Use a Fake Location for Cheap Airfare - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/use-a-fake-location-for-cheap-airfare-2014-6 <comment><USER2> Brazil's major airline, TAM, has a nice little trick of their own to fend off the OP's advice.

Even if you use TAM's Brazilian portal where you have to navigate in Portuguese, and even if you use it from within Brazil, you won't get the Brazilian price. As a foreigner, you'll have to pay up to 50% more.

What's their little trick? They demand that you enter your CPF number, a Brazilian national identity number, to buy from the Brazilian portal for exactly the same ticket. And you can't make one up, or use the CPF number of a Brazilian friend, because they query a government database to verify that the CPF number matches the purchaser's name.

It's discussed in more detail here:

[http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Booking_a_domestic_fl...](http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Booking_a_domestic_flight_within_Brazil)

The CPF number, by the way, is absolutely _not_ a government requirement. Anyone can buy a ticket at a travel agency in Brazil or at the airport without a CPF number. This is either the height of incompetent website design by TAM, or more likely, their price discrimination technique to charge more from foreigners.

<comment><USER3> Back in 2002, in Argentina, I had a similar problem (I was living in Brazil at the time). I purchased flight online in Spanish while in Buenos Aires and got a great price relative to the price quoted on the English version. However, when I went to pick up the ticket, I was told that I was given the wrong price and that the price I paid was only for Argentine nationals. They basically wouldn't let me get my ticket unless I paid the original price.

I don't remember the exact figures but it was something like $60 for Argentinians and $200 for foreigners.

<comment><USER4> Well, at least they were being upfront about it...

<comment><USER3> After I bought my ticket. There was nothing on the site that said "This price is for Argentine nationals only". I was absolutely livid when I was in the office where I had to pick up the ticket. IIRC I told them that they deserved the banking crisis meltdown for commerce shenanigans like the one they were pulling (this was about one year after those events).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > For reasons I never quite understood, every time I tried to book a domestic > flight in another country, the prices were always exorbitant.

...

> But, say, once I was in Bangkok, that same flight that was once $300 would > fall to $30 almost inexplicably. This phenomenon is because a ticket's > point-of-sale—the place where a retail transaction is completed—can affect > the price of any flight with an international component.

The reasons are pretty easy to understand. When you try to book an in-country flight in Thailand from the United States or Europe, they infer that you are someone who will soon be traveling on an expensive international flight to Thailand. They infer that you will accept $300 for an in-country flight rather than say "screw this, I'll take the train or bus", because (1) you can afford international travel so $300 probably isn't a big deal to you, and (2) there's a good chance you are on a business trip and need that domestic flight to keep things on schedule.

When you try to book an in-country flight from within Thailand, those inferences do not work.

At some point, they'll get clever and look at your IP address when you make an online booking, and even if you are booking in-country they will give you the $300 rate if you are connected through a hotel that is popular with international travelers.

<comment><USER6> This does not only go for airline tickets, it's very common in all transactions. Just need to go to the console market and compare the game prices between market. They extract whatever they think the customer is able to pay.

There are people buying diapers and filling trucks with them going from one country to another because of the large price difference between the countries.

<comment><USER7> People do this in America with tobacco cigarettes. In Missouri, the taxes are low so the price per pack spread can be pretty high when compared to NY state, so people illegally sell Missouri cigs to NY stores to avoid the high taxes.

[http://nypost.com/2014/07/14/state-confiscating-thousands- of...](http://nypost.com/2014/07/14/state-confiscating-thousands-of-illegal- cigarettes/)

tl;dr - Missouri $ .17 tax per pack, NY $4.35 (+$1.50 NYC) per pack.

<comment><USER8> I do the same thing, but with booze. The Idaho border is 15 minutes away, and the amount you save (at least, if you drink as much as I do) is well worth the time spent getting there and back.

Or if you're in my area and need cigarettes, you drive to the nearest reservation and buy them tax free (which like you point out, makes a huge difference). This one is a little bit more of a legal gray area, but that never stopped anyone.

<comment><USER9> This is also very common of people in Massachusetts who live near the NH border. The state run NH liquor stores are significantly cheaper than in MA. They also conveniently place their stores all along the border on major highways. It's less that an hour drive from Boston.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a repost by Business Insider: it would be kinder to point to the original article at [http://maphappy.org/2014/06/use-point-of-sale-to-get- cheaper...](http://maphappy.org/2014/06/use-point-of-sale-to-get-cheaper- international-tickets/)

<comment><USER11> So meta of me to find this on Hacker News! I run Map Happy, and yeah, we have a syndication relationship with BI. Thanks for being so kind to link back to the original piece... though it would have been nice to see our site headlined instead of the BI piece. :)

Obviously, there are a lot of strategic PR rationales behind it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You'd want to be careful that you're viewing the same price package when doing this. For example, when displaying a ticket price in Australia, it must be an all-inclusive price - including all airport fees, surcharges, and everything else. Viewing the same ticket from, say, Japan, it might appear cheaper but it doesn't have those same inclusions, and when you add them all back in it comes out pretty similar.

That said, I always buy my air asia flights in malaysian ringgits - it's always cheaper than AUD.

<comment><USER13> One reason why Air Asia is cheaper in MYR is because it's a Malaysian company, so they don't take foreign exchange risk nor pay bank fees when selling to you in ringgit.

For even more fun, try buying KTM (Malaysian rail) tickets in MYR vs. e.g. SGD. They will charge you the same numeric price, ignoring the exchange rate of about 2.5:1. This works much the same as the airlines pricing by sales region.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are two basic causes of this, and they apply to a lot more than just airfare:

1\. Price discrimination based on market segmentation. As others have described, the consumer behavior of an international traveler is that they are willing to pay more, so why not charge them?

2\. Badly set foreign exchange rates. Companies that sell internationally will use an exchange rate internally when setting prices in a foreign currency that are typically _very_ beneficial to themselves. Sometimes this represents the inherent risk in doing business in a foreign currency. Other times, it is used as a dumping tactic so they can claim they set their prices by simple conversion (Strauss Israel, for example, uses an internal rate of 4.8, which the shekel has never reached in all of history).

The former is the reason why flights in Brazil, Thailand are expensive when purchasing abroad. The latter is the reason why Malaysian or Colombian flights are expensive. Better advice is to simply know that most credit cards (both US and european) automatically convert charges, and you'll get a much better rate (typically 1-2% commission on the forex rate of the bill date) by finding a way to make the purchase in the foreign currency, rather than USD or EUR.

EDIT: because I can't spell properly.

<comment><USER11> I find that most of the credit card issuers don't automatically convert to USD -- this usually happens more on the merchant end. The problem is that you don't know if the online merchant is doing this or not... it's a lot easier, say, if you're sitting down at a restaurant and find it happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am amused by the level of intelligence the author expects of their readership.

Personally, I would have thought that people who browse Business Insider to have at least a basic grasp of currency conversion, rather than being introduced to a price in Colombian pesos as a mysterious concept that apparently is _" a lot of mumbo jumbo to most people"_.

<comment><USER16> Yeah if you could have told me the USD conversion of 116,280 COP I would be surprised...

<comment><USER15> Really? If a high school student couldn't, they'd fail basic mathematics. Of course you'd have to look up the current exchange rate, but that goes for all currency conversion. Having to look up an exchange rate is part of the process of currency conversion.

<comment><USER17> I think GP meant off the top of your head knowing the current-day conversion rate, which would be impressive; not simply doing the calculation which is certainly trivial, by what grade level, 3rd?

<comment><USER15> Well, yes, but given they change, if you are doing currency conversion you have to look it up anyway. Always knowing the currency rate for all currencies without looking it up would be impressive, if only because nobody can do that.

<comment><USER11> Just wanted to point out -- since I actually wrote that original article -- is that I wrote it for a general audience. We have existing relationships with a lot of media partners like BI so sometimes I write for their audience in mind to cull traffic back to the site, which has a way more niche audience (but I still like to make it as accessible as possible to the general public). Depending on where I'm trying to garner press from, I'll write with different audiences in mind. (...if anyone's interested in the business/media/pr aspect of it all.)

Apologies if I insulted anyone's intelligence but that wasn't the point. COP, by far, is not a standard or major currency. How do you think my mother is going to react when I talk to her about Guatemalan quetzales? She, does, however understand Euros but for the purposes of this example, which is a Colombian flight, it made no sense to use a different currency.

<comment><USER15> I was probably being an over-judgemental arsehole, is just that it seemed really weird to have a price in a foreign currency referred to in a piece as _" a lot of mumbo jumbo to most people"_, especially in a business paper, though I would have found it out of place in the normal press as well.

I do not have any idea how your mother would react, however I am sure that prices in Guatemalan quetzales can be presented in an article for general readership outside Guatemala without worrying too much about how the audience might react and without describing the written price as mumbo-jumbo, or otherwise confusing.

