Ask HN: Looking for robot toys/kits for young ones - <AUTHOR> hi, I'm looking for an educational toy for my 11 year old boy and 8 year old girl. They both like coding and have had a go at electronics at some of the maker events we've been to.
They both go crackers seeing things spin and lights flash in response to their Scratch and Python programmes, I think I might have a couple of little control freaks in the making - lol.
I've had a look around for programmable robot kits in shops and online and I'm overwhelmed by the choice and levels of complexity.
Is there something anyone can suggest I have a look please?
thanks Lou <comment><USER3> Lego Mindstorms EV3 would be a good start.

Also checkout First Lego League. [http://www.firstlegoleague.org/](http://www.firstlegoleague.org/)

It's a great program. This is my Son's third year and our second year coaching his team.

The season is in full swing right now so you could probably go observe (possibly join) a local team. And find out when their competition is and go watch.

Here's a video of what they could create. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJSeMeAGmXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJSeMeAGmXE)

The FLL program consists of core values, a project and the robot game. Robot game is the most fun but they have a good time coming up with a project idea and learning about core values (work as a team, do the work, etc).

If you want to start your own team you can get donations/sponsorship from companies to pay for your startup costs. 2 or 3 robot kits, some extra parts, T-shirts, the FLL kit (mat and mission pieces), supplies to build the board, FLL fees, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> We have a system called Flotilla which will be available before Christmas. It's a set of smart electronics modules that talk to a Raspberry Pi and can be controlled via Python code (or through our web-based interfaces for beginners).

Sounds like exactly what you're looking for!

[https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/flotilla-mega-treasure- ch...](https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/flotilla-mega-treasure-chest- starter-kit)

<comment><USER5> I really like the scripting interface you've got set up. It looks friendly, easy, and effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Edison Robot: [http://meetedison.com/](http://meetedison.com/) was a successful KS project last year. I got a pair, and haven't played with them _too_ much but they seem to work well. They've got a nice visual programming environment, and are compatible with Lego. And decently priced.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have heard about Little Bits from advertising on twit, and it looks like what you are describing: [http://littlebits.cc/](http://littlebits.cc/)

If you want to give twit credit, you can go through the link here: [https://twit.tv/sponsors](https://twit.tv/sponsors)

</comment><comment><USER7> Lego Mindstorms are excellent. I haven't tried their more recent stuff, but it looks very good. Combining the ease of design and assembly of Legos with robotics... I spent hours building, rebuilding, and programming my set. Could not recommend anything more.

<comment><USER8> I agree, Mindstorms are really good. If they're not that used to programming yet they can start off using the graphical programming language (NXT-G). Then, when they're ready to really dig in, they can start using C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sad that this [https://vimeo.com/130435350](https://vimeo.com/130435350) didn't go forward

</comment><comment><USER10> I literally spent all day answering parents questions just like this at the Seattle Robothon event www.robothon.org . With a stated interest in coding and electronics I would probably suggest the Parallax Boe-Bot approx $159, there is some mechanical assembly (screwdriver/pliers) but it has good coverage of electronics without soldering. Great step by step directions are available. A few other great starter robots: Pololu 3Pi ($110) for a focus on embedded C Programming, no electronics or mechanical skills required. For the home school types I suggest the Vex IQ - Superkit ($350) or Vex EDR Clawbot ($530), these kits include Classroom style documentation with Teachers guides. As you noted there are lots of options and these are just opinions, although these picks were easily agreed on by the key members of our committee, most of which had hands on building experience with these robots (including Lego Mindstorms $350).

</comment><comment><USER11> Check out RiQ from PCS Edventures. [http://riq.edventureslab.com/](http://riq.edventureslab.com/)

Their brain box is designed to integrate (snap) with most of the major construction toys: Lego, Fischertechnik, K'NeX, Erector, Minds-i... This opens up the possibilities quite a bit. They also offer a bunch of great robotics curriculum that integrates with their product.

Disclaimer: I work for the company that developed the visual programming app that allows kids to program their robots via tablet or computer. We partnered with PCS on this product. I'm proud to say it's a pretty slick system.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a Lynxmotion AL5D that I built but haven't used:

[http://www.lynxmotion.com/c-130-al5d.aspx](http://www.lynxmotion.com/c-130-al5d.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER13> Saw something on reddit btw - They are on Kickstarter. Looks interesting - <USER2> looks like fun, who dont like slot cars :-) teaches robotics, design and 3Dprinting along with programming. [https://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/3o0pc2/created...](https://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/3o0pc2/created_by_a_dad_to_rescue_play_time_from_tablets/)

</comment><comment><USER14> ComputerCraft is a minecraft mod that adds Lua powered computers and robots to minecraft. I've made tree harvesting bots, farming bots, mining boys, and remote robot control PDAs. When I started working with embedded systems, I was impressed how much carried over.

Most kids like minecraft. With ComputerCraft a little bit of coding gives you minecraft superpowers. More coding gives you more powers. It's easy to keep learning more.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's not cheap, but I really love what Makeblock is doing:

[http://www.makeblock.cc/](http://www.makeblock.cc/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Snap Circuits are great.

Home Depot carries a ton of electronics stuff (complex enough for a 10 year old) in their hardware section. I didn't find out until recently - they sell erector set parts, bulbs, wires, battery chassis, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Lou, Im not sure about Mindstorms. Damn expensive and my boy lost interest after sometime. He claims it to be "slow and clunky and not fun".</comment>


The future of CSS vendor prefixes - <AUTHOR> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Feb/0313.html

<comment><USER2> The people at the W3 who believe CSS-property vendor-prefixes are a good idea and the people at the IETF who believe HTTP-header X-prefixes are a bad idea should get together and have a good long discussion about this, as they honestly seem to be two attempts to solve the same underlying problem in extremely similar ways that cause nearly identical issues when these identifiers are on a track to being included in a subsequent standard.

Deprecating Use of the "X-" Prefix in Application Protocols (IETF Draft) \-- <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3539663>

(edit, from W3 discussion:) "dbaron: Email headers with X-. Supposed to be experimental. But the world still works."

<comment><USER2> I'd love some explanation as to why someone downvoted this comment.

Not only is the X- prefix draft topical on Hacker News (as it was less than a week ago that it first got posted here, despite having been published in 2011), but it is from another standards body that is addressing the same underlying issue as this link to the W3.

As an example of how the content has severe overlap:

IETF: "Creators of new parameters to be used in the context of application protocols: 1. SHOULD assume that all parameters they create might become standardized, public, commonly deployed, or used across multiple implementations."

W3: "Steve: Suggest that group establish a goal that members who introduce experimental properties submit a description to the WG"

IETF: "Although in theory the "X-" convention was a good way to avoid collisions (and attendant interoperability problems) between standard parameters and non-standard parameters, in practice the benefits have been outweighed by the costs associated with the leakage of non-standard parameters into the standards space."

W3: "tantek: Once it's on the open Web, it's not proprietary...it can be considered experimental, but claiming it is proprietary-only is inaccurate ... plinss: Thing we need to spend some energy minimizing the escape of prefixes into the wild"

IETF: "The primary problem with the "X-" convention is that non-standard parameters have a tendency to leak into the protected space of standard parameters (whether de jure or de facto), thus introducing the need for migration from the "X-" name to the standard name."

W3: "tantek: One possible proposal is to only parse other vendors' prefixes in conjunction with parsing unprefixed. e.g. with -webkit-transform. We wouldn't parse that until we also parse transform. Thereby giving authors option to just use unprefixed, hopefully biasing new authors to using that instead."

IETF: "Furthermore, often standardization of a non-standard parameter or protocol element leads to subtly different behavior (e.g., the standard version might have different security properties as a result of security review provided during the standardization process). If implementers treat the old, non-standard parameter and the new, standard parameter as equivalent, interoperability and security problems can ensue."

W3: "macpherson: If we change the spec after implementation, you'll need to return the value in the old form as a prefix. ... szilles: What do you do if the values changed between property versions? alexmog: We'll adjust the output to match the syntax of the given version. Rossen: I don't think that's right. Today we only have aliases."

IETF: "We have already seen this phenomenon at work with regard to FTP in the quote from [RFC1123] in the previous section. The HTTP community had the same experience with the "x-gzip" and "x-compressed" media types, as noted in [RFC2068]:"

W3: "glazou: [clarifies his understanding, and asks about prefixed values as well] ... florian: Now, for prefixed values. I say just return the one you got. plinss: Agreed. TabAtkins: Agreed."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> HTML humor:

      <br type=lunch>

haha :) Anyway here's my question:

 _tantek: I think if you're working on open standards, you should propose your features before you implement them and discuss that here.

smfr: We can't do that.

sylvaing: We can't do that either.

tantek: We're going to push you to do that sooner and sooner.

jdaggett: If you're proposing something that's going to be put on a Web page, how is that proprietary?_

I'm with tantek & jdaggett. Why can't browser vendors propose a standard before implementing it?

<comment><USER4> _Why can't browser vendors propose a standard before implementing it?_

Because W3 takes forever to discuss, let alone approve it. HTML5 isn't going to be ratified until 2014, for example.

<comment><USER5> They didn't say 'complete the standardization process before implementing'.

I think the idea is to _start_ the process, so that you don't just show up at the door with a fully working implementation leaving others to play catch-up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's IE's situation in: <http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history> all over again. I would not like that mess to repeat with CSS.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found the analogy to quirks mode really interesting, especially the lines:

       plinss: You said this is a short-terms solution. Quirks mode was supposed to be a short-term solution.
       tantek: No it wasn't.
       plinss: Yes it was.
       plinss: I implemented it before you did.

