Website mistakes that are easily fixed - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/StopDoingInternetWrong.aspx

<comment><USER2> I particularly hate when someone does things like (1)

when it should be

so I can't middle click it or Ctrl-click it to open in a new tab. Even worse if there's (2)

      href="#"

added, which upon middle click will happily load the page I'm currently on inside the new tab.

I have an extension in Firefox which changes the mouse cursor for (1) from pointer (hand), so I can easily distinguish that case, I hope this became a W3C standard somehow (though the standard way for executing JS are buttons, not anchors, so probably it won't ever become standardized).

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised that no browser has done the obvious yet: treat middle-clicking a DOM element with a bound onclick handler the same as left-clicking that DOM element, but override window.open and window.location.redirect within the context of that handler call to open links in a new tab instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > There can be a whole list of languages in the Accept-Language header, in the > order the user prefers them! Use that data, it's there for you to use.

Yet it takes only jumping a plane for a few hours to get Google to think I can and want to read Georgian. Google's i18n for anonymous users (I'm not logged in on my phone's browser) is the most ridiculous I've experienced, every border I cross I get a different language.

<comment><USER5> I think that's the point. They're using IP geolocation when the article suggests that the Accept-Language header would be a better choice.

I don't know whether this is generally true, but it sounds like it would probably help your situation.

<comment><USER4> > I think that's the point. They're using IP geolocation when the article > suggests that the Accept-Language header would be a better choice.

That was my point :) If I set up us-en everywhere, don't try to be smarter and just show me everything in English.

<comment><USER6> From my experience, Chrome installs default to en-US without trying to pick up language settings from your computer. (I'm probably doing it wrong)

Not an excuse, but it sounds like they don't trust accept-language to be correct.

<comment><USER7> Chrome is atrocious. It uses your IP to determine language, _even if your OS is another_. You can't completely undo it after install; the default search engine is still the country/language you downloaded Chrome from.

Even funnier is when you get Chrome working in the right language, then do a Google search, the results come up in whatever language Google thinks based of IP, then _Chrome offers to translate it_.

It's so idiotic.

The Play Store is even worse. Some idiot at Google decided that apps with country restrictions should just 404 when you try to access them. So I downloaded an app for my bank. Go travelling. Get security alert update. Try to update? Nope, app not found. Even though it's running on my phone, I can't get to it via Play. Go to the Play website via a proxy and install it? Sure, that works.

I bet if the responsible people were forced to travel or be expats for a bit, this would get coherent quickly.

<comment><USER8> Try looking at it from the point of view of a Thai guy, who lives in Thailand like most Thai folks do, and who has to put up with all the websites written in English, because webdevs like to assume only Americans access the Internet. Like everyone else, his OS language is set to en-US because nobody likes to mess with system defaults.

Chrome does this guy a _huge_ service by translating a lot of websites to something he can read. So what if it pisses off a few travellers? There are a lot more native Thais in Thailand than there are foreigners.

<comment><USER4> > Like everyone else, his OS language is set to en-US because nobody likes to > mess with system defaults.

You mean pirated Windows system defaults? Because legally you buy localized copies, and when you install any popular Linux distro choosing the language is one of first steps if not the first.

<comment><USER6> It's the same with proper windows. You install and you pick your location and keyboard set up. There will be very very few people in the UK, for example, with en-US windows because the keyboard set up is different (mac's that's another story)

IMO, browsers should pick up your OS language settings by default OR make it very simple to both see what your browser default is and to change it. (without an add on)

I live in the UK, but I'm a US ex-pat so I get snared with i18n problems quite a bit when it comes to addresses on my US accounts.

It gets worse because I forget to change my browser to en-GB, and I come across US run .co.uk sites that rely on accept-languages to assume the format of my postcode. sigh...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really annoyed by those sites that insist on having a non-removable top bar overlaying the text. Because they break the page-down key. You page down, but part of the unread text scoots under the top bar. Arrrg.

<comment><USER10> Bootstrap helped popularize this pattern, and I don't think it's been good for the web. It also steals valuable screen real estate for tiny laptops, like the 11" Air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's one he missed: your "country" dropdown has a list of every country in existence, alphabetically. So for the US you have to scroll down to near the end of the list past hundreds of other countries.

Instead, put your audience up top (Canada, US, GB maybe) and then alphabetically list the rest.

<comment><USER12> Actually the solution you're suggesting is one of my pet hates. An alphabetical list of countries should be alphabetical! If you put some countries out of order you just make it more difficult for people to find their country if theirs isn't the one pre-selected.

If your audience is mainly US, then by all means pre-select the US, but keep the list alphabetical. If your audience isn't mainly in one country, either don't select anything, or for extra bonus points, do a Geo IP lookup and pre- select the country they're in.

<comment><USER13> I think one of the worst things I've seen is the State/Province version of this. I try to scroll down to "B" for "British Columbia" but lo and behold, there's nothing listed between Arkansas and California. I double-check the country dropdown... still says Canada. Yeah, the genius web developer decided to list all 50 US states before the Canadian provinces, regardless of what country was selected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Asking for city, state and zip code is my favorite on the list. Plus the country should be asked for first then if US only get the street and zip code.

There was a link on HN sometime ago that showed that people trusted the form/page more when complete address information was requested (I believe the conclusion was that people were used to doing it that way) so maybe there is a downside to the shorter version.

<comment><USER15> Funny. This is the one to which I had the most negative response. Zipcodes are _terrible_ for inferring anything geographically interesting. A single zipcode is just a collection of USPS postal routes; nothing more, nothing less. They don't have to be contained within a single city, or even a single state, nor do they have to be contiguous, and they can overlap with one another. New ones are also added all the time, and no publicly available databases of them handle any of these problems well. Most applications that try to use them for anything end up running across edge cases that show users incorrect data, often without ever realizing it. It's especially unfortunate because so many startup-y people live in urban areas where zipcodes cover small, regular geographic areas, and have no idea they're potentially creating terrible user experiences for people who live elsewhere.

For a particular case study of sorts, see: [http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use- zipco...](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use-zipcodes/)

<comment><USER11> ZIPs are almost always fine at a state granularity, and pretty good for cities. If the form is street/city/state/zip, you can autofill State correctly from ZIP 99.9% of the time.

<comment><USER15> Do you have data supporting the 99.9%? I suspect that's high; there are buildings within five blocks of where I'm sitting that have a zipcode that crosses a state line, and I don't think it's the only state-crossing zip in my area (Washington, DC, for what it's worth). In any event, even if it's accurate, it doesn't take that much traffic for a .1% error rate to start to add up to non-trivial number of users, especially because that .1% is going to have a noticeably-jarring experience, as opposed to the alternative (collecting all fields) which everyone is already completely accustomed to.

<comment><USER11> Well, this list shows 293 ZIPs that cross state lines [0], this FAQ says there are ~43,000 ZIPs in use [1] so that puts it closer to 99.3%.

But think about it, if you're taking an address to ship something, getting the ZIP right is what matters. If your package has 45201 on it, it doesn't matter if it says Cincinnati, OH or Cincinnati, KY.

[0] [http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.i...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.info/zips_in_multiple_states.htm)

[1] [http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html](http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html)

<comment><USER15> But if you're collecting a _billing_ address (probably more common, since many places bill but don't ship, e.g., for digital goods, but not that many ship without billing), and are trying to expedite filling out the form by guessing the city and state from the zip, I doubt the payment processing would succeed if you got the city or state wrong. All depends on the situation, I guess.

<comment><USER16> AVS[1] doesn't even look at the city/state. It only checks the ZIP (5 or 9 digit) and the numbers in the street address.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> godamn credit card forms! those get me the most because we're at the moment where i'm trying to give you money, and they pull some passive-aggressive bullshit like limiting the field length to 16 characters.

i can _almost_ type in my whole card number, but then i can go no further and i have to manually go back and remove all the spaces and then go to the end of the number and enter the last digit. class act.

<comment><USER18> > like limiting the field length to 16 characters

Or worse: requiring the spaces. Or maybe they want dashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > <input type="radio" name="fruit" id="banana" /> for="banana">Banana

Slightly pedantic, but it's even easier than that if you don't have any elements separating them - you don't even need the id:

> <input type="radio" name="fruit" /> Banana

This adds convenience on desktop, but it's really annoying not to have it on smaller mobile screens.

<comment><USER20> It's also compatible with assistive technology (though be sure to note the edge cases): [http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/form- labels.html](http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/form-labels.html)

(based on discussion 6 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890631))

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Accept-Language header is not reliable esp for non-English speaking countries. Many computers/browsers are by default EN, esp if the O/S doesn't support local language.

For example, Indonesians speak and read Bahasa all the time, but most browsers there report EN.

</comment><comment><USER22> WRT language selection and availability, I developed a small Rack gem `i18n_best_langs` that could be useful to web devs.

[https://github.com/gioele/rack-i18n_best_langs](https://github.com/gioele/rack-i18n_best_langs)

It picks up clues from various HTTP pieces (headers, URI) and generates a list of locales in order of possible user preference. It is then up to the web application to make good use of this list of preferences.

It is alpha quality but I would love some criticism about it from HN readers.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm glad I'm not the only one who's anal about redirecting to the canonical host name. Now, let the bike-shedding begin: should the canonical host name be www.foo.com or foo.com?

