Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/electric-scooters-are-the-cargo-shorts-of-transportation/561440/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> My dream is that between these and electric bikes, we get critical mass for real, separated bike lanes on all major roads in most US cities. Taking away a lane of cars and replacing it with one for bikes/scooters vastly improves the quality of life for both drivers and cyclists, if you can get high-enough utilization. The cyclists will be safer, and there will be less traffic in the remaining lanes because fewer commuters will be in cars.

I commute 9 miles one way into SF by electric bike, and while I love my commute my quality of life would be so much higher if I didn't have to worry about merging with car traffic at several points on the route, or (much worse) cars randomly swerving out of traffic into the bike lane and stopping right in front of me to drop off a passenger or whatever.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't agree more.

On repeated visits to NY, frustrated by the inefficiency of getting from A to B, one of my repeating dreams is the idea of closing _every other_ street (both N-S and E-W) in the grid system to cars, and only allowing bikes, scooters, skateboards, and maybe buses. (Delivery traffic strictly outside daytime hours).

Imagine the transport utopia that would gradually develop, as more any more people not only feel safe to ride bikes, but realised that it represented the most efficient solution.

<comment><USER5> I think if streets were limited to delivery traffic and construction you would be fine. Note that this needs to be real deliveries. Sort of like pornography I know it when I see it, but I'm not sure I can define it well enough for a law to work.

<comment><USER6> Time to disrupt the notion of 'delivery': Sign up to drop off a package or two and get access to the internal city streets for x hours. What could go wrong?

<comment><USER5> That is why it is hard. Delivery needs to have a definition that doesn't allow that. Probably it needs to be so strict that a delivery driver cannot even buy a soda at the store they are delivering to.

<comment><USER4> You could define it by volume or weight of package.

Package-carrying bikes can take a surprising amount. [https://www.carvelo.ch/de/private/modelle/data/51.php](https://www.carvelo.ch/de/private/modelle/data/51.php)

Anything that can be carried by a bicycle courier, must be. Anything else, <6am or >9pm (for example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _can they succeed despite their essential dorkiness?_

Far less dorky than a Segway. I think they're playful enough to work from a marketing perspective.

 _I was bored with new technologies, bored with their repetitive promises, their glassy aesthetic, their oligarchic subsidization._

This sentence is fantastic and absolutely on point! The street finds its own uses for technology.

 _On that first ride, a few things became apparent. First, I was more likely to respect traffic laws on a scooter than on a bike, because I wasn't as worried about conserving my momentum on a scooter._

This is a profound observation. Robinson just earned his pay for the week! (A no prize for someone who understands that reference.) What if virtually all bikes had capacitors, regenerative braking, and electric assist? There would be no reason for the endless "momentum hacks" bicyclists are guilty of.

<comment><USER8> Living in SF I think this is totally false. I see a bike on the street once in a blue moon (and it's often someone riding extremely slow). Bikes literally don't fit on most sidewalks and there are extremely clear bike lanes. Plus you can't pick up much speed before reaching an obstacle.

I consistently see people zooming down the sidewalks on scooters because: they fit, they accelerate quickly, and they are often too slow to be in the bike lane. Personally I think this was the massive failure by these scooter companies. No one is riding them in the streets. They are on the sidewalk going 10+mph. I really don't think people would be quite as upset if they weren't constantly dodging scooters going down the sidewalk.

<comment><USER9> As a daily bike commuter – I see the scooters in the bike lane all the time. I also think they go pretty fast and at the very least are small and nimble enough that I never feel like they're really in my way. I much prefer them to the docked bikes. People on docked bikes don't ride like other bike commuters, they are a nuisance and feel like more of a danger to other cyclists and traffic in general.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

<comment><USER10> I've had the opposite experience -- the rental bikes are heavy and slow, but they generally go in a straight line and are easy to pass.

Scooters tend to weave across the bike lane and need to be given a wide berth when passing (not sure if it's a balance issue, or the rider is trying to avoid hitting road imperfections with those tiny 4" wheels)

<comment><USER11> > (not sure if it's a balance issue, or the rider is trying to avoid hitting > road imperfections with those tiny 4" wheels)

Yes.

Source: was riding on a scooter to work for a couple of years. If wheels are made of plastic instead of rubber and air, you can feel every tooth filling on the smallest unevenness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the reasons Segway failed (and what might stop electric scooter's expansion) is legal problems. A Segway wasn't a road vehicle, but it also wasn't legal on sidewalks either (in many places) leaving it in a legal grey area.

A lot of traffic codes have specific rules and allowances for bicycles. They're allowed on the road but without a lot of the normal requirements (license plates, registration, insurance, etc). Segway (and other similar new vehicles) have no such exception, but also aren't eligible for those things.

What I am getting at is, in some places, you could get a ticket for using a Segway on the sidewalk AND public road. Meaning it was essentially limited to private property only. That's a problem.

PS - Electric bikes kind of skirted around the law by looking and acting like a regular bicycle, and not exceeding their speed. But even that hasn't been without issues.

PPS - In some places Segways are legal via exceptions made for electric wheelchairs on sidewalks.

<comment><USER13> Indeed, and Seattle and San Francisco have put the brakes [sorry] on scooter and bike sharing temporarily while they get the legalities sorted out. It's odd to see those two cities being more conservative about new tech dads than DC, but perhaps they've learned something. :)

<comment><USER14> Seattle has not "put the breaks" on bike sharing. Last year they removed the station based bikes, but there are now tons of bike sharing going on from Ofo, Lime, Pronto, and other competitors [1].

[1] [http://mynorthwest.com/977326/seattle-bikeshare-customer- hab...](http://mynorthwest.com/977326/seattle-bikeshare-customer- habits-2018/)?

<comment><USER15> The existing dockless bike sharing companies were approved under a provisional permit, which has sunset. The city is gathering data and deciding where they want to go from here:

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/transportation/sea...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/transportation/seattles-bike-share-pilot-program-ends-this-month-but-the- bikes-are-staying/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Jump bikes is my current favorite, the scooters seem a little wobbly and the little wheels don't like road cracks. And I like that they lock up and don't end up in bushes.

Biking straight up SF hills in jeans without sweating is like having superpowers.

One downside (for SF at least) is the robust market for stolen bike parts.

Competitively they are highly advantaged by having the scooters absorb all the hate. The scooter companies ought to make sock puppet companies that dump electric hover boards all over SF.

</comment><comment><USER17> I keep being tempted by an electric scooter (of the Vespa variety) for commuting . I'm moving a little closer to work which would mean I only need 30 miles per day plus reserves.

Unfortunately, the named brand ones are ridiculously expensive (£12k+) and having ridden a couple of Chinese made motorcycles I'm disinclined to go for the cheaper ones (£3-5k). Especially when you consider that even if the fuel cost were completely free on the electric one it would take nearly 5+ years to get the money back given a named brand 125cc petrol scooter can be bought for next to nothing and will struggle to use more than £10 worth of fuel a week.

For me it would be an optimum balance of environmental consciousness and convenience though. I guess that is worth something.

[https://www.bmw- motorrad.co.uk/en/models/urban_mobility/cevo...](https://www.bmw- motorrad.co.uk/en/models/urban_mobility/cevolution.html)

<comment><USER16> Would also love to buy a great electric motorcycle/scooter.

It's puzzling how much more robust the ebike market is compared to the electric vespa market.

It isn't even a price issue, fancy ebikes are about the same cost. (The Genze is $3699). It doesn't seem to be regulation, you don't have to pass a bunch of tests or crash them to ship one like with a car.

Maybe the large number of bike part manufacturers and builders give it more sophisticated supply chain? I really don't know.

<comment><USER18> An e-bike with pedal assist requires you to pedal so you get at least some exercise out from it. E-mopeds are also much heaver than e-bikes and may not be allowed (depending on jurisdiction) on all bike paths. They are also locked at their 25 km/h top speed, while e-bikes can go faster if you pedal.

