Measuring the Progress of AI Research - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/ai/metrics <comment><USER2> I'd add robot manipulation in unstructured situations. Progress has been very slow, but has picked up a little in recent years. Stanford vision-guided robot assembly, 1973.[1] DARPA robot manipulation project, 2012.[2]

[1] [https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump](https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeABMoYJGEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeABMoYJGEU)

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like a compendium of metrics for processes which AI is a making progress on now. Doing something like that seems like a fine idea - I can't judge the quality of these metrics but it's hard to be excited by this.

However, what I think would be interesting would be for researchers to make a compendium of "human abilities", classifying and quantifying them as well as possible. One could then analyze the progress which AI could make towards emulating those capacities.

Obviously, this would be a rather crude measure but it at least could give some idea of AI's toward new capacities.

</comment><comment><USER4> I made an alternative interface that displays the same data using D3: [https://jamesscottbrown.github.io/ai-progress- vis/index.html](https://jamesscottbrown.github.io/ai-progress-vis/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://rodrigob.github.io/are_we_there_yet/build/](https://rodrigob.github.io/are_we_there_yet/build/) is something similar, although last update was in Feb 2016.

<comment><USER6> This looks like it's about image mostly/only.

Here something similar for speech recognition: [https://github.com/syhw/wer_are_we](https://github.com/syhw/wer_are_we)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's no way we have reached human-level performance on image recognition tasks. My guess is that when there is ambiguity (e.g. 'ship' vs 'boat') the AI is better at learning the answer the labellers chose. Humans haven't looked through the training data so they use their real-life biases which may not match those of the labellers.

Just a guess, but whether that is true or not we're definitely not at human- level performance.

<comment><USER8> I think we're past human performance on imagenet, but one of the reasons for that might be categories like specific species of dog.

If I remember right, face recognition was passed a long time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Harvard Professor, "We are Building Artificial Brains and Uploading Minds to Cloud right now" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwyBmWxESA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwyBmWxESA)

</comment><comment><USER10> 1) No robotics? No interaction with the physical world at all?

2) No measure of the AI's ability to teach others? How can you say AI really understands if it can't then teach 1) what it has learned, and 2) understand what essential facts a tyro does not know or misunderstands?

3) No assessment of the AI's semantic interpretive skills, like those long emphasized by cognitive scientists, such as those in Doug Hofstadter's "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" \-- i.e. Miller analogies, double entendres, literary symbolism, poetry interpretation, and so on?

Without mastery of analogies, an AI will have all the cultural insightfulness of a portrait of leisuresuit Elvis in neon paint on velvet.

<comment><USER6> There is research in all those topics you mention. It's just missing there. But you could contribute and extend the list if you are familiar with these topics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to see a game with high complexity, long term planning, incomplete information etc in there as well, e.g. Star Craft.

<comment><USER12> Looks like 'bowling' is quite a challenge, for now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great compilation!</comment>


What should be my next step to become better programmer? - <AUTHOR> http://brianknapp.me/next-step-to-become-better-programmer/ <comment><USER2> I can relate to this. Self-taught programmer. People ask, "How did you teach yourself?" and my answer is always, "I built things and learned along the way."

>> _At the same time, the best programmers I've ever worked with had limited formal education. They had something far more useful…

The best programmers I've ever met are what I would call "builders". They always were building something. Even when they weren't coding, they were usually building something without code - like wood tables or renovating their bathroom or something like that._

I'm always amazed at the conflict between "the best programmers I've ever worked with had limited formal education" and the notion that the best engineers are those that make a lot of money and work at Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon, etc. Because it seems like the "builders" probably won't have the DS/Algo/CS knowledge required to get past the interviews of the Big Guys. Are the true "best programmers" a combination of the two?

<comment><USER3> I personally taught myself programming by reading and doing during high-school then got a formal CS education at university.

Currently working at one of the big guys as you call them, and I would say that many coworker seems to have a mix of formal education and self-education by building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Improve your English skills. Seriously.

<comment><USER5> Not all people have English as their first language.

<comment><USER4> I know. The OP asked how he could become a better programmer.</comment></comment></comment>


Heroku Alternative - My Managed Metal Private Cloud or Metal MVP - <AUTHOR>

My Managed Metal Private Cloud or Metal Alternative
Sick of the Heroku/EC2 magic and want your own dedicated VPS or server?
I'm very interested in starting a business to build an outsourced DevOps team and have been doing my own for years.
If you want a single server with a "standard" stack: Ubuntu, Postgresql, Rails, Passenger, Nginx, Nodejs then I would be happy to build the entire thing and manage it.  All I need from you is your ssh key and I'll give you the Capistrano config you need to deploy.  Done!  Want to add another app to your server?  Email me and I'll give you a new Capistrano script for you app.
I'll charge a $50/m premium on top of your deployment of choice which could be a) a Rackspace VPS, or a dedicated server on iWeb (starts at $79/m).
This is my MVP.  If this is popular I'll automate all of this.  But for now, I'm happy to help you get away from Heroku.
You can hit me up at email@example.com <comment><USER2> I would be interested in hearing how much interest there is in an alternative, and if there are any medium to big users who are looking into migrating away now.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure. I don't have experience in large server farms but I would imagine one could do far better going that route than Heroku in the $5k plus range.</comment></comment>


9 Programmer Cartoons that Will Make You LOL - <AUTHOR> http://ryanfrankel.com/9-programmer-cartoons-will-make-lol/

<comment><USER2> I only counted 8. I even checked to see if they started at 0. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhhh, I deleted one before I posted it. A zero index is a great idea for next time lol!</comment></comment>


Blame Zoning, Not Tech, for San Francisco's Housing Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/03/are-wealthy-neighborhoods-to-blame-for-gentrification-of-poorer-ones/473349/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticCities+%28CityLab%29 <comment><USER2> Honestly, the end of the article gets into what's actually necessary to change to fix the housing situation. There's a ton of locally-optimal but globally- detrimental decisions to not build places - so what's necessary is a regional zoning czar for the Bay Area that can tell people to shut the hell up and allow people to build.

Nobody really has the power to do this, and the voters are demanding NIMBY policies, so I'm not holding my breath. The next best strategy is coming up with an acceptable measure of how many people a certain plot of land "should" house and taxing/subsidizing landowners based on how much housing they actually provide on the land. That's technically not an ad-valorem tax, so would dodge Prop 13, while still pricing out people who really should make room for better use of the land.

<comment><USER3> That's an amazingly good idea imo.

<comment><USER2> The devil's in the details. It's hard to come up with measures and targets that are both fair and easily communicable.