</comment><comment><USER8> They kinda called out Lea Verou in there, however she is trying to solve the problem in her own way: <http://leaverou.github.com/prefixfree/>

</comment><comment><USER9> oh god, vendors implementing each other vendor prefixes sounds insane.

I dont think -draft1-border-radius is the same problem as -webkit-border- radius, I am pretty sure its how I would like these things to be developed, it allows the vendors to work together on the same specification, with opportunity for others to diverge, but web developers only need to know the particular draft, not each various browsers implementation.

I also think that by the time vendors are implementing other vendors prefixes, they should just be pushing to drop the prefix, that is the point

<comment><USER7> > I also think that by the time vendors are implementing other vendors > prefixes, they should just be pushing to drop the prefix, that is the point

I think tantek advocates this approach, but in a different order. First make sure you can support the feature without a prefix, and then support both.

       tantek: One possible proposal is to only parse other vendors' prefixes in
               conjunction with parsing unprefixed.
       tantek: e.g. with -webkit-transform. We wouldn't parse that until we also
               parse transform

<comment><USER10> I think the ' _fun_ ' starts when the vendor syntaxes and/or semantics are slightly different and/or have different bugs. For example, the syntax gradients in WebKit at one time were different from those in the HTML spec.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So what can we do as web authors? I use standardized CSS generators that hit all appropriate prefixes. ex: <http://css3generator.com/>

What else?

<comment><USER12> We can also demand vendor free CSS from our contractors and developers. I've had to ask several contractors, usually younger developers, to please not use prefixes. They comply, but clearly think I'm too old school because CSS 3 is what all the cool kids are doing.

<comment><USER13> To be clear... are you saying you ask contractors to not use features like CSS rounded corners, gradients, and box shadows?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would really appreciate if any one can summarize that :)

<comment><USER3> Just read the lines that say RESOLVED: on them.</comment></comment>


Taco Bell commercial with Jeff Bezos (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://adland.tv/commercials/taco-bell-jeff-bezos-2001-030-usa <comment><USER2> The entire commercial itself is geeky. ;)</comment>


Cartoonist Targeted With Criminal Probe For Mocking Police - <AUTHOR> http://www.kirotv.com/investigations/28758502/detail.html <comment><AUTHOR> Gosh, Google+, who WOULDN'T want to use their real name?

</comment><comment><USER2> Cue the Streisand Effect* machine!

Thanks to the petty authoritarianism of an over-reaching prosecutor, "Mr. Fiddlesticks" is achieving a far wider impact than he could on his own.

*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It looks like the submission of the same story almost half a day later is the one that's got the discussion - go there:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2851573>

<comment><USER3> Ah, my bad. Checked for submissions for only a few hours back; must have missed this one on my RSS.</comment></comment>


Years of Howard Stern's interviews with Trump now gone after DMCA takedown - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/years-of-howard-sterns-interviews-with-trump-now-gone-after-dmca-takedown/ <comment><AUTHOR> Normally wouldn't submit a political link, but the intersection of DMCA and copyright law with what feels like a pretty legitimate case for fair use (IANAL) seems like it makes a good fit here. When you start getting down to YouTube striking entire archives of interviews with the future president based on DMCA alone, something about the process seems haywire.</comment>


Question about Iphone apps development platform - <AUTHOR>

is it good to use these infrastructure platforms like parse for iphone apps development or we are better off with using native ios app development?like facebook is shouting with its new app<p>Please advise. <comment><USER2> Here's 2 main factors to consider for native vs. a web-based derivative:

1\. Is the app the core product? Or is it just another channel?

2\. Does it absolutely need to be on more than 2 platforms?

3\. Do you have enough resources? No, no one ever have enough resources. So don't worry about it.

As for Parse:

You should definitely consider Parse if it suits your requirements and helps you to ship faster. You can export the data when you are ready to move on. Ditto for _most_ other tools like Urban Airship.

</comment><comment><USER3> When you rely on another company's platform you are betting everything on the health and future of that platform. HTML will be around and Obj-C will be around. Will Parse? And if it isn't can you switch away quickly? I wrote about this last week, actually, if it is helpful: [http://eliainsider.com/2012/08/17/live-platform-die- platform...](http://eliainsider.com/2012/08/17/live-platform-die-platform/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if you're confused about what Parse is or whether you weren't being precise with your words, but Parse _or_ native iOS app development isn't comparable.

Are you asking whether it's safe to depend on a service like Parse/Stackmob as your backend or are you asking about the pros and cons of building native apps vs html5/hybrid?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was asking whether it's safe to depend on a service like Parse</comment></comment>


How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bKgf5PaBzyg <comment><USER2> I'm completely at a loss as to why he thought this was a good idea. Highly entertaining, but in a way that seems to bat at his expense, which makes it puzzling why he's involved.</comment>


FontSprite - a new approach to custom fonts on the web - <AUTHOR> http://jasper.clarkberg.org/fontsprite/index.html

<comment><USER2> From the website:

"By using the FontSprite generator, you can create sprite images of glyphs from your chosen font. Then, give the FontSprite engine your image, and the metrics data that the generator calculated for you. On your website, the engine creates a span for every letter, and perfectly sprites and places the rendered font as a background image, to create the illusion of custom fonted text! Best of all, you can copy and paste! (kinda)"

This is such an ugly hack. I'm giving this story an upvote just for the persistence this guy showed. To see how this affects selecting text, go to the examples page: <http://jasper.clarkberg.org/fontsprite/engine.html#examples> And try to select the text at the top of the page (viz, Here is some text set in Adelle. Make it casual with some Idolwild! Even Zapfino kinda works)

Notice how the selection appears offset from the displayed text? Jarring.

I admire this hacker for his ingenuity and persistence, but font-embedding will only be practical for websites with a dedicated audience, I'm afraid.</comment>


Why Funding can Kill Your Startup Fast – Emerging Market - <AUTHOR> https://techpoint.ng/2016/08/17/funding-can-kill-business-faster/ <comment><USER2> Did you really say a good product will sell itself? Generally this is not true, especially for enterprise solutions. But, I'm happy to be proven false if you can provide examples

<comment><USER3> It's unfortunate he used those exact words, but you're also leaving out the greater context: "A good product will sell itself without spending the billions on marketing. It's so amazing that a startup that has not even spent ₦100,000 on marketing came for an investors meeting and was asking for ₦100 million to be spent on marketing for a 4-month duration."

His point is referring to these startups coming in asking for huge amounts of money without having spent even a small amount already. It doesn't make sense for an investor to put in $10 million if you haven't even put in $10 thousand.

<comment><USER4> > It doesn't make sense for an investor to put in $10 million if you haven't > even put in $10 thousand.

That's not always the case, and it depends on the situation. If a startup founder is working for no salary and focusing fulltime on the startup, then money might be better in their pocket, than in the company. $10k could by the founder 6months working at the company. Sweat equity and opportunity cost are also important to consider. Just because a founder hasn't put up cash, doesn't mean they aren't also committed and taking a risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Why will an investor invest in you when you have not even made 1 sale?"

Well, to get a great deal for starters. Once you do have some sales you are going to have investors lining up at the door.

<comment><USER6> We have a lot of sales and we don't have investors lining up at the door.

<comment><USER7> Maybe not, but if you have good numbers you'll have a good valuation and any investor who comes in will need to put more money on the table for the same share.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good numbers gives good valuation. My theory is run after your clients/customers and investor will run after you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> misleading or wrong title...

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? Why is it misleading? I think you should read the article before commenting, it's what we're facing in Nigeria/Africa here

<comment><USER9> The original title is "can kill", whereas you posted "will kill" on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I see, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Life Before Death: Pictures and Interviews with Terminally Ill - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/mar/31/lifebeforedeath

<comment><AUTHOR> Candid interviews with the terminally ill. Very poignant, example quote.

"Death is a test of one's maturity. Everyone has got to get through it on their own. I want very much to die. I want to become part of that vast extraordinary light. But dying is hard work. Death is in control of the process, I cannot influence its course. All I can do is wait. I was given my life, I had to live it, and now I am giving it back"</comment>


Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software - b-man http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/business/yourmoney/28slip.html?ex=1327640400&en=d2d090cf2db27104&ei=5090

<comment><AUTHOR> "Programmers don't know what a computer user wants because they spend their days interacting with machines. They hunch over keyboards, pecking out individual lines of code in esoteric programming languages, like medieval monks laboring over illustrated manuscripts."

Isn't this a bit like saying that architects don't know what kind of houses people want because they spend all day poring over diagrams? Or like saying landscapers don't know what people want because they spend all their time landscaping?

I hate to break it to the New York Times, but programmers are _actual people_. We're not that different from other people. No really!

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey guys, heard about this new programming language? It's almost likey writing English. People reckon it will make writing software so easy that anyone can write whatever software they need - making professional programmers unnecessary within a few years.

It's called COBOL.

(from ca. 1960, that's what people really thought back then)

<comment><USER3> To be fair, 'programmer' meant something slightly different back then, and what it used to refer to no longer actually exists.

<comment><USER2> Well, it meant someone writing assembler code, and in some shops they'd be given very detailed instructions of what to implement by "program designers" that read almost like English... or code in a high-level language. So yeah, those kind of programmers don't exit anymore, and "designers" are now programmers - but they have to know more about programming because there is no separate programmer to iron out the quirks in the design.

Heaping layers of abstraction onto each other is NOT something that will inevitably yield "do what I mean" functionality.

