Ask HN: Why is PGP not used widely? - <AUTHOR> In light of the whole NSA leaks etc, I have to ask why we don't use PGP widely. Is it just because it's too difficult or is it because we never thought our emails were ever something to be kept private or just that there was never a need to produce tools to make the technology accessible.<p>A friend and I were discussing this over dinner and couldn't really pin point the reason. Both of us came across ideas around what could be done to make the situation better but were drawing somewhat of a blank on the question of "why is this not already done?". <comment><USER3> I think it's because there still isn't a good metaphor that covers up the complexity of public key encryption. Such a metaphor is a prerequisite for a UI that the average user can comprehend.

First, I think we should rename the keys to 'locking key' and 'unlocking key'. I've had people still scratch their heads at 'public/private' a few days after I've completely explained the concept to them. They find it easier to understand that a lock-only key can be shared freely while an unlocking key has to be guarded.

Second, key exchange and storage has to be transparent to the user. The process can go something like:

1\. User 1 clicks 'setup secure email with firstname.lastname@example.com'

2\. User 2 receives 'email@example.com wants to setup secure email with you. y/n? (first make sure that this is really his/her email address)'

3\. Based on the response, keys are automatically exchanged and stored.

4\. Provide a 'compose secure email' option

5\. When adding email recipients, the encryption happens automatically. Recipients with no keys are not allowed in secure mail, obviously.

6\. The encrypted form is never displayed on screen. Only a lock icon.

7\. On the receive end, a passphrase prompt is displayed when a secure mail is opened

Perhaps commercial/proprietary clients already do this, but none of the free ones I've tried are like this. So I'm stuck with using GPG with only with those who understand how the thing really works.

<comment><USER4> > First, I think we should rename the keys to 'locking key' and 'unlocking > key'.

Why not go a step further and call one 'key' and the other 'lock'? So you can share (copies of) your lock freely with others, and if they want to send encrypted email to you, they take your 'lock' and put it on that email. It then becomes obvious that you shouldn't share the private key (after all, anybody could then unlock the locks) and that you have to make absolutely sure that you get the correct public key from others (as putting a 'false' lock on a letter doesn't help).

Sure, this falls somewhat apart if you also want to consider signing…

<comment><USER5> That would make for nice iconography - public keys being open padlocks, private keys being keys and encrypted things being closed padlocks.

<comment><USER5> was bored so made something - [http://postimg.org/image/8sm7otl2p/full/](http://postimg.org/image/8sm7otl2p/full/)

<comment><USER3> interesting! i can clearly understand what each means, but i think the average person might get confused. how about just the key and the open padlock? signed/encrypted content can have the icon on the side (kind of like the shortcut indicator in windows)?

<comment><USER5> I might have a bit more of a play about with it, oh and here's the svg as a gist if anyone wants it - [https://gist.github.com/anonymous/7308250](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/7308250)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For two reasons: because it has a UX that hasn't changed meaningfully since the mid-1990s (GUI tools for GPG/PGP tend simply to wrap the command line UX), and because it presumes that the only reasonable way to use a tool like GPG is to exert fine-grained control over keys and identity.

Email needs to be encrypted opportunistically, without user intervention. GPG could do this; it could generate semi-ephemeral keys as needed and use key continuity, like OTR, to figure out which keys were kosher for which addresses.

Instead, GPG exposes to its users the metaphor of a "key ring" with different kinds of keys and key signatures. That model works for people like me, who use it to secure corp-to-corp communications where I have very specific and fussy requirements for whose keys I'm interacting with. But it doesn't work for end- users at all.

Someone should write a secure-by-default email client that uses the OpenPGP message format and is compatible with GPG, but that ignores the intended GPG security model entirely.

<comment><USER7> Yup. I have made an active use of GPG over the last few months, and there's a few big problems:

1\. A UX that is... Hard. As you say. See the last few minutes of this talk I did: [http://youtu.be/LjZk8PP-u3c](http://youtu.be/LjZk8PP-u3c)

2\. You can't PGP with webmail.

3\. You can't PGP on mobile.

4\. This means that unless you're on your desktop, you can't do things like search through older emails, which is really important.

5\. It requires both people to use PGP.

I fully agree with your final sentiment. If I could fork myself, this is one of the things I'd be putting a ton of time into.

<comment><USER8> 1\. Agreed.

2\. [http://www.mailvelope.com/](http://www.mailvelope.com/) [https://countermail.com/](https://countermail.com/) [http://www.hushmail.com/](http://www.hushmail.com/)

3\. [http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/](http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/)

4\. Well, you could if you jump through some hoops. Which describes using PGP in general.

5\. Not only that, it requires both people to use it _correctly_.

<comment><USER7> Hushmail has given your info to the Feds. All the others could be. It's a trust issue.

Same with mobile. There's 'pgp for iOS' but I'll be damned if I upload my private key to a system running all proprietary software...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use GPG quite often but there are many annoying issues:

\- Lacking GPG support on iOS devices, the available apps are not integrated with Mail.app (iOS).

\- GPG support on OS X devices is usable with Mail.app and GPG Tools (([https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/)) but encrypted mails are not searchable. I use folders etc. but it is still often a pain do browse manually through mail after mail until you find the one you've been looking for …

\- Webmail, for example Gmail or Outlook.com, and GPG don't fit together well – if at all.

\- The public keychain is not made for use on more than one device, i.e., it's not sync-ready.

\- Key verification is bothersome, i.e., you have to attend key signing parties etc.

\- There are political issues, e.g., should you upload your keys to key server? If so, with or without signatures? If you upload signatures, you create not only a web of trust but you also expose at least parts of your address book.

\- Key servers store long invalid keys and there is no way to remove such keys. The PGP.com key server removes keys if you don't confirm them by mail from time to time. On the other hand, the PGP.com key server only accepts one key per mail address.

\- Etc.

<comment><USER10> Mailvelope [1] has ok support in gmail for pgp.

[http://www.mailvelope.com/](http://www.mailvelope.com/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks!

I'm not sure if mail encryption in the browser is a good idea, especially with regard to the protection of private keys …

And I'm wondering why Mailvelope doesn't support mail signing?

> Mailvelope currently does not support signing of messages.

<comment><USER4> Probably because you have to make absolutely sure that the things you sign are actually the things sent by the webmail provider, and if they decide to add random stuff, the signature will fail. Encryption is, in some sense, easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People cannot use Gmail without help. People have trouble editing wikipedia. People misunderstand some simple concepts.

Even people who have taken the time to install and use PGP, and who seem to want privacy, make weird mistakes such as _" Messages encrypted to public keys, to passwords and passphrases, and PGP messages not encrypted at all!"_

[http://ritter.vg/blog-deanonymizing_amm.html](http://ritter.vg/blog- deanonymizing_amm.html)

Usability of Security: A Case Study of PGP 5.0 User Interface [http://reports- archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/1998/abstracts/98...](http://reports- archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/1998/abstracts/98-155.html)

"Why Johnny Can't Encrypt" [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/Why_Johnny_Cant_Enc...](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/Why_Johnny_Cant_Encrypt/OReilly.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> Even Phil Zimmermann, PGP's creator, says it's too hard to use:

 _"I hardly ever run PGP. When people send me PGP encrypted mail I have to go through a lot of trouble to decrypt it. If it's coming from a stranger, I'll say please re-send this in plain text, which probably raises their eyebrows."_

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/08/09/e-mails- bi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/08/09/e-mails-big-privacy- problem-qa-with-silent-circle-co-founder-phil-zimmermann/)

</comment><comment><USER13> The average user has no idea just how broken email is w.r.t. the concept of secure and private communication. Google's entire business is built on this broad ignorance. So for that matter is the the internet ecosystem in general if you expand the concept of use of data to include tracking of site access patterns, etc.

Moreover, it's certainly not in SV's vested interests (regardless of recent protestations to the contrary by google, facebook, etc) to see secure mail become the standard, and by extension to broadly educate and move the consuming public to a mindset of security first.

All of that said, the average end-user is/would be befuddled figuring out the use of shared pub keys, the web of trust concept, and in moreover, PKI in the bigger picture.

And even if you could get broad use of pgp going for message payload privacy/security, you don't solve the problem of metadata if you are using the current email protocol.

It's long past time for a new persistent messaging protocol that addresses metadata leakage and payload security comprehensively. There are people working on this now. Hopefully that will drive some positive steps forward on this issue.

</comment><comment><USER14> In my experience it is mostly due to annoyance. PGP is seamless until someone tries to check their mail on their friend's computer and discovers that encryption _works as intended_. Then all of a sudden they start begging you _not_ to send them encrypted messages.

I have yet to see any other reason for why PGP is not even used by people for whom it would be easy. Even within the security and cryptography research communities it is rarely used.

The solution to this particular problem is to have smartcards; while we are at it, we should also use smartcards for authentication, so that when you sit down at your friend's computer you plug in a smartcard to log in _and_ to read your messages. Unfortunately that means we need to deploy a bunch of new infrastructure, and I would not count on any help from governments or from the tech community (which is largely monetized by violating user privacy).

