Sweden Wants to Revive Europe's Overnight Trains - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/04/europe-night-train-sweden-eco-travel-sleeper-car-fossil-free/586228/ <comment><USER3> Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like they'd work out timing-wise, like Paris to Venice, had really poor reviews, but I assume that's down to the various companies running these services, who probably haven't invested much in them lately as budget airlines continue to compete so heavily.

Sweden seems perfectly set up to invest in overnighters, though, as the article notes some theoretical routes. Norway and Denmark would benefit too, I think; at one point I was investigating doing a trip that would involve going from Oslo to Copenhagen, and the only reasonable non-flight options were an overnight _ferry_ (which, all things considered, was surprisingly cheap, though I'm sure they gouge you on food and the on-ship shopping mall), or a 7 and a half hour train trip that'd take all day. If Sweden were running overnight service along that route through Gothenburg, connecting those countries, it'd be a pretty awesome way to get between places.

<comment><USER4> You write "_ferry_" like it's something weird, but it's a completely normal transport option for a huge number of Europeans -- usually for longer journeys, but sometimes to cover a short distance in 20-30 minutes. There are many ferry connections across the Irish, North, Baltic and Mediterranean seas.

Ignoring the price, I'd choose an overnight ferry over an overnight train. The worst room on a ferry is probably as large as the best room on an overnight train.

The food menu for Oslo-Copenhagen is [1], the prices seem in-line with what I'd expect to pay at a restaurant in either city, though I don't know what the quality is like.

[1] [https://www.dfdsseaways.co.uk/onboard-our- ferries/copenhagen...](https://www.dfdsseaways.co.uk/onboard-our- ferries/copenhagen-oslo/eating)

<comment><USER5> Interestingly enough in Europe there are places [1] where you can take a train which goes on a ferry, so you can take the ferry while you take the train

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

<comment><USER6> I've taken this train from Hamburg to Coppenhagen. It's fascinating to watch the train be put on the ferry and then you got a nice ferry ride and can marvel at the size of the wind farms off the coast. I would highly recommend it if you have the time.

<comment><USER7> I took this ride once but didn't actually know that was how it worked. I woke up in an empty car clearly in some kind of enclosure. It wasn't until leaving the car and going up a set of stairs that I realized my train was on a boat.

Until then, I wasn't so sure I wasn't in a rail yard or sci-fi movie.

<comment><USER8> I'm actually surprised they let you stay on the train. Both times I've taken that route they seemed pretty diligent about making sure everybody was off the train. I assume this is for safety reasons -- down in a darkened train on the lowest deck would be the last place I'd want to be if the ferry had any difficulties.

I really liked the ferry experience. The ferry part is only about 40 minutes, but it's just enough time to have a quick meal in the on-board restaurant. Unsurprisingly it's not exactly a bargain price for a buffet, but it did break up the train journey nicely. It's pleasant to sit in a comfortable booth and stare out at the sea for a bit.

<comment><USER9> > it's just enough time to have a quick meal in the on-board restaurant

The pickings seemed pretty slim for vegetarians, though, which took me by surprise as nearly every restaurant these days has at least one vegetarian option. I ended up having some plain fries with ketchup.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I'm a vegetarian myself and also would have appreciated a better selection in that regard. Both times I ended up having meals that were heavy in the potato and cheese departments. The buffet had some fruit and cooked vegetables as well, but nothing that was really a main dish by itself. Still, I didn't go hungry or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So back in Russia a trip from my home town to Moscow on a plane takes about 6 hours in total.

\- get to the airport about 1 hour in advance - about 1.5 hour drive \- The flight with all the procedures takes about 2 hours \- All the exit procedures can take up to 0.5 hours easily if no longer \- Wait for a train and ride to the city on the train - about 1 hour. \- Once in the city get on subway and ride to destination - usually 1 hours as well.

Compare it to the train, the fastest one is 14 hours:

\- 0.5 hours to get to the trains station in the middle of my hometown. (or less than 0.5 hours if you live near by) \- 14 hours laying down on a relatively ok bed with clean sheets \- BOOM! you're in the middle of Moscow

No check-ins, luggage management, no nothing.

6pm you lay down on a bed, have a much, read a book, go to sleep and next morning you wake up at 7 am, do your morning rooting and at 8 am you're almost in the middle of the city.

I take this train over a plane any day. The only problem with that is that it twice or more as expensive compared to plane tickets.

<comment><USER11> it would be fun to take a trans-siberian rail ... except it takes like what ...7 days? eats up vacation time pretty quickly.

<comment><USER12> In this case, the trainride IS the vacation. You don't take the Trans-Siberian primarily to get from Moscow to Vladivostok / Beijing, but to check out everything else along the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Overnight trains are wonderful for traveling and saving a night's hotel. I used to take sleeper cars in China for distances that made sense (e.g. board at 9pm, arrive 7am). Some with shorter distances even optimized on sleep so that the train would stop for an hour outside the final station and arrive at a reasonable time in the morning. Unfortunately and similar with Europe, high speed rail has ended many of these schedules. On a side note, I've also failed to take this train multiple times in Japan due to its popularity: [https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/japan-by-rail/travel- tips/su...](https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/japan-by-rail/travel-tips/sunrise- izumo)

<comment><USER14> That's what I did when I went around northern Europe. Took the Stockholm to Malmo, and then switch to Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I don't think there was sleeper cars.

That train departed late evening, got us there in the daytime. I figured if I'm paying to sleep, I might as well be moving. I only wish that there was bunks on that train.

<comment><USER15> There are sleeper compartments on the SJ Night trains – I took one to Malmö, but they also run to the north and across to Göteborg.

[https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-sj/our-trains/sj-night- trai...](https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-sj/our-trains/sj-night-train.html)

<comment><USER9> > they also run to the north

I took the sleeper from Stockholm to Kiruna in Lapland not too long ago. Definitely takes a while but it was a really nice experience!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case.

In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market.

But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either.

Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most important way to travel long distances.

The overnight trains in Central and Eastern Europe are much cheaper, too. For instance, a seat in Budapest - Belgrad costs 15€, and a bed in Kiev - <USER2> starts at around 8€.

<comment><USER17> The rise of Wizzair is reducing the appeal of long-distance train travel in Central and Eastern Europe. You can now fly from Budapest to certain destinations in surrounding countries for equal to or less than the price of the train if you book early or have little luggage.

Also, the launch of Polski Bus (a localized Megacoach) a few years ago means you can get between Poland and various Central European destinations for as little as 5€, again cheaper than the train.

<comment><USER18> And the national train operators are being challenged on their own turf by open-access operators. The days of sleepers are probably numbered in this part of the Europe. Wagons with convertible benches are uncomfortable both for sitting and sleeping. They're utterly uncompetitive vis-a-vis reclinable seats deployed by operators like Leo Express. Perhaps one day they'll start putting lie-flat recliners used in airliners on trains one day. That's more economical --and flexible--than having separate rooms.

P.S. Polski Bus has been absorbed into Flixbus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was disappointed when I checked if it was possible to do Paris-Warsaw by night train. I imagined entering the train at 5pm, eating something, watching a movie and waking up in Paris in the morning.

It sounded much better to me than spending an actual day commuting to/from far away airports and waiting in queues.

Unfortunately such train does not exist, but neither does the platform that would allow searching and booking such trips across Europe.

<comment><USER20> Warsaw on a warm summer evening. The sun is setting and there is a beautiful sky above the equally beautiful city. You relax into you sleeper cabin, and gaze out of the window waiting for the train to depart. 'Such a friendly city. Beautiful country.' you think to yourself. The train pulls out of the station. You watch the countryside pass as the night turns dark. You go to sleep.

-

You wake up at Gare du Nord. At least you think it's Gare du Nord. This can't be Paris, surely?! You think to yourself. You quickly leave the train to try and find out what horrendous 3rd world shithole your wrong train has taken you to... You immediately step in dog shit. You try to hop on one foot and clean it off. An tour group barge past you and knocks you over. A commuter flicks his cigarette toward the floor, hitting you in the face. He doesn't see you. Or maybe he just doesn't care. You can't tell. 'I need to get back to civilisation' you think to yourself as you get up and dust yourself off. You go to grab you suitcase. It's not there. It's in the hand of a Romanian running off down the platform. Welcome to Paris.

<comment><USER21> Downvoted - your Romanian stereotype is unacceptable and you need to know this

<comment><USER20> +1 Internet offended point to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My experience is that flying inside Europe tends to be cheaper than long- distance train. Does anyone here whether it's simply intrinsically cheaper, or whether it's all because of kerosine subsidies etc? In other words, if countries would subsidize long-distance train as much as they subsidize air flight, would the economics look different? Would train get substantially cheaper? I lack both the insight and the data to do this math.

