Waze Carpool - <AUTHOR> https://www.waze.com/carpool/ <comment><USER3> The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff customer support at the level required to run operationally-intensive businesses.

The rate in which something goes wrong in the real world (esp where money in exchanged) is much higher than in a pure software world, and Google is going to try to take the FAQ/chatbot/no phone approach to service when it's going to need to staff entire buildings with agents if it doesn't want to completely piss off a nascent user base.

<comment><USER4> Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier.

The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Alex is going to the same place as you, do you want to give him a ride for 5$?". So the actual support required will be minimal to zero, it's just a software app to simplify what people already do, not a full transport service.

<comment><USER5> You just described the pure software world solution.

What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin?

What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope the driver?

You absolutely need actual support, it's not going to be minimal-to-zero. Both the driver and the passenger need to be able to pick up a phone number and speak to a real human being who can resolve some sort of issue.

<comment><USER4> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc.

The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not.

Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from your area, they can implement a minimal account age that uniquely identifies the wazer simply via ride history - even if they use an anonymous login and fake credit card data, and so on.

It's a bit harder to protect against rogue riders since they need to be able to use the app immediately, but still, phone number and credit card verification is much better the letting a random stranger into your car. If not too intrusive, they could even ask riders for a frontal picture that the driver can verify and that remains on record. So for people who would carpool anyway, it's a much better option.

<comment><USER6> > The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call > the police, get mugged etc.

It's not so simple. Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers. The goal here is to make it acceptable, and naturally greatly increase the frequency this is happening. This can be reasonably taken as an endorsement by Google to the driver/passenger, because it is -- they want this to happen more often, and are essentially saying "it's OK to hitchhike through our app". This means that they can reasonably be seen as taking part in the entire transaction and assuming some portion of the liability.

<comment><USER7> Read up on DC slug lines. We are talking 10,000's of people doing this daily with very minor government support for the last 15+ years. Mostly awareness and signage.

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

<comment><USER8> I was reading an article about 10 years ago about this ride-sharing in the DC metro area. We discussed how a smartphone app could make all this much easier and smoother. We didn't follow up on it back then...

It wasn't (and won't likely to be) the only big missed opportunity in my life.

<comment><USER9> Survivorship bias makes us forget about the other dozens of "taxi/carpooling apps" that did not succeed.

"The Upstarts" [0] talks about some of those.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Upstarts-Airbnb-Companies-Silicon- Cha...](https://www.amazon.com/Upstarts-Airbnb-Companies-Silicon-Changing- ebook/dp/B01HZFB3X0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The really big difference between Waze Carpool and Uber/Lyft is that the driver is paid at most 54 cents a mile (e.g., gas money), and Waze will only match the driver with passengers for two trips / day.

So it is _not_ designed to be something where the driver will make a living, but really just as a way for a driver to get some company, maybe take advantage of the HOV lanes, and it gets some cars off of the road to reduce congestion.

This has impacts to the sort of insurance drivers will need to get, since it's really no different from traditional car pooling. I would not be surprised if, over time, the system tries to pair people who have previously shared rides together for subsequent trips (unless either party rates the other as, "would rather not share a ride with this person"). Knowing that you are sharing the ride with the same person that you normally share your car with would make for a much better user experience, since people are, after all, social creatures.

<comment><USER11> I was interested in checking this out until you mentioned driver is paid at most $0.54 per mile. That really stinks for city travel where commute times are long and parking at the downtown destinations is expensive. There is no incentive for me to pick up a carpooler on my 30 minute 6 mile drive into the city where parking costs $26/day. In rush hour traffic, it'll easily add an extra 15-20 minutes to my commute each way to pick anyone up.

It would subsidize $6.50 of my parking but I'd end up with an extra 30-40m of driving each day. Perhaps it's better than nothing?

<comment><USER10> If you are going into the city anyway for work, you can drop off your passenger near a subway stop, and continue into work. The assumption is that you were driving anyway, and so the cost of adding a carpooler and dropping him or her maybe 3-5 minutes out of your normal drive.

You're right that if you need to go out of your way at pickup or dropoff, or if you weren't going to drive into the city anyway because parking is $$$, this isn't going to work for you. But then that wasn't the intended target audience. If the goal is to get cars off the road, and you weren't going to drive, but take light rail as the saner way to commute into the city --- then by all means, continue using rail or light rail for your commute!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I use this (and Scoop) in the Bay Area. It's slower and requires some decorum. A 25-minute trip may take, including waiting, 45. And a ride I might have spent on the phone or napping requires, at the very least, respectful silence.

On the plus side, it's far cheaper (three or four dollars versus $10 for Line/Pool and $20 for X/Line). And conversations with drivers are usually quite delightful.

On the latter, I am mixed about my preference to converse with fellow well- paid, well-educated technologists. I don't know if this is resource-saving camaraderie or a furthering of a classist California where blue and white collars fall into further mutual isolation.

<comment><USER13> > On the latter, I am mixed about my preference to converse with fellow well- > paid, well-educated technologists. I don't know if this is resource-saving > camaraderie or a furthering of the mutual isolation of white and blue collar > Californians.

I mean, if you're not talking to your uber/lyft driver as-is...

I don't know. I'm convinced Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already. At least in the case of peer carpools, people are actually talking.

<comment><USER14> >Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already

I'm convinced the Bay Area itself has done enough of that segregation. Isn't that the entire reason people move there? Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. Why is your startup headquartered in SV? Because that's where all the tech talent is. The only reason SV exists is because it's self-segregated into a high density of well-paid, well-educated technologists.

There are many places around the country that have tech jobs and a far lower cost of living, but why do people choose SV instead of those other places? Because SV has a higher density of people who are _just like me_.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure why anyone would need to feel guilty or worry about that fact though.

People do that everywhere. Toronto is famous for it's diversity and multiculturalism but the entire city is finely divided into various ethnic, cultural, and work enclaves (little korea, little ethiopia, 2x little italys, etc). And it works great for the most part, there's little ethnic or political tension, at least within the city proper.

It's a natural phenomenon. The simple fact is people primarily like being near people like themselves, culturally or otherwise. Intellectuals, working class, artists etc, etc have always grouped up.

Absent some type of grand social engineering I don't see how you could change that. Nor whether the people would be better of with it.

But just because there are enclaves or grouping doesn't mean you need to be isolated in your social networks either. Cities are big places with plenty of people and SF is no different.

<comment><USER14> >I'm not sure why anyone would need to worry about that fact

SV is famous for solving problems that impact SV or cities like SV. Whenever I hear the question from startup/techie folks "are we in a bubble", I always think the answer is "yes, but not how you think". We're not in a bubble of too many high valuation startups, we're in a bubble where we don't understand the rest of the world around us. Because we're living paycheck to paycheck on a $250k salary in a $5k/mo studio apartment getting our food from Postmates and having drones deliver our Amazon packages. And after a while, you start to think that's just how it is. But it's not. Not for the vast majority of people who don't live in SV, Austin, or Seattle.

That's the value diversity brings, that's the danger of suburbs everyone's been talking about since forever, and that's where the Bay Area is going. Quickly.

The closest Whole Foods to me is over an hour and a half away. Until last year, the closest Trader Joe's was over 3 hours away. I work in tech making six figures, and my neighbor (living in a detached, single family home) is a diesel mechanic. The guy on the other side owns his own home but just works as a cashier at the local grocery store, because our cost of living isn't ridiculous and you can afford a house on $12/hr. Even myself, I recently got schooled when I said $65k/yr doesn't make you rich: the number of people popping out of the wood-work to say what making $65k would mean to them and what luxuries it could afford them was astounding. Just hitting $65k would double most of their income.

We don't have Uber around here. We don't have Postmates. Amazon doesn't deliver same-day. We can't get Google to drop off our groceries for us. Our employers don't have a bus to take us to work. Some people may say "but all of those luxuries are the reason why we moved to SV!", but in response I say all of those luxuries are reasons massing together in SV is so harmful. First, it colors our worldview to think our life is normal. Secondly, it ignores everyone else in the world and the real problems they have.

I'm not even talking about segregating races and ethnicities. I'm sure there's plenty of diversity of skin color and ethnic background in SV. But there's a lot more diversity that exists than the ones the law says you have to respect. And their problems aren't being solved by people in SV, because people in SV don't even know they exist.

<comment><USER16> Assuming you want to make as much money as possible, focusing on the problems of the portion of the population that makes the most money seems most efficient, i.e. educated professionals in urban areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I live in Israel in a city called Modiin and use public transportion to visit client offices out of town. The public transportation by train to Tel Aviv, Hertzelia and Haifa is great, but anything else is somewhere between terrible and nonexistent. In the past year I use Waze Carpool and Moovit ( [https://www.moovitapp.com/](https://www.moovitapp.com/) , both developed and beta tested/dog-fooded in Israel) to get to those "unreachable" destinations at random schedules. A few times the results have been amazingly positive - being able to carpool with someone that lives just next to me and by chance needs to arrive exactly to my destination at the same time - and for the fraction of the price or the hassle of any other transportation method!