<comment><USER19> > 25 km/h top speed

In California, mopeds can go 30 MPH (48.3km/h). I think it's 25 or 30 in most US states. The GenZe has 4 horsepower which is the CA limit (used to be 2) but some states only specify displacement as 49cc or less.

[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=406).

Mopeds are also allowed in bike lanes in CA, though police & cyclists don't seem to know this.

Moped laws around the US: [https://www.mopedarmy.com/wiki/Moped_Laws:_United_States](https://www.mopedarmy.com/wiki/Moped_Laws:_United_States)

edit: did some more research. US doesn't have the equivalent of a German Mofa (25km/h) only Mokick (45km/h) [https://smartexpat.com/germany/how-to- guides/transport/drivi...](https://smartexpat.com/germany/how-to- guides/transport/driving/motorbikes-mopeds)

Though the stand-up scooters in CA do happen to have a 15 MPH limit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Scooters are interesting on roads.

They are dangerous and reckless on sidewalks. Sidewalks are used by all sorts of people: from healthy adults to a wide spectrum of mobility, sensorily and developmentally impaired people.

Case in point: handicapped folks, elderly, and children.

A 75 year old woman out walking her dog is unlikely to have the situational awareness (visual, audio, and cognitive degeneration) nor the quickness of reflexes to respond to scooters on sidewalks.

A collision between a 170lb male on a scooter going 10mph and a 130lb elderly person is going to lead to extensive injury, potentially life threatening, injury to the adult.

A pelvic fracture is not an uncommon injury from falls in elderly and is associated with a notable increase in probability of death.

Scooters on sidewalks are dangerous and should be immediately banned.

<comment><USER21> Wouldn't a 170 lb runner pose the same risk to an elderly person?

In all cases it is the responsibility of everybody using the footpath to ensure they don't put others at risk.

Runners should feel free to use the footpath as part of their exercise - <USER2> they shouldn't run blindly around corners. I feel the same way about scooters - ride on the footpath all you like, but slow right down around other pedestrians or blind spots so that people both _feel_ safe and _are_ safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> These scooters are getting stolen left and right in San Francisco.

I read the HN article last week about charging these (where they pay you to collect scooters and you charge them over night), so I recently signed up to become a charger for Bird scooters. When I first opened up the app to search for ones to charge it showed dozens of these things[1] that had gone missing in the Tenderloin. I went searching for some yesterday and after being unable to locate about 5 in a row, I saw two homeless guys dissecting one. The electronics were hanging out and they had screw drivers in hand.

Of course I didn't confront them, and I went home empty handed.

[1] Yesterday I counted ~33 that had gone missing in the Tenderloin within the past two weeks. To put this in perspective, there are only about 75 - 100 of them in the entirety of SF right now if you open up the Bird app.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't get the hate. I get to work in 10 minutes flat compared to walking more than half an hour. It's a convenient way of commuting, especially if the trains and buses are unreliable.

I guess the people who hate on these scooters are the ones who can't find one that has enough battery or isn't "offline" for some reason.

<comment><USER10> Some of the hate comes from cyclists who now have to contend with scooters weaving around the bike lane, and from pedestrians that have to contend with 15 mph scooters on the sidewalk.

The author outlined the problem with sharing the roads with bikes:

 _Scooters accelerate out of a stop faster than bicycles, but the top speed of most scooters is below that of all but the slowest bikes. So if you come out of a stop next to a cyclist, you immediately lurch forward and pass them, only to watch them pass you five seconds later. And it is annoying to pass someone in the bike lane._

<comment><USER24> 14-15mph is a perfectly fine speed. Any place that has a substantial % of bike commuters will have plenty of cyclists at or below that speed.

Places where all cyclists are fast are usually just places where biking is so uncomfortable/unsafe that only highly skilled and confident riders do it. Meanwhile you look at Amsterdam and these scooters would be faster than average there in the bike paths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> >Riding a scooter doesn't feel like cruising on a Segway to me anymore, but it remains socially conspicuous.

In the long run, it seems that ownership is moving towards the cloud model. The same arguments for virtual machines in a server can be used for vehicles and, likely, many other types of physical items. There is no doubt that a pool of 100 scooters serving 1000 people is better for the environment than 1000 under-utilized scooters.

<comment><USER26> That's probably what's going to happen with scooters and bikes. I'm not convinced with cats yet though. I got some stuff that I want to be permanently in the car.

EDIT: I meant cars ;-) but it's so funny, I just leave it as is

<comment><USER27> > I'm not convinced with cats yet though

I agree - while there have been cat rentals and cat coffee shops, they haven't really taken off like this.

;-)

<comment><USER28> All cat implementations I've seen are dockless, and many don't coexist well with birds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Scooter share services seriously are awesome, they bring mobility to the underserved in a way that buses extremely struggle to. They're awesomely cheap, and Bird can add demand to any area simply by trucking in a new load of scooters.

I don't know how long it'll last, but normal people can even make money charging them. It's got me considering spending $200 on my own scooter, though I think I'll just use the service until I'm ready to bite that bullet.

<comment><USER30> I wonder the same thing. How the hell do the economics of these things work, if users pay almost nothing and birders get so much money daily?

<comment><USER29> They can adjust pricing. What I'd be more worried about is theft. What happens once someone figures out how to disable the locking and posts the howto online?

<comment><USER31> There is no locking I don't think it just makes a racket when you take it when its not enabled. It is a light scooter after all.

Apparently there is value in stealing them to harvest the batteries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This person has obviously never ridden an e-bike. E-scooters are decidedly dorky. They can't corner well at high speeds. They carry almost no angular momentum to keep you moving forward. The only cool thing about a scooter is that you can easily hoist that 3 lb frame up and carry it with you without a second thought... add an 8 pound motor + battery to that and you've lost all your convenience when you have to climb several flights of stairs... An E-bike on the otherhand can benefit from its girth... it makes it harder to steal if you just add a cafe lock. That weight also makes it perfect for cruising. I can ride 10 miles on convoluted paths without touching my handlebars because of how predictable the ride is. I can ride up sharp grade hills at 20+ MPH without breaking a sweat in 90+ degree weather. And while I'm effortlessly cruising to my destination with minimal effort, I'M STILL PEDALING. It doesn't matter if I'm putting minimal effort in while I'm getting where I'm going, it's still exercise (not to mention way better from the perspective of arterial hardening from unnecessarily standing like a jack ass on a dork mobile). If you want to be totally lazy, get a Boosted board. If you want to revolutionize your shit, go to your local e-bike dealer and get them to hook you up with something actually meaningful.

<comment><USER33> Well the market has responded and it seems your pain points just don't matter to the regular person. You're seriously underestimating the number 1 and number 2 thing people care about.. convenience.

Who wants to own something and have another thing you have to worry about and take everywhere with you? When you can just join an app, have no up front cost and dump it on the street for the next person? That factor of convenience beats the shit out of ownership.

Regarding handling - do you think someone with no experience riding a bike can 'effortlessly ride 10 miles on convoluted paths without touching the handlebars' or did it take you years of riding experience to get that good? So if you spent that same amount of time riding an e-scooter do you think you'd have handling down to an art as well? I think you would, and how it handles around corners wouldn't even be a consideration.

However theres a halo effect at play here which is good news: more people who are using these services who have never used an e-bike or boosted board before after seeing the benefits are now more likely to owning them. Or maybe even just buying their own Xiamoi E-scooter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wish more cities in the US would just copy the Netherlands. It's like night and day seeing the infrastructure and operation of bikes/e-bikes/scooters between the US and Netherlands. It's safe, efficient, and _actually makes sense_.

US roads were made for cars. That's just the honest truth. Cities need to do more than just toss a bike lane on the side of the road and say they are "bike friendly". That's not a solution, that's some half-assed attempt by officials to look like they give a damn.

