Arvind Kejriwal - <AUTHOR> http://techapj.com/arvind-kejriwal/

<comment><USER2> For those unfamiliar with the Indian political scene:

Arvind Kejriwal is a rookie politician who defeated (three-time Chief Minister of Delhi) Sheila Dikshit in the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections (held today).

He co-founded a political organization named Aam Aadmi Party (Translation: Common Man's Party) that won 28 of Delhi's 70 seats in its electoral debut, just 3 shy of BJP (an established National Party), and more than three times the no. of seats won by Indian National Congress (the incumbent party in Delhi).

Relevant background information on Arvind Kejriwal [0]

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

[Edit: corrected figures based on child comment]

<comment><USER3> > He co-founded a political organization named Aam Aadmi Party (Translation: > Common Man Party) that won 27 of Delhi's 70 seats in its electoral debut, > just 6 shy of BJP (an established National Party), and almost three times > the no. of seats won by Indian National Congress (the incumbent party in > Delhi).

AAP won 38 seats and BJP won 30 [0]

[0] [http://eciresults.nic.in/PartyWiseResult.htm](http://eciresults.nic.in/PartyWiseResult.htm)

<comment><USER4> I think you meant 28 and 31

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The case study of this party is kind of a _Proof of Concept_ , if you will, showing that -

1\. Elections can be fought with clean money, ( and the kind of donations that they received (in terms of quanta of individual contribution), where the mode should be well below 20$s per cap. makes it kind of a crowd funded campaign )

2\. The part that social media can play in mobilizing people and getting point across when traditional news media blacks you out.

3\. Targeted manifestos, like targeted advertisements engage people more as compared to conventional 1-state-1-manifesto approach..

4\. That there is a space for clean politics.

I am curious about how things will turn out for Delhi now, and for India in the coming LS elections.

<comment><USER6> The case study should note that:

The constituency of Delhi is:

1\. More educated than the rest of the country 2\. Has a higher level of income than the rest of the country 3\. Generally more cosmopolitan than the rest of the country.

I can provide sources for the first 2 if you would like. The third is debatable as the only evidence I have is anecdotal.

<comment><USER7> Point 2 is wrong. Tripura and kerala are more educated(94.05 and 93.65), Delhi is only having 86.3%.

<comment><USER6> You are correct. However, when I say "rest of the country", I mean national average. There are many parts of India that fare better than Delhi on a host of social indicators (ie. Kerala). That doesn't change my argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am very happy for Arvind. He could have been a millionaire while doing his IRS job. He left all that for his principles. He was maligned and constantly criticized. Still his party overcame all the hurdles. His rivals could afford funds(guess where they came from?) which are in orders of magnitude larger than his party's tiny 20 crores(less than budget of a Hindi movie). I wish nothing but best to him and hope he brings the change that India desperately needs.

<comment><USER8> correction: Not if he wanted to do it honestly. He would've become a millionaire only if he had taken bribes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Theres actually 2 other HUGE winners in these Indian elections: 1\. The Election Commission of India that galvanized 60-80% of the voters to turn out (normally its 30-40%). 70% women voter turnout. 90% 18-29 voter age turnout 2\. Youth voters < 29 yrs of age

India will see 500-600 mln voters turn out in May for the LokSabha elections. The US could learn 2 lessons from all this: 1\. How a true democracy with 60% voter participation works 2\. You can send a man to the moon but cant have a woman President. How do other countries integrate women politicians and why it works

<comment><USER10> >You can send a man to the moon but cant have a woman President.

That's not a fair critique at all. Had Barack Obama (first black president) not won, there's a very real possibility that Hillary Clinton would have been elected president. Both of which represent political firsts and a changing system towards greater integration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those wondering why this is relevant to HN: AAP or Common man's party (translated literally) is like a crowdfunded startup. This guy is a rookie in politics who managed to get significant number of seats in this election using crowd funding(through AAP's website). AAP, in itself, is like a startup which is trying to completely disrupt an industry which has been in control of two parties(mostly) so far.

<comment><USER12> Its just like crowd funded start-up who even stopped asking for funds when he had enough to fight for elections. Lot of Indians in India and other countries did help in donations. He was fighting from people's money for the people of the country . Fought election for first time and that too against veteran 15 year term serving chief minister and won.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some details for anyone who doesn't know about the systematic corruption in India:

Suppose you are running a business that has to pay tax on something (excise tax, tariff, etc). Every month, you put together the amount of tax you have to pay, along with a fixed bribe of around 5000 rupees (approximately 85 dollars) on top. Obviously, if you don't pay the bribe, the IRS will fuck with you until you do pay the bribe, so you pay the bribe.

The tax collector, along with collecting the calculated amount of taxes for each business, has to send 100,000 rupees to his boss every month. This is a fixed amount, the boss will usually not care how much the collector made in bribes as long as he gets his 100k. This boss will have to send 2,000,000 rupees to his boss, eventually culminating with the CM (Chief Minister) receiving a massive amount of bribe money each month.

However, the CM does not keep all of this money. Because the CM is dependent on his political party to keep his job, he will send a large percentage of this money to the party fund (which is usually under his control). During election season, this money is used to blatantly trick/pay off people to guarantee more powerful status for the party, which inevitably leads to a more powerful position for whichever corrupt person is at the top of the food chain.

Suppose you were an idealistic tax collector in this system of corruption, and one month you took some mushrooms or whatever and you decided you would no longer contribute bribes to the system of corruption. Your boss will not retaliate by having you killed or tortured, he/she will simply transfer you to a remote village with no electricity or running water. There, you will be hated by the villagers as the asshole tax collector. The mere prospect of uprooting one's family and lifestyle is more than any tax collector is willing to accept for the sake of idealism, so the systematic corruption continues, even today.

So, as this article suggests, there might finally be a guy at the top who will end the corruption and improve the system of taxation. His background as a tax-collector-turned-activist provides him with a high level of credibility, and I'm sure he'll go very far.

</comment><comment><USER14> Indians are brainwashed to believe that 'voting in elections = democracy'.

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-07/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-07/news/44909513_1_kapil- sibal-democracy-true-meaning)

<comment><USER5> In-fact, It is the very same philosophy that AAP stands for, that 'voting in elections != democracy',

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am surpised to see "AAP" Aam Admi Parties name in CIA's website : [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/fields/2118.html) (Check out India) You can see its clearly mentioned in the note that "India has dozens of national and regional political parties; only parties with four or more seats in the People's Assembly are listed" then how cam AAP is already there ?

<comment><USER16> I can see AITMC at #3

<comment><USER15> Sorry My Mistake Have edited above answer.

But how can AAP be present in list. Election result got declared today and still they do not have even 1 assembly member (Signature are yet to be made. There is situation of reelection).

AAP was in the list since so many days...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This needed to be shared, thanks for putting in the effort ! [ I was _thinking_ of writing a similar piece myself, but you just DID it ]

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, indeed this needs to be shared. Glad you liked it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What a timely post! I'm in Delhi now for a wedding and there's definitely a ton of celebration going on. Here's hoping this gets past the honeymoon phase and turns into something bigger.

</comment><comment><USER18> Corruption is the main reason keeping India from being a developed country. Hope this guy brings the change India needs.

<comment><USER19> Not really. India's problems are almost entirely due to colonialism. At independence, life expectancy was 30 years, literacy rate was 15% and the population was about 300 million and IIRC the avg per capita GDP was approx $300 in today's dollars. (If these numbers seem unbelievable, I suggest looking them up. They are easy to verify.)

Combined with this, India inherited a dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy and law and order system which was aimed at preserving British control over India and not really do the actual job of governing the country. The founders did the best they could, and copied a bunch of seemingly good ideas from a bunch of western economies. This failed miserably because they overlooked the fact that western economies were fuelled by slavery, colonization, reckless industrialization and exploitation of natural resources. India doesn't have the natural resources like the US because there isn't any land left to be stolen. Exploiting colonial resources like the European powers is also out of the question. Bonded labourers etc. were (are?) present to some extent, but large-scale disenfranchisement and exploitation of entire demographics similar to the model used by westerners fifty or so years ago is not really tenable in today's world.

