Right now, politics is hacker news - <AUTHOR>

As I write, the #1 story on Hacker News is The Economist endorsement of Barack Obama for president; it is currently dead.  Another fast-rising story is a Financial Times endorsement to the same effect; it is alive, but its days (or minutes) are certainly numbered.
Ordinarily, I am a strong supporter of a clear separation between Hacker News and state; politics, if allowed to infiltrate, would soon dominate.  But these are not ordinary times.  There is an election on Tuesday, with historic implications.
Until the election and its aftermath are over, politics is hacker news.  Stories relevant to the upcoming election should, for now, be allowed to live. <comment><USER2> I wasn't sure what to do about the Economist endorsement story. Some editors wanted to kill it. I resisted for a while, but then I tried asking myself what I'd have done if the story was "Economist endorses McCain." I wouldn't have been so happy to see that on HN. So I decided I was being a hypocrite and killed it.

I agree with you that this election feels historic, though. So let's try a poll about what to do:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=349421>

<comment><AUTHOR> I read the print edition of _The Economist_ and only check my snail mail once a week. I would likely have missed this endorsement were it not for Hacker News. But it looks like my side is losing the poll; pity.

<comment><USER3> I read about endorsement on twitter & friendfeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > There is an election on Tuesday, with historic implications.

What US Presidential election doesn't have "historic implications"? For that matter, what US national election doesn't have "historic implications"?

This is just another US presidential election.

<comment><AUTHOR> _This is just another US presidential election._

I agree that "historic" is a terribly over-used adjective in this context, but I find it hard to believe you could live in (and love) this country without feeling that this election is more "historic" than most.

<comment><USER3> You find it hard to believe he loves this country because of an opinion on a subjective matter of semantics? Please...

I'll give you a one liner why this election might not be 'historic': neither likely victor has any intention of making the federal enterprise smaller than $3T.

But don't mind us libertarians in the corner :)

<comment><AUTHOR> (a) It's not clear that he's an American. In fact I rather suspect he's not. In any case, and with my melodramatic invocation of "love" notwithstanding, it's perverse not to recognize that this is no ordinary election, regardless of which candidate you favor.

(b) I didn't say anything about my views on the election, just that I think it's historic. That goes even for libertarians; though I agree spending will be out of control no matter who wins, the president affects much more than the Federal budget. And an election in the midst of two wars and a global financial crisis with the country's first black presidential candidate is historic no matter how you slice it.

(c) I'm an anarcho-capitalist (terrible term) in the David Friedman tradition. Put that in your libertarian pipe and smoke it. ;-)

<comment><USER4> > (a) It's not clear that he's an American. In fact I rather suspect he's not.

Me? Based on what?

> In any case, and with my melodramatic invocation of "love" notwithstanding, > it's perverse not to recognize that this is no ordinary election, regardless > of which candidate you favor.

Perverse? Every presidential election involves some "leg tingling", so what makes this one so different?

> And an election in the midst of two wars and a global financial crisis

World wars were bigger - were all those elections "historic"?. The Civil War was in the US - was 1864 "historic"?

> with the country's first black presidential candidate is historic no matter > how you slice it.

Racist :-) (Didn't you get the memo? Any mention of race is an attack on "The One".)

<comment><AUTHOR> _Me? Based on what?_

I think it was the repetition of "US ... election" that gave me that impression, and in particular the inclusion of "US" in the construction. As a US native, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to include that modifier, so I guessed that you might not be American.

 _what makes this one so different?_

Well, "an election in the midst of two wars and a global financial crisis with the country's first black presidential candidate", for starters. Not to mention arguably America's lowest standing in the world since WWII. I remember seven elections and have voted in four, and (despite the "historic" claims four years ago) this one feels bigger than any of them.

<comment><USER4> > As a US native, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to include that > modifier, so I guessed that you might not be American.

Never considered the possibility that an American might internationalize?

> I remember seven elections and have voted in four

Newbie :-) (The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" comes to mind during this election.) How about the possibility that you're trying to relive when elections were new (to you)?

> Not to mention arguably America's lowest standing in the world since WWII.

Still irrelevant. When other countries need something, other countries forget "standing". When America needs something, they happily sell or don't have the capability. (Yes, Australia and some of the Euro contries have some amazing troops. However, they don't have many of them and they can't transport them.)

As someone once said in a slightly different context, if you want a friend, get a dog. Countries act out of perceived self-interest not friendship, standing, etc. (Disagree? Provide examples where "friendship" trumped perceived self-interest.)

If you insist on listening to Monday morning quarterbacks, shouldn't you at least pick ones whose predictions are reasonably accurate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe if you're American this is the most important political story of the decade.

If you're European, Asian, or Africen it probably isn't. Yes it will impact us, but not more than the global economic meltdown, Pakistans near default, the Iraq war, etc.

Were not all from the US.

<comment><USER6> No, but some of us are, and we would show your country the same respect of providing coverage and discussion of _your_ historic events that affect hackers in your country.

<comment><USER5> I don't mean to be demeaning in any way, but no you wouldn't.

I've never seen a post about European political issues here, and I don't think I ever will.

<comment><USER6> Excuse me, but if a story appeared here that had significant impact upon foreign hackers, then I would upvote it, personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be interesting if Obama were elected President, and Tory Leader David Cameron beat the current PM Gordon Brown. Both Cameron and Obama are young, charismatic, in touch with the "zeitgiest" of the day, etc., and I think share some similarities in policy points of view. Both, for instance, put the environment high on the priority list. I think an Obama - Cameron dynamic would be fascinating to watch, perhaps one which would rank with the Thatcher - Reagan dynamic that ended the Cold War. I think the principle underlying both individuals or their rise in prominence is "change". Both their nations have economic struggles and both promise "change". I think Cameron and McCain could work together fine, don't get me wrong, it's just from a generational kind of perspective that makes me think Cameron and Obama are on the same "wave length". Obama met Cameron during his European tour and I think the meeting went well. Certainly would be interesting to see them win their respective elections.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Time for Show HN on HackerNews? - <AUTHOR> I want to submit SHOW HN" on Hackernews, What is The best time? <comment><USER2> When there is something that meets the guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


The University's New Loyalty Oath - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-oath-11576799749 <comment><USER2> It's not the job of faculty to enforce political will.

The university can have policies promoting one thing over another, but to encumber faculty members with that responsibility is a bit beside the point of being an educator.

<comment><USER3> I agree, but it's so very interesting that when a similar sort of loyalty oath was used even when I was in grad school 25 years ago to enforce loyalty to the state government at Penn State University (as a condition for receiving my poverty-level grad student stipend), it was A-OK with the same sort of people complaining about this right now when it's focused on a more progressive ideology.

But I agree it's absolutely absurd no matter who's pushing these. And all it amounts to is ideological theatre on both sides of the fence. And I don't think that theatre is going to close during my lifetime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Svetlana Jitomirskaya's letter [1] supporting Prof. Thompson is a worthwhile read. From that letter:

> _" I think that the often present push to increase percentage of women > beyond what is currently reasonably warranted by merit, only multiplies the > biases, is very damaging for the community's perception of women as a group, > and thus is very harmful for the climate. As one example, I was recently on > a committee to select the winner of an important prize. It went to a female > mathematician. I am sure that most people who don't closely know her or her > work, when learning the news, thought "of course, they wanted to select a > woman". Yet her gender had zero influence on our considerations, there was > no push on the committee, and she was selected from all the applications > purely on scientific merit according to the prize criteria. The value of > this well-deserved prize is not at all the same for her as it would have > been if she was a man."_

[1]: Pages 21-22 of [https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202001/rnoti-o1.pdf](https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202001/rnoti-o1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> A copy of this article is available on professor Matthias Felleisen's website: [https://felleisen.org/matthias/Articles/loyalty.pdf](https://felleisen.org/matthias/Articles/loyalty.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Another way to bypass the paywall is by redirecting through Facebook (works without a Facebook account): [https://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/th...](https://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the- universitys-new-loyalty-oath-11576799749)

<comment><USER6> Does it work for all articles from WSJ?

Interesting they dont allow Google users to access it from Search Engine but Facebook.

<comment><USER4> It should. You should also be able to access WSJ by faking the referer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks How this article can exist without a reference to Catch-22 re: "The Great Loyalty Oath Crusade"!

excerpt: [https://epic-site.com/catch-22-loyalty-oaths/](https://epic- site.com/catch-22-loyalty-oaths/)

</comment><comment><USER7> So, in a twist of irony, now you now effectively have to sign that you _are_ a member of the Communist Party.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm really struggling to understand the point of this article (except that it appears to hit one of the wsj's hot buttons). He objects to his employer's position on something based on free speech issues; he speaks out about it and some people agree with him and some don't; and his employer supports his efforts to speak out against their own policy. Sounds like that's how the system is supposed to work.

The fact is his employer is a corporation and it doesn't want to reject swaths of prospective customers or employees. That all sounds pretty sensible to me. It also seems quite different from the anti-communist loyalty oaths of the 50s which he cites as precedent. In fact it's rather the opposite, though he doesn't object in those grounds (which I think would be a legitimate tack to take, despite my sympathy for these diversity programs)

<comment><USER5> (FYI, the author, Abigail Thompson, is a woman.)

<comment><USER8> Ouch! Thank you for pointing out my shitty presumption.

