Google launches voice typing in Google Docs - <AUTHOR> http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2016/02/type-edit-and-format-with-your-voice-in.html <comment><USER2> Its pretty impressive. I haven't touched much upon trying such things for quite a few years when I last had a quick play with Dragon Naturally Speaking.

It's getting PRETTY close, with a basic cheap laptop microphone, my Australian accent, and no training.

But I did say pretty close. Not exactly right. And I'm only speaking a few sentences.

I read out a passage aloud, and apart from not quite getting everything right (but getting some remarkably difficult words/names correct), the thing that struck me is how written word, and the art form of such, is in fact quite different from a verbal stream of spoken words. The little sigils and breaking up of a written text conveys a whole bunch of meaning and subtlety that a word for word stream doesn't quite get.

For me, its just inaccurate enough to still be irritating. Everything's working fine, and then I hit a mis-dictated word, have to do a bit of a double take and ask myself "What the...what on earth does it think i'm trying to say here...oh...i said THAT!" which breaks the flow of anything but the most basic and primitive sentence.

But then that makes me wonder, you know what... how many humans can actually follow everything I'm actually saying? It's not like I can peer into their heads and verify the transcription of voice-to-words inscribed on their brains.

<comment><USER3> Humans don't follow what you say :)

On this topic I have never managed to get my typing above 60 women because this is as about as fast as I can think ahead writing.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't complain if you can type as fast as 60 women! ;)

<comment><USER3> Lol. Got to love the auto correct of wpm to women :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Super impressive.

My wife just spoke full-speed Vietnamese into a Google Doc, 100% correct, even the tone marks.

<comment><USER6> Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than other languages for dictations? Like, does it lack homophones, are letters always pronounced the same way? 100% correct sounds incredible.

<comment><USER7> > Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than > other languages for dictations?

phonemic orthographies (These languages should work better) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography)

English is ___highly non-phonemic_ __the only language I would think is worst is French /Greek with silent letters and the different accents and in Modern Greek /i/ can be written in six different ways: ι, η, υ, ει, οι and υι. My Italian and most Eastern European languages would be easier European languages for voice translation.

This seriously reminds me of my days in college and grad school learning/teaching dead languages. The dead languages (Latin, ancient Hebrew, Classical/Koine Greek and Aramaic) we really don't know how they were pronounced so we just made them phonetic, which tells you that we don't speak them correctly since no language is 100%.

Vietnamese is interesting because there are several dialects that would trip this up but doesn't appear to. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language)

<comment><USER8> What other languages are like this?

<comment><USER6> The linked Wikipedia page on phonemic orthography uses Serbian as an exemplar. This section looks like what you're after - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography#Compariso...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography#Comparison_between_languages).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I first realized the voice to text improvement while watching my three-year old daughter search on my Android tablet...she can't spell (correctly) but used Google voice search quite effectively.

This should enable the very young, the very old, the disabled, etc. to digitize (and therefore share) their words, stories and worlds. Powerful.

<comment><USER10> I've had the same experience watching my (now 4yo son) voice search on my phone. It picks up what he's saying very reliably ... even when he's still laughing uncontrollably from the results of his last search :)

In case you were unaware, you can listen to past voice searches here: [https://history.google.com/history/audio](https://history.google.com/history/audio) sometimes my wife and I will go back and listen to my son's searches for good laughs all around ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure Google is mining (anonymized) data from this -- I wonder if they can use it to improve the transcriptions for Youtube automatic captioning by seeing what kind of revisions people make to the voice transcription.

<comment><USER12> I've often wondered this but it feels like they're very siloed. Google Now seems to improve every year; it almost never gets anything wrong that I speak nowadays but just a few years ago it could get rough if I'm trying to get it to type a bunch of stuff.

But YouTube auto captions? They seem just as horrible today as they were years ago.

<comment><USER13> There are a lot of checks and balances internally re: who's allowed access to user data, even in cases where it seems logical & obvious. Regardless how it appears externally, Google does take data privacy & security very seriously (to the point where sometimes it's painful trying to get things done).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Chrome integration is what is new right? I have been using Google Docs via phone using voice typing for a LONG time now.

In fact, when I wanted to use voice typing at my desk I would just open the phone, open the document on both the phone and Chrome and watch the text appear on screen. Then edit it from the keyboard.

<comment><USER15> Cool idea. You won't get voice commands though

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google Now has been used as voice reminder keeper by me for a long time!

There are cases where it can still miss by a large margin, but general usability has greatly improved over past 2 years.

I would love to see that this thing become smarter, that it can detect you are saying a list of things then format them automatically. That well be truly AMAZING!

<comment><USER17> I am sure that the team who owns voice recog at G is working on it.

I wonder organizationally if it's structured that way, but I digress...

This particular integration is really impressive after some cursory testing.

If I were CTO at, say, Dragon... I would be having a sleepless night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This had been announced back in September 2015, albeit from a Google Docs for Education point of view:

[https://googleblog.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/google-docs- classr...](https://googleblog.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/google-docs-classroom- school.html)

Under the first video, see "With Voice typing, you can record ideas or even compose an entire essay without touching your keyboard."

\---

It seems that what's new are the "Voice commands" to Select Text, Format, etc. etc. That's really great! Take a look at the commands here:

[https://support.google.com/docs/answer/4492226](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/4492226)

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't stress how important this is for people like my daughter who at age 13 reads at a Grade 3 level thanks to a genetic disorder that affects her learning. She's a great verbal communicator, but the reading/writing is an immense challenge. Things like this will change her life and open up opportunities that we're previously not open to her.

</comment><comment><USER20> Voice dictation is HUGELY useful but few people use it anymore. Most of us tried Dragon in years past, it sucked, and we gave up.

I believe so much in this that I made a Siri->Windows bridge and dictate 80% of my text with it. (except that hash rocket) [http://myechoapp.com/](http://myechoapp.com/)

<comment><USER21> David Pogue has been using Dragon for over a decade:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0GXX- SJuQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0GXX-SJuQM)

John Siracusa used Dragon to write his 20,000 word Mac reviews.

Developers have even used Dragon to assist with programming: [http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html)

I think voice accuracy is there but we need more integration with our apps and operating systems. Consistency would help too. Google recognizes "undo" while Dragon recognizes "scratch that"

<comment><USER20> Point taken but I would guess that they use nice headset mics and extensively train (and maintain and carry around) their voice databases. With Siri you can get 99% accuracy if you dicate punctuation and there's no training or fancy mics.

<comment><USER21> I don't believe you need to extensively train the voice database. Most don't require any training to start. Don't think expensive microphones either. Maybe you should just read some of the links already posted.

<comment><USER22> Dragon strongly recommends training and using a good mic, but mine is good and cost 30 BP which I don't think is expensive in this context. Initial training takes about 15 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Is there a technical reason this only works in Chrome? It wouldn't work for me in my main browser (Safari 9.1).

<comment><USER23> Safari doesn't support the 'getUserMedia/Stream API' so it can't work on safari.

<comment> k-mcgrady Thanks. A quick search shows 'getUserMedia/Stream API' is supported in Firefox though and people on this thread don't seem to be able to use it in Firefox (I haven't personally tested).

<comment><USER23> Hmm, then maybe it's using the speech recognition API which is really only supported in chrome right now (it's in firefox but behind a flag).

Although i just assumed that google would be running the speech recognition themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Google seriously needs to build an Amazon Echo competitor NOW. Using Nest (if that division can muster actually creating a new product) and it's learning chops.

Google: please don't mess this up as a science experiment as you do so many products - build it for real.

</comment><comment><USER25> Amazing work, it is good to see Google Docs moving forward. I have written plenty of essays in Google Docs in the past, hopefully this new feature is just what some have been wanting. Thanks for the great work guys!

</comment><comment><USER26> Can't wait till Google starts data-mining background noises to "improve" your experience. Yes, they can do it with other of their services, but this one is the most likely to provide the most personal information. Also, it will capture much more information, since you will be running it over longer periods of time.

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks like it's still not great for writing fiction. I didn't see anything for "Quotation Marks" for dialogue in their Voice Commands, and even if it did, I sure hope I wouldn't have to say "Quotation Mark What was that Question Mark Quotation Mark asked Billy Period. Quotation Mark I said Poop Nuts Exclamation Point Quotation Mark said Daniel Period."

This is much much slower than I can type. I know it'd be hard to infer punctuation, but even just a one syllable shorthand command for each common bit of punctuation would be nice (you can disable it by default).

I really want to use this stuff too, because it means I could write stories while exercising at home, which is apparently how Randy Pausch wrote his last novel (he dictated it and had someone else transcribe it... I'd like Google to do that last bit for me).

