A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/01/a-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-just-exploded-at-cape-canaveral/ <comment><USER3> Here's good video of the test/failure:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ#t=1m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ#t=1m10s)

<comment><USER4> There is something flying just above when the explosion starts, probably a bird, but how hard will it be to just fly a drone there with some kind of projectile?

[Edit] Pre and Post explosion: [http://imgur.com/a/IIzg2](http://imgur.com/a/IIzg2)

<comment><USER5> > but how hard will it be to just fly a drone there with some kind of > projectile?

It's a massive long metal tube full of extremely flammable things...what seems more likely: drone with projectile entering a highly restricted piece of airspace, or as rockets are want to do, it blew up by itself.

<comment><USER6> NB: _wont_ to do.

Though you've given me a reason to look up the etymology. Now I now: [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wont&allowed_in_fra...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wont&allowed_in_frame=0)

<comment><USER7> NB: Now I _know_

:-)

<comment><USER6> Aaaaagh!

:-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like they had a payload go with it. Sad.

> "SpaceX confirm Amos-6 was aboard the Falcon 9 and was lost in the > explosion."

[https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77135388623807283...](https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/771353886238072832)

<comment><USER9> I know nothing about space - why are they doing tests, where the rocket could possibly explode or fail, with the payload on board?

<comment><USER10> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets.

Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the payload on top of the main rocket before the test starts. They probably did a lot of tests before the payload was on board as well, and those didn't reveal whatever flaw has caused this issue.

Yes, it sucks that the payload was lost but there will have been insurance to cover the loss. No human lives lost, no cruise missile scenario, no out of control fire... this is the best case scenario for a rocket failure.

<comment><USER11> > They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise > missile, headed for the nearest residential area.

In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

<comment><USER12> For more context, all (edit: American!) rockets for decades have had onboard self destruct systems and a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system.

The cruise missile scenario is highly unlikely as the rocket itself would be destroyed soon after leaving its intended trajectory.

<comment><USER13> Not _all_ rockets:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708)

(China, CZ-3B, Intelsat 708 payload, the launcher flew off-course and crashed on a village in 1996: by some estimates 200-500 civilians were killed.)

<comment><USER14> That links to [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2323/1](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2323/1) where one of the comments is:

> Like Russian vehicles, there is no flight termination system that receives > ground commands onboard Chinese launch vehicles. Only US and ESA launch > sites have such a system. Correction, Falcon 1 did not have such a system > for launching on Kwaj.

<comment><USER15> That's because usually the US and ESA/France launch from densely populated areas.

The launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center/CC is effectively about 50 mile from downtown Orlando, Baikonur is in the middle of nowhere.

<comment><USER16> Okay, rockets that can go very high, can still crash very far away.

An unpredictable, malfunctioning rocket could still _million-to-one_ itself onto a school bus filled with children, halfway across a continent.

<comment><USER14> Phlarp's original comment was about 'a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system.'

The text I quoted implies there is an _onboard_ flight termination system, even if there is no Range Safety Officer who can send _external_ commands.

FWIW, a part from an exploded rocket, like the engine, could still destroy a school bus filled with children. The odds are very hard to estimate, and made more complicated in that there are few failure modes where a rocket failure halfway across a continent, at supersonic speeds, would reach the ground _without_ breaking long before.

<comment><USER16> Congratulations on replying to me. I'm sure you're feeling good about it. I just wanted to let your know that I noticed, and feel special too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The payload was apparently on the rocket at the time[1]. A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better than losing a $2b custom government bird.

[1][https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/771352977315684352...](https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/771352977315684352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

<comment><USER18> > A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better > than losing a $2b custom government bird.

In fairness, when did the government last lose a bird? Doesn't the ULA have a '100%' success rate (where success is getting payload to space, though some payloads fail to make it to the planned orbit)

<comment><USER19> I suspect the $2b custom government bird refers to the space shuttle. Of which we have, in fact, lost more than one.

<comment><USER20> The shuttle was a vehicle with vastly different capabilities, and technical challenges to overcome, compared to a Falcon rocket.

There have been 133 successful shuttle launches, and 2 failed ones.

There have been 27 successful Falcon launches, and 2 failed ones.

<comment><USER21> While true, NASA was able to have the shuttle program be so successful because of the things that they learned in the previous space programs. This is SpaceX's _first_ space program. Don't compare a "senior" program to a "freshman" program.

<comment><USER20> Which is great advice - that should temper everyone's expectations of the firm (Which were sky-high a few days ago, when Musk was promoting his 'flight- tested' reused rockets.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire:

SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top.

(If it was a catastrophic failure during fueling/de-fueling ops, that's another matter entirely, and far more serious -- and an explosive test failure is serious enough as it is.)

<comment><USER22> Test fire for the launch of a commercial satellite (AMOS-6), which had been scheduled for a few days hence (and now presumably delayed, along with the rest of their launch schedule, pending further investigation). It might conceivably have been during fueling/de-fueling around the test. It's not yet clear from public reports whether the payload was attached at the time of the test-fire; sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.

(Note that fueling operations for Falcon 9 got a whole lot trickier when they switched to use of super-cooled fuel and oxidizer, to increase density -- if that stuff gets warmer, its volume increases to more than that of the tank, but it's still liquid, so you can't just vent it off.)

<comment><USER23> Interested to know more about the fuels... when I searched for info about Falcon-9 fueling a week or two ago (having briefly conceived of a semi-idle interest in rocket propellants) I read it was RP-1 plus oxidiser - <USER2> basically "just" high-spec kerosene. That doesn't jibe with supercooling in my mind... Please enlighten us further.

<comment> Tuna-Fish They chill the fuel and oxidizer to slush, just above their freezing point, to fit more of it into the same volume and save on structure.

<comment><USER24> How many Falcon 9s have been launched using this fueling method?

<comment><USER11> As far as I know that was one of the defining changes of the Falcon 9 Full- Thrust, which flew first in December 2015 with Orbcomm OG2 M2. So, every Falcon 9 this year, plus one.

<comment><USER24> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space- explor...](http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space-exploration- technologies/spacex-set-launch-amos-6-tropical-storm-hermine-looms/)

This article has some information on the new characteristics:

\- Although considered to be an iterative upgrade from the Falcon 9 v1.1 that preceded it, the modifications to the Full Thrust version have increased the vehicle's published liftoff capabilities by as much as 30 percent.

\- A key component of this performance increase is the use of "densified" propellant. By chilling the liquid oxygen to minus 340 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 207 degrees Celsius) and the RP-1, a highly-refined form of kerosene used as rocket fuel, to 20 degrees Fahrenheit ( minus 7 degrees Celsius), SpaceX has demonstrated the capability to store more oxidizer and fuel in a given volume, as well as increase the flow of propellant through the turbopumps on the first stage's nine Merlin 1D powerplants and on the upper stage's lone MVac.

<comment><USER26> Interesting on the fuel. Oxygen's boiling point is at -297F (turned into liquid) and its freezing point is at -362F (turned into solid). Lowering the temperature to -340F would be solidifying the liquid oxygen but not quite yet. I guess at that point the volume has reduced, enabling the packing of more LO into the container.

Having an additional phase change doubles the risk factor along the whole pipeline that it flows through, the container, the valves, the pipes, the chambers, whatever. Liquid to gas can be dissipated quickly. How bad can uncontrolled solid to liquid expansion be?

Edit: uncontrolled liquid to gas venting is equally volatile and dangerous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can see the smoke plume on the radar image from Melbourne airport weather radar

[http://imgur.com/a/FQ4qx](http://imgur.com/a/FQ4qx)

Live link:

[http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=mlb](http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=mlb)

<comment><USER28> Melbourne, FL for those wondering.

<comment><USER29> Melbourne, FL, United States :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This comes at a uniquely bad time. I was reading about the cash squeeze ([http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-faces-cash-squeeze- at-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-faces-cash-squeeze-at-tesla- solarcity-1472687133)) and it struck me that any interruption at SpaceX would put further pressure on what Elon is trying to pull off.

I really hope they can root cause this failure and get the flight schedule back up and running quickly.

<comment><USER31> I initially started this comment saying "I doubt that there's that much cash- flow between SpaceX and Tesla/Solar City", then thought I should at least google it first.

