He Predicted Trump's Win in 2016. Now He's Ready to Call 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/opinion/2020-election-prediction-allan-lichtman.html <comment><USER2> I don't want to watch the video. Who's going to win? Also, hiding "news" in videos nobody wants to watch is annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Biden, sorry. Meant to add a comment to that effect immediately because I totally agree! But it was close. Biden 7 keys and Trump 6, largely attributed to COVID-related economic downturns, political unrest, and Trump's lack of universal charisma.</comment></comment>


Customers For Life - <AUTHOR> http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Technical-Support-Services-Blog/Customers-for-life/ba-p/154423

<comment><USER2> is it just me or is the title for that announcement post "Customers for Life" not only ironic but completely unrelated... Their decision is stupid but the title bugs me even more. Thankfully the only HP hardware I have is from woot sales where I grabbed an 17" HP laptop for $300.</comment>


Ask HN: Help my data analyst team not suck - <AUTHOR> I was just promoted to lead a team of 10 data analysts at a behind-the-times insurance co.
I'm in over my head, so this is a peter principle event, but want to give it a shot before suggesting the VP fire me and hire someone competent.
The team works on a variety of reporting and analysis projects, and everyone uses their own preferred tools (SAS, SQL, Python, Excel, Access).
The team was formed by taking "data people" out of many departments and moving to a centralized "analytics" team. The departments are now our customers.
The company also purchased a Qlikview server, licenses, and dedicated two people on the team to maintaining the environment and developing dashboards.
I have free reign to organize the team as I see fit. I'd like to move to working in a common toolset, using a project management tool, having standards/documentation, using source control, etc.
I've spent most of my career in a similar role to the other analysts on my team so don't have a ton of experience in using software development methods like this myself. I know enough to think we could benefit by them. I don't want to introduce unnecessary bureaucracy, but I am willing to add ramp up time to get people working better in the long run.
All of our data is stored in a poorly organized oracle warehouse maintained by a slow moving IT team.
The analysts independently do a lot of transformation and cleanup of data from the warehouse before being able to use it in their work.
I hope to build a pipeline where we treat the IT warehouse as our source, write an automated ETL process to clean, organize and enrich data before loading into our own database that would serve as the source for our qlikview dashboards, and other reports.
Wondering if you all could offer some advice for pulling this off.
What's the best way to introduce some standards and process in a project like this?
Possible? Or hopeless and I should commit seppuku?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Sounds like fun, you should probably look at Jupyter or Spark as a system to manage the data transformations and that allows team members to create and share scripts and workbooks.

Develop the ETL process so that it just pulls data and writes it to your team's ideal form as flat files, then write another process that pushes that data where and how you want it (because that can change in six months), also develop automated processes for measuring/ensuring the quality of data being added to your system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not familiar with spark beyond being aware of it. We have a good amount of space allocated on a fairly powerful oracle server. Was thinking to store all of our tables there. If there are big advantages over an alternate system, I could get it done but would have to get the IT software team on board with letting me install it, getting a server, etc.

Jupyter have used but was thinking to have the team settle on mainly using SAS code to built the ETL process since that is the language most of them are familiar with using. (even though I personally HATE writing SAS)

<comment><USER2> if you want to test out spark, then a trial account on databricks.com is probably a good place to start. If the team is used to SAS though I'd stick with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Passing your vision and dream to everyone is your most powerful move. Imagine for a moment what that would be like, what that would accomplish. This book is an amazing read for people in your position, [https://www.amazon.com/Switch- Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/038...](https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change- Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll check it out. Getting buy in from this group will be a challenge, but it has been positive so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FWIW:

When I was at an insurance company, I kept suggesting they introduce GIS because so much of the data is location-based. They kept blowing me off.

That's all I've got.</comment>


25 petabytes bringing storage firm, court case to the brink of collapse - <AUTHOR> http://aceds.org/news/25-million-gigabytes-brings-prosecution-megaupload-and-its-eccentric-founder-standstill

<comment><USER2> > Federal prosecutors say they should not have to sort through the files at > taxpayer expense, but have objected to their erasure.

Umm, what? The prosecutors don't think they should be responsible for obtaining and examining the evidence to build their case? Who the hell else should be? It's _exactly_ what they are being paid to do!

I fully agree that they shouldn't be wasting taxpayer money on it, but only because they shouldn't be wasting it on this case in the first place. If it were a case that actually merited attention, though (say, 25 PB of child porn or snuff video), "we shouldn't have to pay to store and handle this much evidence" would be an unacceptable response. I can only hope that it's motivated by a desire to somewhat gracefully rid themselves of a toxic case.

<comment><USER3> > The prosecutors don't think they should be responsible for obtaining and > examining the evidence to build their case?

Unless the whole shebang was done for political reasons just to bring Megaupload down. Then they don't actually want to look at the evidence, expect the case to lose, but the end goal of would be achieved, nevertheless.

<comment><USER4> Does a defendent have any recourse at all in such cases? If the government succeeds in shutting down a company without any finding of guilt, what's to stop them from continuing to use that strategy?

<comment><USER5> Or put another way, is the government liable to pay for the damages caused to infrastructure and reputation of Megaupload, not to mention the psychological pressure experienced by it's founder and his family? Considering all of this, we must be talking extreme amounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Federal prosecutors say they should not have to sort through the files at taxpayer expense, but have objected to their erasure. MegaUpload attorneys suggested hiring an e-discovery vendor to recreate samples of the data as "read-only" files, but those efforts have been rejected._

If federal prosecutors don't like the US's discoverability rules, then maybe federal prosecutors should think about trying to get the US's discoverability rules changed. There's no shame in admitting that the standard is unnecessarily broad and is part of the reason why it's so ridiculously expensive to pursue a case in the USA.

For now, though, they helped make this bed and they should have to sleep in it just like the rest of us. If not, well then I wish Carpathia the greatest of luck in pursuing their hopefully forthcoming and definitely non-frivolous lawsuit against the federal government.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit Holy shit! I thought when the feds seize something... they actually _take_ it... you know... like evidence. They just left it with the hosting company to store for them... and aren't paying them for it? What a bunch of asshats. Whether MU is guilty or not, the hosting company should not be on the hook to store the evidence. Hell, you'd think that would be enough to get the case tossed since it doesn't sound like they have a very solid chain of custody there.

<comment><USER7> And it is mystifying how they can justify not giving the data back to MegaUpload. If it is evidence for the case, it must be available to the defence right? And if it isn't evidence, then why can't they have it back?

<comment><USER6> Well, there's a distinction made between making it available to the defence, and giving it back to the defendant.

Apparently the data they have gotten around to collecting has been shared with the defence. But presumably MegaUpload is not allowed to start serving that data again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surely the only sensible cost of the data is the lost business (assuming they would be using all the storage for other purposes). No one can access the data, so power consumption - the main cost of big data centres - should be zero.

Have I missed something?

<comment><USER9> The hard drives might be encrypted, since the servers are on, they might be mounted un-encypted. Turning them off would loose access to the decrypted files, and hence make them inaccessible.

<comment><USER10> > _It says it has spent $65,000 to transfer the servers to a climate- > controlled center. It is leasing the new facility for $37,000 per month, > after its contracts with a prior facility expired._

I would imagine that means they were powered down for the move.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily. There are setups to keep seized hardware powered up during the move. They have it for laptops so I would guess someone sells that for whole racks as well.

<comment><USER11> <http://www.wiebetech.com/products/HotPlug.php>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this me, or the comma in the submission title is in a weird place? I just can't parse it. English is not my first language though.

<comment><USER13> Its a common practice in American English to use a comma in place of 'and' in newspaper headlines. It is sometimes called 'the Headline Comma', and he justification seems to be to save space.

There's a Metafilter thread about it here: <http://ask.metafilter.com/20720/Headline-Question>

English is my first language and I find it hard to parse too, but its not commonly used where I live (UK).

EDIT: Clarified that use is normally restricted to headlines

<comment><USER14> I would emphasize it's only in the headline dialect of English. Non-native speakers should probably just avoid using it altogether. It certainly can't be used to replace any "and" you'd like in a normal essay or anything.

<comment><USER13> Thanks. I've edited my comment to make the usage clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article links to an infographic ("25 Petabytes by the numbers"), which claims that 800 years of MP3 audio is equivalent in size to 332 years of HD video.

Sorry, I've never heard of any "HD" video codec which is only 2.4x as large as MP3 audio.

</comment><comment><USER16> Once Carpathia decides to delete/sell/get rid of the data the case will be dropped. The US government only has to keep this tied up in court until Carpathia (which legally could delete the data) deletes the data. Once the evidence is gone they can easily escape from this horrible mess they have created. "Your honour, I have some bad news. Since Carpathia has deleted the data we no longer have a plausable way to continue with this case."

Megaupload destroyed, goverment doesn't have to pay them anything (after all it was Carpathias fault) etc.

They can't just drop the case because mega upload is an email blast away from being full on running again. Users don't have to resign up, reupload data or anything. That is why the data needs to be destroyed, which I believe is the end goal of the United States Government.

