The F-35: The Most Notorious Weapon Ever Produced? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/magazine/f-35-joint-strike-fighter.html <comment><USER2> The root cause of the problem is the paradigm of Cost+ contracting where companies are rewarded for going over budget and over timetable.

<comment><USER3> The article mentions that "there are no simple answers for fixing the F-35 program, as tempting as it is to look for a single root cause for its problems."

Cost+ is one of many problems. Some others are described at [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint- strike...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike- fighter-program.html?module=inline)

Cost+ does create misaligned incentives, but you also can't just expect a company to develop a project that big on a fixed-price-on-delivery contract. Nobody has $1T (or even, if you think it could be done for 1/4 the price, $1/4T) to invest in R&D before getting paid.

<comment><USER2> I'd have no problem with a money up front approach. It's the projects that become disgustingly over budget I take issue with. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope was sold to Congress and by extension the American taxpayer as a ten year, 500 million dollar project. It is currently a twenty-four year, ten billion dollar project.</comment></comment></comment>


Javascript's declining popularity? - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=javascript

<comment><USER2> If JS declines in popularity and so is Flash, than i wonder what increases in popularity for client side scripting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps there is a decrease in the popularity of client side scripting. I'd find that surprising, but I didn't anticipate the decrease in javascript search volume either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, there's also this:

[http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=node.js&cmpt=q](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=node.js&cmpt=q)

:)

<comment><USER4> or this: [http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=javascript%2C%20jquer...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=javascript%2C%20jquery&cmpt=q)

<comment><USER3> wow, does this chart mean that as many people now care about jquery as javascript?</comment></comment></comment>


The NSA responds to Edward Snowden's TED Talk - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_ledgett_the_nsa_responds_to_edward_snowden_s_ted_talk?utm_source=t.co&share=1a801b760a&utm_medium=on.ted.com-none&utm_campaign=&utm_content=roadrunner-rrshorturl&awesm=on.ted.com_i07PJ <comment><USER2> This is a tacit admission that Snowden is winning the battle for public opinion. They must be scared.

<comment><USER3> What would be the advantage of such tactic?

<comment><USER2> Snowden is not being treated as a traitor as they had hoped but as a hero for revealing NSA dragnet surveillance programs and sacrificing his life for his principles. He is now perceived as an expert on how to circumvent these NSA programs. Contrast this with the low public opinion of Assange or Manning neither of which required any direct comment by the NSA. They must feel they are losing the PR battle and need to respond in the case of Snowden which I thought was revealing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was a ton of evasion and filibustering in those answers. Zero specific people actually endangered by the Snowden revelations, and zero terrorists thwarted. He claimed some links among people might have been revealed by the metedata collection program, but he cited zero cases where NSA data provided unique information.</comment>


Get the harlem shake out of your system.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.whatistheharlemshake.com

<comment><USER2> well that was an hour of work lost (thank you)</comment>


Ask HN: Any AWS Problems last night (4/3)? - <AUTHOR>

Our service running on AWS experience severe latency issues. A  traceroute showed some wonky stuff going on.  Additionally, we've noticed that Netflix had a massive GameDay last night where they took down 1/3 of their East Coast prod infrastructure: https://twitter.com/jedberg/status/319227564642160640 along with the quote "hopefully, you didn't notice"
Additionally, I am seeing on Diablo forums that users experienced latency issues and on Heroku, their status board showed "HTTP routing layer problems" last night.  This was all between 10PM and midnight UTC time.
Anyone notice anything with AWS last night? <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone?</comment>


Trying to speed up binary search - <AUTHOR> http://databasearchitects.blogspot.com/2015/09/trying-to-speed-up-binary-search.html <comment><USER2> What about stopping when the ends of the range are "close enough" and switching to a linear search? All the data should be in the cache, and it should be possible to avoid branches.

<comment><USER3> this is why in real db the indexes aren't in pure binary tree, it is a variation of B-tree instead. So a billion rows table will have only 4 levels deep index (ie. 4 disk reads worse case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Apparently the conditional move is good to avoid branch mispredictions, but cannot hide memory latency as much as the regular implementation."

Anybody knows what actually happens there? For a real analysis I'd like to see the generated assembly in a classic and conditional move case, and also an example of the indexes accessed in one and another algorithm.

<comment><USER5> I did some preliminary testing on this a few months ago, which we might pick up again someday and try to publish as a short paper. I haven't looked closely yet at what the author did, and I've forgotten some details of what I did, but I can speak generally to our implementation comparing branching and branchless.

For repeated lookups, the first couple levels will all be hit in L1 cache regardless of which way the comparison goes. The branch prediction penalty is about 15 cycles, and the L1 access is about 5. The next level might be in L2 at 12 cycles, then the next few levels are in L3, with a ~40 cycle access time, then RAM with 100+ cycles of access. The last few accesses will be within the same 64B cacheline (128B with buddy prefetch), and thus will be in L1 after the first access.

The branchless conditional move approach has a data dependency, while the branching "if" approach is a control dependency. Modern processors "run ahead" with speculative execution past control dependencies (executing the instructions for one branch but not retiring them), while the conditional moves are issued but cannot be executed until the corresponding comparison has been made.

Because of speculative execution, the branching approach effectively has a 50% accurate automatic prefetcher that runs several iterations ahead. The math works out so that for some access patterns this can be a significant advantage. The speed gap can be closed (and if I remember correctly, reversed) by adding explicit prefetch instructions to branchless approach. The branching approach can also benefit from judicious use of prefetch, so that each branch fetches acts as a prefetch for the opposite branch, which makes for faster recover after a branch prediction error.

As the author concluded, we also found that a batch approach could be beneficial. You can mitigate latency from RAM (and even from L3) if you can arrange to have about 10 outstanding requests at a time. For a single core, batch and prefetch approaches had similar top speeds. For multicore (untested) presumably the excessive memory bandwidth of the "wrong" prefetches would give the advantage to batch. Similar to the author's experience on Broadwell, we found that on Haswell the SIMD gather had minimal advantage over repeated scalar loads. We have a Skylake machine coming soon, and are hoping the hardware gather approach might finally take the lead.

<comment><USER4> OK, but binary search shouldn't have predictable patterns? So in a classic example, if the search isn't "obvious" 50% of the time we'd have an "unconditional" MOV, removing dependencies but also 50% of the time we'd have wrongly predicted branch. Maybe the testing was on a too obvious example?

<comment><USER5> Sorry, my phrasing was poor. The searched for elements are indeed random, but the first few (and last few) accesses will hit cache. Depending on the size of the total array, the relative importance of the different access times vary. We were actually comparing some different memory layouts besides the standard "sorted" ([http://cglab.ca/~morin/misc/arraylayout/](http://cglab.ca/~morin/misc/arraylayout/)). Our conclusion was essentially that with proper implementation, there wasn't much if any advantage to alternative layouts.

But there certainly were some subtle things about testing. In particular, there is a significant difference between preparing a list of random searches in advance (and loading them from memory), versus calculating a random number on the fly. Since the performance advantage of the branching approach depended on how far ahead the speculative execution would get, the additional µops for making the number sometimes slowed down enough to remove the speculative advantage.

But to clarify my earlier answer: I think the author is seeing real effect, and the difference has to do with prefetching due to speculative execution of the branching approach. This doesn't mean that branching is the best approach, though, only that a "naive" approach can indeed beat branchless at certain sizes. Both the branching and branchless approaches can be improved significantly with either batching or explicit prefetching.

<comment><USER6> Another way to see this is that the 'branchy' version can have multiple loads pending at the same time. This is a big win for non L1-cached loads.

Cmov forces each load to depend on the previous one, so you will have only one load pending at any time.

With a 50% misprediction rate, the Nth load has only 0.5 __N probability of actually committing, but it is still better than just having a single load in flight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can improve the best case to log log n by choosing optimal cut points instead of always cutting in half.

<comment> ryan-c This is called an interpolation search[0]. Works well on data with a known distribution and is useful especially useful when reading is expensive.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised that even the fastest implementation needs 20+ms to search a 1000-element array. I would expect even a linear search to finish within 1 or 2ms with such a small data set. How large are the array elements? How were the times measured?

EDIT: Oh the time measured is the total of 1,000,000 random lookups? Nevermind my confusion then, that would certainly explain it.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's very strange article. No asm code, not presented what's actually accessed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're looking up 4-byte integers, you can simply create a hash table, or even a dumb array as an "index", which gives you 1-operation lookup. Can't get much faster than that.</comment>


Paycheck Protection Program Recipient Map - <AUTHOR> https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/sbaloans <comment><USER2> Only 9 states data are present...

<comment><USER3> From the site: "data upload in progress: 9/50 states completed"

<comment><USER4> A day later it's up to 12.