What do you know? Turns out SpaceX invested $165M in Solar City last year [1].

[1] [http://fortune.com/2015/08/07/this-is-why-elon-musks- spacex-...](http://fortune.com/2015/08/07/this-is-why-elon-musks-spacex-has- been-buying-up-solarcitys-bonds/)

<comment><USER32> Looks like it was in 2015 on a 1-year term. So it would already be paid off. However, the linked article is from Aug 2015, so they may have bought even more bonds after that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> official word: Payload lost. No one injured. This was _not_ the re-used rocket, but instead a brand new core.

[https://twitter.com/TroyLeeCampbell/status/77135367764276019...](https://twitter.com/TroyLeeCampbell/status/771353677642760192)

</comment><comment><USER34> Just read no injuries. That's awesome. I mean, bad for the rocket, but hooray for no human loss of life.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm glad no humans were hurt or lost. I'm not shedding many tears for Facebook's payload, as I think internet.org is fundamentally misguided.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/705/web](http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/705/web)

Has audio from the local police, who seem to be evacuating the various nearby beaches, due to the danger from the plume.

</comment><comment><USER36> Live thread over on reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g](https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g)

</comment><comment><USER37> Looks like reports of it happening during the propellant load were accurate. Explosion originated in the area of the upper stage LOX tank.

[https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/771395212304277504/photo/1](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/771395212304277504/photo/1)

</comment><comment><USER8> My mind goes to the debugging stage after the dust has settled... how would a rocket scientist determine the cause of a RUD like this?

<comment><USER11> About the same as you debug an issue from having just a tracelog. The rocket and pad equipment have quite a few sensors that record information, so you have quite a lot of data afterwards to spot anomalies (you could also compare to previous successful launches / static fires to spot them). Admittedly, that doesn't really explain _how_ they figure out some stuff, e.g. with CRS-7 the problem was with a strut holding a high-pressure helium vessel in the second stage. They likely would have seen the overpressurization of the tank and there are not many sources for that pressure, but pinpointing it to a piece that doesn't even exist anymore ... beats me.

<comment><USER38> I don't recall the source, but they identified the CRS-7 strut by using several mechanical vibration sensors placed on various parts of the rocket.

The deflection / explosion reaches the sensors at different times, and with precision timing, it enables you to reverse pinpoint where it must have originated: the failing strut.

<comment><USER39> they also have pressure sensors in the tanks so the timing of pressure differences allowed them to determine that the tank came loose before it burst.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I am surprised that no one has mentioned whether or not this failure is related to SpaceX's first time reusing a rocket. If so, hopefully this isn't too much of a setback!

<comment><USER41> The reused rocket will be used to launch SES-10 later this year, not AMOS-6.

Source: [http://spacenews.com/spacex-to-launch-ses-10-satellite-on- re...](http://spacenews.com/spacex-to-launch-ses-10-satellite-on-reused- falcon-9-by-years-end/)

<comment><USER11> Question is whether they will have a launch pad at that time and how long investigations will last and until a fix is deployed. May well be that there are no more launches this year.

<comment><USER42> Yeah the last time they lost something it was a 6 month freeze on launches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "This rocket was scheduled to launch the Amos-6 communication satellite, which among other functions included the capabilities for Facebook to spot-beam broadband for Facebook's Internet.org initiative"

Bad karma

<comment><USER44> No payload on rocket while hotfire test.

<comment><USER45> Payload is sometimes mated, just depends. No word yet on this payload.

[https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77134295079838924...](https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/771342950798389248)

UPDATE: payload lost. [https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/771352111657385984](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/771352111657385984)

<comment><USER46> That confirmation is so strange. Why would you confirm something with the screenshot of notepad "officially" when you have a twitter account?

<comment><USER47> He's a space news reporter at Ars Technica. It makes sense they'd be one of the first to get the SpaceX news release. It has too many characters to fit in a tweet, and even if it could fit, embedding an image of the text sets it apart from the tweeter's introduction and makes it more readable. It's standard practice on twitter to use images for blocks of text.

<comment><USER48> > It's standard practice on twitter to use images for blocks of text.

Yep. The best of 1997, Web 2.0 style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Video of the explosion: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ)

</comment><comment><USER50> From the live thread at reddit:

>Elon Musk has stated that because the rocket didn't intentionally ignite for launch, the loss of payload is not covered by launch insurance.

Very sad. I wonder how this will affect future launches from SpaceX.

<comment><USER51> Wow! So who picks up the bill in this case? I'm sure it was in the contract somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> For all developers of anything. Repeat this mantra.

This is why we test, this is why we test, this is why we test.

It is especially important to repeat this mantra around management types who want last minute builds before going in front of important customers, because the light blue button looks SO much better then the dark blue button...

<comment><USER33> I mean, it's not like SpaceX _doesn 't_ test. They missed something, and unfortunately this time it caused a total loss that they're going to have to answer to. But yes, you're right; we recently implemented a two-week demo lockout policy at my office. No changes are allowed being committed closer than two weeks from a demo date, and two or three guys are dedicated to just testing and shaking down the system. They're the only ones allowed to call for a bug fix, and they're _only_ allowed to call for a bug fix. It seems as though management has finally realized that missing one requirement during a demo is much, much better than having the whole enchilada crash spectacularly.

<comment><USER53> The problem is that software works the same every time, hardware doesn't have to (for example, if there was some kind of wear in the umbilical, for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Here's some info on this from TC: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/01/a-spacex- falcon-9-rocket-j...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/01/a-spacex- falcon-9-rocket-just-exploded-at-cape-canaveral/)

</comment><comment><USER55> Looks like this may have been the Falcon 9 getting ready to launch AMOS-6 on 9/3\. Not a previously flown rocket.

<comment><USER11> Static Fire for that launch was due today which is probably during which this happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> What happens when payload is lost at such an event due to SpaceX related failure? Obviously they have to reschedule but does SpaceX cover partial losses etc?

<comment><USER57> Aon International Space Brokers ([http://www.aon.com/singapore/risk- services/products-services...](http://www.aon.com/singapore/risk- services/products-services/isb.jsp)) covers liability for the payloads to be delivered, however, SpaceX shoulders the financial burden of losing the rocket itself, as only the contents are insured.

<comment><USER58> It will also likely increase the cost of insuring SpaceX launches. I'm sure it's like car insurance. Of course SpaceX is so much cheaper than their competition that it may not matter, and reuse is about to make them cheaper still.

Short term setback, but probably not so awful long term. Also glad nobody got hurt. It's just money.

<comment><USER59> > Of course SpaceX is so much cheaper than their competition that it may not > matter, and reuse is about to make them cheaper still.

They're 2 million USD more expensive per launch for a mid-size satellite than the Ariane 5 is, so I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

<comment><USER60> No they aren't; SpaceX is charging around $62m and Arianespace charges $100-$130m for the same launch.

The first few Falcon 9 launches were a lot cheaper, around $40m I think. I'm sure SpaceX would still be massively profitable at that price, but they're already over-booked so might as well raise prices to generate more capital since building rockets is an _ahem_ <i>capital intensive</i> business.

If SpaceX can re-use rocket engines for 10 launches that will change everything yet again. Let's be extremely generous and say $5 million for fuel, personnel, range rental, etc. Amortize the vehicle across 10 launches and you're talking $10m.

<comment><USER59> Actually, that's not true.

For the mid-size launches that SpaceX is billing 62m$ for, Ariane bills 60m$ for.

What Arianespace offers at 130m$ is instead something SpaceX isn't even offering currently, as their second stage is far inferior to Ariane's.

(Ariane always bundles a 130m$ and 60m$ contract per launch together).