<comment><USER15> I know some folks in the Air Force - all of their ID cards have public/private keys stored on them. They use them (plus a pin) for logging onto their computers at work, all of their e-mails are digitally signed, and the computer is locked just by removing the card from the card reader. Most personnel don't know a thing about public key encryption/two factor authentication, and likely wouldn't care if you offered to explain it to them.

I can imagine this could easily get rolled out if you integrated the public/private keys into driver's licenses. A quick search online suggests that blank cards are about $.06 each in bulk [1], but smart card vary between $.60 and $1.50 [2] (don't take this as definitive - I have no experience purchasing them). I don't think anyone would care paying an extra, say $2 or so whenever they get a new license for the cost of the card plus recouping the cost of hardware to print them.

Phase it in over time - have hand-outs at the DMV answering "What's this funny chip on my driver's license?" Gradually phase it in over time for online tax payments/water bills/etc. - something like "your username and password will be good until {date reasonably far in the future}, but after that you'll need a card reader. You can purchase one for $15 from any of these retailers: ..."

Once both the cards and readers are in place, it's a lot easier to get the critical mass to push for stronger authentication from banks, online retailers, etc. People worried about privacy implication could purchase their own cards from independent retailers and put their own keys on them.

[1] [http://www.smartcardsupply.com/Content/Cards/cards.htm](http://www.smartcardsupply.com/Content/Cards/cards.htm)

[2] [http://www.smartcardsupply.com/Content/Cards/ISO7816.htm](http://www.smartcardsupply.com/Content/Cards/ISO7816.htm)

<comment><USER16> >I know some folks in the Air Force . . .

Interesting. Do all of their work computers run Windows?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Huh, I don't see what I would have considered the obvious answer among what's already been said.

So, to me, the obvious answer is that if you want to use PGP, you first have to make everyone you intend to communicate with also use PGP. That's an obvious no-go. _I_ would be happy to set it up, but what good would that do me?

<comment><USER18> Right.

PGP is enabled by the recipient, not the sender.

If I release my public key (convincingly authenticated), it's up to the sender to take their time to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Even if you know what you are doing and really must get some secure document to someone then it is far from straightforward. First you need to get the key. Then you need to get that key onto a computer that you believe is not already compromised. Anything running Windows can be assumed to be less than secure. Whatever happens there will be some hoops to go through to get that key, your secret document and some program to spit out whatever it is you are to send.

Then the fun really starts. You send your message, other party claims it could not be opened. So you go through the hoops again and re-send. At this stage you have probably changed a word or two in your source document. But that does not bother you because you are new to this. You send again. Another reply comes back - 'sorry mate...' \- so you send again, probably introducing a few more edits.

Then you never hear back from them ever again. As it turns out you have been man-in-the-middled and those requests for a re-send were purely in the expectation that you would change your message slightly. This provides the 'crib' needed to open your message without knowing the key by our friends in Gloucestershire.

Where did my tin foil go?

</comment><comment><USER20> 1) Most people haven't had a need for it. Till now. 2) Encryption is difficult concept for even technical people. 3) Commercial PGP costs too much. Building a quality PKI system for an organization costs more 4) GPG is a pain to use 5) Encryption has been discouraged by the government, companies and users.

</comment><comment><USER21> The setup phase is too difficult. The complex part is the key exchange phase.

Simple and secure mail is an unsolved problem.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm using PGP with all my friends, as well as we have secured our normal SMTP transport with SMTPS and SSL certificate pinning. So everything is now double encrypted. Of course PGP key finger prints as well as SMTPS SSL fingerprints have been verified using alternate communication channel & personal verification. Many people think that SMTP is problematic, but SMTPS with certpin is actually quite good. Messages are only delivered over secure encrypted channel, and only to server which got right SSL cert. So even fake CA attacks won't help in this case, you'll need to have cert with exactly right fingerprint. Uh, yeah, don't use MD5 fingerprints.

</comment><comment><USER23> Without meaning to detract from some of the excellent explanations in this thread, I should add that it sounds like you're approaching this as if it were mostly a technical problem when as far as I can tell it is mostly a social problem. Social problems are harder than coming up with a tool to make it understandable, although I strongly suspect that's also not as easy as you think it is. The failure modes, corner cases, and generally making it robust to someone who Just Doesn't Get it are what kill you, not the happy path of a user who does roughly what they ought.

Setting aside the social problems of explaining cryptography _and_ generating a network effect, most people assume their communications are not worth listening to. "If they want to listen to/read my mom drone on, they're welcome to it!" Or they assume it happens to "someone else."

I'd expect that most people -- rationally and correctly, I might add -- conclude that it's unlikely to happen to them in any way relevant to their experience.

Anything you suggest has to overcome that inertia. Facebook was a value-add. Cryptography's value-add is subjectively nil and possibly negative (whoops laptop stolen lost my keys) if you don't see the benefit in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER24> Most people don't care enough to put up with the mild to moderate inconvenience and learning curve. It really _isn 't_ a big deal if the NSA reads _my_ email most of the time. None of it is interesting enough to them to actually show it to a human. Of course, that attitude being widespread means it's easy for the NSA to spy on people in situations where it might have a big impact on politics.

</comment><comment><USER25> PGP is great. Everybody in tech has the skills to use it. But for non tech people it is still to difficult. But since the NSA affairs many crypto parties happened, specially in Germany. On this crypto parties tech people are teaching non tech people how to crypt emails with PGP. I think that is a good start and I hope we will see more crypto parties in future.

<comment><USER26> Won't happen unless there is a war-like situation with not only widespread surveilance, but also widespread use of surveilance. I would be willing to bet on it. Large groups of people simply have too short attention span, and the cost of not using encryption is too small (the cost of using encryption is too large).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have taught PGP, find that at least some communities are increasingly interested in it, and hope more people will use it, though I think the forward secrecy issue alone shows the value of trying to replace it with a more modern design.

I think the logistical and conceptual parts of key exchange and verification are probably the most difficult for new PGP users. There are some ideas to make this more convenient; I know people who've produced some nice educational materials, and a colleague has a nice idea for making key exchange faster and easier among people on a LAN.

But I think the biggest obstacle in the long run may be just how fond many Internet users have become so fond of webmail and of being able to read their e-mail from any device. Having to use one particular desktop e-mail client on one particular machine to read encrypted e-mail is normal to me but may seem like a huge sacrifice if that's not what you're used to.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think as long as PGP or any encryption is an add-on to internet apps like email and the web, it's doomed for general adaptation and for effectiveness.

It needs to be a fundamental part of the individual apps' (email, web, etc) specs, or more ideally part of the underlying internet (tcp?) that apps are built on.

</comment><comment><USER29> Because its too easy to not use it. HTTPS has widespread adoption because end- users don't need to supply any cognitive resources to make the leap - <USER2> PGP occurs with the same simplicity it'll never see adoption amongst the commoners.

</comment><comment><USER30> The ease of use has to approach at least Skype level (and even then you'll exclude a wide swath of users who don't know how Skype works).

There's an old joke about Unix to the effect of "it's not user unfriendly; it's actively user hostile". Likewise, many aspects of PGP, E.G. key generation and management, web of trust, public key validation and keeping the private key secure that is utterly befuddling for the vast majority of people. This, despite the fact that it's one of the most accessible avenues for secure communication we have right now.

If people have things that are easier to use securely, more people will be secure.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think one problem that's mostly overlooked is the difficulty of getting people to use desktop email clients. Particularly in my younger generation, we've grown up with webmail, and switching to desktop clients is a major switch.

I've also always found them to be very difficult to configure. I use one SMTP server on campus, and need to use my ISP's SMTP server elsewhere? What if I'm on public wifi? And how do I authenticate on that server when my credentials are from someone else? How do I get Gmail to play nicely with my folders?

PGP, in contrast, was not hard to set up.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if some of the usability frustrations would be eased if people adopted the convention of having a secure-only email address, where the only email it accepts is encrypted email. It probably would be easy to set it to bounce/delete any non-encrypted email. Maybe only check it using a separate email client. Traffic would be low so searching wouldn't be such a hassle. Use your other email address for receiving insecure email (and tell everyone that by default, their email addresses are insecure).

</comment><comment><USER33> Root cause: Usability. It's difficult to quickly set up. But there are (at least) two components to this:

1\. Portability. How do I manage keys across my computers, phones & tablets?

2\. Ease of use. What do I do to set this up? Most common clients don't support PGP out of the box. Even once plugins are added, they are complicated to use.

As a result, no one uses it. So, if you want to start, you need to convince your friends/colleagues to also use it.

I've recently started signing email from my home computer as a hint to others to do the same. So far no takers.

</comment><comment><USER34> Users don't do security, all of this should happen automatically in the background.

When you hit send, a shared key should be negotiated with the recipient before your text leaves your box, without you really knowing it.

The key could silently be negotiated on top of the same protocol through automatically generated emails containing key setup information in headers (but empty "body" fields).

