If C++ is so bad, what should game developers use? - <AUTHOR> For example, is C# really a good choice when developing on Mac or Linux? C is too low-level. <comment><USER2> C++ isn't bad. It's just ugly. If you can deal with the ugly, it's the usual way to do it and it'll work. If you have high performance demands, well, C++ will work if anything will. Not to say other langs won't handle it, but there's not a whole lot of exemplars in anything else. You clearly can write games in Java or C# or Python, but you might think twice before trying to do the modern equivalent of Quake in one of those. If you did, you'd be trailblazing.

Engine in C/C++ and logic/controls in Python (or Lua) seems to be a common architecture. Lets you have machine speed at the core and human speed elsewhere. Creates an easy way to do a 3rd party scripting interface while you're at it. (If you think performance demands won't be high, you could just write the whole thing in Python and optimize the most-used parts out to C after profiling.)

I think Go is interesting for games, given modern CPU architecture. It could potentially rock the socks off in a game engine, but it's not been done yet. A commercial game developer would have to be pretty daring to try; an open source game would be safer.

<comment><USER3> A few of the larger studios have experimented with using Go in place of Python for the frontend. Unfortunately I think they're missing the point. As you said, Go would make an incredible game engine. Since it's so idiomatic, it could also potentially be used for the frontend, allowing developers to use the same language throughout the full-stack.

The biggest barrier for most studios is the current investment in C++. The majority of engines and most associated libraries are written in C++. Regarding the libaries, it's possible to write C wrappers around the C++ APIs and then access them through cgo, but the developer time required likely isn't worth it.

I'm hoping that a smaller studio will create some proof-of-concept, but we'll see. There was an interesting kickstarter for a game written in Go that ultimately failed, giving the language quite a bit of bad press in the community ([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2066438441/haunts-the- ma...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2066438441/haunts-the-manse- macabre)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At this point there isn't one language for game devs. Even companies that strictly develop for PC tend to do their engine in C++ and then extend the ide with a scripting language like lua or python. Civilization 4 is a great example of it because they put the python api out as the user-moddable part of the game and it spawned this huge community. Other platforms like android (with its giant installed base) are basically java. So C++ isn't really the only answer to begin with.

Based on what I've been messing around with lately I'd look at go for maybe being a good complement or replacement for C++. Most of the time I'm making something with two major loops: game logic and rendering. Because of the way go interacts with C++ it's not hard to do the game logic in go, where I get massive benefit from "free" concurrency and pretty nice execution speed and then render in C++ where you can get back down to pointer arithmetic if you have to. This is outside of supporting any kind of scripting api/ide which I typically don't deal with but just for familiarity's sake and expecting others to use it later I would probably do in python.

</comment><comment><USER5> The best language is D.

D is link-compatible with C, and it allows you to go as low-level as you wish.

Yet D also supports all the latest/greatest language features, and can be used to write high-level script-style code.

D is clean, simple, and is a high-productivity language.

D is what C++ should have been, and eliminates the complexities and problems of C++, without detracting from its expressiveness.

There is no better choice than D.

</comment><comment><USER6> C++ is not so bad, not at all. You could to use it on game development; but I recommend you look at D language someday (not so far away)... answering the second question, they aren't good canditates to such a job.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why, Common Lisp of course! cf. Naughty Dog. irc://irc.freenode.org/#lispgames [http://lispgames.org/](http://lispgames.org/)

</comment><comment><USER8> John Camack has some interesting things to say on this, [http://functionaltalks.org/2013/08/26/john-carmack- thoughts-...](http://functionaltalks.org/2013/08/26/john-carmack-thoughts-on- haskell/) and [http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1g1mvx/john_carmack...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1g1mvx/john_carmack_on_haskell_today/) .

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think there's a good answer to this right now.[1]

Many games have fairly strict FPS/real time requirements, so any type of GC can get in the way more than it can help.

Once you restrict yourself to non-GC languages, your options are pretty limited. I would choose C++ for the library and platform support, personally.

[1] I'm assuming you want a mainstream language, not some experimental typed language with region memory inference or similar esoteric solutions.

</comment><comment><USER10> When dealing with games you will most likely want great responsiveness and performance. to trigger both of these you will want to go to the lowest possible level, this can give absolute control over what happens in your game- (mostly for the graphics and the logic engine - A.Is and such). you will also probably want better control over the memory usage, which (mostly) can be just easier in low level which c / c++ offers.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've got the impression that the D programming language is gaining some popularity for game programming but I'm not really sure about that.

</comment><comment><USER12> What kind of game? How many developers?

Like others have said, your best bet is to probably build your framework in C++, and use a scripting language (e.g. python) for the high level game dynamics. I see no reason to use C. C# will probably get you fighting with mono. Java may have issues if you have high graphics requirements (you really don't want to GC pause for 50ms).

</comment><comment><USER13> It depends on the kind of game you're making, but C# is a less ideal language because of garbage collection. Fighting GC pauses are no fun when you're trying to make a real-time game.

C++ is largely used because of speed, memory control, and momentum with tools, libraries and experience.

</comment><comment><USER14> > is C# really a good choice when developing on Mac or Linux

No, not for game development.

And who is saying that C++ is so bad? It is a really powerful language with lots of libraries. If you already know C++ then I think it is a natural choice to use it for game development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is it not good particularly for gamedev?

<comment><USER14> C++ compiles into a fast and optimized native code while C# compiles into byte-code then being interpreted - so the programs can't be as fast as the native programs. And the GC (Garbage Collection) also slows the things down.

<comment><USER15> The interesting thing is that sometimes, interpreted bytecode is faster than native instructions. First of all, bytecode isn't usually interpreted but rather Just In Time (JIT) compiled. This means that it's a little bit slower the first time you call a function as it's being compiled. The compilation times aren't huge however as the bytecode has already been optimized and it maps fairly straightforwardly to machine code. In a game, most of the time is spent in a few functions called by the game loop. After these functions are called once, they are usually as fast as the compiled version.

The area in which bytecode can gain an edge is with sse instructions and aggressive inlining. When you compile your game for the i386, you can't assume that the processor you target has all the new SIMD (single instruction multiple dispatch) available. Now this isn't a problem on consoles since you know your target but it is on the PC. The JIT compilation can take advantage of these instructions since they can detect their availability at runtime (which is also compile time).

The other neat trick that JIT compilation can do is profile the code as it is running (less costly than it sounds) and inline hot functions. You can't do this with c++ because you can't unlink the code easily. A good example of this technique is found in the V8 javascript engine.

This isn't to say that bytecode is always faster but rather to point out that using intermediate bytecode doesn't always carry a high performance penalty. What kills C# are the GC pauses. Also keep in mind that nothing can ever beat well optimized assembly for a target processor but the people who can do this are rare and valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Haxe ([http://haxe.org/](http://haxe.org/)) is a great language, and it compiles to C++ and flash, among other targets.

</comment><comment><USER17> C++ is not bad. Code backend in c++ and use a scripting library for your game logic.

</comment><comment><USER18> ATS

</comment><comment><USER19> Who said C++ is bad?</comment>


Applied Monotonicity: A Brief History of CRDTs in Riak - <AUTHOR> http://christophermeiklejohn.com/erlang/lasp/2019/03/08/monotonicity.html <comment><USER2> Just have to plug the super-practical and awesome implementation of CRDT's in Elixir's Phoenix Framework used for pub_sub and in the Presence feature: [https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_pubsub/blob/mast...](https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_pubsub/blob/master/lib/phoenix/tracker.ex)

</comment><comment><USER3> CRDTs are great, and I've seen a lot of quality in Christopher's work.

A few other resources for those interested in CRDT subject:

\- Our cartoon explainer [https://gun.eco/distributed/matters.html](https://gun.eco/distributed/matters.html)

\- An excellent talk by Martin Kleppmann [https://youtu.be/yCcWpzY8dIA](https://youtu.be/yCcWpzY8dIA)

\- Marc Shapiro's in depth talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyUHd894w18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyUHd894w18)

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice to see more about CRDTs and Riak. Worked a bit with Riak a few years back and was sure at the time that CRDTs would play a much larger role in distributed databases, but have seen very little about them since.

Anyone have any more resources on the adoption/use of CRDTs?

<comment><USER5> CRDTs are quite actively discussed in the IPFS community, in particular here: [https://github.com/ipfs/research-CRDT/](https://github.com/ipfs/research- CRDT/) (lots of great resources if you're interested in CRDTs)

Also check out automerge, a CRDT that aims to be as JSON-like as possible: [https://github.com/automerge/automerge](https://github.com/automerge/automerge)

Martin Kleppmann (one of the creators of Automerge) has given several great in-depth talks about it, eg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCcWpzY8dIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCcWpzY8dIA)

<comment><USER6> I was not able to actually find the Javascript implementation of the data type in that repo. I have tried to implement from first principles (i.e. the paper) in my language, but large parts seem to be left under- or un-specified. Did I miss something? I would love to be wrong about this...

