2010: Cyberpunk World - <AUTHOR> http://herbsutter.com/2010/12/31/2010-cyberpunk-world/

<comment><USER2> As a huge Stephenson fan (specifically Snowcrash here) I often tell people how unlike his world our world turned out to be.

In Snowcrash, the rapid pace of technological change has basically splintered the world and caused the empowerment of men and small organizations and the collapse of central governments. In the real world, governments learned how to effectively use mass media to get their message across. From going to war in Iraq, to going after wikileaks to building Great Walls, governments are doing great, with a great future ahead of them.

<comment><USER3> Nassim Taleb isn't a perfect prognosticator, but he is an interesting one. In his latest interview with The Economist he predicts the downfall of the nation state and the rise of the city state in the next 25 years. He is making an argument from instability - nation states are large, inefficient enterprises that have a habit of taking on unprofitable projects like wars. Also, he sees national currencies like the Euro and the Dollar as too unstable to survive.

I apologize for the long link:

[http://downloads.economist.feedroom.com/podcast/t_assets/201...](http://downloads.economist.feedroom.com/podcast/t_assets/20101201/20101201_wi_taleb_v2_4R4R.mp3?_kip_ipx=1899310534-1292270256&site=economist&cid=8a2059e9ac993b05e749291542c9e65bda3af5bf&sid=aa1673b717ddf9ab1224978f57f5481f9389add3&pid=b259c6502b63364ec8e8ea81816d7d0ab9139b7c)

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty young and uneducated (which means don't listen to anything I say), but it seems to me that wars are profitable. Arms and heavy vehicle manufacturers create jobs which stimulate our economy, and the foreign nations and international banks that control our debt get to dig a little deeper in our pockets. It sort of helps everyone but the enemy. After the war we get more money by "winning" contracts to rebuild what we've blown up - but slower and more inefficiently than is necessary, with lots of extra cash mysteriously disappearing once it reaches foreign soil (the equivalent of a CEO bonus, but instead for CIA and whoever else need a payday for ensuring the war goes off without a hitch).

But I could be wrong.

(Also, what's the alternative to the Dollar and Euro? Micro-economies? Maybe an economy built out of dealing with a massive number of differing currencies and economies?)

<comment><USER3> You're committing one of the oldest and most common Economic fallacies, the "Broken Window Fallacy". Bastiat's "That which is seen and that which is not seen"[1] or Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" would help clear up your confusion, or just a good treatment of the Broken Window Fallacy[2].

[1]<http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html>

[2][http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window- fal...](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He forgot one thing: a cryptocurrency called bitcoin. A cypherpunk dream of digital cash come true.

Of course, wired said, "just another cypherpunk fever dream destined for the same dustbin as digital cash..."

<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/internet-war/>

They are...WRONG!

<comment><USER6> Bitcoin? Call me when I don't have to forward ports through a firewall to handle currency, and when I don't have to keep a local copy of every transaction ever made by anyone on the whole system.

<comment><USER7> Well if IPv4 runs out soon enough and we successfully jump to IPv6, port forwarding in general has the potential to become a thing of the past.

That port forwarding is required isn't a bitcoin bug, it's a NAT bug.

<comment><USER8> >when I don't have to keep a local copy of every transaction ever made by anyone on the whole system.

How about this part? That sounds like a pretty big flaw in the system.

<comment><USER5> You would need to correlate that information with other type of information to be able to identify the user. As long as you take certain precaution, you should be fine.

<comment><USER8> Well sure, but it sounds like it would require a lot of storage.

<comment><USER5> There are proposal that make it possible for nodes to not have to download all that files.

However, it's ain't much of a problem as long as HD keep in pace with Moore's Law.

<comment><USER8> Moore's Law doesn't apply to a single given machine...my hard drive isn't magically doubling in size every X months. You see the problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> william gibson, not neal stephenson. whippersnapper.

<comment><USER10> Actually, the OP's argumetn is then point Gibson has been making for some years now: there future is here already.

<comment><USER11> _Charismatic cyberpersonalities operating principally on the 'Net live as permanent residents of no nation_

Bruce Sterling has gone out of his way to become one of these, minus the calls for his arrest and other negative things. (His calls to digitize everything you own that you possibly can. His and his wife's problems with no longer having an actual address.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 2010 was very cyberpunk. All that was missing was Wintermute.

<comment><USER13> > All that was missing was Wintermute.

I'm here!

More seriously, the formation/actions of Anonymous remind me of the stand alone complexes (more formally termed "second-order simulacra," in semiotics) from Ghost in the Shell, one of the greatest cyberpunk anime series out there. It's astonishing that Shiro Masamune was able to predict this occurence as a result of the growth of the internet, and even more astonishing that it happened ~20 years before he predicted, prior to the existence of cyberbrains or synthetic "ghosts."

<comment><USER14> 4chan was the perfect environment for something like Anonymous to occur. With no (official) archive, individual posts don't survive long. But you can get "ripples" of comments to persist for a while by a) re-posting it incessantly or b) creating an idea that other people want to repeat (basically a meme). Over time, the surviving memes created a sort of "standing wave" or self- replicating system out of channers' brains.

I guess what I'm saying is, Anonymous is the cumulative effect of these strong memes on human brains. The Ghost in the Shell is on a substrate of part- internet, part-human.</comment></comment></comment>


Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks <comment><USER2> This article covers things from a pedestrian's perspective, but it honestly looks like there may be benefits for drivers in this system too.

For one, this plan immediately _halves_ the number of busy intersections along a given stretch of road (and reduces them to a third if multiple superblocks are built adjacent to one another). Yes, no intersections have been physically removed, but the number of vehicles using those intersections is drastically reduced. Traffic signals at those intersections can be optimized to reduce stop frequency/duration for traffic staying on the road meant for cars.

If you live in one of these superblocks, the last kilometer to your house may be slower but, if there are enough other superblocks along your path, your overall trip time may actually be reduced. Fewer stops also mean reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions.

Of course, a big issue is that some streets will now be carrying twice the traffic they were previously built for. Even if that traffic flows better, there may be problems. Making street-side parking on these streets illegal could increase the effective number of lanes available to traffic. After all, street-side parking should be plentiful inside the blocks, and the eventual plan is to build off-street garages.

I'm not convinced superblocks will be bad for drivers.

<comment><USER3> The article asserts many things about the city.

I don't bring my Mum to Barcelona by a few reasons, and one of them is that she could be unable to cross most roads, as a pedestrian, on time for the traffic light.

Of course that's one of the smallest problems, delinquency being the main one (attracted more in this months by the tourism).

Also people is uncivil with old persons here, the locals and the tourists.

Walking on bike in the sidewalk thinking you have preference over pedestrians also is common here. I've see many fights start by this.

The traffic? for me it's all day car horns. Without any good reason. Always just for the sake of the mass hysteria.

Stressed drivers pushing pedestrians to finish the cross. The same when walking, people push you for the space, even if they are just slow walking and doing shopping and you go clearly to work.

All those theories about traffic are nice. The article tries to make it even more nice asserting stuff.

I don't want my childs to grow up in barcelona, and I don't want my mum to live alone in this city like she can do in others.

I have attended and helped enough persons who had been stolen, kicked, violated, run overs, and what not in just two years.

I cannot take a single beer, without watch traffic problems in Barcelona. And I'm talking of a two channels street, where the main traffic mass, can vary from 5 to 9 cars in the same direction.

Oh you are the owner of this car? a bus just did break all the side of your car, he did go away without stopping. Take man, I did a photo, you can see the car number. This was yesterday.

Traffic is better than Madrid. But still is a "bad thing" for the quality of life of the city. Also in barcelona you need air conditioner, or sleep with the windows open... this is... all night long and in the main hours, old, big, vibrating and poorly driven trucks and buses all around. stopping with squeaky brakes, in each of those corners, and starting again with the engine noise that could not pass a decibel measurement by police.

It mixes with the drunken people and nightly prostitution noise... so at the end, the harley/truck/whatever is just one more noise in the Barcelona's non- stopping symphony.

Squared streets and all that, bike accidents are common here, bike Vs pedestrian problems too. Old people and children cannot walk alone even in relaxed areas. And the traffic (for me that don't own vehicles) and the air pollution is one of the worse things when I try to "live" here.

<comment><USER4> In the middle of off-topic complaints about Barcelona, there are some objectionable observations.

\- Air pollution is a problem in many parts of the city, but it needs to be addressed with the promotion and imposition of cleaner engines. Reducing car use is only a secondary objective of a plan to reclaim streets.

\- Bike vs. obstacle and bike vs. pedestrian accidents are much less dangerous than car accidents.

\- Like in other cities, there's plenty of quiet corners with few tourists and few cars. Noisy people concentrate in the city center and traffic in the appropriate wide streets like everywhere else, despite the great number of tourists it isn't hell on Earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel compelled to dissent against initiatives to directly take cars off the road, rather than improve alternatives.

