Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: "There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/31/another-airbnb-victim-tells-his-story-there-were-meth-pipes-everywhere/ <comment><USER2> What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them.

Right now it's about "you were stupid, why did you rent your space out to strangers?". Later on it'll be "why did you try to save $20 and go sleep some place where you're 110% vulnerable?". You don't control the locks, you don't know the neighborhood or even the layout of the house all that well (are there cameras in the room spying on you?).

If Holiday Inn or Marriott had tried to go 'downmarket' by trying to get in the "rent out your space with us - we'll handle the booking logistics", they'd have been eaten alive by the insurance costs of dealing with QA on thousands of rooms/spaces they don't control. They'd have too much name brand recognition and goodwill in their names to lose by leaving customer safety and security to chance. ABNB seems to be coming at this from the other way. What do they have to lose? Investor money? It's a big experiment for them, which they're hoping will pay off, but I think there's a reasons beyond "laziness" or "not getting it" to explain why larger companies well-versed in hospitality/property management have not gone down this road.

Will things still work out for ABNB? They might, but they're taking such a hit on this by not just making some of these situations right, then changing their procedures and policies. Apparently these incidents - as infrequent as they may be - have been occurring for a while. There's probably quite a few more that haven't come forward because they've felt it was their own fault, much like domestic abuse spouses blame themselves. Not really wanting to see ABNB fail, but can't help watching this play out, and I somewhat suspect it'll get worse before it gets better.

<comment><USER3> _What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them._

I agree 100%. However I ask say how in the world did you think about this?

<comment><USER4> I thought it too when I heard about the service and how little vetting is done (i.e. not, it is all left to the users).

A fair number of rape/murder/other cases involve an unwitting victim being lured into situations that they naively (or just incorrectly) think should be safe. It is far from a daily occurrence in any given area but such cases are in the national news often enough (and fictional realms also) to figure in the minds of the more paranoid!

1\. think of using AirBnB, 2. perfectly healthy paranoia kicks in and starts listing worst-case scenarios, 3. book into a large well known chain hotel instead...

<comment><USER2> Not just 'no vetting' is done, but they actively discourage you from making your own outside contact with the other party until you've already paid. Craigslist doesn't go that far - they do hide your email, but they don't stop you from trying to do your own vetting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a deep ethical problem with starting or funding airbnb, in my opinion:

The fraction of people with enough sophistication and resources to be good, safe, hosts and guests is a tiny, tiny fraction of the people in the world. It is absurd to think that airbnb could ever scale to justify its investments if only those sophisticated users were customers.

The model relies, therefore, on large numbers of hosts and guests taking foolish risks. Airbnb's light and airy "how it works" video is a fine illustration of just how glib they are in encouraging people to make bad mistakes. The advice on their "safety" page is risible.

Because most people are decent, most foolish risks from using airbnb go "unpunished" but certainly not all - as we've seen. A significant percentage of those risks lead to great loss.

I fear that Airbnb is going to help kill, kidnap, rape or otherwise grievously harm someone's person, directly, at this pace. That's because to make its numbers the company must, needs be, incite dangerously foolish behavior from many customers.

That the investors controlling so many dollars signed off on this investment speaks poorly of the VC system that produced airbnb. It speaks poorly of their common sense and/or dedication to basic social responsibility.

<comment><USER6> What about all of the good that AirBnB does for the large majority of people who use the site? Is there a deep ethical problem with letting people supplement their income, while also letting travellers have a cheaper option for a night/weeks stay?

The vast majority of people who use AirBnb benefit from it.

<comment><USER7> In this regard, it is similar to driving. Vast majority benefits, but there are few who suffer greatly. The solution there is to regulate; introducing specific rules and making it illegal for people to drive unless they have a license. There is already a regulated hosting system: hotels; airbnb wants to change the system without keeping the regulations. I'd say they carry some responsibility here.

<comment><USER6> Being a liberitarian, I don't ever think the solution is to regulate; especially in this AirBnB case, where it is a mutual agreement between two people. Its different then driving, because only one of these two people can be hurt by the agreement. The onus to protect oneself should ultimetely rest with the owners/travelers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> """ _Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008 ..._ """

source: [http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011...](http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/07/plot- thickens-airbnb-renter-horror-story/179250/1)

Either USAToday misinterpreted/misreported a quote, Airbnb lied to a reporter on the record, or Troy is making up his story. I can't see any other way to reconcile the evidence put forth.

<comment><USER9> The actual quote from AirBnB:

 _With a single booking, one person's malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good._

Note it _implies_ this is the only incident that has occurred, but they could have had three million incidents and this statement would still _technically_ be true as long as they had two million nights without incidents.

Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way...

<comment><USER10> _Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way..._

Somehow, I doubt USA Today will even notice. They get served up far more egregious statements on a daily basis.

And, by the way, the statement is literally true, regardless of the number of prior incidents (within reasonable bounds). They aren't claiming a perfect 2million night streak in the quote-- rather, "a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good." If they had had 2000 prior bad incidents, they could easily argue that a 99% problem-free rate demonstrates that "people are fundamentally good."

<comment><USER11> This just highlights major flaws with the AirBnB business model. I think a more accurate quote would have been that it's "a case study demonstrating that a niche group of people with shared goals can act in a fundamentally good way", translating that to the general population is where AirBnB will have it's growing pains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks.

Kudos to Dayton for keeping a balanced perspective on the situation, and not equating customer service clumsiness with indifference.

I like AirBnb. I will continue to use AirBnb as a guest. (Hypothetically if I were to be a host, I would only rent a hardened/rental-only property with careful assessment of the potential guests.) I am also still bullish on the general theme that the transparency and efficiency of the net makes peer-to- peer transactions between strangers more safe and easy than ever before.

But they're going to have to innovate on 'trust and safety' to avoid any impression they're AirBnBnMethDen.

<comment><USER13> > Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks.

That's what I thought as well (both are SF Bay Area), though it's only a guess. The combination of meth-heads and identity theft seems weird to be repeated. I would even tentatively guess at the meth-heads trashing apts being a cover for someone else who got the idea of using AirBnB to acquire documents for an identity-theft ring, but who knows, it's possible there are actually meth-heads who are also into identity theft, or who at least know someone to sell the documents to.

<comment><USER12> Meth addicts seem to like identity-theft, so that correlation is not especially unique. See for example:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/us/11meth.html>

(Identity theft is also the perfect precursor to evading what payment- and identity- checks do exist in an AirBnb-like system.)

<comment><USER13> Interesting; thanks for the link. That's kind of a fascinating connection between drug chemistry, socioeconomic settings, and crime. Given _that_ background, two meth-use-with-ID-theft incidents don't seem as weird to find in an AirBnB-like setting, which seems almost perfect for the kinds of people described in that article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just in case anyone's curious, CouchSurfing has been around a bit longer than AirBnb and they have their own safety tips and tools: <http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html>

Here's the AirBnb page about safety: <http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety>

CouchSurfing is similar in that it's about strangers staying at people's places. The biggest difference is that people let others stay at their houses for free. Usually both parties do it for the experience. Many people think it's fun to meet travelers. I knew someone who traveled to Asia and couch- surfed.

<comment><USER15> That AirBnb page was added like a week or two ago in response to the EJ affair.

<comment><USER14> Wow, good to know. I confirmed it with archive.org. I don't need to know if Michael Arrington or EJ are telling the truth or not. This is enough for me to not trust AirBnb. With that kind of popularity they should educate potential guests/hosts about safety issues. I'm glad they're doing it now but it's too late for me. (I used AirBnb three times last year but each time I tried to get to know the hosts through a phone call beforehand and was ready to cancel if it didn't feel right.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm starting to think that much like Quora, AirBnB worked because of the nature of its early members and that the model simply doesn't scale.