<comment><USER5> I haven't dug deep into the implementation, but most of the interesting CRDT stuff seems to be in the "backend" directory in that repo: [https://github.com/automerge/automerge/tree/master/backend](https://github.com/automerge/automerge/tree/master/backend)

In particular the "operations" defined in [1] section 4.2 are defined in this file: [https://github.com/automerge/automerge/blob/master/backend/o...](https://github.com/automerge/automerge/blob/master/backend/op_set.js)

[1] [https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~arb33/papers/KleppmannBeresford- CR...](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~arb33/papers/KleppmannBeresford-CRDT-JSON- TPDS2017.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Research : Implementation : Writing style :

I think it's really worth mentioning how much work it takes to write this kind of article. Congratulations Chris, I think that on top being a great researcher, you are also a great writer. And a quick look at the Lasp repositories shows that you did not only write about CRDTs' history, you made a big part of it happen as well.

Meiklesoft™ ftw

<comment><USER7> > Research : Implementation : Writing style :

There should have been stars there, what I meant was :

Research : * * * * * Implementation :* * * * * Writing style : * * * * * _</comment></comment>


How does virility happen? - <AUTHOR>

I see a lot of startups here, some before the YC experience and some after that talk about their virility skyrocketing to levels that are very sought after by many other and I wonder - how do you guys do it?
The usual is a new startup claiming million of pages views a day, hundred thousands uniques a day and I wonder how it's done.  What are the different methods you guys employ to get there.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Ok, first of all, it's virality, or viral coefficient, _not_ virility.

Virility is something else, and is largely unaffected by startup metrics. Look it up: <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virility>

Finally, check out my blog post about how to make an application viral: [http://danieltenner.com/posts/0009-how-to-make-your- applicat...](http://danieltenner.com/posts/0009-how-to-make-your-application- viral.html)

<comment><USER3> Removing artificial invitation limits is key if you really want to go viral. Most places have people called "whales." They are the ones that send out to their entire address book, while most just send none or one.

However a cap does serve its purpose for scalability and hype reasons. To which you choose, is probably a function of how engaging the app is outright.</comment></comment>


Chain Reactor – framework for composing executables simulate adversary - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redcanaryco/chain-reactor <comment><USER2> I don't get it. And what's up with inventing new terminology for things? That makes everything confusing. Just call your abstractions what they are.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm looking at this, trying to be charitable, but i'm still a little confused- is this not just make?

<comment><USER4> "Is this not just make?" is a great comment to throw out at a meeting where someone is presenting a new technical approach to something. It's applicable enough of the time that the presenter must pause to consider the question before responding making you both look more thoughtful than you'd otherwise be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brain exploded when I realized they're json _objects_ to represent ordered sequences of actions ("quarks"). Good luck if you want to use the same action more than once.</comment>


Tesla mega-battery in Australia activated - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42190358 <comment><USER2> One of the intersting wrinkles is that apparently a big part of the high cost of power in Australia is gaming of the system by the gas plants to raise the price.

Apparently part of the appeal of this battery system is to curtail that abuse. There's been some regulatory change about moving to 5 minutes settlement period that's also supposed to help.

[http://reneweconomy.com.au/finkels-frustration-everyone- else...](http://reneweconomy.com.au/finkels-frustration-everyone-else- strategy-not-australia-53929/)</comment>


Analysis of signup methods: Why you shouldn't ignore Google Federated Login - <AUTHOR> http://austinhallock.com/2012/06/03/analysis-of-signup-methods-why-you-shouldnt-ignore-google-federated-login/

<comment><USER2> Its actually OpenID and users can use more accounts than just a Google one.

Everyone should support OpenID and OAuth with a site specific sign up as a reluctant fall-back.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true. I do think there is value in taking a less is more approach however.

Maybe I'm weird, but <http://grab.by/dXiq> just seems overwhelming to me and is a turn-off.

Also, as far as I know, OpenID 2.0 doesn't pass the username/name/picture (correct me if I'm wrong), so there is some extra work involved in getting that info from each individual provider (assuming they even provide it like Google does)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It depends on the site and demographics. For example, on Like.fm, approx 30% use email+password and the rest use Facebook+email+password.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for the info! Big difference between <http://grab.by/dXi6> and <http://grab.by/dXia> in terms of how much focus is put on Facebook, but that plays a bigger role than I'd imagine (24% -> 70%). Of course, the audiences are a bit different as well</comment></comment>


Qwintry: Delivery from US stores, worldwide - <AUTHOR> http://qwintry.com <comment><USER2> New Zealand Post has a similar service called YouShop [1]. It supports shops in more than just the US, and seems quite a bit cheaper. Of course, destinations must be in NZ :-)

[1] [https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop](https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to use Borderlinx [0], they give you an address, handle customs and allow batched deliveries, for ecig liquid from the US (that was some years ago, it's not possible anymore for multiple reasons).

There are also a ton of other services like this (keyword tends to be "reshipping")", what makes this stand out from any of their many competitors?

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

<comment><USER4> Borderlinx shut down not too long ago!

<comment><USER3> Huh? Can't see anything about that on the site I linked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love this, though it's not really worth it... Shipping costs are prohibitive, usually costing more than whatever I'm trying to buy. Even US eBay is no longer worth it. When I'm buying something worth $60 and have to pay $40 in shipping, I'm not going to buy American. In fact, just for shipping costs, pretty much _anywhere but_ the US is where I look.

<comment><USER6> Can't beat the US for gently used high-end suspenders/braces on eBay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aramex Courier Service has a similar service[0]: You sign up with them for a lifetime membership of USD 48 and you get a delivery address in 24 cities including Sydney, Ontario, Shanghai, Cairo, Paris, Tbilisi, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Mumbai, Milan, Tokyo, Amman, Beirut, Malaysia, Singapore, Johannesburg, Seoul, Barcelona, Bangkok, Istanbul, Dubai, London, and New York. They deliver from there to any location worldwide at nominal shipping charges.

I believe only users from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa can create an account. Not sure sure. The website is unclear about this.

[0] [https://www.aramexglobalshopper.com/en/about/how-ags- works](https://www.aramexglobalshopper.com/en/about/how-ags-works)

</comment><comment><USER8> Very interesting. I have a lot of friends in Brazil and parts of Europe that want things from Amazon US and try to order them, but have trouble getting them delivered. I've often had to play middle man. Often, depending on what they're buying, they're okay with high shipping costs as long as they can get the special collector's item they're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER9> Tax wise how does this play out in countries with high taxes on some imports?

<comment><USER10> My bet is that it doesn't: customs will likely stop the delivery and notify you of any outstanding charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool. There are companies in border towns that do this for Canadians (I have an account with one) but these guys seem to support worldwide which is a nice option.

<comment><USER6> That's how I know that a town like Ogdensburg, NY exists. Used to have a UPS mailbox there when I lived in Ottawa, about 70 km driving distance.

Crossing the border however is a drag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So does this handle customs declaration as well?

<comment><USER13> I've been using them for a quite some time now, you just attach an invoice for your package and fill the declaration (item's name, description, price and shop url).</comment></comment>


The Known Universe [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U

<comment><AUTHOR> A beautiful info video put together by the American Museum of Natural History.</comment>


Twitter apologizes for 'Kill all Jews' trending topic - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/414571-twitter-apologizes-for-kill-all-jews-trending-topic <comment><USER2> The problem is using "trending" as a content discovery algorithm in the first place.

"Trending" just means that the topic is being referenced by the largest volume of accounts. Even if you can say with certainty that every one of your accounts represents an actual, legitimate person, you still have the problem that all "trending" does is surface content that's preferred by whichever of your users can mobilize the biggest angry mob. And if you _can 't_ say that with certainty (which bot-flooded Twitter absolutely cannot), "trending" becomes a wide open battlefield, trivially subject to exploitation by whoever has the largest budget for sock puppets.

"Trending" isn't an editorial strategy. It is the _abdication_ of editorial strategy. It's being asked by Twitter among others to do much more than it is capable of doing, and their users suffer as a result.

<comment><USER3> > "Trending" isn't an editorial strategy. It is the abdication of editorial > strategy.

Not sure I understand your point. "Trending" is exactly what it says on the cover. On the other hand, calling topics picked by the editor trending would be a bit of a perversion of the meaning of the word, no?

<comment><USER4> Patent means that editors should help people find new content, not an ML algorithm under the guise of editorial effort

<comment><USER3> I partially agree; I see value in both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"At times, we do prevent certain content from trending and we have now done so with this trend."

Really? "At times?" I was under the impression that trending topics haven't been allowed to appear without human oversight in quite awhile.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that isn't correct.

They react when they see an issue rather than proactively restrict it.

<comment><USER5> Well if it's not what they're doing already they really ought to think about it. Twitter is supposed to be the "safe" micro-blog social network, where one gives up complete free speech in exchange for being shielded from extremist hate speech. The supposed benefit of using Twitter over complete-free-speech alternatives like Gab or certain Mastodon instances is, users are supposed to be shielded from the extreme hate speech that is permitted on those other platforms. If they can't deliver on this to the point where users are seeing "Kill all Jews" trending, then the only edge Twitter has over its competitors is user count, and that is subject to change if they fail to deliver on their other supposed advantage.