<comment><USER24> Yup, painted bike lanes are nearly worthless. Nobody would accept having "painted walk lanes" instead of sidewalks everywhere.

<comment><USER35> Painted bike lanes are not uniformly bad. They can be valuable, provided they're wide enough and actually connect up with each other enough that you don't just end up with "can't get there from here" syndrome. Except for the idiots who think they're double-parking lanes, they do a pretty good job of marking a "watch out, cars" zone.

Sharrows, on the other hand, are largely slaps in the face. They're put on slow residential roads where I was perfectly fine riding anyways. Or they're half-assed "look we support bikes" icons slapped right in the door zone onto a stretch of potholes that cars run at 45mph. (My personal favorite is when a perfectly nice marked lane dumps you into sharrows right before a confusing intersection.)

<comment><USER24> Painted bike lanes are useful for only a tiny slice of the population: cyclists who are both confident and okay with a fair amount of risk/lack of safety. Most people aren't that; most people are open to the idea of cycling, but only if it feels relatively safe and comfortable, and you can't get that with no physical barrier between you and cars. Nobody puts their eight year old in painted bike lanes on arterials.

Agreed that sharrows are essentially useless though. It's not that the idea of mixing traffic has to be bad, but it only works if you have serious traffic calming measures that pretty much force drivers to slow down and drive more safely. Most of the time when sharrows go down, there's absolutely nothing functional changed about a car-dominant street.

<comment><USER35> > only a tiny slice of the population

Hmm, very fair point. I admit that, biking support overall being what it is, I'm mostly stuck on making things better for those who already bike (e.g., people like me, obviously). Expanding ridership to other groups seems like another level entirely most of the time, although it would be great! I should try to keep that aspect in mind more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> somebody should put wireless chargers into the cement and throw some super capacitors onto these scooters for temporary boosts (like going up hill or out of a corner, long stretches, etc)... like the f-zero charging/booster things.

</comment><comment><USER37> At about $3 / ride and commuting both ways, aren't you better off buying your own scooter at about 2 or 3 months? These things aren't so big that you have to keep them outside or in a garage, like a bike. You can take them in and fold it up and charge it under your desk.

<comment><USER24> There's a certain value to not managing the thing yourself. My wife bikes to get around Munich, and has to deal with one of her bikes breaking on some way -- flat/leaky tire, spokes broke, etc. -- a handful of times per year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I recently moved to Paris and I was surprised to see that these scooters are super trendy now. The most common riders seem to be middle-aged and older posh women who zoom to and from the metro with their noses in the air.

The dorks are mostly seen on electric unicycles.

</comment><comment><USER39> i've tried both bird scooters and jump bikes in san francisco and really enjoyed them both, to my surprise. the scooters are a little easier to maneuver in traffic, while the bikes are faster and have longer range.

my bike was stolen a couple years ago, shifting me to lyft/uber as a result, but lately i've become less enthusiastic about those services.

anyone have suggestions on electric scooter or electric bike models to buy? ideally something light (and possibly foldable) for shorter trips (within 3-5 miles) and last mile connections off public transportation.

<comment><USER40> You asked for scooter or bike recommendations, but I love the Boosted Board electric skateboards for their portability and fun factor.

However, they're almost certainly more dangerous, and a higher learning curve (though I hadn't skateboarded much before getting one). Just watch out for Muni tracks, gravel, wet roads (especially on metal), and potholes.

<comment><USER39> those are neat but are not really for me. i can kinda sorta get away with being on a scooter (not really), but i'd look downright silly on a skateboard. =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Can the acceleration curve be adjusted to be more in line with bicycles? Or is it feasible to rapidly toggle the throttle to slow acceleration without making the ride too jerky?

<comment><USER40> The acceleration is very slow, annoyingly so IMHO, but you can augment it by pushing with your foot.

<comment><USER42> This is intentional, and conserves a considerable amount of battery power. Bird specifically instructs riders to kick push twice when starting from a stop. Accelerating eats up significantly more energy than maintaining speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So how are these Electric Scooters better than E-Bikes?

E-Bike has huge range and make riding the bike at speeds up to 30km/h a breeze.

<comment><USER44> Cheaper. An electric scooter is perhaps $100; an e-bike is often 4+. Oddly though, Jump is actually cheaper than Lime once you ride for over 7 minutes.. perhaps that would change.

Another slight advantage is lower weight (obstacles), though in practice this is unlikely to be a major issue.

Otherwise I agree that an e-bike is superior. I prefer the GoBike e-bikes to Lime/Bird.

<comment><USER24> These electric scooters being used are thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER45> Nope, they are around $300-500

[https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin- scoote...](https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-scooters- taking-over-san-francisco/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Working in downtown DC, I've been blown away with the popularity of the electric scooters. The bikeshare bikes mostly go unused (unless they end up in the bottom of the Potomac), but I'm seeing multiple middle-aged business people scootering along every day. Never would have guessed it in such a serious town.

</comment><comment><USER47> Apropos of nothing much... This seems to have the first use of the phrase "oligarchic subsidization". At least the only one that's currently coming up from Google for me.

<comment><USER48> Sooner or later there had to be a catchy term for the new(ish) business model of artificially low, VC-subsidized prices intended to drive all the competition out of the market and create a monopoly where you can then jack up the rent. "oligarchic subsidization" is as good as any.

<comment><USER49> > then jack up the rent

But can they really do that? Another VC-subsidized startup can then come in and apply the same strategy.

<comment><USER48> I don't think they can, which is why I think companies like Uber are massively overvalued and these stupid food delivery startups are all doomed. But hey, maybe my lack of vision is why I'm a working schmoe and VCs are millionaires.

<comment><USER50> vcs are millionaires because they invest other people's money and only need a little bit of success. why aren't we all trying to be vcs? lots of failures are just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I don't see why I would chose this over a bicycle. A bike will move as far as I need. This (more or less) grinds to a halt when battery is depleted.

Bicycle: UX win.

<comment><USER24> Scooters require less skill to ride/are easier to maneuver, they're smaller and so can be used on a sidewalk less awkwardly and are easier to park inconspicuously. Also, if you have to suddenly "abandon ship" you're already more or less standing upright, which is probably safer.

These are really only intended for trips of a few miles where battery life isn't really a concern. If you want a longer trip then yes a bike is probably a better idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I daily ride my bicycle 8km's to get to work, and back. Its pretty good exercise, gets me really awake by the time I get to the desk.

However, I don't think everyone can do this. I suggest to my friends, equally endowed with a beerly-gait as I, to get into it to .. but nope. City slickers got no time to ride no bicycle, no 2 or 4 or 10 km's.

Pity really, because it absolutely improves life quality, imho.

</comment><comment><USER53> I seriously don't understand how one scooter company could differentiate itself from others significantly from business perspective.

<comment><USER54> one difference i've already noticed between limebike scooters and bird is in the scooters themselves.

limebike scooters' bells are on a flimsy spring so most of the time theyre broken. the bell is pretty useful for alerting walkers ahead of you of your presence without having to yell.

the bird scooters are also able to 'chirp' to help locate them - i've heard limebikes do the same but i have not been able to find that feature in their app.

overall i dont think this is an issue of a winner take all market - uber and lyft seem to live in harmony and i take whichever is cheaper. for scooters, i'd just take whichever one is closer, there is no brand loyalty or much differentiation but there's room for multiple players atm.

<comment><USER40> > the bell is pretty useful for alerting walkers ahead of you of your presence > without having to yell.

Just to clarify, you're not supposed to ride these on sidewalks in most (all?) places (though mixed-use paths are probably ok)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 3 miles in 10 minutes is 29 km/h which is quite fast. Not a speed I would ride my bike in traffic without a helmet.

<comment><USER43> Dutch guy here. 29km/h on a bike without a helmet is absolutely safe over here, and everyone is doing it with E-Bikes all the time, every day. Never have I heard of a friend or family member falling from their bike with any injury on the head; A broken arm at worst.

