Why isn't HTTPS everywhere yet? - <AUTHOR> http://webappsec-test.info/~bhill2/DifferentTakeOnOE.html <comment><USER2> Cost is going to be taken care of by let's encrypt.

I am surprised complexity of setting up SSL isn't mentioned in the article.

First the tools are complex to use, use various formats for storing keys that are incompatible. In Linux you pretty much have to rely on cryptic command lines. Windows is slightly simpler. And you need more tools to convert certificates between the different formats (for instance using an IIS certificate with FileZilla).

Then you have to deal with the complexity of the algorithms used, the fact that chrome won't accept sha1 anymore, the fact that http2 is very picky in the cryptographic methods used.

What is a best practice today breaks tomorrow. For instance the following script written only a couple of years ago shows how to set up windows to get an A on SSLLabs:

[https://www.hass.de/content/setup-your-iis-ssl-perfect- forwa...](https://www.hass.de/content/setup-your-iis-ssl-perfect-forward- secrecy-and-tls-12)

But with IIS10 / http2, this list of ciphers is incompatible with chrome. I found a list that works here:

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=529994](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=529994)

but I am sure it will break older browsers.

Etc, etc, etc. This is hard work. Until setting up SSL will be a simple box to tick in IIS or a single setting to change in apache, only developers who really care about security and are really motivated will deal with this shit.

<comment><USER3> The cipher list is effectively a big issue. When using the good old Sun Fortran compiler, I was used to have a _-fast_ flag which would be smart to detect the hardware and be as fast as possible while respecting the IEEE maths (as far as I can remember).

I would love a _-secure_ flag to just use the most secure option of the current version of the software even at the cost of X years of backward compatibility at the tool/client/browser level.

For example for nginx instead of something like:

        ssl_ciphers ECDH+AESGCM:DH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:DH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:DH+AES:ECDH+3DES:DH+3DES:RSA+AESGCM:RSA+AES:RSA+3DES:!aNULL:!MD5:!DSS;

You would get:

        ssl_ciphers SECURE;

<comment><USER2> Or they should package it in vestions. "TLS 1.3" would come with a standard list of ciphers and other parameters. All you would have to do is tell your system "Disable SSL3.0" "Enable TLS 1.3", etc.

Right now it feels like trying to fly a B747.

<comment><USER4> That does happen! Enable TLS 1.2 only and you're in pretty good shape. TLS 1.3 will drop more bad stuff and add a bit more good stuff.

<comment><USER5> It definitely helps, but if you're trying to keep up with the latest security, you'd be susceptible to Logjam (due to DHE-supporting ciphers in the default TLS 1.2 list).

There's the Mozilla SSL Configuration Generator which helps with the madness, but they still aren't keeping up with the latest recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Still no mention about ads. Using HTTPS means you have to load ads over HTTPS and a huge number of ad networks are not reachable over HTTPS and another large number of assets / tags are hard coded to fetch HTTP resources. For any ad supported website, HTTPS will cause a significant loss of ad revenue.

Given how long it's taking the industry to transition away from Flash I'm not holding my breath about this being fixed any time soon.

<comment><USER7> This is a big reason. Unfortunately the industry is full of old and/or poor tech that is already fragile as it is.

All modern ad networks (like ours) are completely HTTPS ready but the transition will be slow due to momentum with existing vendors.

<comment><USER8> Solution: block HTTP ads.

<comment><USER7> Solution to what? Publishers still have to enable HTTPS on their sites and they'll only do that once all the resources on the page are HTTPS compatible.

<comment><USER9> To this: [http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm)

<comment><USER7> While I agree with the gist of that article/presentation, it's more on the silly side compared to many other more detailed and accurate pieces about the growing weight of the modern web.

While blocking ads will help some (and certainly some ad providers have gone way too far with their bandwidth/cpu requirements), the web is just a richer media experience than before. The mainstream does not just want text and 80-90% of the page weight ends up being images, even on that article itself. There are other advancements like HTTP/2 and modern CDNs and better image formats like FLIF that will solve this problem much more effectively without going back to a textual world.

Still don't see what any of this has to do with HTTPS encryption everywhere though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another big blocker is cost.

For example, one of the biggest CDNs in the world (I'm looking at you, Akamai), charge dramatically more for delivering content over HTTPS. Let's say you're delivering video content at scale, the difference between HTTP and HTTPS delivery can be many millions of dollars a year.

But why not use a different CDN, say Cloudfront which prices the same for HTTP and HTTPS?, well, simple, the same problem. Cloudfront is many times more expensive than other CDNs at scale.

Really, we need to apply pressure to all CDNs to equal out their HTTPS pricing (Its not just Akamai...)

<comment><USER11> I'd imagine HTTPS is significantly more expensive to host than plain HTTP, due to the CPU requirements of the crypto involved.

<comment><USER12> Maybe at the CDN level where there's lots of caching it's different, but for regular hosting apps are primarily IO bound so it's essentially "free" to do encryption. From [http://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking- ssl.ht...](http://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.html):

> In January this year (2010), Gmail switched to using HTTPS for everything by > default. Previously it had been introduced as an option, but now all of our > users use HTTPS to secure their email between their browsers and Google, all > the time. In order to do this we had to deploy no additional machines and no > special hardware. On our production frontend machines, SSL/TLS accounts for > less than 1% of the CPU load, less than 10KB of memory per connection and > less than 2% of network overhead. Many people believe that SSL takes a lot > of CPU time and we hope the above numbers (public for the first time) will > help to dispel that.

<comment><USER4> At the time that was written, only the frontends did TLS---remember, there wasn't _universal_ strong encryption or authentication within Google's back- end until after the Snowden leaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the irony of that page being served over plain HTTP :-)

<comment><USER11> Ha! And HTTPS doesn't seem to work for me at all.

<comment><USER14> [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=http%3A%2F%2F...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=http%3A%2F%2Fwebappsec- test.info)

        Assessment failed: No secure protocols supported

It fails spectacularly as well. No matter the quality of the content of this article (and I'm one to agree with it), this sort of throws it out the window for me. If you aren't able to manage a functioning version of the product you are describing (especially in the lets encrypt era) you don't get to do a technical article on said product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not convinced it's even a great idea until something is done about a) the entirely broken CA trust model or b) mainstream web browser's entirely broken attitude to that trust model.

<comment><USER16> I am interested in (a). Recently I heard from a trusted source who works for a popular CDN that some top levels CAs, who are trusted in my browser, are known to be issuing certificates for domains which they have no authority to be doing so, for the purpose of man-in-the-middle analysis by certain parties. But that there is a reluctance to pull these certificates because that would be like switching off portions of the web.

Is there any truth or more solid reference to this from those who are in the industry and know more about these topics? Rather alarming if so.

<comment><USER17> just listen to security now [0]. it'll make your blood boil how, e.g., symantec fucks up over and over again. this industry is full of incompetent idiots.

[0] [https://twit.tv/shows/security-now](https://twit.tv/shows/security-now) (episode 532 is particularly revealing)

<comment><USER16> Thanks, interesting to hear. If I heard correctly this is a case of incompetence -- which is certainly a problem. Though the information I heard was about lesser-known CAs granting certificates to enable some kind of snooping.

It seems that a problem with the current implementation of SSL is that it conflates the requirement for encryption with that for identification.

Knowing that "Symantec thinks this is google.com" has limited benefit to me; I'm happier with the idea that "This is the same google.com you visited before".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In addition to ad revenue issue r1ch mentioned (a friend of mine told me HTTPS ads provided less than half the revenue HTTP ads provide), there are a few other things I've encountered while working on HTTPS support:

\- More ad network misbehavior: the last time I checked, a lot of HTTPS ads on AdSense would take up 100% CPU and lag the browser, because it would try to request an HTTP resource and fail in an infinite loop

\- More failed connections: just two weeks ago, a Firefox update made HTTPS sites inaccessible on computers with certain HTTPS-scanning antiviruses installed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10854629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10854629)

\- Browser bugs: Chrome doesn't let you HTML5-drag-and-drop data-URIs from HTTPS: [https://github.com/Zarel/Pokemon-Showdown- Client/commit/53a1...](https://github.com/Zarel/Pokemon-Showdown- Client/commit/53a1..).

\- Warnings when embedding HTTP images: Users often embed HTTP images in community sites like forums, chatrooms, etc, which cause warnings in Firefox and make Chrome remove its "secure" designators

\- Annoyance: I tried to get a Let's Encrypt certificate recently. My server runs Node, and it doesn't serve arbitrary files from a directory (it's a WebSocket server) so the webroot method wasn't possible, so I actually had to stop the server and reconfigure the firewall not to redirect ports 80 and 443 to get the certificate.

`letsencrypt-auto` also gives very cryptic error messages: apparently "Correct zName not found for TLS SNI challenge. Found" means "please use `sudo -H`". And the standalone verification failed for an unknown reason, but at least I eventually got the Apache verification working. And I'm going to have to go through all this again in three months...