Basically if you tell me the reason Twitter is better than Gab et al. is that you don't see hate speech on Twitter because that's their policy, yet a user logs in and sees the most blatant stereotypical hate speech possible trending right there at the top of the page, you're not really selling me on what you tell me is supposedly better about your service.

<comment><USER7> Who said Twitter was "safe"? Twitter blocks some of the extreme end, but not nearly enough to call it "safe". Twitter hosts credible threats by people who have attempted murder, like the recent pipe-mail-bomber.

<comment><USER5> They've been trying to position themselves as "safe" for years now with their "Trust & Safety Council" and other such nonsense. They repeatedly use "safe" and "safety" in their press releases about their new policies.

The replies to my previous comment including yours seem to be missing the point: of _course_ Twitter doesn't remotely begin to deliver on any of these promises of "safety," yet Twitter is still presented as the "safe" alternative to Gab et al. Personally I don't mind seeing "hate speech" because a.) I see hate speech about my own race, sex, and religion on a nearly daily basis at this point and b.) I realize that "deplatforming hate" doesn't do anything but cause it to coalesce elsewhere.

By showing that Twitter isn't as "safe" as they claim to be, I'm questioning why we're continuing to use it instead of either a completely-free-speech or a better-curated actually-more-"safe" alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Twitter needs some kind of negative feedback mechanism to allow for the discovery algorithm to correct for the sentiment of users. A downvote, dislike, un-heart, something along those lines, would be a good signal to allow users to signify what kind of content they deem objectionable.

<comment><USER9> Downvote-type systems aren't that effective since they usually end up becoming a "I disagree" button and multiply the effect of whatever mob is most active at the moment. It's one of the reasons HN locks them behind a karma wall.

<comment><USER10> Even that is not an effective way to avoid the negative effects of the downvote button, especially not here on HN where it actually is meant to be used as a "disagree" button:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

The "karma wall" only keeps the downvote option out of the hands of those who follow short-lived "mobs", it does nothing to stave off the balkanisation of the platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another way to deal with this would be to not apologize, but to insist the algorithms are imparital, and to _condemn their users_. Call a big press conference and say, shit, we found that a big portion of our users are antisemites. Put that trending topic behind a trigger warning and maybe add content disclaimers to antisemite's pages. They could say they are protecting freedom of speech, but also the other side of the medal - freedom to call out positions you find wrong.

I understand of course that that ship has sailed.

Howver, I also believe that the strategy of "keeping the lid on" positions that are hateful or morally undesirable does not work long term. It was completely unthinkable and taboo to voice nazi positions in public in post WW2-Germany, it is even forbidden by law. But this did not irradicate Nazi thought, it just pushed it underground. And look, suddenly with some historical distance it is coming out again. Same in the US with people running around in KKK hoods and waving the confederate flag. Of course, racism was never gone or solved (no matter what we thought as white kids growing up in the 90s), but now it seems to be OK again to be openly racist in certain circles.

To tie it back to the topic, I believe we should not sweep positions we find horrible under the carpet, by saying they are taboo, and pretending we (e.g. Twitter) are impartial and unpolitical. Rather, we have to endure that people hold these positions, and speak out against them. Even if that means that we no longer are "politically neutral".

<comment><USER7> You contradict yourselves. Anti-hate-speech laws and culture suppressed the spread of ideas. That's the concept of "chilling effects" (from the other side). If suppressing speech didn't matter, no one would be worried about it being suppressed.

With the rise of _non-suppressed_ hate speech on Reddit and Twitter and Fox News and the like, we saw a _resurgence_ of terrorism in the US, terrorism which was very clearly inspired by the hate speech (specifically, it's conspiracy theories) and spread ideas that people wouldn't have thought up on their own.

<comment><USER11> I'd say it suppressed the _expression_ of ideas, but it was not successful enough to suppress the _spread_. It certainly did not extinguish the ideas.

I would not say right wing terrorism was only inspired by recent online hate speech. The US always had militias, people like Timothy McVeigh, white supremacists, and so on. However, I think that social media made it impossible to "keep the lid on" these ideas. Before we could censor this pretty good in the mass media, but then mass media and mainstream society lost their monopoly of interpretation. Now people with nasty ideas realize they are not alone and come out, and organize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Trending Topic is so bad sometimes. The other day I saw that #davies was trending and the article presented by Twitter was some marriage news of some unknown couple. It was really trending because of a soccer phenom playing his last game in Vancouver before heading to the big leagues.

<comment><USER13> I would contend that MLS is the big leagues. :(

<comment><USER14> I would argue that it's the Major League of Soccer in fact!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Man, Twitter seems to be eating a lot of crow lately in this domain. They came out swinging against regulation/"censorship" of their users... but this is getting out of hand. Twitter, Facebook, etc. need to start taking some responsibility here or someone is going to do it for them (i.e. the government).

</comment><comment><USER16> Note that they said nothing about being sorry for being a platform that facilitates hate, just that _it showed up as a topic_.

<comment><USER17> Any platform that facilitates people saying what they want to say is going to facilitate hate speech, because some people are racists.

The platforms can try to prevent that, and Twitter does try. But it is simply not possible to catch everything unless every single tweet is reviewed by a human censor. That won't scale, but even if it did, the censors would not always be trustworthy.

Some people seem to be convinced that we can have large social platforms free of hate speech and fake news. It's not possible, because of the users.

<comment><USER7> Users have been begging Twitter to try to build abuse controls for years, to deaf hears.

<comment><USER18> I don't understand this argument. Haven't they done just this over the past 4 years or so? Enhanced blocking and muting controls, etc.

What more needs to be done? It's up to individuals to curate their own social environments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nissan Leaf: 99 miles per gallon - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/22/autos/nissan_leaf_fuel_economy_rating/index.htm

<comment><USER2> Interesting how their using the braking power to recharge the battery. I literally just saw a commercial this past weekend from Toyota that pitched the whole "Ideas for Good" where they covered the exact same idea.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you been impacted financially by Covid-19? - <AUTHOR> I'm a firmware engineer that works for a small/medium sized company.  Coming from a huge Fortune 500 company previously, I've loved everything about my new job.
But now, our CEO has announced that everyone will have their hours cut to 30/wk, and thus pay will be cut to 75%, even for salaried employees like myself.
I did not see this coming. I don't know how I should respond to it. I don't think I qualify for any of the current or proposed government assistance. I'm not even sure if my company will get any help, even though they've pledged our manufacturing facilities towards working on test kits and other treatment related equipment.
I guess I'm a little lost, so I figured I'd ask around and see if anyone else is going through a similar situation. <comment><USER2> I run a small business in BI/data science, we saw every single lead we had fall through. All prospective projects are cancelled. I'm now looking for freelance jobs, but all the freelance jobs that were posted online at the start of this crisis are also wiped out by now. I'm now planning to eat up my savings.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been making a lot of money shorting and betting on volatility. Rode VIX futures up to their peak and now shorting futures as the VIX is trailing down. I also did well on my gold futures today. Have tripled my brokerage account's value since Feb.

</comment><comment><USER4> Small business owner (agency ) here. We have over 130 clients 42 of which have defaulted in their payments this month.

Here, in Australia, it is predicted that 1 in 4 business will default this year. Close to 2 million people will lose their job. If you don't work for FAANG, or orgs with high cash reserves you will feel the pinch.

I would recommend that if you like the job and it doesn't impact you financially, take the extra day and work on your side project.

If it does, you should look for alternatives with high cash reserves although chances are they will also be going through hiring freeze.

</comment><comment><USER5> A portion of my income comes from Google Adsense. My revenue is down by 31%, while all other metrics stayed the same.

I also do consultancy for an energy company. Right now I can continu to do that work from home, but I won't be surprised if they adjust course in the coming months and end my contract.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not yet, but my income trails events in the economy. I full expect some pain in the coming months. I'm working to get ahead of it, and identifying all the waste in my budget.

</comment><comment><USER7> Several states have expanded their unemployment program to not require you lose employment entirely to receive benefits. Check if your state has done so.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm in a different field entirely but we have also had salaries cut by a % (and obviously no raises) for the rest of our contractual year.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't mind me asking, how will that cut affect you? Can you afford it or will you have to make sacrifices? Is there something you're doing in response, like seeking new job opportunities?

<comment><USER8> I can absorb the cut -- but it is going to be revisited again soon and I do not know what that will bring. I am not actively looking for another job because in all honesty,I doubt I would find a more attractive one and the need to seek cuts is not unique to my employer so I have no reason to believe it would be better elsewhere.</comment></comment></comment>


Detailed summary of MIT's OCW course "Introduction to Algorithms", part VI: Search Trees - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-introduction-to-algorithms-part-six/

<comment><USER2> I remember this being a pretty difficult course. Might be good to refresh some of this. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Ask HN: What happens when cost of local delivery goes to $0? - <AUTHOR> With Autonomous driving around the corner I think the cost of getting items(food, hair dryer, etc) delivered will approach $0.<p>How will this affect industry? <comment><USER2> _I think the cost of getting items (food, hair dryer, etc) delivered will approach $0._

Will it, now? You might want to think more about the fundamentals behind than prediction.</comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers, what is a story of you not getting paid? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have a couple. Both were from before I stepped into web development, and was a graphic designer.

