In 1957, Two Tiny Pellets Were the First Objects to Escape Earth's Gravity - <AUTHOR> http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/1957-two-tiny-pellets-were-first-man-made-objects-escape-earths-gravity-180954622/ <comment><USER2> Actually a manhole cover might have preceded the pellets, and Sputnik too, on August 27.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap)

<comment><USER3> Sputnik orbited, it didn't reach escape velocity to leave the influence of Earth's gravity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's Zwicky's own write-up of the event. [http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1801/1/zwicky.pdf](http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1801/1/zwicky.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> > "I am certain they escaped," Zwicky rejoiced

How was he certain? Is science not all about observation?

<comment><USER4> There was observation - see his paper - [http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1801/1/zwicky.pdf](http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1801/1/zwicky.pdf) \- they saw the particles streak up out of the atmosphere, and measured their speeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was thinking about something similar last night: what is the cheapest way to get an object to the moon? Basically, let's say that any object of any size counts, and any location on the moon counts. What would be the easiest and cheapest way to assemble an apparatus that could deliver it? What if we add a restriction that we want to somehow prove that it made it to the moon, such as being able to observe it on its way, or have it transmit its telemetry as it goes? Would a GoPro with a Wi-Fi cantenna work? :)

<comment><USER7> That's a complex and abstract question. Are we counting as going from Earth's surface or orbit, and if it's an orbit which one? Are we counting the cost of launch infrastructure in this? Does the object need to survive impact? Is there a time restriction on how long this can take?

Overall it's a question of lifting mass. Rockets are reaction engines, you need to expel mass in order to move. However, you also have to lift that mass in the first place, which means you need more fuel to lift your extra fuel. It's a massive feedback loop and increasing the payload (or delta-v requirements) results in exponential growth of the total mission load (and thus cost). Staging is very important - if you drop the early heavy launch stages the later stages need to move a much smaller mass, hence the traditional distinction between rocket and spacecraft. Big rocket gets you near orbit, medium rocket kicks you into orbit, small rockets on the spacecraft kick you onto a translunar trajectory, into lunar orbit, then send you back.

You can really divide the mission into two phases. The first phase is reaching orbit, and it's currently where the vast majority of the fuel is expended. Chemical rockets have a fairly low infrastructure cost, but as a result of the fuel equation they have absolutely insane operating cost. Spaceplanes can be more efficient over their entire lifespan because you're not throwing away the whole airframe with every launch, but they tend to have inefficient staging that becomes exponentially worse as you go farther out (you don't want to have to lift aircraft engines into space, or move your orbital injection airframe into lunar orbit, etc). Everyone likes the concept of Single Stage To Orbit but there's a reason the Shuttle drops its boosters and fuel tank.

If you can find another way to get your craft to space you greatly reduce the overall cost of your mission. Space elevators are the fantasy but require exotic materials like carbon or diamond nanothread. The launch loop is an interesting design that can be attained with present-day materials. Another option would be to manufacture your craft in space. If you pull an asteroid into orbit you have an _unfathomably_ abundant source of materials. An average asteroid has about 10x the quantity of precious metals ever mined in human history as well as craptops of iron, nickel, lead, etc. And it would all be in easy reach, outside the worst of Earth's gravity well. The husk can be used as an Aldrin cycler. These all have fairly large infrastructure costs, ranging from billions to trillions, but would offer very low-cost payloads once built out. For example a launch loop would cost about $30 billion and reduce launch costs to $3/kg. In comparison SpaceX spent about $400 million to develop the Falcon rocket and costs $1k/kg for payload, and this is a comparative bargain for chemical rockets. The first hamburger is very expensive with alternative launch methods, but in the long term the price is much more reasonable.

The other half is the lunar phase of the mission. You need to get the object out of Earth's gravity and into the Moon's. In theory as long as you leave the Earth's sphere of influence and are inside the Moon's it will eventually be pulled in and impact the moon, but this could take a really long time and you are giving up a lot of control over how the payload arrives. If you want a delicate payload to arrive safely you need to allocate weight for motors, fuel, and a guidance platform. Take a look at the mission profiles considered for the Apollo missions - Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (you inject into lunar orbit, then later begin a descent) or Direct Lunar Ascent (you aim straight at the lunar surface and brake yourself in one go). Direct Ascent is faster but takes more fuel, so we went with the LOR profile.

Other missions can have very different needs. For example, for long-term long- distance unmanned missions, electrical/ion rockets become very compelling. They have superior thrust-to-weight but very low thrust levels - so you can accelerate or decelerate a lot (delta-v) but only fairly slowly. For travelling interplanetary/interstellar distances at human-relevant timescales you need a stronger kick. The best design so far is nuclear pulse propulsion (see: "Project Orion"), which operates by chucking nukes out the back and riding the shockwave. It's a childish idea (I came up with it independently myself as a child) but it _works_ \- it gets you large payloads (it actually works better as it scales up) moving at significant fractions of the speed of light (0.10-0.33 _c_ ). It's an environmental disaster, of course, you couldn't fire the engine anywhere near a planet.

Intelligent use of orbital mechanics can further decrease your needs. For example you can "slingshot" through a gravity well, which lets you steal an infinitesimal amount of the planet's velocity. If you burn your engines as you descend, you keep your velocity but also don't have to lift the mass back up again. However, the planets rarely align that this is a useful maneuver. This is actually a general rule - getting there quickly takes a lot of fuel and if you are willing to wait for orbital mechanics to work in your favor you can greatly reduce fuel requirements (see: Hohmann Transfer). The extreme is the Aldrin Cycler - a spacecraft placed on a periodic orbit between Earth and Mars with a duration of several years. Once injected into its orbit would require no fuel except for small corrections.

Specific response to your question - the cheapest one-off is a small, staged rocket that pushes itself just over the boundary into the Moon's sphere of influence and then gradually arrives however many years later. If you specify that it needs to be verifiable, you attach a proximity-fuzed grenade that scatters a cloud of retroreflective material onto the surface, which you can identify using a laser. That frees you from the need for guidance or deceleration to prevent a catastrophic impact. You do need to give it enough of a trajectory that assures it arrives on the light side of the moon, however. Time limits are handled by increasing fuel load.

<comment><USER6> Wow, thanks for the awesome response. To narrow it down a bit, I was wondering about the feasibility of launch this type of thing out of basically "my backyard". So something like a launch loop would be out of the question, and so would mining asteroids. Basically, can someone outside of NASA or SpaceX land an object on the moon that takes, say less than 5-10 years to arrive. Does it take $10k, $100k, $1m, $100m, etc.? Just idle wondering.

The thing I was thinking about at the same time was my college professor's electromagnets. They would run on the order of 9 Tesla and he claimed could launch a bolt at greater than escape velocity straight up. Those cost I think on the order of $10k plus his expertise (he manufactured them himself).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What does that even mean, "escape the influence of Earth's gravity"? Even the sun is under the influence of Earth's gravity.

</comment><comment><USER9> No, there were previous objects that escaped earth's gravity (for example, there are rocks from Mars on Earth, and the opposite is also likely).

<comment><USER10> HN has an edited title. The original one at the Smithsonian qualifies it as "First Man-made Objects".</comment></comment>


Writing Programs Using Regular Language - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/writing-programs-using-ordinary-language-0711.html

<comment><USER2> The headline is rather sensationalist, but the lead corrects this with "for a few specific tasks." Interesting effort - even simple regexes can be surprisingly useful, but their syntax has a steep learning curve.

(I seem to remember "You can program _our_ computers using English," English(TM) being a COBOL variant ;))</comment>


Visualizing Social Media Fatigue: A Graph of All the Social Networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visualizing_social_media_fatigue.php

<comment><USER2> Fellow YCers, SERIOUSLY.

Take a look at this graph: <http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/online-info- flow.jpg>

And come up with a way to optimize that.

Now THAT'S a startup.

What do you think?

<comment><USER3> I've figured it out. Most of those things will fall by the wayside anyway as people realize that they offer no tangible advantage in life and take up a lot of time.

If you can get me peeps to build it, I can even get the money for it.</comment></comment>


Show HN: CardForm – Build Websites Using Trello as Your CMS - <AUTHOR> http://cardform.co <comment><USER2> PERMANENT ERROR GENERATING SITE.

There was a problem generating your site that cannot be corrected. Please delete and recreate.

<comment><USER2> Ok, it is working on the second try.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - for some reason Trello wouldn't let us create a Board the first time. We're looking into why it happened.</comment></comment></comment>


Open-source silver lining in Microsoft's wedding vow to Yahoo? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9862772-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

<comment><USER2> "I suspect that it would give Microsoft a convenient excuse to reverse course on its open-source antipathy and _embrace_ it"

We all know what the 2 other E's are...

</comment><comment><USER3> in my opinion - if Yahoo accepts; all of the open source projects under its under wing are in danger; I'm already thinking of how to get out of yui...

