How to Gradually Exit Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://balajis.com/how-to-gradually-exit-twitter/ <comment><USER2> Kind of silly to insist on a newsletter versus a blog and direct folks to a $30 a month service. You can get a free blog on Tumblr or Wordpress.org. You can get one for $5 at somewhere like Micro.blog. There's plenty of ways to setup a personal blog that works well for both long posts and short posts. All of those have mechanisms to crosspost to social media or turn into a newsletter, if you want. But the focus on that solution is silly-- the open web is here, it's great, and blogs are a solid technology. RSS works well and makes it easy to syndicate all over.

I am personally quite happy using Micro.blog for my blog [micro.json.blog]([https://micro.json.blog](https://micro.json.blog)). It's hosted Hugo (which is what I used for my blog before) setup with a micropub service already and hooked into most of the tech and standards coming through the Indieweb movement.

Blogs are the answer to twitter. Newsletters are just a potential answer to monetization for a limited set of folks.

<comment><USER3> If your audience is hardcore HN readers, this is true. Most normal people have an email address but not an RSS reader. And without that a blog is a completely different thing, requiring you to actively check it.

Newsletters can also make things not-completely-public without a user account system.

<comment><USER2> That's true that most people don't have an RSS reader. It's also true that:

1\. Most people don't want your newsletter in their inbox. 2\. Most people still find content on social media. 3\. RSS _as a technology_ can be used to syndicate to both newsletters and social media.

That's why I think POSSE[^1] is the right, powerful concept.

On "not-completely-public" content-- I don't think that this post, and most of the "leave Twitter/Facebook" posts are directed at the small number of private accounts-- private accounts don't have the same discovery problem. The exception is if you're talking about "not-completely-public" for the purposes of monetization. To that I say: 1. Twitter doesn't solve that; 2. That's a completely different problem; 3. A blog, syndicated to social media, is still probably the best tool to enable new people to discover your content.

Any number of mechanisms, whether Patreon, Locals, Substack, Mailchimp, Memberful, Github Donations, and on and on may make sense for monetization. Wordpress and Tumblr also have built in mechanisms for monetization. But people aren't using Twitter for gated content that folks pay for-- that's just moving the goal posts.

[^1]: [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The addictive value of twitter is that you can ping some quasi-famous person in your field and they will often engage in conversation. It's pretty magical. That's not gonna happen on my paid mailing list.

<comment><USER5> Actually, if a quasi-famous person happens to be in a mailing list (I'm talking abou mailing lists, not newsletters) then it might answer your emails and participate in a conversation.

<comment><USER4> The mailing lists I'm on almost always get relegated to a filtered folder where loads of things irrelevant to me come by (e.g. user support). Maybe I'm just on the wrong mailing lists, but the ability to subscribe, ignore, and boost threads is pretty valuable.

<comment><USER5> so... 1. mailing lists are noisy and 2. you don't check them very often.

regarding 1. isn't twitter noisy too?

regarding 2. can you really blame this on the mailing lists?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Funes- To my mind, trying this hard to circumvent a platform's huge and seemingly irremovable flaws instead of ditching it for good is a very unreasonable option. I'd say quit Twitter _abruptly_ , not gradually--here's how:

\- Do you want to follow the news? Try selecting reliable news outlets or aggregators (like HN) guided by your own criteria, so you can check their websites on a regular basis and stay up to date, if you're interested in that --I'd personally recommend sticking to local news.

\- Do you want to follow specific people that publish content you find interesting on the Internet? Follow their personal websites or repositories.

\- Do you want to publish content on the Internet yourself? Host a personal website. If you don't want to pay, consider using a decentralized option (Beaker Browser, .onion site, I2P, ZeroNet, etcetera).

That's it. Goodbye social media. RSS, bookmarks, and our good old memory are our best allies.

<comment><USER4> What if I want to ping the most famous researcher in my field and get a quick response? And then get recruited by an observer for asking such an insightful question?

This actually happens on twitter.

<comment><USER6> Arguably this is analogous to asking how will you hit a payout on a slot machine if you don't play. It sort of makes sense if as someone who plays slot machines literally has no more productive use for their capital than the sensation of losing it and the hope from occasionally "winning," just as someone on twitter has no more productive use of their surplus time. Sure, it's fun, and you can take it to the bathroom with you so you don't need to wear a diaper like you might need to at a casino, but it's an impoverishing and inferior vice.

Twitter and social media platforms that we compare to slot machines should be defined as a new form or class called Strange Games, wherein the only winning move is not to play.

<comment><USER4> I disagree only because I've had real contacts with personal giants on twitter dozens of times and never won anything at a casino. While I do spend more time on twitter, I believe this effect is more common than your analogy allows.

People into fringe academic topics are likely to see this effect more than people @ing along and kanye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Twitter really is just poison.

I visit it once a week and exclusively follow programming related accounts. Even then I feel misanthropy and disgust seep in to my head.

Something inherent to Twitter makes it such a horrible place. Is it the character limit? Me always seeing what everyone reposts/likes? The way the feed is built? No idea. But I hate it.

And the worst part? It gives me very little in return. The occasional sneak peak at a products' road map or strategy. Maybe release notes all in one place.

<comment><USER8> Fundamentally the tendency towards short posts prevents any nuance or complexity and reduces everything to black and white. This is a poor model for the realities of the world.

<comment><USER9> People seem to lap it up though. Most Twitter accounts consistently post snappy 1-2 sentence blunt statements and I'm always surprised at the responses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Getting someone to leave a social media platform like Twitter voluntarily is probably just as good as getting them kicked off. Either way they lose access to the potential for rapid audience expansion that is enabled by the dynamics of the platform.

Sure, they can service their core audience on any publishing platform: an email newsletter, a blog, etc. But it's much much harder to get a rapid audience expansion in one of those channels. That's why they were on Twitter in the first place, instead of (or in addition to) emails and blogs. It's not like email newsletters and blogs are some new untested idea; they both predate Twitter by almost a decade. Twitter (and other social platforms) has succeeded because it offers upside that those don't.

People love that big audience pop on social media when it helps them quickly build their brand or find new customers. They don't love it when it exposes them to a larger set of critics. Going to less dynamic channels is one way to lower the volume of criticism, but you lose the potential for positive dynamics as well.

<comment><USER11> No, the problem is you have to discount that audience by the risk of it getting destroyed overnight by an unsympathetic Twitter admin/moderator. And by the high difficulty of cashing it out. And by deboosting algorithms that will limit your reach.

Accounting for this, I don't think it's a stretch to say that having 1,000 people on a platform you control is much better than 10,000 Twitter "followers". Maybe even 100,000 depending on how much Twitter likes you.

<comment><USER12> > you have to discount that audience by the risk of it getting destroyed > overnight by an unsympathetic Twitter admin/moderator

While I have a lot of issues with Twitter, statistically speaking, the chances of this happening seem to be very, very, _very_ small. Twitter is not full of rogue "moderators" running rampant permanently deleting people's accounts left and right. You have to be (a) willfully spreading material that clearly violates Twitter's terms of service (cf. Alex Jones), (b) ignoring repeated warnings and essentially daring Twitter to enforce their own TOS (cf. Alex Jones), and in most cases, (c) high profile (cf. Alex Jones). It's easy to find people who are _temporarily_ banned from Twitter for dubious/spurious reasons, but it's pretty hard to find people who are punted without warning for "going against the groupthink, man."

<comment><USER11> Statistically speaking most people don't have a big audience on Twitter either. As your audience grows so does the chance of somebody at Twitter having a problem with you. If you're on Twitter because of this potential for massive growth you have to take it into account.

Had it happen to myself. Absolutely no warning from Twitter. Never had a temporary ban at all. And wasn't even a remotely big account. Of course you don't hear about this from people who aren't super high profile - they cannot make a lot of noise about it. Amongst my friends who are heavy Twitter users there are absolutely tons of stories like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I left Twitter a couple years ago, I "slammed the door on my way out" by deleting all my posts. Of course, we all know social media companies keep deleted posts and metadata but crawlers probably can't see this data (unless they pay?) and it sends a message as well.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've not quit Twitter, but I've reduced my usage of it (and gained control of my data) by syndicating my posts/statuses from to Twitter and backfeeding any replies/likes as comments on my blog.

