/car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Really wonderful interview.

One point that doesn't come up os that serious operational inefficiencies and "friction" exist in how current fixed route services are delivered in most cities. Some due to political challenges (see WMATA funding woes). Some are due to older technologies that lead to lower capacities (see MTA signals), or sluggish transit agencies that have networks that have not kept up with changes to the city (see Dublin Bus).

Public transport needs to work better for the public too.

<comment><USER12> >political challenges (see WMATA funding woes)

See also: why BART doesn't go further south than Millbrae (hint: NIMBYs and thinly-veiled racist worries that it'd bring in "undesirable" folks)

<comment><USER16> Ah, Vantucky just north of Portland, OR has the same BS "concerns". Ditto for the rich part of Bellevue, they've blocked Eastlink Light Rail from using any of the existing rail that is already government owned, cause "oh dear it'll bring the baddies!". They're still pissed off by the rails to trails project though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmmm... i have an FT subscription but i STILL need to turn off ad blocking.. sub cancelled.

This is a real shame as the FT is a good paper.. damn they need to modernise!</comment>


Pantry Staples for DIY - <AUTHOR> https://www.jefftk.com/p/pantry-staples-for-diy <comment><USER2> A list of common parts you can have on hand to 'rig' many solutions in your life.

2x4s, 3/4" ply, screws, and glue. Plus save your other scraps so you can 'compost' your projects.</comment>


Hack.chat – A minimal, distraction-free chat application - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AndrewBelt/hack.chat <comment><USER2> I also made a chat app, it's like the exact opposite of this, its totally distracting [http://quatshy.com](http://quatshy.com)

<comment><USER3> Wow, this is probably the future, but for an old guy like me its horrible.

<comment><USER4> young guy here, can confirm this is not the future we want.

<comment><USER5> How young? I'm 24 and I think this is the best thing ever

<comment><USER6> Maybe it's not about age, but class?

<comment><USER7> Am I allowed to say "Ouch" on HN? Probably not, but "Ouch".

<comment><USER8> Why? Could you reason about that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The admin password in the config is the password on the live server FYI ;-).

<comment><USER10> The apparent lack of any sort of security practices by the code author should be a signal to the clients of pawnmail [1] that they should find another hosting provider.

[1] - [https://pawnmail.com/](https://pawnmail.com/)

<comment><USER11> I don't think that's a fair suggestion to make based on a minimal POC.

<comment><USER10> The author doesn't mention hack.chat as a PoC anywhere. Additionally, it's in the same "Projects" section as pawnmail on his website [1]. So yeah, that's not a PoC in my book.

[1] - [http://andrewbelt.name/](http://andrewbelt.name/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I posted MapChat (idoco.github.io/map-chat) three weeks ago at about the same time of the day and also got tons of traffic from HN.

HN crowd was brutal, and I wasn't really ready for that. People were trying to crash it in so many ways. But the overall experience was really fun :) and I also got some very valuable feedback.

<comment><USER13> We had the same experience launching a chat on HN last week. Some valuable feedback, but some pretty brutal comments as well, and lots of (failed) crash attemps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would understand a markdown format for chat, because it's easy, short and fun. What made you use something as powerful as LaTeX? With great power comes great responsibility, right?

<comment><USER15> Why would anyone want Markdown in a chat window? No one is sending document- length chat messages with text formatting. That's what email is for. On the rare occasions you want italics or bullets in a chat, you can get close enough with ASCII if whitespace is preserved.

The purpose of the LaTeX support is being able to communicate Mathematics with ease. Markdown is useless for that. And it's hugely useful e.g., when tutoring or holding office hours via chat (or even via Skype -- just typing the formula is usually easier than writing it on a piece of paper or aiming the camera at a whiteboard).

<comment><USER16> Why not? At some point in time someone probably said why do you want a smiley face in a chat window? Now there are lots of "emoji" symbols. Pandoc uses markdown with inline latex, it gives you multiple ways of typing things and it's less verbose to type. Instead of using an equation array in latex, use a numbered markdown list with latex formulae. Skype has it's annoyances too, ever tried to actually communicate "(B)", you get a great beer symbol you likely didn't intend to write.

