Evgeny Kuznetsov practices with Bauer stick that has hole in the blade - <AUTHOR> https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2020/07/17/evgeny-kuznetsov-practices-with-bauer-stick-that-has-hole-in-the-blade/ <comment><USER2> It's been crazy watching the evolution of hockey sticks from wood to aluminum shafts, then to carbon-fiber. The prices have steadily skyrocketed, but it's hard to deny the incredible effects of just these material design changes. There are of course trade-offs, most notable being the tendency of these new carbon fiber sticks breaking without much warning, or apparent wear. The speed at which the shot comes off the stick now is pretty mind-boggling, too, which makes it easy for me to justify 300+ for a stick. They tend to either break soon, or last a lot longer than old style wood sticks, or aluminum + wood blades, etc.

I'm eager to try out one of these new designs myself but the pricing is just absurd for a beer league even if I'm playing in the top non-pro league in Colorado, and one of the teams I play against is all retired well known pros.

Like anything it'll come down as the process is refined and likely this approach is adopted from top-to-bottom. Excited to try one out for sure!

<comment><USER3> I was in youth league hockey as carbon fiber sticks went from unheard of to ubiquitous. Carbon sticks failed in a spectacular way, but wood stills would also fail. They wouldn't break in two during a slapshot, but they would generally split along the bottom of the blade. If refs noticed it, you could get a penalty.

By the time my parents caved in and bought a wood stick, I was at the point of consuming one new stick nearly every time I was on the ice. At that point, the higher upfront cost ended up being worth it.

<comment><USER4> _If refs noticed it, you could get a penalty._

I'm curious, what penalty gets called here? I wasn't aware there was a "your equipment fell apart" penalty.

<comment><USER5> I think it's just called the "broken stick" rule. Specifically, if you break your stick, you HAVE to drop it on the ice immediately and be done with it. If you even skate back to the bench holding it, you can get called for a penalty.

<comment><USER6> How does the broken stick get off the field of play if you're not allowed to carry it off?

<comment><USER2> It's actually not quite so simply as the ref near it grabbing it. Depending on the play, and where the broken stick is at, the ref may elect to leave it be. I've seen broken sticks get 'accidentally' kicked/nudge near, or in front of the net which causes a sort of clean pass prevention '6th player'. The ref is generally reluctant to get too into the middle area of the play so a broken stick can become a sort of extra player out there. It's a kind funny/unique situation that doesn't happen that often.

<comment><USER7> Intentionally moving a broken stick to block or possibly block the puck is also a penalty. It is one of the more "judgment call" type calls a ref can make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wonder if hockey will either go the way of Tennis (where technology has rapidly changed how the game has been played) or baseballe - where the bats are always wood.

<comment><USER9> Hockey seems to be constantly evolving both its technologies and its rules.

As an example of this (other than the new sticks being tested in the article), prior to the pandemic the NHL was set to introduce a new puck for the playoffs that would "will transmit data 60 times per second, including location, speed, acceleration and deceleration and distance travelled." There's similar tech ready to be rolled out for jerseys. The end goal being for advanced analytics to be able to map how fast everything is going and how the game moves, as well as to possibly aid in goal review (which is difficult with the shape of a puck, unlike say soccer/football with its round ball). They tested it at the All-Star game and teams have been practicing with it, but the league decided to hold off on it to reduce the potential point of failures during their return to play.

Source: [https://www.tsn.ca/nhl-s-new-puck-will-premiere-on- opening-n...](https://www.tsn.ca/nhl-s-new-puck-will-premiere-on-opening- night-of-playoffs-1.1452122)

<comment><USER10> location and speed at the same time? now THAT is interesting..

<comment><USER11> Jokes aside, that must be a serious problem in a game where they hit the puck with a wooden planck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Got distracted by the new post already added above this one, about the collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge. In particular, other than its being a rare example of a spectacular bridge collapse that was more-or-less caught on film, I'm not sure it's a great example for an engineering ethics class. Because the most likely cause of its failure wasn't any particular ethical consideration, but the interaction of phenomema (wind vortex shedding and structural resonance) about which nobody had a lot of experience or knowledge at the time. Time goes by and we learn from the successes and the failures. Almost every major earthquake ends up pushing a few changes to the building codes. We now return you to your regularly scheduled hockey-related program.

<comment><USER13> (For people wondering what this comment is about, apparently the URL of the story got changed, and the previous version had something about Tacoma Narrows Bridge on the same page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Puck bounce is already a weird randomization. It seems like have a hole in your blade that might hook the edge of the puck would only increase that randomness.

<comment><USER7> That is an interesting thought. Settling a puck is a skill that all players have to develop at some point. Nothing is worse than having a perfect shooting opportunity but the puck is on edge and you end up sending the puck off in some wild direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's a pretty strong tradition of wrapping tape around the blade that I imagine is hard to break. I wonder how much that hurts the supposed benefits.

<comment><USER7> The taping method is very player specific. For example, I like to tape from about an inch from the toe all the way back to the heel. Others, like just a few wraps near the toe. For me, a hole in the blade would have no aero benefits but for others, it could matter. The other benefits of the hole as they pertain to the blade flex would still be noticed regardless of taping style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me slightly of RBK's O-Stick.

</comment><comment><USER17> What am I looking at here ?

Is there, in fact, a web-based reference copy of a mailchimp brokered mailing list ? Do all mailchimp campaigns auto-generate these pages ? I have never seen this before.

I've never considered a mailing list, or mailchimp campaign, for rsync.net but for some reason those same things _with a bloggy web page backing store behind it_ weirdly appeals to me ...

<comment><USER18> We've changed the URL from [https://mailchi.mp/theprepared/the- prepared-4ydgzm58vl](https://mailchi.mp/theprepared/the-prepared-4ydgzm58vl) to the article that it points to, which seems to have the most information about the story.

I don't think an issue of a newsletter which contains a paragraph about one thing among lots of other things, plus promotional padding, really counts as an article about that thing for HN purposes. It seems more like an attempt to promote the newsletter than to share interesting information about hockey sticks.

<comment><AUTHOR> IMO this ends up being way more advertorial (for Bauer) and lacks all of the engineering context (urethane inserts! damping! "the dichotomy between nature and human technologies"!). But, understood.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps; I haven't read that closely. Obviously it's great if you're writing something better about a topic, but there needs to be a specific URL to what you've specifically written about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> wait, just to be clear - you changed the title and URL without actually reading the thing that I linked to?

<comment><USER18> I read your newsletter. I didn't read as much of the other article.

Is it really unclear what the issue here is? The issue is that the OP was too promotional. Indeed your account history on HN has been, basically, entirely promotional. That's not really what the site is for. This is in the guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

On HN, the idea is for people to submit stories that they ran across and personally found intellectually interesting, not because they have something to promote. It's fine to post your own work occasionally, as long as it's interspersed with interesting posts from other sources. But if you only submit promotionally, it feels like you're not participating as a community member.

To be fair, the stuff you've submitted has been good, certainly not spam. But the newsletter thing was a step too far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I got a strong "Nimbus 5000" vibe reading this. It's pretty easy to read this and replace "stick" with "broom", "ice" with "arena", "quaffle" with "puck", and "hockey" with "quidditch" \- and have it all sort of sound right.</comment>


Fukushima: Wild boars take over Japan's evacuated towns [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39216242 <comment><USER2> There was a report on Chernobyl the other day. Apparently, the nature there is experiencing a renaissance of sorts with a measurable growth both in biodiversity as well as in the sheer number of species, including endangered ones.

For animal world, the radiation is the lesser of two evils, the first one being humans.

Here's a BBC article: [http://www.bbc.com/russian/science/2015/02/150205_ukraine_ch...](http://www.bbc.com/russian/science/2015/02/150205_ukraine_chernobyl_wild_animals)

It's in Russian, but the pictures are telling if you can't read it.

<comment><USER3> Are those wild horses? If so then that's awesome. Also, Lynx are great, happy to see them too.

<comment><USER4> Those are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse) brought there in the nineties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've never seen addressed how one factors in long-term societal problems into the use of nuclear energy. There's not a country in world that hasn't experienced a civil war, invasion, or other massively destabilizing event within the span of time needed to safely manage nuclear energy and its byproducts.

After Chernobyl, I always wondered how a less authoritarian regime would respond to a similar nuclear disaster. Now that we have Fukushima, we can see the Japanese government doing something like a combination of climate change denial and media manipulation (Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11). It would probably work the same in the states.

<comment><USER6> So would you rather they burn coal, which they don't have and has to be imported and intoxicate everyone with mercury and arsenic biproducts from coal burning? These two heavy metals also contaminte seafood, which the Japanese are quite fond of.

<comment><USER7> What we see here (in the parent comment) is someone parroting standard nuclear industry propaganda: coal is bad too.

While those line at least made a bit of sense 15 years ago, it is totally pointless in 2017.

No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going away; like nuclear, it can't compete.

<comment><USER8> > No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new > generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going > away; like nuclear, it can't compete.

In the United States, at least, natural gas is the largest component of new generating capacity. Wind and solar are both independently fairly close to natural gas recently, but natural gas is still the #1 increase and has been for most of the last 10 or so years.