It's all simple enough to get setup using the IndieWeb Wordpress plugin.

</comment><comment><USER15> I had a blog (still do, though I publish extremely infrequently), but the value of Twitter to me is the discussions, where I can ask about things and learn new things from people who reply to them. What's the equivalent for that in this system?

Now, if you said "get a personal domain and set up ActivityPub," then sure.

The other approach I've liked here is the "planet" model - I read [https://planet.debian.org/](https://planet.debian.org/) fairly frequently, and occasionally one blogger publishes something and a couple of people follow up a day or two later "This is a response to so-and-so's post, here are my thoughts," which is always fun. But it wouldn't be fun in a newsletter model - Twitter makes it so that you don't see replies from someone you follow to someone you don't, because those replies will generally lack context. I wouldn't want to spam everyone in my newsletter with "These are some questions I have for some other person whose newsletter you don't read."

<comment><USER16> Just a quick plug for two ActivityPub projects that are wholly compelling and are not Mastodon:

* WordPress ActivityPub plugin by Matthias Pfefferle: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/)

* WriteFreely - An open source platform for building a writing space on the web: [https://writefreely.org/](https://writefreely.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I understand the negative opinions about Twitter that have been mentioned, but this isn't advice for _most_ people. This is advice for people who already have an audience built, and are looking to own their audience.

The benefit (and downfall) of Twitter is that (blue checkmark aside), everyone is equal. Your account can both send and receive, and it puts everyone on the same 280-character level playing field. Balaji doesn't like this.

Balaji might want to pick up his ball and leave, and that's fine (odd he blames the hacks and not his recent Twitter spat, but whatever). But Twitter has managed to give a voice to so many people and ideas that otherwise never would have been heard. This doesn't solve that problem; it just makes it so Balaji can write what he wants without having to hear people disagree with him.

If you're reading this and are against Twitter, that's fair! But it's likely that you and Balaji are looking to exit Twitter for very different reasons.

</comment><comment> phoe-krk Switching to the Fediverse is also an option, especially since the variety of instances there means that one can curate their experience in a much greater way than one would on Twitter.

<comment><USER18> > Switching to the Fediverse is also an option

Really only if the people you want to interact with on Twitter are either already on the Fediverse or can be persuaded to move across. In my experience, they're not and they won't be. Which is why I still have an active Twitter account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How does this post address network effects in the age of aggregation? Who has sufficient incentive to tie all those disparate blogs and newsletters together? Balaji likes to talk about exit plans. See this speech at YC startup school:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A)

In general, they strike me as deeply unrealistic.

</comment><comment><USER20> A worthwhile question to ask is why is this being written now?

Twitter has had hacks before, so I don't buy the 'hacks are the last straw' line.

<comment><USER21> I don't think this is because of the hack. Balaji seems more worried about censorship and "cancel culture."

Ex: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7w3zw/silicon-valley- eli...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7w3zw/silicon-valley-elite- discuss-journalists-having-too-much-power-in-private-app)

<comment><USER22> Quoting Vice in that article, defending journalists:

 _" many journalistic outlets are increasingly moving away from an ad-based revenue model driven by traffic, and instead ... optioning their articles to movie studios ..."_

Emphasis mine, but I can't believe Vice admits their business model is creating stories they can turn into Hollywood films. That doesn't align with reporting the truth. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story".

But that does explain a lot. Bloomberg's "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies" was totally unsubstantiated garbage, but it does sound like a plotline from a Hollywood movie.

<comment><USER23> The only part of Vice that's worth giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to The Truth is their Motherboard section. The rest has been tripe for a few years. There was a glimmer of hope with Simon Ostrovsky's reporting from Ukraine, but he seems to have moved on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gradual exits are for the birds (that tweet).

You can still read twitter without an account. Just delete your account(s) cold turkey.

</comment><comment><USER25> The technology should exist by now for a decentralized twitter right? Resorting to email newsletters seems very clunky. Couldn't there be something that uses a bittorrent-like protocol, where the followers support the network for whomever they're following?

<comment><USER16> The W3C published ActivityPub as a recommendation (this is essentially a web standard) on January 23, 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/) ?

</comment><comment><USER27> how to abruptly exit twitter: quit</comment>


Happy Hour Virus - <AUTHOR> http://www.happyhourvirus.com/ <comment><USER2> I love any technological approach to getting me to the bar sooner.

I've always wanted a 'timed SMS' app where you can queue up text messages and set a time to send them. That way you can be enjoying happy hour while sending off 'stuck late at office' and 'leaving soon' messages without thinking about it.

Even better would be an app that plays background noise during your phone calls: airports, offices, taxis, stadiums. Dial up where you want to be for your call. Great for the 'still stuck at office' call, provided you could drown out the noise of the rowdy bar you're in. Last I checked, Android didn't have an API for that.

<comment><USER3> _" I've always wanted a 'timed SMS' app where you can queue up text messages and set a time to send them. That way you can be enjoying happy hour while sending off 'stuck late at office' and 'leaving soon' messages without thinking about it."_

I think a lot of texting apps do this. When I used GoSMS it had this function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The BSOD screen needs to be more ugly. The font is too pretty to be convincing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't work too well with multiple monitors. My other screens give away my computers true non-brokenness

<comment><USER6> Turning off the other monitor isn't too hard, although it did get me thinking about HTML5's lack of multi-monitor support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice. I would also like to see an infinite compiling loop added for my coffee breaks ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been using /usr/libexec/xscreensaver/bsod for years for this.

I was having a conversation one time and xscreensaver kicked on showing the BSOD mode, and the person I was talking to said "ha! your computer crashed!" and I responded with "well, that's it, time to go to the bar."

<comment> vezzy-fnord I when I first got the XScreensaver OpenVMS panic.

It fooled me for a couple of seconds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this new or just a reposting? Seems odd that it's driving people to a jobs page that lists no jobs.

</comment><comment><USER10> In what way do the nice appearances and animations suggest reality? :P Still funny.

</comment><comment><USER11> funny, but any sysadmin knows to hit escape first before doing anything

</comment><comment><USER12> Needs a reface</comment>


ILO – Deteckting women's fertile days via CO2-Breathanalysis - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ilo-accurately-track-cycle-fertility-period#/ <comment><AUTHOR> LO was just launched on Indiegogo yesterday. It is the easiest way for women to detect their fertile days.

It is the world's first breathanalyzer to detect women's fertile days. Only 60 seconds of breathing per day instead of peeing on a stripe or measuring several symptoms. Furthermore, the tracked parameter CO2 allows live tracking as it is a leading indicator compared to other methods like temperature that only change after ovulation. By this the best time to conceive can be determined easily.

The concept of CO2 measurement in breath giving information about the cycle status of women has been developed by several clinicians and tested in four studies with the ILO device. Carbomed Medical Solution owns all Patents for ILO for USA and EU. You can now buy the stylish device for a great discount of up to 59% off. Shipment will be done in February 2019.</comment>


Bjorn's Corner: ET302 crash report, the first analysis - <AUTHOR> https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash-report-the-first-analysis/#more-29839 <comment><USER2> This answers a couple of significant questions: why reenable autotrim? They needed the help to nose up, they couldn't hand trim.

Why only use tiny nose up correction? The high airspeed would make the plane very sensitive to small changes in trim. They knew to make no erratic changes. This worked. It was working. They had no idea MCAS followup would be so violently aggressive that it would send them to the ceiling, and pitch the airplane beyond recovery in a matter of seconds.

Flat out MCAS, accepting a ridiculous ~75° angle of attack as valid, and corrected with a ridiculous amount of nose down without any respect to the aircraft already exceeding Vmo, is what killed them and everyone on board.

The pilots are heros. They did what the emergency AD says. When that failed, they improvised based on experience and training, and fought for everyone lives.</comment>


CookiesOK browser plugin - <AUTHOR> http://cookiesok.com/

<comment><USER2> Why can't sites just provide simple cookie-less browsing experience, turning off their cookie-based features? Instead of forcing this click-through just to show the article, they should just show what they can in read-only mode (without sending the cookie). This is such a misguided knee-jerk campaign from developers.