You just tell them that the prices are in Guatemalan quetzales and how much it is in something more well known. There is absolutely no need to prepare people for the shock of the existence of obscure currencies.

The US journalist H. L. Mencken was quoted as saying:

 _" No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."_

For my money, writers taking this advice to heart has been one of the most damaging forces in journalism and the knock-on negative effects into the culture are incalculable in their horrendous variety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Also worth clearing your cookies and logging out. I've seen Delta offer me better prices after clearing cookies. I've seen Marriott offer me better prices after logging out (amusingly I'm a platinum rewards member, but get better pricing by logging out).

<comment><USER19> If you are using chrome then just go for incognito mode

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Airline pricing is such a racket - I can't imagine any other consumer facing business with such dirty pricing practices. It woulsnt surprise me if the only reason paying in USD or EUR is more expensive is simply because typically people paying in those currencies are just more likely to pay a silly high price.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there a no-bullshit airline with a no-bullshit web shop with no-bullshit pricing?

Like Google did with search.

<comment><USER22> If you try to run a straightforward business, you have to charge more money than competitors that do shady things. And the people who say they want no bullshit buy from your cheaper competitors.

<comment><USER23> Yes. Airlines have decades of evidence showing that people will compare comfort, reliability, "shady" practices, etc., and then 99% of the time throw it all out and buy the cheapest ticket. If you wonder why flying sucks so much now (aside from the TSA), it's because airlines literally have no option but to compete on price. Airlines that try to compete another way will inevitably fail.

<comment><USER24> _Airlines literally have no option but to compete on price. Airlines that try to compete another way will inevitably fail._

How do you explain JetBlue? They're not usually the cheapest, but I always choose them over e.g., USAirways or Delta because its a nicer experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Except that American Airlines doesn't allow you to use a non-US credit card on their US site and fails with a completely obtuse, out-of-context error that you only discover the reason for after calling their callcentre.

<comment><USER26> So what happens if you are a foreigner visiting the US and want to book a ticket from within the US with your foreign card?

<comment><USER27> Don't fly on American Airlines. It's in the name. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would there be anyway to link to the original article instead of Business Insider which republished it? (says author of original article)

</comment><comment><USER28> Another similar one I've founds is to find a good price and then run the same request in several different country domains. The differences can be quite large e.g.

travelcompany.com

travelcompany.co.uk

travelcompany.com.au

Also I've learnt never to book an extra night at the hotel reception when plans change. It's invariably cheaper to go online and book through an aggregator.

<comment><USER13> > It's invariably cheaper to go online and book through an aggregator.

Depends on the country. In less-developed places, proprietors of smaller hotels pay relatively large fees (think 25%) to online booking services. If you are already staying there, they will probably give you more days at whatever rate you're already paying, or even less (because it's less work for them to manage longer-term stays, and/or they may not be fully booked).

This happens when you deal with people who charge you based on their margins rather than your consumer surplus.

<comment><USER2> There's also the risk that aggregators will screw up something. On two separate occasions I saw someone arguing with hotel reception about a booking they made with an aggregator that the hotel never received. Customer says, _" But I have the printout right here that says I paid in full!"_ Hotel says, _" Sorry sir, you'll have to take that up with the company you paid. You didn't pay us."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I remember reading about this hack awhile ago and I was trying to do it, but it was always +- same price + hassle to find company who will accept whatever local currency is.

<comment><USER30> Same here. Tried it a few times but was never able to get a significant price difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> FWIW, this is what I do when I'm looking up air flights: \- Create a $5 DigitalOcean droplet. \- Setup a PPTP VPN [1] \- Login and verify you're now in x location (where x is the region you created the droplet). \- Search, find appropriate flight. \- Repeat with another region if needed. \- (optional) Login without a VPN and book your ticket.

This is particularly helpful for Expedia.

[1]: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- setu...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-setup-your- own-vpn-with-pptp)

</comment><comment><USER32> I've heard prices are higher if you are logged in with your username on airline sites. Also I wonder if there is a cheap way to run a Vpn that lets you choose your "location" on the fly.

<comment><USER33> I remember reading about companies offering different prices based on your browser's user-agent - the argument was something like "Mac users are more willing to spend more". Maybe you'd get discounts if you make them think you're using an extremely old machine... like IE6 on Win98SE or thereabouts.

 _on the fly_

I see what you did there.

<comment><USER28> Some insurance companies do this too, using UA as a variable in determining risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone knows what are the options for booking those Google ITA Flights. Most of the time the travel agents can't get the exact codes/prices.

<comment><USER35> Like it says, the key is the "Sales city". You have to find an agent physically located in the city/country in question to be able to book with that fare.

Once you've found one, give them the fare construction from the bottom of a Matrix details page and you should be set:

[http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/21671/how-can-i- bo...](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/21671/how-can-i-book-a- flight-plan-found-on-matrix-airfare-search)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Pretty poor examples. I reside in Colombia - you can choose spanish and Colombia on the airline websites, but it all comes down to the country where your credit card was issued. LAN simply won't let you pay the domestic price with a foreign card, you'll have to physically go to a bank and hand over cash. Avianca has one of my American cards whitelisted after actually going down to the office to pay in person, but will generally decline the transaction for foreign cards. Until you've actually submitted a transaction and had it approved .. what you see on the site doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER37> Semi-related: The Art of Hidden-City Ticketing [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08subversion-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08subversion-t.html?_r=0)

tl;dr: if you are traveling to a airport that is dominated by a single carrier, try to find a flight that includes that destination as a layover. Then just get off there (only works if you are not traveling with check-in luggage)

</comment><comment><USER38> Its called price discrimination[1] and is fairly common practice. It can only really be maintained for a longer time if resale is impossible, and restrictions are added to ensure that market segments buy in the booking class range that has been established for them.

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

</comment><comment><USER39> Hi HN, not very savvy here but would be great to learn how to fake your location? I am in London at the moment and would like to travel through Europe for a bit for cheap.

<comment><USER40> See up-thread on legality of setting airfares within Europe, [http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger- rights...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger- rights/air/index_en.htm).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I use a similar trick for hire cars.

</comment><comment><USER42> Have seen mystifly.com work around this from a travel agent perspective. Growing pretty fast..

</comment><comment><USER43> Could this be related to a difference in local taxes, e.g. VAT?

<comment><USER44> Generally flight taxes are based on (1) departure airport (2) arrival airport (3) overflight countries. I remember looking at a flight from the US to France that had about a dozen government entities adding taxes and fees that exceeded the airline's actual price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Just saved me $400. Awesome, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER46> While the information useful in itself, the article has a misleading title and assumes that reader has information he doesn't.

1) What is "that same flight"? Is that a domestic US flight that gets cheaper when you're abroad? Or is it a domestic Thailand flight that gets cheaper when you're in Bangkok?

2) Currency has little to do with Point of Sale. What the article is saying is that using local currency may yield cheaper prices and that the airline's website might not allow you to change the currency directly but might change it automatically when you change the location.</comment>


How to teach to code (a different approach) - <AUTHOR> http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2008/reading-code-curriculum/

<comment><USER2> My favorite quote:

> _"By showing them the full complexity of the target language, even at the > early stage where all they can do is 'find and circle the subject of each > sentence', you are beginning to teach them what their writing will look like > on that distant day when what they produce is full-fledged speech. And, > critically, you are not allowing them to mistake the crude and lopsided > sentences they create in their homework for the real, fluid, and graceful > language that is French. "_

My Spanish teacher once said that you should listen more than you speak. When you listen, you learn. When you listen, you will be subtly exposed to concepts that cannot be taught well by describing them: how words sound, the flow of a sentence, patterns in sentence constructs (ex reflexive verbs, indirect object), and _what sounds right_. When you're speaking, you lose that opportunity to learn and you are relying solely on your own knowledge. You miss the opportunity to grow. You are only practicing and you drilling.

Likewise, in coding, this immersion into code is comparable to listening: you learn language patterns and some formal syntax, you learn new 'vocabulary', and you learn _what looks right_. Writing code (speaking) on your own when you start learning how to program is the same as hardening nonexistent skills in a subject you are completely new to.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can agree that teaching people how to code well is more important than teaching people the grammar of a computer language. Then again, that fact is supposedly pretty obvious, and yet the existing approaches to teaching programming or development obviously suck - a lot. So how does author hope to change anything through blogging what could not be changed through awareness?

This is very much a political decision, I'd think. So go out and... do?</comment>


A Generalised Solution to Distributed Consensus - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.06776 <comment><USER2> This paper was discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19343398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19343398)</comment>


TSA tries out another biometric system - <AUTHOR> https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/01/tsa-tries-out-another-illegal-biometric-id-verification-system/ <comment><USER2> What is the practical* justification / value of knowing the name of every air traveler? Literally how is safety in any way increased (or any other benefit obtained for that matter) for anyone, either traveler or non-traveler.

