Why I don't love light rail transit - <AUTHOR> https://alexdanco.com/2019/09/12/why-i-dont-love-light-rail-transit/ <comment><USER2> Buses have many advantages over subways, especially over trains running at street level (since these can't go much faster than traffic). The main advantage of subways is ironically that they are inflexible - they can't be gutted in times of budget deficit.

And I would suspect this is how Toronto differs from the average American city. American city governments experience periodic budget squeezes that force politicians to gut every service which is gut-able and buses are always a logical target.

And this leads to both buses being abandoned due to unreliability and for the bus lines that do exist to, uh, worthless, run at too infrequent intervals to pick up significant ridership. And this lead to buses having a terrible reputation, reinforcing the cycle of poor ridership.

<comment><USER3> > especially over trains running at street level (since these can't go much > faster than traffic)

Why would trains at street level be limited in speed by traffic? Trains in the UK run at street level and regularly go over a hundred miles an hour.

<comment><USER2> I mean street cars, trains that run on streets behind and in front of cars.

<comment><USER4> That's called "streetrunning".

If you check out YouTube you can find some freight trains that have to do that from time-to-time.

About a hundred years ago, when Toronto's streetcar was implemented, they made their gauge slightly narrower than train gauge to prevent "trains" from running along streetcar tracks.

They pay for it to this day as it means new streetcars need to be designed for a gauge that nobody else uses.

Turning radii is also an issue. Possibly by design or not...

<comment><USER5> Pedantic correction: Toronto streetcars and subways are actually slightly _wider_ than standard gauge. The rest of your point is unaffected.

The streetcars are not discussed much in the article, but they may be a large part of both Toronto's moderate transit success and its slowness to adopt real light rail transit.

Streetcars are seen as similar to buses but a bit faster, more comfortable and more reliable. Which suits them well for the busy downtown routes. But plans for suburban LRT routes have been dismissed as "glorified streetcars", even though they would be much faster due to less frequent stops and more signal priority. Since relatively slow downtown streetcars are the only surface rail people know about, they don't get excited about LRT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's an incentives problem in the United States. In Japan, for example, the railways are private (so they need to turn a profit) and you usually have supermarkets and department stores on the stations. The stations are the hub. When you look at commuter lines into large cities in the US, you are driving hours to a parking lot with nothing but a platform near by.

<comment><USER7> It's also a geographic, real-estate, and political problem. There's not enough density in enough areas with enough last-mile coverage for trains to work like other countries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many cities solve this chicken and egg problem by _building_ the necessary density next to the train station. Hong Kong and Japan are the most famous examples, but it works in Singapore and large chunks of Europe as well (although Parisian banlieues may not be the best model of urban planning for other reasons...).

<comment><USER8> Yes it's sad to see America's giving up before even trying. Defeatism I believe.

<comment><USER7> It's not useful to generalize like that. America is far bigger than most can imagine and the current challenges are much greater than the benefits.

The US doesn't just need trains as good as Japan, it needs them to be at least twice as good for the investments to make sense.

<comment><USER8> I have no idea why you think it has to be "twice as good" or what all that even means.

With that behind us, nobody's proposing high speed rail from San Diego to Boston, just LA to SF and along the eastern corridor. And we can't event have that. Let's start small.

<comment><USER7> It means that unless the trains are moving at 400mph with perfect comfort, free wifi, and a price of $20, nobody cares.

LA to SF is a 1 hour flight as cheap as $50, with the same last-mile effort and total trip time as a train. Airlines are also elastic to meet demand without major capex.

So who's going to spend the 100s of billions to buy the land and build a line for a 2-3x slower travel option that will take a century to be paid back? California is actually trying to do this and has failed miserably because the land and infrastructure costs alone make the project infeasible.

<comment><USER9> > LA to SF is a 1 hour flight

How long does it take to/from each airport, and how long do you take to go through security, check-in and boarding?

A 1-hour flight easily becomes a 3 to 4 hour ordeal.

<comment><USER7> How fast is this train going? And you still need to get to/from the station. At 200mph it'll also be a 3-4 hour ordeal at least, and more if there are stops in the middle.

<comment><USER9> > How fast is this train going?

Typically, the commercial speed of high-speed trains is about 300-350km/h.

> And you still need to get to/from the station.

Train stations tend to be located in the city center, not 50km away.

> At 200mph it'll also be a 3-4 hour ordeal at least, and more if there are > stops in the middle.

Madrid-Barcelona takes less than 3 hours, and starts/ends near the city center (check Atocha and Barcelona Santa).

Unlike airplanes, the bulk of the trip is spent sitting comfortably in your cozy chair with plenty of leg room, internet access, electric outlets, no noise or pressure fluctuation, and a nice landscape to enjoy.

<comment><USER7> This thread has gone off the rails. The point isn't that trains are more comfortable than planes. That's obvious. It's that a train is _not currently viable_ compared to the existing airline routes.

The US and California are not spending > $100B to build this. Even with all that comfort, people want cheap and fast. Talking more about how nice trains are makes no difference to actually getting one built unless you have a plan on how to acquire all the money, real estate and political will to get it done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It depends a lot on the city, but in high-traffic areas, buses are extremely slow and unreliable because they have to fight through the traffic jams. Dedicated bus lanes get around this, but it's very hard to recapture the lane from car traffic at that point since the car drivers will see it as being taken from them.

If you're building a new rapid transit line with dedicated ROW, it then comes down to BRT vs LRT and the cost of BRT and LRT aren't actually that different I believe. The buses are cheaper up front but the maintenance cost on light rail vehicles is supposedly cheaper (plus, they can use electric power and are cleaner than diesel buses). The article's criticisms would apply equally to BRT though.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting article, except for the mumbo jumbo about feedback loops.

Development is all about land and cost. Suburbia hit critical mass because road networks were building out in the postwar economic stimulus and cars were cheaper than traditional infrastructure. Taxes were low because everything was new.

The driver of today's changes is also about cost. We are out of suburban land. If you look at new construction in suburban areas, say around Boston, you see new build outs on shitty parcels. Apartment buildings 50 feet from the interstate, hilltop shopping centers, etc.

At the same time, the existing suburban housing stock is old and creaky. I was born in the late 70s, my parents are in their 70s and their house is 40 years old... and basically depreciated. It's not going to yield great value because it needs lots of work. That's not an atypical story.

A vital city like New York is another great place to look for guidance from. As the old ethnic neighborhoods collapsed, they turned to slums. The slumlords sucked the value out, and left cheap shells that attracted investment.

</comment><comment><USER12> One thing I'm surprised this article didn't mention is commute times. To get from Weston Station (northwest of downtown) to Union Station takes:

\- 22-minute drive (or 1h in rushour)

\- 1.25-hour bus ride

\- 13-minute LRT ride

LRT (light rail transit) really is an excellent way to get into the downtown core from distances and in time frames that were previously only manageable by car.

<comment><USER13> If you are talking about the UPX, that's not an LRT line. It's just a regular train.

But I don't think it's a fair comparison based on routes. On the UPX line those are 1 direct stop apart. For comparison taking the subway would also be more indirect and longer, taking about 40 minutes I would guess.

<comment><USER4> It's also a poor proxy for what really matters: door to door them.

UPX runs every 15 mins.

If you time it right, great, but if you don't...

<comment><USER14> If you don't plan at all, you'll have an average wait time of 7 minutes. How bad is that?

<comment><USER15> Average wait time of 7 minutes _if_ the trains follow the schedule exactly and don't bunch.

If things are allowed to drift randomly, you end up approximating the exponential distribution - which has an average wait time of _15_ minutes for 4 trains/hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For the "changing routes" problem, I like trolleybuses, which won't be reconfigured and don't smell like diesel. Real estate near the wires can get the usual infrastructure boost. Dual-mode trolleybuses can also extend service past where the wires are and you still get the advantage of not stopping to charge. The power stations can be reused for a train as well. Dedicated ROW in a city center is mandatory regardless of vehicle if you want reliable service.