<comment><USER19> Regarding the "Annoyance" bullet point, you might have a better time if you put an Apache or nginx in the front (on ports 80/443), have it serve the acme- challenges statically and proxy_pass everything else to Node running on a high port. TLS handling would then happen in the frontend server only.

Regarding the "please use sudo" issue, it's very much possible to run the letsencrypt client as a non-root user if you set your filesystem permissions carefully. Here's the letsencrypt configuration for a private webserver of mine: [https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master...](https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master/holodeck-damogran.pkg.toml#L454-L575)

<comment><USER20> Adding an entire piece of server software for soemthing like node or phoenix, just to answer an HTTP response is overkill. If you want to use LE, make a node client to get the certs and do the renews and shove it on npm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A: It doesn't solve any problems that people think they have, and causes others.

</comment><comment><USER22> Im not able to use SSL certs on all my endpoints. I have to use self-signed certs. That's because many of my machines are on TOR hidden services.

The CA-CERT won't allow any certs for .onion unless you buy at exorbitant price an EV2 cert. And that especially means no free certs.

So I do use self-signed because I want end to end crypto (and the next-to node can see data). Of course my browsers throw a fit, but alas I am indeed secure.

... but I want an .onion cert authority by LetsEncrypt and first-class network routing for all .onion addresses in Linux via /etc/resolve.conf

<comment><USER23> I always thought .onion sites are end to end encrypted. "The rendezvous point simply relays (end-to-end encrypted) messages from client to service and vice versa." according to [https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden- services.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en) There's even a ticket to add a padlock to indicate this in TOR Browser [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/8686](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/8686)

<comment><USER22> My understanding was that the connection prior saw the cleartext of the final destination's packets.

SSL was the way to make sure that end to end was encrypted so that nobody could read the data (mainly login/password info).

I think the only way to see is to be part of the tunnel architecture and see if my thoughts are right or wrong.

<comment><USER24> What you're saying is correct for connections from tor to cleartext sites. Hidden services are end-to-end encrypted. I'm not sure which cipher tor uses; maybe modern browsers are better in that respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Something that no one has seemed to mention: it doesn't work on shared hosting, it requires a static IP. For small sites, the additional cost of moving to a plan that supports SSL and has a static IP, this could be a big cost.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't require a static IP; you can use SNI to use HTTPS on a shared IP:

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

SNI was already been mentioned an hour ago, too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10928036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10928036)

<comment><USER25> Interesting, I hadn't heard of that. Perhaps I should make a correction -- on the webhost my small business uses, purchasing a static IP is required for SSL support. I was under the impression this was a technical limitation, but I was apparently wrong.

<comment><USER26> Shared webhost here: It's one of those complicated part-technical, part-user education issues.

Technical: SNI breaks older browsers (IE on XP, older mobiles). Also requires a modern (ish) OS on the server, if using CPanel, which like, every shared host in the world is pretty much.

User Education: Explaining exactly which clients will be broken is hard, etc.

#2 is basically gone now, because the users who would be broken are broken by the removal of SSLv3 and insecure crypto anyway - so we've now already killed them and can SNI without having to explain anything complicated to the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We just launched support for free SSL on all our plans at [https://www.netlify.com](https://www.netlify.com), doing what we can to help getting HTTPS everywhere.

Won't help on mixed content or broken ad providers, but at least give people a place to put a project on a custom domain for free with HTTPS :)

<comment><USER28> What is the Full SSL feature offered by you? From what I understand it means supporting weaker ciphers apart from SSL and older TLS versions. Is that the case?

<comment><USER27> The full ssl feature means skiing a fallback certificate for non-SNI capable browsers.

Internet explorer on windows XP and Android 2.3 doesn't support SNI based ssl and our full ssl solution assures that even these older browsers can access the site over https without any warnings...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> HTTPS (in the current form) adds a dependency on external authority. This breaks the very fundamental principle of the web.

<comment><USER9> [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

<comment><USER29> Still an external authority.

<comment><USER9> Sure. And why would I trust anyone who says I'm a good guy, trust me, without any confirmation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When I lived in China I was pretty happy the https movement hadn't won yet. Sites that forced me on a secure line were basically useless.

The great firewall doesn't appreciate encrypted connections, and will usually grind to a halt, when deciding if it will let you get the content.

<comment><USER31> Isn't it the contrary. If Internet would be practically unavailable in China except for domestic resources, due to every single server using TLS for absolutely anything — would Great Firewall survive?

<comment><USER30> Yes, it would and is. Remember that all major webservices that take up most of peoples online time in the US and Europe is already banned in China. There is no Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Google, Youtube, twitter, snapchat, Whatsapp working at all or reliably within the firewall.

The quality of the content inside the firewall is good enough for the majority of the population not to care the least about what is happening on the web outside the firewall.

The good viral videos and memes get translated and spread on local services, and plenty are already created within.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Three obvious reasons...

Cost to the end user $10-200/year - even more on Heroku($20/month).

Configuration/Setup sucks - seriously you are supposed to run a bunch of unix commands, copy something to a server, and the whole process isn't user friendly.

Limited end user benefit - A business owner and user up until recently hasn't thought much or cared much about information security outside of online purchases.

Until it is cheap/free and once click easy, it won't be everywhere.

<comment><USER33> "Cost to the end user $10-200/year"

What? How have you not heard of Let's Encrypt by now?

<comment><USER31> There are some issues that are still prevent using their certificates in production¹. For example this one prevents Windows XP clients (not just IE, but anything that uses system X.509 libraries) from connecting: [https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/issues/1660](https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/issues/1660).

Still there's WoSign (free for everyone) and StartSSL (free for non-commercial use).

____

¹) Only where 3-5% of more obscure clients still matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ads are one reason, some big networks still don't fully support HTTPS so publishers get a reduced ad pool (and potentially lower earnings as a result) if they switch over to HTTPS.

</comment><comment><USER35> Because many websites are ad supported and few ad networks have https ads ready and configured properly, so they do not display.

Even on adsense, inventory drops for a https-only website.

</comment><comment><USER36> I work for a large bank and a lot of "lesser known" SSL sites (eg blogs that have a cert) are just straight off blocked by the bluecoat proxy.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Why isn't HTTPS everywhere yet?": Because it makes absolutely no sense for the vast majority of online content. Email in https ? Sure. Reading news sites in https ? Accessing RFC in https ? My favorite online recipe site in https ? A total waste of money and CPU.

Oh, and sure, the problem has been "solved" for few geeks using the latest browsers accepting let's encrypt certificates. Sure.

<comment><USER38> > Because it makes absolutely no sense for the vast majority of online > content.

So you use postcards for most "the vast majority" of your snail (postal service) mail, right? Because _envelopes_ [1] make "absolutely no sense"?

Besides the security issues that have already been mentioned of someone _modifying_ the content as a MITM - something which ISPs are already doing[2] - this is really just another version of the "If you have nothing to hide..." falacy. You do have things to hide, because you shouldn't let every node that handles your traffic compile a database of your browsing activities.

[1] [https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html](https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html)

[2] e.g. "X-UIDH" and the various ISPs that inject javascript for various reasons.

<comment><USER4> Actually, yes. The vast majority of snail mail I receive is open catalogs and other junk mail. Its content is entirely public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> a2enmod headers

echo -e "ServerSignature Off\nServerTokens Prod" >> /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

openssl req -new -nodes -keyout webappsec-test.info.key -out webappsec- test.info.csr -newkey rsa:2048

cat webappsec-test.info.csr

 __ __Register here:

[https://www.startssl.com/](https://www.startssl.com/)

Copy and paste csr...

cat Domain_cert.pem CA_root.pem

[https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config- generat...](https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config-generator/)

====>

A+ on

[https://www.ssllabs.com/](https://www.ssllabs.com/)

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Now? What 's so hard about that?

I guess if you're using EC2 and Ubuntu on your server... ehhh...

<comment><USER40> Why use StartSSL, when Let's Encrypt will give you an equally good certificate (with more flexibility on SANs!) with less hassle?

<comment><USER39> No, it doesn't.

Lets Encrypt certs are equivalent to self-signed certs.

No hassle ==> broken shit.

<comment><USER41> No, you are incorrect. At the moment, their certs are cross-signed, and I have tested my site with multiple browsers. It works.

<comment><USER39> The cross sign is too far up the chain.

If you cross sign a self-signed cert what do you get?

A Let's Encrypt Cert.

Domain Ownership is not the same as file ownership.

<comment><USER39> Of course the cross signed cert works!

That not the point.

The cross signature is worthless if the signed cert beneath it is self-signed.

If Identrust cross signed self signed certs, the self signed cert would be trusted too... and it would "work" in all browsers...

Coly Tarry Frap Tarts! you're daft.

Here try this:

1\. Setup a domain with an MX record that points off domain and a dmarc p=reject record...

2\. Try to get a cert from _any_ CA other than Lets Encrypt without answering any emails sent to the off domain MX.

...

Then... install Lets Encrypt... bam-o! Cert heaven!

It's self-gawd-damn-fing-signed.

<comment><USER39> @pfg:

I know exactly how CAs work. I've built several.

