Xi Jinping urges China to use artificial intelligence in race for tech future - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2171102/develop-and-control-xi-jinping-urges-china-use-artificial <comment><USER2> I think China will create an AI bubble, currently studying in Beijing and all EE and CS students I know focus all their time at either stats, ML or data mining. While I think China might have a big shot at the AI race, I don't think it's useful to have to only focus on AI because it's hot right now, they may lack progress in other fundamental fields that may lead to more important breakthrough and technological change.

<comment><USER3> It's not just China. At my German university all courses related to AI/ML/data mining/stats are oversubscribed by a factor of 2 to 5. One professor went so far as to stress that he didn't have any experience with deep learning and he'd only cover Bayesian statistics in order to discourage students. I don't think it worked.

I'm pretty sure that there's a similar surge of interest in all countries.

<comment><USER4> I could be quite wrong but wouldn't a course in Bayesian statistics be a lot more useful for someone interested in inference or however you will say it?

<comment><USER5> It would certainly be useful. I'm interviewing a lot of people for ML roles, and I've noticed a new group of "deep learning only" people coming out of colleges. They know their DL, but have no exposure to what I guess we're calling "traditional ML". Since DL isn't appropriate for all problems, they don't have the skills we want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Few things in the world scare me more than the idea of Xi Jinping with control over semiautonomous flying robocops.

Other people worry about climate change. Some religious nutcases worry about paperclip maximizers and basilisks. I worry about Robocop.

<comment><USER7> I assume that cheap flying drones are the weapons of the future, not just in military but police too. Small drones everywhere of all kinds. The drones would at least be semi-autonomous as having a human behind every single drone sounds expensive at scale.

<comment><USER8> Luckily drones still have significant limitations on achievable flight time. Some of which are dictated by the laws of physics. So for the foreseeable future there won't be any bird sized drones chasing you down. Military drones on the other hand are much larger and expensive.

<comment><USER9> And one crash will have high repercussion, even in China.

<comment><USER7> Car crashes have important consequences anywhere in the world as well; I think people will simply accept the low incidence of drone-related accident as part of their environmental ambience.

<comment><USER9> They are completely different thing. I will be much more furious if some relative die due to drones than accident.

<comment><USER10> Why?

I have had a friend die from a car accident. It doesn't exactly make you pro- driver (he was drunk).

If people can get used to cars, they can get used to anything. I mean, even as street furniture, they're hideously annoying. They monopolize roads, kill pedestrians, make noise, poison us, and do the same to our children, then you pay taxes to subsidize their manufacture. Drones sound far less obnoxious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When Chinese leaders start talking about not being reliant on Western technology, rightly or wrongly, I immediately start thinking about their previous industrial espionage campaigns to remove the reliance on Western aerospace technology. [1]

I'd be a lot more relaxed about these sorts of announcements if the Chinese government took steps to curb Red Army cyber-attacks.

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/31/us- charges-10-ch...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/31/us- charges-10-chinese-spies-hacking-aerospace-firms-steal-engineering/amp/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Kind of unrelated, but I remember reading this interview with President Obama and being really impressed with how much he seemed to know about AI:

[https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito- in...](https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/)

<comment><USER13> Wow. Not just about AI - he's consistently insightful in that conversation, and demonstrates a systems-level mindset that one might even describe as hacker-esque...

"Part of what makes us human are the kinks. They're the mutations, the outliers, the flaws that create art or the new invention, right? We have to assume that if a system is perfect, then it's static. And part of what makes us who we are, and part of what makes us alive, is that we're dynamic and we're surprised."

Hell of a quote.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original post title: AI in China: Xi Jinping and 25-member policymaking body Politburo have a "group study" session about AI

.

Xi said China must develop its own AI technology, saying it was important for economic development, social progress and global geopolitics.

"AI is a vital driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and accelerating AI development is a strategic issue to decide whether we can grasp opportunities," Xi was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

Xi said China must ensure that it "occupies the high ground of AI core technology" and could firmly keep the technology in its hands by leveraging "China's massive data and huge market potential".

He said the country should use AI to upgrade its manufacturing, adding that it could be used in China's pursuit of a leaner and greener way of economic development.

Xi also encouraged government agencies to adopt AI.

"We need to enhance the combination of AI and social governance and develop AI systems for government services and decision-making," Xi said, adding that public security was one field in which it could be used "in depth".

<comment> saiya-jin Smart decision from China perspective, they can't be reliant on something potentially so crucial with western technologies.

But I can't help but think how it will be used for monitoring of lives of everybody. You do one misstep, government will know about it. Effectively no privacy. Compared to what it may be (and probably will), current state of China is a hippie paradise.

<comment><USER14> These discussions reminds me how Nazis had their own physics…

<comment><USER15> Absolutely nothing to do with it...

<comment><USER16> Are you sure? We're already getting stories over here in the West where people are struggling with the results AI gives them when applied to people because the results are basically Wrongthink, and are trying to figure out how to get the AIs to conform better to their ideology and preconceived notions of what the AIs should be outputting. It's not a terribly far trip from there to Deutsche Physik or Lysenkoism, except wrapped in a much denser fog of complex math and enough complicated details to construct any narrative you want. Using AI to ideologically crack down on a population will eventually reach even the AI researchers and destroy their ability to maintain and develop the AI.

(I don't think it's an _inevitable_ trip from struggling with AI outputs and preconceived ideological notions to Lysenkoism. But I think it is an _extremely_ tempting path for the society as a whole. There are a lot of forces that push in that direction, as the nature of the AI and what they do and control moves from a scientific and mathematical matter to a political one.)

<comment><USER15> This has nothing to do with Deutsche Physik but it fits the narrative of some people to associate China with Nazi Germany or any other dystopian regime.

<comment><USER16> The connection between China and "dystopian regimes" seems pretty clear to me. The biggest difference is that the Nazis and the Soviets could only dream of the tools the Chinese already have and will have, though the Soviets definitely proved that even without tech you could get yourself a pretty solidly oppressive police state going.

Only time can tell if the result will be a state that explodes even more quickly due to the suppressed stresses coming out all at once at some point, or a stable totalitarian state will emerge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is already a bubble. The number of no-nonsense applications (classification problems) is actually quite limited and depends on the quality of available datasets. Andrew Ng used to stress this in his courses.

To apply machine learning techniques successfully the phenomena in question should be, ideally, discrete, fully-observable, deterministic (very precise terminology from classic AI). Mere tweaking of parameters on nonsensical or too abstract data will lead nowhere.

Outside of academia ML already is an astrology with numbers instead of planets and stars.

</comment><comment><USER18> For a deeper background on this, I recommend "AI superpowers - China, Silicon Valley, and The New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think the VC of hacknews will care. They only care if they can make money from it.

<comment><USER20> There is lots of money to be made riding the CCP's hyped priorities, just not by the VCs outside of China. YC has a China branch.

<comment><USER21> I wonder why we don't see a backlash against companies investing in China like we see against companies taking Saudi money?

<comment><USER22> > I wonder why we don't see a backlash against companies investing in China > like we see against companies taking Saudi money?

It's a little, like the reaction against Google's project Dragonfly. However, it'd be much harder to sustain: it seems like nearly every Western company is investing in China or chasing customers there, so it's hard to single a few out for protest. You'd have to protest against all of them.

The Saudis aren't nearly so ubiquitous, so they're easier to reject.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Diary of a UK cord-cutter - <AUTHOR> http://steadman.io/blog/2013/09/20/diary-uk-cord-cutter/

<comment><USER2> Another gripe for the pile is what's happened to televised Formula 1 in the UK. The BBC no longer has all the full races and you have to get embroiled with a costly Sky contract to get them. Not a chance.

<comment><USER3> I've given up on F1 and I'm not giving Sky my cash. I do miss it though.

<comment><USER2> The BBC highlight shows of the races they don't have are still adequate. It could be a lot worse!</comment></comment></comment>


Power Balance admits no science behind wristbands - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_balance_bracelets <comment><AUTHOR> _The company wrote: "We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims." It also agreed to give refunds to customers who believe they were cheated._

These types of companies who make outrageous statements and pretend to have science behind them should be forced to give double the money back, or more.

The problem with an even refund is that the company losses almost nothing for making the false claim. Chances are it got them more sales, even if you include the cost of refunds. And the person returning the product never gets a full refund when you include shipping and the time it takes to deal with the hassle.

To keep companies honest you have to make them lose money for bad business practices. You have to charge them far more than they would risk making an outrageous claim.</comment>


Donating my Xbox - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/105363132599081141035/posts/W3ys5fKnz5t <comment><USER2> IMHO his article was a good read. I even fell for the Spry Fox thing and actually visited his website.

Judging by the colorful first page of the site, his games seem cool and fun... Want to see them... I click PLAY, with a Sunday morning expectation of something interesting coming up.

BLAM!

A f __*ing Facebook login screen. I am not a Facebook user. Never will be. Too bad. I look again at his web page with a sense of loss. _His_ loss of my attention.

Back to my Sunday morning coffee, on to the next article in HN.

<comment><USER3> I was similarly disappointed, but dug out an android device and installed something town for free. it was quite interesting - based on the mechanic where changing one square in a grid affects the state of neighbours.

<comment><USER4> Triple Town. It's great though it's freemium (150 turns/day limit).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I sympathize a lot with what was written. I grew up on the Nintendo consoles (my father got an NES from my mom for their first anniversary, which was less than a year before I was born). I really enjoyed playing games straight through my N64 I had as a young teen. But games after that lost a lot of appeal.

