Ask HN: Facebook/Twitter Friend/Follow Limit? - <AUTHOR>

I always thought both Facebook and Twitter would be better if they limited the number of people you could follow or friend to somewhere between 100-230 (Dunbar's number). I think this would make everything a bit less spammy and more meaningful but I was curious to see what others though. <comment><USER2> This kind of limitation assumes that a user is human.

</comment><comment><USER3> Twitter has limits, though they aren't as stringent. For starters, you're only allowed to follow up to 2,000 people until you reach 2,000 followers. After that, you can only follow ~300 more than are following you at all times. This is done to prevent massive amounts of spamming, though it still occurs.

My only beef with your "limit" is that it would prevent the well-connected people from truly reaching their entire network. If you feel like Twitter & Facebook are too spammy for you, then reduce your followers and friends, but this choice should be up to the individual.</comment>


Edward Snowden says a report critical to an NSA lawsuit is authentic - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/03/edward-snowden-nsa-lawsuit-jewel-authentic/ <comment><USER2> > U.S. prosecutors charged Snowden with espionage.

Was anyone of the US Government criminally charged for this whole thing or they only bothered to charge the guy who exposed the crime?

<comment><USER3> The Government doesn't admit it did anything illegal, any court cases trying to show otherwise will take a decade as this one has, and currently the only one I'm aware of was dismissed as the courts ruled they could not prove damage had been done.

Though, even if found to be violating the law I find it hard to imagine any prosecutors trying individuals involved.

<comment><USER4> > Though, even if found to be violating the law I find it hard to imagine any > prosecutors trying individuals involved.

Well except for Snowden of course.

And frankly Clapper's testimony to Congress was obviously perjury. The prosecution of only Snowden is rank hypocracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Germany had something similar: a fact-finding committee tried to figure out what to do about NSA and our local spies spying on Germans local and abroad. Pro privacy parliamentarians wanted to rely heavily on Snowden docs, ruling party and anti-privacy required an in-person interview in Germany of Snowden to admit the docs as evidence.

Of course tthey didn't wwant to guarantee Snowdens freedom while here, so that interview never happened and the docs were ignored.

I bet that's going to be the NSAs play here too

</comment><comment><USER6> The thing is that people are no nearer to understanding why it was that this spying on the general public had to happen.

Capitalism - and any other system - has to have bogeymen and terrorism as a fear, the thinking being that anything outside the system is a fate worse than death and therefore the system, in this case capitalism as we know it is better than the alternatives. We all know there aren't any 'al-qaeda' terrorists really, it certainly is not necessary to monitor everyone's phone just because of that.

Going through the courts to discern whether these Stasi style systems were/are constitutional or not is noble and good on the EFF for doing these things. However we have not acknowledged why these things had to happen, we still go along with the 'al-qaeda terrorist fear' meme.

The point of surveillance and letting everyone know that they are under surveillance is to stop people communicating in a way tantamount to dissent. The Catholic Church and the Stasi had these things in place, not to root out protestants or Western spies, it was always to keep people in line with their system of rule. When it comes to our own Western surveillance we somehow believe the authorities that it is to catch the terrorists, a noble cause that nobody could possibly argue with. Yet really it is to keep people in line and not dissenting.

In the Bush years the powers-that-be were genuinely concerned they might have a Berlin Wall moment where people just see through the lies and decide not to stand shoulder to shoulder waving flags.

Their fears were seriously unfounded though, people really were deeply wedded to the system to the point of being indoctrinated and brainwashed. No matter how feeble the phantom enemy was people went along with it, it sold newspapers and meant people didn't even dream of getting organised in some revolutionary way. Occupy Wall Street was about it, a very damp squib.

Whether the details of the mass surveillance infrastructure were technically constitutional or not does not answer the bigger question regarding what the Bush government were so scared of.

<comment><USER7> I don't think this situation requires any level of intentional conspiracy. Intelligence agencies always want to know more secrets, law enforcement wants their job to be easier, and digital media were trivial to wiretap since early beginnings. Surveillance systems like NSA's seem like something that would naturally evolve - and accelerate post 9/11, as there was suddenly lots of money available to anyone uttering the words "fighting terrorism" and "national security".

<comment><USER8> Pretty much. You build an mowner, it's going to mown. If you give it more horse power, it's going to mown more. If you make it autonomous, it's going to mown everthing it can. The mowner is nor good or bad, but it still hurts if your foot is the way and the safeguards were badly designed.

<comment><USER6> I am not sure that analogy is that helpful.

Did the NSA catch hordes of these evil al-qaeda types with their dragnet? No. Were any of these card-carrying al-qaeda terror operatives given due process? No.

There are logical fallacies that we must endeavour to see through. Did the spy dragnet keep the al-qaeda menace at bay? Originally there were supposed to be tens of thousands of al-qaeda terror operatives in sleeper cells. They said the same about the Russians a generation earlier. It wasn't so.

There may be fancy computers at Fort Mead but these still cost money. Money that could have been spent on infrastructure that benefited the citizens. There is opportunity cost, many people have actually died in collapsed bridges since the NSA went crazy.

<comment><USER9> I don't know if I've ever heard of the NSA having any good effect on the USA, just always negative. Always leaks about how everything they're doing is illegal. There have still been terrorist attacks and mass shootings all around the country since it's inception. I agree with your point above that it's probably likely that these agencies are more so there to track and crush domestic and foreign dissent (and I think it's intentional, see COINTELPRO).

That money definitely could've been spent on infrastructure that benefited the actual citizens of this country and actually saved lives. Unfortunately a great part of American culture is pure jingoism and war propaganda, so nothing changes.

<comment><USER6> I forgot about COINTELPRO. Thanks for reminding me. That is still going on today, so useful to know.

I do find it interesting how people find reasons to believe a lie, the lie being that the post 9/11 spying wasn't on the domestic population just to make sure there was no dissent. With a population that believes the lie then things are kind of doomed. A dark age happens. People find justifications to believe it ain't so. In a unipolar world this becomes a lot more interesting. In previous times there was an 'other' out there, the people in Germany could tune into propaganda from the West, this propaganda could be true facts and it would undermine the regime, Nazi or Stasi if too many people were in on it. In a unipolar world there isn't this possibility.

There is also a trust problem between government and people. In former times gentlemen didn't read each other's mail. Acceptance of otherwise is a betrayal of trust. You have to have good reason to snoop. What was the good reason and what was the excuse in the post 9/11 world? Fear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> legal question: How can Snowden submit a declaration while he is effectively considered a legal enemy of the state?

<comment><USER11> > _while he is effectively considered a legal enemy of the state?_

We don't really describe people as enemies of the state in America. Snowden is accused of certain crimes, and has the right to communicate with legal counsel. Such counsel could provide this attestation to a court.

<comment><USER10> Sorry I didn't mean to offend. I thought that was the correct term. I think I asked the question incorrectly too. It's more will a court recognise his attestation while charges stand against him. I'd have thought his charges would hold special status as I though he was accused of treason.

<comment><USER12> Innocent until proven guilty.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Fortune.js – High-level I/O for web applications - <AUTHOR> http://fortunejs.com

<comment><USER2> Cool looks like virtus: [https://github.com/solnic/virtus](https://github.com/solnic/virtus), have you looked at how virtus, axiom: [https://github.com/dkubb/axiom](https://github.com/dkubb/axiom) and the query optimizer are implemented?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say it's a bit more similar to ActiveModel + ActiveModel::Serializer, or Waterline & JugglingDB in the Node.js realm, in that they can be used for the same purpose but go about the problem differently.

Looks like axiom is coupled to RDBMS, while fortune tries to abstract away the data store (there are mongodb & postgres adapters) by providing a contract for reading/writing data. virtus looks very similar to the implementation of record type in fortune, has some extra features such as type coercion and lacks some features such as foreign keys.

if you're interested in query implementation have a look at how the postgres adapter maps the adapter contract to sql: [https://github.com/fortunejs/fortune- postgres/blob/master/li...](https://github.com/fortunejs/fortune- postgres/blob/master/lib/index.js)

<comment><USER2> Axiom is a relational algebra library it doesn't abstract an rdbms at all. The way datamapper 2 worked from my understanding was virtus was a property like api e.g. a back end agnostic schema that describes the data, axiom takes the relations (if any) from virtus then hands off the relations to a back end such as SQL, mongo, graphql query generator and optimizer. Datamapper 2 from looking is a much better structure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone used fortune? I saw this a long time ago when i dug through the Ember.js docs it mentioned this, but I never dug too deep into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few companies using it in production (and I use it for my work as the author of it), I just haven't bothered to ask for permissions etc. I discussed with one of the ember core team about replacing ember-cli's http- mock/fixtures with fortune, it seems doable by reusing ember data models in the backend. since they both support JSON API standard, the interaction should be frictionless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "WebSocket (included)"

"Fortune includes a browser build, which comes with the IndexedDB"

Brilliant. This is exactly what I've been looking for.

</comment><comment><USER5> NeDB support!