The point is, it's now obvious that the western model was bound to fail, but unfortunately this wasn't obvious back in the 50s. It's only now that India is making visible progress towards the goal of development, but this is largely because of the ground work laid in the last 50 or so years in raising levels of education and healthcare (which of course still have quite a long way to improve) to a reasonable baseline.

<comment><USER20> I'm confused.. India's "dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy and law and order system... failed miserably" because it was cloned from the west. But you're also saying the government laid the groundwork over 50 years to raise levels of education and healthcare so that India is now making "visible progress".

I don't think @sreeni_ananth's comment was discounting the role of colonialism, but rather looking at the way out. There's not much we can do now about what was done to India in the past (except maybe harboring ill will against 'the west'?). But looking to India's future, I'd have agree with him that the main issue standing in the path of India's full recovery and health is corruption.

<comment><USER19> > _India 's "dysfunctional governmental bureaucracy and law and order > system... failed miserably" because it was cloned from the west_

A lot of governmental bureaucracy and the mechanisms for implementing law and order was cloned from the British not the west and the "redesign" that Nehru, Ambedkar and friends attempted, tried to borrow ideas from the US and Soviets without any real success. Just one example of the inherited system failing miserably is the judicial system which is a clusterfuck today purely because it simply doesn't scale. India has 1 judge per 100,000 people, while the US has something like 1 per 1000 while Sweden has 4 per thousand. Why is this? Partly economics and partly because the British weren't really interested in a working judiciary. They wanted a kangaroo courts to put dissidents into jail, not enforce law and order.

In retrospect, the ideal solution would have been to legitimize, educate and train the native law enforcement mechanisms like the panchayats. But again, this didn't happen because the (a) the british weren't interested in solving this problem and (b) Indians were enamoured with copying the west.

> But you're also saying the government laid the groundwork over 50 years

Yes it did and not because they had any brilliant ideas or execution here. Far from it. But instead, for the first time in about 200 odd years somebody actually tried to do what was good for the Indians instead of bleeding the country dry.

> There's not much we can do now about what was done to India in the past > except maybe harboring ill will against 'the west'?

This is a mistaken notion. I'm reminded of Obama quoting Faulkner, "the past isn't dead and buried and in fact it isn't even past." That's very much true today and it's important to point out that western riches weren't gained by brilliant ideas but were simply stolen at the cost of great human suffering in Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas.

The least we can do now is campaign for free immigration. If westerners really think all humans are equal, they shouldn't discriminate for jobs based on imaginary lines in the ground. Of course, they don't really think so and they want to preserve their stolen wealth so they won't agree to this but we mustn't be afraid to point out their hypocrisy here.

> I'd have agree with him that the main issue standing in the path of India's > full recovery and health is corruption.

You're very very very mistaken. I suspect you come from a privileged middle- class background and think of the bribes you have to pay in government offices as problems that India needs to solve. Even if all corruption stopped instantly today - what would that actually achieve? Do you think the 40% of the country that's living without toilets would get access to them? And more importantly, do you they think would start using these toilets if they had access to them? There are toilets being used as godowns in various places across the country. Think about why this is. Do you think hundreds of millions of malnourished children would suddenly have food in their mouths? Do you think the millions of students learning from incompetent teachers would suddenly get better teaching? Would they even get better facilities? Do you think electric plants would magically appear and solve the power crises across the country?

None of the above would happen. Don't confuse the effects of corruption and incompetence. Incompetence is the real problem in India, and that's mainly because of a poor education system. That in turn is because you can't start from 300 million people who couldn't read/write 60 years ago and somehow magically produce the hundreds of millions of people in a highly trained and educated workforce, which is what India needs today to solve its challenges.

<comment><USER21>
        Do you think hundreds of millions of malnourished children would suddenly have food in their mouths?

Yes.Because part of the problem is that the distribution system is broken.It is broken because the system is inefficient.It is inefficient 'cause it is corrupt.If you reduce to a level where it is not an acceptable thing for the society,it would be far easier to deal with all other problems you talked about.

       Don't confuse the effects of corruption and incompetence

No.There are states like kerala where all of the above problems have been solved in past.(ie Malnutrition,food security,education etc) They pretty much have the same education system and political system like rest of India,just that society is less tolerant to mass corruption and mismanagement.So issue number one is corruption and the value system that tolerates it.

<comment><USER19> _It is inefficient 'cause it is corrupt_

Corruption contributes, but you're utterly clueless if you think all inefficiency will go away with corruption. For starters transportation infrastructure is poor, fuel is much too costly, people don't have the facilities to cook. Just throwing rice at kids won't work. You need vegetables, you need clean water, you need stoves. All of this is just not there. If you'd been to a village you would know people still cook using firewood and a three thousand year old stove design, they don't have easy access to drinking water, they're utterly dependent on self-grown vegetables. They don't have refrigeration or electricity. Fixing all this will cost serious money on top of organizational and logistical skills which simply aren't there at the scale that is required.

 _There are states like kerala where all of the above problems have been solved in past._

Bullshit. Did you even try a google search for malnutrition in Kerala before making this claim? Kerala is better than other Indian states for sure, but it's nowhere near the levels of a developed country. The communist government and associated land reforms have a lot more do with Kerala's successes than "reduced tolerance for corruption". Which isn't to say Kerala is less corrupt than the other states, it's just that you have the causation the wrong way.

<comment><USER21> Did I say corruption is the only issue? no.But corruption is the main issue. Competence won't get any better if corruption does't come down to "acceptable" level. The communist government and associated land reforms have a lot more do with Kerala's successes than "reduced tolerance for corruption And why did that happen? Because the land reforms were executed well.And it was executed well because system was not corrupt.People generally don't think that "let us dupe the system and get away with that".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mr. Kejriwal is by no means a "common man".He has a history in politics,though not in electoral politics. But I do agree that this election reminds scenes from some movies like "Nayak" and "Yuva". Overall a nice Article though :)

</comment><comment><USER22> seeing this post in front page of HN clearly proves that it has many Indian users.

<comment><USER23> It only proves that HN has at least 16(points at the time of this comment) Indian users.

<comment><USER23> And Now it proves that 117(points at the time of this comment) people(Indians or not) found this article interesting. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> AAP is not scalable across India like [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala)

</comment><comment><USER12> He belongs to state X(Haryana) and lives in state Y(U.P) and challenges 3 term chief minister of the Z(New Delhi) and wins . Political hack it is , sounds like proxies and socks in use.

<comment><USER24> Delhi is not a state. Indian politicians have contested in constituencies they have not resided for a very long time. Kejriwal hasn't done something new here.

<comment><USER25> Delhi is a state for most practical purposes.

from wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi)

 _" A union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today more closely resembles that of a state of India, with its own legislature, high court and an executive council of ministers headed by a Chief Minister."_</comment></comment></comment>


Have more famous people died in 2016? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38329740 <comment><USER2> I've heard a lot of pet theories about this year, but mine is this: nationwide/worldwide popularity is a relatively new thing that was initiated largely by the advent of the TV.

TV was standardized in 1941, but World War II interrupted the rise of TV pop culture.

We're really starting to enter the years where people who had widespread popularity due to TV and movies are starting to die; 2016 is really just the beginning of a trend that will continue from now on.

I think there will probably be another bump around 2060 or so, when people who were really popularized by the internet start to die.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, the article mentions this (or at least the first part):

 _> He thinks that the increase isn't particularly surprising, because we're now half a century on from the flourishing of both TV and pop culture in the 1960s, which massively expanded the overall pool of public figures._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's the stature of the celebrities that died, not their quantity. While many celebrities are noteworthy, most known only to a niche audience or didn't significantly affect people's lives.

In 2014, the only legend was Robin Williams.

In 2015, BB King, Leonard Nimoy and Terry Pratchett died, but all had niche audiences.

In 2016, a lot of legends died: Bowie, Prince, Fidel Castro, Muhammed Ali. Each of those was truly transformative for their audiences and society as a whole. And that's leaving out Leonard Cohen, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee and Nancy Reagan, each of whom had about the stature of 2015's most noteworthy deaths.

<comment><USER5> > _In 2014, the only legend was Robin Williams._

If you don't count Shirley Temple, Joe Cocker, Mickey Rooney, Jack Bruce, Richard Attenborough, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and others.