<comment><USER23> Air travel is extremely tax-subsidized. If taxes on airplane fuel was similar to car petrol taxes in Europe that would be a good start. I hope there can be some sort of EU-wide agreement on that soon, because the current state of affairs is pretty silly and there is no way a single country can unilaterally impose high CO2 taxes on airlines.

<comment><USER24> trains are even more heavily subsidized so I don't understand the comment. the EU restricts subsidizing airlines and similar at all but the smallest fields and even has pursued having some airlines refund monies giving to them in violation of the rules. There are tax breaks in the form of not paying VAT for domestic flight routes but overall the cost for all air travel breaks is less than twenty billion Euros whereas subsidies for rail and worse the debts[2] for building and maintenance are ten to twenty times as much.

finally the one issue that stands out, is that while European members use rail at over five times the average of Americans it only works out to approximately 600 miles per year versus 100. Urban transport usage is only double the average use in American but that is a 120 uses per year versus 60. [1]

Then to make it even worse by focusing so much subsidies and expense on trying to convince people to take rail it has caused much more freight to end up on roads. In the US over forty percent of freight goes by rail, in the EU it is around eleven percent. So for the limited gains of moving people by rail are slaughtered by the losses in resulting environmental and financial impact of moving freight over roads.

The truth is many have this romantic view of rail travel which is not supported by facts. Politicians in the EU, where the lines are almost all government owned, love rail because its very visible and people don't look below the surface to see the reality of actual cost, debt load, and lack of real usage.

[1] [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5711595/KS-D...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5711595/KS- DA-09-001-EN.PDF/9c90d489-5009-4acc-9810-ae39612897d3)

[2] [https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/1015984/18...](https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/1015984/186783/Beria%20Bel%20et%20al%20-%20Mismatches%20HSR%20Italy%20n%20Spain%20-%20PAPER%2013%20%5BSENT%5D.pdf)

<comment><USER23> > the EU restricts subsidizing airlines

I didn't mean subsidized in the sens of "tax money is given to airlines" I meant energy taxes for other means of transportation are much higher than for airplane fuel, which pay very low CO2 taxes compared e.g. to cars. That is: they are given an advantage through the CO2 taxation.

If planes paid for their CO2 emissions, we'd be closer to having the train be cheaper than flying.

Obviously we want both more passengers and freight to go by rail. To get there requires investments in infrastructure. Sweden being the most blatant example of where in the last 2 decades, rail infrastructure maintenance was the first thing cut to compensate whatever budget hole needed to be filled. It's now decades behind, and that's the main reason I can't take a train between Stockholm and Gothenburg and expect to make my meeting in time - instead I have to fly or drive this quite short bit, even though both the the time it takes and the cost is similar. The train simply isn't reliable enough to use to go to an important meeting.

<comment><USER25> Unfortunately it isn't unexpected. It has been pretty clear that the current policy is favoring older domestic businesses over the cluster based "knowledge economy". The opportunity cost of having Bromma Airport taking up useful land is enormous. So is not investing in regional development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sleeper trains are doing fine in Central and Eastern Europe, despite having to contend with some long running times. Sweden is trying to revive them through Denmark, which hasn't hosted night trains since 2014 [1].

There's two viable, existing routes for trains between the Central Sweden and Northern Germany. One's through the Fehmarn Belt rail ferry, and another is the long way through Jutland. Both ways take a long time compared to the distance covered. Stockholm is already ~5 hours by fast train from Copenhagen -- this segment of the journey stays the same. It's after that things get complicated and slow. Operational issues remain with changing voltages and train protection systems (ETCS Level 2 will be built out in a few years), or with the ferry.

A Fehmarn Belt fixed link would be a boon for such a service, like the article says. But it remains to be seen whether that will be built.

[1] [https://back-on-track.eu/night-trains-to-europe-new- opportun...](https://back-on-track.eu/night-trains-to-europe-new- opportunities-to-scandinavian-sustainable-travelers/)

<comment><USER27> Re: Central and Eastern Europe, I took an overnight (sort of, 5AM to 5PM) sleeper train from Lviv to Budapest a couple years ago. It was quite pleasant and they managed the journey in a way I never would have expected. Instead of passenger layovers and shuffling between trains at subsequent stations, they just designated a whole car bound for Budapest and then detached & reattached it to different trains along the way. Made the long ride a surprisingly pleasant and restful experience.

<comment><USER28> They're called though coaches (Kurswagen in German) and used to be quite common. In fact, quite a few night trains are split and recombined during the night, but usually in chunks of three or four cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The invaluable Seat61 has loads on information on how and where to take sleeper trains at [https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm](https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm)

<comment><USER30> Thanks, I'm planning a trip to Europe later this year and this site looks like a fantastic resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a very good idea if it works reliably. However, from my experiences with sleeper trains in Sweden (via SJ), it's quite inconsistent. Just the other month, I took a sleeper from Stockholm to Kiruna and it was delayed by 9+ hours! Good thing this was an unplanned vacation so I had time. The customer service was excellent though, they were attentive and reimbursed me for the train tickets, hotels, food and car rental. I can't imagine myself using the sleeper trains for any business purposes though as I've had many delays with them.

<comment><USER32> Yes, I'm all for sleeper trains, but Sweden has the worst maintained infrastructure. They are trying to catch up after decades of neglect, but are open about expecting continuing disturbances for years to come. It is not only a nuisance, reimbursements or not; it's outright risky and a damn shame because we really need trains now

The "new economy" made popular round the turn of the millennium didn't deliver on it's promise of solving everything imaginable, just by turning maintenance of public assets over to lowest bidder private entrepreneurs. Go figure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My girlfriend and I travelled through Europe last summer and I was hoping to take overnight trains as much as possible, unfortunately the train strike in France killed a lot of that plan. Still, we were able to take two overnight sleepers. Rome to Turin and Budapest to Prague.

Rome to Turin would have been fine, except the air conditioning barely worked, which would have also been okay except (unlike 20 years ago) the window only opened about an inch. We had been backpacking all day in the hot sun. If you have trouble sleeping when it's hot, and you're traveling during the summer, this is something to consider. It made the night pretty miserable. I can't imagine how bad this would have been in a 4 or 6 person couchette. The Italian train was about $200USD total for both of us.

For Budapest to Prague we were able to book one of the three deluxe sleepers with a private toilet and shower. The trains were both newer, cheaper ($150USD total for both of us), and the AC worked better. Whether the deluxe is worth it is a toss up. You'll get bounced around a lot in the shower (part of the charm?) and having the private toilet, while convenient, gives the whole room a vaguely gross smell similar to sitting near a restroom on a plane.

\- Sleepers will not save you money vs a cheap hotel + day train (although the 4 or 6 person couchette might save a bit), and the trains shake and vibrate a lot.

\- Booking tickets is a pain until you get used to it (for each new country). The "English" version of whatever train site is often about 60% English at best (cough, ItaliaRail...). The Hungarian website (MÁV-Start) is a UX disaster. But you can often book on the destination country site, as well as the departure country. Luckily, we were able to book on the Czech site (CD) instead.

\- You will sometimes need a printed ticket that can be physically stamped for part of the journey. Check in advance.

\- Sleepers on popular routes book up quickly. They often either get very expensive or sell out completely at peak times.

\- seat61.com is an absolute lifesaver.

Still, with all of the "challenges" there are tons of little charming elements about overnight trains: differences in the layout of the spaces, the adorable/offensive gendered gift boxes (I got a razor and my girlfriend got a pink sewing kit), disposable paper slippers that I ended using for 2 months...

Anyway, happy to answer any questions from my limited (but enthusiastic) experience.

</comment><comment><USER34> I used overnight trains many times in my life. They are great, but if the revival is to succeed, we need better solutions for security. Theft was always a problem in sleeper trains. There needs to be a way to lock yourself in and have an alarm sound whenever someone opens the door with an override.

<comment><USER28> The European night trains I've been in all have physical locks that are only openable from the inside. Things could be stolen by other people in your compartment, but that's a lot less likely. I also have a preference for the upper bunks/beds, because you can stow your luggage in a nook above the wagon's side corridor, and thieves will have to actually get past you to get at your stuff (except for maybe the person on the bunk opposite you if you're in a couchette compartment). Seating compartments are to be avoided; I can't sleep in them anyway.

<comment><USER34> > all have physical locks that are only openable from the inside

Really? I thought all these locks can be opened from the outside by railway personnel using a "special key", which of course means that the thieves have access to that "special key" as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> We've just upgraded our London to Scotland sleeper service recently. It's not cheap but's it's fun!

If you want to get into the Highlands it's a lot more convenient, too: Fort William is hours from a major airport.

Going from Edinburgh to London it's really useful as you end up right in the heart of the London.

