How a few screws cost $2000 and a 240GB multinodes cluster cost $50 - <AUTHOR> http://www.quantisan.com/how-a-few-screws-cost-2000-and-a-240gb-multinodes-cluster-cost-50/

<comment><USER3> There are countless flaws in this comparison, but the one that stands out to me is the simple buying vs renting issue. They sourced screws that would be permanently installed into something. They rented a couple hours on a server.

Renting is always cheaper than owning. That's a pretty universal rule. Complain about the red tape all you want, I have also felt the burn of the "approved supplier" list. That doesn't excuse an extremely faulty comparison, however. It just clouds the issue.

I understand coming up with a better comparison would be a little more work than the immediate but completely faulty on-hand cost of the server instance they spun up, but I know the cost of the computer I own and the cost of a server I rent and I wouldn't use them to make a comparison just because I'm too bothered to come up with a real comparison.

There is also the issue of the fact that the $2000 number was pulled out of seemingly thin air, the possibility that they use approved suppliers to avoid the issue of counterfeit or sub-standard parts, which have killed people when installed into regular things like bleachers that stay on the Earth. It's the freaking Canadarm, god forbid we splurge now so we don't waste millions later fixing it or kill someone. When the end result of the materialized idea is it's going to be launched into space, the costs probably aren't so black and white.

Interesting story, but with so many variables unaccounted for I have a hard time gleaning any sort of lesson from it. Other than the fact that building a piece of equipment that will be launched into space involves a fair bit of red tape, which I was already aware of and am honestly kind of thankful for.

<comment><USER4> _When the end result of the materialized idea is it's going to be launched into space_

Yes, but OP clearly says the boxes were never to be used in production, only testing.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure I don't have to tell you how much of a bad idea is to use testing environments not matching production, for something to be put into space on top of that!

<comment><USER6> Did you not read the article? This was a simulated load testing device that they could plug production components into to to experiment on them without needing to have the entire space-going arm on hand and powered up. Suggesting that a test component like that needs to be built to the same standards as the space-going equipment is, ummm - how do I out this politely? Wrong…

<comment><USER7> I disagree here. While it is a testing component, part of any valid test is that it be replicable. If you are running down to 'Home Depot' and picking up some random screws with who knows what specifications, how exactly are you going to replicate the design here? Perhaps they will never need to do it and it is a genuine one-off design, but putting on the line a potential multi- million (billion?) dollar project? In the grand scope then, spending $2000 (which I doubt WAS the real cost here) on some screws just gets a _shrug_ out of me.

<comment><USER8> The safety cover is not part of the device under test and I doubt it interacts with it except during a catastrophic failure. It does not need to be replicated exactly the same in a future test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The comment backlash against this anecdote is a little odd to me. No, it's not a perfect analogy. No, the cost comparison is neither fair nor complete nor comprehensive.

But it _is_ an interesting connection to make, and there _are_ interesting ideas that the comparison generates, so let's treat it like a parable rather than a critical business analysis.

If anything, one of the most striking comparisons is how work was done in a government-funded research lab versus how it is done in a startup. Own vs rent, meticulous simulation vs rapidly-iterated prototyping, waterfall vs agile, regulation vs free for all.

The superficial details of the story aren't actually that important, but there's a lot of meat to dig into.

<comment><USER10> People are complaining because the author ignores his own take-away: "Different time, different industry."

All of this "agile," "free for all," "start up" cuteness is okay when you're dealing with software, which generally only ever results in frustration or at worst lost profits. The standards and practices in industries where things can go wrong in epic, expensive, and dangerous ways is obviously quite different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The first example includes cost of labour. The second example doesn't.

Two people playing with that cluster for a couple of hours cost more than $45.

Still, the author is right that when building physical products sometimes things are a lot more expensive than you think they're going to be because you're following some strict protocol.

<comment><USER12> Yes, you are absolutely right. But I think this is not the main point of the article.

The main point is that in a huge corporation with rules for purchasing and choosing suppliers, there's an insane amount of labor spent in administration even for purchasing even the most mundane things, as soon as it's something deviating from "the norm".

I've worked in a highly regulated industry, in a pretty big company, and my experience was the following: If you always order €1000 devices from a company, this company is registered in the internal databases, and had an audit from your quality assurance company. All traffic-lights will be green. You order the device, you, your boss, the financial responsible or whatever signs the document and they will bill one hour of work for that single-hand- move operation, which will be in the order of €100/$100. Total cost for your department of project: €1100 for tie €1000 device.

Now if you are in the lab, and think it's cool to use that Arduino shield for $10 on seedstudio for your lab-setup (which is probably a completely reasonable approach, as you only want to turn on/off that light/motor/... you normally would have to do manually for your experiment/measurement/test) the pain begins:

Seedstudio is not on the list of approved vendors, the QA team has to be persuaded that this is not a item that will ever reach a customers installation so they don't travel there to do an audit of the ISO9000 compliance (or whatever special regulation your partícular industry demands). Purchasing will complain that seedstudio has never signed your "terms of order" (and they will just throw away the 10-page-legalese anyway for $10...). And controlling will complain endlessly about the "proper inventory code" for a "seedstudio stepper motor shield". They'll also give you a sticker and make it a "IT inventory item" because it can be connected to a PC. In the end you'll have 5 people bill each 2 hours on that issue, and your project will be billed 5 _2_ $100 + $10 = 1010$ of the Arduino shield. And you'll be known as "that hacker guy" that "constantly orders strange things from chinese companies" through the whole company.

Everyone new to that kind of big corporation tries this once, or twice, and then decides that it's just not worth it. In practice, you'll buy it on your private credit card, and hand it in as "travel expenses" on your next business trip. Or you'll have subcontractor already working with you that will order it for you, forward the device, and just put "Misc. manufacturing material. $50" on the next monthly $20'000 bill that on one will ever check.

<comment><USER13> So, fight inefficiency with fraud. Got it.

Each of those arcane rules was probably put in place because someone a long time ago did something they weren't supposed to do. "Working the system" by intentionally ignoring the rules begs two questions: who needs these rules, and how long until you get caught and more rules are piled on for the next guy to get jaded about?

At some point it becomes madness. Sometimes that's when your company gets its lunch eaten.

<comment><USER14> Well, if you see it from the perspective of a corporation then procurement is probably one of the fields most ripe for fraud.

If you're just able to hand in an invoice to accounts payable then it's very, very easy to come up with bogus invoices. In fact this used to be a quite common scam.

Thus those rigid controls on all things procurement.

I worked for a variety of global companies and government entities. Setting up the whole invoicing process is generally a pain and usually you'll have to wait for a couple of month until the process works flawless.

Once it works it usually does work flawless.

I'm not arguing that this is great. But I can understand where a company is coming from, since the whole field of procurement is just a huge invite for fraud and abuse, if it's not rigidly controlled, which, I'm afraid, also involves an approved supplier list.

[EDIT : Spello corrected]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ordering from an approved supplier with a traceable chain of delivery for equipment used in a space program seems quite reasonable to me. There is a reason that people from the more traditional engineering disciplines (aerospace, chemical, civil, mechanical) are so anal-retentive about "proper engineering guidelines." It's because they deal with things that blow up, and when they do blow up shoot turbine blade shrapnel all over the place. Nearly everyone working in these fields has some story about how a little screw up in one out-of-the-way component caused some epic disaster that involved fire.

Yeah, sure in this case it was just some screws on a plastic housing and there was a 99.999% chance that everything would've been fine. But you don't want to make exceptions, because if you play fast and loose here and there, eventually all the prudent practices go out the window and you're no better than the software guys.

<comment><USER15> < _and you're no better than the software guys._ >

This is a huge point that many HNers probably don't get(but they think that they get). Releasing patches/bugfixes doesn't work so well on physical stuff. If Amazon AWS goes down, a group of people can figure out what went wrong, fix the issue and "reboot" the system and all that is lost is a bit of revenue and a portion of their reputation. When pieces break on heavy iron you don't have the time to figure out what went wrong and then fix it because someone is about to crash. Hence the difference between the traditional engineers and the software folks is the traditional engineers have to fix stuff before it breaks, software engineers can afford to fix stuff after it breaks.