<comment><USER6> I never heard of Joe Cocker, Mickey Rooney, Jack Bruce and I heard of Shirley Temple just a couple weeks ago (in a discussion about how she's not as well known outside the US)

These people are definitely not as POP as Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Muhammad Ali

OTOH, also saying that Nancy Reagan has the same stature as Robin Williams seems utterly wrong

I was born when Reagan was closing in to the end of his mandate, so that's probably why Nancy for me doesn't ring any bell. Likewise, Shimon Peres is much more noticeable, probably due to both timing and geographical proximity (I live in Europe)

I guess that the "legendary stature" of such figures is qualified by lasting several decades and being well known across borders, attributes shared by only few

On topic: there might indeed be an increase behind this trend, but if deaths are a poisson process, I'm not surprised at all that this year has seen a clustering of them

<comment><USER7> In my experience, Shirley Temple is much more well-known than Prince, but I guess this might not be representative of the wider population

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This trend will continue forever until we start decreasing the amount of celebrities we create.

<comment><USER9> Or the ones people pay attention to (particularly postmortem).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this a baby boomer thing? Seems like there will be a period soon where lots more people will be in retirement or dying. You'd expect boomer era celebs to also be dying in line with normies.

Perhaps their stats are better looked at after normalizing for age and lifestyle. Weekly views of seasonal trend is probably better than arbitrary Q1 vs remaining year. Might see there's just an overall uptrend. Also would be worth looking at celeb vs. non-celeb death rate.

<comment><USER11> Partly correct imho. These arent dead boombers but people who boomers care about. As news these days is generally aimed at boomers, we hear more about these deaths than the deaths of celebs that appeal to other generations. When a reality tv or twitter superstar dies, and the do, tv news wont even mention it.

<comment><USER5> > _As news these days is generally aimed at boomers_

Enough already. No boomer myself (born in the eighties), but we have been hearing this crap and people blaming the boomers for like 3+ decades.

News today is not "generally aimed at boomers", except if Kanye and the Kardasians are of interest to boomers...

<comment><USER11> According to neilsons, the average age of viewers for the top-rated us news channel (fox) is over 65. Ill believe you when cnn stops running commercials for stool softener and medicare suppliment insurance.

Kanye's breakdown wasnt mainstream news until he started associating with trump ... a boomer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They've just announced the death of George Michael.

Here's an 80's tv show where he appears alongside Morrissey and Tony Blackburn to discuss music.

[http://www.post-punk.com/morrissey-george-michael-talk- about...](http://www.post-punk.com/morrissey-george-michael-talk-about- breakdancing-and-joy-division/)

He's spot on about Paul Morley too.

<comment><USER13> guy was a genius

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> ....and we can add George Michael to the list...

<comment><USER13> Fastlove :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As an American, I think that this year feels more significant because there are more names recognized by Americans. That list is very UK-centric, which isn't a surprise considering the source of the article.

Of the list, for years 2012-2015 I only recognized around a third of the names but for 2016 I recognized about half.

Americans have a very disproportionate effect on the internet as a whole, so I'd expect that having more American-recognizable names would distort impressions about the celebrity fatality rate.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have twice (four years apart) got into arguments with colleagues who have attempted to use the phrase 'pre-prepared' \-- it's disappointing to see the beeb legitimise this aliteracy.

</comment><comment><USER17> Obituaries get attention... I don't know how to test the hypothesis that more famous people died than average... we would have to have a defined quantity of famous people... or perhaps number of famous obituaries vs. population... I suspect the % of "famous" people goes up over time. Imagine all the reality TV stars...

<comment><USER18> The percentage of famous people that everyone knows goes up every year, so each year you are more likely to know the famous people who died. Also, by the time you're in your 40s or 50s, most of the famous people you knew when you were a kid are starting to die of old age.

In music for instance, there was a huge wave of "classic rock" musicians who became really big starting around 1965 through the late 70s. These people are at least in their 70s now, which means they are starting to die of old age. Except Keith Richards. I'm starting to wonder if he's immortal.

<comment><USER19> Percentage of what? If you can show that the rate of people attaining celebrity is outpacing the rate of population growth, I will accept the claim.

<comment><USER20> I interpreted the claim as "penetration of famous people" \- same percentage of people are famous but the percentage of the population that has heard of each one goes up.

<comment><USER21> I wonder whether celebrities are less likely to be confined to a small niche now than in the past. I assume they are less constrained by geography, but audiences are more fragmented by the Internet, etc.

Assuming a constant proportion of the population is famous and that more and more people know of a typical famous person over time, eventually every famous person would be known to everybody.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's a 2016 celebrity death list...

Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Glen Fry, Natalie Cole...

[http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity- news/pictures/celebrity-...](http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity- news/pictures/celebrity-deaths-in-2016-stars-weve-lost-w161657)

</comment><comment><USER17> Found a simple way to test... IMDB allows us to query against death year.

2016 = 3,636 people with IMDB pages to date have died ([http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2016&ref_=nm_ov_d...](http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2016&ref_=nm_ov_dth_year) \-- doesn't include all politicians or other famous folks, but certainly some of those people had IMDB pages at this point.)

2015 = 4,064 (My guess is the higher numbers were due to more time for data entry / updates.)

2014 = 3,793

2013 = 3,764

2012 = 3,917

2011 = 3,780

2010 = 3,676 (Someone can do math on this, but I don't see a huge swing in the last 7 years.)

2000 = 2,395

1990 = 1,856

1980 = 1,555 (Possibly due to some data not being entered once we start getting "way far" back.)

Another view... [http://www.imdb.com/search/name](http://www.imdb.com/search/name)

1920s = 2,185 [http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=1920-01-01,1929-1...](http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=1920-01-01,1929-12-31)

1930s = 3,608

1940s = 5,805 vs 2,556,000,053 total world population in 1950 [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html)

1950s = 7,381 vs 3,039,451,023 (+6.92% growth in deaths of famous people / all people vs previous decade)

1960s = 10,977 vs 3,706,618,163 (+21.95%)

1970s = 14,044 vs 4,453,831,714 (+6.48%)

1980s = 17,662 vs 5,278,639,789 (+6.11%)

1990s = 21,722 vs 6,082,966,429 (+6.73%)

2000s = 30,883 vs 6,848,932,929 (+26.27% -- an especially brutal decade for celebrities) [http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2000-01-01,2009-1...](http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2000-01-01,2009-12-31)

2010s to date = 26,823

(2010s normalized at current rate = 38,319 vs 7,584,821,144 projected... or +12.04% vs previous decade)

Lots of things going on here... IMDB in the past didn't record a lot of international movies -- certainly part of the lower numbers compared to modern records. But there is a growth in celebrity over time. Celebrity death rates seem to vary quite a bit though. Welcome anyone checking my math... I haven't had coffee yet and this is far from scientific. (=</comment>


Julia set fractals used to design a 17 foot tall sculpture for Burning Man - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37793448/fractal-rock-a-math-inspired-sculpture-for-burning <comment><AUTHOR> Check out our crowdfunding page at the link above and ask us questions here. :)</comment>


Herbicide glyphosate under fire worldwide, gets banned by Austria - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/03/business/herbicide-glyphosate-fire-worldwide-gets-banned-austria/ <comment><USER2> Its presence in food should require labeling so that consumers can make an informed decision and the market can reach consensus. The world is big enough for everyone to disagree about what's safe to be in our food, and for everyone to still get what they want, but it only works with transparency.

For example, US PIRG tested 20 beer and wine brands and found that 19 contained glyphosate, but how does the consumer know? [https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-beer- wine-2630077686.htm...](https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-beer- wine-2630077686.html)

Here's a page with citations to relevant research: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there actually any consensus as to whether it does cause cancer, or how much you have to use it for ill effects? All I ever see in these stories are a list of lawsuits in CA (which doesn't count for much, TBH), various places it's been banned "as a precaution", and much rejoicing in the peanut gallery because bad things are happening to Monsanto.

<comment><USER4> From what I've read, glyphosate itself is pretty safe (how it works should only affect pathways that exist in plants).

The issue is more about the stuff it's dissolved in to be sprayed.