[https://www.sleeper.scot/](https://www.sleeper.scot/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Overnight trains are awesome and I am glad they are making a resurgence but is $5.3mm really "a major shot in the arm for Europe's night trains overall"? That's not very much money for infrastructure. Perhaps the important thing here is that the Swedes are publicly announcing that they're spending money on this, in general.

The cooler night train story is what is going on in Asia -- lots of projects in the works such as an Istanbul-Baku luxury sleeper train and major new Chinese routes such as Dushanbe-Kashgar and Lhasa-Yunnan.

<comment><USER37> 100% agree. Would have thought $5.3m is barely be enough to fund a proper advertising campaign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As of 25 years ago this was THE way for a backpacker with a Eurail pass to see the continent during the summer. The cheap cars (ie 6 beds/room) were basically a youth hostel on rails. It was a fantastic way to meet other travelers and explore new cities together.

<comment><USER39> Yup, I did this for a month back in my student days - the ticket is called Inter-Rail if you buy it within Europe. I was incentivised to basically visit a different country every day because every night spent on a train was one you didn't have to pay for a hostel! Also, some places like Florence had a free campsite with wooden shelters, you just had to bring a sleeping bag, and the month's rail ticket included an overnight ferry from Italy to Greece. Happy days!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> With the addition of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel potentially coming in 2028, it would be much more attractive for people in all the Nordic countries to take an overnight train into central Europe and vice versa. It looks like construction will begin this fall in Denmark.

[http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/green- light-74b...](http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/green-light-74bn- tunnel-between-denmark-and-german/)

</comment><comment><USER41> The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it.

In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from.

I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on flights won't help unless it's drastically, around 2-300%. And if you do this on domestic flights then nobody will afford international flights.

<comment><USER42> Another point (not in Sweden) is that the rail operators are government-owned companies which often operate like the government does.

Couple of months back, I tried to buy a ticket to the car-train to Lapland (I can take the car with me to train in the evening, sleep in a cabin, wake up in the morning and set off for the remainder of the journey with my car). When booking the car slot, the booking system required me to enable flash and when it got started, it just rotated that thing on the browser window.

I got bored, checked out flights. In 5 minutes I had flight tickets, with extra bags paid, and a rental car, at half the total cost of what the car- train would have been. I returned to the booking window, it still had that rotating thing on the browser window. I closed the window and did not miss it.

<comment><USER43> The rail infrastructure is government operated, but train companies that are responsible for all customer interaction is not. SJ is just as government- owned as SAS. The rail is basically like the airport, and the train companies are like airlines.

The general problem is the lack of competition. Between two destinations you usually have the choice between multiple airlines, but for trains there is usually only one. Between malmö-göteborg-stockholm there is the fast train alternative but it is arguable if that actually serve as competition. With air-travel you got multiple airlines and multiple resellers.

Swedish rail operate like a monopoly, which is in my view the main reason why its both expensive and terrible at the same time.

<comment><USER42> Quite, though I think Swedish situation regarding competition is somewhat better than my experience which was in Finland - here there's only the government-owned VR (former Statsjärnvägarna).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > That delay would be in order to wait for the construction of an 11-mile-long > rail tunnel between Denmark and Copenhagen called the Fehmarn Belt Fixed > Link, which would reduce the journey time by train from Copenhagen to > Hamburg from five hours to just two.

The author meant to say "11-mile-long rail tunnel between Denmark and Germany" as Denmark and Copenhagen do not need to be connected with a tunnel since they are already quite closely connected.

</comment><comment><USER45> Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.

<comment><USER17> > The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks)

You get what you pay for. There was probably an option of a 4-person compartment (2 double bunks), or perhaps even a first-class option with a two- person compartment. FWIW, I personally have never had a problem sleeping even in the 6-person cars; people are generally respectful of each other.

> with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good > night's sleep.

Where was this with passport checks with border crossings? Were you somewhere in Eastern Europe? There is plenty of room for overnight trains within Schengen where passports are not generally checked at border crossings.

<comment><USER46> There are still occasionally passport checks at EU borders.

<comment><USER17> With the migration crisis, spot checks have been introduced at a few select crossings, but that still leaves plenty of possible train routes within Schengen where the authorities are not concerned about checking for migrants.

<comment><USER47> Or any excuse a Member State wants to justify their "temporary" checkpoint.

Don't worry, MEPs won't do anything more than talk about it.

[https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we- do/policies/border...](https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we- do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/reintroduction-border-control_en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I took an overnight train in Sweden from Stockholm to Åre a couple of years ago. My experience was average at best, but possibly not good data. I was in a 6 person room (3 beds stacked on each side), and I ended up on the top bed.

It was pretty hard to fall asleep on a slowly, but slightly rocking train, then add in other strangers you are sleeping around, and it makes it even less comfortable.

I ended up just sleeping in 30 minute intervals, woken up by the rocking of the relatively smooth train. I would imagine it might be a good experience if friends/family took a cabin together, but with strangers it's not very comfortable (although some might disagree). Additionally, being on the top bunk made me subject to wider rocking then the people below me. I can imagine the experience being terrible if you don't have completely silent bunkmates like I got lucky with.

I think it might catch the attention of people who haven't done it before, but I didn't think it was anything to write home about.

<comment><USER9> > I was in a 6 person room (3 beds stacked on each side)

That sounds like a couchette (i.e. no real mattress, just a bunk). My experiences with those are also quite bad. A bed in a real sleeper cabin (with an actual mattress) is much more comfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm traveling from Gothenburg to Berlin basically on at least a monthly basis. Ever since I moved to Sweden 2005 I was looking for night trains to bring me to the continent but there weren't any.

Early on I took day trains but they took so much time that I never had wiggle time and since the Deutsche Bahn got private they are notoriously late which meant that most of the time I wouldn't catch the last train from Copenhagen and needed to take a expensive taxi for the last hundred of kilometers late during the night after a 16 hour journey.

The weird thing is that the flights just go on time and even though it takes time to get to and from the airport it's possible to calculate the time when you will arrive, ect. which is really important with businesses. With Deutsche Bahn you basically never know if you will arrive on the day they promised or not.

<comment><USER49> I travelled Stockholm-Copenhagen biweekly for a couple of years, and flying was cheaper and faster door-to-door than the train pretty much 100% of the time. That includes getting through airport security and taking public transportation to/from the airports at either end.

I mean, I would have preferred to take the train, but I'm not going to pay more to get there slower...

<comment><USER25> With the train you potentially lose a lot less productive time. Air travel can't be made much nicer since there are too many hard limits. The train however suffers from a lack of investment in fundamentals. A lot of people live in the suburbs today, where the train doesn't stop. Stockholm central station is despite the many renovations not very nice. The trains themselves are getting old. The infrastructure and service isn't what it could be either. And maybe most of all everything is just expensive in Sweden, and the Nordics, these days.

If you could have a slightly faster train with first class airline interior and a matching, not too expensive, hotel on top of the train station it would be a competitive proposal. But while I can appreciate that people like to talk about trains on hacker news the story really is that the future isn't happening in Sweden. Rather we seem to be on a seemingly predictable path following countries like the US and the UK were we are incapable of making long term investments and everything of value is getting expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's just like a year ago that SJ tried to kill off the Malmö-Stockholm sleeper. I believe that this will work out when I see it.

<comment><USER51> As I read the article, the "revival" is more about the government trying to get people to reduce their carbon footprint when travelling, and less about popular demand.

That being said, I remember taking the sleeper from Stockholm to Elsinore in Denmark as a kid. Boarding the ferry while on the train was pretty awesome to a ten year-old. :P

</comment></comment><comment> jor-el Last time I took such overnight train in Europe was Frankfurt to Copenhagen in 2013 by DB, and it was nice and comfortable. Trains always have more leg space and moving around areas than an airplane. With budget airlines they are trying to cram in as many people as possible, almost to the point of making you feel claustrophobic.

With trains there is no hassle of going to the airport, as they are mostly around city center. Also, I found people to be more friendly in trains, unlike in airplane, where most people have their headphones on, and do-not-disturb expressions.

</comment><comment><USER52> I take this train 3-4 times a year going from stockholm-luleå and it's great. You can get a 6 person cabin when travelling in a company of 4 which is great when you have small kids. This way you a whole cabin for them be pains without disturbing anybody else and it's much more of an adventure and much more cosy. I would love to have more good alternatives to travel by night trains because I really dislike airports and flying. One of the problems is that it's much more expensive to travel by train than the flying alternative.

<comment><USER44> Whats the cost comparison for the SJ vs SAS to Luleå?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Yes please. I traveled this way a lot as a child, and have recently done so for recreation.

But when you factor in all the hassles of air travel, the opportunity to arrive well rested, possibly with some work done, the city center to city center scenario is superior to air (because though travel time itself is shorter, there's all the security hassles, getting to the airport, checking into a hotel for a brief nap, etc).