<comment><USER10> I say "www." needs to die in a fire. It's ugly and pointless, and doesn't stop you from using other subdomains if you want them.

<comment><USER24> "www." is a good indicator in other media that a web address is being presented when it might otherwise be not entirely obvious.

Not entirely pointless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At the end of the day, it's never about what we _can_ do, it's what we can do within the budget and time that we think is appropriate for what we want to do.

</comment><comment><USER2> One more thing that's been getting a lot of traction recently is CSS transitions. Some devs are using them for hell everything, because they can. When it's too much of it, it feels like old shiny GIFs whenever you change the zoom level of the text.

I've saved in bookmarks one page that made my eyes bleed due to it, but I don't have access to it right now. Stay tuned, I'll post it on Monday :)

</comment><comment><USER26> I specially agree with the "Download the app now" messages. I hate those because I know how to look those up if I really want to, so just let me get to what I came to this site for.

<comment><USER27> Annoying, maybe, but I don't think it really fits with the theme of the rest of the list. Providing the user with a potentially helpful shortcut to an app doesn't really compare to breaking deep links for the mobile web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't mind the flags thing, yes I sometimes roll my eyes when I have to hit the stars and stripes for "english", but I can spot it or a union jack out of a set of flag pictures faster than I can find the word "english".

You also have the case of foreign users on public computers who may be unable to fiddle with the language settings.

</comment><comment><USER29> User are afraid to set any browser setting. It would be better for them to choose the language through web page.

You should also consider user may not be able to switch the language of a public computer. The setting may be locked, or the operating system is in another language, e.g. Chinese, user doesn't even know where the "setting" button is.

</comment><comment><USER30> I didn't see it listed so far, but checkout forms that require you to select the type of credit card you have. Since the card (Mastercard, Visa, Discover, AMEX) can be determined by the first digit.

I don't see too many sites that require something like this anymore, but every now and then one pops up.

</comment><comment><USER13> I absolutely hate it when I'm paying with Paypal and you make me enter my shipping address. It's not only a waste of time, but if I have to type in something over and over for every order, it's much more likely I'll make a mistake than if I only have to do it once through the Paypal site.

</comment><comment><USER31> You can also address multiple languages with hreflang: [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.hk/2013/04/x-default-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.hk/2013/04/x-default- hreflang-for-international-pages.html).

</comment><comment><USER32> So true. It's frustrating to see people spend hundreds of hours to advance some "fringe" web technologies that don't really affect much in the end, while stuff that we use every day, everywhere continues to have the same (solvable) issues year after year.

</comment><comment><USER33> Regarding the title of his article, as a someone who routinely uses TCP/IP for tasks other than transmitting HTML, I find his concept of "internet" to be rather myopic.

<comment><USER34> I find it difficult to believe that you are actually bothered by web developers referring to what they work on as "the internet."

Can we please suppress the burning need to find something "wrong" to nitpick in every headline? I know it's really satisfying to be the HN Superstar that points out a blatant error, but sometimes it just makes you look desperate.</comment></comment>


Distributism - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism <comment><USER3> Based on personal impressions, I think Switzerland is a good example of distributism. Much attention is given to the Swiss banks and the "gold" but in reality, IMO, the strength of the Swiss economy lies in the small & medium business sector.

There are over 300K businesses classes as SMBs in Switzerland, many of them family owned. For a country of 8 million people that means one SMB per 26 people. There are few "high street chains" aside from the supermarkets - unlike the UK for example where the high street of most towns and cities looks the same.

According to this article - [https://www.thelocal.ch/20171114/report-swiss- are-richer-tha...](https://www.thelocal.ch/20171114/report-swiss-are-richer- than-ever-but-wealth-inequality-persists) \- 63 percent of Swiss adults have financial assets above $100,000 which means, although there is a small percent of extremely wealthy people, there's a good distribution of wealth.

That in turn means if you want to start a business here, there are plenty of potential customers with disposable income they might be willing to risk on your product or service.

<comment><USER4> Also reminds me of mittelstand companies in Germany which often favour independence over growth. So, for example, they avoid borrowing too much in order to retain complete control over their destiny.

<comment><USER4> Come to think of it a lot of the motivation for start ups seems to be distributive - not working for the man, etc. The problem is that borrowing puts on pressure to be aquired or to aquire until you become the man. Maybe Joel Spolsky and DHH have the right idea. To remain a startup and keep that buzz you have to forego the Megabucks.

<comment><USER5> You seem to be confusing startups with small businesses. They are not the same thing. The former is often motivated by the desire to make enormous amounts of money eventually. Most startup founders probably want to be acquired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been to Mondragon which is the biggest co-op federation in the world - <USER2> something like 74K people and $25B of revenue. They've been around since the 1950's and have their own banking, healthcare, university, etc.

It seems to be working pretty well and the area seems to have little poverty or wealth - very equal. I believe they do run into the same issues other big co-ops (and any big orgs really) which is after 70 years, the culture (which is so key to good co-ops) didn't maintain, and people in effect took the easy way out which led to the bankruptcy of their biggest co-op: Fagor. Still though, apparently most of the laid-off employees found work in other Mondragon co-ops - pretty cool.

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Distributism kinda sounds like what we had when we were first building the Internet (and what we still have): we all owned the means of production (a computer) and everyone contributed their own ideas freely and as they saw fit (frameworks, coding languages, software etc) and we all loosely banded together to come up with our own "rules" to run things, which we now call protocols. Later on, yes..we monetized the brains by hiring them and creating FB, Google, etc, but in a way, it seems like a rough idea of "distributism" built the internet. I think those catholic popes were on to something.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's apparently still a Distributist Club at Glasgow University that participated in the political debates held in Glasgow University Union: [https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/...](https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/moderate- radicals-the-distributists-at-glasgow-university/)

<comment><USER9> Just curious, are they in favor of Brexit, or against it?

<comment><USER10> I would have assumed for it as the EU is clearly another form of centralised government and favours businesses that trade across borders so are larger. But when it comes to Brexit all bets are off.

<comment><USER11> I run a 200,000€ revenue company that sells physical goods across the EU. Large companies have the resources to do the paperwork to sell across customs borders, I don't.

In this sense, the EU is more helpful to small companies than large ones. It effectively removes borders.

<comment><USER12> On the other hand, without the unified market, governments can engage in protectionism, and if they do, there's less of a chance that a small business will be crushed by a giant global competitor.

<comment><USER5> That's too simplistic. There are large differences between countries in the East and the West. Western corporations have had a field day in the EU's Eastern members precisely because of the relative economic advantages they have built up over 50 years following WWII and the massive restructuring of the economies of the Eastern members following the fall of communism. Free trade really only works when countries have some kind of parity (something Friedrich List argues). However, to the East's advantage, their economies are much more dynamic and the West is increasingly stagnating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds a bit like wildlife Conservancies found dotted across the developing world[0]. While the rules and some funding come from centralised authorities, the land that is put aside for wildlife conservation is done so by local peoples at their own discretion, and the management and work in each conservancy are conducted by the locals. I guess Conservancies in the developing world contrast with the organised national parks and state run conservation areas of countries like the USA and New Zealand.

But both forms of organsation can work together. If you look at the map of Namibia in this reference [1], you can see how conservancies offer a buffer zone to that country's national parks.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Wildlife_Conservancie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Wildlife_Conservancies_in_Namibia) 1\. [http://www.met.gov.na/services/conservancies/193/](http://www.met.gov.na/services/conservancies/193/)

</comment><comment><USER14> The nearest implementation of this I can think of is the Seigneurial System in early Canada (then, New France), that we used to learn about in history classes as kids.

[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneuria...](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneurial- system)

It is criticized and largely dismissed in the article and memory as feudal, but a Distributist interpretation of it might grasp its benefits with more nuance.

</comment><comment><USER15> I originally thought this was going to be an April fool's satire on using Microservices as a religion.

<comment><USER16> I assumed it was a similar joke for classifying people who worship the block chain

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love Distributism. As G.K. Chesterton said, "The problem with Capitalism is not that there are too many but too few" Distributism seeks the maximum number of families and individuals _privately_ owning a small bit of capital. Imagine every family with a small business, and these businesses sometimes cooperating to do greater things. Distributism seeks to avoid massive capital in the hands of a few oligarchs. It also seeks to avoid the means of production belonging to the people in a vague and non-specific way -- such as communism with its abolition of private property (No one really owns anything in that vague abstraction -- the State owns all). When everyone (or at least most) has a modest business, they can support their community and keep it intact. Subsidiarity is localism through and through -- not just in food but everything else. I think we all want our work to make the places we live better. We all want the power to help our friends get jobs so they do not have to move far away (Have a small business and you can hire them).

<comment><USER18> The problem with this vision is that economies of scale exist. I have been involved in a manufacturing business for a while. Scale solves lots of problems. It spreads overhead over more units. It incentivizes spending resources to hyper optimize material and labor usage. Etc.

<comment><USER19> That's what makes cooperation an important aspect of these types of ideologies. In _Humanizing The Economy_ [0], the author describes successful cooperative movements from around the world that are based on localized democratic principles but leverage large-scale cooperation to organize at scale.

[0]: [https://www.newsociety.com/Books/H/Humanizing-the- Economy](https://www.newsociety.com/Books/H/Humanizing-the-Economy)

<comment><USER20> Thank you for this tip. I'm eager to read this book.