<comment><USER4> I hope Pig ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=108224> ) escapes too. It looks very promising.</comment></comment>


Stripe to donate $1M to California Yimby - <AUTHOR> https://nytimes.com/2018/05/03/us/california-today-stripe-yimby-housing.html <comment><USER2> Stripe cofounder here.

This is an issue that I know a lot of HN readers care about and I'd encourage anyone interested to get involved. (Feel free to reach out to CA YIMBY, your local representatives, or any of the other organizations doing good work in the field.)

Bad housing policy is one of the biggest impediments to overall economic growth[1] and to individual economic opportunity[2][3] in the US. Our current restrictive policies disproportionately hurt poorer, younger, and (frequently) non-white[4] people. I really hope we can change them.

[1] [https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang- tai.hsieh/research/gr...](https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang- tai.hsieh/research/growth.pdf)

[2] [https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83656/...](https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83656/2000907-strategies- for-increasing-housing-supply-in-high-cost-cities-dc-case-study_1.pdf)

[3] From the Obama administration: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government- Segreg...](https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government- Segregated/dp/1631492853)

<comment><USER3> _> Our current restrictive policies disproportionately hurt poorer, younger, and (frequently) non-white[4] people._

There is massive opposition within the poorer, non-white bay area community to the political group that Stripe is funding here. CA YIMBY [EDIT: correction, should read YIMBY Action] literally shouted down minority activists who were opposed to a housing bill at a recent protest. The LA Times just published a good overview of this issue yesterday. The title: "A major California housing bill failed after opposition from the low-income residents it aimed to help. Here's how it went wrong"[1]

Money quote: "'The YIMBY movement has a white privilege problem,' said Anya Lawler, a lobbyist with the Western Center on Law & Poverty, a legal advocacy group and adversary of SB 827. 'I don't think they recognize it. They don't understand poverty. They don't understand what that's like, who our clients really are and what their lived experience is.'"

Concessions to protect low-income residents were added to the failed bill only _after_ substantial protest from the community. Let's hope next time around, instead of just claiming to act on behalf on poorer and non-white people, they actually try listening to them.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill- failu...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure- equity-groups-20180502-story.html)

<comment><USER2> > _There is massive opposition within the poorer, non-white bay area community > to the political group that Stripe is funding here. CA YIMBY literally > shouted down minority activists who were opposed to a housing bill at a > recent protest._

While no group is homogeneous in beliefs, polling very clearly shows that minority groups strongly support increased housing construction. (As does an overall majority of Californians.) On the micro level, groups like The 200 (community leaders of color) and experts like Richard Rothstein (author of Color of Law) have endorsed CA YIMBY's pro-housing policy work. See more at [https://cayimby.org/endorsement/fair-housing- advocates/](https://cayimby.org/endorsement/fair-housing-advocates/).

CA YIMBY was not involved in the protest you mention. I think you're confusing them with other groups.

<comment><USER3> I believe you are misrepresenting that letter when you say it "endorsed CA YIMBY's work." To quote it,

"We note that some affordable housing and tenants' rights organizations have expressed concerns over SB 827. Recent amendments designed to safeguard local inclusionary zoning ordinances, protect local residents from displacement through a statutory 'right to remain' guarantee, and prohibit demolition of rent-controlled housing, which we applaud, helps to address some of these concerns."

None of these amendments would have happened without protest from low-income and minority housing advocates against CA YIMBY's work. The letter "applauds" these changes and even supports "additional legislation to expand inclusionary zoning." It merely concludes that "the perfect must not be the enemy of the good" and recommends a compromise.

This is far from an endorsement of CA YIMBY's work. In fact it reads as an endorsement of the opposition and resulting amendments.

 _> While no group is homogeneous in beliefs, polling very clearly shows that minority groups strongly support increased housing construction._

The minority groups who opposed SB 827 _support_ increased housing construction -- just with better protections against displacement than what CA YIMBY has been pushing. To suggest otherwise is a false dichotomy.

Thank you for the correction on which YIMBY group shouted down the minority housing activists.

<comment><USER4> > The minority groups who opposed SB 827 support increased housing > construction -- just with better protections against displacement than what > CA YIMBY has been pushing. To suggest otherwise is a false dichotomy.

No, they don't. Organizations like SFTU do not support construction of any market-rate housing.

<comment><USER3> You conflated housing construction with market-rate housing. And it's not true. SFTU simply notes that for every market rate unit you need 0.25 BMR units simply to accommodate the resulting job creation (retail, restaurant, public service, etc.) That's just to keep things where they are, which is already a huge staffing crisis for the service industry in SF. More like 0.5 BMR to make an appreciable impact.[1]

This is something we all should care about if we're not just here to make a quick buck. Long term we need teachers and cooks and waiters and artists to keep SF a desirable place to live.

As PG himself said, "These independent restaurants and cafes are not just feeding people. They're making there be a there here."[2]

[1] [https://www.sftu.org/2018/04/market-rate-housing-makes- crisi...](https://www.sftu.org/2018/04/market-rate-housing-makes-crisis- worse/)

[2] [http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html)

<comment><USER4> No economist agrees with Tim Redmond, who is a millionaire homeowner on the westside who unfortunately is very good at couching his own financial and personal interests in the veneer of progressive language in order to co-opt groups like SFTU into working against their constituents' long-term self- interest.

High-end condos don't generate jobs. They provide housing for the jobs that are already here and the new ones that are being created every day.

Raising the inclusionary zoning percentage to 50% will simply make it financially infeasible to construct housing. The City's own study confirms this. Tim knows this too, and that is why he advocates for it.

<comment><USER3> _> High-end condos don't generate jobs. They provide housing for the jobs that are already here and the new ones that are being created every day._

You completely missed the point. You are simply not taking into account the service industry jobs that arise to serve the new "high-end condo" residents. Baristas and teachers need BMR housing.

 _> a millionaire... who unfortunately is very good at couching his own financial and personal interests in the veneer of progressive language in order to co-opt groups... into working against their constituents' long-term self-interest._

Exactly the same criticism could be made of tech-millionare-backed, largely white YIMBY groups. The difference is minority and low-income housing activists are broadly opposed to YIMBY policies. Your only explanation is that they are victims of a rich white puppetmaster.

You should try listening to them better. You completely misrepresented their position earlier; even those that supported the passage of SB 827 did so after substantial amendments that arose from protesting the YIMBY-backed original bill.

<comment><USER4> > You completely missed the point. You are simply not taking into account the > service industry jobs that arise to serve the new "high-end condo" > residents. Baristas and teachers need BMR housing.

Tim's article is yet another misuse of the Residential Nexus Analysis. For more info as to how that paper is abused:

[https://blog.yonathan.org/posts/2017-04-stop-quoting-the- res...](https://blog.yonathan.org/posts/2017-04-stop-quoting-the-residential- nexus-analysis.html)

[https://www.nahb.org/en/research/nahb-priorities/zoning- and-...](https://www.nahb.org/en/research/nahb-priorities/zoning-and-land- use/~/media/Sites/NAHB/SupportingFiles/3/CAI/CAIZOrdinances_20120403125519.ashx?la=en&hash=08EC715574C4736190A27238D7830E0153C49D3D) (an academic analysis)

Key point: "The Residential Nexus Analysis gets around all this by assuming that a new development of 100 units does not compete against existing housing but somehow attracts new residents who would not otherwise have looked for existing housing. At the same time, it assumes that the new housing units receive their price from the market. A more reasonable model would make the cost of housing endogenous by considering the new development a part of San Francisco's housing stock which is desirable by existing residents."

In fact, I'm a walking example of this. I'm moving out of a rent controlled apartment in SF into a new condo in SF, freeing up my old relatively- affordable unit. If NIMBYs had their way, then I'd continue to be living there instead of someone who really needs that studio apartment.

Again: There is _no debate_ among economists about whether California needs to build more market rate housing. The only debates are in the political sphere. This is an open and shut case.

> Exactly the same criticism could be made of tech-millionare-backed, largely > white YIMBY groups.

YIMBY groups are diverse and reflect the diversity of the Bay Area, with LGBT especially well-represented. Their opponents like to erase representation of minorities to score political points, which is extremely disrespectful. For example, Gay Shame claims that you can't be "queer" unless you agree with their anti-development politics, which is at best bullying and at worst homophobic.

Notice I wasn't referring to anyone other than Tim Redmond. I'm well aware that NIMBY groups are also diverse.

> The difference is minority and low-income housing activists are broadly > opposed to YIMBY policies. Your only explanation is that they are victims of > a rich white puppetmaster.

 _Some_ minority and low-income housing activists are opposed to development. Others, such as nonprofit developers, supported SB 827.

