Nasa's Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/science/mars-opportunity-rover-dead.html <comment><USER2> Opportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.

<comment><USER3> That story is very much over sold. They defiantly designed the things with a longer lifespan in mind. NASA simply had more reasonable minimum specks so if they died on day 220 nobody would call the program a failure.

<comment><USER4> Oversold?

A group of engineers put a working robot on a moving object 140 _million_ miles away, and that robot trucked along for _fourteen years_.

I honestly do not see any aspect of this which is not totally and completely astonishing, marvelous, and awe-inspiring.

<comment><USER3> They designed it for a winter which means at least 687+ earth days days was considered achievable. Dust was expected to be a larger issue and in many ways they lucked out, but more so as a calculated risk than blind luck.

Distance makes little difference past the first day. Doing the same thing on the moon would not be easier becase it's closer. It's local conditions that make this hard more so than simply getting to that point.

<comment><USER5> I can assure you that the distance took its toll on the rovers, in my understanding. Their wheel surfaces eroded, oil pumps failed, bearings degraded and they ended up dragging dead wheels in the end.

<comment><USER6> Are you talking about the distance the rovers traveled while on mars? Because that's not what Retric is talking about. Retric is talking about the distance from the earth to mars (hence why they compared it to the moon).

<comment><USER5> Ah, my mistake; I misunderstood their comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Steven Squyres, the Principal Scientist of the program came to Microsoft to give a talk. One of the best talks I've been to.

So many interesting tidbits like the parts about the rovers expected short lifetime due to the dust, and how (if I remember correctly) they fixed this by shaking the solar panels like wings.

He talked about the rover drivers, and how they all had to live in special light cycle controlled buildings to get them used to working on Martian days vs. Earth (the extra hour adds up over time).

He wrote a book, a worthy read. The printing I got had some amazing pictures in it:

[https://www.amazon.com/Roving-Mars-Spirit-Opportunity- Explor...](https://www.amazon.com/Roving-Mars-Spirit-Opportunity-Exploration- ebook/dp/B000FCKC9M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550107198&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=steven+squyres&dpPl=1&dpID=41NPVsOJAKL&ref=plSrch)

RIP Opportunity. An amazing testament to our need to explore.

<comment><USER8> I was really fortunate to have him as an astronomy professor right around the time of the launch. He's great at making complex things easy to understand, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Highly recommend his book, but if you've only got an hour here's a good video conversation.

* Roving Mars with Steve Squyres - Conversations with History - YouTube || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6KEzsb26U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6KEzsb26U)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers:

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

That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000)

"Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general commercial market in 1996"

Anybody know why the per unit cost is so high? Low yields or is it that much more expensive?

<comment><USER10> I saw a video once saying that SpaceX uses general purpose computers on the rockets instead of specific purpose hardware. If I'm not mistaken, they amount to 6 and have a checking system to assure the output of them is the same.

<comment><USER11> Those "have N copies and compare them" systems then have the issue that whatever does the comparison is a single point of failure. You could use multiple comparison units and have a second level comparison check them, but then that is your single point of failure, and so on.

I've been told, but never actually looked it up, that there is a theorem that proves you always have to have at least one single point of failure.

I don't know if the following is actually true, or just a rumor, but I've heard that at least one aircraft whose mission called for very high reliability didn't have a comparison unit: the redundancy extended all the way to having the 3 independent flight control computers each control a separate actuator on each flight control surface. If one of the systems went bad and tried to move the surface incorrectly, the other two would physically overpower it.

That still has a single point of failure, but now that point is the control surface itself. If your control surface itself has failed it no longer matters if the 3 computers controlling it agree.

<comment><USER12> > _I 've been told, but never actually looked it up, that there is a theorem > that proves you always have to have at least one single point of failure._

In what context? There's a theorem that arbitrarily-reliable computation can be done with noisy components, as long as the noise is below some threshold (e.g. picture less than 1 error per 10 operations). [1]

1: von Neumann, J. (1956). "Probabilistic Logics and Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components", in Automata Studies, eds. C. Shannon and J. McCarthy, Princeton University Press, pp. 43–98 [http://www.cyclify.com/wiki/images/a/af/Von_Neumann_Probabil...](http://www.cyclify.com/wiki/images/a/af/Von_Neumann_Probabilistic_Logics_and_the_Synthesis_of_Reliable_Organisms_from_Unreliable_Components.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please have one minute of silence to remember this wonderful machine that gave us all so much...

Kudos to all those who contributed to make this such an overwhelming success.

Science FTW.

<comment><USER14> Earth minute or Martian minute?

<comment><USER13> Excellent question. I assumed that one mars minute differs from an earth minute but I just learned that they don't. Seconds, minutes and hours are universal. Hours in a day is what varies by planets, moons etc. Funny that I never thought of that before :)

<comment><USER15> It just depends on what your definition of a Martian minute is. If you define it as 1/(24*60) of a Martian day, it is different from an Earth minute.

<comment><USER16> You're likely joking, but just in case: on earth the second is not defined as a fraction of the day, it's a SI unit defined as a constant count of energy level variations of an caesium-133 atom.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for that clarification. After this, I was able to find the International System of Units Wikipedia page which clearly defines a second as per your summary. It's a relief to see that it's a constant formula like that of the Kilogram.

<comment><USER17> I was suprised to learn (from the wiki page) that the kelvin, mole, and ampere do not have exact numerical definitions yet, though I guess that's expected to change in May of this year.

And then there's the candela, still basically defined by how luminous whale blubber is when it is burning:

> Current (1979): The luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source > that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 5.4×1014 hertz and that has > a radiant intensity in that direction of 1 / 683 watt per steradian.

> Note: both old and new definitions are approximately the luminous intensity > of a whale blubber candle burning modestly bright, in the late 19th century > called a "candlepower" or a "candle".

<comment><USER18> What happens in May?

<comment><USER17> World Metrology Day, where acceptance of these standards will be voted on.

[https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/11/historic- vote-...](https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/11/historic-vote-ties- kilogram-and-other-units-natural-constants)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> End of an era. We'll meet Opportunity again one day.

Same thing happened with Cassini. It's kinda poetic to see these outposts of Humanity's reach fade out after a sublime performance.

<comment><USER20> More interesting would be when someone else from another species finds them in a couple of million years in the future and wonders what their purpose was all about.

<comment><USER21> Cassini was deliberately pushed into Saturn's atmosphere and destroyed (so as not to potentially contaminate habitable worlds) so we probably don't need to worry about that.

Also, there's a great documentary TV series called "7 Days Out" on Netflix which covers the last week of the Cassini mission.

<comment><USER22> I watched that show "7 Days Out" specifically for the Cassini mission. It did not disappoint. There were feelings involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You know the craziest thing about all of the mars exploration programs is to me?

The first time there is an entire full-up test of the system is live, AT MARS. There isn't a good way to test the entire entry descent and landing sequence because the earth's atmosphere is so different than mars. I know NASA works hard to test parts of it in the vicinity of earth, but I can't imagine designing something so complicated (especially the system for curiosity) and then not being able to test it completely before the real thing.

<comment><USER24> I've actually read, that the upper part of the atmosphere, where a returning Falcon 9 booster does retro burns to slow down, is similar to Mars (in terms of pressure I guess).

edit: found a paper on the topic [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201700...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008725.pdf)

also: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/spacex-has- already-d...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/spacex-has-already- demonstrated-its-key-mars-landing-tech-with-the-falcon-9/)

<comment><USER23> I had heard about them doing some study of using an inflatable heat shield and testing in earth's upper. I guess it could be used for Earth or Mars. Neat!

Link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgDZZIsWA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgDZZIsWA4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Opportunity is going to be the standard for longevity that all future rovers are measured against until one surpasses it.

If you said you expected a rover to last 5yr in 2004 you'd have been called crazy. Here we are in 2019 and after ~15yr of Opportunity driving around up there the idea of rover lasting 5yr or seems perfectly normal. Opportunity has raised the bar for all future missions.

<comment><USER26> Curiosity is doing well at about 6.5 years and had a 2 year mission but it probably won't stay fully operational that long. Its RTG could last that long but it will eventually stop producing enough power for the rover to move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Scott Manley has some interesting tidbits, as always [https://youtu.be/w2oFtu_KAbI](https://youtu.be/w2oFtu_KAbI)

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't give up just yet, guys! Get one of the new rovers to find some water on mars, take a microfiber cloth...maybe a squeegee...

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it possible for someone other than NASA to send a message to the rover? I'd be happy throwing a little money at a project to ping it monthly to see if there is a response.

<comment><USER30> Yes and unlikely :-) The protocols are all documented but the ability to receive signals from the rover requires a pretty sensitive receiver and antenna combination. If you have the resources to build a 10m or 15m steerable radio antenna parabolic dish then you could probably manage it.

<comment><USER31> That can't be that expensive unless you want it to be storm proofed. But it wouldn't be super cheap either, the receiver is probably going to be a bigger problem.

[http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/dish-antenna- building.htm](http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/dish-antenna-building.htm)

Would be a good starting point. But keeping it stable under wind load is going to be the major challenge. That would be one heck of a project, it would likely take a few years of your time to pull it off.