Toronto seems like a bit of an unfair example when you compare sheer ridership because it's bigger than all but five US cities.

<comment><USER17> > Toronto seems like a bit of an unfair example when you compare sheer > ridership because it's bigger than all but five US cities

Actually the metro area pop. is only beat by LA IIRC, so your point is even understated

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting to note that many SF residents find the T 3rd Street light rail to be slower and less frequent than the buses that it replaced.

I think subways work well because of their grade separation and extreme high capacity, but most surface rights would be better served by buses than light rail, and you can still create separated bus lanes for bus rapid transit instead of separated light rail if you have the money to spend.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very-very short scoop: light rail provides neither the high bandwidth of a subway nor the wide coverage of a bus network, but costs a lot.

</comment><comment><USER20> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21044509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21044509)

</comment><comment><USER21> Spot on. I live in Minneapolis metro area, and commute to downtown Minneapolis via bus. The "express" bus from the suburb is not frequent enough and does not extend far so I can walk to my house after getting off.

Instead, I drive a good 10+ minutes to a park & ride, and get on the bus for the 45+ minutes ride to downtown. Also the buses could be electric and more comfortable, and have better lane management. Here in MSP, the transit buses can drive on the shoulder which are in terrible shape.

<comment><USER21> Oh, there was a discussion of an LRT to downtown St. Paul from where I live. We all heard the same arguments about "bringing the wrong kind of people" to our neighborhood. Instead, they are developing bus lines which is the better call, but have to see the ridership. Hope it works out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > and you're the one who has to pay the cost of commuting distance

In Japan, the company pays for your commute, and the price of your commuter pass has no bearing on your pay. (There is a cap at most companies, and the average is 15170.8 yen per month (according to [https://venture- finance.jp/archives/4982](https://venture-finance.jp/archives/4982)).)

(Unfortunately, as the company is forced to pay for your commute, the company is also allowed to dictate what route to take, which may in some cases mean less comfort. Neither you nor the company pay tax on this money, so misuse (and paying more than necessary could possibly be construed as misuse on part of the company) could in theory have bad consequences.)

</comment><comment><USER23> When traffic in a city is inherently bad. It sets the foundation for difficulty in solving the problem with buses (increase frequency, priority express buses)

In a high traffic situation, ETA gets adjusted from time to time. And buses will struggle to get in/out of stops and delays loom when accident occurs on the road.

Poor road planning and building alongside with massive amount of cars on the road is one of the major issue.

Maybe workplace hours should be adjusted as a whole or varying tolls based on high demand hours to avoid everyone competing for road space.

But I generally agree with the article that buses gets you really far. For a long time Singapore was relying on bus routes to move people around the city state, and progressively build subway lines as the demand and city planning go with it.

<comment><USER17> Interestingly, Toronto has pretty terrible congestion. I haven't lived there in a while, but IIRC "rush hour" is more like 3 hours (morning an evening). And (apparently) the bus network still does a decent job. Not sure how true that is, but I hope they at least added dedicated bus lanes wherever possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I could not agree more. Public transit in the Portland (Oregon) metro area was much better (easier to access, predictable, faster, weather tolerant) when they prioritized buses and had no LRT. Now that the city is all-in on LRT the bus system is neglected and under provisioned.

My other big beef with LRT is that cities are dumping hundreds-of-millions of dollars in to single use track - LRT is only used for moving people, whereas money spent on buses funds roads, which benefit all aspects of commerce. Also, on another, tangent, LRT is plagued by weather related woes - at least in Portland, if it is too hot or too cold, the trains cannot even safely run. Bring back the buses!

<comment><USER25> > Bring back the buses!

I think the 'red transit lane' is a step in that direction:

[https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/10/paint-it-red- po...](https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/10/paint-it-red-portland- gets-first-red-transit-lane-downtown-with-more-coming.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know this will sound super cynical and overly pedantic. But it's not the Koch brothers anymore. I was by no means a fan, but David is dead. Any funding is on Charles. Or perhaps Charles and David's heirs.

<comment><USER27> From the article linked in the sentence referencing the Koch brothers: "But in 2017, the group received $110,000 in funding from a political arm of Charles and David Koch". Both were alive in 2017.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Things moving on rails are beautiful, buses are ugly. Beautiness is important.

</comment><comment><USER29> This article is just BS. This is a line used vary often by fossil fuel advocates to dissuade investment in mass transit infrastructure. You see the fossil fuel lobby cannot say "screw mass transit, lets all drive" because after suffering couple of hours in traffic, every citizen will figure out that this theory is unworkable. So instead, they say "we don't need rail, we need buses, and we need to build "bus infrastructure" (which is just roads)." Then of course, the fossil fuel lobby can work behind the scenes to gut the bus budget and the "bus infrastructure" can be used for cars instead.

The lobbyists then say "Buses are for ordinary people, railroads are for the rich, blah blah blah". Usually, this line completely ignores the fact that buses and railroads cost about the same in most places.

To his credit the author does address this fact here, but his analysis is shallow and downright silly. He says, "yes they cost the same, but railroads are usually in more expensive neighborhoods." Well, yeah we live in age when high density neighborhoods are expensive and getting pricier all the time and Light rail is most suitable for high density neighborhoods. So that is not surprising.

And then he complains about how light rail makes home prices go up. Yeah, well that just means it is successful. When a city service is successful, it makes the area it serves more desirable which people from less desirable areas want to move there which makes prices go up.

The response to that should not be to make everything less desirable to ensure affordability, but to learn from the successful and desirable places and make all parts as successful and desirable. Thus, eventually there won't be enough rich people to move in, and you will have just a nice affordable livable city. Would you be in favor of setting half a city on fire in order to make the other half more affordable to live in?

His graphs show that he is trying to mislead readers. Why do you think he made the color of bus lines in Toronto so similar to the color of light rail in Toronto? Or why did he color certain high usage bus lines that prove his point in bright red, and certain low usage bus lines that do not prove his point in much darker shades, and then in the legend he only said that the bright red lines are bus lines. Or why did he split the most popular Toronto street car line in two? He said "I separated out the 504A and 504B so that they'd fit on the graph; otherwise it'd break the y axis." They would not only break the y axis, buddy, they would also break the entire premise of your article.

If he had a dot that represented a light rail line that is much twice as high as any of the bus lines, then his premise that light rail is unnecessary because it can be handled by a bus line kind of goes out the window. But that is the reality.

He correctly says that light rail and buses work best in combination with buses being feeders for light rail lines. This increases the ridership of both buses and light rail. But that fact leads to the conclusion that both light rail and buses must be built. This is what most cities try to do nowadays. Instead the author draws the absolutely wrong conclusion that light rail needs not be built.

So yeah in conclusion this is a typical professionally made manipulative troll article. It has a couple of nuggets of self evident truth to get some authenticity and not look like a complete troll, it tries to harness a lot of pre-existing anger about an issue (high housing prices) and disingenuously channel that anger towards his issue (less light rail), and it has some graphs that are very carefully designed to be confusing and misleading to the max.

<comment><USER30> I totally agree. A specific example I found insulting was Portland, OR. He uses it as an example for his argument, but the reality is that our LRT is still supported by a vastly larger bus network. I live a 15 minute walk / 5 minute drive to the nearest train station, but there are still at least 5 or 6 bus lines closer. Additionally, the bus network still seems well funded. Not only are busses relatively clean and modern, they also support all the latest mobile payment options like ApplePay and the iPhone's new mobile card thingy that works with RFID just like the trains do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If we are comparing to a successful "subway plus bus" model, isn't light rail clearly filling the "subway" role in the model, not the "bus" role?