It is not a controversial statement among anyone other than Bay Area activists that the lines cross against development in a bizarre way unique to San Francisco. It is not a controversial statement among economists that artificially restricting the supply of housing hurts the most vulnerable. From listening to SF "progressives" talk, you'd think that economists weren't _completely united in opposition to rent control_ , which, of course, they are (and I'm not opposed to smart rent control, by the way).

> You should try listening to them better.

I have listened. I understand the concerns about gentrification and displacement. That doesn't change the fact that tenants' activists are wrong about what causes it.

<comment><USER3> Your arguments are extremely disingenuous. You know that rent-controlled units reset to market when vacated. A barista or a teacher is not going to move into your studio. It's probably going to go to another tech worker.

You dismiss Tim Redmond's analysis based on his vested "millionaire" homeowner interest. Yet you cite an "academic" analysis paid for by the California Homebuilding Foundation. Completely hypocritical.

You attempt to paint the YIMBY groups as diverse and representative of low- income minority groups by citing only their LGBT representation. This blatantly disregards Latinx, AA and other minority groups that are disproportionately affected by the housing crisis.

You mischaracterize BMR as "rent control," then simplistically argue against that straw man. But economists do in fact argue that SF affordable housing developer fees can "improve housing affordability for low- and middle-income households, despite some loss of market-rate housing construction" because "prices are less important than land use controls in explaining whether a parcel will develop new housing."[1] And even economists who argue against the downsides of rent control recognize it has "benefits" and argue for other forms of government "protection against rent increases."[2]

[1] [http://sfcontroller.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docum...](http://sfcontroller.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/7131-151274_economic_impact_final.pdf)

[2] [https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/rent-controls- winners-...](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/rent-controls-winners- losers)

<comment><USER4> > You know that rent-controlled units reset to market when vacated. A barista > or a teacher is not going to move into your studio. It's probably going to > go to another tech worker.

It's sure a lot more affordable than the "luxury condos" everyone complains about. And, besides, the reason why it's likely to go to another tech worker is _that there isn 't enough housing_. If the city were to cap the rent at $1,000 (post-Costa-Hawkins-repeal), then the units would _still_ go to tech workers, because if there are many applicants landlords will nearly always rent to the richest.

> You dismiss Tim Redmond's analysis based on his vested "millionaire" > homeowner interest. Yet you cite an "academic" analysis paid for by the > California Homebuilding Foundation. Completely hypocritical.

I dismiss Tim Redmond's "analysis" because _it 's wrong_ and is based on talking points that have been debunked, as I explained. Tim has a history of making specious arguments, always in favor of NIMBYism. For example, Tim made a ludicrous claim a while back that most "luxury condos" are vacant, based on classifying of any listing of a homeowner with a different address as "vacant" (which excludes all rentals!)

The paper I described _is_ academic, because it's written by an academic. Tim is not one.

> You attempt to paint the YIMBY groups as diverse and representative of low- > income minority groups by citing only their LGBT representation.

Because it would be weird to namedrop people I don't know well in order to win an an argument on a message board that YIMBY groups are diverse. You are welcome to do your own research to confirm that there are plenty of ethnic minorities in YIMBY groups.

> You mischaracterize BMR as "rent control,"

I never said BMR/inclusionary zoning is rent control. Nor do I disagree with rent control, if implemented properly (see below)!

The problem with high inclusionary zoning percentages is that if they become too high developers won't construct housing at all. Developments have to pencil out, unless we fund them at public expense. (I want to do that as well, but that will be very hard in the current political environment, so in the meantime we have to pursue realistic policies.) Exclusionary suburbs know this—they create unrealistically high IZ requirements in order to prevent new housing from being built.

> And even economists who argue against the downsides of rent control > recognize it has "benefits" and argue for other forms of government > "protection against rent increases."

It's simply a fact that economists disagree with rent control. [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup- rent-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control- does-more-harm-than-good)

Government protection against rent increases is a good idea, as long as it's means-tested—tech workers like me shouldn't stand to benefit from it. For example, a progressive tax credit, as suggested in that paper, would be a great idea that would protect vulnerable renters.

<comment><USER3> _> And, besides, the reason why [my studio is] likely to go to another tech worker is that there isn't enough housing._

Thank you for conceding that your studio is going to go to another tech worker. There goes the (non-academic) argument you just presented against Residential Nexus Analysis. The point stands that baristas and teachers need BMR housing.

 _> Because it would be weird to namedrop people I don't know well in order to win an an argument on a message board that YIMBY groups are diverse. You are welcome to do your own research to confirm that there are plenty of ethnic minorities in YIMBY groups._

You clearly lost this argument. You were going to "namedrop" some minorities? YIMBY groups are overwhelmingly white. An attendee of the first national YIMBY conference in Boulder noted "it's wealthy and tremendously (88 percent) white; and YIMBY's racial demographics reflected that."[1] YIMBY activists shouted down minority speakers at a recent protest. YIMBY "has a white privilege problem,"[2] and your comments only serve to reinforce that.

[1] [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/yes-in-my- backya...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/yes-in-my-backyard/)

[2] Anya Lawler, Western Center on Law & Poverty quoted in [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill- failu...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure- equity-groups-20180502-story.html)

<comment><USER4> > Thank you for conceding that your studio is going to go to another tech > worker. There goes the (non-academic) argument you just presented against > Residential Nexus Analysis. The point stands that baristas and teachers need > BMR housing.

What I said is true in the aggregate. You're trying to argue that, because my one unit won't solve the housing crisis, we shouldn't build anything at all. That's silly. If we build enough market-rate housing, then eventually tech workers won't have to look downmarket. That will free up the lower end for others and lower rents to affordable levels. There aren't infinite tech workers.

The problem is that tech workers are competing for lower-end units at all. We will only solve that one unit at a time, by building a lot more housing at _all_ levels.

Do you _want_ tech workers like you and me to be taking up rent controlled studios?

> YIMBY activists shouted down minority speakers at a recent protest.

Sonja and Laura shouldn't have apologized for that, because they didn't "shout them down". They were simply chanting "read the bill". That is important, because the bill allows more construction of BMR housing. Since we agree BMR housing is important, telling protestors to read the bill is perfectly reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> California and the Bay Area is so screwed. The Powers-that-be looked at SB827 like it was the work of lunatics, and did not engage in any of the significant concessions that were made. The bill was completely impotent at the end ... local demolition control + 4-5 story buildings. It drew no interest nor alternative proposals to actually help solve the housing crisis.

So yeah we're going to end up with middle class social housing lotteries, 1.5 hour commutes and crazy inflation of basic service costs ($3k/month child care, anyone?).

Every neighborhood can't be a wealthy enclave of SFH. There is literally no where to live in the central Bay Area on teachers salary much less a Social Security Disability paycheck. The homelessness epidemic will grow.

It's a rentier economy of land owners and the rent-controlled incumbents. How "Progressive".

<comment><USER6> Prop 13 to me seems to be at the root of all these problems.

I'm almost finished with Picketty's Capital in the 21st Century, and Prop 13 seems to be a godsend for rentiers seeking the inequality of 1900-1910.

Overturning Prop 13 isn't realistic since voters are selfish. Prop 13 has GOT to be the biggest reason behind NIMBY-ism. If the little old lady in the 3 bedroom $2M house had to pay $20K a year in taxes, she'd have sold a long time ago. But because of Prop 13, her taxes are likely less than $1K a year.

But the sick thing about Prop 13 is that it applies to landlords. You know why LA is filled with all these single-story rental properties from the 70s in prime locations? Because the taxes hardly budge, so they're paying about $1 per year per square foot in taxes. Even if they sold for the huge premium, it'd be impossible to re-invest that money into something with a higher rate of return.

It also applies to businesses. It's why you see a lot of car washes making < $1M/year sitting on land worth $20M.

We could potentially modify Prop 13 to eliminate the benefits for rental properties and have the benefits only apply to the first $1M of real estate. That'd only affect the top 5%, and only marginally.

But it could eliminate a lot of NIMBYism, I think.

<comment><USER7> This. Prop. 13 created incentives to never move out, and thus killed dynamism in CA. Young people need homes near work. Older people need cheaper homes and can be further from city centers.

Homesteading tax breaks are one thing, but applying them to all property is absolutely insane. This is easily the worst thing about it, and it has to go.

As to homesteading, even for homesteading the property taxes need to be able to go up with housing inflation somewhat at least.

It would be quite different if it was only the actual percentage tax rate that was limited in growth. I'd want that for income taxes too.

A brake on one kind of tax will spill into another kind. Thus, e.g., in TX property taxes function as an income tax via the Robin Hood school funding plan. It would be better to have a proper income tax, but no one will vote for such a thing without a hard constitutional brake on rates.

<comment><USER8> > Older people need cheaper homes

Why do older people need cheaper homes? Older people have paid off their mortgages and have 100% equity.

<comment><USER9> Property taxes and home repairs on fixed incomes.