I can't even reason about cost or burden to benefit trade offs without knowing a benefit, and I have never seen any clearly stated. Just vague handwaves ("obviously this makes us safer" or circular justification.

* I am not asking for legal justification, which is itself unclear as explained elsewhere on John's site.

<comment><USER3> It prohibits a secondary market for airline tickets without violating the law.

Otherwise, it is unlawful in most US jurisdictions and for most things to prohibit ticket resales.

Sometimes the reason is really stupid. Like with liquids, it's as basic as selling more concessions.

<comment><USER4> Well, the liquid ban was added because some terrorists were caught trying to smuggle liquid binary explosives onto airplanes (with the plan to mix them in- air, then detonate them). Some airports are repealing the liquid ban now that they've developed screening machines that can accurately identify the contents of water bottles etc.

<comment><USER5> > accurately identify the contents of water bottles

"accurately" \-- rolls eyes.

Put a small bottle of silicone lube in your carry-on and watch the slapstick.

Apparently silicone lube comes up as a totally unusual color on TSA carry on screens. At least in Austin, TX--nobody recognizes it (I bet SFO wouldn't have this problem).

I had 4 fairly small, young ladies mulling over a bottle that I had forgotten about (normally my luggage is totally air travel optimized but I had been doing a lot of driving travel with my wife and didn't do a good enough purge). I was like, look, it's under the limits, but just throw it out. I'm not in a hurry but I also don't want to be held up forever and miss my plane over an $8 dollar bottle of liquid.

In spite of the quite obvious labeling, one of the young ladies decided to get a bit snippy and demand what it was. Erm. Okay. It's written on the side of the bottle, but you asked for it.

So, I got to explain in excruciating and visceral detail in my rather stentorian voice that small women like her and her cohorts often need a bit of help when they attempt to have sex with someone who has an enormous dong like mine. _THAT_ was the purpose of the bottle that has the words "sexual lubricant" emblazoned on the side.

All four of the women blushed to the top of their ears. Quite a few people in line chuckled. My wife rolled her eyes with her "I'm so put upon" expression. They finally threw the bottle out and waved me through.

At the gate board, a Good Ole Boy Texan--hat, boots, and belt buckle-stopped us with a full drawl "That was great and they so deserved that. How bout I buy y'all a beer?"

It was a good beer.

<comment><USER6> The good ole boy's name? Albert Einstein.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like it's already working again but I'll just leave these in case.

Google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qm8IZ5...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qm8IZ5Rxq-4J:https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/01/tsa- tries-out-another-illegal-biometric-id-verification- system/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Text-only cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qm8IZ5R...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qm8IZ5Rxq-4J:https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/01/tsa- tries-out-another-illegal-biometric-id-verification- system/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

<comment><USER8> Getting a 404 on both links

<comment><USER9> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200902171741/https://papersple...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200902171741/https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/01/tsa- tries-out-another-illegal-biometric-id-verification-system/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't this just an actual use of the RealID for its (purported) intended purpose?

Don't get me wrong: I don't like this at all, and I think the TSA is at best worthless, but this seems like a complaint that the inevitable happened. And resting a legality accusation on a form not having a paperwork reduction act notice is kind of :eyeroll: even if it's true.

<comment><USER11> You don't have to show ID to get past security at the airport. Lose your wallet on vacation and you can still fly home. Tell them you don't have ID and you'll get a special security check. How that will work in practice at different airports and for different people with different TSA agents is hard to say. Could be a answering a few questions, a pat down, and a quick chemical test or something else much more involved.

<comment><USER10> This has not been my experience, at least not flying domestically in the US. In order to get to the gate, I have to get past TSA and the security checkpoint, which involves presenting my boarding pass and ID to an agent.

If I've not checked-in electronically and have to get a printed boarding pass, I've had to present ID and credit card at a kiosk or ticket desk as well.

<comment><USER12> They ask for it but you don't HAVE to present it. If you don't most airlines will ask you identity verification questions, similar to those you're asked when retrieving your credit report. If everything matches up your ticket will get marked with SSSS[1] and you'll be sent through that additional security.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unpopular opinion: The TSA shouldn't exist, at all. Three thousand deaths doesn't justify curtailing the liberties of three hundred million. 9/11 was used to scare Americans into accepting massive violations of our liberties. As Rahm Immanuel said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste."

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200902162045/https://papersple...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200902162045/https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/01/tsa- tries-out-another-illegal-biometric-id-verification-system/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This site is completely broken on mobile.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, "reader view" works fine though

<comment><USER17> Except on Google for Android I only randomly see the reader or simple option. For this site, it's not there. This is a stupid "feature" of Chrome's.

Edit: Got it. If I enable simple view in accessibility features, the option shows up for this site. The way it's implemented by Google is still dumb. This should be in the menu.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TSA was intentionally designed from day #1 to cause so much of a burden that people would willingly give up absolutely everything with regards to personal privacy in exchange for saving time.

<comment><USER19> Removing a face mask for a few seconds so that a person or algorithm can compare the person's visage to that of their ID is "giving up absolutely everything with regards to personal privacy"?

<comment><USER18> TSA has been around for nearly 20 years. It's not about a face mask.

It's about how if you wanted to bypass the excruciatingly slow and invasive TSA checkpoints, you need [https://www.tsa.gov/precheck](https://www.tsa.gov/precheck) or [https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler- programs/global-...](https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler- programs/global-entry) which involve extremely thorough background checks. You sacrifice personal privacy in exchange for saving time.

TSA has been a global people-tracking effort from the beginning through security theater. This is simply the latest addition to their repertoire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure anyone will see this because this post is over a day old, but what can someone traveling really do about it? If you refuse they'll just refuse to let you board your plane. I usually (especially now during a pandemic) don't fly when there's no reason for me to, so refusing me access to my flight is a pretty good way to make me comply, illegal or not.

About a month ago I had to be in court at a certain time and from past experience (filing and getting paperwork to the court) I knew they'd make you take off your belt if it had metal on it. That day I specifically wore a belt with no metal on it so I wouldn't have to take it off, but it didn't make any difference. The sign at security said "no metal objects" and then gave a list of example items with metal on them, belt included, and that was what the security agent pointed to when telling me I still needed to take my belt off. I objected, telling her my pants would fall down if I did and that the list was an EXAMPLE of metal objects, but the only response I got was that if I wanted to I could complain to someone at some other time. Another agent chimed in that they require you to take your belt off because "people could be hiding a knife in their belt", as if that made any sense at all. Isn't that what a metal detector is for in the first place? Anyway, I had no option but to take off my belt or I just wouldn't get to court on time. I let my pants fall down (I decided to do this earlier because I knew it was a possibility) and waddled through security with my pants around my ankles.

So yeah, what could I have done in that case? Just miss my court date?

</comment><comment><USER21> I detest the TSA, and government overreach, but I'm failing to see the issue here. Even before the optional photo system was introduced, they would stick my ID in a scanner, this seems like the same thing but the work is outsourced to me. Admittedly, I place less value on my privacy than the average HN commenter, given I opted in to Clear which lets me bypass lines using biometrics, a trade-off I was glad to make.

Then, people have raised the unrelated issue of why ID checks are needed at all, and I can think of a couple, not sure of the actual reason: 1) Checking that you're not on the no-fly list. 2) Checking that there isn't a BOLO out on you, so that people with warrants, parole etc can't skip town easily.

The argument that it is to prevent secondary markets for tickets sounds hollow - airlines do their own ID checks when printing the boarding pass and at the gate.

</comment><comment><USER22> > and remove their face mask

Having thousands of travellers unmask themselves at exactly the same physical spot within seconds of each other [and inevitably breathe in and out a couple times] sounds like a MASSIVE risk to me during COVID-19.

</comment><comment><USER23> Not illegal (even though it should be) unless they prevent you from flying without it. Currently you can go through security with no identification at all as long as you answer their questions and they can verify your citizenship some way (which can add a few hours to your tenure at the airport).

<comment><USER24> How would your citizenship be verified without identification?

<comment><USER23> [https://www.fodors.com/news/travel-tips/navigating-a- nightma...](https://www.fodors.com/news/travel-tips/navigating-a-nightmare- how-to-get-through-tsa-without-an-id)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There's a number of companies that do this type of KYC for various online transactions. AU10TIX is one such, that apparently does identity verification for many airports in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER26> Contractor loses a laptop full of this data in 3...2....1....

<comment><USER27> I find that completely unrealistic...

It will almost certainly be found on an unsecured S3 bucket

<comment><USER28> My money is on a unprotected Elasticsearch server.

<comment><USER29> Definitely a password-less, Internet facing MongoDB instance.