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks great! I'm looking forward to giving it a try.</comment>


Apple Has Completed Cloud Music Service (rumored) - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-apple-google-idUSTRE73K7A720110421

<comment><USER2> _Two of the sources said Google originally wanted to launch a basic locker service and an 'iTunes-like' store. In recent weeks it has suggested exploring licensing for a subscription service, they said._

Weird, I doubt the bit about google in recent weeks is true. Having worked on a team building an early subscription service, I feel like I can say with some authority: There are loads of good reasons no one has been launching subscription services. Not the least of which is that people just don't seem to be interested in not owning their content, at least at the price points you need to charge to cover the licenses.

</comment><comment><USER3> The idea of uploading and storing "my music" seems antiquated; what difference does it make if my bits are copied over there vs sharing access to the exact same bits? Given that they acquired lala.com, I hope they go with their model: you "buy" a streaming album cheaply (was ~$0.10 per song) and get unlimited streaming for good, except this time they wouldn't get acquired and refund my money for lousy itunes gift certificates :) And if in addition to the right to stream unlimited, they let you sync offline to your mobile device ala rdio or spotify, then they have a winner.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The idea of uploading and storing "my music" seems antiquated;_

Except for at least a few issues:

1) Encoding quality. For CDs I ripped from the encoding quality is pretty high. I'd like the option to playback with my higher encoding quality.

2) Probably 1/5 of my music collection doesn't exist in iTunes.

3) I've never bought anything rom iTunes, so they'd have to determine what music I had locally. That seems like its fraught with peril.

<comment><USER3> yeah, good points. I think lala was pretty good about granting access to music you already owned:

\- they matched your collection and automatically granted you "ownership" to anything they had license to

\- anything they didn't, the desktop app actually uploaded it to host on their servers so you could still host it

I can't remember the encoding quality but it was good enough for quality headphones / programming for my taste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They'd win me over if they got at&t to remove the data cap for their service</comment>


Mt. Gox Breaks Silence, Posts Statement On Bankruptcy Filing  - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2014/03/03/mt-gox-statement-bankruptcy-filing-bitcoin-exchange#awesm=~oxwazbnjmbjgsF <comment><USER2> A call center for bitcoins? So, like a bank?

I mean, effectively a bank teller and a customer service agent can tell you roughly the same thing: what they're allowed the tell you.

If the block chain is transparent, the bank-teller-cum-customer-service-agent adds no value to this equation. Adding _more __people___ is not going to help.</comment>


Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/10/can-we-have-prosperity-without-growth <comment><USER2> These debates about de-growth are very much "first world problems" when taking into account global population growth and the daily income of billions of people.

Currently stopping global economic growth means either population decrease or condemning billions to poverty.</comment>


CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 <comment><USER2> US MSM and HRC talk about Russia being responsible for cyber attacks. Yet, not a shred of proof is presented to the US and world public.

In 2003 US has started another war based on a lie. The "enemy" was weak and had inferior military, yet the war caused deaths of US soldiers and Iraqis, destruction of Iraq and we now have IS(IS).

And again we, it seems, have a lie. But now the "enemy" isn't inferior. The chaos US has caused in Iraq will look like a three-year-old-birthday-party compared with the war with Russia.

Are we willing to go that far? Have we learned anything from the recent past? Do we really want to destroy the World based on a lie?

</comment><comment><USER3> We have more reason to bomb Saudi Arabia to bits than to attack Russia. I will never fight against Russia even if there is a draft. Stand against your government.

<comment><USER4> With neocons like Hillary Clinton who takes a lot of Saudi money anything is possible except bombing Saudi Arabia. And USA always needed a big bad enemy for fear mongering, Saddam, Bin Laden, Putin, US needs a "big baddy" to justify its insane military spendings.

<comment><USER5> Neoconservatism isn't just about the military industrial complex, or oil, it's also about the Jewish lobby.

<comment><USER5> Look's like I've said one of those "true if you think it's a good thing, crazy conspiracy if you thank it's a bad thing" facts. No one really denies the link between Jewish Americans, the various Jewish organizations that are active in politics (AIPAC, ADL etc) and US Foreign policy. But people strongly deny this in the context where people criticize foreign policy, and want to redirect discussion towards safe topics like the military industrial complex or oil.

Some will say the most American Jews are liberals and therefore wouldn't support neoconservatism. It's true that they are mostly liberals on domestic policy, but by judging candidates on a single issue (Israel) they end up implicitly helping neoconservative thinking, which places the most emphasis in the US-Israel relation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The DNC is a private organization. Why does its hacking justify a government- sponsored response?

<comment><USER7> Because it's one of the two major political parties in a democracy, with an election just around the corner.

I feel like you already know the answer to this question.

<comment><USER6> And if it had happened to the RNC, same response right? Somehow I doubt it. This is setting a very dangerous precedent.

<comment><USER8> Yes, the same response.

<comment><USER6> I doubt it. Just as I doubt a Republican pres. would go after Russia for DNC hacking. When the president is the head of the political party, expect conflicts of interest. But warring with nuclear-armed foes - when things are already quite tense with them in Syria - seems dangerous and dumb.

<comment><USER8> The people behind this attribution work aren't political appointees. People forget that the overwhelming majority of the public workforce consists of career public servants. If those public servants happen to work in law enforcement, the military, or intelligence, they're much more likely to be Republicans than Democrats.

So with that having been said, and with I promise more respect than this question will make it sound like I have for your viewpoint: what is it, exactly, that makes your doubts about this attribution being politically motivated more credible than the (extremely common) doubts Trump supporters have that Hurricane Matthew wasn't generated by Obama's wind farms to suppress voter registration?

<comment><USER6> Your comparison is absurd. Did you somehow miss that whole bit about faulty intelligence causing the Iraq war?

The hack seems politically motivated; no one can say with 100% assurance that it was caused by Russia; the DNC is a private organization, in any event, why should the citizens of the US be drawn into a war with a nuclear armed foe over their poor cyber security?

<comment><USER8> None of this has anything to do with my comment.

<comment><USER6> And neither of your comments had anything to do with my original point. Why is the hack of a private political organization justification for a war footing from our federal government?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who reads (and believes) this kind of crap?

<comment><USER10> NBC News?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like this kind of war.

"We're airing all your dirty laundry!"

"Oh yeah? Then we're shining light on your corrupt dealings!l

<comment><USER12> It's all fun and games until someone shuts off someone else's entire power grid, destroys their banking data or makes their planes fall out of the sky.

<comment><USER13> Or elects Trump. Us in the wider world were getting concerned for a while there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So much nonsense and buzzword crap are strung together in that piece that I frankly have no clue what this would even amount to. I don't expect much coming of this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Weirdest part is they say its covert. How is anything o NBC News going to be covert?</comment>


Ask HN: Joint venture negotiation advice..? - <AUTHOR>

Some context: I took the plunge and left my programming job last September to build something useful: a simple yet easy to customize web-application for the HR/recruitment market.
I recently demonstrated an early version (about 60% complete) to the founder/CEO and technical director of a well established HR consultancy that also provide bespoke recruitment software to large organizations. The meeting was very positive:
* It confirmed my application was doing the right things as far as HR people are concerned
* We "got" each other's outlook
* We had similar visions of how technology might shape HR/recruitment in the future
They recently got back to me and have proposed a joint venture based on my product: they pay me whilst I complete the product, I would retain ownership of the product so long as they have some sort of exclusivity in a revenue sharing deal.
This is a good opportunity: I'd get a route to market, a pool of HR expertise to draw from and an established partner.
However, I'm a software developer (among other things) and this is my first "venture". My biggest concern is my naivete so I'd like to ask the HN community for advice:
* I'll register a new company through which I'll do this work (rather than just being "that guy hacking away on stuff"). Any tips on how best to do/structure this? Or is it as easy as it looks (in the UK)?
* Exclusivity contract: I'm assuming it will be for version X of product Y in location L for duration D in market M. Currently, M=Govt/public sector/"third" sector and doesn't include the private sector. What should I expect for L and D and what else might one typically negotiate (I was thinking in terms of sales targets)?
* Revenue sharing: I'm (again) assuming we'll be negotiating on % of sale price. What are typical percentages for the split between software developer / reseller?
* Any legal gotchas I should know of / avoid?
* Anything else I might need to know when getting into a situation like this..?
My personal long term aim is serial entrepreneurship.
Thanks in advance... :-) <comment><USER2> Based on my experience - Never do "exclusivity in a revenue sharing deal" unless they offer a significantly large minimum guarantee.

We had a joke in our company - 50% of zero revenue is zero. %age share doesn't matter in these deals...

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite...</comment></comment>


How Derek Sivers sold CD Baby for $22M without taking VC - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturevoice.com/2008/10/vv_show_50_derek_sivers_of_cd.html <comment><USER2> Obviously a great story and he does sound like quite a class act.

However, I strongly disagree with building a company that lacks proper equity distribution for employees. A lot of the culture problems he alluded to could have been prevented by keeping the team smaller and increasing team ownership.

It's great to be a founder and own 100%. But I'm not sure it's smart to build companies where people aren't on the same page when it comes to owning the creation they build together.

<comment><USER3> Actually the problems started when equity distribution started. That's what changed some focus of the company away from the clients and on to profit- sharing, benefits, etc.

I let the CFO choose the profit-sharing plan and blindly trusted her choice, until 6 months later my accountant showed me it was giving almost all net profits back to the employees, and had doubled most people's salaries.

So I tried to scale it back, which of course led to huge upset, and endless company-wide meetings and votings and such, which at that point the whole mess had changed the day-to-day focus of the company so much I just felt like shutting it all down and starting something new. But I sold it instead.

