Illinois might charge $1k/year to own an electric vehicle - <AUTHOR> https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-electric-vehicle-fee-illinois-20190509-story.html <comment><USER2> While this fee is outrageous, I think EV specific fees are inevitable as gas tax revenue dwindles.

The fairest would be use-based but most people seem fundamentally opposed to tracking through tags or mileage (some people are okay with it when it results in lower insurance rates though). Trucks have the most impact on the roads so it may be possible to impose mandatory mileage or tracking via tags.

So instead I think we will end up with a flat tax per vehicle.

Edit: fairest as in people who use the most pay the most. However, exclusionary housing policies end up shifting that burden in a way that results in fairly regressive policies. Just look at the Bay Area which happily passed high bridge tolls but is much slower to build housing on the peninsula.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, a simple mileage based tax would be better. They can calibrate it to approximate the gas tax equivalent, or give a slight discount for being EV. Doesn't require any tracking or analytics or anything. Have people self-report when they do their registration each year, and make it tax fraud if they under-report.

<comment><USER4>
      Doesn't require any tracking or analytics or anything. Have people self-report

But how many would do that accurately?

<comment><USER5> If police pull you over, check the mileage on the car at the same time as your license and registration.

If you reprogram the car to fake the mileage, that's already fraud.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


HN Offer: Free Tax Advice - Case Studies from follow HN Hackers - <AUTHOR>

Hiyo,
I've offered tax help on HN a few times now and I've always gotten really interesting questions.  I figured it'd be better to document them for everyone to read so that everyone can learn from their problems.  I've edited the info to keep everyone's identity private out of respect but felt that the educational value was worth the extra effort on my part. =)
I'm going to try to update the page at least once a day because I have a huge backlog of questions that I wanted to document.
Thusfar, I've documented a question on section 83(b) election which is important for anyone working in startups and Estimated Tax Payments.
Please let me know if this was a good idea because these write-ups do take up a good amount of time...  I don't want to keep doing them if they aren't offering the value I'm hoping for.
Please feel free to keep the questions coming to firstname.lastname@example.com or post them below and I'll get back to you all. =D
best, Cam.
link->  http://cameronkeng.com/category/case-study/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the advice. I've had the same exact question about quarterly estimated tax payments.

Could you add links to the sources where you got this information such as the IRS? I'd like to investigate some of the topics further.

Where did you learn about this information? From your fight with the IRS? Do you know of any book or guide on taxes for small businesses?

</comment><comment><USER3> +1

I found the case studies very educational. I'm looking forward to more of them!

Can you post links to new ones on HN as they become available?

Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Heys. I'm glad that they're being used. I'll definitely post the updates as they come. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> clickable <http://cameronkeng.com/category/case-study/></comment>


GitHub introduces "Code of Conduct" that "promotes equality", programmers react - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3eb5bt/github_introduces_code_of_conduct_that_promotes

<comment><USER2> This kind of anti-feminist vitriol is really unfortunate. I'd have hoped we'd be past this by 2015, but alas not.

Happy to debate the actual issues with anyone here, but first we have to unpick all the snarl-words, FUD, and hatred</comment>


Ask HN: In my spare time, should I work more or do personal projects? - <AUTHOR> I've overhauled my daily schedule to include more sleep, incorporate an exercise regime, and spend enough time with my girlfiend/friends. This leaves me with about one to two hours of free time at the end of the day and I'd like to use it productively to improve my programming skills. My goal is to enhance performance at a new job I recently started.<p>I'm debating between using that time to continue working on work stuff or developing a personal project that's related to what I do at work. I fear that working more will cause me to burn out, whereas a personal project could supplement my work knowledge and avoid burnout because it's something I'm passionate about. On the other hand, what if my project is a waste of time? And if I want to get better at work related things shouldn't I simply continue working on that? Any insight would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Unless you are really insecure about your proficiency in any work-related tasks, I would strongly suggest against doing anything work related in your spare time.

It would only dilute your salary (now you're working 1-2 extra hours every day for the same pay), and while it might provide you a slight productivity boost (unless you burn out), if you ever were to need those hours back it would be difficult to explain the lower performance at work.

If you want to improve your skills, I would suggest reading, taking a course, working on your own projects, anything by spending time on work-related stuff.

Unless you're the founder, in which case what are you doing not working 24/7.

</comment><comment><USER3> Practicing engineering manager here: if you're overly enthusiastic about your current project/task and you can learn from it then it's ok to work more but in general I'd suggest doing personal projects, widening the horizontal bar on your T-shape ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills)) and/or getting your feet wet in different fields like UX, online marketing or product management. I'm always super excited and proud when I hear my engineers talk about their sideprojects on our 1on1s.

I find that (constant) overtime is just not worth it. While it may seem like good citizenship to put in constant extra effort but in the mid- or long run you'll feel that it becomes an expectation and you're not being compensated for it. It will lead to burn-out with time. If the projects are constantly badly planned/estimated use your extra time to get better at planning and estimation and coach your team on it - if you're slow and that's why you'd need to work more then use your extra time to get better in your trade with focused practice.

</comment><comment><USER4> Develop something in your free time your really interested in. It gives you peace and mind to work on whatever you want, and design and develop a solution a new way. I would never say its a good idea to work OT, unless really justified.

</comment><comment><USER5> As long as you're learning, you should do whatever feels right. Don't overthink it. You can always switch things up if you feel like you're overdoing anything.

One benefit to doing your own thing, is that it can help beef up your github "portfolio". But, don't feel beholden to that or anything.

</comment><comment><USER6> lately i've been trying to kill 2 birds with one stone - using my spare time to create open source modules that support what I'm doing at work, but also are something I can take with me and use on my own projects.

To get away with it, I look ahead and predict what I'll be working on down the road, then I build some modules on the weekend. Then next week when the need arises, I can say "hey I built this thing that might help, want to use it?"

at this rate i should have a full framework done by the time i'm ready to move on

(this strategy works with OSS, but could be done with blogging too. like how Ryan Hoover blogged furiously about his previous job before ProductHunt.)

</comment><comment><USER7> You "shouldn't" do anything in your spare time. Just do what you want.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was in the same boat, I went with a personal project not related to work so I could have more control and learn new things. It ended up improving my skills at work so it was a win win.</comment>


Category Theory for the Java Programmer (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://reperiendi.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/category-theory-for-the-java-programmer/ <comment><USER2> Also very interesting, Introduction to Category Theory by Graham Hutton:

<http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/cat.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=668198></comment>


New Mexico's Singing Road - <AUTHOR> http://thesingingroad.com/ <comment><USER2> There is an awesome short video on such roads by Tom Scott, where he explains how it went badly in Lancaster, California [1]. Twice. That one plays off key.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0)

<comment><USER3> Lancaster is awesome.

Despite it being y'know, the high desert, they're total fucking hillchucks out there (I say this as an Appalachian, and the poorer part of the poorness that is Appalachia at that...)

They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix.

Last year, they out of the blue ran into an acquaintance of mine who builds/races custom electric skateboards that can hit 60mph+ (our new speed trap record is 57mph uphill, dude is insane) and invited us out on a whim to race ~45mph on a winding 0.7mile track. Was cool, and the methed out crowd that is the high desert seemed to enjoy it, despite it being quite different from karting... Invited us out again this year and most likely will for the foreseeable future.

I never got wind of the price the organization had to pay to the insurance for adding a few dozen random people averaging 42mph on pieces of wood (and chromoly...) on a short track with several tight hairpins a week before the race (which is always finalized at least a year in advance...)

<comment><USER4> > They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. > Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix.

They do this in Singapore too. They used to close all the roads in the city for 2 weeks just for the F1, but slowly got more efficient (or less over abundantly cautious) over the years. It's all for the $$$ here though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And when you drive the wrong way down the road it sings "worship satan ... worship satan"

<comment><USER6> No, you hear people screaming at you to stop and pull over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > You must drive the speed limit in order to hear the road "sing"; go to slow > or too fast and it won't work.

That's not how physics works, though. Go too slow or too fast and you'll hear the same melody in a different key (before you crash).

<comment><USER8> I'm fairly sure this would only work within a certain speed range, cars have suspension, there's other noise to contend with, and human hearing is limited.

<comment><USER9> Sure, at 450MPH all bets are off on the high notes, but rumble strips don't suddenly stop making noise when you drive 90 MPH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've not seen this one, but have seen others. I much prefer this sort of technique to change behaviors (get people to drive more slowly, or take the stairs by turning it into a piano keyboard kinds of things), than threats of enforcement fines or jail time.

<comment><USER11> In a similar vein, I've heard of a building addressing the problem "everyone complains about how long it takes to wait for the elevators" by, instead of trying to speed up the elevators, installing mirrors next to them.

<comment><USER12> Airports also do this, by making the walk to baggage claim rather indirect. It turns out that people don't really mind the walking, but they do mind the waiting, so the solution is to make the walk match the time it takes for your luggage to actually get to the claim.

<comment><USER13> That only works in airports where the distance from the various gates is roughly equal to the reclaim area. Schiphol is definitely not one of those, from some gates it is 30 seconds to baggage reclaim, from others a stiff 10 minute walk.