</comment><comment><USER17> The government could "unfreeze" enough of MU's frozen cash to pay Carpathia for the data storage.

</comment><comment><USER18> 25 million gigabytes

I had to read that a couple of times to remind myself just how big a petabyte is. It's easy to forget the incredible scale of jumping from giga to tera to peta.

<comment><USER19> It's not very much in terms of hardware anymore.

As a rule of thumb, 1PB = 1 Rack. Depending on your redundancy strategy you can fit more.

<comment><USER20> Oh, only 25 racks of storage?

<comment><USER19> They probably have significantly more, considering their deployment has grown over years. Storage density roughly doubles every 2 years.

Would you start a new deployment from scratch today then yes, 25 racks, give or take a few (that's roughly 1.5mio dollars, give or take a few).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What a mess the government has caused. They refuse to allow Carpathia to delete the data, but refuse to compensate them for holding on to junk data. It's outrageous.</comment>


Naypidaw: A city looking for a purpose - <AUTHOR> https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/naypidaw-city-looking-purpose <comment><USER2> Artificial capitals are an interesting thing.

Two major 18th century creations were highly successful: Washington and St. Petersburg. (The latter is not the capital anymore, but remains the cultural center of European Russia. Vladimir Putin is from there, which hasn't hurt its standing.)

Washington D.C. seems to have fulfilled its goal as a uniting center of the early USA. Having the capital in New York City would certainly be more convenient for Donald Trump's commute... But I suspect that being so removed from the political epicenter would have made the Southern states secede in the early 19th century, and North America would look rather different today.

Major artificial capitals founded since 1900 are Brasília and Canberra, but they look more like Naypidaw than St. Petersburg -- administrative centers with little real metropolitan life.

<comment><USER3> I simply can't see why there shouldn't be possible to create large scale artificial cities in the western world. Especially young people do not want to live in suburbs.

When reading about San Francisco's problems with booming real estate prices and gentrifications, you can't help wondering why the state of California simply do not plan some new urban cities? The tech industry needs people and tech people need cities. When a city is full, you build a new one with city with squares, park'n ride and plenty of opportunity for people to meet.

<comment><USER4> It isn't an issue for the state to handle. It's an issue with where the companies have chosen to locate themselves. Any state could have these new areas, not just California.

The companies cluster around populations of individuals who are highly skilled in the areas the company need.

The individuals cluster around the areas that have a broad population of employment opportunity.

If you want to create a new economic center, you need to influence several major companies to invest in that area as an offshoot. Single company towns(and industry towns) are prone to collapse and are a bit entrapping, so you need redundancy in both companies and industry.

(There is also cultural draw, that cannot be recreated. It manifests from the populace and history of the area. But this isn't as easy to seed and takes more time than corporate sponsorship of an area.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Moving a capital to the middle of nowhere defends governments from revolutions. Remember what happened on the Tahrir square in Cairo in 2012? That wouldn't have been just as effective if the entire Egyptian goverment had been located in Aswan.

This is why Brasilia exists, and Islamabad, arguably Canberra but I'm not sure, Astana, and certainly Naypidaw. It's why the world's evilest kleptocrat, Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea[0], is currently building a new capital out in the jungle.

In short, put the capital somewhere remote, move all official and administrative business there, and ensure that the vast majority of the new city's population depends on the acting government for their livelihoods.

Sure, there may still be riots and uprisings like on Tahrir Square, but if they concentrate in the major population centers (eg Yangon), far away from the presidential palace, they won't easily turn into successful coups.

I'm always a bit disappointed when serious reporters fall for the joke that these capital city moves are "vanity projects" of "delusional rulers". The very reason these rulers add a hint of insanity and maybe a statue or two to the mix is so people don't stop to wonder at why this really happens. Make no mistake, it's not easy to remain a dictator, and people who can pull it off for decades tend to have a nose for trouble. The kind of trouble that might happen if your government is located in a major city.

[0] [http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/equatorial-guinea- malabo...](http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/equatorial-guinea-malabo- sipopo-camp-yaunde-inequality-poverty-wealth-buena-esperanza)

</comment><comment><USER6> This article is a bit inside baseball. For the majority of you who will not be familiar with this national capital, it really is quite an unusual place. There are dozens of sprawling luxury resorts (and a dearth of budget accommodation, unlike most of Myanmar). And a huge western style shopping mall with, of all things, a fancy wine shoppe at the front (this is not scandalous but it sure is conspicuous).

Hillary Clinton visited exactly five years ago. She almost certainly saw little of the country apart from the luxe interior of some government buildings not accessible to regular folks. How can I know this? Because in the new capital there is simply nothing to see, unless you count the capital itself. A paved road of 20 lanes is a must-see in every guidebook but Hillary might have assumed it was completely empty because it was closed for her motorcade. But those 20 lanes are always empty.

It's a beautiful country anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> Visited Myanmar over the past few weeks, thoroughly enjoyed my visit, Naypidaw was obviously not on the itinerary, absolutely no reason to go there whatsoever for the reasons listed.

That being said, traffic in Yangon is diabolical, if the idea is to build a new city to absorb some rural to urban migration then I can see the point.

Still, my money would be on Yangon as defacto capital if not the official one.

<comment><USER8> Ive been to naypidaw.

Its not that great.</comment></comment>


Announcing Graylog v1.0 GA - <AUTHOR> https://www.graylog.org/announcing-graylog-v1-0-ga/ <comment><USER2> Oh maaaaan the old graylog2 site had probably my /favorite/ branding in all of software. The heading was "Manage your logs in the dark and have lasers going and make it look like you're from space."

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130302051347/http://graylog2.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130302051347/http://graylog2.org/)

Sad to see it's gone all "professional" now :(

The web service had some hilarious bits too. Does it still say "enraging gorillas... | mounting party hats" etc when you log in?

<comment><USER3> I miss that too. Also the Party Gorilla was fantastic. Either way, glad to see the project has grown!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Users who tested the beta and release candidate versions of v1.0 reported huge improvements in performance and stability. Some of them were unable to crash the system no matter how hard they tried."

This statement from the page makes me conclude that others were indeed able to crash the system, perhaps without even trying too hard.

My guess is that the statement should be re-worded.

<comment><USER5> I was able to crash the system without even trying.

After waiting for a 500MB something docker image download and running the container halted the host OSX machine while looping with errors (failed API connections, failed to load SIGAR, ...)

The screenshots looked great but the first steps experience were a deal breaker.

<comment><USER6> Maybe requiring a full VM when a standalone self-contained application will do is not the winning strategy.

<comment><USER7> Oh, we got both kinds. We got country _and_ western. ;-)

Seriously, the Docker image and the VM images are there to help people getting started and to quickly try out Graylog. We also offer regular OS packages in DEB and RPM formats (supporting Debian 7, Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04, and CentOS 6) and a quick setup application (for a simple demo setup of Graylog and its dependencies). So choose your poison and be happy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hurrah - good to see that the Elasticsearch dependency is no longer locked to a rather old version (that bit me a few times when setting up a cluster last year). I'm still a bit wary about having to spin up MongoDB for it as well, though…

<comment><USER9> The MongoDB requirement gives me pause, too. I've wanted to give ToroDB ([https://github.com/torodb/torodb](https://github.com/torodb/torodb)) a try for awhile now, and I think I'm going to see if Graylog will talk to it for grins.

<comment><USER7> Please let us know how it worked out! ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So is this in the vein of Splunk, say? My company also uses logentries, and has been quite happy with it, but a hosted open-source tool would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Let me know if we can help with any questions.

See also: [http://www.infoworld.com/article/2885752/log- analysis/open-s...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2885752/log- analysis/open-source-graylog-puts-splunk-on-notice.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there any way to not use MongoDB in the backend?

<comment><USER12> I had the same question. Why are they using MongoDB when Elasticsearch can do the same job, may be better.

<comment><USER7> We don't want to use ES too much as Graylog should still work when ES has some problems. It's currently the default output but that may change in the future for special use cases.

That being said, we're aware that many people don't like the dependency on MongoDB and we'll work on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is Graylog effectively a single product that does the whole thing? My dismay with the ELK stack is you are effectively juggling 3 separate products with different release cycles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! We have put a lot of effort into making this one thing.

The graylog-web-interface connects to the graylog-server REST APIs and that is it. You can manage and monitor the whole system from the graylog-web- interface.

Both components are always released together.

<comment><USER14> Finally, less flexibility!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So there's Graylog, then there's Graylog2, then there's the new-and-improved Graylog.... If someone forks it will there be a new-and-improved Graylog2?

<comment><USER16> Yea I am confused, is this different from Graylog2?

<comment><AUTHOR> We decided to drop the "2" from the name to have less confusion with "Graylog(2) 2.0" \- Point taken here, the initial "2" was not a good idea :D

(The documentation may need a "History" page)

<comment><USER15> No Graylog3?