The first has to do with Fiverr -- most freelancers are aware of the waste of time this platform is now. It was new when I started freelancing.

I landed a client, and had done a few small things for her over the period of a couple months. She always paid, so there was some trust in the relationship.

She was spinning up a new business and needed a logo for it. Being new, needing to build my portfolio and referrals, I spent hours sketching concepts, getting feedback, and finally rendering the logo. I provided the vector files to her for review, and poof. Ghosted.

Sure, it was $5, but it was the ego hit. How could a small business owner turn around and screw another fledgling entrepreneur like that?

Lesson learned, no one ever receives final deliverables until payment is received.

The second was a bit more nefarious. I had done some custom digital frames for a local photographer. The contract was for a decent amount of money, and like before, I spent significant time on completing the work. After providing watermarked versions for review, the client snail mailed a check. Upon receipt, I assumed sure, it'll go through so I emailed the final deliverables. A few days later, I went to cash the check and it had been cancelled.

Luckily, that second one led to me leaning on a contract I'd put together -- I sent the client multiple invoices, and eventually sent him a final notice stating going forward, every day of late payment would accrue 15% interest on top of the final balance. 30 days of this late fee would nearly double the original balance.

I received a nastily worded letter, and full payment at the end of it, but again, learned another valuable lesson.

Sadly, both these experiences pushed me out of freelancing. Too much stress, there's never any down time, and frankly, clients can be a PITA.</comment>


In A Divided San Francisco, Private Tech Buses Drive Tension - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/12/17/251960183/in-a-divided-san-francisco-private-tech-buses-drive-tension

<comment><USER2> Thank God for private tech buses. Imagine how many more cars would flood the already congested bay area highways if they didn't exist. I don't understand the argument against the tech busses, seems pretty irrational to me.

<comment><USER3> Maybe. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) employees would be forced to live closer to the Peninsula. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) would be forced to invest in the public transportation infrastructure with all the taxes they're not paying. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate- sho...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows- how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html)

I don't have the silver bullet answer, but if you live anywhere near San Francisco and are not on the road to tech millions, you can see that we have a big livability problem. Every day SF looks more like Santana Row, or the Plaza in Kansas City, plus homeless people.

<comment><USER4> I have a silver bullet answer:

Don't build terrible, dehumanizing, sprawl-encouraging, traffic-encouraging headquarters out in suburbia.

This isn't my idea - it's what every progressive minded thinker that spends even two minutes thinking about urban/traffic/sprawl ideas arrives at.

If google, facebook, et. al, were in the city, the network and wealth effects would be staggering. How many boats would be lifted by that rising tide ?

<comment><USER5> It isn't that simple — SF actively rejects attempts to increase density.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yet another article about high housing prices in SF that makes no mention whatsoever of the region's massively antidensity policies.

How many updates in this multi-part series is it going to take before NPR reports on that aspect of the story?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, until SF looks like this, newcomers crowding out the existing residents shouldn't be considered a real issue: [http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of- densitiy/](http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-densitiy/)

<comment><USER8> Or we could double the density of San Francisco by making it look like these hideous dystopias:

[http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/021311.html](http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/021311.html)

That would be ten times the density of the peninsula cities today. Pretty nice isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google, Cisco, etc. can spend their money any way they want, the shuttle busses for their employees apparently make good economic sense. Still, people are upset to the point that they are starting to interfere with traffic. In my experience, this sort of anger doesn't go away if you ignore it.

I suppose once everyone who dislikes the busses have been priced out of the neighborhood and have moved away, the issue will be resolved. Although, at that point, it may make sense for Google, Cisco, etc. to demand better city busses that everyone can use. Which won't be a problem once everyone is in the same class.

<comment><USER10> _I suppose once everyone who dislikes the busses have been priced out of the neighborhood and have moved away, the issue will be resolved. Although, at that point, it may make sense for Google, Cisco, etc. to demand better city busses that everyone can use. Which won 't be a problem once everyone is in the same class._

Classism at its finest folks! City buses are there for the people, not just those belonging to the same social-economic group. Tech firms should encourage better public transportation regardless of who takes it because it is there for the citizens of SF which they are directly a part of.

<comment><USER11> Let's not forget how much mobile devices by Apple, Google, and company assist in navigating public transportation.

They are most _certainly_ encouraging better public transportation. This doesn't excuse blocking the bus. I wouldn't argue that they're doing it out of pure goodwill, but its crazy to ignore how much efficiency and value their apps have added to the system. Not to mention the drastically increased accessibility to people new or too confused to ride prior to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "You can blame me if you want, but I don't think I'm really the cause of the problem."

You can draw a lot of comparisons between the economic/class struggle in SF and the NSA scandal. Techies and engineers 'just doing their job', insulated from and making excuses for the larger system. Not really a direct comparison, but an interesting one to think about.

<comment><USER13> Except, people who work at tech companies like Cisco, Facebook and Google are largely spending their time making things that are good for the world, or at least give people what they want. This is validated by the market for their products. Pretty much no one outside the US government thinks that the NSA's infrastructure is good for the world.

<comment><USER10> From Good Will Hunting:

 _" Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And, of course, the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin', 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."_

The point is everyone just 'does their job' regardless of any outside stimuli/judgement. Everyone is a hero in their own world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amazing. So when the rich try to segregate, the papers start screaming about how gated communities are bad for everyone. On the other hand, when the rich try to live where everybody else does, then the popular reaction is, "Oh my god, gentrification!" Why don't we just come together and realize that what the public/press really wish is that everyone else better off than them had died (or actually, perhaps the press doesn't want to take it _that far_ , otherwise there would be no more "revolutionary" feelings to stir anymore, and the papers would go out of business).

</comment><comment><USER15> The disappointing thing for me is that the actual rich, the people who don't need to go to work every day keep themselves out of sight. So we all act like crabs in a barrel, attacking the people who make 2-3x what we make, and the people who have 1000x what we do keep on keeping on.

<comment><USER3> From what my accountant tells me, there's a good chance the people inside the Google bus (driver excepted) are making 10-20X what the folks protesting them are making.

<comment><USER16> Based on numbers I hear from friends and Glassdoor, Google programmers make $100k-150k/year. To make 10x less than that, you'd have to make $10-15k/year; that's less than minimum wage.

<comment><USER17> Not everyone can get a full time job in this economy. A friend of mine is struggling to pay rent with her part time job at minimum wage. She can't afford to eat every day. Sure, you could tell her "go get a full time job", but no one is hiring. Believe me, she's tried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought the problem was not eco related, nor related to gentrification, nor weath inequalities, but more that private busses are using public bus lanes.

Thats the fucked up part in my mind.

Proliferating different forms of mass transit in general seems like a shitty solution, just take a look at how many different bus companies there are in Buenos Aires.

</comment><comment><USER19> NPR should research how much more tax money and social programs are now available because of this social inequality.

</comment><comment><USER20> "inequality" == envy

<comment><USER21> Let's say these people are envious. So they get their own bus! Buy it outright, and use it for their own travels. Well as soon as that bus pulls into a city bus stop, they get fined $300. Google's buses don't get fined, only poor peoples' buses get fined.

<comment><USER22> Google is currently working with the city on a better solution. The city, and everyone in it, have incentive to cooperate with Google since they attract tax revenue, while attempting a solution to not bring extra congestion to the city streets. I don't believe this merits the level of hostility that I have seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting they mention "young white men" tech workers, isn't the Valley tech sector minority majority i.e. asians predominate?

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder what their opinion is on school buses from expensive elitist private schools? Also, I know I'm not the only one whose picking up on the subtle racial undertones in this article. Why are they so quick to describe the villainous tech workers as "young white men"? I keep seeing this pop up in bay area news concerning gentrification in Oakland. In St. Louis, numerous races (Black, White, Asian) take part in gentrification and it's seen as a good thing. Yet, in San Francisco it's so demonized and race is immediately pointed out.

<comment><USER25> Aren't the vast majority of tech workers "young white men"? Also maybe the areas that are gentrifying are ending up less diverse than they started whereas in St Louis its not an issue since the neighborhoods are staying diverse?

<comment><USER24> Makes sense. St. Louis has a lot of low cost places to escape to whereas in the bay area everything's somewhat prime real estate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Baudrillard was right.

<comment><USER27> Care to elaborate? I'd be interested in hearing what Baudrillard has to say about this. I don't see any immediate and obvious connection here, but I'm admittedly not well-versed in him.

<comment><USER26> Sure thing. Up front: I've only read Simulacra; I wouldn't call myself well- versed either. So if you have read that, the following "should" make sense, reserving the possibility that I'm off-base in my interpretation of Baudrillard - a possibility I readily admit is a real one.