Specs for those key negotiation headers could easily go in an RFC, and systems that don't speak the language could then be shamed as noncompliant.

</comment><comment><USER35> OpenPGP end-to-end encryption has to be done client-side, and the keys have to be stored client-side. This is hard to do given the current trend of using webmails. Besides, using OpenPGP means that you have to store a copy of your key on all the machines that you use to check email, and people usually do not know how to do this without entrusting a third party (Google, Dropbox, Apple, etc.) with the information.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's a pain in the ass, thats why. It's hard to explain and it's hard to implement. And don't forget about mobile: If your locked down phone is compromised (and I wouldn't assume it's not), then even if you have PGP running you can forget about security.

Heck, even your desktop can be completely compromised. I think there's a big chance it is. If not by the NSA then by some malware.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's fairly easy to get a good working PGP system on OSX - Symantec makes it obscure to get but it works well, at least for file encryption with options available in the Finder menu.

[https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=109355](https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=109355)

No need to pay - you just need to go through the rigmarole of getting a trial registration.

<comment><USER38> I'd highly advise against this and instead suggest going with GPGMail or similar. Considering the NSA's documented influence on security companies, an encryption product from a large corporation is quite possibly the _worst_ choice you could make.

<comment><USER37> That's a good point. Though keys we use were generated back before Symantec bought PGP - is it more reasonable to expect that files encrypted with Symantec's version might be tamper-able, rather than keys generated might be?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The answer is Usability. It's a pain in the butt for someone like my Mom, Dad or most of my Friends to setup. Most digital security measures have a pretty high usability tax. I used to build out PKI systems and that was a nightmare to build correctly. It was costly to setup, develop and maintain, but it was secure.

</comment><comment><USER40> I will put it SIMPLY. The AVERAGE user hasn't a clue about things this complex nor that it even exists. It needs to come packaged as a fully functioning part of the email clients and be as transparent to them as the send button is when your email client having that SMTP conversation with your mail server.

</comment><comment><USER41> For the same reason why we don't exercise or always follow healthy eating habits:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_%28psychology%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_%28psychology%29)

</comment><comment><USER42> I like Sneak's Law: Most users cannot or will not securely manage key material ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k4GP3Evh9c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k4GP3Evh9c) @ 23:00).

</comment><comment><USER43> Where I work they recently rolled out a policy that all laptops must be protected by PGP. We are not a small company and that update was pushed out with a few minor inconveniences but for me, I do not even notice its there.

</comment><comment><USER44> a) 99.9% of the population does not give a shit. oh great, now you're reading my emails with boring, meaningless stuff in them. exciting!

b) google would LOVE it. no more context sensitive ads. let's shut down free gmail then.

c) a and b intersect - if you're using gmail or ANY other big webmail provider, you just. don't. care.

</comment><comment><USER45> It takes ten minutes to learn the handful of steps involved with using it. For most people that's too much.

</comment><comment><USER46> The biggest problem with pgp/gps is webmails and search in your messages :/

</comment><comment><USER47> Most people don't understand it. Never have. Never will.

</comment><comment><USER48> Not used because it's cumbersome for the average user.

</comment><comment><USER49> 1\. You don't get it integrated with your applications like browser, email software, text editor or spreadsheet by default. This leads to network effect in reverse. if you are only person to use it within your circles, signing and encrypting data and messages you send to others can't be done.

2\. Encryption is extra risk for your data. If you lose the keys, you lose the data. People are bad at backing up their data, why they would be better at managing their keys? Being sloppy with your keys means that somebody can impersonate you with more credibility (what if banks would accepting PGP singed orders in email)

3\. Value from widely used PGP happens mostly in society level. Encrypting any particular piece of data has negative expected value in most cases.

4\. Using PGP requires understanding the basic concepts and using it well is not that easy (lots of pest practices). People don't know any of this stuff. Even public and private key is far out concept for most people.

</comment><comment><USER50> Most people, and even organizations, prioritize convenience and ease of use over security.</comment>


Poor-quality relationships linked to greater distress than too few relationships - <AUTHOR> https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/02/20/different-kinds-of-loneliness-having-poor-quality-relationships-is-associated-with-a-greater-toll-than-having-too-few/ <comment><USER2> "From a societal perspective, and in the interests of reducing the burden of psychological distress, efforts should be made to enhance the quality of social connections as opposed to promoting the virtues of larger social networks."

They say this, but people with integrity are _typically_ made fun of secretly or even publicly, declared dismissive and asocial, instead of positively recognized in any fashion. They are seen as "rude", as "expecting too much", and at every point of their life, it is as if the society is telling them: "let it go, drop down to our level". Not in those words, but with actions and with the general atmosphere of the society.

A Seneca quote has reasoned with me for long time, I'll paraphrase it: you don't need a teacher for the vices!

It seems as if people prefer what objectively causes them harm (to their mental health and otherwise).

Lying, evil thoughts, friends envious of each other, talking behind their backs, unfaithfulness is more common than being a good person, trying to do your best in this world (which, I am sure, is not easy on anybody), be in a positive mood, if you can't help - at least don't interfere, and so on.

We need to somehow improve our ethics and morals on our own, willingly. I know exactly what I did in my life: I read a lot of philosophy. I also come from a very honest family, so that had some impact I am sure.

Compare this with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238633) (Why Be Honest If Honesty Doesn't Pay)

<comment><USER3> > They say this, but people with integrity are typically made fun of secretly > or even publicly, declared dismissive and asocial, instead of positively > recognized in any fashion. They are seen as "rude", as "expecting too much", > and at every point of their life, it is as if the society is telling them: > "let it go, drop down to our level". Not in those words, but with actions > and with the general atmosphere of the society.

Oh my gosh, that is such a grim set of generalizations. What possible evidence do you have for those premises?

Is it possible you're thinking of the narrow set of people who have integrity _and_ are public figures, then shifting to generalize to all people who have integrity? Because there are plenty of areas of life where people with integrity are not only valued but protected by their communities.

<comment><USER4> Yeah it seems like the parent is thinking that being rude and blunt is the only way to maintain integrity. It's actually surprisingly easy to maintain integrity and be a likeable person.

<comment><USER5> Just think of the the protagonist in "Shawshank Redemption". I don't mean "look, how easy", but I would be surprised if most people don't respect that character in some form. He doesn't hate others, he's not arrogant, he just also doesn't give in, and I would say he holds on to integrity for his own as well as everybodies' sake, not as something he wants just for himself to then judge others with. Even if it ended differently, I think most people would still say "good for him" for how he carries himself. Ultimately, I think communities, at least smaller ones in real life that aren't dysfunctional, are _really_ good at knowing where one's heart is at, and that matters more than anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am glad there is research on this, but I find it rather curious this is somehow not common knowledge.

<comment><USER7> There are a lot of "common sense" falsehoods though as well. Like sugar causing hyperactivity in children. What do you propose we do to disambiguate the bullshit from truth?

<comment><USER6> > Like sugar causing hyperactivity in children.

I don't know about children, but its vaguely true about adults. Increased sugar intake alters the fat burning process with the gift of quick energy followed by a period of depression, a sugar low, that impacts body energy and mental concentration. The resulting behavior is slowed/faulty decision making and a desire for napping.

I suspect if this same metabolic change occurs in children it would slow a child's mental concentration thereby allowing less controlled behavior, which may present as hyper activity at the loss of self-reflection.

<comment><USER8> "alters the fat burning process"

Are you referring to the release of insulin in response to the intake of sugar? I believe the sugar high may just be a myth perpetuated by both the dopamine reward response, but also parents looking for explanations of children's hyperactivity. Kids are simply de facto hyperactive, there are disordered levels of hyperactivity, but simply: their motor cortex is overdeveloped and overactive relative to their prefrontal cortical control mechanisms (executive functions).

<comment><USER6> Yes, sugar is metabolized by insulin while fat is metabolized by the liver. Sugar does trigger a dopamine response much stronger than cocaine addiction (this is medically observed), but the dopamine effect is orthogonal to the different metabolic response.

This difference in metabolism is due to physiology. It is not a myth. The implications of the difference are that energy created through the insulin process is immediately available and the unused remainder of energy after use is stored as fat. Fat in take, on the other hand, stores energy as fat the body thinks it will need and dumps the rest. Fat becomes energy when stored fat is metabolized in the liver resulting in slow but more consistent energy. Understanding that difference is significant to dropping weight.

<comment><USER8> It's not correct to say sugar is metabolized by insulin, though. Cells in the pancreas detect increased blood sugar levels, which then leads to subsequent insulin release, which tells different kind of cells across the body to intake sugar and store energy in various ways. Those cells then may store sugar into fatty acids or glycogen, though it's been a while since I reviewed the biochemistry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it pretty interesting that there appears to be a sliding scale of relationship quality and loneliness as listed in the study itself. It appears that regardless of one's introvertedness or social-mindedness or similar, all studied humans benefit from a wealth of genuinely enriching relationships.