<comment><USER7> As Men in Black 3 wasn't that great and Star Wars: Episode 3 also had its lengths (don't get me started about Lethal Weapon 3!), we tried to avoid that. Let's see how Ghostbusters 3 will work out and maybe (but just maybe) we'll think about releasing Graylog3. ;-)

<comment><USER15> "Logbusters." I ain't afraid of no log!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What other pieces of software are there in this class? Who are the competitors?

<comment><USER18> I've used Splunk in the past, which is very good.

Their search interface and field extraction let you perform complex queries on your logs. We used the following query to identify users that were having a bad time on the site, by counting slow queries by user and adding them up:

"slow query" source="/var/log/application.log" | rex field=_raw "in (?<time>\\\d+)ms" | search time>2000 | rex field=_raw "User: (?<login>[^\\\s]+) " | top login

You can do much more complex queries--it's better to think of Splunk as a temporal database than a log aggregator.

Does anyone know if Graylog or other logging solutions can do the same thing? Splunk is amazing, but it's annoying to manage the infrastructure and it's crazy expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some folks in the Fluentd community uses Graylog2+Fluentd as an alternative to EFK (Elasticsearch Fluentd Kibana) See [http://www.fluentd.org/guides/recipes/graylog2](http://www.fluentd.org/guides/recipes/graylog2)

</comment><comment><USER20> So what is it exactly?

<comment><AUTHOR> A log management tool: You send all your local log messages/files to a central place (Graylog) and have unified searching, filtering, monitoring, alerting, forwarding, ...

All open source.

<comment><USER20> Call me stupid, but I've always learned better from examples than descriptions. So it's a log management tool. I can have my app write logs or files into Graylog, then I can handle the logs/files within Graylog much more easily than, say, if I were to write my own code to make some kind of sense with the log data. Am I understanding this correctly?

So I can maybe tell easily where users had problems with my app, or I can even use it as some kind of analytics program for my app?

<comment><USER20> I've visited the site and read what I could before, but without knowing what it does, it was pretty cumbersome to read through the entire website to figure out what exactly it does.

I was initially drawn to the fact that it took five and a half years to get to 1.0. God knows how hard it must've been to work on it to perfect it all these years, heck spending five months on an app is tough enough. I would've given up reading about it otherwise if it hadn't been for the five years thing. I just think that, despite all it's capable of, if the descriptions were more in layman's terms it could reach wider audience.

It actually turns out that this is exactly what I was looking for since I'm about to have my app out, and if I hadn't asked the question, I would've just ignored it all together.

While I'm very thankful for the additional explanations, I still think that nice illustration or a simple video of telling how it can solve real world problems will help people understand it better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I looked around a little bit on the web page but the answer to my two questions was not immediately apparent to me. (Note: I might just be blind) 1\. Can I set up a second Graylog Server as a failover with automated recovery and log syncing when both nodes come back up? 2\. Can I run it on any cheap cheap embedded platforms like a raspberry pi or beagleboard?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can set up as many Graylog servers as you want and put them behind a load balancer or integrate any kind of failover you want.

We do not recommend it running on extremely small platforms like a raspberry pi, but a very small VM (we have OVAs and other virtual appliances ready) is able to process a lot of messages already.

<comment><USER22> > and put them behind a load balancer

Only if your load balancer supports UDP, which most don't. You'll most likely need to use DNS load balancing in this case unless you're sending GELF messages with TCP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm evaluating Graylog as a piece in our monitoring infrastructure.

Does anybody have some experience using it in production?

<comment><USER24> +1

The solution seems neat. It'd be nice to know who is using it in production, how big is their environment, etc. I couldn't find much information online.

<comment><USER25> We're receiving roughly 200 msgs/s in our environment. We have it set up in an active/active environment across two data centers. It's been rock solid for us. It takes a little bit of time to get certain applications to send messages properly, but once you do, it's pure gold.

We are using NXLog on our Windows servers to send event log messages in GELF format. This allows us to truly delve in and search event logs so much easier than what we normally would be able to in Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can I just have on thing that does event logs and snmp and uptime and alerting for internal and external devices in a secure way all in one package? I'm so tired of having to have 30 different softwares installed just to accomplish 3 things.

</comment><comment><USER27> Could anyone give an executive summary of the differences with the ELK stack?

<comment><AUTHOR> This might help: [http://docs.graylog.org/en/1.0/pages/ideas_explained.html](http://docs.graylog.org/en/1.0/pages/ideas_explained.html)

<comment><USER27> Perfect! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Looks really great. Has anyone compared this to CloudWatch Logs? When I initially looked at CW Logs, it seemed fairly incomplete compared to Splunk.

</comment><comment><USER29> Congratulations to Lennart and his team!

</comment><comment><USER30> So... it runs in a JVM? ok....</comment>


Zynga to sell, lease back SF headquarters for $600M - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Zynga-to-sell-lease-back-SF-headquarters-for-13901353.php <comment><USER2> Seems to be a desparate move, since it will trigger a property tax re- assessment, incurring a $6M/year property tax bill, in addition to having to make the lease payments.</comment>


R vs Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.theswarmlab.com/r-vs-python-round-1/

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting project. The same problem also came into my mind recently. I am very happy to see the results and further challenges.

Another thing may be that Python is targeted to more general purposes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Round 2 is up now.

[http://www.theswarmlab.com/r-vs-python- round-2/](http://www.theswarmlab.com/r-vs-python-round-2/)</comment>


Neutron Drive: online editor now with Markdown preview - <AUTHOR> https://neutron-drive.appspot.com/blog/markdown-preview

<comment><USER2> This feature really helps a lot because you get instant feedback while your typing.</comment>


Protons Found to be 4% Smaller Than Previously Thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/horrendously-intense-laser-shrinks-the-proton/

<comment><USER2> See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1499053>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1501479></comment>


Spotify Pulls R. Kelly and XXXTentacion from Playlists, Stirring a Debate - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/arts/music/rkelly-spotify-accusations-xxxtentacion.html <comment><USER2> > The streaming service also noted that it has "thought long and hard about > how to handle content that is not hate content itself, but is principally > made by artists or other creators who have demonstrated hateful conduct > personally."

So do platforms such as Netflix or Hulu have a responsibility to pull content created or backed by Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby? Do art museums pull pieces from artist who may have had reprehensible conduct?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Slippery slope?

<comment><USER3> "We don't censor content because of an artist's or creator's behavior, but we want our editorial decisions — what we choose to program — to reflect our values," That sounds like what already happens. I don't think we're on a slope.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Spectacle – ReactJS Presentation Library, Write Your Decks in JSX - <AUTHOR> http://projects.formidablelabs.com/spectacle

<comment><USER2> Plenty of cool features - very cool!</comment>


Show HN: A blockchain alternative to Airbnb - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocribs.com/?refer=producthunt <comment><USER2> Not really a 'blockchain alternative' \-- just a clone of Airbnb that lets you pay in cryptocurrencies. Kind of a shame when there are other actually decentralized home sharing platforms like Beetoken, Origin, etc.

<comment><USER3> The business potential for this one is much greater because people who own cryptocurrencies are incentivized to use it over alternatives.

If you own shares in a business you're less likely to use a competitor... That would be like shareholders of Pepsi drinking Coca Cola or Apple shareholders using Samsung tablets.

That's the reason why cryptocurrency will take over; it lets everyone be a consumer of the goods and services of their own communities which they have a stake in.

Every time you buy something with a Cryptocurrency using income you derived from your fiat day job, you drive up the price... So if you own crypto, buying stuff using crypto helps to drive up the price. It's a bit like Amway but everyone is going to be in on it.

<comment><USER4> > It's a bit like Amway but everyone is going to be in on it.

Is this supposed to be an endorsement?

<comment><USER3> Well all public companies are a bit like Amway in the sense that they have a lot of stakeholders which have an incentive to help the company grow. Amway is a very successful business after all.

I'd say that cryptocurrencies are more ethical than Amway though because they don't try to make a profit by selling starter kits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always ask this for "x in crypto", and I'll ask it again: What important problem are you solving with this? Or, put differently: Why is this significantly (i.e. 10x) better than existing solutions?

PS: If my stance is not clear from my comment: I think most crypto-based startups are not solving a real problem, just adding crypto to an existing problem.

<comment><USER6> The sole problem crypto currency solves is the problem of centralization. Regarding the Airbnb case, why would people want to pay the Airbnb commission when they can have direct payment and bookkeeping using the blockchain?

Of course there are still the (important) issues of disputes, insurance etc. that are provided by the centralized entity. These might be solved in the future and might be not.

<comment><USER7> In the absence of a central host, who is hosting the media? In the near future that's likely to include advances around AR/VR, which will significantly increase the burden on infrastructure.

Who provides a trusted system of reviews? Who hosts/controls those? What's the basis of trusting those to be legitimate users/customers? Who foots the bill for the site (or similar) that enables organized browsing of all listings, searching, information presentation, et al.? How do you force coordination on that if it's decentralized? How do you then keep that decision committee from becoming the central authority all over again? This is the libertarian anarchy problem, where you will always end up right back with some center power structure that becomes dominate.

There are a vast number of problems that Airbnb solves that you're leaving out.

