Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/germany-plans-to-dim-lights-at-night-to-save-insects/ar-BB17BlkR <comment><USER4> I actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization

<comment><USER5> I'm in Chicago (in a neighborhood close to downtown) and in previous years I'd hardly ever seen any fireflies. This year, they're everywhere -- in parks and even in trees on neighborhood streets.

I understand fireflies are sensitive to light pollution. I can't imagine Chicago's any different from other major cities. COVID has people staying home a lot more but that has nothing to do with street lighting. I wonder what's going on.

I do think that living organisms are extraordinarily adaptable if the changes are gradual and bounded. Most of us have this idea that an ecosystem is this delicate and fragile thing, but nature actually has a lot of robustness and redundancies built-in (which are inefficient but increase chances of group survival).

<comment><USER6> We live rural southern Ontario and fireflies are usually just a single weekend or so at the end of June or beginning of July. But this year they went on for almost two months. They only just stopped about a week ago.

I'm not sure why it was a good season for them. Like you say, traffic, lighting, pesticide sprays on farms, all really the same despite COVID. Reduced air traffic I don't think would have an affect? Even after I sprayed my vineyard with insecticide to deal with japanese beetles they were fine, and continued to prosper in and around there.

It may just be that we've had an unusually hot dry year, I assume where you have as well. Maybe that's advantageous for them somehow?

<comment><USER7> I feel that I hear people say « we're having a unusually hot dry year » every year...

<comment><USER8> On that note I just did a Google search for "more fireflies this year" and got news articles saying as much from 2018, 2019, and 2020.

<comment><USER9> It's possible that some policy changes are working.

One of my favorite memories of cycling through the midwest in the early 90's was watching the redwing blackbird population slowly recover.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't have been a good memory if you were _running_ through the midwest. A good chunk of the summer, they dive-bomb anyone who looks at their bush funny. Those birds are my personal nemeses - but they're winning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> German side streets are fairly dark already. This change will affect 'large' polluters, eg. floodlights in car parks, outside store areas, brightly lit buildings, etc. It is a very welcomed change. In our neighbourhood ppl knowingly plant flowers and leave grass grow 'wild' to support insects.

<comment><USER12> I do this too but I get bylaw visits from the city. Which cities?

<comment><USER13> Search for wildflower seed bomb mix, you shouldn't get in trouble for this. My mom used to do this every year when I lived in Germany, looks pretty and zero maintenance.

<comment><USER14> These are great, but just remember to take care the seeds are for species indigenous to your region!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I always just assumed that there are few insects now because there are so many more insecticides in use, this is the first time I've heard of lights. There's not much explaination in this article, but here's one with some more:

Nighttime Light Pollution May Be Cause of Insect Population Decline

[https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Nighttime_Light_Pollution...](https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Nighttime_Light_Pollution_May_Be_Cause_of_Insect/a63612)

"An analysis of the effects of artificial light at night on insects shows that there is strong evidence to suggest a link between nighttime light pollution and declines in insect populations."

<comment><USER16> It's a combination of factors. Insecticides, pollution, loss of habitat, light pollution(especially from daylight LEDs), global warming(throwing off reproduction timing), ubiquitous roadways and vehicles, flat surfaces(beetles get stuck on their back).

<comment><USER17> Whenever I see someone claim a given problem is due to a combination of factors, I get a bit suspicious. First, this seems like a way to say "I don't really know the actual cause." Second, in the real world in situations like these, there is almost always one overwhelming factor that accounts for >60% of total influence. I really do wonder what that is because I like insects!

<comment><USER18> > in the real world in situations like these, there is almost always one > overwhelming factor that accounts for >60% of total influence

That may be true when you're optimising a program, but is very much _not_ true in ecology. The parent comment is generally correct with its list of drivers of biodiversity loss (compare the IPBES global summary: [https://ipbes.net/global-assessment](https://ipbes.net/global-assessment)).

A key feature of ecology is its extreme complexity and the myriad factors at play in any given situation. Of course, there will be individual situations in which one factor is indeed dominant. Those cases actually often end up as textbook examples precisely because they are so rare, like the snowshoe hare/lynx Lotka-Volterra cycles. In most situations, researchers have to resort to some pretty advanced statistics to try and figure out what the most important factors are. There are almost always several, and getting any one factor to explain 60% of the variance is _very_ rare. (That's why principle component analyses -PCAs- are so popular in ecological research papers.)

<comment><USER17> I studied ecology for a while, and have published a paper in the field. It works exactly the same way as any complex system. If you can't pinpoint a single factor, you're probably failing somewhere. To blame everything on "it's a complex system" is usually a cop out from lack of knowledge, whether the system is genuinely complex or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is good; we've badly underestimated the cost of excess light pollution.

Also good is using more LED street lamps that focus the light where we need it, rather than all over the place. Light pollution is bad, and street lights are very power hungry, with the old sodium lights consuming up to 0.25kWh per hour.

<comment><USER20> Actually, cold LED light is part of the problem. Better focusing only mitigates the problem they are posing.

<comment><USER21> Can you explain what you mean about the risks of cold LED light? I'm unfamiliar with this problem

<comment><USER20> The basic light emitted by LEDs is generally quite cold (high color temperature). We can manufacture LEDs just in a few basic colors, where the blue ones are the most efficient. We haven't managed yet to produce something at scale like the light typically emitted by incandescent light bulbs. RGB light doesn't help here, since this is still emitting high temperature components, which are only mixed with lower energized ones. One way around this is using LEDs indirectly by energizing other light emitting materials, like phosphor, much like it is done in LED filaments, which, of course, comes at a cost. Simple filters don't help, since LEDs emit light only in a rather narrow spectrum (which is also, why they are more efficient compared to other light sources).

The problem with cold light is that it is apparently attracting insects much more than broad spectrum incandescent light sources, even more than any potential breeding partners, which in turn affects mating.

<comment><USER22> What cost? Looking back maybe 15 years all the experiments with CCFL and LEDs were more costly than the filaments i have now. They last longer, use less, AND make light which is pleasing and usable to me. Wheee! Almost candles!

edit: Last longer as in have already outlasted anything I had before them, the filaments I mean. Also not really more expensive to buy. And their energy usage is ridiculously low.

<comment><USER20> Cost as in efficiency. (Last time I looked, filaments were rated less efficient than direct light sources. However, they seem to become better.)

<comment><USER22> I'm using these [1] [https://www.osram.com/ecat/PARATHOM%20Retrofit%20CLASSIC%20B...](https://www.osram.com/ecat/PARATHOM%20Retrofit%20CLASSIC%20B-Professional%20LED%20lamps%20with%20filament- style%20LED%20technology-LED%20lamps-Lamps- Digital%20Systems/com/en/GPS01_1504753/PP_EUROPE_Europe_eCat/)

<comment><USER23> I'm not versed much in these filaments but from what I know, and your link, these are just phosphor-covered LEDs, right?

What is it about your current bulbs or the filament design that makes you not classify them as LEDs? The power use looks the same and the listed CRI of >=80 doesn't inspire confidence.

<comment><USER22> I didn't say that, or did I? Anyways, indeed they are chains of tiny LEDs in series, and the substrate they are embedded in is treated somehow. As I understand it, that gives the embedded LEDs a "Nachleuchtzeit"/ after glow like in the CRTs of old TVs and computer screns, which can vary, as it did with that old screen stuff too. Then there is the spatial thing, as they are spread out in the filament, you can actually look at them without being "blinded". It's more like the light radiates from a volume, softer, not from one sharp point. Not that it would matter that much, who has naked bulbs? As a result of all that there is no [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_\(acoustics\)), no perceivable flickering at my power frequency of 50Hz. I think I'm sensitive to that, because the line/destination signs on public transportion _do_ flicker for me when I and they both stand, not only when in motion.

Ah yes, the CRI. What can I say? I now have them everywhere, except the cellar. I prefer warm white, which they are. I can't see 'wrong' colors with them. Crosschecked that with a cassette of about 40 Faber-Castell color pencils right now, during my local morning twilight. Full spectrum.

Because "retro-fit" they fit in my old sockets. They just hit a sweet spot for me. I dim, or 'tune' them by using one to three circuits, the switches and my rooms are wired to allow for that.

Old, but not obsolete ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is one of those areas where I actually _am_ in favor of some pretty tight regulation; photons spraying about leads to a tragedy of the commons rather quickly.

Drive around -- billboards are lit up at night. Headlights might as well be pointed into the sky and are blinding. Stores are scarcely less well-lit when they are closed than during operating hours. I can go for a walk at night and read a paperback the whole way. Porchlights are left on all night, for no good reason.

Sometimes, on a my regular trips to visit a friend, we go out at around one in the morning to a road far from other towns and I can actually see the faint haze of the Milky Way, but in the suburbs, I am lucky to pick out thirty stars and/or planets. I don't even think that all of this constant light makes us any "safer."

<comment><USER25> Funny thing is that we mostly turn on the lights to keep burglars at bay. I don't have the link but there was some article pointing out that burglars also don't really like dark places. Like using flashlight inside of dark building can easier give out break in. Burglars are also people so they kind of scared of what might be in the dark, like you might miss something on the floor and break your leg or arm and then you would be stuck at the place you broke in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> While it's difficult to get hard numbers, the estimations for the decline in insect populations range from 70% to 90% since the 1980 (for some areas).