<comment><USER17> A subset of markdown is good in my eyes. To avoid the smiley case, just format and display everything including the formatting characters. Similar to how irssi treats _lines like this_, it will underline all of the characters inbetween while preserving the outer '_' characters.

<comment><USER16> Or allow user filters priority on formatting so you can modify the behavior on your own (I guess you already could with greasemonkey or some other plugin). Even with just a toggle for disabling markdown/latex would let you copy and paste the latex code out to get unformatted text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Somebody seems to have found a way to constantly broadcast system messages and is flooding chat.

I really like how simple it is. I do like how it works similar to Mozilla Hello. Just give somebody a link, and they can join.

Also, I'm getting a cert error. Identity cannot be verified.

</comment><comment><USER19> I really like how server.js is setup. Very straight-forward and I would imagine adding features would be pretty easy to build in.

edit: things like storing which rooms users are chatting in using Redis so that you can run multiple instances and balance them. Or persisting the messages to a DB. Or adding processes to download images/bring in website snippets when urls are posted (like Slack).

<comment><USER20> Me too; I really like the POLICE handler too, that makes a lot of sense. Awesome project!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://hack.chat/?HN](https://hack.chat/?HN)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a cool project. Recently, I have had to teach a High School kid some basic science using Whatsapp and found it lacking. Searching on the app stores for a messaging app with Latex support yielded nothing. Already gearing up to roll up my sleeves and build one.

<comment><USER23> There is a LaTeX bot in Telegram, my mathematician friends use that in their group chats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> nice work, here is a brief feature request list

* when a formula is copied, the latex should be copied

* support for \begin{align}

<comment><USER25> It looks hack.chat is using KaTeX under the hood. We recently added support for environments, but haven't implemented {align} yet. If anyone's interest in helping please see [https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX/issues/61](https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX/issues/61).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There was a time when telechat (chat over telnet, mid-late 90s early 00s) was a pretty cool niche chat medium. I really miss it.

It allowed more customization and control than IRC for the host, and a bunch of small communities popped up around them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Good work. The minimal design is an example of less design == good design.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting. Was working on something similar but more focused on streams with no identity. [http://malten.me/](http://malten.me/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Great stuff!

Some feature request: a) allow ignoring users b) allow UTF-8 in usernames

</comment><comment><USER30> Would be nice if an error is thrown when the LaTeX can't be parsed instead of just printing whatever TeX-foo you've written down.

Also, I'd like to see Tikz and pgfplots support :)

</comment><comment><USER31> A distraction-free chat application seems like an oxymoron...

</comment><comment><USER32> the KaTeX doesn't seem to render on mine: [http://i.imgur.com/5GMaIAq.png](http://i.imgur.com/5GMaIAq.png)

Personally I had never heard of KaTeX - since Khan Academy didn't consider MathJax fast enough they optimized it [https://khan.github.io/KaTeX/](https://khan.github.io/KaTeX/)

<comment><USER33> Try refreshing that page. That's an old copy, and it's trying to merge with the new Javascript.

<comment><USER32> this is just the test page from [http://127.0.0.1:8080](http://127.0.0.1:8080) without any modification

additionally [http://127.0.0.1:8080/?random](http://127.0.0.1:8080/?random) leads to a page that says "server disconnected"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somebody could write a CLI based client for this. That would be awesome and it looks like it would be very straight forward, too.

<comment><USER10> Why not just use IRC instead?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Seems to work pretty well after messing about on ?HN, lotsa people testing bad LaTeX though.

</comment><comment><USER35> Parsing usernames in LaTeX could lead to abuse/annoyance. Very cool project.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why are so many people trying to make an IRC-like app right now?

<comment><USER37> Probably because Slack has been valued at over $2.5 billion, when it seems (to many people) to be not much more complex than IRC. It is easy to argue that Slack provides value in other ways, but there is definitely a high "hey, I can make that!" factor for many using the tool.