In fact - two of these drivers told me their family have gone down from two cars to a single car since using Waze Carpool, Moovit and public transportation to commute on a daily basis - a surprising statement from people living in a suburb such as Modiin. Once I was carpooled by a driver that responded to my request within 5 minutes and spent at least extra 25 minutes just to pick me up from a random spot in Jeruslaem for a 35 minute journey leaving me at my doorstep - saving me at least an hour, and probably for less than I would have paid for a bus.

<comment><USER17> However: The app suffers from various minor glitches. For example: Whe I installed the app I have selected "Home" and "Work" addresses, having one of my client's offices as "Work". Since then I keep getting daily notification with suggestions for riding back and forth to my "Office" although I do not commute there daily. The app does not include any option to control those notifications or disable the "Work" address. Customer support did respond quickly to my problem, but did not supply a good solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was in Israel last year and they just love Waze. Everything is Waze this and Waze that. They have an absolute belief in Waze as a brand. Most have no idea it is owned by Google, nor seemed very interested when I mentioned it.

So I'd say if they can get this working anywhere, it will be in a traffic- riddled country full of people who obsess over journey times and who absolutely love this brand.

<comment><USER19> Can confirm. Just like "Kleenex" in some places, Waze has become the generic term for GPS Navigation here in Israel. Honestly, I have no idea why people still use it when Google Maps has an infinitely better interface and no ads.

<comment><USER20> > Honestly, I have no idea why people still use it when Google Maps has an > infinitely better interface and no ads.

In some areas it has much better traffic routing. All it takes is getting alerted to one big jam ahead of time and you'll use it every commute.

<comment><USER21> Yep. Based on my experience: Waze takes side roads to give you the chronologically shortest route, Google Maps takes the most direct route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why isn't there a service that says:

1\. Hey this is my route _every_ morning.

2\. Lets you see people's routes and "join".

This doesn't need to be a centralized service. People could organize things among themselves. There are carpooling sites, but it requires a critical mass to be useful.

<comment><USER23> Why don't we hire a bunch of experts to figure out what the most common and efficient routes are for the most people and then hire people to run those routes regularly?

Oops I just invented buses again, just the rest of these transportation startups eventually end up doing.

The extremely boring answer to our transportation problems is to properly fund public transportation. We've known the solution for ages, but it's kept down by the wealthy class who don't want to pay for public works that would benefit everyone.

<comment><USER24> > The extremely boring answer to our transportation problems is to properly > fund public transportation. We've known the solution for ages, but it's kept > down by the wealthy class who don't want to pay for public works that would > benefit everyone.

I'd say the middle class are the real problem.

You see, the primary reason why transit costs so much in taxes is because few people ride it. Few people ride it because driving is heavily subsidized. Since transit is a step-fixed cost business, the marginal cost of a new rider is nearly zero. A bus running at 20% capacity might be 50% subsidized, but a bus running at 80% capacity might be making a 30% profit.

If the cost drivers incurred matched the costs they impose on society, driving would be extremely expensive in comparison, and drivers would flock to transit in droves, completely changing the necessity for subsidizing transit...either reducing it, eliminating it, or even making it wildly profitable as the streetcar barons found out before driving was subsidized.

However, if you propose raising gas taxes so that driving actually covers its costs, the concern trolls come out of the woodwork about taxes hurting the working poor, no doubt completely unconcerned about how much their comfortable middle class household would have to pay.

But here's a proposal: raise the gas tax, but refund the increase in costs on a means-tested basis. Poof, there goes the concern trolling, but the middle class is still on the hook and they _really_ don't like it, because it might mean that they have to make different decisions about their lifestyle and location and habits.

<comment><USER25> You'd be destroying a culture of independence in the US punishing car drivers so much, and I don't think it would be nearly worth it. I greatly appreciate being able to just go where I want without having to be beholden to public transit schedules and share the space with a bunch of strangers, and have my own temperature controls etc.

The "cost" cars have to society and how "subsidized" they are is ridiculously overblown around here. I had to pay maybe $400 registering+inspecting my car in NY, transfering to NJ was a few more hundred dollars, I had to pay to take the permit test, insurance was $350/month in NY and it's $115/month in NJ, taxes used for roads benefit transit too obviously, and bad drivers pay their externalities in tickets and insurance settlements.

<comment><USER24> > You'd be destroying a culture of independence in the US punishing car > drivers so much, and I don't think it would be nearly worth it.

Is it really independence if you can't cover the costs you impose? Sounds an awful lot like the "oppression" felt by angsty teenagers without jobs when they're told they have to empty a dishwasher.

> I greatly appreciate being able to just go where I want without having to be > beholden to public transit schedules and share the space with a bunch of > strangers, and have my own temperature controls etc.

I'm sure you do. I'd greatly appreciate being able to fly private, for all of the same reasons, but unfortunately I can't afford it. If you want it, you should pay the cost to get it. And that cost is gonna be about $6/gallon in extra taxes.

> The "cost" cars have to society and how "subsidized" they are is > ridiculously overblown around here. [...]

Still not enough. As long as cities, states, and the federal government are taking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the general fund to build and maintain roads, you aren't even close to covering your costs. And that would be before congestion charges, carbon taxes, appropriately priced bridge tolls, etc.

What is overblown is the independence and financial responsibility of the average person who merely pays their bills for actions that are heavily subsidized.

<comment><USER25> It's fine for things to be subsidized and taxes collected so that a way of life is more attainable, that's how societies work. In all likelihood I'm subsidizing the people around here who use NJ transit in place of driving - <USER2> hardly have my car on for more than 10 minutes a day and it's around 30mpg. It's just part of a larger give-and-take that we all participate in, I pay for trains I don't use today and they pay for state parks they don't use tomorrow. Are you opposed to all government subsidies? It's not tenable for everybody to pay the full cost of everything they do. A prime example is healthcare.

<comment><USER24> It's not okay to subsidize things in general, and especially things with massive negative externalities (like cars), when the person using that subsidy can easily afford it. And let's face it, the middle class can easily afford $8/gallon. Nobody wants to pay that, but they can afford it. As a proof that people can afford it, we have dozens of first world counties with strong middle classes that correctly price their road taxes. They do just fine.

I've never understood the idea that we should just cross subsidize every single thing we can. It's absurd. Prices affect decisions, and when artificially low prices induce people to collectively make decisions that are bad for society, we should stop fucking subsidizing it.

Imagine how much better our government would be if we took all of the taxes we take in, and stopped spending it all on things that are bad for society on behalf of people that can afford it or don't need it, and started spending it all on things that are good for society on behalf of people that need it but can't afford it.

<comment><USER26> Replying to the lowest level comment because this is the one where you call it out specifically.

These subsidies aren't driven by an outcry from the population, they're driven by groups of companies lobbying the government. Car companies would almost certainly lobby against reducing gas subsidies - it would cause people to reconsider buying a car.

Lobbyists will also be on the lookout for services like waze carpool because it has the potential to cut in on their business (transit and taxis).

<comment><USER25> I prefer a society with car subsidies and the freedom it brings to one with the alleged externalities more compensated for where people are priced into having to settle for transit. Freedom isn't free, as they say. More investment in infrastructure for electric vehicles, like charging stations, and incentives to use them (like NJ already does with waived inspections for example) are a fine compromise.

Additionally, with such taxes on car use, I'm sure a lot of people would just go places less and thus participate in the economy less, rather than take transit. A direct comparison to another country with prohibitive gas taxes isn't perfectly predictive of what would happen here because of cultural and infrastructural differences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I worked for a state sponsored carpool app for nearly 5 years in the late aughts/early 10s. This is exactly what I had wanted to build, but the state didn't want to take a risk on mobile and ended up hiring a contractor to develop a web app. The contractor went out of business one year into a five year contract.

I still have an interest in Transportation Demand Management, but can't stand the industry because it's almost always state sponsored and several steps behind in terms of innovation. This is really cool and I hope that it catches on.

</comment><comment><USER28> We had a similar service 20-30 years ago operating mostly out of Quebec and Ontario (Canada). Sadly regulators did not see it very kindly ([http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/province-stops-allo- stop-1.211...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/province-stops-allo- stop-1.211740)). Story does not say though how thik was the kraft envelop that was exchanged, if there was ever such exchange, or was just an overzealous civil servant. The service had been operating for some time already and was quite successful and popular. That decision came out of nowhere and the service was forced to stop operations. All this well before smart phones apps and the web... well technically the web was present but the service had started well before that and was mostly operating with phone calls to an actual office and bulletin boards and such.

For Allo-Stop yes there was exchange of money but the amounts were such that it would be barely more than the split expenses for gas for the trip.

Wonder if this will be allowed, seeing how Uber is being forced to get taxi licences and such for it's drivers, I doubt this will go very far around here.

<comment><USER29> In British Columbia, I'm sure the taxi lobby is already lining the pockets of politicians to prevent Waze Carpool from happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Waze carpool launched ~2Y ago in Israel. I've been a registered driver/passenger for about a year now. Here's my summary:

      - I don't like the fact it's a separate app rather than part of waze.
      - Apparently matching rides is technically non-trivial. I was hit with so many false positives I could not cope and had to deregister (as a driver).
      - Car sharing is culturally challenging, even in Israel. I guess more so in the US.
      - This will no work.