Given that insects are one of the corner stones of our ecosystem, we can congratulate ourselves that we are very successful in destroying our own life support systems through predatory exploitation and sheer carelessness.

Well done.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow. I have to say that I have never considered the case where insects needed to be saved. It seems to me that as lifeforms go, they have been the most durable form of multi-cellular life on the planet.

That said, that there are negative systemic effects on the planet's ecosystems that are directly related to the massive production and use of herbicides and pesticides is not as surprising.

Light though? Even after reading that article and looking through scholar.google to find papers that associate lighting with insect decline, I'm not convinced the use of lighting at night has a material impact. The ratio of unlit/lit habitat seems wildly in favor of unlit.

And yes, I understand that unlit areas are often agricultural, and those areas contain the most insecticide/herbicides. It still appears to me that the root cause is the use of those products in farms and not that cities are poor replacement habitats.

<comment><USER27> Just to be clear, I'm a fan of cutting down light pollution for legitimate reasons (energy conservation, astronomical observation, and wildlife protection) but I twitch at reasons that are either exaggerated or misleading. I felt that throwing in lights along with the pesticide limitations was not a well motivated argument.

My experience has shown that when people are skeptical of your argument they are less likely to comply voluntarily and so the good that you hoped to do is lost and you have damaged your credibility with the people you need to support these ideas.

A small example of this in action was back in 2010 when Google decided they were going to stop stocking bottled water in the fridges around campus because the "energy waste and plastic disposal problem." The only problem was that Google regularly achieved over 95% capture of recyclable trash out of their bins and the energy saved was on the order of maybe half a dozen employees not commuting from San Francisco.

The real reason they wanted to do this was of course cost. They could replace bottled water with filtered dispensers and that would save them a few pennies per employee per month. I had a good conversation with some folks in charge that they _could_ have said, "We're giving every employee an insulated water bottle in your choice of size and color (12, 20, 32, or 40 oz) that you can keep at the office and use to get water from our fancy new dispensers. This will save us money, AND its better for the environment." That would have been honest and gotten a good reception I believe with the rank and file. But dressing up the reason in a cover story that everyone easily poking holes in simply lowered morale and confidence in management.

<comment><USER28> I'm also completely in favor of reducing lights or even banning LED light bulbs, which in my opinion are also harmful to humans. Let's raise fuel prices by 100% and go back to incandescent!

But you correctly hint at the actual reason for German politics:

Nothing that hurts the economy like banning pesticides or cars will be done. So a scapegoat is needed, in this case the lights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think in general all our life quality will improve if we significantly reduce light polution. Not to mention the energy savings. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the night sky is just because I'm usually so blind to it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Do you remember the time when you had to clean your windshield after driving into holidays?

<comment><USER31> I just finished a two-week road trip from Berlin to the Black Forest and back (with other stops in both directions). The windshield was gunked up by the end—more than I expected, but nothing like what I remember from my childhood.

<comment><USER32> Same here. About two years ago we traveled through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and had quite some insect gunk on the wind shields. When I told my parents, they said "we used to have that after an hour of driving" (and presumably they went slower than we do today, not having access to fast cars in their youths).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well as I have posted before, my neighborhood went full LED last year with street lights and so every night is like a full moon. This has become widespread not just in subdivisions but everywhere as people see LED lighting as free.

Perhaps they were a bit oversold.

<comment><USER33> The low cost can definitely drive the wrong design. But if a redo is being done, it's an opportunity to turn down power levels, use better shielding, etc. Modern LED lights can provide the same visual acuity at both less power as well as less lux, and with less light spillover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the U.S. town and city budgets have a pretty steady lighting investment component.

Because LED's got so inexpensive, instead of saving money, the savings was used to increase the town luminosity.

Now, because we moved away from sodium lights, the amount of daytime-like blue light being emitted during the night has skyrocketed.

Wups

</comment><comment><USER35> This seems like a great idea, and could also be a nice boon for those of us who like to see the stars. Light pollution is a personal frustration for me as I've always enjoyed stargazing but am rarely able to drive far enough out to see very much.

</comment><comment><USER36> This would be great for amateur astronomers too.

<comment><USER37> And the sales of insect repellent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I used to point this out to hipster trendies who illuminate their trees at night. Don't they consider nocturnal life that are dependent on solar cycles for proper circadian rhythms? Seems disruptive. I got the impression the trees were a bit miffed.

<comment><USER39> Having light polution in your habitat during night cycles can make certain plants mutate or make them hermaphrodite while growing indoors. The light from a socket distributor might be enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is such a great idea. I hope the insecticide regulations go far to restrict some of the worst offenders. Insects, arachnids, and all of our invertebrate, carapace flaunting friends are essential to our health and survival.

I hope my country will follow suit...

</comment><comment><USER41> ...and get better sleep.

<comment><USER42> Amen. I would kill for this. I keep my own outside lights off, so there's a bit less blindy light pollution on my end of the street. It's the same reason I never report the nearby street lights when they go out.

The best outdoor light is less.

<comment><USER22> Ahem... I seem to recall that the masts of most streetlights are rather thin. Which meant that one could kick them a few times in ways that make the mast swing. Which could be rather large and abrupt swings at the top, which led to "Wackelkontakt"/ loss of contact, and thus darkness. It was even reversible!

Your own personal kick switch for public street lights!

<comment><USER43> That's a good way to get in trouble, and rightfully so. We're not having streetlights because we want to kill insects, we have them for safety reasons. You do not want to travel in absolute darkness in a city with cars around.

Trying to interfere with that because you're too lazy to buy a black-out curtain is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER22> What if I'd like to be able to see some stars from my bed? Furthermore, not every light, sign makes sense at the place it is. They are mostly stamped out at regular intervals "because we say so".

<comment><USER43> > What if I'd like to be able to see some stars from my bed?

"My comfort should trump everyone's safety"? Still no.

<comment><USER22> And the cars you spoke of are stealthed, running dark, or what?

/me shakes head and thinks "Here is your sign! Hold it!"

<comment><USER44> I'll take "what?" \- with "what?" being my headlights only point straight ahead. They don't curve with the road or illuminate the sides of the roads where kids/animals can dart out. I live in a neighborhood with lots of kids and pets. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S038611121...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0386111212000325)

<comment><USER22> [https://www.porschefremont.com/porsche-dynamic-light- system/](https://www.porschefremont.com/porsche-dynamic-light-system/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Glad to see they're on to this. However, I gather that this is still a "Referentenentwurf" \- i.e. a first draft written up by the ministry staff. This still needs to be approved by the cabinet before even going into parliamentary proceedings. So it's hard to say just how much will actually come of this.

</comment><comment><USER45> One summer night I stopped at this petrol station in a woodland area - <USER2> neon panels had many inches of dead insect in them. Tens of thousands of specimen, just like that.

</comment><comment><USER46> One of the mistakes I see being made is replacing old orange/yellow halogen bulbs with white/"blue" LED streetlights.

This is wrong. They should stick to ~2500K bulbs.

</comment><comment><USER47> Can you get even darker? Streetlights in Berlin (for example) are already uncomfortably dim.

<comment><USER48> Exactly, I hate driving at night in Berlin, because of the insufficient lighting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm not German, but I'm in favor of reducing light pollution in general. I like being able to at least kinda see the night sky.

</comment><comment><USER50> There's technology now to put streetlamps on motion detectors. They can have them very dim until they're needed.

<comment><USER51> I feel like that would be nauseating for residents on heavily trafficked roads

<comment><USER52> Maybe there should't be residents near heavily trafficked roads at all.

<comment><USER53> Why exactly do you think they're heavily trafficked?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I always wonder how much of the reduction in cleaning of glass can be attributed to better aerodynamics and better glass.

<comment><USER22> Motor cyclists and bicyclists tell the same. I as a bicyclist do too. Because apart from the sting of the wind in the eyes it was necessary to drive with sports glasses/lenses/some visor because otherwise you'd be almost certainly hit by insects in the face or eye. That isn't the case anymore. There simply are less of them in the air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I wish more places would do this. It would be amazing for plantlife, wildlife and amateur astronomy.

<comment><USER56> Several other european countries already have introduced similar laws. E.g. slovenia, croatia, czechia.

[https://artificiallightatnight.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/0/5/37...](https://artificiallightatnight.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/0/5/37053463/mohar.pdf) [https://www.darksky.org/croatian-light-pollution- law/](https://www.darksky.org/croatian-light-pollution-law/) [https://english.radio.cz/lower-house-passes-dark-sky- law-805...](https://english.radio.cz/lower-house-passes-dark-sky-law-8059407)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I am wondering, is there any benefit to having insects in cities specifically? I would understand if this was a law specifically for rural enviroment but what is the benefit for this in the city?

Also, other than bees, which insects specifically benefit humans?

</comment><comment><USER58> My experience in Germany was that a lot of small streets were already pretty dimly lit...

</comment><comment><USER59> Light pollution seems to be a good thing to suppress in general (a bonus for astrological sight-seeing). Could one factor be that constant light negatively affects insect (and plant) circadian rhythms?