Cookies are NOT OK, I don't want to see them, and just show me the article (or page I originally came to view), thanks. And after I have viewed it, and if I decide to become a user of your site - then you will have my permission to use cookies.

The click through pages are the worst (like what www.games-workshop.com has). The pop-up/notification bar some news sites have (like bbc.co.uk) is somewhat acceptable, while obnoxious, as it allows you to read the content without accepting the cookies, and just go your merry way when your're done.

So this plug-in is going to auto-accept the cookies on your behalf. But why would you want to do this?

<comment><USER3> If you don't want my cookie, feel free to not use my website which is provided to you free of charge (and ironically, if it was not free you would definitely need to accept the cookie). It does me no good to provide you a service when I can't monetize it.

I don't understand the sense of entitlement. The result is annoying, but that's because of the poorly thought out law. If you don't want annoyed, use this extension.

<comment><USER2> I guess if you are putting some service out there, you actually WANT people viewing your content/using the service. Way to antagonize your potential customers which such "my way or the highway" attitude!

And how do you feel about the 'Do not track' header?

<comment><USER3> What if the service comes with accepting a cookie? A potential "customer" that does not accept cookies is simply a waste of bandwidth.

Not a big fan of DNT, it relies on trust which prevents it from working when you want it to most. If you don't want tracked, don't accept cookies. If you can't use a service without cookies and are not happy using something like Incognito mode, stop using that service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps web browsers should just include an option to disable cookies. That way, websites wouldn't have to display these kind of alerts, and users wouldn't have to trust that all sites will actually display these warnings before setting a cookie. One could even imagine an advanced web browser feature which would allow users to allow or deny cookies on a per-site basis.

<comment><USER5> Sarcasm aside, it's curious that lawmakers (even in Europe) thought it better to make a requirement of O(N^N) site owners rather than "require" that O(5) browsers implement a feature which they all do already.

I always use cookies on a whitelist-only basis, and it is quite common to find web sites that require cookies for no good reason -- sometimes, I suspect, without even realizing it -- and then fail with no message when cookies are disabled.

I believe that cookies should be regarded as a progressive enhancement. If your web site requires cookies to implement a paywall, then detect when they are disabled and say so. If you can add features when cookies are available, great; if they're not, let me know what I'm missing. But don't tell me that "a browser error is preventing me from logging in," as many sites do. Once again, I'm sure this is boilerplate code that the actual site owner isn't even aware of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "CookiesOK searches for the accept buttons and triggers the click event" So what happens when someone injects something other than just the cookie code? My browser will auto-accept that as well?

<comment><USER7> that's why I didn't go down this route; most sites keep serving cookies until you tell them not to so I've found that an adblock filterlist works very well: <https://github.com/r4vi/block-the-eu-cookie-shit-list> where we just hide the entire cookie cruft every time or block the cookie prompt script if it's a widely deployed plugin

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anybody know if this is actually being enforced in any way? (The cookie law that is?)

I'm in the UK so use a bunch of sites here. What I have noticed is that only large active sites by big companies and orgs actually have cookie notices.

None of the other countless sites actually have it at all. So I'm wondering how long it will be before people just stop putting these things up at all?

<comment><USER6> It's not (yet). Typical 'Big Gov' solution. Extra dumb are websites that force you to accept the cookies _each and every time_ you visit them. Oh yeah, even the government's own sites are not all up to date.

<comment><USER9> Not really our government's fault though; to their credit they did actually try and fight it a bit. IIRC our regulation (in the UK) has a few differences from the EU one.

<comment><USER10> All EU countries implement all EU law slightly differently (just look the EU Working Time Directive). EU law just gives the minimum that countries have to do.

From looking into it myself, it looks like UK implementation is stricter than e.g. Irish one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a pretty simple economic argument that people need to consider before jumping into the cookies are bad camp. The market for display ad inventory alone in the past year was to the tune of $40b in the US. There are 250m active internet users. That $40b dollars goes into the pockets of content producers on the internet that make it the tool it is.

Net, if you wanted to drop all of that and get rid of the advertisers, that is a balance of $160 per person per year (and growing) that would fall to some other solution (like increased service charges).

As others have made the case, cookies are important for advertisers. If you want to fix the problem, need to consider another viable solution that either does not sweep their legs out or does but provides an alternative revenue stream to keep the internet alive.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is great, thought about making something like this myself for a while.

One problem I have with current cookie law, is that it pretty much _forces_ cookies upon those who actually know how to disable them. If someone browses with cookies disabled, they get all these annoying warnings and yet no way to turn them off - because turning them off requires a cookie! Insanity.

And the relevant governing body has pretty much admitted that you'll probably be ok with just a clear description of cookies used. (See the response to nocookielaw.com)

Oh AND all American websites will just continue as they were before, except now with an extra competitive advantage.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does CookiesOK do any type of moderation over the cookies? Checking for domain scope, cookie flags, reasonable expiration of the cookie?

I understand that "free" sites need advertising revenue, and unfortunately a lot of ad networks want to track my every move - how about enforcing a compromise where cookies are allowed for X minutes after I hit the page?

Security-wise, I'm more interested in enforcing that cookies sent over SSL are not readable via standard HTTP. This tool is a step in the right direction, but I think a few more features would make it pretty attractive.

<comment><USER14> > Does CookiesOK do any type of moderation over the cookies? Checking for > domain scope, cookie flags, reasonable expiration of the cookie?

Based the "how does it work" section of their site, I don't think it does any sort of moderation/validation/inspection of cookies before trying to auto- click the consent button. My impression is that it's strictly a DOM-level utility and doesn't hook in at the network level where it could observe or manipulate cookies over the wire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This plugin has a way for web developers to make their website compatible with this plugin. This seems pointless. The law is clear that, although you the developer can rely on web browser settings, those settings must give the user consent (default web browser 'accept all cookies' do not meet this). Using this plugin would not meet the "give the user consent", so you cannot rely on this plugin _and_ be inside the law.

I think making your cookie notice work with CookiesOK is about as legal as just turning off your cookie notice.

<comment><USER14> I think you are missing the point. The plugin is for end users who want automate the process of giving consent, similar to how a password manager plugin might help you automate the login process.

If a web developer wants to make their site compatible with CookiesOK to improve the browsing experience for the subset of their users with the plugin, what's the harm?

How end users indicate their consent should be entirely up to them. Would you prefer users solve a CAPTCHA when opting-in to cookies?

<comment><USER10> _The plugin is for end users who want automate the process of giving consent, similar to how a password manager plugin might help you automate the login process._

The page has a section on "Making my website Compatible". The plugin explicitly looks for the "CookiesOK" CSS class. This plugin is designed and partially aimed at web developers.

 _If a web developer wants to make their site compatible with CookiesOK to improve the browsing experience for the subset of their users with the plugin, what's the harm?_

Well it's against the law. The harm depends on your country. It could be a fine of thousands of euro, and potentially an injunction shutting down your website.</comment></comment></comment>


Hall.com Is Your Answer To Simple Real-Time Collaboration - <AUTHOR> http://www.dainbinder.com/2011/11/hallcom-is-your-answer-to-simple-real.html

<comment><USER2> This is great Dain. Love the article and all the feedback. Thanks!</comment>


TDK Claims HDD Areal Density Record - <AUTHOR> http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20121002/243229/

<comment><USER2> What the article doesn't say is how many platters in a current 3TB hard drive. [http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/servers_storage/seagate...](http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/servers_storage/seagate/barracuda_3tb_st3000dm001_internal_hard_drive/427323) says there are 3 platters in the newest Seagate drives - so potentially we could see 6TB drives from this!</comment>


Google Announces Support for Microformats and RDFa - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-announces-support-for-m.html <comment><USER2> I think this a fairly important inflection point. It's when semantic technologies begin creeping in to the mainstream as semantic technologies rather than obscure under the covers functionality as with firefox.

<comment><USER3> It's also interesting timing, coming as it does on the heels of their "Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data" paper.

I'd have to re-read it to comment, but at least some felt that it was being rather dismissive of semantic-web structures: <http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/275/>

<comment><USER4> I've always thought they were a little too dismissive of semantic web structures, Peter Norvig in particular. But I also thought it was a ploy.