<comment><USER10> > Hence the difference between the traditional engineers and the software > folks is the traditional engineers have to fix stuff before it breaks, > software engineers can afford to fix stuff after it breaks.

Absolutely. The mindset is just very different. I remember once running some software in debugger during a major tech demo, and fixing a display bug I saw was going to become a problem in the next few minutes using Edit & Continue in Visual Studio. That's the "software guy," "start up," way of doing it. That shit would never fly with "hardware guys."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This happens all the time in government. Business has the lucky position of constantly scrambling to cut costs, cut redundancy, cut inefficiency. Otherwise they'll be beaten by a new company that isn't tied down by self- induced paralysis. The government has no such incentive to do so. When faced with a choice between saving fifty billion dollars and having the _assurance_ that everything is hunky-dory, the government will spend the fifty billion dollars without a second thought.

One of my duties, along with being a radio technician, is ordering replacement parts for the systems that we work on. Some of the stuff is expensive and reasonably so - for example, a circuit board with $200 bucks in components is $20,000 because it has to be professionally made and is basically a one-of-a- kind part. The supplier has to charge that just to recoup the costs of retooling. We accept this because we need very reliable parts on radar systems and are willing to pay for the assurance that these parts will be good.

On the other hand, I just ordered an audio cable through the FAA. Simple two- wire audio cable... $333.45. I could've bought the exact same thing from Radioshack for five bucks. Or Monoprice for one dollar.

At one point, Raytheon told us that we were not allowed to do any intermediate-level maintenance (anything involving fixing circuit cards) on their stuff. We were expected to send the bad cards to them, and they would give us replacements and bill us for $10,000 each. The chief warrant officer laughed, said "Fuuuck no," and told us that if we could easily fix it, do so.

Raytheon realized we weren't sending them any circuit cards and called the commanding general to get him relieved. He didn't get fired, but we started sending the cards to them for broken 2-cent resistors. For ten grand each. Same thing with $30,000 power supplies, etc.

Right now, the government has declared that getting office supplies from Staples is horrible. We're supposed to get them from Servmart, which sells them for five times the price... or more. Cheap-shit ballpoint pens for a dollar each when I can get Bics for $4.60 for 72 of them.

Your tax dollars at work, gents.

</comment><comment><USER17> Screws for spacecraft vs borrowing a machine to play with, ok. $2000 vs $45.

Someone explain why a frying pan and a Raspberry Pi cost the same.

<comment><USER18> Wow - That is a really amazing question. I'll be wondering about it for a while...

The following is speculation.

On AliBarBar, you can find wholesale pans at source in china for $1 each. The price of pi like devices is about $30 dollars.

So, why do pans get so much more expensive as they cross the ocean?

1\. Cost of postage

2\. Protectionist import taxes. Here is Europeans list of things they are thinking of levvying punative taxes on. It's long. <http://trade.ec.europa.eu/tdi/notices.cfm>

3\. Regulatory approval. The burden of bringing a new electronic device to market is pretty high. You need specialist facilities (or to pay a lot of money to a test lab) to prove electrical emissions are fine. This is why so many Chinese designs never make it to the UK. Alibaba is full of lovely android powered arm net-tops, but you note the ones you see in electronic stores are from the same limited range, even the cheap ones. This is why.

I presume the same is true for pans. So although designing a pan and bringing it to manufacture is simpler than manufacturing a new ASIC or even embedded computer, only a very few pan designs can be sold in the UK. It just isn't worth bringing another one through approval (unless it's much cheaper). And the approved designs can sell for much more.

One hears about western companies keeping as much of the 'value add' as possible out of China and India, possibly because it's so expensive to retrieve money once it's in there. I wonder if this also is part of it.

<comment><USER6> "So, why do pans get so much more expensive as they cross the ocean?"

My guess? Because pans get sold by experienced companies who recognize that the price of an item is decided by its utility and the amount people are prepared to pay for that utility, not anything to do with the cost of manufacture. The gap between the manufacturing cost and the utility value of an item only lets you choose whether or not to be in the business of selling that item.

<comment><USER19> >Because pans get sold by experienced companies who recognize that the price of an item is decided by its utility and the amount people are prepared to pay for that utility, not anything to do with the cost of manufacture.

The price of an item is decided by supply and demand. The only way you get a retail price which is significantly higher than the manufacturing cost is a lack of competition.

For items like pans this is probably more at the retail level than the manufacturers. I kind of doubt Walmart is buying $1 pans for $45 and selling them for $50.

<comment><USER6> No, I think this is where the "pan selling industry" and the "tech toy/trinket selling industry" are different.

There's something going on in the "pan selling industry" which results in very little "race for the bottom price" type competition - there are clearly many individual companies importing pans from China, but the "well known retail price" of those pans is ~$30 no matter which retailer you buy it from (within reason - at least within enough reason that all the $30 price-point retailers are still in business).

Tech toys, on the other hand, quite often end up in the "race to the bottom" price category - with many innovative and desirable items ending up available from sites like Alibaba or DealExtreme at ludicrously low prices.

I think part of it is the audience - the "pan buying demographic" is probably a lot earlier in it's uptake of globalised web based purchasing than the demographic who's buying Arduinos and RasberryPis. Perhaps one day your average mid-western housewife will say "I need a new saucepan, I'll just check Alibaba before I drive to the mall and pick one off the shelf at Walmart - <USER2> I can save $20 and only need to wait a week I'll just get it delivered."

But like I said - I suspect it's "experienced companies" who are not exactly colluding or price-fixing, but who all know that it's better for _all_ of them to keep pans priced at ~$30 and have everybody make margins of almost $29 per sale, rather than end up trying to compete on price at $5/pan knowing that the total market for pans won't increase just 'cause the prices drop 85%.

(And sometimes, you get the evil-Walmart-effect, where someone big enough to absorb the temporary losses chooses to drop the consumer-expected pricing down to $2/pan, waits out until the competition goes broke and vanishes, then puts the prices back up near $30/pan while owning all or most of the market.)

<comment><USER19> >There's something going on in the "pan selling industry" which results in very little "race for the bottom price" type competition - there are clearly many individual companies importing pans from China, but the "well known retail price" of those pans is ~$30 no matter which retailer you buy it from (within reason - at least within enough reason that all the $30 price-point retailers are still in business).

That's what I'm saying -- they don't compete with each other. There isn't enough competition that anyone decides to try to improve their market share by lowering prices, because it's just Bed, Bath & Beyond and Sears and such like "competing" with each other in any given local area, and not enough people buy housewares over the internet to move the needle against those guys.

>I think part of it is the audience - the "pan buying demographic" is probably a lot earlier in it's uptake of globalised web based purchasing than the demographic who's buying Arduinos and RasberryPis.

More than that, electronics are purchased in bulk by corporate purchasing departments. If you're buying 25 new devices every two years you may not be such a big fish that you qualify for a volume discount, but you're certainly spending enough money to justify a significant amount of comparison shopping, which means a high price elasticity of demand and an immediate market share advantage for retailers who engage in price competition.

>But like I said - I suspect it's "experienced companies" who are not exactly colluding or price-fixing, but who all know that it's better for _all_ of them to keep pans priced at ~$30 and have everybody make margins of almost $29 per sale, rather than end up trying to compete on price at $5/pan knowing that the total market for pans won't increase just 'cause the prices drop 85%.

The phrase you're looking for is "conscious parallelism." You get de facto collusion without communication by means of everyone adopting the strategy that they not be the first to engage in price competition. It works only so long as you have sufficiently few competitors that all of them religiously follow the strategy -- because having a third of the market with 5X the margins is more profitable than having the whole market at 1/5th the margins. The problem comes when you have more competitors, in which case someone decides they would rather have half of the market at 1/5th the margins than 1/15th of the market at 5X the margins, and believes (perhaps correctly) that they will be the one to survive a price war. This has basically been Walmart's business model for probably the majority of the products they sell, and Amazon et al are now doing the same thing even more aggressively on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is why as an intern at NASA I decided government work wasn't for me and I eventually ended in startup world. However, I think there is something to be said for creating within strict guidelines and procedures, it can sometimes lead to amazing engineering achievements.