I'll leave my shame in place by not editing my comments. That will help me be more careful in future.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Write a Spelling Corrector - <AUTHOR> http://www.norvig.com/spell-correct.html

<comment><USER2> Previous discussions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42587>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=327897>

Many great thoughts and comments already posted, so it's worth reading the thoguhts of HN contributors as well as this classic from Norvig.

<comment><USER3> Google has also released a full-web 5-gram corpus that contains "counts for all 1,176,470,663 five-word sequences that appear at least 40 times" Its fun to try training on that.

[http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram- ar...](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram-are-belong- to-you.html)

<comment><USER4> As the comments (on the google page) illustrate, this corpus is close to useless unless you're a university researcher. Commercial use of this data costs big $$$. And if you're an independent you still have to pay $150 or so to get LDC to mail the six DVDs to you.

One of the painful things about commercial NLP work is lack of good datasets without restrictions. There are some treasures like WordNet (which is a lexical db). For tagged data I found the American National Corpus but the excerpt they release without restrictions is too little data and it contains only a few styles of writing.

I had to spend a lot of time gathering, fleecing, and marking up my own data to make After the Deadline.

<comment><USER5> Start with Wikipedia? They've got a few billion words there, and it's a 5GB download.

<comment><USER4> That is what I ended up doing. Except this is raw data. Usually NLP researchers work from corpora that are already segmented into sentences and tagged with part-of-speech tags. I had to go through the hassle of segmenting and marking up the Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg.

<comment><USER6> Would you consider making it available to others?

Perhaps the UCI Machine Learning Repository would accept it. If not, I'm sure I could find a way to have it hosted at my university.

<comment><USER7> archive.org will host datasets.

To preprocess wikipedia, I have used the following software: [http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/wikiprep/index.php?tit...](http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/wikiprep/index.php?title=Main_Page)

To remove boilerplate from gutenberg requires painfully constructed heuristics. It would be great to have software released to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Norvig expanded on this theme in a chapter in <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596157111/> (not yet out) -- the draft I read applied the Google n-gram corpus to word segmentation, decryption, and a faster spelling corrector. Lovely and instructive code, as always.

<comment><USER4> That will probably be a really good book. I read Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran and took a lot from it.

<comment><USER8> Could be! I've only seen the one chapter (because it used a couple suggestions I'd made for the original article linked above).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In case you do

\- not have the luxury to have such a large ecological footprint (taking into account all the externalities too)

\- are not always connected and

\- are not granted access to the full UN corpus etc.

then you can still do quite good, cheaper and smarter.

<http://hunspell.sourceforge.net/>

Hunspell is the default spell checker of OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox 3 & Thunderbird. Gőg hasn't beaten that yet.

<comment><USER4> If we're going to yackety yack about spell checkers, After the Deadline is really accurate because it looks at context and uses trained neural networks to sort recommendations. Hunspell does sophisticated stuff but as Norvig said (somewhere else), the simplest technique with 10x data will beat the most complicated technique every time.

Oh and AtD does grammar, style checking, and misused words. Embed it in your application today :) <http://www.afterthedeadline.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting: a Java implementation of this algorithm is 372 lines, while a Clojure one is 18!

<comment><USER11> 35 lines in Java actually, the other one is a poor implementation.

execution speed is more important than lines of code in this case</comment></comment>


MinimaLT: Minimal-Latency Networking Through Better Security (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://cr.yp.to/tcpip/minimalt-20131031.pdf <comment><USER2> Small threads from 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8340389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8340389)

and 2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5755539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5755539)

<comment><USER3> The recent thread titled "The world in which IPv6 was a good design (2017)" is also relevant:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167686)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> After reading first couple of paragraph of this paper, Wireguard ([https://www.wireguard.com](https://www.wireguard.com)) comes to mind. Then, they mentioned a research OS called Ethos (which seems to be defunct now). Did they figure out a more mainstream implementation?

</comment><comment><USER5> I found this[0] implementation that does not require replacing the entire OS with Ethos, but I haven't yet tried it and cannot vouch for it.

[0] [https://github.com/nimbus-network/minimalt](https://github.com/nimbus- network/minimalt)</comment>


Ask HN: How to open a U.S. bank account without stepping foot in the US - <AUTHOR>

There are endless benefits of having a U.S. bank account, but not everyone can fly from wherever they are in the world to the U.S. to open one.
So I was thinking of ways to open one without necessarily having to be in the U.S. and my hypothesis is that:
1. You can incorporate in a state online and get an EIN or FEN (you just need a Registered Agent) 2. Take that EIN/FEN and open a business account online (with WaMu it used to be possible, not sure which banks now though) 3. Have any additional paperwork sent via DHL 4. Get debit card mailed from bank, and start using your account in your country.
I ask because I am increasingly partnering up with entrepreneurs and freelancers in Latin America, and the whole payment situation is a mess, with a combination of wiretransfer, xoom, paypal, and even mailing cashier's checks.
I was wondering if any HN entrepreneurs had any experience doing this <comment><USER2> Your main hurdle is a regulation called Know Your Customer, which requires banks to have some idea of the actual identity of folks who bank with them. However, banks have _wide_ latitude in satisfying KYC. Some will accept a faxed passport/driver's license combo, for example, others can direct you to an affiliate in a foreign country. CitiBank, for example, will happily open an American CitiBank account for a Japanese citizen who walks into a Japanese CitiBank and asks for help with their international banking needs.

There are other ways. One which used to work but which I haven't tried recently is to open a brokerage account -- which have very lax verification requirements -- with ETrade or one of the other international low fee brokers. They're _quite_ used to having folks abroad open accounts to invest in the US markets. After you have a brokerage account, ETrade knows you for the purpose of KYC, by reference to your "pre-existing business relationship". Then you call up ETrade and say "Hey, you're also a bank. I'd like a checking account tied to my brokerage account." Bam, done.

After you have one American bank account getting a second one is a cinch, incidentally. ( _cough_ ING Direct _cough_.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight into the KYC regulation. I think so far, CitiBank/HSBC seems the most practical option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a Canadian I found that Harris Bank is great -- when you sign up for a bank account online, you can check a "I am a Canadian" box and everything Just Works. (I'm guessing this is because Harris Bank is owned by Bank of Montreal.)

I don't think Harris Bank does this for other countries, though, so if you're not Canadian this won't help you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip, I got a few Canadian entrepreneurs whome this could be useful to, but as you said, if you are not canadian, this wont help much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a Canadian and I have a US business chequing account with my local bank (BMO).

All my Canadian and US accounts are managed under the same login.

See if your local bank does this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apparently, with Citibank, HSBC and Wachovia, you can do this onlinem via the phone and e-mail.

</comment><comment><USER5> what about the tax laws? Say I am in India and have a UK bank account(I was studying there).If somebody pays into my UK bank account for a project I have done, wouldn't I be taxed twice--first in UK and then in India when I transfer the money to India.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anyone successfully opened a US bank account with Citibank in the UK?</comment>


Ask HN: How to reward beta testers? - <AUTHOR>

We are currently preparing our beta testing plan for our application (http://carmivore.com) and we will soon start inviting testers. We will charge a monthly subscription fee for the final product, but are unsure how to reward our testers properly.<p>Any recommendations and tips welcome! <comment><USER2> Some common rewards:

      Free use for some number of months.
      First shot at their preferred user names; lower user #n.
      Badges; points; karma; etc.
      Public recognition.

A bit more expense and with fulfillment hassle:

      Physical swag: t-shirts, pens, buttons, etc.

A bit more leg work:

      Complimentary, complementary partner service.

My favorite:

      Make your product so awesome that the value it provides is reward enough.

<comment><USER3> Solid list. I'm going through the same thing soon and have decided to never give it away. Give it away while you're patching critical bugs, but if it works, they should pay for it. Give them other stuff, like faster response times or better support, but you should never give the product away. No idea if this makes business sense, but it's what I've settled on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about a page with their credits, and a link to their blog if they got one?

</comment><comment><USER5> Ask them what they want.</comment>


Early Office 15 screenshots show elegant fusion of ribbon and Metro - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/02/early-office-15-screenshots-show-elegant-fusion-of-ribbon-and-metro.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29 <comment><USER2> Directly to screenshots here: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/23/2818611/microsoft- office-1...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/23/2818611/microsoft- office-15-screenshots-technical-preview)</comment>


Why Build a New Society on a Blockchain? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/capabul/why-build-a-new-society-on-a-blockchain-deca6e606abd <comment><USER2> A blockchain is meaningless if governments and force still exist. It doesn't matter whether you use a paper contract, a client/server contract, or a "smart" contract-- might makes right in this world still, and it's a disgusting reality.</comment>


Ask HN: Please help me test. - <AUTHOR>

I am participating in the HN November launch pad and launching LocalStrange.com
I need help testing the video chat.  You will need 2 people.  Go to www.LocalStrange.com and enter a nick name then click the ">" button.
Zoom out to see more people.  You are the red marker and other people are green markers.  Click the green marker to start a chat (Note: its stupid right now so please on click once).  If it does not work for you please post OS / Browser & Ver
--thx <comment><USER2> Fedora 13 / GNU IceCat 3.6.10 Works fine.

Couldn't scroll out because I don't have a mouse right now. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Dude, thank you so much. That is one I definitely could not have tested on my own.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Chrome / OSX / Latest Version - Works</comment>


SF Yellow Cab to file for bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfexaminer.com/yellow-cab-to-file-for-bankruptcy/ <comment><USER2> Too bad, so sad... If they hadn't allowed their service to get so horrible, with nasty old cars, drivers that don't speak English and drive around in circles to increase fares, drivers claiming their card readers are "broken" so you have to pay cash, taking an hour to show up when called, passing by black people, etc., then this wouldn't be happening.