Others in the thread have probably pointed out by now that the linked NPR story leaves conspicuously absent a key point in the "private buses in SF" narrative, i.e. that the _recent_ ire (past week or two) flared up when some Vanguard type filmed himself pretending to be an obnoxious "let them eat cake" Googler. The next day, the even bigger story was that that video was a fake (not a hoax but a "true fake", to use Assange terminology). Indeed, were it not for the true faking of the perspective of one "side" of A Divided San Francisco, this NPR story, titled "Private Tech Buses Drive Tension" couldn't exist. Couldn't. So what? So whether the original was a lie or not has become definitively irrelevant - the length of its shadow is the same. The point being _not_ that NPR is lying or something like that, but rather: that the Symbol has progressed on through to the fourth stage, that of the fully realized Simulacrum, now totally divorced from the "map-reality" (you remember the Borges fable about the nation-sized map at the beginning of the book?) which begat it in the first place. It now exists only on a plane of interaction with other Symbols (e.g., this is part of a series on Income Inequality, which, of course, has no non-wholly-symbolic connection to private buses) which have also divorced themselves of their original connection to reality and which also only interact with other Symbols. Baudrillard, you will recall, names this plane the "Hyperreal." Real because it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So... is it weird to anyone else that the protesters spent money on identical costumes and made fake road signs and barricades? Yes it makes for a more appealing photo for the press, but it just seems strange. Who are these protesters? What group do they represent?

[http://sfist.com/2013/12/09/anti- eviction_protesters_block_g...](http://sfist.com/2013/12/09/anti- eviction_protesters_block_goog.php)

[http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/12/09/protesters-block- goog...](http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/12/09/protesters-block-google-bus- in-s-f-mission/)

Ah, found it:

 _" According to fliers handed out at the protest, the group staging the protest is the San Francisco Displacement and Neighborhood Impact Agency, which seeks to stop "the injustice in the city's two-tier system where the public pays and the private corporations gain," according to its website. The group has also made a false Google bus as a protest in the past."_

According to one article, a union organizer also staged a fight between a fake Google employee and a protester. [http://www.sfbg.com/googleshoutdown](http://www.sfbg.com/googleshoutdown)

[http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/09/activists/](http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/09/activists/)

[http://www.heart-of-the-city.org/](http://www.heart-of-the-city.org/)

Basically their aim is related to housing. They targeted the Google bus because 1. it's a fineable offense that Google et al is apparently not paying (so they claim), and 2. they claim the buses drive up rent in the neighborhoods.

So they gathered media attention with a "political theater piece" by "ticketing" the bus and causing havoc. The city is (reportedly) already in talks with Google and others to get them to pay for the privilege of doing so (which seems fair to me), so their only valid claim left is housing prices being raised, but good luck stopping gentrification. Oh, and they want Google, etc to pay 1 billion dollars in past-due fines (where they got that number, I don't know).

Why the hell wasn't any of this in the NPR piece?

</comment><comment><USER29> build more housing!!!</comment>


Docker images private registry as a service powered by Pikacloud - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pikacloud/welcome-pikacloud-docker-registry-9cdbff1a7c58 <comment><AUTHOR> We are introducing in this blog post our next component for developers and ops people. Feel free to comment if you have ideas or suggestions.</comment>


Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/spacex-starlink-beta-tests-show-speeds-up-to-60mbps-latency-as-low-as-31ms/ <comment><USER2> Anyone complaining about this has never experienced the frustration of rural living when it comes to internet. This is absolutely amazing, and it will just get better.

Even a reliable 10mbps would be a godsend in many places.

<comment><USER3> Reliable 10mbps is a stable full hd stream and 5ish mbps to spare. Easily one stable video call or two at lower quality.

It'll be annoying if you want to download the latest AAA shooter coming in at dozens and dozens of gigabytes, sure. But you can do a lot at 10mbps as 1-2 people needing the uplink. That's really nice.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree.

Also - my frustrations over the last few days compel me to point out that the latest AAA shooter is in fact 227 GB, plus >100GB of updates.

<comment><USER5> Has anyone come out with a reason for the size? I mean they seem to reuse a lot of the same textures throughout the game so I have a hard time understanding how it managed to swell to that.

<comment><USER6> IDK if they do this for PC versions...

But a lot of these games not only Reuse textures but also duplicate them. They do this to improve load times for levels/etc (less seeking).

Playstation DOOM is an early example of this pattern. The WAD files were actually 'per-level' and contained all sprites/textures/etc used in said level.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't duplicated textures get de-duplicated by any halfway-decent compression algorithm though? I'd assume the game is sent over the wire compressed

<comment><USER8> That's not how compression would work. Think about if they are adding a new level. The algorithm would have nothing to compare the files against except what is actually being sent. If the texture appears in each level, and each level comes in a separate update, there's no way for the algorithm to reference or incorporate the files that are already in your computer, so it has to compress it like it's a brand new file. That is unless you have a costume installer which duplicates the file once it runs, but that would probably be a ton more work for the developers.

<comment><USER9> You have this completely wrong. "there's no way"? It's extremely easy to make a patch file that references existing data. This is a problem that has been solved many times.

And that's not relevant to initial install anyway, which can/should be a single download.

<comment><USER8> But thats not compression. That's downloading and running an executable that duplicates files.

<comment><USER9> Having a reference dictionary is a type of compression.

You need a program that decompresses no matter what, and the ability to reference existing files barely changes it. It's not a post-processing stage where files get copied around. It's the ability to reference arbitrary chunks of data inter-file just like it can reference arbitrary chunks of data intra- file.

At the most basic level it's like taking a compressed file and chopping it in half. The user already has the first half, then they download the second half and "resume" decompressing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is already quite an achievement! In just 10 launches, SpaceX is operating the world's largest satellite constellation and can already provide broadband of reasonable quality to some customers. In rural areas, I have struggled to catch weak LTE signals with fixed antennas that often didn't hit these speed and latency numbers. This absolutely seems on track to be an excellent alternative to rural LTE or existing satellite internet providers. If it gets better from here with more launches, it's all gravy as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER11> I would like to see a kit from SpaceX which provides a solar powered Starlink to LTE bridge. Such kits could be installed anywhere, and provide service to places such as farm communities (install them on top of grain silos, for example). That way Starlink could be available to more customers without them having to have their own premise equipment (beyond an LTE hotspot).

<comment><USER12> I worked for the Telco that services all of Northern Canada (world's largest operating area for a telco).

We installed one of the world's first 3G towers that uses only satellite as backbone. Think fly-in only communities that are thousands of kilometers away from anything in the Arctic. Many of our sites are served by radio backhaul for that reason.

The sat backhaul tower is extremely expensive and temperamental. It does work, but not very well. 3G (and LTE) are not very fault tolerant, and phones drop calls when the quality of the call drops below thresholds that can't be set. AFAIK they have not installed another one because of all the problems.

For data the cost is astronomical - many thousands of dollars per GB. Hopefully starlink can at least fix that.

<comment><USER13> This is what turns me away from the astronomers complaining about the constellations. They're not interested at all in the community whose problems satnet helps resolve. Society has had plenty of time to run data lines out to the hardest to reach areas and clearly cannot and will not do it any other way.

<comment><USER14> And in 10 years, Starship should make it possible to put more space observatories in orbit, so it should get better for the professional astronomers eventually. It'll still suck for amateur astronomers and photographers, though.

Although, with the way 2020 is going, we'll probably miss observing the asteroid that kills us all because a Starlink got in the way of the observation.

<comment><USER15> The reason we don't use space observatories as much anymore is because we have adaptive optics now and don't need them. The concerns of astronomers are real. It's not for Starlink to ruin our ability to observe the sky for all of humanity. Incredible entitlement.

<comment><USER16> You can easily turn that last part around.

It's not for astronomers to ruin our ability to provide essential (and yes, internet is essential at this point) services for billions of people around the world that otherwise can't get it. Incredible entitlement.

It just depends on what you value more, observing the sky, or providing internet.

<comment><USER14> What right do you have to turn that statement around? Incredible entitlement. /s

But really adaptive optics is nice, and lets us compensate for atmospheric distortions. But not light filtered by the atmosphere. Or clouds. Or daylight. And we still have to compensate for quakes and vibrations, and temperature change. It's simply just cheaper to do on land than in space.

Imagine if it wasn't an order of magnitude more expensive in space. Or imagine a large telescope array on the Moon, where you get stability, ability to repair, and no atmosphere to get in the way. With SLS and Starship, all of that starts to look possible in the next 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Starlink internet is not meant to replace hard line internet. There is no getting around the physics of cable being so much cheaper/easier. Even terrestrial cell towers are more efficient and cheaper than satellites.

This is 100% meant to supplement existing infrastructure not to replace it. You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your house. If you can't get that, then maybe a cell tower is better, if that doesn't work, then a land based beaming internet may be better, after that I'd look to space based internet.

It can probably supplant land based beaming internet, but I don't see this replacing ISPs/4g/5g anytime soon.

The target audience for much of this infrastructure is the places you can't put a cell tower, but want to get signal. Ocean based travel being a big one.

EDIT: I will contend. 5g could beat out ISPs at cost (which I thought I'd made more clear above). It's about the cost of infrastructure given the population density. I don't have as much knowledge in that area as I do satellite costs. But satellites won't beat out 5G at cost, not even with the reduced cost to space that SpaceX provides. It could with another couple orders of magnitude cost reduction in space. But there's a reason SpaceX is targeting only 5 million Americans and not 300 million.

<comment><USER18> A lot of what you're saying isn't actually true here.