<comment><USER38> I've thought about this since I first used Slack and decided that they are pretty much (early) Apple (Slack) to Microsoft (IRC), both do broadly the same thing but a tight focus on design (and been fashionable, lets be fair) puts Slack over the top.

That said I still use IRC and will likely do so in the future, lots of open source clients, you can run your own server and you aren't putting your entire history in the hands of a private entity (I'm not the majority).

Also while many of us could create something like Slack the real devil is in the details, getting the UI to the requisite standard, the UX nailed down etc is a _lot_ of work - possibly more than the guts of the clone as you could pull in a bunch of extant systems for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > "POLICE.arrest(getAddress(badClient))"

If only

</comment><comment><USER40> Can we have some way to block people?

</comment><comment><USER41> someone ban :^[()D]

</comment><comment><USER4> I just _love_ how minimal and easy it is. No more waiting for a monolithic javascript front end to load or a "loading pleast wait", no glossy buttons or emoticons or avatars or github sign ins.

It even has IP flood detection by default! Multiple line protection should prevent the flood of ascii penis art and other obscenities.

</comment><comment><USER42> awesomeeeee

</comment><comment><USER43> Nice, but I bet nobody is currently able to write there a proof for

      $\Re(s) = \frac{1}{2}$ for all s where $\zeta(s) = 0$ and $0 < \Re(s) < 1$

.. I mean, where zeta is the Riemann's one :)

<comment><USER44> don't be sad. how can one appreciate your comment, if he can't even recognize the meaning of the formulae at the hackchat homepage?</comment></comment>


Alaska on Tuesday Will Become Third State with Legal Marijuana - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/northern-lights-alaska-tuesday-will-become-third-state-legal-marijuana-n311426 <comment><USER2> Looking at how much money Colorado is raking in, I honestly think it's just a matter of time before other states fall in line with legalizing marijuana. Awkward banking situation be damned.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that the incentive to tax marijuana is high due to the revenue potential for power groups within the state.

Others suggest that marijuana should be legalized so that the state can reap tax revenues, as if the state is a creature whose feeding is a virtue in and of itself. I find this puzzling, as taxation an entirely independent concept to legalization. Attaching the two issues together seems unnecessary.

The taxes on plants in the various states seem pretty high, and various sources tell me that the retail prices are still not much lower than the previous black market prices. These taxes, especially given how high they are, seem like they are destined to produce the same problems of prohibition.

<comment><USER4> But vices are usually heavily taxed. (Ok, sure, some of this is medicinal, but let's be frank) So, i don't see much of an issue with it.

Leveraging taxes makes this appealing to people for whom it might not be.

As for the prices being similar to black market, that may be so, for now, but there is one thing which should give it an advantage and that's quality control, aka, branding.

And, as others have pointed out, legalizing it, eliminates the social cost of prosecuting what were once crimes --that's a big advantage.

<comment><USER5> Why is this so easily accepted?

In Denver, the weed sales tax is upwards of 21% with a previous 15% excise tax from cultivator to retail outlet.

In Colorado, it's less than 8% tax on a 6 pack of beer and the great majority of this is a federal tax.

Weed is demonstrably safer and thus less sinful than alcohol and tobacco. I dislike how easily the tax argument is received. If you can show a relationship that adds to healthcare costs then by all means institute sin taxes, including for soda. But if you are only making a moral judgement about what not to do, then I think the argument is without merit.

More details-

[http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/22/whatever-happened-to- treat...](http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/22/whatever-happened-to-treating- marijuana)

<comment><USER6> It's not an argument from first principles about what weed "should" cost. It's about what people will accept. People are used to weed costing relatively infinite money (i.e. it can cost you your freedom and no amount of money can replace that). Therefore, even expensive weed seems cheap by comparison and feels like a win for consumers.

Likewise, expressways are massively expensive to build and maintain, but we're used to driving on them for free, so charging even a small toll that doesn't fully recover the costs feels expensive and is widely resisted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sorry if it's a stupid question, but, what happens with all the people in prison for possession of marijuana? Do they still need to serve their full sentence, can they be released now that it is legal?