What the article describes as Simonyi's "revolutionary idea" is no different than CASE, MDD and MDA - the same (at least) 20 year old pipe dream in various guises that nobody has ever gotten to work except in very narrow fields.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From 2007; unfortunately, the company has gone silent for the last half year as far as I can tell. People watching them have also been "frustrated by the secrecy and lack of urgency to release" (Martin Fowler: <http://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html>).

<comment><USER5> Martin's site seems to be down at the moment, so it may be worth linking to the video of our DSL DevCon talk / demo. <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/data/dd727740.aspx>

(Full disclosure: I work for Intentional Software. Feel free to ask me about what we do; I'll answer if I can. We're not so much "secretive" anymore as "small and busy.")

<comment><USER4> BTW, I still had a copy in a browser tab and just saved it out. As for question, how about:

When can I try out some of your toys?

How much will that cost. How much will they cost when finished? ("Free" or "Not Free" or "If you have to ask..." are all acceptable answers.)

My interest in what you're doing is largely constrained by my ability to try out your stuff someday.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know, we are still interested in hearing from people who believe they have interesting pilot projects that could strongly benefit from our our tools. Magnus Christerson would be the one to talk to about that. Generally speaking: "not free". :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "he devised the programming method that the company's software developers have used for the last quarter-century."

Would this method be the 'Hungarian Notation'?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they mean OOP:

"Simonyi introduced the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had learned at Xerox to Microsoft."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi#Microsoft>

<comment><USER2> Well, it's hungarian notation that's associated with him in particular, like it or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Programmers don't know what a computer user wants because they spend their days interacting with machines. They hunch over keyboards, pecking out individual lines of code in esoteric programming languages, like medieval monks laboring over illustrated manuscripts."

"programmers are drowning in ignorance, complexity and error."

...to say Your welcome or F@*k off?

<comment><USER8> The first of those isn't especially meaningful. Programming languages aren't _that_ hard to understand. What's difficult (right now) for many people is the connection between the code and what happens on the screen.

The second snippet is amusing, given the mention of C++ in the first paragraph.

However, I think software has a problem in general with the fact that one shitty system or API can lead to cruft in other pieces that depend on it, leading to generally poor quality. Abstractions and interfaces are designed to prevent some of this, but the worst programmers always find a way to abuse and violate those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
      BJARNE STROUSTRUP, the designer of C++, the most
      influential programming language of the last 25 years, has
      said that "our technological civilization depends on
      software."

I stopped reading there.

<comment><USER6> Why? Because C is the most influential programming language?

<comment><USER9> I'm only sure it isn't c++

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd rather get to a world in which incompetents _stop_ writing software.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, but we will likely never get there (many professional programmers are incompetent, to say nothing of the amateurs that need to do little snippets, and there will always be beginners that are incompetent now just because they are learning to be competent).

A concept like this, if it is possible, can work from the other way and help prevent the incompetents from being dangerous. I doubt it will ever prevent people from needing to do low level programming, abstractions leak as the article says. But if done well, it could help people with minimal knowledge create truly useful things. This would help free the truly skilled programmers to work on hard and important problems.</comment></comment>


Hawaii Arrival Procedures - <AUTHOR> https://hidot.hawaii.gov/blog/2020/04/24/improved-verification-process-implemented-for-airline-passengers/ <comment><USER2> Quite interesting. This is very much the dystopian future of prophecies. I'd be interested in seeing how the legalities of this plays out.</comment>


E-cigarette use as a predictor of cigarette smoking - <AUTHOR> https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/e2/e106 <comment><USER3> "Smoked a cigarette in the last 12 months" is an incredibly low bar, to the point where I'd guess the study had a desired outcome.

The important question isn't "were vapers more likely to smoke 1+ times"\--it's "how many cigarettes (from 0 to n) would the average vaper have smoked in the absence of vape options?"

The latter is a counterfactual, and thus much harder to study. It's almost as if valuable research is hard, and you can't just slap together a few variables and toss the "Science!" label on it.

Edit for context: I'm an ex 1-2 packs-a-day smoker, and vaping definitely helped me substitute a less harmful behavior. I smoke 5-30 cigarettes per year still, and vape about the same number of times per year. Having substitute options definitely helps avoid slipping back into cycles of addiction, to the point where I don't worry about that at all now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this partly to see how people would explain away the result.

4.78 RR for smoking one year after vaping for non-smokers is pretty huge. That's definitely a clinically significant result. Smoking itself is the highest OR for lung cancer and therefore mortality of any behavior (in the 60s for Americans), and using cigarettes really dooms you to that outcome.

Nicotine patches, as transdermal delivery, don't get people as high as Juul does, and that's the likely reason you don't observe either recreational use of them nor people becoming smokers from using them.

<comment><USER4> What these studies show is that kids who are likely to try smoking are also more likely to try vaping. That's it. That's the whole thing. It's correlation, and doesn't speak in any way to anything like a "gateway drug" phenomenon - and that has also been recognised in studies that bother to consider the possibility.

<comment><USER5> Oh, right, yeah. Because this line totally isn't directly from the paper's conclusion:

> These results contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting vaping > as a one-way bridge to cigarette smoking among youth.

<comment><USER4> I'll see that study and raise you the UVic cohort study that found the opposite[0], among others if you're willing to look. The "growing body of evidence" is all about correlations in interview studies.

[0][http://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/carbc/assets/docs/report...](http://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/carbc/assets/docs/report- clearing-the-air-review-exec-summary.pdf)

<comment><USER6> That link just goes to their homepage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm trying to follow the logic. E-cigarettes are already banned for those under-18 in America. Cigarettes and e-cigarettes are legal for those 18 and over. Because those who smoke e-cigarettes are more likely to smoke real cigarettes, we should ban e-cigarettes? Even though they are way less harmful than real cigarettes?

Why not just ban real cigarettes? Wouldn't that solve all the problems?

Oh yes... black markets, prohibition, arrests, expanding prison population, and on and on...

If we aren't going to throw cigarette smokers in jail, and e-cigarettes are already illegal for those under-18, then I'm not sure what else we can do. The state could aggressively fine retail stores who sell to those underage (although I doubt they sell them illegally). More likely, arrest 18 year old high school kids who buy them for their friends and underclassmen.

Alcohol and cigarettes were bought for me by the burnout and local junior college kids when I was in high school.

<comment><USER8> > Because those who smoke e-cigarettes are more likely to smoke real > cigarettes, we should ban e-cigarettes?

The conclusion in the article suggests "restricting youth access to e-cigarettes." It's not talking about a general ban.

> e-cigarettes are already illegal for those under-18,

In the US, individual states have varying laws, and the FDA position has been evolving. Research like this presumably provides input to that ongoing process.

> Why not just ban real cigarettes?

They are already restricted at the federal level for under 18.

> Alcohol and cigarettes were bought for me by the burnout and local junior > college kids when I was in high school.

The problem with personal anecdotes like this is that they give no idea of how many kids actually didn't do alcohol or cigarettes, or consumed less than they would have otherwise, because of restrictions.

Your unstated premise seems to be that restrictions like this don't work. If you look into that, you'll find that's incorrect.

<comment><USER7> Yes, they are already banned. So why should the FDA ban the sale of Juul entirely?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> But...why? I smoked a pack a day for a little more than 10 years, got an e-cigarette and haven't looked back. I don't understand why anyone would do the reverse.

<comment><USER10> The concern is that the e-cig brands have moved well beyond those attempting to quit smoking. Similar to the old Joe Camel ads, the thinking is that the e-cig companies are targeting kids with fruit and candy flavors. If they were really serious about them strictly being a tool for quitting, they should mandate that the only allowed flavor is wet ashtray. Seriously, what legitimate reason is there for a quitting tool to be more appealing than the thing being quit unless the goal is to hook people on the new thing?

<comment><USER11> That's ridiculous. One of the reasons nicotine gum isn't that successful is because of how nasty it tastes.

Why shouldn't those quitting smoking be allowed fruit flavours? I can only think you want them to fail and end up keeping on smoking tobacco.

<comment><USER10> Failed attempt at humor on my end apparently. No, I don't want those attempting to quit to fail. The point I was attempting to make is that by making them taste good (as opposed to at most flavorless) is that it both makes them more appealing to non-smokers (esp kids) and likely encourages many smokers to kick cigarettes but pick up a vaping habit rather than a tool to wean them off of nicotine.

Now one might say 'who in their right mind would want to start a nicotine habit?' Well centuries of tobacco use to more recent times with people eating detergent pods, huffing glue etc should readily provide the answer. Also, the tobacco industry knows what they're doing and I suspect it's not about getting people off nicotine but rather changing the delivery mechanism. (You do know big tobacco is big into vaping, right?)

<comment><USER11> I can see your point, but some kids are always going to try some of what's available - weed, tobacco, alcohol, vaping, glue sniffing etc. I doubt the flavour mattered much when cigs were the only choice, or before they'd learnt to like beer / vodka. It's far more peer pressure than advertising. yes, of course ads play a part too.

I would be comfortable with discouraging kids as far as possible, requiring ID and so on. For some of the adult ex smokers I know, including myself, I doubt they'd have quit without vaping with some of the sillier sounding flavours. Some of the quitters will be kids who regret starting smoking 5 years previously. I don't have good answers to balance the conflicting needs or to prevent it becoming a growth sector far beyond smokers wanting out.