If you go with number of people, well, that's the wrong measure (and hard to enforce // easy to fake). Number of bedrooms is also incorrect, as is square footage. Number of rentable units is also weird, since it encourages studio apartments and the like at the expense of splitting bigger units and sharing areas.

Another option is using a baseline of "however many people currently live there", but that favors parking lot owners and the like. "Average density of the local region" is unfair in that it suddenly imposes a new cost on the density hold-outs.

You can calculate a target based on something like distance-to-transit and local zones, but that gets complicated and political in a hurry. Land-value would be a good choice, since the price conveys really useful information - but that is likely illegal due to proposition 13.

My next-best idea is collective punishment: charge zoning districts based on the difference between how their residential and commercial/industrial construction. Mountain View is much less likely to vote to let Google expand their campus while blocking commensurate housing construction if it means they have to start subsidizing the places those workers start commuting from.

<comment><USER4> "Once it reaches a certain threshold, the process of institutionalization becomes counter-productive." \- Ivan Illich

This is an example of why planning doesn't work. And the unforeseen side- effect of any policy is an example of why central control is not just inefficient but often counter-productive -- why hiring processes to identify high-capacity creative individuals select for the opposite; why the school system produces not learning but limits it so as to produce ignorance; why housing policies aim to improve cities and lower inequality makes cities like San Francisco and Stockholm some of the most unequal in the world.

[http://p2pfoundation.net/Counterproductivity](http://p2pfoundation.net/Counterproductivity)

<comment><USER5> _This is an example of why planning doesn 't work._

You misunderstand.

Any system taken to its logical extreme then becomes its opposite.

Ivan Illich advises pragmatism over dogma.

<comment><USER4> You're right. My comment went a bit far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No matter where you'd like to pin the blame for the SF housing crisis, be it zoning, NIMBYism, new money, gentrification, or anything else, there is one thing I think we can be pretty confident about:

The only _solution_ to the problem is for the city to build its way out of it.

There is no rent control regime that will, in the medium term, prevent money from ultimately swamping local concerns. Real estate is a good, not a moral principle, and most people who own real estate have a number.

I would be interested in anyone with a counterexample of a US metro area that withstood sustained market interest, without extensive new building, without skyrocket housing prices and the demographic shifts that come with them.

<comment><USER7> Talking to a few activists about this solution and most of them say that "building your way" out of it only makes sense if you are also building affordable housing.

I don't see a builder voluntarily building low-cost housing in the Mission district, just more luxury condos. A municipal ordinance that removes restrictions while imposing a requirement to build affordable housing along with more luxury condos might be the right solution.

<comment><USER8> > Talking to a few activists about this solution and most of them say that > "building your way" out of it only makes sense if you are also building > affordable housing.

They are incorrect. Building luxury housing will take some of the demand pressure off of non-luxury housing (which constitutes the vast majority of the housing in San Francisco), thereby lowering its price.

The only way this wouldn't work is if nobody could afford to live in the new luxury housing. But we know for sure that there are plenty of people who want to, can afford to, and are moving into the newer luxury developments as soon as they are available. The lower-quality housing those people move out of is now available for people who can't afford the new luxury housing.

<comment><USER9> > They are incorrect. Building luxury housing will take some of the demand > pressure off of non-luxury housing (which constitutes the vast majority of > the housing in San Francisco), thereby lowering its price.

Nothing stops capital from rushing into non-luxury housing, acquiring it, and then renting it at new "market rates".

You will need to swamp SFBA with housing (tens of thousands of new units a year) in order to drive down market prices.

<comment><USER8> Non-luxury housing is already being rented at market rates, except for the rent-controlled units, but those are effectively not part of the liquid housing market anyway because the tenants won't leave. Hence the recent increase in landlords trying to force the tenants out, so the housing can be rented at the market rate, like all other housing already is.

Everything I wrote presupposes that all housing is rented at the market rate, including the non-luxury housing.

I suppose you put quotes around "market rates" as a form of sarcasm, but aside from rent-controlled units, all housing rents at the equilibrium market rate determined by supply and demand. If someone jacks up the price of older apartments and is still able to find tenants, all that proves is that those apartments had been rented out at a price below the market rate before now. The market rate is quite simply the amount people are willing to pay.

<comment><USER9> > I suppose you put quotes around "market rates" as a form of sarcasm, but > aside from rent-controlled units, all housing rents at the equilibrium > market rate determined by supply and demand. If someone jacks up the price > of older apartments and is still able to find tenants, all that proves is > that those apartments had been rented out at a price below the market rate > before now. The market rate is quite simply the amount people are willing to > pay.

Hence, my quotes around "market rate". The tech industry can afford to keep pouring salaries into employee pockets, therefore, tech workers will always be able to price out non-tech workers seeking affordable rents in the bay area.

You will never be able to outbuild what Facebook, Google, and the like can pay their workers. Zoning is not the issue, a slanted labor market is. And the tech labor market will continue to soak up whatever housing comes onto the market.

<comment><USER10> The Seattle and Denver metros are managing to keep a lower deficit of available housing than the SF Bay Area.

The high salaries of developers in the Bay Area are a reaction to that feedback loop. The companies you listed offer lower salaries to workers outside of the Bay Area, using what they call Prevailing Market Rate to determine pay bands.

I don't really understand why Apple, Facebook, Google, et al. spend so much money on hiring in the Bay Area instead of hiring aggressively outside of it in cheaper regions. Are they benefiting from the network effect anymore? I can understand startups needing to be close to VC funding sources, but how does it benefit the larger players?

<comment><USER8> Quite a few of the best software engineers in the world live in the Bay Area and do not want to leave, and the larger players want to hire them. They could hire engineers elsewhere for a lot less money, but they want to hire these specific engineers, and are willing to pay what it takes.

<comment><USER9> > Quite a few of the best software engineers in the world live in the Bay Area > and do not want to leave, and the larger players want to hire them. They > could hire engineers elsewhere for a lot less money, but they want to hire > these specific engineers, and are willing to pay what it takes.

Unless its more financially advantageous to train new engineers then keep paying the ones in SFBA? 7 billion people? Its not like only the brilliant ones are in SF.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't quite work like that... being a brilliant engineer isn't a matter of "training". And because of the attraction factor, yes, a lot of the brilliant ones end up in the bay area. For years the only place to do cutting edge tech was here, and it's pulled them in, from far away. Out of the country even.

So more than you think in fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People don't want the truth, they wan't someone to blame. Rich 20-something white males from out of town are a very convenient and easy target.