This should be resubmitted next month.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript hacks explained - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mdnbar.com/javascript-common-tricks

<comment> Digit-Al Clever tricks are all well and good until they bite you on the ass. Using the || to provide default parameters is great until you want to use booleans. Take the following code:

function f(x) { x = x || true; ...}

Guess what x will be if you call x(false). Guess which muggins made this mistake without thinking about it (ahem) :-)

The moral of the story - don't get too complacent with clever tricks.</comment>


Ask HN: Can you guys recommend a good script to manage ad inventory? - <AUTHOR>

I want a script that can manage regular banner ads (skyscrapers, squares, etc.) of many different dimensions and sizes (mainly clickable images).
I would like to be able to track the clicks and generate reports. I would prefer if the script is something I can install on the server, and open source is best. PHP or Ruby, preferred.
Thanks.
P.S. If it can do other stuff that normal ad inventory management software should be able to do, that would be awesome. <comment><USER2> OpenX - <http://www.openx.org/></comment>


Apply HN: A more convenient mobile wallet for the unbanked - <AUTHOR> I was living in Malaysia as a student years ago and it was difficult for me at times to withdraw cash(as the ATM's were either too far away or they used to shut down at midnight). What I realized it that it would be easier if I could pay with my mobile prepaid credit. After quite a bit of research, I realized that was a difficult proposition as telcos liked to take a big cut and they would only pay merchants after 60-90 days.
I also saw that there are many people who are unbanked or to whom banking is not very convenient for. So I'd like to create a mobile payment wallet that could be topped up by your local shop or your friend. You could go down to your local shop, give them say $100(more or less) and it will be transferred to your account(just like it would be when you top up your mobile prepaid).
The money in your wallet could be used to make online payments(ecommerce, bills etc). It could be used to deposit money into a bank account(which you could create on the platform perhaps). You can top up anytime and very conveniently.
In Malaysia alone, there are 10 million prepaid mobile users(from 2015 stats). With an assumption that close to 40% of these people are unbanked(the % is almost double in Indonesia) means that there is a huge possibility to scale this up.
The idea here is to do away with the ATMs and the Cash deposit machines. Mobile is the way to go and we'd like to get everyone there. Make it easier for all. <comment><USER2> Yeah, It's true. Mobile wallet is one of the convenient and unbanked ways to shop things and get fulfilled your daily needs. You might be interested to know more about most popular digital wallet options available today - [http://www.webgranth.com/mobile-wallet-apps-and-mobile- ecomm...](http://www.webgranth.com/mobile-wallet-apps-and-mobile-ecommerce- not-intimidating-these-days)

</comment><comment><USER3> This idea is pretty well proven in Africa and Central/South America. What do you know about the existing markets and how will you do it better?

<comment><AUTHOR> one of my previous projects was an ecommerce play for kenya. that's where I studied the mpesa model quite a bit.

As for the south east asian region sans Singapore, there is quite a lot that can be done in this space. A significant chunk of the population is unbanked or it may not be immediately accessible to these people. Also the number of prepaid mobile lines could be 3-4 times more compared to the postpaid lines. Which is why it maybe useful to have a prepaid wallet top up where it would help users transition to the service. For foreign students/workers in Malaysia, they used to have to put down a RM1,000 deposit to get a postpaid mobile line in the past. I'm unsure if they still need to do it.

With this service, it would give the end user another means of convenience when it comes to bill payments, normal payments and maybe even online shopping. By being able to top up anywhere(at any shop, where all the registered merchant needs is to have a mobile, the app and an account), the user sees a much more convenient way to run their transactions, rather than going to the bank(branch, ATM or CDM).

This could also open the door for banks to try and sign up users to open bank accounts(if we can work out a way to make the sign up. There is a plethora of services that can be offered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> is this like [http://www.molpay.com/v3/7eleven](http://www.molpay.com/v3/7eleven) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> not really.

Say you were working in a factory. Imagine if you were paid in cash monthly, say $1,200. You come back after a long shift and need to rest. But you also need to go and queue in line to pay your bills.

Your access to banking may not be so convenient and you'd really like to spend more time resting. What if you could go to your neighbourhood shop and top up your mobile wallet(through a transfer) and just make your payment through the app.

That's where I'd like to see this idea go towards.</comment></comment>


Beginnings of the Holodeck: AMD's DX11 GPU, Eyefinity and 6 Display Outputs - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3635

<comment><USER2> holodeck, seriously?

this isn't even new tech, just the same old, but more, faster and better.

at our university, we have a CAVE. that's a 4x4x3 meter box with backprojection screens on four sides and a projection on the floor.

then you stand in there with polarized glasses that are motion-tracked.

now you can move around and what you see is really 3D. there's even a joystick-kinda input device (also motion-tracked) with which you can move and rotate what you see.

calling 6 displays the beginning of a holodeck... hah!

<comment><USER3> If you read the article, you would see that the roadmap that begins with this GPU is to build one by 2016. That GPU will supposedly perform the holodeck like speech, gesture, and eye tracking.

<comment><USER4> When can we have the one that goes haywire and punches me in the face? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This setup has a fatal flaw: The center, where your character or crosshairs would normally appear, is right on the split between two screens.

<comment><USER6> That's why they recommend the 5x1 setup for first person games.

<comment><USER7> I found this somewhat confusing. I'm not a big FPS player, so this might be way off base, but wouldn't a 2x2 being the best setup? Unless I'm wrong, most FPS games are designed so that what is shown on the screen is what would be directly in front of you. Wouldn't spreading that out across 5 screens be rather detrimental?

Now, I understand how that would be awesome if a game could sense that and give you the peripheral vision your character would have, but unless that is a feature in modern games, I would think a 2x2 makeup, with the cross-hair created by the intersection would be the best way to go.

<comment><USER8> Many modern games let you increase your field of view above the normal 90 degrees, making a 5x1 display useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a few years ago, you had to buy an SGI to the tune of several million dollars to get six graphics heads.

Now it's 2010's $500 video card. Which you install in commodity hardware.

I could never have predicted that standing in 2000.

<comment><USER10> I really hate to think how many screens I could buy today for the price of my 90's O2...

<comment><USER2> you'd _really_ hate to think how many screens you could buy _in the future_ for the price of your 90's O2...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >Carrell estimates that the human eye can directly resolve around 7 million pixels, almost twice the resolution of a 30" display. But that's just what it's directly focusing on, all of the peripherial vision brings the total up to around 100 million pixels. The Eyefinity demo I showed earlier was running at 24.5 million pixels on a single GPU; you can estimate that at this generation we'll be able to do about 50 million pixels with two GPUs and one more generation from now we'll get to that 100 million pixel marker. That's two years for a single GPU. Then give it a few more years to be able to render that many pixels but with enough complexity to actually look real.

Rendering something at the max resolution that the human eye can resolve isn't enough however; you have to feel immersed in the graphics. That's where Eyefinity comes in, at least what it starts to come in.

Carrell believes that in seven years we can have the first generation Holodeck up and running. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Trek reference, Carrell believes it'll take seven years to be able to deliver a 180 degree hemispherical display (you're not completely surrounded by displays but at least your forward and peripheral vision is) with positionally accurate and phase accurate sound (both calculated by the GPU in real time). The GPU will also be used to recognize speech, track gestures and track eye movement/position.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why not VR helmets? That sounds so much more doable (and immersive) than building a wall (or for a holodeck, a room) of screens. I have enough trouble fitting a 40" LCD into my living room.

<comment><USER12> Absolutely. VR helmets is something that was promised ages ago but never really broke through. Or am I wrong? Any experiences here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, but does it run Crysis?</comment>


Postmortem of Heroku's June 23 Downtime - <AUTHOR> https://status.heroku.com/incidents/642?postmortem

<comment><USER2> This incident makes me think that services like Redis should support running with two sets of credentials at once in order to facilitate credential rolling. As it currently stands, rolling credentials is a rather big deal with a chance of things going wrong in the process.

Aside: the text on that page is extremely difficult to read because of poor contrast (#8584B2 on #282936) and might be impossible for people with vision impairment. If anyone from Heroku is reading, you should change the color scheme to be compliant with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. See: [http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html](http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html)

<comment><USER3> I thought the exact same thing, but then I realized that we don't need Redis to actually support a choice of two passwords for a single account. Rather, clients can be configured with a list of credentials to try. When rolling credentials over, simply add the new ones to the clients' lists, update the service, then remove the old ones from the clients. Then you can wait hours or days between steps for safety, and there is no time when system reliability is degraded by a service instance being inaccessible.

<comment><USER4> That's pushing complexity back onto app devs. Functionality like that is best solved once in the database for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because I so rarely feel compelled to say this: this is a really great post- mortem. It's technical, it's not loaded down with sales-speak, and it's straightforward. I really hope post-mortems like this become more of a trend.

</comment><comment><USER6> This paragraph reads like a response to the criticism they received a few days ago for scheduling maintenance at 2pm PST:

 _On June 23rd we performed a credential roll on these Redis servers in our US cloud during a two hour scheduled maintenance window. Because we operate a service used globally, there is a less-than 10% difference in usage between so-called "peak hours" and "non-peak" hours. We scheduled maintenance for this time because it was not a peak time, but moreso because this period has high coverage from relevant engineering teams, should issues arise. By performing maintenance during this period, we were able to react more quickly and muster those teams within seconds._

<comment><USER7> What's the best way to muster an engineering team?