<comment><USER18> I think you meant "astronomical" sight-seeing? ;-)

Yes, constant light does have a strong effect on animal circadian rhythms, but for insects, the problem is rather that they exhaust themselves from flying around the light source too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Also Germany: Shuts down nuclear plants and lights up more coal plants.

<comment><USER61> More coal plants is incorrect and the shutdown of the nuclear power plants was planned anyway. Since the mid 1980s no less...

Basically most of the plants that were shut down simply didn't get their runtime extended again and would've been shut down in a few years anyway.

And the utility companies owning them get billions in compensation and don't have o pay for waste disposal of all the irradiated parts either...

Facts that nuclear proponents always conveniently ignore...

<comment><USER60> [https://www.powermag.com/germany-brings-last-new-coal- plant-...](https://www.powermag.com/germany-brings-last-new-coal-plant- online/)

> What is expected to be the last new coal plant to come online in Germany > entered commercial operation on May 30, more than a decade after it was > first planned.

> The 1,100-MW Datteln 4 power plant, owned by Uniper and located in Datteln > in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, opened despite the German government's > stated plan to end coal-fired power generation in the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This reminds me of my local cities new flashy sport arena. The sport arena has flood lights to make a UFO landing look good. Cant see anything of the night sky with these on. It is also using a lot of power.

I remember star nights walking outside as a kid seeing the Milky way Galaxy full of stars.

As for ordinary street lights, the purpose of street lights are for crime prevention, but there is motion sensors. Do we really need to have the lights on with no one on a street?

</comment><comment><USER63> Do they have any places outside of cities and towns that these insects might thrive in Germany?

</comment><comment><USER64> Stop mowing your lawn (perhaps back yard) and you'll see a ton of insects (huge grasshoppers, big spiders, ants, etc) by the end of summer. mowing lawns hurts insects also

</comment><comment><USER65> Talking about dimming lights: Life tip: At night after dinner, turn off all the lights of your house. Use only weak led lights. You'll sleep much better, feel better and save on energy bills.

</comment><comment><USER66> This is awesome , I wish more countries did the same. Also good news for stargazers, you see more stars at night when city lights are dim or use protection to avoid light pollution.

</comment><comment><USER67> this is great. also, why must every stinking device have a light letting you know the device is on or sleeping or whatever. so annoying. monitors, printers, cable modems, routers, everything has freaking, annoying blinking lights. i have to use dark tape to cover it all.

</comment><comment><USER68> Wonder if this will increase crime rates...

Thoughts?

<comment><USER69> Most german towns have virtually no crime to begin with and I doubt this will change because lights are dimmer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> The machine never slows down to protect weaker species. Such plan may be an attempt to lower power demand at night and make the demand curve more closely match Germany's wind/solar supply curve. It's an effort to lower costs and lower demand for power they'd have to buy from coal/natural gas.

</comment><comment><USER71> Also: stars

</comment><comment><USER34> Insects are dead because we manufacturer billions of liters of insect-killing liquid to spray fields to feed billions of humans.

Starvation levels have dramatically declined over the last century.

Now, we need to fix the problem we induced in our goal to feed the world.

The only known solution is vertical farming.

<comment><USER72> > Insects are dead because we manufacturer billions of liters of insect- > killing liquid to spray fields to feed billions of humans.

That surely plays a role, too. Light pollution of street lights in Germany, however, kills an estimated 1 billion insects _per night_.

And then there's cars on the Autobahn, of course. They kill an estimated 100 billion insects per German summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> What's the benefit for humans and why can't it be done any other way?

I'm not a big fan of encountering insects. Very weird to see someone would actually want to protect them in cities.

> Light traps for insects are to be banned outdoors

So you won't be able to kill mosquitoes outside?

<comment><USER74> Insects are a vital part of Earth's ecosystem, providing food for larger animals and (especially crucial for us) pollination.

> So you won't be able to kill mosquitoes outside?

There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem with light traps is they are indiscriminate.

Not to mention that if you apply some repellent, you don't need to kill them at all.

<comment><USER73> > There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem > with light traps is they are indiscriminate.

Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible. Bringing up mosquitoes because it's one of the most common. I cannot go out and sit down in my garden if I have insects flying around. Unless they keep an appropriate distance as to not be intimidating.

> Not to mention that if you apply some repellent

If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory.

There are chemical sprays/diffusers that work very well, but even though they are marketed as "repellent" they absolutely do kill mosquitoes and many others. That's what I usually use.

<comment><USER74> > Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible.

Indiscriminate across species - those traps kill everything, not just mosquitoes. I'm sorry that you find insects intimidating but killing everything is not the answer to that and in the long run, unless you don't care about having food, ultimately counterproductive.

> If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory.

Why? I've spent a lot of time in tropical countries and found it very effective. Even just a running fan keeps most mozzies away as they aren't generally strong fliers.

The overarching issue is that we need to coexist with our many-legged brethren, however inconvenient it may be.

<comment><USER73> I have an extremely hard time believing average citizens are having such a huge effect. This German law seems to have been spurred by some study saying that over the last few decades the flying insect population has dropped by a big percentage in Germany. Yet cannot find any information as to any adverse effect it had on anything. Nor is it obvious what exactly caused this drop.

The logic here seems to be "insect populations are dropping so let's forbid some things that are killing insects".

> Why? I've spent a lot of time in tropical countries and found it very > effective. Even just a running fan keeps most mozzies away as they aren't > generally strong fliers.

They'll still fly around you. Sure when traveling somewhere that's the only solution.

Chemical diffusers work best for me. I rarely go outside, just deploy it as needed and it takes care of the problem pretty fast.

But say someone has a restaurant/whatever with an outside area. In addition to periodic chemical treatments, you might want to have a bunch of light traps in your arsenal.

And the article does talk about limiting use of insecticides too but isn't too clear on that.

<comment><USER74> > The logic here seems to be "insect populations are dropping so let's forbid > some things that are killing insects".

And the counterargument is - let's keep killing them anyway? Why is that more logical?

It's the same logic as - fly/drive/heat less, to reduce carbon release; eat less meat to reduce land usage and methane release; etc.

It seems to me that maybe the primary reason we're doing so much damage to our planet is a combination of

a) for most people, personal convenience > planetary health, and b) as you say: "I have an extremely hard time believing average citizens are having such a huge effect"

The latter is especially pernicious - we are so successful as a species because, working together, we can achieve tremendous changes that aren't possible alone. But that potential for collective action can also have severely negative effects as well. Even a mountain can be leveled eventually if you keep chipping away at it. As an example of collective action, take a trip to Borneo and drive the 100km route from Tawau to Semporna - <USER3> plantations literally as far as the eye can see in every direction, the whole route; it used to be rain forest. Individuals working together (whether deliberately or unknowingly) have a lot more power than they think.

Am I making sense? I'm not sure what's difficult to grasp about all this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I wonder if it will make any noticeable difference for astronomers.

</comment><comment><USER34> Our ancestors had it right, sodium lamps are better than LEDs.

</comment><comment><USER76> Maybe they could have a word with Bayer?

</comment><comment><USER77> It would also save humans btw.

</comment><comment><USER78> Very nice

</comment><comment><USER79> The best thing we can do on a personal level is to stop using broadleaf weedkillers like Scott's Weed and Feed and other herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup).

I've been doing handyman work at my boss's house during COVID-19 and he has clover growing in his yard. He has a fair number of bees, certainly more than on my end of town which is all chemlawns.

It's arguably ok to use a little weed killer by hand on dandelions if you must (better to spray 2-3 courses of vinegar instead). But killing all clover, morning glories, and other broadleaf flowers in lawns has led to the near- extinction of bees in residential areas. Herbicides and pesticides in agriculture wiped out the rest.

Edit: fixed the first sentence to distinguish between broadleaf herbicides and glyphosate (which kills everything).

<comment><USER80> I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation.

My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss.

Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

<comment><USER81> Clover also doesn't get as tall as grass, which obviates the need for mowing the lawn. And the rabbits quite like it.

<comment><USER82> A friend of mine worked at an agronomist's, and at one point a customer walked in looking to buy a bag of clover for his garden. My friend gave him the wrong bag by mistake, and the customer came back a few months later to tell the agronomist that he now had to park his car over the new spinach plants EVERYWHERE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus" \-- Agent Smith (The Matrix)

<comment><USER43> Well ... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals)

<comment><USER83> Exactly, we are getting overconfident in our ability to control the planet and its resources. I believe we are privileged to share this planet with other beings. Instead we treat animals like some kind of inanimate resource.

<comment><USER84> You missed their point. The link shows that reindeer also multiplied far past their carrying point. Agent smith is wrong, plenty of mammals will overshoot given the opportunity.

<comment><USER85> Well, it was with our help...

> In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States > Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The Coast Guard abandoned > the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer.

<comment><USER84> Yeah. But, species will do it regardless. It's an easy to point to example, that's all.

But species do it without human help. I remember caterpillars had boom bust cycles in my hometown as a kid. They'd eat all the leaves and die off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Germany saves the insects, China empties the oceans.

<comment><USER87> Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which nations are at issue.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> I wonder how many centuries it might take for the US to start to care about insects or the environment like some European countries do with the recent regress in policies overall that isn't about ONLY increasing overall GDP in the US.