While I'm a big fan of Richard D Wolff's efforts, he fails to examine the governance models of co-ops. What works, what doesn't. Models of incorporation. Case studies.

Governance is key.

\--

Some years ago, I joined a non-profit OSS team, part of the Kuali Consortium, with the primary intent to see how it worked first hand.

Sadly, it didn't.

Even more sadly, I still have little clue what could work, what to advocate.

I am inspired by Pieter Hintjens' Social Architecture as model for successful OSS:

[http://hintjens.com/books](http://hintjens.com/books)

But have yet to practice it myself.

\--

Sorry, I always conflate ideas. My end goal is to figure out how to make useful, meaningful software while still paying my mortgage and feeding my family.

<comment><USER19> Agree with your critique of Wolff. I'm on a similar quest and have some resources you might find interesting. Feel free to reach out on gmail–same handle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I believe Distributist ideas such as Syndicalist worker cooperatives have been thrown by the way-side by the modern Left. Tackling the looming ecological disasters require centralized control. For example, the Paris Agreement is a Centralist policy, as is the world-wide Carbon tax.

<comment><USER22> The leftist media (at least the parts that I know) frequently applaud small cooperatives and other grassroots-level economic activity. But I don't see anyone who translates these local efforts into policy.

<comment><USER10> Both sides of the media do, as to the politicians they seem to favour either big business or unions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Distributism is great because it is a third way; some are afraid of too much corporate power, some are afraid of too much government power, but distributists are wary of anyone having too much power and are able to provide a solution for that.

However, there has to be a shift in consumers' mindsets for distributism to be embraced. One of the great things that capitalism/economies of scale does is drive prices down. A $100 grocery bill at Walmart could be $120 or more at the local grocery store, and for a lot of people that $20 makes a real difference. People rail against big banks, but don't mind the cheaper mortgages. And so on.

Distributism has a lot of benefits, but in most of the cases that matter, price, selection, and oftentimes convenience are not benefits, and that's what we seem to optimize for. It requires a different set of priorities.

<comment><USER24> The annoying bit is that people as a whole don't seem to account for all variables all that well.

Sure, your weekly grocery bill may be $20 higher, but due to better wealth distribution, your salary might be $50/week higher. Most people just see "it costs more" without recognizing that they still benefit, if they could only make the deeper analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What about large-scale projects which aren't possible without concentration of productive assets and capital? Does this doctrine addresses that?

Can we have sustained energy production or trans-Atlantic internet cables or satellites or Teslas with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

      > Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This
      > principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political)
      > should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit.

The point is that you should try and keep things as small as feasible. When it's not feasible you use bigger institutions.

<comment><USER26> How would that interact with the situation where a smaller system just about works OK, but a larger system works better?

For example, we _could_ devolve wireless spectrum management to cities. But it would be jolly inconvenient if San Francisco and San Jose required mutually incompatible wifi hardware.

<comment><USER27> It seems like you could have a government that was primarily focused on standards and contract enforcement, so companies could build any kind of hardware they liked, but the government would be able to push them to build it according to a broader standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm inclined to like this idea, but it seems to be framed in a way that centralizes a lot of governmental power.

Why not look for ways to decentralize power and also decentralize resources? For instance, removing or limiting various privileges of large corporations that individuals don't have.

<comment><USER29> Distributism, being a Catholic belief, is ultimately based on the principal of subsidiarity, which is a Catholic social doctrine stating that all matters of government ought to be handled at the most local level competent and able enough to deal with the matter. Thus, while national defense may best lay with the national government, the trash pickup schedule is best decided by local processes.

<comment><USER30> I don't see why Catholism is emphasized so much in your answer. The concepts discussed exist independently of Catholism, have their roots before Catholism and looking at them from a religious angle confounds more than it clarifies.

<comment><USER31> It's based on the writings of Catholic popes. I think calling it Catholic merely gives credit to its recent originators.

It's just the same as calling a school of economics Austrian, or a branch of psychology Freudian.

<comment><USER32> Additionally the foremost apologists for Distributism, G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, were Catholic writers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Capital democratization is a topic I've been researching for a while now with regards to new tech startup corporate structure, especially things that fall into the public good category like FOSS.

Co-op's and ESOPs are just one way, but it's about time that we start to experiment with new ownership and governance structures that don't just create more Facebook's and Amazon's.

Louis Kelso is the one who notoriously invented and popularized worker- ownership plans in the US, taking inspiration from the US Homestead Act with spreading capital ownership across society. During the cold war, he also used to characterize 'capital democratization' as a third way, separate from capitalism and communism, but mainly just because then neoclassical economists like Samuelson derided his ideas at the time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUf51M9D6sw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUf51M9D6sw)

<comment><USER34> This is a really interesting thing to think about. If we pick on Facebook as an example, most people look at FB and see that it has 2.3 billion customers, then go on to assume it's an amazing and innovative company filled with great people who make the best product in the industry.

An alternative point of view is that there are 2.3 billion customers out there for this type of product, and the financial systems and incentives present in our society resulted in Facebook owning all of those customers.

FB actually is exemplary of the flaws present in the first mode of thinking. I don't doubt there are many brilliant people working there, but their product is crappy and even user hostile on many levels. Biggest absolutely doesn't translate to best all the time.

More likely FB got to where it is because the rules of our society concentrate capital and control (which is exactly what we see going on when we look at data such as wealth disparity, shrinking # of new businesses etc. in the USA over time).

<comment><USER35> > I don't doubt there are many brilliant people working there, but their > product is crappy and even user hostile on many levels.

The alternative interpretation is that there are brilliant people working on it and their product is great, the user just isn't the customer. Brilliance doesn't imply ethical behavior ;)

<comment><USER34> That's true for sure, but it's worth noting that Facebook's actual customers (advertisers) don't like it much either--many outright hate FB for its business practices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe it's because I'm a Protestant who's not particularly invested in Roman Catholic social teaching and so I haven't learned the nuances, but it seems to me that when you apply distributism to an industrial or post-industrial society and work out the kinks you end up with either capitalism or socialism.

It's straightforward to apply distributism to an agrarian society where land is the main source of wealth: split up the farmland among a bunch of smallholding farmers.¹ But once a meaningful part of your economy is in capital-intensive industries, you have a decision to make: do you allow private individuals to accumulate capital or not? If you do, you soon have a capitalist society. If you do not, or you allow them to accumulate capital but not to benefit from it, you end up with a socialist society. The examples in the Wikipedia article confirm this impression.

Distributism looks to me like someone took the principle of subsidiarity and the role of the family, saw that they got more respect in the late middle ages, and pined for the economic system of that era. It would be interesting and productive to re-examine some of the underlying assumptions there.

¹ Whether land reform is just is a separate issue; at least it is possible.

<comment><USER37> Interestingly, Protestantism is tied up with the history of capitalism.

I think it's worthwhile to think about systems that don't reduce to either capitalism or socialism.

(Though, in the spirit of reductionism, one can imagine capitalism as reducing to socialism in the long term: you can allow private individuals to accumulate capital, but ultimately it'll end up in the hands of a few individuals, who will be a de facto government.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I have been in business for more than 33 years.The best way I can describe it is like this. Running a small business can be like going for a ride in a washing machine.First you get soaked,then chemicals are dumped on your head,then your spun,and finally you get hung out to dry! All kidding aside,these guys get it and are very easy to deal with.Their terms are flexible,and the process is efficient.I have used them on multiple occasions involving 3 companies over an 8 year period.They have earned this review. Contact them via email: (firstname.lastname@example.com) or visit www.westernloanfinance.com. Thanks Steve.

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengism) proved to be successful

</comment><comment><USER40> Richard D Wolff advocates a socialism that sounds something like this, centered around worker cooperatives rather than state control of everything.

<comment><USER41> Any large examples of this? Only one I can think of is Mondragon Corporation

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

<comment><USER42> In the UK, John Lewis / Waitrose (a big supermarket and department store group) is owned by its employees.

<comment><USER10> I suppose the mutual building societies in the UK aren't very far from this idea as well, although there aren't many left now. Also Vanguard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Further, some distributists argue that socialism is the logical conclusion of capitalism, as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the state, resulting in a form of socialism."

This is pretty wild, could someone please explain this argument for me?

<comment><USER29> Yes... Communism means the communal ownership of goods. In practice, some process needs to be in place to decide how the goods are used. Usually, this is some kind of democratic institution -- a government or small committee that nominally looks after the interests of the people. Historically, the issue with communism is the inability for this small group to truly benefit all the workers.

Corporate capitalism is the same system under another name. Instead of governments controlling the capital in the name of the workers, employers own the capital in the name of the workers. Workers themselves in both systems do not often own their own means of production (although capitalism at least allows for this).

For example, a distributist model of furniture manufacture involves thousands of local woodworkers each making furniture, selling them, profiting in a small way -- at least enough to raise their family. A corporate capitalist model is one large company which owns all the tools and wood that the individual employee-workers utilize to make a good that is sold to profit the corporation. A communist model is the 'people' own the tools and the wood that some citizens make into furniture for the benefit of all the community. Because the worker gets everything they need anyway, their income isn't actually a function of their labor.