Although I'd like to see continued studies also if this extends to internet or long-distance relationships, and if they do not, the exact categorical/mathematical models of this disparity.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is especially true if you tend to have an insecure attachment style due to adverse childhood experiences (unstable home, toxic parenting, etc). Better to be securely attached to one person than weakly attached to 10, or even 100.

</comment><comment><USER11> Confirmation of the old Spanish proverb: "es mejor estar solo que mal acompañado." [https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/es%20mejor%20estar%20s...](https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/es%20mejor%20estar%20solo%20que%20mal%20acompa%C3%B1ado)

</comment><comment><USER12> Social media cultivates poor quality relationships, and distress causes many to spend more time on social media in seek of "connection".

It's the perfect feedback loop for "increasing engagement".

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems to me that the 'holy grail' is a few high quality relationships coupled with a medium-large sized pool of 'outer-layer' relationships. When a couple of high quality relationships end (for whatever reason, including death), there is a decent size pool to go back to. The medium-large sized pool also allows you to choose the ones that make sense to stick with and remove accordingly.

Most people find it hard to balance that, so they are likely better off to have a few high quality relationships without accounting for the outer layers

</comment><comment> reading-at-work These results confirm my anecdotal experience. I moved across the country recently, leaving behind all meaningful relationships except for my SO who I moved with. My mental health quickly took a nosedive. I don't connect with anyone at my new job on a deep level, and despite my efforts so far I have no close friends outside of work either.

At least now I know there's a study to confirm _why_ I've been so depressed lately. That counts for something I guess.

</comment><comment><USER14> I imagine this principle is solid up to a point of meeting a minimal set of connections. Did they happen to (try to) identify a safe minimum?

</comment><comment><USER15> I've experienced this problem myself, low-quality relationships, and having acquitted myself of them in my early 30s, now in my mid-30s while I barely interact with anyone outside of work, I have to say, its striking how little has changed between entertaining those relationships and just being by myself.

</comment><comment><USER16> What can be really crushing is a problematic or toxic family member. For example an alcoholic. It's very hard to keep distance from a family member.

I have experienced this myself for a few years and I know people whose lives are seriously disrupted by a toxic family member.

</comment><comment><USER17> Title lacks; Didn't read. How poor? How many too few? Is there anything we can learn from this study? I have my doubts...

<comment><USER18> > How poor? How many too few? Is there anything we can learn from this study? > I have my doubts...

The article may contain the information you require.

I'm curious as to the threshold you require as to that information, are you looking for an absolute minimum threshold of friends, and a succinct definition of a poor quality relationship in a title?

<comment><USER17> I guess. Without tresholds the claim can go either way.</comment></comment></comment>


Sound-can-leap-across-a-vacuum-after-all - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827804-600-sound-can-leap-across-a-vacuum-after-all/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.quora.com/How-does-sound-energy-travel-in- space-...](https://www.quora.com/How-does-sound-energy-travel-in-space-and- vacuums)

</comment><comment><USER2> The linked web page told me to pay in order to read the article.</comment>


FloatX: A C++ Library for Customized Floating-Point Arithmetic - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oprecomp/FloatX <comment><AUTHOR> Link to ACM library paper:

[https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3368086](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3368086)

</comment><comment><USER2> I have encountered many real world cases where I needed less precision/range than what float/double had available. But usually I found fixed point was a better solution than reduced precision floats. I wonder what applications are there that can deal with reduced precision but somehow still need the range you get with an exponent?

<comment><USER3> 16-bit floats with an 8-bit exponent and a 7+1 bit mantissa are popular for neural networks, because they have the same range as standard 32-bit floats while taking have the memory and memory bandwidth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bfloat16_floating- point_format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bfloat16_floating-point_format)

<comment><USER2> Interesting, although I believe most neural nets nowadays have moved to use linear (relu) activation, which again removes the need for exponent and would work really well with fixed point.

Here's a reference using 16-bit fixed point neural nets [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7011421/?part=1](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7011421/?part=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to boost::multiprecision?

[https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_72_0/libs/multiprecision/do...](https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_72_0/libs/multiprecision/doc/html/boost_multiprecision/tut/floats.html)

<comment><USER5> Ironically, the section labeled "What FloatX is NOT" tells you more about what it _is_ than what it _isn 't_.

Its a system for emulating narrower precision floating-point arithmetic using native machine-width floating point. The author's claim that its much faster than using the integer unit for this purpose.

Boost::multiprecision and MPFR are libraries to execute higher-precision arithmetic, commonly using the integer hardware to do so.

<comment><USER6> Emulating narrower using larger floating-point arithmetic can be dodgy, since you open yourself up to double rounding scenarios. For the IEEE 754 types (half, single, double, and quad), it is the case that the primitive operations (+, -, *, /, sqrt) are all correctly rounded if you emulated it by converting to the next size up, doing the math, and converting it down. For non-IEEE 754 types (such as bfloat16, or the x87 80-bit type), this is not the case, so double rounding is a possible concern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm trying to use 16 bit floats for matrix multiplication on x86-64. I found solutions for ARM and some NVIDIA GPUs but none for any X86-64 chips. Any pointers in this direction would be helpful.

<comment><USER8> Here is a little sample code I threw together, it shows the whole cycle, from conversion to half-floats to the conversion back to floats and performing a simple multiplication of the values:

[https://godbolt.org/z/FYu_rK](https://godbolt.org/z/FYu_rK)

Hope it helps.

<comment><USER7> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ha, very cool to see this here, I briefly worked with one of the authors in Zurich^ ^</comment>


Windows update lets you answer Android calls on a PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/windows-update-lets-you-answer-android-calls-on-a-pc/ <comment><USER2> Just in time to support Android-powered devices from Microsoft!</comment>


Americans Have Fewer Privacy Rights When Emailing People Overseas, Court Rules - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/12/07/americans-have-fewer-privacy-rights-when-emailing-people-overseas-court-rules/ <comment><USER2> This is why Microsoft v. US re: the Ireland email server litigation is the most fascinating case of the year. (i.e. [https://www.lawfareblog.com/microsoft-ireland-case-brief- sum...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/microsoft-ireland-case-brief-summary))

You avoid all of these issues if you just never let your emails touch American soil.</comment>


Badda Bing: Microsoft woos newspapers by funding their stick to beat Google - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/11/13/badda-bing-microsoft-woos-newspapers-by-funding-their-stick-to-beat-google/

<comment><USER2> This is yet more evidence that Microsoft still tragically misunderstands the web. How can they still be so far behind the curve? People don't search for news articles--they search for information (e.g. Wikipedia, local doctors, vendors, etc.) and for sites like Facebook (rather than typing out the URL). Colluding with a moribund print media industry will buy them nothing.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author seems not to understand that robots.txt _is_ granular, and that Google even honors the X-Robots 'header' version.

ACAP is pointless, or at least not the big deal improvement these guys want it to be.

<comment><USER4> If the author doesn't understand it, then the newspaper industry probably understands it even less. Understand this for what it is: a propaganda war, intended to appeal to those "left behind" by the march of the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Otherwise known as prolonging the death of an industry that refuses to innovate. How appropriate.

<comment><USER6> Alternately, I wonder if this move will hasten the newspaper's decline. If traditional newspapers/media remove themselves from the Google Index it creates a huge opportunity for new media outlets (huffingtonpost and other online verticals), smaller tier players, other intermediaries (bloggers and the like).

It's not like consumers are going to stop using Google for these types of searches overnight. And it's not like they won't continue to find great content (albeit not from "blue chip" outlets like WSJ, NYTimes, etc.). Combine that with the decline in relevance of traditional outlets wrt the younger generation (I imagine the same dynamic that makes Jon Stewart the most highly regarded news broadcaster in the U.S. also pertains to the < 30something regard for traditional media brands) and you have a pretty dismal outlook for old media made even more dismal by the outright ceding of their Google traffic (if it comes to pass).

But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. If you're a smaller, up-and-coming online media player though, you've got to be licking your chops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a huge mistake on Microsoft's part.

The newspaper industry in the US is in an accelerating, long-term decline. Circulation has been steeply dropping since about 1993. And ad revenue, a newspaper's primary source of revenue, has been dropping like a rock. It's already half of what it was only 5 years ago. Even if the current trends improve a bit, the newspaper industry will be somewhere around 10% to 3% its current size a decade from now. Though given the accelerating decline in ad revenue it's possible that this process could proceed much more rapidly.

Getting an exclusive right to content from a dying industry is the definition of a bad business move.

<comment><USER8> _Circulation has been steeply dropping_

Yes and no. 10 years ago, at best I'd buy and read one newspaper per day.

Now I probably visit 10 newspapers' websites per day to read various news.

While _physical_ circulation is down, overall exposure may not be.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but do you BUY 10 newspapers a day? Hardly. Circulation is a source of revenue (currently a larger source of revenue for papers than online ads). Moreover, buying a physical paper encourages someone to spend more time with it, to read it thoroughly and to have greater exposure to the ads. Even today print ads are more valuable, per eyeball, than online ads. When you visit those 10 newspaper sites a day, how many ads do you click? How many ads do you even read?

