Ask HN: I'm Exhausted - <AUTHOR>

Currently i'm a full time nodejs/frontend js developer at a company, while studying part time for my computer science degree. Juggling these two along side with side projects, social life and everything else has made me extremely exhausted<p>I have 2+ years to study until i get my degree, if I study part time. I don't think I can cope with this amount of stress for 2 years. What should I do? <comment><USER2> One of the goals of a CS degree might be to secure a well-paying position doing exactly what you are currently doing in as your full-time job.

What are your particular goals in completing a CS degree?

Also is your exhaustion coming from the sheer amount of work load or is it coming from stressful relationships or dissatisfaction with one or more elements in that life mix?

</comment><comment><USER3> First question I'd start with is, what do you enjoy doing?

Do you prefer your job at the company? Or are you really keen on your studies? Do you think it is more important for you to have your degree? Or is the work experience your getting going to be enough for you.

Whichever you like less, is there a chance you can do it part-time? If you don't enjoy school, is there a chance you may not need your degree?

I can almost hear rebuttals about how you may need both, and that it entirely possible. But you're going to have to learn to prioritize. The reason I suspect you could do part-time is because as a software developer, you're hopefully making enough to cover your costs during college.

I also suggest that not everybody needs a degree in computer science. I don't have one, and I do fairly well in this industry. HOWEVER, I think there are some very specific jobs and people who benefit from a CS degree. Those people are way smarter than I am, and understand every data-structure, algorithm, etc. etc. However, I find it rare, in this day and age, that we actually use these advanced techniques. But if you want to be using that stuff later on, it may be best for you to stay in school.

Lastly, I want to disagree with your thinking about coping with the amount of stress. There are people who have been under much less stress than you. Stress can be a good thing, and I sure wish I had learned to deal with it when I was younger. Meditation can help, exercise is very important, so is keeping a perspective on things. When you're stressed realize that you are putting that pressure on yourself at this stage. You're not building life/death mission critical applications, you're (hopefully) not working so hard while putting yourself into debt trying to keep up with the medical bills of a loved one in a country without poor medical insurance, etc. etc. There are people who are struggling with these very issues, luckily you're not them.

Talk to your boss, and let him know how you feel, maybe he'll have a solution. But I'd suggest you can do it, you may just need to find a way to make it work for you. Stress can be good, you just need to learn to handle it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Prioritize: Drop the side projects, or limit them to e.g one hour a week. Reduce or dual-purpose the social life - are your friends interested in joining you at a code night where you do homework and they do side projects, instead of wasting precious time at a bar? Drop down to part-time work, could be 4 days a week, or even 4.5 (take every second Wednesday off for schoolwork? Or every Monday morning?) Quit school, or just take a semester off. Get a cleaner in once a a week. Allocate money and some upfront planning time to reduce food prep time (but don't just drop the quality of your food).

Pick at least one of the above. If it's not enough, pick another one too. Keep going until you can cope. Also, slightly counter-intuitively, add some time scheduled for exercise and make sure you get a good minimum amount of sleep (varies between people, start by aiming for 6-8 hours and if you're still tired, aim higher). Keeping yourself healthy will increase your ability to cope with stress.

All this assumes that you actually are overloaded, and not just disorganised. If you can't guarantee that you are spending all your time on useful things, then try keeping a journal of what you do every 15 minutes for a week, look over it at the end of the week and pick out lost time like watching tv, then cut those activities. Schedule yourself down to half hour blocks, or fifteen minute blocks if you can, so you know you're not losing time everywhere.</comment>


Hack It Better: Apple Extended Keyboard II - <AUTHOR> http://ifixit.org/blog/4468/hack-it-better-apple-extended-keyboard-ii/

<comment><USER2> ah, applefanboys.

always having to go the extra length just because their love, apple, ignored standards just to make a few more bucks on accessory licensing extortion.</comment>


Uber Sales Reach $7.5B in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/uber-sales-reach-7-5-billion-in-2017-despite-persistent-turmoil <comment><USER2> I find a lot of naysayers miss the point of Uber: the experience really is better. UberX's discount isn't why I use it. It's because the app is without peer. I can choose the car with the features I want. I have a company watching me and my driver to ensure that the experience is good for both of us, unlike taxis which have abysmal customer service and consumer (or driver!) protection in most cities.

I'd happily pay more for it (and usually go for select or black when I can). I tip where I can. I don't like Uber's bro culture and wish Lyft would get better and broader coverage. But Uber is on to something big.

UberEATS I can take or leave as others have comparable experiences (Skip the Dishes, DoorDash, etc).

<comment><USER3> > It's because the app is without peer.

Eh. Lyft provides essentially the same feature set. Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett. The point is not that Uber is bad, but that it's utterly replaceable. The one plus they do have is their presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough - I don't think _that_ many people travel _that_ often that it can keep the company competitive.

<comment><USER4> > [...] presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a > benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough

It's enough in all those markets/countries where there is no viable alternative to Uber. Here in Australia the main competitor would be GoCatch but, while it's a very good app for calling taxis, the "private car / ridesharing" service is still in its infancy.

Another field where Uber has no competitors thanks to its international presence is international travellers: when overseas, most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel.

<comment><USER5> >most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel.

Or we just use a taxi in the many cities where there is decent taxi service. I travel to London a fair bit and rarely bother with using Uber there.

<comment><USER6> That works when you speak the local language. When you do not, using a local taxi can be a much more difficult experience, and in many places you are likely to be over charged.

In Kiev, for example, very few of the taxi drivers speak English, and I don't speak Russian. Uber is both extremely easy to use there, there is no issue with the language barrier, and it is absurdly cheap (from my US perspective).

<comment><USER5> I guess. Not that I use Uber/Lyft much, but in the US I've had a number of times when the driver ends up calling me because their GPS has ended up taking them to the wrong side of the hotel or whatever. My experience hasn't really been the smartphone making all verbal communication unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anecdotally I have found Lyft's tech to just be abysmal. Lyft line for example instructed the driver on a packed freeway we've spent what felt like a good 30 minutes slogging through just before the last exit over a bridge to go ahead and turn around and pick up another passenger just so we can go through all that traffic again. I've heard drivers mention similar problems to me too. I didn't want to use Uber, but I can't really put up with Lyft's problems.

I don't know and don't claim to say that this explains Uber's success, but it explains why I use Uber despite its notoriety.

<comment><USER8> Anecdotal, I also use Lyft, a lot, to the point where I'm probably wasting a lot of money (Mint says I spent $400+ last month). My usage upticked over the last month as I started commuting to the south bay from the city (so I would line to Caltrain).

Line just seems abysmal during peak hours, where I actually reinstalled Uber just to commute. Multiple times last month, when leaving Caltrain to go home, the Lyft would leave the awful gridlock that happens around 4th street, then a passenger would be added, and the driver would have to turn around to pick up that person at Caltrain and we would all have to sit through traffic again. One of those rides took 30 minutes for what is normally an 11 minute line ride. In the morning, Line tends to choose the strangest drivers (some that are 15 minutes away) which always leads to me guessing which train I'll be able to catch.

When I first switch to Uber (for my commutes), the most surprising thing is they recognized my street is one-way and had the driver pick me up on the adjacent street. Lyft drivers are almost always routed all the way around the block.

I will continue using Lyft when I can (their support team has been really good, and I tend to prefer Lyft drivers), but I was a bit surprised by the small differences in routing. It really challenges my thoughts on Uber/Lyft/XYZ being truly interchangeable.

<comment><USER9> Prefer Lyft drivers? Almost every Lyft driver also drives for Uber.

<comment><USER10> Stats? From my experience in Austin, Lyft drivers have mostly been "I work from my car starting a business / I drive around in my car for other reasons and I do Lyft literally on the side (as in: I was already driving this way, or similar)"

Driving for Uber may be a second/additional job for many people, but I have never had an Uber driver seem like it was a super casual thing they do for a few extra bucks.

<comment><USER9> Stats - I'm an Uber employee who can't disclose much more than the general statement from above :)

There is almost no reason for a Lyft driver to also not do Uber for maximum earnings potential. Uber on the other hand has enough volume that drivers can operate at a max efficiency without the hassle of managing and switching statuses across multiple apps.

<comment><USER10> You're right, but I guess I'm comparing all of the different places where I've used the two, including many where I've only used Uber. For instance in London and other European cities, Uber drivers seem to almost all drive for Uber nearly full-time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And a 4.5B loss, which seems insane to me.

It's interesting that UberEats reached 4B gross revenue run-rate, which according to the article means food delivery is 10% of their business. Seems like that's pretty significant given how recent UberEats is and how many competitors they have in the space. Why is UberEats better than Grubhub, for example?

<comment><USER12> UberEats works very well. It's a simple UI and has many restaurants. The food comes quickly and you can see the location of the drive. When I've had issues, the customer support has been good.

I haven't used GrubHub myself, but my experience with DoorDash has been considerably rockier than with UberEats. They get the order wrong often or fail to show up and you can't always order from the restaurant for immediate delivery.

<comment><USER13> > UberEats works very well. It's a simple UI and has many restaurants. The > food comes quickly and you can see the location of the drive. When I've had > issues, the customer support has been good.