<comment><USER31> Let's hope it doesn't end up as Foursquare/Swarm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> In Seattle or other cities where traffic congestion is such a problem, I'd take someone for free if I could drive in the carpool lanes. I can even imagine someone who could be paid for just being a body in the car by someone really well off.

<comment><USER33> Washington, DC has slug lines, which are exactly that.

[http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp](http://www.slug- lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp)

<comment><USER34> The weird thing about this is for some reason it's huge in NoVa but not so much in the Maryland suburbs. Or at least it used to be. Not sure why.

<comment><USER35> Slugging doesn't seem to really exist on a sustained basis anywhere other than NoVa. My guess is that it requires a specific set of circumstances to take off: SOV commutes need to be generally feasible (so that you have drivers), HOV lanes need to exist (so that drivers have a reason to pick up passengers), you need specific job loci (to make driver/passenger matching exist), and you need commuter buses (to provide the passengers).

The Pentagon and I-395 provide one of the most optimal conditions for slugging, with the added bonus that you have effectively direct access ramps from Springfield and the Pentagon that completely bypass the regular lanes. Since I-66 was HOV-only during the rush hour until recently, that probably retarded the existence of slugging despite HOV lanes (since the SOV backup wasn't so feasible). Similarly, the lack of HOV lanes in MD (save for 270) also retard the impetus for slugging.

<comment><USER34> I think it might be that HOV- _only_ lanes need to exist. 270 Has HOV lanes but it's just the left lane (out of minimum 3, sometimes 6).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Waze Carpool is available in the US (California, Texas) and Israel."

</comment><comment><USER37> Folks from Silicon Valley should ask VCs to sponsor them trip to Europe, where what they are essentially to solve is addressed. It's called public transportation.

<comment><USER38> Public transportation is not perfect in every part of the world. That's the reason we have Uber/Lyft/Taxis and carpooling apps

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Why don't they go global? I'm guessing "money exchanged" is the problem, but I'd happily give away that[+]. Give me a reason to trust the "carpooler" and that's all I ask. Heck, allow me to easily coordinate with my colleagues, and that'd still be a gain.

[+] I don't care for the money, in the grand scheme of things you earn nothing from this, I'd rather have the gratitude of the rider; In fact, that's how I do it today when I pick a hitchhiker, I never take their money anyway.

<comment><USER40> Blablacar exists, and is global. It's pretty common in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER39> Blablacar works for long trips. My understanding is that Whatsapp was targeted to the daily commute. I don't know anybody that uses blablacar for that, nor is it optimized for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A few other similar services [http://libretaxi.org](http://libretaxi.org) most of it open source except dependency on telegram [http://www.twogo.com](http://www.twogo.com) by SAP

For young adults hopskipdrive.com ridezum.com zemcar.com

One thing to note is that there are two apps you need from waze.The waze app is for driver of the carpool.Carpool app is for the rider.

<comment><USER34> I think you're missing Scoop.

<comment><USER42> Thanks for the shout joncrane :)

<comment><USER41> I apologize for missing scoop, even though I am regular user of it.

To add to the list and hopefully make it more complete

Scoop : [http://takescoop.com](http://takescoop.com)

Lyft Shuttle[In beta] : [http://lyft.com/shuttle](http://lyft.com/shuttle)

Uber ExpressPool : [https://www.uber.com/ride/express- pool/](https://www.uber.com/ride/express-pool/)

I think the ridesharing businesses are making a real difference in optimizing cars usage and helping the environment in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I like this idea. I feel like many states already have hotlines you can call to get matched with a carpool (I'm fairly certain NY does at least), and so to me this seems like the natural progression of things. Plus, the fact that the driver would get a small amount of money would create incentive to sign up, but not create a new market like Uber/Lyft did. I'm interested to see what comes of this.

<comment><USER44> This has been the promise of Waze and their competitors since they very first went into business. I'll be fascinated to see if it works out. While on paper it's a no-brainer (cheaper for everyone involved, and potentially faster when using carpool lanes), the less tangible aspects of it (what if you hate the person who's car your stuck in for an hour? Will people sacrifice control over their timings, especially on the way home? etc. etc.) won't really be fully understood until this is actually being used properly by a lot of people.

<comment><USER43> While true, I feel like that is just how carpooling mechanics work. When there is a way for you to be randomly paired with strangers for a commute to and from work, you always run the risk of not liking someone. I'm more interested if there would be any penalty for the driver leaving without you because you took too long or something. With something that is so easy to sign up for, one would assume that feedback and accountability would also be easier to handle than previously

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> But will it actually get used? I like the idea but I am not sure if I would actually WANT a stranger in my car when the time actually comes.

<comment><USER46> I don't know where you live but in my country (France), carpooling is very popular. Waze being a very popular application here, it's very probable that they manage to take on BlaBlaCar which basicly has a monopoly when it comes to carpooling here.

<comment><USER47> I've always wondered why something like BlaBlaCar does not exist in the US. Or why BlaBlaCar does not expand to the US.

True, people are more used to taking domestic flights because of distances but I can think of routes, such as between NYC and Boston, where carpooling could be a good alternative to the train and cheap buses. I'm sure there are others too.

<comment><USER48> Downtown to downtown, bus is pretty cheap though. They all advertise low-ball rates and I'm not sure what a more realistic price is but it seems to be in the range of $20-$40 or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> In the FAQ page they say this:

"We believe there is no stupid question, just ask if you need answers."

But then they give you no place to ask questions...

</comment><comment><USER50> What Waze brings to the table is that it already knows your route and when you travel. This is HUGE.

Now they just need to add a dating like feature that puts all democrats or republicans in the same car so that fights don't break out!

<comment><USER14> Or the exact opposite so that reasonable discourse and free exchange of opinions can break out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's ironic to me that this is basically what Lyft started as (Zimride).

</comment><comment><USER52> I think it would be better if you gave drivers/customers complete control over everything.

Let drivers choose their pick up area (like a circle on a map), drop off area, price, pickup time (15-minute window), whitelist/blacklist customers, etc.

Then riders can see what drivers are offering and decide if it's worth it. Riders could also post requests that drivers could bid for.

See here for an example of what I mean: [https://github.com/kaseyb002/EgglerPool](https://github.com/kaseyb002/EgglerPool)

</comment><comment><USER42> This is a really great discussion on carpooling and our team is stoked to see it. At Scoop ([https://www.takescoop.com](https://www.takescoop.com)), we've been working to make carpooling convenient and enjoyable since early 2015. We love seeing more (and bigger!) companies prioritize tackling the problems commuters face getting to work every day.

We're really passionate about some of the topics that have come up in this thread. Our ScoopCare team (real people!) is available throughout the day to help make sure Scoop commuters are having the best possible commute experience. Support availability is critical.

When it comes to safety, Scoop has performed Motor Vehicle history reports on _every_ Driver in the community since day 1 - no one ever drives in a Scoop carpool without a great driving record. We're the only carpool company to ever do that, which is something we're pretty proud to say.

And most importantly, Scoop is for everyone. You don't have to work at a big company or a white collar job -- that's why it's been so important to us to partner with local governments, transit organizations like BART here in the Bay Area, and business parks with 100s of employers -- in addition to major employers.

The more than 2 million trips taken to-date with Scoop have included commuters from all walks of life who are looking for a meaningful commute. The only thing you have to believe is that there is a better way to spend your time on the road.

If you're interested in learning more about Scoop, check out this article [https://www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2017/11/08/with-36-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2017/11/08/with-36-million- in-financing-scoop-wants-to-make-carpooling-mainstream/), browse our open jobs at jobs.lever.co/takescoop, or send us a note at firstname.lastname@example.com.

I'll also be watching this thread for a bit so feel free to reply here!

\---

Full disclosure: I started Scoop with my brother, Rob --- and as an avid HN reader, I wanted to comment directly to the HN community. We're really excited to be solving a problem that impacts both SV and the world and would love for you to join us.

<comment><USER41> I have been a happy Scoop/waze customer for sometime.I also run a 70 people non-profit vanpool for my employer in SF bay area and we supplement Scoop/Waze for timings when our vans do not operate.

Scoop seems to be a very humane company in the sense that rather then focusing ONLY on algorithms they have spend the time to build human partnerships.

Examples of what I mean is the following 1>They contacted lawyers to ensure non-immigrant populations[lots in bay area] do not get into trouble [https://blog.takescoop.com/making-scoop-accessible-for- all-6...](https://blog.takescoop.com/making-scoop-accessible-for- all-6e8c4aec63e)

2>They worked with Bart to ensure scoop users get dedicated parking [https://blog.takescoop.com/carpool-to- bart-59d8555e79a2](https://blog.takescoop.com/carpool-to-bart-59d8555e79a2)

3>Partnership with commute.org to fairly distribute the $1 million grant [https://blog.takescoop.com/scoop-partners-with-the- carpool-i...](https://blog.takescoop.com/scoop-partners-with-the-carpool-in- san-mateo-county-program-starting-this-summer-fe41456d3b14)

Disclaimer : I have no relationship whatsoever to Scoop.I just like appreciating companies when they are trying to do the right think and thinking differently to solve difficult problems.