This is not to say that a paper couldn't survive with only online ad revenue, far from it. The key point is that the operations of those 10 newspapers whose sites you visit are no cheaper today than they were a decade ago. Most importantly, they are not cheap enough to be supported entirely by online ad revenue. And when you take away the print revenue and the circulation revenue, online ads are all that's left. You probably don't read the classified ads, the weather forecasts, the republications of identical national wire reports, or the beetle bailey cartoons at each and every one of those 10 newspapers. Yet each of those papers still puts out all of that material. And that costs money. It costs yet more money to arrange everything for a physical page and print tens or hundreds of thousands of physical copies of the paper every day.

Papers could survive if they changed, but they don't want to change. Because if they concentrated on just the tiny fraction of work that they do that isn't redundant or unnecessary in the online world they would be much smaller operations than they are today. Not only that, but, odd as it sounds, not reprinting beetle bailey and all that other crap would cause them to lose a lot of subscribers in the short-term, even though it might be healthier in the long-term. So papers haven't changed much even while their industry has been radically transformed by technology.

And most papers won't change much. It's questionable whether there exists a path between the way a given paper exists today and the sort of entity that could exist in the online world, it may be that it's easier to build something else from scratch.

This deal with Microsoft is yet one more example of newspapers trying to avoid inevitable changes to their ways of doing business.

<comment><USER8> _When you visit those 10 newspaper sites a day, how many ads do you click?_

And how many ads did I click on when I was reading the paper version of a newspaper or magazine?

[One of] The great downfall of newspapers is that now each action can be precisely measured. We know exactly what our instant return on investment is.

I was one who looked at our company's advertising budget, looked at the return (number of clicks), and said to cut it in half because we could put that money to better use somewhere else.

I know the pain because I had many meetings with editors and people selling ad space in magazines who were desperate to get our advertising budget, to the point where the editor would offer to let us guest write articles...

And then a good reason why I stopped reading those magazines in the first place is the poor quality of the articles. No wonder, if they are just repeats of press releases, I don't need to read that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm kind of embarrassed by the hackjob of an image attached to that article. Isn't TechCrunch supposed to be this kickass tech news outlet? That graphic is all the worst parts of "political cartoons," but without even a compelling illustration to go with it.

<comment><USER10> What? TC is supposed to be this kickass tech news outlet? Says who?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you could achieve one single thing in 2019, what would that be? - <AUTHOR> If you could achieve one single thing in 2019, what would that be? <comment><USER2> I want to get familiar with robotics</comment>


Google removes Samsung's first Android ad blocker from the Play Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/3/10905672/google-samsung-adblock-fast-android-ad-blocker-removal <comment><USER2> [https://f-droid.org/app/org.adaway](https://f-droid.org/app/org.adaway)

Works like a charm. Needs occasional root of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google allows pretty much anything, but no ad blockers? It's interesting reversal to have something available in the iOS App Store that's banned on Google Play.

<comment><USER4> Google is an advertising company and this is an attack on their business model.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: First in the second league or second in the first league - <AUTHOR>

Inspired by the recent discussion about benefits of moving to San Francisco. Someone commented that in many places you'll be the first (e.g. most skilled) in the office but after moving to SF you might easily find yourself to be just an average programmer.
It's interesting to hear different views on being in the top of the second league or to be just an average in the first league. What is more important for you (what would you prefer). I think both have their pluses and minuses.
Please don't misunderstand. I am not referring to SF or to the rest of the world as the first or the second league here. It was just an example. <comment><USER2> I've always felt that you grow and perform best when faced with stiff competition. If no one around you is challenging you it's probably time to move on for your own sake. Otherwise you become complacent and stagnate. Even if you push yourself, you probably won't be able to push yourself harder than others would.

So, while last place in the majors might not be as much fun as first place in the minors, it does provide the best opportunity for growth. Ultimately it probably depends on your own goals.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your innate potential is not enough. Good problems and good collaborators are necessary to becoming whatever you want to become. Given a choice between being a big fish in a little pond, and being surrounded by some of the smartest people in the world, I'll choose the latter every time.

It took me a while to figure that out. Don't waste years learning the same thing.</comment>


Linotype Typesetting (1960) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcp60z0E3ls <comment><USER2> That's from the Internet Archive, uploaded to YouTube with ads enabled. Internet Archive version, with slightly better audio: [1]

The Linotype is dates from 1885. The basic design didn't change much for 90 years. It wasn't the first typesetting machine, but it was much better than its predecessors, and nothing that came later was significantly better. Until typesetting became computerized.

A surprisingly small number of people designed the few mechanically complex machines that worked reliably. The Linotype was designed by one of the greats of mechanical design, Ottmar Mergenthaler.

Howard Krum designed the Teletype. People had been trying to build printing telegraphs for half a century, with limited success. Krum got it right, and the basic mechanism didn't change from 1926 to 1958. A Teletype decodes serial data entirely by mechanical means, and Krum figured out how to make that work reliably.

William Burroughs built the first good adding machine, in 1884. There had been adding and multiplying machines for over a century, but his had reliability. When you pulled the handle, you were putting energy into a spring, and the release of the spring, slowed by a dashpot, powered the mechanism consistently. Earlier machines could get wrong answers if operated too fast. He also came up with the mechanism which causes adding machines and calculators to jam rather than produce wrong answers as they wear out. There's a bail that drops into a slot in the number wheels at the end of a cycle. If the number wheels haven't made it to a valid position, as can happen with a worn-out machine, the slots and bail won't line up, the bail won't drop, and the machine locks up.

Henry Maudslay built the first good lathe in 1787. It's in the Kensington Science Museum in London, where I've seen it, and it looks like a lathe from the 20th century. He got the design and feature set right, and that basic design persisted for centuries.

Few people are really good at this. It takes not only 3D design ability, but insight into how to design so that machines wear well.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcp60z0E3ls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcp60z0E3ls)

<comment><USER3> Makes me wonder if we lost something with the transition to computers...

<comment><USER4> Ohhh yeah, we lost a lot of things: We lost all those noises that Teletype did that drove anyone crazy.

Without the Linotype we lost all the toxic fumes that killed people, and the accidents with molten lead being expelled and burning people.

We lost the exclusivity factor of only a few companies being able to spend the enormous price those things had and the many people that were needed to repair the machines, write, physically send and receive messages.

<comment><USER5> But we also have lost the ability for regular people to look at the machines they use every day and understand them purely by inspection, with no "black boxes". That's no small loss.

While we can now use computer controlled machines to cut materials at higher precision and into trickier shapes than ever before, mechanical knowledge and skill is in the hands of a smaller proportion of the population. There has been a significant erosion in the broader society's skill at physical/mechanical reasoning and invention.

We have amazingly precise calculators and displays but the elimination of slide rules and nomograms and physical measuring devices and drafting tools and the steady reduction of geometry in school curricula mean that geometric intuition and insight into the numerical relationships involved are on the retreat.

Instead of inventors, machinists, assembly workers, or repair technicians we are left with a society of salespeople and paper pushers, with the occasional computer programmer or statistician.

Even folks working in architecture, industrial design, mechanical engineering, or similar careers today spend most of their time sitting and staring at a screen.

<comment><USER6> Does this assertion really hold up?

While every day I use machines I can't easily inspect I also have access to a wealth of very easily accessible information about all manner of physical/mechanical things, plus the ability to order just about any tool material that can be dreamt of.

On a personal level, I'm about to embark on a very ambitious DIY project that I doubt I would have the confidence to undertake if I didn't have access to thousands of youtube tutorials and an internet's worth of material suppliers.

<comment><USER5> It's easier than ever before for someone enthusiastic to learn just about anything... and fewer people than ever bother. At least that's my impression.

Perhaps related to modern children's lack of free play [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey- par...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents- leave-those-kids-alone/358631/) and everyone's incredible amounts of phone time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to see the entire workflow as implemented by the New York Times there is a great documentary about it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU)

The documentary covers the last day that the NYT used a metal/linotype press and talks through the entire process that happened from newsroom to printing. It is a truly interesting way to spend 28 minutes.

<comment><USER8> A newspaper printing press at full speed is really something to behold. Something I did as a morning paper boy.

Such a noise! Wait till it speeds up... [https://youtu.be/G8cCS3o62iI?t=887](https://youtu.be/G8cCS3o62iI?t=887)

Note the lack of safety measures and ear protection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Incredible method of doing full line justification of text:

[https://youtu.be/jcp60z0E3ls?t=17m0s](https://youtu.be/jcp60z0E3ls?t=17m0s)

The machine as a whole really strikes me as akin to complex computer system engineering.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wish my printer had a vat of molten lead in it.

On a more serious note, I think a lot of people today have a hard time believing that specialized machines as complex as this were ever built. It's like looking at one of those pocket mechanical calculators.

<comment> 52-6F-62 If you're still in Toronto, pay a visit to Coach House Books: [https://chbooks.com/](https://chbooks.com/) / Loc: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-79.4025577,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x882b34bdca39db4b:0x5d5cc907ad6c7c08!8m2!3d43.666286!4d-79.400369?hl=en)

I'm not sure how they feel about drop ins these days, but they usually take part in the Open Doors Toronto days.