At the time I thought it was because I was growing up and just wasn't into it any more. Sure, I used to think spending hours playing Super Mario RPG, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, or Megaman X was a fun afternoon. Maybe I just grew up.

But there have been a few games that have come out since that I have really, truly enjoyed. Games like Psychonauts, Portal, Pikmin, and maybe a few other non-P games (e.g., Twilight Princess which is a half-P). Increasingly I have begun to feel like I didn't stop loving games, the games I loved just didn't exist anymore or were too hard to find.

I like using a controller. I like playing something I laugh at. I like playing something that stitches together a few basic motions/controls in complex ways to challenge me. I like playing games that are fun with friends or fun for friends to watch you play.

So for now, I mostly try and keep an eye on indie games that are cheap on Steam that work well with an Xbox 360 controller (which is really quite nice) on my Mac Mini. Occasionally I come across something fun and well done. But whereas I could rattle off 50 games I would love to play with my kids one day that I consider "classic", almost none of them were created post-Xbox. That's a shame.

<comment><USER6> You migh enjoy Braid. It lets you walk, jump and rewind time. Very simple, very very complex.

<comment><USER7> Braid is amazing. You progress by finishing levels, and collecting puzzle pieces of a picture for each "world" -- and all seem to be snapshots of a part of a man's life and relationship with a woman. Curiosity drove me on, and at the end I found out that it wasn't at all about what I thought it was about. The game is beautiful, engaging, challenging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an odd post in that almost nothing rings true to me. The PC much more than the console was all about keyboard mashing.

And post Kinect launch MS seems even less about hardcore gaming.

 _We don't even need to spend billions to get people to play them._

What does that even mean considering I've never heard of them?

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not a games developer, but I can relate to what Daniel wrote about game forms, after playing Bioshock Infinite.

I love the game, but I did so mostly for elements of the design and story, rather than the game play. That it was an FPS connecting the story rather than a puzzle game, for example, was almost incidental to my enjoyment of it, and given the story, I think a series of Myst-style puzzles would have been a better fit.

Wouldn't have sold nearly as well, of course, and there's the rub.

<comment><USER10> The reason I am not going to buy Bioshock Infinite is precisely because it seems like a pretty mediocre FPS, married to an interesting narrative and/or exploration game.

Don't get me wrong, I love FPS shooters. So when I want to play one, I want it to be good.

I also enjoy exploration games, and from what I have seen of Bioshock Infinite (I watched the ending and playthroughs on Youtube), it seems like it would have made for a great Myst style game. If anything the gameplay looks like the weakest part of Bioshock Infinite.

I actually thing Irrational missed a big opportunity by making the game a FPS. Wasn't Myst a big commercial success back in the day? Wouldn't they have been able to appeal to a wider audience if they had tied the narrative to a something other than a FPS?

<comment><USER11> For what it's worth, I'm generally indifferent to the FPS genre, play them very badly, and still managed to gulp down this game in four evenings (on the least challenging setting). Approached this way, the gameplay simply becomes part of the emotional texture of the narrative.

Of course, a FPS connoisseur might find that their more refined knowledge of what makes a good game of that type breaks their immersion, in the way that (some) lovers of classical music find that they can't enjoy (some) popular music.

Bioshock Infinite does have exploration elements, you can hunt around for recordings and other evidence that reveal more about the background of what's going on. Oddly enough, for me, rushing in guns blazing seemed more in character, as opposed to carefully checking behind a store counter, seeing if there is something more I could learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hear what he's saying, but I find it ironic that his current gig is making freemium games for mobile, which I believe is a far more damaging trend than FPS games like Halo ever could be.

Knock Bioshock Infinite for delivering dollops of voice-acted plot progression along with explosions, headshots, and the like, but at least it doesn't require me to pay a buck-ninety-nine to buy the coins to buy the lockpick to unlock a door. (or wait 12 hours for my city to produce enough coins to buy the lockpick. Whatever.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I totally understand him, as I am also "that kind of gamer". I don't have a taste for FPS and I've never owned a console. I play mostly on iOS devices, and before that, Flash games on the PC.

But let's not forget that those games are HIGHLY successful, and it clearly seems that there is a huge market for those. I am not surprised that some game companies (MS among them) treat those games like "the only true way". Fortunately, it looks like the gaming industry is expanding and other alternative games are also being created and are easily accessible... Probably the game industry will be more diverse and fragmented as a result, which is great for gamers with not a taste for blockbusters... But while enough people like to play violent FPS, the games are going to stay...

</comment><comment><USER14> When I was a kid I hated the Xbox, hated Halo, and hated how it seemed to create a new model for playing games. It was released when I was in middle school, and I remember there being a sudden and abrupt shift in what kind of gaming mentality there was.

Prior to the Xbox, console games were largely focused on lush, whimsical landscapes with mechanics that required some puzzling to figure out. At least, the games that kids played, anyway; I know Unreal Tournament and Doom and Quake were big, but looking back I think those games all had a whimsy to them as well. The arsenal in Unreal is way sillier than anything Halo's ever had to offer (even Halo's energy sword seems kind of rote). And the major titles on the N64 and Playstation and Dreamcast were titles like Mario and Sonic and Crash Bandicoot – colorful worlds, puzzles often based on platforming. Developers like Nintendo and Rare had a knack for creating controls and visuals that seem to reward you for getting into them, so that even Rare's Goldeneye 007 felt like an utterly silly game. (Proximity mine in the toilet!)

When Halo came out, it was immediately apparent that this was Microsoft's grand new vision of gaming – "realistic" graphics, self-seriousness, achievements, and an ugly competitive edge. My memories of Halo are almost all multiplayer, obviously: generally, six kids sitting by a machine, two of them unhappy because they sucked and consequently were cycled out every other game, meaning they didn't get practice time either. The local teen center turned into a place where a bunch of bro-types would hook up their Xboxes and play each other all night, screaming at one another between rooms. The TV that was used for movies got co-opted into another Xbox resource, so eventually the whole place became a Halo pit. And online Halo (which started with 2, if I recall correctly) changed the dynamic yet again, in a way that's familiar to all of us: kids cussing at one another, players generally acting like little shits.

Some of that all would have happened without Microsoft's "Xbox is a manly console for men" marketing push. But you can absolutely look back and say that Microsoft influenced developers in a bad way. Sony made a push to "cut Microsoft off" with titles like God of War, which are similarly quote-unquote epic. Halo opened the door for Tom Clancy games, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, on and on. A number of older game developers decided, when they made the change from 2D to 3D, to pursue a similarly "gritty" realism. Now there's a gaming culture wherein genres are solidly defined and there's excruciatingly little variation between game mechanics, visual style, or design mentality, at least in the AAAs. And it's because of how relentlessly Microsoft pushed to divide the market.

The old designers either shifted their styles along with this, or they ran out of steam. Sega hasn't made a good game in over a decade – I won't even blame that on their pursuing a "mature and edgy" vibe with the Sonic franchise, though they seem to think that's what gamers want. They just ran out of ideas for where to take Sonic. Rare had a couple of late-era successes, mostly Viva Pińata, but the only thing they've done in five years is Kinect Sports games. And Nintendo? They still stick to their old style, but this many years on Nintendo's flaws as a game developer are showing. Aspects of their games which were totally forgivable when they were building for N64 or even Gamecube are starting to feel like irritatingly deliberate decisions on their part now. And you know what? That would be okay if Nintendo didn't sometimes feel like the _only_ company still pushing that particular aesthetic. If they were one company among many, it wouldn't matter so much, but they're singlehandedly trying to push against the currents of every other game developer on the planet, and it's increasingly becoming clear that they're just not good enough to carry that all by themselves.

Obviously, this is a view of just a limited slice of gamer culture. Indie games absolutely borrow from the old-school design mentality more than they do from the Halo mindset; I've seen more whimsy and fun in a single Humble Indie Bundle than I've seen appear on the Xbox 360 since its release. Even there, though, you can feel the influence somewhat, and it's spoiled some games that I really wish I could have enjoyed (namely Bastion). And you do have both occasional lighthearted breakouts (Katamari Damacy) and games that use the self-serious mentality to incredible effect (Demon's Souls). This is a fad which will pass with time, though I'm not so pleased at the thought that our next big wave of developers are the ones developing for mobile and Facebook. Angry Birds and Farmville are not a fun influence. But that's just the way it goes. There'll always be good stuff if you know how to hunt for it. I just miss the fact that for a decade or so, the best games were at the top of the heap or close to it. I don't know if I realized how lucky I was as a kid until that ended. The 90s were a great time to grow up a young gamer.

<comment><USER15> "When Halo came out"? As opposed to the endless steam of first person shooters that came before it that were even more straightforward, simplistic, and violence-driven?

Blaming Microsoft for this is insane. There is virtually no difference between Wolfenstein and Doom on the one hand, and Halo and Gears of War on the other - except for better graphics. If you think this is a trend of the past decade, then you either weren't a gamer in the '90s, or you are letting nostalgia colour your perceptions.

<comment><USER14> Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful. Even as game devices became more powerful, there was a playfulness to FPSes that you can see in titles like Perfect Dark and the Unreal series.

