New BIAS attack works against Bluetooth on Apple, Samsung, and other devices - tech-historian https://www.zdnet.com/article/smartphones-laptops-iot-devices-vulnerable-to-new-bias-bluetooth-attack/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://francozappa.github.io/about- bias/](https://francozappa.github.io/about-bias/)</comment>


Open Food Facts reaches 50k food products and launches a worldwide scan party - <AUTHOR> http://scan.party

<comment><USER2> The US is #6 in terms of number of products on Open Food Facts. Can you help me get the US to #5? Only a couple of dozens of products is needed.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised there isn't a bulk database available from the FDA or USDA. [http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/](http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/) is in the public domain and looks like a good start. Do you know of all of its entries are in the Open Food Facts database?

<comment><USER2> I need to look again but I believe it contains mostly "average" generic products, not branded products. And no images of the product and its packaging unfortunately. Also there are no barcodes for the branded products. e.g. [http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/2072](http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/2072) But definitely worth another look, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where did the upvote count go? - <AUTHOR> I'm not sure if there is A/B test going on right now, or if there has been a permanent change and I missed the memo. But I can't see an upvote count anymore on comments. Any ideas why? <comment><USER2> The upvotes of the comments of other users is hidden since a few years (5? I can't remember the date, and I can't find the anouncemente.)

The upvotes of your comments should be visible to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't recall ever seeing an upvote count on other peoples' comments; only my own.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OK I must be confusing it with something else. Sorry about that!</comment>


Questions to Ask a VC as a Startup - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2017/02/i-slept-with-65-vcs-and-learned-these-things/ <comment><USER2> _Are you an associate?_

Basically you'd be convincing someone who's heard about your idea for maybe 30 minutes to convince someone else. A day or two later. This is not productive.

While weeding associates out might be a time saver, you should do this before scheduling the meeting. Between LinkedIn and the fund's website, this isn't that hard to figure out. You could even go into the meeting reversing the proposition. _Great to talk to you. This is roughly what I 'm working on. Tell me about your fund and contacts. Thanks for the coffee._ If you're a technical founder, you can probably use the practice, too.</comment>


Justbeamit makes transferring large files easy - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5849783/justbeamit-makes-transferring-large-files-super+easy

<comment><USER2> How is it better than ge.tt or a thousand other file sharing services?</comment>


USC Lab Creates 3-D Holographic Displays, Brings TIE Fighters to Life - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/06/usc-lab-creates.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, of all the things they could have modelled, I like the fact they went with a TIE fighter.

</comment><comment><USER2> They demoed this at SIGGRAPH last year.</comment>


Ask HN: the northern European Edens (Finland, Norway, Sweden)? - <AUTHOR> How comes any time there's a comparison of education or healthcare or overall "social health" or development of the northern European countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden) with any other country in the world, the northeners are always better? How did they manage to get so many "social" problems so right? Does anyone know of a good case-study about how these countries reached their current level?
The thing that actually overfilled my "glass of curiosity" was Linus Torvalds's comparison of public education in US and Finland. And I've read so many such opinions lately, not only comparing things with the US but also with other countries that I have to ask: is this northern Eden a myth? or are they really doing something right and they are doing it right for over half a century? <comment><USER2> That is definetely not a myth, but also there is not a simple answer. First, their taxes rate are the highest in the world. And they are "social welfare state", and this is hard to balance, they are very expensive states. Norway, because of oil, has funds sufficient to guarantee the wealth of the next 10 generations, but not the other two. Also they are the most equal countries in the world. You may check any Gini index rank. This is incredibly important for me, but some people may find weird when a CEO has a salary only few times bigger than the average worker of his company. This equal, expensive, social welfare state demands a lot of unity of the population political view. Something that sounds impossible on big countries. These countries have a LOT to teach regarding public education and public health, but they are not copy and paste solutions, their solutions are very hard to emulate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some countries invest in education others in armed forces and tax reductions for the rich.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Economist had an issue about this topic 2 months ago. Every article was posted to hacker news. You could probably search and find the previous discussions.

</comment><comment><USER5> We pay 33% income tax...

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think this is about how much money in taxes the state collects. I think the average tax revenue per citizen is higher for the US than for, let's say, Finland (please correct me if I'm wrong). It _might_ be about how this money are distributed to education vs healthcare vs army vs ... But my hunch is that it's not even this, it's about how the system spends the money and not about how much money (for healthcare it's definitely not, as I don't think anyone spends more than the US on average per citizen, but for education I really don't know anything about the figures, that's one of the reason I've asked this...).

<comment><USER6> according to [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing- book/background/numb...](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing- book/background/numbers/international.cfm), the US has one of the lowest tax rates, while scandinavian countries are all towards the high end of the list

There is definitely an issue of how much money is distributed to welfare / infrastructure / education etc compared to military but the lower tax rate means there is less to spend to begin with (per capita at least)</comment></comment></comment>


Will Windows 8 emphasis on Tablet features drive users to iPad? - <AUTHOR> http://getwired.com/2012/05/29/windows-8-who-moved-my-desktop/

<comment><USER2> I've been to the Windows 8 developer conferences and worked on getting an app off the ground for launch... and I have to say the skitzo strategy of half tablet half desktop environment is so much of a headache I decided to abandon the platform. Designing a metro and desktop version of the app, then compiling it for ARM and Intel. On top of that having to rebuild it for a phone.

I wasn't willing to risk my teams precious development time on a store that is unproven and a product that looks confused and misguided. Several other developers agreed at the conference.

I really don't know what Microsoft was thinking blending the tablet/desktop and separating out the phone. It seems they think this will allow them to claim a larger install base for 'apps' as their phone has dismal sales performance. The evangelists kept repeating over and over that I'll have 500 million user audience as soon as it rolls out.

But the experience is a mess. Everyone in my office from seasoned techs to low level non-techy interns has made a terrible face at windows 8, constantly clicking around wondering what is going on.

For the record, I thought Vista was alright and Windows 7 was nice. But 8's bifurcated touch/desktop strategy is good at neither and heading in a worse and worse direction with each successive release.

</comment><comment><USER3> Betteridge's Law of Headlines: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".

<comment><AUTHOR> For a 'law' it can be trivially dis-proven. "Is water wet?". I think the article raises some legitimate questions about Windows 8 that can't be as flippantly dismissed as your analysis of the punctuation suggests.

<comment><USER3> This doesn't disprove the adage as in practice no one would write a headline or a HN submission link entitled "Is water wet?"

<comment><USER4> Unless they do for the precise reason of proving you wrong and then arguing against the point you are making.

<comment><USER5> This is the one time, "The exception that proves the rule," isn't sheer nonsense, precisely because it is.

<comment><USER6> Did OP wrote his own title ? Currently the article is titled "Windows 8 – Who moved my desktop?" which is an exception to Betteridge's Law.

<comment><USER3> "Windows 8 – Who moved my desktop?" was also the title when I saw the article six hours ago shortly after it was submitted to HN. My comment was regarding the title of the submission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On the topic of pickup truck verse convertible car analogies -- Windows 8 may end up being the Chevrolet SSR of operating systems. This chimera could may end up doing both so poorly that it makes either OS X or iOS a clearly superior choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that was one of the points I thought the article was driving at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've seen lots of people say Windows 8 will be the death of Microsoft. This is about as accurate as saying Vista would be the death of Microsoft. In fact all it's doing is cementing Microsoft's incredibly resilient tick-tock process - release horrible OS, then awesome OS, then horrible OS, then awesome OS. Windows 7 was awesome, therefore Windows 8 will be horrible. This is ridiculously predictable.

<comment><USER8> As far as power-users go, how far back does that really go?

My exposure started with Windows 2000. It was fantastic. It made me ditch Mac OS 8.x full-time instead of just maintaining a 9x box for games. XP wasn't horrible either. Sure, after that things stagnated for a long time—and that led me to dally again with Macs and eventually switch back to OS X for my main machine—but after the initial kinks were worked out Vista and 7 added some much-needed things (especially 7, UI-wise).

But I agree that the "death of Microsoft" stuff is tiring. Personally, I'm pretty excited to see how this goes, since I like what MS is doing to bring touch-centered concepts to the desktop, and really don't like the direction Apple is going with Lion/Mountain Lion. I just wonder if MS will iterate quickly enough—Apple's release cycles may put a lot of pressure on them to get an "8.1" out the door very quickly with the kinks worked out.