Light moves significantly (47%) slower through optical fiber than through space. This drastically reduces the latency of long distance connections. We're talking NY round trip to Japan in the same time it takes NY roundtrip to the UK now.

The cost of backhaul and ongoing maintenance of cables is a lot more than SpaceX launching their own satellites by an entire order of magnitude.

<comment><USER19> > Light moves significantly (47%) slower through optical fiber than through > space

The what?

As far as I know c is a constant.

<comment><USER20> The constant c is the speed of light in a vacuum. Different mediums have different speeds of light within them; in fact, it's actually possible for light to _not_ be the fastest thing in a given medium (for more precise definitions of all those words): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Honestly, this is just awesome. It's a working demonstration of high-speed satellite internet, showing this approach is a viable solution for "anywhere on Earth" internet.

For all those people who don't have broadband available, this will be life- changing.

It'll only get better from here, welcome to the future :)

(and remember that perfect is the enemy of good)

<comment><USER22> Having this kind of network is a good thing but the idea that any kind of satellite or wireless can replace wires is just fantasy.

Delivering just 10Mbps to 100 million customers is over 900 Tbps. There is absolutely no way a satellite network can clear that kind of downlink bandwidth. And that's just a tiny fraction of the market.

Physical cables/fiber represent several orders of magnitude more capacity and always will. So satellite is great for remote areas or unique situations but absolutely not a substitute for running cables.

<comment><USER23> And even in remote areas, building out VDSL2 networks with relatively decent speeds (200Mbps down and 100Mbps up[1]) would be better, honestly.

Most homes already have a phone line and can support a DSL network... and in some countries a phone line is mandated by law, so the infrastructure already exists.

But, DSL is not nearly as "sexy" as thousands of satellites...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL#:~:text=VDSL%20offers%20s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL#:~:text=VDSL%20offers%20speeds%20of%20up,25%20kHz%20to%2012%20MHz).

<comment><USER24> I think they serve different purposes. Satellites serve areas where they can't run wires or it's insanely expensive for too few people. Think very rural areas and war torn areas. Imagine being able to get unblocked internet in China by using satellites? Or in Belarus. Or the middle of Amazon (rainforest)?

<comment><USER25> People keep bringing that up as a common use case, but how do you propose that people in China or wartorn countries will get their hands on the modems they would need to _use_ Starlink?

<comment><USER24> US government airdrops?

<comment><USER26> There are a bunch or articles that talk about people using balloons to send material to North Korea.

The Human Rights Foundation even collects flash drives to load them up with content to smuggle into North Korea: [https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org](https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org)

<comment><USER23> For private groups, or individuals, sure you can get away with this.

For a government to do this? How could that not lead to an armed conflict?

<comment><USER27> How do governments airdrop supplies into war-torn countries today? I'll admit I'm no expert but I see headlines all the time of neutral nations sending supplies to other countries who are fighting a war and that neutral nation isn't getting dragged into the fight.

<comment><USER25> Governments don't airdrop supplies into war-torn countries today, excepting designated UN or MSF refugee camps, and they do so with the knowledge of one or both sides of the conflict so that the supply planes don't get shot down.

I would very much like to see a headline of a neutral nation airdropping supplies into a country engaged in war without getting dragged into the conflict. I'm not aware of that having occurred in the past 4 decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> More useful to me would be bufferbloat [1] tests. Any starlink beta testers on HN? Also useful would be nuttcp or iperf3 tests just in case they optimized / prioritized for sites like dslreports and other speed test sites.

[1] - [http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest](http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest)

<comment><USER29> Yep. It's pretty much a given that if you want to compare Starlink to a good terrestrial ISP, you'll be disappointed. But compared to any other satellite ISP, Starlink should be impressive, especially in terms of latency. So testing and media coverage of Starlink should focus more on latency than throughput, and testing latency _properly_ means testing latency under load.

<comment><USER30> ... and the network only has a handful of beta testers on it at the moment, so any load tests are going to be meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "...that said, we'll make sure Starlink has no material effect on discoveries in astronomy. We care a great deal about science." Elon Musk

A long exposure of Comet NEOWISE by Photographer Daniel Lopez: [https://imgur.com/a/rDI1Onn](https://imgur.com/a/rDI1Onn)

N.B. The white streaks are Starlink constellation passthrough trajectories

Starlink currently has 597 orbiting satellites they plan for more than 12k to be deployed. Amazon just got an approval for their own constellation of another 3k low orbiting satellites. Facebook and Alibaba will probably join this trend.

<comment><USER32> Do the satellites in the photo have the new shades on them? I'd be interested to know how much the situation has improved with the improved anti-reflection.

<comment><USER33> A non-reflective coating on the satellites will not stop them from blocking the light from astronomical objects.

<comment><USER34> The concern astronomers raised was blooming caused by oversaturating their sensors, not blockage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I just got back from an AirBnB where I worked remotely for a week and the internet was DSL. It was about 1.5Mbps up and down. Work was still possible. Even group video calls worked.

Uploading and downloading large files was out of the question however. I had to do a lot of work SSH'd into a remote server.

So, 11 to 60 is not great, but still useful.

<comment><USER36> How was the LTE signal with a good quality antenna? LTE is already faster than this, assuming you can get at least a half signal.

<comment><USER23> Ya, the 11Mbps side of it is very disappointing. That's pretty in-line with slow DSL and existing satellite connections.

The latency will be interesting to see too, since that was the boldest claim Musk made with this venture. The article seems to have cherry picked the best speedtests to show in their graphic - I'm curious what real-world in- application latencies are, ie. inside Call Of Duty Modern Warefare or something similar.

<comment><USER37> 11mbps is amazing for what this is. Sure, it's "slow DSL" speed, but if you can get slow DSL you don't care about satellite internet. This is for all the places in the world that you can't get 4G cell service, let alone DSL.

11mbps plus a ping time of sub100 ms means that _most_ people could telework anywhere in the world, even in the middle of an ocean. Unless your job requires you to download/upload huge amounts of data, it's more than enough for surfing, working, zoom, etc.

<comment><USER23> OK maybe, but Elon promised 1Gbps speeds. 11Mbps is very, very far cry from that.

<comment><USER38> Ok, but at the same time this is the BETA period. Attacks on his claim should wait until the public availability of the service begins.

<comment><USER23> Fair enough... except everyone here is in awe of 11Mbps satellite service, as- if satellite internet is some brand new thing.

<comment><USER39> If Hughes had been serving 11-60 Mbps at 31-94 ms ping without caps, Starlink wouldn't need to exist. Starlink is absolutely not the same as the previous generation of satellite internet. This _is_ a brand new thing.

<comment><USER23> OK, but they've touted each satellite in the cluster being capable of driving 20Gbps all by itself.

So why are people only getting 11Mbps? Beta or not, that's a very far cry from the promised specs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What i'm more interested in is longer term (well, longer than a speedtest) consistency. 11mbps is fine if it's never less than 11mbps. Aiming for "20ms latency for gaming" etc is useless if the thing drops out even once in a game.

<comment><USER41> It should be fine unless a helicopter hovers over your dish, wind makes your dish unstable, the satellite reaches end of life, weather affects your frequency(rain/fog/snow), or predicted sun spots occur.

The price may be concerning if we compare to the current offers of competition. There are caps and bandwidth limitations. Satellite time is expensive.

<comment><USER37> If a helicopter is hovering over your dish, close enough to be noticeable amounts of wind (more wind than you say get normally)... you have bigger problems... Like a military group is fast-roping into your home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> just to do some napkin maths, the entire constellation is supposed to be 12k satellites. Some googling gives 20Gbps throughput per satellite, so that'd be about 240k Gbps per second.

Now of course the satellites keep exchanging information themselves and not all satellites are everywhere all the time but ignoring that, and let's say you can assume ten times as much bandwidth because not everyone is online at the same time, that still doesn't serve a lot of people right?

If you go with their eventual Gigabit speed claims that'd work out to about 2 million customers if I didn't make an error. That's only a single digit percentage of the American rural population let alone anywhere else in the world.

<comment><USER43> Gigabit speeds are great, but 80% of the value of Starlink is just getting the 11 Mbps to the people who can't get even that speed in any better way. There are many (millions?) of Americans who don't have that. So let's calculate from that number (or 10 Mbps, to make it easy).

240K Gbps * 1000Gb/Mb / 10Mbps/customer = 24M customers.

I've heard that in most residential cases, people on average use about a tenth of their bandwidth. That gets us up to 240M customers. That's only about a tenth of the world's rural populations [1], but that is still pretty great.

[1]: [https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-...](https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision- of-world-urbanization-prospects.html)

<comment><USER44> Also, rural endpoints can be shared among multiple households, AFAIK small African villages often share one WiFi hotspot, and sometimes one phone/tablet/computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Is anyone concerned about the effect this has on the night sky and astronomical observation?

[https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/starlink- sa...](https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/starlink-satellites- change-view-of-night-sky/)

<comment><USER46> Nope, we destroyed the earth already. Why should we worry about the sky?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> My parents house has 2mbps DSL from ATT.

This would be a massive upgrade, and for petty much anyone in rural America 1.5mbps has been the dream for years now.