There is no scenario where decentralized wins. The extreme majority of users do not care about decentralization, it is meaningless to them. They want a trusted central authority to hold responsible, complain to, sue, whatever.

<comment><USER8> What's even worse, even the payment issue is solved and nobody is forced to go through Airbnb for that.

There is Paypal, Moneygram, Western Union, there are direct wire transfers, in many countries you can pay by cheque, you can do a direct deposit ... And all of these work with your existing cash and credit cards and don't require knowledge how to set up a Bitcoin (or whatever-coin) wallet and how to use it and how not to get scammed.

It is literally a solution looking for a problem hoping to cash on the crypto craze (adding -coin to anything is a sure way to get funded/bought/have your stock price soar up).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pretty nice looking clone website; very accurate cloning including similar styling of most widgets. I do like the mono spaced font. Most clones I've checked out really bungle the UX in a lot of ways, so kudos there.

Worked great on my phone.

Nit: Some of the photos didn't have the Airbnb logo removed.

Are the reviews pulled from Airbnb as well?

</comment><comment><USER10> "Our vision is to fully disintermediate vacation rentals and let you explore the world with low transaction costs."

Do you take a transaction fee? If yes, I don't see how this is any different. If no, how do you make money?

<comment><USER11> You know there are other CC like ETH, NEO, ARK that have much lower fees or no fess at all.

<comment><USER12> I think you misunderstood their comment. They weren't asking about network fees at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like you missed a pretty easy name with 'crybs'

</comment><comment><USER14> Just because you can put in on the blockchain, should you?

<comment><USER15> it's not even on the blockchain, it's just a different payment method. bubble hype cash-in.

<comment><AUTHOR> clogging the ethereum blockchain by putting every little bite on chain doesn't make any sense

<comment><USER15> it also doesn't make sense to call it a blockchain service when it's a web app with a cryptocurrency escrow service

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How do you deal with disputes and harrassment? Do you offer escrow or support 3rd-party escrow and arbitration?

</comment><comment><USER17> on careers page it states: "Competitive salary (paid exclusively in crypto currencies)".. With that mindset I really hope the actual salary is described in a fixed dollar amount.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nothing better than paying a $20 transaction fee and waiting an hour. When will credit cards embrace the blockchain benefits?

<comment><USER19> Is it really a problem to wait an hour or two for renting a place?

<comment><USER20> Yes, if two people are trying to rent the same place at approximately the same time. I don't want to wait two hours to find out that someone attempted to complete a transaction five minutes before I did, and their payment went through first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice idea. I guess it is appealling to hosts as they don't have to register with tax and stuff. Is that correct?

<comment><USER22> > _it is appealling to hosts as they don 't have to register with tax_

Fascinating to realise people will go to jail for upgrading a civil dispute ( _e.g._ short-stay and subletting restriction violations) to felony money laundering and tax fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really cool looking site! Congrats on the launch!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man! Lots of haters around today it seems

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am surprised that neither Dash, Monero, nor Zcash are offered as a means of payment.

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://youtu.be/8y1lHRiIS8U](https://youtu.be/8y1lHRiIS8U)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there a need when all the cryptos are yelling hodl.</comment>


Verizon Is Blocking Google Wallet Anti-Competitively - <AUTHOR> http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Its-Clear-Verizon-Is-Blocking-Google-Wallet-AntiCompetitively-122513 <comment><USER2> First Google voice, now this. Le sigh...

I was in the business of mobile applications pre-iPhone, the era of phone companies picking winners or trying to do things themselves and the net result was that most mobile functionality beyond the basics was garbage. Not just the devices but the poor choices mediocre people at some high-mid level in the phone companies would make on all kinds of weak decision making criteria led to bad poorly thought out software choices, both on the consumer side and the enterprise side.

Of course carriers thought it was in their best interests and that they could beat market based product discovery. Neither was really true as the explosion of innovation caused by the iPhone and the cadre of early post-iPhone mobile app developers demonstrated.

This kind of move by Verizon is a misguided step back to that world. It's frustrating and stupid and in the long run unlikely to be a win for Verizon, despite any short term gain for some internal project or other built by a second rate team put together to defend someone's budget allocation.

<comment><USER3> Why the mention of Google Voice? I've never had an issue using Google Voice w/ Verizon, all the way back to Droid OG days.

<comment><USER2> I moved to Verizon on my birthday on the 8th of this month. Finally ditched T-mobile to get an iPhone. I have been using Google Voice as my sole number for years now. It's very important to me. I even explained this when buying. Turns out that unannounced Verizon has started blocking Google Voice verifying your number do I cannot use it. At first I thought it was a blip but lots of Googling has discovered this appears to be a change as it's hitting everyone. If anyone can show me a fix and where I'm wrong I will happily stand corrected. But to this date every attempt to get my phone added to Google Voice has failed and blocking appears to be going on. I would not be surprised if existing iPhone Google Voice users are fine if they've already verified their number. I have no idea.

<comment><USER4> > Turns out that unannounced Verizon has started blocking Google Voice > verifying your number do I cannot use it.

How exactly do they block it? According to the verification instructions[0], Google Voice calls you and asks you to enter a verification code. How can this be blocked? It would be like any other DTMF service. Also, isn't it illegal to block this?

0: [http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=144586)

<comment><USER2> Oh, I know how it works :-) ...it just doesn't any more. I don't know of any legality blocking such a call but I can assure you no matter how many times I trigger the verification process I get nothing but an error message and no call or text from Mr Google.

<comment><USER5> I successfully verified my new Verizon number last month

<comment><USER2> Right. So I understand. People seem to have started reporting issues since early December. I know you COULD do it on Verizon ...I wouldn't have considered them otherwise. It's just disappointing that they appear to have made a recent decision to change that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somewhat my area of focus.

The SE Isis uses is on the SIM, the SE GoogleWallet uses is Embedded on chip. Two different types, chosen primarily around distribution mechanisms each could protect. Google felt if it were embedded, its relationships with OEM's would primarily help its case. Carriers went the SIM route primarily due to them being the only distribution channel that matters in the US for phones.

Google Wallet can potentially work off of a SIM based SE. But this would mean that Google will have to work with in the parameters of Carrier's Isis framework. Isis framework is different in that it has no visibility in to the transaction data. Google will have to opt in to this approach (Banks require it because they fear Google). Google wants data and will never agree. Yada Yada Yada.

Verizon did block Google because of its stake in Isis. And because Banks would have explicitly sought out Carriers to block GoogleWallet on Carrier phones. Google could work with Isis with in its own framework, but it never will. Competing interests, revenue models and goals.

<comment><AUTHOR> That still doesn't make it right, though, and it's still anti-competitive. I mean who is Verizon to say that a company can't run a certain type of app on "their" phones, because they are not even their phones. They are their customers' phones.

It's especially troublesome when Verizon is creating a competing app, and they are just giving a more or less "reasonable" excuse to completely take out their competitor from the market, much like Apple is doing with the browsers on iOS. The difference here is that these carriers almost completely own the US market, and them joining together like this to stop Google from putting the app on their phones is kind of a cartel movement, isn't it?

At the very least, I think this is worth an investigation from FCC and FTC.

<comment><USER7> The billions of dollars that could be used to lobby special interests into law is who's trying to say they can't run it on 'their' phones..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Actually, it's not just anti-competitive, it's plainly illegal for Verizon to be messing with Google Wallet or Voice on any of its 4G phones.

Verizon licensed the C Block in 2008, which come with rules that REQUIRE it to allow any phone to run any app. Unfortunately the FCC has been gutless about enforcing the rule. It took the agency 10 months to force Verizon to allow tethering apps in Google App store. If they'd had any guts, they would have banned Verizon from selling the 4G iPhone which, as a locked down phone, is arguably illegal under the rules.

In fact, Google argued that it would be illegal for Verizon to sell a locked down phone on that spectrum, but then once it started to need Verizon, it refuses to stand by its earlier rules.

And these rules matter a lot, because come spring, a federal court will rule that the FCC's net neutrality rules have no legal basis and the ONLY net neutrality rules left standing will be the ones on Verizon's C Block.

<comment><USER9> "allow any phone to run any app"

The ability to run the app =/= which default apps are on the device.

<comment><USER10> AFAIK they block installation from the Play store.

<comment><USER9> My bad, looks like this is the case. TFA linked to [1] which seemed to only indicate that VZW wasn't allowing it as a default app. But [2] and elsewhere indicated VZW had also asked Google to not allow the app on Verizon devices.

[1] [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Were-Blocking- Goo...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Were-Blocking-Google- Wallet-for-Good-Reason-Honest-122415)

[2] [http://www.droid-life.com/2012/12/10/verizon-responds-to- fcc...](http://www.droid-life.com/2012/12/10/verizon-responds-to-fcc- complaint-over-blocking-of-google-wallet-says-google-needs-to-change-the-app/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the biggest detriment to the adoption of these mobile payment platforms is going to be trust. There is no way I'd trust a platform like the Isis one that was mentioned in the article to act as my mobile middle man for transactions. Many of those companies have a less than stellar reputation with customers that tends to lean toward the "necessary evil" side of things.