<comment><USER30> How else will you get web scale security breaches?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is way overkill for domestic travel.

</comment><comment><USER32> That site is unreadable on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER33> Demented

</comment><comment><USER34> > ... in many jurisdictions, orders issued by state or local health > authorities currently _require_ all people in public places such as airports > to wear masks.

This premise is ridiculous. The Raleigh airport specifically addressed this:

" Am I required to keep my face covering on while processing through security?

Travelers should wear a face covering while processing through security. TSA officers may ask an individual to adjust their face covering during the screening process for identification purposes, which is permitted under the executive order."

[https://www.rdu.com/fly-confident-fly-rdu/face- coverings/#4](https://www.rdu.com/fly-confident-fly-rdu/face-coverings/#4)

And from the actual North Carolina Executive Order:

"C. Exceptions. This Executive Order does not require Face Coverings for-and a Face Covering does not need to be worn by a worker, customer, or patron who: ... 8\. Is temporarily removing his or her Face Covering to secure government or medical services or for identification purposes."

[https://files.nc.gov/governor/documents/files/EO147-Phase-2-...](https://files.nc.gov/governor/documents/files/EO147-Phase-2-Extension.pdf)

While the article says "many jurisdictions," and I cited only one specific jurisdiction, the onus is on the claimant to prove that there are, in fact jurisdictions that prohibit security exceptions. It's unlikely that security exemptions don't exist in every relevant executive order, yet the article requires accepting that premise in order to make the claim that this is "illegal."

As far as the conspiracy theory that collecting names and positive ID by TSA is somehow nefarious — this information is already available through passenger manifests from the airlines — airlines that themselves establish a positive ID for every passenger, requiring ID to board a flight.

I am not sure what the controversy is. Every country in which I have ever boarded an airliner does an ID check and shares manifest data with authorities.

If we are going to claim this is illegal, then a reasonable person would expect some proof of that, such as citing the actual statute relevant to the jurisdiction that is being violated.

Is is interesting that many people opposed to this are supportive of government run health care — a situation that doesn't only give government your name, but also access to your entire medical history. HIPAA (in the US,) has numerous government exceptions, including the nebulous "public health interest." If we are worried about TSA positively identifying travelers, then certainly we should all be fearful of positively identifying people under the auspices of health care.

[https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for- professionals/privacy/guidance...](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for- professionals/privacy/guidance/disclosures-public-health- activities/index.html)

<comment><USER35> > While the article says "many jurisdictions," and I cited only one specific > jurisdiction, the onus is on the claimant to prove that there are, in fact > jurisdictions that prohibit security exceptions. It's unlikely that security > exemptions don't exist in every relevant executive order, yet the article > requires accepting that premise in order to make the claim that this is > "illegal."

The beginning of the sentence you quoted has a link to the information you're looking for but it seems the quote you've pulled has cut that off. The word "noted" in "As we've noted previously" is a hyperlink pointing here[1] which itself links to an example order[2] that doesn't contain any such exception.

[1][https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/06/08/tsa-to-take-mug- shots...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/06/08/tsa-to-take-mug-shots-of- domestic-air-travelers/#comment-3574618)

[2][https://www.smchealth.org/sites/main/files/file- attachments/...](https://www.smchealth.org/sites/main/files/file- attachments/ho_order_c19-8b_face_covering_revised_final.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> But hey, let's ban TikTok.

</comment><comment><USER37> Covid is the new form of this security theater. Just saw local school announced that parents should buy special mask with holes cut in mouth piece so kids can play instruments in band.

Wish I was kidding...

<comment><USER38> The province of New Brunswick announced their plans for choir after "some of the hardest planning and preparation of my career" (from the Minister of Education). The master plan: "sing quietly"

<comment><USER39> In fact there was a paper in just the last few days showing that voice volume correlated strongly with aerosol particles emitted. That sounds like good advice to me, likewise singing inside a mask. Obviously not singing at all is safer still, but this still seems like it would be effective mitigation.

Even worse than "security theater" precautions are misunderstandings of the threat model. Pandemic mitigation is _not a boolean function_. Do what you can and choose strategies to sustain suppression, then stop. Find efficiencies where they lie.

In a low-infection-count region, I don't see why you can't sing quietly in a chorus with masks. It's surely safer than eating in a restaurant.

<comment><USER40> > "misunderstandings of the threat model"

> "It's surely safer than eating in a restaurant."

by saying "safer", without any qualifiers on magnitude, that's making the same mistake. most things we do on a daily basis are safe. being 0.001% less likely to get infected is technically safer, but not practically so.

what's not relatively safe? gathering with random people breathing each other's _direct exhaust_ for long periods.

now, you might think a restaurant is an example of that, but it's not. yes, you'll be sharing exhaust with your tablemates, but you shouldn't be eating with people you don't know/trust in _any indoor_ setting, not just in restaurants. and with just a little precaution (i.e., distance), tables are relatively isolated transmission-wise, despite the general misperception of the risks of aerosol transmission (most people aren't infected, but when they are, virus particles land nearby and fall apart relatively quickly). restaurants aren't particularly unsafe. the same can't be said for bars and clubs, which resist such safety mitigations by their very nature.

also, if singing softer is the _only_ mitigation, rather than distancing with an awareness of vocal exhaust flow, then it isn't really much safer. avoiding extended exposure to natural exhaust is the key, proper distancing being the easiest (and often least inconvenient) and therefore most effective measure.

<comment><USER39> > by saying "safer", without any qualifiers on magnitude, that's making the > same mistake.

Uh.. no it's not. SafER is a comparison, you can compare two quantities without specifying their values.

As far as restaurants: indoor dining is the SINGLE largest transmission vector right now. It's a known risk, there are case studies after case study showing single infections propagating across a whole restaurant. Stay OUT of indoor restaurants anywhere that isn't at a stable and low infection rate. Seriously.

Singing? My guess is that quiet singing with masks is safer than restaurants, yeah. I might be wrong, but it's not because of a logic error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I had to stop reading because of the "S" in the font.

</comment><comment><USER42> Those things are basically standard in other (developed ;) ) parts of the world. Like in Singapore you just skim through immigration in 30sc by flashing your passport and fingerprint/face. Never get any queue... quite enjoyable.

While I agree that entrusting this data to a third party provider is not ideal... I also don't think that hiring people to look at your passport, and then your face before letting you in the country is the future... seems a bit archaic no?

<comment><USER43> The point the site is making is that this is primarily for DOMESTIC travel within the United States. I'm not a strong proponent of this point of view, but many people are highly opposed to any kind of ID check for travel within the borders of the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> "Illegal" seems like a huge overstatement, especially since the COVID crisis isn't going to last forever (do I have to say 'fingers crossed'?)

If they're stressing the illegality by saying the TSA doesn't have proper authority to do this, well, I'm no expert on US politics but I'm pretty sure they'd get that authority sooner than anyone would even think of changing this system.

<comment><USER45> They stress that the TSA doesn't have the authority, not simply because of COVID. Eg, "we believe that in the absence of OMB arrproval [sic], assignment of an OMB Control Number, and a valid PRA notice including that OMB Control Number, the pRA provides an absolute defense against any sanctions for declining to have data from an ID card or passport collected by the TSA."

The site links to an article of Form 415, which points out that the TSA has not had OMB approval for that form for 12 years, so "sooner" and "changing this system" are both long time scales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't know why it's a big deal to identify yourself when flying on planes? Being "illegal" because you have to remove your facemask is stupid as well. I'd rather have this than some underpaid, high school graduate who'd rather frisk all the pretty ladies that come by or racially profile others.

<comment><USER47> > I don't know why it's a big deal to identify yourself when flying on planes?

Yes, why? Why do you have to identify yourself to fly on a plane? Do you have to identify yourself to travel on a light rail? Take a taxi? Cross the street? As long as you pay for the ticket, that should be enough. Don't you think?

> I'd rather have this than some underpaid, high school graduate who'd rather > frisk all the pretty ladies that come by or racially profile others.

Ah the noble virtue signal. Another epidemic running rampant throughout the country. If people didn't have to identify themselves in the first place, they wouldn't have to be frisked at all. Don't you see that giving in on the id part was just the first step towards getting frisked? How about no id and no frisking?

I understand the need for id on international flights, but not domestic flights.

<comment><USER48> >Yes, why?

Because 1 person can kill the 100s of others on board really easily. That's not true of any other means of transportation.

Edit:

People keep suggesting you could achieve the same result by:

* Blowing up the security queue \ lobby etc

* Blowing up a train\bus etc

* Blowing up a stadium

But this doesn't seem to be true. It's actually a lot less true than I thought.

A 747 carries 450+ people. An Airbus A380 carries over 850 people. A terrorist can kill them all with a single bomb. Plus people on the ground if they're over somewhere populated.