</comment><comment><USER8> It's all the poor, backward Southern states that really could use the tax revenue. Alaska, Colorado and Oregon were already economically successful states before legalization. Hopefully the dominos will start falling and we can put this 'reefer madness' behind us.

<comment><USER9>
        > backward Southern states that really could use the tax
        > revenue

There's a lot of money to be made locking people up too...

<comment><USER10> Not really. Locking people up usually costs /quite/ a bit of money.

<comment><USER11> Comment you replied to was most likely referring to private prisons:

[https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private- prisons](https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons)

> Private prison companies, however, essentially admit that their business > model depends on locking up more and more people. For example, in a 2010 > Annual Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Corrections > Corporation of America (CCA) stated: "The demand for our facilities and > services could be adversely affected by . . . leniency in conviction or > parole standards and sentencing practices . . . ." As incarceration rates > skyrocket, the private prison industry expands at exponential rates, holding > ever more people in its prisons and jails, and generating massive profits.

<comment><USER12> And it's also true, though perhaps to a less consequential extent, of public prisons. You still have prison employees and management drawing salaries and construction companies building public prisons, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Damn Peter Thiel is smart

[http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/08/cannabis- inv...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/08/cannabis-investor- peter-theil-paypal-founder)

<comment><USER14> I'm wondering how many people in favor of legalization would actually like to see a pot shop in their own street. From my own experience in the Netherlands, these kinds of shops attract a sort of crowd that you would much rather avoid.

<comment><USER15> I dunno. We have a nice neighborhood pub on our street and it's great. I can stop in for a bite or a few beers and once in a while, yep...I have a few more with my neighbors/friends and we get a bit tipsy and are glad to be able to walk a block to get home instead of taking a cab.

There are also some other bars in town that "attract a sort of crowd that (I) would much rather avoid". So that's basically what I do. I don't hang out at bars that attract a bunch of tough guys looking to pick fights or pick up drunk women.

That still doesn't mean I think bars should be illegal or that people (even drunks and alcoholics) should be thrown in jail for whatever issues they have with drug (alcohol) abuse.

All other arguments about the relative benefits of alcohol or cannabis or anything else aside, that's what it comes down to for me. I just don't think the possession and consumption of anything should be enough to land you in prison. As with alcohol you must be held accountable for your actions whether sober or under the influence. And if you accidentally cause damage to person or property while under the influence, you can be held liable due to your own negligence in not managing your behavior properly.

But the idea that your diet can be considered "criminal" is frankly ridiculous to me. Either it's a relatively harmless vice where you occasionally engage in an activity with potential health risks in exchange for altering your mood/perception or you're self-medicating and habituated to something and could use help with withdrawal and with addressing the issues that led you to use intoxication as an escape or a coping mechanism.

Neither scenario is something I'd consider worth of criminal punishment. Crimes at their most basic should be situations where one person infringes the rights of another, not situations where one person makes potentially unhealthy decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't take drugs but I believe everything except meth should be free, totally legal, and freely available to registered addicts. All those "terrible" drugs like heroin now look like the good old days compared to meth.

People are driven to meth because they can't get high on whatever their drug of choice is because the cops and customs have cracked down so hard that drugs aren't available. The most effective way to keep people away from meth is let em get high safely and for free on whatever their poison is.

So much community money and time wasted on criminalisation, court systems, policing and incarceration of people who just want to get high. Getting high seems a silly thing to me to want to do but why do we make drug users criminals for it?

The war on drugs pours gargantuan quantities in to criminal organisations - the only solution to that is make drugs legal and free which would immediately dissolve many criminal endeavours.

The war on drugs has created the meth epidemic. Only ending the war on heroin, coke, lsd, ectasy and pot can now fight the worst of all drugs - meth.

<comment><USER17> Is your argument heroin is the lesser of two evils when compared to meth and thus should be legalized to at least get people off meth into something less evil like heroin?

Sorry for the run-on-sentence but if that's your argument it sounds absurd.