The last thing I'd want to do is give them more personal info, more of my money, and give them more control. I'm probably the minority though.

How is it done in Asia where this is already much more popular? Who controls the payment platforms the banks? the mobile carriers?

<comment><USER4> > How is it done in Asia where this is already much more popular?

In Japan, Osaifu Keitai[0] is a partnership between the major carriers (NTT DoCoMo, au, and SoftBank) that uses technology developed by Sony.

0: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaifu-Keitai>

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra You get the phone subsidised from the retail price of $600 to $100, and your carrier gets you to drop your pants.

You should totally find a way to reduce carrier to a dumb pipe. Everything carriers (or ISPs) try to add to the service is awful, harmful and anti- market. Make them just provide the connectivity and shut up.

<comment><AUTHOR> You say that as if the carrier is "eating the price of the phone" or something, and even if you didn't mean it like that, I think that's how most people see it. When in fact it's not anything more than sending them payments for the phone every month, instead of paying for it all upfront. And I mean that on top of the price you pay for Voice and text. If anything, they even make a nice profit on those payments for the phone - probably a lot more than a bank gets on a credit.

They are sneaky though. The reason they get you to think that is by keeping the plans prices the same, even if you come with your own phone. In Europe, if you use your own phone, the plan is significantly cheaper than when getting it with a phone, especially if it's a pretty high-end phone.

<comment> guard-of-terra The problem is that they're not just "eat the price of the phone by making plans fatter". They're "eat the price of the phone by making plans fatter AND your phone dumber, less useful, less secure and less predictable".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In there any electrical customer anywhere who wants the utility to say what they can and plug into the wall sockets based on whether or not the utility also sells competing products? ("Sorry, but your fancy new toaster doesn't come from Pacific Gas & Electric. Here, buy our crappy overpriced version instead.")

By the same token, is there any data provider model that (a) customers want and (b) works the same way? The idea that buying a phone from Verizon makes it "their" phone, which they can then control in whatever way benefits them the most is just anathema. It's like an ISP saying you can't use your Mac because they have a deal with Microsoft, and if you want to get online, you need to buy Windows 8. On a machine bought from them.

Virtually EVERYBODY wants a dumb pipe delivering commodified data. People will pay for bandwidth (high or low) and latency (short or long). The market can price each according to demand and the constraints of available technology. And providers, being utilities, should be able to count on a low but rock solid margin of profit.

And if you're in the data access business, you should absolutely barred from any other line of commerce on the grounds that it will represent a conflict of interest. To the extent that data service (esp. wireless) depends on a public resource (spectrum), there should be no question here.

I mean, data is a utility. Like water, like gas, like electricity. Just add a meter, deliver the goods, and get the hell out of the way.

<comment><USER13> > Virtually EVERYBODY wants a dumb pipe delivering commodified data. People > will pay for bandwidth (high or low) and latency (short or long). The market > can price each according to demand and the constraints of available > technology. And providers, being utilities, should be able to count on a low > but rock solid margin of profit.

True on the logical level, false on the human level.

If carriers became just & only that, providing dumb pipe service for a flat monthly rate, things might well be better overall.

Unfortunately it's hard to lobby the public on a coherent dream. Sure, many people who think much about the market may agree, but all the staff at all the carrier phone shops, and their families, will campaign against you. As will all the bribery dollars of the telecoms companies.

You'd be shot down in flames for trying to regulate this. Congressman in narrow districts would get warned off by angry potential voters, the mass public would be advertised into uncertainty, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One thing not commented on in this article is that AT&T and T-Mobile are doing the exact same thing. Of the big 4 US carriers the only one not explicitly blocking Google Wallet is Sprint.

<comment><USER15> I use Google Wallet on my Galaxy Nexus using T-Mobile. (Or at least I _did_ use it until my free $10 ran out. I don't get how it's supposed to be more convenient than swiping a card.)

Verizon won't let phones access their network if Google Wallet can be installed. That is significantly different from every other network.

<comment><USER16> > Verizon won't let phones access their network if Google Wallet can be > installed. That is significantly different from every other network.

That's not true. I use a sideloaded Google Wallet on a Verizon Galaxy Nexus just fine.

<comment><USER15> Google Wallet is in Google Play on my phone. It isn't on Verizon phones. There is a distinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Semi-related question:

How difficult would it be to disrupt the cell phone market? I used AT&T for a few years and now I have been using Verizon for 2 years, in my dealings with these companies I have found them to be much more scummier than almost any other industry out there. They have the most complicated policies where even if you try to do everything right, you will still get dinged with fees every now and then.

Are these companies really scummy or is it just the nature of the business? I know certain industries are very difficult to operate due to specific issues like scammers and online payments (I believe PayPal were the first ones to get it right and they are one of the most hated companies).

Is it possible for a company, let's say Google, to provide an unlimited data/calling plan for a reasonable cost without all of the hidden fees and charges?

<comment><USER18> > How difficult would it be to disrupt the cell phone market?

Well, to start you'd have to do is build a couple of hundred thousand cellphone towers, at a couple of hundred thousand dollars apiece.

<comment><USER19> You're leaving out the part where you purchase a swatch of spectrum for billions of dollars from the US government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't help but think that NFC and the technical implementation differences between Isis and Wallet are a total red herring as far as consumers are concerned. Isis have already stolen the momentum but have wasted it with inaction. Non-NFC fully-online payment systems (square, Starbucks) have meanwhile grown successfully.

Google pushed hard for adoption from terminal providers and retailers while Isis have done very little to develop a real platform until very recently. The result, frankly, is that you aren't likely to need to tap your phone to conduct business, instead you'll press a button on your phone. And no consumer will care.

So Verizon ultimately loses out on a massive transaction market by trying to fight Google.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the "secure element" is ARM's TrustZone [1], that is found on every ARM Cortex-based device out there, right? Or is there anything special they are adding to some of the latest ARM SoC's in phones? If it's TrustZone, then Verizon has been lying about this from the very beginning.

[1] [http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzon...](http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzone.php)

Application Examples for TrustZone:

• Secured PIN entry for enhanced user authentication in mobile payments & banking

• Anti-malware that is protected from software attack

• Digital Right Management

• Software license management

• Loyalty-based applications

• Access control of cloud-based documents

• e-Ticketing Mobile TV

<comment><USER21> The secure element is typically on the NFC chip.

<comment><USER22> Actually, this is untrue, and I know of no NFC ASIC with an integrated secure element (not NXP, nor Sony); the ASICs are typically just transceivers (the exception being an NXP ASIC with embedded MiFare). The SIM has been identified for a long time as the probable security element for NFC. However, this has long been a point of contention, and Gemalto (the largest SIM provider in the world) has been playing both sides quite evenly.

<comment><USER21> Hmm, I had this in mind:

[http://www.nxp.com/news/press-releases/2011/11/nxp-nfc- solut...](http://www.nxp.com/news/press-releases/2011/11/nxp-nfc-solution- implemented-in-galaxy-nexus-from-google.html)

"Featuring a NFC radio controller and an embedded Secure Element, the PN65N is also fully validated and integrated on the latest release of Android™ 4.0."

<comment><USER22> Admittedly, my knowledge is a little bit out of date, but that is one chip out of several that I know over the last 7 years. You used the word "typically," and as you can imagine, the telcos have a preference for treating the SIM as the secure element because they control it; in the US the telcos dirve the majority of mobile sales.

This is a slightly sore subject as I worked for a startup that is now a zombie, having attempted to wait out the fight over who would control NFC payments (telco vs. credit card company).

Look at the just announced chip from Broadcom which supports "multiple secure elements to ensure all payment business models are supported for today's market.": [http://seekingalpha.com/news-article/5050981-broadcom- launch...](http://seekingalpha.com/news-article/5050981-broadcom-launches- industry-s-first-certified-nfc-quad-combo-wireless-connectivity-solution)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can you use Google Wallet on a rooted phone?

<comment><USER24> If you are using Verizon, no. I have a rooted Galaxy Nexus Prime running CyanogenMod 10, and the Play Store has always said, "Your device isn't compatible with this version." when attempting to install/upgrade Google Wallet.

When I first got this phone, before rooting it, I had found a "sideloaded" apk of the app which worked for awhile, but I was unable to upgrade to newer versions of the app easily.

<comment><USER25> > If you are using Verizon, no. I have a rooted Galaxy Nexus Prime running > CyanogenMod 10, and the Play Store has always said, "Your device isn't > compatible with this version."

I'm assuming you were running a pre-release build; Google Play/Google Wallet payments have always had a spotty track record on non-stable releases of CM. I was able to run Google Wallet just fine when I was running an older version of CM (rooted).

But you don't need to root to sideload it, either, even if you're on Verizon.

