South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/south-korea-recycling-food-waste/ <comment><USER2> Norway: 50% of food, 77% of energy in waste, and 97% of toxic waste is recycled. [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=no&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.avfallnorge.no/bransjen/n%25C3%25B8kkeltall&xid=25657,15700021,15700186,15700191,15700253,15700256,15700259&usg=ALkJrhhGeEjP4WguBQt- gvJq0BA4nJsL6A)

We are also rebuilding some of our plants to sort waste with machine learning. The initial tests are really promising. Several of them are already sorting out most plastic using spectrometer-sensors, so we don't need to do it manually. In combination with the machine learning the tests get it up to 99.9% or higher. [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=no&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.tu.no/artikler/her- skal-de-bygge-en-av-verdens-mest-avanserte- papirlinjer/453987&xid=25657,15700021,15700186,15700191,15700253,15700256,15700259&usg=ALkJrhgcw40Kc8kLEI75jOZRYcls9JL8Vw)

<comment><USER3> Recycling doesn't help much as long as Norwegians throw away 40-50 kg of food per person each year. :(

<comment><USER4> That's less than a kilo a week, say 120 g per person per day.

In my household I suspect that most of that is potato peelings, onion skins, orange, apple, and banana peel, teabags, etc.

If you drink tea five times a day you have 10 g of teabags.

So, what is the definition of food waste? If it is food that could be eaten then in my household of four people it is very close to zero. But still the kitchen compost bin is always full.

<comment><USER5> > If you drink tea five times a day you have 10 g of teabags.

Who drinks tea five times a day??

<comment><USER6> You are clearly not from the UK! I know lot's of people who have 8-12 cups of tea a day (this is on the higher end, but not super unusual...)

<comment><USER7> Or Russia, or India, or...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _> The bag charges also meet 60% of the cost of running the scheme_

Recycling metals is substantially profitable, because scrap metal is actually worth something. Making new metal from old metal requires far less energy than making new metals from raw ore, even factoring in the costs of transportation and processing.

Does collecting and composting food waste actually result in a net reduction of our use of finite resources, or is it just a sop to make us feel better about throwing away food? Is this really recycling, or is it a waste of resources at one step removed?

<comment><USER9> 60% of the world's crop yield is the direct result of fossil fuel derived fertilizers. Recycling food is recycling fossil fuels, otherwise it just ends up rotting into the environment and polluting it just the same as burning the fuels except you aren't doing anything with it if it just rots in a landfill.

<comment><USER8> _> Recycling food is recycling fossil fuels_

How much fuel do you have to burn to turn that waste food into usable nitrates? If it requires less fuel than the Haber-Bosch process, then why is it not profitable?

<comment><USER9> Or you can compost it into fertilizer. It isn't profitable because fossil fuels are artificially cheap and aren't paying for the externalized costs of pollution. Also, if you did it right you can also burn food directly as fuel.

Haber-Bosch process isn't a free lunch where free energy just pops into existence.

<comment><USER10> > _" It isn't profitable because fossil fuels are artificially cheap "_

Not that cheap. In the aforementioned metal recycling example, the energy is typically coming from fossil fuels too; refining aluminum from ore takes an insane amount of electrical power. Even if you do that with renewable energy, that's still that much power that can't be used for other things that must be supplied by another power source (e.g. fossil fuels.)

<comment><USER11> That just indicates that metal recycling is _super_ advantageous, to be profitable even with the abnormally low price of energy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > There's a limit to how much food waste fertilizer can actually be used

once upon a time we fed food waste to animals to "recycle" the caloric content. Think table scraps(but not meat) going to pigs or chickens.

Would be interesting if we close the loop on this household content

Edit: Added note that I meant "vegan" scraps.

<comment><USER13> I believe in China it was common to site toilets over pig stys. Some loop closing isn't a very good idea.

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

<comment><USER14> Gross.

Much of the 'compost' you receive at big-box stores is treated human waste: [https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/frequent-questions-about- bioso...](https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/frequent-questions-about-biosolids)

Not much goes to waste in the USA on an industrial scale.

<comment><USER15> > Much of the 'compost' you receive at big-box stores is treated human waste: > [https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/frequent-questions-about- > bioso...](https://www.epa.gov/biosolids/frequent-questions-about-biosolids)

I don't see anything on that page to support this specific claim.

<comment><USER16> Not "most", but there is milorganite.

[https://www.milorganite.com/using-milorganite/what-is- milorg...](https://www.milorganite.com/using-milorganite/what-is-milorganite)

<comment><USER17> > So Milorganite is actually a bag of dried microbes!

great marketing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Every time I ate pork there they always bragged about how it had been fed garbage T_T When I researched it later, it turned out that in the US we stopped feeding leftovers to pigs a long time ago due to health concerns. Laws were passed stipulating that garbage be boiled before being fed to pigs, but that made it too expensive so everyone stopped doing it.

<comment><USER19> Here in the SF Bay Area, some cities have started collecting food waste to be treated and fed to animals. There's been some minor backlash, due to the uncertainties around what goes into the food waste bin and how that gets treated and sorted and eventually processed into animal feed. I'm not aware of the law you mentioned, but it's being done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's important to bring up the Food Recovery Hierarchy when talking about food waste. Composting is not the least desirable outcome, but it is close. We really need to focus on the higher priority reduction methods:

[https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food- recover...](https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery- hierarchy)

<comment><USER21> This implies composting food waste is only slightly better than landfill, which is _obviously_ absurd.

Illustrating that the next best existing option after composting is landfill, says nothing of the delta separating the two on the efficacy axis. It only speaks to a lack of altnernatives separating composting and landfill.

I'd argue that burying your food waste in any land that food will potentially be grown in is infinitely superior to sticking it in a landfill where food will _never_ be deliberately grown.

From my perspective, living on a rural property with an outhouse where all food waste and human waste is buried and eventually grown food from your comment strikes me as ridiculous. I add obvious value to my land burying this waste, it completely escapes reuse, effectively exiting the system, when I put it in the dumpster.

<comment><USER22> There is a high loss to atmosphere/runoff on burying your food in the soil for recovering it later as available fertilizer nutrients.

<comment><USER21> There is 100% loss of what's sent to the landfill, while consuming energy to move it there.

On my property in particular, runoff is not an issue (desert). From what I've seen there's mostly increased insect activity in the compost area. I view it as more generally increasing the fertility of the area from waste using minimal effort.

Most of it is consumed by other lifeforms before I grow anything there. But those lifeforms are residents of my land and will continue to multiply (and die) here. Their increased activity effectively locks up the resources and I can leverage that with a large garden when time permits.