<comment><USER21> If you're willing to pay, Dragon Naturally Speaking has more features:

[http://whatsnext.nuance.com/connected-living/thursday-tip- ho...](http://whatsnext.nuance.com/connected-living/thursday-tip-how-to-speak- commands-and-punctuations-with-dragon-dictation/)

If you simply want a better free product, you'll have to wait a few more years. In the meantime, the solution will work well for tens of millions of people and Google can learn from them.

<comment><USER27> How are they nowadays? I tried their free demo app awhile back and had to correct pretty much every third spoken word using an annoying user interface to go back to my previous text, that it was easily taking less time for me just to type it in the first place.

<comment><USER21> Siri is powered by Nuance technology. They've been pretty good for a decade now. David Pogue and John Siracusa have been using it to do their writing.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/23/](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/23/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They have my emails, they have my documents, they have my pictures, they have my location, they have my browsing history, and now they can have my voice.

Only lacks DNA, fingerprints, retina footprint and non-verbal communication.

Oh wait, it's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER29> I was waiting for this comment. What's the alternative? No voice-recognition? Voice recognition that only runs client-side and lacks all the advantages a centralised service can provide?An equivalent provided by someone else that, for whatever reason, you trust more than Google?

Edit: I didn't downvote you, though, and I've upvoted to counteract whoever did. The point you're raising can clearly contribute to an interesting discussion.

<comment><USER28> I understand that my comment makes people uncomfortable as in "ha this is the typical anti-Google-paranoid guy". I respect that, and I used a specifically skeptic tone on purpose.

I love Google, they make great products, but at the same time I can't help being afraid of this marvelous monster.

<comment><USER29> Oh, I hear you. Part of me totally shares your concern, and - just like pretty much anyone else - I wouldn't want Google recording everything I say into my microphone. But that's pure speculation right now; let's wait until we know whether or not they're actually doing that, or until someone's at least gone through the Ts&Cs with a fine toothcomb.

<comment><USER30> [https://history.google.com/history/audio](https://history.google.com/history/audio)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Biometerics [1]. Googling for Google's biometrics privacy policy.[2]

HN likes to talk about the layperson non-techies disregard for technology's impact on our rights, but a grep of this thread turned up no hits on biometrics.

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

[2]: [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=inurl:google.com+privac...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=inurl:google.com+privacy+policy+biometrics)

<comment><USER32> This thread doesn't hit on "chemtrails" either.

<comment><USER31> For obvious reasons.

Your voice is a biometric. Innovation is fine, but Google needs to address our digital rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why isn't this just built into the browser or the OS?

<comment><USER34> Windows does have a built in dictation tool, you can even us it in .net (i am for my side project).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is totally cool. Their translations are pretty good. Regular desk microphones (condenser) work just fine.

Thank you for posting this.

</comment><comment><USER36> I would like to use this kind of thing even if I had to type the commands... anything to avoid mousing, and holding down arrow keys, and all that tedious stuff. Typing sentences is totally natural for me, I can do it all day. For years I've been dreaming of a renaissance of ed-like editors.

<comment><USER37> Welcome to the future (of 2013): [https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=9m5s](https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=9m5s) [https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=16m22s](https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=16m22s)

Don't forget to see the entire talk (28 minutes): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI)

<comment><USER38> One important note is that your throat gets tired talking, just like your hands do typing.

<comment><USER37> I think it is an issue of convenience. Anecdotal evidence, I have never had trouble doing either of those for 8 hours straight (and more).

Voice will need some serious software support if it is going to take off. There is zero chance that users will learn those mnemonics, just as now almost nobody knows how to touch type. The usage will be more in the form of general commands, than specifying every action like we do it now with the keyboard+mouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seriously folks, this is awesome. Does anyone have a recommendation of a USB microphone/headset that will work with Ubuntu so that I can start using this a bit more comfortably?

I did not know voice typing was possible before, this has made my day. All I need now is to invest in a decent microphone!

<comment><USER40> Get a Blue Yeti.

<comment><USER41> Blue Yeti is good (and not too expensive), but isn't it a bit overkill for voice typing?

If you generally feel like having a better microphone would help in other cases as well (Skype, vlog, what-have-you), then I'd agree with the above post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not available for me, menu item grayed out. Austria/Europe here. Language is set to English/USA.

<comment><USER43> I have that on Firefox, it works with Chrome.

<comment><USER42> Alright, was with Firefox

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Am I the only one that finds text to speech cumbersome and more of an impediment than anything else?

I applaud the effort, but spreadsheets are difficult enough to navigate at the best of times, let alone trying to manipulate with your voice.

<comment><USER45> Depends on the context.

Running precise commands? Keyboard wins.

No keyboard? I love the voice search of my roku 4 over trying to search via virtual keyboard and arrow keys, or using my Amazon Echo to find artists/songs

Long text? While I prefer typing, I remember one author I heard (Kevin Anderson, I think) who dictates all his books (first drafts) into a mini- recorder and pays someone to transcribe them. I find that hard to comprehend, but I bet he's not unique.

Spreadsheets? Keyboard wins for data entry, but I bet voice would be convenient for analysis. "Sum column B" "What is the average of column D, excluding 0 values"

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This sounds like it could be a massive step up for disabled and low literacy people worldwide. The fact that it's in so many languages, and accessible anywhere with internet, really distinguishes it.

<comment><USER47> To the contrary, I believe, while it will be helpful in a number of ways, the orthography skills would likely suffer from lack of exercise as a computer takes on the task. Writing helps a lot to have to think about the spelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Amazing, I always wanted a feature like this. Sometimes, we're so tired to move our fingers to type something. I hope they make it as convenient as possible, like introducing voice typing in Google Keep, and creating a complete note just by saying OK Google.

Sometimes, things pop-up in mind suddenly and we need to note them down right away.This is definitely the coolest feature. Also, on the other side, this is also helpful to people who face problems with typing, or somehow can't type (temporary injury in hand, or slow typing speed, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER49> Is there any information about an API for this? I know that they abandoned their old Voice to Text API, which is sad, because there aren't that many alternatives out there. I'm using Watson right now, but it's really bad, and the language range is very narrow. I'm also open to any suggestions for Voice to Text online APIs or local server side solutions.

</comment><comment><USER50> In response to multiple language support, an alternative use for the voice recognition is learning to speak well in another language. I've already improved my native English, by noticing which words are mistranscribed. And assuming the problem is with my imprecise speech, not the bot.

</comment><comment><USER51> I tried it a few days ago and it was amazing, even in Spanish (latam accent) and English with my non-native accent.

Anyone knows if this is available through API? I would love something like this when writing text on emacs & org mode :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is really nice. I think laptops will need to start having array mics for better far-field capture.

Tested it for a quick Todo list and it was about 95% accurate. I can see myself using this

<comment><USER52> I suspect that array mics can be important for accurate voice recognition. My anecdotal impression, for example, is that Amazon Echo is MUCH better than Siri on an iPhone at recognizing what I'm saying. I can tell Echo from across the room with music playing to add something to a shopping list and it gets things mostly right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The menu item "Voice Typing" in "tools" is disabled for me, with no explanation or hint as to why.

</comment><comment><USER54> This actually works, finally a 'machine' which understands my easer european new york accent. Bravo!

</comment><comment><USER55> dictation.io is another voice recognition system that impresses me, and it understands tons of languages.

<comment><USER56> It's the same Google ASR on the backend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> We may programming in voice in near future.

</comment><comment><USER57> we may programming in voice in near future.

</comment><comment><USER58> مرحبا

</comment><comment><USER59> Tried with Romanian, got a bunch of random words .. about 50% right, the resulting text is totally unintelligible. I was expecting a lot more accuracy.. Apple's built-in dictation does way better than this.

</comment><comment><USER60> I bet it doesn't support Portuguese in all its variants.

<comment><USER18> It does support both "Brasil" and "Portugal". Have you tried it out? Does it work well in Portuguese?

<comment><USER60> Not in a place I can try it.

But usually such dictating software does a very bad job regarding Portuguese, regardless of the language variant.

Apparently I offended some people, thanks for the downvotes!

<comment><USER41> The offensive part is that you're what you're stating is something you haven't even bothered to examine before deciding to write down an opinion.

<comment><USER60> Because in 30 years of computing experience I am used to my mother tongue being forgotten by American companies when they announce voice dictation software.

I am not sorry if others cannot take critics from those used to be ignored by them.