When I first tried vaping one of the few flavours I got was tobacco - <USER2> was awful, and never tried again. It took some months to step down the strengths to zero, and kept on vaping a while at 0 nicotine. That was 7 or 8 years ago, and no vaping or tobacco since.

Regulation in the US and UK is very different for vaping, but here big tobacco seems to be badly failing at vaping. Every shop that sells cigarettes now has a selection of the tobacco company's cartridge style "pretend cigarettes" vaping at five or ten times the cost of the simple juice bottles. I've only ever seen one person using one. Most towns have gained a juice stall selling cheap flavours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a vaper (ex-smoker), let me assert that vaping is like driving Tesla Model S P100D and smoking is akin to driving 2003 Ford Focus. I'd never gateway to Ford Focus 2003 from Tesla Model S P100D. Cheeky but true.

</comment><comment><USER13> The biggest flaw in this study has gone unmentioned: smokers lie.

No one's following these kids around to verify their responses are accurate. A sizable percentage of high school kids lie about anything for any number of reasons. Yeah man, I vape, can I go now? Yeah man, I smoke, are we done?

That alone is plenty to throw out this data. The agenda here is clear: more research funding to justify harebrained regulations supported by halfassed written surveys.

<comment><USER6> So we shouldn't research anything related to the social sciences because some people might lie about it? What leads you to believe that smokers lie more than nonsmokers if not social science research?

<comment><USER13> The term for this situation is "streetlighting", where the possible reigns over the correct.

"It's dark in that alley. I'd never find my keys there."

Doesn't matter if it's extremely difficult to get good data here. What matters is we can't substitute bad data if that's all we can come up with.

And although I stated it as smokers lying, the implication is that the nonsmokers are lying (by claiming to smoke).

<comment><USER14> It is my understanding that most surveys will include a margin of error. This story does not mention this, I wonder if this is just slight of hand while the east coast of the US falls into the sea?!

<comment><USER14> Or maybe the cable news sites are distracting me from this?!?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Where does hookah play into this? I seriously want to know as I've never smoked cigarettes or have a nicotine dependence.

<comment><USER16> Hookah is unfortunately one of the absolute worst offenders health-wise. Think one hookah session is easily multiple cigarettes, likely on the much higher side too

</comment></comment><comment> village-idiot Nicotine addictive, vaping seen as a way to hook the next generation by tobacco execs, and other unsurprising facts tonight at 11.

</comment><comment><USER17> Vaping: MAYBE it's not as unhealthy as smoking, but it's definitely not as cool.

<comment><USER18> Interestingly enough, vapers themselves seem to be the ones reinforcing this. Every vape shop I've ever seen is filled with thick clouds, run by teenagers or burnouts, and just generally a pretty low-class place.

On the other hand, I know several people who are successful professionals that vape. They order their stuff online, and don't advertise the fact that they vape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Increase tax on tabacco products and include e-cigs

</comment><comment><USER20> Why the heck are e-cigs illegal for anyone? They're as harmless as theater haze.

<comment><USER21> The carrier liquid might be the same thing as theater haze, but theater haze doesn't contain nicotine (which has known health risks even without combustion products), doesn't contain flavorings that are only tested for food use (and the example of "popcorn lung" from diacetyl shows that inhaling flavorings directly is not the same as using them in food), and is inhaled in much lower concentrations. E-cigs are safer than smoking, but to call them "harmless" is a strong claim that requires evidence.

<comment><USER22> (Full disclosure: I run a small business making and selling flavoured e-cigarette liquid) The levels of diacetyl from a conventional cigarette can be around 750x that of what you'd get from an e-cigarette containing such a flavouring. Most concentrate manufacturers have removed or replaced any flavours that contain this or other known irritants wherever possible, and provide material safety data sheets for all ingredients. As far as I am aware, there have been no reported cases of "popcorn lung" from vapers or smokers.

If I am mistaken or unaware of any contradictory information, I would really appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

[http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-study- finds-...](http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-study-finds-that- average-diacetyl.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure why we collectively decided to trust the tobacco industry on this issue, this can't be overly surprising given their level of interest in this emerging market.</comment>


Misery in the Head - <AUTHOR> https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/misery-head <comment><USER2> Interesting the article doesn't talk about nicotine. Nicotine was my savior from one sided-headaches that accentuated by continued computer and screen abuse.

I have found nicotine to be a major relief and hardly addictive (though this is probably very person-specific, so tread carefully). I could go on for a month without smoking but if I'm working with a computer, I could not pull off more than a couple hours without my vape device close.

Sometimes I wonder if smokers are actually addicted or suffer from other unrelated-pain that makes them reliant on nicotine for relief.

<comment><USER3> >I could go on for a month without smoking but if I'm working with a computer, I could not pull off more than a couple hours without my vape device close

Be careful, I was in your shoes until I started vaping and the convenience can make you a constant user, until one day vaping is such a part of your daily habits that you're an addict.

Also if you're vaping custom juices and not something commercial like Juul, you're probably consuming a different form of nicotine which isn't as effective or addictive - though at some point I expect custom juices to switch to nicotine salts as well, if they haven't already. Point is the nicotine in salt form is much stronger - you'll notice that Juul hits more like a cigarette, even with far less vapor.

Point is don't make the mistake I made and forget that you're playing with fire. Granted there's nothing yet to suggest that vaping clean nicotine/of/vg is harmful...

<comment><USER2> > one day vaping is such a part of your daily habits that you're an addict.

You mean the very act of vaping and not the nicotine itself. I can very much relate to that.

Here are a few tricks I found that can reduce it:

\- Put the kit in the car. Helps more if the car is in under-ground or far and it's cold outside.

\- Don't always put your kit on the charger. Intentionally, forget charging it and don't have two batteries.

\- Buy a 30ml bottle at a time. It helps more if the dealer you are buying from is far. You'll ration your vaping with that because then you'll have to go all the way to buy the next bottle.

And yeah I'm not aware yet of nicotine salt and I use a very low concentration in my liquid. I don't think I'm going to switch the current setup is just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am now almost certain that acetaldehyde is my migraine trigger. The sources for me included chocolate, alcohol, tomatoes, certain fish and preserved meats, all of which are common sources of acetaldehyde.

I can't always avoid these things, but I can usually avoid combining them, and migraines are now less frequent and a lot milder - unpleasant rather than debilitating.

I have also found that dehydration is a major factor. If I skip breakfast or lunch then I make sure I drink, even if just tea or a large glass of water.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a chronic migraine sufferer. I've had them at least since I was five.

I strongly suspect that "migraine" is not a single disease. In fact I suspect that _my_ migraines aren't all the same thing. The headaches I get now are far different than the ones I got when I was five. Then, I'd get a dual-sided headache followed within an hour by the extreme nausea. Once I threw up I could sleep; the pain would be gone the next day. I was also light sensitive.

When I was a teenager I got a right-sided migraine without nausea or aura every Sunday afternoon at 2:00. You could set your watch by it. Again, I could sleep them off. By that time OTC painkillers that actually worked were a thing, and Motrin also knocked them out.

As an adult, I have no pattern, no nausea, and no aura. And OTC painkillers no longer work, but a rizatriptan plus two Excedrin works like a champ. But now? They're triggered by poor posture. They start in my neck and end up over one eye but not always the same one. If I try to sleep them off they're much worse on day two.

My son gets migraines about every third day, and neither the OTC nor the prescription painkillers work very well.

We don't know what causes migraines. Some but not all can be stopped via interrupting the seratonin cycle. I think a big part of the treatment problem is that the diagnosis is clinical.

<comment><USER6> I've had them since I was very young too. When I was a child they were accompanied by really high fevers, up to 105F and would last for two to three days, where I'd just mostly sleep in misery (they'd make me incredibly tired and sleepy). The doctors would check for meningitis with spinal taps, they'd check for encephalopathy, tumors, anything they could think of, nothing ever came back positive. I was put on inderal for a while, but that didn't really do anything. I'd have one every year or so, then since my teens I've only had one every few years. The past few years though I'm back to the yearly migraine, but no fever and they only last a day.

I'm not entirely convinced they're not just a side effect of our enhanced cognition, something like a problematic feedback loop, maybe even something related to epilepsy. The bigger the brain, the more than can go wrong.

<comment><USER7> Given the fever, it could also be something related to the immune system.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, fever is a very unusual symptom to be related to "regular" migraines. Something else was going on there probably.

But who knows? Maybe unusual electrical activity in the brain can cause increased core temp?

<comment><USER7> Core temperature is controlled by the hypothalamus, which is part of the brain, so that is certainly possible too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So many migraines are triggered by commonly used chemicals that are difficult to remove from our environment. Even if they're sporadically present, it can take hours for them to trigger a migraine, so the association is extremely difficult to draw. Fragrance chemicals are very common triggers, but again, they're very difficult to remove from our lives given their ubiquity and increasing popularity to the point where people can't fathom living without them. One of the worst offenders and most difficult to remove are fragranced dryer sheets. People who use them are virutally never relieved of being exposed from them given that they're in clothes, towels, and bedding, and the chemicals offgas months or years. It's exceedingly difficult to find personal care products that are free of these unnecessary chemicals. And "natural" products like essential oils are common triggers and probably no better.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting read.

Frustrating to see that migraines are still underfunded and under-researched. If you have ever experienced a migraine, you likely share my frustration. It is about as indescribable an affliction as anything can be. The overwhelming and crippling pain is something hard to convey to someone who hasn't experienced it first hand. It also seems that everyone experiences them slightly differently.

I typically get an aura that starts at about the 4 o'clock direction just outside the center of my right eye. The aura eventually expands and sometimes will end up obscuring 85-90 percent of my field of vision. It will also sometimes end up obscuring vision in both eyes.

