USB Type-C is still a mess - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-type-c-870996/ <comment><USER3> Speaking as someone in the industry who's worked on Type C-enabled gadgets, half the bloody problem is that the Type C products offered by the major semiconductor companies are _terrible_.

For sake of a simple example, consider designing a rechargeable flashlight. For whatever reason, you'd like it to be rechargeable over a USB-C port. You also want the flashlight to charge as fast as possible from whatever power source you connect it to, because you know people will need to charge it quickly. To do that, the ideal solution would be a single IC that sits on the USB port and monitors D+/D-, CC1/2, and the rail voltages and sets a few GPIOs to tell your battery charge circuit what is and isn't allowed on this port.

Inexplicably, _that chip doesn't exist_. It does exist for USB 2.0 (that is, BC1.2), available from several vendors, and works perfectly. There are solutions marketed for Type-C... but they don't touch USB 2.0. That means someone who uses a Type-A to Type-C cable with a beefy older Type-A charger doesn't get fast charging. There are some bigger Type-C products that might work, but they're incredibly complex, physically large, expensive, often in BGA packages, and will blow out every line on your budget.

Admittedly it's been about a year since I turned over every stone in the industry searching for my Magical Unicorn Charging IC (like the ones that exist for USB 2.0...), but I do pay attention to new product releases and I haven't seen anyone going in this direction. Probably you could get something customized (at medium volumes) or certainly full custom (at high volumes), but if volumes or margins are low enough to require COTS parts, there really aren't any workable solutions.

I am confident that Type-C's market penetration will skyrocket as soon as the difficulty and cost of actually integrating it into a product reaches sane levels.

<comment><USER4> Forgive me for sounding extremely ignorant. I know this is not my area of specialty and I admit I'm about to sound stupid. I want to admit this right off the bat.

Can't you just hook up the VCC and ground from any USB charging IC to a type-c socket? It's all +5v right? I don't understand why the type of connector dictates how fast a cable should be useful for charging. That seems like it should be up to the simple gauge and length of the wire and thus how much current it can handle.

From what I've heard re: that chart in OP's link that shows the different fast charge rates for different manufacturer's wall warts and cables, most of that is caused by proprietary ICs doing sneaky things like throttling the charge rate when it discovers it isn't connected to an official Huawei cable or whatever through some resistor value going to ground from one of the data lines, or some similar method. Couldn't the IC in the device read the resistance / inductance of the cable and determine through that how much current it could handle? I feel like this is all bad faith shenanigans through proprietary cable DRM. When charging is concerned, a conductor is a conductor assuming there's enough thickness to prevent overheating, right?

<comment><USER5> Type-C offers charge rates up to 100W, which means the voltage is ramped to 20V.

There is an entire protocol to negotiate power delivery (including who charges who) [http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/](http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/)

<comment><USER6> And the latter part have caught some people unaware, where a battery pack and a phone will ping pong who is charging who until both are dead.

<comment><USER7> > And the latter part have caught some people unaware, where a battery pack > and a phone will ping pong who is charging who until both are dead.

Or, if you're really unlucky, it'll attempt to charge your wall. No, I'm not joking: [https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/941820122406064128](https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/941820122406064128)

<comment><USER8> My phone has offered that option when I plug into the car. While the car could in theory benefit from the charge (it's a plug-in hybrid), I doubt the phone would be able to provide much of value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember arguing with people when Type-C was new; they told me it would change the world, I told them it would never work.

The problem is... they made everything optional, and thus when a user sees a Type-C port, they have no idea what to expect. Will it work with a device that requires Thunderbolt? Will it drive a DisplayPort monitor? Will this charger charge their laptop? Will this charger charge their phone?

The answer to any of those questions is "it depends". Many Type C ports do DisplayPort. Many don't. Many Type C chargers will charge something that needs 5V, but not something that needs a higher voltage. The end result is that you end up with thousands of devices with the same physical connector that can't actually operate with each other.

My favorite USB C device is Wacom's Intuos Pro pen tablet thingie. It has 3 Type C ports and needs DisplayPort input, USB 2.0, and 20V power. So there is not a computer in the world that you can plug it into with one cable, because I've never seen a computer that can output 20V over Type C. To get around that it, it has three ports and ships with a power brick... so you have two Type C cables going into it at a minimum. So close... if only they would accept 5V power. (I did some measurements and it uses only a tiny amount of power that is well under what can be supplied with 5V, but they appear to have reused the power delivery subsystem from their nearly-identical laptops, which do really need a lot of power to charge the battery.)

I don't see the situation improving. When you have 3 versions of power delivery and at least 4 "alternate modes" to implement, nobody is ever going to implement them all. So people will always be connecting Type C peripherals to Type C computers and being disappointed. And there is no way for the user to predict what works, because it's not like anyone shares specifications of what's required ("this monitor needs 20V and DisplayPort Alternate Mode") ("this computer can supply 100W, and implements USB 3.1, DisplayPort Alternate Mode and HDMI Alternate Mode").

It failed. I look forward to USB Type D that has a more durable connector and doesn't allow "optional" extensions. Maybe that will work. But for now, it looks like I will be struggling with upside-down Type A connectors for the next ten years. Sigh.

<comment><USER10> "it depends" is a fine answer for whether a device supports something. that's how USB-A/B worked. you didn't know if the device supported quick charging, worked at better than USB 1.1 speed, or even if it supported data transfer. there's lots of power-only USB devices.

But you at least could make a fair assumption that the cable you were trying to use supported all of that (beyond the rare power-only cables). For me the real killer with USB-C is the wide variety of cables that all look physically identical. it's fairly easy to keep track of what features a computer, phone, or peripheral has. but having to keep track of which features each cable supports is a huge pain in the ass. It means i can't just have a box of random USB cables on my shelf, and grab one when i need one.

<comment><USER9> Quick charging is a little different. You can take any USB phone and plug it into any USB port and it will try to charge. Maybe slowly, but something will happen. That is not the case with Type-C alternate modes and power delivery. If what you're connected to doesn't support what the device needs, it won't work, and won't tell you why. That is what's annoying. Is it the power adaptor? Is your device dead? Does it not agree on which alternate modes to use? Is the cable incompatible? Nobody knows without a $100 debugging device to sniff out the negotiation packets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My highest score answer on superuser.com is about USB C [https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259](https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259) and I had this to say after a long list of capabilities:

> They really, really should have provided some way to clarify this mess but > they didn't. If colors and icons with the big variety and the space > constrains are not viable then provide a standard way for software to give a > capability list to the user. Or a diagnostics tool that you can plug into > USB-C and it gives you a list of "this port can provide signals A, B, C and > accepts inputs D, E, F".

Given the lack of that when plugging together two USB C sockets and the results are not satisfactory any of the following might occur:

1\. The signal you want is not provided by the source 2\. The cable is not capable of carrying the signal you want 3\. The sink can't process the signal 4\. It just doesn't work because of firmware bugs or driver bugs 5\. There might be interference, there was a Dell problem where lowering wifi signal strength made Thunderbolt better.

<comment><USER12> After reading through this thread, I was thinking something similar to what you are proposing is the cleanest way forward (except I was thinking numbers instead of letters). You could even get more clever and use colors, where complementary colors work together.

Couple that with some error messages that mirror what you wrote in the last part of your post in software whenever you plugged in a USB-C device to a connector and I think the standard could be salvaged and even a relative pleasure to use given the background.

<comment><USER11> Out of the five points I wrote only 1 and 3 can be tested via a standard USB C tester device if it existed. 2 and most especially 5 is fiercely expensive to test and 4 is well, software bugs (firmware is just software, after all). You know how that goes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe it's just me, but I've had zero major issues with USB-C and can't imagine going back. I spent maybe $100 on new cables so I have one or two of everything. I only wish they had USB-C hubs so I could drop the USB Type-A connectors all together.

I honestly find it much easier. The simplicity of just not having to flip he connector around 3 times every time you plug something in alone is worth it.

It can be a little tricky to figure out what voltages/options are supported, but this has already gotten much better. This is really just an issue with manufactures not labeling things. On the cable end I feel like this is actually already mostly solved. Cable Matters gives pretty good specs for every cable. It's really device manufactures that kind of leave you in the dark. I'd venture a guess that if the USB consortium actually created an easy to use label with some good information architecutre that this problem would fix itself.

<comment><USER14> Who wants to spend $100 on cables?

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't mind at all if it means I only have to carry ONE cable for all my devices or risk not using them/paying for a new cable. I got 4 devices, and 4 cables:

\- Smartphone: USB-C

\- Laptop: 12v barrel charger

\- Kindle: micro USB

\- GoPro 3: mini USB

My next laptop will be USB-C charging for sure, so at least the 2 items I use the most can share a charger.

Now I don't mind so much, but when I was travelling/nomad it'd have made my life way easier.

<comment><USER16> For micro and mini there are some adaptor thingies. I bought a few to deal with the couple of older devices I have with mini.

One probably exists for USB-C so you only need one cable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I always hear how USB-C is such a mess, and everyone agrees - I just wanted to quickly provide a counter anecdote. As a user, who knows nothing about the protocol or the politics or anything else - USB-C works wonderfully for me - <USER2> only wish more devices used it.

My laptop plugs into my monitor, provides more USB ports there, and audio out, which feeds into speakers. My dinky phone charger can charge my laptop, which I love. Easier to take around when traveling. No low points for me yet.