<comment><USER22> The landfill has CH4 off gassing, which is usually burned and used to power things. It also supports it's own ecology and residents. The transporting of rotting food around is pretty ridiculous though.

You might make your distributed practices even more efficient with vermicompost / bokashi; by selecting an organism with known beneficial outputs to metabolize the waste you'll end up with a higher conversion to usable nutrients and beneficial microbes for your plants.

<comment><USER13> "which is usually burned"

Have you got any sources for the usually?

Any ex landfill I've seen just has vents to the open air, and mentions of landfill gas never give the impression its mainstream.

<comment><USER23> There are plenty of landfill gas capture systems around. Veolia are particularly proud of their so-called "Bio-reactor". These kinds of systems don't work as well as advertised, but if you have a landfill, it's better than nothing. [https://www.veolia.com/anz/our-services/our- facilities/landf...](https://www.veolia.com/anz/our-services/our- facilities/landfills/woodlawn-bioreactor-facility)

But as others have been saying, it makes much more sense to simply bury the food in your garden. Or collect food waste on a municipal level, which has, for example, been the law in Germany since 2015.

The "dry fermentation" system used in Munich is a particularly good example. They collect food waste in the city, compost and ferment it in a big sealed hall near the soccer stadium, wait 12 weeks for the bacteria to work, collect the resulting biogas to put into their gas network (or power garbage trucks), and sell the leftover organic compost and fertilisers to local residents and farmers. A closed and sustainable cycle.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF0gU9ljHo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF0gU9ljHo4)

[https://www.awm-muenchen.de/fileadmin/PDF- Dokumente/awm/Fold...](https://www.awm-muenchen.de/fileadmin/PDF- Dokumente/awm/Folder_TFA_2012_englisch_fin_72dpi.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Before Haber–Bosch, everyone recycled 100% of their food waste.

<comment><USER25> And countries went batshit crazy - Saltpetre war with Chile vs Bolivia and Peru were fought over caves with bat guano which was the most valuable fertiliser of the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "per capita food waste in Europe and North America is 95kg to 105kg a year"

That's a massive amount, and that is just waste in the household, not waste in the farm or factory.

I can understand some wastage of salad and berries etc, but they're all lighter stuff. How can the average westerner waste 2kg food a week???

<comment><USER14> Many people don't eat leftovers. In some cases it's cheaper to buy 5 lbs of something and throw out 2 pounds than to pay for 3 1-lb packages.

Have you ever been to a restaurant? Most people throw out over 25% of the food on their plates.

This is all a symptom of a distorted market place. Food's too cheap thanks to subsidized farming.

<comment><USER13> "Have you ever been to a restaurant? Most people throw out over 25% of the food on their plates"

I've worked in a few. As a European I'd say food waste was lower than that.

Id expect restaurant food waste to be higher, as they can't personalise portion sizes as effectively, so unless most people eat out most days, I don't see how that could account for all the waste.

But apparently it does? I really hope peelings etc are included, because even then there's still a family out there wasting 3kg+ of food/person/wk, just to balance my family out.

<comment><USER26> Europeans out out a lot less than most places in the world. Perhaps a stronger home-cooking culture.

[https://www.nielsen.com/ca/en/insights/news/2016/dining- with...](https://www.nielsen.com/ca/en/insights/news/2016/dining-without- doing-dishes-almost-half-globally-eat-away-from-home.html)

Looks like it's about twice as often as in Europe. Interestingly Asia/Pacific is even higher (cheap street food FTW!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My neighbors probably hate me but I compost all my food in the backyard. Last year was the first year we did it overwinter when the compost isn't even active and it also was the first year we didn't have mice in the house.

<comment><USER28> I know you're probably joking, but for the sake of anybody reading this who may be consider composting: A healthy compost doesn't smell bad (I honestly kind of like the smell) and doesn't smell strongly either, so neighbors won't mind or even know it's there. I compost in my small patio; there's table and chairs just a couple feet from the composter and it hasn't been a problem.

<comment><USER29> Good compost does not smell but does attract (in NA) the likes of racoons and black bears and some people vocally don't like that.

<comment><USER30> It also attracts lots of insects. While it's ok in general, you probably don't want a farm of them right next to where you sit/eat.

<comment><USER31> In Taiwan, that translates to giant flying cockroaches. And the giant wolf spiders that eat them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Food used on farms decomposes directly into the atmosphere, including methane. Food sent to landfill decomposes poorly with an increased methane output, but some of the methane can be captured to generate electricity.

I'm not qualified at all to analyze this properly. The former method makes use of food to displace use of fossil fuels in farming. The latter displaces use of fossil fuels for electricity generation.

Is there research which demonstrates that one method is better than the other?

<comment><USER33> I recently learnt of a food waste recycling method that avoids decomposition and release of methane. It is called _bokashi_ and it uses homolactic fermentation to break down the food waste. Quoting the wikipedia article [1]:

> Homolactic fermentation breaks no carbon bonds and emits no gas; its overall > equation is C6H12O6 (carbohydrate) → 2 CH3CHOHCOOH (lactic acid). It is a > mildly endothermic reaction, emitting no energy; the fermentation vessel > remains at ambient temperature.

Interestingly, this method was historically developed in Korea, as is also detailed in the wikipedia article.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_\(horticulture\))

<comment><USER13> "It is a mildly endothermic reaction, emitting no energy; the fermentation vessel remains at ambient temperature"

Surely if its endothermic the container would get cool???

<comment><USER33> Perhaps that part of the article could be edited to "remains _close_ to ambient temperature".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's awesome!

Food waste seems so very easily preventable. Take what you want, but eat what you take. Composting what's left over is an awesome idea.

<comment><USER35> Food waste is a bigger issue than people putting too much on their plates. One of the highest sources of food waste is in the "manufacturing"/distribution phases -- malformed, misshapen, and otherwise "unsalable" produce is either left unpicked in the fields or rejected by groceries. More waste comes from rejections due to food safety regulations, overproduction, logistical errors resulting in spoilage, and the simple fact of groceries needing to display full bins/shelves of food at all times, even for low-volume products which they can never hope to sell in time.

It's like when individuals are made to feel bad over taking a five minute shower instead of a three minute shower, while Nestle is extracting millions of gallons of water without paying a cent for it. Individuals should absolutely do everything they can to reduce their own food waste, and composting is better than nothing, but as a global society we should really be focusing our efforts on the largest sources of waste first.

<comment><USER13> Let us assume that 90% of food is wasted before consumers even see it. Any reduction in demand has an outsize waste reduction because every kg results in another 9kg not being produced and wasted further up the chain.