<comment><USER14> Delta always seems to land at the gate in Belgium, you walk over to Amsterdam, then walk to the baggage claim over in Rotterdam.

Every time I fly in, I'm amazed at how much time we spend taxiing and how far from passport control our luggage claim is

<comment><USER15> > I'm amazed at how much time we spend taxiing

I am baffled by this every time I am flying as well. That alone - for me at least - is a huge argument for taking the train vs the plane when traveling. Never had more than a 5 minute walk in european trainstations and no baggage claim either.

<comment><USER13> The main reason that landing strip is where it is is because of noise pollution rules. Schiphol was/is growing very fast as an international hub (faster still now that Heathrow will be out of the EU) and that caused a lot of flights over densely populated areas. There was some talk about moving the airport into the sea but that didn't work out either so in the end they added another strip in a relatively unpopulated area that allowed starts and landings from the direction of Alkmaar / Heemskerk / Beverwijk. Most of those including the line-up turns are over agrarian areas, though in some cases the agrarian strip is only a few 100 meters wide, for instance between Heemskerk and Uitgeest where a lot of planes make their turn into final approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's awesome!

But how did they resist the urge to make it sing "On the road again"?

</comment><comment><USER17> There was an advertising gimmick I saw once that consisted of a plastic ribbon that you attached to a balloon. The ribbon had ridges on it that encoded an audio blurb. You pinched it at the top and pulled down, running your thumbnail over the ridges, and the balloon acted like the diaphragm of a speaker to play the audio.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've thought of a similar idea only with graffiti and still images along the concrete barriers with the images spaced and timed with the flicker of street lights to give drivers passive information in the peripheral to indicate when their driving the speed limit. Essentially like the strobe pattern on turntables.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if this has an impact on tire wear? I'd imagine the bumps would wear down the tread faster. Probably negligible for such a short stretch, but still curious if there's been any sort of analysis to that effect.

<comment><USER20> Studies of rumble strips - this being one - have rather focused on crash reductions, noise pollution, effect on cyclists and roadway cracking. By all accounts, tire wear is beyond negligible unless you're driving on a flat tire.

Only measurable damage in studies appears to be road wear (edge cracking) and the effect of migrating cluster of accidents to stretches of road without rumble strips.

Vehicle crash reductions vary from state to state but averages lean toward 20% overall, 45% head-on and sideswipes, and 65-70% on long highways. Of those reductions, 20% less alcohol and drug related run-offs, 40% less sleep-related incidents.

The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S199668141...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1996681416300670)

[https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumb...](https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumble/conts_rumble.pdf)

<comment><USER21> > The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists.

What design is that? Links do not make anything clear.

As a cyclist, I think any rumble strips would be annoying if they eliminate the shoulder (the only somewhat safe place to bike). But in Canada rumble strips are mostly only used on highways, where you'd never want to bike anyway.

<comment><USER20> First link: "Outcalt 2001 [9] Tested vibration and sound readings for cyclists and 4 vehicles types. SRS rated best by cars and worst by cyclists. Recommended design was 3/8″ depth, 12″ width, 48′ skip pattern with SRS and 12′ gap"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here is a singing road that was quickly canceled as it was driving people crazy who lived nearby:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY)

<comment><USER23> Yeah, you should only do stuff like this where nobody's living in earshot - which is easier to do in the US than in the Netherlands of course...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's a YouTube video of the road in question. Pretty cool!

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78](https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78)

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of this Top Gear Clip

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus)

</comment><comment><USER25> Great example of sigma-delta modulation. (Or it might actually be PWM. I should get out and look at it some time.)

</comment><comment><USER26> I just drove past this with my kids on I40 three days ago. Didn't know about it! How disappointing.</comment>


ShowHN: A lua-scriptable mail-client. - <AUTHOR>

Lumail is a console mail-client, with highly integrated Lua scripting support.
It is also the first modal mail-client I'm aware of. These two things make it very unusual and interesting to me.
I've just made a new release so I figured it was time to mention it again:
* http://lumail.org/ <comment><USER2> The modality sounds like Pine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, I guess I'll have to install it and take a look.

(I've been a long-term mutt user until now, but I did use pine/alpine a few years ago.)</comment></comment>


How I got interviews at Google, Facebook and Bridgewater - <AUTHOR> https://atila.ca/blog/tomiwa/how-i-got-interviews-at-google-facebook-and-bridgewater <comment><AUTHOR> I put together a blog post for people looking for internships or full time jobs on how I got interviews at Google, Facebook and Bridgewater etc. with average grades, non-target school and no relevant work experience.

If you have any questions or comments on the piece, let me know. Would like to know what you guys think.</comment>


Lifecycle Messaging - <AUTHOR> http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/05/lifecycle-messa.html <comment><USER2> Many startups undervalue the importance of knowing their customer/user half life. It's vital to know the relationship between user acquisition and churn and I can not reccomend enough setting up a daily reporting system (even a plain text email from a crontab script) that gives you a sense of your startups heartbeat against historicals (prev day, 2 weeks, 3 months, 1 yr).

Also, a lot of startups develop these wonderful signup systems and acquire user emails but fail to realize the potential of ambient messaging. Even if they don't read the email, it keeps your users thinking about you. RescueTime does an excellent job with their email marketing. Not only is it pertinent, but I find myself going back to RescueTime more often because of my level of awareness for their product. The lack of user retention initiatives in my first startup was likely the ultimate driver of its inability to build community despite a very strong launch (it was still acquired for its tech assets/hr). Now, working on strong online properties, I can see the impact of reaching out to your users. Dollar for dollar, I think email has the highest roi. Much more so than your run of the mill facebook app.

"The most significant finding from our usability research on email newsletters is that users have highly emotional reactions to them. This is in strong contrast to research on website usability, where users are usually much more oriented toward functionality. Even a website that users visit daily seems to feel like a tool: users want to get in and get out as quickly as possible rather than "connect" with the site. Users tend to glance at websites when they need to accomplish something or to find the answer to a specific question. In contrast, newsletters feel personal because they arrive in users' inboxes, and users have an ongoing relationship with them. Newsletters also have a social aspect, as users often forward them to colleagues and friends. The positive aspect of this emotional relationship is that newsletters can create much more of a bond between users and a company than a website can." - <http://www.nngroup.com/reports/newsletters/summary.html>

<comment><USER3> "Even a website that users visit daily seems to feel like a tool: users want to get in and get out as quickly as possible rather than "connect" with the site."

This is great advice and makes me think of the recently failed Nau - <http://nau.com> \- they tried so hard to make their web site "engaging" that they wound up making it impossible to shop there. If they had a really simple site and Threadless-quality emails things might have worked out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As usual Josh nails it with an incredibly useful post. I highly recommend watching Josh's blog for pearls like this one.</comment>


Show HN: KaHIP v3.00 is out now - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/KaHIP <comment><AUTHOR> We are proud to announce the release of a major update of our graph partitioning framework KaHiP (Karlsruhe High Quality Graph Partitioning). KaHiP is a family of high quality graph partitioning programs. It contains various graph partitioning algorithms that can be configured to either achieve the best known partitions for many standard benchmark instances or to be a good trade-off between partition quality and running time. Since the last major release we added:

\- node ordering algorithms to compute fill-in reduced node orderings \- ILP based exact solvers and partition improvement algorithms \- global multisection process mapping algorithms \- and a lot of minor improvements of our system

This is round of improvements and extensions is due to Alexandra Henzinger, Alexander Noe, Wolfgang Ost, Daniel Seemaier

The code is available under MIT Licence.

* open source implementation / website [https://kahip.github.io](https://kahip.github.io)

* github [https://github.com/KaHIP](https://github.com/KaHIP)

We are glad for any comments, stars and error reports (or even bug fixes) that you send us.

Alexandra Henzinger, Alexander Noe, Wolfgang Ost, Peter Sanders, Christian Schulz, Daniel Seemaier Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) University of Vienna</comment>


Raising Bitcoins for the Philippines - <AUTHOR> https://bitme.com/donate

<comment><USER2> What assurances are there that any of this money will actually _get_ to the Phillipines?

I've never heard of this website before, BTC is an anonymous currency which isn't traced by normal financial systems, and so as a result exactly how can anyone be sure it reaches the actual needy?

None of the normal charities have any systems with which to receive BitCoin, so who exactly would people be donating to? Not to mention BTC exchanges die at a rate of 1 a week these days.

<comment> steve-slicify Especially since you say here: [http://bitmex.tumblr.com/](http://bitmex.tumblr.com/) that BitMe is suspending operations indefinitely..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi All, Avish from BitMe here.

RE: assurances - [https://blockchain.info/address/1Fm8XdPvGzKbfuHrBrsK8d7ZDLvC...](https://blockchain.info/address/1Fm8XdPvGzKbfuHrBrsK8d7ZDLvCCM1WWc) \- you can track the donation amounts to the wallet publicly. At the end of each month, we'll convert the BTC into USD and send a check to the Red Cross for the full converted amount.