Best of luck to the scoop team.keep up the good work

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I use this in LA, its great because there is no bus that travels along my commute. I hope this will see an influx of users, sometimes it's still hard to find a ride

</comment><comment><USER54> Previous attempts at this sort of service in Canada:

Blancride [https://blancride.com/](https://blancride.com/) Kangaride [https://www.kangaride.com/](https://www.kangaride.com/)

Blancride in particular had a slick app. Unfortunately, I tried it a few times and never had a good. People flaked at the last minute, wanted me (the driver) to wait a long time, etc.

<comment><USER55> Don't forget [https://www.poparide.com](https://www.poparide.com) (disclaimer, I'm the founder), we started in British Columbia and are now active in Ontario and Québec, with over 75,000 members.

Our model is closer to BlaBlaCar's in Europe (longer distance) but we do see people using our app to commute to work, usually on distances of 50 miles or more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Looks just like BlaBlaCar. Nice.

<comment><USER55> BlaBlaCar is actually a long-distance carpooling app, whereas Waze, Lyft Line and Uber Pool are all targeting the shorter-distance, daily commuters.

BlaBlaCar does have a product in market for shorter trips, it's called BlaBlaLines: [https://www.blablalines.com/](https://www.blablalines.com/) \- although it's unclear what the adoption has been since they launched last year in 2017 in France.

The challenge with shorter-distance, shared commutes is finding people who are leaving and arriving at the same location. This is because people are not very flexible when it comes to heading and coming back from work: they need to get there on time, without any detours or delays.

This means that typically, you'd need to get people working at the same company or in the same building to create a successful carpooling program. Making it work outside of the scope of a regular schedule is very difficult.

This is why companies like Uber and Lyft pay drivers to show up on demand, as in this model, you have more control over the supply-side of the marketplace, providing a more predictable experience for passengers.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes, as Waze has a very strong community of drivers. It's a challenge though, as some mentioned in this post, in that there is decent overhead in managing drivers, passengers, conflicts and everything that comes with building an online marketplace with a community angle.

 _Disclaimer: I 'm the CEO and Co-founder of [https://www.poparide.com](https://www.poparide.com), a long-distance carpooling platform of 75,000 members based in Vancouver, BC (Canada) and our model is similar to BlaBlaCar's, we aim to fill empty seats in cars on intercity trips in Canada._

<comment><USER56> Hey

Ah, very interesting. I didn't know that! Poparide looks like a good solution too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> They do a pretty good job of explaining it in the FAQ - but this app is not exactly the same as Lyft and Uber. The biggest thing is that the Waze doesn't collect a fee, and the fee drivers collect is currently set not to exceed the IRS defined limit on per mile transportation deductions.

Also only in CA, TX, and Israel for now. If it comes to my state, this would be cheaper than a bus for my commute.

</comment><comment><USER58> What happens when you are a passenger injured in a car crash where you feel the driver giving you the ride was at fault?

What happens if the person doesn't show and you are late to work?

I feel like there are going to be some interesting edge cases with this approach.

<comment><USER59> > What happens if the person doesn't show and you are late to work?

Likely the same thing that happens today when public transit is delayed or your car breaks down. I.e. It's your personal responsibility. Reliability of the specific mode of transit should be taken into consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Google Carpool has been available in Israel for a while now. I've used it, it works great. The only problem is there aren't enough drivers here (supply). I've also used Moovit Carpool for getting rides, which works basically on the same principle, and it is great. Carpools are as "insecure" as Airbnb and Uber. It's all part of the sharing economy. I've met really interesting people in my carpools. Both companies have support in case of issues etc. I totally recommend trying out this concept. The only challenge seems to be building up a big enough database of drivers.

</comment><comment><USER61> Waze and Wazer? As in rhymes with laze and laser. It reads a bit like wazzer as in 'one who is known for urinating', I suppose?

To my British eyes I can't help but read 'wazzock', as in a 1980's schoolboy insult _par excellence_ [0]. To rescue this comment with a semblance of an arguement, what I'm trying to say is that maybe it's best to try the name in a few languages/dialects before you go with it. [0][https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/wazzock](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/wazzock)

<comment><USER62> Naming things is hard. There's not a large supply of 4 letter words that would serve as a succinct label for what Waze purports to do. Considering Waze was sold for $1.3B, the founders probably aren't too worried about the disadvantages of the name in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It looks just like Carma carpool[1], at least what they were attempting a couple years ago. They've been around a while, but I guess never had the network critical mass to really make it take off.

I've wanted to use a service like this for a while. I commute ~35 minutes solo in my own car, and it's just wasteful and needlessly costly.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carma#Carma_Carpooling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carma#Carma_Carpooling)

</comment><comment><USER64> This website took my processor to 60% in Firefox.

<comment><USER65> This website had no noticeable effect on my processor in Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> The question is can Waze change people's behavior?

The entire premise is on people planning.

Oh and by the way more cars =/ more traffic.

More cars traveling at the same time causes traffic.

If you want someone to blame, start blaming businesses who operate at the same hours.

It still boggles my mind how 9 to 5 came about?

Has it not been shown that people work better at different times of the day?

<comment><USER16> Think about operating a business where coordination is required, such as factories, or where meetings need to be conducted such as legal or finance firms. Also, children are in school at a set time with a set schedule, for obvious reasons, so their parents prefer also have a schedule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I can speak from my own experience, I've been using Scoop for like 5mo now, it's very good in matching. I live in Bay Area and 25mi commute could be 40-90min.

I tried Waze Carpool many times until I finally gave up - they tend to offer ridiculous matches - way out of my route for both pick up and drop off.

</comment><comment><USER68> Just stumbled on this the other day from wanting to build this very similar idea (e.g. BlaBlaCar in Europe) not just for commuting [to or from work] but general travel- ride to the grocery store, movies, etc. I decided to see if RideWith.com resolved to anything and boom... ended up on Waze Carpool

</comment><comment><USER69> OMG this is what the sharing economy is about, way to go Waze! I can't wait to try this!

</comment><comment><USER70> Is this something new? Or is it old news? If nothing has changed, it's unusable for much of the United States. I live in rural Oregon, and it could be a helpful service. Last I checked, it was restricted and not available.

</comment><comment><USER71> I wonder what proportion of drivers will be actually heading somewhere, as opposed to the primary purpose of the journey being to make money from Waze Carpool.

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't know Google used React (according to Chrome).

<comment><USER72> I think teams are basically allowed to use whatever makes sense for them. Although there may have been a problem with React's licensing before they changed it.

Same goes for Facebook. I remember they did something within the last year or so that used Vue.

<comment><USER73> Doesn't the main Timeline use Vue?

<comment><USER72> I believe its just newsfeed.facebook.com, not the main timeline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Is anything like this available currently in Boston?

<comment><USER75> You might want to give [http://www.thetripbuddyapp.com/](http://www.thetripbuddyapp.com/) a try! They are in the Boston area

<comment><USER74> I'm having trouble finding the Android version, I found [0] but it's unreleased and last updated in 2015.

[0] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tawheedrah...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tawheedraheem.tripbuddy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> For me, I get motion sick if I'm not driving, so I'm really excited about this. I'll be able to use the toll HOV lanes.

</comment><comment><USER77> Unrelated to the content but scrolling on that page is basically unusable. Janky/sluggish/awful.

Chrome 63, OSX 10.12.06

<comment><USER78> Adding my anecdata: super smooth, perfect, fast scrolling on Edge/Win10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> How does this compare to Scoop, I wonder?

</comment><comment><USER80> This seems to be California-only, right?

<comment><USER81> In Canada we already have [https://www.poparide.com](https://www.poparide.com). It's more for long distance trips between 2 cities but it works very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> How does this compare with Bla Bla Car?

<comment><USER83> Bla Bla car seems more like long distance travel or sharing rides between cities and this is more like for daily travel I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Uber valuation did never reflect this risk. This should actually knock a few billions off of it

</comment><comment><USER85> This is awesome I think!

Although, is there a clear reason it is currently only available in the US and in Israel?

<comment><USER86> Waze was founded in Israel

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> This is what I thought Uber was gonna be when I first heard about it! How awesome!

</comment><comment><USER88> It's hilarious that this came out the day after Steve Yegge lambasted Google for failing to innovate. This is a perfect example of Google arriving half way through the race. Everyone else is on the final lap, they're on the first, and they think they're running neck and neck.

<comment><USER62> Who is on the "final lap" here?

<comment><USER88> Uber Pool and Lyft Line both came out in 2014. If they're not on the final lap, they are at least several laps ahead of Waze Carpool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I wonder what women think of this. Will they feel safe enough to try it?

<comment><USER90> This is currently the top review for the app: [https://goo.gl/hxpGuh](https://goo.gl/hxpGuh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> Side note holy moly this site has bad performance on my poor lil laptop

</comment><comment><USER92> The number of private tech companies that reinvent the BUS and think they're geniuses is staggering.

But god forbid we just fund public transportation. We wouldn't want _poor people_ using our service.