Compare that to the 7/7 bombings: 4 bombs, all large, detonated on very crowded trains (and one on a bus). They managed to kill 56 people total. Partly this is because jets are full of jet fuel, partly it's because anyone who survives ground attacks gets medical attention. Partly it's because you don't have to free fall 30k ft as well.

If the same 4 bombers took the same 4 devices onto planes, they'd might well have killed 1000s of people.

It's a surprising difference in effect. I hadn't realised it was this big a difference. But it's very clear. Blowing up a crowd or a ground based transport system is much less lethal than blowing up a plane.

<comment><USER49> 1 person can kill 100s of others in the airport lobby really easily.

<comment><USER50> Not so easily. E.g. after the Brussels airport attack the Zurich airport has increased the number of security gates open at any time and reduced the density of people queuing. I don't think I have ever seen in the lat couple of years more than 100 people packed together. (Other airports are much worse and have lots of people in packed queues, but Zurich shows that it's a problem that can be solved)

<comment><USER49> I agree, if you notice this problem and decide to solve it. I have seen queues in London theaters that had higher density in front of the theater than inside it, which kind of doesn't make sense if you want to discourage people form bombing large amounts of people.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Java flaw allows "complete" bypass of security sandbox - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/09/yet-another-java-flaw-allows-complete-bypass-of-security-sandbox/

<comment> brown9-2 The actual announcement: <http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Sep/170>

<comment><USER2> I like the guy who responded to that with "Full disclosure? This is touching yourself in public."

And for sure it is, on a fulldisclosure list, nothing is revealed. My monocle dropped in my morning Java.

<comment><USER3> The "guy" is Chris Evans. He works at Google in Chrome Security Team.

* <http://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.co.uk/> * <http://www.scary.beasts.org/security/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This isn't that surprising really. Microsoft's focus on security 10 or so years ago has paid off and its hard to find flaws in their OS now. The next most common platform is probably the JVM so its the new attack vector.

I would imagine we are going to see more and more of these exploits unless Oracle takes the same approach that Microsoft took, and even then it will be years before the benefits are felt.

<comment><USER5> So, if MS is doing so well, why didn't this exploit stop at the Java process level?

(Not trying to rag on MS.)

<comment><USER6> The attack did stop at the Java process level. But once you're into that, you have the same privileges as anything else the user is running, by design. That's the same model taken by, well, every other OS out there effectively; it's not a problem as long as long as you have a separation of user account levels.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, most java apps do not use OS level security features. Which is a shame, since layers of security do actually help.

<comment><USER8> Interestingly Android does use system users to isolate applications. The android vm, Dalvik, is completely different however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another browser plugin hole? Yawn. It's disabled in Firefox and Chrome anyway. Let them disable it for good and enable by exception.

Who uses Java in browser anyway? WebEx and some weird VPN solutions?

<comment><USER10> And - get this - banks.

Chase requires Java to see pending Checks for business banking w/ fraud protection which lets you OK or reject checks before they're detected from your account.

Whereas they have scanned JPEGs for account history check images, the pending fraud control check images require Java.

<comment><USER11> What's more surprising: banks using Java in the browser or people using _cheques_ in 2012!

<comment><USER12> Checks allow for instant transfer of money between two banks, for free. That's what I still use them for.

<comment><USER13> Don't they take several days? Does the US seriously not having something equivalent to direct credit?

<comment><USER14> Checks are frequently turned into ACH transactions. You may be interested in [http://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/depository- ser...](http://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/depository- services/writing-check.html#whatshappening).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It almost sounds like Oracle managed to shoo away all good folks from the JVM team and all they are left with is a bunch of B players. I dont remember it being this bad.

<comment> brown9-2 If the vulnerability exists in Java 5, 6 and 7, it seems likely that the underlying problem is pretty old and not a recent development. Version 1.5.0_22 seems to have been released some time around 2009, and that was the end-of-life release for "Java 5" - it's earlier versions were years before this.

<comment><USER15> Good point - but still, isn't it taking Oracle longer to patch the vulnerabilities? (Last one they knew for what - 4 months?)

<comment><USER16> This is normal for Oracle and has been for at least 20 years. They are too busy milking people for new contracts rather than looking after their existing customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Java (and flash) should only be ran inside a virtual machine. You have to be a fool to have that installed on your bare computer.

<comment> iso8859-1 So you're saying that I shouldn't compile my Java code with GCJ and execute it? Hardly anyone is doing that.

<comment><USER18> I think he meant VM as in emulator (e.g. vmware), not as in the Java runtime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> who runs java in browser these days?

<comment><USER20> Anyone who manages hardware via remote console, such as Dell's iDRAC. HP and and Fujitsu have similar systems, and I imagine many more.

It's a major pain in the ass, and it sucks, but it's true.

<comment><USER21> Supermicro's equivalent IPMI remote access (iKVM) is also Java</comment></comment></comment>


War to Sell You a Mattress Is an Internet Nightmare - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars <comment><USER2> I bought a Linenspa mattress off Amazon on a whim for $125. It shipped rolled well enough to be transported _in my sedan_.

It is so comfortable, cheap, and convenient that I legitimately am stumped why anyone would ever spend more than $125 on a king mattress as a result. It's incredible.

Anyone spending hundreds or thousands on a mattress has been thoroughly duped and that's why there is such a war between mattress companies.</comment>


NYSE disaster plan to trade without humans - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/09/us-nyse-disasterplan-idUSBRE9280F020130309

<comment><USER2> Most of the trading happens electronically anyways, though the humans on the floor are there to promote liquidity (but the hedge funds are now doing that) and act as a buffer to prevent things like flash crashes.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your go-to guide for anything related to best-practices? - <AUTHOR> Since there are different areas in programming/computing, I wanna see what specs/guides you use for your domain.<p>I'm motivated to ask this question since,there was a submission earlier called,"Ask HN: What is your go-to example for a good REST API?"<p>[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11971491 <comment><USER2> [http://www.phptherightway.com/](http://www.phptherightway.com/)</comment>


Amazon one-click patent rejected by the USPTO as a result of my request (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2007/10/amazon-one-click-patent-rejected-by-us.html

<comment><USER2> Its old, and its not actually true: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2010/03/controversial-ama...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2010/03/controversial-amazon-1-click-patent-survives-review/)

The patent was re-examined and re-affirmed. Which was sad. So no, I don't know why 'luu' submitted it. Maybe they missed the date?

</comment><comment><USER3> "Update: Some people are sending me money -however I don't have any expenses right now so thank you very much but I can't accept it. If you want me to do some work for you though..."

Huh? Does this guy not need to eat?

</comment><comment><USER4> Why post something so old? Is something relevant to this patent happening?</comment>


Walmart's $10 Smartphone Has Better Specs Than the Original iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/walmarts-10-smartphone-has-better-specs-than-the-original-iphone <comment><USER2> "for one, it's running an outdated version of Android that may make it vulnerable to hackers"

Then I went to check what version it actually runs, and it's 4.4/KitKat. I do not have any phone with a version more recent than 4.4 (and that's the case for everyone I know). In fact, my phone is only running 4.4 because I went through the trouble to look in Russian forums for custom ROMs for it, since the manufacturer didn't get it beyond 4.2. My phone is a not very popular model, but even for some former flagships the only way to go is to get custom ROMs e.g. on XDA. Sure, I (and my friends) could get a new phone... but we are not interested in changing phones before they are even out of warranty (2 years in Europe).

This is no surprise: Google's statistics[1] indicate 4.4 is still the most used version. Cheaper phones being launched with older Android versions doesn't help, that's true, but these cheaper models are good enough for many people. And to be honest, the features (and change in looks/functionality) introduced in the later versions do not interest me much. If only Android had an update policy more similar to Windows and some Linux distros, where you stay with a major release but get security updates for it, for a sane amount of time...

[1] [https://developer.android.com/intl/zh- tw/about/dashboards/in...](https://developer.android.com/intl/zh- tw/about/dashboards/index.html)

<comment><USER3> I am not here to sell iPhone but the number two reason I left Android (I was a Windows 5 mobile user, then Android, with a flag ship model, for ~2 years) is because you can only get the latest from custom ROMS. If Google takes customer service really seriously, Android will be amazing. I feel like Nexus is just a gimmick more than a real thing that Google cares about.

My number one reason is simply the fact iPhone is built and sold by one company. This is a plus and a minus, but in the long run, amortize cost makes that a bigger plus than a minus. My experience so far, iOS devices can live up to at least four major OS updates. That's at least 2 years. I think my iPhone 3GS lasted about 4 years before I switched to iPhone 6 (at that time the power of 3GS was simply too slow to handle map and instant messaging).