If SpaceX can relaunch the rockets multiple times, that might reduce the cost indeed, but they also have far increased labor costs up ahead, as they can't keep everyone working overtime for free forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Is this going to change the launch window (in 2018) for Red Dragon to Mars?? I guess it all depends on the reason for the launch failure. People on Metaculus are discussing about this- [http://www.metaculus.com/questions/224/will- spacex-launch-fo...](http://www.metaculus.com/questions/224/will-spacex- launch-for-mars-in-the-2018-window/)

<comment><USER62> Last accident, Falcon Heavy had a big delay. Apparently SpaceX pulled engineering resources off of FH to work on F9. Given that the 2018 launch window is narrow, it's quite likely that Red Dragon won't launch until the 2020 launch window.

p.s. are you involved with Metaculus in some way? All of your recent postings appear to mention metaculus.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> CNBC says that NBC says (I know...) that thankfully nobody was injured

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/01/spacex-rocket-explodes-at- cap...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/01/spacex-rocket-explodes-at-cape- canaveral-hours-before-launch.html)

EDIT: apparently it happened at t:-3m so nobody was around

</comment><comment><USER64> Not to be paranoid or anything, but with the Russians in the news with hacking, could this be the equivalent of a Stuxnet industrial sabotage? It would seem to be in their foreign ministry's interest to reduce the one successful American domestic manufacturer of rocket motors...

</comment><comment><USER65> In looking at failures, asking "What changed (was different)" in this case, is one generally useful approach...

Based on previous comments, the most likely failure scenario seems to be related to the new use of super-cooled LOX - and I have to ask, was the temperature at the pad, at the time of the launch, significantly higher than during previous launches involving super-cooled LOX? If so, is there a possibility that the higher temperature differential could have been a contributing factor in the cause of the failure?

(Kind of the exact opposite of the case of the Challenger, where low temperatures were a critical causal factor of the failure)

</comment><comment><USER66> I'd almost be sad but Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER67> The smoke looks fairly white and uniform. That suggests it's coming from the rocket fuels, not a burning building or other facility. To me, that means the safety protocols held, limiting the spread/damage. Hopefully nobody was hurt.

</comment><comment><USER68> A Google self-driving car was seen leaving the scene at high speed!

</comment><comment><USER69> Live video stream from the Kennedy Space Center (you can paste the link into something like VLC): [http://kscwmserv1.ksc.nasa.gov/channel4](http://kscwmserv1.ksc.nasa.gov/channel4)

(Via Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/fcbc544a-70...](https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/fcbc544a-704a-11e6-bb50-0e64be54f1eb))

</comment><comment><USER70> Here's a few photos capturing what appears to be a massive secondary explosion: [https://twitter.com/taliaeliana/status/771356794291687428/ph...](https://twitter.com/taliaeliana/status/771356794291687428/photo/1)

(There was already an explosion or fire before this one given the smoke in the air).

</comment><comment><USER71> Does anyone know whether this was one of SpaceX's recovered/refurbished rockets that had previously flown a mission and landed?

<comment><USER72> No, it was a new one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> The rocket is currently in flames. Staffers at the facility are telling me. Plumes of smoke rising from Launch Complex.

</comment><comment><USER74> This type of hardware failure makes me glad to do software where the most damage that can happen is an unhappy customer, not a huge explosion. Also why I was glad to give up a chemistry career after nearly poisoning everyone in the building when the hood system failed.

<comment><USER75> What makes you think this couldn't be a software bug? Studying about bugs like Therac-25 [1] were standard practice at my school to show what it takes to make software an engineering discipline.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> The reddit live thread seems to be the best source of current informations and updates: [https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g](https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g)

</comment><comment><USER76> How do you even extinguish that kind of fire? Is there any value in salvaging parts before they completely burn out? Anybody who can chime in the protocol for such fires?

</comment><comment><USER77> Have a friend who has family working there. Said the accident was caused by a static fire test and the rocket and payload were lost.

Absolute huge bummer.

</comment><comment><USER78> Relative to the rest of the mission/rocket lifecycle, how risky is filling it with fuel generally considered?

</comment><comment><USER79> This seems like a good place to point out that we are hiring! See the "Who's Hiring" thread. :-)

</comment><comment><USER80> I would leave wild speculation out of this debate and wait for a SpaceX official release.

</comment><comment><USER81> Watched the live feed. That "smoke test" failure definitely made some smoke.

</comment><comment><USER82> Was the launch rocket supposed to be one of their recovered/recycled rockets?

</comment><comment><USER83> Shouldn't the static fire test have gone ahead without a live payload?

</comment><comment><USER84> The music in the techcrunch video seemed a bit inappropriate.

</comment><comment><USER85> It wasn't carrying it though, it was just a test.

</comment><comment><USER86> From the twitter feed: [http://imgur.com/6b6MfNQ](http://imgur.com/6b6MfNQ)

<comment><USER87> 404 for me.

<comment><USER88> [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KY6bmYW5xXE/V8guijPQh7I/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KY6bmYW5xXE/V8guijPQh7I/AAAAAAAAz-w/wZNUvOFD3og- gp7A2_45xqgt3UwsZXkhwCL0B/s4096/6b6MfNQr.jpg)

[http://i.imgur.com/6b6MfNQr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/6b6MfNQr.jpg)

<comment><USER89> The imgur link doesn't work but the other one does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> One small loss for mankind, one giant win for Net Neutrality.

<comment><USER91> You mean one small loss for Facebook maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> That was my immediate thought too. Israel is known for playing rough when it comes to sovereignty concerns, particularly of a technological nature.

<comment><USER93> Since this subthread went off the rails in several directions at once, we've detached it from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12406651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12406651) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER92> Sounds good. Keep up the good work! : )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> This is crazy!

</comment><comment><USER95> Damn it. 0 Days since SpaceX Rocket exploded.

</comment><comment><USER44> According to sources (twitter), they where F-3 minutes so no-one should be out on pad, payload was not loaded either.

</comment><comment><USER96> The environmentally friendly aspect of Tesla's cars is seemingly negated by SpaceX's black-smoke rocket fuel laden explosions.

</comment><comment><USER97> For those overthinking about the loss of the payload:

 _Contact (1997): "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"_

I'd argue: at less than twice the price.

<comment><USER98> I don't understand what the quote has to do with this at all. It's neither a government payload, nor AFAIK do they have a second satellite.

Maybe I'm overthinking your comment.

<comment><USER21> You are. :)

The comment was essentially stating that Facebook should have built two of the satellites, as a contingency plan. Rocket science is hard. Having a backup is easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> Hmm… cash squeeze at Tesla and SolarCity. Next thing, a SpaceX rocket blows up. Maybe he did it for the insurance money? >:-) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405092)

<comment><USER98> There is no insurance for SpaceX here. The payload is insured, but the loss of the launch vehicle and any damage to the launch facilities will be born SpaceX directly.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Upgrading to Rails 3 is a side project, not a todo item - <AUTHOR>

I've spent about a week now upgrading SproutRobot. The changes aren't that substantial, but there are lots of little differences. I've spent a lot of time tracking down silly little bugs in my code. Granted I'm also migrating from Webrat to Capybara, but getting Webrat up and running was turning out to be a project in and of itself.<p>YMMV, but my recommendation is to make a rails3 branch, spend a day on it, and then get back to real work. Spend a day a week on it until it's done, but don't expect that you'll be able to power through. <comment><USER2> It took AdGrok about a week to get through everything, too -- we have 20-odd gems, though.

Don't underestimate how long the upgrade will take! It's not just an afternoon...</comment>


Ask HN: Please review launchly - The home of website launches - <AUTHOR>

Launchly actually started as a direct result of some interractions here on HackerNews so I hope you will all help me welcome her into the world!
Launchly is all about getting iterative feedback for new websites.  The goal is for a community similar to HackerNews to follow launchly via RSS and/or Twitter, checking out and providing feedback on new webapps that they find interesting.
Each new launch gets published to various social media outlets like Twitter, Delicious, Digg, etc.  We track all sorts of metrics for the the launch creator and present them in useful and appealing graphs.
Please check it out and let me know what you think!  Feel free to use the launchly launch on launchly (that's a mouthful) to leave feedback or just leave it in this thread.
http://www.launchly.com <comment><USER2> I often get the feeling we, as the tech startup community, spend too much time looking inward. I understand that everybody says "scratch your own itch" and "solve a problem that _you_ have, because you can't really understand other peoples problems", etc. But, it seems like maybe you've chosen a very small market (web startups), who are broke practically by definition, and then selected a dramatically smaller niche within it (web startups that have just launched). Not only that...it's a niche that means the people who would want to post a launch would never have reason to return after the initial rush of the launch period.