So yes, the rate of increase in coal capacity is very low (but still net positive), but it is not true that all new generation is wind and solar. New generation is roughly 1/3rd each natural gas, wind, and solar, ranked in that order. Again - in the United States. This varies from country to country, e.g. I believe China is still seeing substantial net increases in coal, whereas I believe Western Europe is seeing a lot more wind/solar.

You can get these numbers for the US from EIA reports: [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/)

<comment><USER7> Wrong on all points, data helpful:

[http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy- capacity-22330...](http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy- capacity-2233026420.html)

<comment><USER8> I did refer to the data, and that article gives about the same numbers. FERC and EIA are 'sibling' components of the Department of Energy, I suspect EIA's information on new generation comes directly from FERC.

The article you link shows that wind and solar combined add up to a bit less than twice natural gas. This is because, as I said, the three dominant forms of new production (natural gas, wind, solar) added up to about one third each, with natural gas being the largest portion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Turns out, living in an environment with as low as possible background radiation might not be such a great idea either.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/09/23/is- radiat...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/09/23/is-radiation- necessary-for-life/#2ba1b4bd7898) <~~ forbes piece about this study: [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553002.2015.106...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553002.2015.1062571?journalCode=irab20)

</comment><comment><USER10> As with most nuclear accidents so far, the health risks from _fear_ of radiation exceed the actual health risks from the radiation itself.

The boars don't know about the radiation and therefore do not fear it.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, no. There is a distinctive health risk to radioactive radiation, and thus the regions around Fukushima and Chernobyl are evacuated from permanent residency. It is perfectly safe to do short trips into those regions. But long term, this is a considerable health risk. The boars can live there, because they are short-lived animals compared to humans, and the article doesn't say whether they do reach their natural life span even. They only seem to live long enough to procreate, which is 1-3 years for wild boars. Humans could live there as well, but they would experience an unacceptably short live. A human group can survive on a life expectancy of little more than 20 years, thats what human kind did in the past. But by modern standards this is not acceptable, and consequently those regions are not considered safe for settlement.

<comment><USER10> There is a difference between "there is no risk", which I did not write but you imply I did, and "this risk is greater than this other risk", which is what I did write.

See the WHO evaluation of the the Chernobyl disaster, which states that the largest public health problem of the disaster has been the mental health impact (link in other response: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192)).

Again, that doesn't mean that there weren't other impacts, but the mental health impact was larger. I also remember seeing video footage of all the animals that died after Fukushima. They didn't die of radiation, they died of neglect.

Also, the health impact of fairly low radiation dosages is effectively unknown to date, but data from the Chernobyl incident keeps correcting the effect downward every 10 years.

The idea that "there is no safe dosage" was created artificially, because after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the exposure effects were simply linearly extrapolated to zero. There was no actual data there.

<comment><USER12> I realize there are a lot of nuclear apologist around here, but this is getting ridiculous.

That boars are living in the area means nothing. It doesn't mean in the slightest that it is safe for humans. With Chernobyl and Fukushima we are talking about serious levels of radiation, high enough to kill people very fast. See [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/03/fukushim...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/03/fukushima- daiichi-radiation-levels-highest-since-2011-meltdown) of how high the radiation in Fukushima still is today.

To act like "Ah, nothing really happened, see the wild pigs flocking around" is not even close to an appropriate judgment of the situation.

We all would like to have safe and cheap energy. We won't reach that goal by trivializing the dangers of nuclear energy, which isn't even cheap to begin with.

<comment><USER13> The nuclear apologists don't seem to realize they would have a more effective argument if they just admitted what is obvious to anyone: that occasionally nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes. Perhaps someday in the bright shiny future it won't, but it certainly has for the last 65 years we've been using it. Then they could stack those terrible catastrophes up against what they see as the wonderful benefits of nuclear power, and reasonable people would have some choices to make. Instead, they run around with fingers in ears chanting "nyah nyah nyah no problems here", and reasonable people can only conclude that the analysis is missing some important points.

<comment><USER10> > occasionally nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes

Except that's not the case, other forms of power generation not only have far higher death tolls overall, but also more terrible catastrophes:

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

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

<comment><USER12> That's not even internally consistent. We have no terrible catastrophes because the others have terrible catastrophes?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, it is.

The only thing that rates as catastrophe is Chernobyl, so singular. And that was 56 direct deaths. Fifty-six. Fukushima, which is widely regarded as a "catastrophe" has zero direct deaths and so far it looks unlikely that effects on mortality will be statistically detectable.

What was the worst energy-generation catastrophe? Banqiao Dam, 1973[1]. 170,000 direct deaths. Or that coal explosion with >1000 direct deaths. On those types of scales, even Chernobyl doesn't actually register.

And when you take into account long term effects, there simply is no comparison. 100K deaths per T-kWH for coal, 90 for nuclear. So for every death due to nuclear power, there are 1000 deaths due to coal.

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

<comment><USER12> You are aware that your numbers are wrong?

As dark as it is to argue about something like that, but Chernobyl caused many more deaths. Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say _it was 56_ is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.

Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well.

Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.

 _Edit_

Four: No, it is no case consistent logic. Something does not become not a catastrophe only because another thing is a catastrophe. It might become a lesser evil (that is not the case here), but that's as far as it goes.

<comment><USER14> > Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is > heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The > cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.

The WHO number is number of people expected to die prematurely as a result of Chernobyl. The deathcount he gave is an estimate of _direct_ deaths. They mean very different things. The WHO number includes anyone who can be expected to die _sooner_ , whether their life expectancy has been cut by a decade or a year. It's an important consideration, but it's not in any way directly comparable to the direct deaths numbers.

> Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths > caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast > as well.

Uranium mines used to be bad. In most present mines the amount of radon miners inhale is no higher than you risk in residential housing in areas with high natural occurence of radon. Even if you went back to unventilated mines to kill miners on purpose, it would still cause fewer radiation deaths than fly ash from coal plants, before even factoring in the other major causes of death from coal plants.

> Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence > strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again > repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, > and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.

It is relevant because power plants do not exist in isolation. If you shut down nuclear, it needs to be replaced. None of the alternative we currently have for base load are as safe as nuclear. So if you shut down nuclear plants over fears about them, odds are your replacement generation load will kill far more people. And a lot of places the goto replacement is still coal or oil/gas, which are some of the worst.

Stoking fears over nuclear is outright immoral, given the consequences such fears have already had. E.g. the nuclear phaseout in Germany has resulted in continued use of coal at much higher levels than otherwise, to the extent that assuming lethality quivalent to US levels, the phaseout has likely already killed several magnitudes as many as all nuclear accidents combined, on top of the environmental effects.

<comment><USER12> Actually, the coal thing in Germany is interesting. As a consequence of the end of nuclear energy they _did_ construct new coal plants, against the protests of the very people that wanted the Atomausstieg. But the funny thing is that those new coal plants can't be properly used today, because they are just too expensive. Energy prices fell that low, thanks to green energy sources, that those new coal plants are not profitable anymore.

Sucks for the cities and energy companies that backed them, but is a win for society as a whole.

<comment><USER14> Even without those new plants, Germany's dependence on coal has been substantially extended in time. And it's not just Germany - the shutdown has also affected Germany's ability to export electricity, and so increased _other countries_ depdency on more dangerous means of generation.

The death toll from Germany's shutdown is likely to be in the tens of thousands before the baseload capacity is fully replaced by safer alternativs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is this interesting? Wild boars in Japan are common in areas where there are few people because they are generally scared of people. If you come across one in the forest, most likely it will run away from you.

</comment><comment><USER16> They're gonna end up with some real-life Princess Mononoke demon boars.

</comment><comment><USER17> DNA damage from radiation could potentially affect future generations of boars.

<comment><USER18> What's scarier than wild boars are radioactive wild boars.

<comment><USER11> You meant it as a funny statement, but it is actually true. Here in Bavaria, we actually have too many wild boars in the forests, but hunting them for meat is limited by the fact that they are still partially contaminated by the radiation left from the Chernobyl disaster. So about 1 out of 3 animals shot have to be destroyed.

<comment><USER19> Wild boars in Bavaria contaminated by radiation from Chernobyl? Do you have any citations/links?

<comment><USER20> Not OP but German as well. Can confirm statement.

Sources are easy to find but are mostly in German, e.g.

[https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article139797061/Geh...](https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article139797061/Geheimsache- radioaktiv-verstrahlte-Wildsaeue.html)

[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/tschernobyl- folgen-r...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/tschernobyl-folgen- radioaktive-wildschweine-in-bayern-13484151.html)

[http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/tschern...](http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/tschernobyl/lebensmittelbelastung.html)

<comment><USER19> Genau - danke schoen :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Aren't radioactive wild boars (or rats) the first enemy you encounter on pretty much every post apocalyptic video game ever? Funny how things turn out...

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe we should relocate endangered species to Fukushima or Chernobyl.

Noone's going to buy a radioactive tusk.

<comment><USER23> I think lots of people would buy radioactive tusk, often because they wouldn't even know it was radioactive.

<comment><USER22> and the rumours will do the rest of the work.

<comment><USER23> It won't be all that radioactive so there won't really be rumors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't this just nature trying her best to redistribute the radiation threat? Or does radiation not work that way?