<comment><USER4> >If Google takes customer service really seriously, Thanks for that, you brightened up my morning. Google and customer service :-)

Perhaps if you are spending millions on adwords, you "might" get some customer service, but I doubt then it will be great

<comment><USER5> No need for millions. I've spent $15 on adwords once, and since them I get letters from Google twice a year, with phone numbers I can call for support and a coupon.

<comment><USER6> Have you actually used the support numbers?

<comment><USER5> No I didn't.

I assume somebody will answer if I call there, but I have no idea about service quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Smartphones are close to achieving 'commodity' status as far as I'm concerned.

I just paid $60 (no commitment/contract) for a Lumia 640 (it was a gophone, which works fine on my regular AT&T plan). It's a reasonably fast, decently built phone, and I must say the Windows phone UI is starting to grow on me (and I HATE windows 8/10 on the desktop).

Besides voice calls, I use a smartphone mostly for texting, email, web browsing, maps, music, and the occasional (netflix) streaming video.

A $60 phone can now handle all of these things easily, so I would be stupid to spend more (vanity? status symbol?). If I drop it onto the sidewalk and it shatters, I'll merely sigh, mumble something obscene, and go buy another one. My reaction to dropping a $600 phone would be a bit more... extreme (mostly because I can't afford to replace a $600 phone on the spot).

<comment><USER8> For me they have been a commodity for quite a while. My main concern is size, it's become rather difficult to find reasonably spec-ed "smaller" phones. Many are advertised as small phones but really aren't (HTC does this over and over). Samsung's Galaxy Mini is getting bigger and bigger with each release. I've never been an iPhone user but before they released their big phones I always saw their small iPhone, their flagship phone no less, as a shining light of reason in a field full of crazy-sized phablets.

I don't mind the phablets, what bothers me is that they're forgetting that some people want a phone that they can use with just one hand. Apparently there aren't that many consumers committed to buying only those kind of phones.

<comment><USER9> The Moto G 4G was the only sensibly-sized, sanely-priced phone I could find 12 months ago. The camera's awful but otherwise it's a good phone.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, I don't think the original Moto G and Moto G 4G are getting security updates anymore, and all the newer phones are much bigger.

<comment><USER11> The original Moto G (1st gen, 2013) is still getting updates. Not even just security patches, but even full OS version upgrades. I just got an OTA upgrade to Android 5.1 a few months ago.

<comment><USER12> That is the last update for the 1st gen which seriously screws 4G owners because M will be released less than two years since that phone's introduction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For $10, I'd use it as an MP3 player at the gym or when out walking... so I don't have to worry about dropping my expensive phone (as I'm prone to do once a month or so). 4 GB would hold more Spotify playlists than I would ever need at one time.

It's amazing that as recently as five years ago, I was paying around $100 for a dedicated MP3 player for exactly this purpose.

I'd have no interest in the "phone" feature... and would never even install a SIM card. I have to believe that many people have thought of this idea, and that has to be a problem for TracPhone since they're probably selling this device at a loss in order to sell phone/data services.

So since it's "Out of Stock" right now, I wonder how many ever were in stock in the first place? My suspicion is that they released a small number of devices as a P.R. stunt to attract publicity. The hope being that some number of people who click the link to check it out will proceed onward to buy one of the "real" devices that isn't being sold at a loss. I'd be surprised if you ever do see this $10 model "In Stock".

<comment><USER14> "So since it's "Out of Stock" right now,"

It looks like it may not have been released yet. If you try the "buy in store" option it won't let you have it until Friday.

This also seems to be perhaps a rev on their $20 phone: [http://www.walmart.com/ip/Net10-LG-Lucky-Prepaid- Smartphone/...](http://www.walmart.com/ip/Net10-LG-Lucky-Prepaid- Smartphone/44751498?action=product_interest&action_type=title&item_id=44751498&placement_id=irs-106-t1&strategy=PWVUB&visitor_id&category=&client_guid=2860a1c9-2a67-43ce-99ff-8c85163c8536&customer_id_enc&config_id=106&parent_item_id=45822125&parent_anchor_item_id=45822125&guid=345eca84-c854-4dc2-ab7f-097a67eae2e1&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&beacon_version=1.0.1&findingMethod=p13n)

Can you really buy these with no service plans?

<comment><USER15> No service plan is required. I think the software is even more aggressively bonded to TracFone service than is usual though.

(TracFone is the company behind many of the phones at Walmart: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TracFone_Wireless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TracFone_Wireless) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've found the phone specs[0] and seems to be pretty good for thinkers and makers!

There's plenty of sensors --and opportunities-- for less than $10.

\- Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 1.2 GHz Dual-Core MSM8610

\- 1.9 GHz CDMA PCS, 800 MHz CDMA

\- 65K Color TFT, 480 x 320 pixels, 3.8" (HVGA)

\- 1,540 mAh / 7hours talk - 9day stand by

\- microSD 4Gb (included) -- up to 32Gb

\- 3MP Rear-Facing Fixed Focus Camera with Flash and WVGA Camcorder

\- Accelerometer

\- 802.11 b/g/n

\- Bluetooth 4.0

\- GPS

I'd like of another sensors not listed there; like light, proximity, or magnetic .. maybe anyone with the phone can confirm?

[0] [http://www.lg.com/us/cell- phones/lg-L16C-lucky](http://www.lg.com/us/cell-phones/lg-L16C-lucky)

<comment><USER17> Better than a raspberry PI?

<comment><USER18> Well, you lose on documentation, community, IO ports, USB ports, and potentially hackability. The first two of those are the most significant IMHO.

<comment><USER19> IO ports might be doable - [https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for- android](https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for-android)

Agree with you on 1. and 2. though. One day you'll be able to run full linux on more hardware like this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What are these devices like for hacking with / and or attaching to other electronics? What is android like for these sort of uses as opposed to, say, a Raspberry Pi (or Arduino)?

I'd love to use something like this to monitor the water in a tank on a hillside. The battery + the Cell connectivity + (potentially) the camera would be perfect. (I'm sure there are suitable solar phone chargers that would work with it too)

It's so cheap I could afford to break a few...

<comment><USER21> I think the biggest advantage of a micro-controller (like Arduino or an MSP) or prototyping microcomputer (like the Pi or BeagleBone) are control of GPIOs from a reasonably high-level language. At least for my applications. serial and parallel ports on PCs used to give you some functionality similar to this too. But smartphones lack that for the most part (the best you can expect is typically bluetooth comms with a separate device).

If you need remote logging, the 3G Particle Electron boards (particle.io) should be released soon, which I'm pretty excited for.

<comment><USER22> More importantly, the power usage typically is/can be a few orders of magnitude less, especially when _you_ can control the power state of the IC and wake it up with an external interrupt. I have a weather monitoring station that works off of two AA batteries for 12-16 months at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very exciting to see $10 pocket supercomputers in ubiquitous retail, but surely this is a just a loss leader? Wouldn't the patent transfer payments alone put this underwater?

Has anyone traced the origin of this model? Is it remaindered stock from somewhere (and therefore a sunk cost)?

<comment><USER24> OK, I understand the value of hyperbole here and there, but calling this a supercomputer is akin to calling it a floodlight because its screen glows, or a space heater because its back gets slightly warm when charging.

The smallest/cheapest thing that can hyperbolicaly yet somewhat reasonably be called a supercomputer nowadays IMHO is a PC with several beefy GPUs.

<comment><USER25> The first supercomputer was capable of at most 160 MFlops, which is much less than this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Give me a tablet this cheap and I'm ordering 10 of them, to finally hang touchscreens in every room of my home and wire them up to an LCARS interface.

(Actually, I recently had an opportunity to get some tablets for $8/piece from a bank that was getting rid of the equpiment, but unfortunately me&my friends got outbidded by some company :<.)

EDIT: any source for tablets that are less than $40 / piece and decent enough to work as wall-hanged touchscreens (doesn't look like total crap, is able to run Android and some apps while connected to Wi-FI without getting unresponsive) would be much appreciated.

<comment><USER27> You can get decent tablets in China for $30-40. Not like a few years ago when everything low end was crap. Except cameras which usually isn't very good still. Of course it's hard to know what you are buying unless you have it in your hand. The cheap ones are usually mediatek, allwinner or similar.

<comment><USER26> Fortunately I'm in Shenzhen right now. I was wary of the cheapest stuff here, but maybe I should check it out. Any particular brand recommendation?

<comment><USER27> Not really things changes too quickly. You want to go to 13/14 on this map over HQB though.

[http://www.seeedstudio.com/document/pdf/Shenzhen%20Map%20for...](http://www.seeedstudio.com/document/pdf/Shenzhen%20Map%20for%20Makers.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There is a certain 'rub' when people compare two pieces of technology.

While it's certainly true that the cpu/memory are faster or better than an iphone was 8 years ago.. and at such a low price.. when people compare specifications they always lose perspective on build quality.

It's very hard to quantify that from a product data sheet, but if this thing was built like a early 00's Nokia, then it would be worth a lot.