<comment><USER10> Older people are on average on fixed incomes, sure. They're also on average the wealthiest age demographic in the US.

<comment><USER9> > They're also on average the wealthiest age demographic in the US.

That's true, but it's a bit misleading IMO. Older folks might have accrued more wealth than younger demographics, but they're not really adding to it each year.

For example, the 65-69 age range has a median net worth of ~$194k[0]. However, somebody in that age range is likely retired and will be living off of that $194k for the remainder of their life. Conversely, somebody under 35 might only have a net worth of $6.6k but will likely be bringing in ~$4,000 each month. Were an individual in the 65-69 age range to withdraw $4,000 per month, they'd be out of money in 4 years. Realistically, most might withdraw around $2,000 per month (before or after Social Security). That's where my parents are at. They really have much less to spend even though they have a lot saved up.

If you take into consideration home equity, it's more apparent why property taxes and such are a big deal to older folks: upwards of 80% of their assets are in their house[1].

[0]: [http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-net- worth-o...](http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-net-worth-of- americans-at-every-age-2017-6) [1]: [https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/593580d679474c17018b6...](https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/593580d679474c17018b6a04-640-343.png)

<comment><USER7> Great explanation.

Retirement starts to get scary when your parents are thinking about it. You start asking them just how much they have saved, and you start thinking about how much more income you'll need if you end up having to supplement theirs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Best thing a tech company can do to solve CA housing crisis is let workers who desire to do so work remotely from other states without taking a pay cut (beyond actual reduction in productivity, if any). Market forces will take care of the rest.

The effect will be many-fold:

\- Increase in employee satisfaction and quality of life. Those who leave will have a much lower cost of living and can enjoy the extra money. Those who stay here will be here because it's worth the money to them.

\- Lower real estate costs for employer.

\- Reduction in employment and resulting housing demand in California.

\- Increase in tech populations in other areas leading to networking effects and economies of scale, making them more attractive to work at, further reducing housing demand in CA.

\- Better distribution of tech talent and benefits in the country, reducing anti-tech resentment and political backlash.

\- Loss of (tens of?) thousands of dollars in income and sales tax revenue for CA, per employee, imposing a real fiscal cost for not implementing housing supply friendly policies, and creating proper political incentives.

\- Loss of demand for local businesses and services, leading to a negative feedback loop to reduce local opposition to increasing housing supply.

\- Opportunities for tech and other businesses that embrace and help facilitate remote work.

\- Tech companies being closer to average people, aware and solving their real world problems instead of SF techies' scooter and/or food delivery needs.

Stuffing more employees into the Bay Area and throwing a few bucks to YIMBY is not a serious solution, it's a fig leaf.

<comment><USER12> In this day and age, it is beyond my comprehension why anyone would choose waste a major part of their day in long commutes, pay extortionate amounts to rent and be bound to a single location. Most coders are way more productive away from the usual hassle of office space and politics.

<comment><USER13> If your company believes you can telecommute, it's not a small step for them to eventually believe that you can be outsourced more inexpensively.

<comment><USER14> If being able to work for any company remotely means I have to compete with the whole world, I'm ok with it.

<comment><USER13> Would you be willing to compete wage wise? It's completely possible to find programmers that speak English for single digit hourly wages.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't be competing with the single digit programmers, but yes. Geography still matters for remote employees (due to time zones and the need for an occasional face time) as does the level of English and obviously the level of experience. The pool of people that fit that description isn't so large that I would have to work for minimum wage from the comfort of my mountain cabin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Housing a persistent issue that comes up a lot on HN. It seems to me that as tech-workers, we feel the guilt associated with economic pressure adversely affecting the civic-environment we coexist in but strangely feel that it is inappropriate (inconvenient?) to take part in the political machinery that addresses these tragedy-of-the-commons-type problems.

Perhaps there is a collective disillusion with how slow building civic- consensus is (i.e. too much bureaucracy). For those who may feel this way, I strongly encourage your support of political action groups like YIMBY. They provide a low-cost way for you to associate yourself with a group of people focused on trying to fix NIMBY forces within the housing market.

<comment><USER16> Also make sure to reward politicians who support Yimbi and other pro-housing policies. For example London Breed and Jeff Sheehy are both endorsed by Yimbi. If housing is important to you, make sure to take these endorsements into account in the upcoming election.

<comment><USER17> I wish SF had a better mayoral candidate. I feel like I'm stuck choosing between sane housing policy (Breed) or sane bike/transit policy (Kim). And I'm sure there are plenty of other dimensions where they're both bad.

<comment><USER16> In my opinion housing comes first. Breed's bike policy seemed reasonable but maybe I missed something?

The most critical transit issues are at the scale of the Bay area, and the SF mayor doesn't have the authority or budgets to solve them alone. That will require strong action at the state level, or the emergence of a new layer of government with the mandate and budgets to bypass the petty squabbles of cities and impose a sane bay area transit infrastructure development roadmap. One can dream...

<comment><USER18> >That will require strong action at the state level, or the emergence of a new layer of government with the mandate and budgets to bypass the petty squabbles of cities and impose a sane bay area transit infrastructure development roadmap. One can dream...

Controlling what people can and can't build on their property at the city level was created to prevent the same problems that exist on the city level back when they were on the neighborhood level.

I don't see state or county level zoning as anything more than recursion that will just keep bringing the problem to a different level without solving it.

The fundamental issue is that people are not allowed to or the regulations make it economically impossible to build housing at high density.

I don't think adding another layer of bureaucracy will make it easier to build the necessary density of housing.

<comment><USER16> I'm not talking about housing or zoning (although in some cases state intervention can be useful there too, for different reasons), I'm talking about transit. The bay area mass transit infrastructure is a joke, it is nowhere near the level required to support its growth in population and economic activity. We need more intercity mass transit, and bay area cities have a clear track record of being incapable of building them through collaboration. They need an authority above them to make the calls and provide the funds. That is how other successful urban mega-hubs do it: Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Investing in better public transportation is important too so that people can live further away from the city and commute in a reasonable time.

[http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/14/bay-area- cities-...](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/14/bay-area-cities- outrank-l-a-on-list-of-longest-commutes-in-u-s/)

<comment><USER20> better public transportation would only alleviate the problem if it goes to places where additional supply gets built. otherwise it will just drive up prices in the places to which it adds accessibility. imagine a teleporter in stockton that goes anywhere in the bay. unless stockton allows additional housing near the teleporter, it will just become even more expensive than san francisco.

<comment><USER19> Who said anything about teleporters?

Edit: My point is that a train is not a teleporter. A train spreads population density over a larger area, with multiple stops and takes more time to move people than an imaginary sci-fi device. The comparison is not fair and pointless. Why not just talk about how trains would work instead of using an imprecise analogy.

<comment><USER21> A teleporter is the spherical cow of transportation - it allows for simplified thought experiments.

Replace with "a bus line to"/"a train to", the outcome is the same. Unless places with connection to the public transportation system build more housing, prices there will just be driven up as well. (Housing shortage in the Bay is _that_ bad)

<comment><USER19> My point is that a train is not a teleporter. A train spreads population density over a larger area, with multiple stops and takes more time to move people than an imaginary sci-fi device. The comparison is not fair and pointless. Why not just talk about how trains would work instead of using an imprecise analogy.

<comment><USER22> Not sure what is left to explain.

In the ways that a system of teleporters/portals is different from a system of train stations, the former are entirely superior to the latter; if the former can't solve a problem neither can the latter. The idea is: no transportation solution (even a perfect, immediate one) provides a supply of anything; it can only connect a market with a demand to a market with a supply.

You would need to argue that on the other side of a hypothetical transportation investment that there is a supply, or that it's easier to create a supply in those market(s).

<comment><USER19> "the former are entirely superior to the latter" and that trains have more downside than teleportation is exactly why Stockton wouldn't become as expensive as SF and the analogy is bad in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm all for YIMBYism, but it's framed in a couple ways that I often disagree with.

First, I actually doubt that loosening zoning restrictions to allow multi apartment dwellings will harm owners of SFR properties. It'll change the neighborhood, and may lower housing costs per square foot of living space. I personally thing that it it's done properly, SF will be a more interesting place (outside of SF, I've lived in NY and Paris, and the denser places were nicer and more interesting _to me_ ).

The other thing is... well, NY (Manhattan) and Paris (left bank) are also the only places I've lived that are more expensive than SF. And the higher density neighborhoods in SF are among the most expensive per square foot.

I think a YIMBY SF could well turn out to be more interesting, more livable, and, more expensive. More density might just amplify network effects and create even more economic activity.

This is why I do think that for affordable housing, we really do need a first class light rail and subway, like Paris and New York (and a few others). Just building density isn't going to do it.

<comment><USER24> Density is a response to high housing prices, not a cause.