100% yes to all of these and I've ordered uber eats just shy of 100 times now. The customer support has been especially surprising as a few of orders have mixed with other people's a few times (so i got a completely different order) and I got too keep the food and got my money back.

Granted, when they first started where I live, ALL delivery fees were waived so I could order a 5 dollar meal with no delivery fee, then they changed it to $30+ orders were free delivery, and now all orders have fees based on distance + surcharge so I don't order as much as I used too.

I still use uber eats every once in a while as it is generally cheaper than other delivery services since tips are not expected and the cheapest delivery fees are currently 2.50$

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a strong feeling that Uber will survive time, simply because of the differences in their cost-of-acquisition and user lifetime value; Uber attracted me through their ~$40 cost of acquisition by paying both me and the referrer in credits which is small when you compare and see myself spending more than that amount in a year and definitely more as I move through life. I can also see them subtly increasing prices until they finally dominate transportation and ride-sharing.

Expending huge amounts of money to grow is actually normal, Microsoft had billion dollar losses trying to market their Microsoft Surface in an Apple- saturated market and are currently now profiting from their heavy losses in the past; you can't really see the past until you're in the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not really a surprise. Lyft is their only real competition in the States, I don't have any idea about the global state of things but I imagine they are likewise entrenched with their first mover's advantage.

The real question, I thought, is: are losses per sale decreasing? If not, and if we need to see a significant price increase per ride before things can get better, I sort of wonder if the only thing the taxi industry needed to do to prevent this all from happening was develop a ride-hailing app which tracked your car and gave you the price ahead of time.

<comment><USER16> Taxi apps like these are prevalent in Europe and have been around for 5-7 years. MyTaxi/Hailo is owned by Daimler and is Europe's largest taxi app. Gett Taxi is a large player - Volkswagen invested $300 million in them in 2016. However, the taxi industry is regulated and can't set artificially low prices like Uber does.

<comment><USER17> Nice regulations! They set a minimum price instead of maximum. Pretty clear the regulation was supposed to protect the industry not the consumers. Such regulations are the reason uber exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Double revenue, 1.5X costs. Uber is well on track.

</comment><comment><USER19> $4 billion food delivery business! Thats pretty neat. Uber is showing signs that they can succeed in general logistic space also besides just taxi business.

<comment><USER20> Yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens with their new Freight business. That has the potential to be a real disruptor as I don't think any other tech companies have tried to tackle that space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _" Sales were $7.5 billion. But the company also posted a substantial loss of $4.5 billion. There are few historical precedents for the scale of its loss."_

Somehow the part about the record loss disappeared from the title.

</comment><comment><USER22> All that turmoil has likely increased their mindshare. Basically they just benefited from free marketing... althought not without some consequences.

<comment><USER22> Evidently one of those consequences was not lower revenue.

Edit: replaced profit with revenue. Uber is not currently profitable.lol.

<comment><USER23> you mean revenue?

<comment><USER24> I think there profits are less negative. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's pretty easy to have huge sales if what you're doing is essentially selling one dollar for 50 cents.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, but they only lost $1.1B last quarter. Things are looking brighter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Uber Pool for 2 people across town frequently costs a bit less than the bus here, which means that they're still buying passengers, which means that "sales" is not a super honest metric. The question becomes how much will sales be hurt when they stop subsidizing. The cost doesn't have to go up by much to lose many current pool customers.

<comment><USER28> Dont underestimate how inefficient public transportation is

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The moment uber stops subsidizing their rides a million competitors will come out of the woodwork with a comparable app. its not the app thats unbeatable its their vc money, you cannot have 10 multi-billion dollar unicorn taxi providing companies existing at once.

</comment><comment><USER30> So how is that considered a success when they are still subsidizing rides and losing money. No one knows if Uber has a successful business model until they can start operating at a profit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I could run a money losing company so long as investors keep dumping money on my doorstep.

</comment><comment><USER32> I prefer Uber because it doesn't hassle me for tips. Tips make compensation opaque, and a large part of the beauty of uber/lyft/etc for me anyway is not to have to think about the payment (after checking that the fare is reasonable).

A small part of me probably prefers Uber also because the anti-Uber rhetoric in the press and "progressive" social media contacts is largely substance- less.</comment>


Your startup will be more successful if you have fun & forget about getting rich - <AUTHOR> http://startup-marketing.com/figuring-out-your-way-to-startup-success/

<comment><USER2> If you're only interested in having fun, you run the risk of building something really cool that nobody needs.

<comment><USER3> Good point. Still the critical point of the article is that obsessing on getting rich is more likely to lead to failure. Staying loose and having fun is more conducive to creatively solving customer needs. Solve customer needs and you'll probably make a lot of money. Focus on getting rich and you probably won't make any money.

<comment><USER4> I still don't see what "having fun" has to do with "solving customer needs": often customer needs are boring, esoteric, poorly-specified, and technically uninteresting -- exactly the opposite of the sort of thing you'd do to "have fun".

<comment><USER3> Solving customer needs takes creativity. If you are having fun, you are more creative.

<comment><USER5> Creativity is often the result of great adversity. But in a roundabout way, you're right (but probably not in the way you think). See, by having fun, you're wasting time you _should_ be spending solving the problem. Then just before the deadline, you miraculously solve the problem. Your fun beget your laziness,which beget your desperation,which beget your creativity.

<comment><USER3> Fun might be the wrong word. My key point is that you'll be more productive and effective if you are loose and enjoying the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is actually a problem with most startups. They don't concentrate on something that's a viable business and fail within a year or two. I don't necessarily want to become rich. I just want to have a business where I have enough money for me (and anyone else involved in the company) to live comfortably and most importantly, not have to go back to a day job.

<comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business>

<comment><USER8> You get significantly diminishing margin returns (where utility=happiness) after 100k/yr income.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. I think that is a very linear view of (money = happiness) and it doesn't include the 'real life' factor.

Reality = Stay-at-home Wife. Kids. Education. Retirement Goals. et. al.

<comment><USER8> Am I confused? That's the whole point. (Money, happiness) correlation is only linear to an extent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sean is absolutely right on. Too many people think a "fun" culture means Xboxes, free drinks and fooze-ball or a really "fun" cool market space. That's a mistake. I don't think that's the fun Sean is talking about. I think that for creative people - esp. developers and product people - it is intrinsically fun to simply build something awesome, even in a less than "fun" space. The main reward is real people loving your awesome creation because you've solved their problem. I've found that even talking about the money can be de- motivating because it makes the problem solving feel less pure, more instrumental, less meaningful. Nothing is more fun or sustaining in the tough times than a simple email from a user saying "I love your product, thanks!". When the team lives for that, you've got a great team.

<comment><USER3> You said it much better than I did. Totally agree.

<comment><USER9> thanks! As an aside, i notice that these types of observations quickly devolve into a reductio ad absurdum of "but money really counts" or "but you like money". The answer is: of course. People are complicated and have multiple motivations - team and individual motivation is not "either/or"... it's complicated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article says:

"When breakthrough thinking is needed, a fun, collaborative and supportive environment will generally yield better/faster results than the pressure of sticks and carrots. This is especially important in the early days of a startup while the team is still figuring out a viable formula for the business."

But it's assuming there is already a startup company that you've founded.

I'm currently going through the agonizing process of filing for an S-Corp and setting up all the other legal structure to found a startup. Are there really people who would get a couple friends together and file all that paper work and pay all those fees then sit down and think "Hmm.. okay. Now what should we sell?"

Even if you just have an idea for a fun product, if you aren't monetarily focused, I have no idea how you would get yourself through the whole process without considering a "viable business formula."

<comment><USER11> it must be different for your state, here all we do is fill out a form, and that's it...you get your paperwork a few days later in the mail.

then one day to hit up the bank to open up the account

<comment><USER10> I am in CA, and trying to incorporate in NV. So I need to get a registered agent in NV. Also, my cofounders are in different states and we're not paying straight dividends for other reasons. Then there are the pains of having a lawyer to craft our T&C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> By coincidence (though I don't think it is coincidence) Jeff Atwood's latest blog post at Coding Horror, "The Vast and Endless Sea" ([http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/06/the-vast-and- endles...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/06/the-vast-and-endless- sea.html)) is about the same thing: how offering lots of money is detrimental for creativity and motivation.

I agree with his recommendation at the end: watch the 10 minute video "RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us".

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, is not about making money at all, it's about have fun and then sell all that fun for millions :)

</comment><comment><USER14> My thought on any startup to be successful, they must be stay relevant to its users. Sure it won't hurt to have a bit of fun along the way. I'm sure if it help users in its course of work, there will be users who are willingly to pay a bit of $$$.</comment>


Tin Whiskers: Within a whisker of failure - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/03/research.engineering

<comment><USER2> This is exactly the reason I became concerned and ticked off when learned of this RoHS regulation when buying electronics components for hobby projects.

You get these politicians who are not scientists or engineers making mandates that make them look good but which have terrible consequences for technology & society. I also seriously doubt eliminating lead from solder is really that important for the environment, compared to everything else we do. It's certainly not worth the problems it will cause when our already densely-packed electronics doesn't last more than a year due to tin whisker growth.