<comment><USER5> Yeah. Light rail is cheaper and slower than a subway, and more expensive and faster than buses. A single light rail line may not serve as many people as an extensive bus network, but it may supplement an existing bus network better than a short subway line would for the same cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What? Light rail is really crap. 45 minutes from Sunnyvale to San Jose. It's slower than biking. It's covering like 6 miles in that time. 9 miles an hour? Really?

</comment><comment><USER33> Streetcars in Toronto are in fact light rail, doesn't that invalidate this entire argument?

One can argue some LRT implementations have the same limitations as buses, but you can't call them buses, point to their success, and say that means buses are the only answer.

It's clear that Toronto's mix of subway, LRT, and buses are successful, and perhaps that's what should be emulated.

</comment><comment><USER34> This person has it all wrong. Suburbs were created artificially, and it just doesn't matter. Mixed income neighbourhoods are the desired result of all development. The pockets, rings, and regions of classist housing is the problem, not its location or how we navigate them.

Yes, the feedback loops is true, blah blah blah, but author needs to dig deeper.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's not that complicated really - there's a three-level hierarchy in public transport systems:

1\. If the road traffic is congested, the solution is bus lanes.

2\. If the bus lanes are congested, the solution is light rail rapid transit.

3\. If the light rail is congested, the solution is a subway/train line.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does the DC metro count as light rail? It's... not luxurious. Maybe new light rail is nice, but I've never ridden one. Regardless, I see the point the author is making. I'll probably look harder at the buses around here.

<comment><USER37> DC metro is heavy rail. Light rail is generally single or double trainsets running in the street right-of-way or otherwise mostly at-grade intersections. Toronto's streetcars (but not the subway!), SF's Muni Metro, and Boston's Green Line (but not the other ones!) are well-known examples of light rail in North America.

<comment><USER4> I believe Toronto's new Eglinton LRT (the first that would be called LRT and not streetcar) will be exclusively RoW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I can't make the sense of the author's graphs. Is he plotting daily boardings on both the X and Y axes simultaneously? Aside from bus vs. streetcar, what do the varying colors mean?

</comment><comment> chao- Two things on my mind reading this article are:

1\. I am not convinced the idea of commuting as "self-correcting mechanism" was presented well (or much at all). I was expecting to learn a bit more about this point.

2\. Half of the points have a counter-example in both Houston and Dallas, where most of the LRT doesn't go to wealthy residential parts of town. Some of those rich parts of town are still _actively fighting it coming near them_ , in fact.

Those two cities come to mind because I have experience living in both, and can compare with my experiences living in denser, older cities like Tokyo, Berlin, and Santiago, where a variety of networks were built for different reasons across different eras. Then again, even in Santiago, the the subway stops just before you get too deep into residential parts of Las Condes.

But I am also a non-expert, and at the end of the day, instead of going point- for-point and saying _" Well, look at what Dallas did. Surely [blah, blah, blah]"_ there are two factors that weigh heavier on my mind: cost and historical political context.

Cost is foremost. While LRT is less efficient long-term, it is cheaper to build transit at-grade by about a factor of five (I read this long ago and forget where, or I would happily source). Histotical context, in that many grand subway systems get built in a time where, for the city to prove it was a top-tier global city, you demonstrated civic grandeur and engineering prowess by building a subway system. The prestige was used to push past the barrier of it being eye-wateringly expensive. Also while we have made these options safer over time, it has come at a (worthwhile, but non-zero) cost of more regulatory checks that have made the cost gap even greater, and harder to cover by dreaming of prestige

Both cost and context ultimately combine into political feasibility.

For a city like Denver, Dallas or Houston, if you ask the transit wonks who fight the good fight at the municipal level, I don't think you would find many that truly would choose LRT over other commuter rail, all else equal. But all else was not equal. Cost was the big barrier, and the context did not exist to cross that chasm, so they got what they could, when they could.

Houston only got its network because of a starry-eyed chance at the Olympics and/or Super Bowl. Originally it was just one line, then a plan for a 5-line network, of which 3 were built, but now possibly up to 4 again. I could write an entire essay on the mistakes made along the way, public and private, in that first line. Just look at the land-use (really the land-lack-of-use) in Midtown between 2000 and 2010 despite the LRT's presence. Yet the power of a network grows with every additional line, so once you at least have something, you might as well leverage that and add to it, rather than sell the public on a completely different approach.

In the end, I share the concerns of the author, but I do not see the narrative being quite as clean when I set it against the specific cases I am familiar with.</comment>


Is WikiLeaks Hacking for Secrets?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_07/b4215046290051.htm

<comment><USER2> So... because somebody from Sweden downloaded a document and Wikileaks had servers in Sweden it must have been them!?</comment>


I am the 1% of Student Loan Debt - <AUTHOR> http://tibbon.tumblr.com/post/13839164804/i-am-the-1-of-student-debt

<comment><USER2> _Sallie Mae and all of the banks that pushed changes so that bankruptcy couldn't happen for student loans are just greedy and really shouldn't be allowed to offer these loans._

The bankruptcy reform bill was the biggest assault on citizens right that has happened over the last few years and almost no one took notice. America was founded on the principal of debt amnesty, in which a citizen at any time could based on their own analysis of their situation could absolve themselves from the burden of their debt. In doing so the owner of their debt would liquidate their assets and take to proceeds. The debtor was then free to try to rebuild.

This institution was created because any other construct, will inevitably lead to slavery and create a debtors nation. They studied the factors that created debtors prisons in Europe and wanted to avoid the pitfalls of a nation built on debt burden. Because it is a nation built on slavery.

The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on the eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence. Student Loans are the most over leveraged product on the market, what is worse is they are not backed by an asset that can be liquidated. Knowing this and seeing the collapse coming the lobbyist and politicians quickly worked to place safeguards into place to keep the house of cards from coming down.

Coincidentally the timing of the move is damning evidence to the fact that not only the financial industry but also the politicians knew the collapse was coming. The instituted the means test as a way to strap homeowners to underwater mortgages and outright removed student loans from consideration. It was the most blatant display of politicians putting business interest before the people.

They did everything in their power to strap us to the debt of poor choices while simultaneously working to form legislation to bail out businesses that made equally poor chooses.

I implore each and every one of you, to look at the bankruptcy reform bill and who voted for it and vote them out. They have shown that they are now overtly and directly working against your interest. It is a huge assault on your rights, while you may never need the relief those rights afforded, if you do you will find that they have blocked your ability to start over, denying you of rights when you need them the most. It is a heinous attack on the rights of the citizenry.

<comment><USER3> >> Sallie Mae and all of the banks that pushed changes so that bankruptcy couldn't happen for student loans are just greedy and really shouldn't be allowed to offer these loans.

> The bankruptcy reform bill

had nothing to do with the non-dischargability (can't get out of with bankruptcy) of student loan debts. That change happened in 1998.

> almost no one took notice.

Speak for yourself.

> The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on > the eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence.

Bankruptcy laws have changed many times since "the founding fathers".

<comment><USER2> _had nothing to do with the non-dischargability (can't get out of with bankruptcy) of student loan debts. That change happened in 1998._

Thanks for the info, I thought I read that they where both in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 05. I was unaware of a previous bill.

And I do understand that the laws have been change previous to the 05 and 98, but my understanding of the law is that it was the first such attempt to restrict the people who could file for chapter 7 AKA total discharge of debt, therefore pushing them into a 13, requiring a judge to garnish a large portion of the income for 5 years before they can be declared free from the responsibility of having the service the debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why do I get the impression that if he hadn't been loaned money to get that degree, he'd have complained about that?

The lesson that I'm getting out of this is a that a lot of people shouldn't be in college and/or shouldn't be allowed to choose their major.