<comment><USER30> This quora answer ([https://www.quora.com/What-bands-signals-and-protocols- are-u...](https://www.quora.com/What-bands-signals-and-protocols-are-used-in- the-communication-from-the-Mars-rovers-satellites-to-Earths-NASA-ISRO-and- other-agencies)) claims that even the 70m DSN antennas have a hard time hearing the rover to earth transmissions. That is 10x the diameter so 1000x the surface area of a 4.8m dish like the one the guy built.

That said, there are no doubt interesting hacks you can do to help this but steerability is always going to be a concern to maximize the SNR of the very weak signal coming from the rover.

<comment><USER31> Yes, the precision required would be insane. That is _also_ what makes this an interesting project, even if you fail you will still learn a ton about all kinds of engineering principles. Expensive lesson though!

Another big factor would likely be how far Mars is away from Earth, at the close extreme it will probably be substantially easier to pull this off.

What an interesting article by the way, thank you for that link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It was such an amazing mission and it went so well.

The idea that we send a robot to another planet and it drives around for that long still astounds me.

</comment><comment><USER33> CCC talk on Curiosity rover onboard computers, for those interested - [https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9783-the_mars_rover_on- board_com...](https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9783-the_mars_rover_on- board_computer) (different rover, different CPU - RAD750 instead of RAD6000 that's on Opportunity)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm feeling humbled by NASA's achievements compared to those of our profession here wrt sustainability and longevity.

<comment><USER35> I built some warehousing apps in VFP 20 years ago and they're still running fine. Every time I go ship something the owner asks me to prune and reindex the DB and that's it, another year running smooth.

<comment><USER36> CA Clipper app that I updated to Visual Fox Pro back in 1998 is still chugging along running an oil company's accounts payable/receivable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm really sad that the mission is over, it was an amazing piece of hardware!

Thanks Opportunity, for all the knowledge you gave us. Thanks for the amazing pictures you sent us. Rest in Peace.

</comment><comment><USER38> In an IT industry magazine website (Information Week? not sure) had an article about an IT engineer at JPL who was picked/trained to be one of the drivers of the rovers. He was just a normal IT guy, but got the chance to be a driver for the rover.

He recalled that the first night after he spent a day driving the rover on Mars, he couldn't sleep at home. He had just driven a vehicle on the Mars. Certainly one of the first in human history.

</comment><comment><USER39> How much money would you pay me if I were to travel to Mars, find it, and bring it home?

<comment><USER40> I'd argue that Opportunity is already home...

<comment><USER39> Fair. I'm embarrassed to have been so presumptuous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It will be interesting to go visit this in person in 10-20 years.

</comment><comment><USER42> And it will never be forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER43> RIP we will never forget you.

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://xkcd.com/1504/](https://xkcd.com/1504/)

<comment><USER45> And the related follow-up: [https://xkcd.com/2111/](https://xkcd.com/2111/)

<comment><USER46> This one always breaks my heart: [https://xkcd.com/695/](https://xkcd.com/695/)

(It's about Spirit, not Opportunity, but still).

<comment><USER47> Some people weren't happy, so...

(fan made) [https://i.imgur.com/VbKV9DF.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VbKV9DF.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> And it was supposed to last 90 days...

<comment><USER49> It wasn't supposed to last only 90 days, the initial mission specifications were for a 90 day mission.

While it's an engineering marvel no one thought that it would last only 90 days if it successfully landed and deployed, the 90 days was a minimum figure for the design and also the initial operating budget for the mission.

<comment><USER50> I too get annoyed at seeing this fun fact.

It's really hard to engineer something that will last 90 days. It's much easier to overbuilld it, which fulfills the requirement of 90 days.

It was designed to last as long as possible within the given weight and size budget.

<comment><USER49> Yep one of the reasons that it lasted so long was that it was too small for an RTG so as long as it the solar panels were still somewhat intact it could operate even if the battery would essentially be completely dead.

The 90 day figure is simply the time period for which NASA asked for money to operate the thing no one is going to ask for 2, 5 not to mention 15 years worth of operating budget you usually get a few months at the time and extend it based on your needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> [https://outline.com/L2pyN4](https://outline.com/L2pyN4)

</comment><comment><USER52> Fare thee well.

</comment><comment><USER53> Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1504/](https://xkcd.com/1504/)

<comment><USER54> Today's [https://xkcd.com/2111/](https://xkcd.com/2111/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Seems like they could just send a drone to go wipe off the solar panels...

<comment><USER56> I'm reminded of this entry in the wikiwiki: "Just" is a dangerous word.

[http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord](http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord)

<comment><USER57> I recall having a chat with someone with a poor understanding of chemistry, and they asked why we couldn't "just have tiny robots take the carbon dioxide and turn it back into gasoline again"

<comment><USER58> I think it's safe to say that person had a poor understanding of a lot of things, not just chemistry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Self driving terraforming robots would be an excellent testbed for AI technologies. What is the reason for pushing humans again?

<comment><USER60> The discussion around humans vs robots in space in historically deep conversation with scientific, technical, and philosophical aspects. Do not simply brush it off without understanding the context.

<comment><USER59> that doesnt answer my question

<comment><USER61> AI doesn't work nearly as well as you seem to think it does. For something as excruciatingly difficult as a space mission, humans have proven to be well up to the task. The headline of this article here is one illustrative data point.

Furthermore, many methods that are currently classified as "AI" act because of very complex and often opaque emergent behavior, and we often have a hard time (or don't know at all) why a CNN for example behaves as it does, or even how exactly it behaves. Do you want something that you neither understand nor can predict to perform a crucial job in your space mission?

<comment><USER62> If space exploration were a robot-first, robot-only affair, we would probably have cheaper, better, far more capable robots today... And also more humans in space then the 3 that currently occupy the ISS.

<comment><USER59> actually, since the end of the cold war, space exploration is a robot-first endeavor (and apart from ISS robot-only -- think of the countless exploratory missions, hubble, the rovers etc). the ISS barely counts as space exploration

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Seriously, what is the point of space exploration anyway? and what if we found water on Mars? shouldn't it be a huge amount of water to support life?

<comment><USER64> We've found water on Mars, but we've also found ancient river and lake beds, deltas, and minerals that can only be found in water on areas of Mars where no water currently exists.

We wouldn't know any of that without having gone there to explore it.

By learning about the mechanisms behind why Mars went from water-rich planet to its current state, we learn more about what could happen us, its closest neighbor.

There also remains the possibility Mars could currently harbor life, or once did and there's evidence of that to uncover. Mars represents our best chance of finding direct evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Please try to have a richer view of this.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there concensus on what is good online marketing advice? - <AUTHOR> Like, is there a book or some resource out there that is widely acknowledged to be good advice?<p>I'm not looking for some cheap trick or an library of dark patterns. I'm just looking at common advice like how to use FB/Google ads effectively and stuff like that. <comment><USER2> If you're looking for channel level advice get the book Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares. Then think who your customers are, what you're good at, how much you can afford to acquire them (1/3 of the lifetime value is a good yardstick) then choose a channel that fits those things you've identified the best.</comment>


Ten years on from Norway's quota for women on corporate boards - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/business/21737079-gender-quotas-board-level-europe-have-done-little-boost-corporate-performance-or?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/tenyearsonfromthefirstquotaforwomenoncorporateboardstheoldgirlsnetwork <comment><USER2> Equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity... Many things have been said by other, better informed and more eloquent people than me. I noticed this however:

        "At least ten more years"

And that makes me wonder if and when this will turn into something akin the "Communism / Captialism / Whatever concept has never been tried/implemented _properly_"

Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good.

<comment><USER3> >Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good.

Well, isn't it just convenient that if we don't strive for equality of outcome then life will just have to remain tilted in favor of white/asian men

<comment><USER4> Does the fact that asian men are included not rule out racism and open the door to examine the issue further?

<comment><USER5> Uh, no not really?

That biases about race might be changing form doesn't "rule out" the idea of racism. You might as well say the increased inclusion of Irish people in the last few decades rules out racism in that period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do this quotas, with harsh penalties, work in practice in this example :

1\. company have all male board members

2\. company is great and successful and not one of the board members want to switch the job

3\. deadline for quota is approaching

Do the company now need to fire 30% of this guys and is it a valid reason for firing (company can`t get sued)?

<comment> shaki-dora > Do the company now need to fire 30% of this guys and is it a valid reason > for firing (company can`t get sued)?

There was a five-year period for the changeover, so under most circumstances, natural fluctuation would have eliminated all need for firing. Some companies could have also had the possibility to increase the board's size.

But yes, ultimately some firings may have been required. But note that a seat on the board isn't much like a typical job. Board members almost always have a _real_ job, are retired, or sit on multiple boards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Xavier Fontanet, former chief executive of Essilor, a French eyewear > company, quoted Charles de Gaulle as saying "one may not command without > having obeyed"—his point being that women often lack the management > experience that makes a good board director.

who would have thought that we'd hear this argument in 2017!!

Personally, I don't think things like this can be mandated. Yes, there is a gender gap between men and women and yes that needs to be fixed, but you need to target from the ground level and not from the board level.