<comment><USER9> In the consumer OS space, the predecessor to Windows XP wasn't Windows 2000, it was Windows ME (which was a disaster).

<comment><USER8> Well, I don't think ME and Vista fit anything like the same pattern. Vista was an extremely messy release but nevertheless brought several big underlying improvements. ME didn't. It wasn't a "tick" at all. Trying to fit it and Vista into the same pattern is getting too pattern-happy.

And even in the consumer space, how long do you have to go back before ME to find a dud? Windows 2?

<comment><USER9> Well, I'd say ME is at least related to the pattern. IIRC, it wasn't supposed to exist at all. You could describe it as a "failure-to-tick": Microsoft wasn't ready to switch to the Windows NT codebase for a consumer version of Windows, so we got Windows ME (note that XP came out about a year later).

That being said, I agree that the pattern doesn't go back beyond ME. Which does make me wonder: what changed?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is open source development ad-hoc? - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.05015 <comment><AUTHOR> Is open source development ad-hoc? Our results show that OS development is less ad-hoc we could imagine. In a new paper accepted to present at IEEE EDOC'20, we compile 33 studies to understand and learn with OSS process. Preprint at [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05015.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05015.pdf) .</comment>


Time to Stop Procrastinating and Make a Career Change - <AUTHOR> http://www.stickk.com/articles.php?articleID=57

<comment><USER2> Love this quote:

 _"I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours." - Jerome K. Jerome_</comment>


Ask HN: What US bank should I choose? - <AUTHOR>

I'm about to move from Europe to the US (Bay Area) to work for a big tech company and need a US bank account (checking, saving and credit card). They all look the same to me, and maybe they are but I'd love to hear some experiences. The banks I'm currently looking at are: BoA, HSBC, Chase, Citi, Schwab.
Stuff I'm comparing on:
- Ability to get an account before I move there (1st August, will only have social security number after that) - Online interface - iPad/iPhone app - Online bill pay (eBill) support - Service
Of course I subscribed to BankSimple, but I doubt I can get an account before the 1st of August :-) <comment><USER2> I'm a happy Schwab customer and an out of necessity BoA one.

I keep the BoA account around because they're pretty much the only bank that actually has branches in all the cities I visit and sometimes need a physical branch (deposits and large withdraws mostly).

Happy Schwab customer because they refund ATM fees (even international) with no minimum account balance and when I created my account they had a 2% cash back card (which unfortunately is no longer available). Their online interface is super dated, but it's functional and has everything I need. Customer support has been top notch (I haven't had to use it much, but hey were able to help me figure out how to do a wire transfer to Tibet while I was in Thailand).

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is True Ventures recommendation list (note: I'm not associated with True Ventures in any way at all). I do bank with one of their recommendations, Wells Fargo, which is HQ in SF and have been a customer there for years. Would highly recommend them.

<http://www.trueventures.com/2009/03/06/banks/>

</comment><comment><USER4> You won't be able to get a bank account without your social security number. Don't use BoA, they suck bad. I use Chase and have never had any issues with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our relocation consultant can set us up with Citi and HSBC without a number. But from what I understand they should all be able to do so, although it's a bit more hassle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> hsbc.no branch anywhere, but still able to serve you better than any other us bank I've dealt with.

pro tip: open an account on your country. when you have basic no-fee accounts on 2 countries both get upgraded to premium.</comment>


The Obvious, the Easy, and the Possible - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3047-the-obvious-the-easy-and-the-possible

<comment><USER2> _"What needs to be obvious?" is a better question to ask than "What's high priority?"_

I don't think one is better than the other. They are both critical and serve a different purpose.

"What needs to be obvious?" is a design question. It's important, but it doesn't tell you what you should be doing each day.

"What's high priority?" is a project management question. Once your product already exists, and you have a zillion features that should be possible but don't need to be easy, you then have to prioritize all of them to figure out what gets done.

<comment><USER3> I think this is exactly his point. Most web projects start out immediately in project management crunch mode, listing long sets of features that are "priorities" for various use cases or stakeholders. In project thinking, lots of things can be priorities because you just do the first priority first and then you can add developers or time to do the other "priorities."

What needs to be obvious? makes clear that priority, from a design standpoint, is a fixed resource that time, money, and manpower can never buy more of. You want to add this feature and make it obvious, yes you can afford to do so, but no you cannot do it without making other things less obvious.</comment></comment>


Over twenty percent of cable TV bills are bogus fees, study says - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjqa5/24-of-your-cable-tv-bill-is-just-bogus-fees-study-says <comment><USER2> There needs to be regulation here, and not just on cable. If you're going to charge it to me, you shouldn't be able to wait until checkout (or even worse, the first month's bill) to tell me what the price actually is.

Comparison is the mechanism by which competition drives a healthy economy. There's less value in competition the harder comparing them is. It's really hard to compare when you have to dig all the way to checkout to find what you'd pay.

Imagine you're at the supermarket and different brands of milk were listed at one price, but each had different fees when you get to the cash register. No one but the cashier can tell you what each option actually costs. How many people are going to get out of the line and go back and try another brand of mystery milk when they find out they chose one with a $1 "cattle fee?" It makes competition weak and needs to be illegal.

<comment><USER3> It's not regulation that's needed but competition. A good start would be to separate the infrastructure from the data delivery portion of the service like is done for Electricity and Gas. Introducing competition for the delivery portion will drive down rates.

<comment><USER4> > separate the infrastructure from the data delivery portion

How is that achievable without regulatory action?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole (US) cable provider industry needs to change. It is so anti- consumer. I was a Comcast customer for over 15 years. Once or twice a year I'd have to spend a couple hours talking to their customer service because they raised my rate, snuck some bogus charge on the bill, or signed me up for something I didn't want. They are borderline criminals.

My experience getting rid of the TV portion of the package was so painful, I cancelled everything instead and switched to AT&T. Luckily, they had recently laid fiber to my house. I was wary as they weren't the best company to deal with back when I had a landline. I figured they couldn't be worse than Comcast though. To my pleasant surprise, they've been perfect. 10/10\. Their pricing was transparent and stable. The service top notch. No idea what customer service is like because I've never had to call.

I suspect it is only this good because there's competition here though. So YMMV. I'd love to see a heavy regulatory hand smack the whole industry.

<comment><USER6> Same. I have AT&T gig fiber after switching from Comcast. 3 Years in, no complaints. My 2yr old son ripped the fiber line out of the house, and they came the next day and fixed it in like an hour, no charge. Been very satisfied with AT&T.

<comment><USER7> I recently switched from a 1000/50 package with Suddenlink (would rarely get over 400, even wired) to 1000/1000 with AT&T Fiber. I now easily get 950/950 wired consistently. It's $73/mo. The bill has been easy to understand. AT&T really surprised me with everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Forget the bogus fees for a moment. $150-220 for cable TV per _month_ is preposterous.

<comment><USER9> The other point, that the article fails to mention, is that oftentimes these providers have local monopolistic markets where the opportunity for consumers to choose a competitive provider are nonexistent.

That allows them to increase fees 600%. I would dump Comcast in a heartbeat if I had an alternative. Their service is unstable and inconsistent in my area and we are forced to pay very high rates.

<comment><USER10> For cable _TV_ specifically, lack of competition is a harder case to make than for Internet given that al least most people with houses have the option to get satellite TV instead. (Or streaming TV services assuming they have broadband.)

<comment><USER11> Lack of competitive choices is the reason they get away with this. My choices are 1 cable provider, Dish, and DirecTV. Not much competition. I have tried cutting the cord and streaming TV, but it's not ready for prime time yet. I also tried DirecTV and they had their own set of junk fees. At this point, I just pay the fees and hope technology improves enough to have ubiquitous choices.

<comment><USER10> I'm finally dropping cable TV entirely because my TiVo with lifetime subscription finally died. But I basically don't watch it so it's not that hard a decision even if the alternatives aren't perfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This kind of thing makes me glad not to be an American consumer.

The article cites the example of CenturyLink's "Internet Cost Recovery Fee", which is a $4/mo fee not listed in your price that is supposed to cover CenturyLink's costs of network expansion. I don't know how you can argue this is not part of the rate which CenturyLink themselves are charging for the service. Some of the other examples, like Comcast's passing on of government fees outside of the headline price I could understand as political differences, the same way you do not include sales tax in advertised prices (which annoys me every time I'm in the US), but I don't see how the "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" is not actionable fraudulent advertising.