One of Halo's major innovations was that it removed the health bar. In a shooter like Doom or Goldeneye, you have let's say 100 HP, and different weapons deal a different amount of damage. It's just like any fighting game with a health bar. Halo replaced that with a shield system, wherein being shot repeatedly wasn't a game-ender if you could get away long enough for shields to recharge. It changes the pacing of the game substantially, especially in multiplayer. The jittery feeling of older games, where every shot counts and you always have to be on the lookout for your opponent, was made both slower (because other players weren't constantly trying to get a shot on you and wear you down) and a bit more mindless (because once you got into a firefight, your only choice was to shoot the other person repeatedly or else there'd be no damage left whatsoever).

This complements the self-seriousness of the Halo games, which absolutely inspired the direction of the next-gen titles. Halo was "grittier" and less silly than previous shooters had been. In Wolfenstein, you were fighting enemies like robo-Hitler. In Doom, the enemies you were up against were inventive, silly, and fun. And the push towards realism was by no means inevitable. Look at Unreal Tournament 2004, which was a touted push towards enhanced graphics and gameplay that took advantage of modern systems, but which remains an utterly comical game. The violence is whimsical and comic; the levels are far more ridiculous than Halo's or Halo 2's. It's a pretty game, as far as that goes, but the prettiness is used for exaggeration rather than for "grit". So obviously that path was not only possible for games, but it led to quite a few very good games over the last decade.

<comment><USER16> > _Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful._

You were in middle school when Halo came out, so I can be fairly certain you were too young to remember Wolfenstein and Doom being released. And you're completely wrong. Those games were not simple and playful and colorful. They were gory, and violent, and brutal and complex. I had to play them when my parents weren't paying attention because of the excessive gore and satanic overtones. Doom was not some simple little game, it introduced the concept of circle strafing and multi-level enemies in FPS.

> _The jittery feeling of older games, where every shot counts and you always > have to be on the lookout for your opponent_

Ha, really? Quake introduced the term run-and-gun. You didn't make every shot count, you just fired a barrage of rockets and bullets all towards your enemies.

> _Halo was "grittier" and less silly than previous shooters had been_

Yeah, demons from hell with miniguns for arms and blood dripping off their fangs are super silly. And the those Covenant grunts run around comically when you throw a sticky grenade to them... so gritty.

<comment><USER17> I may be wrong, but I think the parent's point is that nitty gritty realism/brutal/gory/violent games were niche before the advent of halo/xbox.

What would really be helpful is a sales chart for FPS games between 1990 and present, but I'm not sure where we could go to obtain such information. I suspect that there would be a burst in the popularity in FPS games from niche to mainstream status around the release of either halo, counterstrike, call of duty 4, or one of the quakes, but I'm not sure which one.

<comment><USER18> Halo (and really, Rare's FPS platform) brought the FPS niche from PC+keyboard+mouse to console and controller. This introduced casual gamers to the world of the hardcore competitive nature of Doom/Quake/Unreal Tournament, a multiplayer environment where winning meant shooting your friend in the face.

You didn't have to maintain a massive gaming rig or be committed to computing in order to get into FPS now. All you needed was an xbox.

That signals the divide. What PC games were cute in the 90s? If one removes the 'educational' ones like treasure <x>, it's always been one of grittiness and machismo. Halo bridged the gap and let that scheme flow into consoles. And its clear that it is more successful with the consumer.

<comment><USER19> _> Halo (and really, Rare's FPS platform) brought the FPS niche from PC+keyboard+mouse to console and controller. This introduced casual gamers to the world of the hardcore competitive nature of Doom/Quake/Unreal Tournament, a multiplayer environment where winning meant shooting your friend in the face. You didn't have to maintain a massive gaming rig or be committed to computing in order to get into FPS now. All you needed was an xbox._

Quake III was released on the Dreamcast. Duke Nukem 3D was released on the Saturn and Playstation. Doom was released on the Megadrive/Genesis. Halo wasn't the first FPS to be released on the console. Not by a long shot.

<comment><USER18> I certainly agree that those games appeared earlier on the timeline. But Halo/Rare FPSs were the first to be outstandingly successful in their control and playability scheme. The console versions of those games you list were hampered by their platforms and would all likely be considered less playable than their PC counterparts. Thus the genre could not break in as it could with Goldeneye or Halo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We do not like to discuss it, but a lot of people get a kick out of inflicting harm -- "fucking shit up" in other words -- and some game developers pander to that.

I remember a blog post from the late 90s or early 00s that pointed out that the marketing material (trailer or ad copy) for one FPS bragged about the realism of the gore, e.g., of the blood that spurted from the wound when you shot someone.

</comment><comment><USER21> True, true. This also applies to most game publishing houses, not just the mothership.

There is a group-think mob mentality that ravenously follows the whims of top management as 'hip' and mere players are referred to as scrubs and considered not worthy to make suggestions or criticize.

Go to any popular MMO forum and criticize any portion of the games supposed backstory, and prepare for the waterfall of developer lead fanboy rage in response.

There are various tropes baked into this culture. All the 'bros' know that universally pet classes must always be second class citizens. Don't overlook how pay to win, and lottery style 'mystery boxes' that asian cultures are so fond of, almost overnight became fixtures in almost every online game now.

</comment><comment><USER22> The author is making some pretty big generalizations IMO. While I agree there is a culture of gratuitously violent games -- which the market responds positively to -- there are also many incredible games that feature no realistic violence. Fez, Minecraft, LIMBO, and Braid come to mind. I work on the Xbox Platform Team and I feel like we have an accurate representation of the interests of the gaming world (and in fact the non-gaming world -- many people simply don't play games). Maybe things were/are different on the teams actually making games, but my team is very well-rounded. We play FIFA, Spelunky, and Trials Evolution in our down time...obviously the bro-est of games.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't think it's just bro types working on Halo, Gears and other FPSes. There was an article (also posted here, I believe) about a woman developer's origin story. [http://caitiem.com/2013/03/30/origin-story-becoming-a- game-d...](http://caitiem.com/2013/03/30/origin-story-becoming-a-game- developer/) \- She worked on Gears and Halo 4.

There's a time and a place for all games - the mindless shoot em ups, or the whimsical indie types. Or the serious Dark Souls types. Or even the cinematic types with a ridiculously large cinematic to gameplay ratio.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder about people exposed to this sort of action from middle school on:

 _"Filling out the gaps in the 7-12 hours ride are moments of rote game play with all possible feedback knobs tuned to 11. Blood, brains, impact. Innovation is located at 11.2. This makes you feel something visceral."_

Having cognitive issues similar to being exposed to porn from this age on. We are starting to read about people who've come forward and said they are unhappy with their sex life and have tied it back to their early porn exposure. I wonder if there isn't a similar effect in recreational activity.

In high school one of my friends was an adrenaline junkie, they were crazy for that feeling of being right on the edge. They satisfied that edge by doing crazy things which could have killed them (sadly eventually it did). But most of my friends weren't affected and while a roller coaster ride was exciting, the lack of adrenaline when hiking didn't ruin hiking for us, or sailing.

So do we have people who can't spend their spare time doing something like reading or walking because it doesn't give them a jolt of adrenaline, like we've had folks say they had troubled being satisfied with "normal" sexual relations ? Any thoughts on how we could test that?

<comment><USER25> Excessive risk taking could have structural/physiological root causes. [http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/impulsivity-risk-taking- beha...](http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/impulsivity-risk-taking-behavior- focal-frontal-lobe-lesions/)

The authors experiences about gaming seem to be dramatizations of fairly common first world teenage problems - which are exaggerated here for advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm going to refute this whole post with one word: Kinect

</comment><comment><USER27> It's funny that in some ways iOS and Android, arguably the most widely used gaming systems atm, actually foster the kind of games he's talking about wanting to make.

There's still the mainstream bro games, but it does seem developers have more of a chance to make a living off their ideas.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Strategy over button mashing!

That made me think of QTE. We never needed those things, but still they gave it to us. And keeps giving it to us. It's lazy gameplay, it's a "I'm a developer, I have a cutscene and I'm too bored to integrate real gameplay into it".

<comment><USER29> As always there's balance to be had: done right it gives a sense of urgency and involvement in what would otherwise be another "lean back and watch things happen" cutscene, whereas done wrong it annoyingly interrupts the flow at best. Personal experience: God of War QTEs feel entirely disconnected and over the top, whereas (Square's) Tomb Raider QTEs help in breaking the fourth wall and draws me into the scene.

<comment><USER30> Zero Punctuation's Tomb Raider review would disagree; not just the QTEs but the increasingly common scenes where 'you have control' but if you don't immediately head in the right direction you'll die. It's not just Tomb Raider, Uncharted is also repeatedly guilty of this.

[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero- punctuation...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero- punctuation/7025-Tomb-Raider)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I enjoy playing indie games as well as the corporate blockbusters. I'm glad there's a market for both. However, Is it just me, or can anyone else not wait for Battlefield 4!

</comment><comment><USER32> Has it ever occurred to the OP that maybe the Xbox 360 was such a huge success precisely because of the culture of the employees there?

<comment><USER33> Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone.

I think the next generation of consoles are going to struggle against cheaper systems like OUYA and tablets.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_fi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_figures_6)

Wii – 99.38 million as of 31 December 2012

Playstation 3 – (IDC January 2013 estimate: "about 77 million")

Xbox 360 – 75.9 million as of 31 December 2012

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_fig...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_figures)

<comment><USER34> > Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for > its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small > number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 > 2012 alone.