Wosign does not issue a cert without an email verification.

You can look on their website. There's a nice big box to enter an email address to verify your domain and get the free cert.

Sorry -- "Let's Encrypt" with file verification is not DV.

It's just not DV. Simple really...

And it's gonna break the web. Like netlify up there a few post... using rackspace and "Let's Encrypt". ehh. The first few months will probably be fine and then everything is gonna tank.

Until the smart realize that ACME is fine -- as long as you remove the "or file verification" text.

<comment><USER42> You seem to think that a certificate authority is obligated to verify ownership of a domain by email (for DV certs). You are mistaken, and that's not the case. The mechanisms supported by _Let 's Encrypt_ to authenticate domains are _just as good_ as email verification.

If you've been involved in a CA, then you should be familiar with the CAB forum baseline requirements for Verification Practices. [https://cabforum.org/wp- content/uploads/BRv1.2.3.pdf](https://cabforum.org/wp- content/uploads/BRv1.2.3.pdf)

> For each Fully-Qualified Domain Name listed in a Certificate, the CA SHALL > confirm that[] the Applicant[] has control over the FQDN by: [...]

> 4\. Communicating with the Domain's administrator using an email address > [...] 'admin', 'administrator', 'webmaster', 'hostmaster', or 'postmaster' > [...] followed by the Domain Name[];

> 6\. Having the Applicant demonstrate practical control over the FQDN by > making an agreed-upon change to information found on an online Web page > identified by a uniform resource identifier containing the FQDN

> 7\. Using any other method of confirmation, provided that the CA maintains > documented evidence that the method of confirmation establishes that the > Applicant is the Domain Name Registrant or has control over the FQDN to at > least the same level of assurance as those methods previously described.

The approach used by _Let 's Encrypt_ meets this standard (of which email is just one of several options), and the methods they use are just as secure as using email. They specifically offer approach 6. above, which they call Simple HTTP, as well as other approaches that comply with 7. as outlined in [https://letsencrypt.github.io/acme- spec/#rfc.section.7](https://letsencrypt.github.io/acme-spec/#rfc.section.7) Involving email in the verification process makes certificate provisioning harder to automate and adds no additional security.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remington and Other Gun Companies Lose Major Ruling over Sandy Hook Liability - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/nyregion/sandy-hook-supreme-court.html <comment><USER2> This will open the door for many frivolous lawsuit that will clog up the legal system even more.

Let's blame an object where its designed to kill people, and not the person that did the killing. Nope, dont want to look at Big-Pharma either to what types of drugs these kids are on...

Do we get to sue car manufacturers now because the car was used to kill people, or the person that did it?

knee-jerk reactions because of emotions vs logical.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was a 4-3 decision on a court with a grand total of _one_ Republican appointee. I wouldn't expect it to survive a SCOTUS appeal.</comment>


Show HN: Plan/manage complex projects as a graph of dependencies - <AUTHOR> https://twigtask.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, this is a side project I've been quietly working on in bits and pieces over the past 9 months for my own use.

It's (yet another) project management tool built out of frustration with JIRA. When planning out engineering projects I'd often get together with my team to whiteboard a graph of what depends on what, so we'd know what we can work on next concurrently. But entering those tasks into JIRA and setting up dependencies would take longer than the whiteboarding session itself.

There are a lot of things I'd like to do with it, but I thought it was time to share it with the world first and see if there's any interest in it.

Some future ideas:

      - Simultaneous collaboration/multiplayer mode
      - Assigning loose estimated ranges for each task's time, then using Monte Carlo to estimate the time to complete a goal.
      - Loose priorities
      - Kanban (that can automatically pop new tasks into todo when they're unblocked)
      - Mobile support
      - JIRA export

</comment><comment><USER2> Isn't this basically a Gantt chart tool and wasn't this a big part of the value of MacProject? I sure wish MacProject was still available. I've been using Scapple for doing some of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not a big fan of Gantt charts because they force things into a timeline, and tend to imply an order that things should be done (even when two tasks are unrelated). I've found Gantt charts also to be a lot more rigid and less flexible as you inevitably discover new requirements throughout the project.

TwigTask is more about capturing tasks that _can't_ be done until something else is done. For example, you can't build the authentication flow until you've created a table for user accounts. And, you can't release the project until the authentication flow is done.

This is the first time I've seen Scapple, it's very interesting and a really similar concept. The main difference seems that TwigTask is designed specifically for task dependencies, rather than general mindmapping and note linking.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Yaddu – Create communities, share links, and view them in VR mode - <AUTHOR> https://yaddu.pw <comment><AUTHOR> This took about 1.5 weeks of work.

It's just written in vanilla PHP using MariaDB. The VR mode uses A-Frame.</comment>


Microsoft Excel blamed for gene study errors - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37176926 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12349391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12349391)

</comment><comment><USER3> Note that Excel was also partially responsible for the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco; though there were other problems of selective data omission that were not Excel's fault.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing they can do gene studies but not use a spreadsheet!

<comment><USER5> Yep, Excel can be amazingly stupid at times ;-)</comment></comment>


Fenix – Quick and Easy Local Web Server for Static File Testing - <AUTHOR> http://fenixwebserver.com/

<comment><USER2> Reading the title, I was expecting to reply "python -m SimpleHTTPServer", but it actually looks like a nice app with some useful features.

Would prefer ngrok over localtunnel, but hey, it's open source. Guess I'll do it myself!

<comment><USER3> I prefere twisted. SimpleHTTPServer hangs on large files.

pip install twisted twistd -n web --path .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice simple, easy to use and _focussed on the core task_ , not an accidental byproduct of another product/tool/language. So gets my +1

Of course there are many options to do the same thing - but this is a simple, clean and elegant start to a potentially really nice tool.

</comment><comment><USER5> It does look like a nice app. Any comments on security? Anytime I see a windows web server I worry a bit about about that, only based on what I've seen in the past.

The fact that it has a nice GUI makes adoption much more likely, going to play with this tonight :)

Edit: [https://yvrwzxiyog.localtunnel.me](https://yvrwzxiyog.localtunnel.me) Cool!

</comment><comment><USER6> I am really surprised that anyone would need this, but it definitely doesn't hurt. From what I can see, it serves static sites only. I... kind of... never needed that.

It looks good though.

<comment><USER7> Local dev on a javascript-heavy app is one use. You run your build tools to generate the static files (e.g. a Grunt build process with grunt-contrib-watch configured), and then you need a local web server to serve up the files. I tend to stick with:

      python -m SimpleHTTPServer

though.

I actually setup a Tmuxinator session for such projects. It launches the static file server, the continuous build process, and a shell in the source directory.

Why not just run static files from disk? Most browsers refuse to execute JavaScript from file:/// Urls for security reasons (understandably).

<comment><USER8> I've done all of my client sidy test/prototyping javascript with plain .html and .js files.

<script src="app.js"></script> Should work in all browsers, at least on windows. It just looks for app.js relative to the root html file.

<comment><USER7> I currently work with two apps that interact. One might generate a URL to the other. The base url is defined in a config file. I find it easier to just define 'localhost:PORT' for each app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This would be perfect with one feature: reverse proxy (. It would be perfect to be able to put this in front of Django. I agree, Apache is annoying for one's desktop.

<comment><USER10> I agree...reverse proxy would cap this off awesomely. The other item I have been really wanting out of a local server tool is host definition as well.

In other words, I can setup a local site but instead of going to localhost:81 ... I can go to something like site1.dev or site1.local

I would love this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Beautiful page!

One small nit: when loading up the page on a mac, I see OS X window chrome around the examples, but Windows style C:\ file paths

</comment><comment><USER12> > Public sharing is tunneled through SSH (i.e. HTTPS).

I don't think SSH means what they think it means

<comment><USER9> More accurate to say you don't know what the feature is and the verbiage is confusing.

"Fenix features the ability to share local sites immediately, securely, and temporarily. With one click, SSH tunneling will proxy your local server to a privately assigned (HTTPS) URL. There's even a copy link that can be sent to collaborators. Presto! Your laptop is now a public web server. Possibly even a few if you share multiple sites at once."[1]

I guess they are providing the reverse tunneling as a service?

1\. [https://medium.com/tech-recipes/love- localhost-f488940f3e38](https://medium.com/tech-recipes/love- localhost-f488940f3e38)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks interesting GUI but I much prefer to use Flask for simple needs. Flask has replaced Node.js completely, although I do miss the async, it's not worth wrestling with Javascript for in my experience.

        python server.py
        Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey, your website requires Javascript to display anything without any reason. It only uses JS for distracting effects.</comment>


Nissan LEAF Sales in Atlanta – Nearly 1,000 Units Sold in December - <AUTHOR> http://insideevs.com/nissan-leaf-sales-in-atlanta-nearly-1000-units-sold-in-december/

<comment><USER2> Living in Atlanta, the Leaf is ALL OVER. There are no less than 12 in my parking deck, up from zero less than 3 months ago. Two Volts, two Teslas, one Mitsubishi electric, and more than a dozen Leafs. Leaves?</comment>


What does C++ do better than D? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97207/what-does-c-do-better-than-d

<comment><USER2> Seems a bit like apples and oranges, no? If someone's going to use a language with a GC, why not go and use a full blown VM powered language in the Java or .NET ecosystem?