What we, as a society need to do is to encourage men to be less sexist, for instance, a manger who can hire a male and a female who are both eligble should not hire a male because he 'doesn't want female', that needs to be fixed.

But I think it is wrong to say "hire 5% female candidates"

Because that is not equality. I have seen the reservation system in India and it is horrible, to be honest, it only helps the top % people but the bottom of the food chain is exactly where they were since the start, the bottom of the food chain.

Interestingly, 'reservation for women' was rejected by the female freedom fighters of India because 'they didn't want the superficial equality rights that women want in a few developed democracies' referring to obviously the suffrage movement.

But that being said, the gap exists and it'd be stupid to say that it does not.

<comment><USER3> >What we, as a society need to do is to encourage men to be less sexist, for instance, a manger who can hire a male and a female who are both eligble should not hire a male because he 'doesn't want female', that needs to be fixed.

But there are no managers who will say that. They'll rationalize it a different way that people will buy into.

> I have seen the reservation system in India and it is horrible, to be > honest, it only helps the top % people but the bottom of the food chain is > exactly where they were since the start, the bottom of the food chain.

I have also, and this is the point of the reservation system, to create wealthy powerhouse families in a society which had very few from those castes. For everyone who complains about it, there are many more who appreciate it for the good it does and who understand that reservations are not meant to eliminate poverty (else they'd be based on financial status) but are meant to build power and concentrated wealth in communities which had no opportunities to have such.

In India, before reservations generational wealth had cemented a very strong hierarchy. Overturning that hierarchy cannot be done solely by providing education equally, there has to be a balance shift somewhere. People are not going to voluntarily give away their inherited wealth and status, so similar wealth and status needs to be built in other communities. The best way to do this is educate some select few in that community, then perhaps they gain wealth from it, now their children get the same education they did, they inherit wealth and build some more, repeat repeat and now you have powerful families in underprivileged communities which could rival the ones in the privileged ones.

<comment><USER7> Do you really think that the reservations based on caste i.e. SC/ST not having a creamy layer is balancing the act?

I had got 150 in IIT JEE, a friend had got 70. I missed the cut off by 30marks, I am from 'open' and he was from SC, he wore woodlands shoes, Rayban glasses and he missed IITB admissions by 5 marks. Can you imagine? We were in the same school etc

Reservations system has run amok, incidentally, even Dr. Ambedkar had said that reservations need to be there only for the first 10yrs otherwise it'd have drastic effects and they are.

I am reading India after Gandhi and I appreciate all that was done by our founding fathers and mothers, I appreciate the fact of reservations, but the madness has to stop.

People ahve started to treat reservation as their 'birthright'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would seem that governments mandating equality works, and that basic equality isn't the end of society or successful corporate-hood as we know it.

Who would've thunk.

<comment><USER9> "Gender quotas at board level in Europe have done little to boost corporate performance or to help women lower down"

Isn't the article saying that they _didn 't_ work?

<comment><USER10> I think the article is saying that the results are inconclusive. They have had little effect in either direction, so now that they are the status quo, there's no reason not to keep them. Arguments of excessive regulatory overhead may or may not be compelling, but they have an uphill battle to fight.

<comment><USER11> keeping stuff that doesn't show results but feels good seems an awfully dumb thing to do. instead they need to determine why it does not do what they expected. The reason I take this view is that too many will accept a state "we feel good about it" and never work to solve the actual problem.

Its the #hashtag way of life, the lazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Comments in this thread are all discussing the wrong topic. It wouldn't matter if 100% of corporate board members were women and minorities due to how boards are constructed over time through shareholder "elections".

Corporate boards are not a free market of ideas, they do not support or represent shareholders, society, or employees, they are monopolized self- serving power structures representing an extension of incumbent management.

Introducing diversity into a situation with already-disfunctional power dynamics (which drastically favor incumbent management because all votes not cast are cast in favor of incumbents) obviously have no impact. Corporate governance laws and proxy voting processes changing is a prerequisite for marginal board members to ever have any real power.

</comment><comment><USER13> No matter how effective, I will always believe that this is outright wrong and sexist.

I am amazed that my home country, Sweden, has not followed since it is basically the feminist capital of the world.

<comment><USER3> Yeah but most of the outright wrong and sexist things our societies allow seem to disadvantage women. This doesn't make it even, but it's a good step.

<comment><USER14> Which things?

<comment><USER8> Are you asking what sexist biases exist within society that are working against the interest of Women?

How about:

\- Income inequality

\- Unequal domestic workload

\- Only 22% of elected parliamentarians being female

<comment><USER15> I kind of like Dr. Peteron's view on these kind of questions, try flipping them around. Don't ask "Why do women earn less?" Try framing it as "What are the reasons men earn more?" Another one, "Why is it that there are so few women in high level management positions?" frame it as "Why are there so much men willing to put up with the stress and pressure of high level management positions?"

There are a lot of reasons for the inequality between men and women. I'm not saying they are "justified" or "fair" but there are some obvious (painful, even) but true reasons why men and women don't earn the same. Of course, these reasons do not specify the whole margin but they explain quite some of the variation.

<comment><USER16> > "Why is it that there are so few women in high level management positions?" > frame it as "Why are there so much men willing to put up with the stress and > pressure of high level management positions?"

What does it change if the answer is "It is easier for men because they have to put up with less harassment, less pressure and are more encouraged"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Side-note, there are more woman in science in countries that's font enforce equality by law and have less woman-promoting courses at universities/clubs.

[http://www.euronews.com/2018/02/11/which-three-eu- countries-...](http://www.euronews.com/2018/02/11/which-three-eu-countries- have-more-female-than-male-scientists-and-engineers-)

</comment><comment><USER18> This law only affects "allmennaksjeselskap" (ASA), which there was less than 300 of in Norway last time I checked. In short they are listed on Oslo Børs (OSE) and are publicly traded. For smaller companies, also called "aksjeselskap" (AS), there are some regulation there as well, but nothing compared to this. It has more about female representation in the company in general.

</comment><comment><USER19> In principle, a quota rule can be used for power consolidation by (arguably douchebaggy) men that already occupy a relative position of power. I can imagine members of an all-male board using quotas as a means to move competitors or newcomers out of their way to the highest position.

Though it doesn't have to be quota for women, of course.

</comment><comment><USER20> If they really want to try something progressive they should explore male/female quotas in prison populations.</comment>


Stop Writing Dystopian Sci-Fi – It's Making Us All Fear Technology - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@foundersfund/stop-writing-dystopian-sci-fi-it-s-making-us-all-fear-technology-f86fafb7c12 <comment><USER2> Counterpoint: maybe we _should_ be afraid of technology. Or at least, of what certain powerful players will be able to do with it.

<comment><USER3> > what certain powerful players will be able to do with it.

I'm also concerned with no so powerful players will do with some of this stuff because of the potential for blow back from the powerful if they feel threatened.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to look for a job overseas (specifically Germany)? - <AUTHOR> I am considering a move to Europe, but it is a daunting process when you have no connections. Want to move to Munich for various reasons, but I would assume simply applying for a job is not the way to go.
Questions are: - How to find connections? Personal connections will not work, so it needs to be open group - How does one interview for a very far away job? I am based in California - As someone in their mid forties, how great is age discrimination?
My questions are broad, but I am looking specifically for Munich. South Germany will do, but definitely not Berlin. Would actually love any Mediterranean country, but there are almost no tech jobs there.
I am an EU citizen, but do not speak German. I do not know anyone in the tech industry in Europe. <comment><USER2> It shouldn't be too difficult to find a tech job in Munich (see links below).

I am based in the Netherlands (Eindhoven area) and our company is hiring people from all over the world. After the initial CV screening, the hiring process consists of a Skype interview. If you get passed that, you're invited for a visit to meet several people on site. Etc.

What kind of job are you looking for?

[1] [http://blog.honeypot.io/munich-tech-map/](http://blog.honeypot.io/munich- tech-map/) [2] [http://blog.honeypot.io/9-european-cities-for-tech- jobs-2018...](http://blog.honeypot.io/9-european-cities-for-tech-jobs-2018/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply.

It is easy enough to find companies and job listings, but it is completely another matter sending an application blind. What would they think of someone from the US applying for a job, without any context? I am almost 10K km from Munich.

I have no interest in the Netherlands, London, or anywhere else in the north for many reasons. Although southern Spain is far from "home", I would not mind living there. :)

<comment><USER3> i am not sure why you think it's a problem to apply blindly from the US? I assume you'll metion it.

After all, they are looking for someone...</comment></comment></comment>


90 percent of affiliate ads on YouTube and Pinterest aren't disclosed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17167006/princeton-university-research-affiliate-links-sponsored-posts-youtube-pinterest <comment><USER2> Thanks for bringing this up.

This issue has been really itchy for a while for me personally. There is no way to trust reviews of anything online anymore. In the past, I have been relying on online reviews and feel smart, now I feel I'm dumb if I trust online reviews.

In a perfect world, the ones who earn referral bonuses have to disclose, but I don't think that is going to happen. So I think there needs to be a reverse trend: The ones who don't earn referral bonuses need to tell their audience so. Same as if you think GMO food is harmful and there isn't enough regulation to make GMO food to be properly labeled, then you should advertise your GMO- free/organic food as a selling point.