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure I agree. I think that density can lead to more desirable urban neighborhoods, which in turn attract higher income workers. Also, network effects can be dramatic. A higher concentration of knowledge workers can end up generating a higher level of economic activity, and knowledge workers can increase their economic output by living in close proximity to each other. A larger concentration of high income workers can absolutely fuel higher housing prices. This is why I'm not sure that higher density will lower housing prices in SF in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This makes sense for companies to back: how many billions of their investors dollars just go straight to rent?

<comment><USER26> But once those dollars are given to the employees, why does it matter where they end up? Why would a company care if it goes to a mortgage or rent?

<comment><USER27> Employers might care about the fact it's taking longer and longer to get employees to work, which is directly cutting into productive time and adding costs to their employee commute programs (extra shuttle miles, extra trips, etc). You know, on top of the terrible hit to quality of life and general morale that longer commutes generate.

High rent prices have priced out even relatively highly paid professionals in cities like Palo Alto and Mountain View where many of these companies are headquartered. That's a tremendous red flag about just how broken the state of housing is in the Bay Area - if the highly paid tech employees can't live there, neither can anyone earning less than them (read: pretty much everyone else). How is that building a sustainable local community and economy?

<comment><USER28> Paying $4000 a month on a one bedroom apt, means throwing 48k away a year. Tax is about 35% so your take home income from 150k senior salary is ~50k. That's not a lot of money for "all other expenses".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you are in California I would suggest you look up Michael Schellenberger. He is a democrat running for office and pro Nuclear.

Here is a good interview with him where he lays out some of his opinions on amongst other things the problem with NIMBY.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7DIv3AU1o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7DIv3AU1o)

</comment><comment><USER30> More and more young people come to CA to start their careers, but then take the experience (and ability to command high salaries) and move to a cheaper state. We're eroding our talent pool with the crazy high cost of living. The area will just become full of transient college grads.

</comment><comment><USER31> Simple summary of YIMBY and NIMBY platforms:

YIMBY: Build more housing and higher density in desirable places (places next to transit, places close to work). This will raise rents in areas that are more desirable (to market rates) and lower rents overall as there is more supply in the city. This will also deplete supply of rent-controlled buildings as it becomes profitable to demolish old buildings.

NIMBY: Preserve the right of people already living in a neighborhood to continue living there. Obviously as a "desirable" area gets more residents and buildings, it will displace some existing residents. Keep in mind this doesn't specifically mean poor people (it is not a requirement to be poor to get rent control), but inevitably some of those residents will not be wealthy enough to continue staying in the same area due to simply market dynamics. They most likely will have to move to a slightly less desirable area. But since more housing is built, they most likely will not have to move that far. While new developments will cater to the higher income people, older housing will be vacated for lower income people.

The problem is without letting the market build housing where it makes senses (economically), which is in desirable areas, housing doesn't get built at all. Overall this hurts the whole economy as it increases average housing prices everywhere (while lowering average housing prices in desirable places), and makes it hard for people that weren't lucky enough to be in an area to have affordable housing.

<comment><USER32> > YIMBY: Build more housing and higher density in desirable places (places > next to transit, places close to work). This will raise rents in areas that > are more desirable (to market rates) and lower rents overall as there is > more supply in the city.

Not entirely true. New units would cause rents to rise if rent has been kept artificially low by rent control, but for the last 23 years a California law has prevented vacant units from being rent controlled: Even rent-controlled units are market rate if you are trying to move to a new home. [https://la.curbed.com/2018/1/12/16883276/rent-control- califo...](https://la.curbed.com/2018/1/12/16883276/rent-control-california- costa-hawkins-explained)

But building higher density is inherently how you get lower rents when land is restricted. [http://marketurbanism.com/2018/02/05/density-working-poor- ou...](http://marketurbanism.com/2018/02/05/density-working-poor-outbid-rich- urban-land/)

<comment><USER31> Yes YIMBYism will cause rents in certain places with artificially suppressed rent to rise, but otherwise generally reduce rents. In SF there's a lot of resistance since this would also cause landlords to tear down and rebuild otherwise rent-controlled units.

> Even rent-controlled units are market rate if you are trying to move to a > new home.

And this is one of the primary holes in how "rent control" helps the poor. It just helps a lucky few (for no specific good reason).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There's also [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180503005513/en/Str...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180503005513/en/Stripe-1-Million- Contribution-California-YIMBY-Support) (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988367)), which contains a bit more info, albeit in a press release.

</comment><comment><USER34> Feels inappropriate for a payments processor to wade into general political fights. Stripe is becoming the backbone for payments processing and should strive to stay above politics.

<comment><USER35> It's unfortunate people are just gonna gloss over this comment because today it's a company supporting a commonly held belief on HN. Tomorrow when it's a company supporting something HN hates we'll be back on the "lobbying sucks, corporations aren't people and don't get 1st amendment rights" etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What are peoples longterm views on the viability of just expanding housing? The view currently seems to be that prices are so high, so if we enable _x_ more housing units to be built, prices could come down. This might be true, but in the longrun housing prices are high because it's a desirable area to live in and they'll inextricably skyrocket back on up as those _x_ become entrenched and now a new _2x_ want in.

Take Hong Kong as the extreme example of this issue. It's currently the 4th most densely populated area in the world with 7.4 million people spread around 427 square miles. But that density didn't solve anything as its economic desirability remains high and it is also one of the most expensive areas in the world. The same was true of Tokyo decades ago when Japan was the effective technological leader of the world - the main reason housing is _somewhat_ affordable there now is because they've gone through decades of recession and decline.

Anyhow, I'm not sure if I'm missing something here because I think this issue is fairly self evident, but seems rarely discussed.

<comment><USER32> Expanding housing causing expanding demand is not rarely discussed. It is implicit to a lot of NIMBYism here.

The issue is to be always responsive to needs. Every place that has become unaffordable, started as a place that was affordable but then stopped building. Hong Kong is the 4th most densely populated area? Then it has room to grow. Hong Kong used to build lots of public housing for the growing population, but I heard that they stopped.

Tokyo is an interesting example. Despite the recession, it is growing, not shrinking. It's expensive, but a detached single-family home in Tokyo is cheaper than an apartment in San Francisco. I hear that average apartment size, indicating how much space people can afford, is actually going up. We think it's because zoning law is national in Japan, and also it legalizes mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, compared to the HOA-level car-is-supreme laws in the United States. [http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese- zoning.html](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html)

If the idea is that you have to plan to be ahead of demand, then the history of California is that the plan is too timid and unenforceable. [https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california- citi...](https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-cities- failed-to-meet-state-housing-goals- and/article_a609ae5e-09d7-11e8-a94e-3b67baeaae8b.html)

<comment><USER36> I'm not so sure there. There seems to be an almost certainly causal relationship between the cost of living in an area and the economic potential in that area. When people come to an area because there is potential to make lots of money, the cost of living is going to inevitably skyrocket. This is absolutely the Bay Area in a nutshell.

Recession is not about population growth, but economic growth. The reason Japan became a [relatively] affordable place to live is because its economy has been doing very poorly for decades now. To take things to an extreme, Cairo is growing incredibly rapidly and has a huge density yet the cost of living is negligible, and that's because the economic potential there is quite awful. By contrast Hong Kong is still booming and so costs will continue to increase. When economies do well you get economic migrants, in the sense that people move to a place because it's economically desirable. And this is the bay area in a nutshell.

Let's imagine in some crazy world that the Bay Area makes it possible to regularly find housing for let's say $1500/month. $1500 month with the regular availability of 6 figure salaries for development means you're going to get pretty much every developer in tech looking for a job moving there either until the price of housing starts becoming unaffordable, or the city is no longer economically desirable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> California is already is the state with the largest population by a long way. Sure you could squeeze a few more million into the bay area but SF has geographic restrictions, esp with water. Surely it would be smarter to encourage more tech firms to move to places where there is more space, like Denver, Chicago, Austin. Basically anywhere off the coasts. Just give on on SF already.

<comment><USER25> The city of Tokyo added more housing than the _entire state_ of California in 2014: [https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco- housing-...](https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing- costs-tokyo)

Also, no, California really isn't that crowded. Italy has something like 30% more people on less land, and still manages to be a massive tourist destination because it is amazingly wonderful and beautiful, from the mountains to the cities to the seashores.

<comment><USER38> And Tokyo is in a huge water crisis and could very soon run out of fresh drinking water for all of their citizens. California, with substantially fewer people moving in, is _already_ in a water shortage. Do you think they can support Toyko-style housing numbers?

I say this as someone who lives in the one of the states that West Coast politicians want to steal the water from. Instead of shipping our water across the country to feed the desert, you can... you know... just _move here_. So the water is fed back where it came from.

<comment><USER39> I live in a suburb of LA and roughly 70% of my yearly water consumption goes to irrigation. Another 5% goes to the pool. You could rip all that out, quadruple the density, and get the same water usage.

