NSA targets the privacy-conscious - <AUTHOR> http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/NSA-targets-the-privacy-conscious,nsa230.html <comment><USER3> Of course this happens, and it's an obvious technique. I'm sure that _not_ having a facebook account adds to your score, using AdBlock adds to your score, mentioning the NSA online adds to your score, refusing cookies adds to your score, using Linux adds to your score, etc.

That's how a police state works. (XKeyScore += 5)

My mother was involved in civil rights, so she has a file. It's fine that I have a file too. Hopefully I'll be gone before they start going door to door.

edit: [http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal- extrem...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist- forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance)

<comment><USER4> Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score".

This is where the "mass surveillance" and "let's monitor everyone just in case they might do something bad" thinking inevitably ends up.

<comment><USER5> _... you get a arrested for having a "very high score"._

Considering this is PRECISELY how spam filtering works, it doesn't seem _entirely_ irrational.

Much like spam filtering, it would all come down to dialing in your filters and picking a good threshold.

Hell, if the system was good enough, it could actually improve freedoms. We currently arrest many innocent people as part of the legal process (who are later exonerated). What if our "arrest filter" outperformed the current system, in terms of percentage of innocent people arrested? It doesn't have to be perfect to be better.

<comment><USER6> The problem with such a filter is it will be perceived as inefficient and broken by those evaluating it if it denies an officer the authority to arrest someone he's already detained or determined to be worthy of arrest.

It will be another system which grants permission at the whims of the department, one that absolves individual officers of blame, punishment and consequences for bias and abuse they'll continue to revel in.

<comment><USER5> There is no reason such a filter need be an authoritative source. Arrest someone it didn't suggest, if you like. Choose not to arrest someone it did suggest. Human discretion would still be applied. But if it proved accurate, officers would trust it, and the population would get upset if it identified a criminal an officer did not arrest.

No different than a virus or spam scanner, really. I trust my scanners. Sometimes they are wrong, and I know they are, and I bypass them. But I know they are right most of the time.

You seem to have the notion though that officers do not arrest people to "catch the bad guy". It sounds like you are saying you believe most officers do not actually care if the arrestee is guilty (and will thus ignore the filter always), and merely arrest for kicks/pleasure/vengeance? I do not believe the majority are like that.

<comment><USER7> At least in the US, officers have quotas of arrests to fulfill, which are most easily fulfilled with petty crime that happens all the time and is easy to find. Attorneys get promoted based on successful cases, meaning those where they could convince a jury that the person is guilty; any foresight that goes above or beyond what they can present to a jury of laymen is lost time and will get them recognized as being ineffective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful.

After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: [http://defundthensa.com/](http://defundthensa.com/)

<comment><USER9> >Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad...

No, that's not the reasoning. People that do bad things try to hide them. Therefore, a good first filter to catch bad people is to target those who hide things. They can narrow the search field afterwards.

<comment><USER10> This is true, but saying "treat all people trying to hide things as potential terrorists" is a very wide net to cast (to the point of useless).

<comment><USER11> It is a vastly smaller space than "all people that use the internet". Also I think it makes sense to assume that the "privacy seekers" set would contain a higher proportion of "bad actors". I am not in any way supporting them, but I understand why they do it - even if I hate the idea.

<comment><USER12> The fraction of terrorists in "all people that use the internet" is approximately equal to the fraction of terrorists in "privacy seekers" \-- both are roughly zero.

The NSA only was given such pervasive power to catch terrorists. The fact that privacy seekers are more likely to be "bad actors" is moot unless that means terrorists because regular "bad actors" are supposed to be innocent until guilty, handled by police/fbi, etc. NSA only is allowed to work essentially with no due process because it's for cathing "terrorists". Interestingly, now that terrorists know about the NSA, they no doubt will simply not use the internet (or phones) at all, thus making it so the NSA can't catch a terrorist by any of its methods.

I definitely expect all terrorists are extremely careful about internet activity now that they know the NSA is so invasive, thus making the NSA's actions even less defensible (not that I thought they ever were).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The only way out of this, as I see it, is making privacy the default. But this require some cooperation and motivation from the big guys at silicon valley.

Imagine if Chrome, Firefox, Safari, all of them had, just like the incognito mode, the private mode. Of course, as anonymity also depends on the behavior of the user online, other actions are needed to really ensure security and privacy. But making it the default will educate more people about the importance of privacy and, more importantly, make the point that privacy isn't only for criminals, terrorists and wrong-doers, but that "normal", law abiding citizens also should have the right to be private. And that is paramount for a democracy to work.

<comment><USER14> I think the cooperation necessary would be for the "big guys" to not have a vested interest in selling out privacy, which has been the prevailing business model for a long time. And, since the big guys only listen to their bottom line, that means not using them until they support privacy. It may mean not using the Internet substantially at all. (It's more than a little ironic to be saying this on the preeminent "business hacker" (or "startup") community, which has a visible subset who sympathize with some of the NSA's programs, or at least have been able to rationalize them...)

As you say, the tools have always been there, but no one uses them. That might be because it's a chicken-or-egg problem. At the same time, it might be because the people in the positions to develop and promote the tools, even if only for their own use, are being prevented by a one-track culture that encourages them to sell out their client's privacy in addition to discouraging them from working on projects like Tor. (Again, the HN forum is an example of that conflict - being a largely business-oriented forum; surveillance technology sells... Even DuckDuckGo, a favorite startup in this community, has filters to protect us.) Rather than peer-to-peer solutions like Gnutella, Gnunet, Tor, and even open wireless, people continue to make websites with JavaScript encryption, despite the proven MITM threat.

I don't think JavaScript and CSS will get us out of this, but if this latest revelation doesn't wake people up in the tech community specifically, nothing will, since BoingBoing readership is a large number of them - which to me means that the tech and programmer categories are themselves a primary focus of the surveillance that some highly-respected tech pundits (and HN forum members) have defended and rationalized as only being used for terrorists and perverts. That definition now includes anyone with enough knowledge to build or use strong privacy tools. The definition now includes everyone on this forum.

<comment><USER15> "No one" uses it because it is too complicated for "every one".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "It also records details about visits to a popular internet journal for Linux operating system users called "the Linux Journal - the Original Magazine of the Linux Community", and calls it an "extremist forum"."

WTF? I guess I am on a list. Who knew being an extremist was so easy?

<comment><USER17> No, it doesn't say that Linux Journal itself is an 'extremist forum'. It says that TAILs is "advocated by extremists on extremist forums", and includes Linux Journal as a source of information about TAILs, neither of which seem surprising.

<comment><USER16> Yes it says exactly that. Thus the quotes "" in my post.

4'th bullet point from the top in case you wish to check again.

<comment><USER17> _The article_ , which presumably was written by the authors on its byline rather than by the NSA, says that. The actual config file, linked from the article, at [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt](http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt) says:

      /*
      These variables define terms and websites relating to the TAILs (The Amnesic
      Incognito Live System) software program, a comsec mechanism advocated by
      extremists on extremist forums.
      */

Linux Journal is listed there, as a 'website relating to TAILS', not as an 'extremist forum'.

Journalists gotta journalize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think an even more significant thing in the XKeyScore code (in terms of the idea that "NSA targets the privacy-conscious") is the existence of a "documents/comsec/" hierarchy of fingerprints. I may have _written_ some of the documentation that's targeted elsewhere within that hierarchy.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to focus on:

 _Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search._

Again the media makes it sound like there exists a dragnet on (Google) searches. But this time one of the authors is J. Appelbaum.

So which is it? Terrorist Scores based on search engine searches sounds fantastically insane to me. But unencrypted it is possible to intercept. So perhaps it is something in between: All accessible searches are monitored, and search engines do not cooperate with this directly, unless they have to legally comply with the request?

<comment><USER20> One of the earlier Snowden disclosures was that the NSA had tapped private internal Google fiber lines carrying traffic between data centers. Same with Yahoo, Microsoft, other major Internet destinations. Google has since started encrypting all internal traffic, but for awhile pretty much anything was available to the NSA dragnet.