In addition to the aura, I typically start feeling a bit of an upset stomach. Not nausea but rather a gas-like -- almost butterfly-in-stomach type feeling most closely associated with anxiety. Hard to say if it's related to the migraines in that it's a precursor or adjacent issue or it's due to the anxiety of an anticipated migraine.

The aura lasts for 10-20 minutes usually then quickly dissipates. Over the next half hour to hour, the pain will gradually start to creep in behind my right eye. The pain steadily increases over the next several hours eventually becoming incapacitating. I try to take 2 fioricet (the only medication outside of opiates that I've found to be effective) as soon as I confirm the aura is real and not just a bit of blurry vision (this is in itself quite an issue as it can be hard to tell sometimes and I wonder if I've triggered migraines by working myself into a tizzy out of fear of dealing with the pain). Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't. It's always tricky with meds to tell if they are working because you don't dare skip them to see lest you end up suffering for hours on end.

The pain feels like it starts at a point behind my right eye and travels straight back into my brain in a sort of football shape. I try to find a quiet dark room and use an ice pack on my forehead and eyes. I usually have the tv or something on to try and distract, otherwise I just sit there thinking about how much pain I'm in. The hope is the fioricet etc helps with sleep which is really the best way to get through.

I was accepted into our states medical marijuana program for migraines and it has definitely seemed to reduce frequency. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't help me at all once a migraine hits.

The migraine will typically last 8-12 hours or hopefully will be gone by the time I wake up if I'm able to fall asleep. However, for the following 1.5-2 days I'm extremely groggy and feel almost hungover without the usual hangover sickness. If I cough or strain in any way, I will feel pain in the football shape where the migraine pain was. Eventually this will fade over several days.

Anyway, here's to hoping we can eventually figure this one out. I wouldn't wish migraines on anyone.

<comment><USER10> Have you already examined if it's diet related? I'm thinking about a histamine intolerance.

<comment><USER11> A few of the putative anti-migraine drugs are antihistamines. (Esp. H3 and H4.) But there's still no evidence they actually work.

Relating anything to diet is somewhat silly at this point as there's enough cases with wildly varying diets. It's a great way to sell a quack treatment though.</comment></comment></comment>


The Making of "Turtles all the way down" - <AUTHOR> http://geidav.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/making-of-turtles-all-the-way-down/

<comment><USER2> Seeing stuff like this always makes me giddy. Why aren't Americans more involved in the demoscene? I always wanted to find a way into it, but never found people willing to give it a shot.

<comment><USER3> There are tons! And lots of parties as well (one coming up soon at MIT). It's almost entirely an East Coast phenomenon though.

Here's a FB page for them <https://www.facebook.com/groups/NAScene/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds really amazing but unfortunately doesn't run on my computer: Win 7 64 bit, i5-330, 8GB RAM

No error message, the program just doesn't start

<comment><USER5> I'd guess you'd need fairly beefy GPU for this. Maybe yours is lacking some features the demo uses.

<comment><USER4> I stand corrected, on my home machine it does indeed work beautifully :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was lucky enough to catch this at Revision. Phenomenal work, the 64k compos have been absurdly tough competition the past few years.

</comment><comment><USER7> I absolutely love the sound track to this!</comment>


React in Flip Flops – Coding Paradise in Las Palmas? - <AUTHOR> http://reactinflipflops.com <comment><AUTHOR> We are doing it again! After the original success of Meteor in Flip Flops, we are going to LP again! With react boilerplate creator Max Stoiber and Carte Blanche co-author Nik Graf, 20 geeks, we will learn React for a week, building projects and surfing

<comment><USER2> Yeah! Can't wait to be there, that's going to be awesome! \o/

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Definitely want to join! MiFF1 was great success. Cant wait to see what you planned for this time :) See you in Feb!

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like a great plan, enhancing skills in a cool environment!</comment>


The so-called economic recovery described in a single graph. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.altudov.com/2011/08/04/the-so-called-economic-recovery-described-in-a-single-graph/

<comment><USER2> I just wanted to point out the obvious to any potential readers: this is just one indicator and does not reflect what is happening in all sectors of the economy. Rather, it a price chart of commercial shipping services. Useful, but definitely not the end-all be-all economic recession indicator that the author makes it out to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not just me:

 _Because dry bulk primarily consists of materials that function as raw material inputs to the production of intermediate or finished goods, such as concrete, electricity, steel, and food, the index is also seen as an efficient economic indicator of future economic growth and production. The BDI is termed a leading economic indicator because it predicts future economic activity.[7]_

And:

 _"People don't book freighters unless they have cargo to move."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index#Why_economists...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index#Why_economists_and_stock_markets_read_it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Situation is even worse for tankers. So many were ordered during the boom, that owners are actually paying customers to rent tanker ships. They do it because the customer would then cover the fuel cost of moving the ship to a more profitable region with greater demand.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn A lot of ships were ordered and never used due to the recession. Ship owners are going to experience the same problem the housing market is: more supply than can be realistically demanded. Though someone's going to figure out a way to turn it into a bubble.

<comment><AUTHOR> Source? The only way too many ships being built would affect the picture that way if those ships entered service since after mid 2008. I'd like to see a source for that.

<comment> mkr-hn [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Reve...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed- The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html)

I remember going on Google Maps and seeing what looked like a lot of ships docked right where they were supposed to be, but I lost the coordinates.

edit: <http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/>

I'm looking to see if it's still there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good article, well sourced. Thanks.

<comment> mkr-hn [http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f80/the-singapore- ghost-...](http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f80/the-singapore-ghost- fleet-35010.html#post385926)

So the apparent visual indicators might not be meaningful, but the oversupply is probably a real issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Noda Time is born - <AUTHOR> http://msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/archive/2009/11/06/noda-time-is-born.aspx <comment><USER2> _I want it to be a shining example of how to build, maintain and deploy an open source .NET library._

I'm interested in the end result but also how he resolves the issues he brought up on running the project (handling documentation, builds, code signing, etc.). This should be fun to watch.</comment>


Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc <comment><USER2> (in the context of first world countries with functional welfare states)

I'm deeply skeptical of the idea that we're going to get some sort of new deal where the rich are suddenly happy with increased subsidy of the poor, in return for increased social cohesion or whatever. The rich generally resent paying taxes and avoid it where possible. Why are they suddenly going to be happy to pay _more_ tax, to subsidize people who have no specific need for the subsidy? Supposing the US replaces its welfare system with basic income, surely the next thing that happens is that the rich buy a government that guts or kills basic income (which is, by definition, not needed). I suspect if you want the rich to pay for this you're going to have to be prepared to go full French revolution.

I'm glad the video briefly touches on this question, but I find it frustrating how much of this debate focuses on the silly question of whether receiving free money morally taints people or whatever.

Edit: I mean, one of BI's highest profile advocates is Mark Zuckerberg. Does Mark Zuckerberg seem enthusiastic about paying tax?

<comment><USER3> The true long term vision for basic income, which this video does not touch on, does not involve the rich subsidizing the poor.

When birthrates stabilize at or below the replacement rate it becomes difficult to grow an economy. Typically countries turn to immigration to make up the difference, but there are other ways (see below).

Furthermore for economies such as the US economy, it needs consumers more than it needs producers. We are a consumer driven economy.

So what does this have to do with UBI?

Another way to grow the economy is to print money, and ultimately I think this is where UBI is headed. Instead of importing bodies to consume more, you simply create money so your existing individuals can consume more.

Supply side economics seems to win when populations are growing, but good old aggregate demand style economics may win out the day once populations stabilize.

In the near term I agree with you, I don't see giving up a giant military, or high enough tax rates to pay for a basic income scheme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still haven't found an solution anywhere for the following problem: Living (not just housing, but everything) expenses are a lot less for dual, or even triple, income households than for single people. So there's going to be a lot less pressure on dual income households to work beyond their basic income. Logically, this would put double (or even triple) the additional pressure on single income households. Under UBI, they'd have to provide enough in taxes to provide the UBI for themselves AND dual income households.

How do UBI proponents solve that problem?

<comment><USER5> UBI encourages marriage whereas traditional social programs discourage it. What's the problem?

<comment><USER4> Traditional social programs are a safety net for single people like those going through divorce and such. Under UBI, it just puts a lot more pressure on those people, while at the same time alleviating the pressure on multi-income households. It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages, etc. I see that as a problem.

<comment><USER6> >It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages, etc. I see that as a problem.

How many people are held captive in marriages because their spouse is the breadwinner? How many people stay for health insurance, or because they've spent so long raising children that their profession, if they had one to begin with, has passed them by? I shudder to think of how many abusive spouses have yelled, "Where would you even go?"

I think we agree that it's distasteful for financial concerns to put people in danger in unhealthy relationships, but I have a hard time seeing how "Making sure everyone has enough money to live" would make people MORE trapped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I still don't see how UBI doesn't cause inflation enough to offset any benefit(in the near term ie before robot job apocalypses).

<comment><USER8> Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. As long as you are paying for UBI through taxes rather than by printing money, there shouldn't be any overall inflation.

Certainly there will be price adjustments: the prices of some things will go up while others will go down. But that definitely wont "offset any benefit".

<comment><USER5> > Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

Is it? The US monetary base has more than tripled since 2008 but inflation since then is only 14.6%.

For comparison between 1999 and 2008, the us monetary base increased by about a third and inflation between those years was around 29%.