<comment><USER5> I think the problem is that the semantic web is fundamentally very similar to the sort of 'logical ai' (Prolog, Cyc, etc) that is often blamed for the AI winter.

Eliezer made a fairly convincing argument that a lot of this is the result of clever marketing campaign a few decades ago (<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/11/logical-or-conn.html>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like Google is playing catch-up to yahoo for once. This has searchmonkey written all over it. Yahoo though, seems to be still without its mojo so cant see it capitalizing on this thing - even assuming it goes big.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wolfram Alpha already breathing on their necks?</comment>


Show HN: New PHP router wich shows 3-5 times better performance then Symfony - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexdodonov/mezon-router/blob/master/doc/router-symfony-compiled-url-matcher.mdILBb_FhsLgR5j <comment><USER2> 404 and posted at least five times lat 14 days ?[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23113465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23113465)

</comment><comment><USER3> Router is not the bottle neck typically</comment>


Origins of Venmo (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://kortina.nyc/essays/origins-of-venmo/ <comment><USER2> > We decided, you should be able to share this stuff, because it's interesting

Interesting, because this is main reason I don't like Venmo, and prefer PayPal, but everyone seems to want to use Venmo. In my social circle, many people have expressed similar sentiments.

I think the main thing they hit is being able to pay your Facebook friends by entering their name, before Facebook had Facebook Pay. Come to think of it, it would have been much wiser if Facebook acquired them instead of rolling out a competing payments system.

<comment><USER3> The second point is really interesting - how instrumental was having a semi- public feed in them taking off? I use venmo b/c everyone I know has it, it has my bank info anyways, and it's easy to find people. Even now with a gazillion options I still default to venmo.

On the latter point of finding people though, a public feed has been useful. Often when I venmo someone new (ex. dinner), it's helpful to see my friends also having venmo'ed the person so I know I have the right account.

<comment><USER4> The "network" functionality, whether you use the social/feed aspect of it, does warn you if you attempt to pay someone that you've never paid before and that you have no friends in common with. That's also a good way to make sure you're paying the right person.

<comment><USER2> The funny thing is I get the warning almost every time because I only ever use Venmo with new acquaintances I'm eating with for the first time in a group setting.

Once I'm actually friends with someone we stop splitting bills and end up roughly alternating (sometimes after fighting) about who pays. Might be an Asian thing though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still can't figure out for the life of me why anyone uses Venmo. I tried it once and had an awful experience. For those that use it, what is the appeal over simply using PayPal? That also lets you send money to friends for free. As far as I can tell, all the differences are very much in PayPal's favor:

1\. Must use mobile app to send payments. You cannot send through the website. WTF?

2\. When I tried to send $250, from my Venmo balance no less, I got an opaque error about please try again later. Only through trial and error did I figure out that it would let me send up to $100, but no more.

3\. Everything about the social feed aspect. Among the Venmo users I know, no one actually uses it. Everyone talks about how easy it is to turn it off. But isn't this its only differentiator? If you're going to turn it off, why not just stick with PayPal which doesn't have this annoying anti-feature in the first place?

4\. I could be wrong, but I think that even if you turn the feed off, you can't hide your list of "friends" from the public.

<comment><USER6> The main value of Venmo to me is that it feels a lot less awkward than other alternatives. I think the main reason it's less awkward is because you can safely assume a friend will have it set up already (unlike with PayPal or even similar services like Facebook Pay), and because it's easy to find people.

<comment><USER5> I guess the question is something of a chicken and egg, then. Why did all your friends already set up Venmo, when it seems to be strictly worse (worse in some ways, not better in any ways) than the existing solution (Paypal)?

<comment><USER7> in 2014 I'm not sure that paypal had a nice clean simple mobile app like Venmo did. In 2014 Venmo was the best, and today I think it still fulfills its purpose quite well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >We thought, "Why are we still doing this? We do everything else with our phones. We should definitely be using PayPal to pay each other back. But we don't, and none of our friends do."

None of my friends use any pay services. Apple pay, Venmo, Paypal, it's a crapshoot if I can find a way to pay them back. I was able to convince them to use Facebook Messenger pay because we were having a conversation in it once. We are in our 20s. I would be surprised if they had set up Apple/Google pay on their phone to pay contactless (maybe now with covid). My point is -- Venmo doesn't solve any problems it just creates another -- namely another payment system none of my peers use.

<comment><USER9> That sucks. Literally everyone I know uses Venmo.

<comment><USER10> Yeah: I (still) live in a college town, and the idea that someone doesn't use Venmo feels very alien.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Off topic, but one major thing I found interesting moving from the U.S. to Europe was how the SEPA system here makes products like Venmo obsolete and how Venmo seems like just a bandaid on top of the archaic banking system there.

<comment><USER12> Exactly, Australia and NZ too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> College Humor did an amazing take on the public feed "social networking" feature of Venmo.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFLztKBrLY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFLztKBrLY)

</comment><comment><USER13> I quit venmo when they went mobile only. There's no obvious way they make money, so it must be in the metadata they collect... somewhere. I can control what they see from a desktop web browser, but on mobile their app asks for far too much.

</comment><comment><USER14> Discussed (a bit) at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7844404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7844404)</comment>


Lean Domain Search now includes premium domain names in every search - <AUTHOR> http://www.leandomainsearch.com/blog/24-lean-domain-search-partners-with-sedo-to-help-you-find-the-perfect-domain-name

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

Back in January I launched Lean Domain Search, a domain name generator, on HackerNews [1]. I've been hard at work on it (I actually left my day job in September) and have spent the last few weeks on this latest change.

In the past when you performed a search the site only shows you available domain name results. With this change, it now checks Sedo's database and returns relevant premium domain names from their portfolio as well. I've tried to not make the results too intrusive so that they don't get in the way if all you're looking for are available domain names.

Would love to get your feedback -- thanks!

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3470977>

</comment><comment><USER2> Am I the only one that is way too paranoid to use a service like this? I already assume that half of the DNS registrars are underhandedly registering good domain names that go through their lookup services.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Ryan,

I understand your concern because unfortunately some registrars have done this in the past. I can tell you that I've never shared what you're searching for with anyone else; no one benefits from your searches other than you.

For what it's worth, in the 10+ months of Lean Domain Search's existence there hasn't been one allegation of impropriety -- and it should stay that way as long as I'm doing my job of keeping your searches private.

<comment><USER3>
      I can tell you that I've never shared what you're
      searching for with anyone else; no one benefits from your
      searches other than you.

That's reassuring! I suppose if you're suggesting dozens of domains to people, registering them speculatively would be difficult as there are so many options.

How do you search Sedo without telling them the search term?

(If you want to be pedantic, my query is revealed to Google+, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Facebook, Cloudfront, Twitter and BigHugeLabs - although I doubt facebook is in the business of domain name squatting)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey again,

I hear what you're saying but there's just too much risk for anyone -- me, Sedo, whoever, to engage in domain name front running (the official term for what you're describing). If people knew that Sedo, for example, was registering domain names based on what terms people were searching for then people would stop using Sedo. Sedo, in turn, would take a huge long term financial hit all in exchange for a few domain names. Consider that we're still talking about Network Solutions doing it and that was almost five years ago. They permanently damaged their reputation by doing that. It's just not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope it helps with monetization! It's a potentially useful feature, which can bring in money to you, and it's not too annoying.

My only real concern that the site seems to have more latency than it did last time I used it - I'm sure sure if it's due to increased load, or waiting for the RTT to Sedo, but it's something to keep in mind.

Perhaps you could fill those in with a separate ajax call, so they aren't necessarily blocking the other results while you wait for sedo?

<comment><AUTHOR> The increased latency is caused by API calls that the app has to make to Sedo for new queries. I've spent a lot of time optimizing it lately, but agree that there's still room for improvement. It comes down to a tradeoff: would you rather get more premium results but have to wait a little while longer or get less results but have them quickly? For now I've taken the middle road, but that may change depending on how it affects usage.