In comparison, my ISP's advertised price is €80/mo. I pay €80/mo. In exchange, I get 400mbit/s broadband with no extra fees. This is technically a business plan, but the only extra price weirdness for consumer plans is the 6 month introductory rate.

<comment><USER13> _do not include sales tax in advertised prices_

I live in Canada and we do the same thing here. I think it's a good thing to remind everyone of sales taxes at checkout time. Sales taxes are regressive taxes. We should get rid of them in favour of a more progressive tax, such as land value tax.

Laws that mandate hiding sales tax by including it in the advertised price only serve to entrench a tax that should be repealed.

Edit: I just wanted to note that the vast majority of people I see defending sales taxes (i.e. VAT) are Europeans and the people opposed are North Americans. Putting aside the argument over whether it's a good idea or not, I think this is good (albeit anecdotal) evidence that hiding/showing the tax in the purchase price at checkout affects people's opinion of the tax.

<comment><USER14> VAT is only regressive if you assume that everybody have a constant spending regardless of their income. In practice I think people with a higher income also spend more, however, probably not linear to their extra income.

In practice, sales tax is probably progressive, but not to the same extend as, eg. income tax.

Furthermore, we should probably consider increasing the sales tax as it limits the consumption. This is highly necessary given our current ecological situation (In Denmark, where i live, the sales tax is 25%).

<comment><USER15> Sales taxes are definitely regressive (as that word is used by policy makers) because low-income people spend closer to 100% of their income than high- income people. The definition of regressive is a tax that takes up a larger percentage of income for low-income than high income.

Source: I used to be a tax lawyer.

<comment><USER16> It should be noted that VATs can be implemented in a progressive manner. Give everyone (or anyone under a certain income) an exemption that covers VAT for necessities, exempt items like rent/utilities from it, etc.

<comment><USER13> Giving an exemption for necessities turns VAT into a Pigovian tax on luxuries. In effect, this is an attempt to modify the behaviour of the poor and so it can be construed as a form of social engineering which exempts the rich. Given that some people view poverty as a moral failing, I think this is a bad thing.

In reality, it doesn't even work. Poor people spend money on luxuries in order to gain status which they need to attract a partner. Rich people don't need to do to spend their money to gain status since they already have it by virtue of being rich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The US love hidden fees. After being charged an "Urban" and "Resort" fee that was not advertised I learned that there seems to be neither regulation nor interest in requiring a customer to be presented with the final price on advertisements. It's bizarre.

<comment><USER18> If the final price was different that a written quote I was provided before (such as an email confirmation), I would dispute it with credit card.

However, I've always seen all the fees listed in email confirmations along with a final total price.

<comment><USER17> The email price had a disclaimer about extra fees being charged on checkout. So that does not help. The resort fee i had to pay was for a gym in the hotel I did not use and probably could have negotiated, the urban fee was for the "SF urban experience" which I can only assume is non negotiable given the location of the hotel.

You can't dispute partial fees either and no bank lets you dispute a charge that is on your bill as far as I'm aware.

<comment><USER18> The way a credit (or debit) card works in the US, is that the onus is on the merchant to prove the transaction was legitimate. This includes notifying you what the total price is and you accepting that.

No bank in my experience (as a merchant or customer) would stand behind undisclosed or unspecified charges.

<comment><USER17> My point is that they can easily proven that.

<comment><USER18> I assumed you meant the email said "extra fees", but did not specify how much. If the email didn't explicitly state how much you will pay, or a formula to figure out how much, then I believe the banks would side with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What stops McDonald's from doing the same? Advertising 99¢ burger and then charging 25% handling fee? Competition, I'd say. Seems that these abusive practices are evidence of a monopoly.

<comment><USER20> Less friction.

Switching to a different fast food chain is as easy as walking next door in most cases.

Switching cable providers is impossible for many (Comcast is my only choice), or may require hours lost from work while dealing with customer service, returning equipment, waiting for installers, etc.

<comment><USER9> Wendy's, Carl Jrs, Burger King, local places that sell quality burgers.

Remember people only choose McDonalds because of the consistent quality, for whatever definition of "quality" you want to ascribe to them, and low cost.

<comment><USER21> > people only choose McDonalds because of the consistent quality

Indeed, this is the only reason I eat McDonald's when I do - it doesn't matter where in the world I am, I know exactly what I'm getting, and I can pay in USD cash (although change is returned in local currency)

<comment><USER22> McDonalds accepts USD in other countries?

<comment><USER21> It's part of the terms of the franchise. Greenback accepted globally.

<comment><USER22> Do you have a citation for that? A quick Google doesn't reveal anything obvious.

<comment><USER21> I do not. However I've spoken to a franchise owner after visiting 7 countries where they accepted USD who explained why. Don't take it as gospel, but try it yourself next time you travel and see what happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's pretty refreshing now that I live in the UK that I see full prices for anything I purchase. Even airline flights and other EU hotels bookings show full price throughout the transaction.

<comment><USER24> On the whole, yes, the UK is way better.

My current battle, though, is with Travelodge. I discovered the hard way their 'Flexible rate + Breakfast + Wifi' packagee refunds only the room and breakfast parts if you cancel. Despite the wording 'Cancel up until noon on arrival date', they withold the wifi charge if you cancel.

This isn't mentioned on the confirmation email, nor at the T&Cs link. The agents who answer the booking phone number can't do anything. There is no email contact. And their customer service phone number costs 13p per minute.

So anyone in the UK thinking of staying at Travelodge, don't! They are predatory scum...

<comment><USER10> How awful.

Unfortunately, hotels are also generally tightening up cancelation policies to require 48 to 72 hours notice--which of course does you zero good if the cancelation is due to travel disruption of some sort.

(You also see a lot more pre-pay/no cancel rates which I admittedly have less trouble getting upset with although it's very annoying that there's often no refund window at all if you fat finger something when you make the reservation even if you notice immediately.)

My most recent bitch with Travelodge--which I basically never stay at but it was the only last minute room I could get--was that they _really_ didn't want me to check in without a government-issue photo ID which I lost at the airport. This was even though I had a wallet full of other cards and I had an online reservation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Comcast may add a modem rental fee to your bill automagically even if you have your own modem (even if you have always had your own). This happened to me and the phone support told me they do this intentionally and they expect people to call and resolve it if it is not an appropriate fee.

</comment><comment><USER26> The DOT Full Fare Advertising Rule requires that airfare prices include all taxes and fees. Perhaps the cable industry needs a similar rule.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps retail generally needs a similar rule, so we don't face this problem again in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cablevision/Optimum (now Altice) added a modem rental charge and network expansion fee, which was the impetus for me to switch to Fios after having Optimum for 15 years across 3 different homes. I ended up paying almost half for the triple play (it will go up after a year, but is still significantly lower overall even after the discount expires).

<comment><USER28> Call FIOS just before the 12-month anniversary and ask them for a discount or you walk. I always got to keep my "discount".

<comment><USER29> Just cycle names, cancelling every time the discounts end. New FIOS customer discounts are always more than retention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Comcast is quite guilty of this. I'm on a 2 year contract but within one year, Comcast has increased my bill by raising the Regional Sports Fee and broadcast TV fee TWICE.

In the last 4 years, they have consistently raised these 2 fees each time effectively raising the final amount I pay which is higher than what is on my contract.

When I call to complain, they point me to a section of my contract (in small letters) which say broadcast and regulatory fees may change within the contract duration.

I wish the government would crack down on this (they are just being plain deceptive) or that they get some competition

</comment><comment><USER31> Why does the American consumer allow these companies to get away with it? Extortion like this won't fly in any EU country.

<comment><USER32> In the USA they tend to have monopolies which have been exasperated by lack of action from the regulators.

<comment><USER33> This is pretty much only true for cable companies. For the most part, we have lots and lots of competition, and things are generally more affordable here than in Europe (and salaries are quite a lot higher as well, even factoring in the social services that Europeans enjoy).

<comment><USER34> Not agreeing with: even factoring in the social services that Europeans enjoy

Nobody goes broke here when you get sick.

And still, ISP for me is 43€/month, fixed, unlimited and stable.