<comment><USER21> I'm sure it still is. We just don't know how yet, but a giant corporation like google has probably other ways to be attacked.

And if it is not possible on the technical level, the NSA will find the people to access the data they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When the NSA collects evidence on someone and uses that evidence to prosecute a criminal case, they can and should file a motion to suppress that evidence.

The NSA data is collected under search issued by a FISA court. So, during a suppression hearing, defense counsel can challenge the validity of the warrant. If their challenge is denied, they can appeal. If their appeal fails, they can petition the Supreme Court. In all these courts, the proceedings are public record and the standard for a warrant can be debated by lawyers and the public alike. We have an open process for checking the work of the humans issuing FISA court warrants; Use it.

Even if the warrant was valid, the NSA might have overstepped its bounds. This can also be challenged when the NSA defends the admissibility of its criminal evidence in a suppression hearing. An independent judiciary can decide if the executive branch has acted outside its bounds. No, an investigator isn't punished for the overbroad evidence collection, but they are embarrassed by having a criminal get off due to their sloppiness. We have an open process for checking the work of human investigators in this country; Use it.

It isn't as if the government just takes that evidence and unilaterally decides to blow people up. We have due process in this country; Use it.

/s

<comment><USER23> This would be a reasonable view if there weren't a systematic campaign by the NSA, FBI, and DEA to lie to judges and prosecutors about the actual source of underlying evidence.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team- intel...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence- laundering)

The EFF calls it Intelligence Laundering. The DEA calls it parallel construction. Either way it is sinister and immoral and a court hasn't had a chance to rule on it precisely because it is very difficult for defendants to prove that both the prosecutor and judge were lied to.

<comment><USER22> I don't actually hold the view expressed. I've just been trying (and failing) to find a compelling way to articulate the following point: "The FISA court's warrant system is flawed because the validity of its warrants or their execution are never checked because the warrants aren't actually used to bring criminal cases."

So, I thought I'd try sarcasm. But I couldn't come up with a concise way to address the fact that parallel construction means that their info actually _is_ used in criminal cases. Oh well, back to the drafting board...

<comment><USER3> It worked for me. It read like obvious fiction as far as to what I know about the NSA and the last couple of administrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I feel quite ambiguous about these discriminating techniques. For example, it is okay for us to give females / older people lower insurance rate because that's what the statistics says. Likewise, it's likely that people who search for privacy-enhancing software are more likely to engage in "subversive" activity. So it's hard for me to determine which kind of discrimination is justified and which not.

<comment><USER25> Did you mean ambivalent, not ambiguous?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> and the top key-word on their watch list is de-fund

</comment><comment><USER27> We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp- privac...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy- under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy)

</comment><comment><USER28> What I gleaned most from the article(s) is that it's becoming increasingly important for all of us in the tech community to take a stand ourselves along with TOR to promote online anonymity in our companies (& possibly even think about supporting the TOR Project itself in some way).

</comment><comment><USER29> That is why you should join the Pirate Party! We are a targeted group - <USER2> must organize.

<comment><USER30> Unfortunately in Germany the Piratenpartei have a few too many undesirable links the NPD [1] (i.e. Neo-Nazis) for my liking.

Until they clean house and stamp out the far right, they'll have a problem attracting new voters.

[http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/piratenpartei-und- rechte-u...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/piratenpartei-und-rechte- ueberlaeufer-klar-machen-zum-entern-1.1162369)

<comment><USER29> This is two years old article - as far as I know the German pirates now are rather leftist (actually too leftist for my liking - but as a whole the pirate movement is rather balanced between the two poles).

Pirate Party as a new and mostly undefined movement attracted all kinds of freaks - but it can only work as a movement of those that understand how the Internet can be used in politics, both the dangers and the potential for good, and who value the freedom and openness that was associated with the early net.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Changed the url from [http://boingboing.net/2014/07/03/if-you-read-boing- boing-the...](http://boingboing.net/2014/07/03/if-you-read-boing-boing- the-n.html), which points to this.

There were two versions of this story on the front page. This thread has the fuller discussion, the other the original source. In such cases we usually merge them by reassigning the url and burying the other thread.

</comment><comment><USER32> Did you seriously think news.ycombinator.com doesnt increase your score and suspectibility of having your computing devices hacked into? And puts you on a very interesting NSA/CIA/Letter-Combo/For-Your-Safety list?

Look at Ukraine. War just pops up. I wonder which list they will go by first.

</comment><comment><USER33> Raw milk distributors.

<comment><USER34> Wait, what? Are you being facetious? This is so oddly specific.

<comment><USER35> It's a conservative meme that raw milk producers are being unfairly persecuted, in those circles it's supposed to be a paradigm case of the overly intrusive nanny state.

In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm including deaths. So FDA bans it for interstate sales, but it's up to the state to decide how to regulate in-state sales. Just like any other food safety issue.

NSA is extremely unlikely to be involved in enforcing regulations against raw milk in reality, but in the mind of the conservative conspiracy theorist it's all of one totalitarian piece.

<comment><USER36> > _In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw > milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm > including deaths._

I'd love to see the evidence, and see it compared to other food sources.

I grew up in India. There all we got was raw milk from the cowherd; in fact, even today, my parents send the helper to get milk in a pail from the cowherd. It's always been raw milk, warm and fresh from the udder. And the first thing they do is to boil it.

If I were to conjecture, it's that the "no raw milk" diktat forces farmers to go to big distribution companies with the requisite facilities for pasteurization.

<comment><USER37> Boiling milk? No thanks, boiled milk tastes funny.

You should remember that not everyone live in the same hot climate as you where milk generally don't go bad immediately, and that there are plenty of people around in cooler climates that have stomachs that usually can handle milk without problem.

<comment><USER38> > Boiling milk? No thanks, boiled milk tastes funny.

Boiled milk, yes. But unless you get milk straight from a farm, it's likely pasteurised: Heated to 72 degrees celsius for 15 seconds. [EDIT: I didn't realise how many places allow sales of unpasteurised milk; yikes - I'll be careful about reading labels next time I'm travelling]

> and that there are plenty of people around in cooler climates that have > stomachs that usually can handle milk without problem.

The "stomachs that usually can handle milk without a problem" is entirely unrelated from why we pasteurise milk. Pasteurisation does not affect the lactose content in the milk, and that, combined with whether or not your _genes_ makes you lactose intolerant or not is what determines whether or not you handle milk well.

<comment><USER37> I agree totally on your points when it comes to pasteurized milk - I was commenting on a comment that claimed regulation wasn't necessary because farmers would boil the milk anyhow, which is simply not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Warning:

The first sentence goes "If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance".

So, if you find this interesting, maybe you shouldn't read it.

<comment><USER40> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..).

 _First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me._</comment></comment>


Two Sites to Create Dummy Images - <AUTHOR> http://sumtips.com/2010/11/two-sites-to-create-dummy-images.html

<comment><USER2> This creates "abstract" images.

A few weeks ago I was looking for a solution to get some more or less random "figurative" images to use as a background image (I fade the image a lot, so that is does not come too obstruisive).

Alas I could not found any (I wish google image had an API for that, I haven't found it).

So I wrote something, it gets a random image from flicker's "interesting" images. I use the image as the background of the entry page at <http://simpliwiki.com>, I got some inspiration from [http://www.codealias.info/technotes/javascript_for_getting_f...](http://www.codealias.info/technotes/javascript_for_getting_flickr_images_with_tags)

For those interested, the source code is at the end of the page, feel free to use it the way you want.</comment>


Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-uber-idUSKCN0WK1C8 <comment><USER3> TLDR: It's not self driving. It's data collecting cars for now.

I know a little bit about this. It's not "self-driving" car per se. You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. But to get there we need a lot of data. Uber and Lyft saw all the rides on their systems and thought if we had a lot of sensors in cars and recored all of that we could have the winning factor for self driving cars which is data.