<comment><USER29> Even if you'd just asked the question "How good is Portuguese support?", whilst you probably wouldn't have received too many upvotes, I think you at least wouldn't have been downvoted into oblivion. Unfortunately, what might have been an important point will now just get buried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> artumi-richard What fun:

I have recently been reading The Hobbit with my 6 year old son Benjamin stop he has become engrossed in the book somewhat and then just hearing about the Adventures of Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf as well of course as mine growing are a diary Norrie tilly tilly Bailey and wailing not forgetting the king Under the Mountain himself starring oakenshield Gollum Gollum</comment>


Programming in the early days of the computer age - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38103893 <comment><AUTHOR> This article is about one woman's experiences with EDSAC.

There's some more information about EDSAC here: [http://ledr.luon.net/documents/2R930/edsac/the- edsac.pdf](http://ledr.luon.net/documents/2R930/edsac/the-edsac.pdf)

The WWG is more formally known as _The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer_. (I think.) Here's an Archive link: [https://archive.org/details/programsforelect00wilk](https://archive.org/details/programsforelect00wilk)

<comment><USER2> It's very interesting how numbers are stored, such that the MSB says if the numeric value would be equal to -(1-x). Apparently numbers are also all within the range -1 <= 0 < 1\. So you get things like:

      0 1100 0000 0000 0000 = 0.75
      1 1100 0000 0000 0000 = -(1-0.75) = -0.25

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I remember going to the computers section at the London's Science Museum a couple years ago and being fascinated by mechanical calculators and the first computers.

It's so amazing to see how fast computers have evolved but it makes me wonder if computing was more interesting back then because of all the things that were yet to be discovered or now that everything is connected and anyone can access information and do anything with a 200$ laptop.

<comment><USER4> Granted, I don't go all the way back to the early days, but learned to program in 1981. I think a possible change is that our expectations for software have escalated, so that the learning curve is longer because of the complexity needed to manage things like UI, networking, and graphics.

Programming was more fun for me in those days, and today I gravitate to programming tasks that don't involve writing commercial quality apps.

Back then, you could easily make software that looked like commercial software -- albeit with fewer features -- because everything was just a text display. Today, if you say "I want to learn programming because I'm interested in games," well you've got a long road ahead of you to make something that doesn't look lame.

It's just that in the past everything looked lame. ;-)

This may explain the appeal of things like Arduino and Raspberry Pi, where projects don't need an elaborate skin and high performance in order to be interesting and cool.

<comment><USER5> The crazy thing is that, particularly with games, the number of actual programmers have stayed pretty much the same, but the number of artists etc has downright exploded.

At the same time the quality of the games may well have stagnated or even regressed.

<comment><USER6> AAA games are like Hollywood blockbuster action movies: They're _insanely_ expensive to make, so investors and studios are less likely to take risks. The mainstream gaming industry also caters to far broader demographics than ever before, so the streamlined common denominator is simpler, less nuanced and more homogenous.

In "indie" lower-budget games there's a tremendous amount of innovation and creativity. There's also a lot of derivative cash-in crap. No worse than any other creative discipline, I think. One gem of a game makes up for thousands of failed attempts.

<comment><USER5> I just wish that the distribution system of choice didn't involve me having to put all my eggs in some corporate controlled basket. I can live with losing a game or two because of me mistreating the storage media etc. But right now i risk losing access to all purchased games because of error on some server somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice piece about early software to solve some astrophysics problems</comment>


United Airlines sues hidden-city ticketing search site - <AUTHOR> http://fox13now.com/2014/12/29/united-airlines-sues-22-year-old-who-found-method-for-buying-cheaper-plane-tickets/

<comment><USER2> More discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813138)

<comment><USER3> Yes, and we've merged the threads.</comment></comment>


NASA's new telescope will have a view 100 times bigger than Hubble - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/620446/nasas-new-telescope-will-have-a-view-100-times-bigger-than-hubbles-and-could-solve-key-mysteries-of-the-universe/ <comment><AUTHOR> Someone remind me why the far side of the moon isn't plausible or better?

Can't we do better than LEO by 2025 ?</comment>


Lessons learned from a failing local mall - <AUTHOR> https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/23/bon-ton-gone <comment><USER2> There's a lot of over-summarizing going on in the comments here. The context you need to understand the Strong Towns argument is that this isn't an appeal to nostalgia. Rather the author is trying to point out that the transition to the suburban centralized retail model was heavily subsidized by local and state governments, and that it actually hurt the local economy in the end.

The problem is that same public infrastructure subsidy program remains the principal model of "economic development" across the US.

The main case Strong Towns is trying to make is that the model does not produce returns (ie local tax income less infrastructure maintenance and public service liabilities) that justify the investment, and thus we need to stop using it.

<comment><USER3> The "subsidy" argument is usually based on absolutely nothing credible beyond someone saying "money was spent on something that I don't think/no longer think is worthwhile...therefore, subsidy". If that's the basis of this thought piece, minus any credible analysis (and no, saying "a whole retail/business downtown produces more tax income than a single failed mall" is not an analysis), it isn't worth considering.

"the model does not produce returns (ie local tax income less infrastructure maintenance and public service liabilities) that justify the investment"

It doesn't make this case at all. It alludes to it, as if decades of tax revenue and benefits were imaginary, but it doesn't make a credible case.

<comment><USER4> Infrastructure like water pipes and roads are expensive to build and maintain. Lower density areas like malls increase these costs. That's fine in boom times, but from pure economics such areas can easily fail. You can say subsidy or situation normal, but the costs are the same either way.

Resilience is just a simplification, online retail among other things is killing malls and that's ok. It's trying to fight that trend that's a losing strategy.

<comment><USER5> Is high density really costs less then why are tax rates always higher in large dense cities than they are in the near by suburbs?

<comment><USER6> Taxes don't pay the same thing in dense cities as in the suburbs. Public transport for example: in a dense city taxes pay for bus, subways, tramways, bike lanes, sometimes subsidized bike sharing. In a lot of suburbs none of this make sense because everyone has to have a car anyway, so people only pay for roads. In the end, what you pay for your car could very well be higher than the differential in taxes. That's how the dense city is more "efficient".

More over, people living in a suburb only pay for a part of the roads they use in their daily commute. My (dense) borough actually did a study that showed 80% of the traffic going through our streets were people who would not stop there, for example because they are commuting between a suburb and the city center nearby. So city dwellers pay for roads that are mostly used by other people. And since the traffic we get this way is quite intense, there's a good amount of road repair each year.

<comment><USER7> People pay the property taxes wherever they go. If you rent a home, your landlord pays property tax. If you work for an employer, your employer pays property tax. If you go out to eat, the restaurant pays property tax. I suppose some federal and religious things may be exempt, but that is also the case with non-commuters.

So a person who lives in the suburb but works and shops in the city will be paying most of their property taxes in the city, via their employer and the shopkeepers.

It's taxation without representation. Perhaps they should also get a pro-rated vote. :-) It could be based on time spent in each location, or economic activity in each location, or simply 1 part for each kind of activity spent in each place.

<comment><USER4> Unless your personal office is 1000+sf the property taxes on workplaces and restaurants are relatively tiny. A shop that has 1 customer per minute over 10 hour days sees 18,000 people a month who each pay for about a square inch of property tax.

PS: They also do vote based on who they work for and what shops they do business with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many smaller cities and towns have suffered the loss of vibrant downtowns, but I can't help but wonder if we are misidentifying the causes.

Over the last half-century (probably more) we've seen a big part of the economic base for these small cities and downs either disappear or move away. Agriculture used to play a much bigger role in the economy as a whole, and a particularly large role in the economy of many small towns. And manufacturing used but much more distributed across the country in smaller cities and towns. But a lot of those factories have closed down.

As a consequence the tax base in may of these towns and cities didn't go away simply because retail businesses moved out of the city limits. They may have gone away because the entire GDP of the surrounding area dropped.

For reference: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sectors_of_US_Econom...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sectors_of_US_Economy_as_Percent_of_GDP_1947-2009.png)

<comment><USER9> And yet, if either my hometown (population 6,000 when I left), or the small town where I went to college (35,000) had retained their downtowns and their walkability, I might still live in them. I don't farm, I don't work in a factory. But I do telecommute, so I can set up shop pretty much anywhere. And I do have a soft spot for the kind of small town full of character that I spent my childhood roving semi ferally with my friends and our bikes, popping in and out of ice cream shops, chalking up the sidewalks, buying trinkets at the variety store, playing in the town playground, etc.

I'd like for my kids to have something like that.

The closest approximation I can find seems to be a city with a population in excess of 1 million.

Or at least, that's where the sidewalks and community playgrounds are.

<comment><USER10> Those kinds of communities aren't created by towns full of telecommuting programmers — they are created by diverse economic activity and people out on the street doing their jobs.