<comment><USER5> Shouldn't that be "exist in plants, gut bacteria and whatever else we haven't figured out yet"?

<comment><USER6> Irrelevant considering the stuff glyphosate is mixed with, including emulsifiers, surfactants, stabilisers, buffers, solvents.

The cocktail is designed to protect the solution in storage and transport, make it easy to mix into batches for spraying, atomise cleanly when sprayed, but then cling to whatever it is sprayed on, then get absorbed into the plant quickly.

It is those chemicals which cause wet membrane irritation, chemical burns, skin irritation and inflammation, etc.

The glyphosate itself is basically harmless to humans and any effect it might have on gut flora is overshadowed by the damage RoundUp will do to your throat and gut on the way through.

Basically remember to follow the directions including appropriate PPE: gloves, dust/mist breathing mask and eye protection.

<comment><USER5> Given that gut flora is connected to everything and involved in many common conditions and more to come, I think that's pretty significant.

It's also further proof that Monsanto is full of shit, always deceiving and lying as much as they can get away with. How much is it going to take before we make them stop?

Or, don't spray poison on food?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The patent on it (and the roundup-ready crops) has expired, so there is a strong financial incentive for the company behind it to ban it's own product.

</comment><comment><USER8> The patent for Roundup has expired, which is why there are a lot of generic versions of glyphosate also now available. So this isn't really just about Monsanto / Bayer?

</comment><comment><USER9> So safe you can drink it!! suuuuuuure....

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM)

</comment><comment><USER10> Strange..

> The final assessment of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines > Authority in 2017 was that "glyphosate does not pose a carcinogenic risk to > humans".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_%28herbicide%29](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_%28herbicide%29)

<comment><USER11> The headline is about Austria banning it (not Australia).

<comment><USER12> The thing is, many different bodies have different conclusion about glyphosate.

<comment><USER13> yeah but the coalition in Australia (which is in power atm) can hardly be trusted to _do the right thing_ here.

They're bought and owned by agri-farming and big business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I couldn't agree more. This is "Roundup", primarily marketed by the most despicable rent-seeking companies that try their hardest to exploit asymmetric markets and push risk - including health risk - onto farmers.

<comment><USER15> What risk from glyphosate are you talking about, exactly?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4449](https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4449)

<comment><USER10> For reference.. that's pretty weak, they just suggest there is a positive correlation with a whole bunch herbicides in uncontrolled and unknown vectors.

I agree with the authors assessment that research should be done, but this is very far from conclusive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >Glyphosate, which was totally banned by Austria's parliament on Tuesday, is the world's most widely used herbicide but there have been growing attempts around the world to stop its use.

There is no ideal "all natural" world. The truth is, you will not be able to feed 7 billion people without using pesticides. With glyphosate, we have a chemical that has seen use for decades in large amounts and even now the case for it actually being harmful to humans is pretty weak. What will happen is that because you need pesticides to support the crop yields necessary for 7 billion people, you will end up with a less well tested pesticide that will end up causing even more problems.

<comment><USER18> Truth is 7 billion people are an exponential bacterial like growth which under natural circumstances should collapse and is instead collapsing the entire planet and the rest of its living population with its tech to sustain its unsustainable growth... and arguments to humanism and capitalism are used to justify its ludicrous behaviour which is completely unnecessary and easily controlled through birth control.

Bring food supply in line with carrying capacity or destroy the planet, scientifically the options are simple, politically while espousing humanist rhetoric like how do we feed the hungry it's impossible.

<comment><USER19> > Truth is 7 billion people are an exponential bacterial like growth

Quite a few countries are under replacement fertility rate. China is below. India is almost there.

<comment><USER18> Economic growth is the same as population growth. When the population increases consumption increase. Economic growth is increase in number of goods and services produced which leads to more consumption per person, which in most cases leads to greater use of natural resources per person. Hence countries in the West who have smaller populations consume much more than poorer countries with less economic development.

Most of those countries claiming to have replacement level fertility are still growing either through immigration or through economics. This is the case across the board... If they are not then they are considered in trouble as is the case with Japan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is Glyphosate a herbicide, or a desiccant? They are different.

<comment><USER21> It's both. It's applied just before harvest to non-glyphosphate-resistant food crops as a desiccant, and directly to unwanted plants as a weedkiller.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is your company doing anything to prepare for outbreak related issues? - <AUTHOR> The company where I work is checking VPN servers to make sure we can handle unusual traffic.
It is a preparation for a possible scenario where most of employees are working from home.
I wanted to see what are the activities that companies could do to prepare for similar situations. <comment><USER2> someone's put a pack of wetwipes near the nuts

<comment><USER3> Comedic gold here. I wonder what things will change if it becomes seasonal? The community nuts may have to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work at a business that repairs cellphones. They told us that we're going to have trouble sourcing parts for repairs, and they gave us hand sanitizer bottles with the company logo on them. Did not inspire confidence.

</comment><comment><USER5> We have some 8x11' print outs in the break room telling you to wash your hands and cover your mouth when coughing and we've been advised to cancel any non- essential travel (even domestically).

It's likely additional preparation is happening behind the scenes, but nothing visible at this point.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here in Amsterdam where the 1st case was reported today, my company sent an email stating: travel to at-risk countries is restricted, emergency number and email in case of problem while traveling, WFH when coming back from an infected country and recommendations like washing our hands, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this a classic DR scenario where a disaster renders commuting impossible?

I'm in NYC, most companies I know now have built extensive remote capability and constantly verifying that capability.

My company already sent out an email, basically:

* Cancelled non-essential travel. * Liberally usage of sick days.

</comment><comment><USER8> Management is working on an emergency plan: Checking who can work remote and at what efficiency level (only a laptop with children in the kitchen VS desk with dual screen in a dedicated room). Result/plan has not been announced yet

</comment><comment><USER9> We got a memo about hand-washing and no-handshaking, a co-worker coming from a weekend in northern italy was asked to work form his home for a couple of weeks.

Otherwise mostly memes on Slack.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hand sanitizer, work from home, cancel non essential travel

</comment><comment><USER11> My company in central London has put some hand sanitiser in the washrooms. The commute into London _feels_ quieter, but we have to come into the office.

</comment><comment><USER12> Restricted travel, working from home for two weeks after travel.</comment>


Home Computers Behind the Iron Curtain - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2014/12/15/home-computers-behind-the-iron-curtain/

<comment><USER2> This is surprisingly similar to the story of home computers in Brazil.

From 1984 (during which time we were under a military dictatorship) to 1991, we were under a market reserve. Because of this, the computers we had were either cloned from smuggled devices, or, funnily enough, devices imported legally with the intention of being reverse engineered.

Reverse engineering was not only legal, it was encouraged by the reserve. Due to government incentives, even companies that had nothing to do with computers ended up building them.

Cloned computers ranged from ZX81 and Apple II+, to ones with more elaborate circuitry, such as the Mac 512 (this one has a lot of interesting stories -- albeit somewhat sad, in a sense --, some even involves orange juice embargo from the US government).

The idea behind the reserve was to create a computer hardware industry in Brazil, but this ended up never happening the way it was supposed to happen.

Although locally-developed peripherals were made, there were very few computers that were actually designed in Brazil that ended up having a significant portion of the market. Clones thrived, mostly. Local semiconductor companies failed to produce quality components, but those were used anyway. Some companies managed to import (with special permission from the government) processors and other components we were never able to properly manufacture.

In a move that's both obvious and surprising, the focus moved to software when the reserve was finally lifted.

Obvious because, although we had many skilled people that managed to reverse engineer circuits (including ASICs, as was the case with the Unitron Mac), and build new ones, often improving them (either making them faster, more reliable, or just cheaper), we still depended on foreign technology to build our computers. The whole idea of the reserve was to reduce that dependency.

Surprising because, during the reserve, software was most often hacked versions of foreign stuff. Although some important bits and pieces (such as compilers, operating systems, CAD programs, word processing and a bunch of other stuff) ended up being made locally, unless you're a collector, you're not going to find the remnants of these bits.

</comment><comment><USER3> My first computer ( I was born in a soviet country ) was Pravetz 16 [1][2]. It was bought for me by my father around 1994. It was a IBM PC compatible computer that run on DOS.