</comment><comment><USER21> This also shows in how quick you can iterate. The "REPL time" in mechanical engineering has decreased a lot with CAD software but it's still insanely long compared to software development.

I used to work in a lab with a researcher who designed complex mechanical systems with lots of rotating parts made from rare and expensive materials. Everytime he needed even the slightest modification he had to wait for at least three months to have a new part machined.

</comment><comment><USER22> How a comment cost $10,000 and a car cost $5: I got you all to read this, wasting your time and electricity, computer costs, etc. In contrast, I got a cab yesterday and it only cost $5.

I don't generally insist that everything posted be transcendent, but I fail to see even a fair point being made in the post. If the point is "buying things for an aerospace corporation is more expensive than renting an hour on EC2", okay, but we sort of knew that already.

</comment><comment><USER23> I work in hardware, and wanted to give my perspective on this.

Designing and building hardware is expensive, really expensive. If you don't take the time to follow proper procedures you are not only wasting your time, but often hundreds to thousands of dollars of parts you are never going to use. Going ahead without thinking can easily put you 2 or more weeks behind just because that is how long it takes your supplier to make what you ordered. You don't just quickly spin up an instance of a test, you have to buy or rent equipment that is often in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

I can see exactly why you wouldn't want to just go to Home Depot when working on equipment like what MDA makes. Say you go to Home depot and buy your fasteners, now the company has to pay for your time and reimburse the cost, which is almost certainly going to be as much or more to process than the courier charge ($30-$40) to ship the parts from the company you are making monthly payments to regardless. Then there is the additional risk of bringing in parts that could get mixed up with real production parts. There is a huge risk if you somehow get that Home Depot fastener mixed up with the special aerospace fastener you are using, the extra cost is worth it as insurance that "bad" fasteners aren't getting into the product. I can say from experience, it is ridiculously easy to get parts mixed up even when you are careful.

<comment><USER24> I fail to see how filling out $2000 in paperwork will stop you from getting screws mixed up. Because that's what the cost was, apparently. Not the actual equipment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Those rules are important. Not every company in the world is a start up with <100 people. Once you have thousands of employees, you need controls. You can't have interns selecting suppliers or putting stuff into the bill of materials, are you serious with this?

</comment><comment><USER26> Unfortunately we're just as much to blame for the red tape. It didn't get created out of a vacuum, it was created to protect people. I wrote a whole blog post called Why Does a Hammer Costs $5000 at [http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer- cost...](http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/)

</comment><comment><USER27> why, in Russia, on government sponsored Olympic village construction projects $2k for a few screws is strikingly cheap.)</comment>


The myth of the 'agricultural revolution' - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history <comment><USER2> Wealth inequality seems a meaningless measure to apply in retrospect to societies which had no material wealth. Even if these groups were materially egalitarian (i.e. everyone is poor by modern standards), I doubt that there was real equality. The fact that some men would have reproduced with multiple women while others did not reproduce at all is an example of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article follows the tried-and-true format of "Everyone used to think ABSOLUTIST_STRAWMAN_NO_ONE_ACTUALLY_BELIEVES was true, but now we've learned the issue is more nuanced."

<comment><USER4> "ABSOLUTIST_STRAWMAN_ _NO_ONE_ _ACTUALLY_BELIEVES" This is itself a strawman!

They spent huge swathes explaining exactly what was assumed to be true and by whom, and what is still assumed by certain people/fields etc. And if the article isn't enough go read the comments section where the two authors (who are at the top of their field*) answer questions and critiques.

Going by many comments here it would seem many have skimmed the article because it's too long and have come away with their own constructed reality of what it is even saying in the first place based being reactionary to certain statements without bothering to take in the context of what surrounds them. Similarly the comments section of the article consists of the authors re- iterating what they've already said.

Yes it is nuanced, which is why it requires a close reading.

David Graeber is easily one of best anthropological theorist of his generation from anywhere in the world. People who dismiss this because 'evidence' should wait for the book--a good chunk of which will be nothing but citations. This is not some generalized Joe Rogan friendly pop science or pop history (see: Pinker and Harari).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not buying this guy's long-winded "debunk." I think the book Sapiens does a better job at discussing the potential theories and the evidence to back it up.

</comment><comment><USER6> The authors are arguing that findings in anthropology and archeology, if further researched for many more decades, will reveal that it is possible for our modern industrial societies to abolish inequality and become anarchist socialist regimes.

It has some interesting facts, but also some essential errors. Rousseau did not say the original state of nature was people living in small bands, but rather entirely independently. Anthropologists have never said that the original foraging bands were independent,but were always parts of tribes. And they have for a long time held that foraging tribes in areas with a high concentration of food resources, such as the American Pacific North-West, were sedentary.

Perhaps most important is that foraging tribes, due to population pressures, engage in regular violent conflict over land. With the coming of agriculture such conflict intensifies, and eventually leads to highly inequal militaristic civilizations.

</comment><comment><USER7> TL;DR: Ancient hunter-gatherer societies, in at least some instances, may have transformed from small bands into larger groups (and then back) through the course of a year. In the process, they could also move from more authoritarian to more egalitarian and back. Therefore everything everybody thinks they know about the origin of authoritarianism and inequality is wrong.

But they took 50(!) screens of text to say it, while presenting what should have been said in one-fifth of the words...

<comment><USER4> Please don't tl;dr when it's clear by your summary that you haven't read the whole thing.

<comment><USER7> Actually, I did.

<comment><USER4> Well then why is the tl;dr literally only one of the configurations/examples they describe in relation to their numerous other large points?

This related to the larger point that it is a misnomer that authoritarianism emerges only in larger groups, agriculture/ civilizations, etc, and that actually egalitarianism is _not_ some default mode for small groups.

 _One of the biggest points,_ for example, was that 'civilization' does not come as a package. The world's first cities did not just emerge in a handful of locations, together with systems of centralised government and bureaucratic control. That it no longer makes any sense to use phrases like 'the agricultural revolution' when dealing with processes of such inordinate length and complexity.

Another point made early on was about the assumptions about the probability of achieving emancipation from more authoritarian modes organization. The likelihood we'll all just place ourselves in some form of voluntary servitude. The myth that our innate drive for freedom somehow leads us, time andtagain, on a 'spontaneous march to inequality'.

That the attempt to form 'big picture' narratives has been a source of much of the bullshit (pop history, pop science, drawing on outdated economic theory, and outdated archeology, cherry-picking sources--basically anyone Joe Rogan has on his podcast!).

Their summary alone was about 8 large paragraphs long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > This is important because the narrative also defines our sense of political > possibility.

The thesis rests on this assumption, but I kind of doubt that people base their political beliefs on how early agricultural societies ordered themselves.

<comment><USER9> Even if they did, the inequality level was certainly far smaller pre- agriculture (PA) than it is now. If you measure it in sexual partners and food in PA, the difference PA is still much smaller than today. Kings and billionaires came when agriculture did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mostly a lot of establishment bashing because 'they' are dumb and he is not. There are competing theories about the emergence of farming, even if not as fast as often stated it was still a profound revolution.

</comment><comment><USER11> What a horrible layout. This article may have been written as an advert for Firefox reader view

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess in those historical egalitarian cities they had a more egalitarian family structure? What a load of codswallop

<comment><USER13> Could you please read [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and follow those rules when commenting here? They include these two:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

"Don't be snarky."

<comment><USER12> I wasn't trying to be snarky, was just objecting to the conclusion of the piece. It argues that inequality in society projects from the structure of family relations, but nothing was spoken about those relationships in the small being any different for their historical examples of egalitarian societies. I'm probably not well enough educated to read this article properly, but the conclusion seems to be weakly supported to me.

<comment><USER13> > It argues that inequality in society projects from the structure of family > relations, but nothing was spoken about those relationships in the small > being any different for their historical examples of egalitarian societies.