And I say this even not considering Trump, which is a big menace. But democrat candidates in the US also don't care about the environment, not showing much promise. So do the Americans in general with their huge SUVs and completely unhealthy lifestyles(for them and the environment). I wonder how much this shitshow can go on.

<comment><USER89> Some European countries, named here, only very recently cared more about insects than people.

<comment><USER90> > Some European countries, named here, only very recently cared more about > insects than people.

How is it "more about than"? What are the costs to people by mandating dimming the light?

<comment><USER91> > What are the costs to people by mandating dimming the light?

It makes it harder to see at night.

<comment><USER92> That's not really "more than", is it? You need to weigh the size of the benefit with the amount of convenience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> What is more important? Your nan walking home from the corner store after dark under a street light or a beetle?

Germany: beetles!

<comment><USER94> If we decimate the insect population there won't be any nans or corner stores. If a street light is the only thing keeping your nan safe then maybe your area has bigger safety issues to address.

Regardless, for any issue there is usually middle ground to be found and snark comments like yours do nothing to help find or support it.

<comment><USER93> How dare you use your privilege of living in a safe community to attack my experiences? I think you have some real work to do on yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Posts like this are really disappointing to me. I come to hacker news to read about technology and startups. If I wanted to read about general news topics (bees, insects, glyphosate, general monsanto hate, etc...) I would frequent google news, CNN, or reddit.

<comment><USER49> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> There are loads of foxes and bats in big cities in Germany already. There are tons of insects as well.

Humans are already not allowed to build anywhere because of environmental regulations (unless you are a corrupt politician) and to keep the rents high.

Germany is getting more and more ridiculous. People must use energy saving bulbs to increase the profit for Philips, but one can legally burn 100l of fuel per day in a car.

Noise laws are lagging behind but insects need to be protected.

<comment><USER20> Insects are kind of vital to us. Without them, you can't have crops or fruits, no agriculture. The drop in population is already concerning.

<comment><USER97> Drop according to whom? The people whose jobs depend on the alleged drop?

Yesterday I had 10 flies and 5 mosquitoes simultaneously in my room. What do the bats eat? They are everywhere.

There are more bats, foxes, rats and insects in big cities than ever before.

<comment><USER18> > Drop according to whom? The people whose jobs depend on the alleged drop?

Speaking as an ecologist here, colleagues of mine were authors on one of the recent studies on insect decline in Germany ([https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1684-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1684-3)). Believe me, we'd rather study other things than how fast nature is disappearing.

Also, foxes and rats have nothing to do with insect levels.

<comment><USER98> Foxes and rats have very much to do with the fact that the government is telling us that species are disappearing and need protection while there was literally a fox trying to enter my house via an open door pretty much in the city.

This has never happened 20 years ago, so someone is lying.

It is a massive credibility problem created by ideologues who will deny the foxes until there are 5 in every apartment.

<comment><USER18> That is a pretty accusatory tone...

There are probably over 10 million species of plants and animals in the world. Of course some of these are going to be better at coping with humans and their cities than others. As you correctly observe, foxes happen to be some of the best at adapting to city life. If you want more examples, just take a look here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_wildlife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_wildlife)

However, these exceptions change nothing whatsoever about the fact that _in general_ , species very much are in decline and many are about to, or have already disappeared. Indeed, when we look at cities around the world, only 20% of bird species and 5% of plant species actually live in such an environment ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027400/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027400/)). Outside cities, the picture is not much better. Some species, like the crested lark in Europe, have suffered over 95% population drops. Others, like the passenger pigeon, have gone entirely extinct. I'm citing bird examples here because we tend to have the best data for them (we have numerous birdwatching records reaching back 300 years), but I could cite others. In the last decades, an increasing number of observations suggest that by now, even insects are beginning to decline. And if you want to know what it's like when they're dead, just ask the Chinese labourers who are already having to pollinate apple blossoms _by hand_ , because all the bees are gone...

<comment><USER99> You are again evading the pertinent question. For the ideologues, foxes are an endangered species:

[https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/tierschutz- fuchs/](https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/tierschutz-fuchs/)

It is _a crime_ to hurt a fox!

But I am sure that if there are 5 foxes per person in Germany, there will be a new "Referentenentwurf" and everyone will ask how this could possibly have happened.

If you cannot see how this hurts credibility, you have to get out of your ecological bubble. Why should people believe numbers on insects if numbers for other animals are clearly wrong?

<comment><USER18> OK, let's clear up some confusion here.

You need to differentiate between endangered species and protected species, and between biodiversity conservation ("Naturschutz") and animal rights ("Tierschutz").

The fox is _not_ an endangered species, as both the German and the global red lists show ([https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/23062/46190249](https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/23062/46190249), [https://www.rote-liste- zentrum.de/de/Detailseite.html?specie...](https://www.rote-liste- zentrum.de/de/Detailseite.html?species_id=816&q=S%C3%A4ugetiere)).

It is, however, a _protected_ species in Germany (Anhang 1 BArtSchV), though at the lower protection level ("besonders geschützt", not "streng geschützt"). Note, however, that _there are multiple reasons to give a species legal protection_. These include a need for conservation (not the case here), but also ethical implications (higher animals like birds and mammals generally enjoy higher protection levels than insects or plants) and cultural reasons (in this case, the fox is a huntable species, which means that it falls under the _Jagdgesetz_ ).

In short: yes, the fox is protected, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's also endangered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> The cynic in me views this as yet another attempt at fethishizing nature by people who choose to live in sterile urban environments. The problem with this type of fetishization is that it eventually combines with class privilege to produce narrow public policy that seldom promotes the public good.

Furthermore, those that live in less-urbanized less-sterile locales are painfully aware that nature and her army of insects always has the upper hand.

<comment><USER101> Inherent in your statement is the idea that privileged people choose to live in urban environments, which is probably false half the time. I choose to live closer to work in an apartment to minimize my costs and travel time. I would love a backyard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Ironically this would create a better surveillance net. With a high light in the background you obtain black silhouettes. With low or none light in the background UV cameras are perfectly able to take photos in pitch black, and a low level of light gave you faces of the suspects instead.

So perhaps, maybe, "speculation in action", this is not only useful or exclusively about insects

<comment><USER103> No, this is actually about insects.</comment></comment>


Giant 'Arrows' Seen From Space Point to a Vanished World - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/desert-kites-out-of-eden-walk-uzbekistan-iron-age-saiga/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing to put yourself in the mind of a member of one of these nomadic peoples 2500 years ago, having only ever known the traditions of your tribe, living out your days tracking and catching wild game beneath the desert sun – and then deciding to do _something new._ Building on the knowledge of your most experienced hunters to design and engineer a modification to your environment that will permanently change the way your society hunts.

Truly these were the first hackers.

<comment><USER3> Or were they built by upstarts who disrupted the most experienced hunters?

Interesting perspective either way.

<comment><USER4> I think the markets might have been more in control, at least within the community. You don't just keep it all to yourself in a tribe. (But actually I have no Idea how big these groups where and how abstract and complex their power structures)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, fascinating article.

But when I first saw the title, I thought it was going to be about _these_ particular arrows scattered across the US landscape... [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-303823...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3038232/Just- mysterious-concrete-arrows-America.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I want to say that there were fish traps that followed similar designs. Curving walls that led the fish into tidal pools that they couldn't escape when the tide went out.

<comment><USER7> There are many of these ancient fish ponds throughout the Hawaiian islands -- some of them enormous and very pretty.

<comment><USER8> I believe Hawaiian fish ponds were for pisciculture--raising fish. Saw a rock marked with a sign in a park, the Hawaiians used the hollowed out part to store fish while transporting between streams and ponds. They were not hunter- gatherers, they were (mostly) farmers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, these look very similar in design to so-called bacterial ratchets (see Fig 7 of [1]) which allow swimming bacteria to be sorted by size or swimming speed etc. People have even used these ideas to create tiny bacteria-powered motors [2].

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01072](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01072)

[2] [http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2009/oct/23/bacteri...](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2009/oct/23/bacteria- power-micro-ratchet)

</comment><comment><USER10> I was hoping from the headline that this was about an exoplanet but antelope traps are interesting too...

<comment><USER11> "Space Point" is indeed misleading and completely stretching it. Those are not huge structures and would be very hard to detect from Space. It's more about having a little elevation than anything else.

<comment><USER12> I also made the same incorrect assumption as gefh, and I'm not entirely convinced that wasn't deliberate, but to be fair, the article does discuss how satellite imagery has been used by archaeologists to study these sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really neat to see these.. just reminds me how humans have been intelligent for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years.. we just didn't have advanced technology or large numbers until recently. We had to work with the little accumulated knowledge we had.

<comment><USER14> People seem to think sometimes that ancient humans were dumb because they didn't have smartphones. No, they were as smart us, they only lacked _knowledge_ , not intelligence.

<comment><USER15> They had knowledge too, just in other areas. They would probably look down on modern humans for not knowing how to skin a deer or how to rotate crops.

<comment><USER16> Many modern humans have that knowledge. It's not really inaccessible to anyone reading HN.

<comment><USER17> As long as the grid and Youtube still runs! /prepper voice off

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_jump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_jump)

Some buffalo jumps were used for thousands of years and had CRUSHED BONES from millions of animals falling over compressed into walls tens of feet high.