<comment><USER2> I think the article covers the issue pretty well, collage to many was as inevitable as buying a house, it was so ingrained into cultural norms that the though of not going never even crossed his mind. There are cultural forces and norms that have a strong influence on peoples actions without them even contemplating an alternative point of view or the ramification of the action. Cultural wisdom and norms like "put your money in real estate, it never goes down", "we are a military family" or "Everyone in my family goes to college" are strong subconsciously influencing factors, to just put it on the person alone ignores a lot of factors that got us into this mess.

<comment><USER3> > I think the article covers the issue pretty well, collage to many was as > inevitable as buying a house, it was so ingrained into cultural norms that > the though of not going never even crossed his mind.

Is that "ingrain" stronger than "He was just following orders"? I ask because few people accept the latter excuse.

> Cultural wisdom and norms like "put your money in real estate, it never goes > down",

That sounds like a lame excuse, as real estate is one of the classic cycles.

<comment><USER2> _That sounds like a lame excuse, as real estate is one of the classic cycles_

It may sound lame to you, but what you fail to see is perspective, many people listen to that cultural wisdom and many people do "just follow orders" it's the reason we have this mess. Are they totally blameless? no. should they have researched what they where getting into? yes.

But both of those require someone actually even beginning to think it through in the first place and that is the point. When it comes to social norms like this, because of socital habits they don't even think. Just like the guy just following orders, he did not think through his actions.

Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no. Does it mean we should reflect on how it happened and have empathy? yes. But just like the guy following orders, the system that indoctrinated him into not thinking requires some of the scorn and blame.

Hitler was just as much to blame as the guard. It's preposterous to view it any other way. To do so, absolves guilty parties of their burden of the blame.

It's not that the author is not guilty of failing to think, it is that the system is also guilty of conditioning children in that manner. We (society, the education system, finance) share the blame, whether you like that fact or not.

From your perspective you see them as excuses for the author to be blameless for his actions. From my perspective, he is not the only accountable party.

Just as in real estate, it is not an excuse that people don't understand cycles, but it is a reality that people relying on "cultural wisdom" invested in real estate "because it is the safest investment". The fact that they did not even know what a cycle was, does not absolve them from responsibility for their action, but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that "cultural wisdom".

Life is never that cut and dry, telling a person to suck it up because you believe it is an excuse, does nothing to address the systemic issues at play, that are just as responsible as the individual.

<comment><USER3> > Hitler was just as much to blame as the guard.

So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for this "ingrain".

> Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

If, as you argue, he's not competent to think about the consequences of his decisions, he's not competent to vote, make those decisions, and so on.

> but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that "cultural > wisdom".

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

And the exact same is true of college educations, and of spending lots of money to become an audio engineer.

<comment><USER2> _So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for this "ingrain"._

Yes, as well as the predatory lenders, targeted marketers and a host of others working to dumb down the consumer. Lack of critical reasoning increases impulsive and conspicuous consumption, it is not a coincidence that critical reasoning and the intellectual lazy have increased along with consumption. To believe that culture and propaganda does not have the ability to influence an individuals decision making is to ignore the body of evidence that fascism (and later the soviets) created for us and used with deadly precision.

 _And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame._

I hold all parties equally accountable, that was clear in my writing.

 _"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages._

Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions, no one has went to jail over predatory loans, when direct corruption on their part, has been highlighted by several whistle-blowers. The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals, that are being paid to do the thinking and analysis for them. When I go to my CPA, I expect him to be a tax professional, I do not educate myself in tax law because, I pay the CPA to do so. To educate myself in it would be redundant and a waste of my time and money.

It would also kill human progress to require everyone to educate themselves on every aspect of their life to ensure they don't get screwed. We don't expect people to know mechanics and when a mechanic recommends more work than is necessary we generally consider it fraud. Again the person that did not educate themselves is to blame for not educating themselves or at the least seeking a second opinion, but it does not absolve the mechanic of his fraud.

What you suggest is untenable as a society, we have to rely on professionals to make decisions for us, as a society becomes more complex we have to delegate more. To not do so would stagnate us as a civilization. We should expect professional to act professional, and hold them as an accountable party when they do not.

In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan and the full projected debt and payment at the end of the loans. So a student can see what their debt and payment projections will look like at the end of their education.

We should expect the schools to have clear, data on what their graduated of specific disciplines make, so that a student can compare that to the debt burden that they will incur.

Finally, we should expect sales and marketing to paint a true picture of the prospects for employment and education. Until we do, we as a society share the blame.

We can get into the semantics of who "we" are, but that is playing the blame game, the reality is, "we" as a society should not allow predatory practices in any market where large debt decision will be made. Until we do, we share some of the culpability of the indebted.

<comment><USER3> >> "us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

> Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions,

So? Folks say lots of things. If I tell someone that they don't look fat, am I responsible if they actually do?

Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society.

> The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of > that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

> Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals

So if I hold out grocery clerk to be an expert on nutrition, I have a legit beef?

"I want {someone} to be liable for their advice" is no reason to hold said someone liable for their advice. You want liability, contract for it. Note that a contract requires the consent of the other party, so you're going to pay for said assumption of risk.

> In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children > understand the conditions of the loan

They're not children. They're college students. We let them vote. We let many of them buy alcohol.

If they are unable to understand that words have meaning and that it's a good idea to know said meaning, they shouldn't be in college.

<comment><USER2> _Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society_

 _Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)_

I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in foolish exuberance. Do you draw a distinction between the individual and the institution or is foolishness excusable when we may have to take a hit for it. Even if we did not participate.

In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been painful for us. One could argue that we need to be empathetic and learn from their mistakes and that we needed to bail them out for the greater good.

If that is the case, why does it differ for the individual "fool"? because we don't have to share in repercussion so we can therefore be selectively empathetic. You see from my vantage point, the "fools" that did not do their homework on wall street are no different than the "fool" that did not do his homework before getting into student loan debt or mortgage debt. You can weigh in on either side of the morality issue that we need to help them or not help them, but they both acted foolishly and other fools in the system helped perpetuate their foolishness, we have a systemic issue of anti-intellectualism and intellectual laziness. Whether you are for or against helping or are in favor of selectively helping the ones that will cause us pain for their foolishness, if we don't act, the fact remains that both sides are culpable. I know that you don't see that vantage point which is fine, but I am genuinely interested in understanding how you unify the two positions for different classes of fools, which from my vantage point looks like an argument for situational ethics. Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

<comment><USER3> > I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society > needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in > foolish exuberance.

Actually, it wasn't. However, even if it was, there are benefits to a functioning financial system. There's no benefit to more fools.

> In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the > financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been > painful for us

That's a reasonable view, one that I happen to share. (However, you're ignoring the role of govt in this whole thing. I think that folks who want a foolish govt should take a hit.) However, as I've pointed out, there's a reasonable counter argument.

What is the benefit to protecting fools?

> Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

I think that you're making that up. How about a checkable cite to someone in the financial industry actually making that argument? (Someone else saying it about them is not evidence.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The big winner of Obamacare rollout: The guy with HealthCare.com - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/25/the-big-winner-of-obamacare-rollout-the-guy-with-healthcare-com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is why pg says you must have a .com.</comment>


WikiLeaks crippled by ex-associates, sources say - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/us-wikileaks-assange-idUSTRE7193Y120110210

<comment><USER2> Why would someone trust OpenLeaks after what he admitted to sabotaging his old associates?</comment>


Show HN: Fiddlewax - Musical instruments in your browser - <AUTHOR> https://fiddlewax.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Note that this is still very much an alpha-release. It has a long way to go before being a real product/service, but I'm curious to hear what people think.