<comment><USER18> Ok, so counter-counter point. I was recently in the market for a laptop. The one I bought has a USB-C port and two USB-A ports. Because it's a Thunderbolt USB-C Port, it even has a little lightning bolt printed next to it on the chassis.

Previous laptops I've owned with USB-C could charge over it. This one can't. The model with the smaller screen can, but not the 15 inch. The slightly different model can, but not the one with the discrete graphics card.

Why is this? I _assume_ it's because charging the laptop at full utilisation requires over 100W. But really I have no idea.

<comment><USER19> The lightning bolt really makes me assume that you can use it to charge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Why doesn't Apple just get rid of Lightning and use USB-C on their iPhones!"

This is why. Ignoring the momentum Lightning had from being a few years older, this is a great reason not to switch.

Sadly I know this has become a big problem for people on the new Macs. Plug a USB-C hub in? Now that port doesn't do Thunderbolt or Display Port. How do you know that? Trial and error.

Very un-Appley.

<comment><USER21> In my experience the connector from Apple is far more reliable than USB C. USB C is a rounded flat rectangle with a piece of plastic in the center and pins between, which is small and can easily be damaged. Lightning on the other hand is a solid metal connector with the pins/contacts on the outside, which is much more sturdier. Lighting also does a nice "click" when connected.

<comment><USER22> My experience says the opposite. I don't have an iPhone anymore, but when I did I was constantly having issues with the Lightning connector not connecting.

OTOH, all my USB-C devices, quite a few at this point and some I've had for years, have always worked flawlessly with regard to the port.

Also, all other things being equal, I would rather have the contact springs on the connector rather than the port so that if they go bad I can just replace the cable. I suspect this is what kept happening with my Lightning devices.

<comment><USER23> This could be because lint built up in your charging port. It happened to me a few times. The techs at an Apple store can clean it out for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> USB-C has somehow made docking stations take a big backwards step. Which is a huge shame because we finally got to a good place with USB3 docking stations, where weird ports on the underside of specific laptops could finally go away in favour of a highly standardized one-cord docking solution.

18 months ago we deployed USB3 docks into a sizeable office space. We were able to standardize on a model that works reliably, every time. The only down- side is the dock can't provide power.

Now we're looking at a similar situation and USB-C is the 'obvious' choice. But it's a far more complicated situation.

Some devices will take a charge, some won't, and you have to match up the power input/output requirements quite carefully. It's a more complex landscape than PoE, for no good reason.

Thunderbolt docks are the only ones we've found to provide reliable operation, but they also suffer from weird docking/un-docking behaviour as well as massive security flaws since you lost a lot of the 'standard' USB safe/abstraction layer stuff by plugging in what is effectively a DMA device.

Yuck, frankly. This shouldn't have been so difficult - Just take USB3, introduce a Power-over-USB capability, and bump the speed. But no.

</comment><comment><USER25> Not putting enough ports on devices is a crucial problem. Apple with their stupid single port is just idiotic. The best port selection with usb-c is on the 2015 chrome pixel laptop. 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a. Just having a single usb-c has caused endless pain, all so apple could sell stupid dongles. The new google pixelbook 2018 is a great form factor, except they only have 2 usb-c, they dropped usb-a. The reason was probably to make it a little thinner. But like on a macbook pro laptop, having two usb-a's mean you can plug a mouse and keyboard into it. The new pixelbook needs an adapter for that.

edit: mixed up usb-a and -b. D'oh!

<comment><USER26> _Apple with their stupid single port is just idiotic_

This is on a single specific device.

 _The best port selection with usb-c is on the 2015 chrome pixel laptop. 2 usb-c, 2 usb-b_

You mean USB-A.

 _Just having a single usb-c has caused endless pain, all so apple could sell stupid dongles._

Nobody I know using MacBooks has a particular problem with this. A dongle would be required in most cases to connect to an external display in any case; it's not like Apple are selling more dongles.

<comment><USER27> _Nobody I know using MacBooks has a particular problem with this. A dongle would be required in most cases to connect to an external display in any case; it 's not like Apple are selling more dongles._

Agreed.

My wife has a MacBook with a single USB-C port. Having only one port has exactly zero impact on her. The only thing she uses it for is for charging, and very occasionally plugging in a tiny hard drive to look at her iPhoto library which is larger than the computer's built-in SSD.

Everything else in her lifestyle is wireless. And that's where Apple has been going for a long time. She is Apple's target market for a single USB port device.

If you're the kind of person whose lifestyle or workflow necessitates more than one port, you buy a computer with more than one port. Doesn't seem like rocket surgery. I don't understand why OC is so upset.

As for Apple selling more dongles, I don't think that's what's behind it. Apple would probably rather have the shelf space for higher-margin in-house products than use the space for SKUs from another company. I doubt Apple is making bank on USB-C dongles.

<comment><USER28> What does she do when she has low battery and needs to look at her iPhoto library?

<comment><USER27> Hasn't happened, to my knowledge. The MacBook has way more battery than she needs. (It's a home computer, not a work computer.)

And she's a human bring, not a squirrel on crack, or a nerd caught in a social media feedback loop, so she never "needs" to look at her iPhoto library _right now_. She can wait 30 minutes for a partial charge to see pictures of her family or cats or whatever.

<comment><USER28> Is the condescension really warranted for a simple question?

<comment><USER29> I didn't read it as being directed at you; just a statement of fact, not everyone is glued to technology like the average demographic on HN, it's weird to hear that someone can be unable to use their laptop immediately and they're comfortable with that.

<comment><USER28> It's a statement of fact that the average demographic of HN are not human beings?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I would like a USB-C hub that's like the USB-A hubs of yore: more than 2 USB-C ports, ideally 4 or more downstream facing ports. I saw one once that had 2 downstream ports and one upstream port, as well as several USB-A downstream ports, but I just want to transition fully to USB-C.

Why are there no products for that, I wonder?

<comment><USER31> Have you tried using those '2 ports' on a USB-C 'hub'?

The ones I've tested, the second one is only useful for power in. You can't actually chain devices off the hub to reduce the number of things you have to plug in.

When USB-C was introduced it was finally a connector that could do power and all your data. The culmination of the idea that started with the Mac monitors with the single cable with 2 tails. No more ritual to go to or leave your desk, wearing out the connectors on all your peripherals.

But we're not there yet. At all.

Even Anker has fucked this up. I can't plug a USB keyboard into their top of the line hub if I plug the power supply into it. Probably because of the overvoltage problem discussed here a few weeks ago.

Since I stopped plugging the power into it I've had no problems. But now I'm back to plugging in 3 cables every time I come back from a meeting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The biggest fraud of USB-C is it just doesn't do what consumers expect. I bought a USB-C device, expecting the device to then provide all the functionality that USB-C was advertised as having. But the manufacturer didn't implement any of those features, so it's just a non-standard cable that I need a dozen adapters for. What a joke.

<comment><USER33> That's just expectations which will adapt quickly enough. I doubt you'll make the same mistake again. It's not just type C either I bought a USB 3.0 thumbdrive once and it turned out to be the same speed as a normal one, so even though it was 3.0 as advertised, there was absolutely no advantage in that. Nobody complains that their bedside lamp doesn't deliver the full 2400 W that the wall outlet advertises or that it doesn't allow bulbs more than 40 W even though the same socket can take 100 W bulbs in other lamps.

<comment><USER32> People do complain about lightbulbs. That's why lamps for sale list standard safety ratings, bulb socket types, and bulb capacities. But nowhere on my $450 phone did it say "No USB-C extensions supported, this is just a standard USB-3.0 device with a plug nothing supports".

If you bought a bulb that said "CFL form factor" and it was actually an incandescent bulb that just looked like a CFL, you could arguably sue for deceptive advertising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Port shortages

Would it hurt anyone to put _two_ USB-C ports on a smartphone? Thank goodness my phone still has a 3.5mm jack, but some people would like to charge their phone and listen to (wired) audio without having to buy an adapter. And it's not like this is an uncommon use case either, anecdotally some of my friends with iPhones face this issue.

<comment><USER20> Would you really have a second USB-C port over just keeping the headphone jack?

<comment><USER34> I mean, USB-C seems to be the direction we're going anyways, plus it offers a lot more flexibility for audio eg. allows for active components like a higher- end DAC or amp on the headphones.

Most people probably wouldn't really care for this, and the ones who do probably have portable media players already, so I would prefer to keep the headphone jack. The reality is, though, that USB-C appears to be the future.

<comment><USER35> You don't need type-C for running an external DAC/amp. Most smartphones support USB-OTG over micro-B and many DAC units use generic audio drivers.

Of course you'd still need two ports if you wanted to charge at the same time.

It would probably be more interesting to see smartphones that could use the headphone output as a digital signal, like a coaxial output. We want the 3.5mm output anyway, so why not just let it dump a digital signal to an external amp?

<comment><USER36> Can one port source data (digital audio) and sink power at the same time to a splitter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The one nice thing I can say about USB Type-C is that the physical connector is pretty great, especially when compared to Micro USB, which was _awful_.

Of course, even here I have to add a huge caveat, as I've seen devices that charge at different rates depending on the orientation of the Type-C plug.