That's the sort of substantive point we're looking for in the first place!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Looking for a designer co-founder - <AUTHOR>

Hi, my name is Jared. I am 21 and just finishing up my junior year as a CS major. For the past 1.5 years I have been working on a side project called Idealist, a collaboration tool. My time has been spent doing market research, building, and pivoting. I have learned some cool things along the way. I am confident that I have found a market to compete in full of paying customers. Idealist is definitely not the first product to the online collaboration space. However, many people are still using e-mail to collaborate because they are unaware of better solutions. I would like to take Idealist to the next step with the help of a co-founder.
So, Idealist is a real-time collaboration platform. Initially, I started out building a list-making tool. After some market research and talking with potential customers I learned that distance collaboration is a very common problem. In fact, many people are willing to pay a lot of money to improve their ability to communicate online. (see pg's Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas)
So far I have built a web app that is somewhere in between launching and the prototype phase. You can actually sign up for it and take it for a spin at goidealist.com. Currently the focus is on making lists, which I hope to downplay in future iterations. I have also developed an iPhone and iPad app. The iOS apps are unpublished for now because I am still tweaking the core of the service.
I am looking for a design-savvy co-founder who wants to try a startup. If distance collaboration is an interesting problem to you then drop me a line at cofounder at goidealist.com. <comment><USER2> Just wondering, why do you think you need a designer cofounder? I just took a quick look at your site, and truthfully the design looks much better than most early stage startups. Did you do this design yourself, or did you previously have someone else doing design that you are no longer working with?

<comment><USER2> Also, I would suggest that you allow a larger number of lists for free accounts (more than the current five) but instead limit the number of private lists (in fact, I would argue that all lists created by free users should be public).

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually did the design myself so I am glad that you do not think it too horrible. ;-) Initially I had a business co-founder (bad idea) which did not work out. Doing the design is much more difficult to do myself than the coding. Having somebody else to bounce ideas off of also helps tremendously.

Also, I agree with you that free accounts should not be limited to 5 lists. In the next release this limitation will be removed. In its place collaboration features will be limited for free accounts. Forcing free accounts to make public lists is an interesting idea that I am going to consider. Thanks for the ideas!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The app looks great imho. Well done on design and from what I can see the interface is simple and usable.

One question...why would I use this over a shared google doc or a hackpad?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have actually never ran across hackpad, thank you for sharing that. As far as using Idealist vs Google...I will never ever look at your data, analyze it, or share it with advertisers, which is reason enough for me. I also believe that I provide a better cross-platform experience than Google Docs. This is hard to back up since I have the unpublished iOS app sitting on my desk.

<comment><USER4> What about Evernote?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey Jared,

Great work thus far. I'm curious, do you have any paying customers yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I do not have any paying customers outside of my circle of friends. This is for 2 reasons: 1) I just finished building the billing system 2 weeks ago 2) As mentioned, I have asked many potential customers what they would like out of a collaboration tool and if they would pay for Idealist. The response has been positive. I have not actually asked anyone to pay yet because the product has some key functionality under construction and changes frequently.

If it sounds like I spent most of my time focusing on product development instead of customer acquisition, it's true. I am looking to spend more time acquiring customers with a co-founder. The truth is that doing everything by myself is too much (and I have weaknesses too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a great way to build a company! good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi Jared, dropped you an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am writing a reply.</comment></comment>


Ash HN: Can I post a link about my writing service? - <AUTHOR>

I am an article writer , can I post a link about by writing service? Is that allowed in HN?<p>Thanks, Logesh <comment><USER2> Sure, as long as it's not spammy.

If you're offering article writing services for startups (to help with marketing or seo), then I'm sure many people here could use that—myself included.

Post the site, ask for feedback.</comment>


It's impossible to opt out of unsolicited emails from Heroku? "That is correct" - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/96yoKrq <comment> m-p-3 That would be a violation of the Anti-Spam Legislation in Canada.

</comment><comment><USER2> Would that be a GDPR violation?

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that it would be a GDPR violation if the email were truly unsolicited. In this case, it's apparently possible to opt out of the emails, albeit in an inconvenient manner, so I'm not sure it count as a violation.

<comment><USER2> I got the impression that it was impossible to opt out. The only solution offered was to ask the ex-client - a third party - to change the settings. That is not opting out.

<comment><USER3> If it went to court, I'm not sure what the court would decide. The solution offered was indeed to ask the ex-client to change the settings. The GDPR requires that those controlling personal data must offer a way opting out. What I'm not sure about is whether Heroku would be seen as legally controlling the personal data. Perhaps the ex-client is the one who has this control and who must offer an opt out. It would be interesting to know if any similar cases have already been judged.

<comment><USER2> Hmmm. I see your point.

I don't know if Heroku is the data processor or controller in this case, but I think it's the data processor. Let's suppose the ex-client is the data controller. The first thing is to tell the ex-client to change the settings, which doesn't seem to have been the case here.

If the ex-client does not change the settings (eg, perhaps from incompetence), and Heroku know about the issue, then are they obligated as a data processor to inform the ex-client that there is an GDPR violation? That's my reading of the last part of 28.3 GDPR.

And if that violation continues? ... I have no clue.

No idea either of if this relationship is covered under GDPR.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Longer, healthier lives will spark a new generational conflict - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614165/longer-healthier-lives-will-spark-a-new-generational-conflict/ <comment><USER2> "...and they'd have extra wisdom and experience to boot."

And that was the moment in the article where I realized the kids are gonna be just fine.</comment>


Child drownings in Germany linked to parents' phone 'fixation' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/aug/15/parents-fixated-by-phones-linked-to-child-drownings-in-germany <comment><USER2> Every day I fight the urge to tell people to get out of the elevator. The doors open, and 5 people are staring into their phones. It is like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone. I dare not speak ill of peoples fondle slabs.

<comment><USER3> Are they blocking others who want to enter/exit the elevator? "EXCUSE ME!" works.

Otherwise, if they choose a purgatory of never ending elevator rides, at least they are not behind the wheel of an automobile.

<comment><USER2> I have used that. I also sometimes say, "You have arrived" or "Welcome!", or "First floor!". Many of these folks are passive aggressive devs that I have to work with, so I have to tip-toe on the tulips to some degree.</comment></comment></comment>


Web Sockets in HTML 5 might solve the http pull problem once and for all - <AUTHOR> http://www.barklund.org/blog/2009/08/20/web-sockets-html-5-solve-http-pull/

<comment><USER2> Gotta hope that the reality will be as potent as the "hope" - since ubiquity of implementation of HTML5 may once again tax our patience. [If only all browsers updated as smoothly as FF (imho).]

I've also got to hope, along with commenter to the blog: "hope it won't involve the same amount of oddities between browsers, as for example XmlHttpRequest does."</comment>


iCloud Requires Cookies - <AUTHOR> https://www.icloud.com/enable_cookies/

<comment><USER2> Could this possibly be a shock to anyone?

<comment><USER3> I think the submission is more about the cute cloud eating a cookie.</comment></comment>


EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/eu-and-japan-create-worlds-biggest-free-trade-zone/a-47319521 <comment><USER2> Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them!

Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

<comment><USER3> For those interested in why - Japan always had very high tariffs on cheese (40% on WTO, 37.5% on EU). In comparison, the US has a general tariff of 10% on cheese, with many exceptions making it 0%.

[http://www.customs.go.jp/english/tariff/2019_2/data/e_04.htm](http://www.customs.go.jp/english/tariff/2019_2/data/e_04.htm)

[https://hts.usitc.gov/?query=cheese](https://hts.usitc.gov/?query=cheese)

Similarly high tariffs across the board on most imports has been the norm in Japan for decades, with many agricultural products also having quota limits. This led to potato shortages in 2017.

Free trade is great when applied evenly. If it takes reciprocative pressure from the US to cause others think differently and change the status quo, so be it.

<comment><USER4> > Free trade is great when applied evenly.

Free trade is great even when applied unevenly.