So, what you've built looks very nice. You seem to have executed well from a technical perspective...but I fear you're about to find out that you don't have a sustainable business (beyond maybe paying for the server costs).

Then again, what do I know? I work on boring stuff all the time, and I thought Facebook and Twitter were kinda dumb. I could just lack the vision to see what you see in this particular niche of this particular market.

<comment><USER3> i don't think it's too niche, because as many web apps as have come out in the last year, i think there will be way more in the coming year. good, thought- provoking comment, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed (obviously haha). There are so many web apps coming out every day it's almost too much! How do you keep track of all of that? Launchly! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like it a lot. Content that I want and nice, uncluttered design. RSS subscribed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. I really hope everyone that would typically submit a post like this one (review my site) on HN submits their launch to launchly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS or Twitter feeds so you don't have to check the site every day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that's great. It's cool as a feed for new stuff happening too. Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.launchly.com></comment>


Apple Card launches today for all US customers - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/apple-card-launches-today-for-all-us-customers/ <comment><USER2> This is not a card for people looking to maximize rewards. It's for Apple users who want decent benefits and no fees, who will mostly use Apple Pay. (Apparently it's also good for folks establishing a credit history who might not otherwise get approved.)

I've got 300k points between AmEx and Chase and I recently realized I can't ever use them when I want to. I don't want to play all the games of which points can I use where and when. I don't want an annual fee. I don't want to have to juggle several different cards. I don't want to have to "activate" this quarter's latest deals. So I just switched to a straight 2% cash back card.

My one exception was keeping the Chase Amazon card since it's 5% back at Whole Foods and that's too much to turn down.

But I made the Apple Card my other exception today. My credit files are unfrozen at the moment as I juggle cards so I decided why not grab it. It was a simple application process and I tied it to my Apple ID so I get 3% back from Apple for my iTunes and iCloud purchases.

I don't get folks coming here to criticize the card. It's just a credit card. Take it or leave it.

<comment><USER3> I get not wanting to have to "activate" each quarter's deals (though really, it's literally a single button push once every three months...), but I don't get your point on any of the other stuff.

Both AmEx and Chase have multiple cards that earn points that have no annual fees. Both of their point programs can be redeemed for straight cash back (just like the Apple Card, except Chase's offers better cash back percentage). And both can easily be added to Apple/Google Pay and be used just like you will use an Apple Card.

It's not so much criticism of the card as much as it is criticism of people who are for some reason hyped up about it. Like most Apple stuff, there are always a weird group of people obsessing over it and will go to strange lengths to defend it. This is weird, because, as you said, it's just a credit card. It would be less weird if it was at least a _good_ credit card that people were defending, but it's not even that.

<comment><USER4> What's exciting about Apple Card is not that it will put more money in my pocket, but how it modernizes payments. I signed up yesterday morning, and made my first purchase a few hours later. Unlike my current card, the app doesn't try to push "special offers" and I think it won't share my purchase history with "affiliates." I can see my purchase on a map, and Apple can't - nice.

It's a pretty cool experience and I hope Apple Card sets a new baseline.

<comment><USER5> Honest question - why anybody would want her purchases on the map?

<comment><USER6> If see a transaction you don't recognise. By looking at it on a map it may remind you of that small shop you bought something from. Or it might be in a town you've never been to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tip for those signing up: when you sign up you agree to arbitration (ie. signing away the right to sue in court), but you can opt-out within 90 days.

Opting out can be done right on your phone, through messages: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/20/20813800/apple-card- pay-a...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/20/20813800/apple-card-pay- arbitration-clause-goldman-sachs-credit-how-to-opt-out)

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, almost every bank/card I've signed up for has this clause. Apple is the only one I've seen where you can opt out by text message, usually it requires mailing a letter.

<comment><USER9> It isn't worth anything. This saves them money.

Plus in all cases they bury it in the terms and expect nobody to notice/opt out. It is a practice illegal elsewhere[0] and Apple doing something to save themselves money doesn't make them the consumer's hero, it is still an immoral anti-consumer practice that should be illegal.

Now if they required that you select opt in during sign up, that would be quite different. But that's not the case. Instead it is on Page 14/15 on an agreement you don't even need to read.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_arbitration#Consumer_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_arbitration#Consumer_arbitration_outside_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What I found interesting:

\- No card number

\- "At Apple, we firmly believe in your right to privacy. That's why we created a unique architecture for Apple Card that generates things like your transaction history and spending summaries right in the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Of course, Goldman Sachs will use your data to operate Apple Card. But they will never share or sell your data to third parties for marketing or advertising."

\- "Apple will not charge a late fee or apply a new high-interest penalty rate for a missed payment. However, customers will continue to accrue interest on their balance at their regular interest rate. "

\- The APRs are still relatively high, when compared to how low other borrowing rates are.

<comment><USER11> There is a card number, it's just not printed on the card. You can access it via the Wallet app on the connected phone.

<comment><USER12> If this number is leaked somehow, you can block it and get a new one right from the wallet app. They don't say anything about having to request a new physical card after that, so I believe this number you see on the app is not the same of the internal-only, not printed number of the physical card.

<comment><USER13> The card has a magnetic stripe, so they must have _some_ solution to the magstripe number being stolen

<comment><USER14> Why does it even have a magnetic stripe in this day and age, as a completely new tech product from Apple?

<comment><USER15> Because it's not a tech product, it's a credit card, and plenty of places, in the US at least, still require the use of a magnetic strip. As for how they deal with a changing card number, I have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My biggest hope for this card is that it encourages far more people to use Apple Pay (2% vs 1% cash back), which, in turn, encourages more retailers to optimize the checkout process for contactless, and hopefully gets rid of having to use that gross stylus that everybody touches to sign that low-res LED screen with something that looks nothing like my signature.

And it would also be great if it encourages US restaurants to switch to using the portable machine at your table instead of taking your card away.

<comment><USER17> Signatures are no longer required with chip cards.

<comment><USER18> I'm travelling in Europe right now and I can tell you that signatures are definitely still required with the chip. The only exception is if I use the one card I have with contactless payment.

<comment><USER19> You normally use a pincode. I cannot remember the last time I had to sign anything anywhere in EU when paying with a chip card.

<comment><USER20> US chip cards require a signature in Europe virtually 100% of the time, even on low-value transactions that would be under the signature threshold in the US.

However, using contactless avoids signatures 99% of the time. I think I had to sign _once_ on my last trip at a contactless terminal.

<comment><USER21> That's actually my main use for Apple Pay. It's easier in Europe as a way to avoid having to do the signature thing (which the cashier is often not prepared for) with my US chip card. But it only works up to $30 or so.

<comment><USER19> What do you mean with it only works up to $30? I pay bills of several thousands with Apple Pay without pin or signature - I am from EU, but I expect them to work the same.

<comment><USER21> Per Apple Support (US page): United Kingdom You might not be able to use Apple Pay for purchases over 30 GBP.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207435](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT207435)

I've almost exclusively just tried to use it in the UK and this has been my experience at convenience stores.

<comment><USER19> Jeez, that really limits Apple Pay. I don't carry my CC because I have Apple Pay.

<comment><USER21> I had assumed the restriction was more widespread but it seems to be (mostly) a UK thing for some reason. (Though France as well I see.) I hadn't really looked into it because I almost always have a card with me in the US--given how many places don't take Apple Pay--and most of my European travel is UK.

ADDED: Apple's support page mostly says "Your mileage may vary." I haven't tried to do larger purchases more than once or twice when they didn't work because I don't want to be the guy holding up the line fiddling with payment options. I don't know if I got unlucky or if it's the norm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was recently in England. Nearly every payment terminal supports contactless in the cities I visited. I found myself using Apple Pay throughout the trip because it was fast and convenient. Also in restaurants they bring a payment terminal out to your table so you can pay with Apple Pay.

Unfortunately, contactless payment terminals are somewhat more rare in the USA. My local grocery store (Kroger) doesn't have them.

<comment><USER23> It's weird that we lag so far behind in some areas, even when we help develop the technology.

<comment><USER24> According to Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga[1], they've noticed that if the transport system in an area becomes contactless enabled, then contactless adoption ramps up faster.

[1] - [https://www.fool.com/earnings/call- transcripts/2019/07/30/ma...](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call- transcripts/2019/07/30/mastercard-inc-ma-q2-2019-earnings-call- transcript.aspx) Search the page for "transport" and go to the first result.