The advantage of C++ is knowing exactly what happens when, and being able to tightly control the memory footprint. If that's not the requirement, I see no reason to spend extra effort on the language's verbosity.

That being said, the only feature D seems to really have that C++ doesn't (besides gc) is compile time reflection aka traits (granted, it's possible to derive some of those like boost traits, but for others like virtual function detection it's impossible without compiler support).

<comment><USER3>
         why not go and use a full blown VM

Because you may not need a full blown VM; also D allows for manual deallocation of memory if you seek predictability, something that full-blown VMs like the JVM or CLR cannot do.

C++ is still used for applications development a lot, in instances where people recommend these full-blown VMs. And while companies/individuals are naturally conservative, this also does say something about the viability of Java/.NET for development of applications.

I would also add here that I've never seen a Java application that I liked, or that .NET has a stigma attached so that many people won't touch it with a ten- foot pole.

D is somewhere in the middle of Java and C. It is low level enough to provide predictable behavior with little overhead, but it is also high-level enough to be comfortable and does guard (somewhat) against shooting yourself in the foot, in many cases in which C++ does not.

         the advantage of C++ is knowing exactly
         what happens when

But you don't know exactly what happens and when in C++, this being one criticism against it -- in some instances D even has more predictable behavior.

         I see no reason to spend extra effort on the
         language's verbosity.

It's not the language verbosity that's an issue with C++ ; it's more about many constructs being hard to use and error-prone. D fixes some of that.

It's also about the C++ language being hard to parse, that only companies with big budgets like Microsoft/Borland can produce usable IDEs. It's also so hard to parse that you'll always find inconsistencies between compilers and this is also why the world has standardized on only 2 compilers: GCC and Visual Studio, while using anything else (while wanting to maintain compatibility) is seriously asking for trouble.

Not that D has many compilers (it doesn't) but its syntax was specifically designed to be easier to write tools for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wait, do you mean D1 or D2? That's the problem with D.

<comment><USER5> The poster specifies D2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> C++ is better for finding a paying job. There you have it, someone had to say it :D

</comment><comment><USER7> The big thing C++ has over D is momentum. Lots of stuff out there in C++ land, whereas the D ecosystem feels a bit sparse.

Also, D doesn't have an equivalent to the RAII/Smart pointer paradigm (being a garbage collected language) so it might not be as good for realtime stuff where a g/c pause is unacceptable. If anyone uses D for realtime/high performance programming please chime in though ;)

<comment><USER3> Look, people make comments about D without knowing a thing about it.

Of course D has RAII -- <http://www.d-programming- language.org/memory.html#raii>

In D you can also do manual deallocation of memory, if predictability is what you want, the difference being that D comes with a garbage-collector from the start and encourages you to use it, which is a lot better than reference- counted pointers or other hacks; but at the same time it is also possible to use D without a GC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> skip D, try Go-lang

<comment><USER9> I don't like D, but Go-lang is no substitute for C or C++: It's a GC'd language.

<comment><USER10> Unless you are doing realtime embedded programming there is absolutely no reason why Go isn't a good substitute for C & C++.

Having worked in a large games company writing realtime performance-heavy code in C# I know that GC isn't the barrier you think it is - in fact quite the opposite: most of the time it makes things faster, cleaner and safer.

Having a GC can give you _more_ control over how your garbage is freed – it helps you put it off until you have time to do it (without writing your own complex garbage collection routines like many C++ programmers do). In the rare places you need a malloc/free you can easily write your own and manage your own memory pools.

<comment><USER9> I use C for very-soft real-time, and have very little memory management code in practice.

I think you're misrepresenting the situation about control. With C, you can (and indeed sometimes do) manage a list of things to "free later". You have full control over when to free things.

I use GC'd languages too, plentifully, and agree that GC beats a lot of the average manual memory managed code. People using C write a _lot_ of unnecessary mallocs/frees. But I don't think GC would work well for the kind of code I work on.

If I wanted a high-performance GC'd language, why would I use Go and not Haskell?

<comment><USER10> Fair point about Haskell. Horses for courses. I love the simplicity of Go. Haskell's simplicity breaks for me around the point that I have to use a Monad: _brain splosions_.

<comment><USER9> A Monad is pretty simple.

      class Monad m where
        return :: a -> m a
        (>>=) :: m a -> (a -> m b) -> m b

and the left-neutral/right-neutral/associativity laws:

      x >>= return = x
      return x >>= f = f x
      x >>= (\v -> y v >>= z) = (x >>= \v -> y v) >>= z

Last law can be expressed more easily if you define:

      (f >=> g) x = f x >>= g

Then you can say:

      (f >=> g) >=> h  =  f >=> (g >=> h)

How complex is that?

<comment><USER10> _splosions_

<comment><USER9> That may be hard to figure out at first -- but if you figure that out: you're pretty much done.

It's really _not that hard_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Eclipse Shortcuts Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://elsealabs.com/eclipse-keyboard-shortcuts

<comment><USER2> It's great to know all the shortcuts but newer versions of Eclipse come with a Quick Access search field. Just type in the action you want and it will show a dropdown of actions with shortucts.</comment>


A List of Recommender Systems and Resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/grahamjenson/list_of_recommender_systems <comment><USER2> What's HNs best sociological guess for why recommendation systems are still pretty crappy? It can't be that it's technically or mathematically too challenging to figure out. There are too many smart people out there for this not to be cracked and then immediately spread to everyone. I feel like there's a Peter Thiel-esque explanation to it. Something about a lack of diversity of thought and/or the lack of an incentive to encourage first-principles inventions in software engineering (or a lack of investments into long-term innovations which benefit everyone).

<comment><USER3> Based on the difficulties I had implementing recommender systems, I think it boils down to two main problems:

1\. Evaluating recommender systems is REALLY hard. When it comes to evaluation, recommender systems are very different from other machine learning tasks:

Let's assume the classic methodology of collecting a dataset of events, splitting it at a certain point in time to get a training and test set, and checking the precision and recall

\- If your recommender system works as expected, you will influence what your users do in the future, so your test set is probably not going to represent what your users would actually do.

\- Having a precision and recall of 1 is actually bad. That means your recommender system was perfect, but also useless (you only recommended stuff that the user was already going to pick anyway).

One way to address this is to just use A/B tests and try to optimize some business metric (e.g. number of purchases). This is usually "good enough", but this will make your recommender focus on sales, not on user satisfaction.

There are also some other metrics that can be used[1], but there are so many of them and some are not very practical to implement, so I guess that everyone just goes with the A/B testing approach.

2\. Recommendations require an explanation

A lot of recommender algorithms are black boxes. Sure, you can write "this was recommended based on users similar to you" when you use a collaborative filtering algorithm, but that doesn't help much.

Recommendations without an explanation are not that useful. When a friend recommends you a movie, he'll also tell you "why". Otherwise, it's really hard to make users trust your recommendations (especially if the recommender system recommends something outside of the user's "comfort zone")

I've noticed that a lot of sites have improved on this front though, and I do enjoy those recommendations a lot more.

[1]: Herlocker et al., "Evaluating collaborative filtering recommender systems" [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.97....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.97.5270&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER4> Whether someone likes a movie (or a song) is usually subjective, often emotional, and can at best only be rationalized. There are exceptions, e.g. documentaries. You could e.g. have the system recognize a preference for a director, actor, or genre, and add that to the predicted rating. But i don't think using that kind of information to make a prediction would add to a collaborative system's accuracy.

<comment><USER5> Look into the history of the Netflix Prize. There were two main factions, those who used only the data provided and those who used metadata about the films.

The Wikipedia page on it covers some issues around the privacy concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who wants to get started with this, maybe this basic movie recommender [0] implemented in JavaScript is a nice start.

[0] [https://github.com/javascript-machine-learning/movielens- rec...](https://github.com/javascript-machine-learning/movielens-recommender- system-javascript)

</comment><comment><USER7> Lists like that would probably be at home at Wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER8> How well do any of these work?

<comment><USER9> My experience is that you can't have a generic good recommender system. It all depends on your business but if you just want a mixture between using navigation data and item data lightfm works pretty well for the generic case

<comment><USER8> I don't really mean generic. Heck, I'd be curious to know which one is the best in its most ideal use. That is, have any of them ever been really good?

I'm coming at this from the perspective that recommendation engines are, as far as I can tell, practically a hoax.

<comment><USER9> They aren't a hoax, some type of recommendation engines works really well especially the collaborative filtering types.

The reallity is that once you have a subset of items that matches your behavior recsys are learning to rank problems in the broad sense, and any kind of algorithmic feed (fb, Instagram, news, Twitter) is essentially a recsys.