</comment><comment><USER19> This hunting method features in Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman where the Ice Age hunters use similar structures to corral migrating caribou. In his account (presumably based on scientific speculation), the hunters glut themselves with meat in order to gain enough weight to survive the winter.</comment>


Ask HN: Brainstorming Analytics. What's the best way to share ideas with others? - <AUTHOR> Does anybody else share my pain? Here is the dilemma I am in:
At this point I have seen hundreds of co-hort and funnel analysis. I know all about designing star/snowflake/EAV schemas across dozens of db dialects (be that BigQuery, Redshift, Vertica, etc). I have performed dozens of implementations of Facebook/Google/Segment/(you name it) analytical funnels.
All of the above is great when I am approached to architect analytics for yet another e-commerce start-up or a young SaaS business. I am starting to feel like 50%-80% of the work is repeatable (albeit, still requires custom modeling/SQL/ETL).
The problem I keep running into is the other 50%/20%. And that is the stuff I feel that actually makes companies money.
Some say that Data Science is the answer, but from my personal experience with a Data Science gig back in 2013, I beg to differ. Many companies just don't know what those long-running drivers of growth are, so there is no point in optimizing with statistics or machine learning.
All of this is also new tech, so no one really knows what the long-running drivers of growth should be. People working at the same company often have contrary opinions. In this environment, Data Scientists just get the most credibility and time to try stuff out. But statistics won't in itself give you ideas.
With that I am starting to feel more and more the need for an analytics community. Some place where I could ask people about problems with the hope that someone can recognize similar patterns they've encountered.
Am I the only one? <comment><USER2> I agree with the pain points, I saw similar patterns (people not paying attention to the first 50% -80% and decided to build a startup based on that, but turns outs there are more issues. Most people don't look at the data until they are deep into problems.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope, you are not alone. I have had many times when I had a question or thought and there was no one else in the company really to talk to. There is normally a larger engineering team, but a small data science/engineering team (of one) in the small companies I have worked in. It would be great in those cases to have a group of people to bounce ideas off of.</comment>


Ask HN: What to watch after How to Start a Startup? - <AUTHOR>

After completely watching How to Start a Startup[1] 2-10 times (depending on lecture) and reading and watching all the readings[2], what should I watch now?
A. There are plenty of reading resources (many shared on HN), but I am looking for videos.
B. There are plenty of great talks (but what I want is detailed videos (instructional) just like HTSAS)
C. I haven't read (m)any books on the topic, do you recommend that I rather do that? In that case, please make my work easy and give a ordered list of books (ordered to complement HTSAS).
[1]: HTSAS: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/
[2]: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/ <comment><USER2> Read Paul Graham's essays, Start Small Stay Small, personal MBA, Lean Startup, Zero to One by Peter Thiel, 5 hour Workweek, Rework by 37signals. All of these are fantastic reads. In no particular order. Many of them available as audiobooks.

If you want to start a startup I would advise you to come up with an idea and start working on your product. Learn the necessary technology as you go. You really don't need to know so much on the "business" side of things when you start.

"How to Get Startup Ideas" by PG and Start Small Stay Small really cover 90% of what you need to know when you begin.

Sorry, can't recommend any videos, I guess How to Start a Startup are the most useful ones.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      If you want to start a startup I would advise you to come up with an idea and start working on your product.

I just want to know more about it, I know that it wouldn't be as helpful as doing it yourself and it won't be a comprehensive guide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> After these awesome videos, you now know how to start a startup. Next up: grow the startup. There is lots of good reading on growth (like this post by Paul Graham from 2012, which is still super valid: [http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)). But since you are looking for videos, you should check out the free video on Growth Hacking by Mattan Griffel on onemonth (also a Y-Combinator company - [http://mbsy.co/cs72Z](http://mbsy.co/cs72Z)).

</comment><comment><USER4> Now would be a good time to try something, rather than watch more. A lot of people learn better by doing. Think of it as the exercises at the end of the class. Even if you don't have _the_ idea yet, it would definitely help your learning.</comment>


The pricing of solar - <AUTHOR> http://www.samefacts.com/2016/03/economics/the-value-of-solar/ <comment><USER2> I am interested in Solar myself. Yet my decision matrix has nothing to do with how much I can get back from the incumbent utility provider. I am FAR more interested in storage technology. Ideally it would progress such that I wouldn't need to pay much for non solar electricity. Of course it is my fear that this is what they actually wish to stop; their end game is most likely to make you pay for connectivity and services regardless of if you use them or not.</comment>


The Philosophy of it All. - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/30634762444/the-philosophy-of-it-all

<comment><USER2> "Like honestly, If you aren't all about it, don't do it."

Bad advice.</comment>


Inside Operation InVersion, the Code Freeze That Saved LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/inside-operation-inversion-the-code-freeze-that-saved-linkedin

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately the article doesn't provide any evidence that the code freeze actually saved LinkedIn from anything worse than its engineers grumbling about what a mess their systems were, which is what every engineer in every company has done with every system since the dawn of time. The only real data point provided is that "so far this year, [LinkedIn's] share price is up more than 50 percent," but correlation/causation/etc.

<comment><USER3> You miss the point, it is a brand building piece for Kevin Scott. The three messages that piece wants you to come away with are : Kevin Scott saw a huge problem, Kevin Scott 'did what it took' to get the Company aligned on a solution, and Kevin Scott is the reason LinkedIn's corporate value doubled.

I'm not being snarky here, go back and re-read this piece and dissect it. As to why this piece is out there? Speculating there is fun (not really productive, but fun). The other thing I just read was the piece about engineers having their own agents [1]. If I were Kevin's agent this is the kind of press piece I would try to get published so I could walk into my next negotiation with "Hey, look at what we're talking about here, this isn't your average developer this guy moves mountains!"

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5527610>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a code freeze, a feature freeze.</comment>


Fibbing: Small Lies for Better Networks - <AUTHOR> http://fibbing.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft, Google and others have described SDN systems that peer with routers over BGP to control traffic flow. This adapts this concept to OSPF, which is a bit trickier, since OSPF keeps more information about the layout of the network.

Podcast by Ivan Pepelnjak with creator here: [http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/11/fibbing-ospf-based- traffic-e...](http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/11/fibbing-ospf-based-traffic- engineering.html)

<comment><USER2> BGP is far more flexible and less expensive, which is why Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have used it. Further, the data structures used by BGP (NLRIs) are easily extensible for complex networks involving many dimensions for path selection.

Not sure about the value add of using a protocol that keeps state on the whole network, specifically when that is the task of a centralized controller. Also, OSPF has many quirks that prevent it from scaling well, and offers far less tuning when it comes to path selection.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your points, except the claim that BGP is less expensive. If you look outside of fat datacenter ToR switches, there are quite a few models where BGP either requires a more expensive firmware version or is not available at all.

<comment><USER2> Expensive in this context refers to compute capacity needed to determine a path, not monetary cost.

<comment><USER3> @ra1n85: the capacity needed to determine a path is negligible. The routers actually don't even need to recompute their shortest-path when presented with a lie. This is described in the podcast.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: new app idea - <AUTHOR>

Just finished reading techcrunch.com/2010/07/07/buywithme-16-million/ when an idea popped into my head. Not sure how original it is but I figured I would throw it out here on HN and see what kind of discussion it sparked.<p>Recently, I have been stumbling upon more and more of these Daily Deals type websites. However, there isn't really an easy way for consumers to keep track of these websites and check their daily deals without individually bookmarking and visiting each respective site daily. Imagine an app which consolidated all of the websites and listed each sites daily deal. Discuss! <comment><USER2> And maybe one day when there are multiple sites consolidating the deals from the sites that consolidate deals, someone can create a new app that consolidates _those_ sites. ;-)

On a more serious note, this would be pretty useful if it was smart enough to filter out duplicates - a lot of those deals sites have overlapping content.

</comment><comment><USER3> Too late :(

dailyD

yipit

<comment><USER4> and Dealighted.com</comment></comment>


From 0 to 1,000,000 users: The Journey and statistics of Buffer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/from-0-to-1000000-users-the-journey-and-statistics-of-buffer

<comment><USER2> Very inspiring, a very simple idea executed well. Proud that it's a UK invention as well :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great story.</comment>


On Skydiving and Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.fullcontact.com/2013/03/24/risk-and-startups/

<comment><USER3> It is a nice analogy, but not too accurate. In skydiving we drill & drill to execute be able to dive with a minimum of deviation of the plan (minimizing unknowns).

In venture projects we specifically prepare to go and handle what we don't know.

Two classic quotes that exemplify this very different thinking modes are:

\- Skydiving is not inherently dangerous, it is just terribly unforgiving of your mistakes. Vs \- On the WWW the one who makes the most mistakes, but faster & cheaper, wins.

<comment><AUTHOR> The second one is a great quote. I disagree with the first bit about skydiving not being inherently dangerous, however - I cringe whenever I hear one of my AFF students say something along those lines. It's not just about mistakes - what you don't know CAN kill you. Another quote: "You're never too good not to die in this sport."

I think we're ultimately talking two sides of the same coin: we drill emergency procedures in skydiving to ensure minimum deviation of the plan _if_ something goes wrong...but do we ever know something is going to go wrong? Same thing goes for reserves and helmets: all are there to handle what we don't know is coming. Ultimately, we're preparing to go out and handle what we don't know.