Until today I haven't found any significant difference between what I had back then and what similar age IBM-PC was in terms of hardware.

They were both with AT power [3] and they had the same extension slots ( Back then it was ISA [4] ).

I still remember extending my Pravetz with a color screen and a EGA card [5]. It was so expensive ( the card + color monitor ), that I had to ask my father to combine the presents that I had as a child for a series of occasions. ( I think it was one birthday + christmas + name day ).

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers)

[2] [http://templar.blog.bg/photos/31865/original/photo- pravetz-1...](http://templar.blog.bg/photos/31865/original/photo- pravetz-16es-1.jpg)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_%28computer%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_%28computer%29#Original_IBM_PC.2C_XT_and_AT_standard)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture)

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter)

<comment><USER4> > Until today I haven't found any significant difference between what I had > back then and what similar age IBM-PC was in terms of hardware.

On the other side of the curtain we had SVGA instead of EGA. And 486 or (barely) Pentium instead of pre 386. Probably more RAM. Probably a bigger harddisk. Probably printer or modem or both. Maybe a sound card. And CD-ROM.

<comment><USER5> These computers were manufactured in mid to late 80's, so most of them predate both 486 and CD-ROM.

<comment><USER6> >It was bought for me by my father around 1994

<comment><USER3> Yeah back then my Pravetz was already 6 years ( manufactured around '88 [1] ) old and still very popular. I didn't have CD-ROM until I got my first 486DX4 custom case computer.

[1] [http://www.pravetz.bg/05-Pravetz- History.html](http://www.pravetz.bg/05-Pravetz-History.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> East Germany showing off their home computers in a parade, 1987:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Bundesarc...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1987-0704-077,_Berlin,_750-Jahr- Feier,_Festumzug,_Computer.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Only tangentially relevant here, but that photo reminds me of MIT's "Make Way for Cruftlings" hack: [http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2003/cruftlings/](http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2003/cruftlings/)

<comment><USER9> Even more tangentially relevant, but has there been just one hack in all of 2014?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was absolutely delighted when I found out that most East German home computers (and probably most Eastern Bloc computers in general) are supported in the MESS emulator. About a year ago I spent a few weeks to get some of my old KC85 games from the 80's running in the browser via JSMESS and emscripten (no sound support yet at that time unfortunately):

[http://www.flohofwoe.net/history.html](http://www.flohofwoe.net/history.html)

MESS has since been merged back into MAME, and has been moved to github:

[https://github.com/mamedev/mame](https://github.com/mamedev/mame)

And some info on how to get started with coding on the KC85:

[http://flohofwoe.blogspot.de/2014/11/new-adventures- in-8-bit...](http://flohofwoe.blogspot.de/2014/11/new-adventures-in-8-bit- land.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Man, this brings me back. Couple of noteworthy entries from the lands of the ex-Yugoslavia:

Orao (Eagle): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orao_%28computer%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orao_%28computer%29)

Galaksija (Galaxy): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29)

VUK (Wolf): Only in Serbian, magazine scan from the 80s... the graphics screenshot looks incredible for the time: [http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?auto=&p...](http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?auto=&page=10&all=SK_88_09)

<comment><USER6> The Ulimate Galaksija Talk [29C3]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwC9vdqfqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwC9vdqfqw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bit of a tangent but I recommend the Polish miniseries Decalogue. [http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0092337/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0092337/)

All are great vignettes and ultimately quite secular.

The first episode is what made me think of it here. Watch to find out why.

<comment><USER13> The first episode ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decalogue_I](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decalogue_I)) is the most poignant of all I think. If you are, like me, teaching your young child how to program this will be both very interesting and heart wrenching to watch. Note that the father's name is Krzysztof, which may refer to either Kieslowski or to Krzysztof Piesiewicz with whom Kieslowski collaborated on the script or both, perhaps hinting that this may be one of the more personal episodes (Kieslowski's father was an engineer, too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> At Atari (in the mid 80s) we had some relationships with dealers in Poland; they would occasionally visit us in Sunnyvale to do buys and say "hi".

They loved our computers, but the Polish government wouldn't allow them to sell any of the printers we made . . .

<comment><USER6> Probably because we had Soviet bloc manufacturers of printers, Mera-Błonie in Poland, Robotron in East Germany, etc.

Im guessing Polish delegates were representing Pewex, or Baltona. Those were the only two institutions allowed to openly sell goods imported from the west. You could buy anything you wanted, including cars :o, the catch was you had to pay in western currency or fake dollars called "Bon towarowy". Their only purpose was to extract foreign currency from black market.

<comment><USER15> The secondary goal was to give party members high up enough a way to get perks in terms of western goods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That PMD-85 looks interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you're into this kind of thing, there's a similarly interesting resource here:

[http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/index.php](http://www.computer- museum.ru/english/index.php)</comment>


China's central bank calls for new reserve currency - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html

<comment><USER2> Coming from China, I think it is _absolutely_ fair that they have to deal with the dollar as the reserve currency because we had to put up with the decade of bullshit from them pegging their yuan to the US dollar.

The major reason they're holding an excess of US assets is because they decided for 10+ years to ensure that it was artificially cheap for anyone in the US to import from China. We complained to hell about fair trade and threatened import taxes, but we let it slide mostly in the name of diplomacy and cheap consumption.

Well now China gets to reap the consequences of that decision and I have not a single ounce of remorse for them.

Great article from back in '03 when this was still an issue: <http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js774.htm>

<comment><USER3> What's with all the moralising? You think China are under some sort of moral obligation to take their losses cause they 'had it coming' for keeping the yuan low? Just like the US they'll do whatever they see is in their advantage. I don't see anyone saying you should feel remorseful but if China want to move towards other currencies then that is their right.

<comment><USER4> I don't think morals have to enter into it. If a country artificially ties its currency to the dollar for purposes of inflating trade, it's going to end up with a bunch of dollars that aren't worth so much.

Seems like natural consequences to me.

I'm dubious that the system is so simple that simply changing the reserve currency is going to fix anything. But if I were an expert in international finance, I wouldn't be working on startups. And I'd probably be a lot more boring.

<comment><USER3> I agree the Chinese are in a bit of a pickle what with holding so many US dollars. The fact that they are prepared to risk their investment by saying this is suggestive. In the end I think the US would still like to hold onto the USD as the defacto world currency and the Chinese move is more a warning that that this can be lost if the value drops too much.

Either way I'm not sure how much it matters who's 'fault' it was now.

But I'm not an expert in international finance either. The startup I'm a part of does very well when the USD is strong but that is about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The actual statement doesn't make any sense: "China's central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.

In an essay posted on the People's Bank of China's website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank's governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency 'that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies'."

"controlled by the IMF" does not imply stable. While the IMF is somewhat disconnected from individual nations, it is gamed.

I suspect that this is China's way of saying that it wants to play too. Since it's big enough to break the IMF, it may just be a public announcement of China's new role.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I've ever heard a Chinese official this high up call for replacing the dollar. Can anyone else think of any other examples? If this is really a new development, then it's very significant news.

<comment><USER6> There has been news about it but it has not been given much coverage. Christmas eve last, it was reported by AFP and Xinhua (Chinese Govt. Media) that China was trying to create conditions for the yuan to become an international settlement currency and would use the yuan in transactions with neighbouring economies on a trial basis:

[http://www.marketskeptics.com/2008/12/china-makes-yuan- inter...](http://www.marketskeptics.com/2008/12/china-makes-yuan- international-currency.html)

I link to a blog and not the articles because I think the blogger makes some great commentary. He also gives his incite to yesterday's news in the first link on the right. Definitely worth a read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is interesting, this would certainly be a very new direction for foreign currency.

Another interesting point is this was not raised during the 2008 APEC meeting, much to the dismay of European countries.

However this time around things seem to have progressed, and Russia has put forth the proposal to the G20, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

<http://en.rian.ru/world/20090323/120689432.html>

and this one with some humor:

<http://mnweekly.ru/news/20090305/55369676.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> IIUC one downside of the European monetary integration is that if, say, the German economy is doing fine while Italy is in recession, then Italy cannot simply loosen up its currency to boost demand while Germany keeps its currency tight. Instead, the ECB has to either keep the euro tight, screwing Italy, or loosen it, screwing Germany. And since other pan-European political institutions are not as strong as the US Federal Government, setting Europe- wide economic policy for everything _other than_ currency is difficult.