Lots of great lessons in what not to do. :-)

<comment><USER4> Yet another reason I love HN. Some company founder gets mentioned in a news story, then they show up HERE to discuss it. Congrats and thanks for stopping by, Derek!

<comment><USER3> I'm a long-time HN fan (PG fan, YC fan, etc) - so HN is actually my main source of news! It was weird to see my name on the list of news yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe he can finally learn rails now :P

</comment><comment><USER6> A company with 100M in revenue for 22M?

<comment><USER7> In the audio, he says expenses of 80M, with revenues between 90M to 100M. He also was not holding out for the best price, but a combination of price, terms, and ability to deliver good service to existing customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, what a champ! Put that capital into a fund that will be redistributed to music education when he dies. No interest in material wealth... keeps his life simple, focused, and open.

<comment><USER9> No interest in material wealth? Charitable remainder trusts are a standard old money tax dodge. He gets a tax free income for life, and when he dies, the charity gets what's left. It also saves him 3.3 million dollars in federal capital gains taxes. It is shrewd but not particularly ascetic.

<comment><USER3> The income a person earns from their charitable remainder trust is absolutely not tax-free! It's taxed as regular income, for life.

The charity - the final beneficiary - is the one that gets an additional 3.3 million dollars in your example, since the money was put into the trust _before_ capital gains tax - instead of the donor paying tax first, then giving to charity after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow I thought Galant stopped making this show. Its has been so long since the last episode but it is nice to have it back. This is a solid podcast and much can be learned from the people he has on and their stories of success and failure.

</comment><comment><USER11> "I let the CFO choose the profit-sharing plan and blindly trusted her choice, until 6 months later my accountant showed me it was giving almost all net profits back to the employees, and had doubled most people's salaries."

How could a business owner be ignorant of policies for a full 6 months? Wasn't his signature required to implement the plan in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER12> I have bought CDs from there a few times, it's a good outfit.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone read that as How Derek Rivers sold Baby for $22M?

<comment><USER14> The title is misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did the CD Baby sale include Film Baby?

<comment><USER3> No. That's owned by my friend Jamie, not me. Sold him the name for $1.</comment></comment>


New executive order targeting social-media companies isn't about Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/trumps-executive-order-isnt-about-twitter/612349/ <comment><USER2> I think this is the most pressing point of the entire article: "As long as Facebook and other social-media platforms make money by increasing engagement without much regard to the content they algorithmically amplify, it doesn't matter whether every last employee is an avowed liberal."</comment>


Plastic Bag Found at the Bottom of World's Deepest Ocean Trench - <AUTHOR> https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/plastic-bag-mariana-trench-pollution-science-spd/ <comment><USER2> How can the author write that a plastic bag has been found in an (open!) database of photos and videos, and not actually show the photo??

So I found it there: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/09/worlds- deepest-p...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/09/worlds-deepest- plastic-bag-found-bottom-mariana-trench-highlighting/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, even the original scientific article didn't show the plastic bag itself. Had to go digging in the linked scientific database. Here's the entry for the plastic bag in the Mariana Trench, discovered in 1998 at 10,898 m (archive link to reduce burden of traffic): [https://archive.is/qBl2y](https://archive.is/qBl2y)

Adobe Flash required to view the photo and video, or registration to download. Mirrors:

Photo (1801x1201): [https://i.imgur.com/7RVIpJH.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7RVIpJH.jpg)

Video (480x360, 2:55): [https://gfycat.com/RightBitesizedBrownbear](https://gfycat.com/RightBitesizedBrownbear)

(Source: JAMSTEC deep sea debris database. Used for non-profit educational purposes.)

<comment><USER4> Amazing how the floor seems flat and even, down there. I would have expected... I don't really know, something looking more like the surface of the moon, that kind of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Name names. Most plastic in the ocean comes from Chinese rivers. Western countries don't just throw their garbage into the ocean like China does. Making westerners feel guilty doesn't help fix the problem.

<comment><USER6> This meme needs to die. Developed countries produce much more waste than developing countries. The disparity is even more striking if you look at the figures per capita. The US generates almost 3 times as much waste per capital as China.

On top of that, a huge proportion of waste is exported by developed countries to developing countries. The US also only recycles 9% of its plastic waste, compared to 25% for China.

> Europe, the biggest exporter worldwide of waste plastic intended for > recycling, depends largely on China: 87% wt. is exported to China either > directly or via the Hong Kong SAR. The exported quantity is 46% of the > overall quantity collected for recycling, and 12% of the entire plastic > waste arisings in Europe. In contrast, Europe exports only 1.2% of its > primary plastics products to China.

> The USA is the second largest consumer of plastics in the world and depends > mainly to China and HK for absorbing its waste plastics. Neighbouring > countries such as Canada and Mexico are also a small market outlet. > According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) reporting > data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the USA exported 2.1Mt of plastic waste to > China

[https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/galleries/Task_Forces/TFGWM_R...](https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/galleries/Task_Forces/TFGWM_Report_GRM_Plastic_China_LR.pdf)

[http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANDEVELOPMENT/Resou...](http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANDEVELOPMENT/Resources/336387-1334852610766/Chap3.pdf)

[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782.full)

<comment><USER7> > This meme needs to die. Developed countries produce much more waste than > developing countries.

Yes, but western countries also have better waste disposal infrastructure (land fills, incinerators) that is actually used, so in this case that is not very relevant.

> On top of that, a huge proportion of waste is exported by developed > countries to developing countries.

This is because Chinese recycling companies underbid most of their western (more local) competition, essentially putting them out of business.

I strongly believe there should have been much earlier trade intervention by western (rather than Chinese) governments to prevent that. But on the other hand, western countries didn't aim guns at China's head to make them take their trash.

<comment><USER8> _This is because Chinese recycling companies underbid most of their western (more local) competition, essentially putting them out of business._

Because the Chinese do an inadequate job of disposing of the waste of Western countries, so their costs are less, so this Western waste winds-up in the oceans with stops in China and the folks in charge in the Western nations more or less let this happen.

But your post does a job of framing this chain of events as if China was entirely at fault. A bit reflection should show the reader this isn't the case.

<comment><USER7> > But your post does a job of framing this chain of events as if China was > entirely at fault.

I did say that Western countries should have proactively prevented this through trade restrictions. Free trade sucks when your trading partner doesn't care about pooping in their own yard for some short term gain. Sometimes developed western countries need to step up because the other country is being irresponsible and just can't manage to do the right thing for their own interests on their own.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. Free trade only works well if both countries are playing by the same rules. Which I guess is why trade deals take years and hundreds of diplomat hours to arrange.

<comment><USER10> There is no motivation to stop it. China doesn't want to do it because they would have to hike prices to offset the cost, thus making them less competitive. US companies don't want to change anything because they don't want to start paying for proper disposal either.

Also, free trade is freedom from regulations / tariffs, etc. I always thought it was free to compete (i.e. anti-trusts / monopoly). Silly me.

So it could be said this is a direct result of free trade in it's classical economic term.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Austin, TX we've outlawed these kinds of bags. All grocery store bags are required by law to be sturdy enough to be reusable. This results in a few different things:

\- Bags are heavy enough to not get blown away in the wind

\- Half of the time, the bags are made of paper instead, meaning they're recyclable and (presumably) at least partially biodegradable

\- The plastic bags that do exist are larger, robust enough to be brought with you to the store again and again, and at least at HEB they cost 25 cents, which discourages people from getting them unless they actually need them

Seeing things like this make me proud of my city.

<comment><USER12> One of the worst ideas ever, spreading like a plague. All it results in is stores becoming sellers of bags and finding ways to bundle bags into the sale to capture the bag fee which they keep. Some stores didn't even use bags previously.

The bags sold are not generally reusable as a practical matter, so it causes more waste (more plastic weight over all being transacted). When they are reusable they have caused sanitation issues.

Why would you incentivize stores to sell bags? Has any of the bag ban cities seriously thought this one through?

<comment><USER13> The bags at the store are more like a forgetter's fee. Though I don't see how they aren't reusable.

I don't understand your criticism when you can bring any reusable bag into the store. Don't like the store's bags? Bring your own.

If the best criticism you can come up with for the reusable bag mandate is that you need to bring your own, that's not very damning.

In fact, I wouldn't mind if stores sold the same shitty bags as before but for 10 cents. The real win is a cultural shift towards reusability, not a good deal on plastic bags at the point-of-sale. Once again, just keep your favorite reusable bags in your car.

<comment><USER12> Wrong. The bags are a tax on the poor. Not everybody has a car, are they supposed to carry several reusable bags on their person at all times? The poor also reuse plastic bags to bag trash, now they need to buy garbage bags.

Wasting is a first-world problem. The "culture shift of reusability" is a rich person's luxury, like those alarm clocks that shred money, except it is mandated for everyone. I hope you see the absurdity and arrogance of it all.

<comment><USER14> What's the problem with bringing bags as needed if you know you might go buy stuff?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This inspired me to write a haiku:

      Maybe life's purpose
      is to trash its home planet
      then get the fuck out

<comment><USER16> From George Carlin:

"The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" "Plastic... asshole."