<comment><USER11> Kind of. I live in a town with a population of 3,000 which has a town playground, kids whizzing around on bikes, a handful of little local shops (plus four pubs), etc... and yet it's full of telecommuting programmers.

The main disadvantage is that property prices are high, largely caused by the real commuters rather than the telecommuters (we have a mainline railway station); and that's meant a slow decline in the number of local shops simply because conversion to residential use is much more lucrative. But we've pretty much stabilised now.

This is in the UK, and it's not rare over here - there's quite a niche for slightly boho, close-knit small towns. Hebden Bridge, Stroud and Frome are the best known (populations 4.5k, 12k, 26k respectively) but there are plenty more.

<comment><USER12> Which town is that?

Hebden Bridge I always got the impression was a bit touristy (as well as being the lesbian capital of the country). A bit further south to Marsden, also on a rail line into Manchester and Leeds, is remarkably cheap

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I live in a healthy and safe small neighborhood in Montreal. We walk to local stores some of which are thriving, while others are dying. Quality of life is very high, and the price of homes keep on rising.

Thriving local commerces are service oriented: restaurants, pharmacies, grocery stores, hardware stores and dollar stores. Dying stores are product oriented mostly because of online shopping and big retail.

I do long for small local retail stores with good prices and products. The only way this could work is for specific verticals. I.e. men's clothing. I imagine the store would need to be online first with a global recognized brand. The brick and mortor stores in local communities would become presence (a marketing cost, not a profit center). Frank 'n Oak is an example of that. I would like to see more across more neighborhoods and verticals.

<comment><USER14> I found it interesting that the author of the post didn't mention online purchases once.

In my mind we are going through a shift in purchasing habits just like mail order retailers provided in the early 20th century. Set aside the subsidies to malls.

People actually prefer to purchase products online. Selection is better, pricing is better, it is easier to comparison shop, and it is delivered to your home. What's not to like (for many types of products)?

If you are in retail, selling the experience and other aspects of an in person interaction that can't be provided by an online retailer is the way to win. Some aspects include:

Community involvement

Interaction with experts

Immediacy

Hands on education

Cross selling consumables

Don't fight the battles of the past, and recognize that this is just one more evolution that the customer wants.

<comment><USER15> We probably are going to head further back toward the old catalog mode that is online purchasing.

But.

It's a drop in the bucket compared to the debt load killing box stores from all the leveraged buyouts, and that has nothing to do with consumer demands. It might have something more to do with corporate raiders running out of factories to raze.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author is characterizing the economic trend as if it were a deliberate choice, and ignoring the specific reasons for that trend. Back when _stuff_ used to be scarce, hard to find information about, and the supply chain needed to push a mass quantity of stuff onto the shelves to induce demand, it made sense to spend hours grazing over the collection in person in stores. Likewise, the margins were high enough to support the overhead of this.

Then, the downtown's vibrant selection disappeared for the same reason the malls are now closing up - we no longer need or want to do that. In concert, margins have been getting ever lower while competition has become even more cut throat - eg the modern ability to go into a store to physically browse, and then purchase from somewhere else online before having even left that (money losing) store! So even those who want to browse in person are paying progressively more and more to do so.

And keep in mind, all of this local retail wasn't/isn't actually bringing money _in_ to the area! (unless it's the biggest town around, in which case draw your boundary conditions larger)

I do personally respect the need for a local economy, and recognize that the dream of efficiency hasn't delivered on its promise [0]. But reminiscing about the time when the consumer-stuff-delivery industry was effectively in its startup phase isn't going to help.

[0] I argue it's due to monetary policy that has an explicit goal of nullifying any savings by consumers, but I digress.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, _stuff_ was never scarce. I don't know where on earth you got that idea. After World War 2 the US stumbled upon the greatest wealth creation machine the planet has ever known, a consumer-driven economy that literally printed trillions of dollars for decades and is still mostly going. Americans have never wanted for stuff for the last 70 years. (There was hiccup with the oil situation there for a bit but that was cleared up.)

The issue is that some of the "stuff" Americans wanted was cars and big houses. The country bet _big_ (again to the tune of trillions) buying a crap ton of cars, building endless roads, and building big houses out in the middle of nowhere. It's this model that drove the creation of the uniquely suburban mall. And this was a deliberate choice driven by the government at every level. The history of post-war America is the history of government-subsidized urban sprawl.

It was a big mistake and one that the country will be paying for, for the next century. It's simply not sustainable. The economic forces at work here are a consequence of the laws of physics. Big houses and big cars far from the "noisy, dirty" city are _expensive._ Everything gets cheaper as density goes up. At some point some critical services become practically free due to market volume and competition. (In highly dense Asian cities it's possible to eat decently for $5/day. That's breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

The other side of this equation is that American wages have collapsed. Forget growth, forget stagnation, wages are going down and the coming generations will be poorer than their forbearers. So while it was possible for the average Joe in 1965 to afford a big car and a big house far outside the city, 2020 Joe will not be able to do that and eat and have health insurance. And this is where physics kicks in: Americans can no longer afford the entire "exurb lifestyle" that they love so much. Economic success now lies in the city.

The lessons to be learned here are not new. They are as old as human civilization. Prosperous empires over-expand and over-build and eventually collapse due to endless war, internal conflicts and better competition. Density wins because it is much, much more efficient (especially in a highly competitive and dynamic globalized economy). And, most importantly, sustainability matters. A lot. Sustainability may be all that matters. Human laws aren't laws at all -- the right lawyer, the right judge, the right bribes can turn most laws into minor obstacles. Every (human) thing can be negotiated. The only laws that _can 't_ be broken or subverted, that can't be negotiated or changed, are indeed the laws of physics and biology.

<comment><USER16> So while I sympathize with the overarching view of your comment, the details are too incoherent for its being so argumentative.

> _Yeah, stuff was never scarce. I don 't know where on earth you got that > idea. After World War 2 the US stumbled upon the greatest wealth creation > machine the planet has ever known_

So how does this mean stuff was not scarce before WWII?

> _Big houses and big cars far from the "noisy, dirty" city are expensive_

So, given that they'd already been afforded at one point, the real problem is declining income to cover their carrying cost. So let's focus on that rather than a red herring of one symptom. If it's a given that wages will go down forever, then why even worry about regrouping in the cities when that would only stave off the trend for a few decades? Better to focus on the reason real wages are going down!

> _Prosperous empires over-expand and over-build and eventually collapse due > to endless war, internal conflicts and better competition. Density wins > because it is much, much more efficient_

These two bits do not follow. If empires collapse due to being trapped into being too spread out, then that implies it is impossible for them to naturally shrink back down and grow denser! Still I would posit this applies in the much more general sense of spread out in the world rather than a single defensible landmass. I'd venture to say those foreign military bases in all of the colonies use a lot more resources (including the wars they encourage!) than people commuting from suburbs, my own love for walkability notwithstanding.

PS You can't bounce back and forth between the economic paradigms of resources and financials. While better competition makes prices lower, that doesn't affect resource usage in a major way - compared to say economies of scale. Don't conflate the two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Everything said here could also apply to the manufacturing and industrial base of US, outsourcing these jobs for cheaper manufactured goods... eventually the country can't productively sustain itself and the "lower prices" don't make up for it.

Isn't this part of the premise of "locally sourced" food etc? Pay a little bit higher prices to ensure the areas workforce is sustained.

I'd say actually the "lower prices" don't make up for lost jobs much sooner than when you start to see multi-national replacements struggle. Many previously employed depend on government assistance so there is an immediate cost, as well as current epidemic levels of opiate addiction and death, partially explained by economic hopelessness.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure manufacturing is that similar. US output is at near record levels [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS) and companies that outsource like Apple are sustaining themselves fine. There is less employment in manufacturing but its probably more down to more efficient manufacturing technology combined with 'peak stuff' [https://hackernoon.com/welcome-to-peak- stuff-e699820c7e9b](https://hackernoon.com/welcome-to-peak-stuff-e699820c7e9b)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I see a mix of good and bad arguments here.

I believe the story of Bon-Ton and Herberger's being over-leveraged. It's happened to a lot of retailers lately (Toys R Us for example). And I'm sympathetic to his claim that they "had a fragile business model, one that was far too responsive to investors far beyond our little city limits."

But a few things undermine his argument:

1\. He makes a passing reference to Herberger's having "cheaper clothes" compared to the downtown stores, but that's not really doing justice to the fact that the downtown stores went out of business because the local people preferred the prices and products at Herberger's. No one issued an edict saying "there shall be no more mom and pop stores downtown."

2\. He complains about Walmart, Target, etc. being "in the neighboring city". But if you look on Google maps, the distance from downtown Brainerd to Walmart is 3 miles. A 7 minute drive. That is not a major inconvenience for residents. It sounds more like sour grapes from a city planner who resents the commercial taxes going to Baxter instead of Brainerd.