<comment><USER33> Yep, if you're sick and poor, Europe is the better bargain for sure. I think it would be good for the US to have a stronger social safety net, but nevertheless, most things are more affordable in the US (my Internet is $60/month for fast speed as I live in one of the regions with ISP competition).

<comment><USER34> Lol, if sick and poor...

We have much better benefits here :p

I would never want to work in the bv US actually ( personal opinion)

<comment><USER33> "The bv US"? Europe has shorter hours and more vacation, but after factoring in everything else (healthcare, taxes, etc), my salary would be at least 40% lower in even the wealthiest European countries. And as mentioned elsewhere, the cost of living is higher in Europe. I can't justify it, which is a shame, because I really like European culture and history and would like to live there for a few years.

<comment><USER34> Most people do it the other way around here.

Some years abroad and then come back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have a friend who works as a tax auditor and audits telecom companies to verify a specific tax. When he does the audit he gets the ENTIRE billing information. What is interesting to note is that there are certain taxes where the law allows the telecom to determine how much cost is required to comply with the tax (employees expenses) and then offload that cost on to the end- user. So the tax that the customer pays is actually the tax going to the government and some of that tax is also going to pay the employees hired by the company to comply with the tax. Without much surprise, the amount of employees required to comply with the tax seems to increase each year and most of these employees are never fired or let go. There is no incentive for the company to cut costs when the taxpayer is paying for the employee's salary.

</comment><comment><USER3> The craziest fee I saw was with Verizon where they charged you ground rent for the poles they had at the side of the road.

FWIW, keeping just Comcast internet leads to no fees. Not sure how that's managed to stay that way.

</comment><comment><USER36> Another egregious example: Frontier Communications adds a $3.99 "Internet Infrastructure Surcharge" for internet service, on top of the advertised price. But internet infrastructure is what the advertised price is for, so why isn't it already included in the price?

The underlying problem is that the US does not have a true democracy. The government here works for big businesses, not "of the people, by the people, and for the people". EU is much closer to being a true democracy.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would say it's a small minority of readers here who actually still have/pay for cable. That industry hated and took/takes advantage of its customers that's it's finally getting what it deserves!

Myself since I'm in a ATT family plan I pay $60 for unlimited data and it comes with ATT TV formerly called Direct TV now. I do use it but wouldn't pay for it or use it if it wasn't bundle in cheaply as it is now.

</comment><comment><USER38> To be fair Comcast these days shows you a breakdown of the full cost of the service you are signing up for, which you have to accept. So the fees should not be a surprise. Would I prefer it was all included in the advertised price, absolutely.

</comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone know why cable companies are able to tack on all these fees to TV service but not to broadband service?

<comment><USER40> So, a cable television franchise has special protections enumerated in state and federal law.

They use this as a guise to provide internet, while only being responsible for the tv portion.

Additionally, the FCC has specific rules which exempt cable modems from regulation at the municipal level, which is why you see fiber convert back to DOCSIS to attach a cable model at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What is "Cable TV"? :)

<comment><USER42> It's read-only, video-only internet that doesn't provide pornography used mainly to deliver advertising and propaganda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Fuck'em. Just torrent whatever you want to watch.

<comment><USER44> Do that because it's a more empowering, tangible, and DRM-free format, but that argument also holds against streaming services who don't swindle you, so it's orthogonal to this.

<comment><USER43> If movie stars want to get paid and I can get their products for free then I will. Maybe they should fight for a society where not only the rich can get by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Of course, this is capitalism. A company will charge whatever they can get away with for a product or service. It's not "bogus fees", it's simply "profit".

The fact it costs Nike ~a few bucks to make a pair of shoes has absolutely nothing to do with the selling price.

<comment><USER46> The pressures at play here have more to do with cronyism and politics than capitalism.

They can charge what they want because: no competition.

There is no competition because the regulators have decreed that the lack of competition constitutes competition in their view.

<comment><USER47> There's no competition because of lobbying (aka corruption).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resources in one cubic mile of sea water - <AUTHOR>

One cubic mile of sea water contains — besides the 130 million tons of salt — 6 million tonnes of magnesium, 25 tons of gold, 135 tons of silver, etc.<p>Can some one point out to me a source which will validate
(or invalidate) above statement? <comment><USER2> Gold measured in Seawater in 1990 - "just 1 gram of gold for every 100 million tonnes of sea water (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol 98, p 208)." [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717242.800-science-g...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717242.800-science- gold-in-sea-water--not-enough-to-get-rich-.html)

<comment><USER3> To save everyone else the trouble of translating units: 1 gram per 100 million tons is approximately 47 grams per cubic mile.

<comment><AUTHOR> how did u convert this ?

<comment><USER2> (I did a similar calc and from memory it was)

1mile ~ 1.6km 1cubic mile = 1600 * 1600 * 1600 m3 ~ 4.1 bn m3 1m3 = 1000 ltrs & 1 ltr (pure water) = 1kg so 1m3 ~ 1 ton 1cubic mile ~ 4.1 bn tons so 1g / 100m tons ~ 41 grams per cubic mile

The 41/47 is probably a better weight for seawater than my 1kg/ltr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> cperciva, thank you for clarifying what I should have put in there in the first place.

Anyway, this seems a good overview and is not wildly out with the other literature afaik.

[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LbTDLa_2opsC&pg=PA26&...](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LbTDLa_2opsC&pg=PA26&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

so, 130m tons of salt is supported, 6m tons of magnesium, but 1 ton of silver and 0.02 tons of gold, and commercial extraction seems limited to salt (obviously) magnesium and bromine. I suspect someone quoted the "boring" elements accurately and then upvoted the "fun" elements for you.</comment>


Ask HN: Cheapest MBA? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know where to get an affordable MBA online?  Thinking about getting one so the suits take me more serious.  I know its sad - but seems a piece of paper or acronym works in some circles. <comment><USER2> We need you to provide more detail on your goals. Is your goal to raise money for an entrepreneurial venture? Better undertand finance and accounting? Learn about enterpeneurship? Create a business plan? Gain a network? Get a job?

Impressing "the suits" obviously isn't your end goal.

Regardless of your goals, I urge you to avoid enrolling in a cheap MBA program. An MBA program's value comes primarily from the network of classmates, alumni, potental employers, and the signalling effect of the programs selectivity. Cheap MBA programs typically fail in all of those categories.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you tried craigslist? "Technical cofounder seeks business counterpart(must have MBA) to join forces and take over the world. Must be willing to work for equity at the start."

Quality of your MBA matters too, not just affordability. You might find in person networking more effective. I've met plenty of fresh MBA graduates looking for a technical person to make their dream come true. Based on the aura of desperation that surrounds them, I would suspect they're pretty affordable...

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure about _the_ cheapest, but ECU (East Carolina University) has an MBA program available online that is generally considered a pretty good value.

<http://www.ecu.edu/cs-bus/>

<http://www.ecu.edu/cs-bus/op.cfm>

<http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/grcat/distanceEd.cfm>

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like the cheapest AACSB-accredited MBA program is $9k.

Good site to check out: [http://www.geteducated.com/online-college-ratings- and-rankin...](http://www.geteducated.com/online-college-ratings-and- rankings/best-buy-lists/best-buy-online-masters-mba-aacsb)

</comment><comment><USER6> A lot of the value of an MBA comes from the school and not just the three letters. You'd be better off focusing on building something that will wow the suits. If you really want credibility, I'm not sure if an online MBA will bring you that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Western Governor's University is $2890 every six months. The format generally allows working at whatever pace suits you...at least according to the literature.

It is not for profit (quasi-public), and fully accredited.

www.wgu.edu

</comment><comment><USER8> build and launch something. Follow lean startup principles. The ROI is probably better than an MBA, and you'll learn something and be very employable.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 for this. I've been on the startup circuit for almost 2 decades and find it as home. But getting tired of being depicted as not knowing how business works because I'm just a "coder".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The cheapest MBA is the one the company you work at pays for.</comment>


Advanced x86: Introduction to BiOS and SMM - <AUTHOR> http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroBIOS.html <comment><USER2> Please switch your colours. Light background and dark text. I cannot even stay on your site to see what it is about.