From the article: "Cab drivers, on the other hand, maintain that they undergo more rigorous criminal checks, enjoy more robust insurance, and generally have better knowledge of city streets."

Who cares about knowledge of city streets? Haven't they heard of Google Maps and Waze and GPS? This just shows how out-of-touch and behind-the-times the cab industry is. The insurance is a canard, as Uber insures their drivers for more than the cab companies (the problem with Uber is what happens when you don't have a paying rider). And criminal background checks are useless if you haven't been in the country very long; how are they going to check your background in Pakistan? Also, the Uber/Lyft reputation systems are far more valuable anyway, plus Uber/Lyft keep detailed records of all their drivers' movements when they have riders, so it's pretty hard for them to get away with anything; cabs aren't guaranteed to have any of that oversight.

And apparently driving for Uber isn't that bad, since the cab companies are now complaining that all the good drivers are switching to Uber/Lyft, leaving them with crappy drivers who earn them huge lawsuits for accidents they cause.

<comment><USER3> > Who cares about knowledge of city streets?

Funny story: for a while in SF, the taxi union (?) was running ads that were thinly veiled attacks on Uber/Lyft. One of them showed a smiling taxi driver with the caption "would you rather have a driver who knows the city by heart or by GPS?" I found it particularly hilarious because the answer, for me at least, is GPS with live traffic information. Just another example of how out of touch the taxi companies are.

<comment><USER4> GPS still doesn't beat a good driver 9 out of 10 times for city driving. Uber drives consistently miss exits, head down clearly mistaken paths created by GPS errors, sit there staring at the GPS rather than the road

I uber to work everyday and 90% of the time the uber driver blindly follows GPS through an alley that isn't really meant for traffic, ignoring the much simpler and faster route that whatever GPS uber uses can't figure out.

But it's cheaper, cleaner, and will show up on demand. But the navigation of the driver is the big positive for cabs.

<comment><USER5> You Uber to work every day? Isn't that terribly expensive?

<comment><USER4> I'm only 4 miles, so the trip costs about 9 bucks each way. I don't have a second car and even if I did, my office charges 300 (pre tax so really less) to park. And if I'm forced to stay late, I can expense the ride home. So I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than driving myself.

But I could do public transit for around 2.50 each way. But adding about 15-20 minutes transit time.

What I really should do is bike to work. It's better for my health, wallet, and environment. I really have no excuse.

<comment><USER6> I bike commute 8-9 months of the year, but currently am ubering both ways during this wet El Niño winter we are having as I live without a car.

I estimate my Ubers this year will work out to around

($20/day for uber * ~60 winter work days) = $1200

Most people with modest vehicles will see a total cost of car ownership costing them somewhere in the $5-10k/year range. So I could double or triple my already heavy reliance on uber and come out ahead.

TLDR: For those with short commutes, a heavily uber-assisted bike commuting plan is a huge financial win. And this is not even considering the downstream value of the productivity and health benefits resulting from regular exercise. Or the value of the time I can now spend reading instead of driving.

<comment><USER7> I'm assuming you're in the SF Bay Area -- there have only been a handful of days when I've had to break out the rain gear so far this season (today was one of them). Maybe 5 days max.

If a person is willing to bike to work when it's dry in the morning (even if it might rain on the way home) there's probably only around 20 - 30 days when they'd need Uber, so that'd cut the Uber expenses by 1/3 to 1/2.

<comment><USER6> Totally. I'm the first to admit that I'm a lazy bike commuter and with a little grit could greatly reduce my commute costs.

The point I was trying to illustrate for anyone reading is that uber is cheap, not expensive, when used to obviate the need for private vehicle ownership.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is not surprising at all.

Traveling around the world, cab drivers are often times some of my favorite people. I like the profession, generally finding cab drivers to be interesting and knowledgeable of local areas. In San Francisco, I try to take regular cabs when I can just to meet people and support the old profession and working class folks.

Bay Area, about a week ago. It was dark, cold, and raining around 5:30pm. Myself and the wife, who is at term and therefore obviously pregnant, got off at the train station and attempted to take a cab to alleviate the few minute wait in the rain for a Lyft or Uber.

I didn't have any cash. I know by now that you have to ask if they take credit card ahead of time; fine.

Me: "Hi, do you take credit card?"

Them: "No, no credit card. It's broken."

Me: "You've got stickers on your window that say you take them?"

Them: "Well, how far are you going?"

Me: "No thanks, I'll try the next one.

Me: "Hello, do you take credit card?"

Them: "Maybe. Where are you going? Minimum 15 dollar."

I know that it's about 12 dollars to my house. I tell him where we're going, and he just shakes his head.

Me: "Fine, screw it. I'll just get a Lyft."

I pulled out my phone, standing in front of a line of Taxis, and got a Lyft. About 6-8 minutes later, they picked us up, and took us on our way.

An entire line of cab drivers, my pregnant wife and I standing there in the rain and cold, and not a single one of them trying to actually take the fare.

During the 15 minutes or so of this interaction, and us waiting for Lyft, not a single cab was taken by the very strong flow of people leaving the train station at rush hour. Lots of pickups from friends and family. Plenty of Uber cars. Pink mustaches in quite a few windshields.

It was like something out of a movie. An entire line of real people, sitting there in their cars, often complaining about a lack of business, or how times have changed, or how insurance is X, or Uber is Y.

Not a single one with enough gumption to step up to the plate, smile, and say: "Where to mister?"

<comment><USER9> Why do you let them tell you they don't take cards? From a quick googling, it seems like taxis in SF must take cards. If they drive me somewhere and the machine's broken, that's not my problem.

<comment><USER10> It's easier to go with someone who wants my business than to try to force someone who doesn't want it to take me anyway.

<comment><USER9> I just wouldn't ask in the first place.

<comment><USER10> That's just another (better) way to force them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's it like to ride in a SF taxi? I'm not a frequent taxi user, but last time I rode in an NYC cab, the partition made me feel like I was going to jail and the advertising screen made me feel like I was riding public transportation. No doubt the normal private cars are more comfortable.

<comment><USER12> Where I live there is a minimum fare of $75 imposed on Uber cars leaving from the airport. I took an Uber there and had a great, simple experience ($34 fare) but had to take a taxi back when returning from my trip.

The cab was falling apart. One of the doors didn't open from the inside. The axles made horrible, periodic thunking sounds (I'd guess the CV joints but am no car expert). The engine light, the wheel stability light, and the SRS warning light lit up the dash. The cab driver drove 10-15mph over the speed limit and nearly side-swiped several other cars. I asked to pay with a card and was met with a grunt of disgust, even as I added a standard 10% tip.

I understand there are some regulation issues related to Uber in many cities, but given the experiences I've had, I can't wait to be rid of taxis.

I should add that in London I had the opposite experience, where the standard cabs (and official app) were fantastic, but Uber was price gouging during a tube strike.

<comment><USER13> Travel to the car rental center and have Uber pick you up there to avoid the fee. This also works at airports that outright ban Uber.

<comment><USER14> This is an awesome idea! I never thought of it, but it should work in most places.

<comment><USER15> You can also take any Hotel shuttle. I do this at LAX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It will be interesting if there is room for traditional cab companies after the market stabilizes. Uber and Lyft have been effectively subsidizing fares at the same time as providing superior service.

It is not really clear what level of service the market demands without loads of venture capital helping to subsidize it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know how much of this has to do with the crashing value of Taxi Medallions ? One article on a company in the NYC area claimed they had loans where they used the Medallions as collateral and that the crashing value was putting the loan in danger of being called by the bank.

</comment><comment><USER10> "In reality, we have the best color scheme there is in the world, we've got a lot of loyal customers, we still get a high volume of calls to our color scheme on a daily basis"

Does "color scheme" have a special meaning in the taxi business, or is this guy actually bragging about how their cars are painted?

<comment><USER18> Yellow cabs are a multi-organization multi-city brand; so are e.g. checkered cabs. It's like Coke vs. Pepsi without the central corporate parent. Not inconceivable an independent bottler would prefer bottling for Coke rather than Pepsi right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Speaking only for myself...

The process of calling a toll free number for a SF cab sucks. Often get a busy signal. Most of the time they are slow to respond. Some times they never show up at all. Basically, I can't count on them to be timely.

Uber (and formerly Sidecar) just shows up in a few minutes and takes me where I wanna go.

</comment><comment><USER20> This was bound to happen, just a matter of time. Uber and Lyft are able to operate at much lower costs, and additionally have basically an unlimited supply of capital (VC investment). Traditional businesses have no chance of being competitive in this market.

<comment><USER21> What makes U&L lower cost? Just the lack of driver health insurance and benefits?

<comment><USER22> Lack of driver health insurance, lack of benefits, lack of liability from crashes, reduced compliance costs via skirting local regulations [e.g. Background checks for Uber/Lyft are cheaper than the more thorough checks in some municipalities]

[http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/07/background-checks- cen...](http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/07/background-checks-center-city- fights-uber/)

[http://www.cnet.com/news/ubers-background-checks-dont- catch-...](http://www.cnet.com/news/ubers-background-checks-dont-catch- criminals-says-houston/)

<comment><USER2> Background checks are a canard. How do the cab companies check the background of someone from Uzbekistan? They can't, they can only go back as far as that person has been in the country, which isn't very long judging by their mastery of English.