RE: BitMe blog - we took BitMe down earlier this year after losing a banking partner. We've since relaunched with crypto/crypto trading and will be rolling out BTC/USD with our new banking partner in the coming weeks. You've probably never heard of us because we've kept a low profile while going through the process of becoming compliant. We're currently backed by Tim Draper, Ludlow Ventures, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and were incubated at Boost VC.

RE: why not use a traceable currency - we believe the global bitcoin community can have a positive impact on relief efforts in the Philippines by using bitcoins as a means of donation. That's the purpose of our efforts with this campaign.

Hope that helps, Avish

</comment><comment><USER4> Great job!

</comment><comment><USER5> Why not use traceable currency? I don't see the advantage of using btc here.

<comment><USER6> Lower transaction fees?</comment></comment>


Daily HN down? - <AUTHOR> http://dailyhn.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This site seems to be down for last weeks. Is there any other daily HN email service?</comment>


Gimp-ML – Machine Learning Python plugins for GIMP - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kritiksoman/GIMP-ML <comment><USER2> I think we are on the first steps of a very interesting road related to using DL for image processing:

\- Automatically cutting a person or an object [https://www.remove.bg/](https://www.remove.bg/)

\- Turning 2d photos in 3d perspective videos [https://shihmengli.github.io/3D-Photo- Inpainting/](https://shihmengli.github.io/3D-Photo-Inpainting/)

\- Artistic style transfer for videos [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khuj4ASldmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khuj4ASldmU)

\- Super-resolution for old games [https://www.resetera.com/threads/ai-neural- networks-being-us...](https://www.resetera.com/threads/ai-neural-networks- being-used-to-generate-hq-textures-for-older-games-you-can-do-it- yourself.88272/)

Etc, etc.

<comment><USER3> There are lots of great image processing algorithms also outside of DL. Search for "Siggraph" on youtube. If only these algorithms were easily accessible as plugins in GIMP ...

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

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately writing a paper about implementing your new fancy algorithm (TM) in GIMP is hardly ever successful, so many of those die in some git repo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Highly compressed Youtube videos don't really seem like a good medium by which to demonstrate an image scaling algorithm..

<comment><USER6> 75% of the length of some of the videos is just waiting for the plugin to process the image... seems like before/after pics would be a better way to demo the plugin effects.

<comment><USER7> Yep, and it doesn't show pixel 1:1 or with 800% or 1600% zoom against NN, linear, bicubic which sort of give you an idea of how good the SR effect is.

Sure I can download it on my PC and test it, but honestly I'd rather pick and old paper and implement my own version that runs faster and I can programatically apply it over sets of images if I want to.

Not bragging, I've been meaning to do this "when I have spare time" and since lockdown I've been busier than ever /facepalm

Since my use case calls for running in CPU (for the moment at least) I was looking on a few architectures that are more CPU-friendly (smaller net, not as many convolutions) than GANs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the plugins are very interesting. The videos demoing the features are pretty annoying. I can turn down the music, but most of the video is sat there waiting for the effect to finish. That should be skipped. More importantly, that gray out effect to highlight the cursor is way too heavy. It made me lose the context of where it is in GIMP and was very confusing. I would hope most people are like me and only need a some subtle highlighting to track the cursor rather than hitting us over the head with it and losing the surrounding context.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Maybe we could come up with some ML thingie to solve this? :O)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's great that the author has posted running code, so others can try it out and learn from it. That is great.

To run this code on debian, I had to install python2, python2 pip, python2 virtualenv, and the gimp-python plugin. The init code for the plugin dumps around 1GB of cache files into your ~/.cache directory, mostly in ~/.cache/pip/http , which then get built into a virtualenv in the git tree for the project.

Unfortunately there is no obvious license, so nobody can build on it directly, although some of the underlying codes have permissive licenses.

I tried out the super-resolution plugin on several test images; it didn't give good results. Motion deblurring had problems also. Both worked poorly on dealing with input compression artifacts, and on dealing with blurry low- resolution inputs. Both performed reasonably well on relatively clear high- resolution inputs (and where I already knew that blind deconvolution could easily recover the blur kernel), with no obvious artifacts in the output.

</comment><comment><USER11> By watching the videos I'm sure I'm not grasping the magnitude of what this plugin achieves. I'll try to do some tests myself. If it is as good as advertised, then congratulations, very impressive!

</comment><comment><USER12> The videos should show before/after for a longer time and without the fancy transition (which makes it harder to see the difference.)

Other than that, wow, cool!

</comment><comment><USER13> I really wanted to do this with rawtherapee! I'm glad someone else beat me too it, I can't wait to try this out.

</comment><comment><USER14> these days people have lots of insecurity about their looks and voice, we must make software which let people hide their real voice and manipulate their own face to something they consider more attractive.

Not only this, all people should work from home. That will make the body language dominance thing disappear and the people who have good brain will get chance to come forward (the real meritocracy)</comment>


ASK HN: Are these comparison tools helpful? - <AUTHOR> http://missle.ca/

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. This is my full-time startup.

I am having a hard time validating the idea so I decided to post it here and take a little embarrassment in the hopes of getting feedback. Excuse the domain name and the eye soar design.

Are there any other decision tables you need? I am willing to make a decision table for anyone (will take me a few days) in the hopes of getting feedback as well.</comment>


Lesser known Git commands - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/lesser-known-git-commands-151a1918a60#.pnzehpvgh <comment><USER2> Previous discussion (17 hours ago, 128 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12612630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12612630)</comment>


UK spaceport proposed for Sutherland site - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44839536 <comment><USER2> Now if Scotland leave the UK and rejoin the EU (and I don't blame them after this Brexit mess) then the UK will lose out on it's brand new spaceport.

</comment><comment><USER3> On the plus side, it's remote.

But it's hard to get my satellite there, and the weather there doesn't seem ideal for launching rockets.

I'd expect the east of the UK to be better for both access and available launch dates. Perhaps air traffic corridors are a problem.

<comment><USER4> I would assume that its for specific orbits - Ascension Island would make a better site for traditional launches.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if they're also thinking about the future of suborbital transport? It seems distant to me, but it might play into the investment if they think this could be the Heathrow of suborbital transit in the future.

<comment><USER6> Heathrow would be the Heathrowof civilian suborbital transit.

<comment><USER7> Possibly, Heathrow is pretty crowded, but somewhere within half an hour of London yes. A site on HS2, preferably in the most NIMBYest area, would be good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting that they didn't mention Rocket Lab at all in the article, who are the actual builder of the Electron rocket.

Rocket Lab are only partially owned by Lockheed Martin.

<comment><USER9> They gave a photo credit to Rocket Lab at the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The UK Space Agency said the site in Sutherland was chosen as it is the best > place in the UK to reach highly sought-after satellite orbits with > vertically launched rockets.

Does anyone know what they mean by this? Usually rocket launch sites try to be as close to the equator as possible so why did they pick such a northerly location this time?

<comment><USER11> If you are going for a polar orbit (ie. circling from one pole to the other), any initial speed you pick up from the rotation of the earth will need to be cancelled out by burning fuel.

So the further north (or south) you go, the lower that speed is (since you are closer to the rotation axis).

If you're going for an equatorial orbit, that initial speed is helping you, so you maximise it by launching as far away from the axis as possible (ie. somewhere close to the equator).

<comment><USER12> It makes me wonder whether there is any place further north than Sutherland where the ESA could set up (or has already set up).

<comment><USER13> Why not Svalbard.

<comment><USER7> Svalbard is a bit tricky - while it is part of Norway (which itself is part of the ESA), it has military restrictions, and other countries can operate commercially from there.

There is a (suborbital) rocket launch facility there to study aurora etc, but it's limited to 4 launches per year.

Greenland could be a good site -- I believe they are still a member of ESA through Denmark, so Qaanaaq would be a great place for polar launches, weather and access permitting.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ellen Pao case puts Silicon Valley boys' club on trial - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/world/ellen-pao-case-puts-silicon-valley-boys-club-on-trial-20150301-13sd62.html

<comment><USER2> conversely puts the fastidiously litigious on trial too. No investment in either side, i think it's all pretty grim.</comment>


Ask HN: What would it take to have a DM feature on HN? - <AUTHOR> I understand this could be a tricky "product" feature and needs some thinking but has this been considered before?  Any pointers to previous threads would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> For those wondering, DM stands for direct messaging (I hope I wasn't the only one).

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was wondering why HN needed dungeon masters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The site doesn't even support basic text formatting features like tables, lists, quotes, and code sections that don't scroll. I'm just pleased we got the comment expand/collapse, people were asking for that for years.

DM is a whole other kettle of fish, since it would change how the site is meant to be used, and may open the admins up to more law enforcement inquiries.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So the reason I am looking for a DM feature is not so much that it becomes a chat, but often you do see requests to be DMed for furthering a conversation offline - say for jobs or projects etc. And often this results in hunting down the "target"'s email from their profile and firing up an email client etc. Yes a very first world problem but still was hoping for a slightly easier way to do this (short of writing a browser plugin).

I do like @remyp's app idea but it still requires me a few "redirects" mentally.

</comment><comment><USER3> It might not be a good fit. I just see HN as a way to gather nerds, have them talk about news, and somewhat funnel them into YC recruitment.