In both the case of corporate capitalism and communism, the worker does not own the means of production and the profit and value they create via the utilization of the tools and raw materials owned by some other more remote group is mostly alienated from their behavior. Only in the distributist model are people actually paid exactly for what value their labor provided.

In other words, monopolistic publicly owned corporations are basically communism, but with the board of directors (on behalf of the 'people' \-- the shareholders, basically the public for large corporations) substituting for the communist government. All economic decisions are made centrally, and any competition between these large firms in an oligopoly is more akin to the competition between communist governments than the competition envisioned by capitalists

<comment><USER42> Thank you for such a clear explanation. As somebody that clearly knows their onions on this topic, are you able to answer a couple more questions?

1\. Under distributism, what happens to people who can't produce valuable economic output - the old, disabled, infirm?

2\. How does distributism deal with externalities, both positive and negative. What incentive is there for charity or creative work where results benefit the whole group, so nobody wants to pay?

<comment><USER44> Well, how do those things happen today?

<comment><USER42> A combination of tax and regulation to redistribute income, cover the cost of negative externalities, and encourage activities with a positive externality. I'm grossly oversimplifying, and obviously it's neither 100% efficient nor effective.

I'm genuinely intrigued by distributism, so please don't think I'm making snarky comments.

<comment><USER44> Since capitalism does those things in an ad-hoc way, I don't see why it would have to be any different under distributionism; if anything it would most likely be a non-change; it certainly doesn't seem to preclude those activities - my impression is you have to implement some form of mixed economy no matter what backing ideology you try to guide with.

<comment><USER42> So distributism isn't opposed to tax? Could the government then subsidise some types of work that it wanted to encourage, or tax those it wanted to discourage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "Further, some distributists argue that socialism is the logical conclusion > of capitalism, as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the > state, resulting in a form of socialism"

This greatly resembles Karl Marx's criticism of capitalism, which has failed to hold up to reality so far.

Frankly, this sounds a lot like repackaged socialism using labor unions and guilds rather than a central government. Might not be as bad a state socialism (i.e. they might actually be able to manage the businesses better), but I sincerely doubt it would solve any of the major problems we see today.

While you do have inequality in capitalist systems the "elites" tend to rotate, with empires falling apart and new ones taking their place. Wealthy families maintaining their wealth and power are the exception and not the norm.

Introducing guilds or more unions will likely make it much harder for competition and innovation to thrive, introducing a huge barrier of bureaucracy interested only in maintaining the status quo for their own benefit.

<comment><USER10> The capture the state part seems to be spot on. You just need to take a look at how much lobbying goes on and our inability to deal with issues like climate change thanks to the big oil companies.

<comment><USER15> They can apply large pressure on the state, true. But so can labour unions (and probably so would guilds). It is still not true state ownership as competition does thrive (even if they still have obstacles).

Edit: There are probably even better examples of lobbying than climate change as that has a ton of confounding factors that make it hard to deal with besides just oil companies. But I see no reason to assume distributism would make the issue better. Taxi drivers protesting against Uber comes to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Any real implementation of Distributism would require a strong state and police force to enforce it and in practice would look identical to socialism.

<comment><USER46> All robust implementations of capitalism require state and police force to enforce property rights.

Property is monopoly to assets given by the government.

<comment><USER47> You can certainly have property rights without a government, they just may not be "fair" according to some definitions (of course, specific implementations of government protection of property rights also may not be "fair" according to some definitions).

<comment><USER48> That's just might makes right, there's no property there since you can take what you want.

Property implies you use the state (an external entity) to enforce your rights, providing checks on individual power, not that you enforce it yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The problem with this is it can only work by imposing arbitrary restrictions on everyone. Under free market capitalism if you want to run a family business you can. If you want to run a multinational corporation you can. Nobody is rigging the system to force one outcome or the other and there are good economic reasons why both can be appropriate and successful in different circumstances. Distributism arbitrarily labels one of those wrong and the other right on ideological grounds, leading to an inflexible, inefficient and ultimately coercive economy because the 'right' answer has to be imposed somehow.

I think what is often missed about capitalism is that essentially it is based on individual freedom. The freedom to own property, to own capital, to deploy that capital as one sees fit, to take responsibility and the benefits from the outcome, to act individually if you wish or in concert in groups or organisations of any size.

In capitalist liberal democracies, if you want to create and run a workers cooperative, you certainly can and people have. You can run a family business, or a huge corporation. It doesn't really mandate a particular organisational structure, at least at that level. There are rules about how business entities are run to an extent, such as rules about boards of directors and financial reporting, but they don't actually stop you building an enterprise built on distributist or even Marxist principles.

The problem is these arbitrary systems of organisation, while they can be effective in some limited situations, just aren't flexible and efficient enough to be extensible to a whole economy. In mandating a particular organisational structure, and in distributism even a preferred scale, they also obstruct innovation. The old distributionist mantra 'three acres and a cow' sums this up nicely, it's an essentially static view of society. Again Marxism suffers from the same disease, never really developing good answers to how enterprises are founded, innovate, evolve and wind down in a natural way. Instead it has always had to resort to state executive fiat because there is no organic process for innovation and these life-cycle transformations in Marxism. In contrast under Capitalism, people and organisations simply do these things through the exercise of their individual freedom and discretion.

<comment><USER50> > Nobody is rigging the system to force one outcome or the other and there are > good economic reasons why both can be appropriate and successful in > different circumstances.

I would consider myself a capitalist, but you have to be pretty naive to think that corporations haven't captured our governing class and rigged the system in their favor.

This Wikipedia article makes this point very early as a critique of capitalism, which is fair.

<comment><USER49> They have in some countries and not so much in others depending on the regulatory system. In the US yes corporations have enormous direct political influence due to the campaign finance and lobbying system, but other liberal democracies have very strict campaign finance laws that make that much harder. It's not an inherent or inevitable attribute of the system.

There are also plenty of examples of governments breaking up, trust-busting and punitively regulating big corporations so they clearly don't always get their own way.

In contrast I would argue that ossification and stagnation are inherent features of distributism and a lot of alternative economic systems that don't have good answers to the problem on innovation and economic dynamism.</comment></comment></comment>


Southfork's Open Source SecViz Tool Under Legal Attack - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/112482032780181267192/posts/XBhgQ72UP83

<comment><AUTHOR> The plaintiff (Battelle) has claimed copyright violation, amongst other things. This is crazy. Southfork's system is _written in a different language_ , and this can be verified because the source is visible to the public on github, at [https://github.com/visdom/visdom](https://github.com/visdom/visdom), as is the commit log for every line of source.</comment>


Ask HN: Any YC or other start ups looking for a college hacker? - <AUTHOR>

Greetings all,
I am a regular here on hacker news and see all these people doing amazing things and was wondering if anyone would be willing to work with a college student remotely ( for now). I want to work for a start up (remotely at first, but willing to move after graduation). I currently attend the University of South Carolina, here is some information about me:
I have a 4.0 GPA and I am apart of the honors college, and have 2 semesters left until I graduate with a computer engineering degree and a math minor. I am currently interning with Intel doing software development(mostly). Before that, I worked as the main back end developer for a startup for 8 months(did mostly PHP and MySQL). Before that I did 2 years of research experience including DNA sample analysis(new algorithms), Protein folding on GPUs, and soon work with FPGAs. I love programming and software development as a whole. I have all the usual skills C,PHP,MySQL, Python, Erlang(some), Java, and w.e. else you might need. The largest application was a program called JASPER that I wrote for the South Carolina Law Enforcement department for matching DNA repeat segments. It was about 20 k lines, in java, multi-threaded, and feature rich. I am willing to learn anything and would love to work on scale (yeap scale)!
So if anyone is willing to take a shot at me, email me at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><AUTHOR> I am willing to do some work to show off my skills too :D</comment>


Crash course on the CSS line-height property - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/10/14/refine-your-web-type-with-this-crash-course-on-the-css-line-height-property/

<comment><USER2> A nice slide deck that goes in-depth.

The gist of it is using number values (not percent or em or px) is generally the best all around solution to scaling line-height with differing font sizes proportionally, and it suggests tweaks for issues with this like subscript/superscript and IE 6 inline images.

So... use number values. And if you care why it is best or why workarounds for superscript are necessary, check out the (99 slide!) slide deck.</comment>


Facebook Onsite JS API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rumal/facebook.js/blob/master/Facebook.js

<comment><AUTHOR> include this on facebook site and call facebook methods like a boos form the console it self.

<comment><USER2> Interesting, especially if you built on top of it. Pretty sure that doing this is violating something, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> im using their own client side api, event bus and dependency injections to run my code.

<comment><USER2> I know. And I bet that's against their terms of service, something along the lines of "interacting with our data or our services in an unintended way or through unintended means."

Facebook has put the kabosh on other client-side plug-ins for this reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the heads up :D saw similar things to gmail too [https://github.com/KartikTalwar/gmail.js/tree/master](https://github.com/KartikTalwar/gmail.js/tree/master)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


WeiBlocked - <AUTHOR> https://weibo-uncensored.github.io/ <comment><USER2> Looked around for a few minutes and can't seem to find anything that's censor- worthy. Actually quite some pro-government stuff are included. I guess the vast majority of this archive is just posts from random spammy accounts that got shadow banned, not really surprising given the vast number of bots posting in popular hashtags.