<comment><USER37> Sure but this is a great example of why you'd want to push back against increasing density. Surely your life is better with the pool and space. Why encourage growing the population of the city? Its not like there aren't lots of other places in the US to live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Enough money to sway 0.5 a typical SV household.

<comment><USER41> Enough money to sway 0.1 a typical Bay Area native multi home owner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Below comment from nytimes (and linked article/tweet thread) captures the stupidity of the SF politics very well.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

These are the kind of people Square is supporting: racist, ageist developer shills.

[http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-rallies-end-yimbys- shouting...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-rallies-end-yimbys-shouting- protesters-color/)

</comment><comment><USER43> As economic opportunity becomes further concentrated in urban areas this issue will only become more significant. Tech companies have a strong incentive to combat malignant housing policy in cities like SF so that they can continue to attract talent. Stripe is doing a great thing here and I hope other companies follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER44> Startups could further help this issue by hiring remote and/or setting up shops in low cost areas. (I have no clue if Stripe does this already.) The only reason for startups to be in high tax, high cost SFBA is to raise money. Once you hit escape velocity there's no reason to stay.

</comment><comment><USER45> If you believe housing prices are a core problem to the growth of your business why continue to grow in the bay area rather than try and move to a less expensive region of the country?

Massive growth in the SF housing supply is just politically infeasible at this time, a million dollar donation won't change that.

<comment><USER46> > less expensive region of the country

I don't live in CA, but I get why people want to. Where would you propose? Where else has a strong economy, good universities, nice weather, a well educated/talented work force, legal frameworks amenable to tech, good food, and interesting culture? There just aren't a lot of candidates, and if everyone moves hypothetically and never grapples with NIMBY policy, they'll just bring the problem with them.

<comment><USER47> Nashville, TN, Research Triangle Park in NC, Austin/San Antonio, TX with Tampa/Orlando, FL coming in as runner up as growing tech hubs.

<comment><USER48> This is very HN-centric thinking (rational but not scalable). People move to Silicon Valley to "move to Silicon Valley". They're chasing a dream and they want to be in the thick of it.

Sure you might find a couple good job opportunities in Nashville or Tampa, but its hard to compare that to being in the thick of tech industry where you're right in the middle of the world's top companies, surrounded by lots of talent to push you further.

<comment><USER49> Invest in technologies and processes to make remote work a reality so you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to work there.

<comment><USER50> Agreed. Imagine what might be possible if SV employers were willing to spend $15k per employee annually on making remote teams awesome, as opposed to paying (I'm just guessing) $25k/year in salary and rent to keep them in SV.

I don't know what a real solution would cost, but it's a question worth asking IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> With all due respect to the people who think this is _the_ defining issue of our generation, I think you are wrong. Climate change is the biggest issue of our generation, period.

<comment><USER32> By housing, we really mean land use. We inherited from our grandparents a society built around cars, and restrictive zoning that prevents society from rebuilding away from cars. Just look at the zoning maps, how much of San Francisco is limited to 40 foot height limits (35 foot if you're building a single-family house) and 1 or 2 homes per 2500 square feet parcel. [http://sf- planning.org/zoning-maps](http://sf-planning.org/zoning-maps)

Without enough homes near jobs, and by not allowing homes to be built without dedicating lots of space to parking, we encourage mega-commutes. [https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/8/22/1617782...](https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/8/22/16177820/california-transportation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> @pc: Any consideration to closing your SoMo office (similar to what Automattic did [1]) and migrating towards a fully remote org? That would improve the quality of life of your workers currently required to be near SF by allowing them to relocate to lower cost of living areas, as changing California housing policy and seeing the results in lower housing costs due to denser construction is going to take decades [2].

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/automattic-closes-san- francis...](http://www.businessinsider.com/automattic-closes-san-francisco- office-to-let-everyone-work-remotely-2017-6)

[2] [http://www.sfexaminer.com/solve-affordability-crisis-bay- are...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/solve-affordability-crisis-bay-area-housing- stock-must-grow-50-percent-20-years/)

Disclosure: Worked for a popular and well run fully remote startup for two years.

<comment><USER52> > That would improve the quality of life of your workers currently required to > be near SF by allowing them to relocate to lower cost of living areas

I don't think you can assume that people would consider this to be an improvement in overall quality of life, especially when many (or most?) current employees joined the companies presumably knowing they would work in SF.

I personally enjoy seeing my coworkers in person and I know others on my team have requested more face time with coworkers in other offices.

<comment><USER47> As long as you are comfortable knowing this problem won't be fixed for you, but maybe your kids, that's a fine stance to take.

It's reasonable you spend your money as you choose. It's irrational for a company to pay you more to be in SF when they can pay talent less that chooses to live elsewhere.

<comment><USER53> > It's irrational for a company to pay you more to be in SF when they can pay > talent less that chooses to live elsewhere.

There's almost no way its true that they can get the same talent for less elsewhere. You're arguing that somehow every major tech company is simultaneously irrationally acting against their own very strong profit motives.

<comment><USER54> I don't think many of them have bothered to try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So one thing I always have trouble with on this debate is that it feels totally one-sided. There's smart people on the YIMBY side making the case for building. But then NIMBYs are always portrayed as a caricature of the self- interested rich guy. So I read this article and then I click through to [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill- failu...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure- equity-groups-20180502-story.html) this article and I see lots of poor people opposed SB 827 as well. But even then there isn't really a strong op-ed or anything like that making the case against YIMBY. Where do I go to read that? If you're a YIMBY what's the toughest NIMBY article or argument you've come across?

<comment><USER56> The underlying motivation for NIMBY is that people who own houses want their value to go up, and for their neighborhood to be too expensive for poor people so that their public schools will be well-funded and full of other upwardly mobile kids, and for their streets and parks not to be crowded.

It's a perfectly rational set of motivations. It's the same reason people move to nicer neighborhoods in the first place. With limited development over period of time you get the benefits of living in a more expensive neighborhood, without having paid the premium for it.

These arguments don't play well in public, especially in a socially progressive city like SF, so the rhetoric gets confusing. NIMBY groups sometimes float arguments such as: building more housing will make neighborhoods less affordable.

Some well-meaning progressive people who don't understand supply and demand are fooled by such arguments, and support NIMBY policies too, so it's not just homeowners. In the end, most people don't know what to think, and gravitate to the status-quo (ie, limited development.)

<comment><USER57> This is a pernicious stereotype and mostly wrong. Have you ever actually talked to a NIMBY? The most committed NIMBYs have lived in the same place for decades and have no plans to sell. They don't care much about property values.

What they do care about are traffic, parking, noise, school overcrowding, and other quality of life issues. Some people simply don't like living in densely populated areas. If you want to win over the NIMBYs then you have to address their concerns rather than just demonizing them as greedy property owners.

<comment><USER58> My wife's grandmother is a CA NIMBY. Prop 13 and all.

She just wants things to continue how they are. Paying taxes on her 1970s property value, living in the same place, etc.

I'm pro-YIMBY but I can't say I don't see the NIMBY's point. If you're some average Joe who moved into Cupertino, and now some crazy number of people commute to work through your neighborhood, and you're going to get high-rises everywhere, and the prices of everything around you (groceries, restaurants, gas, etc) will skyrocket, you might not want it.

At bottom I view all of this as a tug-of-war between the whole tech employment system and CA's political environment. Overall I'm pro-YIMBY but you do have to admit the absurdity of trying to cram ever more people into smaller and smaller space when the work is perhaps the easiest to do remotely that there ever was. It all seems sort of silly.

<comment><USER59> LA/OC and SF are global mega-cities full of people who seem to want to live in small towns in the country, yet choose to live in global mega-cities. It's weird.

<comment><USER60> It's not weird. SF wasn't a "global mega city" until _perhaps_ the late 90s (it's honestly pretty debatable that it is one today).

If you purchased property in a quaint, romantic seaside town in 1980, and starting in 2012 the global tech industry decided it wanted to make that small town into New York, why _wouldn 't_ you oppose it? I'm not saying I agree, but the motivation is perfectly rational.

Honestly, the only _irrational_ thing here is the desire of the global tech industry to cram itself in a 50-square mile patch of land on a peninsula in the Pacific ocean when it could go _literally anywhere in the world_.

<comment><USER61> commercial enterprise in SF didn't start in 2012,

GAP global HQ, Levi Strauss global HQ, PG and E HQ, Wells Fargo global HQ, Charles Schwab global HQ, Pottery Barn/Williams Sonoma...

<comment><USER58> The top five US public companies are Apple, Google, facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon. Three of them are HQ'd here. Netflix isn't top-5 by market cap but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets there before long, maybe displacing Microsoft.

You can certainly make that argument but it's on a whole different level now. Apple is earning 60-80 billion in profit _per quarter_. Many of the companies you list don't even have market caps that high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> One of the things that tech companies could have done is to diversify the locations across USA instead of just investing in California. California is subject to earthquakes, potential attack from north korea, insane illegal immigration and overall leftist hippie policies.