<comment><USER25> That's remarkably goal-orientated for a bunch of competing randomness. No, it's just that wildlife doesn't care about moderate contamination, doesn't especially care about stillbirths and birth defects, won't sue and can't be kept out.

<comment><USER24> I was only being half-flippant - maybe there's a better way to leverage this situation. Alas, tho, I don't have one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did anyone see a measurement on just how radioactive the boars are?

</comment><comment><USER26> Can we name one Bebop?

</comment><comment><USER27> Do you want orks? Because that's how we get orcs.

<comment><USER28> Or Bebop [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop_and_Rocksteady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop_and_Rocksteady)</comment></comment>


Freegler - Where you can rent things to your neighbours - <AUTHOR> http://freegler.com/ <comment><USER2> Slick Collaborative Consumption site</comment>


Ask HN: When is a business cofounder absolutely necessary? - <AUTHOR>

I'm technical and founding my own startup right now - it is vastly technical SaaS startup, but while it is very technical - there is a lot of work on the business end that doesn't meet my background.
I do have a little background in business (from college) but nothing that matters too much on the business from the real world (IMO).
Right now, I'm moonlighting my own startup and have focused for about the past 3 months now solely on the product. Before working on the product I did some market research, did a survey to my initial target audience, and have talked to a handful of individuals about it. All with pretty positive feedback once I thoroughly explained it (and no they weren't my best friends).
My question is, when is a cofounder (on business end) absolutely needed?
 --> I know optimally, the sooner the better, even 3 months earlier would have been better - but I haven't found a good fit so far. Any ideas?
If I could do it all myself, I would, but that is unrealistic for one person, while moonlighting :)
Thank you - to anyone with advice or thoughts on this. <comment><USER2> They are handy for sleeping, vacations, and having someone else to lean on. Sometimes they actually contribute to the business too :)</comment>


Self driving cars crash five times as much as regular ones - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/10/29/self-driving-cars-crash/ <comment><USER2> > _Still, in spite of the self-driving cars' high accident rate, the > University of Michigan study did not contradict the conclusions of Google > GOOG 0.56% and the DMV: The authors agreed that self-driving cars were not > to blame in any of their crashes_

That's little consolation when you've just crashed.

And it basically translates in that they're not very good (compared to humans) in handling active crisis situations on the road, where another driver took a bad turn, there was some obstacle, etc.

> _Finally, self-driving cars actually have a lower fatality rate, with zero > deaths resulting from their crashes_

Obviously, since they have not driven even 1/100.000 of the miles that regular cars have had.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.vox.com/technology/2015/10/30/9640230/self- drivi...](https://www.vox.com/technology/2015/10/30/9640230/self-driving-car- crashes) "Most of the accidents happened because another vehicle rear-ended the self-driving car. Self-driving cars have not been involved in any head-on collisions, and crashes involving self-driving cars were less likely to cause injuries than crashes involving conventional vehicles — just two out of 11 crashes led to injuries, compared with 28 percent of conventional vehicles."

It's hard to say "you've crashed" when you've been rear-ended.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> IMHO autonomous driving systems still do not mix well with humans on the road. Could even say they are not compatible with each other. With how things have been going, soon we would have systems predicting behavior of human driver for safer driving. But by then, roads will have humans, systems predicting human behavior and systems released between the two without prediction.

<comment><USER4> I am of a similar opinion. People have been talking about self driving cars for years, but for some reason as soon as people hear that Google is developing them its assumed they will be a reality in the near future.

Likewise there is lots of talk about automation of jobs, which in a way is happening, yet at the same time we seem to be working harder for more hours than 20 years ago.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567289/driverless-truck- rio-...](https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567289/driverless-truck-rio-tinto)

<comment><USER4> From the article: "The big difference is that the mine setting offers a huge advantage that most companies can't match — there are no human drivers on the road."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The article title is poorly written: the cars were at fault in none of these accidents. Most of these accidents were cases where the self-driving car was rear-ended.</comment>


Inception - The movie, explained through C code - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/3463797919/inception-the-movie-explained-through-c-code

<comment><USER2> I don't really understand the buzz about Inception. I found it very easy to follow and not all that exciting. Primer was a lot more mind bending and more interesting to boot. Inception just felt like the actors were spending the entire movie saying _"look at us! This is exciting! And confusing! Now be confused!"_.

To each his own, didn't do it for me though.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand people who claim it's a "mindfuck" movie. The plot is pretty straightforward and self-consistent. What it is is an extremely well put-together movie.

The runtime of that movie is 148 minutes-almost two and a half hours. Yet it doesn't feel that long. It also manages to have three different groups of characters doing separate things, without confusing the audience. The last move I can recall trying to do that level of simultaneity was The Phantom Menace, which failed horribly at that task. Therefore, I find Inception to be a very interesting movie intellectually, because I think it's fun to think about the techniques that Nolan uses to make a 2.5 hour, multithreaded movie so entertaining.

<comment><USER4> One glaring inconsistency that tripped me up for most of the "climax" of the movie was the amount of time Arthur had in "Level 2" while the van was falling...

The bridge looked to be about 100 feet up when the van started falling. It takes 2.5 seconds to fall 100 feet. So Arthur, who was one "level" down, would have had 2.5x20 seconds to figure out what's going on... come up with a plan... go back to the floor below to retrieve the charges... get back to the floor where the team is... get them wrapped up and moved to the elevator... set the charges... and finally detonate them. That took _way_ longer than 50 seconds.

Sadly, I actually did a little more research after the movie and found my estimate was even a little generous. The bridge the van was falling off was the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge in LA. Combining the published stats on the bridge with a clip from the movie (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_4qc- JYZPo#t=17s>) makes it look like the van only had ~80 feet to fall...

<comment><USER5> Your explanation reminds me of an experience I had watching Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure with an old girlfriend's roomate.

About halfway through, he started making these little dismissive groans and mumbling "no way" under his breath. They gained volume as the plot progressed until finally he couldn't take it anymore:

"No way. There's just no way they could fit that many people into a phone booth."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's an official Inception game/app for iPhone. It purports to tap into your dreams, if you leave it running while you sleep.

Basically it plays a little bit of music and sound effects, and also processes external sounds and plays them backwards and stuff like that (it would pick up on you talking in your sleep). It also uses the movement and light sensors to go through different phases. There are different 'dreams' (basically sound generation algorithms) that you unlock somehow by using the app. One thing that bugs me though is, people always told me not to sleep with headphones on in case you strangle yourself, and for this app that's pretty much required.

When they said Nolan was keen on making a groundbreaking game, I really wasn't expecting _this_.

<comment><USER7> When I can't sleep, I need to listen to music to sleep. My wife needs absolute silence. So I always put on my headphones. I've been doing this for a few months now and the most that's happened is I've pulled the earphones out of my iPhone as I tossed & turned.

However, I don't think you can strangle yourself with headphones while you sleep. I imagine the force needed to do it is stronger than what you'll face from tossing & turning. I wasn't able to find any info on this anywhere either though, so don't quote me on that - but it strikes me as unlikely, at least in my own experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The source code is located here[1]; for some reason it wasn't directly linked to in the blog post.

1\. <https://github.com/karthick18/inception>

<comment><USER9> If you click the little cloud it takes you there. My bad, I forgot to include it in the body of the post, fixing now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fascinating. Would love to see this done with other languages/concurrency mechanisms, like Erlang actors, Clojure agents, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll own up! I found this on HN yesterday: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252909></comment>


GoInstant will be discontinued at August 31 - <AUTHOR> https://goinstant.com/blog/time-to-say-farewell

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, i feel for the ones who used GoInstant as their BaaS. I mean, 30 days to migrate to a another service could potentially be pretty rough.

<comment><USER2> Yep, i'm one of those, it seems. Currently looking for alternatives

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel for you bro, I only have a "for fun" project that I used GoInstant with.

If You look for alternatives, Parse and Firebase are two good alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So SalesForce acquired GoInstant to shut it down? 10/10</comment>


Freed journalist tricked captors into Twitter access - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wireless/119845/freed-journalist-tricked-captors-twitter-access

<comment><USER2> I first read this here which has some different details: [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10671961)

Although it would make a much more interesting story, I can't see any particular link between the messages and being released.</comment>


Every single Yahoo account was hacked – 3B in all - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/03/technology/business/yahoo-breach-3-billion-accounts/index.html?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_content%3B0O%2BnM%2BWBQrKMzuHfq2jgDw%3D%3D <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15395946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15395946)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, didn't see that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was impressed when it was just 1B accounts, to think they actually had 3B accounts, that in itself is impressive.</comment>


Quora meets SMS - Cloudy, social answers through your friends. - <AUTHOR> http://askcloudy.com/

<comment><USER2> I really like the idea. I can see this being really popular amongst a group of friends in lots of social situations - bars, dinner parties, events.

That said, I know Quora is _the thing_ right now, but how does asking a question and getting yes/no from your friends have anything to do with Quora? Yes this is a Q & A service but Quora isn't a yes/no type of Q&A service. Also - this is amongst your friends, whearas Quora's popularity is being driven by the answers from 'experts/insiders/etc' to questions from 'outsiders.'