<comment><USER8> Bugle reveille.

<comment><USER9> Which is the sound of everyone's SMS alert going off within seconds of each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like first trying this maintenance procedure in a staging environment would have caught the problem.

</comment><comment><USER11> > We are reviewing our internal processes to ensure that communication between > groups is more effective, so that we can better inform our customers when > situations occur.

I see this as the only contentious point raised by some of their users. They are doing an outstanding job already at dealing with a large infrastructure running a wide range of heterogeneous applications. They likely run updates on their infrastructure on a regular basis, without anybody noticing.

However, if you're selling me on the promise of taking care of infrastructure for me, you can't under-deliver on communicating as soon as s __t hits the fan.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been developing a Node site that is currently running on Heroku. This happened the first day after launch, and to say the least my blood pressure was through the roof all day. I was terrified if something went wrong, we would be dead in the water. I don't think I would deal with them again (if I had the chance).

</comment><comment><USER13> I am curious as to why they were relying on rolling Redis credentials at all since they would have needed to pre-arrange a secure channel for Redis traffic anyway.

</comment><comment><USER14> who in the hell is stupid enough to use heroku?

</comment><comment><USER15> Ugh, the verb form of "impact" is so gross.

<comment><USER16> So is the late 20th-century slang usage of "gross."</comment></comment>


Could A Nigersaurus Get Digg Into Trouble? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/17/could-a-nigersaurus-get-digg-into-trouble/#comments

<comment><USER2> [http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/17/could-a-nigersaurus- get...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/17/could-a-nigersaurus-get-digg- into-trouble/)

Here's a question, though: can we discard url's that only differ based on a # and whatever falls after it? Especially if they're right next to each other on the New page?</comment>


BlogKeenja: Ready to post Blog images for your Startups - <AUTHOR> http://blogkinja.d5gravity.com <comment><AUTHOR> Free stock photos are great, however, they fall short on fulfilling the exact requirements of most of the startups. Let's say a startup wants to blog about A/B testing they will not be able to find a relevant image from stock photos.

Considering many such similar scenarios, we decided to solve this problem by providing images for specific individual topics of any Startup blog, covering topics such as: Launch, funding, analytics, customer, technology, support, mobile, email, marketing, content, ecommerce etc

P.S. I am not a designer, I have made all these images in Google Slides using basic shapes such as square, circle, triangle etc. Hope you guys like it</comment>


Google web api dead, Bing the sole survivor... - <AUTHOR>

Google announced on Nov 1st that their web ajax api was deprecated. Now that the Yahoo BOSS api will be switching over to the Bing index, the only api alternative left will be Bing (or BOSS, but thats the same). Kinda scary to go from three apis (G,Y,B) to just one in a few months, limiting choice and potential competition in the industry... <comment><USER2> A quick summary and a bit of info:

Yes, Google pulled the plug on the web search AJAX API and replaced it with Custom Search Engine (CSE). The new API does allow you to search the entire web and is near identical to the old which is good, but has the 100 queries/day limitation. This is bad and a show-stopper for a lot of people.

Here's what I've learned:

1\. You can request more units but no one has responded to me in any way since Nov. 1.

2\. The form to request a higher quota asks you if you're a Google Site Search customer. That makes me think that it may make a difference to be a customer of a paid service they have. (FYI: Google Site Search is apparently a different name for Enterprise Custom Search which I'm hoping is the same technology as CSE and will allow you to search the web.)

3\. If you want to BUY the super high volume Site Search service as we are willing to do, you have to communicate with the Sales team, but no one has responded to us on that request either.

4\. Another interesting approach that I'll try soon is this: CSE gives you the API to actually create a custom search engine on the fly. But this requires separate Google logins and some work in implementing the ClientLogin authentication business. At the end, you're still limited to 100 queries/day but at least it is "per client".

I hope someone from Google is reading this and can shed some light on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn, of the two search engines left, half of them don't provide an api. :)

At Blekko, we are planning to provide search apis very soon. Stay tuned.

</comment><comment><USER4> They've deprecated the "Web Search API", but replaced it with the "Google Custom Search API" (which requires an API key): <http://code.google.com/apis/customsearch/docs/dev_guide.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Huge difference between the two, unfortunately. The CSE is made for specific websites, not web-wide search. And it's limited to 100 queries (more if you ask for it, but still limited) per day per key. Compare that to the previous unlimited search api!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is factually incorrect.

Google has replaced the "Web Search API" with the "Google Custom Search API" (Custom Search Engine = CSE): <http://code.google.com/apis/customsearch/docs/dev_guide.html>

When you initially setup CSE you need to specify at least once site to search, but afterwards you can remove this restriction.

The API is limited to 100 calls per day by default, but you can ask for more. The old API would cut you off if you used it excessively from outside a web browser. The older SOAP API had a hard limit (I think 1000 calls?)

<comment><AUTHOR> nl,

There are two issues here:

1\. You can ask for more, but how many will they give you? and 2\. The fact that you need a key, makes it virtually useless for wide use in applications or websites. With the old api which didn't require a key, you had, practically speaking no limit when calling the api client-side. With the key that option falls away.

<comment><USER5> With the new API console you can authorize/deauthorize your key on a per- website basis.

API keys are pretty standard for APIs - I hardly see that as a problem. The old version had one too: <http://code.google.com/apis/loader/signup.html></comment></comment></comment>


In defense of PowerPoint: Killer Slide Decks - <AUTHOR> http://noteandpoint.com/

<comment><USER2> Very nice resource for inspiration!</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think climate change is a problem? What are you doing about it? - <AUTHOR> Hacker News is sometimes an odd community. There seems to be a very large group of smart people here with a disproportionate percentage who think that climate change isn't a problem, or isn't happening, or isn't human-caused. This has been the general tone of Hacker News comments for years and still stands today. Very few climate change stories are voted to the front page, and when they are, the discussion is vitriolic. Why is this?<p>Does the Hacker News community consider climate change to be important? <comment><USER2> Energy begets population growth. Whether thats the fungal growth on a dead tree, the ant colony that's found it's way in to the cookie jar in your kitchen, the algae bloom thriving on a mineral imbalance (manmade or otherwise) Or our accelerating use of tools to advance ourselves.

Nature has provided the most advanced species on the planet with easy access to bountiful energy.

I, for one, believe our impending predicament is a forgone conclusion. The underlying driver of climate change is the byproduct of our natural population growth, which in turn is a factor of evolution. We're in the start/middle of the Holocene extinction event. It's a perfectly natural consequence of life on earth.

Is it a problem, no more than the inevitability of our own individual mortality. It's the circle of life.

With all that nihilism aside. I choose to lead a simple lifestyle and work at an organisation whose focus is developing the advanced tools used to; get us off this planet, design ev's, simulate climate models, educate our future engineers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I do consider this to be important.

As for what I am doing, I have made lifestyle changes and support some organizations working to alleviate the issue.</comment>


The Swift Reflection API and what you can do with it - <AUTHOR> http://appventure.me/2015/10/24/swift-reflection-api-what-you-can-do/ <comment><USER2> I don't have a comment on the article in question, but I gotta mention that this is the second post I read from these guys and it's always in high quality and neatly organised.

Their post on Enums is better than Apple's docs.

Very well done!

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure why openstack swift never went after apple's swift for using the same name. Swift, the opensource object store platform has been around for so many more years and is very well known in the tech world.</comment>


Technical Aspects of the Surveillance of Julian Assange in London [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11247-technical_aspects_of_the_surveillance_in_and_around_the_ecuadorian_embassy_in_london <comment><AUTHOR> Link leads to a live broadcast at Chaos Computer Congress right now but there will be a full recording with translations of the talk available later on. It has incredible insights, like US spy agents acting with laser systems to pick up conversations from the opposite building and implanting bugging devices in the bottom of fire extinguishers or inside of the phones of his visitors. Julian tried to defeat the attacks with talks in the bathroom while the shower was running, dozens of speakers for white noise generation in his room etc.

<comment><USER2> it's "officially" up now. incredible video/talk digging into the operations of _Undercover Global S.L. (UC Global)_ which were violating his privacy and client-attorney privileges, and also engage in bribery and money laundering during _" Operation Hotel"_.</comment></comment>


New Bitcoin Movie Introduces You To The Many White Dudes Working On Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/04/24/new-bitcoin-movie-paints-rosy-picture-of-the-cryptocurrency/ <comment><USER2> honestly this is exactly what i want out of my bitcoin movie</comment>


Only 30% of VCs read your email. Startups: Don't waste your time - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thesocialms.com/post/97641426276/only-30-of-vcs-read-your-email-startups-dont-waste

<comment><USER2> "Only 30% of my emails were opened by VCs" is not a particularly scientific method for justifying your conclusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, I'm not the author. Second: True, not scientific. Third: Still very depressing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN to predict: Will we keep staring at computers for the rest of our lives? - <AUTHOR>

Ask HN to predict: Will we keep staring at computers for the rest of our lives? <comment><USER2> as a society within my lifetime, yes, probably.

as a society in the indefinite future, no, probably not.

as an individual, hell no.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe it won't be "staring" because ubiquitous computing will mean we just constantly glance at our heads-up displays.