They still have an operational Linotype, or at least they did 8-10 years ago. I don't know if old Stan Bevington is still involved much. They used to show guests how to operate it. That and an old fly-wheel platen press.

edit: It looks like they've opened a bookstore there now. They also used to do a fall and spring launch. The fall launch they'd host at the shop and serve beer. The spring launch used to be held at a venue of some kind. Not sure about it anymore -- it's been a while.

<comment><USER11> Beer, machinery, and molten metal! I'm not even kidding when I say that is right up my alley.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Keep an eye out for their fall launch. They let you run the Challenge Gordon platen press to make a print. They don't let you set any type because it would be pretty time-consuming, but they do let you get close and personal with a case of lead type and a composing stick.

I think they ran the linotype when I was last there, made a row of type, or let you do it, and then tossed it back into the molten lead again.

Just make sure to catch up on some of the poets or authors they've published. You won't have to go far. Then again, IIRC Stan was not as much the literary type as he was the technical-mind. He's the founding master-printer. You can usually find him in some pub around the annex drinking too much Guinness.

<comment><USER11> I have Canadian citizenship, so I may just have to check it out. I've only been to Toronto a few times. It'd be a fine excuse to go back. My other excuse is watching the Jays play.

Thanks! I'll look into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> RIYL this: there's a surprisingly good documentary about the history of Linotype: [http://www.linotypefilm.com/](http://www.linotypefilm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> FYI, you can see an actual linotype in operation in the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Fantastic machine.

([http://www.thebmi.org/exhibitions-collections/permanent- exhi...](http://www.thebmi.org/exhibitions-collections/permanent- exhibitions/))

</comment><comment><USER14> I grew up inside a small print shop of my parents where we got to have 3 linotypes. I never learned to work on a linotype, but at certain time, my job was to melt lead lines to be reused as bars.

</comment><comment><USER15> I just lost an hour. Thanks that was really interesting. The New York Times video in the thread was exactly what I was wondering about. How the switch happened.

</comment><comment><USER16> A great post indeed—this is what Youtube is excellent for! I especially enjoyed how justification was accomplished using wedge-shaped spacers.

<comment><USER11> I agree, YouTube is great for this stuff. I watch documentaries, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

So, I am almost sorry for this...

[https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsETq9h35dgQq8...](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsETq9h35dgQq80Ryx- beOli)

You weren't doing anything better.

<comment><USER16> I'm already subscribed ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you want to learn more about this, "Graphic Means" [0] is an excellent documentary about pre-digital graphic design production that also covers the Linotype era.

[0] [http://www.graphicmeans.com/](http://www.graphicmeans.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> The teletypesetter, driving the keyboard with a paper tape, at the end was the icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER19> This was great. Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER20> As mentioned in the video, the teletype add-on described at the end replays tapes at 20,000 words per hour, or 333wpm for a more familiar unit.

I adore the way the mattresses include rail-readable metadata for being sorted again :)

</comment><comment><USER21> The old Washington Post building on 15th St. NW used to have a Linotype in a window by the front door.

HN might also be interested in the Monotype, which made an early use of paper tape.

</comment><comment><USER22> Great video; thanks for sharing!</comment>


"Amazon's Choice" is determined by an algorithm and not always reliable - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazons-choice-bad-products <comment><USER2> I was actually surprised when I learned this. The biggest complaint about Amazon had been a lack of curation and all that entails -- foot long brooms that photograph well, brands you've never heard of, cheap things that break quickly, counterfeits, etc. It feels like an online dollar store, even when you're spending thousands.

It doesn't take that much effort to have a human in the loop to pick something for the top thousand or so product categories, and naively that's what I expected when I saw the "Amazon's Choice" seal of approval on these things.

<comment><USER3> > cheap things that break quickly, counterfeits, etc.

Yes I have seen my fair share of cheap shoddily made things as part of 'Amazon's Choice'. I quickly scroll past them when browsing. There is this myth going around that because it is made in China that it is well made and not shoddy workmanship; yet I once bought several items all from China and one of the items literally exploded and nearly caused a fire (The product was a shoddily made Lithium Ion rechargeable battery). I quickly complained about this after that incident, but as expected - I got no reply and I assume the seller doesn't even speak English as it was some tacky online storefront where the seller liked to describe all their products in broken English.

The other product I bought was a bluetooth speaker (again from China) and the battery in it never held charge. Had to keep charging it every 30mins, even though it was claimed on the item page that it holds power for 6 hours. I would nearly swear the item was second-hand and somebody knackered/exhausted the battery before refurbishing it and selling it as new. People need to consistently debunk the myth that because an item is made in a certain area that it is made well and with decent workmanship. Take for example the current myth that items made in Germany[0] are of better quality than other countries.

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

<comment><USER4> It's a myth insofar as there is no direct causation. A high quality product can be manufactured in China, and a low quality product can be manufactured in Germany. However, what isn't a myth is that products manufactured in China are generally of lower quality than those manufactured in first world nations like Germany.

It's perfectly acceptable to use the nation of manufacture as a heuristic in predicting the likely quality of a product.

<comment><USER5> > nation of manufacture

Barely anything sold on Amazon is _not_ made in China.

What I use to determine what to expect from a product is the quality of the documentation, which is almost always pretty bad (but sometimes better than on Ebay or Aliexpress).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised. I've always thought that "Amazon's Choice" was paid advertisement and have avoided these suggestions. When I buy something on Amazon, I usually take reviews from elsewhere into account or click on the most negative Amazon reviews to check whether there is a particular problem with the product.

It seems hard to believe that many customers take into account some label that looks like paid advertisement.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious why you think it looks like an ad?

You should also consider that the average Amazon user is not the average HN user. Even if it was a paid ad, any sort of endorsement from Amazon would certainly "fool" all the middle aged parents out there who can't be arsed to do extensive research on third party reviews.

<comment><USER8> Generally: promotion has value.

Specifically: Amazon aggressively sells everything else. Why would they not sell promotional placement?

<comment><USER9> Amazon is typically quite clear about what's a purchased advertisement and what isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought it was pretty obvious that it was generated automatically based on how much it depends on the exact keywords you search for.

I think that given a certain set of products, the algorithm actually seems to do a pretty good job of making a recommendation for the best product out of the set based on the ratings or whatever it looks at, but the bigger problem is that if you aren't searching for exactly the right keywords the choice of the best product becomes completely meaningless, and blindly tacking on the "amazon's choice" recommendation obscures the fact that your search is too narrow to provide a meaningful recommendation in the first place. (I'm sure there is some filtering based on ratings but because of how common fake reviews are, if you're looking at niche products they'll almost all have fairly high ratings anyway.)

It's probably better to not provide a recommendation than to recommend a bad product, so maybe they should try to narrow it down to more common categories.

<comment><USER11> I always thought the same- it was based on an algorithm that took into account review score and number purchased.

It seems to get things right most of the time, but I always look at others and compare to be sure. Sometimes I don't get the Amazon's Choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not just that oh, Amazon's Choice is algorithmically picked from recommendations. It's that seemingly more often than not, it's a truly inferior choice to an option next to it in the displayed matrix.

<comment><USER13> It's usually the cheapest option that's ok in my experience, which is probably what most people are looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Americas Test Kitchen saves me when buying things for the kitchen. Is there any equivalent for yard equipment and tools?

<comment><USER15> Wirecutter has a section:

[https://thewirecutter.com/home- garden/gardening/](https://thewirecutter.com/home-garden/gardening/)

<comment><USER16> wirecutter is not at all reliable anymore. Nearly all their picks get massive complaints in the comments and do not stand up to fakespot/reviewmeta. I know comments are not really a reliable indicator, people will always complain, but I used the site from the start and there has been a distinct shift once they were bought out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Are there any browser extensions that stick _actual_ third-party human- determined best-choice labels on things in the Amazon store? Maybe one for Wirecutter recommendations, or Consumer Reports? Maybe a meta extension that aggregates all those recs where you can turn the rec-sources you like on and off in the extension?)

(It'd be nice if Amazon themselves gave you the ability to subscribe to a given reviewer-user's opinions and have them show up as labels on your search results—but new features like this popping up on the Amazon store seem pretty unlikely, somehow. Has the Amazon store stagnated?)

<comment><USER18> Amazon has been including "editorial reviews" on certain searches. See [https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-partners-with-the- wirec...](https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-partners-with-the-wirecutter- to-feature-third-party-reviews-on-travel-gear/) and [https://www.channeladvisor.com/blog/marketplaces/icymi- amazo...](https://www.channeladvisor.com/blog/marketplaces/icymi-amazon- expert-recommendations-what-this-new-feature-means-and-what-to-do-about-it/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fraud aside, seems like a more clear choice of terms to label these "Customer's Choice" if the label is based on higher ratings and fewer returns etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> Initially I thought Amazon Choice meant it was their own product, and figured that they'd want some minimal quality standards associated with their name.