There is a whole conference around these subjects with very good papers and competitions, look at the different kind of approaches to the recsys18 challenge by Spotify at the ACM site

<comment><USER8> But that gets us back to the "Theory is closer to practice in theory more than practice" problem.

 _some type of recommendation engines works really well especially the collaborative filtering types._

Exactly what I was asking about, because I'm not so sure. Furthermore, I think it's a category error to include collaborative filtering here, which is not automated/ML/etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seed: Small Enterprise Exchange Directory - <AUTHOR> In an effort to support small businesses during these times, REMITR has launched SEED, the Small Enterprise Exchange Directory. http://seed.remitr.com/
SEED is a collection of support offerings made by small businesses, for small businesses.
Check out what members have added. Lend a hand by sharing with your circle or adding a relevant submission! http://seed.remitr.com/ <comment><USER2> This is THE time for the small business community to come together as we navigate these challenging times. If you have a service that you could offer to small businesses for free or deeply discounted - pls add your name. Feel free to reach out to those listed to avail of their generous offers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Entrepreneurs need to support each other during this unprecedented crisis and SEED by Remitr has some good incentives being offered to the startup community. You can even list your own offers.

<comment><AUTHOR> A win/win platform for startups and SMBs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Such a great website directory. I hope you guys can offer more services like stocks ect....

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a great initiative. We would love to make Evabot.Ai a part of this initiative.

<comment><AUTHOR> If Evabot.Ai is offering a specific support offering to small businesses please add it! Please note that to be added this needs to be a specific offering with a direct value add - such as free or discounted services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting - who conceptualized?

<comment><AUTHOR> SEED was put together by the REMITR team - however, the goal is to offer as much support as possible any many startups and small businesses as possible. We're stronger together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thank you. Very resourceful

<comment><AUTHOR> Ayush!!! As a product junkie, you should think about listing consultation calls. It could lead to some cool conversations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is super interesting.</comment>


Birds Are Vanishing from North America - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html <comment><USER2> Bird populations are declining in the France: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe- as...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances- bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides)

Britain: [https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-bird-numbers- sp...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-bird-numbers-species- declines-british-wildlife-turtle-dove-corn-bunting-willow-tits- farmland-a7744666.html)

And also seabirds in Britain: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/20/seabird-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/20/seabird- colonies-face-catatstrophe-gannets-puffins-food-supply)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article doesn't mention the declining insect population at all but I would think it's clear that a quickly declining food source would be a major cause of population decline. I wonder if there's a similar decline in other animals that rely on insects, eg bats. Although, interestingly, the article does mention neonicotinoids as a direct reason for the decline in population.

It's hard to imagine humans taking the corrective solution here. My gut says we either continue on this road and completely destroy the natural world a la Trantor in Foundation, just one huge mega-city that fabricates all of its needs, or we die out and the planet recovers on its own.

<comment><USER4> > or we die out and the planet recovers on its own.

That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard.

Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

<comment><USER5> > Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves

I wonder, though... we know, for example, that bees pollinate plants, and that we need plants to be pollinated for our survival. But if the bees die out, we can figure out another technical way to pollinate plants - it might be a pain to carry out, and we might be kicking ourselves for not saving the bees before it got to that point, but it can be done. If it comes down to a matter of survival, humans a a species will figure out a way to get what needs to be done, done. You might say that saving the birds and the insects now is the "simpler" route than replacing them, but it's starting to look like you'd be wrong, and we're not going to have any choice but figure out how to keep the human race going without them.

<comment><USER6> > _If it comes down to a matter of survival, humans as a species will figure > out a way to get what needs to be done, done._

Don't count on it. Human civilization depends heavily on trust and cooperation, and a large number of complex systems functioning which nobody completely understands and most people barely notice. The whole endeavor is quite fragile.

Once basic systems start breaking down, people start starving and dying, and societies start to collapse, it can get real bad in a hurry.

There have been plenty of past examples of large-scale societies collapsing into ruin, with the survivors fleeing or dying out.

<comment><USER7> In case of major disaster such as meteorite hitting a metropolitan area, just in time logistics systems mean most major cities such as New York or London have enough food to survive for 2-3 days. If something happens that disrupts the supply chain 10 of millions of people will be starving in couple days. Imagine if something serious happened. In a week there would be anarchy and total collapse of law and order.

<comment><USER8> Which is why the most important constraint in dealing with climate change is ensuring that scenario never happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time. Birds are amazing. It's amazing to me that they are the descendants of dinosaurs and they're all around us. Their songs and plumage are beautiful to me.

> Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 > million birds. These birds have probably been decimated by modern > agriculture and development.

This one I'm not totally sure is even related to climate change. I don't want to tell the person next to me to "stop trying to make a better life for yourself" so I'm not sure what the solution to this is right now.

<comment><USER10> They are basically the only higher form of wildlife everyone experiences on a daily basis, even in very urban environments.

It's not until the suburbs with trees that you start seeing squirrels and larger animals.

<comment><USER11> Chicago has squirrels everywhere except for the loop. And there are rats absolutely everywhere too! I imagine it's similar in most US cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Since I almost never see it mentioned in any threads related to this subject, am I thrilled that the main article actually references Silent Spring. I remember growing up that people thought that we had somehow managed to avoid the future it portrayed, but no, we have not. Another generation and the purveyors of death are back selling the cure for other species some people haven't learned to live in balance with.

<comment><USER13> People also think we avoided the future predicted by "The Population Bomb" but we didn't.

<comment><USER14> We've explicitly avoided the predictions that Paul Ehrlich made in The Population Bomb: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager)

Predictions without deadlines are not useful because you can keep kicking the can down the road forever. That's exactly what Paul Ehrlich has done since all of his predictions didn't happen.

<comment><USER13> Ehrlich's timing was not great and his book is almost unreadable but the things predicted therein have come to pass. It really is more crowded in Yosemite than in downtown LA, and the air quality is worse. There really aren't any non-toxic fish left to catch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article mentions it briefly, but outdoor cats are also a considerable contributor to bird deaths. Feral cat colonies obliterate bird populations.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/outdo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/outdoor-cats-kill-between-14-billion-and-37-billion-birds-a-year- study-says/2013/01/31/2504f744-6bbe-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html)

<comment><USER11> TIL feral cat colonies exist...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When the news broke that bugs were disappearing, this was the expected followup. Right?

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why- insec...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insect- populations-are-plummeting-and-why-it-matters/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Everyone, join in the protests tomorrow!

[https://fridaysforfuture.org/events/map?c=+All+countries&d=F...](https://fridaysforfuture.org/events/map?c=+All+countries&d=Future&o=all)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm from New Zealand, which has a lot of birds, and I live in California. The forests here are eerily quiet, I hate it. Back home the birdsong in forests is deafening.

<comment><USER19> I'm from California but I live in New Zealand. The birds here are very noisy in the morning. It's almost plague levels of birds on my farm, of many many varieties (Aussie Magpie, spurwing plover, thrush, morepork, tui, kingfisher, swamp harrier, wood pidgeon, ducks, and others that I haven't identified yet or forgot about. There are even a few exotics that escaped the conservatory in town and decided to live here and breed. Not to mention the bees everywhere, both honey and bumble.

</comment></comment><comment> blaser-waffle People are quick to point out the lack of bugs and habitat, but are leaving out a big killer -- your damn cat.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/moral-cost- of-...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/moral-cost-of- cats-180960505/)

(mostly feral cats... but your lil furball ain't helping)

<comment><USER20> Wait a minute. That article says "outdoor cats killed somewhere in the ballpark of 2.4 billion birds in the U.S. per year". The NY Times article linked here says that the bird population decreased by "nearly 3 billion birds" over 50 years. So in 50 years about 120 billion birds were killed by cats, and only 117 billion replacement birds were born? Seems like if we killed the cats, we'd be overrun by birds!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I went to Australia and spent a day hiking in the blue mountains. I remember thinking that the bird noises were _so loud_. Not just "huh listen to all the birds" but "it sounds like someone is pumping this in through speakers". Never heard anything like it in America.

Maybe that noise level is just normal? I've only been doing meaningful hiking for the past ~10 years. Does anyone older than I am remember birds being much louder in the past?

</comment><comment><USER22> Anytime someone brings up Monsanto they are downvoted because without pesticides humans cannot feed themselves apparently. And herbicides are for plants only so of course they have no effect on insects. /s

<comment><USER23> Bought by Bayer, that name will be gone soon because of the well earned negative perceptions.

<comment><USER24> Well, not sure if Bayer is such a good name either. Bayer was part of conglomerate producing Zyklon B used by Germans to kill millions of people.

<comment><USER25> I mean they also were the first to market Heroine, that hasn't really stopped sales of asprin.

<comment><USER26> (Heroin.)

<comment><USER27> Yes, the marketing of heroines preceded them and is generally harmless (protests against "Wonder Woman" notwithstanding).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This hurts to know. I know we are living through an extinction event but having numbers like these really make it sink in.

I feed the birds in my backyard every day, it's a joy to observe the variety that live in just a small grove of trees.