On the other hand, maybe they know _exactly_ what they're doing. It's not enough that that TV will be obsolete in a few years - let's make sure you can't even use it after 2.

Could be good for me though: I may one day be able to pick up TVs, computers, and all sorts of "broken" electronics for free; five minutes running a heat gun over the boards to melt the tin whiskers and suck them back into the solder joints, and voila! It works again.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... This is exactly the reason I became concerned and ticked off when learned of this RoHS regulation when buying electronics components for hobby projects. ..."_

I first stumbled across this problem looking at the whisker site nasa has ~ <http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker> where there is some serious "whisker mitigation" going on. There are lots of interesting images showing why this is a real problem.</comment></comment>


Most Nazis escaped justice. Now Germany is racing to convict who got away (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/14/europe/germany-nazi-war-trials-grm-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> Dont like CNN, so not going to the link but I believe CIA helped some of them escape to America...

[https://ips-dc.org/the_cias_worst-kept_secret_newly_declassi...](https://ips- dc.org/the_cias_worst- kept_secret_newly_declassified_files_confirm_united_states_collaboration_with_nazis/)</comment>


The NFL Draft, Financial Incentives and Self Awareness - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/04/the_nfl_draft.php

<comment><USER2> You would think they'd come up with some sort of eye test that can detect how the QB sees the field, something like they're talking about here:

"Because of this, Farrow spends a lot of time simply trying to determine what it is experts see that amateurs don't. Among other things, he uses an eye- motion tracker to record where virtuoso players are looking during clutch situations, such as when passing under pressure from multiple defenders coming from different directions. He pulls up a videoclip from an Australian rules football practice that he conducted with the Adelaide Crows, a professional team. The game is essentially football crossed with rugby, and players advance the ball by kicking it to teammates. As the play unfolds, players break left and right. One runs very visibly up the middle."

[http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8222...](http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82225)

<comment><USER3> Sounds like Malcolm Gladwell's _Blink_.</comment></comment>


Operating systems for Arduino - <AUTHOR> http://antipastohw.blogspot.com/2009/11/4-operating-systems-for-arduino.html

<comment><USER2> Nice collection, didn't even know people were doing this work. My idea of a perfect embedded hobbyist OS would be much akin to apple I with an embedded scripting environment and easy access to hardware. Not BASIC though, but False (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FALSE>) or the False variant DUP.

<comment><USER3> Some of the newer machines (Wikireader and OLPC) have Forth as an embedded interpreter.</comment></comment>


Vignette: add photos to your contacts by searching public social media profiles - <AUTHOR> https://www.caseyliss.com/2019/5/22/vignette <comment><USER2> Our support desk enriches the data about who e-mailed in, and among that is a picture. Now every time our most import client submits a ticket it's a picture of him and his wife in a hot tub

<comment> VvR-Ox Haha nice that came to my mind, first :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having tried the app, some honest UX feedback:

1\. This app doesn't have a good reason to depart from the usual Apple UI style, so don't. The gradient buttons in particular feel very Web 2.0, and out of place in 2019.

2\. You need to persist content in the app when I close it, or switch between apps. Ideally the app would work away in the background while I do something else, but if not it should at minimum not need to start again from scratch every time I open it.

3\. When I tap on a photo to preview it's not obvious that I need to tap on the old photo to get back to the list. Offer a close icon in the corner.

Good idea, useful, execution could take some polish.

<comment><USER4> Because of purposeful limitations on iOS. Except in special cases, an app can not run in the background for more than ten minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Scanning the website, it looks like it depends on you having populated the user's Facebook, Instagram & Twitter profiles in order to use those services. If you have an email address, it'll use Gravitar, and if you have none of the above, I guess it does nothing?

Given that Facebook already takes a full copy of all of my contacts (I use WhatsApp) I'd really rather not spend the effort curating a more detailed database linking phone numbers, email addresses and real names to various social media profiles, for the benefit of Facebook.

I realise this app, and Casey, are not responsible for the actions of other apps on my phone, but second order effects should be a real concern for any app that claims to be privacy focused.

I realise that's probably secondary to the claim that it's supposedly privacy focused, and relying on your contacts not being privacy focused in order to be effective.

All that said, and I apologise for raining on the otherwise sunny parade, this looks like a beautifully executed app, and I will be purchasing it shortly, mostly because I have enjoyed listening to Casey on ATP.

<comment><USER6> > Given that Facebook already takes a full copy of all of my contacts (I use > WhatsApp)

I recommend using web apps, not native apps, for things like Facebook. Your browser will not hand over your contacts list to the world, so preferring your browser is often a good move. Won't work for everyone, but it works for me.

You can also choose apps from orgs that care more about privacy. Signal works just fine instead of Whatsapp.

<comment><USER5> > You can also choose apps from orgs that care more about privacy. Signal > works just fine instead of Whatsapp.

Network effects means that despite me being on iMessage and Signal, almost all my comms arrive on Whatsapp. I could remove myself from Whatsapp, but already abstaining from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn means my choices realistically are to either use IM platform as a selection criteria for my friends (which I've already done to a degree, and lost a lot of casual friends by not being on any of the above), or accept that there's no suitable alternative and give in to this particular beast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For some reason the idea of having pictures of people in my contacts just feels creepy in an indescribable way, even if it isn't _my_ picture but those of others. Perhaps this is because it increases the "you are being watched" feeling.

Yet the trend seems to be to plaster every single UI everywhere with the faces of users (and pestering them to upload "profile photos")... I do not need to see a picture of myself every time I'm logged into a site.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. It bugs me not to have an image of the person together with its contact information.

Vignette approach is way too plastic for my taste. I carefully curate my contacts and associate photos _I_ take to them. Many people use avatars they do not reflect who they are, I can't stand that on my contacts. That, mainly, and the fact that the app costs $5 (way too much in my opinion) are the only reason that will keep me away from it.

<comment><USER9> > $5 (way too much in my opinion)

I wish people considered how much it costs to develop an app and then looked at the cost, keeping in mind that somebody out there needs to make a living, and apps do not sell in millions.

I am really annoyed by what Apple did to software pricing: it seems most people want stuff to be FREE or $1.99 these days. If that is your expectation, do not expect good apps, because it simply doesn't make any sense to write them.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure how Apple did anything to software pricing. In the initial days of the iPhone, apps used to sell for as much as Mac apps.

While you're looking at the effort and cost of developing an app, also consider that not everybody has $4 coffees (like another commenter put it) or can afford to buy many apps that are each $5 or $10 or more. Getting an iPhone is one of the best things someone could do (on privacy and security), and it does cost a lot just to get the hardware. Lower priced apps are a boon to many in countries that are not the US or another developed country.

Some sort of tiered pricing that also takes into account relative pricing power could help the developer reach more people as well as help more people. Note that many people in lower income countries may also buy older or used iPhones (with the market share of the flagships being minuscule) for what is to them a lot of money.

<comment><USER9> > While you're looking at the effort and cost of developing an app, also > consider that not everybody has $4 coffees (like another commenter put it) > or can afford to buy many apps that are each $5 or $10 or more. Getting an > iPhone is one of the best things someone could do (on privacy and security), > and it does cost a lot just to get the hardware. Lower priced apps are a > boon to many in countries that are not the US or another developed country.

This is, again, a problem of perception. People will pay $1200 for their phone, whether they can afford it or not. The perception is that they will get a beautiful physical device and that it is "worth it". To make good use of that physical device one should expect to buy apps — but they are somehow not "worth it" anymore.

I realize that not everybody cares about contact photos, but my gripe was with the "too expensive" statement. My take on this is that when buying a computer (any computer: laptop, desktop, tablet, phone), you should expect to spend around 50% of its price on apps in the long run, and even more in niche business settings. That is the real price of your purchase. If that is too expensive, consider getting a less expensive device.

<comment><USER10> > My take on this is that when buying a computer (any computer: laptop, > desktop, tablet, phone), you should expect to spend around 50% of its price > on apps in the long run, and even more in niche business settings. That is > the real price of your purchase. If that is too expensive, consider getting > a less expensive device.

I get that it's your personal take, but it just doesn't work that way in developing countries. I'm not sure most people would consider spending 50% of the hardware cost on software in developed countries either, if the apps are for personal use.

There are variations in price expectations depending on the type of product. Hardware is something people are willing to pay more for. Video content is slightly similar in the very long run (if using streaming services). Software seems to be generally lower on the rung, regardless of the platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is going to come off as quite bitter, but the more I listen to podcasts like ATP, the more it angers me how incestuous the Apple indie community is. There are about a million of these kinds of utility apps in the App Store. Many are potentially useful to thousands of people like this one. _None_ of them get widespread podcast coverage, writeups on Techcrunch and Macstories, and trending posts on HN. This is exclusively fame and personality driving sales, and yet nobody on these shows seems to want to acknowledge it.

Worse yet, this might make fledgeling indie developers believe that they, too, could make a living with their first or second projects. But I know from experience that merit isn't nearly enough: getting even a single journalist to pay attention will require weeks or months of unanswered e-mails to everyone you can find—and even then, only if you're lucky, and your app actually does something incredible.