</comment><comment><USER4> No I really doubt it. I'd guess society will change as well as technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am trying to figure what would be another method to absorb data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, starting about 2019, it will mostly be the computers staring at us.</comment>


Neb, a Free Service to Find a Therapist - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
Our company, Neb, offers a free service to help you find a mental healthcare provider. You can submit a form or schedule a phone call to explain your needs and we come back to you with a few available matches within a week.
* we personally call all providers first to ensure they're available and a fit * therapists and providers who can prescribe medication * specialty, availability, culture, and other factors are taken into account * in-network or affordable options if needed
* we can call your insurance on your behalf to help you understand your coverage * based in San Jose, available anywhere in California
We formed our company in January and launched with another idea in mental health in June. We just finished Startup School, and launched this service last month. We've had 20 users for this service so far.
We did a lot of user interviews and found that the process of finding a mental healthcare provider is really complicated. You have to reach out to a lot of providers, it takes time, you have to call people, information online is outdated, and people don't know what to look for.
If you want help looking for a therapist, please check out our website (www.neb.health). Otherwise, feel free to ask us any questions. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Posts without URLs get penalized, so you'd be better off posting this with a link, then adding your text as a first comment in the new thread. Also, add "Show HN" to the title so it appears in [https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew) and (after a few upvotes) in [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show). Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think could be improved about CS degree curriculum? - <AUTHOR> And what  types of courses or lessons would you introduce to help better prepare students for developing on teams within a more professional or collaborative environment? <comment><USER2> I think the #1 thing would be to create software engineering departments. There is a lot of pressure on CS departments to focus on software engineering, when that is not the intent, desire or area of interest of many CS professors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, so would this look like a more expansive take on a "coding bootcamp?" Maybe combine the practical coding skills with some theory?</comment></comment>


Maxwell's demon: Applied demonology - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/maxwells_demon <comment><USER2> So in theory, a compact enough data store could have an explosive potential.</comment>


The tech that will help James Cameron win his race to the bottom of the ocean - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/121183-the-tech-that-will-help-james-cameron-win-his-race-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean <comment><USER2> Compared to the deep, space is downright hospitable. The difference from 1atm to 0atm, after all, is vastly less than that to 1000. Your submersible fails at any nontrivial depth, then you're dead, no two ways about it; but a human could survive for perhaps a minute and a half in the void. If you're not too shy about opening all your orifices right away, you'll even remain conscious for ten, fifteen seconds optimistically. I'll take total decompression over getting crushed by depth any day.

</comment><comment><USER3> I, for one, will get nothing out of Cameron traveling to the bottom of the ocean that drop cameras have not already produced. I feel the same way about sending humans to Mars.

Of course, I'm also the guy who went to the Grand Canyon and thought to myself, "meh, that's about what it looked like on my TV."

<comment><USER4> > I, for one, will get nothing out of Cameron traveling to the bottom of the > ocean that drop cameras have not already produced.

This is true only if you assume that the advances being made in materials and technology will not have applications beyond deep water manned submersibles.

As a comparison: Do you contend that you got nothing out of the development of manned space flight?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's incredibly difficult to fathom (hah!) how high the pressure is at such depths. This quote puts it into [some] perspective:

> The Deepsea Challenger itself will compress by about 2.5 inches during the > descent, according to sponsor National Geographic.

</comment><comment><USER6> its interesting that major problem with going deep is pressure. wonder if there is, or ever will be some sort of technology, like antigravity that would reduce or push pressure away at a reasonable price. like some sort of electrical device that stabilize or neutralize pressure to reasonable numbers. is the only way of "fighting" with pressure a thicker material? air, for example is much lighter than water (duh!). what if I would surround myself with extreme hot membranes that would boil water before it reaches surface of my submarine? :)</comment>


The Asus Eee: How Close Did the World Come to a Linux Desktop - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/asus-eee-how-close-did-world-come-linux-desktop <comment><USER2> the eeepc netbook from 2007(?) is still my distraction free coding machine. it was the first cheap portable with ssd and sold with linux ($350 vs $450 with windows)

sadly Microsoft deathgrip made it shortlived, as the article describes so well.

and if you want a modern example: blackberry Priv! an android phone with flagship specs, and a freaking physical keyboard + gesture trackpad combo hidden under the OLED curved screen. it is my ssh and vim machine on the go! and you know where you could buy it? on freaking craigslist! even amazon never carried it. verizon and bestbuy? they only ever only had ONE unit, so you couldn't pick up color/storage. or see it in action because apple and google forbade any store from showing those phones.

its the retail death grip now, instead of the OEM deathgrip from the 90s the article mentions.

<comment><USER3> Alas, no root on any of the Blackberry machines, beautiful though they are, due to a 'trusted' boot chain to which nobody except Blackberry has the key. This is a dealbreaker to anyone who wants to do any non-trivial hacking, such as a chroot - a group which I imagine has some considerable overlap with those who insist upon the ever-rare physical keyboard. Such a pity.

<comment><USER2> this is _exactly_ the same with all other devices. just because you chose to use a leaked version of odin to root your samsung, with a leaked version of the firmware, built with a leaked version of the kernel and a leaked version of the binary drivers' firmware blobs... doesn't make either case better.

one you don't have root, but already gives you the hability to filter each app permission (which was the only thing I did with root) via a system app they provide, the other you are pretty much doing the same as running a pirated version of windows.

not defending either btw. android sucks in this regard. my point before was mostly to highlight how google and others now have the same invisible hand that Microsoft had before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had a Linux Desktop since 2001. [And a Unix Desktop before that since 1991.] What the world chooses to do on its desktop is the world's business.

Incidentally, I had a EEE-PC 901 Linux laptop in 2011, upgraded to 128 MB SSD. I found it was very handy and light, but it wasn't anywhere near as pleasant to use as my Lenovo ThinkPad.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a 2G surf back in 2008. The main flaw was there was no easy way to update Firefox so you were stuck with version 2.0. And soon XP netbooks came out and took the momentum out of Linux ones.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had one of these, and installed Linux on it (it came with Windows). But the hard drive was so noisy I couldn't stand to use it. That was the fatal flaw.</comment>


AirPod Security Questions - <AUTHOR> Some questions re: iPhone 7 AirPod's Bluetooth implementation:
1. Can anyone point to any specs or articles as to whether is vulnerable to eavesdropping? *
2. Can multiple AirPods interact with the same device simultaneously?  (Useful if legitimately authorized for local chatting; scary if unauthorized/unknown.)
3. Is it possible that unauthorized AirPods be connected to an Apple device (either with or without access to that device, to press "Connect")?  By, say, hacking the synch credentials that are store on icloud?
After an hour of Googling, searching Apple's site, and watching relevant keynote video yada-yada, I can't find any discussion of these topics.
Seems like journalists don't want to question Apple.
* See wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Security
"[Bluetooth] is susceptible to denial-of-service attacks, eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, message modification, and resource misappropriation. Users and organizations must evaluate their acceptable level of risk and incorporate security into the lifecycle of Bluetooth devices." <comment><USER2> You're kidding right?

1\. They're bluetooth. They're exactly as vulnerable as any other up-to-date bluetooth headphones. 2\. You can probably pair multiple sets of AirPods but iOS will only let you use one audio output device at once. I don't believe you can use two pairs of bluetooth headphones at once so I don't see why you'd be able tow with AirPods. 3\. If you hacked iCloud probably. But that requires hacking iCloud. If you do that you have better things to do than pair some headphones sneakily.

Dude, they're just bluetooth headphones with a little 'magic' to make them easier to pair. They're probably MORE secure than so many headphones that use a fixed pin of 0000. And the headphones can only _ask_ to pair, they can't _force_ a pair.</comment>


No Title Bar? - <AUTHOR> http://www.usabilitypost.com/2010/10/22/no-title-bar/ <comment><USER2> I want to retain title bars, clearly separated from toolbars, as the _only_ way to actually move a window. (You know, to upgrade the modern Mac to the same technology that the Apple IIGS and Mac Plus interfaces were capable of in 1985.)

On the surface, you'd think that making a larger clickable area would help. Except, they removed all the _boundaries_ , so you can't tell where the "move my window" pixel ends and the "click this button" pixel begins. That is just stupid design.

When I try to click a toolbar button or open a menu, I shouldn't be able to send my window halfway across the screen because I was off by a pixel when swiping the mouse. Adding to the frustration, you can't use Undo to fix this mistake. Apple further "improved" this by banishing customizable toolbars half the time (why?), so I can't even rearrange certain items to reduce my chances of mis-clicking the rest of the window.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of toolbars - am I the only one that loathes the fact that you can't use the keyboard to access them on OS X? Sure, a lot of them have keyboard shortcuts, but what if I want to access "Page Setup" with the keyboard alone?