In order to record that data they need customized cars. They also need to own the car to own the data associated with it (this is my assumption).

<comment><USER4> > You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars.

Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?

<comment><USER5> Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.

<comment><USER6> Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.

<comment><USER7> Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?

<comment><USER8> They do well in rain but snow remains a problem, not due to icy roads (at SXSW Chris Urmson said they do well on slick roads) but that the "better than GPS" LIDAR-based location tracking stops working when snow is on the ground.

The car simply cannot figure out where it is when there's a significant layer of snow on the ground because the reference maps stop looking like what the car is seeing.

[https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s](https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I'm missing something but that number sounds hard to believe. An S-Class in the US is $100K. Even if a stripped down "utility" version was available at $50K that's $5B worth of cars. Yes, it's a "long term" order (i.e., not paid for and delivered at once), but that seems way beyond anything even Uber would do.

<comment><USER10> The deal is probably similar to the way an airline buys planes. E.g consider when Ryanair bought 200 737s for $22Bn [1] which is about the same in it's entire market cap.

An order like this is probably:

* For a delivery spread over 10+ years

* The vehicles will almost certainly be leased/finance

* Each vehicle will probably assume a 5+ year working life and have a residual of about perhaps 25% of list after 5 years given the likely mileage

* There will be a big initial discount given the size of the order

So assume each car, is $100k new, but given an order that size is perhaps a 40% discount. So that's a $60k sale. After 5 years, the car is perhaps worth 20k.

So the unit economics are that each car costs (before financing costs) 40k over 5 years, or $8k a year. This is a relatively low cost given the number of rides it can take and the cost of the driver who will be driving it.

On that basis is doesn't sound that expensive.

[1] [http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/news/14908-ryanair- places-...](http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/news/14908-ryanair-places-order- for-up-to-200-new-boeing-737-max-200-aircraft-worth-up-to-22bn/?market=en)

<comment><USER11> > After 5 years, the car is perhaps worth 20k.

No way. Absolutely no way. Looking online I'm seeing estimates of 300,000 to 500,000 miles per year in a taxi. If Uber is even NEAR that max, this car is going to have 300,000 miles on it. Hell even 150,000 is a _ton_ of miles on a used vehicle.

Looking at KBB with a base S-Class that's 5 years old with 300,000 miles you're looking at roughly $12k in "good" condition (because, let's face it, people are going to be in this thing constantly and "good" is the rating the majority of used cars are in when they're sold).

Then factor in that Uber is not going to become a used car company (at least I would imagine they wouldn't) they're going to have to sell even lower than KBB to a third party so that third party can make any money. So I'd bet one of these cars would end up selling for $6k to $8k depending on mileage and condition after 5 years.

<comment><USER12> Lowering the sale price to $7k only bumps the per-year cost to Uber from $8k to $10.5k.

<comment><USER11> True which is a $250k difference if my numbers are even correct (I mean I think they're closer than parent's but who knows). But $250k isn't _that_ much when the company is a billion dollar company.

<comment><USER13> A difference of 250m, rather than 250k, which again, I guess still isn't that much for a 60 billion dollar company. Total depreciation on these is going to eat up up a billion in value a year, or only about 2% of market cap, assuming they keep or grow their valuation.

<comment><USER11> Oh man how could I make such a mistake? I got thrown off by the lack of zeros. I can't even edit it. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am reminded of Lucent, who built the best hardware for the end-user ISP market in the form of the Ascend MAX TNT, which would terminate a DS3, break it into individual dialup lines, and handle all of them as modem calls. Cool stuff.

It's just that they sold all this stuff to ISPs who didn't have any good credit lines, so Lucent extended them credit (bing! interest payments!) using the MAXen as collateral.

When the ISP dialup market collapsed, the ISPs returned the equipment in lieu of payment. That equipment had no value whatsoever, because anybody who wanted one and could afford one already had two.

Presumably there's some sort of secondary market for cars -- but a hundred thousand black S-Class is about what they've sold in the US over the last 7 years combined.

<comment><USER15> The maintenance cost of these cars in the US is high. Whoever is making this deal should probably stop by the Lexus dealership before they sign any papers.

<comment><USER16> > The maintenance cost of these cars in the US is high.

You are correct, of course, but I think the majority of that would go away if you hired the mechanic yourself and bought parts direct. My theory is that most of the German luxury vehicle surcharge is the "hey, it looks like you've got money, how about you give me some of that" surcharge.

I mean, I've owned a BMW 325is and a Toyota Sienna. Similar vehicles in that the vehicles had similarly sized engines/transmissions and brakes to match.

Sure, my experience agrees with your assertion in that rolling into the mechanic in the 325is is going to cost me north of twice what rolling into the mechanic in my Toyota Sienna will cost me.

But if you are doing the work yourself? the German car isn't any harder to work on. If anything, I think the german mechanical aesthetics agree with me in ways that make working on it easier than working on a Japanese car. Sure, they need a little bit more love in that they're just not as advanced as a Japanese car, or at least not as much effort is put into maintenance free operation, so you need to do more to keep them running, but that difference isn't huge. Parts are also not hugely more expensive than similarly specc'd parts on the toyota (e.g. brake rotors cost about the same on my 325is as they did on my toyota sienna; they were similarly sized, too; it's just the 325is was a much smaller car, so stopped dramatically better.)

I mean, I'm generalizing about German luxury vehicles from my experience with another brand, but yeah, if you hire your own mechanic, I bet most of the maintenance cost differences become much smaller.

<comment><USER15> I'm a mechanic and software guy. Your theory is incorrect. German parts and labor generally cost more. Mostly due to complexity. An S-Class has more on- board electronics than the average Boeing. They begin to have issues after the 2 year mark and are not cheap to fix. Even if you have your own shop and parts. The 325 you had is a simpler BWM that did not carry such complexity.

<comment><USER16> I'm not saying you are wrong; the new cars might well be way more complex in ways that might cause people to spend more time troubleshooting, I wouldn't know.

I haven't dealt with anything really more complex than the early 'aughts toyota... at least up until that point, the electronics made it way easier for a shadetree mechanic like me to solve problems. There's all sorts of ways to get diagnostic codes out of the thing; on the bmw, you did this dance where you turned it on, then floored the gas a certain number of times, and then the 'check engine' light would tap out a code you could look up in the manual, just like beep codes on a motherboard. On my Toyota, I hook up the OBD thing and it gives me a code I can plug into google and get youtube videos of how to fix it. I've never dealt with an electrical problem more complex than one of the the (what do you call them? the short wire things that go from the coils to the spark plugs on the bmw) going out of spec in terms of resistance, but that was pretty easy to diagnose with the manual and multimeter.

But if it really is the complexity that creates the cost, why was it so expensive to pay someone else to service my simple 325is?

<comment><USER15> Factors such as location, brand, and demand are important. Fixing BMWs is generally more complex than fixing a comparable Japanese or American model due to specialty tools, software, and complexity. Their wiring system is closer to what you'd find on a data center than what you'd find on the typical car.

I currently still turn wrenches as a hobby and work on higher end Euro cars (Ferrari, Porsche, etc.) and it only gets worse. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The S-Class is an interesting choice. I'd wager that most people have never been in a car as nice as an S Class before -- no comparison really to the town car people associate today with Uber Black. The back seat has massage, heat and cool, individual entertainment options, power recline. Some of these things could be customized, but Mercedes isn't going to tarnish the reputation of their flagship sedan so Uber can have a more utilitarian taxi.

<comment><USER18> The S-Class is a very common model for a taxi in Germany.

<comment><USER19> No it's not. Most of them are E-classes.

<comment><USER20> Quick fact-check, both E-Class and S-Class are common in Germany: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_by_country)

<comment><USER21> I am from germany. I have never seen a S-Class taxi.