 _facepalm_

<comment><USER38> From my n=1 experience with USB-C, I prefer micro-USB because the connection (female) is not sharp at the bottom of my phone. The one C connector I've tried (Xiaomi Mi A1) was so sharp it was just not comfortable to hold. This was one of the reasons I returned it and got another device with micro-USB instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I finally broke down and bought a generic USB-C charger (Insignia from Best Buy) to keep in the shop, because enough USB-C laptops come through and nobody ever brings a charger.

But just because a laptop has USB-C ports doesn't mean you can charge using it, here's looking at you, Lenovo P51. This machine is a workstation and requires 130W, USB-C can only supply 100W so _it won 't charge at all_ over USB-C. Blah.

Also had no luck even trickle-charging smaller USB-C machines like the HP x360 using a phone charger.

<comment><USER40> Color me dumbfounded, but does "won't charge at all" mean it accepts 0A inward or that it takes in only 100W while still draining itself at ~30W?

<comment><USER39> Doesn't take a charge via USB-C, period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A few years back I thought USB-C was a better mechanical design than Apple's lightning port. You see, the spring loaded parts were built into the male conductors on the cable while lightning had them on the female connectors of the actual device; judging from the number of broken USB and DC charging ports I have witnessed it seemed prudent that moving parts should be placed in the side that is more easily replaced.

Well, I got what I asked for. I bought my first smartphone with USB-C connection by the end of 2106 and I'm on the 5th charging cable at the moment. The cable that came with the phone failed 6 month in and the $20 replacements (reputable brand with full fast charging capability while it worked) barely lasted any longer. I am hesitant to buy anything more expensive as they'd have a limited lifespan too.

Meanwhile all my lighning cables and devices bought in 2014 are going strong. I did have to retire a couple of cables because the ends had started to fray but even those never really ceased to charge.

My impression of USB-C so far gives me the vibes of early SATA ports rated to last 50 insertions. A lot of work is needed to make it on par with USB-B connectors in terms of physical reliability.

</comment><comment><USER42> There's two fundamentally unrelated but easily muddled situations here.

A) USB-C PD, USB-C audio, or even just straight-up USB-C data devices, and/or USB-C hosts not adhering to standards.

This is definitely a problem, but it's something that needs to be addressed by device manufacturers, not by the spec itself.

B) Protocols other than USB over the USB-C connector (Thunderbolt 3, Displayport, potentially analog audio output?) not being universally inter- compatible.

I don't see how this one is a real issue. Imagine for a moment that you had a magical morphing port that could be an audio jack, HDMI port, thunderbolt port, or USB port, and it just became whichever one it needed to be when you plugged something in. This is the situation we're in with USB-C multi- protocol, the port on the host device changes identity based on what it's connected to. That wouldn't mean that you could suddenly run your hard drive off a 3.5mm headphone cable.

<comment><USER43> > Imagine for a moment that you had a magical morphing port

That's mostly the case with Apple's devices where all ports support all functionality, but there's products in the market where some but not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt- or USBPD-enabled. This becomes a royal pain in the arse, where you have a bunch of ports that all look like they should support the peripheral you're trying to plug in, but don't, for some reason.

<comment><USER20> So put a USB-C hub (because that's the connector, what else would you buy?) into your Mac. And you plug your display into that. And it has some USB-C and Thunderbolt stuff plugged in.

It used to all work, but now with the hub in-line your Thunderbolt drive doesn't work and your display doesn't get a signal.

The hub must be broken, right? So you buy a new one. Same problem.

How is any normal person supposed to figure this stuff out?

You're right. It's a total mess.

<comment><USER43> > So put a USB-C hub (because that's the connector, what else would you buy?) > into your Mac.

This _will_ eventually become a problem, definitely. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem right now because USB-C hubs are as common as hen's teeth (they're usually C to A, or C to a bazillion things)

<comment><USER20> Right. If the hub supports Thunderbolt that fixes TB and USB-C will keep working but you'd still lose passyhrough video unless it was designed for that too. And don't forget power delivery.

Good USB-C hubs that support everything will be quite expensive. They're basically limited Thunderbolt docks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Just today I setup a Dell monitor (S2718D) to a new Macbook and was the first time I thought USB-C was nice. Out of one cable you charge the Macbook, output video to the monitor and get 2 very welcome USB ports from a hub in the monitor base.

</comment><comment><USER45> I disagree. It's not a mess. It works well. So much better than USB 2.0.

I don't have to try to 'key' it correctly when plugging it in and the connections are fast and 'just work'.

<comment><USER46> I agree. My device charges faster, and I haven't had any issues with cables not working.

<comment><USER47> So far the only issues I've had with USB C is that I had to buy a Nintendo USB C cable to charge my switch and a separate USB C cable wouldn't charge my Pixel. It did work with an external hard drive so I know the cable wasn't completely broken.

I know there's other cables from some brands that might have worked, but after the 3rd one that wouldn't work for my switch I went for Nintendo.

I don't have a lot of USB C devices yet, so I'm hoping they get things ironed out.

<comment><USER48> That is because the switch is not compliant with the usb-c specification. There have been lots of reports of people bricking their switch using usb-c cables which otherwise work fine with other usb-c devices.

Discussion on hn: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Designed by the same consortium that was fine with letting manufactures put the "this side up" symbol for micro USB in black, on a black cable, in a size ~a couple millimeters square?

Btw, if you are still using some of these cables coloring one side with a bright colored Sharpie will change your life.

</comment><comment><USER50> I love it, mentioned it the other day in the thread about MBP gripes. One cable to connect everything. Way better than the older days of plugging in power, usb, displayport cables (and ethernet if thats your thing).

</comment><comment><USER51> I have 3 dongles and one power plugged into my macbook pro right now (ethernet could be optional, external monitor, USB, power).

Maybe there will be a nice docking station sometime, but for now, it's dongle city, and picking up the laptop a bit to connect/disconnect each one every time I transition between mobile and desktop-replacement.

Maybe something like [https://nerdtechy.com/best-usb-c-docking- stations](https://nerdtechy.com/best-usb-c-docking-stations), though they currently are biased toward providing many USB-A ports.

<comment><USER27> _Maybe there will be a nice docking station sometime, but for now, it 's dongle city, and picking up the laptop a bit to connect/disconnect each one every time I transition between mobile and desktop-replacement._

That's not unique to USB-C. My MacBook has no USB-C ports, just the previous gen. But right now has power, external hard drive, headphones, HDMI and a mouse plugged into it. When I transition to mobile, I'll have to unplug all of those, too.

As you note, a docking station would be the best solution, but it's just another piece of gear I don't want on my desk.

<comment><USER33> What if there was a dongle that securely clipped/glued onto the bottom of the computer so it feels like it's part of it? You'd never remove it and it would simply become a bigger computer with all the ports you want. Just like if the computer maker had put all those ports there in the first place.

I used to use a 3rd party battery that had double the capacity of the factory battery but stuck out the bottom. It doubled as a small tilt-stand. No cables or ever removing it like you would an external battery pack.

<comment><USER27> _> I used to use a 3rd party battery that had double the capacity of the factory battery but stuck out the bottom. It doubled as a small tilt-stand. No cables or ever removing it like you would an external battery pack._

I have something like that now for my MacBook Air. I think it's called a Chug Plug, or something like that. Instead of using Apple's ever-changing computer- side plug, it has the very-stable-so-far electrical socket end connection. So you pop the little regional adapter off your laptop's wall wart and attach the wall wart to the portable battery so it works with every laptop Apple's made this century.

Heavy as hell, but works well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> People got really mad when Apple decided _not_ to put USB-C on the latest iPhones. Now that's looking to have been a pretty wise choice.

</comment><comment><USER53> This kind of makes sense if you look at how this should work..

Having a single port for everything is bad idea, because the electrical interface can't possibly be the same for everything.

Making this happen is obviously a really hard task from an engineering standpoint. Device makers have to employ various adapters internally, so that everything works on the same interface.

No wonder manufacturers are suffering to keep up!

</comment><comment><USER54> In order to solve the USB Type-C dumpster fire we need a new USB Type-D standard which is unambiguously and apologetically _NOT_ backward compatible... which is usually an Apple move. Except if Apple invents it they aren't going to share it so there's no solution anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER55> USB-C /w DisplayPort seems to work really well for monitors. If you have a monitor that can output a good amount of voltage, it is quite literally the only connector you need.

At work the only cable connected to my MacBook Pro (running Linux) is a USB-C thunderbolt cable to a monitor which connects all my standard USB-A devices (keyboard, mouse, hub, flash, drives, etc.)

At home I can do the same thing with my HP Spectre or Dell XPS 15 and an LG monitor (XPS complains about voltage, but it still charges).

Viewsonic even has USB-C monitors that are KVMs too. You plug in your keyboard and mouse to the monitor and it will switch them on input select.

Ultimately I'd really like to see a pure USB-C KVM that support DisplayPort 1.4 (no KVM does this currently) so you could have laptop power and full 4k+10Bit all from one cable.

</comment><comment><USER56> The Nintendo Switch probably has the worst implementation of USB-C I've ever seen.

<comment><USER57> Did Nintendo even advertise it as being USB-C compliant? See [https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/2CUPZ5yV...](https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/2CUPZ5yVTRT)

<comment><USER58> They do, at least on their japanese site.

[https://www.nintendo.co.jp/hardware/switch/specs/#1](https://www.nintendo.co.jp/hardware/switch/specs/#1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What happened to enforcing trademark rights on the USB logo? Just about every obviously non-compliant 10m long USB extension cable or retractable power-only cable has the USB logo on it. Sometimes it's a bastardized form but it's basically still the logo. If they were more aggressive in eliminating these products from the market, even one-man Amazon shops, then at you could look at the logo to decide if it at least meets the spec.