 _Brogrammers ruining this city._

<comment><USER13> Oh, the "bros" (and less sardonically, the tech crowd in general -- independent of age, ethnicity and gender) themselves aren't to blame. They are but passive agents.

However, the influx of their _paychecks_ is quite obviously a factor. Attempts to deny this fact are just that... denial.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, the middle class is such a damper on this city. How dare the middle class want to live in the Bay Area.

Also, let's completely ignore that medical wages are _higher_ on average than tech in the city, and that the major redevelopment of China Basin s/Mission Bay/ was spurned by the med sector of the economy; tech worker's middle-class wages are to blame.

<comment><USER13> A $120k median salary definitely isn't "middle class."

And there's been nothing like an influx of medical workers that would any way be comparable to the tech influx since the start of the century.

EDIT: Also, medical workers, though larger as a force head-count wise, appear to have decidedly lower median salaries ($67k) than to tech workers. Based on some quick searches, my guesstimate above appears to have been a bit off, but not by much -- and only when we include the non-engineering component of "tech" workers (i.e. marketing and regular admin types).

In any case there definitely appears to be a significant gap between the two industries, in terms of median salary.

<comment><USER10> > A $120k median salary definitely isn't "middle class."

In the San Francisco Bay Area, it is.

The median household income for SF residents is $78,378. [1]

However, to purchase a home at the median price ($682,410), a family must make $115,510. [2]

One article suggests the ceiling for middle class in the Bay Area is $170k. [3]

It appears your focus is nationwide, and not regional.

[1] [http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/map/PST045214/06075](http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/map/PST045214/06075)

[2] [http://blog.sfgate.com/pender/2014/02/18/how-much-income- do-...](http://blog.sfgate.com/pender/2014/02/18/how-much-income-do-you-need- to-buy-a-home-in-the-bay-area/)

[3] [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/03/19/394057221/how-m...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/03/19/394057221/how- much-or-little-the-middle-class-makes-in-30-u-s-cities)

Edit: added [3]

<comment><USER14> What in the world? You're not buying a $682K house on a $115K salary. Not a chance. That's like 6x your salary. Isn't the rule of thumb no more than 3x? Assuming 20% down, what lender in their right mind is going to lend you 4.5x+ your salary to buy a house?

<comment><USER15> You can do much less than 20% down; you can get away with 5% down (with mortgage insurance).

In my experience, lenders will actually lend you past what is a good idea for you. It's possible to purchase the house on that income....if you spend all your money on it and nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I used to support the view articulated in this article, but I'm more skeptical now.

If higher density were the solution I would expect to see highly dense cities have cheaper real estate than less dense cities. Instead, it's just the opposite.

That's because of the other side of the economic equation: demand.

And therein lies the devil. I hypothesize that increasing the supply of housing in a city actually increases demand in such a way that the supply increase has little downward effect on housing costs.

It makes sense why this is the case. If more people live in a city, then there's more people who are likely to move there. If you know a bunch of classmates who are all moving to San Francisco after graduation that's going to make you more likely to move to San Francisco too.

So yes, supply exerts downward pressure on housing costs, but I would bet that heigthened density then causes a near commensurate increase in demand such that the supply increase has little effect.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that the increased density is happening _anyway_.

It isn't that if we build more housing, more people will come, which will bring more people in an exponential cycle. The reality is that tech workers are coming _anyway_ , and paying whatever is required of them to live in SF. They aren't being stopped by high rents, because high as they are, they can afford them.

However, they are raising prices for people that can't afford it. That pushes other people out.

The result is that whether we build or not, tech workers will live in the city. Building more won't bring more of them. The only question is whether other people can live there too.

<comment><USER18> Similarly, I used to think that terrible traffic would discourage growth. Not really... people's tolerance is surprisingly high.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm curious, how does a place like Hong Kong handle this? It's another large city that's locked on 3 sides by water (they do have other islands but I imagine the population is not signifiant on those).

I know rent in the city even in the fancy condos is expensive but they still have their working class workers. Where do they live?

<comment><USER20> > It's another large city that's locked on 3 sides by water

Or Manhattan, for that matter.

<comment><USER21> In Manhattan's case, there's a generally good public transit system that lets people commute to (relatively) inexpensive communities like Queens fairly easily.

<comment><USER13> Right -- which tends to moderate the up-ending effects of rising real estate costs in NYC to a significant degree.

That, and the fact that (within city limits) public transit is much more affordable than BART (plus whatever secondary transit needed to get to/from BART).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I live on the "urban frontier" in Oakland (east side of Lake Merritt) and it's pretty nice, I don't feel endangered at all.

South of me there's just huge swaths of residential and commercial land that can be developed - and I think will be developed. The main problem is that there are not enough professional/middle class people living there now. But once some move in, more will follow (as has happened in other parts of Oakland).

My point is that the Bay Area has quite a bit of capacity for further development once you step out of SF.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure why San Francisco being an enormously popular place that lots of people want to live in is a reason why we need to raze San Francisco and build something else there instead, vs. and not a reason why we shouldn't go to one of the many other shite places that everyone hates, raze that, and build more San Francsico.

Other than myopic entitlement, I mean.

</comment><comment><USER10> The amount of tech workers buying up housing is also up for debate. Though this article focuses on cash transactions (perhaps mortgaged ones don't contain occupational data?), it paints a picture of other white collar professions performing the majority of cash purchases of housing in the Bay Area.

The data was taken from a company that controls 10% of the real estate market in the Bay Area.

[http://realestateconsulting.com/tech-buyers-only-a-small- por...](http://realestateconsulting.com/tech-buyers-only-a-small-portion-of- san-francisco-bay-area-cash-transactions/)

<comment><USER13> Some of them -- most likely the majority -- _rent_ also, you know.

<comment><USER10> Right, so how could they be responsible for pushing up housing prices if most are renting?

<comment><USER13> Gosh, I don't know. Maybe housing prices and market rents are like... _related_ somehow?

<comment><USER10> Could you flesh out your point instead of simply repeating it?

<comment><USER23> The sale price of a house is always going to be capped by how much you could make instead by renting it. If the average rental makes $45K a year nobody would sell that house for $250K.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cash inflows from overseas are also a major contributor. The exemption of real estate from money laundering regulations makes it a sink for a lot of shady revenues.

<comment><USER25> Are there any pieces of data quantifying how much of an effect this is having in San Francisco?

<comment><USER10> There's a very small amount of data available. It suggests that international purchasers are around 6% of the total cash buyers of real estate.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270279)

<comment><USER24> It is somewhat frequent for the buyer to be local, and the money to come from overseas. Son buys a house with his dad's dubious-origin money.