It doesn't seem to be designed as a community, more like a bazaar.

</comment><comment><USER5> The current workaround is to put your contact info in your profile, which has worked well for me.

With that said, I did create a small app to encourage HN users to message 1-on-1: [https://findkismet.com](https://findkismet.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> Would love to hear the estimate from one of the many people who think Dropbox/Twitter/Facebook are simple weekend projects.

They could probably knock this one out in less time than it took me to write this comment.</comment>


SquirrelFish is faster than Tamarin - <AUTHOR> http://www.satine.org/archives/2008/06/03/squirrelfish-is-faster-than-tamarin/ <comment><USER2> It's good to see a lot of the techniques proven useful by the Lua interpreter showing up for other languages. The author states that he's no longer convinced of the importance of JITs. I still think that they're going to be an increasingly important advancement for dynamic language implementations. For example, the LuaJIT developed by Mike Pall shows speedups of 3-5x over the (already very fast) reference Lua interpreter.

<http://luajit.org/luajit_performance.html>

Thank goodness for open source. The best ideas and techniques will propagate until we have multiple high quality implementations readily available.

¡Viva La Revolución!

</comment><comment><USER3> However, Tamarin has a much better name.</comment>


New organic battery can operate for decades - <AUTHOR> https://differentimpulse.com/organic-battery-can-operate-decades/ <comment><USER2> Actual paper: [https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(18)30291-5](https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351\(18\)30291-5)

</comment><comment><USER3> Missing from article:

> The molecule is also highly soluble, meaning it can store more energy in a > smaller space. It operates in a weak alkaline electrolyte, reducing the cost > of the battery by allowing the use of inexpensive containment materials and > an inexpensive polymer membrane to separate the positive and negative > terminals.

How much power does it output - it's a new electrolyte for a flow battery, so this means for large systems measured in kW and hundreds of kWh storage.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting comparison against electric car battery benchmarks where 15% for 150,000km seems to be achievable (if on average 15k is done annually that would be approx 1.5% capacity loss compared to 3% for the new organic battery). [https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110149_tesla-model- s-b...](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110149_tesla-model-s-battery- life-what-the-data-show-so-far)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder whether designer proteins could one day serve as a battery.

Imagine a species of bacteria producing a self-organizing battery.

<comment><USER6> > I wonder whether designer proteins could one day serve as a battery.

It occured to the Wachowskis too.

<comment><USER7> You mean, s/ protein//? :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much power does it actually output?

<comment><USER9> Link to actual paper: [https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30291-5](https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351\(18\)30291-5)

Supplemental material: [https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.joule.2018.07.005/attachm...](https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.joule.2018.07.005/attachment/f6455733-1cb2-49a7-a6c4-2e16ef7bbea1/mmc1.pdf)

Figure S17 of the supplement seems to be what you're after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you pay attention to only one battery chemistry paper per month, this would be my pick for the month of July. Harvard has been producing some very interesting work on flow battery chemistry using organic molecules over the past few years.

January 2014: A metal-free organic–inorganic aqueous flow battery

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12909](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12909)

They were using a quinone plus an acidic Br2/Br- redox couple. It was interesting because it relied entirely on abundant elements, but acidic Br2/Br- is very corrosive. And somewhat hazardous. It seems like this chemistry would demand rather expensive supporting materials/systems.

September 2015: Alkaline quinone flow battery

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6255/1529](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6255/1529)

Uses alkaline pH and ferricyanide/ferrocyanide instead of acidic pH and Br2/Br-. You still wouldn't want to wash your hands in it, but it's significantly less hazardous than the previous chemistry. It's also compatible with more materials and less expensive materials. But the energy density, already modest, fell again with this easier-to-handle composition.

Later papers: a bunch of different variations on this theme. They're looking for higher energy density and better capacity retention, while avoiding corrosion/hazard issues. Higher energy density means smaller tanks and (usually) smaller membrane systems for a given energy storage or power output target. You don't want to lose all savings from inexpensive active molecules to a requirement for huge storage tanks and membranes.

This paper: claims a bunch of desirable properties. High efficiency. Better energy density than the original alkaline formulation. Long cycle life. Long _calendar_ life -- meaning, the ability to sit unused for a long period and not lose too much capacity. (Several prior variants on this organic flow battery theme used persistent-radical chemistry for improved energy density, but even persistent radicals do not persist very well over a period of years.) This latest effort also retains the benefit that motivates this entire series: all required chemicals involve only very abundant elements.

For those unfamiliar with flow batteries, the most common chemistry is based on acidic solutions of vanadium. These flow batteries are fairly good on lifetime, efficiency, and energy density. But they do not store a lot of energy per unit mass of vanadium, and vanadium is fairly expensive. It hit a price of over $28/kg (as oxide) earlier this year. It does not seem practical to scale up vanadium flow battery manufacturing to tens or hundreds of GWh of storage capacity per year, because even if mass production made non- electrolyte components much cheaper, the vanadium alone would be too expensive.

That's why a lot of R&D is going into looking for alternative non-vanadium chemistries for flow batteries. Some of them seem like a lateral move from a bulk storage perspective. Cerium? Yeah, good luck scaling _that_ to 100 GWh/year either. Others, based on abundant metals or on non-metallic organic molecules (like this effort), might have very good prospects for bulk stationary storage if all the kinks can be worked out.

This paper shows a full-cell flow battery concept with quite a few kinks straightened, which is why it's my pick for top battery paper in July.</comment>


Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-has-a-lot-to-lose-if-municipal-broadband-takes-off/ <comment><USER4> I mean, duh. They basically have a monopoly and a license to print money right now. they can't make the same profit margins they have been if they have to compete with local municipal providers who aren't based on a profit model unless those local providers are so incompetent that they can't deliver reliable fast internet to their area. Comcast can't do price hikes and data caps and generally continue treating their customers like abused spouses if there is an equally attractive alternative which doesn't have an incentive to nickle and dime you to death. If I could get municipal fiber, why would I pay comcast more for less? Comcast would need to completely reevaluate their business model from their abusive "but who are you going to turn to?" monopoly to a competitive service with a eye towards meeting customer expectations for reliability and service. In other words, comcast will have to spend a fair amount of their massive profits on things like service upgrades and customer relations.

And really, as a monopoly comcast should be busted up.

<comment><USER5> Just as long as they don't bust them up like they did AT&T. Following the same model used overseas might make more sense. Semi-natural[1] monopolies tend to form for providing access networks. We see this with power, water, gas distribution too. Over building multiple networks costs a lot more than having one good network.

The correct response IMO is:

1\. Don't block municipal broadband or new commercial providers, there should be no _forced_ monopoly.

2\. Split access providers up into two: the wholesale access network and the services on top. The wholesale access networks offer the same regulated (cost+) terms to any ISP/service provider who wants to reach customers on that network. Now the ISP/TV component of Comcast has to compete on the same terms as any other ISP/TV provider using that access network.

[1] I say semi-natural because in the US they're not natural but regulated and there has been a fair amount of overbuilding in cherry-picked areas.

<comment><USER6> I argue going one step further, even at the loss of some theoretical efficiency.

Split layer 1 from layer 3. I want a fiber pair from my house to the central office, where I can then patch to any provider who decided to pay the cost- recovery based co-location connection fee. Basically I should be able to tell this wireline provider to plug my patch cord into service provider X and they do it within a reasonable timeframe. I pay this provider for the wire itself.

I then get provider #2 and subscribe to their IP services. Hopefully there would be enough competition (e.g. dozens) here to not have to regulate further.

Yes, this does create a middle man agency and relatively inefficient physical infrastructure (e.g. I'd be pretty anti-GPON or similar tech for this use for a variety of reasons) so in theory prices would be more. However I think if you could get back to an environment where ISPs can compete on a wide variety of merits like in the late 90's dialup ISP days you would see overall price decreases.

It would also allow for the creation of "boutique" local ISPs that can cater to certain crowds. The highly technical crowd who is happy to pay more for a clear channel ping and pipe and no other BS will be able to find a home, just like grandma who needs a cheap nicely filtered/secured internet to check her e-mail and use facetime. Basically allow for a bunch of sonic.net style ISPs to compete in most markets.

Anything short of this I think just devolves into both stagnation and rent- seeking. Even municipal provided broadband would be subject to this - <USER2> networks will likely be built out and then left to languish long-term if there is no competitive pressure.

<comment><USER7> Having helped shepherd municipal broadband initiatives along, I'm sorry to say that your requirements are a hill too far for almost all consumers. They don't care about the level of provider selection you want, they simply want The Internet (Netflix, Youtube, Google Gmail, et al) at the lowest possible cost (and reliable to boot).

> many networks will likely be built out and then left to languish long-term > if there is no competitive pressure.

Municipal broadband is accountable to its local citizens or stakeholders, depending on the model used to develop it (government owned or non-profit owned). If it languishes, it will only do so because its citizens or users allow it to.

EDIT: If you're in an area where there are only large corporate internet providers, please take up the cause for municipal or co-op broadband!