<comment><USER24> My only successful Google Wallet experience was before both rooting and installing CM, with a sideloaded apk, using the build that shipped with the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hm.. All this sounds really wrong (as well as having 4 major internet/cell/phone/tv providers for the whole USA)

May be something like internet/infrastructure regulation similar to Israel could help to solve this problem. <http://www.iasps.org/bezekisp.htm></comment>


A UX Idea: I know where you are aiming - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cihadturhan/a-ux-idea-i-know-where-you-are-aiming-3e00d152afb2

<comment><USER2> an unnecessary solution to fix what should never have been broken in the first place

this is like boarding up every single entrance and door to your house and then cutting a whole in your roof and placing a ladder up to your roof

and then thinking you are actually solving the problem

whereas the intelligent solution is to not board up your door but to actually use it as an entry point

we know what good UX is all about, unfortunately can't say the same thing about google's UX team. they have demonstrated again and again that they don't know the first thing about the discipline they purport to work in</comment>


Cookie law renders 95% of EU websites illegal [video] - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/9hLmX9FX2KA

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the creator of the video. Just to clarify a few things:

1\. I'm not against better privacy. Just a poorly written law.

2\. The law doesn't just cover cookies - it also applies to HTML5 Local Storage, Flash objects etc. "Cookie Law" is a popular abbreviation.

3\. It may not be realistic to challenge the law, but I believe we should try.

For those doubting the veracity of these claims, here are some references:

KPMG: 95% of UK websites not compliant with law [http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it- business/3350059/95-p...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it- business/3350059/95-percent-of-uk-organisations-do-not-comply-with-eu-cookie- law/)

TechCrunch: Stupid EU cookie law will kill our startups stone dead [http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/09/stupid-eu-cookie-law- will-h...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/09/stupid-eu-cookie-law-will-hand- the-advantage-to-the-us-kill-our-startups-stone-dead/)

Wired: The EU's legal war on cookies is barking mad [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/11/cookies- regul...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/11/cookies- regulations?page=all)

BBC News <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13541250>

The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/13/new-law- coo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/13/new-law-cookies- affect-internet-browsing)

Plus of course the site mentioned by the video (my site): <http://nocookielaw.com/></comment>


Ask HN: Does the Usefulness of Computers Outweigh the Environmental Impact? - <AUTHOR>

Hundreds of millions of computer products are trashed every year and less than 20% recycled. Many of those recycled are sent to China where they are processed by hand and the stench of melting solder blankets the city. Many processors contain gold that is largely mined by hand by under-payed workers in Africa and India. Manufacturing a single computer requires more than 1 ton of water, fossil fuel and other chemicals.
Much has been made of the positive ethical impact of social networking lately particularly for stimulating social justice. Moreover, writers like Stewart Brand and Bruce Sterling have argued that in order for humanity to become resilient to environmental catastrophe, we must become massively connected. In the future we will "wrangle" massive realtime data sets and global-scale sensor networks will give us a fine-grained understanding of global physical, social, biological, even one day perhaps mental phenomena. McLuhan talks of the global village. Guattari talks of a planetary consciousness.
Surely you are interested in computers because you believe that they can do good. Do you believe that the good that you do with computers outweighs the environmental impact (and ethical injustice) that the production of the hardware entails? <comment><USER2> I actually do not know how much environmental impact my desktop PC (and a 22" monitor) made. Worse than my 42" TV? Like a car panel or maybe a dozen cellphones?

I just don't know its costs. And I would need more details before answering the question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I was hoping that somebody might be able to provide some information along those lines.

Googling "environmental impact of computers" turns up some data on quantity of resources and total energy cost, but such data is seldom presented in a useful context:

[http://www.google.ca/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=e...](http://www.google.ca/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=environmental+impact+of+computers&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=MQlrTc7tB8-gtwep1szmAg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Depends on who's behind the keyboard.</comment>


Google translate silently drops translation of (some?) Covid-19 information - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.es/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=es&text=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40matthiassamwald%2Fpromoting-simple-do-it-yourself-masks-an-urgent-intervention-for-covid-19-mitigation-14da4100f429 <comment><AUTHOR> A few weeks ago on Hacker New this post was submitted: "Guidance against wearing masks for the coronavirus is wrong – cover your face (bostonglobe.com)"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716618)

Reading this thread I came a cross a comment promoting simple DIY masks if medical-grade masks were not available in sufficient numbers:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716927)

Today I was in contact with Spanish friend of mine and he told me he didn't have a mask. As I wasn't available to help, I told him that a using a scarf is probably better than nothing, and wanted to send him the link mentioned in the comment above, and translate it from English to Spanish:

[https://link.medium.com/LY7RRNr2X4](https://link.medium.com/LY7RRNr2X4)

The link leads to this post: [https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting- simple-do-it-y...](https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting-simple-do-it- yourself-masks-an-urgent-intervention-for-covid-19-mitigation-14da4100f429)

Trying to translate this page on Google translate does not give any results, and it does not tell you the reason.

Yesterday a post showed that "YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954765)

I wonder if this now also is the case for Google Translate?</comment>


Are Blogs As We Know Them Dead? - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/10/21/are-blogs-as-we-know-them-dead/ <comment><USER3> It seems a little pre-apocalyptic to suggest that blogs "as we know them" will soon vanish from the earth. Sure, FB, Twitter, etc. are gaining ground - <USER2> more by creating a need that people didn't know to exist previously rather than by pushing out blogs. The problem with a text-full blog is its lack of interactive elements, which FB, Twitter have capture nicely. Collaborative technology may be where it's at, but unique, well-reasoned blogs that contribute to the intellectual landscape can stay around with a strong following (think fivethirtyeight)...it just seems that nobody's particularly interested in reading a tome about your personal daily errands anymore when status updates will suffice.

</comment><comment><USER4> I sure hope so. Good riddance (at least to 99% of them)</comment>


Ask HN: When did you first come across Hacker News? - <AUTHOR>

It's an interesting community to say the least. How did you hear about it? <comment><USER2> I was looking at the problem of spam and I came across Paul Graham's essay "A Plan For Spam."

It worked brilliantly - still does now. My email setup is rather esoteric setup because of some unusual requirements, so I do my own spam filtering, and it's still working.

So I went and read some of PG's other essays, and wondered about connections between them. So I did this:

[http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/PaulGrahamEssays.html?HN_20150...](http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/PaulGrahamEssays.html?HN_20150519)

And this:

[http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/PaulGrahamEssaysRanking.html?H...](http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/PaulGrahamEssaysRanking.html?HN_20150519)

Just messing about and I learned a lot, so I emailed PG with the result. He suggested I submit it to HN, and that's when I first heard of it.</comment>


Hello World in 32-bit x86 assembly on codepad.org - <AUTHOR> http://codepad.org/EvPuDhPc

<comment><USER2> Lame. Hello World in 32 bits would have been really cool though.

<comment><AUTHOR> 3276872 = 'hello' in 24 bits. The minimum number of bits to store the information of all 10 letters would be 47.</comment></comment>


Play Framework Security Advisory - <AUTHOR> http://www.playframework.com/security/vulnerability/20130806-SessionInjection <comment><USER2> I just do not understand why we keep persisting in putting session data into cookies.

Its between hard and impossible to build to systems perfectly that do this, whereas a server based lookup has a limited number of attacks that do not involve owning my boxes.

I have even written my own session handling wsgi middleware just because I don't understand encryption and cannot find a framework that doesn't try that.

<comment><USER3> I believe the whole purpose of putting session data into cookies is to prevent the other issues that arise when storing session data on the server's database. The main issue is that when you're load balancing, each request could be load balanced to a different server, so you need the session to be stored on the client side to prevent the hassle of trying to scale your back- end to use your solution.

<comment><USER4> Or use sticky sessions and keep the session state server side... Much faster than rebuilding session state for every request (whether from a cookie or from a DB), especially the more complex your app and session state become.

<comment><USER5> In my experience, sticky sessions open a whole new can of worms. With proxies and VLAN, it's very easy to have an extremely unbalanced load if you use naive IP-based balancing. If one of the servers becomes a "hot spot", adding more servers won't immediately remove the load from that. And when a server dies, the sessions in that server are lost. These problems can be mitigated with an in-memory distributed database overlaid on top of your cluster, but that opens its own can of worms...

<comment><USER4> Apache and nginx both have an array of good LB algos. I've never seen IP-based LB or hot-spots really. Most app servers support session replication/backup to other node(s). This is really standard stuff in JBoss for instance (my world). Problems that have been solved for years and used at massive scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just patched some apps, and there have been other changes from 1.2.5 to 1.2.6 - not cool! In page templates,

.formatCurrency('GBP')

no longer works

<comment><USER7> I love Play, but I have also been bitten by issues when upgrading.

Needless to say, if you think 1.2.5 to 1.2.6 is bad, don't ever upgrade to 2.x!

<comment><USER8> Moving to 2.x still seems like more trouble than it's worth, but maybe I'm just burnt out on learning another templating system =/

<comment><USER9> Is scala not the templating in 1.x?

<comment><USER8> Apparently it's groovy, I just knew it as the templating for Play before now :)

[http://www.playframework.com/documentation/1.2.5/templates#s...](http://www.playframework.com/documentation/1.2.5/templates#syntax)

<comment><USER10> They needed to ditch Groovy for Play 2.