<comment><USER9> Inflation being a monetary phenomenon is the technical definition of inflation. When you mention the 14% number, that is based on market price for basket of goods which is not technically inflation (under the definition used by economists, not the definition used by journalists).

<comment><USER10> The technical definition of inflation is raising prices. It's only a strictly monetary phenomenon if output and velocity are fixed with respect to the money supply. In other words, inflation meaning "more money" is only a technical definition in the kooky world of monetarism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want to see a solid critique of practical challenges facing UBI that most proponents do not really address, I highly recommend this piece:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com/after-universal-basic- incom...](https://email@example.com/after-universal-basic-income-the- flood-217db9889c07)

</comment><comment><USER12> What a dystopian future. So then, 99% of the population will be powerless, barely subsisting, as if they were rabbits in a cage in the pet store, while the remaining 1% own the entire world.

<comment><USER13> Its not even going to turn out THAT nice. The new tax cuts assume that the poor will always be working, but between the loss of net neutrality and the automation of driving jobs we're looking at the loss of 95% of male work within the next 10 years. But the rich have divested themselves from society so state and local government will break down and most likely when you lose your career you will land in a concentration camp. The only working class jobs will be capturing torturing and executing the former working class.

<comment><USER6> >between the loss of net neutrality and the automation of driving jobs we're looking at the loss of 95% of male work within the next 10 years

I'm pessimistic about the same legislative issues you are, but what on earth does this mean? "Transportation and warehousing" accounts for 3.2 percent of all jobs in the U.S. and is actually projected to hold steady between now and 2026.[1] What does net neutrality have to do with anything? Is this... a real comment? Do you really think they're going to send all the boys to concentration camps because their jobs got taken by self-driving cars?

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm](https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When it comes to UBI, there's an interesting psychological phenomenon.

I believe that McDonald's and similar establishments could have automated away the vast majority of their work force years, maybe even decades ago. And yet there are still people working there. In fact, McDonald's is often viewed as many people's first entrance into the work force, and as a safety blanket if anything goes south (well worst case at least I can go work at McDonald's or something).

In other words, I believe McDonald's and its kin are a form of social welfare.

We see this elsewhere, in less subtle ways. Tons of jobs that shouldn't exist, but which are kept afloat by regulation designed specifically to preserve those jobs.

We pay either higher taxes or higher pries to achieve both of these forms of social welfare.

And yet, support for these jobs and social actions is generally quite strong. Hence why restaurants haven't fully automated themselves; the market would vomit at the idea of those thousands of jobs being replaced by machines. Regardless of whether that would save people an incredible amount of money, they are willing to accept those sacrifices in exchange for those jobs being available.

In that light, what's the difference between what we have today versus UBI? Either you're paying someone to do functionally meaningless work, or you're paying them to do "nothing". Under the former, their work is _truly_ meaningless. Under the latter they at least have the chance to do something beneficial for either themselves or others.

Personally I haven't formed a real opinion of UBI. Even in light of the above arguments, the complexities make it a problem not so easily reasoned through. But I suppose my point is that UBI isn't as drastic a step as many imagine it to be. It would be more of an evolution of our existing, de-facto social welfare programs.

EDIT: Addendum: When I use the term meaningless here I'm really just using it for the sake of argument. Obviously no one's work is meaningless. Just because a machine could do the exact same job that a human can do, doesn't mean that the task, as performed by a human, is meaningless. The true thrust of my argument is that a human performing the task subtracts value from the economy relative to a machine doing the job. It's sub-optimal.

<comment><USER15> Or possibly, service jobs are harder to automate than it appears? What evidence do you have that it's easy to automate?

In theory, you could replace a McDonalds with a vending machine, but it's not the same thing.

<comment><USER14> Possibly. Customer facing service is certainly difficult to automate away. But I believe behind the counter workforce should be relatively simple. It's hard to fathom that the unskilled masses who end up working there can't be automated away.

It's not like we don't already have automated cooking lines. All the precooked foods at stores are from automated cooking lines. Just replicate that in the back of a McDonald's. I don't find that hard to fathom.

Some will say that "Well if McD's could have automated away those jobs already they would have." Market optimization and whatnot. But the market is always optimal from a _human_ perspective. Case-in-point: McD's switching away from their "pink goo" because of the backlash against it. Using pink goo was cheaper, but the uproar threatened demand, so they have to use more expensive alternatives. In the same way that I believe many, many jobs have not been automated away simply because the public backlash would destroy any business that tried.

<comment><USER15> If you have a store that sells food without people making it for you on demand, I believe that's called a 7-Eleven. They have lots of vending machines and prepackaged food. To the extent that people are okay with eating that way, they'll stop going to McDonald's.

There was a great article about the sandwich industry in the UK that goes into this [1]. And yet, even for sandwiches, Subway does well making them on demand; selling prepackaged sandwiches is an enormous and growing market but it's not the entire market.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the- sandwic...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich- consumed-britain)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A UBI of $12,000/year given to every adult by the goverment would double the annual government expenditure.

That is fine, but we should have a talk about how the program is funded. This is one of the reasons I prefer talking about negative income tax. Yes, the concept is more complex, and has a worse acronym, but it is largely self- funded.

<comment><USER17> Take it out of the 576 Billion dollar defense budget that makes up more than half of all federal spending?

<comment> aaron-lebo That's not 3 trillion dollars.

<comment><USER17> Correct. The defense budget could not pay for it all, but it could contribute a sizeable chunk.

A gradual buildup using the funds available (say half, about 288 Billion) could be done, infusing more money into the system and growing opportunities for people to improve their economic standing. At the same time you'd need to gradually pressure corporations and wealthy individuals to shift investment back into US-based work instead of imports and shifting jobs overseas.

Basically, redistribute wealth very very slowly, and work trade deals to subsidize the production of our own goods until their price becomes competitive again (because we're not going to build electronics cheaper than the Chinese any time soon). But you'd have to base all this around trade deals, because globalization will just eventually crush our poor, which will keep increasing in number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > There would be still be very rich and poor people, but we could eliminate > fear, suffering, and existential panic for a substantial part of the > population. #6m28s

I actually laughed when I heard them say this, given their videos on things like the Fermi Paradox.

<comment><USER19> Can you break that down a little more? I'm having trouble connecting those two statements.

<comment><USER18> Many of their earlier videos (before they started to do "What If" videos a la XKCD) focused on the confusing, absurd, and seemingly meaningless existence of humanity -- so much so, that they made a video on "Optimistic Nihilism".

They're quite reserved in the statements that they make, as well. They won't say life _is_ meaningless, only that we haven't found something we truly agree upon as meaningful, and given that the universe is headed towards big crunch / heat death, what does it all matter?

Given those two points, I found it amusing that they'd go so far to say that simply giving someone $1000 a month _COULD_ resolve misery, suffering, and existential angst. It seems to fly in the face of their ethos.

<comment><USER6> I think "existential panic" in this case maybe isn't referring to existentialism, but... existence? Like if you aren't going to have food tomorrow, and there's no solid prospect of figuring out how to get food the next day, that's a panic fueled by the desire to continue to exist. It's kind of an imprecise term in this case, but that's what I took it to mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would UBI be available only for citizens or everyone living within the borders?

Thoughts?

<comment><USER21> Ideally eventually it will be truly universal (at least on a global scale). In the short term, the question of "citizens only?" is a pretty big complication. It means countries that start UBI sooner will be incentivized either to discourage or restrict immigration, or to limit it to citizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's a good FAQ on Basic Income:

[http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income- faq](http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq)

</comment><comment><USER23> Universal Basic Income is necessary for humanity to reach to higher goals in their evolution. Wasting 8-10 hours of the day doing a job that robots could do much better is not the best use of human intelligence. Imagine the discoveries and inventions that would happen if humans could devote all of their time to their passion. The benefits drastically outweigh the minuscule downsides

</comment><comment><USER24> 5:23 _... many argue that it might be time to distribute the spoils more evenly to preserve the social peace._

This does not come from principles. It sounds like a stickup.

<comment><USER6> Workers have been generating increasing productivity for decades—Americans have never created more wealth. Yet wages have stagnated, companies have trillions of dollars squirreled away, and the richest families in the country have more money than many millions of the rest of us. Who's getting robbed?

<comment><USER24> > Who's getting robbed?

Is it the really the case that anyone is being robbed?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> First line: "What if the state covered the cost of living?"

Who is paying for the income? It's not "The state". It's everyone else, by taxation. You're telling people you have a right to seize their earnings for their labor. You're literally taking someone else's money, and giving it to someone else. UBI is nothing but people ignoring the moral problems of seizing assets and saying "The end justifies the means."

If a billionaire philanthropist wants to sponsor UBI voluntarily, that's a different matter. Or if you want to donate to a charity that funds UBI, please do. It'll be an interesting economic experiment. But taking assets from people and giving them to another person is wrong, no matter how good the outcome is.

<comment><USER26> You aren't complaining about UBI, you are complaining about taxes (yes, I get how they are related, but they aren't the same thing).

We've long ago decided that we as a society are OK with taxes. If you don't want to pay them, go somewhere that doesn't make you pay them.

<comment><USER27> No, no he isn't. There is a difference between paying taxes so that the government can provide services and an A-B transfer.

For example, the government can, in some situations, seize land. The government is not generally allowed to then give that land to other citizens. There have been a couple of cases that came close to that, and if you read the majority opinions on them you'll see the logical foundations.