[https://muninetworks.org/](https://muninetworks.org/)

<comment><USER8> > Municipal broadband is accountable to its local citizens or stakeholders, > depending on the model used to develop it (government owned or non-profit > owned). If it languishes, it will only do so because its citizens or users > allow it to.

I don't find this comforting. Citizens regularly allow public services to languish, through a combination of a myopic focus on cutting costs/taxes and lack of accountability. When I lived in Wilmington, Delaware, bus drivers would straight up quit 20 minutes early, putting up their "out of service sign" and skipping their last several stops. I drive all the way into work even though there is an Orange-line Metro stop 20 minutes from my house and 5 minutes from my office. The scheduled 36-minute trip is almost never under 40 minutes, and during commuting times approaches 50 minutes. That's _without_ unexpected delays.

One of the things the environmental law clinic at Northwestern does is identify municipal water/sewer systems that are not in compliance with the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. There are many such systems, and invariably they remain out of compliance because citizens are unwilling to raise water/sewer rates to fix the infrastructure.

<comment><USER7> As someone who has worked in the telcom regulation space, what would your suggestion be? I find my options more palatable than a duopoly (if you're lucky!) that exists to squeeze consumers for as many dollars as possible. It all boils down to accountability and the tools at your disposal to enforce that accountability. Unless the FCC is going to turn the screws on major internet providers (unlikely under the current administration), local governance is one of the few options left available.

> One of the things the environmental law clinic at Northwestern does is > identify municipal water/sewer systems that are not in compliance with the > Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. There are many such systems, > and invariably they remain out of compliance because citizens are unwilling > to raise water/sewer rates to fix the infrastructure.

I agree this is a problem that takes a lot of effort on the part of elected officials to be honest with citizens about why money must be spent to maintain infrastructure, while ensuring that collected tax revenue is spent in a transparent and effective manner. Letting infrastructure go is simply robbing from the future; the bills come due eventually.

<comment><USER8> Don't get the wrong idea: I'm not opposed to municipal broadband. I was just pointing out that citizen accountability often doesn't do anything to prevent poor service quality. (As we speak, I'm getting a stream of MARC delay/cancellation text messages.)

If we were starting from scratch, I'd advocate for the Stockholm model: [https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%...](https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%20Blueprint%20for%20Ubiquitous%20Fiber%20Connectivity%20FINAL%20VERSION.pdf). A public entity to build dark fiber that isn't taxpayer supported and builds out based on demand and profitability rather than mandates. That ship has sailed, however.

I do think the FCC should preempt all state-and-local franchising laws, and also state-and-local restrictions on municipal broadband. Private providers can compete in areas and neighborhoods that support competition (my neighborhood has two providers for gigabit fiber, for example), and municipalities can address areas that are overlooked by the private sector.

<comment><USER7> I appreciate the reply!

> I do think the FCC should preempt all state-and-local franchising laws, and > also state-and-local restrictions on municipal broadband. Private providers > can compete in areas and neighborhoods that support competition (my > neighborhood has two providers for gigabit fiber, for example), and > municipalities can address areas that are overlooked by the private sector.

My concern with this is if you don't mandate covering all neighborhoods, private providers will cherrypick the most profitable areas, leaving less well off areas underserved or not served at all. A great example is the US Postal Service: you can't compete against them, and in return, they service absolutely every address in the United States.

<comment><USER8> > My concern with this is if you don't mandate covering all neighborhoods, > private providers will cherrypick the most profitable areas, leaving less > well off areas underserved or not served at all.

That's fine. It's the government's job to step in and provide the safety net. Look at what Sweden did with fiber in rural areas. Instead of forcing companies to serve rural customers in return for the right to serve urban ones, the government simply gave a tax credit to rural residents to defray the costs of building fiber.

With the emergence of 5G wireless, it becomes much more practical for the government to be "the ISP of last resort."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Comcast and CenturyLink: You've shown you do not want to invest in fiber to the home, so you don't have any right to stop the city from doing it.

I don't hate Comcast as much as others, but I'm really looking forward to Fort Collins starting the process of doing municipal fiber.

Comcast and CenturyLink have neglected upgrading infrastructure for decades, and so if they aren't going to do it I don't see why the city shouldn't. Comcast at least has a reasonable service, CenturyLink tops out at 40Mbps at my home.

CenturyLink is particularly culpable because they received $2B in taxes to roll out fiber to the home by the year 2000, and did little if anything for that money. I've never even known anyone who has QWest/CenturyLink FTTH.

They are just sitting on a bunch of copper twisted pair, hoping to get as much money as they can without any investment in new technology.

Even back in the last '90s they had that attitude. They refused to deploy DSL concentrators in neighborhoods, because that would open the pedestals to CLECs to put gear into. So instead they required all DSL runs to go to one of the two Fort Collins Central Offices. A huge amount of the city was un-served because they were more than 18K feet from a CO.

<comment><USER10> I am a recovering Comcast customer of 10+ years, and while CentiryLink is nearly as incompetent on the customer service front, they pulled fiber down my block a year ago and my gigabit connection is a glorious thing (it's 2/3rds the monthly cost of Comcast, for 5X the speed, symmetrical).

<comment><USER11> I just had to take the opposite jump. I was very happy with my uncapped gigabit symmetrical connection from Centurylink, but my new address is only serviced by Comcast. I'm paying less, but once the promo expires it won't be by much, for a 1TB capped 200/10 connection.

I want my Centurylink fiber back :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Best phone call I've made in the past few years was canceling my ~$100 Comcast internet plan in favor of my municipality's $50 gigabit plan. A year in and haven't had so much as a hiccup in service.

<comment><USER13> Same. I'd rather pay $300/month for municipal if it supports efforts to also make it available to my other neighbors, makes the program more successful (and thus more likely to continue) and I'd set up my own equipment volunteer to help them install.

Actually, I'm going right now to see if there are any municipal broadband efforts in my area that I could throw money at / help out with. Is there some good place to find out more about efforts in _____ area? Sadly, like many in the Bay Area, I live in an apartment with a Comcast community manager, so we'd likely be the very last to get off of Comcast unless some great wireless tech becomes viable (and even then, we're not allowed to have any external antennas mounted outside of our units).

<comment><USER14> Someone else in the comments here mentioned this site:

[https://muninetworks.org](https://muninetworks.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And our society has much to gain. Comcast was a media distribution company. The Internet is a primary competitor. Permitting them to have such control is insane. If it were a regulated public utility with cost tied directly to cost of providing the service with universal access requirements like phone service, the benefit to society would be gigantic. Day 1 we could save billions by closing tons of government offices and having the workers work from home. Small businesses could host their own stuff. Connections would be synchronous and charged on use, making access dirt cheap for everybody.

I researched it awhile back, whether the social benefit would outweigh the social harm by eliminating "competition" is the criteria used to decide if something should be a utility and with Internet it's a no brainer.

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe I'm being dramatic but I think Comcast's value would tank if accessible broadband alternatives existed in markets they dominate. They are one of the most hated companies that I know of. When I heard corporations were funding opposition to Philly's compensation history law I correctly assumed Comcast was leading it. They are just unlikable on so many levels.

</comment><comment><USER17> Good. Internet access is more and more a utility like water and electricity. Municipal broadband in my town works great and is more than 100x the speed of comcast at a cheaper price.

As another poster said, would you want Comcast providing water to your neighborhood?

<comment><USER18> I think people misunderstand Comcast. They're arguably more in the business of retailing/financial services than anything having to do with TCP/IP or DOCSIS.

Americans as a whole are horrible at managing money. They don't pay their bills on time, have tons of credit card debt, etc. This isn't my opinion, it's cold hard reality: look at the subprime crisis, debt burden, charge- offs/delinquencies, etc. Frankly, the crowd reading this website is just way out of touch with the reality of the situation.

For municipalities where people are responsible and there's a real sense of community, sure, do municipal broadband. I'm sure it works sometimes, but for my money, I'd rather pay the extra $5-10/month and not have to be a bill collector to my neighbor. I pay $40/month for 50Mbps Comcast and I'm fine with it.

<comment><USER19> I have literally no idea how you could have reached the idea that you would be an indentured servant/bill collector. Is this some sort of post-truth propaganda?

<comment><USER20> I understand why people are greying out that comment. On the other hand, the idea that municipal services lead residents to literally collect payment from their neighbors is such a novel complaint that I'd love to hear more details.

eldavido- can you give some more information about any news stories that cover this happening?

<comment><USER18> I'm not saying anyone is collecting bills from their neighbors. I think people are reading my comment a lot more literally than I intended.

What I'm saying is that, we have large-scale utilities like power and water companies that are able to provide individual, metered service to households over a geographically distributed area. In order to to this, there is a large amount of unpleasant, schleppy work required that most analyses of smaller- scale alternatives conveniently sweep under the rug.

Either we assume (a) another large-scale operator will provide broadband, which will probably be something like Comcast (maybe not), or (b) it will be done at a smaller scale, say, a company for 1000 residences. Does (b) actually exist?

<comment><USER20> Why assume anything?

Chattanooga's municipal broadband exists and delivers speeds as fast as any in the U.S. Salisbury, NC has a municipal broadband service that was grandfathered in before the state law banning municipal broadband.