I don't want to just assume the headline is purposely click-bait so I'll just ask...how do you see this as Quora meets SMS?

<comment><USER3> We actually didn't write the current title, we like to clearly differentiate ourselves from general Q&A services such as Quora. Unlike Quora, Yahoo Answers, etc, questions on Cloudy are structured (more comparable to a poll), asked to a specific group of friends (rather than to everybody), and are pushed out to the people you ask (either by APNS or SMS). You're quite right when you say that we have relatively little to do with Quora et al.

<comment><USER4> What do you think of Doodle as an analogy?

Love the idea, will look for an opportunity to try it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm one of the founders of Cloudy (I submitted a post earlier and it didn't go anywhere, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2227646>), so feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you have.

<comment><USER5> What are some common questions are people asking with this?

<comment><USER3> We don't actually read the text of individual questions, as we want our users to feel confident that their questions will only be read by the friends they choose to ask. From talking to early users, though, coordinating group activities seems to be a popular use-case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The homepage should show a screenshot of the results screen, because that's where (I assume) this service has value over just sending a mass text.

<comment><USER3> Very good point, we'll definitely add that in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> User charliekim asked a really good question [1] in the previous thread: "why is it free?"

Would you care to answer that here? I assume you do have some kind of revenue model in mind, but charliekim and I can't be the only people who think that people would pay to use this app...

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2227784>

<comment><USER3> Our goal for Cloudy, at least right now, is to get as many people as possible using the app. When a user asks a question using Cloudy to a non-user, we send that friend the question by SMS, along with a short blurb to the effect of "Have an iPhone? Download Cloudy for free here to ask your own questions!" and a link to the App Store listing. So, the more people that use the app, the more viral growth we can have.

In order to not be eaten alive by SMS costs, we are working with 4INFO to include short ads at the bottom of texts sent to the SMS users (users who receive and reply to questions by SMS, but don't have the app) who received the highest number of texts over the last week. Once we hit a certain number of ads included per month, we will actually break even on SMS costs, all while only showing SMS ads to a small subset of users.

Beyond SMS, we have monetization plans for the app itself that will come a bit further down the road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a cool idea and I can actually see this being used in social situations. Along with everybody else, I'm curious as to how you will monetize this other than good old fashioned ads.

Can you elaborate anymore on your ideas in that realm?

EDIT: Figured some feedback would actually be more helpful for ya. As somebody else mentioned, may want to change the "Learn more" link to go to something that actually tells me more about what Cloudy is and examples of how I could use it. And also as mentioned, definitely show some other screens in the app other than the home screen. This is what will sell me more on trying the app. (although I'm curious enough as it is to run upstairs now, grab my phone, and download, heh.)

<comment><USER3> We're working on both the learn more page and the screenshots right now, thanks for the feedback.

As for monetization, we're considering some kind of "sponsored questions" offering that could be used for both advertising and market research purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you plan to monetize ? too early to ask but if you had something in mind since you are going to incur cost per sms.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do you offer a web version of the app?</comment>


Adobe in talks to buy Marketo - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-marketo-m-a-adobe-systems-exclusive/exclusive-adobe-in-talks-to-buy-marketing-software-firm-marketo-sources-idUSKCN1LT0EK <comment><USER2> They bought Magento too. Adobe must have a thing for the letter 'm'</comment>


Phenylephrine Is No More Effective Than Placebo for Nasal Congestion (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.jwatch.org/na39054/2015/09/17/phenylephrine-no-more-effective-placebo-nasal-congestion <comment><USER2> That's the "Sudafed PE" you can buy without going to the pharmacy, right? I always joked with my wife that he PE stood for Placebo Effect. That stuff is garbage.

<comment><USER3> I had chronic sinus headaches triggered by food. I've always found it effective.

<comment><USER4> It is a big misconception that the placebo effect must be ineffective — there wouldn't be an effect at all if that was the case. I hear it's sometimes even effective when you're _told_ you're taking a placebo.

<comment><USER5> I've always found it fascinating that naloxone (the drug administered to people who OD on heroin, since it counters the effects) actually does make the placebo effect go away (that is, placebos become ineffective). Makes me think that the placebo effect is very real and something like a self-induced opiate.

<comment><USER6> I've always wondered why placebo works for minor problems (a cold, nasal congestion, mild pain) but it does not for real diseases. For example, you never see chemotherapy treatments compared to placebo (because it is unethical to conduct such a study), but it could be done with "wait and monitor" cancers such as slow-growing prostate cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would consider voting for a politician with a platform of eliminating phenylephrine and making it easier to obtain pseudoephedrine, i.e. not having to get it from behind a counter while showing ID and signing a logbook. Although perhaps I'm naive about the seriousness of the methamphetamine epidemic and the positive impact the additional restrictions have had to society.

<comment><USER8> Beware pseudoephedrine. People have been known to abuse it, and it has dangers especially for those with heart issues: People with heart disease or hypertension should watch out for any legitimate drug that contains pseudoephedrine. See, pseudoephedrine doesn't just constrict the blood vessels in your nose and sinuses; it can also raise blood pressure and heart rate, setting the stage for vascular catastrophe. Over the years, pseudoephedrine has been linked to heart attacks and strokes. "Pseudoephedrine can also worsen symptoms of benign prostate disease and glaucoma," [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24777955/ns/health- health_care/t/d...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24777955/ns/health- health_care/t/drugs-doctors-wouldnt-take/)

<comment><USER9> I remember years ago I was at the gym with a work buddy and we decided to try one of the drinks offered there, since we forgot our water bottles. We had the most amazing workout. We both executed personal bests, and after the workout we felt great. Much less tired than normal. At that point, I turned to the empty bottles and found it was chocked full of pseudoephedrine. It was a little scary to us, so we never did that again.

Yes, it is a powerful drug.

<comment><USER10> Where can you buy beverages with pseudoephedrine added?

<comment><USER11> More common would be ephedra, though this has been mostly illegal to sell as a food/drink ingredient in the US since 2004. Ephedra contains ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Phenylephrine has been the bane of people's existence for years. I have to constantly remind friends/family when they're complaining that their cold medicine didn't help: "If you pulled it off the shelf yourself, it won't do anything. The kind with the active ingredient that actually _works_ is behind the counter."

<comment><USER8> In general, cold medicines do not work. We cannot cure the cold viruses, only alleviate symptoms. Mostly, warmth, fluids and rest, and not spreading the cold to others is best advice, plus decongestants, which is what you're mostly being sold. Even so, people ask for antibiotics for many ailments where they are useless, and add to resistance instead.

<comment><USER13> I had one of those experiences a while back where the conclusion is so obvious that you wonder how you hadn't worked it out many years earlier.

I actually did rest and drink plenty of fluids when I had a horrible cold.

I stayed in bed for most of the next 24 hours, sleeping when I could, at a comfortable room temperature and with a little ventilation.

I made sure I drank several pints of water during that time, even though at first my sore throat was hurting every time I swallowed and I really didn't want to.

One day later, a condition that had felt like it was going to give me at least another week of unpleasantness was already greatly improved. Not fully recovered, but much, much better, far beyond anything any cold remedy medication had ever done for me (though the real medicine did also help with decongestion and allowing enough comfort to fall asleep).

It turns out that doctors have been right all along and it was just me not getting it, fooling myself into thinking that if I went to bed a bit early and had a few extra sips of water then I was following the doctors' advice.

<comment><USER14> Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I took megadoses of vitamin C and my cold I was sure would knock me out for a week went away!

<comment><USER13> _Post hoc ergo propter hoc._

Except that taking proper rest and fluids has consistently helped me to get over anything like colds ever since, and as far as I'm aware it is the only common factor that changed other than my age.

<comment><USER14> I'm not saying you're wrong, and I agree that the data supports "rest and fluids".

But I have relatives that make similar statements about lots of health treatments that are absolutely not supported by the data, and probably just demonstrate variability and placebo effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It looks like this was known for a while now.

>The Food and Drug Administration withdrew its 1976 approval as a nasal decongestant in 2007

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylephrine#Decongestant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylephrine#Decongestant)

</comment><comment><USER16> It shows a real disdain for the public; pseudephedrine used to be in Sudofed IIRC, which was really effective for me. They kept the exact name and packaging and removed the active ingredient - that's fraud IMO.

<comment><USER17> Are you in the US? We have Sudafed with pseudoephedrine in the UK.

<comment><USER16> I'm in UK. Perhaps they have a different one behind the counter? The "sudafed max strength" (presumably they added caffeine to make you think it was working?) I have only has phenylephrine.

[The inefficacy has been reported for a long time, eg [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19230461/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19230461/) .]

Edit: just checked, it seems out of the 30 or so "Sudafed" there is one with pseudoephedrine, the key phrase in the otherwise identical packaging is "clears catarrh". Woohoo!

So "max strength" means "no better than placebo", lol.

<comment><USER17> Hah, I don't remember the packaging. I think I went in and asked for the one with pseudoephedrine and the pharmacist understood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Colour me unsurprised. It's never worked for me, I've spoken to doctors who have agreed it's been useless for them and their patients. I won't buy any product containing it.

It's nice that there's now research backing up these anecdotal pieces.

<comment><USER19> Had the same experience.