The upside of the euro may be greater than the downside, but it seems to me that a new global reserve currency would be mostly downside, for this reason. Then again as a US citizen I have a vested interest.

</comment><comment><USER9> >the goal would be to create a reserve currency "that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies".

Gold exists already.

<comment><USER10> Gold is highly unstable which is bad. It's value fluctuates even faster than the USD.

<comment><USER9> I would argue that USD and the rest of currncs are unstable vs. gold.

Supply of gold is fixed. Supply of paper money is at the whim of greenspans.

<comment><USER10> If you compare it with a basket of goods it's still highly unstable. It's not a true random walk, but day to day gold fluctuations can be extreme and it's still in the middle of a bubble so expect a sudden crash some time soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gold flucuates enormously because it is currently not the official currency of any country. If it ever became a major currency, it's price would sky rocket as it would have to absorb a huge amount of new monetary demand. Thus gold's current price fluctuations are basically a bet on the demise of Bretton Woods II. But if gold ever became an official currency, it's price would shoot up and then stabilize. After stabilizing its price would be more stable than any other form of currency. Gold has the lowest flow to stock ratio of any good, so its a perfect nash equilibrium as a currency. And empirically, the classical gold standard from 1865-1913 had much greater price stability than we have now.

<comment><USER11> This is pretty interesting. How much would the price of gold skyrocket if it were adopted as the international currency peg/medium of exchange/etc? Divide all the money in the world on the amount of gold available. That's the new price per ounce of gold. It would be a _massive_ increase.

With a gold price that high, it might become profitable to just synthesize gold in a nuclear reactor. Which would destroy the point of imposing a gold standard in the first place. Even if it wouldn't be profitable with today's technology, it would become a very lucrative field. Which you would have to outlaw. Etc. etc. etc.

What all the gold nerds are really clamoring for is an international agreement saying that no one will ever increase the money supply. This won't happen. A system of fixed currencies is as unrealistic as every nation suddenly deciding to adopt communism.

<comment><USER12> You could tie the currency to energy, then individual people synthesizing it would be a good thing.

<comment><USER13> would it? Say you invented infinite, free, clean energy. You would wind up heating the earth as all the energy would have to dissipate somewhere. What does everyone really want? Happiness - if you generate happiness then your Wuffie account should be credited.

<comment><USER12> Energy could easily be used to cool the earth too. Also in my scheme ordinary citizens end up building power plants, whereas in yours they end up dealing drugs.

<comment><USER13> you say that like it's a bad thing;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _"In an essay posted on the People's Bank of China's website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank's governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies."_

Monetary policy is definitely not my _forte_ , but why not use the Euro instead of the U.S. Dollar then? The Euro is not connected to any individual nation, after all. Creating a new currency takes such a long time that I wonder whether it would be practical.

<comment><USER15> Well, from what I read in the FT article, they are actually implying a shift from US dollars to SDRs, which already exist and are well established. SDRs are effectively a currency in the ways that matter, at least at this (international finance) level. Since the SDR is defined in terms of the US dollar, the euro, and a couple of other currencies, the SDR is potentially more stable than either the dollar or the euro alone.

Another thought: Changing from one reserve currency to another is kind of a big deal - you can't just go to some currency exchange window and say "hello, I'd like to exchange this $372.4 billion in USD into Euros please". Throws the markets out of whack. So perhaps another reason for choosing the SDR is that they are less likely to need to change it in the future. Say thirty years from now if conditions change, and the euro starts hyperinflating and the USD is solid again, the SDR value will be relatively stable.

I'm at best an amateur in these matters, so I could be mistaken. Not to mention the fact that I did not read the original article (at [http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/detail.asp?col=6500&id=168](http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/detail.asp?col=6500&id=168) \- the page will not even render readably in any browser I have). Anyone who can read Chinese care to comment?

 _Edit:_ I threw around a little jargon above... SDR stands for "Special Drawing Rights", and can be viewed as a kind of pseudo-currency used by the IMF. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Drawing_Rights>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard to see how that kind of basket would work. If you don't have fixed pegs between the currencies, then you have not increased the stability of the system. If you have fixed pegs, then each member country must cede complete control of its monetary policy to the international bank. Otherwise the temptation to inflate would be too great.

<comment><USER3> I think it would work something like this

1 SDR = 1.3 USD + 1 EURO + 80 YEN + 0.5 GPB + etc

It isn't perfectly stable but it isn't so dependant on any individual currency. Even if the USD halves in value then the total impact is less than 25% on the SDR. And presumably the other currencies would increase to offset much of the impact.

As currencies changed in value over time you would probably need to re-balance the percentages. I'm not sure how this would happen.

EDIT: This page actually has the current ratios <http://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/data/rms_sdrv.aspx>

<comment><USER16> Do you think there are any benefits doing it against currencies rather than against a basket of resources?

Money serves two purpose: store of value, mechanism of exchange. If inflation kicks in, people with government backed currencies that are easing will be caught with their pants down.

I've been thinking about this on a small scale recently. Now there's no systematic reason you couldn't have your cash held by a bank in terms the GS commodities index ([http://www2.goldmansachs.com/services/securities/products/sp...](http://www2.goldmansachs.com/services/securities/products/sp- gsci-commodity-index/index.html)) and then convert it to local currencies at the last minute - either when you're paying your bill or getting money from an ATM. They could manage the risk of moving it into and out of currencies (so that they have liquidity to service people at ATMs) as part of their service.

I spent my first year in London operating like this against AUD - being paid into an Australian account and spending from it on Visa debit. (You're subject to foreign exchange risk, but actually that's just a perspective thing. You're subject to it when you've got pounds via opportunity cost, you just don't realise it.)

China is doing a crude version of this at the moment - converting USD into commodities countries at a rapid rate. But if they want to get a new currency, why not peg it against tangibles rather than building a new castle on already shaky foundations?

<comment><USER3> It's an interesting idea. Seems better than just gold. However I don't necessarily think it would be more stable. Changes in supply and demand of resources could have numerous unintended consequences.

<comment><USER16> That's the reason you spread it against a basket of them instead of against a single one :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: what kind of ideas can get you into YCombinator? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> YC is more interested in people than ideas, but these might help:

<http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html>

<http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Ones which solve real pain points.

But it's the wrong question to ask, YC heavily focuses on team over idea, the idea is a validation of the team as much anything else (i.e is the team smart and capable of thinking deeply about a space).

<comment><AUTHOR> But does it really matter if my idea is something not specifically SAAS?

<comment><USER4> No, check out the current W13 batch. Not all are SaaS. Some are hardware. But they're real products that people want to use, and I'm assuming the founders are pretty bright and promising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The strength of the team matters 5x more than the idea. The evidence for this is the fact that YC let(s) in teams that have no idea (not sure if they do this anymore).

That being said, having a "good" idea does help.</comment>


Lufthansa sues customer for skipping flight - <AUTHOR> https://www.godsavethepoints.com/2019/02/09/lufthansa-sues-customers-skipping-flights/ <comment><USER2> The cost/price distinction is a disfunctional element to any, but especially to frequent travellers. Airlines should have objective comparison flight prices and they don't. They use all and any mechanism to offer the price they want to sell to _you_ irrespective of any other price somebody else sees. Buy it in London? Price different to bought in Australia. Same path, same direction. Wipe cookie? Price different. Buy same carrier different partner airline? Price different. And on and on and on. There is no price there are only prices.

Imagine if everything we bought had this price behaviour...

<comment><USER3> The imagine if everything we bought had this behaviour is interesting the end goal of a lot consumer surveillance product purchasing programs is to enable this behaviour for everything.

Which is really a way to further erode the middle class, if the algorithm detects you're middle class and ups the price accordingly on too many products the monetary disparity between the middle class and the poor gets eroded.</comment></comment>


Rivvr Brings Wireless VR to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/rivvr-brings-wireless-vr-to-the-oculus-rift-and-htc-vive/ <comment><AUTHOR> So I had the chance to try this at the YC Alumni Demo day at the computer history museum, and it was SUPER cool. Completely wireless and doesn't add any noticeable weight on top of the HTC Vive in general. The ability to walk around the room with a Vive without having that cable tether made the experience truly immersive.