Note: I can sleep through stops, equipment changes etc. I don't know if that is common or not.

</comment><comment><USER54> The Austrian federal railways (OeBB) is doing really well with night trains after the takeover. They even ordered new trains which should go into service in 2022. Really happy for this because the current rolling stock is just ancient and sleepers are a nice concept.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is smart because it uses electricity during the lowest demand period of the energy load profile. If your country or one of its neighbours has high base load power generation like France does, it makes a lot of sense to run electric trains during the night because they'll use electricity which is otherwise sold at a discount or redirected to pumped hydroelectric storage or other storage options if they exist.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm not sure about "revive," since sleeper trains have been coming back in Europe for years.

There was a Wall Street Journal article about it recently.

Sorry the link is Apple News, but that's where I bookmarked it from: [https://apple.news/AdFPGWf-GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ](https://apple.news/AdFPGWf- GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ)

<comment><USER57> Too bad I can't read WSJ, so I can't verify what they're saying. However, I haven't had much luck finding overnight trains here. It used to be that many existed and were popular, but they started disappearing and now few routes still have overnight options.

<comment><USER56> If this helps...

"In Europe alone, several new affordable options have materialized too, running more utilitarian services (no guided excursions, just overnight schedules). In 2017, the United Kingdom's Great Western Railway (GWR) relaunched the Night Riviera, traveling between London and Cornwall, one of England's sunniest corners. Also in 2017, Italy's Trenitalia-owned Thello debuted new sleeper cars with en suite showers on their Paris to Venice route. And in June 2019, Scotland's Caledonian Sleeper will debut highly anticipated new cars with routes from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh and Highlander routes to Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William with en suite showers, double beds and plenty of whiskeys in the bar car."

<comment><USER4> "Relaunched", at least for the two British trains, seems to mean they refurbished the carriages and issued a press release.

I used both of these trains as a student (late 2000s), so I'm not convinced that they weren't affordable before the relaunch.

<comment><USER58> I also enjoyed "Cornwall, one of England's sunniest corners" though it was admittedly mostly nice last time I was there. That said, might have been a useful option when I did a coastal walk last summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Low-Tech Magazine had a nice article about the trouble with the European rail network: [https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/trains/](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/trains/)

</comment><comment><USER60> I love night trains. Trains a underrated in general.

I wish the EU would invest heavily in trains. There should be high speed and sleeper trains all over Europe. Single rail cars could have different destinations with automatic coupling/decoupling outside of cities. You can run trains easily on Thorium generated electricity, so the tech is future proof.

Cargo should also be moved to the tracks: [https://www.cargobeamer.eu/](https://www.cargobeamer.eu/)

</comment><comment><USER61> Swedish railways have been staggeringly mismanaged and neglected since the 1990s. I wouldn't be surprised if they're one of the worst managed railway systems in the entirety of what used to be known as the developed world.

But it would be wonderful to have them restored and have international overnight services added. Hoping, with some skepticism, that the politics translate to reality here.

<comment><USER62> You are right but it's not likely to be fixed. On the contrary, the government has extracted billions upon billions in dividends from the state railway company, in order to shore up the budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Remember my school trip..denmark to italy. Drunk most of the way and still felt like being on a moving train hours after we got off.

</comment><comment><USER64> One issue night trains face when being reintroduced/introduced upon routes would be Urban sprawl and development.

In many Major towns and along those routes can and do become developed upon. You then face noise factors that you did not have before in reintroducing night trains and for introduction upon new routes - more so potentially an issue.

Whilst night trains don't need to go full speed and for many, more viable for comfort and running costs to run them slower. But in area's of urban sprawl, and noise regulations can and will prove an issue in such usage. Which is a shame but a major consideration today.

But equally, many transport avenues are under utilised and overlooked. Canals for one were a big thing decades ago and all but now abandoned in many parts as a means of transporting goods. Which is a shame as sometimes you just don't need it moved as quick as possible.

</comment><comment><USER65> Smart. Fly less, kill less nature with CO2, sleep more. Have always loved the night trains here in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER66> Come to think of it, this could take off in the US too. I wouldn't mind taking a sleeper (to and from) between SF and Seattle. 807mi at 100mph = 8 hours and change. Pretty nice.

</comment><comment><USER67> There are many overnight express trains in Europe. Cozy and not expensive, enough space for bikes. Warsaw-Moskow, Munich-Bologna, Paris-Tolouse, Kopenhagen-Hamburg just some examples.

</comment><comment><USER68> Didn't know overnight trains had disappeared. When I lived in Europe as a poor student from the US I would take night trains every single time I could. I had an Interrail pass and once everyone was settled down for the night go look for an empty seating or sleeping area with a door. I could usually find one and then I would just lay down inside with my feet agains the door, use my pack for a pillow and go to sleep. I traveled a month like that and never paid for a hotel.

</comment><comment><USER69> I welcome this idea. I look for an opportunity to take an overnight sleeping train occasionally but usually it fails because there is no connection between the cities I am interested in. Last time I used an overnight train I arrived after a good nights sleep in Genoa. Even if the train is slower than a plane, the fact that you travel while sleeping means you save time.

</comment><comment><USER70> I took a first-class sleeper train from Budapest to Amsterdam 20 years ago and loved every second of it. It's saddened me that it's become too expensive: something I afforded as a recent graduate at short notice now requires you to either to shell out a lot of cash or book far ahead, like a tourist? At least, Austria still offers affordable sleepers. The sound of the train lulling you to sleep is a wonderful thing.

</comment><comment><USER71> I was very excited by the idea of an overnight train in Europe but the reality was a bit underwhelming. We went from Cologne to Vienna which was roughly from 10 pm to 7 am which wasn't super convenient timing on either end. Also the cabins were super claustrophobic for me when the beds were folded down. Fun once but I would probably fly next time.

</comment><comment><USER72> I took an overnight train from Paris to Munich. Got on the train from Paris in the evening. My private stall had three seats with a folding table and a sink. The seats folds down and you can unfold three beds from the wall. I had a good sleep, woke up, got some breakfast delivered, took a shower and I was in Munich.

</comment><comment><USER60> The last sleeper trains in Europe:

"A sleeper is the most civilised, comfortable, and romantic way to travel... " [https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm](https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm)

Paris<>Venice sounds tempting.

</comment><comment><USER73> This will probably amount to nothing. Government injects 50 MSEK to make carriers schedule night trains. Will people use them? Time will tell. This is very similar to the same government's initiative to subsidise electric bikes. Gone after a year.

</comment><comment><USER44> As good as this sounds in concept, price wins at the end of the day, and while I lived in Europe RyanAir, SAS & Norwegian were a similar price to trains, but faster. The exception is when you travel to smaller regions with no major airport.

<comment> GuB-42 For the same price I actually prefer night train to airlines, by far.

Sure, airlines are faster, but the time to go in and out of the airport, security checks, boarding, etc... Your one hour flight easily translates into 3-4 uncomfortable hours.

With the train, it is usually downtown to downtown, just hop into the train and you are done. The journey may last 10 hours, but it is relaxing. Trains are much more comfortable than planes and sleeping is less of a problem, even with a standard seat.

With sleeping cars, you have what is essentially a moving hotel room, making your travel time effectively zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> As an American with little access to trains, I was excited to try a sleeper train from Vienna to Poland. But I was disappointed to find that it was pretty uncomfortable -- lots of stopping and ringing bells throughout the night.

<comment><USER44> I had a similar experience on a sleeper in Sweden. No bells, but stopping and rocking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> When I visited Europe many years a go I often took overnight trains with the intent of maximizing time to do things other than travel.

It was a great experience, maybe not the most comfortable, but I thought it was worth it.

</comment><comment><USER46> It would be great to see more night trains but having taken several before, I've never really been able to fall asleep. I would love to see technical improvements to reduce rumbling and promote sleep.

<comment><USER76> Agree with you. I took a night train from Venice Italy to Paris. The next day in Paris I had essentially prolonged motion sickness where I felt as if I was still on the train rocking with the rhytmn of the tracks about to fall out of the top bunk I had tried to sleep in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Second big train thread in two days: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548272)

</comment><comment><USER78> I once took a sleeper from Budapest to Munich and the problem was the jolt of the train stopping waking me up. It was OK-ish otherwise. I do not know how people would sleep through that.

</comment><comment><USER79> The Hokutosei from Tōkyō to Sapporo was a really good way to travel, but it was discontinued in 2015.

</comment><comment><USER80> In my limited experience trains are both ridiculously expensive and impossible to find in Europe.

Let's say I want to travel from Stockholm to Hamburg. It will cost an arm and a leg. And it will require a ridiculous amount of layovers (5 IIRC, with bus travel between some trains) _if_ you can a website to actually plan such a route properly.