Growing up in the suburbs without a car, I was _really_ excited about carless urban life. Then I actually experienced it (Hyde Park, Chicago).

I'm on the opposite corner of the neighborhood from the business districts, so a little errand like CVS or the grocery store is around half an hour by foot each way. The bus or shuttle is usually a wash, given the time spent waiting for it. A bigger errand like Target or Macy's is a special occasion, taking about 50 minutes each way (walk to bus, wait for bus, ride bus, wait for train, ride train, walk from train station, or sometimes take yet another bus). A downtown or North Side restaurant, once you get tired of the local ones, is a similar ordeal.

Feeling trapped in the neighborhood was mostly an annoyance. I adapted by buying most things from Amazon (Prime is well worth it) and carefully planning shopping lists for brick-and-mortar stores. After a while I got tired the local restaurants, so I pretty much stopped eating out. I assuaged my claustrophobia by burning either money (Uber) or time to go downtown every few weekends, but generally spent as little money as possible when doing so. Still, it grew more annoying over a few years.

The turning point came when I realized that it took about as long to get from my apartment to the downtown train station (about 7 miles) as it did from that train station to Milwaukee (90 miles).

I bought a car recently, and my quality of life shot up dramatically. Distances that used to be a big deal are now nothing. Even if I'm going somewhere without cheap parking, I can drive directly to a train station instead of taking the bus. Life moves faster. I get to enjoy the city more often.

If the CTA would run more frequent, smaller vehicles on its routes I would easily go carless again. But instead it sounds like the approach is just to degrade the experience of owning a car until it's as bad as public transit, rather than the other way around. When that happens, it's off to the suburbs, I guess.

<comment><USER6> If you take cars off the roads, people will rebuild (well, reorganize) their cities to account for it. Public transit obviously needs to be better pretty much everywhere in the US, but people also don't want to pay to make it better.

I'm a proponent of simply wiping out parking in most areas. That will incentivize people not to drive, therefore to walk/transit, therefore to value the transit systems and the design of their cities.

It's a serious issue of sunk cost, but eventually we need to bite the bullet and start moving in the other direction.

<comment><USER5> It takes a LONG time to build out serious transit infrastructure. Like 30 years (see Seattle's recent ballot initiative). You're asking basically an entire generation to have shitty mobility for most of their working lives, so that they will vote to build trains for their children.

More likely they will just leave the cities.

Cities do adapt to poor mobility: local businesses get to charge huge markup because they don't have to compete with the rest of the city. I don't think that's particularly good for consumers.

<comment><USER6> You're asking basically every generation after us to have shitty environmental health and shitty cities for the entirety of their lives. Also, if you need a car to be mobile enough to live your life, you _already_ have shitty mobility. You should have the ability to live your life _without_ having to pay the tens of thousands of dollars that owning a car demands [0].

You could get rid of cars and with all that newly available street space add a bunch of electric buses for the interim. You could even up taxi availability and efficacy, seeing as there would be minimal traffic from non-public sources, further reducing the costs of using them. This would also make the city significantly more bike friendly, even before the cultural reorganization into self-sufficient neighborhoods.

There would also be a significantly reduced strain on pretty much every social institution there is. In NYC on August 2nd 2016 alone, the NYPD tended to at least 357 accidents [1]. Reducing this would free up valuable police and medical resources.

Oh, and it will also help to save our species from impending environmental doom.

0\. [https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning- car/](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/)

1\. [https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Motor- Vehic...](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Motor-Vehicle- Collisions/h9gi-nx95/data)

<comment><USER5> >shitty environmental health

People would lose essentially nothing by stepping down from SUVs/crossovers to compact sedans/hatchbacks. We could start there. There's also the issue of average age: driving an older car is a classic case of negative externality. Driver saves money, everyone else suffers for their worse emissions and fuel efficiency. These are both excellent targets for tighter regulation.

My argument here is that policy should be at _least_ net-neutral on quality of life.

If you "simply wip[e] out parking" and don't do anything else, I claim that's bad policy because it reduces quality of life.

If you wipe out parking AND deploy electric buses or whatever such that people's lives at least don't get worse, then I'm with you.

>There would also be a significantly reduced strain on pretty much every social institution there is.

Except, of course, the transit agency, which has to actually have the funding and the competence to step up its game to not only stay neutral under increased demand, but also improve enough that drivers' quality-of-life is flat.

Local services are also funded by local economic activity, which generally requires that people have viable transportation.

> before the cultural reorganization into self-sufficient neighborhoods.

Which do you think is better for consumers: a whole bunch of hyper-local monopolies, or citywide competition and economies of scale? Economics provides very little support for the former.

<comment><USER6> Sure. Now go ahead and try to regulate those, like many have been trying for literally decades. We've gotten better, but it's still not enough and our cities/suburbs still suffer from the non-environmental side effects of designing cities around cars. Such as, you know, having to purchase a car to be mobile.

I would really like a large scale holistic solution, but again, we've been having this debate for decades and we haven't moved fast enough. If we continue to build our cities for cars, then we will continue to need cars.

Reducing parking in cities is one decision that could have large scale effects and that doesn't require a dictatorship or nationwide collective epiphany to institute.

And yes, higher prices hurt _consumers_ , as in they damage the one facet of an entire human being that's responsible for purchasing things. But there are many other facets of a human being that would be much better off with fewer cars around them, and I dare say that _many_ of those facets are more important to preserve than ease of consumption. The human race survived for many thousands of years with nothing even resembling an automobile, and now after 100 years you're positing that we simply cannot go on without them?

<comment><USER5> >Reducing parking in cities is one decision that could have large scale effects and that doesn't require a dictatorship or nationwide collective epiphany to institute.

Making cities worse is likely to have the effect of driving people out of them. You do in fact need a collective epiphany (or a Constitutional amendment to shut down freedom of movement) to get people to accept that they simply need to live worse lives in the short and medium terms so that their children can live better ones. If you make that happen, then maybe we can pay off the national debt too.

<comment><USER6> What are you talking about? Removing, say, 10% of parking spots per year for 8 years wouldn't require any of that. It would result in the same frustration that people already have and already cope with: "it sucks to park in the city."

It's clear this isn't going anywhere, have a good weekend!

<comment><USER7> People would vote out politicians that put in place such obvious frustration- increasing measures.

IMO the "solution" is necessarily holistic and incremental. Create a fast intra-city link, and you've effectively increased the density of the two areas joined by the link. If you think about space in terms of time required to go from point A to point B using a given subset of transport methods[1], fast point-to-point links warp space and cause it to overlap. Density is the lifeblood of cities, just as lack of density is what hollows out cities. Increased density means employees and consumers can live closer to businesses and entertainment. Increase the density enough, and private transport isn't required as much.

Anti-car policies aren't going to increase this time-to-destination-as-a- measure-of-space density much. In fact, without something to replace them, they will decrease effective density.

[1] See e.g. [https://petertrotman.com/special/london-underground- travel-t...](https://petertrotman.com/special/london-underground-travel-time- map/map.html)

<comment><USER6> I appreciate your interesting stance on this, but you're missing my point. I am not saying "ban cars and everything is fixed." I am saying "we will not fix our cities as long as we continue to invest in cars."

The best way I can think of to get people to divest from cars in a fair, gradual, legal, cheap, and realistic way is to eliminate parking over time.

<comment><USER7> Did you even read what I said? I directly refuted your argument! Your suggestion is both politically difficult and would damage cities by decreasing the very thing that makes them cities: the time proximity between people!

<comment><USER8> You don't have to eliminate parking at all to achieve this. All you have to do is shift city taxation towards taxing parking more in relative terms. Encourage people to use existing public transportation more

<comment><USER9> >> All you have to do is shift city taxation towards taxing parking more

And that's exactly what's wrong with this idea: in a democratic society such taxation changes would be temoporary at best - people would just vote for politicians that would change it back during the next elections.

On the other hand, gradualy increasing quality of public transportation by investing more money in it would be something that noone would protest against, and once public transportation is equaly or more convenient than car travel people would switch on their own.

<comment><USER8> People are not stupid, they are often uninformed. Politicians' job is to advocate for good policies in a way that people understand and support

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love dense walkable cities, though I'd love to hear more about traffic capacity on the outer streets (for example, by getting rid of parking there), then of course the numbers on the briefly mentioned parking plan, and whether subway capacity will be increased (yay), etc.

I ask because I dearly hope that it works, pedestrian-dominated city areas are wonderful. I especially love the idea of getting parked cars off most streets. I've always hoped self driving cars will <edit> reduce the need for parking </edit>, but I'm just a dreamer and these guys have to make a real city work so I'd love to hear the math on it.

EDIT: it looks like bike sharing ("Bicing") and a new "Orthogonal Bus System" are key aspects of the transportation plan:

[http://smartcity.bcn.cat/en/superblocks.html](http://smartcity.bcn.cat/en/superblocks.html)

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

<comment><USER11> How exactly self-driving cars would help for pedestrian-dominated urban areas?