<comment><USER3> Many people find light text on dark, as on old CRT displays, to be easier for long-term reading than dark on light.</comment></comment>


NLP: State of the art - <AUTHOR> http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/index.php?title=State_of_the_art

<comment><USER2> Note: That's NLP as in Natural Language Processing, not as in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.</comment>


A real-life Star Wars 3D holographic display that plays video games - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/174772-voxiebox-a-real-life-star-wars-3d-holographic-display-that-plays-video-games

<comment><USER2> TAKE MY MONEY!</comment>


The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China and other countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.ecomcrew.com/why-china-post-and-usps-are-killing-your-private-labeling-business/ <comment><USER2> As a gag gift, I've bought a phone case from Aliexpress for a friend. The total, including shipping, was $0.46. The case itself did fit the phone and was technically usable.

I've bought a bunch of small trinkets from Aliexpress. For the most part, they're the same exact things you can buy off of Amazon for ~$5-15, except they take 2ish months to be delivered. For some things, it actually does make sense to just wait that long (e.g. a Google Home Mini wall mount) in exchange for the savings (>= 50% is normal).

<comment><USER3> The hidden cost is the enormous strain it puts on the environment...

<comment><USER4> Unless one of the cases is manufactured under considerably different environmental standards and locally that isn't the case.

The higher price on Amazon is due to two factors - local reseller markup and expedited shipping.

Heck many AlizonExpress sellers will have multiple listings for the same product at different prices based on how fast they'll ship.

So we can safely assume that both items ship from China.

So we can more or less safely assume that both are shipped from China.

Now when you wait 4-6 weeks for a delivery from China you are essentially waiting for them to fill a container, when you pay more for a shipping you pay for the extra shipping space wasted by expediting your shipping.

This is because of how international shipping economics work, international shipping is economical when it's full to the brim since shipping companies have a flat tonnage tax.

This means that shipping companies are taxed based on the total tonnage capacity of their vessels not the actual amount or value of the goods they transfer.

Unless you source something locally in a manner that it's actually environmentally more sounds that statement is false.

And don't forget that even buying locally doesn't guarantee any better environmental outcome, for example buying a 3D printed case form someone on Etsy is likely just if not more polluting than buying an injection molded case from China since the filament, resin and heck even the 3D printer itself came form China.

<comment><USER5> I used to run a small business when I was in college in Canada 2010-2012, selling sunglasses on Ebay, and later Amazon.

It was super low effort. Buy wholesale on Alibaba, tell the seller to send goods to packing, and silkscreen shop, and send by _regular post_ to my apartment. Very often, fancy packaging was costing more than sunglasses themselves.

Even when I was buying crate loads of goods, I only got a customs bill only like 2 times out of 10 in 3 years. Customs bill was pretty much nothing, and they never contested the valuation, but the extra paperwork was very unpleasant at the time when I had to study.

Then you sell $1-$2-$3 sunglasses at $100+ prices. Just make decent websites for all made up brands you have, have good marketing fluff, and make sure to call them with some Italian/French sounding name.

You make at around 10-15 sells per month, but what else you want with that level of effort? Second to that, I was very unsure of my tax/legal status at large if that business were to become too big. Being kicked out of the country, with all my money in that degree wouldn't be fun.

<comment><USER6> Did you ever check to see if they filtered UV correctly?

<comment><USER5> I'm sure, I was at least not picking polycarbonate glasses for reason they look, and feel too toyish, and too many of them would be scratched in transit/pop out of frames unless overmolded.

For the same reason, I did not risk buying plastic frames. They break/bend too easily.

I'm still amazed that Chinese factories managed to make optical grade glass, cut, and polished for glasses almost as cheap as molded polycarbonate.

<comment><USER7> It should be the exact opposite.

When buying fake sunglasses or unknown orgin, always buy polycarbonate plastic lenses as these filter out most UV light.

It's the fake glass lenses that are a culprit and can be very harmful to your eyes.

I have tested this with a UV light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> half-kh-hacker I'm not American so I'm probably just used to other systems, but does a public service _need_ to be profitable?

Think of it like a "cost centre" in a business, does the utility outweigh the price?

<comment><USER8> The trouble is that we are subsidizing the shipment of items from China. It's sickening when I have to pay $5 to send something within the US, yet the same item would cost $.50 from China. You could buy something for $1 from dx.com- shipping included! Crazy.

So while I agree with you that we don't necessarily need a profit motive at the usps, at the same time the taxpayers don't need to subsidize cheap crap from China.

<comment><USER9> I guess the taxpayers are also the people who buy stuff from China so by and large they're just subsidizing themselves?

Given how ubiquitous ordering stuff from China is these days I'm not really sure the first impression of this being some good deal is accurate.

In fact subsidizing transport to a degree might probably have a progressive effect because low wage earners are more likely to order cheaper foreign goods.

<comment><USER10> Both the seller and the buyer benefits from the subsidy, while only the taxpayer pays for it. So the net benefit is to the chinese seller and net loss is to the taxpayers, which only partly mitigated if they are buyers too.

<comment><USER11> FYI, the US Post Office is an independent agency with its own budget. It does not receive taxpayer money.

So really what was happening is that other people or companies sending mail or packages were subsidizing overseas mail and packages.

<comment><USER12> I would make the case that they do receive taxpayer money. They have a legal right and monopoly to show ads in your mailbox. Without that, they would not exist. Imagine if Facebook were legally allowed to drive by your house and play recordings of ads over a loudspeaker every morning. Facebook would pay the government for that privilege. The government is selling your attention daily (worth billions, if anyone company were to have the ability to charge for it the same way), and giving it to the post office for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Besides losing money, the biggest thing that bothers me about USPS is the sheer volume of waste they deliver to my mailbox every month. That is a lot of diesel and gasoline burnt, not to mention raw materials to create the paper that it's printed on. We could make a massive dent in greenhouse emissions by charging actual prices.

<comment><USER14> You do realize the Post Office is entirely funded by Postage?

The "loss" is artificial, imposed by the Bush administration, which required the Post Office to prepay benefits so far in advance, that at the time of the decision, there were people not even born yet, who would go to work for the Post Office having bennies paid for now.

Frankly, the Post Office could meet that burden if it were not also for deep rate cuts that essentially force the Post Office to deliver for big publishing at a loss.

Yes, that volume is significant, and Congress is responsible for it, and the artificially low costs for it today.

The Post Office is in the Constitution and it must be run by the Federal Government.

Many in said government want to further privatize the Post Office which in every other way has given the nation exemplary performance, at respectable rates, while serving everyone equally.

I am always saddened, and a little bit disturbed, to see the hobbling and abuse directed toward a clear example of a public service delivering a net good so well.

Prior to that mess, the Post Office made regular and significant contributions to the treasury, funds to be part of the General Budget.

It is a shame to see leadership priorities and politics cause so much grief.

<comment><USER15> > it must be run by the Federal Government

That's a little broad. Oversight would be sufficient.

<comment><USER16> It would very much not be, oversight is a codeword for doing nothing when the oversight is as defunded and weak as ours.

<comment><USER15> "it must be run" is not in the US constitution. That's the point I was disputng. The OPs comment is just as valid, and stronger, without this small hyperbolic statement.

Your comment about what oversight means, is separate and also not legal or factual. It's partisan comment that adds nothing.

<comment><USER14> Read it again. "Create" does not mean purchase from someone else.

It means Congress needs to do it.

"Shall" has specific meaning too. "Shall" is not optional. It means "must" and or "will"

And that is the basis for my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Random aside. It's hilarious to me how people are worried about data Facebook has on them, or freaking out about address data being leaked in a hack.

Direct mail marketers, since the 1980s, buy lists of huge swathes of Americans. These lists include full name, address, estimated income, political affiliation, companies you've worked for - and the records are pennies each.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't contain the list of people I am friend with on Facebook, and people I'm very likely to be friend with, while I'm not friend on Facebook.

It doesn't contain my GPS coordinates over years.

It doesn't contain the list of my interests, based on my likes and the tracking of my web browsing.

It doesn't contain an analysis of the conversations with my friends and family.

It doesn't contain the pictures of my weekends and holidays, uploaded by other people.

It doesn't contain my face.

However it's still quite bad and such dataset shouldn't be available like this.

<comment><USER19> tbh, there's an upper cap on how much information an individual is worth.