It should work on computers, tablets, and phones, but the phone is a little small to control 45+ keys. :)

Any thoughts or suggestions about what's most important to make this work as a startup would be much appreciated. For example, should it be a single instrument that is hyper focused? Or would it be better to keep it super broad and reconfigurable?

</comment><comment><USER2> the best advice anyone can give you is to do what gives _you_ the most enjoyment, because that's what's going to keep you plugging away, day after day after day…

-bowerbird</comment>


Oracle's Virtualbox.org down. - <AUTHOR> http://www.websitedown.info/virtualbox.org

<comment><USER2> I just noticed this whilst trying check the status of the booting in Mountain Lion issue, which last time I checked was only fixed in SVN. Does anyone know if that fix has been put into the main binary available on the site? Just hoping to get back to using vagrant without fear of kernel panic.

<comment><USER3> I'm using 4.2.2 on ML with Vagrant; been stable so far for me.

Latest version available for download here: [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server- storage/virtualbox/...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server- storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is Hacker News just an aggregated website status page in 2012?

</comment><comment><USER5> qemu.org down too

this is interesting...

<https://forums.virtualbox.org/>

SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Can't connect to MySQL server on '184.108.40.206' (110) [2003]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.</comment>


How I Will Become a Game Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.mauriziopz.eu/from0togame/index.php/how-i-will-become-a-game-programmer/

<comment><USER2> I'm disappointed. I'd hoped he'd listened to my advice on the other news post: START PROGRAMMING A GAME.

That's all you need. Your first game is going to suck anyhow. And probably your second and third.

But with enough experience, you'll start to get the hang of it and have a sale-able game.

There's no more magic to being a 'game programmer' than being any other kind of programmer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry you misunderstood what I said. I'm going to start programing a game, just before that I'll need to do some simple programs like hello world, tell me your name and tic tac toe. To get the hang of a new language. Then I'll dive in in my game

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good Luck</comment>


Ask HN: Advice for those with poor discipline? - <AUTHOR>

I have a lot of time to get stuff done, it just doesn't happen. The easy choice is really too easy, and inconsequential. <comment><USER2> 1\. Completely eliminate the source of distraction. This can be temporary, with essential things. The separation can reset habits. With lesser things, remove them permanently.

2\. Try to procrastinate with activities that are still productive. Don't feel like working on your major project? Complete some chores.

3\. Create names for bad habits. Then, when you notice you're doing the habit, say "oh, I'm doing X again". Often naming something is the first step to beating it.

<comment><USER3> I agree with these suggestions, and I'd like to add to #1.

Get away from your usual place of work. If you can go to a place such as a library, empty office space, or school campus you'll be more focused. These places should be a bit unfamiliar so you're not as comfortable there. Don't think this applies to everyone, but I have seen it work well in my situation.

I have to admit I sometimes find myself in the same boat as this post and I'm always looking for ways to improve productivity.

<comment><USER4> This works very well for me. Sometimes, just moving away from my main work area to another room works wonders for productivity. Heck, changing my Emacs color scheme sometimes makes me feel more inclined to work. It's not a replacement for true discipline but it's a neat trick that can get you out of a rut.

Humans crave novelty, some more than others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Far from being a productivity guru, some things that have definitely worked for me:

1) Lists. By priority. Also checking off easy tasks as low-hanging fruit to reduce overall pressure of all those tasks.

2) RescueTime - a free service that highlighted where I would drift out of productivity and for how long, and typically when I would do it. This helped me to tighten up my day and focus on which distractions I wanted to keep, while making their use more efficient.

3) Deadlines. Don't work as well as the above on their own, but in conjunction with other people they tend to help. Find a partner or confidant.

4) Do something else/take a break. If you find yourself just sitting in the place you want to work, but not actually working, get away. Walk, talk, read, play a game. When you get bored of doing that, you'll probably want to work for one reason or another. This may take a few hours or a few days, and isn't always practical, but reminds you of the importance and satisfaction of working.

5) Keep researching productivity methods (despite most of them requiring as much work to maintain as the task itself) and share them. With me, if you can!

</comment><comment><USER6> Two ways that work for me:

One, don't try to reason it out. Don't make every chance you have to slack off be a constant mental battle of willpower. This is why eliminating distractions works so well. Also, just make it a habit. This is the harder part, but try something like the pomodoro method, where you work for 25 minutes, and take a 5 minute break. No distractions at all during that 25 minute period. Once that becomes a habit, it gets much easier.

Conversely, if you do find yourself wondering why your doing what your doing, or you have to convince yourself, just think of what you want to accomplish. Is it going to the gym, or working on a side project, or reading more? Just think of the first step. The first step of going to the gym is just getting in the door. Getting in the door is not very hard, but how can you possibly get fit without getting to the door? Whenever you lack motivation, just ask if you've completed step one (<http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2011/07/18/step- one/>)

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Check if you have Adult ADD. 8% of people have it, and if you have it and don't know it, it can lead to a lot of frustration with yourself.

You can print out a preliminary test here, and have a sibling or close friend fill out one half--you'll fill in the other. If you score high, there's a good chance you have ADD and should make an appointment with a psychiatrist so he or she can guide you through the diagnosis and narrow down whether you have ADD or not.

[http://www.drstubblefield.com/patient_forms/Adult_Intake_For...](http://www.drstubblefield.com/patient_forms/Adult_Intake_Form.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Systems are your friends.

1\. Track the things you want to accomplish. Joe's Goals is good for that. If your problem is working enough hours a day, track hours.

2\. To-Do lists. I use ToodleDo religiously.

3\. Block distracting internet sites. I use SelfControl (for Mac.)

4\. Quit your biggest distractions altogether. (For me, that's webforums. I deleted all my webforum accounts.)

Systems are great if it's just forcing yourself to do stuff you're really going to need to do. In a way, that's the easy part. The hard part: when you chronically avoid doing something, often it's because you genuinely don't want to do it, and the right answer is to find a way to stop doing it entirely. One of the biggest improvements in my recent life was to identify certain kinds of work that made me miserable, and make a plan so that I'd never have to do them again. Discipline is a good thing for work that's a little hard and boring but still worthwhile to you; but discipline can't get you through work that you really hate, at least not for long.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am not a fan of using discipline to get things done. I think it is akin to brute force. Come up with a reason to do the task. Think about the users you will please, think about impressing your client or boss, think about the money you will make.

Essentially discipline is the ability to do something even when you don't want to. However, I believe an unwillingness to excel at your work underscores a larger problem: you don't like what you're doing

This doesn't have to be an objective property of the work. With the wrong attitude, the wrong physical and mental health, the wrong financial situation, the wrong sleep, the wrong anything, it is possible to dislike and even resent rewarding work.

Attack the disease, not the symptoms. Discipline is only a plug in the deck of a sinking ship.