U/L do carry insurance for their drivers when they're driving a passenger, and it's probably more than the regular cab companies carry (which is why SF Yellow cab is going bankrupt: they weren't insured for enough for one of their incompetent drivers, according to the article). Also, U/L have deeper pockets than any local cab company/coop, so civil suits will net higher payouts too if it came to that.

As for health insurance, from what I've read a lot of cab drivers aren't full- time employees either, so they also don't get health insurance, or benefits.

<comment><USER22> > Background checks are a canard. How do the cab companies check the > background of someone from Uzbekistan?

In other words, "Hey, Uber hires known felons and its okay because I can think of a scenario where background checks fail."

By that logic, stop visiting the doctor, using seat belts, or any safety device known to man because it can fail for some non-0 fraction of the time.

> U/L do carry insurance for their drivers when they're driving a passenger, > and it's probably more than the regular cab companies carry (which is why SF > Yellow cab is going bankrupt: they weren't insured for enough for one of > their incompetent drivers, according to the article)

[http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2015/02/09/uh-ohuber- has-...](http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2015/02/09/uh-ohuber-has-some- coverage-issues)

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/ubers-yawning- insurance...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/ubers-yawning-insurance- gap#.edxlxR64w)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrycampbell/2015/10/07/why- are...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrycampbell/2015/10/07/why-are-so-many- las-vegas-uber-drivers-lying-to-their-insurance-companies/2/)

> Drivers can answer no and effectively lie to their insurance company (while > also committing insurance fraud) but still receive coverage, or they can say > yes and they would be immediately denied coverage. Additionally, they could > even be dropped from their policy for disclosing that they are a rideshare > driver.

> Since it's not really in Uber's best interest to disclose the lack of > collision coverage during Period 1, many drivers don't discover that they're > not covered until it's too late. I've been researching rideshare insurance > options in Nevada since Uber went live and spoken with hundreds of Uber > drivers yet we haven't been able to find a single insurance carrier willing > to insure rideshare drivers. Some carriers offer a commercial policy but the > cost is prohibitive at $3,000-$5,000 a year.

> Meanwhile, risk-averse insurance companies have been excruciatingly slow to > adapt to this new and innovative form of transportation. I maintain an up to > date list of insurance options by state for Uber drivers on my site and > you'll notice that Nevada is not currently on that list. There literally > isn't a single option for drivers which unfortunately is somewhat typical. A > majority of states in the US still don't offer a rideshare friendly personal > insurance or hybrid policy for Uber drivers which means a whole lot of > drivers are forced to lie to their insurance carriers or find a different > line of work.

There are some pretty significant gaps in that coverage that shift the burden to drivers, depending on the state.

In fact there is an entire business built around the fact there are massive holes in that policy:

[https://www.metromile.com/uber/](https://www.metromile.com/uber/)

> Traditional auto insurance policies may not provide clear coverage for > drivers who participate in ridesharing programs. The partnership between > Uber and Metromile means you're insured 24/7, whether you're using your car > for personal use or driving with Uber. Now, Metromile offers complete > clarity to Uber driver partners.

The difference with Uber is the driver gets fucked instead of the Taxi/Uber company.

> As for health insurance, from what I've read a lot of cab drivers aren't > full-time employees either, so they also don't get health insurance, or > benefits.

I'm not even going to bother with this one. I've pointed out enough holes already.

<comment><USER23> > In other words, "Hey, Uber hires known felons and its okay because I can > think of a scenario where background checks fail."

You say this like it's a bad idea to hire people who were convicted of felonies who've served their time and are now out of jail.

> There are some pretty significant gaps in that coverage that shift the > burden to drivers, depending on the state.

> In fact there is an entire business built around the fact there are massive > holes in that policy:

That "entire business" is "an auto insurance company". Funny that. You see "massive holes". I see "the market at work". Do you wish to _force_ insurers to take on risks that they can't take in a fiscally responsible way?

Anyway. In CA, folks who drive for nontraditional taxi services like Lyft and Uber have access to (and are required to carry) coverage while transporting a fare, coverage between the time they accept that fare and the time that they pick up that fare, and all other times they are operating their vehicle. [0][1][2]

As with all things political, it will take far too long for this to become the policy everywhere, but it's pretty much inevitable.

To analogize: just because many Red States like Alabama refused to accept no- strings-attached Federal subsidization of Obamacare premiums for their poor, and refused to use no-strings-attached Federal money to expand Medicare to cover those who fall into the "Medicare gap" doesn't mean that those programs are bad, or a disaster. It's just a fact of life that many politicians love to play football with other people's livelihoods.

[0] [http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/05/29/a-look-at-farmers-new- in...](http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/05/29/a-look-at-farmers-new-insurance- for-california-uber-and-lyft-drivers)

[1] [http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/10/12/lyft-drivers- car...](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/10/12/lyft-drivers-car- insurance-policy-metlife/)

[2] [http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Fatal-accident- tests-...](http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Fatal-accident-tests- Lyft-s-1-million-5867623.php)

<comment><USER22> > You say this like it's a bad idea to hire people who were convicted of > felonies who've served their time and are now out of jail.

Yes, because its a good idea to put them in a position of power right after they are out of jail. Did you not bother to read the link to the drunk girl who stupidly got into a car with one of these guys?

One of the main arguments proponents make about these services is driving people who have been drinking home and people in strange places home.

"Hey this one situation is risky, we shouldn't let them do X because there are clear instances of bad things happening because they pick up impaired passengers." isn't even close to saying "HEY NO ONE HIRE FELONS".

If you want to engage in childish strawman arguments that have nothing to do with the problem I'm discussing, go troll someone else.

> Anyway. In CA, folks who drive for nontraditional taxi services like Lyft > and Uber have access to (and are required to carry) coverage while > transporting a fare, coverage between the time they accept that fare and the > time that they pick up that fare, and all other times they are operating > their vehicle. [0][1][2]

> But drivers have been incurring all sorts of risks when they use their > personal vehicles for TNC work. During Period 1, Uber and Lyft do not offer > collision (coverage for when the policyholder is at fault), comprehensive > (for fire, theft and other damage), underinsured motorist coverage or > medical payments. (They also do not offer those coverages for the succeeding > periods, unless drivers carry them on their personal policies).

> The new insurance is offered by Farmers as a supplement — called an > endorsement — to drivers' personal auto policies, and it will cost an > additional 8 percent of their premium. A smaller insurer, MetroMile, already > offers individual ride-service insurance, but it's exclusive to Uber > drivers. That insurance costs a base rate plus a per-mile charge.

Yes, your article agrees I'm correct despite you arguing with me for some bizarre reason(?)

The drivers themselves need to buy supplemental insurance or there is a gap in coverage during Period 1.

<comment><USER23> > Yes, because its a good idea to put them in a position of power right after > they are out of jail. Did you not bother to read the link to the drunk girl > who stupidly got into a car with one of these guys?

Wow.

Bro. A couple of things:

Humans who would launch unjustifiable assaults against other humans come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are convicted felons. _Most_ of them are not. A _proper_ background check [0] discovers with a relatively high degree of certainty whether or not one is likely to assault another (among many other things).

It often takes a _very_ , _very_ long time before one can seal a felony conviction. "The guy who can't find solid work because he did a dramatically stupid thing a decade ago, despite the fact that he's a _dramatically_ different and dramatically better guy now than he was then" is kinda archetypical.

A prior felony conviction, along with the degree of one's success at rehabilitation is just another datapoint to be considered in a proper background check.

> "Hey this one situation is risky, we shouldn't let them do X because there > are clear instances of bad things happening because they pick up impaired > passengers."

You say that like _regular_ cabbies with clean records aren't not-infrequently accused of theft, assault, and swindling. :/

> Yes, your article agrees I'm correct despite you arguing with me for some > bizarre reason(?)

Heh. You said:

> The difference [in regards to insurance coverage] with Uber is the driver > gets fucked instead of the Taxi/Uber company. [1]

From what I can tell (and from what I've read in the Uber driver recruitment letters I've been getting in the mail), Uber et. al. are straightforward about the limits of their insurance.

You all-but-explicitly claimed that nontraditional cab companies were making it difficult to understand the limits of their insurance policies. Perhaps their policies in regards to disclosure of this information have changed recently, but everything I've read that was _actually published_ by the companies in question was straightforward and clear.

[0] I know what such a thing is because I was subject to one in a former life.

[1] Amusingly, you said this right _after_ you mentioned that Uber had done the legwork required to _find_ an insurer that was willing to insure commercial drivers making use of their personal vehicle during the time that they're not driving _for_ Uber.

<comment><USER22> > A proper background check [0] discovers with a relatively high degree of > certainty whether or not one is likely to assault another (among many other > things).

...yet you don't want Uber to do proper background checks. Okay.

That makes no sense and you basically admit I'm correct then go on and on about something else.

> From what I can tell (and from what I've read in the Uber driver recruitment > letters I've been getting in the mail), Uber et. al. are straightforward > about the limits of their insurance.

Once again, you aren't countering my argument in any way shape or form. You are saying "Well, yes the burden is shifted to drivers and that is okay."

> You all-but-explicitly claimed that nontraditional cab companies were making > it difficult to understand the limits of their insurance policies

You clearly don't understand what I've written at all and I'm going to stop here because its pretty clear you are attacking strawmen and patting yourself on the back for it for some bizarre reason.

<comment><USER23> > ...yet you don't want Uber to do proper background checks. Okay.