</comment><comment><USER59> I have a new MacBook Pro, an external USB-C HDD for backup, and an Android portable music player, also with USB-C. I got a cable to connect the HDD to the MBP, and it works fine for that purpose, but when I use that cable to connect the PMP to the MBP, it doesn't work: the MBP doesn't mount the PMP's filesystem. But if I use a C-male-to-A-female adapter, then an A-to-C cable, the PMP mounts just fine. Anyone know why?

<comment><USER59> Never mind — it's working now. I don't know why it didn't work earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> And voip, and sharing files, sending encrypted emails, managing your contacts, taking notes on a computer, make a backup, simple photo edition, email clients, todo management, rss readers, deal with your encryption key, work in a terminal, packaging in Python...

I find it a good news: there is always something you can take as a mission. There is plenty of things to do.

And that's just the geeks stuff, not even talking about the important specie level issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> The crazy part is that "reversible USB" was already a solved problem, by clever engineering of the A plug.

Never mind that on its face, the C plug is a nice reversible plug. But then someone noticed all those contact points on one side that went to waste half the time, and thought they could cram even more signals down the wire, and here we are...

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that some USB-C implementations are direction-specific? I've never heard of that problem before.

<comment><USER6> Best i understand, they kinda are. But then the electronics at either end is responsible for negotiating what side is "up".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Another fun defect I've found while doing hardware support: some USB-C dongles (for various ports) are directionally sensitive (only work when turned a certain way. This isn't limited to cheap dongles, nor does it seem to be a physical (shaky port or loose connection) problem. I'd love to know why that's the case.

</comment><comment><USER62> Believe me or not, I've bought a MacBook Pro with a 3rd-party usb-c Hub adapter and I've noticed whenever I plug it, it interferes with my hotspot connection (I don't receive any data from my hotspot anymore). Does anyone know anything about this?

</comment><comment><USER63> I still don't understand why Apple did not release a USB-A + USB-C hub / dongle to replace the Charging Brick on their new laptops. Would eliminate so many of their USB-C issues just by having a high-quality port expander in the market.

</comment><comment><USER64> It's not just a 4-pin USB connector. It's a 24-pin connector with pins for USB, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, and JTAG. Some of which may work.

Do those 24 tiny pins hold up in use?

<comment><USER37> In my experience, yes, they hold up far better than Micro USB. The Type-C physical connector seems to be the one thing they actually managed to get right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I see that laptops don't come with HDMI output anymore. How many monitors have USB-C inputs?

<comment><USER66> Not a one of the dozen or so that I have, between work and home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Say what you want about USB-C, but it has been a bonanza for dongle sales.

</comment><comment><USER68> [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

cycle of life

<comment><USER69> 927 is also the number of times I have seen that comic linked here.

<comment><USER68> Sorry, it's just that...well this is the fact of life, isn't it?

Technologists ALL want standardization...but can't agree with themselves...and us consumers have to suffer.

It was true then, when this comic was released (I still have a USB mini cable somewhere), and it's true now.

Instead of trying for ONE universal standard... why not try for a "few" tiers of standards? That way instead of a zillion variations of USB-C, we have at most... five or six, perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> The main issue here is that USB IF wanted to "please everyone" and had a very weak compliance process accompanied by a complex licensing scheme.

This is an idea created by their own hand. Hopefully there will be a Type-C 2.0 or something where _everyone_ has to implement either all the specs or none of them. And all chargers and devices must be 100% compatible.

</comment><comment><USER71> I guess this solidifies the more and more common view that Apple's thought leadership is something from the past.

A few years ago, the messaging was along the lines of "just wait, this will just be a temporary pain - Apple is just being brave and taking the industry leader role as usual".

</comment><comment><USER72> > USB Type-C's complexity is undoubtedly its undoing. Although the idea of one > cable to support everything sounds very useful, the reality has quickly > become a convoluted combination of proprietary versus on-spec products, > differing cable qualities and capabilities, and opaque feature support. The > result is a standard that looks simple to use but quickly leads to consumer > frustration as there is no clear indication why certain cables and features > don't work across devices.

Spot on.

And, in the decades it'll take to sort out, Apple will be able to bolt on and extra $250 per laptop in dongle fees. Genius.

* Steve Jobs Foretold the Downfall of Apple! - YouTube || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag&t=0m40s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag&t=0m40s)</comment>


Acrostic - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic <comment><USER2> fwiw, the Dutch national anthem is an Acrostic.

<comment><USER3> > The complete text comprises fifteen stanzas. The anthem is an acrostic: the > first letters of the fifteen stanzas formed the name "Willem van Nassov" > (Nassov was a contemporary orthographic variant of Nassau). In the current > Dutch spelling the first words of the 12th and 13th stanzas begin with Z > instead of S. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelmus#Structure_and_interp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelmus#Structure_and_interpretation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On January 24, 1943, the newspaper _Ilustrowany Kurjer Polski_ issued in Polish by the German occupiers published an innocuous poem "A satire against easy rhymes". The German censors failed to notice the acrostic "Polacy, Sikorski działa" (Poles, Sikorski [the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces in the West] is active) [1, in Polish]. In 1944, Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) murdered the author of the poem, Eugeniusz Kolanko [2, in Polish].

[1] [http://artbazaar.blogspot.com/2011/10/polacy-sikorski- dziaa....](http://artbazaar.blogspot.com/2011/10/polacy-sikorski-dziaa.html) [2] [https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugeniusz_Kolanko](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugeniusz_Kolanko)</comment>


The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj9yjq/the-radical-plan-to-save-the-planet-by-working-less <comment><USER2> You can ridicule the specifics, but the high-level idea here is spot on. Either you have to decouple economic growth from increased consumption of natural resources, or you have to find a way to have a stable society without economic growth. I see no reason to think the former is possible, so that leaves the latter. The alternative is some kind of calamity.

<comment><USER3> > you have to decouple economic growth from increased consumption of natural > resources

Hasn't technology generally been heading in this direction? It seems we are constantly doing more with less. If it keeps up, and we slowdown procreation, I see no reason why it won't drive resource usage down long term.

I mean, I completely disagree with the premise that we _must_ consume non- renewable resources to generate wealth, but assuming it is true I think we've come a long way in changing that and the future looks even better.

<comment><USER4> > Hasn't technology generally been heading in this direction? It seems we are > constantly doing more with less

Actually no, we haven't and we don't. Carbon emissions are still growing.

Classic mistake: You're confusing relative and absolute reductions. We have reduced relative ecological impact a lot, but overall impact has been growing along the way.

<comment><USER5> Carbon emissions are decreasing in Europe despite economic growth. Nature is getting in better shape as well.

<comment><USER6> Can you explain how nature is getting in better shape? Everything I have read contradicts your statement.

<comment><USER7> There's more forest in Europe now than a hundred years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The economic value of a healthy environment is certainly not accounted for, but growth isn't bad. Externalities and tragedy of the commons are.

I want the economy to grow. Specifically I want the wind and solar industries to grow REALLY fast. So much so that their lobbying power is greater than that of the oil industry.

<comment><USER9> >So much so that their lobbying power is greater than that of the oil industry. I've noticed a bit of this from the anti-renewables crowd. They accuse green energy proponents of just wanting to increase the value of their investments. Somehow they ignore the huge investment in fossil fuels though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a while, I was pretty sold on anarcho-primitivism as a concept (Derrick Jensen is a prominent figure in that sphere), but it is pretty deluded to think that quality of life would increase and life would be cushy and comfortable.

<comment><USER11> What improvements in quality of life do we really _need_ though?

In first world countries we're so comfy and everything is so convenient that the leading causes of death are due to eating too much and not moving enough. That's pretty ironic if you ask me.

We don't have to go back to living in caves and eating raw animals of course. But I don't see how slowing down would decrease our quality of life.

There is no limit in artificial quality of life improvement. You can spend 1 month of your salary on a bread toaster or on a few iot light bulbs... Or you can send it to a private pension and retire x months earlier than the legal age.

<comment><USER12> Maybe not working 40 hours a week and enjoying the world in our prime age?

We spend our best time of the day stuck in an office or someone else's property doing work for them. Losing all the time we have with sunlight.

If we all worked 20 hours a week and maintained our SoL we would even be mentally more stable.

<comment><USER7> And then the people whose SoL is terrible right now would outcompete you and your SoL will fall, because they're the better candidate for the job. There are a lot of people whose standard of living is low right now.

<comment><USER12> Maybe we shouldn't tie SoL to "work output"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An author once came and spoke to my environmental studies class. Of the Club of Rome, he said "Fascinating ideas. They might be right. But try getting elected by promising a shrinking economy."

Yeah, not gonna happen. Best to treat growth as a given and work around it, imho.

<comment><USER14> > "Fascinating ideas. They might be right. But try getting elected by > promising a shrinking economy."

It sounds like the problem is democracy. What we need is a BDFL.

<comment><USER15> The world only offers DFLs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would be great, but human nature is to want more stuff, money and power.

On the upside, many "new" sectors don't use natural resources, except human time. E.g. writing blog posts, social media management, doing marketing campaigns for Gucci. Growth in those sectors should be (mostly) easy on the planet.