<comment><USER93> A few month ago I would have read your comment and thought that bus can't really compete for the fine grained point to point transportation.

Then I went to Sydney in December. The public transportation system there is super impressive. You have a location-based app where you can tell you want to go from point A to point B (from an address, a click on the map, your favorites), it will instantly provide you with many options, with time, duration and price, showing you where to take it from.

It seems there are buses every 5 minutes. During the route the app will buzz you 2 and 1 stop before your actual stop. Oh, and the bus card allow you to take the light train and the ferry. You can also check your credits directly in the app, even recharge it I think.

It changed my perspective on how to use public transportation. In Los Angeles for example I would check which bus/train I should take, download the timetable to see the frequency and where to stop. In Sydney, I got confident in a way that I would just stop caring about planning first. Just open the app and it'll tell you how to go where you want to go.

<comment><USER94> Hong Kong is this way, too. People gush about the train system in Tokyo (which I have love for) but the sheer number of fast, frequent, and comfortable ways to get around in HK edge it out for me.

It seems like every 5 meters there's a bus stop, and the busses are not old style clunkers but double deckers like Googles take.

<comment><USER95> As a former HK resident, a lot of it is because of how impractical it is for most people to own and operate a private car.

Returning to the US, it's car-culture and lackluster public transport was jarring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> When is available in Canada? :/

</comment><comment><USER97> Well, it took a couple of years for the $2B team to do something new, unfortunately it's going to fall on it's face.

</comment><comment><USER98> Next move should be Tesla + Waze

</comment><comment><USER99> Only in california ...

</comment><comment><USER100> oh this is terrific! well done, knights of waze!

</comment><comment><USER101> previous step before Waze + Waymo?

</comment><comment><USER102> I gave up the Waze app for GPS as it drained my iphone battery to quickly. I switched over to the default maps app on the iphone 7.

<comment><USER4> Surely having a charging wire in your car and connecting it before a long drive is not that hard? It's the main way my Samsung phone charges, I usually go full blast playing internet radio, running Waze etc. and when I arrive my phone is 100% charged.

I always wondered why there isn't there a charging standard for phone mounts/cradles just like the old cordless phones where placing it in the cradle made two metallic leads connect the charging circuit.

<comment><USER103> You can get wireless charging car cradles

[https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-qi-wireless-car- phone...](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-qi-wireless-car-phone- charger-mounts/)

<comment><USER4> An overly complex and finicky solution, alas not supported by the lower end phones, including mine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Time to Kill iTunes - <AUTHOR> https://500ish.com/a-time-to-kill-itunes-2d9a24529b9a <comment><USER2> I suspect that technical debt may be preventing Apple from doing what the author suggests. The iTunes code base must be enormous, developed using a polyglot of languages, libraries, frameworks, and Seldon only knows what else. The iTunes engineering team as currently constituted is probably not up to the task of both maintaining iTunes and writing a new set of apps from scratch.

<comment><USER3> Seldon?

<comment><USER4> Presumably Hari [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Windows 10 S operating system, which will only be able to run apps > distributed through the store._

This is new information for me (also I hope they burn in hell).

<comment><USER6> [https://www.howtogeek.com/305363/what-is-windows-s-and- how-i...](https://www.howtogeek.com/305363/what-is-windows-s-and-how-is-it- different/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How about just not using iTunes? The windows app is shit. There is no web app. The Android app is shit. I've just switched to Google play music everywhere. Don't know why people cling to something that's clearly crappy.

</comment><comment><USER8> iTunes has been shit since the day it was shipped. And it's only become worse with time.

No doubt too many 'masters' making demands on it, to say nothing of being deliberately crippled on windows.

<comment><USER9> Shit compared to what, exactly? I've been hearing people gripe about how awful iTunes supposedly is for ages now, but it's always difficult to tell what they wish it would do (or not do) instead.

I started using iTunes in 2001 because it was a nice straightforward music library manager and player. Aside from the twenty minutes I spend grumbling after every upgrade, while I try to remember how to switch off all the extra stuff Apple has never convinced me to care about, it's _still_ a nice straightforward music library manager and player.

Maybe all the new stuff is crap - I don't know, I don't use it - but the ancestral core of the product still works just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unlike many iTunes hate pieces this one offers constructive solutions. Yes. It's time to break this monolith up.</comment>


Depixelizing Pixel Art - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/index.html <comment><USER2> Earlier comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601347> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2578706>

Some of the previous discussion isn't great (squabbling about dupes, not being able to download the pdf). A common comment was "hasn't this been done before". Many existing tools output higher-res bitmaps, this tool outputs vector images. They did run comparisons to a variety of algorithms, including potrace, which also generates vectors.

<comment><USER3> When we get stories like this that get repeated multiple times on Hacker News (a few others spring to mind recently) it's a minor annoyance if you're an ardent HN reader but a significant indicator of what HN readers _really_ find interesting on the whole since it's getting voted up each time by a different subset of users who hadn't seen it before.

Things involving novel presentations of algorithms and well presented 'undry' academic papers seem to do _very_ well in this regard..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even though it does a terrible job staying true to the source material, I'd bet playing an old game rendered through a vector magic filter would have an interesting abstract aspect to it.

<comment><USER5> In the discussion to one of the previous submissions, somebody posted a depixelated video of Super Mario World.

<comment><USER6> For reference: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Fd-4NzB0w>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a page where you can compare various algorithms, including this new one, over many classic pieces of pixel art:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/supplementary/multi_comparison.html)

<comment><USER8> Beautiful! I especially love the bits near the end, where they apply it to oldskool Windows 3.1 icons :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the algorithm, but the hq4x seems to produce better fine shapes such as eyes and skeleton bones (albeit in bitmap form) - it would be interesting to see some sort of hybrid algorithm taking the best features of both to produce a vector output.

<comment><USER10> I feel like hq4x is probably a better choice for upscaling videogames, as it feels like it better maintains the original 'intent' of the art, which was, after all, designed with low-res in mind. The Microsoft algorithm, on the other hand, seems like it would be really useful for recovering graphics that have been downsampled algorithmically (as opposed to graphics originally drawn at low resolutions).

<comment><USER2> Except that the doom example in the paper (figure 11) shows that down-sampled images aren't recovered well. The posted work is designed for pixel art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how difficult is it to generalize the algorithm to 3d voxels, and apply it on Minecraft.

<comment><USER12> The Minecraft voxels are decorated by textures that are designed to fit the cube form. A devoxalization is going to look like crap.

<comment><USER13> I think he means disregarding all that and looking at the raw voxels then applying a modified version of this algorithm, similar to marching cubes.

<comment><USER12> I know. But when displaying the Minecraft landscape afterwards you either have to leave the disregarded textures out, which looks like crap, or apply them stretched, which looks like total crap, or apply a smoothed gradient, which also looks like crap compared to the original landscape. :-)

Given that he suggested Minecraft terrains, I opined on how Minecraft would look with such an algorithm applied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is an interesting paper. Though I only read the abstract, it seems like real-time performance could be achieved by utilizing GPUs for B-spline calculations. Would be awesome for video games if real-time performance can be achieved!

<comment><USER15> Needing a high-end gaming machine to run Super Mario World or Space Invader at acceptable frame rates would be fun, for a change (-:

<comment><USER16> Can you run the algorithm on graphic resource first to produce vector graphics and then do the emulator stuff? Seems to me feasible and you can run two copies of the game (one with vector graphics one without in the background to ensure the correctness of emulator).

<comment><USER14> If one were to port a game, then before displaying the buffer, one can generate vector graphics before sending it to the frame buffer. While you can potentially display both the buffers, I am sure the vectorization phase will be computationally intensive (thus low fps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sorry about the anti-climatic question, but I'm genuinely curious: What's the main application of this research, other than prettifying old video games?

<comment><USER18> At a guess, it might make CSI-style "zoom in, enhance" manipulations of images and videos more plausible.

<comment><USER19> This algorithm is specifically designed for pixel art. One of the examples in the paper shows that it doesn't do very well on anti-aliased graphics. Therefore it probably wouldn't be of much use on blurry pictures or videos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601347>

</comment><comment><USER20> Wouldn't this be much harder if the background had more than one color as well? If that is the case, this new technique may not be applicable to emulators

<comment><USER8> Well, in the paper they do describe some heuristics for separating figure and ground.

Additionally, a lot of old videogame machines have special built-in routines to place sprites over a background. So if you'd apply the vectorizing algorithm separately for the sprite drawing routine--by not just processing the entire screen after it's rendered, but doing the elements separately-- you'd at least not run into the problem that lines from foreground sprites meld with background details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What is the @article block at the bottom of the page?

<comment><USER22> A BibTeX entry: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> great job, I'd like to see it applied on <http://draw.heroku.com> drawings

</comment><comment><USER24> Love it.</comment>


Programmer script calls Phone Scammers 28 times a second preventing future scams - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/wesoftwarengineers/videos/2288465848061786/UzpfSTUyOTExMDYzODoxMDE1NjkzNjMyMzMxOTUyMg/ <comment><USER2> Lol. If this is real, I think you can try to gather numbers from complaint sites like [http://whycall.me](http://whycall.me) and set up the flooder to their phone numbers. It will work great, I guess. These scammers are very annoying.