<comment><USER22> I've actually seen a Porsche Panamera taxi in Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another concern for uber is what are people going to do to the inside of these driverless cars now? Passengers today are respectful to ridesharing vehicles they sit in--because the owner of the vehicle is close at hand and the human connection commands some respect. But when its just a group of (maybe drunk) passengers in an empty vehicle--where's the accountability?

<comment><USER24> Passengers won't be anonymous and Uber already has reputation system. Also you can already rent a car, and rented cars are usually not vandalized.

<comment><USER25> Car rentals are fairly expensive. People tend to take better care of things they've put a lot into. Case in point, rental cars tend to be in much better condition than the back seats of taxis, which in turn are in better shape than the back seats of buses. I think people's concern is that single rides in self-driving cars might even rank below buses.

<comment><USER26> Still, Uber knows who you are. If you damage their car they can invoice you. Presumably they will have CCTV in these things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Uber has some of the best researchers in the world. I'd bet Mercedes builds the cars, specialized with Uber specified additional sensors and hardware for self driving. Uber customizes the source to deal with tough driving conditions, and turns the code back over to Mercedes.

Uber gets it's fleet, Mercedes gets the tech. It's getting competitive. Mercedes will get the tech perfected, but this kind of deal could get them there much faster. Access to Uber's team, and more importantly mountains of data that Uber is taking the risk for will probably speed up refinement of the tech.

<comment><USER11> This has to be the answer if the rumors are actually true (the article does say one source said this, one source said this wasn't happening).

All auto companies need to get into the self driving space. Uber wants to get into this space for transporting people. If Uber and a car company work together Uber could get a discount, help develop the tech and share with the car company; it's a huge win for both sides.

At least that's how I'd try structuring the deal. You know, from my billion- dollar-company-CEO-arm-chair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Uber is an interesting company for a number of reasons, but here's the part that interests me the most:

Uber operates in a grey-area legal environment in the cities it operates in. Uber's defense / view on this is that they generate such a societal positive in terms of jobs that it outweighs the legal constraints.

But, when your goal is to eventually use a fleet of self-driving cars and eliminate the job possibilities for drivers, isn't that a moot point?

<comment><USER29> > "über's defense/view on this is that they generate such a societal positive > in terms of jobs that it outweighed the legal constrains"

I doubt they care a bit about the amount of jobs they are creating, I would say their view is "they generate such a positive amount of cash that it outweighs the legal constrains" and if they see a possibility of removing their highest expense of getting that cash - they won't bat an eye on doing so because they already have a history of doing stuff that is on the edge of legality/morality.

<comment><USER30> I think it will be very interesting to see what happens with self-driving car regulation. I foresee the money going from taxi drivers -> Uber -> Gov/Uber Split & no more jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Mercedes/Audi/BMW taxis are common in Germany. This doesn't mean you'll be able to order your S class in NYC/SF any time soon.

<comment><USER32> My thoughts exactly. Uber are struggling to get a foothold in Europe because of regulation. I suspect the plan is to become a traditional taxi or limousine operator in these hostile markets, leasing cars to licensed taxi drivers. Using S class rather than the more common C class cars would fit with their existing Uber Black service.

<comment><USER33> > in these hostile markets

"markets where regulations are enforced"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is the (German) article this is based on:

[http://m.manager- magazin.de/unternehmen/autoindustrie/a-1082...](http://m.manager- magazin.de/unternehmen/autoindustrie/a-1082886.html)

It says they plan to buy "a six digit number of cars", and they're only interested in self driving cars.

<comment><USER35> It Daimler can deliver cars that are able to handle Uber rides without a driver, including driving empty to location (considering Uber would send a destination location) then 100k vehicle does not sound like a lot. That feels like a big if, though.

Having a deal in stock rather than cash also makes sense: it is unlikely that many people would buy cars from Daimler or anyone if Uber charges at cost (gas + maintenance).

<comment><USER34> no pressure on Daimler then...

<comment><USER36> It's like a Kickstarter, but with several billion dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How does this benefit Uber?

Imagine Daimler can produce 100,000 self-driving cars. They would continue to produce and sell self-driving cars to other people as well. They could sell self-driving cars to Lyft. Individuals could operate their own self-driving car services. They could organize in to cartels and have a single app that competes with Uber or Lyft.

Uber is destined to be a commodity in an open marketplace of taxi services as soon as they adopt self-driving cars. Their primary roll right now is as a labor organization. They currently create the economic incentives needed to attract a fleet of drivers. Self-driving cars are not motivated by economic incentives. Uber can't control the sale, distribution and organization of self-driving cars.

All that riders care about is being able to reliably get from one side of town to another. They'll know that they can trust Daimler self-driving cars, regardless of the dispatcher.

We're going to end up right back to where we started, with a commodity system of private taxi dispatchers and a productive industry of automobile manufacturers, with an emphasis on the automatic nature of this new form of transportation.

Daimler is the big winner here if they can bring a self-driving car to market.

<comment><USER38> I think the other function Uber serves is not just an aggregator of supply (of cars and drivers) but of demand (passengers). It is far from a trivial effort to have a sufficient amount of users know of your app/service, download and install it, trust it enough to add payment details and use it.

While not quite as insurmountable an obstacle as, say, making a new smartphone platform (sorry Palm/Nokia/BlackBerry/Microsoft), it is enough of one to make this far from a perfect, liquid market.

<comment><USER39> > I think the other function Uber serves is not just an aggregator of supply > (of cars and drivers) but of demand (passengers).

I think you misunderstand Uber. Most of its perceived value is in arbitrage between drivers' perceived and actual costs of car ownership: drivers mostly think in terms of wages minus cost of gas, ignoring all of the other costs. Given that business model, I doubt Uber is actually looking at buying these cars. They will presumably force drivers to buy or lease the cars themselves.

<comment><USER37> So do individuals buy or lease self-driving cars in the future? Would they then set up their self-driving car to take instructions from Uber's central dispatch service in exchange for a cut of the profits?

Currently both Uber and Lyft handle the task of vetting drivers and making sure there is a good experience for their customers. They organize and control the labor required for a good experience for the riders.

Think about a rider in a world where Lyft and Uber are both dispatching self- driving cars. What's the difference between the services if they're all using Mercedes S-Class SelfDrivers? The rider knows that all Mercedes S-Class SelfDrivers are the same experience. There's no question of if the driver is trustworthy or competent. Uber and Lyft would be providing the exact same commodity experience of sending a self-driving car to your location to then do your bidding in exchange for money.

<comment><USER39> > So do individuals buy or lease self-driving cars in the future? Would they > then set up their self-driving car to take instructions from Uber's central > dispatch service in exchange for a cut of the profits?

In Uber's perfect world, yes. And Uber will do its best to hide the true costs of insurance, depreciation, regular maintenance, etc. from owners and lessors, just like they do today. It's worth understanding that Uber only works as long as it doesn't own any cars, or employ any drivers. If they switch over to owning some self-driving cars, they'll have to maintain and insure them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The magnitude here is pretty impressive.

I found this list of sizes for existing commercial fleets. They would be besting UPS for total fleet size if all 100k were on the road at once. [http://www.fleet- central.com/content/pdf/AUTOF_top300commerc...](http://www.fleet- central.com/content/pdf/AUTOF_top300commercial.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER41> This makes a lot of sense. S-class cars already have the sensors for self- driving in highway conditions. Uber UATC is actively working on the software for autonomous drivers.

This is a large scale capital investment in a safe luxury service that Uber can sell in certain markets. I'm betting the s-class needs very little hardware to wire into what UATC is developing.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone know how this volume compares to a Mercedes dealer's volume over 5 or 10 years?

<comment><USER43> Large dealers in california sell around 1200 S classes per year. More common dealers sell between 200 and 300 per year.

Or were you comparing that to total volume? Market leaders sell a bit over a thousand per month.