3\. He mentions the sewer, water, and roads that were built to support the mall location, without identifying who paid for them. Was it the town, or the developer? I'm worried he's trying to puff up his argument by being vague about this.

<comment><USER21> > No one issued an edict saying "there shall be no more mom and pop stores > downtown."

In our case, here in Bloomington, IN, that's precisely what happened. The owners (primarily Indiana University Foundation) raised rents on the city square. They tripled rents.

It's knocked 2 businesses right out. They couldn't relocate, because the previous locations were destroyed for "affordable housing for rich foreign students". Read that as rents hovering around $1500/mo. So what did those businesses do? They went out of business. Gone. But hey, we'll get more overly-expensive housing!

> It sounds more like sour grapes from a city planner who resents the > commercial taxes going to Baxter instead of Brainerd.

Unfortunately, there's one main topic that dismisses this reasoning. 10 year abatements. I've seen the abatements come up again and again. It's a form of corporate welfare. Where's _MY_ abatements? Where's the small business abatements? Where's the 'small guy' relief?

Well, to put it bluntly, "We don't get no relief". Big business has this hand- wavey ambience that we somehow absolutely want them here, for perceived benefits. But what it amounts to is a shell game with corporate welfare, money exfiltrated out of the community, and a worthless husk in a few decades.

> He mentions the sewer, water, and roads that were built to support the mall > location

It's regardless who initially paid for them. Those pipes are there, and will require significant upkeep to keep them in any sort of standard. And those business again, with abatements, aren't paying. And nobody's paying if the malls are dead and shuttered. Those pipes are what I would call a "Toxic Asset". And that's before discussing massive water quality issues we're seeing in small and midrange communities around the country. Flint's the worst, but happening in hundreds of areas.

<comment><USER22> I've been to Bloomington Indiana, the downtown is thriving, at least from what I can see. A lot of new buildings. Hotels, apartments, restaurants and shops, hardly a vacancy to be seen. A good number of bars of course. It's a college town. The economy is going to be dominated by students and the University.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The core of the argument here seems to be that the current downtown is more 'financially productive' than the mall, but it also seems that the entire reason the downtown is financially productive is that it _isn 't retail_. As the article notes, the downtown retail shops all went out of business decades ago because they weren't making any money. Why would downtown retail magically be super prosperous today if the mall hadn't been built back then? The entire brick and mortar retail industry is collapsing right now. Presumably most of what's left is office space, and of course office space would rake in more money per acre than retail.

<comment><USER24> Why go into an office though? Isn't business also running into the same overhead with physical space? It costs money to rent this space and much office work is information based now, isn't it better for most of us to simply stay at home in the Information Age?

It'd be nice to make these old malls with well connected roads into places where digital nomads can hang out, live and commune with one another. Add some tiny homes and maker spaces, fiber optic broadband and fast wireless. Put up some solar panels on the roof and by all means, listen for what is coming with the next generation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is an exercise in nostalgia. It's not a prescription for the future. Downtown-centric planning isn't the only valid tool, but it's the only one that New Urbanists seem to know.

Where's the intelligentsia for those of us who don't want to live in small boxes, on top of each other, and don't want to live next door to businesses?

<comment><USER21> There are some valuable ideas they brought up.

Mega-businesses, like JC_Penny, Walmart, Nordstroms, and similar do open up in an area, but all profit gets siphoned elsewhere. It makes wherever $BigCo's Headquarters much richer at the expense of every community they go into.

Whereas, the little one and two store local business takes money from local people, and its turned right around and reinvested in that very community.

One drains a community of its wealth, while the other bolsters it.

Politicians have always (in recent years) accepted that $BigCo moving in is an absolute boon. And the politicians award the business with abatements, tax writeoffs, and other vehicles to "sweeten the deal". But none of the small businesses have these connections. Nor can they request abatements, or low to 0 interest loans.

But as we see, once a chain starts haemorrhaging, every community with one of these carcasses ends up rotting the whole area at its core.

<comment><USER26> > Whereas, the little one and two store local business takes money from local > people, and its turned right around and reinvested in that very community.

It's a common one, but I don't really buy this argument. Small local businesses don't usually hire more people than large chains and they don't pay their employees more. Small shops are notorious for low pay and no benefits.

In the case of a discounter like Walmart the profits don't get siphoned elsewhere as much as never spent in the first place. There may not be a local shop owner anymore, but everyone else in the community has spent less money.

<comment><USER27> Just to add to this, WalMart is primarily a grocery store. Like most grocery stores, it has a net profit margin that hovers around 3%.

The Waltons are not rich because each WalMart vacuums money out of a community. The Waltons are rich because there is a metric shit-ton of stores that do a high volume of business, and they get their 2-3% slice of it.

<comment><USER28> That would be nice, but they make money from sucking wealth.

When Walmart Comes to Town [https://economics.mit.edu/files/7575](https://economics.mit.edu/files/7575)

Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/wal- mart-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/wal-mart-it-came- it-conquered-now-it-s-packing-up-and-leaving)

An early Snapper Mower take on walmarts practices: [https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal- mart](https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf- Sr3SjBzk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf-Sr3SjBzk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Has the prescription described worked anywhere - invest in downtown shops after a mall fails? It does not address people will almost always search for the better price. We had an article about six months ago talking about how Dollar General was swooping into places like this or where even Walmart failed.

<comment><USER30> Newer malls have done away with cavernous indoor spaces, and _are_ dense pedestrianized downtowns (albeit not always in the city center, and usually with ample free parking garages). They seem to be doing pretty well.

<comment><USER31> I'd say they were a mix but they tend to be upscale in any case. But somewhere like Santana Row is as you describe.

<comment><USER32> That's because they're new. The new mall is always more upscale than the old mall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Malls came about because of tax breaks in the 50s. Now that the buildings are completely depreciated, it's not as profitable.

[http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america- go...](http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america-got-malled)

 _An investor making a profit from rental of a new building usually avoided all taxes on that income, since the 'loss' from depreciation canceled it out. And when the depreciation exceeded profits from the building itself—as it virtually always did in early years—the investor could use the excess 'loss' to cut other income taxes. " With realestate values going up during the 1950s and '60s, savvy investors "could build a structure, claim 'losses' for several years while enjoying tax-free income, then sell the project for more than they had originally invested."_

<comment><USER34> I'm not convinced by this argument -- my understanding is that when you sell property that you have claimed depreciation on, you have to factor in that depreciation to your cost basis. So if I depreciated 50k on a small commercial property I bought for 100k over 20 years and then sold it for 200k, I would be paying taxes on 150k of income. Granted, you could continue to defer these taxes and build wealth with 1031 exchanges, but I'm not sure how depreciation factors into that scenario.

<comment><USER33> Yes that's true, but while you're both getting tax benefits before you sell it and you're making money on the appreciating. So you get to "depreciate" an appreciating asset. Even after taxes, it's a win. Besides, the tenants are actually paying down the debt. Your only investment is whatever relatively small down payment you've made. Hopefully tenant rents are enough to pay for upkeep.

You don't pay cash for the real estate - you take advantage of leverage and at the most pay 20% out of pocket.

While you own the building, the income you make isn't taxed because you can claim depreciation against your income. If you take into account the time value of money, if you take the tax free money and invest that in another long term asset and sell it, then you pay the much lower capital gains tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was always struck from the mid-90s till I left the bay area 5 years ago by that one block of awesome downtown Sunnyvale CA , Murphy St, and the dismal shopping center next to it that must have destroyed 10 or more similar blocks. The shopping center went through several unsuccessful remodels , not sure how it fares now.

<comment><USER36> Apparently, a lot of that had to do with Prop 13 and various packaged "company sales" to hold the appreciating property as an investment and avoid increased taxes while minimizing cash flow. In the end after multiple bankruptcies (driven by the city council) the land owners needed to make money on their "new" investment to pay taxes. It's full of shops now with lots of Apple and other tech employment next to the Caltrain corridor.

It's similar to the corner of 85&ElCamino where the dead Emproium mall sat for 20 years because the landowner paid effectively no taxes on the property while borrowing on the appreciated value. I don't know if it's true that they only sold to Sutter Health because of bad investments during the dot-com boom, but that was the rumor in 2003-4 when it traded hands.

<comment><USER37> "...the corner of 85&ElCamino where the dead Emproium mall sat for 20 years because the landowner paid effectively no taxes on the property while borrowing on the appreciated value."

Source?

In fact, Home Depot had already leased that site for a new, modern store to go in immediately, but the City Council thought it should be reserved for "upscale" retail -- a ludicrous concept that, of course, never happened. Read about the 2000 Measure N controversy. Home Depot stayed in Sunnyvale and expanded to EPA instead.