As you said, in startups, we don't have the luxury of a regular process - <USER2> whole process is about what we don't know. But if there _was_ a known set of events that happened every time we started a company (i.e., gear up, gear checks, board plane, etc, etc), we'd definitely drill it in order to minimize risk. And we DO do this to some extent - why else does almost every tech startup founder read Steve Blank's book?

In skydiving, you can make mistakes because of the gear and emergency procedures you're working with - and you learn from each of them. In a startup, you can make mistakes because your _goal_ is to make mistakes and learn from them. But both require a 'safety net' of some sort to allow you to make those mistakes. Without it, the company fails...or the skydiver bounces.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How comfortable are you participating in the "Google Experiment"? - <AUTHOR> Google once was David against Microsoft's Goliath. Not anymore.
Now Google is just another Goliath with its own objectives: to know everything about you, by every possible means, before anyone else. And the excuse is "to help you get things done" but the reasons are all the old ones: profit, market share etc.
How comfortable are you with that? <comment><USER2> Do you think there will ever be a David that becomes anything other than a Goliath once at scale?</comment>


Show HN: Advanced search across 100+ image sites - <AUTHOR> https://nuggety.com/images <comment><USER2> I LOVE the concept, as I'm constantly searching for free stock photos. I think there's a disconnect in informing users what they are supposed to do once they search a term..

I wasn't sure if the results on the right were a result of my search (no feedback loop or indication that they were), and then I didn't quite know what to do.

Then, clicking into each result let me realize that this was simply a tool to "queue up" the search functions on each of those sites. Which is awesome, but there was a bit of mystery around it before I clicked around.

Keep tweaking, but this is a great little tool I'll be using

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice!</comment></comment>


A Modest Proposal: How to Replace Semver - <AUTHOR> http://mattrogish.com/blog/2015/01/01/a-modest-proposal-how-to-replace-semver/

<comment><USER2> So the reason to not use semver is because not everyone uses it? That sounds more like a reason to ensure you check your dependencies.

ints are free - increment them at will, especially if they can convey a meaning that can be interpreted automatically.</comment>


First proof of quantum computer advantage - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181018141107.htm <comment><USER2> Well honestly, Shors algorithm and Grovers algorithm were amongst the first proofs of quantum superiority. They were discovered over 20 years ago.

This is just hype to get funds.</comment>


The stupidest thing to do is to build mobile version of a website - kot-behemoth http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/177/

<comment><AUTHOR> Your post seems like troll-bait but I'll bite...

As a broad general statement, that's wrong. Let's say that your website is a combination of content (mostly static text and graphics) and web "apps" (forms, dashboards, interactive tools, etc). In most cases, your content can be device-neutral or (even better) mobile-first design. No separate mobile version needed.

However, it is likely your "apps" will suck when squeezed down to mobile size. The layout will be terrible and the interactions may be so broken as to be unusable. They'll work about as well as a king-sized bed and full-sized bathtub in a pleasure boat.

Better advice would be: Use bootstrap or some mobile-ready layout for your site's content and review your web apps on a case-by-case basis. Then, you very well might want to pay the fine young gentlemen or ladies who know mobile user-experience to rebuild some of those.

</comment><comment><USER2> Are you retarded or something? It does NOT cost extra to build a mobile version ESPECIALLY if you use a framework like Twitter bootstrap from the get go.

Responsive is built in--and you don't need 2 versions just one version that scales both ways. You are correct it is stupid building two versions - but you can build 1 version that ACTS as two different layouts.</comment>


IBM says remote working is great after forcing employees to work from office - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/05/08/ibm-remote-working-panel/#.tnw_fGon9xiN <comment><USER3> The no-work-from-home mentality is something I wish would die. I've heard form plenty of friends who've been interviewing with tech companies lately, that it's a discouraged practice. I make it a contingency for any job I've considered over the last 5 years. We're all adults, if you are worried that you won't know what I've been up to, you can check my Pull Requests in our source control system. If you worry that communication is an issue, just watch the Slack channels in which I'm involved. I mean, I can come to work and put on my headphones and talk to you via Slack, or do so from my couch at home. The most common excuse I get is that "some bad apples ruined it for the whole bunch". I'm sorry... a multi-billon dollar company isn't kindergarten. It is entirely possible to create a behavior improvement plan for ONE "bad apple". The rest of us big boys and girls can probably handle it. I just switched team at my current job and have started getting the "well, we don't want to abuse it" talk. What??? Abuse? quit treating it like it's some sort of privilege. I work. I use a laptop... which means as long as I have an internet connection and VPN access, I can do it from anywhere! If you're worried you can't get an answer to your question on a moment's notice, try Slacking me sometime.

I find this very common with managers that are scared that they are irrelevant. (they may not understand what their employees actually do) So they work hard to micro-manage the details they _do_ understand. It's sad. I'm a pretty good self-starter/motivator, and when I work from home, I typically start an hour earlier. When I'm at my desk in the building, I get distracted all day (whether by requests, or just talking to other employees) When will the tech industry learn?

<comment><USER4> We've measured productivity of remote work compared to in house work. I work in the public sector so it's mainly not programming, but caseworking and similar. We've found that productivity is way down when people work at home, we've however also found that allowing people to slack once in a while increases their overall performance.

The optimal results come from people working mainly at the office. Now this may be completely different for development houses, our coders are some of the most productive when working remote, IT in general is below average though.

<comment><USER5> It's very cool that you guys actually gathered some data on the topic.

I wonder how much your conclusions would hold for non-public-sector jobs.

AFAIK it's typically harder to fire a public-sector worker for under- performance, than in the private sector. Perhaps that either (a) adds to the temptation to goof around at home, or (b) attracts the kinds of workers who were always more apt to goof around, given the opportunity.

<comment><USER6> I do a lot of work with public-sector employees. I always thought they were lazy (which I think is a fairly common feeling throughout the private sector). Some are, of course. But unfortunately the problem is not one of drive but of competence. _In technology specifically_ , the public-sector employees I've worked with simply do not have the skills of a private-sector employee with similar responsibilities/experience. I don't know if it's the lower salary or what but I can count on one hand the number of technical public-sector employees who would be able to have a similarly-titled position in any of the private sector companies I've worked for.

<comment><USER7> Main problem is that all the high-quality tech talent is vacuumed up by the private sector. For what it's worth, I once worked at the Munich government and since a couple years in the private sector. In Munich, BMW, Microsoft and the various suppliers for BMW are the most likely target for fresh university graduates, mainly due to the prestige and in the case of BMW the enormous pay.

Those who end up in public sector usually are those who value the job security or do it out of dedication. Which doesn't mean they're bad at their job, in my experience it was the exact opposite, but the government sector is waaaaay understaffed, and pay can't be risen to private-sector levels because of rigid union agreements.

Also, the competence problems are related more to regulations... why spend your time e.g. learning Docker when you're happy enough you can finally use Ubuntu instead of RHEL? So basically unless you lesrn it in your time off there's no motivation to learn new stuff because it will be outdated when regulation molasses finally catches up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An old friend recently parted ways with IBM after he was asked to relocate from the middle of nowhere to one of their major offices. They offered him minimal relocation, and a minimal COL based raise to move. He did the math, and realized that the cost of living was so high where was being asked to relocated (Almaden), that he'd be better off just letting his wife be the primary breadwinner and living on one income.

<comment><AUTHOR> That really sucks!

The level of dissonance in this is overwhelming.

In March - You need to work shoulder to shoulder "[https://qz.com/924167/ibm- remote-work-pioneer-is-calling-tho...](https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work- pioneer-is-calling-thousands-of-employees-back-to-the-office/")

In May - we have a survey and a study and a panel that proves remote working is great!

I don't envy the guy in IBM who has to sell Kenexa ([https://www.ibm.com/blogs/smarter- workforce/2017/05/making-t...](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/smarter- workforce/2017/05/making-telework-work-insights-siop-2017/)).

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it really sucked. He came in as part of an acquisition 7 or 8 years ago, and had been working remote for 10+ years from the same location. His kids were happy in school, his wife was happy in her job, they were involved in the local community. It just didn't make sense for them to move, financially or socially.

The odd thing was that for him, this happened about a year ago. I think the edict came down almost exactly one year ago; this article makes it sound more recent.

<comment><USER9> From what I hear it's more of a staged rollout of who they are dragging back to the office. So waves of people are being disrupted and often making the obvious choice that seeking other employment is the best option. Or worse people that have a local office but their 'team' is based far enough away that it still counts as relocate or die.

<comment><USER10> IBM has been dragging folks back to the office since 2009 (IIRC). They're not wrong about the benefits of colocation; it's just that they want the company to receive those benefits without compensating employees whatsoever.

<comment><USER11> Exactly.

Look, if you already offer work from home, forget about taking it away. That will just piss people off, make people unhappy, hate management, and be less productive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my short time at IBM I found the company the most conflicted about two issues, 'cloud' and 'remote work'.

When we were acquired there were lots of people we encountered who worked from home. Some more effectively than others. We also encountered buildings like the Almaden research center with long narrow hallways with offices on either side. That were apparently 'classic IBM' office space.

When I left, more and more people were being asked to work at the office, and the new offices were open plan, quite literally shoulder to shoulder, rows and rows of desks. I felt both choices were untenable for long term stability.