Now that I know that it was an algorithm, I think that years ago it may have indicated quality products, but as the review system and other aspects are thoroughly hacked/gamed, it does the opposite. I've been purposely scrolling past Amazon Choice items for a while now

Actually, I think I am going to drop Amazon Prime. Only money is going to convince Amazon to right their ship.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ah. More "revelations" from Buzzfeed "news".

<comment><USER22> If you are puzzled by the downvotes, it is because you apparently have overlooked that a few years ago, Buzzfeed hired a bunch of real journalists and spun off BuzzFeed News as a separate, legitimate news organization, which has gone on to win several awards for its reporting (National Magazine Award in the category of Public Interest, two National Press Foundation awards, a Sidney Award, a British Journalism Award, and a George Polk award), and were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting twice, and for the Online Journalism Award twice, and once for the Goldsmith Prize of Investigation Reporting.

<comment><USER23> I didn't interpret the comment quite as you did.

Rather, I assumed it was being (rightly) critical that Buzzfeed news spent such a lot of words and effort on a topic that wasn't especially newsworthy. In particular, it was a frustrating read, being padded out by too many examples and testimonials, when the real meat of the article could have been summed up in a sentence: _" Amazon Choice recommendations are algorithmic and not very reliable."_

(It seems to be trying to tap into the zeitgeist of looking for a critical angle in everything that Amazon does. Which is weak and clickbait-y.)

Honestly, it's a bad (or good?) example of what the internet has made "journalism" into - and I put journalism in quotes here not because I'm knocking Buzzfeed news as being able to sometimes produce good journalism, but because this isn't one of those times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Water is wet.

<comment><USER25> Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Google I'm Lucky" is determined by an algorithm and not always reliable. That by itself isn't news since it doesn't describe how severe the problem is. I've had that the first hit on Dutch Google for locksmith was a scam. That _also_ doesn't describe how severe the problem is.

A good argument about this problem contains a careful analysis (probably involves some kind of reliable algorithm _runs_ ).

As for the lockpicking. The general locks available and in use are mostly security through obscurity these days. Knowledge about how to pick them (or by using a pickgun or '999' key + 'tomahawk') is abundantly available. These locks are meant to slow an attacker down, not stop them. They're a terrible security measure if they're the only layer of defense.</comment>


Show HN: Remote JavaScript, HTML and CSS debugging console for mobile devices - <AUTHOR> http://farjs.com <comment><USER2> This looks interesting, will give it try for my upcoming website.</comment>


Hawaiian emergency worker who sent the wrong message is reassigned - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hawaiian-emergency-worker-who-pushed-wrong-button-reassigned-n837776 <comment> java-man What should have happened is HI reassigning the manager of the said worker, and the manager who signed off the design of the said screen, and their respective managers.

Finding scapegoats is easy. Fixing the problem with hierarchical bureaucracies is not.</comment>


OBike Refund in Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia - <AUTHOR> https://obikerefund.livejournal.com/341.html <comment><USER2> I think it's becoming clear that (a) bike sharing is good to have in a city. People want it. (b) neither an all public or an all private system can work as well as we'd like it to.

The "all public" system means a municipality contracts a single vendor (or owns it) to build all the stations and manage everything. This is what we have where I live, dublin. It's a stagnant system. They don't add stations. Problems with stations being full/empty at certain times of the day persist indefinitely. Basically, you can feel the lack of competition.

The all private system (like they have in China) is more innovative. They use technology better. You can feel the existence of competition. It's more scalable with bikes, rides and users increasing all the time.

But... It makes a mess. Bikes everywhere. Companies can go bust, can chase market cap & investment. Mostly, bikes end up abandoned all over the place.

This is fixable, for a local municipality that's willing to get clever and design a market. Create infrastructure, mostly it's the stations or the ability to rent space for them. Make rules, but not too many. Let competition happen within parameters.

<comment><USER3> OBike dumped some 800 bikes in Zurich without asking, or telling creating a huge mess.

The problem with those bikes, apart from the fact that they look atrociously is that the quality is so bad to make them borderline unusable.

I have hardly seen them in use, but there are a lot of those bikes lying around broken. There is no customer service, whatsoever and no point of contact. Aparently the manager they put in place for Switzerland left some month ago.

Add to all this that according to C'T they are a massive privacy violator with all the data they suck about their renters.

Lime Bike seems to fare a bit better, alas the bikes are of better quality.

According to press reports they should be collected and removed. Reading about the shenanigans of that company probably at the tax payers dime.

With that method, dump a shitton of crap bikes on a city and let them fend for themselves, OBike created a hellishly hostile territory for the dockless bike sharing concept.

<comment><USER4> Lots of reasons to dump on oBike. Their recent 'coin' public funding scheme was a fraud apparently - the money disappeared, investors are feeling cheated. Unsurprised to hear they polluted a river with the junk bikes, seems like a pattern.

<comment><USER5> I asked as a comment to original post already [1], how are the ICOs and oBike directly connected? I didn't really understand that :/

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17440730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17440730)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OBike is also pulling all 600 bikes out of Zürich, Switzerland but there was no reason given, just that OBike will pay for the removal. [1]

[1] [https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/veloverleih-in-zuerich-o-bike- zie...](https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/veloverleih-in-zuerich-o-bike-zieht-sich- zurueck-publibike-waechst-ld.1396483)

<comment><USER3> Given their overall behavior I believe it when I see it that they'll pay for the removal.

To me they seem like a totally dodgy company (which is consistent with the blog post).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who is not familiar with oBike or the situation, could someone clue me in as to what happened?

My guess is that the company signed up a bunch of people, took a sizeable deposit from all of them, and then cut and run? Where does the ICO (or ICOs) come into the picture?

<comment><USER8> Bike sharing company in Singapore. Initially collected a S$49 to use its service. With the deposit paid you were entitled to rent their bikes at S$0.5/15min.

Bike were almost everywhere. Initially they had lots of free ride promotions.

A few days ago, they claimed that they ceased operations due to newly imposed government restrictions. (To prevent bikes from lying/standing around just about everywhere and have them be rented/returned at designated parking areas)

A while ago I think they dropped the deposit requirement, as other competitors did not have the deposit requirement. You could ask for your deposit to be returned. This would take up to 30days, but apparently took much longer, according to some comments on Facebook.

They also offered a VIP subscription for 3years or so for S$49, which would entitle you to a certain amount of free rides per month, I think.

All in all, I don't know how I feel about my deposit. I'm pretty sure it's gone. On the other hand I've used the bikes a few times with all the "free"/promotional rides, without giving them any additional money. After all I got some value for the S$49. Did I ride for 25hs in total? I doubt it.

I guess the ICO stuff is just trying to draw a parallel defrauding scheme?

<comment><USER9> S$49 is I guess not that big a loss for a bicycle, buying one yourself is probably more expensive.

What happens to the bikes then? I can imagine they're being stored left and right now.

<comment><USER10> I haven't tried oBike as I am already customer of two other bike rental schemes in my town (Munich) but from what I see when looking at those and from reports they are really bad in quality and comfort.

As an example here a (German) video comparing oBike and a "normal" bike rolling down a small hill: [https://youtu.be/9bTnwJc5gzc](https://youtu.be/9bTnwJc5gzc)

There are probably better ways to spend those bucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In kuala lumpur I was able to ride one of these. The experience to open one of them was easy. No card required. The bike app still showed 0min after 2 hours of biking. No deposit required.

The problem come when I wanted to lock the bike and finish the trip. It wouldn't allow me to lock the bike. The app didn't recognize the parking location and alerted to bring the bike to a one.

I ended up putting it somewhere on the streets unlocked. Anyone could have made use of it.

</comment><comment><USER12> In Australia, oBikes were often thrown in to trees and rivers. They've left Melbourne. [0]

[0] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/obike-dockless- bicycle...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/obike-dockless-bicycle- scheme-to-leave-melbourne/9860314)

<comment><USER13> Our building in Vienna Austria became a dump for those bikes. They keep putting there on our bike stands but the bikes there are so broken that nobody uses them.

<comment><USER14> We have a bike sharing system in my city, but one must always return the bike to an automated bike rental station where the bike is locked. This is how it works in London as well AFAIK. A bike left just somewhere is a violation of the service terms and a penalty comparable to the fine for riding public transport without a ticket is charged from your credit card.

I can understand why bike rental system without proper stations where the bikes are stored would be considered corporate littering.

<comment><USER13> Vienna has docked bikes as well but almost entitely in the inner districts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've seen these bikes in some crazy places. There seems to be a minority of people who take joy in leaving them in not so easy to reach places.

2 examples I've seen.

\- In the middle of a forest with at least 2KM of trail before the bike could be reached.

\- Inside a secure defence facility.

<comment><USER16> > Inside a secure defence facility.

In theory, identifying who left it there should be feasible.