<comment><USER42> Awesome, thanks, that helps bring some perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Why would Uber want to buy non-self-driving cars? Right now, they have their drivers buying the cars for them. Their current business model shoves all the capital costs down onto the driver. If Uber owns a lot of cars, their business model looks far different, more like Hertz. This will reduce their valuation substantially.

<comment><USER45> Because they are going to lease them out to drivers to compete with Lyft, which earlier this week announced a similar program.

<comment><USER44> Uber already has a financing deal for drivers.[1] This may just be a mod to that plan.

[1] [https://get.uber.com/cl/financing/](https://get.uber.com/cl/financing/)

<comment><USER45> I think it's a response to Lyft, whose plan is more convenient because it allows drivers to rent the vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For the sake of comparison: the three largest US rental companies: Enterprise, Hertz and Avis together own about 2 million cars, have about 15,000 locations (most of which are competitive with each other), and have about $25 billion in annual revenue.

Why do I bring up rental cars, a market usually considered distinct from taxi and limo services? Because without a driver, there's no difference.

Uber is trying to crush the taxi market, but in an age of self-driving cars it needs to watch out for the rental car giants who will happily extend their daily-weekly rental cycles down to per-trip rentals, with pickup and drop-off anywhere in the country. The giants already have purchasing arrangements with the major auto manufacturers, supply chains, maintenance facilities, and parking lots to use as buffers.

<comment><USER46> Someone (their insurance? Them?) Won't let you rent until you're 25.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Very telling that Uber is trying to go with Mercedes, when Tesla is really their first choice. It's an open secret that Elon Musk will be launching an Uber competitor using Tesla vehicles. I expect a "surprise" announcement from Tesla within 18 months.

<comment><USER48> The other thing is Tesla can't make this volume of cars yet & it carries a certain amount of risk for such a large deal.

They only made about 50,000 cars last year and have capacity for around 90000 this year. Even if Uber's order was spread on a number of years, Tesla will have trouble filling the order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> At that scale, customization is a given. Uber could leverage their own robotics resources together with Mercedes' to speed up autonomous vehicles time to market which Uber stands to benefit from substantially enough to justify this kind of investment.

</comment><comment><USER50> At that kind of volume, would it make more sense to have MB develop a bespoke car for Uber?

The S-Class is a great car, but I'm sure there are Uber-specific improvements that can be made. Why would you order some many of something 'off-the-shelf'?

<comment><USER33> I don't think you'd find any manufacturer who would tool up for a bespoke car. Uber either needs to buy an existing manufacturer with existing large scale capacity, or build out their own capacity. And we've seen with Tesla how much and long that capacity takes to build out for only 100K vehicles/year.

Uber is capital chasing a potential treasure chest. Google, Tesla, GM/Lyft/Cruise are the real players it appears.

<comment><USER51> There are contract manufacturers also in the automobile industry. For example the Finnish Valmet Automotive has been building Porches, and is now doing some MB cars.

[http://www.valmet- automotive.com/automotive/cms.nsf/pages/in...](http://www.valmet- automotive.com/automotive/cms.nsf/pages/indexeng)

<comment><USER33> A quick Google search didn't find me their manufacturing capacity, but I'm curious if it approaches what Uber might need to compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If this is true, this is an incredibly risky move. I know self-driving cars are more or less inevitable at this point, but there are hundreds of unknowns that still need to be figured out. How will passengers treat the vehicles? What happens when there is a problem, and there isn't a human present? How secure will the cars be? Is the 'call a car from an app' business model the one that will win? Committing this amount of capital this early in the game seems like a big gamble, unless there are a large number of contingencies worked into this deal.

<comment><USER53> >How will passengers treat the vehicles?

As a mobile drug/prostitution marketplace.

<comment><USER54> Wonder what level of surveillance these will have. Surely that would be an excellent data mining opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> It's probably more along the lines of: "Whenever you guys are done making it fully autonomous, we want 100,000 of 'em to replace our drivers"

If that was the case, the volume makes sense. Makes zero sense to buy 100,000 of today's model and watch it depreciate in value while providing none back 'cause you still need a driver.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm kinda curious how it's possible for an organization to go through all it takes to produce self-driving cars (engineering, qa, logistics, sourcing, etc.) but is unable to build an app to find riders for these cars and manage yield of available seat-space.

Not really seeing the value-add of Uber at that point beyond the brand and historical data about customer rides as transportation is so fungible.

It's not entirely impossible that Uber/Lyft will engage in a race to the bottom while a bold automaker (such as Tesla) offers to buy out Lyft for it's trip data... to then stand on the sidelines as Uber goes bankrupt... to then purchase their data during liquidation.

I could be wrong, but it will be interesting to see where Uber executives take the company.

</comment><comment><USER57> I am not surprised if Uber is going in this direction. In fact, looking at what Uber has done so far , Uber has already planned for this sort of future in 10-20 years.

Look at what Uber has done:

* Uber buys Nokia Here Maps for their map part and for their street imagery part.

* Uber hires robotics department.

* Uber knows today's business is supposed to be the transition phase to going into a zipcar like car-on-demand service.

There aren't too many data points here, but the only thing I can glean from this is Uber wants to have robotic cars to pick you up and drop you off and will plan that future by storing street imagery, instead of that LiDAR based method the others are doing.

</comment><comment><USER58> In the German source[1] it is very clear that the order is under the condition that Mercedes delivers an autonomous self-driving vehicle.

It is also clearly stated there that Daimler is not expecting to be able to deliver such a car before 2020.

Basically, Uber said: "Once you're able to build a self-driving S class, we will buy 100.000 of them". And Daimler said: "We will come back to it."

[1][http://m.manager- magazin.de/unternehmen/autoindustrie/a-1082...](http://m.manager- magazin.de/unternehmen/autoindustrie/a-1082886.html)

</comment><comment><USER59> Wow, I wonder what a contract like that looks like, and how many years the payments and deliveries are spread out over. Assuming a massively-discounted price of $25,000 per car, that comes to $2.5 billion!

<comment><USER60> The lowest I could imagine them selling for is 45k per car. 25k isn't a discount, it's a loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> If Uber really is buying 100,000 cars, or anywhere near that number, it totally undermines their argument that they are a ride sharing app and not a straight up taxi/limo company.

</comment><comment><USER62> At that quantity, an S class is the badge on the trunk, otherwise whatever Uber wants it to be. Likely the technology for automation, but maybe not all the luxury bells and whistles.

</comment><comment><USER63> The critical question facing our driverless future is liability. Who owns the risk? If the individual owner is liable, you can imagine the upshot - <USER2> adoption rates, high premiums. If the seller/programmer is liable, expect consolidation. It feels like this is the question of our time. To pay for consolidated services - spotify, netflix, uber, Bernie Sanders - or to remain an individual and accept inefficiency as a natural cost of freedom.

</comment><comment><USER64> Just a shower thought, but if the car makers can make self-driving cars, can't they also implement their own versions of Uber ?

Why would they even sell the cars, when they can rent them out and make much bigger margins ?

Uber's current strength is it's database of drivers, but since we're talking self-driving cars here, that become irrelevant.

It's not like Mercedes or BMW lack brand recognition in the transportation space...

<comment><USER65> It is actually suggested in the article: _" Earlier this week Mercedes rival BMW said it was considering launching its own ride hailing service in what would amount to a rival business to Uber."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> They should make sure that in the contract it says the cars are virtually unhackable, too, or Daimler-Benz is responsible for any liability from security breaches:

[http://qz.com/642648/the-fbi-is-warning-drivers-your-car- may...](http://qz.com/642648/the-fbi-is-warning-drivers-your-car-may-be- vulnerable-to-hacking/)

</comment><comment><USER67> I hope they use these for more S-Class UberBlack service. I wanted to get driven in one for our anniversary but found it difficult.

</comment><comment><USER68> The S Class has been Mercedes platform for autonomous driving cars. The current generation actually has a very capable installed sensors for autonomous mode. Per [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhDqgh6DClo](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhDqgh6DClo)

</comment><comment><USER69> "Loss-making Uber would make drastic savings on its biggest cost -- drivers -- if it were able to incorporate self-driving cars into its fleet."