<comment><USER4> While I appreciate that the statistics over the value of bicycle helmets aren't always conclusive, _" 29km/h on a bike without a helmet is absolutely safe over here"_ seems like a difficult and sweeping statement to substantiate?

Are the pavements in Holland more forgiving when someone's head hits them at ~8 m/s?

" _Never have I heard of a friend or family member falling from their bike with any injury on the head; A broken arm at worst._ "

Well, I see your anecdote and I raise you with my own: I once fell of my bike at probably around 30km/h, breaking my collarbone. Additionally my helmeted head hit the raised pavement stone hard enough to leave a big dent in my helmet. I'm very glad that it didn't have the opportunity to leave the same dent in my head.

<comment><USER55> Helmets do seem to be at least somewhat of a cultural thing. I recently returned from a trip to both Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Essentially no one who isn't a young child wears a helmet in Amsterdam. (And often not even them. You see small kids propped up on handlebars all the time.)

In Central Copenhagen on the other hand, which would seem to have almost as good biking infrastructure as Amsterdam, a lot of people do wear helmets. It's still the minority--maybe 25%--but it's definitely not at all unusual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've driven high-and-low all kinds of vehicles, big to small fast slow etc. I will say by far one of the most fun driving experiences you can have is a small <50cc moped in the city.

Stuck in traffic? Get off and push it along the sidewalk. Park ANYWHERE. Swerve and weave. So much fun.

</comment><comment><USER57> Glanced at a TV the other day, and found a program showing off a large sized electric "kickbike". It had the tires of a bicycle, but was operated like one of these scooters. Even seemed to use much the same drive train etc of an electric bicycle.

<comment><USER58> Basically an adult version of a coaster bike?

I guess it simplifies the design by not having the pedals, chain, gears, etc...; but you have the tradeoff of not getting that 100W of input from the rider to extend the battery range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wow, ads are getting smarter

</comment><comment><USER60> Are Atlantic readers so self conscious about this stuff? I can't imagine being so unsure of myself that a mere electric scooter would be a major hit to my ego.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm trying to find info on which cities have Bird, but can't find anything. Can anyone help?

<comment><USER62> For some reason they're listed on this page:

[https://www.chargers.bird.co/join](https://www.chargers.bird.co/join)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> In much of the world, a scooter means a lighter moped and not those things people ride in US

</comment><comment><USER64> Riding a bike in the US (cities) is a good way to die. It's silly dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think the beauty of scooters is because you don't have to find parking.

</comment><comment><USER66> Wait, why aren't people stealing these things?

</comment><comment><USER67> > _First, I was more likely to respect traffic laws on a scooter than on a > bike, because I wasn't as worried about conserving my momentum on a > scooter._

This jab at cyclists should be properly taken as representing solely the author's attitude in the role of cyclist.

A scooter rider who is late would have motivation to break the rules.

All wheeled vehicles, regardless of whether they are motorized, as well as pedestrians, break the rules from time to time.

<comment><USER68> Right. I tend to treat stop signs and red lights as yield signs (especially in low traffic conditions) when on foot or bike. I'm sure I'd do the same on scooter. Late or not.

It's a shame no startup can disrupt the outdated tech that is traffic lights, which require people to stop, press a button and wait a minute in an intersection with no traffic going the way they're about to cross.

<comment><USER69> > It's a shame no startup can disrupt the outdated tech that is traffic > lights, which require people to stop, press a button and wait a minute in an > intersection with no traffic going the way they're about to cross.

This technology already exists, city planners are the ones not rolling it out.

Many intersections in Vancouver, and its suburbs are pedestrian-controlled. If you push the crossing button, and there is no traffic, the light will immediately turn red, and let you cross.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> > _Unfortunately_

maybe i didn't read carefully, but i didn't catch in the article what he proposes is unfortunate about it.

> _can they succeed despite their essential dorkiness?_

wait ... what?!?

a) dorkiness

b) _essential_ dorkiness?

wow. just wow. it doesn't seem like a clickbait-y sensationalist subtitle. it seems like the author really means it. omg, am i a dork?? i love these scooters. it never occurred to me _in the slightest_ that they are dorky. and in fact, i see all kinds of beautiful people (and normal people) riding them. is this maybe an east coast / west coast thing? Maybe the author cares about presenting a certain adult image, and the scooter makes him feel childish, since yes, they are fun to ride. That's what makes me think it's coastal.

I love how the photo shows folks riding without helmets. AFAIK all the scooter companies make clear you must use a helmet (I don't). At least in the photo they are in the bike lane and not the sidewalk.

> _Doesn't riding in the bike lane annoy cyclists? Yes, of course. Cyclists > are annoyed by most stimuli._

lol

<comment><USER71> Annoying you (and appealing to those who agree with them) is the author's intent. You are thinking about the article, maybe you'll even share it. The only thing that matters is grabbing your attention, and potentially the attention of people you know.

<comment><USER72> You might be overthinking this. I think it's just supposed to be funny. The whole article has an over the top snide style that is probably equal parts serious and jokey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> tl;dr: An inconsiderate jerk gets addicted to electric scooters.

> terrorizing its wretched NIMBYs

C'mon with that.

> I pushed down the throttle and lurched forward. I released it and the > scooter stopped, nearly throwing me off. As I tried to figure out my > balance, a teenager ran up to the scooter next to mine, activated it, and > drove away. I had never felt so old.

This is a young person's service. No helmets or elbow pads.

> It's best ridden with one leg on the platform and the other hanging off the > side for emergency braking, or fleeing.

So it's dangerous.

> I was more likely to respect traffic laws on a scooter than on a bike, > because I wasn't as worried about conserving my momentum on a scooter.

Author is an admitted scofflaw.

Folks, _momentum is the killer._ It's velocity squared, so half as fast is one quarter as much "oompf" to cause injury or death. I bike (I don't own a car) and it always cheeses me off to see cyclists pulling dumb stunts in traffic.

These eletric scooters are _mostly_ a great idea. It's that margin of failure modes that we have to watch. People being people there are going to be riders who ride like idiots and crash into people, there are going to be people who park them in stupid places. There are already "turf wars" starting among the folks who collect and charge them at night.

This article is a puff piece.

<comment><USER74> Thank you for posting this. I was running low on middlebrow dismissals today, and I'm full up now.

<comment><USER73> So full you've got one left over for me. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Fun read.

I personally feel like the dork-factor on a Segway comes from it being ridden with both feet facing forward. It gives the ride an alien-like hovering quality.

On the other hand, I don't judge people on skateboards, particularly because I'm used to the sideways stance. Scooters are somewhere in the middle, but at the very least they don't make you look like someone from outer space.</comment>


Neanderthals Fashioned 'Jewelry' Out of Animal Teeth and Shells - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/56268-neanderthals-made-jewelry-beads.html <comment><USER2> Seems a bit condescending to put Jewelry in quotes when the study the article talks about is specifically saying that Neanderthals did create jewelry.

<comment><USER3> Yes. I'm not sure the author understood the subject. There is plenty of evidence that Neanderthals made and wore jewelry. The study was about Châtelperronian industry in particular not jewelry in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ancient bling.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

<comment><USER5> Except there weren't any animal rights activists crying out for a boycott.