<http://i.imgur.com/MpfwV.png>

<comment><USER2> Once menus are open, the first letters of the item can be typed, e.g. typing "P" highlights Page Setup in an open File menu. Also, the Keyboard pane in System Preferences can be used to assign keys to directly invoke any item in an application (but you have to type in the command's exact name).

Actually, you can get to window toolbars...but only with the highly-intuitive keystroke "control-F5" (where control-F4 returns you to the main window, and also acts as a global rotate-between-windows-in-any-app key). From there, you can tab between items one at a time.

Once you reach the end of the toolbar, the behavior is slightly different depending on how the application was implemented (Cocoa or not); it might switch to the main window and/or attached drawers, or it may rotate back to the first toolbar item.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but to get to the "open menu" scenario, I already have to take my hand off the keyboard. At that point, it's a waste of time going back.

Control-F5 isn't doing anything for me on OS X at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hate this. I look at titles all the time, especially in browsers.

I even dislike that Chrome only has titles on the tabs, which are almost always cut off.</comment>


Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians - <AUTHOR> http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/are-canadians-worth-20k-a-year-guaranteed-1.1891794 <comment><USER2> I once calculated the tax implications of a basic income where everyone received a lump sum paid for by a flat income tax. A basic income at the current welfare rate seemed to be easily achievable. I seem to recall that a 20k basic income was at the upper limit of what would be achievable without an exorbitant income tax rate.

Many comments on the web are dismissive of a basic income because they simply multiply the per-person dollar figure by the total population and say that it is way too expensive. One needs to look at the current distribution of income, the existing level of welfare and subsidies, and the progressive income tax schedule to compute how much the basic income is likely to cost. The final pre-tax distribution of income will also change, but that is much more difficult to estimate.

This idea dates back to at least Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice and is supported by many (at least 1/2 a dozen) nobel prize winning economists. A basic income is interesting to study and has many compelling features, but it is complicated enough that it is not possible to easily debate its overall merit via comments on hacker news.

<comment><USER3> I'd genuinely like to see your numbers because I've not seen a single napkin math calculation that makes is even remotely feasible. (for the United States)

<comment><USER4> In Europe it's entirely feasible, if your whole goal is to more or less keep the same post-tax, post-welfare distribution of income. You just do away with the traditional combination of means tested welfare and means tested taxes, and replace it with means testing for the taxes only.

In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. I don't know the data. At least, you'd save on bureaucracy.

<comment><USER3> This may sound rude, but I literally do not care about any response that does include napkin math. The concept of basic income has been quite popular on HN and elsewhere for the past 6-12 months. I have asked for napkin math probably two dozen times. No one has ever been able to provide it.

I love the concept of basic income. I've played with the numbers quite a bit myself. I've tried to make it work. I can't do it. Not even close for the US. I'm desperate for someone to post some basic of basic back of the napkin level math. So far no one has done it. I do not consider that a good sign.

<comment><USER5> US GDP ~16 trillion. Government social spending 20% of GDP[1] or about 3.2 trillion dollars. US population about 320 million.

That's right at about $10k per year to every American if we capped it at current government social spending.

So a family of 4 would get $40k a year.

You could make that 3.2 trillion go a lot further by raising taxes gradually so that when you reach say $75k you're paying as much extra taxes are you receive in Basic Income.

I'm pretty sure [1] includes state and local spending as well so this would be tricky.

[1] [http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration- health/...](http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration- health/government-social-spending_20743904-table1)

<comment><USER3> Here's a good resource with more data. Including federal vs state. [http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/current_spending](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/current_spending)

I'm curious what that 20% of social spending covers. It certainly includes health so we can't say "eliminate medicare/medicaid, but you get a yearly check for $10,000!". That's not gonna cut it. Federal+State+Local welfare spending is only 8% of total gov. spend and only ~3.1% of GDP. A long, long, long ways from being able to cut a $10k check per person.

Edit: Why on earth would anyone downvote that? It boggles the mind.

<comment><USER5> >I'm curious what that 20% of social spending covers.

I'm sure there are plenty of things in that 20% that can't be replaced with $10k per person--things like extra equipment for poor schools. However this was just napkin math to show that it's within an order of magnitude of doable.

> "eliminate medicare/medicaid, but you get a yearly check for $10,000!".

For the vast majority of people that would be a huge net gain. The UK only spends about $3k per year on each person for health care, so I think the vast majority could get by on the insurance they could afford with $10k per person. You'd still have to account for the edge cases. This would probably work better in a country with a single payer system.

For the sake of argument, remove medicare/medicaid from the equation. That still leaves about 2.2 Trillion on other social spending. Let's subtract some other unknowns and leave it at just 1 trillion.

You can stretch that 1 trillion pretty far if you adjust it so that children don't get the full amount, and add extra graduated taxes so that households making over $45k (the national median) have a zero net benefit with only people making below the poverty line receiving the entire benefit.

I think it's very doable especially if you're willing to consider tax increases at the top. It's definitely not something outside the realm of possibility, and with demographic and labor changes in the United States over the next 50 years, I think something like a Basic Income is probable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market".

I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes.

We already provide health care at no charge in most nations with reasonable efficiency, leaving one less reason for people to put up with crummy employers and removing the bureaucracy of proving that you need something that you, well, need. I like the idea of extending that path.

<comment><USER7> Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market.

When the government has a monopoly on providing a service, they face no competition, which reduces their incentive to provide a quality service. Some services however, such as roads, are seen as natural monopolies, meaning even if privately owned they would still be a monopoly. In such cases people look more favourably upon government ownership as a government monopoly is seen as superior to a private monopoly.

<comment><USER6> Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users?

I'm sure if you do a survey, the private organizations come out ahead, but people will recognize and give good ratings to a nicer looking building with prettier people running it, even if the results are poor, as long as they aren't drastically poor.

But yes, for many things, giving people cash would be better than directly providing the service. Monopolies, price takers, perfect competition (and I think one other) are well identified in economics, but regulators still allow harmful monopolies left-and-right, while intervening in highly-competitive markets for seemingly no reason.

<comment><USER7> >Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users?

Regarding private schools, I'm not sure; I imagine it's hard to study as there aren't many people of high socioeconomic status attending the 'worse' public schools, and not many poor people attending expensive private schools. There might be some data from countries like Sweden, where the government introduced a voucher system allowing parents to send their children to whatever kind of school they wanted and still get government support.

Regarding public hospitals here, they do have awful outcomes in terms of waiting time compared to private hospitals. For instance, waiting over a year for a procedure that could be arranged in a few weeks at a private hospital. I'm not sure about other outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If an "unconditional basic income" is ever to be successful, it should be tried first in a small, wealthy country, before being implemented in bigger countries. Good candidates might be Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and so on.

Big experiments have a tendency to fail catastrophically...

<comment><USER9> See my other comment, Australia already has it.

<comment><USER10> > See my other comment, Australia already has it.

No, your other comment just mentioned the dole, which is NOT the same thing at all. Other countries have the dole, in fact, every country listed above in the comment that states they don't have guaranteed basic income, all have wide spread social protections including welfare (and often, quite a bit more wide spread than Australia, whether you see that as a good or a bad thing is up to you).

Sometimes definitions vary from place to place, for instance in Australia you have to vote, it isn't a right you choose to exorcize like the world right is used elsewhere, it is a government mandated obligation, well similarly, in other places, welfare is not considered unconditional income, because well, it isn't. There are barriers to qualification and there are certainly strings attached (some places like the UK, the ASBO system coupled with the welfare system is used like a carrot on a stick with a donkey).

TLDR: This is not about welfare, that exists even in 3rd world countries (although not always to the same degree) it is about unconditional basic income.

<comment><USER9> As I said, for all intents and purposes, the Australian Dole is the same thing as "unconditional basic income".

In what way is it not?

<comment><USER10> In the unconditional part? Some implementations might have a mean test for who gets what (so a lot like welfare in Anglo and/or European countries) but there is an unconditional part that means in the UK, an ASBO isn't going to be used as a custom law against people needing help or in the US, instead of giving rules about what people can or can't buy with food stamps. For me, that is the interesting part. That is the game changer.

<comment><USER9> If you don't earn enough money, it is unconditional. So it's a guaranteed basic income.

The money goes into your bank account, you can spend it on beer and smokes if you want to.

<comment><USER11> > If you don't earn enough money, it is unconditional.

No, its not, even per the official-source article you cited in your other post describing it [1]. In addition to "earning enough money" (income test), you must:

1) Also meet an "assets test", and 2) Be "looking for paid work", and 3) Be "prepared to meet the activity test while you are looking for work".

And that's just the short version: the linked "Eligibility Requirements" page [2] has a longer list.