<comment><USER25> Anecdotally - London use of contactless certainly accelerated when the Underground started taking contactless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been using the card for several weeks, couple of thoughts:

\- signup and activation is pretty slick

\- Like the physical card

\- privacy element if it is real is best selling point - not sure it's real, but really the only reason I would keep using the card

\- rewards are lackluster (but enjoy daily cash remit)

\- can't download your transactions which is idiotic

\- transaction categorization is pretty poor at the moment (e.g. United Airlines (Travel) shows up as United Club (Food Dining)

\- interest rate is high for those that might carry a balance

\- ancillary benefits are limited/lackluster I.e. status in a hotel chain or insurance coverage etc.

<comment><USER27> Have you noticed any wear and tear on the card itself? I've got a mostly white credit card (not metal) that is stained from my wallet and sliding it and such, just curious.

<comment><USER26> It doesn't look too bad now - but you can tell it's going to wear pretty quickly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a privacy product the Apple Card is interesting, but as a financial product the interest rates are high and the rewards boring. All it takes is another bank to say "we will also have a strong and clear privacy agreement with you" and they will match Apple in my mind.

<comment><USER21> >rewards boring

I mostly like "boring" when it comes to card rewards. I find the more "exciting" they get the harder rewards are to use or at least to use in a way that actually is of more value than a theoretically smaller amount of cash, e.g. flight and hotel upgrades that are nice enough but which I wouldn't actually pay for out of my pocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For a moment I was excited that Hypercard was coming back.

</comment><comment><USER30> Pretty slick application process. Very quick approval. I'm digging the privacy.

But it didn't work when I tried to buy lunch. I'll try again tomorrow.

<comment><USER31> Privacy? It's still a credit card. MasterCard still gets all your purchase data and can do whatever they want with it. Goldman Sachs gets your SSN, credit report, and bank account info.

<comment><USER32> Apple says something about Goldman not using the data for anything more than necessary. I don't think they mans any guarantees about MasterCard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can't believe that people are excited for a credit card.

<comment><USER3> I had a hearty laugh when I saw a seven minute unboxing video for the Apple Card on the front page of reddit. An _unboxing video_ for a _credit card_ that was somehow stretched into 7 minutes. The video included genius quotes such as "it fits into my wallet" and "it's about the same size as my other credit cards". This is the content that somehow got thousands of upvotes.

It's seriously amazing how far the apple fandom has come.

<comment><USER34> Is it your intention to miss-lead or do you not realize that the credit card is made entirely out of Titanium, which is a novel concept and obviously raises questions about weight, size, and look.

<comment><USER3> "novel"? Is it your intention to miss-lead [sic] or do you not realize that metal credit cards have been a thing for _decades_?

The Chase Sapphire Reserve/Preferred, two of the most popular credit cards in recent years, are metal cards. The Amazon credit card is metal. The AmEx Platinum is a metal card. And this is just a handful of cards among the 22 listed here [1].

1: [https://www.creditcardinsider.com/blog/metal-credit- cards/](https://www.creditcardinsider.com/blog/metal-credit-cards/)

<comment><USER34> That is a cool story about some non-Titanium cards.

<comment><USER35> > _That is a cool story about some non-Titanium cards._

You may want to read the linked page by the parent commentator a bit better:

Mastercard® Titanium Card™ — [https://www.creditcardinsider.com/credit- cards/mastercard-ti...](https://www.creditcardinsider.com/credit- cards/mastercard-titanium-card/)

<comment> kube-system Here's the second sentence on that page: > This card is constructed with stainless steel on the front and carbon in the back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> 1% back using the card?

I make few purchases with less than 3%.

In terms of security, I've had my card cloned. Within minutes the bank locked the account and had a new card shipped. Hardly a big pain point they are solving. And most of us have more than one, so if any of our cards are down, we have others. It's merchants that currently carry the cost of low quality financial instrument standards we have.

For privacy, if I valued it over the $x,xxx I get back every year in the form of cash back, free insurance on rentals, etc, I'd use the most private of all instruments.... Cash.

Pretty mediocre card if you ask me. Of course, the cool factor will make this a success. They only need the right % of the cool crowd to move in on it, and the rest will follow the virality. Oh us humans.

<comment><USER37> How are you doing 3%? Rolling rewards? Doesn't seem like there are a lot of 3% cards out there without an annual fee or a set of conditions to try and fulfill.

2% on all Apple Pay purchases is pretty straightforward.

<comment><USER38> Not to mention the 2% and 3% cash back are for certain categories and there are limits to how much you can get back in a given year with other cards.

For example, most cards will allow you to get a 2% cash back up to $6,000 per year. I have yet to find a card that has unlimited 2% cash back on ALL purchases.

Apple Card is unlimited 2% back, no category restrictions, as long as you use Apple Pay. That's quite a deal.

<comment> huy-nguyen Citi double cash gives a flat 2% back for any purchase.

<comment><USER38> The way the Citi Double Cash Card works is you get 1% for every dollar spent and 1% for every dollar paid.

\- It is actually 1.98% because when you apply it to a statement credit you are not really paying off the full total. You get a straight 2% back, daily, with Apple Card.

\- There is also a redemption minimum with Citi, in this case there needs to be at least $25 dollars in cash back before you can claim it. Apple doesn't have that.

\- Citi card has foreign transaction fees. Apple Card does not.

\- The rewards "expire" with Citi. Apple's doesn't.

\- Citi's rewards are given to you after your first statement is paid off and higher than 25 dollars. Apple's is given daily, and you can do what you want with those cash rewards.

<comment><USER39> > \- It is actually 1.98% because when you apply it to a statement credit you > are not really paying off the full total. You get a straight 2% back, daily, > with Apple Card.

You get a straight 1% back, daily, with Apple Card (except for Apple Pay purchases).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> >Apple cares about privacy

Card is backed by Goldmansachs, they don't give two hoots about your privacy

>It has 1 percent cashback! Straight to money! I don't understand how credit cards work!

Yeah if you don't care about money enough to think this is good deal, you'll probably get the card asap and probably shouldn't</comment>


FeeFighters killed by Groupon? The backend has been down for days - <AUTHOR>

I've been trying to finalize a order since the middle of last week. Contacted support, no word back. Most of the site seems to work until you want to select a merchant account provider, then you get a 500.
Has anyone had success using FF this week? I'm not sure if this is incompetence or intentional. This is also a sad case of a company that had a great blog which has went radio silent since acquisition.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3_-Z6kZBAXnTDB5WTBlY2J4dTQ <comment><USER2> Hey Conductr - we have been able to replicate the issue, it appears to only impact 1 merchant account provider. I suspect it has to do with something changing in their API.

Our focus has certainly been more on Samurai, especially since the acquisition, but the original site feefighters.com worked fine for many people last week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for clarifying the issue. My FF account is in a locked state. I can't move forward and finalize the deal & I can't go back to view other bids. I guess I will try to contact the provider directly and tell them about the bid I wanted? Not really sure how to proceed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My company is on Feefighters (TSYS). If you are having difficulties, feel free to reach out to me directly with questions. svickers (at) TSYS (dot) com.

Cheers- Steve</comment>


Misunderstanding the Free Software Philosophy - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sergiodj.net/post/2012-12-17-misunderstanding-free-software/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me or the letter-spacing on this site looks just weird?</comment>


Reasons I prefer Tcl over Python - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/72a050e966750b18 <comment><USER2> This link wants me to sign in ? Some new 'feature' of google groups. Also, it seems to be perl+TCL vs python.

As for language wars, the smaller the difference between the respective languages the stronger the entrenchment will be. It's a bit (make that a lot) like religion.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm kind of over the language war phase myself, but it's been a while since we've had a good one here, I think.</comment>


Excitement Fills New Chinese Exchange as Small Companies Sell Shares - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/global/02yuan.html <comment><USER2> OK, was I the only one who initially read the headline as "Excrement Fills New Chinese Exchange..." ?</comment>


Show HN: A React Native Puzzle Game: RGB Logic - <AUTHOR> http://complexview.com/apps/rgb-logic/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> I built the first version for iOS, but it only took a couple of hours to _ship_ a customised version for Android (and quite a bit of that time was actually on improvements to both versions).