Appreciate you bringing it up though and for suggesting alternatives.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps you could load fewer premium results beforehand but load the rest via AJAX?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually all done via Ajax that way it doesn't affect the page load time. The search itself is also done on a separate server that way it doesn't tie up any of the app's dynos on Heroku (go go JSONP).

I could make an initial API call and get a handful of results, but handling the remainder would be tricky. For example, let's say that the preliminary search returns 12 domains and I immediately display them to the user. Ten seconds later the second Ajax call returns an additional 60 premium domains. How do I display those to folks in a non-intrusive way? I'm open to suggestions :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice work!

Have you thought about trying to pull in domains from Afternic MLS as well?</comment>


What about a startup to mix your favorite feeds… - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesshackers.com/2007/06/05/what-about-a-startup-to-mix-your-favorite-feeds/ <comment><USER2> I can "choose the output charset encoding"?! Sign me up!</comment>


Ask HN: I can´t start up my Macbook by a bash upgrade - <AUTHOR>

I was upgrading bash for patching the shellshock vulnerability, so i follow a tutorial and i guess i messed up by replacing the old bin/bash $PATH and removing the execute permissions... HELP ME!!! <comment><AUTHOR> The tutorial says: If you are very paranoid, you can remove execute permissions on the bash_old ....

$ sudo chmod a-x /bin/bash_old /bin/sh_old.... </comment><comment>

I think this is the big mistake, so i replace the old PATH to new PATH with the new bash update (Upgraded with Homebrew) by following the steps:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/bash/4.3.25/bin/bash /bin/bash

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/bash/4.3.25/bin/bash /bin/sh

When I restarted the macbook, i set my password and nothing happens, loading...loading...loading....nothing happens.

Here the tutorial:

[https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/147005/can-bash- be...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/147005/can-bash-be-replaced- entirely-in-os-x)

</comment><comment><USER2> Does this help?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387525)

> Word of warning, if you have chmod 0000 /bin/bash put it back to how you > found it before running the update.

> If you didn't do this: cmd + s to boot in safe mode. /sbin/mount -wu / and > chmod bash back to a useable state, if you get stuck at log in.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah.. i did it, cmd + s as single user with all those tips, then i restarted and nothing happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You will have to boot in rescue mode or from a DVD, and use Terminal.app to correct the situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh my.... i ain´t got that DVD

<comment><USER4> hold down command+r when booting, you don't need that DVD, the recovery partition is on the disk already. you should be able to launch a terminal from there and fix your problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will try in terminal mode</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Noisy market hypothesis - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_market_hypothesis

<comment><USER2> The markets are neither 100% efficient nor 100% noisy. There is a happy medium somewhere in between.

An indirectly related, but telling anecdote: In their financial models, M&A bankers are often told to ignore stock prices 24 hours prior to a deal's announcement. Insider trades artificially raise the price during this time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Makes sense to me.</comment>


Auto-Generated JavaScript for WCF RESTFUL Services - <AUTHOR> http://blog.composableanalytics.com/2016/09/16/the-best-way-to-hit-wcf-from-js-anywhere/ <comment><USER2> a bit like DWR</comment>


A Chess Firewall at Zero? - <AUTHOR> https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/a-chess-firewall-at-zero/ <comment><USER2> I always find it interesting when people say things like "chess is a PSPACE problem", because in order to define it as such, you have to consider the board size to be variable, even though it's always 8x8.

<comment><USER3> But you can safely say "Ladders are PSPACE-complete" about the game of Go which is played on many different sizes, some far larger than the standard 19x19 (e.g. KGS supports 38x38 boards).

<comment><USER4> The number of serious games above 19x19 is basically nil, so the difference is a bit misleading (although it's definitely more common in go).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm interested in the topic, but found the exposition hard to follow.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, it leads with a bunch of maybe-related logic history and I'm not really sure where the thesis starts. Maybe it's just a Monday morning, but the writing was impenetrable to me (and not because of the topic, but because of the prose).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do you read the charts? I can't make head or tail.

<comment><USER3> They show number of blunders (score dropping 1.5 or more) categorized by player strength and current position evaluation according to either Komodo or Stockfish. The conclusion is that people blunder much more in worse positions, but they blunder most in dead even positions.

At least I think that's what it says:-)

<comment><USER8> I'm not following all of the theory involved, but this makes me wonder if the "firewall" is just an effect of the scale on which they're measuring positions.

Chess engines evaluate a large range of positions as having value 0.00. In fact, an omniscient chess engine would evaluate every position as either having value 0.00 or as being "mate in N" (where N could be unreasonably large).

So maybe the blunders from positive positions are smaller because, as evaluated by a sufficiently strong chess engine, they mostly drop you from +(small number) to 0.</comment></comment></comment>


Need help publishing a OSS HackerNews app for Windows Phone 7 - <AUTHOR> http://hackernews.codeplex.com/

  I have created a open source WP7 app for browsing HN easier and i need help publishing it to the WP7 Marketplace (can't do it myself because i'm from Romania and can't create a developer account).
  So if you have a WP7 account and want to help please reply.
 <comment><USER2> Wow, does this unassuming post really constitute an appropriate venue for the old axe-grinding platform snark? Find something better to do with your Sunday afternoon, gents.

Marius, we're a small shop with 4 apps on the marketplace, and we'd be happy to help - will drop you a line.

</comment><comment><USER3> For what it's worth, I would love to get patches to my open source Hacker News app. (<https://github.com/jpf/hacker-news-wp7>)

</comment><comment><USER4> Hi Marius, I have a handset and have published an app on the marketplace. Send me an email (in profile) if you need to test on a unit or have any questions.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is nice - can we get the iPhone version UI to look this good?

</comment><comment><USER6> Why don't you just send a copy of the app by email to the other two WP7 owners?

<comment><USER7> I don't have much faith in WP7 becoming a major mobile platform either, but I can't say that this type of comment really contributes anything on HN

<comment><USER6> Yep, but a karma-whoring comment pointing out an obvious troll contributes a lot, congratulations.

<comment><USER2> Really guy? Did you read the guidelines and FAQ before you decided to start threadshitting here? Or you just don't care either way?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Lisp?  3 answers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattknox.com/whylisp.html <comment><USER2> BTW, as the author I can say this without offending myself: lisp deserves a better article. I wrote this fast, a long time ago. Although I think the equality thing is a really big deal, I have different and better reasons now. (article forthcoming).

</comment><comment><USER3> _every language gets parsed, turned into an AST (Abstract Syntax Tree), and then compiled or interpreted_

This is one of the most widespread misconceptions about compilers. You don't need to build an AST. All books that give this advice originate from academic environment and are completely out of touch with reality. Unfortunately these books can be credited for the terribly bloated compilers that we are using, including Python and Perl.

<comment><USER4> "You don't need to build an AST. All books that give this advice originate from academic environment and are completely out of touch with reality. Unfortunately these books can be credited for the terribly bloated compilers that we are using, including Python and Perl."

Can you give an example of an Open Source (so we can learn how it is done) compiler that embodies an alternate strategy?

<comment><USER3> Lua, but I'm sure there are many more. The generate-as-you-go technique is best described in Wirth's _Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs_ , first edition (the last chapter about compilers was removed in later editions for some reason).

Turbo Pascal - probably the smallest and the fastest commercial compiler ever made - well, for an imperative language - was inspired by Wirth's book, too (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithms_%2B_Data_Structures_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithms_%2B_Data_Structures_%3D_Programs) )

<comment><USER5> The last chapter was removed because (from the preface of the 2nd ed):

"The entire fifth chapter of the first Edition has been omitted. It was felt that the subject of compiler construction was somewhat isolated from the preceding chapters and would rather merit a more extensive treatment in its own volume. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i see "first to do X" as neutral. maybe it's indicative of more innovation and goodness elsewhere, but maybe it's done better in the next iteration or language.

"best to do X" is clearly a good, though, which is listed as part of the 1st reason.

an important reason not mentioned is library support. for practical reasons many programmers want not just "a good language" but a language where they don't have to re-invent the wheel or forge new territory (of course, that can be satisfying, too, if one has the time). this is likely the case with any language that has been around a while.

i don't know if this is the case with lisp. did that reason seem not important enough for the list, or are libraries/frameworks lacking?