<comment><USER17> > Would be great, but human nature is to want more stuff, money and power.

A lot of HN lives in an upper-middle class first world bubble. Median global income is $2900 per year. That's less than $10 a day.

For the vast majority of the world, economic growth isn't about "stuff, money and power". It's about escaping abject poverty. It's about reliable access to running water, electricity, shelter, and food.

<comment><USER18> Source? Last time I've checked global median income was closer to $365/year...

EDIT : Never mind, I must have confused it with the poverty line, and an old one to boot !

EDIT2 : Note though, that the costs of living, and especially of housing, are going to be _wildly_ different depending on your location !

</comment></comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter This idea is a kind of calamity. They're proposing to increase poverty worldwide when we haven't even managed to get everybody over $2 a day of consumption, or bring child mortality down to rates that would have been acceptable in the US in 1950.

<comment><USER2> Like I said, the specifics are certainly open to ridicule. But I don't think you can dismiss the idea that we need to find a way to live without economic growth. I think we still have room for some growth, but not for long. If we keep to the status quo, waste heat from energy production alone will grow to disastrous levels within a few centuries.

<comment><USER19> The world's population is still growing, economy must grow or there is less of everything for everyone.

<comment><USER20> Aren't we past the point of having too much? Making plastic single use goods obsolete and reducing all the Amazon purchases that get used once if ever would reduce total output. More focus could be put on quality (I know this can't be defined) products, rather that just driving blind consumerism.

<comment><USER21> Banning single use plastic is not a bad idea. That's pretty easy to enforce against the chain stores.

I wonder how it would affect garbage collection bills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Families would perhaps have one car instead of three

That's cute. No, most families would own NO cars, like most families don't own an helicopter these days.

P.S.: I'm pretty sure that's already/still true today, if you consider the world rather than the richest countries.

P.P.S: And I'm pretty sure that it's only in USA that the idea of most families having three cars wouldn't be considered outrageous.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm pretty far on the left and used to be active in communist politics (little bit less exceptional here in Europe than across the pond), but I've always been very irritated by these degrowth movements, although a lot of this stuff came out of 'my' political tent.

It's to me reminiscent of the 'deep ecology' folks, who don't pursue environmentalism with the goal of furthering human well-being, but have a quasi religious attitude to nature as if it is a thing in itself. If you want to have a life of leisure and cooperation, you need material progress and abstract away all the nasty and brutish things which is only achievable in an environment of abundance.

Degrowth will produce the exact opposite. Scarcity, tribalism, zero-sum competition and so on.

<comment><USER18> Degrowth has never been in the same "political tent" as "communism" (by which I assume you mean Marx/Engels-based socialism?)

The idea that human well-being is central, while nature is just a resource used to achieve abundance is completely opposite to the philosophy of the degrowth movement.

<comment><USER23> Then almost by definition the movement prioritizes an anthropomorphized planet over people. The movement, in effect, advocates for killing people.

<comment><USER18> That's like equating people critical of Israel with those in favor of reopening Auschwitz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What size 'should' the global economy be?

<comment><USER25> The size that ensures every person a comfortable lifestyle while maintaining a healthy and sustainable biosphere.

<comment><USER26> Is the human species every really comfortable?

<comment><USER27> "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

Blaine Pascal

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm amazed it's such a sensitive topic. Some people are litterally angry in the comments out people suggesting degrowth.

Since we have math lovers here, I'll post a fantastic math oriented conf on the topic:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=list_othe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=list_other&playnext=1&list=SP6A1FD147A45EF50D)

</comment><comment><USER29> It is elites a way of saying that most working class is becoming disposable for the elites. Why let them idle? Better just dispose them for good.

</comment><comment><USER30> Or you expand the pool of natural resources...

Hello Mars!

</comment><comment><USER31> What's stopping them? There's tons of empty land in the world. Go find a stream in the forest and live a sustenance-level life. Oh, they want _everyone else_ to be miserable too.

<comment><USER32> Perhaps you know this already, but they would be outcompeted very quickly and disappear (like the shakers). It's like how paying extra taxes voluntarily isn't a substitute for wanting increased taxation.

<comment><USER33> The shakers died out because they were celibate.

<comment><USER32> Yep. What do you think degrowth will lead to if it's done in the context of growth?

Nature doesn't reward restraint, either in that kind of productivity or the other kind of productivity.

<comment><USER34> Wait a few decades and see if it exuberant growth ... What I think is that we might price natural resources much more expensively. Higher Price and thus growth is not always synonymous with more resources. It is an approximation but better means higher price not more resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >Degrowth is now a buzz word in left-leaning and academic circles around the world

Ted Kaczynski and other far-right thinkers (e.g. Pentti Linkola) have been advocating for shrinking the economy for decades.

It's not a left/right issue and one side doesn't have a monopoly on anti- materialism.

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure how you characterize Kaczynski as far-right. He was an anarchist.

<comment><USER35> He criticized the anarchi-primitive view heavily. He was mostly just against technological advancement.

But I wouldn't classify anarchism as left-wing either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I apologize for the wall of text. I hope someone finds it interesting.

I think people in the West assume that because we are freer than most that we are not drowning in propaganda. Money really does run the show this planet over. Money and power really do seem to bring the worst out of people.

Economic growth is only needed for Ponzi economics, whether that be retirement funds, Social Security or stock market returns. Human beings are not some living aberration that _requires_ growth or we die. Growth is only "needed" by the financial industry and holders of equities. As growing social unrest increases, and it will, people will slowly realize that consumption of cheap Chinese electronics do not make them happy. This idea that once we get over the hurdle of 100% automation we will all be able to live work and stress free in our post automation utopia where people can focus on the things that give them "meaning" and make them "happy" is absurd. Basic Income as a panacea for the lower class is another ridiculous idea that can only be imagined being successful if you first image human beings as blank slates whose programing is purely cultural and devoid of millions of years of instinctual hardwiring. The only thing I see Basic Income providing is as cultural grease (as in bribe) to keep people from rioting. The "need" for immigration is another epic lie needed only to keep the Ponzi scheme going. It blows my mind that the left let this made-in-marketing-heaven line of propaganda slide: "immigration is needed to supply the jobs that Americans don't want to do". It even sounds like a corporate slogan. Holy shit the gas-lighting. This is wage suppression. Americans don't want to do those jobs _for what you want to pay them_ when you can instead take advantage of someone from a poor and broken country. This was big business stealing from Americans and it has contributed to the decline of the middle class. People seem to forget, or maybe they don't know, that the middle class was _created_ through policy, just as it is now being dismantled through policy. Instead of this issue being talked about honestly we are told to ridicule those "xenophobes" who dare suggest that Americans could/should be doing those jobs for a non artificially lowered wage. Off-shoring and immigration are the same thing and no one is honest about this. They are supported by the same forces, for the same Ponzi effect, for the same concentration of wealth causing the growing income disparity we see. The "need" for immigration is also about the higher abstraction of the population Ponzi scheme. We as human being do not _need_ to grow to thrive. There is no need to see just how many billions of us this planet and technology can sustain before biblical levels of suffering ensue. Europe importing millions of "refugees" (migrants)/immigrants to "fill the void" is purely the greed and entitlement of the Elites. They feel entitled to Ponzi economic comforts even though they did have to children themselves to support it. Less people means less load on the environment and less fighting over resources. This is a great thing especially for the environment as well as for everyone else on the planet not just those in Europe. Jared Diamond in his book Upheaval very slyly points out that immigration from the third world into the first world increases environmental problems by increasing gross carbon emissions and overconsumption. Yet as much as Diamond is loved by the left this is ignored, as if he didn't say it. Again the propaganda pumped out is multiculturalism and "diversity is our strength". Japan and the Norwegian countries beg to differ and are looked up to as models. Immigration is pushed to keep the Ponzi scheme going and to increase the Democrat voting base and not to give you more choices in local cuisine. The bullshit is miles high.

Can you really not envision a thriving human race without growth? International finance and corporate banking really do _need_ growth. Either way economic growth is not sustainable indefinitely. Technology will not enable us to colonize the Universe anytime soon. Self driving cars are not happening in the next decade and the singularity is not happening in the next 5 decades, at least.

Looking through the comments I see multiple posts suggesting that non growth equals lowered standard of living. Standard of living has all ready started falling in America, most likely due to income disparity. Japan has not had much economic growth for the last 20 years yet they are living in the future. I have visited Japan, it's incredible. Japan feels like a future I'm not sure a multicultural country like American can ever achieve. Regardless, Ponzi economics is not necessary for anything other than easy money, especially for the Elites. Someone down at the bottom mentions Ted Kaczynski as a "far-right [thinker]". I think not. If you remove his savage deconstruction of leftism and academia from his writings he would be considered far left-wing. His philosophy is left-wing environmentalism and anti capitalism/tehcnology.

</comment><comment><USER7> > _After a reduction in material and energy consumption, which will constrict > the economy, there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth, and a > transition from a materialistic society to one in which the values are based > on simpler lifestyles and unpaid work and activities._

So, this movement is communism by another name? I understand that the new bit is the reduction energy consumption and quality of life, but it seems to me that they first need to get to the communist stage and then they'll shrink the economy. In other words: it's a fantasy.