</comment><comment><USER48> The number of grey market installs of this where people will use _any_ available US address to get the equipment and then take it back to wherever they are?

Wow. This isn't just rural USA, this is rural Canada, Europe, South America, Africa. Anywhere and everywhere.

Think back to US sat-tv providers selling into Canada. Think back to the original iPhone selling internationally.

Regulators be damned.

</comment><comment><USER49> >The 35 best cities in the world for online gaming have ping rates of 8 to 28ms

That statement makes absolutely no sense. That would assume the server is always in the same city as where you are at, which is about never the case when you play different games.

</comment><comment><USER50> Won't these speeds dramatically reduce once there are a lot of users saturating the connections?

<comment><USER51> I suspect it will be really serving areas where that is unlikely to happen (rural areas and over ocean transportation).

<comment><USER52> I'd switch to Starlink JUST to spite Comcast.

<comment><USER53> While I totally agree with your sentiments, there is a large section of the population that don't even have the bad option of Comcast. I hope they put some curbs on adoption by those who have alternatives. Source: farm owner in the middle of nowhere KS. We have fixed wireless, but if it was hilly here we'd be stuck with Hughes and their geosynchronous satellites. The latency is huge - the speed of light isn't fast enough.

<comment><USER54> Fellow middle of Kansas guy here. Check for fixed wireless in the area. We just got KwiKom which handily beats CenturyLink DSL on price, speed, and latency. And our neighbors couldn't even get DSL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I recall when Iridium was going up, there was discussion about the complexity of the software that managed the pattern of transmitting packets among the satellites. The description indicated it was a complex software problem and they were struggling to get it right. (I went looking for articles from the time period, but couldn't track one down, however, came across MIT/Motorola FCC application for what would become Iridium.[1])

It's likely(?) that the orders of magnitude more Starlink satellites, their LEO speed, and other factors that impact optimization (amount of data to transmit, type of data, current load on intervening sats, positional changes during transmission, handoffs, etc.) can make this pretty hard. Or... It could be a learning system via neural net, etc.

The notion that the system could get faster and more efficient over time, simply by operating and without the usual trudge of scheduled software releases and upgrades, is an intriguing possibility. Tho somehow, that's not a novel notion...

[1] [https://web.mit.edu/deweck/www/research_files/comsats_2004_0...](https://web.mit.edu/deweck/www/research_files/comsats_2004_001_v10/Unit1%20Success%20and%20Failure/SAT- AO-19901204-00068.pdf)

<comment><USER18> IIRC, Starlink satellites operate at a much lower orbit, are much more numerous and are a lot closer together which reduces the tracking complexity a fair bit. Also the inter-satellite links on the Iridium network are radio whereas the Starlinks have 4 motorized optical links (laser). They're highly reflective objects against the background of space.

<comment><USER56> As far as I know, the current satellites don't have any lasers for satellite to satellite communication yet. That will come in later generations.

<comment><USER18> Ahh, I had to look this up but you are correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The latency here is the main takeaway for me. It's phenomenal for a space based system.

I spent some time at my parents cabin during the quarantine and the only option there is satellite internet. SSH with a ping of multiple seconds is rather frustrating. That and all the systems which have bad bandwidth because that much latency makes them think they've lost connection.

As my parents are both techies, they are desperately hoping they're accepted into the beta.

<comment><USER58> Once they have inter-satellite links I'd expect long-haul latency over those links to beat cable latency for equivalent hauls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> What is the pricing?

No one ever seems to answer this all-important question...

<comment><USER34> Shotwell has said that it will be competitive with existing Internet pricing at $80. She didn't say it would be $80, but competitive with that pricing. Read that as you will. I'm sure that's only the starting price, that you'll be able to pay a lot more for more bandwidth.

<comment><USER60> I wonder if it will have location-modulated pricing; $80 wouldn't be competitive where I am.

<comment><USER61> If anything, I can imagine them ramping _up_ prices in higher-density areas (where other more competitive broadband providers are available) to avoid oversubscription.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Pings and upload speeds seem impressive (although as someone else said we'll see when under load). I come from a place (rural Canada) where a non-trival amount of people who live far away from town centers do not have access to decent internet. This will be a good alternative to existing satellite ISPs, or 5mbps (on a good day) land ISPs.

Also potentially amazing for people living off-grid.

<comment><USER17> It will also put pressure on land based ISP to either give up customers, or pay to increase infrastructure to get comparable internet to those areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giQ8xEWjnBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giQ8xEWjnBs)

According to this Engineering Explained video, it may be possible to achieve a lower latency using Star Link than over fiber if the points are far enough. People like high frequency traders might be willing to pay a ton for such a thing.

</comment><comment><USER64> This is awesome to hear. This will enable more people to move out to more remote places and get some nice speeds. 60MB/s is good enough for most remote work and TV streaming services. I can't wait to see what the major players will respond to this if it's opened up to major cities.

</comment><comment><USER65> Latency runs 31 mS to 70 mS in the speedtests shown. I don't buy their claims that you can game with >100 mS latency, that is not a good experience.

This is a great step forward for internet accessibility but I really wish they wouldn't oversell the capabilities before we're there.

<comment><USER66> As someone who lives in the middle of the ocean with ~70ms to the nearest major data center, you get used to it.

You're at a disadvantage to people with low ping, but it's certainly not unplayable.

<comment><USER67> It really depends on the game. I would say 70-100ms is the upper acceptable limit for FPSs (though some like CS:GO or Valorant require even lower), but even like 150-250ms is okay for casual MOBA play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> How low will it get once there's 100 (or more) people connecting from a single neighborhood?

</comment><comment><USER69> High-quality satellite internet that isn't hamstrung by ridiculous download caps is one of the things I'm waiting for before attempting a nomad lifestyle.

I can't wait until it's more available.

</comment><comment><USER70> Some states in India ( Andhra Pradesh ) has started infrastructure projects for laying down fiber optic cables across, connecting all villages( nearly all), for both cable, telephone and internet services. This had tremendous impact on internet speeds in rural areas.

I am writing this message from one of the remote areas with roughly 60Mbps connection.

</comment><comment><USER71> Can anyone tell me why this was not previously possible? Both latency and speed? What did Starlink do differently

<comment><USER72> I believe the innovation is that the satellites sit in low earth orbit.

Traditional internet satellites operate in geostationary orbit, which is around 35,000km above the surface of the earth. This was preferable because with only a handful of satellites you could give the entire globe internet connection. However you have much higher latency due to the distance. Not exactly sure why the bandwidth is so slow, distance probably doesn't help here either. Maybe those companies are also running outdated systems.

Starlink satellites operate in low earth orbit which is around 400km, which is way closer, leading to far lower latency. However, at that distance you need to basically cover the sky with satellites in order to always see one. That's why they're planning to launch thousands of them.

<comment><USER73> Another reason the lower orbit wasn't possible before is that atmospheric drag actually causes the satellites orbit to decay much faster. So they must be constantly replaced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> IMO, the throughput isn't what's impressive, you can get similar-ish speeds from hughesnet. What's impressive is the latency. The bandwidth should be (relatively) easy to increase over time. If the latency had been 300+ms, that would've been a disaster.

</comment><comment><USER75> Does anyone know if these speeds will scale (well, remain constant) as the number of customers increase? For instance, the 4G network can and does get overloaded in crowded places, could the same thing occur to satellite internet?

</comment><comment><USER76> My understanding is that the FCC is very partial towards existing ISP. If I'm correct, how likely are they to negatively impact starlink accessibility to end user? Do they even have such power?

I would very much appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could give her opinion.

<comment><USER77> The FCC prefers 5G. Starlink will likely never be able to use that spectrum in certain areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I super excited for the students at my small rural school district. This will be a game changer!

</comment><comment><USER79> This is better than my Verizon data plan. The only time I can get decent speed without any timeouts in most of the Bay Area and even Tahoe is either when no one is awake or during the lockdown. Otherwise, it's Verizon data is near useless for me

</comment><comment><USER80> I want to be a beta star link user - I am not in a totally rural area but in my area there are frequent natural disasters that take out power and comms.

Cell sites work until the generator runs out of fuel, typically 2 or 3 days.

</comment><comment><USER81> Theoretically one family could even get 2 starlink services if they really needed faster link. No physical line is used so I can totally see some people doing that if they really want to and can afford it.

</comment><comment><USER82> 11 mbps in the middle of a rural location in the heart of Chile ? Count me in!

</comment><comment><USER83> If someone knows - what kind of cable does the unit use out to the antenna? My COVID project is wiring the house with Cat6 and it might be worthwhile putting an enclosed drop out on the deck for the future.

<comment><USER84> According to this Reddit thread, the dish only has one cable presumably with POE

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/hqu7p6/data_minin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/hqu7p6/data_mining_from_starlink_support_website/)

<comment><USER83> I followed a link from there to the FCC test reports. Pages 7 & 8 of this application doc appears to make it out to be standard POE:

[https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=48...](https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=4805881)

> Power Supply Rating 56Vdc from PoE adapter 0.3A

802.3af won't do that at any sort of appreciable cable length, so it's most likely 802.3bt.