As far as b: I live in a small town that started a municipal wireless service after Wheeler's FCC tried to override the state law banning it. Fast, affordable, symmetric. I didn't attend the meeting but am certain a clear and detailed cost-benefit analysis was presented and voted on (as well as being made available to the public per state law).

<comment><USER18> Interesting. Care to tell me a little more? How many people live in your town? Is it a socially cohesive place? What would people qualified enough to run the ISP do if not work at the ISP?

I always think of that last point (what else would people do) when people mention how "the Soviet Union had such great math teachers OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE US". The US has SILICON VALLEY, hedge funds, world-class universities, etc. - US primary/secondary ed has to compete with these places for talent and frankly, they often lose.

I have a hard time believing that a small operator could offer anything that stacks up against Comcast product-, service- and price-wise, but I'm willing to be shown I'm wrong about this. Maybe I shouldn't be so cynical ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

<comment><USER22> Just about every internet provider has shitty service. Time Warner Cable - <USER3> only option in many parts of New York City - is the bane of our existence.

Literally, _literally_ every time we move, we've tried to cancel the internet at our old apartment and set it up at our new apartment - and had them end up canceling the internet at the new place. (What happens with the old internet is different every time; either it gets cancelled as well, or it remains an active account that we get billed for, or some other egregious customer service failure.)

<comment><USER23> Do you then have to pay the "installation fee" of $50 so a guy in a truck and a polo shirt can come out to your house and enter the numbers from the back of your modem into a cellphone?

<comment><USER22> Nah, we paid the _self_ installation fee, so that guy doesn't track dirt all over our apartment and try to drill a hole through a wall because he doesn't notice the coax cable we already plugged into the modem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would gladly pay double what I'm paying to Comcast for the same speed with almost any other company, but I have literally zero options above 25mbps.

And I live in the _original home of the internet_ , Berkeley (which had one of the first 4 'IMPS').

<comment><USER25> What has kept Berkeley from forming its own municipal Internet access service? I would have expected Berkeley, due to its culture, to be _aggressively_ in favor of doing that and booting Comcast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's room for both. I'm a fan of a the government providing the fiber and support for the infrastructure and opening up the "isp" part to private companies. This allows competition without putting a bureaucracy in a position of power.

I'd like to see a community funded ISP on top of a city-maintained fiber network. That way the government can be told to fly a kite if they want to put their hands on anything of value.

</comment><comment><USER27> My colleague argues that it's ok for Time Warner Spectrum/Comcast to control specific areas and districts because they laid the pipe and own the last mile (when they've decided to). I try and argue that it's anti-competitive and that I shouldn't be held to ransom by 'Rectum for $60/mo (their minimum) if I want reliable internet.

I do see where he's coming from though but I don't know how to counter those arguments as I don't know the history of how all the fiber got laid and who actually "owns" any of it. It seems like the phone lines or water that it's a public good at this point.

Bringing up that example is countered with what a f up all the Baby Bells became.

Anyway, curious as to what some folks here that are much older and might have had a hand in the growth of broadband have to say.

<comment><USER28> Pacific bell laid the cable. The Rockefellers dug the oil they sold for less than the competition could. The thing is none of these things happened in a vacuum. Everything has externalities. People enjoy considering other people as independent creatures but we're all working within the limitations of each other. We grow up in hives, learn in hives, go to work in hives, and eventually form hives we die in that we like to call our own. No one owns anything. If someone claims to, ask them again in one hundred years.

<comment><USER29> >No one owns anything. If someone claims to, ask them again in one hundred years.

That's a pretty useless definition of ownership. Nobody I know of requires permanence in the definition of ownership.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Small price to pay for monopoly profits"—that asymmetry sure ain't limited to Comcast.

</comment><comment><USER31> They already face competition in higher density housing.

I live in an apartment in the Seattle area with WaveG broadband (www.wavebroadband.com)-- 100mbit (up+down) for $60/month. In some buildings they offer gigabit speeds for $80/month.

I've been pretty happy with them, reliable service and provisioning is easy -- placed an online order and 2 days later the ethernet jack in my apartment was turned on. No modem or any type of installation needed.

But they only serve select apartments (looks like they serve a couple hundred buildings in the Seattle area).

<comment><USER32> They pretty much only serve large apartment buildings in or very near downtown. CenturyLink's gigabit has a bit broader reach, though it certainly doesn't cover all of Seattle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Guess they're gonna have to up their campaign contributions again.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think municipal fiber is great (we're doing it in rural parts of Maryland right now). That said, throwing around the word "competition" in the context of municipal broadband is disingenuous. Government-supported services don't "compete" with private services, they supplant them. Where municipalities offer water, sewer, or trash pickup, there is almost never any private "competition" for those services.

<comment><USER34> One of the big difficulties in installing broadband is dealing with the right of way necessary to get to everyone's house. Municipalities have a very strong advantage over a private company in their ability to get their wires to houses.

I wonder if cities could inspire more competition in the ISP market by making it easier for a new company to wire up a town. Another model would be for the city to provide fiber to each house as part of standard infrastructure that any ISP can provide data over. That way ISPs would be competing on price and service--not on who happens to own the wires running through your neighborhood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would be willing to pay more, just to be rid of the Comcast monopoly. That said, I doubt anything comes of this.

</comment><comment> mark-r My city had a municipal wireless broadband mesh, but they discontinued it. The excuse they made was that it was due for an upgrade that they couldn't afford, but I'm sure it's no coincidence that Comcast is the main provider in our area.

</comment><comment><USER36> I"ll go so far to say that anything that is bad for Comcast is good for America.

</comment><comment><USER37> Let them lose it. They are one of the worst monopolists ever.

</comment><comment><USER38> Comcast needs to update their systems before they even think about doing anything else. Their customers have been complaining for years.

</comment><comment><USER39> To be honest, I think this is the wrong solution, but the telco industry can't reingratiate themselves fast enough to keep the market open, and it seems like they don't want to, because they know they have so much bad blood with the public.

<comment><USER40> With internet needing to be classified as a necessary service I have no issue with local government running it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> i hope it does, comcast is evil in so many ways.

</comment><comment><USER42> SpaceX is going to crush both of them.

<comment><USER43> I am not a fan of Comcast, but I'm not switching my hard-wired Internet for satellite Internet which is high-latency and subject to weather conditions.

<comment><USER44> LEO service is low-latency. Light's got a few hundred clicks to go, and much of that in hard vacuum. About 1-4 milliseconds, call it 2-8 round-trip ping.

Geosync is a whole 'nother ballgame. It's a quarter second outbound, and a half-second round-trip ping (earth-bird-earth and back).

Radio talks through clouds just fine.

<comment><USER29> 1000 miles in a vacuum is 5.36 ms. Don't forget that it's up and back two times so you're looking at just over 21 ms waiting on light. The packet actually needs to go onto the Internet at that point too.

<comment><USER44> Sure, though 20 ms _getting you to a fat node_ is pretty good, _especially_ if you're in an underserved area. The net time cost is actually the _difference_ between this and straight-line overland distance, which is both _not_ in vacuum and hits node latency.

10 ms is roughly datacenter lag (or was a few years back). 100ms is good cross-country pings, 300-600 is continent-to-continent links.

Figure on edge caching aas well.

<comment><USER43> Having lived in a "remote" (read not _actually_ remote but not served by any ISP) area nearly anything would have been better than dial-up.

Way back in the day (10-15 years ago) my friend with satellite Internet had 300+ ms pings everywhere and at the time a dial-up modem was still required. Good to know things have changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Would any of us want Comcast in charge of our water? If not, then why do we let them be in charge of our internet?

</comment><comment><USER46> I dislike Comcast as much as the next guy, but are we really betting on a government project to stay within budget as well as provide a high quality of service? Just digging a tunnel in Seattle took us $2 billion dollars! Instead of setting this up as the "government internet" \- which is going to make it super political, why not just have the public own the 'last mile', and then let private companies plug into the grid?

<comment><USER47> > Just digging a tunnel in Seattle took us $2 billion dollars!

Did the government dig those tunnels? No they hired a contractor who sold them on one price and then sent them a bill for a much higher price. So much for private enterprise saving the taxpayer money.

> why not just have the public own the 'last mile', and then let private > companies plug into the grid?

This is how most municipal broadband works right now. You, the ISP, rent the fiber from them. They can't make a profit so municipalities can only charge you what it costs to install and maintain. Most govt don't want to be in the ISP business but they are given the choice of doing it or letting the free market continue to ignore them they'll do it.

<comment><USER48> >No they hired a contractor who sold them on one price and then sent them a bill for a much higher price

OT: if everyone can do that, what's preventing everyone from bidding $1 on multibillion dollar contracts? surely there must be a way to uphold them to the amount they bid for.

<comment><USER49> Possibly, but public private partnerships have a long and storied history of ripping off the taxpayers and government.

For example, take toll road highways. Not a single one exists in the USA that lasted the length of their contract without going bankrupt and ripping off everyone.