So yes that 90% headline should definitely be cut, it is _our_ waste, and we should be doing everything we can our end also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> that's just insane. I start to see more and more news about countries that understand how crucial it is to recycle.

</comment><comment><USER37> But do they feed it back to the fabricants already ?

</comment><comment><USER38> They can make a lot of Kimchi with all that fermentation.</comment>


Ask HN: where can I get historical stock price? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a side project where I need the historical minute by minute stock price for a given symbol for past 2-4 weeks. Does anyone know a source, ideally an affordable API? <comment><USER2> <http://www.tickdata.com/></comment>


Pocket is moving back to Firefox addon - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215694 <comment><USER2> Probably a good idea in the long run, even if Pocket is a decent service.</comment>


The sweden Twitter account gets shut down in 4 weeks (Swedish link) - <AUTHOR> https://si.se/curators-of-sweden-tar-farval/ <comment><AUTHOR> I expect more information will follow in English, given the nature of this project.

As an alumn, I feel doubly saddened.</comment>


The Door To The FISA Court Doesn't Even Have A Sign On It - <AUTHOR> http://konklone.com/post/the-door-to-the-fisa-court <comment><USER2> When I was doing real estate investing I ran into a kangaroo "court" that the local corrupt city set up to handle property code violations. They would have a cop set up at the front and an appointed "judge" (they had some other name for him to not offend the law too mightily) who wore robes and asked everyone to stand up and sit down. The person in the robes would arbitrarily make up fines for the offenses according to their whims and moods. I know because there was a $4500 "judgement" on one of the houses I bought for having a driveway that needed to be repaired.

Anyway, it turns out that this "court" is a complete fabrication that the city put up as a way to put up the appearance of being fair. But cities are corporations, they aren't allowed to establish courts like this, and it was a complete sham. That's why you have to have a real judge hear traffic cases.

This is a sham traffic court too. This is not part of the judicial branch of government any more than the "property code violations court" presided over by a clown in black robes. There's a reason we have a separation of powers. A paid employee wielding a rubber stamp is not justice.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your sentiment, but the Constitution gives congress the power to establish inferior courts.

<comment><USER2> Thanks... I actually hadn't thought about that aspect of it (that real estate court was still not established by Congress ;)

I've been reading up on that a bit since your comment, it's a pretty interesting topic because it touches on one branch's ability to influence another. It's a little troubling that a supreme court justice (Roberts, in this case) has the ability to fill this oversight court with whoever he wants. It seems that needs to be fixed.

<comment><USER4> He has to fill the court with federal judges that have been appointed by a President and approved by the Senate. That's a somewhat higher standard than whoever.

<comment><USER5> I wish more people understood this... I keep seeing comments about being appointed with no oversight... there was oversight when they were approved by the congress(Senate). If they aren't fit to be on this court, then perhaps they aren't fit to be federal judges.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps there are people one would trust to be judges when there's a full public record of their proceedings, but not when those proceedings take place behind closed doors with no public oversight.

<comment><USER5> My problem is the proceedings taking place behind closed doors _and_ without any real oversight. Especially since DOJ/NSA/FBI have been outright lying to congress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is anyone collecting a list of the surreal, absurd, or kafkaesque events surrounding post-9/11 national security?

This episode reminds me of the red warning light from ksm's gitmo trial that would sometimes light up and cut the gallery feeds on its own: [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/01/secrec...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/01/secrecy- around-ksm-guantanamo-hearings.html)

<comment><USER8> Glenn Greenwald's commentary/journalism since a few years after 9/11 is basically such a list

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kinda off-topic:

Why cameras are banned on courtrooms? I remember the last US trial news all of them had sketches like this instead of photos and videos...

EDIT about the argument below about google: I always search Google first, but I found lots of random answers, and I don't have enough domain knowledge to know what one (or ones) are correct or resemble how things really are, asking here usually spark people to post very interesting information, that sometimes are obscure even, and hard to find on Google.

Instead of telling people to use Google, why not wonder: If the person CAN have that information, and is asking anyway, what the person wants to know, that is not easy to find on Google?

<comment><USER10> The standard reason given is privacy for the victim and jury, less jury poisoning if there needs to be a retrial, people can be a little more or at ease, etc.

It definitely depends on the court, OJ's trial was on TV.

<comment><USER11> I cannot imagine FISA Courts having victims or jury. I thought it was all decided by the judges. Is it not so?

<comment><USER12> That's true, but all FISA proceedings are classified, so there's no way they would allow cameras.

<comment><USER13> Well, they might allow cameras -- "classified" does not mean "no records" \-- but any photos or video would also be classified.

They certainly wouldn't allow _the media_ (or the public) in the courtroom, with or without cameras, or allow the media/public access to anything any cameras they did allow in captured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want to thank the author for the excellent sketches. If I was forbidden photography equipment, my sketches would be rectangles, which, if squinted at, might construe a door.

Joking aside, it is obviously very concerning that FISA is completely unaccountable to the public. The lack of a sign is just another symptom of the abuse of secrecy.

<comment><USER15> You're welcome! Though Lindsay Young did the actual sketching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not to ruin the central point of this article, but i'd say 50% of the courts i've been in don't have obvious signs on the doors.

They just tell you you are in room 302 for this or that, or whatever (this is true even in appeals courts where they aren't really shifting around courtrooms all the time. The main courtroom will just be some numbered nameless room).

The only usually obvious signs are the names on judges chambers, and in a lot of cases, they aren't even in the same building!

</comment><comment><USER17> No sign on the door indicates that they know they should be ashamed even though shame doesn't appear to be one of their guiding lights.

edit: great little piece, btw. I'll pass it around.

<comment><USER18> By law it's a secret court to begin with. Whether or not there's a sign on the door, it's still a secret court. Would a secret court that advertised its location be more palatable to you somehow? Because a sign on the door adds zero significance to the substance of the FISA court's existence or powers.

And, given that it is a secret court, well it wouldn't be very secret if everyone knew where the courtroom was, would it?

<comment><USER17> Secret courts, secret trials, secret prisons, secret wars...maybe I need to learn why my ancestors left Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [http://myweb.wvnet.edu/~jelkins/lawyerslit/exercises/kafka.h...](http://myweb.wvnet.edu/~jelkins/lawyerslit/exercises/kafka.htm)

</comment><comment><USER20> The lack of a sign is not the problem. Given that hand scanner by the door, having a sign would be a bit silly -- anyone who would actually _need_ the sign can't get in regardless. Given that (almost?) everything they do apparently involves classified information, the hand scanner makes sense.

What is a problem, is not having anyone to answer the phones and not having the building receptionist know what to tell people.