And given the lack of required information & intentional ignorance ("so, Mr. Boriskypov, would you describe yourself as an oligarch?") I'm not sure how that dataset could reliably identify "international" purchasers.

<comment><USER10> The dataset was from a real estate company's reports from individual realtors. I'm confident the realtors know the origin of money.

I think a more appropriate criticism would be to focus on the narrow class of purchases (cash only) or small sample size (n=300, though the company represents 10% of the real estate market in the SF Bay Area). Unfortunately, it's the only published information I could find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't get it. Why does everyone need to live in San Francisco?

The real story here is poor commuting infrastructure. Not enough of it and the existing is slow or unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER27> Sure, but if you have high prices and high demand, that's driven by money. Where's the money coming from? And, what happens when the money runs out?

<comment><USER28> A year or two ago, ~8% of SF's population worked "in tech".

It seems like median tech salaries are in the _very_ low six-figure range. 120k/year gross will (assuming no car or loan expenses) pay for -at most- $3500/month rent with typical utilities, Internet, and food expenditures. Even then, that leaves you with $2,500/ _year_ to save for emergencies or retirement.

Where's the money coming from? It's likely _not_ coming from the majority of tech workers.

What happens when it runs out? I... really don't know. Whatever happens, it will take _quite_ some time for landlords to adjust their rates to match the new reality. In the interim, I would expect even _more_ "grassroots" hate generated for tech workers.

<comment><USER27> It doesn't have to come from the majority--the fact that there's a lot of it is what causes the distortions. I live in Cambridge, and there's a lot of money going through the biotech sector--that money is surely as unevenly distributed as the tech money in SF, but it's a lot of money going through a small space. Sure, you can build more housing where you can squeeze it in, but as long as the money hose is going full blast, there's no way to keep up with it.

The other problem that kind of gets lost here is that we have a few places where there is a lot of money, there are jobs, housing shortages, etc., and a lot of places in the country where the opposite is true. And that's not really good. I don't think it's really sustainable to think that a few coastal cities are going to be able to accommodate everyone who would like to live and/or work in them. We could actually relieve some of the pressure on these cities by making _other cities_ more desirable destinations.

<comment><USER21> Bingo. This sort of dynamic has played out forever, but whatever the flaws in housing policy in today's shiny locales, not everyone can live there however perfect housing and construction policies were (and, of course, not everyone will agree on what constitutes perfection). The good news is that this is somewhat self-correcting. To the degree that a locale becomes unsupportably expensive, people and jobs start shifting to other areas. Adding a million housing units to San Francisco and the South Bay isn't going to happen anytime soon whoever is setting policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have a basic question about prop 13. I though the point of not increasing property assessments is so that if rich people start bidding house prices around you, your property taxes don't start to increase.

But as I dug into this, this doesn't make sense. The community has certain expenses. These get divided based on the value of the homes. If all homes double in price but the community expenses stay the same, it is irrelevant to have different assessment amounts on homes. I've heard the term "mil rate" and am not sure what that is, but is perhaps relevant. Any experts willing to clarify?

<comment><USER30> "Mil rate" the number of thousandths of the property value assessed in tax each year. i.e. 20 mils = 2% of the annual property value is taxed. The actual property tax owed is rate x assessments.

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

<comment><USER29> Cool. That makes sense. Is there a reason they use 1000? Just convenience/convention?

Also .. my question about prop 13 stands. Curious why increasing home values would cause an issue if municipal spending stays constant?

<comment><USER31> > Is there a reason they use 1000? Just convenience/convention?

Because the mill(e) is the smallest unit of currency in the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Zoning is a demand-side control residents use to raise rents and housing prices. Tech is a supply-side control residents use.

In other cities and countries, Tech is a proxy for Immigration -- it could be any industry drawing people in. There's other cities in the US, as well as virtually all of them in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where the twin controls of demand-side zoning and supply-side immigration are used to raise housing costs, both sale prices and rents.

In New Zealand, because the largest city, Auckland, and the smaller ones surrounding it make up over half the country's population, this is seen very clearly because the city government and national government are virtually the same thing. Government representatives speak in a wink wink nudge nudge manner, talking about fast-tracking new housing stock in Auckland and controlling immigration, but making sure house owners know they're not serious so they don't lose votes.

So we should blame both demand-side Zoning _and_ supply-side Tech (i.e. Immigration) for housing crises.

</comment><comment><USER33> Building up SF or SV is not the solution, High Speed Rail is the solution. Get on a HSR train, travel 20 - 40 miles out of the city in under 30 minutes. People would still have access to SF, SV and the jobs but would be scattered upwards of 40 - 60 miles from SF, SV. It also fixes NIMBY; you can either have HSR or be surrounded by large apartment blocks.

<comment><USER34> NIMBYs would just fight both. CEQA has been used to block public transit options all over the state.

<comment><USER35> Now _this_ is the real tragedy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Low density zoning—especially suburban, single family zoning—is tantamount to segregation. We must end it. It forces people who want to save money by purchasing less land to live somewhere else. That is, it forces lower-income people to live in different neighborhoods than higher-income people. And given America's racial disparities in income, these laws segregate by race, too.

[https://medium.com/@niranbabalola/we-must-repeal-our- segrega...](https://medium.com/@niranbabalola/we-must-repeal-our-segregation- laws-32348d090520)

</comment><comment><USER37> I just wish the tech industry had taken root somewhere less NIMBYish that actually wanted growth and I'm hoping that SF gets what it wants and the tech industry just leaves.

<comment><USER21> The Bay area has grown enormously. There were fruit orchards in Silicon Valley not (relatively speaking) all that long ago. No, I don't see the tech industry leaving. A lot of people like the Bay area for reasons that have nothing to do with tech jobs. It's also the case however that it's simply not possible (or desirable) for everyone in tech to work and live in a geographically constrained peninsula and people/companies need to deal with that reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This week I saw exactly one building under construction between SFO and Menlo Park. That's utterly insane. I should have seen a couple dozen just from the highway.

<comment><USER8> You should have got off the freeway. There is new construction everywhere in Redwood City, for example.

Most of the 101 corridor has been built up for decades. The construction is not happening right next to the freeway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> As someone from outside the US with no horse in the race, I'm seriously annoyed that entrenched landowners work hard to prevent new construction and that in turn keeps housing unaffordable for a generation of young people that are already worse off than their parents. Thanks guys...

</comment><comment><USER40> It is mind-numbing the extent to which everyone playing a role in this housing crisis wants to wriggle out of their share of the blame more than they want to actually solve the problem.