Concrete example: all I see under the hashtag "facing an epidemic, the police don't retreat" are copy-pasted official press releases and stuff [https://weibo-uncensored.github.io/#/weibo- viewer/#疫情当前警察不退#...](https://weibo-uncensored.github.io/#/weibo- viewer/#疫情当前警察不退#/posts)

<comment><USER3> There is a checkbox at the bottom to show only censored tags, the default view shows you what's currently popular, the title is very misleading. If you do turn on the censored view, large part of the top 10 censored tags are about Chinese people protesting a proposed law to allow permanent residences to foreigners (like a green card). There is another tag in top 10 claiming coronavirus is not originated from Wuhan. It's actually very different from what you read from the popular media here, you would think the government would be pushing this narrative. Of course, anything against the government would be censored as well.

<comment><USER4> You wanna help us seed the bot with search terms? We're talented engineers but we don't speak Mandarin :) Ping me on Twitter @2020WriteIn

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice to see another Arweave project here. Spent quite a bit of time working with this tech. A bit of a shameless plug, but I used it to create a mirror for the Gutenberg book collection here: [https://marcojrfurtado.github.io/bookweave/latest.html](https://marcojrfurtado.github.io/bookweave/latest.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hmmm, yes. This would probably be more interesting to me if I could read Chinese haha

<comment><USER4> It will have Twitter content (all languages) within a week or so... Twitter is developing a censorship problem, especially when it comes to the #coronavirus. By archiving content immediately after it gets posted, it permanently protects it, even if Twitter takes it down an hour later...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm not the developer, but I came across this app and wanted to share.

<comment><USER7> You shouldn't use Show HN in the title of it's not something you've made. But a cool find!

<comment><USER4> I made it... it's okay :) Great feedback, thanks all. We will be making censored hashtags the default view, and we are also expanding to North American social media, Twitter and the like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This one seems a bit better in my opinion

[https://freeweibo.com/](https://freeweibo.com/)</comment>


The Greatest European Porn Internet Sites: A Compr - <AUTHOR> https://trunk.www.volkalize.com/members/sheppardaagaard0/activity/1813056/ <comment><USER2> Hmmm - wants to discuss porn, uses a self-signed certificate for their site...no thanks!</comment>


Economy of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what your reasons are for posting this, but it is interesting. The portion titled Collapse of the Yugoslav Economy is astounding. I would like to see more declassified documents about our plans/policies in other countries.

It's a little frightening to learn that so many of those paranoid conspiracy nuts were right...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1lZMTCqf8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1lZMTCqf8)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an interesting story, somewhat emotional and romantic even? Maybe more to me because I was a kid here when it was all happening (born in '84). If you're into conspiracy stuff, watch "The Weight Of Chains". Although I believe the film is heavily biased and greatly downplays the responsibility of serbia itself in the conflict, blaming most of it on outside forces. Nevertheless, it's very entertaining and paints a grim picture of foreign interests at play and their influence on the post-war politics.

<comment><USER2> I'll check it out. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


An iOS user migrates to Android - <AUTHOR> http://storify.com/joestump/an-ios-user-migrates-to-android

<comment><USER2> I've been doing something similar. I'm on my fourth iPhone, so I'm well invested in that ecosystem. I recently added a Galaxy S3 with a new line for testing purposes. I'm comparing both devices: if I prefer the S3, I'll transfer my personal line to it, and use the iPhone as the backup/test device.

I have no problem buying apps. I have a few apps I depend on, and many I like. My thoughts so far:

* The S3 is a superior piece of hardware, hands down.

* Most of the OS features are superior on the S3 as well, and the built in apps are as good or better than what's on iOS.

* The app situation is what kills the S3.

1) Many apps I depend on that are awesome on iOS don't exist on Android, and the "substitutes" are really poor in my opinion (for example, OmniFocus vs. the generic to-do apps)

2) Some of the same apps don't have ad-free Pro versions on Android as they do on iOS. Perhaps there needs to be a separate app store filled with more curated, paid apps? (Say Google Play and Google Pro)

3) Some of the same apps are absolutely horrible on Android. I suspect they are quick ghetto ports of successful iOS apps, not properly developed Android software. (Example: The Chive is pretty decent on iOS, and a bug-filled mess on Android)

Again, I was really cheering for the S3, but honestly, ecosystem trumps innovation.

<comment><USER3> Which iPhone were you comparing to the S3? The iPhone 5?

<comment><USER2> In my hardware comparison, yes, the iPhone 5. (I've also owned the 4S, 4, and 3G)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personally, the vibrate on keypress feature is the greatest thing ever (Nexus S), and I'm heartbroken that my fancy new ASUS tablet (TF200T) doesn't support it. Fortunately, it has a (physical) keyboard, so all I need now is a decent SSH implementation. Alternatively, maybe just Ubuntu.

As a side note, you can turn off the vibrate on keypress in the keyboard options. It's separate from the system-wide vibration settings, I think.

<comment><USER5> ConnectBot is the best I've found; though the main branch has never been updated to account for full-size keyboards (it has a few tweaks to let you use ctrl/alt on phone-size keyboards without breaking your fingers, but no way to disable them). I've got a fork sitting in my Github that nixes those tweaks; be warned it was a very quick hack and I never thoroughly tested it so other things could be broken.

<https://github.com/ConstantineXVI/connectbot>

<comment><USER4> I've found a few quick Git forks of ConnectBot, I have a harder time finding one that's being maintained. It seems like everyone is very quick to patch (which is awesome), but I don't think the main developer is maintaining ConnectBot anymore, which makes it a bit of a dud from a security perspective.

<comment><USER6> VXConnectbot

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe link to the original instead of linking to daringfireball that only contains a link to the twitter feed (or what you younglings call it) <http://storify.com/joestump/an-ios-user-migrates-to-android> ...

<comment><USER8> but it never would have made the front page unless it was on daringfireball :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> He's really amazed at being able to just pop a SIM in another country and just use it. Don't they sell unlocked iPhones on the US?

<comment><USER10> They do now sell them in USA, but it's a fairly recent development and the vast majority of iPhones sold there are still carrier-locked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "An iOS (unknown version) user migrates to Galaxy Nexus (unknown Android version) (c. November 17, 2011)."

At least several of these are not issues (eg. having Chrome and Browser apps or unable to disable keypress feedback) in Android 4.2.1; I can't really speak to earlier versions.

<comment><USER12> I've been living on 2.3 for the past 2 years.

Haptic feedback has always had an option to disable. I'm pretty sure I've seen settings to even change the intensity of said feedback.

In fact, most of this guys issues are either

a) apps I want aren't available

or

b) I don't know where that setting is located.

I will agree though, the android settings browser is a bit of a train wreck. Not bad for me, but trying to explain any of this to my father, for example, is an effort in futility.

<comment><USER13> If you haven't seen the Settings app in 4.1 / 4.2, it got a lot better, IIRC.

<comment><USER12> I have, and it certainly is an improvement in my eyes, however the biggest difficulty when doing UX is, to put it bluntly, getting yourself in the mindset of an absolutely clueless user.

My dad is over 60 and loves his nexus 7, but trying to explain to him how to clear an application's cache is about as effective as educating him on the underpinnings of posix threads.

Do I know a better way? Hell no. Were it up to me, everyone would be forced to learn a CLI before they even get to THINK about a file browser.

<comment><USER14> > My dad is over 60 and loves his nexus 7, but trying to explain to him how to > clear an application's cache is about as effective as educating him on the > underpinnings of posix threads.

This is interesting, as it highlights one of the big differences between iOS and Android for me. With Android, a lot of appliance-like convenience was given up for more flexibility and control, which makes it more like a general computer. iOS, on the other hand, takes a more curated approach to UI (not to mention hardware options) and is easier to use since it is a more appliance- like experience. The ability to even clear app cache for an Android app shows that you are using a computer, and with that comes the complexity of operating one (granted Google is making attempts to make things easier in default cases).

<comment><USER13> Except I think this is a terrible thing to highlight the differences. The user should never have to think about clearing the application cache, or what that even means, and in my experience on Android, you don't have to. I can't think of a single time I've had to outside of trying to reproduce a bug for my own app. The fact that his father had to think about it indicates that someone, somewhere along the line screwed up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hearing a few convert stories over the past few months, I'm getting the impression that Google is evolving at a steady pace and is now at par with the revolution that iOS created when it first debuted. Seems like Android is going to continue to improve while iOS gets stuck in a rut.

I've been considering a switch to Android for my next upgrade, which I never thought would happen. The Android platform has reached a point where it's at least as compelling as iOS, though probably more for technically minded users. I've got increasing nerd envy over some features in Android that iOS will probably never see, or if it does it won't be for quite a while.

Has anyone here regretted making the jump from iOS to Android?

</comment><comment><USER16> _$35/mo. with no contract ... on T-Mobile is amazing._

Walmart does it for $30 on t-mobile

</comment><comment><USER17> Nothing of note here.</comment>


Ask HN: Business Email - <AUTHOR>

What is a good, reasonably priced service for business email? <comment><USER2> GoDaddy partnered with Microsoft to provide business class Office 365 email for our customers. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rackspace:

[http://www.rackspace.com/email- hosting/webmail](http://www.rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail)

I'm betting you can find cheaper, as Rackspace is generally not known as the cheapest anything. But, it's certainly reasonable, comes with good support and good tools for easy configuration/management, especially if you're looking for hosted Exchange. It's also easy to set up a combination of Exchange mailboxes with standard POP/SMTP boxes on the same domain, as well as aliases, forwarding, auto-replies, etc.