<comment><USER21> I wonder how hackable that hand scanner is. Is it any more secure than the hotel rooms that were cracked a year or 2 back?

<comment><USER22> Yes, there are ways of making more secure hand scanners. The article links to the exact model, if you're interested. No, it probably isn't perfect. But it's part of a larger security system; remember, whatever you're bringing to "hack" this door, you must have also slipped past a physical inspection. I don't necessarily expect total brilliance from the security guards, but I suspect they would know enough to ask you some very pointed questions if you tried to sneak in a to-scale replica of somebody's hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >...the employees in the first floor District Clerk's office (gently) laughed at my attempts to find anything about the Court. They referred to it as the "Room of Requirement", and said they had no idea what floor it was even on.

In a maelstrom of political chaos, it's nice to see at least a bit of humor every now and then. It seems Life Imitates Art. This pleases the Potter fan in me.

</comment><comment><USER24> The only person to be tried at this court was Citizen K.</comment>


GPG Tools: Open Letter to Our Users - <AUTHOR> https://gpgtools.org/open-letter <comment><USER2> Frankly this open letter reads very naive.

I'm even willing to grant that no evil intentions were behind this botched release. But the project's developers are certainly aware, that one of, if not the most important commodities in a NetSec operation is trust and transparency.

To blandly dismiss everyone's protests as "We though y'all already knew" and self-righteous indignation is beyond comprehension. As if anyone is aware of the internal long term plans of every opensource project they use...

The "We were tired" excuse, come on...

I for one am very grateful to this opensource project and can only imagine that many others feel the same way. I also imagine that the GPGSuite developers feel that their hard work isn't being appreciated and that the hours put in, for free, makes the whole operation unsustainable. But this just feels like a massive shot in the foot. Particularly in an industry where reputation is worth so much.</comment>


Electromagnetic properties of the Great Pyramid - <AUTHOR> https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5026556 <comment><USER2> What I'd do to be able to hang out in the Library of Alexandria while it was in it's prime. We've lost more than 95% of the books and records that were kept there, I wonder what secrets they held.</comment>


Measuring the Effectiveness of Startup Directory Websites - <AUTHOR> https://triphappy.com/blog/effectiveness-of-startup-directories-and-review-websites/19 <comment><AUTHOR> > 120 days later, we finally have enough data to measure the effectiveness of > our campaign. Out of 79 websites we submitted TripHappy to, only 27 placed > links on their site, resulting in a lackluster 214 referrals. For > comparison, we had 182,000 sessions over this same period of time from other > marketing efforts. To make matters worse, only 9 of these links were SEO- > positive do-follow links. Looking back, it was certainly not worth our time.

182,000 total sessions vs. 214 sessions from Startup Directory links! Ouch!</comment>


Who named Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/who-named-silicon-valley/?sbd

<comment><USER2> Another useful resource on this and other Silicon Valley issues: [http://forum.stanford.edu/carolyn/](http://forum.stanford.edu/carolyn/)</comment>


PhxSQL: high availability, strong consistent MySQL Cluster - <AUTHOR> http://www.vvcat.com/view/180008.html <comment><USER2> For folks looking for something similar, take a look at Galera Cluster: [http://galeracluster.com/products/](http://galeracluster.com/products/)

We use Galera Cluster for MariaDB in production, using Percona's Xtrabackup for bootstrapping between nodes. It works well, its drawback is increased write times because it uses synchronous replication, and it's decent at self healing. We went with Galera over Amazon RDS because RDS only works across AZs in a single region, and we have Galera setup across 3 regions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Source at [https://github.com/tencent- wechat/phxsql](https://github.com/tencent-wechat/phxsql)

</comment><comment><USER4> Appears to be machine translated?

<comment><USER5> The first time I loaded the page it was in Chinese.</comment></comment>


Why startups should focus on a very small market - <AUTHOR> http://kilometer.io/blog/why-startups-should-focus-on-a-very-small-market/ <comment><AUTHOR> Vertical market vs. horizontal market, where do you think the future of startups is?</comment>


Solar Power: Lots of Jobs per KWH Is Bad, Not Good - <AUTHOR> https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/05/solar_power_lot.html <comment><USER2> Most workers in solar are needed to install new systems. Once a system is installed it will require only minimal scheduled maintenance for the next 25 years. After installation the system _is_ wealth.

Further, building lots of small generation systems (e.g., rooftop solar) will inherently require more labor than building a few large generation systems (e.g., traditional power plants). One can argue that distributed power generation is a benefit, as it reduces the need for increased distribution capacity.

<comment><USER3> Yep. That article was spouting disingenuous nonsense in the best possible interpretation I could read into it.

<comment><USER4> I suspect (but don't know) that you can replace "article" with "site" comfortably there...

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with that site? I've been listening to the podcast hosted there, Econtalk, for the last year+.

Do they have some bias in the grander scheme of economics? The guests and topics always seem extremely varied, and the host actually asks challenging and interactive questions to the guests.

<comment><USER4> No idea about the podcast, I'll give a listen though based on your comments.

My comment was on reviewing a few of the articles, the sloppiness exhibited in this one was common. I guess it's more a preaching-to-the-converted sort of area than trying to do a good job of presenting arguments.

Perhaps I didn't give it a fair shake - I'm definitely not one to enjoy watching people grinding their favorite axes, particularly if they are uncharitable to other viewpoints while simultaneously presenting their own assumptions as canon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If two ways of achieving same thing cost the same then the way with more employment ahould be preferred at least until we grow out of the notion that you need excuse of work to not let someone die of hunger or lack of shelter.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wouldn't installing PV on people's homes be more similar to building the power poles/ infrastructure that already exists for coal, and not just running a plant?

This chart doesn't break down solar maintenance and solar construction.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hate to use the term but this is fake news. There is no analysis or breakdown of the numbers. Just quoting raw numbers and then drawing comparisons is misleading at best.

</comment><comment><USER9> He needs to go back and do econ 101 again, he's conflating two different things.

If coal, gas, and solar workers all quite tomorrow, the "power" from coal and gas would go out, but most solar installations would keep on producing regardless.

ie, the majority of solar workers are building capacity, not operating the system.

</comment><comment><USER10> Lots of jobs per kWh are only bad if you're a large energy provider looking for maximum profitability. It doesn't mean that solar power is going to be more expensive for consumers. Consumers buy a bunch of panels and pay for installation and maintenance. Given that there is enough sun around, those panels will eventually pay themselves off.

Creating those jobs is also great because it spreads the wealth way more evenly, leading to a healthier economy.

</comment><comment><USER11> [2017]

> why do sound economic analysis when you can parrot a junk study that > supports your political view?