<comment><USER6> I don't think we can really blame the Neanderthals for that. Killing animals was likely viewed differently due to its necessity then. Plus, a lot of the protests now are due to industrial practices and sustainability issues that didn't exist then.</comment></comment></comment>


Nice argument for the age of the earth - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/nice_argument_for_the_age_of_t.php

<comment><USER2> While I will disclaim that I am not a young earth subscriber, the proof offered in the article is flimsy and could be explained by a single shower of asteroids causing multiple impacts in a single episode are a series of those episodes. While I don't subscribe to that explanation, it does show that the authors argument is not as slam dunk as he may think it is.</comment>


Show HN: Using Twilio Verify instead of firebase phone auth - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@6ones/why-i-used-twilio-verify-for-phone-authentication-26a67bfc981 <comment><USER2> "Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't be Show HNs." [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


U.S. Entitled to Edward Snowden's Proceeds from His New Memoir, Judge Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/snowden-book-lawsuit.html <comment><USER2> Fuck 'em. I just pirated it here: [http://audiobookbay.nl/audio- books/permanent-record-edward-s...](http://audiobookbay.nl/audio- books/permanent-record-edward-snowden/)

And donated $10 to his defense fund here: [https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/](https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/)</comment>


Great Stirrup Controversy - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stirrup_Controversy <comment><USER2> So strange to see this here as the societal role of horsemanship is an area I'm studying as a side interest.

Whether the resolution of this question lets us extrapolate a general principle of technological determinism, whereby an invention topples a global order in place for centuries, it's an interesting anecdote, but I don't think it's a strong foundation for a heuristic we could apply to say, a text editor, cell phone, or a lambda function for that matter. We could use any of these things as the beginning of a post-hoc narrative explanation for a perceived historical change, but causality is weak.

However, if you are really interested in how cavalry works and would like to reason about this question, I recommend former games developer James Kingsley who has some great videos on it. He can actually ride, so his videos are a more serious investigation instead of just the speculation of a talking head on a lark.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEdnpoTDGX7IcHAPCjTs5...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEdnpoTDGX7IcHAPCjTs5Vp- dz3LmZQG3)

Short article about him: [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39851253](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39851253)

<comment><USER3> A strong claim for causality requires a counterfactual scenario: if the stirrup hasn't been invented, then ___.

I always find these hard to imagine when the cause is a basic technological development. Surely, someone would have eventually invented the stirrup, given ridable horses.

It's easier to try to imagine a world with no horses, or where they were unsuitable for riding.

<comment><USER4> >Surely, someone would have eventually invented the stirrup, given ridable horses.

This isn't obvious to me. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm not convinced that it's right either. Henry Turtledove's short stories The Road Not Taken and Herbig-Haro explore a future where aliens invade Earth with FTL drives, but only basic weaponry. It turns out that FTL drives are a relatively simple technology, but one we missed. Not expanding outward in space forced us to pursue more competitive development of other technologies on Earth, and when the aliens invade we quickly kill them and take their FTL drives, suddenly becoming the dominant species in our part of the universe. It's just fiction, of course, but I think us having missed some basic tech is an interesting possibility. It's only theoretically possible to show that we missed something in the past, not the present, since the discovery of something which should have been obvious in the past makes it no longer valid as evidence of our failure to have discovered obvious things in the present -- it's been discovered now. That being said, can we think of such examples? Things that don't have any obvious barriers, but which we still failed to invent for long stretches of time? The screw as a fastener seems like a potential candidate to me; the Archimedes' screw was used to move water and grain in ~300 BC, and nails have been around since prehistory, but screws as fasteners don't show up until the 1400s AD. You could argue that the widespread adoption of screws in the 1800s AD required certain machine tools for mass manufacture of screws with threading at regular increments, but this doesn't explain the 1700 year gap between invention of the screw and any use of hand-crafted screws as fasteners. There could also be gaps in our understanding of this history, of course, but that would be true to varying degrees for any proposed example.

<comment><USER5> The lack of wheels as a mean of transportation in pre-columbian civilizations is a classic example.

Steam machines might be another, basic ones were already in use in ancient Greece but their development stalled for millennia.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bluff: Beautiful graphs in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://bluff.jcoglan.com/ <comment><USER2> There are dozens of these. I'm a jquery fan so I like flot. Here are a bunch of others:

<http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/charts/>

<http://solutoire.com/plotr/>

<http://www.liquidx.net/plotkit/>

<http://code.google.com/p/flot/>

<http://www.ejschart.com/>

<comment><USER3> Which is best?

<comment><USER2> Sadly it depends. I find Flot the most pleasant to use but from memory it is missing some important features. (I last used it ~1 year ago)

ESJChart is really feature complete, but bloated and has a bad interface.

I would try Flot first, and if it doesn't meet your needs try the YUI one.

<comment><USER4> I just used flot a few days ago and was really impressed. Especially with how it does time series so easily. You just hand it a bunch of dates, which may include irregular intervals or gaps, and it figures out a reasonable representation for the data so it looks consistent. Really really nice and simple to use too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They are nice looking charts.

There's a weird label positioning issue (label text stays a fixed width from the left edge of the screen, not the left edge of the chart) with Google Chrome, but not with Windows Safari or Opera.

<comment><USER6> I saw that earlier -- but it looks fixed now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have yet to see free, client-side charting/graphing that works as well as commercial alternatives. We recently started using Flash-based charts called FusionCharts. They're a little expensive, but are well worth it if graphing is a central part of your web app.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love to develop javascript library!</comment>


Life in the Americas Before Columbus (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> It's easy to forget how much disease aided in the European colonization of America.

"The Mayflower first hove to at Cape Cod. An armed company staggered out. Eventually it found __a recently deserted Indian settlement. __The newcomers—hungry, cold, sick—dug up graves and ransacked houses, looking for underground stashes of corn. [. . .] When the colonists came to Plymouth, a month later, they set up shop in another deserted Indian village. All through the coastal forest the Indians had "died on heapes, as they lay in their houses," the English trader Thomas Morton noted."

The native Americans didn't have the same natural resistances to the diseases the Europeans brought. At some points, Smallpox traveled so quickly through the native populations that whole villages would die before the Europeans even got there.

<comment><USER3> When you think about the differences between human results of North American vs. South American colonization by Europeans, it becomes clear that there was something more at play than just the clean and guilt-free narrative of "disease wiped out the Natives" that is being taught in North American schools.

Today, only in the US and Canada, i.e. Anglo-Saxon colonies, the Native populations are dismally low. Just across the border in Mexico you already start seeing largely Native and mixed Native-European populations thriving, instead of being wiped out. The same story continues throughout Central and Latin Americas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mann talks about this in the book version of 1491, as does the historian David Noble Cook in _Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest_. Neither are trying to claim (at all) that the enormous population declines of the early modern period were due only to disease, or to minimize the role of mass murders, intentional starvation, wars, etc. But this comment fails to consider the demography of the New World prior to 1492. Mesoamerica and the Andes (modern day Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, etc.) were home to widespread agricultural civilizations with settled urban populations. In fact, pre- Columbian Mexico City was one of the largest urban areas in the world (early conquistadors described it as like Venice, but bigger).

Granted, agricultural societies existed in North America too, but aside from the pueblos in New Mexico and some urbanized communities associated with the Mississippi Valley Civilization and its offshoots, the population density and urbanization didn't compare to Mesoamerica and the Andes. This has a lot to do with why present-day Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, etc. have large indigenous communities relative to Canada and the US: there were higher populations there to begin with. It doesn't necessarily mean that the proportion lost to disease and warfare was any less.

<comment><USER4> The history of Mexico and mesoamerica in general is fascinating. I was lucky enough to spend a week in D.F. (Mexico City) in January and I fell in love with the city. I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't been to go, it's such a great city.

To bring this back to the parent comment: The anthropology museum [1] in D.F is incredible both in depth and scale. It covers the history of the city and area so thoroughly. I had no idea about the extent to which civilization had persisted in Mesoamerica before I spent half a day wandering around this museum. It's such a fascinating history and it's available to see right there through the recovered artifacts and the current ruin sites both in D.F and just outside (such as Teotihuacan [2]).

Oh, and if you go stay here: [http://theredtreehouse.com](http://theredtreehouse.com)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3%ADa) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan)

<comment><USER5> Agreed on Mexico City. It's wonderful.