<comment><USER17> I think it depends on the type of rental. Vacation rentals or rentals where the owner is present can work, but it's extremely risky to hand a stranger the keys to your home and disappear, hoping they won't steal anything or trash the place. It's great that AirBnB's early adopters were largely trustworthy enough to let that practice persist for a while, but it won't survive mainstream popularity.

<comment><USER18> If you're present, there is a chance you get murdered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are a few glaring, obvious questions to which I have not seen any answers so far - or maybe I have missed them: Why was it difficult for Airbnb to immediately have the person that trashed the place arrested? Don't they have the person's identity - address, credit card information, phone number, IP address? Don't they run a basic credit check when a person signs up to rent a unit listed on the site? Or at least do some basic identity verification? Or was this person using a stolen identity? Or does Airbnb require that the entire responsibility for this rests on the person renting the place?

<comment><USER20> I've been wondering this as well, and I didn't see it mentioned in any post thus far. It seems like the most obvious step to do; if police can get the CC number from AirBnB, that should be enough to resolve the SSN. Assuming the info isn't stolen, the criminal is going to have a problem.

I'm not an AirBnB user, so maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER18> EJ said she has suspicion they were identity thefts. So they booked with a stolen identity probably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm realizing I'm confused about what value airbnb is offering.

If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?

<comment><USER22> They also have a spiffy web-site and app that does a nice job showing off properties and assisting you in finding the properties you want.

But yeah, they are essentially just middlemen. They benefit from keeping the buyer and seller apart until the deal is done and they get their cut.

<comment><USER23> And that exact benefit is the source of trouble.

<comment><USER24> Indeed. The one way for them to lock in market leadership forever is to drop the fees and make their money on payment processing, insurance offers, user screening and safety deposits that renters may or may not decide to opt in for.

This would allow users to contact and vet each other before agreeing on a sale while still having some profit streams.

Basically AirBnb would become a specialized Craigslist on steroids, but it can only be done if the founders want to build a long term business netting them a few million each year rather than a VC darling to be flipped for a couple of billion dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's very interesting that he had the exact same experience and was given the run around by AirBnB. His story also shows that they are not being completely truthful when they said EJ's case was the first time anything like this had happened in 2 million rentals. I wonder what the real statistics are.

</comment><comment><USER26> it's interesting how the couch surfing and airbnb cultures have diverged.

i love the community aspect of couch surfing---the fact that it's about spending time with cool people in new places, rather than finding "a cheap hotel", is huge to me.

i get that there is a market for people who want cheap hotels rather than a community. however, there was a sense that you were getting more from paying more...like more security or something.

yet everyone in couch surfing knows the importance of community references, and to meet folks at a cafe before deciding whether to bring them over.

letting someone you've never met use your home while you're not there.....interesting culture screw up. i think adding a little money to the mix drastically changed what became emphasized.

</comment><comment><USER12> Let's not forget even four-star hotels are not immune to room-invasion burglary, as Alex Trebek learned in SF last week:

[http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime- figh...](http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime-fighter/)

<comment><USER27> And here I thought you were going to mention O.J.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This does answer one thing that puzzled me about the EJ story. If this was meth addicts, she surely couldn't have been the first victim of this sort of thing.

If the culprits in this case aren't related to the ones in the EJ case, I'd be curious if there's an identifiable profile here. The stereotype of the meth addict I operate by is a down-market tweaker who'd have no idea Airbnb existed much less the patience or resources to take advantage of it. But I suppose there's a more upscale demographic that might make up a hellish niche market for Airbnb.

<comment><USER29> She won't be the last either, unless Airbnb makes some sort of fundamental changes.

Not only is all of this press bad in terms of basic PR, but now the word is out (to those so inclined who weren't tech savvy enough to previously realize it even existed) that Airbnb is a good place to rent a temporary meth lab as long as you're capable of some basic identity theft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As much as some people might view this as "sometimes things go wrong", which is basically true, that's not the whole story.

The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal. AirBnB is profiting off this. Do something illegal and you can't insure against any negative consequences.

The whole EJ situation is a potential inflection point. Without knowing the full facts (which no one seems to), it seems like AirBnB was trying to rectify things with EJ and I suspect they were trying to keep her quiet in the process. I have no proof of this. I also suspect that they probably misrepresented their actions to PG. Again I have no proof of this. It is merely my suspicion.

But there's something "off" about EJ's position here.

Why exactly is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless? Is it too damaged to occupy? Does she simply not feel safe there?

If she has received offers for help, why hasn't she taken it? It's possible she's traumatized by what happens. It's possible she feels so wronged by AirBnB that she's not acting rationally. Or maybe she just wants to get her story out to warn people. I really don't know.

Yet something seems... off. The comments of EJ, PG and AirBnB just don't add up. I'd bet money on there being more to come on this story. And while some want to give EJ a free pass here, I don't want to vilify her but she has to take some responsibility for giving strangers the keys to her apartment.

I think AirBnB can count their lucky stars this was just a robbery and not a rape or murder. Or someone could have set up a drug lab, causing the Feds to confiscate the property as the proceeds of crime possibly taking months to sort out and prove the person renting out the property didn't know about the drug lab.

The hotel industry has fundamental protections for this kind of issue. Not only security but there's the fact that the hotel owner isn't storing their prized valuables where guests can steal them. Nor are hotels putting their staff in a position to be attacked or robbed by a guest sleeping under the same roof (incidents can occur in a hotel but at least there are locked doors separating you from the guests). LIkewise hotels take ID (usually).

The legal precedent they set by paying off EJ is a cause for concern though some argue it isn't. This isn't like Apple choosing to replace broken hardware they aren't responsible for (this happens). While doing something illegal (and profiting from it) that can't be insured against, liability is something that could easily destroy the company.

Ultimately, AirBnB is making a bet they can effect change on the laws relating to subletting. If the person renting out a room is leasing the property they're in, there's a good chance they can't sublet it (even though many do). This may help them on the liability front as well.

Part of the problem here is anonymity on the Internet. This I believe is changing and it will help (IMHO). But it only takes keylogger malware or someone sniffing packets at the Internet cafe to steal someone's online identity and then do what they want.

EDIT: clarifications.

<comment><USER31> _"But there's something "off" about EJ's position here. Why is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless?"_

Put yourself in the position of a person who has just had their apartment burglarized (remember: they stole her personal documents and valuables) and their keys stolen by probable drug addicts. Also, remember that the police have arrested _one_ of the vandals, but probably not all of them.

Ignoring, for the moment, that the place would be unlivable for a while, wouldn't you also be wary of middle-of-the-night retribution (or just a repeat performance) from a bunch of psychotic drug users? I would, and I'm not exactly a fearful guy.

There are many sketchy details about this story, but EJ's fear of retribution isn't one of them.

<comment><USER32> Most everyone on HN is going to agree with what you are saying: that there is a reasonable narrative in which "EJ" is unable to return to her home due to fear. As a recent victim of a comparatively pathetic "violent" crime: that is absolutely something you are concerned about. And that's before we even get to the topic of "can EJ repair the damage done to her home without diminishing the expected return from a settlement with Airbnb", which might also keep her out of her house.

So yes. Let's all agree: it's not crazy to acknowledge that "EJ" is trapped in a set of circumstances keeping her out of her house.

However. That does not mean the _only_ interpretation of events here is that "EJ" is fundamentally unable to return to her home. Another possible interpretation is, she lawyered up ( _good for her_ ), and has been advised that the longer this remains an issue for her, the better her negotiating position is.