</comment><comment><USER3> How can he call them 28 times a second? Also, my scam calls have fake caller ids. So how does he get their number? Of course we need to phone companies to block incorrect caller id.

<comment><USER4> Worse, the phone numbers could belong to people unrelated to the scam.

Replying to spam, whether e-mail, text message or voice call, risks "backscatter".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_(email)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_\(email\))</comment></comment>


Multi-Dimensional Analog Literals in C++ (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.eelis.net/C++/analogliterals.xhtml <comment><USER2> Thanks. I've been looking for this for a while.

Why would anyone release their work into the public domain, and at the same time, disallow their site from being included in the Internet Archive?

[http://eelis.net/robots.txt](http://eelis.net/robots.txt)

</comment><comment><USER3>
        <Eelis> i could implement a "geordi, fix my code" command, and
        still most people would remember me for those cursed analog
        literals.

geordi is an IRC C++ bot that Eelis made in Haskell. It parses and runs C++:

[http://www.eelis.net/geordi/](http://www.eelis.net/geordi/)

Since it actually can parse C++, it can be given C++ editing commands, although you have to know the C++ grammar in order to give it those commands.

</comment><comment><USER4> Eelis has also written the IRC bot geordi. The bot "evaluates" C++ snippets by compiling them with GCC (or clang), executing the resulting binary in a sandbox and pipes the output back to IRC. It's heavily used in C++ channels on multiple IRC networks.

[http://www.eelis.net/geordi](http://www.eelis.net/geordi)

<comment><USER5> Apart from seeing IRC still being mentioned quite often here and in other tech-oriented places, and a bunch of nostalgic feelings, this might be the final thing that is going to get me to pick it up again were I left it like 10 years ago: no idea this existed, but seems really valuable. Linux/Windows client recommendations anyone? Servers?

<comment><USER3> I favour Hexchat. Freenode is where a lot of the hacking talk happens, but not all; irc.mozilla.net and irc.gnome.org are other possible networks you might want to visit for "serious business". OFTC is another network where e.g. Clang and Debian things happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Fantastic idea.

Mathematica includes geometrical objects. However, scaling won't modify an objects dimensions so scale and size isn't captured graphically.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ha I always find a way to forget the term for this. So thanks for bubbling it up.</comment>


Why HN should continue hiding vote counts: social influence makes us dumber - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/10/1008636108.abstract?sid=1baaf087-335e-49e9-8bcb-7bde4cbd8bdf

<comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting to think about what the perfect balance is, when sites like reddit, quora, and stack overflow all use "social influence" as a means of motivation. But that same driving force slowly drives the quality of the content into the ground. How do you strike a balance?

I think HN's approach of hiding vote counts is definitely a step in the right direction to cultivate quality.

Edit: Link to PDF for those too lazy to figure out where to click. ([http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/10/1008636108.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/10/1008636108.full.pdf))</comment>


Details Emerge About Victoria Taylor's Dismissal at Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/details-emerge-about-victoria-taylors-dismissal-at-reddit/?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> This is not details. This is allegation and speculation.

<comment><USER3> Of all the people to speculate, the former CEO is probably the most reliable.</comment></comment>


Linux should be a part of School Education - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxfederation.com/linux-part-school-education/ <comment><USER2> What a complete load of tosh. Education is about teaching children valuable skills they can apply in their daily lives. How many of them would ever see a PC running Linux again? The cost argument doesn't really stand up either, books cost money and 'do nothing but line the pockets of the publishers' to paraphrase the author. It's not as if computers running Linux cost nothing either.

If Linux is going to find a place in mainstream education, it's going to have to earn it. This is of course quite possible. Raspberry Pi is a good example of this. I can see Linux forming a valuable part of a more advanced secondary school computing curriculum too.

The article is living in the past though. Many children now, and many more in then future will equate computers with tablets. Some will run iOS, others will run Android and maybe some might even run Windows. Decisions about which solution best serves the educational needs of children should be in the hands of educators, not technological partisans.

<comment><USER3> I don't wish to hijack this thread but tying the Raspberry Pi to education is terrible if you ask me.

I agreed about the Raspberry Pi being the best device for education right from day one. That was until my father bought my daughter one for her birthday and I ended up being the resident "fix it guru" for it.

The thing teaches you merely how to jump through funny shaped hoops to get something working rather than anything realistic or helpful. Most of it is google-fu and copy and paste. When you do finally get there it's a baron land of absolutely unrealistic, undocumented crud that can't self-serve. Plus it barely works and browns out to start with resulting in USB-hub jiggery-pokery (and that only happens because I actually understand how USB works).

For ref, I have 20 years' of Unix and Linux experience (right down to writing kernel drivers) and it was painful getting it off the ground so I'm not approaching it blind.

Being critical (constructively!) of this results in the RPI forum thread being deleted which in itself an affront and a general recommendation against the things.

<comment><USER4> Could it be that you were exited about fiddling with rpi yourself? I don't have children but I guess it's difficult to deliberately not help them (too much) solving problems which are inherently interesting to you (grumpy neckbeardism can't hide that fact, you obviously still care about this).

I think rpi (culture/ecosystem) is still absolutely the best thing, it's literally the perfect AppleII/C64 for today. Today is also more complex and more stuff is possible but there is also Unix which at least tries to be simple.

I've given one of my rpis to my 13 year old neighbour and he is regularly meddling with it. It's likely that he is also constantly failing but that's what is needed in order to learn, it certainly was the case for me when I started (I'm still failing after many years, that's a reality).

Where you could make a difference is just by saying you'll be there to answer _some_ questions ... now and then. Encouragement and enthusiasm!

<comment><USER5> > I think rpi (culture/ecosystem) is still absolutely the best thing, it's > literally the perfect AppleII/C64 for today.

Really? In many ways RPi is far more of a closed, proprietary system than the common desktop PC.

<comment><USER4> True we aren't at Apple II level, open hardware would be great but as I said the whole culture surrounding it as well as the documentation which exists is really good. It's still a very cool project which succeed to get this ball rolling, obviously there is room for improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My school used Windows for everything. I remember when in year 7 (6th grade) I was complaining about the computers to my IT teacher, as many do. His response was "there is another way!".

A few days later, he found me and gave me a Linux live CD with Knoppix on it. I remember it claimed to have 2GB of software, compressed into the 700MB a CD could hold. I could put it in my family computer at home, and without installing anything, changing settings, messing up the computer my parents used in any way, I could use an entirely different OS, it was amazing!

This was the point at which I realised how software and hardware were truly separated. A computer was no longer an 'appliance'. The "start button" wasn't part of the computer, it was just some software that I could replace.

I believe, and have told many people in the years since, that this was the turning point in my computer education, that has lead to me studying computer science, and becoming a software developer.

Linux should be a part of school education, because teaching kids that computers aren't appliances, that hardware and software have a split, and you can change both, is crucial to developing a real understanding of how they work.

<comment><USER7> Ah Knoppix. I remember how blown away I was when I first ran the Live CD; at that time I had no idea it was even possible. It's a shame that it faded from popularity once Ubuntu came along.

<comment><USER6> I really think Live CDs are one of the best educational tools for those that already have an interest in computers. Even better now would be one that was integrated with some online services like Dropbox (or Ubuntu One?) to get some basic persistence to make things like learning to code more possible on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rather than this OS or that OS - I really wished someone at school had taught me:

* how DNS works

* the process model with stdin,stdout,env vars + cmd args

* streams - text or otherwise

* protocols like HTTP but what they actually did on the wire

Every OS uses the above list and so even for a young child - you can teach by example.

Surely using nice fluffy diagrams it would be worth trying this to find out that only 'old' people can understand such things?

<comment> k-mcgrady Teaching those in school would be a waste of time. I work full time in the tech industry and don't fully understand all of those topics because they are irrelevant to me. People are never going to need to understand them for daily use.

<comment><USER9> Until you've learned something, you'll never know how you might use it productively. I use all of those topics daily because they make me more productive. I'm sorry you haven't learned just how productive you can be by understanding these things - but this is no reason to deny the knowledge to future generations, just because you're ignorant...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One should teach children using the best tools for the job; cost should not be an issue here in the consideration. What is the quality of educational software in the Linux world compared to Windows? What about compared to OS X? What about usability? Accessibility? A rather vapid statement about "cost" isn't going to cut it as an argument as to why Linux should be used.

Even amongst Free operating systems, why Linux? What are the advantages compared to FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, FreeDOS, or ReactOS? In an article like this, you need more than a few vague statements to back it up ideology, you need evidence and proof that Linux is the best route.

<comment><USER11> Which one is the best tool, when you want to teach how a computer actually works? or you want to teach them programming?

<comment><USER10> How a computer actually works, probably something microkernel-based, like Minix. Stripped down, show just what needs to be shown for the lesson at hand, and much easier to get inside and play with the gears.

Programming? I'd say the OS doesn't really matter. Simple, easy to see initial result environments like MIT's Scratch, or Logo run on pretty much everything.