I have a free software project that needs hardware purchased. So I listed the BOM with unaffiliated links on Amazon, and the message:

>All the links above on Amazon are not affiliated and are linked for reference only. You are encouraged to search for better prices elsewhere and buy at local stores to support their businesses. Usually, MicroCenter has better prices on the Pi and the touchscreen.

>

>If you buy on Amazon, I would encourage you to use [http://smile.amazon.com](http://smile.amazon.com) and select a charity of your choice (If you don't have one in mind, please consider the Free Software Foundation/FSF and the Electronic Frontier Foundation/EFF).

People asked why don't I have affiliated links, and I said money isn't what I look for running this project. I'm basically running a social experiment with my project, and having fun with it. I guess for once I can say I am the change I want to see in the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a huge problem on a lot of the internet unfortunately, with YouTube and Pinterest only being the tip of the iceberg. Neither influencers or review sites seem to like disclosing affiliate links, and even a fair few media sources (especially lesser known ones) like trying to hide any associations they may have with the topics of their stories.

It's especially bad in various tech fields, with the web hosting world being a minefield of shady promoters, fake review sites and people promoting stuff on their sites just for a bit of cash in return. Hell, even the likes of WordPress used to do this with the 'recommended hosting companies' on their official site.

But yeah, I think the only solution is to drastically increase the resources given to organisations like the FTC and ramp up the fines enough that even a millionaire influencer doesn't feel it's worth lying to their audience.

<comment><USER4> The other solution to under-enforcement is giving a private right of action to individuals and their lawyers.

I realize people hate to feed and clothe lawyers, but a few class-action suits, and this problem would dry up.

<comment><USER5> Yeah but you have to be able to afford the lawsuit in the first place - similar to patent trolls a lot are relying on it not being affordable to do anything to them.

And a bunch are naive teenagers who just don't know that they should be disclosing it.</comment></comment></comment>


Building a Balloon Launcher for the "I Spy" Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.walterwick.com/behind-the-scenes/balloon-launcher <comment><AUTHOR> As someone who was enthralled with these books as a kid, I especially liked this part:

> _It would be reasonable to ask why I would bother to make an actual working > machine for a search-and-find picture book with no video component nor any > explicit instructions for readers to build their own. But knowing the > forensic scrutiny readers typically bring to my books, I wanted to reward > that scrutiny with a machine that met the demands of real-world, cause-and- > effect conditions._</comment>


Ask HN: Should I Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk for a Django Application? - <AUTHOR> I'm building an app with django, and am trying to decide whether or not to use Elastic Beanstalk on AWS, with the alternative being just an EC2 instance.  The app will contain PHI, but that shouldn't affect the use of Elastic Beanstalk.  What are your thoughts?  Do you see any clear advantages to one over the other?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I use Elastic Beanstalk for my projects, and I really like it because makes deploying code much simpler and easier than managing my own EC2 instances. This is especially handy for rapid prototyping, when you want to get something out quickly in order to test a product idea. When I want to deploy a new version of my code, I just run a script to compress the app into a zip file, and then give that to Beanstalk to deploy. I use Node.js instead of Django, but I expect that the workflow is the same.

You choose to run your Beanstalk app in one of these modes: \- route all traffic to a single instance without a load balancer (the cheap option) \- auto-scale instances behind an Elastic Load Balancer (the scalable option)

One of the things I like about Beanstalk is that switching between these two modes is quick and easy. So, you can initially go with the cheap option to save money and then switch to the auto-scaling mode once you need it.

If you're developing APIs, I also recommend considering Lambda. I plan to use Lambda + API Gateway for my next project, since you only pay for the usage of when your lambda functions are executed (as opposed to paying for your EC2 instances to be up all the time, even when they're not used), and they can scale more quickly than spinning up new EC2 instances.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is really helpful! Have you done any CI with Elastic Beanstalk?</comment></comment>


Scroll down to see how time flies - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximiliankiener.com/digitalprojects/time/ <comment><USER2> My fingers hurt.

I doubt it's exclusively to do with time as fraction of life. I suspect it's more to do with novelty: when you're young, much of what you see is new so you take it in and mull it over with some awareness. As you hit your working life, days can blur together as you engage in the same sort of tasks over and over. Later, as you reach mid career, most situations you encounter similarly become routine and you don't notice stuff which may have been remarkable a few years before. The effect is that you don't notice the weeks and months whipping by, since much of it is tuned out by your ever-growing filters.

Thinking more, I wonder if there aren't two effects at work: one is the fractional piece the presentation talks about: that's what makes being asked to wait five minutes seem intolerably cruel to a four year old. Then, the sense of time speeding up in adult life is caused by the growth of experience and dearth of novelty.

Explains why travel keeps you young and a change is as good as a vacation.

<comment><USER3> In addition, if fraction of life were the cause, wouldn't we expect to see people with retrograde amnesia exhibit childlike impatience?

<comment><USER4> As someone with retrograde amnesia, I can confirm - this is exactly what it feels like. It's very interesting experiencing (essentially) the first few years of your life while being fully alert and forming memories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never seen any sources that the "increased speed" in our time perception is really due to "a year being a larger fraction of ones life" for example. Yet this site states it as if it's a proven fact. I'd love to see some sources if anyone has them.

<comment><USER6> In one of the first texts it says it is a theory, hence not a proven fact. At least that's how I understood it.

<comment><USER7> Well, Relativity is a theory, but it is also a fact.

<comment><USER6> Is it really a fact or only taken as such?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You should disable upscrolling >:-)

Also, this doesn't intuitively work with a trackball unless you know to use the down arrow. Trackballs? Who uses trackballs? Well, they get across screen real estate a lot faster, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER9> Love the concept. Abhor scrolling websites.

Would love to see a _better_ user experience that conveys the same message..

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice but... page down...!?

<comment><USER11> Same with for the spacebar key and the arrow keys :/.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Excellent presentation.

<comment><USER13> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I scrolled and scrolled, saw a presentation on the perception of time, then looked at the clock. Time did indeed fly!

</comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting how this worked just fine in Edge but not in Chrome, I'll take a look into the code later</comment>


To Be More Creative, Cheer Up - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative-cheer-up <comment><USER2> Or you know, not:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15982087](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15982087)

<comment><USER3> Or you know, incorrect:

"No direct link existed between currently depressed mood and either creative interest or creative behavior. These results suggest that the association between depression and creativity is solely the result of rumination."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat off-topic but...

>Please sign in to Nautilus Prime or turn your cookies on to continue viewing this site. Thank you!

I really wonder why a site that displays nothing but text and images requires cookies... I don't need it to set cookies. Oh well, if it was a truly profound message, it would be available on a site that does not require cookies. I cannot be bothered to whitelist nautil.us too.

<comment><USER5> I like sites that do this. Then I swiftly close the page, and update my block list; never to be bothered with their fluff content ever agian.

We need more of these sites to block all the content as soon as you land on their page.

Now a really awesome feature is if ycombo news could detect sites like this, and just not show them on the front page at all.</comment></comment>


The admin of bitcoin24 doesn't know what database transactions are - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/StackSmashing/status/323039910397374465 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to also discover rounding errors with float. Why would they store transaction amounts with float is another interesting question.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15165559/how-to-round- amo...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15165559/how-to-round-amounts- correct-update-1)

</comment><comment><USER2> Do you know everything?

<comment><AUTHOR> No but I'm not running exchanges with people's money. If you don't know what a float number is, you probably shouldn't be in charge of handling thousands of euros people trusted you with.</comment></comment>


So You Want To Start A Web Startup? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/05/so-you-want-to-start-a-web-startup/ <comment><USER2> Could have been mildly amusing if they'd used human voices and they hadn't repeated the same joke over and over.</comment>


Living In A Van in Google's Backyard - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-21/silicon-valley-s-shame-living-in-a-van-in-google-s-backyard <comment><USER2> This is a very interesting thing to see here as a resident. I bike a lot and am amazed by all of the little signs and regulations neighborhoods around here have posted clearly aimed at these van dwellers. A lot of places have limits on vehicle heights for parking long term, and I see signs that say 'no vehicles over 7ft tall overnight' among other things. One of my coworkers who owns a home here bought his own RV, and he has to deal with cops knocking on it's door and trying to tow it even though it's in front of a home he owns.

For what it's worth, after 5 years the wife and I have decided to leave the area. Even though we are able to save 100% of one of our incomes, there doesn't feel like there will be a time when purchasing makes any sense to us. If we put down 300K, we are still looking at a roughly 150% higher monthly mortgage payment than rent for a house that needs work. And looking at the interest paid over the life of the loan is dizzying, almost a million in interest.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article fails to mention that Mountain View has been blocking improved transit to service the office parks in the area for at least a decade.

Starting a private bus service wasn't Google's "plan A". Their preferred approach was to get the city to set up adequate service between the Mountain View train station and surrounding office parks.

Although a bit of new housing is finally going in, it's clearly too little and too late.