Perhaps the unstated prerequisite in this market is that if you don't have a network, your app almost certainly isn't going anywhere, no matter how good it is. And if you know a bunch of people within the Apple indie community, you're going to have some degree of success, no matter what. I recently released an app that performs an important task substantially better than all the existing competition, and yet getting anyone at all to pay attention is like pulling nails. It's hard not to feel dejected when you see a newcomer with a comparatively simple app enter the stage and immediately get widespread acclaim.

As a long-time fan of the show, I'm happy for Casey's success (because he's a genuinely nice and well-meaning person), but I'm probably going to have to stop listening soon. This release is just an absolute distortion of the app developer experience, and it ticks me off that everyone in this sphere is acting like it's completely normal. In reality, almost anybody else would be lucky to make $100 from the lifetime of an equivalent app, and nobody would be donating $5 to you just because they like you.

<comment><USER12> >Worse yet, this might make fledgeling indie developers believe that they, too, could make a living with their first or second projects.

Where did Casey or anyone else give this impression? I think you're reading a LOT into this that isn't there.

Obviously the app has done well because its creator is well known. That's a very viable method of marketing. Anyone hoping to start a business needs some sort of marketing angle, and fame or network is one of them.

Not just that: the app has to work, and Vignette works well. And it solved the problem of the people recommending it, too. That's part of why everyone who knows Casey is eager to talk about it: the app genuinely helped them.

Can you point to something anyone said, anywhere that backs up your own interpretation? Ie. someone saying "see, anyone can do it"

I didn't listen to this week's ATP yet, so maybe I missed something grotesque, but what you're saying doesn't sound like how Casey talked about the app in the runup.

<comment><USER11> > _" Where did Casey or anyone else give this impression? I think you're > reading a LOT into this that isn't there."_

Maybe you're right. I admit there's quite a bit of sour grapes on my part. On the other hand, I think it's more a matter of what's _not_ said. On ATP, the relative fame of the three co-hosts is rarely brought up as a causal factor of success, and Vignette's development has been talked about as if it were an an entirely conventional process, with no asterisks or caveats. To paraphrase several episodes of discussion: "You make the app, and if it's good enough, people will write about it and you will make on the order of several thousand dollars over its lifetime. Maybe you'll even be able make a living out of it." But that's just not how it works for ordinary people. Either the co-hosts are out of touch, or they assumed that Casey's connectedness would substantially help his sales, but didn't outright say it.

To be clear, I don't blame Casey for any of this. He did nothing wrong. More than anything, I'm frustrated by the Apple media for (what I perceive to be) favoritism when it comes to picking apps to write about and prop up. Where's the journalistic integrity? You pass over so many fantastic apps, yet a tiny utility app by this one famous developer (who's friends with the higher-ups) gets a full writeup?

> _" Not just that: the app has to work, and Vignette works well. And it > solved the problem of the people recommending it, too. That's part of why > everyone who knows Casey is eager to talk about it: the app genuinely helped > them."_

I think it helps connected people in the Apple indie dev scene more than anyone else. If you read the feedback in the corresponding Reddit thread[1], you'll see that most regular people aren't able to make use of its functionality.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bs7z8a/vignette_for_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bs7z8a/vignette_for_ios_easily_personalizes_contact/)

<comment><USER12> Mmm, I guess I have a lot of contacts with synced facebook ids back when ios let you connect facebook.

So I listened to the new ATP, and Casey constantly talked about how fortunate he was to have an audience, and friends with audiences. I really didn't get the sense you're talking about.

As for the press, macstories writes about everything. The more famous ones, I agree that maybe they could disclose that. On the other hand, this is the slowest part of the year by far in the apple news cycle, so he may have inadvertently picked an excellent time to launch. Editors had little else to write about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would totally pay for an app that kept my contact information in order without selling it to other people. Is this coming to Android anytime soon?

<comment><USER14> I can almost 100% say that this is never coming to Android. Casey Liss is one of the co-hosts of Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) and they are Apple users through and through. Marco Arment, maker of the great Overcast podcast client, is also a co-host alongside John Siracusa of Mac OS X/Ars reviews fame.

TL;DR No this is not coming to Android.

<comment><USER4> Well Marco did outsource porting Instapaper to Android before he sold it...

[https://marco.org/2012/06/06/instapaper-for- android](https://marco.org/2012/06/06/instapaper-for-android)

But I doubt he would do the same for Overcast.

<comment><USER15> Just yesterday was searching on the Google Play Store if there is an Android version of Overcast. There is no decent podcast app that has this particular feature of Overcast - cutting off silence.

<comment><USER16> One of the most used podcast apps on Android has to be Pocket Casts, and they support removing silence : [https://support.pocketcasts.com/article/audio- effects/](https://support.pocketcasts.com/article/audio-effects/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Take my money! :)

Your project is great, and I especially love that you're doing this for privacy reasons on the device, instead of in the cloud. Congratulations on launching.

Wishlist: add LinkedIn, because about half of my contacts are for business.

<comment><USER4> ATP is one of my favorite podcasts and I wanted to like this app.

A long time ago, FB for iOS would sync contacts _to_ your iPhone and include an fb:/... link. I still have a few old contacts with the link. Those are the only ones that were updated and one that had a gravitar link.

None of my more recent contacts with FB links worked nor did my professional contacts from LinkedIn. The app was kind of useless to me.

<comment><USER18> The facebook link problem is fixed in today's 2019.4 update

[https://twitter.com/caseyliss/status/1132335799817691136](https://twitter.com/caseyliss/status/1132335799817691136)

<comment><USER4> Better. I just tried it out. But, the url you get from your phone is [https://m.faceboook.com/...](https://m.faceboook.com/...).

This is a normal use case. You have to take the m out. But, I am glad he did that instead of forcing a FB login. I trust him based on his reputation, but a lot of people wouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe I'm just old, but when I hear that name in a software context, I think of:

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

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the nightmares I'll be having tonight about URLs with commas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another alternative, I used this years ago (only works with FB):

'GoSync' [https://itunes.apple.com/be/app/gosync-contacts-social- photo...](https://itunes.apple.com/be/app/gosync-contacts-social-photo-sync- facebook-pics/id621494151?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER22> Facebook Messenger on Android does something similar. Names and pictures from Facebook are shown by phone numbers

</comment><comment><USER23> Cool! Well done!! Love the techniques used and the way you find photos. Also like the design. Good luck with being indi developer.

I launched a similiar app a few weeks ago (LibreContacts), but did not make much fuzz about it yet because: busy. It adds profile pics from whatsapp to your contacts.

<comment><USER24> I just tried LibreContacts and am finding it a bit confusing. The launch experience is unlike anything I've seen on an app before, and I'm not sure many people will understand it or be able to use it.

I'm out with just my phone for a long weekend. I can't imagine the rest of my family using this - my parents would find it too complicated, and my siblings wouldn't be bothered if it doesn't work on the phone.

What's the reason for it?

<comment><USER23> I do not want to hijack this topic. But in short: whatsapp has all the contacts i have in my phone. Those contacts have profile pics. The qr thing is for tech reasons. Will pm if possible. Update: no email in bio. (I do though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would like to buy this app but having hard time understanding why it requires iOS 12.1 or later. What new API call had to be in the app to justify this limitation?

I am on iOS 12.0.1 and plan on remaining there for the foreseeable future because I like my jailbreak.

<comment><USER26> Unless you very carefully preserve a stable of old devices with old versions of the OS, it's very challenging to test new software on older operating systems.

That's one of my least favorite parts of the ecosystem.

If a customer reports a problem on an iOS 12.0.x device, and I didn't go out of my way to keep one of my devices stuck on 12.0.x or to preserve the signatures from an old build, there is no way for me to go get a 12.0 device to troubleshoot their problem (unless I get lucky on eBay or similar) and no way for me to install 12.0 on a device I have sitting in my desk drawer.

Apple does not want people sticking to old versions of the OS, and makes it hard for app developers to support those who do.

<comment><USER4> Especially now that it means supporting both 32 bit and 64 bit versions for the very small percentage of people who have pre-2013 devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Any android plans?

<comment><USER28> Will never happen.

<comment><USER27> Then someone else will make it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why no Android version?

</comment><comment><USER30> I couldn't find the vignette filter in this app. Can anybody help?

</comment><comment><USER31> It's nice we've gotten to the point where we don't have to put that its an iOS app in the title, since people assume that iPhone users are the only people who care about using a new product.

/s</comment>


Lessons in creativity and joy at XOXO - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3261-lessons-in-creativity-and-joy-at-xoxo <comment><USER2> Totally agree, especially with the conference part - that's why we are throwing the next DjangoCon Europe in a real circus: <http://2013.djangocon.eu/> :)</comment>


Ask HN: how to see Facebook.com's footer - <AUTHOR>

ASK HN: how to see facebook.com's footer which shows 'developer', 'privacy', 'help' links?
as soon as I scroll down, the news feed grows and hides the footer. I'm tired of it.
any trick? <comment><USER2> Bottom of the rightmost page column, rightmost entry in the bottom row of links is 'More' with a drop-down. What you're looking for is in that drop- down.