Quoted from a comment on the OP and getting it right.

</comment><comment><USER12> Frankly more jobs is a good thing. Where I live there are many people looking for work / barely scraping by.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a blog post based on a slide from the American Enterprise Institute with no supporting documentation - not exactly a highly credible source.

</comment><comment><USER14> Building out new infrastructure is more labor intensive than operating existing infrastructure, more on this story at 11.</comment>


As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/world/asia/junk-food-ban-vanuatu.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> _In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year._

Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.

<comment><USER3> And people wonder why there's an anti-globalisation backlash.

<comment><USER4> Anti-globalization was always a hot topic for the left. Read Chomsky on NAFTA for example and free trade:

[https://chomsky.info/secrets03/](https://chomsky.info/secrets03/)

Here is Bernie Sanders being visibly upset at raising immigration levels and instituting "open borders" policy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0)

I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large anti-globalization riots, and getting tear gased fighting it, to "What do you mean? We love globalization!".

I want to see a more specific analysis in how the shift happened, and maybe a more detailed timeline. Certainly an interesting topic.

Here is of course Zuckerberg with his letter worrying that people are not buying the globalization shtick very well anymore:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38998884](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38998884)

If you squint enough to not notice the liberal veneer he puts on you might think he is one of the Koch brothers.

<comment><USER3> > liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from > organizing large anti-globalization riots

If you take everyone to the left of Reagan and put them all under one label of "liberal", then confusion understandably results. In particular, conflating Millian "liberals" with Marxist "socialists" with whoever happens to be running a street demo is a bad idea. The riots were specifically the work of the "black bloc", a small group of left-anarchists.

The general complaints of the (non-violent) protestors were to do with exactly this kind of thing - the use of a transnational process to override local environmental / labour law improvements for the profit of multinational companies.

The _liberal_ (not socialist!) argument for free movement of people is partly the libertarian "why are you using force against a natural freedom" argument, and partly a pragmatic one that if capital now has free movement labour should as well.

A situation where capital can freely move to the most favourable jurisdiction but labour cannot is politically unsustainable.

(Yes, I left all this out of the original one-sentence snark.)

<comment><USER4> > The riots were specifically the work of the "black bloc", a small group of > left-anarchists.

The riots was hyperbole, there were not the only ones advocating for anti- globalization. So was Bernie Sanders, Chomsky and many others. There were not tear gassed for it regularly but the ideology was there.

> A situation where capital can freely move to the most favourable > jurisdiction but labour cannot is politically unsustainable.

The point was it was traditionally the Koch brothers and the like who advocated "globalization" not anyone calling themselves "the left". So it seems there was a reversal on the topic which I think is interesting.

You mention libertarianism, but that was usually closer aligned to conservatism than "leftism" so to speak.

> In particular, conflating Millian "liberals" with Marxist "socialists" with > whoever happens to be running a street demo is a bad idea.

Yes that is the issue. I think both are referred to as "the left". And at some point it is worth pointing out the difference and seeing that from a traditional point there isn't much left left in "the left" (pun intended), which I think is interesting and was trying to find a more detailed analysis of it.

It seems to me there was split around the late 90s where the divisions are more like between "faux-liberalism + corporatism" (this includes Democrats like the Clintons and Obama), "faux-conservatism + corporatism" (Bushes), "conservatist populism" (Trump and company), "traditional left" (Sanders, Chomsky).

The "faux" bit is because the liberalism vs conservatism is a veneer used to attract whatever is deemed popular at the time. Latest Clinton campaign and Obama used identity politics and immigration to sell corporatism. Bush (junior mostly) used religion to sell "conservatism".

Also it is rather interesting that Trump capitalized on a traditional leftist position of anti-globalization (anti-NAFTA, pulling out of TPP, talk about workers etc). He probably saw a void there with Democrats abandoning that ideology and moved in opportunistically to capitalize on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"Can anyone seriously say that Vanuatu doesn't have the right to exercise its health sovereignty in every way possible to protect its population from an epidemic of that scale?"_

I would usually say exactly that. It's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences. Foods that accurately state their nutritional content and contain only ingredients that can be safely eaten in moderation should not be banned under ordinary circumstances because overconsumption is unhealthy. The rate of increase in obesity-related disease, however is astounding and arguably justifies extraordinary measures.

<comment><USER2> _It 's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences._

True, but when that level of individual freedom has negative repercussions on the community, the government has to step in. Else the society will cease to be.

Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment.

Individual freedom is not absolute. An one should not be allowed to engage in habits that harms the community in that fashion. Yes, there are things we can't avoid, but when necessary, the govt has the powers to regulate individual habits.

Unfortunately for these countries, membership in the WTO does not serve their interests in this regard.

<comment><USER5> There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.

<comment><USER6> In countries that provide publicly-funded healthcare you are arguably directly effecting other people's lives by the cost of the medical treatments you'll end up needing if you are obese - these treatments will be funded out of the taxpayer's pocket, when that money could be going to better schooling, infrastructure, or some other use.

<comment><USER7> By that definition there is literally nothing the government can't, and arguably shouldn't, regulate. That won't end badly I'm sure!

<comment><USER8> That seems like the logical conclusion. Where's the dividing line between what the government should and shouldn't regulate, if they judge it to be in the best interests of the people (and the government's will being theoretically derived from the collective will of the governed)?

<comment><USER7> The government's will being theoretically derived from the collective will of the governed should not be used as a blanket appeal to authority. The people probably do not like all of their private communication being spied on by the NSA. That we've not yet elected officials and given them the power to stop such spying doesn't mean it's acceptable.

Moving on, the people should by default be free to make decisions that are not in their best interests. Just because you can't control yourself from eating candy doesn't mean my Right to Candy should be taken away as well.

Taking away liberty must be very, very carefully considered. What is the harm being prevented? What price is being paid to remove it? Seatbelts are a low cost to implement, a low cost to wear, and offer a high return of value in lives and health saved.

Banning imported food at tourist established is a much less obvious win. If I can't indulge in a sugary treat on vacation then when can I? That sounds like something the local agriculture industry is lobbying for more than anything. Who benefits the most from this change? Follow the money and I bet (heh) you'll find the big winners aren't the obese population.

<comment><USER6> > Taking away liberty must be very, very carefully considered

I agree, and it's possible that this move has been very carefully considered. The obesity levels are catastrophic, and the trend has been clear for years (maybe decades), so it's quite possible that this move has been considered for some time before finally being implemented. There's no reason not to give the benefit of the doubt here.