Anyway, needing to ban shanty towns usually means you suck at being mayor (at least in city simulators). Maybe they'll take the housing and transit shortages more seriously moving forward.

<comment><USER4> If only the company that would benefit from this subsidy would contribute in some way...

<comment><USER5> Google has done a lot for Mountain View.

<comment><USER6> Like?

<comment><USER7> Autonomous self driving surveillance cars roaming the streets?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land."

-Adam Smith, "The Wealth Of Nations"

Book I, XI. Of the Rent of Land, Conclusion

[https://www.bartleby.com/10/111.html](https://www.bartleby.com/10/111.html)

<comment><USER9> "We will pretend to be a suburb in 1957 forever"

—Mountain View and Palo Alto zoning board

<comment><USER10> Yup. As much as I love federalism here in the US, the housing crisis is directly caused by local NIMBY governments who refuse to accommodate housing needs. The only way I see this changing in the US (since it's afflicting every growing city), is some sort of federal subsidy for dense housing.

<comment><USER11> If the federal government adopted California housing policy it would spread the disease everyone.

At least this way california loses residents to other states that dont have such regressive policies. What will change this in california is an economic crisis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If only there were some way for people to work together without having to be in the same physical location.

Guess it will never happen. Oh well.

<comment><USER13> If only people would move to other places when there's no space somewhere. Oh well.

<comment><USER14> No space? Yet I'm driving on 280 every morning and all I see are green fields. Yet 75% of San Francisco land has zoning rules that prevent buildings of more than 2 stories. What you really meant is: _no space for you, I got mine_

<comment><USER15> This.

580 Westbound is jam packed to a slow crawl, on a 7 lane highway! With people making commutes 100 miles every day! You would think there'd be sky scrapers everywhere, at least close to the highways. Nope. NOt a single building or house for miles and miles, nothing but green and yellow slopes of nothingness. It's such a waste.

With commute distances x10 more than normal and most global C02 coming from commuting, I can't even imagine how terrible this is for the environment.

<comment><USER14> Oh but don't worry, Cali boomers think about the environment: they're forcing all new constructions (not their own properties, mind you) to have solar panels on their roof - another thinly disguised NIMBY policy to make construction harder and more expensive, under the pretense of helping the environment... When increased density would be a much more efficient solution to this problem too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I understand the people that have been living there since before the boom. But what about the security guard and other such people that moved there knowing they would need to live in a van? There's 100s of cities to choose from so its not necessary to put yourself through that.

<comment><USER17> Moving away from your home where all your friends and family and network are is actually an incredibly difficult thing to do. These things are very valuable to a lot of people.

<comment><USER5> But they knew the consequences ? The guard says she wants to save more and doesn't want to live in an apartment for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A big part of this is prop 13 and tax policy. My anecdote is not unique: My mom inherited my grandfather's condo when he died. Because of Prop 13 (and it's follow ups) she gets to keep his original tax rate from his original home, which was set in _1978_. She makes about $500/mo profit on the condo only because her tax rate is about $500 less per month than if it were purchased new. If we didn't have Prop 13, it wouldn't make a ton of sense to keep that condo, and instead we would probably sell it.

And for a lot of people, they're making a whole lot more on that arbitrage.

On my street is my house and three others that are all basically the same (4 bedroom, 3 bath, about 1750sq ft, give or take). My neighbor, who has been here for 40+ years, pays X in property taxes, my other neighbor pays 2X, I pay 10X and the last house pays 20X. All of our houses would sell for about the same amount. So basically the city is starved of resources for transit and subsidized housing. Things that would actually make this place affordable for people who make less than $150,000 a year.

And then to make matters worse, a local developer is trying to tear down our old mall and build "more housing" on it, but if you look closely, what they're really building is a huge office park with the bare minimum of housing to call it a housing project. They want to put in space for 15,000 workers and 4,000 people to live. That will not solve any housing problems. The city is trying to stop them, but they are using the CA state law that was supposed to fix this problem to get around the city. But the law was so poorly written that they will be able to create a housing deficit using a housing bill!

We need to get rid of Prop 13 and figure out a better way to stop the elderly from being priced out of their homes (which was the original purpose) and we need to move to a Japanese zoning model, where someone could buy (or tear down their own) single family home and replace it with a fourplex. Yeah, my neighborhood would loose it's "character" if a couple of these houses were replaced with quads, but at least some servers and maids and city employees and construction workers and teachers and .... could live here.

<comment><USER19> > And then to make matters worse, a local developer is trying to tear down our > old mall and build "more housing" on it, but if you look closely, what > they're really building is a huge office park with the bare minimum of > housing to call it a housing project. They want to put in space for 15,000 > workers and 4,000 people to live. That will not solve any housing problems.

A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing, which was necessary to qualify for SB 35, funded via the office space. Adding to the market-rate housing deficit is a problem, but subsidized affordable housing is so desperately needed, and funding for it is so scarce, that I think Vallco is a win on balance.

<comment><USER18> > A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing

This is not true. The majority is market rate, with the bare minimum of affordable housing to just meet SB35 (and they played games with the SB35 calculation by including parking lots in the "housing" square footage, which the City Attorney pointed out and then was fired for "unknown reasons" right after). The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks to make themselves tons of money at the expense of the community. They don't care one iota about affordable housing.

There are plenty of other ways for them to be both profitable and provide below market housing without building millions of square feet of office space.

<comment><USER19> > The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks to make themselves > tons of money at the expense of the community.

The developer bent over backwards to please the "community" only to see Better Cupertino torpedo the whole process out of rage at having to live by poorer neighbors. SB 35 is precisely the "legal trick" that was needed to force bad actors like Cupertino to do their part.

> There are plenty of other ways for them to be both profitable and provide > below market housing without building millions of square feet of office > space.

Cross-subsidy of affordable housing with office space is how affordable housing gets built. There is almost no funding available. Look at how long it took to get a paltry 211 units of affordable housing built in Oakland: [https://twitter.com/LibbySchaaf/status/1128872869771980800?s...](https://twitter.com/LibbySchaaf/status/1128872869771980800?s=19)

Anyway, Vallco is an embarrassing blight on the South Bay. Virtually anything would be better than the decaying mall that's there today.

<comment><USER18> > The developer bent over backwards to please the "community"

I was part of those meetings. Not a single thing the residents asked for was offered in their plans.

Furthermore, if you look at their track record, it's terrible. They don't deliver on anything they promise. Did you know that there was supposed to be a park at Main Street? They somehow got the City Council to approve a variance after the project went forward (and coincidentally raised a bunch of money for one of the city council members). I suspect they would do the same with that park roof they suggested, which every engineer you ask will tell you is most likely impossible to build.

The crux of the issue here is that there was some major corruption between the city council and the developer, which seems to have been solved with the most recent election, and now someone needs to clean up the mess.

> Cross-subsidy of affordable housing with office space is how affordable > housing gets built. There is almost no funding available.

That's fine, but how about building less office than housing, and then put in an amount of affordable housing commensurate with the income from the offices? Or how about no office at all, and instead put an extra tax on the retail businesses to pay for affordable housing? There are lots of other options besides building a mega office park that would create a housing deficit. That solves nothing.

> Anyway, Vallco is an embarrassing blight on the South Bay. Virtually > anything would be better than the decaying mall that's there today.

It's only decaying because the developer wouldn't renew the leases of the people who were in there, so they could push the "abandoned" narrative. It sucked for the business owners who were forced out. Yeah, a lot of them were behind on rent, but that was because the developer put no resources into the mall. They manufactured its accelerated demise for their narrative.

So yeah, I agree, it's a blight now, but a blight the very same developers brought upon us.

Oh, and did I mention those developers break city ordinances all the time with seemingly no consequence? They were doing construction at 3am on Sunday at one point. How do I know? They banged so hard my kid was scared awake. I have video of them bulldozing at 3am on a Sunday. I called to police, who said they couldn't even identify if they had a permit. But they were at it again the next weekend!

<comment><USER19> > I was part of those meetings. Not a single thing the residents asked for was > offered in their plans.

Because Better Cupertino refused to work with the developer in any way. It is impossible to negotiate with a group that is operating in bad faith; conspiracy theories and accusations of "corruption" are a hallmark of bad faith debate. The goal was simply a wish to prevent any housing whatsoever from being developed. There is inconsistency in your very post about whether you want affordable housing (which you have not proposed a funding mechanism for) or retail on the site. Steven Scharf made his intentions very clear when he made a disgusting joke about building a wall around Cupertino and making San Jose pay for it.

There isn't anything more I can say on the topic of Vallco that hasn't been already written by others. Suffice it to say that that the NIMBYism of exclusive suburbs like Cupertino is not a good look to ordinary Californians, which is why SB 50 for example polls so overwhelmingly well.

<comment><USER18> I'm the least NIMBY person you will find. I think they should build 30 story towers of housing on that property and make 1/2 of it affordable.

I'm not at all against housing on that site. I think it's critical that we put housing there.

I'm against _that developer_ putting _offices_ on the site that would create a housing deficit.

> There is inconsistency in your very post about whether you want affordable > housing (which you have not proposed a funding mechanism for) or retail on > the site

I proposed a tax on the retail to fund the affordable housing.