Say a pretty basic personal information (address, income etc) cost a dime each person, it can get deeper and deeper until it is no longer worth any extra. 10 political opinion from this person? Interesting. Full reddit history? Maybe worth 2x the former. Facebook images? probably worthless. The point is that it quickly gets to the point where all of these information are noise and essentially worthless to an advertiser.

It is completely another story when you have people with authoritarian intentions coming in though.

<comment><USER17> The government goes straight to the ISP 90% of the time anyway for things like internet history, and to the cell phone companies for location.

<comment><USER20> Centralized internet properties are probably good for foreign intelligence, but then the risk of that to people is also far less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This whole saga shows us a lot about the institutional shitshow at the base, mechanical level of the economy.

FYI, this is not an anomaly. In Israel, amazon did a deal with the national postal service that gives amazon packages priority. Before that, Aliexpress' free delivery ruled. It's easier in Israel, because there isn't a local amazon to compete with faster shipping.

Long story short, local businesses pay much more, for slower local delivery than global companies shipping _internationally._ This is on top of de facto exemptions from duties & product regulations.

Israel is a tiny country. Geographically, it's a city state. Local ecommerce is not viable because international is cheaper, faster & has extra advantages.

<comment><USER22> > Local ecommerce is not viable because international is cheaper, faster & has > extra advantages.

I disagree, some companies in my own country try to claim the same, but when I look at the market, there are a lot of players, a lot of profit being made, it can be done.

In a sense I have a suspicion that this is just some companies gotten lazy and not realising multitude of thing e-commerce provides. People want warranty, a nice fast mobile app in their native language, fast shipping, to support local companies - there's quite a lot a local company could offer. But a customer doesn't want to pay 10x as much and get quarter of that, that should be very clear.

<comment><USER21> These things aren't absolute.

But, at least in that country, you cannot use the postal service or major delivery services to deliver packages locally for a similar cost and delivery price as internationals... With amazon being the recent, and blatant culprit.

They deal they did with the postal service are not a secret. Neither are delivery times.

Monopolies, and the effect they have on the economy are not newtonian physics. It's not deterministic. Economic structures create prevailing winds, not airtight control over outcomes.

Postal services are a structure. The structure creates a prevailing wind that heavily biases an outcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow imagine if you could exploit mail rates between various countries with some kind of international mail pricing arbitrage

~~ Charles Ponzi

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

</comment><comment><USER24> This actually needed to be fixed. It allowed for dumping of cheap products and made american companies uncompetitive. This fix was long time coming.

<comment><USER25> Back when I first heard about this, I read up on it: it seemed to me that it was quite time to move China off the list of "extra cheap shippers". I know it'll have a number of knock on effects over the next few years, and I'm not sure what those will be for the average American.

It'll be nice , in theory, to be able to set up a widget shop in the US and sell to China at the same parcel rates that my counterpart in China could, to the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's yet another of the unfair advantages that China had over other countries, stemming from treaties signed decades ago that no longer make sense.

Glad to see it gone (and I'm not even an American).

<comment><USER27> The "unfair advantage" is not one sided and otherwise considered developmental aid for developing countries (as developing countries, rising them out of poverty, seems to be the best overall strategy for humans). The classification of china as developmental country is complicated, but you can't just look a Beijing skyscrapers and go "yeah we're done here." (Or you can, but that's not very helpful, one option would be GDP/c [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita), although, thanks to the huge population, the gdp overall is quite high) also it depends on the time of evaluation.

Until recently the US was on the winning side of the deal, too (according to wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Shiftin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Shifting_balances_and_the_United_States) ) they even blocked an increase of dues in 2010. Until they started to lose money in 2015. Now it's unfair and a decades old treaty (even though it is adapted all the time and serves valuable reasons).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A bit off topic, but does the US have import tariffs or customs duties for items purchased abroad?

In the EU for most items over €20 purchased outside the EU, you will need to pay customs duty and VAT, and possibly a processing fee. The rates depend on what exactly the item is, but can be quite substantial. I bought an action camera from a site like GearBest (I can't remember exactly which one) a few years ago for ~€60, and when it arrived I needed to pay another €50 in fees.

If it wasn't for this I would buy a lot more swag - as most companies will ship from the US, it means a $25 t-shirt would end up costing me closer to $50.

<comment><USER29> The important things is that the US doesn't have VAT, which makes up the majority of the cost. The de minimis value for import duty is much higher, and the rate is much lower.

<comment><USER30> Do you have some source for the lower import duty rates?

They heavily depend on the specific item category - in my experience usually 0% or ~5% for the tech items I've imported (but that is not really enough to draw any conclusions from). The de minimis for import duty in EU is 150€ (compared to $800 in US).

Edit: here is the Finnish Customs duty calculator: [https://tulli.fi/en/customs-duty- calculator?current=goods&cu...](https://tulli.fi/en/customs-duty- calculator?current=goods&currency-id=1) (VAT is Finland-specific, duties are the same EU-wide). A quick look shows that e.g. phones, computer components, and DVDs are 0%, which probably accounts for most of my €150+ imports and thus explains my experience above...

<comment><USER29> That's the kind of level I was thinking. Compared with VAT levels of around 20% in most EU countries, with a de minimis level of around €15, I'd call that a low rate and high de minimis level.

Edit: it seems there's no de minimis threshold for VAT anymore, so that's even more of a contrast

<comment><USER30> Ah, sorry, I misinterpreted your post.

I thought you meant that USA import duties are much lower than EU import duties, but I now see you meant EU import duties are much lower than EU VAT taxes.

Completely agree then.

The removal of the €22 low-value exception for VAT will happen in EU on July 1st 2021, so not in effect yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "For many years, sellers in China have been able to ship for less from China to America than local American sellers can domestically, thanks to something called ePacket."

This system was undoubtedly maintained so that US business could get cheap labor rates in China. Sending mail from China should be more expensive than domestically if the cost is based on distance. However, that would be a barrier to trade. US business spent the 90s trying to outsource manufacturing to China and a barrier to trade would foil that plan to exploit cheap labor overseas and avoid unionization domestically.

Clearly the US national business community must feel threatened by China's changing policies or by a change in their negotiating position or this wouldn't be going through.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hasn't this already been addressed by US's new deal with the UN?

</comment><comment><USER33> Guess that means they should start selling more mass spam mailers with no way to opt out.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is old news. I'm not a fan of Trump, but his gambit on withdrawing from the UN Postal Union is one of the few good things that came from his administration.

<comment><USER35> Looking at all the flagged child posts, seems you have invoked the wrath of the "orange man bad" patrol. Very sad state of affairs for critical discourse in this country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why aren't they asking the recipients pay for the loss ?Obviously people are so gung-ho for buying cheap chinese crap from ali-express or wish, they can pay the additional couple of bucks to hav etheir packages delivered to them or send them back to china.

<comment><USER37> That sounds like a bigger loss of money - having the postman collect a couple dollars for every package would be labor intensive and result in multiple delivery attempts, and if the recipient didn't pay, then they'd have to return the package to the shipper, so the package would have 2 trips through the system.

Collecting more money from the sender sounds like the better solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> And government makes boatload of cash by changing tariffs, port clearance, and tons of other fees etc... If you remove all of them, we can get wayy cheaper price than what we get.

</comment><comment><USER39> Want a real shock? Look up what it costs to send a 4lb package from the us to China, the exact same package they pay $18 to send.

<comment><USER40> Because China subsidize the cost of shipping from China to US. But US is charging you for that part.

Also for big mailers, they are even subsidize in US shipping.

This is kind of political theatre, US sellers will never match up with chinese sellers even after this change, even not in 5 years.

US is trying to close this 75M usd gap in 5 years with this agreement, what china will do? They will just subsidize 75M more.

This 75M will not make any difference in US pricing of mail. Chinese will continue with free shipping, US prices at best will get little lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If the usps is losing money every package..why don't it stop delivering those packages? Or deliver less of those packages?

Like. Do some QOS?

<comment><USER42> It's a very reasonable question, and the answer is the USPS should not do this.

The Postal Union predates the UN by at least 50 years, the notion that each nation would honour each other's mail predates commerce as we understand it and doesn't make sense.

This program should have been abolished decades ago.

<comment><USER43> > the notion that each nation would honour each other's mail predates commerce > as we understand it and doesn't make sense

Is this that much different from net neutrality, phone call routing, email routing, etc? Should an ISP have to carry data belonging to other services? Should a mobile operator just refuse to route calls coming from another operator or country? Should Google refuse emails from another email provider or country?