Yes it was a huge success. Even though it didn't sell as many consoles as others, its tie ratio flat-out beats[1] both the Wii and the PS3, and that's quite an important metric that's almost never taken into account, but that contributes a great deal to the success of a platform.

[1]. [http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie- Ratio/G...](http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie- Ratio/Global/)

<comment><USER35> So 'tie ratio' is basically number of games sold per hardware unit? Interesting. For example, North America seems to buy about 50% more games per unit than Japan, with the exception of the PS1 and (S)NES.

I wonder if/how this affects the projects of different studios? E.g., should we expect games from Japan to tend to have broader appeal?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is so glorious I almost want to undelete my Google profile to give my first +1 that never happened.

Almost.

Still, great post with which I sympathise greatly.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm happy he went indy. His company seems to be doing well. <http://spryfox.com/>

I've seen both Triple Town and Steam Birds featured on the App Store. I think both were in the top 10 at one point or another.

</comment><comment><USER38> so he was working for the company that made the hardware and was shocked to find out that the company was very invested in maximizing the market for their hardware?

</comment><comment><USER39> Rule #1 of blogging: if you mention your company or service, it should be a link. I don't have hard data, but I think the need for googling "spry fox" (or guessing the url, spryfox.com) lowers the number of people who go on to the OP's site by a full order of magnitude.

Good post otherwise.

<comment><USER40> It adds credibility and class to the post though. It keeps the attention on the post's content, and feels less like a random plug.

<comment><USER41> Eventually, people will develop strong immunities to random plugs, and all marketing will have to be this way- subtle, genuine, real. Can't wait.

<comment><USER14> This is assuming that this post is primarily marketing rather than a guy who is emotionally invested in both game design and his past getting something off of his chest.

Sure, it acts as self-promotion, but it's cynical to assume that _everything_ that promotes anything was created first and foremost to sell stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Great post and good luck with the new games!

</comment><comment><USER43> _I'm driven by ideals that fit poorly with an industrialized console monoculture: What if games can connect people? What if they can improve the world? What if they bring happiness and joy to our lives?_

His company as founded a few minutes ago, 2010 in real years <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spry_Fox> . Give it a few more years before the holier than though attitude, who knows what you'll do during the next downturn. See Zynga

</comment><comment><USER44> tl;dr

<comment><USER45> It is quite well written and takes 2-3 minutes to read, if you find this piece too long, why are you browsing hacker news in the first place?

Seriously, I'm not sarcastic, I'm curious. Most of articles linked here seem to be longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> As usual, it is per definition very bad for men (white men) to have something - a club, a community - of their own.

<comment><USER47> If that's what you're getting from this article, you either have very strange ways of reading the same text I did, or you are a fool.

The entire point of this rant was that the author did not feel welcome in this "club, community" and didn't like what it entails. I can sympathize with that somewhat, and I bet you can too.

<comment><USER48> well the op seems to like the Kawaii elements but some of the more intense Kawaii stuff can verge on creepy.</comment></comment></comment>


This crab could save your life – if humans don't wipe it out first - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/horseshoe-crab-population-at-risk-blood-big-pharma <comment><USER2> I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be better for the test of the world if humans became extinct. Our impact is limited mostly to earth now, but if we make it into space we'll just go and ruin other planets. It's already very very difficult to get everyone to agree and work together to spare ecosystems and species on our own rock so imagine how little traction there would be to not destroy some distant planet none of us call home. Humans are short sighted like every other animal, but we have much more destructive capabilities. This can't end well.

<comment><USER3> new life will emerge after humans die and earth (the planet) will still exist

<comment><USER4> Yeah I feel like this point needs to be more upfront in the climate change debate.

Working to prevent climate change is an inherently selfish endeavor and humanity is generally pretty open to hopping on the selfishness bandwagon.

Even for someone who adheres to libertarian ideals the need for regulations specific to environmental concerns should be reasonable since it directly effects every living human being including them in a negative way that will directly inhibit their ability to go about their lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Radiolab had a great episode on this

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/baby-blue-blood- drive](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/baby-blue-blood-drive)

</comment><comment><USER6> We have these in NJ. Really cool little creatures. They swim upside-down!

I'm glad to learn we don't have to kill them to harvest the blood. Like with all things we'll probably not use an alternative until we absolutely have to. That is always unfortunate.</comment>


Ask HN: An idea for a dispersed Library of Alexandria - <AUTHOR>

From Wikipedia: The Royal Library of Alexandria seems to have been the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world.
Today: I live in an area surrounded by many universities and students. I have a ton of books at home and I am sure so do the others around me. But I don't know what books they have and they don't know what I have. It is hard to share books and it would be great to be able to share them and get to know people who have the same reading interests as you...
Solution: People can upload the titles of their books and create an account with a zip-code. With the zip-code when people search for a book they can see who closest to them has the book that they need. They can request to borrow it etc.
Tweak 1: Getting people to upload a list of their books can be tricky. One solution would be for them to take a high-res photo of their bookshelves and using OCR to identify the books. I did a mock trial on my bookshelf and it worked ok
Tweak 2: Search results could be anonymous. You could request it and the person you requested the book from you could see who you were and decide if they wanted to share with you.
Would love to hear if people think that something like this would work? If people would want this? Have you wished that sharing books was easier? <comment><USER2> How about you just go to your library, and ask for a book via Inter-Library Loan if they don't have it in their collection?

Your proposal seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment! My response below:

1\. The ILL does not often have the latest popular books.

2\. Besides not everybody in the community has access to the university library system.

3\. Also this would be a way to create a community around sharing books.

I had this idea because in the developing world (where I grew up) people often visit each other's homes and people borrow books because they see what you have in your shelves etc and you talk about the book you borrowed with the person who had it. It creates a community around books something that would be a nice to have?</comment></comment>


How work kills us - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/18/how-work-kills-us <comment><USER2> >> In the US, employment status and your employer determine your access to health-care

I have spotted the problem.

As usual, America wins the absurdity trophy.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it case in most of the world, including many EU countries? Please don't bring up the "free" healthcare, unviersal healthcare can really mistreat one for whom contributions are not paid.

<comment><USER4> It's not the case at all in most, if not all, EU countries.

You have access to healthcare for small fees, and you'll generally get better care than in the private sector; you'll just have to wait longer if it's not urgent.

I know for a fact that in at least two EU capitals private hospitals often forward patients they are unable to handle (e.g. complicated births) to public hospitals, who are more skilled and experienced.

<comment><USER5> > private hospitals often forward patients they are unable to handle (e.g. > complicated births) to public hospitals, who are more skilled and > experienced.

In India, this happens simply because private hospitals don't want mortalities on their hands. Complicated cases often mean higher chances of things going wrong. Best let the public hospitals handle it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Second, employers affect the stress-inducing conditions of work: work-family conflict, long work hours, absence of control over one's work environment, and economic insecurity. Stress makes people sick both directly and by inducing unhealthy individual behaviours such as smoking, drinking, and overeating.

Not just stress, I simply hate my job. I'm stuck here, for 12 years now.

"so get another job Ryan" bahahahaha you're funny.

I have no degree, in the past month I was flat out rejected within 24 hours of applying to two jobs for not having a 4 year degree in ANYTHING.

I have a personal bankruptcy which will prevent most employers from hiring me, in fact last year I took a remote job and a few days in discovered I couldn't log in... no one would return my emails... some time later I get an email saying if I don't return the laptop immediately I will be billed for it, I said fine send me a label 'we did to your email' the email address you blocked me from? 'oh'. Apparently my bankruptcy came up in the background they did AFTER hiring me, at no point did they ask me about my financial background, if I'd had a bankruptcy, or even if I had a criminal record... they waited until after training me and starting work, fortunately I hadn't quit my current job yet or I'd have been screwed.

Yesterday, after 3 video interviews spanning 21 days, I was rejected for entry-level customer service remote work and was told "keep honing your skills. Maybe find a relevant side project or a local company to dip your toes deeper into a technology company".

So I hate my job and no one else wants to even take a chance on me because I lack a degree, have a personal bankruptcy from 6 and a half years ago and have been in a niche job for 12 years.

I legitimately wake up some days thinking "shit, why didn't I die in my sleep" because I have no future, each year I'm at this job I hate my life more. I dread doing ANYTHING most days now because it's "I can't really afford this" or "I just want to vegetate" or "what the hell happens if I have an unplanned expense of more than a few hundred bucks" or "what if mom has more issues". I get even more pigeonholed into being stuck at this job because it doesn't translate to anything else. Add to that I have a disabled parent I help support and my whopping 32k gross income doesn't even allow me to save for retirement.

Awesome. SERENITY NOW!

THIS is how work is killing me. I'm sure that stress, dread and worry are doing wonders for my long-term health.

<comment><USER7> Do you know why a personal bankruptcy prevents you from being hired? That seems very weird, it should be completely separate from your work and can't in anyway harm your employer.

<comment><USER6> In the case of that company, they worked with finances and it makes me a 'risk'. Apparently exercising protection that dates back to antiquity makes you undesirable.

My bankruptcy also prevents me from ever having a security clearance again as I'm considered a security risk (blackmail, my mom worked at DoD before she had to retire via disability and one of her co-workers got fired when her debt shot up post divorce and it caused her clearance to get yanked).