</comment><comment><USER3> in chrome, right-clickon the update area --> inspect element --> set display:none --> left with only footer.</comment>


How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> 'Could'? Why do media outlets persist in tiptoeing around these issues? A tiny, tiny minority of cashless systems are private and censorship-resistant.

Almost all of the solutions that are actually currently on the table already do help mass surveillance, already does give more control to the government.

If we can get the general public to use open hardware without backdoors and a cryptocurrency or similar, we might be able to come close to the privacy of cash. But is that a realistic goal? Anyone knows how to use cash in a reasonably private way. Barely anyone knows how to use digital technology in a reasonably private way. It may not even be possible (are our systems backdoored? is x86 secure?)

Taxation is always the problem hailed here. I think that fundamentally people should have the power to withhold information from the government. That action may result in negative consequences, but it should be possible nonetheless.

There is a huge distinction between choosing to disobey the law and potentially being punished for it (civil disobedience), and having literally no choice because all other avenues have become impossible.

That is what people are fighting for, that is what freedom is all about. Perfect enforcement is not desirable.

Imagine a world in which homosexuality is impossible. Not illegal, but impossible. That's what perfect enforcement would have looked like in the 50s.

<comment><USER3> Devil's advocate: Imagine a world in which theft, rape, slavery, and child abuse are impossible (more than once / for any meaningful period of time). Have you read any of Iain Banks's Culture series?

I think the peace of mind that you and everyone you'll ever know will never get disappeared into someone's rape dungeon doesn't seem so bad. Or that you can go into business and actually win because you're doing it better, because your competitors aren't in bed with government, corruptly and systematically destroying the possibility of competition. Just also don't do stupid shit like control the expression of two consenting persons just because what they're doing is not your cup of tea. Is this _really_ so hard to differentiate between? And does perfect enforcement really mean minds can't changed, that the law can't be changed after it's created if it's understood that actions X, Y, or Z actually aren't against the universal bill of rights for living entities?

Sure, freedom is about being able to do what you want with your life, but it also means being able to do it safely, without the fear of getting pwned. People who want to pwn will _always_ have the upper hand if we just all agree we'd rather keep letting people do whatever the fuck they want so long as they can get away with it. "Perfect enforcement" sounds only as horrible as the culture behind it is, to me. Turning away from that is to embrace and make a home for the devil we know---corruption, physical and sexual domination of the weak by the powerful, environmental devastation, rampant species genocide, etc etc etc.

<comment><USER4> Benjamin Franklin's quote comes to mind here:

 _They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety._

Everyone realizes perfect enforcement of crimes related to rape or murder would be "great" in the sense no one wants that. However, the risks of those crimes happening to you are _very_ minimal today and dropping every year in the U.S. Most victims of those crimes are placed or place themselves in situations that bad things can occur, think drug violence.

In order to combat the stuff you mentioned we would essentially lose the liberty to make mistakes as a society. For example, if I want to smoke weed, and do. I'll go to prison. Today, I get a ticket.

Or let's take an even more exterem case, say I am a 16 year old male and my 16 year old girlfriend texts me a picture of her breasts. We both would be labeled paedophiles for life, and got to prison.

There are literally millions of laws, to the point _no one_ can keep track. If we made "Perfect Enforcement" we would all be jailed, for crossing the street without a sidewalk, for texting a friend a picture of a statue (copy right violation), potentially for being gay, etc.

We don't live in a society where people want to protect your freedom to not be physically hurt. We live in a society which tries to ensure people don't get physically, economically, socially, emotionally, hurt. This leads to many contradicting laws, and makes it impossible to both be free and secure at the same time. If we enforced "Perfect Enforcement" there would only be a totalitarian Enforcement force that doesn't follow laws, and the imprisoned populace who at least tries to follow the laws.

That's why the founding fathers added the bill of rights. They understood this, and sadly 200+ years later it appears our society is still incapable of understanding it.

<comment><USER5> What Benjamin Franklin said, and what you (and many people) believe he meant, are complete opposites[0]. The "essential liberty" he was referring to was the right of the government to form a collective defense against Native Americans, and the purchase of "temporary safety" refers to state assemblies and private landowners refusing to fund that defense.

What was intended to be a pro-statist argument has been turned into an anti- statist warning, which it was never intended to be. I'm not saying the "revised" interpretation isn't valuable - it just shouldn't be argued from the authority of Benjamin Franklin (or, by extent, the intent of the founding fathers) when he was complaining that people _weren 't_ sufficiently funding the military industrial complex of the time.

[0][https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really- said](https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said)

<comment><USER6> I vote we do this instead:

"Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety will deserve neither and lose both." -Unknown

That version of the quote is one Franklin never actually said, so it can't accurately be attributed to him and we can avoid having to care about what he actually meant. Because the thing in the linked post clearly isn't what anybody else means when they use that quote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps my upbringing is coming through, but I was surprised to see no mention of the fact that Christian apocalypse predictors have been raving about the implications of a "cashless society" and the control that would give government over our lives for decades. [http://endtimestruth.com/mark-of-the- beast/cashless-society/](http://endtimestruth.com/mark-of-the-beast/cashless- society/)

<comment><USER8> I've heard this about bar codes, so I guess it was inevitable for it to extend to digital money.

[http://www.theonion.com/article/satan-to-revise-bar-code- sys...](http://www.theonion.com/article/satan-to-revise-bar-code-system-4454)

<comment><USER9> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, I certainly hope so, you do realize you're citing a satirical source, "The Onion"?

There is a distinct difference between a business using a system to keep track of inventory and the enforcement of a digital only currency...

<comment><USER8> So you're telling me Satan did not invent the barcode?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How is money = free speech only when the recipient is a politician?

For the record, money is just an idea shared between people, and the communication of said idea. For strong demonstrations of this, consider hawala or consensus-based cryptocurrencies.

Humans have been assigning value to tokens and trading on the tokens since the dawn of civilization. Outlawing this activity is dangerous to free society. It will also make the beggar class and the poor generally even more beholden to the state.

<comment><USER11> The short answer is because of taxes. You can't have both taxes and fully free exchange of money.

<comment><USER12> Sure you could! If Land Value Tax was the only tax levied (i.e. no income or consumption taxes), it would unaffected by the anonymity of money.

<comment><USER13> I love the concept of a Land Value Tax. I wish some government could actually try it out somewhere, as an exclusive tax.

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't this just cause the top 1% (who own the majority of the land in most countries) to charge higher ground rents to cover their land taxes, and make it increasingly difficult for anybody else to own land and buy out their freeholds, entrenching the wealthy elite even further?

<comment><USER12> If you added an LVT on top of current taxation systems, probably. One way to make it more revenue-neutral would be to reduce some other tax, like sales taxes.

But now consider idle land that's being held speculatively. The landowner expected to sell it at a profit in the future, but now those profits are impacted by the LVT. To maintain their profits they would need to find tenants for the land in order to pay the LVT. (Or settle with less profit! :P)

<comment><USER15> >To maintain their profits they would need to find tenants for the land in order to pay the LVT.

Can you expand on this point please? Why would it be necessary to earn rent from idle land in order to pay the LVT? Wouldn't unused land have a low value under a LVT system, much like it does now?

<comment><USER12> Good catch! I didn't mean to say the landowners would be forced to earn rent on their idle land. I meant that if they didn't want to pay the tax themselves (equivalent of charging the tax to their tenants), they would have to do something economically productive with the land. This is the theorized win-win with LVT: there is encouragement to develop otherwise-idle land.

I think you're right that introducing LVT could lower the already low values of unused land. Perhaps its introduction would mean a glut of sales of land: fire sale! (Win-win again, according to my armchair-economics analysis. :P)

<comment><USER15> I guess I still don't grasp how this aspect of LVT is any different or better than property taxes, as currently designed. If you own undeveloped land, you still have to pay the standard property tax rate on that land, according to its assessed value.

<comment><USER16> LVT implicitly incentivizes density. Assessors can determine your $1mm single family home close to a very dense business & housing district could potentially represent 12 $250k condos, which is $3mm of value and tax you as such. LVT would also not be based on the actual structures on the land, so it all about what the potential value of the usage of the land would be.

<comment><USER17> > LVT implicitly incentivizes density.

Not necessarily, although that is certainly how it works in many residential situations.

The general idea is removing the marginal disincentive for high-value _use_ of the land. Property taxes mean for every dollar you spend making something more awesome, you get taxed more. Instead, we should encourage awesomeness on the margin, and discourage people who use land that could be awesome in the least awesome ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cash is the only payment method available today that is both distributed and truly censorship-resistant. Anyone can pay cash to anyone else in exchange for anything, without having to report to, or obtain permission from, any third party. If nobody knows what you bought in the back alley last night, nobody will ever find out.

You don't need fancy chunks of metal and plastic to use cash. You don't even need electricity, much less an internet connection, to use it. A three-year- old kid can use it just as well as one-hundred-and-three-year-old great- grandma.

A lot of the time, you can't even tell whether the bills are genuine or not. But that doesn't prevent billions of people around the world from exchanging cash every day. And if dollars suddenly became untrustworthy, people will just switch to another currency or fall back to crates of fish and shiny stones.