It gets even more ridiculous the farther you travel.

<comment><USER81> I just plugged those two cities into the Deutsche Bahn website, and can now buy a ticket for a train leaving Stockholm in 8 hours (6:25 local time).

2 transfers (although routes exist with only one), 11:37 travel time. Saver fare still available: 99,90 € (regular would be 225 €). And it's not the only connection tomorrow.

That said, your point somewhat stands: it really depends on the route if good options are available, I've also looked at trips that seemed possible but I couldn't make work at all. Biggest problem is often the lack of overnight connections/night trains, which mean you're limited to what you can do during the day unless there's one of the exceptions on your route. Not fun if the only overnight "connection" means spending 2:30am to 4:45am on some train station.

<comment><USER80> Just plugged it in to SJ.se (Swedish rail). Doesn't even have Hamburg as a selection.

So I need to somehow know that Deutsche Bahn ofers the search capability. True two to three train changes, 90 to 220 euro.

I guess I'll use bahn.de from now on (and learn some German :) )

<comment><USER4> The best option should have one change, since there are direct trains from Stockholm to Copenhagen, and from Copenhagen to Hamburg (this train goes on the ferry). I would expect an additional change in Malmoe could reduce the cost and increase the time.

If you search for "now", it's 22:52, so you may get odd connections as the journey planner tries to make an overnight journey.

<comment><USER82> >(this train goes on the ferry)

Wow, how does a train go on a ferry? A full, long train with many cars? Then the ferry would have to be that long too, which seems unlikely. Or is it that one or a few cars of the train go on each trip of the ferry, and the cars are all connected back together when back on land?

<comment><USER81> The Denmark-Germany ferries on that route are ~150 m long, and fit a train of up to 100 m length (or something in that ballpark).

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2017-08-22-ICE_TD_Puttga...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2017-08-22-ICE_TD_Puttgarden-4150.jpg)

Larger ferries on other routes have multiple rails next to each other, and long trains are split up across those.

<comment><USER82> >The Denmark-Germany ferries on that route are ~150 m long, and fit a train of up to 100 m length (or something in that ballpark).

Whew!

>[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2017-08-22-ICE_TD_Puttga...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2017-08-22-ICE_TD_Puttga..).

High-tech.

>Larger ferries on other routes have multiple rails next to each other, and long trains are split up across those.

Great idea.

<comment><USER4> Or low-tech -- the first train ferries like this ran in 1842.

As the Wikipedia article says, there are very few routes left in Europe, although there used to be a lot.

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

<comment><USER82> Interesting, didn't know. It felt like high-tech to me, anyway, since I had not seen or heard of train ferries before, although I did know about ferries that can take cars (automobiles) on board. Been on one such ferry in Goa, and my parents had been on some while visiting the US and Canada, I forget in which city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Oh no!

5 million USD is ridiculously low amount of money for this; I expect that most of it will go to fund studies and planning, not actual trains. IMHO, it would be better to invest on research in cleaner airplanes and some influence-giving Airbus stock.

Also, for the budget I can usually afford on travel, the less time I'm inside the can the better. Trains are a big no-go.

</comment><comment><USER84> This is amazing. I've taken daylong trains between Narvik and Copenhagen.

</comment><comment><USER85> This is a great idea. I wish we had something like this in the states.

<comment><USER86> There is the auto-train. Washington DC to Florida: [https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train](https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train)

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I live in Sweden and most of the times I try to travel by train there is some unexpected thing they can't handle like snow, rain, leaves, sunshine so they are replaced by a buss. I wish trains were reliable.

</comment><comment><USER88> there's only 8 million people in Sweden, most of whom live near Europe in the south and in Stockholm, so this is relatively small endeavour. Still good though!

<comment><USER50> There's 10 million of us now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> This is great! I love overnight trains!

</comment><comment><USER90> Most of those trains consumes nuclear energy. Nuclear vs Gas? :)

</comment><comment><USER91> I'll believe it when I see it. Sleeper trains have been on the out for a while now, because they're much cheaper and often much more convenient than high speed rail. Don't want cheap and good to compete with overpriced and profitable, do we now?</comment>


ViperCard – An open source re-creation and re-imagination of HyperCard - <AUTHOR> https://www.vipercard.net/ <comment><USER2> HyperCard together with Qbasic both fell into that forgotten realm of democratising programming; making it so that even your aunt could write a simple program herself. A lot of people ended up learning programming because of these simple languages/tools, and I used to love playing with their projects I'd download from Geocities and the like.

It's a bit of a shame the industry gave up on the idea, and abandoned these syntactically-sugared programming languages. HyperTalk reads just like English; it very much seemed like the next generation of the niche BASIC aimed to fill. Because computers of that era typically opened right into a development environment (e.g. a simple BASIC interpreter), there was even brief discussion of HyperCard potentially replacing Finder as the default Mac OS environment.

<comment><USER3> People have written a lot about programming languages that try to use natural- language syntax, but one idea that I remember is that both HyperTalk and AppleScript are a lot easier to _read_ than to _write_ , because you can relatively easily use your knowledge of English to understand what the code is doing, but you can't easily use your knowledge of English to figure out how to phrase instructions in a way that the interpreter will understand. And your own praise of HyperTalk mentions its being easy to read, not easy to write. :-)

One way to experiment with this distinction might be to look at the Wikipedia page

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTalk#Fundamental_operatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTalk#Fundamental_operations)

and read through the examples and see if you follow them. I'm sure you will.

Now, close the page and try to write a valid loop, and a valid user interaction, and a valid test for the existence of a file. I don't think you're likely to succeed unless you've actually programmed in HyperTalk recently.

But I could readily imagine that many people can learn HyperTalk more quickly or comfortably than a language without the natural language elements. Maybe part of that is the low psychological barrier to using a system that looks like it makes sense semantically, compared to learning special meanings for lots of symbols.

<comment><USER4> Inform 7 ( [http://inform7.com/](http://inform7.com/) ) is a modern programming language with "English like" syntax. And as someone who's tried to work from their manual (it has only "shallow end" and "learn by example" formulations) when you actually want to do the thing, one particular English- like construction will compile and a very similar English-like construction will be rejected and it's awfully hard, except by repetition, to learn which one will work.

<comment><USER5> I find well thought-out formalized grammars easier to follow in either direction. In particular, I find Python striking a good balance between reading almost like English for the most part, and being compact and non- ambiguous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 88 (I was 19) I was a 'professional mac developer' and wrote a stack in hypercard to convert huge list of points to polygons, and split them with other polygons.

The project was to split the parcels of land from Lille to Paris with the track of the TGV (high speed train) to calculate the expropriation the state was doing to the poor guys who'd end up getting their huge field cut in two, and would have to drive 20 miles to go from one side to the other :-)

Seriously. Hypercard was pretty cool to throw together something quickly, with a UI and more importantly it gave the client the impression they could go an tinker with it afterward.

It was also excellent to mockup UIs and 'processes' and other bits of Mac apps before committing to making them, so even internally at apple, Hypercard (and Supercard) were used a lot for mockups.

There was a huge ecosystem around hypercard, and it lasted for a very long time.

Oh, and Atkinson is still my hero!

<comment> gm-conspiracy ...and Myst.

<comment><USER7> Wait, was Myst in hypercard? I remember watching videos where they talked about how everything was only in 256 colors with adaptive pallets, plus they had Windows, 3DO and Plyastation ports.

<comment> sjm-lbm The Mac version was in Hypercard, all of the other versions were different engines written from scratch for Myst.

They actually had to use the same color palette for each age to ensure there wasn't any strangeness as they flipped between cards to move around in the game.

<comment><USER8> I thought it used Macromedia (Shockwave or precursor?)

edit: I guess not, neat!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I remember correctly, the only reason Ward Cunningham invented the wiki is because HyperCard was discontinued. He was apparently writing CRC cards and storing them in HyperCard (which seems like a completely reasonable thing to do...) He wanted something that was as convenient for doing that kind of thing.

<comment><USER10> In his own words: Ward Cunningham, Inventor of the Wiki WikimediaFoundation [https://youtube.com/watch?v=XqxwwuUdsp4](https://youtube.com/watch?v=XqxwwuUdsp4) at about 3:00 and on for a minute. There was a release of hypercard in '98 - four years after he was working on the wiki.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that! That's a great video!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I taught myself AppleScript when I was 13, to parse HTML and make 1000-character iPod Notes. I'd used LogoWriter in school since I was 7, but never got a copy of HyperCard. I heard many good things about HyperCard, but never thought it would be worth starting an emulator just to use it.