Full quote: [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/251836-we-re-so-self- import...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/251836-we-re-so-self-important- everybody-s-going-to-save-something-now-save)

<comment><USER17> So maybe the plastic is there to force humans out of this planet quicker and spread life beound Earth...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since it's already at a trench, it will be among the first plastic to be subducted into the mantle.

It's sad but it's not the most worrisome plastic in the ocean.

<comment><USER19> That sounds like a perfect place doe waste. Just pump it I to the mantle. Put this stuff back in the ground where it belongs. Better than in out air or floating around our water.

<comment><USER20> Surely this would result in the high temperatures of the mantle burning the waste; the air pollution associated with this must make this a poor option for waste disposal.

<comment><USER19> From my understanding when things burn hot enough -- which I think the mantel burns hot enough -- this sort of thing is not that big of an issue.

Also, I am not entirely sure this would raise the temperatures of something so massive. In any case it would probably become the "global mantel worming" debate.

<comment><USER19> Noo! Not the worming! I meant to type warming. Again, no posting before coffee next time!

Although a worming might be fun. Trimmers anybody?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is no substitute for you, the person reading these words, to stop accepting plastic bags and as much similar things -- coffee cups, utensils, etc.

Each reduction makes the next easier and simpler. Eventually you work up to fewer cars and bigger reductions.

Most importantly, you find the reductions improve your life. Most Americans could probably cut 75% with zero problem. More likely increased self- awareness, community, savings, health.

I cut out about 95% of packaged food about 3 years ago. The last time I had to empty my trash was June 2017.

More importantly, I've never eaten more delicious (nor saved as much time and money). The success led to reductions in other areas and I keep finding more because I look because it improves my life. There's nothing special about me. Anyone can do the same.

<comment><USER22> I disagree that individual action will ever move the needle on use of plastic. Policies set and enforced by governments is what is necessary. This can take the form of rules and bans for packaging itself or taxes that drive up the cost of plastic. So we can all do our part by advocating for these rules.

<comment><USER23> Seriously. While certain local actions can help on a local level, serious solutions to global problems require more than individual action.

<comment><USER24> Also, making machines that do the work in bulk is IMO a much better use of time than e.g. organizing beach cleanup efforts where a dozen people come out with grabbers: [https://youtu.be/A_ESkZmbL2c](https://youtu.be/A_ESkZmbL2c)

What would also be neat would be something like an organization that operates these on beaches across a state / country. Even better: get the government to do it.

Even better than that: outlaw production of the kinds of junk that ends up on beaches. Start doing takeaway food in glass lock containers and bags that are actually reusable (not paper or thicker plastic or cotton) and charge deposits for them. Sure, it creates other problems, but those are usually better problems to be solving.

<comment><USER25> That machine looks like an excellent way to take in macro plastic and convert some of it into micro plastic, and then redistribute it onto the beach, where it'll be impossible to remove.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The problem of ocean plastic isn't an issue of plastic use. It's about disposal. That sandwich bag used at a California Whole Foods is going to a landfill, not a deep sea trench. Landfill's aren't pretty or environmentally good, but a bag in a landfill is infinitely better than one wrapped around a baby turtle.

90+% of Ocean plastic comes from ten rivers, none of which are in north America or Europe. (See 100s of articles based on a study published last november.) This is a cultural issue. We don't need to stop using plastics in the west. We need the east to stop throwing plastics into rivers. In that sense, the problem is much easier. We don't need to invent new schemes or hamper development. We just need people in some countries to do what other have been doing for generations: stop treating waterways as trash disposals. That is not a big ask.

<comment><USER27> It's microplastics that are the main problem, and it's primarily not macro physical impact (trapping creatures in plastic) it's biological and chemical impact on the organisms affected; in part due to other chemicals carried with, or accumulated with, the microplastics.

That bag in landfill can break down to small particulates that get washed away to local rivers which are cleaned out in to the sea.

[https://eic.rsc.org/feature/the-massive-problem-of- microplas...](https://eic.rsc.org/feature/the-massive-problem-of- microplastics/2000127.article)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think the saddest part of this is that we've managed, as a species, to come up with such a resilient and durable material, and yet we've come to simply waste it in great quantities, treating it like it's useless rubbish. From the picture posted in one of the comments here, that bag looks quite intact and certainly could've been reused. It probably comes from a time when most plastic bags were made with much better quality, thicker plastic than the ones today.

</comment><comment><USER29> Kenya banned plastic bags last year and the difference is remarkable. A lot less trash floating around.

[https://www.nema.go.ke/index.php?option=com_content&view=art...](https://www.nema.go.ke/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106&Itemid=120)

</comment><comment><USER30> There seems to be a movement now in the West to ban plastic bags and put higher taxes on plastics among other things. This is pointless as the West is only responsible for a tiny fraction of the plastic waste in our oceans.

The study linked in the article claims that "The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88−95% of the global load into the sea." Those rivers are: Chang Jiang, Indus, Huang He, Hai He, Nile, Bramaputra, Zhujiang, Amur, Niger and Mekong. Eight in Asia, two in Africa.

To put it bluntly, these are regions where most people don't know the meaning of the word recycling. This is a cultural problem, not a technological one.

[https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368)

<comment><USER31> > This is a cultural problem, not a technological one.

Its about poverty. Almost none of the communities that border these rivers will have access to organised waste disposal, never mind recycling. So the trash goes into the river. Thats bad, and I suspect that its known to be bad by the people involved, but where are the alternatives?

Check out [1] for some pretty horrifying descriptions of what plastic pollution is doing to coastal communities in Cambodia. Quote: _" according to Water.Org, about four million people in Cambodia still lack access to safe water, leaving them with no alternative but to buy endless bottled water, perpetuating the environmentally destructive cycle. [...] this plastic waste that all the people here live amongst is unavoidable- they are not about to feed their babies the black muddy liquid that comes out of the taps, it's poison."_

Clearly the solution involves people not throwing plastic into the rivers, but labelling dirt-poor people in a poisoned environment as having a "cultural problem" isn't going to help.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains- and-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and- mountains-of-plastic-life-on-cambodias-polluted-coast)

<comment><USER30> How is being poor an excuse for throwing your trash in the river? A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a simple system.

Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic.

<comment><USER31> > A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where > you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management > system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a > simple system.

Who pays for it? Cambodia's per-capita GDP is just under UD$1300. A third of the country earns less than US$1.90 a day. Its a poor country. From a developed-word perspective it makes sense to collect the trash, but their perspective may be very different.

> Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused > helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if > everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic.

I agree.

<comment><USER32> Not trying to be callous, but that low GDP would mean that hiring a garbage man would be correspondingly inexpensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I use plastic bags (from groceries) as a garbage can liner and always feel bad because I suspect there might be a better or less wasteful way to reduce plastic usage. Anyone have any ideas or tips?

I feel like I should use reusable grocery bags but then I have to clean the garbage can (boohoo).

<comment><USER34> I think you must mean the smaller trash bins sprinkled throughout your house, right? Because a kitchen (main) trash bin is typically too large for little shopping bags? In any case, have you looked into compostable bags? I tried a bunch of different brands and a lot were not very stiff/strong at all until I got a 100pack of stuff that's almost indiscernible from a regular trash bag, except green.

I'm not sure how it works in your house, but in mine the small trash cans throughout rooms are almost entirely filled with compostables like paper towels, tissues, floss, and tampons (I've gotten in arguments about whether floss and tampons will actually compost - that experiment is currently running in our backyard). So you could just Chuck those bags straight into the compost bin, if your city has it. If it doesn't, maybe not a good idea cause the bags will just disintegrate at the landfill and blow trash everywhere.

Really the answer here is convince local government to do recycling and compost collection and make an effort to purchase and cook in such a way that as little goes into the landfill bags as possible. I recently visited my childhood home in Texas and felt super gross when my only option for a can of Coke I had finished was chuck it straight into the bin... I've been thinking a lot lately about how stuff just is accumulating in landfills. Maybe it's my SF instincts screaming "that's a couple square miles of great real estate if it wasn't full of trash!" Lol.

<comment><USER35> Floss is often / typically Nylon, which will take decades. If you accidentally wound up with PTFE floss (which is apparently a thing) I'd expect millennia unless it's in direct sun. Tampons should biodegrade at home, but I'm willing to bet there are large swaths of the US where composting anything with human fluids is illegal.

In any case, hat-tip for empiricism! Very pro composting, wish it was safer, smaller, and easier to do at home.

<comment><USER36> Unless they are the fancy unbleached 100% cotton organic tampons, I doubt they would compost. Tampons and other menstrual products aren't required to have an ingredients list, so who knows what's in there. I believe most tampons have synthetic as well as natural fibers. we

Personally, my menstrual cycle has been 100% reusable since 2003, and I much prefer reusables to disposables on a comfort level. I mostly use cloth pads, but I use a cup sometimes also. I used to be the opposite - mostly cup, sometimes cloth pads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> One can only hope that eventually a solution will be developed that fixes the long-lived problems that plastics cause- perhaps a bacteria or chemical that breaks them down. In the meantime plastic waste is here to stay.