Didn't have to write any Java or Obj-C.</comment>


How consciousness works - <AUTHOR> http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/how-consciousness-works/

<comment><USER2> Defining consciousness as a mental model of attention seems pretty accurate and useful, maybe a bit incomplete, but the most striking thing about this article was the illustrated "extramission theory" of vision. I've never even heard of this concept, and apparently it's huge.

"a study by the psychologist Gerald Winer and colleagues at the University of Ohio in 2002 found that about half of American college students also think that we see because of rays that come out of the eyes."</comment>


LivingSocial Hacked — More Than 50 Million Accounts Compromised - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2013/04/livingsocial-hacked-more-than-50-million-accounts-compromised.html

<comment><USER2> Much bigger than linkedin compromised.

<comment><USER3> Just a bit more..</comment></comment>


Cheap and powerful 'meth 2.0' is ravaging communities - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/11/02/meth-use-surges-stronger-cheaper-drugs-imported-mexico/4124765002/ <comment><USER2> I just cannot understand how so many people would find meth enjoyable.

It's clearly an epidemic, but _why_? I take regular old amphetamines for productivity (technically ADHD), and they're really effective, but not what I would consider a recreational experience.

If I take too much, I'll be focused like a laser beam, but I'll forget to eat/drink, dripping in sweat, unable to sleep, and in a really unpleasant headspace when they wear off.

It makes me wonder if most meth users are starting out by self-medicating for ADHD and it somehow spirals out of control? I wonder if meth users had access to prescription stimulants if they'd still need more and get addicted. Maybe some people react differently than I do.

I'd like to try meth once just to see why it's such a big thing, but Desoxyn is pretty much impossible to come by, and I'm not smoking street meth or cooking my own.

<comment><USER3> I think Joker put it well when it said: "The thing about mental illness is that people expect you to act like you do not have it." I have my own idiom: "If these people could be normal, they would chose to be normal."

#1 thing: It feels amazing. Your brain LOVES these drugs. It is like an orgasm mixed with a super Mario star.

There are a few routes: The invincibility of youth colliding with brain chemistry of intense drug addiction. Nobody thinks THEY are the one who is going to have a drug problem. They can quit whenever they want to. Until they stop.

Self loathing is another path. You hate yourself. You don't care about anything. You actively want to destroy yourself, but the drugs make you feel good for a little while. So you keep doing them.

There are obviously more paths than these two.

Either way, you end up addicted. Your brain is screaming for more. You are in physical pain. Every bout of depression and hardship, your brain wills you towards your favorite fix. And in a moment of self-loathing or just plain exhaustion, you cave.

___

I am thankful I read the works of William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick in my formative years, so I had a stark understanding of which drugs were which, and what happens when you lose control.

I have had the same experience with vyvanse. I didn't find it fun, it would just kill my libido and hunger, to the point where it would be 9pm an I would be a grumpy mess from not eating all day.

I've always loved this passage from "A Scanner Darkly." It is autobiographical:

"Or a horrible positive reason: to have watched a human being you loved deeply, that you had gotten real close to, held and slept with and kissed and worried about and befriended and most of all admired—to see that warm living person burn out from the inside, burn from the heart outward. Until it clicked and clacked like an insect, repeating one sentence again and again. A recording. A closed loop of tape."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this sensationalism? I read these kind of things and think the drug dealers are destroying the US faster than any zombie movie ever could have imagined.</comment>


Take control over your feeds to regain mindfulness - <AUTHOR> https://solmaz.io/thoughts/digital-hygiene-feeds/ <comment><USER2> This resonated, especially the bit about being particularly militant with smartphone use. I'm now 2 years into using a dumb phone (I have a smartphone on WiFi at home but my sim is in a dumb phone).

The control you have on desktop is considerably greater than on mobile, so my strategy has been to avoid social, email, news on the small screen and instead do this on desktop where I can use better time and attention management tools like getfocus to ensure I'm not distracted.

I wrote about it here [[https://variousbits.net/2018/05/11/im-happier-without- a-smar...](https://variousbits.net/2018/05/11/im-happier-without-a- smartphone/)]. I should write again now, 2 years down the line. Some stuff has changed (dumb phone is now a CAT, I'm now without any social media at all and CV19 has provided some interesting challenges) - but I'm still basically doing the same thing.

My fundamental reasoning is that I live in an astonishingly beautiful bit of the world, I have wonderful kids and wife, and my life is basically superb. To be interrupted by some bullshit notification when I could be looking at my wife or the sea or a sunset is essentially what I'm trying to avoid, and my strategy basically works.

</comment><comment><USER3> I unfollowed everyone on Facebook which means that my news feed is entirely free of content (conveniently, this includes ads). I now spend exactly zero hours per week scrolling mindlessly through Facebook, but I can still use social login, events, and check in on people if I want to (though TBH nobody in my age group still uses FB).

Edit: script to help unfollow: [https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28](https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28)

Similarly: no FB or Twitter app on my phone, and a time limit of 15 mins set on Twitter and other "mindless" apps.

Related: turning off email notifications was the best thing I ever did for my sanity.

<comment><USER4> +1 for Unfollowing everyone on FB. I log in once a week to check event invites. Well not so much during quarantine anymore.

+1 for setting a timer. I give myself 15 minutes to scroll mindlessly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Rule #2: No feeds or social media apps on the phone. Your phone is always > within your reach.

Lol I'm soooo not a typical person.

My computer is always within reach. My phone is usually on the charger while I'm at home :D, I didn't use it much at all during the quarantine. Why use a 6" screen when I have 24" 4K multi-monitor goodness?

But I agree, I banned FB, Twitter out of my life and even deleted my reddit account. I just lurk on reddit now in a few dedicated groups, that's all.

I do like HN though, as it's usually about actually interesting stuff and good discussions. Unlike Twitter and FB where it's the opposite. On reddit it really strongly depends on the community you're in :) But I never feel like I waste my time on HN, every time I visit it I feel like I've learned something. And I just _love_ the information density. No scrolling through lots of whitespace and superfluous pictures.

<comment><USER6> Just out of curiosity, would you prefer 24" 4K multi-monitor setup, or a giant single 50" 4K TV with good input lag and latency?

As for the post, IMHO the danger of using your phone to access these is that you're constantly thinking of the media you're consuming without any breaks. For example, at universityvI was extremely proficient in distracting myself for hours on end by reading every single comment on HN submissions. I started the day with mindless wikipedia readings and HN and didn't have much energy/mental capacity to do anything else.

<comment><USER5> Definitely my 24". I'd have to sit too far from the 50" TV. But I wasn't really clear in my post. I don't actually have 2 4K monitors.

What I have is 1 24" 4K screen in the middle (fairly cheap LG one), and on each side I've got 2 old Eizo L568's, 17" 1280x1024 in 4:3 format. They're almost as tall as the 24" widescreen, but they're low-DPI. macOS deals with this the best by far, on Windows I have scaling issues.

This works well for me as I can have the main content I'm working on in the middle without a split, and on the sides I put stuff I'm monitoring. Like stuff installing on a VM, home assistant, sometimes whatsapp etc. And if I want to focus on something I can just turn them off (each one of them actually uses more power than the one 4K thanks to their CCFL backlights)

But I'm just not a big phone user. I spend a good number of hours at the PC/Mac (and Linux - I use all 3) every day, and much less time on my phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would recommend one simple rule that has had a huge impact on me:

 _No mobile screens (phones, tablets, laptops) in a bedroom_

I no longer lay on my phone at night. I sometimes stand in the kitchen and browse before I plug in to charge for the night, but when I go to my bedroom, I got to sleep or read a book. In the morning I don't reach for my phone. I lay there and stare or get up.

It took about a week for the urges to go away.

<comment><USER8> Look at this guy with his fancy home that has more than one room

<comment><USER7> your houses don't all have more than one room?

<comment><USER9> Not all homes are houses!

I've known few people in Toronto who live in single-room apartments with floor plans similar to this: [https://thecrossways.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/Floorpla...](https://thecrossways.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/Floorplan_b2.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Splitting one in Vancouver with my gf atm. It's worked out for a year so far and it's a great way to keep possessions low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, it is important to remove the things which you don't want to do. But it is important to set yourself up for the things you _do_ want to do.