I lived literally a block away at the time.

<comment><USER36> I would note that Home Depot was a proposed lease and not a sale, and people were most worried about awful traffic immediately next to the highway interchange (a Santana Row which went in around the same time wouldn't have been better), but 'that was the rumor in 2003-4 when it traded hands' which I guess you didn't hear. I lived closer to caltrain.

Edit: If anyone would like a longer reading of the Home Depot kerfuffle-

[https://www.mv- voice.com/morgue/2002/2002_02_22.hdtimeline.h...](https://www.mv- voice.com/morgue/2002/2002_02_22.hdtimeline.html)

<comment><USER37>
      people were most worried about awful traffic immediately next to the highway

Where _better_ to put a big box store than away from residential property and landlocked by a freeway?

The Sunnyvale Home Depot has no such traffic issues, and it is only accessible from Kifer... which is not a big road. The whole "traffic!" issue was a crock instituted to chase a dream of a "Santana Row West" which never had a chance. The subsequent new huge Safeway Marketplaces at Hacienda and Bernardo/ECR create far more traffic, both in car trips and truck deliveries, yet they engendered no complaints.

The result: the property became a medical center that generates essentially _zero_ sales tax revenue for the city; that lost half-million a year goes to Sunnyvale's Home Depot and Lowe's instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is an amazing article for me who has little perspective on the relevant issues. I now live in a small village satellite of a large city, and see faint signs of a once thriving local community which seems to have disappeared decades ago.

Does anyone have some counterpoint to what is discussed?

<comment><USER30> There's no reason to think locally owned downtown shops will be competitive with Amazon unless they are so high-end as to be a destination shopping experience.

<comment><USER39> I'd restate that a bit more broadly because they have to offer something some advantage over Amazon which enough people want. If you're dealing with things which don't ship well, for example, that might work on its own — I don't hear of many people buying building supplies online for that reason even if they ruthlessly shop around for the best deals on tools.

Since volume tends to rule in the commodity space I think that usually means finding a way not to be a commodity. Specialty bookstores are an example because some are doing quite well because they have top-notch staffing; others followed Barnes & Nobles' attempts to use cheaper staffing and have largely failed. I don't know about other speciality clothing stores but the places selling hiking, biking, etc. gear seem to be doing well around here because people like advice & the ability to try something on before dropping a fairly large amount of cash.

<comment><USER30> The most successful downtowns are the things that _really_ don't ship well: restaurants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Meh, my local mall is failing because they built a different local mall that was newer, cleaner, felt brighter and all the stores that could find the money to sign a new lease moved to that one.

Then they built another mall didn't put a roof over it and called it a shopping destination...

<comment><USER40> Reminds me of this chris rock skit:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Hke7PrdmA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Hke7PrdmA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Focusing on clothing stores detracts from the overall argument (which I'm mostly sympathetic to) because there's another clear explanation for what happened to these stores, or what might have happened in the alternate universe where the mall had never come: people are just spending a lot less on clothing than they used to.

This was on HN not too long ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16322720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16322720)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-death-of- clothing/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-death-of-clothing/)

</comment><comment><USER42> I generally agree with the article's main thrusts (city living is more "efficient", better/more sustainable infrastructure), but this is a very one- sided view.

Sure, cities are more "efficient". They're also more dysfunctional. What you gain in infrastructure use intensity, you give right back to machine politics, failing school systems, outright embezzlement/theft of funds, huge pension problems, entrenched big-city unions, and bad policing. Just watch The Wire if you want to see what it's like. I live in Oakland, CA, which has had, I think 3 or 4 police chiefs, in the past 3 years.

Perhaps there's some kind of middle ground. A place that's not some spread-out suburbia where "going into town" is a thing, but not quite SF/NYC-level government problems where building a subway comes at a price of 3.5 BILLION DOLLARS PER MILE. [1] Maybe a city of 1 million is about the right size.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york- subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway- construction-costs.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> Nice but I wish the author had called out the impact of globalization a bit more strongly. The structure of a Mall or Walmart takes economic output of an area and sends it somewhere else. That mechanism is that people buy stuff for cheap at the department store, a fraction of that money stays in the form of salaries and taxes, and the bulk goes far way to distribution houses and factories somewhere else. If you don't have something pumping money in, it eventually all drains out.

When you collapse the entire flow locally so a local factory/tailor making clothes being sold by a local merchant. Then there is a more immediate return of the economic product. Customer buys a suit, that was sold by a store that bought it from a manufacturer, that bought the fabric from a local textile mill, all of which use machines and staff and other factories and tool shops.

I am not sure how you balance this sort of thing out.

<comment><USER44> That's nice in principle. In practice, the reason we have the system we have is that it delivers goods to customers much more efficiently than ever. Back when every small town had its own clothing store, customers were paying enough for the clothes that the shopkeeper and his/her staff could lead middle-class lives off of their profits, not to mention all of the people in the nearby factories who made them. We can go back to those times, but consumers will have to decide that they are happy having fewer clothing items, keeping them for much longer, dressing their children in hand-me-downs, and probably still spending a larger portion of their income on clothing than they do now.

<comment><USER12> > probably still spending a larger portion of their income on clothing than > they do now.

As we have spent less of our income on things like food, clothing, etc, and increased our household income dramatically.

In 1971 median household income was c. £270/week. In 2001 £420/week, in 2011 £460/week. (figures adjusted for inflation to 2013 levels) In 1971 housing costs were £20/week, in 2001 is was £90 a week, in 2011 £120 a week.

Half of that extra money went in housing costs.

The big changes in income (especially in normalisation of a second income) from the 70s onwards were swept up in housing. Increase everyone's wages, and we just spend it on the same houses we had before. On the flip side, decrease everyone's wages and the amount we spend on houses will reduce. That benefits everyone apart from wealthy landowners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's in a name? That which we call a mall By any other word would sell as well

The "downtown" is essentially a mall, but exposed to the elements. No normal mall manager has ever thought "What I really need here is snow, mosquitoes, panhandlers, diesel smoke, traffic jams, or 90-degree weather with 90% humidity."

A mall is like downtown, but without those problems. Malls are dying for reasons that are also hurting downtown areas. Online shopping has been mentioned. Another issue is that malls have lost their value as a social meeting place. People used to go to the mall to meet each other. Teens especially did this, causing them to buy things and to bring in parents with the serious money. Now people spend time at home poking at their cell phones; this is how people connect.

</comment><comment><USER45> I found this 1982 documentary about malls fascinating, describing them as the future of shopping:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2BlyvN6EeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2BlyvN6EeI)

On the one hand, the confident forecasting seems silly in hindsight. You had malls for a hot moment and you decided they would last forever?

On the other hand, that hindsight is humbling. Things change. What do we know even now? Society changes. Maybe malls will make a stunning comeback in a few decades. I can't imagine how. Vastly cheaper land or package shipping becoming somehow unsustainable, or just the industry cleans house and survives through attrition.

Or maybe online retail will be forever. Or maybe it will be displaced by something unthinkable in thirty years. For all I know some AI concierge service will be a strict dictator over all my finances and purchases, and I'll never touch money, I'll just receive a box of things the machine thinks I need each week. Who knows.

We had a thirty year trend that some people thought was forever. It ended, now we all feel smug, think we learned some deeper truth about society.

StrongTowns is convinced we should (albeit modestly) reinvest in downtowns.

I don't know, that's a lot of conviction for me. Sure, maybe? Am I the only one who feels like I know less now than when this all started?

<comment><USER46> "Maybe malls will make a stunning comeback in a few decades. I can't imagine how"

They still make some sense in places not blessed with San Diego weather. The problem is, people don't have disposable income to spend at them.

(Another problem might be the lack of book, magazine, toy, and music stores. The stores that are left probably have a clientele that is mostly women, and males don't have much reason to visit the mall and spend money.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Well written article really enjoyed it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Two things I didn't see mentioned: stagnant wages and rising healthcare costs.

I don't think it's a coincidence that malls, especially non-upscale malls, are dying at the same time there's a proliferation of dollar stores and thrift store chains like Savers (basically a for-profit Goodwill).

Near a mall where I live there once was a Circuit City. Now there's a dollar store and a Savers.

Malls are failing because we simply don't have as much disposable income as we had in the 80s and 90s.

The malls that seem to be doing well are the upscale malls whose clientele still have plenty of disposable income.