<comment><USER12> You could send the car back home after it drops you off, or release it to pick up someone else. That is, if it is fully autonomous. I suspect that long before then, the "self driving" term is going to get abused by marketing until it means nothing more than "autonomously maintains RPM relative to pedal angle".

<comment><USER13> Well on one hand you can move parking lots, on the other hand you end up with a lot of empty cars driving around which means even more traffic.

<comment><USER14> More cars on fewer, wider streets, while those same cars are not required to go through the narrower streets.

I don't think there's any simple answer for what the overall effect will be. It will probably vary a lot from place to place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To me the answer is making dedicated travel roads for bicycles and pedestrians. This idea is ok, in that it slows cars down, and maybe that's enough, but what I'd love in a city like San Francisco are dedicated roads that allow bicycles to safely travel across the entire city without having to worry about getting run down at every intersection.

There are some streets that are safer than others, but what would be great is if say Valencia, Cortland, Market, Haight, Cole, Columbus and some other roads through downtown (like minna St. and Stevenson) were dedicated to bikes. Some have main bus lines, so maybe allow those to continue to operate as mixed use with bikes and buses. The intention is to make bike thorough fares which are safe from collisions with cars and especially delivery trucks.

This in my mind is the fastest way to transition from a car gridlocked city to one where alternative things like bikes, and battery assisted bikes, can operate safely. Most travel in cities is under 2 miles, perfect for biking (I have a bike that has seats for both my kids, which makes it great for families too).

Safety is probably the largest reason why more people don't bicycle, and targeting main shopping districts would encourage their use to get to those places, while also increasing the general enjoyment of those areas, with the added benefit of increasing traffic to businesses in those areas.

<comment><USER5> Chicago has a few streets like these and they're great. The bike line is protected from traffic by the parking lane. Parallel parking a car is easier, and the bikes are protected from the driver-side doors as well as traffic. The pedestrian lane is, of course, the sidewalk.

You just have to really commit - a few protected blocks is nice, but people may not feel safe until it's the majority of their journey. Left turns are still intimidating.

>delivery trucks.

I'm extremely perturbed when there are large trucks stopped in the street. Loading docks are a thing - that building's decision to not have one is a classic case of dumping what should be its costs on everyone else.

I'm more sympathetic to taxi/uber pickups and dropoffs, since although they also tend to block traffic (and frequently encroach on the bike lane) it's still better than more cars driving and parking.

<comment><USER15> > I'm sympathetic to taxi/uber

Not me. In SF at least they tend to block the bike lane and force bikes into vehicle traffic. For confident cyclists this is ok, but for many I can see that they do dumb things like try to pass on the right or not signal their intention to enter traffic.

This is why I suggest that the best thing would be to fully dedicate the entire road. As to fully protected lanes, this is good, but like you said, still leaves issues like left turns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting idea. However, losing two through-streets out of every three will triple the traffic on the remaining through-street.

The people living on the interior of the superblocks will enjoy a more peaceful car-free environment, but the people overlooking the through-streets will experience more noise, pollution and congestion.

I wonder how Barcelona plans to compensate the residents of through-streets for the newly introduced inconvenience (and predictably lowered real-estate value with respect to their neighbours).

<comment><USER17> I'd expect the total automobile traffic to be reduced, rather than all of it concentrating on the through streets. Making driving less convenient will push people who don't have to drive to leave their cars at home and go with public transport, bike or foot instead.

<comment><USER18> It can also do a number of other things:

* cause people not to travel at all, thus keeping money in their pockets rather than spending it to benefit the economy

* cause people who do not live in the city to drive to other places--places where their preferred mode of transportation is accommodated--to work or transact business

* cause people who live in the city to leave due to increasing frustration with their inability to go where they wish.

<comment><USER19> It can also do a number of things:

* causes people to not travel far away and to spend their money in the local economy

* cause an increase in people using public transport to get into the city because it is now a nice experience inside the city

* increase the health of individuals that are walking more and breathing less pollution thus making the city a more desirable place to live

* revitalise local businesses in each area leading to a more diverse stronger local business

* increase the amount people spend because they're walking past shops rather than driving past them and ignoring them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> After reading the article I was ready to book a one way ticket to Barcelona! City looks amazing, the traffic diagrams are on point, and I just love the sound of the word "superblock" (so nintendo). But after reading all the HN comments, I think I'm good where I am...

Tokyo is amazing without a car. Most people live on the outskirts, which is still only 20 or 30 minutes away by train, and without a car, there is no search for parking. Trains come every 5 minutes. Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Akiharabara, Harajuku... Of course, the money and sacrifices made for infrastructure are insane.

LA is amazing with a car as long as you know the freeway exits and know where to park. Santa Monica, DTLA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Koreatown, San Gabriel.. Good food, good people, good weather, and wide straight streets (compared to Japan). It's a little spread out, and DTLA is still a bit too tiny and too dirty to brag about, but culturally, it has to be the melting pot capital of the universe. You can't tell if someone is rich or poor, black or white, high or drunk, a man or a woman... and no one could care less. Good freedom.

But my favorite city so far has to be Fukuoka. A miniature Tokyo, but with better food, lower cost of living, and is small enough to get around with a bicycle. Very attractive dialect, and very attractive people. It's also an hour to Tokyo by plane, and business men ride 747s like getting on a train.

I'm currently in LA.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great idea! The only puzzling point is the 10 km/h limit. In my experience it's almost impossible to go that slow. Better to set the limit at 20 km/h and cope with the conditions of the road. It will be slow for bicycles too. It forces bikers to go on the roads for cars or be very patient. Maybe it's the intended effect but I don't approve it.

<comment><USER22> > Great idea! The only puzzling point is the 10 km/h limit. In my experience > it's almost impossible to go that slow.

Are you in europe? Keep in mind most EU drivers drive stick, and most cars in barcelona would be "city" cars, C-segment or below (compact and smaller in US segmentation). Depends on the exact car of course, but in my experience 1st and slow 2nd should be well into that range, and trivial to achieve on flat road (either gas up in 1st, or if the car has enough torque shift to second and idle along).

<comment><USER23> This is actually a big problem in the USA. Everyone has a powerful car with automatic transmission. On level ground these will eventually accelerate to 15MPH unless the driver uses the brake. A manual transmission, or electric drive, is ever so much more civilized.

<comment><USER24> I'd guess that people in the US spend a lot more time on freeways than Europeans do. A powerful engine is good for that (quietness, ability to overtake / maintain speed on hills). Automatic transmissions are great for freeways because they allow for cruise control. I have a pet theory that if everyone on the freeway used cruise control all the time the freeway would be safer and less stressful. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to self-driving cars :)

Edit: I would imagine it would be straightforward to restrict the max speed that a vehicle can reach without the drivers foot on the pedal (there may even already be such a rule). The ability to regulate the speed already exists within the cruise control system.

<comment><USER25> You can have cruise control on a stick. I rarely use it but my manual car has it. On most (barring long climbs and descents) freeways with free moving traffic, you pretty much put the stick in top gear and leave it. The big win with an automatic is stop and go traffic.

<comment><USER24> Are there limitations to cruise control on manual? Presumably if it's a true manual gearbox the car can't shift automatically, so if you were to encounter an upward slope that required a down-shift what happens?

<comment><USER26> Yes, it is limited to what the car can do in that gear, so you have to downshift manually (and re-set the cruise control).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just got back from Barcelona, and was surprised by the level of air pollution. The smog never disappears, even after a heavy rain. I learned that Barcelona has never met EU minimum air quality standards since they were established 22 years ago. And all cars and trucks run on diesel. If I were planning their transportation future, I'd be looking to be the earliest adopter of electric transport in Europe. Super blocks appeal to me, but they don't address the air quality issue directly enough to really excite me.

</comment><comment><USER28> Even before the superblock idea, that first picture of existing Barcelona blocks looks so massively better than anything I've seen in USA. I looked hard, twice, before reading article cause I was sure it was is was artist rendering rather than reality.

So, uniform, dense, but no sky scrapers, corners cut off, wide wide streets, wide sidewalks, interior (to block) "courtyards".

I want to move to Barcelona!

<comment><USER29> It's one of the nicest cities in Europe but the Spanish economy is still so far down that many Spanish people with marketable skills are to be found all over Europe.

<comment><USER30> Would people from Barcelona not object to being called "Spanish"?

<comment><USER29> Last I checked Barcelona was still in Spain. If they object I'm fine with it but I'm not going to 'tune' my comments to whether or not someone may or may not be offended when for the rest of the world 'Catalonia' is solidly part of Spain.

Frisians are Dutch too, and Welsh are British and so on.

All of the above are also Europeans...

<comment><USER31> Most people in Barcelona are not "pro-independence". Most "pro-independence" people come from rural areas, or small cities. Industrial and touristic areas of Catalan region of Spain are not nationalists/separatists. That sentiment comes much like in other regions, because of the crisis. P.S. I live in Barcelona.

<comment><USER32> Slightly different personal data point from my guiri perspective living in Barcelona I'd say that of the 12-15 Catalans that I know well the clear majority are pro independence.