I have a tendency to always look up in the sky and take note of soaring birds of prey, they are awe-spiring to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER29> (serious) Is there any hope? Its just one problem after another (probably because everything is linked).

What are the chances that we will get our act together or be able to engineer ourselves out of all of these problems?

<comment><USER30> The fact that wetland bird populations are actually growing is a strong sign that we _can_ fix this, if we try.

Bird conservation efforts in the last few decades mainly focused on wetlands. See DDT, national wildlife refuges, and the duck stamp.

So, it's not like the decline is inexorable. But it's not going to fix itself.

<comment><USER31> All those wetlands are filled with water, which we are polluting. Trump removing the Clean Water Act last week also doesn't help the situation. Eventually this water will get contaminated, insects and species will die. There's no doubt in my mind of that if we keep putting money first.

<comment><USER32> The Trump administration's reinterpretation of the Migratory Bird Treat Act of 1918, which protects migratory birds, also doesn't help.

They interpret it to only prohibit intentionally killing protected birds. So, if you wanted to, say, drain a wetland that migratory birds depended on to build a parking lot, which would wipe out nesting grounds and lead to a lot of bird deaths--that would be fine under the Trump interpretation as long as you aren't building the parking lot to intentionally kill the birds.

This has already started having an effect. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, for instance, no longer stops loggers from cutting down trees with nests of protected birds in them, killing eggs or chicks.

<comment><USER31> Wow, that's unbelievably fucked up....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Stop putting your cat outside

</comment><comment><USER34> "Bird" is the word today: also on the front page now:

> "The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All": > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018850)

</comment><comment><USER35> > Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 > million birds. These birds have probably been decimated by modern > agriculture and development.

This has been known for a while. I remember hearing a piece on NPR about this maybe a decade ago. The problem is actually that we have been working hard to reforest, and haven't left grassland. Everything is either forest, or developed, with very little in-between. One of the proposed solutions was to simply not mow 100% of your yard. Leave some bit of it unkempt. There's a local monastery that does this, and there are birds there that I haven't seen anywhere else in the area, so I think there's something to the strategy.

</comment><comment><USER36> This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say _miraculous_. Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of.

We don't like religion (or in many cases, even spirituality), and the modern scientific metaphysics has no space for "miracles," so we don't have a coherent framework in which to talk about or even remind ourselves of this profound truth. Each of us is left to cobble something together for ourselves (and for the few people around us that we trust not to think we're crazy).

I do think that psychedelics seem like one promising avenue. Perhaps they will help give us the inspiration to fill in this tragic blindspot.

Edit: If the votes are any indication, then I was too hasty in calling this opinion unpopular. Perhaps more of us suspect this than are willing to say it out loud.

Edit 2: On that note, I've been scared to share my own crazy take on this, but I'll just leave this here: [https://www.lifeismiraculous.org](https://www.lifeismiraculous.org)

<comment><USER37> >psychedelics

Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought.

I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways.

Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.

<comment><USER36> Have you seen any of the studies where psychedelics are able to resolve conditions like anxiety and depression that are resistant to other treatments? When a person goes through that kind of epiphany, it may sound insipid in words -- and thus not blow you away or sound like mundane "insights" \-- but insights don't always have to be verbalizable. "Life is miraculous" _sounds_ pretty obvious, but there are certainly times where it's more "in your face" than others.

<comment><USER37> I was talking about these "grand revelations" people claim to get. Medical use is an entirely different thing.

Your second half just reinforces my original point. Its an "experience" ie just getting high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Depressing. Plastics killing sea life. Pesticides killing bees. Now this? Canary in a coal mine.

</comment><comment><USER39> If anyone is interested in a fanciful take on reducing the world's population in order to save it, I can happily recommend Channel 4's two-season Utopia series [0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnN3WMwDsk)

<comment><USER40> Or watch Hans Rosling on how it's not a problem. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdJgEwMinM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdJgEwMinM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Some day our robotic overlords will thank us for preparing the world for them.

</comment><comment><USER42> reading things like this are so depressing, wish i knew how to help instead of like making your timeline a little more faster.

</comment><comment><USER43> We're swimming in environmental problems.

We can come up with makeshift solutions to many, but for solving them all, and not to suggest it's the only solution, but a part of anything comprehensive, is there any environmental problem that a smaller human population doesn't alleviate?

<comment><USER44> I prefer to keep "kill all humans" lower down on the list of possible solutions to environmental problems. Lets try some alternatives first.

<comment><USER45> No is suggesting this. Population control via less breeding is always an alternative.

<comment><USER46> Good lord, are really americans from the Land of the Free having thoughts like this one.

<comment><USER47> I feel the whole "land of the free" thing has gone out the window, land of the indentured servants is more like it, with their health care and higher education costs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Bird up

</comment><comment><USER49> Trying to estimate the population of birds in North America between now and 50 years ago seems like it would have an error rate of at least 29%. Are the counting and estimation mechanism even anywhere close to similar?

<comment><USER50> You don't believe the number, so they could possibly be wrong, so it's not a cause for concern? That's a lot of jumps to make to get to the case where we don't have to worry.

What techniques are they using to count and estimate the birds, and what objections do you take to their methods? Sadly I can't find out as the site is behind a paywall for me.

<comment><USER49> There's only one jump: I don't trust the data, so I'm not yet concerned by this click-bait title.

In this day of clickbait titles, studies that are not reproducible, and suspect motivation for studies, the idea that we can calculate the total number of birds with an error rate of less than 30%, including the fact that some data is 50 years old, doesn't pass my smell test.

I would prefer waiting for accurate data rather than panic over yet another headline that is not anchored in actual science and facts. For example, did they try to count the number of birds at the same time of the year both times? Do some birds have different multi-year migratory patterns leading to them being in different parts of the world? Did they try counting the birds twice using the same techniques but two different teams, and then compare the numbers?

There are too many ways this calculation could fail for me to be trust this data point.

<comment><USER51> > The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the most exhaustive and > ambitious attempt yet to learn what is happening to avian populations.

> A team of researchers from universities, government agencies and nonprofit > organizations collaborated on the new study, which combined old and new > methods for counting birds.

> Kevin Gaston, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter

> Hillary Young, a conservation biologist at the University of California, > Santa Barbara

> Scott Loss, a conservation biologist at Oklahoma State University

> Kenneth V. Rosenberg, a conservation scientist at Cornell University and the > American Bird Conservancy

> Dr. Young, of the University of California, Santa Barbara

> "If we have two data sets showing the same thing, it's a home run," said > Nicole Michel, a senior quantitative ecologist at the Audubon Society who > was not involved in the study.

> Europe is experiencing a similar loss of birds, also among common species, > said Dr. Gaston, of the University of Exeter. "The numbers are broadly > comparable," he said.

 _So all these people are idiots and you know better?_

<comment><USER52> This appeal to authority probably won't be very effective in convincing thr root commenter about the validity of the study. None of the quotes addres the concerns about counting methods, and the experts cited are more likely to be seen as experts in biology than statistics, inference, and logic.

<comment><USER50> If the experts do this sort of work often they'll be proficient in the application of statistics. We don't distrust engineers because they aren't the people who came up with the physics they are applying.

<comment><USER52> That's a valid assumption to start with, sure. If the results are called into questions on the basis of statistics, their field of work is no longer a convincing argument. When someone calls into question your design choice, you don't say "trust me an engineer" unless you're joking.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bill Gates says the success rate on VC is "pathetic" compared to development - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/187959/bill-gates-says-the-success-rate-on-venture-capital-is-pathetic-compared-to-development/

<comment><USER2> Actually, no, he didn't -- while that's the title of the linked article, the actual quote said that he said that VC has a pathetic success rate if success rate is all you are looking at, but he doesn't say it is pathetic _compared to_ development. He says that the criticism of it as pathetic makes the same mistake as criticizing the low success rate of development projects.</comment>


Unhackable Application Back Ends for an Internet Without Trust - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexkyte.me/2016/10/golem-generic-trustless-stateful-p2p.html <comment><USER2> Every time I see the word "unhackable" my eye roll reflex activates.

</comment><comment><USER3> Adding figures to the whitepaper will help in getting the message across. Thanks</comment>


Ask HN: Why does the HN CSS stylesheet block font size adjustments? - <AUTHOR> Line 91 of the news.css for HN:

    body { padding: 0; margin: 0; width: 100%; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; }
 The webkit-text-size-adjust overrides the minimum font size settings in Chrome. I use Chrome's minimum font size settings to help make up for my declining eyesight. This css property prevents Chrome (and other webkit browsers) from increasing the font size.
I suspect this property is causing accessibility problems for many users with poor or declining eyesight.
Is there a reason to include this property, beyond just to ensure consistent design?
I respectfully request that you remove the -webkit-text-size-adjust property entirely. <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _Please don 't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to > email@example.com._

</comment><comment><USER3> You likely already know this but in case not, you can use zoom (CTRL + / -) and the font size increases. Once set it remains each time you visit.</comment>


WhatsApp is rolling out its own version of Snapchat (and Instagram) Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2017/2/20/14663674/whatsapp-rolling-out-version-snapchat-instagram-stories <comment><USER2> Having to open one app is in general better than opening two. One of my favorite use of whatsapp is as a Notes App. I have just created a group with only me as member and dump all my notes / to-do in there. Delete when no longer required. No need to have another app for another purpose. It serves well.