I pay to get my mail delivered to a foreign country and both source and destination postal systems get a cut. Honoring the deliveries works in the favor of all sides. If the implementation is bad fix that, don't drop the system.

<comment><USER42> I see what you're saying but it's not quite the analogy you're looking for in Net Neutrality.

In shipping, they have to charge you a different rate for packages than they do mail (i.e weight) or else it won't work.

With data, it'd be nary impossible to clear prices for such services. With mail, it's entirely possible.

There is basically no reason that China Post can't charge their customers a rate to get something to the US, and then another rate by the US Post to get to final destination.

Because shipping involves real labour and money, it's like any other service, it should be priced normally.

If the postal union was not borne 150 years ago with this odd kind of arrangement, nobody would suggest it today. It needs to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Start shorting eBay a massive part of their business has been based on taking advantage of this

</comment><comment><USER45> The title could probably be improved to reflect that changes to rates begin in three days:

> On September 25, 2019, the United States and United Nations reached a deal > for America to stay in the UPU in return for being allowed greater > flexibility in setting prices. In other words, the U.S. can now set rates > for mail from China and other countries. The U.S. will be allowed to set its > own postal rates starting on July 2020 and other countries will be allowed > to starting in 2021. There will be a five-year period of phasing in new > rates.

> The maximum annual increases for all countries cumulatively from 2020 to > 2025 will be between 119%-164% (with China being on the upper end). This > works out to annual increases of 15% in 2021 and 2022, 16% in 2023 and 2024, > and 17% in 2025.

<comment><USER46> OK, I've attempted changed the title above to something representative from what you quoted.

Submitted title was "USPS loses on average $1.10 for each package it delivers from China"

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is probably the one meaningful, positive thing that Trump accomplished[0]. It's ridiculous that shipping from the other side of the world is cheaper than shipping locally. The one thing I disagree about, is that it currently only fixes the problem for the US, and the EU has to wait (another half year, I think?) before they can fix their prices.

[0] Blocking TPP is another candidate, although I think I'd rather see it fixed than blocked completely. I suspect Trump might actually have agreed with the original TPP, had he known what it was about.

<comment><USER48> Blocking TPP was a disaster. TPP would have achieved everything the Trump administration has failed to achieve with China and has spent tens of billions of dollars doing so in direct costs (the indirect costs are even higher and will last for decades).

The major complaint about TPP was the IP protections. But the hypocrisy is that the lack of the IP protections is exactly the same people complain about China.

There was absolutely no reason to block TPP, which in a nutshell, gave Chinese neighbors the opportunity to do business that the US was doing in China currently, and in return agree to implement an IP protection environment that everyone agrees China should have but doesn't.

Besides providing American (and non American) companies with multiple alternatives to China where their IP would not be stolen, it would have built massive American soft power with Chinese neighbors at absolutely no cost to Americans, since the business going to those countries was business being done in China anyways.

<comment><USER47> TPP also included corporate courts that could force a country to reimburse foreign companies for losses due to changes in democratic laws. That is the big part that many people on HN and elsewhere objected to.

But yes, TPP also had its upsides, which is why I prefer a fixed version rather than blocking it completely. The US, by the way, was the biggest proponent of those corporate courts. Sadly the Trump administration lacks the know-how or desire to negotiate that sort of nuance. So while I agree with blocking it in the form it had at the time, I disagree with blocking it completely, which is of course what Trump did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Easy solution: Raise postage, make china pay for it, or stop delivering to China.

<comment><USER50> Rates are determined by the United Nations Universal Postal Union. The US was threatening to withdraw over this last year, but settled on the ability to raise rates on China starting next month. [1] This is covered in the article, too.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/business/universal- postal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/business/universal-postal-union- withdraw.html)

<comment><USER51> It's amazing how we had to threaten the UN to get them to end this OBVIOUSLY uncompetitive practice. Why should US company tax dollars go to subsidize the cost of a foreign competitor? And we're not talking about helping our a 3rd world country here, we're taking about our largest rival for world power.

The UN being unwilling to separate China from the rest of the lot until being threatened says enough.

<comment><USER52> No, this was by design. The US and Europe wanted to encourage trade by developing countries, so built in cheaper rates for them. This also still makes sense for Rwanda or Nepal, less so for China which simply developed at an unexpected speed and scale. Obviously a mistake not to build any kind of automatic adjustment in...

<comment><USER42> "No, this was by design"

No, it was not 'designed' to fund Chinese competition and outsource massive numbers of manufacturing jobs over there. This was a side-effect of the program gone obviously and terribly awry.

The original program is ancient and really was a matter of national courtesy in delivering other nation's international mail.

EDIT, FYI:

"The Treaty of Bern was signed on October 9, 1874, establishing what was then known as the General Postal Union.

The treaty provided that:

There should be a uniform flat rate to mail a letter anywhere in the world Postal authorities should give equal treatment to foreign and domestic mail Each country should retain all money it has collected for international postage."

The current practice of giving China free postage was established 150 years ago, not in some modern trade strategy, and it was a means of simplifying postage and not having to worry about balancing accounts (i.e. host nation keeps the fee). This kind of economic reciprocity is basically unheard of in anything else, but it makes sense for a strategic industry that's not necessarily very expensive.

For shipping goods, obviously, it makes no sense.

I challenge anyone to explain how an agreement made in 1874 for critical international communications, that has unexpectedly given China a massive trade advantage in developing industries, was part of any plan. The argument that the terms may have been advanced due to helping places like Africa with trade just don't hold in the current context. The US government subsidisation of Chinese e-commerce doesn't really make any sense.

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

<comment><USER27> You are ignoring that the Union was established 150 years ago, but the agreement is changing over time. And like every other country, the US is trying to modify it in a way it sees profitable for themselves at the time.

According to your wikipedia article in 2010 the US blocked increases because they were on the winning end of the treaty. But as unforseen changes actually made them lose money on the deal, it was suddenly unfair and out of date.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Shiftin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Shifting_balances_and_the_United_States)

<comment><USER42> I'm not ignoring that it changes over time.

The principle that 'nations pay for local delivery for free' as a matter of convenience, was established 150 years ago.

That basic principle remains today.

If that agreement were not made an eternity ago, nobody would even think to suggest it today - because it doesn't make sense.

You are missing the point when you're referring to 'making or losing money' on the deal. It's not so much about the cost of regular shipping - it's about the subsidisation of entire competitive industries.

The rise of e-Commerce has changed everything related to shipping, quite fundamentally.

A US subsidy on their own imports to China, even a smaller one, can make quite a substantial change in commercial trends.

The treaty was not designed to do that, nobody was thinking in those terms, at that scale.

Not even 25 years ago did we think individuals were going to be buying little parcels from China on an individual basis.

The treaty now has to live in the context of e-Commerce and it should essentially be abolished for packages, because it simply does not make sense. In an era before computers, it might have made sense to honour each others letters. But now there's no reason why the sender just can't pay appropriate rates for shipping.

Edit: I should add - there isn't a single argument presented by anyone on the entire thread as to why one nation would arbitrarily deliver another nations physical packages 'for free' or on reciprocal basis. This is because there is no reason to support it in 2020. It exists for historical reasons, bureaucratic and political momentum.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Force Behind Bitcoin's Meteoric Rise: Millions of Asian Investors - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-force-behind-bitcoins-meteoric-rise-millions-of-asian-investors-1513074750 <comment><USER2> That Bitcoin allows investors to go around their country regulation on investments makes a lot more sense than a sudden interest in cryptography from uninformed neighbours.

Interestingly, it also means that they will hold on to it for the long term or until it is regulated closely enough that they can't hope to convert the coins later -- and there is always the hope form investors that their countries will understand or that they will emigrate. This would make me bullish, in spite of recent seemingly unreasonable price increases.

</comment><comment><USER3> No no, you guys, this time it's different, get it now before it's too late...Everyone else is getting rich from this, don't miss out.

</comment><comment><USER4> The underwater part of the Bitcoin iceberg is people all over the world who deal with terrible local financial services and regularly devalued currencies. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are pure magic to them. We are not talking about the extremely poor or the destitute. The big beneficiaries are those who are in the upper middle class, such as small business owners in these countries. They previously had no way to protect themselves from the regular financial disasters and constant local currency devaluation.