Seems polls have between 60-80% of Catalans want independence : [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poll-finds- th...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poll-finds-that-60-of- catalans-want-independence-9208329.html)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29982960](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-29982960)

As the urban region of Barcelona has around 5 million residents (7.5 million in Catalunya) the urban areas do have a lot of support for the movement.

<comment><USER31> You "forget" that the "80%" was on an unofficial and illegal (currently on Court) poll/"referendum" with massive abstention, because supported mostly by Catalan nationalist parties, and not by constitutionalists (the ones supporting the Rule of Law). Real pro-independency support in Catalan regions is about 35-45%, being much less in industrial and touristic areas (you can find official statistics about the subject -INE and CEO-).

In my opinion, nationalist agitprop in Catalonia, more than reaching the independence from Spain, it will "break" Catalan region psychologically in two, because of the polarization, much like it happens in North Ireland or Belgium. I hope it doesn't happen in Barcelona, as it is a nice place to live and invest, with really nice and open minded people.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29478415](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-29478415)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just came back from an extended trip in Barcelona, and I saw first hand how there is plenty of wasted space in neighborhoods.

Many intersections between dense housing areas are overly large hexagons where you must annoyingly walk around dedicated parking spaces to cross streets. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/22802717995](https://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/22802717995)

Hopefully the city will have buy-in from the residents, as this plan seems to also modify the bus routes. And from what I saw, the locals have ingrained those stops in their daily routines, which might cause some backlash when those drastically change.

<comment><USER34> In my opinion, those blocks (known as Cerdá's manzanas) create a much nicer space than normal ones. It also seems safer traffic-wise. True, it takes a bit longer to cross as a pedestrian but I think that's worth the price.

<comment><USER35> As a Barcelona citizen I can not agree more on your comment. Cerdà blocks are much better than regular square corners, as a pederestian those "dead spaces" are a pleasure to walk, and as a driver makes crossroads much safer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hm, i find this kinda hard to port over to a typical chaotic/radial european city.

In Moscow, for example, there are wide radial and circular roads, from which branches of small roads diffuse into the meat of the city under pretty much every angle.

Any attempts to rope "superblocks" off would likely collapse the traffic completely - there aren't any alternative roads like a grid would have.

<comment><USER37> Having spent time in both cities, I don't think the residential urban areas of Moscow have the same problem as Barcelona does. If you look closely between all of those Brezhnev era apartment blocks, you'll find that the soviets packed them with green space, playgrounds, etc. If anything, Moscow is short on parking lots. (edit: Not advocating tearing up the playgrounds for parking lots.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The Netherlands has municipal areas designed mostly like the same principle. Low-speed areas with high houding densities are connected using main roads. A very nice example of this concept is shown in Houten, near Utrecht. A roundabout road over the whole area connects to living areas inwards.

</comment><comment><USER39> As a local that likes to follow urbanism topics, I can tell you that this idea has been floating around for a number of years, but it's far from clear it's ever going to be implemented. A few political parties have expressed lip support, but applying such a radical change would require a lot of political courage and a solid majority.

One of the problems is that the grid in Barcelona is quite imperfect. A similar plan to prioritize bus transit across orthogonal lines has been far from successful, and my take is that one of the reasons is that orthogonal lines have ended up not being quite orthogonal at all.

Anyway it's been the policy of the city government at least from the 90s to reduce the surface area dedicated to the cars. Interestingly most of the recent interventions have been on what would be on the superblocks concept considered 'fast' streets (mostly by increasing the side of the sidewalks [Arago, Balmes St, Diagonal, General Mitre] and by reorganization massive intersections [Glories, Lesseps].

And there are a few committed plans also in this direction [Via Laietana, Urquinaona].

So there are really two competing visions here:

* Make "fast" streets more pedestrian-friendly, kill urban highways, make the grid work in a homogenous way, increase surface for pedestrians across all the city. * Create a hierarchy of streets (with fast/slow streets)

And to me it's far from clear which vision is going to win.

</comment><comment><USER29> Barcelona is also quite busy taking the city back from the tourists.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11643...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11643802/Incoming- Barcelona-mayor-wants-to-introduce-tourist-cap.html)

</comment><comment><USER40> Counterpoint: [http://behoovingmoving.com/2016/08/06/superblock- hopscotch-i...](http://behoovingmoving.com/2016/08/06/superblock-hopscotch-in- barthelona/):

 _" The new bollards that will be planted to stop cars cutting through the middle of the superblocks won't stop that menace of the Mediterranean, the motor scooter rider"_

 _" In Barcelona two out of three streets will be easy to cross, but make a mistake when crossing the third"_

I think this is a worthy experiment, but I wouldn't roll it out across the city without knowing whether it will work.

Because to me, the existing blocks simply look too massive to become a truly pedestrian neighborhood, I also would look for ways to cut paths through some of the blocks.

<comment><USER41> There are plenty of scooters in Barcelona but honestly I've never noticed generally worse behaviour from them than anyone else, except maybe starting off from lights early, but it seems everyone is guilty of that here.

Aside from that however, as a cyclist from the UK, I've been very pleasantly surprised by the lack of aggressive driving since I've been living here. I very very rarely feel threatened by other road users on my bike, except by Bicing (city-wide bike rental/'sharing' scheme) users, and I think that's just because Bicing is used by people that don't cycle regularly so aren't very experienced.

Also there are already an increasing number of semi-pedestrianised streets in the centre of town and they work fine, cars, scooters and bikes go down them too but very slowly and usually only if they really need to because there are faster routes if you're through traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> To be honest I doubt it will make that much difference. Driving here is a pain in the arse. You don't get much speed up between traffic lights unless you are on one of the big streets like Diagonal or Arago.

Still, I look forward to seeing how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER43> Another Ada Colau BS. Barcelona might be very popular, but it is a village, nearly dead out of summer. Cars are already 2nd class citizens, there is no traffic except taxis and motorcycles. Now they are just closing the traffic to some streets, it is not a futuristic super intelligent plan, nothing special. Nobody was using car and everybody was walking everywhere and the same situation will continue, our lives won't change at all. Don't threat this plan like the biggest urbanistic invention of the century. It is nothing more than internal municipal legislation change. It is not making the half of the NYC pedesterian area.

</comment><comment><USER44> I live in Barcelona and most of the people are not happy. A simple math problem for you in order to understand why. Currently with a top speed of 50kmh the average speed is 36kmh. Now reducing the top speed partially to 10kmh how fast will be the average? Well, it can be argued that the traffic will shift to the faster streets on the periphery of the super blocks, so this streets will have to grow in order to be able to handle the traffic, this can be challenging in terms of space.

But what really pisses my catalan friends and colleagues is that the superblock will come first and accordingly the tweaks on the periphery. This will cause homongous traffic jams because of the construction works on the periphery of the superblocks.

So this is aimless activism, those who know traffic and transportation in Barcelona will agree that smart traffic lights will make a huge impact on car pollution. Together with Park and ride; offering a fast transportation to enter and leave the city would be amazing.

<comment><USER45> Driving at top speed just means you wait longer at the next red light. Average speed will probably not drop at all.

<comment><USER44> Good point, additionally there are more parameters that influence the average speed. But the reality is that I now need at least 30% longer to reach certain areas. Ironically this areas with now huge pedestrian sidewalks are full of shops and other business which I now try to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's a verbatim application of one of the original Christopher Alexander's architectural and urban design patterns. "49\. Looped local roads" is the pattern being applied here. Alexander even mentions that a grid can be modified to create the loops although without explicitly mentioning the superblock idea.

</comment><comment><USER47> On some superblocks it seems to me they could connect the corner blocks instead of the center block as the one way lanes. This would leave the old middle roads free of cars altogether giving pedestrians more space and maybe let the cars go a little faster (10 km/h is rather unbearably slow slow).

<comment><USER22> > On some superblocks it seems to me they could connect the corner blocks > instead of the center block as the one way lanes.

> This would leave the old middle roads free of cars altogether giving > pedestrians more space

You seem to be missing the point entirely. The in-block roads are for when you have something to do in the block, which is why you can't cross a block through them (they loop and send you back the way you came from). You arrive, you do your thing and you leave. The entire block is pedestrian space, which is why the speed limit is pedestrian range.

> maybe let the cars go a little faster (10 km/h is rather unbearably slow > slow).

1\. that would defeat the entire point of superblocks by still having fast vehicles within them

2\. at 400m long, in-block loops can be traversed entirely in 2mn, since you've got something to do there (otherwise you'd go around the superblock) that seems perfectly fine.

<comment><USER47> I didn't miss the point. I just think some blocks might benefit more from the different arrangement. It's a trade off.

<comment><USER22> The trade off is in not banning motor vehicles entirely from superblocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This seems like the urban version of road hierarchy. With the local roads being more like a large shared driveway. Similar to how cul-de-sacs are used in suburban settings.