<comment><USER38> I know that it's a natural reaction to try to think of a technical solution to a massive problem like this, but to be completely and brutally honest I think humans, as a race, are now obligated to get off our fat asses and pick up some trash. Hands and knees, trash bags, buckets, shovels. A single person can easily pick up 10kg of trash an hour. The 8 million metric tons that will likely end up in the ocean this year, if it were instead collected by people (on land, before it gets in the ocean) at 10kg/hr, 2000hrs/yr, that's 400,000 people. That's really not many when spread across dozens of countries. Also, it's way easier and cheaper to just put garbage in the garbage bin. So in reality it could be far less than this number that are all that is needed to keep the planet free of trash.

Also, robots. But mostly we just need to get off our asses and pick up some trash!

<comment><USER39> I'm not sure that's the answer. I got an eye-opening view of the problem when I took a trip to Southeast Asia a couple years ago. Being in the third world, there's very few recycling plants to process plastic waste. The next best option, as you've implied, is landfills to sequester plastic waste...sacrifice that land to keep the rest of our planet clean(er). But even that's hard in many places.

On many of the islands I visited, people did make a conscientious effort to throw their plastic garbage in bins and do the right thing. And that worked great, up until one of the massive deluges of rain that the area gets would come. And since they had no landfill area that was far enough from the water, the rains would wash the entire landfills out to sea in a massive river of plastic waste. It was one of the most depressing sights I've ever seen. On one of the scuba dives I went on, we found ourselves surfacing in a debris field that had washed out to sea and it was astonishing to see the magnitude of it. Collecting everything together, as in your suggestion, just led to a massive batch dump into the ocean and it didn't do anything to keep the waste out of the ocean.

What we really need is a way to simply produce less plastic products. Increased use of glass, increased emphasis on reusing what plastic we do have and, yes, new technology to replace plastics with materials that break down faster so that when they do end up in the oceans, which in much of the world is inevitable from the moment of creation, they don't cause the amount of damage that plastics do.

<comment><USER38> Absolutely +1 to producing less plastic waste. There is some reason to hope that high temperature plasma incinerators can burn plastic waste and generate power with little residual pollution. That might be an option for areas without recycling and landfill capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> > ... by 2015, humans had produced 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste

That's about 0.86 metric tons (or 859 kg or 1895 lbs) per person. Crazy.

<comment><USER41> Or a cube of solid plastic about 1.5 miles on a side. It would be cool if some country took the West's plastic and recycled it by creating a series of kilometer sized geometric objects in a desert somewhere.

<comment><USER42> > took the West's plastic

Does it have to be the west's?

Why do so many people blame the west solely, because other countries can't help it, or because other countries export to the west, or because the west exports an amount of trash to other countries? Not even a Billion people in the west, those other 6 had nothing to do with it? It seems like many here are making excuses why only the west is at fault. While most trash going in the ocean happens not in the west.

<comment><USER41> I used that phrase because of a recent policy change by China where they will no longer be the place where the West "recycles" its plastic garbage. The plastic that people in the West clean diligently and sort into the recycle bin, in a kind of ritual of forgiveness for consumption, must now find another final resting place. I just did not believe other countries feel the need for the ritual of recycling yet. If they just get plastic into a landfill after use, that is all that is really necessary for the environment.

It would be almost impossible to calculate, but I would guess 98% of plastic reuse is an environmental net negative. Reduce and reuse. Then bury it. Maybe burning it for electricity generation would help if it would offset coal burning power plants.

<comment><USER41> Edit: 98% of plastic recycling

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I like the "Where did the plastic come from?" section in this article. Pretty sure it was a fish that carelessly tossed away the bag after going grocery shopping.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm not pro-plastic waste (obvously), but it'd be interesting to see a pro-con analysis. What is all this plastic use getting us, how could we replace it with sth else, and what would it cost.

Also, based on the article 40% of the waste here is from discarded shipping equipment. So it seems to me this can't be that must waste actually, compared to what we produce and presumably store on/in land [presumably that's a lot more than fishing equipment]. Or I'm reading it wrong.

<comment><USER45> It is that much waste. I suspect you underestimate the size of the fishing industry and fleets of boats. In 2004 the estimate of commercial fishing boats was over 4 million. As an example of the impact of their waste consider the great pacific garbage patch: "the patch is 1.6 million square kilometers and has a concentration of 10-100 kg per square kilometers. They estimate there to be 80.000 metric tonnes in the patch, with 1.8 trillion plastic pieces, out of which 92% of the mass is to be found in objects larger than 0.5 centimeters." [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch) Obviously, it is not all fishing vessel waste, the belief is that the majority is, particularly discarding fishing net creating the body that all the other waste gets trapped in.

<comment><USER46> > the patch is 1.6 million square kilometers

Haven't really thought about how big that actually is until now.

Basically the size of Mongolia[0]

[0] - [http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Geography/Lan...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Geography/Land-area/Square-miles)

<comment><USER47> Or for the Americans with little concept of the rest of the world (no judgement; I'm one of them), over twice the size of Texas (which is just under 700k square kilometers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Not even slightly surprising given the shear volume of trash on most beaches and reefs in the world. As any fishermen, diver, or snorkeler knows, the ocean is literally full of garbage, and the problem has gotten exponentially worse over the last few decades. Tourists often don't see it because most tourist destinations have workers (or volunteers) raking up the daily trash load from the sand in the early mornings before everyone else wakes up, but if you get up at say 4am and take a peak outside your hotel, whether in the Caribbean or most pacific islands, you'll see the people raking the beaches for trash.

And then if you travel to developing Asia in particular, you see why it's such a problem to begin with. There is trash literally everywhere, their landscapes, streets, creeks, rivers, are like a never ending open garbage dump or landfill. Not that the rest of the developing world is much better, and frankly much of the USA is increasingly full of garbage, litter, and detritus too, though not nearly to the extent of China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, etc. But just yesterday I watched a group of US tourists visiting a stunning scenic vista and proceed to toss multiple bags of fast food wrappers and garbage out of their Range Rover, they must think the litter magically takes care of itself.

</comment><comment><USER49> I propose to put a plastic bag on the Moon. Just to make a statement and make people think.

<comment><USER50> It's likely we already did, along with boxes, cables, half of each of the moon landers, an electric car and a few American flags.

<comment><USER49> That is true, but nothing is as iconic as a plastic shopping bag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Whats next? A plastic bag beats humans to Mars?

</comment><comment><USER52> [https://upcyclesantafe.org/you-can-upcycle/plastics-and- synt...](https://upcyclesantafe.org/you-can-upcycle/plastics-and- synthetics/ecobrick-it/)

</comment><comment><USER53> Not a surprise. Sadly.

That said, what other unknowns might we find there from previous civilizations. __That__ could be surprising.

</comment><comment><USER54> I hope they find one with the logo of a major retailer.

</comment><comment><USER55> How long did it take to sink to the bottom?

</comment><comment><USER56> Other than disturbing the beauty sense of _homo sapiens_ , do stray plastic bags cause any real damage to eco systems?

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics#Potential_effect...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics#Potential_effects_on_the_environment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Pollution just hit a new low.

</comment><comment><USER58> What a lucky plastic bag.

</comment><comment><USER59> a problem but also a profound solition for storage of some kimd?

</comment><comment><USER60> Horrible

</comment><comment><USER61> It's always in the last place you look.</comment>


Show HN: TheWorst.is - <AUTHOR> https://theworst.is <comment><USER2> Just to spare anyone else the trouble, this is a service to send postcards with Democratic party talking points to prominent Republican politicians. Not cool.

<comment><USER3> what trouble? you can make your own app "insult a mexican" or something along those lines.

<comment><USER2> Yeah but to make an appropriate comparison, I'd have to make my own app "The Worst People On Earth", give it the tagline "Some people are literally the worst. TheWorstPeopleOnEarth.com lets you tell 'em by mailing physical protest postcards, all online. Research the worst people doing the most terrible things to all the nicest people and join the people-powered mailroom blitz." Ohh, but by the way, every single person listed is Mexican. Sorry I didn't mention it earlier.

To be clear, I'm not defending Republicans, I just don't appreciate the Trojan horse partisanship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like you're pushing some kind of agenda here..</comment>


The ABC conjecture has (still) not been proved - <AUTHOR> https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/ <comment><USER2> You've linked to the top level of this blog, which means that when there's a new post, this submission will point to something completely different.

The actual permalink is here:

[https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the-a...](https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the- abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/)

That was, in fact, submitted a bit over an hour ago[0], but has had neither upvotes nor comments.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971802)</comment>


Show HN: Encourage your teams on slack with sticker chart - <AUTHOR> https://www.stickerchart.party/ <comment><USER2> At first i thought this is intended as a joke. But then they seem to be serious.

</comment><comment><USER3> emojis, badges, whatever dont motivate me. just the intrinsic feeling of accomplishing something. and occasionally lots of money.</comment>


Show HN: GridVid.me cloud video encoding - <AUTHOR> https://gridvid.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the story behind GridVid.me:

My company harnesses the unused processing power of idle computers in order to delivery a grid computing IaaS for high throughput computing. Pretty vague, eh? So we needed to find a product vertical that was well suited to our unique infrastructure.

Video encoding is great for this. The average video produced for the web is 4.5 minutes long. Online video platforms get thousands of uploads every day, and encode each into 5 different formats on average. So they end up doing thousands to tens of thousands of small compute jobs each day. Its an industry that could be as large ast $600 million each year.

We built the product as part of our company, CPUsage, but then it became hard to communicate what we do and who we are. Selling it was tough.