That may mean asking the defence facility people nicely (letters and bureaucracy, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some context, here is a reply of the accused / singled out person on their Twitter account:

> Some fake news circulating around lately, to clarify: 1. I'm a shareholder > of oBike, owning 23.58% stake, my title has always been Founding > Investor&Chairman in that company 2. Avazu was founded by me sorely, my > grandparents are 80+ and can't even handle computers

> 3\. oBike Singapore has been shut down due to economics, the decision was > made among all shareholders, no need to generalize/personalize 4. oBike has > no intention or need to run away with deposit, instead the company is > proactively looking for a solution with the related parties

> 5\. I'm an investor and shareholder in 100+ startups and companies globally, > I'm also the direct founder of DotC United Group, some of these ventures > cooperate with other block chain companies, that doesn't mean all these > companies belong to me.

[https://twitter.com/yishi888/status/1013667238191067136](https://twitter.com/yishi888/status/1013667238191067136)

<comment><USER17> We will know when the deposits are returned back. Let's see if the company run away again legally with people's deposit. Given people waiting for deposit return, it's a clear sign of fraud. Removing the deposit option from mobile app is a direct indication of that intention. Crypto currency is not protected investment, but the financial deposit taken in fiat currency should be, not sure if Singapore govt will protect the poor depositors who may loose their money and this guy will still continue to keep raking in money with Ponzi crypto schemes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It appears [0] that the deposit is "up to" $49 Singaporean Dollars or about $35 US Dollars

[0]: [https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/obike- working...](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/obike-working-to- refund-deposits-collect-remaining-bicycles-10488270)

<comment><USER19> It was SGD19 for students or SGD49 for anyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe it's time for a raw materials recycling startup. Cruise around the city with a van, pick up bikes, and sell them for scrap.

<comment><USER21> This is how cities handle abandoned vehicles (sort of). While bikes don't have us much recyclable material in them, they don't cost as much to pick up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It looks like there is only a couple million $$ of paid up share capital in the paper trail. How did they finance purchase of so many oBikes?

<comment><USER23> There's a screenshot showing bikes selling for $199 RMB ($30USD) in China. With a $49SGD ($36USD) deposit they could afford to buy one for every user and still have cash left over.

<comment><USER22> I'm aware that they're low cost, they're everywhere in sydney. I guess I just am trying to look at the unit economics and reverse engineer the business fundamentals. The bikes came before the users, and i guess even with a couple thousand (probably high end numbers now I think about it) bikes in sydney, Melbourne and then 10s is thousands (if that) in Singapore they could do it with a small capital base, especially with almost no support on the labour side.

Then again they ended up having to spend a lot of money in Melbourne cleaning them up which would have buggered their modelling.

Bottom line of my comment above: the bikes has to come first with a reasonable lead time before the deposit. I see now that they could have borrowed against it as well but it doesn't look like they had large inflows of PE or VC money?

<comment><USER16> > I'm aware that they're low cost, they're everywhere in sydney. I guess I > just am trying to look at the unit economics and reverse engineer the > business fundamentals.

It's also possible they overestimated the real world demand for using these bikes as well. From the article, it sounds like the main people involved are from cities with a very significant bicycle using populace.

They may have thought they'd be introducing that culture elsewhere, and be on the "ground floor" (pun intended). ;)

That they went with bikes so crap that no one wants to use them, sounds like very poor research / product planning. :/

Subsequent reported problems all seem to stem from that.

That's not taking the shonky sounds bits into account though, which may have become their plan B. Or been the real plan all along, of course. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the connection between oBike and the ICOs (besides Yi Shi beeing involved in both)?

</comment><comment><USER24> Until these companies work out how to manage the squishy bit that sits on them, the issues are only going to escalate - glorified litter the way some users leave them.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Only in August 2017 had oBike pulled off one of the largest series B rounds on record in Southeast Asia to raise US$45 million from a venture capital firm linked to a co-founder of Russia's Mail.Ru Group a mysterious "leading global transportation platform" and several unnamed family offices in Southeast Asia. "

1\. I bet they got payed off, or they got their money laundered in some other way?

2\. So many Chinese companies seem to go out of their way to be fraudulent; I don't have much sympathy for investors anymore.

3\. There used to be Investment Guys out there trying to expose shady Chinese companies, companies like NQ mobile, but I just don't hear much from them. I guess they figure if you invest with shady entities, don't expect your money back?

4\. I love the back stories on these boy geniuses. Just lie until you thrive?

</comment><comment><USER26> obike shut down? I remember they were all over Amsterdam last year

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure it's not legal to shut down one subsidary and not return the deposits if the rest of the company continues operating.

<comment><USER27> In general, aren't the stock owners (the parent companies) non-liable for the operations of the limited-liability corporation (the subsidiary)?

<comment><USER13> Most countries have a form of "Piercing the corporate veil" so that companies cannot just make subsidaries default nilly willy without any repercussions. And that even assumes that obike Singapore declared bankruptcy. In central Europe for sure you cannot even use deposits to satisfy creditors unless the deposit was made after the moment of insolvency.

I have never heard deposits not being paid back if a company ceases operation by leaving a market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just got back from Portland Oregon and used biketownpdx.com several times, it was fine. The only issue was that the bikes were heavy. $20/mo for daily usage was great.</comment>


Elon Musk Isn't Religious Enough to Colonize Mars - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/10/elon-musk-isnt-religious-enough-to-colonize-mars/ <comment><USER2> This article is a great example how religions try to infiltrate new tech. The argument is completely nonsensical.

<comment><USER3> Agree.

From the article:

> _That means asking and answering initially awkward questions, like, would we > be best off if our first Martian colonists were religious observers?_

I propose to send to Mars only people that has a different religion than the author. Is that still a good idea for him?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole enterprise of space exploration has deep roots in religion, specifically the lunar missions where apparently landing man on the moon was expressing Christendom.

If "keeping the light of human consciousness on" as suggested by Musk is not religious, well it does sound very religious.

<comment><USER2> Bullshit. The lunar missions were the result of the space race with USSR.</comment></comment>


MOG CEO David Hyman Responds To imeem's Dalton Caldwell - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/21/music-startups-can-work-mog-ceo-david-hyman-responds-to-imeem%E2%80%99s-dalton-caldwell/ <comment><USER2> Actually Dalton was careful to qualify what he said. He never said music startups were impossible. His message was that, given the uniquely horrible obstacles in this domain, you'd be stupid to start a music startup when you could instead start one in some other domain where the obstacles were merely the obstacles all startups face.

Everything we've seen confirms what Dalton said. If we published anti-rfses, this would be the first. Avoid starting startups that handle label music.

<comment><USER3> On one hand you have a huge market, ripe for disruption, with high barriers to entry. Seems perfect for a startup.

On the other hand, you have these enormous obstacles: upfront payments, minimum revenue guarantees, arcane and complicated reporting and security requirements, and strange nuances and differences in costs based on how you are using the music. It's a major pain in the ass.

All of this takes time away from building something people want. If you are lucky enough to find your product-market fit, the barrier to entry will keep competitors away and you'll have a huge head-start.

<comment><USER4> I think the big issue is that it _isn't_ that big a market. When you factor in the COGS of label music, the market size relative to available profit is actually fairly small no matter what barriers you build.

To Dalton's point there are other interesting markets with barriers. For instance Scrapbooking is a $3B market, 1/3 the size of the music industry by revenue, with 2 tech players. One tech product in Scrapbooking generates $300MM in revenue and faces almost no competition. Arts & Crafts is a $32B industry. Toys is ~$30B, Jewelry is $60B, the list goes on, but there are SO many big markets that are ready for technical disruption that are ignored because they aren't very sexy.

<comment><USER5> YES, THANK YOU.

One of my personal goals for doing the talk is to get people thinking that way. I wish someone would had gotten me thinking that way years ago.

I wanted to put a quote from Aaron Patzer in my talk, but didnt have enough time.

Here is the quote: "For other entrepreneurs aspiring to such an exit Patzer advises solving a real problem. "When I founded Mint there were a ton of startups in the social networking space, and in streaming music," he says. "I found something that was a real problem for me and I knew for millions of others, and I solved it."

<comment><USER4> Totally agree, I made a presentation called "Web 3.D" which basically talked about how lucrative opportunities existed in areas where web service overlapped with physical goods. If you start at slide 35 in this presentation, I made a visual comparison of industry size vs. number of market entrants. Music, a shrinking $9B industry has hundreds of startups. Jewelry, a $60B industry has 2. There are some good reasons for this, but the industries are imbalanced.

[http://www.slideshare.net/josephflaherty/web-3d-presentation...](http://www.slideshare.net/josephflaherty/web-3d-presentation?from=ss_embed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've also been told countless times _not_ to deal with music startups. While I do agree that building a business that tries to prop up the record label's business model is bad, I think there is lots of potential in the space given the supposed decline of the record labels and the huge and rising popularity of music.</comment>


Robotics Could Wipe Out 5.1M Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://insights.dice.com/2016/01/21/robotics-could-wipe-out-5-1-million-jobs/ <comment><USER2> Overly paranoid... I believe the person who could make robots able to wipe out 5.1M jobs is the one that creates 10M new jobs.</comment>