Cortés arrived in Mexico with a few hundred men and allied with locals to overturn the Aztec empire, but natives were always the majority of his alliance. And natives have always been the majority of the ancestors of Mexicans, even today. The pre-Hispanic civilization persists in every aspect of life from street grids to artistic styles. There are still more Mexicans living on canals than Venetians.

I was bicycling through the mountains of Milpa Alta one day; Milpa Alta is inside the Federal District of central Mexico City but more rural by virtue of steep mountainsides rising straight up from dense valley development. I came to the town of Milpa Santa Anna where I rode to the charming central square. Narrow old streets are colorful and lively there with some cross streets passing each other on bridges due to the steep hillsides. There was a public notice board in the central plaza where all notices were posted -- ten miles from the denser parts of Mexico City -- in Nahuatl -- the original Aztec tongue -- as well as Spanish. Except there was one notice posted only in Nahuatl. I can't tell you what that one said because I don't speak the language, but it really makes you feel like a foreign traveller in the deep past when public notices are still written in Aztec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Before Columbus, Dobyns calculated, the Western Hemisphere held ninety to 112 million people... in 1491 more people lived in the Americas than in Europe"

And they were all clean and free of any diseases? Only the Europeans had these "devastating" diseases?

"The native Americans didn't have the same natural resistances to the diseases the Europeans brought."

How did the European diseases kill off the Native Americans but not the other way around?

<comment><USER7> [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393317552](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393317552) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond does a great job of explaining this in detail, and not just in the North Americas, but examples throughout the world.

It boils down to a few basic ideas

1: Native american's had no real concept of quarantine. If someone was sick, the extended family would take care of them. In turn the extend family would become infected, and infect the rest of the village/tribe as they travelled.

2: Europeans lived in cities with much greater population densities. Their immune systems were much more accustomed to dealing with a large variety of infectious agents. Whereas the native americans live is small homogenous villages. With very little exposure to outside influences, other than other tribes/villages.

<comment><USER8> I think the most important takeaway was actually that Europe and Asia have huge swaths of land at roughly similar latitudes, so that it was easy for crops and domesticated animals to spread east/west. Those allowed for more intense agriculture, and along with them went diseases.

Here's the wikipedia page, which actually goes into more depth:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, Diamond's most salient points are 1) the latitudinal axis of Eurasia compared to the longitudinal one of the Americas and 2) the role of domesticated animals as disease vectors. The stuff about pre-Columbians not paying attention to quarantine is quite frankly rubbish (both because Europeans had no modern notions of quarantine either, and because it's impossible to make a blanket statement about how two continents-worth of civilizations conceptualized disease), as is the stuff about lack of urbanization (at least in the context of present-day Mexico and Peru, which indeed did have urbanization on a scale to rival Europe).

A personal pet peeve of mine is that Alfred Crosby wrote about this stuff in the 1970s ( _The Columbian Exchange_ ) and the 1980s ( _Ecological Imperialism_ ) but Diamond gets all the credit for it because he successfully repackaged it for more popular audiences, without adding much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great read. It's always fun to read about how much we don't know about even the recent past.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mann's books ("1491" and "1493") are even better - great examples of longform journalism as history. They also update some of the facts in the article, since we've learned a lot more in the past decade.</comment></comment>


First-Person Hyper-lapse Videos - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/ <comment><USER2> The result is quite simply breathtaking. It looks like something shot for a movie using a stabilised dollycam, the fact they were able to achieve the same thing using nothing but a GoPro, their software, and likely a week of post- processing on a high end desktop PC is simply amazing.

I hope we see this technology actually become readily available. There might still be work to be done, but in general if they can reproduce the demo videos with other content then they're on to something people would want.

<comment><USER3> It's striking but it's far more believable when you realize that they need to play at a much faster speed than the source, so they have tons of extra samples from which to extract information. They basically use all that data in the extra frames (that would otherwise simply get tossed away in a regular time-lapse) to construct a 3D scene. This wouldn't look nearly as good if they had to play it at normal speed.

<comment><USER4> On the flip side, it sounds like shooting at higher fps and using this to end up with a 24 or 60 fps result might end up with some cool results.

<comment><USER5> Camera movement between each frame would be minimal though so there'd be a lot of overlap between frames so minimal extra information. I'd guess the key to improving this result would be multiple cameras at different angles; I imagine it only works as well as it does because the GoPro uses a fisheye lens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since it's not quite obvious, the supplementary page has videos with better bitrate than what youtube did to them: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/supplementary/html/climbing_our_result.html)

</comment><comment> rkuykendall-com Interesting that the final video ( mostly the rock climbing ) resembles a video game, where shapes and textures "pop-in" as they are rendered. The technical explanation video was really well done.

</comment><comment><USER7> If the MSR researchers are here -- I'm curious what does it look like when bordering hyperlapse with regular input? i.e., if there were a video consisting of input frames at the beginning and the end, with a stretch of hyperlapse in the middle, what does the transition look like? Does it need much smoothing?

Also you probably saw this over the past week: [http://jtsingh.com/index.php?route=information/information&i...](http://jtsingh.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=8) (disregarding the politics of that) Whatever he's doing (I assume a lot of manual work) it has a very similar effect and it has these beautiful transitions between speeds.

Amazing work and the videos are stunning.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I am here :-)

This would be possible. Although it would require providing some UI so the user could specify which parts should be sped up.

I've seen the Pjong Yang video, it is beautiful work. It requires very careful planning and shooting, and a lot of manual work to create such nice results. We're trying to make this easier for CASUAL, but it's still FAR away from the quality of professional hyperlapse.

<comment><USER9> Great, now we can ask you questions! :)

Some of the videos demonstrate unusual "popping" effects and deformations when standing still - especially notable in this video, top right, sixteen seconds in:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/supplementary/html/bike1_original_speed.html)

I understand how the extreme situation of climbing is a challenge, but what is it about standing still that causes this? Do you have any thoughts on how you might tackle this problem in future work? (although it appears you already combine an amazing breadth of techniques, so I'm not sure how many options you haven't looked at)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The videos don't load for me (due to mixed content, I believe), so here they are:

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA4Za3Hv6ng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA4Za3Hv6ng)

The hyperlapse of the climbing video looks like an FPS game from a decade ago with texture refreshing as you get closer.

<comment><USER8> Hmm... Did I not embed these correctly? The project page as well as the embed links are plain [http://](http://) this is what it should be, no?

<comment><USER11> People using the HTTPS Everywhere extension will have the site URL as https, but not the embedded videos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I walked around Boston once with some friends for 7 hours. When I remember it I see it as the hyperlapse, not moment for moment or sped up. Super interesting work.

<comment><USER13> I was thinking the same thing as I watched the video, that, this is probably the closest to how most people remember long stretches of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Okay please sign me up. I'm willing to pay hundreds of dollars for this software. I have hundreds of gigabytes of time lapse that I've taken that is just sitting there because of lack of ability to do something. I'd easily pay $200+ for this software right now just so I can have those videos and free up massive hard drive space.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure that this software is what you want. It takes regular speed and converts it to high speed. If you start with regular time lapse you'll need to speed it up even more - maybe as much as 10x. Now you'll have super fast time lapse.

<comment><USER14> Actually, yes it's exactly what I want, I'm not sure why you would think I misunderstood what the software did. I have hundreds of gigabytes of 1 sec timelapse photos that could convert into pretty neat movies given what I saw.

<comment><USER16> I think what NeilSmithline is trying to say is, the microsoft technology is designed to convert regular 24fps videos to 2.4fps videos (10x time lapse). If you feed it 1 sec timelapse photos (ie, video at 1fps), the output would be 0.1fps.

<comment><USER14> I take 1 second time lapse photos and feed them at 60 frames per second for a 60x speed up. I'm not sure if you've made time lapse videos before, but it wouldn't make sense to film something at 1 fps and then play it back at 1 fps.