It would have been great if all the large tech companies would invest also in Nevada, Oregon, Arizona etc. and give good competition to Calfornia.

I am worried and California's response to housing crisis might end up creating even more worse crisis for us.

</comment><comment><USER63> YIMBYism, that is, additions to housing stock made by private developers, is a false fix. The idea that additional housing stock is needed is correct, but the idea that more and more powerful landlords and developers will create space for vulnerable people is plainly wrong. More luxury condos, buildings rented by foreign investors that never occupy them as a place to park money, and all the problems of the powerful setting the agenda for everyone develops.

Instead, we need public housing, strict regulation, and yes more units built at the behest of the state.

<comment><USER25> Plenty of YIMBYs are fine with "do both!": more market rate housing supply, and more subsidized housing for those who can't afford the former. The more of the former you produce, the more you can concentrate the latter on the truly needy, and not people like teachers, firefighters and so on who have good jobs that are important to society.

<comment><USER64> [https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/03/01/gue...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/03/01/guest- opinion-market-rate-housing-vs-affordable.html)

That is explicitly what's being advocated by Scott Wiener.</comment></comment></comment>


Musk says he plans manned SpaceX mission to Mars in 10 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.stuff.tv/elon-musk-building-james-bonds-amphibious-lotus-real/news

<comment><USER2> With Elon Musk it's blasted hard to say when he's exaggerating and when just discussing his honest plans...</comment>


US and UK Zipcode Boundaries API Is Online - <AUTHOR> https://market.mashape.com/vanitysoft/boundaries-io <comment><USER2> Does the data reflect true geographic boundaries or just USPS boundary definitions?

USPS addresses are based on delivery convenience and may not accurately reflect underlying political boundaries.

For example, in the San Jose area, there are many Los Gatos addresses that are actually in Saratoga (or unincorporated land) and vice-versa. There are even properties with Los Gatos mailing addresses that are actually _outside of Santa Clara County altogether_ (in Santa Cruz).</comment>


Comcast bill changes customer's first name to "A–hole" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/comcast-bill-changes-customers-first-name-to-ahole/

<comment><USER2> Who exactly is "Comcast Bill" and why is he changing someone's name?</comment>


Vulnerability in JSON Parser in Ruby on Rails 3.0 and 2.3 - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rubyonrails-security/1h2DR63ViGo <comment><USER2> If everyone is really going to take the route of "My X Framework is fine b/c nothing's been reported" then I'd like to contribute these links showing vulnerability break downs...

* Rails: [http://www.cvedetails.com/product/22568/Rubyonrails-Ruby-On-...](http://www.cvedetails.com/product/22568/Rubyonrails-Ruby-On-Rails.html?vendor_id=12043)

* Django: [http://www.cvedetails.com/product/18211/Djangoproject-Django...](http://www.cvedetails.com/product/18211/Djangoproject-Django.html?vendor_id=10199)

* CodeIgniter: [http://www.cvedetails.com/product/11625/Codeigniter-Codeigni...](http://www.cvedetails.com/product/11625/Codeigniter-Codeigniter.html?vendor_id=6918)

* Top 50 Products (Better stop using these too! /s): <http://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-products.php>

<comment><USER3> Interesting.

Rails: numerous code execution and SQL injection vulnerabilities reported over the years.

Django: no code execution or SQL injection vulnerabilities reported.

<comment><USER4> (yet).

<comment><USER5> To be honest, rails does seem to be going out of its way to increase its attack surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would it ever be possible to have a self-updating framework?

As in, I use Rails to develop web applications. In the past months, I've had to painstakingly go back to every single app I've ever worked on, and manually update it in whatever minor way it needed updating. Now, I'm going to do that again.

If you consider that I'm going to continue to build Rails applications, the number of apps I will have to update every time a security vulnerability comes out will be larger and larger. For a framework that prides itself on sane defaults, it doesn't seem quite sane to have to worry about taking down, updating, and then relaunching every app you ever had when one of these vulnerabilities come out.

I don't mean updating a Rails 2.3 app to 3.2 automatically, just applying these security patches automatically, or prompting the user to do so. Our operating systems do it, our IDEs do it, our programs do it, why can't a framework? I'm not saying it would be easy, but I'm sick of having to be subscribed to these email groups just to start the manual process of fixing everything.

<comment><USER7> Stop installing latest shiniest things manually and start using default package manager of your linux distribution. Then all the security maintenance you will probably need is to do equivalent of "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" once in a while. Yes, it was that easy before all these people who knew better came and decided that they really need latest ruby installed via rvm, latest gems etc. All these ruby/rails deployment "best practices" stroke me as advice given by people who had close to zero experience of maintaining a mission-critical application for a large period of time.

<comment><USER8> This is the worst possible option and I strongly recommend you minimize your dependencies on your OS package manager; if possible, build your web server from source too.

You need to be prepared at all times to deploy workarounds to newly disclosed security problems. Package managers can and do delay fixes to accommodate the lowest common denominator of users. You cannot run a high profile application and be at the mercy of whoever is administrating your OS package manager.

<comment><USER9> While I usually agree with your advice, I think this approach, while theoretically correct, is actually damaging to the majority of your audience here. The closest analogy I can think of is that it's like requiring users to change passwords every 30 days: great in theory, but in practice it's a disaster.

The problem is that it is simply untenable for all but the highest-profile sites. Finding good ops people, even in the bay area, is extremely hard. Most sites are only going to realize that a security update has been released when their package manager tells them it has, and updating that package is usually a 30s process.

The companies I've seen have a hard enough time keeping track of security updates _with_ package management. For a small to medium team with two, one, or even _zero_ dedicated ops people, asking them to custom-compile (for example) a webserver, ruby implementation, and other critical libraries (openssl, glibc, etc.), subscribe to the relevant security mailing lists, and follow along with updates and security patches is tantamount to having them leave unpatched vulnerabilities on their systems for months or even years.

If you ask your users to change passwords every 30 days, there are inevitably going to be a few who take it seriously and generate and remember secure passwords every single time. But the vast majority are going to use _weaker_ passwords than they otherwise would have, and duplicate those passwords across accounts as much as they can figure out how. Likewise, if you ask already overworked ops guys to manually compile and keep track of security vulnerabilities for their webserver and dozens of libraries, a few are inevitably going to keep on top of things and release fixes minutes after vulnerabilities are announced. But the vast majority are going to simply give up after a month or two and be significantly worse off than if they just use Ubuntu's automatic security package updates.

<comment><USER8> I don't know what to tell you other than that this is something you actually have to get good at if you're going to run a high-profile app or hold sensitive information of any sort.

I'm not saying you need to be able to find your own nginx vulnerabilities or even write your own patches. But reinstalling nginx or Apache from source shouldn't be a science project for your team; you should know that you can get your prod servers running on a from-source build.

Sink in the time to make sure you can do that _now_ , so you aren't caught totally flat-footed when an emergency happens.

<comment><USER9> I agree with your intent. I do. If you're a high-profile site, or you're storing extremely sensitive customer data, this is absolutely something you need to be doing.

But your audience here is startups. Almost always, these startups are cash- strapped, time-crunched, and have zero dedicated ops guys. Ideally, even these types of businesses would prioritize security to the level you're asking.

In reality, as I said in my previous comment, almost none of the startups I've worked at have had the ops capacity necessary to handle this. Even _with_ package management, servers go months without having critical security patches applied. Asking these types of companies to do something that increases the ops overhead necessary to apply patches is going to result in a worse outcome. Keep in mind that it's not simply compiling from source and having infrastructure to apply security patches across multiple boxes. It's also keeping an eye out for reported vulnerabilities — and not all projects have dedicated security mailing lists. Not all projects even report this information via mailing lists.

I wish it were different. I understand where you're coming from. But the incentives are set up ass-backwards, and until companies start having serious liability for data breaches, protecting customer data simply isn't going to be a priority. In the meantime, encouraging them to set up their infrastructure in a way that requires even more ops effort when they're already struggling to keep up is going to have an adverse outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have remote code execution working when YAML syck parser is being used. I've also got RCE working when psych is used (default in 1.9.x) using a similar trick to syck.

<comment><USER11> I know you're not supposed to share these things, but I found it really useful how last time there were public PoC we could use to test our patches. Any such thing this time around?

<comment><USER12> Here you go: <https://gist.github.com/4660248>

<comment><USER11> thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great news. It's good that all of these bugs have been surfacing lately.

<comment><USER14> I don't know why this is being downvoted - I don't think this comment is sardonic. It IS good that they're surfacing because that means we can patch them. Better visible than invisible.

<comment><USER15> It isn't good. Similar projects with a similar user base, like Django, don't have vulnerabilities of this severity with this frequency.

This points to a seriously broken process.