Basically, it just works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Rackspace seems a bit pricey. I have used GoDaddy and Google in the past, both with great results. Recently, they have both raised their rates (still cheaper than Rackspace), but I wanted to check out other solutions.</comment></comment>


Google Gets into Battery Arms Race - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-gets-into-battery-arms-race-1428694613

<comment><USER2> Here's my read on the tea leaves that hint at what's going on at Google:

It looks to me like they're probably dumping ~$3 million/year into a battery lab, which gives them state-of-the-art testing facilities and in-house expertise, and thus the ability to knowledgeably stay on top of what's going on in the battery space, what's real and what's not, and the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies.

The probability that Google will invent something important is low, but the business value of having a battery group justifies the cost, given the importance of batteries in portable devices, electric cars, solar energy storage, etc.

<comment><USER3> Google has built enough devices / systems in house _Google Glass_ , _Nexus_ , _Self driving car,_ solar, and various computer systems that having a small but world class team for battery technology is probably a no brainer. IMO it's less about keeping ahead of the curve so much as avoiding dumb mistakes.

<comment><USER4> Also the fact that processing information to control energy forms (light, sounds, emw, etc) is not the bottleneck anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tangential thought: is there a sane physical upper limit to power storage/generation in a given space (say, 1cc)? Sometimes helps to bracket the question to predict what's possible & reasonable. (Comparable ex.: total maximum possible solar energy capture is 1367 watts/m^2; circumstances will limit that around 10%)

<comment><USER6> _> is there a sane physical upper limit to power storage/generation in a given space (say, 1cc)?_

Start off with e=mc^2, revise downward with appropriate number of engineering constraints.

I'd imagine in practice that gets limited mostly by battery chemistry. So something like total reaction energy of components * conversion efficiency - conversion machinery mass - packaging / safety mass.

Which, afaict, is why "battery breakthroughs" all tend to be in the chemistry or conversion efficiency.

<comment><USER7> As I understand it, much of the "battery breakthroughs" are generally along the lines of attempting to create a balance between capacity, discharge- recharge rate, safety and cost. The conversion efficiency of most batters is pretty good, it's making a long lasting, high capacity, quickly discharging/recharging and safe battery that's also cheap that is difficult.

While pretty much everything above is related to chemistry/conversion efficiency, I was just trying to define the efforts a bit more along the goals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only story I see here is that Google is leaking some of their strategy.

I doubt Apple, Tesla or other heavily battery-tech-dependent companies would allow their staff to even hint about this kind of research.

<comment><USER9> I've been seeing a few of these sort of leaks lately. I have a feeling that it's to counter a shifting perception of Google. I'm willing to bet that this innovation will have the same real world impact as all of the other ones "leaked" so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't tell if this is great news, due to having a powerhouse with a massive cash war chest lumbering toward this goal, or terrible news, because it will Google-ize the hiring verticals surrounding this industry.

<comment><USER11> It brings a lot more money to the problem. Doesn't that usually increase innovation in tech? Yes, Google will gobble up some of the startup innovators but doesn't that encourage more startups?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The company's latest self-driving car runs on batteries recharged by electricity." I'm missing something, aren't all batteries recharged by electricity?</comment>


How users drove us to open source extensions - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kippt.com/post/19572035655/open-sourcing-kippts-extensions

<comment><USER2> If I can save page caches like Diigo.com, I might switch.

If I can _export_ page cache, which Diigo can't, I would switch 100%.

<comment><USER3> Actually we currently cache the page content (not the whole page). And we use that for cleaner mobile/desktop reading and it's indexed for search.</comment></comment>


400 TB Storage Drives in Our Future: Fujifilm - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15888/400-tb-storage-drives-in-our-future-fujifilm <comment><USER2> Many people don't appreciate tape, but for long term offline storage nothing else comes close.

Offline storage is important if you care about things like ransomware.

The problem I find with disks for offline storage is that they're very easy to turn on and very easy to zero. Tapes on the other hand are much more difficult to get to if you're in the business of ransomware.

<comment><USER3> Can't you avoid ransomware by just not using Windows?

<comment><USER4> Linux is not invulnerable to ransomware, it's just easier to secure.

<comment><USER5> To add to that, Linux is easier to secure because is found mostly in the datacenter (I'll ignore Android for this one). It's not only more robust but it's secured according to a whole different standard than desktops since it doesn't need to be operated by Average Joe.

On the other hand the vast majority of Windows installations are either regular home users (with no knowledge for properly setting up their computer, and ideally with the updates disabled because they read on the internet that updates are bad) or corporate desktops (which might be secured better but still at the mercy of a user clicking on everything).

<comment><USER6> Linux and BSD are found in a lot of places, it is more to do with its design being supportive of all kinds of deployments rather than only just popularity i think.

Windows Server administrators are lot more likely to be "certified" and "trained" by MS approved courses than linux admins and of course it does not help.

I would say its more likely to find an average joe ( _from a devops perspective_ ) running a linux box than a windows box.

<comment><USER5> > average joe ( from a devops perspective)

That's a whole different kind of average joe. A mediocre tech person is still an order of magnitude more qualified to take care of a machine than a mediocre user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I graduated from college I stored all my projects on a magtape. About 10 years later I discovered that there were essentially no drives in existence that could read it, because 1) the drive that created it was hopelessly obsolete and 2) it had drifted so far out of spec that even a machine of the same make/model could not read the tape.

I threw it out, and have been soured on tape for long term storage ever since.

Fortunately, I had also downloaded a few files over the phone to a PDP-11 with an 8" floppy drive. I can no longer read those floppies, but I regularly copy all my files to new media every year or so.

<comment><USER8> Drive availability is the real downside of tape. You have to rotate tape libraries to the new media every few generations to avoid getting stuck-- LTO drives can only read the two previous generations of tape.

This is easy enough to do for tape libraries where you have robots to manage everything, but really dampens the effectiveness for personal backups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to the table in the article, improvement from 2010 to 2020 was 7.5×, from 1.6TB to 12TB. The projected improvements by 2030 are 32×, so I'm a bit skeptical.

It's too bad that cheaper drives can't be made with old technology. Perhaps by making much larger cassettes? Everywhere I've worked the total cost of a backup system built on tape was higher than buying HDDs due to the drive itself.

<comment><USER10> This doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Based on the table provided, 2010 retail is 1.6 TB, 2020 retail is 24 TB, and 2030 retail is 384 TB. That's a 15x improvement last decade, and a projected 16x improvement next decade.

Whether they're fudging the numbers for the current year to make that math work is up for debate, as it's 2020 and they aren't yet on LTO-9, with 24 TB drives

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can these LTO drives and tapes be used reasonably for a continuous backup system? What I want is something that just mirrors all disk writes to the tape so the tape ends up as essentially a log of all disk writes since the tape was inserted.

That could have a lot of starting and stopping on the tape, which might be bad so it would be acceptable to have some sort of buffering so that the tape only needs to be written when a lot of changes have accumulated.

<comment><USER12> A number of older systems (zseries ztpf/nonstop/others) are used like this (basically a log dump on an interval).

LTO is designed to speed match to avoid shoe-shining (rewind/rewrite). AKA the drive changes the speed the tape is moving past the heads to accommodate the read/write speed of the application. Which is one of those fun computer cases where you can literally hear how fast your application is running. The more recent drives have very large ram buffers to smooth it all out too.

<comment><USER13> To some extent. [https://superuser.com/questions/1121980/lto-tape- speeds](https://superuser.com/questions/1121980/lto-tape-speeds) [https://www.quantum.com/globalassets/documents/lto-tech- brie...](https://www.quantum.com/globalassets/documents/lto-tech-brief.pdf) If these are representative, then you get about a factor of 3 to vary the speed, and the minimum is still way too fast to record most live drive use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FWIW an option I use at my home/office is a 2u 12bay supermicro box running freenas with extra hard drives as the backup DST (Destination).

Using periodic replication on the source (also freenas/ZFS) and some Scripts I wrote using ipmi to start up the DST box-

I have the DST machine downstairs at my house And once a week for about 12 hours it auto powers up, the auto application starts and after about 12 hours shut down. (10g uplink)

So outside of 12 hours a week the machine is powered off. Not the best solution and it does have Some sec holes, but it was something cheap to backup alot of data.

<comment><USER15> This is my approach as well. It's probably not great for the drives since they have to spin up every power cycle, but it's a lot more energy efficient than having a server running 24/7!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I honestly hope tape drives drop in price. I'd love to be able to shelf a lot of data at home.

</comment><comment><USER17> LTO specifications update at regular schedules employing forced regularized innovations, something like P times capacity every Q years and R times more effective storage with compression thanks to new XYZ technology invented after last update, so that corporate users can easily plan ahead for equipment upgrades.

That's not how innovations work but they have been doing that for decades.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like the top comment chain there where there's a conversation like this:

User A: Tapes are OK, but I wish there was new tech. Probably optical.

User B: Impossible to get this density with optical given wavelength requirements.