<comment><USER33> I've seen half a dozen replies from you saying she probably has a lawyer and is trying to milk this, without a shred of evidence, other than "that's what you would do."

I think presenting that theory once is more than enough - you don't have to reply to everybody with your theory.

<comment><USER32> Again with the attempts to factionalize the discussion. "If you're not with her, you're against us!" It's weird. Why do you feel the need to take sides?

<comment><USER34> I don't see an attempt from the GP to _factionalize_ the discussion, at least in the comment you replied to. But I do see an attempt from you to _factualize_ it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The identity theft aspect brings up a whole new concern.

If a renter steals a host's identity without trashing their place, there's no way to know that something went wrong until it's too late.

And if the host subsequently rents her place to other guests, there's no way to know who the identify thief is.

<comment><USER36> Good point. A smart thief would wait a few months before trying to make use of the stolen information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This new account (of a home trashing occurring 1 month ago, of which Airbnb had knowledge) doesn't seem to reconcile with what Airbnb told EJ:

"I do believe the folks at airbnb.com when they tell me this has never happened before in their short history, that this is a one-off case."

<comment><USER38> Even if you don't want to believe EJ's account of the story, Chesky _himself_ made the claim on camera in May (a month after Troy's incident occurred) that there have been "no major problems" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s)

I don't see how either of these cases can be viewed as "minor", personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is what a bad media cycle looks like. You get a nosebleed in the ocean and the sharks start circling. They'll get through it, though, I am completely confident. At the end of the day, the bad guys are the assholes that abuse the system.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's interesting to note the pattern between EJ and Troy: in both of these cases, the renters were not home, which means they were treating Airbnb more like a "vacation rental" service. They both had a gut feeling that told them the rentee was "off" in their communication. They both didn't meet the people in advance. And the rentees were both meth addicts.

<comment><USER41> Maybe AirBnB should drug test :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Trashing is one thing ... but how long until a "guest" leaves behind some hidden cameras?

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm starting to think that these unfortunate incidents may actually provide airbnb with the future of it's business model.

Right now they are just hooking people up and handling payments. They could go from that to learning how to put in place the best verification/insurance/customer service/emergency handling mechanisms in order to beat competitors in service quality.

It's analagous to how paypal won payments by learning to be the best at handling fraud.

</comment><comment><USER44> Hopefully, AirBnB is learning what most rookie politicians already know, ie Take care of your PR problems before close of business on Friday , otherwise the entire weekend will feel like one looong horror movie. The good news though is that by Monday morning, people are usually ready to move on to some other news item.

</comment><comment><USER18> Creepy for guests: One could book AirBNB space and then reoffer it on AirBNB (is this possible?) or craigslist. So when you arrive, there is a "host" which is not the real one.

</comment><comment><USER45> Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while staying in your place.

<comment><USER37> > Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably > on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while > staying in your place.

Good point. I'd imagine hotels are required by law in most jurisdictions to take out public liability insurance.

Then there is the issue of who is responsible for ensuring that properties are actually safe for rental on Airbnb (i.e., no exposed electrical wires, slippery steps, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Here is Brian Chesky claiming there have been "no reports of major problems" with AirBnB at TC Disrupt in May. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s)

Whoops?

</comment><comment><USER46> I think it's time for a name change... to AirB&E.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm struggling to believe how much of a cock-up this is becoming. What should be a simple reality: "sometimes things will go wrong" is turning into something that even seems to be infectious. I give it two days before Y Combinator is explicitly associated with airbnb in a newspaper.

<comment><USER48> Sometimes things do go wrong however the impact of them going wrong differs between businesses. When things go wrong for a mobile phone company lots of people might have poor reception but when things go wrong for AirBNB, a person could actually get killed. This has always been my fear and I sincerely hope they shutdown or pivot before this happens.

AirBNB hasn't been upfront about the level of risk their customers undertake when they use their service. And the downside, however rare a occurrence (even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand) is just too bad to even consider consider using them.

<comment><USER49> "even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand" The probability of being killed ( or at least hurt ) while driving to work is probably larger than 1 in a milion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I might be too old for AirBNB but I wouldn't feel okay accommodating strangers in my _own apartment_.

I will do that for friends and if I'm around myself, for friends of friends too, but even then the scheme needs to originate from some plausible circumstances where I can evaluate my potential guest in other context before we discuss accommodation. So, receiving an email from someone I don't know ("hey, I know your friend, can I stay at your place?") doesn't fly.

It's my home and I don't want to think about whether tonight's guest is that one from a thousand or ten thousand who will wreck my place.

</comment><comment><USER51> Arrington, "in his arrington way", is really out to screw AirBnB now.

<comment><USER52> TechCrunch has always smelled slightly of yellow journalism, but I would say that, on average, they've given Airbnb fair treatment. Arrington and the TC crew have written very enthusiastically about Airbnb in the past, perhaps excessively so, and now they are fulminating about the users who have been mistreated by Airbnb renters, again perhaps excessively so. Still, I would rather that these cases reach a public forum than that Airbnb have carte blanche to whitewash them for the sake of investor happiness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This one is even more bizarre story than the first one. The part about left cat and stolen computer is hilarious. I'm sure there should be more to this kind of horror stories from Airbnb, EJ was just the first brave person to come forward on her blog. Kudos to her and Mr. Dayton, otherwise such things could happen to many more Airbnb customers including HN crowd. And everybody who is defending Airbnb now should think how would they feel if something like this happened to them or their home.

</comment><comment><USER54> AirBnB never should have set up such an unsafe system, but surely the decisions of the renters are at fault as well. I personally would never even consider allowing people who were not carefully screened by myself to have free reign with my property.

I'm pretty sure this is getting large enough to garner the attention of politicians. That may be a positive thing, since AirBnB and their clients are apparently not taking care of safety and procedures adequately on their own.

<comment><USER55> My take is the #1 fault is the alledged scumbags who did alleged bad things to the host's property. The #2 fault is the hosts for showing such utter naivete and ignorance about (a) what to leave in the apartment, and (b) understanding what could possibly happen when the strangers stay there and accepting those risks as the flip side of the coin. To the extent AirBnB has done anything wrong or imperfect, it's farther down the list than these actors in the drama. And all of this assumes that the alleged incidents happened exactly as they were portrayed, and were not in fact fraudulent "hit jobs" -- an issue that has not been settled yet, or rather should not be settled in any reasonably skeptical person's mind, given the sum total and nature of the "evidence" and the market context.

<comment><USER54> In my opinion, AirBnB should be providing more of an upfront opportunity for a host to screen a prospective client in advance, with no pressure. If they can't do this, they need to do a very good job of it themselves. That's the crucial aspect of their involvement. From my reading of the EJ story, she had no opportunity to learn anything about her client prior to accepting the reservation. AirBnB has changed this since then, I believe?

Regardless of these incidents, ad-hoc home rental is a potentially dangerous situation for both sides of the deal. It's positive that this controversy has prompted AirBnB to go beyond making jokes about piano thievery, and realize that safety of everyone involved is a critical issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> What we aren't hearing about is the people who declined to use Airbnb and had their homes ransacked because a burglar spotted they were empty. The risk of having the place trashed by a guest has to be offset against the improved security from having somebody in the place. Do we have any data or even credible estimates of the sign and magnitude of the _difference_ in security from using Airbnb?

</comment><comment><USER57> I wonder if it occurs to anyone how renting your place out impacts your neighbors. I'm not sure everyone is happy about transients coming and going in a particular building that someone might rent out and the safety of that to others in the building. Some condo buildings for example don't even allow a lease of less than 1 year because it changes the nature of the building.