I'd also add that any move to take away liberty needs to be reviewed at some point. Otherwise the tendency is for more and more regulation. Then typically the only way things get changed is by major lobbying efforts, which can takes years or decades, or when a negative effect on society has become such a problem that it's no longer possible to ignore it. In the meantime, a lot of people have had their lives impacted.

> Banning imported food at tourist established is a much less obvious win

Yeah, though maybe that part is related to the "effort to promote local agriculture" that's also mentioned in the article. It still seems like something that would have little actual impact - it's hard to believe that tourists are coming and only eating junk food, and not any food that's locally grown. No-one goes on holiday and eats only Pringles.

Or maybe it's about perceived fairness - staff at tourist resorts have access to foods that the rest of the population can't buy, so they remove that access to put everyone on the same level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't help that there are little healthy options in local schools. Most schools have a single privatised canteen that offers a lunch option (typically chicken curry and rice or chicken chow mein) with the rest being soda drinks, chocolate bars or salty chips. I don't remember apples or bananas being an option unless you brought it from home. But you don't want to be the kid eating a banana when everyone around you is guzzling RC Cola (the supposedly healthier alternative to Coca Cola).

Pacific Islanders like to eat. I think it's ingrained in their culture. Before you call me out and ask for a citation, let me just say this is based on my experience as a Fiji Islander. But maybe there's no problem with eating a lot, if what you eat is healthy. So instead of reaching for the local produce, the cheaper and more attractive "Western" product wins out. Plus, it's just a tad more cheaper.

P.S. It's very easy to buy Singles or Loosies (sp?) in Fiji.

<comment><USER10> As someone who went to NYC public school where all food options are extremely unhealthy, I can say that this has mostly to do with culture.

Eastern European immigrants stayed thin. Chinese immigrants stayed thin. Immigrants from some other countries - mostly south america in my personal experience - all gained weight quickly.

The food does make it much easier to gain weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Stan Efferding, a prominent bodybuilder, powerlifter, and YouTube fitness celebrity does a great talk on how first changed on the islands after they started picking up on American food trends:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s86DJ1pVF0U](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s86DJ1pVF0U)

<comment><USER12> Do you own a cooler within a cooler?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why are they considering banning junk food from tourist establishments when it is really the locals with obesity issues? Or is the junk food primary sold in tourist establishments and the locals go there?

<comment><USER14> They have the money to subsidize local food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why don't they raise taxes instead? At least if it doesn't work they'd make a hell lot of money. I mean, it seems efficient for tobacco in my country (France). I don't know why it couldn't work for junk food.

<comment><USER16> In a lot of countries, it is easier to enforce a public ban than it is to collect taxes.

A high tax on imports may simply lead to imports being smuggled in, and tax stamps being forged. A total ban can be trivially enforced---see a junk food container, its illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That Sugar Film talks about the effect on Aborigines

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_tmNHs7gIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_tmNHs7gIc)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is totally cool. I hope this works for them.

</comment><comment><USER19> The obesity situation on Pacific islands is a complex interaction of genetics, economics, and geography/geopolitics: a small genetic predisposition to larger frames and more efficient fat storage (described in multiple papers, like this one [1]), poor and underdeveloped economies increasingly unable to compete in a globalized world, and a shift [2] to energy-dense diets driven by affordability, convenience, and long shelf-life necessary to survive a long import journey and inexpensive storage for year-round availability.

This, coupled with a "modern" lifestyle of less and less manual labor results in an overabundance of unspent caloric intake. As the article in [2] says, which specifically talks about Micronesia but is applicable elsewhere in the Pacific:

 _" Micronesians are essentially selling their own natural food resources for a fraction of the true value, and then using the revenue to import nutrient- poor food (...) The FSM does not have the infrastructure to realistically compete in the global tuna market. Thus, the current structure of the Pacific tuna industry is an example of how lack of development (partly due to the U.S subsidies and U.S. dependence) has lead the FSM to continue to be dependent on foreign nations. The cash-economy stemming from the tuna industry contributes to the continued cycle of food dependence, imported-food, and poor diet, which is partly responsible for Micronesia's unhealthy, obese population."_

Edit: As with regard to Vanuatu specifically, you can read a report on their food, agriculture, and fishery situation here [3], authored by FAO of the UN. To paraphrase, widespread industrial fishing by foreign nations was prevalent decades ago, but has since shifted to other Pacific states. Subsistence fishing occurs, but the cash-based economy (i.e. where you buy your food, rather than catch it) is much larger, and the presence of tourism sites has priced most locals out of domestically-caught fish, while leaving imported chicken and domestic beef affordable, as well as imported canned fish. This report doesn't mention foods typically considered junk food, but calorie-dense imports of shelf-stable food are documented elsewhere.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v48/n9/full/ng.3620.html](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v48/n9/full/ng.3620.html) [2] [https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...](https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-8603-2-10) [3] [http://www.fao.org/fi/oldsite/FCP/en/VUT/profile.htm](http://www.fao.org/fi/oldsite/FCP/en/VUT/profile.htm)

<comment><USER20> There's an alternative opinion (espoused by some in medical research community and author Gary Taubes) describing the situation as simple and straigtforward - islanders developed obesity (and diabetes, and gout, and heart disease) after gaining access to sugar in various forms, including soft drinks. Remove sugar and its substitutes from the equation, and high obesity rates disappear.

Blaming "modern" lifestyle rarely makes sense in global context - it's not as if in countries with low obesity rates one has to hunt and gather their food.

<comment><USER19> Take the example of Qatar, where a "modern" lifestyle is a clear and obvious contributor to the fourth-highest obesity rate in the world. A state which in just 70 years has ascended to the country with the highest per capita income, and the fourth highest GDP per capita; it has used generous oil and natural gas revenues to massively raise the country's Human Development Index and institute a welfare state. Despite internationally-highlighted issues with among others, corporal punishment, the treatment of migrant laborers, and the mortal danger for homosexuals, most average Qatari live very, very well.

Yet in this short span of time, traditions haven't adjusted for the altered diet, air-conditioned comfort, and sudden lack of need to perform manual labor (which is now done by foreign migrant workers instead). So far in Qatar, government spending on healthcare has not been able to stem the rise in obesity, so other social health promotion programmes are being deployed.

<comment><USER20> Singapore, Korea, Japan and Thailand are as comfortable and air-conditioned as any, have access to similar motorcycles, cars, television sets and computers as others, and yet enjoy some of the _lowest_ obesity rates in the world.

There are developed countries (with relaxed lifestyles) at the top of the obesity ratings, there are developed countries (with relaxed lifestyles) at the bottom of the obesity ratings, lifestyle change does not seem to correlate very heavily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know which is worse, moral busy-bodying in the name of religion, or moral busy-bodying in the name of health, or public transport, or many of the pet causes here.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can someone explain why the article starts with "HONG KONG"?