There was a documentary on Sky TV[0] of of a heroin addict who recorded his final two years of life. I urge to watch it if you haven't a clear idea of what life can be like for a drug addict. On a number of occasions one could see he sincerely hated the drug but couldn't control his addiction. He jumped out the window of his house during one attempt at going cold turkey and broke his foot since he was locked in the house and wanted to get some heroin. His veins collapsed due to all the injections of heroin over the years. He ultimately died of brain haemorrhage due to withdrawal symptoms in a detox facility.

I don't use drugs either and when I hear people's arguments about legalizing marijuana, it makes sense in the context of a society that legalized alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. But meth and heroin are in a league of their own and I don't believe your argument makes any sense whatsoever. Lowering the bar from "the worst of all drugs" to "not as bad but you'll probably get addicted to it, may lose control of your life and possibly end up with a series of medical conditions and including death" is not acceptable.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7thZbHTvZIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7thZbHTvZIQ)

<comment><USER16> My argument is not that heroin gets people off meth, because it doesn't. My argument is that heroin junkies look for a way to get high when the cops have halted the heroin supply, so the heroin junkies take meth cause it's cheap and available and thus they become meth junkies.

In the nightclubs the partying folks want to get high but the cops have killed the ecstasy supply, so the party crowd try meth cause they want to have fun and get high, and become meth junkies.

At the universities the students want to smoke pot and listen to (what, Pink Floyd?) but having a puff is illegal, there's no pot cause it's hard to get cause it's against the law, but hey this guy has some meth, that'll get us high, and hey, meth can't really be all that bad can it?

My other argument is that drugs cost money, so how do junkies get money? They steal it, break into houses, mug people and do hold ups. Cut out the crime, just give em the drugs for free.

Drugs aren't crime, they're just sad ways for lost people to try to cope.

I'm advocating harm minimisation.

<comment><USER17> You've clarified your argument but doesn't sound like much of a difference.

"Legalize drugs to get people off meth" vs "Legalize drugs or they'll get on meth"

Kind of sounds like the same thing to me.

Meth is messed up. We seem to agree with that. My point is heroin is also very messed up. Perhaps to a lesser degree but I do know they both horrible and it makes little sense to legalize one over the other. Considering how horrific the effects of prolonged heroin use is I can't see why it should be legalized while declaring another drug off-limits.

I make no comment on marijuana since I class it differently in my head and I also make no comment on ecstasy as I virtually know nothing about its effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are a number of organized efforts in Ohio currently.

[http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/02/current_stat...](http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/02/current_status_of_ohios_mariju_1.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm so over all this legalization news, it's inevitable at this point and this nascent industry is about to blow up big.

Time to start putting in your bets.... [http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/06/of- course-he-does/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/06/of-course-he-does/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Really, what are these people trying to gain from legalizing Marijuana?

<comment><USER21> Maybe they are tired of going to jail for no good reason?

<comment><USER20> Well, if it is Marijuana now, then what's next in line? I'm afraid to see the day when some people will start demanding the legalization of other harmful drugs, pulling "the science says" card out and rationalizing the possible usefulness of certain drugs that really should be out of everyone's hands...

<comment><USER22> Portugal has done just that and it's worked just fine: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating- drug-d...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug- decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

You clearly are uninformed on the history of prohibition.

<comment><USER23> Portugal did NOT legalize drugs. They changed personal use and possession of less than a 10 days personal supply so that these were no longer criminal offenses. They become administrative offenses.

Producing, distributing, and selling remain criminal offenses.

<comment><USER22> In too much of an indignant hurry in my reply. Yes, it was decriminalization not legalization. But the point stands that reducing impediments to drug use isn't going to cause civilization to crumble.

Anybody who brings up the issue of the damage done to society by drug use has to then take into account the damage done by drug prohibition. It's clear (to many) that the latter is far more harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pot smokers make a big deal of legalization but seriously, have legality issues ever prevented anyone from acquiring the stuff? I think many people are focusing on legalization because they want to avoid the real question, namely what is your personal relationship with this potent narcotic. Are you in charge of it, or is it in charge of you?