And as with most organizations the implementation is always at the manager level and I know that at least one manager had pretty much told their people that folks could work from home if they didn't want to make the long trek into the office, regardless of what the current policy was.

So where did that leave you? If left you with the real estate services guys following one set of rules, and managers making up their own rules to preserve morale. Not a recipe for success.

I found it very hard to engage the right people to talk about the disconnect.

</comment><comment><USER13> I imagine that the _real_ reason for IBM's "everyone must work in the office" was to get staff to quit rather than laying them off.

<comment><USER14> I've mentioned this before, but I think it's pretty clear now that IBM is undergoing a slow-motion, manual liquidation (or winding-up). No big drama, no bankruptcy, just slowly and steadily shedding employees and buying back the stock until the whole thing goes poof.

<comment><USER15> there is a massive reorientation to cloud computing services occurring

<comment><USER16> What does that actually mean tho'? IBM's churn is such that they have to sell people with 1-2 years experience as "cloud experts". Any real company i.e. not a bodyshop can easily hire people with 3-5 or more years, for waaayyyy less than IBM's hourly billing rate. IBM made sense when you needed 6 months of time from an engineer with 20-30 years COBOL expertise and a direct line to the hardware snd OS engineers. The only way they make sense now is as a TUPE vehicle and that's a legal not a technical service...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This seems like a classical case of right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing at a huge institution, multiplied by the author's desire to get a 6-paragraph story out, where the headline is half the size of the story's body.

The opposing "hands" in this case are "company's Smarter Workforce branch", whatever that is, and "Chief Marketing Officer" in a message addressed only to his subordinates.

But sure, both can be classified as "The IBM", no matter how stretching or misleading that may be.

<comment><USER18> People often underestimate the level of schizophrenia in any medium/large corporation. Every single VP/director has his own agenda, his own vision, and his own philosophy. Yelling gotcha when you catch different divisions saying different things, is like shooting fish in a barrel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > There is only one recipe I know for success, particularly when we are in as > much of a battle with Microsoft and the West Coast companies as we are, and > that is by bringing great people with the right skills, give them the right > tools, give them a mission, make sure they can analyze their results, put > them in really creative inspiring locations and set them free.

Some people excel just by being in a location with a bunch of highly talented and capable individuals. Others can work mostly on their own and may excel with more authority over their work space to make themselves more conducive to flow and deep work.

There are many legit criticisms of remote work and it's not for everyone or every organization, but neither are open office plans, flat structures, open- ended vacation policies, flexible work hours, etc.

Personally, I'm able to work and study more deeply and creatively when I'm on my own because I don't have any visual or auditory distractions.

<comment><USER20> Everyone's looking for "the answer" but reality is that you often do different types of work at different times, and different work styles suit them.

If you're identifying/brainstorming a problem, I find that in-person is typically superior... this tends to be longer form, and includes more discussion (which is a bit tougher to manage remotely)... but when you're actually working on it, I could not care less about where the team is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I work in a much more traditional industry than IBM, but I've recently been humored by management's resistance to remote work while hiring personnel in India to handle the "transactional" work.

<comment><USER22> I worked at a company that was acquired by Corporation Service Company (CSC). First, they assigned our team a manager that "specialized in managing remote teams." Our team wasn't "remote", as we all worked in the same office, with cubicles and whiteboards and all the trappings: it was "remote" in the sense that we didn't work at corporate headquarters.

The import of this nuance would soon become clear. Management then told us, after moving everyone into a brand new office, that it didn't want any technical work done "remotely." And to aid in the transition? Why, hire a developer located in India, of course!

The new owner literally added two genuinely remote people to our team in the name of not being remote. Prior to the acquisition, we all worked within a 50m radius.

Apparently, acqui-firing was such a habit for CSC that disgruntled former employees founded National Registered Agents, Inc. (NRAI), which became one of their major competitors. At some point NRAI and CT, the primary of CSC's competitors, were fused together, along with BizFilings, under Wolters Kluwer. I think the current registered agent market share is about 60% CT and 40% CSC. It takes a special kind of management genius to motivate the people you fired into forming a business from scratch to compete with you, take some of your market share, then merge with your archenemy.

And the thing that makes all this worse is that a nationwide registered agent business must necessarily have more than 50 offices that are not the corporate headquarters. So some companies hate "remote" so much that they can't even stand to have certain employees working together as a team in a satellite office, one that they have to keep open anyway! (But outsourcing to India is still okay.)

Still not the worst-managed company I ever worked for.

<comment><USER21> Good read. This whole thing made me chuckle.

<comment><USER22> My reaction to it is sort of a bitter, FML, hollow laughter.

That's just part of the story that taught me that it doesn't matter how much you like your job, or how good you are at doing it, if some rich asshole can buy it and throw it into the garbage--or move it beyond your reach, or give it to a cousin, or alter it beyond recognition. That was the last job that I actually _liked_.

Subsequent stories have only reinforced the lesson. Those incidents are why, despite the glaring and obvious flaws of labor unions, I support unions for technical skilled labor unconditionally and without hesitation.

It isn't even about money. I really would have liked to be able to tell the boss at my last job that packing the entire development team and test team around the walls of his corner office while everyone takes turns justifying their existence for a total of at least 45 minutes daily, starting at 8:45 AM, is not a "stand-up meeting". It's not even a status meeting. It's a pointless show of dominance.

I would really like to be able to, if not stop, at least _discourage_ such idiotic behavior, rather than just looking for other jobs and rolling the dice _yet again_ on a different manager that might possibly be less like the high priest of a cargo cult. It would have been nice if voicing my concerns did not paint a target on my back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd hazard much of it is due to poor tooling.

IBM is still on Notes and Sametime, these tools are fine for small groups i.e less than five but the experience degraded with the size of the group.

I'm specifically referring to group conference calls with shared desktop sessions. Email is fine.

Generally most of the communication tools were archaic and getting rid of them has been difficult as most current business processes relied on them (ie Notes databases not showing up in Verse)

Working remote needs quality tools across the org.

<comment><USER7> Notes isn't that bad but if you want a good experience with it you need a fulltime Notes developer/admin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Haven't worked 'for' another company in a while, but my recollections jive with the experience of many current colleagues. You're generally expected to be in the office during "working hours", but there isn't a hard "5pm cutoff" time. Someone has an urgent need at 8pm, and you don't answer the call/email/text/whatever, you're dinged as 'not a team player', and will eventually be relegated.

You're often expected to be 'on' 24/7 (as in, not always _working_ , but ready/able to work if need be), but also have to be physically at a location during certain hours. "Vacation" time may be the exception, as long as it doesn't interfere too much with everyone else's work schedules.

I've seen some counterexamples, but they're rare enough in my circles to be the exception vs the rule.

<comment><USER25> Exactly my experience as well. It's difficult sometimes because a lot of what I do must be done outside of other people's working hours as not to interfere with their productivity. But at the same time, there is an expectation to be available if my assistance is needed throughout the average joe's workday - <USER2> there are really no boundaries unless you work at setting them yourself, which depends on your relationship with your managers/customers and company policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If a company isnt willing to let someone work from home they should be willing to create the same work station in the office. My biggest gripe about being in the office is that I have to use a under powered laptop, company chair, cant control the heat / light situation, someones always moving my plant slightly, depending on the job I may have a office space or it may be a open office plan...

Even if I'm slightly less focused when I'm working from home the time that I am focusing on work is 10x more productive due to the environment being set up how I like it.

</comment><comment><USER27> The classic lowest common denominator manager: "I may not understand what you do, I may not be able to judge your performance, but I can damn well tell if your butt is in your seat by 8 am."

</comment><comment><USER28> > Leaning on insights from the public sector and the world of academia, the > panelists came to the revelation that "teleworking works, and that > associated challenges can be managed with careful planning and > communication."

Efficient teleworking can be had for healthy orgs that practice careful planning and communication. But that does not imply IBM has healthy orgs that practice careful planning and communication.

</comment><comment><USER29> The real reason companies do these kinds of policy changes is along the lines of the following (but not limited to):

\- A legacy style executive comes in and cannot "see" people working therefore they are not working

\- There is rampant abuse in the model

\- Productivity is measurably down (e.g., when Best Buy removed work from home they were in talks to be taken private)

\- People can't get a hold of each other when everyone works from home. Communication issues.

When I was working at Best Buy and the policy was rescinded, you had MANY people habitually abusing it. They would block off entire days of their calendar and say "I'm working from home, I don't accept meetings on X day." Usually a Friday, imagine that. It was obvious what people were doing. Some people even drove in with their boat on the trailer and said "I'm working from home after lunch".

However, as more and more companies become global, it's harder to enforce "butt in seat". For instance I get up early in the morning to talk to people in CZ, others go home and sit on calls with India teams. Then they're expected to be in the office next morning. That's not a sustainable model.

There are many pros and cons to both sides of the argument. I personally tend to find myself more productive in the office than I do at home most days, so I come in. However is it nice to have flexibility? Absolutely.

However people have to understand underneath the corporate BS and HR BS, there is likely a real perceived problem that either nobody understands how else to solve, or employees aren't being very honest with themselves that causes this kind of backlash.