<comment><USER23> Probably because Mike Ives is submitting the report from Hong Kong. I guess he could have flown in and done the reporting on-site, but probably was able to get all the information via other means and it didn't require him to go on- site.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Stock Quotes API/Feed - <AUTHOR>

Is there any service offering free stock quotes in an api or feed format.  I'm not too concerned if there is some sort of a delay. <comment><USER2> <http://code.google.com/apis/finance/> I expect yahoo has something similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> The yahoo finance docs are non-existant, but poking around the source for <http://www.goldb.org/ystockquote.html> should give you an idea of how to use it. delay is 20 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://finance.google.com/finance/info?q=GOOG,LON:TSCO>

[http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=GOOG&f=...](http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=GOOG&f=sxl1cpon&e=.csv)

:)</comment>


"FAT/exFAT patents seem to be responsible for $1B+ in revenue" (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-leadership/#comment-15007 <comment><AUTHOR> Since this was posted, the FAT LFN patents has expired, and the license for the TianoCore FAT drivers was changed not long afterwards. (I am the guy who also posted [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/tianocore-uefi-now- has...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/tianocore-uefi-now-has-a-free- fat-driver/#comment-16044)) Of course, the same is not true for exFAT.</comment>


Covid-19 Can Last for Several Months - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-coronavirus-longterm-symptoms-months/612679/ <comment><USER2> I'm on close to day 90 now. The most noticeable symptom is the cough, which has been getting better but refuses to go away. And after two weeks of total anosmia, six weeks later my smell is maybe 80% back, but there are many things I still cannot smell.

As someone with no history of coughing or any illness, it's getting very exhausting. Hopefully the day with no symptoms will come soon, and I am looking forward to donating plasma, in the hope that someone will benefit from it and avoid or reduce their suffering.</comment>


How I Monetized My Passion - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesevenfive.com/life-after-my-day-job-how-i-monetized-my-passion/ <comment><USER2> The author touched briefly on one thing that's worth noting, but it might have got buried in the article so it bears repeating:

 _If you build something cool, people will find you and give you consulting work_

That's a strategy that has worked for me several times over the years. I mentioned a silly unmonetizable Travel Blogging site elsewhere in this discussion, but if you look at the paying client work that resulted from that site's existence, you could argue that it's been one of my most successful products.

<comment><USER3> In addition to cool, I might suggest building something _public_ which comes close to meeting _business needs_ for people. With those provisos: yeah, it works great. Having a reputation in whatever your circle of competence is gets you more leads and lets you be pickier about who you work with, what you work on, and how much you charge.

<comment><USER4> But sometimes it's easier and faster to build something cool than to try to build a useful business product.

I'm facing that dilemma now. Should I focus on the product I want to build and possibly fail months later with nothing to show for the effort and no budget left to live on (I'm still recovering from the last one)?

Or should I build several smaller demo projects as portfolio pieces I can shop to get client work to fund the part-time development of my eventual product? Especially considering that my walled-off enterprise projects are inaccessible and built with tools other than the open source ones I'd prefer to be working with.

It's almost like starting from scratch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a heavy Wordpress user, I have a lot of love for the folks who create both free and premium themes. They solve _huge_ business problems for me. (Substantially all of the publicly visible content of my next product is getting served up by Wordpress with a WooThemes template, because I'd rather spend a week talking to early adopters rather than a week handwriting copy and markup in Rails.)

They're even better for folks who don't have good designers available or who don't have the technical chops to make adjustments to their sites themselves.

As a business model, it is pretty good if you can get traction, too -- the content scarcely ever rots, per-customer value is high (relative to, say, B2C software), and you stand a decent chance of getting repeat business if you continue expanding your product line. I wouldn't want to get into it myself (no design skills and I think I'd be about four years behind the curve even if I could design my way out of a paper bag), but it is clearly successful for some folks.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great story particularly because he seems like an average (but talented, obviously) guy in a cubicle farm with a wife and kids and mortgage, not yet- another Stanford golden-child.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not all passions monetize.

At the moment, I'm passionate about rock climbing, travel, surfing and computer programming. If it weren't for that 4th one, I'd be screwed.

I currently run maybe the 3rd most popular Travel Blogging site out there. It's had a good 5 years of passion poured in now, off and on, and if I were to slap ads on it today I'd pull in a buck thirtyfive a day.

I also run a little service that processes the draconian logfiles that Amazon provides for its webservices and spits out pretty analytics. It's a subject that no human being could ever be passionate about and it pays my rent.

Sometimes it's better to monetize something boring that people are willing to pay for.

<comment><USER6> Not always directly, no. You could, for example, route your passion for rock climbing into selling rock climbing equipment, or producing rock climbing training videos, or publishing a travel guide about the best rock climbing destinations.

Those specific examples may or may not work for you, but even if rock climbing itself isn't a profitable activity, there's surely some way to build business related to rock climbing.

<comment><USER2> Clearly you haven't met many rock climbers :)

Climbing shops squeak by selling ice axes to non-climbers who mount them on their walls. Climbing guides survive by taking beginners up mountains and hosting birthday parties at the crag. Guidebook authors are lucky if they recoup their printing costs.

Climbers (and outdoor folks in general) just don't like to pay for stuff. I rode enough outdoor-enthusiast dot-coms into the ground back in the 90's to know to stay clear of that space.

I see where you're going with this though, and I'll grant that you can certainly find a way to squeeze out a niche in even a space this dirtbaggishly stingy. But if you're going to put in the effort, I'd recommend doing it in a vertical full of people used to paying lots of money to make their technically trivial problems go away.

There are plenty of those verticals waiting to be tapped, and chances are they're not your passion.

<comment><USER7> I just picked up indoor rock climbing about 6 months ago and would disagree. Many climbers at the gym I frequent are in their early thirties or older and already have a steady income from a white collar job.

While it isn't a particularly expensive sport like hockey or golf, I'd say it isn't cheap either. Day passes at the gym are $16, and it is packed. And it's growing too! There's lots of newbies starting the sport, especially parents bringing their kids, or school groups.

This could vary widely from location to location though.

<comment><USER2> Regardless, climbers have a noble history of not paying for things.

Gyms are a good example of this. They make the lion's share of their money off of Birthday Parties. Monthly dues won't even keep the lights on.

Other lifestyle sports have the same issues. There's a reason why most Surf Shops don't sell surfboards. They sell boardshorts to people who want to look like surfers. The actual participants don't spend much on their sports.

<comment><USER7> I think it really depends on the gym. In my area, I would estimate that around 90% of visitors are regulars (that is, have an ID card/monthly pass).