</comment><comment><USER58> What if the hotel industry is setting up these unsuspecting customers of AirBnB? They, the hotel chains really don't like this business model. Create enough negative press, a carefully crafted situation that will cause a busienss to fail and they you can cash in on how "safe" a Hotel chain is...

</comment><comment><USER59> After reading EJ's story and now this, I think it's safe to say that although what's taken place is unfortunate, it's really up to the person renting out their place to protect themselves. If Airbnb absolves themselves in their policy docs, then there's not much they have to do if something bad happens. On the contrary, however, they obviously need to have a serious overhaul of how they portray security to customers, as well as the vetting process for renters. Also, developing some sort of insurance program will help to skirt some major issues. I'm glad this is happening now, though, before someone gets hurt. Hopefully Airbnb will look at these events as warnings and take the necessary steps to refine how they protect themselves and their customers.

</comment><comment><USER60> Two words: shadow economy

[http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief- relationshi...](http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationship- with-airbnb.html)

</comment><comment><USER61> It's a damn shame that people can't trust people.

</comment><comment><USER62> For God's sake we get it. Why does this drivel have to be on HN everyday? Sometimes when you deal with strangers, they are crazy. Not TECH, Not HACKER, Not INTERESTING!

</comment><comment><USER63> My favourite part of the story is they stole the computer...and left a cat!!

</comment><comment><USER64> > At the end of the day you are renting to a stranger.

No better words can express my sentiments. Airbnb customers are participating in a business experiment, they're not hoteliers.

What I do find worrisome is that Airbnb being in the customer service business, doesn't appear to be focusing on the user experience at all. What did they do with the money?

<comment><USER2> Probably invested much of it in color.com. :)

<comment><USER2> Sheesh - it was meant as a bit of a joke - hence the :)

<comment><USER65> So, it was meant to be a joke. Sadly, it wasn't a _funny_ joke. And it adds nothing to the conversation. Hence, downvotes.

HN observers often assume we don't have a sense of humor around here. Actually, I've seen a number of funny comments upvoted, and have done so many times myself. It's closer to the truth to say that most people aren't nearly as funny as they think they are.

<comment><USER66> The other problem is that it is interchangeable with many other jokes of the same flavor, ie, they were buying Facebook private shares, getting into the LinkedIn IPO, et cetera. This is a tip off that even if it's funny it might not be relevant.

See also the South Park critique of Family Guy.

Saying they were doubling down buying shares in Hilton and Motel 6 would at least have been marginally on topic. But still a bit obvious, right?

<comment><USER67> "supporting their meth addiction" might have worked

<comment><USER2> Touche! Only 14 hours too late for me, I fear. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Seriously, fuck this guy. AirBNB simply facilitates finding people. AirBNB doesn't owe these people a single cent. In fact these AirBNB "victims" should apologize for their self-centered whining. Don't want any risk? Then don't let anyone into your house, dumbass. Don't blame random companies just because you're a fucking idiot.

<comment><USER13> I don't think AirBnB's involvement is that peripheral. Unlike Craigslist, they don't _just_ operate a site that facilitates finding people; they're active participants in every transaction, and are the ones on record charging credit cards for the rentals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Renting to strangers is like having sex without protection. Period.

<comment><USER70> There's lots of ways to protect yourself when renting to strangers. The fact that EJ and others do not avail themselves of the necessary insurance, etc. is what's reckless.

<comment><USER71> As has been pointed out multiple times, there is probably no insurance policy that would cover your apartment if you rent it out with AirBNB. Renter's insurance won't cover it, and individuals can't get the kind of insurance hotels get because they don't own the property. And if you meet the classification of a hotel, then there's a good chance you're breaking the law in some places. You can't get insurance while breaking the law.

<comment><USER72> Why wouldn't insurances want to insure, though? This is a rare event, insurances love rare events. One problem might be AirBnB's lack of transparency: Insurances have to know exactly how rare something is. They currently only know it's rare, not how rare it is.

(That said, it seems they could start with a relatively high estimate and adjust it up- or downwards when they start insuring, depending on how often and how much they have to pay. It seems like this would be something insurances excel it, seeing as it's how they make their money. I'm sure at least AirBnB could work something out with insurances.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Stay or rent, you have a choice to do either.

(Can't think of anything else to add, sorry.)

</comment><comment><USER74> If I were Arrington, I would have posted this story first thing Monday morning.

<comment><USER75> Oh, don't worry, I'm sure there's going to be a glut of these stories queued up for about 2am Tuesday morning.</comment></comment>


Google Launches Guest Mode for Chrome Beta - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/28/google-launches-guest-mode-for-chrome-beta/

<comment><USER2> One thing to note is that while Chrome does an okay job it still leaks data between the user accounts so using the guest account servers will still know that it is the same instance of Chrome that has the main account running (aka google knows that you are in "guest" mode, but it is still you).

<comment><USER3> Except that one of the best reasons to use guest mode while you have a logged in session running is to let someone else use your computer without being affected by our polluting your logged in session. So sure, Google might know it's the same instance of Chrome but that's not the same as knowing it's you.

<comment><USER2> Well currently there is a bug where yes sites can know it is you. I have an accounts on a site and when I use guest mode that site knows it is me and auto logs me in.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to tell a coworker his writing is incomprehensible? - <AUTHOR>

I have a colleague that is writing important documentation in English by first writing it in our local language and then translating it using Google Translate (or at least borrowing heavily from Translate).
This generates very confusing text (not just bad punctuation like this text, heh). He normally asks for reviews, and I comment on the worst mistakes, but I'm embarassed to say that everything is confusing.
What should I do in this situation? <comment><USER2> The solutions are not simple and quick. But could yield results over long term. I have practiced this. As an ex-copywriter I have had my writing critiqued by creative directors many times. So I state this as someone who learnt a little about written communication.

\- Review material written by non-native speakers. Look for cultural anachronisms, cliches, grammatical errors etc..before all this one has to ensure if the message is functionally correct. Provide feedback. Can't emphasize how important this is. Everybody wants to be good at communicating. So tell them why you find it wrong. That would become a guideline to be followed.

\- Suggest what material they should read to become proficient in using your target language. Reading good literature and comprehending it, somehow deepens ones understanding of how to use a language.

\- Let them practice. More pointed feedback you give along with opportunities faster they learn. Expecting progress without this is just wishful thinking. You should not blame the other person!

</comment><comment><USER3> Interpersonal issues can be difficult, but the longer it takes for someone to come forward and point out that the process is wasteful and producing poor English documentation, the harder it's going to get. If the English documentation is valuable enough to produce in the first place, it's valuable enough to turn over to someone that can do the translation with little/no help from software translators.

In some cases, the process of translating the documentation can be at fault. It may be easier for someone to produce new documentation in English, using the original only where necessary, or as a guide for the structure and focus of the documentation.

As previously mentioned, it's likely this person's time would be better spent elsewhere, and reviewers would be better off reviewing someone else's translation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Suggest that his time is much too valuable to be spent doing this, and that your company should hire an intern that knows english/your native language to do it for him.</comment>


Selenium Headless Chrome on Google Cloud Function (python Runtime) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ryfeus/gcf-packs <comment><USER2> Interesting...but with all the effort to support it on GCF with all the system dependencies. it's not a better idea just to run in on K8S?