So I walked into our small 5 person office 2 weeks ago and said "lets start a separate company for the encoding product." We approached it with a rapid- prototyping attitude. We spent very little time on the name. We moved through things fast, and focused on creating a lean, straight forward brand for the product. We wanted our value-proposition to be loud an clear: we are the best price in the industry. So we made a price comparison and cost calculator.

The result is GridVid.me. Would love your thoughts and feedback.</comment>


CPU vs. GPU - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtGf0HaW7x4

<comment><USER2> Fun with paint guns, but they take quite a while to get on with it. The key points take a few seconds, and even they aren't very illuminating, just fun:

One paint gun is slow: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtGf0HaW7x4#t=2m53s>

Painting with many guns simultaneously: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtGf0HaW7x4#t=8m12s>

Slow mo: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtGf0HaW7x4#t=9m02s>

<comment><USER3> The slow motion shot looks incredible

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Advertisement-like: Yes, but also contradicting high resolution graphics by creating a Mona Lisa that looked like an 8-bit game avatar.

Impressed with the effort to build it: Yes, but I think nVidia has a large budget for such pursuits.

Parallel performance shown: Yes, but without making analogies between the giant gun and GPU clear (more titillation than articulation).

Insight into parallel performance: No

Oversimplified: Yes

cma posting this link <http://i.imgur.com/TvOip.jpg> was cool, and this brought to my attention that although the video may not have sparked any insights, it could provoke the HN community to bring insight into the topic. The video also caused me to try and imagine something more insightful. The slow motion shot could technically be considered "insightful" since in real motion we could not see what the slow motion gave us access into seeing, therefore this could be called "in-sight-ful," no?

This also made me recall an invention I thought of for fun...a wall climbing robot (vacuum?) that has a schematic of the dimensions of the building it is climbing in its bot-brain along with a graphic it is to spray and it goes to work until finished as if the building was paper and the bot a printer.

In a community like this, a cool/fun/entertaining piece of in-formation that may not provide great insight but can be enough to spark creative powers regardless.

Maybe not 100% of the time, but in this case, for me, I think it provided something and provoked me to want to share my first post at HN. Thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is oversimplified. The whole demonstration plays like an advertisement.

<comment><USER6> That's because it _is_ one. Of a sort, at least. It was a product/platform conference presentation, and what you were seeing was the C-level summary keynote (and an adrenaline generator for the devs attending the conference).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> while it offers no true insight on CPU vs GPU, let's be real, that gun was feakin awesome.

I'm impressed by the fact that someone actually took the time to build that thing.

<comment><USER8> I think it's more a matter of funding, which a GPU manufacturer provided. That this was shown to a crowd of what looks like high schoolers, that's a bit morally dubious, in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That was quite gimmicky.

<comment><USER10> The Redditer in me perhaps is impressed, the Y is disappointed that it offers no real insight.

<comment><USER11> You are truly scalable person :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [2008]

</comment><comment><USER13> The Mona Lisa looked a bit like Patrick Steward in a wig.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's a shame they didn't build a parallel version of the robot, especially if it could 'render' an animated image.

</comment><comment><USER15> Highlights parallelism performance in an entertaining way

</comment><comment><USER16> Why did they disable comments under the video?

<comment><USER17> Because it's pretty obviously an advertisement with no real insight.

Still entertaining though.

<comment><USER16> Discussion under advertisement would have made that advertisement more efficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So many kinds of awesome.

</comment><comment><USER19> Myth: GPUs are not more awesome than CPUs

Status: Busted

Next up: Is the taste of Cheerios really unsinkable?</comment>


Coolendar - <AUTHOR> http://www.coolendar.com/ <comment><USER2> Like the concept and the UI. My one issue was how the interface looks super simple then you get to Step 1. Does the time zone list really need to be that large? Some pretty obscure places and yet where I live, Atlanta, nothing.

Otherwise it looks great. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this project.

</comment><comment><USER3> nice concept. Really missing the edit. Help "panic" just makes me panic more as it doesn't respond :-)</comment>


University technology transfer - why so difficult? - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/04/university-technology-transfer-why-so-difficult.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextBigThing+%28The+Next+Big+Thing%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> My own experience in this area suggested another, more fundamental problem.

In the commercial world, we expect any idea to fail many, many times before we figure out how to make it work for the market. We embrace, rather than stigmatize, failure. Academics are conditioned to view failure as, at best, deeply embarrassing and, at worst, career-ending.

My experience is, of course, anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth. The researchers I met cared more about science than money, and because they perceived the commercialization process as potentially damaging to their academic careers, they threw a huge fit when technology transfer was broached. In the end, the university backed off (which warrants another discussion altogether).</comment>


Open-plan offices might be making us less social and productive, not more - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/781974/open-plan-offices-might-be-making-us-less-social-and-productive-not-more/ <comment><AUTHOR> The original article is [https://theconversation.com/get-out-of-my-face-were- more-ant...](https://theconversation.com/get-out-of-my-face-were-more- antisocial-in-a-shared-office-space-64734). Although they are the same content and it's better to use the original source, I prefer the Quartz title because it's less clickbait-like than The Conversation's, "Get out of my face! We're more antisocial in a shared office space."

There is some other interesting work on The Conversation's site about this, such as [1] and [2] (see below).

1: [https://theconversation.com/the-backlash-against-open- plan-o...](https://theconversation.com/the-backlash-against-open-plan-offices- segmented-space-61506)

2: [https://theconversation.com/office-design-should-focus-on- pe...](https://theconversation.com/office-design-should-focus-on-people-not- just-the-work-they-do-33677)</comment>


Ask HN: How does a JAMstack website like Smashing Magazine get hacked? - <AUTHOR> So Smashing Magazine got hacked yesterday[1] and I was quite surprised by this because they've moved off WordPress 3 years ago and have been promoting JAMstack ever since for its performance and security.<p>I doubt they will be doing a post-mortem on this, but where would the entry point be? A weak GitHub account without two-factor authentication or something else?<p>[1] https://twitter.com/tonyciccarone/status/1261100239206957056 <comment><USER2> 1\. Keyloggers written entirely in CSS have been demonstrated for some time now [a]

2\. Malicious Javascript could have been embedded into their CI/CD pipeline and made it onto the site.

3\. Somehow stealing SSH keys from a developer and simply logging into the box to change things at the OS level. In fact, it looks like at least one subdomain of theirs is hosted on GoDaddy. SSH keys for some of their customers were recently compromised. Note that I don't think this actually happened, but wanted to list. [b]

4\. Smashing Magazine could also improve security by adding the Expect-CT, Feature Policy, and especially a Content Security Policy. Ironically a Smashing Magazine article from 2017 mentions at least having a CSP. [c,d]

5\. I recall some speech by the NSA at DEFCON, I think in 2012 or something. One of their speakers said that for all the cool stuff they do...95% of this time it's just password reuse that gets people or phishing for credentials. This would seem to me the most likely way and the best investment of a hackers time.

[a] - [https://css-tricks.com/css-keylogger/](https://css-tricks.com/css- keylogger/)

[b] - [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/godaddy_ssh_login_d...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/godaddy_ssh_login_details_compromised/)

[c] - [https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/04/secure-web-app- http...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/04/secure-web-app-http- headers/)

[d] - [https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-security- headers](https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-security-headers)

</comment><comment><USER3> JAMstack doesn't make you invulnerable but it removes some big surface areas.

You've still got to secure e.g. your hosting account, DNS account, Git account, comment system (against injection attacks). Phishing attacks aren't going to go away.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of Ourmine's prior attributed hacks seem to involve compromising an account - whether the original or an email account with it that allows them to reset a password.

Someone else mentioned that at least one sub domain is hosted by Godaddy, and that seems like a very easy target.

</comment><comment><USER5> Surely this is their hosting provider getting hacked, not the 'site'?</comment>


Bach's Goldberg Variations (Creative Commons Zero Licensed) - <AUTHOR> http://www.opengoldbergvariations.org/ <comment><USER2> I have both of Glenn Gould's recordings of the Goldberg Variations, and I listen to them quite often. It's fascinating to compare the old man to his younger self. I'm looking forward to hearing what she finds there!</comment>


Ask HN: I'm looking for Accounts / Order Processing / Stock control software - <AUTHOR> http://foundersmix.com/questions/2856/im-looking-for-accounts-order-processing-stock-control-software

<comment><USER2> I'm a developer for a SaaS app that does exactly what you're looking for. However, because of their business model, you must have a strong brand in place. I sent them a link to your post, so they will hopefully contact you soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Check out Open Bravo. <http://www.openbravo.com/product/erp/functionality/>

<comment><AUTHOR> This, very much looks like what i need. I will contact their reseller in our area on Monday.

Thank you for helping me with my query

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm the developer of <http://www.tradelr.com> which might be something you're looking for?

It's very much in its early stages and features are still evolving.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for replying. I have to say your landing page and app look very nice indeed, but unfortunately i don't feel this app would have enough of the features that i am looking for just yet.

Maybe you could keep me updated on its progress? Im @KhuramMalik on twitter</comment></comment>


'Schizophrenia Gene' Discovery Sheds Light on Possible Cause - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/schizophrenia-gene-discovery-sheds-light-on-possible-cause/ <comment><USER2> Could someone please change the link from http to https?</comment>


Check out the gory, cringy images the FDA wants to put on cigarettes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/feet-missing-toes-bloody-urine-and-giant-tumors-may-adorn-cigarette-ads/ <comment><USER2> Nothing compared to Australia already has had for years....