Compare that to cryptocurrencies that are being touted as the future of distributed, "censorship-resistant" cash. Sure, they're distributed, but censorship is as easy as cutting off the target's internet connection (or even blocking some ports). If you're a dictator in North Africa, just flip the switch and all the rebels are suddenly broke! Cryptocurrencies also require everyone to broadcast every transaction to the whole world, and all it takes is one mistake to connect a set of addresses to a real identity. Geeks can mix their coins and hope there's no trail left, but good luck getting grandma to use it correctly.

Programmers love to talk about elaborate ways to prevent double-spending and whatnot. But in order to be a plausible replacement for cash, I think virtual currencies need to solve some of these usability problems first. Spending a few satoshis needs to become just as easy as pulling some quarters out of your pocket.

<comment><USER19> This is wrong. Cryptocurrencies can be freely exchanged with anyone, anywhere unlike Cash which is only censorship-resistant for the transactions done in person. Cryptocurrencies are more distributed in the sense that exchange rates are set by market not central banks. This means cryptocurrencies can have more permanent stability than cash. Though at the moment none of the cryptocurrencies do. But as the adoption increases so will stability.

<comment><USER18> Cryptocurrencies are only censorship-resistant for people who can afford a secure and well-maintained computing device and whose internet connection cannot be arbitrarily blocked or filtered by governments and corporations.

On today's Earth, this group of people is vastly smaller than the number of people who can carry out cash transactions in person, not just because of poor adoption, but because of a fundamental UX problem.

Does it matter who sets the exchange rate when the more pressing concern is who controls your ability to participate in the network in the first place? You can set your own exchange rates, too, if you're really serious about it. It will be $10 for this wad of marijuana, not $15 like this other guy says, thank you very much.

<comment><USER19> > Cryptocurrencies are only censorship-resistant for people who can afford a > secure and well-maintained computing device

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet)

> and whose internet connection cannot be arbitrarily blocked or filtered by > governments and corporations.

I am not aware of even one instance where bitcoin or anyother protocol has been successfully blocked.

> On today's Earth, this group of people is vastly smaller than the number of > people who can carry out cash transactions in person, not just because of > poor adoption, but because of a fundamental UX problem.

Yet. There is no reason why cant UX be n00b-friendly or may be it already is. Low adaption is probably due to either people are unaware or there is lot mis- information. Anycase, adoption is steadly increasing.

> Does it matter who sets the exchange rate when the more pressing concern is > who controls your ability to participate in the network in the first place?

Its not. None can control participation. Thats why dark markets deal in bitcoin.

> You can set your own exchange rates, too, if you're really serious about it. > It will be $10 for this wad of marijuana, not $15 like this other guy says, > thank you very much.

Considering there are zillion laws regulating money flow between any given two parties, I doubt it would look as appealing as a widely-accepted crytocurrency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I spoke at the CCC in 2011 about all the ways in which censorship-resistant payments are essential to the various pillars of a free society.

[https://vimeo.com/27653912](https://vimeo.com/27653912)

It's still true. Without free payments, you cannot have free speech, free association, or due process.

<comment><USER21> Here's the same video on the CCC's site, where they won't track you: [https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolutio...](https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution- en)

<comment><USER20> That webpage sends third party requests to oneandone.net, FYI - so they're tracking you exactly no more or less than Vimeo is.

[http://mirror.eu.oneandone.net/projects/media.ccc.de/events/...](http://mirror.eu.oneandone.net/projects/media.ccc.de/events/camp2011/video/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution- en.mp4)

[http://mirror.netcologne.de/CCC/events/camp2011/video/cccamp...](http://mirror.netcologne.de/CCC/events/camp2011/video/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution- en.mp4)

You're telling me none of these keep web logs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For those of you who have parents/grand-parents who lived in Europe during WW2, you should ask them what they think about the value of have some money somewhere the government doesn't know anything about (whether it is cash or in a foreign country). This is not a theoretical argument. Germany was a democracy before the war. France too. Italy too.

<comment><USER23> If you're going to do that, better be sure it's in something with hard value, e.g. gold or silver because government can simply do something like declare that the current currency is invalid and must be exchanged for new, thus forcing everyone with hidden stashes to come forward or take the loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> GOV absolutely knew what the consequences / ripples of Choke Point would be.

They knew that it would generate support amongst the Vice Hating Crowd, allowing GOV to address the two things they need most:

/ An easier way to issue debt with less scrutiny (Federal Reserve Notes are quite specific debt instruments that we circulate, while GOV's debt load is approaching untenable).

/ A more comprehensive way to track gun sales.

Many people do not trust various levels / types of government, and see gun ownership as a necessary... hedge. Thankfully, the US has the option of The Four Boxes of Governance: Soap, Jury, Ballot, Ammo.

Ultimately, laws and freedoms are maintained at the point of a gun. And it is the Ammo Box, in the hands of The People, that allows the other three boxes to be used.

</comment><comment><USER25> I agree with the sentiment of the title, but does the article really support it?

Operation Choke Point (which, in the end, was just the gov't saying "hey, these industries are dangerous") helped stopped Alexander's donations. But it's not like it's easy to collect online payments in a cash-only society, right? This is like saying "how the internet can embolden wiretapping". The gov't action only increased through the technicality of increased technology.

The fact that Visa and MC responded to Sheriff Dart's letter is disturbing, to say the least, though. Though saying the circuit decision is a first amendment decision might be a stretch: It reads to me more like a mix of that and one about abuse of public office.

So.... this article brings up issues that I think are extremely important though. Visa and MC as payment processors basically reserve the right to not service people. Is there a legitimate case for forcing them not to discriminate? Do we need net neutrality for payments?

Someone will say "Bitcoin solves this!" but it doesn't, at least not until the US government accepts tax payments in USD.

The biggest issue with "payment processor purity" would be the question of how does that work with money laundering laws? There might not be a conflict: if payment processors know who you are, that might be enough.

But seriously, Choke Point would have failed any first ammendment challenge if banks wanted to challenge it. But they didn't, because banks believed what the gov't was telling them, and also don't like high-risk, low-reward businesses. Private enterprise is at the source of these issues!

Instead of worrying about Big Brother, I'd say this article is more about how the government _should_ intervene to ensure 1st amendment rights in a cashless society.

A side note that I feel is lost in these discussions: cashless societies (or mixed cash/cashless, if you will) enable lots of people (like adult entertainers, but also everyone on Patreon, for example) to live a life they couldn't with cash-only universes. Even if cash is always there, we should work to make cashless better than ever if possible.

</comment><comment><USER26> The Atlantic almost used an euphemism for what the effects of a cashless society would be like. I guess they didn't want to use the term "Big Government". That might upset the "When I say Big Business, I mean bad" crowd.

The government is already using this to punish its enemies (political and otherwise). You'll be a slave if this ever comes to pass.

But the real problem is that you have 40% of Democrats (or more) identify as being socialists now. If you're a socialist then you just accept this, because Big Brother/Big Government is what you want. You want Bernie Sanders to bring in Big Government to punish.

The Republicans and Libertarians are spineless. They should be attacking people like Cass Sunstein on a daily basis. Everyday the collectivists like him should be called out and exposed for the totalitarian wannabes that they really are.

</comment><comment><USER27> Physical currency is privacy, it is freedom of commerce, it is property rights. Giving up physical currency means giving up all your freedoms at once. Simply because government can tell you what your money is worth at any instant, where you can spend it, and if you can spend it or are required to do so to not lose it

</comment><comment><USER28> Ultimately Big Brother needs Big taxes for Big spending out of its Big wallet...

<comment><USER29> Nah... they just ask the Fed to p00f money ( debt ) into existence so they can pay the bills with the no limit credit card. A little drama about the debt ceiling and everything is all better.

<comment><USER30> No, you still need taxes. The fundamental reason the US dollar has value in the global economy is that hundreds of millions of very wealthy people are forced to pay taxes in that currency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." \--Rothschild in 1744

<comment><USER32> It's unclear that this quotation is historical

[https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7887/did- rothsch...](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7887/did-rothschild- say-this-famous-quote-if-yes-what-did-he-mean-by-it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bitcoin is the only way I can keep a little privacy anymore

<comment><USER34> Cash still rules, it requires no electricity, you have to physically take it away from me compared to exploiting a bug in some system.

Bitcoin is not bad, but it's still in the hands of a few privileged people, who control the source code. Privacy only truly happens if you leave out middle man, like Coinbase. Now, managing bitcion 100% yourself is a pain that the general public simply won't do. Yes, you can do it, but you will find yourself at the edge of a long tail.

It's fun to see how the most expensive social experiment will unfold.

<comment><USER35> Tendermint. It has different security characteristics, but the nice thing is, it doesn't rely on extrinsic factors for security. It's not just BFT, it's actually antifragile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Bigger worry: What if a foreign agency can shutdown the American monetary system because everything is digital?