<comment><USER5> Surprised this was being downvoted because it is true. If countries engage in protectionism unilaterally, they are predominantly harming their own consumers and undermining competition of their own businesses.

As Friedman used to point out, if Japan wants to subsidize its steel at the cost of their own taxpayers, just take the cheap steel and be thankful for it.

<comment><USER6> Which works fine until they own a monopoly to a business with high cost of entry and decide to raise prices again. Things like this are rarely simple.

<comment><USER4> That's basically the fallacy of predatory pricing. It doesn't work. Sure, you can raise prices after killing the competition, but only so far as to not revive the competition. Your price ends up as the _fair market price_. Cost of entry is irrelevant here, it's a cost like any other.

<comment> vertex-four Sure, except that reviving the competition costs money in its own right many times - it's usually not a Bitcoin miner that can be turned off when it's unprofitable and turned on again with the flick of a switch when it becomes profitable to run.

So your price ends up at fair market price... when averaged over many decades, maybe, but likely not for long at any particular point in time. And in the meantime workers get screwed over as industries and skillsets lose economic value.

<comment><USER4> First of all, where's the evidence of these supposed high-entry monopolies? Seems more like a thought experiment to me.

Secondly, you're only looking at the negative consequences for _some_ workers. You're not looking at the benefit to _all_ workers, who pay lower prices as result of cheaper labor from abroad.

Suppose workers had been guaranteed their jobs for life because of protectionist policies. This is called mercantilism. Everybody pays more for everyone else's labor and nobody can benefit from comparative advantage. As a result, _everyone_ is poorer. This has been known for centuries and it has been accepted by economists across the political spectrum. Yet politically, protectionism never ceases to lose appeal.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried producing and assembling electronics in the west?

You don't have shops to buy parts anymore, you don't have assembly lines anymore, you don't have people trained in this anymore.

If China decided tomorrow to increase the costs of the electronics they export, you'd have to accept that.

Apple tried their best to move even some assembly back to the US, and couldn't even get the simplest custom screws made in the amounts they need. Only a single small company still had the tech to make them, and they couldn't produce enough, fast enough.

It's not just a single monopoly, the problem is that entire industries are gone, and it'd take decades to train workers and regain the institutional knowledge.

And this is just one example.

And your argument has one more flaw: free trade reduces costs of products, and wages. But it won't affect cost of housing (except over a timespan of decades due to cheaper labor and materials, but it still won't solve cost of land). Nor will it affect cost of utilities.

In our household, we're now spending 71% of our budget on rent and utilities. Under more protectionist policies, I might pay 20% more for products, but I'd also be making 20% more wages — and as result, I'd be better off (in fact, my disposable income after rent, utilities and food would almost triple)

<comment><USER4> > Have you tried producing and assembling electronics in the west?

Of course not, U.S. labor is far too expensive to do the kind of menial work required to assemble electronics, unless maybe it's a repair shop for certain products.

> You don't have shops to buy parts anymore, you don't have assembly lines > anymore, you don't have people trained in this anymore.

You don't need "local shops" to purchase parts for assembly lines. Ask Elon Musk if the biggest challenge in building an assembly line is procuring the parts, he will say: No. You have a worldwide integrated economy where you can buy basically _anything_. The number one challenge is labor cost.

In any event, training people for electronics assembly is trivial. If you can take apart an iPhone and put it back together, you're good.

> If China decided tomorrow to increase the costs of the electronics they > export, you'd have to accept that.

"China" doesn't decide the costs of electronics, individual businesses do. But even if China was dumb enough to slap tariffs on their own exports, there are plenty of alternatives. There is no monopoly. In fact, China is doing the exact opposite: They are artificially lowering the value of their currency to stay competitive.

You should also really look into how electronics are actually produced, there are numerous countries involved in it, each specialized into particular parts:

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/electronic-circuit- component...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/electronic-circuit-component- exports-country/)

> It's not just a single monopoly, the problem is that entire industries are > gone, and it'd take decades to train workers and regain the institutional > knowledge.

Actually, a lot of institutional knowledge remains with the companies that just use labor abroad. However, it also leaks into the domestic industry, that's why you have a lot of companies complaining about "IP theft" from China.

The broader point remains: There _is_ no monopoly. There is plenty of competition. Even if for a "relatively" short period of time (decades) there where to exist a monopoly, it could only sustain its higher prices for so long as it stays unprofitable to rebuild that infrastructure. At that point the "monopoly pricing" becomes "fair pricing".

> In our household, we're now spending 71% of our budget on rent and > utilities.

You should probably look into what building regulation (artificial scarcity) does to the price of rent. You can't blame free trade for that.

> Under more protectionist policies, I might pay 20% more for products, but > I'd also be making 20% more wages — and as result, I'd be better off (in > fact, my disposable income after rent, utilities and food would almost > triple)

First of all, why do you assume that rent and utilities would not rise in tandem with the cost of goods? Why do you believe rent in Silicon Valley is so high? It's the scarcity combined with the high wages of the tech workers.

Secondly, _you are losing your competitive advantage_. You are worse off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While lack of tariffs is nice, as a small-time seller, complying with all these VAT, taxing rules (Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate which is not related to VAT certificate) makes it quite complicated from compliance point alone. But I guess it represents general attitude towards business in europe. Not sure how it is like in Japan.

[edit] What I mean is that it is all fine if you can justify hiring a consulting service or actually establish an office there. But if you are too small for that - local rules makes it quite hard to sell in this market. So while free-trade indeed a positive, it is positive only for larger sellers.

<comment><USER9> That's true. But there is some progress on that as well. From Jan 2019, the so called VAT MOSS (mini one stop shop) is open to companies from outside the EU as well: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to- th...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-the-supply- of-digital-services-2019/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019)

I don't know how it works exactly, but it means that you can now supply digital goods and services to all EU countries after getting registered with the VAT MOSS instead of registering for VAT in every single EU country.

Also, for very small suppliers there is now a €10,000 (p.a) threshold (total sales into the EU) below which you don't have to charge VAT at all.

<comment><USER8> Just a perspective - €10k with a margin of 5% (is what I see after all the expenses for such a small volume) leaves you with €500 to comply with regulations. VAT compliance with the just UK costs us 700 GBP per year so far and few hours each quarter.

<comment><USER10> Cost/bureaucracy of doing business is a common annoyance unfortunately, not exclusive to one or other country and those should be passed onto the consumer.

These are rarely trivial on a small scale, small margin business.

<comment><USER8> That, as well as a way for companies to stiff competition - [https://sermondo.com/the-new-german-packaging-law-amazon- fba...](https://sermondo.com/the-new-german-packaging-law-amazon-fba/) : "Not participating in the system may be punished with a fine of up to € 200,000. It is conceivable that competitors will enforce the distribution ban by civil law."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Canada recently made a trade deal with the EU as well.

Our country (Canada) hasn't been pushing harder enough for this IMO, considering how greatly we benefitted from NAFTA it should have been our top policy objective for the last couple decades.

Modern countries would rather get lost in decades long mega-deals with 1000 conditions for every political crony connection / special-interest group ever than get an actual real "free trade" deal done.

There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market. When you could drive an hour south to the US and get countless things for 25% cheaper (clothes, shoes, cars, etc) not to mention the lack of access to media (streaming sites) and sports blackout contracts.

<comment><USER12> _> There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market._

I cannot find the link but no surprises when there was a report (from one of the EU organizations) that we pay the highest cell phone fees.

<comment><USER11> The high cellphone + ISP fees in Canada are a result of the monopoly the ~2-3 telecom companies were given by government a few decades back to "accelerate" broadband and mobile infrastructure development.

The only positive tradeoff we've gotten out of decades of paying 25-50% more per month than most countries is that our networks have been cutting edge. We got 3g, 4g, etc before almost everyone. But I don't attribute this to the gov, their investment was long ago, but rather the competence of executives being smart enough to maintain their monopoly without falling into the trap of falling behind as many monopolies do before being trumped by economic progress/tech (ie, see the taxi monopoly lack of tech investment before Uber/Lyft), and via the massive margins they get out of their monopoly pricing providing plenty of capital investment to prevent any sort of competition.