Side note, taking pseudoephedrine HCl has been an absolute lifesaver for me when I have terrible sinus pressure on planes. If you Google for "relieve sinus pressure on plane" or something similar, most of it is stuff that won't help when you're already in pain. I always take an ibuprofin and the real deal sudafed to open up my sinuses and relieve the pain, it works pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This probably sounds like nonsense, but with nasal congestion sometimes I can clear my sinuses by concentrating on where it feels constricted and trying to relax that area. I don't know anything about this drug, but I am pro placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER21> I actually miss phenylpropanolamine. Phenylephrine never does anything for me, and pseudoephedrine gives me rocks in my head.

Nowadays I just take a lot of antihistamines to stop the snot, but they don't do much for congestion.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can't remember where I read this, but my understanding was that phenylephrine was effective in nasal sprays, but is broken down in the stomach and isn't effective orally.

It's worth remembering that lots of medications may not be much better than placebo; for instance, guaifenesin is apparently not effective, despite forming the basis for popular expectorants.

</comment><comment><USER23> Heh. I see someone else follows @SwiftOnSecurity.

I didn't know this until this morning, but it matches my experience perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think I tried this once (accidentally) back when pseudoephedrine was put behind the counter and immediately figured out it was total garbage compared to the real thing. I can't believe they're allowed to charge money for that stuff.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hahaha, this is so satisfying, I never buy that crap and insist on waiting in line in the damn pharmacy for proper pseudoephedrine. I always figured it was possible it was all in my head (I'm not sick THAT often to say for sure), but phenelephrine never seemed like it did a thing.

</comment><comment><USER26> Funny to read this today as I wake up with a "hangover" from taking Sudafed PE last night. I do have a box of "the good stuff" but it isn't rated for night- time use. I think I'll dump the remainder of the bottle out.

<comment><USER27> Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) usually counteracts the stimulant effect of pseudoephedrine, and is one of the main ingredients in NyQuil (along with a cough suppressant). That combination is what made NyQuil so formidable before the pseudo-pocalypse, but you can recreate the effect just by taking both.

However nasal sprays like Afrin are just as effective and don't have nearly the stimulant effect, especially when used with NyQuil

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What about eucalyptus oil candy? It instantly unblocks my nose whenever I take it, I don't think I'm imagining that.

<comment><USER29> And if you have sore throat and / or cough, boil a cup of milk with a quarter teaspoon of turmeric powder, pour it into a cup, add half a teaspoon of pepper powder, stir and let it cool down. You can also add honey or sugar to improve the taste. Drink it warm / hot before you sleep and when you wake up, and be amazed at the quick relief you will feel.

<comment><USER30> Great idea! Turmeric is a good anti-inflammatory drug.

If you burn yourself, you can put yellow mustard the burn and let it sit for a minute or so. Pain will nearly disappear and healing will be notably accelerated. Supposedly it's due to the turmeric used as color (brown mustard won't work).

Wouldn't've believed it if I hadn't tried it myself. Works like a hot damn.

<comment><USER29> True about Turmeric but for sore throat / coughs it's the Black pepper that really gives the quick relief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why would you pop pills when there are perfectly good sprays?

<comment><USER32> There are reasons for using one in detriment of the other. Like rebound congestion.

<comment><USER2> The pill also help if you are prone to ear infections. They thin everything out up there.</comment></comment></comment>


A Miserable Debt-Free Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?p=4316 <comment><USER3> It's cool that this guy is doing things that make him happy. But I'm extremely confident that he didn't do this by following the financial plan he blithely gives.

Because a) good luck finding an investment that'll give you 10% consistently for decades, and b) even with that magic risk-free return, his plan takes 20 years (or 22 if you somehow don't have $10K stashed up as a youngster) and then c) leaves you on the edge of your expenses (as he defines them) and reliant on that consistent 10% return continuing forever.

"Hey, if you find a magic investment, you can retire at 47 and then live in constant fear of penury!"

<comment><USER4> I don't think you need a magic investment. Find a way to live on half of your after-tax income, save for ten to fifteen years the additional amount and put it in large, relatively safe dividend stocks (DJIA is a good place to look). Then you have retirement at the same level as pre-retirement with about a 4-5% withdrawal rate even if your investment returns only average about 5% per year through the accumulation and disbursement phase.

<comment><USER5> > Find a way to live on half of your after-tax income

This is like "How to have an easy life":

1\. Find a way to have plenty of money. 2\. ...

<comment><USER4> How much money do you need to live? $15k a year? How much can you generate: 30k a year? You're set.

This isn't talking about being wealthy - it's about considering alternatives and making good choices - if you can make more than $20k a year.

<comment><USER6> So step 1, don't have kids, step 2 don't get sick.

That's like saying win the lottery. Sure, it could work, but it's a lot of risk and does not scale.

<comment><USER7> So step 1 don't live in the US.

fixed that for you :)

<comment><USER8> Step 2: Do not get paid like in the US.

<comment><USER9> Step 3. Live in a country with a proper healthcare system (not the U.S.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He unfortunately kept one of the biggest contributors to the success of his lifestyle a secret.

How can you get consistent 10% return on your investment?

Assuming a more realistic 6% nominal return - 2% inflation gives us a more realistic 4% real return.

Running the numbers that way ends up with a measly $10,000 in interest after 20 years not a whopping $47,000.

<comment><USER11> 10% was an example to simplify the model. Achieving the same goal at a reduced return involves either putting more money in or waiting longer. It doesn't invalidate the model.

<comment><USER12> Assuming 10% risk free return is more like designing a tank and assuming the armor is an order of magnitude stronger than it is.

First, let's cover the tank in 10mm of it, which will give us all the protection we need. Freeing up that much room gives us more space to put a bigger gun on it. After vastly reducing the weight, even more so because we don't need to carry as much fuel, we don't need tracks, because an 8 wheel variant gives sufficient traction.

Oh, and since our new highly mobile and effective vehicle now costs a tenth as much, all the other expensive and slow vehicles taking on other roles in the army can be deprecated.

In fact, let's design a variant that carries fuel. In this way, instead of having 50 tanks advancing 100km per day, we can have 500 of our new vehicles advancing 500km per day, with the same firepower and effective armor, completely overwhelming any opposition. Why has nobody figured this out before?

OK, so, after we've taken the base assumption and followed the chain to its logical conclusion without error... we have nonsense. After realizing our mistake, and factoring in the real value for armor, our design and plans for reworking the army are absurd.

"Waiting longer" at 6% means 82 years to achieve the same returns as 50 years at 10%. But if we include 2% inflation as well, 6% takes 97 years to match 50 years at 10%. One of those is planning for your retirement if you're young... the other is planning for that of your grandchildren.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh look. Another wealthy person lecturing on the wisdom he has learned through wealth, that wealth is secondary to happiness and should be avoided. For the rest of us, lack of money is the root of most stress. Those with dependants cannot simply remove them from our lives (where is this guys wife now?). Our lives are not diminished by opportunities lost because we spent too much time at the office. They are diminished because we don't have enough money to pay the bills --> because we are not able to spend time at the office --> underemployment.

I actually believe the 10% reference. But I also believe that he isn't being honest about where it is from. I smell a spendthrift trust or investment property that his is milking (ie taking rents but not paying the mortgage.)

If this sounds like a rant, it is. I'm spending all day doing RSA submissions. I do this to chase business/clients/pad my resume. It's yet more time spent chasing work rather than actually doing the work. Welcome to the gig economy.

<comment><USER11> > In Australia the government gives much of the population "middle class > welfare", a few $100/week which covers much of my food and bills. We also > have free public health care.

You don't need much when you have a social safety net, freely given to anyone who needs it.

<comment><USER14> He gets that middle class welfare due to his child. As a single male professional in Australia, I see none of that middle class welfare, unless I start speculating in real estate or taking advantage of superannuation concessions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is all about the savings-rate. If you save 50% of your net-income, you can take one month off for every month you work. If you have a ~80% savings-rate, you can take 8-9 months off for every month you work.

Most people can not quadruple their income, but it is technically possible to live on way, way less than most people think. The guy in the post claims his expenses are 40k/year for a 2.5 person household. That is 16k/year per person, which is low. But it can be lower than this. Check out Jacob from [http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per- yea...](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-year.html), he lives off 7k per year in California and retired in his early 30s.

<comment><USER16> How to live on $7k/year - don't have a pre-existing medical condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems that most people are immediately pointing to why the author is wrong or that his numbers are incorrect. I think we are missing the broader point that spending less than you make and saving consistently for 10+ years is going to help you have the financial freedom to work less. Save 15% of your income into retirement and you will be set.

Another key point is to stop thinking that there is good debt (i.e car loan at 2%) and to stop the 'keeping up with the Joneses' mentality. If you need a loan to buy something besides a house, you probably can't afford it. Being debt free can give you a mental and emotional peace that is hard to find elsewhere.

<comment><USER18> I don't know that there is much in the way of good debt practically available to most people, but your example is bad. If your choices are:

1\. Buy a car with cash up front.

2\. Buy the same car with financing at 2% APR.

Then you should exercise option #2, and take the money you don't immediately spend and invest it aiming to get 4% return on investment (which should be achievable), then pay off your loan and realize a net 2% return.