<comment><USER38> Once they get to doing communism, both the economy and the population will shrink automatically.</comment></comment>


A valid analogy? Microsoft .NET is to Java as Google Dart is to JavaScript? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Probably not. I mean, if Microsoft had aggressively moved to make .NET adoption easy for everyone by moving to standardize at 1.0, releasing the implementation as open source from the beginning, and having a cs2java compiler from day one, C# uptake would probably have been a lot more robust (but the utility of C# and .NET to Microsoft's strategy of promoting vendor lock-in would have been greatly reduced.)

Ironically, the fact that Google would be just as happy with Dart pushing improvements in JS doesn't strategically need to beat JS (even though they don't believe that internal JS improvements will be enough for what they want to acheive, it'd be just as good for them if they were) means that they can do the kind of things that make Dart adoption easier.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I ask because some of Dart's features seem really nice in comparison to JavaScript but so did .NET's C# features to Java. But in the end, Java kept up with C#/.NET's feature set and C#/.NET never won. Some of the really nice features of Dart seem to be quite easy to integrate into future versions of JavaScript.

I guess one could say that C#/.NET did put pressure on the Java to move quicker than it might have if there wasn't competition.</comment>


The Fight to Save Japan's Young Shut-Ins - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fight-to-save-japans-young-shut-ins-1422292138?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks

<comment><USER2> One reason for this is the primacy of the workplace/school, to the total exclusion of any third place. If you don't have a job or are harassed out of your school, what _does one do_ when not working? Japan does not have great ready-made answers to this question, for many people. (It seems like a silly question, but after six years here, I honestly struggled with it after leaving the day job. Where should one be at 3 PM on a Thursday? Is it _allowed_ for me to just go to the gym? Shouldn't I just stay home a few more hours so that the lady behind the counter will assume I am coming in after getting home from work early at 8 or so?)

There exist people with similar levels of social isolation who nonetheless go to work every day. They are occasionally written about in reports of him hikikomori, which strikes at least some people as odd, since "I go to a place where nobody cares about me and spend my entire day there" is not exactly out of the mainstream of Japanese experience.

<comment><USER3> I'm married into a South Korean family, and from my observation Korean society has less intense version of Japan's social collective mood (IIR it's written as '情' in both countries)

It's really difficult to read about this kind of thing and maintain an appropriate feeling of cultural relativism without wanting go "oh Japan" or in my case "oh Korea". There's been many times with my family and friends a seemingly intractable situation will come up that a Westerner would simply resolve with a bit of a Western Rock'n'Roll "well fuck 'em" attitude and get on with life. As a Westerner, I find it incredibly frustrating at times. But obviously it's more complicated then that and when I try to see things through my family and friend's cultural lens it all makes a kind of sense.

On the flip side, I think lots of Western behavior is explained by an insatiable desire for group membership -- despite social expectations of individuality (especially for Americans).

People do all kinds of weird behaviors, bizarre clique joinerisms like wearing crazy fashions, or obsess over the moment they turn old enough to join the Marines or take on group-specific behavior patterns, and just like with 情 this mood and desire seems indescribable to them (I don't know of any satisfactory word in English for it). But you can go to any public place and look at groups of people who all dress, act and try to be as "the same" as possible as their clique-mates.

And then you end up with the strangest of all joiner group identities, the ones made up of "individuals" who strive obsessively to be "individuals" just exactly like all the rest of their clique-mates. Hipsterism seems to be a particularly well known variant of this, but there are others.

I suspect a similar psychological mechanism is at play, but just on opposite ends of the spectrum.

<comment><USER4> YMMV, but having seen both the Japanese and Korean sides of the coin, I'd generalize Korea as being more "intense" on all counts: studying even harder, working even longer, endurance being prized even more as a virtue. Although I think both societies are slowly evolving out of this, Japan is just a bit further down the path.

But yes, the let's-all-be-individuals-together cliques are still going strong. Japanese Halloween illustrates this nicely: virtually everybody who dresses up does so in matching groups.

[http://tokyofashion.com/halloween-in-japan-shibuya- costumes/](http://tokyofashion.com/halloween-in-japan-shibuya-costumes/)

<comment><USER3> It seems to tap into some kind of deep sub-cultural emotion. I mean, we _are_ social animals and all, but sometimes it gets weird.

[https://wedatenerds.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/frat- guys.pn...](https://wedatenerds.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/frat- guys.png?w=470&h=293)

I don't disagree at all with Koreans doing things in a particularly intense way. Based on my readings of ancient to modern Korean history it seems to definitely be a fairly modern cultural trait (at least not much older than the occupation).

However, Japan seems to have a very intense cultural relationship with this particular mood. I can't really think of a single k-drama that will spend half the episode with a character fretting about how they may be threatening the social harmony of their group, but I could probably pick a j-drama, anime or manga that does at random. It seems to be an issue Japanese people spend an extraordinary amount of time contemplating, expressing, acting upon, reacting to, watching, evaluating, teaching and thinking about.

It can make consumption of some Japanese media quite interminable for people who don't care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I might be way off, but I tend to view this from an economic perspective in that these young (and not so young) shut-ins, in a pragmatic sense, don't need to work to survive. Their parents are able to provide for them all the basic needs for life - mostly shelter and food. It is a relatively small marginal expense to the parents who usually already have fair incomes. Until the parents pass away, which may take some time with Japan's famously long lifespans, most of these shut-ins will probably be alright.

Another aspect I find interesting is that the article is written mostly from an extrovert's perspective on culture. For an introvert, it seems like paradise to be a shut-in. I get fed, cared for, and I can focus on my internal life and interests, with no need to deal with others and all the problems they bring. As an introvert focused on myself and my own well-being, there seems nothing wrong with being a shut-in. Of course there are macro-economic arguments against it, but from a micro-economic point of view where I only care about my own needs, I would be satisfied with a shut-in life.

<comment><USER6> I'm extremely introvert and – as a student, not a neet! – I've lived the past months in a manner similar to that described by the article. I think no shut- in nor introvert gets satisfaction from such behaviour.

<comment><USER7> I apologize for the--know it all--you are responding to. The one thing that really irritates me about Americans(including myself at one time) is we think we know, or have the the answers to Everything! I can kind of stomach it when it comes to our culture, but it become nauseous when we comment on other, usually better cultures.

<comment><USER8> I downvoted you.

You shouldn't generalize people (doing it by race is called racism; doing it by country has no fancy name that I know of but it's wrong all the same), or refer to some cultures as "better" than others.

<comment><USER9> Doing it by country is racism. Doing it by religion is also racism. These things make up your race.

<comment><USER10> That's simply not true, according to the definition of race it requires sharing a biologically identifiable connection with other people. An Asian man and a Native American could be born in the same place and raised in the same family but would not share the same race. Discrimination on the basis of country is a separate thing which I don't think has a specific term. Wasn't able to find one with a quick Google at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the nice things about having a 9-5ish job is that I have to go into the office on a regular basis (not necessarily every day). Even just being in an environment (yes, open workspace) with some kind of energy/noise is good for someone who is so inwardly focused they tend to not need headphones in such an environment.

As someone who has done mini shut-ins of almost double-digit days at a time (with corresponding spike in News.YC activity), I believe that once you get off a regular schedule it can be hard to recover. Having some facsimile or proxy of human communication, be it Facebook or people 'liking' your News.YC submissions (or even worse comments), is like empty fast food calories for social attention - but still nourishing at some basic level.

Like they say for people who may be divorced, keeping busy with some project or activity is a smoke screen for feeling lonely. Ultimately, the smoke may clear and you'll feel intense spurts of sadness. Yet - your friends and acquaintances won't know because they think you're always doing interesting things with different circles of people. People tend to see what they want to see.

<comment><USER12> I left my job to make video games, mostly solo. I'm financially able to pursue this lifestyle for the foreseeable future.

> One of the nice things about having a 9-5ish job is that I have to go into > the office on a regular basis (not necessarily every day).

You hit the nail on the head for me. What I miss most from a normal job isn't money or status, but simply being around other people. I never once thought that I would have felt this way.

I'll be joining a coworking space when money permits, to be sure.

<comment><USER13> Your HN profile says you are in the Bay Area. If Oakland is within reach, we run a free coworking session every Tuesday afternoon. It is primarily social in nature(with occasional "everybody is busy" days). [0]

More generally, I try to make my daily routine get me out of the house before I turn on the computer. That is, either I go out of the house and go to the gym, then work when I come back, or I go out of the house and sit down at a coffeeshop and work for two-to-four hours, then go to the gym, then come back. Changing locale tends to matter a lot to me, even if I'm not actually social while I'm out.

[0] [http://www.meetup.com/SF-Bay-Area-Game-Jamming-Game- Design/e...](http://www.meetup.com/SF-Bay-Area-Game-Jamming-Game- Design/events/219976985/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is of interest to me as a member of my family, here on the U.S. (totally non Japanese) fits the syndrome quite closely.

As far as I can tell, a combination of social anxiety, depression, pressure, laziness and lack of pressure (enabling behavior from his parents) has led him to not work in over 20 years and live with his parents, socializing online but showing no interest/ability in socializing with people in person... Or doing any productive work.

As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to join society - my relative now is almost 40 but has very little experience in the 'real' world. He has no experience doing things like buying a car, negotiating a mortgage or lease, applying for a job, working at a job, maintaining a household in general, sustaining or building a mature romantic relationship, or any of the other skills he should have learned in his twenties. It's harder to be a 40 year old 18 year old than an 18 year old one.