Nolo has an ok article about it covering both the security clearance and the issue I had [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy- affe...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy-affect-my- job-future-employment.html)

>Private employers, however, aren't constrained by a similar rule, and some people find that having a bankruptcy in their past comes back to haunt them—mainly when applying for jobs that require them to deal with money (bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, and so on).

If you go look at a lot of traditional job applications when they are asking about prior military experience and criminal history they also usually ask something along the lines of "have you ever declared bankruptcy". A bankruptcy effectively makes you a 2nd class citizen in the eyes of many companies... which is funny because a quick google search shows me a little less than 1% of the US population files bankruptcy annually which means you have a statistically significant percentage of the population walking around with bankruptcies on their record, the only people that have it worse are those with criminal convictions (about 1 in 3 adults, shockingly) so I guess I'm somewhat lucky anyway.

<comment><USER8> > _Apparently exercising protection that dates back to antiquity makes you > undesirable._

I mean it's easy to categorize it this way but I think you're ignoring the actual risks for the company. Yes, bankruptcy is a completely legal and typically very useful legal mechanism for restructuring. There's nothing ethically or morally wrong with bankruptcy or even having multiple ones in your history depending on the circumstances.

But _more often than not_ , it shows an inability to manage ones finances and staying within a reasonable band of spending. With few exceptions, bankruptcies are typically avoidable. To quote the word risk in the manner you did diminishes the real fact that you had a finance job and had recently shown that you unable to control your personal finances.

With the litigious nature of the US, especially within the confines of employment law, it's safer for a company in that sector to outright ban employees with major financial issues than to investigate the root causes and make case-by-case judgments on whether a given bankruptcy was "okay."

> _My bankruptcy also prevents me from ever having a security clearance again > as I 'm considered a security risk (blackmail..._

This is an accurate and very reasonable concern. It's the whole reason why applicants for every sensitive job from local part-time police officer to CIA agent have their personal finances investigated. If someone has 1.5x their yearly salary in high interest debt it's going to be _much_ easier for a malicious actor to control them.

<comment><USER9> > it shows an inability to manage ones finances and staying within a > reasonable band of spending

In a world^w country where being sick can put you in complete and utter financial ruin, or where buying a house you can make payments on but whose value drops precipitously resulting in a seizure of the house, I call bullshit.

There's many, many reasons in our world today that you might need to declare bankruptcy, and being unable to manage your finances is only one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Being unemployed might kill us even more. I'm not sure I understand the argument here.

In Finnish there is a idiom_ "People have died at home as well" that captures this idea that doing stuff away from home is not necessary less safe than being at home - you can die at home as well.

<comment><USER11> The argument is that companies do arbitrary things that are both harmful to the health of employees and also harmful to the profitability of the companies.

So the idea is that companies (and society) can actually make more money by doing things that are less impactful on employee health and that they should do them.

<comment><USER10> That sounds like a good argument that nobody would disagree with but by the end of the day I think that being unemployed is probably worse to your health than having a work "that kills you"

<comment><USER11> Well, the article isn't arguing that unemployment would be better, so that's apparently just a tedious reaction to the title?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rise of the rent-seeker

[https://www.economist.com/democracy-in- america/2017/08/03/un...](https://www.economist.com/democracy-in- america/2017/08/03/unproductive-entrepreneurship-is-increasingly-common-in- america)

<comment><USER13> The rise and rise of rentier capitalism is by far the biggest scourge in our modern economy.

Henry George and even Adam Smith identified the problems centuries ago and yet here we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Work may kill us, but I've also seen enough people die shortly after retirement to be a bit suspicious. It really depends on how much your career is a part of your identity.

<comment> the-dude I am suspicious too, I had not thought about identity yet but linked it with change in lifestyle. I have seen several men die 1 - 2 yrs after retirement.

I know/have known men who never really retired, they just scaled back operations bit by bit. Like my dentist now at 71 scaled back to 3 days/week. Why he does it? "Because I like it".

Or people who have shifted ownership of the business to their sons, but are still around some days of the week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had dinner last year with Professor Pfeffers along with some other GSB Alumni.

This was just before his book went to print, but it was the topic of conversation.

He makes some solid points.

It's pretty shocking, but understandable, since the impact on individuals, groups, and society isn't like a physical workplace injury that has cause/effect immediacy.

</comment><comment><USER16> > AI and automation will almost certainly make things worse

This quote is followed by percentages of jobs being at risk.

But I find it not convincing at all. There are measures society can take to care for the unemployed. And realistically speaking, I look forward to a future where AI and automation makes most of our manual labor jobs obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER17> There was a small documentary recently about japanese people who die alone in their houses. One of the inverviewed people said that people have a really hard to adjusting from the community they have at work, and the hierarchical system, to completely on their own in a 'flat' community once they're retired.

</comment><comment><USER18> "The 19th-century liberals reformed the workplace and changed capitalism to save it."

This made me laugh. Which liberals? Karl Marx?

<comment><USER19> Many of the famous 19th century liberal industrialists that _dramatically_ improved worker conditions for the period. Remarkably different to the attitudes of companies and directors today. For instance...

William Lever, founder of Lever Brothers (now Unilever) famously created Port Sunlight village to house workers and ensure a healthy and happy workforce.

He personally led the planning and building of the village. Hundreds of houses (beautiful houses in a lovely setting, even today) were built. Along with those the village had a free hospital, schools, a concert hall, open air swimming pool, church, and an art gallery (and bought art to put in it). He also introduced welfare and free education for workers and their families.

There were many others. Modern day executives could learn a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let me tell you the secret - life as a process is killing you every moment. One can not exist without another. Jobs is just something we chose to spent our short time on, as well as few other things.

<comment><USER2> We _choose_ to spend our time working?

Only because there is no other reasonable option.

<comment><USER21> Unless you are slave or prisoner, yes, we choose to spend our time working or non-working.

<comment><USER22> Which universe do you live in?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Real VPS Comparison – UpCloud vs. Linode vs. DigitalOcean - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/valentinvichnal/vps-compare-upcloud-linode-digitalocean <comment><USER2> A blatant ad for UpCloud.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it really does feel like it, at least for their referral code, which they ephasize. I wish they'd publish a script for DIY benchmarking to compare to their results. Also

> DigitalOcean 10$ - CPU 1 core - 1 GB RAM - 512 MB Swap

Not the case any more, so some updated stats would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also nodejs is faster than Elixir.. AND GO?.. ok</comment>


Alibaba's Accounting Is as Alarming as Enron's - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/05/12/jim-chanos-alibaba-accounting/ <comment><USER2> I didn't find a lot of substance in this article, the message was basically "Alibaba's accounting practice is opaque, so we don't know where the money is." the reminder that in Arabian nights Alibaba was a thief seems to tie up the narrative nicely. Not that I'm buying it.

That said, it is tremendously important to Yahoo! that they understand the real value of Alibaba. No doubt it would be tremendously useful to have transparency on where all the money is coming from and where it is going, presumably these people use a recognized accounting firm to provide audited results for people who want to know?

<comment><USER3> There isn't a lot of substance but the Enron comparison is awfully loaded. The article specifically calls out the use of off balance sheet entities to hide costs-- for people who follow this stuff, that immediately triggers memories of Enron's use of special purpose entities and Lehman's Repo 105 off balance sheet shenanigans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is more likely: that Alibaba is making up its numbers, or that Yahoo has actually made one good investment in the last six years?

Ponder that thought for a bit. I don't know if you actually need to open up an accounting book to know something's fishy :)

</comment><comment><USER5> >"What the company is really earning we don't know," says Chanos. "My experience with Chinese companies is that what you don't know is generally not good news"

Makes sense to me, if it was good news why wouldn't they tell you?

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's fair of the author to single out Chinese companies. Any company based outside the US that trades on a public US stock exchange (ADRs) files in a different fashion than US-based companies including requirements disclosed and timing of the filing[1]

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/internatl/foreign- priv...](https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/internatl/foreign-private- issuers-overview.shtml#IIIB1a)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Malls in China are starting to hollow-out because people are buying almost everything online. Increasingly, you go to malls for the expensive stuff that can be easily faked as well as for restaurants. So if Alibaba isn't recording a lot of profit, that's because it's engineering ways to put money in useful places, not because it doesn't have customers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, just because their accounts aren't as clear as expected it doesn't mean they will go down or that they aren't profitable

<comment><USER9> The question posed in the article is how much is being stolen from investors via pouring money into 'other' businesses that Alibaba created externally and excludes from reports, citing their delivery operations as an example.

<comment><USER10> "Stolen" might be a bit strong. They aren't being as open and they could and should, but investing is gambling, there are risks. The information that they weren't clearly showing all expenses is obviously there to be found, Chanos found it. People might feel cheated, but unless laws were broken, this is just a part of the market, and people need to keep that in mind when investing (or lobby for changes in the law).

<comment><USER9> It's possible every penny is well accounted for, but the person being interviewed doesn't seem to share that sentiment even pointing out that the original "Ali Baba" was a thief. The other investor quoted said Alibaba's paperwork looks "faked". They may have their own agendas, but Alibaba seems to be deliberately avoiding any legitimate transparency.

<comment><USER10> Another way to state or interpret what I said in my prior comment is "Unless they actually have broken some laws, all they are doing is playing the game better than most the investors." If they are breaking the law, then they've defrauded investors. If they haven't, even if they've lied, all they've done is just found a new loophole, and investors should have been aware that what they were reading could have been a lie. it's not _fair_ , but that's never been true about the market.