<comment><USER7> The topic of libraries comes up frequently when Lisp is mentioned.

If a certain task or problem arises that isn't directly related to or considered one of the main problems that you're trying to solve with your program, you would consider the use of a library to accomplish that task. If there is such a library available, go ahead and use it. If there isn't, Lisp programmers can spend a short amount of time implementing only what they need without generalizing the task.

This isn't quite re-inventing the wheel since you have a unique set of constraints, and it's certainly not as onerous a task as writing a generalized library. There are those (Edi Weitz for example) who do tend to implement complete libraries, and the Lisp community is of course grateful for that.

Libraries and frameworks can be useful, but they also have the effect of levelling the playing field. Lisp empowers the programmer to `discover' a natural solution to their problem in a unique way.</comment></comment>


Micro-apartments next for S.F.? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Micro-apartments-next-for-S-F-3706648.php <comment><USER2> The more I read about the housing market in SF the more it looks like a disaster. Compared to SF, NYC has done a number of things better:

1\. No new rent control leases since 1973 (IIRC) although you can inherit a rent control apartment if you've lived there for two years. I'm sure this system is abused but the SF equivalent is a huge number of units being left vacant largely due to rent control;

2\. Exit clauses on rent stabilised apartments for the rent getting too high or the occupant earning too much. The rent part is abused since between tenants you're allowed to raise the rent by 1/40th or 1/50th (I forget which) of the cost of capital improvements, which leads to renovating the kitchen/bathroom and probably overstating the cost; and

3\. Most importantly, NYC has new construction, even in Manhattan.

What SF really needs more than micro-apartments is:

1\. A gradual phase-out of rent control including income-based assessments; and

2\. More importantly, some kind of plan that allows for new construction.

As much as I like the weather in the Bay Area, between this and public transport (NYC subways and comparatively cheap taxis > BART+Caltrain+munibus) I'm glad I live in NYC. In lots of ways I think it's got a lot going for it in terms of doing a startup here too.

<comment><USER3> It seems like the absurdity of the local public transit forces a lot of the high density construction downtown. When MUNI isn't halted (it regularly is) it often takes me 25 minutes to get to SOMA (Ballpark) from the Mission on MUNI even though straight line distance is less than one mile. Each MUNI ticket are is $2. The total system cost is $750MM and fare revenue is $150M which makes the real value of a MUNI fare $10. $10 to go less than one mile for half an hour!

<comment><USER4> Have you tried walking? From what you say it sounds like a cheaper, quicker, and more reliable alternative.

<comment><USER3> I cycle usually but I would appreciate a reasonable public transit system. Yeah, it is often a similar amount of time walking places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem isn't that SF is running out of square footage for luxuriously spacious apartments. The problem is that SF doesn't allow the construction of high-density housing, or much new housing of any kind. They gained all of 50-something market-rate housing units in 2011.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/09/19/zoning- law...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/09/19/zoning-laws-are- strangling-silicon-valley/) [http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2012/05/san_franciscos_to...](http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2012/05/san_franciscos_total_housing_inventory_and_pipeline_rep.html)

<comment><USER6> This is probably the biggest factor. So much of SF is covered very low density housing.

<comment><USER7> I am in two minds about this: One hand, it does preserve the historic beauty of the house. While personally, I wouldn't want to live in a Victorian/Edwardian house because I like central heating, tiled floors too much, they are beautiful and so many people enjoy living there. I guess one possible solution is to attempt a urban renewal project of one of the more shadier neighborhoods (Hunter's point e.g.) and build high density buildings there. Of course, this would have to be coupled with enough percentage of the units being available for low cost housing so that it doesn't become the usual act of gentrification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To put this in a European perspective: the legal minimum floor area to rent out an apartment in France is 9 square meters, or slightly less than 97 sq feet.

Even better (or worse, depending on your perspective): the absolute minimum is a _volume_ of 20 cubic meters [1].

Therefore in cities like Paris where flats with high ceilings abound, you find owners of big, old apartments with 3m high ceilings breaking them up in 7 sq meters (75 sq feet) "studios"...

250 sq feet is aplenty.

[1] <http://www.adil75.org/pdf/av12.pdf> (in French)

<comment><USER9> > the absolute minimum is a volume of 20 cubic meters

Well, this is fiction, but I'm imagining just how much worse it could get:

In "Futurama" set in the year 3000, Fry and Bender are living together in Bender's closet-sized apartment, and Fry complains that it's too small.

Bender: "Not enough room? My place is 2 cubic meters and we only take up 1.5 cubic meters. We've got room for a whole nother 2/3rds of a person."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "That demographic cohort wants to continue their collegiate experience for an indefinite amount of time," Kennedy said. "I envision this as a launching space as they get established."

The "collegiate experience" Kennedy seems to be going for with this is dormitory-style living (the article even touts the common areas that will be available to tenants, just like some of the pitches when I was shopping around for colleges!), but the first goal for many students at my university and others I've visited has always been "get out of the dorms and into a real apartment".

<comment><USER11> Interesting that someone should say this out loud. I've been thinking this for a long time - I've just been having so much fun as a student, I can't really imagine any other way of living. Cool roommates and always something interesting to do.

When not starting a family or living with a partner, this seems like the best way to live. The alternative would be to live on my own in a nice apartment - this would entail a higher - "standard of living", but be much more expensive and lonely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The idea of sharing a kitchen counter and computer desk just makes me think crumbs in the keyboard. However, minimizing the kitchen and having really high end shared kitchen facilities would be great. Between the ages of 24 and 28 I didn't eat at home even once.

One of the underlying sources for 'smaller is better' is Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language". It also is the source that inspired the pattern movement in software. A pattern language is second in the series, and is a 1000+ page book with strong opinions on everything from City planning down to interior decorating. It is very much worth the read.

<comment><USER13> I think most people would just use either the dining table or the one by the window instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was just talking with a friend yesterday about living in Tokyo. A big part of what makes it reasonable is that _everything_ is smaller. The containers of food I buy at the store are smaller and fit in my smaller refrigerator. There's a laundry place right next door and they give you hangars that are half width (folding the shirts back on themselves like when you buy them) so they can fit in a shallow closet. As an American, it's hard to get used to not buying in bulk but it really helps you make the most of your space.

<comment><USER15> I've spent lots of time in Seoul, at one point crashing in the walk-in closet of a friend for a few weeks. The apartment was pretty small by American standards, the hallway between the front door and the bathroom was a little wide, with the extra space taken up by a counter, fridge, sink and two burners as the kitchen. On the other wall of the hall was the door into the closet. Down the hall next to the closet was a very sparse bathroom that was effectively a powder room (toilet + sink) with a shower hose on the wall. And at the end of the hall was a small bedroom that fit a queen size bed and a small desk and not much else.

In the U.S. I live in a fairly large house and was pretty concerned about the small living area. But it worked! Everything is kind of geared to support that kind of living arrangement. If you sleep on the floor, by rolling up your bedding in the morning you suddenly have a living room. Fold out tables and eating while sitting on the floor and you have a dining room that can fit (not a typo) 8 people reasonably comfortably. The floor of the closet had room for me and my wife. And since the floors are heated in Korea, even in the winter we were incredibly warm.

To eat you buy what you need for that day, or even that meal at the grocery next door, and your frequent trips in and out of the apartment give you plenty of time to bring out trash and other things.

Feel cooped up or want to do some kind of activity like play video games or drink and chat with your friends (but don't want to disturb the neighbors)? There's literally an entire city full of services designed for the apartment dweller, everything from cheap Internet Cafes (something like a dollar an hour), to cheap bars with private rooms for your friends at no extra cost!

Other than sleeping and a few meals, we really didn't spend much time there, instead spending almost all of our time out and about. It really is just an entirely different way of living - not better or worse, just _different_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's sort of silly that a minimum apartment size is even legislated in the first place. Somebody who chooses to live in a small apartment does so because it's their best available option.

<comment><USER17> Sure. And why do we have codes that demand working heating? People should be able to choose to buy lots of blankets instead.

<comment><USER18> Just curious, what do you believe is the justification for laws demanding minimum apt sizes/minimum heating requirements? The ordinary arguments about externalities certainly don't seem to apply...