I was one of the people constantly seeking a single source of blame for this until I read a book about systems thinking. Completely changed my life. The problem is I now see how the competing interests of all the players make this an almost completely intractable problem.

A huge influx of highly-paid workers _is_ partially to blame for the housing crisis. So are activists who prevent any new construction. So are politicians who make policies making new construction prohibitively expensive. Etc etc etc. Everyone plays a role, but nobody wants to give anything up, so the people who lose, as always, are the people who are already marginalized.

We need less writing like this and more writing that gives people a bird's-eye view of the entire problem.

<comment><USER41> > Everyone plays a role, but nobody wants to give anything up,

I'm just curious, but what could new tech workers give up, exactly?

Entrenched local interests could ease up on building restrictions. That's what they'd give up.

Politicians who make anti-construction policies could stop doing that. That's what they'd give up.

I don't understand what migrants like myself (a programmer who moved here a few years ago to work at a startup) are supposed to give up.

<comment><USER40> Instead of getting involved in bidding wars for apartments in prized locations and driving up the price, you could choose to live somewhere a little further away and commute, for instance.

Or VCs could give up forcing all of their portfolio companies to move to San Francisco and allow people to build businesses wherever they are.

Or tech CEOs could give up having everyone in the office and allow people to work from wherever they want.

Speaking for myself, I gave up a whole lot of comfort to live in a construction site while I'm building a tiny house in a friend's backyard. I am adding to the housing stock, instead of increasing the price of the existing housing stock.

<comment><USER42> > Instead of getting involved in bidding wars for apartments in prized > locations and driving up the price, you could choose to live somewhere a > little further away and commute, for instance.

OK. Say I do that. Are you going to thank me for it? Am I just going to be reviled by a slightly different set of NIMBYs? Am I going to still get lectured about how I'm personally to blame for ruining everything about someone's multiple-decade-old memories?

In order, the answers are: no, yes, and yes.

<comment><USER40> Are you doing something to make a difference, or because you want to be personally rewarded for it? If you want a medal, go train for the olympics.

<comment><USER42> I'm punished the same no matter what personal sacrifices I do - or don't - make out of concern for other people and a desire to make a difference.

If the people I'm trying to help are going to _actively punish me_ for trying to help them, I'm going to quickly conclude they don't want my help. I was taught that it's incredibly rude to force help on people who don't want it. Since that is indeed what's happening, it's clearly time for me to stop trying to help.

Thank you for helping me to this moment of moral clarity. I really do mean that sincerely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> To really put this to the test, could we compare with cities in the bay area with different zoning laws? I know there are tons of places around here where housing prices have gone up like mad. Are the ones with more lax zoning exceptions?

</comment><comment><USER44> San Francisco is going to be begging for the tech industry to return after it has all left because the city failed to accommodate employees with housing.

</comment><comment><USER45> this is a myth perpetuated by "urbanists" and developer shills. none of the new construction is "affordable". you can't build your way out of this problem. desirable areas will always be expensive.

infrastructure and improved transit are the solutions to these problems, not more housing.

</comment><comment><USER46> Whether to blame the supply or demand side seems almost like a philosophical question.

<comment><USER47> OK, but some philosophical questions have reasonably clear answers. Here's the philosophical difference. There's a realistic solution to zoning laws: fight hard to remove them. There's no "solution" that involves slowing down or constraining the growth of technology. That would not be a solution, that would be be a disaster. Therefore, appropriate moral blame rests on zoning, not tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What a simplistic article.

Any examination of the housing woes in SF will reveal multiple factors, playing out over decades. And yes, "new money" is definitely one of them.

<comment><USER48> Which the article says, "The new wealthy are ruining everything because the old wealthy decided not to let them live anywhere near them."

<comment><USER13> No it doesn't.

It points to only two factors, and clearly implies that zoning (the decisions of "the old wealthy") was the more important of the two.

As if decades of voting patterns in this (once) famously and beautifully economically diverse city might not have also had something to do with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The Author is 1/2 Right

>The answer is to build. Build more fucking housing, just like Nolan says. But the answer is also to zone: To take away land-use decisions from neighborhoods

that is where the statement should end, Take away land-use decisions from neighborhoods, and put them in the hands of property owners, if a developer wants to build something on land they legally acquired, then they should be free to do so even if the neighbors do not like it

<comment><USER50> That's completely idiotic. Communities are completely within their right to dictate terms of their community. If prospective owners don't like the rules, they shouldn't purchase.

<comment><USER49> If the rules are put in place pre-sale, with the agreement of the owners wishing to sell sure..

My problem is that communities change the rules with out the consent of the property owners. I do not believe in Democracy, I do not believe that 50.1% of a community has the ethical right to impose rules on the other 49.9% of a community

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I still hate the playas</comment>


Google Threatens 9to5Google.com to delete post mentioning youtube downloaded - <AUTHOR>

Is this some kind of arm twisting?If you can watch a video, whats wrong if you download it? Making money out of those videos is a wrong thing.
Google being evil here
See Here- http://9to5google.com/2013/10/22/google-now-threatening-to-pull-adsense-accounts-of-those-who-mention-youtube-downloaders/ <comment><AUTHOR> Screenshot of the app posting here- [http://9to5google.com/2013/10/22/google- now-threatening-to-p...](http://9to5google.com/2013/10/22/google-now- threatening-to-pull-adsense-accounts-of-those-who-mention-youtube- downloaders/apple-ipad-event-2013-2013-10-22-at-3-30-33-pm/)

This app has been pulled down by the app store too.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not quite to delete the post but to at least not run adsense around it, adsense TOS states that it won't support tools that promote violating Google TOS which would include the download of non CC videos from youtube.

The automated system may have been a bit overzealous in this instance though.

<comment><USER3> This is something I've never quite grasped. To stream a video is to download it. The difference here simply being the moving of the cached video to more permanent storage, allowing the video to be viewed offline. For a video that is available online at any time, for free, it seems that there can be no distinction between the download and the stream. If Google are trying to preserve their monetisation through ads then there is a clear disconnect between this punishment and those ads. The video content being downloaded is not a direct revenue producer for them, the ad is. This seems to boil down to content consumers being punished for ad evasion, which is completely understandable and innocent practise. If Google think they are missing out on revenue from ad evaders they really need to think about that segment's motivations (read:they don't like ads).

To then punish a site that merely mentions the downloading, and the punishment being an Adsense block is incredibly out of order. Youtube cannot dictate the content of another site. So so evil, their motto is being revealed for the smokescreen it is.

<comment><USER4> > For a video that is available online at any time, for free, it seems that > there can be no distinction between the download and the stream.