<comment><USER9> The suspicion around this company's accounting practices seems to predate this article. We may find out the truth, and it might be nothing, if the SEC investigates. But that may be hampered by the Chinese government prohibiting audits by the US.

[http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/alibaba-faking-numbers- hedge-f...](http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/alibaba-faking-numbers-hedge-fund/)

[http://fortune.com/2016/02/05/alibaba-stock-pay- disturbing/](http://fortune.com/2016/02/05/alibaba-stock-pay-disturbing/)

[http://www.barrons.com/articles/alibaba-digging-into-the- num...](http://www.barrons.com/articles/alibaba-digging-into-the- numbers-1455944344)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > John Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates,

Spotted the professional cynic.

(Brilliant, making money out of it. The forerunner was famously dirt, live-in- a-barrel, poor. But with the balls to ask Alexander to "stand a little out of my sun.")</comment>


if the company were founded today on an empty lot, we would build the buildings brick by brick. - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/04/09/a_google_interv.html <comment><USER2> I disagree that Dell is a similar company to Google. Google designs, innovates, and improves their own products. Dell is more similar to Nike-- neither manufactures anything. They manage their brand identity (including picking out some options out of a supplier catalog about what their future laptops will look like) and spend money on advertising, but they do not make any of the actual components--not one. Dell is not a technology company any more than Nike is one. Dell does do simple assembly, but I don't think it's very technical stuff to put 7 components together on an assembly line.

HP is a tech company because they design printers and manufacture calculators. Apple is definitely a tech company (software, itunes, etc.) Sony? Not sure. Dell? Same as Nike.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://valleywag.com/tech/startups/why-google-wont-buy-you-250885.php>

Valleywag's opinion on the same quote....</comment>


Decentralized Identity Trilemma - <AUTHOR> http://maciek.blog/decentralized-identity-trilemma/ <comment><USER2> > The trilemma exists because we do not have a decentralized source of > scarcity for human capital.

It seems like the author insists that each human only gets one identity. However, this cannot work because it is also not Privacy-preserving. By extended use of a single identity your privacy is eventually violated by a correlation attack (just like your anonymous location data quickly reveals your identity because you go from home to work every day).

If you do allow several identities as long as they come with a price a proof of work scheme should be sufficient to make identities scarce.</comment>


On the Road in 1980 - <AUTHOR> https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/july-august-2019/on-the-road/ <comment><USER2> You'd be surprised how easy it _still_ is to hitchhike across America, and how many good people you'll meet.

A friend of mine persuaded me to try it a few years back. I was skeptical. I'd heard the cautionary tales, figured the narrative that we've become a low- trust society was basically correct, and definitely didn't expect people to invite _two_ strange men into their car. And yet that is exactly what happened, 3 or 4 times a day, for a week and a thousand miles.

Not everyone was a shining beacon of light, but some genuinely were, and the cross section of humanity was a continual surprise. (The article captures this well.) There was a bagpiper, a young ex-marine, a woman who may have been stealing ming vases, a social worker and her sister who took us on a tour of the Snake River, and an air traffic controller on the way to his mother's funeral. He only mentioned that about 4 hours in. A common thread was that people were in a "real" place in life. We were too — hitchhiking asks you to be vulnerable. You might stand by an on-ramp for the better part of a day while a stream of cars passes you and passes judgment on you. You learn to let go of things you can't control.

I had to end my trip in Salt Lake City, a place I didn't know much about and had never thought of visiting. I loved it so much I left NYC and moved here. It's been 8 years now. Funny to think it all started with a hitchhike! You never know what's out on the road.

<comment><USER3> In poorer countries it is often a necessity.

Romania is being shaken by the case of a serial killer choosing his very young victims from poor rural areas who were hitchhiking, so I'm pretty sure the hitchhiking culture will change.

I've never hitchhiked myself, but I used to pick up hitchhikers before I was married and had children.

No great stories besides children up to no good, a drunken lady who had no idea where she wanted to go,on which I was able to use "the voice" to trick her into leaving my car, but mostly poor and weary people trying to make ends meet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the mid-1990s I hitched across the UK.

Not once, but constantly for 2.5 years.

I was homeless, rough sleeping, and instead of choosing hostels I chose to travel the UK - this was a survival tactic, hostels were not nice or safe places. I would hitch from one city to another, and my sign would simply say "North" or "South".

I had the greatest chance of being picked up at the slip road exiting a service station. So sometimes if I woke in a city I would walk 10-15 miles to get to the first service station on a motorway out of town. This is easy around London or in the midlands, but really hard in the South West.

The people I met... oh wow. It was almost exclusively solo male drivers who picked people up. They were doing long road journeys and wanted company and to stay awake and engaged. To not fall asleep at the wheel.

Your role as a hitcher... to be a graceful, clean, respectful passenger and to bring conversation and to know when to be quiet.

The people though. I once was picked up by one of the Birmingham Six [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six) , on another occasion by a man who was dying and using his remaining months talking to people by picking them up hitching. There were saviours who would go out of their way in deep winter to get me somewhere safe. There were others who were themselves a danger and the propositions I received were... out there. I only once felt the need to do a runner at the first opportunity.

Mostly though, people were incredibly kind, considerate, cool.

And universally, everyone that picked me up said that the reason they did so was that they had once hitched and felt a need to continue to offer that kindness now that they had the means to pick someone up and give them a lift.

</comment><comment><USER5> Back in the 1970s I hitched across the US about 3 times, over various routes, and all of Heren's story rings true to me, especially the huge variety of drivers willing to offer rides. About a third to a half of the people who picked me up remarked, in almost the same words, "I used to hitch when I was younger, but it feels too dangerous now" [<1980]. It was troubling to find, more recently, that my youthful sense of immortality had faded, leaving me saying the same words to younger people.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hitchhiked quite often in Europe around the turn of the century. Something that was unheard of in my suburban middle American youth. It seemed like the most normal thing in the world in Central Europe/The Baltics especially with travelers in orderly queues respecting who arrived first etc. Mostly it was great and someone would pick you up in short order and the resultant conversations were interesting. Occasionally you'd get dropped in a bad spot or an unlucky time and you'd wait a while. Only once did I give up and take a train after 24 hours of nothing and sleeping overnight on a park bench in the rain. I'd love to have the health and freedom of those days again.

I experienced everything from dirt poor people in rusting apart cars who were willing to share everything they had with you, to people in obscenely expensive suits and luxury rides who were unbothered by your road grime. A particularly memorable trip was in a high end Mercedes at terrifying speeds from Genoa, Italy through southern France, and having/getting to wander around Monaco for a few hours in while the driver tended to some business there on the way. The cheapest thing I could find to drink was a 10 Euro lemonade at a cafe as I watched private helicopters come and go from a seaside heliport. Definitely too rich a place for me, but one I never though I would see.

</comment><comment><USER7> The concept of hitchhiking is such an anachronism now that I had to suspend disbelief as I watched "once upon a time I Hollywood" that I spent most of the time reconciling being the hitchhiker and the driver and why either side would feel like this is a rational option.

<comment><USER8> I don't know when but hitchhiking from roadways (it's okay from parking lots and similar) became an offense in California sometime in the seventies I guess. That said I've picked up hitchhikers a couple of times but not just random people. The context is broken down car, but not s beater, and people didn't look out of place (suspicious). But yeah it's s rarity.</comment></comment>


Supersonic passenger jets might make a comeback - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-supersonic-jets-20170202-story.html <comment><USER2> Nice to hear. Concorde was a beautiful airplane, but limited to '60s technology (it even had vacuum tubes in the flight deck computers). But it did pave the way for a lot of technological advances at that time, such as carbon brakes etc.

Be good to see what engineers can come up with using current technology to make things stronger, faster and lighter.

Always intrigued by the fluctuations in the airline industry. I remember a time when it was said 'smaller aircraft were dead, and it is the time of the super jumbos', and now the reverse is true with airlines shunning huge aircraft for smaller aircraft that can do regional hops.

Given that the R&D and deployment process for a new aircraft type is measured over decades, it would be incredibly difficult to build a plane today that will fit the market in 10 years time. Hats off to Boeing, Airbus, Embraer et al for their efforts.

<comment><USER3> They never replaced the computers with transistors ?

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying this was necessarily true for the Concorde, but sometimes you really do need a vacuum tube.

All commercial x-ray sources use tubes, for example. The magnetrons that power our microwave ovens are vacuum tube oscillators.

And by their nature, tubes are much faster than semiconductors, which has its uses.

<comment><USER5> Where are tubes faster than semiconductors?

<comment><USER4> [http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/introducing-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/introducing- the-vacuum-transistor-a-device-made-of-nothing)

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/05/return-vacuum- tube](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/05/return-vacuum-tube)

These links will get you started.

<comment><USER5> These articles don't say that regular tubes are faster than transistors, only that "vacuum-channel transistors" (nano-scale devices inspired by tubes but different) could possibly eventually be faster than semiconductors.

But these articles are from 2014 and 2012 and they contradict easily looked up facts. The 2012 article claims that this technology promises speeds of up to 460GHz, which seems to have already been topped by regular semiconductor transistors, even by 2003: See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Feng#World.27s_fastest_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Feng#World.27s_fastest_transistor) for a really old example.