<comment><USER3> What's wrong with the actual Notes app on your phone which can probably do checklists, bullet points, etc?

<comment> martin-adams When I used Android I don't think I found a notes app as easily accessible compared the iPhone. Maybe that's why?

<comment><USER4> Google Keep?

<comment><USER5> Ah yes, another Google product that will, most likely, get shutdown when Google gets bored. I fully expect Google Keep to go the way of Google Notebook [1].

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google has lately stressed the importance of communication apps doing only one single thing (Allo, Duo, and Messenger for SMS).

But Google's competitors seem to be going in the opposite direction. Facebook messenger does SMS as well since a while back.

<comment><USER7> All I need in my life is Gmail and GTalk.

Unfortunately, Google for some insane reason killed GTalk. Chat right there in my Gmail.

So convenient. So elegant. So useful.

Killed. For No Good Reason.

<comment><USER8> What is the chat that shows up in my Gmail, is that a different service?

<comment><USER9> that is google hangouts. seems like the same app, but its different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Snapchat only has what 100million active users and its use is anecdotally dropping because of instagram stories. Now this feature was just rolled out to a possible 1.2billion users (lots still not on speedy network smartphones but will be). Kind of a throat slash at snapchat and their future growth.

I am down for the bloat myself, one thing well is whatever when you look at the wechat world.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's probably business 101 for Facebook to prevent people from using other competing platforms while their users get showered with features, but am I the only one who doesn't find Facebook a particularly creative company? They seem to be copying everything Snapchat does across all their apps.

I perhaps am wrong to focus on the creative aspect of things when they're doing great on so many other metrics. Still, for some reason Facebook seems like the new Microsift; and we all know who started the smartphone revolution.

Disclaimer: I rarely uses Facebook, but I use Instagram every other day or so.

</comment><comment><USER12> Will be very interesting if they pair this feature with end-to-end encryption!

</comment><comment><USER13> I think this continues to be a Zuckerburg f*ck you ever since Snapchat said no to his offer.

</comment><comment><USER14> uh-oh. Bloat alert.

</comment><comment><USER15> totally trust zuck with secrets. /s

</comment><comment><USER16> Goodbye Snapchat IPO</comment>


The entire state of South Australia (1.7M people) lost power last night - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-29/south-australia-storms-residents-cope-with-blackout-wild-weather/7887120 <comment><USER2> There is actually a whole political thing developing around this between renewable energy opponents and proponents. Ostensibly, the blackout was caused by a main transmission line (interstate feeder) being knocked over, disrupting frequency synchronisation, and activating failsafes.

However, because SA gets 40% of its energy from wind farms, it's now being suggested that having more local baseload capacity in the form of fossil fuels may have prevented this.

Ironically, the severity of the storm itself (it's being a called the worst storm in 50 years) is being blamed on climate change.

I guess we'll see what's true and what's not in due course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep the Right wing has come out and blamed it on renewables, the left wing has blamed it on climate change and the centrists are just calling for blood.

The reality is with 22 Main transmission towers which feed the state collapsed in high winds, even additional coal/gas stations would not have saved the day. At the time of shutdown, wind energy was producing close to 1000MW, it was the loss of transmission towers that caused frequency events leading the National Energy Market operator to Isolate the state from the rest of the Country. The cascading safety systems then caused all generators to shutdown.

<comment><USER3> Reality is inconvenient when you're trying to score political points though.

Sometimes bad shit just happens and there's no one to blame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> and no one gave two hoots</comment>


Former second-in-command of US military accused of Stuxnet leak - <AUTHOR> http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19174350-ex-pentagon-general-target-of-leak-investigation-sources-say

<comment><USER2> Article headline reads "Ex-Pentagon general target of leak investigation, sources say", and article refers to General Cartwright as "the former second ranking officer of the US military" as "the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff".

HN headline of "Former second-in-command of US military accused of Stuxnet leak" is inaccurate, even as a portrayal of the article; the US military chain of command runs from the President through the Secretary of Defense and then diverges through, principally, the various combatant commands; the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs may be the second-highest-ranking uniformed officer, but is not the "second-in-command" of the US military (that's the Secretary of Defense.)</comment>


Is it fair for 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius to run in the London Olympics? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/jul/31/oscar-pistorius-should-he-compete

<comment><USER2> Sport is not fair, even more so Olympic sport.

Is it fair to let persons who spend millions in training and equipment compete with athletes who get their equipment from charity?

Is it fair to allow some athletes the use of performance-improving drugs and deny others the same (asthma sufferers are allowed to use stuff others cannot; diabetics are allowed to inject insulin; others have, in some sports, to follow a 'no needles' rule)

IMO he does have the unfair advantage that he can choose his leg length depending on race distance. His obvious disadvantage apparently more than compensates for that.

We allow him to compete because we think he will not win (all the time). If he did, he would be banned.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it fair for a person who doesn't have legs to run against people with legs? No. Even if the legs are ever-improving and highly engineered? Of course not, they're not legs.</comment>


Tesla and Solar City Combine - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-and-solarcity-combine <comment><USER2> Brand wise I can certainly see how this is beneficial to Solar City. Tesla as a brand has taken off hugely, so I can see it being easier to sell 'Tesla Solar' which is an easy benefit to Solar City as a company.

Certainly for any global expansion, I don't think many people outside the US know about Solar City. Where I am in Belgium, Tesla cars are about as prevelant on the roads as Range Rovers and everyone from my nephew to my mother in law knows about it.

As they also say it's a way to get people to the Tesla Stores which should benefit Tesla in a similar way to Apple stores.

<comment><USER3> Tesla's end game isn't automobiles.

<comment><USER4> It is my personal hunch that Musk is attempting to do something very unorthodox.

He is attempting to create a Von Neumann probe. But it's no easy endeavor. So he has to monetize and publicize the whole affair.

But if you tell people that you're making a Von Neumann probe people will either have no idea what you're talking about or think you're crazy.

So he's sell the public on the idea of rockets. hes selling them on the idea of electric cars. He's even somehow made batteries that mount on the wall of their garages exciting. And the even crazier thing is that he's selling them himself and somehow making that interesting.

But what he's really building with all of this is a Von Neumann probe. The interesting thing with SpaceX, Tesla and Solarcity aren't the products -- it's the factories that make them.

How long until he can use these factories to make more factories and they can fit into a rocket I wonder?

<comment><USER5> Musk right now is playing Civ 5 and once he gets the Space victory he's gonna move right on to Alpha Centauri

<comment><USER6> Not only is he playing Civ 5, people are willingly handing him billions of dollars to do so.

<comment><USER7> People are handing him billions of dollars for high end electric cars and to launch their payloads into space. Any game he subsequently decides to play with the money isn't really relevant to the man on the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> to all the people who are saying that this is shady or that this resembles fraud: what the hell are you thinking? here is a man who twice bet his personal fortune on these companies with no other apparent motive besides making the world a better place. in the case of tesla, elon musk could have lost not only his fortune but _everything_.

if elon musk wanted to make more money he could have done it in other ways with much less risk. founding spacex and tesla only make sense if there was some genuine desire to make the world a better place. a man who put everything on the line for these visions and nearly lost everything would, upon surpassing everyones expecations or even their wildest dreams, suddenly become a shady fraudster and initiate a shady scheme to make a little money? that makes no sense.

i get so mad at people who are constantly detracting from tesla or evs in general. it is so ironic that the one company that isnt trying to fuck people over, perhaps the only large company that has nothing but the betterment of the world on the agenda, is constantly berated and dismissed by everyone.

<comment><USER9> >founding spacex and tesla only make sense if there was some genuine desire to make the world a better place.

You're forgetting ego. Really, your last paragraph shows you're a true believer and it's not helping the discussion.

<comment><USER10> I think most of HN are true believers.

Seriously in a world run by bean counters and MBA's where the only excitement is Donald Trumps next dick move or how thin the next iPhone is going to be how can you not like what this guys trying to achieve.

<comment><USER11> > Seriously in a world run by bean counters and MBA's where the only > excitement is Donald Trumps next dick move or how thin the next iPhone is > going to be how can you not like what this guys trying to achieve.

I have noticed some interesting parallels between some Donald Trump supporters on a certain subreddit[0] and some HNer regarding Musk (example comments up top): they both assume their hero/idol is working on an inscrutable genius masterplan which us mere mortals will retroactively understand one glorious day in the future. According to the true believers, Trump is allegedly playing 4D political chess and Musk intends to upgrade humanity to a Type II civilization... Both groups could very well be correct, but I'm cynical given the supporting evidence I currently have access to.