Heh. When did I say that? I bet you can't provide a quote... because I neither said it, nor implied it. :)

From the sound of it, it's _you_ who's interested in forgoing proper background checks, and just blackballing _everyone_ who's been convicted of a felony:

> In other words, "Hey, Uber hires known felons and its okay because I can > think of a scenario where background checks fail."

Think through your statement:

* You -obviously- strongly disagree with Grishnakh's assertion that background checks are frequently going to be insufficient to root out _everyone_ who would harm another human while driving them around... especially when they've recently arrived in the country.

* You express that disagreement by rephrasing his statement as (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Because background checks fail, it's okay to hire convicted felons who've served their time and are now out of jail.".

* This implies that you feel that blanket prohibitions on employing people who've been previously convicted of a felony are acceptable.

If one wants to perform a more-thorough-than-usual background check on folks convicted of a felony, charge them more to perform the check. [0] Do _that_ , rather than instituting a policy that ends up being -at best- dramatically classist, -at worst- dramatically racist, and -at all times- dramatically damaging to the folks who've reformed themselves and are now decent, honest, useful people.

> You are saying "Well, yes the burden is shifted to drivers and that is > okay."

Sure, but that wasn't the core of your argument. Your argument's core was that Uber et. al. were being dishonest and/or intentionally deceptive about the limits of their coverage.

> You clearly don't understand what I've written at all...

No, I do. I can read both the text _and_ the subtext of what you've written. :)

[0] But, frankly, the same level of scrutiny should be applied to _everyone_... you never know who's an antisocial scumbag that just hasn't been caught yet.

<comment><USER22> > You -obviously- strongly disagree with Grishnakh's assertion that background > checks are frequently going to be insufficient to root out everyone who > would harm another human while driving them around... especially when > they've recently arrived in the country.

I literally said otherwise:

> In other words, "Hey, Uber hires known felons and its okay because I can > think of a scenario where background checks fail."

Aka "We should continue to use background checks as prescribed by the locally democratically elected authority even tho they can fail in some scenarios."

That isn't a statement on the accuracy of those background checks and only a complete idiot would come to that conclusion.

> * You express that disagreement by rephrasing his statement as (and I'm > paraphrasing here) "Because background checks fail, it's okay to hire > convicted felons who've served their time and are now out of jail.".

> Yes, because its a good idea to put them in a position of power right after > they are out of jail. [Sarcasm]

Its a specific discussion of people who are in positions of power.

> * This implies that you feel that blanket prohibitions on employing people > who've been previously convicted of a felony are acceptable.

1) People who fail standard and normal background checks because of felonies when attempting to get a job that places them in a position of power.

2) You keep re-stating what I say to make it apply to a broader context than what I actually say which is simply arguing with a strawman, yet again.

> If one wants to perform a more-thorough-than-usual background check on folks > convicted of a felony, charge them more to perform the check.

It is usual and standard to have a background check performed by fingerprinting to the standards of the city of Houston when engaging in services regulated by the city of Houston.

Once again, you seem to argue against a strawman for no apparent reason.

> Sure, but that wasn't the core of your argument. Your argument's core was > that Uber et. al. were being dishonest and/or intentionally deceptive about > the limits of their coverage.

That has nothing to do with what I said.

> There are some pretty significant gaps in that coverage that shift the > burden to drivers, depending on the state.

That was the argument. The context was in relation to Taxi companies. Yes, the insurance burden is shifted and you just agreed with it.

Congratulations.

> No, I do. I can read both the text and the subtext of what you've written. > :)

1) You've admitted my argument that part of the cost savings is by shifting the some of the burden from Uber/Taxi company to drivers for insurance.

2) You admit I'm correct that they should use normal and customary background checks used by the local democratically elected authority.

3) You've basically agreed my argument is fundamentally sound and 100% correct. Or you are lying in your most recent post.

4) Your entire attack on my argument is from the angle of re-writing my argument to attack a strawman.

> Heh. When did I say that? I bet you can't provide a quote... because I > neither said it, nor implied it. :)

Actually, you did even in your most recent post.

Given "proper" background checks in the context of skirting local regulations is determined by the locally democratically elected authority (the city of Houston) by arguing against that position, you literally said:

> Do that, rather than instituting a policy that ends up being -at best- > dramatically classist, -at worst- dramatically racist, and -at all times- > dramatically damaging to the folks who've reformed themselves and are now > decent, honest, useful people.

1) You can't actually invalidate how Houston is handling this without accusing Uber of being racist, classist, and dramatically damage to felons who have reformed.

2) This is due to the main difference is the fact Houston wants people fingerprinted and Uber didn't comply.

3) You ignored the actual flaw in my argument (Houston would have cleared the driver I used as an example in their background check) to accuse me of being racist, classist, etc.

Congratulations. I just proved it using standards of evidence you are.

 _applauds_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm currently programmer nomad-ing in Uruguay and have been __delighted __with Easy Taxi. I don 't know if all the cabs use it, but tons of them do and it works just as well as Lyft/Uber did for me in Seattle. Real-time updates of location, ratings, instant confirmation of fare acceptance... I say I want a cab and pretty much get one within 5 minutes no matter where or when I am.

It's all the same yellow and black taxies but everyone has a cell phone mounted to their dash and.. it just works. I'll never ever understand why taxies in the US haven't done this. Had they, I probably wouldn't have switched _exclusively_ to using Lyft.

<comment><USER25> It's the same here in Lithuania, when Uber started to become popular a few years ago the taxi companies joined forces and launched their own apps (there are two main competing apps).

I don't understand how US taxi companies have been so oblivious to this, given each one in major cities probably has more cabs than the whole country does here :D

Uber finally launched a couple of months ago, but it's more expensive and doesn't have as many cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just before Uber in 2009 I was once left stranded at Jerry Garcia Amphitheater because it was "out of the way" for the cab company. I had to walk several miles through the hills to get home. Uber solved a huge problem for us.

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone else baffled by this line?

>> "In reality, we have the best color scheme there is in the world, we've got a lot of loyal customers, we still get a high volume of calls to our color scheme on a daily basis," he said.

</comment><comment><USER28> The first and last yellow cab I took in San Francisco: the driver didn't know where the Presidio was, took us somewhere completely different, and then argued with us for a solid five minutes insisting we'd given him the wrong address (we hadn't, multiple times, with the zip code, explaining that it was near the Golden Gate bridge). The driver had a GPS unit in the car. I couldn't even get angry; brain was already saturated with amazement.

</comment><comment> enahs-sf I will miss the transportation market taxi cabs provide. When the constraint is on supply-side (drivers) but the cost is constant (that is, given a sufficiently capable driver, your fare should be about the same) you're only limited by hailing a cab, which has become quite a bit easier now that everyone is using Lyft and Uber. Oh well. I get that the QoS is not as consistent with cabs, but I always found that part fun.

</comment><comment><USER29> Please please please let Austin's Taxi companies be the next to fall.

Between shitty customer service, not showing up on time (or at all), and having drivers that will always try and take the slowest shittiest way to get anywhere to inflate the bill... I can't wait for them to go out of business.

Spot the cab driver with a passenger... he'll drive 50 MPH in a 65 zone. Spot the cab driver without one... he does 90. So not only do they rip the passenger off, but they fuck up traffic for everyone behind them. Fucking cunts, they all deserve to be put out of business.

Can not count the number of times I called a cab to the airport in the last 10 years, only to have the cab not show up on time leaving me in a spot where I'd have to beg a neighbor to take me to the airport, or drive myself and pay for week-long parking my company didn't cover when I had to take a business trip.

Uber and Lyft... they may not be perfect, but they're infinitely better than taxis. Infuckingfinetly better.

Taxis going out of business... 1) natural selection, and 2) good riddance.

</comment><comment><USER30> Good riddance. Almost all of my Yellow Cab experiences have been awful.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are a lot of comments in this thread about the problems Uber solves. I'd like to pose a different question: which of those problems is not solved by Flywheel?

For those who don't know, Flywheel is an app that lets you call a regular taxi cab with an Uber-like dispatch system. You watch the cab arrive with GPS and pay on your phone. It is some small fixed cost over the cost of a cab, no surging obviously. And you can put in your destination for the driver to navigate to via GPS, just like Uber.

<comment><USER32> I think there's an element of principle to it. I certainly feel that way, and it appears the majority does as well.

App GPS, app payment, star ratings... these are not new things. And yet the taxi industry couldn't be bothered to better itself until a higher quality service came through and gutted their profits.

Consumers suffered some universally abhorrent treatment for years because taxis flat out don't give a fuck. And now, what.. all is expected to be forgiven because they're suddenly in the app store?

They made this bed. They can lie in it.

<comment><USER31> That is the biggest point in favor of Uber, their threat made some taxi operators attempt to get their act together.

I think that in a few years Uber will learn to give as few fucks (to borrow your phrasing) as taxi companies do today. Most of the current taxi drivers will become Uber drivers, Uber will have too many riders to do reasonable customer service, and there will be no incentive to go the extra mile for customers when there is no entrenched competition to outshine.

The only reason I bother playing the devil's advocate in pro-Uber threads is because I don't like how they got here. They used VC money to barrel into ever major city and actively ignore the law. It's just one more symptom of the problem that having a billion dollars in America makes you above the law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Good to hear. The few times I've called a cab in SF it never showed up. I've heard there is no penalty to them if they just pick someone else up instead on the way. So glad their company got the penalty for poor service in the end.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've had mostly good taxis, some okay taxis and a lot of taxis that just didn't show up. Luckily I haven't had any bad taxi rides.