<comment><AUTHOR> Completely serverless solution allows easier maintenance and easier start. In full production environment with large number of requests K8S would be better.</comment></comment>


How Apple is Training a Generation of Mac Users - <AUTHOR> http://experimentgarden.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-apple-will-replace-pc-with-mac.html

<comment><USER2> My schools in the 80s and 90s had computer labs full of macs too. They were terrible. Way too little ram, loaded down with student repressing software, and they crashed all the time. At home, I had speedy packard bell, tandy, and dell computers. I thought I'd never buy a mac. But here I am, typing away on a macbook pro. Their computers have gotten a lot better.

<comment><USER3> Any chance that was At-Ease? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease>

Such fond memories :)

<comment><USER2> It was At-Ease! At least in high school. I believe it could be overridden by holding down the shift key while booting.

The most horrible memories are of making Hypercard presentations. It was required for projects for which it was totally inappropriate because the teachers wanted to incorporate computers in the class room. And the files always got corrupted and had to be totally redone.

<comment><USER3> I was just going to ask about Hypercard but didn't want to push it. I think we used a newer version on OS 8 maybe, but I had pretty fond memories of that as well. Maybe that was my first "programming" experience. I remember making a Zelda kind of game where you clicked part of the screen and it went to the next card. Really fun, but I totally agree it was overused and forced.

<comment><USER2> I remember using it to make the Earth revolve around the sun in a presentation about Copernicus. Good times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Due to the recognizable design of macs, and the macs vs. everything else paradigm, it can definitely appear that macs have a much larger market share than they actually do, leading people to believe they are more popular than they are.

I was in a cafe and my father made a comment about how many people had macs, and maybe he should get one. there were about 10 people on computers. 3 had macs, but they all looked the same. of course the other 7 were all different brands (actually 2 dells and two lenovo), but they all looked so different that they didn't seem like the people using them were part of a team or movement.

This can also be a way of 'training' people to consider mac...just look how many people have switched - though it may not be as much as you think.

But how can it be 'a nice fashion piece that sets you apart from the other students', if as the author states, they are all using macs?

<comment><USER5> I've noticed that most of my friends that have switched to a mac either switch back on their next computer purchase ("it just doesn't do everything I wanted it to do"), or install linux...

Win 7 is making it a lot easier to switch back.

<comment><USER4> I've actually noticed a similar trend. The few friends who switched to mac, say they love it and they'd never go back, then they find they can't get/afford the mac they want, and go back to Win. Positive comments all around about Win7.

<comment><USER5> I've usually noticed it in the form of "Macs are awesome, but they definitely sandbox you in in terms of what you can do, and how you can do that. If you don't think in the Mac way, you'll find yourself frustrated."

This realization seems to hit about 6-12 months into ownership of their first Mac. Then slowly, they start cracking, and they start booting into Windows, or they install Linux and never go back. At some point they find that they can do everything they want outside of OSX and never bother to boot back. And then they realize that Mac keyboards and mice are really designed for Macs, and start to complain about that. And then you hear things like "I don't even want to carry my Mac Book Pro around since it's so heavy." And they end up just using it at home. Some will try and use their iPhones as a temporary portable computing solution, but you can only do so much with that.

By this time a couple of years has passed and its time to get a new computer. So they hit the Apple store and realize that nothing has _really_ changed. The hardware is still "ok", but features they don't really care about are touted as differentiators worthy of an extra 40% "Apple Tax" -- like fancy acronyms for expensive screens that only appear marginally better for the casual user, or "unibody construction" or whatever. None of my friends know or care what a "bezel" is. But they think the chin on the new iMacs makes it look ridiculous compared to the HP they saw at Costco the other day for half the price (and better specs).

So they go to a Best Buy or whatever, the Macs are out front on table with a little dedicated display and sales area, but by this time they are conditioned not to care about the shiny because frankly, the shiny hasn't really cared much for them the last couple of years and head back to Windows laptop land and....well we've all seen the Microsoft commercials where some a parent takes their teenager into a Best Buy and walk out with a new Windows 7 PC. Except now they bought the laptop and a netbook, fell in love with Windows 7 at first sight, and they basically have no real transition to make since they all already use some version of Windows at work anyway (and they'll just use an enterprise Office license for Office stuff). And they still have enough money left over to buy some movies and a few CDs.

Of course there's always the one guy, the "Mac guy" who thinks we're all crazy and tells campfire ghost stories about problems Windows hasn't had since 1996. He drives a Dark Grey VW Golf, listens to Coldplay exclusively (and Paul Oakenfold), has his entire apartment furnished courtesy of Ikea, and wears stylish oxford shirts with cargo pants, refuses to wear sneakers and always has 2-3 days of stubble. Everybody still thinks he has a aura of "cool", just that his schtick is getting a little stale now that everybody is moving to the suburbs or into management. Nobody makes the connection that he was the one that got them all to switch in the first place it was so long ago, but they all remember the $2500 they could have used for their vacation to Switzerland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _In the early 80's to the early 90's Apple achieved fairly significant success at getting their computers into elementary and middle school computer labs._

Ignoring the fact that these labs are now stocked with Dell's or other cheap machines bought in bulk?

 _The MacBook is perfectly situated to grab the college student market. Not only does it have great battery life (perfect for taking notes in class) but it is also light enough to carry around in a backpack._

So... make a product that does something that people want in a very good way and people will buy it. Who would have thought?

<comment><USER7> I know you're being sarcastic but some notebook manufacturers can't even get the USB ports right side up. Most of them cut corners all over the place, and unless you spend an amount equivalent to the price of a MacBook ($1500+) you won't find a notebook that can equal it on the market. I hesitate to say this but from what I have seen personally no one puts as much thought or care into every last detail of a machine as Apple - from hardware to software they pore over little things that all add up to make me happy.

Macs have long had 2 volume settings for headphones and speaker audio outputs (so you don't blast your ears by mistake, or play something out loud you meant to play quietly), and similarly iPods pause the audio when the headphones are unplugged. Simple details that most companies would never think of on their own, but that give you a warm fuzzy feeling when you discover them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that this article makes several points about why high school and college students (who are often spending their parents' money) gravitate toward Apple computers. However, it fails to explain how this will cause them to either purchase (generally more expensive) Apple computers after graduation or convince their companies' finance departments to pay for Apple machines.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have no problem with Mac and Apple products. I think they look cool and are works of art but I also hate the fact that Apple is trying to close down their system and throwing us back in time.

The future lies or rather should lie in open systems and Apple should respect that. It's not for Apple to decide what a user can download on his iPhone after he has bought the damn phone.

Again they make great products but they must lose some of their Big Brother control. kthxbye.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Now half or better of the students have Mac ... I think that this gradual trend is not just a local fad, but rather the result of gradual and deliberate planning and work by Apple."

Welcome to 2006. When more then half use mac it isn't a trend. The whole article is just a fluff piece.

</comment><comment><USER11> Blogspot mac fanboys linking to other blogspot mac fanboys. I noticed macbooks everywhere at university a while back, now I just see zillions of netbooks. His comment on "frustrating Windows netbooks" doesn't gel with their popularity, everyone I know loves theirs , to say nothing of people like me who run linux with full hardware support now and love gnome-do/chome/terminals as a massively powerful combination.

The only hardware I have that doesn't work properly is my iPhone which has never had 3G as it was in the first run of 3G iPhones and also attempted to lock down the ability to tether. Apple doesn't honor warranty agreements they sell you a phone which doesn't have a major feature working as advertised and then refuse to replace it. But then plenty of PC manufacturers have much lower rates of failure than Apple, I see Apple products as quite cheap and unreliable now (macbook casing cracked along with tons of other people, early hdd failure, iphone without promised 3G, iphone cable fraying and starting to fall to bits in the first month, headphone rubber coming off in a couple of months, heavy discoloration of headphones in a year of light use). And Windows7 and recent linux distributions are easily as powerful as OSX, I would argue more so with linux due to customization.