Seems the Android guys are facing the same problems with Groovy in their Gradle based build system, and the Gradle team are considering switching to Scala for Gradle 2 to keep Android on board.

<comment><USER11> Can you explain/give a link?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For some reason I thought that this was about _Google Play_ and Android devices...

(crawling back under my rock now...)

</comment><comment><USER13> Note that a fix is available -- patched versions of Play are available all major releases. So it might mean a redeploy of code but it's not a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER14> How is data injection possible if the session is signed?

<comment> brown9-2 If the issue can be caused by inserting null bytes into the session, then it sounds like the signed cookie verification might have stopped at the first null byte, allowing the attacker to place other data after the null byte which the application would continue to read and use.

<comment><USER15> It looks like they used the null byte as a separator with the assumption that users couldn't submit a null byte. So attacker could submit a value like foo\x00user:admin and it would be serialised as user:bad\x00key:foo\x00user:admin and deserialized as key:foo, user:admin. that's my takeaway from the patch. I haven't played with it so I could be off track.</comment></comment></comment>


Winnie the Pooh banned from Chinese social media for looking like Xi Jinping - <AUTHOR> http://shanghaiist.com/2017/07/17/winnie-the-pooh-censored.php <comment><AUTHOR> Internet censorship in China is extreme due to a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. Under the Trump Administration, the groundwork for internet censorship is being laid to squelch dissent.

</comment><comment><USER2> So there is a NotTheOnion department on Hacker News?</comment>


New in Google Docs: Insert Videos, Edit CSS - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-in-google-docs-insert-videos-edit.html

<comment><USER2> Their solution for customizability is to allow the user to edit the CSS?! It's clear Google Docs is written for geeks, by geeks.

(or the MySpace cut and paste crowd...)

<comment><USER3> Next step: WYSIWYG interface to the same functionality.</comment></comment>


MIT plans for low cost DIY ventilator (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.mit.edu/2.75/projects/DMD_2010_Al_Husseini.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Will this work for Covid19?

Can we get these plans to hacker spaces, college engineering teams and others who can start building these for their communities?

Folks need to stay on these for weeks to recover and we have a very short supply.</comment>


Show HN: Real-Time tick by tick crypto data in Node.js and without callbacks - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I've released Node.js lib that provides real-time market data feeds for top crypto exchanges.
It handles data normalization, order book reconstruction, custom trade bars (eg volume based etc), consolidates multiple feeds into one etc. and connects directly to exchanges APIs via WebSockets, has built-in reconnection and stale connection detection logic and more.
It also uses async iteration (for await..of) instead of callbacks.
https://github.com/tardis-dev/tardis-node <comment><AUTHOR> GitHub link: [https://github.com/tardis-dev/tardis- node](https://github.com/tardis-dev/tardis-node)</comment>


Short, concise and readable code - invert your logic and stop nesting already! - <AUTHOR> http://javathink.blogspot.com/2006/10/short-concise-and-readable-code-invert.html

<comment><USER2> I basically decided at some point that else clauses are unnecessary. I think it makes my code much more readable.</comment>


Layout 101 - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0gPtgNVonXPT1NsWGpKZWZKV1U <comment><USER2> If you're looking for expert guidance on layout design, [https://every- layout.dev](https://every-layout.dev) is superb. It includes axioms (fundamental rules or precepts) and a coherent, standards-based system for implementation, based on first principles. Highest possible recommendation.

<comment><USER3> The information on that site is amazing, I just wish there was an open source version of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Non-Designer's Design Book is also recommended: [https://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design- Book-4th/dp/0133...](https://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design- Book-4th/dp/0133966151)

<comment><USER5> I really like this book. CRAP principles are very clear and easy to follow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like an attempt to squeeze some Tufte into quick classrooms focused on graphic design. That should happen more often.

[https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/](https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty familiar with Tufte's work and used the LaTeX packages quite extensively. That said, I find the disarray of his website strikingly ironic.

<comment><USER8> interesting, I quite like the information density on that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was curious who created it but there doesn't seem to be any information.

Google Drive says the author is "Dylan". Not sure if that's the original author though and it was created on Adobe InDesign CS6 (Windows).

Reminder that files (Especially PDF) leak a lot about an original author if not scrubbed: [https://gist.github.com/dewey/2b2987e06c0a292364a9ae783885b8...](https://gist.github.com/dewey/2b2987e06c0a292364a9ae783885b848)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's from the /gd/ wiki: 4chan.org/gd/

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Question: what's up with the strange apostrophes and quotation marks? Is this some non-American English thing that I'm unaware of?

<comment><USER11> I don't know where the author is from, but there are many ways to do quotations.

For example, in German:

[https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/117/what-is- the-c...](https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/117/what-is-the-correct- way-to-denote-a-quotation-in-german)

<comment><USER12> I'm very fond of »inward-pointing guillemets«, personally.</comment></comment></comment>


Sending an email with natural language - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/franks-notebook/sending-an-email-with-natural-language-5bdc00800f28

<comment><USER2> It's really neat. Would be cool if it had attachment support and stuff like that as well.</comment>


OwlSend – Email marketing for small business - <AUTHOR> http://www.owlsend.com <comment><USER2> Hmm, the setup looks like you're claiming to be the cheapest - MailChimp have a free tier and CM have an $8 tier. It seems a bit dishonest to me.

If you need to pick the 10,000 emails level before you can compete on price then I think I'd be more inclined to lead with USP or just with benefits (ignoring the competition).

That said it looks nice and is easy to navigate. Might be worth saying that account creation is free (CM highlight it with "create free account" as button text) - having a paid lowest tier can make it seem you have to pay to even log in. MailChimp don't ask for my Full Name right off the bat, I'd save that until someone is initiating a campaign as I think it increases friction with those who just want to fiddle and get a feel with the app first.

The email builder needs some descriptive pointers and/or a video walkthrough. It's fine for me, but things like double-click on an image and it just opening a "file upload" dialog could confuse users. It's not necessarily obvious that it's just a template; presumably you'll add other templates later?

Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We're the cheapest if you have 10,000 subscribers or more.

Good point in regards to saying account creation is free.

<comment><USER3> Then perhaps you should be clear and change "Cost 10,000 Emails" to say "Cost 10,000 Subscribers". I can send 10,000 emails for free (12,000 actually) each month using Mandrill. Make it clear you're talking about subscribers and not emails.

Also, if I check MailChimp pricing, 10,000 subscribers costs $75 / month.

EDIT: When I saw 10,000 emails I honestly thought 10,000 emails which would make your pricing not that great.

Also, where'd you get your owl logo, looks very similar to Robly's (who is probably your "closest" competitor)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your feedback. I will try to make that data more clear for everyone.

If you see the "Pay as you go" section in MailChimp, it is indeed $200 for 10,000 emails.

OwlSend is $30 for sending 10,000 emails.

<comment><USER3> If I have 10,000 subscribers and I send a daily email so 300,000 emails a month do I pay $30 or $59 using OwlSend?

If I send a morning and an evening email (600,000 per month) do I pay $30 or $89 per month?

I'm confused because in your comparison chart you say $30 to send 10,000 emails. Your pricing says $29 / month. Your FAQ talks about "How much does it cost? Owlsend application charges a flat fee of $29 upto 10,000 subscribers, $49 for upto 50,000 subscribers and $79 for upto 100,000 subscribers. You can send unlimited bulk emails with Owlsend every month. Amazon SES costs $1 per 10,000 emails sent."

So is it $29 + $1 for that first 10000 emails? If not, why are you talking about SES and how much SES costs? SES [costs] should be a non factor and not even mentioned.

EDIT: In the Pricing section it says "Send Unlimited Emails to 10,000 Subscribers" again, am I still paying $1 per 10,000 emails above the $29 / month just to use your interface?

<comment><USER4> Yes, It is $29 for 10,000 subscribers + $1 per 10,000 email sent via Amazon SES.

Here is a simple calculation. If you send 5 broadcasts to all your audience of 10,000 people.

It would be $29 + $5 = $34

Here $29 is a recurring cost and $5 is a variable cost depending upon number of emails sent any month. Amazon SES charges $1 per 10,000 emails through them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The landing page looks great. Very well designed. The UI looks good but I have a few comments as I have been dealing with Email Marketing lately and have come across some pain points. If you are using SES, how will you manage reputation and hourly/daily quota issues ? Are you going to show the reputation to the users in some way ? If a user gets marked as spam a lot, their reputation suffers which means they will not be able to send a lot of emails within the same hour/day and this needs to be explained to the user properly. A lot of clients don't understand this and will say "hey my campaign is paused, what happened".

Also, what integrations are available with services such as wordpress etc ? The reason I am asking because your tool seems to be targeted at smaller business to start with and quite a few of them use CMS such as wordpress and want integration. So standalone app is great but a lot of people will want to integrate with their existing CMS etc.

That takes me to the next point. This is not a criticism but just some food for thought. You are charging $30 for 10,000 emails which on surface looks great comparing with Mailchimp etc but there are plenty of plugins in the market that can provide similar UI, autoresponders etc and let users use Mandrill in the backend which lets you send 12,000 emails per month for free. Yes that quota is 12,000 but that is still a lot for most starters.