The ones I've been to have a range of climbs: from a small section available to beginners, to routes and bouldering that require a much higher level of technique and endurance.

From personal experience, I've already spent an embarrassing amount on courses, memberships, and equipment.

<comment><USER2> That's actually my point, and the reason that gyms struggle. 90% of the people you see only pay them money once a month, and even then they complain if it's more than $50/month.

Daypasses cost $16 and end up generating a lot more revenue. Birthday parties cost $10/head, happen 16-30 times a month, and bring in enough to keep them afloat.

That's why you end up with tons of toproping areas, easy routes, and pretty looking features: to bring in the one-time visitors.

A good training area doesn't need to look pretty. In fact, the more it looks a lot like an inclined piece of plywood, the better. History shows, however, that training-focused gyms fail every time, whereas beginner & birthday party "social" gyms can sometimes squeak by.

It's certainly not an industry you go into to make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One lesson I got from this is to follow trends. In this case, Wordpress and commercial themes. It's taken me years to see that most small businesses make money this way, rather than forging entirely new paths or inventing new technologies.. Find something that's already becoming popular, do it a bit better, profit..

</comment><comment><USER9> Inspiring. I wonder what other Open Source ecosystems have opportunities for selling premium add-ons. As a sysadmin, DBA, and sometimes programmer I already love what I do, but I'm starting to realize the limits of the money I can make working for somebody else.

<comment><USER10> Not open-source but the ExpressionEngine community is pretty nice. This guy is doing pretty well selling extensions:

<http://pixelandtonic.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great tale of web designer gone freelancer, and finally ended up with a successful business model.

</comment><comment><USER12> IMHO there is a growing niche of creating websites on WP (or any other extensible CMS) as a way to cheaply test your ideas rather than invest the upfront cost of building a site from scratch.

Providing a service of building websites quickly & cheaply using something like WordPress can be valuable and lucrative even in the corporate world. I recently proposed this to my company for a new project and got the green light (after getting quotes of above $15K from other shops for a custom job). It was however difficult to find WP hackers easily and ended up building the site myself (in a fraction of the time and cost).

<comment><USER13> do you mind me asking how much they were willing to pay for the WP version vs. the original 15k quote from other shops.

<comment><USER12> edited since i misread. they were willing to pay 4-5K for the WP version

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Always appreciate stories of people that made the jump, but I was kind of hoping this was going to be about a less obviously monetizable passion.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a developer and a publisher who has used Wordpress for many projects, I have to say: good for him. He's doing it almost as it should be. Uses solid CSS frameworks, and sort-of good publishing platform(WP) and provides good support(According to his site).

For todays projects, I tend to use small microframeworks using Python, but WP is still my 0-60 in 5 seconds platform.

<comment><USER16> As a press75 customer I have to say I've had a very positive experience. They're selling a high quality product and support seems to be good even though I haven't had to call on it myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great story - really chimes with what i did two months ago...I left my well paid corporate job to do something that i really enjoyed...solving real world problems for real world clients who really need them solving (not just pleasing the boss). So i set up PageDo (<http://pagedo.com>).

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting how he integrated the price for all his WP themes into his brand -- everything is 75 bucks, hence press75.com. That seems great for now, but does it make it difficult to raise prices in the future?

<comment><USER18> According to <http://www.thesevenfive.com/about/> that's not the case. In fact, your statement is backwards. His price is a reflection of his brand, not the other way i.e. his brand is "75"... thus changing his price won't matter much in the future, as his brand won't change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did you not feel obliged about how your sabbatical led to everything, and you may have to work for few more weeks so that they find your replacement?

</comment><comment><USER20> Hidden lesson is how his passion also solves the problems of someone else, hence he's able to monetize it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Oh, this is not about the oldest profession

</comment><comment><USER22> Ok lessons learned in this post

1) Chasing your passion is better than chasing your money. Sometimes money becomes the by-product of the former.

2) (A hidden message) You need to be talented and committed to successful.

</comment><comment><USER23> That's it, HN is dead to me. "How I Monetized My Passion" is self-parody. When you can't tell the difference between parody and the real thing you're a goner.

<comment><USER24> HN died for you in 55 days?</comment></comment>


When software in the cloud goes sour - <AUTHOR> http://mentalized.net/journal/2008/05/27/stikipad_when_software_in_the_cloud_goes_sour/ <comment><USER2> Some of our users had the same concerns when we made our site featurelist.org. That's why we added (due to a user's feature request) a way to export all data from your project to XML.

Without exports like that, users will become even more wary of storing their data on sites that aren't supported by the "big 5" internet/software companies. There's always the risk the company (or handful of hackers) will go away and take their hard work with them. It's also a differentiator when you do that because the big guys want to hold onto the data.

Obviously an XML dump is not the same as having the full service, but at least, if bad things happen, the users can salvage some of their content without digging through Google/wayback caches.

<comment><USER3> The problem with xml dumps is that it is a backup-like feature, and users are notoriously sloppy with backups.

It is great that you provide the feature (and I'm slightly embarrassed that <http://scribbl.net/> doesn't) but what users really need is the ability to get their data after the application has gone down. Not that I see any way to do that given the current state of the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of thing is why "the cloud" is going to have a hard time serving bigger companies. Security, regulatory compliance, reliability, accessibility of data, etc. are all things that are historically not being well-served by even larger companies, and I think they're the reason a lot of "Web 2.0" companies are unable to make their way from success with consumers into enterprise markets (where a single sale can make your month a good one).

Wufoo have managed to do it extremely well. They provide great export features, and they go to great lengths to explain how and why they provide reliable and redundant infrastructure.

But the good examples will be dragged down by the bad examples, and the end result will be much slower adoption of the model. So, going off-line without warning and without providing a means for customers to get their data, is a great disservice to not just your own customers but to every other hosted application provider.

I don't want to pick on the Stikipad guys in particular, but it's a real problem--if you aren't sure that you'll always be around to serve your customers, you need to make a dead man's switch plan to get the data back into the hands of your customers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I rely on Toggl for time tracking (which I then use to bill my clients), and Google Docs to maintain my various (and extensive) list of accounts, as well as various documents essential to my business.

If I lost either I'd be screwed. I'm not so worried about the Goog, but Toggl (and before that 14Dayz) does worry me a bit.

<comment><USER6> Stuff To Do has time tracking features. It's not quite as advanced as Toggl in some ways, but it's now open source, as I decided that that market is way overcrowded. I still use it myself though, and would be happy to have a few collaborators.

<http://stufftodo.dedasys.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> sounds like they lost all the data</comment>