I just opened ViperCard, and the GUI is totally intuitive. The scripts used by buttons share a lot of syntax with AppleScript. This is the GUI for AppleScript I always wanted. Now I know why people love it. If I'd been able to use HyperCard earlier, maybe I'd have become a front-end developer instead of a back-end engineer.

<comment><USER12> AppleScript, for those who don't know, was heavily inspired by HyperCard. And apparently was one of the (many) core language inspirations behind Javascript too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wrote a program called Virtual Journal 1.0 that was simply an infinite paged, password protected text journal app.

I put it into AOL's ftp area as shareware and got checks from around the world for $2. I was about 8 years old!

EDITED: I'm offering a $100 reward if anyone can find a copy of this software in an archive or old shareware disc somewhere! I'd love to find it again. Also, bonus points for finding my OneClick Palette called "AOL ROVER".

</comment><comment><USER14> HyperCard was about empowering users, the opposite of what many tech companies want today, including Apple. It was a "predecessor" to the web (hypertext, HyperTalk scripting language), of Flash (animations, graphics), of user programmable databases (ok, Filemaker is older). It enabled users to smoothly dive into programming, as it not only offered a simple but extremly powerful concept of document-applictions called "stacks", drag-n-drop setup of your own graphical user interfaces, but behind all this a very powerful, extendable object oriented programming language with kind of "real" objects, as every item of your stack could have it's own method. Thankfully we have web technology today, else computer technology would miss its most democratic tool. But still HyperCard was the only way to simply have your own data on your own computer in your own application and not relying to a server, cloud or even paid service.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is cool, but I wonder if anyone has made a modern, browser-based variation of HyperCard? Something with a model akin to HyperCard's but exporting stacks in a form that can be easily put onto a page.

There's Amber Smalltalk, but that's more powerful and the simplicity of HyperCard is part of its charm.

<comment><USER16> Not modern, but the original in a browser via emulation: [https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the- archive...](https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive- celebrating-30-years-of-hypercard/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still kind of awestruck by this. Hosting an OS inside a browser. It's great as a time capsule to perfectly see the past. But because it's an emulator, it would be difficult to add a more modern feature, like ViperCard's share-url-to-stack and save-stack-as-json.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of my favorite story about old-school Macs. All Macs shipped with Hypercard after its release for a while. Then, eventually, Apple spun off Claris, who got HyperCard as part of the deal, and Apple decided to ship a nerfed version of HyperCard that had most of the stack authoring tools disabled.

However, you could open up a command console in this neutered version of HyperCard, type in 'magic', and you'd be able to unlock the full set of authoring tools.

Magic indeed.

</comment><comment><USER18> For those that like HyperCard, I really recommend looking at LiveCode (www.livecode.com), it is a modern version of it that is able to generate standalone applications for MacOS X, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and the Web.

They have a FOSS version behind that confusing website, the livecode.org site has access to the GPL version, you can download without acquiring a membership. It is just a bit hidden.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how much material design is influenced by Hypercard. I know the web was partially inspired but it looks like with material design the language is sort of extended. Or maybe it was all integrated into the design language for the web.

<comment><USER20> What I find amazing is that early B&W GUIs were more usable than modern material design. Most takes on Material that I've seen take poor use of screen real-estate, poor conveyance, and distracting/hard-to-read color choices to an art form.

<comment><USER21> In case some UX / HCI experts read this thread, are there any credible studies of information density in user interfaces plotted over time?

<comment><USER22> You could simply plot recommended sizes for clickable items over time.

Windows 9x used 125% text height of 10pt as clickable item height, that's around 0.441mm.

Android 4.0 recommends a clickable item height of 48dp, "roughly one centimeter".

Android 5.0 uses 56dp (1.17cm), and on Phablets and Tablets even 64dp (1.33cm).

For items in lists, a second effect was seen, as it became recommend to show more info earlier, the number of list items visible at the same time was reduced. A multi line list item has a minimum height of 72dp (1.5cm), average is more around 96dp (2cm).

A similar effect can be seen on Windows, in UWP, the average item height also went to almost exactly 1cm in lists or menus.

This all fits well, as the smalest reliably clickable element in a UI is ~1cm on its smallest dimension.

This is also a common issue with HN, where voting buttons are 0.3 by 0.3cm, even on mobile, and as result I misclick ~2/3rds of the time, but no one seems willing to fix this.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed comment!

<comment><USER22> It's honestly not much effort – I was compiling a new version of my app when I wrote it, and the last change I had done was the size of a button, because people complained about it. So I happened to have all the documents open by luck :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'll show my age here, but back when I took AI, I wrote a (toy, homework-size) expert system as a Hypercard stack. There is actually a lot to be said for Hypercard as a framework for quick UIs.

</comment><comment><USER24> why is this flagged?

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow! This takes me back! HyperTalk was probably my second language after Applesoft BASIC and boy did it seem powerful at the time.

Hypercard overall was just great at getting out of the way and letting you get things done. Looking back, if Apple had realised how powerful networking was back then, Hypercard may have morphed into the browser one day, but they missed that boat.

I remember reading somewhere a while back that Hypercard plus some XCMDs were used to control the lighting system in Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpar... actually here we go: [https://www.wired.com/2002/08/hypercard-forgotten-but- not-go...](https://www.wired.com/2002/08/hypercard-forgotten-but-not-gone/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Ironically, it does not work in Safari. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like Safari implements regular expressions slightly differently, and it leads to the parser behaving differently. Hope to be addressed by the end of the week.

<comment><USER27> Irregular expressions

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've always thought that OneNote would be better as some kind of hypercardesque application. Everything I wish my notebook could do it kinda does, but with very poor linking to data or calendars.

</comment><comment><USER29> As for the problem with languages like HyperTalk and AppleScript being read- only, the solution isn't to change the syntax, it's -- wait for it -- AI! If Google can figure out what you want from a spoken free-form inquiry, then a smart interpreter should be able to figure out what you're trying to say in a line of code, even if you don't get the syntax quite right. And if your code is ambiguous, it can ask you confirm your intentions. Why haven't we seen more of this?

</comment><comment><USER30> This is my first experience with HyperCard and I love it!

</comment><comment><USER31> www.livecode.com is a cross platform updated Hypercard descendant. Their free Community edition is GPL

<comment><AUTHOR> I liked Runtime Revolution. I wish the broader coding community would taken environments like this more seriously, is the text editor sacred? I left the platform before they added more mobile+online support, I'll have to see what they have added recently.

<comment><USER32> _is the text editor sacred?_

No, it's the worst form of development, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> this pleases me greatly. I hope the $1000 level is reached ASAP so it can import existing stacks!

</comment><comment><USER34> I would think "Hypercard Reimagined" would finally cast off the iron chains of its black-and-white, ancient Mac UI heritage...

edit: to clarify, even back in the day those were the two things that I really disliked about HyperCard. No color and no Windows

</comment><comment><USER35> Hypercard was the inspiration behind much of the early Web. In particular the Viola browser suite.

[http://www.viola.org/viola/violaIntro.html](http://www.viola.org/viola/violaIntro.html)

</comment><comment><USER36> Considering the enthusiasm at display here, I feel like this project would deserve bit better demo video for people like me who do not really understand HyperCard.

</comment><comment><USER37> I had a early Mac in 1984 (still have the damn thing - sentimentality). Showing people Hypercard was often the thing that convinced them to purchase a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Mobile and tablet are not yet supported"

Well, heck. Now I can't even see what is causing so much commentary on the memories of HyperCard.

</comment><comment><USER39> Ironically, doesn't support Safari :)

<comment><USER40> Click the "Click here to continue anyway" button. Like most sites that advertise that they don't work on Safari, it actually works just fine.

(Reminder: If you're doing browser feature detection via User-Agent string, you seriously need to re-examine your life.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Kind of ironic they "don't support" Safari, the browser for macOS.

Seems to work anyways.

</comment><comment><USER42> Aw man. So much nostalgia. <3

</comment><comment><USER43> this is great, but how do i hit option on an android to draw multiple?

<comment><AUTHOR> The UI was so mouse-centric that I haven't tried it much on mobile. If the menus work ok on mobile, it might make sense for "draw multiple" to be switched on in the menu like the way "draw wider lines" is now.

<comment><USER43> minivmac does a good enough job of it on the android port, and the in-browser mac emu at the archive too. looking forward to seeing where this project leads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I used to make Hypercard stacks back in 7th grade when I was learning from Quantum Link (Q-Link) hackers like Mobeius from the Pan-American Information Network (#hellonearth).

And AOL hackers and soical engineers like HappyHardcore, creator of AOL4Free & the Master Blaster, the famous Da Chronic, creator of AOHell and KT (Shameer) who first taught me social engineering in 1995-

[http://www.stepbystep.com/America-Onlines-Dark- Side-131812/](http://www.stepbystep.com/America-Onlines-Dark-Side-131812/)

Koceilah Rekouche aka Chron, photo from the 1990s-

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/captivating/3816111466/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/captivating/3816111466/)

<comment><USER33> I love hacker news right now. Been a long time since I felt "home".