</comment><comment><USER48> For some great video journalism on this subject, check out Dead Mall Series: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNz4Un92pGNxQ9vNgmnCx...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNz4Un92pGNxQ9vNgmnCx7dwchPJGJ3IQ)

<comment><USER49> Yes, was just about to post this. Very good series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Retail is under terrible pressure, and one reason among many is in your pocket[0]:

"Consumer income has not changed much since 2006, thus over the last 10 years $190 billion in consumer spending was diverted toward mobile phones. [...] Between phones and their services, this is $340 billion that will not be spent on T-shirts and shoes."

[0] [http://contrarianedge.com/2017/07/26/not-just-amazons- fault-...](http://contrarianedge.com/2017/07/26/not-just-amazons-fault- changing-consumer-habits-killing-old-retail-biz/)

<comment><USER51> I think economic commentators often miss this point.

Its also why I think any coming recession will leave the tech industry relatively unharmed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Stop buying things.

As for rural areas, why not try something new? Delivery by drone, goods exchanges, unstaffed warehouses access through a smartphone, 3d printers, fast book printers.

It's time for radically new ideas to save the rural divide.

</comment><comment><USER53> There are urban malls that only take up one downtown block and don't have a sea of parking around them, or any site provided parking at all for that matter.

They can be good for those large blocks where the interior of the block is not used efficiently because of the size, since mall shops do not need windows to the outside. Interior urban malls are also great for places where the weather is bad most of the time.

With the urban malls you can still have a strip of shops around them on their outsides.

</comment><comment><USER54> Really thinking Jetsons here, but won't we simply be able to print most items either at home or at the neighborhood print shop at some point in the next 100 years? I recall efforts in the food, metal, and body part space. Shipping and warehouses become irrelevant, you just buy recipes that can be created in a very short time. Or maybe I'm living on Cloud 9?

</comment><comment><USER55> Reminds me somehow Walmart failed in Germany.</comment>


Britains ancient yews – mystical, magnificent, and unprotected - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/28/britain-ancient-yews-mystical-magnificent-and-unprotected <comment><USER2> If you like yews and you're ever in the Chichester area on the English south coast, I strongly recommend visiting the yew forest at Kingley Vale.

[https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/the-ancient-yew- forest...](https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/the-ancient-yew-forest-of- kingley-vale.html)

It's like the trees are alive, and reminds me of the scene in the original "Snow White" movie where she's running through the forest being grabbed by branches!

Apparently, they're c. 1000 years old, planted to commemorate a Saxon victory over the Vikings.

Incredibly, they were used for RAF target practice during WWII and the site still gets cleared of ordnance occasionally.

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone who likes trees, FYI Richard Powers's latest -- "The Overstory: A Novel" \-- is a Pulitzer-winning, beautifully-written, moving and powerful novel that features trees and forests... it's like nothing else I've ever read. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER4> This article makes a credible case for special protections for the yew being unneeded. There does not appear to be a great number of threats to them nor does it appear they're being cut down with any regularity

<comment><USER5> It's interesting what things humans get protective and sentimental over.

The difference with the buildings is they are selectively chosen as heritage buildings. Someone didn't come along and say every old Christian church should get a special grade. Their individual history and merits are evaluated.

I don't see why special protection can't be given through volunteer efforts on some unique and interesting trees that are actually ancient.

Not sure I agree that every single branch of every yew in the country should require a highly paid specialist. Especially when they are mostly already on ancient church property that is already being well taken care of. Just educate the churches and local communities with articles like these and the online groups that already exist. Create some time to clean up the ones in human accessible areas.

Not everything requires the heavy hand of government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What an amazing site the yew trees and door of St Edward's church, Stow-on the-Wold make. What's even more amazing—at least from the photograph—is that there seems to be no significant damage to the building's foundations or infrastructure.

I wonder in fact if this is actually the case.

<comment><USER7> Right? I thought the same. I live fairly close to the area, but have never been - wasn't even aware it existed.

I think I'm going to take a day trip just to check this out. It always amazes me how many little gems there are like this in rural England.

<comment><USER6> Good one, let us know!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find this article completely inexplicable. Is there a shortage of Yew trees? If not, why would there be legal protection?

<comment><USER9> There are around 150 yew trees left that are over 2000 years old. For a hundred generations they have served as waypoints, landmarks, cultural signifiers and biological ecosystems.

Shortage: yes Important: yes</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to encrypt an off-the-shelf USB drive? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Two possibilities:

encfs: [http://www.arg0.net/encfs](http://www.arg0.net/encfs)

LUKS: [http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/](http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/)

<comment><USER3> Regarding encfs, here's the security review:

[https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm](https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7384730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7384730)

      EncFS is probably safe as long as the adversary only gets one copy of
      the ciphertext and nothing more. EncFS is not safe if the adversary
      has the opportunity to see two or more snapshots of the ciphertext at
      different times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What sort of USB drive? Flash memory? Spinning rust?

What sort of encryption? Hardware? Software? If software, what platform?

If you use hardware encryption, it will work independent of OS platform.

You can buy removable flash drives and rotational media both with built-in encryption: [http://www.wired.com/2012/07/reviews_secure_hard_drives/?vie...](http://www.wired.com/2012/07/reviews_secure_hard_drives/?viewall=true) and [http://www.pcworld.com/article/254816/the_best_encrypted_fla...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/254816/the_best_encrypted_flash_drives.html) for example.

You can also buy hardware encryption enclosures for rotational media (or I guess SSDs) of your own provision, as well as use hardware encryption pass- through adapters for USB flash drives (or any USB media, I suppose): [http://www.zdnet.com/encrypt-all-your-usb-storage-media- with...](http://www.zdnet.com/encrypt-all-your-usb-storage-media-with- cipherusb-7000017141/)

<comment><USER5> See "Enclosed but not encrypted" for a warning about hardware encryption:

[http://www.h-online.com/security/features/Enclosed-but- not-e...](http://www.h-online.com/security/features/Enclosed-but-not- encrypted-746199.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> geli, FileVault, BitLocker To Go - depends quite a bit on what OS needs to read it.

TrueCrypt was (and perhaps still is) the best cross-platform option.

</comment><comment><USER7> Paging @tpatcek ;)</comment>


Evil Clown hired for stalking, threats  - <AUTHOR> http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/821591-evil-clown-hired-for-stalking-threats-and-a-pie-in-the-face

<comment><USER2> Hmm, as a parent this seems ill advised.</comment>


Gigabit DSL (with a fiber boost) to hit market next year - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/12/gigabit-dsl-with-a-fiber-boost-to-hit-market-next-year/

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems to only be designed for up to 400 meters from a node, and only gives a gigabit at much less than that. This makes me wonder how much it will help in practice. U-Verse FTTN customers are supposedly 600-800 meters from nodes.</comment>


What do you do when your "Great Idea" gets implemented by someone else?   - <AUTHOR>

I am sure a lot of app-developers have been through this problem. You work your ass off on an idea for 6 months, and get the product almost ready to be shown off to investors and work on your value proposition and start working on your elevator pitch... And then, all of a sudden, you have an "FML" moment, when you see new app on the app-store, which uses the same idea as the one you had been working on (it may have a few differences, but it will core-value & working being similar to yours).
Now it makes me feel like an idiot on why I had not thought of this sooner (like 2 years back & be the one to introduce this idea first), and you kind of start losing motivation and focus and decide to work on a different idea. And Half-way across any new idea, I am pretty sure, another person would have already implemented. I might be a bit pessimistic with this post, but this is the third time that I had started working an idea and mid-way I see the idea already out there... and I don't plan on quitting ! I really want to launch the application and prove my value proposition to investors and pitch - but like I had explained before - its been already implemented ! My application (I strongly believe) has a better value proposition than the competitor, but it will take me at least 8 more months to get the product out. By that time, the competitor might also bring in newer ideas and grow further ...
What do you guys do when something like this happens to your application ? By now you all would know the "value of time", and how important it is that you work on something worth-while and innovative ! How do you guys cope up when a competitor emerges with a full-fledged product when you have been working your ass-off on the prototype ? Would you guys continue working on the product or start working on newer ideas (back to square 1) ?? Any suggestion or experiences on your part would definitely help me, and everyone else who faces the same problem ! <comment><USER2> You shouldn't worry about things you can't control. To a degree, ignorance is bliss. You can't know whether or not your competitor screws up in the future. You can't know whether you screw up in the future. You can just do your best. The goal is to stay focused and motivated. (Who would have thought). ;-)

As for personal experiences: I once received an e-mail from a guy who favored our blog software over Wordpress because he liked our style. Since you didn't copy anyone but have a genuine product, chances are that people like your style better.

Now that there is competition, your initial idea for an app has been validated by another player which means your six months of work probably weren't wasted on a product no one would be interested in. See the competitor as a good sign.