1\. /r/the_donald - I am a non-American lefty trying to understand wtf is going on. I also like having my assumptions challenged

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> link to the investor presentation if you want to read it:

[http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/254764622...](http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/2547646221x0x902286/19938ABD-D64F-4DEA-A3DB-9116D79CCA5E/Investor_Presentation_Final.pdf)

After the deal closes, expected to be Q4 2016, the ownership split will be:

93.5% Tesla / 6.5% SolarCity

Interestingly, this is an all shares deal. With most people assuming Telsa will need to raise another large round soon to fund full scale production of the Model 3 it will be interesting to see what sort of terms, if any, Tesla will need to give investors to raise.

Current shareholders don't seem too put off the by constant dilution of this acquisition or the constant equities raises. Tesla's short interest is high as always, so they continue to be one of the most polarizing companies around:)

Fun note in the presentation, Solar City has a shop window in the deal where they can take this deal and shop it to other companies to try and get a better deal. Anyone want to take a bet as to whether or not they actually try and shop this deal at all?

<comment><USER13> As a Solar City shareholder, I think I'm getting screwed. Solar City, at $26.70/share last Friday has a lot more upside than TSLA at ~$235. Hell, I lost almost 5% over the weekend due to where they priced this deal.

<comment><USER14> Why would the price of the share be relevant (as opposed to e.g. the market capitalization of the company)?

<comment><USER15> jaynos is saying that TSLA is unlikely to go much above $235, but Solar City had a lot of potential to move above $26.70. By converting them now, they've basically thrown away all the potential future movement.

<comment><USER16> The point is, that share prices are absolutely meaningless without the number of shares which just gives you market capitalization. Tesla could just do a 8:1 split and their per-share price would be $30/share -- Would that change their upside? Of course not.

<comment><USER17> Presumably jaynos meant those prices are relevant in relation to historical prices: Tesla is near all-time highs, while SolarCity's share price has been around $75 at one point.

I do agree with another poster that SolarCity was more likely to be heading towards $0, rather than back to $75.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Electric cars are filled with potential to have a decently large positive ecological impact, but as long as they're running on electricity generated by coal, they're just shifting the source of emissions.

However, even if we did move ALL cars off gas, the emissions problem is still very large, and solving it could reduce emissions by 65% [1]. This seems to be a 2 pronged approach, reduce car emissions, and reduce generic energy emissions. This alone won't solve the crisis, but it's a significant contribution.

[https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html](https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html)

<comment><USER19> Even assuming coal, at least it is easier to install proper scrubbing in large fixed installations like generation plants.

I'm not sure about the tradeoff in efficiency between electricity transmission and generation in larger capacity: I'm just going to assume the cost and benefit in this set cancel out since we have more larger installations than local power generation.

<comment><USER20> Yep, bigger facilities usually have bigger economies of scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is the first move by Musk that I feel is a bit shady. It seems like it's in his best interest, from what I've read, but maybe not in every one else's...

Though the hyperloop is a bit shady too. I guess he's not really involved in it anymore though.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDwe2M-LDZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDwe2M-LDZQ)

<comment><USER22> Thunderf00t has some good videos. But these are not his best work. The hyperloop issues are more engineering issues than solar roadway's physics issues.

This series kind of feels like thunderf00t pandering for views with controversy.

<comment><USER23> I've read praise of Thunderf00t on HN this weekend and today. Skimming his content, he comes across like a rather unpleasant person who produces polemical material. Am I missing something, why do people refer to him and his content in a positive manner?

<comment><USER22> He has good series and bad ones. If its about science, like his series on the coulomb explosion of sodium in water. Then it can be pretty good. Or military history, UK politics.

If its about social issues. Usually not very good, or insightful with a few exceptions.

Like most people making their primary income off youtube, he needs to grind out content a couple times a week. Not all of it is gold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't particularly see this as a bad thing, since they'll be able to add more Supercharger stations for the future.

<comment><USER25> I don't think you appreciate how much power is required for a supercharger station. Put it this way - if you had a SolarCity panel array the size of a Model S, it would produce enough power in a good day to add about 35 miles of range to a single car. Multiply that by the amount most people are actually charging when they pull in, and the number of cars utilizing a charger. It's just not even close to practical unless you cover the entire roof of a nearby building, and then you would need a huge battery somewhere to store the collected power for charging at night. Supercharger stations connect to the grid for a good reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wasn't this basically expected/intended/inevitable? Considering Musk was one of the founders, along with his cousins that currently run it.

<comment><USER27> > _Considering Musk was one of the founders, along with his cousins that > currently run it._

Are you implying nepotism? Would you have said that it was "basically expected" if neither Musk nor his cousins would have been involved in SolarCity?

<comment><USER28> This deal certainly would not have happened if Musk wasn't a giant shareholder and the Chairman of SolarCity. It makes very little sense on paper (SCTY loses a ton of money and TSLA needs every dollar it has plus a lot more to invest for the Model 3).

<comment><USER29> > It makes very little sense on paper

I'm never sure how I'm supposed to interpret "on paper". Purely on current financials? That seems a poor way to plan IMO. There seem to be quite a few ways to market to each others customers and provide a more comprehensive "package" with this deal. I imagine we'll see car + powerwall + solar packages marketed directly soon.

<comment><USER26> You couldn't get those combo packages without a merger?

<comment><USER29> Not with all the same possibilities. If it's the same company, they can sell one product close to margin (or below), and make it up in other products that are sold in the same package. Installing solar panels at zero profit isn't all that useful for Solar City as a singular entity, but if it's part of a package that includes an Automobile and Powerwall setup, there's a lot more places to make that profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Lock-in on old tech has been the main worry for me in terms of installing panels on my home. An upgrade option would be a done deal for me, especially since its Tesla.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if this will be approved by the shareholders, considering that Solar City is losing $300 million in value and it is an all shares merger. I'm hesitant to say it'll go through since I don't think investors like the news, as both stocks are down today and both took a huge hit around when this was announced (Telsa was -2%, but bounced back to -0.5% and Solar City is currently -6%, and falling).

<comment><USER32> SCTY was trading around $22 when the merger was first announced back in June.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just want to know what the cost is now for a combined solar panel installation and battery storage for couple days of home use. I assume the Tesla/Solar City deal make more sense with the combine of solar installation plus the Gigafactory, rather than with Tesla the car.

<comment><USER34> And I want to know how much users are willing to pay for it. Or if it'll be a energy escrow kind of deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if they combine these two with SpaceX - Elon Musk might well become the first trillionaire.

<comment><USER36> I've always imagined that the first trillionaire will be the person responsible for asteroid mining – and SpaceX does seem to have a good shot at doing that.

<comment><USER10> Once SpaceX have a big enough rocket the whole solar system will be Elon's bitch... Bring on the real space age!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What I like about this is that it's an integration of Elon's ethos. If you owned Starbucks and the biggest coffee plantation wouldn't you find a way to merge them?

</comment><comment><USER38> Maybe you could just use your car as the battery charged by your solar panels, instead of buying a Powerwall? And then run your house off of it. At least on the weekends. Or maybe more often if you don't have to drive every day.

Because the Tesla battery is 60 kW, so its basically like 10 Powerwalls that you can drive around. Instead of storing it on the wall in your garage, it is lying horizontal in the car.

Sort of amazing that people are not making this connection.

<comment><USER39> Elon and JB said in the 2016 Shareholders meeting that they considered this but are not planning to pursue it.

The PowerWall is designed to be cycled daily while the car is expected to be cycled weekly.

There is also a danger of electrocution and regulatory hurdles.

[https://youtu.be/vhqe4gMN6Lk?t=2h46m32s](https://youtu.be/vhqe4gMN6Lk?t=2h46m32s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone explain to me why SolarCity's stock is going down right now? (-5,2% in the last 24h).

<comment><USER41> The offer values solarcity at $25.37, so that's effectively a new ceiling on the price, unless new info surfaces.

Edit: Since this is an all-stock deal, the valuation and hence price is going to float based on TSLA's price, at a ratio of .11 * TSLA = SCTY price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> They had to...remember the recently unveiled master plan?

</comment><comment><USER43> Does Solar City have plans to go beyond the leasing model?

<comment><USER44> I believe they will sell you a system outright and they had a long term financing option called "MyPower" but I think that's been stopped. They sold bonds to cover those loans.

The lease is probably the most popular. Until there is some sort of expandable DIY option that you can gradually grow out, I think the only really popular way to sell these systems will be either baked in to the mortgage or with leases and creative financing. The lease and financing does seem to frighten a lot of people though, SolarCity modeled loan payments off energy use and in the contract there is even a clause that says if there is a prolonged non- sunny period, you might owe a large chunk on the loan when it comes due...

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> They lost me on ".. achieve cost synergies .."

<comment><USER46> Short for saying combine HR, accounting, etc. but it's still always annoying to read.

<comment><USER47> Right, that's my take as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> ... to form Voltron.

Look, I could not help but make that stupid joke when it fits so well.

</comment><comment><USER49> Elon taking delivery of a McLaren F1 in 1999 [0]. Quite prescient really.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSHUha9ABNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSHUha9ABNY)

<comment><USER36> What's prescient?</comment></comment>