<comment><USER7> I'm not buying it. This is from Nov. 2009:

> Shoppers and list-makers may be interested to learn that Asus and Toshiba > notebooks had three-year failure rates below 16 percent. Sony placed third, > with a 16.8 percent three-year failure rate, followed by Apple (17.4 > percent), Dell (18.3 percent) and Lenovo (21.5). Acer and Gateway came in > just under 24 percent, and Hewlett-Packard, which is the world's largest > producer of PCs, came in last, with a 25.6 percent failure rate over three > years.

[http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Asus- Toshiba...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Asus-Toshiba-Have- Lowest-Failure-Rates-Says-Study-488979/)

Apple may not be the best but I really want to know how you can stretch the phrases "plenty" and "much lower" to claim that "plenty of PC manufacturers have much lower rates of failure than Apple".

2.5% less failures at the absolute best, by 2 companies. Apple makes decent products and in many ways is leading the industry. It's not the same Apple we knew in the 90s.

\-- (personal experiences below, you may not care)

My 2006 MacBook is going strong, and I managed to pour a glass of chocolate milk on it in 2007^. The 2005 Mac mini I owned before that is still going strong at my friend's house. My iPod 5G w/ video from 2005 and shuffle from 2007 are going strong. My 2006 AirPort express works flawlessly.

^ I had to replace my MacBook's keyboard which had sticky keys and battery which couldn't hold much charge, but the motherboard and CPU were fine after drying out and being cleaned.

(I know I come off as a bit of an Apple fanatic but I've only been a customer for 5 years. Before that I had only used Windows and Linux. I still use Linux on servers of course. I'm not religious about Apple at all, they just make good products. iPhone/iPad are too locked down for my taste, but still good.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I use Amazon S3? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to create a site that allows people to upload/download 150 MB file.  What is the best/cheapest solution? <comment><USER2> I presume this file doesn't change very often and doesn't require any security in front of it? To be cheap, you could sign up for a few crappy (like GoDaddy) hosting accounts with absurdly high bandwidth limits. Then, provide users with links to them sorta like mirrors. It's not the greatest user experience, but it might be the easiest cheap solution.

If you care a lot about user experience, go with S3.

<comment><USER3> Instead of multiple links to mirrors, I'd just put a bit of scripting in there that randomly chooses the link out of, say, 3 accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> S3 does look pretty expensive for this case. In general, I think S3 is best for storing files that aren't retrieved often. For hosting a download, there are better options.

I have an BingoDisk account that supposedly provides unlimited transfer. If you are just uploading and downloading stuff, it sounds like BingoDisk is ideal. (<http://www.bingodisk.com/>) I use it for hosting big files, like a 600M SQLite database with information about CPAN modules. It gets quite a few downloads, and nobody has ever told me I'm abusing the service.

(FWIW, I used to use BingoDisk for backups, but Linux's WebDAV support does not work well for backups -- way too much caching going on. S3 turned out to be infinitely more reliable. I don't think this has anything to do with BingoDisk, though, but rather how davfs2 is implemented. This may or may not be a problem for your use case.)

If you don't mind offloading the cost to your users, though, S3 is probably the way to go. I think Amazon will even bill your users for you now.

</comment><comment><USER5> Using Amazon S3 you have the advantage of using a tested and scalable system, easy to implement and use and it's not expensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe my math is off or something. But according to the S3 calc: <http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html>

If a 150MB is downloaded 100 times it would cost $2.59. If it was downloaded 1000 times it would cost $25.55. Is that cheap?

<comment><USER6> Not cheap but reasonable. They pushed 1.5T of traffic for you at that point.

<comment><USER7> If you're going on a base10 system then it's only 150GB, not 1.5TB. Technically it's 146.5GB.

<comment><USER6> Argh, you are right, off by a magnitude.

Well, I'll try to make up for it by pointing the original asker to <http://simplecdn.com>

From their frontpage:

 _A software developer with 100MB worth of downloads would pay $24.90 for lifetime storage, and would then receive a transfer rate of 3.9 cents per GB._

So, pay $24.90 once and serve your 1000 downloads for $5.80 then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many users would you have?

Because I'm tempted to say you should just try one of these cheapie web hosts and see if that fits your needs. For example, and I have no affiliation with this company other than using them a few times, webhost4life has an account with unlimited* bandwidth and unlimited* storage for $6.95 a month (<http://www.webhost4life.com/linux.asp>). That's a pretty standard price for linux based hosting.

The disadvantage to these types of deals is that they stuff a bunch of websites all on one server which makes performance slow. But it sounds like you'd only have a 1 or 2 page site so that might not be an issue for you.

* when these providers say unlimited there is often a clause in the fine print that sets a limit. You should check before signing up for one of these services.

</comment><comment><USER9> Using Amazon services your initial cost is low and it's easy and fast to set it up. Using wisely AWS is a great service, especially bootstrapping a new service.

There are use cases where AWS is not recommended, having too many machines up and running 24x7 or transferring huge amount of data out of the cloud. For a site with heavy uploads it's even possible to store your data on S3 but serve your clients from a machine hosted outside where data transfer is cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER10> What is the actual site doing? Is it just a file sharing site where you have a 150mb limit, meaning the average size will be a few megs...or is this something special where people upload some special 150mb files?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. It is a site where people can upload 1 special 150MB file (like a zip file) and people can download the entire thing. So the average file size will not be a few megs.

<comment><USER11> You need to bound the problem before you can figure out whether S3 makes sense.

* How many new files do you expect to have uploaded every month? * How many files do you expect to be deleted every month? * What's the average file size? * How many times, on average, do you expect each file to be downloaded per-month?

Use that + Amazon's pricing to figure out how much you'll have to spend on S3 every month. Then compare that to your alternatives.

In my mind, the biggest reason to go with S3 is if you think you are going to end up with a lot more files than you could easily store and mirror on a few leased servers. S3 is a pretty good price for scalable, highly-available storage with a nice fat pipe to the Internet, but the cost per GB transferred isn't great. You can take advantage of the lost cost of storage by keeping track of how often files are downloaded and keeping a cache of locally hosted files that you serve directly off a leased server or VPS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ah yes, a 150MB file site. Whenever I need to get my 150MB files, I'll go to your site!

In seriousness, I don't know what the price for amazon ec2 works out to be. However, during the development phase, it is too expensive. I believe it will cost you $72 to run an instance for a month, base price. I would suggest something like slicehost if all you need is a low power server instance for development, and then look at ec2.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wait till you even have high enough loads to warrant S3 to offload those HTTP requests, in the mean time use nginx to serve your static content.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if you can get them to upload to a WebDAV server, but if you can then I'd recommend <http://bingodisk.com>

I pay $29/yr for 15GB space and unmetered bandwidth.

</comment><comment><USER14> S3 isn't about cheap, S3 is about reliable and scalable. Yes, it's inexpensive, compared to how complicated and expensive it would be to setup multi-site failover and support nearly unlimited scaling.

</comment><comment><USER15> S3 is probably your best bet, especially if you're building for scale.

</comment><comment><USER16> Use s3 but be careful, as someone might abuse your bills!