</comment><comment><USER37> While the ability to censor people has increased tremendously, our government's perverted interest in puritan idiocy seems unchanged for hundreds of years. I just can't believe that who someone decides to have sex with is still something the government insists on controlling. What a sick society we live in and then have the audacity to call everyday natural actions "vice". No, vice is that sheriff's sick obsession with other people's sexual activities and his insistence on controlling them for his own sick pleasure. Vice is indeed the public's willingness to accept and get pleasure based on other people's pain. It's just amazing how much Americans love hurting each other simply for the sake of suffering.

</comment><comment><USER38> Look at China, where WeChat Wallet and Alipay dominate cashless payments. It's very good for the Chinese government that there are 2 large cashless payment platforms that they can monitor/control.

</comment><comment><USER29> Welcome to Bartertown.

</comment><comment><USER39> I find it amusing the "share everything" generation goes the other way and posts detailed diaries of their expenses online.

</comment><comment><USER40> People don't care about privacy with a cashless society, they fear they'll have to pay taxes like they should.

</comment><comment><USER41> Stash your cash! Use some of it to buy tangible gold and other things of value like ammunition.

</comment><comment><USER42> Every digital transaction is trackable throughout it's lifecycle. Every transaction can be traced back to the origin even it changes hands several times. An ideal government can make a good use of this feature to enforce law for greater good, while a practical government, in reality, enforces whatever suits the powerful ones the best.

<comment><USER43> 'Greater good' is a dangerous idea in itself. Centralized management rarely realizes that the local maxima and global maxima often differ greatly.</comment></comment>


After coffee brewhaha, CA fears cancer warnings have "gone seriously wrong" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/after-coffee-brewhaha-ca-fears-cancer-warnings-have-gone-seriously-wrong/ <comment><USER2> The most important tenet of toxicology is that "the dose makes the toxin." In high enough doses, everything is toxic, and in low enough doses, everything is safe. Toxic warning labels that are not informed by good dose-response information are worse than useless. They create noise that consumers must wade through in order to discover if a product is truly a risk.

One of the worst examples of chemical paranoia that I've encountered in my career were the MSDS guidelines. The MSDS for water has an exhausting list of dangers and precautions. This made it much more difficult to assess the danger posed by other chemicals because they frequently had the exact same warnings as water. When everything is "dangerous", nothing is.

<comment><USER3> I didn't see anything scary or FUDlike in the Water MSDS. [http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321](http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321)

<comment><USER2> I think my memory inflated things a bit, but I usually check MSDS for personal protection and waste disposal. Both entries for a water are a little vague and overly cautious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is one write-up on the topic [1]. In full disclosure, I am addicted to caffeine and prefer to get it from good tasting coffee.

[1] - [https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/coffee-and-cancer-what- th...](https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/coffee-and-cancer-what-the-research- really-shows.html)</comment>


F-35's biggest problems: software and bad relationships - <AUTHOR> http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/17/f_35s_biggest_problems_software_and_bad_relationships <comment><USER2> Software issues are common in jet fighter aviation. Here are two little known, but potentially deadly issues:

* 1986 F-16 Inversion when flying over the equator - ___Flying the F-16 in simulation over the equator, the computer got confused and instantly flipped the plane over, killing the pilot [in simulation]. And since it can fly forever upside down, it would do so until it ran out of fuel._ __Note: some claim this is a myth and to my knowledge, it has never been verified, but I tend to believe it could have happened. Source -<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html>

* 2007 F-22 Complete systems failure over International Date Line - ___At the international date line, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were—they could have been in real trouble. They were with their fuel tankers. The tankers – they tried to reset their systems, couldn't get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii by visual, line of sight flight._ __Source -[http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-b...](http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-by-the-international-date-line-03087/)

<comment><USER3> The first one, if it's real, confuses me: how does the plane turning upside down kill the pilot?

<comment><USER4> Fighter planes are very different than any other craft "driven" by people. They are so fast and so strong that if you give the stick a good yank while flying one, the forces involved will kill you (unless of course good fly-by- wire software knows your limits and intervenes).

Its not at all far fetched to assume if the plane suddenly rolled at its maximum rate that it would pull the pilot's spine apart.

<comment><USER5> Which points to the real problem with the F35 and all next generation fighter planes.

It's not software, relationships, rivalries, cost, or maintenance. It's obsolescence.

By the time there's a full wing of F-35s in regular service, there will be drones capable of routinely shooting them down. The advantage of not needing to coddle a pilot and having all possible G-forces available will make even cheap drones distributed by corrupt Chinese or Russian backchannels superior to the best fighter jets in the world within ten years.

And a whole wing of such drones will soon come cheaper than a single F35.

Obama should do the same to the F-35 as he did to the F-22 and cancel it before it wastes more money.

<comment><USER4> Such drones have existed for some time now. They are colloquially known as "surface to air missiles".

<comment><USER6> The logistics of aerial domination are pretty much the same whether you're talking drones or piloted craft. If you are the attacker you use ECM and missile/bomb bombardment to take out the radar/SAM stations. Meanwhile, you try to destroy as much of the enemy's airplanes on the ground as possible. If you have superiority in the air you take advantage of it, destroying every enemy thing that flies whether it is piloted by a crew or not.

The biggest advantage that drones have is a tactical one. And perhaps a manufacturing/logistical one if they can be produced in greater numbers, though at present that is not the case. Tactics only apply if there is a logistical balance sufficient to allow for a roughly even battlefield.

<comment><USER7> The biggest advantage of drones is you get to reuse the pilot. The second biggest advantage is you get to use a team instead of one pilot.

<comment><USER8> A key advantage is that drone pilots can learn something from having their planes blown to pieces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From wikipedia:

 _"Unlike previous aircraft, such as the F-22, all software for the F-35 is written in C++ for faster code development."_

Seems that C++ is fulfilling its intended purpose nicely: <http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/I_did_it_for_you_all>

Or perhaps Bjarne's real goal was to end all wars ;)

Edit: Oh, and it seems somebody has not read The Mythical Man Month:

 _"Because of this delay and the increased complexity of the jet's third and final software block, Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department have added additional resources to fielding Block III software"_

<comment><USER2> An entire squadron of F-22's (non C++) lost all systems when they crossed the International Date Line en route to Japan in 2007. The pilots almost lost control and only survived because they could visually follow fuel tankers back to Hawaii. You can't blame that on C++. All systems have bugs.

Source - [http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot- down-b...](http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-by-the- international-date-line-03087/)

<comment><USER10> _All systems have bugs._

I'm sure that was a great comfort to the pilots in the F-22s.

<comment><USER11> All airplanes have bugs, too.

The F-80, for example, if you flew it too fast (and the engine was powerful enough to do that in level flight) the airplane would suddenly "pitch up", fold the wings back, and crash.

There are endless examples of these kinds of "bugs" in leading edge fighter design that have nothing to do with software.

<comment><USER12> I was reading to "One Minute to Midnight" about the Cuban msisile crisis and the account of flying a U-2 was pretty scary - at high altitude they had a _very_ narrow range of speeds at which they could fly, fly too fast and the wings come off, fly to slowly and the plane stalls.

<comment><USER13> This is called the "coffin corner". It varies for different aircrafts, but they all have it, including commercial liners.

<comment><USER11> The P-51 had an interesting problem shared with other high torque single engine fighters of its day. If you're coming in for a landing, with the engine idling, decided to abort and firewalled the throttle, the airplane would rotate about the crankshaft.

This killed a lot of pilots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The development of the jet's Block II software is 90 to 120 days behind > schedule, according to the two-star general. Because of this delay and the > increased complexity of the jet's third and final software block, Lockheed > Martin and the Defense Department have added additional resources...

1\. If you think you're 90 to 120 days behind schedule, you really have no idea how far you're behind schedule.

2\. Somebody forgot Brook's law.

<comment><USER15> dave's law - Software development always takes 50% longer than expected, even when you allow for dave's law

<comment><USER16> "The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time." —- Tom Cargill, Bell Labs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Check out Augustine's laws: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustines_laws> . I believe he said software was a boon as all other ways to add expense to an aircraft eventually are limited by weight.

</comment><comment><USER18> Jesus christ! $1.5 trillion... but... healthcare, education... NASA!

And... "ready to go to war by 2015"... guys, seriously... what war will it be? Is it an old one that is still going or an entirely new one that needs to be created to pay for this plane?

Sorry. Just ranting. No replies required.

<comment><USER19> I admire your cynicism. It matches mine.

We had a similar project over here in Europe (Eurofighter). So far they have been used to annoy Argentina purely through penis-waving and drop a couple of bombs on Libya and that's all. Then they ran out of spare bits and grounded them all.

<comment><USER20> It's worse than that. They can only bomb if they have a 70s-era Tornado along to aim for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Comparing the troubled F-35 program to a massive aircraft carrier that two > years ago "was gonna run aground," Bogdan said that F-35 program manager > Vice Adm. David Venlet and his team, with Lockheed Martin and with the help > of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, "has steered that ship...away > from the shoals so it won't run aground."

This is a little interesting for me: I worked for Admiral David Venlet's brother, Rear Admiral Doug Venlet, back when he was the skipper of the USS Wadsworth. He was a very cool cat. Went on to carry "the football" for GW. Politics aside, that is a very unique job in the world. Two admirals out of one family. What was dinner like at that table?