<comment><USER13> I doubt there are many countries with more than two or three competing networks. There may be a few more resellers, or even several dozens. But it's just uneconomical to build the hardware five times over.

In any case, a FTA is not going to change it.

<comment><USER11> So how does that explain the high cost of our networks vs other countries? I'm not convinced a regulated oligopoly is the only positive option.

If anything it's only positive for:

a) the private friends of government who profited when the business was kept 100% Canadian

b) the intelligence agencies who were given plenty of access.

Most of the ownership capital went to a small group of millionaires and billionaires. Meanwhile the jobs/network/other taxable services would still exist in Canada regardless of the nationality of the original investors.

Plus the wireless networks continue to be very closely controlled in these companies favour. They only recently allowed a single competitor into the marketplace in Canada, Freedom Mobile, and they have the best pricing with tons of data. The main monopolies still have nothing comparable price-wise - their only edge remains their network investment which will diminish over time absent more gov intervention.

But even getting Freedom Mobile, which had plenty of foreign investors, to be a thing was a huge controversial, challenging, multi-year deal, which was extremely risky for its investors because the Canadian regulatory agencies were very close to nipping the deal under extreme political pressure from the entrenched companies.

How exactly do we as citizens benefit from this?

<comment><USER14> I don't know.. Maybe Canada requires these networks to serve even the rural parts of the country? That would seem to be expensive. Or they charged extremely high license fees. Those work like a tax, making the specific service more expensive, but allowing for government services or lowering your other taxes.

In any case, it seems like you are maybe focusing too much on conspiratorial explanations like corruption and sourveillance. I know it's easy and somewhat satisfying to immediately assume bad faith, but if you always assume the worst, that is what you will end up with. Because if honest politicians trying to balance the complex and competing interests of a modern society somewhat fairly, and then get spit in the face whenever they meet someone in the streets, soon you will have driven out the honest ones, or their will to remain honest. Because why bother, when the reaction is completely disconnected from your accruing, anyway?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments."

This is a brilliant answer to the tragedy of the commons. Often times people ask why they should make great efforts to be more environmentally friendly when other groups are not. This creates multiparty incentives attached to real economic benefits to keep their word on climate change. I hope The US, China, and Russia all enter economic agreements with similar clauses.

EDIT: I didn't mean to single out those three countries. All countries should include these clauses in their economic agreements. India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada are top ten polluters that are not covered in this specific agreement or mentioned by me above.

<comment><USER16> The TPP would have folded in a bunch of environmental protection rules, but the US blew it up. It's debatable how good these protections would have been, but they were not nothing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans- Pacific_Partnership#Envi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans- Pacific_Partnership#Environmental_protection)

<comment><USER17> The TPP had many other issues though.

Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the new US-exempt TPP.)

<comment><USER18> What's your proposed alternative to this sort of international tribunal? To me it feels like obviously the correct solution, and e.g. the EU/EEA has this with the EFTA courts and the WTO has it with its courts. Point in favor:

1\. It makes sense for a corporation in say Malaysia to be able to sue Australia over state subsidies, otherwise they need to convince their own governments to bring it up at the inter-state level, and Malaysia may consider it too small of an issue to piss off Australia

2\. There needs to be one centralized enforcing mechanism. A Malaysian company can't sue the Australian government in its own courts (or Australia's), both would have an obvious bias towards their own country.

Even if we assume the courts are fair you'll create N^2 amount of enforcement relationships for the N countries in the deal. That's just redundant, and everyone has an interest in centrally set legal precedent.

3\. There need to be damages so countries can't circumvent the trade deal with what amounts to state-sponsored favoritism with impunity.

<comment><USER19> The presence of a central court that can regulate goverment that act rashly is one thing, to allow individual companies to sue governments is another.

<comment><USER18> Yes it's a different thing. I'm asking you to make the case that it's a bad thing, which you're not doing.

You're also assuming that all trade disputes are going to involve country X having an issue with country Y, whereas e.g. in the EU/EEA companies sometimes sue their own government for being in breach of the trade rules, and prevail in front of the EFTA court.

E.g. a meat importing company in Iceland sued the Icelandic state over the Icelandic government's ban on the import of fresh meat from the EU/EEA[1]. They prevailed, and now Iceland's having to allow that, over the objections of its powerful farming lobby.

It wouldn't have made sense for any foreign EU/EEA government to start a trade dispute with Iceland over this matter, but it got resolved because a local company was able to sue and have the EFTA court rule on the matter.

Why shouldn't the aggrieved party be able to sue?

1\. [http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet- Icel...](http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet-Iceland_s- restrictions-on-the-import-of-fresh-meat,-egg-and-dairy-products-in-breach-- ENG.pdf)

<comment><USER17> As I mentioned in my sister comment, because we have evidence that allowing companies to do this would've resulted in the tobacco lobby being able to overturn public health laws in Australia (because they tried to do it within an arbitration courts that they didn't have jurisdiction in). If the TPP was signed in 2011, Australia would've had to pay damages to Phillip Morris for passing plain packaging laws (something that is now becoming a more common law in many jurisdictions).

The problem with the EFTA (or ECJ) comparison is that those courts are designed to deal with the laws and directives passed by the EU/EEA. The entire point of the EU/EEA is that members democratically vote on laws that will affect members -- thus a violation of said laws by a government is similar (in principle) to any other violation by a government where an individual can sue the government for violating a law.

The TPP arbitration process is not like this at all. There is no democratic agreement on common laws that member states must not violate -- it's a process to allow a corporation to sue a government for enacting "discriminatory" laws (unless those laws are "fair and proportionate" \-- which obviously is a very wishy-washy constraint).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Finally a piece of good news in global politics

<comment><USER21> The best part is that tree trade is not contradictory with setting standards!

> For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate > deal commitments.

> The text also addresses sustainable development and sets standards for > labor, safety, environmental and consumer protection.

<comment><USER20> For sure. These days it seems like Canada and mainland Europe are the last bastions of civilization.

<comment><USER22> This sounds like a bit of a hyperbole no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "The service market will be opened, including financial services"

This is going to make the UK mad. But apart from that, wasn't there the position that services cannot be part of a trade deal?

<comment><USER24> There's the EU position that full and equal access to the services market is dependent on also allowing free movement of people, and the fairly standard EU position that foreign companies' access to its services market must depend on them following standards harmonised with EU law.

The former is a sticking point for the UK achieving _the same level_ of services access before, the latter an impediment to a UK government ratifying many other plausible trade agreements that would oblige the UK to mirror various EU corporate regulations, restrictions on state aid for some of its larger companies etc without being accused of "betraying Brexit" and "taking orders from Brussels".

Also beyond the formally stated positions, the EU has to consider whether not opening up certain areas of its services sector to UK competition might be beneficial or harmful to its Member States, and it might take the view that not allowing London to retain dominance in various financial services and insurance markets would be a very good thing for some European financial centres.

<comment><USER25> There isn't really much services market in the EU, the "common market" only ever really worked properly for goods. This is one reason the UK doesn't like it much - it's got a more services oriented economy than the other countries, but the EU doesn't care much to open up e.g. German service industries to British competition.

Meanwhile the EU only requires free movement of people for trade deals for geographically European countries, because those are the ones it feels it should be able to fully absorb, whereas it has no interest in trying to take over Canada or Japan. So whilst the UK is told to pay billions, accept unlimited immigration and obey the ECJ if it wants a trade deal of any sort whatsoever, Japan is required to do none of those things.

Ultimately this makes the EU a much worse deal if you happen to live near it than further away.

Also the Commission has made clear that the financial services market in the EU will be entirely closed to the EU no matter what happens, even if some deal is reached. Not tariffs, outright bans. There's no "sticking point" about it - the EU sees loss of access to financial markets as the penalty for any attempt to leave at all, or even just not join. See how Switzerland is also being banned from EU financial markets it previously had access to because of unrelated trade disputes.