User C: In 2D yes, but maybe with 3D disc storage. The technology isn't there though.

User B: Consider a tape on its side...

</comment><comment><USER19> > As reported by Chris Mellor of Blocks and Files, Fujifilm points to using > Strontium Ferrite grains in order to enable an areal data density on tape of > 224 Gbit-per-square-inch, which would enable 400 TB drives.

What keeps us from applying similar tech to HDD?

<comment><USER20> Hard drives are much higher density already. A quick search shows estimates of 1-2 Tbit/square inch for recent techniques like SMR or HAMR.

Remember that a tape has a huge amount of surface area compared to the small track area of a few discs. The material science aspects of that flexible tape flying by a helical scanning head are quite different from the circular tracks of a hard disk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Has anyone ever tested their claimed storage life of 50 years?

<comment><USER22> The problem is you can only read it with an LTO drive 1-2 generations newer, so by that point all existing drives would likely be at least 30 years old...

<comment><USER23> Since LTO hasn't existed for 50 years the key proposition can't be tested. the grandfathering clause is only incidental because an older drive, assuming you could cable the SCSI up correctly would work.

(I recently tried to get a Sun U10's DAT 9mm working, sourcing the SCSI cables was a nightmare. And then, the drive refused to rotate under UNIX mt <subcmd> patterns, ejected the tape unread.)

To be less flippant, most 50y claims are tested by doing more intense service life e.g. high heat, many rewind re-read cycles, to simulate mechanical/thermal ageing. You cannot really test print-through from just "sitting there" except by sitting something unread on a shelf for 50 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I kind of wonder with drive tech if they know they could have gotten 400TB out of tape 10 years ago, but they were like.. Meh, we'll slowly scale it up so we can sell a new drive every year. The progression in the technology is just so smooth. Well I'm not one of the 200 or so people on planet earth who actually knows how to manufacture this kind of drive, so I guess I'll never know.

</comment><comment><USER25> I was excited until I saw it was tape. Drives will probably be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and then the individual tapes would probably be in the hundreds or more. Since this tech is almost exclusively sold to enterprises and priced accordingly.

<comment><USER26> Current prices for LTO-6 is ~20$, LTO-7 ~50$ and LTO-8 under 80$. Try finding a disk drive that holds at least 12 TB (typically more like 25 TB) for 80 bucks.

<comment><USER27> Tapes are cheap. Tape drives are very expensive. I can buy 200TB of hard drives for about the price of an LTO-8 tape drive.

<comment><USER26> 200 TB of LTO-6 : drive ~1500$ + ~50 to 80 20$ tapes = 2500 to 3100$

200 TB of disk : 25 * ~150$ 8TB disks = 3750$

So not really. Tape is generally cheaper overall for any volume over 100 TB. The question is what you're storing and why. For archival, long conservation, tape is unbeatable.

I recently opened a case of 32 2 TB drives shelved since 2010 or so. These are Hitachi Ultrastar drives, the more reliable drives by a large margin. However, 3 of these were dead. Non-running disk drives actually fail as much or even slightly more than running ones (I have hundreds such drives in machines running 24/7 for the past 10 to 12 years).

OTOH I've restored 120 LTO-2 tapes from 2002 recently. only one had problems (but most of the data was readable in the end).

Tape is a great offline storage medium. Disks aren't.

<comment><USER28> I wish there was a middle ground. A way I could archive around 10 TB for around $500. I'm basically stuck with using hard drives + frequent backups and ZFS scrubs. Which isn't _such_ a bad setup, but I'd like to have something offline.

I've looked at M-Discs, but at ~$0.12 per gigabyte (for something _completely_ non-rewritable), the price still isn't right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 330 TBs cartridges from Sony (2017)

[https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201708/17-070E/](https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201708/17-070E/)

<comment><USER30> Mentioned in the article. There's at least a decade delay between leading edge and commercialization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Question: Is Amazon's "S3 Glacier Deep Archive" storage tape storage?

price: $0.00099- 1 GB, SPEED OF RETRIEVAL: 48 hours for bulk, 12 hours for standard, FIRST BYTE LATENCY: Select hours

<comment><USER32> > price: $0.00099

This is the advertised price on [https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/](https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/), but when I click through to regions, _every_ region is 4 to 5 times as much. Do you know if I'm missing something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Any recommendations for a reliable LTO5 (or newer) autochanger that can be found on the used gear market?

<comment><USER34> Old dell powervaults?

<comment><USER35> Be careful with them. If you get one who's firmware is locked, it can be impossible to unlock.

Saying from experience. Though if it were to happen again these days, I'd probably just rip out its controller and replace it was an Arduino. :)

<comment><USER33> What causes a firmware lock?

<comment><USER35> It was a few years ago, but from rough memory the on device display itself asks for a password.

I could be mistaken though, and it might be more a web UI thing along the lines shown here:

[https://www.dell.com/community/PowerVault/PowerVault-124T-Us...](https://www.dell.com/community/PowerVault/PowerVault-124T-Username- Password/td-p/3004075)

In my case, I do remember being able to control the device using the physical controls on it, but being blocked when doing "other stuff".

Not really remembering what the "other stuff" was though. The default admin/password combo, and "how to reset the password" stuff found online definitely didn't help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> at least, my nodejs projects will all the space necesary.

</comment><comment><USER37> used to run TSM feeding into 6 LTO6 drives off a gpfs cluster with snapshots, much fun

</comment><comment><USER38> Meta:

Should the format of these types of headlines be:

* Some Important Statement: Speaker (Fujifilm here)

Or should it be:

* Speaker: Some Important Statement

Is one more 'proper' than the other?

<comment><USER39> The colon just seems like a copula to me, and both "the sky is blue" and "blue is the sky" work. I guess putting the smaller thing first (like the quote) comes off as a little poetic?</comment></comment>


Rapture – An idiomatic and typesafe Scala utility library - <AUTHOR> http://rapture.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> I just saw the author do a talk at a Meetup, and it blew my mind. I've seen a lot of neat things in Scala libraries (Shapeless, Scalaz, Akka, etc.), but this is unique in how far it's gone in expressiveness for fairly everyday programming, to the point of being able to choose your APIs types using implicits. It was like watching sorcery. I wish I could share the same talk I saw, but there are a lot of videos out there [1]. I haven't watched any yet to recommend a specific one, so perhaps the more recent ones would be best.

[1] [https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=scala%20rapture#...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=scala%20rapture#q=scala+rapture&hl=en&tbm=vid)</comment>


India's $35 tablet ready to ship - <AUTHOR> http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/17/india-35-tablet/

<comment><USER2> I live in India and here are my thoughts:

It's not about the price or how cool it is. First things first, it is a nifty achievement that 'can haz' the potential. BUT is cheap hardware really the most important thing here? No. Here is why.

It is not based on any pedagogical concept at all. Anything targeted at the students in primary schools must be based on some kind of sound pedagogical framework. From software to the user experience.

Slapping a stock Andriod OS on a cheap tablet is not going to solve the problems of the primary school system in India. Prerecorded video lectures can never work for school classrooms where teacher-student interactivity is indispensable. Let's stop singing praises of our "Great" "Innovation" for a moment and really think about it for a second. Do primary students really want to listen to someone blabbing on for an hour through a video? NO. It does not work like that. If it worked like that, best schools would have replaced their teachers with tubes and boomboxes.

Where is the content delivery infrastructure? I run a small web application development company in the heart of a capital city of a state and heck, internet connectivity gives us headaches every once in a while. You can imagine the scenario in the remotest parts of the country. And how much does internet cost here - $100 for a 4Mbps connection with 35GB/month data limit and it is the home plan not the commercial plan. With so much costly connectivity and abysmal infrastructure, how will the content be delivered.

Involved costs are exorbitant. As others have already pointed out, the costs involved are not a trivial amount. Not only the tablet but the delivery network and other necessary infrastructure. Can the state governments bear the such costs. No.

Technology is nice; Its not the silver bullet. Let me say this once for all. 99% of Indian school(or college level) teachers are bullshit. They don't know anything about teaching or the subject matter they are "teaching". I did not know this when I went to school. But now I am 28 and I have 9 cousins between the age 7 - 16 in some of the top schools in my city. And what their teachers teach them is bullshit. Example: I found out one of my 5th grade cousin does not know what a number line is. Despite being a part of his maths curriculum, the teacher just skipped over it. So, advice to the government and education departments: FIX THE DAMN SCHOOL FIRST. Finally look at what Indian teachers are teaching in schools <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FViBJg6X_24> even if you do not understand Hindi you will still pick a lot of things.

There are bigger problems than "lack of a cheap tablet". Children are dying because of malnutrition. Farmers are committing suicides. What Indian government does not want anyone to know is that:

\- 65 tribal children died of malnutrition in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

\- 125 farmers committed suicide because huge debts in Deccan states.

\- Indian security forces butchered 110 peaceful protesters in Kashmir.

during the same period when India was busy spending 150 million USD on Commonwealth games.

[http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/children- dying...](http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/children-dying-of- malnutrition-in-tribal-india)

Finally, in my very very humble and personal opinion, all this tablet is ever going to achieve is become another toy in the closets of children from middle to upper middle class families.

PS: Does anyone recall India's own custom built, secure OS? Anyone?