<comment><USER22> Another fun fact: David Venlet has an air-to-air kill of a Libyan Su-22 in 1981.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Generals in charge of software projects. I worked at Microsoft, I know how well non-technical overseers manage projects.

> "We're gonna find things that we didn't know about and are gonna have to > deal with them, but at least this scheduleis laid out to accommodate > unexpected problems."

Bullshit- they played schedule chicken and got caught. It'll happen again.

<comment><USER24> Actually it's worse than that. This is an ambitious project, to build an even more complex and cutting-edge software driven plane. Compare the inflation- adjusted cost of the B52 development cycle with that of the B2 and you will see where this is leading. Similarly between the B2 and the B52 we see a 100x increase in cost per unit, just as we see a similar increase between the F-4 Phantom and he F-22.

It doesn't take a technical person to figure it out. I have seen history professors with more sense than the generals here. In another hundred years, i suppose our entire defence budget will be enough to afford one fighter jet, which can be shared between the air force and the navy 3 days a week each, with the Marine Corps getting Sundays....

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the biggest problem is that it's the pentagon's flagship program, and it suffers from bureaucratic bloat, military-industrial complex crony-ism, and typical pentagon big-project feature creep.

Should have been a skunk-works project kept under wraps until as late as possible, a la the F-16...and even that project didn't survive without a little bloat.

Like some others have said, drones are probably the equivalent rebel project that the F-16 was back in its day...

<comment><USER26> By all accounts Boyd (of OODA loop fame) did a really good job of saying "no" to unnecessary features people wanted to push onto the F-16.

<comment><USER27> Funny thing about aircraft is that a well-designed aircraft can excel in many roles despite those roles not being part of the design spec. The F-16 was designed (at least in the YF-16) to be purely air to air. Turned out to be an excellent ground attack plane. F-15's motto was "Not a pound for air to ground." yet the F-15E Strike Eagles is excellent at strike and interdiction roles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't imagine how hard developing for this must be. Every bug could possibly kill people but the project still has to meet a deadline. Does anyone think it might be to early to integrate this much software into a fighter jet?

<comment><USER29> Software has been absolutely crucial to aviation for decades. The last generation or so of fighter planes can only be flown by a computer (they are aerodynamically unstable and require constant feedback and control). And for an idea on 'amount of software', you should give this a look. [http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/this- car-r...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/this-car-runs-on- code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most (all?) military fighter planes have had odd flight conditions where they would get into a fix that would kill the pilot, and it happened often enough. A large part of pilot training is avoiding those conditions.

Long before software.

</comment><comment><USER30> "...Because of this delay and the increased complexity of the jet's third and final software block, Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department have added additional resources to fielding Block III software..."

Adding more people to a delayed software project, now where did I hear that before?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month>

</comment><comment><USER31> Damn. I can only imagine what a bunch of hackers could do with $1.5 trillion.

<comment><USER32> Well, according to wikipedia [1] we could have run over 8 Apollo programs for that cost.

[1] : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost>

<comment><USER33> 1970's dollars are not the same as todays. Further down on the Wikipedia page:

> In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate > of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion.

<comment><USER34> if we take a moment, and divide 1.5 trillion by 170 billion, we see that we could afford over 8 complete Apollo programs with 1.5 trillion dollars.

<comment><USER33> Thanks, I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Try Go, just make sure to use 64bit memory ;-) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3805302></comment>


The Silicon Valley execs who don't eat for days: 'It's biohacking' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/04/silicon-valley-ceo-fasting-trend-diet-is-it-safe <comment><USER2> Sounds crazy at first but then... makes sense. Obviously, I wouldn't push myself to Libin level, although eating 5 days normally and then for 2 days a really reduced amount of food doesn't seem so difficult to achieve. But what about dietitians, claiming, that you HAVE TO eat 5 meals a day? Personally, I can't fit so many meals to my busy work-studies schedule...</comment>


Technical Glitches Plague Cruise, GM's $19 Billion Self-Driving Car Unit - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/technical-glitches-plague-cruise-gms-19-billion-self-driving-car-unit <comment><USER2> I feel like this is a weekly reminder that Waymo is the only company really in a position to get to fully autonomous limited release in the next 1-2 years. Cruise's "very end of 2019" target is still pretty unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER3> Paywalled.</comment>


Cops love iPhone data trail - <AUTHOR> http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2553828,CST-NWS-iphone01.article

<comment><USER2> Time for some privacy apps.</comment>


The private way to store and share your images. High quality, privacy, no costs - <AUTHOR> https://tynnel.com/

<comment><USER2> The first thing asked by the "private" way is to log in with facebook.. well yeah thanks wont buy</comment>


Security researcher publishes details and exploit code for a vBulletin zero-day - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/security-researcher-publishes-details-and-exploit-code-for-a-vbulletin-zero-day/ <comment><USER2> This is a real concern and can be actively exploited against many forums (tested myself). I found one forum that had poor file management and isolation...through this exploit I was able to view an unencrypted backup of the SQL database as well as all of the DB passwords setup in the wordpress config files.</comment>


Optimus – Ring middleware for front-end performance optimization - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/magnars/optimus

<comment><USER2> Of course there's a namespace called `optimus.prime`.

<comment><USER3> It didn't feel right naming it `optimus.core` :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's Ring?

<comment><USER5> What WSGI is for Python,

and what Rack is for Ruby,

Ring is for Clojure.

<comment><USER6> That was...nearly poetic.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does Amazon not allow certain shower heads to be shipped to CA? - <AUTHOR> Example: https://www.amazon.com/Waterpik-XRO-763-Pressure-Powerpulse-Detachable/dp/B071D7WCT8/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=shower%2Bhead&qid=1600420162&sr=8-7&th=1 <comment><USER2> I would assume it is because of certification issues and the manufacturer might have skipped that for Canada. That is pretty common because the process can be expensive and maybe the market is too small or too competitive.

Certification issues are actually quite complicated in our new megacorp international trade. The requirement for certifications is often simply ignored by third party vendors and enforcement is difficult.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-shower- heads-20...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-shower- heads-20150812-story.html)

Probably because they don't conform to regulations?

</comment><comment><USER4> If by CA you mean California, years ago they implemented strict rules on flow rate of shower heads in an attempt to curb water usage. Many companies added flow restrictors that customers simply removed. Other designs couldn't be sold at all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the replies!

</comment><comment><USER5> So have the shower head shipped to a friend anywhere else, who then privately ships it to you.</comment>


What are the best tools for code reviews? - <AUTHOR> I suggest using Codegrip. It is the one-stop tool for all code quality measures. Codegrip helps you to build a powerful code. It is an automated code review tool where code undergoes various tests for bugs, code smells, vulnerabilities and scans it for any security issues. It is a code analysis tool that finds critical metrics like duplication percentage, suggestive error, error resolution time, and many more displayed for all types of code. CodeGrip makes sure that every software has excellent code quality. How Codegrip can help Your Team? Code review report generated in less than a minute Codegrip shows the issues, vulnerability, code smells and duplication in the project. Get suggested solutions for each issue and vulnerability. Codegrip also scans all pull requests and generates the same report and also shows any conflicts. Codegrip does not store your code keeping your IP safe. Codegrip connects directly with your source code<p>https://www.codegrip.tech/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a link to Codegrip: [https://www.codegrip.tech/](https://www.codegrip.tech/)</comment>


Cash-hungry states eye online retail for tax revenue - <AUTHOR> http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/23/business/la-fi-online-tax-20100722 <comment><USER2> _Small online retailers argue that collecting and paying sales taxes to states would be difficult or impossible to manage, given the thousands of tax jurisdictions across the country, each with its own rates and rules for what items are taxable. Others counter that simple computer software can handle the task easily._

This seems like it'd be a great opportunity for a new company (or how well does Quicken already do this?). And of course this would be the perfect time to get started, before these kinds of laws start going into effect in more and more states. As a consumer I feel like I'd much rather just pay sales tax to the retailer at the time of purchase rather than having to keep up with it and file it with my tax return (assuming those are my only two choices). But as a small online retailer that'd be such a pain having to pay taxes to 50 different states potentially.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've found that whatever savings the prices of online goods offers is mostly offset by the ridiculously high "postage and handling" charges. And the handling charges are not consistent even for the same item. It's a scam.

<comment><USER4> Unless you get Amazon Prime (which is free for a year if you have a .edu e-mail address). Free next-day shipping on the millions of items sold at Amazon. You can get your groceries, tools, electronics, home decor and furniture there, often cheaper than in stores... two days to your door for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The European Union has a similar set up (since each country has a different VAT rate). it's simple here. You pay VAT in the country the website is in. If the company has substancial business in another member state, they need to charge that member state's VAT for those purchases (e.g. Amazon.co.uk charges the Irish VAT rate (of 21%) rather than the UK VAT rate of 15% if you are posting to Ireland)

</comment><comment><USER6> Crimety, the LA Times has decided to become Demand Media with worse web design...

</comment><comment><USER7> its not fair to store owners that online stores are tax free. level the playi g field.

<comment><USER8> That's a very legit opinion, no idea why its getting down-voted.</comment></comment>