We all need autonomy, mastery, and purpose.</comment>


Ask HN: I have an idea to fight cash-tax evasion, looking for comments - <AUTHOR> Good morning everyone, I Have had an Idea That I think has never been implemented by governments to fight cash evasion I'm from Italy and here is a quite big problem [1]
This idea also allow to maintain high limits on cash payments to those who still seems to not live without cash.. but to kill 100% -> and I mean really 100% of cash-tax-evasion
THE IDEA IS : put an expiration/validation system on cash bills (maybe only those bigger than 1€ )
:: HOW TO DO IT ::
1) - obviously it would not be convenient to throw away the banknotes so the banknotes are "revalidated" in a database of the state that contains the banknote number and the expiry date.
2) - to revalidate the cash just "photograph" ( maybe in future if this works the bills may have a qr code for a better digitalization ) it with an app for smartphones or specially created tools that follow the same principle of scanning and sending that can also be integrated into special counterfeit banknote detectors or go to the bank with banknotes every MAX 2 years for perform the operation at the counter
3) - the payment operators can equip themselves with a machine that validates the cash (which will probably be like a counterfeit money detector but which moreover read the serial number and validate it (send it to the ministerial database)
4) - expired cash is no longer valid, it can be re-enabled only at a bank by presenting identity documents of those who deposit (or could be worth 40% less than the nominal value creating a kind of "forced tax on the black" ( or read *6 )
5) - during validation (through specific machinery / mobile app / bank counter) the cash is tracked and associated with the validating entity (in this way an operator / private individual will not validate cash for third parties without then declaring it in the balance sheet)
6) ..
( not enough chars, see my comment here below or full : https://pastebin.com/G6WfmxTn ) <comment><AUTHOR> 6) - the "expired" cash is worth 40% less every two years ( so after 4y is worth _0.6_ 0.6 and so on ) , and the expiry date cannot be verified (only bank can verify during a deposit ) but only validated during the taking in charge of the banknote during a transaction., only in this way this system work (otherwise a parallel market of expired currency could arise)

... you can build a blockchain around that system if you prefer :)

:: PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS ::

7 ) single-state database would be not enough .. because in Europe there is a single currency shared between more states.. this way new-entry of cash may seems expired.. in this case, however, until the system is implemented at European level it is possible to monitor the flow of "unregistered" cash that a merchant acquires during the activity, and still allow checks on individual cases that become suspect, or the merchant is required to verify the identity card of a foreigner who pays cash in excess of X, everything would still be very effective because the amounts collected in Italy in cash from a foreigner are traced at least in the receiving part and from there on money enters the validation round

you can in the case put a limit on the cash-transaction ( credit card is ok ) used for foreign purchases in Italy with "expired" cash which is much more effective and less limiting than putting a low limit on all purchases in cash , this is a quite low limit anyway circulating with large amount cash ( expecially between countries ) is already forbidden and dangerous..

thank you everyone for your comments,

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-17/italy- wei...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-17/italy-weighs- penalty-on-cash-withdrawals-to-fight-tax-evasion)

</comment><comment><USER3> Many problems.

Easily circumvented by switching to something that doesn't automatically lose value: cryptocurrencies / stamps / gold. Or even more trivial - <USER2> country's currency.

You want ALL cash businesses in the country to buy and install some equipment they don't want to buy, and then train their employees to use it properly. Very expensive proposition to the economy, and very profitable for the manufacturer. That's a recipe for corruption.

<comment><AUTHOR> sure but yours are workaround to evade taxes that already exists and that are already tracked..

I'm not saying that there are no other way to evade taxes.. I'm saying that this way fight the cash-money tax evasion.

you can always barter with something and no one will ask VAT over that..

But saying that you can barter doesn't mean that you cannot find a way to fight tax evasion on cash-bills ( also states already fight that in other ways that seems not working anyway )

All business have already the BankNotechecker, all business in italy MUST have by law a POS ( to accept credit cards payments ) this is a new feature that can be applied over a POS or BankNotechecker or I'm saying even a smartphone.. I don't know where the corruption can leverage if the state provide an android app to check&validate banknotes

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Completely reinventing cash using the system described would be several orders of magnitude more expensive than just writing off the tax evasion as a loss. Why bother?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I've been not enough clear in my message but the cash is the same what I'm proposing is a small device which will cost like a POS ( which is mandatory ) or even 0 ( ZERO) if used by a phone which allow business to accept CASH-payments which at the moment is a very restricted way of paying here in italy ( try to pay with a 200€ bill in italy and tell me ) and which still cause a huge hole in state income and that they are trying to arginate with very creative solution ( now they are proposing a cashbacks on credit card payments, or even a tax on cash withdrawals )

this way would be 100% more effective on cash-tax-evasion and easier to implement ( will be applied only on 10+€ transactions on cash-transaction which anyway the state is already trying to dissuade as much as possible)

the qr code on banknotes is optional.. and maybe will come anyway in future.. banknotes are updated every X years anyway...</comment></comment>


Warp Speed Will Kill You - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/warp-speed-kills-100308.html

<comment><USER2> Similar article in New Scientist three weeks ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1131401>

Isn't interesting a subject will turn up in one "popular science" magazine, and then in succession in several of the others.</comment>


For the love of god, don't buy an 8K TV - <AUTHOR> https://www.inputmag.com/features/for-the-love-of-god-dont-buy-8k-tv <comment><USER2> ive been making the point about gaming and 8k screens for a while, currently even a high end PC struggles to deliver 4k/60fps in AAA games and thats before we throw ray tracing into the mix, the consoles have little to no chance, much like the current generations touting of 4k, much of which (if not all) is upscaled rather than rendered at full 4k

the bottom line is while we do have the screens to do it the rest of the tech has a ways to go before catching up</comment>


NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1315

<comment><USER2> NASA used the hashtag "PewPew" in the tweet: _See the 1st laser-zapped rock on Mars [pic & info] 1.usa.gov/NQC0bW Team is analyzing data now #MSL #PewPew_

<comment><USER3> I couldn't help of think about Eve from Wall-E and her laser beam. [http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs38/i/2008/340/3/a/wall_e_and_ev...](http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs38/i/2008/340/3/a/wall_e_and_eve_by_youcan619.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check out <https://twitter.com/N165Mars> to stay updated (and more importantly, for a hilarious take on the updates)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is what I love about science, and endeavors designed to push boundaries. Inside a fat forty something is a small child jumping for joy because a robot is firing lasers on frigging Mars !

Please can we vote for candidates around the world who will put money into advancing what is known, and what is possible and stop putting it into arbitraging smaller amounts of dollars at smaller fractions of the speeds of light

excuse me while I run around the sofa making pew noises

<comment><USER6> Our candidates aren't the ones spending money "arbitraging smaller amounts of dollars at smaller fractions of the speeds of light". Short of outlawing certain kinds of trading (a bad idea for any number of reasons) they have zero influence on that.

Now if you'd said "invading other countries" or "cutting taxes on the rich" then I'd agree with you.

<comment><USER7> They are, however, not introducing, say, transaction taxes which would make such microsecond (or less) transactions financially unfeasible. Which would probably do a lot to both making financial markets more stable and predictable, and employing high-grade physics, mathematics, and IT talent into more socially rewarding tasks.

<comment><USER5> Thank you.

I was thinking of a quote by Brian Cox that the UK has spent "more on Banks in 3 years than on Science funding since Jesus".

There are specific policies I would like to see implemented (I like the stabilising benefits of a Tobin Tax, agree mostly on progresive taxation) but to me thats just deckchairs on the Titanic. Getting your favourite deckchair picked for this years budget is not really a win.

Really I would like to see a generation of politicians worldwide who base decisions on empirical results, who act independantly of specific interests and work for the benefit of all. Democracy is pretty good at this. I just want it to be better at it.

Which of course means an electorate that votes for such politicians.

So its our fault still :-0

Edit - moved acerbic comment about deckchairs around a little

<comment><USER7> There's moving deck chairs, and there's tweaking feedback loops.

50+ years' experience with same-people-different-system states (East & West Germany, North & South Korea, Hong Kong/Taiwan vs. PRC, and others, not all democratic v. Communist states) show that small changes in annual growth rate can compound drastically over time.

While I'm _not_ suggesting that all the ills of the world can be resolved just by adjusting various marginal tax rates, I _am_ strongly suggesting that shifting incentives for major economic activity from rent-seeking value- extraction to socially-benefiting wealth-creation would be a big plus. Tim O'Reilly's been making some vary interesting comments in this regard over on Google+.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> More images and info at <http://www.msl-chemcam.com/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to see some footage of the laser in the lab; I'm sure they tested it out on all kinds of stuff ranging from the everyday to the exotic, and quite extensively too.