The place to spend the money on improvements would be the roads outside of the 9 block cube. Obviously they would now have a lot more traffic.

<comment><USER42> Personally I love the idea of a car free city. (No idea how that might work). I am pretty sure a lot of the negativity of city living comes from the constant noise of traffic and horns.

<comment><USER49> Horns are a cultural thing. In some places they honk all the time. In .fi you're not supposed to use the horn except to warn of immediate danger. I can take a walk in town and get a headache from the noise without ever hearing a horn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> > _In America, we can't even agree on the idea that cities are for people. We > still decry bike lanes as a "war on cars," even in our allegedly progressive > West Coast cities._

This seems disingenuous. I like bikes, but they are not more "people-y" than cars.

I think Bloomberg's filling-in of Times Square was more radical and effective [1]. By turning it into a pedestrian space, it's prioritized space for living and being over transiting. I'm hopeful about plans to turn the length of Broadway into a park.

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

<comment><USER40> _" I like bikes, but they are not more "people-y" than cars"_

I disagree. Consider these:

\- Cyclists, like pedestrians, are outside. Car drivers sit inside, shielded by metal and, possibly dark, windows.

\- Pedestrians and cyclists look each other in the eye way more than happens between car drivers and pedestrians/cyclists.

\- The distance between cyclists passing each other is a meter; for car drivers, it is 3 meters or more.

\- A cyclist sharing space with pedestrians can and will disembark and start walking if the space gets too busy; a car driver cannot and will not.

Compared to the difference between car drivers and cyclists, the difference between cyclists and pedestrians is minute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is a variant of the Verkeerscirculatieplan [0] introduced on September 19, 1977 in Groningen, The Netherlands. This map [http://www.regiocanons.nl/beeld/Groningen/Groningen/_250/Y39...](http://www.regiocanons.nl/beeld/Groningen/Groningen/_250/Y39.jpg) [1] shows how the old center was devided in 4 sectors (Noord, Oost, Zuid and West) and car traffic was not allowed to cross sectors borders, they had to travel out back to the canal-ring (diepenring in Groningen-language 'diep' ~ related to english 'deep' = canal) first. Bicycles, buses and taxis where allowed to go from one sector to another. It was introduced by the local government consisting of young politicians who took power by a sort of a Coup in the local Social Democratic party. These young guys aged 25-30 years had the vision and courage to give back the city center to pedestrians & bicycles. They reintroduced the daily markets on the central squares (tuesday, wednesday, friday and saturday) which until then where used as parking-lots. To counter objections of local shopowners against the removal of many parking places near their shops, they negotioated with the Shell Oil pensionfund to invest in a parkingbuilding a the beginning of the Haddingestraat [2] 50m from the former parkinglot on the Vismarkt. In return Shell Oil was allowed to have gas-stations on the main exit roads of Groningen.

The Groningen Verkeerscirculatieplan has been an example to many cities in the past 40 years, now including for Barcelona.

[0] [https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groning...](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groningen)

[1] [http://www.regiocanons.nl/groningen/groningen/verkeerscircul...](http://www.regiocanons.nl/groningen/groningen/verkeerscirculatieplan)

[2] [https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Haddingestraat+2,+9711+KD+G...](https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Haddingestraat+2,+firstname.lastname@example.com,6.5651567,18z)

</comment><comment><USER52> The elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves. This will bring about a complete change in usage patterns so doing anything in this space is pre-mature and we should hold off to see how society's requirements change. For example maybe on street parking will become a thing of the past as your self driving Uber goes on it's way to pick up new passengers after it drops you off. Perhaps we'll have more drop-off points like at an airport instead.

<comment><USER53> > The elephant in the room is that personal mobility is going to undergo a > complete redesign in the coming decade as vehicles drive for themselves.

The way the argument is going right now, personal mobility won't get redesigned -- it will get eliminated.

Faux-urbanists will continue to fight for (and win) at getting cars more-or- less banned in cities. Cars will continue to get better at zero-emissions and self-driving, but that won't stop people from hating them. Attempts at better public transit will be promoted, but nothing nearly as fast/efficient/convenient as cars currently are.

I suspect in the coming decades, people simply won't be allowed to move around as much, and folks will succeed in convincing people that this is "better" for them. Personal mobility will be a concept for history books, like privacy.

<comment><USER54> People will certainly not be able to move around in cars after they use up all the oil.

BTW, there are 14 million people in Tokyo (or maybe 40 million) and probably never more than one car per family. They don't seem to have a problem, maybe because they can actually afford to build train lines and don't have commercial zoning over there.

[http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/29291/if-we- lowered...](http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/29291/if-we-lowered- transit-construction-costs-we-could-build-more-transit/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> They're called squares. lots of east coast cities have them except they're smaller and more manageable.

for instance, Philadelphia has these:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitler_Square,_Philadelphia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitler_Square,_Philadelphia)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Circle_(Philadelphia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Circle_\(Philadelphia\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_(Philadelphi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_\(Philadelphia\))

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

not to mention the smaller ones:

[http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/a-guide-to- phila...](http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/a-guide-to- philadelphias-squares/)

the pictures of Barcelona look like a living nightmare. could you imagine trying to get essential services into the middle of one of those?

good luck getting an ambulance into the middle of one of those on a crowded Saturday night.

honestly, it looks more like the beginning of a block from judge dred than anything else.

<comment><USER56> > good luck getting an ambulance into the middle of one of those on a crowded > Saturday night.

Crowded?

<comment><USER55> engrish?

<comment><USER56> I'm sorry, I'm not fortunate enough to be a native English speaker or having formal English learning?

But I though that a simple word was enough to be understood.

I'll do my best, why do you say the streets would be crowded?

Next time, you can save your insult and think that not everybody is an English speaker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The Netherlands has already done this perfectly. A third of the road is for cars, a third for bikes and a third for pedestrians.

Thanks to elaborate signage and colored pavement they have made riding a bike around cars actually safe. A bike can hold a lot of groceries!

</comment><comment><USER58> NYC does try. But overall it's beyond a disaster. Is there even a thinker anywhere here? People just sit for hours in traffic and just know one cares.

</comment><comment><USER59> You meant the Barcelona government, not Barcelona, the city.

</comment><comment><USER60> Worth noting regarding Barcelona is that this is, to a great extent, retrofitting a concept that already exists within the city to "new" parts. In Ciutat Vella, there are a few "outer" thoroughfares, with the inner streets shared between cars and pedestrians. They are, however, narrow to the point where they are not really navigable by anything larger than a Smart Car moving at rolling speed, and it's very clear that cars are second-class citizens. Thus, this isn't really introducing a new "social order" as if this were to be done anywhere in the US.

<comment><USER4> I see it more as an attempt to revise and scale up the already exceptional block-structured design of the Eixample, which is already trying to pack as much as possible (backyards, terraces, parking...) into the interior of the blocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> > We still decry bike lanes as a "war on cars," even in our allegedly > progressive West Coast cities

Do we? I see a lot more articles like this one about how we have to take back the streets from cars.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Modern cities are ruled by cars."

"Some folks, however, still cling to the old idea that cities are for people,"

How strange. Every time I see a car, one or more people are in it. I also see other vehicles, such as trucks, that not only have a person in it, they also are carrying things (such as food or building materials) that other people need.

<comment><USER62> Everything humans do are for humans. What's your point? Transportation doesn't equal car, but more car space equals less pedestrian space.

<comment><USER18> My point is it is ridiculous to make statements like "the city is ruled by the car." The car is not a living thing. It cannot rule anything.

All the cars are there because they serve people. People find them to be useful.

What people are really saying when they claim the city is "ruled" by cars is that they believe there are too many cars--which is a rather odd statement, seeing as cars are useful and people voluntarily buy and use them.

It's odd that these people are motivated not by their love for walking, not by their love of particular kinds of spaces, and not by their desire for a certain lifestyle. Rather, they are motivated by their dislike for cars. This is an immediately off-putting argument since most people do not hate their cars. If they would focus on getting more of what they want, rather than less of what they do not want, then maybe they would be able to craft winning solutions that do not rely on taking useful things away from people.

<comment><USER63> > "What people are really saying .. they believe there are too many cars"

No. While I'm certain there are some who believe that, it is not a universal belief.

Which routes are the most direct, the ones for drivers, the ones for walkers, or the ones for cyclists? If the car route is most direct, while the safe biking route requires 25% more distance, then the car has been placed ahead of other modalities.

If walkers and cyclists are limited in where they can cross the street, then the system favors the car driver.

If drivers aren't required to stop for foot traffic, then the system favors the car driver.

If there are 6 lane surface roads with a crosswalk, but no pedestrian island or other safe refuge for slow walkers, then the system favors the car driver.

Are there ways to run most errands without using a car?

Are the roads constructed to maximize vehicle throughput? Or minimize maintenance costs? Or minimize the number of traffic deaths?

How much of vehicle parking is subsidized? (Don't forget zoning requirements for the number of parking spaces.)