<comment><USER2> Is the 11ms latency really not bothersome? I'd be concerned about the input latency and the potential for frame rate drops from connection issues etc, especially over longer terms of use.

<comment><USER3> If the engineers did their homework then the headset should send a vsync signal back to the console so the software could use dead reckoning to predict where the headset will be. That way it would be relatively immune to longer transmission latencies. Maybe there's a way to do this with the lighthouse tracking, maybe sending the latency measurement between actual and delayed position back through the controllers or something.

<comment><USER4> Oculus DK2 had a built in latency sensor that measured a coded pixel in the corner of the screen and then fed that back in to the prediction/forward- projection steps. I'm not sure about Vive and Rift CV1. I didn't see anything like it in the iFixit teardowns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >> _Unlike other devices, which are aiming to compress the entire raw HDMI signal over the air, Rivvr uses its proprietary tech to compress the much smaller video feed from the PC, sending just about 40-80 mbps of video signal over the air._

This paragraph seems contradictory to me: other devices aim to compress the video signal over the air (i.e. wirelessly), but Rivvr somehow compresses "much smaller" video feeds from the PC "over the air" (i.e. wirelessly).

This isn't my industry, so what key technical definition or fact am I missing from this picture? The two statements seem to be equivalent.

<comment><USER6> Techcrunch already fixed this error "Unlike other devices which are aiming to send the entire raw HDMI signal over the air, Rivvr uses its proprietary tech to compress the much smaller video feed from the PC, sending just about 40-80 mbps of video signal over the air." Other companies trying to transmit raw HDMI stream wirelessly using 60Ghz frequency. They trying to reinvent Wireless HDMI which is well known and have a lot of problems. We are using standard WiFi networks 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

<comment><USER7> I wonder how that should work. Less than 11ms per Frame compression time, let's say 9ms (as we need to Account for the way back too for latency) for a 2160 x 1200 stream + audio. And you can't see any compression and we're talking Close up here. Not possible with h264/h265.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.multicorewareinc.com/news/multicoreware- demonstra...](http://www.multicorewareinc.com/news/multicoreware-demonstrates- high-quality-4k-10-bit-real-time-hevc-video-encoding-x265/)

This is from 2015. We're almost into 2017.

\- A 4k frame is 3.2 x as much data as the 2160x1200 frame.

\- In this case, compression was achieved at 60fps using H265.

\- The same spec of equipment should in principle be capable of achieving 60fps * 3.2 = 192fps. That's 5ms latency due to compression.

\- Add in the simplicity of many VR scenes - think RecRoom, Windlands... should be fairly easy to compress.

\- Audio can be compressed in parallel

"Not possible"?

I disagree, "more than possible two years ago"

<comment><USER7> Let's look at some real live x265 benchmarks, because you skipped the part where they did it on a beefy dual socket server. Let's take: [http://x265.ru/en/x265-hd-benchmark](http://x265.ru/en/x265-hd-benchmark), that benchmark is 1080P, let's assume you're correct with your simplicity and it might be closer to reality.

The fastest listed system there does a blazing 33fps (well that's a broadwell, the 2015 dual socket server is probably atleast the xeon equivalent of it).

And we haven't even looked at the image quality/compression artifacts.

I disagree with your assessment.

Rivvr is apparently a spinoff of Sixa, the appropriate techcrunch article [https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/09/sixa-secures-3-5m-as-it- la...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/09/sixa-secures-3-5m-as-it-launches-its- cloud-computer-for-developers/) repeats the 11ms latency. Maybe it's the same technology? The comments to the techchrunch article do not sound convincing either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really looking forward to watching the development of this. Ultra low latency, high quality signal compression and network based (which I assume this is based on other comments) distribution is hard. It has a lot of use cases outside of this scenario.

I know there's some really interesting work being done in the broadcast space (e.g. BBC R&D with VC-2 [1]) and the various low-latency implementation of H.265 which seems to be driven by UAV use. Are you guys/girls expanding on something existing for the codecs used or going down a completely different route?

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/vc-2](http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/vc-2)

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe they do a final motion adjustment on the receiver just at the video level. Seems slightly interesting. I doubt they've made any breakthroughs in compression. maybe eye tracking could reduce the bandwidth even further (though the latency in this case means it can't go as far as a wired installation).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm really curious about how VR will solve the movement problem.

See, a virtual environment is only part of the equation. Oculus peeled the onion back further, with touch (and Vive equivalent).

How will they solve movement? Using a pad to move forward or backward is not nearly as immersive as walking...

<comment><USER12> I've always wondered why they dont stick a camera on the front of it, then overlay the virtual world onto the physical world.

<comment><USER13> The Vive has this feature although its not used in games.

<comment><USER14> It is used for overlaying some info like the room borders and barriers.

It is exposed to the devs but the quality of the camera doesn't really allow for AR experience so it's not really used.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


37Signals' product websites redesigned - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/

<comment><USER2> So many font types, font sizes, font weights, colors... Too messy for me... Maybe I am too Swiss... ;)

<comment><USER3> I think it's great. There are many fonts and colors and variation, but the design still has clear sections (short product descriptions, detailed about company blurb, client videos, buzz etc.), and more important, there are points in the design that grab your attention and suck you in; these are the big icons at the top with large speech bubbles and the "A Better Way To Work" heading. This means as you glance over the page your eyes will find a place to land, and I think the copy itself is very well done -- short and to the point -- which means I'm likely to actually read it.

One thing that always bothered me is the navigation 37signals tend to use. It's stuck at the very top of the page and is set in a very small font size. Current locations are also not highlighted on some pages. Perhaps they don't rely on it at all and instead focus on getting people to click on calls to action inside the content.

<comment><USER4> It is a big improvement over what they had; I think they present what they do now more than ever: the black box says we help work -> via four products.

I expect a website to do one, maybe two things well. I'm a hard sell on three. The middle doesn't do much for me. It's a content stack and I have to _study_ it to glean meaning. Buzz, about, client vids, etc. My gut says this is filler. Now given the last few days with Google's data/design approach, I'd love to see a heatmap and numbers. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the main black box draws the eye a little too effectively. I have trouble focusing on other parts of the page.

<comment><USER6> Wow are you ever right.

I just came back to HN to post a similar remark -- it's damn near impossible to read anything outside that box.

Or perhaps we're both deficient in some unique way that makes us susceptible to black (or near black) boxes.

<comment><USER7> Make that three of us. Even when I'm looking at Campfire, I'm still reading the black box through the corner of my eye.

Also, I think it looks like the second half and the first half were designed by totally different guys. The first is really colorful, which helps tell the sections apart, but the second is nothing like that, just their plain old vanilla. And at the end...wham! The black box of death again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The footer, that was there before the redesign, has always been my favourite part. The big colourful icons standout.

</comment><comment><USER9> I was really encouraged by the HighriseHQ design of several weeks ago, along with the blog posts about the redesign but... now the real deal is here, it's clutterville :(

Very difficult to scan. Perhaps it'll look better when I get back on my desktop but on this 1024 pixel width netbook it's just a smush of poorly separated text.

Anyway, it's not that important, I guess. They have good products and a supportive userbase. They don't need a slick site to sell what they have.. and if you look at the sites of most Fortune 500 companies, they're usually poorly designed so perhaps they're aiming for that club.

</comment><comment><USER10> How is this news?

<comment><USER11> Well, they _made a website_ with _ruby on rails_ and without _venture capital_. Totally awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is a bad design, I don't like it. But then I never liked their products either!

Different people like different things, this is why I guess we have different firms offering variations of the same products.

They say they have 3,000,000 customers so I guess at least the 3% (random percentage of decision makers) who forced the other 97% (the team) likes it!

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm hoping Jason and crew write a blog article describing what they changed (and why). Would make for some great reading.