<comment><USER11> Scratch is ok at first, but really they need to come out of schoool knowing something more than that (python/ruby/java etc.)

<comment><USER10> Well, this is for a learning environment for children, so I'd argue getting a language with a good hook is important. Additionally, both environments also offer a more interesting language under the hood to poke at -- for scratch, smalltalk/actionscript, and for logo, the lisp-style language under the hood -- to teach the more advanced concepts. Give interesting, easy results, but then use that to build on how to bring in more and more in-depth concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> No it shouldn't, and honestly neither should programming. Sometimes I swear we can get so drunk on our own farts that we think engineering is the only valuable profession in the world, when in reality not everyone needs to be able to code a rails app if all they want to do is check their Facebook. There are many other jobs that are important and valuable to society that do not involve CS - lets just put down the kook-aid.

<comment><AUTHOR> If a person does not understand how the world around them works (and most of it is driven by computers), how can we expect them to adequately operate in it?

A couple weeks back I remember the case when someone bleached her home because she feared she could catch the viruses on her computer. There are many people who do, for the lack of a better word, rituals with their computers because they can't figure out their wi-fi radio tales some time to grab the local network signal. They do it because they did it once and it worked and they have no idea it had nothing to do with the problem they were trying to solve.

A basic understanding of technology is increasingly important.

<comment><USER13> So Linux is somehow immune against people ritualising how they interact with a computer? They will have a problem one day, google for a solution and remember that solution. Few will actively try understanding the solution and how and why it works.

Operating systems don't have magical powers for making users interested in their internals.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not immune, but chances are that, during the time you are googling solutions for your problem, you'll have to learn something about how computers actually work. If the solution points you to a series of "click here, then here" screens, you won't get any useful insights on how it's done under the hood because you spent the whole time above it.

<comment><USER13> Suggestions to solve a problem on Linux often are written on a similar level, it's just that »click here, then here« gets replaced by »edit this part of that config file and then run this series of arcane invocations«. Oftentimes you can just copy/paste from some forum and won't learn anything from it.

<comment><AUTHOR> And when you edit a config file you are forbidden to look at any part of it except the one you are editing, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Windows should be a part of School Education!

MacOS should be a part of School Education!

It's primitive tribalism. People should learn "computing" as part of a school education as over life things are going to change and they're going to need to adapt.

<comment><USER14> The problem is that neither windows nor OSX teach computing or computing culture. They teach the feudal model. The increasingly walled gardens. The "When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout" Currently Linux is the place where you can get your hands dirty and has the Wild West spirit that the 80s,90s and the internet had. We should teach the kids to spit in the face of authority and when obeying it to do it so reluctantly. And currently we are doing the exact opposite in all areas of human knowlege.

<comment><USER3> I agree. The point was slightly sarcastic.

However they're just the foundations on which you teach. Programming languages, tools and software packages are the important bits. Which OS doesn't matter really. Neither does any red vs blue pill selection.

Most of my knowledge is applicable to any platform as it's fairly generic. I avoid specialisation for this reason.

I can sit down on any machine and be productive straight away regardless of if it's open source or a feudal empire. That's what we should be teaching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this is a great idea. My secondary school (UK) actually had a wealth of voccational subjects. From the age of 13 I studied Cisco, Red Hat and then Oracle DB. By 16 I had a CCNA. Oracle Certified DBA and a few vendor certifications like Security+ and Network+

The real issue was Universities acknowledge them as points towards UCAS so practically everyone on the course ended up staying on another year or two and studied other subjects to get the necessary points.

I'm hopeful that one day the system will cater for more subjects but its a long way way at least in the UK.

</comment><comment><USER16> If someone were using Linux to teach I as a student would think their using some crap computers. Like it or not students don't see the potential of Linux like we do and truth is Windows is still more user friendly then Linux when it comes to doing some moderately advanced things.

Probably the closest you can get is KDE since for most users if the setting isn't in the GUI it doesn't exist.

It would be cool if schools had a mix of windows and Linux computers though that way students can learn that Windows doesn't equal computer there are other OS's as well. And before you ask no, where I'm from Apple was as if it didn't exist.

I only learned about Linux when i was 14 and to be honest i though it was crap at first since all Linux windowing systems that I tried were awful.

But i continued to discover more of my system and figured out that Linux without the terminal is only appropriate for grandmas that can barely use a computer and are unlikely to run into driver issues when connecting new devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I as a student would think their using some crap computers.

When was the last time you saw a machine running Linux in person?

> unlikely to run into driver issues when connecting new devices.

I am not a grandma and the last device that didn't play nice with my Linux machines was a prototype Blackberry phone. I somehow don't think it was the computer's fault.

<comment><USER16> Actually my main OS is Arch Linux and i only use windows at work.

While now I rarely run into driver issues that are very serious i still needed to replace my Wifi card on my laptop to be able to run it in monitor mode about 1 year ago.

So no Linux still has driver issues with certain hardware. Granted this is a bad example since it's quite a technical requirement and it's not Linux's fault but the manufacturers however Linux driver coverage is not as vast as windows nor do products come with a CD containing drivers for Linux so if it doesn't work regular users aren't going to care why.

Their going to blame the OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh my (hypothetical) God. For a moment there I thought this was The Linux Foundation (not federation.)

Coming to the topic at hand: This reeks of fanboyism and fanaticism. While I personally agree that young people should be introduced to more than Windows as a part of their edution in computing, this is taking the rhetoric too far.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Linux should be a part of School Education

The concept of "open source" should be part of school education.

We don't need thousands of proprietary version of the same thing. That's a HUGE waste of resources on literally every level.

All we need is 1 version that is accessible, clone-able, and modifiable for everybody.

Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right from the start and for every single product out there.

<comment><USER19> > Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right > from the start and for every single product out there.

That is exactly the model Linux has offered for over two decades now. If it was such a good model, systems like Windows and MacOS should now be history.

But those proprietary systems still dominate.

<comment><USER18> And they still dominate because money still dominates what we do. We run after the money (= have power over the others), not after what creates sense in our lives. This is probably the most central value and problem in our culture. When that will be gone, life will be worth so much more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I believe all government institutions should be using open source software virtually everywhere (if something doesn't exist yet, they can build it). That way the things we build with taxpayer money will be much longer lasting, and interoperability with future technologies should be a much easier task, rather than relying on the whim of a private company and its profit incentives.

</comment><comment><USER21> Linux is _so_ used in education. It isn't used as widely as it ought to be, but it is most certainly used, and its share is growing. I am a CC instructor in a vocational program, and each year our students install both Linux and Windows on our lab PC's. They will use this PC throughout the year to complete their coursework and are responsible for maintaining it. Graduates of our program will have installed both operating systems at least twice, often many more times. I think it is important to promote general computing skills even though that is not my department's core discipline.

I don't think it is wrong for a college to have a Microsoft site license, but I do think it is wrong for a public college to require a specific vendor's products where equivalents exist. I also think it is wrong for a public college to force students' exclusive use of a single vendor's products. Computers are mere tools and it isn't the job of a public institution to choose winners.

</comment><comment><USER22> At least in Uruguay, and by some definition, Linux is part of the school education. All public schools students have an XO, running Linux, Sugar as desktop environment, mesh networking, and a bunch of educational apps, including Scratch (not very explored in class unfortunately) and Turtle Art, that is also used to explore robotics in schools with the project Butia. But linux per se is not the central target. But i would trade that for what they are actually learning, specially at their age. It leaves the door open to exploration, and so far 2 students from here already won the google code-in for activities related with Sugar.

</comment><comment><USER11> The problem here is that (in the UK at least) kids come out of school knowing nothing about about a computer works or programming - windows/mac/ios/android increasingly hide this from you. Kids think that programming a computer game is some trival task and have no idea how to even make the simplest of programs.

The counter point is that they shouldn't need to know this, but then why do we teach flower germination? or the causes of the second world war? or Shakespeare? - I've never had to use these in everyday life.

<comment><USER3> It's not all that bad now and wasn't when I was at school (in the UK). During my time, we had the Acorn BBC Micro to start with, then the Archimedes. These were both programmers dream machines and code we did, usually plugged into large Lego machines. After that it diverged into "office studies" as RM dumped millions of PC clones but there was still Quick Basic and Turbo Pascal available that was taught at a lot of schools either as a mainstream subject or through "computer clubs".

Now there was a gap for me but I have children now and they are learning how to write HTML and basic JavaScript. They are using software to produce video productions and stop-frame animations, they are even getting instruction from parents on how to write python. They have Windows desktops, iPads and a few Linux netbooks. They have it pretty good.

And this is a London primary school with an Ofsted "needs improvement" rating.

It's not all that bad.

<comment><USER23> Well, I'm glad about that. I guess I was the 'lost generation' \- sure, it was BBC Micros and Acorns at primary, but we basically used them for Chuckie Egg and Lander respectively - no code. By the time I got to secondary, it was the 'Office Studies' era.

If it hadn't have been, I might have skipped the 7 year continental philosophy grad school detour. Ah well...