<comment><USER10> The ChemCam system is a more or less standard-ish laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system. One of the key advantages of using LIBS on Curiosity is that it can analyze somewhat distant samples, which is fantastic for a rover that has a top speed of 0.09 kph. There are several example videos on youtube, here's one: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AtI3t1T5zk>

<comment><USER11> But what's the effective range of the system?

It probably is easier and more effective than positioning a measuring system, acquiring samples (see all the problems Mars Phoenix had), etc

<comment><USER12> Up to about 7 meters (23ft)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Chemistry_and_C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Chemistry_and_Camera_complex_.28ChemCam.29)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why this artificial intelligence expert says Elon Musk is 'selling fear' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/artificial-intelligence-expert-says-elon-musk-is-selling-fear.html <comment><USER2> The truth is probably that they're both right.

Musk is right in that we probably need to be careful about autonomous weapons, which are very possible.

But the expert in the article is right that we don't have to worry about sentient AI.

WW3 will probably be a drone war vs a human army.

Drones give a power multiplier. Planes that fly themselves to the hot spots mean pilots can control 10 planes at once.

10 robot sentries can watch the front lines and shoot anything that moves on the command of one person.

You get the idea, robots as a human multiplier are the future of warfare. It's not the robots we need to worry about, it's who controls the robots.</comment>


Forget the Bailout, Here's How to Save Detroit - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/how-to-save-detroit-automakers-small-funny-cars-photoshop.php

<comment><USER2> and if you slot a penny in the back end, they drive around doing wheelies!</comment>


Cross Country Freedom Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://ryan.boren.me/2013/02/22/cross-country-freedom-therapy/

<comment><USER3> I opt-out of backscatter and millimeter-wave screening every time. I think the TSA is a waste of money and I'd love to see the government take a more calculated approach to security instead of the typical CYA behavior. With that said...

His form of protest is to miss a flight he already paid for and hike/bum rides back to Texas? And asking for donations? This guy is a software engineer at Automattic. He's a WordPress developer. His blog is mostly pictures of vegan meals and unboxings: <http://ryan.boren.me/>. Considering his lifestyle and likely income, asking for donations seems to be rather poor taste.

Again I agree with his opinions, but his protest is not accomplishing anything useful. The net effect will be to transfer some money and resources from sympathetic people.

<comment><USER4> I don't want to give the impression that I agree with everything he says - <USER2> don't entirely share his dystopic views on the state of the world, and my views on the TSA are more in line with yours - but I think you're being rather ungenerous. The closest he comes to asking for donations is to say:

 _Several people have already offered places to stay and donated money for travel costs. Thank you so much and be assured that any extra money will be passed on to civil liberties organizations trying to claw back our freedom of movement. I intend to at least double my usual contributions this year._

If you mean the donations link at the top of the page, that's clearly for people who want to send a small something in thanks for Wordpress, and I wouldn't call it distasteful. The world would be a sad place if gift giving were relegated to being soley for charitable causes.

<comment><USER5> When I read it, the "donated money" in your quoted text was a link to his donations page.

<comment><USER4> You're right, and I didn't notice that (in my defence, the link is not underlined and the link text is really dark on the non-mobile version of the site, so it was easy to look over). That is a bit more of a call to action than I initially thought. I still don't think it was in quite as bad taste as AngryParsley suggested though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One morning at SFO, I was waiting for my pat down, as requested.. The scanner was bogged down with an individual who was continually having to remove jewelry, a watch, a belt, etc as he was re-scanned and re-scanned.

I didn't notice it at first, but a line of individuals (mostly adults) started to form behind me very far away from the scanner. It grew to over a dozen people and it was as if they were just trying to find a place to belong while waiting for their turn.

After getting over my initial shock of the lemming behavior, I noticed the TSA worker frantically waving at me to lead the line through the metal detector.

It was a nice moment to 1) escape a pat down AND a scanner, and 2) in a figurative sense, lead these individuals through a less privacy-invasive screening. But, I was just saddened by how outnumbered I am by people readily willing to give up their rights to privacy.

<comment><USER7> Somewhat unrelated, but still interesting:

SFO doesn't actually have a TSA presence. They use a contractor instead.

<http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/atsfo/saf-sec/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I concur. After having an awful experience with the TSA a couple days ago, I've also given up flying. The entire process is just insulting. And while I'm sure there's many reasons the airline industry is in trouble, I would wager this is a contributing factor.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's really sad how everyone just accepted it and will also accept whatever is next and after that.

Even if you don't fly, drones are coming soon to watch you every minute of the day that you are outside.

Maybe one-day inside too with technology developed ironically from TSA scanners.

And people will argue to defend that too, and warrant-less is the new norm.

My sympathies to Ryan.

<comment><USER10> "He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither."

<comment><USER11> I hate that quote. We gave up freedom for safety the minute we instituted government so we could have a society where nerds like Zuck could have tremendous wealth even though he can't very well physically defend it against bigger, stronger people. We are so many sheep in the midst of a handful of wolves, and we wanted a society where the sheep could rule, and so we traded some freedoms we had in the statute of nature (the freedom to use force) in return for collective safety.

This isn't a matter of whether you give up freedom for safety. It's about how you balance the competing concerns of freedom and security, both of which are important. I certainly agree TSA doesn't strike the right balance, but it's not because its a trade of freedom for security but because it gives you very little security in return for the onerous and invasive process it creates.

<comment><USER12> Let's have both. Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip- searched, and cavity inspected.

I don't begrudge you your choice of guaranteed safety, hopefully you will not begrudge me mine of privacy and freedom.

<comment><USER11> I take the train because I can't stand the TSA, and I'm willing to take my chances that someone fires an RPG at a train somewhere along the 500 miles of completely out in the open track on the Northeast Regional.

My point is that the TSA is bad not because "zOMG any impingement on freedom is bad!" but because it's just bad. They are too invasive for the imagined security benefits they provide against improbable threats.

But going from that to "those who trade freedom for safety deserve neither" is silly. I purposefully choose to live in a city (New York) that has a massive police presence. Why? Because I think its a reasonable trade-off of a little freedom for substantial security. Manhattan is like Disneyland now, and it's great, and I don't care if I would theoretically be more free if there weren't a cop on every corner. We trade freedom for security all the time--it's called organized civilization, and it's a good thing.

I hate to quote John Ashcroft, but see his response to this Ben Franklin quote: [http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighth...](http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighthcircuitjudgesagremarks.htm) (first 9 paragraphs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice move. I did it once to return from Denver to SF, and caught the train. A wonderful experience. Meanwhile I don't bother visiting the USA much. I could not imagine returning to a life of constant travel there.

</comment><comment><USER14> These articles always make me think about:

1) Why risk is handled so badly by governments.

2) Why people are unable to change something so obviously sub-optimal.

3) How unpopular extra screening really is in the general population, rather than how unpopular I think it is from reading all the blogs about it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have just gone through the scanners this week, and will do so again next week; I find it more annoying then anything else. However, I do find myself thinking that the Greyhound buses of 30 and 40 years ago had a lot to be said for them--no-hassle travel, and for that matter comfort at least equivalent to coach seats with the current spacing.

</comment><comment><USER16> As far as I'm aware, the new full-body scanners don't record a detailed picture of your body – they just flash green for OK, or red for 'potential bad guy' (at least this seems to be the case in Amsterdam). Thoughts?</comment>


Telegram Beta Blog: about "Calls" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tb-blog/about-calls-79f16a6a896b#.y43gzo6l7 <comment><USER2> This is a much needed one. Hope telegram opens up various opportunities to build on this just like they allowed their bots.</comment>


Asana Outage - <AUTHOR> https://trust.asana.com/ <comment><USER2> It's been a rough day onboarding new remote developers with both a Slack outage and Asana outage.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the 3rd hour long+ outage at asana in the last 30 days.