<comment><USER26> I fail to see how UBI isn't a service. It's using a made-up system (money), to make sure that people have viable options in life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced UBI is the way we should go, but I genuinely don't see the difference between that and any other service.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts about going back to school to pursue a 2nd Bachelor's degree? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, I thought this would be a great place to get people's opinions on this matter.  I have a BA in Psychology and Philosophy and have been working as a sort of Data Analyst and software developer in an academic research lab for the past several years, but would really like to get into the field of Aerospace Engineering.  I do a lot of Statistics and Machine Learning in my current job, but certainly don't have the Math & Physics background for Engineering, so would likely be starting from the ground up.  Oh yeah, I'm also in my early 30's.  What are people's thoughts on this?  Any advice on how to finance this? <comment><USER2> If you're not still encumbered by student loans from your first degree, then maybe taking some out isn't so crazy.

With Math & Physics in particular, given that you're starting a bit late (even 18-year-olds struggle mightily with these subjects), might not be such a bad idea to take just a few credit hours, only in these subjects to help you transition from working full time to school full time.

Odds are you can probably apply some of your BA credits to your BSAE degree but with 4 years of math you won't be able to make the degree happen any faster even if you went full time to start.

Also, devote 10 hours to scholarship hunting. Apply, apply, search, and apply. It's amazing how much free money people pass up to get loans for.

<comment><USER3> Just a couple of questions.

Do you think there would still be many scholarships that a 30-something white male, going to school for a second BS, a MS, or a Doctorate would qualify for? I'm just about finished with my BS, which was largely funded by the GI bill, but I'm trying to make plans for when that money runs out.

I honestly don't know where to start when it comes to looking for scholarships, do you have any resources that you could share?

One of the ideas that I've toyed with is trying to fill the gaps in my Information Systems degree by taking calculus, physics, possibly algorithms, and then trying to apply to Georgia Tech's super-cheap CS Master's program. Info systems is more of a business degree than I expected, when I really want to do software development in the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you gone ahead and looked at specifically what job you want to be doing in "aerospace engineering". It's like someone saying they want to do chemical engineering or mechanical engineering. Within each there is many many different jobs.

Once you know this, how likely is it that you will be able to break in with your degree? Can you break in without the degree?

Personally, unless you truly are committed and really want to do this, further education isn't an answer. You will be losing four years of income plus career growth.

Based on your description of the work you have been doing, you could likely get a good job outside academia. Maybe what you are really looking for is a change of environment.

</comment><comment><USER5> Dude you're going the opposite way, I'm trying to get out of Aerospace. What are you specifically looking for in Aerospace. The field is pretty broad and the work you'll do will be so specialized that you'll be using only 5% of all you learn in engineering school. You can always take classes specifically for what you want to do, you do not need an engineering degree to do the job unless you want to become an FAA DER since they are the ones certifying all the work done by "the engineers".

</comment><comment><USER6> If you have been working as a data analyst and software developer have you thought about getting into the simulation side of aerospace engineering. I have a math degree and I did that for over 12 years.

If you don't have a problem working in the defense industry that would be the most logical place to start looking for work, especially on the simulation side. Although with defense spending being tight right now it may not be the best place right now.

</comment><comment><USER7> What would you need to get into a master's program? If you could meet those requirements in less than 2 years it might be worth it to do that.

<comment><USER6> Most Aerospace Masters programs won't take you without a BS in Aerospace. I have a BA in Math and they told me not to bother applying. They told me to talk to the EE people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If your set on becoming a data scientist, I would just take a tom of courses on coursera.org - machine learning, computing for data analysis, intro to data science, natural language processing, then compete in Kaggle.com competitions and do some cool data projects and network your way into a data journalist or data scientist

</comment><comment><USER9> start a microbusiness/do a kickstarter. maybe it can even be in the aerospace industry. maybe it would be better than the job you need said degree for.

fourhourworkweek.com startupbook.net tropicalmba.com

Don't borrow money for school, it's a trap

</comment><comment><USER10> Much depends on what the sort of work you want to be doing down the road is. Does it require a bachelor's in engineering? Does it require a masters? Ph.D?</comment>


Bucket Stream: Finding S3 Buckets by watching certificate transparency logs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eth0izzle/bucket-stream <comment><USER2> > _Randomise your bucket names! There is no need to use company- > backup.s3.amazonaws.com_

This is really poor advice. It offers no real benefit, especially since any asset you access will betray your bucket name because it's part of the DNS resolution. Bucket names are emphatically public as much as a DNS name is public.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't call it poor advice. It isn't a control, more security by obscurity, but it doesn't exactly hurt anything either. I saw a situation recently where a bucket was accidentally opened to the world, but the name was a UUID and in the entire history of the bucket no request was logged other than from the intended clients.

<comment><USER4> > but it doesn't exactly hurt anything either.

It hurts me if I'm trying to remember the bucket I'm after.

Is fc20d856-2a7e-41ab-b072-9bb9a68c6bda production or 193565ac-9121-4071-8aeb-62f3111c4c97 or is that the dev setup or the staging data for the other service or...

To me the big question here is why these names have to be global. Why can't I have a UUID externally but a name and an account internally? Honest question, I assume there may be a significant issue as smarter people than me decided not to do it that way.

<comment><USER5> I've heard many aws employees lament the global namespace of s3 bucket names. They think it's a mistake too.

Though if they weren't global, they'd probably be "name.accountid.s3...." which isn't really obscure either since aws account ids are semi-public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could be more general: finding subdomains by watching CT logs.

So what is the problem here?

How to "hide" private subdomains?

How to "securely" configure S3 buckets?

IMO, the problem is in the use of the CA system, where control over "names" (e.g. subdomains) is shared with third parties (certificate issuers) instead of being solely with the user who wants to reserve names.

It is possible to have a non-CA PKI system where the user controls both the issuance of the public key _and_ the associated name she will use. In such a system, no third party has control over names. People learn the user's name and the user's key from the same source: the user.

Thus there is no issue of trust re: using third parties, and thus no need for monitoring what names the third parties are issuing, e.g. via "certificate transparency" logs. CT logs do not need to exist.

This is not a new idea and it has been proven to work. I can prepare a post with examples if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER7> If you have a wildcard cert, you don't have to share the subdomains with the CA.

<comment><USER8> More importantly: why s3 doesn't use wildcard ssl cert? I find it strange that they would queue DNS changes on a simple bucket provision.

<comment><USER9> Because then amazon would have trivial access to all connections to s3 buckets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Randomise your bucket names! There is no need to use company- > backup.s3.amazonaws.com.

I don't think this is a globally true statement. Random bucket names are hard, not everyone is using s3 with a code configuration and therefore remembering bucket name is actually important.

</comment><comment><USER11> Passive DNS might be another good way to get S3 bucket names.

There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article on Passive DNS, but this article explains it quite well: [https://help.passivetotal.org/passive_dns.html](https://help.passivetotal.org/passive_dns.html)

Basically some resolvers submit all (some?) of their DNS query responses to a central database so that it can be searched later. It seems you can also install a passive "sensor" in your network that (presumably) passively MITMs DNS queries and then sends off the responses.

I don't know how hard it is to get access to the data, but:

> programs like RiskIQ's DNSIQ allow organizations to install a sensor on > their network that reports back to RiskIQ and in exchange, the organization > gains access to all the passive DNS traffic inside the central repository.

EDIT: VirusTotal has some passive DNS data publicly available: e.g. look in "observed subdomains" [https://www.virustotal.com/en/domain/s3-us- west-2.amazonaws....](https://www.virustotal.com/en/domain/s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/information/)

EDIT2: And a bunch of them appear to be unprotected...

</comment><comment><USER3> I did some analysis a few months ago and collected the names of approximately 100,000 buckets in the wild. Rough numbers, about 5% are open to the public for anonymous read, and about 5% of those are open for anonymous write.

I'm convinced that Chris Vickery, the guy behind a good many of the open bucket finds this year, has access to enterprise firewall/proxy logs. Not because the buckets would have been hard to find, but because you could spend a lifetime looking through thousands upon thousands of open buckets before you find anything interesting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Love stuff like that! I've quickly wrapped a prettifier for S3 xml listings in a userscript, so you can use it with Tampermonkey Beta. Tested on Chrome under OS X.

[https://gist.github.com/kaivi/8114cbc2080da78d67c94238af6421...](https://gist.github.com/kaivi/8114cbc2080da78d67c94238af64210d)

Edit: Okay, the userscript won't run on larger XML files, gotta figure it out later.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is concerning b/c there have been a number of high profile data breaches that have occurred due to over reliance on S3 bucket obscurity. Where the buckets have been left with minimal or misconfigured permissions and GBs of data there for the downloading.

<comment><USER14> How is this concerning? This is very good, because it makes it easy to do that, which means that's much harder to dismiss as "something that will never happen".

<comment><USER13> Concerning in the sense of "if you aren't sure why this is a story on HN" -> that you may be unaware that many large and generally technically competent firms are screwing this up and this repo/tool is yet one more reason to take this seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was curious so I've tried if I could find anything compromising with it and it's mostly just public buckets of some images used for websites so nothing strange. Maybe the README is a bit too dramatic.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm confused. Aren't S3 buckets secured by pre-existing wildcard certs?

<comment><USER17> Ignore any direct connection between S3 buckets themselves and particular certificates, and just think of the stream of domain names you get from CT as the seed for a dictionary to grind against S3.

<comment><USER18> But why do we get those domain names if there (supposedly) is an existing wildcard certificate?