As for Linux in schools, my feeling would be that there should be a room or two of Linux boxes, and the rest should be Windows - simply because 90% of computer usage in schools, according to some statistics I just made up, consists of doing your homework double quick at breaktime or other mundane uses where it would be better if kids were working with an OS they recognise from home. People who want to do CS/code type subjects should be taught Linux, and it should be available to 'computer clubs' etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think I mentioned something similar on _/._ ...

IMO all kids at school should be taught an ugly, difficult language like x86 assembly. Hardly any of them will understand it to a significant degree, but they will appreciate how difficult working with computers is. They will be more impressed with say, grep, or the original DOOM game.

Some of those kids will grow up to be somebody's boss, that potentially annoying, ignorant boss that expects you to juggle knives while tap-dancing in clogs.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't think it's a bad idea. Generally, I'd say skills learnt using Linux would be fairly transferable to other computer based tasks, regardless of OS.

The article however; utter shite. It's bad journalism.

'do nothing but line the pockets of the publishers', well yes. The company does profit from this, so? That's not valid argument to not use it in a schools? It should be approached from a 'look what we can learn from free tools' angle.

</comment><comment><USER26> Of course it should. The Linux cli is as good a gateway to understanding of the world around you as the Commodore 64 and the Apple II clis were for me as a kid.

If you start a child off with Windows or Mac, look forward to them maybe not ever understanding what a directory is, or that a computer has two types of memory. Consciously choosing and paying a premium to learn computing from Windows or Mac OS sounds to me only mildly better than trying to learn computing with a Playstation. They're simply not meant to be user serviceable.

I don't know what to say about not teaching children computing. There's a better case for teaching computing than any other science, if you judge usefulness by daily opportunity to use your skills to understand and improve your situation. The only reason I'd be against it is because I love being overpaid to do simple work due to the ignorance of the general population of the machines that completely run their lives.

My goal for a childhood education in computing would be to produce an adult that understands the capacity and flexibility of computing, and can be trusted to manage or hire computer workers, an adult who won't over or underestimate what can be done with computers, and an adult that has a deep relationship with the devices which, from now on, are going to be in physical contact with them at all times.

Yes, it's more important than learning how to fix your car. I've never had a car. How many people can say that about a computer? How many people can say that about a computer without ignoring embedded devices?

<comment><USER27> What are the two types of memory of a computer? Can you recommend any resources (books/websites) to learning things like that about a computer?

Edit: I googled it but each result explained a different type of memory (caches, system RAM, virtual memory, hard drive) or (RAM vs ROM) or (Primary vs Secondary).

<comment><USER26> There's a place called the internet. It has information for you.

edit: there's volatile memory and non-volatile memory. Or hundreds of different types for every place they're used, every purpose, and every brand name they're sold under, for trolls who miss the forest for the trees.

<comment><USER27> I wasn't trolling, hence the account name. Its hard to learn about how computers work because I don't even know where to start. When I typed "types of computer memory", there are a bunch of different resources. Its difficult and inefficient to just google every term/acronym I don't know. But thanks anyways for the answer.

<comment><USER26> I apologize: downvotes and 5 minute old accounts make me think troll.

Volatile memory, like RAM, needs a constant source of power to hold information, but is very fast, so computers use it for calculation, or information that it will come back to immediately. Non-volatile memory, like a hard drive, holds information even when the power is turned off.

cache: means a temporary place to hold stuff, and isn't a particular type of memory.

system RAM: is volatile memory used by the system.

virtual memory: is stuff that was in system RAM but hasn't been used in a while, so was stored on a hard drive for a moment. Or rather, the place on a hard drive that you've reserved for that stuff.

hard drive: non-volatile, spinning platters written on with magnetism, like a cassette tape. It's better than a cassette tape because you don't have to rewind or fast-forward the entire thing to get to what you want.

RAM: is volatile memory

ROM: is non-volatile memory that is written once, and usually never erased and rewritten. Many forms of ROM actually can be rewritten, but to the extent that it's easy to rewrite ROM, the less it counts as ROM.

Primary: another word for system RAM.

Secondary: another word for non-volatile memory, like hard drives.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for your answers. Its really impressive if you rattled all of that without even having to refer to anything except previous knowledge. I'm not sure I quite understand the general interaction between the parts but it definitely makes 100x more sense now than before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If young kids are going to learn linux instead of windows, they are going to need special tutors like this: [http://www.ktbyte.com/camps](http://www.ktbyte.com/camps)

<comment><USER29> I've been teaching high school computing for 10 years, and our regular classroom and computer lab works fine. Our machines ran Windows XP the first two years, then we switched to Linux, and are running a Debian distribution currently.

I don't teach Linux, I teach operating systems generally. Most of my students use different OSes already: Windows on a home desktop or laptop, iOS or Android on a phone. Learning Linux for school is no big deal for them.

I teach word processing, not Word or OOWriter; and spreadsheets, not Excel or OOCalc. In a one-semester course, I introduce and compare OSes, do some shell scripts to contrast the CLI and GUI, introduce HTML and create some web pages, then cover word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. This course is required for graduation as is a second one-semester course. This uses Kernighan's book "D is for Digital" [ [http://kernighan.com](http://kernighan.com) ] and covers what any well- informed person should know about computing: hardware, software, networking, and data.

I enjoy using Linux as a platform for teaching computing for three reasons: (1) Linux boxes are cheaper than PCs or Macs. (2) The idea of choosing one's OS fits well with our charter school's ideas of making one's own educational choices. (3) Students learn more about the systems they use at home -- Windows, OS X, or whatever -- by contrast with Linux, just as they learn more about their first language (English, say) by studying a foreign language.

Special camps and tutors are fine, but I don't think they are necessary in many cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Friend of author : "I challenge you to write an article promoting Linux that even Linux fans won't agree with"

Author : "Challenge...accepted"

</comment><comment><USER31> Where to find the teather?</comment>


Cosmos – The universe of algorithm and data structures - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/OpenGenus/cosmos <comment><USER2> I don't want to sound like an old grump but I fail to see the value in this. It seems that everyone and their mother nowadays starts to write some code to prepare for coding interviews and it starts growing into an 'algorithm library' which ends up being a dump of implementations with little to no value to someone trying to learn something. Despite the large number of contributors, this is exactly what it smells like.

Can we just contribute to Wikipedia and Rosetta Code? Seriously, whenever I want to research something in this domain, Wikipedia + Rosetta Code proved extremely valuable. This is just an implementation in multiple languages, with no README, no context, no why's, no discussion, no sources, no complexity analysis, nothing.

What is the advantage of this? Offline? Can we just work on making years and years of experience of better content available offline? Is there a licensing issue that I'm not seeing?

<comment><USER3> Wikipedia is magnificent for actually learning the algorithms, but I think collections like these fill a gap in that they show implementations in actual programming languages that just work without trying to write code from pseudo code. If you're familiar with any of these languages and understand the theory backing the algorithm you can instantly see how these algorithms can be done in that target language.

I feel this is especially useful for me with the computational geometry part. I took a completely theoretical computational geometry class this last semester. We learned and made algorithms in pure pseudo code, and some operations we were never even given pseudo code for, because they were 'trivial', for example the algorithm for line intersections (my teacher at least told me it took some linear algebra, but I never took linear algebra.) Having just the code can be helpful for someone that already has most the theoretical backing, but needs the practical code to go along with it. I think this kind of practical code along with getting theory from a more theoretical book or Wikipedia entry is a powerful way you could learn the algorithms.

<comment><USER4> Have you looked at Rosetta code before? I think OP has a pretty good point bringing it up..

[http://rosettacode.org/](http://rosettacode.org/)

<comment><USER3> I've come across it before, but haven't really used it. It looks like the examples are pretty good. I however dislike how it is organized as it organizes by first letter of a title (that seemingly has no pattern for first words making finding a particular entry harder) and doesn't have different categories or tags to categorize the different types of tasks. Organizing by type of task would have been a nice feature for browsing the code I much rather enjoy the layout of the linked github as it's much easier to study a particular topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Checked two at random and they were empty:

[https://github.com/OpenGenus/cosmos/tree/master/code/cellula...](https://github.com/OpenGenus/cosmos/tree/master/code/cellular_automaton/src/von_neumann_cellular_automata) [https://github.com/OpenGenus/cosmos/tree/master/code/randomi...](https://github.com/OpenGenus/cosmos/tree/master/code/randomized_algorithms/src/random_node_linkedlist)

Smells like a scam, or somethin'.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome, and I hope I can find some time to contribute. Lots of low hanging fruit because I didn't see any Swift stuff for some things I know.

If you want a Swift version of this (to which I have gotten to contribute!), see [https://github.com/raywenderlich/swift-algorithm- club/](https://github.com/raywenderlich/swift-algorithm-club/)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the best thing I have found so far on GitHub.

I will find some time to contribute to it for sure and become a member of this movement. Yay!

The organization behind it OpenGenus Foundation seems to be epic. It looks like they started some time back but they are huge.

They, even, have a discussion forum: [https://discourse.opengenus.org/](https://discourse.opengenus.org/) and several other interesting projects. Cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is epic. I wish to be a part of the OpenGenus Community.

I see this is, also, supported by GitHub, DigitalOcean and Discourse.</comment>