</comment><comment><USER35> Smith's invisible hand in action.

</comment><comment><USER36> Have fun paying your "surge pricing" every weekend, San Franciscans.

Chumps.

</comment><comment><USER37> I love the smell of creative destruction in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER38> Uber/Lyft are very interesting. The main reason cabs are so terrible is because the unions have a complete stranglehold on the industry, which means pretty much no advancement in technology and monopolistic pricing.

They both are basically going against everything the unions stand for by not having regular wages or benefits.

Edit: Admitting you're wrong is not something most people here on HN can do. Instead, they downvote.

<comment><USER2> Um, I thought the reason cabs are so terrible is not because of unionization, but because it's a _cartel_ , and it's given that power by the government because of the issuance of licenses (called "medallions") which ensure a limited supply of cabs, artificially restricting competition.

<comment><USER38> "but because it's a cartel, and it's given that power by the government because of the issuance of licenses (called "medallions") which ensure a limited supply of cabs, artificially restricting competition."

Right, the unions. It's not a corporation that is artificially restriction competition, it's the unions. These unions have deals with the government.

The same thing happens in the auto industry.

<comment><USER2> No, that's not a union, that's a cartel. A union is an organization of _labor_ , not company owners. And it's the cab owners who have the deal with the government.

<comment><USER38> You are just mincing words to make it seem like unions aren't the bad guy here.

The auto unions, for instance, are larger than most big corporations and many of the leaders get paid out millions of dollars in bonuses every year.

Read the first line of this article:

[https://news.vice.com/article/taxi-drivers-are-trying-to- tak...](https://news.vice.com/article/taxi-drivers-are-trying-to-take-down- uber)

"Taxi unions in cities such as Boston, Denver, New York, and San Francisco are not pleased...."

Sorry, but they are unionized and like every other industry where unions have control, you get inflated wages and higher prices. It nearly put the big 3 out of business during the downturn of 2008.

Companies like Toyota didn't even bat an eye during that time because they could make changes with ease.

<comment><USER39> Boston only started to unionize in 2007, for example. Prior to the labor union being formed, the taxi cartel has long had an artificially restricted monopoly on medallions, which ensures a lack of competition and discourages innovation, causing them to stagnate and become ripe for disruption. I'm sure having unionized labor doesn't help in keeping costs down and the driver unions have gone on strike over things like requiring GPS, but you have failed to demonstrate that the labor union is the primary cause of their current troubles. If that were the case, you ought to be able to show that prior to 2007, Boston's taxi companies were constantly innovating and upping their game and that it's only after unionization that they have stagnated.

In fact, the GPS strike was due to the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission enacting rules that required the use of GPS -- this was something that the taxi companies could have introduced themselves if they were at all competitive, but due to their cartel status why should they even bother?

[0] [http://theunionnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/steelworkers- organi...](http://theunionnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/steelworkers-organize- boston-taxi.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Run a Free Bitcoin Classic Node Courtesy of Google Compute Engine - <AUTHOR> http://themerkle.com/news/run-a-free-bitcoin-classic-node-courtesy-of-google-compute-engine/ <comment><USER2> i see that the free trial tos specifically forbids mining</comment>


Ash HN: Given the salary of a developer, how can a side project be worth it? - <AUTHOR> Disclaimer, this is a real first world-problem. As a JavaScript contractor in the UK, I can easily make 500£+ a day, full time, minus taxes. My goal was to reimburse my student loans (done) and start putting money aside for making my own startup. But the more I stay in this business, the more I make money, and the more it's hard to even imagine a startup that comes close to that opportunity cost.
Even for a side project, it would simply be more profitable if I just spent time finding higher paying customers for my JavaScript skills.
It sort of feels like a trap. Anyone got a story of how they went through that? <comment><USER2> Yes, I have one word for you: Mindset. The more you make money in your contractor job, the more it should NOT be hard to imagine a startup or your own thing. Why ? Because doing your own thing has nothing to do with just money. It is an ITCH that has to be scratched if you are meant to be that person who risks it all.

So change your mindset. Don't think about the fact that you will probably be very poor in the beginning of your side project/business/startup etc. That is a given and a fact. If that bothers you, you will never be an entrepreneur. Get that out of your head.

Instead, think about the opportunity cost of you NOT doing your own thing. Think about where could you be in 7-10 years from now if you did do your own thing. Mindset. All about mindset. Now you could of course completely fail and still be poor/broke after few years BUT if you are really that entrepreneurial type, you will still not feel completely lost. You would have learned so much doing your own thing that you will have a satisfaction. At least, that is how I think about what I am doing right (bootstrapped business for almost 5 years and my personal income is still not quite what I used to make in my high paying but boring/miserable Investment Banking IT job)

My final thought: If you want to do your own thing and you are always doubtful, imagine yourself on your death bed. Would you rather regret the fact that you didn't do your own thing or would you regret the fact that you did something but failed ? For me, it is the former. That is what drives me to do my business, nothing else. Money is important but a side effect and yes I want to be rich but that is not my main reason to do a business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most people make side projects for fun. If it turns in to something that brings in some money that's great, but if it doesn't it was still interesting to build.

Plus you get to build the thing that you want to build rather than what someone else wants. That's a huge draw for a lot of people.

Another reason is that your contractor earning is capped by whatever you can charge multiplied by your time. If you get in to the top echelon of contracting you might be charging £1200/day, but even that is 'only' about £300,000 a year. If you want to earn more you need to find a way to charge for something other than time. That means starting a business that sells a product.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've was in exactly the same position as you, "why would anyone want to risk it on a startup when you can make several hundreds of pounds a day contracting". And now I am working on my own side project.

You get used to the money very quickly, if you are smart you will be saving at least 30-40k a year depending on where you live (I assume you're in London based on your day rate). Even though it is a huge amount of money and certainly a first world problem, if not a 1% world problem, you might still get bored with your job. And If you do ever get bored then having a mountain of savings and knowing that you can always go back to contracting if you want to puts you in the perfect position to start your own business.

But it seems like you were thinking that you would do your own startup because "thats what you're supposed to do". If you are happy contracting and enjoying the money from it then stick with that. Doing your own startup can be a great experience but it is not some kind of nirvana that everybody has to aspire to.

EDIT: I would also recommend reading this article for a perspective on how to think about your work. These days in tech everybody tells you that you have to "do what you love", and generally that is assumed to be orthogonal to what earns the most money. Don't take that advice as gospel. If you are happy working as a javascript contractor and earning a sh*t-ton of money then you are in a very good place. The hacker news mindset has created a lot of startup mythology around "doing your own thing" and "breaking the mould" which might make you think that its something you need to do too.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion- workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/)

</comment><comment><USER5> A different (possibly oversimplified) way of thinking about it: the people paying you that rate are only doing so because they're getting a return on that money.

If you can find a way to do what they do (run a successful business) then you would get higher returns being a labor buyer rather than a seller.

Whether those potential returns _adjusted for risk_ are worth it is up to you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Contracting at medium to high rates is great if you want to bootstrap your own startup. I use it for that purpose myself. A few of the best reasons.

1\. It allows you to work for 6-12 months and save up enough to take 2-3 months off to work on your startup — something that's often required to build a version 1 of your app.

2\. Contracts tend not to include the usual clauses such as "We own the ip to everything you invent, even in your spare time." And if they do they can be removed without difficulty.

3\. It's extremely forgiving of job hopping and spending short amounts of time with a company before leaving to work on your startup.

4\. Contractors are usually not expected to work overtime, eating into side- project time.

On a different note, your use of the term "side project" instead of product, app, startup or business suggests you don't see this side project as a business or potential business. Maybe that's why your focus is on the money and not the business you might build.

I've always felt that "side project" is a terrible phrase to describe the early stages of a new business, even if you're starting that business while working a day job.

</comment><comment><USER7> I second the comments about side projects value is for fun. To me the value of my side project is non monitary. In my side project[0], I craft clocks. The value it provides to includes:

\- kickstarts my motivation. I'm interested in making these but if I didn't have a few customers I might slack off and not start the project and instead waste time with internet or other drivel.

\- it's an excuse to learn new skills and fund the purchase of tools that I'd like but don't really need.

\- it demonstrates to my young kids that anyone has the ability to create. Even if it's a small idea, it's still valid.

\- all my mistakes/trial-and-errors also demonstrate to my kids that EVERYONE makes mistakes. That's how we learn.

\- my spouse works on the marketing side of the business and it allows her to earn some income with flexible hours part time.

\- and last but certainly not least: it feeds my ego! In all earnest, I think this is good since it is an outlet for my ego and I feel it helps keep my ego out of the rest of my life.

[0] www.finewordclocks.com

</comment><comment><USER8> > As a JavaScript contractor in the UK, I can easily make 500£+ a day, full > time, minus taxes.

If they can easily afford to pay you that much, it might make you curious how much money you can make by creating a product yourself.

For people saying your maximum earnings are capped as a contractor, that's because you're charging for your time instead of your expertise. Consider fixed price and valued based pricing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bootstrapping a company is gambling. If you don't enjoy the game and don't want to lose money, what's the point?

It's normal and rational to prefer high, steady pay over a miniscule chance at being fantastically wealthy, especially when founding a company often destroys your life for 3+ years.

If you like your life, don't worry about side projects.

</comment><comment><USER10> Play cookie clicker.

At first, it's slow. As it progresses, you get more cookies per click. It'll hit a point where improving cookies per click has diminishing gains.