<comment><USER14> They have a few posts related to this (also posted to HN, if I recall):

[http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1582-design-in- progress-c...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1582-design-in-progress- choosing-the-right-product)

[http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1622-design-in- progress-p...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1622-design-in-progress- product-bubbles)

[http://www.37signals.com/svn/images/37s-preview-b3faa2088b4e...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/images/37s-preview-b3faa2088b4e609877c70605f65efa2d.jpg)

I'm surprised this made it to the top of HN, though. This is all really old news to me, and I wouldn't consider myself a 37signals fanboy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Too busy and too much information is my initial thought. I'd also probably have the two-column video section switched to the right instead of left. Also to me, the vids are the fluff of the page, and makes the product information I want to read harder to find.

</comment><comment><USER16> The bottom 2 product names are cut-off on a maximised browser window in Firefox at 1280x800 (i.e. a 13" laptop), which is quite a big problem.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have my fonts sized larger than default and forced to Verdana so they stick out of some of the boxes.

<comment><USER18> I'm seeing it on Eee Linux, which lacks a number of 'web-safe' fonts, and if it did have them it would have no idea how to properly display them. I think we rightly fall in edge cases not worth supporting, alongside IE6 ( [http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php?browser=ie6&url...](http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php?browser=ie6&url=37signals.com) and [http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp- phasin....](http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-phasin.html) ).

It wouldn't be a ton of trouble to make the text bubbles expand to fit the text (one more div and splitting the background images, I suspect but won't confirm). But their goal was, I assume, to have a well-aligned, eye-catching 2x2 grid, and they chose not to support rare-ish cases where that wouldn't be what was rendered rather than cluttering their markup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> funky alignment in the "also from..." section. ah, that's better: <http://i43.tinypic.com/mwqoeg.png>

</comment><comment><USER20> I think this is one of the cases where the guys are so into technology/design, they're constantly changing it because they have nothing better to do.

</comment><comment><USER21> Their design inspiration: <http://www.parrotsecrets.com/></comment>


Microsoft releases Windows 10 update with Linux and Notepad enhancements - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/27/microsoft-releases-windows-10-may-2020-update.html <comment><USER2> Windows is so much a joke:

(from changelog)

\- In Notepad, the title bar will show an asterisk if there are unsaved changes in your file, new keyboard shortcuts are available and if text is highlighted, the find/replace function will automatically place it in the text box.

\- A new setting of the Calculator app lets you always keep it on top, above other windows.

Are you sure that we are 2020?</comment>


Simultaneous Imaging and Energy Harvesting in CMOS Image Sensor Pixels - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/06/under-a-millimeter-wide-and-powered-by-light-these-tiny-cameras-could-hide-almost-anywhere/ <comment><USER2> This seems like it could be combined with battery-free "no-power" WiFi tags [1] to provide functionally indefinite surveillance at a minimal price tag.

While 1 kb/s bandwidth and a range of only 2 m limit the current applications of such a combination, the potential once both technologies become more mature is staggering (and rather terrifying).

[1] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804134215.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804134215.htm)

<comment><USER3> You still need to process or transmit the images, which might be costlier than recording the images.

<comment><USER4> For transmitting data on an energy harvesting budget there is stuff like LoRa, but Image is out of the question here because of the size.

Much more likely is that such devices will be used for tracking, in situations where GPS is using to much power. Especially, as the calculations for that are done at the receivers instead of the transmitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It turns out that photosensitive diodes aren't totally opaque — in fact, quite a lot of light passes right through them. So putting the solar cell under the image sensor doesn't actually deprive it of light."

Does that also mean we could put multiple layers of photosensitive diodes under one another to perhaps get higher resolution images? or better images in the dark?

<comment><USER6> Such a sensor (used to) exist, Foveon X3. It is very interesting as it also uses the differential absorption of different wavelengths of light at different depths in silicon to distinguish colours: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor) It had various advantages, and some disadvantages related to distinguishing colours, but ultimately wasn't very successful in the market despite getting shipped in some DSLRs, possibly due to the marketing challenges (Bayer array sensor manufacturers count each R/G/B sub pixel as part of their "megapixel" count, so the Foveon sensor appeared low resolution by that metric).

<comment><USER7> My Sigma SD1M still produces mind-blowing images I can't do with high-end Nikons and Canons. Foveon can truly make magical images, though there were so many issues with DSLRs it shipped on, e.g. they were almost always awfully slow and had very bad (but film-like) low-light performance. Also, original research suggested that to get realistic colors, up to 7 layers are needed. Bayers OTOH just interpolate and cook colors, but with the increase of resolution might at some point perform similarly, when lens limit is hit. Foveon was also always manufactured by a far worse process than e.g. Sony top- end sensors, and its quantum efficiency was orders of magnitude worse.

<comment><USER8> Bayers don't cook colors when they interpolate, they cook _edges_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Although I couldn't stand _The Circle_ (book or film), it did raise questions about what happens to society when we can place extremely cheap cameras everywhere invisibly that require no battery, and hence can operate almost indefinitely.

In _The Circle_ they are owned by a pseudo Goog-book company that publishes (and records) every video feed (and its history) publicly.

<comment><USER10> I started to wonder about this, but then I realized that what we're really witnessing right now is the birth of the primordial Grey Goo. I mean, omnipresent super-observation states may be one angle of Our Future Dystopia, but I think energy-harvesting super computers that can reproduce is right around the corner on this one ..

<comment><USER9> Reproduction is one thing I'm really not concerned about actually. Is it even possible to build any kind of silicon-based electronics outside of a fab?

<comment><USER11> We've already entered into a period of symbiosis, where software controls human bodies. It seems unlikely that machines can ever do better than a human hand (but can do better almost everywhere else!)

<comment><USER9> That software is still created by humans, subject to human forces though. You can characterise many things as 'training' or 'evolving' humans to serve their purposes, e.g. gut bacteria, poppies, cows, dogs, toxoplasma gondii, hammers etc. The characterisation doesn't tell you much though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There was a science fiction story about a society where privacy was completely impossible because air everywhere was permeated by nanoscale cameras that recorded everything everywhere from all perspectives at all times. Looks like we are approaching that future.

</comment><comment><USER13> Those would be useful for vascular and other medical imaging uses. Search and rescue bots as well.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you scroll down too far the website hijacks your back button

</comment><comment><USER15> But a camera still needs some room (behind a point hole, and potentially some lens). At some point this will have higher impact than sensor size, no?

</comment><comment><USER16> You know what a cool application of this would be?

Cameras in your bloodstream that create a distributed 3D image of your entire circulation at once.

<comment><USER17> What would the light source be?

<comment><USER18> A 50w LED that follows along externally?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bring it on

<comment><USER20> Yeah !</comment></comment>


Nice Comparison Between JMeter and Gatlling - <AUTHOR> https://octoperf.com/blog/2015/06/08/jmeter-vs-gatling/ <comment><USER2> Currently i use gatling with clojure using [https://github.com/mhjort/clj- gatling](https://github.com/mhjort/clj-gatling) and it works _extremely_ well... there something like this for jmeter? I'm looking at jmeters website and even though you picked it as winner it looks complex AF to me :(</comment>


Intel's so-called culture of meritocracy is costing 12,000 people their jobs - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/685005/intel-culture-just-ate-12000-jobs/ <comment><USER2> The problem intel had with the iPhone has very little to do with the power issue.. Intel is not an idiot.. If they sell a 1Ghz processor to apple for $20 (which is the type of pricing they would be targeting for the iPhone), then they know they will want an upgraded version in 1 year that is at least 20% better.. So it would only take 3 years to be selling chips to Apple that would be on par with chips they sell for about $150.. So they would be underselling themselves by a vast margin and the HPs and Acers and Asus and Sonys would be saying wait we have been your customer for 10+ years and you are selling to these guys at a ridiculously lower price that you have only been selling to for a couple of years??? Basically for intel to make that decision would have been something of a suicide with their current market.. So they were the old guard and didn't want to give up the golden goose.. Which is a great life lesson for people starting companies.. Find a market that people charge too much in and then find a way to get into that market with a new technology that you know if they went into would drop their margins.. But for you would be great since you aren't such a huge company as the incumbent..

</comment><comment><USER3> > In 1985, fresh from moving the Macintosh to the x86 processor family, Steve > Jobs asked Intel to fabricate the processor that would inspirit the future > iPhone.

2005 maybe?</comment>