<comment><USER17> The problem with option 2 is that it doesn't take into account risk. You need a much higher and more secure place for a return to alleviate risk. Similar to what others said most people are taking out loans for things that they don't have the cash for. They aren't taking out the loan at a low interest rate so they can invest their cash somewhere else. But they are told, take the cheap money and invest elsewhere. They just forget to do that last part.

<comment><USER18> This may well be true, but the takeaway there is not "2% APR is bad debt," it's leading into the confluence of issues about how to get people to invest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > I am not convinced there is any significant advantage from private schools

I don't know what the schools are like in Adelaide, but in much of the U.S. the impetus for sending kids to private schools is not the quality of education per se, but the quality of the students. In Baltimore, where I live, you can either send your kids to private school, or send your kids to a school where some significant fraction of everyone is in a gang. Or you can move into one of the exorbitantly priced suburbs, increasing your carbon footprint and contributing to the exodus of middle class people that makes schools in the city such a disaster to begin with.

<comment><USER20> By sending your kids to a private school, aren't you contributing to the exodus from public schools that make schools in the city such a disaster to begin with?

<comment><USER19> It's a collective action problem. I'd love for all the parents of my generation to move back into the city and send their kids to public school, so we could have schools where middle class values and culture dominate. But I won't if everyone else doesn't. The cost of that is potentially quite a bit more than the cost of private school: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1549711/Children- lear...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1549711/Children-learn-most- from-peers-not-parents.html).

<comment><USER20> I get that, I just meant to point out it's a collective action problem in both cases. There are different trade-offs for you personally though which might make you pick one over the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> He's 48. I am 50. I know most folks here are in their 30's and 20's. Let me suggest the better takeaway is that if you want a particular lifestyle or personal outcome and you are persistent over time, you can do all kinds of things that look undoable to most people.

His real secret is he made a decision to walk away from keeping up with The Jones' and stuck with it for many years. If you do the same, you can have similar outcomes by his age, assuming you want that. Some people do. Some people don't.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Until age 38 I was very focused on material accumulation. I had a Porsche > 911 (called Helmut), several investment properties, a wife, and several > pairs of trousers.

Is anybody else disturbed by the inclusion of his wife in his list of material posessions?

<comment><USER23> The tone of the article is one of humorous self-deprecation, which is quite a common trait amongst Brits and Australians; to me, the inclusion of "a wife" in that sentence seems no more strange than his mention of "long pub lunches" as a highlight of his previous career in industry.

<comment><USER24> That he lists "several pairs of trousers" in the same list of accomplishments as a Porsche and investment properties should be a clue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Jeez, a whole room full of smart (or at least educated) people and half of them see "10% returns" and get completely wrapped around the axle. Use your brains a bit - the same concept applies at whatever return you happen to think is reasonable. Adjust the numbers appropriately, and you're all set.

For example, a 4% withdrawal rate would have let retire into the teeth of the Great Depression and gone another 30 years without working a day. Adjust for your circumstances a bit, and you can make it last forever. Or get a little bit clever with variable withdrawal rates and you can increase the rate _and_ make it last forever.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> If you don't know who David Rowe is - his work is amazing. He's the main force behind Codec2, one of the few opensource ultra-low bitrate speech codecs out there. The project hit ~700 bps recently! ([https://github.com/freedv/codec2/blob/master/src/codec2.h](https://github.com/freedv/codec2/blob/master/src/codec2.h) \- I think it was actually at 400 bps @ one point, but I guess it got scaled back)

</comment><comment><USER27> Hmm.. it seems like most of his strategy depends on "middle class welfare," public healthcare, and public schools. I don't know much about Australian taxes, but I assume that with his low income and high savings he's paying less in taxes than he's taking from the public. And he's doing it because he likes the lifestyle, not because he fell on hard times. If I were an Australian taxpayer, I'd want to know why I should fund the early retirement of a tech exec.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's very possible to retire within 10 years if you're frugal.

Essentially if you save 65% of your after tax income you can retire in ~11 years assuming you do not increase spending in retirement.

This model assumes a safe portfolio withdrawal rate of 4%.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Some people call it FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). There are many people doing it and several resources online about this. I would start visiting some of the sites on this sidebar [https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence)

</comment><comment><USER30> > In Australia the government gives much of the population "middle class > welfare", a few $100/week which covers much of my food and bills. We also > have free public health care. So the country you live in helps.

What a wonderful country.

<comment><USER31> I imagine that has to play a HUGE part in how he's able to stay out of work. If it's exactly "a few hundred a week" that still adds up to ~15,600 a year. I know the cost of living is pretty high over there but that's a really healthy chunk of change to be able to count on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 10%/year investment return is virtually impossible these days.

<comment><USER4> S&P 500 average return since the early 1900s has been 12%<. But... that includes volatility. Still it doesn't seem like an impossible number - <USER2> past 6 years have all met that growth target.

<comment><USER33> S&P return since 2000 was 2.2% on average, 0.05% (!!) inflation-adjusted. Last decade was 5.3%, or 3.2% inflation adjusted.

<comment><USER34> Total return is ~4.3% nominal ~2% real annualized since Jan 2000, ~7.5% nominal ~5.4% real annualized since Jul 2005. Total return isn't a perfect measurement (particularly due to taxation of dividends), but its a much more useful number. Over a long term, dividend reinvestment makes a huge difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I agree with the comments, his 10% are way overestimated. Best I've ever did in a year was a bit below 7% across all my assets (but then maybe I'm just not very good at managing my money). That said, saving enough money to have such a life by 48 is easy for most people here.

The easiest way to save is to keep spending like a student even when you start earning real money. That means avoiding the trap of wanting a bigger house, getting used to expensive food and restaurants, spending money in big brands and all the luxuries people start getting addicted as their salary go up. This goes with the second rule of thumb, never take on debt on depreciating assets. A mortgage for a house is fine, a loan for a TV is not.

It's much easier not changing your lifestyle as income increase than suddenly trying to cut expenses. Of course this advice doesn't really work for people who are paid a low salary but for software developers who earn a multiple of the median income, saving like this is easy.

<comment><USER36> In 2009, the S&P 500 returned 23%, where were you then?

It did similarly well in 2013. Are you picking stocks or something? Because you should settle down and just get some Index Funds from Vanguard.

The Median 15 year annualized return on the S&P 500 since inception is 12%, back out 2% inflation and you're right at 10% returns.

10% returns are not unreasonable. Sure it's not going to be a flat 10% every year like the article, but annualized returns of 10% over 15-20 years is doable for everyone.

<comment><USER37> If it's that doable why are there no funds that guarantee 8% every year? I would even buy a fund that gives me "only" 5% guaranteed. They can keep the other 5%.

<comment><USER38> Why would I guarantee something if I could avoid it? Investment returns are lumpy; some years you get +23%, other years you get -20% (probably 2008, for example), why would a fund manager offer a guarantee?

An average of 10% over a long period is doable; Berkshire Hathaway has averaged +15% for 40 years. Just because fund don't guarantee something doesn't mean it isn't doable.

<comment><USER37> Winning the lottery is doable too. So is making $20 million per year as golf pro.

When people give investment advice based on the 10% average return (which they do) then it should be a pretty safe thing and easy to achieve for everybody. Otherwise it will be bad advice for a lot of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Cool, this is the FreeDV / Codec2 guy, did not know this side. Might find his commentary on Codec2 patent issues as interesting as his financial planning commentary.

</comment><comment><USER40> "invest at 10% (you get to work out where)" if you could really do this you wouldn't have to work (at the current rates environment). You could start selling bonds for say 7% return and collect 3% for free!

</comment><comment><USER41> A guy I know retired in about 1970, and raised his family on his savings alone, which were about 200k. He says today his savings are mostly untouched (he lived off the interest, and his in recent years he reached the legal retirement age and receives a pension).

To do so he:

\- Home schooled his kids

\- Had the benefit of free public healthcare

\- His kids (who most have now got university degrees) used government interest-free loans to pay for uni

\- He did take his family on a year long overseas trip back to his native country which cost about 40k

\- He didn't live in a house, but in a sailing boat!

</comment><comment><USER42> Perhaps it would be a lot easier to live as one pleases without having to pay the taxes required to subsidize $100/week and free health care for others.

Perhaps it would be easier to earn a decent return on investments if your government doesn't subsidize borrowing so much that you earn less than a dollar a year in interest on your bank deposits. Maybe Australia doesn't do that and its banks pay a decent interest rate as a result?

<comment><USER43> Isn't is weird how some people in this thread say that the guy can only do it because of Australia's generous social programs. Meanwhile you think it would be easier if these didn't exist and taxes were lower.

In reality I bet it's about as easy no matter what country you live in and what tax rates or social programs you have access to. Simply live a somewhat frugal life, save lots of money, and let the magic of compounding work over a decade or two.

Rather than looking for excuses it's probably better to just get started.

<comment><USER42> I'm not searching for excuses. I'm a great saver and took several years off to work on apps and startups and a couple of book ideas.

I'm very frugal. My last car lasted 15 years.

Perhaps you'd be better off responding to what someone says instead of inventing imaginary motives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's kinda cool that he mentions the kids throughout.