Page 13 indicates it has a standard RJ45 connector, probably on the router to the customer's network. It doesn't explicitly say it's RJ45 to the antenna. But they're pretty ubiquitous and weatherproofing glands exist that will allow a RJ45 to pass through them. So .. probably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> I wonder how easy it would be to build the antennas into a laptop screen. Though heck, adding a "sleeve" to my machine which meant it just "always" had internet would be amazing.

</comment><comment><USER36> For reference these are LTE category 3 speeds with better than LTE pings. A good start but nowhere near the Gb they've promised. I'm cautiously optimistic.

<comment><USER86> > better than LTE pings

If you're getting latency worse than that on LTE, consider changing provider (and checking that you're _actually_ on LTE). These would be reasonable for the better class of 3G (HDSPA) but not great for LTE. Just did a speed test on my phone with wifi switched off (to a server in the same city). 20ms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Just ran speedtest:

Wifi = 97 Mbps down 9 (xfinity) LTE = 57 Mbps down (att)

Location = SF Bay Area

11 to 60 Mbps global coverage is totally acceptable speeds and if it holds up, would be a game changer.

</comment><comment><USER88> I can't wait to go live in the wilderness with this. seems like pretty good speeds, let's see what price it will get. Not in USA tho...

</comment><comment><USER89> This would have been awesome in Alaska, where we had only one option for ISP... we weren't in the boonies either. We just barely got DSL.

</comment><comment><USER90> Plus you have it all to yourself. Anyone remember the early 3G "high speed" demos, when 3G was just coming up?

</comment><comment><USER91> This is more momentum towards decentralization. Fantastic.

Little bit discouraged to see one comment stating 2mb/s for Canada, I wonder why it would be slower than the USA? Perhaps there is less overhead coverage there density wise?

I also wonder how you can ascertain upload/download speeds before signing up. I know traditional broadband over copper _doesn 't_ have this feature, but if feels like this could, if you have the terminal on trial.

Very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER92> cox has a monopoly in My area of California. The download speed of 50 mbs we have is fine but expensive. The upload speed between 2.5 and 3mbs is what's painful.

I'd have to pay around $70 or more to get those starlink upload speeds with cox. I'd much rather pay starlink.

</comment><comment><USER93> we've been able to do this for years using radio-based meshnets but the government won't update the legislation to allow encryption and commercial data on them making them pretty much useless. you wouldn't even need to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER94> The latency numbers look really good- under 100ms is similar to ground based connections

</comment><comment><USER95> What's the limit for how many internet users can use Starlink at the same time?

<comment><USER34> 50Gbps aggregate per satellite (actually 25 since you have to go up and down). 12000 satellites in the constellation. Those satellites will be over the ocean or unoccupied land most of the time, so estimate about 1% utilization ratios to be conservative. Standard ISP oversubscription allocations allow about 1Mbps per customer.

That math gives me 300M customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> What hardware is required to use the Starlink network? Would that be expensive?

<comment><USER97> I've read somewhere else that its in the territory of $250. But that was reporting from a while ago, and things might be different now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Will having Starlink prevent asteroid detections from ground based telescopes?

</comment><comment><USER99> I hope they provide global coverage despite totalitarian regimes !

</comment><comment><USER100> That's great. The pings not even that bad..

</comment><comment><USER101> what about upload?

</comment><comment><USER102> aykm?? wasted the sky with this ugly crap for what we already have with 4g? somebody please kick Elon in the nuts for me.

<comment><USER54> There isn't a usable 4G signal everywhere. Not even everywhere in the US. On my 2 mile commute in Kansas, there's about 1 mile where I cannot even place calls or send texts, much less use data.

<comment><USER102> Oh i see I have angered the cult. A rare negative submission points for me by daring to criticize the holy one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Once all tesla vehicles use starlink for sending back data to Tesla HQ I'm not sure much will be left for 'rural' broadband.

Nice to pick up the grants though.

</comment><comment><USER25> For comparison, DSL is 1.5 Mbps. 4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally _starts_ at 50Mbps. Cable internet is usually 25 Mbps, and up to 1 Gbps if you're willing to pay, and fiber is up to 10 Gbps if you're lucky enough to live in an area with fiber built out to your home.

So in other words, Starlink is useful if you live too far away from a major residential center to have access to better and cheaper forms of internet access.

There aren't enough people in the US or EU that live in rural areas far from decent internet connections for Starlink to be more than a tiny fraction of the ISP market.

On top of that, unlike existing forms of internet access, Starlink is susceptible to weather conditions.

<comment><USER104> So, I'm on 4G right now, getting 45/25 Mbps, in what is considered a rural area (20km from the city).

I lived in Birmingham, UK, a way more populated area, and got ~40/30 on 4G, as well.

I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?

<comment><USER25> 4G is slower in the US, largely due to congestion.

<comment><USER105> 4G in the US often matches the parent's reference speeds, it depends on where you're at. People often make poor comparisons with the US, they context drop, comparing eg the speed across the entire US or a state versus their experience in one large city in a smaller more densely populated country (and then cherry picking based on a good outcome).

Cleveland, Minneapolis, Detroit, NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Baltimore are the best in the US, _averaging_ at or above 30mbps across the cities in question. SF, Philly, Atlanta, Kansas City were also competitive with what the parent referenced (eg the SF avg was 27mbps, meaning people are routinely seeing the parent's ~40mbps in Birmingham).

[https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network- speeds/](https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network-speeds/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


George Orwell: Why I write - <AUTHOR> http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/why-i-write.htm

<comment><USER2> Excellent. I myself fall between "political" and "aesthetic" in my own writing. This article is a great mirror with which to reflect on my own prose tendencies and think crucially about them.

Thanks :)</comment>


A funny thing happened on the way back from the Data Center - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/consumerization/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-back-from-the-data-center/374 <comment><USER2> Sadly, some of this is just the way it will always be - "its cold and loud in my data center" gets you a coat and set of ear plugs, not an overhaul of the design of expensive real estate.

 _However_ , the security issue is an enormous one.

We designed and owned data centers back in the day, and physical security was modeled on network security. Once you were past the firewall, life was pretty open.

Lockable cabinets - maybe. Actually locked? Not once the admin for that rack schlepped 2 hours at 3am to find he left the key in the office.

And yet, I see things getting worse with cloud deployments. Great I am locking down my www as it talks to the MQ server, but they are both plugged into the same cisco switch that 10 other idiots are plugged into. Root one of those and you are a lot closer to sniffing my traffic.

We just have to make the assumption for cloud deployments that our virtual box is in a sea of sharks. Actually having a shark open up the back and plug in a network sniffer is just one more worry.</comment>


Peer-to-peer rental: The rise of the sharing economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy <comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised that people refer to these sites as "sharing" sites. It's pretty clearly another form of commerce to me. Last time I checked my hotel bill, the hotel wasn't sharing anything with me. It was charging me a fee for a service. If I rent my house out, I'm not sharing it with my tenant, even if I continue to live there. I'm engaging in commerce. Why does this change if I do it short term?

I'm curious - does anyone know how this term (sharing economy) was started? It is no small rhetorical victory to get your commerce site referred to as a sharing site. I recall a sarcastic comment on an earlier HN thread about airbnb: "Unregulated sharing pisses me off. Let's put an end to this madness.".

While people generally (especially on HN) don't like onerous government regulations on commerce, I still don't think the statement would have had the same impact if you substituted "commerce" for "sharing". Most people accept that the govt would place reasonable regulations on commerce (there is a commerce clause in the US constitution, but not so much on "sharing". I understand that sharing has a broader vernacular use that may incorporate an exchange of money, but the associations people have with the words "commerce" and "sharing" are very different, and this doesn't seem like one of those ambiguous cases.</comment>


Someone please do this - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea: Wouldn't it be better if there was an app for touchscreens that predicts which letters are least likely to be typed next and shrinks them! <comment><USER2> I've heard a few times before that the iOS keyboard invisibly grows the touch target on the letters it predicts are most likely to be typed next. Unfortunately, my quick attempt to find a source failed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't that destroy the muscle memory involved in learning / remembering where the keys are on your soft keyboard?

Nonetheless, if you believe you could make this work, why not do it yourself?

</comment><comment><USER4> Windows used to have menus that would re-arrange themselves and show most-used choices at the top a few versions back. People hated it. Destroys memory.</comment>


Follow cost: Is that Twitter celebrity worth the pain? - <AUTHOR> http://followcost.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Does something like this exist for RSS feeds or blogs?</comment>


Daniel Kahneman says most people don't really want to be happy - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction <comment><USER2> Clickbaity title. The point is that although people do want to be happy, they prioritize long term satisfaction with memorable experiences and the evidence of those experiences.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I'd like to know is which those at the end of their lives prefer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In contrast to the other comments, I actually found this to be a good read, especially going into 2019.

I've always wondered why I don't care as much for vacations as others seem to. This was especially apparent in business school. I spent spring break working on my business while most of my classmates traveled.

Based on this read and a little reflection, it might be that I care more about satisfaction than happiness. And that's good to understand.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's really nothing new here.

<comment><USER5> It may not be new to you, but I bet it is to a lot of people.</comment></comment>