So to me it seems that this research is in a very early stage and no one knows whether the finished product (if it is ever finished) will be faster than semiconductors. Of course the researchers working on this must make big promises or they wouldn't get grants, but that's how the grant system works today, and it doesn't tell you anything about how viable the product is.

edit: Not to sound to negative here, I am really looking forward to this new technology and hope it will turn out alright. But it looks very much like fundamental research, so I take issue with broad claims like "by their nature, tubes are much faster than semiconductors, which has its uses", when apparently nothing has left the laboratory yet.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate the links.

Here's a more recent link, specifically regarding terahertz research, you might find interesting.

[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6463/50/4/043...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6463/50/4/043001)

I want to emphasize an important distinction: that vacuum-based amps have higher potential switching speeds than semiconductors is not a novel thing, nor is it early stage research. It is part and parcel of the nature of semiconductors. What _is_ cutting-edge is miniaturization of vacuum-based systems using conventional fab processes. That's the exciting stuff!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What about climate change [1], and using less fossil fuels? We need the opposite - less first class, less business class seats, less private jets, to maximise the people who can travel per the same quantity of fuel. A typical passengers aircraft burns ~ 48 tons (!) of fuel to cross the Atlantic [2]. Part of the refugees issue happens exactly because of the warming and drought [3]

[1][http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change- gam...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over- global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html) [2][https://www.quora.com/How-much-fuel-do-airplanes-flying- acro...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-fuel-do-airplanes-flying-across-the- Atlantic-use) [3][http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-a-lack-of- water-...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to- blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/)

<comment><USER7> I'm not one of them but why rich people can't ever have nice things?

Just tax the heck out of them to offset whatever damage they cause to the environment, they're price insensitive anyway.

<comment><USER8> For that to work you have to ensure there are no loopholes to avoid the taxation, that any offsetting actually works, and that no one tries to "disrupt" the industry by ignoring the rules. Not to mention the environmental impacts you can't offset such as the noise pollution suffered by everyone on the plane's flight path. It's far more effective to ban supersonic passenger flight.

There are some "nice things" that money shouldn't be able to buy because they have too much downside for everyone else. Regardless of how much money you have, you still have to share Earth with everyone else.

<comment><USER9> > Not to mention the environmental impacts you can't offset such as the noise > pollution suffered by everyone on the plane's flight path. It's far more > effective to ban supersonic passenger flight.

When you first read a paragraph like this without experiencing what airplane noise pollution actually means you say to yourself: "How bad that can actually be? The airplanes fly at an altitude of 10,000m, I'm sure it can't be that bad. Right?"

Wrong. Since the Ukrainian Civil War started lots of large airplanes have been diverted to fly above my parents' country house, somewhere in Eastern Europe. The closest airport is located at about 140 km, but it doesn't matter, because at least once every hour you can hear those damn big "birds" flying 10km above you. It's even more unsettling when you notice them at 5 in the morning, as you had quickly woken up ready to fall asleep again but you now can't because there's that nasty airplane noise making its way through the house's concrete walls.

Supersonic flying over populated areas would increase that shitty noise exponentially.

<comment><USER10> I'm going to have to disagree. I grew up on a farm, and yes, outdoors on a calm day, you can hear jets flying over at 30000'. But, it is very quiet: easily drowned out by wind rustling in the trees and such. I would be very surprised if you heard it indoors. Perhaps, with a window open, but even then it will be drowned out by things like the refrigerator running. Frankly, it may have woken you up because it was an unfamiliar sound, but certainly not because it was loud. Either that, or the airplane you are complaining about is at significantly lower altitude than you imagine.

<comment><USER9> It happened more than once, and by looking at that airplane radar app I saw that there are lots of A380s flying above my parents' house each day. It is an airplane-spotter's dream location, though, on a clear and sunny day I was able to count 6 (six) airplanes flying above my head at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the unbridled optimism just unfathomable. Here's two examples of plain old jet programs, small jets at that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Regional_Jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Regional_Jet) 1.5 billion dollars. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_CSeries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_CSeries) 5.4 billion dollars.

This is not a piece of software app that you can just launch whenever you feel ready full of bugs. You can't pull an Uber and say, hey fuck regulations, we will just do it ([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber- self...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving- cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco)). Yeah, sure, if you want to fly between Inner and Outer Camelstan then you might get away with the very fashionable "disrupt" shit but if you want to fly airspaces controlled by the FAA, EASA, CASA -- and let's face it, the money is in New York, London and Sydney -- then you need to do better.

This is going to cost 5-10 billion dollars at least just based on the very fact that the C Series costed 5B and I can't see what here would make it cheaper. And it's not easy to see how are you going to recuperate that much money, this is not a big market and while obviously time is money, it's a very big question of just how much money. Gulfstream delivers 140 planes a year [https://www.wsj.com/articles/general-dynamics-profit- rises-9...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/general-dynamics-profit- rises-9-1453905234) with about 2-2.5b profit a year. I absolutely can not see how these numbers will stack up. Is this another venture capitalist fueled hype? VC invests, hypes it up, gets rid of the stock, small investors at the end get to hold the bag.

<comment><USER12> > I find the unbridled optimism just unfathomable.

Agreed. This is due to fawning "enthusiast" type reporters with little understanding of the technical issues or the history. But then, which field is free of this phenomenon when reported by non-specialist press? Even specialist press (e.g., Aviation Week) tends to be overly credulous. The big publications that captured my imagination growing up, like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, are really not any better.

The people with the longest head start and most interesting technology are the Aerion crowd, and they have been gestating for years without a lot of hardware to show for it. Boom, Spike, and others are receiving too little skepticism, IMO.

<comment><USER11> You do not even need to be aware of the nitty-gritty details, it's enough to look at any jet program costs. Heck, even the Russians [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100) couldn't build a regional jet below 1.5B.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We've been here before. There was Aereon[1] They announced they were building a $120 million supersonic bizjet back in 2015. It was going to cost $80 million in 2007. Their web site hasn't been updated in more than a year.

It's not impossible, but the market is small. The total number of known private jets in the world above $100m is about 10. There's one guy with a private Airbus 380, and a few Boeing Business Jets, including Trump's. Boeing has about 12 more Business Jets on order, but most of those are 737-based.

[1] [http://www.aerionsupersonic.com](http://www.aerionsupersonic.com)

<comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure that there are more large private aircraft in the Middle East alone. They might be reported as government property to avoid scrutiny though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Concorde was an incredible achievement considering the time it was built and a very beautiful airplane. It was very fuel inefficient, both because at the time of construction the oil crisis had not happened yet, and the limitations of jet engines back then. However, modern cheap air travel is mostly possible because modern jet engines are so much more efficient than their ancestors from the Concorde times. So it is very unfortunate, that the Concorde was built but that it did not trigger any iterations of the concept, just picking up all the advances in jet engine and body material construction.

<comment><USER16> > It was very fuel inefficient

my understanding is that Concorde engines are among the most efficient built to date - they had something like 70:1 compress ratio. It is juts the nature of high speed flying that you have to burn much more fuel.

>modern jet engines are so much more efficient

because of high-by-pass. Wouldn't work for supersonic.

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_specific_fuel_consumpti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_specific_fuel_consumption#Significance_of_SFC) :

"For example, Concorde cruised at Mach 2.05 with its engines giving an SFC of 1.195 lb/(lbf·h) (see below); this is equivalent to an SFC of 0.51 lb/(lbf·h) for an aircraft flying at Mach 0.85, which would be better than even modern engines; the Olympus 593 was the world's most efficient jet engine.[2][3] However, Concorde ultimately has a heavier airframe and, due to being supersonic, is less aerodynamically efficient, i.e., the lift to drag ratio is far lower. In general the total fuel burn of a complete aircraft is of far more importance to the customer."

<comment><USER17> I don't remember the exact figure, but the last episode of "Aviation Disasters" was on the Concorde, and mentioned that it burned a major amount of fuel just getting to the runway, and because the delta wing was very inefficient at low speeds, burned another big chunk of fuel just getting off the the ground.

<comment><USER2> It's a common bug bear of all aircraft with swept wings designed for supersonic flight. Terribly inneficient at take off/landing speeds.

Which is why most military aircraft have to hook up to a tanker after take off to fill the tanks so they can continue on their mission. Concorde (and other passenger aircraft) don't have this luxury due to the risks involved, so I am thinking that most of the high cost of fuel vs passenger load that is being discussed in this thread is because of the voracious thirst that the plane has in the early stages.

Most supersonic aircraft are quite efficient in the cruise stage. The Lockheed SR-71 for instance, derives a fair percentage of thrust just from the shape of the airframe, so the pilots actually throttle back a little once they reach Mach 2+!

<comment><USER18> It is interesting to hear the SR-71 was so efficient once it got going. Certainly when it was stationary it was possibly the least fuel efficient aircraft ever - its body was designed to leak fuel when on the tarmac. The hot airframe would, once in flight, expand to seal the gaps!

<comment><USER19> The SR-71 was an interesting beast. I've read that due to the constant leaking while on the tarmac they would have to immediately rendezvous with a tanker to refuel after takeoff.

<comment><USER2> I highly recommend you guys try and grab a copy of "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich which is a fantastic story about Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed facility that built the SR-71, U2 etc.

Ben worked alongside Kelly, and said that the guy had an unerring knack for designing aircraft. Ben (an aerodynamics engineer) would spend days designing an intake, and Kelly would come along and take one look at it and say "That is 20% too big", and sure enough, when Ben went back over his calculations, he would find it to be about 18% oversized.