The more the system favors driving over other modalities, the more reasonable it is to say that "the city is ruled by the car", at least metaphorically.

> Rather, they are motivated by their dislike for cars.

This is not true. The "Vision Zero" plan, for example, is motivated by the desire for no traffic deaths, not from a dislike for cars.

Austin, TX is putting that plan into place. At [http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-07-08/no-kill- for-t...](http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-07-08/no-kill-for-traffic/) you can see the logo for "Year of Mobility 2016", which includes all major transport modalities. It is not based on a dislike of cars.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Rogue Raspberry Pi Let Hackers Into JPL Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/internet/293563-a-rogue-raspberry-pi-let-hackers-into-nasas-jpl-network <comment><USER2> The actual OIG report: [https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-19-022.pdf](https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-19-022.pdf) I only did the briefest of scans, but the recommendations seem pretty basic best practices stuff.

In my experience, research labs tend to be creative spaces with a focus on collaboration and information security is not foremost on peoples mind. I guess that will have to change.

<comment><USER3> Recommendations suck, they just write couple of times that administrators should update "Information Technology Security Database" and that they failed to do that. That should be automated. They have all those "CISO", "SAISO", "OCIO" and "CIO" but there is no one who knows how to setup automated nmap scan for a network range? Then trigger someone and add it to some inventory like "hey there is some new raspberry pi in network" should you maybe check it?

<comment><USER4> It's not like you can easily detect a rogue RPi with just nmap. It's trivial not to respond to anything sent to you. You have to start looking at ARP, but that's not iron-clad either.

<comment><USER5> arpwatch worked pretty flawlessly when I needed something like that

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >5,406 unresolved SPLs—about 86 percent of which were rated high or critical >JPL did not effectively address a known software vulnerability, first identified in 2017, with a critical score of 10. This software flaw can be used by cyberattackers to remotely execute malicious code >one of the projects has a waiver of JPL IT security requirements to change passwords every 90 days. Instead, the project relies on a designated application and team accounts to share password files, group files, host tables, and other files over the network

There seems to be a fair amount of filler in the report (review access logs, out of date inventory, etc) but these points seem pretty damning.

<comment><USER7> If I was a betting man, I'd bet that there are some old dusty areas of NASA facilities where there are open NFS exports, NIS providing security, and Sun workstations doing work.

I bet someone could fire up a SATAN scanning instance with a Mosaic browser and find some open stuff on some of those old and crusty computers. :)

<comment><USER8> Can we get more details about this Satan thing?

<comment><USER9> Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks

(Or, if you repent, SANTA.)

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

<comment><USER8> So an early version of metasploit?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article mentions that the hackers stole 500MB? The number seems small given the scale of storage in modern computers but I guess 500MB could account for a large number of documents that contain confidential info.

<comment><USER11> 500MB of leaked credit card information is a lot. 500MB of leaked video is little. It all depends on the contents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am surprised this doesn't happen more often.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would be nice to know what this specific "Raspberry Pi" vulnerability is, considering the software stack is almost entirely Debian.

<comment><USER14> There is no RPi vulnerability(in this article). The RPi was just used as a bastion into the internal network. It could have been _any_ SBC. Once your already _inside_ the internal network things get stupid lax.

EG. I can't see your Windows shared folders from the internet, but the PC in the next room can. Someone sneaked an RPi into JPL to be that PC in the next room.

See Also; Season 1 Mr Robot had this _exact_ scenario as a plot point.

<comment><USER15> No, they infiltrated a Rpi already on the network (e.g. a research SBC) which itself was also able to access other machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The articles says if the hackers were some jokers on the internet then the data isn't terribly useful, but if it was an adversarial nation then it is very useful. Why? Can't the jokers sell it to other nations?

</comment><comment> noir-york The report doesn't mention how the intrusion was discovered. Someone just noticed the RPi one day? 500mb traffic to a Chinese IP?</comment>


Will the increase in HB-1 visas mean lower wages for IT folks? - <AUTHOR>

Will the increase in HB-1 visas mean lower wages for IT folks? <comment><USER2> As an external observer I have to say that this is what they would appear to be for. There does not seem to be a shortage of skilled developers in the USA - least of all around such companies as IBM (who are large "users" of such visas).</comment>


Ask HN: Have you successfully sold a side project? - <AUTHOR>

I'm realizing now that I don't have the time that I need to put into a side project I started.
It's fully functional and can make money for someone right now.
What is the best way to sell a sideproject webapp?
p.s. I'm not a fan of flippa. <comment><USER2> Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but we've seen lots of side projects go on to be successful community-owned products on Assembly.

Here's more about what it looks like:

[http://blog.assembly.com/our-incredible- journey/](http://blog.assembly.com/our-incredible-journey/)

[http://sideprojects.assembly.com](http://sideprojects.assembly.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing.. Are you guys seeing some good traction for side projects?

p.s. I submitted my side project :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe you could talk to a few of your best customers. This is often an overlooked source.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is a marketplace to buy and sell side projects [https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home](https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home)

</comment><comment><USER5> Why are you not a fan of Flippa? I have made over 90k on that site.. you have to weed out the idiots ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you sell web apps too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not talk to people who would nearly immediately appreciate your app's utility?

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not talk to people who would find its utility obvious?</comment>


The Real Death of the Music Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

<comment><USER2> It's a bit like the 'Innovator's Dilemma'. The Labels are trying to squeeze as much as possible from the old paradigms/genres, instead of looking ahead for the next wave.

It would be interesting to see how much the Labels' share has shrunk since the introduction of paid digital-download distributors like iTunes, Amazon, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's worse than that. What next wave are you referring to? Everyone wants everything online to be free so what should they do, insert ads into songs?

I know people in art, music, etc. and all of them wish people in tech would put down the kool aid for one second and actually look at what's happening to those industries. It's not pretty. Musicians are on their way back to being starving minstrels unless they have a patron or are so insanely popular they can get by on no margin.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you reach "unreachable" clients? - <AUTHOR> We are a provider of a service that requires manual renewal (payment) every 3, 6 or 12 months.
Sometimes we can't reach our clients due to various reasons, such as an expired domain, no longer working there, vacation, etc. So we usually try to find someone in their company that can renew the service by checking old emails, company website, google, etc. This usually works, but for personal accounts (ie with a gmail address) it doesn't.
We're thinking of flipping the switch to enable automatic payments, but we like how our clients can truly evaluate if they still need the service before renewing. We also anticipate some problems such as a higher chargeback rate.
The question we have is how do you, at your company, reach clients that don't have valid contact info anymore? Do you go through a similar process? <comment><USER2> When it comes to license renewals where I work, we first try to reach the primary contact. If that fails, we try to contact whoever else we have on record. If that fails, we send snail mail. If that fails, then we give up.

At some point, the license will expire and the software will stop working. 90% of the time, this will result in an emergency call to our tech support, who will issue them a temporary (2 week, I believe) license and get the updated contact for who to reach to talk about a real renewal.

However, our customers are medium-to-large corporations and our software is system-critical for them. I'm not sure if this approach would be reasonable if your customers are normal human beings.</comment>


Please review my startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideaffect.com

<comment><USER2> Whoa. Your pricing is way out of whack.

As soon as I hit the page, every good thought I had about your service went down the tubes. It looks like you'll nickel and dime me around every corner. It's crazy complicated. Not to mention it seems expensive.

In my opinion, it should be $9 per month and you just get it all, done deal.

SECOND...

Are you eating your own dog food here? Why couldn't I find your feedback site for your site?

<comment><USER3> Plus things like Geolocation (which cost $10) don't add a ton of value. I'd recommend that he should get the pricing right before going ahead. First, the pricing page is surely going to scare away people. Even if they look into it they are going to think you are fleecing them. Why charge $5/mo for SSL, for example?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work, congrats on getting it out there.

First question: What are the advantages of using this over uservoice.com?

They have a huge lead so I think you're gonna have to be a LOT better in some way if you want to catch up. Would love to see you highlight this difference on the homepage if you have a good one.

Also, this may just be me but the pricing page feels overwhelming and I'm not a big fan of ala carte pricing in general. Would prefer to see just 3-4 plans based on volume. But I noticed someone else here said the opposite, so this may just be me.

<comment><USER5> > I think that you're gonna have to be a LOT better in some way

Or maybe just a lot different, create/discover a new niche in this area. Or, as many people preach, ignore your competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Selecting the features seems complex and very alienating for less geeky customers.

 _"Idea Tagging"_

Okay, the average user has no idea whatsoever of what you're trying to sell. He clicks for more information.

 _"Allow your users to tag ideas. Top tags are optionally displayed in a tag cloud widget you can drop into your layout."_

Now there's more questions than answers.

I'd suggest that you'd keep in mind these two valid concepts:

 _\- Design for people who don't read_ [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html)

 _\- You can't tell people anything_ [http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people- an...](http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The site doesn't do a very good job of telling me what it does.

After scanning for several seconds, I'm now aware that I can "Listen, react and retain". None of those are things I need to do right now, so away I click...