At some point, you'll invest in an autoclicker which is pretty slow and you think you might as well just click the cookies yourself. But it's additional cookies in parallel with your clicks. That's nice.

After a while, the autoclicker and passive income gets good enough to match active income. You start to optimize it. More income per click for some routes, or more clicks per second. It compounds.

It seems slow at first but anything compound is powerful.

</comment><comment><USER11> You can look at it from different perspectives:

\- Just for fun (when you watch TV you doesn't look at the opportunity cost of it)

\- you have a maximum amount, that you can earn as a contractor, but a side project doesn't have a max limit (neither a minimum)

</comment><comment><USER12> Because most people aren't contractors and make more like £150-200 a day

</comment><comment><USER13> What makes side projects worth it is the time you put in is fixed and the reward is variable and disproportionate to that time. This is not really specific to programming, it also applies to books, music, television, games, streaming etc. There's also no real cap on how much side projects can succeed. Contracting you can make a lot of money too but it's capped and directly proportionate to your continued time investment.

</comment><comment><USER14> The biggest selling point is this.

You can trade hours for javascript money but can you make money while you sleep or lie on a beach?

Your side project (SaaS, info product) can.

If you have the entrepreneur drive you'll already be thinking about ways you can create something that will become your main source of income and getting away from trading time for money.

You don't have to quit consulting, that's a nice way to fund your side project.

<comment><USER15> > can you make money while you sleep or lie on a beach?

> Your side project (SaaS, info product) can.

or you could invest your surplus JavaScript money in the stock market, or real estate, or other investments that reduce your demand for money (e.g. a cheap house if that's a better deal than renting).

Less interesting than side projects but probably a much more predictable low- time return on investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I often do side projects when there's an opportunity to explore something I don't normally get to do in my line of business work.

In many cases, I'm able to take what I've learned back to my day job, so it's not always about money, at least for me.

</comment><comment><USER17> Been there. At some point I both became too sick of the nonsense of working in dysfunctional orgs and had enough saved to not worry about money too much. Leaving the contracting game seemed like obvious choice at that point.

</comment><comment><USER18> FOR ME. It's not just about money but freedom, both with your own productos and your life. I like being able to go sailing/kayakin/running/mountain biking/fishing/etc when I want.

</comment><comment><USER19> _No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself._

Nietzsche

</comment><comment><USER20> how do you find those high paying roles</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do *after* you've checked your news sources? - <AUTHOR>

My procrastination fall-through usually goes like: Hacker News -> Google News -> Buzz -> Facebook -> Onion.  And then, by Onion time, I usually get a moment of clarity and shut my laptop lid.
I'm not too concerned that I procrastinate in this fashion...rather, I'd like to fix the sharp diminishing returns of my current fall-through.
What do you do once you've finished checking HN?  What's some positive, low brain-intensity, online activities that you could recommend? <comment><USER2> I go to the gym. There's more to life than online activities, and it rejuvenates the brain.</comment>


Music Kickstarter Puts A Record Label In The Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/05/18/music-kickstarter-launch

<comment><USER2> Where's the recording studio? That seems to be a big part of what makes a record label a record label.

Will musicians still have to pay for studio time, production, etc? If so, this seems more like music _promotion_ in the cloud, rather than a label per se.

Still, it's a great idea and I hope it is successful.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have one studio of our own in Helsinki (see <http://letgostudios.com/>), but otherwise we're partnering with studios in different places.

Traditional labels don't always pay for studio time either, but at least we can provide different options in that area...

<comment><USER2> You're right, a lot of times studio costs come out of the artist's advance. And there are plenty of local studios that musicians can pay to record in.

But still, one of the big things (in my mind) labels have going for them is state of the art record studios and top-notch producers.

Maybe in the future you could consider fronting money for studio time and having a list of freelance producers?

Most of the local bands I know (wrongly) feel like they could manage promotion themselves through Facebook and email. But they get really excited at the opportunity to record.

<comment><USER3> ...even a good engineer is useful. Playing music live is very different to recording music in a studio.

Knowing that you want a bit of echo on that and you want this to sound a bit crunchy is good, but knowing which buttons to twiddle to get that is tricky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They forgot to include the kitchen sink!

I've been working on something with a tour creation focus for the last few years but for them that's just a footnote.

Superb effort or "jack of all trades, master of none?"

<comment><USER5> I manage a small music label and that was a glaring omission for me too. That part of the industry is brutal for newcomers, which has some serious paradox business problems.

Maybe if you're funded enough, you can just pay a booking agency.. but for a big group of unknown talent, I just don't see it working.

Touring is the single biggest PR problem for my artists, the technical services are easy in comparison.

<http://monofonuspress.com/> Our website if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Bopgig has the facility for one user (such as yourself) to manage multiple artists on the site. There's a feature release on its way (public stats and demographics) to allow booking agencies and venues to come in and find artists and approach artists that interest them, but now that I think about it, tour creation should ideally be automated or semi-automated, probably the same way airline and truck routing is - but it'll take time to reach that point.

<comment><USER5> It's an intriguing problem for sure. If I wasn't so busy with everything else I'd work on booking full time. I've considered branching off a new company just to focus on that.

<comment><USER4> I am in the process of writing a how-to doc, and releasing a couple of features that should make research and booking using BG fairly straightforward and effective - let me reach out in a few weeks. You'd have to have your artists ask fans to signup (to make the most of it), thus I'm shaping the site up to be as compelling as possible so that can happen. It'll hopefully give you an edge.

<comment><USER5> Great, I can't wait!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We're building the service itself on Heroku and Node.js. I'll try to write a story next week on how the technical side of things works, including coordinating business workflows with NoFlo (<http://noflojs.org/>)

<comment><USER6> Cool name, bros

<comment><AUTHOR> The real service name is KickUp, not _Music Kickstarter_. Arctic Startup has the company name in the title, unfortunately.</comment></comment></comment>


Lua as a Python's secret weapon - <AUTHOR> http://alexeyvishnevsky.com/?p=248 <comment><USER2> Lua is indeed a pretty nice language for some use-cases and it's nice to see this example. It would also be great to see a comparison to Numba which is a Python JIT particularly suited for fast numerical computing with Python: [http://numba.pydata.org](http://numba.pydata.org)

Numba provides speed-ups over NumPy and Python and does so in way very easy for Python programmers to use with decorators on Python functions. Numba can be used to easily build new "ufuncs" which are NumPy's universal functions and it has multiple interfaces for programming the GPU directly from Python for even higher performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lua is amazing. I've used it to reimplement an API served by Python and it was consistently twice as fast i.e. half the time to serve a request compared to the Python framework in basically the same code.

<comment><USER4> What did you use as the web server / process manager? Was it embedded lua in nginx (maybe lapis as the web framework?) or otherwise? Please share more.

<comment><USER5> If you're looking for a fun hobby project, you might check out this project, which is a Lua-based web server. It includes a graphical Lua debugger with a browser-based UI, powered by the Lua-based web server.

[http://github.com/bhk/tooltree](http://github.com/bhk/tooltree)

See 'documentation' -> 'monoglot' -> 'Introduction'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Or you know, just use Lua.

<comment><USER7> Unless you have a job where you can choose your own tech stack or are otherwise self-employed are there really non-game development jobs that use Lua? I like the language and have used it for scripting games before but have never seen a single job posting for that skill set. I even have it on my resume and I'm fairly certain no one has ever noticed.

<comment><USER8> I don't know man... lua is everywhere!, systems/infrastructure, machine learning, voip, games, microwaves...

<comment><USER9> Where in systems/infrastructure are you seeing Lua used?

<comment><USER10> nginx, haproxy, redis all support lua scripting to name a few.

<comment><USER11> You may be missing the point

A lot of things have lua bindings and a lua interface. But once you stop being your own boss, your control over which interfaces and bindings to use shrinks drastically.

I believe the question was more: What fields/industries are actually USING the lua interface by default? Where would being able to say "I am very experienced with lua scripting" be a particularly strong asset.

<comment><USER12> Any place that uses OpenResty ([https://openresty.org/en/](https://openresty.org/en/)) is bound to use Lua not just as scripting aid but as a language to actually build applications. Cloudflare is famously using it, along with I believe Taobao who first supported its development.

<comment><USER9> >"Any place that uses OpenResty ([https://openresty.org/en/](https://openresty.org/en/)) is bound to use Lua not just as scripting aid but as a language to actually build applications."

This is not true at all. Where I work we use OpenResty in places for a WAF but we don't touch Lua for anything else. You don't need to know much Lua for this.

Using something as an embedded language is a little different than building standalone systems/infrastructure projects with something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As anyone experience with adding new types to Lua ? I mean, in a fundamental type, not just simulating them with regular Lua features. For example, adding a 128 bit float number ?

<comment><USER6> Yes, they're called userdata.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suspect that this is not using stock Lua, but LuaJIT instead. Stock Lua wouldn't be much different than Python itself.

The real gains come from Mike Pall's amazing JIT implementation, not the language itself.

<comment><USER15> Which leads to the question why there is no proper JIT implementation of Python. It's so widely used that you would expect someone coming up with one eventually. Or are language features so different that they don't allow an implementation similar to LuaJIT or Julia?

<comment><USER16> There is a JIT for python: [http://pypy.org/](http://pypy.org/)

<comment><USER17> And although the article doesn't state that PyPy _is_ a JIT, it's one of the implementations that the author tries to obtain a speedup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can't you achieve the same by embedding, say, rust?