As an anecdote, while I was poor, I didn't turn the heat on because I couldn't afford it. Do you believe the law should have forced me to turn the heat on? If not, why not?

<comment><USER17> First off: I'm not arguing that micro-apartments should be illegal; just that "the government should just let private parties come to whatever agreement they want regarding housing" is an untenable position. One obvious cost of regulating housing is the need to revisit and recalibrate those regs, and I agree in advance that our state governments suck at that. So then:

I think this is a discussion that would quickly devolve into a debate over the tenement reform movement. I'd just say that the codes and statutes covering apartments were a reaction to a time where housing was so cramped and substandard that it caused cholera outbreaks, riots, and a 10% infant mortality rate among tenement dwellers.

So then the idea behind the codes is simply: it's good that people buy property and convert into rental dwellings, because a huge number of people need rental housing. But nobody should be allowed to profit from housing that falls below a minimum standard. Without than minimum standard, the financial incentive would exist to race properties to the bottom, and while some renters clearly would benefit from the increased choice in living expenses, many more renters would be harmed either by (a) being locked by the market into substandard housing, (b) being dragged by their parents or spouses into substandard housing, (c) losing their homes when property ownership changed hands and more profit was wrung out of their current houses.

As for you and your heat: you had the choice not to turn on the heat. If your landlord wasn't required to provide heat, you might not have.

<comment><USER18> _...just that "the government should just let private parties come to whatever agreement they want regarding housing" is an untenable position...cholera outbreaks, riots..._

You'll note that I asked specifically about cases like heating/min size requirements which have nothing to do with externalities (such as disease outbreaks or fire spreading). So why bring them up?

 _Without than minimum standard, the financial incentive would exist to race properties to the bottom, and while some renters clearly would benefit from the increased choice in living expenses, many more renters would be harmed either by (a) being locked by the market into substandard housing,_

This claim is not observed in reality. In virtually every market segment including housing, you see a race to meet demand in all market segments, from the top to the bottom.

The only way there would be a race to the bottom is if virtually everyone wanted something cheaper than what is currently available and were willing to sacrifice quality to get it. I.e., if the minimum size requirements are hurting almost everyone. Do you believe this is the case?

 _(b) being dragged by their parents or spouses into substandard housing_

This seems like an extremely roundabout way of imposing minimum parenting standards. An extremely obvious way and far simpler way would simply be to forbid parents to bring their children into dorm-sized apartments.

 _(c) losing their homes when property ownership changed hands and more profit was wrung out of their current houses._

Um, this usually happens when landlords want to turn cheaper housing into more expensive housing. I.e., upgrade the projects to luxury apts. Should we also impose quality ceilings on housing? If not, why not?

<comment><USER17> I don't personally think we should impose quality ceilings, but I wouldn't frame the discussion in terms of that being the bottom of a slippery slope, because gentrification is a serious issue in many major metro areas --- particularly SF!

The rest, I think we're getting ourselves mixed up. I understand your question: absent externalities, which perhaps could be addressed more effectively with targeted regulations rather than market-restricting housing codes, what's the purpose of having housing codes?

I tried to make two points in my response: first, the reason we have housing codes to begin with --- the observation that the externalities you alluded to in fact were a major social problem around the turn of the last century --- and second, that the reason absent "cholera outbreaks" to impose a minimum standard on urban housing is that a minimum standard for urban housing is an intrinsic good thing that will improve welfare more than greater choice in housing will.

Regarding forbidding children in dorm-sized apartments: sure. Of course, we're countering what you see as an overly broad and market-harming set of laws with a far more intrusive set of laws. Also, if we relax minimum standard housing and that sets off a race to the bottom, we can be in an unattractive position later on of having to recognize that while we don't want kids raised in dorm apartments, the market is such that we no longer have the option to forbid it.

As you know, we're very unlikely to come to agreement here, you and I having polar opposite worldviews on subjects like this, but I do appreciate the challenge. :)

<comment><USER19> In what sense is gentrification a serious (by which I presume you mean "bad") issue?

As far as I can tell, "gentrification" means people like me--who make a decent white collar living and don't cause trouble--moving into poor neighborhoods, often crime-filled ones. Why should I be unhappy about having a nice place to live?

<comment><USER17> It dislocates lower/lower-middle class urban families.

And hey: I lived in a loft in SOMA. I'm not an anti-gentrification crusader.

<comment><USER19> Can you provide data for that claim?

Example: I have a friend who lives at Divisadero & Hayes, and passed on an article that attacked him (personally, but anonymously) as a gentrifier: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020412420457715...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577150850802549554.html)

The writer complains about the loss of the "culture"...but the only meaningful change we can see here was the disappearance of drug dealers and violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Recently we got to this in Paris: [https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- snc7/s720x720/396654_...](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- snc7/s720x720/396654_10151261448218219_1005419078_n.jpg)

Quick translation: it's a 3.16 square meters (34 square feet) flat on sale in the 10th district in Paris.

</comment><comment><USER21> The only thing I found weird about the article was the developers product development decisions based on a single female MIT student as opposed to talking to lots of people who are the target for a product like this, especially since he plans on putting it in SoMa and targeting the tech crowd which is largely male. This isn't sexism, it's just knowing the audience.

For example, the pull out bed in this apartment seems far more practical than a Murphy bed that really only works if you make your bed properly so it's not subject to the perils of gravity: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWaO5TJS00>

The other decision was the move to a tub style shower. The only people I know that that really take baths are women. Why? Because they fit in tubs comfortably. I can't think of any men who habitually take baths but know many women that do. Tub-size is probably a big contributing factor as to why.

TBH, if someone is living in apartment like this, they value practicality over everything else. If that is the case, a bathroom space optimized for cleaning and maintenance is more ideal, such as the bathroom in this micro-apt, where the toilet, sink area and shower all share the same tiled floor [http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/12/21/micro-living- canadas...](http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/12/21/micro-living-canadas- smallest-apartment-the-size-of-a-walk-in-closet/)

Anyways, really shortsighted product management in my view given the location and target market. If I were a single woman, SoMa is not a neighborhood I would live in. There is not enough foot-traffic and decent lighting at night to feel really safe.

</comment><comment><USER22> My wife and I live in a ~300 square foot apartment in NYC, although we don't feel like we've got plenty of room, we never feel cramped either. Moreover, we often have people sleep over in our "living room". A lot of it is about light and how high your ceilings are.

I guess what I am saying is that the absolute minimum square footage you think you need is a malleable concept.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a great TED talk about how this guy maximized the space in a tiny apartment and found he was happier than when he had a large apartment with lots of "stuff" [http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happine...](http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> I've downsized a few times over the years. 1080 > 920 > 720 > 660\. How much have I missed having a bigger space? None. I could probably drop down to about 550 tomorrow and still have tons of room.

The first thing is "usable square footage". In the larger units (> 720) I had things like hallways. Closets for a water heater or furnace. Etc. When I dropped down to 720, I actually had more usable square footage than when I had 1080 square feet. This is because the smaller spaces were better designed for their intended activities, and other things were inlined or made more efficient (in-line electric water heaters, in-wall thermal pump) as a result of the space constraints.

Additionally space isn't to store stuff, it's the support the activities within the space. When I had 1080 square feet, the kitchen was larger than the bedroom I grew up in. It meant a lot of unnecessary walking around to get anything done. When the work triangle shrunk to about 20 square feet, everything was in reach, and I still had tons of room for all the prep work, and an excess of space to store everything. A 160 square foot kitchen was excessively large when 50 works just as well. Just like a 50 square foot "laundry room" is worthless when there wasn't any room to put an ironing board -- now I have a laundry closet (9 square feet?) with some stacked Bosch units that allow me to get just as much done (with a fold-out ironing board on the door). The bedroom went from having a 90-square foot walk in closet, to 14 square feet of reach-ins -- of which I use one of them. I guess if I had a live-in girlfriend she'd use the other. Bathroom? Also shrunk. However the bedroom got larger, as did the main living area. Big wins.