[1] [http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink...](http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart- allowance)

[2] [http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink...](http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/newstart- allowance/eligibility-for-newstart-allowance)

<comment><USER9> > _1) Also meet an "assets test"_

Yep. If you have lots of assets, you don't get this money. I'll bet any Guaranteed basic income would work the same - i.e. you don't want to pay it to people that have a $300k house.

> _2) Be "looking for paid work"_

You fill in a form every 2 weeks that takes 5 minutes.

> _3) Be "prepared to meet the activity test while you are looking for work"._

Again, it takes 5 minutes every two weeks.

It's hilarious to see so many people debate Minimum Basic Income as financially not viable or that it would destroy the economy because nobody would be motivated to work. Here I am pointing out that Australia already essentially has it, and those two problems are not real. And here you are nit- picking the fine details. Look at the big picture here. It works, Australia has it.

<comment><USER11> > ll bet any Guaranteed basic income would work the same - i.e. you don't want > to pay it to people that have a $300k house.

An _unconditional basic income_ would, _by definition_ have neither an assets nor an income test.

A _guaranteed minimum income_ would only actually be a guaranteed minimum income if it had an income test, but not asset test.

> You fill in a form every 2 weeks that takes 5 minutes.

The amount of time spent is not the issue. The fact is that you have to be looking for work, prove that you are looking for work, and _not turn down work_. Its essentially an program to protect against involuntary unemployment, _not_ either a basic income or a guaranteed minimum income. Its essentially a guaranteed _employment_ program with some other conditions.

> Here I am pointing out that Australia already essentially has it,

Australia has neither a guaranteed minimum income nor an unconditional basic income. It has a fairly generous means/asset/behavior-tested welfare program, which is not the same thing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's fairly interesting the way this idea, and similar ones, connect some of the more intelligent fringe people from both right and left ends of the spectrum.

Famously Friedman's answer to what would be better than minimum wage was a negative income tax bracket, and Nixon, of all people, almost implemented it.

<comment><USER13> How exactly would a negative tax bracket work? Taken literally, this would mean that up to a certain income level, the government would pay you an amount proportional to how much you make. Presumably what it actually means is that you would be paid inversely proportional to how much you make.

At first glance it seems to me that this would have one of the same problems as the current system, which a guaranteed basic income is intended to solve - a high effective marginal tax rate at low (or no) income levels. (Unless the payment actually is positively proportional to earnings, in which case it has the obvious problem that it provides less benefit to those who need it most.)

Either way, I'm not clear on how this would be superior to a fixed guaranteed income with adjustments to the current tax rates such that the middle class end up with approximately the same after-tax total income.

<comment><USER14> Negative income tax is just an implementation detail. This idea is not in competition with GMI, it's a restatement of it, showing how it can exist on the far right as well as the far left. Per the reputable wikipedia:

"Negative income taxes can implement a basic income or supplement a guaranteed minimum income system.

In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level."

<comment><USER13> OK, that matches what I was thinking. The trick is that to make it equivalent to basic income, the threshold level you describe would be different from the equivalent basic income level.

For example, if you take a basic income system with a $20k guaranteed minimum income - if you tried to recreate that with a negative tax bracket and a threshold of $20k, you would need to pay 100% of the shortfall. And even then, you would effectively have a 100% marginal tax rate; until you make $20k there is no financial incentive to work at all.

Instead, to get the equivalent of a $20k GBI, you would need to do something like, set a $40k threshold, with a negative tax of 50% of your shortfall. So at 0 income you get $20k. (And at 10k income you get 15k in negative tax, for a total of 25k, etc.) Of course, your marginal tax in that example is still very high at 50%. To make the marginal tax rate low, which is desirable at low income levels, you would either need to set a very high threshold, or more likely, have multiple negative tax brackets at different rates.

What I still fail to see is how this is "better" than a standard guaranteed income. It just seems like people will find it much more confusing than providing a fixed amount to everyone and having positive tax brackets as we do already (albeit different ones).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> BI is a change of how money is redistributed in society – it would lead to some people becoming poorer and other people becoming equally richer.

I'm quite sceptical about BI because I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would get richer / poorer and how much. Unemployed people get money from the government in Canada – will they get more or less after implementation of BI? What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc?

AFAIK, the main claimed benefits of BI are:

– The system would be simpler and cheaper. True, but only negligably.

– It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually.

<comment><USER5> Guaranteed Minimum Income and Basic Income are 2 different things (this article discusses GMI).

GMI means that you will get enough money to bring your income up to X (in this case $20k.)

BI means that every citizen gets Y dollars per year unconditionally.

GMI is only a net benefit if you make less than X. BI is more complicated because you have to decide at what income level should the BI be income neutral, i.e., how much do you have to make before the BI you're receiving and the extra income taxes you're paying are equal.

> I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would > get richer / poorer and how much.

The reason you haven't heard this is because it's completely up to the implementation details.

If for example the government decided that for people making $50k a year the BI should be income neutral, then it would be a net benefit for all people under $50k and a net detriment for everyone over that.

>What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc?

In this hypothetical scenario some teachers, software developers, bus drivers, and lawyers would benefit, and some wouldn't.

>It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually.

This is only true for BI, not GMI. GMI adds a huge disincentive to work for less than (or close to) whatever the guaranteed minimum is set at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Australia already has basically this. It's called 'welfare', but anyone that doesn't have a job gets a touch over $1000AUD/mo (so just over $12kUSD/year) for life [1]. It doesn't matter if you've never had a job, or have, or whatever. They will encourage you to get a job, and you might have to work a little bit to get that money, but you'll get it.

If you've got a partner, or dependent(s), you'll get more. Likely if you're living on this, you also qualify for Rent Assistance, which means more money.

You also get paid like this while going to University.

Australia has been doing this for decades (my Goole-fu fails me for the exact number of years), and it appears to be perfectly financially viable.

Read more about Australia's policy at [2]

[1] [http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink...](http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart- allowance)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia)

<comment><USER16> You are saying that the benefic is reserved to those that don't have a job. That is not an unconditional income.

<comment><USER9> Well, it's only cancelled completely if you earn too much money.

So let's say you earn $5k/year, you'll get the dole to top you up to $12k/year.

So you get a guaranteed income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It certainly makes a lot of sense. Just consider the reduction in crime it could bring about. That alone is nearly enough to make it worth it.

However, 20k is a bit too high. You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. After considerable thought, I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense.

<comment><USER18> > You don't want to discourage people from working altogether.

20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level.

> I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most > sense.

The idea is to make sure that when all else fails, you can still cover the necessities of life, things like eating and a place to sleep. Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that.

<comment><USER19> 20k CAD ~= 19k USD ~= 11k GBP ~= 14 EUR

If this was per adult in the UK then I'd be getting a substantial income boost over what I'm earning at present.

<comment><USER20> These are the UK minimum wage rates: [https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum- wage-rates](https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates)

        21 and over:    £6.31
        18 to 20:       £5.03
        Under 18:       £3.72
        Apprentice*:    £2.68

* This rate is for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year. All other apprentices are entitled to the National Minimum Wage for their age.

        6.31 * 40 * 52 = £13,124.80 per year  - for over 20s.
        5.03 * 40 * 52 = £10,462.40 per year  - for 18 to 20 year olds.
        3.72 * 40 * 52 =  £7,737.60 per year  - for under 18 year olds.

I have no idea when tax credits or income support or housing benefit kick in. But if you're getting less than this you should probably speak to an advisor somewhere to make sure you're getting everything that you're entitled to.

<comment><USER19> Lol, yes, doesn't apply to directors ... it's partly by choice, in that we've chosen a lifestyle that prefers family time over income. My point was more to indicate that it's quite possible to live comfortably on these sorts of incomes (we have a mortgage and run a car, have internet and a mobile phone contract, go out on trips, have holidays [not abroad], can afford occasional takeaways and meals out too, we're not destitute).

Thanks for caring enough to give that information though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As much as I like the idea of a basic income, it's hard to make the numbers work.

Canada has 34,880,000 people in it, so a CAD 20,000 basic income would cost CAD 697,600,000,000.

According to [http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport- eng.asp#a3](http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport-eng.asp#a3), Canada's total government revenue (at the federal level) was CAD 256,600,000,000.

So Canada would have to raise taxes by 170% to provide this basic income, and raise them again if they want to provide any of the services they do today. (National Defense, Healthcare, etc.)

<comment><USER22> You're including people who do not need the wage - people who already have a job that pays higher than the $20k would not receive it.

<comment><USER23> Is that the plan? Because that's not what basic income is. What you are describing also exists, but it has a different name (Welfare, Earned income credit, to list two examples).

<comment><USER5> It's called Guaranteed Minimum Income, which is what this article was talking about, in contrast to Universal Basic Income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I continue to see this idea grow in merit. It definitely seems if the trend towards automation continues that governments around the world will have to start providing a minimum income level to all their citizens.

<comment><USER25> Well something will have to be done - as jobs become increasingly "automated". I'm curious if there will be a large tax increase...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 20k would be great, I could cover my rent and have a few hundred dollars a month left over. Thats not a lot, but its enough to assure I can continue to live an not have to worry about what would happen if my job vanished, or an emergency came up that prevented me or my girlfriend from working.