Now if you'd started off with saying something about the fact that you're for businesses and that you do customer feedback (instead of sort of whispering it up top), then we'd be getting somewhere. You see, my _website_ might actually need to listen, react and retain stuff.

So yeah, it's pretty, and it gets a message across. Unfortunately the message it gets across is not parseable without some forknowledge of what your site does.

Here's a quick counterexample from a site I'm building right now:

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

Give that link 5 seconds, then come back here and let us know if you can tell what the site does.

<comment><USER8> Great point. This is a really interesting startup and super, super clear about what it does. I couldn't help but think about this idea -- when I was in south america and paying less than a third of the price for private tutors. Good hunting! Looking forward to your launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I couldn't find your demo/feedback site link, and it wasn't until I got back here to complain that I saw that you do actually have one. Went back to the site and _still_ it took 30 seconds of hunting (and another minute to notice the one up top in the little bubble). Nobody off the street will give you that much time. I'd make it as big a priority on the homepage as "sign up".

And speaking of which, the biggest glaring issue with your site is that the "Support" link doesn't go to one of your own feedback sites. Why are you not using your own product? As a potential customer, the immediate answer that springs to mind is "because it's not good enough", and that's the last you'll see of me.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am a user of uservoice.com. How do you differentiate from your competitors?

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea of 'ready made' customer feedback platforms with analytics but I still sense the hardest problem is left unanswered ... how do I get my customers to participate in the customer feedback process? And to do so with integrity?

Kluster (<http://www.kluster.com>) took a stab at this game by turning branding/marketing processes into social games, not sure where they are at today with those initial products but that did seem to garner a lot of attention early on.

<comment><USER11> kissinsights.com makes it really easy to participate. They also integrate it into the site, which is something you (OP) should consider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the design and feel of the site. I also like the pricing model. It is really easy to see what you get for what price.

I don't think I would personally buy it because my brain does fine at the moment. I usually figure that if an idea is important enough, I'll read about it in my email enough to think about whether I should do it.

I do however think this is a good way to show to your customers that you care and are welcoming feedback. Keep at it, I think it will do good.

</comment><comment><USER12> To be honest, I have no idea what it does from looking at the homepage. From the other comments here it seems to be similar to uservoice. That wouldn't have been my first guess.

<comment><USER13> I completely agree with the above. Idea and Feedback management solutions. Who gives who feedback and ideas? On what? Too vague for me. Give me a hook that explains everything.

Why not something like "Your business can collect customer ideas, suggestions and feedback."

<comment><USER14> Same thing, I was confused as to what the product was. I clicked demo, and was furthered confused.

Can you fit a description of your product in one sentence somewhere on the landing page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As you have agreed to in the comments, there are already a few competitors in this space and some of them have been there for a long time. I like your pricing model but I am wondering if that alone would be enough to win against the competition. The core idea is small enough that I can't imagine how different you can get. Have you thought of a customer acquisition strategy that would give you an unfair advantage?

</comment><comment><USER16> I like the design but don't really get the concept other than providing feedback and others do this already, and cheaper. Idea.informer.com is completely free and uservoice.com is cheaper. Need to get either explain features better or just simplify pricing altogether.

</comment><comment><USER17> When I tried to view the demo feedback site, I kept getting the following dialog:

This web site needs a different Google Maps API key. A new key can be generated at <http://code.google.com/apis/maps/>.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gah! Sorry about that; fixing now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> On the pricing page, I would make each 'feature' button area clickable to activate the button. As of now you have to click on the checkbox or the text label.

</comment><comment><USER19> The demo site formatting messes up in IE7.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seems like a reasonable idea. $19/month is very high for what the product does though. Any comparison to what your competitors are charging? Seems like more of a $5/month type idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments.

My competitors (uservoice.com, ideascale.com, and a few others) charge a similar base fee, but they both have a tier-based pricing structure. I'm shooting for more of an a-la-carte model that lets my customers choose which features they want.

If, after a few months or so, I find that my pricing is too high, it's a lot easier to lower prices than raise them:).

Thanks again!

<comment><USER21> You will only get 1 shot at making a good impression with a lot of potential customers. And not 1 shot per visit, 1 shot from launch to the point where you are a big enough name to force people who didn't like their impression to change their minds.

I personally wouldn't be so cavalier sounding about something as critical as pricing, but the best of luck to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It might work well for those who have no vision for their own sites. Based on what I read, that's a large population of current sites.

<comment><USER23> talking with your customers is one of the most important things you can do, vision or not</comment></comment>


Show HN: TidyFork for cleaning up outdated forks and stars - <AUTHOR> https://tidyfork.com <comment><AUTHOR> This is a quickly thrown together application that I built purely out of frustration over how horrible the experience is for deleting repositories you have forked on Github (confirming your password and repo name for each repo you delete). I have been a member of Github since 2010 and in that time, amassed a tonne of forks and starred repositories.

It's a basic app that automatically marks any fork that is outdated in comparison to the parent repo you forked from. For stars, it will mark any starred repository that hasn't been updated in two years or more. In my case, I had starred repos that hadn't been updated since 2010/2011 I cleared out.

I used this as an excuse to build something using Vue.js, as well as Firebase Hosting and Firebase Cloud Functions. I might clean the project up and open source it as well.</comment>


Please Rate My Startup - LoyaltySpace.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.loyaltyspace.com

<comment><USER3> Put a big bright signup button in the main content area. I assumed "Suitable For All Consumer Facing Businesses!" was going to be one.

 _LoyaltySpace is a complete, simple, and affordable solution that helps small businesses to increase sales by running their own customer loyalty program.

LoyaltySpace supports both plastic card loyalty programs and an innovative mobile phone based loyalty product. _

That is a lot about you and a little about them. Successful sales is frequently a lot about them and a little about you. Relatedly, features do not sell software; benefits sell software. Don't tell them that you can "build a customer database" ("I sell freaking pasta, what do I want a database for!? 'Subsequent marketing activity'?!"), tell them the improvement they are going to experience in their lives from using your product. ("You'll get eager customers who want to hear from you giving you their contact details so that you can sell them more stuff.")

Similarly, "Create tailored offers" => "Increase sales by directing the right offers to the right customers."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Patrick - all great that advice that will implement.

<comment><USER4> I think this is a great product idea, but the marketing/sales on the website needs a lot of improvement--and patio11's suggestions are a great start. Especially need better Call-to-Action elements.

I think a simplified value proposition as a tagline is a must. For instance: Square: Accept Payments Anywhere, Basecamp: The Better Way to Get Project Done, Grasshopper: Sound Professional & Stay Connected--The Virtual Phone System Designed for Entrepreneurs.

\--Loyalty Space: The simple loyalty program for increasing sales...or..Real Easy, Real Results...or...(Customer) Loyalty Programs Made Easy..or..The Easiest Way to Build Relationships and Drive Results..etc., etc. Something along those lines, brainstorm a bunch. If you are going to do any advertising A/B test your top 5 in the copy. Check out what other successful companies are doing.

If possible show, don't tell. An awesome video would be great where that carousel currently is. Include some shots of the product actually being used. See Square's videos for definition of awesome videos.

Then I'd put a carousel type section below(but still above the fold if possible), with sections for the businesses in your "Consumer Facing Businesses". I'd list the businesses vertically on the left with icons plus text. Each section loads content to the right with (fictional or real if you got them)examples of problems/needs being solved by your service. Ex: Salons-->Meet Jane, Jane needed a way to fill empty seats in her salon on slow days. She uses her customer database to see which regulars are due for a new cut, and then sends them a custom/personalized discount offer via text message if they come in this afternoon. In no time at all, Jane's seats are booked for the rest of the day with customers grateful for a great deal.<\---Copy should be a lot better, wrote this quick.

Customer Testimonials are huge too. Get some as soon as you can. If you know someone loves your product you can even write it yourself, let them have the chance to edit, and sign off on it. No more than two sentence.

About section could use a lot of improvement. In fact I'd pry call it "Why Loyalty Programs" Include some stats from respected sources on benefits of loyalty programs. Cut out as much copy as you can, and try to condense it all above the fold.

Check out Grasshopper for a great "how it works" section.

Include a clear CTA on almost every page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at the pricing, my first thought is "Wow, that's cheap!" I don't know how that converts to US dollars, but it seems way low. I think you'll want to raise your monthly fee considerably, on the order of 2-3x that amount. Or, consider offering multi-tiered pricing (more on that below).

I run a startup (<http://doleaf.com>) that also deals with small businesses, and they require A LOT of handholding. Plus, they'll always want to talk with you and tell you how to do things (which is both good and bad). All that time should count in your head as work time (believe me, it's way tougher than writing code) and you need to price things as such.

I suggest you definitely consider multi-tiered pricing based on the number of members in the loyalty program. Ironically, I think your bigger clients will probably need less handholding, but they can help subsidize the time you spend working with the smaller ones.

Overall, I think this is an excellent idea. Are you considering accepting customers in the USA? This might be a good fit for some of the nurseries I work with, and I'd be happy to pass it along to them.