<comment><USER15> I think we'll see more cases like this, but also we'll see technology providing people with new ways of functioning.

I think a lot of it is about inertia and always choosing the easier path. If your parents enable you to live without having to work, for a lot of people the ease overrides the benefits of work (independence, sense of worth, etc).

Down the track, more and more socialising will be digital, more shopping will be online and so on. Some people will exist publicly only as avatars bearing little resemblance to their physical selves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So first, economy in Japan sucks, there is not that many jobs and houses to go around. Also problem is not just depression, but shame and lack of alternatives. And hikomori also affects women at large scale.

Japan (and any Confucian culture) shames people who do not accept their traditional roles. Men are expected to work until they fall dead. Women are expected to take care of children (while optionally following career at the same time). This sort of works in closed system, where people do not really know about any alternatives.

But with internet everyone can see that ordinary western people live happy lives, without working themselves to death. I bet most hikimori just want to live western way. Go to nice college, have a few parties, eventually graduate and work 9-5 job. This is simply not an option in Japan, with its elite schools and work culture.

'Saving those people' without providing better alternative is a nonsense. They are already on path they are most happy with. Shaming and dressing it as mental illness is not going to work.

<comment><USER17> _Japan (and any Confucian culture) shames people who do not accept their traditional roles. Men are expected to work until they fall dead. Women are expected to take care of children (while optionally following career at the same time). This sort of works in closed system, where people do not really know about any alternatives._

You could look at it this way, I suppose, but it falls apart a bit when you consider that Japan's falling birthrate is at least partially a product of _women_ tossing out their traditional roles. Yeah, that still leaves plenty of pressure on everyone, but it also sets a precedent, or at least enforces it.

But no, most Japanese -- hikikomori or not -- do not "just want to live western way." The things you mention about that are largely the opposite of Japanese experience and expectation, and to suggest that kids who have never left the nation, let alone their own homes, have somehow adopted the cultural norms of cultures thousands of miles away just by consuming their internet leavings seems more than a bit questionable.

<comment><USER18> >to suggest that kids who have never left the nation, let alone their own homes, have somehow adopted the cultural norms of cultures thousands of miles away just by consuming their internet leavings seems more than a bit questionable.

I don't completely agree with the post you're replying to, however this part is not so far fetched to believe. It doesn't matter much how often these people go outside, the Japanese media and culture is vastly focused on Anime (at least for these shut-in people, which are one of their target audience) and there has been a constant cross-pollination between the western and eastern cultures. A lot of people are living a more western 'make-believe' culture in Japan that easily goes against their traditional set of moral values. The Japanese world is changing and we're still seeing this major cultural shift, which very well might be the cause of this, or at least a catalyst.

As a matter of fact, these people are much more detached than the rest of the population and are much more susceptible to the western Internet cultural phenomenon to such an extent that it might be changing their point of view in such a way that they find themselves unable to fit into their actual culture. Obviously this is all my hypothesis, it might very well be unfound.

<comment><USER19> > As a matter of fact, these people are much more detached than the rest of > the population and are much more susceptible to the western Internet > cultural phenomenon to such an extent that it might be changing their point > of view in such a way that they find themselves unable to fit into their > actual culture.

Hmm. I think you might be right. I can tell for me, as an Asian guy that came to the US about 6-7 years ago, I feel much more liberated and less stressful being in the US than in where I came from. It is exactly the make-believe culture that I have been exposed to thanks to the Internet that made me feel detached from the culture over there. Whether it is the main reason that people shut in, I can't tell. It is probably not the case (and it doesn't have to be) for the majority of my fellow friends who came to the US to do post- graduate studies (I came for undergrad after being a drop out). They often find that it is more stressful to live in the US where they don't have friends and their familiar environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think this is relevant. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114547)

As opposed to some other commentator, I don't think the shut-ins are actually content with being isolated. It's more like a trap that you fell into and don't know how to climb out of. If society don't try to help them, (some of) them may fell down even further, to the point of suicide.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the Hikikomori phenomenon has been widespreading due to its popularization. imho being a shut-in has become a codified cry for help, a way to express a certain discomfort backed up by social proof. It has nothing to do with being lazy or spoiled, as implied in Japanese media like the _Welcome to the NHK_ anime; I've yet to read the novel.

Hikikomori exists outside of Japan too. I recommend you to watch the following video about hermitism and shut-ins: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70bv5gaN4LI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70bv5gaN4LI)

</comment><comment><USER21> I only skimmed the article but are there hikikomoris who are happy with their life? I'm an introvert who is happily anti-social and wouldn't mind staying home all the time if I could afford it.

<comment><USER22> It only works if you have a garuntee that you can be a shut in till the day you die. Other things to worry about is getting health/dental care.

I've been a shut in for 5 years now, I was pretty content and happy for the first few years. It was only until my parents started having financial troubles and begun the process of divorce when it turned into hell. Everyday I'm terrified by the thought that one day I'll have to go back to society. I knew some people that went through this and they have mostly ended up homeless because they simply were too under qualified to get a job. Health care is a problem too, I do my best to stay in shape and eat healthy foods to prevent any major illnesses because if I were to get sick it would mean severe debts as I have 0 savings.

<comment><USER21> Thank you for sharing this. Do you mind telling us a bit more? How do you earn money? How are you spending your days?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The following paragraph is key to understand the phenomenon.

I'm a western who have been living in Japan for years and is still difficult to understand how parents allow and support their children to be hikikomori.

"In western society, it's difficult to understand this situation," Dr. Kato says. "Western society parents strongly push [their children] to go out. But in Japan, parents are strongly afraid to push."

<comment><USER24> What is your alternative then? Push them and if they don't respond throw them out onto the street?

Once your children understand that you won't actually throw them out, any conversation pushing them is just negatively reinforcing their impression that interaction is a problem, not a solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "People who consider themselves hikikomori exhibit a wide range of symptoms, including depressive, autistic and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. _A minority appear addicted to the Internet_ "

That's strange, I always thought Internet was the main cause of this problem. I've imagined hikikomori as those in S. Korea or Taiwan who die of exhaustion while playing online few days straight.

<comment><USER17> That's definitely not hikikomori. The real thing basically never leaves its room, with family providing food. Even a less extreme example almost certainly would never leave the home for long enough to die anywhere else.

They do often spend a lot of time on the internet, but it's not a cause, it's a related fixation (when you're trapped -- by what's probably some combination of your own preference and perceived outside forces -- in a room, the internet provides a wealth of things to do). It's a social malaise that might as well be an extension of the NEET phenomenon.

<comment><USER26> >the real thing basically never leaves its room

>thing

>its

They are still people, even if you disagree or outright hate how they live their life. If this was an attempt at making the sentence gender-neutral, please use "one(s)" and "they" in the future like so: _The real ones basically never leave their room, with..._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reading over the comments it seems to me that there's some misunderstanding of introversion. There's a large difference between being introverted and being socially isolated. A healthy introvert rarely goes over a day without speaking to someone. Keep in mind introversion does not mean that someone is against seeing people at all.

</comment><comment><USER28> Similar incidence of agrophobia in USA. This source says is 0.8% in USA. 0.5M/127M in Japan [http://www.uptodate.com/contents/agoraphobia-in-adults- epide...](http://www.uptodate.com/contents/agoraphobia-in-adults-epidemiology- pathogenesis-clinical-manifestations-course-and-diagnosis) Talking about .5% to 1% range.

</comment><comment><USER29> Does anyone who was born and raised in Japan have anything to say about all this? I've read several threads over the last couple of days on this topic and it seems that the only people who comment on these kinds of stories are at best foreigners living in Japan. Is this a taboo topic for native born Japanese?

<comment><USER30> > Is this a taboo topic for native born Japanese?

No, it's just that there aren't that many native born Japanese who are fluent in English or visit Western websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> There's a public service announcement for hikikomori: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Y7R5zP0wc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Y7R5zP0wc) This, strangely, is in English.

Support website for hikikomori: [http://www.newstart- jimu.org](http://www.newstart-jimu.org)

</comment><comment><USER32> The first time I'd heard of hikikomori was in _Ready Player One_ by Ernest Cline

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if a mandatory national service or conscription would work to pull some people out of their bubble. I'm not in love with the idea in general, but if you can stop someone from wasting their whole life...

</comment><comment><USER34> Possibly useful insights from similar discussion a couple of years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5993441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5993441)

</comment><comment><USER35> relavent music? [https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/child- psychology/id6959497...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/child- psychology/id695949726?i=695951271)</comment>


Amazonian psychedelic may ease severe depression, new study shows - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/amazonian-psychedelic-may-ease-severe-depression-new-study-shows-98814 <comment><USER2> I thought that outsiders were starting to overstay their welcome with the indigenous tribes surrounding Ayahuasca. It's part of a sacred ritual, and isn't meant to be taken lightly according to what I recall of their cultures.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can we fork religion to support this feature pls?</comment>


Ask HN: Why are Amigas so inaccessible as a retrocomputing platform? - <AUTHOR> Since lockdown I've been playing around with a bunch of platforms that were around when I was young, but never really played with, I've made my way through the VIC, C64, Spectrum, and ended up  around the Amiga where I got pretty  stumped.
It appears all the software and firmware is super proprietary still, that seems a little bizarre, and especially weird there are no clean room implementations of things.
I'm mostly baffled because the platform looks great, it's almost the ideal thing I'd like to play around with, and there's basically a huge barrier to entry :( <comment><USER2> The Amiga didn't age well.