<comment><USER15> Ignoring the whole "potent narcotic" thing for a second (since it's not really either), I personally don't ingest cannabis but I have in the past and frankly it's like alcohol in that you can have a little (and feel a bit relaxed) or a lot (and feel really intoxicated). Either way, I'm focused on decriminalization because the concept of throwing someone in prison for their diet is abhorrent to me.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Personal search and note taking without switching windows - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pdepip/mmap.it <comment><USER2> > For a production release you will have to take these steps:

> Bump version in package.json

What ?</comment>


All the World's Immigration Visualized in 1 Map - <AUTHOR> http://metrocosm.com/global-immigration-map/ <comment><USER2> Well in some contries, the media has a substantial impact on the peoples. They make a mountain out of the mole hill for some issues.</comment>


Is The Bubble Back?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3606676

<comment><USER2> "We gotta screw it up and waste money," -Paul Kedrosky

People actually give this guy money to invest? Maybe the reporter is taking the quote way out of context?</comment>


Show HN: Triqla – Documents for Evolving Plans - <AUTHOR> https://triqla.com <comment><USER2> This problem is aching for a solution, so I really want to like this. The video doesn't quite reveal enough, though. Is Triqla just a feed of your wiki pages, ordered by last update? With diffs? How do you find things after they are no longer among the 10 most recently touched items?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you nailed it. We also sort by what you haven't read, so you'll scroll past each article, then you'll be able to search for it because you know it exists. We've experimented with an array of different hieratical and graph structures, but they all grow stale and misleading.</comment></comment>


So I heard you like share buttons... - <AUTHOR> http://chri.sto.ph/so-i-heard-you-like-share-buttons

<comment><USER2> I am not sure why shane_armstrong had his comment downvoted to oblivion, as I can see why epileptics would want to stay away from these.

Even my brain was having a hard time comprehending what was going on.

They sure are "eye-catching". And I love the quotes :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I probably won't be using those buttons, but I appreciate the sense of humor :)</comment>


Scottish judges rule Parliament suspension is unlawful - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49661855 <comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see if, in the aftermath of all this, we end up with a more formally defined constitutional system, or if we'll just carry on as before.

I can't see us adopting a "big ideas" written constitution any time soon, but perhaps some of the structures may become more explicitly defined in legislation (in the way fundamental rights were enshrined in the Human Rights Act).

<comment><USER3> We can hope - or perhaps we should not.

Who would we trust to reform our famously short written constitution? Ten words or thereabouts that was the fudge after the restoration, to give parliament sovereignty.

I certainly wouldn't want the modern political parties defining or improving this, yet who else? We probably need to lose a major war, so the victors can "give" us a reforming and benign constitution, like was successfully done a time or two in Europe.

<comment><USER4> This is the awkward truth: democracy can't be created democratically. It has to be imposed by a dictator.

<comment><USER3> It comes from chaos. It can be agreed though.

The US constitution came from the revolution, and attempted to correct some of the issues of the time, but without needing a dictator. Interesting that the US president gets a broadly similar role and powers to George III, just with restrictions on length of office. We've reformed all of those powers away, they kept their 18th century monarch, oops president, and added a few new powers. :)

The baby steps often come from localised chaos - riot, civil disobedience and such. Don't think we could push for a good constitution that way. We'd get a biased, subservient to the parties one. But we'd be told we got what was agitated for.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fix It: an online game to correct errors in our machine-generated transcripts - <AUTHOR> http://fixit.americanarchive.org <comment><AUTHOR> This seems pretty streamlined and well-documented, although I wonder if they could have delayed the Facebook login. Convincing users to do your data cleaning for you is quite the trick, like the Smithsonian _.

I wonder, what more underhanded versions of data collection are possible? Maybe providing the opportunity to clean inline as users search the archive?

_ [https://transcription.si.edu/phyllis-diller- cards](https://transcription.si.edu/phyllis-diller-cards)</comment>


DIY: The Wifi Predator - <AUTHOR> http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/261/42/ <comment><USER2> I my state you can go to jail for using even free wifi :-( it sucks so badly I want to cry. [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070522-michigan- man-a...](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070522-michigan-man-arrested- for-using-cafes-free-wifi-from-his-car.html)</comment>