<comment><USER24> The UK has substantial access to the European markets it's particularly strong in though, like marine insurance and financial services (including a large amount of Euro-denominated services business), European markets which we have voluntarily traded London dominance of for inability to participate in without relying on European business units. The fact that despite a general presumption in favour of a right to to bid on them, UK companies are not well placed to actually win contracts to (e.g) provide advice on German law in German is largely irrelevant to that and not in any sense an economic rationale for Brexit. We're not going to get more comprehensive services agreements with more promising trade partners as a result.

Obviously Canada and Japan have no freedom of movement requirements in their trade deals, but they also haven't asked for any access to many of the markets the UK has up until now benefited from. And as you say, the EU has some inclination to non-recognition of British services as a simple penalty, but it also has perfectly good reasons to keep Britain out of many of them in the interests of giving advantages to Member States where the business can be moved out of London without significant disruption, and because the UK's negotiating position starts from the ludicrous position that any standards harmonised with the EU should be possible for the UK to unilaterally rescind at short notice because sovereignty innit.

The UK has not been told that to "accept unlimited immigration...if it wants a trade deal of any sort whatsoever" \- quite the opposite - and it is sad that in an otherwise pretty nuanced post you have resorted to such blatant misrepresentations.

(It's pretty emblematic of Brexit that the post hoc rationale _for_ leaving the EU has become so focused on how relatively unattractive the options offered afterwards are...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This was news a few months, wonder why it's just now hitting HN.

FYI, many import tariffs on products like cheese and meats are not immediately effectively - they gradually phase out the tariffs over a period of something like 8-10 years, so cheese will continue to be expensive for quite a while.

<comment><USER16> It just entered into force today, that's why it's in the news.

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-19-785_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-19-785_en.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will consumers benefit from it? Can Japanese order from amazon.de without customs charges and vice versa?

<comment><USER28> Currently I can order cheap products (less than 20€) from China without customs fees or VAT. The shipping cost is around 1€. It means that it is cheaper to buy from China than from my local store. Unfortunately, that is about to change soon (customs fees for all products from China).

Having something like that between EU and Japan would definitely boost the trade.

Edit: I just checked and the same no customs fees rule applies already to Japan. I wonder if it is going to change at the same time as Chinese products get the customs fees.

<comment><USER29> The shipping only costs 1€ because China is abusing the international post system - the shipment cost is subsidized from your own taxes.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2169144/ch...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2169144/chinas- cheap-shipping-advantage-explained)

<comment><USER30> Yeah. What I found particularly galling is that often it's cheaper to send something from Shenzhen to Europe (from aliexpress, say) than the 50 km over to Hong Kong. Arghh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does Britain get kicked out of this deal after Brexit? Probably.

<comment><USER32> Yes.

<comment><USER33> No. They are kicking themselves out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Are there any downsides to this that were perhaps left out of the article?

<comment><USER35> The downside of free trade agreements is well studied: while overall it's a net positive for the economies involved, there are some individual losers.

<comment><USER36> I think the parent means things like, draconian copyright rules, ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), subversion of customer protection rules (e.g. selling GMO meat in EU), etc.

In addition, Japan and EU are obviously similarly (very highly) developed countries, so "free trade" between them is very close to "fair trade" as well, as opposed to e.g. free trade between EU and China would be (EU companies would skirt EU labour and environmental laws by producing stuff in China and freely importing into the EU).

<comment><USER37> Banning GMO meat doesn't protect consumers. It's just unscientific pandering to special interest groups.

<comment><USER36> You probably meant to write _allowing_ GMOs is pandering to special interest groups?

[https://qz.com/1524049/monsanto-is-at-the-center-of-a- plagia...](https://qz.com/1524049/monsanto-is-at-the-center-of-a-plagiarism- scandal-rocking-the-eu/)

<comment><USER38> It's benefiting the special interest of GMO companies at the expense of the special interests of stupid people who are irrationally scared of them.

<comment><USER39> GMOs, together with massive animal agriculture are a black swan in the making. Let's modify the organisms, create billions of them, have them as a testing ground for bacteria and viruses, let the bacteria and viruses evolve to eventually kill the resistant individuals, then after it happens we need 10 more years until more than a thousand billion individuals produce a human targeting strain.

There is absolutely no scientific way anyone can measure the risk without the effect of time.

Not to mention that my story is only one outcome out of many downsides and it's already happening with antibiotics abuse in animal ag.

The avian flu is a good past example. The disease sparked from a population of animals we raise the most. Hundreds of billions of chickens were Petri dishes for the ultimate strain of mammal killers. Intuitively these kinds of situations are inevitable.

<comment><USER38> How is raising GMO animals more risky? Or do you think the EU should mandate farming boars instead of pigs?

<comment><USER39> If you genetically modify animals to have a stronger immune system there's going to be a natural pressure for stronger bacteria.

Just like giving animals antibiotics to spur their growth is riskier than not.

<comment><USER37> Animals have been genetically modifying themselves to have stronger immune systems for millions of years. Are you proposing to halt evolution through natural selection?

<comment><USER39> I am not. I am saying that evolution is time tested on a huge scale, GMO can never be.

By using GMOs one is definitely going to get black swans.

<comment><USER37> Other techniques can produce genetic changes just as large as direct genetic modification. For example, irradiation, interspecies hybridization, and selective breeding. So your "black swan" argument is invalid.

<comment><USER36> Which of those techniques can implant virus/bacterial gene into plant DNA?

It's like saying "nuclear bomb could happen randomly in the universe" like yeah, it _could_ (and there are actually examples of natural reactors), but what are the odds, versus human engineering?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why does it only provide for free movement of capital and goods but not of people?

<comment><USER41> because it's just a 'free trade agreement' and Japan is not asking for membership in the EU (or EEA)

<comment><USER40> Labour is tradeable. You should be able to sell your labour with the same freedom others have to sell their goods.

<comment><USER41> you can trade your labor.

Freedom of movement for people in the EU is something different.

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free- movement-of-persons)

[https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on- foreigner...](https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on- foreigners/freedom-of-movement/freedom-of-movement-node.html)

Since Japan is not joining the EU and also not planning to do so, 'Freedom of movement' in the EU is not part of this (trade) agreement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is this meaningful for the average customer? I'd like to import two Switch games to the EU from Japan soon (eBay or PlayAsia). Will the agreement mean that there are no potential customs for me anymore?

<comment><USER43> I believe they have to be made in Japan, unless this is an actual customs union which is unlikely. Essentially, if a product is imported from a country A into country B, which has an FTA with country C, it cannot be imported (under the agreement) into country C unless country C has an FTA with country A or countries B and C have some sort of customs union.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is so awesome news. I see that in the local news this morning, that in my home country (Denmark), this free trade agreement is creating lots of news jobs with companies already announcing hundreds of new job. And this is just one day after the announcement. More of this to come in the next days and weeks.

<comment><USER33> Would you mind elaborating?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> And the UK will miss out.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is this a good thing in the end? Ecologically, hurting small economies (already happen in the eurozone)…

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I hear the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Estonia are hurting terribly.

<comment><USER47> But then there are also plenty of small and small-ish economies that haven't done so well from EU (particularly Euro) membership, aren't there?

<comment><USER14> Nope. Ireland has done excellent-it was the poorest country in Europe when they joined in the 1970s, today it's among the top. Eastern and south-eastern countries had lines for bread when the USSR dissolved. Ten years later, they joined the EU. Today, life in Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe.

Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it's closer to 3x Turkey.

<comment><USER48> Check.

 _" Ireland [...] was the poorest country in Europe"_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita#World_Bank_estimates_between_1970_and_1979)

Check 1972 figures.

Spain and Greece were poorer. The unlisted Soviet client states were likely even much poorer.

 _" Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe."_

Poland and Hungary have 1/3 the per capita GDP as Britain. ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita) )

 _" Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it's closer to 3x Turkey."_

( see previous link). 2017: Greek per capita gdp =~ $18.6K, Turkey =~ $11.5K.

Also (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita#IMF_estimates_between_1980_and_1989) ). Greece joined in 1981: Greece gdp per capita ~= $5.3K, turkey gdp =~$2.2K.