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> there needs to be ways to jump into code without being bogged down with installing compilers and tools and configuring minifiers and choosing frameworks. just code straight away.

something that works for kids but also scales all the way into enterprise.

<comment><USER36> open about:blank, right click, inspect element, start hammering code into console. You can still get pretty far with plain JS these days without touching the quagmire that is modern webdev world.

Sure there are some other issues in picking JS, but it is both readily available and (somewhat) scalable to "serious" projects.

<comment><USER45> nothing can compare to saving a .bas file on a floppy to learn how to code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why has this been flagged?

</comment><comment><USER47> Many happy memories. Can we make it full-screen please ?

<comment><AUTHOR> The closest I could get so far is to set the browser zoom to 200%, click in the url bar, and hit F11. Looks pretty good in Chrome.</comment></comment>


Holding a hot beverage makes you trustworthy - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7688315.stm

<comment><USER2> Why doesn't this article have a picture of Bill Lumbergh and his mug?

yeaaaaa....</comment>


Layoffs hit Flexport, another SoftBank-backed startup worth $3.2B - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/flexport-layoffs/ <comment><USER2> 3% doesn't sound that bad compared to the others. It's cool that the spokesperson was so forthcoming about the reason as well. And if they have 10,000 clients, then they definitely seem like the least bubbly and softbank-y of the softbank companies - that's some real business activity in a competitive market.</comment>


Plain Threads are the GOTO of todays computing [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCUEgSNIAY

<comment><USER3> Actually, plain threads indeed are pretty much the goto's of parallel computing, one difference being that while various techniques analogous to "structured programming" \- "structured threading", if you like - <USER2> available, they all work for some systems better than others, and often aren't very portable/ubiquitous yet. So right now they can't almost-kill raw threads the way ifs, fors and whiles almost killed goto's.

<comment><USER4> I think this is a really important observation.

There was a very interesting discussion between Cliff Click and Rich Hickey (linked at bottom). The highlight of it for me was Cliff Click suggesting that people often assume that because we use a range of great abstractions every day, garbage collection was his example of a very successful abstraction, there is tendency among programmers to assume that all abstractions are great. Cliff Click gives the example of a MPI as an abstraction which proved powerful in some domains but very fragile in general.

As far as I can tell we are still looking for a really good abstraction to replace threads.

[http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff/2008-05-27-clojure- stm...](http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff/2008-05-27-clojure-stms-vs- locks)

<comment><USER3> Personally I'd probably label MPI as "too low-level" an abstraction, not unlike threads; and I think there are many great high-level threading abstractions which I wouldn't call fragile, from Cilk/TBB and the like to transactional memory.

What I meant to say was, Cilk/similar can be very useful at times, transactional memory at _other times_ , Erlang-style fully isolated lightweight processes at _still other times_ , etc. - and none of these approaches comes with a universally available interface, also none is universally taught (while threads are.)

So my guess is that raw threads will be used increasingly less but (A) it will take time and (B) either we miss something right now or it will take more mechanisms and approaches to replace raw threads than it took to replace goto.

That said, anyone needing to do something with threads today at any sort of scale (even if it's one guy who writes something that needs to be maintained over a long span of time) should IMO hide the threads behind _something_. (My take on it is [https://github.com/yosefk/checkedthreads](https://github.com/yosefk/checkedthreads))

<comment><USER4> I agree that it looks like we will end up with a much larger, and less universally applicable, toolbox of abstractions.

Feels like a fun time to be programming, while we search for the right set of abstractions. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like to think exceptions are also a slightly less egregious form of the GOTO.

<comment><USER6> Many things are — [http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab- pubs/AIM-...](http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab- pubs/AIM-443.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I am a bit confused, what is the relevance of that paper to the comment? Unless I misunderstood, the comment appeared to be about flow control issues of exceptions(hidden control flow and corrupt state), and I don't see that addressed in that paper.

<comment><USER5> The paper is about subroutines (function calls) being a lot less complex because all a subroutine can do is finish and then go back to its caller. There are no semantics in subroutines for jumping around willy-nilly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is my company doing wrong? - <AUTHOR>

My startup, MarksMenus.com, has been growing a product in beta for about a year now. It started as a side project, but I've devoted myself to it full-time for the past 5 months.
I submitted a "Rate my startup" entry yesterday (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1693274) and got some good feedback, but very little criticism.
This is pretty typical of the feedback I've received all along (i.e., "nice. great idea!") but despite this I feel like our product has been very slow to get traction. I'm looking for critical feedback on why.
Possible reasons, in my mind:
1) It just takes a lot of time. We're on the right track and simply need to patiently move forward.
2) Poor execution (please point out specific deficiencies).
3) Memphis (our location and current target market) is too small.
4) Missing market (we're simply wrong in thinking there's a need for this).
Other ideas?
http://marksmenus.com <comment><USER2> After glancing at the site:

1\. It doesn't look particularly good, visually.

2\. It's not immediately clear what it does. I just saw a list of recipes, so I assume it's yet another recipe site (there are 1000s).

3\. After making the effort to dive in further, the "restaurants tab" seems to give me a random map with some random restaurants. I don't get it: what does the site do for me?

4\. This is a startup about local restaurants, right? Local is very, very hard. And restaurant reviews just aren't very compelling, particularly because the few reviews I looked at where pretty meh, not really worth reading, quite honestly. "Seven dollar lunches -- including soda and tax -- served in about seven minutes have made Celtic Crossing an incredibly popular Memphis lunch stop." -> booooring, and not different from restaurant reviews I can read in 100 other places. I think you're on the wrong track. Sorry to be harsh.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't be sorry! Looking for honest feedback.

Re: the reviews, we're actually trying to differentiate from other websites by offering "recommendations" instead of "reviews". For example, when I'm simply looking for a place to eat lunch today I don't necessarily want to read pages and pages of long-winded exposition (i.e., reviews) -- I simply want those in the know (local foodies) to point me in the right direction.

What do you think of that approach?

<comment><USER2> Sounds good in theory, but it's not there right now. I'd work hard on the UI and the content. As per your theory, I would expect to do a search, and then see: "JoeX says 'the burgerbarx is great because of y'." Ie. show the people recommending (the foodies) and show what they say. And make it look less like a databasedump (being harsh again) ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate it. We'll post a follow-up after we clean up the UI and get a second round of opinions.

The team currently consists of tech/business talent -- no designers. And it shows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of menupages.com. Looks wise, your site is better, but menupages has lot more data (which is understandable, as they are serving much bigger cities). According to compete, they had half a million visitors last month. I think that is proof enough, the concept works.

Some things that you could try:

1\. Add more data (restaurant phone numbers, email, do they have take aways, do they have a delivery service, do they have kid friendly menus etc)

2\. Why not categorize the restaurants by the food type? (Italian, Indian, Chinese etc)

3\. More photographs - why not contact the restaurant owners and get photos of their restaurants, foods etc?

4\. Promotions - Sign up with restaurants and promote one restaurant (or even one dish from a particular restaurant) a day. A coupon that gives big discount (50% +). You get more visitors to your site and the restaurant gets more biz

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're actually in the process of working on several of these exact things. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see a benefit to using this site over Google. So, there are a lot of restaurant review sites. But if I am actually looking for a specific restaurant on a specific site, it might have nothing. So it makes more sense for me to search in Google and let it pull up the site with the most or most relevant reviews. Sometimes it pulls up citysearch, sometimes yelp, sometimes b4-u-eat, etc.

For me to ever actually come to this site specifically (and risk missing out on good info from another site), I would need a strong reason to do so. An example would be, a blog where you guys go "undercover" and review restaurants. Or where you have a funny twist of some sort, or maybe take a strong POV.

Or maybe something like: I'm a vegetarian, so maybe every reviewer enters their dietary constraints or preferences, so I can search for people "like me" and see where they are eating and what they like.

Lastly, until I read the reviews her, I wasn't even clear that this was providing searchable menus, it looks like another review site. The primary point to use Google still applies. If the restaurant has a main website, I'd rather go there. If they host their menu with you, Google should fine it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like we may not be doing a very good job getting our message across.

Good suggestions re: SEO and social features. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where is your traffic coming from?

Have you figured out yet why menupages.com and allmenus.com have a lot of traffic, but your website don't.

Their websites rock on search engines, but your website is nowhere to be found.

I search for restaurants a lot and I never saw your website before this thread. Mostly, I go to Google and search for "$cityName restaurants" or "$restaurantName menu". This is where you want your website to rank, and this is what is going to bring you tons of free traffic.