So many greedy people feel attacked by this kind of thing, and react to the implicit allegation that they're being wasteful with condescension, muttering about the selfishness or oddness of not having kids, or then again about how much of a difference having to support a family makes and how unrealistic idealists are.

As I heard it said once, Lawful evil: "I did it for my family".

<comment><USER45> > _So many greedy people feel attacked..._

I think I found out why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A lot of people seem to be attacking his numbers and his advice etc. But even if his explanations and suggestions are complete bunk, the fact that he's _doing it_ serves as an existence proof that this kind of life is achievable. So if you're attracted to this kind of life, take it as evidence that not everyone works forever, and you can figure out how to do it too.

<comment><USER46> > the fact that he's doing it serves as an existence proof that this kind of > life is achievable

Real life lottery winners prove that winning the lottery is achievable. That doesn't make playing the lottery good financial advice.

<comment><USER4> But... he provides somewhat actionable advice that helps get there.

The lottery example you provide is one in which even the winners can't give good advice on how to win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> At the moment, relatively safe investments with 10% yields do not exist.

<comment><USER18> At basically every moment, relatively safe investments with 10% real yields do not exist. For an investment to be relatively safe and give 10% real yield, that means that the economy as a whole has to grow at roughly 10% per year.

That'd be awesome! We all would like that! But it's not something that ever really happens. Maybe if we discover strong AI or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a really cool tool: www.firecalc.com that will let you calculate your likelihood of being able to retire based on all previous permutations of stock market returns.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think the plan is patience and discipline. For some it may be to invest money over 10 years. For the average HN user it may mean to have the discipline to create a paid micro saas which requires little time to manage and keep working on it for several years. Invest $100 per week, or invest 2 hours per week, and grow your paid service x% yearly.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is what I'd love to do one day. Have enough money so I can just build interesting things all the time.

<comment><USER43> Save half your money for 15 years and you can do this. Depending on your financial situation you can probably do it faster. It's simple (though not easy). Don't just imagine this as some impossible dream. Make it a real goal and go for it!

Go read [http://mrmoneymustache.com](http://mrmoneymustache.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> summary, country you live in helps. This guy is on welfare.

<comment><USER50> I'm sure that let him quit his job a whole one year earlier.</comment></comment>


It's Like Google Maps with Sim City 2000 - OnionMap - <AUTHOR> http://flowingdata.com/2008/08/07/its-like-google-maps-with-sim-city-2000-onionmap/

<comment><USER2> This is cool, but why not link directly to the site:

<http://us.onionmap.com/web/us/>

All the linked blog post tells us is that the author enjoyed playing Sim City 2000. Not Hacker News :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It was more from a meta perspective, I would like more HN folks to know about the excellent flowingdata.com website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a map dev, I'd like to see a lot more competition to Google/MS/Yahoo from hand-painted maps. It's an under-explored niche. Another example: hand- painted, interactive road intersections at Yandex Maps - [http://maps.yandex.ru/map.xml?mapID=2000&mapX=4159769...](http://maps.yandex.ru/map.xml?mapID=2000&mapX=4159769&mapY=7475551&scale=7&slices=1&l=jnc&oid=jnc-01-61)

<comment><USER4> Do you have any recommendations for other resources for getting high-quality maps?</comment></comment>


Evernote Raises $70M At $1B Valuation To Prep For IPO, And Next 100 Years - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/03/evernote-70-million/ <comment><USER2> Every web/app company seems to be a billion dollar company with a couple of year's work these days. It would be nicer if we'd see as many billion dollar solar panel companies or something.</comment>


Four Ways to Create a Mesh for a Sphere - <AUTHOR> https://gamedevdaily.io/four-ways-to-create-a-mesh-for-a-sphere-d7956b825db4#.5lzblag34 <comment><USER2> You could make a "spherified icosahedron" which outperformed the "spherified cube" if you wanted to have triangles with more uniform area. Having the areas of the triangles vary by a few percent really isn't a big deal though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have an HN question. I submitted this link over 12 hours ago. It got no comments or upvotes. Now it's showing as being a 2 hour old link with 12 points. I don't understand. What does that mean? Can someone explain?

<comment><USER3> It happened to me too. I think recent changes in HN allow a link that got no attention to be resubmitted. Then the timing does the rest :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is HN still having network issues? Got Gateway message from Cloudflare. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> In my experience, no, but at the same time, I was down for 2 days until I switched DNS providers.

If you're having issues still, you might want to do what I did, and start using Google's DNS servers. I believe the IP addresses are 18.104.22.168 and 184.108.40.206.</comment>


Withings acquired by Nokia - <AUTHOR> http://www.withings.com/us/en/withings-nokia <comment><USER2> I have 3 Withings products and I must say all 3 have helped improve my life and health. I hope this helps create more great things rather than uncertainty.

<comment><USER3> Given the history of acquisitions, I'd say prepare for your devices to be EOL and possibly remote-bricked within a year.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I'd say prepare for your devices to be EOL and possibly remote-bricked within a year "

No way they would get away with that, especially as they're both European companies and consumer protections laws tend to be a lot better here than in the US (where if I remember correctly Nest pulled something like that recently).

<comment><USER4> > No way they would get away with that, especially as they're both European > companies and consumer protections laws...

I'm curious. Why would you think they couldn't get away with it? I don't have one of these scales but I'd guess that they function as ordinary scales just fine (i.e. accurate readings), without the backend stuff. The 'cloud features' are probably under some ToS that lets them do whatever they want (like shut it down). The fact that people bought it for _exactly that feature_ doesn't seem to have much bearing.

<comment> k-mcgrady If you take a look at the product page it's not just a scale. [0] It's a 'smart body analyser'. There are several features that probably wouldn't work if they turned off the servers. For example if gives you the weather forecast when you weight yourself. Wifi sync and the companion app are also billed as main features. I would guess shutting down the servers would be fine providing all of this stuff still works and the device can maintain your history as it is supposed to show you trends. So it may still function as a scale but it's not being sold as a scale - it's not even called a 'scale'.

[0] [http://www.withings.com/uk/en/products/smart-body- analyzer](http://www.withings.com/uk/en/products/smart-body-analyzer)

Edit: Also under EU law if a product does not function as advertised you have a minimum two-year guarantee. So the company "must repair or replace them free of charge or give you a price reduction or a full refund." Unless the product continued doing everything it says on that sales page I linked Nokia would probably have to refund me and in many countries in the EU you are given even longer that the minimum required two years.

<comment><USER5> To get to that link from their home page you have to click an icon labelled "SCALES".

<comment> k-mcgrady Sure, that's the product category. The iPhone is a phone. But it's sold on the premise that it does much more than simply make phone calls. If Apple bricked everything apart from the phone call functionality it still isn't carrying out the functions it was advertised to me and sold to me to do, thus violating the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The acquisition price is apparently around $191M USD (€170M):

      http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-withings-acquisition-news/

I am overall happy with Withings products: wifi scale, step counter and blood pressure. My hope is that Nokia will be doing a better job with the acquisition than how they kept up with smartphones.

The purchase price seems to be on the low end; Withings do have a lot of personal customers info related to health and activities so I was thinking an acquisition price will be higher.

<comment><USER6> My concern is if Nokia or someone else drops the ball and the online accounts are deactivated that all these cool products become nearly useless. I very much depend on my Withings scale to automate my weight measurements on a daily basis.

<comment><USER7> I also have a Withings scale. There is a "Download" link on the website in the data table tab. It gives a CSV file of all the records for the current user. Good time to back it up locally, just in case.

(I wish all cloud based services would have this type of export facility).

<comment><USER8> A local backup is fine for your history, but if the server get shut down it's not a 'connected scale' going forward now, is it? I'll be bummed if ours stops sync'ing at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, good for the founders. I hope they and their investors walked off with a tidy sum from this. I have the Withings watch, and it's a very decent little device. They tackled the biggest gripe many people have with health monitor bracelets - that they look stupid and toylike. Withings made an actual watch out of it, and a decent-looking one. I replaced the band with a better leather one, and it gets compliments.

</comment><comment> c-slice Withings has consistently built really functional, beautiful products. From the outside it seems like an innovative, well run company. Hopefully this will continue to stay the same with Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER10> I really enjoyed using my Withing as my daily weighing tool.

However, Nokia is not a brand that I associate with statements like "creating beautifully designed products" or general consumer products period. I wasn't aware they're tapping back into the general consumer market after selling off its mobile division? (Though I did hear something about making a come back in making phones for Nokia)

<comment><USER11> Really? Old Nokia phones were beautifully designed, as are (IMO) Lumias (not sure how much of the latter is attributable to Microsoft, though).

<comment><USER12> Pretty much all of the Lumia design mnemonics was outsourced by Nokia to Frog in Helsinki.

<comment><USER13> I don't think that's true. The Lumia design language is actually the Nokia N8/N9 design language (look at pictures of either of them and this is immediately evident), and that was designed in-house by a team lead by Axel Meyer.

(Also, Frog Design is based in Palo Alto, and their web site doesn't list a Helsinki office.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I didn't think Nokia existed as a seperate entity any more?

<comment><USER15> Ouch.

Nokia has a market cap of $23B and did $14B in revenue over the last year.