<comment><USER16> The frames per second I quote are all recorded frames per second (eg, for every second of real-life time that passes, how many frames in the final video were taken during that second?). Play-back rate is always 24fps (or some other fixed constant).

What we're trying to say is, if you feed your video to the program, you're going to get output that is sped-up 600x compared to real life. That's a ridiculously high speedup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how far you can get by using a "naive" timelapse of selecting frames from the video, but being smarter about which frames you choose. Rather than just choosing every nth frame, try to choose visually consistent frames by making the intervals between the frames loose, then apply conventional stabilization after the fact.

<comment><USER18> This was my initial thought about how they were doing this, but I don't think it's as applicable as it would seem. At 10x speed up, that's still ~3 frames from every second. I'd imagine a biker would spend at least a second turning to look down an intersecting road before continuing through. So that would be at least three frames where the perspective was heavily modified. It would have to select for right before and right after the head turn and ignore everything in between, which would probably create quite a jagged warp effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bloody amazing! Fantastic work! Release it. Release it soon. This is something that everyone would want.

I see they have listed a Windows app coming. Is that Windows desktop app?

<comment><USER20> If I were them I would offer this as a web service: upload your video and have it converted for $1.

<comment><USER21> Someone above mentioned the processing took weeks. So.. I'm not sure that would work.

<comment><USER22> Well, the _first_ version took weeks. I'm sure it will only get faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great results but looks expensive. I wonder how many minutes of processing per minute of video.

<comment><USER24> From the paper listed on the page it looks like it takes about 305 hours to process a 10 minute video. The vast majority of that is during the "source selection" phase which takes 1 minute per frame of video.

<comment><USER8> We've already managed to dramatically reduce the processing time compared to the numbers reported in the paper.

It'll still be slow (a couple hours for a 10 min video) but running on a singe standard PC (with GPU).

<comment><USER22> It looks like after the frame-selection step, the rest of the process never refers to the discarded frames. Is that right? Do you think making the frames available for blending in the later steps would results in smoother blends?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is so insanely cool. I plan to get a GoPro some day soon and will take it on hikes in the Pacific NW. If I could turn my hikes into beautiful time- lapses like these, I'd be blown away.

</comment><comment><USER26> Really great results. I wonder if this could be coupled with google street view data to give a smoother time-lapse of a path.

<comment><USER27> Right here — [http://hyperlapse.tllabs.io/](http://hyperlapse.tllabs.io/)

<comment><USER28> Just a note, this doesn't use the technology from the paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It appears as if the mountains are loading in the background (like in a video game) as you get closer to them.

Awesome idea/execution!

<comment><USER30> Haha, I was just going to post that. It really gives off a mipmapping&LoD game/progressive-loading effect. So weird.

<comment><USER31> And the running speed of the original Doom / Doom 2 games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Mind blowing results! Although the name Hyper-lapse doesn't really convey the goal, it should be named Smooth-Lapse, because thats what its doing. Too much hyper-x already.

<comment><USER33> With the timelapse crowd, "hyperlapse" generally means a timelapse with a moving camera (eg. reddit.com/r/timelapse) . In that sense they are using the term correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is incredible! If you want a good look at how it handles moving objects / people check out the part at 2:15

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpwHaQnRSY&t=2m15s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpwHaQnRSY&t=2m15s)

</comment><comment><USER35> Would it be possible to do something like this for audio? It would be incredible to sample an hour-long album or mix in minutes.

<comment><USER36> time is kind of an essential component to music...

<comment><USER35> Time is supposed to be essential to video as well.

This video [http://vimeo.com/13669078](http://vimeo.com/13669078) has time- lapsed audio. I wonder what it would sound like using the hyperlapse effect.

<comment><USER37> This is intriguing. What would you need to model as a the continuous input to try and get from the timelapse? With the imagery, a model was made of the 3D scene in which was then used for the 2D final output.

I'm having difficulty imagining what this more in-depth model would represent, and how you'd either strategically take the clips to "paint" this model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I would use this for sure. I do timelapses of runs I do and set as challenges for our social running group. The source is a head-mounted GoPro. The problem with them is that a straight forward pick-every-nth-frame gives a motion- sickness inducing video, as well as blurry. If you could extract the frame from the top of each stride when the camera is most steady, I would imagine it would be very much more watchable.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is incredible. By watching the hyper lapse versions of the mountain climbing, you can clearly see which path is taken, are able to get glimpses of whatever paths are available. This would be a huge advantage for people learning how to rock climb. I can image that a similar situation would occur for many other activities. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER40> left side video was shot here: [https://email@example.com...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,9.935551,3a,75y,208.15h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1srIxKeAhLQAZTOOF3zZg8Bw!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x47b185872fd5a80b:0x50ce599e7d52265b)

<comment><USER41> Was the other longer video also from Hamburg? For a moment I thought it was Berlin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is great. I have weeks of footage from a camera that I wear around and would love to use that video to make a hyperlapse. I would also be interested in seeing how well this does with photos taken every few seconds as opposed to video. Although, after reading the paper, it looks like there would be a lot of optimization that would need to happen to make it more efficient. (Their original implementation took a few hours on a cluster.) Luckily, as they stated in the technical video, they haven't tried to do anything more than a proof of concept; so there is plenty of room to optimize. I'd be interested to see how well a single-machine OpenCL or CUDA implementation does compared to the CPU clusters they were using in the paper.

</comment><comment><USER43> That honestly has fantastic results.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm surprised Microsoft never releases anything cool like that to their app store.

<comment><USER45> >We are working hard on making our Hyperlapse algorithm available as a Windows app. Stay tuned!

<comment><USER44> Ah cool. Over the years Microsoft Research has also released demos of other cool stuff, like recreating a 3d view using multiple photos from different angles. How about those projects?

<comment><USER46> > recreating a 3d view using multiple photos from different angles

I've been waiting for that for years. Searched for it a few months ago, still nothing.

<comment><USER47> Er, [http://photosynth.net/](http://photosynth.net/)

<comment><USER46> This is for panoramas, not 3d objects right? I meant merging photos of an object from different angles.

Edit: It's not even working. Photographed something from different angles, synth it, and it appears on their website as a slideshow. Like a normal jquery slideshow except you need Silverlight®.

<comment><USER45> I'm not sure why the site isn't working, but the software is definitely for 3D objects, not just panoramas. Maybe your photos didn't have enough in common for it to work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The city demos remind me of the Blues Brothers' car chase scene in downtown Chicago. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMagP52BWG8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMagP52BWG8)

</comment><comment><USER49> Incredible results. I'd kill to try this with Oculus Rift.

<comment><USER32> What about motion sickness. I can't imagine trying lapse videos in the Rift without puking in one minute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Very nice! Is there software available I can use, or do I have to implement the algorithms from the paper myself?

I make a lot of 4K hyperlapse movies, it is tedious as AfterEffect's warp stabilizer is useful only in a small fraction of cases, Deshaker is more consistent but also not perfect, and the only option in the end is multi-pass manual tracking and stabilizing which is very time consuming and tricky for long panning shots.

<comment><USER51> according to the website: "We are working hard on making our Hyperlapse algorithm available as a Windows app. Stay tuned!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Pretty cool that they've included the raw video. Everyone can use that to compare their alternative method to the microsoft researchers' results.

</comment><comment><USER53> As others have commented, the videos look great, and much closer to how people remember journeys. However, there appear to be some image persistence problems (many street poles simply dissolve as they get closer to the camera).

I'm curious to see what happens if they insert more action-packed footage. An MTB course with trees, switchbacks, and jumps would be an interesting stress test of this technique.

<comment><USER22> They do frame selection first, then create a 3D scene from the fewer frames. So that light pole might not have been in enough of the chosen frames to get a good 3D model of it. And the first stage has a pretty low-res 3D model because the number of points just gets crazy, so the light pole probably wouldn't have been modeled anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> What's the best alternative for this? I'm doing a GoPro video while cycling with some friends... And this would be insanely usefull

</comment><comment><USER55> be sure to watch the technical exegesis at the bottom, its almost more amazing

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow please release this either standalone or even better as a feature of some MS movie production tool. iMovie needs some competition.