<comment><USER6> It's very likely your pricing is too low.

If you're new to pricing consider reading this short free ebook on pricing written by the CEO of Redgate software: <http://www.neildavidson.com/dontjustrollthedice.html>. It will help you think through how to approach pricing your product.

Your pricing should be based on what economic value you deliver. Since that value will be different for different customers you should tier your pricing.

Figure out one or a handful of the key levers that drive that value. For example, in your case it might be number of their customers that are part of their loyalty program or the total transaction value tracked or something else. Someone with 1,000 customers tracked vs. 5,000 are going to be getting a different amount of value from you and ought to be paying accordingly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I have been meaning to have a look at Neils book.

Pricing is difficult - I want to be able to show ROI to something like a small cafe or restaurant.

Tiers might be the answer but at the same time I want a really simple pricing scheme, and will probably defer the choice till the user is more familiar with the system when they have more knowledge about what they might need.

<comment><USER5> Tiered pricing is (usually) dead simple to understand. As their program grows, they climb the tier.

I'm a mailchimp customer and that's how they work. Once my list reaches a certain size, I pay a higher monthly fee. Nothing complicated about it. Plus, I don't even have to "decide" anything. They automatically calculate my tier based on list size. I'd say you're in a nearly identical boat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having tried something similar to this in the past, I found that the business was much more sales than technology. Small businesses are very cost-conscious, and slow to adopt new technology.

It required a lot of sales up-front to land a deal, and then the willingness to pay was ridiculously low. My end realization was that, given the effort required to land a customer and the number of customers it would take to reach break-even profitability, it was basically impossible to make money on the idea.

Your idea is slightly different, so the numbers may work out for you, but I would think about how many customers you need at $27 a pop (in USD). Basically, you are going to need a cheap distribution channel that can sell thousands of subscriptions to even come close.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definetly need to revisit pricing based on this feedback.

True re price sensitivity of the small business, but in a way, the target market is the fundamental USP. Nameley, take a tool that the bigger guys are using and make it available in a scalable fashion to small businesses.

Re thousands of subscriptions... If I could take 100 at that price I'd be happy with the outcome.

Plus I think there's a number of related areas I could move on to off the back of this.

Thanks for the comment - really useful. Also, if you have 5 minutes, feel free to include more info on your experience or link up with me be email twitter etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a consumer, the last thing I want is more plastic in my wallet. Something like Cardstar (<http://www.mycardstar.com/>) would be a start, but maybe that's a typical early adopter HN attitude more than a typical consumer response.

Your landing page needs simpler, bigger, attention-grabbing text.

Also, I'll second the comment below about the big bright signup button. The CardStar link above has a nice example that you might draw inspiration from.

EDIT: Just watched a video from a link on HN:

<http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/draw-your-ideas.html>

And the website behind Jack Dorsey's new idea:

<https://squareup.com/>

He makes the point in the video that 90% of America uses plastic to _pay_ for stuff, but only 2% of America can _accept_ payments from plastic sources.

If you can come up with a killer common-sense line like that (and a killer landing page like Square's), that will become the _raison d'etre_ for your concept.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much for this.

I wasn't aware of CardStar - a fair amount of overlap there.

+1 to that killer application in a sentence. I'm not quite there with my elevator pitch.

<comment><USER9> <http://www.thepocketagency.com> are doing something similar to CardStar in the UK, let me know if you want an intro

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes would really appreciate that - seems like we may be complimentary in some ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to put my startup to the masses on HN and would appreciate any comments, feedback, and ideas!

I have built a system to manage customer loyalty programmes for small businesses.

By implementing my software, they'll be able to:

Improve sales by directly rewarding recurring purchases.

Be slightly more data driven in their approach and marketing - <USER2> tailored offers and marketing.

Use the mobile channel - SMS and Mobile Web to push out offers and build a relationship with their customers.

There is a definite gap in the market for this. I have spoken with tens of potential customers who have looked for a similar system, but have been put off by the high setup costs and tie ins. These are businesses such as restaurants, salons etc, who want to try loyalty marketing but want to be sure of it's use before making any big commitment.

Anyway, would appreciate any comments about the idea, website, sofware etc.

[NOTE: There are still a few rough edges in the software to be cleaned up over the next day or so. My existing handful of customers out of my beta testing and development are on a seperate instances running older software.]

<comment><USER10> I love the idea and think you are on the right track with easy setup and SMS integration. Try and look at it more from the customer's point of view; they are basically signing up to be spammed, correct? A small business may want all those features you listed (remember that features don't sell, benefits do), but they aren't going to buy if you don't show how customers will also benefit and opt-in in droves. SMS is simple for a lot of people to use, but it might be helpful to explain how people actually opt-in.

The website is too word heavy; try asking a few friends to read a paragraph you have written, then summarize it back to you. Usually you'll get a more concise answer that could be used instead.

Like everybody else, I recommend you re-evaluate your pricing. The mailchimp example somebody mentioned is perfect. The paragraph you have between Indicative Pricing and Pricing is completely unnecessary.

The How It Works page also needs to be pared down. The goal should be to get small businesses to sign up, then have it be so simple to use that the operation acts as a guide. I would change Sign Up to be a link, then have Register Customers (signs up telling them to use mobile phones, register on the site, NO manual input from the business owner), Tailor Marketing Offers, Reap the Benefits. Or something similar, it just needs to be simplified, a lot!

Again, I love the concept and hope you have the drive to see it through!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much Nicholas. Really apprecaite the comments there.

Maybe ping me a mail if you are interested - happy to keep you in the loop and may be able to repay the favour next time you need feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for posting this for review. Like the concept a lot.

If you have some beta customers, I would recommend you post quotes from them on the site. Nothing will help win over small business owners better than their fellow business owners. If they are willing to share any specific numbers with the outside world, that would help even more. For example, "loyaltyspace has increased my customer frequency rate by 10%". Other people validating your product makes sales SO MUCH easier.

One thing I was hoping to see under the "how it works" section was a qualitative/emotive story that would demonstrate the ROI to the business. This should help sell the product by showing a use case that the business owner would understand and quickly be able to attach numbers to and CLEARLY see how loyalty will make them money.

Each business owner will have different numbers, but each uses the same levers to get those numbers. Identify those key levers and continually emphasize how you help them maximize those levers. For example, key levers could be customer acquisition, customer retention, avg. order size, avg. order margin, etc

Yes, you do need to explain the technical piece as well but my guess is the owner first needs to be convinced that they "need" the product before they dive into the more technical "How do I set this up?"

</comment><comment><USER12> My immediate feedback would be the following: You seem to be trying to sell the idea of customer loyalty instead of what your product do in the field of customer loyalty. (The 5 promotional points on the front page)

Now that is a perfectly valid approach, but I don't think you want to do that.

Instead assume that your customers already know what CL is and instead focus on what your product does that others don't. I.e. what set you apart in the CL field, not just what is great about CL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insight.

I guess I do want to sell both concepts - but definetly need to re-balance the two slightly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My feedback is all design related, but I like your idea.

Homepage Slideshow:

\- The screenshots are hard to read. The perspective looks nice, but I'd prefer a straight on shot.

\- Font used in captions is hard to read.

\- Once a user interacts with the controls turn off the automatic transitions.

Subpages:

\- Why is there a large empty space on the left? I would move the photos to the left side, and make the text column about 560px wide.

Misc:

\- As Patrick pointed out, there's nothing to click on the homepage! Make a big, obvious call-to-action button.

\- "Questions" is an odd thing to call the contact widget on the left side. I expected it to be an FAQ or some kind of help system. Perhaps labeling it "Contact Us", "Get In Touch", or "Inquiries" would be better.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey loyaltspace, I am doing a podcast about various ideas/projects/stuff that HN members are working on.

Interested in being on one of the episodes?

I put up the first episode and am pivoting based on the feedback I got from the HN community: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379942>

If you are interested, email me: marc {at} ideatin {dot} com

If anyone else, that is building something/has an idea/or has built something is also interested, feel free to reach out to me also.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think that for the lazy viewer of the page it's not clear what your business actually does.

You use a lot of buzzwords and goal orientations but one has to dig around a bit to see what the actual product is.

</comment><comment><USER16>
         Attract repeat visitors to your companies website,

Change companies to company's

</comment><comment><USER17> Design is nice, but the logo looks cheap. And pixel-y.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. Also, get rid of the cheesy stock photos. It really cheapens the look of the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment.

I'm a bit torn on the images - stock photos are generally rubbish but it adds a bit of context.

Creating my own photographs is probably not the best time or cash investment.

Point taken though - maybe I'll look for better stock images!

<comment><USER19> One low-cost option that sometimes works well -- Creative Commons images that are licensed to allow commercial use (flickr lets you search for them).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


First 'exomoon' may have been found - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45707309 <comment><USER2> I wonder if this is a classic moon with an interior barycenter or more of a binary situation like Pluto and Charon</comment>