But of course there is a big distinction: Google _controls_ the stream; it doesn't control the downloaded video. With control, it can choose to a) force you to watch an ad (as you mentioned), it can b) pull a video for any reason, including copyright infringement, content objection, failure to pay a subscriber fee, etc., c) ask _you_ to be a subscriber, for either a cost or at least registration, etc. None of that is possible if the video goes out into the wild and can be, for example, freely traded among users through file sharing or, worse, alternate video hosting and streaming by a competitor.

The videos trove is their treasure, and they guard it.</comment></comment></comment>


Federal court tosses Colorado's Amazon tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20316979/federal-court-tosses-colorados-amazon-tax

<comment><AUTHOR> Notwithstanding a possible Colorado appeal, what has been Amazon's habit with similar rulings? Are they likely to reinstate Colorado affiliates?</comment>


The My BMW Remote App stinks, so I fixed it. - <AUTHOR> http://natelyman.com/the-my-bmw-remote-app-stinks-so-i-fixed-it/

<comment><USER2> Good luck, man. The app looks awesome and I hope BMW gives you their blessing to publish it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds awesome! Hope to be able to try your app one day!</comment>


Sprint Launches "iPhone for Life" Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-09/sprint-s-iphone-for-life-plan-lets-users-upgrade-every-2-years.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's interested to see phone companies try to disrupt their industries without really changing their (very profitable) business models too much.

While, yes, unlimited data and a new iPhone every two years sounds like a great deal -- and "iPhone for Life" certainly appears to be novel -- I'm not sure how much different this really is from the normal subsidized upgrade plan that most contractual carriers offer.</comment>


America Needs a Divorce (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alannoah79/america-needs-a-divorce-fdb1e37f2575 <comment> xkcd-sucks It's rather shocking the American Civil War and Confederate States of America aren't mentioned in this article</comment>


The Case of the Unusable Django Reusable - <AUTHOR> http://sigusr2.net/2009/Jul/22/case-of-the-unusable-reusable.html#disqus_thread

<comment><USER2> This actually highlights a small problem with the Django ORM: outer joins. select_related() is great when you want to follow a foreign key, but it doesn't work on reverse foreign keys or many to many relationships.

So, if you have a blogging app with entries and comments, you can't do Entry.objects.select_related('comment_set'). However, it does work the other way (Comment.objects.select_related('entry')). Basically, the issue is that when you're doing multiple multi-value lookups, making them into objects becomes difficult because of the rows that SQL returns. Let's say that you were trying to look up both the comments and tags at the same time. You'd get:

      Entry--Comment--Tag
      1      sam      blue
      1      sam      red
      1      sam      green
      1      mat      blue
      1      mat      red
      1      mat      green
      1      jon      blue
      1      jon      red
      1      jon      green
      2      adam     fun
      2      adam     party

Turning that into an object isn't trivial because you don't have the comment from "sam" three times. It's only there once, but appears in the results set three times because you get join1rows * join2rows in terms of the number of rows returned. And that's an example of two reverse foreign keys with minimal related data. The issue is that it would be easy to shoot one's self in the foot with even more joins.

Rails used to do outer joins and then choke (go really slow) if you did something really complex. It now uses an IN() query when you hit the first accessor.

I'd still like to see Django support this case as it's a decently common thing to want to do with an application. At the very least, select_related() should raise an error when you try to specify a reverse foreign key that it won't follow. Many people think it follows reverse foreign keys because it gives no indication that it doesn't unless you look at the queries that it's running.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the case of a blog though, there aren't many instances when you pull all the comments for every post. Tags, sure, but the most you normally need for comments is the count. There's two ways to approach this.

1) you use extra, or the new aggregate framework (that I haven't tested out) 2) you keep track of a comment_count in your Entry model and probably create a post_save callback on your Comment model.

The tags on the other hand are much more difficult, and I haven't figured out a great way to handle this except for saving a pre-rendered version of an entry, or saving a cached version of the tags as JSON (in addition to actually relating them) in the Entry instance. But, this of course means you need to jump through some other hoops to prepare this.

And all these hoops really speaks to ORMs not being very effective in all cases.</comment></comment>


Open Startups List - <AUTHOR> https://open-startups.xyz/ <comment><USER2> As it is, the website is a usability nightmare. Why should opening regular links be Javascript functions? There is no tab navigation, you can't use accessibility tools and you can't use any mouse interactions besides the hardcoded click event.

It's a nice idea, but I'm really surprised that even a page as simple as this can suffer from over engineering.

<comment><USER3> > Why should opening regular links be Javascript functions?

This is annoying me in the youtube redesign as well. When you visit a channel you can't open the "videos" tab in a new tab because it's implemented as a javascript thing instead of a proper link.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, this trend is pretty lame. For me, now it's often hard to just cut/paste a string to enter a search different tab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a bunch of other lists of open startups:

[https://baremetrics.com/open-startups](https://baremetrics.com/open-startups)

[https://postmake.io/open](https://postmake.io/open)

</comment><comment><USER6> I love this movement / idea.

I am however interested in what people feel the benefits are to the companies who decide to operate in this manner?

<comment><USER7> Andy from Tettra here. We recently made all our metrics public using Baremetrics. We're very transparent internally and decided to be transparent externally too. You can check out our metrics here: [https://tettra.baremetrics.com/](https://tettra.baremetrics.com/)

The honest answer is that when we asked ourselves the true downsides of people outside our company knowing our numbers, we couldn't really think of any that were actually that detrimental. Sure, potential investors or acquirers are now going to know how we're doing, but they'd find that out in due diligence anyways.

The thinking for why we made the decision to share is that it helps us with marketing because people want to follow along with our story. It also holds us more accountable because we're building in the open, similar to a public company. We get a lot of people who reach out that want to work for us or partner with us because we share so much. Happy to answer more questions if folks are interested.

<comment><USER6> Thanks Andy, do you think this makes sense for B2B and B2C companies to the same level? Do you think there are certain product categories which do not fit into the model, i.e less developer focused?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see an explanation anywhere, what is an "open startup"?

<comment> duncan-donuts From the subheading of the site.

> All these startups and side projects are building out in the open. Check > them out!

I think this definition is a little lose though. I went to try and see the Muzeek source code and the only thing I found was open source SDKs. I wouldn't call that building in the open

<comment><USER9> Apparently it has nothing to do with open source, bur open business practices and metrics.

A bit of a hijack of the word "open" but I'll be generous and say "naming is hard".