<comment><USER19> To put the s3 bucket under another domain. Such as static.example.com instead of abcdef01123451523245.s3.amazon.com (or whatever it is).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Getting rid of python indentation errors - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mccormickt12/grammar

<comment><USER2> Can't functions have multiple "returns"? It seems like "end" should always be required. Or am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER3> To be replaced with 'end' errors?

I really don't see how this is a problem for anyone.</comment>


First electric ute engineered in Australia for use in mining and agribusiness - <AUTHOR> https://thedriven.io/2019/10/24/first-electric-ute-engineered-in-australia-for-use-in-mining-and-agribusiness/ <comment><USER3> I don't know if "engineered in Australia" is a fair description, it's an electric conversion for 79-series Landcruisers, which are already widely used as light vehicles in the mining industry.

Mining LVs are a good match for electric vehicles, though, because they spend a lot of time traveling at low speed or sitting around idling, and they can be recharged from the plant's main electrical power source (which can be augmented with renewables) instead of using diesel which needs to be trucked in over hundreds of kilometers.

Edit: Also while the sticker price seems high, if the maintenance is lower by any significant amount then mining companies will love them. Equipment costs are a small fraction of site operating expenses.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's some mining operation with battery electric trucks where the mine is above the unloading point. So the heavy loads all move downhill, the trucks use regenerative braking, and they don't need external charging.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.autoblog.com/2019/08/26/edumper-electric- mining-...](https://www.autoblog.com/2019/08/26/edumper-electric-mining-truck- self-charging/)

I think these are the ones you're talking about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It's available in 20 to 120 kilowatt hour battery packs, with modular > battery packs in it, and has a 700 Newton meter electric motor in it," said > Possingham.

I bet you he said Newton metre.

It's an extra kicker that people who don't use metric units also get to change the spelling of metric units the rest of us are using.

<comment><USER6> > I bet you he said Newton metre.

Are `meter` and `metre` pronounced differently?

> It's an extra kicker that people who don't use metric units also get to > change the spelling of metric units the rest of us are using.

Assuming you are referring to the US, we use metric. We just don't use it for everything.

What a strange high-horse you sit on.

<comment><USER5> > Are `meter` and `metre` pronounced differently?

I wouldn't imagine so.

Bit like how cheque and check aren't pronounced differently -- so not really homonyms, as the meaning is the same (or at least in the North American interpretation usage, one of the meanings matches the meanings of the standard English word / spelling).

In English, meter is a device used to measure something, and it's convenient to distinguish that by spelling (rather than relying on potentially ambiguous context) from the SI unit for length -- the metre.

Similarly, a thousand x 1kg (SI unit for mass) gives you a tonne -- this is also easily distinguished from the myriad variations of 'ton' that may refer to mass or volume (eg UK, US, long, short, harbour). Seeing US publications regularly use the phrase 'a metric ton' provokes a similar reaction of despair for my horse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For non-Australians, "ute" is the widely-used abbreviation for "utility vehicle".

<comment><USER8> Need to 'muricanise it more... It's a sort of pickup truck.

<comment><USER9> Here, let me translate to American ;D - Chevy El Camino or Ford Ranchero.

 _" Two^ nations divided by a common language" \- (someone famous)_ ^Four, really.

<comment><USER10> The Land Cruiser platform in the article is similar in size to the more contemporary Ford Explorer Sport Trac:

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

It's also probably more comparable mechanically.

<comment><USER11> Do you guys get the Toyota Hilux[1] in the USA? That's a classic "ute".

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

<comment><USER12> We used to. I had the 4x4 version and I miss that truck. It was absolutely bulletproof and would go anywhere and get back home in one piece.

Since 1993 or so it's been replaced by the Tacoma which might be even better, but not as simple mechanically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very expensive. AUD200K is over USD$136K

<comment><USER14> Cheaper than running it on petrol you have to haul in. Have to look at total operating costs, not just vehicle sticker.

<comment><USER15> I wonder how quickly it charges. Vehicles in mine sites are often in use around the clock, which is fine if you can quickly top them up with fuel, but if it takes a few hours to recharge them, you're going to need more vehicles.

<comment><USER14> The bigger the battery, the faster it can charge to 80% or so. The last 20% is the slow charge, but if the vehicle is always plugged in when not moving, it's not a concern.

<comment><USER16> Most of the time a mining vehicle (or any other vehicle used in a similar setting) is not moving it is nowhere near a plug. It's not like buses or delivery vehicles where they only ever stop when they're at some sort of "home base" where they can charge. A mining vehicle is sitting around somewhere remote while the operator gets out and surveys something or fixes something (or it sits there with HVAC blasting while they do paperwork).

<comment><USER14> While a mine itself is remote, they typically either have utility power or on site generation. Many mines are moving to renewables for local generation for cost savings reasons. Anything you have to bring to a remote location is expensive, including power or fuel.

<comment><USER16> How the mine gets its power is irrelevant. The point is that these vehicles are rarely stationary at any sort of base where they can charge. Most mines run 24/7 (though often not at full capacity during the "off" hours). The duty cycle is much higher than buses and delivery vehicles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it sadly ironic that the industry that's responsible for most emissions and actively influences political position in this country to put profit before the environment is the one that this zero emissions car is being targeted at.

With that said, bravo on the implementation and using the 79 as a very solid platform. The sales pitch of the article doesn't sound very compelling though, so I wonder how much success they'll have. Until they can hit a cost parity with diesels, it could be a bit of a slog.

<comment><USER18> (1) Most of the mines in Australia aren't coal mines. Maybe there is a case that Asia could prosper as they do without coal (I doubt it, but maybe) - <USER2> there is no way they could have prospered like they have without vast amounts of iron ore and copper. The environment absolutely takes a back seat to that outrageous level of prosperity. And even then, Australian mines are pretty environmentally sensitive.

Also, Australia seems to be ~40% of world's lithium production [0]. Probably not going to complain about the emissions those mines kick up.

So basically, don't be sad. Maybe try for proud wonder.

(2) You'll often see solar panels in mines too (setting up infrastructure to a grid is hard work) and I suspect mine rehab would often be a good place to erect some windfarms.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Australia#Statistica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Australia#Statistical_chart_of_Australia's_major_mineral_resources)

<comment><USER19> Even when not directly responsible for emissions, the Australian mining sector has been notoriously and effectively climate denialist. As an industry, miners actively and successfully lobbied against the "carbon tax" implemented by the Gillard Labor government [0]. In fact, the then CEO of my former employer (Western Mining Corp, 90's) Hugh Morgan, was then and still is an absolutely single-minded climate change denialist, despite WMC being primarily a nickel and uranium miner (at the time).

But what's even more ironic is the fact that in the election earlier this year, eventual PM Scott Morrison was lambasting the Labor leader Bill Shorten for his proposed policy of a ICE vehicle phaseout, saying that Bill wanted to take away people's utes and "end the weekend" [1].

[0] [https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/miners-dig-deep- to-...](https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/miners-dig-deep-to-battle- carbon-tax-20110816-i4c7y)

[1] [https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/utes-electric- cars...](https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/utes-electric-cars-and- politics/10983298)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow, that's a beautiful truck. I wish American utility vehicle designers would go back to a boxier design.

Edit: I'd kill for a truck that had Land Rover looks with Ford or Toyota truck reliability.

<comment><USER21> The truck in the article is a converted 79 Series Toyota Land Cruiser. I would have thought you could get one in USA?

<comment><USER20> That's funny, this got me googling around and I discovered my mistake. I thought that looked like a retro Toyota grill. Definitely in love with the Land Cruiser 70.

Unfortunately we can't get them in the states. Truly rugged bare bones vehicles have sold so poorly in the U.S. that a base Ford pickup is about the simplest thing you can buy here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> $200K sounds like a lot, but thats about as much as a Landcruiser with Duramax conversion (in AU).</comment>


Ask HN: Why do established companies continue to screw up password hashing? - <AUTHOR> Today, it seems that even novice devs realize the importance of properly hashing and storing passwords. "Don't roll your own! MD5 hashes are baadddd! Just use bcrypt! Don't try to outsmart crypto professionals!" seems to be common wisdom. Why is it that very large companies continue to store passwords improperly? (as evidenced by breaches) How could a staff of so many competent people possibly fuck it up? <comment><USER2> Simple. Legacy and hubris. Legacy in that some systems were engineered before this was a common wisdom. Also the legacy systems become fragile over time and both engineers and business execs become really nervous about making a large change to legacy systems.

Hubris because many business level people (and some engineers) will not free up the dollars and time to fix systems as they feel it is unnecessary and that no one will get to the database.

Sadly I did work for a team where the execs recognized we were right for wanting to change the system but wouldn't free dollars up to do it. Worse, to pass security audits they would show prototype systems that followed proper security standards that looked like the primary system, shady shit.</comment>


Linux 3.0 Release Delayed - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/2BXkWyrY4jH

<comment><USER2> The idea of an ephemeral pathname lookup that takes weeks to stress seemed odd to me. Here's the thread describing the issue, in case anyone else is interested:

<https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/17/103>

</comment><comment><USER3> Linus Torvolds uses Google+ whut!?

<comment><USER4> The bothersome part is all the unorganized comment drivel under the main post. What's the point? Just because you can be heard doesn't mean you should be.

<comment><USER5> This is largely why I don't follow anything relating to Linux unless it's on a highly technical site, such as lwn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Darn. I was looking forward to all the new API changes with the major version number change.

</comment><comment><USER7> And that's why Linux has almost double the server market share that Windows has today.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Servers)

<comment><USER8> Those numbers vary wildy, even barring the ones measured by revenue.</comment></comment>