</comment><comment><USER17> Anime distribution? haha</comment>


When plastics were first invented, they seemed to promise a utopian future - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/the-revolutionary-past-of-plastics/ <comment><USER2> Is it that it's cheaper to produce new plastic materials than to recycle old plastic and then produce the material?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best resource to learn ES6? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would start here [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a pretty handy site: [http://es6-features.org](http://es6-features.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome thanks!!</comment></comment>


References for "The Future of Programming" - <AUTHOR> http://worrydream.com/dbx/ <comment><USER2> Goal oriented programming is alive and well in SQL.

Visual programming comes around every ten years, and fails each time, because it can't deal with large complexity like text can. There is a reason people write books, not comics, especially for advanced topics!

Negotiating without a common ontology is needlessly hard, and doesn't come up in real use cases. It turns out, when you need to talk to another computer, you need to do that for very specific reasons. (Also, security and authorization!)

Constraint systems are alive and well in SolidWorks, Inventor, and other such systems.

It turns out, just because ideas are interesting, doesn't make them actually better at solving real problems in general! It's not the "FORTRAN versus assembly" problem. It's the "can I actually get there" problem.

I'm all for a topic review, including of classic history. But I also think "different for different's sake" is a good way of eating money and alienating users.

<comment><USER3> Visual programming is really superset of textual programming. Is basically GUIs vs command lines. These day most people use a GUI such as Windows, Mac OS X or X Windows rather than using DOS or a pure Linux command line. The issue is that current visual languages in general try to force everything into a node based language. It need to be able to describe different data structures in different ways, some maybe as text, some as tables, others as networks.

There is a reason people write books with illustrations, not pure text books, especially for advanced topics.

<comment><USER4> The only thing that visual programming solves is the syntax element. At the end of the day that is actually one of the easiest parts of programming. Understanding your data structures and relationships can't be solved any more easily through GUI interfaces.

Guis work well for interactive stuff, but not for scripting things.

<comment><USER3> There's a reason why people draw in photoshop instead of typing the values of pixels in an array.

I think the biggest problem with textual programming isn't the text per se, but that text is used as the underlying format. I'd rather have projections of an abstract syntax tree that I could manipulate as text with different types of syntax or as various visual objects when that would be more useful.

<comment><USER5> Frankly, I never understood this objection; what's the problem with using text as the stored format? You can still parse it to an AST, render it in a visual way and then serialize the AST back to text.

I think the main issue is that code syntax is too flexible, so code generation tools create large diffs when updating manually written code. A simple solution to that is having a formatting tool like "go fmt" to adjust the latter before committing.

<comment><USER4> At the end of the day, text is just an intermediate format that we understand. Its all stored in a binary representation.

Yes, I agree. Text is too flexible (allowing you to do clever things you couldn't do in a drop down menu). A drop down menu won't allow you to make the same mistakes that a text option will, but is way less flexible.

<comment><USER6> Flow and rhythm are a thing in progrsmming, which is why structured editing continues to feel "stilted" to many people. Heck, many people don't even like static typing for similar reasons...without heavy doses of inference, it forces you to write your code in a certain order or suffer from a bunch of distracting spurious tyoe errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6129148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6129148)

I am personally most interested in how to arrange a software to software pigdin for negotiating communication. Beside the obvious, like the dialtone handshake.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there a summary of the talk? I can't find a transcript anywhere.

<comment><USER9> Spoilers:

The talk is presented as though the year is 1973 and Bret Victor is reviewing some of the great stuff that's happened the last decade and four major trends that he can imagine will define computing in 40-someodd years.

They revolve around constraint/goal solving instead of writing procedures, direct manipulation of data instead of coding it, using spatial representation and reasoning rather than huge piles of text, and real concurrency rather than mock concurrency built atop sequential Von Neumann machines, all with great examples (these are what the references largely fill out).

The talk concludes with Bret Victor slightly dropping the gag and making the point that these particular things are not the real point: the real point is that believing we know what we're doing, individually or as a profession, is deadly to our creativity, and that the great ideas discussed all happened _then_ because computers were able to be useful at that time, but no one thought that they'd figured it all out yet.

He urges us to realise and become comfortable with the fact that we don't know what we're doing, so that we can be free to do anything.

/tape recorded, distorted applause</comment></comment>


The greatest program ever written - <AUTHOR> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/10/12620/2164 <comment><USER2> I grew up coding assembly for 6502... and you can fit a lot in 1k.

the 1k is aided and abetted by the architecture of the computer.

* Reading keyboard is reading a register/known address, not loading the keyboard library, allocating a structure and jumping into an OS routine.

* Clear screen is writing zeros to a known address space

* Drawing is writing a 1 to a known address space

* Yours is the only process on the machine

* Text compresses well with Huffman

With those assumptions a lot more can fit in the 1K

<comment><USER3> I don't see how these assumptions really help - 'greatest program ever written' is a bit bombastic but working chess program in a few hundred bytes of z80 code is still quite impressive.

 _Reading keyboard is reading a register/known address, not loading the keyboard library, allocating a structure and jumping into an OS routine_

Or calling a ROM routine. Reading the keyboard directly at the lowest level would probably just make the program bigger

 _Clear screen is writing zeros to a known address space_

Generally, another ROM routine call.

 _Drawing is writing a 1 to a known address space_

Not really. Just about all these machines had color. The Apple ][ had a fun non-linear video buffer layout, to boot.

 _Text compresses well with Huffman_

Not a lot of text in a chess program.

<comment><USER4> _Reading the keyboard directly at the lowest level would probably just make the program bigger_

 _Generally, another ROM routine call._

Thats @tezza's point. (Edit For Clarity): Since its just one instruction, you can shrink the size of your program, making fitting it into a small space less impressive (though, not unimpressive).

 _Not a lot of text in a chess program._

Fair enough, so that one doesn't help, but the other two do.

<comment><USER3> Except it's not one instruction - you still have to put the result somewhere, potentially save registers (of which there is a great dearth) and so forth. My point is none of the things listed (aside from not really being part of 'the architecture') are significant factors on top of being largely inaccurate. What does make a difference is that the instructions themselves are short, the addresses are short, alignment is on the byte, etc. Can you fit a lot into 1k? Sure, if you're clever, you can apparently fit a whole chess program in less. But the fact that, say, there's just your process or that Huffman encoding is neat has next to nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER4> I'm really not clear on where we disagree at all. We seem to agree that:

1) Reading keyboard input and clearing the screen can both be executed via a ROM command.

2) Doing these things otherwise would have made the program bigger.

Am I right that we agree on these? If so, I don't see how you don't agree that:

3) Having both of these as ROM commands helps make the program smaller.

As far as I can tell, we agree on these 3 points. You, however, seem to be bringing up a few more points:

4) Instructions are short.

5) Alignment is on the byte.

...

And, from what I can tell, you are saying that these were _more_ helpful in reducing the size of the program. Am I right so far?

If so, you maybe right that compared to modern computers, but that doesn't mean that @tezza is wrong that the other factors helped.

Also, I believe its already been agreed that Huffman encoding doesn't help...

<comment><USER3> Heh, well, I'm not clear what is unclear. The poster said 'well, the program is short because of these N things'. Except none of the N things were accurate or relevant. There _are_ architectural factors that much more significantly affect the size of the program, but poster didn't mention any of them. My point is tezza either didn't know or didn't think what s/he was posting about. It's sort of like having the discussion "So, airplanes fly because of magic" - "Well, no actually airplanes fly because of [a bunch of physics]" - "Right, you're making my point, airplanes fly!".

<comment><USER2> Dude, you're going over the top, under the bottom and around the sides.

8bit coding was very different. I listed some common tricks not necessarily specifically ZX81, nor necessarily used in this chess game, but illustrative of common scenarios.

Thus you could fit much more in 1k than you can today.