<comment><USER6> I think that's the beauty of the concept. At the end of the day, most people's lives won't change much. The welfare client will have roughly the same amount of wealth. The middle-class earner will have the same level of wealth.

The power comes from: a) Removing the bureaucracy of having both a progressive tax system (you make more, you pay more) and a redundant means tested benefits system (you make more, you get less) b) Having security of the basic needs of life, regardless of what happens.</comment></comment>


Geeklist Is Raising $1M to Build the Center of the Geekosphere - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/08/07/geeklist-is-raising-1m-to-build-the-center-of-the-geekosphere/

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a proper comparison of Geeklist, Masterbranch, Coderwall, Workforpie, etc. That aside, gratz to Geeklist - and awesome product!

<comment><USER3> Thanks lefnire! Really glad you like it :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Safe seed funding with reverse vesting? - <AUTHOR> I have seen a seed term-sheet which is basically a SAFE for 10%-20%, with reverse vesting for founders over 4 years (with single trigger).
Is this reasonable or a red flag?
I understand reverse-vesting is useful for multiple founders or a significant Series A.
I am a single founder myself, but the term sheet is standardized.
The investor is sophisticated and experienced. <comment><USER2> What do you mean by single trigger?

If you have been working on it for sometime, my understanding is that some portion, usually related to total vesting period minus how long you've been working on it, is vested up front. So if you've been working 2 years, then half of you stake Vesta immediately and the other half takes 2 years

</comment><comment><USER3> from my experience that's standard practice. We had reverse vesting from the very first angel round

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. several people have told me this is "standard practice" ;)</comment></comment>


Amp'd Mobile (loopt competitor) burns $360 million, declares bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/02/ampd-mobile-implodes-burns-360-million-declares-bankruptcy/ <comment><USER2> I don't think Amp'd counts as a competitor to loopt. Amp'd is an MNVO that's doing a lot more than just providing a single mobile phone technology. Burning through that sort of money is relatively easy when you're paying through the nose to be on someone else's network and you're doing national advertisement campaigns.

As Techcrunch notes, it "probably sits more as a telco failure than a strict Web 2.0 one"

<comment><USER3> Aston's right. Boost (the carrier that offers Loopt) would be a competitor, but Loopt wouldn't.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: 5th grader seeking science mentor in California - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I teach two 5th graders science and programming privately three days a week and am trying to get them involved with some engineers/scientists in an open dialogue of sorts to inspire them and give them some insight into the world of applied science. I have already scheduled us for some interesting tours of  aerospace companies and a lab or two, but I am really hoping I can find someone interested in an ongoing relationship with my students who we could maybe visit or skype with once a month or so, to keep a thread going that had some continuity. I am trying to change two very bright students lives and could use any help I can get. Where would you look if you were me? Who would you contact? Any ideas whatsoever are appreciated.
Thank you! Mr. W <comment><USER2> The key to effective mentorship is 1) finding someone who has something that you want 2) helping them, for free, get something they want. As a result, you gain access to the mindset that has the thing you want.

Perhaps you could ask the kids who they really admire, or what products or things from their own lives are impacting them. I'll bet there are unknown engineers and scientists behind just about every single man made thing they come into contact with on a daily basis.

Reach out to those companies and see if they will put you in touch. Try the PR department possibly for the intro. This will give the kids a real connection to the people.

If these are products where the kid is the end user, the engineers might love to spend an hour a month on skype with them just to gain insight into their lives to make better products.

Some people might agree to help kids because they want to, and that is great, but you will 10x the value for BOTH the kid and the scientist if you find a way for them to really help each other (and it's massively possible).

I've mentored high school / college kids into pro athletes, wildly successful entrepreneurs, activists and non-profit leaders and it's always been rewarding.

Finally, the process of finding a mentor is a skill that most people lack -- what a great chance for you to involve them in finding their own mentors and letting them reach out, send emails, and otherwise discover the power of their own voice and agency.

Fun Fact: When I was in 5th grade back in the late 80s I had a secret pen pal / mentor I found in the back of 2600 Magazine who was in federal prison for hacking ;)

<comment><USER3> Great advice, except I'd change one thing: encourage the kids reach out, don't do it yourself.

And if they don't want to reach out, don't push them to. 5th graders are incredibly capable and should be given agency to make their own decisions.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I agree and hoped to convey that.

Appreciate the reminder that it should be self-directed from the student and his role is to support that direction.

Very sudsval.

A

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a college freshman now and I wish my middle and elementary school teachers were as devoted to their students as you seem to be. I would suggest going to ResearchGate.com where a lot of scientists and grad students hang out. It's likely you'll be able to find one there who would be interested in helping them out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

<comment><USER4> Also you can try asking this question on Quora if this HN thread and researchgate doesn't get anywhere.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I also think Quora should be a better match for this as profiles are much more detailed there

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi,

Firstly, cheers and congrats, it sounds like you are already doing good work.

My 2 cents: Hold off just a second before finding an ongoing mentor. By 5th grade students can start to get a feel (might be this year or maybe next year) if they like computers or engineering or space exploration or biology or fast cars or another field/type of science work etc...

Finding a mentor in area of science that a student loves, after sampling different areas of science can make a huge difference in terms of sticking power. And it minimizes the potential issue of too many mentors coming in and out of their lives as you find nice scientists who want to help but they don't click with the students.

It sounds like you are already able to teach science and programming and introduce the students to various scientists and companies and labs. I would continue doing this, as sort of a "middle man and a teacher" until an area of science or type of scientific work grabs the student's attention and he/she connects with it and thirsts to learn more about that thing (for me it was astronomy).

Then work on finding a mentor in that area of science.

If you haven't heard it, Malcolm Gladwell's interviewed Eric Eisner (who started YES Scholars in LA and deal with similar issues regularly) recently and it might of interest: [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos- doesnt-reme...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos-doesnt- remember)

I am in LA and have been a volunteer math tutor for over a decade. Happy to help in other ways if I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, great advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd be interested. Send me a private message via reddit and we can talk: [https://www.reddit.com/user/euyyn](https://www.reddit.com/user/euyyn)

</comment><comment><USER8> It might be interesting and helpful to try to narrow down what areas of science or engineering would be most interesting to them (if you know, and if the kids know!).

<comment><AUTHOR> These kids are have diverse interests, they like space and sharks and horses and have been enjoying making art with coding. It's hard to peg them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi, Unfortunately I do not live in California - But maybe look into existing FIRST lego league teams in the area.[http://www.firstinspires.org/](http://www.firstinspires.org/) There are a lot of volunteers that work with the kids. They might be able to join an existing team abd it would also get them involved with other students interested in science and engineering.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sadly I'm not in America and can't offer any interesting contacts, but I'd like to say this is fantastic, and for kids who are interested in engineering and applied sciences this would be an amazing opportunity. I wish more people were as dedicated to giving kids a great education experience as you seem to be! Nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER11> I do STEM Q&A sessions at schools various times a year. I cannot mentor anyone at the moment, but I could schedule time and do a Q&A session with them. No strings attached. Email in profile.

Disclaimer: I work in Ed-Tech. This is in no way a sales pitch.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great thought. Where in California? If in San Francisco (or the Bay Area in general) I can think of a number of places and people who would be happy to talk in person.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are in LA but because it is a private home school situation we are lucky enough that traveling to SF is a real possibility. We were already planning to visit an autonomous car start up in SF sometime this month. If you want to pm me on reddit please do ([https://www.reddit.com/user/yewew/](https://www.reddit.com/user/yewew/)). Thank you so much for your interest.

<comment><USER13> Are you on any of the gifted homeschooler lists? When my sons were children being homeschooled in California, I knew folks active in the LA area. It seems to me that would be a better path for figuring this out than posting on HN.

Though this is a website that was held in high esteem back in the day and happens to be owned by a member of HN: [http://learninfreedom.org/](http://learninfreedom.org/)

Best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think you should somewhat anonymously chronicle this if you're successful, because you could amplify that 2 by some factor.

<comment><AUTHOR> If anybody wants to found a startup with me that makes it easier to set up mentorships with tech companies and labs in a way that would somehow benefit the companies as much as it would the students, lets do it.

<comment><USER15> maybe instead of going after the companies (who might feel the need to get some tangible benefit) you can search linkedin for employees at some of the co's that the 2 students admire. perhaps a person may simply enjoy the benefit of helping someone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great initiative, Mr. W. Please keep us posted on it.

</comment><comment><USER17> > I teach two 5th graders science and programming privately three days a week

We're talking 11 year old children, right?

Leave them be, send them out to play with their mates.

<comment><AUTHOR> They want to visit laboratories and talk to engineers, hard to stop them.

<comment><USER17> Well, adults are supposed to have better judgement than children.

I like my children as I like my phones: batteries fully charged up of play time before it's time to put them to work.