<comment><USER10> If I have to pay money to use something, it's not open. It's a total cooption

<comment><USER11> What happened to "free as in speech, not free as in beer"?

<comment><USER10> I don't have to pay to speak either

<comment><USER11> That's true, but not what they mean by that saying. It's distinguishing between the two common usages of "free" to clarify that free and open-source software isn't about price.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre#%22Free_be...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre#%22Free_beer%22_vs_%22freedom_of_speech%22_distinction)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm doing this right now! Well sort of - I'm blogging [0] about trying to build [https://boxci.dev](https://boxci.dev) from just an idea to a product with paying customers in 10 weeks, with the aim of recording the whole process transparently. I'm 3 weeks in.

I'm doing it while following along with the YC Startup School program, and writing about applying the learnings from there in practice is one of the goals of the blog. Hopefully it'll be entertaining / useful for fellow hackers and bootstrappers in the community.

[0] [https://davnicwil.com/zero-to-startup-in-ten- weeks](https://davnicwil.com/zero-to-startup-in-ten-weeks)

</comment><comment><USER13> Open business startups (I think), not open source

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of the (mind-blowing) book "Honest Business: A Superior Strategy for Starting and Managing Your Own Business" by Salli Rasberry and Michael Phillips

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/honest-business-a-superior- st...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/honest-business-a-superior-strategy-for- starting-and-managing-your-own-business/oclc/33101415)

</comment><comment><USER15> Opening this on Firefox mobile with js off by default. Half empty page, ok I'll turn js on. Then the scroll just changed on the end of a scrolling swipe, damn that's not user friendly. Like, I tap down, swipe to scroll, and when releasing it Scrolls by a few items.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey lecarore, not sure I understand whats happening to you once you turn js on. If you can spare a couple of minutes, can you send me an email with a screenshot or recording? email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is also Alephobjects creators the Lulzbot 3D printers. I'm not sure about the start-up thing but they are making open hardware and they are very open about their modus operandi and finance. Does this work?

</comment><comment><USER17> I see the financial data is validated by Stripe, but how would this compare to, for example, a 10-Q or 10-K? Is the Stripe data a complete representation of the financial state of these businesses?

</comment><comment><USER18> Something I would love to see is how much it costs to keep some of these smaller startups running. Cushion app used to do this and it was really great.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like [https://macopenweb.com/](https://macopenweb.com/) too!

</comment><comment><USER20> Er, the first couple listed were created by the same guy. Did that same guy create open-startups.xyy and/or is OP?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I'm ordering them by the number of clicks they get. None of these startups are mine.

You can see a screenshot of my Google Analytics data here: [https://ibb.co/THtnDtX](https://ibb.co/THtnDtX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have you seen [https://www.equityfront.com/](https://www.equityfront.com/)? You can use it to easily share startup updates and monthly results with the world.</comment>


U.S. Spy Rocket Has Octopus-Themed 'Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach' Logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/12/05/u-s-spy-rocket-launching-today-has-octopus-themed-nothing-is-beyond-our-reach-logo-seriously/print/ <comment><USER2> Completely unsurprising, but still kind of awkward given recent events.</comment>


KillerStartups is now Startups.com - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/28/startups-com-now-offers-daily-deals-for-online-business-owners/

<comment><USER2> I often wonder if there is there any volume at all in businesses that sell to startups. The startup market as a whole has to be pretty small. The startup market that will actually buy something has to be smaller still (I'd reckon a lot of startups would rather than make it themselves or use free software).

</comment><comment><USER3> All the sites mentioned seem sketchy to me because none of the FAQs or 'About' pages list any real person names.

It strikes me as odd that a mere sign-up page with a vague and cheesy promo video rates a TechCrunch article – an article with no details about the people, products, investors, etc. involved.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not true that Killerstartups.com is Startups... they are different sites.

At first I thought Killerstartups was changing it's domain to Startups.com, which would be interesting - they are one of the companies that got severely penalized during the most recent Google algo changes: [http://www.firstinternet.co.uk/blog/articles/google-panda- go...](http://www.firstinternet.co.uk/blog/articles/google-panda-goes-global/)

<comment><USER5> Not sure why TechCrunch's post has that title. Actually it read s "Startups.com Now Offers Daily Deals For Online Business Owners".</comment></comment>


The Tools That I Use For Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/what-the-filter-kaapi/88df4e268ca1

<comment><USER2> I've never seen redpen.io before this. Looks pretty awesome, I intend to use it soon.</comment>


Ask HN: Email Invoicing for Side Job - <AUTHOR>

I have been providing occasional computer services (malware cleanup, harddrive recovery etc) as a hobby. I was wondering if anyone in a similar position can recommend a cheap (possibly free) email invoicing software that I could use to provide to my clients? I don't really need anything else as the work is so infrequent. <comment><USER2> This was posted on HN a few months ago:

[https://www.invoiceninja.com/](https://www.invoiceninja.com/)

I convinced a few people to use it and everyone loves it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll test this one out. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Square app has easy email invoicing and you get the money in 48hrs. Freshbooks-Paypal combo is good too. Or just send the invoice as an email (no need for a spreadsheet) and ask for a check in the email--doesn't have to be complicated.</comment>


Open Source Projects - <AUTHOR> What are some open source projects that are doing big things but are not very popular/known? <comment><USER2> It makes enough sense to me that open source projects focused on their core objective are not as focused on the publicity aspect of their effort hence no real marketing of the solution is happening</comment>


Uber self driving car drives on the wrong side - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/798092/a-self-driving-uber-car-went-the-wrong-way-on-a-one-way-street-in-pittsburgh/ <comment><USER2> Being totally serious here, given how terrible their mapping software is, I'm not really surprised they're not crushing autonomous vehicles. I'm by no means trying to say mapping is an easy problem but if you couldn't pull together a competent version of the much easier problem, chances are you won't do much better with the harder one.

<comment><USER3> From the article it looks like one of these incidents, not knowing that a street was one way during or after the incident, was probably a mapping problem.

I don't want to diminish the difficulty of autonomous vehicles but I'm not sure that keeping up to date on every road and driving regulation change is that much easier. There also places, Iceland comes to mind but also in the rural US, where speed limits are completely divorced from what is a reasonable speed even ideal conditions. So anyone that wants to do autonomous vehicles outside of urban centers is going to have to do a better job at understanding the road network than local government is doing.

<comment><USER4> This brings up a question, how will fully automated systems deal with temporary detours, the signs for some of which are badly placed and hard to understand by humans, at times. Sometimes it's a construction worker waving confusing indications.