Umm, don't they get the cars for free now? How many rides will the cars need drive to break even compared to cheap drivers and no capital cost now?

</comment><comment><USER70> They still have all of those regular drivers,It's hard to come up with a huge number of cars on the spot once self-driving cars are available.

</comment><comment><USER71> That's huge order 100K is what they sell in a year. So if spread over 10 years this would mean they are buying 10% of S-class cars produced each year.

</comment><comment><USER72> Wow, that's a huge amount of capital to spend upfront. Wonder if this is for their black service or more targeted in Europe.

<comment><USER73> What gives you the impression it would be an upfront expenditure? My guess is it would be a 5-20 year deal and likely include financing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> If/when someone develops fully reliable, fully autonomous cars, what makes them need Uber?

<comment><USER11> They wouldn't but that's like saying computer manufacturers don't need the OS manufacturers anymore. They wouldn't necessarily _have to have_ Uber but Uber providing the payment, route planning and logistics and someone else providing the vehicle seems like a pretty good match.

Though I'll admit the self driving vehicle delivery is probably another level of difficulty than Uber's current capability. But I suspect Uber and the car manufacturer may work on the self driving together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> One of the weaker lead quotes I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER76> Wait, is the S-Class even a legit SDC?

</comment><comment><USER77> self-driving Uber cars? What could possibly go wrong?

...

 _There comes a point at which the helpfulness of technology becomes a form of oppression: walled gardens, predictive services making the wrong predictions, and every social platform forcing us to use our real names. It 's cute when it's small, but what happens when self-driving cars can collude with the cops?_

[https://motherboard.vice.com/read/one- star](https://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-star) ( previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11149653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11149653) )

<comment><USER77> Downvotes? Lol. Start reading some oldschool science fiction: those are to point out possible outcomes, both bad and good, of technical evolution.

Self driving cars in our current world, in our current system will not go well. We need changes in the heads first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I know Uber calls their service "Black". But in hot climates white cars make more sense. Burn less resources keeping cool.

<comment><USER79> Their cars are white in Tel Aviv (as all taxis, in fact).

<comment><USER78> Is the service there called UberBlack?</comment></comment></comment>


Plastic Straw Ban: Degrading Plastics Discovered to Emit Greenhouse Gases - <AUTHOR> https://www.inverse.com/article/47667-greenhouse-gas-degrading-plastic-polyethylene <comment><USER2> TlDr when you break up long chain hydro-carbons you get a release of carbon...

<comment><USER3> I mostly agree.

That plastic produce CO2 when decomposed is not a surprise if you have a tiiiiiny knowledge of chemistry. They say that they will discuss the CO2 in another article. (There are some problems, "bad" plastics that last foever and accumulate will produce a small amount of CO2 each year that is good; and "good" plastic that are biodegradable will produce more CO2 each year that is bad. It's difficult to be good in all metrics.)

In the article they discuss that some plastic also release methane that is much worse for the greenhouse effect. (And ethylene that I'm not sure how bad it is.) I guess it is not very surprising, but it is slightly more surprising than CO2. I didn't find a good discussion about how much worse it is, because the press article lacks any technical information. It could be important or not, but the press article prefer to say " _at an alarming rate. (Is there any other kind of rate?)_ " than to give good information.</comment></comment>


How difficult is it to go from system administration to software developer work? - <AUTHOR> I figure it would be easier going from sysadmin stuff to information security, but what about software development?<p>I am a new graduate looking for his first job, ideally as a software developer. <comment><USER2> I did that route.

My experience in MY environment:

Sysadmin/support is a very different gang from the Dev group.

So I started with simple scripts (before cfengine/puppet).

Later I did some coding to hibernate machines using MFC. After I started using python to generate inventories and to admin the whole University I used to work.

Then the first site on Django. After another one in Django.

Later a project in Django.

Then some Consulting.

And then a big one project in Django being consumed for a lot of customers.

Now If I get my code from firsts projects I think:

"Serious.. This code sucks look this..."

My suggestion:

1\. Accept that your code will be bad; 2\. Accept that it will not be "smart"; 3\. Once people ask for more features you will understand "Why" there are design patterns and best practices; 4\. Once you are making money, you will understand the need for git, CI/ CD, testing.

Sure you can learn about it first, but you _really_ understand when you are on the field battle.

So today I have 2 CVS one for Sysadmin/Devops and Other for Developer as people have a hard time understanding that I can do both very well.

E.g., Today I finished a feature for a customer CRM python system, and later I set up an Asterisk PBX on cloud and a postfix setup.

Keep learning, practicing, and it will compound over years

PS. By doing well I mean: I am not updating my LinkedIn for 3 years as someone may do a tempting offer... I admit I afraid of the right proposal and say goodbye to some customers.

</comment><comment><USER3> in terms of getting started, maybe first focus on getting a job that gives you a good opportunity to gain experience in the kind of work you want to do.

one way in might be with some "consulting" / professional services firms -- the ones i have seen do tend to play the game of getting the senior people to win the contract then filling most of the roles with relatively junior inexperienced hard working people who need to grow into the roles... If you end up in such an environment and there's a few experienced colleagues you can learn from, that might be okay. but perhaps with such employers you probably have very little control over which project you end up assigned to, and might end up allocated to a project where you are expected to work hard learning a bunch of legacy technology / manually resolving issues instead of learning how to automate.

another option might be to go in through the "configuration management" type route, as another commenter suggests. e.g. try to get hired for a role based on your sysadmin background, but in an org that's already doing a lot of automation of ops stuff / continuous integration / automated deployment, where there's at least one experienced person you can learn dev skills and get feedback on your programming/scripting from.

if after a couple of years you end up being okay at both sysadmin & dev roles, and actually good at one of them, there should be quite a lot of opportunities for work.

</comment><comment><USER4> I made the leap from DevOps to full time dev, but it took a lot of work on my own, as well as a lot of interviews to find someone to take a chance on me

Another thing to consider is once you have devops on your resume', you will be hounded by recruiters still trying to hire you to do it...

</comment><comment><USER5> Software developing really improves your sysadmin skills, as you'll code your own administration/automation software. Also, interacting with APIs manually makes you understand a lot better how systems work.

</comment><comment><USER6> In general, software design/development is a completely different set of skills then sysadmin/devops.

They do overlap when you need to actually deploy your app.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am a part time sysadmin for a tech company and have my own business developing websites and apps.

If you want to be a software developer be a software developer. Are you asking the question because you are thinking of taking a sysadmin job?</comment>


Morgan Spurlock: The Living on Bitcoin – Full Documentary - <AUTHOR> http://247cryptonews.com/morgan-spurlock-the-living-on-bitcoin-full-documentary/

<comment><USER2> Nice ! I looked all over the internet for the HD video. Thanks guys.</comment>


PostgreSQL 10 Beta 4 Released - <AUTHOR> https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1776/ <comment><USER3> What's new in 10: [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/New_in_postgres_10](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/New_in_postgres_10)

</comment><comment><USER4> other news:

* You can test PG10beta4 via docker: [https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres/](https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres/) [ docker pull postgres:10-beta4 ]

* PG v10 - at least 1-week delay expected: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/ms...](https://email@example.com/msg322252.html)

* PostGIS 2.4.0rc1 Released ( 2017/09/13 ) [http://postgis.net/2017/09/13/postgis-2.4.0rc1/](http://postgis.net/2017/09/13/postgis-2.4.0rc1/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Logical replication seems really useful. I wonder if you could use wal2json to connect the database straight to Elasticsearch.

<comment><USER6> There are avenues to do it, but in my experience indexing data into ES in a useful format typically requires more work (denormalization of various sorts, different data formats, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From [https://www.postgresql.org/about/](https://www.postgresql.org/about/) :

> PostgreSQL prides itself in standards compliance. Its SQL implementation > strongly conforms to the ANSI-SQL:2008 standard.