<comment><USER19> Yup, that'd work. [https://blog.sentry.io/2016/10/19/fixing-python- performance-...](https://blog.sentry.io/2016/10/19/fixing-python-performance- with-rust.html)</comment></comment>


75 Broad Street; Turning Buildings Into Telecommunications Hubs (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/10/realestate/commercial-property-75-broad-street-turning-buildings-into-telecommunications.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the building that is home to the "Bucket Brigade" that has been getting so much press lately.</comment>


In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/20/470825175/in-california-poisonous-death-cap-mushrooms-are-the-foragers-bane <comment><USER2> Not mentioned in the article, but the victims are often people who grew up in other countries where it's safe to eat wild mushrooms. After moving here they keep the same habits and pick these poisonous mushrooms.

There were quite a few cases where asian immigrants mistook death caps for the edible Asian paddy straw mushroom, and got very sick.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you mistake _any_ amanita, let alone a death cap, for any of the other mushrooms mentioned in the article -- hedgehog, matsutake, or chanterelle -- you're simply not paying enough attention to be picking mushrooms to be eaten.

Never mind the gills, which were mentioned in the article, the ring is a _dead_ giveaway, and if you don't know what the ring is, again, you shouldn't be picking mushrooms to eat.

(The way that amanitas form and grow often leaves a tattered-looking membrane circling the middle of the stem. You can see it in the pictures in the article.)

I'm sorry that this lady got so sick. Luckily, she got a second chance, and hopefully she will learn more about what she's doing before she goes picking again.

<comment><USER4> I also grew up picking and eating wild mushrooms. The popular edible wild mushrooms like chanterelle and matsutake are very distinct and easily identifiable. I avoid ambiguous edible varieties. When in doubt, throw it out.

I can only assume she was careless or clueless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's with all the fungiphobia?

Within USA/Canada, learn to identify death caps and destroying angels. If you stay away from any mushroom that you aren't sure is one of these two, don't eat any wild mushrooms raw (very few mushrooms are good raw anyway), and don't gorge on anything that isn't obviously identifiable, your odds of doing yourself any permanent harm are very low.

That's not to say all other species are "safe." Obviously, you should only collect species that you can identify. But amanitas are basically trivial to identify (know their tricks, cut mushrooms in half to check for hidden/immature gills), and if you don't eat Amanitas (again, in USA/Canada), it would be a truly freak incident if you actually died of poisoning. You're more likely to be eaten by a bear.

If you are incapable of this, then not only do you have no business foraging for mushrooms you probably shouldn't be preparing your own food. Number of people killed or disabled due to foraging poisonous mushrooms is nothing compared to those killed by improper food preparation and handling, but you don't see people quaking in their boots in the poultry aisle of the grocery. The article cites five deaths in five years in all of California. How many people died of salmonella and botulism in that time? How many mushroom-phobes would be so reckless as to drink "raw" milk?

A lot of supposedly poisonous mushrooms are in fact edible, especially when boiled.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here in Norway we had this publicly funded mushroom control staff located strategically near the forest to allow people to get their mushroom-forage checked by an expert. They would literally go through all the mushrooms in your basket and throw out any mushrooms they couldn't positively identify as edible. Unfortunately the money "ran" out. I guess we'll take the hit as an increased spending on public healthcare instead. [http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/08/10/money-ran-out-for- mus...](http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/08/10/money-ran-out-for-mushroom- control-over-protests/) edit: here's a better link with pictures, but in norwegian: [http://www.nrk.no/norge/savner-stotte-til- soppkontroll-1.119...](http://www.nrk.no/norge/savner-stotte-til- soppkontroll-1.11907766)

<comment><USER7> Seems like a waste of money. If people want to learn the edible species they can just join their local mushroom club like in the US.

I can see paying someone to be there a couple hours a week, but as a full time job that seems ridiculous.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps training those who are already stationed (forest/park rangers, etc.) would be a more efficient path. I think the point of accessible trained staff as opposed to a mushroom club is to target those who would otherwise not take the effort to investigate what they gathered, and end up consuming harmful species.

<comment><USER7> Call me cynical, but stopping someone from eating some random unidentified plants/mushrooms seems like a net harm to humanity.

<comment><USER9> You're cynical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the past decade or so here in Canberra, Australia, we've had a handful of fatalities in the local Chinese community. Death cap mushrooms can look similar to straw fungi, which is popular in Chinese cooking.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides#Similarity_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides#Similarity_to_edible_species)

</comment><comment><USER11> Something to be aware of in Australia also;

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/death-cap-mushroom- sea...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/death-cap-mushroom-season- arrives-early-in-canberra/6077330)

Another common garden plant most people dont know to be aware of is Oleander. I see this everywhere like in schools and am amazed. People have died using the branches as skewers to cook. The smoke can also be poisonous if people burn this plant.

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

And for interest, only a problem in North Queensland check out the Gympie Gympie tree. This is really something to keep a wide berth. Amazing what nature can produce.

[http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science- enviro...](http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science- environment/2009/06/gympie-gympie-once-stung,-never-forgotten/)

<comment><USER12> There are signs up around the ACT like this:

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VeN5uDOjoIA/Tx9Qq5oQCLI/AAAAAAAArV...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VeN5uDOjoIA/Tx9Qq5oQCLI/AAAAAAAArVw/8KT2YHgqWhs/s600/Mushrooms.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It'd be cool if there were mushroom-testing reagent kits, like for MDMA etc.

Edit: apparently chemical tests exist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_tests_in_mushroom_ide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_tests_in_mushroom_identification)

<comment><USER7> It's not needed, it only takes an hour or so to teach a beginner the major genuses that contain poisonous species. In fact for the first year the rule is basically that if it looks like a mushroom then don't eat it.

<comment><USER14> > In fact for the first year the rule is basically that if it looks like a > mushroom then don't eat it.

Sure, that prevents people from dying. But what about all those mushrooms that people didn't dare pick? Is that not a loss - a loss that could be remedied by such a kit?

<comment><USER7> > Is that not a loss - a loss that could be remedied by such a kit?

Not really. Just because something doesn't contain a handful of specific poisons doesn't mean you want to eat it. The vast majority of mushrooms are neither poisonous nor edible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Somewhere I read that if a mushroom has white gills then it could be poisonous, and that brown gills are safe to eat. Not that I'm going to pick mushrooms, but is that advice sound?

<comment><USER16> Not at all. The bit about white gills is probably referring to Amanitaceae, which include some marvelously toxic species that destroy the human liver. But the advice is way too general to be useful. Brown-gilled species are not universally edible, and white-gilled species are not universally poisonous.

To forage safely for plants or mushrooms, you should know the identifying characteristics of your target species and any non-edible lookalikes.

There are definitely no general rules for determining mushroom edibility.

A great resource is Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have to say; when I was a kid (in Alberta, not California), the general advice was not to pick and eat mushrooms without significant knowledge. I don't really see the allure either, common table mushrooms are very tasty and plentiful.

I think this is just one of the Darwin award's new qualifying categories.

<comment><USER18> Have you tasted Morels?

<comment><USER19> I have and had the same reaction as GP. They tasted pretty much like any regular store-bought mushroom.

<comment><USER7> You need to use dairy and not olive oil with them, for what it's worth. Unless you sautée them with butter and salt you're not going to bring out the flavor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Death cap survivor story: [https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived- the-...](https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the- destroying-angel/)

</comment><comment><USER21> At the moment, I'm reading Euell Gibbons (Stalking the Faraway Places). I love his work, and he gathers mushrooms, but that's where I draw the line. Too much downside risk.

<comment><USER3> There are several wild mushrooms that are unique in appearance, or have only one or two problematic lookalikes that are easily tested. If you're interested in picking, you can look into them.

The "chicken of the woods" and "hen of the woods" are perfect starter mushrooms. (Although chickens' edibility when growing on softwoods is questioned, so it depends where you live.) There is nothing that bears any resemblance to them.

Chanterelles and porcini each have a few straightforward guidelines for distinguishing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there (or could there be) a quick, layperson-usable chemical test for the toxins? (If so, it could be applied to both the raw mushrooms and dishes like soups prepared from them.)

</comment><comment><USER23> As partially colorblind (like 10% of all men) picking mushrooms scares me.

Not saying I don't pick musrooms, only I only pick mushrooms I'm sure don't have any dangerous lookalikes.

</comment><comment><USER24> Given how hard wild mushrooms can be to identify, I'm surprised that there are people who pick and eat them.

<comment><USER25> Correctly identifying any given mushroom can be hard, requiring the right taxonomic keys (and the comprehensive ones come in multiple volumes), a microscope, various stains and reagents, and lots of training. Field mycologists have a term, LBM, meaning "little brown mushroom", which speaks to the pain of separating such specimens to species level even with lots of ID experience.

On the other hand there are many edible species which are unmistakeable and which you can quickly learn to reliably identify based on obvious features. In many European countries, foraging for wild mushrooms is a traditional pastime and intimately linked with national cuisine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This one mushroom is pretty well-known to be deadly here in Russia, knew that since age 3 or so. Good thing, it is easy to recognize.

Anyways, never ever try out your luck with mushrooms, if you were not well- taught to deal with them by someone experienced, in person (internet advice / taking and sending m-room photos do not count, period).

Couple seasons of mushroom-hunting alongside someone, willing to teach you, is a minimum before you ever decide to put any mushroom you picked up yourself into your (or someone else's) mouth.

Btw, even experienced people sometimes do not pick up mushrooms, they have suspicions about (there are some not quite deadly ones here, masquerading as edible in my place, for example).</comment>