[https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/australias-graphic- tobacco-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/australias-graphic-tobacco- warning-labels/10/)

<comment><USER3> Those pics are from 2012 apparently, the ones we have now are bigger pictures, _much_ more gruesome. (Although that mouth one is bad) e.g. I seem to get the gangrenous foot one on my bag of tobacco most of the time. The pic is the size of the bag, on both sides. Super-gross. And it's $35+ dollars. Google "australia tobacco gangrenous foot" WARNING: Very gross.

Also, every pack/bag is the same dark-pooey-brown colour, with brand names in the same small plain font, all packs/bags look exactly the same except for the name and the gruesome picture)</comment></comment>


Network Determines Success More Than People Realize - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/your-network-determines-success-more-than-you-realize-41a3e889ecea <comment><USER2> I use to think of networking as "going to events and handing out my business card", which I could never quite bring myself to do. I figured I just wasn't cut out for the whole networking thing.

What I ended up realising after looking back over my career was that I've been networking this whole time without even meaning to. By generally working hard and being friendly those who have come and gone over the years, I now have a pretty sizeable network of people who will vouch for me. If someone ever asks me for networking advice, it will be "find a job where other people are doing the same thing as you, and then become someone they enjoy working with".

<comment><USER3> The dark side of that is discrimination when "someone they enjoy working with" is based on more than a friendly attitude and hard work.

And I'm not just talking about the politically favored and protected groups. I'd say it applies even more so to groups that don't get that political support.

<comment><USER4> We don't live in a fair society, and I think we all know that. I would not have experienced the same degree of success if I looked different or had an accent, even if the quality of my work was the same. There's nothing meaningful I can do with that information though.

<comment><USER5> >"We don't live in a fair society"

I think it's more correct to say that "the state of nature is incredibly unfair, and our society does not perfectly mitigate this."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do those who move often (or at least a few times in their lives) manage to re-establish a network in the areas they move to? I think a lot of the reason people are reluctant to move for better opportunities on paper is the fear of the sudden lack of network.

<comment><USER7> This is a real problem that I have faced on more than one occasion.

Best advice I can offer is "clubs", but I've had mixed success.

By clubs I mean, tennis clubs, golf clubs, social clubs, etc. This is where church used to have a big part to play in the social fabric of America.

<comment><USER8> Most of my professional networking is virtual mixed in with traveling to some events (and, of course, work colleagues though I work remotely). I do local activities with a couple clubs as well as more ad hoc things, which is good from a social perspective, but TBH it's never been especially relevant from a professional/job perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It reminds me of this research [0] showing that sons of wealthy slave owners (who presumably lost a large chunk of their "wealth" after the civil war) had caught up or surpassed sons from similarly wealthy households by 1880.

Conclusion: "This paper adds another data point to our understanding of intergenerational wealth transmission. Our conclusion: it's not the resources here, it's the social connections."

[0] [https://twitter.com/leah_boustan/status/1112689110819442690](https://twitter.com/leah_boustan/status/1112689110819442690)

<comment><USER10> It's an amazing paper but their interpretation of the results that "it's all social connections" is completely unsupported by their evidence and more consistent with standard human-capital / genetic inheritance.

<comment><USER11> Could you elaborate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> More than who realizes? Having been in business for 10 years now I'll tell you for free that networking is _everything_.

<comment><USER13> With the right people, yes. You generally don't meet those at "networking" events. If anything, you'll find other peddlers trying to sell you something. You do meet those by throwing dinner parties, talking to and meeting interesting people, going to charity events, and through hobbies.

<comment><USER14> I would appreciate an intro course on this.

<comment><USER13> It's a bit hard to write this down in a HN comment. I would guess the best answer to that is, be genuinely curious about other people.

<comment><USER15> Wish someone here had advice for an absolute beginner who is about to graduate and get into the working sector.

<comment><USER16> 1\. if you hate your company culture it's not going to get better without effort. either get out or start trying to improve it yourself

2\. networking in your company is not possible if you're in a job that is below your capabilities, go out and find your tribe asap.

3\. take people out for coffee/food/drinks(depending on your culture)

4\. attend every tech event in your area regardless of your interest/skill level. create tech events in your area for your interests

<comment><USER15> Thank you so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Network scientist Zsolt Barabási said [1] that in his latest book that networking is one of the most important thing to do, if you want to be successful.

Of course, first you need to get some valuable skills, but especially in careers where the performance can't be ordered (e.g: art, design) the only thing that matters is to know people who are well known.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Formula-Universal-Laws- Success/dp/031...](https://www.amazon.com/Formula-Universal-Laws- Success/dp/0316505498)

<comment><USER18> His book was pretty good, skimmed through some of the extra examples, but networking is key.

I consider myself a super connector, and more often than not find myself in the right place at the right time, making connections for friends, colleagues, acquaintances, etc. I love bringing people together, changing the world ~

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm quite sure people do realize this hence the saying "It's not what you know but who you know"

<comment><USER20> In practice it's more like "It's not who you know, it's who knows you."

<comment><USER21> I think the "know" is meant to be the symmetrical kind.

<comment><USER20> Sure -- but the emphasis belongs w/ the other (who is in a position to help you).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like this definition of who is in your network that I came across years ago. Someone is in your network if they can recognize you if they see you in person (name tags do not count), know what you were last working on, and you had some contact with them in the last three months.

We may argue that having someone recognize you in person is not a hard requirement in this age.

<comment><USER23> My friends are so polyglot that I don't even know what my best friends are working on 1/2 the time. But I can tell you what they were _last_ working on.

<comment><USER22> Yes, to clarify, I meant exactly what you said: the point-of-time snapshot of when you last heard from them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't help but wonder about the tautologies of such a system. If you only hire people with silly hats and spend 70% of their time on sillier hats you are missing out on actual talent with stupid tautologies instead of anything of intrinsic worth. Essentially I suspect that networks don't bring success in many cases but prevent it in others.

The real question is what keeps networks from being collective madness in service of themselves? The closest thing I have found is competition smacking them in the face with objective reality.

History and the present is rife with bad ideas perpetuated by networks - perhaps the reason why science advances one funeral at a time even in face of evidence that it really doesn't work that way. Look at miasma theory and their resistance to germ theory even after cholera outbreaks where brewers were untouched because they got some pay in beer.

WW2 era Imperial Japan was a particularly bad example given things like Banzai Charges and acknowledging weakness being socially unacceptable to the point of thinking even complete destruction of the navy of a much larger and self- sufficient industrial naval power over oil sanctions would somehow result in restoring oil supplies instead of eventually coming over with a much bigger navy and airforce in a decade /in the avsolute best case scenario/.

<comment><USER25> "The real question is what keeps networks from being collective madness in service of themselves?"

Competition keeps it from being that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> At this point it should be obvious that network effects of every kind are the largest single determining factor in success, yet so many continue to believe in naive meritocracy.

<comment><USER27> One could argue there is merit in building a large, meaningful network

<comment><USER26> Perhaps, but this is only one narrow kind of merit and it's responsible for a disproportionately large fraction of the outcome.

Networks also have gravitational type dynamics that accrue more network influence to existing influencers, so there's a huge path dependent effect where some nodes get rich network-wise by just being lucky or first.

<comment><USER27> If those nodes are the ones that get results from leveraging their networks, then it's better for the company.

I'm not saying it's "fair", just that one could argue networks are a good proxy for results, so it makes sense to reward them from the company's perspective.

<comment><USER26> > good proxy for

The idea that it's good or clever to use rough proxies for things is one of the worse ideas to spread kind of virally through various intellectual communities in recent years. I feel like it may have spread via Less Wrong or some similar place but I'm not sure and it doesn't really matter.

Proxies for things are something you use when you can't get at the underlying reality directly. All proxies hide something and all proxies confound by mixing inputs in often non-linear and unknown ways.

In the human realm the use of proxies is a source of unfairness and injustice, so it's particularly important to avoid them there whenever it's possible.

Not using proxies means dealing more directly with reality. "Reason from first principles, not by analogy."

<comment><USER27> Sure, you're entitled to your opinion.

Proxies are useful. Reality is complicated. I'm fine with being 80% right.

Companies don't maximize fairness, they maximize profit – as they should.

If you want fairness, go run a non-profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "80% of success is showing up" \-- Woody Allen (maybe). Not the same thing exactly, but a network helps you be at the right place at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've seen this recently in my job search. I reached out to 2 ex-coworkers who are now leads/managers looking for work. Both offered my jobs without hesitation, because they have seen me work and know what I'm worth.

However, going through traditional routes, I have something like 15+ no- responses, 10 tech screen rejections, and 3 on-sites with 2 offers.

</comment><comment><USER30> From my personal point of view networking is everything or at least 99%.

I want to share my experience with you since I hold the people in this forum in high regard. Not paying attention to this "social" issues has deeply affected my career and now I'm at a point where there are few opportunities left for me (mainly due to age, mid 30s now). I _really_ need some help now as I don't know how to turn my life around, this is very important for me as I have a wife + daughter that expect me to be their primary provider. Any good intended advice to improve on this will be greatly appreciated.