It was dramatically better than other computers at multimedia when it first came out, but that didn't last.

I remember programming planar graphics for the EGA, and it was tricky. HAM mode on the Amiga was kinda cool but I'd hate to have to code for it. If you look at the WDDM/Wayland/Programmable Shader model of programming today it vastly better.

In the 1980s there were many computer vendors who got on the 68k train but they all got off because Motorola gave up on it. Apple, Sun, and some others switched to RISC architectures. Quite a few others went out of business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any chance the Motorola legacy had anything to do with the ROM situation being so weird and inaccessible 30-40 years on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Amiga was great. Nothing today comes close in terms of sheer joy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any reason you can think of it never had a more open source following in terms of compatibility/retrocomputing?

<comment><USER4> The owners think they still have a chance to commercialize the software. In fact, I think there are actually multiple people fighting over who owns what.</comment></comment></comment>


Capsule Network tutorial with clean readable code in Pytorch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/higgsfield/Capsule-Network-Tutorial <comment><USER2> I still haven't seen any repro of the capsule network effectiveness. Can anyone point to it?

</comment><comment><USER3> Amazing for this!</comment>


Leap Motion Raises $12.75 Million To Advance HCI With New 3D Motion-Control Tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/leap-motion-announces-1275-million-series-a-funding-round-led-by-highland-capital-partners-2012-05-09

<comment><USER2> Even by press release standards, that release is vapid. Searching for Leap Motion reveals a web site equally devoid of information about what Leap Motion does and why we should care about its apparently new 3D motion-control tech.</comment>


Hundreds of Companies Seen Cutting Tax Bills by Sending Money Through Luxembourg - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/business/international/hundreds-of-companies-seen-cutting-tax-bills-by-sending-money-through-luxembourg.html <comment><USER2> In principle, the more people and companies avoid taxes the better: less revenue for states to use as collateral for their various wars and illegal projects.

In practice, Luxembourg appears to have given preferential treatment to larger corporations---more specifically, cronies. Low-tax jurisdictions where every kind of person or business can get in on the benefits of tax avoidance would be best.

</comment><comment><USER3> Instead of having my company pay 50% of our profits each year to the US government, I should get a massive rebate if I can offset those profits by hiring new employees over the following 12 months. I would hire 50% more people if this were the case. It's a major incentive and one that should be put in place.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a healthy trend. Also a good lesson to US government that the current levels of taxation are not viable. US government might end up earning more tax revenue with lower tax rates.

</comment><comment><USER5> Absolutely shocking!

What's funny is we have our own internal tax haven's in the U.S., say Delaware and Puerto Rico to name two...

<comment><USER6> Delaware is not a tax haven; it's popular for its legal environment highly favorable to management of large corporations.

Puerto Rico is currently a tax haven, but only due to a temporary (but very generous) tax incentive that requires people to permanently and physically move themselves and their companies to Puerto Rico.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As long as no laws are violated, tax arbitrage is responsible corporate behaviour. These companies aren't "cutting tax bills", so much as they are arbitraging between different tax regimes across borders. It is their responsibility to their shareholders to do so. Market forces will dictate that if they don't, a more nimble competitor will and will subsequently take market share.

<comment><USER8> True, from a first order perspective (short-term). But it's not the only perspective. It's also in the shareholders best interest when crime rates in the vicinity of their production and R&D facilities are low, education levels are high, transport systems are functional and well maintained, etc. etc. We can all agree on that.

However, cooperation would require negotiations of laws on a global scale. The existing systems in our old nation states are just not suitable for that.

<comment><USER7> Sure - but addressing social & public needs is the responsibility of government, not private corporations.

Tax arbitrage strategies can be shutdown by governments. Transparency would be a good start. Require every listed corporation to diagram all of their corporate/llc vehicles worldwide and their interdependencies. Require balance sheets and cash flow statements for each of these entities.

<comment><USER9> Govt needs fund (aka tax) to pay for carrying out the responsibility of govt. And yet these powerful new elites of the society now actively resist paying taxes. They obviously care for their own pockets only but they drag other wannabe riches into the same camp too. In the end the govt loses more and more tax revenue.

A little historical digression. Kings often had trouble keeping merchants and rich nobles in their places. Often the kings lost out, either completely as losing their heads or losing the power and become figure heads. And these kings often seemed to have absolute power and yet they couldn't keep the powerful in the society in check.

And nowadays these corporations lobby the govt and influence the high officials from early on with promise of cushy jobs for them or their kids.

Govts shutting down tax arbitrage? Yes, sounds so easy but it's near impossible because the powerful forces in society are resisting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A notable quote from Jean-Claude Juncker, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg:

> No one has ever been able to make a convincing and thorough case to me that > Luxembourg is a tax haven. Luxembourg employs tax rules that are in full > accordance with European law. [1]

I wonder how such blatant tax evasion becomes legalized?

Oh right:

> The new European Commission formally takes office on Saturday under [new > President] Jean-Claude Juncker ... [2]

[1] - [https://twitter.com/dimits_/status/530105602312515584/photo/...](https://twitter.com/dimits_/status/530105602312515584/photo/1)

[2] - [http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/juncker-s-eu- commi...](http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/juncker-s-eu- commission/1445918.html)

<comment><USER4> There is no virtue in paying tax. Why do people think that paying taxes is a good thing tax evasion through legal means is bad ?

It is government's responsibility to run the state by stealing as little as possible. At the current rate US government is stealing our money to provide welfare to mostly irresponsible and lazy people.

<comment><USER11> Given that you use the word "stealing" to refer to a govrernment's collection of taxes we probably won't agree on this issue. Taxes in the U.S. are at mult- decade lows. At least as of 2012. Taxation was around 15 - 16% GDP. The vast majority of federal taxation is not used to provide welfare to irresponsible and lazy people. Note that Social Security and Medicare are not entitlement programs.

Do you believe the U.S. is overtaxed? What percent of GDP should be taxed in order to fund government operations? Do you have specific programs in mind and, most importantly, do you know what percent of the budget is used for these programs you'd like to cut?

<comment><USER12> In Zug, Switzerland they have an excellent health care system with universal coverage. They also have very nice roads and a high standard of living, and low unemployment. They also have a strong defense based on armed neutrality, which kept them out of both world wars.

The income tax is 2%.

So if you are paying more than that, you are probably getting ripped off.

<comment><USER10> Zug? Really? The town that has more companies than citizens? Something tells me that their city isn't run via personal income tax, something else tells me that their tax policies won't scale globally...

[http://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/31/taxavoidance...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/31/taxavoidance.tax)

<comment><USER12> You think 60% in taxes scales better than 2%?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What we learned from putting a ridiculous billboard on 101 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipchat.com/2011/06/23/a-tale-of-a-ridiculous-billboard/

<comment><USER2> Meme backlash is certainly something to be watchful for. Reddit and other meme-hubs can be absolutely vicious when it comes to their sacred symbols. Hot Topic recently started printing some memes on their shirts, and 4chan trolled them in a very public and embarrassing way. (see: [http://www.urlesque.com/2010/11/18/hot-topic-rage-guy- shirt-...](http://www.urlesque.com/2010/11/18/hot-topic-rage-guy-shirt-4chan- racism-troll/))

I guess if you go this route you have to weigh the risks and rewards.

<comment><USER3> _4chan trolled them in a very public and embarrassing way_

And I suspect the majority of Hot Topic customers do not know 4chan, hence it does not matter. On the internet it is very easy for a group of people to overestimate their impact.

<comment><USER2> They weren't embarrassed on the internet alone. It was in the local news media. Still not influencing the customers, but I'd imagine their parents were not happy about their kids buying 'racist' tshirts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The backlash is particularly interesting. 1 person checked out the site because they were intrigued, but left confused as it seemed to be a business chat. Didn't seem very professional to them.

Another wondered why you'd use an 'obviously racist' meme to advertise your business. ... I still can't figure out how it's racist. I'm guessing some of the jokes were, and not he associates all use of the meme with those jokes.

But most importantly, you haven't successfully gone viral until someone's upset with your success. Congrats, Hipchat! :D

<comment><USER2> The 'obviously racist' remark comes from something similar 4Chan did to Hot Topic when the store began printing memes on tshirts. 4Chan created incredibly racist rage comics and submitted them to media outlets, accusing Hot Topic of promoting racist memes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The good (and bad) of these sorts of "why didn't I think of that?" deals is that they are just that; mostly 1-shots. Kudos to the guys that did it, and woe be to the inevitable copycats.

<comment><USER6> Good point. It also means that it's not a repeatable marketing angle for us.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, gotta keep being creative! =)

FWIW, I loved it. I hope I didn't come across as critical; I thought it was fantastic. (I lay as my only excuse a bad storm last night with a very nervous 10 year old keeping me to a mere pittance of sleep...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The good thing about these internet memes is that nobody will come and claim copyright on the image ;-) (Or will they?)

<comment><USER2> It must be difficult to prove original art for something that becomes a meme, especially if it's created through a semi-anonymous forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's great that it gave them TC airtime, but concrete traffic numbers would've been far more interesting to see.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are more billboards coming in the future?

</comment><comment><USER10> At $50k for 4 weeks, maybe I should just start a billboard company instead of an internet startup!

<comment><USER5> The money's in the picks, not the gold, son!</comment></comment>