<comment><USER5> This argument is undermined by the volatility of bitcoin.

<comment><USER4> Have you looked at an Argentina peso chart? Anything is better than that garbage. People who had dollar based accounts in Argentina lost 70% of their net worth overnight in 2002 when the government forcibly converted their accounts to pesos, so that doesn't work either.

<comment><USER5> Saying "here is an example of a currency that is also volatile" does not make bitcoin any less volatile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-ian paywall... does anyone here actually pay for wsj? how much is it?</comment>


On/off switch for aging cells discovered by scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140920073448.htm

<comment><USER2> I honestly don't find anything new here. There are ways to increase telomerase (TA-65 or simply 10-30 grams a day of astragalus extract according to Jim Green), but it can accelerate cancers and given everybody has cancerous cells to a different degree, this really is playing Russian roulette.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to develop a RESTful API in 2016? - <AUTHOR> I know. Best is relative, pick the tool for the job, etc.
I just want to know what would HN users recommend.
Is the classic approach of handcrafting endpoints and permissions still the way to go?
Is there some new tool that easily abstract those common and repetitive tasks (routes, permissions, auth, etc)?
We've been considering ArangoDB with Foxx for our next enterprise project to be able to have relational document based data. Foxx seems to be a great tool for rapidly developing an API. <comment><USER2> I still lean heavily on the framework to help with the API aspects (i.e. Rails, Sinatra, Express, Flask ...). I now consistently (at least in my mind) document the APIs via Open API Specification (swagger) and use that for documentation.

For DB-centric projects I've used things like StrongLoop and DreamFactory which makes turning a DB into a REST API very simply. Key is that the DB is just being turned into REST ... no much logic in the middle.

Foxx looks cool, have not tried it but claims to be similar to Sinatra.

For exposing, it really depends if you are exposing internally or externally. Worth checking out something like Kong to act as your API gateway and leave some of the complexity out of the backend services when / if possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the great info. DreamFactory looks super interesting.</comment></comment>


How to setup Stripe payments with node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/stripe-payments-with-node/

<comment><USER3> In examples like this, is the web page containing the payment form within PCI scope?

I would hope you are at least required to perform PCI level security testing on the page, to ensure it doesn't contain any dodgy Javascript and the like (<script src="some-js-I-didn't-audit-which-steals-stripejs-card-data"...).

Likewise, as there's a webserver serving the page, presumably it must have some level of testing, to ensure it is unlikely to be serving compromised web pages?

As I understand the form in the example, if the user's browser has Javascript disabled, then the form submits the credit card number to the server - <USER2> it in PCI scope(?)

<form action="/plans/browserling_developer" method="POST" id="payment- form">...<input type="text" size="30" autocomplete="off" class="card- number"/>...</form>

It would be interesting to know the PCI process for such a setup.

<comment><USER4> In Stripe's official examples the credit card form elements don't have names so they don't submitted. According to them, the only thing you need to do for PCI compliance is use stripe.js in the browser over HTTPS.

<comment><USER5> which is actually crazy, because if I were to design a malicious ad that gets included on the page where you have your stripe form on, it would be as easy for me to extract the values the user has entered as it will be for stripe.js.

So - even if PCI compliance doesn't require it, I would make sure that the page that the form is on doesn't have any JS dependency that is hosted on a server I don't control.

Longer term, it would probably wise for stripe to host the form in an iframe.

<comment><USER4> Oh definitely, for my purposes stripe is on a separate page that only has stuff that I host within my app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My 2 cents...

Among other, one of the main benefits of using Stripe is actually freeing users (developers) from the burden of having to get PCI complaint.

Once you have a "payment token", there is no need whatsoever to POST ALL the form data back to "your" server (along with the appended token attribute). At this point all you need is the payment token (and the last 4 digits of the cc for having a weak reference (though enough) to the cc currently being used). This would potential mislead a few users out there who have no idea about the security implications of such action.

To recap, a good Stripe example shall not include any assumptions about having server being PCI complaint. Also, in regards to this example (and the form example in the Stripe docs), there is no mention about the implications of POSTing the form data safely (and not in plain text as one would assumed from the code) e.g. using SSL. Though, this might be trivial to some of you, examples should make this point clear and leave no assumptions behind.

<comment><USER4> FYI once you have the token you can ask for the last 4 digits using the API. There's no need to move that around either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A little off topic, but: I just started to use Stripe this week - a very well implemented and well documented system. Recommended!

I put a link to Stripe.com just below the entry form with an explanation that the credit card information never touches my servers, just Stripe.</comment>


Haxe 3.4 is out – With lots of new Features - <AUTHOR> https://haxe.org/blog/haxe-3.4-release/ <comment><USER2> So many positive steps forward - in terms of the code, ecosystem, and community

A single new target is a big deal, I don't think 3 have ever been introduced simultaneously.

The vscode extension work is slick. Haxe is the poster boy for Microsoft Language Server Protocol now.

The C++ target now feels like a natural extension of haxe. The debugging feature and @:structInit get rid of quite a few pain points.

The haxe-evolution protocol has one of its first graduates, which is a great step forward for opening up the language to suggestions and discussions.

etc., etc.</comment>


Ask HN: What is a (non-existant) service or tool that you want as a developer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Dynamic image generation / hosting.

I give you a baseline image. You dynamically modify that image and host it for me based upon (ideally encrypted) parameters that I pass you.

Example use case: I send an email that features a thermometer that shows how far from $100 your balance is. It dynamically calls this service to generate a thermometer showing your $96 as meaningfully different from my $22.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anything PDF or something like that on demand, have it generate the templates and whatnot instead of relying in write it all by hand with the technology that recquires me to do so.</comment>


Brits' most hated office jargon revealed in new glassdoor survey (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.glassdoor.com/press/brits-hated-office-jargon-revealed-glassdoor-survey/ <comment><USER2> A lot of those a pretty common in the annoying American jargon space, too.</comment>


Women in Tech and the History Behind That Controversial Google Diversity Memo - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4892094/google-diversity-history-memo/ <comment><USER2> It's really bad the Time article, as most others, point the readers to the censored Gizmodo version of the memo instead to the original PDF or [https://diversitymemo.com/](https://diversitymemo.com/).

<comment><USER3> When I first heard about the news, I was actually so surprised that the original memo took as long as it did for me to find it.</comment></comment>


New York inmates defeat Harvard debate team - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/living/harvard-debate-team-loses-to-prison-inmates-feat/ <comment><USER2> They'll make a movie out of this one.</comment>


Awesome macOS open source applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serhii-londar/open-source-mac-os-apps <comment><USER2> Interesting how many open source apps I'm using are missing:

VLC [https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html)

Brackets [http://brackets.io/](http://brackets.io/)

Gimp [https://www.gimp.org/](https://www.gimp.org/)

ResolutionMenu [https://github.com/robbertkl/ResolutionMenu](https://github.com/robbertkl/ResolutionMenu)

Geany [https://geany.org/](https://geany.org/)

NVAlt [http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/)

Does mention FSNotes though, I need to check it out.

<comment><USER3> What does Brackets offer the competitors (atom and vscode) don't?

<comment><USER4> This is a _list_ of apps. The more the merrier, right? It doesn't matter if brackets offers anything over vscode/atom

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone wants to see a more personal curated list of macOS apps. I made a list of all the apps I use and how here:

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac- os](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac-os)

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone have a windows version of this list? Or a cross platform one at least?

The closest I can find is this list of windows apps, not open source though.

[https://github.com/Awesome- Windows/Awesome/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/Awesome- Windows/Awesome/blob/master/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER6> I maintain a much smaller and curated list for my personal use which just got updated after I had to redo the Mac setup: [https://github.com/ashishb/dotfiles/blob/master/setup/setup_...](https://github.com/ashishb/dotfiles/blob/master/setup/setup_new_mac_machine.sh#L56-L115)

<comment><USER7> How is this comparable when most of those aren't open source

<comment><USER4> I'd dearly love to see a super set that included open and closed source and had a tag for each, like this does for platform/language. I do care about open source but I'll take a closed source app in a pinch if it fixes a problem

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Weird it lists Firefox but not Chromium. Firefox on Windows is great, but on Mac it's just ok.

<comment><USER9> Firefox is great on Linux too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No emacs?</comment>