> which is why SB 50 for example polls so overwhelmingly well.

I'm a huge supporter of SB 50.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "You guys need to take care of it, like ASAP," he said, lecturing the young > couple living in the vehicle. "I'm not going to tow it today, but tomorrow > if I come out here and it's like this, it's getting towed!"

As he delivered the ultimatum, a self-driving car rolled past.

<comment><USER21> A nice retort would have been, "You guys need to build more affordable housing, like ASAP".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Startup idea: convert traditional multilevel parking lots in urban centers to RV parks. Run power, water, and sewage to each space. Build a shared gym/kitchen to charge access to. Even install car elevators to really pack 'em in! You could also lobby for enforcement and fines to go up in your local area to increase your customer base! Not dystopian at all!

<comment><USER23> I think you just invented apartments, which would need residential zoning, which is already the problem.

<comment><USER22> No, I'm disrupting zoning laws. Paradigm shift!

<comment><USER24> Twist: rather than rent out the spaces, just post the parked RVs on Airbnb! Can we divide an RV into a duplex? As long as it still has wheels, how big can an RV get before it's legally an apartment building?

<comment><USER22> Hey, how about instead of parking, they're self-driving and they just drive themselves around the block all night? I think we just solved the housing crisis!

<comment><USER24> Needs more blockchain... with Bee Token! Man, this is all coming together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a huge RV park at San Francisco Airport, too, in a lot near I believe the United hangar. Some of the vehicles look like they've been there for decades, and all of them look abandoned. I've often wondered what the story is there.

<comment><USER25> It's a group of LAX employees. It's been a while since I watched this [0] doc about it or read [1] about it but there's some pilots in that group too iirc. Some more recent posting about it on a forum seem to indicate they're trying to just quietly snuff it out by not accepting new 'residents' and will eventually shut it down.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004630021/long-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004630021/long- term-parking.html?src=vidm)

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jul-20-me- lax-c...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jul-20-me-lax- colony20-story.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just remember when talking about this topic that public employees like Firefighters and policemen make 300k+

[https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=firefig...](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=firefighter)

<comment><USER26> Those figures (which include benefits) are like, what a junior software engineer costs in the bay area. They don't seem outrageous to me.

I've also seen three entries for "Thomas G McKenzie" on the first few pages of this source.

<comment><USER11> > what a junior software engineer costs in the bay area

What. Not even close.

> I've also seen three entries for "Thomas G McKenzie" on the first few pages > of this source

The incompetence of Transparent California is the incompetence of the state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A lot of sentiment here around "housing is the root of all these problems", but isn't it also the problem of these companies creating offices in communities that can't support them?

Given there are a lot of places that offices could be built that could support the employees, I think some of this responsibility lies with the companies who consciously keep their offices in locations that may cause their employees (not to mention facilities contractors) to be homeless.

<comment><USER28> Companies put their offices in expensive cities because that's where most of the people who work for them want to live. If Google decided to move their HQ to rural Kansas tomorrow, most of the company would quit overnight.

<comment><USER29> But why wouldn't they have a smaller branch in Kansas? (maybe not Kansas but there are a lot of places in the US other than NY and CALI). And smaller offices all over the US?? It would be cheaper too, employees would maybe consider moving to a smaller hub where they could actually buy a home, local economies would benefit as well, etc..

<comment><USER28> Big companies do have satellite offices all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The bigger problem is the classism, hate and othering used to heap upon and smear people who can't or don't want to afford fixed housing. So much for "tolerance" and "liberalism," if many people even remember what these words meant, because it looks a lot like fascism, judgement and discrimination to me.

</comment><comment><USER31> To all those that say "build more housing" will solve all our problems, I don't think they've actually been looking at the housing markets.

All of the new housing in the Bay Area is at a premium price. All of it. There are tens of thousands of condos slated to be built in SF. They are all top of the end condos. They haven't and they won't dent the prices. Building more homes will just let more rich people move to the Bay Area and it will sustain prices.

Supply will increase at a much, much lower rate than demand when it comes to housing. Unless you literally create ghost cities like in China, you won't get the effect that you want.

The only way to curb prices is to reduce demand. Force Facebook, Google and Amazon to build outside of the Bay Area. I guarantee that will be the quickest way to curb demand and to throttle house prices. Have Google build in Kansas City instead of San Jose. Have Facebook build in Detroit. There's enough money to sustain an entire ecosystem and it will help increase house prices in other areas and dampen demand here.

<comment><USER32> You're mixing up two things. When a lot of new premium housing is built, you might indeed see the reported "average sales price" go up, since there are lots of sales of new fancy new houses.

But the price of older housing goes down. Because people who bought a new premium house, therefore did not buy an older house, which reduces demand for older houses.

There are lots of nice older (1940-1990) houses in SV that are good to live in. Before the tech boom they were perfect for middle class families: pleasant and affordable. They could be affordable again (and they're still pleasant) if the supply of premium housing were increased enough.

<comment><USER25> That depends on somehow not having the extra supply on the high luxury end being soaked up by foreign investment parking their money in real estate.

<comment><USER32> Supply and demand works there too. There's a finite amount of people with a finite amount of money they want to invest in US real estate. If you create enough (by $ value) real estate for them to buy, they can't buy any more.

For a city to have its real estate bought as investments can be troublesome, but at least it doesn't increase road traffic. So you can have tall, dense skyscrapers with condos all owned by foreign trusts, without it creating parking or traffic problems. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Yards_(development)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Yards_\(development\)) seems like an example of this.

If you don't create investable condos, then the foreign money buys single family homes that some family could otherwise live happily in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> When full self-driving hits, all of these vehicles will go off and recharge their batteries during the day while people are at work.

<comment><USER9> So much for the 2-hour window during early afternoon when the 101 is drivable.

<comment><USER33> Automated traffic can drive much, much faster, more densely, and without stopping.

It will be a net positive.

<comment><USER34> Self driving cars won't arrive for at least another 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> #vanlife

</comment><comment><USER36> The community can do something:

* Build more housing.

The tech companies can do something:

* Build offices in more places

That's it. That's the whole plan.

<comment><USER12> Local and state regulations have the housing market locked down. That leaves option B, and I really don't understand why more companies aren't doing that.

<comment><USER37> We humans are remarkably solipsistic creatures. Why not build more elsewhere? Probably because leadership isn't feeling the squeeze.</comment></comment></comment>


Hiring dropped sharply in May, the weakest in 6 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/03/hiring-drops-sharply-with-38000-jobs-added-in-may-unemployment-rate-falls-to-4-7-percent/ <comment><USER2> The unemployment rate is not a good metric. The labor force participation rate is more inclusive, and declined for the 2nd month in a row.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/business/economy/jobs- repo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/business/economy/jobs-report- unemployment-wages.html)

Furthermore the quality of available jobs appears to have declined.

<comment><USER3> > The unemployment rate is not a good metric. The labor force participation > rate is more inclusive

LFP rate is not better than the unemployment rate. There are a lot of factors that go into labor force participation, and demographics is probably the biggest. It peaked in the late 90s and has pretty much followed the same downward trend since:

[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force- pa...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force- participation-rate)

<comment><USER2> You're making my point for me. Demographics matter. The older bubble demographic nearing retirement, and the new bubble demographic is not taking up the slack.

[http://www.randalolson.com/wp- content/uploads/united_states_...](http://www.randalolson.com/wp- content/uploads/united_states_population_pyramid.jpg)

Unemployment also ignores the disability insurance bubble.

<comment><USER4> Not taking up the slack implies there's something wrong with the new bubble demographic. There appears to be less slack to take up. As you pointed out, lower quality jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> News media ought to pay more attention to the confidence intervals associated with these metrics. Uncertainty is always present in statistics and the revisions to these numbers rarely get reported (it was reported in this case to fit the tone of the story). News articles like these have a powerful psychological effect on the public, so shouldn't the media do a more responsible job by saying "oh by the way, it's 38,000 jobs +- 50,000"?

<comment><USER6> > For example, the confidence interval for the monthly change in total nonfarm > employment from the establishment survey is on the order of plus or minus > 115,000.

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm)

So 38,000 +- 115,000. In other words, they don't really know if employment went up or down.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for digging that up. I thought it was around 100,000 and was about to go look for the actual number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For the curious, alternative measures of labor underutilization

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

</comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't worry me so much on it's own. You have to contrast it with new unemployment rates.

<comment><USER9> > You have to contrast it with new unemployment rates.

IIRC, the concern is that hiring slowdowns tend to lead increases in unemployment. But, yes, the unemployment rate (not just the headline rate, but all of the alternative measures from BLS as well) is still dropping.

<comment><USER10> the unemployment rate dropped because more people left the workforce and became discouraged workers (a la haven't searched for work in the past 4 weeks).

<comment><USER9> > the unemployment rate dropped because more people left the workforce and > became discouraged workers

For the last monthly downtick, if you look at all the alternative measures [0], that's not the case. Actually, what you see is that the headline unemployment rate dropped, but the difference is mostly a shift from unemployed to working part time for economic reasons; discouraged workers have stayed about the same.

> (a la haven't searched for work in the past 4 weeks).