<comment><USER3> Cheap tablet with network connectivity will help self motivated students to learn by themselves. I hope that access to the Internet will get rid of the incompetent teachers from their path to knowledge. Some states have taken concrete measures to get rural India connected to the Internet. Yes, there is corruption,poverty,education,health and whole lot of other problems that India needs to solve. They need not be solved in sequential order. Bringing in the politics related to Kashmir is irrelevant to this topic. Since you mentioned it, I would like to bring in another perspective. The protesters were seen as violent anti-nationals by one group and as peaceful freedom fighters by others. Unfortunately for India, the grouping was based, to a large extent, on whether one was a Hindu or a Muslim.

<comment><USER2> Disagree strongly. Take 10 year old boy or a girl, give him the cheap tablet and unlimited internet supply and now read your statement again.

"Cheap tablet with network connectivity will help self motivated students to learn by themselves"

and answer this. What is the meaning of self motivation for a 10 year old?

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? Motivation comes from curiosity and a 10 year old has that more than most! Give him an internet connection and he can learn almost anything!

<comment><USER2> Agreed motivation comes from curiosity. But in case of 10 year old with all the distractions on the internet, can he/she or will he/she really spend enough time on Khan Academy to learn maths, science, language etc. on his own?

<comment><USER5> If that is the case then you should be force feeding the child to become something they never wanted to be. Children coming from poor families will focus their energies on learning especially when will head from likes of Bill Gates that khan academy is all you need to learn something.They will atleast get started and go for it. Sugata mitra is experiment[1] clearly demonstrate what childrens can do once they are left to their own devices.

Problem with children is not the desire to learn, problem is bad teachers who does nothing but inhibit and curb their student's creativity.

[1] [http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html)

<comment><USER2> Dear sudhirc. Please read my comments. I am constantly mentioning "primary school education".

I don't give a damn about careers, I don't give a damn about degrees; because by the time people are in (senior)high school, they are smart to use the 3 pound coconut God put on their shoulders and figure things out for themselves.

All I care about primary school education. And children NEED hand holding and general direction providing at such a nascent level which can only be provided by a trained teacher within a pedagogically sound system and can never be achieved by any level of technologically marvelous device of any sorts. Period.

That is why when I have children they are not going to school until they are at least 10 years old. :P

PS: I don't care what Bill Gates says. Since when is he an authority on education? What are his credentials/contributions in the field?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here comes the relevance from an earlier discussion of mine <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623722> \- "Nobody in India uses computers in Indian languages".

This tablet can revolutionize rural education, especially since the Indian govt mandates rural connectivity as a pre-requisite to handing out telecom wireless licenses. But you cannot teach village kids in English - especially, if in a few years they have to go and read the land records, inheritance documents, local newspapers which are in regional vernacular.

But the system is running Android - guess what is the top request on the Android bug list? (<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?sort=-stars>) Arabic language support.

Same problem as Indic fonts. Same problem on all Linuxes.

<comment><USER7> Android 2.3 did bring in support for _Hindi_ and Arabic. <[http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread- dou...](http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread-doubles- language-support-from-2-2-froyo/>);

Though, I doubt if the tablet would be able to run Gingerbread.

<comment><USER6> not sure if that is entirely true - this bug is still open <http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1618>

Again, if they still used a non-smartfont technology for compound scripts (I think that's what they call when two alphabets join together to form a new alphabet), it wont really solve the problem.

<comment><USER8> they could simply use a glyph to indicate that this letter and the next are to be joined. not the prettiest, but eminently usable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I personally get really annoyed at those "will ship in x days" announcements. It's almost impossible to tell when those are marketing vs actual facts.

I believe it when I can buy it on Amazon/eBay/... and it gets delivered within a week.

<comment><USER10> I agree. If it was "ready to ship" it would be shipping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As the Hole-In-The-Wall experiment showed even slum children with no education figured out how to use the internet and learn from it.

<http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm>

So I think the kids will figure out how to use it well and learn from it as long as we can get into their hands.

The language issue is not a huge problem in my view. Because at the very least the kids will learn english using this thing.

Also you could preload links to youtube videos showing lectures in the kids's mother tongue.

I wish this thing had a 3g connectivity as that is available in a lot of rural places in India. Wifi is going to be tough in a village.

My dad's village has water for 3 hours a day and electricity for about 20 hours a day but I've never seen the internet connectivity ever fail me.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hardware is the most obvious part of the equation, and it's amazing to see that part nearing solved.

The less obvious, but no less important part, however, is software. What will these things run? Twitter apps, tip calculators, weather widgets, and Angry Birds Rio aren't going to help kids learn to read, build an understanding of the world around them, and ultimately create value in society. I'm sure you can come up with a handful of "educational" apps from the Android Marketplace, but for these to really be valuable in schools, they're going to need professionally-developed, curriculum-integrated software, and teachers are going to need to be trained in using it to its potential.

Having a $50/$35/$10 tablet sets the stage for great things, but that's all it does. It enables real advances in education, but it won't make those advances by itself.

<comment><USER13> "Twitter apps, tip calculators, weather widgets, and Angry Birds Rio aren't going to help kids learn to read"

Straw man alert. It should be incredibly obvious that the tablets will have etexts, note taking, html lessons and quizzes, flash cards, etc. In short all the things kids do to learn 100 or 50 or 20 years ago but with the efficiency of a converged device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Revised to $50, per the article.

But still, at $50, it's quite a nice toy. And if it encourages -anyone- to read, it's doing a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand. The $49 price point has been achieved under govt subsidy. How is that a technology innovation? They can subsidize it down to any price they want. Wasn't the deal to actually develop a tablet which costs $35 to build/sale?

</comment><comment><USER16> Ok, so what happened to the simputer? Apparently the project is considered a failure after releasing only thousands of the devices.

Tack onto that the failure of XO/OLPC, and you have all these successive efforts to get cheap computing devices in the hands of children, hoping like magic, the device will herald a transformation of education in rural villages.

Will an android tablet succeed where the others failed? Unless we know why the other projects failed, I don't see why this one would succeed.

<comment><USER17> How did XO/OLPC fail? I'm curious, I quit following the project. I thought it just never really got off the ground. Was that the only failure or something different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Assuming India has 250 Million students who could make use of such a device. If every one of them is given this tablet:

250 Million * $35 (will probably be even lesser when produced in such a massive quantity) = ~9 Billion USD

Add distribution and other chores.. takes it to ~10 Billion USD.

To add some perspective, India's infamous 2G scam is 5 times bigger than that.

[Edit]: Costs could go even lower if the device is ad supported, like kindle.

<comment><USER19> 2g scam?

<comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G_spectrum_scam>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't matter if all the kids do is play Tetris on it all day. Most of them will. Thats how they learn, thats how they will pick up the technology. Then the curious ones will try to download more games for it and in the process figure out that Android is open source and that they can make their _own_ games for it.

That is when the real purpose of these tablets comes into play.

I remember I got my first computer in grade 2. All I did was play games. By grade 10, I was setting up my own http/ftp/email servers. Then I tried installing mac on windows. By grade 11, I knew everything that went inside the box. Now, I'm studying computer engineering.

All kids need is support (infrastructure for education), they are already curious enough to take whatever it is you give them to the next level.

</comment><comment><USER20> If it is even half as good as the video demo, it will be a huge success IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's hard to tell how the performance will be. In the video any actual footage of the device in use was sped up.

As others have said, I'll believe it when I see it.

<comment><USER22> In a way, the real question isn't "How do apps written for more powerful devices perform?", but "How will apps written specifically for this device perform?" Is the hardware merely underpower relative to current Android apps, or is the device fundamentally full of large amounts of latency in many subsystems?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Impressive. What corners had to be cut in order to keep the cost down to such a level.

<comment><USER24> Resistive screen for one - notice the stylus. Also, probably old hardware and little RAM.

While the difference between this tablet and the Samsung Tab or iPad may be huge, the difference between no computer and this one is far far bigger.

<comment><USER7> 7" Resistive touch screen, 32GB hard disk, 2GB RAM, 2 USB ports, WiFi.

[http://techpp.com/2011/06/15/indias-low-cost-sakshat- tablet-...](http://techpp.com/2011/06/15/indias-low-cost-sakshat-tablet- launching-this-month-for-49/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This looks awesome, could be so good in education. Need to make a software to quickly put CM7/something 2.3.4 based on it, mind.

Anyone got a link to the specs?

</comment><comment><USER26> To paraphrase a line from Stuart Brand's amazing book _The Media Lab_ : "Hardware wants to be free."

</comment><comment><USER27> ...and by "ready to ship" they mean "not ready to ship, but might be by the end of the month."

</comment><comment><USER28> In all fairness how much do the ipad components actually cost.

<comment><USER28> Nice down vote. I'm serious how impressive is a 35$ tablet? The core component cost on a lot of the technology we use is fairly low most of the expense is in R&D and advertising. Things like 64gb flash drives and so forth can be priced out in bulk for around 12-13 dollars a unit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Indias_35_tablet_Saksha...](http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Indias_35_tablet_Sakshat_to_roll_out_this_month- nid-84825.html) this article indicates that they will ship 10,000 units to IIT Rajasthan late this month, but 90k more units will be available over the next several months... but why? There are only a few hundred students there.

I'll believe it when I see it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Android FTW!</comment>