<comment><USER49> "Poland and Hungary have 1/3 the per capita GDP as Britain." More accurate comaparision would involve PPP numbers. $43k UK vs $29k Poland and $28k Hungary. So after all they ARE catching... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "The deal protects 'Geographical Indications' such as Cheddar, Kobe beef and Scotch whiskey"

Ironic

</comment><comment><USER51> UK comes out Japan comes in

<comment><USER41> Not really. With a free trade agreement Japan is not a member of the EU. Far from it.

The UK after Brexit eventually will also get a 'free trade agreement' of some sorts with the EU.

<comment><USER51> UK comes out

Scotland comes in :)

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola- stur...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-sturgeon-snp- undoubtedly-back-peoples-vote-brexit)

<comment><USER52> Then half of the NW and NE try to secede to join Scotland. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm glad the UK is a member of the EU so we can benefit from this.

<comment><USER47> So then it IS apparently possible to have a free trade zone without freedom of movement.

<comment><USER21> Of course. As a matter of fact, UK was never part of the Schengen Area.

<comment><USER36> It still benefitted from freedom of movement (which is defined as the ability to live, work and study abroad, and lack of discrimination between EU citizens and locals).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So does Britain get enjoy this for the two months before Brexicution?

<comment><USER55> yes

Come March 31st the UK has no trade deals with any country. Even the WTO schedules are up for argument in the unelected WTO court.

<comment><USER56> That's not strictly true, I know a few countries have agreed to roll over the deals the have with the EU over to the UK, not all have been signed and (not a great comfort) the only ones I know of that have (so far) are Isreal and (I think?) Australia

<comment><USER55> Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one

Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.

<comment><USER56> Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - [https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree- co...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-continuity- of-mutual-recognition-agreement)

<comment><USER55> That's not really a trade deal (well it's not listed on the page with the free trade agreements the UK has [0], nor on the list of preferential trade deals the UK has [1])

While the spin is "we're doing business", all this does is

"continue to benefit from existing arrangements for mutual recognition"

Given that those benefits are so insignificant they don't appear as free trade agreements says it all really. It's to do with certification (not tarrifs) in a few areas (Automotive Products, Pressure Equipment, Medical Devices etc)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements)

[1] [https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has- eu...](https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu-done/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tariffs worth a billion, what a joke. EU tariffs were already low for the most part. The real trade barriers that the EU imposes are its regulations that are favoring local business.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Be...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Bent- banana-and-curved-cucumber-rules-dropped-by-EU.html)

</comment><comment><USER57> Lowering tarifs in general are good but my bet is that this is not really going to mean that much.

This is only good for big corporations. For the rest it's bureaucrazy (pun intended) and frankly won't have that big of an impact no matter how big it is.

Neither the EU nor the Japan are able to drive the market in any significant way. So it's great for Siemens but won't really matter to the little startup.

<comment><USER13> How is it beaurocracy to go from tariffs to no tariffs?

Other than that, your cynicism is bland and boring. Why would consumers not reap at least some benefits from tariffs for cheese falling Faron 40% to zero. It's not like there's a big moat around the idea of shipping cheese from France to japan and selling it that would allow some monopolist to capture that difference.

<comment><USER57> For the small companies because of compliance they can rarely afford.</comment></comment></comment>


Dear Silicon Valley: A Doctor's Plea - <AUTHOR> I am an academic radiologist, and am considering writing a book to contrast how doctor's think to how engineers and computer programmers do, in an effort to increase understanding in both directions. My contention is that the potential for all of you to help patients is massive, but almost entirely unmet. Part of the reason is that the two ways of looking at problems are so different.
One idea I have for a theme is to explain how a relentless focus on an individual patient, as opposed to a focus on larger systems, vastly simplifies the problem. It turns out that a laser focus on the patient in front of you, as opposed to grand plans to revamp all of healthcare, powerfully clarifies the path forward. An example would be a truly clear, correct and comprehensive personal medical record tied to the patient and marked by a national patient ID; not a toy product like some that have been offered for smartphones, but an industrial strength, single authoritative repository of every aspect of the patient's health and care. This would stand independent of particular hospital systems, etc. Review of a patient's history should be a fascinating unspooling of their story that can be flexibly explored in time and space (body part) interactively. A beautiful graphical interface is paramount. If you think that current EMRs do this, you haven't worked in health care. Doctors and others spend an enormous amount of time simply to get the story straight. Many errors arise from the difficulties of this.
What kind of book about this topic do you think you would find most helpful and practical, or perhaps more importantly, inspiring?  What would you like to ask doctors about their work?
How can doctors most effectively work with you?
There is an amazing opportunity for you to help patients. Don't get discouraged. If I could write a book to encourage you, that would well worth the effort. <comment><USER2> I'd love to chat with you, I am the CTO of a health care startup and we have been deployed in hospitals across India and recently obtained our FDA and are moving into the US market. I have spent a lot of time prior to this startup in healthcare and know first hand how broken the system is as a whole. But can always learn more and I love discussing these topics with knowledgable people.

Much of what you say is along how we have approached our solution(s). We feel healthcare IT and systems are broken, EMR's/PCR's etc are just heavy weight, annoying and not functional for the nursing or physicians that have to use them. They ask you to do work that shouldn't need to be done if the system was designed properly. While we are not an EMR solution our focus is to remove the noise from the equation and get down to what matters, individual patients and the data physicians & care teams need to be able to see that is usually hidden under the covers.

My personal email is my username at gmail.com, it is also in my profile. If you would like to reach out to me I'd be happy to discuss my thoughts and would love to hear yours as I am sure we can both walk away more knowledgable.</comment>


Major League Baseball tickets are going biometric in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90201535/major-league-baseball-tickets-are-going-biometric-in-2019 <comment><USER2> This won't go over well with companies that pay for the suites as it introduces a huge hassle when inviting clients to ballgames.

"Hey, thanks for doing business with us! Come to a ball game at our company suite, free! We just need your finger print and a scan of your face!"

</comment><comment><USER3> Clearly, the reason MLB attendance is dropping over most if the league is because MLB and StubHub aren't doing _enough_ privacy suckage.

Just look at the privileges lists for the MLB Ballpark app and StubHub app on Google Play to see what I mean.</comment>


Ask HN: when can i say i know a programming lang - <AUTHOR>

when you say you know a x programming lang. what does that implies to whether you know syntax of the programming lang or all the libraries and method in the programming language <comment><USER2> Probably when you've found that you don't have to read the documentation for the base language in a while. Everyone constantly reads docs on infrequently used libraries and for gotcha parts of a language, but that's far different from having to look up how to create/destroy objects, perform all conditionals, use the data types, etc.

Equivalently: when you wouldn't be embarrassed in an interview to write something on the board in that language.

</comment><comment><USER3> I myself would say so if I can write effective code in it (beyond hello world) and understand the syntax. Many of the languages are too deep to know all the libraries, but you have enough skills with it and with a language guide or google to get it to do what you want.

</comment><comment><USER4> When given any set of requirements you can implement it in said language. You may not know every particular library but you know enough of the concepts to read the API and implement it, without hacking together a maintenance monster.

</comment><comment><USER5> When you have learned and tried out all of the clever bits and then gone back to writing simple code that is easy to debug and maintain.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would say that you know a programming language when you can contribute to an open source software and add value to the system (as judged by the community).

</comment><comment><USER7> On the same topic, how much should I know about concurrency and threading in any given language?</comment>


Paradox of Tolerance - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance <comment><USER2> Is this the same as the paradox where freedom must be restricted when it impedes others' freedom?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is like when 12 year old me decided not to go to bed on time and pointed out its impossible to go to bed at exactly 9, no matter what I did I'd always be a nano second early or late...

</comment><comment> kierk-ke-gaard Is a antinomia, not is paradox.

<comment><USER2> Seems to be both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A postulated paradox, usually cited by people desiring to suppress their political opposition.

Problem is, suppression does not make people change their minds, it only makes them more radical.</comment>