Discouraged workers are not "haven't searched for work in the past 4 weeks" its that subset of the marginally attached ("those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months") who "have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work." [0, again]

[0] [http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, that's worrisome. The hiring rate, along with new unemployment benefit applications and various other stats is the an early indicator for the macro economy.

<comment><USER12> It's a very noisy number, month to month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Got laid off yesterday. Hooray.

<comment><USER14> Work is over rated. Just look at it as early retirement and consider yourself lucky.

<comment><USER15> Someone should go tell all those sweatshop workers and coal miners that work is "overrated" and that they should all just retire early!

<comment><USER16> Aren't the robots already doing that, and that's what the number tens are telling us?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For a bit of perspective, see "Payroll Employment: Best Years, Worst Month"[0]

Non-Farm Payroll: Best Years, Worst Month

Year Annual (000s) Worst Month (000s)

1984 3,880 128

1994 3,851 200

1983 3,458 -308

1997 3,408 -39

1988 3,242 94

1999 3,177 107

1987 3,153 171

1998 3,047 124

1996 2,825 -18

1993 2,817 -49

2014 2,5851 142

2005 2,506 67

1985 2,502 124

2013 2,331 84

2012 2,236 88

1995 2,159 -16

2006 2,085 2

2011 2,083 70

2004 2,033 32

12014 is the hiring pace through August.

[0][http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/09/payroll- employment...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/09/payroll-employment- best-years-worst.html)

<comment><USER17> The pace of hiring has halved since 1984?</comment></comment>


Juul hiring aggressively amid FDA probe, but troubled image a turnoff for some - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Juul-hiring-aggressively-amid-FDA-probe-but-13319383.php <comment><USER2> > A Stanford University study released Friday found that high school seniors > and recent graduates who use Juul are more addicted to the product than > those who use other e-cigarettes. The finding raises concerns about higher > rates of addiction among Juul users.

I wonder if this is because the Juul pods are the most "cigarette"-like -- I know it's one of the more successful products used to stop smoking because it has a "throat hit" that other ecigs/vapes don't have.

<comment><USER3> It's mostly because of the high nicotine content, and the nicotine they use is a salt form rather than nicotine base. The salt form absorbs through the lungs more readily similar to the form of nicotine in cigarettes.</comment></comment>


Has Google Finally Found Its Mobile Design Chops? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/16/has-google-finally-found-its-mobile-design-chops/

<comment><USER3> Yes, and even as an iOS user I have to say it's very gratifying to see Google finding a unified and consistent design language. And executing on it - <USER2> others pointed out, this theme isn't new, but it wasn't until recently that we've seen this executed consistently across the board.

I would go as far as to say that Google's current design _out-Metros_ Microsoft at their own game. Which is to say, they have found a design that is "authentically digital", eschews skeumorphism, is simplistic and minimalistic, without going way, way off the deep end like MS did.

<comment><USER4> >Google's current design out-Metros Microsoft at their own game.

That makes no sense. Metro was a bold attempt at rethinking the mobile UI. And it's inarguable that it is unlike every UI released to date and has a number of unique concepts. Some work. Some don't. But there is absolutely nothing bold, unique, noble or impressive by what Google has achieved. It is a bland derivative in comparison.

<comment><USER3> I'm referring specifically to MS's claim that Metro is "authentically digital" - and that the simplicity (contrary to Apple's skeumorphic bent on everything) is a usability improvement in and of itself. The stated design goal is to develop a coherent design that separated itself from simple metaphors to real- life objects.

e.g. no "radio dials" to change stations, no watch-like clock faces, no textured buttons that look like physical buttons, no "unfolding" address books, etc. A UI that would represent information in its own way without bowing to constant references to real-life.

Having owned a Surface for a month now, and using Win8 on a desktop for about the same time, I have to say Google wins this one. Their UI design defies skeumorphism and over-complicated interactions without falling into the same holes MS has found themselves in with Metro - in particular the WinPhone flavor of Metro, which has particularly deep usability problems that IMO stem from MS's stubborn refusal to adopt even the most cursory amount of UI chrome.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever actually used an iPhone before ? Because Apple doesn't have a skeumorphic bent on everything just a few apps e.g. Calendar, Podcasts. The rest of the OS itself both on iOS and OSX is fairly minimal and standard fare. No different to Android and its god awful widgets.

And I don't dispute that Microsoft still has issues around certain UI uses cases but that is what happens when attempt something from scratch. I at least give Microsoft for trying to push the industry forward. And in many areas e.g. the hubs concept I believe they are ahead of the curve. It is a 1.0 release after all.

<comment><USER3> > _"Have you ever actually used an iPhone before ?"_

I have been an iPhone user since the iPhone 1, when I went through hell and back just to get one imported from the US. I've been writing iPhone apps since the day the SDK came out and now do it full-time, and have 4 apps currently in the store. I would like to think my opinion is not that of an uninformed outsider. I have either owned, or used, literally _every_ iPhone and iPad model ever shipped.

I didn't realize were having a credentialing debate, but there it is.

> _"Because Apple doesn't have a skeumorphic bent on everything just a few > apps e.g. Calendar, Podcasts."_

Skeumorphism is not the same as "blatantly and completely copying a physical object" - though this does exist in iOS (Compass and Voice Notes for example are even more egregious than Calendar and Podcasts).

Take the music app on iPad for example - it's a dead ringer for Dieter Rams' SK4 record player, down to the wood trim along the sides and the off-white textured buttons. There is, of course, the recent settled lawsuit re: Swiss railroad clock on iPad too.

But less obvious skeumorphism is everywhere in the OS. The very basic and common "card flip" UI is skeumorphic and not seen on any other platform. Both the Weather and Stocks apps use this, as well as previous incarnations of the iPhone music app (where it simulated flipping over an album cover to read the track list). Apple actually highly encourages this design (well, maybe this will change now that Forstall is gone) for simple utility apps as a means to separating single-screen functionality from configuration. It's right there in the dev guidelines.

Ditto goes for the "page curl" UI that's used in Maps, and its even more obvious cousin the "page turn" used in iBooks. Apple even goes as far as to render the map in an almost-invisible way when you have it curled up - as if the map is partially see-through like it would be in real life.

Now that I think of it, the only major components of the core out of box experience that _aren't_ noticeably skeumorphic are Mail, Safari, and Phone.

> _"I at least give Microsoft for trying to push the industry forward."_

Sure, and I do too. I for one hope Metro works out, because a single-platform world would be awfully boring (and dangerous).

Still, I'm going to give this one to Google. They didn't reinvent anything, but they sure as hell polished it to mirror-like shine. They accomplished MS's stated goals _without_ a ground-up reinvention, and the end result is something that is both easy to learn for users (including skeumorphically addicted iOS users) and ditches old UI metaphors.

<comment><USER5> Why are we operating under the assumption that skeumorphic design is inherently bad?

The greatest thing that iPhone ever did was to make an incredibly complicated device that was wanted by everyone: young and old, educated or not. It makes sense that skeumorphic design was one of the critical things that helped in breeding a sense of familiarity and comfort for the non-technically-inclined users in navigating their way around the phone, whether it is by having simple motion transitions reminiscent of real-life page-flipping or sliding up motions, or the textured buttons or replicating design of real-world devices like compasses, mics, calculators, etc.

<comment><USER6> This is an important point. Skeumorphic is really only bad when it acts as a barrier to using an application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd say the answer is yes.

It's interesting, because I'd imagine if Johhny Ive wanted to pivot away from skeumorphism to a far simpler and cleaner style, the new Google 'style' is exactly where he'd want to go. They seem to be occupying the middle ground between Apple and Microsoft's disparate design languages.

</comment><comment><USER8> It was eventually bound to happen. Google have essentially taken the simplistic approach to their applications instead of favouring Apple's love for skeuomorphism combined with their own pieces of design flare. Less is more in the world of true design, I think Google are gearing themselves up for a design fight of sorts with Apple here and I'd say Google is already marginally ahead. For a company associated with innovative design, I feel as though Apple have truly dropped the ball the last couple of years and it's starting to show as others including Microsoft catch up quite rapidly.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree - I find the clean crisp look of the new iOS GMail App to be very pleasing. On the small iPhone screen, it improves readability and functionality. Ditto for the new Maps App. Compared to where Google iOS apps were a year or two ago, they have really moved ahead. Contrast this to the abominable Apple Podcasts App! I'm a big Apple fan, but some of the latest software releases are beginning to really make me wonder what's going on in the heads of the Apple developers.

<comment><USER10> One of the latest releases was iTunes 11, and I'd say pretty good things are going on in the heads of Apple devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's an entire mobile OS made by them, full of nice apps.

</comment><comment><USER12> The iOS Google Maps is very well designed, full of gestures and meaningful metaphors, you learn how to operate it in no time and most panes make sense.

I find all current Google interfaces lack character though, on the wrong side of minimalist. They took what worked on the search page and applied on everything else, but I don't think it works. Most interfaces suffer from poor iconography and minimal colors (everything's white or grey, basically). GMail is a good example: I gave up using the webmail altogether after the last redesign. Using most products feels like you're interacting with a robot in a laboratory.