Humans with iron deficiencies often find themselves compelled to chew ice[1]. Humans often have other unmet needs, such as the need for deep intellectually- stimulating conversation. I know very few people want to randomly drop what they are doing to have a 2-hour conversation about game theory. So, I've found Calendly useful for helping satisfy that need.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> A good way is to ban algorithmic feeds. Just use RSS and you'll reach the end of the feed. No endless scrolling.

<comment><USER13> This also gets rid of everyone who thinks twitter, reddit and facebook are useful aggregators and/or worthy of a monopoly position. HN is getting increasingly wonderful as the other platforms decay. Someone showed me a facebook discussion/argument initiated by someone trying to sell a surplus (he called it) of 27 chicken eggs slightly above supermarket prices. I'm in my 3rd day of recovery from it.

<comment><USER14> You can actually follow hn, reddit, and even social media with some tools on RSS. I have a vote and comment threshold for HN threads for my personal feeds, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I dread the day the trick using Search to force Twitter to show a chronological view of just the people I follow will stop working:

\- without replies: [https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Are...](https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Areplies&src=typd&f=live)

\- with replies: [https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3A&s...](https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3A&src=typed_query&f=live)

They already send irrelevant notifications (sometimes even about tweets that I already read & even retweeted with comment) if they feel like you're not engaged enough.

</comment><comment><USER16> _> Rule #2: No feeds or social media apps on the phone

Your phone is always within your reach. Access feeds only on your laptop, in order not to condition yourself to constantly check it. Don't install social media or video apps on your phone._

I used to block HN on my smartphone through a simple URL block rule. HN was only available on my laptop for me. I felt way better because every time I saw the message "page blocked" I realized that I had landed on HN subconsciously. It developed into something like a reflex. Pick up the phone, open browser, surf to HN. Nowadays, I have turned it on only for specific times of the day. But honestly, I feel like going back to blocking it completely again.

</comment><comment><USER17> _> Your brain has a limited capacity to process and hold information. Schedule a certain hour of the day to receive it, and don't surpass it. Example: No more than 30 minutes of social media, restricted to 10–11 am._

Suggestion: schedule your social media time for the afternoon or evening, and do high-value work during your freshest, clearest-thinking brain time - morning and early afternoon, or for night owl hacker schedule folks, late at night.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm trying to do pretty much everything it described and have to say the most important part is Rule 3 combined with Rule 4 i.e. one has to limit his/her purposes. Once you can do that, the rest just follow along.

Throughout my life I have been wasting tons of time scratching surfaces here and there but never applied the little knowledge gained or went deeper. A complete waste of time I must say.

</comment><comment><USER19> > Rule #5: Schedule and limit your exposure

I wrote a simple Go program to email me weekly updates of the RSS feeds I follow. It runs on AWS Lambda with weekly triggers from Cloud Watch and sends emails using AWS SES. [0]

If you are following a high number of feeds, it is a life-changer to go from the mentality of "let's see if there is something new" to "let's wait for the email on Monday".

[0]: [https://github.com/ege-erdogan/rss-email-lambda](https://github.com/ege- erdogan/rss-email-lambda). You have to setup some environment variables and then set up the cloud services.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you use Twitter, you should use tweetdeck[1], not Twitter as your UX. I create lists grouped into categories like "Pandemic", "Tech", etc. Lists can be public or private. Assign accounts to lists. Add columns to your Tweetdeck and introduce additional mute words for each column.

This gives you AFAIK a chronological feed without a bunch of random things injected into your main feed. I find this a very satisfying way of using Twitter.

[1] [https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/](https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> outside of the 5PM to 9AM schedule, also consider:

uninstall slack, MS teams, etc. uninstall MS office altogether decline meetings. ask for justification for your time. barter your time with people that would book it.

keep a calendar use these products in a browser on a timed interval, and set a limit on how long you have to respond.

<comment><USER5> Uninstall? That's a bit heavy.. Lot of work setting all that stuff up again every time.

PS: If you use an Android mobile you can use a Work Profile and switch all your work stuff off with one click. If you use a computer you probably have a separate one for work which can also switch off easily :P

<comment><USER22> > switch all your work stuff off with one click

How do you do that? I wonder if it's possible with "fake work profile" like when using Island. I can't use a work profile without using gsuite right?

<comment><USER5> Normally work profiles get created by an MDM application but I believe it's also possible to create one locally. I know the appaloosa app can do it.

You definitely don't need gsuite. It works with any MDM. We don't use gsuite in work but O365 and it works fine there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Something I've started doing many years ago that allowed me to cut back on "wasted time" was reading websites/feeds/blogs only once per day. I automated it and eventually built a product around it, since a few people asked me about that routine.

It allows you to receive a daily email with a digest of the news about the day before. The "news" will be any update on any website, or blog you follow (including public twitter accounts).

It's News, calm [1].

Bringing calm and tranquility into people's lives is something I strive to do in every product I work. Hopefully you'll find it useful.

[1] [https://news.calm.sh](https://news.calm.sh)

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't get behind the last two. I know they can be beneficial, but they can also be damaging.

I follow a few people with whom I disagree with fundamentally and I don't block anything they say, nor any other topic. I just don't want my social media to turn into an echo chamber.

Reading stuff I dislike helps keeping me grounded and reminds me that people who disagree with me are still people, flesh and blood, instead of faceless others.

I feel like many, many problems could be solved if more people remembered that. If nothing else, it could reduce polarization.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I should rephrase it, or make an addition. We do have a societal responsibility to acknowledge and respect opposing views. And I do keep following people who keep it civil and respect the discourse and the medium.

The ones I unfollow are generally shills, people who make absolute statements, demagogues that heavily depend on rhetoric instead of substance. Unfortunately, Twitter's format pushes people into this behavior too. In that case, I block, in order not to become a conduit for these people's toxic messages. I block out of responsibility for my own and my followers' sanity.

> I feel like many, many problems could be solved if more people remembered > that. If nothing else, it could reduce polarization.

IMO the platform design and parameters cause this polarization. It's not enough to educate people _outside_ the platform, when the platform is a hotbed of viral messages, and the dominant strategy is to be an "asshole", according to the etiquette of the outside world. On the platform, however, it is what makes your account successful.

One idea is to define strict rules of digital etiquette. Kids could be taught these starting at a young age. You could also enforce them algorithmically on the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Mostly agree with all the points, but you should still be careful not to construct an echo chamber for yourself by only allowing what you like to see / read and banning everything else.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have historically followed all the first five rules (even the one about not having ALL social media apps at once in my phone, only some of them) so the last rules "block generously and ruthlessly" and "mute words" end up looking quite childish after the first five because you naturally won't put yourself in those situations if you followed all the others. If you consume shitty content in huge volumes of course you will need to control the smell eventually.

</comment><comment><USER27> One thing that really helped for me was stricter banning of mindless browing on my phone, on IOS(using ScreenTime with a password I don't know), I block:

      * Email
      * Browser
      * Any feed apps
      * Games

If there's any ability to distract myself with my phone, I'll relapse to bad habits. But with this in in place, I just forget where my phone is and it's mostly just a place for messaging and podcasts.

These days I often lose my phone, that feels like progress.

</comment><comment><USER28> I actually blocked the feeds on my main development machines so that I am not tempted to visit them when I commit to work.

I left them available on the phone, but perhaps I should block them too. Outside of HN, most sources of content are just trying to exploit my lack of focus for data gathering and the like.

PS: I quit social media years ago and that is a huge positive IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER29> I can't agree with rules #6 and #7. That's how you'll end up living in a bubble. Possibly even become extremist.

<comment><USER30> That's interesting because my intuition points in the opposite direction. By blocking emotive content I am less exposed to things that will swing my views towards extremes. I bet there is whole field of research on this topic that I know nothing about. I wonder what the consensus is amoung those that study these things?

<comment><USER31> I think in some ways we end up living in a self-made "bubble". Chances are we might get saturated with our own "belief templates" (for me this has been the case.). But then, no idea if it's statistically valid. There might even be a whole cognitive research on this particular topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Or just get rid of them all.