</comment><comment><USER57> I want to put something more meaningful into this comment, but all I can think to say is that this is really amazing. Well done!

<comment><USER58> Pretty much my thoughts exactly. It's also nice to see Microsoft get a little press about something innovative/cool. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I don't understand how computers figure out 3D from single camera video without parallax. How do they do that?

<comment> alok-g You track points in the scene across frames. This helps infer the 3D position though getting good accuracy is hard. Basically parallax gets created in time as the camera moves.

I recall those childhood days when we could not explain why moon appeared to come along as our car moved. :-) Those differences in apparent speed betrays something about the distance of the object/point under consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I downloaded the .mp4 file and watched at half-speed. It looks great at half- speed too, and much more realistic. I wonder why they couldn't have slowed it down a notch. Perhaps, as a research result, they are just staying true to their algorithm's output frame rate.

</comment><comment><USER61> Couldn't it be done with a wider angle lens, a better imaging sensor and conventional image stabilization techniques? If such captures become commonplace, it's easy to imagine capturing with a wider field of view so that the stabilizer would not be so overtaxed.

</comment><comment><USER62> Szeliski also has written a comprehensive Computer Vision book for those looking to learn the field. It's a fairly good one (and available for free online - [http://szeliski.org/Book/](http://szeliski.org/Book/)).

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm thinking of trying to recreate this - does anyone know if this is covered by a patent?

</comment><comment><USER64> awww. I always have mixed feeling about a new microsoft funded tech. Something really really cool that I will never get to use/exploit/play with/anything.

The technical video breaks down some of the techniques they used. Global match graph is particularly interesting. This technique alone could lead to a big improvement in timelapses, by trying to select consistent changes between frames.

[http://cg.cs.uni- bonn.de/aigaion2root/attachments/FastSimila...](http://cg.cs.uni- bonn.de/aigaion2root/attachments/FastSimilaritySearch.pdf) <\- maybe this?

</comment><comment><USER65> This looks like something Michel Gondry would've figured out manually 20 years ago with an 8mm camera and a paper cup or something.

That being said, it really does look amazing!

</comment><comment><USER66> One of the most impressive things I can recall seeing from Microsoft in years. Would absolutely love to have this as a cloud service or desktop app.

</comment><comment><USER67> Does anyone know how the match graph is created? (The part that is used to identify redundant frames). The paper barely mentions it.

</comment><comment><USER68> Now I wait for github repo with open source library or app that will create this videos.

<comment><USER69> same here

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Woah, very cool. I would love to see this applied to a SCUBA diving video.

</comment><comment><USER71> Very excited about this being released as a product. HURRY UP!

</comment><comment><USER72> wow i wanted this for a while

now to implement it open source ;)

</comment><comment><USER73> Is this Hamburg? "getrankemarkt" :)

<comment><USER74> Yes, it's altona nord.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> A GoPro timelapse is also called a prolapse.

<comment><USER76> How unfortunate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolapse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolapse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> wow this is incredible!

</comment><comment><USER78> Excellent work!

</comment><comment><USER79> i would pay to have that on a video player fast forward feature.

</comment><comment><USER80> still sucks

</comment><comment><USER81> why paper is 35MB?

</comment><comment><USER82> U

</comment><comment><USER83> Cool technology, applications?

</comment><comment><USER84> I'll be the immature one and say I'm curious how funny porn would turn out with this speeding it up by 10x. They don't show much of how it deals with people and I imagine the results would be terribly funny looking- but perhaps awesome.

Also, I will pay $$$ for this to use with my motorcycle footage from GoPros.

<comment><USER85> My guess is it doesn't work well with footage with cuts in it, it's probably meant for continuous shots (there are a few long ones in Hugo and Gravity for example, so this might be interesting input material). From how the climbers appear, porn would probably decompose into static images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Stunning effect, can anyone help me see the practical or entertainment-value use?

I'm also curious if anyone else got motion sickness while watching the video.

<comment><USER87> If I could just take out my iphone and lazily records a skateboard ride down manhattan, and then get this result, that would be incredibly compelling.

For a slightly more practical use this could be a tool to give people previews of hiking trails, tours, or routes they're about to take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Great tech. But it really just looks like a steady-cam sped up x10. I get the technical brilliance, but visually it's not terribly innovative.

</comment><comment><USER89> Now we need a little facial recognition so you can scan to where you meet your tagged friends... of course, there are other surveillance opportunities too.

</comment><comment><USER90> The server supports HTTPS, but the videos are improperly embedded resulting in mixed-content errors. This is disappointing.

<comment><USER91> Seriously, this is what you're going to talk about? Nothing about the technology? And it's "disappointing"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Nice results, but missing forest for the trees.

One of the by-products of this algorithm is fully textured 3d model representing filmed environment. Offering that as pure data dump, or even a manual process allowing user to control camera would be as valuable as fully automatic one-off timelapse no one ever watches (except maybe your granny).

What sounds better - a video tour of a house, or a 3D model of a house you can traverse however you like?

I wonder if 3 letter agencies have better structure from motion implementations a la "Enemy of the State" (Isnt it sad that this film turned out to be a documentary?). I suspect something like a 3d reconstruction of Boston Marathon (FBI did collect all video footage of the event) would be very helpful to the investigation.

<comment><USER93> Generating a 3D model of an environment from the output of a moving camera has been done. There is obviously a lot of improvement to be done in that department, and those projects are neat, but I think it's appropriate for this project to focus on what it adds to the scene, which is camera path smoothing.

<comment><USER94> Indeed it has, photosynth - I blogged about it before, [http://alicious.com/making-3d-models-from- photos/](http://alicious.com/making-3d-models-from-photos/), [http://photosynth.net/preview/view/6de2eb38-4e7e-424b-94a3-9...](http://photosynth.net/preview/view/6de2eb38-4e7e-424b-94a3-93a6f35712ef) \- which came from Microsoft Research. It looks like this is "just" the video version of what they were doing before with photosynth walkthroughs. Very impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Video stabilization + more FPS / slower rate than the "every 10 frames timelapse" \+ feel good inspirational music = this

I would guess that I could upload a shaky video to youtube to get it smoothed out, download it, and speed it up with similar to their rate and get similar results. The timelapse that they show that is so much worse uses way less frames of the raw footage (every 10th frame?) and goes way faster than their "hyperlapse". It isn't a fair comparison.

<comment><USER96> >I would guess that I could upload a shaky video to youtube to get it smoothed out, download it, and speed it up with similar to their rate and get similar results.

No you certainly wouldn't. Watch the technical video at the bottom of the page. It will explain why this is not trivial to do and why standard stabilisation technologies aren't useful to smooth out time lapses.

<comment><USER95> Well, I admit that I was pretty ignorant about the work being done on this project in regards to time-lapsed video. I guess I could add to my previous statement that they also cut out irrelevant frames (parts of the video that aren't in the camera path). I don't think this would be THAT difficult to do manually, but I admit that the technical video showing how they were able to graph/visualize the irrelevant frames is pretty cool, and the interesting resulting effects people are discussing in this thread (disappearing/appearing objects, the video game loading effects) are amusing.

I never said that it was trivial, just that similar stuff has already been done and made a "standard stabilization technology", automatically and easily just by uploading to youtube. It seems that youtube's techniques aren't necessarily completely different: there's a screenshot of an article from Google in this video [1] called "Auto-directed Video Stabilization With Robust L1 Optimal Camera Paths". However, I do appreciate and shouldn't disrespect the specialized work being done for time-lapsed videos. My apologies.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAdeuxkUyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAdeuxkUyY)</comment></comment></comment>