This minimalist trend worries me because it's a projection of a sci-fi future where technology should be precise, interactions should be ethereal. That's a mirage. I would rather see more honest designs, that acknowledge human imprecisions and emotions, instead of lobotomizing products.

</comment><comment><USER13> Google got Matias Duarte from WebOS at the end of Gingerbread so he had minimal effect on that / honeycomb. Android is a huge, slow beast so it took a while to improve.

</comment><comment><USER14> I actually don't really like where Google has been going with their iOS apps. They don't look bad, but they don't look / feel like iOS apps. Microsoft and Google both like to try and bring the look and feel of their mobile OS's to their iOS apps, and I wish they would just make iOS apps that look like iOS apps.

<comment><USER15> I'm not a fan either. I couldn't care less about the visual design, its that every interaction feels clunky and badly thought out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was disappointed with ICS, I was expected an overhaul but what we got was polishing of the existing metaphors. Basically they chose 1 way to design things and stuck with it, whereas in the pre-ICS days the designs were all over the place.

However they didn't really rethink any major UI aspect. The multitasking got the biggest overhaul, but that was just a superficial change. The UI is still a carousel of apps/widgets (most widgets being useless). Nothing like Windows Phone's pinning. Nothing like the N9's swipe. Still the same ole, just with a fresh coat of paint.

</comment><comment><USER17> Huh? Holo has been around for a while now (1 year, 3 months). Yes, people in the iOS/Blackberry/Symbian world: Android is not the same as it was during the 1.x/2.x series.

<comment><USER18> The way Google apps behave now is way different than they were when ICS came out initially, especially things like swiping to show menu on the side. While Holo has been there for about a year, the details were never filled in by Google with a flagship first party app. Holo provided the polish, the usability in Google apps come from the way they attach functionality to gesture.

So I guess it is news-worthy for other people unfamiliar with how Google iterated their apps on Android to know that finally Google has nailed down pretty much all what it wanted to achieve.</comment></comment>


A conversation about open source licenses - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/972893 <comment><USER2> It is sad how this has been misrepresented.

First of all, this was an email conversation between Ryan Dahl and Zed Shaw. That you know. What you probably don't know is that Ryan first posted this tweet [0] about rewriting Zed's http parser. Zed then responded twice [1] & [2], vehemently. Ryan then responded with a single "?" to Zed's outbursts. That is when Zed said this: "@ryah And don't make me bust out the fucking email you sent me trying to trick me into giving you a MIT license. I swear I'll trash you." [3] Then shortly after another attack [4]. Ryan then again responded somewhat confused: "@zedshaw http-parser uses nginx's url parser, and your external c api (it's a good api) but it's not a modified ver. of mongrel's http11. ??" [5] After that he offered up the above link with the email conversation Zed alluded to [6].

If you know anything about the http parser, you would know that it was written by Ryan and is no longer an issue. That is why the license was changed, why give attribution to Zed if he didn't write anything? Not to mention after the above outburst.

The title of this post is wrong, misleading, and linkbait.

[0]: <https://twitter.com/ryah/status/69557901546631168>

[1]: <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/69583774119239681>

[2]: <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/69584110305284097>

[3]: <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/69584284339544064>

[4]: <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/69618172252274688>

[5]: <http://twitter.com/ryah/status/69620659650699264>

[6]: <http://twitter.com/ryah/status/69624489893314560>

<comment><USER3> <http://bettween.com/ryah/zedshaw/May-07-2011/May-15-2011/asc> is far more readable ;)

But back on topic... Even if Ryan really rewritten all of the original mongrel's code by hand, then there is still issue with nginx-based portions. Why there is no attribution to _Igor Sysoev_?

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but what is the fun in that?

If it was rewritten, with all new code, why would there need to be attribution?

<comment><USER3> Ryan said that the current version uses nginx's URL parser, so clearly not everything is new code.

<comment><USER2> Here you go: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2549813>

<comment><USER3> Here you go: [https://github.com/ry/http- parser/commit/8dabce6ec7142319bc5...](https://github.com/ry/http- parser/commit/8dabce6ec7142319bc5c883ff53bf7302f0d83ce)

<comment><USER2> Awesome, that clears that up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't done much open source (all I've got out there is a thing to suck a small newsfeed from an NNTP server, a simple NNTP cache, three Warhammer Online add-ons, and a Talisman calculator for Wahammer Online), as my job at a mostly closed source company raises enough challenges to occupy all of the time I have for programming.

However, Zed Shaw really tempts me to make time to get involved in open source, especially in projects that will have some tangential connection to him. That's because I haven't been in a really good flame war with a worthy opponent since the old usenet days. From what I've read, it seems he would be more than worthy and not too hard to provoke. :-)

<comment><USER5> Oh you're one of those guys who thinks that you're somehow trolling by just being a dipshit. As if my reaction to your stupidity is somehow causing me great pain, when the truth is it's just damn funny to tell someone who insults me to suck a goat cock and then watch them flail at words.

Just being wrong and giggling when people correct you is level 0 trolling. If you really want to troll you gotta step up your game and do something like any of these:

<http://mulletdb.com/> <http://livingdouchebag.com/> <http://programming- motherfucker.com/>

If you can pull off projects like that, and open source them, then I'll be one of your fans. If all you do is try to provoke me, then I'll just end up making you look like the dumbass you actually are.

(So something like that is what you want? :-)

EDIT: mulletdb.com is better.

<comment><USER6> Have you considered developing some proprietary code? :-)

<comment><USER5> I do, but it's not as fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This "Zed" guy has a "oh, cool" to "I WILL FIGHT YOU" transition time of about five minutes. It's sad that his short temper colors his excellent work so much. [1] Especially when this started with a compliment [0]...

[0]: <https://twitter.com/ryah/status/69554939323629568>

[1]: Oh crap, now Zed Shaw's gonna challenge me to a duel.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like Ryan re-opened the can of worms by tweeting about Ragel with a subtle jab at Zed ("Ragel was hindering. Needs a better 'when' operator.").

It sounds like Ryan is saying that he re-wrote it because of technical reasons, when from the email exchange, it is really because of licensing. That's kind of sketchy to me.

Right or wrong, I think that if node was using mongrel/nginx stuff at any point they should still give some attribution. It certainly seems like the code was helpful in getting the project started regardless of the fact that all the code has been rewritten in later releases.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's hard to know anyone's actual intentions from the outside, but I think Zed has a point.

It's interesting that Ryan works for Joyent, who is doing a major push into Node.js services–including "Commercial Node.js distribution" ... I'm not a license expert but it seems that MIT would be better for that.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone explain what was the fuss about ? So Zed was cool to relicense it thinking it was about some project X and got pissed off when he learned it was going to be (also) used in project Y ? WTF ?!

<comment><USER11> It looks like Zed is pissed about Ryan trying to hide his intentions to profit from Zed's work through Node.js (Node.js has commercial activities attached to it). Zed is not pissed about whether or not Ryan actually profits from it, only the way he appears to be doing it in a sneaky way.

<comment><USER12> Node.js had no comercial activities in Nov 2009. In fact, this exchange happened right after JSConf 2009 which is when the world at large learned about node.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This feels like a simple misunderstanding. I think Ryan just assumed that Zed knew they were already talking about Node.js. With that assumption in mind, when Ryan wrote, "this is included in some of my other projects," he really meant, "this is _also_ included in some of my other projects." That seems a more likely interpretation than Ryan trying to trick Zed into re-licensing the code.

</comment><comment><USER14> I assume this is somehow related the joyent's assumption of copyright on the node code (stewardship).

Is there any background on why this was posted in a gist (and why it was submitted to HN)?

<comment><USER9> >> Is there any background on why this was posted in a gist

<http://bettween.com/ryah/zedshaw/May-07-2011/May-15-2011/asc>

<comment><USER14> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> http-parser is based on parsers from mongrel and/or nginx (at least in parts), yet the LICENSE file says _Joyent, Inc. and other Node contributors._... No mention of the original copyright holders ( _Zed Shaw_ and/or _Igor Sysoev_ ) _tsk_ _tsk_

<comment><USER15> There isn't a shred of the original mongrel parser left. I'm not 100% sure but http-parser looks more like it's inspired by nginx than that it actually contains nginx code.

Disclosure: I know both http-parser and nginx fairly well. I'm one of the 'other Node contributors'. :-)

<comment><USER3> But it was Ryan who said that it does: <http://twitter.com/#!/ryah/status/69620659650699264>

<comment><USER16> If you read to the bottom of the email chain here: <http://twitter.com/#!/ryah/status/69624489893314560>, ry says he rewrote the parser.

<comment><USER3> You've missed the fact that this e-mail is from 2009 and tweet is from yesterday. Surely a lot changed in the meantime.

Anyway, _Igor Sysoev_ was just added to the LICENSE file, so EOT.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Short Story Club: A book club but for short stories with live author discussions - <AUTHOR> https://www.shortstory.club/ <comment><AUTHOR> Short fiction is such a thought-provoking and underrated form, and I hope efforts like these help to showcase its creativity and relevance. First interview is with the inimitable Cory Doctorow.</comment>