The last point I'll make, is that some people that work from home all day are just downright impossible to communicate with sometimes. It's hard to have one part of the workforce that works from home, and may be gone for a period of time mix with another side of the same workforce that is at the office for a determined amount of time.

</comment><comment><USER30> Marissa Mayer did this in Yahoo. In each case it is a desperation measure in a declining company.

</comment><comment><USER31> IBM did a "back to the field" thing in the 1980s to encourage people to leave the various labs and join field teams. This was back in the no–layoffs era at IBM. About ten years later many of those people got caught out as IBM quickly downsized in 1993–1995.

So this isn't the first time IBM has done this sort of thing.

When I ran www.ibm.com we had a mix of local (NYC) and remote staff, mostly doing sysadmin tasks, not so much programming. Everyone hung out on our internal IRC channel. We'd do daily checkins and document everything that happened in a Notes db (ugly but the advantage that we could keep a reference copy on our laptops).

</comment><comment><USER32> Honestly I don't know anyone would choose to work for IBM unless they absolutely have no other alternatives. They seem to be getting worse and worse for their employees year after year.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's pretty common hypocrisy. Open offices are great as long as you are not a director or higher. Limiting salary increases is necessary unless you are top management. Any kind of work can be offshored as long as it's not management. And so on.

</comment><comment><USER34> Many have pointed out contradiction in what IBM saying vs doing. I think these both statements are okay in respective context. Remote working support seems IBM research type result while asking people to work is their current business reality.

IBM revenue is declining every quarter for last 5 years and I think lot of remote work jobs in IBM are off-site consulting. Since these people are not at client site they might as well work from home instead of showing up at IBM office. But now those consulting revenues are falling and IBM really needs to bring those people to offices to see where they can be redeployed.

</comment><comment><USER35> IBM's clients should also adopt the same strategy as IBM and do away with IBM's remote offshore developers.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can see a fair amount of situations that would be better to have employees on location. That being said I wonder if a part of the "dont work from home" type feelings come from managers/employees who may resent that they have to be on location?

</comment><comment><USER37> It's really amazing to see companies completely ignore the practices of other successful companies. In my career, I've seen this willful blindness hurt companies over and over again.

</comment><comment><USER15> provide a nice environment like at Facebook or Google and I would be glad to come in.. there are a lot of people still working from home at IBM

<comment><USER38> None of the pictures I've seen of facebook or Google offices provide any motivation to work in the office. They're crowded noise factories to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> These trends come and go, like the tides. Remember that I said this: the IBM bean counters will publish a study in a couple of years that shows that it is massively expensive to maintain on-premise work sites for knowledge workers.... and they will kick everyone out, again. LOL Lemmings

</comment><comment><USER40> It's called "eating your own dog food" for a reason. What reason that is in this case, I have no idea.

<comment><USER41> I'm pretty sure the reason is Agile. They don't think it's possible unless you are face to face at a standup. Also, moving people back to offices is a way to thin the herd without firing people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> > where it concluded that work-from-home _talent_

See, that's how words get diluted. If everyone is a talent, we end up with new hyperboles, i.e. 10x developer. If everyone is an associate, where are the employees? Too many chiefs, not enough Indians...</comment>


Power Complexity On The Rise - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/power-complexity-skyrockets/?1 <comment><AUTHOR> This came across twitter and I found it a really interesting read. Simulation tools make a bunch of assumptions, when the chip designer breaks those assumptions, the tools break in unexpected ways. The first time I saw this in action was the design of the SPARC 10 CPU which was, in places, an asynchronous design, meaning that the signals for controlling functions in various units happened when the previous unit finished, there wasn't a common clock domain. That broke all of the simulation code and it took months to work around it. I got to hear this second hand as I was just doing system software, not chip design, but it stories were pretty amazing.

<comment><USER2> There is a reason why every design that attempts to use asynchronous design has been a disaster. That's because:

Asynchronous design is a bloody stupid idea.

Non-deterministic behavior is the _LAST_ thing anybody wants. And software people go to great lengths to mitigate it. And when they fail, we leak crypto keys, allow people to read privileged memory, etc.

People like John Carmack even advocate adding _time_ as an input to many of your functions so that you are fully functional and deterministic and easier to debug and test. ie. doing the same thing as VLSI designers and providing a global clock.

And, for reference, designers didn't just get stuck in a local minimum with synchronous design. Designers did use asynchronous designs back in the day-- mostly S-R latches--and they discovered that if they added clocks and used flip-flops instead that things were more reliable _and_ easier to design with.

(This goes back to even the Apollo guidance computers which used lots of NOR- gate based latches but had a few flip flops. Later designs prioritized flip flops over latches.

See: [https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/318341/histo...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/318341/history- of-edge-triggered-d-flip-flop-design-using-three-s-r-latches)

One interesting bit is that those three S-R latch flip flops actually have intermediate state stabilized by the analog feedback if you look at the designs at the transistor level. It makes for some interesting failure modes if you disturb the node with noise during feedback amplification. However, outside of those small windows they feedback makes them _much_ more resistant to noise upset.

Note: I did the analysis moons ago on the old SN7474 flip flops which are NAND-based, not NOR-based, but I presume the same thing holds. Of course, I could of course be _completely_ wrong and maybe that's why NASA standardized on NOR-gates instead.)

<comment><USER3> > Non-deterministic behavior is the LAST thing anybody wants. And software > people go to great lengths to mitigate it. And when they fail, we leak > crypto keys, allow people to read privileged memory, etc.

Lets be a little more precise here. It's the last thing any designer wants to deal with. I don't think we humans are mentally equipped to deal with the explosion in the number of possible states it causes.

When we do decide to deal with it, it's not because we love it, its because we have no choice. No matter how stupid it is, no matter how difficult it is to get right, it can deliver one thing in spades: speed. When you exhausted all other options, that's where you have to go.

You are looking at it at the gate level, but it's everywhere. Don't want the CPU waiting around for slow I/O? Simples - just add an interrupt line so the I/O peripheral can asynchronously tell the CPU when it's done. What the fastest CPU? Chop up the instruction stream into little pieces, the throw the bits at a set of ALU's execute them as fast as they can, doing it asynchronously, tracking the interdependencies on the fly. That didn't get you enough? The put 10 CPU's on a chip and schedule tasks across them asynchronously. Oh, that causes cache conflicts - then just have all the CPU's snoop each other caches, asynchronously, and try to keep everything sane with the occasional bus lock. Want the fastest web server? Have it fire up threads on demand, have a thread pool, distribute the work load asynchronously. That generated too much disk I/O? No problem - use a SAN that shards everything into random locations, hand out the jobs asynchronously and in parallel.

It just goes on and on. We do it all the time. If it really is stupid we must be the dumbest fucks in the universe.

<comment><USER2> > Don't want the CPU waiting around for slow I/O? Simples - just add an > interrupt line so the I/O peripheral can asynchronously tell the CPU when > it's done.

Which we run through a synchronizer to bring back into the primary clock domain.

> Chop up the instruction stream into little pieces, the throw the bits at a > set of ALU's execute them as fast as they can, doing it asynchronously, > tracking the interdependencies on the fly.

Which are all so strongly wired to the primary clock that you can count the cycles.

> Oh, that causes cache conflicts - then just have all the CPU's snoop each > other caches, asynchronously, and try to keep everything sane with the > occasional bus lock.

Memory systems generally operate in a clock-forwarded manner, which has a fixed phase and frequency relative to the primary clock of the chip controlling the access. We are not willing to pay the synchronization penalty to cross from an unrelated clock domain under most circumstances.

The only times we are willing to be "asynchronous" are precisely those times when we don't care about performance.

<comment><USER3> > Which we run through a synchronizer to bring back into the primary clock > domain.

Of course we do that. To get speed out of one big synchronous domain we split it into a whole pile of little domains (each internally synchronous) that talk asynchronously. That allows us to keep the amount of asynchronousity to a minimum, and as you say doing otherwise would be stupid. That does not alter the fact that those domains all operate asynchronously with respect to each other.

And you are not wrong is saying we sometimes go to great lengths to avoid asynchronous systems. The best example is possibly the GPU, which are massively parallel but all threads are in strict lock step. But notice GPU's have to execute at a fairly slow clock rate to pull that stunt off. An execution unit (ALU) in a modern CPU that executes mostly independently of the other execution units are about an order or magnitude faster.

By the by there is a computer that operates on at absurdly slow 1ms "clock", yet is faster at most things it does than the biggest and best computer we can build today. "Clock" is in quotes because there is no clock, 1ms is about delay through one of elements. It gets it's speed through massive yet completely asynchronous parallelism. It is the human brain. Such is the power of being stupidly asynchronous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There have been a number of failed Bitcoin miner asics basically as a result of designers using the tools without really understanding the tool's assumptions (or without themselves understanding the work the circuit would be doing).

E.g. assuming that the toggle rate for gates would be much much less than 50%, and as a result the actual part used so much more power than expected that it wasn't viable (couldn't cool it or couldn't get enough juice into the chip).</comment>


US Gov originated iPhone tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-military-is-responsible-for-almost-all-the-technology-in-your-iphone-2014-10 <comment><USER2> This is woefully misleading. Very little of that (nearly none?) was developed at the behest of government initiatives alone. The tech may have found useful traction via gov't contracts, but certainly not their birth.</comment>