But for $10, do you need a smartphone at all? why not grab one of those "burners" that have a battery life of 2 months which additionally can survive some abuse?

I understand that for $10 people should curb their expectations, but the title is comparing apples to oranges.

"$400 smartphone from 8 years ago with high build quality vs $10 phone now with unknown build quality"

<comment><USER29> >But for $10, do you need a smartphone at all?

For poorer people, a smartphone may be their only access to the Internet.

<comment><USER30> I guess non-profits that work with homeless people, at risk youth, domestic abuse victims, war zones etc will find creative uses for this. Another example would be Syrian refugees arriving in Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Apple sells an adapter cable with similar specs to the original iPhone[1]. It does cost more than $10 though.

[1] [https://www.panic.com/blog/the-lightning-digital-av- adapter-...](https://www.panic.com/blog/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter- surprise/)

</comment><comment><USER32> There have been $10 phones in the USA for a couple years now, they all have the same low end specs.

         512mb of memory (which is limiting)
         480x320 screen (this is the weakest part)
         dual core (which is nice for the price)

The new thing this year is $5 and even $1 phones but some of those are single core and don't have gpu accelerators.

<comment><USER33> Please give links to those even cheaper phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is that 10 dollars as in 10 dollars, or 10 dollars plus a 2-years contract for phone and data that sums up to something like 500 dollars (as it is with the iPhone)?

Obviously in the latter case the money is made on the contract, not on the phone.

<comment><USER35> It's a TracFone so you pay by the minute - no contract.

<comment><USER36> I have this phone, or the predecessor? Yes, the carrier is TracFone. For $100, plus tax, you get 1000 minutes for 365 days. You need to buy the lousy phone, but it's cheap.

It's fine if you just want a cheap phone. I only use it for calls, because that's all I've been able to do with the phone. So, even though it has Internet access; I haven't got it to work.

Oh yea, you need to unlock the screen whenever you call, and the touch screen software has a bug in it. It's hit it miss if you can access the answer button.

That said, if you don't have much money, or hate paying huge monthly bills-- this phone plan is fine. The phone is chitty. I have a iPhone 4, and an android I use at home. Both are not with a carrier, but work for my needs.

Will I buy another year's worth of minutes--maybe? I like not paying a monthly phone bill to some company that I really never cared about, and only frustrated me, for years, with their rediculious billing practices.

<comment><USER37> WOW I appreciete you get somewhat bad deals teclo wise in the USA but even that bites. In the UK can get for £10 (7.50 for 3 months) unlimited calls/text and...data.

Kinda messed up, still even for the UK that phone is a steal price wise.

<comment><USER38>
      In the UK can get for £10 (7.50 for 3 months)
      unlimited calls/text and...data.

I've never noticed a deal that good; indeed most providers don't offer unlimited data at all and the one that does has a fair use policy and doesn't allow tethering [1].

Where should I look to find unlimited data, calls and texts for £10/month?

[1] [http://www.knowyourmobile.com/mobile- phones/4g-uk/16065/unli...](http://www.knowyourmobile.com/mobile- phones/4g-uk/16065/unlimited-data-which-uk-network-offers-most)

<comment><USER37> [http://www.vectonemobile.co.uk/](http://www.vectonemobile.co.uk/) curent Flavour of the time for me, was GiffGaff who equaly did unlimted data deals cheap - now not so cheap.

Your right about fair usage but never had an issue myself and had moments of heavy usage often hitting around 15GB+

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you're doing mobile dev, this is the phone you should be doing your user testing on.

Unless your target audience is exclusively wealthy people who run only recent iOS devices. In which case, carry on.

But if you are building something that needs to be widely available then this should be one of the devices on which you do extensive testing.

<comment><USER40> This. So much this. The whole "writing software only for the hardware elite" thing is really holding us back as a society. Sure they have money, so they might have some for you. I get that, but it's going to be pretty rotten for everyone when the cash stops flowing and people learn the hard way that you can't redraw 120 times per second on crap hardware.

/rant of a classic hardware enthusiast

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wish they'd have talked about what it takes to get this to $10. At what cost to human rights, the environment, labor, etc.

The invisible costs are huge.

<comment><USER42> I'm curious why you think that the price of the phone affects environmental impact per unit. Or why labor is more exploited per unit.

Chips are cheap on the margin; the big expensives are chip design, testing, and constructing fabs at evershrinking scales.

<comment><USER41> So this phone is $10 retail. In it you gotta discount amazons margin, any middle mans margin, shipping and logistics, and marketing. Now add subtract to the original manufacturer. The manufacturing has to be few or less dollars, and that has to include raw materials and labor. With such a low price it's very unlikely you have the nicest pays and most environmentally responsible practices.... There isn't enough room for it.

The only plausible way imho is if all the stock to make it was already fabbed and not sold, so either they lose the already invested money or discount it significantly to minimize loss (and it'd still be a net loss)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is it locked to a prepaid carrier? If so, then it's probably being sold at under cost.

<comment><USER44> It's locked to a pay pr. minute deal, so if you use it as a smart device on wifi only you never have to pay anything. Great for people with very limited funds and no access to the internet in other ways (assuming they can get access to a wifi, which you at least can do many places in large cities).

<comment><USER43> You're right, it's still an amazing deal. I'm just pointing out that it likely can't be produced and sold at retail for a profit for $10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The question is, how much is this phone's manufacturing cost subsidized by Tracfone so it can be sold at a loss?

</comment><comment><USER46> This is why I thought the Android One program was a waste of time and effort. Just by sheer economy of scale, we have a $10 Android phone without any Google intervention. The Huawei U8150 IDEOS ended up becoming a $60AUD locked prepaid / $99AUD off contract phone in Australia at the end of 2011.

<comment><USER47> Android One was a Corporate strategy, to make sure Windows Phone does not grow as a low-end alternative, and Android getting squeezed from Top and bottom. For what it is worth, I would deem it as successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> OK, here's the real $9 computer. Screen, USB port, TV cameras, audio, storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM, all in a nice little package. This could replace the Raspberry Pi in many applications. What does it take to just use it as a computer, with no cell phone account?

<comment><USER49> Call me crazy, but I keep wondering about the subversion risk of stuff like this. Widespread deployment due to cost, what's needed for espionage included, and always from a country involved in it. Been concerned about the possibility since a HW expert told me most of world's smartphones come from about five or six companies. Talk about concentration of power and opportunity.

I encourage people to spend a bit more on various vendors and encourage what little diversity we can. Not sure what to do otherwise aside from not carrying a mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This headline has gotten this a lot of attention, but why? The original iPhone came out 7 years ago. A computer (and phones are small computers) with specs that outdated are really only priced based on materials cost.

</comment><comment><USER51> Wow, this phone is so cheap, you could buy a few of them just experimentation without worrying if you would let the smoke inside it escape.

Anyone got good project ideas for a lazy weekend? I was thinking of a Sonos replacement.

<comment><USER52> Buying it at $10 just to harvest the touch screen, battery, and charger is profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Did someone just buy old stock from LG (save them from recycling) and do a one time deal? Or if this a new permanent thing?

</comment><comment><USER54> Has anyone been able to play with the phone and see if the bootloader is locked? If one could install Cyanogenmod on the thing, they could potentially keep the phone up-to-date beyond 4.4, provided that someone's willing to develop for the device.

I also can't figure out who the carrier on this phone is.

<comment><USER52> > _Has anyone been able to play with the phone and see if the bootloader is > locked?_

I haven't, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's locked. Even if it could be unlocked easily, it's not likely you'll find anyone developing for it. It's not listed on the XDA Developers website, which is the authority on Android phone hacking.

> _I also can 't figure out who the carrier on this phone is._

It's in the first line of the article:

"Walmart is now selling a _TracFone-branded_ LG smartphone that costs $9.82 (it also ships free if your online order total tops $50)."

TracFone is one of the many brands of conglomerate América Móvil, and sister brand of Walmart-sold Net10 Wireless and Straight Talk Wireless. They are MVNOs, leasing spectrum and bands from the major US carriers; I've used Straight Talk in the past on both AT&T's and T-Mobile USA's networks. At one time TracFone was Sprint PCS only, but I believe you can get TracFone devices that use any of the major carrier networks now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> One laptop per child? No, one phone.

And the government won't pay, they'll be scavenged out of the trash.

</comment><comment><USER56> As a dev,this interests me too.I just like buying low end phones to figure out their cost reduction/optimization techniques and figuring out how normal apps would __survive __on them. Although ,I think comparing it to the first iPhone is unfair.

</comment><comment><USER57> Can I use this phone with any SIM card? Or is it locked to a particular carrier/network?