Another great book is "Sled Driver" by Brian Shul - probably one of the best aviation books I've read (and I am a former pilot).

Sadly, I believe both books are out of print now, but you may be able to find a copy somewhere second hand. I've seen "Sled Driver" on eBay for about $3000 from time to time!!

<comment><USER19> I have a copy of "Skunk Works" and it is indeed a great book. Amazon still has it for under $12[1]. And seeing as it's quite popular, most large libraries should have a copy as well.

It's great that you brought up "Sled Driver", I'm actually currently saving up to buy a copy. Brian Shul still has new copies available on his website for $250[2]. I think the copies that go for very high prices on eBay are the first editions or some of the special commemorative versions.

May I ask your opinion on the print quality of "Sled Driver"? I know Shul is a photographer, in addition to being a former SR-71 pilot, so I assume the photographic print quality is quite high. Have your read his companion book "The Untouchables"?

[1][https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/...](https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/dp/0316743003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486205417&sr=8-1&keywords=skunk+works)

[2][http://galleryoneimages.com/Hangar/index.php?cPath=22](http://galleryoneimages.com/Hangar/index.php?cPath=22)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I think mine is a first edition - a friend gave it to me about 25+ years ago. It is a treasured book in my house.

The photos in there are nice, but I would say it is on par with most coffee table style books that I've seen. Wonderful photos, but the print quality is about the same as most books of that era. To be honest, I got so caught up in the stories he tells in there that I can't recall a lot about the photography - I will have to revisit it and check it out.

Great that he has started republishing the books again. I remember about 10 years ago when it was out of print, copies were going for about $6000+ on eBay !! o_O I thought I was sitting on a goldmine. :D

I haven't read "The Untouchables", but will put a copy on my wishlist for this year. Can't get enough of books about great planes and great pilots.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the response. I didn't realize Sled Driver was first published that long ago. I'm certainly glad he is offering newer editions, even if they are still quite pricey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder what the cost effectiveness of ballistic sub-orbital flights would be. That would solve much of the fuel efficiency problem.

<comment><USER20> At the expense of 'Everybody dies if the slightest thing goes wrong.' And 'Everybody better be wearing space suits... Unless you want to get Souz-11'ed.

There is more then an order of magnitude of complexity between designing a vehicle that can travel at Mach 2, and one that can travel at Mach 22. Personally, I'd pass on the risks of hypersonic re-entry for my SEA->NYC flight... And on having to pee into an astronaut diaper.

Space travel (And a ballistic suborbital hop is 90% of the way there) is, as a mode of transportation, incredibly dangerous.

<comment><USER21> Why space suits? Just pressurize the cabin so everybody can breathe. As for Gs, just make sure they're pointed toward the back of the seats and you won't need G suits.

<comment><USER22> See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11)

<comment><USER21> Didn't know about that one. Thanks for the link. Still, passenger jets are pressurized today and they rarely lose pressure. The technology is much more reliable now.

<comment><USER23> IIRC pressure loss incidents are common, but not newsworthy because nothing really bad happens. The air pressure is still high enough to allow people to breathe, so you just need to supply oxygen-enriched air while the plane descends to 10000 feet.

With suborbital flights, neither breathing nor descending more quickly would be an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd like to see a 3-Dimensional scatter graph, showing what customers will accept in terms of three variables:

• Comfort • Speed • Price

I wonder how post-Concorde passenger jets would fit in, assuming they ever made it down to our level.

</comment><comment><USER25> For those with ad blockers:

[http://archive.is/U2cOP](http://archive.is/U2cOP)

</comment><comment><USER26>
        > A flight from Los Angeles
        > to Tokyo would take about
        > five hours, compared with
        > almost 12 hours today

Beating JAL or ANA first class, even with a seven hour reduction, will take some doing.

<comment><USER27> It also overstates its effect on total travel time-- which includes all the other nonsense (like the TSA) and planned buffering against uncertain delays that makes it frustrating. You'll burn a day crossing the Pacific either way.

<comment><USER28> It's not even so much TSA--getting through security in the US only takes me 5-10 minutes typically with Pre-Check. But I hate to feel like I'm rushing so I do build in buffer. I have to get to the gateway city (which is almost never Boston), with a reasonable allowance between flights. I'm an hour to the airport. Clearing immigration/customs can take a while. Getting into an Asian capitol from the airport can easily be another hour.

As you say, even cutting out 5 to 6 hours isn't that big a deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For me personally the issue is not with a flight the time but with comfort. The other day I flu JetBlue mint from LA to New York and I never felt better after the flight. The problem with my flights to Europe are incredibly narrow and uncomfortable seats and limited leg space. I just can't physically sit in those economy seats even for 2 hours...I'm 6'3" btw

<comment><USER30> And since the airlines want you to upgrade to first or business class, they have little incentive to make economy class bearable.

<comment><USER28> It's also driven by the fact that a lot of people (and many corporate travel departments) pick flights strictly based on price so anything you can do to appear at the top of the travel agent listing sorted by price gets you business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There's a really good vox video on why the Concord failed:

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

<comment><USER31> The biggest reason Concord wasn't successful was the sonic boom.

This is why it only ever flew transatlantic. It was originally envisioned to also fly across the US, e.g. NYC to LA, but this was banned due to noise concerns.

Had the Concord been permitted to fly over the continental US, it could have been much more successful than it was.

<comment><USER32> The biggest reason Concord wasn't successful was that it was banned from flying over continental US.

How much that was because of the sonic boom is a matter of some debate.

<comment><USER31> > How much that was because of the sonic boom is a matter of some debate.

No, it's actually not a matter of debate at all. See FAR 91.817 [0]

 _No person may operate a civil aircraft in the United States at a true flight Mach number greater than 1_

[0] [http://www.risingup.com/fars/info/part91-817-FAR.shtml](http://www.risingup.com/fars/info/part91-817-FAR.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Maybe I'm a bit pessimistic, but these 'might' headlines are never followed up by the real thing. It helps me to read these headlines a bit different: might = won't. In casu: _Supersonic passenger jets won 't make a comeback_

<comment><USER34> Janwillembs Law of Headlines

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is individual travel time so important that we should spend our limited environmental capital and build supersonic passenger jets? The Concorde was cool and sexy and destructive. Today's passenger jets, much improved over past aircraft, are still destructive and damaging.

* [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/average-us-family-des...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/average-us-family-destroys-football-fields-worth-arctic-sea-ice-every-30-years)

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation)

</comment><comment><USER36> Wikipedia got nice list of those projects, as usual most of projects never realize. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_transport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_transport) List of potential problems with supersonic jets is also quite long. I guess we've all would love to see progress being made.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was just watching a documentary on the 2000 Concorde crash in France the other day. It had some really good history and technical breakdown of how it worked.

Apparently it was an unusually safe aircraft with no accidents for 30yrs until this incident. I won't ruin it but what caused it is also interesting from an engineering perspective.

[https://youtu.be/nKu_IoJ65gw](https://youtu.be/nKu_IoJ65gw)

</comment><comment><USER38> I feel like increase in inequality between the 1970s and now alone could be enough to make a new Concoard succeed.

Once the powerful are hooked there will be no going back.

<comment><USER39> I was thinking along the same lines - what changes in society have occurred since then that would make any one person need to expend this much fuel to get from point a to point b marginally quicker?

You'd think with advancements in telecommunications - the internet, etc - there'd be even less reason to need to be physically present in a place.

<comment><USER28> People are social. There's still lots of reasons why people want to meet with each other in person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Surprised nobodies posted 'The Submarine', one of PGs many excellent essays[0]. tl;dr: PR is a big submarine, always hiding beneath the surface.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER41> Isn't everything PR?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is NASA co-operating with JAXA on this project? They've been working on a similar project for over a decade and last I heard were doing small scale tests.

</comment><comment><USER43> The challenge facing Boom Aero is making it economically viable, which was Concorde's weak point.

<comment><USER44> Concorde made money for British Airways in every year it flew. Originally, however, they had to return 80% of any operating profit to the UK Government in exchange for a 'Condorde Subsidy'

After BA had been privatised they bought themselves out of that agreement, ending the subsidy but pocketing the profit directly. They then proceeded to operate the fleet for another 20 years.

So, in a British context, on an operating basis Concorde absolutely was economically viable. On a program basis, considering all the development costs, it was not; but then again the Boeing 787 program is > $30 billion in deficit right now and is unlikely to ever clear that.

<comment><USER45> Yeah; on privatisation they were transferred the airframes as a 'fully depreciated asset'.

I'm full of admiration for Concorde as a technical achievement, but it's certainly easier to make a profit if you don't have to pay for your aircraft or initial stock of spares, let alone the development costs of the plane...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Considering the need to lower our carbon footprint and the massive amount of fuel spent in subsonic air travel, this seems wrongish.

</comment><comment><USER47> I refuse to read an article that forces me to whitelist the site in my adblocker. Not because I'm anti-ad, but because their ad code is likely an invasion of privacy.

I don't mind paywalls, but _this_ is egregious to me. Fuck the LA Times.

<comment><USER48> Add the following in uBlock Origin under "My Filters":

      @@||latimes.com^$generichide
      ||tribdss.com^
      latimes.com##[id^=google_ads_iframe]
      latimes.com##[id^=trb_ad]
      latimes.com##.trb_gptAd

Enjoy.

<comment><USER49> Excellent. Thank you!</comment></comment></comment>