I prefer to be an introvert (but I am not shy) person and do not rapidly establish strong relationships with the people around me. I am the kind of person that has 3 or 4 friends at most, goes to work, does what it needs to do without much fanfare and goes back home to sleep/read. I've been like this since I was in high school. This was a personal choice back then, my reasoning was: "study hard, work hard and the rest will come to you".

I come from a low-middle class family that made themselves from the ground, as a result, work ethics are very deeply ingrained in my principles. I have never failed to deliver what I promise on a school or work related environment. I do not mean to offend anyone with this but I have to say it just to further clarify my situation: I do not have any physical or mental disabilities, I dress appropriately, I'm white (although not American/European) and I do not behave in an awkward manner.

Not paying attention to networking while I was in school and at previous jobs has severely limited my options for professional development. I almost never get good job offers, promotions or even proper acknowledgement for the things I do. They mostly go to people around me, some of whom severely lack what's needed for the job, mainly due to their closeness to someone at HR, got tipped off by some friend, ... you get the idea. As a result of this, despite having done everything "good", my career really never took off. I'm stuck in the same kind of developer job as I had 10 years ago. Now the walls are closing in since people raise an eyebrow when they see my age, I cannot just go and hunt for jobs as easily as I could five years ago. Right now, I'm at a terrible company and I truly hate my current job () I don't want to go in detail as I'm really not like that). I cannot just leave since I have bills to pay and also because I'm scared of not finding anything else. I know almost no-one in the industry and my few friends have different ways of life.

I would like to read some practical advice on how may I expand my reach to (hopefully) find better job prospects. Among other things, I tried to join some related meetups in my area, but honestly they are mostly made up of people who take it as a hobby (not that there's anything wrong with that). I truly don't know what else I could do.

<comment><USER31> Your question is really good and I hope you get some meaningful answers out of it, I am just here to help you in another regard: timing.

This was posted 9 hours ago and your comment about 8h30 hours after its initial 'interest boom'. Usually things die out in hacker news after a night or so so you probably won't get many answers out of this.

My lateral advice to you is: keep your eye open for more of those "how did you get out of your {mindless|boring|notwhatiwant} job" posts that usually appear here every 2 months. These posts attract lots of people and are usually very active for almost 2-3 days before people stop answering.

If you catch'em early certainly you are gonna get lots of answers.

Someone that may or may not be me might have found one of those posts someday in HN and he was lucky to come up with a quick throwaway account and post almost exactly the same content as yours and he got (quite a _lot_ of) meaningful answers out of it from people from varied walks of life.

Good luck on your stuff, you are not alone in this "problem" you have.

Also, pat yourself on the back everyday for providing for your family and keeping strong even tho you hate what you do on a daily basis. You are doing good for your peers.

o/

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Solid advice but I'm still trying to build my value ... so far I am worthless.

I think the networking aspect itself is also an aspect of being at the right place at the right time. One can't ask others to pull strings unless you can pull something yourself.

<comment> q-base Step 0: Stop calling yourself worthless!

<comment><USER33> Corollary to Dunning-Kruger perhaps: the productive view themselves as inadequate, leading to a number of insecurities, while the boorish liabilities view themselves as masterful, omnipotent polyglots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is all very true. As an introvert with a non-photographic memory for faces, I don't always find it easy. But it's definitely easier and more rewarding when you just look to connect and help people, trying to "pay in" to the karma pool.

Also, it takes work to create and maintain relationships.

(I created a little web-based calculator to help you estimate your "Maximum Social Network": [https://www.mimiran.com/the-maximum-social- network/](https://www.mimiran.com/the-maximum-social-network/) It's a little surprising how small a real network is, at least in the first degree.)

</comment><comment><USER35> Too much confirmation bias in the article. Of course if you like networking you want to justify spending time on it. Realistically, though, it's better to be known of by many people, than to meet just a few people in person on the off chance this could help you. Given a choice people would rather choose who they know of, than someone they don't. This is how marketing, advertising works. Hence why the author himself is spending time writing articles and tries to reach many people, not meeting them in person.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't think networking matters that much. In the tech business at least.

Most of my business are in new niches where I knew no one. This is fine. People are usually nice, open, and want to work with you if you can demonstrate value. Relying on your network can throw in the wrong way as people just don't know the specific of whatever industry you are in. The hardest thing is execution not befriending smart or influential people.

</comment><comment><USER37> Sorry to go on a tangent, but that's John Lurie on the left in the second photo by Andy Warhol. I'm surprised to see he brushed shoulders with Basquiat and the rest.

</comment><comment><USER38> It did in past, it doesn't mean it still works. Sometimes, networks can bring more damage than help because of individual instabilities (e.g. snowflakes). For all the reasons, it looks harder to have a healthy network as people used to have 20 years ago, imho.

<comment><USER39> You are right about damage it can do. But it also does good.

Newton/Maxwell/Faraday were part of very interesting networks. Their results could have easily come out of Italy, France, India or China if better networks existed there.

The better we understand networks, the better we get at building useful ones. No one questions the amount of effort/resources/time that goes into constructing a world class sports team. That is only possible with a right network.

And in depth study of human networks is a new thing because historically where was the data?

As we have got more interconnected, in more and more fields people are increasing how much they focus on Networks.

Niall Ferguson's recent book The Square and The Tower, is all about when networks succeed and when they fail using a whole bunch of key events from History.

Thomas Malone's recent Superminds the same thing applied to businesses.

We are just getting started at how we apply this knowledge. Computational Social/Political Science departments are springing up all over the place.

Just adding one connection or deleting one connection in a graph of people is all it takes to create major change.

<comment><USER38> Thank you for the good stuff, I'll have a look.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you looked back at your YC submission? - <AUTHOR>

It's been a couple of weeks since I submitted my application for YC11 and I thought I'd take a look back at it. More specifically the video. Honestly, even I got bored of watching it ;) Have you looked back at your submissions? What did you think? <comment><USER2> I agree. I have rethought many parts of the application, including the video. Since my submission, I have developed and narrowed my idea quite a bit. My answers most likely would have been more concise had I known what I do now. But hey, hindsight is 20/20 and you express the best you can at the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> We check HN every day for comments / feedback from founders, but haven't looked at the app on YC. We constantly look at our copy to evaluate changes since submitting, and reform answers as other incubator programs have started following us. However we have not submitted to any other programs than YC. We feel the anticipation is awesome and look forward to checking HN daily until the final say is issued.

As for our video, neither of us like the camera so its terrifying to look at it and we haven't except the following day to verify it was posted. We really hope to get the chance to meet everyone in person. There is a lot about personal contact (meeting someone) that comes through, that you just can't portray in an app, or video.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even a day past the deadline I was thinking we could have said it better, but at some point you have to call it done... We did edit quite a bit at least, and I don't quite cringe at reading it. We've also since honed our idea and it's looking vastly better day-to-day (IMHO ;).

Our video looks particularly awkward to me, and feels like it conveys little info since we kept trying to get it down to a minute, by which point it became more of a general introduction. Time will tell! :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, I think about it constantly. I think everything was explained as clearly as possible - I hope so anyway - but there's still a nagging feeling that I missed something. And then there's the competition, i.e. all you other guys. I'm sure everyone has really good ideas, and I'm really hoping to have the opportunity to see them all take form in SF. This public fretting should probably reassure us all thet we're at least dedicated to our ideas.

</comment><comment><USER6> I look at it, and think about it every day! We've worked on it, and come along way since hitting the submit button. Just hoping for that interview!

</comment><comment><USER7> It keeps me awake every night. We submitted on Feb 15th... It's amazing how much changes over the course of a month.

<comment><USER8> I submitted early Feb and I feel the same way. I actually resubmitted once or twice to change how far we had gotten (lines of code) and new competitors that cropped up (note: more than you'd think in such a short period of time).

Oddly, what is keeping me awake isn't the application so much. I've kind of resigned myself that it would be a nice-to-have but not a requirement. What keeps me awake now is things like reducing my monthly expenses more and more so I can work less and less for the man and more and more for myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is the key, my main reason for applying to YC was to be able to work on my product full time. That is my only goal right now, but mortgage, kid etc make it hard.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Healthcare: Most Expensive and Worst Performing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/us-healthcare-most-expensive-and-worst-performing/372828/

<comment><USER2> I read the original report and I don't feel it is objective. First, there are a lot of benchmarks about patient communication. While it is important, it is not necessarily the only way to deliver information. For example, while my kids doctor don't talk to kids about health eating, they receive a lot of information at school and constantly talk about it at home (yeah, I do like a good and unhealthy steak :) ).

Plus, some benchmarks are completely arbitrary: "Out-of-pocket expenses for medical bills more than $1,000 in the past year, US$ equivalent" \- of course US will get lower scores than Canada or any other country with government run healthcare which is paid from taxes. It doesn't make any sense to ask this question.

P.S. My wife works in Stanford ER and I hear a lot of stories (good and bad) from her and her colleagues. The kind of stuff they do and the tools they have today is just magic.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the other thing to keep in mind is that most of our costs have just grown over time since solutions become that much harder with legacy systems. It's much tougher to go and change a hospital's processes when they just bought a $60 million platform that will most likely continue the status quo. Legacy systems on top of legacy systems.</comment>