I went through your website, and figured that search engines can not crawl 99% of your website's content.

Your website has a nice idea, product and content; but inefficient design in terms of SEO. I see that with a lot of startups. SEO is not something that you can just get it done from a consultant at a later stage. It has to be built right in to the product, your product/website should have a Search Engine friendly structure and design.

I have years of experience building SEO friendly websites and web applications. We leverage search engines to get traction and tons of free traffic. I can help you with SEO. Contact me at ravish at realgeek.com

</comment><comment><USER6> It does take time. You say you have spent the last 5 months full time. How much of that has been in development vs marketing? How are you reaching out to restaurants to populate the site? You have the chicken and egg problem, people don't use it because there is not enough content, there is not enough content because people don't use it.

I'd focus on a few major markets and work hard to get as many menus up as possible. People are always looking for free advertisements and having their menu online is one form. I'd push that as much as possible. Since this is your full time effort, you may need to spend money on marketing to get the ball rolling. Perhaps enter the menu's yourself (or hire a VA to do it) and then drop the restaurant a note saying that their menu is now online and they can make changes at this website for free.

Other ideas, perhaps white label it to newspapers and/or city websites? In San Diego, there is a dining guide section at signonsandiego.com and this would fit into what they are doing. They also have someone who is doing reviews weekly, which could now include populating the full menu.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're actually about to finalize a deal with the local paper to white label our content. Thanks for the tip about signonsandiego.com; maybe channel publishing will be our niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What pain point does your app address, exactly?

There is a difference between providing something that seems interesting and cool and actually making a point of frustration go away.

In my opinion, it's highly likely that your app doesn't solve any real problem that people have right now. It's executed well, it's clear at what it provides, but it is unclear as to why this is a benefit to me as a user.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're trying to address two pain points:

1) For consumers outside of NY and SF (which seem to be covered by menupages.com), there is no searchable menu database. Since their acquisition by NY Magazine, menupages appears to have little/no growth plans.

2) For restaurateurs, we aim to solve the difficulty of getting menu content online in a conventional way by providing simple, free menu content management.

Point number 1 can be difficult to see for folks outside of the top few major metro areas, but there is honestly no other solution currently in place if you want to search for "salmon in downtown Denver".

<comment><USER7> A pain point is not "We do x for y like z does for a" (especially when z is showing no growth).

A pain point is the identification of the problem a specific customer has to which you can apply a solution that removes this problem.

In identifying the pain point, you need to validate the entire scope from the user's perspective - their _entire_ perspective.

What I'm trying to say is that you need to be very, very clear on what benefit you are bringing to the user, what other options they have, and _most importantly_ whether or not the "pain point" is worth _their_ investment in finding a solution.

I say the last point because I fear it may be directly applicable to you and your situation, and you even provide the evidence to support this in your comment.

Ask yourself this question: Why doesn't menupages.com appear to be seizing the growth opportunity?

I don't have the answer for that question, but in order to be successful, you need to confirm that the answer is not - in any way - related to the market, or lack of one.

It is highly possible that getting menu content online is just not enough of a problem for enough people to be worth investing in the solution you have developed. I know I eat out a great deal, yet see no use for this particular function beyond casual knowledge. (i.e. if I couldn't find a menu, I'd probably just go to the restaurant anyway).

I think, honestly, you should backtrack to the start point here and go through the process of nailing the customer identification process. It's very possible that my hunch is incorrect, but you need to find out - exactly - how if you are to be successful here.

Good Luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> run4, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I read your reply to my partner and it has already catalyzed a vibrant discussion on this end.

I still believe we're onto something, but you strike right at the heart of what we need to do to make sure. Thanks.

<comment><USER7> np... I wish you guys the very best of success!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Have your restaurant members allow you to install a cam at a strategic location and stream that video on your site. Apart from menus, the user can get a look and feel of the place before heading for it. Even if I have been going to it often, I'd check if I will get place. At times, you can do some webinars where the chef maybe showing off his best creations....

To make your site create a pull, you could have users register and identify themselves at the restaurant for a free give-away or a discount. Then the restaurant could upload the details of what you had and paid, to a password protected area. It will be a history of my personal spending, what I liked and where. Reward the heavy users etc etc.

Build a social network of foodies, would be foodies and the folks who feed these foodies.

</comment><comment><USER9> >What is my company doing wrong?

I think this is the wrong question. The right question is 'what can my company do better?'. In your case, there is not much value-add over a google search. Tell me where I can get 2 for 1 pizza right now, who makes the best lasagne, give me coupons, loyalty schemes, 'say marksmenus.com sent you' calls to action, 'do you like ramen? try these 3 local joints' features. Bury yourself deeper into both the restaurants and users. Your app is good....it could be better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent suggestions. Many thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My personal opinion is that there isn't a need for this, but others have pointed out menupages.com, which I guess is really big. I've never cared to search for restaurant menus online myself. Even if you covered the city I live in, I wouldn't use it. Sorry. That's my critical feedback. It sounds like others do see a use for it though, so I could easily be wrong. I don't consider myself a "foodie" so maybe I'm just not your target audience. Do a lot of people call themselves "foodies"?

</comment><comment><USER11> Change your page tittle. Memphis Restaurant Menus - MarksMenus.

Why stay only at Memphis? Why not the wikipedia of restaurants menus?

Cheers

</comment><comment><USER12> To answer the question of why is the service slow to gain traction: While it is a useful service, and I have this pain point, it doesn't come very often. Perhaps this is because I don't eat out much, but I would say I only could use a service like this maybe once per month. It's not quite like email or messaging, that people need to access several times per day.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you. Even when I do want to go out and eat, I find that it's much more likely that I am wondering "where should I go?" rather than "what's on xyz's menu?"

Because of this, we recently added a new feature where "foodies" can recommend restaurants and dishes to make it much more effective to browse area restaurants.

Would a feature like this make you any more likely to use the service?

<comment><USER12> You know, I don't think it would (perhaps, but tough to say). You're right with the "where should I go?" question, which comes down to the "what do I want to eat?" question. Actually, looking at the site again, I can see you're addressing this with suggestions from the local area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When i go to the first page it recommends a restaurant in san francisco... i am in alabama. there is some way to guess where people are geographically by their ip address.

<comment><USER13> When i do add my location birmingham, al...... the 2nd restaurant is Krystals (a crappy fast food place). When I call google voice and ask for restaurants in birmingham, the first one is bottega, one of the best restaurants in town...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there anything else you can sell to restaurants (i.e., capitalize on your existing contacts)?

</comment><comment><USER15> clickable link <http://marksmenus.com></comment>


iPhone 7 Plus: Software Is Eating the (Camera) World - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/fstops/iphone-7-plus-software-is-eating-the-camera-world-fa8548b93017#.ernt3t9el <comment><USER2> At the end of the day the user cares about quality photos and if the software works then why not</comment>


Analyzing NBA skill gaps in python - <AUTHOR> http://www.danielforsyth.me/is-basketball-a-weakest-link-sport/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. I'd like to see the comparison between a regression on 'weakest link' 'strongest link' and average PER across starters.

Another factor is that this doesn't weight for time on the court. Someone could go into the lineup data and extract the PER for the lowest player on the court for each lineup and then create a weighted average based on how long each lineup played.</comment>


The Next Tech Talent Shortage: Quantum Computing Researchers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/technology/quantum-computing-jobs-immigration-visas.html <comment><USER2> Do companies not even understand the concept of training & delegation anymore? On one hand they want to pursue high-technology opportunities which have little competition, then they move to that area and wonder why there's isn't a large workforce ready to hire?</comment>


AWS Gave 10% Credit for S3 for Feb 28th Outage - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/mhscH <comment><USER2> Context: working at a company heavily relying on AWS. Made a request for such credits yesterday.

It reflects their SLA policies and docs, no surprise here. My AWS sales contact confirmed there's no problem with such demands (and basically they won't waste your time asking for failing X-Request-Id's or deny there was a problem).

What will be more interesting is how they'll deal with credit demands on all the S3-dependent services that were down at the same time. My company AWS bill is only 20% of S3@us-east-1, so we were completely down for 4+ hours and can only claim for 2% of our previous bill (woohoo).

But if we add Cloudfront, part of EC2, SWF, etc. it can become a different story.

</comment><comment><USER3> As per their SLA:

Monthly Uptime Percentage, Service Credit Percentage

Equal to or greater than 99.0% but less than 99.9%, 10%

ref: [https://aws.amazon.com/s3/sla/](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/sla/)</comment>


Peter Thiel on "The Straussian Moment" – Uncommon Knowledge [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRleB034EC8 <comment><USER2> That was interesting, but I need to let those things sit for a day or two and stew in my brain.

</comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't find the actual essay, anyone has the link?</comment>