<comment><USER13> For some people, visiting labs and the like _is_ play time. You haven't met these two kids. He has. Presumably, he knows them better than you do.

<comment><USER18> I agree with this. Boeing let me see their 717 and c17 plane factories when I was a kid. Was an insanely fun experience as a kid and formative for who I am now. Glad I did that that particular day rather than hang out with my friends</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft is giving away 100's of ebook for free download - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mssmallbiz/2016/07/10/free-thats-right-im-giving-away-millions-of-free-microsoft-ebooks-again-including-windows-10-office-365-office-2016-power-bi-azure-windows-8-1-office-2013-sharepoint-2016-sha/ <comment><USER2> "Introducing Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2" is a corker. I won't give away the ending, but get ready to have your mind blown.

</comment><comment><USER3> download MSFTFREEEbooks.txt and run wget -i MSFTFreeEbooks.txt --content- disposition --trust-server-names

</comment><comment><USER4> Some old stuff, but some really good stuff here. Thanks MS.</comment>


Yahoo #1 Web Property Again In US, First Time Since Early 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://marketingland.com/yahoo-1-again-not-there-since-early-08-56585

<comment><USER2> It would be interesting to know what yahoo properties are drawing people. We'll have to wait and see if this quarter's financials match this ranking. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that tumblr is being double counted somewhere.

<comment> mkr-hn Reminder: lots of people use things you don't use. Yahoo wouldn't generate enough money to afford Tumblr without having something people already look at ads on. They have many popular services. Flickr and Yahoo Mail are the big ones, but they have quite a few services that are commonly used even if you don't think much about/of them.

> _Postscript: Right after this posted a few people tweeted that this new top > ranking is based on Yahoo's Tumblr acquisition. While the first chart > suggests in a footnote not reproduced above, that some portion of Tumblr > traffic has been assigned to "other sites," it's still ranked separately at > #28 above, with 38.3 million uniques._

> _The Yahoo and Tumblr traffic figures have not been combined (or entirely > combined) by comScore. It's possible that some "assignment" of a part of > Tumblr traffic to Yahoo is responsible for the boost. However that's not > clear at the moment._

<comment><USER2> Reminder: The conspiracy theory involved _double_ counting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe because of this?

[http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yourname-yahoo- com-...](http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yourname-yahoo-com-can-be- yours)</comment>


How Mint.com Acquired 1.5M+ Users - <AUTHOR> http://jasonputorti.com/post/472866002/how-mint-com-acquired-1-5m-users <comment><USER2> Two things to add about the Mint.com success formula, based on a presentation I heard Aaron Patzer give at the Webby Connect conference about one year before he sold Mint to Quicken:

1) Patzer spent about 20% of his time talking to media or other blogs. He basically would make time for anyone that wanted to interview him, understanding the viral potential in terms of follow-on press coverage and of course, new customers. (Incidentally, Salesforce's Marc Benioff describes a similar approach to press in his bio, but mostly concentrated on major publications and journalists in the early days -- this was before most blogs and viral phenomena)

2) Patzer described spending a lot of time on finding (and paying for) the right name. Easy to understand, spell, and enter into a browser address bar were key. He thought his competitors were crazy for choosing names that were hard to spell or pronounce -- he specifically mentioned Geezeo.com and Wesabe.com .

One other thing: Patzer claimed he didn't spend anything on marketing in the talk that I saw. But from Putori's post, it seems that Mint.com did spend money on a PR agency, which surely wasn't cheap.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm actually a little disappointed in that 1.5M number. Mint is held up as such a success story, I had assumed, given things like Dropbox's 4M number, that Mint would be much higher.

For those of us that are in much smaller niches, and with expectations of less press coverage, etc, than Mint, we mentally discount our potential user number as some percentage of Mints (or Dropbox's, or pick your success story)

When doing such mental math, the larger the successes number, the better you like it. Say your niche is only 5% as large (Mint's niche was pretty much "anybody with money and a computer). So, best case, you're looking at 5% of Mint. If Mint is only 1.5M, of which, probably most were non-paid ... You get my drift.

<comment><USER4> I think that you should look at that 1,5mln users number from different perspective.

It's HUGE amount if you think of these people as being brave enough to give their _PASSWORDS_ and bank account details to the startup!

Using Dropbox doesn't put you in any risks. To be an early Mint adopter you must be very ... well... adventurous.

<comment><USER5> I began with a bank account that I kept for depositing checks locally. And a credit card I rarely use. From there I slowly built up trust and added more accounts. All of that being said, it's safe to say I'm adventurous and a risk taker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have another candidate: Licensing the hard software part from another mature company.

Mint is really just a Web 2.0 face on Yodlee (which provides all the bank interfacing parts). And there's nothing wrong with that, but it got them to maturity a lot faster than starting from scratch would have.

<http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/mint-is-yodlees-youtube/>

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is very insightful. Thanks for the great read.

Landing pages -- that's one magical knob everyone should definitely turn... Infographics -- The Oatmeal is another great example of the effectiveness of this

</comment><comment><USER8> 37 Signals, Fog Creek, Mint, can you even be a successful web company without a blog and an audience?

<comment><USER9> Facebook, Google, Zynga, yeah I guess you can!

That said I know they have blogs now, largely targeted at developers and early adopters, but in the early days they didn't. However, I'm a big fan of blogs, think every professional/company should have one. Great way to spread ideas, make contacts, etc.

<comment><USER4> Blog is not enough. What Mint did (and is still doing) is selling their byproduct - in their case is statistics they can dig from their user data.

Statistics are always very popular among the press crowd - this can be easily sold and drives additional traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd be interested in attrition after the sale. I wiped out my Mint.com account as soon as I learned who bought them.

</comment><comment><USER11> ive been showing this quora post to everyone i know at startup event past few days. glad jason made it public.</comment>


Microsoft Tag Android App - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/03/microsoft-android-app

<comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone used their API? I signed up a long time ago but never got a response. Their sample code seems to make it very simple to integrate into .Net apps.</comment>


PostGIS 2.1.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://postgis.net/2013/08/17/postgis-2-1-0 <comment><USER2> I'm not an expert, but simply removing the sidebar dramatically improves readability. Other than that, it looks very feature rich for a 'simple' spatial database extender.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, GIS requires a lot of features. Geometry, data... PostGIS is really without alternatives :)

<comment><USER4> _PostGIS is really without alternatives_

unless you're willing to send Oracle a blank check.

<comment><USER5> Or ESRI. Oracle was rather late to the Geospatial party.

<comment><USER4> ESRI makes complementing, not competing products. Most big ESRI users use Oracle in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish the geospatial features were included in the main postgres distribution, rather than being an extension.

<comment><USER7> Can you expand on that?

PostgreSQL has spent a lot of effort on the extension framework ("create extension") to make it easier to support more external modules. If there is a particular area that needs improving, please elaborate.

Making external modules a normal part of the ecosystem, like with ruby (and other popular languages), is the way forward for postgres and has some major advantages.

For instance, given that PostGIS 2.1.0 was just released today, it would make it into 9.4 (as 9.3 is already feature frozen), and 9.4 will be released in about a year. Because it's an extension, you can install it in 9.2 today, or 9.3 when it comes out in a month or so.

Also, just plain modularity, division of responsibilities, allowing for different licensing, and lowering the barrier for contribution are huge wins. The same reasons that ruby has gems.

So, hopefully we can address the concerns with extensions rather than build PostGIS into core.

<comment><USER6> I would like the geospatial features to be immediately available, and not having to enable them in each individual database. PostGIS setup is well described but I've had a situation where it turned out to be painful. Anyway now I see the reasons behind the separate module approach and I think it makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting question, what are good resources to find geo data for different areas around the world?

<comment><USER5> For the US; there is a fairly comprehensive collection geographic data sets available from the National Atlas [http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp-1m.html](http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp-1m.html) all freely available and public domain. And of course the US Census [http://www.census.gov/geo/maps- data/data/tiger.html](http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger.html) TIGER/Line dataset.

The World Bank [http://maps.worldbank.org/](http://maps.worldbank.org/) has maps covering multiple economic indicators, coverage is uneven and it's mostly focused on the global south.

[http://geocommons.com/](http://geocommons.com/) has a largish assortment of geodata but the curation and search functionality is a bit confusing and they require a login.

[http://www.statsilk.com/maps/download-free-shapefile- maps](http://www.statsilk.com/maps/download-free-shapefile-maps) has a number of pointers to other resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looking forward to this making its way into ubuntu-gis ppa.

<comment><USER9> I waited and waited to find Postgres 9.2 with PostGIS(>=2.0). 9.1 was all that ever materialized. If you're happy with Postgres 9.1, you can do the soft upgrade mentioned in the post. You can also roll your own PostGIS if already are using 9.2. Strangely, Linux is the most annoying platform to install Postgres and PostGIS on. (usage wise, it's just fine) Uninstalling Postgres on Ubuntu can lead to some pretty significant troubles (the /etc/ artifacts remain... don't delete them!!! the distribution packages do NOT contain them)</comment></comment>