Sounds like a low bar - to claim conformance to a standard which is almost 10 years old and to say "prides itself" in the same sentence, doesn't it?

<comment><USER8> There are two points which are worth bearing in mind:

1) There are RDBMS implementations which only conform to the standards when convenient and don't hesitate to deviate otherwise. This isn't to say that there is a standards only database (PostgreSQL has non-standard functionality, too), there isn't insofar as I know... but for many, standards compliance simply is not a goal. For PostgreSQL it is.

2) Especially with databases, longer term stability is often a more desirable trait than being fully up-to-date with every standards change. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't update at all/ever to take advantage of new standards defined behaviour, but it does suggest that the frequency of change in the database is going to be slower than the standards body producing versions.

In neither case does this mean a "low bar" for the devs: in the first case it means they give a shit and that time doesn't somehow change how easy/hard it is to meet a standard; and in the second it means they are bringing some disciplined wisdom to the table.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure there are RDB implementations less standard compliant than PostgreSQL. I'm just pointing out that we have SQL-2011 and SQL-2016, and for some other areas, like C++ implementations, standard conformance happens faster and closer to the standard. Saying "standard compliance is a goal for PostgreSQL" ought to mean efforts, and right now PostgreSQL can only show for those efforts the compliance to SQL-2008. Comparing to other areas - which is not apples to apples, I agree - looks quite humbling.

For databases it's important to have long term stability, but same arguments apply elsewhere. For example, keeping non-standard behavior makes new projects - and I see those projects - to rely on them, which makes it again harder to get closer to the standard in the future. May be frequency of change is less in the RDB world, but it's still a problem when the changes are that infrequent, at least for some purposes.

And yes, to do all that standard compliance is hard work for developers; yet for some reason we still have standard making process. It is hard, yes, but to keep behind by that much looks suspiciously similar to having a low bar. PostgreSQL shouldn't be too pride of itself in that aspect, even if they make more efforts and have better results than others.

<comment><USER9> The main problem here is that the description you're referring to was not updated. That's not great, of course, but bashing PostgreSQL standards conformance merely based on a single high-level description is not cool either.

Let me quote from the full documentation for PostgreSQL 9.6, released in September 2016, i.e. before SQL-2016 was published:

> PostgreSQL supports most of the major features of SQL:2011. Out of 179 > mandatory features required for full Core conformance, PostgreSQL conforms > to at least 160. In addition, there is a long list of supported optional > features. It might be worth noting that at the time of writing, no current > version of any database management system claims full conformance to Core > SQL:2011.

For more details see: [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/features.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/features.html)

<comment><USER8> Looks like my original response was wrong, too.

> PostgreSQL development aims for conformance with the latest official version > of the standard where such conformance does not contradict traditional > features or common sense. Many of the features required by the SQL standard > are supported, though sometimes with slightly differing syntax or function. > Further moves towards conformance can be expected over time.

Though I'll take refuge in the, "where such conformance does not contradict traditional features or common sense", clause ;-) .

<comment><USER7> > "where such conformance does not contradict traditional features or common > sense"

I'd prefer to have traditional features to move towards standard compliance - and to do have it as a priority - and also to have standards exhibiting the common sense which doesn't need to be questioned too much. Eventually it would be good I think to have DBMSes drop-in replaceable and until that goal isn't reached it's not good enough for some practical purposes. In this sense "sometimes with different syntax" reads surprising and "or function" is even more so.

Did we all forget how and why SQL standards were created in the first place? How customers were demanding a certain level or interoperability? Do we think we don't need that anymore and the past reasons aren't there?

<comment><USER9> Your preferences are one thing, your patches or having a say into the development is a very different thing.

The standards conformance is not a goal on it's own. The primary goal of the developers is to serve the users, particularly those that support the community in some way (e.g. by paying the developers). That's what makes the project possible.

Development of features takes time, and the features are often introduced years before SQL standard eventually codifies them. And Postgres community has pretty much no influence on the SQL Standard, which is driven mainly by large companies.

The last thing the users want is having to do significant changes to their applications just before the syntax suddenly changed to match SQL standard. Standards are valuable, but backwards compatibility has a value too.

> Did we all forget how and why SQL standards were created in the first place? > How customers were demanding a certain level or interoperability? Do we > think we don't need that anymore and the past reasons aren't there?

The SQL standard was created so that each database did not invent it's own query language. Postgres had one (called QUEL), and abandoned it in favor of SQL in 95 or so. Because people wanted the same general API to databases, not because they wanted the databases to behave the same.

I strongly disagree with the idea that databases should be drop-in replaceable, as it entirely ignores the large parts of the fuctionality (architecture, indexing, ...) which is out of scope of a SQL standard.

<comment><USER7> > Your preferences are one thing, your patches or having a say into the > development is a very different thing.

That's correct; "saying", as I do, and "having a say" are different. In practice however my options as a user of DBMS are limited - I don't know if I can buy a standard compliant DBMS at all, not to say for market-competitive price, and I'm not sure I'll have an opportunity to replace it with another standard compliant implementation if for some reasons I'll want to have a better match. In other words, I'm market taker, and not market maker. I do suspect there are many DB users in this same position, which would benefit from a possibility to switch from DBMS to DBMS.

> The standards conformance is not a goal on it's own. The primary goal of the > developers is to serve the users, particularly those that support the > community in some way (e.g. by paying the developers). That's what makes the > project possible.

It would be nice if developers of a leading open source DBMS paid more attention to standards - that's what I'm saying. I don't believe their users would suffer from that, or even that their users are sufficiently indifferent to that - that's neither my own experience nor what I'm reading in articles touching choices of DB.

> The last thing the users want is having to do significant changes to their > applications just before the syntax suddenly changed to match SQL standard. > Standards are valuable, but backwards compatibility has a value too.

I understand this as you saying "we have a choice between features and standards, and we choose features". Yes, backwards compatibility has value; in my opinion, value of standard following isn't understood well enough. I think we aren't in the world where performance is uber important for all use cases; those involved in development of PostgreSQL are either not fully aware of the needs of - some, may be non-paying - users, or choose to postpone this work, that's my understanding of the situation.

> The SQL standard was created so that each database did not invent it's own > query language.

Exactly. Same language means that if I have, say, window functions or isolation levels in SQL standard and use them, I can expect to have them and them to be functionally equivalent in standard compliant implementation. It's a sad situation when there are just a few, if any, implementations of the standard; why do we have standards in the first place become then questionable.

> I strongly disagree with the idea that databases should be drop-in > replaceable, as it entirely ignores the large parts of the fuctionality > (architecture, indexing, ...) which is out of scope of a SQL standard.

As I understand it you're saying that it's impossible or hard to have large parts of functionality in a standard compliant implementation. I think that you could have extension features on top of standard, allowing users to use them when they choose to have extensions or not to use them when they need to have conformance to standards. I've had discussions regarding DB choice based on features which are in non-implemented standards enough to pay attention to the matter.

<comment><USER9> > As I understand it you're saying that it's impossible or hard to have large > parts of functionality in a standard compliant implementation. I think that > you could have extension features on top of standard, allowing users to use > them when they choose to have extensions or not to use them when they need > to have conformance to standards. I've had discussions regarding DB choice > based on features which are in non-implemented standards enough to pay > attention to the matter.

No. I'm saying that the SQL Standard deals only with the querying language. It does not cover a million other aspects of database engines, that determine how well the databases are suited for different use cases (performance, tolerance to failures, single-node vs. distributed, OLTP vs. analytics). Those are the differences that make treating databases as drop-in replaceable naive - <USER2> if the databases were 100% compatible at the SQL level, you can't really replace them easily because the query language is just a tip of the iceberg.

<comment><USER7> To me, drop-in replacement means the interface is the same, not implementation. You can have list operations on top of array, single or double linked lists etc., and you'll get different Big O numbers for different operations, different memory access patterns - but will still have the same append() and length() functions in the API. Drop-in doesn't mean "equivalent in all measurable aspects".