<comment><USER4> 3 hours outage per month is ~99.5% of monthly uptime.

Recently I was reading about SLA for all cloud's durability, availability, uptime, etc... with many-many nines.

But somehow, there are always some unforeseen factors, where your end-product SLA is still far below these numbers.

I wonder, if there are any statistic on SLA of apps-in-the-cloud vs app-in- colo/dedicated and which one wins?</comment></comment>


It's Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford - Some Talks Free & Open To Public - <AUTHOR> http://eweek.stanford.edu/

<comment><USER2> Are the talks really interesting? Can someone point them out to me because I can't find any that seem good.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks very interesting. Does anybody know if any of it is going to be webcast?</comment>


Tons of human waste, 14,000 needles removed from So. Cal. homeless encampment - <AUTHOR> https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/08/thousands-of-pounds-of-human-waste-close-to-14000-hypodermic-needles-cleaned-out-from-santa-ana-river-homeless-encampments/ <comment><USER2> It says that they relocated the 700+ people living there to temporary housing. I'm interested to see where they end up. Cleaning up the area is nice, and a step in the right direction, but if everyone ends up right back on the street then we have really only shifted the problem somewhere else.

<comment><USER3> Many of them have been relocated to San Clemente and the residents are not stoked [http://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/28/too-early-to-weigh- impa...](http://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/28/too-early-to-weigh-impacts-of- homeless-influx-san-clemente-says/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does one identify markets and their sizes? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This is my job as a market researcher and analyst at VDC Research. We produce models and reports at my firm by interviewing executives at companies in each market we cover, surveying large samples of end users (embedded and IoT engineers), and integrating a lot of secondary and financial data into our models. We sell our research to vendors, consultancies, banks, etc. Happy to answer questions about the process.

<comment><USER3> I was always wondering do you actually pay the CEOs for the interviews? Or do they pay you for the brand recognition?

<comment><USER2> We don't pay any executives or companies to participate in our research. Their incentive is to be be accurately represented in terms of company size, strategy, and positioning because their competitors and potential acquirers read the reports. There are some "pay to play" market research companies but we don't engage in any of that (it's basically just marketing), which is often targeted more at end users of the products instead of the vendors and investors.

We do pay end users (IoT and embedded engineers) for their time on surveys and interviews. Drop me an email if you want to be added to our email list. We usually offer a $40 amazon gift card or donation to Doctors Without Borders for a 30 minute survey, and we report feedback on hardware, software, and tools to vendors to help them improve their products.

<comment><USER4> Your characterization might indicate a different incentive, but I suppose everyone knows (and accounts for?) that…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the record, I am a technical and sometimes creative grunt and this kind of research is far from my specialty.

The last time I tried to do this, I exhausted everything I could find on the internet and was still very short. I was researching a major professional user software sector and my only option at this point was an annual report sold by a private firm for around $4,000/year. They seemed open to bids but did not accept my extremely low ones. They did keep spamming me for a while, though. I never could tell if this was going to be legitimate. I wasn't able to find reviews of the firm's services, and even if I could have afforded it, I expect I would have been too suspicious to follow through.

<comment><USER6> Pardon my ignorance but why do you call it spamming when you contacted them first?

<comment><USER5> I guess I have a different definition, or at least a different threshold, for what I consider spam. This particular situation was not extreme but I still consider it spam. They continued emailing me around twice per month with the same offer despite me having been perfectly clear on at least two occasions that I was not interested. They did this for 14 months before giving up. I received another message at the 2 year mark that was an actual release announcement, which I do not consider spam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's more of an art than a science but you can triangulate depending on what you have and what you're trying to do.

If looking into existing markets and figuring out your angle into those - firms like Gartner, Forrester, as well as research arms of banks/consulting firms (Deloitte, JPM, BAML, etc) will have pretty good reports that you can purchase/search for (filetype:pdf can give some great results). I find these to be a good high level starting point and you can go deep on individual topics. "Value added research" can involve customer interviews, public surveys, hands on research (visiting a location), etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> If it is established market, look at public companies and their financial statements. If not, you have to infer from "reasonable" assumptions.

Ideally, the question would have more specifics to warrant a better answer.

</comment><comment><USER9> How To Identify Your Market And Size Up Competitors> [https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabagley/2013/10/02/how- to...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabagley/2013/10/02/how-to-identify- your-market-size-up-competitors/#355c8dfe6834)

</comment><comment><USER10> big banks publish a lot of market color & researh for exactly this purpose

<comment><AUTHOR> Publish to the public? Would love to see what you mean.</comment></comment>


ROCK64: RK3328 DevBoard with 4GB RAM, 4K HDR, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/06/08/rock64-is-a-rockchip-rk3328-development-board-with-up-to-4gb-ram-4k-hdr-gigabit-ethernet-and-usb-3-0/ <comment><USER2> I hope for anyone who choose to buy this, that they do more work to support OSes and newer Linux Kernel versions for it than they did for the Pine64

</comment><comment><USER3> UEFI? SBSA compliance?</comment>


Ask HN: Blockchain projects to work on - <AUTHOR> Anybody wants to share some ideas about potentially cool blockchain projects to work on? It has to be something feasible -- something that has real value, not just another twitter app, and also it has to be achievable -- something that can be done by one or two guys as an opensource github project on a spare time. <comment><USER2> Guys, here is one niche idea that has been brewing in my head for sometime now. I was a part time bouncer for a strip club in London, Uk years ago and always been interested in the economics and profit dynamics of the profession. So please bear in mind when reading this, is nothing to do with the social and anthropological side of things. There are tons of inefficiencies in the strip club industry. It cost money to handle money. Strip clubs would allow the dancers to handle all the money they made throughout the entire shift, then have a wait-staff style pay-out at the end of the night where they would tally up the dances and add up all the money the exotic dancer owe the strip club "house." The dances are tracked by either the strip club DJ or the house mum. This, of course, could accumulate to hundreds of pounds which the exotic dancer had been managing all night long. After split with the strip club, earnings are further depleted. Tips in the industry is standard. It's customary to tip strip club DJ & house mum i.e. £1 a dance. There is an opportunity to introduce a payment service using blockchain technology leveraging smart contracts to govern the core financial side of strip club where the exotic dancer is the only one who needs a smartphone and an app. The client chooses what service he wants and pays accordingly, still in cash, but in a more controlled manner.

All thoughts gratefully welcomed....

My personal email is email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER2> Dmitry, I think this feasible. In terms of real value, I think it will create a positive aspect in the financial structure of strip clubs and exotic dancers operate their business in a way that is relevant to today's use of technology i.e. automation and trust. And a fun idea for ALL OF US to work on

<comment><USER3> Can you rephrase the problem in a way that has a wider audience?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd be willing to mine a coin we start. I don't even think it needs a huge vision let's just fork something and run our own version of it. we can advertise it on some coin boards to get some more miners.

I've got a couple domain names 1millioncoins.com, 1billioncoins.com, 1trillioncoins.com

Then let's vote on future courses. try to build a DAO small and organically. Like an agile project team.

If you anyone interested created an email on one of my domains. we can setup a forum and go from there:

email@example.com

I think it will be a great way to learn the technology.

</comment><comment><USER2> Rephrase - And a fun project for ALL OF US to work on

</comment><comment><USER4> Any particular languages?

<comment><AUTHOR> Any language will do. I'm fairly well versed in any middleware technology -- Rails, Django, Java, node.js. For the presentation, I'd like to stick with Rect.js/ReactNative. So I guess, back to the language question -- combination of JS on the server and the client will do just fine. My goal is to keep it as simple as possible and really focus on what can be done with blockchain.

<comment><USER3> aren't blockchain protocols supposed to be language neutral.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's exactly right

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i'm also interested..let me know if you want to do it together

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd be interested.</comment>