<comment><USER16> It isn't a bad thing necessarily. Just because the vulnerabilities haven't popped up in other frameworks doesn't mean they aren't there.

<comment><USER15> That's creationist logic.

<comment><USER17> Hardly the same. Lets not kid ourselves into thinking any of the popular software we use is bug-free, which is nigh impossible feat for any large codebase. If this rails bug had not been discovered, it would still be there.

<comment><USER15> Who said software is bug free?

The issue is that similar projects, with similar success, with a similar number of developers looking at them, have fewer severe vulnerabilities.

The simplest explanation is that one project has more vulnerabilities lying dormant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Proof-of-Concept exploit: <https://gist.github.com/4660248>

<comment><USER18> This simple command line tool to execute arbitrary code on your server works, kids. I'm also north of 90% probable that I could weaponize it to turn any image tag on the Internet into "roots your local machine", and 100% certain I could do so for any page I could coerce to execute JavaScript.

You need to patch. Now.

<comment><USER19> > I'm also north of 90% probable that I could weaponize it to turn any image > tag on the Internet into "roots your local machine"

Definitely not saying you're wrong, but I'm not convinced this is doable. Every exploit I've seen requires a request body -- how would you do that with an IMG tag?

<comment><USER18> Go on a Rails security safari, armed with the knowledge that any YAML parsing is victory, and pay _very_ careful attention to code paths involving Rails/Rack route/parameter processing, especially anything which smells of magic. To clarify: I haven't actually done the work yet.

I'm actually going on a Rails security safari later, though not particularly looking to widen this/these vulnerabilities. I figure I've gotten enough out of the community over the years to contribute part of a workweek and get one more hole plugged.

<comment><USER12> Not unless nginx/apache routes the request directly to public/. There will definitely be more code-paths to YAML.load, but so far ActionDispatch::Http::Parameters has been the entry point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> it appears that some versions of rails parsed JSON by first converting it to YAML then performing YAML.load

I think they wanted a json parser but they didn't want to write one. So they basically just wrote:

        YAML.load(json.gsub(/awesomeregex/, "awesomereplace"))

<comment><USER20> YAML is a superset of JSON. So this works just fine to parse JSON (with the caveat it parses any YAML and is therefore not secure):

        YAML.load(json)

<comment><USER10> ah. i wonder if there isn't any json stuff that yaml doesn't support because the convert_json_to_yaml method does a bit of munging. if you take a previous PoC and feed it raw without any modification it corrupts it and makes it invalid yaml. for example convert_json_to_yaml will put spaces around the ':' character.

<comment><USER20> I think that kind of processing is just to work around bugs in the old YAML parser (syck). See this post for example: <http://project.ioni.st/post/1067>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Damnit, I'm busy fixing the devise issue!

<comment><USER22> I missed that. Here's a link in case anyone else missed it: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/platafor...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/plataformatec- devise/hj6i26Dvshw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If I've disabled the JSON MIME type as input, a la the workaround to the XML issue a couple of weeks ago, am I safe against this vulnerability?

<comment><USER24> It looks like this only affects 2.3.x and 3.0.x.

If you're on 3.1.x or 3.2.x then you should be good.

<comment><USER23> Ah, sorry, should have been more clear: I'm on 2.3.x

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hooray for 3.1 and 3.2 apps.

</comment><comment><USER25> The only meaningful take-away from these continued security vulnerabilities is you shouldn't ever let a rails project you maintain ossify to the extent that you can't easily/safely run "bundle update", commit, and deploy.

(Didn't expect to post this comment twice today, JFC)

<comment><USER26> Well, there's also an issue of trust that I think is being overlooked.

We now need to ask ourselves, "Can we trust the Ruby community, and can we trust software written in Ruby?"

Before these recent exploits, there were a lot of us who would have already answered "no" to both parts of that question. Now there may be many more people who answer them the same way.

The warning signs have been there for a long time. The general attitude of the Ruby community is one of these warning signs. The smugness, the emphasis on "best practices" (which usually aren't very good, in reality) and the drama and semi-religious worship surrounding certain members of the community (DHH, Zed, and _why) are what I'm talking about. This kind of attitude promotes an environment where bugs can happen in the first place, then go undetected, and in many cases also go unpatched once discovered.

At this point, I think it's necessary to scrutinize the Ruby community and their software much more closely than has been done in the past. The complacency of the past is not acceptable any longer, given what has happened recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain the security issue in more detail? Is it that I can supply Symbols (and other Ruby objects) in my YAML, which normally can't be included in JSON? That seems to be the basis of it, but I'm looking for more info if available.

<comment><USER28> The Rails YAML parser allows execution of arbitrary Ruby code, by design. If an attacker can figure out how to get input into the YAML parser, they win.

<comment><USER29> That's awful.

This seems to be something of a theme with RoR. XML parsers that parse YAML, JSON parsers that parse YAML, YAML parsers that parse Ruby...

Why would they let that mess near user input? I thought Ruby included a proper JSON parser now.

<comment><USER30> It does _now_. But it didn't in versions <3.1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Null terminated strings are simple to understand and convenient to work with...until they can be exploited.

Non-bounds-checked arrays are fast and convenient to work with...until they can be exploited.

Database queries using interpolated strings are flexible and convenient to work with...until they can be exploited.

Serialization formats that can encode arbitrary objects are useful and convenient to work with...until they can be exploited.

...and the collective wisdom of the programming world continues its relentless, gradual, monotonic increase.

</comment><comment><USER32> There's been a lot of rails bugs coming up lately, why are so many being found at this particular point in time? Who's finding them and what's spurred their interest?

<comment><USER33> This is related to YAML loading (I believe) so it is somewhat related to the major bug from a couple of weeks ago. My guess is someone went through the Rails code combing for any interaction with YAML that wasn't caught last time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Quick & dirty find (for Rails apps 3.0.x)

      find ~/rails -name 'Gemfile' -exec grep -E "rails', '3.0" {} \; -print

</comment><comment><USER35> Hmm, I'm curious of the story behind this vulnerabilty NOT existing in 3.1 and 3.2. How the heck did it get fixed in 3.1 and 3.2, but still exist in 3.0 and 2.3? It was accidentally fixed in 3.1? It was on purpose fixed in 3.1, but it didn't occur to the fixer to backport to 3.0 and 2.3? Eh?

<comment><USER36> The JSON parser backend changed between 3.0 and 3.1, and that's what the vulnerability was in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if it's worth someone putting together a kickstarter so that all of these rails dependant startups can crowd finance hiring some penetration test firms to do a thorough audit of the entire rails codebase?

</comment><comment><USER38> So who is hosting the rails security update party this time?

Is there some magic command I am missing to update all rails projects I've ever worked on automatically?

"gem super-update-everything"

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's the fix: <https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/8853/files#L1L35>

Happy hacking!

</comment><comment><USER39> This doesn't actually affect rails 3.1+

Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why is it only Rails issues seem to be so popular on HN?

Is it the lovers wanting to spread the word for their rails colleagues using it.

Or is it the haters enjoying the schadenfreude.

No other framework seems to get as much publicity on HN whenever something goes wrong.

</comment><comment><USER41> The smell of late night coffee, having to update Ruby on Fails yet again, or better, the colder more bitter coffee in the morning, when having to offline and rebuild a compromised server due to this framework.

It started with such promise, and now, we are looking to migrate all Rails apps off to alternative frameworks at the first opportunity. It really is a shame.

<comment><USER42> The usual fallacy: "the more vulnerabilities found on a piece of software the less secure it is."

That just doesn't logically follow: your chosen alternative framework just might have not been thoroughly audited (yet.) Or not audited by the right people, etc.

<comment><USER41> Actually I see it more of indicative problem with the design of Rails. We keep getting told we should like magic, convention over configuration, but maybe it would be better to have a config file where we can turn the magic off in Rails. But please, no more Yaml files - it seems parsing Yaml has already caused enough holes in Rail this quarter.

<comment><USER42> YAML (or JSON) parser bugs are not related to convention over configuration.

You are free to dislike Rails design, but you can't blame it for some vanilla parser bug.

Parsers are fertile ground for bugs, because they are by definition exposed to arbitrary input.

<comment><USER43> My understanding is that YAML is _supposed_ to be highly general-purpose and is _not_ supposed to be resilient to malicious input. These aren't YAML parser bugs, these are framework bugs that pass malicious data to the YAML parser when that parser should never be exposed to it. And _that_ in turn appears to be entirely due to an extremely overly-helpful and magical nature of the framework.

<comment><USER42> Nope, the problem is not due to the magical nature of the framework.

They implemented the JSON decoder with a JSON to YAML converter, passing that through the YAML decoder.

The fix involves using an actual JSON parser and skip the going through YAML part. So it does qualify as a JSON parser bug, IMO (which is what I clumsily attempted to imply with my "(or JSON)" clause above.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>