>Beginning with the contracting stage, the evidence suggests toll operating public private partnerships are transportation shell companies for international financiers and contractors who blueprint future bankruptcies. Because Uncle Sam generally guarantees the bonds – by far the largest chunk of "private" money – if and when the private toll road or tunnel partner goes bankrupt, taxpayers are forced to pay off the bonds while absorbing all loans the state and federal governments gave the private shell company and any accumulated depreciation. Yet the shell company's parent firms get to keep years of actual toll income, on top of millions in design-build cost overruns….

>Of course, no executive comes forward and says, "We're planning to go bankrupt," but an analysis of the data is shocking. There do not appear to be any American private toll firms still in operation under the same management 15 years after construction closed. The original toll firms seem consistently to have gone bankrupt or "zeroed their assets" and walked away, leaving taxpayers a highway now needing repair and having to pay off the bonds and absorb the loans and the depreciation.

>The list of bankrupt firms is staggering, from Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway to Presidio Parkway in San Francisco to Canada's "Sea to Sky Highway" to Orange County's Riverside Freeway to Detroit's Windsor Tunnel to Brisbane, Australia's Airport Link to South Carolina's Connector 2000 to San Diego's South Bay Expressway to Austin's Cintra SH 130 to a couple dozen other toll facilities.

>We cannot find any American private toll companies, furthermore, meeting their pre-construction traffic projections. Even those shell companies not in bankruptcy court usually produce half the income they projected to bondholders and federal and state officials prior to construction.

Thinking Highways by Randy Salzman [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/calpers-invests- in-t...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/calpers-invests-in-toll-road- even-thought-those-deals-never-make-money.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The liberal response to right-wing militias; an abolitionist's perspective - <AUTHOR> https://abolitionistdynamite.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/liberal-response-to-militias/ <comment><USER2> Was anybody else was really moved by this...up until the last paragraph

<comment><USER3> I was. But the rest was good so let's give the benefit of the doubt:

It seems that the argument from the "liberal" side has been that these "conservative" militias are being treated differently than those "thugs" in (all of the recent protests that degenerated in violence). However, these "liberals" don't see that these "conservatives" are fighting the same system of oppression that had caused all of these "problems" that "liberals" highlight (prisons, police brutality, etc). What is different then is that the "liberal" movement has failed to a) articulate its point on its constitutional basis and b) be willing to arm themselves to defend and fight for these points of view in a strong yet peaceful manner (i.e. Without degenerating into a "a riot" and "stealing TVs from the store" and "burning down your own neighborhoods").

That is the way I read that. I agree it was a weird way to put it.</comment></comment>


A Bad Idea from Congress About How to Fund Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/07/27/heres-a-colossally-bad-idea-from-congress-about-how-to-fund-science/ <comment><USER2> One flaw comes to mind when the thought of using prizes to fund pure science is discussed. It's actually an issue that is even larger than prizes.

The people who go down the wrong path in science are often performing an important service. It is obvious enough that we cannot know beforehand how to solve all of science's hard problems (they wouldn't be hard problems...) and of course the people who don't succeed still need to be paid.

The other, maybe less immediately obvious thing, is that a person or group who demonstrates the ways a previously plausible line of thought just doesn't work is performing a valuable service. Progress in science depends on what they publish, even if their work ends up being a dead end.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash My father researched semiconductors at Cornell his entire career. One time he told me of a way he and his colleagues envisioned producing semiconductors that would have radically shrunk the cost of solar panels. After months of research, they found that the physical realities simply did not permit the hypothesis to function.

Dead end.

In the eyes of Congress, this whole affair was a waste of money, but for every scientist with the same idea, it means one less path to waste time and money on.

<comment><USER3> If the negative results weren't published, then it was a waste of money. Sadly, this happens all the time.

Incentives in science publishing generally work against the publication of negative results. The publication-based economy lies at the heart of most of what's wrong with science today.

It's not clear to what extent prize-based funding could change this culture. I'm not sure I agree with the size of the initial trial, but I do support experimenting with new models of government funding for science research.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash The results were published. Dad was disappointed that it didn't work but he was content to know that he saved someone else from trying the same.

<comment><USER4> More than that, I'm guessing that it also shone some light on those physical realities and therefore advanced the field in general. Maybe not in a big way, but much of science, technology and manufacturing is build of many small advances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is the offending section of the bill in question:

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house- bill/6/te...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house- bill/6/text#toc-H6E3C311E24F947609A106A90B3A42696)

Apparently a panel of 9 persons will be in charge of giving away $80 million in prize money for biomedical advancements every year to any person or company (even foreign).

The 9 people are primarily congressional appointments and the director of NIH (who is already appointed) and the administration of this program can be outsourced to a private company who can take 15% of the money.

Personally, I'd have to agree with the author that this is a pretty stupid idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is not a colossally bad idea, it is a colossally good one (though maybe not as suggested), and perhaps the best way to end the stupid patent circus that is ruining biomedical research.

We need not replace grants this way, of course - but we can supplement, because grants, as we all know, can't even begin to cover the cost of clinical trials, for the most part. This means that only large pharma companies can foot the bill, here. Then they walk off with a patent and collect monopoly rents from the American public to the tune of $300 billion a year, in excess of the market cost of drug production.

If, on the other hand, we can offer a large prize that covers the costs of development after the fact, then we get the goods - development already works this way, the "prize" is simply in the form of a drug company buying you out for your IP.

In the alternative, the US government "buys you out" for several tens of millions. The drug, instead of being patented, goes into the public domain. The developers walk off with tons of money. The public saves hundreds of billions of dollars. Income inequality lessens.

<comment><USER7> 80 million dollars wouldn't even begin to cover the development / trial costs of a single drug, let alone many. Many drugs also fail late in the clinical trial process (phase 2+), meaning that 80 million dollars would just disappear upon failure. I highly doubt the government has the stomach to eat those losses.

<comment><USER6> Why not? The government can easily, easily pick up the tab for clinical trials, which amount to pennies compared to the amount it is shelling out in prescription drug costs via Medicare. It already does, to a great extent, and it's so heavily involved in the process it seems natural to make them eat the costs.

<comment><USER7> > It already does, to a great extent, and it's so heavily involved in the > process it seems natural to make them eat the costs

As far as I know, the government has minimal involvement / skin in the private development process as it stands currently, and only steps in to perform regulatory oversight and helps define trial design for regulatory approval. Almost all costs are borne by the private sector and all work is done by the private sector.

<comment><USER8> "Almost all costs are borne by the private sector"

Doesn't every penny of "old people drugs" development come from selling drugs to old people paid solely by medicare? I'm just saying if you trace back where those supposed private sector $$ come from, don't almost 100% of them come from the Medicare program?

On the good side you'd cut out a lot of middlemen. No point paying them off thru multiple steps for doing basically nothing productive.

On the bad side you'd cut out a lot of middlemen. Their corporate owners finance a lot of re-election campaigns and PACs....

<comment><USER7> > Doesn't every penny of "old people drugs" development come from selling > drugs to old people paid solely by medicare?

I'm not sure what this statement means. Drug development costs are accrued by the company before the drug goes to market. Costs are borne by the company's investors or offset using profits from previous ventures. Some of these profits may be from drugs meant for the elderly or they may not.

> I'm just saying if you trace back where those supposed private sector $$ > come from, don't almost 100% of them come from the Medicare program?

No, much of the initial development capital comes from investors or from other profits which are from many sources. If you're talking about who is paying for the drug, then you're completely forgetting about private insurance companies, which spend at least as much each year on health care costs as medicare. You're also forgetting about the entire ex-US market.

> On the good side you'd cut out a lot of middlemen. No point paying them off > thru multiple steps for doing basically nothing productive.

Government is not synonymous with efficiency, especially when there is no profit motive involved.

<comment><USER6> Government is often quite efficient. For example, public health insurance has smaller overhead (like five fold less) than equivalent private products. In terms of R&D there is no contest. The entire NIH budget produces prodigious amounts of research, from the basic to the translational, for less than what the entire pharma industry spends just to refine their drug development. The private sector sucks at research spending.

<comment><USER7> > Government is often quite efficient. For example, public health insurance > has smaller overhead (like five fold less) than equivalent private products.

I don't have the numbers so I can't speak to the overhead, but I can point at the VA health care system as a counter to your statements about government health care being efficient.

> The entire NIH budget produces prodigious amounts of research, from the > basic to the translational, for less than what the entire pharma industry > spends just to refine their drug development. The private sector sucks at > research spending.

There are a number of problems with this argument.

First, the NIH can afford to take a shotgun approach to research funding which pharma can't take because the risks of loss are so much lower. The NIH can give out large numbers of grants per year, have a large number of them fail to produce meaningful results, and call their work a success as long as some good work is being done. That model is untenable at the major clinical trial level because the losses would be astronomical. It's the same reason why the Y combinator investment strategy wouldn't work if you wanted to apply it to big private equity deals: You can't fail massively more than a few times before you're in trouble.