I spend substantial time navigating and compensating for differences in DB interfaces - not characteristics of internal solutions. Standards aren't about that - they are, as I understand, to solve the problem which I have, because standards aren't followed. I want to be able to replace databases not because they are the same - what would be the purpose then - but because having the same interface (i.e., the ability to just replace the DBMS) they could provide me a choice of characteristics.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Japan's population is falling faster than ever before - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-population-falling-faster-than-ever-before-2017-7 <comment><USER2> And yet GDP per head continues to grow.

Funny that isn't it. It's almost like the Japanese have invested in robotic automation, high quality public infrastructure and using older people to best advantage.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks? Why do you say "and yet"? The top 10 countries by GDP per capita are all small or tiny.

<comment><USER4> That a natural thought, but there are several complexities that make it unusual (possibly even unlikely):

For instance, infrastructure is a fixed cost. All the investment into roads, power grid, rail, airports, waterways, etc is now spread over fewer people.

Since public projects are usually debt funded, that usually means that fewer people have to shoulder the same debt burden.

When more of a person's income goes to servicing debt, then by definition, there is less for savings and investment. Less investment usually leads to less growth.

And here is where Japan is unique - they have managed to adjust to the debt servicing, and get better at allocating their investments to provide for a growing GDP per capita. Even more interesting is that their growth per capita in the first part of this century outstripped both the US & Germany ([http://www.economist.com/node/10852462](http://www.economist.com/node/10852462)) - and the US was in a Fed-induced bubble at the time!

<comment><USER5> > And here is where Japan is unique - they have managed to adjust to the debt > servicing,

Japan has recently been using its bank to capture more of the interest payments on its debt:

"Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation. We could do that too."

Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style - [https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee- jap...](https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee-japanese- style/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is that bad? Should population on earth increase indefinitely? We are already too many. What about overpopulation? I also take a declining population over mass immigration, it has teared my country apart.

<comment><USER7> Declining population and deflation and abundance and no work are not bad at all. They are just bad for capital.

<comment><USER8> Deflation is the endless terrifying boogieman of economists and academics and drives the constant obsession with creating inflation by central banks. Prices coming _down_? Oh dear, we can't possibly have that!

<comment><USER9> I used to think that also until I studied economics in college. If you don't understand how deflation can be a bad thing, I suggest spending some time reading up on it. Deflation isn't just about prices drop while all else remains equal.

<comment><USER7> Economists and psychotics are the only creatures who, when they and the universe do not agree, believe that it is not they who are wrong but the universe.

More to the point, you may not want uncontrollable deflation just like you don't want uncontrollable inflation, those are system instabilities due to feedback. But a controlled deflation that responds to long-run demographics and economic reality is no problem. In fact, forcing the opposite is stupid.

<comment><USER10> _But a controlled deflation that responds to long-run demographics and economic reality is no problem._

Except for people with mortgages or student loans to pay.

<comment><USER7> They can refinance just like they refinance now to a lower rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most Western countries would have gone the same route if not for immigration and high birth rates amoung immigrants. Last month US birthrate fell below replacement rate despite immigrants if you take out immigrants us population is also declining.

</comment><comment><USER12> Are there any studies of the effect of falling population on the capitalistic model? It seems that much of our assumptions about the incentives of inflation, interest rates, etc. presume a slowly increasing population.

<comment><USER13> i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow.

I imagine it like this, say everyone but you died. you'd have all sorts of crap, you would virtually have anything you wanted. but with no people to make food, stuff, medicine, keep things running, eventually you have virtually nothing.

I have always believed the great depression was the result of a population decline from ww1 and Spanish flue that lead to the roaring 20s, followed by a bust that was only put to a close by the end of ww2

<comment><USER7> No. "You" would just make the things you need, slowly. Why would you have virtually nothing?

<comment><USER14> Because after everything starts rusting and decaying, you're left with just what you're able to maintain as an individual. Which is to say, you'd be approaching iron age technology after, say, 70-80 years.

There'd be plenty of metals all around, but, without a technological society to maintain them, almost all machines will have decayed beyond usefulness by that point.

There's a strong benefit from division of labor and economies of scale that would bite you HARD if you're all by yourself.

Anti-globalism and population decline together would slice and dice up useful populations to the point where you'd get strong negative productivity curves as time went on.

Slight population decline combined with increasing globalism and automation isn't too bad. Until you get to the point where you have an incredibly aged population. That starts to bite hard as it still takes people to take care of the elderly. So either productive people have to spend their time primarily taking care of the elderly (instead of inventing things and building things and growing the economy) or the elderly go without care. Neither are very good.

If we get increasing and arbitrarily good automation and AI, it's not so much a problem. The robots take care of the elderly, and human beings gradually decline in population to be replaced by sentient AI. But I guess that's still a problem if you don't want humans to become extinct.

<comment><USER7> You may not have experienced overpopulation. There is a point beyond which negatives outweigh the positives. Many people in the Old World feel they would like to live with more space between people. One person left is not a useful extremum to consider, but population declining to early 20th century levels is arguably good for everybody.

<comment><USER14> I don't buy that. The problem in the third world isn't over population but under development.

<comment><USER11> It is population growth speed that hurts the third world most as the population increase to fast for development to keep pace. But overall high population is a big problem people in the western/first world use atleast 10 times the electricity per person compared to the third world. First world population is 1 billion third world population is 7 billion. Similar is for other resources as the economic situation improves for these 7 billion they will put larger strain on all resources which are finite.

<comment><USER14> Hardly finite. Do you realize how much solar energy hits the Earth every second?

Provided we transition to clean energy (as we're doing) and electrify everything especially transport, there are plenty of resources.

And there definitely aren't 7 billion in the third world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The same demographic trend is projected to hit the USA if the USA doesn't negate it with immigration.

Really the entire industrialized modern world has shrinking or stagnant population growth. Educated people are having less children (if any) and later in life.

<comment><USER15> You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

Immigrants are going to retire too, and when they do, you're stuck with even more old people and still not enough working-age people for modern economy to function. Immigration is like going into debt to sustain quality of life.

Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would make for a miserable sight.

Edit: Is the idea to sustain the ever growing population anyway? Until what?

<comment><USER8> > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can.

> Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That > would make for a miserable sight.

That describes a huge number of native elderly in the USA too. Most elderly rely on social security entirely.

<comment><USER16> > > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

> Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can.

Not forever, though -- eventually everyone will immigrate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is not a bad thing considering how overpopulated Japan is.

<comment><USER18> Over populated? By what metric? Looking at a list of country by population density, Japan barely cracks the top 40:

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_popul...](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article describes a 0.2% annual loss. Is that so bad?

<comment><USER20> I think it's good. We don't need more people on the planet. We need to build sustainable populations and economic models. Growth! Growth! Growth! isn't needed right now. It probably won't be needed unless/until we move people to live on Mars.

<comment><USER21> I actually disagree a little bit. I think too many people could possibly drive demand for more development in space. Instead of Mars, what we really should be doing is mining the Moon and the asteroids, and building gigantic rotating space stations. Theoretically, we could house a nearly infinite number of people that way, with artificial habitats optimized for human living unlike the planet we're on now.

Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually getting wiped out somehow.

<comment><USER20> > Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural > stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and > eventually getting wiped out somehow.

I understand the population piece, but I don't understand the cultural piece. Japan has stagnated, and it's clearly culturally vibrant. On the other hand, the United States brings in immigrants and is growing, yet I'm constantly scolded and reminded that I have no culture since I'm just a white person.

Oh, and back to the population piece. We're approaching 8 billion. How do you feel about, say, 3-4 billion? I mean, it seems like that's a pretty good number of people to get things done. We'd have less people doing menial work (or not working) and we'd have more essential and necessary work, wouldn't we?</comment></comment></comment></comment>