You'll be surprised at how irrelevant almost all of it is.

<comment><USER33> Did you not find this post through one particular non chronological feed?

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure if I consider HN a 'feed', or rather, any more so than any other news source is a 'feed'.

I don't have it installed, I don't get notifications, I don't really miss it when I'm gone, I don't care about my account, I don't maintain any status.

I find links to interesting articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Block generously and ruthlessly is advice I follow.

It has made reading Facebook tolerable.

</comment><comment><USER35> Uninstall apps. Login on website. And put login behind 2-factor.

</comment><comment><USER36> Banning words seems the wrong way to go about it.

<comment><USER37> I get what you're saying, but I think that blocking certain words can allow one to make sure they don't get side tracked by common click bait articles. This blog post gives an example with ISIS, which used to be constantly in US headlines a few years ago, yet it never affected the vast majority of Americans. Instead, it made viewers anxious and spend an extensive amount of time reading and discussing a topic that really didn't have an affect on them. That time could have been placed else where in their lives, such as learning a new skill or developing personal relationships: things that would actually affect their lives, and in a positive way.

A common argument against muting words that I see is that it is forceful ignorance, but one must be aware of a concept before deciding to mute that word. That means that no matter what, before someone goes blocking something like "ISIS", the would have had to read about it and noticed that their media feeds have become a click bait ring of nonsense around it instead of actual information.

Also, even if you don't use social media, if there is something that is actually important and requiring your attention (such as the current police brutality focus in America), it will make its way into your life. I don't read the news or use social media, but I knew about COVID when it was coming because it was such a large issue that it couldn't be avoided unintentionally.

<comment><USER36> The way I handle stuff like the ISIS example is to stop following the fear mongering sources and to simply scroll by those headlines. Words banning is lot's of work when you don't have a centralised place to manage them and might lead me to misuse it.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla batteries violently explode in fatal crash - <AUTHOR> http://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-s-batteries-violently-explode-in-fatal-cras-1788561054 <comment><USER2> "It's worth mentioning that, in the press conference above, Jones talks about how fires like these happen when there are high speed collisions, regardless of fuel source"

<comment><USER3> Exactly, because gasoline never catches fire in a crash... I bet if you look at vehicle fires per 1000 vehicles, you'll find Teslas are involved in fewer fires than gasoline vehicles.

Not sure about diesel because it's a lot less flammable.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is keeping you from leaving a large centralized service? - <AUTHOR> Hello!
I am trying to compile a list of common reasons why users don't move from a big centralized evil™ service to either a self-hosted solution or another more "freedom friendly" option (say Gitlab.com vs Github.com) or some other thing altogether.
While there are ofcourse common regular reasons like "all my friends use it", I wish to collect reasons specific to particular well-known services and not generic over all centralized services.
Would be super cool if the service you are talking about is well-known among the average Joe (yeah, like Facebook) and not just devs. It should however be well-known among atleast one of the either groups.
Disclaimer: I asked the same question on another link-aggregation community lobsters today itself: https://lobste.rs/s/qwfjab/what_is_keeping_you_from_leaving_large and I want to collect feedback from HN as well ;) <comment><USER2> Why I don't leave Facebook: all my friends are on it and the product is well- made.

Why I don't leave Twitter: all the interesting people I want to follow are on it, and the product is adequate.

Why I don't leave MailChimp: it's easy to use and big enough + ubiquitous enough that I trust that they have their act together regarding the technical requirements.

Why I don't leave Bank of America: it provides an adequate checking account and I don't particularly have any other needs.

Why I don't leave Gmail: actually I did leave Gmail, for Fastmail, but Fastmail is equally centralized. It just has a few features that Gmail doesn't offer.

The main reasons I prefer a large centralized service are: 1) It's demonstrated that it's good enough for a lot of other people. 2) It's probably not going to shut down soon, especially not without warning. 3) There is some level of support available if I need it (social networks being an exception).

<comment><USER3> don't forget the biggest one. it's free as in doesn't cost any cash. and all I have to do is ignore ads.</comment></comment>


Universal Windows Platform Bridge for the Android Runtime - <AUTHOR> https://dev.windows.com/en-us/uwp-bridges/project-astoria

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a bridge that lets Android apps run directly on Windows Phone.

Apple is now the only mobile phone vendor that doesn't support Android apps -- pretty crazy! Here's a post I wrote that goes into more detail: [http://blog.neonto.com/2015/04/29/android-is-the-new- win32-t...](http://blog.neonto.com/2015/04/29/android-is-the-new-win32-the- new-java-and-the-new-flash/)</comment>


DARPA Wants System to Sift Events/Media and Identify Connections/Narratives - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/darpa-wants-to-build-an-ai-to-find-the-patterns-hidden-in-global-chaos/ <comment><AUTHOR> Problem is DARPA already did this decades ago: the work of Roger C. Schank, Robert Abelson et al was supported by then-ARPA and resulted in many works. The most commonly cited is the book "Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding".

The recent DARPA release would make one think that DARPA and the US military had no institutional memory. There are many military intelligence systems based on Schank et al's work that have been in the field for decades. Much of the work was justified by the "war on terror".

It is ironically as if DARPA were trying to find a way to release knowledge about AI that the government already possesses and has used (albeit primarily for clandestine purposes) for decades. That is, a "parallel construction" for part of the history of AI. I don't know why this would be required however so....

Another possibility is that DARPA _indeed_ has no memory and that the left hand (DARPA staff writing the DARPA proposals) has no knowledge of the right hand (previous DARPA staff, publications and history of earlier completed and implemented AI systems).</comment>


The Military Is Locked in a Power Struggle with Wind Farms - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-military-is-locked-in-a-power-struggle-with-wind-farms/ <comment><USER2> Is it against navy regulation to fly between the windmills and use them as an obstacle course? I'm not suggesting it would be a good idea, just curious.</comment>


Resolving DNS Asynchronously - from 200 to 20000 resolutions per minute. - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/asynchronous-dns-resolution/

<comment><USER3> Isn't 340 requests per second a good way to get yourself blocked from the DNS server?

<comment><USER4> _[8:26pm:~/dnscache] DIVISION:tqbf [0:9]% nsping -t 0.005 192.168.1.254

NSPING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254): Domain = "local", Type = "IN A"

\- [ 2 ] 109 bytes from 192.168.1.254: 135.227 ms [ 135.227 san-avg ]

\- [ 3 ] 109 bytes from 192.168.1.254: 81.386 ms [ 108.306 san-avg ]

..._

Not at AT&T apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty much every synchronous protocol on the Internet benefits immensely from parallelizing. Compare mtrr to traceroute. Bulk DNS lookup is almost entirely I/O bound, and so async sockets are pretty optimal.

<comment><USER5> You get a +1 for mentioning mtr (I Googled "mtrr" but assume you must mean mtr). Never heard of it before - downloaded via MacPorts and.. great stuff - <USER2> recommend checking it out to people who use traceroute and/or ping frequently.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTR_%28Software%29>

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I'm also coding and terms are bleeding about in my brain.

In the mid-'90s, some friends and I had a small contest on who could write the fastest traceroute. Sending the probes asyncronously gets you most of the way there, but there's a trick that would get you the first N hops for free, too.

<comment><USER5> _but there's a trick that would get you the first N hops for free, too._

I smell a blog post/new HN post..! Well, I'm intrigued anyway.

<comment><USER4> I'll never tell. ;)

It doesn't work that well anymore anyhow.

<comment><USER5> I set my favorite networking guru on to this and he suspects you're talking about RFC 1393 - <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1393>

Of course, you'll never tell, but just posting it here in case it's interesting to anyone else!

<comment><USER4> Was that ever implemented?

Here's a fun response to that document, though:

[http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/wi01/cse222/papers/savage- tra...](http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/wi01/cse222/papers/savage-traceback- sigcomm00.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At that rate it would take you about half a year to resolve every IP4 on the net.

According to <http://www.zooknic.com/Domains/counts.html> there are 107,235,401 domains, so you could resolve them all in under 4 days. Allow some extra time for the country TLDs, and perhaps subdomains.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, when a task consists of mostly waiting it makes sense to do more than one of that task at the same time!

I'm glad someone cared enough to give back to the community and post this wonderful result.</comment>