As for stuff… I've gotten rid of tons of it. Every year, clean things out. Every year, be baffled at home much gets tossed out. I've zero clutter now, yet I still have everything I care about. I still have a home-office built into a 15square foot reach-in closet with two 27" displays and a laser printer that's very comfortable to work in. I still have some collectibles stashed in a storage bench at the bottom of the bedroom closet. However if it doesn't have sentimental, monetary, or immediate value, it's gotten tossed at one point. It forces you to think hard about what you value, and stick to it if you don't want to live in clutter or with a giant stack of boxes somewhere.

Coworkers always seem to "feel sorry for me". _"How do you live without being able to stock up on toilet paper at Costco?"_ I guess I don't need nearly as much TP in the bathroom as you do. _"How do you live with such a small car?"_ Yeah, a 2-seat roadster is really roughing it, but y'know, I soldier on. I have everything I want, nothing that wastes my time or attention, less to clean, less space to heat/cool, and a car I drive very sideways. 220 square feet I probably couldn't immediately shift to, but I'm pretty certain I could go to 350 very hastily if I had to. 220 would just require a lot of thought, and giving up activities such being able to host thanksgiving, etc.

<comment><USER25> _> I've downsized a few times over the years. 1080 > 920 > 720 > 660\. How much have I missed having a bigger space? None._

I used to live in a 480 square foot garage apartment in Houston. I loved the place. Unfortunately, it had lots of storage space. Yes, unfortunately, because I literally accumulated a _ton_ of stuff I didn't need. (Yes, literally = actually.)

I'm moving to the bay area tomorrow, and I'll have reduced my worldly belongings to one 7x7x8 foot POD, plus a suitcase.

 _> I have everything I want, nothing that wastes my time or attention, less to clean, less space to heat/cool, and a car I drive very sideways._

I'll take all but the last, unless it's on a track and I know what I'm doing.

Shelter Kit makes homes just about our size. The whole kit can be had for under $30k and includes the entire makings for the outer shell and fasteners. Two people are supposed to be able to construct one in a matter of a few weeks. I hope they're still around when I retire.

I have everything I want, nothing that wastes my time or attention, less to clean, less space to heat/cool, and a car I drive very sideways.

<http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse>

<comment><USER26> > I've downsized a few times over the years. 1080 > 920 > 720 > 660.

For five years I lived in a unit that was 384 square feet. And then my wife moved in with me. And shortly thereafter, two cats. We all lived in this space for about 18 months. It wasn't bad at all; we fondly refer to it as The Cave. The only reason we left is because we moved overseas.

A lot of prospective renters weren't interested with the unit because of how small it was. But those who were interested wanted it precisely because they would be forced to get rid of stuff--and would not be able to mindlessly accumulate.

When we move back to the US, we're looking at country acreage (to start a small farm) and living in a converted shipping container. One of the biggest drivers for a larger living space is to have some run-around area for the cats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "It's disingenuous to say it creates affordable housing, it's just that you get significantly less space," said Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. "This doesn't create affordable housing, it simply creates another lifestyle option."

How does this make sense? The other lifestyle option it creates is a more affordable one. If a city has nothing but million dollar mansions, I'm pretty sure creating some smaller homes would be considered affortable housing even though they have less space. Is she somehow expecting that the apartments should stay the same size, in the same area, with the same amenities, and somehow still be cheaper?

<comment><USER21> Totally agree.

I would say it creates a more affordable option if the developer had to offer them at equivalent rates on a square footage basis. The fact that the units are earning a 1-2 premium per square foot is completely artificial and simply a by-product of having no housing that size.

In São Paulo, Brazil, one bedroom apartments often cost as much as two bedroom apartments for the simple fact that there is a lack of one bedrooms available in the market because historically people haven't lived alone (they usually lived with the 'rents until marriage.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting. This might change the nightlife culture of SF to be more similar to bigger cities. I did a lot of hanging out in friend's houses, cooking, playing games, or having house parties in SF. In NYC, where the apartments are much much smaller, there's a lot less of that—people go out on the town all night and buy $15 drinks instead, and that supports the bars and restaurants than stay open late.

I'm also curious what safety measure they have on those vertical storage units. In an earthquake, all your stuff falling down in front of the door could trap you in your apartment.

</comment><comment><USER29> There was something similar to this in New Zealand called Living Space. It had roughly the same floor plan for the apartments and incorporated many common areas. They had two TV rooms, library, communal kitchen, billiards room, and a roof garden for the residents. This worked great and the place was always at capacity. It was like a combined dorm and co-working space. It was a renovated historic structure with a great location in Christchurch.

I think this concept would be great for SF. Just be sure to add the common areas.

</comment><comment><USER30> 290 sq ft is about 27 sq m, which is about normal for a studio here in Lyon, France.

<http://seloger.com> has 2700+ apartments in central Paris alone which are smaller than 27 sq m.

I have no opinion on whether it would be good for SF.

Smallest I can find on seloger in Paris is 86 sq ft, which does seem a bit on the small side...

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm concerned about house pets (like dogs and cats) in such a small apartment. Are these micro apartments fit for dwelling in for long periods of time? I don't think so. Cats and dogs need space too, and they don't have the freedom to come and go whenever they please.

<comment><USER32> I suspect pet owners are not the target market for this type of living space.

<comment><USER31> Sure, although it's common for single people to have a pet.

I don't know about the US, but in Canada I think it's illegal for renters to discriminate against pet owners. Many still do however.

<comment><USER33> In the province of Quebec you can specify a "no pet" rule in a lease. You can even be more specific and allow for a certain number and type of animal (e.g. max 2 cats, no dogs).

There's a lot of stuff you can't discriminate on, but animal ownership isn't a fundamental right.

<comment><USER34> In Ontario, the law stipulates that a land owner may not restrict leasers from owning a pet, unless the pet runs afoul of other stuff (like if they somehow interfere with another leaser's ability to live a reasonable life). But everyone still puts the 'no-pet' clause in the contracts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Weird timing, I just watched this today: We The Tiny House People Small Homes, Tiny Flats & Wee Shelters <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDcVrVA4bSQ>

</comment><comment><USER36> There is a legal apartment size? Seriously?

</comment><comment><USER37> Does this sound interesting for investing? it can start a new real state bubble based on micro apartments.

<comment><USER38> It did start one here in Uruguay, they're popping up like mushrooms, since as long as you can get a renter they pay for themselves in less than 10 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> So any sense of how much these new micro apartments in SF are going to cost?

<comment><USER40> From the article: "The ultra-efficient efficiencies will go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month, he said. Per city regulations, 15 percent of the units will be allocated as below market rate for low-income residents; he thinks those would rent for around $900 a month."

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The new proposed minimum is about the same size as my flat here in the UK, and I know plenty of people living in smaller places than mine.

<comment><USER42> The UK has such small apartments, I guess it's down to how small the country is. I think a lot of American people would have a hard time visiting some apartment buildings here and understanding the small sizes. The apartment I live in right now is one of the largest I could find in my current location (Brighton) and I wasn't being cheap (I'm paying $2500/m) and it's only about 450 square feet[1]. I've found that it's quite literally impossible to get an apartment here at 1k square feet unless the cost is >$10k/m, but in America a lot of people consider 1k square feet to be small.

Here's an interesting chart about average sizes in a couple of different countries, the difference between the UK and the US is huge: [http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/average-home-sizes-around- th...](http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/average-home-sizes-around-the-151738) (this is houses, but most apartments I've visited in the UK are about the same size as the upstairs of a house, so splitting the figure it half seems a good estimate for apartments)

I would theorise that the majority of people living in small apartments are the sort of people that are young and still finding their path in life (career, education) and so don't spend much time in their apartment (most young people that have their own place don't have the luxury of spending 8 hours a day at home, excluding sleep) so they're not _that_ bothered by living in a small space. It's where they sleep and eat and that's about it. If you're a 40 year old that has a career and family living in 200 square feet would seem insane.

[1] [http://www.godfreyinv.com/portfolio/17-the-upper- drive/apart...](http://www.godfreyinv.com/portfolio/17-the-upper- drive/apartment-6/)</comment></comment>


Pandemic's Emotional Hammer Hits Hard - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/02/908551297/pandemics-emotional-hammer-hits-hard <comment><AUTHOR> Nearly a quarter of people in the United States are experiencing symptoms of depression, according to a study published Wednesday.</comment>