<comment><USER4> Hi codegeek,

Thanks a lot for taking time to post your feedback.

Currently we extract data in realtime of users sending limits and emails sent by users in a day via SES API.

Since, we are already extracting all the users data and showing them in their dashboard. We will certainly plan to show the reputation to the users in the later stage as well.

We are working quite extensively on WordPress platform. What kind of integration would you be willing to get ?

Yes, you are right there are lot of plugins which provide the similar services, however there are few challenges. 1\. You have to manage the hosting at your end. 2\. You have to keep track on plugins and external apps and keep them updated. 3\. There are not a robust solution out there, some don't have a simple drag drop email builder, others don't have a subscriber management system, some plugins don't track accurately and some don't provide web form embedding functionality or some plugins don't have autoresponders.

I am not saying that self hosted solution are all bad but there are certain limits where those solutions don't work well.

Mandrill is awesome, it gives 12,000 emails for free every month. However, they restrict their service to be used only for transactional emails and recommend MailChimp for marketing emails. On the other hand, SES has no such limitations whatsoever.

At the same time, if you are an Amazon EC2 customer, SES gives you 65,000 free emails every month.

We are actually coming up with a way to send emails via your custom SMTP to allow email sending via Mandrill or any other SMTP platform as well.

Once again, thanks a lot for taking time to post your feedback. I would suggest you to give OwlSend a try, I am pretty sure you will love it. If you have any questions or suggestions. Feel free to email me at neeraj[at]owlsend.com

Thanks Neeraj, OwlSend Team

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...Is this built by the same company behind SendOwl? [https://www.sendowl.com](https://www.sendowl.com)

<comment><USER7> I am the founder of SendOwl and this is not a project by us. It's clearly ripped off our brand though. Will be getting in touch with them to discuss the matter immediately.

<comment><USER8> Very surprised to see this. Hope it gets sorted out quickly... this is really quite appalling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This needs to have simple plugin modules for ecommerce software and content management systems. Otherwise, why bother? Truth be told, getting the newsletter signup to work is a low priority for developers that have to do such things, so rolling one's own integration just is not going to happen.

There also need to be 'free' accounts for developer use. You don't want to be paying $$$ a month when you are merely testing if a newsletter sign up box works and on-boards the customer nicely.

Free accounts can be limited to a mailing list of 5. That is ample for test porpoises.

One thing that irks me about many email newsletter service things is that they think that their software is the centre of the universe. When integrated into something else, e.g. an ecommerce store or a blog, it is the ecommerce software or the blog software which is the 'centre of the universe'. There is really no need to strip as much as possible information about the site visitors and their spending habits, to then bring this into some glorified email contrivance.

I am quite surprised that this market exists for 'we can send email for you' services. Any computer is capable of sending an email, that is how it should be.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious about autoresponders. The landing page says that you can setup an initial autoresponder which is great, but to get the most out of email marketing you need to setup a series of autoresponders to guide customers through things.

So am I able to do that?

Also, can I have multiple lists or do I need a separate account for each list?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear your thoughts on our email app. We've created a stunning email builder to help you craft beautiful emails to reach your customers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are people able to export their list? I'm looking for something like this but no way I'm signing up if I'm locked in.

<comment><USER4> Hi Dan,

There are no lock-ins whatsoever. If you like to move over to somewhere else in the later stage. Just send us one email at hoot[at]owlsend.com and we will send you the export of all your contacts.

Thanks Neeraj OwlSend Team

<comment><USER12> Unless there's a _button_ or _link_ to export the data, it's still locked in. Having to ask for permission – "please can I have my own data to leave your service" – is not acceptable.

<comment><USER13> If you are running a business and your team handles email marketing for your business, having a simple export button in the email marketing application is not a good idea.

Better option in my opinion is to have a simple export request form and send the export directly to the admin email address.

<comment><USER12> As long as it's automated and is sent immediately, sure, that's perfectly fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice Sendy alternative, the auto responder looks pretty cool. Good job

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeh with Sendy you need to install it and configure it on your hosting. You also need to update it every time new features get released. With OwlSend we take care of all the hosting for you. All you need to do is log in to the OwlSend app and away you go. All new features are free for customers.

We're really focusing on making sending emails and managing email campaigns easy and simple.

<comment><USER14> True, BUT, with Sendy one is not married to SES, any SMTP server can be used.

<comment><USER4> We are also coming up with that capability in couple of weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Tried the email builder, loved it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Your landing page looks amazing!

</comment><comment><USER17> _" Send Unlimited Emails To 100,000 Subscribers - $79"_

So this is a spam service. OK, we need to develop a filter to mark all OwlSend email as spam.

If you have a "newsletter" that people actually want, use RSS to distribute it. Then, they can unsubscribe when they want, and you can't stop them. Otherwise, you're just another spammer.

<comment><USER16> Do you really consider all email based newsletters "spam"?

I cant think of a entity (govt/business/education) that doesn't use email marketing....

<comment><USER17> _" Do you really consider all email based newsletters "spam"?"_

If they're from a commercial entity and contain marketing material, of course they're spam. Why would I want marketing material in my inbox?</comment></comment></comment>


Drowning in plastic: Visualising the world's addiction to plastic bottles - <AUTHOR> https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B275155/index.html <comment> vanilla-almond Will anything change? Take bottled water as just one example - mostly sold in plastic bottles. Just look at this chart of bottled water consumption in Europe from 2017. Good luck getting people to change their consumption habits:

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/455422/bottled-water- con...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/455422/bottled-water-consumption- in-europe-per-capita/)

<comment><USER2> You have to hand it to the bottled water companies. They pulled off what must be one of the biggest cons in the world. First world countries with potable tap water buying it in bottles with inflated prices because of reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this based on the volume of bottles, intact?

The amount of plastic is a small percentage of that volume - that 10-year mountain might become a single office building of solid plastic.

And I believe PET is one of the more recyclable plastics. Certainly, in less developed nations, it's collected, for profit.

In fact this is the real problem with plastic - whether it is collected properrly, or left to wash out into the oceans.

If it's collected, even if it goes to landfill (we're not running out of land to fill, and I believe landfills will become the mines of the future), it can be very efficient in terms of 'usefulness vs environmental impact'. Perhaps much better than many alternatives (eg cotton grocery bags). If it's left to drift, it can be quite a problem.

IE We should be looking much more closely at material handling and life-cycle, rather than focusing exclusively on materials themselves.

<comment><USER4> > The amount of plastic is a small percentage of that volume - that 10-year > mountain might become a single office building of solid plastic.

A typical pedantic HN's comment. The point of the infographic is to draw attention to the growing plastic pollution crisis. In 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans [0]. Plastic is falling out of the sky in Arctic [1]. Does it really matter if you count intact bottles or pure plastic volume?

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/01/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/01/20/by-2050-there-will-be-more-plastic-than-fish-in-the-worlds- oceans-study-says/)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-49295051](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49295051)

<comment><USER3> Not at all

My point is that plastic COLLECTION is the issue, not the amount produced.

And wildly hyping the actual amount of plastic with dis-information-graphics does not help the cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When did we start drinking so much bottled water?

Must have been about 25-30 years ago I remember noticing it and wondering why would I want to pay for water, it has always been free.

<comment><USER6> Hint: Drinking bottled water was a subtle "they're gay" punchline in the film _Heathers_ (1988).

[https://moviechat.org/tt0097493/Heathers/58c74f926b51e905f67...](https://moviechat.org/tt0097493/Heathers/58c74f926b51e905f6764540/What- is-mineral-water)

Google's Ngram viewer shows a consistant uptick of print mentions since 1985:

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bottled+water&...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bottled+water&year_start=1960&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbottled%20water%3B%2Cc0)

And sales volume since 1996:

[https://douglashicton.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/bottlegrap...](https://douglashicton.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/bottlegraph.png?w=466&h=503)

For myself, until the mid-1990s, it simply wasn't a thing. I would occasionally buy a bottle on road trips in the 1990s (I now carry a reusable drink bottle, those are going on ten years' use for me).

If you view conference videos online, you'll note that pitchers and glasses in earlier videos were replaced by plastic bottles later. Those are now starting to disappear in some cases, though tetra-pack water also sometimes appears. An interesting sort of incidental meta-commentary on late capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just simply do _not_ get this at all. Why do people (a) pay for water which (at least in the US, with some exceptions) even unfiltered has quality parity with bottled water, and (b) not feel empathy for the damage they are causing with the single-use container? It sickens me every time I see people by cases of this stuff. AFAIAC, there should be at least a large tax or deposit charged for these bottles.</comment>


Following Ban, Microsoft Moves to Keep Word in Stores - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/microsoft-word-ban/ <comment><USER2> This patent seems ridiculous, it seems if you were going to use XML for a document format you might want to express what that document meant using other data, rather than code. Isn't this just a data-driven approach?</comment>


Civility Is Overrated - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/adam-serwer-civility/600784/ <comment><USER2> The author is an asshole. Happy?</comment>