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOK+Key+Statistics](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOK+Key+Statistics)

<comment><USER16> Isn't that a pretty low market-cap for that kind of revenue figure (not even 2x)? Are expectations not very good for them?

<comment><USER15> 1) Expectations are definitely not strong. 2) The common multiple is versus profit, not revenue. Their Price/Earnings is around 8. Not great, but much higher than Price/Sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is Nokia that involved in connected health?

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's to waiting for the "The Burning Smartwatch Memo"!

Jokes aside, I think Nokia has great potential in the wearables category.

</comment><comment><USER19> That is some cringey completely self-unaware "our incredible journey" type stuff. Great things for everyone! Dear customers have a great heaping of uncertainty. Isn't everything so great? Everything will be fine!

<comment><USER20> Looks like a good candidate for [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER21> Wow that site is eye opening. I guess I'm not an early enough adopter to experience this stuff first hand. That would be truly infuriating if you depend on any of those products...

<comment><USER22> I use their wifi scale every day and see no issue with this - it's a good chance for Withings to move faster, and for Nokia to become more relevant

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wait, Nokia is still around?

<comment><USER24> Nokia has been around since 1867 and continues as a profitable company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> sorry but these products just seem so lame & chintzy. Probably you can find all the same stuff on ebay for $10 delivered from china including s&h.

<comment><USER26> You've been misinformed. Their scale is a solid slab of sleek glass, and genuinely looks and feels nice. I'd totally buy a dumb version of it that looked exactly the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The first reaction pretty much everyone is going to have: "Wait, isn't Nokia a phone company?"

And that is why this will likely fail.

<comment><USER28> And before that, everyone's reaction was: "Wait, isn't Nokia a tire company?"

<comment><USER29> That's Nokian Tyres.

<comment><USER28> Same company. From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokian_Tyres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokian_Tyres) :

> A three-company merger formed the Nokia Corporation in 1967; Nokian Tyres > Limited was established in 1988 as a joint venture company split from the > conglomerate as Nokia Corporation started focusing entirely on the mobile > communications business.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Jumpsuit That Will Replace All Clothes Forever - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/21/the-jumpsuit-that-will-replace-all-clothes-forever/ <comment><USER2> As I'm reading, all I could think of was Speed Suits

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImVJHR9cQ7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImVJHR9cQ7o)</comment>


Montana Standard newspaper plans to retroactively unmask anonymous commenters - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/11/25/montana-standard-newspaper-plans-to-retroactively-unmask-anonymous-commenters/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a pretty clear-cut violation of their privacy policy. As Mr. Volokh has noted they have promised in their privacy policy to not share this information with third parties:

"We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information. "

Further, they have even explicitly stated that they cannot retroactively change the privacy policy to affect old comments:

"Of course, our use of information gathered while the current policy is in effect will always be consistent with the current policy, even if we change that policy later."

Given that, I don't see how this isn't a violation of their privacy policy. The FTC suggests that they are willing to enforce companies that mis-use personal information [1]. Given all of this, I highly encourage anyone who has posted anonymously on the MT Standard to report them to the FTC using the following form: [https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/Company#crnt](https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/Company#crnt)

[1] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media- resources/protecting-c...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media- resources/protecting-consumer-privacy/enforcing-privacy-promises)

</comment><comment><USER3> "It is not that I am "unwilling to configure our software so that comments posted before the new policy is implemented remain under chosen screen names." I extensively investigated that possibility and was unfortunately told by our content-management software experts that such a configuration is impossible."

Is there actually any possible CMS where this problem cannot be solved in one line of code? It's either a terrible excuse/lie or one of those examples of why I'm so happy not to be working at a large organisation wrangling ancient legacy systems.

<comment><USER4> A quick look at their source suggests that they are using something called BLOX CMS, and their nameservers are run by TownNews, which is apparently the company behind BLOX.

BLOX is advertised as "Cloud-based" with "No hardware or software to install & maintain".

This all suggests that they actually cannot make such a change, by virtue of using an SaaS solution they have no control over.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but they could change all old accounts to use the screen name as the username, change their email address (locking them out of it) and force everyone to reregister. It's a pain in the ass but it's the only practical solution given the constraints.

But do they really need those comments on old articles? Why not just delete them? This is a community paper. How often are people reading old articles and how often are those people reading the comments? I have to question if the management of the paper are motivated more by unmasking certain shitty commenters than by anything else.

<comment><USER6> Or:

UPDATE user SET realname=screenname WHERE screenname IS NOT NULL;

Done!

<comment><USER7> It's a cloud service, I doubt they have database access.

But remind me never to ever use BLOX. This seems like the MOST basic thing you'd want to be able to do.

<comment><USER8> Doubtful, I'd 86 this feature as a PM. Way too much complexity for too little benefit.

<comment><USER7> Hardly. You'd simply just keep the status of existing posts as anonymous and any posts after turning on the feature would show the posters real name.

<comment><USER8> I understand how to make the implementation work initially, however I would tell the client no we don't support that, and then wait for them to offer an amount of money to make it worthwhile.

It's not hard, however, it complicates the software leading to subtle non- obvious bugs, and then you need to support this features with all the other features you're adding, etc.

PS. What happens when they turn if off? ...and then back on? And then the 20 other subtle bugs that this feature introduces... And how many other features that lots of customers want are we delaying while we implement this?

All this work for $24.95 a month... yeah... no, 86'd.

<comment><USER7> I'd 86 the decision to purchase your software :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure this is why their experts deem this impossible:

"[x] Display Screen Names [] Display Real Names"

[http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/Comment-Manager- Setting...](http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/Comment-Manager- Settings_7971.html#Presentation_subpanel)

</comment><comment><USER7> _It is not that I am "unwilling to configure our software so that comments posted before the new policy is implemented remain under chosen screen names." I extensively investigated that possibility and was unfortunately told by our content-management software experts that such a configuration is impossible._

So what? If it is impossible, then your privacy policy was clear you will protect the identity of posters.

Heaven help journalistic sources if they apply the same policy to anonymous sources!

Here are your options:

1\. Tell the CRM writers the situation is unacceptable, and force them to fix the issue

2\. Get a new, sane CRM that can actually do something that should be a complete no brainer: allow previous posts to remain as-is. Then fire the person who chose the unbelievable bad CRM you actually forked over money for.

3\. If neither of those options are possible, then do not proceed with you new policy until which time you make the impossible, possible.

Frankly, you have Paul Levy on your tail. Be prepared for some substantial lawsuits from an incredibly tenacious and effective lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER10> If commenters can opt out of having their old comments posted, then the Standard can opt out everyone who has not opted in. The only reason the Standard has this problem is because they want to retain old comments _even though doing so would violate their privacy policy._

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope this reinforces the idea that you should not give your real information to any source unless absolutely necessary (website or otherwise). Privacy is not a right in the digital age.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why not create a new user named Legacy Anonymous and reassign all anonymous comments to it?

<comment><USER13> It might make comment chains really difficult to follow.

<comment><USER14> True. But that's preferable to de-anonymizing information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is both incompetent and dangerously irresponsible.

</comment><comment><USER16> The legal exposure they're opening up is irresponsible to the business, aside from the betrayal of trust to their readership. All of us developers here know how easy of a workaround this is even without making mods to a SaaS app that they have no control over. Just convert all old legacy comments to new faux accounts. The SaaS provider can do this with a script, or the newspaper could just do this all my hand in an admin UI. None of this makes sense. It's pure laziness.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lesson learned - never give out your real name if you do not want it to be published or apply heavy self censoring if you do.

<comment><USER18> That's actually two lessons. The second one is that if you write something online you should assume that it is tied to your real identity.

<comment><USER17> Well, if you advertise your name, then of course.

In any other case the answer is like in the real life: it depends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some people may have died, therefore have a hard time opt-out. Exposing them after their death is so wrong.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm in serious trouble.

</comment><comment><USER21> While all of us call BS on the tech team saying it "can't" be done [1], I'm all for this. If you're saying mean/hateful stuff online, you deserve to have your real name attached to it. It's amazing how much more polite people are when they don't have a wall of anonymity protecting them.

[1]: My bet's on people who can barely use a computer stood up a wordpress or joomla site, and only really understands how to edit configs, not actually change the programming.

<comment><USER22> If that's an exercise in irony, you nailed it, "killface".

<comment><USER5> Even though it's not an employer I would want to work for I do wonder if his is the type that would at least make a concerned mental note that he has a pseudonym like "killface". It's easy to call for the unmasking of anonymous people when you're not the one that has to worry about the consequences.</comment></comment></comment>


In 20 Short Years, We've Wiped Out 10 Percent of Earth's Wilderness - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/catastrophic-wilderness-loss-maps_us_57cde175e4b0e60d31dfccbf <comment><USER2> While I am optimistic about the human race being able to solve the global issues such as climate change, I feel we do not have the political will to do so without getting first to the brink of disaster.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds pretty pessimistic to me.

I don't generally think "solutions" are a huge part of the game anymore. Climate change is set to destroy quite a few major cities. See [http://time.com/4257194/sea-level-rise-climate-change- miami/](http://time.com/4257194/sea-level-rise-climate-change-miami/)

It seems the question now is one of mitigation.</comment></comment>