Some detours last just a few minutes or hours, so it's not likely a source of truth map would get updated. Or maybe they would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _"I couldn't see any of the damage," says Jason, the Uber driver, who > requested Quartz withhold his last name because he feared being deactivated > by the company._

Difficulties of self-driving tech aside, fearing that you will be "deactivated" by a company sounds rather dystopian...

<comment><USER6> > fearing that you will be "deactivated"

without reading the article, I'm imagining Jason as the AI driving the (self- driving) car..

<comment><USER7> "NO DISASSEMBLE JOHNNY-5!!!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article reads like a fear-mongering hit piece rather than even remotely unbiased journalism. It's unfortunate because I think the author does have some detailed knowledge on governmental regulations of self-driving cars as well as differences in implementation between the various companies, but the article as a whole seems to dismiss all self-driving car technology as not even being remotely viable based just a few recent incidents.

>For now Uber's cars have limited operating hours and terrain, and they must travel with two humans up front—a designated "safety driver" behind the wheel and an engineer in the adjacent seat. Even so, the company is pushing this technology onto the public when it remains largely unproven and other tests of driverless cars around the US have yielded their fair share of accidents. Earlier this year a self-driving Google car hit a public bus while trying to make a right turn in Silicon Valley. In May, the driver of a Tesla Model S died in an accident while he had the autopilot function enabled. Google suffered its worst crash yet just a few weeks ago when another driver ran a red light and barreled into its self-driving Lexus.

>Uber is taking advantage of a regulatory void in Pennsylvania, which has yet to enact autonomous vehicle legislation. Its self-driving cars are insured for up to $5 million per incident, in line with pending legislation in the state. Uber has repeatedly declined to specify to Quartz who would be held liable were one its self-driving cars involved in an accident, saying it doesn't deal in hypotheticals. The company also doesn't have an ethics board and is reluctant to discuss "trolley problem" scenarios, in which a car might have to protect one group of people (say, its passengers) at the cost of another (i.e., pedestrians). The DOT cautions in its guidelines that self-driving cars will inevitably have to be programmed to make "ethical judgements."

<comment><USER9> How on earth is it a fear-mongering hit piece? It reports, accurately, some of the difficulties Uber have had in launching self-driving cars. I don't see any dismissal of self-driving cars as a concept, just reporting of the difficulties that you encounter along the way.

Are we really at the point where any coverage that is even vaguely critical is a "hit piece"?

<comment><USER10> "pushing this technology onto the public" is a bit much, as is the author's summary of Google's driving experiences. I don't think it rises to the level of fear mongering, but it reads like "I barely understand this so I'll repeat a few things I found by googling".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Obviously lots of work to do for all the players in the autonomous vehicle game. And I actually like Uber's approach to testing: get lots of miles of testing while being paid to do it by your customers. Clearly not a cash positive venture but it's still a cool business model.

I'm wondering if the autonomous vehicle industry will fight for market share along the lines of which company's software platform is better. Will consumers who buy such a car be looking at safety records as much as comfort and looks? Will we end up seeing "Ford Fusion powered by Uber" vs "VW Golf powered by Apple" etc.? Maybe we end up with only a few platforms that fight for market share, like Windows vs Mac and Android vs iOS.

<comment><USER12> They're not getting paid. Rides in a self driving car are currently free. (source: I live in pittsburgh...)</comment></comment>


Trump's fast and loose trade policy endangers American jobs (Bunnie Huang) - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/17/opinions/american-china-tariff-war-fast-loose-bunnie/index.html <comment><USER2> Which does the US import more of (from China), in raw dollars spent: raw materials (chips, etc) or finished products (cellphones, toasters, etc.)? I'd be interested to see that data.</comment>


How the US Postal Service is Being Gutted - <AUTHOR> http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/03/04/how-the-postal-service-is-being-gutted.aspx?source=ihpsitth0000001

<comment><USER2> Will the USPS still be around after its 10-year pension prefunding period is over?

 _The short answer is that_ [UPS and Fedex] _can price postage to be profitable (partially why their sites are so complex) and invest in growth areas -- both of which USPS can't do._

The article discusses just how trim the USPS' operations are. Maybe this is part of why?

 _Whenever USPS tries to enter a new arena, private competitors bleat to Congress. Examples abound: plans to develop an online payment system in 2000 (Internet industry cried foul);_

A public paypal competitor? O_o

 _public copy machines (office supply stores);_

I feel as though this idea has a "negative synergy" -- it's like we're lumping together all these services which are increasingly depreciated. Because you really need to photocopy that email you just printed.

 _in-store sales of phone cards and money transfers;_

Who uses phone cards? No-contract cell phones make calling in the US free, and "everyone" uses Skype or one of the thousand other VOIP solutions (from Steam Chat to WebRTC) for calling foreign countries.

Did the USPS stop selling money orders? Do you trust a government agency more than you trust Paypal?

 _selling postal meter cartridges (Pitney Bowes objected)._

Ink cartridges? O_o

 _And, of course, rivals such as UPS complained, ultimately leading Congress in 2006 to restrict USPS to mail delivery._

Yet UPS couldn't get a law change to allow themselves to pick up mail. The USPS still has a monopoly on mail pickup.

These "solutions" seem like they'll remain feasible for about the same length of time as physical mail delivery itself stays around.

<comment><AUTHOR> USPS also delivers small to medium sized parcels.

For me, it's less about what they'd like to try. They'd be fine if they could just sit tight on mail delivery. However, they're under attack by crony capitalists.

They get _NO_ government money.

Yet corporations are able to coerce congress into placing restrictions on them, so they can better compete against them.

These are the same "free market" people who are funding the CATO institute, a libertarian think-tank.

This is why I can't find a political party I like.

All of them suck.

<comment><USER2> Those corporations sure have coerced Congress to remove the USPS's monopoly on mail pickup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been concerned about this for a long time. The USPS has operated without government funding for years but is in the hole because they have been forced to pay more into the civil service retirement fund than needed.

I consistently get better service from USPS than from FedEx, UPS, or any competitor, at a far better price. They're also the second largest employer in America.

While I admit this article is a tad political, I would like to raise awareness of this as it is really a critical problem. UPS, FedEx, etc, will not go out of their way to deliver your mail in emergencies. USPS will. The post office is truly a staple of our country, and I would hate to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the last few years, I had to send a number of overnight letters, personally.

Without the advantage of a corporate discount, the USPS price was _half_ of that of the private competitors.

It's things like this that individual consumers are giving up with this push to privatization. Big boys get breaks; the rest of us get screwed.

Efficiency at scale doesn't work, when you're not part of the scale.

See, for example, individual rates for health care insurance.</comment>