<comment><USER32> Most of these phones are tracfone, so it is locked to one of their mvnos, depending on your market.

at&t mvno for gsm (usually) and verizon mvno for cdma markets

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Reminds me [https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love- story-a44e6643480...](https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love- story-a44e66434807)

</comment><comment><USER59> I bought one of these for my little kid to play with. Does anyone know of a way to make it so he can't dial 911 or disable the call capability?

<comment><USER60> Put it in airplane mode?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Pretty sure these devices don't work unless you use the correct carrier's SIM card--like, they refuse to boot.

<comment><USER62> Why would you think that? There's no special ROM that prevents Android from loading if the carrier's sim card isn't loaded. It should still work regardless of sim. Edit: It's CDMA, and it would have to identify a network before booting, which isn't going to happen; this phone should work fine on wifi without a carrier plan. Question is, did they disable the wifi or GPS the way some similar AT&T phones did?

<comment><USER61> Vendor lock-out.

And also because I saw Dave Jones do a teardown of one of these things. He tried turning it on with no SIM and it said "please insert SIM" instead of booting to Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> i love to see things like this.

<comment><USER33> That's exactly what _upvote_ button is for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Out of stock unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER65> Does anyone know if there is anything like this available in Europe?

Bonus points for Ireland/UK related

Appreciate it!

</comment><comment><USER66> It uses android 4.4 instead of 5.x or 6.0

that's too bad :(

<comment><USER67> At least 4.4 supports chrome webview usb debugging

<comment><USER68> So does chrome (and android webview which is now based on chrome) on lollipop and above. Where did you get the idea that it wasn't? Go to chrome://inspect on your desktop, you need to have a Chrome version on your desktop that's compatible with the chrome/webview version on your android device, usually this means having the same or higher version number on your desktop.

Kitkat marked the transition of android webview to be based on chrome but it wasn't made updateable.

Lollipop upwards have an updateable android webview which tracks the latest chrome version and isn't very far behind usually.

<comment><USER67> Sorry a bit of a late reply, your right.

I should have been more clear mentioning from 4.4 onwards you can debug a webview in a app(for all those hybrid apps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Why is this news? It's only $10 because it is locked to the tracfone network and the $10 price is subsidized by their rate plans just like the 'free' iphone on at&t is subsidized. The only difference is that there is no contract requiring you to buy 2 years of service.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's great when people observe what hundreds of millions of consumers buying a product on a regular cycle will do to a market.

So the big takeaway isn't that you can get a cheap mp3 player, it's that technology will rapidly improve and decrease in price once it hits the mainstream. Now if we could only applie this to consumer robotics, genetics, or renewable energy.

</comment><comment><USER71> Strange comparison. The iPhone is 8 years old.

But it wasn't really top notch back in the days either. I had a Droid/Milestone and the iPhone just looked and felt like some plastic garbage in comparison to it. It took the Apple til the iPhone 4 it became a real gem and now it seems that they're going back.

<comment><USER72> At 2 % of the price of the original iPhone, I do think this is somewhat remarkable. Just consider how much is left to the device manufacturing after cost of customer service at sales, logistics, etc.</comment></comment>


Lisp after Python after Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://devlog.bigmonachus.org/2009/03/lisp-after-python-after-lisp.html

<comment><USER2> Learning Scheme helped my Python by teaching me some new (to me) idioms, besides the first-class function stuff.

For example, it is natural in Scheme to declare a lot of local information, including local function definitions. These have the great advantage of knowing about variables within the local environment. So rather than declaring an external function with heaps of parameters to pass in local state, you just declare a local function which automatically gets access to the variables in the surrounding scope.

The same idiom works neatly in Python too, but didn't occur to me previously.

* * *

Also after learning Python and Scheme, Ruby felt a bit like a cross between the two, and quite comfortable.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean by this? Is this the same method of declaring inner functions within the scope of the outer function?

<comment><USER2> Yes, in that case the inner function has access to the arguments of the outer function. But you can go deeper -- e.g. declaring an inner function inside code inside the out er function -- which also knows about the local variables in the outer function.

Or if you're only doing it once use a lambda (with the same advantages).

<comment><USER3> Isn't this how you use closures? I think I've been doing this with my javascript code without even noticing it. :-)

<comment><USER2> Yes, these idioms would work in Javascript too.

I guess the point is that people are starting to discover that languages like Python and JS support these functional idioms quite nicely.

Remember when all the books on JS pretended that it was some kind of crippled cousin of Java (as the name suggests), rather than a Scheme-lite in Java-esque syntax (as its designer has opined).

<comment><USER3> Haha yes, I do remember those times. Now that you've mentioned it another language that fits the description of a Scheme-lite in Java-esque syntax is Lua.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I don't know if there are programmers out there whose pseudo-language is functional. Maybe it's just human nature to think imperatively."

A lot of time it just kills me that "if" statements don't default to returning the true branch or false branch. You need the ternary conditional operator in Java and other C-derivatives, and in Python you need to resort to some hack with and/or precedence.

I'm also wondering if I should declare all variables final in Java, and only change that default if I really, really have to.

<comment><USER5> I guess that's why Ruby has been called an "acceptable lisp". I take "everything is an expression" so for granted by now, and it makes for beautiful, terse code.

The non-working python if statement/assignment example from the article works perfectly fine in Ruby. (No python/ruby flamewar please, that's really not the point)

<comment><USER6> How about a ruby/lisp flamewar? :-) J/K.

In all seriousness though, I've recently moved to Clojure from Ruby. I'm not looking back. Clojure is significantly cleaner, faster, and has better libraries than Ruby.</comment></comment></comment>


Nakama 2.0 Released. App Server Built with GRPC in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/heroiclabs/nakama <comment><USER2> You can read more about the release in the latest blogpost that breaks down some of the major additions to the server: [https://blog.heroiclabs.com/nakama-2-0-scale-for-millions- of...](https://blog.heroiclabs.com/nakama-2-0-scale-for-millions-of- concurrent-players-88c5cd075936)

Disclosure: I work at Heroic Labs.</comment>


The SHR-DLU AI Natural Language Processing System (1970) - chupa-chups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU <comment> chupa-chups Person: Pick up a big red block.

Computer: OK.

Person: Grasp the pyramid.

Computer: I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHICH PYRAMID YOU MEAN.

Person (changing their mind): Find a block which is taller than the one you are holding and put it into the box.

Computer: BY "IT", I ASSUME YOU MEAN THE BLOCK WHICH IS TALLER THAN THE ONE I AM HOLDING.

Computer: OK.

Person: What does the box contain?

Computer: THE BLUE PYRAMID AND THE BLUE BLOCK.

Person: What is the pyramid supported by?

Computer: THE BOX.

Person: How many blocks are not in the box?

Computer: FOUR OF THEM.

Person: Is at least one of them narrower than the one which i told you to pick up?

Computer: YES, THE RED CUBE.

Person: Is it supported?

Computer: YES, BY THE TABLE.

Person: Can the table pick up blocks?

Computer: NO.

Person: Can a pyramid be supported by a block?

Computer: YES.

Person: Can a pyramid support a pyramid?

Computer: I DON'T KNOW.

Person: Stack up two pyramids.

Computer: I CAN'T.

Person: Will you please stack up both of the red blocks and either a green cube or a pyramid?

Computer: OK.

Person: Which cube is sitting on the table?

Computer: THE LARGE GREEN ONE WHICH SUPPORTS THE RED PYRAMID.

Person: Is there a large block behind a pyramid?

Computer: YES, THREE OF THEM: A LARGE RED ONE, A LARGE GREEN CUBE, AND THE BLUE ONE.

(continued, see linked article)</comment>


Tesla Model S - The electric car that shatters every myth - <AUTHOR> http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/11/video-tesla-model-s-drive---the-electric-car-that-shatters-every-myth.html

<comment><USER2> I purchased some TSLA a couple of weeks ago, and I'm seriously considering purchasing more. At this point, it looks like an obvious winner.</comment>


Stop trying to jump to the sexy stuff first - <AUTHOR> http://sharpsightlabs.com/blog/2016/09/21/stop-trying-jump-sexy-stuff/ <comment><USER2> This is very good advice, even though 95% of the people who hear it will still think they're special and don't need to learn their craft before jumping into cool stuff.

The thing I always remember from reading Feynman's various autobiographical essays -- he would always try to figure out something from first principles.

If you don't know the 'simple, always true' laws of what you're working with, you're going to be afloat on a sea of conjecture and fuzzy thinking.

<comment><USER3> I can't upvote this enough. "From first principles" is the only way to master something -- math, programming, automotive maintenance, whatever.

There aren't ever that many foundational principles to a field of a study, but if you understand them -- really understand, until it becomes intuitive -- you're 80% the way to being an expert.</comment></comment>


Energy Consumption by Source and Country (1969-2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country-1969-2018/ <comment><USER2> What an incredibly depressing total for renewables. Woof.</comment>