ENDE (please take a deep breath)

<comment><USER3> Please don't 'dude' me. My breath is perfectly even. And at this point I don't think I was even replying to you. The things you said make make a program short are simply inaccurate and not the significant factor in making programs shorter. That's all. Nobody made their programs shorter by the 'tricks' you describe. And it's not a ZX81 thing. To read the keyboard on, say, a 6502 apple ][ you have to do a store to clear the strobe, a read to get a value and a check on the most significant bit of the value to check for keypress and then you need to mask out the actual value. I don't need to go into endless detail about the rest of them. The primary factor is the size of the instructions and the size of their operands (8 and 16 bit addresses).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not to knock Mr. Horne's achievement, but Peter Jennings wrote Microchess for the KIM-1 (a 6502-based machine with 1K of RAM) back in 1976.

Source code here: <http://users.telenet.be/kim1-6502/microchess/microchess.html>

I had the PET 2001 version (running in 7K of RAM) back in the day, and it played quite well, all things considered.

<comment><USER5> In fact, just to show what we're talking about, here it is

         D8A2FF9AA2C886B2201F1F206A1FC5F3F0F685F3C90CD00FA21FB5709550CA10F986DCA9CCDO12C90ED00720B202A9EED007C914D00B20A20385FB85FA85F9D0BFC90FD006204B034C9D0l4C960110000304000702O50l06101711161215141373747077727571766067616662656463F0FF0l1011OFEFF1DFElEEF2120E1F210B0A0606040404O40202020202020202A6B5305

CA5B0F308EO08D004C5E6F02EF6E3C901D002F6E3501EA00FA5B1D96000 F0038810F8B9A000D5E4900494E695E4180875E595E528E004F00330316 0A5E885DDA90085B5204B0320B20220000220B202A90885B52009022031 034C8017E0F9DO0BA560C5B1D004A90085B46050FDA007A5B1D96000F00 588F0F110F6B9A000D5E2900295E2C6B5A9FBC5B5F003202503E6B560C9 08B01220EA03A21FB550C5FAF003CA10F786FB86BO4C000000A210A9009 5DECA10FBA91085B0C6B0100l60201E03A4B0A20886B6C0081041C00610 2EC004101FC00lF009100E208E02D0FBF0D9209C02DOFBF0D2A20486B62 09C02D0FBF0C7209C02A5B6C904D0F7F0BCA21086B6208E02A5B6C908D0 F7F0ADA20686B620CA025005300320000l201E03C6B6A5B6C9O5F0EB20C A02708F308D20000lA5B129FOC920FOEE4C0D0220CA023003200001201E 03C6B66020CA02900250F930070820000l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l65DF38E5F0E5F1E5E2E5E0E5DEE5EFE5E3B 002A9004A18694065EC65ED38E5E44A18699065DD65DD65DD65DD65El38 E5E4E5E4E5E5E5E5E5E0A6B1E033F016E034F012E022F00EE025F00AA6B 0F009B450C01010031869024C7703

There you go: a fully functional Chess program, with AI.

<comment><USER6> To actually run that on the PC I'm using right now, I would presumably need to also download an emulator for the machine it was designed for, which is presumably larger than 1K. Just saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't want to sound negative, but 'greatest program ever written' is really an overstatement. He has created this program, because he needed to fit into 1k. If it was needed nowadays, hundreds of programmers could achieve this result. (I would be so happy to code these kind of things at my working place instead of the bloated overcompilcated softwares...)

If someone would create a prize (a prize like the netflix prize or the Hutter prize) with $100k or something, to create the smallest chess program, I suppose hundreds of contestants would fit into 1k. But the competition would be high, and the winners would be probably very sophisitcated algorithms, which might deserve the 'greatest program ever written' title. But without competition it is easy to be the best.

<comment><USER8> Isn't this like saying "Orville and Wilbur wright really didn't do anything that great. Thousands of hobbiests could easily build an airplane that is safer, faster and more maneuverable than the wright flyer, and in their garages on weekends!".

It is the nature of tech to build on what was done before. It's hard to remember that something that now might be laughable, was at one point considered impossible.

<comment><USER9> I haven't read a blog post titled "The Wright brothers built the best plane ever" recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Link to the _Full ZX-81 Chess in 1K_ article by David Horne:

<http://users.ox.ac.uk/~uzdm0006/scans/1kchess/>

And here's a ZX-81 emulator to play the actual game:

[http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/emulate.php?tzx=0%2F1KZXChe...](http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/emulate.php?tzx=0%2F1KZXChess%28Artic%29.tzx.zip%400&title=White+queen+pawn+moved+from+1K+ZX+Chess)

</comment><comment><USER8> Totally off-topic: Does anyone else miss the kuro5hin peak days? I can't seem to find any single community to capture the soul of what it was. HN and Reddit are close, but something is lacking. Anyone know of such places?

<comment><USER11> I don't think either comes close to capturing the spirit of K5. Remember the "Dorm Wars" and "Fast Times at Phillips 66" serials?

I'd love to find a place like K5 again. Rusty killed it with the $5 registration fee for new accounts. The dupe accounts, multiple personalities, and role playing were part of the charm.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, $5 registration fee came at the tail of a fairly long decline in quality.

That being said, it was great at its peak. Combination of a blog community, debating club and much more.

<comment><USER13> I miss trhurler.

<comment><USER14> You should have told him _not_ to take a hike then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm writing a javascript chess game write now and I'm currently at 200 lines + 50 of HTML. The source code of mine is larger than the byte code of his program. I am a moron.

<comment><USER16> source code can often be larger than byte code.

My first attempt at a javascript chess game was almost 7 years ago. 159 lines of javascript and html. Unfortunately, it's nothing more than a pieces-on- board sim. It doesn't do anything to control play or prevent cheating. It was college, it was fun <http://members.gamedev.net/capn_midnight/chess/chess.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I saw the ZX81 reference I thought surely he meant 3d monster maze by Malcom Evans which was the first 3d game for a home computer (although it did need 16k of RAM).

<comment><USER18> Try 3d Deathchase - it's better than Doom!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I respect the acomplishment but I can think about a lot of other computer systems/programs with way more cultural, economic and scientific impact than this program.

E.g.: Unix, Java, Sabre, VisiCalc, Mars Rover and Hubble controlling software, etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> C Chess program in less that 1200 chars: <http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/max-src2.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we should compare the size of the assembly code generated for this with the original.

Other than reducing the readability, I cannot think of any advantage offered by the mere _compression_ of the source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember when I was six, my dad programmed a chess game on the Sinclar ZX81. He used to play real-life chess a lot so naturally, this was his first use for this little box. It was slow as hell and he had to pause screen rendering to make it faster. If you call simple backtracking "AI" then I think my dad wrote that "greatest program ever" too without knowing David Horne. (And my dad is definitely no urban myth, either...)

<comment><USER22> Are you sure the ZX81 he was using didn't have a 16Kb ram pack attached? Most people I know (me included) had one, since it was hard to do anything without it.

<comment><USER23> Very true, but I had this game, it was one of the few that ran without the rampak. I think I used the pak primarily for Bomber and 3D Monster Maze.

Good times!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _The greatest program ever written_

The Best HN Hyperbole. (For today!)

</comment><comment><USER25> This page would never show up in a search engine that de-lists ad-sense pages.

</comment><comment><USER26> The code referenced in the article is located at:

<http://users.ox.ac.uk/~uzdm0006/scans/1kchess/>

</comment><comment><USER27> I suppose the theoretical limit is 1 bit -- if you define the program in terms of a virtual machine that takes 1 instruction -- "play a game of chess".</comment>