If your idea is a good one, copycats would have jumped on the bandwagon eventually. You might think your head start would have give you some advantages (and it might have), but in this fast moving world it's probably only a minor factor.

I hope this makes sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. It makes sense now ! Next step would be to refine the product and look for an investor !

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Keep working on it, but use their app too. See what it does and doesn't do that yours would have. Use it to continue to add features to yours that you would build into theirs to perfect it. Watch their reviews, see what people like and don't like about it and try to make those people happy if it aligns with your goals. Ignore the idea that down-the-line, their app will get better. I've noticed that a lot of the time, despite feedback, the developer(s) end up going in a direction that their users don't find value in anymore and start to look elsewhere.

I'm constantly downloading similar apps in bulk to compare/contrast, and I know I'm not alone. Put it out there and see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER4> It takes a long time to build real value in a software product.

I wouldn't give up because someone else is working on what you are doing. Even if they have a similar product, you could target a different customer, or have a different business model.

Most apps don't have a winner-take-all approach. Try to figure out what you believe, and what differentiates your product.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a very simple way to avoid feeling bad about someone beating you to the punch- the fact you hadn't heard about it before you got started reflects badly on the incumbent firm's marketing skills (how many other people don't know about it but should?). That gives you a glimmer of hope.

</comment><comment><USER6> The time you put in is a sunk cost & you can't get it back, _so don't feel bad about it_. You can either outcompete your competitor, or you can pivot into a new method on the same idea.

</comment><comment><USER7> are you Tesla or Edison?</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on non technical co-founders? - <AUTHOR>

I've often pondered the idea of what a non-technical co-founder could/would be like (for a web/software startup), someone to do everything else. Does anyone have any experience with this? If so how did/does it work out?
Edit: fixed grammar, took out a verb by accident <comment><USER2> It's a crap shoot. Just like starting a business is. I was the technical-guy (CTO)/co-founder with a "business" partner (CEO) many years ago. All went well for the first few years, but as we grew he was unable to move from the entrepreneurial role and let the organization grow. His micromanagement doomed an attempted expansion into a larger market and the company floundered because of it.

Getting a company off the ground takes very different skills than what is necessary for growing a management team and developing real business strategies. It's kind of a catch-22 - you need the entrepreneur to get started, but once you get there he or she may not be the right person to get you to the next level.</comment>


Antidepressant Withdrawals - <AUTHOR> https://www.psypost.org/2019/12/more-than-half-of-people-suffer-withdrawal-effects-when-trying-to-come-off-antidepressants-55040 <comment><USER2> Anecdata can confirm by passive observation of friends in withdrawal. Psych medicine is necessary evil with consequences. Some drugs surpress and some drugs amplify brain functions and both can be prescribed to treat identical symptoms, suggests brain chemistry and the root causes of depression are still only partially known and the mapping from symptom (depression) to cause and treatment is iffy. And now we have inflammation and gut biome to add to the mix...</comment>


Laser Fence Zaps Mosquitoes In Flight - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/backyard-star-wars/0

<comment><USER2> If you have a short attention span, just scroll down and watch the video. Awesome.

DIE, LITTLE BLOODSUCKERS!! :)

On a side note, in Asia I got the chance to use a device that's like a tennis racket with a bug zapper sandwiched between finger-impermeable outer net layers. So it's hard to shock yourself, but swing it through a cloud of mosquitos, and they pop, burn and die in a very satisfying manner.

It's hard to avoid maniacal laughter.

<comment><USER3> I have this, and I concur heartily. In Tamil, it's called a 'kosubat' (unofficial name - literally translates to 'mosquito bat')

Sometimes it is a lot of fun (and good exercise!) to dance around the house to Johann Strauss' _The Blue Danube_ zapping the life outta the little pests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this very tongue in cheek, over-engineered solution to a real problem. It seems the authors are well aware that there are more cost-effective ways of dealing with the problem. But shooting the critters out of the air, one by one speaks to the geek in all of us. This would be a great "give one get one" device, but then again, giving to more conventional causes for malaria prevention is probably more useful.

</comment><comment><USER5> We had a scam over here a bunch of years ago that took the low-tech route instead. Easy-to-use, painless and fast mosquito-killing system advertised. Upon payment, the lucky owner received two pieces of plywood with a handle on each, plus instructions on how to quickly move the plywood pieces together with the mosquito between them.

I had fun laughing at the audacity at the time, but I think using this system I'd actually have fun using the system instead of having fun at the expense of the users. =)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a cool engineering project, but hardly seems like an efficient approach, at thousands (hundreds at best) of dollars a pop. Traditional chemical elimination methods (C02 traps, pesticides) seem much more effective, and biological approaches are probably the most promising (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique>).

<comment><USER4> And in case you want a local, mechanical option - don't those electric fly killers with the blue light work for mosquitoes as well?

<comment><USER7> Blue light does not attract mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are actually attracted to infrared light - the exact opposite of blue light. And CO2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yet another idea I had when I was a kid, now wending its way towards the market.

<comment><USER2> I wanted a sprinkler system with lasers instead of water. Pop up, laser the grass in all directions, pop down. Just make sure nobody's in the yard, first. :)

In practice this is probably a terrible idea - your beautiful green grass is constantly being burned on top.

<comment><USER9> Which is worse, cauterization or hacking with a mower blade?

<comment><USER10> I'd say cauterization. Wouldn't it prevent the grass from growing anymore, as well as looking terrible (burnt on top)?

<comment><USER8> Grass grows from the root up, i.e. it's not like a tree. Whether you chop it off with a laser or with high-speed steel, it's going to keep growing from the root; it's evolved to grow after being chopped off by sheep's teeth, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I absolutely love this. I also applaud them for making sure they only zap the evil mosquitoes and not other friendly bugs, such as moths, who are not trying to suck my blood in exchange for a nasty, itchy welt.

</comment><comment><USER12> >but if your virtual fence is 3 to 5 meters high, it can catch almost all mosquitoes that fly by

Yeah...it's never going to work unless they eliminate _all_ the bugs.

<comment><USER8> Not so. If you keep the population down, you're already doing a great deal to stop the spread of disease - especially if you're mostly keeping population down in populated areas, where sick people tend to be located.

This is fantastic.</comment></comment>


China ready to put Apple, other U.S. companies in 'unreliable entity list' - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-tech-china/china-ready-to-put-apple-other-u-s-companies-in-unreliable-entity-list-global-times-idUSKBN22R1X2 <comment><USER2> It will be very interesting to see if the markets reflect the potential loss of significant revenue from China for these big tech companies and the potential impact of having to move their supply chains too.

TSMC won't fab Huawei chips? Why would China let Foxconn produce iPhones in Shenzhen?

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's hope it happens. If anything can change this pathological US-China relation, it's something like this.

<comment><USER4> China is a totalitarian regime quickly turning the entire world, not just the US, into its enemy. The relationship is whatever China makes it to be.</comment></comment>


Farewell GOOG-411 - <AUTHOR> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/farewell-goog-411/?src=mv

<comment><USER2> TLDR: Alternatives:

 _"Anyway, if you intend to soldier on in the post-GOOG-411 world, here are your options:

\- Use Google's even older, text-message version of GOOG-411, which is still available. You can text, for example, "home depot dallas tx" to the address 46645 — that is, GOOGL — and you'll be texted back with the information. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near as quick or as hands-free as GOOG-411.

\- Use the Google Mobile App. It's available for Android, iPhone or BlackBerry. You speak what you want, just as with GOOG-411 ("CVS pharmacy San Diego"), and you're shown the best matches on a map, complete with prominent, one-tap phone numbers.

Unfortunately, it's not hands-free and it works only on those three app phones.

\- Use Microsoft's competing service, 800-BING-411.

BING-411 is a renamed version of TellMe, which Microsoft bought in 2008 for about $1 billion. (You can read about the service here. Or read my original 2001 Times review .)"_</comment>


Ask HN: Chat bot, AI. Any good open sourced references? - <AUTHOR>

Can anyone refer me to good chat bots, open sourced ? I would like to develop a chat bot with my own personality tweaks and don't know how to go about it. Appreciate any pointers. <comment><USER2> RiveScript is a FOSS chatbot scripting environment that you might want to try: [http://www.rivescript.com/](http://www.rivescript.com/) [http://www.rivescript.com/rivescript](http://www.rivescript.com/rivescript) [http://www.rivescript.com/aiml](http://www.rivescript.com/aiml)

The original interpreter is based on Perl, but there are other first-party libraries: [http://www.rivescript.com/interpreters](http://www.rivescript.com/interpreters)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is [http://alice.pandorabots.com/](http://alice.pandorabots.com/) and assorted bots, which are open source.</comment>