Second, the standards for "success" are completely different for drug development and basic / translational research. Most basic research is looking for (at best) proof of concept in an in vitro or in silico model; most translational research is looking for efficacy in an animal model using small populations. A pharma research project has to consider statistically significant efficacy, formulation, dosing, acute and chronic direct toxicity, delivery, off target effects, drug-drug interactions, manufacturing, storage, population differences etc and are held to much higher standards at every stage than your average research lab. By the way, even with these differences in requirements, it is well known that a lot of published, NIH funded research coming out of academia is not reproducible: [http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.htm...](http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.html), [http://www.nature.com/news/announcement-reducing-our- irrepro...](http://www.nature.com/news/announcement-reducing-our- irreproducibility-1.12852) If this were to happen in pharma, you would have deaths and lawsuits.

<comment><USER6> This happens all the time with pharma. See SSRIs, drugs that have no theory behind them, tiny effect sizes barely better than placebo, terrible side effects and withdrawal symptoms. They make billions for decades; they are still widely prescribed. What pharma can't do with science, they paper over with marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The "colossally bad", "stupid" rhetoric would be justified if the proposal were for the NIH to give away a significant proportion of its budget in prizes: it's reasonably obvious that prizes can't be a mainstay of public research funding. Instead, the proposal is to spend $80 million: about 0.25% of the NSF's present budget, and less than a quarter of the proposed increase in annual NSF funding in the bill. In other words, throw this $80 million into the NSF's general expenditure instead and in future it would be about to fund, oh, maybe about 20.05% of business-as-usual funding requests to pursue tendentious environmental-health correlation findings and non-reproducible treatments for cancer in inbred mice. (Until the supply of these inevitably rose to meet its former "equilibrium" with demand.) If that's the opportunity cost of seeing if prizes can stimulate some successful research which will not otherwise be funded, then it seems like an arguable proposition, especially since prizes like the X-Prize are often claimed to stimulate research spending which is a multiple of the actual prize money awarded. (No doubt that effect would go away if the NSF spent $8 billion in funding through prizes, but nothing like that is being proposed.)

No doubt the decision process of awarding the prize would be dysfunctional; but it would be dysfunctional in a _different_ way to the NSF's usual funding mechanisms, increasing the chance that at least one of the two would produce the right outcome in any given case.

</comment><comment><USER10> The first thing that came to mind was Beezid. Basically we'll end up with countless teams of researchers attempting to solve problems and only a tiny fraction of them being paid for their time.

I agree with the article and propose that we should be doing the exact opposite - finding a way to fund more garage tinkerers. Just add up the risk of failure in tech (at least 90%), the fact that so much of our daily workday is broken up into frivolous minutia, and that researchers spend on the order of half their time fundraising. It should be obvious that the problem is underemployment, and that the way to remedy that is to go from top-down to bottom-up organizational structures. In other words, recognize the dignity of work and not just the financial outcome.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a staggeringly bad idea but for none of the reasons put forth in the article (jingoism? Really?). The big reason is fraud. The culture of fraud is overly endemic in the grant-based system _as it is_ and it's not clear that gaming a system of contests is not going to be the dominant mode of prizewinning.

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems to me that the prize model really could work in areas where there's a lot of value snagged up in existing knowledge we already have and the prize- givers want to shake out that value in the form of good applications. I think this works for DARPA because DARPA these days seems to want deliverables that are in this vein. The prize model can also work well in a situation where the prize-giver wants the results to enter the public domain or be cheaply available to the public.

I don't think this could work to fund blue sky research, though. It's asking for too much risk to be assumed by a researcher who probably doesn't have the resources to justify these kinds of attempts.

</comment><comment><USER13> This sounds like a lot of FUD. $80 million isn't that much compared to the NIH budget. This is about one third of one percent of all NIH funding we're talking about.

I don't think we should change the funding system from grants to prizes. The existence of my job relies almost entirely on NIH funded grants, and I am not worried about this in the least. When they start talking about replacing the other $23.9+ billion in NIH grants with prizes, then we should worry.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why not consider this an _experiment_ in funding efficiency? This should be supported by scientists across the board, especially as it's such a tiny fraction of the NIH budget. It's a bit much to claim to fully know the outcome of such an experiment before doing it.

This being said, my priors are that it's a better funding model for engineering than for science. Engineering is more goal-oriented, whereas science is more exploratory. In science, it's not always a good idea to have a strongly desired outcome, because of problems associated with confirmation bias, or from spending too much time in the wrong rabbit hole. Apart from concerns about gaming the system (which are valid), the wrong phrasing of the goal could make it impossible to reach, or otherwise direct people in the wrong way. And it's not always clear that the understanding of some process or phenomenon will ever be done to some satisfaction; sometimes you get there and it's much more convoluted than anyone had previously assumed.

The economist Tim Harford discusses the merits of this funding model quite a bit in _Adapt_ , and is quite supportive of it, as are other economists such as Alex Tabarrok. But it's really not clear that they understand the differences between engineering and science, either. Most of the DARPA/X-prize research, which are the typical examples of this funding model working effectively, are engineering research rather than science qua science, or the exploration of natural phenomena.

But given the NIH's aims (which are more practical than NSF's) and the recognition that blue-sky research needs to be funded differently, it might just be a great complement to the existing funding model. I would love to have a bit more of it for those of my own projects that are geared more towards tool/methods development than immediate phenomena understanding; I work on them in my spare time or in conjunction with scientific studies, and it'd be great if I could occasionally pay myself back for that time upon successful completion.

</comment><comment><USER15> > These 9 people will be responsible for giving away $80 million per year in > prizes. In the scientific world, that's a huge program.

It's about 0.25% of the NIH's investment budget. Doesn't sound like that big a deal to me.

</comment><comment><USER16> Knowledge Ecology International are the experts on innovation prizes, lots of background on [http://keionline.org/prizes](http://keionline.org/prizes)

I haven't noticed any commentary at [https://twitter.com/jamie_love](https://twitter.com/jamie_love) (their director) or [http://www.keionline.org/tracker](http://www.keionline.org/tracker) on this bill yet, am I missing something?

<comment><USER16> Here's someone knowledgeable [https://medium.com/@bethnoveck/funding-science- with-prizes-i...](https://medium.com/@bethnoveck/funding-science-with-prizes- is-a-great-idea-asking-congressmen-to-judge-those-prizes-is-not-fb8b9af7f4cf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So are the prized determined in retrospect? That seems like a very odd way to encourage direction. It would make a lot more sense if bounties were published ahead of time.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't seem so: apparently ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9955286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9955286) ) this is the text [https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house- bill/6/te...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house- bill/6/text#toc-H6E3C311E24F947609A106A90B3A42696) , and it seems to be setting up something more like the X-Prizes, with at least the objectives (maybe not all the awards) spelled out in advance, than the Nobel Prize which is awarded retrospectively (and to the individuals who did the work, rather than to the project itself). I assume that TFA's comparison to the Nobels is just inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Counterpoint:

[http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/public/prizes](http://www.darpa.mil/work- with-us/public/prizes)

I think it could work in certain circumstances for NIH. It's been successful for DARPA, so it's worth a try.

<comment><USER19> Why do people think that this has been successful for DARPA? DARPA has spent billions on all kinds of ideas that don't work, including prize competitions. Once in a while they have a "hit" and they publicize that like crazy. DARPA is also known (notoriously, one could say) for operating a good-old-boys system, where you have to butter up the DARPA program managers to get any funding. So no, I don't agree that prizes have been successful for DARPA.

<comment><USER20> > Why do people think that this has been successful for DARPA? DARPA has spent > billions on all kinds of ideas that don't work, including prize > competitions.

Some people regard the DARPA prizes as successful because, in some cases, the technology to win the prize was developed.

> DARPA is also known (notoriously, one could say) for operating a good-old- > boys system, where you have to butter up the DARPA program managers to get > any funding.

Can you explain this a bit more in the context of the prize program? It looks like a criticism of their grant program, but you follow it with:

> So no, I don't agree that prizes have been successful for DARPA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > This is a staggeringly bad idea. Why? Where do I begin? Well, first of all, > biomedical research costs money–lots of money. Everyone I know in biomedical > research, in which I've been working for 25 years, needs money before they > make their discoveries. A prize at the end is nice, but you can't do > anything if you can't pay for equipment, supplies, and (perhaps Congress > will be surprised to learn this) people's salaries.

This point would be more powerful if he explained it in the context of the DARPA and XPRIZE competitions. Spaceships are surely expensive, but multiple teams were funded. Is there a reason that won't happen for the NIH prizes?

> NIH will give these prizes to foreign citizens–and companies! So apparently > they will take some portion of NIH's budget, and instead of awarding it in > grants to U.S. scientists, they will give prizes to companies in, say, > Russia. Don't get me wrong: I think science should be supported in every > country around the world. But each country has its own system, and the NIH > is by far the most important source of funding for biomedical science in the > U.S. We just can't afford to have NIH give out prizes to the entire world.

I don't think it follows that because each country has its own science system, then the US can't afford to give prizes to the entire world. The prizes won't be higher if they're given to international teams; they just might be awarded earlier. Surely it would be _more_ expensive (at least in time) to restrict it by country, because someone else might be able to make the advance faster than the US.

It appears that the author isn't motivated by advancing science, but by funding American scientists. If American scientists need or deserve more money, that should be addressed separately from how to advance scientific progress most quickly. There are probably ways to accomplish giving Americans more money that don't slow down scientific progress.</comment>